Christmas In The Country

by Muriel Jensen

  “I guess I knew,” she said, “that I was going to get frostbitten in the Connecticut countryside with a man determined to keep his cool.”

  “If I lose my cool,” he reminded her, “your career goes up in flames, along with your editor’s job and Sherrie’s inn. Put that on. I’ve got just the thing to complete the look.”

  Liza scrambled out of her clothes and into the nightie while he left the room. When he returned, she sat primly against the pillows, the blankets pulled up to her chest, her clothes in a tidy pile on the chair.

  “Boot socks,” he said, holding up a large wad of gray wool with red toes and ribbing. “Stick your feet out the side.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed, took her feet onto his lap and put the thick socks on her. “God. They’re like chunks of polar ice cap.” He rubbed one foot, then the other, then went back to the first to manipulate her toes, then worked on the second foot.

  Liza watched him and told herself bracingly that he didn’t act like a man who didn’t care. His touch was vigorous but gentle, possessive but respectful.

  Sherrie came up with a tray bearing mugs of soup and chunks of bread. She placed it on Liza’s bedside table. “Will you stay and keep an eye on her?” she asked Jeff, her expression completely guileless. “I want to check on the children and get a few things ready for tomorrow. I couldn’t concentrate while the two of you were lost.”

  “Ah…sure.”

  He didn’t look like a man who didn’t care, Liza thought dispiritedly, but he didn’t look like a man who was ready to die for her, either. Not that she’d want him to.

  “Good.” Sherrie smiled. “I’ll close the door so that if Whittier wanders around, he won’t see you in here and wonder.”

  Liza tossed the blankets back on the other side of the bed and patted the flowered sheet. “Sit down here and eat your soup. I’m wearing too much to be any kind of a threat to you.”

  He walked around to the empty side of the bed and sat against the pillows, pulled his shoes off and stretched his legs out under the covers. She handed him a mug of soup.

  “Thank you,” he said, taking it from her. “You know, you underestimate yourself if you think clothes diminish your…threat.” He repeated her word with emphasis, as though he disagreed with the choice of it. “Or that they would stop me anyway if I succumbed to it”

  She blew lightly into the steaming cup of beef barley. “There’s no chance of that happening,” she said, deliberately trying to bait him.

  He nodded. “There isn’t, but why do you think so?”

  “Because you’re a man who never takes action without understanding all the details,” she said, then took a cautious sip. She chewed and swallowed, the hot, homey flavors of beef and grain somehow beginning to restore her sense of purpose. She hadn’t Sherrie’s cooking skills or her nimble fingers with crafts, but the Wonder Woman column had come out of her imagination, out of her own hopes and dreams. “You told me so yourself. And you can never know another person—a lover—like you know the rules of mathematics and science. You can’t build a woman like you build a bridge or a road.”

  He gave her a dry look. “Big talk from a woman who doesn’t know east from west. And usually when you go for the details, you can assess whether something is right or wrong, if it’s true or a lie. You artistic types who claim to opt for the bigger picture seem to get a little foggy on those issues.”

  “I still maintain that my intentions were good.”

  “Attila the Hun probably thought his intentions, were good, but I doubt that the Roman Empire had any sympathy with that.”

  “You don’t think,” she asked in exasperation, “that comparing me to Attila the Hun is a little bit of a stretch? See if I ever invite you for Christmas again.”

  “If you did, I gather I’d be spending it in some Manhattan high-rise. Where did this thirst for country living come from, anyway?”

  She took a deep sip of soup and struggled against the sleepiness beginning to overtake her. “Too many years of big-city living, I guess. My father died when Sherrie and I were small, and my mother had to give up the house and move us into an apartment. City living has its advantages, but I always longed for trees and lawns and maybe the sound of water.”

  “Why,” he asked, “after your considerable success, are you still living in Manhattan?”

  “Student loans, savings that were depleted when I was between jobs, the proximity to work.” She put her mug aside and leaned back into the pillows. “And I’m lacking someone to share the country with.”

