A Family For Christmas (Hearts In Georgia; Harmony Cove)

by Marian Wilson

  4

  Grace pulled into the parking lot of her parents’ home. The weather had started to change, and the first cold front of the winter had made its way to the Georgia eastern coast. It wasn’t what northerners would consider cold, since she’d heard that many of the other states on the East Coast had already seen snow. As far south as they were, she knew the little town of Harmony Cove would see frost only a handful of times before the first signs of spring reappeared.

  Even still, being born and raised in Georgia, Grace had pulled out her hat and jacket and boots. She restrained herself from wearing the boots, telling herself it wasn’t cold enough, but she couldn’t resist the cuteness of the jacket and slouchy hat together. She thought briefly of what Aaron might think of her ensemble and then soured when she remembered she’d already worn it with him the weekend before, and he hadn’t noticed.

  She sighed as she got out of her car, closing the door behind her. A movement out of the corner of her eye made her look up. She was surprised to see two young kids playing in the front yard of the house next door to her parents’. The house had been vacant for almost four months, and the couple that had lived there before had been elderly.

  The kids were young. The little girl, who was sitting on the driveway in a t-shirt despite the cold, had a piece of bright green chalk clasped in her hand and was scribbling on the blacktop driveway. She had bright blonde pigtails that were tied with differently colored ribbons. The boy, presumably the little girl’s brother, had dirty blonde hair that hung nearly in his eyes as he kicked a well-loved and scuffed-up soccer ball around in the grass.

  There was also a young man sitting in a dark stained Adirondack chair on the front porch. He had the same blonde hair as the boy in the yard. He was well dressed and clean shaven, with high cheekbones and a wide jaw that he rubbed his hand over thoughtfully. Tall and lean, he was probably a runner. He was staring down at the phone in his hands, apparently engrossed in whatever he was reading.

  Grace rolled her eyes. It was the same thing that Aaron did, and it drove her absolutely crazy. She was just heading toward the door when her phone rang. With a blip of fear on her radar, she saw it was Aaron. She swallowed nervously and answered. “Hello?”

  “Hey, hon,” Aaron said. “Just checking in with you today. How are things?”

  “Fine,” Grace replied, dropping her voice and turning her attention away from her parents’ new neighbors. “Where have you been? I tried calling you three times in the last hour.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, hon. I had that thing at work today, and I just got out.”

  “What thing was this exactly?” she asked. “You told me you were going to your dad’s birthday party.”

  “Oh, right, yeah.” Aaron laughed nervously on the other end of the line. “I had that this afternoon, but then I got a call from my boss, and I needed to check out some files that apparently I filled out incorrectly, and it needed to be fixed before Monday, so I just went over and took care of it.”

  Grace was having a really hard time digesting this as truth. She wanted nothing more than to believe him, but something in her mind was causing red flags to spring up all over the place. “Well, I guess it’s good that you took care of it when you did.”

  She turned around and watched the kids playing. The guy sitting in the chair, who she assumed was their father, was now leaning back, one hand outstretched and directing as the little boy watched. She couldn’t hear him, but he was clearly giving him instructions of some sort, spinning his fingers in circles like he was.

  “Yeah, I thought so, too,” said Aaron. “So, what’s up?”

  Grace watched as the boy kicked the ball around in a circle and then slipped a little, kicking the ball harder than he intended. It tumbled across the lawn and rolled into the street. Her heart skipped a beat.

  “Grace?” Aaron asked on the other end.

  “Um… I just stopped at my parents’ for some dinner,” Grace said, watching as the little boy’s eyes followed the ball. He slowly started making his way toward the street. “I… guess they’re making some pumpkin soup.” She glanced back toward the father. Surely he would say something to stop the boy, wouldn’t he?

  But he had his nose buried in his phone again.

  Grace’s heart began to flutter. Had he even noticed what had happened? His son’s ball was coming to a stop in the middle of the street, and the boy was on his way to go and fetch it.

