Brenda interlaced her fingers and stared down at her hands. “You really know these people, don’t you?”
“I’ve been taking care of them for decades.”
“I’m sure you think I’m an awful person. But I told you this morning. I’m not against the clinic. I’ll happily give you a contribution.”
“It might surprise you, but I know you’re not a bad person. To me, you’re the person who could take over the Christmas Chorale and help the clinic raise money for kids like Harper and Doni.”
“I can’t.”
Annie came back with their iced teas and a bowl of hush puppies. Jim snagged one of the little fried corn-bread balls and popped it into his mouth. It was one of his guilty pleasures.
“Have a hush puppy, Brenda,” he said as he chewed.
She shook her head. “They’re so bad for you. I can’t believe you’re eating one. How many times a day do you tell your patients to cut down on saturated fat?”
He laughed. “Too many to count. And you know what they say in response?”
“They probably hang their heads and tell you they’ll do better next time.”
“Well…that’s true. But if they truly spoke their minds, they’d tell me that it’s the holiday season, and we should all live a little because life is short.”
She cocked her head and met his gaze, her glance landing long enough for him to realize that her eyes had little shards of amber in them. Like a pair of twin kaleidoscopes.
She dropped her gaze to the hush puppies but she didn’t take one. “Look,” she said in a tight voice, “I realize you’re in a bind. But don’t ask me to do this. I hate Christmas.”
“Why?”
She looked away, turning her head and focusing on one of the many pieces of African artwork lining the restaurant’s walls. “There are so many reasons. Bad things happen to me this time of year. And I’m sorry, but I can’t get over the negative memories. When the holly and the ivy goes up, I just want to disappear and not come out until after New Year’s.”
* * *
Brenda hunched her shoulders and tried to hide behind her shaggy hair. It suddenly seemed as if everyone in the dining room was staring at her, condemning her for not wanting to be happy at this time of year. She almost pushed away from the table but Jim covered her clenched fists with his warm hands. The touch sent a shock through her system, and she looked up at him.
The twinkle had gone out of his eyes. “My wife died on Christmas Day,” he said, holding her gaze for a long instant.
“I’m sorry,” Brenda muttered, pulling her hands away from his warm touch and reaching for her purse. “I think I should go.”
“Running away again?” One of his salt-and-pepper eyebrows arched, and she had the feeling the man possessed ESP or something.
“I’m sorry for your loss. I lost someone around Christmastime too. And I can’t forget it or get over it.”
“And you’ve let this loss color your life?”
She shrugged. “Among many other losses. Look, I don’t want to—”
Just then, Annie returned with their food, placing it on the table and then retreating.
“Seems kind of silly to run away when one of Annie’s chops is right there for the eating, and I’m picking up the tab.”
“I can’t do what you want me to do.”
“What, eat the chop?” He laughed.
And damned if the corner of her mouth didn’t twitch involuntarily. “I don’t understand you,” she said in a near whisper.
He leaned forward. “I guess we’re even.”
She picked up her steak knife and sliced a piece off the chop. “I don’t understand how you can be so merry,” she said, before popping a bite into her mouth. As always, Annie’s food had a way of comforting, right down to Brenda’s wounded soul.
“Why, because Julianne died on Christmas Day?” Doc Killough asked.
She nodded.
“Well, it’s like this,” he said, his gaze drifting a little. “We thought she wouldn’t make it to Christmas Day, so Dylan and I were happy that she woke up on Christmas Eve and was able to see Dylan open one of his presents before she lapsed into a coma.”
“Dylan is your son?”
He nodded. “He was only ten when Julianne died.”
“Oh.” A twinge of pain lanced through her. The poor kid. She knew how he felt. But she didn’t want to talk about that. Instead, she asked, “You never remarried?”
He shrugged. “The right woman never came along. And you? I understand you’re divorced.”
“I divorced my husband twenty-seven years ago. He wasn’t much of a husband. Ella, my daughter, was only three at the time.”
“And you never remarried?”
She shrugged and then realized that she’d mirrored his body language. What was up with that? And why had a man as handsome as Doc Killough never found another wife? Julianne must have been something.
She concentrated on eating her chop, and the conversation stalled. She suddenly had a zillion questions she wanted to ask about his dead wife, about raising a kid on his own, about how he’d managed to remain so merry and bright even with that tragedy in his past. But mostly she wanted to know how Dylan felt about Christmas.
Her own sad relationship with the holiday had only started when Daddy died.
The saga continued another Christmas when Keith had gotten wasted and then belligerent. He hadn’t done anything to hurt her or baby Ella, but Brenda had become truly frightened of him. On Christmas Day, she’d moved out of the house and fled all the way from Chicago to Indianapolis, where she hired an attorney and initiated the divorce.
Nine months later, she’d enrolled in the music education department at Indiana University as a part-time student. It had taken her years to earn her degree, but she’d done it. Money had been tight in those years so their holiday celebrations had been low-key. Momma would send enough money for Brenda and Ella to come home for Thanksgiving. But besides that, Christmas hadn’t been a big thing. Which probably explained why Ella never felt the need to come home for the holidays.
