That First Christmas

by Lily Graison

  When her pulse returned to normal, Meredith raised her head to look at him. His eyes were closed but a tiny, satisfied smile curved his lips. Sweat glistened on his brow, his hair rumpled from her hands and she wanted to remember the look on his face. A look that was put there because of her.

  When she left the mountain, all she would have of Travis would be her memories. She wasn’t naive enough to think he’d leave for her. For whatever reason, he loved this mountain more than her.

  Chapter Nine

  Travis brushed the curled wood shavings away with his hand, leaning back to gage his progress. He smiled while taking in the small details of the wood sculpture he was painstakingly carving for Meredith.

  He still wasn’t sure she would like it. It wasn’t much of a gift anyway. Not compared to what she would undoubtedly get if she were at home but, he couldn’t let Christmas morning come for her with nothing to show for it. She’d have a gift. It wasn’t expensive and it wouldn’t be wrapped in shiny paper with bows but he’d be damned if she would be completely disappointed.

  Picking the knife up again, he whittled away at the wood, shaping it with care. He’d spent precious time on this thing already, letting the chair he’d been making go for the time being. He shook his head. When was the last time he did anything but work on his furniture? He couldn’t even remember. The time away from actual work was worth it though. He wanted her to have something to remember him by.

  He sighed, laying the knife down. That one thought had plagued him for days now. Ever since she’d tried to talk to him about leaving. He hadn’t wanted to hear it then and he still didn’t. He was quite happy living with the delusion she was here to stay. That she wouldn’t leave him when the roads cleared. Lord knew he didn’t want her to and that thought terrified him. He knew the minute she walked out of his life, he would wish he’d begged her to stay.

  But he knew she wouldn’t. She had a life of her own. She had school, a family.

  You could always go with her. He snorted at the thought. Wouldn’t her father love seeing him again? Showing up with his daughter ready to play house?

  Travis shook his head. He couldn’t go with her. Even if her father wasn’t Willis Gunter, he couldn’t leave the mountain. Wouldn’t leave. He didn’t belong…down there. Not after…

  Shaking off the thoughts, Travis picked the knife back up, glancing over at the clock. He didn’t have much time. He had to finish this tonight.

  * * * *

  “Most embarrassing moment?”

  Meredith laughed and ducked her head. “Oh lord. I am so not telling you that.”

  “Come on,” Travis said. “You promised.”

  She groaned, biting the side of his arm playfully before looking back at the fire. “Fine,” she said. “It was in high school at the first varsity home game of the season. I had just made the cheerleading team and all the other girls had huge breasts and mine…weren’t. My friend, Emily, talked me into stuffing my bra. It looked real but three short jumps later, on a crowed football field, my padding feel out.”

  His laughter caused her flushed cheeks to burn hotter. She smiled, shaking her head before joining the laughter. “I can’t believe that story still embarrasses me.”

  “I can’t believe you ever had to pad your bra,” he said, reaching up and cupping her breast. “These things didn’t grow over night.”

  “I had a weird growth spurt.”

  “All for the good,” he said, leaning down and kissing her shoulder.

  Meredith sighed, tilting her head when his kisses trailed across her shoulder and down her neck. She stared into the fire, a tiny pleased smile on her face.

  It was Christmas Eve and there wasn’t a twinkling light in sight, other than the fire. There weren’t any carols being sung, no packages or sweets. There wasn’t anything but Travis, his warm naked body flush against her own, their small tree with handmade ornaments and a tiny cabin on the top of a mountain.

  It was the best Christmas she could ever remember.

  “What time is it,” he asked, whispering into her ear.

  She looked at the mantle, squinting to see the clock hands in the low light. “A little after midnight.”

  “Perfect.”

  She turned her head to look over her shoulder when he moved away from her. He leaned over, dug under the sofa for something and smiled at her when he handed her a crudely wrapped package.

  The box was small. It fit perfectly in her palm and was wrapped in newspaper. “What’s this?”

  “A present.”

  Meredith frowned at him. “A present?”

  He nodded. “Open it.”

  “I don’t have anything for you.”

  “I already have every thing I want for Christmas,” he said, wrapping his arms back around her.

  Meredith stared at him, leaning back and giving him a small kiss before she tore the newspaper off the box and opened it, lifting out the small wooden sculpture inside. It was a small deer, laying down with its head tucked into its chest. The wood was smooth and pale in color. It still smelled of fresh forest.

  She looked over her shoulder at him. “Did you do this?”

  He smiled, nodding his head at her. She could tell by the look on his face he wasn’t sure she’d like it but she’d never had a finer gift. “Oh Travis, I love it.”

  Rolling over, she wrapped her arms around him. “And I love you,” she said, tears clouding her eyes.

  * * * *

  Meredith dressed quickly; pilling layers of Travis’ clothes on over her own to hold in what little body heat she had left.

  They’d fallen asleep in front of the fire the night before, both waking to a fireplace filled with nothing but ash. The fire had gone out and they both woke stiff and frozen.

