A Christmas Message

by Debbie Macomber

  He hesitated. “Yes. However in this case—”

  “That’s why,” LaVonne said, interrupting him, “I took the liberty of making a dinner reservation for the two of you. Tonight—at seven-thirty. An hour from now.”

  “A dinner reservation,” K.O. repeated. Much as she liked and respected her neighbor, there was a limit to what she was willing to do.

  “It’s out of the question,” Wynn insisted.

  “I appreciate what you’re doing, but...” K.O. turned to Wynn for assistance.

  “I do, as well,” he chimed in. “It’s a lovely gesture on your part. Unfortunately, I have other plans for this evening.”

  “So do I.” All right, K.O.’s plans included eating in front of the television and watching Jeopardy, and while those activities might not be anything out of the ordinary, they did happen to be her plans.

  “Oh, dear.” LaVonne exhaled loudly. “Chef Jerome Ray will be so disappointed not to meet my friends.”

  If Wynn didn’t recognize the name, K.O. certainly did. “You know Chef Jerome Ray?”

  “Of Chez Jerome?” Wynn inserted.

  “Oh, yes. I did his taxes for years and years. What most people don’t realize is that Jerome is no flash in the pan, if you’ll excuse the pun. In fact, it took him twenty years to become an overnight success.”

  The Seattle chef had his own cooking show on the Food Network, which had become an immediate hit. His techniques with fresh seafood had taken the country by storm. The last K.O. had heard, it took months to get a reservation at Chez Jerome.

  “I talked to Jerome this afternoon and he said that as a personal favor to me, he would personally see to your dinner.”

  “Ah...” K.O. looked at Wynn and weighed her options.

  “Dinner’s already paid for,” LaVonne said in an encouraging voice, “and it would be a shame to let it go to waste.”

  A nuked frozen entrée and Jeopardy, versus one dinner with a slightly contentious man in a restaurant that would make her the envy of her friends. “I might be able to rearrange my plans,” K.O. said after clearing her throat. Normally she was a woman of conviction. But in these circumstances, for a fabulous free dinner, she was willing to compromise.

  “I think I can do the same,” Wynn muttered.

  LaVonne smiled brightly and clapped her hands. “Excellent. I was hoping you’d say that.”

  “With certain stipulations,” Wynn added.

  “Yes,” K.O. said. “There would need to be stipulations.”

  Wynn scowled at her. “We will not discuss my book or my child-rearing philosophies.”

  “All right,” she agreed. That sounded fair. “And we’ll...we’ll—” She couldn’t think of any restriction of her own, so she said, “We refuse to overeat.” At Wynn’s frown, she explained, “I’m sort of watching my weight.”

  He nodded as though he understood, which she was sure he didn’t. What man really did?

  “All I care about is that the two of you have a marvelous dinner, but I know you will.” LaVonne smiled at them both. “The raisins have already assured me of that.” She studied her watch, gently dislodged Phillip and stood. “You’ll need to leave right away. The reservation’s under my name,” she said and ushered them out the door.

  Before she could protest or comment, K.O. found herself standing in the hallway with Wynn Jeffries, her dinner date.

  Chapter Four

  If nothing else, K.O. felt this dinner would afford her the opportunity to learn about Wynn. Well, that and an exceptional dining experience, of course. Something in his background must have prompted a child-rearing ideology that in her opinion was completely impractical and threatened to create a generation of spoiled, self-involved brats. Although she didn’t have children of her own, K.O. had seen the effect on her nieces ever since Zelda had read that darn book. She was astonished by how far her sister had been willing to go in following the book’s precepts, and wondered if Zach understood the full extent of Zelda’s devotion to The Free Child. Her brother-in-law was quite the workaholic. He was absorbed in his job and often stayed late into the evenings and worked weekends.

