“It’s fine. You two need time alone. Did you shop together?”
“We spent hours and bought lots of good stuff.” He patted the bulging pocket of his topcoat. “Surprises,” he added in a confidential tone.
“Merett…uh…I was going to call but I thought you were out. I…wanted to tell you something.”
“That you missed me as much as I missed you?” Closing his eyes, he pictured her, the phone cradled to her soft lips. He couldn’t wait to taste that luscious mouth.
Gracie spoke in a rush. “I can’t go to the Daily Reporter’s party like you asked.”
“Why?” Merett felt like he did when that bully in sixth grade kicked him in the stomach.
“We’ll talk about it later. You’ll be late for the ballet if you don’t go now.”
Kirsten stood in the hall by the front door in her coat and hat, waiting, but he couldn’t leave things this way with Gracie. A thousand things went through his mind, but the words that came out were inane. “You have to go. I’ll be the only one there alone.”
“You can get another date, Merett.”
Date. The word did strange things to his head. He was dating, and had an engagement ring in his pocket. Love. Marriage. Commitment. He’d come back from limbo and was ready to move on with life and love, but Gracie didn’t know it yet. He should have gone over to her place last night when he got back. He hadn’t told her he loved her, but he’d bought her a ring. What if she wouldn’t marry him? Shrugging his coat off his shoulders, he ran his finger around inside the stiff collar of his white shirt.
She had to. Because dammit, he loved her. “I don’t want to take someone else. I want to take you..”
“Appearing with me would raise questions. Are you prepared to answer them?”
No one had connected the two of them yet, but so what? “I’m game if you are.”
Gracie’s sigh was audible.
“I thought you loved the closeness of a small town, but if that’s what this is all about, I’ll let you off the hook.” It was just an office party, with him giving out Christmas gifts, and he could go alone. He longed to tell Gracie all he’d discovered the past few days, but there was only time enough to reassure her. “You were right when you told me to go to New York. It was a very positive move.”
“You’re going to be late for the ballet, Merett.”
“Today with Kirsten was a positive move, too,” he persisted. “You were right suggesting I spend more time with her.”
“You’re using the word ‘move’ a lot.”
What difference did it make if he used the same word? “Is something bothering you?”
“What could bother me? Business is booming. Hope and Frank have turned into two lovebirds since they found they’re having a baby. I have a namesake. Everything’s coming up roses.”
Gracie was never facetious or sarcastic, and he couldn’t believe she was now. She had no reason. Merett ran his fingers through his hair, then realizing he was making a mess of himself when he was taking his daughter out, smoothed it back again. He wished Gracie were there to do it for him. But there was a pregnant silence on her end. “Kirsten told me about your namesake.”
“Merry Gracie is beautiful.” There was a catch in Gracie’s voice. “You should go see her.”
“Why don’t you and I go tomorrow afternoon? We could visit Mama, too. Would you mind that, Gracie?”
“I’d love to see your mother, and Merry Grace.” There was another long pause. Didn’t she want to see him? Had something happened while he was gone? Gracie’s piano started to play in the background. “Listen!” she cried. “It hasn’t played for days.”
“Mirabelle lives,” Merett said, and was rewarded with Gracie’s honeyed laughter.
“I guess I could go with you tomorrow afternoon,” she said.
* * *
Gracie loved Christmas, but as it grew closer, her time with Merett grew shorter. She wouldn’t go to the Reporter’s Christmas party Saturday evening because she couldn’t bear to watch him make fools of his employees, handing out gifts and wishing everyone happy holidays, knowing he was going to hand them and the helm of the Reporter over to a stranger. Each day brought him closer to his dream of returning to New York, and her closer to a loss too deep to bear. But this afternoon, he’d be with her, and she planned to enjoy every moment.
Gracie riffled through her cookie cutters, and spread a pastry cloth on her kitchen table. Pushing up her sweater sleeves, she measured sugar and flour in a flurry. With two hours between lunch and Merett’s arrival, she had to occupy her time, and she’d been too busy, until now, to make cookies for friends and neighbors. But with the holiday so near, business was at a lull, and would be, until New Year’s came and went—and she was thirty-years-old.
