The Forever Christmas Tree

by Sandra Hill

  “I suppose, but the land prices would be too high for purchase, and building rentals—especially a warehouse on a harbor—would be cost prohibitive,” Geek explained.

  “Not necessarily,” Ethan mused.

  The other guys, including K-4, the third SEAL, and Wendy, who’d just come back from the kitchen, all stared at him.

  “Are you going to The Bell party tonight?” he asked Wendy.

  She hesitated, probably thinking that he was back to the “screwing for closure” notion. “Yes.”

  “Good. Are you bringing your friends?”

  She nodded, still not sure where he was going with these questions.

  “They need to meet Gabe Conti, owner of the house where the party is being held. You remember him. He’s the owner of Bell Forge now.”

  Wendy tilted her head to the side as she began to understand the direction of Ethan’s thoughts. Laura must have explained some of Bell Cove’s current worry over the future of the forge building. “Is it possible?”

  “Who knows? Worth exploring, though, wouldn’t you think?” Before Ethan left, he called Laura and filled her in on his idea. She promised to come up with a plan before this evening, one they could broach with Gabe. The question was: Was Gabe Conti a gambler?

  All the way back home, Cassie chattered away, happier than he’d seen her in a long while. He wasn’t sure what it was about the day that had pleased her so. Maybe it was the Patterson house itself. The atmosphere there was so loud and cheerful. Something that had been missing in their home for a long time. Oh, it wasn’t that they were gloomy. It was just that Beth Anne had been sick for so long, and Cassie had been warned on more than one occasion to tiptoe, not stomp around, and to keep her voice down. Then, after Beth Anne’s death, sadness had prevailed, with him off working most of the time, and, frankly, he realized now, becoming somewhat of a grinch.

  Oh, Lord! For a brief moment, he’d forgotten about that stupid grinch contest. Served him right if he won the damn thing.

  Cassie was talking excitedly now about the possibility of a trip to the pool with Wendy to get diving and swimming instructions. He kept warning her that the club might be closed over the holidays and that even if it was open some days, it might not be convenient for Wendy. There was no holding down Cassie’s enthusiasm.

  Everything was moving too fast, and not fast enough. He feared for Cassie getting disappointed. He feared for his rising hopes. There was a perfect reminder of why the best-laid plans often went awry sitting between him and Cassie on the bench seat . . . the high school yearbook that Wendy had handed him on the way out. He wondered if Wendy had looked inside the book at all that day after Cassie brought it there, other than the one page with the diving picture. Would she have seen the inscription on the inside cover?

  Good luck, Ethan! Love you forever!

  Wendy

  Yeah, right!

  There was a flash to the past if he ever saw one, not one Wendy would appreciate.

  A novena for sex? . . .

  Mildred went upstairs to her bedroom and closed the door before taking out her cell phone and calling Eliza at the Christmas Shoppe.

  “Ethan was here today,” she said right off.

  “He was?”

  Mildred explained the circumstances of Eliza’s great-granddaughter and then her grandson showing up at her house today and everything else that had happened.

  “They actually danced together?”

  “Yes. Nothing mushy like a slow dance. Just the shag.”

  “Still. The very fact they could hold hands for a dance is something.”

  “I agree, but the clock is ticking. We need to push this thing along.”

  “How?”

  “Well, the biggest problem as I see it is that there’s no place for the two of them to be together. Together together, if you get my meaning. Not here with all these people. It’s like a zoo, if I must say so myself.”

  “And there’s no hotel or motel nearby since the Bell Breakers Motel closed for the winter,” Eliza pointed out.

  “How about your place?”

  “Cassie could have a sudden sleepover come up at one of her friend’s, but what excuse could I have for being out of here?”

  “Hmmm. Too bad you don’t have a boyfriend!”

  “Yeah. Maybe you could fix me up.”

  Mildred laughed. “Maybe, but not this quickly.”

  “I was just kidding. Listen, I’ll think of some reason why I have to be away overnight. What else?”

  “They’ll both be at The Bell Christmas party tonight. The rest is up to them.”

