“It’s supposed to feel like you’re one of the shepherds or the wise men watching the sky for signs. Or at least, that’s what I’m told.”
Alice wandered up to the altar, where a large nativity scene had been set. She reached out a hand and touched the carved blue drape of Mary’s robe with a tentative finger.
“Alice, don’t touch, please.”
The little girl pulled her hand back, but she said, “Where’s the baby Jesus? You can’t have Christmas without the baby.”
Tanner smiled as he walked up to stand beside her. “You’re right, you can’t. We have a tradition in this church. On the night we decorate, all the Bible verses are read about all the people who helped celebrate Jesus being born, and all of the nativity figures are put in place by the children of the church. On Christmas Eve, during the children’s message, they’ll put the baby in the manger.”
Without looking at him, Alice slid her small hand into his, and he melted. He closed his eyes and said a prayer that he would be worthy of the trust of this sweet, careful child.
Eve was sitting in the pew in the back of the church, leaning back so she could get the whole ceiling in her view. He eased in beside her as Alice explored along the altar rail. “You okay?”
She nodded but then shook her head.
“What’s wrong? Can I help?”
“I’m thankful that you care about Alice. She has her grandpa, but it’s really good for her to get to know you and your brothers and see your relationship.”
His shoulders relaxed and he smiled at her. “She’s a great kid.”
“She is,” Eve agreed. “What happened last night at the hospital?”
His eyes darted to her face. She didn’t look angry, so why did he feel instantly defensive? Then he realized—this wasn’t about him, not for Eve. It was about Alice. He took a mental step back. The least he could do was try to explain.
“Before you and Alice moved to the ranch, I thought I’d made some progress. I thought I’d finally accepted what happened to my family and I was moving forward. Pretty funny, huh?”
Her gaze didn’t waver from his.
He cleared his throat. “Turns out that being with y’all has brought up some feelings I wasn’t expecting, some memories I thought I’d put away.”
When her eyes softened in pity, he shook his head. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s just a thing, you know?”
“I do know.” She paused. “Tanner, if you need to take some time—”
“I don’t. I...” The thought of it made his breath seize in his chest. “I don’t. I’m just out of practice, that’s all.”
“With people? Feelings?”
He wondered if the misery he was feeling was evident on his face. “All of the above.”
Eve laughed. “Fair enough. Next time—if there is a next time—just tell me if you’re feeling overwhelmed. I really do get it.”
“I know. I’ll try.”
Eve patted him on the leg and went to join Alice at the altar. He watched as she and Alice had an in-depth conversation about the baby Jesus not being in the manger yet.
For all the teasing she’d done about his bah-humbug attitude, he had to admit that if there was Christmas spirit to be found, it was here, but not just in the church. In the manger scene. The expectation of the baby who would come to bring forgiveness to the world.
And in Eve, who continued to offer grace, even when it was unexpected and undeserved.
* * *
Eve separated the block of pine straw she and Alice had picked up from a roadside truck and tucked it around the bushes in her front bed. With Alice feeling better and her own determination not to look at her finances until she had a plan to fix them, she decided some physical labor would take her mind off everything—including the awkward conversation with Tanner last night.
Donning her work gloves, she’d gotten to work on the flower beds in front of the cottage while Alice played on the porch.
The boxwoods were trimmed, the weeds yanked out by their roots. She’d gotten dirty, worked up a sweat and worked off some of her anxiety about what was to come.
She took a few steps back and got the big picture. Yeah, better. Classy. Her Christmas lights and garland were still adorably tacky, and the combination made her smile. “Hey, Ali-Cat, you still good?”
“Can I have a snack?”
“Oh, Alice, I’m so dirty and it’s almost lunchtime, so let’s wait, please.” She held her breath waiting for the whine, but it didn’t come. “I’m going to clean out the gutters along the front porch so the rain doesn’t mess up our fresh pine straw, and then I’ll come in and fix us both some lunch.”
“Okay.” Eve could hear Alice humming along with the Christmas carols as she played. Parents make sacrifices. And it’s worth it, she reminded herself. Even if they don’t know how they’re going to pay the bills since their T-shirt stock burned up in a fire.
Still worth it.
Eve dragged the ladder that had been hanging around on the side of the house since she’d borrowed it out of the farm shed and leaned it against the porch roof. She could toss the leaves and stuff onto the blue tarp she’d been using for the weeds and then throw all of it away at the same time.
As she dug her fingers into the cruddy mess and tossed it down on the tarp, she replayed the conversation from last night. Why hadn’t Tanner just told her how he was feeling the other night at the hospital?
He definitely wasn’t great at making his feelings known. Even though he’d tried to share last night, his words had been so vague. It’s just a thing. And after all, what really was between them? They’d shared a kiss. A pretty awesome kiss, but so what? It didn’t mean he owed her anything.
Maybe he was just being friendly, checking in on her and Alice, and she should’ve just kept her mouth shut about the whole thing. That seemed the most likely scenario.
One thing she couldn’t explain away was how he’d won Alice’s trust. That was what made her bring up his hasty departure from the hospital in the first place. So how did she reconcile her concern for Alice with Tanner’s... Tanner’s what? Fear?
