Christmas Joy

by Nancy Naigle

  Chapter Twenty-one

  At seven o’clock on the dot, Ben stood at the front door of Ruby Johnson’s house, feeling a little as he had when he was a teen picking up his prom date. Unsure of what the night would hold, but excited to figure it all out. He raised his hand and knocked.

  When the door opened, Joy stood there looking more beautiful than ever, with her hair pulled up in a messy bun and wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt with the sleeves pushed up.

  Disquieting thoughts danced through his mind, like what his hands would feel like running down her arms as he pulled her in for a hug, a kiss. Maybe even more than that.

  He held back the involuntary reaction to gush over how pretty she looked.

  The last thing he wanted to do was spook her, since he seemed to have a way of saying the wrong things around her. Play it cool, Ben.

  Even with that neckline covering every bit of her, and not an ounce of makeup on her face, she was incredibly sexy to him.

  “Come on in,” Joy said.

  Ben followed her into the living room and placed the folders he’d been carrying on the pine plank coffee table in front of him. He tried not to stare at her as he sat on the love seat. “I printed copies of your plan. Didn’t figure you’d have a printer here.”

  “Thanks. That’s a huge help. Ruby doesn’t even have a computer or Wi-Fi. Thank goodness I can use my phone as a hot spot, although even that has been iffy at times.”

  “I made some suggested adjustments to the plan on the paper copy. I figured I’d let you go through them and decide which you wanted to update in the file.”

  “Adjustments?” She looked surprised, and he hoped he hadn’t just set her back on the defensive.

  “Just a few minor things. Based on my experience.”

  He watched a tiny line crease in her forehead as she concentrated on the plan.

  “Nothing major,” he said. “Just a few tweaks on the order of things. Plus, lots of people start cruising the route the week before the Crystal Christmas Cookie Crawl in anticipation of the big event, so if we can do some of the outside decorating first, it gives them something to talk about.”

  “You don’t think you’re not making just a little bit too big a deal about all of this? I mean every single detail?”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  “Or take over.”

  He carefully chose his words. “I’m not.” He braced himself; they were just getting on good footing here and he didn’t want to ruin it. “But you seem to think you can do everything with no help or advice, and that is just silly when you don’t have to. I get it. You’re competitive and Ruby is your aunt and you want to do right by her, but it doesn’t have to be me against you.”

  She let out a long breath and put the plan aside, offering a gentle smile. “You’re right. I appreciate your input.”

  He let out the breath he’d been holding as well. He hadn’t pushed her buttons. This time. “You’re welcome. Now, let’s get those boxes in the attic so you have room to move around here. Unless you were planning on building a box fort.”

  “I’ll take a rain check on the fort.”

  “Don’t knock it. It could be a good time.”

  She had a feeling he was right, but she wasn’t going to go down that path. “I’ll take a look at your suggested tweaks to my plan,” she said, laying the paper down and changing the subject to something safe. “I’ve got all the ornaments sorted that I want to use for this year’s design. I will take you up on that offer to get the rest in the attic.”

  “Sure. Happy to do it.”

  “Great. It’s a lot easier with someone handing them up than one person climbing up and down.”

  “Not to mention a lot less risky. You don’t want to end up Ruby’s roommate at Dixon County Rehab Center.”

  Joy laughed. She took his breath away when she let her guard down.

  “I’m not sure that place could take two of us griping about being immobile,” she said.

  “You said it. Not me. But I’ll admit that neither of you seems to be very good at slowing down and taking it easy.”

  “Not in our DNA.” She scanned the project plan for his changes.

  He got up and walked over to where she’d stacked all the boxes. He picked up the one on top. “This one is light. You take this one.” Then he stacked two and picked them up and followed her up the stairs.

  She set down the box she was carrying and headed right down the stairs for another load.

  He turned to flip the light switch in the hall, and a sparkle caught his eye. “This is a pretty fancy dress up here. Yours?” She’d look stunning in that dress. He walked downstairs, imagining her standing in the doorway wearing it.

  Joy’s cheeks reddened. “I’d just picked it up from getting alterations done when I got the call about Ruby’s fall. There’s this huge Christmas gala where I work. It’s very formal.”

  “I remember that dress was in the back of your car the night we met. Must be some party.”

  They carried the rest of the boxes upstairs and Ben tugged the rope to the attic access panel, lowering the wooden ladder.

  Joy picked up a box and held it over her head as Ben started to climb the ladder. “Did you know that there are over twenty million houses whose residents put up Christmas decorations in the U.S.?”

  “That’s a lot of decorations. Maybe slightly more than Ruby has here.” He took the box and slid it up into the attic space.

  “She definitely has more than the average home.”

  “It’s for a good cause,” Ben said. Only she seemed to be staring at him rather than listening.

  “What kind of tree did you say that community tree was?”

  “Carolina sapphire cypress,” he said.

  “Yeah. Almost the color of your shirt.”

  He looked down at the greenish-blue three-button Henley. “I guess so.”

  “And your eyes.” She held his gaze for a long moment.

  And hers were Carolina blue.

