Kenzie didn’t answer that one way or the other. What she did say was “Thank you,” followed by what he could only describe as a sweet, completely guileless smile.
The polite answer made him ashamed of his testiness and the temper he’d allowed to flare. But the woman was trying too hard to recreate something dead and not about to be resurrected.
Still, Keith told himself, he didn’t have to be so curt. Apparently Kenzie couldn’t help being a pain in the neck.
He blew out a breath, then murmured, “I didn’t mean to bite your head off like that. Sorry.”
Kenzie moved her head from side to side as if she were actually testing her neck to make sure it was all right. “Still attached,” she announced with a wide grin that reached her eyes. “No harm done.” With that, she moved the stand into the middle of the room. “Just help me get the tree into the stand and then I won’t bother you anymore.”
Keith laughed shortly. “Yeah, right. Like I believe that,” he said, resurrecting his facade.
Even so, he picked the tree up from the floor and carried it, still bound, over to the stand.
He moved so quickly, he caught her off guard. Kenzie hurried over to him as he carried the tree. “Wait, let me help with that.”
He refrained from saying that she’d only get in his way if she tried to carry the tree with him. “You just hold the stand still,” Keith told her. “I’ll handle the tree.”
Kenzie could tell by his voice that he was straining. It made her feel guilty in addition to useless. “The tree’s heavy,” she insisted.
She knew that despite the fact that when they had carried it into the house together, she had brought up the top while he had picked up the bottom part before she could say anything. The angle he employed while carrying it assured him that the brunt of the weight was on his end. Even so, she could tell that the tree was more than a little on the heavy side.
“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Keith commented sarcastically, holding the tree still.
Kenzie had dropped to her knees and was moving as quickly as she could, tightening the stand’s screws into place. The tricky part was making sure that all three screws were equally tightened, keeping the tree carefully balanced between them. She knew this couldn’t be easy for him, keeping the spruce perfectly upright the way he was. “I should have called my brothers to come help.”
“And I should have called the airlines and booked an earlier flight, but none of that’s happening, so let’s just work with what we’ve got, okay?” he told her, trying not to raise his voice. “Have you finished adjusting the screws yet?”
Kenzie shuffled around the perimeter. “Almost,” she answered.
It felt as if she was vainly turning the screws, getting nowhere. And then, after what felt like an eternity, she couldn’t move any of the three screws even half a turn further.
“Okay, test it,” she told him, snaking her way back out from under the tree.
Rocking back on her heels, Kenzie took in a deep breath. Her first unobstructed one in a while, or so it felt.
Remaining somewhat skeptical, Keith slowly tested the tree’s stability by partially releasing one of his hands from around its trunk.
The second he felt the tree beginning to list, he quickly closed his hand around the trunk again, holding it tightly. He’d never let go with his other hand.
“Not good enough,” he told her.
Kenzie blew out a breath that sounded suspiciously more like a deep sigh.
“You liked saying that, didn’t you?” It wasn’t an accusation but an observation.
Keith inclined his head as if conceding the point. “It had its appeal.”
Keith was fighting her every step of the way—but he was also ultimately going along with it, she noted happily. And that was the bottom line.
Inside all that bravado and aloof rhetoric he so liberally dispensed, there was a man who still cared. A man who did his best to appear distant and removed, but who was really the opposite upon closer examination.
And that was the man whom she wanted to reach, the one she wanted to extend her hand to and hold on tightly to so that he knew he wasn’t alone.
Because she was there for him. And intended to be for as long as he needed her.
“Done yet?” Keith demanded as she once again moved around the tree, reworking the three screws, trying to get a more equitable distribution of the tree’s weight.
She didn’t answer him immediately. Not until she’d tightened the last screw and satisfied herself that there was no way the base could possibly still wiggle.
“Done!” Kenzie finally declared in much the same voice that competing cowboys in a rodeo used when they’d secured the steer they had roped and brought down.
She crawled out from underneath the tree for a second time, her face somewhat flushed. Keith caught himself staring at the way the color infused her cheeks.
The next second, he roused himself and let go of the tree.
For a one long moment, the tree appeared to be almost perfect. The next, it began to list again, this time ever so slightly to one side.
Keith sighed. Then he looked at her face and knew exactly what she was thinking.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” he told her. “After all, it’s just a tree.”
Kenzie fisted her hands on her hips and gave him a look that he dreaded getting from teachers back in school.
“A Christmas tree,” she corrected him, implying that made all the difference in the world. “And yes, it does. You give up too easy, O’Connell. Hold the tree,” she ordered.
With that, Kenzie got back down on her hands and knees for the third time, crawled under the tree on her stomach and went back to work.
The woman, Keith thought as he held the tree as still as he could, was stubbornness personified.
He didn’t realize, at least not immediately, that he was smiling as he thought it.
Chapter Twelve
“Okay, you proved your point,” Keith conceded in grudging admiration.
