by Shirley Jump
Jenna sighed and finished dusting. There was no arguing with her aunt when it came to her superstitions. Most days, they were just a funny quirk, but every once in a while, they drove Jenna crazy.
“You know the rules about first footers, don’t you?” Aunt Mabel asked when Jenna finished the bookcase.
“Uh, no, not particularly. And really, I think—”
“In order to have good luck for the year, the first footer must be a man. Preferably a dark-haired man.” Aunt Mabel grinned. “And he can’t be cross-eyed or flat-footed. Both of those are bad signs.”
Jenna laughed. “Well, I think you just crossed poor Earl off your list. That man’s got the flattest feet in Indiana.”
Aunt Mabel gave her niece a gentle swat. “Earl is not coming to visit today. At least,” she put a finger to her lips, “I don’t think he is.”
“How do you know anyone at all is coming by?”
“I dropped the tea towel this morning when I was making my coffee. It fell clear on the floor, right past my fingertips.” Aunt Mabel wagged a finger. “That, my dear, is a sure sign a visitor is on his or her way.”
Jenna shook her head, but didn’t argue the point. Aunt Mabel almost always had someone stopping by for tea, so the tea towel theory could apply to about any day of the week. “I have to run out for a little while. I have a meeting with Percival over at the shop.” She held up a hand. “I’m not making any promises, Aunt Mabel. I’m just going to check it out as a possible location.” If her memories of the little antiques store were right, though, the shop would make an excellent location for an event planning business, particularly one that focused on philanthropic events. It was long and narrow, with two wide plate glass windows at the front. Great visibility, and plenty of room for small tables and displays.
“I’m glad you decided to stay in Riverbend,” Aunt Mabel said.
“I am, too.” Jenna sighed.
Aunt Mabel reached for her niece, her voice and her touch gentle, filled with concern. “You’re thinking about Stockton, aren’t you?”
“I have to go,” she said, instead of dealing with a subject that would bring her nothing but heartbreak. She’d half expected him to come running after her when she’d left Eunice’s party last night, but no, he had let her go. Again. Her heart wrenched at the memory, but she told herself it was all for the best. What best she couldn’t quite see right now.
“If you’re going to live in this town, you’re going to see him,” Aunt Mabel said. “Maybe every day. So why don’t you just go talk to him this morning and see where the two of you stand?”
Jenna laughed. “If you had your way, Aunt Mabel, the preacher would be standing in the front parlor by the end of the day.”
Aunt Mabel arched a brow and grinned.
Jenna wagged a finger at her. “Don’t get any ideas.”
“Well, goodness gracious, somebody better get some ideas. Lord knows the two of you are moving slow as snails.”
Those words made her think of their time on the ice, the push-pull of their attraction as they circled the ice. And that kiss…
No matter what happened, she was never going to forget that kiss. Or the one on New Year’s Eve. Or any of the hundreds of times he’d touched her. That was going to be the hardest part about seeing Stockton from here on out—knowing what it was like to be with him, and knowing she never would again.
Stockton nearly tripped running up the stairs to Aunt Mabel’s house. Had Jenna said her flight was last night? Or this morning? Damn, his brain was a muddled mess. He leaned hard on the doorbell.
The front door opened, sending a gust of warm air out into the winter chill. “Well, well, if it isn’t Stockton Grisham.” Aunt Mabel smiled. “Young man, you are as foolish as a squirrel trying to cross the highway. Come on inside, before you catch your death of a cold.”
“I just want to know where Jenna is, Aunt Mabel.”
“Nope, you have to come in to do that. Because you, Stockton, are the first footer.” Aunt Mabel grinned and made a sweeping gesture of greeting. “The first guest to enter my house in the new year. And you are a man, and not flat-footed or cross-eyed.”
He crossed the threshold and shot the older woman a curious glance. “The what?”
“First footer. A lucky omen, if you ask me.” Aunt Mabel paused and tapped her chin. “Hmm…the only thing that would make this luckier would be if—”
“I brought a lump of coal with me?” Stockton held out his hand and dropped a shiny black rock into Aunt Mabel’s palm.
Jenna’s aunt beamed. “Exactly! A little coal to bring some warmth to the new year.” She patted his cheek, then kissed his face. “Thank you, Stockton.”
“Gee, Aunt Mabel, you wouldn’t have tried to set that up by leaving that rock on the steps, would you?”
She grinned again. “Of course not. Well, maybe I nudged Lady Luck…a little.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing, because I think I need some luck today.” He glanced into the house, up the stairs, down the hall to the kitchen. “I need to see Jenna. Is she here?”
