Sleigh Bells Ring in Romance

by Shanna Hatfield

  “Oh, I see,” Doris said meekly, dabbing her mouth with her napkin while Jess took a vicious bite of his cornbread. She gave him a sympathetic look. “Steve’s an overbearing brute. No wonder Janet views spending time as your nurse as a vacation. That poor girl. Has her husband always been horrid to her? Does he beat the kids?”

  Jess felt cornbread crumbs go down the wrong pipe and again coughed into his napkin. His eyes watered, and he wondered if the sheriff would side with him if he throttled Doris. He took a drink of milk and straightened his shoulders. “Steve is a fine man, a great husband, and a very caring father. And you ought to know better than to suggest my headstrong daughter would put up with any nonsense when it comes to her or her children. I’m proud of both Steve and her.”

  “My mistake,” Doris said with a dazzling smile that made it clear she’d intentionally tried to upset him.

  He frowned at her. “As for my grandchildren, they are two of the nicest, most well-rounded teenagers you’ll ever meet. Oh, but I forget, you don’t have any young ones around to dote on, do you?”

  Silence fell between them and Jess decided it was better than trading barbed insults about their offspring. He genuinely liked Brooke and thought Blayne was a lucky man, even if his wife was a little shy around horses. She made up for her lack of a rural background in many other ways.

  And Jess knew Doris didn’t mean a word of what she’d said about Steve or Janet. In fact, years ago when Janet first married Steve, Doris had mentioned to Julia how much she and Glen admired him and thought Janet had made a wise choice in a husband.

  Had their relationship deteriorated to the point they couldn’t even carry on a conversation without trying to inflict verbal harm?

  Contemplative, Jess ate his stew and cornbread then watched as Doris slid two brownies onto a plate and set them in front of him. He ate them and drank the last of his milk while she did the dishes, stored the leftover stew in the fridge, and gathered her things.

  “I’ll be back with dinner at half past five. If you need something between now and then, call Blayne.” She breezed outside, sweeping the tension that had filled the kitchen along with her.

  “Well, that’s that,” Jess said, leaning back in his chair and drawing in a deep breath. He had no idea how he’d endure another day of Doris’s presence in his home let alone a few weeks of her stopping in to check on him.

  In the flurry of their anger at each other, he’d forgotten to give her the list of information Janet had left. It was probably better she didn’t have it.

  Jess shuffled to his recliner and settled in for a nap. Sleep had nearly claimed him when his phone rang. He grabbed it just before the answering machine picked up.

  “Dad, I’m home and just wanted to let you know I made it with no problem,” Janet said.

  “That’s great, sweetheart. I miss you already.”

  “I miss you, too, Daddy. Are you doing okay? Did Doris bring your lunch?”

  “The cantankerous old sow did.”

  “Dad! You can’t… you shouldn’t…” Janet sighed. “Were you at least nice to her?”

  Jess avoided answering by asking her how Steve and the kids were doing.

  “Steve picked me up at the airport on his lunch break, but I won’t see the kids until after school. Are you sure you’re okay, Dad? Did you give Doris the information I left? Is she going to help with your exercises?”

  “I forgot to give the info to her. I’m sure I can manage the exercises on my own.”

  “We talked about this, Dad. You know you…”

  Jess grabbed yesterday’s newspaper and crinkled it near the phone. “I’m losing reception with you, sweetheart. I love you and I’m glad you got home safely. Bye, honey.”

  He disconnected and tossed the newspaper toward the garbage can, missing by several inches. Irritated with himself, with Doris, with his daughter, and life in general, he closed his eyes and went to sleep, wishing he’d wake up and find the last several years were just a bad dream and Julia would be in the kitchen fixing one of his favorite meals.

  Chapter Four

  “Grams, let me get that,” Blayne said, taking the heavy box of food from Doris as she started out to her car with it.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” Doris said, hurrying ahead of him and opening the door to the backseat. He set the box on an old towel she’d placed down so nothing would spill on the upholstery.