  This was a quiet neighborhood, Grace knew. And it was the middle of the day, so it was unlikely that there would be too many cars driving through. But even still…

  “Oh, yeah, didn’t you do something about pumpkins on your blog the other day, hon?” Aaron recalled. “I totally saw it. It was great.”

  “It was butternut squash,” Grace corrected.

  The boy was so close to the edge of the lawn, his eyes on his ball. Up ahead on the street, Grace saw a maroon sedan turning down onto the street. She recognized the car at once. It was old Mrs. Strutebaker, and she was well into her nineties.

  Her heart began to race as she watched the little boy stand on the curb. She waited for him to look side to side, to execute basic street safety. When he didn’t and was about to take a step off the grass and into the street—

  “Stop!” Grace shouted, her hand outstretched toward the boy. Her voice drew his attention, stopping him in his tracks, and it also drew the eye of the little girl on the driveway and the eye of the man sitting on the Adirondack chair.

  His gaze quickly shifted to the boy, who was still perched at the end of the street, his soccer ball out on the pavement. He launched himself from his chair and dashed across the lawn, laying both of his hands on the boy’s shoulders and bringing him in for a tight hug.

  The maroon car drove on by, just narrowly missing the soccer ball, entirely unaware of anything around it.

  Anger flared in Grace as the man turned and looked at her. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she growled, glaring at the man. “If I hadn’t been here to see it, your son could have run into the street and been hit by that car, all because you were on your cell phone!”

  The man led the boy away from the sidewalk, and the two of them started over toward her. The man was very pale in the face, but his eyes were hard, and his brow was one angry line.

  “Please thank the woman,” the man said to his son. The little boy looked up at Grace, his blue eyes wide. She could see his shoulders shaking.

  “Th-thank you,” he mumbled.

  “I’m just glad you’re all right,” Grace said, deflating with relief as she looked down at him. “Just please, don’t run into the street like that. Ask for help next time, all right?”

  The little boy nodded, and the man patted him on the shoulder. “Go on inside, son. I’ll be there soon. Lily, you go with him.”

  The two kids scurried off into the garage, and Grace heard the door open and shut as they disappeared.

  The man turned around and looked at her. “While I greatly appreciate your intervention—”

  “If I hadn’t, who knows what would have happened!” The man sighed. His mouth was a tight line, as if he was biting back something he’d meant to say and then decided against.

  “Again, I’m grateful. And you are right; I should have been paying better attention. I could make excuses about the fact that I was trying to get some work done while being at home so I could actually be with my kids for once this week, but that wouldn’t make any difference.” He turned around and glanced at the soccer ball now sitting idly in the middle of the yard. “Every parent makes mistakes. Mine just happened to be a big one today, and I had an audience to watch.”

  Guilt washed over Grace as she looked at him. He was rubbing the back of his neck, his eyes on her car, which was between them. She folded her arms, still bristling somewhat.

  “I get it. Mistakes happen. But wouldn’t you really rather do everything you could to avoid an accident like that?” she pressed, jutting her chin out into the street.r />
  The man’s jaw clenched as he looked up at her. She saw that his eyes were green like moss, with flecks of gold around the outside. “You’re right. I’m sorry that you had to witness that.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “Just… take better care of your kids.”

  “Duly noted,” he said. Then he straightened a little and looked again at her car before turning back to her. “So, I take it you know Jan and Charlie?”

  “They’re my parents,” Grace said as she started walking away. “And now they’re going to wonder what in the world was going on out here.”

  “Make sure to apologize for me, okay?” the man with the green eyes called after her. “And tell her thanks for that delicious pumpkin pie she gave me yesterday! We already finished the whole thing.”

  Grace froze for a half a second before waving over her shoulder and stepping into her parents’ garage, out of the man’s sight. That had probably been one of the pies she had baked.

  “Hello? Are you still there? Grace, what’s going on?” She could just make out Aaron’s voice in the stifled air of the garage.

