The First Kiss of Spring

by Emily March

  Because he had no future with Caitlin Timberlake. He wouldn’t drag her down into the quagmire of misfortune and bad luck that sucked at his shoes wherever he went. He wouldn’t saddle her with a man who might sink into the slop again at any time. Disaster was his destiny and he cared too much to suck her into it with him. But in the meantime, it was Christmas and she’d decorated his home and his sugar cookies. He looked forward to giving her this gift.

  He rewrapped the earrings and slipped the box into the pocket of his jacket. Maybe he’d give it to her tonight. He didn’t know if she was a Christmas Eve opener or the type who waited for Christmas Day. He knew she planned to go up to her mom and dad’s house at Heartache Falls tomorrow morning after church. Supposedly, he’d been invited to tag along, but to his relief, the Callahan clan was in town for the holiday and he would spend Christmas Day with them.

  Maybe.

  Or maybe he’d lie to everybody and stay home.

  He felt like crap. Maybe he’d go for a soak in the hot tub. The doc had yanked the staples at his last appointment, so he’d been given the all-clear for a soak.

  Maybe he’d ask Caitlin to join him. He needed a distraction right about now. Doing some hot-tub skinny-dipping was bound to help that. It might cause a different sort of pain, but that sort he would welcome.

  He found her seated at the kitchen table with a pencil in her hand making notes on a square of green paper. A steaming cup of tea sat off to one side. Penny lay snuggled in her lap and Christmas carols played softly in the background. In that moment, he craved her, craved what she represented, almost as much as he craved the Percs.

  “Are you making a list?”

  “Yep. Checking it twice.”

  “Since you brought up naughty, I’m headed for the hot tub. Want to join me?”

  Her brows arched. “The hot tub? Surely you’re not … I mean, you can’t … not so soon. You’d rip your stitches!”

  Josh gave his first honest smile in days. “A soak, Caitlin. A simple, restful soak.”

  Skepticism filled her frown. “You’re the one who brought up naughty.”

  “Hey, fantasies won’t strain a stitch. Meet you there in five?”

  “Sure.”

  The hot tub was recessed into his back deck and was surrounded by a privacy screen that included an outdoor fireplace. It offered one of the pleasures of mountain living during winter, the contrast of the steaming water below and freezing air above.

  He stepped carefully into the tub and sank into the heat, which then seeped into his sore muscles and bones. When Caitlin joined him a short time later and they sat in comfortable silence, his pain eased, his craving diminished. It was as if he’d popped two pills.

  He’d written about it in one of his journals.

  It’s … peace. It’s like being inside a cabin in the woods when there’s a foot of snow on the ground and it’s still falling. It’s sitting on a comfy sofa next to a crackling fire, wrapped up in a blanket with a dream girl, watching a good movie. You’re relaxed and content and you don’t have a care in the world. That’s the euphoria of percs.

  He needed Caitlin here in his house with him. Just for a little longer. Just until he got a little stronger.

  “Josh?” Caitlin asked.

  He didn’t open his eyes. “Hmm?”

  “Do you think you might feel up to attending Celeste’s open house tonight at Angel’s Rest?”

  He considered it. The Christmas Eve gathering was becoming quite the tradition here in Eternity Springs. He wouldn’t mind a little company tonight, a little more distraction. If he could hang on a few more days, he might just dodge the bullet.

  He opened one eye and looked at her. “I think I’d like that.”

  Her expression lit up like the flashing star atop their Christmas tree. “That’s fabulous. I’m excited. It’s always one of the best parties of the year. Did you go last year?”

  “No, I spent Christmas with the Christophers.”

  “Well, wait until you see Angel’s Rest all angeled up. Celeste is almost always happy, but on Christmas Eve, she’s joyful. It’s fun to watch.”

  Caitlin was fun to watch as she bubbled on about the party. “I have a new red dress to wear. I bought it because it has the perfect neckline to show off the necklace you gave me. I’ll have to go home to get it. Maybe I’ll shower and dress there. That way I can make an entrance when I come back here to pick you up.”

