Almost a Christmas Bride

by Susan Crosby

He looked around, grateful she’d changed the subject. “It’s the first one I bought, so there’s a lot of sentimentality associated with it. I’ve purchased many others that I fixed up and sold, but I lived in this one for years. Couldn’t make myself give it up.”

  “Would you consider selling it to me?” she asked.

  That caught him off guard. “Why?”

  “You said it yourself. In a couple of years, I’ll have enough for a down payment. This is a perfect size for Emma and me. It hardly needs anything done to it, just decorating.”

  He didn’t answer her question, even though all he had to do was say maybe. Two years was a long time, he thought. “I noticed you painted the bedrooms.”

  Her mouth tightened as if perturbed he hadn’t answered her. “It was easier than washing them, frankly. The trim was in good shape, so I only needed to roll the walls.”

  “You put in more than a day’s work. How about if we go out to dinner?”

  “I fixed a pot roast in the slow cooker this morning, so it’ll be ready when we get home. I wouldn’t mind stopping at Joe’s Christmas tree farm, though, and choosing a tree before all the good ones are gone. Maybe I could pick up Emma first so she could be part of it?”

  “We can do that.”

  “We’ll probably have to drive to Grass Valley this weekend to buy a stand and some decorations,” she said.

  “The hardware store has stands and lights. I saw them.”

  “And your point is?” She shoved away from the counter and went to where her toolbox sat on the floor, straightening the tools to close the lid. “I changed two light switches and fixed a leak in the bathroom sink. I also cleaned out the P-trap under the kitchen sink. Your new tenants will start with clear pipes, anyway.”

  “I knew when I hired you that you had your own toolbox, but I had no idea just how handy you are.” He set a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll go to your parents’ store together, Shana. The more he sees you, the more he’ll get used to the idea. At some point, things have to change. Although, frankly, I don’t know why you have to be the one making all the effort.”

  “I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” she said, shrugging off his hand. “But I’m not up for two cold-shoulder treatments in one day. Maybe tomorrow.”

  He knew when to back off. “All right. I’ll lock up here. You go ahead and get Emma. I’ll meet you at the tree farm.”

  “Thank you.” She spoke the words clearly, her head up, then she left.

  Damn but he admired her.

  He had a few minutes to kill, so he went to the backyard and finished picking up the leaves. By the time he got to the tree farm, Shana and Emma were already there. Overhead lights illuminated the lot. Shana was chasing a giggling Emma up the row right toward him.

  The rosy-cheeked little girl came to an abrupt stop a few feet away. She gave him that serious look he’d come to expect. She was wearing a knit cap, her blond hair spilling out below it in wispy curls, halolike.

  “Are you having fun?” he asked, crouching to her level.

  “No!”

  He saw Shana roll her eyes, but he’d come to enjoy Emma’s insistent nos.

  “Aggie was feeding Dylan dinner when I got there,” Shana said. “His timing was perfect for a home-cooked meal.”

  “Dilly!” Emma said, clapping.

  “We should probably invite him to dinner now and then,” Kincaid said. “I figure he’s on a straight pizza-and-burgers diet.”

  “Anytime. Emma and I found a tree we’d like you to see.” She held out her hand toward her daughter. “Let’s go see the big tree again.”

  “No.” She sat down with a plop. “Home. Eat.”

  “We’ll go home right after we get a tree, I promise.”

  Emma shook her head back and forth.

  “Want to ride on my shoulders?” Kincaid asked.

  She contemplated the words. He wasn’t sure if she understood what he meant. Her gaze held his for long seconds, then she stood and put her hands up to him. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he lifted her onto his shoulders. He hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted her acceptance.

  “Mama! Look!”

  He caught Shana’s gaze. She stared back at him, looking serious, before she answered her daughter. “Isn’t that fun, peapod?”

  “No!”

  Shana groaned. “We worked on this. You know how to say yes.”

  “No!”

  “I guess Kincaid has to put you down, if you’re not having fun.”

  Emma frowned then said, “Kinky. Fun.”