  Chez Jerome was only a few blocks from Blossom Street, so K.O. and Wynn decided to walk. She retrieved a full-length red wool coat from her condo while Wynn waited outside the building. The moment she joined him, she was hit by a blast of cold air. A shiver went through her, and she hunched her shoulders against the wind. To her surprise, Wynn changed places with her, walking by the curb, outside the shelter of the buildings, taking the brunt of the wind. It was an old-fashioned gentlemanly action and one she hadn’t expected. To be fair, she didn’t know what to expect from him. With that realization came another. He didn’t know her, either.

  They didn’t utter a single word for the first block.

  “Perhaps we should start over,” she suggested.

  Wynn stopped walking and regarded her suspiciously. “You want to go back? Did you forget something?”

  “No, I meant you and me.”

  “How so?” He kept his hands buried in the pockets of his long overcoat.

  “Hello,” she began. “My name is Katherine O’Connor, but most people call me K.O. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  He frowned. “We did earlier,” he said.

  “This is pretend.” Did the man have to be so literal? “I want you to erase this morning from your memory and pretend we’re meeting for the first time.”

  “What about drinks at LaVonne’s? Should I forget that, too?”

  “Well.” She needed to think this over. That hadn’t been such a positive experience, either. “Perhaps it would be best,” she told him.

  “So you want me to act as if this is a blind date?” he asked.

  “A blind date,” she repeated and immediately shook her head. “I’ve had so many of those, I need a Seeing Eye dog.”

  He laughed, and the sound of it was rich and melodious. “Me, too.”

  “You?” A man this attractive and successful required assistance meeting women?

  “You wouldn’t believe how many friends have a compulsion to introduce me to the woman of my dreams.”

  “My friends say the same thing. This is the man you’ve been waiting to meet your entire life. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s a disaster.”

  “Really? Even you?” He seemed a little shocked that she’d had help from her matchmaking friends.

  “What do you mean even you?”

  “You’re blond and beautiful—I thought you were joking about those blind dates.”

  She swallowed a gasp of surprise. However, if that was the way he saw her, she wasn’t going to argue.

  He thrust out his hand. “Hello, Katherine, my name is Jim Carrey.”

  She laughed and they shook hands. They continued walking at a leisurely pace, and soon they were having a lively conversation, exchanging dating horror stories. She laughed quite a few times, which was something she’d never dreamed she’d do with Wynn Jeffries.

  “Would you mind if I called you Katherine?” he asked.

  “Not at all. Do you prefer Wynn or Dr. Jeffries?”

  “Wynn.”

  “I’ve heard absolutely marvelous things about Chez Jerome,” she said. Not only that, some friends of K.O.’s had recently phoned to make dinner reservations and were told the first available opening was in May.

  “LaVonne is certainly full of surprises,” Wynn remarked. “Who would’ve guessed she had a connection with one of the most popular chefs in the country?”

  They arrived at the restaurant, and Wynn held the door for her, another gentlemanly courtesy that made her smile. This psychologist wasn’t what she’d expected at all. After hearing his theories about Christmas, she’d been sure he must be a real curmudgeon. But in the short walk from Blossom Street to the restaurant, he’d disproved almost
every notion she’d had about him. Or at least about his personality. His beliefs were still a point of contention.

  When Wynn mentioned LaVonne’s name to the maître d’, they were ushered to a secluded booth. “Welcome to Chez Jerome,” the man said with a dignified bow.

  K.O. opened her menu and had just started to read it when Jerome himself appeared at their table. “Ah, so you are LaVonne’s friends.”

  K.O. didn’t mean to gush, but this was a real honor. “I am so excited to meet you,” she said. She could hardly wait to tell Zelda about this—even though her sister would be far more impressed by her meeting Wynn Jeffries than Jerome.

  The chef, in his white hat and apron, kissed her hand. The entire restaurant seemed to be staring at them and whispering, wondering who they were to warrant a visit from the renowned chef.

  “You won’t need those,” Jerome said and ostentatiously removed the tasseled menus from their hands. “I am preparing a meal for you personally. If you do not fall in love after what I have cooked, then there is no hope for either of you.”