  She lifted another box and they continued to work in silence until all the boxes she wouldn’t need were stored back in the attic.

  His hand slowed as it touched hers, taking the last box. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit there was something in that touch. “Anything else for up here?” he asked.

  Joy took a quick look around. “Nope. That’s it. I figure we can just store the empty boxes in the spare room up here until it’s time to take all the ornaments down.”

  “Sounds like a good plan to me.” He climbed down the ladder and closed the attic access with a bang. The white rope swung gently above their heads, and with her standing so close, he was tempted to be playful. To hold her, kiss her. He wanted to hear her laugh. She had his attention tonight. Completely.

  She cleared her throat and stepped away quickly, as if realizing that attic rope had some kind of holiday mistletoe magic to it.

  “I figured we could get the lights untangled and tested tonight. Rain is supposed to move in this weekend, so I’d like to get the house lights started tomorrow while the weather is still in our favor.”

  “I can help you.” Joy brushed dust from her shirt. “I’ve got all the boxes of lights down here.”

  “Great. That’ll help.” He cocked his head. “Have you eaten?”

  “Not since lunchtime.”

  “Let’s order a pizza from Max. Sausage and pepperoni work for you?”

  “I can’t believe that place is still around. I haven’t had a Max’s pizza in years.” Joy sat in the rocking chair.

  “He still has the best pizza around.” He pulled out his phone.

  “Do they deliver pizza out here now? Don’t tell me they have an app.”

  “Better than an app.” He tapped the keys and then pulled the phone to his ear. “Hey, man, it’s Ben. Can you deliver a sausage and pepperoni pie over to Ruby Johnson’s place? I’m starting on the Christmas lights. I need rations.” He smiled. “Large. Great. I appreciate it.” He tucked the phon
e in his shirt pocket. “We’ve got forty-five minutes to get some lights tested.”

  “They don’t normally deliver, do they?”

  “No, but no one minds going out of their way a little once in a while.”

  Ben walked over and started dividing the boxes into two stacks. One for indoor lights, and the other for the larger outdoor bulb lights. “Let’s test the outdoor ones first.” He pushed a red box in front of the rocking chair. “You can start unrolling those.”

  “They look like they were packed pretty neatly.”

  “We always take the time to put them away neatly, but I swear there are families of Grinch-gremlins that get into the attic and twist them in a knot during the year, because we always end up with some of them in a snarl when we sit down to do this.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky this year.”

  “If that happens, you will be required to come and sprinkle fairy dust on lights every year.” And maybe that wouldn’t be half bad. He could stand seeing a little more of her around here.

  “And magic snowflake wishes probably don’t hurt either.”

  Her smile was playful, and he liked picturing her with cookie flour on her face, but then he saw her catch herself and that wall went back up. He stepped closer, hoping to calm her.

  “Did you know that Christmas lights alone are a six-billion-dollar industry?” she asked.

  She was avoiding eye contact with him, and why was it every time he went near her, she took two steps back?

  He tested it. One step toward her. Yep, she stepped back.

  “That’s a lot of dollars. But maybe that’s because half the strings of lights at any given house are too knotted up or don’t work a second year.”

  “Not mine.” She held up a long string of lights. Not one single snarl.

  “Those must be the ones I put away.” He held up his string. A knot right in the middle of what must have been a one-hundred-light strand.

  “Are you blaming Ruby for that mess you’ve got there?”

  “I’m not going to place blame, but I’ll admit that I have two new strands in the truck that I bought at the end of last season. Just in case. If any of these are too much of a pain in the butt to untangle, I’m turning them into Christmas tumbleweeds and making them part of the decor.” He pointed to the printout of her project plan. “In fact, add that as a contingency plan to your fancy list.”

  “Got it.” She ran the thick green wire through her hands, draping another length of lights around her neck in a neat wide loop. “Be happy we don’t still have to use candles. Can you imagine having to light dozens and dozens of candles every night? At least we can just flip one switch each day once we get them all in place.”

  “I think I’d have been highly motivated to invent electricity.”

  “When I was doing work for the Wetherton’s account last year, I learned that even though the first electric Christmas lights were created in 1890, they were too expensive for most people. So they didn’t actually become popular and replace candles until 1930.”

  “Interesting.” Ben dragged wire across the room in an attempt to untangle the string of lights.

  “And the average household in the U.S. will use a thousand lights on their Christmas tree.”

  He could push her into a cha-cha and she’d never know it, the way she was dodging him. Why was she so nervous? “Do you specialize in Christmas trivia?”

  “No. Not really, but I have been working on a Christmas account for a long time, so I do have a lot of it.”

  “I see.” But darn if she didn’t quit spouting trivia like some kind of Christmas Trivial Pursuit dictionary of lost facts, and start answering his questions, he was going to lose it. “Do you like white lights or colored lights on your trees?”

  “One of the leading vendors out of Georgia has reported that, of the hundreds of thousands of strings of lights sold each year, seventy percent are white. So I guess white are the most popular.”

  Ben dropped the string of lights from his hands to the ground and stood there, blinking.

  “What?”

