“Down, Ranger.” His words, as well as their no-nonsense inflection, brooked no argument.
Ranger stopped jumping, sat, and looked up at him. Esther couldn’t tell whether the dog was surprised or cowed. Either way, she didn’t expect it to last very long. Brody sank back into his chair, picked up his knife and fork, and began eating. Ranger whimpered from his prone position on the floor but otherwise didn’t protest.
“How did you do that?” Esther asked, trying to keep the awe in her voice to a minimum. No sense letting Brody know just how impressed she was with him.
He laughed. “Years of practice. I learned early on that a vet’s got to establish himself as the alpha dog. Otherwise, I’d be toast.”
“That’s what I need to know. How to make Ranger think I’m the alpha dog.”
He shrugged. “It’s easy really. You just withhold things. Food, affection.” He shot her a sidelong look. “Sleeping on the bed.”
Esther blushed.
“If you do that,” Brody continued, “you’ve got the upper hand. You have what they want, but they only get it when you say so.”
A chill, sudden and fierce, swept through Esther at his words. You have what they want, but they only get it when you say so. The forkful of duck she was chewing, which only a moment ago had tasted like heaven, now had the consistency and flavor of sawdust.
In that moment, with Ranger quiet at her feet and Brody happily consuming a heaping plate of her carefully prepared Christmas Eve dinner, Esther Jackson experienced an epiphany. Unwanted, unannounced, but an epiphany nonetheless.
“That’s all?” she managed to choke out. Her voice sounded amazingly casual. It held none of the stark realization, the sudden avalanche of remorse that pinned her to her chair. “You just withhold?”
Brody nodded. “Works every time. Like everything else in life, it’s about power. Dogs know that, just like people do.”
Esther couldn’t make a response. Years of behavior, her own behavior, were suddenly stripped of all the justifications and rationalizations. She’d wielded her power to withhold ruthlessly over the years. It had been for a good cause—or causes, to be more accurate. Frank’s career, Alex’s upbringing, social success, the betterment of Sweetgum. But when she’d had the power, she’d used it to further her own ends, demanding that others do everything her way, and now it was gone.
Which meant that whoever she had been, she couldn’t be that person anymore. And if she couldn’t be the person she’d always been, who was she now?
Esther had not planned on having an existential crisis in the middle of Christmas Eve dinner. She took a long drink of iced tea to cover her discomfort. “Why aren’t you with your family this year?” she asked to divert her thoughts from herself. She had no interest in trying to reconstruct herself as a person, at least not until they’d had dessert. Better to deflect the conversation onto Brody. Only at her question, he started to look as uncomfortable as she felt.
“It just didn’t work out this year.”
When he didn’t elaborate, she tried again. “I don’t even know where you’re from.”
“Chattanooga.” He didn’t offer any further information.
“And will your sisters be at your parents’ house?”
He shrugged. “Probably. They’re not too happy with me at the moment.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I’m here, on call for vet emergencies, instead of with them.”
“But—”
“You do have a great house,” he said, looking around the dining room and also changing the subject. “Still no offers?”
She shook her head. “I waited too long to put it on the market. This is the worst time of year to try to sell.”
“I thought my friend James would make an offer.” He shrugged. “Maybe he still will.”
“You haven’t spoken to him?”
“He usually spends the holidays skiing. But I thought, from what he said after Thanksgiving, that he wanted to be settled in Sweetgum by the first of the year.”
“Why Sweetgum? He doesn’t seem the small-town type.”
Brody paused. He knew exactly why James Delevan wanted to relocate to Sweetgum. Esther could see it in his eyes, but she could also see he wasn’t going to tell her. He would protect his friend’s privacy. His discretion made her like him even more.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me.” What was it about Brody McCullough that made her want to be a different person? Kinder, more relaxed. Esther had never in her life wanted to be kind. Nor had she worried about being relaxed.
Her feelings toward Brody weren’t wholly romantic in nature, either. At least, she didn’t think they were. It had been so long since she’d had any experience with that kind of thing that she couldn’t tell. She liked his company, in spite of her discomfort at some of his insights and observations, and he seemed to feel the same way. Drawn to her, yet wary. And, in an odd way, friends.
They had finished eating, so she rose from her chair and picked up their plates. He started to stand as well, but she waved him back to his seat. “Stay put. I’ll get dessert and coffee.”
He did as instructed, which gave her a moment to collect herself. As she used her kitchen torch to crystallize the tops of the crème brûlées she’d pulled from the oven, Esther thought of the book Eugenie had assigned them to read, Gone with the Wind.
Left to her own devices, she’d never have picked it up, but with so much time on her hands, and finding herself alone for most of it, she was making good progress through its pages. To her surprise, she’d found herself captivated by the story. Not so much by the tumultuous love between Rhett and Scarlett but by the blindness and stupidity of the heroine. Over and over again, she’d thrown away the love she could have had for the love she thought she wanted. Standing in her kitchen, with Brody and Ranger in the next room, Esther knew she wasn’t much different from Scarlett O’Hara.
Was it too late? Were her life and choices so set in stone that she couldn’t go back and change things? Not with Frank, of course. That part of her life was gone forever. But perhaps losing her husband and her home was more than twin tragedies. Perhaps those very losses held the seeds of some new beginning.
