Guarding Christmas

by Jenny Schwartz

She focused grimly on each task at hand. One foot after the other. Don’t think about Gray. Not Gray who’d been buying a traveler’s cooking set—for her? Don’t scream at the customers who now, belatedly, felt the need to panic.

  Finally she was at the evacuation point with emergency vehicles’ flashing lights adding to the surreal chaos.

  “Go now,” Barry said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve got this. Everyone’s out and safe, the door’s secure. I’ll check in with Thaddeus, let him know I’m taking over from you.” He tapped his radio. “Go.”

  She went.

  People asked questions as she wove through the crowd. She answered as best she could, mostly vague reassurance, and kept on going.

  Ivan, another guard, was holding people back from the south wing. Here the devastation was obvious. Flames licked along the roofline even as firefighters poured in the water. Windows had blown out.

  “Gray?” she asked.

  But Ivan didn’t know Gray and was impatient of her question. He had his hands full with people pressing forward, wanting to take photos. “Freakin’ ghouls.”

  She ought to stay and help him, but from the corner of her eye…she slipped away, heading for the line of ambulances.

  Gray sat on a tailgate. A paramedic was assessing him.

  “Yvie.” He tried to stand up.

  The middle-aged paramedic pushed him back down. She was brisk, practical and too busy to stand any nonsense. “I think it’s mostly your hands.”

  Yvie looked down at them. “Oh God.” She wavered on her feet.

  Gray reached for her, flinched and swore.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” the paramedic spared a few moments for kindness. “Superficial burns. They’ll hurt like hell, but they’ll heal. You free to drive him to hospital?”

  “Yes.” And before Gray could protest. “Barry’s filling in for me, and the police are taking over, anyway.”

  “All right.” His face was strained under the covering of soot. “Keys in my pocket and my phone. Call your Mom. Let her know you’re okay.”

  She nodded. This close to him, she smelled the fire on him, mixed with sweat. She shuddered at how nearly she’d lost him.

  “Hey Mom? Just me. There’s been a fire at the mall. I’m okay. Really. I’m taking Gray to hospital. No, he’s okay.” Her breath hitched, not quite a sob. “He burnt his hands, probably playing hero.”

  He grinned faintly.

  “Yeah, Mom. I’ve got to go. Love you.” She opened the passenger door of Gray’s pick-up and watched him clamber in. No hands made everything tough. She clicked the seatbelt for him.

  “Sweetheart.” Their faces were close. “Kiss me.”

  She did. It was what she craved, this fundamental reassurance of life.

  He held his hands cautiously to one side while their mouths said everything their bodies couldn’t and their hearts didn’t dare. Heat, hope, need, commitment.

  Finally, she drew back.

  “Whatever was wrong this morning,” Gray said. “We’ll fix it.”

  She nodded, barely able to remember last night’s suspicions and the morning’s fight. “First, we’ll fix your hands.”

  By the time Gray got out of hospital, he was wiped. They’d given him something for the pain and all he wanted was to go home and collapse. Correction. All he wanted was to go home with Yvie and collapse.

  She was waiting for him outside the cubicle, looking lost, then fiercely relieved to see him. “I’ll go get your pick-up. I had to park a bit of a distance after I dropped you off.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll walk with you.” He wanted out of the hospital. Too many bad memories.

  “Is it just your hands or do you have burns anywhere else?”

  “Just my hands.”

  “Ok then.” She slipped in against him, putting an arm around his waist. “Put your arm over my shoulder. Is that comfortable?”

  To hold her close, he’d have put up with actual pain. “It’s good.”

  “I was talking with a couple of salespeople. They said you went back to get a kid out and burnt your hands putting out his hair.” She shivered against him. “His hair was on fire.”

  “Her hair, and it was only her hair. I checked. She’s fine.” He was relieved to slump into the passenger seat of the pick-up. He turned his head to watch her as she reversed out of the parking bay. “I got the job, yesterday.”

  “What job?”

  The pain meds were making him woozy, his thoughts disconnected. “That appointment that I left you for, that made you so angry this morning. I wanted the contract cause I can do it anywhere. Could travel.”

  Her words reached him from a long way away. “You were interviewing for a job? Fudge. Way to make me feel bad. I thought…Dad phoned. He’d discovered my plans to travel around on my own. I thought you’d told him.”

  “No.” His tongue felt thick. He balanced the backs of his hands carefully on his lap. Now he let his head drop back against the headrest. He closed his eyes. “You’re not travelling alone.”

