“Okay,” Liv said. “We’ll leave the ducks. Kind of like initials in a tree trunk.”
“Spoken like a true romantic.”
Liv watched more blue appear under her roller, admiring the instant result. It was so easy to make a difference with this type of work. No wonder Scott liked it.
She turned to sneak a glance in his direction. He was working his way across the top half of the wall adjoining hers, standing on just the bottom rung of the ladder to reach. He wasn’t looking at her. Good.
The heater had come on this morning without a hitch. The same way it had yesterday, and the day before. By tacit agreement, neither Scott nor Liv commented on its mysterious recovery, any more than they mentioned the heater’s strange behavior the night they were trapped in the attic. Or Liv’s own out-of-character behavior that night. And Scott showed every sign of being sincere about trying to get away from his penchant for lovelorn women.
That was good, too.
* * *
Scott stepped back from his touch-up job around the edges of the doorjamb and sized up the freshly painted bedroom. Liv had left over an hour ago, and he’d broken his own credo, working past sunset to get the room finished. But he wanted to be ready to move on to the next phase of the project tomorrow. They were halfway home.
Wallpapering the kitchen had been the biggest task. With the master bedroom done, that left painting the living room and putting fresh tile in the kitchen and the bathroom. He liked leaving floors for last. Scott remembered his dad’s advice, one of the first things he’d ever learned about do-it-yourself projects: Do everything from the top down. Always. Period. Don’t argue.
The wallpaper-paste spill the other day certainly made a good case for his father’s method.
Scott took the last couple of brushes to the kitchen sink to rinse. Liv had rinsed the rest of the brushes and rollers when she left an hour ago. One nice thing about working with Liv: she liked leaving everything clean and ready to go for the next day.
Okay, there were a lot of nice things about working with Liv. What wasn’t clear was why she was working with him. Probably she wanted to help hurry the project along; she’d implied it would be nice if it could be done before Christmas. Because two days after Christmas, she’d be gone.
No point in wondering about Liv’s motives, any more than she saw any point in talking about What Happened In The Attic. A job was a job, and if this one was more pleasant than most, that just meant it would be a little tougher when it ended. No big deal.
If he could just convince himself of that.
Scott finished rinsing the brush and set it alongside the other brushes Liv had lain—neatly, of course—on the counter to dry. New tile for the counter might have been a nice idea, too, but it hadn’t made it onto Olivia’s shopping list.
As Scott picked up the dish towel hanging by the sink to dry his hands, something clattered to the kitchen floor. He recognized the shiny red case of Liv’s cell phone.
He bent and scooped it up, grateful that the phone hadn’t come apart when it hit the floor. Thumbing a key at random, he saw the screen light up to display the time. No reception bars, of course. Liv still muttered about that sometimes, but she’d started to learn that up here, her phone was more often a glorified, less convenient, more expensive wristwatch.
She probably wouldn’t like being without it overnight, though.
He eyed the time on the screen: 6:40. He’d drop it off at Liv’s mom’s house on his way home. Maybe he’d see if she’d eaten dinner yet.
* * *
The house looked dim when Scott pulled up, but Rachel’s car sat in the driveway. Some sort of light was playing against the curtains at the front of the house. Maybe they were all inside with the lights out, watching a movie.
Well, it wasn’t like he’d be interrupting brain surgery, he thought, annoyed with himself for being so tentative.
Then Liv answered the door, and any trace of irritation melted.
She still wore the sweatshirt she’d been painting in, its white now accented with fresh splotches of blue. Her hair was gathered in the same loose ponytail she’d worn at the house, numerous strands escaping by now. And she was in her stocking feet, although the raised threshold gave back some of the height she would have lost.
She looked rumpled and inviting, and his voice caught in his throat as he held up her phone. “You forgot something,” he said.
“Oh!” Liv patted down her jeans pockets as if she expected, somehow, to find her phone there instead of in his hand. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice.”
