by Gina Wilkins
“Must be hard for your other boyfriends to compete.”
She took the pan of steaming cocoa off the heat, setting it on a cool burner. “So far, no one's been able to.”
“So what would it take?”
She could feeling him watching as she ladled the hot beverage into mugs. He wasn't an easy man to banter with-if that's what they were doing. He was too serious, too intense. And his humor was unpredictable, to say the least.
Still, she gave it a try. “He'd have to be generous, of course.”
Banner's left eyebrow rose. “Opening his home to stranded holiday travelers, for example?”
“Um, yeah, something like that.” She kept her gaze focused on the ladle as she reminded herself yet again that he couldn't be taken too seriously.
“What else?”
She cleared her throat. “He should be resourceful. A good provider.”
Banner reached into the pantry and produced a bag of marshmallows for topping the hot cocoa. “How did you like the tree I found?” he asked as he handed her the bag.
Was he really comparing himself to Santa Claus? She plopped a couple of marshmallows into a mug. “It's a lovely tree.”
He was standing rather close to her now, his arm making contact with hers again as he set one of the filled mugs on a big tray. “So what else would a guy have to do to compete with Santa for your affections?”
“He would have to be jolly, of course.”
Banner had been reaching for another mug. His hand went still. “Jolly?”
“Jolly,” she repeated firmly.
Thoughtfully he finished transferring the mugs to the tray. “I don't suppose you would settle for two out of three?”
She smiled at him then, a bit more confident, now that she had decided he really was teasing, in his odd way. “I never settle.”
He heaved a somber sigh. “That's what I suspected.”
Balancing the tray with the skill of a seasoned waiter, he nodded toward the living room. “Let's go check on the progress of the tree.”
She would have liked to remain behind for a moment, just to savor the pleasure of that unexpectedly lighthearted exchange, but he was obviously waiting for her to precede him. Keeping her smile firmly in place, she walked into the living room, knowing the past few minutes would replay themselves plenty of times in her mind.
Chapter Five
Borrowing the keys from Joan, Banner slipped out to her car later that afternoon to retrieve the large plastic bags she had described to him. Stuffed into her trunk, the black drawstring-topped bags held wrapped presents for the children. There were other presents in the trunk, but Joan had instructed him to leave those, since they were for other members of her family.
He hauled the bags to his workshop. It was becoming somewhat easier to walk as the ice slowly melted. Still slippery, though, he mused, placing his boots carefully as he carried the bags to his workshop. The ground had pretty much turned to mud beneath the ice.
Glancing toward the road, he noted several large exposed patches, but no longer frozen asphalt. Ice covered the road in the shaded areas, making travel extremely hazardous, but he'd bet it would be navigable by tomorrow afternoon. His guests would be on their way, which was good for them since he knew they were anxious to be with their families.
The house was going to seem quiet after they left, he thought. It was usually the way he preferred things, but he had to admit-rather to his own surprise-that he had sort of enjoyed the last few hours. Thanks to Lucy, he added thoughtfully. Of all his guests, he knew she was the one who would linger in his thoughts after everyone was gone.
Half an hour later he was still puttering in his workshop when the door opened and a head poked in. Lucy's head, to be specific.
“Banner?” she said. “May I come in?”
He was working at a table he'd pulled close to a back window for light. “Sure,” he said, setting down the sanding block he'd been holding. “Come in.”
She had donned her warm black parka over her Christmas sweatshirt and jeans, he noted. Black leather gloves covered her hands, and the green knit hat perched on her riotous red curls made her look more like a Christmas elf than ever. Her sparkling green eyes and rosy cheeks only added to the image. But that sexy full mouth…his gaze lingered there for a moment as he wondered just how those perfect lips would taste.
“I hope you don't mind, but I was curious to see where you create that beautiful furniture.”
Roused from his inappropriate thoughts by her words, he nodded and swept a hand around in invitation. “This is it.”
Standing in the center of the drained concrete floor, she turned slowly in a circle to study the rows of power tools on wheeled stands, the long workbenches above which hung cabinets filled with hand tools and materials, and the neat stacks of wood in racks against the far wall. A woodstove sat in one corner, keeping the temperature comfortable. Banner preferred central heat when the electricity was on, but since he lived in a rural area where power outages were fairly common, he'd left his great-uncle's old stove in place.
Lucy paused to admire a couple of rockers and Adirondack chairs in various stages of completion, and then she wandered over to his table, studying the items he had been working on. Her eyes lit up. “Are these for Tyler and Tricia?”
A bit self-consciously he shrugged. “Do you think they would like them?”
Lucy beamed at him. “Of course they will. They're lovely gifts.”
She ran a gloved hand over the smooth footboard of a doll-size Shaker cradle. He had built the cradle out of pine and had stained and buffed it to a rich golden glow. Sitting beside the cradle was an eight-inch-high semi cab, hooked to a foot-long trailer that hauled a detailed backhoe tractor, all crafted of oak and finished to a matte sheen.
