by Taylor Hart
Holding up one of the little bottles, she pushed it to his nose. “Smell this.”
For a second, he resisted, but then he gave in to her. The smell that assaulted him was lemony. “Hmm,” he said, not really convinced but intrigued.
“Lemon zest.” She put it down, looking altogether too satisfied as she explained. “Lemon zest is the oil of cheer or joy. This blend inspires faith that life will work out and helps you have faith that you can overcome anything.” She dabbed some on her fingers and rubbed it on his neck.
“Aww.” He hated when people did crap like that, but it was Ari, so he wouldn’t say so.
She wiggled her nose. “Just try it.” With a little gasp, she snapped her fingers. “You could wear it tomorrow and come to the school and help with acting camp.”
“I’m confused.” He picked up a paper towel and tried to wipe the smell off his neck. “I thought you left for camp on Friday.”
“No. Not that camp.” She rolled her eyes. “I told you on the phone last week about my teacher, Ms. Olympia, and how she was hosting an acting camp for inner-city kids Thursday and Friday after school, remember?”
He didn’t. “Uh, yeah. Okay.”
The look on her face told him she didn’t believe him. “Anyway, I’m going to give the kids some oil to help them.”
Grant was mystified at how different girls and boys were. Boys would never think about this stuff. At least, he and his brothers wouldn’t. He reached out and picked up a different bottle, smelling it.
“That’s rosemary. That’s the love oil. You could attract a woman if you put it on.”
Acting like it was dynamite, he put it down. “I have no interest in women right now.”
Ari winked at him. “Well, the geeky drama kids need it.” She covered her mouth and shook her head, her curly hair bobbing back and forth. “Oh my gosh, do you think you could come help with acting camp tomorrow and Friday? My theater teacher was just saying we’re short-staffed.”
This took him by surprise. “Tomorrow? Uh …” He didn’t think he had anything, and he thought about all the times he’d missed helping out.
“C’mon.” She put her hands together. “Please? I know she would love the help, especially from you. It’s for a good cause.”
“You really need the help?” For some reason, he felt shy about helping, like he might not live up to all of Ari’s expectations.
Ari put her hands into begging mode. “Please help! It would be like a present for these kids. A great way to get into the Christmas spirit!”
Just at that moment, Tom walked in, all wet and shaking out his hair. “Christmas spirit?” He pointed at Grant and laughed. “Mr. Scrooge doesn’t know what it means to have Christmas spirit.”
Immense irritation spiked inside of him. “Get out! You’re dripping all over my house.”
“Sorry.” Tom froze, putting on an expression of exaggerated shock. “Who is my brother helping?”
“Shut up.” Grant rolled his eyes.
Ari must have sense this was her chance, because she pounced. “He’s helping my drama class. We’re having a camp for inner-city kids.”
Tom cocked an eyebrow. “That’s cool. You should. Mom would like that. Remember what she always said about serving at Christmas.” He winked and turned back. “Come get in, bro.”
Grant’s heart raced. Tom had said it so casually. “Remember what she said about Christmas.” Well, yeah, he knew what his mother had said. She’d pounded it into them over and over. “Christmas is a time for service.”
And he’d failed at it. For a long time. Was he Mr. Scrooge?
“So you’ll come?” Ari’s face was hopeful.
Mrs. Smith nodded at him. “Do it,” she mouthed.
“Fine, I’ll come.” He puffed out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
Ari clapped happily. “Sweet! Everyone will be so excited.”
Grant shifted, uncertain. “Yay,” he said in a mock falsetto.
Ari laughed and hugged him. Mrs. Smith gave him a thumbs-up. It did feel good to think of helping others.
Ari turned back to the table, picking up one bottle and pouring something into it. She laughed. “Ah, just to warn you, my teacher did call you a hack the other day in front of the class, though.”
“What?!”
Ari focused on the bottles. “My drama teacher, who is amazing, just so you know. She literally should have been in movies. She’s way good. So good at teaching us stuff like accents and how to act and make it so it doesn’t seem like you’re acting.” She shrugged, not realizing Grant was upset about this.