  “How did things go at lunch?” Blayne asked, opening her door and watching as she slid behind the wheel.

  “As good as they can get with a nasty toad like Jess Milne.”

  “Maybe if you’d kiss him he’d turn into a prince,” Blayne said, grinning at her.

  “I ought to run over you for that comment,” Doris said, starting the car. “Don’t you have something better to do than pester the life out of me?”

  “Actually, I do, but I wanted to make sure you knew Jess has some exercises he’s supposed to do and he’ll need help with them. Have fun.” Blayne shut her door and backed away with a self-satisfied wave.

  “Oh, he is so going to get his,” Doris muttered, glaring daggers at her grandson as she swerved and pretended she planned to hit him.

  Blayne slapped a gloved hand to his chest in mock dismay then laughed at her.

  That boy was entirely too cocky for his own good. And he’d only gotten worse after he’d sweet-talked Brooke into becoming his bride. Blayne had spent the past year practically floating on cloud nine, clearly enjoying the honeymoon phase of his marriage.

  She’d never heard him and Brooke fight, although they did like to argue their individual points. From what she could see, Brooke was as wild about Blayne as he was her. Brooke, who’d been abandoned by her father and lost her mother to cancer when she was a little girl, had never had a real home.

  It pleased Doris to no end that Blayne’s wife quickly considered the Rockin’ G her home and fit in like she was always meant to be there.

  Doris recalled what it had been like moving in with her mother-in-law as a young bride. It was a good thing she’d loved Glen to the point of distraction or she’d have left him after the first month of living under the same roof as his mother. That woman was impossible to please and thought her way was the only way to do anything.

  To his credit, Glen always took Doris’s side, but it hadn’t really made things much easier or better. She was so glad when Glen updated an old cabin his grandfather had built when he’d first bought the place back in the late 1800s. They’d moved there after Doris had endured six months of listening to her mother-in-law berate her every move.

  She recalled the woman chastising her for everything from the way she folded socks to how she kneaded bread dough. In spite of the fact the cabin was primitive, heated entirely with an old wood stove which she had to cook on, and they always had to battle mice and creepy-crawlies, she much preferred it to living in the big Victorian farmhouse with Glen’s imperialistic mother.

  They remained in the cabin even after their son was born, since Doris refused to allow her mother-in-law to take over raising her child.

  They’d been married five years when Glen went to the house and found his mother dead in the kitchen. The doctor said her heart just gave out. Doris ruefully thought that was one thing his mother could have kept to herself instead of passing on the trait to Glen.

  Glen’s father asked them to move into the big house with him and they readily agreed. Their son grew up, went to college and then law school. He married a woman with dreams and ambitions equal to his own and opened a practice in Portland.

  When Blayne was born, neither of them wanted to care for the boy. From the time he was three months old, he spent the entire week at the ranch. If his parents made an effort to work him into their schedule, he’d go to their condo in Portland on the weekends. However, all too frequently, he remained at the ranch. He hardly knew his parents and when they died, he mourned them more as a child would a distant relation than one who had just lost his mother and father
.

  For all intents and purposes, Doris and Glen had been the only parents Blayne had truly ever known. That was one reason why she loved him so much.

  When Blayne had come home one day last year and announced his plans to marry the glass blower, Doris had gone into town the following afternoon and visited Brooke’s shop. After seeing the way she interacted with people and doted on her adopted family of pot-bellied pigs, Doris realized Blayne had set his affections on a good, kind woman who was not only gorgeous, but smart and extremely talented.

  Although he never asked for it, Doris silently gave him her blessing and supported him as he set out to win Brooke’s heart.

  Now, if the two of them would just get around to giving her a great-grandbaby, all would be right in her world. Well, it would be after she finished her unwanted duties of helping that detestable Jess Milne.