  Four shoppers and two employees laughed nearby, including Aggie’s granddaughter. “Kinky fun, huh?” Posey asked.

  One of the shoppers, George Baldwin, said, “We’ve always wondered what went on in that big ol’ house of yours, Kincaid.” He eyed Shana then, but didn’t make a comment to her directly, then he winked, not a playful one, either.

  She eyed his toupee. She was about to make a comment about the wind when Kincaid grabbed a saw from Posey, and shoved it at Shana, propelling her forward.

  “Where’s this perfect tree you found?” Kincaid asked. He felt Emma grab his hair to hold on.

  “Are you crazy?” he asked Shana, low and harsh. “You wanted to stay below the radar yet you were just about to insult the man most likely to start a pool.”

  She looked over her shoulder. “He annoyed me.”

  “You annoy me, but I don’t embarrass you in public.” He could see she was upset, but she was so used to digging in her heels, he didn’t know how to get her to see her mistake.

  “There’s the tree,” she said, pointing it out, looking past him to where George still stood, gesturing to a gathering crowd who craned their necks to look toward Shana, Emma and Kincaid. “Do you think he’s talking about me?” Shana asked.

  “Us, probably.” He almost groaned. It had taken even less time than he’d imagined to get everyone’s attention focused on them. This entire situation wasn’t working out the way he’d hoped. His original goal was to do Dixie a favor, not kiss Shana—more than once—and definitely not have fantasies about her in bed. And now the townspeople had gotten involved.

  Well, there was nothing he could do about it except wait for it to blow over.

  He eyed the tree, decided it looked pretty good, then he reached up to lift Emma to the ground.

  She gripped his head. “No down. No.”

  “I can’t cut the tree while you’re on my shoulders, Miss Emma.”

  “C’mon, baby girl,” Shana said, coaxing her.

  “No!”

  Everyone looked at them. Shana’s face flushed. “I already messed up once,” she said quietly. “And I don’t want to add to it, but I also can’t let Emma get away with trying to run the show.”

  “There’s no reasoning with her?”

  Shana made Emma look at her. “If you don’t let me take you from Kincaid’s shoulders, we’ll just have to go home without a tree.”

  “Home.”

  “It’s really an empty threat,” she said quietly to Kincaid. “She doesn’t understand where the tree is going and what’s going to be done to it. What would you do?”

  “It seems to me that either way, she’s getting what she wants. She doesn’t want to get down. She does want to go home.”

  Shana sighed. “I try to be consistent, so I guess we leave. The threat’s been made. I just don’t get it. She’s usually so well behaved,” Shana said apologetically as they walked to the car. “Imagine what she’s going to be like as a teenager.”

  Kincaid laughed, once again drawing the attention of the curious onlookers.

  “This is probably payback for what I put my parents through,” Shana said. “What goes around, comes around, as they say. Except I’m a hands-on mom, you know? A loving mom. I give her all the attention I didn’t get.”

  “Maybe you’re overthinking this,” Kincaid said as they reached her car. “She’s had a big change in her life. Maybe it’s that simple.”
r />   A few beats passed. “That makes sense.”

  “Sometimes I do, you know.” He could see she had a comeback but was restraining herself. Because they were being watched by a small crowd? “I’ll cut the tree and bring it home.”

  “I’m really sorry she won’t get to be part of that fun.”

  “Kinky. Fun!”

  Kincaid and Shana looked at each other. He asked a question with his eyes. She got it.

  “All right, Emma,” she said. “Here’s your choice. We can have fun with Kincaid or we can go home.”

  “Kinky. Fun.”

  “Okay. You have to let me hold you.”

  Emma raised her arms then settled against her mother, tucking her head in that way she had. She smiled at Kincaid, not an I-got-my-way smile but a sweet one. It melted his heart.

  Everything went smoothly after that. The tree was cut down and loaded into his truck without fanfare. He followed Shana and Emma home, pleased he’d insisted on the sturdy new SUV with its brand-new tires as the rain started to fall.

