The Christmas Company

by Alys Murray

  “I know.” Hard edges softened around Michael and he nodded in recognition. They would never speak of the thing that made her lonely, and he knew it. “I know. Just seems like a flimsy reason for you to want to help a guy.”

  “I can help him and the town at the same time. Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  “I just want you to keep your eye on the ball,” Michael said.

  Kate didn’t want to think about the sad things anymore. She wanted to sing. She wanted to play the piano until the lonely man upstairs was forced to confront them down here. She couldn’t save the person she was when she was at her loneliest, but she could at least save him.

  And her entire town and way of life, while she was at it.

  With a blistering, face-cutting smile, Kate effectively ended their conversation.

  “What do you think? ‘Good King Wenceslas’ or ‘Here We Come A-Caroling?’”

  After storming out of the room, Clark made a deal with himself: if he could survive the next two days without seeing Kate Buckner again, he would buy himself something nice. Something practical, of course. A watch, maybe. Or a new set of locks for his apartment in Dallas. A pair of shoes he didn’t have to repair every other week because they insisted on falling apart at the seams when he walked too long or the temperature rose over seventy degrees. He rarely promised himself these sorts of rewards. His idea of a reward was sleeping in an extra fifteen minutes past his 6 a.m. alarm on Saturdays. But between the difficulty—maybe the impossibility—of avoiding Kate in his own house and the post-Christmas deals soon to flood the malls and shops back home, he decided it was worth it.

  Here we come a-caroling along the fields so green!

  Here we come wandering so fair to be seen!

  He was sure he could do it until she started singing. There was music in his house. Not just any kind of music. Christmas music. When choosing a place to work from today, he’d made sure to pick the farthest room in the house from the living room. The second office used to host his uncle’s secretary, if the discarded paperwork and bubble gum wrappers were any indication, and he assumed it would be a fine hideout for a few days. Its couch and proximity to a bathroom were convenient; he’d just have to make sure he snuck to the kitchen for snacks when he was sure Kate wasn’t anywhere along his route.

  A flawless plan…until she decided to go and fill the house with music. At first, Clark did his best to ignore it. He shut the heavy office door carefully, trying not to disturb the cheesy toy basketball hoop hung over the top—apparently, his uncle had hired an eight-year-old boy as a secretary—and returned to the whirring laptop. Maybe no one in this town was working, but he had a work ethic, and it didn’t disappear because the weather got a little cold.

  The closed door did basically nothing to prevent the music. If anything, it somehow managed to get louder. He shook his head and resolved to ignore it. He could manage distractions. He was disciplined enough to work over some annoying piano tunes.

  Love and joy come to you! And to you glad Christmas too!

  Clark tapped his foot. Maybe that sound would drown out their warbling.

  And God bless you and se-end you a Happy New Year!

  It didn’t. He just managed to tap in time with them, giving them a beat. He covered his ears. Maybe that would drown them out.

  And God se-end you a Happy Ne-ew Year!

  It didn’t. There was no drowning them out. Them, of course, because, as it turned out, he and Kate hadn’t been as alone in the house as he assumed they were. Michael’s slight drawl joined Kate’s…competent singing. In a more generous mood, Clark might have described her singing as beautiful. Stirring, even. Not because it was technically perfect—it wasn’t—but because there was a freedom to it. She didn’t care about sounding good; she sang because it brought her joy.

  Or something. Clark didn’t want to read too deeply into it.

  “That’s enough.”

  Decorations and other passive, ignorable expressions of her Christmas obsession, he could handle. But indoor caroling? He couldn’t allow it.

  Leaving his work behind, he stormed downstairs. He flew past the miniature Dickens village set up on a long end table in the hallway, the popcorn garlands strung between overhead light fixtures and down the garland-strewn grand staircase. Thank goodness his allergies didn’t include pine or he’d be a dead man walking.

  By the time he arrived in the living room, embarrassingly out of breath, they’d moved onto the slower, more somber “Silent Night,” which Kate elected to sing in German.

  Great. She knew German. The enemy living in his house was clever, talented, beautiful, and bilingual.

  Not that Clark cared about any of that, of course. She was, above all, a nuisance. An obstacle to be conquered on his way to full control over his family’s affairs. He had to think of her that way. He never thought about anyone else he did business with in warm or familiar terms. Why should he start now?

  “What is this?”

  “We’re singing.”

  Apparently, the concept of a rhetorical question was lost on Michael, who answered with a big grin as Kate’s song continued. Her head hung low over the keys and her golden-brown hair curtained her face, but the melody her lips offered wrapped around Clark with the insistence of prayer. He tried his best to ignore the clenching of his heart. The scene in the living room was something out of The Saturday Evening Post. Norman Rockwell couldn’t have painted it better himself. A man and a woman sat, cozily enough, on a piano bench in the middle of a Christmas-covered living room. The fireplace crackled and the music hummed.

  The picture-perfect image was enough to make Clark sick. It was enough to make Clark want to sing along. It was enough to make him wonder if Michael and Kate were together.

  Again, not because he cared. Just because he needed more ammo against her. And he was curious.

