by Cara Colter
“Ah.” He turned from her and went down the hallway.
In a daze, Noelle followed Aidan and they both stood in the doorway of Nana’s bedroom.
Smiley had invaded. He was on her bed. He had her arms pinned under the covers, his huge paws straddling her, and he was feverishly licking thick gobs of cold cream off her face.
Rufus went and pulled the dog off, barely able to contain his gleeful snickering. Noelle couldn’t help feeling he was doubly pleased because he had escaped answering her questions.
But then, terribly, Nana began to cry. “I was dreaming of wolves and—” She buried her poor face, cold cream rearranged unattractively, in her hands. Rufus’s delight died on his face. He handed the dog off to Aidan, who looked stunned and uncomfortable, and turned back to Nana.
“There, there,” he said, and went and sat on the edge of the bed. He pried a hand away from her face and patted it awkwardly. She turned and buried her face in his shirt. If the cold cream being slathered down the front of him bothered him, it didn’t show. His hand slid to her hair.
“There, there,” he said again. “You’re fine. Everything’s okay.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
AIDAN BACKED OUT of the room hastily, dog firmly in his grasp He let go of the dog, and actually pulled the door shut behind him as if Nana and Rufus might need a little privacy! Smiley slunk away.
“Is she always...um, like this?” Noelle asked. The hallway felt very narrow. It felt as if his chest was nearly touching her.
She noticed his hair was a little messy. She had to stick her hands in her housecoat pockets to resist the urge to touch it, to smooth it into place.
Red dress, red dress, red dress.
“No,” Aidan said, having no idea of the danger his hair was in, or the danger she found herself in. “Never. She’s usually very stoic.”
“Daddy!”
Another shrill distraction, thank heavens.
“Nice quiet morning at the ranch?” Aidan gave Noelle a wry grin that took the edge off the sarcasm and moved by her to fetch Tess. His naked chest passed within half an inch of her own penguin-pajama-clad one.
“What’s wrong with Nana?” she heard Tess ask, and Noelle could hear the fear in her voice.
“She had a bad dream.”
“Like I have sometimes?” The fear was already dissipating, her father’s calm voice acting like sunshine on fog.
“Yes,” he said. “Everything is okay.”
He came back into the hallway, the little girl in his arms, nestled securely against the solidness of his chest. Her hair was even messier than his, and again Noelle had an urge to tame those tendrils with her fingertips.
It wasn’t just him that had her danger signals blinking on high. It was both of them, this little girl so tugging at her heartstrings. Not as easy to defend against even with her red dress mantra!
“I like your pajamas,” Tess told Noelle solemnly. “And your slippers.”
“Thank you,” Noelle said just as solemnly, and suddenly she was glad she had left on the pajamas and put on the slippers, after all.
“I’m hungry,” Tess said, a little girl who had missed her dinner.
“What do you like for breakfast?” Noelle asked.
“Apple Bits.” Tess named the popular children’s cereal.
“Well, let’s see what we have.”
Sadly, Aidan put Tess down and went to get dressed.
Tess and Noelle went downstairs and put the dog—who was by the back door making noises like he might be sick—outside. Shockingly her grandfather had Apple Bits. Or maybe it wasn’t so shocking. Since he was so organized, he’d probably sent out questionnaires asking what people liked for breakfast.
And so the day began.
Considering its rocky start—with her grandfather evading her questions and Nana being lovingly attacked by Smiley—everything turned good after that.
When Rufus came downstairs he was whistling. When Nana followed, twenty minutes or so later, she looked relaxed and almost happy.
“I’m making pancakes,” Rufus announced.
“We’ve already had cereal,” Noelle said.
He looked crushed until Nana said she’d love pancakes. She added that she loved a man who could cook a good breakfast, and Rufus practically preened as he got his blackened cast-iron pan down off its hook over the woodstove.
Noelle had to race onto the porch before she let the laughter out. Aidan was right behind her. They laughed until their stomachs hurt.
And then with Tess “helping” they wrestled the tree in the door and into the stand, and stood back to admire it. Aidan put the lights on first, avoiding, just barely, words that should not be used around children.
When he was done, Rufus and Nana joined them and boxes of decorations were hauled from the attic. Rufus put on Christmas music and Aidan’s groan seemed as if it were mostly for show. Tess was allowed to choose all the decorations. She was in charge of the bottom of the tree and the adults did the top. Smiley was let back in, and he curled up in his basket in the kitchen and refused to join them, though every now and then they would hear a giant wet burp from him that would send them into gales of laughter.
When the tree was done, Nana’s objections—which seemed perfunctory, too—that hot chocolate would spoil lunch were quickly dismissed and they all sat in the living room admiring the tree and sipping the beverage.
Though they were near strangers, a sense of knowing each other—of family—was growing between them.
It was because Tess had brought them something they could not have had without her, the magic of making Christmas for a child.
“Oh!” Noelle suddenly remembered. “One last thing. The house isn’t ready until the wreath goes on the door.”
