by Barbara Gee
I left my long dark hair loose and wavy and kept my makeup minimal. I was lucky to have thick black lashes, allowing me to skip mascara most of the time. My eyes were a color my blue-eyed brother had described as “weird” when we were young. Light brown, almost amber. I’d longed for his shade of blue, which he’d gotten from my mom, and it wasn’t until I’d started dating JP, who’d told me often how much he loved my eyes, that I’d decided the color wasn’t so bad.
I tried not to think about that now. I tried not to think about JP at all. Thankfully I hadn’t run into him even once this past month, which was encouraging. I hoped my luck would continue.
I was nervous about going back to church, but at least it would get Aunt Donna off my back. She was beside herself that I’d been here for three Sundays and had yet to show my face there. I’d even missed the Thanksgiving service, which she’d found particularly upsetting. I hoped she wouldn’t make too much of a fuss when she saw me there today.
I poured a mug of coffee and settled down on the couch. I had a good view out the front window from there and would be able to see when Jude and Ava pulled up.
If I had to go to church, I was glad it was with them. We’d spent a lot of time together this past month, and although I was still sometimes taken aback by how much Jude looked like his big brother, I enjoyed having him around. I also appreciated the fact that neither he nor Ava had mentioned JP—not since the conversation Ava and I had had on my move-in day. I knew she still hoped JP and I would “clear the air” between us, but I had no desire to have that talk.
Halfway through my coffee, their silver SUV turned into my drive. I hurried to the kitchen to put the mug in the sink, then grabbed my coat and purse. I opened the front door and almost ran smack into Ava.
“Oh, hey. I didn’t think you’d come in to get me,” I said, laughing.
“I wanted to drop these off,” she said, handing me a plastic shopping bag.
“What is it?” I asked curiously, peeking into the bag. “Wait, are these Christmas lights?”
“Yep. Christmas is only two-and-a-half weeks away, and we can’t let Gwendolyn Milton’s house be the only one on the street with no decorations. As your landlord, I’m ordering you to put these lights up. They’ll look great wrapped around the porch railing. And if you have a hankering to buy a nice wreath for your front door, you should definitely do it.”
I raised my brows. “You mean a wreath doesn’t come with the place?” I asked dryly.
“No, I took all Grandma’s decorations. You’ll have to pick out your own. I suggest one made of real greens. They still have some really pretty ones at the tree lot out on Trenton Road. That’s close to the school, so you can swing by there the next time you teach.”
I set the bag on the floor inside the door and shooed her out. “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Landlord. Whatever you say.”
She giggled as we walked to the car where Jude was waiting. “Just trying to keep you from being a Scrooge. You should be thanking me.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I was actually planning to get some lights, I just haven’t gotten around to it.”
I got in the back seat and Jude smiled over his shoulder at me. “Glad to have you join us, Myla. You look great.”
“Why thank you,” I said. “I was half-tempted to show up in torn jeans and sneakers, just to see how Aunt Donna would react.”
“You wouldn’t be that brave,” Ava said. “Oh, I almost forgot. We’re joining the ladies at the Country Goodness buffet after church. Since you’re riding with us, you have to come.”
I let my head fall back as I groaned. “You’re an awful friend, Ava. Isn’t it enough that I’m going to church for the first time in almost four years?”
“I tried to tell her that,” Jude said, “but she said you might as well jump in with both feet.”
“Their roast beef is delicious,” Ava declared, “and you’ll learn all kinds of things about the physical ailments that beset eighty-year-olds.”
I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing. “I hate you, Ava Keller.”
“Hate you too, Myla Garret.”
***
Church was good. I was surprised to admit that, but it was true. In some ways it felt like I’d never left, even though the pastor was new. His sermon was, of course, Christmas-based, the ultimate story of God’s love, and it hit home.
I knew God and I were heading for a showdown, but I was resisting because when it came right down to it, I wasn’t sure I was ready to give up my emotional baggage. It had been part of my life for so long, and although it was a burden, I didn’t know who I’d be without it.
Lunch dragged on a little long. We had to wait on a fresh batch of crab legs because Priscilla O’Malley couldn’t endure a buffet without crab legs. I opted for the roast beef myself, and Ava was right—it was delicious. Being back in Aunt Donna’s good graces wasn’t so bad either.
That evening Ava sent me a text saying she and Jude were going to be having dinner at Chase and Hannah Owens’ house tomorrow night, and since they happened to be my next-door neighbors, she’d be glad to pick up a wreath and drop it off for me. I told her I was teaching tomorrow and had already planned to stop by the tree lot.
Ava: Make sure you do. If you wait much longer, all the good ones will be gone.
Me: Yes, landlord.
***
I almost changed my mind about the wreath after school. Keeping up with twenty-four second-graders made for an exhausting day. However, since I didn’t want to face the wrath of Ava, and since the lot was only half a mile out of my way, I went as planned and chose a really nice wreath made of real greens, pinecones and holly. Simple but pretty. I even remembered to get a door hanger for it.
