'Tis the Season

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “How did everyone find out so fast? Estelle Terwiliger said you got the phone call this afternoon.”

  “And Doris McGillicuddy happened to be here dropping off a jar of her peach jam. I took the call in another room, but she’s a champion eavesdropper. When she asked about it, I couldn’t lie to her after she’d brought me a jar of my favorite jam. She feeds all her information to Estelle.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter. I wouldn’t have kept the secret long, anyway, even without Doris.”

  “I’m beginning to understand that.”

  His cell, which he’d left in the kitchen, rang again. “Come on, let’s get out of here or we’ll never get your tree sawed up. They can leave a message. The sun is setting and we’re losing daylight.”

  “Okay.” Ignoring a phone call wasn’t easy for her, but apparently he had no problem with it. She walked out the front door he opened for her.

  As she drove ahead of his truck down the lane to her house, she remembered the harmonica music she’d enjoyed all summer. A warm feeling enfolded her at the thought that Sam might be her unseen musician. She wondered whether or not to ask him about it.

  She parked her car on the edge of the driveway to allow him access with the truck. Now that the task was at hand, she considered what to do with the wood after it was cut. Etiquette probably dictated that she offer it to him, although she mustn’t imply that the wood was payment of any kind. She hadn’t realized that she’d have to be so careful of country neighbor sensibilities.

  They had barely enough sunlight to finish the job. She stood by while Sam adjusted his goggles and put in earplugs. Then, with a wrench of his arm, he started the chainsaw buzzing. While she leaned against the front bumper of his truck and watched, he sliced the large trunk into several manageable pieces.

  She’d rarely watched a man perform a job as macho as wielding a chainsaw. Although she’d never allowed herself to equate physical strength with masculinity, she kept glancing at Sam’s flexing muscles. When he turned the motor off, she surprised herself by asking him to dinner. Usually she wasn’t the one to take the initiative.

  “I’d love to,” he said, pushing the goggles to the top of his head.

  “Good. And would you…would you bring along your harmonica?” It seemed that one risk led to another.

  He looked startled. “How did you—”

  “I can hear you,” she said, glad she’d guessed correctly. “You’ve been my evening entertainment all summer.”

  He reddened and his pale blue eyes were bright with embarrassment. “I find that hard to believe. You said you liked peace and quiet.”

  “It’s been lovely. You have no idea how your playing has added to the atmosphere. After you were finished, I always felt so relaxed, and I thought someday I should find out who has given me such pleasure and thank them. Now I can.”

  He still looked uncomfortable. “I had no idea someone could hear me.”

  “Will you bring it?”

  “I’ve never played for anyone before.”

  “Of course you have. You’ve been playing for me all summer. You just didn’t realize it. Please. After all you’ve done, removing this tree for me, I have no right to ask more of you, but I’ve missed my concerts recently, and I’d love to hear you play right on my own back porch.”

  He looked doubtful. “It probably won’t sound as good up close.”

  “I’ll take my chances. Please.” She smiled. “As a neighborly gesture.”

  Sam laughed and shook his head. “Catch on quick, don’t you? Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. You’ll probably send me and my harmonica packing in no time.”

  Anna glanced into his eyes and felt a familiar tug. He really appealed to her. “Not likely.”

  “I’ll stack your wood before I go home and clean up,” he said. “Where would you like it?”

  “I thought maybe you’d want it, for your fireplace.”

  He looked at the chimney protruding from her shingled roof. “Don’t you burn wood in yours?”

  “Yes, I plan to, but —”

  “Then I’ll split this for you tomorrow or the next day. Where’s your woodpile?”

  “There are a few logs around back.” She gave up on evening the score. “And thank you.”

  “No problem.” He tossed the first hunk of tree trunk into the back of his truck as if it were a feather pillow.

  She watched him load the big pieces and then helped with the smaller ones, despite his worry that she’d scratch her hands. Working beside him and sharing the task added to the growing attraction she felt.

  “I’ll drive around and unload this if you have stuff to do for dinner.”

  She thought quickly. The chicken would take close to an hour, and he was probably starving after all the outdoor exercise. “Good idea,” she replied. “Come on over whenever you’re ready, and don’t forget the harmonica, okay?”

  He chuckled and swung into the cab of the truck. “If you say so.”

  What a sexy country man, she thought as he drove around to the back of the house and she headed inside to start the chicken. Their interaction contrasted so sharply with her city life that she felt like a different person. She had the urge to play the sweet country girl and shed the sophistication that ten years in the city had given her.

  From the kitchen window she watched him unloading the wood in the thickening twilight. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d anticipated an evening with such pleasure. In the past year of living with Eric, the constant fights had spoiled their shared time together.

  The inevitable parting last spring had been a relief, although after he’d left, the apartment had echoed with his remembered presence. She would have moved except that the location was convenient for work and good housing was difficult to find in New York. Instead she’d bought this house and had gladly fled to the country each weekend to escape the memories.

  When Sam finished unloading the wood, he glanced up at the lighted kitchen window and waved. She waved back. Then he hopped into his truck and headed down the driveway toward the lane.

