A Little Country Christmas

by Carolyn Brown

  She leaned into the touch and emitted a deep hum from the back of her throat. But that little noise pulled her back down to earth. Wait a second. This was idiotic. And dangerous. If she didn’t run now, Jim might unleash a tsunami of yearning and insanity that would leave nothing but wreckage in its wake.

  She braced her hands on his shoulders and gave him a gentle but firm push. He stepped back, his eyes dark, the look on his face more solemn than she’d ever seen before.

  “I—” he began.

  “Don’t,” she interrupted, turning her body sideways in the small passageway and hurrying back to the main salon. He didn’t follow right away, which was just as well. The kids were out of control, and Jenna and Jude St. Pierre had no idea how to corral them.

  She cleared her throat and dropped right into teacher mode. “Come, children,” she said in that authoritative classroom voice that cut right through the roar. “Let’s sing some songs. Who knows ‘Frosty the Snowman’?”

  Chapter Nine

  Jim sat down at the piano and blew into his hands to warm them up. The weather had taken a surprising turn toward cold since the Festival of Lights on Saturday. And he’d managed to lose his gloves somewhere.

  Today the Christmas Chorale was rehearsing in the Rutledge High auditorium, where the performance would be held in just two weeks.

  There was a lot to accomplish before then, but he had faith in his new choir director. He checked his watch. It was five to seven, and almost every member of the chorale was present with music folders in hand.

  Brenda had the choir exactly where she wanted them. He studied her for a moment. She stood at her music stand in front of the group, studying her notes with a deep frown on her face.

  Jim knew well enough now that the rumple in her forehead had nothing to do with her frame of mind. She always frowned when she concentrated. He’d played enough music with her to know that she frowned even when she was in the groove—the magical place every musician reaches for, where the sound gets inside your head and you stop thinking.

  She looked up from her notes and met his gaze. Electricity hummed along his synapses. He wanted to kiss her again. Hell, he wanted to get her naked.

  She blushed and turned away, telling him everything he already knew. She’d enjoyed the kiss. She could probably be convinced to kiss him again. If only he could prove that he would never abandon her. If only he could restore her faith in love and family.

  It was a pretty tall order. And she’d been hurt so many times. He’d heard the pain in her voice when she talked about her daughter. She was still hurting. And winning her trust would be difficult. Maybe impossible.

  “All right, it’s seven o’clock,” she said in her high school teacher tone that caught everyone’s attention. “We need to run through all the pieces tonight. And just remember that next week, we have a rehearsal on Monday and then a soundcheck on Friday, the night before the concert. Attendance at the soundcheck is mandatory. If you know ahead of time that you won’t be able to come, you need to let me know.

  “Now, let’s begin with the Vaughan Williams, shall we?”

  Jim arranged the music on the stand and then looked in her direction. For a short moment, before she began counting out the beats, their gazes met, and another jolt ran through him. But she never missed a beat. He, on the other hand, almost missed his cue to start playing. He fumbled, which earned him another little glance that almost melted his bones.

  He could fall in love with her. The notion was kind of life-altering. He’d never met anyone since Julianne who had so captivated him. She wasn’t sweet. She wasn’t always happy. She wasn’t anything like his late wife. But she was interesting, and funny, and talented. And playing music with her was an unspoken but intense joy they shared.

  He watched her, taking his cues from her. That was his job. She set the beat, and he followed.

  She was on a tear tonight. When the bass section tried to run away with the meter on “What Child Is This?” she had to stop the performance and help them practice their part several times. The basses had a part like a deep-sounding bell that set the rhythm for all the other sections. If they didn’t keep the beat, the rest of the choir would be left high and dry.

  When she finally got the performance she was looking for, she said, “Okay, let’s turn to ‘Joy to the Whole World.’ This one is easy.” She raised her baton, gave Jim the cue, and the chorale started singing.

  But right in the middle of the performance, which had been pretty good in Jim’s opinion, Brenda stepped off her podium, folded her arms across her chest, and gave the choir a chilling look. And since at least a quarter of the choir was still not paying attention to her, it took a moment before the singing stopped. Which proved her point.

  “People, please, get your heads out of the music,” she said in a surprisingly soft voice.

  The choir shuffled and murmured.

  “I know y’all think I just want you to look at my pretty face,” Brenda continued. “But you need to watch me. And even more important, you need to look as if you actually believe what you’re singing.”

  This caused the murmur to increase into a little hum.

  She pulled her half-moon reading glasses from their resting place on the top of her head, tilted her head back, and read the lyrics out loud. Then she looked up, her blue gaze like ice. “It says joy to the world.”

  The hum turned to silence.

  “So why are all of you frowning?” she asked.

  Jim almost laughed out loud but managed to button his lip.

  Donna Cuthbert didn’t have nearly as much discipline. “Because you are?” she said in a tentative voice.

  “I’m frowning?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Oh,” she said, and then looked over at him. “Am I frowning?”

  “You always frown when you concentrate,” he said in a low voice, his mouth twitching beyond his control.

