Married for Christmas (Willow Park)

by Noelle Adams

  There were even leftovers for them to eat for lunch the next day.

  She didn’t feel as grateful as she should.

  Jessica could be a decent pastor’s wife. She was sure she could. If anyone would let her try.

  She was about to suggest Daniel go with her on Bear’s evening walk, but he disappeared outside to his workshop immediately after dinner.

  He didn’t come back in until bedtime.

  Jessica took another shower before bed, and Daniel was reading again when she emerged.

  But this time he didn’t put his book down.

  Five

  Jessica woke up trapped.

  She gasped in surge of panic as she tried to move but couldn’t. She was pinned in place.

  As her mind gradually cleared from sleep, she realized it was Saturday morning, and she was imprisoned by the covers.

  When she opened her eyes, she realized why.

  Bear must have jumped on the bed sometime during the night. The dog was stretched out between Jessica and the edge of the bed, holding down the covers simply by lying on them.

  Jessica wriggled until she’d created enough slack to turn over and then realized Daniel was holding down the other side. He’d rolled over so he was facing her, and somehow the covers had gotten tucked under his body.

  Jessica squirmed some more, yanking the covers on Daniel’s side, since she groggily reasoned he’d be easier to move than the dog.

  He huffed, shifted slightly, and clung to the covers.

  She pulled even harder and freed them from his weight, the momentum of the pull causing him to roll over onto his back.

  With a groan of relief, Jessica readjusted, giving herself more space by moving onto his side.

  “Wha’sat,” he mumbled, reaching out for her and pulling her to his side under the covers.

  Jessica was perfectly amenable to this scenario, and she snuggled up against his warm, relaxed body.

  “Y’okay?” he asked, fitting her against him, sounding barely more awake than he’d been before.

  “Yeah. Just trapped by the covers.” She wrapped an arm around his bare belly and let out a long exhale.

  “Huh?”

  “I was trapped between you and Bear.”

  “Oh.” His hand stroked her hair, although he still seemed mostly asleep. “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “Good. You feel nice.”

  She slanted her eyes up in surprise and saw that his eyes were still closed. “So do you.”

  “You feel nicer than me.” He seemed to be almost smiling, although she had no idea how close he was to being awake.

  She smiled back. “We’ll have to agree to disagree about that.”

  He let out a thick exhale and pulled her closer, so she was practically lying on top of him. She felt him kiss her hair, and her heart melted a little in her chest.

  Then he mumbled, “Wanted to hold you…like this…long time.”

  A surge of affection and excitement heightened the tenderness. She stroked his rough jaw, her cheek pressed against his chest. She was afraid to say anything—afraid he would wake up and wouldn’t be so soft and clingy, afraid everything would change.

  “Jessica,” he murmured, still stroking her hair down her back.

  “Hmm?” She shifted just slightly and realized he was hard. She could feel his arousal against her belly.

  His hand slid down until he was cupping her bottom, pushing her weight against his groin. “Honey.” The one word was almost a groan.

  She moaned softly in response, growing aroused as much from the emotions she was feeling as from the feel of his hard body against hers. She squirmed against him, trying to generate deeper sensations.

  He released a long, guttural sound, pressing her more tightly against him.

  Then a loud clatter startled her so much she gasped.

  Daniel jerked, jarred suddenly awake. “What was that?”

  “Bear jumped off the bed,” Jessica explained, her voice hoarse and a clench of disappointment in her gut.

  He’d been half-asleep before. Things would be different now that he was fully awake. She knew it. She knew it. He’d be more like he’d been all this week.

  “What was she doing on the bed?” He gave a soft groan as he pushed himself up to a sitting position, gently dislodging Jessica in the process.

  “I don’t know. She must have gotten cold or something and jumped up during the night.”

  “Okay.” He rubbed his face urgently and glanced over at Jessica, who was flushed and sprawled out in the middle of the bed.

  He looked away from her quickly, taking a strange, shuddering breath. “I better take a shower.”

  Jessica watched him walk, slightly stiffly, to the bathroom. Then she exhaled in resignation.

  She glanced at the clock. It was just after five. A yummy interlude of sex was obviously not on the agenda this morning.

  ***

  Jessica was ready early to go out to dinner so she sat on the edge of the bed near her nightstand and had a texted conversation with Kim.

  She gave her friend some updates on the week and tried very hard not to whine about Daniel, which was what she really wanted to do.

  The week had been okay—just not what Jessica had imagined when she’d envisioned herself married. Daniel had been friendly and considerate, but he’d spent most of the week at the church, in his study, or in the workshop. The women of the church brought them dinner every day—all of it far better than anything Jessica was capable of preparing herself. And they hadn’t had sex. Not when they’d seemed close to it early this morning. Not at all.

  Not since their wedding night. Exactly a week ago.

  It was honestly rather annoying. She would never have expected them to have a week-long sexathon, but she’d assumed Daniel would want to have sex again, sometime during the week.

