by A. C. Arthur
While the pizzas cooked, Gray had volunteered to take the twins into the living room to watch Frosty the Snowman. After about two minutes of feeling grateful, Morgan realized he’d done it to get out of cleaning the kitchen. She smiled and shook her head as she went to the side of the refrigerator to retrieve the broom.
Her cell phone, which had been charging all day on the counter by the blender, rang just as she began sweeping.
“Hey,” she said after seeing Wendy’s name on the caller ID.
“Hi,” Wendy replied. “How are you guys holding up in this storm? Need me to come over with anything?”
“No, we’re good. How are you and Granny fairing?” Morgan asked.
They were probably at each other’s throats, which was their norm. Two years ago the doctor had told Granny she needed that cane and glasses. She hated both. Wendy and Morgan had decided that their grandmother probably needed more in the way of daily care, so since Wendy was still single and had no kids, she’d given up her apartment and moved in with Ida Mae. They’d been battling ever since.
“She’s in the kitchen cooking. You know that’s the only thing that keeps her quiet. That and Jeopardy,” Wendy added with a chuckle. “What are you guys doing? Been out in the snow yet? I know Jack’s been worrying you to death about it,” Wendy continued.
Morgan moved around the kitchen sweeping up everything that had fallen onto the floor, which was a lot. “We went out this morning when Gray came over.”
The moment she said the words, Morgan knew they were a mistake.
“Gray came over in a snowstorm?” Wendy asked with more than a little suspicion laced in her tone. “Wait, is he still there?”
Morgan couldn’t lie, not to her sister.
“Yes, he is,” she said simply and prayed that would be the end of it.
No such luck.
“And just what is he doing now? Or maybe I should ask what are you doing? That might be the better question,” Wendy said. Morgan could hear the grin in Wendy’s voice. “Is my little sister having a sordid affair with the new guy in town?”
Morgan really hated how that sounded, but she couldn’t deny it. She was, and actually, she was really liking it.
“Okay, I am,” she told Wendy. “But it’s not as sordid and scandalous as the way you make it sound.”
“Oh, really? Then tell me what it is. Because from where I’m sitting, you had sex with him just a few days after you met him and if you haven’t already, I bet you’ll have sex with him again tonight.”
“What makes you say that?” Morgan asked, unable to really sound surprised by Wendy’s statement, considering she and Gray had not too long ago done exactly what her sister was suggesting.
“Hello, we’re in the middle of a snowstorm. What do people do in snowstorms besides shovel snow? Make love,” Wendy quipped. “You remember how the school became overcrowded in the first place. In another five years we’ll be building another extension to those buildings.”
“Stop it,” Morgan insisted. “It’s not like that.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Wendy said and began to laugh.
“I’m hanging up now,” Morgan told her.
“Okay, okay, look, I know my sister so I think I know that you’re serious when you say it’s not some scandalous affair. So what is it? Are you two falling in love or something? Oh, that would be awesome. I saw him coming out of the school the other day with the twins and he’s great with them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you did fall in love and get married? The twins would have a father and you’d have someone to share your life with. Plus he’s rich so you’d definitely get to move out of Temptation into some big ol’ house with fabulous furniture and jewelry.”
Wendy loved jewelry and shoes. She also enjoyed dying her hair different colors and eating coconuts and fancy chocolates.
Morgan sighed.
“No, definitely not all that. And I don’t care about Gray’s money. I’m—I’m just enjoying this for right now. That’s all. Can’t I do that?” she asked.
“You definitely can,” her sister replied. “You deserve to enjoy whatever moments you can find. You were a widow at a young age, a mother, too—of course you deserve some happiness. I’m just jealous, that’s all. Gray’s hot and loaded.” Wendy laughed.
Morgan shook her head, but couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. He is.”
He was also spending the night with her, which Morgan realized hours later, after dinner and the many holiday movies they watched.
* * *
Last night had been the most fun Gray had at Christmastime since he was a young boy. That giddy feeling in the pit of his stomach that started around the first of December when he was a kid had made a home there now. He’d already planned to go into the coffee shop at his earliest convenience so he could go online and buy all the things Jack and Lily had told him they were expecting Santa to bring.
Sometime in the middle of the night, he’d realized he wanted to see their faces when they opened their gifts. He wanted to hear their laughter and experience their joy. He wanted a family.
Several hours had passed after this morning’s pancake-and-scrambled-egg breakfast that Gray had tried to help Morgan prepare. He was a horrible cook, but he’d figured cracking eggs wouldn’t be too difficult. He was so wrong and thus they’d had a few crunchy moments when eating their eggs.
Gray had been in the living room playing a board game that the twins were definitely winning when he realized Morgan had been gone for quite a bit of time. She’d excused herself when her phone rang. It had taken a few minutes, about ten he recalled, as he looked at his watch again and moved toward the bedroom, where he suspected Morgan had gone. He told himself he wasn’t the jealous type. He’d never had a reason to be. Yet, something had nagged at him about her being gone on a call for this long. Something he wasn’t too keen on acknowledging.
