We Need a Little Christmas

by Sierra Donovan

  Liv took a step back. It wasn’t a good idea to get too comfortable. “Don’t ask me why. We’ve had all those cookie cutters since I was a little kid.”

  “Your grandmother’s recipe?”

  “I don’t think so. She was more into store-bought pfeffernuss.”

  Scott gestured with the Pine ’n’ Dine bag, still in his hand. “I don’t suppose you threw in a drumstick for yourself?”

  She fought the urge to edge toward the door. “No, I have to go. But there’s something I wanted to cover first.” She fished a folded sheet of paper out of her purse and tried not to sound too officious. “Mom thought it would be a good idea to get a rundown from you of what you’ll be charging for this, so I made a list.”

  She held the sheet out to him awkwardly, meeting his eyes with an effort. She knew eyes couldn’t really change color, but Scott’s seemed to shift from their usual warm blue to a lighter shade of polar frost. He made no move to take the paper.

  Liv took a deep breath. “Scott, you know you can’t do this for nothing. So let’s get an agreement up front. We’re worried about you short-changing yourself, not the other way around.”

  He still didn’t take the paper from her hand. “This doesn’t sound like your mother.”

  She hesitated. “She agreed it was a good idea.”

  That is, if you counted I guess so and if you really think we need to.

  Scott leaned against the frame of the kitchen doorway, his stare unyielding.

  Liv fumbled for language he’d understand: a joke. “I think her exact words were, ‘I don’t want that dirty rotten snake in the grass to bilk us for everything we’ve got.’”

  That helped. Small crinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes, and some of the tension in Liv’s stomach eased.

  “Money between friends is always awkward,” she said. “And you’ve done so much for us already, without asking for anything. I thought it would be a good idea to . . .”

  Now she was rambling. But maybe Scott knew what she meant, because his eyes softened.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll look it over. But fair warning: I reserve the right to make deductions for fried chicken and free cookies. Can I get it back to you tomorrow?”

  “Deal.” Liv stepped back. “But if you don’t give it back by tomorrow, we reserve the right to lock you out of this house.”

  “And how are you going to pull that off? Hire me to change the locks to keep me out?”

  She grinned and took another step toward the door. Something was going on, because while her head was telling her feet to leave, another part of her kept pulling in the other direction. Heaven help her, she didn’t want to go. “Thanks, Scott.”

  As she forced herself to turn away, a thud sounded from the kitchen.

  Scott turned toward the noise, and Liv joined him in the jumble of chaos that used to be her grandmother’s dining area. At the foot of the ladder, several feet from where Scott had been standing, was an overturned bucket. It had neatly missed the tarp, and thick goo was slowly spreading over the floor’s aging linoleum.

  Reaching the bucket before Liv, Scott righted it and set it on the floor underneath the ladder. Liv grabbed a stray rag, dropped to the floor, and tried to mop up the mess. The rag promptly stuck to the goo, which was already stuck to the floor.

  “I think that’s a lost cause,” Scott said. “It’s wallpaper paste. Good thing we’re replacing the linoleum anyway.”

  Liv pulled up at the rag, trying to end its marriage to the floor. It brought up a thick stretch of paste along with it. “Hot water might help.”

  When he didn’t answer, she looked up to find him grinning with amusement. “You’re like a dog with a bone,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. Remember, the flooring’s a goner anyway.”

  “But in the meantime, if you step here by accident, you could end up attached to the floor.”

  Scott bent and took the rag from her. “I’ll cover it up with newspaper.”

  Liv gave up and stood. “Why did it fall, anyway?”

  Scott shrugged. “Gravity?”

  Spontaneous gravity, then. Because neither of them had been anywhere near the ladder.

  Robbed of her last purpose for being here, Liv surveyed the nearly unrecognizable dining area. The living room, still untouched, retained Nammy’s personality. This room, stripped of Nammy’s belongings, had turned into a construction zone. Only the long Shaker table remained, and Scott had pushed it into the cooking area, away from all the tarps.

