St. Helena Holiday

by Grace Conley

  “Kids make out!”

  “Grown-ups can make out,” he assured her. “Especially when they’re trapped in a dark wine cellar, and who knows when someone might come to save them.”

  “Afraid of getting caught?” she teased.

  “Who me? Never. You and I both know that I’m the guy who stole Randolph back in the day!”

  “Hmm. I could never forget that.” He couldn’t tell if there was an edge to her tone…

  Chiara kissed him hard then, as if to erase the memory of the cheerleader from the newspaper photo so long ago. And the memory of the young girl who was inexplicably bereft that the boy she liked didn’t – no, couldn’t – see her.

  She shivered as he began teasing and stroking her breast through the fabric of her bra, quickly pulling the strap aside and working around the silky fabric. He cupped her breast and made bold strokes with his thumb back and forth across her nipple.

  “Hmm. I like kissing you.” She nuzzled his ear again, and Ben came so close to ripping the absurd sweater – which thankfully, he could not see – completely off of her and ravishing her there on the floor of the wine vault.

  “Wait here a minute.” Her voice was low and sexy as she put both hands on his chest and gently pushed herself back from him.

  “What is that?’ He could hear her shuffling around, and the rustle of paper being ripped open.

  “Do you trust me?” she asked.

  “I’m smiling over here,” he said. “That’s a loaded question. Do I trust you to…”

  “Try this,” she commanded, reaching up in the dark to cup his jaw with one hand, gently prying his lips apart. He bit off a bit of the chocolate covered strawberry, grazing his front teeth lightly over her thumb as he took it from her.

  A deep metal thud was followed by clanking and a squeak as the vault door opened. Harsh yellow light flooded the room, making Ben and Chiara see spots for a moment.

  “Oh, my God!” exclaimed Orrin. “You two were locked in here? With Ida Beamon’s chocolate-dipped strawberries?”

  Ben and Chiara both knew that the news of their chocolate-dipped strawberry in the wine vault interlude would be all over town in ten minutes or less.

  CHAPTER 5

  “We are going to settle this today,” Ben vowed, looking in the mirror in the men’s room at the fire station. Another week had passed, and he still hadn’t managed to kiss the girl again.

  In fact, he was starting to wonder if she was avoiding him.

  It was not for lack of trying to find a way kiss her. And he fantasized about doing a lot more.

  He wondered idly if he could get Nate DeLuca to rent him the wine vault at the Napa Grand and have a romantic dinner for two set up in there. With lock-in service. Then he scrapped that thought, knowing that Nate was the girl in question’s hot-blooded Italian cousin.

  Ben simply could not get Chiara alone in a room, and she wasn’t overly pursuing private time with him. He was frustrated, liked her but didn’t know where he stood.

  He desired telling her, but needed it to be just between the two of them, which was hard in a small town and even harder working in a firehouse.

  And they did seem to have to be around people a LOT in their co-chair duties. AND he didn’t want to be a re-bound relationship, he wanted to be taken seriously by a woman.

  Too many frickin’ ands.

  He was increasingly sure that she was the right woman, but that it was the wrong time. For her, not for him.

  Her current behavior was downright confusing for someone who had just kissed him silly while trapped in a wine vault.

  Maybe she’s just not that into you.

  The guys at the station would have a field day if they knew he was sitting around mooning like some lovesick girl. But he privately admitted, that was sort of what he was doing.

  Yep. You’re into her all right. But she’s definitely not into you.

  “Why not?” he said out loud.

  “Why not what?”

  Caught, he said the first thing that popped into his head. “Why not call and ask the Napa Grand if they can move our dessert and wine flight tasting up? We have some time at lunch tomorrow, would be good to get that done so we can check it off the list.”

  “Good, yeah, that would get us out of here earlier. Okay, let me text their coordinator and see.”

  She smiled at him, friendly but…carefully distant.

  She’d taken charge in their co-chair relationship, and kept him running around like an errand boy. Chiara would smile and hand over stacks of invitations to stuff (what was that little extra piece of opaque frosted paper for anyway?) or send him out with his wagon to pick up Silent Auction donations as more and more businesses were donating things every day.

