Christmas Comes to Dickens

by Nancy Fraser

  “That can be arranged. Hang on. We’re going fast.”

  A food truck had lifted its side panel, and they got hot chocolate and took seats on one of the park benches that formed conversation areas around the pond.

  Jed watched Fee. She’d avoided looking at Roger whenever they’d skated past where he’d stood. Her empty hand moved restlessly on her leg. The liquid in her cup had little waves in it, and he saw that she wasn’t restless—she was trembling. “Are you afraid of him?”

  She straightened beside him, and both her hand and her hot chocolate went still. “I don’t have to be, do I?” she said.

  “No.” As far as he was concerned, she never needed to be afraid of anything or anyone ever again, but that was just a guy wishing he was Superman when he was probably closer being to Clark Kent, up to and including his press credentials. “I would be glad to beat him up again, since you’ve forgiven me for the first time. He’s bigger than me these days, but I’m pretty sure if I sneak up on him, I can still get the upper hand.” He looked hopefully at her. “Heather used to tell me I must have flunked sensitivity, but she gave me extra points for making her laugh.”

  He stopped. He hardly ever talked about Heather except to her boys. Not that he minded talking about her—sometimes he even wanted to—but his family and friends were reluctant to bring her name up in conversation.

  It felt really good.

  “What was she like?” Fee spoke softly from beside him. She set her empty cup aside and tucked her hand through his arm. “How did she keep you on the straight and narrow? Or did she?”

  He chuckled, relaxing on the bench and tightening his arm around her hand. “She was two inches shorter than me, which made her six feet, and five years older, which worried her a lot more than it ever did me. Neither of us had marriage in mind, but at the end of the day, it seemed like the better option for the kids. Their dad is a good guy and a decent father, but he doesn’t like the messy parts of parenting—his answer to everything was send them to their rooms and ground them—so they were with us most of the time.”

  “Was that hard?”

  “It was when we first started seeing each other, when they hated me and I wasn’t too crazy about them. But we grew on each other.” He grimaced. “They call me Pops. Can you believe that? Do I look like a Pops to you?” He jerked his head in the direction of Roger, who’d been joined by a boy and a girl carrying their skates. “His, do you think?”

  Fee shook her head. “He doesn’t have any, although I know he’s been married a few times, but his sister Sharon does. Those are her kids.”

  “What will you do if Ailey wants to meet him? Wants to meet her cousins.”

  “She knows them. Sharon called and asked if she could come to the shop and bring them. We were friends in school and we’re friends again. I’m surprised she didn’t let me know he was going to be in town.” She straightened, pulling her phone out of the little crossbody bag she wore and looking at the screen. “Actually, she did. She texted while I was at the train station with Ailey.”

  It bothered Jed that Kroft was free to show up in Fee’s and Ailey’s lives if he chose to. He wouldn’t if Jed was around, but that wouldn’t always be the case. Buying the lake camp didn’t mean he’d be living at Dickens fulltime. It would be a home base, not a home.

  “He won’t come around.” Fee sounded certain.

  “How can you be sure? He’s right over there. What’s to say he wouldn’t approach you if you were alone?” Fee laughed, and he glared at her. “It’s not funny, Fiadh.”

  “It is funny. Oh, not that it would be if he did that, but I’ve been single my whole life, Jed. I can take care of myself, and so can Ailey. Bad things happen—there’s no denying that—but standing around with can of mace in my hand isn’t going to be a part of either my life or hers.”

  After a moment of righteous, macho outrage, Jed laughed, too. “You asked me what Heather was like,” he said. “Well, she was like you is what she was. Or maybe you’re like her because she was older than you.”

  After a few more leisurely laps around the pond, during which Jed noted that Roger had left, they changed out of their skates and headed back into town.

  “That was fun,” said Fee, smiling up at him when he walked her to the door of her house. She looked down at the zippered tote that blocked the door. “What’s this?”

