“Do you have your tree yet?” Ben asked as they drew closer to the small lot.
“No, I usually wait till the last second, because I have to get the store decorations done first. Sometimes the only festive touch at home is a small, artificial tree that’s predecorated.”
He looked aghast at that. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why on earth not?” she asked. “It hardly seems worth the effort just for me. I’m rarely at home during the holidays, and by Christmas Day I’m usually visiting my family.”
He seemed surprised. “The mother who infuriates you?”
“And the stepfather of the moment, plus my grandparents,” she told him. “I can take a day of all that, then I run back here as quickly as possible.”
Ben’s expression turned thoughtful and then he halted in front of the trees. “I think it’s time that changed. Pick out a tree, the biggest one on the lot, the one you used to imagine when you were a little girl.”
“I don’t need a tree. Besides, I certainly can’t fit a huge tree into my house,” she protested, though she was just a little charmed by the idea of it.
“We’ll make it fit,” he said, clearly not intending to give up. “Come on now. Pick one. I’ll put it up while you fix dinner. We can play Christmas carols and sing along.”
The whole idea sounded temptingly domestic. In fact, it reminded Kathleen of all the dreams she’d once had for the perfect holiday season. Instead, most of her holidays had been spent avoiding arguments that quickly escalated into something nasty. She couldn’t recall a single Christmas that bore any resemblance to those happy occasions she’d read about in storybooks.
Ben’s desire to give her one more thing she’d always longed for cut through all of her practical objections and had her walking amid the fragrant trees without another hesitation.
She sniffed deeply as the vendor held up first one tree and then another for her inspection. Ben did all the practical things. He tested needles and checked the trunk to see if it was straight. Kathleen concentrated on finding a tree that filled her senses with the right scent, a tree that was perfectly shaped for hanging ornaments.
When she found it at last, she overcame all of Ben’s objections about the curve in the trunk. “Who cares if it’s a little crooked? We can use fishing line to make sure it doesn’t topple over. This one smells like Christmas.”
He regarded her with amusement. “Your heart is really set on this one because it smells right?”
“Absolutely,” she said, drawing in another deep breath of the strong spruce aroma. Heavenly. If the tree didn’t have a decoration or light on it, she could be satisfied with that scent alone filling her house.
“I guess this is it, then,” Ben told the vendor.
The man winked at her. “Don’t let him put you off, miss. It’s a beauty. Would you like me to bring it around to your house when I close up?”
“No,” Ben said. “We can manage.”
Kathleen gave him a skeptical look but took him at his word. He hoisted the tree up as if it weighed no more than a feather and despite its awkward size, carried it along easily for the remaining two blocks to her house.
Once inside, she helped him find a spot for it in the living room. “There,” she said, standing back to admire the tree leaning against the wall. “That will be perfect, don’t you think so?”
When she glanced at Ben, he was looking not at the tree, but at her.
“Perfect,” he agreed softly.
“Ben?” she whispered, her voice shaky. It was the second time tonight he’d looked at her like that, spoken with that barely banked heat in his voice, the undisguised longing written all over his face.
The moment went on for what seemed an eternity, filled with yearning, but eventually he shook himself as if coming out of a trance.
“No distractions,” he muttered, as if to remind himself. “You tell me where your stand, decorations and lights are, and I’ll get those started while you fix dinner.”
It took Kathleen a moment longer to come back to earth and drag her thoughts away from the desire that had simmered between them only seconds before. “The attic,” she said in a choked voice. “Everything’s in the attic.”
Ben’s gaze clung to hers a minute longer, but then he looked away. “Just point me in the right direction. I’ll find my way,” he said as if he feared being alone with her an instant longer.
Kathleen sent him on his way and only then did she realize she’d been all but holding her breath. She released it in a long sigh, then headed for the kitchen…and comparative safety.
Of course, she wouldn’t be entirely safe until he was out of the house, but the prospect of letting him go filled her with a surprising sense of dismay. The man was getting under her skin, knocking down defenses as emphatically and thoroughly as a wrecking ball, no question about it. If he kept making these sweet gestures, guessing her innermost thoughts and doing his utmost to give her her dreams, she would be lost.
When Ben came down from the attic, Christmas carols were playing and some incredible aromas were drifting from the kitchen. The whole atmosphere felt so cozy, so astonishingly right, that warning bells went off in his head. In response, he set down the boxes of decorations and tried to remember the holidays he had spent with Graciela.
They’d been nothing like this. Graciela hadn’t been a sentimental woman. She was more than content to call a decorator who would spend a couple of days and a fair amount of Ben’s money to turn the house into a showcase. What appealed to her was the subsequent entertaining, assembling the right guests, doling out gifts that were more expensive than thoughtful, and drinking. Ben couldn’t remember even one holiday occasion when Graciela hadn’t had a glass of wine or champagne in hand from start to finish.
He tried to recall a single instance when her eyes had sparkled with childlike excitement as Kathleen’s had on that tree lot. He couldn’t think of one.
