The dog and the man on the other end of the leash were snow-covered, and Gracie handed Merett the broom she kept by the front door. He swept the dog’s back, and it rolled over and put all four paws in the air. The porch was covered with blowing snow, and the dog got his back snowy again. “Dumbbell!” Merett gave him a nudge in the ribs with the broom before brushing him again.
Gracie opened the door. Dumbbell pulled loose from Merett, and bounded. Spook hissed. The dog stopped in its tracks. Spook hissed again, and Dumbbell skulked under the hall table. Gracie was still laughing when she shut the bathroom door behind her kitten. “Maybe he’ll be afraid of Tippy, too.”
Merett took off his jacket while warily watching the dog, lying with his head between his paws. Gracie hung up her coat, and shook her head to fluff her snow-dampened hair.
“What are we going to do with the mutt until Christmas?” Merett asked.
“I suggest you give him to Kirsten right away.”
“I can’t do that. He’s a Christmas present.” He grinned devilishly. “I was thinking maybe you could board him.”
“Getting even with me...?” Gracie stopped, seeing Merett’s expression turn serious.
He drew her into his arms. “The way that snow is piling up, I may have to spend the night.”
“You have a party to attend.”
“It’s only four o’clock, and I have until seven.” He kissed her nose, and she smiled. He kissed her lips, and she tasted his. He held her tightly, and she wrapped her arms around him. It felt heavenly to be in his arms again. She’d missed him so much. “We have plenty of time.”
“For what?” she asked, smiling into his shoulder.
“Whatever we want and I want you.”
There was laughter in his voice but she knew he was serious, and she seriously wanted him, but they couldn’t. Any moment now, he’d make his declaration that he was moving back to New York, and she wasn’t about to become his going away present. “Merett…” She pushed gently against his chest. “You know how I feel.”
“I have something to say that may change your mind.” His wonderful green eyes shone with some emotion she’d never seen before. “We have to talk, Gracie.”
His words sent tremors through her, but she led him to the sofa in the sitting room. Sinking down beside him, her heart beat so fast that she felt faint. “If that’s what you want.”
“Actually, I want to make love.” He flashed her a dimpled smile. “But I have things to say first. Things I should have said before now. No.” He shook his head. “I’m putting the cart before the horse again.”
His hair tumbled down on his forehead with the motion, and she pushed it back. She would be afraid to ask, if he didn’t look so vulnerable. “What is it, Merett? What cart? What horse?”
He leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and retraced his steps in New York for her. When he started talking about his old neighborhood and a shop where a man named Gus gave him pie and coffee on the house, Merett slowed the pace of his story, a half-smile on his face. “You’d think after a year he would have forgotten me, but he remembered, and was so glad to see me, I could hardly believe it.”
Merett turned to grasp her arms, and looked deep into her eyes. “I was happy to see him, too, and it came to me then, that’s what I miss about New York. The friendliness of people in the old neighborhood and familiar places. Not the bright lights and sounds of the city, or walking a beat and turning in my story, but the man who sold me my morning paper and the dry cleaner and everyday people, like Gus.” Merett gave Gracie a little shake. “Do you understand what I’m saying? My neighborhood was a small town within a city, and I loved it.”
She felt certain she’d missed something important, but was too confused to know what to say.
“I’m a small town reporter, not a big city guy.” Merett grinned broadly, his green eyes glowing, his dimple deepening. “I like knowing people, and having them know me. I’d been away from Ferndale so long I felt more at home in my neighborhood in New York, but that will be easy to change, now that I know I’m here to stay. How’s that for an epiphany?”
Gracie sat on the edge of her seat, afraid that she was dreaming. He drew her into his arms and held her tightly “I’m not going to sell the Daily Reporter and move. I’m staying right here, Gracie.”
She understood those words perfectly. Tears came to her eyes. “Oh, Merett.”
The planes of his face softened, and his emerald eyes shone. “We want the same things, sweetheart. I lost my place in life and my way for a while.” He hugged Gracie tightly to him. “But I’m back now.”
