Small Town Christmas

by Jill Shalvis

  He turned away and looked out the window that opened on to the back yard. The window had lacy curtains, and outside the rain was pouring down.

  “My dog died three weeks ago,” he said in a voice that he could barely control. “They shipped me home, and because the dog died, they let me out a little early. I had already told them I wasn’t going to re-up. Now I just want…” He shook his head and pressed his lips together.

  “Oh, Matt, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  Then he turned back toward Annie. “Losing the dog was hard. He wasn’t killed in action. He just got sick and had to be put down. He was getting old anyway, and I had planned for the two of us to retire together. But now I’m alone. And being a soldier is the only thing I know how to be.”

  “Matt, every returning soldier has an adjustment period.”

  “I know. But I came here looking for Ruth. I thought maybe she would have some wisdom for me, or at least maybe a slice of her apple pie. God, Nick used to talk about that pie all the time, especially when we were stuck eating MREs. And then I found her house all boarded up, and I was lost. I went to the church because I knew she was a member there. To be honest, I heard the cat yowling, and Holly kind of led me right there.”

  “Really?”

  He gave her a short nod. “And then I heard you singing, and it was like, for an instant I felt like I’d… well, hell… I don’t… like I’d come home. And that’s ridiculous because I don’t belong in Last Chance. I’m a street kid from Chicago.”

  She blinked down at him but didn’t say a word.

  “I’ve scared you again, haven’t I?”

  “No, it’s more like I’m a little surprised. What was your dog’s name?”

  “Murphy. He had liver failure. He’d been a pretty hard worker for six years. He saved a whole lot of lives over there, sniffing out IEDs. He was a good, hard-working, war dog.” Matt swallowed before the emotion ate him up.

  “I’m sure he was. You know, you should take Holly. She’d be a comfort to you.”

  He nodded and took a calming sip of his coffee. Annie really didn’t want that cat, did she?

  “So, uh,” Annie said, “I have an early appointment at the Cut ’n’ Curl. I won’t be more than an hour at most.” She turned on her heel and strode out of the room like she was trying to escape his toxic emotions.

  Matt watched her go. He really needed to get a grip. He probably needed to put that stupid gift under Annie’s tree and go see about taking a bus to someplace warm and sunny.

  Annie’s appointment at the Cut ’n’ Curl was for nine in the morning, and even at that early hour several members of the Christ Church Ladies Auxiliary were already present and accounted for. It being both Saturday and Christmas Eve, Ruby Rhodes, Last Chance’s main hairdresser, had opened up an hour early.

  Thelma Hanks was having her roots touched up. Lessie Anderson was in Ruby’s chair getting a wash and set, and Jane Rhodes, Ruby’s new daughter-in-law, was giving Miriam Randall a manicure.

  “Hey, Annie,” Thelma Hanks said after Annie had hung her coat in the closet. Thelma had just looked up from one of those romance books Ruby kept on a shelf at the back of the shop. This particular book had a cover featuring a naked male torso.

  “How are you doing, honey? Everything okay?” Thelma’s voice was laden with concern. All the women in the shop stopped what they were doing and watched Annie as she sat down in one of the dryer chairs. “What?” she asked, flicking her gaze from one woman to another.

  “We’re just concerned, sugar,” Ruby said.

  Ruby and her customers had been Mother’s friends. Mother had been an active member of the Auxiliary. She had a standing Wednesday appointment at the Cut ’n’ Curl, so it was just natural that they would be worried about Annie this Christmastime.

  It was her first Christmas alone. And everyone seemed to be working hard to make sure she didn’t have a minute to be sad about it. She’d received invitations to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinner from Ruby, Lessie, Thelma, Miriam, and several of Mother’s other friends. She had declined them all and had invited some of the members of the book club to dinner instead.

  Mother had not fully approved of the book club. She was living in the last century and looked down her nose at Nita and Kaylee, because of their race. But Annie had always counted them as friends, even in the face of Mother’s disapproval. And now Annie could invite whomever she wanted to dinner, without hearing Mother’s ugly complaints.

