Under the Christmas Star (Crossroads Collection)

by Amanda Tru

  The incongruity of using words like brilliance, fire, and scintillation in a near monotone didn’t inspire confidence in the veracity of such assertions. Diamonds—weren’t they just over-priced crystals? As a woman wearing impossibly high heels climbed a step ladder dangling a gold, sparkling Christmas bulb from one finger, the man in a black suit and charcoal tie droned on about the “superior quality” of their gems.

  A large, perfectly manicured finger tapped the glass before him. “Considering the budget I’ve to work with, I would recommend that one. It’s almost flawless and has exceptional brilliance for one so small.”

  Wayne Farrell steeled himself against such blatant manipulative sales techniques. As a florist, he knew precisely when and where to pounce to infuse the perfect amount of guilt when he recognized a customer could afford what the occasion truly warranted. This Jeeves of the jeweler’s union had just slathered his words with enough guilt to schmear a whole bakery of bagels.

  Steel melted into a puddle at the idea he’d reduced his love for Lena to a dollar figure. It’s not like I can’t afford more. But it’s just a shiny rock! I could buy a cubic zirconia, and she’d never know it. Half the price and twice the size.

  So, with his prudent-self shouting ditties about size not mattering, his love-lorn-self eyed “Jeeves” with a look intended to whittle the man down to size. “For the right stone, I’d be willing to spend…” Wayne’s inward wince etched itself into his voice before he could stop it. “… whatever necessary. But I can do that because I make budgets and stick to them.”

  The man’s eyebrow rose—except it didn’t. In truth, not a muscle twitched, but it felt like every raised eyebrow he’d ever been given all mashed into one, “Oh, really” look.

  No response. None at all. Jeeves only stared.

  Strains of “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” wisped through the store. It’s September, for cryin’ out loud!

  Still Jeeves stared.

  The next thing he knew, Wayne blurted it all out. “We’re older, you see.” He rubbed his jaw as if somehow that would prove his assertion. As if the long laugh lines and graying temples didn’t announce it. “I’ve never been married before, but Lena…” He swallowed at the memory of her story—of the husband who had beaten her until she ran away from him, from Spain, from her family and everyone she knew just to stay alive. “She needs to know how valued she is.”

  Again, the finger tapped the first ring. “Well this, as lovely as it is, will not accomplish that purpose. May I recommend…?” The finger slid across the top of the glass case.

  Please don’t cross into the next section… please…

  As if purposely tormenting him, it skipped over the next section and landed on a moderately-sized oval-cut stone surrounded by a ring of tiny ones. In platinum, of course. “This one. It would look lovely on… slim fingers?”

  Wayne nodded. What else could he do?

  “And against the flowers all day, it would hold particular artistic beauty.”

  He hated himself for asking, but at least his voice didn’t crack as he asked, “And the price?”

  “Twenty-five hundred—at twenty percent off, you understand. It was an excellent price at just over thirty-one hundred, but these sales…”

  Desperate to be done and gone, Wayne almost agreed, but a glance to the right prompted a double-take. “That one. Right there. I want it.”

  “Sir, it’s almost the same as—”

  “But I want that one. Those leaves twining up the band like that. They’re perfect.”

  “It’s only white gold. Platinum—”

  Wayne interrupted again. “Is great, I know. But I want that one.”

  Here, Jeeves threw out his most convincing argument. “It’s thirty-four hundred.”

  Wayne pulled out his phone, transferred money from savings to checking, and glanced up. “Do you take debit?” He slid the card across the glass counter. “And do you wrap?”

  “We do, and we do, but you do not want this wrapped. Open the box for her, sir. Women like that sort of thing.”

  He would have argued, but the man’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened in a stunned O. Wayne glanced over his shoulder and dove to try to save Miss Heels from toppling to the ground. He succeeded… and also succeeded in landing in a heap instead.

  The woman offered her hand, but he shook his head as he bit back waves of nausea and a groan of pain. “Can you push a chair over here?”