Thirty and unmarried like Mirabelle. Childless and lonely. “The divorced equivalent of an old maid with a cat,” she told Spook, who was worrying a catnip mouse on the floor nearby. Merett, unlike Mirabelle’s beloved, however, was leaving of his own accord.
Did the piano’s playing again mean anything?
“What could it mean?” Gracie scoffed aloud. Only fools believed in signs from a ghost, and she was no fool. Leveling off a measuring cup of butter, she plopped it into a mixing bowl and creamed it and the sugar. Sifting in flour, she continued to work the dough, her mind moving faster than her hands. She’d dreamed since she was fourteen of marrying Merett, but that dream would be dashed to bits forever, today.
How could he? The Reporter had been part of Ferndale since it was incorporated, and always been locally owned and run. How could Merett sell it to Dixon-Pope? She slapped the dough onto the pastry cloth, and pummeled it with both hands.
Spook hopped up on a chair to watch with curious green eyes. Holding her breath, Gracie worked faster, smoothing and rolling the dough. “Get down,” she ordered.
The black kitten cocked his head at her. Her hands were too messy to take hold of him. He’d recently become outgoing. And nosy.
Gracie quickly cut shapes and laid them on cookie sheets. Sticking them in the oven and setting the timer, she breathed a sigh of relief. Spook had run off somewhere, and it was snowing, giant flakes that would add a fresh layer of white, brightening the landscape. Pouring powdered sugar for frosting into a bowl in a cloud of white dust, Gracie spotted Margaret Riggs at her window across the way and waved.
Margaret smiled and pointed.
“What?” Gracie mouthed the word and shrugged.
Margaret frantically pointed down.
Gracie had forgotten to move Spook’s chair, and he was back with his front paws on the table. She squealed. He dipped one paw into the sugar. She grabbed for the cat and he leaped--smack into the middle of the bowl.
Powdered sugar filled the air. Spook sneezed, spattering even more sugar. Yowling, he jumped out, tipping the bowl and sending white powder everywhere: in Gracie’s face, in her hair, all over the floor and table. Wiping her eyes with the hem of her apron, she looked across the way, and saw Margaret and Homer holding their bellies and laughing.
Gracie laughed, too—until Spook streaked through the house in ghostly white, leaving a trail behind him. She was hot in pursuit when the doorbell rang. She threw open the door, and Merett flashed her a dimpled grin. “Is it snowing in here, too?”
“You’re early,” she accused, as Spook shot into the living room. Her jeans and red sweatshirt were spattered with flour, sugar, and bits of dough. She touched her hair, knowing she must look a mess. “Way early.”
Laughing, he motioned her to the hall mirror. Her face looked like a sheet with two holes cut in it for eyes. Her hair looked as if she’d developed terminal dandruff. She burst into laughter.
“I thought Mirabelle opened the door,” Merett said.
Gracie swatted him, and got sugar on his chin.
He grabbed her, and pulled her into his arms. “Now see what you’ve done?” he said, rubbing his sugary face against hers.
“See what you�
�ve done,” she said, leaning back to look at his white-dusted jacket. “I rubbed off on you.”
“In more ways than one.” He grazed her lips with his. “That will have to do until we catch that cat of yours.”
A few moments later when the two of them were stalking Spook on their hands and knees in the parlor, Spook made a run—from behind the piano to beneath the chair. “Gotcha!” Merett pounced and came up with the cat by the scruff of the neck.
“My hero,” Gracie teased, holding her arms out to take the kitten.
“No, you don’t.” Merett shook his head. “If anyone’s going into those arms, it’s not going to be the cat.” He set Spook inside the bathroom, shut the door, and held out his arms.
She went into them, knowing she was a fool for wearing her heart on her sleeve, but unable to help herself. Merett took her mouth with his, hungrily devouring her kisses, and when he probed with his tongue, she answered with hers. His whisper was husky in her ear, his breath hot. “I missed you.”