She got up and hunted through the decoration boxes until she found it. Old roping lariats had been carefully formed into a wreath shape, threaded through with a thick red ribbon that had once been bright but was now faded. Nestled in the curves of the rope and the ribbon were wooden letters—painted bright green by Noelle when she was very young, before her parents had died—that spelled out a single word: HOPE.
Aidan was eyeing her find with spectacular distaste, and she supposed it was old and ghastly and hokey. But she loved it. It felt like her grandmother was right here, as if all the love they’d shared was right here.
Noelle took it to the front door and went outside in her socks.
“You want some help?”
She saw Aidan had slipped out with her. “You don’t look very impressed with my grandmother’s wreath.”
“Don’t I?”
“No.”
“I’m cynical, that’s all. It’s not the wreath, it’s the word.”
“Hope?”
“Aw, yes,” he said. “What does it mean exactly?”
She gave him a quizzical look. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Tell me,” he insisted.
“It’s what Christmas is full of—hope. Hope for love. Hope for family. Hope for joy. Hope for a better world. Hope that hardships can be healed. Hope that someday we can think of the ones we have lost with peace instead of grief.”
“That’s a tall order,” he said.
“Well, Christmas is known as a time you can hope for anything at all.”
“Hope,” he said softly. “Personally, I think that may be the most dangerous thing of all. Maybe it just sets up an expectation that can never be met.”
“I’m not sure if that’s cynical,” Noelle said softly, “or just plain sad. No, I don’t need your help. Thanks for offering. I’d rather do it myself.”
“As you wish.”
And he stepped back inside, leaving her to contemplate that. Who on earth thought hope was the most dangerous thing of all?
Someone who had been hurt very badly. He
must have loved his wife very much. Noelle took her time hanging the wreath, and when she went in, lunch was ready.
To her grandfather’s chagrin—he had planned soup and buns—Tess had asked for peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Then, when she only ate a quarter of one, Nana muttered about the hot chocolate spoiling lunch.
After lunch, Rufus hauled out his file of activities, but Nana sniffed and suggested gingerbread houses.
“I don’t have the stuff to make that,” Rufus protested, apparently not liking being thrown off his game plan for the second time in less than an hour.
“You think you’re the only one who can have a good idea?” Nana asked, her tone combative. The truce was apparently over between them. “Out. Shoo... I’ll get the gingerbread ready.”
Grumbling, her grandfather said he had chores to do in the barn.
“Do you need help?” Aidan asked.
“What I need is some alone time!”
Only Noelle knew he was being so rude because he was trying to hide a pony!
“How about a snowman?” she said brightly.
“I think snow person is the current politically correct term,” Aidan said.
The snow was all wrong. It was too cold and it made the snow dry and powdery. The snow person collapsed twice before Aidan came up with the idea of adding water to the snow. Even so, he was a terrible snowman: small and lopsided, and his eyes kept falling out of his head.
Still, Tess loved him and declared him the most perfect snowman ever.
Rufus did not return for making the gingerbread house, which might have been a good thing. Like the snowman, it was a less-than-stellar gingerbread house.
Gumdrops slid haphazardly down the side of it. One of the walls was collapsing under the weight of too much icing. A chunk broke off and Aidan ate it before they could repair it. Then they broke a chunk off for Tess to eat.
All in all, the house was quite ghastly, but Tess declared it the most perfect gingerbread house ever, so they were all happy.
Everyone seemed to have turned in early again tonight, except Noelle’s grandfather, who went outdoors to do more chores.
“I’ll come,” Noelle said. Side by side they fed the horses, Gidget shoving the larger ones out of the way.
“Is the pony for Tess?” Noelle asked with trepidation.
“Yes. She hasn’t seen her yet. Just keep her on the other side of the house for as long as you can.”
“Her father said she couldn’t have one, you know.”
“Well, because he doesn’t have a place to keep it. I do.”
She sighed. That insinuated an ongoing relationship with the Phillipses. She was not sure her grandfather—or, for that matter, herself—should have hopes on that score. And hope was hard, after a day like today, with that growing sense of comfort and safety and family. How did you let that go when it was time?
Noelle was determined to finish the conversation that had started that morning.
“I need to know why you didn’t tell me. A pony implies a great deal of before-thought.”
“Humph, the pony was easier than trying to think how to feed a crowd for a couple of days. Your grandma looked after all that.”
The longing had been in the background all day: as they put up the tree and decorated with her grandmother’s collections of ornaments.
“She’d like the house full of people,” he said.
“Though if she’d been here, you wouldn’t have done it.”
“True.”
“Tell me why I was kept in the dark.”
Her grandfather looked at her. “You don’t like surprises. You don’t even like changes. You would have tried to talk me out of it. Remember when I did tell you? I got a lecture about the dangers of the interstate.”
“Lecture is overstating it!”
“The longer you knew about it, the longer you would have worked on me. Maybe you would have even tried to put a stop to it behind my back. For my own good.”
