Images flooded her mind, forbidden images, images that went against all her rules for keeping Madison’s life on steady ground. And hers. Dan’s navy blue sweatshirt and worn jeans were far from revealing attire, but she had no trouble picturing him without the shirt. She could imagine those lean, strong muscles filling out his skin all too vividly. She doubted he had to work out at a gym. A baker’s day was full of heavy lifting, kneading, and running around. Straight-up old-fashioned lust flickered to life, born of attraction and liking. In her mind’s eye, she saw his bare skin. Touched it. He would be warm. He would draw her into his big body with sure hands and those twinkly eyes, and he would tip her face up to his, bring his mouth close to hers and whisper…
“...care to live dangerously?”
Yes. Yes, she did care to live dangerously. For once.
Wait. That wasn’t a whisper. Her eyes came back into focus. There was a long-handled spoon in front of her nose and a four scoop, two topping, whipped cream, toasted almonds and a maraschino cherry sundae on the table between them.
“No, thanks.” Uh-oh. That came out all breathless and suggestive.
Dan gave her the same full head tilt her mother’s German Shepherd did when she picked up the ball thrower. “Are you made of granite, woman? Who passes up ice cream?”
He didn’t seem to have read her actual thoughts. Thank goodness. “The milkshake, of which I drank every drop, was ice cream. A lot of ice cream. How can you eat more?”
“Ice cream melts into all the nooks and crannies. There’s always room for more ice cream. Here,” he thrust the spoon at her, “at least hold the spoon so it looks like I’m sharing. You’ll hurt Dave’s feelings if you don’t take a bite.”
“He couldn’t care less.” But she took the spoon.
“That’s not true. People who feed other people always care, even if they hide it deep down in their crusty hearts.” He dug in. Chocolate ice cream, thick caramel sauce. A little whipped cream. A few pieces of chopped almond. He lifted it to his mouth. “Oh, man. That’s good.”
Christy glanced at the kitchen. Sure enough, David was watching. “One bite,” she said. “For David’s sake.” With the edge of her spoon, she scraped up the tiniest bit of vanilla ice cream, a dab of chocolate sauce and one piece of almond. It looked pathetic, even to her.
“I can see you’re a regular adrenaline junkie.” Dan loaded up his own spoon again.
“Moderation in all things.” She took her bite. It was good. Too sweet, of course. But good. She gave David a thumbs up, and he disappeared into the depths of the kitchen.
“I’m going to ask you a personal question,” Dan announced.
Ack. “I don’t do personal questions.”
He ignored that. “You’re basically a kind, upright sort. You’re great with your kid—and mine—don’t think that escaped notice. You’re totally committed to helping the small businesses of Snow Creek survive a rough economy. You’ve got a big heart under your well-governed, moderate, Snow Queen/CPA exterior. So what have you got against Christmas?”
It wasn’t the question she had expected. It was worse. Her eyes darted to the door. She put her spoon down on a napkin and a hand on her tote.
Dan’s left hand snaked out and caught hers. Uh-oh. Heart pounding! Fight or flight time, and his big warm hand was making both flight and coherent thought impossible. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, sending a surprisingly strong storm of tingles all the way up her arm and into her middle.
Oh, no. Not good. Her Snow Queen persona took over and she tried to freeze him and his warm, dangerous hand, too.
“State secret?” He waited for her to relax.
She didn’t. “Kind of.”
There went one of his eyebrows. “I can always ask your mom.”
He would. He totally would. “You play dirtier than I expected.”
“No baker’s hands are ever far out of a mess. You don’t like messes, you stay out of the bakery. Besides, I like you mother. She helped me with the ceiling decorations.”
“I know.” Christy also knew her mother would tell him a tale of a grumpy, grudge-holding, inflexible child unable to forgive or maintain perspective. For reasons that had nothing whatsoever to do with how kind he was to little girls or what his shoulders might look like clad only in skin, the thought of coming off so poorly rankled. “Don’t ask my mother. She doesn’t…understand.”
