Christmas in Harmony Harbor

by Debbie Mason

  “So you’ve been telling me since you listened in on my conversation with her.”

  “Someone has to protect you from selling your soul to the devil on her account.”

  Caine’s phone pinged several times with incoming text messages. He glanced at the screen. They were all from his grandmother. Alec must have left. At least Caine hoped he had and wasn’t reading the texts over her shoulder—or worse, dictating them to her.

  She was pleased the library was being renamed after her. She only wished she had the honor of ripping Colleen Gallagher’s plaque from the library wall herself. She immediately followed that text with one demanding an update on his strategy to wrest the manor from the Gallaghers. Followed by a threat.

  “Give me that phone, and I’ll give her a piece of my mind. You can’t let her get away with this, lad. You can’t let her force you to turn on your own family. I’ve been here long enough to have heard talk of the Gallaghers. And what I’ve heard leads me to believe that whatever she told you and Killian to turn you against them is a lie.”

  Theia had said as much to Caine over the past year, so it wasn’t as if he hadn’t had some doubts of his own. “I’ll know the truth soon enough, or at least a portion of it.” He told Seamus about Colleen Gallagher’s memoir and Clio’s offer. “But in the end, I’m doing them a favor, just like I’m doing Evangeline a favor. Neither the manor nor Holiday House are worth saving. They’re not only money pits—they’re death traps.”

  “You know it wasn’t the house that killed your da, don’t you? It was his weak lungs.”

  “He was dirt poor—that’s what killed him, Uncle. Too poor to get the medical attention he needed. Too poor to fix the house, to put nourishing food in his belly, to allow him to take time off work.”

  “We were poor, and we didn’t die. We were happy too. Don’t let the bad times color all your memories. There were plenty of good ones. Your mam and da—”

  Caine raised his hand. “I can’t do this now. I have to get through to the boy. Get him to see that he’s standing in his own way. He’s also standing in mine. I need him to write the letter and a list of actionable steps to get back in the principal’s and his classmates’ good graces.”

  His uncle gave him a disappointed look.

  “Just because I’m looking out for myself doesn’t mean Jamie doesn’t benefit. I’ll honor my word and keep him on the straight and narrow. I’ve also taken care of their rent for the next two years and made a deal with Rosa DiRossi to provide them with meals three times a week.”

  “I think you’re missing the point, but I canna say I’m surprised. Let me help with the boy. It’ll be like helping you. I should have been there for you, Caine. Not drowning my sorrows in a bottle of Jameson when we lost Killian. You needed me, and so did my sister. If I had been a better man, she wouldn’t have—”

  “Don’t. Don’t go there, Uncle,” Caine said, then opened the back door to the kitchen.

  The sight of Jamie on the floor with the dog, his face buried in Max’s fur, threw Caine back into a past he’d blocked for the last twenty-five years. He saw himself walking into the living room on Christmas morning. He and his mother had found a tree someone had tossed and brought it home, using whatever they could find in the house to decorate. They’d glued some glittery pieces from an old party dress of his mam’s to his uncle’s and his da’s work socks, using them for stockings.

  He’d known there’d not be much under the tree, so the big wrapped box had taken him by surprise. He’d tried to hold back tears when he’d gotten his first look at Max, but lost the battle when the dog licked his face and snuggled against him all warm and soft. His uncle and da hadn’t given him the gears about his tears, but they’d teased his mother when she joined him on the floor and did the same. But soon they were laughing, the four of them on the floor playing with the dog.

  Seamus was right. They’d been happy once. All of them together, a ragtag bunch, living in a run-down house.

  But no sooner had he had the thought than the image of him with his dog on Christmas morning morphed to him sitting on a faded linoleum floor with his tear-streaked face buried in his dog’s fur on the day his father died. Nothing—not money, not his mother, not his uncle—had offered him the level of comfort that Max had that day.