I was almost home when it started snowing. We’d had a light snow a few days ago so these weren’t the first snowflakes I’d seen, but the weatherman on channel five was saying this time we could get six to eight inches by morning. I really hoped we did. I wasn’t a huge cold-weather fan, but after living in Arizona for years, I was up for a good snowstorm.
The falling flakes put me in a festive mood. After a quick bowl of soup, I put on my coat and boots and grabbed the two boxes of lights Ava had brought me. She was right, they’d look good on the porch railing. Maybe I could even get some gold or red bows to stick on the posts.
I settled on the top step of the porch and started unwinding the strings of lights from the plastic thingies they were wrapped around. I’d seen Jude’s pickup parked over in front of the Owens’ house and it made me determined to get the lights up so Ava would see them in all their glory when they drove past after dinner.
There were a couple other cars over there too, and I kinda wished I’d been invited. Hannah and I were becoming good friends and she’d had me over for dinner twice already, but never with a group.
A pickup drove past and joined the other vehicles in the Owens’ drive, but I’d hit a tangle in the lights and only gave it a brief glance. There had to be a better way to package these things. Maybe I could invent it and get rich.
I wove the end of the cord through a loop and yanked it again, grumbling when it refused to budge. Where had Ava found these reject lights anyway?
“Hey, Myla.”
I froze at the totally unexpected sound of JP’s voice, my heartbeat suddenly thundering in my ears. What in the world was he doing here? Then I realized it must have been his truck that had pulled into the Owens’ a minute ago.
At least now I knew why I hadn’t been invited to dinner. Hannah was well aware of my desire to avoid Chase’s cousin.
The toes of his shoes appeared at the bottom step, but I didn’t look up.
“I saw you out here when I drove past. Thought I’d come over and see how you’re liking being back in Hidden Creek.”
“I like it,” I said shortly.
He cleared his throat and I looked up far enough to see him shove his hands into the pockets of his black coat.
“I hear you’re subbin
g at Harrison Elementary.”
“Yep.”
“That’s good. Teaching was always your plan.”
“Yep.”
After a few beats of silence, he said, “I’m glad to know you’re back on track with that.”
“Says the man who got me off-track,” I said, the usual bitterness rearing its ugly head.
I heard his soft sigh. “Thanks for reminding me—I’d almost forgotten.”
I finally glanced up at him, my fingers still picking at the tangled lights. “No problem. I’d hate for you to forget something as important as wrecking a person’s life plan.”
He surprised me by coming up the steps and lowering himself down beside me. Not touching, but close to it. He held out a hand for the lights and I gave them to him without conscious thought.
“You wrecked mine too, you know.”
I shook my head. “Not true. You did it all yourself.”
Again he sighed. “I’ve never denied I screwed up,” he said, his big hands dwarfing the delicate lights as he worked to untangle the strands. “And to be honest, I understand why you reacted the way you did. I wish you would’ve stayed to see if we could work through it, but I get why you didn’t.”
I wanted to make another sarcastic comment, but his closeness and the familiar fresh, masculine scent of him took both my breath and my voice.
“You know what hurts the most, Myla?”
His voice was soft and raw and all I could do was shake my head. I couldn’t believe he was here, sitting beside me on my porch step, diving right into this mass of hurt without giving me a chance to prepare myself.
“It’s the fact that you think my stupid mistake means I didn’t love you the way you thought. The way you loved me. And that’s just not true.”
I drew in a long breath and slowly let it out, anger and regret coursing through me in equal measures. “It is true. I would’ve never cheated on you, JP. Never. No other guys even existed for me. So don’t tell me you loved me the same as I did you because that’s not possible. Not with what you did.”
“I know it feels that way,” he said roughly, “but when I told you at the wedding that I don’t remember that night, I was telling the truth. I don’t remember making the decision to leave with Haley or anything that happened after that.”
“Sorry, but I don’t believe you were that drunk,” I said bluntly. “I have a hard time believing you were drinking at all. You always said you got that all out of your system in college—and you never drank when we were together. Not once.”
“Yeah, well, it was a really lame reunion and there wasn’t anything to do other than sit at the bar with the guys I used to play football with. I think I was on my second drink when Haley and some of the other girls showed up. She sat down beside me and was being really annoying. She insisted on buying me a drink, then she bought the whole group a round of tequila shots and I promise you, Myla, that’s the last thing I remember. I hadn’t had tequila in such a long time, I guess it just hit me that hard.”
I clasped my cold hands together and stared out at the beautiful falling snow, feeling torn to pieces inside. Was he telling the truth? Did it change anything if he was?
The silence stretched out. “Say something, Myla,” he finally said.
Okay, he’d asked for it.
“I was at work,” I began. “I’d just presented a big loan proposal. I was really excited because it meant a nice bonus for me if I closed it, and it looked promising. Then Maxine buzzed me and said I had another client, a Miss Knight. I told Max to send her back to my office and pretty soon a cute brunette dressed in tight jeans came in. She closed the door and just stood there, this huge smirk on her face. I got up and went over to shake her hand and introduce myself, because I wanted to be professional, even though something about her made me instantly dislike her.”
JP wiped a hand down his face but stayed silent. I could feel his tension as I went on.
