by Ros Baxter
Beth saw him. She saw him do it. And she could have sworn he didn’t have the good grace to look horrified at all.
“Tea’s on the kitchen table,” he called over his shoulder as he shut the door quietly.
***
It was twenty minutes before Beth could bring herself to go downstairs. And when she did, she was dressed in the most conservative of her Beth clothes. And Beth was a pretty conservative woman. She was wearing a high-necked green sweater and some sensible black jeans. For good measure, she shoved some fluffy slippers on her feet.
She sat down at the kitchen table but there was no sign of Jim. She looked at the cup of tea he’d made and placed carefully on a little crocheted mat. It had been a long time since anyone had made her a cup of tea. Let alone put it on a lacy mat. She reached out for it, but it was cold.
The kitchen door complained loudly as it was wrenched open. Jim stood on the mat, his arms full of firewood, stamping his boots. He hadn’t bothered with the jacket, and the white tee clung to him.
She closed her eyes briefly against the whole manly-man-ness of him, then stood up and made herself busy. “Tea’s cold,” she said, pointing to the woodbox so he knew where to drop the kindling. “I’m making another pot. Want one?”
He looked at her with narrowed eyes as he stalked over to the woodbox.
“I promise not to poison you,” she said. Then she remembered his appreciative face as he watched her in the bathroom, and she wondered idly where her father kept his ratsak.
He grunted, and returned to the back porch. Presumably to chop more firewood.
Over-achiever.
“I’m sure that’s more than enough wood, now,” she called, feeling unaccountably irritated.
But when he came back through he was holding a small pine tree he’d cut off at the base. “I notice you didn’t have one,” he grinned, looking like a little boy who’d captured a lizard to show his mother.
“I didn’t have a small pine tree?” Why did just being near this man make her brain hurt?
“A Christmas tree, silly,” he said, a huge grin spreading across his face. “I figured you hadn’t had the time to get one, y’know, with all the...stuff with the funeral.”
“I don’t do Christmas,” Beth said firmly, pointing back outside.
Jim stood rooted to the spot, his eyes wide. “Okay then,” he said, heading back out before returning with an old black pot he’d filled with earth. “Let’s just call it a holiday tree.”
Beth thought about her options. He already thought she was being difficult. They were going to be stuck here, together, for God knows how long. This boy she’d had a crush on since she first understood that boys and girls were different.
And look how well that worked out, she reminded herself.
He rammed the tree into the pot of earth and stood it in the corner, standing up and flicking a glance over at her. “Nice sweater,” he said, looking slowly at her clothes and somehow making her feel that the high-necked, close-fitting thing was less conservative than she’d thought.
“Tea?” she asked again, feeling her hand shake as she carried the pot to the sink.
He took a deep breath, and glanced at the worn leather watch on his wrist. “It’s cocktail hour somewhere in the world,” he observed. “Got anything stronger?”
***
Beth opened the fridge and waved an arm at an array of pots. “Name your poison,” she said. “There’s enough casserole in here to feed an army for a week.”
Jim laughed, and moved over to stand beside her at the fridge door. She felt her circuitry light up at his proximity and shifted a little.
“Pa always said I had a knack for landing on my feet.” He rubbed his hands together as he inspected the bounty. “Oh, dear Lord. Is that Mrs Beattie’s rabbit stew?”
Beth wrinkled her nose at a stout brown casserole dish. She tried to remember which member of the choir had dropped it off.
“Don’t answer that,” Jim said, shoving her aside with his hip and reaching in for the dish. “I’d recognise that pot anywhere. Turn the oven on Beth, you’re gonna want to pour yourself another glass of red for this one. You’re in for a real treat.”
Jim moved around the kitchen efficiently, and as he did she remembered that they could all cook, all those four boys. No other choice really, she supposed. Pa Canning wasn’t much of a chef. Beth let him fuss with the oven and set the table as her elbows sagged against the solid timber, realising how exhausting the last few days had been. Like the thing with the little lace mat under the tea, it felt nice. Watching him potter around her.
