Nellie issued a cheer-up bark and rubbed her head against Alana’s shin as they stood in the living room, admiring the menorah. Alana had lit the white candle she’d gotten at Burning Bright, and used its flame to light the candle marking the first night of Hanukkah. On Saturday, she’d have a house full of guests to share the holiday with—and hopefully, she’d have all her food prepared by then—but tonight, the first night, she was alone.
She did miss her grandmother. When she’d lived in Bridgeport, she would take the train down to New York the first night of Hanukkah to light this menorah, which stood on the sill of her grandmother’s living-room window. She and Grandma would eat dinner and then she’d go back to Bridgeport and return on the weekend, when Grandma hosted her annual open house. This year Grandma was gone and Alana was far from her family.
At least she had Nellie, who seemed transfixed by the tear-drop flames dancing atop the two candles in the menorah.
“I wonder if the woman who gave me this candle is celebrating Hanukkah tonight,” Alana asked.
Nellie barked again. When called upon, she could hold up her end of a conversation. Her barks were expressive, too. This one sounded disbelieving.
“All right,” Alana conceded, lowering herself to the rug and giving Nellie a thorough behind-the-ear scratching. “It’s not just Grandma I’m missing.” Nellie nodded, as if pleased that Alana was admitting the truth. “I miss Jeff. I don’t know why. He was only using me, trying to keep me from writing negative things about his uncle. And I’m not going to apologize for what I wrote. I could have slanted it differently—I still think Jeff’s uncle got away with something. But restitution was made. No one was hurt. I think Jeff saved him from his own stupidity, but that’s between Jeff and his uncle. All I did was write the story.
“Jeff played me, Nellie. He kissed me, he acted like he cared—and even though I knew all along that it was only about clearing his uncle’s reputation, I fell for it. I’m an idiot.”
Nellie barked in enthusiastic agreement.
“Thanks. See if you get any gravy on your kibble tonight.” Alana’s voice was wistful rather than scolding.
Nellie rested her head in Alana’s lap and made a suitably sad sound, half a whimper and half a doggie groan. Together, they stared at the menorah. The candles offered the only light in the room other than the glow through the kitchen doorway behind her. The two flames were reflected by the window’s glass. Every year, Grandma used to remind Alana of the importance of placing the menorah in the window. “This is a holiday you share with the world,” she would say. “With your burning menorah you tell the world, ‘I’m a survivor! I can’t be defeated! Life is full of miracles!’ Because Hanukkah is the story of the Jewish people surviving miraculously. And just like our ancestors, you and I—we can’t be defeated, either, right?”
If only, Alana thought sadly. For eight days, she would have to light candles—assuming they continued to fit, which she wasn’t at all sure they would—and declare to all the world, or at least to her neighbors on the block, that she could not be defeated. Maybe by the time she’d lit all the candles, one for each night, she would feel like a survivor.
The doorbell rang, startling her. Nellie leaped to her feet and raced toward the door, yapping exuberantly. Alana wondered if one of her neighbors had stopped by to comment on the menorah in the window.
She swung open the door.
Jeff Barrett stood on her front porch, tall and solid and breathing white puffs of vapor into the cold night air. “Hi,” he said.
“What are you doing here?”
“Freezing my tail off. Hey, Nellie Bly, how’s it going?” He hunkered down and greeted the dog with a few well-placed rubs. “Tonight’s a holiday, isn’t it? Is Alana going to pour a little wine into your water dish?”
“Nellie is a teetotaler,” Alana informed him.
“So, are you going to let me come in?” he asked, straightening up.
She tried to think of a reason to say no. He’d used her. He’d manipulated her. He’d wooed her to get the story he wanted her to write, and then he’d left. And she still wasn’t sure whether she should have written the story her own way, rather than his.
But it was cold and dark, and Grandma would have said a person should never bar her door on Hanukkah. So she stepped back and waved him inside.
