Jingle Bell Blessings

by Bonnie K. Winn

  “Do you teach music?”

  “Actually, I teach English.” Grace laughed again. “You probably think you’ve wandered into the land of Oz where nothing is as it seems. A choir director who’s a doctor and a musician who teaches English.”

  Chloe liked Grace’s infectious smile and laughter. “I’m enjoying Oz just fine.”

  “Are we in Oz?” Jimmy asked in a confused tone.

  Chloe met Grace’s glance and broke into another round of laughter. Then she knelt down next to Jimmy. “Oz is a pretend place. It’s very colorful and full of surprises.”

  With a child’s understanding, Jimmy nodded. “But the school’s real?”

  “Very,” Gordon replied. “Do you like what you’ve seen?”

  Jimmy nodded. “I don’t like big schools.”

  “Me, either,” Grace confided. “I was kind of scared when I started teaching, but at this school, all the people are nice and welcoming. In no time, I felt right at home.”

  Grace might teach upper grades, but she had the perfect touch for young children. Chloe was glad they had run into her. She mouthed thank you above Jimmy’s head.

  “I know how it is to be new to Rosewood,” Grace continued. She reached into her pocket, pulling out a pen and notepad. She scribbled on one page quickly, then handed it to Chloe. “This is my cell number. I’d like to help you settle in.”

  Chloe felt at a loss as to how to answer. Her position was so tenuous.

  Gordon replied for her. “That’s mighty nice of you, Grace. And, of course, we’ll see you at church Sunday.”

  Church. Because she spent every Sunday visiting her mother, it had been a long time since Chloe had been in a church. But their pastor visited at the care facility, mostly seeing her mom. Chloe’s faith had never wavered. Which was comforting, because she would need it now more than ever.

  Chapter Five

  Evan could scarcely believe he had been dragged into this fishing trip. With mountains of work waiting on his desk, he was standing on the shore of the river, casting into the flowing currents. He glanced over at his father. After breakfast, as the others were readying for the trip, his father had sat down suddenly, seeming out of breath. Gordon insisted he was all right. So much so that it worried Evan. Was it a ruse to make him go fishing as well? To spend more time with Jimmy?

  His father refused to call the doctor or stop by the clinic, which was open Saturday mornings. Ruse or not, Evan couldn’t let him drive out to the river with only Chloe and Jimmy. She didn’t know the area. If something happened, they could be stuck, far from help.

  Gordon’s last checkup had gone well, but he wasn’t a young man anymore. The thought chilled him. Once his father was gone, Evan would be the only one left. Feeling his gaze pulled as though by a strong magnet, Evan looked at young Jimmy. The only one left in his family.

  Why had Spencer and his wife insisted on reopening that abandoned factory? Wainwright had told Evan that the newly refurbished machines ran on clean energy, apparently a fervent cause of Spencer’s. And, he intended to employ people who had been jobless through no fault of their own. It was a noble cause. But the cost?

  Bailey nudged his muzzle into Evan’s hand. Absently, he petted the golden’s head. Next to the shore, Jimmy stood between Chloe and Gordon. The boy had taken a shine to Gordon. But then Jimmy hadn’t really had a grandparent relationship before. His maternal grandfather had died when Jimmy was a toddler, that grandmother suffered from late-stage Alzheimer’s.

  And, Evan wondered if the child had ever even met his paternal grandparents. Obviously, Spencer’s parents hadn’t changed since Spencer was a child. Devoted to their archeological dig, they had tunnel vision when it came to anything else in life. He supposed they loved Spencer in their own way. But they had seen nothing wrong in letting him grow up virtually alone. When Evan was young, he had overheard his parents disparaging over why they had ever had a child since they didn’t seem to want to be parents.

  His gaze roved toward Chloe. He had expected her to be a typical city woman, squeamish and ill at ease. Instead, she eagerly baited Jimmy’s hook and now stood next to the hill country river as though she’d done so a hundred times before. In the sunlight, her long hair gleamed like spun honey. And Chloe’s laughter was easy and often. Yet she still wore her mother-bear persona, keeping Jimmy under her watchful eye.

