Tag closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. He didn’t loose his arms from around her, but he also still didn’t speak.
Great. Terror racked her. She’d ruined it. Botched it by her never ending talking and leaps of logic and relationship assumptions— again. Like always. Worst of all, by asking about his feelings back then, she may very well be jeopardizing any budding feelings he was having right now. The first date in a decade was hardly the time to do one of these Determine the Relationship talks. Idiot!
She’d have to fix it. Fast.
“But...” she backpedaled, her mind racing as her fear resurged and seized dominance of her soul. “But if you just weren’t into me, and I misread everything wildly— as I always do; it’s my nature— just forget I said anything.” The babbling went on, and she wished now that she’d wished for an off-setting for her idiotic spigot.
Tag shook himself. “Wait. You’re calling this date incredible?” He gulped visibly. “This date and our first one?”
“Of course,” Juliet breathed— and in an instant, a star twinkled inside her, and her wish was granted. “I’m with you, aren’t I?”
Tag loosed his embrace of her and stepped back. He paced in a broad circle around a half dozen pillars, rubbing his palm up and down his cheek. Then he stopped, right in front of Juliet.
“I thought you hated that date. Just like tonight has been a complete disaster from start to finish. To be completely honest, I can’t even believe you’re still here. Why haven’t you called a cab yet?”
Juliet stared at him, almost exasperated. “Don’t you know anything about human nature?”
Tag blinked in the night. “Apparently not.” He waited for her to go on.
“Tag. Life isn’t about doing things perfectly. It’s about experiencing stuff. Together. The good times are fine. They’re great. But the bad times all go into the mixer of experience and memory, and it polishes them up, like a rock tumbler. They become beautiful.” She wasn’t sure this analogy was working, but she didn’t stop. “When we stop and look back at them, even the bad times are good memories— because of what we learned, or because of who we experienced them with.”
Tag squinted. “You’re saying I’m not just one big, bad memory to you?”
Juliet punched his shoulder and gave him a smile. “Well, maybe only the snowplow...”
“For the record, that thing with the snowplow was not my fault.” He stood a foot away from her, slowly shaking his head.
Then his face went serious again. “Going back to your question, I guess I should ask why you said don’t call me again for ten years.”
Juliet clutched her heart, right over where he’d shot her. She had to grip the cold iron post to keep herself vertical.
“But Tag— it was figurative. I thought my crush on you was blazingly obvious from the time you were a Boy Scout and I was a nerdy girl with a crush.”
Tag’s mouth twitched. He blinked at her about a dozen times. “Hey, I was a kid. With a return crush, and cement mixer for brains. Deadly combo. I took you literally.”
Now Juliet’s soul was a cement mixer— all this information churning around and around in a thick slurry. Tag had a return crush? On her? And he only did what she had asked?
He stepped toward her, and she extended her hands. He took both of them in both of his. “If you check your calendar, tonight is ten years to the very day from that date. I’ve been marking time, waiting for tonight.”
Juliet’s mouth desiccated— because her whole insides had gone up in flames.
But he rubbed his hand up and down on his cheek again. He looked really manly when he was frustrated. “Now, tonight’s experience is battling hard for first place in the tournament of worst dates of all time. I’m sorry. Really sorry, Juje. I meant for this to be perfect. Like you.”
“Perfect! Not me.”
“To me you are. Kind heart, good to your family, strong dose of integrity.”
He went on, and the list didn’t sound at all like he could be describing her. No. “It sounds more like your dossier to me.”
Suddenly, she was eleven again. Trustworthy, loyal, brave, thrifty, clean, reverent, et cetera. Tag was reciting his memorized list of Boy Scout traits and giving her an electric high five. But now, here before her, stood successful businessman Tag. Caring for his family in their time of struggle. Keeping his word. Giving her a thoughtful gift. Stealing a kimono for her when she fell in tar. Now that’s a Scout trait she could write in.
Wide-shouldered, handsome, James Bond but better. Taggart McClintock.