“What are you doing up there?”
Eve froze.
“Seriously, Eve, what are you doing?”
Without loosening her grip or changing her balance, she turned around. Tanner squinted up at her from the front walkway. His arms were crossed, and she wondered if she was about to see his version of “angry man.”
“It seems obvious to me that I cleaned out the flower beds and now I’m cleaning out the gutter.” She wiggled her fingers. “Got the dirt on my gloves to prove it.”
“If it needed to be done, why didn’t you ask me?”
Eve made her way—carefully—down the ladder and walked over to Tanner, hands still in her work gloves now fisted on her hips. “Why would I do that when I’m perfectly capable of making minor repairs? In fact, it’s in my rental agreement that I’ll do them.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t capable,” he started.
She glared at him. “Who do you think fixes the toilet for me when it breaks? Or unclogs a sink? If there’s a big scary bug, guess who kills it?”
With a glance over at Alice, who was watching intently from the porch, he lowered his voice in the way she was starting to realize revealed his feelings more than if he’d raised it in a shout. And that, frankly, melted her annoyance with him just a little. “I hear you. You are capable. You’re downright amazing. I mean it. All I’m saying is, you don’t have to do this alone now that you have me in your life.”
Eve went still. She locked her gaze on his. “Do I have you in my life?”
As she stood toe-to-toe with him, Tanner blanched. And then, in his very measured tone, said, “It’s not fair of me to say that. I know what my gut’s telling me, but you deserve better than that. You deserve a re
al answer. I’m just not sure I have one. I’m sorry.”
As she stood there with her mouth hanging open, he turned and walked away.
She glanced at her watch and smothered a shout. “Alice, we’ve got to get a move on. It’s almost time to go. You’re going to Gramma and Grampa’s house for the afternoon, and I have to go get ready for the party on Saturday!”
The whole team of people they’d assembled was supposed to meet at the big fellowship hall in town this afternoon to make decorations for the party on Saturday. They wouldn’t be able to recreate her whole vision, but between the contacts she’d made and Wynn Grant’s, they’d managed to have almost everything donated to throw a fabulous party.
Now all they had to do was pull it off. She had to concentrate on that, even with her insides churning from this latest conversation with Tanner, if you could call it that.
As she took the fastest shower in history and wrestled Alice into clothes, Tanner’s words—you don’t have to do this alone now that you have me in your life—were on repeat in her mind.
Along with her own lingering question: What was between them, anyway? Were they just friends? Were they more?
She honestly had no idea.
Chapter Fourteen
Tanner opened the door of the fellowship hall at the church in town and was hit by a wall of Christmas cheer that knocked him back three steps. Chatter, Christmas carols, pealing laughter. And if this is what the preparations looked like, the party should be really...fun. He’d come a long way, but he wasn’t sure he was prepared for this level of holiday spirit.
Whether he was or wasn’t, though, Triple Creek Ranch had volunteered to host this party. It might not have turned out the way they’d expected, but he wasn’t going to renege on a commitment, especially one they’d made to help give kids in foster care a special memory.
“Merry Christmas, Tanner!” Mrs. Berryhill, his high school English teacher, called across the room. She and a few of the other ladies had been busy making faux peppermint-candy decorations. She held one over her head and wiggled it.
“Thanks, Mrs. B. Same to you.” As he walked deeper into the room, Tanner took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. Finally, he spotted Eve sitting on the edge of the stage with Wynn, their heads—one dark, one blond—together over a clipboard.
A group of women had sorted the T-shirts Eve had made for the kids—now being kept safely under her kitchen table—into family groups and rolled and tied them with ribbons and gift tags. It had been Eve’s brilliant idea to color code the shirts to keep kids moving through the different stations.
“Tanner! Good to see you! Merry Christmas! So nice of the ranch to sponsor this event for the kids.” Pastor Jake was stuffing food baskets with napkins and his wife, Ellen, was following him with bags of chips.
“Our pleasure. I’m just sorry we couldn’t have it at the ranch, but we appreciate you opening the doors of the church to get things ready.”
Wynn pointed at something across the room, and as Eve looked up, her gaze caught on his. There was a flash of something in her eyes, but he had no clue what it was. Maybe it was interest. Could just as easily have been irritation. He had no idea.
He kept hearing the words he’d said earlier on repeat and seeing her face as he turned away. She hadn’t looked shattered. No, she’d looked...resigned. Like maybe she’d expected that from him. He’d thought about skipping the party preparation completely, but he couldn’t do that to Eve. She’d worked so hard, and she deserved his full support.
But inside, he was quaking. Because while she hadn’t known what he was thinking when she’d asked him if she had him in her life, he did. He’d been stunned into silence—not because it scared him, but because his answer, his gut response, was an unequivocal yes.
He blinked, the room coming back into focus. The whole place smelled like the sugar cookies a group of ladies were baking for the kids to decorate. His stomach growled as he edged closer to Eve.
“Tanner, we were so sorry to hear about your barn. I hope things are going to be okay for you.” Mary Pat Haney put her hand on his arm. Garrett had set them up on a blind date a few years back. It had been a disaster, but Mary Pat was as sweet as they came, and she’d never tried to hold it against him.