He carried a small duffel. Why had he brought that here? Why hadn’t he dropped it off at his aunt and uncle’s house?
“I’ve got a present for you,” he said, bending to unzip the duffel. He pulled out a square gift-wrapped box. “Happy Hanukkah.”
“Is this some old Unitarian tradition?” she asked, managing a smile. He laughed and she tugged at the pretty blue ribbon on the box.
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those fussy types who won’t rip the paper.”
“Oh, I’ll rip it,” she said, tearing the white tissue off the box while Nellie ran in circles around her. In the dark, she could barely make out the picture on the box. She carried it toward the kitchen doorway. “Oh!” She grinned as the picture became clear: food processor disks, including one designed for grating.
“I hope you’ve still got some potatoes left,” he said. “I think you’ll need that grating blade if you want to make the latkes properly.”
“I have plenty of potatoes left,” she said as she led him into the kitchen. The bags of unpeeled potatoes sat in a pile on a counter. She’d been figuring she would make her latkes tonight, since it was Hanukkah and she didn’t have anything better to do.
Now Jeff was here. He could peel while she grated. “Is it the right size for my machine?” she asked, sliding the grating disk out of the box.
“It’s the same brand. The store had your model and I checked the disks out. It should work fine.”
“Oh, Jeff.” She put the box on the table and turned to him. Surely someone had given her a more thoughtful present in her life, but she couldn’t remember a single gift that meant as much to her as this one did. “Thank you,” she said.
His smile waned and his eyes grew intense as he gazed at her. “Thank you.”
She wasn’t sure what he was thanking her for. “I didn’t get you a present,” she admitted. To be sure, she’d assumed she would never see him again.
Without being asked, he removed his coat and tossed it onto a chair. “Thank you for writing a fair article about my uncle. Thank you for showing him such compassion.”
“I didn’t—”
“You did, so accept my thanks. Thank you for setting up the fund for Katie’s surgery.”
“The newspaper did that.”
“You did it, Alana. Stop being a hardheaded reporter for a minute, and admit that you’re a softhearted woman.”
She wanted to argue, but all that emerged was a sigh.
“Thank you for being home tonight,” he continued.
“Where else would I be? It’s the first night of Hanukkah.”
“Thank you for having those candles burning in the window. They made me feel…safe. Welcome. I don’t know…it’s so cold outside, but I saw those candles and they made me feel warm.”
“Candles can do that,” she noted.
“It’s not the candles,” he said. “It’s you. You make me feel safe and warm.” He arched his arms around her and pulled her into his embrace. “Thank you,” he whispered, then covered her mouth with his.
The last time he’d kissed her she’d backed away. This time she didn’t. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Jeff Barrett made her feel safe and warm, too. He’d come all this way not to save his uncle but to thank her. To give her a grating disk. To share the light and heat of her candles with her.
So she kissed him back. She flung her arms around his waist and held him tight, and opened her mouth and her soul and her soft, womanly heart to him.
He surprised her by lifting her into his arms. “Where’s your bedroom?” he asked.
“Down the hall.” She brought her arms around his neck, amazed that he could carry her
so easily. If she’d been pigging out on latkes, he would never have been able to lift her, so it was probably just as well she hadn’t made any progress in her Hanukkah party preparations. He strode past the den, past the laundry alcove where she’d dried his socks, past the bathroom where she’d dried his shoes and into her bedroom.
Nellie bounded in as Jeff lowered Alana to her feet. He shook his head. “Sorry, pup. You aren’t invited,” he said, pointing to the door. She pouted and slunk out of the room, and he closed the door. “She won’t knock over the menorah, will she?”
“No,” Alana assured him. “She’ll probably just chew on your duffel.”
“I’ll get it,” he said, opening the door. He raced down the hall, as though he believed Nellie would destroy his bag if he didn’t rescue it immediately, and she grinned at his eagerness, his energy. She knew he wanted no journalistic favors from her now. She knew a man didn’t drive all this way just for a one-night fling. She knew—because her heart told her, because Jeff’s eyes and his smile and his kiss told her—that he’d come here only for her love. She could no more stop herself from giving him that precious gift than she could keep the flames from melting the wax of the candles in her menorah.
