by Kacey Linden
Willow’s mouth opened in horror. “I… I couldn’t.”
“You can.” Mrs. Dillon insisted firmly. “You’re going to be here for at least a month, trying to earn enough to cover your car repairs. You couldn’t have had much in the tiny little bag you brought in, and if you have to buy more clothes it’ll take longer to pay for your car. This is a perfect solution for both of us.”
“But…” Willow didn’t know how to explain without sounding insensitive. “Then every time you see me, you’ll think of her.”
“It’s not like that’s a bad thing, my dear,” Mrs. Dillon said gently. “I think I’m ready to remember. I want to celebrate the good things and not just avoid the painful ones.”
Willow tried to come up with some objection that the older woman would accept, but her efforts proved fruitless. Three hours and six boxes later, there was a heap on her bed composed of jeans, sweaters, shirts, and even a sturdy pair of boots. The boots were a little big, but far warmer and more comfortable than Willow’s worn-out athletic shoes. Plus, they would keep out the snow, which would quickly become a necessity over the next month.
When she went back downstairs, clad in fleecy black pants and a cozy black-and-white sweater, Mrs. Dillon smiled and wrapped her up in hug that warmed her almost as much as the sweater.
“I knew they would fit you. That sweater looks lovely, and I’m so happy to see it being worn.”
“Thank you.” Willow still wasn’t quite comfortable with the situation, but she remembered her promise to Cale. She’d sworn to do whatever Christmasy things Mrs. Dillon wanted, and she had a pretty strong feeling that this qualified. “The clothes are all lovely and I’m glad to have something to wear to work.”
“Now that that’s settled,” Mrs. Dillon said, handing her a mug of tea, “let’s get to work. Cale will be over in a few hours and we still haven’t decided where to put the Christmas tree.”
Willow was surprised by her own eagerness to enter into the decision. On the one hand, there was something about having a tree in the front window that appealed to her, after seeing so many as a child and longing for her own. But there was something just as lovely about the idea of having it in the less formal living room at the back of the house, where they could spend cozy evenings by the fire and enjoy the festive decor in comfort.
By the time Cale arrived—announcing his presence by pushing past the boxes and calling out “Mrs. Dillon, you didn’t tell me you were moving”—they had finally come to an agreement.
“We’re putting up two trees,” Marcia proclaimed, as Cale set what appeared to be a full crock pot on the kitchen counter.
“Sounds like a perfect plan,” he said, smiling at Willow in a way that made her cheeks heat and her stomach do flips. “One for each of you. Because you couldn’t agree whether it should be red and gold, or silver and white. Noble or Douglas? Angel or star? The dilemmas are endless.”
“Oh no,” Mrs. Dillon insisted. “We are absolutely in agreement. We agreed that if one tree is good, two trees will be ever so much better.”
Willow found herself laughing at the older woman’s enthusiasm.
“And Willow has never had a Christmas tree, so we’re making up for lost time.”
“Then the only question left,” Cale said, “is whether we’re going to get trees first or eat first.”
“Oh, what did you bring us?” Mrs. Dillon’s eyes lit up, and she bustled into the kitchen to inspect the crock pot.
“Your favorite chili,” Cale replied. “I was going to make cornbread, but I ran out of eggs.”
“Lucky thing I have eggs, and milk and cornmeal.” Mrs. Dillon rubbed her hands together gleefully and leaned towards Willow. “You simply haven’t lived until you’ve had Cale’s chili. It’s the perfect food for cold winter nights.”
“Then I’m looking forward to trying it,” Willow said, pulling her hands back into the sleeves of her sweater and trying not to appear nervous. “I’m sure it’s delicious.”
“Now here’s what we’re going to do.” It didn’t even seem to occur to Mrs. Dillon that anyone would argue. “I’ll stay here and make the cornbread while you two go pick out trees. Everything should be ready to eat right about the time you get back.”
“Sounds great,” Cale said casually. “Ready when you are, Willow.”
But Willow had frozen, her mouth open to protest. She couldn’t go pick out Christmas trees with Cale Matthews. Not just the two of them. It would be weird and awkward, and what if someone saw them?
“I…”
“Oh, and pick out a wreath for the door as well,” Mrs. Dillon added. “Cale has plenty of room in his truck.”
Willow glanced at Cale, but he was no help at all. Did he not care whether people might see them together? Apparently not, because when she caught his eye, he simply mouthed “you promised,” and grinned.
She glared at him and went to get her boots.
There was no snow on the ground, but the wind was cold and cut straight through the thin jacket Willow had thrown on over her sweater. She tucked her hands into the pockets to keep them warm as she walked towards Cale’s truck where it was parked by the curb.
“Do you have gloves?” he asked, digging through his pockets for the key.
“No.”
“Scarf? Hat?”
“I’m fine. We’re just going to buy a tree.”
“This isn’t like going to the grocery store for bread and milk,” Cale informed her with mock seriousness. “It’s a significant decision, and therefore takes time. I’m afraid you’re going to get cold before we have a chance to find the right tree.”