The truck-and-backhoe rig represented quite a few hours of work. It was a project Banner had made of scrap wood after seeing the pattern in a woodworkers magazine. He hadn't made it for anyone in particular, but because the project had appealed to him at the time.
The cradle was left over from a batch he'd made to sell in a Branson craft store. It had lacked only a final light sanding with very fine sandpaper, which he had just completed. He would go over it again with tack cloth to collect dust, and the cradle would be ready for play.
Even before he had known that Lucy and Joan were planning a visit from Santa, he had decided to give these toys to Tyler and Tricia. It just seemed to him that kids needed a little extra attention at Christmas. Lucy had come up with the arts and crafts projects, while Pop and Bobby Ray had entertained with music and funny stories. Working with wood was Banner's only talent.
“The detail on this rig is amazing,” Lucy marveled, lifting the jointed front-end loader and backhoe with the attached side levers. “I can't imagine how much time went into this.”
“I don't watch a lot of TV, and I don't socialize much,” he replied, pleased by her compliments. “Working with wood helps me pass the time. This was a pattern I wanted to try just for the heck of it. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I'd like to give it to Tyler, if you think he would like it.”
“What boy wouldn't like it? And what little girl wouldn't love this cradle? Of course,” Lucy added, “I suppose I'm being sexist. Tricia will probably enjoy playing with the truck and tractor, too, and Tyler might very well have a favorite stuffed toy or doll that he would enjoy putting to bed in the cradle.”
“So which did you prefer when you were a little girl? Dolls or trucks?”
“I played with trucks,” she replied, then wrinkled her nose in what he considered to be an adorable expression. “But I really loved my baby dolls.”
“I can tell by watching you with Tyler and Tricia that you like kids.”
“I love children. I'd like to have at least two of my own-once I find that Santa Claus substitute to father them,” she added with a laugh.
Banner couldn't imagine that it would be difficult for Lucy to find someone willi
ng to fill that role. She certainly seemed to have a great deal to offer a man who was interested in marriage and kids. Which didn't include him, of course.
He had tried the marriage thing, and it had been an abysmal failure-something he should have predicted from the start. Considering his history with relationships, he had no desire to risk making a fool of himself like that again.
Not that Lucy would be interested even if he was, he assured himself. After all, she was looking for a frigging jolly Santa Claus.
“What's that expression?” Lucy asked him suddenly, studying him with her head cocked curiously to one side. “You're frowning as if someone just stomped on your ingrown toenail.”
That comment changed his frown to a slight smile. “I don't have an ingrown toenail.”
“So what's the problem?”
“No problem. I was just wondering if I should ask Joan's permission before giving her kids gifts.”
“She'll probably be delighted.”
“Still, it might be best for me to clear it with her first.”
Lucy had wandered back over to the rocking chairs. Banner had noticed that she wasn't the type to stay in one spot for very long.
“These are beautiful. You're so talented. Have you always been a professional woodworker?”
“I've had other jobs but nothing I liked this much. When my great-uncle left me this place, I was able to take over the business he had started. He's the one who taught me everything I know about working with wood.”
“It sounds as though you were very close to him.”
“I was,” he answered with the familiar lump that always came into his throat when he thought of his uncle Joe. He still missed the old coot.
Lucy sat in the one finished rocker and began to rock, sliding her gloved hands appreciatively over the armrests.
“Are your parents still living?”
“Yes.”
“Where do they live?”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Just curious.”
He doubted that her curiosity would be satisfied with a simple answer, so he gave her the expanded version. “My father and his wife live in Nashville, Tennessee. They have a daughter who is finishing medical school at Vanderbilt and a son who's in his first year of law school. My mother and her husband live in Lexington, Kentucky, close to their two grown daughters. Both the girls are married, and they each have one child.”
She had followed his family details attentively, and he had no doubt that she could quote it all back to him. Lucy was definitely a “people person”-someone who was actively interested in other people's lives and opinions. Again, unlike himself.
“Your siblings aren't much younger than you,” she commented. “Your parents must have divorced when you were very young.”
He reached out to idly roll the truck back and forth with one finger. “My parents were never married. They split up before I was a year old.”
If that shocked her, she didn't let it show. “Did you live with your mother?”
“Part of the time with my mother, part of the time with my paternal grandparents here in northern Arkansas. This is where I preferred to be because my great-uncle was here. He never married and he had no kids, so he and I sort of bonded.”
She was studying his face a bit too closely now, obviously trying to read his emotions. Long accustomed to keeping his feelings hidden, he wasn't concerned that she would see more than he wanted to reveal.
“Did you see your father very much?” she asked.
“I spent the occasional weekend and holiday with him and his family. We get along fine, just don't have much in common.”
Lucy rocked a bit faster, which Banner figured was a clue to the questions racing through her mind. “Didn't you want to spend the holidays with family? Didn't your parents want to see you?”
He shrugged. “My parents have plenty of family around for the holidays. They both invited me, but I wasn't in the mood this year. I have a furniture order to finish, and I had a hunch the weather was going to be bad. Besides, they tend to get their noses out of joint when I choose one over the other.”
“They fight over you?”