  “You’re telling me there are no men in your life?”

  She turned restlessly onto her side. He held his cup up to avoid a spill. “Not the right one,” she said into her pillow.

  “What defines the right one?”

  She turned onto her other side, toward him, a pleat between her eyebrows. His soup sloshed and he gave up on it, putting it on the bedside table.

  “Niceness,” she said drowsily, “tolerance.” She yawned. “A sense of hope and…” She turned onto her back. “A love of…children and…country life.”

  She stirred restlessly and sat up, her eyes barely open. “Something hurts,” she complained, trying to reach over her shoulder to her back.

  He looked down at her pillows and saw nothing, then ran a hand over the flannel down the middle of her back and encountered the unyielding metal of three small hooks.

  “You left your bra on,” he said. He patted her flannel-covered hip. “Lift up and I’ll unhook you.”

  She complied and he reached under the flannel, felt the silky warmth of her back and the closure of the bra. He unhooked it, tugged gently, and found himself holding the length of black lace he’d caught a glimpse of earlier when she’d pretended to comply with his terms of the deal. He tossed it toward the rest of her things.

  Liza turned, her eyes closing, and fell into his arms. As clearly as though he could see them, her small, . warm breasts pressed into his chest, making him feel as though they’d branded him.

  And just as quickly, she was asleep.

  Twice in one night, he thought, trying to deal with her soft suppleness against his severely deprived body. God was toying with him.

  He slept and dreamed of freedom. He drove a sleigh through Beirut, Father Chabot seated beside him, and no one followed them or tried to stop them. The sleigh was drawn by a single reindeer with a red nose.

  The countryside went by in a rush and when he looked again he recognized the trees, the rolling hills, the classic church steeples and old homes of rural Connecticut.

  Then their path was blocked by an angel with long blond hair and bright brown eyes. She was a classic tree-topper angel in a flowing white robe, with wings and a halo. The only discordant note in her appearance was a gingham apron.

  He reached for her and she disappeared.

  He awoke with a start to the flimsy gray light of dawn. Despite the dream curiously braided with old and new memories, he knew precisely where he was.

  His only confusion was that Liza no longer lay in his arms, but sat up beside him as though she’d been watching him while he slept. In the frail light she had the misty look of the angel in his dream. His left arm was extended, and her fingers were entangled in his.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  She shrugged a shoulder under the flannel, giving him a smile that warmed him to the marrow of his bones. “You were dreaming,” she said. “And you reached out for me.” She squeezed his hand. “So I caught you.”

  He used that hand to pull her into his arms. She came eagerly, all warmth and softness and whispered endearments.

  “Jeff, I knew it the first time I saw you,” she said. “I knew it. And I understand why you think I’m a liar and a phony, but I…”

  He knew disputing her claims would take time and effort—effort better spent on other things—so he opted for expedience and simply kissed her into silence.

  Her supple mouth was everything he’d imagined it w
ould be when he’d seen her on television last Christmas and been so fascinated by her lips that he’d watched her form every word.

  Now they responded to him artfully, ardently, and her body leaned into his and wrapped around it with an impassioned tenderness that was new in his experience. It occurred to him that if the world stopped now, he would die a happy man.

  He ran a hand under her nightshirt, feeling the silk of her in his palm as he stroked over the curve of her hip and up into the hollow of her waist.

  She sighed against his mouth and tried to reach under his shirt, but he’d gone to sleep last night still fully dressed.

  He braced up on an elbow and pulled at his shirt, Liza helping him. But their movements were interrupted by a light rap on the door.

  “Oh no!” Liza gasped.

  Frustration mingled with fear of Liza being discovered in bed with her houseguest galvanized Jeff into action. He leapt out of the bed and hid behind the louvered doors where Bill’s bed was.

  “Yes?” Liza asked calmly.

  The bedroom door opened and closed quickly. “They’re here!” It was Sherrie’s voice, high and frantic. “They weren’t due until nine, but they’re here now!”