“What did she say?” Grant asked, feeling stupid he cared what some teacher had said.
“Ya know that scene in the last movie when you had to act like you had a Brooklyn accent?”
He nodded. Of course he knew.
“And you were making a deal with the mobster, and you were saying, ‘Give me a quarter. Give me a quarter, and I’ll throw it up for you.’” She mimicked his voice, exaggerating the Brooklyn accent. “She thought you sounded like a hack.”
Grant frowned, wondering how Ari could be so dismissive about it. “O-kay.”
“What?” Ari put the bottle down and put a lid on it. “I don’t know. It made me think you might have been a bit nasally in the scene.”
The thing that annoyed him the most was he had hated that scene, had even tried to get the producer to take it out. “Shouldn’t you be telling me how happy you are that I’m coming?”
Ari practically dropped the bottles and rushed over to throw her arms around him. “Thank you!”
His gaze met Mrs. Smith’s. “What can I say? I am the epitome of Christmas spirit!”
She laughed. “Yes, you are, Mr. Kent.”
Well, he’d cross those bridges when he came to them. He rushed through the doors, taking off his shirt and yelling, “Clear out, I’m coming in!”
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Married by Christmas—Prologue
The high school stadium rang with a chorus of “Happy graduation!” In front of the stands, the group of ex-seniors tossed their caps up into the air.
Tom Kent’s best friend and girlfriend, Emily, rushed from her place in line and threw her arms around Tom’s neck. “Happy graduation!” she said breathlessly.
He kissed her and cradled her face in his hands, feeling her put her arms around his waist. “Decided to get away from the smart kids to come back here and slum with your boyfriend?”
She laughed and pressed her lips to his.
Tonight was the night he would ask her. Finally, after knowing her since they’d been seven years old, it was time.
She pulled back, and her face shone with exuberance. “I love you, Tom.” Tears misted in her eyes, and he thought of the ring in his pocket.
“I love ya too, Ems.”
“Six, five, four, three, two, one! Baby Kent!” he heard his brothers yelling in unison from the stands.
Peering up, Tom discovered his brothers’ shirts were off, and they had baby bottles and “Tom Kent Graduates” painted on their chests. He was the youngest of six brothers. Remarkably, they’d all been able to come for his graduation. They’d always teased him about being the baby, and now they were rubbing his face in it. He laughed and flipped them the bird, which made all of them burst out laughing and high-five each other.
His mother scolded them before turning to clap for Tom. He could see tears in her eyes as she shrugged in response to his brothers’ antics.
Emily held him tighter. “They’re crazy!”
Blinking back tears, he laughed harder, loving his brothers so much. “They’re just happy I’m graduating.” He winked at her. “You know it was iffy for a while.”
People were pointing at his brothers and whispering, “Look at the Kent brothers.” He ignored them because his brothers loved the attention. Instead, he focused on Emily, who was snuggled securely in his arms.
Emily stared up at him. “Yo
u’re right; it was iffy. But even though you may not like book stuff or actually going to class …”
He laughed and thought of how many classes he’d ditched this past year.
“And even if you’re a bad-boy rebel, I still think you’re brilliant and funny and dashingly handsome.” She kissed his cheek.
He gently pressed his lips to her forehead. “See, that’s why we work, Ems. You’re the yin to my yang. Because you’re really the brilliant, smart, going-to-take-over-the-world one.”
“Okay,” she said, relenting. “How about we’re both brilliant?” This was a game they played, complimenting each other equally.
He snuggled her closer. “Ems, I’m definitely the one who just plain needs you.”
Emily’s nose wiggled and she kissed him again. “I love you so much.”
He nodded, a nervous thrumming in his gut. “Me, too.” Tonight. Tonight, he would ask her, and soon they would be the greatest love story this small town had ever known.
People walked by and high-fived them as they chatted with friends.