  Doris pulled up at his house and parked on the side so she could go in the back door, assuming the idiot had most likely left the front one locked. She didn’t know why everything he did and said infuriated her beyond the point of reason, but it did.

  She got out of the car and had just opened the back door when one of the ranch hands hurried over from the barn.

  “Can I help you with that, Mrs. Grundy?”

  “Thank you so much, Pete. I appreciate it,” she said, smiling at the young man then preceding him up the back-porch steps and inside the kitchen. She didn’t bother to knock and Jess, who’d been getting a drink of water, almost dropped the glass when she barged inside.

  “Look who’s back,” Jess said, offering her a rakish grin as he set the glass on the counter and turned to face her. “You blow in on a tornado? Have to hurry inside to keep a house from falling on top of you?”

  Pete set down the box, his mouth dangling open in shock. He glanced from Jess to Doris and then slowly backed toward the door.

  “I don’t see ruby slippers on your clunky feet, you addlepated clodhopper, so I think I’m safe,” Doris said. She dug a resealable bag from inside the box and handed it to Pete. “Thank you for carrying this for me. Enjoy the cookies.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the cowboy said. He made a quick escape, shutting the door behind him.

  “It’s not enough to traumatize me, but now you’ve added my crew to your list?” Jess asked, taking slow steps with his walker in the direction of the table.

  Doris intercepted him halfway there, blocking his path. “I heard you have exercises you need to do, old man, and I mean to see they are done. Where did Janet leave the list?”

  Jess scowled but pointed to the end of the counter next to the old telephone mounted on the wall. “If you weren’t as blind as a bat and equally as appealing, you might have noticed it there earlier.”

  Doris ignored his comment and picked up the note from Janet, thanking her for helping Jess, along with a detailed list of his medications, exercises, and doctor’s appointments. It appeared he was due to see the physical therapist tomorrow as well as go in for a follow-up appointment with the doctor next week.

  Barely restraining the urge to roll her eyes at the mess her well-meaning grandson had gotten her into, Doris studied the list of exercises then motioned for Jess to sit down at the table.

  “I’d already be sitting if you hadn’t gotten so goldurned high-handed with me,” he said, easing into a chair with a grunt.

  Doris slid a second chair closer to him then disappeared into the living room. She returned holding one of the throw pillows off the couch, dropped it on the seat of the chair, then gently lifted his foot onto the pillow.

  She took an ice pack from the freezer, wrapped it in a dishtowel, pushed up the leg of the sweatpants he wore, and then placed the ice on his knee. “The note says to ice your knee for twenty minutes before and after you exercise. You do know you could do that without help, don’t you?”

  “I am aware of that fact,” Jess said, adjusting the ice a bit then leaning back in the chair. “What makes you think I didn’t already do the ice and exercises today?”

  Haughtily, her nose inched upward in the air and she gave him a look full of disdain. “Janet mentioned she didn’t have time to do them with you this morning and that you wouldn’t do them unless under duress.”

  “Blabbermouth,” he muttered, but loud enough she could hear.

  Doris turned her back to him and emptied the box of food she’d brought for his dinner, setting a salad in the refrigerator and leaving the rest of the food on the counter. When he finished exercising, she’d warm up his dinner.

  While he iced his knee, she checked to see if she needed to do a load of laundry and found Janet had washed the sheets from the guest room but hadn’t had time to remake the bed. Doris did that then walked into the living room and straightened it, noticing the photo albums on the coffee table. She picked up the one that was open and grinned at the photo of Julia laughing at something Jess said.

  She and Glen had always enjoyed a solid friendship with the couple. They’d been there for each other in good times and bad. Doris didn’t know how she would have coped when Glen died if Jess and Julia hadn’t stepped in and helped. Their steady presence sustained her through those first rough months until Blayne graduated from college and came home to stay.

  Just as they’d been supportive and encouraging then, she’d done the same for Jess when Julia passed away. If they’d been good friends before, their shared grief and experience of losing a beloved spouse drew them even closer.

