by Melissa West
Brady went still, his eyes on her like he was trying to work through the disaster before him, before they slanted into slits, and before she could say another word, he lifted the tree up with both hands and started toward the shop.
Several people had walked out from their shops to take in the commotion, and Kylie had enough good sense to plant a smile on her face in hopes of faking that it was all a joke. But there was no pretending here. Anger radiated between them, building and building until it was a wonder they didn’t fight for control of the tree.
“You’re impossible.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly a peach yourself.”
“I said I had it.”
“I didn’t ask. Now get the door.”
Gritting her teeth, Kylie grabbed the handle and threw it open so hard it slammed against the doorjamb. “After you,” she said, motioning forward.
He grinned at her, no hint of the anger she’d seen before on his face. “Ah, see, you can be sweet. Who knew?” He went on into the shop, leaving her sputtering behind him.
“You need a stand.”
“No kidding, Sherlock. I have one.” She motioned to the stand she’d placed by the register that morning. At the time, she’d intended to see if Ally wanted it, but then the tree tent thing was there and the rest was history.
Brady dropped it into the stand and tightened the screws into the trunk. “Where do you want it? I’m guessing by the large window? Yeah, that’ll look best. I’ll put it there.” He moved before she could respond, and sure enough, it was the best place for the tree, but that didn’t mean she wanted him making the call.
“Any other decisions you want to make on my behalf? Should I invite you over to pick out my clothes in the morning?”
His lips quirked up. “Is that an invitation to see you undressed? ’Cause been there, done that. Have the virgin card still in my wallet.”
Kylie froze, her cheeks burning in humiliation as the words cut through her chest and into her heart. “Seriously?”
He took a step back, his eyes on the ground, then over to Franny, who had stood up behind the counter, a clear look of disapproval on her face. “I’ll just…” He nodded to his side of the shop, and Kylie focused on her tree, unwilling to look at Franny as she neared.
“You okay?”
Her lip trembled, but she clamped down on that sucker instead of allowing it to shake the rest of her. “Peachy.”
“If you want me to go back on what we agreed to, if it’s too much…”
Kylie rolled her shoulders back and smiled at her godmother. “No, it’s fine. I just need to get a little smarter around him, that’s all.”
Franny ran a hand over Kylie’s hair, smoothing it back. “Well see, that’s the problem with being around someone who knows you deep in your bones. Your bones might lengthen and grow, they might even break from time to time. But they’re still your bones, individual to you, that part doesn’t change.”
A moment passed, sadness creeping in at the realization that only two people in the world knew her deep down, deep in the bones as Franny said, and one of them just spoke as though all they had was nothing more than a virgin card eager to be picked up and then forgotten.
“You know if you cry I’ll have to kill him,” a voice called from behind them, and Franny and Kylie both turned to find Ally standing there, hands on her hips, her face full of sass. They all laughed, until her phone chirped from her back pocket and she jerked it out, her fingers moving at warp speed. “Come on, baby. Just one. Mama just needs one.”
Kylie leaned in closer. “The Real N Feel doll?”
“Yes,” Ally said. “And Walmart has one!” Her eyes flashed as she went to work pulling up the Walmart app on her phone and cycling through to find the toy. All three women stared down at her iPhone with bated breath as the toy loaded on the screen. Only to show all five versions with a giant out of stock beside them. Ally’s shoulders slumped. “I’m never going to find this thing, and then Rena is going to be in tears on Christmas morning and it’s all going to be my fault because I didn’t know in July that this thing was going to be the hot toy. Who could have known? And why didn’t the stupid manufacturer make more for the season? Seriously, how can you run out of supply before Christmas? It’s every parent’s nightmare.”
Kylie gripped her shoulder. “We’ll find one.”
“You’re sweet, but there’s a greater chance of me sprouting wings and flying than tracking down one of these.”
“Now, now, don’t lose faith yet,” Franny said. “We can all keep a lookout.”
Ally offered a half smile, but it was obvious she had her doubts. “Well, if it’s okay with you two, I think I’ll head on to check a few stores before going home. Just to see.”
“Of course, go. I’m going on home, too,” Franny said. “Are you okay to close up?” she asked Kylie.
“I’m on it.”
The two women gathered up their things, and Franny paused beside her on her way out. “Will you be long?”
“No. I’m going to work on this tree a little and then grab some takeout. Do you want anything?”
Franny shook her head. “No, I’ll grab something at home.” She kissed her cheek and headed out. Kylie locked the door behind her and turned their wooden OPEN sign around to CLOSED.
Clicking off the front lights, she turned around to find the Christmas lights on the two other trees providing a peaceful glow to the room. It wasn’t until Brady walked in from the back that she realized he was still there.
“Hey,” he said, his voice low. “Thought everyone left.”
