“You know what this means, don’t you?” he said. “That as the officially-designated-icky owner of the Layton Mansion, I am bound by honor to take you to lunch. Where’s good?”
She let her hands slide off her hips and tucked them into her jacket pockets. “Robintino’s has good ravioli.” Her pasta and Italy metaphor from a minute ago, hard at work.
“I love Italian.” He stepped toward her, his hands outstretched. “Will you forgive me?”
She slid her hands from her jacket pockets and accepted his. The touch rippled up her hands, arms, shoulders—not the zapping electricity of yesterday, threatening wildfire. Instead, it was a soft rain, dousing her embers of anger.
“I forgive you.” It was a misunderstanding more than a deception, right?
“Thanks. Robintino’s it is, then.”
Pasta and forgiveness went very well together. When had a man ever before apologized to her? Uh, never? Come to think of it, up until now, every guy who’d wronged her had instantly denied responsibility for it.
Side-eyes at you, Blaine. Wherever you are.
“But there’d better be dessert.” Because he seriously could have tried harder.
“What’s a meal without dessert?”
“I like the way you think.” Their eyes met, and for the first time in a long time, Leela was speaking the same language as a man. Plus, he had warm hands on this cold day. “If we have a whole attic to sort, we’d better get started.”
“Seriously?” Jay turned to look at the massive mess looming all around them, and then back at Leela with surprise. “You’re staying? To help me?”
“I told you I’d help and I will.” She shrugged out of her jacket and threw it aside, tugging at the hem of her slightly-too-snug sweater. “Besides, I still need this place for the Cookie House—and you did agree to persuade the owner.”
Jay gave her a once-over. It made her blush.
“I think you’re the one accomplishing the persuasion.” His eye, like tinsel, glinted on her inner Christmas tree. Sun sparkled on the icicles of her soul. Months here in Massey Falls, and not one flicker of anything with anyone. Now, in less than a day, Jay Wilson had ignited some serious sparks of interest. If I’m not careful, he’ll be pouring kerosene all over my dried up forest and blasting it with a flame thrower. Which was what came from being in such a long relationship drought.
“So, the deal is I help with the attic, and we get this house ready for you to list—but you agree to let me host the Cookie House here on the third Tuesday in December?”
He reached into his pocket and handed her a box-cutting knife, then looked with obvious dismay at the stacks. “I’m not sure we can be done by the fifteenth Tuesday in December, let alone the third Tuesday in December.” He looked around with a doubtful smirk. “I can’t believe the floor doesn’t collapse under the weight of all these boxes.”
Leela accepted the knife from him, but truth sliced her: Jay Wilson was here to sell a house, not to settle in Massey Falls.
She’d heard that not knowing history left a generation doomed to repeat it.
Then why, when she actually did know her own dating history, was she seemingly stuck on an instant replay loop?
Dust swirled. She might as well slash open the boxes. “Let’s get this deal done.”
Jay
One by one, Jay pulled box after box from the stack. He would open it and describe its contents. Acting as scribe, Leela would record what was in each box. Then Jay used a sharpie marker and numbered the box.
Three or four boxes into the project, they were in a groove. Small talk could finally erupt into the dusty air. Leela kicked it off.
“If you’re not in real estate, what do you do, Jay?”
“I’m a vet.”
“Which kind? Animal or military?”
“Ha. I guess that’s a valid question. Veterinarian. I finished school this spring. Took my boards and am ready to start practicing.” Jay was all about being clear with her from here on out. Even though he hadn’t technically told her a hundred percent yes on the date for her event.
I’ll think of some way to make it work.
“And for graduation you bought yourself a house on Society Row in a charming small town?”
“I inherited this place from Jingo Layton, my uncle. It surprised me, since we weren’t close. I’d never even been to Massey Falls before this summer.”
“And now you’re going to be a vet in Massey Falls. Wow.” She sliced open the tape that secured it, and Jay slid off the lid. “Congratulations, Dr. Wilson.”