  Chapter Fourteen

  If you’ll sit at that kitchen table now and stop giving me such a bloody hard time about writing your apology to Principal Wright, you can have the dog.”

  Evie stopped at the entrance to her kitchen to stare at Caine, who stood beside the kitchen table, his attention now captured by his phone. There was no way he’d said what she thought he had. She must have misheard him. No one in their right mind would give away someone else’s pet.

  “You’ll give me Max?” Jamie’s face lit up, and she blinked at the transformation from surly man-child to excited boy.

  She didn’t want to burst his bubble, but someone needed to correct his assumption, and obviously it had to be her because Caine was typing in that annoying speed-of-light way he had.

  “I think what Caine meant was…” She trailed off. The idea that he’d bribed Jamie to get him to do what Jamie should be doing anyway because it kept him from being expelled was as outrageous as the idea that Caine would give her dog away.

  “I will. Just get up to the table and do your assignment,” Caine said to Jamie, and then went back to working his phone without so much as a glance her way. It was as if she hadn’t said a word. No, it was as though he didn’t care that she did.

  She walked over and took his phone.

  He looked from his empty hand to her. “What do you think you’re doing? I’m in the middle of keeping a deal from going off the rails.”

  “There’s a more important deal right in this kitchen that is about to go off a cliff, so your other deal can wait. Jamie, I expect you to have your letter of apology to Principal Wright and your class completed by the time I’ve finished speaking to Caine.”

  Jamie’s eyes went wide. “But, Evie, I haven’t even started it.”

  “And who’s fault is that, Jamie?” His mentor’s, she answered for him in her head. “But don’t worry—you’ll have plenty of time. My conversation with Caine will not be a short one.” She nudged her head toward the hall in a follow me gesture to the man standing staring at her with his hands on his hips.

  “Well, Caine has quite a bit to say to the person awaiting his response. So will you give me back my phone before you blow my deal?”

  “No,” she said, and walked out of the kitchen. She considered having their conversation in the store, but a glance in that direction ruled it out. Seamus was regaling a group of entranced older women with tales of Christmas in Ireland while her mother stood behind the sales counter with an expression on her face much like Caine’s as she squinted at the screen of Evie’s computer, probably looking at the profit line.

  Evie opened the door to the storage room and motioned for Caine to follow. When he stood on the other side, looking at her with an eyebrow raised, she reached out and pulled him inside.

  “Tell me you did not just try to bribe Jamie with my dog,” she said as she closed the door.

  He plucked the phone from her hand. “Two seconds and you’ll have my undivided attention.” He didn’t wait for her response but did follow through with his promise, seconds later pocketing his phone.

  Refusing to have their conversation interrupted again, she closed what little distance there was between them in the four-by-four-foot room and stuck her hand in his pocket. She realized her mistake as soon as the tips of her fingers grazed his hip through the fine fabric and her chest brushed against his.

  His hand closed over hers, trapping it inside his pocket and against his body. “Are you looking for anything in particular, Evangeline?”

  “You know what I’m looking for,” she said, and made the mistake of lifting her gaze to his. There was something more than amusement in his eyes. It had been the same when th
ey were outside the principal’s office. When his strong fingers had closed around her arms to draw her lips within an inch of his.

  She’d wanted him to kiss her then as much as she did now, and it annoyed her to no end that a man who pressed every one of her buttons, a man who was her total opposite in every way, lit her body up like a Christmas tree. It was absolutely ridiculous. How could she, a woman who owned a Christmas store, be in lust with Scrooge? The question had barely entered her mind when she knew the answer. It had nothing to do with his devastatingly gorgeous face or body. The part of her that was drawn to the man was the part of her that made her good at her job.

  She was drawn to the emotionally wounded. She empathized with them, wanted to help them, to make a difference in their lives. To guide them from the darkness to the light. But it was also her fatal flaw, because sometimes her empathy led her from the light and into the darkness—like it had with Aaron. Fingers of fear crawled up her spine at the memory.

