He took the pill bottle from her hand, shook out two more, and downed the aspirin along with half the water. “Dean.” He cleared his throat. “Dean Whitfield.”
The deep timbre of his voice warmed the kitchen.
“May I?” She held up the washcloth.
He half-nodded.
She eased the mitten from his skin and tossed it into the trashcan. The flow of blood had decreased enough for her to tend to the injury. She dabbed the washcloth over the smeared spots of dried blood. He jerked away.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Almost done.”
With a deep breath, he leaned forward and rested his head back into her hands.
When she’d finished cleaning the wound, she threw the bloodied rag in the kitchen sink, removed her coat, and tossed it on the back of a chair. It slid off and coiled on the floor. Darcy wrapped his face in her hands. “Well, Dean Whitfield. Thank you.”
His five o’clock shadow was rough against her hand, but his skin beneath the stubble was soft. Dark brown eyes—almost black—liquefied her legs. His brown locks were rumpled, and his nose was slightly crooked. He was handsome and strong and…injured. Not just his head, but his heart. She could sense the sadness hidden deep, see it layered in his eyes.
Dean swallowed, shifting his Adam’s apple. “You’re welcome.”
She blotted a cotton ball soaked with peroxide on his split skin. “I think it looks worse than it really is. I don’t believe you need stitches. It’s not very deep.”
He drummed his fingers on the counter, drawing her attention to his left hand.
No ring. Good sign. There you go again, Darcy. And you wonder why men turn tail and run when they see you coming. Can you say desperate?
She tore open the adhesive bandage, splintering the silence. Applying it to the small cut, she pressed carefully. “Well, soldier, I believe you’re going to live.”
Nothing. Not even a grin.
“Can I offer you something to eat? Coffee? Tea?”
He barely shook his head.
Slow down, Dean. I can’t keep up with all your chatter.
She leaned her elbows on the counter. “So, obviously, I just moved here. Born and raised in Morgantown, Pennsylvania. I had a wreath business back home that steadily declined with the economy. Online sales are thriving, though. Drove through here on a visit to Maine last summer, and thought it might be a good place to relocate the shop.”
Stop rambling. “I’ll be selling my wreaths at Sugar Plum Flowers and Candy Cane Crafts, as well as hosting how-to classes in the parlor. What’s your story?”
He blinked.
Come on, Darcy, you’re losing him. Should she break out the defibrillator?
Dean scanned the room. “Big house for one person.”
He speaks! Only to remind her how very alone and very single she was. “I looked at several available places, but there were things about this house I fell in love with. Impractical as it is, I had to have it.”
His shoulders perked, and he sat a little straighter. “Like what?”
“Like this kitchen.” Her gaze floated upward. “Just look at that copper ceiling. It’s exquisite. Every time I walk in here it’s like stepping into an issue of This Old House magazine. If I ever meet the genius responsible, I might just kiss him.”
Dean propelled from the stool. The legs screeched along the black and white tile and threatened to topple backwards. He righted the chair and moved toward the door. “Thanks for, uh, everything.”
She stuffed her hands in her back pockets. “Thanks for saving me from becoming a pancake. I’ll stop by and check on you later. In case of a concussion and all that.”
“No need.” His gaze held hers a beat longer before he disappeared through the door, engulfing the room in a blast of winter air.
Her mother had always warned her about talking too much.
****
Dean stood at his workbench, a copper sheet wrapped around a domed anvil. Every time he struck the metal with his rubber mallet, a stick of dynamite blasted in the knot on his head. He could still feel Darcy’s warm hands on his face. Smell the cottony scent of her perfume.
Mallet to metal, he caught his thumb in between.
Growling, he slammed the tool on the bench and raked his fingers through his hair. Maybe he did have a concussion. Her touch awakened feelings in him he thought he’d buried long ago. He didn’t like it.
A rap sounded at the door. His neck and shoulders stiffened, followed by his jaw, adding to the torture in his head. It was Darcy; he just knew it. He pictured her standing on the opposite side of the door, huddled against the bitter wind under his porch light. Another knock.