  Hopefully it was what Jed had arranged with Joanna to have dropped off. If not, Fee had an empty animal carrier. A strident pair of meows instantly assured him Joanna had done her part. Now, if Ms. Independence hadn’t completely changed in twenty years, the surprise he and Ailey had managed to pull off would be a good one.

  “Awww...”

  Oh, thank God.

  The pair of kittens had been born of a Ragdoll mother and a father “from a nice neighborhood,” as the breeder had said with a rueful shrug. Their lineage had made them both beautiful and affordable. The fact that they were the last two siblings in the litter explained Ailey’s reluctance to separate them.

  “Everything you’ll need for them is in the house,” he said, taking her keys from her and unlocking the door, since she showed no sign of doing it on her own. She held a kitten in each hand. “Joanna took care of all of that this evening while we were gone. Ailey and I picked them up yesterday while you were working. They spent the night with me last night. They’re really good roommates.”

  Inside, Jed poured them each a glass of wine while Fee got acquainted with Mistletoe and Holly, the names she gave the fuzzy kittens immediately. When they’d fallen asleep on the cushioned bed on the hearth of the pretty but nonfunctioning fireplace in the living room, Fee sat across the table from Jed. She mopped at the tears that insisted on rolling down her cheeks.

  “I never wanted Ailey to feel responsible for me, but she was worried about me being alone through the holidays. I hate that.”

  “No, you don’t, and you’ve got black gunk on your face. It means you raised a good kid. What more would you want from her than that she be a compassionate human being?” Like her mother.

  “Oh, good grief.” She went down the hallway to the bathroom, coming back a few minutes later with a scrubbed-clean face. “That’s what I get for trying to look good for a date.” She blushed as soon as she’d said the words, and looked around as if she was searching for something to unsay them with.

  Jed got up, going over to where she stood and taking her into his arms. For a moment, he just held her, giving all of her curves time to adjust to his planes and angles. Then he kissed her, taking his time about it, thinking...no, not thinking at all. Just feeling. It had been so long since he’d held a woman he lo...he cared about. Too long, Heather would say, but she’d know, too, what he’d been waiting for.

  “You were my best and last love,” she’d told him once during her illness, holding his hand in her thin one and laying her fingers up against his. “I’m not going to be yours. I’m good with that.”

  It should have felt wrong to let go of one love while holding another, but it didn’t. For the first time since Heather’s death, Jed gave credence to the thought that he might someday be happy again. Not yet, but someday.

  “The tree-lighting at the Common is Saturday night,” he said. “Want to go with me?”

  She nodded. “Most of the stores are opening back up afterward. A couple of the Klatchers are going to open Silver Threads after the lighting and man the cutting table. Ailey and I had planned to go.” She smiled, but there was an extra shine in her eyes. “Maybe you should kiss me again.”

  “Maybe I should.”

  Chapter 4

  SHE HADN’T EXPECTED to sleep after seeing Roger Kroft at the pond. She had sore ankles and a place on her elbow that had started hurting by the time Jed walked her to her door the night before. She was so very conscious of the emptiness of Ailey’s room across the hall from hers. She took the kittens into her room with her, setting their bed near the heat register.

  When she was unde
r the covers, she lay with her eyes closed and thought of being in Jed’s arms. Of the kisses that were undoubtedly the best kisses she’d had since kissing him back in high school.

  Not that there’d been that many, she reflected ruefully. She hadn’t been celibate her whole adult life, but she’d never gotten good at either full-blown relationships or being friends with benefits. There always seemed to be something lacking, and she’d finally decided the shortcoming was hers.

  Could she do it? Could she enter into a “happy for now” time with Jed? Even more, could she be the instigator? She didn’t consider herself shy—retail wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for non-people-persons—but she’d never done the asking. He’d say yes, wouldn’t he? They liked each other a lot—there was no issue with that. After the tree-lighting, maybe she’d—

  Not expecting to sleep had lasted less than five minutes, she thought when she woke to two balls of fur batting paws with each other on her chest. She wondered vaguely how they’d gotten onto the bed, then played with them until nature urged her to get up.