He stared at her as he stuck another spoonful of sundae into his mouth. What started out as a sharp “Really?” sort of look disintegrated into an appreciative eye roll. “How can something that has nothing to do with a bakery taste so freaking good? Next summer I may have to think about putting in an ice cream window.”
A change of subject. “Good idea.”
He shook his head. “Spill. Or I take your mom some gingerbread cookies tomorrow.”
“Fine. My mother, a lover of Christmas like you, spent money we didn’t have on the most over-the-top Christmas she could imagine. Year after year, I went without so she could have designer wreaths on every door and window in the house. A Christmas tree in every room. So many decorations she had to keep them in a storage facility. Do you know what the December electric bill was the year I was ten? Fifteen hundred dollars. I paid the bills. I remember.” She took a breath.
“What about your dad? Where was he?”
“He left when I was eight. Went to Los Angeles and became an actor. Couldn’t take the annual holiday rigmarole after he had a heart attack. Decided life was too short.”
Dan ate more ice cream. “An actor?”
“Yep. I mean, yes.”
“How’d that work out for him?”
She waved her spoon instead of saying that wasn’t the point. “Well. Jack Monroe?”
Dan whistled. “Very well. Aging action star with the chops for theatre, too. Your dad and Hugh Jackman. Cut from the same mold. Um…are you sure your dad left because your mom overdid Christmas?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He put down his spoon and gave her a long look. “Nothing. Just that kids don’t always get the whole story when parents split. My ex-wife would never tell Piper that she simply wasn’t happy with only one man at a time and never would be. I might tell Piper someday. When she’s fifty. You know?”
“Are you implying my father was a philandering cheeseball? Because he wasn’t. He isn’t now.”
“Are you implying that my ex was a philandering cheeseball? Because she was. Not a horrible person, but it wasn’t my idea of a fun time. Anyway, that’s not what I meant. I only meant that sometimes kids don’t have the whole story. For good reasons.”
“I have the whole story. I was there. My mother’s crazy addiction to Christmas was too much for my dad. The scare of his heart attack made him realize he couldn’t take it any more. He had dreams he’d let go. He wanted to go back to them.”
“That last bit sounds like more of a reason a man might leave his family. He left at Christmas, didn’t he?”
Time to go. Christy picked up her gloves and scraped her chair back over the tile floor. “It’s eight. Madison needs to get home to bed.”
Dan shoveled one last bite of ice cream into his mouth. At least his full mouth kept him from saying anything while she thanked David and Britney, pulled on her coat and headed for the door.
“I’ll see you at my mother’s in a few minutes,” she called in her best polite-but-cold Snow Queen voice. Although if she hurried, she could collect Madison and get out before he arrived. “Or tomorrow afternoon in the multi-purpose room. Thank you for dinner.”
Chapter Seven
At her mother’s house, Christy was in and out again with Madison in tow before Dan arrived. She’d parked in the alley behind the house and gone out the back door to make sure she missed him.
Then she opened the back door of her SUV. No booster seat.
“Where’s your booster?” she asked Madison.
Madison yawned, her breath making a b
ig white cloud in the cold air. “In Grandma’s front hall. She took hers out to clean out some pine needles, and forgot it in the garage. So on her way to pick me up at school, she found your car on Main Street and took the one from there. She put it in the hall so we’d see it on the way out.”
Under normal circumstances, that’s exactly what would have happened. Drat.
Christy heard a car pull in at the front of the house, and the door slam. Dan. “Let’s sneak around to the front and slip in and get the booster before anyone sees us.” Christy stuck out her hand.
“Why? Who cares if anyone sees us?”
“For fun.”
Madison narrowed her eyes. “Like…a game?”
Christy didn’t trust herself to speak, so she nodded instead.
“Really?” Madison was no dummy.