  Eliza groaned. “Look how well that’s gone so far.”

  “Let’s pray, then.”

  “Praying for sex? Do you think that’s a sacrilege or something?”

  “Who cares!”

  Chapter 14

  Oh, the plans we weave . . .

  Ethan noticed something strange when he was getting ready to go out that evening.

  First of all, the house was unusually quiet, his grandmother having acted on a sudden desire to see the Winter Lights at the Elizabethan Gardens in Manteo with a few friends, an overnight trip that would involve some last-minute Christmas shopping in the morning. And she’d dropped Cassie off at her friend Melanie’s for a sleepover.

  When he’d gotten home from the Patterson house, he’d been surprised to find his grandmother in the kitchen with an overnight suitcase packed for herself and a sleeping bag with PJs and assorted toiletries laid out for Cassie. She’d been dressed in a blue pantsuit, the one usually reserved for church or weddings.

  “Why, all of a sudden, are you taking off? It’s not like you haven’t seen the Winter Lights before.”

  His grandmother had put hands on both her hips and glared at him. “Didn’t you tell me just yesterday that I should take time off?”

  “Well, yes. I mean, of course, you should go if you want to. I’m just surprised.”

  “Maybe you’re in for a lot more surprises,” she’d snapped back.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It meant something, for damn sure.”

  “Don’t swear in front of your daughter.”

  Cassie, oblivious to their conversation, had been picking up the items that her great-grandmother had laid out on the kitchen table and putting them in her backpack, along with a Winnie the Pooh storybook that he hadn’t seen since she was about five years old. And that friggin’ yearbook, too! Why was she taking that? To show her friends?

  Meanwhile, his grandmother had been on a tear. “You can make your own supper, can’t you? Or will you be eating over at that newspaper party? No, they usually just serve picky food. Better make yourself a sandwich. You remember how to do that, don’t you? I’m taking my Volvo, but don’t you dare drive that truck to the newspaper party. Use your car.”

  “Why? What difference does it make what vehicle I use?”

  “Don’t argue. Just do as you’re told.”

  “Huh?”

  But that wasn’t the strange thing that he was noticing now as he finished showering, his grandmother and Cassie long gone. The bathroom that adjoined his bedroom was sparkling clean, smelling of cleanser and air freshener, and newly laundered towels. There was some super fragrant Axe body spray sitting on the counter that he wasn’t about to use; he’d bought it last summer to douse Harvey when he’d encountered a not-so-friendly skunk. No, good old Mennen Speed Stick deodorant would do him just fine.

  Going into his bedroom, he noticed the smell of lemon furniture polish, and he saw that the coverlet had been turned down on the bed, showing the edge of what looked like ironed, crisp, white cotton sheets. Ironed sheets? Did people really iron sheets these days?

  Now, he was no dummy. He paid a cleaning lady to come in every two weeks to help Nana with household chores, but he was pretty sure Alice had come a few days ago. And he could only imagine what Alice would say if she was told to iron sheets. What wa
s his grandmother doing with this sudden cleaning urge? Was it one of those Christmas/Easter/Spring cleaning kind of frenzies that hit women sometimes? Or post-menopausal hormones? Or this stupid grinch business affecting her, as well as the whole town? Or . . . oh, my God!

  She’s setting me up.

  My seventy-two-year-old grandmother is preparing what she considers the perfect sex den.

  For me!

  Like I can’t make my own arrangements!

  I’m thirty years old, not a kid!

  Does she think I’m like Steve Carell in that movie, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and I don’t know what to do?

  How embarrassing!

  How adorable!

  I could kill the old lady.

  Or hug her.

  Thus it was that he was smiling when he arrived at Gabe Conti’s house an hour later. And, yes, he was driving his Lexus, not the pickup truck, which he much preferred. Well, it wasn’t just his home situation that had him smiling, it was the whole transformation of the old Conti mansion and the stunned expression on Gabe’s face.

  There were about twenty cars there already, parked on both sides of the semicircle driveway. He parked behind Karl Gustafson’s motorcycle. He could hear classical music coming from the open double front doors.

