by Webb, Peggy
Was it possible for a best friend to know when someone had stolen her heart?
The two sheep were docile enough. Hines followed along as Ben led them inside their makeshift stall. Then he pulled up a chair beside the coffeepot and sat down.
“You’re not coming to help me bring in Henry and Gertrude?” Ben asked.
“It’s your show, sir. All I want is a ringside seat.”
“Desertion in my hour of need. I’ll remember that, Hines.”
“I’m not worried, sir. I’m the one who writes the checks.”
Holly watched the interchange between Ben and his employee with great interest. It was a side of the man she had never seen, a warm, easy side that was extraordinarily appealing.
Ben left to get the other animals, while Holly and Loweva filled large stainless-steel trays with doughnuts. Clara and her husband, Hoot, breezed through the door. Dressed to the nines in black crepe and pearls, Clara barely resembled the woman who donned and apron and hairnet everyday at her café and greeted customers with inquiries about their family and tidbits of the latest gossip.
Hoot, looking uncomfortable in a pinstripe suit and tie, parked himself by the doughnut table as if to say I had nothing to do with this live nativity..
Clara went immediately to the sheep.
“How cute! Won’t the children love them?” She turned to Holly. “Where are the rest of the animals?”
“Coming through the door even as we speak.”
Ben held two halters, leading the Christmas donkey and his cohort, Gertrude the cow. The donkey stepped gingerly along, looking pleased to be the center of so much attention.
But Gertrude had a different attitude. The fellowship hall was not at all like the barn she was used to, and furthermore, it didn’t have a dirt floor. The minute her sharp hooves met the slick tiles, her legs went in all four directions. Six hundred pounds of cow hit the floor with a plop.
Over the intercom the congregation was singing Joy to the World. But it wasn’t joy reigning in the fellowship hall: It was consternation.
“What are you going to do?” Clara addressed her question to Holly, as if this disastrous nativity had all been her idea.
“Get the donkey into the roped-off area, and then we’ll deal with the cow.” Holly had no idea how to deal with a cow sprawled on the floor, but she was bound to think of something.
It was easier said than done. With Gertrude in the middle of the floor, Henry refused to budge. Ben tugged and coaxed to no avail. Hoot came over to help, but the two of them were no match in a tug of war with a stubborn donkey.
“If we had a carrot, we might coax him,” Ben said.
“We don’t have any carrots,” Holly said. “What about a doughnut?”
“Do donkeys eat doughnuts?” Clara asked, and her husband said a word you don’t usually hear in church.
“We won’t know until we try.” Holly got two doughnuts and offered them to Henry. “Here you go, sweetheart,” she said, patting his head. The donkey just rolled his eyes. “Come on, try it. You might like it.”
Henry took a nibble, rolled his eyes some more, then suddenly stretched his neck out for another bite.
With Ben holding the halter, Hoot pushing and Holly leading the way, they finally got Henry to join the sheep.
“Well done, Holly,” Ben said.
She couldn’t have been more pleased if he had given her a dozen red roses.
“I’m a woman of many talents.”
“We’ll have to see about that.” His voice was low, intimate, and only for her. Or so she told herself.
She might have been caught up in his spell once more if it hadn’t been for the intercom. The congregation was belting out the last verse of Joy to the World and she didn’t have a minute to lose.
The cow was still on the floor, and she didn’t have any idea what to do about it. To buy time, she gave Henry the last doughnut.
While the final verse of Joy to the World played over the intercom, Henry stretched out for the doughnut.
“Lordy have mercy.” Loweva said. “I’ve been here for fifteen years, and I’ve never seen no donkey eating doughnuts in this church.”
“No, but I’ve seen a lot of jackasses eating doughnuts in here,” Hoot said.
Clara tugged his sleeve. “Behave yourself, Hoot. Put your mind to work getting that cow off the floor.”
“We’ll never get the doggone cow off the floor,” Hoot said. “There’s not enough traction.”
“I have an idea.” Holly raced to the door, opened it, and dragged in a rubber floor mat. “Let’s gather all these and make some traction.”
Ben and Hines watched while Clara, Hoot, Loweva and Holly scattered in four different directions.
“This is quite a show, sir,” Hines said.
“A regular three-ring circus,” Ben said. “Do you think it’s like this every Sunday? Almost makes me want to come to find out.”
“Miss Jones is rather fetching in that angel garb, did you notice?”
“I noticed.”
“I thought you might.” Hines grinned then helped himself to a cup of coffee. “She has a great personality too. Makes you feel warm just being in her presence.”
“Don’t overdo it, Hines. Sometimes subtlety is the best approach.”
“I’ll try to remember that, sir.”
Holly and her crew returned with the floor mats. With her directing, the others spread the mats around the cow. Clara and Hoot kept up a running verbal battle, with Clara cajoling the cow and Hoot pointing out the errors of her ways.
“Conversation with a bovine is useless, Clara,” he said.
“How do you know that, Hoot? Have you ever tried it?”
“No, and I don’t plan to start now.”
“Well, somebody’s got to get the cow off the floor.”
