Do You Hear What I Hear?

by Margaret Brownley

  Sally listened with her heart in her throat. By environmentalists she was pretty sure Rick meant the Eco-Warriors, the group she’d once so passionately belonged to. “And you want me to talk to them?” she asked.

  “You talk their language.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true anymore. It’s been a while.”

  “It’s a lucrative contract. Not only will it pay the bills and save a lot of jobs, but it will also solve the mill’s wood shortage and help preserve what healthy trees are left. If anyone can persuade them, it’s you.”

  She wasn’t sure that she deserved such confidence. At seventeen, she’d had youth on her side; getting people to listen wasn’t that hard. She doubted an out-of-work art director would have the same impact.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll do what I can.”

  He grinned and then he did something completed unexpected. He cupped her chin with his hand and lifted her face to his. “Thank you.”

  Lowering his head, he tenderly brushed his lips against hers before capturing her mouth with his own. She stiffened, but only for the millisecond it took for her senses to take over.

  Melting into his arms, she returned his kiss with equal fervor, absorbing the delicious sensations of his touch—his mouth—his arms around her. His lips were both familiar and new. Sweet and demanding. Soothing and exciting. A memory stirred in the back of her mind of Peter Falk in The Princess Bride describing the most passionate of kisses.

  Without warning, Rick abruptly pulled away, leaving her momentarily dazed. He spun around and headed back to the car. “Come on,” he said, avoiding her gaze. “We have a party to attend.”

  She stared after him, her fingers pressed against her still-burning lips. Oh, Peter, you had no idea . . .

  * * *

  “Nana! What are you doing here?” Her grandmother was the last person Sally expected to see at Mrs. Greenwell’s retirement party.

  “Chuck insisted I come,” Nana said.

  “Chuck?” Sally looked up to see Mr. Williams threading his way toward them, carrying two drinks.

  “Snuck me out like a common thief in the night,” Nana added with an indignant toss of her head, but Sally could tell her grandmother was secretly pleased to be there.

  “Shameful,” Sally said, playing along with her. “You remember Rick, don’t you?”

  Nana glowered at him. “You used to keep my granddaughter out after curfew.”

  “Nana,” she whispered. “Now, be nice. That was a long time ago.”

  “Miss Cartwright, Miss Cartwright!”

  Sally turned just as Toby ran up to her. “I got my voice back. See?” He cleared his throat. “YOU WILL FIND A BABY WRAPPED IN CLOTHS AND LYING IN A MANGER.” He stopped. “Did you hear me? Did you hear me?”

  Mr. Williams answered for her. “Oh, yes. We heard you,” he said, handing a Styrofoam cup to her grandmother.

  “So did I, son,” his father said, joining the little group. “And thanks to Mr. Talbot”—he glanced at Rick—“I now have my old job back. That means I can stay here with you and Mom.”

  Toby let out a loud whooping sound and wrapped his arms around his father’s waist.

  Hugging him back, Sam said, “Come on, son. Let’s find your mother.”

  After they left, Sally gazed up at Rick, the memory of his kiss uppermost in her mind. “That was a kind thing you did.”

  Even Nana looked impressed, or at least less stern.

  Rick shrugged. “Once you get the environmentalists on board, I’ll need all the help I can get.”

  Sally rolled her eyes to the ceiling and groaned. “No pressure.”

  Chapter 14

  After the party, Sally wheeled her grandmother back to Raising Cane. Mr. Williams had been an attentive companion, but she wanted to make sure they both got back safely.

  Rick surprised her by insisting on walking with them. “Have you heard the news?” he asked, his enthusiastic voice surprising her. He hadn’t said much at the party, and had seemed distracted at times, maybe even distant. Had he regretted kissing her? Regretted any memories it might have triggered?

  “What news?” she asked.

  “Reverend Madison said his church would be willing to sponsor the Christmas pageant each year providing Mrs. Greenwell agreed to direct it.” Rick’s grin grew wider. “She said yes.”

  “Oh, Rick! That’s wonderful news.”

  Mr. Williams agreed. “I’ll say.”

  They walked the remaining two blocks in silence. Intensely aware of Rick’s presence, she kept her gaze focused ahead. All that was left of yesterday’s snowstorm was ice-hardened drifts piled up on either side of the sidewalk. The sky was clear and stars and moon bright, but every once in a while a gust of cold wind swept down from Mount Hood.

  “I’ll take it from here,” Mr. Williams said when they reached Raising Cane. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take her ’round back?” He lowered his voice. “I use to be an FBI agent and know how to sneak into buildings.”

  “Was that before or after you were a doctor?” Nana asked.

  Mr. Williams winked at Sally. “I believe it was before.”

  “I think you should use the front door so as not to rouse suspicion,” Sally said in a conspiratorial voice. She had taken the precaution of calling the care center earlier to make sure they knew where her grandmother was. Now she kissed Nana on the forehead.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Mr. Williams grabbed the handles of Nana’s wheelchair and pushed her up the walkway. Halfway to the door, he spun the chair in a circle, laughing at her protests.

  “Not to worry,” he called out. “I used to be a ballroom dancer.”