  “Can you believe this?” Gabe asked, coming down the wide steps to greet him as he exited his vehicle.

  They both stared up at the white lights that outlined every feature of the massive building, not to mention the single white candles that lit every single window. There were also live evergreen garlands around each window and door frame. Two twenty-foot Douglas firs, decorated with colored twinkling bulbs, could be seen through the large bay windows that framed both sides of the front door.

  He wondered idly if he’d gotten that business.

  “Let me guess? Laura?” Ethan said, biting his lip to restrain a smile.

  “Yes! We’ve blown a fuse three times today, and I had to call in an electrician to install a new breaker. Time and a half.”

  “Well, it looks nice.”

  “Yeah, it does, but wait till you see the inside. She’s like a bulldozer when she wants something. A velvet bulldozer. By the time you realize what’s happened you’ve been flattened.”

  “You can always say no.”

  “Pfff! That’s a word Laura doesn’t recognize.”

  “There must be some benefits to you.”

  “There are,” he admitted with a sigh.

  He thought Gabe was going to say friends with benefits, which just showed where his mind was.

  But instead, Gabe said, “Laura has been very helpful in assessing all the junk in this house, what to toss out, what to sell, and what to keep. You have no idea what a mess it is.”

  “A good mess or a bad mess?”

  “Both, I suppose. The original house was built to accommodate the three brothers,” he said, pointing to the central part of the mansion with the two wings extending out on either side. “My great-great-great-grandparents, Salvadore and Angela Conti, lived in the middle, and the bachelor uncles, Lorenzo and Tomas, lived in their own separate wings. What I didn’t realize is that the uncles were collectors.”

  “Of what?”

  “Lorenzo wasn’t so bad. He collected pipes, the kind you smoke. Seven hundred and sixty-two. I would just toss them in the trash, but Laura says some of them are valuable. So, now I have to find someone who wants to buy them or sell them for me.”

  “You could probably list them on eBay. Or maybe there’s a pipe museum you could donate them to and take a charitable tax deduction.”

  “A pipe museum?” Gabe looked at him as if he was crazy.

  Ethan shrugged. “I’ve heard of stranger things. Did you know there’s a condom museum in Canada?”

  Gabe shook his head at Ethan’s sorry attempt at humor. “But that’s not the worst part. Tomas was interested in big game, not hunting them himself, but collecting the trophies. The walls are covered with elephant tusks and zebra heads and a tiger skin the size of a small house complete with head and paws, and there’s a ten-foot-tall gorilla guarding the fireplace. Half of them are probably endangered species . . . maybe not then, but surely today. If the news media finds out about this, my face will be plastered all over the place, like that doctor or dentist who killed an animal in Africa or somewhere, and ended up getting death threats.”

  “Whoa! You started with being the Christmas Lights King and moved on to America’s Most Hated Man list. I thought you were supposed to be relaxing over the holiday.”

  “Tell me about it!”

  They both burst out laughing then, knowing full well that when a woman was involved, men did the craziest things.

  Just then Laura poked her head out the door. She looked like Santa’s little hottie elf in a green velvet dress that was scooped low in front and ended about midthigh with a pair of four-inch black high heels that would be killer at the North Pole. “Gaaabe,” she said, “can you come help me with a little problem we’re having in the kitchen?”

  “Sure,” he said, giving Ethan a wink to show that, despite his venting, he was more than okay.

  To Ethan, she added, “Did you discuss our idea for the Bell Forge treasure-hunting venture with Gabe?”

  “Um . . . not yet,” Ethan said.

  “What?” Gabe said.

  “Nothing to worry about now, Gabe. Now, the garbage disposal is another matter.” Laura batted her eyelashes at Gabe.

  “I’m an architect, not a plumber.”

  As their voices faded and Ethan was left outside, gaping at the two of them, several cars pulled up. It was the gang from the Patterson house. Wendy, her California military friends, Aunt Mildred, and the other seniors. He smiled at Wendy and went over to help get Harry’s wheelchair out of the back of the SUV.