  “A chair?”

  As if admitting it would make things worse, Wayne winced before pointing to his swelling ankle. “I’m going to need help out of here.”

  Jeeves moved to put the ring back in the case, but Wayne pointed at it. “Finish the transaction! I do not want to come back.”

  Two X-rays, a pair of crutches, a bag of ice, and a sports-wrap later, Wayne called for his former tenant to come get him from a clinic just a few blocks from the mall. Reid balked, of course, but the minivan Wayne used to deliver flowers would be the perfect transport home. “Don’t forget pillows—”

  “Why don’t you just call Lena? She has that great Lincoln…”

  “I was at the mall. Buying her something. I’ve got to keep that quiet for a bit, but if she comes to get me…”

  Even Reid couldn’t argue that. Still, it had taken over an hour to pick him up and another hour to get home again. Climbing up the steps to his little house—not easy. As much as it galled him to admit it, he might not have made it in without Reid’s help.

  The clock read ten past ten o’clock when he finally settled into the couch with everything he could hope for within reach. Reid hovered, but with a little effort, Wayne managed to convince the guy to go home. There’s nothing like feeling stupid in front of a studio audience of one.

  Then he did what every rational, mature, forty-something man would do. He called his mother.

  Raspy but alert, Barb didn’t bother with a greeting. “Who died?”

  “No one, Mom.”

  “In an accident? Maimed? Concussion?” Her tone grew suspicious. “Do you have a concussion?”

  “No, Ma. Just a sprained ankle.”

  With that, all the cooing, sympathetic sounds he’d called to receive commenced. If I only had stayed in Crossroads. Then again, I’d be Brooke’s boss instead of her owning her shop outright. Better this way.

  “Wayne!”

  It took a minute… or a dozen, but Wayne managed to tell the whole story in all its glory. “So, here I sit, trying to figure out how I’m not going to tell Lena about this.”

  The following silence made him squirm, but his ankle protested even that slight movement. Her response followed in quick, scolding sound bites. “The things you’ll do to get a discount.” He tried to protest but failed. “Propose quickly and then tell her.”

  Wayne chose to ignore the dig about his purported cheapness and focused on the suggested solution. “I wanted a special thing for her. Lena deserves a… a…”

  “A moment?”

  “Yes!” How was it that his mother always knew what he wanted to say when he didn’t? “If I rush it, she’ll miss out.”

  Even without seeing her, even without a word spoken, Wayne felt his mother’s smile. “How’d I raise such a romantic?”

  “I went into flowers, Ma. If I wasn’t a romantic before, I was kind of doomed to become one, don’t you think?”

  “And now you need a diversion from the truth?”

  Ouch. She still hadn’t forgiven him for interfering with Reid and his fiancée. Any second now she’d start in on what happens when you play loose with the truth. He had to think. Fast.

  “I need a truth that doesn’t give away the surprise.”

  “Tell her that, then.” When he protested, she shushed him. “No, listen to me. She asks what you were doing at the mall. You say you were there to buy something. She asks what. You tell her that it’s a surprise. Done.”

  The hope that had begun to bubble up inside him fizzled. “I should have bro
ught her home before now and you’d have seen how impossible that is. She makes a bloodhound look ineffective.”

  “Then you’d better get to work. Bring her for Thanksgiving.”

  He’d planned to have her take care of the shop for him, but they’d be engaged by then. She should go, too—have a chance to meet the family. “I will.” Exhaustion slammed into him with the brute force of a Mack truck. “Gotta go, Ma. I’m tired… dead, actually. See you in a couple of months! Love you.”

  As he drifted off to sleep, Wayne wondered if he’d even given her a chance to say goodbye before he disconnected. Oh, well. Next time. Right now, Lena’s proposal is all that matters.

  A dozen keys jingled on the ring as Lena Rojas slipped a little-used one in the lock. She flicked on the overhead light switch and blinked at a half-empty display case. “Wayne?”

  No response.

