Home For The Holidays

by Elena Aitken

  Oh, that made her heart hurt. She loved Christmas so very much. She couldn’t fathom not celebrating at all. “I know it can be difficult. My first few Christmases after my Nana passed were really hard. I get my love of the holidays from her and it simply wasn’t the same without her there, in the middle of everything. But my sister and I always make her special iced butter cookies, and it brings her a little closer to us.”

  He went silent, his face shuttering, and she wondered if she’d gone too far. Maybe the loss was still too raw for discussion of traditions. Or maybe the fact that he had no one left to share those traditions with made his situation totally different.

  When Percy straightened, his jaw set in a stubborn line, she expected a Thanks, but no thanks. Instead, he nodded. “You know what? You’re right. She’d be disappointed I haven’t kept things up without her. Let’s do it up big. Pull out all the stops.”

  Hannah beamed. “I’d be absolutely delighted to do that.”

  “You’re gonna need some help. I’m not as agile as I used to be—damned bursitis. But Ryan here is more than capable. He can be your assistant.”

  “I can do what now?” Soldier Hottie—Ryan—lost that flat expression and unfolded his arms.

  “Help haul things out of the attic, string the lights, carry in the tree. It’s gotta be a live one. My Janie wouldn’t stand for anything else.” There was some kind of challenge in the gaze Percy fixed on him. “You did say you wanted to help out.”

  Why did she think there was something more to this whole thing than the simple words implied? “I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “No bother at all, young lady. We could both use a little Christmas spirit in our lives.”

  For just a moment, Ryan’s jaw tensed, as if he wanted to argue. Instead, he flashed a wry smile at Percy. “I guess you’ll have to hand over the keys so I can go pick up the tree.”

  “Sorry, I think you mean ‘we’,” Hannah interrupted. “You’re not picking out a tree without me.” Because, damn, if she was going to get the chance to really pull out all the stops, she was gonna make this house a Christmas showstopper.

  “My mistake.” The wry smile turned genuine as he shifted his attention to her.

  The punch of it nearly knocked her off her feet.

  Oh, I am in deep, deep trouble.

  Percy let out a rusty chuckle. “Oh, my Janie would’ve liked you. I’ll go get the keys.”

  If anybody had asked Ryan last week what he’d be doing today, the very last thing he’d have imagined was wandering a Christmas tree lot with a woman who’d clearly escaped from the set of one of those Hallmark Channel Christmas movies his mother loved so much. Between her unwavering good cheer and the candy-cane-striped scarf and hat, Hannah was a walking, talking holiday card. It should’ve been annoying. Nobody could be that happy and have even a toe still dipped in the real world.

  But she’d made Percy smile. Hell, she’d made him smile, even if it was at his own expense because Percy was playing matchmaker. Just what would his Elf Girl say if she knew about that? And why the hell was he thinking of her as his? They were nothing to each other but two people helping out his uncle.

  As they reached the end of the row, she lifted her hand in a wave to the guy handling the money. “Hey Jace.”

  The guy grinned. “Back again?”

  “Yep!”

  “How many trees have you decorated?” Ryan asked.

  “This is my fourth one this week, in addition to three storefronts on Main Street.”

  “We ought to be giving you the frequent shopper discount,” Jace told her.

  “I’m coming after one of the big ones this time. I need at least a ten-footer.”

  “Those will be down this way. C’mon.” Jace leapt up.

  Ryan wondered whether his Mr. Helpful streak was due to her having been here several times already or because they had a thing. They were on a first-name basis after all. And why should that bug him? He had no claim on this woman.

  “Where’s Tara tonight?” Hannah asked.

  “It’s the last week of rehearsals before The Nutcracker, so she’s at the studio. Ginny is crazy excited.”

  “I bet she is! She’s been talking about it since this summer to everybody that’ll listen.” Hannah glanced toward Ryan. Well, more like his shoulder. “Tara is Jace’s fiancée. Ginny is her little sister.”

  Was he supposed to say something about that? He didn’t know these people.

  Hannah turned her attention back to Jace. “When are you making Ginny your sister in law?”

  “It’ll be official in May.”

  So no thing with Hannah. Not that it mattered one way or the other. It was just idle curiosity. Info gathering, in case Ryan decided to get his flirt on. Just to remind himself that he still knew how.

  “You’ll find all the ten feet and up trees along this row.” Jace glanced at the family of five that spilled out of a minivan. “Do you need help checking things out?”

  Ryan stepped up. “I’ve got it.”

  “You just let me know when you find the one you want.” He wandered off to help the newcomers.

  “How you wanna do this?” Ryan asked.

  Hannah kept her focus on the trees instead of him. They were arranged loosely in open stalls, each one leaning against the framework. “If you could just pull out the ones I point to and hold them up so I can check whether the trunk is straight and assess the fullness, that’d be great.” A blush suffused her cheeks as her gaze slid away.

  What was that about?

  She pointed to one. He slipped his hand through the branches and grasped the trunk, tugging it vertical.

  “Crooked.”

  He put the tree back and grabbed the next one she pointed to. As she studied the fall of the branches or whatever, he asked, “So are you gonna tell me who asked you to do this?”