“Everything all right?” he asked when he saw her staring out the window in her bedroom.
She jumped at the sound of his voice.
“Ah, yeah. Everything’s fine. I’ll be out in a minute,” she told him.
That was meant to dismiss him, but Gray didn’t leave the room.
“Who were you talking to?” he asked her.
The look she gave him was nothing short of pissed off. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, Gray. I mean, we haven’t known each other long enough for you to question me.”
Gray knew then that whomever she’d spoken to on the phone had upset her and he was lucky enough to be the one standing in the room with her at the moment. He was the one that was undoubtedly going to take the brunt of her anger.
He crossed the room, coming to stop right in front of her. Yet Gray was careful to remain far enough away. If she wanted to take a swing, she’d miss, but he was close enough if she needed a shoulder to lean on instead.
“I’m not questioning you,” he told her. “I’m concerned.”
“Concerned about what? Your precious buildings?” she snapped and then shook her head. “I’m sorry. That’s not fair.”
“What’s going on, Morgan? Who upset you?”
She clenched the phone in her hand, then brought it up to her forehead, tapping it there while she waited. “I should have known better,” she began. “I’ve lived here all my life so I should know how they are by now.”
“You should know how who is?” Gray asked, getting a sinking suspicion he wasn’t going to like where their conversation was going.
Sighing heavily, Morgan tossed the phone onto her bed and looked at him. “That was my grandmother on the phone. She was calling to tell me that it doesn’t look good for a single mother to have a man spending the night at her house.”
Gray could only stare at her in disbelief, even though he was familiar with the rumor mill in Temptation.
“Wow.” It was all Gray could say at first. “I’ve heard the saying ‘word travels fast’ but I never knew that meant it traveled through a snowstorm,” he told her. “Who the hell was out last night or yesterday in the storm to know that I was here? And why were they driving down this road again today to see if I was still here?”
“My first guess is Otis,” she said. “He has a plow that he hitches to the front of his truck and uses to clean the main streets. The town council hires a professional but sometimes they take a while to get here.”
“So Otis ran back and told who? Because I don’t see him picking up the phone and passing along this news,” Gray said, like it even mattered.
“He probably would have stayed at the B and B to help out Mr. Reed with the guests and getting their vehicles shoveled out,” Morgan said and then she paused.
“What?” Gray asked.
“Your assistant is staying at the B and B,” she told him.
“Kym? She wouldn’t call anyone in this town to tell them a damn thing. She barely likes speaking to the people around here.” That was certainly true, as was the fact that Kym was still in town. Each day that Gray had spoken to her she’d had another reason to stay. He’d decided that he had other things to focus on besides Kym. He wondered briefly if that had been a mistake.
“Yeah, I heard that about her,” Morgan added. “But if Otis mentioned your name and Kym was around, I’m sure her diamond-stud ear would have perked right up.”
She was probably right about that, Gray thought.
“What about Harry?”
“What about him?” she asked.
“Would he call around and tell people?”
She seemed to think about it for a moment. At the same time Gray heard something outside. He looked out the window to see a local news truck pulling up and cursed.
“I guess it doesn’t matter who called who, the reporters know now so the whole world is about to find out,” he said.
Morgan came up behind him, a hand going quickly over her mouth. “Why would they care?” she asked.
“Because I’m a Taylor and I’m back in Temptation. It’s news for them. We’ve always been just news to them.”
They stood there for a few moments in silence, watching as the cameramen set up just a few feet away from Morgan’s house. The snow had stopped sometime in the middle of the night and now the sun was shining brightly. Gray had gone out again last night to shovel the walkway. If he’d known it would have just make things easier for the reporters to get closer to the house, he wouldn’t have. But there was nothing he could do about it now.
“Let’s give them something to report,” Morgan said from beside him.
“What?” he asked.
She looked up to him. “If they’re here it’s because somebody already told them that this is where you were. They obviously want something to report, so let’s give it to them.”
Gray couldn’t believe she was saying that. “What did you have in mind?”
Chapter 11
It had been over two weeks since Gray, Morgan and the twins made national headlines as they’d decorated Morgan’s Christmas tree in front of an open window and an entire news crew.
Now, just five days before Christmas, Morgan was at the community center practicing the play with her kids again. The town was abuzz with festivities. All up and down Main Street, holiday music played through the speakers that had been hung outside the buildings. Storefronts were decorated with everything from Santa and his reindeer, to snow villages and huge decorative gift boxes. It looked like a scene out of an old movie and Morgan loved walking through the street to get to the community center.
She’d told Gray that she had a ride because Wendy was off work that night and could help her with the rehearsal. He’d seemed a little distant when she’d spoken to him, but Morgan had forced herself not to think about it. Wendy was meeting her at the community center, so she and the kids had walked from the school. It was a chilly day, but Jack and Lily loved playing in the new snow that had fallen just yesterday.
“Granny says with all the snow we’ve had so far, we probably won’t get any now on Christmas Day. It would have been nice to have a white Christmas,” Lily stated as Morgan worked on the last of the props for the play.