  “I’m not?”

  He knew she’d be annoyed. He didn’t care. “With me.”

  She woke him up at the house. Not that he’d really been sleeping. More like zonked out. Damn. So much for being a tough guy. He should have slept last night instead of spending the night knocking out the kitchen cupboards and worrying over the problem of Yvie and his stupidity in rushing her.

  Now she was fussing around him and that was much better.

  “Are you going to stay with me? My hands.” He held up the bandaged evidence. “I’ll need a bit of help.” Though he could cope if he had to.

  “Of course I’m staying with you.”

  He smiled and let her fuss him into bed. He heard her talking on the phone to her mom. An hour later, Mrs. Harrison arrived with clothes for Yvie and drinking straws for him. He cracked an eye open, then went back to sleep.

  Yvie was here. The rest could wait till his brain was functioning again.

  Chapter Six

  Yvie abandoned the kitchen as a disaster zone. If she needed evidence as to the effect of her going incommunicado the previous night, it was here. Gray had demolished the old counters and cupboards. Tiles had cracked off the walls and splinters of wood lay on the ripped vinyl floor. She set up a make-shift kitchen in the living room with the kettle on the folding table and the toaster beside it.

  “Morning.” Gray stood in the doorway. He looked rough.

  “Good morning. Coffee?”

  “Please.” He walked in and sat down. “I need a shower.”

  “Can you manage it?” She tried to fight a blush. “Mom suggested a couple of plastic bags over your hands held on with elastic bands at the wrists. But if you can’t put pressure on your hands…?”

  “A couple of fingertips are functional.”

  She busied herself with the coffee, adding plenty of milk to Gray’s mug—and a straw.

  He grimaced.

  “It’s practical,” she said.

  He bent his neck to suck at the straw. “I feel like an idiot.”

  “Do you want jam on your toast?”

  “Aren’t you going to give me a chance to grumble first?” He grinned.

  “When you’ve eaten. You need something in your stomach so you can take your pain pills. Then you can have your shower.”

  “I can tell you’ve thought it through.”

  She cut his toast into small triangles and he managed to pick them up, clumsily.

  “I heard you last night,” he said. “You thought I’d tattled to your dad.”

  She sighed. “It wasn’t one of my finer moments. I talked to Mom. What actually happened was my landlord is one of Dad’s friends. He mentioned to Dad that I’d given up my lease. That was all Dad was asking about. I just leapt to conclusions. False ones. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re forgiven.”

  “That easily?”

  “The way I see it, you were reacti
ng to the pressure I put on you. I was rushing you.”

  “No.” It was strange having a serious conversation with a man juggling toast and sucking coffee through a straw, but she wanted everything cleared up. She wanted the future he’d been talking about. “Four years isn’t rushing things, Gray. If anything, you’ve been too slow.”

  He abandoned his breakfast, staring at her with hard, questioning eyes.

  She smiled at him, understanding his fear to hope. “The house is impressive and I can’t say I’m not glad you’re out of the army and all its danger, but the important thing is you. I love you, Gray.”

  He bumped his right hand on the table, cursed and shook it. “Damn it, Yvie. You choose your moments.”

  “I don’t want to waste any more time.”

  “Then come here.”

  At Christmas dinner, Yvie cut up Gray’s roast beef and potatoes. He could just about manage the greens on his own.

  The large dining table at her parents’ house, with its extra leaves added, held their family and friends.

  “So what’s this about Yvie traipsing around New England?” her grandfather demanded from three seats down.

  “Relax, Pops.” Her brother Paul beat her to answering. “Yvie’s taking a bodyguard along.”

  Every eye at the table settled on Gray. He smiled.

  “I guess he’ll do,” Pops said gruffly.

  “I know he will,” Yvie said, and added wickedly, under her breath so only Gray could hear. “I’ve taken him for a test drive.”

  Gray choked on potato.

  Note From The Author

  I’m an avid reader, turned enthusiastic author, and I write as widely as I read. I’ve written in genres from science fiction to Regency romance, from steampunk to contemporary romance set on the coast and in small town America. The only thing I insist on is a happy ending.

  If you’d like to learn more about my books, please visit my website (I have all my social media links and VIP newsletter sign-up there) or follow my Amazon Author Profile to have Amazon alert you to my new releases.

  Happy reading!

  Jenny

  http://authorjennyschwartz.com/

  P.S. Thank you for your reviews. They are the “social proof” that coaxes Amazon to show my books to readers like you who’ll also enjoy them. Thank you!