Breakfast With Santa

by Pamela Browning

  “Oh, I forgot. I’m supposed to drop off my minivan at Joe’s garage tomorrow morning.”

  “How about if I meet you there?”

  She’d wondered who she would get to give her a ride home. “That would be a big help.”

  He hesitated for a moment, and she was halfway through the open door when he spoke again.

  “Leanne said you were fun and that we’d like each other. She was right. Well, about me, anyway. I like you, Beth McCormick. A lot.” He raised his hand and casually grazed his knuckles across her cheek. “I’m a patient man, by the way.”

  She couldn’t come up with a fast reply to that, so she only stared at him.

  “Good night, Beth. Sleep well.”

  And then Tom was hurrying away toward her driveway, climbing in the pickup and waving out the window as he backed out in a plume of exhaust.

  She went inside and closed the door with a definitive click of the lock. This was all going much too fast.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have agreed to lunch. But she had. And later, as her eyes drifted closed in preparation for sleep, she was aware for the first time since her divorce of a longing to be desired in the way that a man wants a woman, to be cherished and loved.

  Especially loved.

  From the Farish Tribune:

  Here ’n’ There in Farish

  by Muffy Ledbetter

  Leanne Novak and her husband, Eddie, recently threw a housewarming bash for her brother, Tom Collyer, who has recently returned from the marine corps. Some of you recall that Tom was an up-and-coming rodeo star some years back. Lots of people attended the party, including yours truly. We think we’ll nominate Tom for the Bachelor of the Year. Oh, almost forgot. Farish doesn’t have a Bachelor of the Year. Maybe we’ll suggest him for Santa of the Year, instead! (Wink, wink.) We’ll bet he has a whole bag of tricks in that sleigh of his.

  One tidbit we picked up at the party is that Mrs. Nell Whisenant is thinking of closing her antiques shop on the Kettersburg highway. Nell is recovering nicely from the hip surgery she had in September, aided by her helpful granddaughter Chloe Timber-lake. In case you’re interested, Chloe says that her magenta hair is a thing of the past. She’s into a shade called Desert Dream these days.

  Overheard at the luncheonette on Main Street last week: Well, you’ll have to wait for the next edition of the Tribune to find it out, ’cause I’m out of space here. Don’t forget, if you have news, call me on my cell phone. You can leave a message, and if you don’t want to state your name, you don’t have to. I’ll probably recognize your voice, though.

  Till next time, I’ll be seeing you here ’n’ there in Farish.

  Chapter Seven

  When Beth and Tom walked into Zachary’s restaurant the next day, they both spotted several people they knew. Gretchen was there with Patty, Divver’s wife, and Chloe’s sister Naomi sat at a table with her sister-in-law and niece. They all studied the two of them with expressions ranging from openly curious, in Naomi’s case, to downright flabbergasted, in Gretchen’s.

  “We’re going to give these folks something to talk about,” Tom told Beth after they were seated. He was halfway pleased that Beth was momentarily disconcerted, then amused when she ignored what he said and brought drapery samples out of her tote bag.

  “I lunch here with clients all the time,” she said, maintaining her businesslike demeanor.

  Tom had suggested Zachary’s because he’d never eaten there. It was located in the recently renovated railroad station, now no longer in use because trains had ceased coming to Farish years ago. He found the place almost too cute for words, with the menu printed on a replica of the old train schedule and a mural of a diesel engine bearing down on them from one wall. Clearly, the flood of retirees moving to nearby Kettersburg, toting hefty pensions and expressing sophisticated tastes, had changed Farish. Then he noticed Gretchen talking behind her hand to Patty, and he grinned at the realization that at least some things around town were still the same.

  Beth slid swatches of fabric across the table. “These would all be appropriate.”

  He tried to focus on the scraps of material, but at the moment he couldn’t have cared less. He was much more interested in Beth McCormick. She was wearing a loose multicolored sweater over a pair of snug jeans tucked into a pair of snazzy boots. Her hair was pinned up on one side to show off a small pink ear. Affixed to her earlobes was a pair of simple silver-and-gold earrings that glimmered as she moved her head. The effect was enchanting.