  He wondered what the public repercussions of the outing were going to be.

  And how long it would be until they found out.

  Chapter Nine

  “I’ve never been away from her overnight,” Shana said to her brother and sister-in-law. Kincaid had a dinner meeting with a client, leaving Shana at loose ends, so she’d gone to visit Gavin and Becca.

  “We want to get some practice in,” Becca said, patting her belly. “Besides, wouldn’t you like a whole night to yourself?”

  “I can’t imagine what I would do.”

  Gavin was on the floor playing train with Emma. “You and Kincaid could—”

  “We are not a couple. Honestly, I’m so sick of defending my strictly business relationship with him, Gavin. I was hired. I’m doing a job.”

  Three days had passed since the Christmas tree farm fiasco. If there was a pool going, Shana hadn’t gotten wind of it.

  Gavin flashed a grin at his wife. “That’s what we all said. Look at Becca and me. And her brother Eric and Marcy. And all three of the Falcon brothers. It started so innocently…?.”

  She wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. He was right. It had started innocently enough then had escalated. They’d done a good job these past few days, however, of maintaining their distance, except that it had made her more short-tempered and Kincaid oddly quieter.

  “Your Christmas tree is gorgeous,” Shana said, taking the conversation down a different path.

  “Pretty,” Emma said, her eyes wide.

  “I think everyone in town has already brought us an ornament,” Gavin said. “Even those who don’t have appointments drop by the practice and leave a decoration and some kind of edible gift, even turkeys and hams. Becca and I decided to put on a Christmas Eve dinner for those in need. Aggie and Doc are co-chairing. We’ll need lots of volunteers with the set-up, cleanup and food prep.”

  “I’ll help. I’m sure Kincaid will, too. I hope Dixie and Joe will be home by then.” Shana smiled as Emma crawled onto Gavin’s back as if he were a horse. He bucked a little and she shrieked a laugh, grabbing his shirt to steady herself, saying, “More, Uncky. More.”

  “We were already counting on you,” Becca said with a knowing smile. “Eric and Marcy have volunteered. It’s right up Marcy’s party-planning alley, so we’re letting her figure out the food plan. We’ll have it fairly early, before Christmas Eve services. Do you think it’ll snow?”

  “It’s happened before, but it’s rare in December,” Gavin said. “Has to be a pretty big, cold storm to come down to the 2500-foot level. So, how about it, Shana? Can we keep your girl overnight on Saturday?”

  “We can give it a try. She’s never spent the night anywhere without me, so I’m not sure how she’ll do.”

  “Well, you can’t stay home just in case, okay?” Becca said. “Grab a girlfriend and head to Sacramento. I can give you the names of a few places where you can kick up your heels. If Emma cries, we’ll figure out how to soothe her. She’s been around us enough to know us. Go have fun.”

  Grab a girlfriend. Shana turned that idea over in her head. It hadn’t occurred to her before, but she really didn’t have a girlfriend. She had lots of friends, but not one single-and-footloose friend she could include in a night on the town. She was closest to Dixie, who now was halfway around the world—and married. Even when she did return to town, she wasn’t going to be available in the way she was before.

  Shana picked at a piece on lint on the sofa. So, what could she do by herself? She could drive to Grass Valley or Nevada City for the evening, maybe go to the movies. Big deal. Hardly worth the trip. She could go to the Stompin’ Grounds, something she had never done and been curious about. But alone? How could she do that?

  She couldn’t invite Kincaid to go with her, but maybe Aggie would be available? She’d offered a few times in the past to keep Emma overnight—unlike her parents. Aggie would like that Shana was getting out.

  “Have you seen Mom and Dad lately?” Shana asked.

  “Not Dad,” Gavin said as Emma pulled his hair and giggled. “Mom brought by some baby pictures of mine yesterday.”

  So, her mother had gone through their baby pictures, after all. Shana looked forward to seeing her own. “Are they handy?”

  She ended up staying for dinner, figuring the more time Emma spent with her aunt and uncle, the easier it would be on Saturday.