“Oh, my, you just missed her. She’s—”
But Stockton was already gone, racing back down the stairs and climbing into his car. As he put it into gear and navigated the downtown streets of Riverbend, he dialed the number for the local travel agency, run by one of the women in his mother’s bible study. “Paula? It’s Stockton Grisham. Listen, I need a ticket to New York—”
He stepped on the brakes. The Jeep screeched in protest. Was that…?
“When do you want to leave?” Paula asked.
A grin curved up Stockton’s face. “I don’t think I need to. Thanks, Paula.” He tossed the phone to the side, parked the Jeep and climbed out. He crossed the street, ignoring the blare of someone’s horn, and stopped outside the dark and closed shop that used to house an antiques store. “Jenna. You’re still here. I thought you went to New York.”
She pivoted toward him, a key in her hand. “I changed my mind.”
His heart hammered in his chest. “Changed your mind?”
She held up the key and smiled. “It looks like Riverbend’s population is going to grow by one more.”
“You’re…you’re staying here?”
“I’m relocating my business here. And changing directions. From party planning to charitable events.” She glanced back at the storefront and peace filled her features. “That’s what I was missing all this time. A purpose to my work.”
“I think that’s the perfect combination for you.”
“Me, too.” Jenna’s gaze traveled over the rows of businesses that lined Main Street. One of Aunt Mabel’s neighbors came out of the corner bookstore. She raised a hand in greeting, and Jenna waved back. It was a small moment, the kind that happened every day in towns all across America, but it filled Jenna with a sense of belonging.
Something she hadn’t even known she wanted until she had it.
“When you plan a party,” she went on, “it’s all over once the decorations are down. I wanted something that had more lasting power. Something that…made a difference. And when Father Michael started talking about the fundraiser for the shelter, I realized that was exactly the kind of business I wanted.”
Stockton smiled, and her heart fluttered. “Good.”
“Good that I’m staying in town or good that I’m starting a charitable events business?”
“Both.” He took a step closer and the cold air that had hovered between them seemed to disappear.
As much as Jenna wanted to stay in this circle of her and Stockton forever, she realized she was torturing herself, standing here and talking to him, wishing he’d say something he was never going to say. “Well, I better get going. I have a meeting with Percival—”
“You’re always trying to escape, Jenna Pearson, and I’m always trying to catch you.” He reached out and put a hand on her arm. Even through the wool, she could feel the heat of his grip. “And I really want to catch you.”
Her heart trilled, her pulse skipped, but still she held back from hoping. She couldn’t let herself do that, and be let down again. Because she’d fallen for Stockton all over again, and fallen even harder the second time, because she knew what she had given up eight years ago and didn’t want to do it again.
He took a step closer. She caught the woodsy notes of his cologne. She could live to be a thousand and she’d never forget that scent. Everything about Stockton Grisham was implanted in her memory and she held her breath as she waited for him to speak again.
“I was coming after you, Jenna,” he said. “I should have done it last night, but instead I went back to the restaurant and worked. Doing exactly what you said I always do. Retreating into work, and avoiding relationships. It’s what my father did, and I was too stupid to realize what it cost him. Until I almost made the same mistake.”
Her breath was still caught in her chest, and her pulse thundered in her veins. “What…what mistake is that?”
“My father buried himself in his work. He used it as a way to distance himself from his family, his own son. He did it literally and figuratively by working as a traveling chef, until finally, my mother filed for divorce. And even when I saw him in Italy, I realized he wasn’t any happier there than he had been here. You know why?”
Jenna shook her head.
“Because he didn’t have this.” Stockton placed a hand on Jenna’s heart, then placed hers on his. She could feel the steady thump-thump of his heart beneath her palm. It was a comforting, steady sound. Something she could depend on, for a long time to come. “I let you get away once, Jenna, because I thought it was easier to stay uncommitted than to connect. You were right. I might be living here, but in my heart, I was still wandering, looking for something that I already had. You.”
Stockton’s words echoed in her head, and joy swelled inside her chest. His smile seemed to fill her, and she finally allowed hope to spring to life. “Really?”
He nodded. “Really and truly. I was on the phone, buying a ticket to New York, when I saw you outside the shop. I was going to find you, no matter where you were. I would have taken a spaceship, if necessary.”
She looked at his handsome face, and knew there was more than one reason she hadn’t gotten on that plane last night. “I stayed because…you were right. I have been afraid to change. Afraid to take a risk. Most of all, afraid to return to Riverbend.” She gestured toward the town that she had grown to care about in a way she never had before, because she had finally seen past the few negative people and into the heart of the town. “It was easier to run than to trust.”
“Trust that people would be there when you needed them.”
