by Cara Colter
But then instead of walking away, he nodded, once, curtly.
And she stepped back over the fallen tree, motioning for him to follow her, inviting him in.
Morgan knew it was crazy to be this foolishly happy that he had picked her to come to, crazier yet that she was unable to resist his need.
But how could anyone, even someone totally emancipated, be hard-hearted enough to send a man back into the night who had come shouldering the weight of terrible burdens? Not that he necessarily knew how heavy his burdens were.
He hesitated, like an animal who paused, sensing danger. And what would be more dangerous to him than someone seeing past that hard exterior to his heart?
And then, like that same animal catching the scent of something irresistible, he moved slowly forward. He stepped over her tree, and she wondered if he knew how momentous his decision was.
If he did, he was allowing himself to be distracted. He surveyed the strings of lights strewn around her living room floor, the boxes of baubles, the unhung socks. For a moment it looked as if he might run from the magnitude of what he had gotten himself into.
But then he crouched and looked at the tree stand, a flying-saucer-type apparatus, that was still attached solidly to the trunk of the tree. It just hadn’t kept the tree solidly attached to the floor.
“Is this what you expected to hold your tree?” he asked incredulously.
It was the kind of question that didn’t really merit an answer. Though it had been the most expensive tree stand at Finnegan’s, a tree nearly crashing down on top of her was ample evidence that the design was somewhat flawed.
“It’s worse than your hammer,” Nate decided, with a solemn shake of his head. Still, he looked pleased that he had found something in such dire need of his immediate attention.
“I bought a new hammer,” she said.
After his last visit, she had decided she wasn’t having her hammer choice keep her from the promised bliss of the single woman.
Though somehow, in this moment, Morgan knew she had missed the point because she felt ridiculously eager to show it to him, secretly, weakly wanted his approval of her choice.
“Really?” But he hardly seemed interested in her new acquisition of a hammer. He had already moved on to other things.
With raw strength that made her shiver, he yanked the stand off the trunk of the tree and scowled at it, looked at it from one way and then another.
“I think I can fix it.” He began to whistle through his teeth, a song that sounded suspiciously like “Angel Lost” though she decided against pointing that out to him, because he was so obviously pleased to have things to look after since Ace was out of his reach for the evening.
Morgan told herself she was duty bound to resist this beautiful gift of a man coming to help her. Duty bound.
So, naturally she didn’t.
“I’ll go make cocoa,” she said, and then, in case that might be interpreted as far too traditional, she let the independent and blissful woman speak up, too. “And I’ll get my new hammer, too.”
Chapter Five
“THIS IS YOUR HAMMER?” he asked. Nate tried not to laugh. Good grief. She was an all-or-nothing kind of girl. She had gone from the toy tapping tool that had looked more like an instrument her first graders would use in a percussion band, to this, a 23-ounce Blue Max framing hammer with a curved handle. It looked like a hatchet.
“What’s wrong with it?” Morgan asked.
“Nothing.”
“It was very expensive.”
“I’m sure it was. I’ll bet that tree stand was, too.”
“Don’t take that ‘there’s a sucker born every minute’ tone with me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered her schoolmarm tone of voice.
But she wasn’t fooled. Not even a little bit. “You think my new hammer is funny. I can tell.”
It probably wasn’t a good thing that she was getting so good at reading him.
“No, no, it’s not funny.” Despite saying that a snort of laughter escaped him. And then another. Then he couldn’t resist. “When are you building a house?”
“A house?” she asked, flabbergasted.
And he dissolved into laughter. He had not laughed, it seemed, for a very long time. Oh, little chuckles had been taking him by surprise here and there. But it had not been like this. A from the belly, caught in the moment, delight-filled roar of genuine laughter.
It felt good to laugh again. Maybe too good. It almost made him forget he had other worries tonight, like Ace and her new little pal, who could at this moment be gooping on makeup, or eating popcorn in front of an unblocked Playboy channel.
“A big hammer is called a framing hammer. It’s used for framing a house.”
“I’m sure it can be used for other things.”
“Yeah. If you can lift it. And swing it. Have you seen house framers? They have wrists nearly as big as your thighs.”
Shoot. Was she going to guess he’d been looking at her thighs? Maybe not, because she suddenly seemed distracted by his wrists. She licked her lips. He decided it might be best to avoid mentioning body parts from now on.
Or looking at them. For a prim little schoolteacher, she had lips that practically begged to be kissed, full and plump.
He wasn’t going to be held responsible for what happened next if she licked them again.
“You don’t buy a hammer you can barely heft,” he said, a little more sharply than he intended. His sharpness had nothing to do with her hammer choice, not that she ever had to know.
She reacted to the tone, which was so much better than lip-licking. Rather than looking educated, she looked annoyed. Annoyance was good!
“I like that hammer,” she said stubbornly.
“Really?” he challenged her. “What do you like about it?”