She switched a bedside lamp on low and turned in time to see him reenter the room and shut the door. He dropped his duffel on the floor next to the bed and crossed to her, his steps purposeful, his arms open. He kissed her brow, the tip of her nose, her chin. “I wanted you the moment I saw you,” he confessed.
“In Chet’s office?”
“Right there.”
“You were threatening to sue me for libel at the time,” she reminded him.
“Not really. Just trying to scare you a little.” He touched his lips to the edge of her jaw. “Then I went downstairs to the archives and read every damn article you’d ever written for the Chronicle. If I couldn’t have you, I’d take your words. They were almost as good.”
“Almost?” His comment was almost unbearably romantic. “My words are the best part of me.”
“No, they’re not.” He stroked his fingers through her hair. “Then again—” he smiled wickedly “—I haven’t seen all your other parts yet.”
In less than a minute, he’d rectified that situation. One brief kiss on her lips, and he got busy removing her clothing. She did her best to keep up, tugging at his sweater, grappling with his belt buckle, losing her balance and tumbling onto the bed when he reached for her shoes, and then drawing him down onto the bed with her. His jeans fell to the floor. Her sweater snagged on the knob of the closet door. Her bra landed on the dresser…and then they were naked.
Jeff’s body was as magnificent as his face. He was lean and sleek, his skin a healthy golden hue that contrasted with her own winter pallor. His chest was tautly muscled, his legs graceful, his back broad and strong. His lips were magic. Wherever they touched they ignited her, and they touched her everywhere. So did his hands, gliding over her breasts, across her belly, between her legs until all she could think of was him, wanting him, wanting.
And then she had what she wanted, all of him. Each deep, sweet thrust gave her more and took more from her. Each sigh, each moan—did they come from her or him? She didn’t know and it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the sharing, the oneness, the love.
They peaked together, their bodies shuddering, pulsing, clinging. She closed her eyes and tightened her arms around him, not wanting to lose him. “I’m here,” he whispered, as if he knew. “I’m here.”
SOME TIME LATER, when her brain began to function again, she noticed the open box of condoms on her night table. “Where did that come from?”
“My bag,” he said, gesturing toward the unzipped duffel beside the bed.
She’d been so transported by his lovemaking, she hadn’t even considered protection. If he’d brought condoms with him, he must have come to Crescent Cove with sex on his mind. Smart man, she conceded, not at all offended. Every time she saw him, she admitted, sex wasn’t far from her thoughts, either.
Moving stiffly, shaking off odd little aches in her thighs and the small of her back, she rose and wrapped herself in her bathrobe. Jeff donned his jeans and sweater. “Are you hungry?” she asked.
“For food, you mean?” He grinned lecherously and pretended to take a bite out of her neck.
“Yes, for food. I haven’t eaten dinner yet.”
“Neither have I. Have you got a festive Hanukkah meal on the menu?”
“Not until Saturday,” she told him. “But I’ll rustle something up.”
She opened the bedroom door to find Nellie sitting guard outside. “So,” he said, wrapping an arm around Alana as they strolled down the hall with the dog, “am I invited to this party of yours? Last time the subject came up, you refused to extend an invitation.”
“It’s an open house,” she said. “If you want to come, I won’t stop you.”
“I want to come.”
The living room was dark, and the scent of wax wafted through the air. She crossed to the window. Her candles had burned down. She suffered a tiny pang that the special white shamas candle no longer existed. Maybe tomorrow she’d stop back at Burning Bright and see if the woman had another one.
Jeff moved behind her, ringed his arms around her and eased her back against him. He kissed the crown of her head, and she saw their reflections in the glass, where just an hour ago she’d seen the reflection of the candles. Outside, snowflakes fell silently from a black sky. “It’s beautiful,” he murmured.