She became aware that Jim had fallen silent and she glanced up from the swirly wood grain of the tabletop. He looked at her quizzically and she realised she must have missed something.
He smiled at her gently. “I said who’s looking out for you, Li-” He stopped himself quickly. “Beth, I mean. Who’s looking after you, since your Dad passed?”
Beth squared her shoulders. “Back in the city, I... share a house with a guy. Nick.” Beth sniffed. “But I don’t need-”
But Jim’s mouth had formed a hard line at the mention of her domestic arrangements and he turned back to the oven so Beth let her sentence taper off. “Well, whoever Nick is,” he said, banging the cupboard door as he liberated the half-empty bottle of red wine and advanced on her again. “He should be here with you.”
“It’s not like that,” Beth insisted, putting her hand over the top of her glass so he couldn’t pour more wine in. This was too easy, sitting here talking to him like this, feeling the glass of wine she’d already had insinuate itself into her bloodstream. The faint smell of rabbit stew tickled her nose and it was too seductive. The last thing she needed was to get all cosy with Jimmy Canning, playing house.
He opened his mouth, a hard look in his eyes and she knew what he was going to ask. What is it like then?
But she didn’t want to answer that. She didn’t need Jimmy Canning to know her housemate Nick was just that. Not when he was here with her, big and bad and all snowed in. Let him think Nick was a delinquent lover.
So she jumped in before he could ask the question. “We need a tablecloth,” she said, finally rousing herself from her place at the table.
“Really?” Jim’s eyebrows knitted together. “Why?”
“Because,” Beth said. “This is my mother’s kitchen, and somewhere, that woman is looking down on us and” – if it’s not bad enough that I’m snowed in with Jimmy Canning – “eating off the table would be a bridge too far.”
Jim considered Beth carefully, then saluted sharply. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “But I should warn you. I am notorious for spilling rabbit stew if I get excited.”
It was an innocent enough comment, but there was something about the way he said it, that word excited, leaning down over the big table and holding Beth’s eyes with those sexy green ones of his. It licked delicious shivers right down Beth’s spine, all the way to her toes.
God help her, would she ever survive this?
She held up her glass. “Maybe I will have another one after all,” she said.
***
Beth woke to a world of white and the smell of bacon frying. She rolled luxuriously in the big old bed she’d slept in since she was five.
With the toes of her right foot, she reached out for the rough patch on the sheet, the patch that she knew to be her mother’s embroidery. Once she found it, she relaxed. She was home. She was safe.
Then she remembered the dreams. Two helpings of rabbit stew and two glasses of red wine with Jim Canning had obviously affected her brain, because she was dreaming things she hadn’t dreamt since she’d been seventeen.
She stuffed the big fluffy pillow over her head as she admitted to herself that the dreams she’d had at seventeen had been a lot more chaste than the ones she’d just woken from.
Oh my Lord. And in her parents’ house.
A loud knock at her bedroom door made her jump.
“
Don’t worry, I’m not coming in, Beth,” Jim bellowed. “I’m not even touching the damn door this time. Just thought I’d let you know breakfast is ready if you’d like some.”
Beth sprang out of bed, needing to put some distance between herself and the bed she’d had that dream in. She yanked the door open. To her irritation, Jim looked as though he’d slept like a baby. He was wearing the stripy pyjamas of her father’s she’d given him last night, hoping they might dull the razor-sharp edge of his ridiculous sex appeal.
No such luck.
He looked like a catalogue model for daggy Daddy sleepwear. A brown v of skin at his neck was juxtaposed against the green pin-stripes, which made his eyes look a darker, clearer shade of green than she’d even seen.
“Merry Christmas, sleepyhead,” he said.
Sleepyhead? She’d hardly slept. She glanced back at the clock, blinking as she realised it said ten fifteen. What?