She hesitated. She looked at the hammer. She looked at him. She looked at her toes. And the fallen Christmas tree. It was written all over her that she wanted to lie, and that she was incapable of it.
“The color,” she finally admitted, giving him a look that dared him to laugh. It was a look designed to intimidate six-year-old boys and it was effective, too.
Or would have been effective if she hadn’t started laughing first. He liked it that she could laugh at herself, and then they were both laughing. Laughing with her, for the second time in just a few minutes, was a worse temptation than sneaking peeks at how those prisonissue sweatpants hugged her thighs.
Because it invited him back toward the Light. Nate was aware he was walking way too close to the fire.
He reined himself in. “I’ll just put up the coat hangers now,” he said. To himself he added that he would put up the coat hangers—that was what he had come here to do—and go. Immediately.
“Show me how to do it,” she said, setting down the cocoa she had brought in. “Next time I need something done, you might not be here.”
Not might not, he corrected her silently. Won’t. A week ago, he would have said it out loud…Why not now? Because, despite his vow to stay away, he kept coming back to her, magnet to steel.
Because there was something about her that was funny and sweet and even a hard man such as himself could not bring himself to hurt her by tossing out carelessly cruel words.
“Come on then,” he said gruffly. “I’ll show you.”
It was a surrender. Because putting up a few coat hangers should have been the simplest thing in the world. It should have taken five minutes.
Instead, because of his surrender, half an hour later the reclaimed barn board was finally up. His hand had brushed her hand half a dozen times. Their shoulders had touched. He was aware of her lips and her thighs and her shoulders and her scent.
He was amazed he’d managed to get that board level, the coat hooks spaced out evenly.
Morgan was glowing as if she’d designed a rocket that could go to Mars as she surveyed their handiwork.
“It looks so good.”
“Exc
ept for the additional hole,” he pointed out wryly. She had put the huge hammer through the drywall when she had missed the nail he was trying to teach her to drive.
He had supplies to fix it, since he’d come prepared to fix her previous holes in the wall. He taped the hole, stirred the drywall mud and began to patch.
“I want you to promise you’ll return the hammer.” Then, he heard himself promising that if she did, he’d help her pick out one that was better for all-around household use and repairs.
Even though he knew darn well Harvey could help her. Harvey had been handling the hardware department at Finnegan’s since time began. Nate could even go in and warn him to offer her a little advice on her purchases, before he actually let her buy them.
Whether she wanted it or not.
But she probably wouldn’t, and for some reason he thought she might listen to him a little more than she would listen to Harvey.
Thought that meant something.
She was coming to trust him.
Oh, Nate, he told himself, cut this off, short and sweet. Wouldn’t that be best for both of them?
“The cocoa’s gone cold,” she said, oblivious to his inner war. She took a little sip and wrinkled her nose in the cutest way. A little sliver of foam clung to the fullness of her lip. “I’ll go make some more. Let’s take a break.”
Which meant she thought he was staying, and somehow, probably because of the damn foam on her lip, he could feel short-and-sweet going right out the window.
Well, Nate rationalized, he couldn’t very well leave her with her Christmas tree sprawled across the floor, with a stand that was never going to stand up, could he?
Yes.
But he’d said he’d fix it.
He trailed her to the kitchen and watched her make cocoa. Since she was going to the effort, he’d drink that. Then he was leaving, tree or no tree. He had a kid he hired to help him sometimes, he’d send him over tomorrow. He could look after having it fixed without fixing it himself. But then would it be done right?
Her kitchen, like her living room, made him aware of some as yet unnamed lack in himself.
Everything was tidy, there was not a single crumb on the counter, no spills making smoke come off the burners as she heated the milk. She reached for a spice and the spices were in a stainless-steel container that turned, not lined up on top of the stove. The oven mitts weren’t stained and didn’t have holes burned in them.
He could feel that horrible longing welling up in him.
Leave, he told himself. Instead of leaving as completely as he would have liked, he left the kitchen and went and worked on the stand. So it would be done right.
By the time she came back in, he had the stand modified to actually hold up a tree, and had the tree standing back up.
“This is a foolishly large tree,” he told her.
She smiled, mistaking it for a compliment. “Isn’t it?”
He sighed. “Where do you want it?”
“I should put the lights on while it’s on the ground,” she told him. “Come have your cocoa before it cools this time. I’ll worry about the tree later.”
But somehow, he knew now he’d be putting the lights on it for her, too. It was too pathetic to think of her trying to put them on with the tree lying on the floor, creative as that solution might be to her vertical challenges.
It occurred to him, she was proving a hard woman to get away from. And that with every second he stayed it was going to get harder, not easier.
Okay. The lights. That was absolutely it. Then he was leaving.
He went and sat beside her on the couch as she handed him cocoa. He took a sip. It was not powdered hot chocolate out of a tin, like he made for Ace on occasion. It was some kind of ambrosia. There was cinnamon mixed with the chocolate.
Morgan McGuire had witch-green eyes. She was probably casting a spell on him.
