Tidings of Love

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  2. O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree. It doesn’t have to be big and bright to make someone’s holiday wish come true. And this season, there are plenty of trees that need a good home. Go see Chief Gambino and ask for a little potted pine. For $5 you can help raise funds for the Outterland homestead. Then find that someone special to help decorate the tree. After the holidays, you can make a date to plant the tree on Casper Mountain.

  3. Here comes Santa Claus! And he needs a few helpers. Volunteer at the food bank, offer to collect new gifts for the toy drive, or simply help out your neighbor. Santa’s watching and you never know who you may meet when you’re doing good deeds!

  4. Home alone for the holidays? Offer to cover a colleague’s shift at work. You won’t be alone and you can spread your cheer all day long. You may even be amazed to find out who else is working the holiday beside you.

  I worked through my list and concluded with my personal favorite.

  5. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. So turn on the oven and start baking some holiday treats. What better way to someone’s heart than through a gift basket of goodies? Be safe and avoid anything with nuts.

  I seriously felt I was on fire by the time I spellchecked and composed my email to Joe.

  Joe—

  Two pieces attached. First, the feature on the Outterland fundraising efforts. Second, a column for our weekend readership that ties back into one of the fundraising efforts for the new Outterland homestead. I noticed there was a weekend slot open for a columnist, and I thought I’d try my hand at column writing. What do you think?

  When you get the chance, I’d like to talk to you about expanding my reporting duties to include Casper.

  Thanks!

  Janey

  I attached the two files and scrolled my finger over the touchpad until the cursor hovered over “send.” I pressed down and clicked it into the clouds. I wasn’t going to overthink it or obsess. I was going after what I wanted: the job, then Joe.

  Chapter 21

  The beauty about the newspaper industry was that when a writer nailed a piece and truly hit the mark, a preview to the story was posted immediately online and the full story was published in the print edition. It was a twofer. But in my case, only one of my stories was teased and then released in print.

  “It didn’t work.” My voice was as flat as my enthusiasm.

  “Oh, Janey. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, Joe emailed me back. Should I read it to you?” I didn’t wait for her to reply.

  Janey,

  Cute idea for a column. Let me give it some thought. Thanks for the follow-up on the Outterland fundraising efforts. Solid reporting. We’ll touch base on the possibility of expanding your reporting area.

  Thanks!

  Joe

  “He thought the column was ‘cute.’ Cute.” I shook my head.

  “Janey, that doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “Cute? Cute is the kiss of death in my industry. Journalists or columnists don’t write cute, they write, well, what he said about my feature—solid. Not cute. Eh, it doesn’t matter now.” I shrugged. “He didn’t even mention a date to run my cute column so I guess … ” I massaged my forehead. “What the hell was I thinking?”

  “That you could woo him with your writing?”

  I frowned. “Yeah, that usually works. I thought maybe he’d see that I was multitalented, offer me the columnist position, expand my reporting base, and then ask if I was coming for Christmas.”

  “You really aimed for the fence.” Kris’s daughters played softball. Her analogies tended to relate back to sports.

  I nodded. “Yup, but instead of hitting the fence, I struck out.” I felt nauseous. “I give up. It’s obviously not meant to be. He’s my editor. We shared Thanksgiving dinner and that’s all there was to it.”

  “Are you sure he hasn’t called you?”

  “He has my cell number.”

  “But when you recently upgraded you switched providers and they gave you a new number.”

  “That’s true, but he still has my home landline number and my email. If he wanted to reach me, he could.” I closed my laptop and pushed away from the kitchen counter. “The sooner I let go of this, the better.”

  Chapter 22

  After two more weeks of nothing but short, curt work emails from Joe, sleep still didn’t come easy. My nights were restless with the reality that he wasn’t going to reach out to me beyond his role as editor. And I had already made the first move, at least toward bridging the distance between us by having a Casper-based job. I’m not going to be the clingy Thanksgiving guest from hell. Christmas break had started and now each morning my twins came into my room, gently touched my face, and kissed my forehead.

  “What time is it?” I fumbled for my phone and woke up the screen. When it came to life, I felt mine take a dive. No new email messages from work. “Do we have school?” John asked.

  I shook my head. “No, sir, you do not.”

  “What about me?” Jessica asked.

  I choked back a chuckle. “No, baby girl, no school for you either.”

  “What are we going to do?” they asked.

  I pulled back the covers and patted the mattress. “Come join me.”

  My twins piled in and we burrowed beneath my fluffy down comforter.

  “It’s snowing,” John said. “And Daddy said that means Santa’s reindeers are practicing for their big flight on Christmas Eve.”

  “I bet Rudolph is leading them through the snow right now,” I said.

  “Do you still believe in Santa?” Jessica asked.

  “Of course. Don’t you?”

  She shrugged. “I dunno. I heard Suzie Clark tell her little brother, Stephen, that Santa wasn’t coming to their house this year.”

  I knew the Clarks were in the middle of a divorce, but I didn’t know any of the details. Nor did I need to know them.

  “I have an idea,” I said. “Have you ever heard of a Secret Santa?”

  My first graders shook their heads.