  “I’m fine,” she said to the ladies in the beauty parlor. “I’ve got my tree all trimmed, and I’m going up to the Target in Orangeburg for some shopping this afternoon, and then Nita and Jenny and a few other friends from the book club are coming over for dinner before midnight services.”

  “I’m so glad to hear that,” Ruby said, “what with Nita’s daughter being off in Atlanta this year. It’s nice the two of you are spending time together.”

  “So, honey, have you taken my advice yet?” Miriam asked from her place at the manicure station.

  Everyone turned to stare at Miriam. Today the little old lady was dressed in a pair of red plaid slacks and a red sweatshirt with a big graphic of Rudolf on its front. She had a pair of dangly Christmas tree earrings in her ears. Her eyes twinkled behind her 1950s-style trifocals.

  Miriam was about eighty-five years old and widely regarded as Allenberg County’s premier matchmaker. Not that Miriam considered herself a matchmaker. She always told folks she was a match finder. She said God made the matches, but sometimes He would clue her in.

  Her matchmaking advice sometimes resembled the messages you might find inside a fortune cookie. But the weird thing about Miriam’s marital forecasts was that they almost always came true.

  “I declare,” Ruby said to Miriam, “when did you give Annie any advice?”

  “Oh, I think it was last week after church.”

  “And what advice did you give Annie?” Thelma leaned forward, her romance book forgotten.

  “I told her to get a cat.”

  “What?” Lessie turned her head, and the roller Ruby was trying to secure came undone.

  “And I told her that I wasn’t so lonely that I needed a cat.” Annie folded her arms across her chest. “I need to get out and have a social life now that Mother’s gone. I don’t need a cat.”

  “Miriam,” Ruby said, “you didn’t really tell Annie she needed a cat, did you?”

  “What’s wrong with suggesting that she get a cat?” Miriam looked honestly surprised.

  “Because you don’t tell a single lady of a certain age that she needs a cat. It’s, well…” Ruby’s voice trailed off.

  “It’s pitiful,” Annie said into the silence. “It’s bad enough that I’m sleeping under a quilt my grandmother made and living in a house with old-fashioned mohair furniture. Getting a cat would be like sealing my fate.”

  “Yes, exactly,” Miriam said.

  Ruby, Lessie, and Thelma stared at Miriam as if she’d lost her mind. Miriam was a little quirky, but she’d never been mean.

  Jane pulled Miriam’s hand out of the soaking solution and said, “Clay said something about a big soldier finding a cat in the manger down at the church last night. This guy came strolling into the sanctuary with a little kitten, interrupting choir practice, and Dale almost had a stroke.”

  “Really?” Miriam asked. Somehow Miriam didn’t sound very surprised.

  Everyone turned toward Annie. Her face flamed. “His name is Matt Jasper, and he did find a cat in the manger. He came in on the bus from Charlotte last night, and he was looking for Ruth Clausen.”

  “Oh dear,” Ruby said. “Is he one of Nick’s army friends?”

  “Yes, he is. He’s come here to deliver Nick’s last Christmas gift.”

  “What?” the women asked in unison.

  “Evidently, Nick bought Ruth’s present before he died last year. Matt has been carrying it around Afghanistan for a long time.”

  “Oh my,” Thelma said.
“He has no clue, does he?”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Did you tell him about Ruth?” Thelma asked.

  “Well, I told him that she’d been sick and a little out of it. But I didn’t say anything else. He’s committed to making this delivery. It’s kind of sweet, actually. His heart’s in the right place.”

  “So he didn’t spend the night at the motel, did he?” Jane asked.

  “Uh, no, he didn’t.”

  Miriam snorted. “See, I told ya’ll. Annie needed to get a cat. The Lord was very specific about that part.”

  While Annie went to her appointment at the beauty shop, Matt showered and shaved and put on his civies. Holly kept him company, trailing after him like a little lost soul.

  He and the cat were kind of alike. If anyone could understand how a man could come looking for a warm place by a holiday fire, it would be a stray cat.

