by Janet Spaeth
She rolled her eyes so hard she thought she’d pulled some kind of eye muscle. He was infuriating.
But he put on his turn signal and swung off onto a frontage road.
Her curiosity got the better of her. “What’s out here?”
He pulled into the parking lot of a large brick building. It seemed nondescript until he drove close enough for her to see the front of it clearly.
“Welcome to the Animal Kingdom,” she read. “Oh, I’ve heard of this. It was mentioned in the paper, but I’ve never been here before.”
“You have to get out more often,” he said as he switched off the ignition and opened his door.
His comment stung a bit. She was a downtown businesswoman as well as a member of the mayor’s task force on rejuvenating the city’s heart. Not only didn’t she have the time to visit every business in town, but her loyalties were firmly on the side of downtown. Whenever she could, she patronized those businesses in the heart of the city.
She knew there was truth in what he said, though. It was almost too easy to let herself cocoon in the downtown district, what with Nativity half a block away and a grocery store only a few blocks past that. Most of her clothes she bought from mail-order catalogs and had them delivered to her home. She was well on her way to becoming a hermit if she didn’t watch it.
She trailed after him as he strode across the lot. Snow that hadn’t been scraped off by the plow crunched under her feet.
Just as a few well-chosen words were about to escape concerning men who walked ahead of their companions, he stopped and waited for her to catch up. “I thought you were right beside me! This is embarrassing—I’ve been talking away to you, and here I am, jabbering to myself. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you weren’t with me. I’ll be more considerate—I promise.”
The words died on her lips. He was too good.
She stopped to read the sign on the door: “We do not sell animals here. We recommend you visit your local humane society.” Below that, the address of the animal shelter was lettered in neatly.
“That’s great!” she said, feeling more enthusiasm for the visit. She was an avid supporter of the humane society.
Her eyes widened at the sight that met her inside. It was a warehouse of pet supplies that stretched wall to wall and floor to ceiling.
Jake clutched her hand. “Help me pick out some gifts for a very special young lady.”
She fell easily into his game. “Tell me something about her.”
“Well, she’s about this big—” He carved in the air a shape the size of a small calf. “And she has lovely gray hair and white whiskers and an attitude that tells me she doesn’t suffer at all from low self-esteem.”
“I see. And you were thinking of getting her—?”
“Something edible.”
They located the cat section, and Tess’s eyes widened at the aisles of cat treats. They lined the shelves in bags and boxes and cartons of many differing sizes and shapes, and they came in an even greater variety of flavors.
“Fish Medley. Poultry Delight. Beefy Bouquet. Halibut Hearties,” he read. “Whatever happened to tuna, chicken, and beef?”
“Well, it’s not that easy. Apparently combo meals have come to kitty land. You’ve got choices here of tuna and liver”—she shuddered—“or salmon and chicken on this row, or, ooh, now this sounds good: mackerel and cod with cheesy cheddar bits.”
“Actually they do sound appealing.” He picked up a foil packet and studied it. “Hey, this one even cleans their teeth. Like dog bones but for cats, I guess. Wouldn’t that be neat, if you could just eat a snack, and you wouldn’t have to get up and brush your teeth because the snack’s already done it for you?”
“Now there’s something for your cook to work on!” she said.
“Which do you think Cora would like the best?” He walked a bit farther down the aisle and picked up a diamond-shaped package. “Here are some herbal treats.”
“Trying to predict what Cora will like is folly. She’s fond of anything expensive. That much I know.”
“These are $12.59.”
“That’s expensive, I’ll grant you, but I don’t think herbal anything will fly with the lady, unless it’s catnip, of course. In which case, she’ll fly.”
He picked up a basket from the end of the row and began throwing packets into it. She tried to intervene, but he continued until he had an assortment that filled half the basket.
“Now to the toys.”
They found the section with cat toys. Jake gave each one serious consideration and eventually selected several felt-covered, catnip-stuffed mice, some soft spongy balls covered with fuzzy metallic threads, and a windup mouse that Tess was sure Cora would bat into the wall and destroy within seconds.
Then he chose an elaborate contraption that allowed the human to dangle a stuffed glittery toy from the end of a flexible stick. But more than that, a system of pulleys and relays changed the height and sway of the toy.
He didn’t stop there. He added a scratching post, since Cora still had her claws, and a special tray for enjoying her catnip without spreading it all over the house. And, of course, a bag of catnip, guaranteed to make her a very happy kitty cat.
Tess watched in amazement as the bill was totaled. “All this for Cora?” she asked. “I mean, I love her dearly myself, but this is too much!”
He flashed her a grin as he signed the credit slip and returned his wallet to his pocket. “I like doing this. One day maybe I’ll have a cat of my own, and chances are I’ll spoil him or her instead. But for now, if it’s all right with you—and Cora—I’ll pamper her. Indulge me. I’m having fun.”
She shrugged. “Well, okay. But you know she’s going to be awfully mad when all the treats come to an end.”
“Why would they?” He thanked the salesclerk and picked up the bag.
As they walked to the parking lot she tried to choose the words that would convey what she meant.
