by Alys Murray
“Because Kate’s trying to do something nice for you after you ruined Christmas. I don’t know why she’s going to the trouble. You’re the worst.”
“It would have been nice if she’d left me alone, which is what I wanted. And what I still want.”
Only the four of them remained, though Clark didn’t give Kate a second thought. Nothing mattered now but his own self-righteous frustrations. He opened his mouth to release even more steam, only to be cut off by Michael.
“You know what…” He ran a hand across his short-cut hair, fake sincerity dripping from every syllable. “It’s getting late, and I really need to go. You should come too, Emily.”
“Great idea. Walk me home?”
They headed for the door. A little voice from the corner of the room tried to stop them. Kate’s voice.
“No, guys… Wait—”
“You can come with us.”
“You should come with us,” Emily corrected. “This guy isn’t worth your time. You can stay at my house and we’ll have a real Christmas, just us.”
The fire crackled. The clock ticked. Kate stared at her shoes as if they held the divine secrets of the universe. Maybe they did. Maybe that was the key to her eternal belief everything would work out in her favor: her boots told the future.
“No one should be alone on Christmas.”
“He doesn’t care about Christmas,” Emily shouted, exasperation written in the creasing lines of her forehead.
“I don’t,” he agreed.
For the first time since their first fiery conversation on the steps of town hall, Kate’s firm grasp on her wide-eyed optimism fractured. It was her turn to yell.
“But I do!” She flinched at her own voice, shock visibly rippling through her body at her own reaction. They stared at her, waiting with slack jaws as she ran a hand through her hair and collected herself.
When she returned to them, she was quiet, but no less emphatic, and to Clark’s surprise, she didn’t deliver the end of her declaration to the two lifelong friends currently begging her to spend her favorite holiday together. She spoke to him. “I believe in Christmas, and I don’t think anyone should be alone like this. Even you.”
She left chills up the back of his neck. She’d said the one thing he didn’t want to hear. In the corner of his peripheral vision, Emily visibly deflated. Michael threw an arm over her slumped shoulders before walking her towards the door.
“Okay. We’ll see you when we see you, I guess. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, guys.”
They left, like the rest of the Miller’s Point crowd, through the swinging kitchen door. Eventually, they’d find themselves either leaving from one of the servant’s entrances or through the grand front entryway, but for now, their footsteps echoed in Clark’s ears and their absence carved a chasm between him and the woman who stayed behind.
Stayed behind with him. Because she didn’t want him to feel lonely.
Clark didn’t know what to do with that information except hate her for it.
“What is your problem?”
“My problem?” he repeated, incredulous. He thought he’d made his problem exceptionally clear when he told her he wanted her out of his house, out of his life…and, yeah, out of his head. She’d only been around for less than a day, and still she consumed him. Clark often heard of people describing themselves as “walled off.” They “built their walls” to keep themselves protected and others out. Clark’s heart wasn’t so much a walled castle as it was a vault in Fort Knox. With every word Kate said, he added another steel lock to the door. No one was going to catch him with his guard down, especially not the one woman who’d managed to get under his skin after twenty-seven years on earth.
“Yeah.” She crossed her arms, an indication he’d be seeing no more Miss Nice Elf. “I want to know why you’re like this.”
“I don’t need to explain myself to you. This isn’t tragic backstory time.”
“I want to understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand.”
“Something had to make you this way.”
Clark paused. His blood rushed in his ears. He wasn’t born this way. Statues like him were carved and sculpted and hardened over many years and many miseries. But he’d never told anyone why he hated this stupid holiday, and he wasn’t about to start with Kate Buckner, who’d probably end up feeling sorry for him or kissing him or forcing him to let her into his Fort Knox vault of a heart.
“Some people are just the way they are.”
“I don’t believe that. No one is born lonely.”
He’d given her too much room to breathe. The threat to expose his past, the intrusion into his life… It all added up to an attack he didn’t know if he possessed the armaments to defeat. He could just push her away until she backed down.
“Christmas is a time where everyone spends money they don’t have on people they don’t really care about. Or, in this case, they spend other people’s money on people they don’t really care about.”
“I care about you.”
“What?”
“I mean…” She bit her bottom lip. “I care about everyone.”
No matter what she said, all he heard was, “I care about you.” The revelation plunged him into full-on defensive mode.
“I don’t. I care about my company, my family, and my legacy. I don’t care about Miller’s Point. I don’t care about your stupid festival. I don’t care about Christmas. And I don’t care about you. I said you could stay because I felt bad for you, but now I know…”
She stiffened. She froze. Something snapped behind her liquid-gold eyes. She seemed to consider her options. And then, without reaching for her coat or her scarf or anything belonging to her, really, Kate marched towards the nearest door.
“Where are you going?”
“Why are you even asking? You don’t care.”
The door slammed behind her. Clark knew he should have felt a rush of joy. He’d won. He’d claimed victory over the invading armies of Miller’s Point and their fearless leader. But happiness eluded him. It sprinted in the other direction, leaving him empty. The sustaining belief in goodness she’d carried all through their time together dimmed.