  “Oh, well, that’s a good point, Doc. I think we’re all concentrating too hard. We know this piece, and we know the words, don’t we? I mean, we don’t have to look at the music to sing ‘joy to the world,’ do we? So, everyone, put your folders on the chairs behind you. We’re going to sing this without looking at the music or the words. And let me feel the joy, okay?”

  The choir did as she directed, although several members in the always-opinionated soprano section glanced sideways at each other. Since Brenda had never said one word about emoting any joy, Jim reckoned the choir had a right to be skeptical.

  “All right, from the beginning,” Brenda said, waving her baton, counting out the beats. Jim began to play and the choir began to sing.

  And behold. They made a joyful noise.

  * * *

  When the choir sang the last few notes of “Joy to the Whole World,” goose bumps rippled over Brenda’s skin. Man. These people could really sing. They were, despite the rocky beginning, capable of a great deal more discipline than her high school students ever had been. And to her amazement, once they’d put their music down and just sang, a contagion of smiles broke out.

  She wasn’t immune. Somehow, for a short moment, the joy of the music seeped into her grinchy heart, which, unlike Dr. Seuss’s character, didn’t need to grow any bigger. Brenda’s heart wasn’t small; it was just fragile. It had been shattered so many times in the past, and sometimes the glue that she used to patch it back together seemed brittle.

  But as the chorale ended on the phrase “He’s got the whole world in his hands,” she felt something knit back together. Somehow the music had made its way into her chest like some healing medicine.

  “That’s more like it. Well done,” she said when the last vibration ebbed away. “Let’s end on that high note. I’ll see y’all next week.”

  The choir headed for the doors, but most of them had smiles on their faces, and it reminded her of those good days in Muncie when the kids had performed well. Funny how she’d forgotten that half the battle was making the choir believe in itself
. She’d been so drawn down by the tragedy of Katie’s death that she’d blocked out the happy moments.

  In any case, she felt confident that the chorale was ready for their performance. Even more important, they knew they were ready, and that confidence showed. When the lead soprano waved good-bye and wished her a good week, that was a major turnaround.

  Her insides warmed a little more, as if she’d just taken a sip of warm mulled wine. And maybe that was why she was so unprepared when Jim strolled up to stand right in front of her podium.

  “You got a minute?” he asked.

  She looked up, her body sending her conflicting messages. Fight, flight, or wait until the auditorium cleared and kiss him one more time?

  The flight instinct took over. “I’m sorry, I need to get—”

  “I was wondering if you had time to work on the sonata this week,” he interrupted in his typical Jim manner. The man didn’t take no for an answer. It was a proven fact. Besides, she loved playing music with him. Maybe she loved it too much.

  She didn’t want someone who was determined to charm her into doing his bidding. Maybe that was the big hurdle. She’d been charmed before. She’d been used. She’d been filibustered, and bullied, and had lost her way.

  So she gathered up her music. “No, Jim, I—”

  “Brenda, are you going to let a little mistletoe get in the way of a new friendship?”

  She looked up at him. Big mistake. That twinkle in his eye was so adorable, and sexy. It reminded her of…

  No, wait. No.

  It didn’t remind her of Daddy. It was just hard to resist. But she was going to resist. She had to. She couldn’t afford to have another man in her life, unbalancing things, making her care and then hurting her or, worse yet, leaving her. “Is friendship what you want?” she asked, her voice hard.

  “If that’s all I can have.”

  She shook her head. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  “Okay, so I admit it. I liked kissing you, Brenda. It’s been a long time since I’ve kissed anyone and enjoyed it. And if you tell me you didn’t enjoy it, then you’re a liar.”

  She looked away from those twinkly eyes. “I did enjoy it,” she said in a soft voice. “But I can’t trust it.”

  “Because you were hurt before?”

  She shrugged. “Of course. Why else? And besides…” She pulled her music from the stand and walked away from him down the aisle to the seat where she’d left her coat and purse.

  “Besides what?”

  She plucked her coat from the seat and turned. He was still standing up by the stage. “I can’t afford that kind of thing. I’ve learned how to live without it. And I just want to be left alone. I thought I made that clear from the start.” She pulled on her puffy down coat and headed for the exit.

  But he wasn’t about to let her get away so easily. “You should follow your own advice, you know.”

  She stopped and turned. “What advice?”

  “The advice you gave the choir tonight.”

  “What?”

  “Put the music down. Get your head up. And smile, Brenda. Fake it until you can make the feeling real. Look at me; I’m a walking example of that.”

  She shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

  He crossed the now-empty auditorium until he stood just in front of her, so close that she had to look up to meet his gaze. “I’m talking about how, when Julianne died, I was so lost inside my head and my grief that I didn’t think I could make it through another day,” he said in a low, emotion-laced tone. A telltale sheen glimmered in his eye, and it struck her that Jim Killough was not always Mr. Happy. He could ho-ho-ho like any respectable Santa, but beyond the bedside manner was someone with a great deal more emotional depth.