  “You always make an entrance, Cait. You do that naturally. And you know what … I think I’m all right to drive. I can pick you up. We’re only going a half a mile.”

  “No. Absolutely not. The doctors said six full weeks.”

  He scowled at her. “Makes me feel like a wuss letting you drive me around everywhere.”

  “Get over it. You know what else would be nice if you’re up to it? Going to the midnight service at church.”

  “I thought you were going in the morning with your parents.”

  “I’d rather go this evening with you.”

  He started to shrug, but remembered his broken ribs. “I can give it a try, I guess. I can sleep in church as easy as I can here.”

  “You do that and the reverend will call you out,” she warned with a twinkle in her eyes. “He did that to Chase one year.”

  She launched into a tale about Christmas Eves of the past and soon had him laughing, a first since the accident. Later after he showered and stood in front of the mirror shaving, he told himself he’d turned a corner. Physically, he felt halfway decent; and mentally, he wasn’t nearly on edge.

  He finished shaving then opened his medicine cabinet where he kept his aftershave. His gaze snagged on a row of amber bottles that didn’t belong there. He froze. Well, hell. Caitlin must have picked up the prescriptions the doctor had sent in at his last visit. Temptation coiled like a rattlesnake.

  Josh slammed the cabinet door shut and backed away. He was still standing staring at his reflection in the mirror when he heard his front door open. Caitlin called, “I’m back.”

  “Sorry. I’m running late.” Slowly, he opened the medicine cabinet and found his aftershave. Ten minutes later, he walked into his living room to see Caitlin standing before the Christmas tree.

  She turned and smiled at him and took his breath away.

  Her dress was Christmas red, a simple fit-and-flare style with three-quarter sleeves and a modest neckline appropriate for church. It showed off the Sokolov necklace to perfection. Green and red. She’d give Claire Lancaster a run for her money for the title of “Miss Christmas.”

  She folded her arms, tapped her lips with a finger, and said, “I spy with my little eye something new beneath your Christmas tree, Mr. Tarkington.”

  “I can’t see anything but you. You are a vision.” And he should give her his gift right now to complete tonight’s outfit.

  “Well, the gift tag reads ‘to Josh from Penny’. I wonder what she got for you?”

  “Penny?” Surprised, he laughed. “Shall I open it and see?”

  “Oh. No. What blasphemy. It’s not Christmas yet. You get to open one gift—after church.”

  “So I guess that means you won’t open my gift to you now?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s a mistake. Just saying.”

  “Why is it a mistake?”

  “Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Does it have something to do with that other new box beneath the tree?”

  “Your little eye did quite a bit of spying, didn’t it?”

  “It’s tradition. I’m all about tradition.”

  Apparently, pestering him with guesses was part of her tradition too, because she did exactly that during the drive to Angel’s Rest. They arrived shortly before Celeste asked her guests to gather in the central hallway for a special announcement. She climbed the stairs to the second-floor landing and stood at the banister, waiting for stragglers to make their way into the hallway. The space quickly grew crowded, and when another g
uest accidentally elbowed Josh in the ribs, he decided he’d find an out-of-the-way place to listen to Celeste’s big announcement.

  Later, the guests all said it was a miracle that someone had been standing in just the perfect spot to catch Celeste when the banister broke and she lost her balance and tumbled toward the ground. The fact that the “someone” was Josh and the impact damaged his mending ribs was a terrible bit of bad luck.

  Journal Entry

  I looked back in a previous journal and found something I wrote shortly after I arrived in Eternity Springs. I wrote:

  I have found a place. They claim it’s a little piece of heaven, a place where broken hearts come to heal.

  I’m not here to mend a broken heart. I’m not exactly sure why I’m here except I needed somewhere to go and I landed here and liked it.

  There’s this woman here. I don’t know how to describe her. It’s like she’s everybody’s grandmother, everybody’s best friend, everybody’s port in a storm. Everybody’s angel. She’ll give you hell if you need it and a pat on the back when it’s deserved.

  I like her. She’s … soothing.

  Boy, was I wrong. She damn near killed me. Who says angels can fly?

