Bring Me Home for Christmas

by Robyn Carr

  “I heard about that,” she said with a laugh.

  “Virgin River isn’t too accommodating to the growers. We like life as uncomplicated as possible.”

  The comment left Becca thinking about the complications in her life. She’d never been happier, but the issues were still there—no job, little money with an apartment in San Diego and the rent due, the love of her life living hundreds of miles away. And while he said he loved her, she knew he loved this town, too. In this town, he finally found what he’d always been looking for.

  “A cloud just passed over you,” Jack said.

  “I think it was that word—uncomplicated. I have a broken ankle, no job to go home to and Denny lives here, while I live so far away….”

  “Since those are things you can’t do anything about today, try to enjoy the things that are going right,” Jack said.

  At that moment, the thing she enjoyed most about her present circumstances walked in the door. He dragged off his hat and as his eyes lit on her, he began to beam. You’re right, she thought. And as he took the seat beside her, he dropped a possessive kiss on her cheek and grabbed her hand.

  “Lunch?” Jack asked.

  “Two,” he said. “Thanks. What is it today?”

  “Pulled-pork sandwiches. I’ll get ’em. And then I’ll leave you two alone.”

  Eleven

  After lunch, Denny drove Becca down the street and carried her up the steep stairs, while she held on to the crutches. She could have stayed at Preacher’s house and even napped there, but she chose instead to be out of the way for at least a couple of hours. And Denny was thrilled to get her alone in that little one-room apartment over the garage. He barely had the door closed before he pulled the crutches out of her grip, whirled her around and had her on the bed, his lips hot on hers. He rolled with her until he was lying beside her, snuggling her close. They didn’t even have their jackets off before his breathing was coming hard and raspy.

  “Don’t you have to work?” she asked in a breathless whisper.

  “I’m thinking of a leave of absence,” he said, pulling her shirt away from her neck so he could cover her with kisses.

  “I remember this about you… You’ve always been so passionate. Is this normal?”

  “I don’t know, but I think you’re going to be stuck with this now.”

  “Poor me…” she whispered, holding him close.

  “Okay with you if I just chase you till you’re about ninety?”

  “Only ninety?”

  “You don’t know how hard it was to go to work this morning. How hard it is to think about going back this afternoon.”

  “I’ll be here later, too.” It didn’t seem to be slowing him down. His hands were moving. “Go to work, Dennis.”

  “Ugh…”

  “Do you think you’ll ever have time to show me the place you work?” she asked.

  He lifted his head from her neck. “Would you like to see it?”

  “I would, if your boss wouldn’t mind.”

  “She’d be thrilled. I’ll take you tomorrow. Bring a book—after a tour, you’ll have to wait for me to get my morning work done.” He sat up reluctantly. “I’ll go now, but I’ll see you later.” He closed his eyes briefly. “God, you smell good.”

  “You’d better leave before you change your mind again.”

  “Get a nap, Becca. Rest up.” He put her crutches by the bed so she could reach them and headed for the door. “I kept you up half the night. Sleep.”

  That was exactly what she intended to do. She pulled the corner of the quilt over herself and with a smile on her face, she conked out immediately. When she woke, it was almost three in the afternoon. She pulled herself up, stretched and reached for the paperback that was sitting on the bedside table.

  It didn’t take her long to feel like getting out and the only thing she could think of was Jack’s. By the time she got down the street, she noticed Danielle and Megan, walking into the church. Drawn to the kids, secretly hoping there was another activity she could help with, she followed them.

  When she was inside the church doors, she heard voices. She had to manage a few stairs to get up to the sanctuary. There, at the front of the church, the pastor’s wife was talking to the girls as they were taking off their coats. “Hey,” Becca called to them.

  “Becca!” they both said, beaming.

  She made her way down the aisle. “More after-school projects?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid not today,” Ellie said. “The bus just dropped them off and I have work to do. I’m Noah’s wife and the church secretary. While I finish up in the office, the girls are going to work on their homework in the conference room. Trevor and Jeremy are in the basement, hopefully staying out of trouble.”

  “I can help with homework,” Becca said.

  “We don’t want to be any trouble, Becca,” Ellie said. “You probably have better things to do.”

  Becca laughed. “Well, I was going to go skiing, but it’s a little chilly for me.”

  “What about Denny?”

  “Denny’s working. I’ll see him at dinnertime. Really, I’d be happy to help with homework. I’m great at math and spelling and reading. Almost as good as I am with crafts!”

  Danielle smiled enthusiastically, but Megan’s eyes shifted away and she looked unmistakably sad. Becca put a finger under her chin and drew her gaze back. “What? You don’t feel like help?”

  Megan shrugged. “I’m not so good, that’s all.”

  “At what?” Becca urged.

  “Just about anything. I’m not that smart.”

  “Well, I don’t believe that for a second,” she said sweetly. “If I help, maybe we’ll figure out your best subjects. Almost everything gets easier with just a little coaching and practice!”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Ellie said. “Go on, girls. Show Becca to the conference room.”

  “Yay!” Becca said. “Let’s play teacher and students!”