“I asked what I could help her with and she said she’d heard I was dating JP Keller. I confirmed that I was, and then she said she thought it was only right to let me know that you’d been unfaithful to me three nights ago. With her. She said you’d been hot and heavy back in high school but had lost touch since then. She said you sought her out at the reunion. She tried to resist but you wore her down. She said you were insatiable.”
Reliving that moment brought the fury rushing back. I looked at him with a bright, fake smile. “Does that bring back any of those elusive memories for you, JP? Oh, and you’ll be glad to know she said you’ve learned a lot since high school and were definitely the best she’d ever had.”
There was no mistaking the pain in his eyes when they met mine. “I don’t know what to say, Myla. I’m so sorry you had to listen to that.”
“Maybe if you’d told me yourself I would’ve been more inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt. But you didn’t. You slept with another girl and kept it from me, and in my book, that’s not love.”
“Or maybe it is,” he said quietly. “Maybe I was so full of self-loathing I couldn’t accept what I’d done, especially when the only thing I actually remembered was waking up in her hotel room. Maybe I couldn’t bring myself to hurt you when I didn’t feel like I’d been unfaithful.” His eyes dropped to the lights in his hands. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” he repeated.
My laugh was harsh. “Oh, I get it. You kept it from me for my own good.”
His head came up, his eyes meeting mine again. “Believe it or not, that’s how I looked at it at the time.” He paused. “I know it makes you mad to hear that, but I’m just telling you how I felt. I never made a conscious decision to cheat on you, and I don’t remember doing it. I didn’t want to lose you over something I did—and yet didn’t—do, if that makes any sense.”
I shook my head. “None of this makes sense.” I suddenly found myself fighting tears and knew I had to get away from him. “I can’t talk about it anymore, JP. You shouldn’t have come over here and just dropped all this on me without any warning.”
He gently laid the now-untangled lights in my lap. “Maybe not, but I have to take what I can get. I know you won’t talk to me if there’s any way to avoid it.”
I dumped the lights onto the porch floor and stood up. “I’m going in now. Have a nice dinner.”
He stayed silent as I went inside and closed the door.
***
Much later, after a lot of crying and agonizing over what JP had said, wondering if there was any redeeming truth to his claim of not feeling like he’d cheated, I went to the front window to see how much snow had built up.
I pushed the curtain aside and put my face close to the glass…..and immediately forgot all about the snow. The tears started all over again as I found myself looking out at my beautiful porch with twinkling white lights intertwined through the railing, each strand perfectly placed, as if the job had been done by an engineer with perfectionist tendencies.
I knew one of those.
I pressed both of my palms hard against my chest, my heart aching with the memory of how incredibly sweet JP Keller could be. I sank to my knees on the floor, chin propped on the window sill, unable to look away from the lights and the glow of them on the fresh snow.
It was so, so beautiful, and I simply couldn’t help it—in my heart I felt the stirrings of hope. But in this case hope was not a good thing. It was terrifying. How could I even think about letting myself go there again? Wasn’t I damaged enough?
I gritted my teeth and stood up, letting the curtain fall back over the window.
Yes, I was damaged enough—enough that I couldn’t survive another betrayal. Pretty lights or not, I’d be foolish to trust JP Keller. Foolish to let that spark of hope ignite.
But oh, how I longed for him. How I missed him. And no matter how much I berated myself, that tiny little spark refused to die.
Chapter 6
A
nother week flew by and before I knew it it was Sunday and I was wa
iting for Jude and Ava to pick me up for church again. School had let out for Christmas break as of Friday and I was getting more into the holiday spirit. Which was a good thing considering Christmas was only ten days away.
I was killing time by making a grocery list. I’d been invited to a Christmas cookie exchange at Hannah’s on Tuesday, and I needed ingredients for a batch of date pinwheels. They’d always been my favorite.
It had been a long time since I’d actually looked forward to Christmas, but now that I was back home again, everything had a completely different feel. I felt myself becoming the “old” Myla, the Myla who loved holidays and family get-togethers and the festive, friendly atmosphere I found everywhere I went.
I hadn’t seen JP since the night he hung my lights, but every single evening I bundled up and went outside to enjoy them. I sat on the creaky old porch swing with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, put in my earbuds, and played Christmas music. Then I simply basked in the beauty of the lights and the snow and the season for a while.
I’d also given a lot of thought to what JP had told me there on the porch steps. What if he really didn’t know what had happened that night? He said he remembered waking up in Haley’s room, and he didn’t seem to doubt that they’d had sex, but if he really was out of it the whole time..…did that make a difference to me?
I’d gone round and round with myself about that. My heart said it did make a difference, while my head begged me to hold onto the notion that he couldn’t be trusted. Both put up a valiant fight, but I suspected my heart was winning the battle because I felt myself softening toward JP as the days passed.
I vowed not to do anything rash, but if we met up again, I was pretty sure I’d be a lot nicer to him than the last time.
***
When Ava and Jude pulled up, I put aside my grocery list and shrugged on my coat. Ava didn’t have anything to deliver this time, so she stayed in the car as I hurried out.