But that was his nature and she shouldn’t allow herself to create baseless fantasies just because Shane was being his usual self.
Still, she couldn’t help wondering, in a small, distant corridor of her mind, what it could be like if Shane was Ricky’s father and she was Shane’s wife.
Fantasy and speculation like that were for dreams in the night when she was asleep, not for taking up any of her waking hours, Cris silently castigated herself. She’d do well to remember that.
The problem was she really wasn’t paying attention to her inner storm warnings.
Which was why she almost passed right by Ricky’s room. Embarrassed, Cris quickly backtracked a couple of steps and then threw open her son’s door.
“Right here,” she said in a barely audible whisper, gesturing toward the bed as she walked in. “Just put him down right here and I’ll get him ready for bed.”
Shane eased the boy onto the bed. “Looks to me like he’s already ‘ready,’” he observed.
“I meant that I’ll get him undressed and into his pajamas,” Cris amended.
But as she reached out toward Ricky, Shane put his hand over hers with just enough pressure to still the movement. Cris looked up at him, quizzically raising one eyebrow even as she felt her heartbeat perversely increase.
“You start undressing him, he’s liable to wake up again,” Shane warned, “and these little guys can recharge their batteries in an instant. This tiny nap he’s taking right now just might be all he needs to go another five hours.”
“Five hours,” she echoed, as if that was synonymous with her doing a stretch in purgatory. Cris banked a shudder.
Shane nodded. “If it were me, I wouldn’t risk it just to get him to wear pajamas. When I was a kid, I did all my best sleeping in my street clothes,” he told her with a grin. “As far as I’m concerned, wearing pajamas is highly overrated.”
That sounded so silly to her—like something Ricky would suggest—she couldn’t help laughing.
“Maybe you’re right,” Cris agreed. She glanced back down at her son. He appeared so peaceful. She couldn’t remember when she’d seen such a contented expression on his face. “Okay, I’ll leave him in his play clothes. I just hope he doesn’t think he can actually wear the clothes—especially his underwear—for two consecutive days.”
Together they quietly left the room. “I can set him straight for you if you like,” Shane offered once they were outside.
It would be one less thing for her to remember to do, she thought whimsically, even though she knew that in the end, she would handle this just as she handled everything that concerned her son.
Still, that didn’t stop her from thanking Shane for his offer. “That would be very nice of you.”
It wasn’t any hardship on his part. “I get a kick out of the Ricky,” he told her. “Spending time with him makes me think of what it might have been like if—if things had turned out differently,” Shane concluded evasively.
He hadn’t spelled it out, but she knew what Shane was thinking about without putting it into so many words. He was thinking about what it might have been like if his own child had lived. How simple things like going fishing or decorating a Christmas tree—or getting him to bed on time—might have shaped his own day-to-day life.
This much she could do for Shane: she could reassure him of something she felt in her bones. “As I said to you earlier, I know you would have made a really great father, given half a chance.”
This time, instead of waving off her comment the way he’d done the last time, Shane smiled at her and said simply, “Thanks.”
The single word, warmly uttered, corkscrewed its way into her very being, finding her heart as if it had a homing device implanted in it. The moment it did, she could feel her heart filling to capacity—even more—until it was close to bursting.
Rousing herself, she tried her best to maintain at least a small distance between them. Yes, he’d been wonderful to her son and, yes, he had been extremely helpful to her at every turn, but she couldn’t allow that to melt her barriers or to get her thinking about a life that was forever closed off to her.
Besides, she had her former in-laws’ impending visit to worry about. That should be the focus of her attention, if anything, since they should be here any time now.
Still, the nurturer within her refused to be silenced. At bottom, Cris supposed she was who she was and no set of circumstances would ever really change that.
Which was why she said to Shane, “It’s late and you’ve put in a lot more than a full day. You look tired,” she observed, working her way up to what she really wanted to propose. “Listen, instead of going all the way home, why don’t you just stay over in one of the unoccupied rooms?” she suggested.
There had to be at least one that was unoccupied, she thought. The inn was rarely ever completely filled except on special occasions.
Or at least, that was what she recalled. Lately, she’d been so wrapped up in Ricky and her own little world, which rarely extended beyond the kitchen, that she was oblivious to everything that might be going on outside it.
The offer tempted Shane, but he never liked to be on the receiving end of special treatment. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“That’s my line,” she reminded him. “And yet, I keep imposing and you keep doing things for me you really have no reason to.”
“At least none that seem obvious to you,” Shane murmured.
His voice was so low she only picked up a couple of words—and neither one made any sense to her. “What?”
He hadn’t really meant to say those words aloud, Shane thought ruefully. He was slipping, he chastised himself. “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Just mumbling.”
“Mumble a little louder so I can hear, too,” Cris urged, still waiting for him to clarify what he’d said—or at least repeat it more clearly.
“Just gibberish,” he told her. “Wouldn’t make any sense to you. Doesn’t even make sense to me, really,” he told her, covering his tracks.
“Okay, while you’re decoding your gibberish, let me find out from Alex which room isn’t occupied.”
