“I have my reasons.”
“I can’t imagine those reasons have any validity.”
“I don’t care what you imagine.” Big leaned back to rest a hip against one of the sawhorses behind him.
Daniel folded his arms over his chest. “She’s afraid of Franklin. That makes her more vulnerable to him than she already is. It makes her move awkwardly and frankly, a little carelessly, as she tries to keep her distance from him while she’s walking him.”
Big nodded. Rubbed his hand over his beard. “That girl has always been awkward and flighty.” He exhaled. “Got her into big trouble before.”
“It did?” Hell, he didn’t like hearing his uncle say that. It upped Daniel’s worries tenfold.
“What else?” Big asked, clearly tired of the subject.
“I want your word that you’ll find someone else to walk Franklin. I don’t want to see her hurt by him.”
“There is no one else.”
“That can’t be true. There must be some teenager…” His uncle stood and looked hard at Daniel. He knew exactly what that look meant. He’d seen it before when he wanted him to shovel a path or add oil to the dirt bike. “No. I won’t do it.”
“Fine. Aurora it is.”
“Oh, hell.” Daniel shook his head. “You can be a real jerk, you know that?”
Big smiled. “Twice a day. You need to get him out of the shed and walk around twice a day. He likes going out really late when no one else is around to bother him…”
“At two in the morning. I know.” Daniel had to talk to him about the Nutcracker show, but with the way the “Aurora walking Franklin” conversation ended, he wondered if he should just forget about it and do what the hell he wanted without consulting his uncle.
“Let’s move this thing near to the corner, out of the way,” Big told him.
It was heavy and awkward to carry, but in less than two minutes, they had it settled safely where Big wanted it. When he walked around from the back of the multigraph, Daniel noticed Aurora’s reflection in the mirror as she entered the ballroom carrying a large leather toolbox. His heart began to bang against his chest. Boom-boom, boom-boom. He started tapping the rhythm with his thumb against his thigh. She immediately turned to walk away. Before he could stop her, his uncle called for her to join them.
“These are the ones you want me to paint?” she asked Big, she walked up to them. She pointed to the nutcrackers along the wall, never looking at Daniel as she did. He wondered if she was embarrassed or regretted the hot kiss they’d had earlier.
“Yep, those are the ones.”
She nodded. “You have the primer paint I asked for?” Big nodded and she placed the toolbox on the floor. “I’ll put that on first and after it dries I’ll come back to paint the details.”
“Daniel will be walking Franklin,” Big said without warning or introduction to the subject.
She jerked her head to look at Daniel for the first time. “Why? Did you tell him I don’t want to?”
“I told him you shouldn’t do it. That it was dangerous for you.”
“Mind your own business.” She turned to Big. “I’ll walk him.”
Big leaned against the sawhorse and smiled.
“This is already settled. I’m walking him.” Why was she being so stubborn about this? He knew she didn’t want to walk the ornery deer. “Tell her.”
Big shook his head.
“Dammit, Aurora. Don’t be a martyr.”
“Martyr? Don’t interfere in my life. You have no business appointing yourself as administrator of it. You have a real problem with that. Mind. Your. Own. Damn. Business.” She finished, jabbing her pointy finger into his chest to emphasis each word.
“I don’t have a real problem with that.” He stepped forward and grabbed her wrist to stop her from bruising his chest with that strong, painter’s finger of hers. “You have to repeatedly do something for it to be a problem. I just…”
“You have a problem with it,” Big said interrupting.
Daniel looked at his uncle as he released Aurora’s wrist. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Aurora stomped her foot. “Both of you, be quiet.”
“Can’t fix something until you know what you’re fixing,” Big said to Aurora. Or so he thought until Big repeated it and looked at him. Was that meant for both of them?
“What is he talking about?” Daniel asked her. Her eyes were dark with sadness. He sucked in a breath. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she said, but there wasn’t a lot of conviction behind the word.
Daniel looked at his uncle for an answer. He just stared back at him. What was going on? What did they know that he didn’t? He tried to think of all the things it could possibly be, but nothing came to mind.
“What’s going on?” he asked again, keeping his voice even, controlled. “Uncle Big?”
Big turned and started to open the gallon of primer paint on the floor.
“Aurora? What’s going on?”
She looked at Big, then walked over to his uncle. “I’m not ready.”
“Do you think you ever will be?” Big squeezed her shoulder. “Best to move it out of the shadows of history.”
Ready for what? Shadows? History? What were they talking about? Crap. He hated being the odd man out of this conversation. He wanted to demand an answer, but he was dealing with two stubborn people who would do what they wanted. So, he decided to wait it out and not push. Instinctively, he knew pushing these two would work against him.
“Daniel, I’ll explain what Big and I are talking about at another time,” she finally said after a minute. “I promise. In the meantime, please accept that.”
“Another time, huh?” His gut burned with anger over not resolving this now. He knew it would bug the hell out of him waiting for her to tell him what they were talking about so cryptically. “I’ll wait, but not for long.”
Big handed him a paintbrush and pointed to three other nutcrackers that he hadn’t noticed earlier. “While you wait, paint. I’m going to get something to eat. I skipped breakfast and it’s almost lunch.”
