by Jenny Hale
Noelle set the brush down, the phone wedged between her shoulder and ear, and pulled her apron from one of the drawers in the bedroom where she’d put her things. It had been Gram’s apron, straight-seamed, pale blue, with little flowers on it. She slung it over her arm and walked into the sitting area to let Lucas know that she’d only be a minute more on her phone call. He was reading about dinosaurs in the book Alex gave him again.
“Did you meet any of the other actors? What kind of vibe did you get?”
“I met the producer and director as well as my co-star. They’re all really great. I can’t wait to get home and tell you everything!”
Noelle wanted to ask about Paul, but she thought better of it, worried she’d spoil the moment, and Phoebe was clearly very excited. “When are you coming back?”
“The day after tomorrow. The jet lag is gonna kill me, but there’s no use in staying here all by myself when I just want to be home with you and Jo. I want to get together right away!”
“Okay,” she laughed. “Call me as soon as you get back home.”
“I will.”
Noelle got off the phone and plopped down next to Lucas on the sofa, the apron draped between them. Lucas picked it up in his little hands. “It still smells like Gram,” he said.
Noelle nodded, willing herself not to breathe in the scent for fear she’d get misty-eyed. It had been a year now and still it felt like yesterday when Noelle had wrapped her arms around her. “Ready to make some cookies?”
Lucas jumped up. “Yeah!”
“Awesome. Let’s go!”
They met Alex in the kitchen. He was standing at the bar, reading the New York Times aloud with a cup of coffee in his hand while William sat beside him. They were being stoical, their laughter during the gingerbread-house-making now gone. But Alex read a little bit out to him and offered his opinion, William nodding in agreement. Were they actually getting along?
When Noelle and Lucas neared them, Alex folded his paper and set it aside. “We were just waiting for you guys,” he said. Then he turned to Lucas. “Hi there. Are you ready to show me how to make some cookies?”
Lucas nodded excitedly.
Noelle slipped her apron over her head and tied it behind her back, walking over to William. “How about you?” she said. “Are you ready to bake some cookies?”
“I suppose so,” he said, but she thought she caught the hint of a smile.
“We need Christmas music,” Lucas said. He turned to Alex. “Do you have a radio in here?”
“I can do better than that.” Alex pulled out his phone and hit a few buttons. Before he’d even slipped it back into his pocket, Nat King Cole came sailing out of speakers that were hidden in the crown molding. “Better?”
Lucas burst into a grin. “Yes. That’s really good.”
“Do you have a favorite Christmas song?” William asked, his features lifted as he listened to Alex and Lucas.
“‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’. Remember how we danced to that, Mom?”
Noelle couldn’t help her smile at the memory and the fact that Lucas remembered. It was last year. They’d been gone all day, running errands: a doctor’s appointment for Lucas because he’d had a sore throat and their weekly grocery run. They’d gotten home late—after Lucas’s bedtime. By the time they’d unpacked the groceries, it was at least nine o’clock.
She was rushing, stressed out, upset at herself for keeping Lucas up to get it all done, the guilt of having to do it alone eating at her. Then Lucas said, “Mom, listen to that.”
“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” was on the little radio in the kitchen. The smile on his face made her realize that none of her worries mattered because, to Lucas, it was all okay. She reached into the freezer, pulled out a popsicle for his sore throat, and gave it to him. With it in one hand, she grabbed his other, and started to spin him around, his socks causing him to slide all over the floor. As quiet as he usually was, he was so happy that night, letting loose with the delirium of illness and no sleep, and he’d laughed and laughed.
“Will you show me how?” Alex asked, typing on his phone again. Abruptly, the song changed to that familiar tune.
“How to dance? Easy. You have to take your shoes off,” Lucas said with a giggle.
“Okay.” Alex leaned against the barstool where he was standing and slipped his shoes off. Noelle grinned at his striped socks. “What?” He looked down at them and then eyed her playfully.
“Nothing,” she said, straightening out her face.
“What’s he done?” William said. “Don’t leave me out. I need a play-by-play.”
“He’s wearing striped socks,” Noelle said, trying to hide her affection for him. William took a seat and, with a dramatic flair, removed his own shoes while winking toward Noelle, making her outright laugh. “What socks did you pick out for me this morning?” he asked, wiggling his toes.
“Black,” she said, unable to hide her amusement.
While Noelle began pulling bowls from the cabinets and preparing the ingredients for the various cookie recipes, Lucas had Alex by the hands, dragging him around in circles. Alex made a silly face before twirling Lucas and making him double over at the hilarity of it. William was laughing along with them, and, while Noelle’s hands were busy, her mind was as well—this was more like it.
When the song ended, Noelle had most of what they would need set out. Lucas climbed up on the barstool next to William and Alex came up beside them. “There are three kinds of jobs in this business.” Noelle repeated the words that Gram had used with kids, smirking at Lucas. Holding up a finger, Noelle said, “One: the scoopers.” She held up a second finger. “Two: the pourers. And—” she held up the last finger. Lucas snickered. “—The squishers. Who should be our squisher, Lucas?”