  The following days in Silver Threads & Golden Needles were busy ones. She and Joanna prepared sale displays for the tree-lighting shoppers and put almost all the holiday fabric on a clearance table. Each day, groups of women came in to choose and buy for quilts they were making at the beginning of the New Year, which involved the taking out and putting away of at least fifty bolts of fabric in every color and pattern imaginable.

  Arranging things in the store window and filling a raffle gift basket with sewing notions and fat quarters on Friday, she looked up in time to meet Roger Kroft’s eyes. She felt the color leave her face. She wanted to lock the door and hide in the back of the store, but her words from the day before ...standing around with can of mace in my hand isn’t going to be a part of either my life... stopped her. She nodded stiffly and looked away.

  Don’t let him come in.

  The next time she looked up, he was gone.

  She called Sharon when she had a break. “Why is he here?”

  Sharon hesitated. “It’s not my story to tell, Fee, but he won’t cause trouble.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Positive.”

  While it didn’t make her feel perfectly safe, it helped. She put him out of her mind. Life was too busy. Too much fun.

  She left the store early on Saturday, stopping on the way home to replenish the cat food and litter supply. Snow was falling again, and Dickens seemed to vibrate with the holiday preparations that filled it from the first of November through New Year’s. She couldn’t stop herself from looking around as she walked home.

  Her life hadn’t been very exciting, she acknowledged. Being a single mom was more about working hard than being adventurous. The biggest risk she’d ever taken was when she’d loaded up Ailey and a U-Haul and come back to Dickens to buy a failing business. It wasn’t failing anymore, but the risk wasn’t all gone—it remained built into a mortgage that might very well survive longer than she did.

  But too many changes were happening at once. Christmas without Ailey. Her daughter going away for at least a year. Seeing Roger Kroft for the first time since long before the birth of the child he’d fathered. Two fuzzy kittens residing in her house.

  Jed Healy.

  Even thinking about him made her...hungry. Oh, good God. Hungry? But there wasn’t a better word, although the pangs of yearning weren’t in her stomach, but lower, creating curling sensations in her abdomen she’d forgotten existed. Her breasts, which she’d have sworn she hadn’t once paid attention to since nursing Ailey, were both heavy and tender.

  She laughed, carrying the bags of food and litter into the house. That was probably where the illusion of added weight came from, not her suddenly active libido.

  Mistletoe and Holly charged to greet her, and she plugged in the Christmas lights and sat down with the kittens in her lap. What a good idea they had been. She took their picture with her phone, messaging the photo to Ailey. “I miss you,” she texted, “but they’re a good substitute!”

  She showered and changed into yet another holiday sweater and black leggings and French braided her hair. She started to put on makeup, remembered the mascara on her face the night before, and elected to stick with moisturizer and lip balm.

  She and the cats opened the door when Jed rang, and they all jumped back when his camera flashed. “Sorry,” he apologized, scooping up Mistletoe. “I wanted candid.”

  “Let me see it to find out if your version of candid is grounds for a lawsuit.” Fee leaned in to look at the image in the camera. “Wow, that’s a little better than I get on my phone. I guess there’s a reason people pay you for what you do, huh? Will you send that to me so I can send it to Ailey?”

  “I’ll send it to her,” he promised. “And you.”

  “You have Ailey’s phone number?” She didn’t why she was surprised, but she was.

  “How do you think we made the arrangements for Mistletoe and Holly? And”—he looked hilariously smug―“she is my goddaughter.”

  They walked downtown, their booted feet crunching on the snow. Jed held her hand much of the time, but released it so often to take pictures that they finally gave up the effort.

  “Was it this much fun when we were kids?” he asked as they listened to the high school choir sing a couple songs before going on. “My folks liked coming downtown for this, but I don’t remember us doing it, do you?”