“Yeah, well . . .” He fumbled for something clever to say. “Paint fumes. They go to your head after a while.”
Her face lit in an unguarded grin as she took the phone from him. He saw that the living room behind her wasn’t completely dark. A lamp on an end table provided some illumination for the gift wrap and boxes that were spread out on the living room carpet. The rest of the light came from—
Scott peered in to the right and saw the silver tree they’d put up last week, the light from the color wheel now washing over it.
“Oh, hey,” he said. “So that’s what it looks like.”
“That’s right. You haven’t seen it.” Liv stood back to let him in, although he hadn’t been hinting for an invitation. Not consciously, anyway. Scott walked in, and she closed the door to shut out the chilly night.
Scott stepped closer for a better look at the tree. It was a simple enough trick, the way the silver metal of the artificial needles mirrored the changing colors. Still, he’d never seen anything quite like it.
“I know it’s corny,” Liv said. “I think maybe you have to see it when you’re a kid to really . . .”
As he gazed at the tree, watching the colors change, it took him a second to realize Liv had trailed off. “No,” he said, “I wouldn’t say that.”
The play of colored lights had a sort of fascination to it, like watching the waves of the ocean. Scott watched the shiny branches go from a frosty, pale blue to a warm, fiery orange . . .
When the tree was new, no doubt it had seemed modern, state-of-the-art. Now it was old-fashioned in a different kind of way, with a charm that was hard to describe. Maybe because the colored lights had passed over it enough times for the tree to witness its own set of memories.
That sounded weird. Scott settled for, “I like it.”
From the television set in the next room, he heard Desi Arnaz’s distinctive laugh. Darned if they weren’t watching I Love Lucy, something that was probably already in reruns the first time the tree was set up. He grinned at the unintentional time warp as he caught Liv’s eye. She smiled back.
“Welcome to 1959,” he said.
His hand started for the small of her back in a reflex that felt as natural as breathing, just to put his arm around her, nothing more. He stopped himself, remembering the unwritten set of rules that had sprung up between them. But not touching her didn’t keep him from feeling close to her.
He returned his gaze to the tree, now an unlikely shade of red, and for some reason he thought of a red bandanna handkerchief.
“Even my grandfather used to make fun of it,” Liv said. “He said the red made it look like a fire truck.”
The blue returned, and suddenly Scott was thinking of blue denim. Overalls.
He frowned. “He wore overalls a lot, didn’t he?”
“That’s right.” He felt her eyes on him. “Did Nammy tell you that?”
“She must have mentioned it.” It made sense. He was a house painter, after all.
Orange washed over the tree again, and Scott pictured two red-haired girls, sitting on the floor in front of the tree. Then it was green, like the Grinch who stole Christmas. Red again . . .
Scott pinched his nose, trying to clear his vision. He didn’t say anything this time. But he was pretty sure Liv had had a red-checked flannel bathrobe when she was little. That Rachel had one like it, but in blue. And that their grandfather used to
carry those old red bandanna handkerchiefs.
He looked at Liv, who was contemplating the tree with a gentle smile of her own. “I’m glad you like it,” she said. “And I’m really glad you went back in and got it that day. It’s always been special. One of those childhood things.”
She turned to look up at him, shorter now than usual in her stocking feet. Her eyes were soft, probably under the spell of nostalgia, and something inside Scott said, now. He wanted to reach for her, to kiss her.
Liv’s cell phone chirped. She checked the screen, and Scott saw that softness fade away as her brow furrowed.
“What is it?” he asked.
She lowered herself to the couch, still frowning. “I don’t know yet. It’s from Terri. She wants to know if I got her voice mail.”
“Terri?”
“My business partner.”
Scott waited and watched as she entered codes into her phone and listened, one finger in the ear that didn’t have the phone held up to it. I Love Lucy still sounded in the background, but he felt the emotional climate in the living room shift as the furrows across Liv’s forehead deepened.