“Well, there are four of us.” He pursed his lips. “You are a great pourer, Mom. You be that. I can be a scooper. And then let’s make William and Alex the squishers!” He burst into laughter, and Noelle tried to slow her racing heart. Lucas was having the time of his life, and she sent a silent wish into the air that they’d have many more days like this one.
“Oh no,” William said, with a look of mock worry, his toes still wiggling in his socks as he sat on the barstool, leaning on the counter on his elbows. “I’m afraid to ask what a squisher is.”
“I’ll show you,” Lucas said.
“Shall we make the ginger snaps first?” Noelle said, pulling those ingredients forward. She measured out the sugar, flour, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, and everything else that Gram usually put in the recipe. With the molasses, she couldn’t wait to see William and Alex do this… “You’ll need to wash your hands, gentlemen.”
To her surprise, both men walked over together, Alex guiding William to the sink, and they turned on the water, lathering up side by side.
After they had dried their hands, Noelle ushered both men to the table and set the enormous bowl, full of gooey ingredients, in front of them. “You might want to push up your sleeves,” she said, conspiring with Lucas as they complied.
“We need you to mix it up,” Lucas said. “Put your hands in and squish it all around until it’s all brown and sandy-looking.”
“Alex can handle this job on his own,” William teased.
“It’s a big bowl, William,” Noelle said. “We need four hands.”
Both men sunk their hands into the mixture and began to squeeze their fingers, moving them around inside. Lucas was holding his tummy, giggling.
“What’s so funny?” William asked, taking one hand out and trying to scratch his forehead without getting the dough on his face.
“You’re all messy,” he said, hiccupping with laughter.
“Oh, you think it’s funny, do you?” Alex stood up, dropping batter on the table. He went over to the other side with his thickly covered hands held up like monster claws. Lucas scrambled from his seat and started to run, sliding on the shiny floors. He slipped and caught himself on one of the
chairs, darting around it, laughing uncontrollably while Alex began to chase him through the kitchen.
“You’re going to make a mess,” Noelle said, but she was having the time of her life.
Alex stopped and turned toward her. “So it’s okay for me to have to get my hands messy but no one or nothing else can get dirty? That’s not fair.” He started toward her and she offered her you-wouldn’t-dare face. But he kept coming, a devious look in his eyes. She popped up and scooted a chair between them just as he dashed around it, sending her running across the room.
“Get your hands back in that bowl!” she demanded, ducking behind a display of poinsettias by the door. He swiped at her. She dipped down and ran off before he could catch her.
“And what will you do if I don’t?”
“Everyone listens to Mom,” Lucas said, before throwing his head onto his arms and laughing again.
“Oh, fine. I suppose I’ll have to listen then.” With an affectionate look at Noelle, he stopped chasing her and sat back down, but, before dropping his hands back into the bowl, he took one last swipe at her, making her squeal.
With the last batch out of the oven, Noelle and William settled around the table boxing up the cookies, a large assortment on a platter in front of them. Against her wishes, Lucas had said he was getting tired and asked if Alex could read stories with him in their suite. She’d told him no, but Alex had promised that it wouldn’t be a problem at all. She’d warned him that Lucas would need to brush his teeth as well, but Alex had pulled her aside and said, “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”
She’d never had a man tell her that before. His face had been so sure, so honest, that she didn’t have any choice but to believe him. And what she didn’t want to admit to herself was that she totally did believe him. She knew Lucas was in good hands.
“You and Alex are something,” William said, after Alex and Lucas had left. He put a piece of peppermint bark into one of the boxes. “I’ve never seen him like that before. It brought back so many memories.”
“Of?”
“When I was with…” He bit his bottom lip, unable to finish for a second. “She had a personality a lot like yours—playful but responsible.”
“The woman from the café?”
He nodded, closing the box of cookies with trembling fingers. “I can’t believe it—I’ve spoken more about her since you’ve come to live here than I probably have my whole adult life. I don’t know why the memories keep surfacing. Maybe it’s because I’m back here where it all began.” He lifted his head from the box. “I think it’s also because of all the life I see in you. I saw that in her too. There’s something untamed, that just was, with her. I can’t put my finger on it, but when I see you and Alex together, I feel that same thing. Tell him not to move to New York. He’ll listen to you.”
“I’m not so sure he will,” she said. Noelle was realizing more and more how this woman affected William. While he’d moved on, and found love again, it always came back to her, against his will. She had to wonder if she’d have the same fate: years later, torn apart by their very different lives, would she compare everyone she met to Alex?
Her heart ached just at the thought of Alex going to New York and she had to know that her life would get better if she had to live without him. “Tell me about Elizabeth,” she said, before William could counter her difference of opinion regarding Alex’s move.
William smiled a sad smile as if he’d read her inner thoughts. “She had a laugh like angels,” he said. “She could make a perfect bouquet of flowers and insisted on doing it herself for every occasion. She had a heart for stray dogs, and, while she never had one here, she organized adoption parties with local shelters and found homes for hundreds of them. The news made her cry—real tears—so she wouldn’t watch it.” He broke into a huge grin. “At parties, she was completely oblivious to current events, and she told me she didn’t care because the news was all about things that had already happened, things she couldn’t change, so it didn’t matter whether she knew what was going on or not. She said when it was her time to go—whether that be by war, an accident, or by natural causes—she didn’t want to know when it would be, so the news was pointless. She held firm to that her entire life, and you know what? I think it made her so much happier.”