“This place is the freakin’ twilight zone,” she snarled, pushing past him into the hallway to get to the bathroom. The way her skin sizzled as she brushed him on the way past made her feel extra bitchy. “Nice jarmies, by the way,” she snapped as she hustled down the corridor.
“You too,” he whistled from behind her.
And as he said it, the pieces of memory slotted into place like a child’s jigsaw. She stopped in the hall and looked down at herself, remembering how she’d thrown her own pyjama bottoms off during the night, tossing and turning with the mad dreams.
Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no.
She took in her brown legs, barely covered by the oversized pajama top, and hastily gathered together the neckline, where she was missing a button. She turned slowly to him. “Perhaps,” she hissed. “If you are going to stay in my house, you might like to consider stopping with the voyeur routine.”
He raised an eyebrow at her, leaning against the doorframe.
“The bathroom yesterday,” she reminded him. “And now this.”
He shrugged. “I was just coming to see if you wanted breakfast. I kept the door closed. You’re the one who flounced out looking like an ad for Victoria’s Secret.”
Beth wanted to scream. It was more than she could bear. The night of hot dreams, followed by this rugged interloper leaning on her doorjamb. She stalked back to him, determined to get her pyjama bottoms and head back to the bathroom with some dignity. “If you don’t mind,” she bit out, standing in front of him.
But Jim was in no hurry. “No Ma’am,” he said. “I do not mind at all.” As he said the words, he caught and held her eyes again, looking so hard into her she was sure he was searching for something. But it was hard to tell, with her breath riding high in her throat and her pulse pounding in her ears. He had always done this to her, this man. Since she had been a girl. He had always messed with her equilibrium, made her clumsy and tongue-tied.
He stepped aside to let her back into her room, but as she moved to pass him, he took hold of her arm. “Beth,” he said, so close to her ear she could feel his hot breath. His voice was ragged and low, and she could smell coffee and bacon and warm, male skin.
She paused, not trying to extricate her arm from his grasp. “Yes?” She looked straight ahead into her room as she said it, not daring to meet those green eyes again.
He let go of her arm. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” he said. “This is really shitty timing for you. I’m sure you just want to be alone. I swear I’m not trying to upset you.”
At his words, she turned her face back to his. Bad move.
He was so close she could reach out her tongue and lick him. If she’d been the kind of woman inclined to do that sort of thing. A Lizzie kind of woman. But the woman who was Beth considered doing it anyway, just to see if he tasted as good as looked.
She managed to pull herself back from the brink just in time. She pushed forward into her room, trying very hard to look casual as she threw over her shoulder. “Breakfast sounds good, Jim, I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
***
Breakfast somehow turned into a long, lazy brunch as Jim produced a mountain of food and they slipped into an easy detente. Beth couldn’t remember the last time she had been this full. It must have been a Christmas when her mother was still alive. If there was anything Ma loved more than a good tablecloth, it was stuffing her guests so full to the brim they needed to sleep for a week.
Beth stretched and yawned on the couch, wriggling her toes out in front of her so the fire could roast them a little more.
That honey-dark voice pulled her back from the enticing drag of an early afternoon nap.
“Beth?” Jim had gradually improved at saying her name over the course of the last twenty four hours.
She turned her face slightly so she could see him out of one eye. “Mmmmm...?”
“Storm’s clearing,” he said. “If it holds off I might be able to get away later on tonight.”
Something whiny and traitorous inside Beth rebelled at his words. Going? So soon?
“Oh,” she said, sitting up straight. “Well...” She searched for the right words. “Well, that’s excellent. You might still get home for Christmas.” She tried to inject pleasure and relief into her words, but she wasn’t feeling it. She mentally kicked herself. When had she started liking having this enormous voyeur in her house?
Jim came and sat beside her on the sofa, sitting awkwardly as though he suddenly felt like a houseguest on borrowed time rather than someone with a valid small-town right to be here during a snowstorm. Someone comfortable enough to heat casseroles and cook breakfasts and barge into bathrooms where innocent women were drying off.