  But he didn’t really belong by Annie’s fire, did he? And what was the point of delivering Nick’s gift to his grandmother if she was senile and sick? How could that possibly brighten her day?

  He’d come for his own selfish reasons, not to do any favors for Nick. And now, here he was, staying at Annie Roberts’s house, thinking things about her that he had no right to think.

  He should leave, right now, and take the cat with him as a consolation prize. He started packing his bag. He had just brought the bag downstairs and set it in the corner when Annie’s key slipped into the front door.

  She came prancing into the foyer like a young girl. She stopped just a few feet from where he was standing and gave him the biggest grin. She was red cheeked from the cold outside, and there was a spark of something in her eyes that hadn’t been there last night or even this morning. Something had changed. She seemed lit up from the inside.

  “Uh,” he said, suddenly tongue-tied, “I was thinking that with Ruth so ill, it might be best if I just…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Holly pussyfooted across the floorboards and meowed a welcome. She rubbed up against Annie’s legs and tried to wrap herself around both of them simultaneously.

  Annie laughed. The sound was so merry and full of life. She bent down and picked up the kitten. “You need some cat food and a litter box,” she said to Holly. “I hope you’re housebroken.”

  She glanced up at Matt, and he had a feeling Annie was talking about something other than the cat.

  “I understand your hesitation about Ruth,” she said, her blue eyes darkening with some emotion he couldn’t quite fathom. “But there’s no rush. The Ladies Auxiliary always visits up there on Christmas morning, and you could tag along with them. I offered to drive Miriam Randall and the rest of the ladies up there, since I don’t have a big family. So, if you want, we can all go together tomorrow morning. In the meantime, if you came to Last Chance for a Christmas like Nick loved, you’re free to stay here at my place. In fact, I could use some help with my errands.”

  The tension he’d felt all morning suddenly eased. He’d been given permission to live out his deepest fantasy and let tomorrow slide. War had taught him the benefits of living in the moment. He didn’t have to think very hard about her offer.

  “I’d be happy to help. But I’m warning you, I’m really inexperienced in this whole Christmas thing.”

  “It’s okay. There are plenty of people in Last Chance willing to give you pointers on how to celebrate the season.”

  Annie held out her hand, and he took it. It was small and warm, and it seemed to fit in his like it had been custom made.

  They went to Orangeburg and practically bought out the Target there. Annie seemed to be hell-bent on taking advantage of every cut-rate deal on Christmas decorations. It being Christmas Eve, she made a few spectacular bargains—especially on a glow-from-the-inside snowman that had caught Matt’s fancy. She had refused to let him buy it for her. She told him she needed to spruce up her lighting display before the neighbors complained about her lack of imagination.

  She also bought some new sheets and a blanket—a move that made Matt just a little bit uncomfortable, since she asked his opinion on every choice. When he’d wrinkled his nose at the girly flowers on one set of sheets, she’d changed her mind about them.

  Shopping for sheets with Annie was definitely sexier than it probably should be. He kept thinking about what it might be like to lie down on those new sheets with this amazing woman.

  He needed to watch it. She had been Nick’s girlfriend, and he was already perilously close to losing his grip on the real world.

  Annie was brimming over with good cheer. Her day with Holly and Matt had been so happy. But then she could hardly fail. Miriam Randall hadn’t been speaking literally last week in church. She’d been finding Annie a match.

  And Annie couldn’t be more pleased with the way things were going. Matt was tall, dark, and handsome. He was kind, and he seemed to understand the inherent problem associated with his grim chore. And yet she got the feeling he still wanted to deliver that present, even if he wondered whether it was the right thing to do. His conflict made him all the more loveable. And she knew she was falling for him. Maybe she did believe in love at first sight after all.

  When they got home from shopping, she put him to work finishing the decorating and setting up the big glow-in-the-dark snowman they had purchased.

  The snowman was silly and a little tacky. But it reminded her of the few years she’d spent in Michigan at college. Those had been happy years, before Mother had come down with rheumatoid arthritis. Before Dad had died. Before her future had been hijacked by circumstances beyond her control.