  Once the chicken had been herbed, spiced and popped into the oven, Anna took a quick shower herself, but her only available clothes were the sweat suits she’d brought for the weekend. It didn’t matter. This was her country idyll. She put on a pale lavender sweat suit that was slightly newer than the canary-yellow one, applied some fresh makeup and brushed her hair.

  Back downstairs she glanced at the square dining table, a secondhand purchase hastily made, and felt a twinge of professional shame. She’d made no effort to decorate this house, although her New York friends assumed she used her weekends to create a showplace, one that she would unveil with a flourish when it was done. She couldn’t admit to them, and barely to herself, how little interior design interested her these days. Her job, once a joy, had become a way to pay the bills.

  She’d found a rebellious pleasure in not decorating her country house, but now a guest was coming to dinner, and she wished that she’d at least bought a tablecloth and a couple of candlesticks. Finally she ran back upstairs for a flowered sheet and a long piece of ribbon. She tied the sheet in flounces around the perimeter of the table and made a centerpiece with a wooden bowl of McIntosh apples and green grapes. Remembering the white utility candles she kept in case the electricity went out, she hollowed out two apples and used them as candleholders.

  When she stood back to gauge the effect, she felt a satisfaction that had been absent from her work for months, and all she’d done was sling a sheet over a table and pile some apples in a bowl. Eric would probably have laughed at her homemade efforts, but Eric wasn’t here. She didn’t have to worry about his comments, and Sam didn’t seem like the kind to judge.

  He arrived at the back door soon after she’d completed the table setting. His hair was still slightly damp from the shower, and he smelled of shampoo and soap. When he took off his light jacket and hung it on a peg next to hers, she discovered that, like her, he’d ch
anged color but not kind of clothes. His plaid shirt was blue instead of red, and his jeans looked slightly newer than the ones he’d worn to cut wood. Otherwise he was the same sexy country man who had chopped up her tree. His harmonica made a narrow bulge in the breast pocket of his shirt.

  He’d also brought a bottle of wine. “I took a chance,” he said, handing it to her, “on what you were serving and if you even like wine.”

  She held up the Chardonnay. “I’m serving chicken and this is perfect.”

  “Good.” He glanced past her into the dining room and gave a low whistle of approval. “Did you do all this since I left?”

  “Well, yes. You’re my first guest, and I had fun making a table setting out of odds and ends.”

  “I’m impressed.” He glanced at her speculatively. “Exactly what do you do in the city?”

  “Considering how the house looks,” she said, “I’m ashamed to tell you. It’s a case of the cobbler’s children going barefoot, I guess.”

  “You’re some sort of professional decorator, aren’t you?”

  “Afraid so. But this summer I just wanted to relax, so I haven’t tackled anything in here yet.”

  “Hey, I understand.” He leaned against the kitchen counter and gazed at her. “And considering that this is your vacation spot, I have no business thinking what I’m thinking.”

  “That’s a leading statement. You might as well come out with the whole thing.”

  He sighed. “Okay, but feel free to tell me to jump in the lake.”

  “All right.” She folded her arms and waited.

  “Well, the television network expects my farmhouse to look like something out of a magazine, and you’ve seen firsthand that it doesn’t. Estelle and some of the women in town have offered to decorate the house for Christmas, but the idea makes me nervous. Can you imagine five or six little old ladies running in and out, draping things here and there like fairy godmothers?” He glanced at her in pathetic appeal.

  Anna laughed, picturing Estelle directing traffic in the middle of Sam’s parlor. “So you’d like me to make a few decorating suggestions? I can do that.” Fair was fair, she had to admit, and neighborliness worked both ways.

  “More than a few suggestions. I’d like you to do the whole house, top to bottom.”

  So much for her country idyll. So much for evenings before the fire with her newfound friend, listening to harmonica music. This country man had a business to run, and he wanted her help. He wanted to draw her into the madness he’d created by winning the darned Christmas tree contest. “Sam, you’ve been terrific about clearing the driveway, and I hate to turn down your first request for a favor, but I don’t think—”

  “This doesn’t qualify as a favor. The job’s too big. I’ll pay you. I don’t have thousands to spend, but this television special, obnoxious as it may turn out to be, will do wonders for business. Now that I’m in up to my neck, I’d be a fool to skimp on the decorating.”

  She could use some extra money, especially with all the added expenses of the farmhouse, but still she hesitated. At last she decided to be honest. “I don’t know how inspired a job I could do for you. Lately the thrill has gone out of interior design for me. If I could afford it, I might even quit and hide away in this farmhouse.”

  “Yeah, I know that feeling. Well, never mind. It was just a thought.”

  She’d been right to turn him down, she told herself. Quite right. Still, she had trouble dealing with the disappointment in his expression. “Just—um—just what exactly do you need?”

  “The television people keep talking about a Norman Rockwell look,” he said, brightening at her question.

  In spite of herself, Anna began to imagine changes in his parlor. The sofa wasn’t bad, although she’d probably recover it, but the armchairs would have to go. The loom, of course, was a perfect detail and should be pulled out, featured somehow. The loom.