  She’d set up her own Holiday Hearts Ball Command Center binder and filled it with seating plans, photos, and diagrams on how to manage a charity ball.

  He hadn’t realized that planning a charity ball was akin to planning a war.

  Battalion Chief Baudouin loved Chiara, tried to hire her as an office coordinator. She thanked him, and told him she was just visiting St. Helena for the winter.

  Ben felt an empty ache in the pit of his stomach when he heard her say that. But he kept up the pretense of cheerfulness, and didn’t let on that anything was bothering him.

  “Earth to Ben,” Chiara was waving wildly in front of his face.

  “Huh?” he answered. Elegant answer, man, he thought.

  She lost her look of concern and grinned. “They’ll move us up. We can head over to the Napa Grand at lunch tomorrow.”

  At the end of their workday, Chiara and Ben suited up in their matching Randolph sweaters and some fuzzy knitted alpaca-wool gloves from a new shop in town.

  Knowing that Chiara’s set of antlers was now in the possession of some Ladybug scout, Ben gave his lighted antlers away to a little brown-haired boy who was with his mom in front of him in line for a sack of takeaway sandwiches at the Sweet & Savory Bistro.

  He would actually have worn them, but considered Chiara would more likely be asked why she wasn’t in hers that way. He shrugged and figured he was doing her a favor by omission. The kid bounced giddily at getting a set of antlers from a firefighter, so he figured he made the right choice.

  Ben and Chiara sang songs and clapped and cheered and got to jump up on stage with Gabe and Regan to help whip up the crowd during the Town Treelighting ceremony.

  “DeLuca Wines is proud to be one of the sponsors of this year’s St. Helena town holiday festivities,” proclaimed Gabe, who proudly held up a copy of Molly’s Randolph book and made the plug for helping St. Paw’s.

  That was Chiara and Ben’s cue to chime in. In unison, they playfully grabbed the mic together.

  Chiara called out “and we are so excited to bring you a new St. Helena holiday event, our town’s first-ever Holiday Hearts Ball.”

  “Bring your sweetie to the Napa Grand and help support BOTH scholarships for needy students at St. Vincent’s AND St. Paw’s good work of helping our furry friends find a forever home!” added Ben.

  “Are you ready?” asked Chiara.

  “Oh, I’m ready,” winked Ben to the crowd.

  In unison, they called out, “As co-chairs of this year’s Holiday Hearts Ball, we proclaim this holiday season open!”

  Chiara and Ben pushed down on a giant fake button set into a large wrapped holiday box, and St. Helena’s Town Hall janitor, watching from a distance, flipped a circuit breaker. Ben made an exaggerated bow, and grabbed and held up Chiara’s hand to kiss.

  She knew he was playing to the crowd, but got up in the moment. It was so much fun feeling like people thought she could be with him, and after their hot embrace in the wine vault last week, feeling for a little while there like she might be happy about that if it were true. Extremely happy.

  The crowd went wild.

  St. Helena’s Randolph-themed tree was finally ceremonially lit up for the year, with thousand of tiny colored twinkle l
ights and every type of reindeer ornament known to man. Chiara had to admit that seeing a zillion tiny reindeers everywhere was extremely cute, if a little obsessive compulsive.

  Well…cute except that Randolph was her own personal tiny reindeer nemesis, which was a constant reminder of the massive trouble she in as a teenager over a dumb prank that she took credit for, making her Dumbass #2.

  “I have to admit, the reindeer makes me uncomfortable.” There, she said it.

  She glanced next to her and Dumbass #1, the actual perpetrator of the prank, smiled a dimpled smile down at her and exuded hotness.

  Chiara realized that it was all the stuff that went down when they were teens that was what was making her pause now.

  “I know that’s really stupid of me.”

  “We were kids – and that reindeer statue was just ripe for the taking,” Ben smiled, but his eyes darkened.

  He didn’t get then that trying to put the reindeer back was an act of love from her.