  “Sorry!” Grace had completely forgotten he was still on the line. “Minor incident with my parents’ new neighbor.”

  “Everything okay?” Aaron asked.

  “Yeah,” she said with a heavy sigh. “Everything’s fine. But I should go. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Sounds good,” Aaron agreed. “Bye.”

  The slightest bit of sorrow at the lackluster goodbye washed away Grace’s frustration. She stepped inside and found her mother standing at the kitchen stove, her bright yellow apron that Grace had given her for Christmas the year before tied around her waist.

  “What in the world was all that commotion about out there?” her mother asked, setting her wooden spoon down on her Santa Claus spoon rest.

  Grace shrugged off her coat, peering into the living room. Her father was on his knees, tying a tree skirt around the freshly harvested pine tree that stood in front of the bay window.

  “Oh, nothing. Just met your new neighbors,” she said, hanging her coat up. “How can you stand living next to them?”

  “What do you mean?” Confusion was etched onto her mother’s face. “Lysander and the kids are absolutely wonderful! We’ve sort of become like surrogate grandparents to them.”

  “Oh, it’s his kids you were talking about?” Grace rolled her eyes. “Mom, he just nearly let his son run out into the street while Mrs. Strutebaker was coming around the corner! Good thing I was there to yell for him to stop.”

  “Oh, dear,” her mother said, scratching her cheek. “Well, Lysander has been under a great deal of stress lately, and George really does like to act all grown up…”

  “Wait, you’re defending him?” Grace demanded, her hands on her hips. “Mother, his nose was buried in his phone! He wouldn’t have seen his son get hit by the car—”

  “But it didn’t happen, did it?” her mother asked, returning to the pot simmering on the stove. “That’s the important thing, isn’t it? George is fine, and I’m sure that Lysander just feels terrible about it. It’s better for everyone if we just move on instead of focusing on the what-ifs.”

  Grace folded her arms and shook her head. The man had seemed genuinely upset, even apologetic. But she was still annoyed, and her heart was only just now beginning to slow its frantic pace. “Yeah, well… he still should be more careful.”

  “I’m sure he is feeling the same way, right about now,” her mother said. “Now come on, get over there and help your father get that tree set up.”

  5

  “Yes, if you could email that to me by Friday, that’d be great,” Lysander said into his phone, sliding open the back door into the yard. Sawyer squeezed between his legs and bolted out into the grass, his tongue lolling out as he took hectic laps around the swing set. “And don’t worry about the files on the Smith case before Christmas. I don’t see anything getting done in these next two weeks.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Wright,” said the man on the other end of the line. “I’ll get right on that.”

  “See you tomorrow, Phil.”

  “Same to you. Bye.”

  “Goodbye,” said Lysander, and he hung up. He caught the faint hint of citronella and peered over the fence into the backyard next door. As tall as he was, it made it easy for him to accidentally catch whatever Charlie and Jan were up to. Nine times out of ten, they were grilling up something delicious, and it made him yearn to get himself a grill for Christmas.

  He saw Charlie sitting on one of his handmade lawn chairs, a match to the set that he’d given Lysander a few weeks back. He said that he’d been meaning to finish them since the beginning of the year but hadn’t had anyone to give them to that didn’t already have them. Lysander had been all too happy to accept them. Beside him was Jan, chatting animatedly with the woman sitting beside her.

  Lysander’s heart skipped. It was the woman he’d met the other day, the one who’d saved George from running into the street.

  She was as beautiful as he’d remembered. He had been so flustered about George that he wondered if he’d just made it all up in his mind about how pretty she was, but now that he got a good look at her, he could see that she was even better looking than he had thought. She was lean and stylish, with a round face, a cute upturned nose, and legs for days. She probably would have zero interest in someone like him, someone she probably thought was the worst kind of parent in the world. He’d hoped that he would get a chance to speak with her.