  “I had a little boy to raise,” he continued. “I couldn’t abandon him. I needed to help him get over this monumental loss. So I just pretended. I used to think about Julianne sitting on my shoulder with her always-optimistic view on life. I would mouth her words all the time, and then one day, out of the blue, Dylan said something funny, something Julianne would have loved. And I laughed. And then I laughed again. And pretty soon I was laughing all the time.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s different.” She turned her back on him.

  “It’s not.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said, her feet stubbornly rooted to the auditorium floor. She should run, but the urge to turn back was starting to overcome her justifiable fear. “I don’t have a happy button I can just switch on, okay? I’m not like you. I don’t charm people. I’m not naturally gregarious and lovable. I’m notorious for dragging everyone down, and you’re—”

  “You don’t.”

  She turned then. “What?”

  “You don’t drag people down. Brenda, after you pointed out the choir’s lack of emotion tonight, the performance they turned in was quite a bit more energetic. It gave me shivers.”

  “Me too,” she whispered. “But that’s just performance energy.”

  “No, it’s not. It was joy. And you made them feel it.”

  “The music made them—”

  “No. You did. And when they walked out of here, most of them were smiling. You were smiling. You don’t drag people down. I don’t know why you think that.”

  She stared down at her toes for a long moment, letting his words percolate through her. Why did she believe this thing about herself?

  Short answer: Because Ella had said it so many times. Because Ella’s father had accused her of the same thing. Because even Momma sometimes said she was a grumpy puss.

  “You’re blind,” she said, not looking up as emotions tumbled through her like a rockslide, bruising her from the inside out.

  With a single warm finger, he lifted her chin, his touch shocking her down deep. “Look at me, Brenda. Listen. I am not blind. I saw what I saw today. And I saw you on the schooner the other night singing songs with the children. You are not a grump or a grinch or a scrooge. But you have been hurt, and it’s only natural for people with wounds to curl up and protect themselves.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “I know. But I promise. I will never hurt you.”

  “That’s not a promise you can keep,” she said with certainty.

  “So you won’t give me a chance?”

  She closed her eyes. “I can’t.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “I’m afraid,” she repeated.

  “Of course you are.”

  And then he stepped closer and lowered his head and kissed her for the second time in as many days.

  * * *

  As Jim’s mouth captured hers, Brenda wondered if this fluttery hot feeling in her core was fear, or confusion, or something else altogether stupid and adolescent. He knew how to kiss, and pleasure sparked through her like electricity.

  She reveled in it for a long moment: the pressure of his body next to hers, his broad shoulders, his rough palm where he caressed her cheek. She ran her fingers up into his mane, the texture wiry and deeply masculine. Her core started to overheat, and the blood rushed so fast that she could hear it as it moved through her body.

  For a moment, she almost understood those crazy people who willingly dove off high cliffs into tiny pools just for the thrill of it. If she jumped, the ride would probably be exhilarating but the landing might kill her. When she’d jumped in the past, she’d always fallen badly.

  And that old saying about difficulties making a person strong was BS. Bad experiences made people brittle. If she fell hard this time, she might never put herself back together again.

  And even knowing this, her stupid heart wanted to take Jim home.

  She pushed him back a little, and he broke the kiss but didn’t retreat very far.

  “I wish I knew where this was going,” she murmured.

  “Well,” he said on a long breath, “not back to my house, because Dylan is there.”

  Oh yeah, Dylan. Who didn’t like her much. The few times Brenda had crosse
d Dylan’s path over the last few weeks, the young doctor had been barely civil. Another good reason to turn around and run for the hills.

  But she couldn’t move. She was scared of being hurt, but not nearly as frightened as she was at the prospect of spending the rest of her life alone. It came as a sudden realization: Life is short and this was one last turning point.

  “I guess we could go to my place,” she said, her words coming out in a whisper.

  “Are you sure?”

  She looked up into his bright blue eyes and shook her head. “No.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “It’s okay. We can—”

  “No,” she said pressing her palms against his chest. The soft cotton of his shirt felt like a barrier. She suddenly wanted to touch him. Skin to skin.

  The thought was terrifying and electrifying.

  “No?” he asked, one eyebrow rising.

  She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath to steady her runaway heart. “I guess I’m confused, you know. My head tells me to run away and my heart…” Her voice got thin and she opened her eyes and gazed up at him. The twinkle in his blue eyes had gone dark and serious. That wide-eyed look gave Brenda the impression that Jim was actively listening to her.

  “Can I tell you a secret?”

  He nodded. “I was hoping we could get used to sharing secrets.”

  “I want to…” She hesitated, feeling like a teenager in a forty-something body.

  “What?”

  “To be honest, I really want to undress you,” she said, playing with one of his shirt buttons. “But I don’t want you to…”

  “What?”

  “Oh, crap. I’m just an old lady,” she said. “I never had very many good body parts, and now most of them are somewhat worse for the wear.”

  He leaned in, the twinkle returning to his eye. “For the record, I’ve seen some of your body parts in a low-cut dress, and I would like to get better acquainted with them.”

  Every square inch of her skin heated in that moment and her knees almost gave out. She had to lean against him, forehead to sturdy chest. And damn if it didn’t feel as if she fit there. As if that spot had been made for her.