  Lights illuminated every corner, one by one, as she made her usual rounds through the shop. She pushed the curtain aside, calling his name again. Again, no answer. A Sharpie marker lay across a large invoice, turned upside down so the bright yellow of the customer copy showed.

  Wayne sprained his ankle last night. Said to call for instructions. Reid.

  The clock above the door ticked louder with each passing second. Más rápido, it screamed. Prisa.

  It only took seconds for her to boot the computer, access the ordering system, and hit print. Eight orders. Added to the five she’d printed the previous evening, it would be a busy but not a swamped day. “I still need help. I must go to the flower market. This is why he should order his flowers to be delivered. I knew this would happen.”

  The scolding she usually released in pointed jabs at the back room did little to soothe her when she knew Wayne couldn’t hear. It took four calls before someone suggested that Tabitha Allen might be available. “I think she only has classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so…”

  Tabitha agreed to arrive within fifteen minutes. If she’s here in thirty, I’ll talk Wayne into giving her a part-time job.

  At exactly twelve minutes after she’d disconnected the call, the shop bell jingled. A young, girlish voice called out from the front, “Señora Rojas? Should I take out the barrel? It’s just sitting here by the door.”

  Lena peered through the curtain, eyes widening as recognition hit. “Tabitha?”

  “Am I late?”

  “You are early! Excelente!” She hurried to dig out an application and slid it across the counter. “Wayne will be pleased. Please make an application.”

  “I can’t work regular hours, or I would. With Mom so sick…”

  Lena wouldn’t have any of it. “You fill it out. You talk to Wayne. He will work with you. Is better than no one because no one will do the work when they come—if they come.”

  With that, she snatched up the keys to the van, grabbed her purse, and made her way to the back room again. “If you need help, you call Wayne. He can use the FaceTime to help. I must buy flowers.”

  At the back door, Lena waited for a protest, but it never came. Instead, a soft humming preceded the jingle of the shop bell and a grunt that hinted the daisy barrel had begun its morning trek to the sidewalk. By the time she’d gotten to the van, started it, and slipped her phone in the holder on the dashboard, she’d forgotten about her irritation with Wayne and her worry for him and instead, pounced the moment he said, “Good morning, querida.”

  “Tabitha Allen. You must hire her. She cannot work the normal schedule, but she is punctual. She is competent.”

  “Tabitha Allen? How—? Where are you?”

  Lena inched out of the alley and down the street. “I’m going to the flower market. We hope they will not be sold out of good flowers. You didn’t call me so I could get up in time. No, you let me arrive when we are to open, and now there will be nothing good.”

  “You’re worried about me.”

  All the angst that had filed each of her words into a sharp point melted at his assertion. He was right, of course. “How did you do this? Why did you not call me?”

  “I was a hero, Lena! A woman was falling off a ladder, and I dove to catch her. Made it, too.” She heard the hesitation in his voice as he added, “I just didn’t get my own feet under me before I fell. Doc said I’m lucky I didn’t break it.”

  Ladder… “Is your neighbor? Mrs. Dvali?”

  “No. But…” A groan reached her. “Man, it hurts this morning. I probably should ice it.”

  “Yes! This is what you should do. Is important for the swelling.” She started to ask, again, but Wayne spoke first.

  “Did you say you had to go get flowers? I had everything for the orders last night. I was just going for more daisies this morning.”

  “There were eight new orders this morning —two with orchids. Sapphire and ca… ca…”

  “Calypso?”

  “Sí! That is right. We don’t have any.”

  Wayne’s silence hinted he might not agree. “There should be some sapphire in the back case—how big?”

  “Enormous. The ninety-five bouquet.” A sigh. She knew that sigh. “Is fine, Wayne. This one I can do. And the calypsos. I can do that, too. The three roses. I have fine. But there are four with no instructions. Just ‘for the baby’ and ‘happy birthday.’ I don’t know how to do those.”

  “You can take my laptop into the back room, and I’ll walk you through it. We’ll do this.”