  Jeff opened the closet door to see her run across the room to the window, Liza right behind her. He looked down over their shoulders to see cars and trucks streaming up the driveway. The film crew had arrived.

  “Whittier’ll be waking up any minute!” Sherrie whispered, looking at Liza apologetically. “I’m sorry. I should have awakened Jeff last night, but you were sleeping so comfortably against him and it had been such a rotten night.”

  “Mmm,” Liza said. “And the fact that that meant Bill had to stay with you didn’t hurt, either.”

  Sherrie smiled widely. “We’re getting married New Year’s Eve.”

  “All right!” Liza wrapped her arms around Sherrie and hugged her tightly. “I’m so happy. It’s about time!” Then she held her away from her and added with mock severity, “But none of those molten looks until after the show.”

  “Right.”

  Jeff was surprised when Sherrie caught his arm and led him toward the door with a grateful smile. “Thank you,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “For what?”

  “Lots of things,” she replied. “Too much to go into now.” Then she pushed him behind the door, pulled it open cautiously and peered around it.

  “Sherrie!” Whittier’s voice boomed. “The film crew’s here early!”

  Jeff held himself flatly to the wall. From the bed, Liza puckered her lips and made a kissing motion at him.

  “I know,” Sherrie said to Whittier. “I heard them and came in to wake Liza.”

  “How is she after last night?” Whittier asked. Jeff guessed his concern was as much for the show as for his columnist. “The crew’s going to want to shoot her and Bill and the outside of the house.”

  “She’s just about to wake herself up with a shower,” Sherrie said.

  “Can I say good morning?”

  Jeff closed his eyes, certain discovery was imminent.

  “I’ll give her the message, Mr. Whittier,” Sherrie said. “She’s not decent. If you’ll go downstairs, the coffee should be on and I’ll be there in a few minutes to make you my special French toast.”

  “Special?” he asked interestedly.

  “I make it with sliced cinnamon rolls.”

  “Ooh! I’ll even set the table.”

  “Thank you. I won’t be long.” Sherrie closed the door, then leaned back against it with a strangled little gasp. “Liza,” she said, “when this is over I may kill you.”

  Liza sat up with a broad grin. “When this is over you’ll be too busy running the inn and catering to your husband and children.”

  “Yeah, well, until the show’s over, they’re your husband and children, so get moving. You heard Whittier.” Sherrie opened the door several inches, peered out, then caught Jeff’s arm and pulled him with her out into the hall. Then she pushed him toward his room. She blew him a kiss as she headed for her room and a bawling Betsy.

  Liza showered, put on a blue sweater over blue leggings and pulled on a pair of high black boots.

  She was stunned by how calm she felt when she walked downstairs to find Bill’s house filled to capacity with people and equipment. The boys were rubbernecking as a cameraman set up near the Christmas tree.

  A young woman wearing earphones had Betsy in one arm and was supervising the setting up of lights behind the camera.

  They were like a friendly group of aliens, Liza decided as she exchanged greetings, waves and smiles with them on her way to the kitchen. Looking at their headgear, their otherworldly equipment, and listening to their strange vocabulary, she felt the way Richard Dreyfuss must have felt at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind when he cleared the top of the ramp and entered the spaceship.

  She found Whittier at the table with a handsome fair-haired man she guessed to be about Jeff’s age.

  “Liza, I’d like you to meet, Chris Page, our producer,” Whittier said, standing to pull out a chair for her. “Chris, this is Liza De Lane.”

  Chris stood also, his smile reserved and professional. “Pleased to meet you, Miss De Lane. We have a big day ahead of us.”

  She reached across the table to shake his hand. “Then you’d better call me Liza.”

  “And you’d better have seconds on the French toast.” Sherrie refilled his plate and added another piece to Whittier’s.

  Bill shouldered the back door open and walked into the kitchen with an armload of wood. He dropped it in the wood bin, then pulled off his gloves and jacket and came around the table to kiss Liza’s cheek, apparently prepared to be onstage for the day.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I’m surprised you’re up so early. How do you feel?”