  Only a week and a half before Thanksgiving, the mild hill country weather was holding true. The changing leaves proved autumn had arrived, but the bite of winter wasn’t yet in the wind. It wouldn’t be long though, bringing the holidays he now dreaded.

  As Evan watched, his father sat down in his camp chair, something he usually didn’t do until he had fished for several hours. They’d only been at the river about two hours. Although Gordon’s fishing rod still rested in the river, he wasn’t casting it any longer.

  Frowning, Evan studied his face. The niggling worry resurfaced. He walked casually over to Gordon’s side. “River’s running low. Probably won’t catch much today.”

  Gordon nodded toward Jimmy. “Never know.”

  Clearly, his father wanted Jimmy to have a good time and Evan knew better than to suggest they go home early. His father would dig his feet in and not budge. But if he helped Jimmy catch a fish…

  Sighing, Evan reached for the thermos, poured a hot cup of coffee and handed it to his father.

  “Thanks, son.” Gordon’s voice sounded weary.

  There was a second thermos with hot cocoa for Jimmy, but the youngster was so absorbed in the new sport that Evan could tell he didn’t care about refreshments at the moment. Manners drilled in by a determined mother couldn’t be ignored. “Chloe? Coffee?”

  Chloe turned, her mouth wide with a smile, sunshine illuminating her face. “Thanks, no.” Their gazes still connected, she hesitated for a moment before turning back to the river.

  It was a terminally long moment, yet not nearly long enough.

  Evan frowned, then shook his head. Trick of the light, he decided. Nothing more.

  Yet he continued to watch as she gracefully arched her back as she prepared to cast her line into the river. It plopped into the water perfectly. She must have gone fly fishing with her father as well as ice fishing. It took time to learn to cast like that. Which was why they’d given Jimmy a pole instead. Although the boy had helped tie flies, he was still too young to master casting. Maybe in the spring when there was plenty of warm weather ahead…. Evan jerked his thoughts to an abrupt halt. No. Jimmy wouldn’t be here in the spring.

  Reminded that the boy needed to catch a fish so they could get his father back home, Evan paused. His own gear lay in the yellowing grass. He had brought it along only to appease his father. But it gave him an excuse to help Jimmy.

  Evan walked to the shore quietly so he wouldn’t startle the boy. Studying his wobbling line, Evan remembered his own father teaching him to fish. Then he remembered the times he had brought Sean to this very shore, the bubbling excitement of his son’s animated face. Evan had expected someday to be the one sitting in a camp chair while Sean taught his own child the sport.

  Evan felt a light tug on his arm and looked down.

  Jimmy’s upturned face was quizzical. “Do you want to use my fishing rod?”

  A sweet gesture. Evan swallowed and pushed away the emotion. “Thought maybe I could watch awhile. You using worms or minnows?”

  “Uncle Gordon said I could use his best fly, but Chloe said I’d better start with worms.”

  Uncle Gordon? Evan pushed past the moniker. “That’s how I began. Takes a while to learn how to cast.”

  “Like Chloe and Uncle Gordon?”

  “Yep.”

  “Uncle Gordon must be a neat dad.”

  The remark caught him completely off guard. “You had a pretty neat dad yourself.”

  Pain flooded Jimmy’s eyes. “We were going to go on a boat next summer. Mommy, too.”

  Chloe met Evan’s gaze over the boy’s head.

&
nbsp; She knelt down so she was at the child’s level. “They would be so proud of you. How you’ve been so brave about starting a new school. And now, learning a new sport!” Chloe’s clear green eyes beamed with empathy and Jimmy’s expression started to clear.

  Paralyzed with shared grief, Evan couldn’t speak. But there was no condemnation in Chloe’s eyes. It was almost as though she understood what he was going through. But that couldn’t be.

  Gathering his senses, Evan watched quietly for a while. When Jimmy’s line snagged, Evan could tell it wasn’t a fish. “Looks like you’re caught up in some brush.”

  Jimmy frowned, then tugged on the rod, but it didn’t yield.

  “This is the good part of fishing with bait. No big deal to lose a worm, but when you lose your favorite fly….”

  “Oh.” Jimmy’s eyes widened. “I’m glad I didn’t lose the fly.”