  “We didn’t do it. We were too cool. And even when we did, you were taking pictures and I was with girlfriends pretending not to notice guys.”

  “Good point.” He put the cover over his camera lens and slipped his arm around her, pulling her in close and holding her gaze. “So? Are you noticing now?”

  “Noticing what?” She fluttered her lashes and grinned at him, wondering if there’d ever been a day that he was around that she hadn’t noticed him. And longed for him. And wondered what it would feel like to be as close physically as they were mentally. She’d wondered a whole lot about being close emotionally, too, but she didn’t want to think about that. Not yet, at least.

  She wanted to think about the warmth of him at her side, about her heart racing, and about the touch of his finger where it just barely stroked her cheek.

  They walked on, talking to old friends and new acquaintances. They stood and watched and laughed uproariously at the snowman-building contest across from the Common.

  At a certain time, as if someone had whistled them into silence, the crowd grew quiet and watchful. They waited for the announcements that preceded the tree-lighting, looking around as other lighting in the area dimmed and went dark. Squeals of both fear and excitement came from children. Even the Christmas music that seemed to come from all directions became quiet and promising.

  Then the tree lit, thousands of bulbs waking and glowing on the huge fir tree that had held the place of pride on the Common for more years than most anyone in town could remember. Following the universal breath of “ahhhh...” came cheers and applause.

  “Do you need to stop by the store?” asked Jed, as they walked away from the milling crowd.”

  “No. Actually, I was invited not to.”

  “You want to stop at Marley’s for a drink? It’s a good night for something mulled.”

  She waited for just a few beats, her nerves zinging almost painfully. She felt herself blushing—she fully expected she’d be blushing in her coffin—and reached for his hands, holding them and looking down as if something about their joined fingers was completely fascinating.

  “I have some cider at home,” she said, “in a slow cooker on the counter with mulling spices in it. And popcorn. And a fireplace even if it doesn’t work. We could pretend. And we could call out for pizza if we were hungry, too. You could—” She stopped, uncertain how to go on. How could a person be thirty-eight years old and scared to ask a man— “You could stay for a while.”

  He drew his hands away and lifted them to her face, holding
her cheeks so that she had to meet his eyes. Oh, that mesmerizing storm cloud gaze. She couldn’t have looked away if her life depended on it.

  Even if she’d wanted to.

  “For breakfast?”

  She smiled back into his eyes, smoothing their crinkling edges with her fingers. She wasn’t calm when she answered. But she was certain.

  “Yes.”

  JED WOKE WITH KITTENS sitting on his chest staring curiously into his face. One of them—he thought it was Holly—reached with a fuzzy paw and patted his scruffy cheek. “Where’s your mother?” he asked, stroking them under their chins.

  “She’s getting ready for church,” a voice called from the bathroom, “and she’s not their mother.”

  “They think you are.” He set the kittens aside and got up, pulling on underwear and jeans. Naked might be natural, and he was comfortable with his own body, but he wasn’t sure how Fee would feel about it in the daylight. Or how she’d feel about him. “Do you have a toothbrush?”

  “I do. Ailey’s friends never seem to come prepared.” Fee appeared around the edge of the door, wearing a dark blue dress that fit her curves as well and lovingly as his hands had the night before. “I laid it out in the hallway bathroom. You can shower if you like.”

  “I would.”

  She smiled at him and laid a small hand on his chest. “You don’t have to put your shirt on if you don’t want to, though. I really like you without it.”

  He grinned back. “I like you without yours, too.” He loved the pink that washed her cheeks, and he kissed one of them before pulling back. I’ll see you in ten.”

  She didn’t ask him to go to church with her and he didn’t offer. He knew from conversation that her faith was important to her. She knew from the same conversation that his was spotty at best. Having photographed nature at both her best and her worst, he had faith, but Heather’s end-of-life suffering had left him with residual anger.

  “What are you doing today?” he asked, putting his dishes into the dishwasher after they’d shared pancakes and bacon.