  “Singing’s not allowed,” he snapped, harsher than he intended.

  Michael scoffed, undeterred.

  “What is this, The Sound of Music?”

  “I’m being pretty generous, letting you stay here. But this isn’t an open invitation. You can’t just have free rein in my house. And you know what?”

  Clark’s admittedly self-righteous lecture ended with the abrupt ringing of the doorbell. Truth be told, he was so oblivious to the workings of the house, he hadn’t realized what their doorbell even sounded like, so the noise sent him jumping in shock.

  “Oh, good!” Kate looked up from the piano keys for the first time since he arrived, her brown eyes alchemizing to a glistening gold. Michael popped up from the piano bench and ran towards the front door. For all of the excitement, a pit of understanding bottomed out in Clark’s stomach. If he wasn’t careful, his house would soon be overrun with townies. “Emily’s here!”

  “Emily who?”

  “Emily Richards.”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  He didn’t need an introduction. Emily Richards tottered through the living room door, juggling storage containers of brightly wrapped presents in her cocktail-straw-thin arms. The introduction wasn’t necessary because Clark had actually met Emily the night before. She worked behind the check-in desk of the Miller’s Point Bed and Breakfast. She was the one who had suggested sleeping in his car because “no one in this town is going to have room for you after what you did.”

  He hadn’t taken her advice, choosing instead to return home for the first time in a long time, but that didn’t stop her words and the hatred in her eyes from haunting him the entire way.

  Emily Richards was a twig of a woman with high blonde hair. She couldn’t have been any more different from Kate if she tried. Where Kate was all curves and warmth, Emily was narrow and icy. Without knowing either of them particularly well, Clark could only assume their differences made their friendship work.

  “Sorry I’m
late. I walked all the way up the hill and it was murder on my calves. Where should I put these?”

  “What are those?”

  “Donation bins.” Kate’s deft hands continued their musical exploration of the keyboard, even as she afforded him the bare minimum of her attention in favor of Emily. “Go ahead and put them on the floor for now. We’ll take them out with us later.”

  “Later? Where are you going?”

  The suspense extended as Emily flounced into his kitchen without saying so much as a “hello” to him.

  “Who wants eggnog?” She shouted.

  “Three glasses in here please!”

  Nope. Clark’s foot needed to come down. He couldn’t allow them to walk all over him and around him like this. He’d given her the run of the house, sure. But he did not agree to have his entire life overrun, not by Kate and certainly not by her friends. Every minute, she threw more and more illegal fireworks at him; soon, his annoyance would explode. His right hand twitched; he struggled to control his own breathing.

  No one got under his skin like this. Not business partners, not rivals. And never a woman.

  “No, no! No eggnog for me. Two glasses.”

  “But—”

  “I didn’t come down here for eggnog. I came down here to tell you to stop playing.”

  “It’s not Christmas without music. C’mon,” she said, her voice lighter than a chorus of bells. “Sing a song with us. It’ll be fun.”

  “I don’t sing,” he growled.

  “Everyone sings at Christmas.” Emily returned with the eggnog and requisitioned the overstuffed couch, plopping down on it and burying herself in the cushions. “Even Frank Sinatra sang Christmas songs and he could hardly carry a tune.”

  “Frank Sinatra was a great singer and this isn’t a party!”

  “Why not?” Her golden eyes twinkled with the edges of a private joke. “You look like you could use a little party.” She’d wedged herself under his skin and she knew it.

  You look like you could use a little party. The challenge repeated in his head, a maddening, singsong refrain he wished he could pluck out and erase from his memory. An unfamiliar feeling welled inside of him; every time he tried to place it, the name eluded him. It wasn’t rage or dignified coldness; he could easily identify those, as they were his most common emotional responses to nearly any annoyance, even if he didn’t let them register on his face. He felt altogether different than he could ever remember feeling before.

  Fondness? Was it fondness?

  Before he could answer, he turned tail. A hasty retreat would be best. Alone in his office, there was no way he could feel anything for Kate.

  “I have to work. Keep the noise down and the disasters to a minimum, please,” he commanded.

  But he’d only made it three steps towards the exit when Michael sidled up beside him and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. Clark didn’t often have occasion to feel like “one of the boys,” but when Michael elbow nudged him, he could almost imagine it.

  “Hey, Clark.”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I give you some advice?”

  Clark didn’t want his advice. He knew the other man’s advice would inevitably lead him to staying here, in this room, in close proximity to the undecorated Christmas tree and the beautiful, determined, open-hearted Kate Buckner.

  “…Yes.”

  “Just go along for the ride. Your life will be much, much easier. I promise.”

  He huffed out a breath and scanned the room again. The living room of Woodward House always sunk under the weight of its own grandeur. Its stark beauty reflected its self-importance in its thick brocade furnishings and expensive finishes. The entire house suffered this design style; the office Clark holed himself up in, untouched by Kate’s magical Christmas hands, was a sea of dark shadows and leather chairs. He glanced around this room. The new décor was—dare he say it?—tasteful. Small touches of holiday décor accented the mantelpieces and end tables, while a simple wreath hung above the fireplace. Even the Christmas tree was mercifully undecorated, strung with only simple garlands of white fairy lights. On the one hand, he resented the intrusion of brightness and levity to his dark world. On the other, could he really go back to his small room and listen to their laughter and song, knowing all the while he could be a part of it if he only said yes? Was he really content to sit in the darkness when light was just a step away? He knew he couldn’t return to the shadows.