  The old wallpaper was down, which explained the wet-paper smell Liv had noticed when she entered the house. In its place, Scott had covered the wall with sheets of some sort of plain white backing. It reminded her of primer on a car. Rolls of the new wallpaper were propped against the adjoining wall. Stripped of the old wallpaper, the plaster showed remnants of the glue that had held it in place. For how many decades?

  Getting used to the idea that this was no longer Nammy’s home—well, she probably still wasn’t there yet. Getting used to the idea that this would become someone else’s home—that was a thought she hadn’t fully gotten around to.

  Liv went to the wall and fingered the edges of the wallpaper backing, joined neatly against each other. She knew there were stages of grief. But she wondered when all the new adjustments would stop coming along and taking her by surprise. When she got back to Dallas, she supposed.

  “That’s the backing,” Scott explained, as if he thought she was trying to fathom the paper’s purpose. “It’s thicker and smoother. It makes it easier for the new wallpaper to stick, and there won’t be the irregularities you’d have from the surface of the wall.”

  She nodded.

  “It’s also a lot easier to hang than the wallpaper,” he went on. “It’s so thick it almost slides into place. The actual wallpaper is thinner, and it’s a lot less forgiving. Getting that to hang without wrinkling or tearing is the toughest part of the job.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “How do you manage that all by yourself?”

  He responded with the usual lopsided grin. “Very, very carefully.”

  The sensible thing, she supposed, would have been to just have him repaint. A little late to suggest it now. Plus, that wasn’t what her mother had in mind.

  Liv eyed the new wallpaper. It didn’t look like Nammy’s taste, but it was cute. “I like the apples,” she said. “I hope it’s worth it.”

  “I’ll make it work.”

  “Thanks.” And we’ll pay you for your trouble. Like it or not.

  She started to leave again, something like good luck trying to form on her lips. Instead, she turned back, and what came out of her mouth was, “Could you use any help?”

  His smile wavered. “What, seriously?”

  “Mom and Rachel are off doing super-secret Christmas shopping.” Liv made herself shrug. “If you could walk me through what to do, it looks like you could use another pair of hands.”

  After all, helping with Nammy’s old house served more purpose than waiting at home for Mom and Rachel.

  Scott’s smile faded almost completely, and he regarded her seriously, as if he were sizing her up as a deckhand for a long sea voyage.

  “It might help the job go faster,” she heard herself say.

  “Okay.” Scott’s grin tipped back up. “But I’m deducting it off your bill. If you’re any good.”

  * * *

  Scott honestly hadn’t been looking forward to wallpapering the dining area by himself. He really should have recruited a friend in exchange for a share of the take. He certainly hadn’t planned on Liv volunteering.

  But here she was, an hour and a half later, sharing both the fruits and the exasperation of their efforts.

  “I’m wearing it again.” Carefully, she peeled the delicate paper away when it fell back onto her, trying to entangle itself in her hair. She didn’t have her functional ponytail today; of course, she hadn’t come here expecting to work with glue.

  He should b
e shot for taking advantage of her offer. Her willingness to pitch in. But most of all, for the way her presence lightened his heart as much as his workload.

  Masochist.

  She’d made it very clear, with everything she hadn’t said, that she didn’t want those kisses in the attic to follow them downstairs. Scott was doing his best to honor that unspoken agreement. At times it was easy, because they worked together smoothly. But even that felt so natural, so right, that at times it felt only natural to . . .

  Well, it was a good thing he was stationed on top of the ladder, sending the wallpaper down for Liv to secure before it got away.

  Scott started down the rungs in case she needed his help, but Liv managed to peel herself free and set the paper where it was meant to go, carefully smoothing it into place with the wallpaper brush. It was a good job for a detail-oriented person, and Liv was definitely that.

  One more roll, and they’d be done with the wall that separated the dining area and the living room. That left the adjoining wall that ran from the corner to the place where the kitchen cabinets began.