Noelle desperately wanted to deny this, but she couldn’t.
“You would have said no to the pony, you would have said people weren’t really going to come, and that I was being tricked and cheated.”
“That makes me sound like an awful wet blanket, but I would have just been trying to protect you, Grandpa.”
“I know. But, Ellie, I’m a grown man. It’s a bit insulting that you think you have to protect me.”
She was silent, surprised by this. “Isn’t that what families do?” she asked finally. “Look out for one another?”
“Lookin’ out for one another is one thing, but you...” His voice drifted off uncomfortably.
“I what?”
“Never mind.”
“No, I want you to tell me.”
“Grandma said it was normal, the thing you have, because of what you’d gone through. Because of your mom and dad dying in that accident when you were only twelve.”
“What thing do I have?” Noelle asked. “What did Grandma say was normal because of what I’d been through?”
He looked like he regretted saying as much as he had.
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s just forget it. And have fun.”
“I don’t think I can forget it now.”
Rufus looked apologetic. “You have this thing with control. You think you know what’s best for everyone.”
“I do?” she asked, appalled.
“Ellie, you don’t give yourself over to life. You want all your ducks lined up in a row. You want everything the same all the time. I’m scared if you keep it up, you’ll end up just like her.”
They both knew he was talking about Nana.
“She seems like a very nice lady,” Noelle said, hearing the stiffness in her voice.
“Oh, sure. All rigid and shrieking and wanting everyone to obey her rules, and scared of wolves hiding under her bed.”
“I am not stuck in a rut,” Noelle sputtered.
“Look at your room,” he said.
She stared at her grandfather. She wanted so badly for what he was saying not to be true. But she thought of Mitchell leaving, flinging words at her over his shoulder as he shoved his skinny underpacked suitcase through the door.
Nothing’s fun with you. Nothing’s spontaneous. You can’t stand it when I move a chair. We can’t go out for dinner without planning for a week. There’s no adventure. There’s nothing unexpected. I want something else for my life.
“It’s normal,” her grandfather said softly, “to want the world to be safe. To feel as if you can have control over the things that make it safe. But you pay a price for it, too.”
She could feel her eyes welling.
Her grandfather looked at her imploringly. He didn’t want her to be upset. He hadn’t wanted to say that, at all. She could tell. It was love for her that had made him say it. She felt as if it might have been what she most needed to hear, even though it was painful.
“I’m sorry,” Rufus said.
“It’s okay,” she said quietly. “I’m glad you told me.”
“Let’s go back to the house.”
“I’m going to stay out here for a little while.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“No.” That was true. She fished her cell phone out of her pocket and wagged it at him. “I get a bit of service up in the loft. I’ll just check on the state of the world.”
“Probably limping along without you,” her grandfather teased, and then pulled her close and kissed the top of her head in a way that made it all okay.
Noelle went up the rickety ladder and crossed the floor. She opened the loft door and sat down in a pile of sweet-smelling hay. For the longest time she didn’t look at her phone, but gazed at the stars in an inky night, contemplating what her grandfather had said.
Finally, a chill be
gan to penetrate even her warm jacket.
She clicked her phone on and looked with annoyance at the no-service symbol. She leaned out the hayloft and held the phone at arm’s reach. Two bars. Stretching, she hit one of her social media icons. It was already open on Mitchell’s page and she saw he had been updating feverishly. She glanced at the most recent post.
Nearly Christmas and snorkeling. That’s what I call living life to the fullest.
A girl who looked too young for him was sharing the selfie.
Noelle felt her throat closing, the tears that had threatened earlier were making a reappearance. Don’t cry, she told herself, but she did.
“Hello.”
She whirled and dropped the phone, thankfully inside and not out the open door.
Aidan reached for her quickly, pulled her away from the loft opening and steadied her, his hand warm and strong on her shoulder. “Don’t take a tumble out the window. Would put a terrible damper on all the Christmas cheer.”
“Don’t sneak up on me!” Noelle wiped hastily at her cheeks.
“I wasn’t sneaking,” he said reasonably. “I saw the light up here and came to investigate. I thought I made quite a bit of noise. Perhaps whatever you were looking at was totally engrossing?”
He seemed to realize his hand was still on her shoulder. He released her and leaned down, and before she could, swooped up the phone. Instead of handing it back to her, he scowled at the screen.
“I thought you said there was no service.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
REALLY, AIDAN THOUGHT, the right thing to do at the moment would be to hand Noelle her phone and leave her up here by herself. He had obviously interrupted a very private moment. Had she been crying? It was hard to tell in the dim light.
Still, when Noelle made a grab for the phone, Aidan could clearly see, in its faint glow, that her cheeks had little streaks down them. Definite tear tracks remained despite her efforts to scrub them away with her sleeve. He found himself holding the phone out of her reach, unable to not look at what had caused her such distress.
An ordinary-looking chap was on a beach with a girl who looked way too young for him. He had posted something about snorkeling and living life to the fullest.