  “This would blend well with your Oriental rug,” she said, tapping a fingernail on one of the pieces. “On the other hand, so would the stripe. If you’re interested in solids, I’d suggest coral.” She pulled a swatch of fabric out from under the others.

  “Blue,” Tom said, staring at her eyes. “I had blue in mind. Or maybe more of a blue-green, to be exact.”

  “Oh, but the coral would pick up the colors in the rug so much better,” she said, busily rearranging the samples. Her pale, strained expression of the night before was gone. She seemed vital, excited, caught up in the pleasure of what she did for a living.

  “You are an extremely attractive woman,” he blurted, apropos of nothing.

  She regarded him with momentary confusion. “We weren’t talking about me,” she said flatly.

  “I am. Why do you hate compliments?” He knew by the way she returned his grin that she understood he was teasing.

  “I don’t,” she said as she tucked the fabric samples away in her bag. “Have you ever met anyone who did?”

  “A girl named Meredith Wren used to sock me every time I paid her one. It might have had something to do with the fact that I was eight years old and all my compliments in those days were something on the order of ‘You don’t sweat much for a fat girl.’ She still wasn’t speaking to me when she grew up to be the runner-up to Miss Texas.”

  Beth snickered. “Serves you right,” she said.

  The waiter took their order, and afterward Tom leaned back in his chair. Beth had relaxed a bit, and he figured he might as well be polite and ask about her son.

  “How’s Marshall getting along?”

  Her expression clouded slightly, and she cocked her head, which made her earrings swing against her cheeks. “His name is Mitchell.”

  He tried not to wince visibly. Major mistake. Okay, he could deal with it. “Mitchell. Hell of a name for a kid.”

  “It was my maiden name,” Beth said.

  Open mouth, insert foot. “Hell of a nice name is what I meant.” He hoped he didn’t sound too insincere; it was a nice name, for a banker or a real-estate broker, but not a five-year-old boy.

  “I haven’t heard from Mitchell since last night,” Beth said after a moment or so.

  Tom had been prepared for a tinge of self-pity in her words, but he detected none. Last night, she’d been feeling sorry for herself and had made no bones about it.

  “Your ex-husband has remarried?” he asked, picking his way through what he suspected was an emotional mine field.

  “Yes. Within a week of our divorce.” Her forefinger traced one of the luggage tags preserved beneath the thick layer of acrylic on the tabletop.

  “Ah. One of those,” he said.

  She met his eyes ruefully. “Yes,” she said.

  Their lunch arrived at an opportune time, providing a welcome diversion. He was glad when Beth asked him about his time spent in the marines, which he told her had been an ongoing growth experience.

  “Why’d you quit the service?” she asked.

  He’d been only five years away from a full pension, but had been at the point where he didn’t feel as if he had any more to give to the corps. Also, he’d burned his bridges when he left Farish all those years ago, and he’d wanted to redeem his good name, if it was possible.

  He didn’t care to get into that right now, so he resorted to a careless lift of the shoulders and said, “It was time to move on. Leanne’s here, and I’m godfather to Madelon, Jeremiah
and Peter. The job with Divver was the real draw, though.” He grinned at her.

  She nodded thoughtfully, and he leaned across the table toward her. “Now, how about a thumbnail life history from you.”

  “I grew up in Houston, worked my way through college, got married. Had a child. Got divorced.” She shrugged. “That’s about all there is to it.”

  “What brought you to Farish?”

  “My husband’s job. Also, my friend Chloe—I met her in an art history class at the University of Texas—was moving back here. This is where she grew up. Chloe introduced me to Leanne, who made it easy for us to meet other young marrieds.”

  “Leanne’s good at social things,” he observed.

  “Everyone at the party seemed to know you, too.”

  “Divver and Patty were pals of mine from way back. Others were lowly sophomores at Farish High when I was a senior, and I barely knew some of them, mostly because I was always hanging around the ranch with Divver, training horses, hoping to get into rodeo.”