  Once the girls got their homework spread out and Becca had her leg propped up, it took her about ten minutes to see that Danielle was not just up to speed on her work but perhaps ahead of her class. Megan, a year younger and only in third grade, seemed to be struggling.

  Becca tried to keep her attention fairly divided between the girls, but she really trotted out all her tricks to encourage Megan. She showed her a few simple exercises that would help her with the spelling words and her reading. “If you’ll copy this word ten times, sounding it out in your head when you write it, I bet when I ask you to spell it, you’ll get it perfect.” And, “Most of this adding and subtracting is just practice and memorizing.” And, “We’ll read together for a while, sounding out the words, and it will get easier every day.”

  There was a problem, however. While Danielle was excited about performing for Becca, Megan was dropping little bombs that didn’t bode well. She said she was going to flunk. “Of course you’re not—you’re doing quite well with this homework!” She said her teacher hated her. “I’m sure you’re wrong about that. It would be impossible to hate you—you’re so delightful!” Becca said. And the one that killed her—I’m so stupid.

  At first, Becca suspected the parents or siblings. It happened—words like dumb and stupid were tossed around the home and it hammered little self-esteems. But then her mind was changed.

  Becca asked if she could look at some of Megan’s papers. She had a folder with at least a week’s worth of work tucked inside. In fact, it was a great deal of work for an eight-year-old. She flipped through the pages and saw something she didn’t like. On all the papers that weren’t perfect, there were painfully negative remarks from the teacher. You can do better than this! This needs work! Do this spelling test again! This is late! Frowny faces!

  And on the pages that were excellent, no comment at all. Just a letter grade. A. B. No pluses, no minuses. No stars, no happy faces, no praise. No effort anywhere to encourage the child when she’d done well. Zero positive reinforce
ment.

  Becca had a sinking feeling in her gut. This was sadly familiar to her. For her, it was fifth grade, then again when she was a junior in high school. A couple of teachers who made their impact on her by being ruthlessly negative. The fifth-grade teacher kept telling her if she wanted to get to sixth grade, she’d better apply herself. It didn’t take long before she believed there was a sound chance she wouldn’t promote to the next level and her stomach hurt every morning before school. The high school English teacher, who seemed to favor the boys in the class, told Becca’s parents that she “wasn’t college material.” The family joke was that it was lucky Beverly Timm hadn’t been armed! Both teachers from hell; both enjoyed long careers even though they were mean as snakes and made no effort to help.

  Both times, Becca had believed her teachers hated her. What she eventually learned was that she was right! But the teachers actually disliked almost all their students and they weren’t crazy about teaching, either.

  Once Becca was a teacher herself, she had a closer view. The great teachers outnumbered the bad, thankfully, but it was hard to get rid of the ones who hurt. Their negative impact was so subliminal, so pervasive. So powerful!

  Fortunately for Becca, there had been a few teachers who made major changes in her life with their encouragement and positive reinforcement. At the end of the day, Becca graduated from high school with good grades, though she was nowhere near competing for valedictorian. She left college with a 3.2 GPA—a completely respectable performance.

  She’d gotten very good reviews on her teaching, but the feedback that meant the most to her was from the kids, most of whom seemed to strive to impress her. And there were parents of second graders who thanked her. She took that very seriously.

  The three of them worked on homework until Lorraine Thickson came to collect her kids. Her coat thrown over her pink waitress uniform, a great big purse hanging on her shoulder, she came into the conference room. “Ellie said you were working on homework,” she said by way of greeting.

  “That we are,” Becca said. “What a smart girl you have here. We’ve hardly started on this week’s work and she’s almost ready for that spelling test!”

  “Oh, that’s so nice!” she said, holding her arms open to her daughter. She leaned down and said, “Go find your brother and get your coat, honey.”

  Once Megan had run off, Danielle following her, Becca faced Lorraine. “I’m going to ask Ellie if we can do homework together after school again. Would that be okay with you?”

  A look of surprise and hesitation came over her face.

  “I have nothing to do except elevate my leg,” Becca said. “And they’re such fun. I should probably ask Christopher if he wants to join us, too.”

  “That’s awful nice of you,” Lorraine said shyly. “The teacher keeps asking me to work with her, but it’s almost impossible. I work five to five and—”

  Becca’s jaw dropped. “Five to five? A.M to P.M?”

  “The overtime comes in handy. My husband had a job injury and he’s home with the two little boys all during the day. By the time I get dinner and some chores done, Megan’s off to bed. I know she needs the help and Frank just doesn’t have the patience.”

  “She doesn’t need that much help,” Becca said, shaking her head. “She’s smart. She just needs a little encouragement. I looked at her papers—she’s doing fine. Nothing on her papers that would alert me to a learning problem, though I only saw about a week’s worth.”

  “She’s had a very hard year,” Lorraine said.

  “She told me about her dad. I’m sorry—it must be hard. I hope things will go better soon.”

  “Thanks,” Lorraine said. “That’s appreciated.”

  “So? Is it okay? Can we have a little homework club after school?”

  “If it’s okay with Ellie, I sure wouldn’t mind. In fact, I’d be so grateful.”

  “I’ll check that out. I have a feeling she’ll be okay with it.”