As Big left the ballroom, Daniel looked at Aurora applying primer on the nutcracker next to him. “About that kiss earlier today, I’m thinking you owe me another.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, pretending he was thinking seriously about her question. “I figure since I’m still angry over the bullshit mystery you and Big have excluded me from, I should be given some sort of consolation…”
“Prize? Is a kiss from me a reward?”
“Hell yeah, it’s a reward.” He shook his head. “Although for the life of me, I have no idea why I’m wanting one now when I’m really ticked off at you.”
Without hesitation, she walked over to Daniel and stood in front of him. He inhaled deeply, taking in her scent—fresh air, sweet paint, and desire. “What the hell. I don’t know why I’m going to kiss you when you really tick me off too.”
She leaned in, brush in hand, not touching him, and kissed him. He’d be damned if the earth didn’t move again.
Chapter Six
Five days had passed since she’d promised to tell Daniel what she and Big had been talking about. She knew he had no idea that the conversation would be on how their past had changed her life forever. He’d think that was impossible because he had no clue that they had a past. Which they did, even though technically they hadn’t been friends and had only spoken a handful of times. She’d told Big she wasn’t ready to tell her story that morning in the ballroom. The sad thing was, she still wasn’t ready.
And she knew why.
Dipping the tip of her angular flat brush into the yellow ochre and burnt sienna umber paint, she blended it together for the autumn leaves at the very top where the crown molding framed the mural. Aurora had to force herself not to let her anxiety flow into her art. She relaxed her hand on the paintbrush handle as she flicked her wrist to c
reate a smooth, curved stroke. No sense worrying about what had started so long ago. She had no control then. She had no control now. Once she spoke of it, things would change between them.
She liked how things had been between them these last five days.
They’d spent a lot of time together helping to build and paint the sets for the show. When they weren’t doing that, they spent time together walking Franklin, ice fishing at the lake on nearby Mount Clara, and having ice cream at the general store. Yesterday, they’d taken an impromptu hike into the woods behind the town’s art gallery and gotten two small Christmas trees—one for Big’s house and one for Daniel’s loft. They spent hours afterward making popcorn garlands, cutting out snowflake ornaments from newspapers, tying tiny gold ribbons, and laughing until their sides hurt. They had so much fun decorating the trees and they enjoyed sharing increasingly passionate kisses.
Even though the kisses left them breathless, and clearly wanting more, they both held back from moving this thing that was between them to the next step. She understood why she did it when her heart and body wanted him so badly. She figured it was the same reason he did too.
Fear. Defense.
He didn’t know what her secret was and how it would affect them. She didn’t know how he would react or what he would say once he knew, nor how she would react to it.
“Good morning,” Daniel said from where he stood at the bottom of the scaffolding. His smile was as sunny as the lemon paint on her palette.
Her heart skipped a beat. “You’re up and about early.”
“Not so early. It’s nine thirty.”
“What?” She’d lost track of time. She’d been working on the mural since five a.m.
“Want to go for a hike after lunch? I have yet to make it to the waterfall since I’m here.”
Aurora’s stomach knotted. “Okay.” Big had been right. She might never be ready to talk to Daniel. Today, she would make herself ready.
The lobby door opened and voices poured in ahead of Mrs. McLemore and Mrs. Hall. They wore matching red sweaters with Santa Claus’s face on the front and kelly green corduroy slacks. They each carried three fluffy bell-shaped tulle tutus.
“Which color do you like best, Aurora?” Mrs. McLemore asked, holding up the three garments. One a rainbow of jewel-tone colors, one warm red and emerald green, and the third the shade of a deep canary yellow.
“Sister, she might like one of these better.” Mrs. Hall lifted the three tutus she had on hangers. “Blue and green? Turquoise? Or white with sparkles?”
“Why don’t you bring those costumes over to the stage,” Daniel said, intervening. “We’ll look at them under the stage lights and see which looks best in front of the set.”
“Good idea,” Mrs. McLemore said. “You see, that’s why we wanted you to be the show director, not only the music director.”
“I’m second director,” he reminded them. “Mayor Teddy is in charge. He’ll want to have the final say on the color on the costumes.” Daniel winked at Aurora.
She mouthed a thank-you to him as the door opened and the rest of the cast arrived. “Come on, my Sugar Plum Fairies, off to the Land of Sweets,” Daniel said.
The twins giggled like young girls.
The mayor’s daughter, Annie, who had the lead role of Clara in the show, rushed to Daniel. She was a sweet thirteen-year-old with curly red hair and a singing voice that was pure magic. It was clear by the way Annie looked at Daniel that she had a serious crush on him. Seeing her extra-large smile and openly besotted gaze when she was around him was like finding a looking glass into the past. That must’ve been how she had acted at about the same age, and wanted the attention of the boy she thought had hung the moon. The pain from his rejection, and the incidents that followed because of it, had affected the rest of her life.