  Matt had fallen in love with the snowman too. He said if he couldn’t have real snow in Last Chance, he’d go for the fake kind.

  Of course, Mother would never have approved of the snowman, the cat, or the soldier, which made all of them welcome additions to Annie’s holiday. Nothing about this Christmas was going to be like last year.

  And having Matt around, lapping up all the holiday cheer, made everything seem a little more joyful. He had so many reasons to be sad, having lost his dog this year and his best friend last year, but he seemed determined to let the joy of Christmas in. And his joy was infectious.

  Nita Wills was the first member of the book club to arrive at Annie’s dinner party, with Cathy close on her heels. Both of them seemed more impressed and surprised by the snowman than the cat or the soldier.

  “Well, Annie,” Nita said as she put a plate of gingerbread cookies on the buffet table, “it sure does look like Santa has been good to you this Christmas.”

  Annie didn’t have a minute to respond before Elsie and Lola May arrived, followed very closely by Jenny Carpenter. Jenny, of course, came bearing apple and shepherd’s pies. Jenny’s pies were to die for, and Matt seemed more than a little interested in both of her offerings.

  Annie stifled the strange, unwanted wave of jealousy. And she was soon busy playing hostess when Kaylee and Nomi arrived each bearing matching bean casseroles.

  The women gathered around the buffet and filled their cups with eggnog and Christmas punch—two things Mother would never have allowed in her home at holiday time. They laughed and chatted about Barbara Kingsolver’s latest book. All in all, the house hadn’t seen so many people in years, and Annie was feeling happy and free and flushed with Christmas spirit.

  Then Nita scooped Holly up from the easy chair and sat down. She held the kitten up for inspection. “Well, aren’t you just the cutest, dirty-faced matchmaker in Last Chance?” she said aloud.

  The women of the book club collectively laughed, and Annie felt suddenly stripped naked. She glanced over at Matt to see if he’d heard what Last Chance’s librarian had said.

  Apparently he had, because Nita hadn’t used her librarian voice. Matt’s dark stare zeroed in on Nita, and his eyebrows bunched up in the middle.

  Elsie gave him a pat on the back. “Don’t you mind Nita, now. She’s just talking about how Miriam Randall told Annie that sh
e needed to get a cat.”

  Matt’s frown deepened.

  “See,” Cathy explained, “Miriam has a pipeline to the Lord, and when she gives advice, it’s always right.”

  “Exactly,” Lola May said. “And that just means that you and Annie are a match made in heaven.”

  Matt turned his dark gaze on Annie. Her heartbeat raced, but whether in embarrassment or desire she wasn’t sure. It was insane to think that Matt was destined to become her lover, just because he’d found a cat in a manger.

  But hadn’t she been behaving like that all day?

  “Uh, ladies, I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding,” Matt said. “I just came here to deliver a gift to Ruth Clausen.”

  “And have you delivered it yet?” Nita asked.

  Matt scratched the back of his head and glanced at Annie. “Uh, no. I kind of got involved with a bunch of errands. I’m going up to Orangeburg tomorrow for that chore.”

  Nita spoke again. “Do you think that’s wise?”

  “I don’t know. But I’ve been lugging that thing all over Afghanistan. I think it needs to find its way home.”

  Nita nodded. “Well, I guess I can understand that. And I admire you for bringing it to Ruth personally. You didn’t have to do that.” She gazed at the kitten. “Well, one thing is for sure, this cat is cute,” she said.

  The members of the book club went back to chatting and grazing at the buffet.

  Matt strolled over to where Annie was standing, his dark eyes filled with emotions that weren’t very merry.

  “I can explain about the matchmaker,” she said. “See—”

  “I know all about Miriam Randall,” he murmured.

  “What?”

  “Nick told me all about her. He seemed to think she was infallible. He told me once that he was very sorry Miriam hadn’t matched him up permanently with you. You should know that Nick really regretted what happened between the two of you.”

  “He wanted to be a soldier. He wanted to leave this town, Matt. That’s all he ever talked about. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in love with a soldier or a man with wanderlust in his soul.”