  Travis had dressed and gone out, bringing in an armload of firewood and dumping it into the bin before heading back out. The logs were snow covered and would probably take forever to burn. She couldn’t really blame him for their lack of warmth though. She did refuse to let him go the night before.

  She grinned at the thought and reached down, grabbing her boot off the floor by the bed. Seeing a stack of browned newspapers under the edge of the bed, she grabbed them, and her boot, and walked to the fireplace.

  Sitting down, she slipped on the boot and pulled her coat closer around her body. She snuggled in, waiting for the warmth she knew was coming to reach her. Rolling a page of the old newspaper up and lighting it, she held it to the logs and prayed it would light.

  It took longer than she would have liked, but the fire slowly grew, warming her cheeks. She watched it burn, adding another page of the newspaper to make it blaze.

  The night before was still fresh in her mind. She still couldn’t believe she’d told him she loved him. Her little revelation came without much thought. His gift had surprised her. It wasn’t expensive like the gifts her father lavished her with but it was the best gift she’d ever been given.

  She reached out, picking the tiny wooden deer from its resting place and smiled down at it. She could see a few knife strokes in it and rubbed her fingers over the tiny ears of the deer. He’d made this for her and she wanted to cry looking at it. He hadn’t told her he loved her in return but holding that little hand carved deer said it more loudly than words did. He did care about her. Was it love? She didn’t have the answer to that but she held the proof of his feelings in her hands. He cared about her. Why else would he spend so much time on it?

  Travis walked back in, a gust of cold wind following him through the door. He dropped another armload of logs into the bin, leaned down to kiss the top of her head and made his way to the kitchen.

  “What do you want for breakfast?”

  “It doesn’t matter as long as it’s hot,” she said, tucking the tiny deer in her coat pocket.

  “Boiled water coming up.”

  She grinned at his lame attempt at a joke and grabbed the newspapers on her lap, lifting them and setting them aside. Her eye caught one o
f the captions when she turned her head.

  Looking back, she tilted her head, reading the heading: “Gregory Found Innocent in Protest”

  Meredith frowned and picked the paper back up, sitting it on her lap. She scanned the article and felt her heart skip a beat when she saw Travis’ name listed. It nearly stopped when she saw her father’s.

  Travis Gregory found innocent of all charges.

  Gregory was accused of orchestrating a violent protest against Willis Gunter that resulted in damage to personal property, lost business revenue and personal injury.

  Willis Gunter named him as leader of an outraged group of people who had worked in one of Gunter’s closed businesses. The unknown number of rioters protested at Gunter’s home and business on several occasions, but on the evening of August 14th, their protests became violent. Ten people were hurt and taken to the hospital.

  No other charges have been filed.

  Meredith blinked, staring at the page in shock. Protesters? At her home? She scanned her memory, her eyes widening a moment later. She remembered that. It was three days after her fifteenth birthday. She remembered her father locking her in her room while the lawn was covered with people screaming his name, the sound of sirens drowning out the angry protests of men and women she’d never seen before. Her father’s voice, his shouting echoing off the walls of their home while he screamed at someone she couldn’t see.

  Travis had been involved in this? No, he had been the cause of it, if she believed what the paper said. She turned her head, looking over her shoulder for him.

  She saw him instantly.

  He was standing by the sofa, the look on his face as he stared at her one she’d never seen before. He looked like a complete stranger in that moment. Neither of them spoke, or moved, for what seemed like hours.

  When the silence became stifling, Meredith took a deep breath, filling her lungs. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?” he said, his tone matter-of-factly.

  “Don’t play with me, Travis,” she said, harshly, lifting the papers in her hand. “I want to know what this is about.”

  “What do you want to know, Meredith? You just read it all, didn’t you?”

  “Is it true?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters!” she yelled. She took a calming breath, laying the paper aside and standing up.

  He sighed heavily, his shoulders dropping as he looked at her. “Fine, then. It’s all true.”

  She gaped at him, staring at a man she thought she knew. “All of it?”

  “What do you want me to say, Meredith?” he asked, his face reddening. “That I intentionally roused an entire town to show your father what a callous ass he really was. That I led them in droves to his home, to his business, for no other reason than to show him that his decisions affected real people?”

  “It affected him too. You have no idea what that did to him. I remember. I was there!”

  A look of anguish washed over his face but it was replaced by bitterness in the next second. “I won’t apologize for what happened,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to witness it but, I’ll never be sorry it happened. He destroyed them, Meredith. He took everything they had and didn’t give a rat’s ass about it. He took every thing they had and left them with nothing.”

  Meredith shook her head, confused. “What are you talking about, Travis.”

  He laughed bitterly. “You think you know your father but you don’t. He’s nothing but a money hungry asshole who thinks of nothing except how to make his next dollar.”

  “That’s not true,” she said, angrily.