“Well, someday you’ll, uh, I’ll, uh, we …” Her voice trailed off. The day he wouldn’t be stopping by every day to see her, surprising her in some way or another, was bound to come eventually. Putting it into words was painful, and the syllables caught in her throat like dry shreds of paper.
He stopped and faced her squarely. “At this moment, Tess Mahoney, I plan to continue seeing you as long as I can. Yes, I’m growing very fond of you, and I do hope, fervently, that this relationship will grow and develop into something permanent. There. Does that explain it to your satisfaction?”
Tess had the unshakable impression she was standing in the parking lot of the Animal Kingdom, her mouth open as if she were waiting for an out-of-season fly to come along. She tried to shut her mouth, but it wouldn’t cooperate.
“Is that all right with you?” he asked.
She tried to speak again, but she could only nod. She knew how she was feeling about him, and she knew how she hoped he was feeling about her, but this declaration was so sudden that she was caught off guard.
He smiled. “Okay, then. Let’s go wrap these for Cora. We’ll go to my house since she’ll probably insist on watching the whole operation if we try to do it at your house, and that would spoil the surprise.”
He chattered the entire way to his house about this and that, items in the news, the sweater he had bought his father for Christmas, the prospects for his favorite team, the Minnesota Vikings. He didn’t mention his proclamation in the parking lot, but that was all right.
She had heard, and now she knew, and that was all that was necessary.
He turned into the development known as the Pines. Some of the downtowners called it Snooty Acres, poking fun at the people who lived there. It was heavily populated with doctors, lawyers, and car dealers.
He pulled into the driveway of one of the smaller homes. It was a tidy brick colonial, its pristine white shutters marked now with the deep forest green of wreaths that adorned the side of each window. The sidewalk and entrance were neatly cleared of snow
.
The front door opened into a large antechamber with a bench and coat tree. She sat on the bench to pull off her snow boots and tried not to envy him for this.
The two entrances to her house led directly into the store and into her kitchen. Whatever people had on their shoes or boots followed them in. It was an unavoidable problem unless she remodeled, and even then that would steal some precious space from the room.
A stack of drywall leaned against the closet door, and beside it were a can of paint and a brush. “The basement was pretty much unfinished when I moved in,” he explained, “so I’m having some work done on it. The theory is there’ll eventually be a guest room downstairs, but it’s going so slowly I’ve about given up hope.”
He showed her through the house. It was larger inside than it appeared, and it was amazingly clean. It was so spotless it looked almost unlived in.
She began to get nervous. She was anything but a neatness nut. The store she had to keep in shape, and she managed that by a strict cleaning schedule she adhered to.
But her own living quarters were another matter. She shuddered at the thought of the upstairs, where her bedroom and what she used as a den were. Some people decorated with antiques. She decorated with clothes. And books. And a lot of unclassifiable stuff.
So far Jake had seen only the downstairs, which stayed fairly neat by virtue of the fact that she didn’t use it. If he were really this neat—she saw trouble ahead.
He offered to take her coat, and she hugged her arms to herself after she gave it to him. The house was chilly.
He noticed. “Let me turn up the heat.” He paused, as if trying to remember where the thermostat was, before excusing himself to turn it up.
Could it be this was not his home? Why would he pretend it was? A photograph sat on the fireplace mantel, and she studied it. The couple in the picture was posed in front of a boat, their arms draped over each other’s shoulders. The man’s grin was familiar; it must be Jake’s father.
He entered the room and confirmed the identification. They were his parents, standing in front of their new boat. The snapshot had been taken only a few months ago.
His arms were filled with two rolls of wrapping paper, some tape, and a bag of bows.
“Let’s do this in the dining room.”
The large table was cleared. “Wow,” said Tess. “I didn’t know you could see an entire tabletop anywhere but in a furniture store.”
As soon as she said it, she wanted to bite back the words. They sounded horrid and critical.
But he didn’t seem offended. Instead he offered an apology. “I’m really not here very often. I spend most of my waking hours at Panda’s, and I come here only to sleep and shower. I don’t even eat here generally. I do that at the restaurant, too.”
He looked around as if seeing it for the first time. “It doesn’t feel like home, you know? That’s one of the reasons I’m doing the remodeling downstairs. Maybe if I can put my own touch in here. I don’t know. What do you think?”
She decided to stay noncommittal. What she thought was that it had all the warmth of a model home on display for a builder, but she didn’t want to say that. “You probably need to stay here for a while. Sit in the furniture. Read a book in bed. Have pizza in front of the television. That kind of thing.”
He nodded miserably. “But I hate to be alone.” The admission cost him dearly, she could tell.
“I could come out, and we could sit in front of the television and eat pizza. Make cookies in the kitchen.” She grinned. “Trust me. I can slob up a place in seconds flat. If there were an Olympic competition for uncleaning a house, I’d win the gold medal.”
“I’m going to take you up on that offer,” he declared. “Sometime this week let’s rent a video and pop popcorn—the whole shebang.”
“Sounds good to me.” She rubbed her hands together. “I can feel it starting to warm up now. Let’s get wrapping.”