Gracie smiled up at him through her tears, caressing his dear face.
“There are people in Ferndale just like those in my old neighborhood. Sandy at the diner. Will at the gas station and tree lot. Gracie at Special Effects.” She smiled, and he kissed the tip of her nose. “I don’t want to live in New York, and work at the Herald for Tom, and let Dixon-Pope have my newspaper. I want to become the best damned editor the Ferndale, Indiana, Daily Reporter ever had. And I want you by my side.”
Gracie’s breath came so rapidly, she was sure she’d hyperventilate. Surely Merett didn’t mean what she thought he did. He held both her hands tightly, and looked deep into her eyes. “I love you, Gracie.”
“You love me?” She looked at him in awe. “You love me?”
“I do,” he said softly. “I should have told you before, but I didn’t know. Well, maybe I knew, but didn’t recognize the truth.”
He looked so bewildered and so adorable, Gracie fell, laughing and crying, into his arms. He’d said the magic words she’d longed to hear. “I love you, too, Merett.”
Their kiss was so long and blissful, she raised her mouth for another. She just didn’t dare think what the future might or might not bring.
“I fell half-in-love with you the night I first kissed you, and in a corner of my heart, I think that love stayed alive.”
Happy tears streamed down Gracie’s cheeks. “I’ve always loved you.”
A long, extremely delicious kiss later, Merett slowly released her. “Your heart is beating so loudly I can hear it.”
Gracie heard something too but it wasn’t…she burst into laughter and pointed. Dumbbell was watching them and wagging his tail. Thump, thump, thump.
Merett’s laugh was deep and uncontrolled. She’d never seen him like this. Gracie’s hopes and happiness rose another level.
“How could we have forgotten the beast was still at large?”
“Large beast at large,” Gracie said, giggling.
The dog cocked his head, and tongue hanging out, watched them.
“I think you should give him to Kirsten today,” Gracie said, poking Merett in the ribs.
“And ruin her surprise on Christmas morning? No way.” Rising, he held out a hand to Gracie. “I only have an hour to get ready for the Daily Reporter’s party. Since you refused to go, I’m taking the squirt as my date.”
Gracie felt like dancing and singing and kicking up her heels on Main Street after Merett’s declaration of love. If he hadn’t asked Kirsten, she would have changed her mind and gone, but he was a good father. “You can leave Dumbbell here until Christmas if you like.”
“Now that’s love,” he said, grinning down at her.
“Or insanity,” she said, tracing his dimple.
Merett opened the door, and looking past his broad shoulders, Gracie gasped. “The snow is deep.”
“I wish I could stay,” he said, turning back for one last kiss, “and we could get snowed in together.”
* * *
Gracie missed Merett the moment he drove away, but feeling joyful, she frosted the cookies she’d baked earlier. She’d shifted the dog and cat, and Dumbbell let out a howl from the bathroom. Trying not to hear the dog’s mournful wail, she laid the cookies in Christmas tins.
The snow, as far as she could tell by the glow of the streetlight, had let up, but the sidewalks were barely visible, so
it wasn’t a fit night for delivering cookies. It was a perfect night to curl up with a good book.
Upstairs in her bedroom, Gracie searched for a romance novel she’d bought more than a month ago, and hadn’t started. Finding the album she’d brought down from the attic, she went downstairs to curl up with it instead. Perhaps Merett would call when the party was over.
Gracie leafed slowly through Mirabelle’s photograph album. She was a beautiful young woman, and her beloved Jonathon was tall and stately. She looked so happy, holding onto his arm, and he looked so proud, gazing down into her eyes. The album pictures started with Mirabelle’s high school graduation, and ended with her being fitted for her wedding gown. Part way through the pictures, Gracie stopped to fix herself a cup of cocoa, and when she picked the album up again, a yellowed newspaper clipping with Jonathon’s obituary fluttered to the floor. Dashing away a tear, she folded it back neatly.
The doorbell rang, and Gracie put the album aside. His death was a tragedy, and she wished somehow, Mirabelle could realize her quest to rejoin him. Gracie glanced at her watch before opening the door. The evening hours had passed quickly, and it was too late for Merett and Kirsten to stop by.