It had taken Kenzie another fifteen minutes of adjusting and readjusting, but the Christmas tree they had brought into his house, looming at approximately seven and a half feet without taking the stand into account, was finally perfectly straight.
“You did it. The tree’s straight. Your job is done,” he pronounced.
“The tree’s straight,” Kenzie agreed, dusting herself off. “But the job’s far from done yet.” When she saw Keith arch a quizzical brow in her direction, she explained, “The decorations you brought down are still in their boxes. Job’s not done until they’re on the tree.”
Keith shook his head as he blew out an impatient breath. “You’re relentless, aren’t you?”
Her smile rose into her eyes, highlighting her amusement at his assessment.
“I take vitamins,” she quipped. “Don’t worry,” she was quick to assure him. “I’m not going to rope you into helping me. You can go do whatever it is you were planning on doing.”
The fact was, he had no plans, other than to knock back a stiff drink or two to help relax him enough so that, with luck, he could fall asleep. The funeral was tomorrow, and although he told himself that he wasn’t viewing the event emotionally, he was utterly wired about having to be there tomorrow.
He felt like a spring that would release at any second with just the slightest touch. That wasn’t a good state to be in, he silently lectured himself.
She was brushing off the last of tiny, fuzzy lint that was clinging to the front of her light blue sweater. For just a fleeting moment, he envisioned his own fingers brushing it away.
Keith forced himself to focus on the moment instead. “Why are you doing this?” he asked her suddenly.
She never missed a beat as she answered, “Beca
use a Christmas tree needs Christmas decorations. Otherwise, it’s just a tree in the house that’s lost its way.”
Keith laughed under his breath as he shook his head. “Do you think these things up, or do they just come to you?”
She opened the first box and took out five decorations, depicting a family of colorfully dressed mice that appeared to have stepped right out of a children’s cartoon. “How cute,” she murmured under her breath.
Attaching a hook to each, she hung one decoration from each finger on her left hand, then turned toward the tree.
“If you’re going to talk, grab a decoration,” she told him.
“I thought you weren’t going to rope me into helping you,” he reminded her even as he picked a gleaming multiplaned silver decoration out of the box closest to him. The decoration cast a shower of rainbows as the light hit it. For just a moment, it threatened to stir an old memory, but he suppressed it.
“I don’t see any rope,” she replied, pretending to scan the immediate area before she turned an innocent face up to him. “Do you?”
“I stand corrected,” he conceded wryly. He watched as she distributed the decorations in her hand, hanging them on different branches. “So why are you doing this? The truth,” he specified.
Kenzie spared him one glance over her shoulder before taking out another five decorations and repeating her procedure.
“Other than the fact that I love Christmas trees?” she asked.
He was trying to get to the unvarnished truth, convinced that people didn’t go out of their way for other people without an ulterior motive. “Other than that,” he prodded.
Hanging the last decorations, she went back for replacements. She didn’t have to think about her answer. It was something that had always guided her.
“Because it’s a nice touch. Because it pulls a thread of continuity through what’s happening. People leave us,” she added in a more quiet voice, as if she would ever get used to the reality of that fact.
“You mean they die,” he clarified.
She didn’t like that word, never had. “They leave us,” she continued doggedly. “But the traditions they leave behind continue, just like life.”
“That’s a lovely philosophy,” he told her flippantly. She was on shaky ground in his opinion. She couldn’t back that up with any amount of certainty. “How do you know my mother didn’t stop celebrating Christmas right after Amy died?” he asked.
Kenzie paused, her hand hovering over the next box of decorations. There was a quiet certainty in her voice when she answered him. “She would have celebrated twice as hard, for Amy as well as for herself.”
Kenzie was right—and he’d never understood why his mother had been so adamant about going all out that way. The holiday had lost all its meaning for him. Because Amy had always somehow been at the center of the celebration. She’d been the one who bridged any flares of temper that erupted between his mother and him.
Keith hung the decoration and then, for a moment, he contemplated just walking out of the room and leaving her to decorate the tree by herself.
But all this talk about the holiday had him thinking of Amy. With an inward sigh, he picked up another decoration, knowing Amy would have wanted him to.
“How did you know?” he asked in a low voice after a beat.
“I didn’t, not definitively,” she qualified. “It’s just a feeling. I’d do the same thing myself in her place.” She could see that Keith still didn’t understand. “Celebrating that way helped your mother keep Amy’s memory alive, made her feel that Amy was still there with her,” she explained. “With both of you.”
Stepping back to view their progress so far, Kenzie realized her oversight.
“Help me with the ladder,” she told him, heading into the garage. “We forgot to put the star on the top.”
Keith gave the tree a quick once-over. “Instead of dragging in the ladder, why don’t you just leave the star off?” he suggested. “Looks fine without one.”