  Without wasting a second, he marched over to the fence and waved into the backyard.

  “Hello, all,” he greeted them with a big smile.

  Charlie turned and looked. A giant grin started to spread across his face. “Hey, look who it is! What are you doing home today?”

  “Kids are on a field trip to the aquarium, and I took the day off hoping that I could get some of their Christmas gifts wrapped without them knowing about it,” Lysander said. “The older they get, the nosier they are. Last year, George nearly found the hiding place where I’d stashed all their gifts. I decided it was better if I tried to do it when they weren’t home and couldn’t sneak up on me.”

  “Smart man,” Charlie said. He gestured to the young woman sitting beside Jan. “Grace here found where we kept all her and her sister’s things when she was only three years old. She thought that Santa had come early and had forgotten where to put them.”

  “I thought that was Rachel,” the woman, Grace, said, folding her arms and smirking at her father. “Because I’m pretty sure that I was the one who caught her doing it.”

  “Was it Rachel?” Charlie asked, turning to Jan.

  “Grace is right, dear,” Jan said.

  Charlie waved a dismissive hand, chortling. “Well, anyway, good man, Lysander.”

  “Did you find everything that you needed for them?” Jan asked, smiling up at him. “I’d be happy to go and pick up anything you need if you can’t find the time in your busy schedule.” She leaned over and gave Grace a pointed look. “He’s a lawyer, you know.”

  “Thank you so much, Jan,” Lysander said, “but I think I’ve got almost everything.” He leaned on the white wooden fence. “I’ve got a few more things coming in the mail over the next couple of days, but suffice it to say, I think the kids are going to have a great Christmas this year. I wanted to make it extra special, you know? Since it’s our first year here and it’s just going to be the three of us.”

  “Oh, sweetheart!” Jan reached over and touched Charlie’s arm. “We should have Lysander and the kids come over to our party this Saturday.”

  Charlie’s face brightened. “What a splendid idea! Lysander, you and the kids aren’t busy this weekend, are you?”

  “Um, well…” Lysander cleared his throat. “No, I don’t think so?”

  “Wonderful! Then you must come to our Christmas party,” Jan said with a broad smile, clapping her hands together. “We play games and exchange secret Santa g
ifts—Charlie will make sure to get you a name—and have fabulous food. Oh, you know that pie I gave you last week? Grace here was the one who made it!”

  “Oh, Mother,” Grace said, and Lysander saw a flush of pink in her cheeks.

  “Really?” A smile crept up the side of his face. “It was delicious, just like I said. The kids couldn’t get enough.”

  Grace begrudgingly smiled up at him. “Well… Thank you, that’s very kind.”

  “Charlie, we should go find one of our invitations for George and Lily, don’t you think?” Jan asked, getting to her feet. Lysander noticed she gave her husband a very pointed look.

  “Oh, right, of course,” Charlie agreed, jumping to his feet. “Yeah, we’ll be right back. You two can just talk amongst yourselves.”

  The two of them slipped back into the house, leaving Lysander alone with Grace.

  “So… Grace, is it?” Lysander asked.

  “Yes.” Grace nodded, standing up from her seat. She rubbed her hands up and down the length of her thighs. “Grace O’Neill.” So, she wasn’t married. Lysander quickly glanced at her left hand. No ring. Interesting.

  “It’s nice to meet you formally. I’m Lysander Wright.” He held out his hand over the fence, and Grace weaved her way through the patio furniture to take it and shake.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” she said with a small smile.

  “You know, I was hoping to run into you again,” Lysander said, folding his arms and leaning back on top of the fence. “I really wanted to apologize for the way I acted last week.”

  “Oh, no, don’t worry about it,” Grace said, waving a dismissive hand.

  “It is something I should worry about, though,” Lysander insisted. “You were totally right about my lack of attention. I would never have been able to forgive myself if something had happened to my son. And it would have been all my fault. It’s been driving me crazy since that afternoon.”