  Or, at least, that’s what Shana gave as a reason. Actually, she didn’t want to go home to an empty house. Even though she and Kincaid had been studiously avoiding getting within touching range, the tension still existed. She did wonder about his mood, however, how quiet he’d become. He would sit in the living room each evening watching the fire but just as enraptured with the tree. They’d had a lot of fun decorating it, with Emma “helping” with the lower limbs. They had invited Dylan to come, too, and had listened to Christmas music and drunk hot cocoa.

  Shana remembered her childhood. Christmas was the one time everything seemed okay at home. Her mother loved the holiday and went all out decorating for it. Traditions. Shana wanted that for Emma. Good memories to recall when she was an adult.

  Shana watched Gavin play with her daughter. That was the gift she wanted most for her daughter—family. Siblings to grow up with and be friends with as adults.

  Unconditional love—and a family that Emma could count on.

  Kincaid pulled up in front of his house, his completely dark house. He pulled out his cell phone, thinking he might have missed a message from Shana, but he hadn’t.

  Where was she?

  He pushed the garage door opener. No car inside. He went through the garage into the house, flipping on lights as he went inside. No note on the kitchen counter, which is where he would assume she would leave him a message. He checked his answering machine. Two messages, but neither was from Shana.

  They were probably at Aggie’s. She would’ve invited them to dinner if she knew he wasn’t going to be home.

  He busied himself. First he turned on the tree lights, then he got a fire going. He’d come home to an empty house thousands of times. It had never bothered him before. Shana and Emma had lived with him for five days and he was already used to sharing his space. Used to the noise and the company.

  And used to getting up each morning and seeing a beautiful woman puttering in his kitchen, and a tiny, stubborn version of her banging her high chair tray and talking an incomprehensible blue streak…?.

  After he got the fire started, he moved close to the tree, hypnotized by the bubble lights Shana had insisted on buying, saying they reminded her of better times. He wanted to surround the tree with gifts. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d given or received a Christmas gift, except business-related. He hadn’t thought it mattered, either. But now he found himself looking through catalogs and viewing websites. He’d even checked some of Emma’s clothes to see what size she wore. He’d been wondering if she’d like a sled ri
de. They could drive to the snow and—

  He spotted headlights through the trees, then Shana’s car emerged. She drove straight into the garage. Relief washed over him. He’d had no reason to worry, since everyone in town knew her and someone would’ve notified him if there was something wrong, but some things couldn’t be reasoned out. He felt responsible for her. Them.

  “We’re home!” Shana called out from the back of the house.

  “Home!” Emma shouted, too.

  It made him smile. He moved toward the kitchen doorway, meeting them there.

  “You’re back early,” she said. “How’d it go?”

  “Very well. I’ll tell you in a bit. You’re late.”

  “We stopped by to see Gavin and Becca, then they invited us for dinner.”

  She shrugged off her jacket, which he took so that she could take care of Emma’s. He hung them both on the rack.

  “They’re going to keep Emma overnight on Saturday,” she said.

  “They are? Why?”

  “They want to practice—or so they said.”

  “You think they have other reasons?” He followed Emma to the tree. She loved to pull ornaments off so that she could hang them again. The bottom half was filled with non-breakables. “Like what?”

  “They want me to go clubbing in Sacramento or something. Have fun, or some such nonsense.”

  He was caught between laughing at her tone of voice and annoyance that her brother and sister-in-law were trying to force her into the singles world, which could lead to dating. “Is that what you’re going to do?”

  “I’m considering my options.”

  “Are you going to be comfortable having Emma gone overnight?”

  “No.” She smiled and shrugged. “Which is why I’ll probably only go as far as the Stompin’ Grounds. I’ll want to be in easy range.”

  “I’ll go with you, if you want.”

  She was quiet a few seconds. “I’m going to ask Aggie.”

  “All done,” Emma said, handing him an ornament she’d pulled off. She toddled over to the fireplace. “Hot,” she said, holding out her hands, then she shivered, imitating what Shana often did to make her daughter laugh.