by Stacy Henrie
The heady scent of pine filled the lobby as she returned to her Christmas tree. One of the bank patrons helped her stand the tree up inside the water pail and shift it into the corner, out of the way of the waiting customers.
With a final look at the glorious fir, Maria went to sit at her teller window. She mustered her way through helping several of the bank patrons, bidding them what she hoped was a convincing “Merry Christmas” at the conclusion of their business.
“How may I help you, sir?” A middle-aged man, holding a knit cap between his chapped hands, approached her window.
“I need to see the bank manager.”
Maria darted a glance at the closed door of the front office—Dale was still meeting with Mrs. Rothland, one of their most prestigious clients. “He’s busy at the moment. Would you mind waiting?” She waved to the chairs beside the lobby window.
A look of disappointment settled onto the man’s face. “I can’t stay long. I’m on my lunch break, from the meat factory.”
She eyed the door again and stood. “Give me one moment.” Perhaps Dale was almost done, though she doubted it. Mrs. Rothland was never in a hurry when she came to the bank. Maria stepped swiftly into the lobby and knocked on the office door.
“Come in,” Dale said from inside before she opened the door.
He lifted his gaze from where he sat at his desk, his face instantly brightening.
“There’s man here to see you.” Maria stepped into the small room. “He’s only able to wait a short time before he has to get back to the meat factory.”
“Do you know what it’s about?”
Maria shook her head. Dale looked to the papers before him, then at Mrs. Rothland. “Would you excuse me, ma’am? I’ll be right back.”
The well-dressed woman frowned but inclined her head. Maria hoped for Dale’s sake the other customer didn’t take too much of his time away from Mrs. Rothland.
He followed her out the door and shut it behind him. “Which customer?”
Maria indicated the man standing near the window.
“I don’t want to upset Mrs. Rothland by helping someone else, but if he can’t wait…” Dale studied the man for a moment. “Why don’t you help him?”
“Me?” Maria pivoted to face him. “He wants to see the manager. I’m a clerk.”
“You’re more than a clerk,” he argued with a smile. “Look what you’ve done to help me and the bank these last few weeks.” He leaned toward her, one hand lightly touching her elbow. Warmth tingled through her dress sleeve and up her arm. “Besides, I overheard what you emphatically announced to Lawrence and James the other day.”
Maria’s cheeks grew warm. She’d told the twins she didn’t think it would be long before women were running banks, not just clerking in them.
“Maria, I have full confidence in your ability to help him.” He gave her arm a gentle squeeze, then waved to the chairs across the lobby. “Pull those into the corner over there. That should give you a little privacy. If I finish with Mrs. Rothland before you’re done, I’ll come see if you have any questions.”
He was really going to let her meet with the man. Surprise and anticipation bubbled up within her. “You’re sure?”
Dale laughed. The deep, resounding sound sent a wave of pleasure through her middle. “Yes. If you’ll show me—and him—that confidence and charm you’re so famous for.”
“Very well.” She spun on her heel and straightened her shoulders.
“By the way,” he murmured, “I like the tree.”
His encouraging tone and his belief in her abilities sent her pulse dancing. She longed to turn and meet the intense look she felt leveled at her back. To feel his hand on her arm again, to see if he felt the attraction growing between them as she did. But she forced her feet forward instead of back. She had a job to do first. One that suddenly filled her with more excitement than decorating the bare tree she passed as she marched, head held high, across the lobby.
* * *
“Mr. Emerson let you help someone with a mortgage?” James twisted on his stool to face Maria.
She nodded in answer, then thanked the woman at her window. When the patron walked away, Maria turned around, her lips still creased in a permanent smile. “The man works at the meat factory and wants to get a place of his own, instead of living in a boardinghouse.” She could relate. Though clean and respectable, her single room didn’t make a home.
The meeting with the man had gone even better than she’d expected. He’d been reluctant at first to discuss his financial wishes with her, but Maria had won him over by commiserating over the ills of boardinghouse living. Before long, he relaxed his rigid stance in the chair and began to talk.
She’d drawn up the paperwork herself, after procuring the necessary pages from Dale’s office. But she had yet to tell him how well everything had gone, how she kept turning over the incident in her mind like a rare jewel she couldn’t believe she suddenly owned.
“Well, good for you, Maria.” James pushed his glasses up his nose. “Would you want to do it again?”
“Do what again?” Dale asked as he moved through the door. He fingered his tie, no doubt to loosen it, until he caught Maria’s pointed look.
She straightened on her stool. “We were talking about helping with mortgages and loans.”
“I see.” Weariness seeped from him.
Peering through the bars of her teller window, Maria caught sight of Mrs. Rothland exiting the bank in all her winter finery. “Did you just finish up with her?”
Dale grimaced and inclined his head in a nod.
“Your uncle always had to take a short break after his meetings with Mrs. Rothland.” She shot him a sympathetic smile. “If you want some cocoa or coffee to restore your spirits, I can run and get some.”
“I’ll take some,” Lawrence interjected from his stool. “Even the sight of that old biddy saps my energy.”