“She sounds wonderful,” Noelle said, feeling a lump form in her throat. All she could think about was how lucky William had been to find that kind of love twice. If she had to find it again, would she be so lucky?
Chapter Twenty-Four
After getting William going for the morning, Noelle, carrying two boxes of cookies from last night, each tied with a large red bow, knocked on Alex’s office door. She was meeting her parents and Lucas at the bakery this afternoon once she’d gotten off work, so she had no time to waste and she wanted to talk to Alex. “I thought maybe you and I could take the cookies over to the neighbors,” she said, after he looked up from his laptop.
“Do you know if they’re home?” he asked.
“No, but that’s part of the fun. If they aren’t, we’ll leave them a surprise on the front steps. Do you know their names? I wanted to personalize the boxes.”
“I don’t. I’ve never met them.”
“You have neighbors on either side of you and you don’t know who they are?”
“I’ve never had reason to meet them.”
After she thought about it, he was probably right. Noelle doubted that he’d ever had to borrow an egg or a cup of sugar. He had a whole staff just to water his plants for him. And she was nearly certain he hadn’t needed a dog sitter like her mother had for Muffy…
“What are you thinking about?” he asked as he stood up.
“That you need a dog.” The sudden idea of this gave her a punch of happiness. She could just imagine Alex chasing after an enormous Labrador as it ran away from him with his favorite shoe.
“A dog? As in a live canine?” He took the boxes from her and tucked them under his arm, leading her out of his office.
She smiled, nodding. The look on his face made her laugh. “There’s so much space for a dog to run on this property. And William told me how Elizabeth loved dogs but never had one. It’s as if the house was meant to have a dog. It might be fun!” She knew she was only teasing him because soon he wouldn’t be here anyway, but she couldn’t help the tiny flicker of hope in the bottom of her chest that he’d decide to stay.
They paced together toward his suite, where Alex grabbed his coat. “I’m not sure my apartment in New York allows dogs,” he said, as if reading her mind. “And I’d have to walk it in the city—not my thing.” He slipped an arm into his sleeve.
“There’s a way to solve that issue,” she said.
He closed the door to the suite. “What? Get a dog walker?”
“No. Don’t move to New York.”
He didn’t respond for a few steps as they started down the hallway. She looked over at him to see his face, hoping she could tell what he was thinking, but he wouldn’t let his thoughts show. Then, out of nowhere, he stopped and faced her. “I didn’t plan for any of this. I had no idea a month ago when I signed the extension on the lease for my apartment and hired a full-time staff to run my company in New York that I’d be delivering cookies to strangers because the only person who’s come waltzing into my office with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen is also the first person who is able to pull me away from my work, because I can’t keep my mind on it anyway now.” He took in a breath, his jaw set as he shook his head. “But I can’t just throw it all away, Noelle.”
He was right, he shouldn’t throw it all away, but at the same time, she deserved to have someone who would do anything to make it work, and clearly he wasn’t the one to do that.
“There are jobs on the line here,” he said, obviously finishing his thought. “I’m sure you could imagine what it would be like for them if I change course now. Many of the people I hired in New York would lose their jobs—at Christmas. Not to mention that
, for what I do, it just makes sense to work in New York. That’s why my grandfather lived there for so many years.”
“He said it isn’t all that you think it is.” She didn’t know if she should be sharing William’s thought with Alex, but then again, maybe William and Alex should have this conversation and she could get things started.
“He’s just being sentimental about the house. He doesn’t mean that.” Alex started walking again, thoughts clear on his face. Finally, his voice calmer, he said, “We won’t solve this right now. Let’s get these cookies to the neighbors.”
They didn’t talk about it anymore on their walk over. It was quite a way in the cold. They’d walked along the street instead of over the grounds, the snow beginning to accumulate. But the whole way there, she thought about Alex and that hurt little child that was still inside him. Of course William was sentimental about the house, and Alex probably was too, even if he wouldn’t admit it. But it was a lot more than that.
They’d met Mrs. Bruster, the nearest neighbor. She was lovely and thankful for the cookies. She’d asked them in to warm up, but Alex had declined politely, telling her he’d hate to impose and they’d just wanted to say hello. She’d been curious about him, and over the years had wondered about his family, and she was so glad to have met him. The entire time they spoke, Noelle was thinking, and by the time they got back to the mansion, she had a plan.
“Come with me,” she said, taking Alex by the hand after they’d come in and taken off their coats. She lumped them on the railing.
His eyes trailing from the randomly placed pile of coats, Alex followed her. “Where are we going?”
“To fix something.” Her feet were numb from walking in the cold as she marched down to William’s suite.
“Is something broken? I can call—”
“This isn’t something they can fix,” she said. “Only you can mend this.”