“Hey, Emily! Why are you hanging out with the biggest dork here?” one of Tom’s brothers called out from the stands.
She reached for Tom’s hand and pulled him with her. “Let’s go find my sister and my mom. Then we’ll go deal with your brothers.” She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at his brothers.
Laughter sounded from his clan, and he knew he would kill them when he got the chance. “Sounds good.”
* * *
At the bonfire later that night, all of their friends laughed and chatted. Someone was strumming the guitar. Emily leaned back into Tom’s chest, and he wrapped her tightly in his arms and shifted so they were facing the fire. Emily thought this must be the best day of her life. The beginning.
A twinge of sadness soured the moment. She wished her father would have been here. Strike that: she wished her father had never left. Anger simmered in her thoughts as she remembered how he’d left when she was fifteen, how he’d run off with another woman and never looked back. Unfortunately, her father’s departure had caused her mother to have a nervous breakdown. Her mother had never been the same. The breakdown, they’d recently been told by the doctors, had led to mental problems and memory loss.
Pushing all of that out of her mind, Emily tried to focus on the fact that it had been a good day. Nevertheless, nervousness pulsed through her. She hadn’t told Tom about the letter she’d gotten earlier, the one her mother had given her before the small graduation gathering at the Kents’ house earlier that evening.
Her mother had excitedly pushed it at her. “Open it. Let’s see what options you have.” Her eyes had twinkled.
Her sister, Trina, had taken her mother’s hand and scrunched up her face at Emily. “You got in, Em. I know you did.”
Excitement had woven through her when she’d opened it and seen the acceptance letter. She’d stumbled back and nearly fallen. Trina had rushed to her side, held her, and finished reading the letter, declaring she’d not only gotten into Yale, but she had also gotten a full-ride scholarship.
“I can’t take it,” Emily had said, dropping the letter and thinking of Tom and how they’d toured the CSU campus in Fort Collins together two weeks ago. They’d talked about their future and how they would work their schedules out to meet for lunch.
Trina and her mother hadn’t pushed her, but she’d known both of them were thinking this had been her dream her whole life. There was no arguing. Going to Yale had been her dream. But she couldn’t leave Tom behind.
She and Tom had decided they chose each other. They would never leave each other.
Tom stroked the side of her hair, bringing her back to this moment. “What are you thinking about, Ems?” he whispered into her ear.
Jolting back to this moment, she sucked in a breath, then slowly let it out. She didn’t want to talk about her worries, so she smiled up at him. “I’m thinking about how we’re going to have a ton of fun at CSU this fall.” Yes, CSU. Unmistakably, a twinge of regret tumbled through her insides and lodged itself in her gut. Not Yale.
A half smile crossed his face. “Yep.”
She wondered if there was some regret inside of him. All of his brothers had served in the military in some way, and his father had lost his life serving his country. This was the precise reason she’d spent so much time talking Tom out of enlisting. It was dangerous.
“I need to talk to you, Ems.”
The simple sentence raised her hackles. Forcing down the immediate worry, she tried to smile at him. “Sounds serious.”
Tom stood and held a hand out to her. “Can we get away from everyone and walk by the river for a bit?”
Emily took his hand and stood, but right away she had that feeling. It wasn’t something she talked about with many people, but Emily had always been a bit clairvoyant, as her mother called it. She could feel when something was amiss or about to happen. Granted, it could be as little as a fly swimming into her cereal milk, which had actually happened once. Or it could be as big as knowing her grandmother had had a heart attack, which had happened too.
Her heart raced. Was it a good something or a bad something? She never knew that either. She easily fell into step with Tom. This was how they were, in sync. They’d been best friends since he’d moved in, but not girlfriend and boyfriend until high school when he asked her to prom sophomore year. After prom, he had kissed her by the old tire swing.