“I took the imp home to bed, but I couldn’t stay away,” Merett said, stepping inside with snowy feet to pull Gracie into his arms. “I’m sorry.”
Whether he meant for tracking up her floor or kissing her without taking off his snow-wet coat, Gracie didn’t know or care. Kicking the door closed on the outside world, she returned his kiss with all the pent-up hunger of a woman who’d waited fifteen years for the man of her dreams.
And when he raised his eyebrows to ask what he needed to know, she nodded eagerly, and he carried her up the stairs.
Lying in Merett’s arms after their lovemaking, Gracie felt like a whole woman at last. And when he went home in the wee hours of the morning, she lay looking out at the moonlight, content. She was loved.
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning dawned bright and cold, with a foot of snow. The roads, however, and been cleared during the night, and some kind soul had once again shoveled Gracie’s walk. With a neighbor like hers, she might never need to use her shovel.
Happily donning coat, boots, hat and gloves, she delivered cookies to old friends ranging from Mrs. Koch at the bookstore—Merett’s editorial produced a silent donor to help her stay in business—to Dr. Hiram whom Gracie told she might still have babies.
“I remember how happy your mother was when you were born,” he said, kissing her cheek, and she felt he’d given her a special gift.
Mom wanted Gracie.
Hours later, when she’d filled her cart at the supermarket with two turkeys and a double order of trimmings, Gracie returned home to find Homer Riggs in her backyard. She’d chained Dumbbell out there, and Homer was just setting an old dog house in place, filling it with straw to keep the dog warm.
“We had this house in our storage shed. Haven’t used it in years. Our only child moved clear across country, and we don’t have any grandkids. Yet.”
She ran inside to get the double batch of cookies she’d saved for the Riggs, and when she went inside again, the phone was ringing. Gracie snatched it off the hook.
“The staff and crew are jubilant over my decision to revamp the Reporter,” Merett announced without preamble. “If I’d known they’d heard rumors about Dixon-Pope and were worried, I’d have made my announcement last night at the party.
“I have a lot to do here today. For starters, I have an editorial to write, assuring Ferndale residents I’m staying, and this paper won’t be sold to a conglomerate as long as I live.” Gracie’s chest swelled with pride. That was her Merett talking, the one she’d loved for years. “I also have Christmas shopping to finish, so I probably won’t see you today.”
Disappointment threatened her morning’s joy, but she smiled. “I understand.”
“I love you, Gracie. That’s not going to change.”
“I know, and I love you,” she said tenderly.
“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” he announced, as if he’d been the one to make a fabulous discovery. “I want us to be together then. I told the princess that the three of us might visit a needy family together. Would you like that?”
“Oh, yes! And if it’s okay, Merett, I have one in mind.”
“The one on Edge Road?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “You remembered.”
“I couldn’t forget,” he said softly. “That little girl is you, isn’t she, Gracie?”
Tears spilling unashamedly down her cheeks, she agreed. “I bought the turkey and other food.”
“Kirsten and I will come over in the morning to help you stuff the bird.”
“She may see or hear the dog.”
“We’ll give him to her first thing. No reason to wait one more day to give her what she’s always wanted. Agreed?”
Merett was asking her opinion, saying “we.” A wave of excitement washed through her. With his declaration of love, she discovered a new strength. She could cope with Kirsten as her daughter, she was sure.
A wave of fear smacked into the one of joy. He’d always wanted a son.
Gracie thought about how it would feel to hold a baby of her own in her arms. Small and perfect, soft and warm like Merry Grace. Only her baby would have a tiny dimple and soft brown hair spilling onto its tiny forehead. Her baby. Merett’s baby. Their baby. Her mother wanted her. But she hadn’t been able to handle motherhood. Was wanting enough?
The thoughts ran around and around in Gracie’s head. While she baked pumpkin pies. While she made cranberry relish. While she broke bread for the dressing she would make in the morning for their Christmas dinner.