  Becca met Denny for dinner at the bar. Since there were no real cooking facilities in his little efficiency and given the fact that he helped out at the bar on most of his evenings, it made sense he would take almost all his meals there. During Thanksgiving week, the place had been fairly quiet—townsfolk had family obligations. But on this Monday night after the holiday, there were quite a few of the locals. Mel was there; Becca learned that it was pretty common for Jack’s wife and kids to have at least a couple of dinners a week there, often more. Jack’s sister, Brie, and her husband, Mike, turned up with their little daughter, making it a family affair.

  And there were others—Paul Haggerty and his family. Denny’s landlady, Jo, and her husband. The preacher stopped by for a cup of coffee before heading home. Connie and Ron from the store across the street came out for dinner. Paige stole out of the kitchen with Dana and Chris to sit with their friends. There were a couple of ranchers who dropped by. The owner of a local orchard stopped in for a beer. The doctor Mel Sheridan worked with came over for a few minutes before going home for his dinner. Each time the door opened, Becca could see the gentle glow from the giant tree outside.

  Becca met each one. When Denny introduced her as his girl, a teacher from San Diego, chatter started.

  “We been trying to get a teacher around here for a long time,” someone said.

  “We?” Jack asked. “Old Hope McCrea was looking but I don’t know that anyone else was, and Hope’s gone now.”

  “Did she move?” Becca asked.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Jack said. “She’s gone to the other side. Dead.”

  “Oh,” Becca said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Becca could tell Denny was itching to get her back to the privacy of his little room, but she was learning a few things about this town and she couldn’t be pried out of the bar. The children, even the first graders, were bussed to other towns to go to school. They all rode together, all ages. The driver dropped the youngest ones off first before going on to the middle school, then the high school. The ranchers and farmers from the outskirts of town drove their kids into Virgin River to catch the bus, which then took them to school, so for some of the kids it was at least an hour each way of travel. For kids like Megan, it could be a ten-hour day. And that for a child who wasn’t having an easy time of it.

  The folks around here put in long days, it seemed. Her first alert had been from Lorraine Thickson. Listening to the farmers and ranchers, they all started early, had very physical days and hit the sack early. Then there was Mel and the doctor, Cameron Michaels—they served the town and were on call 24/7. Jack was not to be left out. “Cry me a river,” he said. “I get this place open by six and we never close before nine. Unless there’s a snowstorm. I live for those snowstorms! The best ones last for days!”

  “I don’t live for them,” Mel said. “Roughly nine months after a big storm, we have babies…lots of babies.”

  The bar was filled with laughter that verified she was accurate.

  “I’ve been pushing for a school. At least for the little ones,” Jo Fitch told Becca. “I know we’re not a big enough town to rate our own high school, but I hate seeing those six-and seven-year-olds spending half the day on a bus.”

  “Does the county listen?” Becca asked.

  “Sure,” Jo said. “They gave us the bus. Molly’s been driving that bus for thirty years.”

  “You’re gonna want to stay out of her way, too,” someone put in, and the whole gathering laughed.

  “We could hire you, Becca,” Jack said. “As Hope used to say when she was trolling for a midwife, then a town cop, ‘Low pay, bad hours.’ But at least you’d get to fight the snowdrifts and forest fires with the rest of us!”

  She laughed at him along with everyone else—he was joking, of course. The beauty of these mountains was growing on her, but she couldn’t imagine not living on the ocean. She’d been surfing and sailing since she was a child. In fact, that was about the only thing the thought of Cape Cod had going for it. />
  She was distracted yet again when she heard her name. “It was Becca’s idea.”

  “What was my idea?” she asked.

  “Watching all the holiday movies together,” Mel said. “Once school is out for Christmas vacation and we have babysitters for the little ones, we’re going to meet in Paige’s great room. She’s ordering the movies. I’ll get the decorations for the bar out tomorrow—if you weren’t on crutches, you could help. And this year, since we have a full-time preacher and full-time preacher’s wife, we’re getting together a children’s pageant. They’ve already started lining up the characters.”

  “I can bring the sheep,” Buck Anderson offered.

  “Thanks, Buck,” Jack said, “but we’re in need of a few camels. Got any of those lying around?”

  “We got us a bull, but he’s on the mean side….”

  While this big group of friends laughed, joked and planned, the bar began to fill up with people and Denny left her side to help serve and bus. Soon the place was packed.

  “Wow,” Becca said to Mel. “I had no idea the bar could get so busy. Last week, it was quiet.”

  “It’s the tree,” she said. “People come from miles to see the tree. Jack acts like he resents it—it’s a lot of work putting it up and his hours are longer than ever during the season, but it’s such a special tree and I know he’s secretly proud of it. He says he expects the wise men to drop by any second. That star. Have you ever in your life seen a more amazing star?”

  “The whole thing is amazing.”

  “This bar runs hot and cold. Jack built it mainly as a town watering hole and to serve as a place for hunters and fishermen, which is seasonal. Now he’s adding Christmas to his busy seasons because of that awesome tree. So, are you going to be around for some of our holiday plans? Like movie day and the cookie exchange and maybe the children’s pageant?”