  “Yeah, and I used to be a Rockette,” Nana shouted back, sounding strangely younger than her years.

  Their bantering voices faded as Mr. Williams wheeled her through the glass doors and into the building.

  Sally turned to Rick. “I think she likes him.” Maybe some good would come out of that broken hip, though it was hard to imagine her grandmother with a beau.

  Rick gazed down at her. “You don’t think he’s off his rocker?”

  Sally smiled. “I think he knows exactly what he’s doing.” He certainly knew how to get her grandmother to cooperate with her physical therapist.

  They walked back to the school where Rick’s Jeep was parked. Beneath the light of the full moon the snow was cast in a pearly glow. Their twin shadows on the wet sidewalk in front of them merged into one for a moment then separated, reminding her once again of his kiss and how it had so abruptly ended.

  Sally shoved her hands into her coat pockets. From somewhere in the distance came the sound of carolers. But even the sweet voices couldn’t break the tension in the air. The power she sensed coiled within Rick’s lean frame made her ache to repeat their earlier kiss. She blew out her breath. Boy, was she in trouble.

  She stole a glance at his profile. As if sensing her gaze on him, his moonlit eyes met hers but she couldn’t read their depths. Still, it felt that she and Rick had unlocked a nameless something in each other that had been deeply buried.

  Not wanting to know what it was, she looked away with a sharp intake of breath. Mr. Peepers was now the only vehicle left in the parking lot, and Rick reached in his coat pocket for his keys.

  She kept going. For some reason it suddenly seemed imperative to put as much distance between them as possible. “Good night.”

  “I’ll drive you to the inn,” he called.

  “I can walk.”

  He caught up to her at the crosswalk. “I was hoping we could talk. In the car where it’s warm.”

  She stepped off the curb. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “How can you say that? After what happened.”

  It wasn’t until they reached the town square with its twinkly lights and brightly lit gazebo that she found her voice. “Are you talking about when you . . . when we . . .”

  He reached for her arm and swu
ng her around to face him. “You know very well what I’m talking about.”

  She pulled her arm away. “It was just a . . . kiss between friends.”

  He surprised her with a quick peck on the cheek. “That is a kiss between friends.”

  Swallowing hard, she stared up at him. Had his lips not left a searing path shooting to her toes and back, she might have agreed with him.

  “S-so what are you saying?” she stammered.

  She heard his intake of breath. “I think we need to see what this”—he waved his hand between the two of them—“thing is between us.”

  She sucked in her breath. “There’s nothing between us.” That her heart threatened to leap out of her chest and her knees were about to buckle meant nothing. “We tried it once and it didn’t work.”

  “We were young. We’re older now and better able to tolerate our differences.”

  “Tolerance is for traffic jams, not relationships.”

  “Okay, maybe I used the wrong word. I’m not like those men in the kiss-and-sob . . . uh . . . movies who always know what to say.”

  She sighed and looked away. At the moment even she didn’t know what to say. “I’m leaving for Los Angeles the day after Christmas.” The inn was booked that weekend, which meant having to move to Nana’s house for the remainder of her visit.

  “You’re going away and I’m staying here. That doesn’t sound like a very good solution to our problem.”

  Blinking, she turned her gaze back to him. “We don’t have a problem.”

  His heated gaze met hers. “We will if you leave before we figure this thing out.”

  “Rick, listen to me. I don’t have a job. I don’t even have a car. My roommate is getting married in February and if I don’t find someone to replace her I’ll be out on the streets.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “What I’m saying is that my life is a mess right now.”

  “So is mine.” He brightened. “That means for the first time since we’ve known each other, we actually have something in common.”

  “And what’s going to happen when things are no longer a mess? Will we then stop liking each other?”

  “I don’t have the answer to that. All I know is that when I look at you, I want to eat kale and yogurt and some other disgusting stuff.”

  She frowned up at him. “Is that supposed to be romantic?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “If telling someone how you feel is not romantic, I don’t know what is.”

  She sighed. Hard to know with Rick if he was expressing his feelings or ordering fast food—his tone of voice all sounded the same. “All I know is that it didn’t work the first time between us and it won’t work the second.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’m sure because I have no desire to eat bacon.” She started along the path toward the Star Inn, and this time he didn’t try to stop her.

  Chapter 15

  Friday, December 16

  A log snapped and crackled in the Star Inn’s fireplace and orange flames shot up the chimney, bringing Sally out of her reverie.

  Still shaken by the conversation with Rick, she hadn’t been able to think of anything else since last night.

  I think we need to see what this . . . thing is between us.

  She closed her eyes. There was nothing between them. Oh, sure she was attracted to him. What woman wouldn’t be? A handsome man like that. And no smile ever affected her like his did. But things were different now. They were no longer two starry-eyed teenagers able to ignore their differences.

  She pushed the vision of him from her mind. Mustn’t think of his smile. Mustn’t think about his kisses, either.

  Sighing, she placed a bookmark in her unread book. Reading a romance novel probably wasn’t a good idea. At least not while she was feeling so vulnerable.

  She suddenly realized she wasn’t alone. Angel flicked a feather duster over a porcelain figurine and eyed her with a look of curiosity. Today a bright-green scarf was draped around her neck and fastened with a shiny star brooch.