Loweva rolled her eyes. “I’ve known of cows who sulled up when they was down like this, just sulled up and refused to move for days. Sometimes it took a tractor to get them up.”
“Think positive, Loweva,” Holly said. “She’s going to get up so she can be a part of the live Nativity, aren’t you, Gertrude?”
But Gertrude had other ideas. All the excitement finally proved too much for her, and she relieved some of her tension—right in the middle of the floor.
“Oh, dear,” Clara said. “What do we do now?”
“I know what I’m gonna do.” Loweva escaped to the kitchen.
“Mops, buckets,” Holly said, not yet daunted, but close. In the kitchen she cornered her assistant. “Loweva, there will be a little something extra in your Christmas stocking if you’ll help us clean this mess up.”
“Holly, is there anything you’ve asked me to do in all these years we’ve been working together that I refused?”
“Nothing.”
Loweva picked up the dishcloth and started wiping counters that were already clean.
“Well, today is the first. I’m not cleaning up after no cow.”
Clara appeared in the kitchen. “What are we going to do now, Holly?”
Scream, she wanted to say.
Instead, she grabbed mops and buckets and went back into the fellowship hall. Hoot developed a sudden interest in the coffeepot, and Clara tagged along behind Holly looking high fashion and helpless. Holly wished she had that option. She was intrepid and resourceful and happily independent... most of the time. Occasionally, though, it would be nice to throw up her hands and say, I can’t, or lean on a broad shoulder and have someone pat her head and say Honey, don’t worry about a thing; I’ll take care of that, or even to sit in a quiet corner and cry.
As much as she might like to attribute her mood to the season, with all its expectations, she was honest enough to know that Ben Sullivan was the cause. Even with the fellowship hall in total uproar, he was more on her mind than the problem at hand.
Was it possible for him to know what was happening to her heart just by looking? And would he run if he knew?
Ho
lly didn’t want him to run. Even if he never knew how she felt, even if he never felt the same, she didn’t want to lose Ben. Even when they had been enemies, being with him was fun and exhilarating.
Her life hadn’t been drab before he came. She had too many friends and too many interests for her life to be called colorless. But there was a vast difference between having fun with female friends and having fun with a man. No experience was quite as heady as a lively give-and-take between a man and a woman.
Almost no experience, Holly corrected herself. But she wasn’t even going to think about that one, especially not today.
Yes, she definitely wanted to scream, but not because of the cow.
As if he had read her thoughts, Ben approached her and put a hand on her elbow. It was just a small touch, nothing significant when she thought of all the ways a man could touch a woman, and yet it steadied her, calmed her.
“I’ll help,” he said.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“Even Scrooge was nice at Christmas.”
“I think you’ve outdone Scrooge.”
“Does that mean my approval rating has gone up?”
“The jury’s still out.”
“I’ve never known a woman like you.”
“Is that good or bad?”
He grinned. “The jury’s still out.”
They finished the task and got themselves washed up just as early church was drawing to a close. Over the intercom the minister spoke the benediction. In a few minutes hundreds of people would pour into the fellowship hall for coffee and doughnuts.
“Listen....” Clara cocked her head. “Oh, Lord, I wish I’d never had this idea. How will we ever explain a cow in the middle of the floor?”
Her distress brought out Holly’s earth-mother side. She patted Clara’s arm.
“Remember, the opera’s not over till the fat lady sings.”
Over the intercom the choir sang the first notes of the benediction.
“Looks like that fat lady you talking about is fixing to cut loose,” Loweva drawled.
“I have an idea,” Holly said. “We’ll cover the cow’s legs with hay, and she’ll look like she’s praying.”
Ben cocked an eyebrow. “You should be in D.C. You’d fit right in.”
“Great idea,” Clara said. “Come on, Hoot....”
They grabbed armfuls of hay from the roped off area and tossed them at the cow. Back and forth they scurried, while the last note of the benediction echoed through the hall.
“Amen,” the minister pronounced in his mellifluous voice.
Slowly Gertrude rose then with a toss of her head she joined Henry in the makeshift stall. Her exhausted audience clapped and cheered then Ben headed to the coffee pot.
“Divine intervention,” Loweva quipped.
“Loweva!” Holly said.
“When I’m bad, I’m very bad.” Loweva winked then nodded toward Ben Sullivan, who was staring at Holly over the rim of his coffee cup. “Like that one over yonder. Seems like somebody who would come calling in a white limousine is worthy of a little trouble. Maybe you ought to give him a try.”
“The thing is, would he give me a try?”
“Are you kiddin’ me? The way that man looks at you, he’ll be knocking on your door before you can say jack rabbit.”
“That would be a certified miracle, Loweva.”
“Christmas is just full of ‘em, Sugar.”
Chapter 12
The file folder was marked Holly Jones. It wasn’t as thick as the others in Ben’s filing cabinet, but he didn’t need her vote on a crucial issue.
Or maybe he did. Was kissing crucial? Cuddling? Making slow sweet love in his brass bed while the sun slanted through the window?
He glanced over the information he had on her. She’d been orphaned as a baby, raised by her paternal grandmother, earned a teaching degree, then taught kindergarten for two years before becoming a church social director. All in Mississippi.