He’d broken Kate Buckner.
He’d been trying to do it all day, but now that he’d succeeded, he felt nothing but disgust.
Chapter Eight
Kate’s first thought, as it always was when things went horribly, horribly wrong (or, to be completely fair, even slightly wrong) was, “How did I screw this up?” If a stranger’s high heel broke or the set for the Fezziwig mansion got slightly burned by an errant candle fire or no one could agree on how to fairly split a bill at a restaurant, Kate’s immediate reaction always passed go, did not collect two hundred dollars, and zipped straight to self-blame.
She abandoned Woodward House behind her, fully intending to return once she cleared her head. The problem with this entire plot of hers came down to one simple fact: being near him drove her crazy.
Crazy didn’t accurately describe it. He just…robbed her of any ability she possessed to take decisive, bold action. Kate’s performance reviews with The Christmas Company—both during her time as a volunteer and as an employee—always highlighted her excellent ability to think clearly, no matter the circumstances. During times of crisis or mild inconvenience, she took charge and steered the ship back on course. When she got near Clark, however…she might as well have tried to steer the Titanic through nighttime fog.
He made no sense. He surprised her with peeks of his heart and then tore it away when she stepped closer to get a better look. When he offered to drive them on their Christmas Box deliveries, when he gave Bradley that candy bar… Those actions pointed to something specific, to a truth he either wanted to hide or didn’t know he had inside of him at all.
He was secretly a good man. He wanted to open himself up to others. But something—fear or pain or resentment—kept him from doing so.
This entire impossible-to-balance calculation led to Kate trudging through the back forty of Woodward House. Thin bands of frozen rain slapped her cheeks. After less than five minutes exposed to the elements, her bones themselves shivered from the cold. Texas never froze, of course, not properly. Snow happened rarely and people usually took it as a sign of the End of Days. But, on days like today, it did get cold enough for Kate to wonder if she would catch her death just trying to get some fresh air.
The forty acres of land stretched between the faux Victorian manor house and the edge of the hill overlooking Miller’s Point upon which that house sat. It stirred Kate with its beauty. The old legend of the original Woodwards always included some storyline about Jedediah Woodward, the founder of the town and the company, who bought this land because his bride-to-be—whom he’d never met—apparently loved to paint. He thought buying her a landscape to explore and inspire her art might endear his unseen bride to him. Apparently, the gesture went over fairly well, seeing as she gave him thirteen children.
As she approached the end of the tree line, where a log bridge crossed over an icy river, Kate gave Annabella Woodward some credit. If a man gifted this land to her, she’d probably give him fifteen children. At least.
Stopping at the river’s edge, Kate leaned back against a granite boulder and surveyed the vast landscape around her. The rock was not exactly the most comfortable of recliners. She made do anyway. A view so beautiful deserved to be looked at. She could think of no better place to collect her thoughts. The tall evergreen trees followed the river down to a broad estuary in the distance. Unlike the half-frozen, half-cold spit rain, the river really had frozen over, halting the rushing water with a thin top layer of ice.
In the spring especially, she could understand the appeal of Jedediah Woodward’s gift to his wife. In a time before flu medicine, one generally appreciated a warm, leafy landscape more than a cold, wet one. Today, with plenty of cold pills and doctors on hand in town, she enjoyed the view for its resilience. Everything froze. Everything died in winter. But that was all the more reason to flourish and blossom come April. Kate sat on the edge of it all, taking in deep breaths of fresh tree breezes as she reckoned with her failings.
She’d failed him, the man with eyes as cold as this landscape. Something in Clark wanted to come out. She saw the hesitant hope hiding in his distant eyes. So why was he being so cruel to her? What had she done to deserve his devil-may-care attitude? She ran circles around this question, poking and prodding and second-guessing every decision she’d made this morning. Every turn she took led her to another brick wall. Every time she thought she’d grabbed onto an answer, her hands clutched at empty air.
She’d been kind and open and honest with him. Maybe she’d been a bit pushy and he made her heart race when he even glanced at her with his hypnotic green eyes, sure, but overall, she’d done nothing but try to help him.
For the first time in a long time, Kate considered the possibility of someone else’s failure. Maybe she hadn’t failed him. Maybe nothing she could do would open him up. Emily could be right about him. Maybe he just…wasn’t a nice guy. Maybe he’d been cruel to her to get her to leave.
With that horrifying yet liberating thought, the full weight of his insults bayoneted her in the chest. You don’t care about me. I don’t care about Christmas. I don’t care about you. She heard them the first time, but blamed herself for their stings. Now, she accepted the full weight of his hatred. It burned her worse than the frostbite she was no doubt getting out here in this rain.
It occurred to her how every thought she had about him might have been the product of projection. She assumed everyone could be made to love Christmas because she loved it. She assumed he had a tragic backstory because she lived through a tragedy. She assumed he liked her because…well, against even her best judgment, she liked him. Sure, he could challenge the Grinch for grumpiness and Scrooge for Greatest Miser of All Time. But weirdly, she almost found it endearing, his little freak-outs any time she introduced something new and exciting into his world. He struggled with the basics of human interaction, but she swore he contained good inside of him.
