by Bacarr, Jina
A sliver of sadness settled in Kristen, living for a moment in her aunt’s shoes. Ballet flats with rhinestones. She’d fly through the cottage in her soft slippers, her long flowing tunic a rainbow swirl that covered up a lifetime love of baking and good food, her yoga pants black. Always black. She imagined her as a young woman, slender and smiling, filled with hopes and dreams like her—only to lose the man she loved.
She’d never remarried. Said raising a curious little girl who was always messing around in the kitchen with flour and sugar and butter was all she had time for. Then she’d hug Kristen and went about her work, subject closed.
Yes, Kristen thought, running her hand over the smooth ivories. This was indeed a special piano.
Why didn’t she see it before?
A circle of understanding twirled around in her brain that pointed back to one thing: Jared. He had a way of making her step outside herself and take a second look. A wonderful feeling, but she couldn’t figure out why. What was it about him that made her see everything so differently?
She looked up and locked gazes with the sergeant with an intensity that set her head spinning. Oh, my, he’d been watching her, the smoldering heat in his eyes difficult for him to keep hidden from her. As if he’d enjoyed every second, observing her with the same need that made her heart pound in her chest, her throat dry.
She forced herself to back away from getting too interested in the handsome sergeant. Flirting with him had been fun, but dangerous. She’d started to believe he felt the same way about her. She couldn’t be that lucky. Life didn’t happen that way. Even if she wanted to fall in love, this wasn’t the time. Not on Christmas Eve with no job and foreclosure staring her in the face like coal in her stocking.
Yet she didn’t know what she’d do if he left. She’d already fallen for him. Crazy, stupid. But she’d tried, really tried not to, but there was something special about the soldier just like there was something about the piano.
What was it?
Silence fell between them, sending shivers through her.
To break the spell, Jared lassoed her around the waist with a festoon of red garland. “A penny for them.”
“Oh?”
“Your thoughts.”
“Make it a nickel…no, wait,” Kristen said, hopeful. “Maybe if we wish hard enough, we’ll find another sock with a five dollar bill in the Christmas box.”
“Maybe.” His voice was playful, his mood anxious. “But first, let’s finish decorating your aunt’s piano.”
She laughed and together they draped the garland around the piano, and then hung silver balls on the metallic tinsel with old fashioned hooks. They worked so close together she stiffened at first, not knowing how to respond to him, trying to keep her mind busy on decorating the piano and not on Jared’s hard thigh rubbing against hers.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t press against her either, but being that close to him set her pulse on a fast, steady rhythm, making her feel content just to be close to him.
When they wound a glittering string of holiday lights around the silver balls, she leaned over and found herself nearly in his lap. She didn’t dare go there in her mind, so instead she inched away slowly and draped more lights over the sides. Whatever happened, one thing she knew for sure. He’d started an ache in her that wouldn’t go away after the holiday.
She was almost sorry when they were done.
By the heated look in his eyes, so was he.
Kristen cleared her throat, trying to be practical, trying not to let her emotions interfere with making this a good Christmas for her little girl.
“What do you think, Rachel?” she said, putting her mom hat back on.
“It’s the coolest Christmas tree ever,” said Rachel, jumping up and down with glee. Kristen’s heart warmed at her daughter’s joy.
“Every tree needs an angel,” Jared said, propping up the angel star on top of the piano. “A beautiful angel.”
He flashed a sexy grin at her that said he’d lift her up and put her on top of the tree if he could. Kristen felt her cheeks redden, but she couldn’t risk giving him a sassy comeback. Only too well did she know where her playful flirting would lead. Kissing him then, God help her, she didn’t know what.
Before she could come up with another excuse, any excuse, to still the hot urges threatening to flare up if he touched her again, he plugged the string of lights into the wall socket and—
“Oh, how beautiful!” Kristen cried out.
Twinkling lights colored red and blue and green and gold filled the room with a bright, warm glow that glimmered like pixie dust. The worn mahogany wood on the piano looked new again, the black and white keys sparkled, the tinsel dazzled.
“It’s so pretty, Mommy,” Rachel said, grabbing her hand.
“Yes, it is, baby,” Kristen said with awe, and then turned to tell Jared with her eyes how much his piano tree meant to her and Rachel. At the same time, she kept making excuses why she should hold on tight to the strings of her heart and not let them sing a happy tune. “Thanks to the sergeant, we have a Christmas tree.”
“We’re not finished yet,” he said, baiting her.
“Oh?” she asked, wondering if he was going to pull an elf out of a hat. “You’ve already done so much, Jared. I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t happened by Kissing Creek on Christmas Eve.”
Embarrassed, he raked his hand though his hair. “That’s what I’ve been doing my damnedest to tell you, Kristen. About why I came here—”
A shock of dark hair hung over one eye, his brow cocked, his jaw set firm. A midnight blue cast hooded his eyes as if he were trying to shield her from something disturbing but no longer could.
She didn’t look away. It couldn’t be that bad. Most likely he’d gotten off the bus hoping to get a hot meal and had no place to go for the night but he didn’t want to tell her.