  He hadn’t mentioned it at all—not given her the slightest hint that he was interested, except for being hard that morning, which must have just been a physical response. She’d thought he’d enjoyed the one time they’d been together, but maybe it had just been a release, after going so long without, and it wasn’t good enough to compel him to try it again anytime soon.

  She tried not to brood on it. If she’d been more confident of her sexual abilities, she might have brought it up herself. But it was too new to her. She was too inexperienced. And she simply couldn’t bring herself to ask for sex from a man who might not even be interested.

  If she’d felt close to him in other ways, then going without sex wouldn’t have been that big a deal. But, no matter how nice he’d been this week, he’d still felt kind of distant. She couldn’t exactly nail down what he was doing differently—other than spending a lot of time away from her—but she knew he was closing himself off. She didn’t like it, but she wasn’t sure what she could do about it.

  She didn’t want to complain. They didn’t have a normal marriage, so she shouldn’t expect him to hang out with her all the time. But she’d felt closer to him before they got married.

  She didn’t tell any of this to Kim, though. She thought marriage issues should stay in the marriage, even in a strange, half-marriage like she and Daniel had.

  Daniel had been working in the yard most of the afternoon, cutting back overgrown tree branches and then working again in the workshop. About fifteen minutes ago, she’d gone out to tell him he needed to start to get dressed or he wouldn’t be ready when Will and Holly came to pick them up. He wouldn’t let her into the workshop, and he wouldn’t tell her when she asked what he was working on.

  He just said, “I’ve got a few different projects going on,” which was a very annoying non-answer.

  He’d rushed through a shower and now emerged from the bathroom wearing only a pair of black trousers.

  His broad shoulders, fine chest, flat stomach, and lean hips made her gulp.

  “Who are you texting?” he asked.

  “Kim.” She wrote out one last
text and set the phone down.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Fine. Still dating that guy.”

  “How’s it going?” He spoke through the fabric of the t-shirt he was pulling on over his head.

  “Okay, I guess. She’s not really sure what he’s thinking. About the relationship, I mean.”

  “It’s not a good sign when the woman doesn’t know what the man is thinking. If he’s really serious about it, she would know.”

  Jessica tried very hard not to roll her eyes. “Should I tell her that?”

  He raised his eyebrows at her slightly snide tone. “No. I was just saying.” He picked up a gray dress shirt from the bed where he’d thrown it earlier and pulled it on over his shoulders. “Is everything all right with you?”

  His dark eyes were questioning, slightly concerned.

  “Yes. Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” Her tone was supposed to be calm and reasonable, but she didn’t quite pull it off. She just couldn’t get rid of her bad mood.

  He didn’t pursue the subject, which was probably a good thing, since she might have snapped his head off if he had.

  He was tucking in his shirt when he asked, “How has your mom been this week?”

  Jessica really didn’t need to think about that. She gave a faint shrug.

  “Not good?”

  She shook her head. “I thought having me close, so I could see her every day, would help, but it was a really bad week. She didn’t know who I was today. Even in the morning.”

  Despite her best efforts, her voice cracked on the last word.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She gave another shrug, managing not to mutter that he hadn’t bothered to ask.

  Jessica felt a little like crying, but she wasn’t going to do it. For one thing, she’d actually put on a little mascara for the evening, and she wasn’t going to mess it up.

  “I’m sorry about your mom,” he said, genuinely sympathy in his tone. He slid on a belt as he spoke. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask about her before.”

  “It’s fine. You don’t have to ask about her. I’ll tell you if anything important happens.”

  She didn’t want him to do anything for her out of obligation. She only wanted what he wanted to give her.

  Which evidently wasn’t much.

  She shook her head slightly, brushing off the unfair thought. He hadn’t done anything wrong. She was the one who’d had unrealistic expectations about what marriage would be like and so was disappointed that hers wasn’t living up to them. It wasn’t right to take her disappointment out on Daniel.

  “Your mom has had some bad spells before, right, and she’s bounced back?”

  “Yeah. But eventually she isn’t going to bounce back.”

  This might be the time her mom wasn’t going to bounce back. The thought caused a sickening clench in her gut.

  Bear came loping into the room just then. She’d been gobbling up her dinner in the kitchen, but must have finished and come to find her people. She walked over to the bed, and Jessica bent over to pet her, taking comfort, as always, in the soft hair and the adoring eyes.

  When she looked up at Daniel, she saw he was standing perfectly still, one arm in the jacket he’d been pulling on, and he was gazing at her steadily.

  It was impossible to miss the expression of empathy in his eyes.

  Jessica wiped at her eye before the tear fell. “I’m fine. Maybe she’ll be better next week.”

  She cleared her throat and was relieved when he broke the gaze and pulled his jacket all the way on.

  She absently wiped a white hair from Bear off her good black pants. They were having dinner tonight with a couple from the church, and it was at a fancy restaurant in a larger city about forty minutes away. It was a kind of Christmas gift from the couple to her and Daniel.

  Jessica would much rather have gotten a gift card. Dressing up and going out to eat was the last thing she wanted to do after the week she’d had. She’d been planning to try to cook dinner herself, since a church lady had brought over an egg casserole and fruit salad for breakfast, which meant they were on their own for dinner.