Good grief. He dodged the mess on the floor and swung open the door. “Mom, Dad.”
Icy air invaded the room.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Mom’s smile faded. “What on earth did you do to your head?”
“Bar fight.”
Mom swatted his stomach. “Very funny.”
Snow drifted to the ground, illuminated by the street lights. “What are you doing out? You should be home.”
“I needed to pick up a few things in town. Your dad wants to visit with you while I run my errands.”
Dean stepped aside, stretching the door wider.
Dad shuffled in, and Mom guided him to the nearest chair. She unbuttoned his coat then hung it on the wooden peg beside the door. Her petite hands rested on her thick waistline. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
She shook her finger in a silent scold. “I’ll be back in a little while.” Mom tightened her hood around her silver-streaked hair and kissed Dad’s cheek. “Keep an eye on him.”
She hitched her thumb at Dean. Another blast of cold air swept through the room as she left.
Dean’s hero, once able and strong, was now withered and frail from the stroke. He appeared much older than his fifty-five years. It didn’t seem right for such a good man to be treated that way. Then again, God allowed a lot of things he didn’t care for.
“W-w-what really happened to your h-h-head?”
“My new neighbor was salting her sidewalks when a good chunk of the old oak tree decided to break loose. I managed to get her out of the way in time.” He pointed to his head. “My purple heart.”
“S-s-should’ve cut it back y-y-years ago. What’cha w-w-working on?”
The wood bench creaked under Dean’s weight. “Twelve inch by seven kettle. The Holly’s ordered two.”
Quiet stretched between them. Dean dug his thumb into the palm of his hand. The men had never been at a loss for words before Bethany died. Since then, he struggled to talk to anyone. Even himself.
“How’s the new medicine working out?” Dean finally managed.
Dad gave an awkward shrug. “M-m-makes me tired.” Shaky hands retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket. He blew his nose. The sound echoed through the room like a foghorn. “Son, we need to t-t-t-talk.”
Dean had talked more today than he had in weeks. “What’s on your mind?”
“The ch-ch-charity auction.”
Dean’s gut clenched. “What about it?”
“It’s in y-y-your hands n-n-now.”
Dean stood and paced the length of the workbench, crunching metal shavings beneath his boots. “I can’t, Dad.”
“Y-y-you have to, son. Everyone’s c-c-counting on you.”
“They’ll have to get someone else from now on.”
Dad slapped his palm against his knee, bulging veins through the thinning skin. “Our family’s done it for over f-f-fifty years. You will carry on the t-t-tradition.”
Dean squeezed his fingers around the mallet handle. Every year his dad—as his father before him—made a copper star for the town Christmas tree that the mayor auctioned at Town Hall after the live nativity in the church sanctuary. The sculptures always brought good money which was donated to a worthy cause. Not this year.
“D-D-Dean, I didn’t
pass the shop to you so you c-c-could hole up in here. I know you m-miss her. We all do. But it’s been long enough. You’ve got to start l-living again.”
Wood hitting against metal vibrated through his veins. If felt good to take his emotions out on something. After a minute-long tantrum, he stopped for fear of ruining the piece. “I can’t.”
Dad shook his head. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Both.”
Dad rose from the chair with more strength than Dean had seen in months. “Charity is your duty, as a C-C-Christian.”
Dean threw the mallet on the workbench with more force than he’d intended. “What’s my other duty as a Christian, Dad? To be OK with God taking my pregnant wife away from me? Am I just supposed to accept that? Forgive me if I don’t want to celebrate the birth of someone else’s child when I’m denied my own.” He met his dad’s angry stare. “I can’t do it.”
Dad’s pale lips puckered.
Dean fetched the mallet. Dad didn’t understand. No one did. That’s why Dean kept to himself. He continued to shape the piece with aggression.
“H-H-He can handle it, you know.”
The mallet paused mid-air. “What.”