  “Unless another order comes in. What am I going to do, Wayne? We need someone who is good with the flowers. I’m only good at selling them.”

  A few seconds passed before he agreed. “And that’s not true, you know. You’re also good at making me—”

  “Wayne Farrell!”

  “Yeah?” The sheepish quality of his voice hinted that she’d guessed correctly.

  “What was your neighbor doing on a ladder?”

  “It wasn’t my neighbor. I was in a store, and an employee was wearing these heels… I swear, they should be called shoe-scrapers. They were the Empire State Building of shoes. They make yours look like flats!”

  A glance at her three-inch red pumps sparked a thought—one she didn’t want to entertain. “Wayne, the store. What is the name?”

  “I… I can’t tell you.”

  Lena jerked the wheel and pulled the van to a stop, barely missing a ditch. Eyes closed, hands gripping the steering wheel, she ran through every scenario she could imagine—every innocent idea. But only one made sense, and it wasn’t innocent. She asked if he’d done it.

  “Lena, I don’t know what you just said. This stupid ankle will make sure I spend more time in that Rosetta Stone thing I bought. I’ll learn. But can you repeat that in English?”

  He doesn’t sound like Wayne. He is nervous. She took a deep breath and tried again. The image of stiletto heels and a store he couldn’t tell her about could only be one thing. I will not endure that ever again.

  “Lena?”

  “You went to—I cannot even say it. I won’t. But we are through.”

  “What? Lena, I don’t know where you think I went, but I didn’t do anything wrong. I just had to buy a—”

  She disconnected. No lies. I won’t listen to them. Not again. Not ever.

  Dreams of being pampered with fried fish, gazpacho, and pestiños drizzled in honey died when the call did. A flash of irritation followed. “She should know better. What kind of guy does she think I am?”

  The longer Wayne sat there, the more he fumed. Not every man was like Lena’s ex-husband. “And I’m nothing like him. Philandering, wife-beating jerk.”

  The phone rang, and without even paying attention to the name on the screen, he tapped it. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you why.”

  “Wayne?”

  “Ma?”

  “I was just calling to see if you’re doing better today.”

  Aside from ticking off my girlfriend over something I didn’t do… peachy. Aloud, he merely muttered something about having been better.

  “
What’s wrong, Wayne.”

  “It’s times like this that I’m so grateful for my name. As long as you don’t go senile and call me Way-way or something equally obnoxious we’ll be good.”

  A snicker gave him hope she’d not noticed that he dodged the subject. “I tried to call you Waynie once when you were a baby. Your father said I sounded like I was four and couldn’t pronounce my Rs.” Wayne would have promised to thank his father the moment he arrived in heaven, but his mother wasn’t done with him yet. “And why can’t you tell me what?”

  “Nothing. I thought you were—”

  “You didn’t tell her.” Mom gave an impatient huff. “Just call her up, get her over there, and propose already.”

  He gave a dozen excuses why it wouldn’t work, but when his mother didn’t accept any of them, Wayne capitulated. Struggling to his feet, he hobbled around the room to avoid crutches. “I’m not sure I should. I started looking up Spanish traditions—you know, so I could make it feel like home.”

  “And?”

  At least his mother sounded eager about that idea. “And I discovered they don’t do engagement rings. It’s all about the wedding. I am thinking about seeing if our local jeweler can make me thirteen gold coin charms for a bracelet—maybe with pearls or something.”

  “Coins?”

  “It’s a Spanish thing. Their brides get thirteen gold coins in a nice box.”

  Mom asked the obvious question. “Why thirteen?”

  “Has to do with Jesus and the twelve apostles, but what that has to do with a wedding, I don’t know.”

  “She’ll love it. But save that for your wedding. It’ll give the wedding something special, but she’s in America now. Give her a sweet proposal with an engagement ring.”

  It took more effort to create a bag of ice than he’d ever imagined possible, but Wayne managed to make it back to his couch, huffing and his foot throbbing. “Whew.”