Maria ignored him as she added, “I‘d like to buy some things to decorate the Christmas tree anyway.”
“Speaking of meetings, how did yours go?” Dale asked.
She pressed her hands together, the thrill of doing something unconventional filling her anew. “It went really—”
Someone cleared his throat and Maria turned to see a customer standing at her teller window. She considered asking James or Lawrence to help him instead. If she could snatch a moment alone with Dale and reassure him of the success of her meeting, perhaps he’d let her do it again sometime. But the patrons came first, she told herself with a soft sigh, which meant setting aside her own desires to be of assistance.
Managing a friendly smile, she asked the man how she might be of help. The moment his business concluded, though, another patron stepped up to take his place. Soon the bank was teeming with people again.
Her opportunity to talk with Dale never reappeared as she and the twins worked steadily through the afternoon. At one point, Dale pulled on his coat and announced he’d be back shortly. Maria watched him hold the door open for a woman and her two children, then slip outside. Some of her earlier excitement seemed to leave with him.
She hoped the days ahead wouldn’t all be like this one, leaving her and Dale with few opportunities to talk alone or banter back and forth. While more customers meant more chances to possibly do other things besides clerking, she didn’t relish the thought of so little time with Dale.
By the time the last patron left the bank, Maria no longer felt full of anticipation. Dale hadn’t returned from wherever he’d gone, and a glance at the Christmas tree in the lobby only furthered her cheerlessness. It would likely be several more days before she could steal away long enough to decorate the tree. And the holiday would be upon them in a week.
She pulled on her coat and bade the twins good-bye. They’d volunteered to stay behind until Dale came back and locked up. The cold bit through her scarf as Maria stepped out of the bank. Streetlamps dropped pools of light into the lengthening darkness. She started down t
he sidewalk toward the boardinghouse when a familiar voice called to her from behind.
“Maria!”
She spun around to see Dale moving toward her, his arms full of boxes.
“Christmas shopping already?”
He chuckled. “Not exactly. Are you headed home?”
“Yes.”
A hint of disappointment passed over his face. “I would’ve been back sooner, but I had to go crawling in the attic to find these things.”
Maria moved to his side. “What things?”
“Tree ornaments. Lights.”
She raised her eyes to his, pleasant surprise warming her frozen face. First the chance to do more than clerk today and now this. “You brought those…for me?”
He shrugged. “You said you didn’t have things to decorate the tree yet, and we’ve been busy all day.”
Maria wanted so badly to go up on tiptoe and kiss those masculine lips in appreciation. But she feared Dale’s reaction or someone seeing them. So she contented herself with tucking her arm through his and pulling him toward the bank. New energy heated her from head to toe, driving out the cold.
“I thought you were going home,” he teased.
Maria threw him a full smile as she steered him through the door. “Not when we have a tree to decorate.”
* * *
“What do you think?” Dale stepped back and surveyed the tree, now aglow with the electric lights he’d brought from home. Lawrence and James had departed an hour earlier, leaving him and Maria to fix up the tree alone. Not that he had any objection.
Maria pressed a finger to her lips and analyzed their handiwork. “I’ve never seen a tree lit with anything but candles.” She cocked her head to one side. “But I like it. Very much.”
The smile she bestowed on him rivaled the lights of the tree, causing Dale’s chest to swell with pride. He’d been contemplating for a week how he could reciprocate her kindness toward him. Things at the bank had never been better and Dale owed most of the credit to Maria.
Asking her to assist the man earlier today with his mortgage had been a good start at thanking her, as evidenced by Maria’s pleased expression when Dale had suggested it. But his efforts to help her decorate her tree had proven to be the greater show of appreciation, judging by the happiness radiating from her.
“So you were saying?” She knelt on the floor beside one of the ornament boxes. “I can help out with more of the mortgages?”
Dale chuckled and adjusted a strand of lights so it would hang better on the branch. “All work and no play.”
“Not at all. As I see it, we’re accomplishing both.” He caught her smug smile as he turned around.
“You enjoyed it that much?”
She lifted out one of the crocheted stars his mother had made years ago. “It was different than helping customers as a clerk. It felt…” She set the star in her lap and fingered the edge. “More important somehow. Like I had a hand in helping that man grab ahold of his future. His dreams.”
Dale studied her bent head, thinking not for the first time how much he liked her hair. Even short, it was beautiful and perfectly suited to her. “I don’t know that I’ve thought of it like that, but you’re right.” He hoisted the other box of ornaments from off the floor. “I suppose in a way it’s a little like performing surgery. With both, you’re hoping to secure a person’s future.”
“Oh dear.” Maria’s tone rang with amusement. “Did Dale Emerson favorably compare being a surgeon to being a bank manager?”
He laughed as he pulled a colored ball from the box and placed it on the tree. “Guilty.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” The warmth and sincerity in her voice sounded every bit as sweet as his mint Life Savers tasted. “These ornaments are beautiful.”
“My mother made many of them.”
“Did she decorate your tree, too?”
“With the help of me and my father, when he was alive.” He hung another ball on a branch, the happy memories of Christmases past filling his mind.