She kissed his neck as she snuggled into it. “I’m glad you’re home.” At least for a little while. Telling her nagging mind to shut up, she kissed his neck again.
Merett held her away, his face far too serious, his jade eyes too dark. “We have a lot to talk about, Gracie.”
“I…uh…need to clean up the kitchen and change if we’re going to see Merry Grace.”
“There’s plenty of time. It’s only noon.”
The timer dinged in the kitchen. “Whoops. My cookies are done.”
* * *
While Gracie slid a spatula under each golden Christmas cookie, Merett leaned against the doorjamb and watched. When every star, tree, angel and Santa was cooling on a wire rack, she opened the door to the pantry and took out a broom. He took it away. “Don’t you want to hear about my trip to New York?”
“There’s still this powdered sugar mess to deal with. Like you said, we have plenty of time.”
All he really wanted to tell her was that he loved her, but she wouldn’t stay in one spot long enough. When he took the broom, she grabbed up a sponge, and began washing the table. Her efforts were frenetic. Why was she so reluctant to talk? Had she changed her mind about him? Had he only imagined she cared?
Sighing, he made a clean sweep of Spook’s path, and when he came back to the kitchen, Gracie was just finishing up there. “Now I’ll make myself presentable,” she said, and disappeared up the stairs.
Left alone, Merett sat morosely at the kitchen table. He wanted to tell her he loved her. He wanted to tell her about his epiphany.
Half an hour passed before Gracie came back, looking tantalizing in a soft green sweater and slacks, her hair pulled up with a few lemony curls spilling down her back.
“You smell as delicious as those cookies,” he said, kissing her cheek, and inhaling her honeyed scent.
She followed his gaze and laughed. The cookies shaped like trees were the biggest, and she handed him one, then set the others in her workroom and closed the door before letting Spook out of the bathroom. “Ready to go?” Gracie moved rapidly to the coat tree.
“I might as well be. You’re on a roll.” For some reason, she didn’t want to talk, and maybe it was just as well they got their visits over with. It was snowing hard, and could accumulate fast.
Sunny Haven was closest, so Merett drove there first. His mother was in her room, looking out the window toward the bird feeder. “Mama? I brought you company.”
Gracie stepped forward to take her hand.
“Did you know it’s almost Christmas?” Mama asked.
Gracie nodded. “Do you like Christmas?”
“Oh, yes. I love it. He does, too,” she said, pointing to Merett. “Don’t you, boy?”
“Yes, Mama. I do.” He met Gracie’s gaze before leaning down to kiss his mother’s cheek.
His mother didn’t say anything else while they were there, just listened, but when they left, she held out a hand to Gracie. “Come back. Will you?”
Gracie’s eyes glistened. “I’ll come back on Christmas,” she promised.
The drive to Linda and Mark’s was quiet, but inside their bungalow, all hell broke loose. A furry mutt half as big as a house loped in circles, barking, and in an adjoining room with a closed door, baby Merry Grace squalled.
“Stop, Dumbbell,” Mark ordered the dog. Wagging his tail, it stopped long enough to beat a rapid tattoo against the table leg. “He’s only a pup, but you’d never know it by his size.”
“I think he’s cute,” Gracie said, petting the animal’s huge furry head.
“I bought him for Linda for her birthday, thinking all poodles were little and cute. He’s a standard poodle and a case of mistaken identity.”
“This house isn’t big enough for a dog and baby, too,” Linda declared, peeking around the door. “Put him in the garage, Mark, so I can bring Merry out.”
Mark left with the dog, and Linda sat down with Merry Grace on her lap.
“Gracie was right,” Merett said. “She’s beautiful.” He separated the baby’s tiny fingers, and she grabbed one of his tightly. She had a fine layer of dark fuzz on her head, big bright eyes, and was incredibly tiny. “Strong, too. And smart.” He stroked her gently rounded cheek.
“Wait until you hold her.” Linda eased Merry into his arms. She smelled like baby powder. Soft and warm, she felt good, too. It had been a long time since Kirsten was this small, and somewhere deep inside him, he felt a longing so strong it was painful. Making a funny little sound, Merry stuck out her tongue. After wiggling a little, she settled down and closed her eyes. Merett’s heart swelled with love for Gracie’s namesake.