  He was so serious that Evan wanted to pat his shoulder, tell the boy to relax. Instead, he cut the line and reached in the tackle box for a small hook and bobber.

  “Is it bad to lose a hook?” Jimmy asked in a near whisper.

  Evan couldn’t stop his smile. “Nope. That’s part of fishing—the worms, hooks and line. We don’t waste them on purpose, but it’s not bad when we lose some.”

  Jimmy visibly exhaled.

  “What do you want to use for bait this time?” They had stopped by the bait shack and picked up leeches, worms and minnows.

  Jimmy shrugged his narrow shoulders, his eyes still anxious. “Which one should we pick?”

  “In the spring, you can find all the earthworms you need right in the yard. I used to collect them to sell to the bait store. Don’t suppose kids do that anymore.”

  “They don’t?” Jimmy’s expression remained sober.

  Evan knew the child shouldn’t have to always be so cautious and serious. “Let’s try a minnow this time, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Evan showed him how to slip the tiny fish on to the end of the hook. Jimmy’s small hands were practically hidden under his while the youngster tried to imitate the process. “Go ahead and drop your line in the water.”

  Jimmy obliged, watching eagerly as the sinker took the bait under the surface. “Will the big fishes see the little one?”

  “They see your bait move. They’re attracted to the colors, too. That’s why fly fishers spend so much time making their lures.”

  “We used feathers,” Jimmy confided. “Yellow ones.”

  Gordon made an art of tying flies. Evan hid a smile as he imagined the ones the pair had created. Glancing to his other side, he watched Chloe whisk her fly into the air, then back over her shoulder, finally casting it forward in a perfect motion. “You’ve had a lot of practice.”

  “My father was an avid fisherman. We learned how to tie a fly about the same time we learned how to tie our shoes.”

  “Big family?”

  “One brother. Chip and his family are stationed in Germany.”

  “Your mother?”

  Chloe looked straight ahead, not meeting his gaze. “Mom lives in an extended-care facility.”

  He frowned, wondering at this aspect. “She’s ill?”

  “COPD. It’s a chronic pulmonary disease. She has to be on oxygen, among other things. So she can’t safely live on her own. If she were to lose consciousness while she’s alone…” Chloe glanced down at Jimmy who was concentrating on the bobber on his fishing line. “Fortunately, she’s surrounded by people.”

  “Allows you to have a life of your own.”

  Chloe’s head jerked sideways as though it, too, were connected to a string. Indignation was written on every feature.

  “You really believe that?”

  “Isn’t that why people use nursing homes?” He wasn’t sure why she was so indignant. She was more than a thousand miles from Milwaukee. “It’s not a nursing home.” Seeing that Jimmy was staring at her, Chloe quieted her voice. “My mother’s living where she’s safe. Not all of us have the means to stay home and employ others so that our loved ones have constant care.”

  Evan caught the barb in her words, but still didn’t understand her injured expression. He certainly hadn’t asked her to cross the country, leaving her mother behind. In fact, he couldn’t understand why she had. Especially when she was prepared to dig in and stay as long as it took for him to give in about Jimmy. And all the while her mother was left on her own. Cold-blooded, Evan decided. To choose whatever amount of money Wainwright was offering over the welfare of her mother.

  The chill of Evan’s words superceded the late autumn weather. Chloe could scarcely believe his accusation. She had sacrificed everything to care for her mother. Working as a legal secretary barely covered the cost of the extended-care facility. As the rates continued to rise, Chloe despaired about how she would be able to afford it. For herself, she lived in a cheap one-room, efficiency apartment. Not that it mattered. She spent all her weekends visiting with Mom. And days at the law firm were long. Since Chloe’s fiancé had dumped her, she had virtually no social life. Derek couldn’t understand her devotion to family and Chloe couldn’t understand how she could have been so wrong about him.

  When Mr. Wainwright offered to pay her way through law school, along with a full salary, Chloe couldn’t turn down his proposition. As an attorney, she would be better prepared to afford a lifetime of payments to the care facility. And, she had promised herself she would never put her mother, Barbara, in a state facility. Her younger brother’s military pay was barely enough to support his growing family. Besides, Chloe had promised her father she would look out for the others.