Not exactly, but before he could clarify, she asked him, “Are you a dog or a cat person?”
“Both. Dogs more, but still cats.” A ghost-of-Yellow-Labrador-Retrievers-yet-to-come had played in the house beside Jay while he refinished the wainscoting. “You?”
“Both.”
Good answer.
“Plus bunnies,” she said, peeking inside the box. “I had a house rabbit when I was a kid.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep. It was litter box-trained and everything. Bun-Bun. She was so cute, hopping around the house, hiding under the sofa.” She smiled, and it took up her whole face. Man, Leela had a great smile. “As a vet would you have to treat people’s pet reptiles?”
“Yeah, part of the job.” Not the part he would relish, but … Suddenly, he was telling Leela things. Real things. “To tell the truth, though, I’m more interested in large animals. Horses, cows. Their anatomy is the most fascinating to me. But I’ll have to put that on hold, since the clinic I’m going to work in is more house-pet oriented.”
“There’s a small animal clinic in Massey Falls? I thought Dr. Harrison was strictly a large-animal vet.” Leela lifted some items from the box she was sorting, but set them back down and turned to Jay. “Massey Falls is great business for a large animal veterinarian. Practically everyone in town has a hobby farm. More horses per capita than any other incorporated city in the state, and even a few places that raise thoroughbreds.”
“Is that right?” How had he not known that? Examining and doctoring for thoroughbreds had been a dream of his, especially for racing thoroughbreds. “Any stables I might have heard of?”
“Whitmore Thoroughbreds is probably the most prominent one right now.”
Jay had heard of Whitmore. “Didn’t they own a winner of the Torrey Stakes last year?”
“Yeah. Rose Red is quite a personality-filled mare, I hear. They tout her even more, since their other stakes-winning horse, Snow White, had to be put down this summer. Hey, my cousin Pippa is married to his son. I could introduce you to Dr. Harrison, if you like.”
Jay would have liked that very much—if he weren’t already entrenched in the deal with Precious Companion. “Actually, my plan is to join a small animal practice over in Reedsville.” His big plans felt smaller, somehow, than thoroughbreds all of a sudden. “If things work out.”
And if they did, on his timeline, he’d be messing up her world. Jay’s stomach clenched. But I’m only a jerk if Burt really does have a buyer. Did Burt have one?
“Then you’ll head to Reedsville.” Her voice sounded a little dead. Why? He shouldn’t flatter himself that she was disappointed at the idea he might go. They’d only just met. How could she care? She didn’t, obviously. Not about him.
Oh. The house. Right. Not him.
Jay squirmed as he took down another box and sliced open the crumbling tape on top.
An idea hit him. If he could get Burt to write it into the sales contract that she could use the mansion on that day, and then the new owners could take possession—that would solve it, right? Any new owner wouldn’t let a little delay sink a deal, right? Especially anyone with the Christmas spirit in their hearts or who loved Massey Falls like they should—according to Leela’s standard of appreciating fundraisers and service organizations.
The new buyer could sign, transfer the money to Jay, and wait to move in until after Leela’s cookie event. Right?
Totally possible. Everyone in the world was altruistic and community-minded. It would be no problem.
A little puff of dust went up his nose, or maybe it itched because he was lying to himself. “So, I did mention we’re cleaning this out so I can list the house for sale, right?”
“You did.” She looked around at the cobwebs, wrapping a nearby big fluffy one around her hand like her fingers were a paper cone and the spiders had made gray cotton candy. “If I owned it, I probably couldn’t let it go. It’s not just beautiful, it’s too sentimental.”
“Cobwebs are sentimental?”
She shot him a look that let him know his joke was lame. “Don’t you have any feeling toward it? Think of all the work you’ve put in.”
“It’s hard to be sentimental about a place I’d never seen before I inherited it.” The mansion represented a means to an end, not a place to end up. “And that extends to the attic. In fact, I’ll be shocked if there’s anything I’ll consider sentimental up here.”