  “Mr. Whittier was telling me about your accident last night,” Chris Page sympathized, then smiled. “I understand we almost had to replace you with back-to-back ‘Lucy’ reruns.”

  Liza laughed as Sherrie brought her a plate of French toast. “You may think that’s happened anyway. Sherrie and I in action are a lot like Lucy and Ethel.”

  “The only resemblance is that they, too, are brilliant,” Whittier said magnanimously. “Ah. Here’s Jeff James.”

  Jeff walked into the room and Liza devoured the sight of him in jeans and an oatmeal-colored pullover. Then she remembered that she couldn’t let what he meant to her show on her face—at least, not until after the filming.

  She put a hand on his arm as Chris stood again to be introduced. She watched Jeff shake hands with the producer, laugh about last night’s experience and say with a grin in her direction, “I’ll be able to tell my grandchildren that I spent the night in a remote little cabin with Liza De Lane. I’ll leave out the part about her being married to someone else and that all we did was sit on a bench in front of a fire and swap childhood stories.”

  “Mr. Whittier insists that you saved her life,” Chris said, then waited hopefully for confirmation.

  Jeff shook his head. “I don’t think we were ever in danger of death. Of frostbitten toes, maybe. I am in danger of losing my heart to this family, though.” Jeff spread both arms to indicate their surroundings. “Can you imagine a better place to spend Christmas? I’m considering trying to talk the city fathers into some major engineering project so I can stay here.”

  Liza heard those words with a little thrill of excitement. Was there a chance this would all work out after all? Could she pull this off? Do the show, and explain later when she married Jeff that she’d just stood in for her sister as Bill’s wife and the children’s mother because Sherrie was too shy to appear before a camera?

  Had she any right to hope that it could be that simple?

  No. Of course not. And that was proven a moment later when the doorbell rang.

  Liza stood and pushed Bill into her chair. “You’re the one who’s been hauling wood—you should eat first.”
She kissed the top of his head for effect “I’ll get the door.”

  She sidestepped cameras, lighting and sound equipment and members of the crew, and stepped over wires and cables as she carefully picked her way to the door.

  She pulled it open and looked into the face of a gorgeous, dark-haired woman in a white wool coat with a fox fur collar. Liza studied it lustfully. She was as opposed to the wearing of fur as any animal activist, and she didn’t mourn the loss of mink or sable in fashion, but there was something about the feel of fox against a woman’s throat that made her wish it could be replicated by a manufacturer.

  The woman gave her a bright smile. Her hair was worn in an elegant knot, her seductively slanted hazel eyes and her beautifully creamy skin were elegantly made up, and she had a mole at the corner of winecolored lips.

  Liza wondered absently if the producer had hired a model or an actress to fill in.

  The woman gasped with what seemed to be pleasure, then wrapped her arms around Liza. “You’re her!” she said in a husky voice. “You’re Liza De Lane! I can’t believe this. I’m actually on Liza De Lane’s doorstep!”

  Still confused about who she was, Liza drew her inside and closed the door. “I’m sorry, I—” she began, but the woman cut her off with a glance beyond Liza’s head.

  “My goodness! Will you look at that! The big time. National television. I’m so excited for you! You just burst right out of that little cable show.”

  “Thank you. I’m af—”

  “Who’s producing this for you? Is it Chris Page? He’s the best, you know. Martha Stewart has him written into all her contracts.”

  “Yes,” Liza replied, feeling a little as though she’d been caught in a tornado. “Are you—?”

  “Is he here?” the woman interrupted again. “Please tell me he’s here!”

  “Chris Page? Yes, he’s in…” She swept a hand toward the kitchen.

  “No!” The woman’s right hand, with a large diamond on the third finger, swept the air. “Not Chris Page. Although I can’t believe he’s here, too! I mean Jeffrey James.”

  “Oh. Yes, he’s here also.” Liza led her toward the kitchen, pointing to the wires and cables and cautioning her to watch her step. “Jeff,” she said when they’d reached the long table where the men were dividing up the morning paper, “there’s an admirer here to see—”