  Maybe that’s why, after their kissing session in the wine vault, she couldn’t help staying a little distant. She didn’t know what to make of it, and whether he really liked her or was somehow just trying to console her through kissing.

  Some sort of demented guy logic, maybe, that kissing the dumped girl would help her feel better.

  “It’s not stupid at all,” he grinned easily. “I, ah, feel a little awkward around so many Randolph’s, too.”

  “Well, yeah, exactly,” it dawned on her. “Way, way too many Randolph’s!”

  Darn him for being so cute, and for being in his firefighter uniform, which apparently made him even cuter to every woman he encountered at the Tree Lighting, regardless of age. She finally noticed they were still holding hands, and pulled back.

  Ben waggled an eyebrow, challenging her. Quick as a wink, he grabbed her hand back and squeezed it.

  “Nah, I’m keeping ahold of you,” he said. “I’ll protect you from all the scary attack reindeer.”

  “You can keep ahold of me and buy me a hot chocolate,” she found herself saying.

  “I will take you up on that,” Ben said, leading her around the square to the pop-up stand run by the Sweet & Savory Bistro.

  They scanned the menu. “I’ll have a hot chocolate with extra whip,” Chiara said.

  “A girl after my own heart. And I’ll have a Mexican mocha.” Ben paid for their order, and they strolled off together, away from the park over to the shops on the other side of the Sheriff’s Department.

  They peered in the windows at The Fashion Flower and the Cork’d & Dipped, sipping their chocolate and coffee.

  “Ida Beamon said you liked dark chocolate,” noted Chiara.

  “I knew that had to be where that strawberry came from. She brings chocolate-dipped fruit around the station on holidays,” said Ben. “You should have seen the giant bunny rabbit at Easter. The ears were whole bananas.”

  Chiara laughed. “She has a very particular sense of humor, that Ida.”

  “So you,” he said. “You’re talking to me now?”

  “I was never really not talking to you,” Chiara protested. “I was just being quiet.”

  He thought about it. “I think I understand.”

  “I really liked you when I was a kid. That winter I visited, after my brother died? Things were really rough at home. I was always the perfect one, so when I tried to return that Randolph statue for you – well, let’s just say it didn’t go down well with my parents that they got a call from the St. Helena Sheriff’s Department. One kid dead and the other kid out stealing from holiday displays.”

  “To be fair, a lot of people have nicked the Randolph statue over the years,” said Ben. “He’s almost as good as those statues at the hamburger joint or the chicken place. But just the same, I’ve always felt bad that you took that on. I didn’t even find out it was you until after you’d gone back home.”

  “Who told you?” asked Chiara, curious.

  He gave her a sideways look. “Your Great Aunt Chi Chi. I think she knew you weren’t the one who took it in the first place.”

  “Well, I never told anyone, so as far as people know, it was me, all right.”

  “The DeLuca Daredevil.”

  “Yeah, well, we superhero girls have to have good names,” she smiled.

  “I’m still processing that you liked me.”

  “Oh, get over yourself!” she laughed. “But yeah, I did. And I do like you now.”

  They’d hung out too long on the corner. They started strolling again, passing The Boulder Holder.

  Ben looked at a red lace number, then back at Chiara. “That has Christmas present written all over it,” he joked halfway, hoping he didn’t sound lame.

  She blushed. “I own that set.”

  He whispered something in her ear, and she smiled. “Maybe when you get your cast off,” she said brightly.

  “That’s great incentive,” he said, and she playfully hit his good arm.

  “Watch it, I’ll get the other one!”

  They heard a ruckus kickup back over in the town square. Ben picked up the pace, his firefighter’s instinct naturally attuned to sounds of distress.

  When they got there, Sheriff Jonah Baudouin was up on the stage. A group of old ladies brandishing sequin-bedecked canes and walkers was tittering.

  “Everyone calm down!” ordered Jonah from the microphone. “If anyone saw anything, anything at all, I urge you to come forward.”

  They located Gabe and Regan, who were off giving a statement to a deputy.