  “Well, sometimes, Santa gets super busy during this time of the year and he needs a little help. So he asks certain families to help out other families by dropping off presents, food, and stockings … ” What am I about to get myself into in my need to keep my emotions under control? It’s one thing to write about being one of Santa’s helpers, it’s an entirely different thing to do it. But the surprised looks on my twins’ faces told me I was on the right path. “Okay, so we have to do this in secret. No one can know.”

  “Oh, because we’re helping Santa?” Jessica’s large, brown eyes searched mine for an answer.

  “That’s right,” I said, gently poking her in the belly. “You’re so smart.”

  My daughter lit up in a smile. “Another day with Mommy!” she said.

  And another day without Joe.

  Chapter 23

  Nearly all the green and red construction paper links on my children’s countdown-to-Christmas chain were gone. The twins and I had made the chain the day after I got home from Casper. Now, any time I looked it, I thought of Joe. Our communication had boiled down to a weekly email that consisted of a few words about my story assignments and my minimal reply.

  I grabbed a potholder from the kitchen drawer and slipped my hand inside.

  The subtle smell of vanilla and the richness of molasses perked my senses and awakened my hunger. I could almost taste the air. Christmas.

  I snuck a peek through the oven window. The gingerbread men puffed in the center. The cut-out cookies looked more like a lineup of potbellied cowboys.

  I carefully opened the oven. The last batch of cookies rose very fast and high and then fell as soon as I placed the tray on the top of the oven. I was determined that at least one of my relationships with a man would work out this holiday season—even if he was made of dough.

  Heat encircled my arm as I reached for the cookie sheet. I was carefully backing up with the tray of cookies in one hand when John ran int
o the kitchen.

  “Mommy, we got a package!” My first grader darted behind me and bumped my elbow. I lost hold of the cookie sheet.

  Gingerbread scattered into the air as men toppled around me. I covered my head, but a cookie still dinged me. The aluminum cookie sheet fell like a quarter on a toss. It teetered, clanged, and reverberated against the tiled kitchen floor. I jumped, but the corner of the hot tray nicked my ankle. I grabbed my burnt heel and hopped in place. This caused my “Ho! Ho! Ho!” embossed sweatshirt to rise off my midriff. The soft skin singed against the open oven door when I accidentally bounced into it.

  “Help.” I bumped the oven shut with my hip.

  “Uh-oh.” John’s brown eyes opened wide. “Did I do that?” His voice was small and unassuming.

  I shook my head. “It was an accident. I’m trying to … ” Keep my mind off missing my editor. “Mommy’s doing too much and making a mess.” I ran a paper towel beneath the cold water tap in the kitchen sink and applied it to my heel. “But running in the house probably isn’t a good idea.”

  John gently patted my arm. “I’m sorry you’re so klutzy that you ran into me.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh and then slid another tray of gingerbread men into the oven.

  “Can we open the box?” Jessica walked into the kitchen with a pair of scissors in her hand.

  “It’s probably another Christmas present,” I said, applying the wet towel to my burnt skin. “Why don’t you put it under the tree?

  “So we can’t open it?” she said, putting the scissors down on the kitchen table.

  “Who is it from?” I asked.

  My daughter ran into the foyer of our townhouse. I heard her carefully sounding out the words. “Um… it’s from Joe … R-gen-tee.”

  “Joe Argenti?” I dropped the wet towel and dashed past my son toward the front room.

  A small box wrapped in brown paper was addressed to me with Joe’s home address as the return. I carefully took the box and sat down on the couch, which was now in front of our Christmas tree. The star on the top of the tree glistened with hope.

  “Who is Joe R-gen-tee?” Jessica asked, sitting beside me.

  “No one.” I looked at the box and wanted to hurl it across the room.

  “Why did he send you a box?”

  I shrugged. “I probably left something behind on Thanksgiving,” I said without any care what my twins would report back to their father.

  “Is he your friend?” John asked, sidling up beside me on the couch.

  “I thought he was. But … ” My twins clung to my every word.

  “Maybe it’s from Santa!” My daughter’s voice grew with excitement. “Like the man on the phone talked about.”

  I practically bolted off the couch. “Jess, what man? What are you talking about?”

  “I told you, you shouldn’t have picked up the phone. You’re in trouble,” John said.

  I held up my hands. “No one’s in trouble. I just need to know what man. Was there a man in the house?” My adrenaline kicked into overdrive. I looked toward the hall closet where I kept a baseball bat.

  “No, he was on the phone.”

  I grabbed my cell phone out of my back jeans pocket. “Mommy’s new phone?”

  She shook her blonde curls. “No, he was on the house phone.”

  I darted toward the kitchen. I grabbed the portable landline and hit the “missed calls” feature, but no numbers popped up. “Jess, did you pick up the phone?” I yelled from the kitchen.

  “Yes!”

  I ran back to the front room with the portable house phone. “You picked up this phone?”

  She nodded.

  “And there was a man on it? Was it Grandpa? Or Uncle Mike?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. He asked for my mommy.”

  “Oh, so maybe it was just a salesman?” Relief started to work its way through my body. “Did he say what he wanted?”