  Liv pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, checking either for messages or for the time. She eyed the wall, then looked up at Scott, who maintained his distance from his perch at the top of the ladder.

  “It’s four o’clock. Want to finish this wall?” she asked, and something in his chest loosened.

  “We should have just enough daylight to get it done,” he said. “Once we lose the natural light from outside, things aren’t as clear. Too much guesswork.”

  Liv nodded and set her cell phone down on the table he’d shoved into the middle of the room. “Let’s do it.”

  The light in her hazel eyes made his heart jump. Like him, she got gratification from a job that reaped visible results. Or maybe, if he flattered himself, she was actually having a good time.

  “Rats!” she said a few minutes later, when the paper threatened to tear in her hands under the weight of the glue.

  No point in reading too much into her enthusiasm, he reminded himself.

  * * *

  Liv slid into the Pine ’n’ Dine booth across from her mother. It was late afternoon on Saturday, when Nammy would have been stopping by for pie and coffee. She was sure that thought had occurred to Mom, too, when she suggested they come in here.

  “Here you go, ladies.” Sherry slid menus in front of them and grinned at Mom. “Down to one crutch, I see?”

  “I’m giving it a shot.” Mom smiled. “The other one’s in the backseat, just in case.”

  Sherry scooted away, leaving them a few minutes to decide. She’d given them a corner booth by the window. Liv didn’t ask, but she strongly suspected this was Nammy’s usual spot. It was a prime location for people watching, with a view of Evergreen Lane’s sidewalks in the graying afternoon. The little white Christmas lights that wound around the street’s lampposts stood out against the muted background.

  “I think we might get more snow tonight,” Liv said.

  Mom nodded. “We could use it.”

  However, even without the snow to entice tourists, the diner was three-quarters full, and most of them looked like out-of-towners. Of course, Liv wouldn’t know a lot of the locals by now.

  Until this afternoon, she hadn’t been alone with her mother for any length of time. Today she was getting her turn escorting Mom on her Christmas shopping, this time for Rachel. They’d spent most of the afternoon chattering like magpies as they shopped, punctuated by companionable silences. Sitting across the table from her mom now, it was the first time Liv felt awkward, as if there was a sudden need to hunt for small talk.

  “So,” Mom said, “you two finished the wallpapering this morning?”

  Maybe because she knew that question was coming. Up to now, Mom had been more restrained than Rachel when it came to questions about Scotty.

  “Uh-huh.” Wishing she already had a cup of coffee to fiddle with, Liv picked up her menu again and pretended to give it a closer look. “I didn’t get the estimate sheet back from him yet, though. He wants to deduct for the time I spent helping. But how he ever would have gotten wallpaper hung alone is beyond me. It’s hard enough with two people.”

  She tilted her head to adjust the crick in her neck, and this time she wasn’t faking. It did provide an excuse to avoid Mom’s gaze, though.

  “Asking him to put it in writing was probably a little bit much,” Mom said. “The ballpark figure he gave me was fine.”

  “I was just trying to get things laid out ahead of time.” She repeated what she’d said to Scott yesterday: “Money between friends is always awkward.”

  The word friends hung in the air, and Liv heard her mom’s unspoken question loud and clear.

  But they were friends, and nothing more. Scott hadn’t made a move since that evening in the attic, and Liv had been the one to start that. He’d picked up her signals, and he respected them. Participating in the work on the house not only helped Scott, it also helped increase the chance that the job could be done before Liv had to leave after Christmas. She didn’t want to leave Mom any more loose ends to deal with than necessary.

  And if the time she spent around Scott was increasingly pleasant, leaving her increasingly reluctant to leave—well, she just had to deal with that on her own.

  Liv added, with what she knew was forced casualness, “I told him I’d go by tomorrow afternoon after church to see how far he’s gotten with the painting.”

  Mom studied her with gray-blue eyes that had been able to see through Liv all her life. “You know, there’s nothing wrong with—”

  Sherry appeared as if summoned by Liv’s silent prayer. “Are you two ready to order?”