The idea both thrilled and terrified her, so she pushed it aside and attacked the crème brûlées with the torch until their tops were almost black and the smell of butane permeated the air.
“How could you forget the sage?” Althea Munden rolled her eyes at her daughter Maria in exasperation.
Maria took yet another deep breath. She’d taken a lot of them since they’d gotten out of bed that morning. So much for the joy of Christmas Day.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sure if I run over to Vanderpool’s—”
“You think the grocery store is going to be open on Christmas?” Her mother’s pencil-thin eyebrows darted toward her hairline.
“I can’t be the only cook in Sweetgum who’s forgotten something. And I’m sure Mr. Vanderpool wouldn’t mind. It would just take a minute.”
As soon as she made this last statement, she realized her error. Mr. Vanderpool lived above his grocery store across the street from Munden’s Five-and-Dime. Now that Maria and her mother and sisters lived in the rooms above their store, too, they were in the same class as Mr. Vanderpool.
“Why don’t you just open the window and call across the street?” her mother said with a sniff. “Now that we live above the store, we might as well act like it.”
Maria grabbed her wallet from the kitchen counter and a jacket from the hook by the door. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“C’mon, Mom.” Daphne intervened. “We can start on the pecan pie while Maria’s gone.”
Stephanie, as usual, was still asleep in the other room with her comforter pulled over her head to drown out the rest of her family.
Maria slipped out the door and pounded down the narrow staircase. She let herself out the exit on the side of the building, around the c
orner from the square. At least they had a little privacy when it came to their comings and goings.
They’d only lived above the store for two months, but already the Munden women showed the strain of the close quarters. A combined kitchen/living/dining room and a shared bedroom—along with the world’s smallest bathroom—were hardly enough space for one person, let alone four. But what choice was there? Daphne was desperately looking for a job, but she hadn’t worked anywhere in years. Her major responsibility had been overseeing the farm. Stephanie was supposed to be looking for a job as well, but mostly she disappeared early in the day and didn’t come home until late. Maria had no idea what she did with her time, but she doubted it was anything constructive. And as for their mother, a job was out of the question, but criticizing and nitpicking had always provided her with full-time occupation.
Maria shoved her wallet in the pocket of her jacket and looked both ways before crossing the street. There was little chance of much traffic this early on Christmas morning, but habit was habit. She jogged across the street to the store opposite, Vanderpool’s Groceries and Sundries. Her father and Mr. Vanderpool had been cronies for as long as Maria could remember. They’d encouraged each other, extended each other credit, and generally kept each other afloat in the treacherous waters of the Sweetgum economy.
Maria ducked beneath the green-and-white-striped awning and peered through the door. The lights were on, which was a good sign, and then she saw Mr. Vanderpool’s familiar balding head moving down one of the aisles. She rapped on the glass, softly at first, and then louder until he heard her and turned his steps toward the door.
“Maria! It’s good to see you.” He leaned forward and she gave him her customary peck on the cheek, a ritual they’d followed since she was a little girl and had developed a tremendous crush on him. The fact that he’d given her a lollipop whenever she was in the store had secured her affection from an early age. “What did you forget?”
Maria laughed. “Sage. The dressing’s no good without it.”
“Well, come inside and get it.” He waved her into the store. “I thought I’d hang around down here for a while this morning in case anyone needed anything.” He tilted his head and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Besides, I’m just in the way up there.”
Maria knew that Mrs. Vanderpool and her daughters-in-law would be hard at work on their own meal upstairs. She could smell mincemeat pie baking.
“I won’t be a minute.” She dashed down the appropriate aisle and snagged a tiny jar of sage. As she headed back to the register, she heard the door open and someone else enter the store.
“Morning, young man.” Mr. Vanderpool seemed pleased rather than perturbed to have customers this morning.
“Good morning, sir.”
Maria would have known that voice anywhere. Her first instinct was to hide behind the shelves of cake mix, frosting, and flour, and she followed it. James Delevan. What was he doing back in Sweetgum?
Daphne had been hurt that Evan never called or contacted her after their night at the movie theater. Maria wasn’t completely surprised. Evan seemed attracted to her sister, but he was old-money Memphis. He probably had women lining up outside his door. A sweet, gentle soul like Daphne wouldn’t stand a chance against a cosmopolitan woman who ordered dirty martinis and shopped at designer boutiques.
“Maria? Are you okay back there?” Mr. Vanderpool’s voice floated over the top of the shelves. From her crouched position, Maria cringed. Quickly, she scanned the shelf in front of her and grabbed a bag of mini marshmallows that rested at eye level. She lurched to her feet.
“Just grabbing some marshmallows for the sweet potato casserole,” she said with a bright, forced smile. Like an idiot, she waved the bag in the air. “Wouldn’t be the same without these.” She paused, then acted surprised, as if she’d just noticed James Delevan. “Oh, hello.”
Mr. Vanderpool gave her a funny look. Maria ignored it.