On the other hand, her brother James had gone to school at Harvard, then worked in Boston, New York, and Chicago before settling in Memphis, Tennessee, with his wife and two children. He was a senior partner in the law firm of Michaels, Curtis, and Jones, and he had six Appaloosas on his large estate in Germantown, three of the horses award winners.
Holly was obviously a very intelligent woman. Besides that, she had a creative mind. Ben chuckled thinking of all the solutions she’d come up with for getting the cow off the floor.
Then why hadn’t Holly had all the advantages of her brother James? Had she had a choice?
More to the point, why had Ben spent the last half hour mulling over Holly’s family problems. He couldn’t solve his own, let alone hers.
Disgusted with himself, he tossed the manila folder onto his desk. It landed beside an expensive linen-finished envelope with a Boston postmark. A letter from home. No, not a letter. An engraved invitation.
Ben picked up the envelope and pulled out the invitation. You are invited for Christmas dinner at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin G. Sullivan II on December 24th at seven p.m. at Number Six, Beacon Hill. There was no personal note, no signature scrawled in ink, nothing. Just a printed card sent to their only son, probably with the fervent hope that he wouldn’t come to spoil their day.
Every June he made the obligatory annual visit home; he didn’t owe them his holidays, bleak as they were. But bleak was better than the alternative. Bleak was better than the armed truce that always degenerated into a pitched battle. His parents should have divorced years ago and spared each other so much misery, but they clung to the pitiful remains of their marriage because of money and social prestige. Together they were dazzling jet-setters, flamboyant hosts of fabulous parties, a power couple sought out by photographers wherever they went. Apart they would be just another divorced set of moguls squabbling over the division of a media empire.
No, Ben would not be accepting the holiday invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin G. Sullivan II, not this year, not any year.
The contrast between them and Holly Jones was tremendous. They were jaded and brittle, she was vivacious and warm; they could dissemble in six languages, she spoke the simple truth in one. Or did she? Was she the sweet innocent she seemed to be or another barracuda hiding in an angel costume?
The front door opened and a gust of wind blew in, bringing a refreshing coolness and Hines, bundled up from head to toe.
“You look like the Abominable Snowman.”
“It’s nippy out today, sir.”
“Are you coming down with something, Hines? It’s only forty degrees out there.”
“Nevertheless…” Hines left the rest of his sentence hanging, and Ben was left with the nagging feeling that nevertheless couldn’t be a good thing,
“What were you doing out there, anyhow?”
“Looking for a Christmas tree.”
“Why? I never have a tree.”
“It’s high time you did. Besides, hanging decorations then taking them off again will give you something to do while I’m in Virginia for Christmas.”
“Where’s the tree?”
“Out in the back forty. It’s perfect, sir, about five feet tall, symmetrical branches, no bare spots. It’s waiting for you to dig it up and wrap the roots in burlap. You can replant it after Christmas.”
“That’s a lot of trouble for a tree.”
“Some things are worth the trouble. Miss Jones, for instance.” Hines walked to the desk. “I see you’re studying her file.”
“Don’t make an issue of it. I always study files before I enter into negotiations.”
“What sort of negotiations?”
“I was thinking of asking her to be my date for Senator Glenn’s fund-raising dinner.”
“Don’t you think all that research takes a little of the romance out of it, sir?”
“I don’t believe in romance, Hines. I believe in being prepared.”
“If I recall, all the great lovers o
f history followed their hearts instead of their heads.”
“They paid for their mistakes. Most of them died the hard way.”
“Be that as it may, I think planning takes all the fun out of dating.”
“Going out to dinner can hardly be classified as dating. Besides, this is not personal. I merely need a date.”
Hines smiled. “Shall I get the shovel, sir?”
“The shovel?”
“For the tree.”
o0o
Why had she ever said yes? The purple velvet that had been perfect for Loweva’s nephew’s winter wedding was all wrong for an important political fund-raiser. Did she have time to change?
Holly glanced at her watch. Ten minutes. Not enough time. Besides, there was nothing else in her closet that was even remotely appropriate except the red satin she’d made five years ago for the Sunday school Christmas party. It would be even worse than the purple velvet. And besides, it was a little tight around the hips. It had shrunk in the closet.
She went into the den where Lily was ensconced in her favorite chair with the television going full blast. It was an insipid game show. Holly turned down the volume then did a pirouette in front of her grandmother.
“What do you think, Lily?”
“It makes your hips look big.”
Holly was an expert at covering pain with laughter, and she proved it once more.
“Everything makes my hips look big,” she quipped, “even the bathtub.”
“Where are you going anyway?”
“I already told you, Grandma. Birmingham. There’s a party in Birmingham.”
“I don’t see how come you have to go all the way to Alabama to a party when Clara and Hoot are having one right down the street.”
“It’s not a Christmas party; it’s a political fundraiser.”
“Just as long as you’re back in time to turn on my electric blanket. You know I don’t like a cold bed. It makes my feet cold, and when my feet are cold I have nightmares.”
“Loweva’s coming over later to bring your dinner and turn on your blanket. She’ll be here all night, Grandma.”
“Where’s she going to sleep?”
