by Dunn, Sharon
This wasn’t just about the dolls. He had so much more he wanted tell her.
“Daddy—” a pair of garden gloves swatted his arm “—how ’bout these?”
“Hey, Uncle Philip, come back to this planet.” Travis jumped up and down, waving his hand in front of Philip’s eyes.
“I’m here, guys. I’m here.” He grabbed Shawn’s hand. He was ready to start dating someone, ready to fall in love again. And he wanted that someone to be Tasha. He had to find a way to say all those things to her.
* * *
Tasha dabbed her eyes with a tissue while she sat in her van outside the studio. The pain over Philip’s reaction to the dolls was still very raw. Seeing him in the hardware store just brought it all back. She looked at the check that Al had given her. Selling all the dolls was the first positive thing she’d had happen in a while. Still, the news only added to her indecision. Tasha was desperately looking for confirmation for closing her business down, yet everywhere she went, she got the exact opposite message. First Andrea had offered to be a tenant and now this.
She shook her head. Maybe the people who frequented Pony Junction Hardware liked her dolls, but thinking that they could serve an important purpose like healing had been too high-minded. Philip’s reaction confirmed that.
She got out of the van and opened the door to her studio. Both Eli and Andrea were working in their respective corners. Eli had several things covered with sheets. Andrea glanced in her direction and then quickly turned the canvas she was painting on. A knowing expression and a little snickering passed between them. What were her tenants up to?
Andrea picked up a canvas painted with a seascape. She dipped her brush and painted over an area that was already filled with color. “Some guy called while you were out, Tasha.” The painting looked complete. Why was she pretending to work on it?
“Some guy?” Hopefully not Philip. After she’d made such a fool of herself in the hardware store, she didn’t know if she could face him again.
“He said he was from Denver. He’s coming up with the contracts, whatever that means.”
It was just Quinton. “They’re contracts for doing some designing.” Andrea and Eli seemed so happy working together. She didn’t have the heart to tell them she was closing down the business, not yet anyway.
“The Denver guy said he’d like to spend Christmas Eve with you.”
Eli chuckled when Andrea said Christmas Eve.
Tasha put her hands on her hips. “All right, guys. What is going on here?”
Again, the two conspirators gave each other that look.
Eli wiped a smile from his face. “Nothing is going on, Tasha. So are you about done with your nativity?”
“Yes, I just need to place the Baby Jesus in the wooden box you made for me,” Tasha said.
“Good, good.” Eli pounded a nail into a board. “That service should be something else, all the little churches in the community together outside on Christmas Eve.”
“You should go, Eli.” Andrea smiled as she blotted her brush on a paint-stained cloth. She placed a cap on one of her tubes of paint.
“Naw, my wife’s always trying to get me to go to those things.” He pounded the nail loud and hard. “I don’t know.”
Tasha spent the rest of the day putting the finishing touches on the nativity. Quinton was just assuming she would spend Christmas Eve with him. She added a little color to Mary and Joseph’s faces and wrapped the Baby Jesus. The faces stared serenely back at her. After he went to the effort to drive up, she’d just have to fit Quinton into her plans. He could come to the church service with her.
Andrea and Eli both left around dinnertime. On their way out the door, Andrea said to Eli, “Now, don’t forget about the you-know-what.”
“Oh, yes, the you-know-what,” said Eli.
Tasha shook her head as the door closed behind them. Those two were definitely up to something.
She took some more dolls by the hardware store just as it was about to close. She called her mom and met her for dinner at the café next door to the hardware store. She needed to talk to her mom about her tentative plans.
The café consisted of four tables lining the wall. The curtains and tablecloths were done in red-checked material. Two old men dressed in ragged coveralls were perched at the counter, sipping coffee. Their cheeks were red from a lifetime spent outdoors. A family with one child in a high chair and little girl of about five sat two tables away, the five-year-old trailing French fries through a pool of ketchup.
When Tasha broached the subject of a possible move, her mom furled her forehead at the suggestion that she move to Denver with Tasha. “If you want to go back to Denver, that’s fine. This is my home, and I am staying here.”
“You need my help, Mama.” Tasha jabbed her fork into the mashed potatoes. “I can’t make a living here.” Two tenants weren’t going to cover all the bills. She dragged the fork through the potatoes, making deep furrows. Why was everything and everyone working against her going back to Newburg Designs?
“I am not moving to any stuffy city. I have lived in Pony Junction for over thirty years.”
“They have nice retirement communities there.”
Elizabeth shook her head and took a bite of salad. “I like my house. All the memories of your father are there.”
Tasha shoved a spoonful of green beans in her mouth. That was it. Mama was not budging. With her salary from Newburg, she could afford to have a home care person come in and help her mother. She chewed furiously. But that was not what she wanted. She wanted to be the one to help her mother. And her mother wouldn’t want a stranger in her house anyway. Why did this have to be so hard?