“You really don’t have to do that,” he called after her.
Cris pretended she didn’t hear him and picked up her pace.
“Stay right there,” she instructed, raising her voice as she looked over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
* * *
“A ROOM?” ALEX asked, repeating her sister’s request. “You want an unoccupied room?”
“Just for tonight,” Cris emphasized. “Shane is really exhausted—even though he refuses to admit it—and he spent most of today humoring Ricky.”
Alex smiled. She saw it just a bit differently. “And getting further entrenched on your good side.”
Cris drew herself up, although she was far too tired herself to register indignation. “I don’t have anything to do with it.”
Alex shook her head. None so blind as those who refuse to see.
“You just keep telling yourself that,” Alex said with a laugh. “In the meantime, here.” Turning the old-fashioned ledger she had all the guests sign, she made it face Cris. “I’ve got a room for Shane. It’s two doors down from Ms. Carlyle’s suite. It’s also just off the dining area,” she said significantly. “You can peek out of the kitchen to see if he’s there.”
There was no use in Cris arguing that she wouldn’t be doing that. That they weren’t an item the way Alex had already labeled them in her mind.
“Just give me the key,” she requested coolly.
“Yes, ma’am.” A half smile, half smirk played on Alex’s lips as she handed Cris the keycard.
Cris hurried away without a word.
* * *
SHANE WAS EXACTLY where she’d left
him.
She held out the keycard to him, telling him the number of the room.
Since he concentrated almost strictly on the area where he did his renovations and the area where he was now adding on a wing, the room number she told him was unfamiliar to him.
“Which way is that?”
“C’mon,” she offered, “I’ll show you.”
“You don’t have to,” he said, falling into place beside her. He remembered to shorten his gait. “You can just point.”
“I walk better than I point,” she told him glibly.
Finding the room took no time at all. It passed, she silently lamented, too fast.
“See you tomorrow,” she said once he’d opened the door with the keycard.
“Tomorrow,” he repeated, wishing he could tell her that he didn’t want tonight to end, that he enjoyed all the little things that had filled the day, like standing and talking to her, like hearing her laugh. Like breathing in the light scent of vanilla and honeysuckle that he had begun to associate with her.
Impulsively, Cris turned back toward him, said, “Thank you for everything,” and brushed a quick kiss on his cheek before disappearing down the corridor.
He stood there awhile, looking after her even though she’d already disappeared from view.
“Ditto,” he murmured, touching his cheek.
And then he went into his room.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BECAUSE OF THE noise factor and because the inn had many guests who felt no compulsion to compete with the roosters and wake up early, Shane could not begin work on either the renovations or the new wing until at least nine o’clock.
Which meant that Ricky was free to ambush the general contractor, who was always up early, and get Shane to continue decorating the Christmas tree with him. But the time to get the decorating done was tight because Ricky had to leave for kindergarten by eight. At best, Ricky and Shane had forty-five minutes in the morning to hang ornaments on the tall tree.
Because everyone at the inn doted on Cris’s son, no one attempted to do any real decorating until Stevi brought him home from his kindergarten class at one o’clock.
Shane, who still wasn’t in the habit of having a lunch break while on the job, did so for the entire week it took to turn the blue spruce tree into the heavily laden work of art that now stood like a bejeweled grand duchess in the center of the main room.
The decorating was slow going, but six days after the tree became part of the main room’s decor, it was finally finished.
From everyone’s viewpoint, the effort and the wait were well worth it.
This year’s tree, Ricky announced with feeling, was the “best-est Christmas tree ever.”
“Pictures,” Andy declared after the last ornament was hung and the family, for once, was all together. “We need to take pictures to commemorate this occasion.”
So saying, Andy produced not only her trusty camera, which at times seemed almost like an extension of her, but her faithful tripod, as well. She began setting up the tripod immediately.
“Pictures?” Shane questioned, turning toward Cris for an explanation. She hadn’t said anything about taking pictures.
“We do this every year,” she explained.
And if he thought this was something, he should be around on Christmas Eve when they officially opened their gifts. It occurred to her that having Shane around to share in their Christmas Eve celebration was definitely not without its appeal.
“Pictures are Andy’s way of chronicling our lives together. We at least have photographs taken at approximately the same time each year to show how much we’ve grown or changed or something along those lines. All I know is that if we refuse, Andy becomes impossible to live with. Standing in front of the tree with smiles pasted on our faces is a small price to pay for peace and quiet,” she assured him. Seeing his discomfort, she decided to come to his rescue, even though she would have welcomed commemorating his part in this year’s Christmas activities. “You don’t have to have your picture taken if you don’t want to.”
“Too late,” he replied with a laugh as Ricky grabbed his hand and began pulling him into position next to him in front of the tree.
“Ricky—” Cris began, a warning note in her voice. It was one thing to commandeer one of his aunts or his grandfather—they were all putty in his hands anyway—but quite another to think he could do the same with someone who was just working at the inn.