“It’s just a setback, that’s all. Thanks for asking, though, Mary Pat.”
After being stopped two more times, Tanner finally reached the stage and Eve. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself. Thanks for stopping by.” She looked up at him, her eyes shining, cheeks pink with excitement.
In contrast, still reeling from their earlier meeting, he felt slow, his tongue thick in his mouth. “Is there anything I can do?”
She raised an eyebrow with a smirk. “I’m just impressed that you haven’t run screaming from the building yet, what with all this Christmas spirit.”
“You’re hilarious,” he said drily. So, apparently they were going to pretend the conversation earlier today hadn’t happened, which was fine by him. “What can I do to help?”
She glanced at her watch. “We’re about to wrap up here, and my in-laws will be dropping Alice off. Lacey’s been overseeing the cookie baking and coordinating the packaging of the cookie decorating kits, so she’s probably exhausted. How do you feel about picking up a few pizzas and meeting us back at the house?”
“You want me to leave?” He narrowed his eyes. “Is this a trick?”
Eve laughed, but she shook her head. “Nope. I know you’d rather do just about anything rather than be in this room full of cheerfully nosy church people. No offense, Wynn.”
Wynn glanced up. “None taken.”
Eve had surprised him, throwing him off-kilter—again. And if there’d ever been a question whether she got him, there wasn’t a question now. He managed a half smile. “Any requests?”
“Cheese for me and Alice.”
“Pepperoni for me and—” he shuddered “—ham and pineapple for Devin and Lacey. Wynn?”
“Oh, no. I promised Latham I’d be home for supper tonight, but thanks.”
One of the women who was working on the decorations called out to Eve, who slid off the stage with her clipboard in hand. “Meet you at home?”
“I’ll see you there.” To Wynn, Tanner said, “We couldn’t have made any of this happen without you. Thanks for pitching in.”
“It’s a good cause and good for the town. But it’s your girl there who made it happen. She’s got great ideas and she’s got the know-how to pull them off, too. I’m thinking of hiring her to coordinate Spring Fling this year. Or, more likely, begging her to coordinate Spring Fling this year.”
“That would be great.”
“She’s pretty special. But how do you feel about her?”
Tanner studied Wynn’s suddenly guileless expression. He’d known her a long time. He was older, so he’d been better friends with her older brothers, but it was a small town. If you had a life, everybody was all up in your business. Some things never changed.
“She—” He hesitated. How did he tell Wynn how he felt when he didn’t even understand it himself? “—throws me off balance.”
Wynn laughed. “Balance is overrated, my friend. Latham Grant has been throwing me off-kilter since we teamed up to annoy my brother in middle school. And as it turned out, he’s everything I never knew I needed.”
Tanner shifted his weight, uneasy with the personal turn of this conversation. “I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison.”
Wynn’s eyes met his with a challenge. “Just don’t give up without trying, okay? You deserve it. So does she.”
“Thanks, Wynn. I’ll see you at the party.”
As he walked over to the Hilltop Café to pick up the pizza, he thought about all the good Eve and Alice brought to his life. He hadn’t looked for it. Definitely hadn’t expected it, but Eve brought joy—antic
ipation—that he’d thought he’d never have again. Maybe it was time to tell her that.
* * *
Sitting on the floor, her back against the sofa, Eve leaned forward to grab her third piece of pizza from the box on the coffee table. She was starving after smelling cookies baking all afternoon. It had been a difficult exercise not to raid the kitchen after everyone left.
Lacey held her feet up for Devin to put a pillow underneath them. “I have to say, after the barn burned down, I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to pull everything together to have the party.”
“Well, we didn’t pull it together,” Devin said.
“Exactly what I was about to say. All those people showing up to help today and being so excited about the party restores my faith in humanity.”
“I was terrified no one was going to show up.” Eve bit a chunk off the crust. “Until they actually did, I was convinced we were going to have a bare park with some balloons and a couple of bouncy houses. Maybe the kids wouldn’t have minded much, but it definitely wasn’t what I envisioned.”
The twins were bathed and in bed, and Eve could hear one of them talking over the monitor. Alice was asleep by the fire with her head on Sadie’s back, a half-eaten piece of pizza in her hand. She’d apparently spent the entire visit with her grandparents chasing the puppies around the yard. Once her belly was full, she’d passed out.
Devin flopped onto the sofa. “The people in this town love a good project.”
“Good thing they do.” Tanner took a swig of a soda. “Or we’d be up a creek.”
Tanner had been very quiet. She studied his face, wondering. Was this more than his normal Tanner quiet, or maybe she should just stop overthinking it?
“Wynn is scary organized.” Eve tossed the last bite of her crust onto the empty box and licked her fingers.
“Funny. She said the same thing about you,” Tanner said.
“Oh, that’s so nice.” Eve beamed.
“Careful, Eve. That’s how you get roped into volunteering to be on one of Wynn’s famous work teams.” Lacey’s voice was serious. “Trust me on this.”
A Daughter for Christmas Page 13