  Then, one day, everything changed. Jess began to show an interest in her as a woman and Doris didn’t like it. Not one bit. She’d made up her mind to never remarry because it felt like she would somehow betray Glen if she did. Not only that, but Julia had been a wonderful, sweet friend. To encourage Jess would have made her feel like she was cheating on her husband and her closest friend.

  So she ignored Jess’s attention, refused his invitations for dates, then finally made it glaringly clear she would never see him as more than a neighbor and friend.

  The day of that conversation would be forever branded in her mind, since Jess had told her in no uncertain terms what he thought of her using Glen’s memory as a shield for her cowardice. He accused her of refusing to reenter the land of the living since she preferred to cling to her grief and dwell in the past. He’d even dared to hint that she was afraid to love again because it hurt too much.

  After she’d snapped back at him with a few comments she later regretted, he’d stormed off. They’d barely spoken for months.

  Now she was stuck with him until he was back on his feet. Years of friendship had to be worth something, though, so she’d do this out of loyalty to their past closeness, to the fact Julia had been a dear, dear friend.

  Doris turned the page in the photo album and studied an image of Jess. He had to be in his early twenties in the photo and looked like a movie star.

  She’d always thought he bore a striking resemblance to Harrison Ford. Jess had thick hair, broad shoulders, a handsome yet rugged face, and about the sexiest mouth she’d ever seen. He’d been a man that women noticed. It was good he’d always and ever had eyes only for Julia.

  His wife used to laugh with Doris when women would try to flirt with him, fawning over him in town or at community events. When the first Star Wars movie came out in the 1970s, Jess and Julia had gone to Portland for a weekend getaway and he’d nearly been mobbed at a restaurant by women who mistook him for the actor. Julia had thought it was hilarious, but Jess had refused to go back to the city for more than a year.

  Jess was still a good-looking man. His brown hair had turned silver, but it remained thick. His face bore wrinkles etched by sorrows and time, but his lips were still mighty tempting and his gray eyes piercing. For someone who was seventy-six, he had the physique of a man who kept in excellent shape, and his mind was as sharp as a tack.

  If Doris was interested in getting married again, Jess Milne would have topped her list. But she had no interest or intention of going down that road. Not
when she still missed Glen so fiercely and desperately, even ten years after his passing.

  Glen hadn’t been a looker like Jess, but he was the kindest, most noble man she’d ever known. She had no idea how he’d grown into such an honorable man with his horrible mother, but his father had always been good to her and to others. She assumed Glen took after the Grundy side of the family.

  Doris was both pleased and relieved Blayne was so much like his grandfather. Although she might be biased in her opinions where he was concerned, she knew Blayne was a generous, kind soul who offered strength and support wherever it was needed.

  After all, his willingness to help others is what got her into this less than ideal situation with Jess.

  Blayne had asked many times what had happened to make her so upset with their neighbor, but she refused to tell him. Part of the reason was because it wasn’t any of his business. The other part, the part that kept her fuming at Jess, was what he’d said to her was the unvarnished truth and she didn’t want to admit it or deal with it.

  “If you’re attempting to find hidden treasure in there, I don’t have any. You’d do better to try and find the key to my safety deposit box,” Jess hollered from the kitchen.

  In spite of herself, Doris grinned. “I don’t want your money or your treasures you dimwitted dolt.” She carried the photo album back into the kitchen and set it on the table in front of Jess. “Julia was so beautiful. I used to envy how elegant she always looked.”

  “She was something special,” Jess said in a soft voice, turning a page. His gaze lingered on a photo of Julia riding a horse and smiling over her shoulder at the camera.

  Doris picked up Jess’s foot and began his exercises. While she worked with him, she reminisced.

  “Do you remember the time Blayne fell in that quagmire of mud in the northwest corner of the place when he was chasing a fox?” she asked.