Is that all Shane’s doing? Just working at the inn? an annoying little voice in her head asked. With effort, she shut the voice out.
“It’s okay, really,” Shane assured her. He anticipated her reprimanding the little boy. “I don’t mind.”
She knew a lot of people who would balk at being taken over by a five-year-old. Shane’s rating went up even higher in her book. He was already pretty highly rated. If this kept up, his rating would go through the roof, she thought with a smile she was completely unaware of.
But Shane wasn’t.
“You are a very easygoing person,” Cris commented out loud.
He gave her his philosophy in a nutshell—forged right after he’d lost his wife. “Life’s too short not to be,” Shane told her.
“Okay, everybody ready?” Andy asked, looking over her family members as Cris was practically pushed into place by her son.
Andy had even gone so far as to have Wyatt locate Ms. Carlyle, who had done her part in the decorating by hanging several ornaments on the lower branches so she wouldn’t have to exert herself in any fashion and could still feel part of the ceremony. The elderly woman had been included in each of the annual tree-decorating photographs ever since Andy had begun keeping an album dedicated to the tradition.
Having finally positioned her state-of-the-art camera on its tripod, Andy refrained from setting the timer until she was certain that everyone she wanted to include was in the room and within the immediate vicinity of the Christmas tree.
“Where’s Ms. Carlyle?” she asked, looking around.
“Right here, Andrea,” a gravelly voice informed her.
The woman had her arm threaded through Wyatt’s and they were approaching the tree at a slow, steady pace. Ms. Carlyle was almost smiling. Almost, but not quite.
Although she had been aware of Wyatt, both boy and man, because of his stays at the inn, Ms. Carlyle hadn’t actually had occasion to get to know him in any manner until he had conducted his extensive interviews with her about the inn’s history. More than half the anecdotes in the book about all the various people, famous and not, who had passed through the inn’s doors had come from Ms. Carlyle.
She was, and had always been, a great observer of people and their habits. She’d observed close to a thousand guests during their stays at the inn, including a number of Hollywood celebrities from what had come to be regarded as the movies’ Golden Era.
Out of those interviews had grown a strong friendship and a mutual respect.
“You can’t expect me to run,” Ms. Carlyle was saying to Andy. Rather than cite her age as a factor, something she had never been known to do, Ms. Carlyle fell back on the teachings of etiquette. “Ladies never run,” she informed Andy.
“Yes, ma’am,” Andy agreed in a subdued voice that said she would never have dreamed of arguing with the woman. “I just wanted to be sure that Wyatt was bringing you here.”
“I am bringing myself here, dear,” Ms. Carlyle corrected. “Wyatt is merely serving as my escort.”
Andy inclined her head. “I stand corrected, Ms. Carlyle.”
“No shame in that,” the woman replied magnanimously. “One is never too old to keep learning. Now then,” she said, and paused as she looked around at the array of familiar faces—all save the tall, strapping young man with the startlingly beautiful eyes. She had already made hi
s acquaintance the first day he had come to work at the inn, but as far as she was concerned, Shane McCallister was very much the new boy on the block. “Where is it you would like me to stand?” she asked Andy politely.
“Somewhere in front of the tree would be perfect,” Andy encouraged. “Wherever you’d like to stand will be fine. We’ll all arrange ourselves around you once you’re comfortable.”
A delicate, incredulous laugh drifted through the air as Ms. Carlyle regarded her with amusement.
“My dear, I stopped being ‘comfortable’ as you so whimsically put it a good thirty years ago. The best one can hope for once one reaches my age is a lesser degree of discomfort.”
Taking measured steps and attempting not to lean too heavily on the hand-carved, white-headed cane never far from her, Ms. Carlyle delicately positioned herself at the tree’s center.
“Okay, everyone, gather around Ms. Carlyle,” Andy encouraged, waving her family in to take positions on both sides of the retired elementary schoolteacher.
Ricky hadn’t let go of Shane’s hand, as though afraid that if he did, his new best friend would disappear. Tugging his hand now, Ricky took a place beside Ms. Carlyle, with Shane flanking his other side.
“Mama, stand next to Shane,” he instructed like a small dictator.
“Yes, sir,” Cris answered, executing a mock salute to her son.
Stevi slanted Cris a look. She was both amused and empathetic. “I think the sarcasm is lost on him. He’s too young.”
“What sarcasm?” Cris deadpanned. “I’m trying to stay on Ricky’s good side. The way that boy is going, he’ll be a mini-emperor by the time he’s twelve. All he needs is his own country.”
Pleased because he knew what an emperor was, Ricky giggled with pleasure.
“Clock’s ticking, Andy,” Cris prodded as Andy checked a few things while looking through the viewfinder. “Some of us actually have to work for a living and we need to get back to it,” she teased her kid sister.
“Almost ready,” Andy promised, adjusting some of the settings at the last minute. “Ready,” she announced. She pushed the timer and made a beeline for the perimeter of the gathered group. Releasing a long breath, she faced forward and instructed, “Okay, everyone, say cheese.”
A WEDDING FOR CHRISTMAS Page 15