Maybe she’d misjudged his character. Maybe he had nothing inside of him but hate and lumps of coal. She trudged through the woods to clear her head so she could eventually make her way back to the house with fresh eyes and a clear heart, ready to take on anything he threw at her. Now, she could only remember the words Michael always said when she ran to him for advice. Sometimes, he said, you just gotta know when to quit.
He said it knowing full well she’d never quit. But today…she considered it.
The crack and crunch of leaves behind her ended the internal debate. Kate spooked at the noise—she didn’t think a murderer would ever come to a nice place like Miller’s Point, but she’d watched enough Lifetime movies to know it was at least remotely possible—only to slump back down against her rock when she recognized the intruder. For some reason, the man who couldn’t stand the sight of her and didn’t care about her at all tracked her down through the rain.
A cynical shade cast over his sudden appearance. Not literally, of course, as she stared out at the frogs sticking to the iced-over river instead of turning to give him her full attention. Was her being on his property a legal liability for him? Did he want her to sign some kind of injury waiver or something?
“H-hey. You’re a fast walker,” he said. Sudden arrivals didn’t catch her attention, but labored, hard-fought gasping did. She turned her head just enough to survey him out of the corner of her eye. A small, eternally happy part of her almost giggled at the sight. Not only was he red-faced and anxious and bent over his knees to catch his breath, but the children of Miller’s Point often pretended to be dragons when their breath puffed in front of their face. Imagining Clark on all fours, feigning a mighty dragon’s roar, would’ve brought a less angry Kate to sidesplitting laughter, but as it was, she built a fence of hurt around her.
On the one hand, she needed him to save the town. And she couldn’t leave him alone if she thought he had a chance of finding even a sliver of hope. On the other, she selfishly wanted an apology. Her love of Miller’s Point and her belief in the goodness of the human heart would eventually dominate any selfish bone in her body, but for this one moment, she indulged in her own pain.
“Only when I’m running away from something. What are you doing here?”
“You’re going to get sick.”
“You don’t care.”
“You’re still on my employee insurance until January 1.”
“Good to know.”
A pause. Kate didn’t know what he expected by coming down here, and she didn’t know what she expected him to say. She knew what she wanted him to say, but she couldn’t imagine the words I’m sorry ever escaping his lips.
He circled her stone to stand before her, trying to force her to look at him. “Listen—”
“I listened to you all day. I listened to you trash and run over everything I tried to do to make you happy.”
“You don’t owe me anything. You don’t need to make me happy.”
“You don’t get it, do you? It’s not about you. It’s about humanity.”
“Great. Another soapbox speech about the magical healing powers of Christmas?”
“No. I won’t waste it on someone who refuses to listen.”
Kate kicked a pebble. It skidded along the dead grass down to the river, where it limply slid across the cracked-ice face of the still water. So, this was defeat. She’d worked so hard to avoid it, she hardly recognized the emotion. Defeat was wanting to scream the truth at the top of her lungs only to have him shove his fingers in his ears and refuse to listen. Defeat was standing in the rain and having someone else tell you it’s pe
rfectly dry.
He didn’t get her, and she didn’t get him. Defeat.
“I hear you.” Despite the frost and the perfect cleanliness of his suit, Clark lowered himself to the grass. She couldn’t escape his Ireland eyes and their self-serious absurdities. “I’m listening. It’s just not for me.”
“Christmas is for everyone,” she said, for what felt like the millionth time since his arrival here.
“No, it’s not.”
“But it can be. Christmas is a spirit. Christmas is a way of treating people.”
This was perhaps Kate’s most deeply held idea about the holiday season. Christmas was there to celebrate the birth of Christ, of course. The name said as much, but because of that, not in spite of it, Christmas had to also embody all of the goodness of humanity. Christmas wasn’t just about saying “God bless,” but about going out into the world and living that message no matter the personal cost. The only way to truly celebrate Christmas, as far as Kate was concerned, was to stand up for people and love them completely…even if they hurt her.
“Kate…” Clark trailed off and suddenly forgot how to make eye contact. His big hands must have been very interesting, considering he wouldn’t stop staring at them. “I think you’re an…” He coughed. “I think you’re an extraordinary woman.”
“What?”
“You are kind and generous to a fault, even if you were generous with my money—”
“I only spent your money on you.”
“You’re funny and beautiful and witty and you clearly care about others and—”
He went on, but she stopped listening after beautiful. He thought she was beautiful? Even she didn’t think she was beautiful. She tuned back in only after her ears stopped ringing.
“I can see what you’re trying to do. I know you’re just trying to help. It’s a very kind gesture. I just don’t want it. I have rules and standards for my life and they just don’t include Christmas. Or wasting money. So, I think it would be better if you just go on ahead to your friends’ place for Christmas. You’ll have a better time.”