“When my siblings and I were little, my mother was the one who decorated our tree—secretly, of course.” Maria carefully removed more ornaments from the box. “We didn’t even bring the tree into the house until Christmas Eve.”
“Perhaps we should wait until then,” Dale suggested.
Laughter floated over to him, feminine yet strong and full of delight. Like Maria herself. “Absolutely not. I can’t wait another day to make this tree look spectacular.” She stood, her hands full, and came up beside him to hang the decorations on the tree.
Companionable quiet filled the bank. And peace. That’s what Dale felt in this moment with Maria. No apprehension over his injury, no regret over the past, no concern over the future. Tonight, he simply felt contentment. At being alive, at being home, at being here with Maria.
He studied her profile as she bent to pull more ornaments from the other box, admiring the gentle slope of her nose and the purse of her full lips in concentration. From that first day, when he’d caught her as she fell off the ladder, he’d been struck by how different she was from any other woman he’d ever met. Her ability to see beyond his injury left him feeling awed and strangely free.
“Who’s Felicity?”
The inquiry shattered some of Dale’s peace, both within and without. “Why do you want to know?’ he asked as casually as he could.
“Because the back of this heart reads, ‘To Dale with all my love, now and forever, Felicity.’” She slowly stood.
He’d forgotten about the ornament Felicity had given him one Christmas when he’d been home from medical school. The memory filled him with a degree of sadness, more for Felicity than himself.
“Felicity was…sort of my fiancée,” he said, placing the wooden star in his hand on the tree. “I met her before I went to medical school. We talked about getting married after the war.”
“Was your fiancée?” Maria repeated softly.
“I ended things between us when I came home last month.”
Maria stepped toward him. “That must have been hard, for both of you.”
He lifted his shoulder in a shrug, though her assessment couldn’t have been more correct. “It was for the best. Her family is quite prominent here in Sioux City and very wealthy. I was no longer able give her the life she was used to, like I might have as a surgeon.” Dale reached into his box and removed another ornament. With little thought to what it was, he stuck the decoration on the tree. “I didn’t think her society circles would appreciate one of their own having an injured husband and a poor one to boot.”
“Dale…” Maria placed her hand on his arm, the feel of it warm and comforting through his jacket sleeve. “I don’t know what to say.”
He smirked. “I believe that’s a first.”
A half smile lifted her mouth, but she didn’t banter back as he’d expected. Instead she released his sleeve, much to his disappointment, and passed him Felicity’s ornament. But she didn’t let go of her end until he looked at her. An almost pained expression flitted across her face before it hardened with determination. “Did you love her? Because if you did, she might have surprised you with her strength if you’d let her.”
He considered the question for a long moment. Had he truly loved Felicity? “I think in the beginning I did. But over time, being away from each other so much, I think we came to love the idea of us—her the belle of the city and me a renowned surgeon.” Dale glanced down at the heart before letting it drop into his box. “She was sad, but I don’t think she was heartbroken.”
They returned to working in easy silence, and before long the tree could hold no more. Dale added his empty box to Maria’s nearly empty one, then turned to view their handiwork.
“It needs one more thing,” she said, studying the tree, her hands draped on her hips.
“I doubt you could squeeze a walnut in between all that decoration.”
She shook her head, her eyes sparking with amusement. “No. We need to
turn off the other lights.” After switching off the lights in the lobby and the front office, she returned to his side. “It looks perfect.”
Dale had to admit the tree did look festive. The electric lights bathed the ornaments and evergreen boughs in a soft, colored glow, bringing beauty and symmetry to the decorated tree. A movement out the window caught his attention and he nudged Maria gently with his elbow. “It’s snowing.”
Large, lazy flakes drifted down from the sky, alighting on the window and sidewalk outside. “Now, it’s perfect.” Maria moved around him to look at the snow. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
He shifted his gaze from the falling snow to her enraptured face as he murmured, “Yes, it is.” In the half-light, the sight of her large violet eyes and creamy skin filled him with a longing to hold her in his arms, for real this time.
She glanced at him and he shifted his stance toward the window to hide his embarrassment at being caught staring. “Can I ask you something?”
His heart sped faster, but for what reason, Dale didn’t know. He reminded himself he felt more comfortable talking to Maria than anyone else he knew. The dim light was also emboldening, filling him with courage to voice whatever she wanted to hear.
“Yes,” he finally answered.
“How did it happen? With your eye?”
He pulled in a deep breath and released it slowly, regret and pain churning in his stomach. “I was working near the front lines when we came under fire.”
The scene before him changed, from peaceful snow settling over the city to the burst of shells above the hospital. “An ambulance had just arrived and I was helping get the patients out, away from the shelling. We had only one more patient to evacuate.”
He swallowed as the stillness of the bank receded to the clamoring noise of his memories. “I had my hand on his stretcher, ready to pull it out, when an orderly asked me a question. The second I finished answering and turned back to help, there was a horrific explosion.” Dale had to push the next words out of his mouth. “The soldier on the stretcher didn’t survive the blast.”