  She made a gesture for him to spin the tree. “Can you keep a secret?”

  Given his entire career involved covert operations, he kinda had a lock on that. “Yes.”

  “The woman who had the idea was one of Percy’s wife’s best friends. She’s a widow herself and she knows Christmas is the hardest time for him, so she wanted to do something that would maybe help with that.”

  “That’s a helluva nice thing to do.” Was Wishful just that kind of community or was he so far removed from kindness that any of it surprised him?

  “It is,” Hannah agreed, pointing to another tree. “But I kind of wonder if there isn’t maybe a little crush involved.”

  “Yeah?” Maybe Ryan would get the chance at a little payback effort in the matchmaking department. Unlike him, Percy could really use it.

  “I could be wrong, but there was something in her eyes when she asked me. I don’t know. She wanted to remain anonymous, so I’m not gonna mess with that and you shouldn’t either.”

  He wasn’t making any promises there.

  “So how exactly are you related to Percy? Miss—the woman who hired me led me to believe he didn’t have any family.”

  “He doesn’t have any close family. Leastwise, not blood kin. He’s basically my great uncle, in a complicated Southern sort of way.”

  “Family you adopted?”

  He picked up the next tree and nodded. “He and my grandfather were tight from the time they were knee-high. They stayed close, even after each of them married. Percy and Janie—that’d be his late wife—never had kids, so they sort of adopted my mom and her brothers. The two of them were always in and out of our lives.”

  Hannah shook her head at the tree, and he put it back. “It’s nice of you to come visit him. It’s awful when people are alone for the holidays.”

  “My visit isn’t entirely altruistic. His health has been declining and my mom’s worried about him. I got sent to check on him because he’s rejected everybody else. Not that I can blame him. At the first mention of assisted living, a guy as independent as Percy digs in his heels. He’s been in that house for forty-five ye
ars.”

  “So you’re—what?—supposed to talk him into it?”

  “I’m supposed to assess whether he really needs it or not.”

  “And if he does?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

  Throughout the exchange, she stayed way more focused on the task of finding the perfect tree than seemed necessary. He pulled out and put back almost every one in the size category and other than that one, brief glance, she didn’t seem to be able to meet his gaze. After her directness at the diner, the shift in behavior seemed out of character.

  “What is it?” he demanded.

  “What?” Her voice had that high, bright quality again.

  “We’re supposed to be working together on this thing. That means sometime you’re going to have to actually look at me.”

  The pink in her cheeks deepened and she sucked in a breath. “Okay, I deserved that.” Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her gaze to his. The earnestness there was almost painful. “I want to apologize for how I treated you at the diner the other day.”

  He frowned. Was she remembering something different than he was? “Why? For treating me like a human being with dignity and value?”

  She winced. “I thought you were homeless.”

  Okay, yeah, he’d gotten that. And he’d been impressed with how she’d handled the situation. “In your defense, I totally looked it that day.”

  “Still. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

  “You assumed I was cold and hungry, and you fed me out of your own pocket. That was a kind thing, and my mama always says you should never apologize for a kindness. Even if you jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

  The corner of her mouth twitched in a self-deprecating smile. “Your mom sounds like a wise woman.”

  He tried not to fixate on that mouth, but he really wanted to see those dimples again. “She is. She’d also tell me I owe you a thank you for the meal.”

  “You thanked me at the diner. And left an exorbitant tip. So thank you.” She gestured to the tree in his hand. “That one’s perfect.”

  “I’d like to take you to dinner.” Wait, what were these words falling out of his mouth? He hadn’t planned on asking her out. But how else was he going to get the time to coax out those dimples?

  Hannah angled her head and there went the smile. Her dimples winked on like stars. One. Two. “How do you feel about pizza?”

  “How do you feel about tonight?”

  Chapter 5

  “If there is a more perfect food than pizza, I don’t know what it is.” Ryan leaned back in his chair, more relaxed than Hannah had ever seen him, though he still had that watchfulness that told her he’d noticed every single patron and employee of Speakeasy Pizzeria and cataloged their position.

  “I would like to submit tacos to that category. But it would be a pretty close race.” She eyed the last slice of pizza. Would eating it make her look like a glutton?

  “It’s all yours. I inhaled more than my fair share.”

  Taking him at his word, she grabbed it up, wondering if this was supposed to be a date.

  He’d come to the house to pick her up, but both Percy and Carolanne lived so close to downtown, they’d walked. It was a work night, and while Hannah didn’t keep quite the God-awful baker’s hours her sister did, she was still on morning shift and had to be up at the butt crack of dawn. She ought to be pajamaficated and getting ready for bed. Instead, she found herself wishing they could draw the evening out just a little longer. Conversation had been surprisingly easy, if not particularly personal. They’d talked movies and books, music and food. When he unbent from that stoicism she’d observed, Ryan Malone was actually pretty charming. She couldn’t decide which one was his natural inclination.

  “So how exactly does a waitress get into decorating?”

  Oh, so now they were going to actually get to know each other? “It’s more like how does an interior decorator get into waitressing.”