It was late afternoon before she took a rest. Lying under the Christmas tree while Spook worried his catnip mouse, she thought about Merett, smitten with baby Merry. If only Gracie believed she could be a good mother…but Faith’s disappearance once again proved her inadequacy.
Kirsten had alluded more than once to wanting marriage for her daddy and Gracie, and Gracie tried to imagine what life would be like, the three of them together. Would Merett be willing to live in her house? She loved this place, and could picture them sitting at the kitchen table together, like the Riggs; tucking Kirsten into bed together as they had their child. Gracie and Merett would give her the room next to theirs, the big sunny one with windows looking out over the backyard where she could watch Dumbbell play. Would she let Gracie furnish it with a canopy bed, or would she object to ruffles and lace?
Spook leaped on the mouse, and it popped out from under him. Turning his head from side to side frantically, he crouched, and narrowed his eyes. The silly cat had no idea where the mouse had gone, but he pounced—on Gracie, landing with a soft thud on her midsection. “Oof!”
Spook stared her in the eye, and she laughed. “You’re a silly baby,” she said, lifting him up to her cheek. He was soft and cute, but nothing like Merry Grace. Gracie’s arms ached to hold a child of her own.
After all this time, why was she having second thoughts? Rising impatiently, she set Spook on the floor, and fetched him his mouse from beneath the piano bench.
The telephone jangled sharply, and Gracie answered in the hall. “Special Effects, Gracie speaking.”
“Did you find my message in the bathroom, the one that said to keep smiling?”
“Is that what that meant?” Gracie couldn’t help chuckling. She was so happy to hear Faithie’s voice. “I could have used another thought or two, like where you were going, and why you left.”
“The mirror wasn’t big enough, and I wasn’t positive I’d go through with my plan. But I am, and can tell you now.”
Gracie clutched the receiver. Surely she wasn’t going to kill herself. Maybe Buck asked her to come back. “Is something wrong?”
“No, something is right for a change. I got a job and a room at the YWCA, and I’m going to enroll in a couple of business classes.”
&nbs
p; “Oh, Faith, that’s wonderful! Where are you?”
“Indianapolis, where I’m close enough to come home and bug you once in a while.”
“Even more wonderful. You could have stayed with me, you know.”
“I want to stand on my own two feet, Gracie. It’s time I grew up.”
Nineteen is still young, Gracie wanted to say, but her heart bursting with pride, she whispered, “I’m proud of you.”
“I’m proud of you, too, and that’s why I’m doing this. When I saw what you’ve done, making a life and buying a house, I decided I could do the same if I tried. It won’t be easy, and I may bellyache now and then, but I’m going to make something of myself.”
Gracie dashed away her tears with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Where are you working?”
“At a flower shop.” Faith burst into giggles. “Following in your footsteps. The owners are a nice older couple, and they’re swamped with orders for the holiday season. They won’t promise they’ll keep me on after Christmas, but I’m going to show them they can’t do without me. When the job becomes steady, then I’ll move out of the Y into a room or an apartment. This isn’t a bad place to stay, but I’d like someplace quieter and more private.”
“And the classes?”
“Beginning Business and Introduction To Computers. I picked up the entrance forms and class schedules today. Gracie, this goes against the grain, and I would have called you anyway, but could I borrow the money for my class fees?”
“Even if I had to hock Mirabelle, I’d come up with money for that!” Gracie replied, laughing.
“What if I’m really planning to use the money to return to Chicago and Buck?”
“You’re not. I can tell.”
“You always could read me,” Faith said softly. “I never could tell you a lie without you calling me on it. I could never be sad or mad or troubled without you sensing it. You were born to be a mother, Gracie, but not mine.”
“What are you saying?” Gracie tightened her grip on the phone.
“That I’m lucky to have you, and I’ll be eternally grateful you’ve been a mother to me, but it’s time you got married and became a mother for real. Isn’t there someone in your life? I wish I’d gotten to meet that Merett guy. You’re not getting any younger. You’ll soon be thirty. Don’t you think you should get married?”
Merriest Christmas Ever Page 24