She nodded, and tears sprang to her eyes. This time, she let them come, let them fall. Let Stockton see inside her heart. “That’s what small towns are all about, aren’t they? Community. It was what I was searching for, and I didn’t even know I wanted or needed it, until I found it.” She shook her head. “All these months, I thought I was struggling in my business because I had lost my touch. For years, I had been too consumed with building the business to notice anything other than the bottom line. Then, after I hired Livia, I had more time. Time to think, look around me, and when I did, I felt unsettled. Like I had made a mistake. I kept thinking if I moved to another apartment, or I landed another corporate account, everything would start to feel right. But it never did. It took coming here for me to realize that was because I left my heart…” She paused a moment and caught Stockton’s deep blue gaze. “Right here.”
“If you had left, you would have taken my heart with you. Which would have been an awful shame.” He held her face in his hands, so gentle and sweet. “Because I love you, Jenna. I always have. I wish I’d been smart enough to tell you years ago.”
He loved her. Not the silly infatuation love they’d had when they’d been in high school. Not the love between two lifelong friends. But the kind of love people built lives on. Started families with. Bought a house and lived a life with. “Oh, Stockton, I love you, too.”
His smile lit his eyes. He reached up, whisked away her tears, and placed a gentle kiss on her cheek. “Ah, Jenna, you have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say you love me.”
“As long as I’ve waited to hear you say it back,” she whispered.
“Too long,” he said softly, then drew back and the smile widened. “Well, after all that, I guess there’s only one thing left to do.”
She cocked her head. “One thing?”
He dropped to one knee and fished a box out of his pocket. “Get married.” He thumbed back the lid of the box, revealing the diamond ring inside.
Jenna gasped, and the tears that had stopped began anew. “Is that…my mother’s ring?”
“Yes. And now, it’s yours, thanks to your aunt Mabel.” Stockton grinned. “Marry me, Jenna. Marry me because you love me. Marry me because you never want to say goodbye again. Marry me because—” he let out a sigh that touched the deepest places in her heart “—because I didn’t know what I was giving up when you walked out of my life eight years ago, and now that I do, I’m damned grateful to have a second chance to get it back.”
Marry him. Take that final step in trust and commitment, with Stockton Grisham. She could see it already—his hand in hers, the two of them standing at the end of the church aisle, promising to stay together forever. To settle down in this little town and build a life. And maybe someday, sit in a banquet hall surrounded by all their friends and family, celebrating decades together.
Her hand closed over the ring box, and with it, Stockton’s fingers. “I told myself today that I could live in Riverbend, open up a business here and be happy for the rest of my life, but…I was wrong.”
He swallowed hard. “Wrong?”
She nodded. The velvet of the box kissed against her fingertips, a waiting promise. “In my heart, I’m a small-town girl, after all. And a small-town girl can never be truly happy unless she marries the boy next door.”
He grinned. “I lived two blocks away from you.”
She drew him to her, and placed a soft, sweet kiss on his lips. “Close enough, Stockton Grisham. Close enough.”
He was still kissing her as he slid the ring onto her finger. It nestled against her skin, as if it was always meant to be there. The same way she and Stockton fit together, like two pieces of a puzzle.
There was a sound behind them, of a car door shutting. Jenna and Stockton broke apart, and turned at the same time. Aunt Mabel stood on the sidewalk, beaming at them. “She said yes?”
Stockton nodded. “Guess I’ll be calling you Aunt Mabel for real from here on out.”
“Well, my goodness, it’s about time. I was worried I’d be celebrating my hundredth birthday before you two got smart. So I came down here myself to make sure you did the right thing. And…goodness, you did.” She drew both of them to her in a hug that nearly took Jenna’s breath away. Then Aunt Mabel stepped back, and reached into the big front pocket of her long wool coat to withdraw a shiny U-shaped object. “To the new couple,” she said, holding out what Jenna now saw was a horseshoe. “And always be sure the tines are pointing up, to hold in all that good luck.”
Jenna’s gaze met Stockton’s. His blue eyes seemed to go on forever, like an ocean she would spend a lifetime exploring. “I don’t think we’re going to need the horseshoe, Aunt Mabel,” she said, slipping her hand into Stockton’s. He gave her fingers a squeeze, then wrapped his arm around her waist. “Because we’re already lucky enough.”
Stockton nodded. His fingers grazed over the diamond that promised a new beginning for both of them. “We found everything we wanted and needed, right here in Riverbend.”
Jenna rose on her toes and pressed a kiss to Stockton’s lips. “A new year, a new beginning—”
“For old loves who never forgot each other.”
Jenna curved into Stockton’s arms, and pressed her head to his chest. His heart beat steady, right in time with her
own. “And never will.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7946-3
MIDNIGHT KISS, NEW YEAR WISH
First North American Publication 2011
Copyright © 2011 by Shirley Kawa-Jump, LLC
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