  “Yeah, he said he wanted to eat your story.”

  “What?” I shook my head. “He wanted to eat it?”

  Jessica slowly moved her head up and down. “He said he was your eater and he needed to talk to you about eating your story.”

  “Eater?” I scratched my mess of curls. “Eater.” I paced the front room, tapping the portable phone against the palm of my hand. “Oh! Editor?” I turned toward Jessica. “Did he say he was my editor?”

  “Yes! That’s what I said—your eater.”

  I plopped down on the couch and thumbed through the stored list of phone numbers—both received and dialed. The Wyoming Frontier’s main switchboard number surfaced. The call came in two weeks ago. Oh, no. I frantically hit the number and heard the phone automatically dial it.

  “Hi, Carmen, it’s Janey. I’m trying to reach … ” I paused. “I’m not really sure. My daughter picked up a call, but it was weeks ago, from an editor. I’m sure it was the night editor and whatever they needed passed … ”

  “Hey, Janey, it was probably from Joe.”

  “What? How can you be sure? It was two weeks ago.” The desperation in my voice couldn’t be hidden.

  “Well, I think it was him.” Her voice sounded as uncertain as my emotions. “Did you change your cell number?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I switched carriers so I could get a smartphone.” And be more hip like Kelly.

  “Can you email us your new number? All we have is your home phone, and I’m pretty sure it was Joe who wanted to talk to you.”

  “Really? Do you think it was Joe?” My voice contained way too much enthusiasm. I cleared my throat. “Um, could you connect me?”

  Within seconds, I heard, “Newsroom, this is Joe Argenti.”

  My pulse quickened. “Hey.”

  “Janey?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I’m returning your call.”

  “Could you hold on for a second?” He didn’t sound like himself.

  My heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach. “Of course.”

  “Hello there.” His voice was lower, and the sexy allure that I hadn’t heard for more than three weeks filled my soul with a sound that had been missing from my life. “I had to go into the conference room.”

  My stomach stirred with excitement. “So, I missed a call?”

  “Yeah, like two weeks ago. When I tried your cell, an automated voice told me your number had been disconnected. So I tried your home number and your daughter told me you were playing secret Santa with Suzie Clark’s father. I figured you were busy so I didn’t call back.”

  “What?” Panic gripped my voice. John and Jessica leaned toward me. “Um, hold on,” I said into the phone and then placed it against my sweatshirt to muffle the sound. “Hey, this is Mommy’s work. Can you give me a minute? Maybe you could make a list of things we still need to do before Christmas.”

  Jessica clapped her hands. “Yeah!”

  John followed her off the couch.

  “Sorry about that. I had little ears. Suzie Clark’s father is going through a divorce. And I wasn’t playing Santa with him or anyone, we were leaving gifts for their kids.”

  There was silence. I crossed my arms over my chest. Fine. Whatever.

  “In your column you wrote about being Santa’s helper. I figured that was what you were doing.”

  “So you haven’t called or emailed beyond your editor duties because a seven-year-old told you that I was playing Santa’s helper?” My tone was as snide as I intended.

  “No, that’s not why I didn’t call back or email you. I’m a little more mature than that.”

  “Then why? Why haven’t you reached out to me?” Mr. Maturity.

  “Janey, when I asked you to come back for Christmas, you said you’d think about it.”

  My heart pounded and then plummeted to my stomach. Oh. I never said yes.

  “It wasn’t what I expected to hear.” His voice was sharp and curt. He paused, and in that silence my chest ached. “It threw me,” he said. “Janey, it really confused me.”

 
“I was protecting myself,” I said.

  Joe’s rich, hearty laughter suddenly filled my ear. “So was I. That’s why I took a step back. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  I began to laugh. “No, well, yes. It’s not easy. You’re my editor.”

  “I thought we had separated that when you came to my house for dinner.”

  My throat was tight and my eyes began to mist. “I thought so, too, but you’re still my editor. And I can’t afford to lose my job if things go south. So I didn’t say yes. I probably should’ve said yes but … ” I placed my hand on my chest to stop it from hurting. “I didn’t know. So instead I tried to woo you with my work and that column and … I’m not very good at this.” I’m an idiot.

  Again, his deep, masculine laughter echoed in my ear. “Janey, when you came back to my truck on Thanksgiving night with the front-page story of the decade, you wowed me.”

  “So I didn’t need to write that column?”

  He chuckled. “No, but it is going to run this weekend. Stan loved it. Thought you had a real talent for column writing.”

  I grinned. “So there’s an upside to all of this.”

  Joe didn’t say anything.

  “My ex-husband’s job is most likely relocating him to Cheyenne.”

  Joe still didn’t utter a word.

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to you about expanding my reporting duties to include Casper … well, actually, to be Casper.”

  “I got that email, and it wasn’t something I thought should be discussed through an email exchange. I still don’t.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s something we should discuss in the newsroom during our weekly assignment meetings.”

  “What?”

  “Janey, the Wyoming Frontier needs good reporters like you. If you’re willing to relocate to Casper, there’s a desk and a reporting beat waiting for you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”