  “Leanne told me one time that one of her brothers won lots of rodeo events.”

  “That would be me. Our younger brother was the high school jock, I was the rebel and Leanne was Leanne, taking charge, bossing people around and getting elected homecoming queen in spite of it.”

  Beth smiled. “That’s our Leanne, all right.” She glanced at her watch. “We’d better get moving if we’re going to make it to that estate sale before the bidding begins.”

  He called for the check, and on the way out, they paused to talk briefly with Gretchen, who seemed eager to ask Beth what the two of them were doing together.

  “She’ll phone Leanne tonight,” Tom said with great certainty. “Before morning, my sister will have left several messages on my answering machine, asking me to call her right away.”

  Once they were in his pickup, he headed toward the Kettersburg highway. “You’ll have to tell me where to turn off,” he reminded her, speaking over the lively Tejano music blaring from the radio.

  “It’s at the yellow blinker light south of the state park,” she told him. “There’s an old roadhouse at the intersection.”

  “Dolan’s?” he asked.

  “You’ve been there?”

  “Sometimes my friends and I would sneak over there on school nights to ride the mechanical bull. When I was older, it was our favorite hangout.”

  “The place closed a year or so ago.”

  “I won’t miss it,” Tom said, but he still felt wistful when they passed the tumbledown building.

  The house where the estate sale was being held was a stately Greek revival home built in the 1890s. It sat in a rolling meadow overlooking a river lined with cottonwoods and, on the sloping back lawn, featured a lily pond with a waterfall. The sale was held in a large inside room, and they barely had time to register, grab a paddle and find a seat before the auctioneer stepped up to the podium.

  Tom felt out of his element in these surroundings. He took off his Stetson, set it in his lap and leaned back with his arms crossed to observe.

  One of the first items to be auctioned was a bookcase that Tom liked. He nudged Beth. “That’s perfect for my den.”

  “Want me to bid?” she asked.

  He nodded, a little unsure about the proceedings but not about the bookcase. It was made of bird’s-eye maple and was the right size to fit behind his desk.

  Beth, who obviously enjoyed the bidding process, entered into with gusto, and although others showed interest, she eventually emerged as the high bidder.

  “Sold to number 122,” sang the auctioneer.

  “That’s how it works,” she whispered. “You could bid on the next item yourself.”

  “I’d rather let you do it,” he said, taking in the bright spots of color in her cheeks.

  “Chicken,” she accused, and he laughed.

  When an elegant old walnut armoire came on the block, she leaned forward and studied it.

  “You like that?” he asked.

  “It would fit perfectly on the long wall in my living room.”

  “Go for it,” he urged as the bidding began.

  Beth didn’t bid first, but the person who did backed off when Beth raised the price a hundred dollars. Another bidder entered the fray, but in the end, he shook his head and gave up.

  Finally, the auctioneer banged his gavel, and the armoire was hers.

  “Ready to go?” Tom asked Beth.

  She nodded. “If we buy any more furniture, we’ll have to get a bigger truck.”

  “We could always pick up the stuff later.”

  “No, I was only kidding. I haven’t seen anything else I want.”

  As they left the auction, Beth handled paying for the items while Tom supervised loading them into the bed of his pickup. Soon they were tooling along the two-lane blacktop toward Farish, exuberant about their finds.

  “You really knew what you were doing back there,” he said admiringly. “Neither of those other bidders showed signs of backing down.”

  “You have to read body language,” she told him. “I sensed that the first bidder for your bookcase wasn’t really interested, and the prospective buyer of my armoire had the earmarks of a dealer who wouldn’t pay over a certain amount.”

  “You must do this a lot.”

  She shrugged. “I used to, when I was married. Most estate sales and auctions happen on weekends, and I could leave Mitchell with Richie and take off with Chloe for the afternoon. Now it’s different. I hate to send Mitchell to day care on the weekends. Don’t get me wrong—the day-care situation is wonderful. The women who work there are kind, and they love Mitchell. We’re lucky in that respect. It’s—it’s just that I feel guilty not spending more time with my son, and weekends are best for that.”