  Wynn caught her eye and smiled. Despite herself, K.O. smiled back. After a bit of small talk, Jerome returned to the kitchen.

  Once the chef had gone, Wynn leaned toward her and teased, “He makes it sound as if dinner is marinated in Love Potion Number Nine.” To emphasize the point, he sang a few lines from the old song.

  K.O. smothered a giggle. She hated to admit it, but rarely had she been in a more romantic setting, with the elegant linens, flattering candlelight and soft classical music. The mood was flawless; so was their dinner, all four courses, even though she couldn’t identify the exact nature of everything they ate. The appetizer was some kind of soup, served in a martini glass, and it tasted a bit like melted sherbet. Later, when their waiter told them the soup featured sea urchin, K.O. considered herself fortunate not to have known. If she had, she might not have tasted it. But, in fact, it was delicious.

  “Tell me about yourself,” she said to Wynn when the soup dishes were taken away and the salads, which featured frilly greens and very tart berries, were delivered.

  He shrugged, as though he didn’t really have anything of interest to share. “What would you like to know?”

  “How about your family?”

  “All right.” He leaned back against the luxurious velvet cushion. “I’m an only child. My mother died three years ago. My father is Max Jeffries.” He paused, obviously waiting to see if she recognized the name and when she didn’t, he continued. “He was a surfer who made a name for himself back in the late sixties and early seventies.”

  She shook her head. Surfing wasn’t an activity she knew much about, but then she really wasn’t into sports. Or exercise, either. “My dad’s the captain of his bowling team,” she told him.

  He nodded. “My parents were hippies.” He grinned. “True, bona fide, unreconstructed hippies.”

  “As in the Age of Aquarius, free love and that sort of thing?” This explained quite a bit, now that she thought about it. Wynn had apparently been raised without boundaries himself and had turned out to be a successful and even responsible adult. Maybe he figured that would be true of any child raised according to his methods.

  Wynn nodded again. “Dad made it rich when he was awarded a patent for his surfboard wax. Ever heard of Max’s Waxes?” He sipped his wine, a lovely mellow pinot gris. K.O. did, too, savoring every swallow.

  “I chose my own name when I was ten,” he murmured.

  It was hardly necessary to say he’d lived an unconventional life. “Why did you decide on Wynn?” she asked, since it seemed an unusual first name.

  “It was my mother’s maiden name.”

  “I like it.”

  “Katherine is a beautiful name,” he commented. “A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

  If he didn’t stop looking at her like that, K.O. was convinced she’d melt. This romantic rush was more intense than anything she’d ever experienced. She wasn’t even prepared to like Wynn, and already she could feel herself falling for this son of a hippie. In an effort to break his spell, she forced herself to look away.

  “Where did you grow up?” she asked as their entrées were ceremoniously presented. Grilled scallops with wild rice and tiny Brussels sprouts with even tinier onions.

  “California,” he replied. “I attended Berkeley.”

  “I lived a rather conventional life,” she said after swooning over her first bite. “Regular family, one sister, two parents. I studied to become a medical transcriptionist, worked for a while and returned to college. I have a degree in public relations, but I’m currently working from home as a transcriptionist while looking for full-time employment. I’d really like to work as a publicist, but those jobs are rare and the pay isn’t all that great.” She closed her eyes. “Mmm. I think this is the best meal I’ve ever had.” And she wasn’t referring just to the food.

  He smiled. “Me, too.”

  A few minutes later, he asked, “Your sister is married with children?”

  “Identical twin girls. Zoe and Zara. I’m their godmother.” When she discussed the twins, she became animated, telling him story after story. “They’re delightful,” she finally said. Dessert and coffee arrived then. An unusual cranberry crème brûlée, in honor of the season, and cups of exquisite coffee.

  “So you like children?” Wynn asked when they’d made serious progress with their desserts.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, then added a qualifier, “especially well-behaved children.”