  “Can I get you anything? A cup of tea?” Angel asked.

  “A box of chocolates to throw would be nice,” Sally said.

  “It’s a sin to throw chocolates.”

  Sally shrugged. “It worked for Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde.”

  “You and your movies,” Angel said with a laugh. She whisked her feather duster over the mantel. “Have you always been a movie buff?”

  “I guess so,” Sally said. Having lost both parents at a young age, she found that movies provided the happy endings missing from her own life.

  “Breaking up is hard to do,” Angel said after a while.

  Sally blinked. “I didn’t break up with Rick.”

  “Rick, is it? You wouldn’t happen to be talking about that nice Mr. Talbot, would you?”

  “Yes, but we’re just . . . old acquaintances.”

  “So you didn’t break up?”

  Sally shook her head. “You have to go with someone before you can break up.”

  Angel pursed her lips. “Sounds like your brain forgot to tell that to your heart. Or if it did, the heart forgot to listen.”

  Sally sighed. Angel meant well, but her ideas about romance belonged to the same era as the inn. Maybe hers did, too, but that was about to change. There was no room in real life for romantic nonsense.

  “This isn’t about the heart,” she said, sounding more certain than she felt. “It’s about common sense. We’re complete opposites.”

  “Opposites attract.” Angel straightened a red felt stocking. “So what’s the problem? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “I don’t want to make the same mistake as my parents. My father viewed the world in color; Mother saw things in black and white. They were as different as night and day, and their marriage was a failure.”

  Angel stood the superhero figure upright next to a shepherd. “Maybe they just never took the time to figure out why the great matchmaker in the sky brought them together in the first place.”

  The idea was too ridiculous to contemplate. Still Sally had to ask. “What makes you think the match . . . eh . . . they were meant to be together?”

  Angel looked surprised by the question. “Why, that’s easy. All I have to do is look at you.”

  * * *

  The meeting that Friday afternoon with the Eco-Warriors went better than Sally could have imagined. A couple of hard-nosed environmentalists were reluctant at first to approve Rick’s tree-thinning plans. But Sally had put together a persuasive PowerPoint presentation that clearly showed how current policy was both harming the trees and putting the entire forest at risk.

  After much debate, the final vote was unanimous: The Eco-Warriors would not interfere with Rick’s plans.

  Sally left the meeting feeling good about how things turned out. It helped that Bud had finally come through with a loaner. That allowed her to drive to her grandmother’s house, water the plants, and check the mail. It also helped that Mr. Williams had persuaded her grandmother to continue her physical therapy. Already Sally noticed an improvement, and Nana had even walked a short distance with the help of a walker.

  Things were definitely looking up and the fact that she felt oddly depressed puzzled her. If only her job situation was settled, maybe she’d feel better.

  Her phone rang just as she reached Hoagie’s deli, where she’d asked Rick to meet her after he got off work.

  Hoping it wasn’t a call from Raising Cane, she pulled her phone out of her purse and checked the screen. Seeing the name of the studio, she gasped. Could this be the call she’d been waiting for?

  She answered the phone with a tremulous voice. “Hello.”

  A no-nonsense woman’s voice filled her ear. “Can you start work on Monday, January second?”

  “Yes, yes, I’ll be there,” she all but yelled into the phone.

  She hung up and pumped her fist. Yes! She was still smiling when sh
e slid into the booth across from Rick.

  He seemed oddly subdued when she told him how her meeting with the Eco-Warriors had gone. Outside, dark-gray clouds promised more snow. Inside, a dark cloud seemed to hang over Rick, and the daisy field painting on the wall behind him didn’t help lighten the mood.

  “I thought you’d be happy,” she said, rearranging the salt and pepper shakers.

  “I am happy. I don’t have to let any of my men go and that was my biggest concern.”

  Their server came to take their order and Rick surprised her by ordering a salad. He looked equally surprised when she followed his lead and ordered a corned beef sandwich.

  “I have some more good news,” she said. “I got a job offer.”

  “In Los Angeles?” he asked.

  “In Burbank. It’s with a movie studio.” She still couldn’t believe it.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked. “To work for a movie studio?”

  It seemed like an odd question. Who wouldn’t want to work for a movie studio? The fact that it specialized in horror films was the only drawback, but no job was perfect.

  She nodded. “I start the first of the year.”

  “What about your grandmother?”

  “Nana’s doing well and it looks like she’ll soon be released. Mr. Williams has offered to let her stay with him until she feels well enough to move back home.” His residential apartment had two bedrooms, and since it was part of the Raising Cane complex, Nana would be close to medical personnel should she need them. Mr. Williams had turned out to be a blessing and doted on her grandmother more than any nurse would.

  She let her gaze drift through the frost-laced window and thought of all the things she had to do before starting her new job. Things like forgetting fields of daisies and figuring out how to design perfect zombie sets. Things like buying a car and forgetting Rick’s kisses and . . .

  Rick saved her from her thoughts. “I guess there’s not much for an art director to do here.”

  “No, there isn’t,” she said. “Not unless I start my own design business.” That was a dream she hoped to one day make come true.