“How can you get the wrong Christmas tree?”
“You’ll see.” He stepped up to the passenger’s side and opened the door.
“I can open my own door,” Willow insisted, wrinkling her nose at his odd behavior.
“I know you can.” He jogged around the truck, got in and started the engine, immediately turning the heat on high. “Now, while we drive, you can tell me how you celebrated Christmas as a kid and why you never had a tree. Did your family not do holidays?”
“Or we could just sit here,” Willow mumbled, not interested in being on the receiving end of his pity.
“But Mrs. Dillon is going to be very disappointed if we don’t at least pretend to get along.”
“Mrs. Dillon isn’t here. We don’t have to pretend.”
“And what if I’m not pretending? I told you, I really do want to get to know you.”
“I already told you that’s not a great idea.” Willow huddled further into her coat. “How about if I ask you deeply revealing personal questions instead?”
“Okay, I’ll make you a deal,” he offered. “We take turns. You can even go first. Every question answered equals one question you get to ask.”
Willow knew it wasn’t very smart to play games or make deals with the town deputy. But she was a tiny bit curious, and according to the rules of the game, she didn’t have to answer if she didn’t want to. Besides, she had a feeling he wasn’t going to give up until she shared something meaningful about her life. Persistence was clearly his most annoying trait.
“Fine,” she said, though not very cheerfully. “But I don’t have to answer if I don’t want to, right?”
“Right,” he agreed. “Go ahead. Ask me anything.”
“Why do you stay in Echo Creek if you miss your family?”
He appeared to think about it for about half a block. “I never intended to stay,” he said finally, “but I ended up making a life here and I love it. I still see my family often, but I like the fact that in Echo Creek, I feel needed. It’s not that someone else couldn’t do my job, but it’s something I enjoy doing. I like taking care of the people in this town and making sure they’re safe. Maybe someday I’ll find a reason to go elsewhere, but for now, this is where I want to be.”
Willow felt a hollow, empty place inside yawn wider as she thought about his answer. He had found a place that
he belonged, and a job that he loved. People who needed him. There was very little she wouldn’t give to find that for herself.
“My turn,” Cale said, taking a left onto the main street through town. “What’s your family like?”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and thought about what she could tell him that would satisfy him, but not be a lie.
“You don’t have to make up any happy answers for me, Willow. I really do want to know the truth.”
“People think they want the truth until they have it, and then they want to change it, or put it away where they don’t have to look at it,” she told him in a low voice. “But I already told you most of it. My father is an alcoholic. He never hit me, and I never saw him hit Mom, but he was angry all the time and spent most of our money staying as drunk as possible. My mom tried, at least a little, but she wasn’t very present in my life. When I was seven, she left us and remarried. My brother and I stayed with my dad until my brother turned eighteen, then he moved out into an apartment with three of his friends.”
“Did your brother help you get out?”
“That’s a second question, but no. He only helps himself. I stayed at home until I graduated from high school and then got out as fast as I could.” Literally. Graduation had been one of the bleakest days of her life. It had seemed so anticlimactic, realizing she’d made it through high school, with impressive grades, and no one cared. “I walked home with my diploma, put everything in a bag and walked out. That was the last time I saw my dad.”
“What did you do?”
“No way are you getting three in a row,” she told him with a scowl.
“Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry at all. “Your turn.”
She folded her arms and stared out at the brightly lit storefronts lining Main Street. What could she ask that would make him uncomfortable enough to give up on the game?
“Why is Christmas complicated?”
Cale realized he should have seen that coming. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about or make a big deal over, but he found that he didn’t mind telling her.
“My ghost of Christmas past is pretty simple,” he said, keeping his eyes on the end-of-day traffic and the pedestrians crossing the side streets. “My fiancée broke off our engagement and left town, about a week before Christmas two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Willow looked down at her hands, obviously a little embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have asked you that. Mrs. Dillon already told me your fiancée left, but she didn’t mention when.”
“I figured she would have said something,” Cale assured her. He hadn’t expected Marcia to bring it up quite that soon, but he wasn’t exactly surprised. “She does enjoy turning me into a tragic figure of lost love.”
“You don’t sound angry.”
“I’m not. Not anymore. When it happened, I was a mess, but it’s been a while. Now, I feel like I’m over it—over her—until someone else brings it up.”
“Which probably only happens every ten minutes in a small town,” Willow said. “I’m sorry to make you relive it again.”
“Don’t be,” Cale insisted. “I don’t mind explaining. You asked why Christmas is complicated. I decided not to do Christmas for myself because, honestly, I’ve had all the sympathy I can stand. I know that if I put up a tree and pretended to do all of the happy holiday traditions, it would bring out all of the well-wishers who would want to help me celebrate being over it.”
“That does sound pretty irritating,” Willow agreed. “And I swear I didn’t mean to be gossiping with Mrs. Dillon. She just brought it up out of nowhere and I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s okay, Willow.” He glanced over at where she was huddled against the door in that incredibly inadequate coat. “I’m not upset. Mrs. Dillon is one of my favorite people on earth, and it doesn’t bother me that she told you.”