  Liv looked at her mother. “What kind of pie?”

  “Boysenberry. Always.” Mom had come along with Nammy on a fair share of her weekly expeditions, especially after Liv’s father died.

  Liv took a deep breath and turned to Sherry. “Two slices of boysenberry pie. And two coffees.”

  Chapter 17

  “Dusty rose.” Liv watched her paint roller leave behind three feet of sky blue, covering the muted pink that had been there a moment before. “My grandfather must have been a patient man. I can’t think of many men who’d sleep in a pink room.”

  Scott’s voice came from her left. “Maybe she changed it after your grandfather died?”

  “No, it’s been that color since I was a kid.”

  After the adventure of hanging wallpaper, painting the master bedroom was a breeze by comparison. Liv just had to try to forget that this was the one room in Nammy’s home she’d rarely been inside. Located at the back of the house, it was Nammy’s inner sanctum, and she and Rachel hadn’t had any reason to come in here, except when they sneaked in to smell Nammy’s collection of vintage perfume bottles. Now it held only a four-poster bed, a dresser, and two night tables, all pushed to the middle of the room and protected with a tarp for good measure.

  Oh, and standing in here, a few feet away from Scott, she also had to forget that it was a bedroom.

  Liv swept her paint roller over the wall again, leaving a fresh trail of blue. “Maybe that was their compromise for the ducks in the living room. The dusty rose for the birds.”

  “For the birds,” he echoed, and she turned to see him quirking a grin at her. Her heart lurched, then skipped.

  That happened every now and then, catching her off guard, when he said or did something that was somehow quintessentially Scott. And every time it did, it got harder for Liv to kid herself about why she’d gotten so involved with this renovation project.

  Back at the house, Mom and Rachel were putting together a small package for their uncle Bob in Minnesota. Along with the Christmas gifts they’d picked up, they were sending him some of the framed photos from Nammy’s belongings. Liv supposed she could have helped with that, but unlike sorting through Nammy’s house, it hadn’t really seemed like a three-person job.

  So here she was, painting a bedroom with Sco
tt.

  What had they just been talking about?

  Oh, right. The birds. Ducks. The wallpaper.

  “Do you think it makes sense to leave the duck border?” she asked. She kept her eyes fixed on the wall in front of her. “I mean, whoever moves in here will probably want to change it, anyway.”

  Scott sighed. “I think it’ll look good, actually. But it won’t make that much difference to whoever buys the house.”

  Liv silently continued rolling paint onto the wall. With her grandfather’s old paint roller. Everything she did on this visit was steeped in nostalgia, one way or another.

  The only reason to leave the ducks was for her family, and they wouldn’t be the ones to see it. This was supposed to be about getting the house ready to show. Complying with Nammy’s wishes was an added bonus, and it made sense to use the materials she’d made available. Whatever upgrades they made to the house now, the time was coming when they’d have to let it go. Soon.

  Her grandfather had been gone a dozen years longer than her grandmother, and one strip of wallpaper was a silly thing to be concerned about.

  When she didn’t answer, he said, “You’re quiet, Tomblyn.”

  His tone was light, but the warm resonance of his voice held the beginnings of concern. As if he was ready to catch her and steady her. Again.

  “Still here,” she said. She was not going to start pouring out her heart. Even if all her old memories seemed to be coming loose, at random moments. This morning she’d caught herself singing a sappy old song Nammy had taught her, one Liv hadn’t thought about in years. “Want me to start another chorus of ‘All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth’?”

  “Don’t even say it. I finally got it out of my head half an hour ago.”

  She thought she’d successfully changed the subject until he added, “Maybe whoever moves in here will be a big duck lover, and that border will seal the deal.”

  Liv smiled in spite of herself, but she kept her reaction between herself and the wall. Scott was like medicine for her. Dangerous medicine, best taken in moderation. It occurred to her, again, that it wasn’t hard to see why a woman with a broken heart would fall for him. What wasn’t so clear was what he got in the bargain.