“Come on.” Christy grabbed her hand and the two of them circled back around the house. They made it across the driveway, up the steps, and inside the front door with no one the wiser. Christy spotted Madison’s car seat on an old settee, sharing space with three large white teddy bears dressed in red and green plaid vests and bowler hats decorated with holly sprigs. Madison stayed by the door, leaning across the threshold with her eyes fixed on the kitchen, from whence came Dan’s deep voice and Kayla’s laughter. Piper lay asleep on the living room, her head pillowed on a fourth bear that matched the ones on the settee.
Christy was reaching for the booster seat when she heard Dan ask her mother, “Does Christy really not know why your ex-husband left?”
Her mother laughed. Wryly, sure, but she laughed. Christy felt a punch in the middle of her back that felt real even though it couldn’t possibly have been.
“She didn’t when she was a girl. It was hard to talk about. But she knows now,” her mother said.
What?
“I don’t think she does,” Dan said. “And she probably needs to.”
Who was he to make that judgment?
“She’s fine,” her mother insisted. “She’s happy. Successful. A great mother.”
“Yes, she is. And she has a warm and generous heart that she keeps tied down under a thousand rules and regulations. She deserves to stop hating Christmas, and she deserves…well, to be more open to Christmas magic all year ‘round.”
Her mother was silent, so silent Christy didn’t dare breathe.
Her mother finally said, “I suppose she told you she doesn’t date.”
“No, she told Britney, the waitress at the diner, and Britney told me.”
Small towns. Nothing was private.
“It’s her father’s place to tell her,” Kayla said quietly.
“Just tell her. Everyone else in the world knows. Tell her tomorrow.”
Christy gestured for Madison to come in and shut the door. When she did, making no noise at all, Christy pointed for her to go into the living room where Piper slept. Madison lay down on the floor next to her. Christy opened the kitchen door.
“Tell me what?” she demanded.
***
Dan was leaning against the butcher-block counter, arms folded across his chest, alarm in his eyes. Her mother, in the process of unloading the dishwasher, halted with a handful of knives in her hand.
“Crap.” Kayla cut an aggrieved look at Dan. “Look what you’ve done.”
Impressively, he didn’t take that for a second. Nor did he look away from Christy. “You did this, Kayla. No one else.”
Simple words, but Christy had never been able to say anything remotely like them to her mother. Dan was brave. She waited for her mother to blow up. Or fall to pieces. Or for the floor to open up and swallow her whole, even though it was Dan who was insisting Kayla take responsibility for her own actions.
Her mother yanked open the silverware drawer and tossed the knives in. “Fine. You’re right.”
Christy’s mouth fell open. “Tell me what?” she repeated.
Silence. Kayla laid her hands flat on the counter and looked at Christy over the kitchen island.
“Tell me what?”
Kayla pressed her lips together. “Would you like a clementine? They’re organic.” She pushed a heaping bowl toward Christy.
“Mother.” She dragged the word out in her most threatening manner.
“You’ll laugh. It’s not that big a deal. I’m sure you guessed many years ago—”
Her control broke. “What?”
“Well, you know, when your dad left. It wasn’t because of the big deal I make of Christmas. He was tired of it, sure, but he had other reasons.”
Oh, drat, drat, drat. She didn’t want to hear this, even if she knew she had to. “Which were?”
“After his heart attack, he did a lot of evaluating. There was the acting thing he wanted to try.”
Kayla looked at the counter. Then the bowl of clementines. Then the counter again. Dan, however, never took his eyes off Christy. Oddly, when she looked at him, she felt a little lift of support. She could almost hear him say, “You can handle this.” And because he had just been so brave, she was inclined to put her faith in him.
She didn’t turn away. “And what else?”
“And he came out to me. He loved us both, but he was through lying to himself and everyone else.”
Dan had been right. The whole world knew. Everyone but her. “So dad is gay.”
“Yes, honey. He is.” Kayla looked up finally with a tremulous smile.
That uncertain smile shot Christy’s temper through the ceiling and high up into the clouds and cold December winds. “And you never told me. Either of you.”