Kylie shrugged, her chest still tight from what he’d said. Why couldn’t this be easier? Why couldn’t these feelings swirling around in her chest just go away? “I wanted to decorate the new tree so it would be up for tomorrow since I’ll be in a little late.”
“Why will you be in late?” The question came quickly and a little too naturally for Kylie’s taste. Like they were still something more than strangers.
“Ally is trying to find this toy on her daughter Rena’s Christmas list, and it’s sold out everywhere. Apparently Target gets a supply several times a week, but only a couple and no one knows which days they will receive them. Her husband works long hours with the electric company so he can’t go wait in line to see if he can get one, and she can’t leave Rena. I thought I’d go try for her.”
Night had set in outside, chill seeping in to the shop. It reminded her so much of Christmases when she was little that she almost closed her eyes to bask in it for a moment.
She realized Brady was staring at her with a quizzical expression on his face. “It’s going to be twenty degrees tomorrow morning, probably colder with the wind chill. Why would you suffer through that for a kid that isn’t even yours?”
Kylie walked over to the counter, opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a fresh box of white lights, then a second and third because one was never enough. She opened each box, her thoughts inward as she thought about the question.
“Did you decide to ignore me?”
“No. I’m just not sure how to explain it.” Connecting each set of lights, she plugged them into a nearby outlet to make sure they all worked. The lights brightened the shadowed space. She’d been lucky—so far, all of her lights had worked.
Brady approached and took the other end of the lights. “I can help you thread them around the tree if you would like. It’s a tall tree.” Kylie waved toward her step stool, but Brady piped in before she could mention it. “I know you don’t need me to help, but I’d like to if it’s okay with you. It’s been a long time since I decorated a tree.”
Their eyes met, and Kylie’s resolve wavered. “Okay.”
“So the question—do you have a freezing fetish or something?”
She laughed, the feel of it strange around Brady, this person who made he
r want to scream and cry in alternating succession every time she was around him. “It’s hard to explain. It’s just…I saw how desperate Ally was to get this for her little girl. It’s the only thing on her Christmas list. I guess I just want to be a part of the magic of her getting her one true wish for Christmas.”
Brady paused mid-motion to draping the lights around the tree, glanced at her. “You’re going to freeze to help make her Christmas?”
“It’s a small price to pay, don’t you think?”
He went back to draping the lights, careful to push them into the limbs, threading in and out to get the look just right. “No, but then I never had your heart.”
Actually, Kylie thought, you did. You just never realized it.
“Seems like if you give like that,” he continued, “how can you guarantee the kid even appreciates it? He might not even play with it on Christmas morning and then all your aggravation was for nothing.”
Kylie smiled. “First, she not he. And second, don’t you remember Christmas morning and wanting that one special, perfect gift? There’s no chance she won’t play with it. But there is a chance that she will be devastated and sad if she doesn’t get it. Then you take the risk of her no longer believing in Santa because she didn’t get the present she wanted most. I have to help prevent that.”
His gaze dropped to her again. “The American Girl doll thing?”
Kylie walked away to grab a box of vintage ornaments that she’d picked out for the tree. They were all gold and paper and looked like something you’d find in the fifties. She loved them.
“No, I just want to help. It’s not about me.”
Though that wasn’t one hundred percent true. She did want to help, but she wanted to help because she knew what it was like to not get that special present you always wanted. It was her seventh Christmas and all she wanted in the world was an American Girl doll―Samantha. She was beautiful and came with a book about her life and every one of Kylie’s friends had an American Girl doll. She wanted one, too. Her birthday came and went without getting the doll, despite the fact that her parents could easily afford it. They each drove luxury cars and wore nice clothes, though in truth Kylie discovered that was all a farce. They pretended to have money while actually spending every dollar they had…on themselves.
So that Christmas, she thought she had found the fix―Santa. Her mom took her that year with one of her friends and her daughter. Of course, the two women just wanted to shop at the mall, but they dropped the girls in line with Santa, and when it was Kylie’s turn, she pronounced with perfect annunciation so there was no confusion―Samantha, the American Girl doll.
She went to sleep that night feeling hopeful. Santa would deliver. Santa would make sure that she received what her parents didn’t give her.
But then Christmas morning came and she rushed downstairs to find four presents under the tree, each far too small to be a doll. She opened them slowly, praying some miracle would happen, but she ended up receiving bracelets and clothes and pretend makeup, stuff she had no interest in.
When tears filled her eyes, her mother laughed and said she was too old for dolls and then revealed the truth—there was no Santa. She’d spent the rest of the day in her room crying, and it stayed with her all her life.
So, yeah, maybe a tiny part of her wanted to do this because she would never wish that hurt on anyone, certainly not an innocent four-year-old whose mother genuinely cared but simply didn’t have the time or resources to make it happen.
Kylie brought the box back around to the tree as Brady finished the lights. She started decorating in the way Franny had taught her all those years ago―creating a diamond shape with ornaments over and over until the tree was full.