  His eyebrows arched.

  Seeing how easy it was to get sidetracked, she said, “I think children are a subject we should avoid.”

  “I agree.” But Wynn’s expression was good-natured, and she could tell he hadn’t taken offense.

  Even after a two-and-a-half-hour dinner, K.O. was reluctant to leave. She found Wynn truly fascinating. His stories about living in a commune, his surfing adventures—including an encounter with a shark off the coast of Australia—and his travels kept her enthralled. “This has been the most wonderful evening,” she told him. Beneath the polished exterior was a remarkable human being. She found him engaging and unassuming and, shock of shocks, likeable.

  After being assured by Jerome that their meal had already been taken care of, Wynn left a generous tip. After fervent thanks and a protracted farewell, they collected their coats. Wynn helped K.O. on with hers, then she wrapped her scarf around her neck.

  When they ventured into the night, they saw that snow had begun to fall. The Seattle streets were decorated for the season with sparkling white lights on the bare trees. The scene was as festive as one could imagine. A horse-drawn carriage passed them, the horse’s hooves clopping on the pavement, its harness jingling.

  “Shall we?” Wynn asked.

  K.O. noticed that the carriage was traveling in the opposite direction from theirs, but she couldn’t have cared less. For as long as she could remember, she’d wanted a carriage ride. “That would be lovely.” Not only was Wynn a gentleman, but a romantic, as well, which seemed quite incongruous with his free-and-easy upbringing.

  Wynn hailed the driver. Then he handed K.O. into the carriage before joining her. He took the lap robe, spread it across her legs, and slipped his arm around her shoulders. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to be in his embrace.

  “I love Christmas,” K.O. confessed.

  Wynn didn’t respond, which was probably for the best, since he’d actually put in writing that he wanted to bury Santa Claus.

  The driver flicked the reins and the carriage moved forward.

  “It might surprise you to know that I happen to feel the same way you do about the holidays.”

  “But you said—”

  He brought a finger to her lips. “We agreed not to discuss my book.”

  “Yes, but I have to know....”r />
  “Then I suggest you read The Free Child. You’ll understand my philosophies better once you do. Simply put, I feel it’s wrong to mislead children. That’s all I really said. Can you honestly object to that?”

  “If it involves Santa, I can.”

  “Then we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

  She was happy to leave that subject behind. The evening was perfect, absolutely perfect, and she didn’t want anything to ruin it. With large flakes of snow drifting down and the horse clopping steadily along, the carriage swaying, it couldn’t have been more romantic.

  Wynn tightened his arm around her and K.O. pressed her head against his shoulder.

  “I’m beginning to think LaVonne knows her Raisin Bran,” Wynn whispered.

  She heard the smile in his voice. “And her cat litter,” she whispered back.

  “I like her cats,” he said. “Tom, Phillip and...”

  “Martin,” she supplied. The men in her neighbor’s life all happened to be badly spoiled and much-loved cats.

  The carriage dropped them off near West Lake Center. Wynn got down first and then helped K.O. “Are you cold?” he asked. “I can try to find a cab if you’d prefer not to walk.”

  “Stop,” she said suddenly. All this perfection was confusing, too shocking a contrast with her previous impressions of Dr. Wynn Jeffries.

  He frowned.

  “I don’t know if I can deal with this.” She started walking at a fast pace, her mind spinning. It was difficult to reconcile this thoughtful, interesting man with the hardhearted destroyer of Christmas Zelda had told her about.

  “Deal with what?” he asked, catching up with her.

  “You—you’re wonderful.”

  He laughed. “That’s bad?”

  “It’s not what I expected from you.”

  His steps matched hers. “After this morning, I wasn’t sure what to expect from you, either. There’s a big difference between the way you acted then and how you’ve been this evening. I didn’t change. You did.”

  “I know.” She looked up at him, wishing she understood what was happening. She recognized attraction when she felt it, but could this be real?