Tonight, the moon was bright. It was the end of May, so it was chilly but warming up. Lacing her fingers with his, she leaned into his side as they walked. “What’s on your mind, Ninja?” He’d inherited the nickname the same year he’d kissed her, when he’d begun sneaking into her yard at night and throwing rocks at her window. Neither of them had cell phones until they could afford them, so this had been their way to communicate.
He let out a soft laugh. “Stupid nickname.”
They walked away from the party for a bit. Abruptly he stopped, letting out a sigh and taking her by the shoulders.
She stared up into his eyes. He was tall. Six foot two. She was only five-six, and he’d shot up a lot in the last two years. She always teased him about that too. “Can’t be this serious tonight, Tom. It’s our graduation. The beginning of the rest of our lives.” The last bit was spoken with mock solemnity, mimicking the principal’s speech earlier that day.
A smile emerged on Tom’s face, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Ems, I have two things, important things, I need to talk to you about.”
She didn’t want to talk about important things, so she reached up and looped her arms around his neck, kissing him.
Soft, eager, and knowing the motions, Tom gave in for a moment and kissed her in return. Then he tried to pull back.
She was determined, deepening the kiss, holding him closer. “No,” she whispered before planting another kiss on his jaw. “You must not understand,” she said, opting to kiss his neck. “This means I don’t want to talk right now.” She found his lips, again, and felt him smile against her. Her mind screamed, Yes, I want to be with you. Kiss you. Hold you.
Once again, Tom allowed a bit of kissing before pulling back. “Ems,” he said, letting out a skittering laugh. He took her hands in his and brought them to his chest. “I need to talk to you.”
Emily’s stomach flip-flopped, and the spine tingling was back. “Okay. Let’s talk.”
Tom hesitated. Then he ripped the words out like you would rip duct tape from someone’s lips. “I enlisted.”
All the air whooshed out of her lungs. His admission couldn’t have more impact if he’d told her another bomb akin to Hiroshima had just been dropped on their hometown of Greeley, Colorado. She coughed. “What?”
“I had to. I just …” He let go of her hands and put a fist to his chest. “I just had this feeling inside of me, nagging at me. Like destiny was pulling me forward, and if I ignored it, I couldn’t live with myself.”
Anger flared in her,
and already tears were forming in her eyes. She thought of his oldest brother, Zane, the SEAL, who was super into stuff like duty, honor, and commitment. He was always pushing his agenda with Tom. He’d been home this whole past week. Not to mention all of his brothers had served or were serving. “When?” she asked softly, realizing it shouldn’t have surprised her.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Tom put his fingers to his eyes and scrubbed them. “I did it yesterday. I’m shipping out for boot camp at the end of next week.”
Yesterday … The word rang through her mind, and the rest of the Beatles lyrics fell neatly in line. All my troubles seemed so far away. Pain filled the center of her chest, and she put her hand to it, backing up.
“Ems, Ems!” Tom closed the gap between them, holding her shoulders. “Are you okay?”
She felt like she’d felt on the day she’d found her mother on the couch. The day her father had left. Dizzily, she reached out and held on to him for dear life. “We weren’t going to leave each other, remember? We chose each other!”
Pulling Emily against him, wrapping his arms around her, he whispered, “I do choose you, Ems. Always. I would never leave you.”
She felt herself trembling. “Yes. You. Are.”
“Not permanently. Not ever.”
Closing her eyes, she let him hold her. It wasn’t okay, but Tom had always been the dreamer, and she’d always been the practical one. This couldn’t work. Tears poured down her cheeks. “You can’t do this.”
Bending down, Tom picked her up like a father would pick up a child. He held her to his chest as he walked down to a patch of grass on the river, far away from the bonfire.
When he sat with her on his lap, he said, “Ems, please don’t cry. Please don’t.” His voice cracked as he held her. “You always break me when you cry.”
She didn’t know how long they sat there. Him, holding her. Her, crying herself out. Of course he would serve. Tom was that kind of guy. It all came down to God, country, family. She’d known that. She let all those thoughts be drowned out. All she could hear was the river. All she could feel was Tom’s warmth.