Then she slammed the cell phone, facedown, onto the coffee table in front of her. Scott flinched. Liv rose, her body rigid.
“You do know that’s not how you hang up that kind of phone, right?” Scott kept his tone mild.
Something like a stifled scream escaped through her clenched teeth. She paced the short distance to the living room wall, then wheeled, obviously aware she had nowhere to go. Cuddly-living-room Liv was gone, replaced by five-foot-eight of barely contained fury.
No way would he make the mistake, at this moment, of asking her if she was okay.
Instead, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t even speak English.” Liv closed her eyes and rubbed her jaw below her temples. Scott hadn’t seen her do that in days. “The guy I broke up with? Kevin? He was our silent partner. He was the one who convinced us to open a storefront for the business. He was the one who was supposed to put up his share of the rent at the beginning of the month, and Terri’s been trying all this time to reach him. She didn’t tell me.”
Her eyes opened. They locked with his. Her fury wasn’t directed at him, thank God, but he was the only other person around. He felt the force of it.
“She finally reached him,” Scott offered.
“And he’s bailing. Of course.” She took a deep breath, teeth still clenched, fingertips still at her temples. And with that deep breath, he saw her pull it all in, condensing her anger and frustration into a white-hot knot.
If all that concentrated wrath was ever released, he could see it knocking out the power of a major city. But when she spoke, her voice was quiet.
“We’ll be okay this month,” she said. “But it’s going to wipe out most of our reserves. She didn’t want to tell me, with everything that’s going on. And I’m the one who got us into this. I feel so stupid.”
“You’re not stupid. He’s a jerk.”
“So why did I ever trust him?” Liv lowered her hands from her temples, and just for a moment, her eyes glistened. “I feel like hitting something.”
Then she blinked hard.
“I want a margarita,” she said savagely.
From Liv, those sounded like fighting words. Scott studied her.
“I know of something better,” he said.
Chapter 18
The small white blur of a ball rushed out at her, and Liv swung the bat. Her hands buzzed with the impact as the bat connected. But, once again, the baseball spun straight upward and thumped ineffectually to the ground behind her.
Another ball came flying. She swung hard, and this time she stirred up a whoosh of air, but missed the ball completely.
“Whose idea was this?” She was only half joking.
“Yours.” Scott stood on the other side of the chain-link fence surrounding the town recreation center’s batting cages. “You said you wanted to hit something.”
“Hit something,” she repeated, swinging again. “Not chip it.”
This was her second round of pitches fired from the weird automatic cannon several yards in front of her. She was still having trouble connecting with the ball at all. A lot of foul tips and, so far, about three grounders. But when she connected at all, man, did it hurt. The ball was hard and it was moving fast. Fifteen minutes in, her hands, arms, and shoulders were complaining loudly.
“It takes practice,” Scott said. “That’s the name of the game.”
Did anything faze this man? He’d weathered her embarrassing tirade back at the house without even blinking. Now he had her outside, as the temperature dropped into the thirties, playing baseball. Or trying to, anyway. Her loose jacket flapped around her with every swing, and the sponge-filled helmet she was required to wear made her feel like Atom Ant.
The sadistic machine stopped humming, and Liv lowered the bat.
“My arms hurt,” she said, rubbing her shoulders.
“Good,” Scott said. “Now maybe you’re ready to focus some of that energy. Make it count.”
Opening the gate, he walked into the hypothetical batter’s box and stood alongside her. Scott pointed beyond the fenced area, clear to the horizon at the neighboring mountain peak darkly silhouetted in the distance. “Aim right there,” he said. “Try to hit it all the way to Mount Douglas.”
He stepped away and loaded more tokens into the coin slot mounted next to the gate. Liv eyed the mountain as the light on the ball-firing machine blinked to life again.
“Mount Douglas, or Kevin’s face,” he added, exiting the cage again. “Take your pick.”