Aurora’s stomach was a hornets’ nest of nerves. The physical exertion of climbing the steep, snowy path with snowshoes did little to abate her anxiety. Rehearsing how she would tell Daniel what had happened to her long ago didn’t build her confidence like it would if she rehearsed a speech she was to deliver to art students taking one of her workshops. This was different. If she hadn’t promised Big long ago that she would tell Daniel what had happened on that summer day he left Cloud Hill after visiting his grandparents, she wouldn’t be doing it. What good did it do for him to know now? So much time had passed.
“We’re almost there,” he said, his voice light with pleasure. The sound of rushing water hitting rock echoed through the spruce and aspens sloping down the jagged mountain to their right. He took off the snowshoes and secured them to his backpack. After adjusting his knit cap, Daniel climbed onto a huge red boulder, partially exposed in the snow, that blocked the path. “I’m glad we weren’t here when this came crashing down.”
Aurora removed her snowshoes and handed them to Daniel when he asked for her to give them to him. He dropped them on the other side of the boulder, before extending his hand to help her climb onto the waist-high boulder.
“Steady?” he asked her when she grabbed on to his arms to gain her balance. Standing so near to him, relying on his strength, felt right. How was that possible when just five days ago, she would’ve happily tossed him over the edge of the boulder into the forested ravine below?
“Yes. I’m steady. You can let go of me.”
He smiled in that sensually mischievous way he did. “No. I can’t.” He leaned in and kissed her, gently at first, then when her arms reached around his waist, much more urgently. Passion flared swiftly between them, until it threatened to consume them. “What am I going to do about you?” he asked, resting his forehead to hers. “I want to make love to you, Aurora. You must know that. I’ve been impatiently patient. When you aren’t in my arms, I can think of all the reasons that isn’t a good idea. Right now, on this big ole rock, with your warm body pressed against mine, I’m thinking it’s a damn fantastic idea.”
He kissed her again, this time unleashing his pent-up desire. His hands slid along her ribs, down her back, until his palms cupped her bottom. He pulled her tighter against him and his full erection.
“Daniel,” she whispered, settling a tender kiss on the tip of his nose. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah. I know.” He exhaled and looked down at her. “I know.” He climbed off the boulder on the uphill side and helped her down, letting his hands linger on her hips a moment longer than necessary. He turned, facing the dense forest that sloped down away from them. The scent of pine, clean air, and desire surrounded them. “It’s icier up here. Best we leave our snowshoes off. Might as well, keep yours here rather than carry them.”
He grabbed her hand, and led her for the final five minutes of the climb. The gentle roar of the waterfall grew louder as they neared, but not as loud as she remembered it was during the summer, when the full force of the cascading water was unleashed.
The path opened and the forty-foot-high partially frozen waterfall was in front of them. Her brain locked on to the organic scents of the exposed earth and stone drenched with the sweet mountain water. It brought with it the memories of the last time she’d been there. She shivered.
“It’s beautiful here,” he said, gently pulling her back to rest against his chest as they both looked at the thick blanket of ice over the cascading water below. “I love the way this moister air feels against my face. I can feel its energy.”
“I think that’s frostbite you feel.”
He pulled her tighter against him to cocoon her in his warmth. “And then there’s that,” he laughed. She turned in his arms and hugged him. This might be the last time she got to feel his hard, heated body against hers. Inhale his masculine scent.
“There’s so much I thought I wanted to say to you, now I’m not so…”
“It needs to be said. Big said we can’t fix what we don’t know needs fixing.” He leaned back to look in her eyes. “Our time in Cloud Hill together is so limited. If Big thinks this is something we need to discuss
, I’m sure it is. You seemed pretty determined to let me know you were angry with me when we first met on the bridge and at odd times since. I’m thinking we need to get whatever it is out in the open.”
She nodded. “Let’s sit in the sun over there.” She pointed to where a circle of rocks was positioned around what she knew to be a fire pit, now covered in four feet of snow.
Daniel sat next to her and turned to face her. Then he waited for her to speak. Aurora wasn’t sure how to begin. So instead of painting a scene from which he could draw his own conclusions, she got to the heart of story, leaving nothing to interpretation.
“Because of you, I was attacked, nearly raped, and left to die in an old abandoned mine…”
Chapter Seven
Attacked. Nearly raped. Left to die. Because of me?
Daniel’s heart sank. His hands began to sweat.
“Tell me everything,” he finally said, unable to recall a single thing that would connect him to the horrors she mentioned.
Aurora sucked in a breath and swallowed hard. “First of all, I want you to know that I’ve come to terms with what happened, as much as anyone can who has been violently attacked. I’ve had therapy. I’ve grown old enough to understand that bad stuff happens, and I have the power to rise above it and control how I deal with it. So, I don’t want or need your sympathy, Daniel. Don’t offer it. If you do, you do so because you feel guilty or helpless. Don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s for me. Got it?”
Her voice was totally controlled, but the way her face paled while she spoke told him that there was much more pain that she held inside. She claimed to not want him to offer sympathy, but how about support? Would she know the difference? He wanted to cradle her in his arms, ease her anxiety, and make it all better for her. Was he twenty years too late for that?
The Nutcracker Reimagined: A Collection of Christmas Tales Page 46