“God. He’s strong enough to endure a-anything you give Him. Anger. R-r-resentment. Sorrow. T-t-tell Him how you feel—He can handle it. J-j-just talk to Him.”
Rest assured, God didn’t want to hear what Dean had to say.
Dad lowered back onto the chair with an oomph. “Y-you can live dead, or you can d-d-die living. What’s it going to be?”
3
A gaggle of voices filled Darcy’s front room. Her first instructional wreath class was underway. Women filled every inch of the parlor, tucked between wild birch loops, spools of ribbon, wire and cutters, glue guns, and greenery.
“OK, ladies.” Darcy projected her voice above the crowd. “This is the last step, and you’ll want to pay close attention because it’s a little tricky.” She coiled the red and gold plaid ribbon in a double-loop bow, pausing after each curl for the students to catch up. With her wreath attached to the easel, she secured the festoon to the base of the wreath using heavy floral wire.
A spool of gingham ribbon slipped from Mrs. Edward’s arthritic fingers and unwound across the room. She laughed at herself and told the twenty-something across the table to enjoy her youth.
Thirty minutes later, most of the students filed out, leaving a mess in their wake. Darcy collected scraps from the tables and tossed them in the wastebasket, then retrieved a broom. Ruth Simpson sat at a corner table applying the fiftieth coat of spray glitter to her wreath. A fog of sparkles polluted the air. The scent of balsam and cedar battled for dominance with the acrid stench of aerosol glue. Ethel perched in a chair next to her sister and nibbled on a cookie, accompanied by a cup of coffee.
The sight of the twins reminded her of David. Guilt collided with the emptiness in her heart. How she missed him.
A ray of sunlight spilled through the windows. The snow-dusted village outside was reminiscent of the one Grandma displayed on her mantel every Christmas. The outdoor thermometer read thirteen degrees, so Darcy put the broom aside and added a couple more logs to the fire. The crackle and pop of the wood competed with Ruth’s humming. Darcy had survived Thanksgiving by that very fireplace two days ago, encased in a blanket on the window seat with Gomez and James Patterson. Well, not James in the flesh anyway.
“So,” Ruth said, silencing her music and adding another red glittered ball to her wreath. “How old are you, Darcy?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Hmm, we’re the same age.”
“Ha. Times two.” Ethel munched another cookie.
Darcy noted the crumbs, too small for a mouse, on the glass platter by the coffee pot. Note to self: when Ethel signs up for class, provide more cookies.
Ruth twisted in her chair, draping her plump elbow across the back. “Why aren’t you married yet?”
Ah, the dreaded question. It always came eventually. You want to take this one, God? You know better than I.
Darcy pulled out a chair to reach the mess under the table. She stared at the Christmas-light earrings dangling from the woman’s wrinkled, sagging earlobes. Retro lights, like Ruth had robbed them straight off a 1970s Christmas tree and threaded them through her ears. Biding time, since she didn’t quite know the answer to the question, Darcy noted the twins’ matching holiday turtlenecks. Was that puffy paint? “Still waiting for the right guy to come along.”
“Better not wait too much longer. If you want kids, anyway.”
The broom stilled. Age-old advice that gutted her every time.
“Have you met your neighbor yet?” Ruth pointed out the window to the house across the street. Dean carried two large boxes to his sedan and placed them in the open trunk. Warm exhaust thrust a white fog around his legs.
“I have.”
“Handsome fellow, isn’t he?”
Heat filled Darcy’s cheeks. He was OK.
“Been through a lot, that one. Lost his wife last winter in a car accident in Boston. She was with child.”
Darcy’s heart wilted. So that’s the tragedy she’d seen in his eyes. “How awful.” She bent and brushed the debris into the dustpan, then emptied it into the trash. Dean had known loss first-hand, too. “You seem to know him well.”
Ethel nodded, the movement bunching the loose skin around her neck.
“I’ve known him since he was knee high to a grasshopper. He grew up in this very house. Got married, moved away…came back when he lost his wife. He took over the family business after his father had a stroke. Hides in his workshop, he does.” Ruth reached across the table and took a sip of her sister’s coffee.