“Why not?” Willow protested. “She shared your most painful secrets with a complete stranger.”
“I suppose I might be angry,” he conceded, “if it was someone else, but I know Marcia. She’s not malicious, and she’s not a gossip. She always hoped Marissa and I would be as happy as she and Stanley were, and it broke her heart to find out that Marissa wasn’t who I thought. I’m pretty sure she believes I’m still suffering from a broken heart, when, in reality, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I was young and blind and Marissa never really loved me as much as I loved her.”
“But it still bothers you.”
“It bothers me most this time of year, because Christmas reminds me that I’m alone,” he heard himself say. “I had my life planned. We were going to get married and live here forever, and I was going to have someone to share every day with. Someone who cared about all the details of my life, and someone who would share with me all the little details of theirs.”
“That sounds like a fairy tale.” Willow was shaking her head. “Real people don’t live like that.”
“I believe that some people do,” Cale said earnestly. “My parents do. My brother and his wife seem to manage it. And I’ve heard enough to know that Mrs. Dillon and her husband were amazingly happy in the few years they had together.”
“Few years?” Willow echoed. “I thought they were married forever.”
“No.” Cale turned left into the empty lot where the local garden club set up their Christmas tree sale every year. “He died when Olivia was five. They only had about fifteen years together.”
And Marcia still loved Stanley every bit as much as she had the day they were married. That was what Cale wanted for himself. It was why he’d eventually gotten over Marissa’s betrayal—because he’d realized what he would have missed had he married her.
“I had no idea.” Willow glanced over at him and away again the moment she met his eyes. “Oh, look. We’re here.” The instant he turned off the engine, she jumped out of the truck and strode off as though she couldn’t wait to escape him.
Cale locked the truck and jogged after her, shaking his head a little at the task he had set for himself. Getting to know her wasn’t going to be easy. But the more he learned about Willow, the more he guessed that few people in her life had ever valued her, let alone valued anything she had to say. It was little wonder she was reluctant to talk.
When he caught up with her, she was standing in the midst of the brightly lit rows of trees, staring around her with a slight frown.
“So, we just pick one?” she asked, tucking her hands under her arms to keep them warm.
“Oh, no,” he admonished with a grin. “Not just any one. We have to pick the right one.”
She shot him a puzzled look. “What do you mean the right one? Aren’t they all the same?”
“Not even close.” He pointed to the nearest tree. “This is a Douglas fir, about six feet tall.” Grasping the trunk slightly below the top, he held the tree up straight. “Note that it’s roughly cone shaped, with tightly packed branches that slope upwards. This particular tree has a bit of a hole in the branches on one side, and the top isn’t quite straight, so if you wanted to put a star or an angel on the top it might look a little crooked, depending on whether you put the tree in a corner.”
Willow looked at him oddly. “So go pick one that doesn’t have that.”
“I can’t,” he said, holding up his hands in mock helplessness. “Mrs. Dillon said you’re picking the trees, so I’m only here to advise.”
“I can’t pick,” Willow protested. “You’ve already demonstrated that I don’t know anything about this.”
“Ah, but that’s why I’m here,” he countered. “Now, look at this one.” He turned to his right. “This is a noble fir, about seven feet tall. The branches are sturdier, and the needles are stiffer. It has more space between branches, which leaves room for more hanging decorations.”
Willow huffed a put-upon sigh, and moved forward to look more closely at the tree he held. “Okay, I guess I can see the differences. But does it really matter in the end?”
&
nbsp; “What matters is that you get the tree that’s perfect for you,” he told her. “Come on, let’s look at some more until you find one you like.”
She rolled her eyes, but followed him around the lot, listening as he pointed out the various flaws of each tree. By the time he’d done five or six, she started looking at them more carefully and pointing out a few things herself. She rejected several for being too small, one for having too many dead needles at the bottom, and another one for having a crooked top.
But eventually, she stopped, put her head to one side and stared at a tree at the far end of the row. “That one,” she said.
He strode forward and held up the one she’d indicated. “It’s a little sparse. And the bottom is pretty narrow.”
“No.” She shook her head. “That’s the one.”
Cale took another look. The tree was about eight feet tall, a noble fir, and looked as though it hadn’t been trimmed properly at some point in its growth. It had a tight cluster of branches about one third of the way down, followed by a brief gap, then another cluster at the bottom, almost like a topiary.
But Willow looked at it as though she knew exactly what she wanted.
Trying to hide his grin, Cale picked it up and headed for the front. “I’ll have them wrap this up while you pick the second one.”
Willow nodded, but she was already moving down the row, a slight smile on her lips.
Cale was just putting the first tree in the back of his truck when a red SUV pulled into the lot and disgorged a pretty brunette, a sturdily built blonde man and three yelling boys.
“Hey, Cale,” the woman called, waving and smiling as the boys pelted towards the trees amidst much shoving and attempted tripping. The man followed them without so much a glance in Cale’s direction.