The pride and worry and hesitation drained out of her. She fell into his arms. “I don’t know if this will make you feel any better, but all these ten years my heart was pacing back and forth, a tiger in a cage, wondering why you’d dropped me— when we were so obviously right for each other.”
He looked down into her eyes. “I know, right?”
“Right?”
And then they were kissing. A lot, and he was lifting her up in his arms and carrying her while their mouths never lost contact. “It’s time to take you home, Juliet.”
She kissed him some more, and then on a trip up for air, she said, “No.”
“No?” He kept kissing her, stumbled a bit but righted himself as they passed the big tar lake and their nemesis chipmunk. “It’s so late, though.”
She pressed her mouth to his cheek, undid the top button of his dress shirt so she could kiss that muscle on the side of his neck. He groaned a little as she said, “I don’t want this night to end.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can call you again until next Christmas.” They’d arrived at his car, and he held the door open for her.
Juliet staggered backward. “What?” What was all this for, then? Her face must have contorted, because he lifted a finger and tweaked her nose.
“Hey, Juje. Remember, next Christmas is only—” he checked his watch, “—about thirty-six hours away.”
And he kissed her before she could tell him off, while the cable of the grappling hook that attached Juliet’s heart to him got fifty ply stronger.
“Thirty-six hours it is,” she said into his ear with her husky voice. “Unless I can’t wait and need you to call sooner.”
“Deal.”
Epilogue
Hot peppermint cocoa left a foam mustache on Juliet’s upper lip. Tag, who clearly couldn’t help himself, leaned in and licked it off. Then he sat back against the sofa and hit play on his phone’s music app.
“Oh, no. Not ‘First Christmas Date.’ Bad juju there.” She waved it away.
“Not for me, it’s not.” Tag nuzzled her hair and patted her rounding belly. “Without it, I might not be here with my baby, and my baby.”
“But I thought you hated that song.” Surely it brought back bad memories of when Tag punched a famous singer, got hauled into court for assault, pled his case— to which the judge merely said, Not guilty on grounds of defending the sanctity of womanhood. But the ordeal of standing trial still had to sting.
“Nah. It just reminds me of that night.”
“Our second first date? I can’t believe it’s been two years. Two Christmases. Wow.” They could mark their lives by Christmases. Their first date, their second first date, their wedding, and now, their baby. He kicked just then, giving her a reminder that he was nearly making his appearance. Being pregnant, with a boy, at Christmas— there was very little in this world that could be more special. “What do you remember most?”
“This.” Tag tasted more cocoa off her lip.
“Kissing? I mean, it was pretty fantastic, but—”
“No. This. Us. Together. At Christmas with our own family and future and everything.”
“What does it have to do with that night?” Well, other than the obvious, if they hadn’t gone on a date, they wouldn’t have ended up here. And then she remembered. “You didn’t ask the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come... for this.”
Tag got a sly smile. “I most ce
rtainly did.” He encircled her with the strength of his arms and hummed the tune of “First Christmas Date” into her ear ’til she could feel it in her toes. “Merry Christmas, baby.”
Click on the covers to visit Jennifer’s Amazon Author Page
Jennifer Griffith and her husband live in Arizona, where they are raising their five kids in the desert where there’s never a white Christmas. Sad, right? Because she loves Christmas— even got married at Christmas and had a baby on Christmas Day. But her trusty old SUV also never needs snow tires, so there’s a trade-off.
Jennifer loves writing romantic comedy, which she calls cotton candy for the soul. She is the best-selling author of, among others, Chocolate and Conversation, The Lost Art, Pandora (from the Goddesses and Geeks series), and Big in Japan, the story of a blond Texan who goes to Japan and accidentally becomes a sumo wrestler, which has been optioned for film.
Visit Jennifer on-line:
Website: AuthorJenniferGriffith.com
Facebook: Jennifer Griffith
Twitter: @GriffithJen
Dear Timeless Romance Anthology Reader,
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