He looked up to find her watching them, an intent expression on her face. His eyes met hers, and she looked away.
Linda opened the package with the large stuffed giraffe he’d brought the baby, and Merett smiled at Gracie’s excitement. She touched the giraffe’s long eyelashes, and laughed. She waggled the toy in the air over Merry, even though she was asleep.
Slowly laying the stuffed animal down, Grace touched the baby’s tiny face. Her fingers. And even her toes, turning back the blanket and slipping off one bootie. She’d flatly stated she didn’t want a child, but she appeared enchanted.
“Want to hold her?”
“No.” Gracie sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “It might wake her if we switched her around.”
“She’s a sound sleeper. You took her bootie off, and she didn’t wake up.”
Gracie picked a picture up off the table to admire it, diverting their hosts’ attention, but not Merett’s. Was she afraid if she grew close to Merry that she’d want a baby of her own?
He bent his head over the baby again. Her tiny lips were pursed into a half-smile. He’d heard when a baby smiled in its sleep, it was dreaming of angels. He wanted a baby, a boy preferably, but looking at the little girl in his arms, he knew he’d be happy with either one.
If Gracie absolutely refused to have kids, was he willing to limit his future? He had Kirsten whom he adored, but would that be enough? Ready to move on at last, he was hungry for life and all it had to offer. He had a diamond for Gracie, and he loved her, but would he have to sacrifice his dream of another child?
An earsplitting howl split the air. “Dumbbell doesn’t like the garage,” Mark pointed out needlessly. “I’d better let him in before the neighbors call to complain again.”
Linda took the baby from Merett, put her in the bedroom and closed the door. Mark opened the door to the attached garage, and the dog came bounding in. Linda came back to turn the baby monitor on, and sighed. “Dumbbell likes Merry Grace too well to leave them in the same room.”
The Donvillough’s life had turned into a zoo, and Merett, impatient for time alone with Gracie, rose to go. He wanted to tell her about his trip to New York and his revelation, before he had to go home and dress for the company party. When she rose, too, he slipped his arm around her waist, and she looked up at him in surprise. Recognizing
another error of omission, public display of affection, he drew her close to kiss her cheek.
She stared up at him, mouth open. Tapping it closed with his finger, he grazed her lips. Blushing, she pulled away. Linda’s eyes met Merett’s, and she smiled approvingly. The dog nuzzled his hand, and he petted it. Gracie leaned down to hug its neck.
“Kirsten would love him.”
“No,” Merett protested, “she wouldn’t.”
“She’s always wanted a pet,” Grace explained to their hosts.
Gracie was getting even with him for kissing her in front of friends. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear. Aloud he said, “Dumbbell would eat Mama’s dog Tippy in one bite.”
“You could keep Dumbbell outdoors.” Gracie’s violet eyes sparkled with mischief. “There’s plenty of room for him to run at your place.”
“It’s cold. He’d freeze.” The dog licked his hand.
“He likes you, and his fur coat will keep him warm.”
“He’d eat us out of house and home.” Dumbbell sat back on his haunches to gaze at Merett with soulful eyes. He remembered asking Mama when they were going to get a real dog. This one was real all right.
“You can have him free,” Linda said.
“The biggest, cheapest gift you’ll find your daughter this year,” Mark put in eagerly. “And you’d be doing us a favor.”
Gracie’s eyes pleaded with him. “He’s so cute.”
She was serious. “About as cute as a Mack truck, but to make so many people happy...” Merett threw up his hands. “We’ll take the beast.”
* * *
Dumbbell dragged Merett up Gracie’s front sidewalk. The dog’s big feet threw snow all over Merett’s pants, and he cursed under his breath while Gracie smiled. He was sweet to do this for Kirsten and the Donvilloughs.
“What are we going to do with this ox?” Merett grumbled, stomping his feet off on the doormat.
Merriest Christmas Ever Page 23