They ate the rest of the meal without speaking of Newburg or Denver. Even while they talked of fabric on sale and quilting, the issue whirled around in Tasha’s head.
After dropping her mother off, she drove home. When she pulled into her driveway, a truck she didn’t recognize was parked outside her barn. A man dressed in a parka stood in the truck bed tossing logs onto the ground. His hood was pulled over his head, so she couldn’t see who it was, but she didn’t recognize the coat or the truck.
Tasha slowly got out of her van. “Excuse me?”
The man turned around and pulled back his hood. It was Philip. “I told you I was going to bring you some wood. Merry Christmas a few days early.”
She took a step back. Philip’s hair looked soft enough to touch. His cheeks were red from the cold, and his eyes held warmth that melted her. Still, she could not shake off the memory of his reaction to the doll, the cold reminder that her work meant nothing. “Thank you.”
Over and over, God was providing for her. First Eli had insulated her barn, and now Philip brought her wood. She went back and forth in her mind about returning to Newburg.
Philip jumped out of the truck.
She picked up a log. “I’ll help you stack it.” Somehow, though, she wished anyone but Philip had brought the wood. She was embarrassed by her behavior in the hardware store. The sooner he left, the better, because no matter what she did, no matter how he had hurt her, she couldn’t dismiss her attraction to him. They worked together in silence, stacking the wood beside her barn.
The sky darkened and stars twinkled. Crystal-cold air tingled on Tasha’s face. Her knitted mittens got damp, and she slipped them off. She took in a deep breath. The cold was invigorating.
“Did you cut all this wood yourself?”
“I had a little help. Grace’s husband, Gary, is back. He gave me a hand.”
Tasha picked up a log. It slipped from her fingers. “Ouch.” She drew her hand up to her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” He came up beside her.
“Sliver.”
“Let me have a look. I am a doctor after all.” He tore off his gloves. “Y
our hands are freezing. Why aren’t you wearing gloves?”
The heat of his touch radiated though her hand. “The gloves were wet.” All those old feelings she had for him prodded at her. She couldn’t control her emotions, but she could control her words, her actions. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff trying to decide whether or not to jump.
He turned her hand over in his own. “I can’t see anything in this light.”
She decided to jump off the cliff. She wasn’t going to deny herself time with him...if she could keep the hurt feelings at bay. “We can go inside.”
Tasha clicked the light on and walked over to her work area. “I have tweezers here somewhere.”
Philip glanced around. “Nice studio.”
“Thank you.”
Turning on a work light on the counter, she examined her hand. A long sliver was deeply embedded in her palm. She tried unsuccessfully to grab one end of the wood. “It’s under the skin.”
Philip leaned close to her. “I can help.”
“Only if you promise not to nag me about not wearing gloves.”
“I promise.”
She rested her hands on the table. He flattened her palm by holding her thumb down. “I’ll have to cut through some of that skin. Do you have a first-aid kit?”
“Oh, major surgery,” Tasha said with a tone of theatrical seriousness.
“Dr. Strathorn is in the house.”
How she had missed his sense of fun, joking with him. She retrieved the first-aid kit from the bathroom and handed it to Philip.
Again, she laid her hand on the counter underneath the light. “Cut away.”
He leaned closer to her hand. “This will hurt just a little.”
“That’s what doctors always say,” Tasha said.
She listened to his steady inhaling and exhaling, breathed in the woody scent of his cologne and relished the warmth and tenderness of his hand on hers. Philip cut away the layer of skin with a delicate touch.
She winced only slightly when he pulled the sliver out. He placed a cotton ball over the cut as the blood oozed out, applying pressure with his thumb.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
The intensity of his gaze made her heart flutter.
* * *
When Tasha looked at him with those wide brown eyes, he felt the same nervousness he used to get in junior high right before he had to give a speech. This was his chance to tell her everything he’d been feeling.
He held her cool, slender fingers in his own hand and struggled to find the words. “I liked the dolls. Please don’t think I didn’t.” He swallowed hard as his throat went dry. There was so much more he wanted to say.
She nodded and leaned closer to him. “You turned your back to me. I thought you didn’t like them.”
“I still haven’t paid you.” Ugh, he kicked himself mentally. That was not what he meant to say. Why did he slip into business mode? He wanted to tell her what the dolls had done for him. “You do really nice work—with the dolls.” Shakespeare doesn’t have any competition from me.
Her freckled cheeks turned pink. “I guess I just wanted you to fall all over the dolls, and when you didn’t—”
He still held her open palm in his hand.
“And I’ve lined up a grant for you if you’re interested in making dolls and teddy bears for the hospital and the shelter.” What was his problem? Why could he only talk to her about professional stuff?
She nodded as though a revelation had come to her. “Philip, thank you. You don’t know what a confirmation that is that I’m supposed to keep this business going.”
“You mean you were thinking about shutting it down?”
“It’s a long story.” She pulled her hand from his and drew it up to her collar.