“She might be right,” Morgan replied, looking up quickly at Lily.
Her daughter had been laughing so much lately that the return of her usual solemn tone caused Morgan to worry.
“We haven’t had a white Christmas in Temptation since I was a little baby,” Morgan told her. “But it’ll still be Christmas.”
Lily pouted. “Will it still be Christmas if Mr. Gray leaves?”
Morgan didn’t know how to answer that question. In the past few weeks, Gray had been with them almost every day. If he wasn’t driving them somewhere, he was stopping by her house. He played with the kids while Morgan caught up on housework or worked on lesson plans. Last night, he’d even taken them to Sal’s Italian Bistro for dinner. Jack had so many cannoli he’d had a stomach ache by the time they had arrived home.
“Christmas always comes, regardless of who’s here or who’s not,” Morgan finally answered.
“Like it came all those times while Daddy was gone,” Lily added for clarification.
The words tugged at Morgan’s heart.
“Yes, baby, just like that,” she answered.
Lily shook her head. “But Mr. Gray’s not dead. He can be here for Christmas, can’t he, Mama?”
Morgan sighed. She was in big trouble now. Her mind had warned against getting involved with Gray from the very start. She’d known that he had no plans of staying in Temptation, and yet she hadn’t cared. Everything that had happened between Morgan and Gray had been for her pleasure only. How her children would bond with him and how they were going to feel in turn when he left town had not been a big enough priority for her. Dammit.
“Of course he’s staying for Christmas,” Jack said when he came over to join them. “You heard him say we were gonna put that train set that Santa’s going to bring me together. I’m gonna be the conductor and Mr. Gray’s gonna work for me.”
Her son spoke so proudly. He was poking out his chest and looking as serious as an adult as he talked to his sister.
“There’s no need to worry. We’re gonna have the best Christmas ever!” Jack continued.
Morgan didn’t know if that was true or not, just as she didn’t know if Ethan was going to recite the lines they’d rehearsed for the past few weeks, or make up his own on Christmas Eve. What she did know, and probably the only thing Morgan thought she could control, was that she needed to draw a line between her, Gray and her kids before it was really too late.
A few minutes before rehearsal was over, Morgan jumped at a tap on her shoulder. This was the fifth time they’d gone over the Jacob Marley scene. Even though she knew the ghost was really Cabe Dabney’s voice and Lily and Wendy rattling the chains, Morgan was starting to feel a little edgy.
“Sorry,” Harry said. “Didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“Oh, no,” Morgan told him, shaking her head. “I’m fine. How are you, Harry?”
She hadn’t seen much of him in the past couple of weeks, not since the blowup they’d had in her classroom that day.
“I’m good. How’ve you been?” he asked, thrusting his hands in the pockets of his work pants.
Morgan tried to smile, but she was really tired and had a headache. A big part of her wished the twenty-fourth would hurry up and get here so she could be finished with this play. Wendy, of course, had thoug
ht what she said was hilarious when Morgan had said it out loud about half an hour ago.
“I’m hanging in there,” she admitted with a sigh. “The kids are really excited, though. It’s going to be a nice production.” Lord, she hoped so, she thought as she closed her eyes.
“That’s good. You know my mom’s spearheading the potluck that’s going to be held in the kitchen here that night,” he told her.
Morgan nodded. “Yes, I heard. That’s so generous of her. Granny said she’s not making chicken salad again. She’s baking cakes instead. I think she said a Kentucky butter cake, a rum cake and a pineapple upside-down cake.”
Harry pulled a hand out of his pocket to rub over his stomach. “Then I’m definitely coming to see the play.”
Morgan chuckled and for a moment it felt like old times between them. The easy rapport they’d always had was back and she was glad. She really hadn’t wanted any hard feelings over what had happened between them.
“I can’t wait until it gets here,” she said. “Is that why you stopped by, to drop off some things for your mother?”
“Oh, no. Smitty finished with your car so I told him I’d drive it over,” Harry told her.
“That’s fantastic! You don’t know what it’s like to be at someone else’s beck and call until your car breaks down. Thanks so much, Harry,” she said and on impulse gave him a hug.
Harry hugged her back. Tightly.
“What’s the special occasion?” Wendy asked when she walked up to where Morgan and Harry stood. Morgan pushed away from Harry to turn to her sister.
“Harry brought my car over. It’s fixed,” she told Wendy. “Now you don’t have to drive me home.”
Wendy was looking at Harry, one hand on her hip. “Oh, did he now? That sure was nice of you, Harry.”
“No big deal. I just wanted to make sure she got it as quickly as possible,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” Wendy commented and nodded.
Morgan’s cell phone vibrated in her back pocket and she pulled it free to read the text message. It was from Gray. He wanted to know if she needed a ride home. She hurriedly typed that she wouldn’t because her car was now fixed. He replied instantly, saying that was great, and then asked if she would mind coming by the resort. There was something he wanted to tell her.