She darted for the end of the aisle and the cash register by the door. “I think that’s all I need.” She reached into her jacket pocket and grabbed her wallet, trying her best to ignore James Delevan. She could almost feel his gaze fixed on the right side of her face. If his look grew any more intense, he might laser her ear off.
“That’ll be six dollars and forty-eight cents,” Mr. Vanderpool said.
Maria grabbed a bill from her wallet and fished around for the correct change in the zippered pocket. All the while, James Delevan just stood there. Didn’t the man have some emergency ingredient he needed to look for? No doubt Evan’s sister was whipping up a gourmet meal right out of Food & Wine, although she was out of luck in Sweetgum if she needed something fancy like truffle oil or endive.
At last, purchase completed, she was forced to face him.
“Hello, Maria.” He looked so grave that she wondered if someone had died. Mr. Vanderpool wandered off, leaving the two of them alone.
“Merry Christmas.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Yes. Merry Christmas.”
“So you’re back in Sweetgum.” The brilliance of her conversation was second to none. What was it about this man that reduced her to bumbling idiot status?
“Yes.”
“Spending the holiday with Evan?”
To her surprise, James shook his head. “I’m on my own.”
If he wasn’t staying with Evan, why would he come back? “Where are you staying?”
“Sugar Hill.”
Again, Maria was surprised. “I thought the Parsons closed it for the holiday so they could go to their daughter’s house in Louisville.”
“They have. Gone to their daughter’s, I mean. But they were kind enough to allow me the run of the place.”
“But…” She didn’t know what to add after that but. “You’re celebrating Christmas alone?”
“I don’t think celebrate is the right word. Let’s just say I’m riding it out solo.”
She noticed a funny look in his eyes, haunted almost. Riding it out solo. Maria thought she’d never heard anything sadder in her life. Her own family was thoroughly dysfunctional—her mother drove her crazy, she despaired of Daphne ever being fully appreciated by a worthy man, and Stephanie couldn’t be depended upon for anything other than converting oxygen to carbon dioxide—but at least they were together. At least they were a family, even if a rather warped one.
“You can’t do that.”
He lifted that eyebrow again, the one that went a mile high. He was almost as good at it as her mother. “I can’t?”
“I mean, you shouldn’t have to. No one wants to be alone on Christmas. Surely, someone asked you—” She stopped herself What if she was wrong? What if no one had invited him to be a part of their holiday meal? She couldn’t conceive how that might possibly happen to a man like James Delevan, but then again…
“My half sister’s my only family,” he said, looking grim. “She’s skiing in Aspen with friends from boarding school.”
“Boarding school?” Aspen? He really was rich.
“She’s a junior. Seventeen.” He smiled sadly, and Maria could tell he was fond of his sister, half or not, which made her feel even sorrier for him.
“And your parents?”
“They passed away a number of years ago.”
“Oh.”
A hollow silence fell. Maria swallowed and took a deep breath, knowing she had to follow the dictates of her upbringing in that moment, even though every shred of common sense told her to keep her mouth closed.
“Since you’re on your own…” Don’t do it, don’t do it, a little voice chanted inside her head. “Since you’re on your own, why don’t you come have Christmas dinner with my family?”
His eyes widened, and for a moment he looked as if he’d been poleaxed. “With your family?”
“You’re right. That’s a stupid idea.” Maria shifted the small paper bag in her arms. “I’d better run.” She started to do just that, but his voice stopped her.
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“I’d like that.”
“You’d like for me to run?”
He smiled then. Grinned, really. She’d never seen that expression on his face, and it transformed him. Instead of dour, he looked relaxed and approachable.
“No. Well, I don’t have an opinion on the running thing one way or the other, but if you meant it, I’d like to spend Christmas with you.”
“Oh.” She plastered a smile on her face that she hoped equaled his. “Okay. Follow me.”
They exited the grocery store and stepped across the street to her door. As they climbed the steep flight of stairs, she half wished they would open up and swallow her. Their living quarters were a mess, and there was no telling what kind of reception he would receive from her mother or Stephanie, if she was even awake yet. At least Daphne would make him feel like a welcome guest.
Maria opened the door at the top of the stairs and stepped inside, James hard on her heels. “Mom, I’m back,” she called. “And I’ve brought company.”
Several hours later, when they sat down to eat, Maria couldn’t believe how well the morning had gone. She also had no idea where the James Delevan she’d known before had gone.
Without even being asked, he had worked beside her, helping prepare the meal. As it turned out, he was a fairly experienced cook. He took over the sweet potato casserole and the green beans almondine while Maria made the dressing and Daphne finished the pies. The rooms above Munden’s had once been leased by a caterer who’d eventually gone broke, but she’d left behind double ovens and an enormous range. With a little coordination and some good luck, they managed to have everything ready at the same time, the turkey browned and beautiful enough to be on the cover of Martha Stewart Living.
Her mother had greeted James cordially, if a bit stiffly, and then retreated to the bedroom to watch television. Stephanie eventually appeared and, under duress, set the table for the meal. For the most part though, Maria, Daphne, and James had been left to their work.
Now, as Maria sat in the chair James had pulled out for her at their small dining table, she felt a little like Alice in Wonderland when she’d fallen down the rabbit hole.
The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love Page 19