A coldness crept across his own skin where her hand had been. “What you do is important, Tasha.” He sounded like such a broken record. She looked at him again, eyes round with expectation. Come on, Philip, this is your chance. His throat constricted as his heart hammered in his chest.
She diverted her gaze and studied her army of dolls. “Somewhere deep in my heart, I knew I didn’t want to give these guys up.”
“Best coworkers in the world, right?” He bit his tongue.
The moment had passed, and he’d traded a joke for telling her how he felt.
“They don’t argue with me. And they don’t eat anything.” They laughed until the laughter faded into a heavy silence that pressed on him like lead.
He sighed deeply. “Well, I suppose I should go.”
She held up her hand. “Thanks for the surgery and the firewood—and the confirmation.”
He gathered his coat and gloves off the chair where he had thrown them. He wrapped his scarf around his neck in slow motion, not wanting to leave her but not able to say what he felt. He noticed the nativity she had displayed on the counter. “Is that for the Christmas Eve service?”
She took a step toward him. “Yes. You’re coming, aren’t you?”
“Oh, sure. I’ll be there with the whole gang.”
Behind the floodgate of this trivial conversation, his emotions welled up. She looked precious standing there holding her hands in front of her. Or was it that she looked like one of those glassy-eyed, clear-skinned dolls that she created? But he could not bring himself to tell her how he felt.
He shoved his gloves on, said goodbye and walked toward the door.
* * *
Tasha didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until the door closed. She exhaled and gripped the back of a chair for balance. From the time Philip had pulled his hood off, she had felt as if she was in a whirlwind.
Philip had liked her dolls. She’d been so sensitive, so desperate for his approval of her work that she had misinterpreted the moment when he had first seen the dolls. Why, then, had he turned his back on her? Her breath caught in her throat. Had he been crying? She had mistaken his sorrow over his wife for disappointment with her work.
Tasha pounded the counter with a fist. She’d been self-centered, only concerned about what he thought of her work. She needed to remember that this wasn’t about her.
Tasha stared at Eli’s work area. There were several bumps covered with sheets. And Andrea had three canvases turned toward the wall. What were those two up to? She was tempted to go over and have a peek, but that wouldn’t be right.
She crawled beneath the quilt in her warm barn, feeling very content that night. Philip did like the dolls. She had two tenants to help meet expenses and keep her company, and a grant to help children in hospitals and shelters. She could stay in Pony Junction and take care of her mom. God couldn’t be speaking to her any more clearly. This was where she was supposed to be. She rolled over on her side and tucked the quilt around her. Now all she had to do was tell Quinton that when he came to visit.
* * *
Philip drove slowly down the two-lane road. The old truck rumbled through the darkness. Once again, he’d forgotten to pay Tasha for her work. It would be an excuse to go back to her place, but she was probably already in bed by now.
His headlights cut through the darkness, forming two overlapping triangles of light. He didn’t pass any other cars.
He had blown his chance to tell her how he felt. He would see her again at the Christmas Eve service. After that, he and Mary would be headed back to Denver. He had to tell her then.
He knew now what was so different about Tasha. After Heather died, women had lined up to date him. But the problem was they were seeing “the doctor,” Mr. Eligible Bachelor. They weren’t seeing him; they weren’t seeing his pain. But Tasha was different; she hadn’t wanted anything from him. Instead, she had shown a deep understanding of his grief through those dolls. She had come to give instead of take, and that had made
him fall in love with her.
Philip turned into the driveway of Grace’s home. He killed the engine and opened the door of the truck. A blast of cold air hit him. He thought of Tasha stacking wood with her cold red hands.
The snow crunched beneath him as he trudged up the walkway to the house. A Christmas tree with blinking green and red lights filled the window. It was late. The kids would be in bed by now.
Christmas Eve service would be his last chance to tell Tasha how he felt. If he did, would she be open to moving her business to Denver? He wasn’t sure how they would make that work or if she would even say yes to a relationship with him.
Philip opened the door to the quiet house and stepped inside.
Chapter 13
Quinton’s arm felt like a chain around Tasha’s biceps as they walked from the parking lot to the park where the Christmas Eve service was to be held. She hadn’t told him yet about her decision to stay in Pony Junction and make her business work.
He’d shown up at her door around midafternoon, all smiles and charm. She’d put aside the contracts he handed her and suggested they go out for an early dinner before the service.
But now, as she felt the pressure of his arm wrapped around her own, she knew she had to tell him. His demeanor during dinner—touching her face, sitting close to her and casually resting his arm on the back of booth—told her that he assumed that if she was going to work for Newburg, eventually their relationship would return to what it had been. No matter how many times she told him she wasn’t interested in him romantically, he simply would not or could not hear her.
As they made their way across the park, the night was still. The dark sky held only gossamer wisps of clouds and a million stars. The air was unusually warm. Tasha liked to think that this was what it was like the night Jesus was born.