  Caine must have read the emotion on her face because he immediately released her hand. She pulled it from his pocket and stepped back. He took out his phone and, holding it up, turned it off.

  He looked like he was about to ask her what had just happened, and she crossed her arms. She didn’t want to talk about it. She also wouldn’t let him distract her. “Did you honestly just give my dog away without asking me?”

  “Well, technically, it wasn’t your dog. I’m the one who found him, and I’m the one who gave him to…” He scrunched up his right eye while rubbing his hand along his jaw.

  “Please, by all means, finish what you were going to say.”

  “All right, when I heard you and Theia coming toward the kitchen last Friday morning—”

  “The morning you pretended to be a messenger, you mean?”

  “And braved your rat-infested cellar to turn your lights back on? Yes, that’d be the morning I’m referring to.”

  She gave a full-body shiver. “Can you please not mention them again?”

  “It’d be my pleasure to refrain from doing so. Though your rodent infestation was one of the reasons I left Max on your porch. And before you say anything, I didn’t know he had fleas.”

  “He did indeed have fleas. And I’m the one who got rid of said fleas and took him into my heart and home.”

  “You’ve had him for less than a week, Evangeline. I’m sure your heart will survive.”

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  “Not out loud, I’m not,” he said, doing a horrible job of fighting back a grin. Then his expression became serious. “You’ve got Bruiser. You don’t need Max. But Jamie does.”

  “You had a dog named Max when you were Jamie’s age, didn’t you?” She couldn’t help herself. She wanted to know what made this man tick. What had hurt him so badly that he did his best to keep people away.

  “Yes, I did, as you very well know. My uncle shared information that wasn’t his to share.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “And you thought to use it against me.”

  “No. For you, Caine. Seamus loves you. He’s worried about you.”

  “He has no cause to worry. I made peace with my past a long time ago.”

  “He doesn’t think you have. He thinks you’ve just locked all your memories—the good and the bad—away.”

  * * *

  Caine sat at the kitchen table reviewing the list Jamie had just finished for Principal Wright and glanced at his watch. It was almost time for dinner and for Evangeline to close the shop, and she hadn’t invited them to stay. She probably meant for him to take Jamie home. His mother cleaned several of the shops on Main Street after hours, so she wouldn’t be home until late that evening, which meant Evangeline probably expected Caine to stay with the boy until his mother returned. He wasn’t quite ready to spend the entire evening with Jamie on his own. At least here Evangeline popped in and out, as did his uncle and Lenore.

  When Evangeline walked into the kitchen moments later carrying a floral arrangement, Caine decided to take matters into his own hands. “So I was thinking, to thank you for giving Max to Jamie, we’d treat you to dinner. Your mother and my uncle too, of course. Do you have a preference?”

  Instead of answering, Evangeline added fresh water to the vase. When the silence dragged on, he got a little anxious that she was trying to come up with a way to turn his offer down. He caught Jamie giving Evangeline a sidelong glance. The boy probably felt the same as Caine about spending time on their own.

  Caine got up from the table and walked to the sink. “You probably didn’t hear me with the tap running, but I asked what your preference for dinner would be?”

  Given her silence, he’d decided to make it more difficult for her to turn them away.

  She glanced at Jamie and then up at him as she turned off the water. “I don’t recall inviting you to stay to dinner,” she said for his ears alone.

  Caine turned on the water and lowered his voice. “You’re still mad at me for giving Max away, aren’t you?”

  “This has nothing to do with you giving away my dog. I just think it’s a good idea for you and Jamie to spend some time alone together.”

  “I don’t, and neither does he. So can we stay?” He didn’t care that he was practically begging.

  “Fine. But if you’re staying for dinner, you and Jamie have to make it.”

  “This is payback for Max, isn’t it?”

  “No, because you were right. Max will be good for Jamie. I also think Jamie will be good for Max.” At a hissing sound coming from under the table, then a yelp from Max, she added, “And Bruiser will no doubt be happy to have the house to himself.”