  He just didn’t want anyone else to know that.

  Besides, the threat of memories in this place was too strong. Every corner of this house reminded him of the time before, of when he had a family here, when this season actually meant something to him. If he stayed here with Kate and her friends, then at least he’d have a distraction.

  Steady as a tree, he returned to the fold of the living room party. He never once let his expression slip, but Kate seemed to see straight through him, as she had from the moment they met. She didn’t look at him with judgment, though. There was something else in her soft tone. Understanding? Acceptance? Clark couldn’t tell and maybe he didn’t want to. All he wanted was one uncomplicated day in the sun.

  “Any requests?” she asked.

  “I’m not singing. But I will stay.” He tacked on another claim, just in case she thought she’d won something in this exchange. “Just to make sure you don’t burn the house down.”

  A single nod and quiet smile were his only reward from Kate.

  Emily picked up the slack. Popping up from the couch, she declared, “Great idea. I’ll get you some eggnog after all.”

  Chapter Six

  Halfway through “Good King Wenceslas,” the clock above the fireplace struck noon, sending a chorus of chiming bells announcing the time into the room and disturbing the natural melody of their carol. If all had actually gone to plan and Michael hadn’t screwed the entire thing up, they would have just been welcoming Clark to the house right about now.

  Kate structured her original plan, with its intricate, timed details, to act in the same manner as a whirlwind. They were meant to sweep Clark from one themed activity to another, whipping him into a happy Yuletide frenzy. She’d added Christmas caroling as a last-minute effort to kill time before Emily arrived, and though it wasn’t a part of the original plan, Kate thought it fit right in. Clark stood at the end of the piano, doing his best to look every bit as stoic as a Mr. Darcy reenactor, but every once in a while, Kate would look up at him from under her eyelashes and catch him mouthing a phrase of a song before catching himself and pretending it never happened.

  He thought no one saw his slip-ups. He was wrong. Kate caught them, and they fanned the flames of hope in her heart, for her plan and for him. She tried her best to hide her triumphant smile behind a curtain of hair. Spooking him could lead to disaster; she had to play her cards right if she wanted him to keep opening up.

  In the middle of the song, Emily shot to her feet, checking her phone’s clock against the one on the wall.

  “That’s the time? Kate, we’ve got to go if we want to make it.”

  “Make it where? Where are you going?”

  If Kate didn’t know better—and to be totally honest, she didn’t know better—she would have sworn she heard a whimper of disappointment in Clark’s voice, but she dismissed the thought as soon as it came through her head. Sure, maybe some of his edges had softened. Flickers of humanity peeked out from behind his stony exterior. That didn’t mean he was suddenly an avid caroler, nor did he enjoy her company and want her to stay.

  A stupid and exceptionally loud part of Kate’s brain desperately wanted to hear what Clark’s singing voice sounded like. Would it be thick and deep? Tenor and sweet? Would he be able to sing on key at all? She realized what a small thing it was, to want to know how someone sang, but she couldn’t help wanting it all the same. In her experience, th
ough, the smallest things were always the hardest to get in this life.

  “Christmas isn’t just a day for eating and eggnog,” she said, leaving the piano and her dreams of hearing Clark sing behind.

  “Though eggnog is a big part of it,” Michael joked.

  “It’s also,” Kate said through a laugh, “a day to do good.”

  “Well,” Clark corrected.

  “Not well. Good. Miller’s Point is a great town, but there are still plenty of families that need our help. Every year on Christmas Eve, we do a big donation of Christmas presents and provisions for them, but no festival means no place to give out the donations, so a couple of us volunteered to pick up the slack.”

  One of the first thoughts Kate had after his announcement was for those families. Money was tight for her, but even worse for some families. Miller’s Point wasn’t a big town by any stretch of the imagination, and they didn’t have a poverty epidemic like Clark might have seen in Dallas, but the few who needed help still mattered. If she couldn’t at least help them, what good was she to anyone else? Kate reached for her coat as Michael and Emily started collecting the heavy boxes of presents waiting on the floor.

  “We’ll be gone for about an hour,” she informed him as she wrapped herself in her favorite soft red scarf. Miss Carolyn knit it for her last year, and though it was full of holes and missed stitches, Kate couldn’t bear to leave home without it. “Are you going to change the locks while we’re out?”

  “I could come with you.”

  Kate blinked. The offer… It sounded generous and kind. Which couldn’t be true because she wasn’t sure Clark Woodward had a generous or kind bone in his body. Kate’s pulse quickened.

  “What?”

  “It’s…” He cleared his throat. “Your things are heavy. I could drive you, I mean. That way you don’t have to carry them back down the hill.”

  “Really?”

  “It would be easier than taking this down by ourselves,” Michael offered, though his skepticism was plainly written on every corner of his face.