“You know it wasn’t you, right?”
Pausing with a bright red stuffed bird in her hand that was made of mixed patterns, she glanced over. “What wasn’t?” Her heart went still, curiosity swirling. Maybe he was finally ready to admit that he was wrong, that he should have respected the way she was and not pushed.
Instead he said, “The Christmas thing, the birthdays thing. It was them, not you. You deserved to get the presents you wanted and to have a loving childhood. That was on them to deliver it. You did nothing wrong.”
Tears pricked her eyes and she swallowed hard, trying to push away the swell of emotions. It had been a long time since she talked about her childhood, and even longer since she allowed herself to feel any hurt about it. After all, she wasn’t abused. She wasn’t yelled at repeatedly. She was just ignored—invisible. There were far worse things in life.
“I know.” She placed the bird on a tree limb and continued decorating in silence, her thoughts growing darker and darker until finally Brady changed the subject.
“So what is the fancy toy anyway? A doll that pees or something?”
She laughed, the feel of it cutting through the storm clouds in her heart. Brady always had a way of making light of the darkest of moments. “Ally said it’s like a robotic doll. They have boy and girl versions, and they can be trained to talk and walk and, hell, maybe clean your house for all I know.” She laughed again, her thoughts of her parents pushed to the corner of her mind again, where they would forever live, fresh enough to pop up whenever they like but shadowed by the rigors of life so she could forget on occasion.
“Damn, that’s a thing? Maybe I should get one.”
“Good luck with that! Ally’s on all these alert sites that ping her phone every time one comes into stock online, but then they’re gone as soon as we get there. Then there are these hoarders who bought them all up early in the season and are now selling them on eBay for a fortune. It’s ridiculous. The only hope Rena, her daughter, has is if she finds one at a store, but there are lines at Target hours before they open, only to find the store received one or two or sometimes none at all.”
“That’s crazy.” Brady walked around her and took one of the ornaments from the box, then stopped. “Okay if I help?”
She smirked. “Do you remember how? You said it’s been a long time since you decorated a tree. No woman in your life to show you the way?” The question was out before she thought better of it, or how badly she did not want to hear the answer.
He went around to the side of the tree, careful to continue the diamond pattern Kylie had started there. “No, no one I’d decorate a tree with.” His eyes drifted over to her. “You?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He nodded slowly.
“You cut your hair,” she said, again wishing her spitfire mouth would keep quiet, but with no one around, the lights from the tree dimming the intensity of everything, she felt too comfortable. Like she had when they were together.
“About a year ago. Couldn’t handle…” He trailed off as he grabbed another ornament, this one a small nutcracker with a trumpet.
“Couldn’t handle brushing it?”
“You don’t want to hear this stuff.”
She couldn’t decide if she did or didn’t. It depended upon what he was going to say. “Go on, it’s fine. A girlfriend wanted you to cut it?”
It was hard for Kylie to imagine. When they were together, she used to love to run her fingers through it. He used to get bad migraines when they were teens, and she would stroke his hair to soothe them away.
Brady stopped beside her, forcing her to look up. “No, she liked it. Most of the women I dated liked it. I didn’t like them touching it. Every time one of them ran their fingers through my hair it would remind me how much I wished she were…” He paused.
“Wished she were?”
He released a breath. “You.”
“Brady…”
He pulled back, his eyes on anything but her. “I really should get going.”
“Brady,” Kylie called, but he was already across the room now, once again putting space between them.
“See you tomorrow.”
Chapter 6
Brady needed a beer. Stat. Hell, at this point, he needed a case. He needed to forget all the things his brain refused to forget and stop feeling all the things his heart refused to stop feeling. Being around Kylie brought out all the draw and attraction he’d had for her from the beginning. How could years pass, and yet that feeling remain?
It had taken a long and insane amount of time for him to figure out how to breathe again after Kylie left. It was strange how someone could become such an ingrained part of your soul that once they were gone, you no longer knew how to be you. But that was what had happened―he forgot how to be Brady.
He pulled into his garage and walked inside his too-nice house, dropped his keys on the kitchen countertop, and pulled a beer out of the fridge. Cracking open the can, he took a long pull and his gaze landed on his Keurig. It felt like years ago that Kylie had walked in here that night and all but demanded they share the business. Now, he found himself wishing she would stop by and actually have coffee with him. Even if she didn’t speak, even if she yelled at him. Just the thought of her being here, in his space, made him happy.
And that was part of the problem.
She had walked back into town and taken up her previous residence in his heart, all without his permission.
With a long exhale, he grabbed his phone and scrolled through until he found Kylie’s number, and then, before he could chicken out, he hit call. He grabbed his beer and went on into his bedroom, the only room in the house that felt like him.
The phone rang several times before finally going to voicemail, and his heart clenched before he tossed the phone onto his bed. It was probably for the best, but he couldn’t deny that it hurt to think she was screening.