  All she had to do was happily settle Jimmy in with Evan Mitchell. It would probably be easier to push a rock across the country with her nose. She hadn’t imagined anyone could turn away a child like Jimmy. Even though Derek had proven to be the wrong choice, Chloe longed for the family she had dreamed of having with him. She was twenty-seven years old. Much longer and her biological clock would run out of batteries.

  Trying not to be obvious, she checked on Jimmy. He was watching Evan’s every move, trying to imitate the tall man’s every motion. Bailey’s plumed tail thumped happily against Evan’s endlessly long legs.

  Keeping her eyelids down, Chloe tried to hide her interest. Clad in jeans, boots and a casual Western shirt, Evan cut an impressive figure. Not many men in the city could have pulled off the look. And there was something about the rugged image that had always intrigued her. True, she had often been in the Wisconsin countryside where plenty of men wore jeans. But not quite the way Evan did.

  Chloe’s fishing line jerked suddenly. Having relaxed her grip while stargazing, the rod slipped right through her hands. She hadn’t done anything so amateurish since she was a kid.

  Evan reacted before she could, reaching a long arm toward her escaping fishing gear. Chloe found herself duplicating Jimmy’s reaction as they both stared, open-mouthed at him.

  “Got it.” Evan turned back, holding the fishing rod, water dripping from his strong fingers.

  And Chloe swallowed, unable to think of a single word to say. Realizing her mouth must be practically flapping open, she snapped her lips shut.

  “That was neat!” Jimmy declared, impressed.

  “Yes….” Chloe cleared her throat. “Thank you. I don’t know what I was thinking.” But she could tell what Evan was thinking. That she surely hadn’t been thinking.

  He handed her the rescued rod. “No problem.”

  Right. It wasn’t even her own gear she had almost lost.

  Gordon waved to her from his chair. “Don’t worry, Chloe. It’s just a fishing rod.”

  One of his favorites. He’d told her so when he had insisted she use it that day.

  Chloe met Evan’s startled gaze. His eyes narrowed.

  That wasn’t a good sign.

  When Evan spoke, she nearly dropped the pole again. “Better keep a good grip on what you don’t want to lose.”

  She swallowed. “Rig
ht.”

  “Let’s check your bait,” Evan said, turning to Jimmy.

  While he helped the boy put fresh bait on the hook, Chloe suddenly felt a million miles from home. Was she crazy for accepting this assignment? The holidays were around the corner. Even though Mom had insisted she would be surrounded by friends at the care facility, Chloe hated the thought of not being there for her.

  Jimmy plunked his freshly baited line back in the water just as Evan instructed. Only moments later his float bobbed, then disappeared beneath the water’s surface.

  “A fish!” Knowing not to, Chloe didn’t raise her voice. But inside she was shouting. Jimmy needed a victory. Even one as minor as catching his first fish.

  “You’ve got him,” Evan encouraged.

  Jimmy’s hands shook as he hung on to the pole.

  Evan moved behind him, reaching forward to grasp Jimmy’s hands, adding his strength.

  The fish flopped as together, they reeled him in. Shades of silver glinted in the sunlight while Evan dipped the net beneath the struggling fish.

  “Wow,” Jimmy breathed. “We really caught it.”

  “You did,” Evan amended. “I just helped. Now we have to decide what to do with him. No one else has caught anything. And, big as he is, this guy isn’t enough to feed everyone. So, do you want to keep him or let him go back in the water?”

  Jimmy pinched his lips together in concentration. “He probably wants to go back.”

  “Good decision.” Evan removed the unbarbed single hook from the fish’s jaw and quickly tossed it back in the river. The frantic creature wiggled and dove before swimming away.

  “They have to get back in to the water real fast to survive.”

  “Will he be okay?” Jimmy asked, staring where the fish had disappeared.

  “Looks like it. Good job.”

  Chloe stared at Evan, wondering if the man had any idea of how good he was with Jimmy. He was a natural. And, if Evan wasn’t so stubborn, he would at least consider accepting guardianship. Instead, he acted like an old man set in his ways. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Gordon had welcomed Jimmy with open arms. What could have slammed Evan’s mind completely shut?