Kenzie frowned. “It looks naked without a star,” she insisted. The next moment, she reversed her position. After all, he’d gone along with the rest of it. Maybe he’d respond better if she cut him a break. “Okay, the star doesn’t have to go on. But I still need to decorate the upper part of the tree.” With that, she went into the garage.
Keith followed right behind her.
“That’s too heavy,” he told her, taking possession of the ladder.
“I’m stronger than I look,” Kenzie protested, although she did like the fact that he was bringing the ladder into the house.
“You’re also more annoying than you look,” he countered as he brought the ladder into the family room. He set it up beside the tree.
Kenzie made no response to his comment. Instead, she took out another five decorations. By the time he turned around to face her, she had made her way up the ladder and was one step from the top.
Biting off a curse, Keith quickly circled around the ladder to get to her side of it. One hand braced against the top of the ladder, Kenzie was stretching to hang the decorations as high as she could place them.
Keith grabbed hold of the ladder on either side to steady it. “Are you trying to break your fool neck?” he accused her.
“Not particularly,” she answered as if he’d asked a legitimate question. Her hold on the ladder’s top rung tightened as she felt it sway ever so slightly beneath her. “But I just might if you grab the ladder like that again.”
Choice words rose to his lips, but Keith managed to refrain from saying them. Instead, he told her, “Why don’t you come down and I’ll do that?”
As if he really wanted to, she thought, feeling there was only so far she could push him before he just walked out. “No, that’s okay. I—”
“I said come down.” This time it wasn’t a suggestion but an order, uttered through clenched teeth as he glared up at her.
She debated arguing with him, then decided having Keith insist like that was a good thing. It meant that he was involved in the process, at least for the moment.
“Coming down,” she announced agreeably, making her way down the ladder.
The moment she had both feet back on the floor, Keith moved her out of the way and took Kenzie’s place on the ladder.
In general, he wasn’t as quick as she was when it came to hanging up decorations, or as limber when it came to running up and down the ladder, so the job wound up taking longer. But eventually, the upper half of the tree was finished.
As was, he noted, the bottom half of the tree. Kenzie had quietly emulated his progress by hanging up decorations on the bottom half of the tree, covering an equal amount of ground in about half the time. The entire tree was finished.
“Not bad,” he grudgingly murmured.
“Not bad?” Kenzie echoed incredulously. “Why, it’s beautiful!” she declared with feeling.
Keith merely shrugged, determined to sound far less enthusiastic, even though the truth was he’d enjoyed doing this with her. But if Kenzie caught a hint of that, he was certain that he would not hear the end of it, not until his plane finally took off.
“At least it’s done,” he said carelessly. “I’m beat. Unless you’ve got some magical trip to Neverland up your sleeve, I’m turning in.” He looked her way, waiting for some last-minute pitch.
“There’s been enough magic for one day,” she told him. Maybe he was just exhausted and imagining things, but he could have sworn he saw her eyes gleaming. The next minute, she managed to catch him off guard again. “I’ll be here in the morning,” Kenzie told him as she gathered together her things.
He tried to make sense of what she’d just said. “I’m going to the funeral,” he reminded her.
Kenzie slipped her purse onto her shoulder. “I know. I’m going, too.”
/> He stared at Kenzie. He hadn’t come right out and extended an invitation to her, so he had just assumed she wasn’t attending. Was she doing it out of some misguided sense of obligation—or worse, out of pity?
He felt his back going up.
“You don’t have to,” he told Kenzie stiffly.
“I know that,” she answered. Flashing a smile at him, she declared, “The tree looks great. See you tomorrow at eight.”
With that, Kenzie went out the door, pulling it shut behind her.
Shaking his head, Keith flipped the front door’s lock into place. Then, feeling close to exhausted, he went up to his old bedroom. He’d changed out of his clothes and had climbed into bed before he realized that he’d forgotten to have those two shots of scotch he’d initially wanted to help him unwind.
It was the last thing he thought of before he fell asleep.
It seemed as if he had just closed his eyes before he was opening them again. But night had come and gone, and now the blush of daylight was just beginning to make its way into his room.
With daylight came the ambivalent feelings he was too groggy to bury effectively yet. They loomed over him like monsters that had slipped out of his childhood closet.
Part of him wanted to skip the funeral entirely. His mother hadn’t been there for him the past ten years of his life, he thought angrily. Why should he be there for her when she was being buried?
But if he didn’t attend the funeral, he had a very strong feeling that Kenzie would come and find him. He wouldn’t put it past her to drag him to the service, literally. He no longer felt he could place any limits on what the woman was capable of, or her tenacity, for that matter.
So with the greatest reluctance, Keith forced himself out of bed, showered, shaved and made himself presentable.
He stared at the man in the mirror, who was staring back at him with eyes that appeared hollow. He was as braced as he figured he could be to face this ordeal.
He might have been braced, but he discovered that he wasn’t all that ready for it. When the doorbell rang a few minutes later, he all but jumped out of his skin as the sound echoed around him.
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