Darcy remembered the gentle, stroke-ridden man she’d met at the bank when closing on the house, though only now making the connection as Dean’s father.
“Dean’s a man of few words,” Ethel added.
Yes, she’d noticed. Her gaze flittered around the room. So, Dean was raised here. What stories would these walls tell about him? Was he a mischievous child? Had he helped his father restore the house to its pristine condition?
Her comment about kissing the man responsible for the kitchen’s copper ceiling exploded in her head, leaving fragments of stupidity behind. Heat flooded her neck and cheeks. No wonder he’d fled the house faster than a man on fire.
Ruth’s mouth continued to move, though Darcy’s ears didn’t register a single word. Staring out the window, she watched Dean sink into his car and close the door. A whisper stirred her heart. In that moment, she knew what she had to do.
****
A knock sounded on his door. Dean laid the ball-peen hammer on the workbench and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He’d skipped out on his parents right after the Thanksgiving meal on Thursday and missed church this morning, which he’d done every Sunday for the past six months. Weeks since his last scolding, he was long overdue for one of Mom’s speeches.
The doorbell. Dean ground his back teeth. It may be a mother’s job to worry about her only son, but he wasn’t in the mood for it tonight.
He opened the door and froze—his reaction nothing to do with the frigid air barreling inside. Darcy stood on his front stoop, weapons in hand: a large wreath, a paper sack, and her brightest smile. Wavy locks spilled over her shoulders from beneath her gray knit hat.
He was unarmed. Not fair.
“I wasn’t sure if you were home or not. I saw you leave earlier and didn’t see you return, but I noticed your lights on and…” Pink stained her cheeks. She scratched her head and twisted her glossy lips. Refusing to notice their fullness, he lowered his gaze to the decoration.
“I brought you something.” She held up the wreath. “I saw you didn’t have one…”
Her cheeks grew rosier by the second. He stood aside and motioned her in, unsure of what to say. She entered. He stood at the door, searching for answers on the darkening horizon.
The sack crinkled as she set it on a cor
ner table. He closed the door. She suspended the wreath on a peg by the door, along with her hat and matching coat. She sure knew how to make herself at home.
“Is this your workshop? It’s fantastic. Like stepping into a history book.”
Not quite the reaction he expected from a woman. He followed her gaze to the hand-hewn support beams, the rustic furniture, and pine floor. All original. Darcy’s pink sweater was the only color in the room, a vivid rainbow after a dreary storm.
His grandfather had added living quarters behind the original shop where he spent his nights. Dean’s days and evenings passed here, with the smell of raw wood and metal.
He watched her long legs, wrapped in denim, as she ambled to the other side of the shop. Darcy brushed her fingers over the copper kettles lining the shelf. “These are gorgeous. Do you make them by hand?”
She glanced at him over her shoulder. He nodded.
Her grin warmed the room. “Have you eaten?” She went to the paper sack and carried it to the corner table, bringing out two Styrofoam containers. “I just left the merchants’ meeting at Town Hall and stopped to grab a bite on my way home. Have you ever eaten at Kris Kringle’s Cafeteria?” She rolled her eyes. “That name sounds even more ridiculous spoken out loud. I got myself a cup of soup and a salad, but you seemed like more of a steak-tips-and-potato guy to me.”
Dean took the container she thrust at him. “Thanks.”
“Your head looks like it’s healing well.” The bag rustled again when she fetched two bottles of water.
How had this happened? Five minutes ago he was alone—the way he liked it—and now he was nestled at the table with Chatty Cathy. Boy, she was good. No one ever came into his shop. Ever. Except his parents. He sold all of his products online or in local mom-and-pop stores. That way, he avoided visitors.
Darcy bowed her head in prayer. Thick, black lashes fanned across her cheeks. When she finished, she met his stare and smiled. She had it down to an art.
“I have to ask.” She uncapped her water and took a sip.“Does it ever get old living in the North Pole where everything is so Christmassy?”
Bright Copper Kettles Page 2