She looked up from her food to find Jim studying her, a sly look in his eye. “What?” she asked.
“I can see the wheels turning in your head.”
“So you’re a mind reader now?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m just an old country doctor. And I’ve seen cases like yours before.”
“Oh, really? This Christmasitis you were talking about earlier.”
He nodded. “Yup. In my opinion, you need a dose of joyful music.”
“Why? Because you think I should be joyful this time of year?”
“No. Because I think whoever you lost would be so unhappy to see you miserable during the holidays.”
“You sound like my mother.”
“She’s a wise woman.”
Brenda cut another slice of pork chop and popped it into her mouth. “My father died the night of the big snowstorm. You know, the Christmas Blizzard in 1989. I was sixteen, and he was the light in my world.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He could have saved himself. A lot of other members of the volunteer rescue squad stayed home that night. No one here has the first clue about driving in the snow. But Daddy had a four-by-four pickup. So he went and some other idiot lost control and plowed right into him.” Her lip trembled. “It wasn’t fair.”
* * *
Brenda looked up at Jim, pain shimmering in her kaleidoscope eyes. He wanted to pull her into a hug, but the table stood between them.
“So,” he said, “you’ve been running from Christmas ever since?”
“Sort of. When Daddy died, I lost my way for a while. I got involved with a boy, Keith. And I got pregnant out of sheer stupidity, lost my opportunity to try out for a place at Juilliard, and ended up living in Chicago, married. I left Keith a few years later. He was no good for me or Ella.” She looked down at her food, the picture of unhappiness.
“Did you really have a
n audition date at Juilliard?” he asked.
“Yes. But I canceled it.”
“So did I.”
“What?” Brenda’s head snapped up.
“I had an audition date at Juilliard, but I canceled at the last minute because I was offered a full scholarship to UNC’s premed program.”
“You willingly walked away from Juilliard?”
He nodded.
“Why don’t you direct the choir?”
“I’m a reasonably good pianist, but I have no clue how to direct a choir. And besides, I get called away on emergencies all the time.”
“You walked away from Juilliard? I can’t believe it.”
“It wasn’t what I wanted.”
“Well, that certainly makes us different. Because I wanted that audition more than life itself, but I screwed up so badly.” She looked away.
“If things had been different, we might have met in New York years ago.”
Her gaze zipped back and held. “How did you end up in Magnolia Harbor? You didn’t grow up here,” she asked, changing the subject.
“I met my wife at college. When I was finished with med school, she wanted to move back home.”
“And you stayed after she died?”
He shrugged. “It was one of many ways to stay close to her.”
Brenda let go of a mirthless laugh. “Funny. When I left Keith in Chicago, I went to the place he was least likely to find me. I didn’t want him following me home. That’s how I ended up in Indiana.”
Jim leaned forward. “So I get that you made a mistake as a young girl, but you did eventually go to college and become a music teacher, right? Why are you throwing your music away now?”
“You’re going to make me spill my guts, aren’t you? While simultaneously manipulating me. You’re a piece of work.”
She was right about that. “You said you wanted to explain. I’m listening,” he said.
“The last time I directed a winter concert,” she said, “was two years ago in Muncie, where I was the orchestra and choral director for a magnet school. On the night of the concert, half of my violin section was injured in a car accident. It was snowing that night—not much for Indiana where they don’t close schools at the drop of a hat. Just some light flurries and a little sleet. Enough to make roads slippery.
“I will never understand why one of the parents let their child drive in that weather. Her inexperience contributed to the accident, and my first-chair violinist, a girl name Katie Liao, was killed.”
Brenda’s voice got thin and thready, and the sheen in her eyes turned into tears that spilled over her lower lids. “I couldn’t direct anything after that. Katie was so talented. She had such a bright future. And what? She lost her life a week before Christmas because of sleet and snow. I should have canceled the concert, even though school hadn’t been canceled that day. But if I had called off the performance, it would have meant no concert. And we’d worked so hard. And I…” Her voice trailed off.
Jim reached across the table and took her hand. “I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose a student. But I have lost patients over the years. I always feel as if I didn’t do enough. But I’ve learned to accept that there are some things beyond my control. The weather is one of those things. Katie’s death was never your fault.”
Brenda dashed a tear from her cheek. “I know that. But it doesn’t change how I feel.”
“Not even if you were to get back in front of a choir and let the music in?”
She looked up at him and gave a small head shake.
“Okay, but one last question. How did you feel today when you were teaching the song to the kids in the waiting room?”
Her lips parted. “You know about that? I thought—”
“Nita told me the moment you arrived.”
“But she acted like she didn’t see me. She made me wait.”
He shrugged. “There’s a cold virus going around. And it was sweet the way you kept giving up your place in line. You are a great big fraud, you know that?”
“And you are incredible.”
“Thanks.” He smiled. “But if you really think you have nothing to give despite the obvious, then I’ll stand down. We’ll come up with some other plan for the clinic and the kids who depend on it.”