He was wearing his big jacket again, and Beth realised she hadn’t seen him for a while, and he must have been outside. Probably chopping more firewood.
Beth felt awkward too. She assembled a question in her mind, something innocent and small-town-y, about who was home for Christmas and what the Canning clan would be doing over at their place.
But Jim spoke first. “I made you something.” As he said the words, he pulled something from his jacket pocket.
A lump of wood?
As he handed it over, the delicate curves and lines of the thing started to take shape before Beth’s eyes. It was a sculpture. A tiny, fragile wooden sculpture. And it was perfect. The little woman had shoulder-length hair, and a delicately upturned nose, a wide smile and legs that seemed somehow too long for her petite frame.
Beth stared at the legs, and the lines took on more form. Oh my God. The sculpture was Beth. In her pyjama top. She looked like a cross between a goddess and a siren, sweet and tempting all at once.
Was this how he saw her?
She turned the thing over in her hands, steadfastly looking down at the sculpture rather than at the dark green eyes she could feel burning into her. It felt smooth and warm in her hand and under her fingers. Sensual.
Jim cleared his throat and when she finally met his eyes, they were twinkling at her. “Just a little Christmas present, by way of thank you,” he said, a little stiffly. “For your hospitality. And your... companionship.” The little speech was so formal, and so unlike Jim, that Beth felt like they should be back at her father’s funeral.
She scratched around in the back of her throat, looking for her voice. “Th... Thank you, Jim,” she said finally. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yes it is,” Jim agreed, staring right at her, not the statue. “It sure is.”
As they sat together on the sofa, Beth wondered if it was going to happen. The room seemed to heat up indecently. Beth looked down at Jim’s big, brown hand on the chair between them. She longed to pick it up, feel it in her own. But why? What good could possibly come of it? She squeezed her eyes shut against the temptation.
Finally, Jim exhaled and stood up. “I’m going to hit the radio and check the roads,” he said. “See what time I can make a break for it.”
“Of course,” she said, not trusting her voice, but wanting, suddenly, to say something, anything, to de
lay him leaving. “Let’s just have a drink together first.”
He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Toast the season,” she said, swallowing carefully.
***
“How did you find out?”
Beth was amazed he could even speak. He’d had at least twice as many whiskeys as she had. The power had gone out, so there was no television, but she’d lit the kerosene lamps, and they still had the fire.
And as the sweet malt had slipped down, they’d started talking. She’d been surprised, again, by just how easy he was to talk to.
“Old Mrs Sayer called,” she said. “She found him when he didn’t make it to choir rehearsal.”
He studied her, those dark green eyes soft and warm. “Are you okay?” The way he said it, it was different from the way everyone else did. Just... different. Not like an obligation, not embarrassed, not awkward. Just like he really wanted to know. And like he was happy to sit and wait for the answer. For as long as it took.
She considered the question through the warm whiskey haze. She stared towards the window, where Jim had rigged up the makeshift Christmas tree with some dessicated tinsel he’d also managed to dig up. “Yeah, I think I’m okay,” she said. “I mean, he was.... well, everyone knew what he was. It’s not like when Ma died. That was worse, more personal.”
But as she said the words, she knew she was missing something and somehow that mattered, suddenly. It mattered that she get it right, explaining this to him.
“Except...”
He reached one long brown arm across and refilled her tumbler, pouring an inch of the mahogany liquid into the heavy glass. “Except?”
“Except now it’s just me.” She felt the words fill up her throat and get stuck in her mouth. “I’m all alone, don’t belong to anything. Soon,” she said, motioning around the room. “All this will be sold, and I’ll have no reason to ever come back here again.” She looked at him, leaning back on the other side of the long sofa, his bare feet stretched towards the fire and his hands resting behind his neck. “That must be hard for you to understand,” she said. “There were always so many of you, so many Cannings.”