  “Anna, I feel rotten for asking you, but I wouldn’t know the first thing about finding another decorator. The job shouldn’t take very long, and I’m not picky. I’ll also help in any way that —”

  “I’ll accept the job on one condition,” she said, and felt her world expanding, flashing with new color.

  “Anything.”

  “That in exchange I can weave on your grandmother’s loom.”

  Two

  Sam was enchanted with the suggestion. “You’ve got a deal,” he said quickly, watching the transformation in her eyes from guarded reluctance to enthusiastic anticipation. Her agreement to help with the decorating changed his view of the television special. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

  “I’d like to move the loom over here, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Of course.” If he’d had some idea that she’d camp in his living room, he’d have to give that up, but it didn’t matter. The decorating task would bring them together.

  “We’ll have to move the loom back in for the filming of the special, though. A loom with a work in progress would be a terrific addition to the parlor.”

  “I guess you’re right, but what do I know?”

  “You don’t have to know a great deal.” She gave him a teasing glance. “Because I do.”

  “Evidently.” He gestured toward the candlelit table in the dining room. “I feel as if I’m in some fancy restaurant.”

  “That’s because the service is so slow.” She laughed. “I’m starving, which means you must be about to faint away from hunger with all the work you did. Let’s eat.”

  “I’m ready. Need any help?”

  “Just carrying a few things in. Right now you can open the wine. The corkscrew’s in the far left end drawer.” She turned away to open the oven door. Warmth and the aroma of roast chicken filled the kitchen. “Just rummage around.”

  Finding the corkscrew was easy – he was right at home in this room. He was glad Anna hadn’t whirled in here and turned Mrs. McCormick’s cozy kitchen into some high-tech wonder. The pine cupboards were still painted antique white, her blue gingham curtains still hung in the window over the sink, and the refrigerator and enameled stove were the same, too.

  He used his pocket knife to peel the covering from the neck of the bottle. “This kitchen sure brings back memories.” He inserted the curved metal tip of the corkscrew into the cork. “When I was a kid, the lady who lived here used to bake me gingerbread men.”

  “You grew up in Sumersbury?”

  “No.” He thought how wonderful she looked with her cheeks flushed from the heat of the stove. “Just came to my grandparents’ house for vacations.”

  “Then the house you’re living in belonged to your grandparents?”

  “For nearly fifty years.”

  “Wow. I’m glad you told me. If anything in that house holds sacred memories for you, I’d better know about it before I start the redesigning project.”

  “I don’t know about sacred, but I’m pretty attached to the stuff there, I guess.” He glanced at her, wondering how much to trust her. “I had a helter-skelter childhood, and the farm and my grandparents were a sort of unchanging center. They became very important to me.”

  Anna stopped spooning the sauce over the chicken and gave him her full attention, as if she expected him to elaborate. Had she continued working, he wouldn’t have, but her respectful pause told him she sincerely wanted to know more about him.

  “My parents divorced when I was five,” he said, “and Mom remarried three times. We moved around.”

  She nodded, seeming to understand without more explanation. “And your father?” she asked gently.

  “He disappeared from the scene. I used to hate him for it, but not anymore. My grandmother said he wasn’t strong enough to be a part-time father. He wanted all or nothing, so he took nothing. She forgave him for it, and so gradually I did, too.”

  Anna was silent for a moment. “We’ll have to go through that house item by item,” she said finally. “You may not even realize the impact of changing something
so packed with emotion, but everyone’s surroundings are filled with significance. And yours especially so.”

  He smiled, feeling a little self-conscious. “Hey, let’s not get maudlin. There’s plenty of just plain junk over there, too. Besides, I’m not a frightened little boy anymore.”

  She smiled, too. “Except when it comes to little old ladies from the craft guild.”

  He laughed at the truth of her statement. “You’re right. They scare the hell out of me, and I suppose it’s because they might trample right over my grandmother and grandfather’s stuff.” He gazed at Anna. “You must be very good at what you do, even if you are tired of doing it.”

  She shrugged off his praise. “I’ve been criticized a few times by the store manager because I supported a client’s decision to keep what she already owned instead of buying new furniture. That doesn’t move inventory.”

  “No, but it demonstrates character on your part. Is that why you’re ready to give up on your job, because your boss wants you to sell more furniture?”

  “No, at least I don’t think so. I can handle that.” She gazed at him. “I’m not excited about decorating anymore. A client tells me what a wonderful job I’ve done, and I don’t believe her.”

  “Maybe you need some new directions in your life.”

  “Maybe I do.” The color in her cheeks heightened.

  He glanced at the bottle in his hand. “And if I’d ever finish my job, we could drink a toast to that.”

  “And eat the meal I’ve promised you,” she added, smiling.

  “I say we get on with it.” He pulled the cork from the bottle, and the soft pop seemed to herald the beginning of something special. Looking at Anna, her hair creating a celebration of its own as it cascaded down her back and curled around her flushed face, Sam figured that something special had already begun.

  During the meal, Anna described her family, all of whom lived in Indiana. Her older brother had a wife and three children, and her mother and father would soon celebrate their thirty-fifth anniversary.