“I can’t speak for your father, but by the time I realized I hadn’t told you in so many words, everyone else seemed to know, and I assumed you did, too. And that you didn’t want to talk about it. You do have a lot of rules. What’s okay to talk about, what’s not. Like burping. You act like no one in the world burps or—”
“Stop! Don’t you try to make this my fault!”
“See, that’s what I mean. You can’t even contemplate normal, healthy bodily functions—”
“Kayla,” Dan said in soft reproof.
In response, her mother scowled at him. “Why are you still here? This isn’t your business. And as for you, Miss Snow Queen High and Mighty, I’ve let you blame me all these years for your father leaving. I let you think I drove him away with my over-the-top approach to Christmas and general irresponsibility. I did that to protect you. And your image of who your daddy was. It may have been a foolish thing to do, but at the time, it seemed important. I was the grown-up. You were just a little girl. I didn’t want you to have deal with the complicated truth.”
Christy’s brain was stuck in freak out and her stomach hurt, but the words poured out of her. “So instead of letting me be confused until I was old enough to understand that truth, you set yourself up as the villain and made me hate you, effectively leaving me with no positive parental bonds at all. Great choice, Mom.”
“Hey.” Dan frowned at her.
She whirled on him. “I don’t need your help!”
He put his hands up. “Okay.”
“Why are you still here?” Kayla asked him again.
“Because he’s a meddling buttinsky,” Christy snapped. “Since he loves Christmas as much as you do, consider him your honorary kid from now on. I’m out of here. Until further notice. After the holidays are over, we’ll sort out a schedule for you and Madison to see each other, but for now I’m done. Don’t call me. Don’t come to my office. And stick to the late service at church, please. Good night.” She swept through the kitchen door, relishing the swoosh it made as it swung closed. She hooked the booster seat by one armrest, knocked the three stupid Christmas bears off their bench like so many Skittles, and said loudly. “Come on, Madison. It’s time to go home.”
She was brought up short by the sight of Madison and Piper snuggled together, both their heads on the teddy bear pillow, both sound asleep. They were holding hands. In the soft glow from the eight-foot Noble Fir
decorated with eighteen-hundred, colored mini-lights and the two dozen electric candles nestled among pine boughs and holly, the girls looked peaceful. Magical. Safe. Happy. Everything she wasn’t. Everything she had never been at Christmastime.
Looking at the girls took all the fire out of her, but none of the grief. Her nose tingled and her throat ached. The lights on the tree blurred, then the girls.
Christy felt like she was eight-years-old again. She had sat in this room beside a slightly smaller version of the same Christmas tree, and her daddy, who had almost died six months earlier, called a family meeting and announced he would be leaving. He was going to Los Angeles. The heart attack had made him determined to take another shot at his dream of acting.
It had been Christmas Eve. A week later, he’d been gone, and when Christy helped her mother take down all the Christmas decorations, it was like she put that pain away in the boxes with the ornaments and stockings. As they took things off the tree, piece by piece, the sweet little drummer boys and toy soldiers from her mother’s childhood, the blown glass balls from her grandmother’s, and all the treasured ornaments they had collected as a family, Christy’s mother recounted the story of each ornament. She remembered where she’d found them, which stores each one came from, how much each cost, and the conversation she’d had with each clerk.
Christy started adding up how much the ornaments on their tree had cost. She checked the bottoms of the nativity figures and the toy train that ran around the base of the tree through a beautifully detailed Christmas village complete with church, ice cream parlor, gas station, market, diner, bakery and a dozen Victorian houses, all lit up and surrounded by fluffy cotton snow and little snow-capped evergreens. She made a list of all the Christmas stuff in the house. Then she spent the next six months figuring out what it all cost.
The total amount was staggering. And she still didn’t have an actual bed, just that stupid air mattress. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why her father had left. Her mother was totally out of control. He hadn’t been able to take it anymore.
Love on Main Street: A Snow Creek Christmas Page 12