  By this time Beth had lost her self-consciousness, and she continued to talk about her work as they drove back to Farish. “I like being a designer, working with pretty things. Sometimes I feel like a shrink, as well. I often have to psych out my clients, determine what they’re really saying when they tell me they want a room to have a ‘restful quality.’ Do they mean restful as in ‘I want to go to sleep’? Or restful as in ‘I want to block all intrusions from the outside world so I can get lost in my TV soap operas’? There’s a difference, and what’s restful to some isn’t to others.” She laughed. “It’s fun.”

  Sitting beside her, learning more about what she liked about her life, was fun, too. He didn’t want the day to end.

  As they slowed to the speed limit at the outskirts of Farish, Beth changed the subject. “We could unload the bookcase at your house before we go to mine.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll handle it myself. First, we’ll stop by your place and I’ll help you put this armoire wherever you want it.”

  Dusk was falling, and as they circled the roundabout in front of the courthouse, the multicolored lights of the enormous community Christmas tree flickered on. Decorated with ornaments made by hundreds of local schoolchildren, the tree lent an air of festivity to the town.

  “It’s good luck if the tree lights go on when you’re driving by. At least, that’s what we used to say when we were kids,” Tom said. “You’re supposed to make a wish.”

  “Did you?”

  “Sure.” He grinned at her.

  Beth hesitated. Once, she would have wished something on behalf of Mitchell—that he’d remain healthy, that he’d enjoy his visit with his father—but now the wish she made was for herself.

  They continued down Main Street, most of its three-block-long row of shops closed at this time of the evening. In a few minutes, Tom was turning into her driveway carefully so as not to jostle their heavy cargo, and braking to a stop.

  Beth kept an old hand truck in the garage, and as she wheeled it to the pickup, Tom unlatched the tail gate. The two of them were able to trundle the armoire easily through the front door and into the living room.

  Tom helped her remove the TV from its stand on the long wall, and tog
ether they positioned the armoire. When Tom had connected the TV to the cable outlet, Beth studied the effect of the new piece on her decor, then started toward the kitchen. “How about something cold to drink? There’s beer in the fridge.”

  “That’s great, ’cause I’m mighty thirsty,” he said. He followed her into the kitchen, looking around at the refinished cabinets, the updated light fixture. “I like the way you’ve pulled this place together,” he said approvingly as she handed him a beer.

  “I have a lot more I want to do in here, but decorating takes time.”

  “You can say that again. I’ve never owned a house before. It’s different from renting an apartment, that’s for sure.”

  She smiled at him. “Let’s go in the living room,” she said.

  He followed her and sat down beside her on the couch.

  “So,” she said. “Your work will pick up after the holidays, I suspect, if you’re going to start your first group of incorrigibles after the semester break.”

  He winced slightly. “We don’t call them incorrigibles,” he said. “The kids are ‘at risk.’”

  “Sorry, I was only repeating what I’ve heard around town.” She paused, and when she spoke she was serious, inquisitive. “I’d like to hear more about the program and your involvement. Why you decided to do it, and so on.”

  He slid back in the couch and stretched out his long legs. “I want to make a difference. That’s the main thing.”

  “You were doing that when you were training marine recruits.”

  “After a while, it wasn’t enough. As I learned more about teaching, I started to contrast training marines to the way I’d trained horses.”

  She started to laugh but realized he wasn’t joking. “Go on,” she said.

  “I never was one to break a horse’s spirit. I preferred gentling a horse, showing him why it was in his best interest to follow a certain course. Obviously, the method wouldn’t work with marines, who are, after all, being trained to fight. I began to mull over other ways to train human beings, especially those who needed to develop self-discipline so they could make good choices in their lives. We’re going to try some of those methods with the ATTAIN kids.” He glanced at her, saw that her expression had softened. “Comments?” He was prepared for her criticism; some people might be insulted to think that the methods that worked on horses could succeed with kids, but she surprised him.