  “It sounds like I should be rewarded for giving Max to the lad, not punished.”

  “I’m not punishing you, Caine. Learning to cook simple and nutritious meals is part of our after-school program. A lot of the kids in the program are from single-parent families, so we want them to be able to cook a meal for themselves if they have to. And they often do.”

  He was just about to make a case for Jamie deserving a break when Evangeline leaned back to look past him. “You and Caine are making dinner tonight, Jamie. Why don’t you make the recipe we tried last week?”

  Caine didn’t cook, and he wasn’t about to start now. He’d place an order with Theia’s grandmother-in-law-to-be, Rosa DiRossi. As if she’d read his mind, Evangeline glanced at Jamie as she walked out of the kitchen with the flowers in her arms. “Don’t let Caine order from DiRossi’s.”

  “If you don’t tell, I won’t,” Caine said once she was out of earshot.

  “But that’d be a lie,” Jamie said.

  “Technically it wouldn’t. But I was just joking,” he said, cursing the woman in his head. “So, what is it we’re making?”

  Jamie closed his books to put them in his backpack. “Spaghetti and meat sauce and a salad.”

  “Evangeline said simple. That doesn’t sound simple.”

  “It’s not that hard.” He came over and handed Caine a recipe.

  “Okay. I’ll read off the ingredients, and you get them out of the refrigerator and cupboard.” If they were lucky, Evangeline wouldn’t have everything they needed. Hopefully, it would be too late to go to the market, and they’d order in. By the time Caine got to the last ingredient on the recipe, he realized the woman had a well-stocked and organized kitchen.

  Now that he knew there was no escape, Caine did what he always did. He rolled up his sleeves and got to it.

  An hour later, he sat at the head of the table with Jamie and his uncle on his right, Lenore on to his left, and Evangeline across from him. He glanced at Jamie, who was intently watching Evangeline as she lifted a forkful of spaghetti to her mouth. The boy was being obvious about his desire to know what she thought of their meal. Caine was trying to be less so.

  She looked up as she chewed, then swallowed. “Wow. I’m impressed. This is really good.”

  Jamie gave him a fist bump, and they grinned at each other. So much for him n
ot being obvious, Caine thought, when Evangeline smiled at him, her eyes shining with amusement.

  “Evangeline is right, Jamie. This is very good,” Lenore said, her colorful glass earrings swinging when she nodded. They seemed an incongruous choice for her. To his mind, Evangeline’s mother was highly competent, intelligent, somewhat rigid, and uncompromising, not someone given to whimsy, as the pretty earrings suggested.

  “Yes. Well done, lad. I don’t know when I’ve tasted better, and that’s a high compliment indeed, as my nephew likes the finer things in life,” Seamus said, ruffling Jamie’s hair.

  “I did help, you know,” Caine said drily.

  “He did. He decided instead of using a jar of spaghetti sauce, we should make our own. He burned the onions and garlic twice. Then he added sugar instead of salt to the tomato sauce. What?” Jamie said when Caine gave him a look.

  “You’re a regular card,” he said when the kid laughed.

  And as he sat there in the small kitchen with its cracked linoleum and peeling wallpaper, listening to his uncle regale Jamie and the two women with a tall tale about his days on the Black Sea, Caine was reminded of meals he’d shared with his family in happier times. He’d missed it, missed this, he realized, soaking up the warmth and the laughter as he glanced around the table, trying to understand the pull of a simple home-cooked meal in a room in dire need of repair.

  His eyes were drawn to Evangeline, who was smiling at something Jamie said, and he wondered if Seamus was right. Maybe the hunger that drove Caine wasn’t for more property and more money. Maybe the only thing that would fill the empty place inside him was home and family.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Four days later, Evie knew she was in trouble when she asked Caine to pass the peas and nearly said honey. The endearment was right on the tip of her tongue. And the way his blue eyes held hers, he knew it too.