  “What happened?” asked Ben.

  Gabe and Regan looked at one another, then looked at Ben and Chiara.

  “Randolph got taken again,” said Regan.

  In the year the town was celebrating the reindeer, he’d gone missing. And as Chiara looked from face to face, she found it ironic that four people who had been involved in previous Randolph disappearances were right here.

  CHAPTER 6

  Ben and Chiara raced through their work the next morning, reassuring concerned donors who were calling in that they were sure that Randolph would be found safe soon.

  “I hope whoever has him has the good sense to give him back before the Holiday Hearts Ball,” worried Chiara.

  “Yeah, that would put a damper on things if we didn’t have him for the event.”

  “Okay,” said Ben finally. “Phones off. Let’s go to this tasting shindig. I’ve been looking forward to this all day.”

  “That’s because you just want to eat and goof around,” teased Chiara. “Let’s go.”

  They locked up the tiny office at the firehouse and walked down the street to the Napa Grand.

  “I always think this place is swank,” he said.

  “It is,” agreed Chiara.

  “I hear you should just be careful if you visit their wine vault.”

  Their mood was light, in spite of Randolph being stolen and worrying that a missing fiberglass deer could kill the mood at the Holiday Hearts Ball.

  “Can I visit you suite?” he asked. “How come you’re here at the Grand, anyway?”

  She laughed merrily, giving him a sideways glance. “I’d like you to come and visit. Soon. About the Grand -- Chi Chi said the house was full. And I wasn’t going to argue with her – it’s staying at the Napa Grand, come on! She’s got everyone in and out this season, all her grandbabies, and a whole bunch of the extended family are flying in to stay at their Italian villa on Christmas Eve.”

  “Are you and your parents going?”

  “Ah, no,” said Chiara. “We would have liked to – we were invited, of course – but the whole thing with my non-wedding and the pressure from Frank to sell out is pretty uncomfortable. That’s one of the reasons I want to get that worked out, as soon as possible. But it’s hard getting through to him, because he says he’ll only respond if we say we’re going to say yes to selling out completely. He only randomly speaks to me, and only via instant messaging.”

  “He’s a cow
ard,” said Ben angrily. “We need to find him. You need to get closure, and get him off your parents’ backs.”

  “I’m working on it in my own way,” said Chiara.

  Ben figured that Frank had her all turned inside out, and even though he’d taken the ring back, he still had Chiara bent around his finger.

  He let it drop then, determined to find a way to help her. She couldn’t see that she needed to help herself, and Ben didn’t blame her. He didn’t know how he would respond if some girl he was planning on marrying left him at the altar in front of all his friends and family, and then had the audacity to try to take his home away.

  It wouldn’t happen, because Ben wouldn’t allow something like that. And it put a dagger through his heart that anyone would dare try to hurt Chiara.

  He loped along after her through the grand old hotel. Chiara led him to a bank of elevators, which had real-live operators in smart burgundy and tan uniforms.

  “Um, isn’t the tasting going to be in the ballroom?” he asked.

  “Oh, I took the liberty of asking them to move it upstairs.”

  The friendly attendant obviously knew Chiara. They kept up a steady patter about her kids, Red Steel’s latest vintage, how the San Francisco 49’ers were doing this season.

  Ben panicked all the way to the penthouse suite.

  “Nate keeps this just for family and for visiting friends of the DeLuca’s, of which there are a lot,” said Chiara.

  Ben looked around. “Remind me to add Nate to my Christmas card list.”

  Chiara smiled. She led him to a plush leather couch, flanked by twin fir trees in pots, decorated with tiny white lights and gold bows.

  He sank into the couch, feeling a little befuddled and a lot excited.

  An attendant knocked then, entered with a cart, and discretely let them know how the dessert and wine flight pairing worked.

  “A cheese course can be a dessert, so we have that as a choice, each paired with one of the DeLuca Wines. And there is also a scrumptious pairing of small bites of desserts – warm chocolate cake, carrot cake, and what I’m sure will become your new favorite food, homemade caramel corn.”