  He inclined his head. “Okay. How does an interior decorator get into waitressing?”

  To buy herself some time, she bit into the pizza. This wasn’t something she talked about. She’d been in Wishful for more than a year now, and other than Carolanne and Mama Pearl, nobody really knew why she was here. But she wanted to know more about Ryan, and that was probably going to take a little quid pro quo.

  “I graduated with my degree in interior design five years ago and ended up taking an internship at one of the best design firms in Atlanta. It was cutthroat and absolutely insane. Imagine The Devil Wears Prada, except not fashion.”

  His lips twitched. “I’ll have to take your word on that one.”

  “Ruthless, long-hours, no-excuses.”

  “I’m familiar with that sort of environment.” Something in his expression told her his version of those things was very, very different.

  “Anyway, after a year, I managed to get my foot in the door with the firm, and I spent the next three years, working my way through the ranks, shooting for junior partner.” She flashed a wry smile. “Having no life.”

  Ryan shifted forward, leaning toward her. “Something happened.”

  She nibbled on more of the pizza, though the memory of what came next killed the last of her appetite. “Fourteen months ago, while I was on my way to work, I had a seizure and lost control of my car. I didn’t actually know that’s what was happening at the time, and I don’t actually remember the accident. It was a miracle I didn’t kill anybody, including myself.”

  “Were you injured?”

  “Whiplash, a concussion, a broken arm. I had some complications with the arm that could have been so much worse, but I happened to crash right near my office. There was this group of homeless veterans that hung out near the parking garage I used, and I’d see them most days. We were friendly. I’d bring them stuff from time to time, so they knew me, knew my car. When I crashed, they came running. One of them had been a medic in the army and was able to stabilize me until the ambulance arrived. He saved my life.”

  Something flickered in his gaze. “So the soup was paying it forward?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe a little. I haven’t seen my guys since I left Atlanta. When I got out of the hospital, my doctor told me I couldn’t drive for a year, until they’d confirmed the seizure was a fluke. As you might imagine, that doesn’t work in Atlanta. So I ended up coming here and moving in with my sister while I recovered. The firm wasn’t interested in holding my job.”

  “Well that’s shitty.”

  Hannah’s lips curved at his summation of the situation. “Yeah. But it hasn’t been all bad. I love Wishful, and it’s been great to spend more time with Carolanne—that’s my sister.”

  “You said you couldn’t drive for a year and that it’s been fourteen months. Have you had more seizures?”

  “No. It seems to have been one and done.”

  “But you haven’t gone back to Atlanta.” Leave it to him to zero in on the thing her sister had been dancing around for two months.

  “No.” Not wanting to talk any more about that, she changed the subject. “So you were a soldier?”

  Ryan settled back in his chair, picking up his iced tea. “Am a soldier. Army.”

  “Oh yeah? What do you do?” When he didn’t answer, she grinned. “Is it one of those ‘I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you’ kind of jobs?”

  His face settled into something that wasn’t quite the stoic mask she’d first seen, but was definitely a major step back from the easy flirtation he’d pulled out over dinner. “Something like that.”

  Was he teasing? She couldn’t read him, but she didn’t think so. “You’re really going to leave it at that?”

  “Yep.”

  Not sure where to go with that, she was grateful when their waitress came with the check.

  By the time they stepped outside, the sun had long since gone down and downtown was mostly deserted, as even businesses with extended holiday hours had closed. She reall
y needed to be getting home to bed, but she wanted to take a little detour first. “Let’s walk for a bit.”

  Ryan fell into step beside her as she crossed the street to the town green. He remained silent as they strolled past the town Christmas tree, spearing into the sky across from City Hall, its lights casting a gorgeous golden glow against the night. She wondered if she’d struck a sore spot by asking about his job. He’d shut down at the mention of it. Or maybe it had simply made him think about other, far less pleasant things. She had no idea what he’d seen, what he’d been forced to do in the name of duty or survival. Such things could haunt a person. Those were the kind of ghosts that had contributed to her guys in Atlanta staying on the streets rather than fully reintegrating into civilian life. A part of her itched to take his hand, to offer him some warmth and human connection. But his hands were shoved into the pockets of his coat.

  She stopped at the edge of the burbling fountain. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Looks old.”

  “They built it just after the Civil War and sourced the water from Hope Springs. That’s why the town is called Wishful. Local legend says if you make a wish, it will come true.”

  Amusement lit his eyes. “Has yours?”

  “I haven’t made one.” But plenty of other people had. Coins glimmered beneath the water, like some kind of mermaid’s treasure.

  He dug into his pocket and pulled out a coin, offering it to her. “No time like the present.”

  Surprised, she searched his face. “You don’t strike me as a guy who’d believe much in wishes.”

  “I’m not. But you strike me as a woman who does.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Because I’m dreamy and impractical? Not grounded?”

  “Hopeful. I figure the world needs more people like you in it.” Reaching for her hand, Ryan folded the coin into it. Despite the cold, heat raced up her arm from where his fingers still curled around hers. Awareness slid through her, warm and sweet as molasses.

  She really wanted this to be a date.

  He jerked his head toward the fountain and released her hand. “Go ahead.”