After they had finished, she started to pick up the scraps of wrapping paper and throw them away. He put his hand on her arm and stopped her. “I like the way it looks now—lived in. Like people have been here and had a good time. Leave it.”
He picked up the packages and piled them in a corner of the living room. “This is where I’m going to put the tree,” he said. “And these presents will be a good reminder to buy one.”
“I need to get one too,” she said. “A school down the street from Nativity is selling trees. The profits go to the school library so I thought I’d get mine there.”
“It’s kind of late,” he said, glancing at the clock. “Almost nine. Won’t they be closed?”
She shook her head. “They’re open another half hour on the weekends.”
“Let’s go then.” He sprang up from the pile of presents and retrieved their coats from the entryway. He waited while she pulled her boots back on.
“How are we going to fit two trees in this car?” she asked.
“We’ll go to Panda’s and pick up the delivery van. And we’ll be buying three trees—Panda’s needs one, too, don’t you think?”
“I think everybody needs a tree,” she said, that wonderful sense of bliss settling over her again.
After a quick stop at Panda’s to switch to the van, they were headed back downtown. Jake found the school easily; they had a series of CD players hooked together playing Christmas carols full blast.
Because it was still early in the season, the selection was wide. It was as if a mini-forest had sprung up alongside the playground equipment.
Tess had the search narrowed to two candidates: a blue spruce that was full and elegant and a Douglas fir that was tall and narrow. She leaned them both up against the school wall and paced back and forth between them, comparing them.
“I don’t know which to choose,” she said as Jake rejoined her. “I like them both.”
“Then buy them both. We’ll figure out later which one goes where. I need your help. I can’t decide either. I found this one flocked tree that is either incredibly gorgeous or incredibly awful, and I don’t know which. I can’t take my eyes off it.”
“I don’t really care for flocked trees,” she began, but the words died in her throat as he stopped in front of the most amazing tree she’d ever seen. It was thickly flocked in dazzling white, and the ends of the branches were tipped in gold.
“Oh, wow,” she breathed.
“So tell me, good or bad?”
“This tree defies the usual value system of a simplistic good or bad,” she said at last. “It exists totally outside that realm.”
“Well, should I get it? And for my house or for Panda’s?”
“I can’t make that decision for you, but I’m terribly afraid if you don’t take it, I will. Wait. I wonder if Cora would eat flocking. With her appetite I’d better not take the chance. It might hurt her. I suppose I should pass on it then. I don’t want to take any chances.” She leaned her head to one side and studied the tree. “What an incredible tree.”
“Okay. Here’s my suggestion. We take these three trees and sort them out later.”
She nodded. “That sounds fair. I want all three of them, but that’s overkill. And there’s no room in the store. But this white and gold tree would be an eye-catcher in there, wouldn’t it? Couldn’t you see it all decorated with angels? And a large gold and white angel on the top—you know, I have one that would work perfectly.”
He looked at her, an idea clearly dawning in his mind. “I think I have it. Let’s put this in Panda’s and have you decorate it with angels from Angel’s Roost. Can I hire you to decorate it?”
“Oh, I’ll do it for free,” she said, but he shook his head.
“No, it’s a paying deal, or it’s no deal. It’ll look super with Faith there and the lights outside.”
His enthusiasm was infectious.
“It won’t be too garish, will it?” he asked, his voice suddenly worried.
“Well, no one’s ever going to accuse you of being o
verly subtle, but this is campy garish, I think. And with the angels it’ll be wonderful. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“When can you set it up?” he asked.
“How about Monday night? I’ll have to go through my stock first and see what I have left after this weekend.” The day after Thanksgiving had been so busy she’d lost track of what was left.
He smiled happily. “Terrific. If you have everything selected and boxed up and ready to go, I’ll pick you up after you close, and we can come down to Panda’s and set the tree up.”
He reached out and took her hand. “Something is happening to me, Tess Mahoney, and it all has to do with you.” He kissed her lightly on her nose. “Thank you.”
It had to happen eventually. Her heart exploded with joy.
Chapter 8
She slipped into the red choir robe the next morning in the small anteroom at Nativity, mindless of the Christmas chatter that surrounded her—who had finished their shopping, who had the impossible person to buy for, what would someone else give his boss.
If only Jake had decided to join her in church this morning. She berated herself for not extending the invitation again, but she had twice already, and he hadn’t taken her up on it.
“If only God believed in phone calls.”
She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until one of the other members of the choir, a teenage girl with baby blue fingernails that matched her eye shadow, looked at her curiously.
“Well,” Tess explained, “if God would call me and tell me exactly what to do, life would be so much easier. Right?”
The girl looked at her with much the same disdain Cora had shown that morning when Tess had delivered a plate of Meow Meals instead of gourmet salmon. “But if He did that,” she drawled, “your friends would never get through. The line would be busy all the time. Unless He has call-waiting.”
Tess stared at her. What on earth—? Then it struck her, and she let the laughter roll out from deep inside her, cleansing her from her worries.
“What’s so funny?” the girl asked, her pastel-painted eyes wrinkled in a frown.