  But instead she had to go out—and sit in the backseat of someone else’s car for forty minutes there and back to get there.

  She knew Holly—who worked in a department store a couple of towns over—would be dressed to the nines, but Jessica was feeling so blah today that she couldn’t muster the energy to wear a skirt. So she’d worn her black pants with a black silk shell that was made to look like it laced up the front and a wine-colored cardigan that looked a little festive.

  When she glanced over at Daniel, he was putting on his watch. “You can’t wear that jacket,” she said, noticing something immediately.

  He glanced down. “Why not?”

  “It’s got a stain on it.”

  “It’s black.”

  “Even so.” She walked over and pointed out the obvious stain just under the pocket.

  The jacket was getting pretty old anyway. He’d been wearing it for years—since well before Lila died.

  Almost every piece of clothing he owned had been picked out by Lila. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him in something new.

  He made a grumbling sound under his breath, but he took the jacket off. “Do you think I’ll be okay without a jacket?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a pretty snotty place. They might try to give you one before they let you in.” She went to look at his clothes in the closet.

  “I’ve got that old corduroy—”

  “No. You can’t wear that.” She sorted through his collection of jackets—most of which were looking rather rough. He still had decent suits for Sunday, but not much else.

  “I don’t really want to wear a suit,” he said, coming to stand beside her and inspect his wardrobe.

  “Here,” she said, finding a perfectly fine black jacket in the back of the closet.

  “The button fell off.” He pulled the button out of the pocket, where he’d obviously put it before he’d stuffed the jacket at the back of the closet.

  She shook her head. “There’s a fairly simple solution to that dilemma.”

  She wasn’t crafty or domestic at all. She didn’t sew or embroider or any of the old-fashioned skills that many women still mastered in Willow Park.

  But she could at least manage to sew on a button.

  “We don’t have time,” he said, when she found a little needle and thread kit in one of her dresser drawers.

  “It will take two minutes. Your choices are to wait for the button or wear a suit.”

  He sighed and lowered himself to the side of the bed to put on his socks.

  As he did, Bear walked over to greet him, since she innocently assumed he’d come down to her level for that very reason.

  Jessica watched from the corner of her eye as she hurriedly tacked on the button. Bear kept nosing at Daniel, confused that he wasn’t responding.

  She tried not to get annoyed about his ignoring her sweet dog.

  “Have you thought any more about the choir?” he asked, as he slid on his shoe.

  She’d hoped he’d forgotten about that idea. “I’ve thought a little about it.”

  “And?”

  “I’m still thinking.”

  “That means you want to say no.”

  “Yes, I want to say no. You know that was my first inclination.”

  “I thought you were serious about thinking about it.” His tone had changed, evidently in response to the testiness in her tone.

  “I was serious about thinking about it. But thinking about it doesn’t automatically mean I’m going to come down on your side. Believe it or not, your opinion isn’t the only reasonable conclusion for every issue in the universe.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “That’s ridiculous. And I’m not sure you’ve even thought about it. You’re just stalling and hoping I’ll let it go.”

  The fact that he was right did nothing to ease
her annoyance with him. “Do you have any idea how arrogant you sound—assuming you know exactly what I’m thinking? You have no idea what’s going on in my mind.”

  “So what is going on in your mind?” Bear was concerned about the rising temper in the room and nuzzled at Daniel’s legs again. He nudged her away, appearing unconscious of what he was doing since he was entirely focused on the conversation.

  “I don’t have to tell you everything I’m thinking.” She’d finished the button so she tossed the jacket toward him on the bed. She got up, returned the kit to the drawer, and then closed it a little harder than necessary. “You certainly don’t tell me.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” He pushed Bear away again.

  “She wants you to say hi to her,” Jessica burst out. “Is even that too much to ask?”

  His eyes widened in obvious surprise, but he leaned over to pat the dog’s head. Evidently satisfied in getting a greeting, Bear ambled over to Jessica again.

  “What do you mean by ‘even that’?” Daniel asked, a different resonance in his tone.

  She knew exactly what he was asking, but she didn’t know how to answer the question, so she acted confused. “What?”

  “You said ‘even that’ is too much to ask, like you’ve asked more of me and I haven’t delivered.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. Don’t get hung up on a random comment.”

  He was peering at her in a way she didn’t like at all—like he might see things he wasn’t supposed to see.

  Jessica just wanted the whole discussion to be over. It was irrational and futile and accomplishing nothing. “We should get going. They’ll be over here to pick us up any minute.”

  “Yeah.” He was still looking at her, but he leaned down to brush a few white dog hairs off his pants. He was frowning as he did.

  For some reason, the gesture made Jessica mad. She glared at him and then went to her closet to grab an old-fashioned lint brush that used to be her mother’s. Making sure she turned it the right away, she leaned over to brush off his trousers.

  “If you don’t want her hair on your pants, then you can just keep pushing her away,” Jessica muttered.

  “What has gotten into you?” he demanded. He took the brush from her hand and took her by one arm to straighten her up.