  “I’m not asking you for a free market research analysis. Not even what’s popular. I’m asking what you like.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yeah. Sure it does. I’m interested.” And you’re beautiful when you quit sidestepping me.

  She fumbled with the lights, as if he’d said that out loud. “I don’t know that I can answer the question. I haven’t put up a tree by myself. Ever. So I don’t know what I’d pick.”

  “Never?”

  “No. I’ve never had a Christmas tree of my own. In fact, the last Christmas I celebrated was here with Ruby when I was a teenager, and there wasn’t much celebrating going on that year.”

  “The year your mom died?”

  She nodded.

  “But that was, like, what—ten or fifteen years ago? What about all the Christmases since then?”

  “I just stay busy. Head down. Work. Keep it all a safe distance from me.”

  “How’s that working for you?”

  “Until this very minute, it seemed to be working fine, but I’ll be honest—” She stopped pulling the string of lights through her hands. “—I’m feeling a little nostalgic about it all now.”

  “Holidays will do that,” he said.

  “It’s like I’ve missed out on making memories with Ruby because I was so afraid of reliving the painful ones with Mom.”

  He wanted to hold her. Tell her he understood and wished she weren’t hurting. To be there for her. But she didn’t seem ready to share her pain. He resisted the urge and simply offered, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Her words were soft. “I can’t change the past. But I can definitely revisit the way I do things going forward.”

  Better to reroute this discussion to something safer, and anything that might lift the mood. “So you are a workaholic who has never been married. Have no children. Haven’t celebrated Christmas since you lived here in Crystal Falls.”

  She plugged her string of lights into the wall. Nothing. “Sounds kind of pitiful, doesn’t it?”

  “Nothing pitiful about it.” He dragged his strand over and plugged it into the other socket. His strand lit and began to blink. “I do think,” he said as he laid his hand on her leg, “that maybe you’re overdue for a very special Christmas.”

  She wrapped her fingers around the coiled rope of dark bulbs that hung around her neck. “I think I’m ready for that, but this—” She shook the lights, hoping they’d give her a glimmer of hope. “—doesn’t look very promising.”

  He reached over and wrapped his hand around hers. Then he tugged the wreath of lights toward him and leaned in for a slow, gentle kiss.

  She hitched a breath, but then leaned into him. Accepting him.

  Her lips were soft. Her mouth warm and tempting.

  His heart quickened. Brushing his lips across hers.

  And as they slowed down and opened their eyes, the entire strand of lights around her neck was bright … flashing reds, greens, and blues.

  “That was a surprise,” he said, enjoying her smile, which seemed as bright as the lights around her neck.

  “Must have been a loose wire.” She swept her bangs back from her face.

  “I meant the kiss.”

  He could tell by the look on her face that she’d felt it too. It hadn’t just been him. But what was he supposed to do with that kiss? And why the heck had he started it?

  “Let me get those from you.” He lifted the lights over her head and laid them out next to the other working lights they’d unraveled.

  An hour later, they had all the outside lights untangled and tested. Only one had been a complete dud. “Why don’t you take the lightbulbs out of the bad string? You can never have too many extra bulbs. I’ll move all the rest of these out to the front porch so I can get started on that tomorrow evening.”

  Joy jumped up and held the door as Ben pulled the long strands of lights to th
e porch and stretched them out from one end to the other.

  She let the door close behind them.

  He stood there on the porch for a long moment, wanting to kiss her again. But she seemed to be trying to keep her distance, and he knew better than to get mixed up with a girl like her, especially under the twinkle of magical Christmas lights.

  Stepping over the lights, he went back inside. “I think we made great progress. I’ll see you tomorrow night, okay?”

  “Yeah. I’ll look over the gingerbread bake-off file and make a list of questions for you.”

  He turned and opened the door to leave. “Let me know if you want me to take you over to see what’s been set up.”

  “I might just go over there early, but I’ll let you know.” She didn’t get up, but kept the safe distance between them. “Good night,” she said. “And thank you for your help tonight.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said as he left.

  Walking to his truck, he couldn’t help but wonder what a Christmas with Joy in his home would be like.

  That simple thought hung like mistletoe in a doorway, begging for a kiss.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “He kissed you?” Renee sounded stunned.

  “Yes. No warning, just leaned right in and kissed me.” Joy twisted a bread tie between her fingers. She’d have to go grocery shopping to get more bread for Molly’s lunch this week. It was hard to believe she’d already been here a whole week.

  “Was it nice?”

  Joy touched her lips and smiled. “Very.” Ruby used to say that if a girl was really paying attention, all she’d need was one kiss to know if the man kissing her could actually make love to her soul for eternity.

  Kissing Ben had seemed magical.

  Until now, Joy really hadn’t understood what Ruby meant by that. But this morning, she was pretty sure that Ben’s kiss was the closest thing to that she’d ever experienced.

  “So what’s the problem? You sound like he did something wrong,” Renee said.

  “No. Nothing wrong. I mean, I don’t even know him. Besides he’s bad luck. Every time he’s around, something bad happens. No need to set myself up for that.”