A laugh of surprise blew out of her, and she missed the first pitch altogether. But half an hour ago, she wouldn’t have bet she could laugh at anything tonight.
She swung again and missed. “How do I keep an eye on the ball and the mountain at the same time?”
“Okay, I gave you bad advice. Aim for Mount Douglas. But keep your eye on the ball.”
A few swings later, Liv hit another grounder. Then another. It still hurt, but it was starting to feel good, too.
“Try to get under the ball a little more when you swing,” Scott said. “Sort of scoop it up. That’s how you’ll get the ball in the air.”
He seemed to know a lot about this. “Did you coach Little League or something?”
“Something like that.”
She made a few more tries as she tried the new swinging technique, missing the ball entirely. Then, suddenly, she hit the ball and it sailed straight out, level with her waist. It didn’t land until it collided with the tentlike structure that held the cannon, somewhere beyond where the pitcher’s mound would have been.
“That, madam, is a line drive.”
Liv felt a surge of satisfaction. She wanted more. By the end of the round of balls, she was hitting about half of them. Two more were line drives. Probably that was as good as it would get. She really wanted to hit a fly ball, but she’d kept Scott watching her for half an hour as it was. All on his dime—or his tokens, at any rate—and of course, he’d refused to take any of her money when she offered.
Reluctantly, she stepped back from the painted home plate on the concrete. “You want to hit a few?”
“Nah. It’s my night off. But I’d like to see you hit at least one home run before we go. I’m pretty sure you’ve got one in you.”
Crossing her arms in front of her, she rubbed her upper arms and shoulders. She rotated one arm, then the other. Her muscles protested.
“Is that you loosening up?” A spark of challenge lit in his eyes. “Or is that you giving up?”
She knew darned well what he was doing. A little reverse psychology, trying to tick her off and get her motivated. But at this point, she was as ticked off at the ball as she was at Scott or even Kevin.
In fact, she’d forgotten about the mess with Kevin for a few minutes.
Liv lifted her chin, accepting Scott’s challenge. “I’m game.”
“Okay.” He opened the gate again and walked toward her. Her stomach dropped, not sure if she was ready for whatever he hand in mind.
But when he reached her, he turned her around, giving a brisk, loose massage to her neck and shoulders, shaking her arms to loosen them.
“All right,” he said. “Now, before we start the next round of balls, step up to the plate again.”
Liv did. He followed, still standing behind her.
“Hold your bat.”
She did. Then he put his arms around her, his hands holding hers over the bat, directing her to reposition her fingers higher up the neck of the bat. She felt the warmth of his body against her back. This could turn into funny business pretty quick, but so far he seemed to be playing it aboveboard. And when had Scott ever not been on the level?
Even so, her heart was speeding up.
“Widen your stance,” he said, a suggestive line if ever there was one. Liv set her feet farther apart, bending her knees, trying to ignore the touch of his hands over hers. And the way her palms were sweating.
“Work with me here,” he said, his voice near her ear. “Concentrate.” Slowly, he guided her arms back, then forward into that scooping-swinging motion. Back and forth. It was a little like dancing. “Feel that?”
Oh, she was feeling it, all right. Scott stopped swinging, and she closed her eyes, grateful that her back was turned to him. Baseball, she reminded herself, letting her breath out in a slow, silent sigh.
“Now, put your weight behind it,” he said. “All the way back, then swing and follow through.”
He guided her through the motion several more times. Liv tried to follow suit, ignoring the little sparks that stirred up inside her.
She really wanted to hit that ball, she reminded herself.
Scott let go and stood back. “Let me see your swing again. Remember, keep your weight with it.”
Standing alone, feeling self-conscious, Liv pantomimed a few more swings until she felt slightly less ridiculous. She could do this. She was nothing if not a good student.
“Okay,” Scott said. “This is the last round. You’ve got twenty tries. You’re going to nail that ball.”
We Need a Little Christmas Page 17