  Chapter Seventeen

  At the local medical clinic, tests and X-rays revealed new damage to Josh’s ribs, but thankfully, no troublesome issues with internal organs. He remained at the clinic overnight on doctor’s orders and went home to his own bed on the afternoon of Christmas Day. There, Caitlin handed him a glass of water and a pain pill.

  Josh swallowed both.

  He told Caitlin to enjoy Christmas dinner with her family and not to rush home because he intended to sleep. He did exactly that until he awoke to debilitating pain. Josh took another Percocet.

  A week passed. On New Year’s Eve, Josh stood in his bathroom staring at the lone pill in the bottle of painkillers for almost five minutes before he dumped it into the toilet.

  On New Year’s Day, the Beast was back.

  * * *

  The bitter wind of the mid-January morning brought tears to Caitlin’s eyes as she hurried up the street toward the vet clinic where she needed to pick up Penny’s heartworm-prevention medicine. At least she tried to tell herself that the wind and not the exchange she’d just had with Josh was the source of her tears.

  After the last two weeks, a part of her wanted to elbow him in the ribs just out of spite. He’d been impossible to live with. More than once she’d considered moving back to her house and leaving him to fend for himself. She wasn’t quite there yet, but …

  A door chime jangled as she opened the door and stepped into the clinic to the sound of loud barking. “I’ll be right with you,” her sister-in-law called from an exam room.

  “No rush,” Caitlin called back. She sat in one of the waiting room chairs, picked up a National Geographic, and began flipping through it. She found an article about the Great Wall of China and began reading. Her mind wandered by the time she turned the page. What was wrong with Josh? She couldn’t figure him out. She could understand his grumpiness right after Christmas because, in many respects, the act of catching Celeste had sent him back to recovery Day One. But he’d been much nicer to her that week after Christmas than he was now. Aloud, she muttered, “I swear, if he snaps at me one more time, I’m going bite back.”

  “You having trouble with a dog, Caitlin?” Lori asked as she exited the exam room carrying her dad’s sedated Boston terrier, Mortimer, in her arms. Gently, she placed the dog into a kennel, shut the door, then turned a curious look toward Caitlin.

  “More like a horse’s ass.”

  “Ahh…” Lori nodded sagely. “Dare I surmise that Josh is being a difficult patient?”

  “Difficult? Hah! That doesn’t begin to describe him.” Caitlin shot to her feet. “He’s impossible. Do you know what he snapped at me about this morning? He was toasting a bagel and he burned it and it was somehow my fault because I’d turned the dial when I cleaned the toaster. Never mind that all he had to do was check the setting. Then he grumbled because I put the jam in the door of the refrigerator when everyone knows it belongs on the shelf. He even growled at Penny this morning!”

  At that, the amused smile on Lori’s face faded. “He was mean to his dog?”

  “Yes!” Caitlin exclaimed before almost immediately qualifying. “Well, not really. Josh was emptying the kitchen trash can and he set the bag on the floor behind him while he dealt with the liner. Penny bit into it and made a mess. He scolded her.”

  “As well he should.”

  “Loudly!”

  Caitlin had a long list of other complaints she could make, but whining was so unattractive. “I need to pick up Penny’s heartworm medicine.”

  “All righty.” Lori walked to the cabinet where she kept her retail goods and removed a package of pills. “How is Josh set on pet shampoo? Savannah Turner just dropped off a new batch of pet products that smell heavenly. Here.” Lori opened a bottle of shampoo and held it out for Caitlin to sniff. “Isn’t that fabulous?”

  Caitlin smelled coconut and orange and something else she couldn’t place. “It makes me think of summer. On a day like today, that’s a good thing.”

  “Tell me about it. We’re supposed to get another foot of snow overnight.”

  Lori held up the shampoo, a question on her face, and Caitlin nodded. Through no fault of her own and as a result of her back injury, Penny was a very stinky dog. Caitlin nodded. “Definitely add the shampoo.”