She dropped her head into her hands. “You are impossible,” she muttered.
“Does that mean you’ve changed your mind?” he asked, a little spark of joy swelling in his chest.
She looked up with rounded shoulders. “I’m going to hate myself in the morning. But okay. I give up. I’ll do it.”
“You will?” He gave her a big smile that bounced right off her frowny face.
“Yeah. If I don’t, I’m never going to be able to walk through town without someone whispering behind my back. So let’s get one thing clear. I’m not doing this because I love Christmas or Christmas music. You cornered me. And I’m giving up.”
“Clear as glass,” he said, stifling a smile.
“I’ll need to talk to Simon or figure out what music he had planned.”
“No problem. I’ve got his notes for this year’s performance as well as the music the chorale has collected and paid for over the years. I can bring them out to your house on Saturday.”
Chapter Five
On Saturday afternoon, directly after clinic hours, Jim headed out on Magnolia Boulevard to deliver Simon’s box of music to the new choral director.
The pieces had already been chosen and the music distributed to the chorale’s members weeks ago. Rehearsals had also started before Simon had gotten sick, and Jim hoped his new director wouldn’t want to make a lot of changes. The rehearsal schedule was already in turmoil. Even worse was the fact that at least half of the chorale had called him up to complain that they didn’t want the Grinch as their director.
Proving that sometimes a person just couldn’t win when it came to the court of public opinion. And also, Jim should never have let the gossip get so badly out of hand. It would be up to him to make sure this didn’t end up in a full-out disaster for Brenda. He owed her that much, now that he understood the reason she was so reticent to get involved.
He pulled into the Paradise Beach community, a group of cottages that had been built on the ocean side of the island back in the 1960s. The houses out here weren’t nearly as large as the new ones springing up along the coast north of town. These were small two-bedroom homes, built up on stilts and shoved cheek by jowl behind the primary dunes. Over the years, palmettos and pines had grown up between them, giving them a well-established feel that the bigger vacation homes lacked.
Brenda’s cottage was typical. Painted a medium blue with white trim, it had a screen porch on one end and a deck on the other. Above the door to the porch hung a piece of gray driftwood with the words “Cloud Nine” hand-lettered in blue paint.
He stifled a smile as he carried the box of music up the stairway and rang the bell. Brenda came to the door looking as comfortable in her skin as Jim had ever seen her. Her beautiful auburn hair curled around her face, and she wore a pair of worn jeans that hugged her hips, although the frayed-at-the neck Indiana University sweatshirt hid some of her curves. But the worn-out jeans and old sweatshirt told him a lot. Evidently, she was the sort of person who hung on to things.
He liked that about her, even though he had a feeling her biggest problem was the grief she was clinging to.
Her house was like her, somehow. It had never been renovated and still retained the original 1960s tongue-and-groove wood ceiling and paneling. The walls were covered with beach art, and a comfy couch and a big armchair rounded out the furniture.
“I come bearing music,” he said with a smile.
She stepped back from the door and ushered him all the way into her front room. It was only then that he noticed the Steinway upright piano along the back wall. A violin case sat open atop the piano, and a stand to one side held the music for Amy Beach’s Violin and Piano Sonata.
�
��Amy Beach, huh?” he said, nodding to the music stand as Brenda took the cardboard box and placed it on the coffee table.
“What? Oh.” She glanced at the music. “Yeah. A particular favorite.”
“Very romantic music.”
“And obscure. Because, you know, female composers.” She frowned a little. “You know Amy Beach?”
“Yeah. I do. I’ve even played that piece.”
“Recently?”
He shook his head. “No. Years ago, when I had a neighbor who was pretty good on the violin.”
He didn’t wait for her to respond. Instead, he crossed the room and inspected the music open on the piano. “Shall we practice?” he said, sitting down on the bench.
He flipped the pages to the opening chords, stretched his fingers, and rested them on the piano keys for a moment before playing. The beginning of the piece, written in A minor, was dark and brooding.
He expected her to pick up her violin and join in, but she remained behind him. No doubt she was judging his less-than-stellar playing. It had been years since he’d played anything quite as difficult as this piece.
When he finally stopped and turned, she was wearing that little frown of hers.
“Aren’t you going to play with me?” he asked, giving her his best smile.
“You weren’t kidding, were you? You could have been a Juilliard-trained concert pianist.”
“No. I would have hated every minute of it. I like playing music because it gives me joy. Not because I make my living at it. And besides, I made a bunch of mistakes.”
“You sight-read the music, and you didn’t make that many mistakes.”
“Okay, so it was good enough for an amateur. Why don’t we play the sonata together?”
She continued to frown at him, grumpy as ever.
“What? Don’t you think you can keep up with me?” he asked.
Oh, that got her. “I can keep up.”
“Then show me.”
* * *
Brenda took her violin out of its case and rosined her bow, all the while avoiding eye contact with the incredibly annoying, but supremely talented, Dr. James Killough. She shouldn’t have let him challenge her like that. She shouldn’t have let him goad her into agreeing to anything.
A Little Country Christmas Page 32