“Really? Nothing connected to your family’s past calls to you from up here?”
“You mean like this macramé owl”—he tugged it from the box—“or this ceramic bullfrog with a dish scrubber in its mouth?” None of it called to him even in the faintest voice from the deepest well.
“Fine. I’ll give you that. But then why do the big clean-out?”
“It’s part of the will that I need to clean it out before I can sell it, but it probably needs a de-junking no matter what. The place is a fire hazard.”
“Well, I’m holding out hope that we find something really valuable.”
If by valuable she meant sentimental, Jay would be shocked if there was even one box with a single item with so-called value. And if by valuable, she meant an item that could be sold at an auction—or even a junky yard sale—for more than fifty cents, he’d be just as shocked.
“Although, I’ll admit,” she said, “according to the inventory list so far, things aren’t looking that way.”
At least her sentimentality wasn’t making her delusional.
They slogged through boxes and floated through conversations all morning long. First childhood pet stories, then college roommate nightmares, and most-embarrassing-moments tales. Leela crushed him with those. He went into a coughing fit, laughing so hard about her temporary plastic yellow tooth on the night of the prom.
This girl was funny. And totally easy to talk to. It’d been a long time since Jay had spent more than a few minutes talking with any girl.
Too long.
“Are you worried about anything?” He held up a fountain pen with a quill and she scrawled the additional item on her inventory list. “Going into vet practice, I mean.”
The question pried open a sealed envelope inside him. He examined the contents. Yeah. Really worried. “Probably that someone’s beloved pet will die based on a mistake I make.”
“Everything dies.” She paused and got quieter. “Everyone dies.”
Leela’s mom’s loss tingled in the room.
“I bet you miss your mom.”
“Every minute. Like oxygen, or the color blue.” Leela set down her pencil and notebook for a thoughtful second, but she took them up again just as quickly. “That was her cookie recipe, the gingersnaps. So, I guess in a way that means now you know a tiny bit about her.”
A woman’s perfect recipe was definitely an insight into a soul. “I like everything about your mom that I know so far.” A sudden need to inquire seized him. “Tell me more about her.”
Late-morning light streamed in through the dormer and onto Leela’s face, glancing across her eyes and making them a brighter blue than ever.
“My mom was classy.” Leela looked like she had floated somewhere far away. “Oh, she might not have lived on Society Row, but she taught the women who lived there a lot. Like, that being refined included being kind, not gossipy. That it required inclusion, not exclusion. That the highest pursuit is the betterment of mankind, not the betterment of your hairstyle or your bank account or your landscaping.”
“Good lessons for anyone.”
“My mom raised all the sights and standards and ambitions of all the women in town—to make Massey Falls the best it could be. The Cookie House was her brainchild, actually.”
Oh. A thunderbolt struck Jay’s chest. No wonder this thing was important to Leela.
“Then, when Dad had his accident, she had to more or less withdraw from public life to care for him—and that was an example and lesson to them as well, in choosing priorities. She was the best mom, and the best person I could have imagined.”
It sounded like it. Jay’s mom was good, too, but in a very different way. Life had been unkind to her, but she’d survived it the best way she knew how.
“And her gingersnaps taste like Christmas on a plate.”
This brought a smile. “I’ll teach you to make them—if you like.”
He pictured Leela Miller in an apron, a dusting of flour on her nose. “Definitely.” Unbidden, he then pictured taking the curvaceous, red-sweater-clad beauty in his arms, looking into those impossibly bright eyes, lightly kissing away that dusting of flour … “Soon.”
“Good.” Leela exhaled and smiled at him, her eyes happy again. “Let’s get back to work.”
Right. To work. So that this attic could be finished and Jay could call Burt and list the house, and … betray Leela.
“Maybe we should grab lunch. And possibly dinner.” His icky factor had just moved to the two-meal requirement.
“One last box, and then we go.” Leela pulled one off the latest stack. “What’s this?”