  While Lori wrote up a sales receipt and bagged the purchases, Caitlin retrieved Josh’s credit card from her wallet. Seeing his name on the card turned her thoughts in his direction once again. “He’s shutting himself off from me, Lori. He’s been a different man since the accident, but especially since Christmas. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  Lori accepted the card Caitlin extended toward her saying, “Could he be depressed? A lot of people suffer from holiday depression.”

  “I talked to Rose about that, but when I brought the subject up with him, he waved it off and claimed nothing was wrong. He made a stupid joke about being depressed about the Broncos’ loss in the playoffs.”

  “Chase is still a bit depressed about that loss too.”

  “Yeah. Well, Josh isn’t. He didn’t even watch the game.”

  Lori’s eyes rounded in alarm. “Seriously? Chase and I have watched Bronco football with Josh in the past. He was into it. We even talked about it because he’s a recent Bronco convert. He grew up a Raiders fan. I can’t imagine him not being interested in the game. Maybe he turned it off after one of the team’s numerous miscues.”

  “He didn’t watch at all. I was there. He went for a walk. A long one.” Josh had been taking lots of long walks of late. By himself. In all kinds of weather. More than once she’d asked to tag along and he always refused the request. He always had an excuse, though generally, a poor one.

  Caitlin sighed and continued, “I don’t know what to do. Some days I think it would be best for me to pack up my things and move home. He doesn’t need me there any longer. He’s well enough to live by himself again.”

  “So move home. He’ll miss you.”

  “Possibly. Probably. Except I’m afraid if I leave, he’ll never invite me back. Any hopes I have of building a life with him will wither away to nothing.”

  “So this mood of his hasn’t changed your mind? You still want to be with him?”

  “Yes.” Caitlin recognized that she said it with less certainty than she had even two weeks ago. “He’s trying to drive me away and I’m afraid he just might succeed. But I sense that something else is going on here, Lori. Something I don’t understand. It’s as if there’s a puzzle piece missing and he knows where it is, but I don’t.”

  “That’s tough. Have you said that to him? Just like that?”

  Caitlin thought about it a moment. “No. Not just like that.”

  “Maybe that’s a place to start.”

>   “You could be right, though I expect he’ll just blow me off. Or snap and growl at me.

  “You’re not happy with the way things are now. What do you have to lose?”

  The bell on the door jangled again as the local banker’s wife walked in with her cat. The three women exchanged small talk for a few minutes, then Caitlin took her leave. Outside, she turned her face into the wind. This time when tears leaked from the corner of her eyes and she blamed it on the bitter wind, she told herself the truth.

  With a renewed sense of purpose, Caitlin began the walk home to Josh’s house. She was halfway there when a car pulled up beside her and her mother rolled down the window. “Hello, sweet pea. This is kismet. I had just decided to call you to see if you could steal an hour away. I’m on my way to the spa at Angel’s Rest for a pedicure. Want to tag along? My treat.”

  Caitlin looked up the street toward Tarkington Automotive where Mr. Grumpypants had probably gone to do paperwork or hide from her or both. A spa date with her mom sounded like just the pick-me-up she needed.

  Twenty minutes later, she and Ali sat side by side in pedicure chairs, their feet soaking in scented, toasty warm water. Caitlin talked to her mom a couple times a week on the phone, but they hadn’t seen each other since Christmas because Mac and Ali had taken one of their getaways. “So how was Cabo? Did Dad catch any fish?”

  “Cabo was beautiful as always and yes, Dad is a happy fisherman. So, tell me what we missed while we were gone. Is Jax wrapping things up at Gingerbread House?”

  “Yes. Work slowed down a bit last week. Claire had a stomach bug so he stayed home with the kids and that delayed our walk-through. It’s now scheduled for next Monday.”

  “That’s exciting. Though I hate to hear that Claire has been ill. She’s better now?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how about your hero? I trust his ribs are healing all right?”

  Caitlin hesitated. She’d like to pour out her heart to her mom, but she feared if she started, she wouldn’t stop. “Yes, I think so. He’s pretty grouchy, though.”

  “That’s understandable. Broken ribs are painful to begin with and to have them injured twice…” Ali shuddered. “That poor guy.”