“So, do you and Ace have family to spend the holidays with?” she asked.
He wished he would have stuck with the lights. That was definitely a “getting to know you” kind of question.
“We alternate years. Last year we were with my parents, who live in Florida now, so this year we’re with Cindy’s side of the family, Ace’s aunt Molly and uncle Keith. They have a little place outside of town. We’ll go out there after the production on Christmas Eve and spend the night.”
He didn’t say his own house was too painful a place to be on Christmas Eve. He did not think he could be there without hearing the knock on the door, opening it expecting to see Cindy so loaded down she couldn’t open the door.
By then, Cindy had been gone so long he suspected she was coming home with a little more than reindeer poop.
“How about you?” he asked, mostly to avoid the way his thoughts were going, to deflect any more questions about his plans for Christmas.
Which were basically get through it.
She was the kind of woman you could just spill your guts to. If you were that kind of guy.
Which he wasn’t.
“Oh.” She suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I’m not sure yet.”
“You won’t go home?” he asked, suddenly aware it wasn’t all about him, detecting something in her that was guarded. Or maybe even a little sad.
“No,” she said bravely. “With The Christmas Angel on Christmas Eve I decided to just stay here.”
Again, focused intently on her now, he heard something else. And for whatever reason, he probed it.
“Your family will be disappointed not to have you, won’t they?”
She shrugged with elaborate casualness. “I think my mom is having a midlife crises. After twenty-three years of working in an insurance office, she chucked everything, packed a backpack and went to Thailand. She told me she’ll be on a beach in Phuket on Christmas day.”
“And what about your dad?”
“He and my mom split when I was eleven. He’s remarried and has a young family. I’m never quite sure where I fit into all that.” And then she added ruefully, “Neither is he.”
Nate didn’t know what to say.
His family might have been rough around the edges, but not knowing where you fit into the arrangement? He had been alternating where he spent Christmas since he had married Cindy and his mother still cried when it wasn’t her year to have him and Ace.
The idea of your own family not wanting you was foreign to him. He felt so shocked and saddened by it, he had to fight back an urge to scoop her up and take her on his lap and rock her, like the lonely child he heard in her voice.
“It’s actually been good,” she rushed on bravely. “I’m doing all these things for the first time by myself. Before my mom decided to be a world traveler, she always did Christmas. And she was elaborate about it. Theme trees. New recipes for stuffing. Winning the block decorating party. Christmas was always completely done for me. In fact, God forbid you should touch anything. Then it might not look perfect. So, I don’t know how to do anything, but I’m happy to learn. You don’t want to go through life not knowing how to do things like that. For yourself.”
She was not a very good liar. She was not happy to learn. But he went along with her.
“No,” he said soothingly, without an ounce of conviction, “you don’t.”
“Of course, I probably won’t cook a turkey,” she said. “For myself. That would be silly.”
“You aren’t going to be alone on Christmas.” He wasn’t quite sure why he said it like that. As if he knew she wasn’t going to be alone at Christmas. When he didn’t. At all.
She was silent. Too silent.
He shot her a look. Her face was scrunched up, and not in the cute way it had been when the chocolate had gone cold.
“Are you going to cry?” he asked with soft desperation.
“I certainly hope not.”
“Me, too.”
He fought again that impulse, to pick her up and lift her onto his lap, to pull her head against his shoulder and hold her tight.
Nothing, really.
And yet something huge at the same time. She clung to his hand as if he had tossed her a life preserver.
That should have been enough to make him let go. But it wasn’t. He was leaving his hand there as long as she needed to hold it.
Nate understood instantly that something had shifted in him. He had come out of the cave of his pain just enough to reach out to someone else.
A shaft of light pierced the darkness he had lived in.
And he saw the truth: all evening the dark place had called him to come back. And he almost had obeyed that call.
There was something comforting and familiar about that place of pain where he had been. Save for Ace, it made few demands on him. He did not have to feel anything, he did not have to truly engage with life. It certainly did not ask him to grow or to give.
But now, now that that shaft of light had pierced him, he was not sure he could go back to living in darkness. He was not sure at all.
Morgan took a deep shuddering breath.
“Let’s put up the lights on the tree,” he suggested. If there was one thing personal pain had taught him, it was that sitting around contemplating it was no way to make it go away. Action was the remedy.
“Okay,” she said, her voice wobbly with the tears she had not shed. She let go of his hand abruptly and leaped to her feet. “I guess that means I have to find the star.”
Nate noted that everything she owned was brand-new, and there was a sadness in that in itself.
His childhood might have been poor, but both sides of his family had given him Christmas relics that went on his tree every year. He was pretty sure his lights, the color cracked off them in spots, predated his birth by several years. He had antique ornaments that his grandmother had carried across the ocean with her, acorn ornaments that Cindy had made when she was Ace’s age.
Morgan’s lack of anything old in her Christmas decoration boxes made him acutely aware of how bad her first Christmas alone could be.