Inside it lay something Jay never expected to see when he’d agreed to clean out the attic.
Leela
Inside this final box of the morning were some teenage girl items—dried roses, a photo album, two diaries, a pile of pictures, several folded notes. “Whose are these?” She tugged out the quilted photo album and opened the quilted cover. “Someone put a lot of love into making this.”
Finally, something that wasn’t worthless kitsch!
“Probably someone we don’t know.” Jay put the albums aside and dug a little more in the box. “We can toss the flowers, at least.”
What did he mean, at least? “But not the photo album or diary!” Leela lifted the photo album’s puffy, fabric-lined cover. “Oh, look. They’re so cute. Look at their hair.” Hairstyles from thirty years ago fluffed out, filling the school photos to their very edges. “It’s such a good thing you didn’t just throw this in the trash. It’s got to belong to someone.”
“That’s the problem. All of this stuff is valuable to someone, but I have no idea how to figure out who the someones are. No other heirs are coming out of the woodwork to claim things, even though the lawyers have contacted them repeatedly.”
Hard to believe. “Not even your mom?” Jay’s mom was Jingo’s sister, wasn’t she?
“Especially not my mom.”
“Have you asked her?”
“Let’s just say when I brought it up, she said she would rather chew rusty nails than come back here.”
“That’s strong language.”
“Not as strong as the other things I won’t repeat.”
Interesting. And sad. “Why’s she so hostile?” How terrible that she hated this place that much. A place so beautiful! What had happened to turn her against it?
“It’s a long story.”
Probably. But maybe, if Jay could only decide to keep the place instead of selling it and moving to Reedsville, his mother would have a chance to come back and make amends with her past. But that didn’t seem likely, considering the way he talked, and his urgency at finishing the attic clean-out.
“Can I take a look at that?” Jay reached for the album. “That’s—my mom.” He sat down and peered at it.
Leela slid over to sit beside where he held the book in the shaft of winter sunlight coming through the dormer window. “She’s so darling.”
“Look at this.” He pointed to a picture, leaning in so Leela’s shoulder touched his, and his hip was flush with hers.
Man, he smelled good. Mingled with the dust, his manly scent interrupted her concentration. Until she really saw the photograph, that is.
Dark eyes stared out at them, solemn, contemplative. They were Jay’s eyes, minus the jaunty twinkle. What a beautiful, sober child. “How old was she here?”
“I don’t know. Nine, maybe?” He lifted page after page. His mom grew older with each turn. “There’s Uncle Jingo. He was decades older than Mom. From Grandpa Layton’s first wife.”
“Who’s that?” A second young girl grinned beside Jay’s mom, now maybe twelve. On this sole page, a non-photo was inserted—a handwritten note in pink pen and young girl handwriting. “Hereby let it be known that I, Ceri Layton—”
“It’s pronounced Keri.”
“Oh. Right. I, Ceri Layton, shall grow up to have a son.”
A new handwriting took over. “And I, shall grow up to have a daughter.”
The first handwriting resumed with, “And they will grow up and fall in love and get married. Then we can be sisters!” The we sported a triple underline.
Leela’s eyes fell on the signatures: Ceri Layton, and Freesia Youngblood.
“Mom?” Leela gasped. She tugged the photo album to her own lap and touched the photo’s edge with her fingertip.
“Freesia Youngblood is your mom?” Jay looked at the picture, at Leela, and then back at the picture. “You look like her. Same cute dimple. She was my mom’s best friend.”
Leela ran a finger over her mom’s juvenile handwriting, the looping l, the i dotted with an open circle. “I miss her.”
When she came up to this attic, she’d never expected to find her mother.
What a sweet, tender mercy. It was like Mom was here in this moment, smiling, her dimple deep, her pain gone, and ready to listen to everything Leela had been feeling over the past few months without her. Like Leela could almost reach out and hug her.
The Christmas Cookie House: A Sweet Holiday Romance (Christmas House Romances) Page 5