Once the memory of Kathleen’s delight stole into his head, he realized what it had reminded him of…holidays years ago when first his parents and then Destiny had worked to assure that there was something magical about the season. He’d lost that sense of magic, that undercurrent of anticipation somewhere along the way, but he was getting it back tonight.
By the time Kathleen announced that dinner was ready, he was feeling nostalgic, despite his overall lack of progress getting the lights untangled to put on the tree. He grinned as he recalled how many times his father and later Destiny had complained about the same thing. Richard had been the one with the patience to unravel them and get them hung properly, while the rest of them had drunk hot chocolate and eaten the cookies that Destiny had decorated with an artistic flair so perfect they could have been on the cover of a magazine.
“How’s it going in here?” Kathleen asked, then burst out laughing when she saw the tangled mass of lights. “Uh-oh. I guess I should have been more careful when I took them down.”
He gave her a wry look. “You think?”
“I’ll help you with them after dinner,” she promised. “Did you plug them in to make sure they still work at least?”
“Who could find the plugs? I’ve never seen such a mess.”
“Hey, you asked for this job,” she reminded him. “I didn’t ask you to get involved.”
“True enough, but if that dinner tastes even half as good as it smells, I’ll forgive you for every tangled strand of lights I’m expected to deal with.”
“The lamb chops might be a bit overdone,” she apologized when they were seated at her dining room table. “And I’m pretty sure I didn’t steam the vegetables quite long enough.”
He regarded her with curiosity, wondering at the sudden lack of self-confidence. “Is this something else your ex-husband criticized? Your cooking?”
She seemed startled by the question. “Yes. But why would you think that?”
“Because neither of us has even picked up a fork, and you’re already offering excuses.”
Ben heard the pain behind that sad description of what her life had been like, a succession of excuses from two women who’d apparently lived their lives in fear. Rather than being a positive role model, first Kathleen’s mother and then her grandmother had apparently set her up to expect very little from men other than criticism. It was little wonder that Kathleen had chosen a man who would fit into that male-as-a-superior-being mold. The fact that she’d dumped him rather quickly was the miracle.
“I’m sorry,” he told her quietly.
She shrugged, looking vaguely embarrassed at having revealed so much. “It’s over.”
“No, it’s not,” he pointed out. “You’re still apologizing unnecessarily.”
She forced a smile. “You haven’t tasted your dinner yet. Maybe the apology was called for.”
His heart ached at her attempt to make a joke of something that had shaped her life. “Even if it tastes like burnt sawdust, it wouldn’t give me the right to demean you,” he said fiercely. “You made the effort to make a nice meal. That’s the only thing that counts.”
She stared at him, her eyes filled with wonder. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
Wishing there weren’t a whole expanse of table between them so he could reach for her hand, he nodded. “Every word,” he said gently.
Then he picked up his fork and took his first bite of the perfectly grilled, perfectly seasoned lamb and sighed with genuine pleasure. “I should be grateful for that bad example your mother set for you,” he told her. “Something tells me it’s the reason you learned to cook like a gourmet chef.”
The delight that filled her eyes was like the sun breaking through after a storm. It filled him with a matching joy…along with the desire to strangle a few more people on her behalf. But maybe he didn’t need to do that. Maybe all he needed to do was to teach her that she was worthy of being treated well. Then if he left—no, when he left—she would be ready for and open to the man who could make all her dreams come true.
Kathleen lay awake most of the night thinking about the evening she’d just spent with Ben. It might well have been the most perfect evening of her entire life.
It wasn’t just about the Christmas tree that they’d managed to finish decorating after two in the morning. Nor was it about the laughter they’d shared or the gentle teasing. While all of that had been special, it had paled compared to the gift he’d given her—the reminder that she deserved to be treated well. It was something she’d always known intellectually, something she’d been smart enough to see when she’d ended her marriage, but experiencing it again and again with every word Ben uttered, with every deed he did finally made the lesson sink in.
It was funny how she’d always insisted on respect professionally, knew that she commanded it even as a rank amateur in an elite circle of very discerning gallery owners, but she’d never expected or demanded it as a woman. Ben was right. It was what she’d learned at her mother’s knee and it was past time she put it behind her.
Oddly, she thought she’d done that simply by having the strength to end her marriage, but that hadn’t gone far enough. The fear of repeating the same mistake had kept her from moving on, from allowing another man the chance to get close. How ironic that the one who’d breached her reserve was a man who had scars of his own from the past. She wondered if he knew how deeply they continued to affect his own choices.
Since she’d sent Ben home the night before with leftover mousse, she’d decided against taking a run out to the farm this morning. That gave her a few extra minutes to linger over coffee and the rare treat of one of the leftover banana nut muffins she’d made earlier in the week for Ben.
She was still savoring the last bite when the doorbell rang. Glancing at her watch, she was surprised to see that it was barely seven-thirty. Who on earth dropped in at that hour?