Men were such proud creatures, she thought, and they didn’t understand it wouldn’t hurt them to accept a little kindness. Especially when his coming here was such a godsend for Rachel and her. She’d never be able to repay him for the holiday joy he’d brought them.
It bothered her to see him so upset.
“It’s none of my affair what your reasons are for passing through,” she said honestly. Heavy snow flurries tapped on the window, catching her attention, the Christmas tree lights reflecting on the glass pane.
A magical moment.
Outside she imagined the twinkling spirals of red and green lights were so bright they were visible down to the main road. She could see herself as a little girl peeking outside the window, waiting for Santa to come. Then she looked back at Jared and her toes curled, making her glad she was a woman all grown up. “But I want to thank you for bringing Christmas back into my home.”
Whatever Jared was going to say, he changed his mind, as if her words made it even harder for him to express his thoughts. Instead, he said, “I know it sounds crazy, Kristen, but believe me, your aunt’s piano is the key to keeping the cottage for you and Rachel.”
“You mean you think I should sell it?” she said, a sadness creeping into her voice that she didn’t try to hide.
“Not exactly…”
“I was wrong, so terribly wrong to suggest putting it up on EBay and I’m sorry for my rash words. That would be like selling Aunt Gertrude’s memories. I’ll never sell it, even if I have to scrub floors to pay off the mortgage.” She stomped her foot down on the rug. “The piano stays.”
“You’re a beautiful woman, Kristen,” Jared said, looking at her with deep warmth in his eyes. “Both inside and out.” His words came out in a hoarse whisper, and hearing him say he thought she was beautiful was so amazing she didn’t know what to do. “Your aunt knew that, so do I. That’s why she left you a present inside the piano.”
“What?” Kristen questioned, still reeling over him calling her beautiful, and then adding to it a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach.
&nbs
p; What does he know that I don’t?
His eyes were very playful. And filled with a deep yearning to share something with her. What, she had no idea, though nothing short of a Christmas miracle would get her out of the mess she was in.
Yet she couldn’t look away, so hypnotized she was by the emotion in his eyes that pulled her into their depths, holding her there for a moment before letting her go.
“Don’t move,” the sergeant said, placing her just so in front of the piano.
“What are you doing?”
“You’ll see.”
Then, with a sharp turn of his head, Jared turned his attention to the front oval panel on the piano, removing it with a push here, a tug there, surprising her.
She ran her fingers down her cheek, then chewed on a nail, not believing that for her entire life she had no idea that panel was loose. Only her aunt ever touched it and she kept the piano spotless.
Surely she knew about it.
Her heart skipped a beat. She remembered the woman’s warm smile, always so innocent when she’d zip her duster over the piano, then that cute giggle of hers when she was finished. As if she had a secret. A wild, crazy thought hit her between the eyes, scrambling her thoughts and then putting them together like she’d just found the last piece to a giant jigsaw puzzle. Was the piano another one of her aunt’s hiding places? A musical hide-and-seek game she kept to herself?
Dear God, then that meant—
“Look inside the piano, Kristen,” Jared said in such a manner it made the hair on the back of her neck rise. “And see for yourself what your Aunt Gertrude left for you.”
She looked at him first, her eyes wide and questioning where he got such a wild idea. But she couldn’t stop her curiosity from getting the better of her. With a deep breath filling her lungs and her fingers crossed behind her back, she peered into the guts of the old piano. Then she leaned forward, lowering her head, and got the shock of her life.
“Ooh…no, no!” A long, slow shudder traveled up and down her spine. Kristen crossed her hands over her chest. She couldn’t breathe. She’d never been so surprised. She fought to keep her focus, for she had the strangest feeling that if she blinked twice what she saw would disappear in a flash.
Cold, hard cash.
Money. Moola, mad scrilla. Dollars, lots and lots of them.
Wads of bills rolled up and tied with thick string and neat little bows. Pert, perfect. Only a woman with small hands could have tied them. Aunt Gertrude. So many wads of money stuffed in here she couldn’t count them all.
Her eyes hurt from the sight of it.
“Oh, my God, I don’t believe it!” Kristen cried out, reaching into the guts of the piano and pulling out rolls and rolls of money. “There must be hundreds…no, thousands of dollars hidden in here.” She tried to think, make her mind cooperate to take it all in, but she was still stunned by the magic of it all. “But how…why? I know Aunt Gertrude hated banks, but why hide cash in here? And where did she get all this money?”
“You have no idea where it came from?” Jared asked, puzzled.
“No,” she said cautiously, and then looked at him with a strange, unsettling feeling coming over her. For months she’d stared at that piano every day, she’d almost given it away to the mean old banker, and never once in her wildest did she ever think about looking inside.
But Jared did.
He knew the money was hidden in there.
Why would he wait until now to tell her? Then it hit her. Something was terribly wrong, something she didn’t understand. She’d been fooling herself about Jared all along. He’d come here to Kissing Creek for a reason and it had nothing to do with getting a hot meal. He knew all along exactly what he was doing.
And she fell for it.
It was a game to him, and somehow she fit into it in an odd way she had yet to understand.