“Yes.” Alana turned in his arms and hugged him, thinking it was the most beautiful Hanukkah of her life.
THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT, snow piled up outside Alana’s house. Inside, she and Jeff slept, their limbs intertwined, her head cushioned by his shoulder. They woke up around two in the morning and made love again, and then fell back to sleep in each other’s arms. Alana would have happily spent the entire day in bed with Jeff if Nellie hadn’t started whining and scratching at the door—and if Alana didn’t have a job to go to.
Reluctantly she hauled herself to her feet, grabbed her robe, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and shuffled to the door. Nellie’s complaints grew more intense; the poor dog obviously had to pee. Jeff rolled over, his eyes still closed, his breath deep and even. Lucky man. He didn’t have an editor expecting him at his desk by nine in the morning.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” Alana mumbled as she left the bedroom. Nellie let out a relieved bark and Alana shushed her. She ushered the dog to the kitchen door and let her out into the backyard, where piles of fresh snow lay in curving drifts.
She closed the door against the chill, prepared a pot of coffee and kept an eye on the window to make sure Nellie didn’t vanish beneath a drift.
“Hey.” Jeff’s voice floated into the room. As sleepy as she was, the mere sound of it recharged her.
She hurried to the hall. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?” But he wasn’t walking down the hall from the bedroom. She spun around and checked the living room. There she found him standing in front of the window, clad in only his jeans, his broad back exposed and tempting. She moved toward him, eager to press her cheek against that warm, tan expanse of skin, to hug him and face the morning with him.
But just as she reached him he stepped aside, and she saw what he was staring at: her menorah.
The white shamas candle stood in its holder, tall and graceful, its wick fresh.
What had the woman in the candle store said? This is all you need…. It’ll burn down, it’ll burn out, and then the next day everything will be fine.
Frowning, Jeff looked at her, then at the menorah again. “Last night, didn’t that candle—?”
“Yes,” she said. “It did.”
“And now—”
“Yes.” She touched his hand, and his fingers closed possessively around hers. “Hanukkah is about miracles, you know.”
“Is it?” He gave her a hesitant smile, clearly still suspicious of the mysterious new candle. “I t
hought it was about latkes.”
“Latkes, too. Miracles and latkes and light.”
“If that’s what it’s about,” he said, brushing her lips with his, “it’s a damn good holiday.”
Epilogue
The party was a success. Alana’s latkes—made with potatoes grated using her new food processor disk—were crisp and not too oily, and they tasted wonderful slathered in applesauce. The brisket was tender. Her guests even seemed taken by the marshmallows sandwiched between apricots and skewered on toothpicks.
She must have had more than fifty people crammed into her house, munching on food, playing with dreidels and catching up on town gossip. Jason Farrar and a few of his fellow officers showed up. Chet and his wife were there, along with Patsy and everyone else from the newsroom and their assorted spouses and partners. Jeff asked if his aunt Marge and uncle Bob could come, and Alana told him to invite them. She set up a bowl to accept donations to the newspaper’s Katie Chase fund—even though Jeff had secured financing for the surgery, the local fund would cover incidental expenses—and people added coins, bills and checks to the collection.
Five candles plus the shamas flickered in her menorah on the night of the party. Alana had stopped by Burning Bright yesterday to invite the proprietor to her party, but the store was closed. She slid a note under the door, but the woman who reminded her so much of her grandmother didn’t come.
Still, she felt her grandmother’s presence throughout the evening. The food, the high spirits of her guests, the joy that infused the air during this season of holidays, and most of all the beautiful antique menorah, all gave Alana the sense that her grandmother was close by, nodding and saying, “Yes, Alana, this is how you find happiness in life. You celebrate every occasion worth celebrating, and you surround yourself with friends and loved ones, and your home will be warm and safe.”
Warm and safe. She smiled as Jeff sidled up next to her. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said.
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