  This was supposed to be a casual event, and the men were dressed accordingly in slacks with sweaters, or dress shirts and sport coats. The ladies wore mostly pants and glittery tops.

  If Laura had looked like Santa’s hottie elf, Wendy was the Christmas Fairy in a shimmery sky-blue jumpsuit edged in silver braid. It was long-sleeved and the legs were full, but that was the only thing modest about the outfit. It came to a deep vee in front, hugged her waist and hips, and ended in strappy silver high heels which matched a silver chain loop belt.

  It was the kind of outfit that gave a man ideas, and Ethan already had a few of those. Like that belt wrapped around a pair of wrists tied to a headboard, or a bare-naked body, except for silver stilettos, against crisp white sheets . . .

  “Hello, Ethan, good to see you again,” Aunt Mildred said, jarring him from his inappropriate reverie. “Is Eliza with you?”

  “No. She went to Manteo to see the Winter Lights.”

  “Ah,” Aunt Mildred said with a knowing little Mona Lisa smile.

  “I have some good news,” Wendy said, coming up to him. Even with the high heels, he still had a good three inches on her, but it put them on more level footing.

  He grinned. He couldn’t help himself. Images of an empty house, fresh pressed sheets, and other things came to mind. “Oh?” he said with as serious an expression as he could muster on his face.

  “Get that look off your face, cowboy. I’m referring to the pool at Sunset Dunes Health Club. It’s open tomorrow from nine to five, then Wednesday through Saturday next week.”

  “Don’t blame me for ogling, Wendy. You can’t dress up like Tinkerbell, all grown up and sex on a silver hoof, and expect a guy not to notice.”

  Her jaw dropped with surprise.

  “But that is good news about the pool. Cassie couldn’t stop talking about it on the way home this afternoon. So, tomorrow work for you?”

  She nodded, hesitant now that he’d mentioned his attraction to her.

  “It’s a date then? If we leave about ten, we could have lunch and spend a few hours at the pool, or we could go there directly and have a late lunch.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it a
date,” she was quick to clarify. “Not with the three of us.”

  “Did someone mention a three-way?” JAM said, coming up and throwing an arm over Wendy’s shoulder companionably. “I’m game. We could make it a four-way, if you want.”

  “Get real,” Wendy said, shrugging out from JAM’s arm. “Both of you!”

  “What? JAM was the one who suggested a foursome. I didn’t mention anything about sex,” Ethan protested, and recalled that JAM was the one who’d advised Wendy to screw his brains out, for closure. You couldn’t hate a guy who thought like that.

  “Yeah, but you were thinking it,” JAM pointed out as Wendy huffed away and up the steps. They were both watching her butt as the blue fabric hugged her heart-shaped curves each time she raised a foot. “It’s obvious every time you look at her, man.”

  “I’m that obvious?” Ethan felt like a teenager caught having illicit thoughts about a hopelessly out-of-reach cheerleader. Not that he’d ever had those about anyone else, not with Wendy around.

  “Oh, yeah! But not to worry. Wendy changed her outfit four times before settling on that Tinkerbell Does the Christmas Tree Farmer space suit.”

  Ethan felt better.

  A lot better.

  He made her an offer she couldn’t refuse . . .

  Wendy couldn’t keep her eyes off Ethan as he worked the crowd. This was the eighteen-year-old Ethan she had known—a boy—but all grown up and comfortable in his skin . . . a man.

  There was a mixture of attire at this newspaper party, everything from slacks and sweaters to suits and ties, especially since some of the people came directly from work. Ethan was among the dozen or so men in the latter category. He wore a navy blue suit, the jacket open over a white dress shirt and red-and-blue striped tie.

  She could see him now as the successful businessman he was, addressing people by name as he shook their hands, sometimes putting a hand on the shoulder at the same time. Those people he didn’t know, he introduced himself to with a self-confidence she didn’t recall seeing in him as a boy.

  He threw his head back and laughed out loud at something being said in one group, then listened intently when someone was saying something to him, like Harry Carder, the retired financial advisor in a wheelchair who was residing temporarily in her house.