  “Oh, it’s not?” he asked. “Then why else would he close down a plant with over four hundred employees on a whim and move it overseas just to save him a buck? That town was devastated, Meredith. There wasn’t a person living there that didn’t work in that plant or have a family member who did. They all showed up to work on a Wednesday morning and two hours later were all out of a job. He turned Mills Creek into a ghost town over night when he closed those doors. They lost their homes, their cars, everything they owned. The businesses closed and there wasn’t anything left. A town full of homeless people with no way to feed themselves.”

  Meredith felt tears in her eyes and blinked them away. She wasn’t sure what hurt more. Travis’ story, his sudden bitterness, or the feeling of betrayal. She licked her dry lips and said, “Where do you fit into this story?”

  “I worked there, too,” he said with a shrug of his shoulder. “I started right out of high school and spent the next five years saving every penny I had. Lucky thing, that. I would have been in the same boat as the rest of them if I hadn’t.

  When the plant closed, I was furious, just like everyone else. I didn’t have a family to feed or a mortgage to pay but I had dreams, and he took those away in a blink of an eye,” he said, sighing. “It wasn’t hard to convince them to let Willis know what we thought. I never expected it to get so out of hand though. I never wanted anyone to get hurt but, he got the message. Your father knew what he’d done affected real people. We let him see them. We showed up at his door, looked him in the face, and told him exactly what we thought of him.”

  Meredith watched him turn and walk back to the kitchen and turn off the stove. He stood there, staring down at their breakfast. “I was young,” he said, quietly. “With more balls than brains. I let my anger dictate my actions and a lot of people were hurt. People I knew…friends. They were hurt in what was supposed to be a civil demonstration. I threw the first punch and it set off a chain reaction,” he said, sadly. “There were women there. They didn’t escape the fight.”

  His voice trembled then and Meredith swallowed the lump in her throat. She was horrified at the imagery.

  “After your father had me arrested and slapped with every charge he could think of, I was locked up. I had a lot of time to think about what I did. I thought I was helping them but I only hurt them more. All the trouble I caused and they weren’t any better off.

  When I was released, I was left to wander town like every one else was. It didn’t take long to realize I was still too bitter about it all to look those people in the face, especially the ones who’d been hurt. They blamed me for it. All of them. I couldn’t really blame them but I didn’t act alone.”

  He turned then and faced her. “This cabin belonged to my grandfather. After the courts found me innocent, I packed up what little I had and made my way up here. I don’t go to town unless I have to.”

  “And me,” she asked, suddenly feeling sick. “Was I part of your plan?”

  His eyes widened. “No. Why would you think that?”

  “You still hate him. My father,” she said. “I can see it in your face.”

  “Yeah, I do. So?”

  “So, am I part of your revenge? What better way to get back at him than bedding his only daughter.”

  “Don’t you dare,” he said, crossing the room with a wide stride. “What we have has nothing to do with him.”

  “And what do we have, Travis. A mutual desire to get the other naked? A few weeks of small talk and dirty bed play?” she asked, hurt and angry. “You used me. I saw the look on your face when I first told you my name. You could have told me then but you didn’t. It was easier to get back at him if I were clueless about it, right? Just admit it! You used me to get back at him!”

  Travis knew nothing he said would convince her of how wrong she was. He wanted to remind her that it was her who initiated their little affair but thought better of it. He listened to her vent, scream at him how wonderful her father was and how he would never purposely hurt another person. She had the man on a pedestal and nothing would knock him off. Especially not him.

  By the time she was through yelling at him, her voice was hoarse, tears streaked down her face and she looked as young as she was. He was a fool for thinking anything could come of this. Did he honestly think they’d live happily ever after? That she would love him no matter
what?

  She said she loved you.

  He stared at her, the words she’d spoken the night before floating across his memory. She’d told him she loved him. Had held him to her and whispered the words across his skin as he made love to her. He’d poured himself into every kiss, every stroke of his hand against her flesh, and the words he wanted to say were silenced by fear. He showed her what he was too afraid to say aloud. He loved her. Loved her to the point it made his heart ache.

  Especially now. Each tear she shed ripped his heart in two. Each word shouted in disdain at him ripped at his soul. When she turned and ran out the door, he stared at the spot she’d been standing.

  He was a fool. He’d caused too much heartache for too many people to ever expect anything good to come in his life. His happiness would always be tainted. How could he expect someone to love him when he loathed himself so much? No matter what he’d said, he was sorry. He was sorry because his actions cost him more than his dreams. It cost him the only girl he’d ever loved.

  Chapter Ten

  Meredith stared out the window, clutching a tiny, wood carved deer to her chest. The snow had been falling all day and the sight of it brought back memories she knew would haunt her all her days. There was a cold draft blowing through the sill but she barely felt it. She didn’t feel much of anything anymore. She felt frozen. Numb.

  The disastrous parting with Travis left a hole in her heart she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to fill. He’d taken her down the mountain the day of their fight, his truck slipping on the slick roads and scaring her to the point she wanted to turn back. She never asked him to, though. She had demanded for him to take her, weather be damned. He never said a word, just walked to his truck, spent over twenty minutes clearing off the snow and ice and started it. When he got in, he sat there waiting for her.