She felt incredibly sad, as if she didn’t want to know what was behind it all. She liked the dream so much better. Falling for the handsome soldier, flirting with him, even imagining she could love another man. She had the worst feeling that when she did find out why he was here, everything between them would change.
But she had to ask, so she did.
“How did you know the money was in the piano, Jared?” Kristen said in a quiet voice. “How?”
He looked directly at her, but he didn’t speak. He let her think about what happened, the money, the piano. Why did he go to such great lengths to come up with that piano tree story? What was it that he wanted to tell her but couldn’t?
Not once, but twice.
Finally, he leaned toward to take her in his arms, but she took a step back. He didn’t try again. She knew he was testing her to see if she still trusted him.
She didn’t.
She waited for him to come up with another phony story. That because she’d told him about the old socks her aunt stashed around the cottage, he had a hunch she’d hidden money in the piano.
No, she wasn’t buying it.
It didn’t make sense. Someone told him the money was in the piano. Not Aunt Gertrude…the lady passed away several months ago.
Who else would know? Who would her aunt confide in?
A bitter taste sat on her tongue, making her mouth go dry.
Oh, no…
Scott.
The sergeant knew him after all.
Somehow, somewhere, before he took his last breath, he’d thought of her, wanted to take care of her. And Rachel. He’d shared the secret of the Christmas piano tree with Jared, trusting his buddy not to let him down.
My darling, were you worried about us? You were the best husband and father. You always took care of us. Is that why you sent the sergeant? Help me, please, understand what is happening.
A hot ball of emotion squeezed her chest. She wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. How could she have been so blind? No wonder she was attracted to Jared. Her subconscious picked up signals, little nuances that reminded her of Scott. Close buddies in the same unit often had the same swagger and way of talking seeing how they shared so much time together, often under the worst conditions.
She couldn’t help but wonder if they talked about her. Of course, they did. That made her seethe inside. Jared had all the cards. Knew the plan.
He’d fooled her completely.
Kirsten kicked the wads of bills lying on the rug with her foot and buried her face in her hands. Her life had been turned upside down today not once, but twice. In her heart it was like losing Scott all over again. The hurt, the pain, the achy feeling from head to toe that never went away, but most of all, the emptiness that filled her at night when she lay alone in the dark. She knew in her heart Scott wouldn’t want her to grieve forever and end up alone and bitter.
Especially for Rachel’s sake.
So he sent the sergeant here to Kissing Creek to find her, tell her about the money in the piano.
Still, something stuck in her craw. Why didn’t Jared bring it up sooner? So he could see how she was holding up? Flirt with her? Find out if the little widow was being true to her man?
Okay, that was unfair, but she didn’t know what else to do. She was flying over the top with her emotions because she felt betrayed, her soul singed with lies. Even more hurtful, she had to come to grips with the fact that Jared felt nothing for her.
Just doing my duty, ma’am, he’d say.
And what did she do? She’d practically thrown herself at him, offering to bake him cookies, feed him, even let him sleep on her couch.
She felt cheap, used.
Kristen had no one to blame but herself for this whole silly mess. A lonely woman clinging to the idea that it wasn’t wrong to want to live again, to love a man, to find a good father for her child.
What a complete, utter, freaking crazy fool she was.
Chapter Nine
“I wasn’t lying, Kristen, when I said Scott was my best friend,” Jared tried to explain, though he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Kristen wouldn�
�t look at him. “We were in the same unit during my last tour and we watched each other’s back. We went out on several missions in country and always made it back until one day, our luck ran out when we got caught in an enemy trap.” He stopped to get his breath, to try to put some logic to the thoughts whirling around in his brain. How the hell he was going to get through this, he didn’t know. “I held him in my arms when he took his last breath.”
Finally, she looked up at him, her eyes shimmering with tears. She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail, long damp wisps sticking to her cheeks. She’d gone pale, her lips pulled tight, but it was her piercing stare that would haunt him for the rest of his days. Eyes so filled with pain, her pupils large and black, as if watching him from the shadows of the past and seeing what he saw because she had to.
Had to know what happened to her husband that day.
It would be the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.
He sensed the same feeling hit her in the gut that twisted inside him when he smelled the enemy, knew his life was on the line. He could feel in his bones the frustration and anger churning inside her, fueling her need to know, festering for God knows how long.
She was tough, strong. She could take it.
Like a man walking naked through the fires of hell, he spoke his piece, knowing his sweet-faced angel couldn’t stop the tears from falling as he recounted his long journey from Afghanistan to Kissing Creek. The months of rehabilitation after he’d been wounded, the therapy sessions to find his way again after losing Scott. The realization that his life as a combat soldier had ended. Then how he took some leave he had coming to fulfill what he considered his duty to help his friend’s wife and child at Christmas before leaving the military.
Her courage never faltered.
She listened to his every word, saying nothing, but she kept digging her nails into her palms. Once, twice, he saw a long shudder rake through her body, making her muscles spasm as if she had no control over them. Her right eye twitched. He wanted to hold her hand, knowing he’d find it ice cold, but didn’t. She was in the throes of living through the unbearable anguish of losing her husband for a second time, but this time she was there.