She opened the front door to find Destiny standing there, looking as if she’d just stepped from the pages of a fashion magazine. Kathleen immediately felt frumpy. She hadn’t even run a brush through her hair yet this morning.
“Sorry to pop in so early, but I was sure you’d be up,” Destiny said, breezing past her without waiting for an invitation.
“Barely up,” Kathleen muttered. “Would you like coffee and maybe a banana nut muffin?”
Destiny beamed. “Ah, yes, I’ve heard about those muffins. I’d love one. You’ve definitely found the way to my nephew’s heart.”
Kathleen paused as she poured the coffee. “I beg your pardon.”
“You’re getting to him,” Destiny explained patiently. “Ben is a sucker for sweets. I told you that. You’re handling him exactly right. I’m not sure it’s a tactic that would have worked on any of my other nephews, though I did pack Melanie off to see Richard once with a picnic basket filled with his favorite foods and wine. That turned out well enough.”
The last was said with a note of smug satisfaction in her voice.
Kathleen set the coffee in front of Destiny, then brought in a muffin from the kitchen. The extra minute gave her time to try to figure out what she wanted to say to dispel Destiny’s notion that she was waging any sort of campaign for Ben’s heart or that she was willing to be drawn into Destiny’s scheme.
When she was seated at the table again, she met Destiny’s gaze. “You do know that the only thing I’m after where Ben is concerned is his art, don’t you?”
Destiny regarded her serenely. “I’m sure you want to believe that.”
“Because it’s the truth,” Kathleen said, feeling a little bubble of hysteria rising in her throat thanks to the confident note in Destiny’s voice.
“Darling, it was after two in the morning when Ben came in last night.”
“He stayed with you?”
“Of course he did. Did you think he would drive all the way back out to the farm at that hour?”
“I honestly never gave it a thought,” Kathleen responded. If she had, she would have sent him packing a lot earlier just to avoid this exact misconception on his aunt’s part.
“Yes, I imagine there was very little thinking going on at that hour,” Destiny said happily.
Kathleen choked on her coffee. “Destiny!” she protested. “It’s not like that with Ben and me.”
Okay, so she was ignoring all the kissing that had gone on from time to time between them, but very little of that had occurred in the wee hours of the night before. A safe good-night peck on the cheek was the closest they’d come.
Destiny frowned. “It’s not?” she asked, her disappointment plain. “The two of you aren’t getting closer?”
“Of course we are. We’re friends,” Kathleen said, almost as unhappy with the label as Destiny obviously was.
Destiny sighed. “Friends,” she echoed. “Yes, well, I suppose that’s a good start. I can see, though, that I’ll have to do a little more work on my end.”
“No,” Kathleen said fiercely. “You’ve done enough. Let it be, Destiny, please.”
Ben’s aunt looked taken aback by her vehemence. “Why are you so opposed to anything coming of this relationship with my nephew?”
Kathleen was having a hard time remembering the answer to that herself. It had started because she’d been afraid to trust another man. It had been magnified by the fact that Ben had a reputation as a moody, reclusive artist.
But the truth was that he was nothing like what she’d been led to believe, in fact quite the opposite. He was so far removed from the kind of man her ex-husband had been that the only thing the two had in common was the
ir gender.
She faced Destiny and tried not to let her bewilderment show. It would be just what the sneaky woman needed to inspire her to get on with her campaign.
“It’s not that I’m opposed to anything happening with Ben,” she said candidly. “But the two of us are adults. We don’t need someone running interference for us. You’ve done your part. Now leave it be. If anything’s meant to come of this, it will happen.”
“Even if I can see that you’re both too stubborn to admit what’s right under your noses?”
“Even then,” Kathleen told her.
Destiny nodded slowly. “Okay, then, I can do that.”
Her easy agreement made Kathleen instantly suspicious. “Really?”
“For now,” Destiny told her cheerfully. “I suppose I should go along to my meeting. Thanks for the coffee and the muffin. Our little visit has been very enlightening.”
Enlightening? Kathleen thought as she watched Destiny depart at the same brisk pace with which she’d entered. In what way had their exchange been enlightening? Destiny had said it in a way that suggested she’d read some undercurrent of which Kathleen was completely unaware.
She shivered in the morning chill and then made herself shut the door. If Ben left her feeling edgy and discombobulated, his aunt had the capacity to strike terror in her. Because it seemed that Destiny could see into the future…and saw a very different picture from the one Kathleen envisioned.
Kathleen was dreaming of a wildly successful showing of Ben Carlton paintings in her gallery, while Destiny was clearly picturing the two of them living happily ever after. Kathleen didn’t even want to contemplate that image, because it was quickly becoming far too tempting to resist.
Chapter Eleven
With Destiny’s visit still fresh in her mind, Kathleen made a decision that she needed to seal this deal with Ben to show his paintings. The sooner that was done, the sooner she’d be able to get him—and his clever, matchmaking aunt—right back out of her life. Of course, solitude no longer held the appeal it once had, but she’d get used to it again.
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