“They compete for me,” he replied. “Not quite the same thing. Truth is, neither one particularly cares whether I join them as long as I don't choose the other one, instead.”
Okay, that was more than he had intended to say. He blamed the slip on his preoccupation with how fetching Lucy looked sitting in his rocking chair with her sexy mouth, rosy cheeks and silly green hat.
Her pretty mouth immediately formed into a sympathetic frown. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I tend to ask too many questions sometimes. I didn't mean to pry-”
He shrugged. “It's okay. I can understand why you'd be curious about why a guy with so much family would choose to spend Christmas alone with his dog. Especially when you were willing to risk life and limb in an ice storm to get to your family.”
“I don't get to see my father very often. He travels a lot in his job with the army, even though he's officially stationed in Texas. Christmas is the one time he makes a determined effort to get home. My aunt and uncle are like my second parents, and my cousins are as close as I have to siblings. I'm crazy about all of them.”
Banner would be willing to bet they all felt the same way about her.
She hopped suddenly out of the chair and headed toward the door. “I'd better go see how everything is going inside. Last I looked your whole living room was being decorated.”
Banner was almost surprised to realize that it didn't particularly bother him to hear that.
The children were pleasantly tired by late afternoon. Tricia fell asleep on the floor beneath the lavishly decorated Christmas tree. Tyler was on his stomach on the rug in front of the fire beside Banner's dog. An open comic book lay in front of them, and it looked for all the world as if both boy and dog were enjoying the pictures.
Joan was reading a paperback in a chair beside the window. Having napped for a short while after lunch, Miss Annie had returned to her rocker and her knitting, her long needles clicking industriously. Pop and Bobby Ray sat on the couch engaged in a low-voiced conversation that seemed to consist mostly of tall tales about hunting and fishing.
Lucy was curled up in Banner's big recliner, her sock-clad feet beneath her and a book lying open and unread in her lap. It was a lazy, cozy scene, and she could appreciate the peacefulness of it, but it bothered her that their host was outside alone while his guests enjoyed each other's company.
She thought about the things he had told her of his childhood-okay, the things she had pried out of him, she amended sheepishly. She had left him rather abruptly because so many more questions had been bubbling inside her that she had been afraid she would offend him with her nosiness if she didn't hush.
Still, she couldn't help considering everything she had learned about him and reflecting on how his childhood experiences had molded him. He didn't remember his parents as a couple, but both parents had married and started new families while Banner was quite young. He had spent his time being shuttled between his mother and his paternal grandparents, bonding most closely with a great-uncle who had never married.
Had Banner felt like the odd man out in his parents' homes? Their youthful mistake, perhaps? Was that why he always seemed to be off to one side of a room, watching others interact?
She wondered how he got along with his stepparents. Had they accepted him, made him feel welcome in their homes, or had they seen him as an intrusion? Perhaps his stepmother had felt that way, which might explain why he seemed to have spent so little time in his father's home. The occasional weekend and holiday was the way Banner had described his time there.
Not that any of this was Lucy's business, of course. She doubted that he would appreciate knowing she was sitting here engaged in armchair analysis of him. She just couldn't seem to help it. The man simply fascinated her.
As if he had heard her thinking of him, Banner appeared in th
e doorway of the living room. He entered silently, his gaze skimming the room and settling on Lucy.
He had left his wet boots behind, and his feet in their thick wool socks made no sound on the hardwood floor as he approached the recliner. “Quiet in here,” he said, pausing at Lucy's side.
She smiled and nodded. “I think the children wore themselves out. How do you like your Christmas decorations?”
He looked around the room again, and she tried to see it from his point of view. The cedar tree in the corner was very festive now with its strings of popcorn and chains of colored paper. Glitter-and marker-colored paper ornaments cut out in shapes of snowflakes, stars, bells, angels and gingerbread men dangled from the branches on strips of ribbon.
More paper chains draped the mantel, and glittery paper stars had been scattered randomly around the room. Along with the firelight and the candles burning in shadowy corners, the handmade decorations were reminiscent of an old-fashioned Christmas.
“They made a lot of ornaments,” Banner commented.
“They really got into it,” she answered with a smile. “I think they depleted your craft supplies.”
“That's what the supplies were here for.”
“We turned the radio on for a little while-we didn't want to run down the batteries too quickly. The latest weather report said that temperatures are expected to remain above freezing tonight-just barely-and to rise into the midforties tomorrow. Some roads are already clearing, and crews are working around the clock to restore power.”
“Sounds like a promising report.”
“Bobby Ray's boss is sending a wrecker tomorrow to get the truck back on the road. And Pop's grandsons are planning to come tomorrow afternoon. One of them will drive Pop's truck to Harrison. Even though Pop insisted he was perfectly capable of driving himself,” she added in a low voice with a glance at the elderly man. “Apparently, his grandsons wouldn't hear of it.”
“Good for them. I'll feel better if he doesn't head out on his own without someone to help him in case of trouble.” “So will I.”
“What about you?” Banner's gaze was focused on the flames in the fireplace as he spoke casually. “Are you heading out first thing tomorrow?”