The Heart of Christmas

by Kathryn Shay

  Over lunch, Conor had told her a little about the company he’d founded, which developed security systems for computers to prevent hacking. He’d told her he and two colleagues in graduate school had started the company, bankrolled by venture capitalists, and it had grown into such a successful enterprise that he and his partners had chosen to turn down several behemoth computer companies that wanted to buy it and instead bought out the venture capitalists so they could retain full ownership of the company. Some of those behemoth suitors were now their steady customers, licensing new software products as quickly as Conor’s team could create them.

  He must be rich, she’d thought, although his house wasn’t a mansion and his car had quite a few years, miles and mud spatters on it. There was nothing showy about him, nothing pretentious. He dressed in jeans and his hair needed a trim. The excitement that infused his voice when he talked about GateKeepers arose from pride and passion for his work, not from the financial rewards of his company’s success.

  She’d had too much fun with Conor and his daughter. She’d enjoyed the day too much. She really ought to put some distance between them and herself…just as soon as Conor finished tightening the screws that braced the tree in its stand in a corner of his living room.

  “Can I invite Erin over to see the tree?” Amy asked once Conor had cut the netting off the branches. They swelled slightly, releasing a sharp evergreen perfume which blended with the lingering aroma of the cookies. It was the smell of Christmas, Eliza acknowledged. Her mother’s house used to fill with the same glorious combination of fragrances every December: home-baked cookies, fresh-cut tree, family, love.

  “If you want,” Conor said. “But it might make more sense to invite her over when the tree is all decorated.”

  “Tomorrow, right? We’re definitely going to decorate tomorrow?”

  “I think the branches will be open enough by then.”

  “Can you come?” Amy aimed her radiant blue eyes at Eliza. “Can you help us decorate the tree?”

  Eliza checked herself before blurting out that she’d love to help. She couldn’t let herself be sucked even deeper into the Malone family. For all she knew, Conor might not want her to be a part of tomorrow’s activity. Maybe he was growing sick of her company.

  She glanced his way. His eyes were even bluer than his daughter’s, and more radiant. His gaze lingered on her for only a moment, barely long enough to register, yet she felt its intensity penetrating her like a laser straight to her heart.

  He turned to his daughter. “Let me talk to Dr. Powell for a moment, okay? Privately.”

  Amy planted her hands on her hips, striking an adult pose that looked simultaneously silly and adorable. “Grown-up talk?” she asked, then sighed. “Okay.” She trudged to the stairs and up, apparently annoyed that she was being excluded.

  Conor watched Amy until she vanished down the upstairs hall, then returned his attention to Eliza. Expectation and apprehension performed a duet inside her. When he murmured her name in a gruff, quiet voice, both emotions clamored more loudly. “Don’t feel obligated to stick around,” he said. His words were diffident but his gaze was aggressive, challenging her. A few feet of space separated them, but he seemed too close. Much too close.

  “I don’t feel obligated,” she said.

  He rubbed his hands against the faded blue denim of his jeans. “We’ve taken up your entire day…”

  “My choice,” she assured him.

  “I usually pay my babysitters.” A faint smile crossed his lips.

  Eliza hadn’t felt like a babysitter when she’d been keeping an eye on Amy that morning. She certainly didn’t feel like one now. And she did feel paid. The opportunity to shop for a Christmas tree—something she would not otherwise have done—and to be in the company of Amy and Conor was all the compensation she needed.

  “This is the first time in years that I don’t have a tree,” she confessed. “Shopping for a tree with you and Amy was so much fun.”

  “It was fun for me, too,” he murmured, that same tentative, subtly dangerous smile whispering across his face as he leaned toward her, stepped toward her, touched his mouth to hers.

  Was this what she’d been expecting? What she’d been apprehensive about? She no longer knew and no longer cared. The pressure of Conor’s lips against hers sent a tremor of yearning through her, warm and then hot, pleased and then greedy. God, this felt so good. So right. As good and right as eating lunch with the Malones had been, and picking out a tree with them, and setting it up.

  A new scent teased her senses, along with the tree and the baking: the scent of Conor, clean and rugged and utterly male. As his lips met and brushed and nipped hers, he slid his hands to her cheeks. Large, warm hands, slightly callused, cupping her face, holding her head steady for the invasion of his tongue.

  She welcomed that invasion, opening, softening, melting in pleasure. She reached for his shoulders, cupped them, savored the solidity of muscle and bone beneath the slightly scratchy wool of his sweater. His upper lip and chin were slightly scratchy, too, a day’s worth of whisker stubbling his skin.

  A tiny voice inside her niggled that she should end this kiss before she was utterly lost. She didn’t really know Conor. His daughter attended the school where she worked. There were clearly issues in their tiny family: unresolved grief, unfulfilled needs. And issues in her own life, too: wounds that were still healing, distrust that was not easily shed.

  She ignored the voice. Kissing Conor felt too good.

  “Are you done grown-up talking?” Amy’s voice drifted down the stairs.

  His lips vibrating with a muted laugh, Conor eased back from Eliza. “Is that what this is?” she whispered. “Grown-up talking?”

  “I think so.” He touched his mouth to her forehead, then took a safe step back. “Stay for dinner.”

  It wasn’t a question, but she answered anyway. “Okay.”

  Chapter Six

  “MY DAD’S A terrible cook,” Amy declared. “He makes everything in the microwave.”

  As far as Eliza could see, this was not true. Conor had used the microwave to thaw out some frozen chopped beef, but now he was browning the meat in a pan on the stove. He’d opened a jar of marinara sauce and filled a pot of water to boil for pasta. Not exactly a gourmet feast, but several steps away from zapping a pre-fab meal.

  Eliza stood at the sink, rinsing a head of romaine before she tore some of it into a salad bowl. Amy had been tasked with setting the table. There had been some debate about whether to eat in the kitchen or the dining room—Conor had voted in favor of the kitchen, but Amy had countered that she and her father never ate in the dining room and tonight they had an excuse to do so. Her argument won, and she’d made a huge production of folding the dinner napkins into pockets to hold the silverware, and arraying the table with china plates from the glass-fronted hutch.

  Eliza wondered when Amy and her father had last dined in the stately room. The hutch and hunt board were a glossy mahogany, polished and dusted. The table cloth was crisp linen. One thing Eliza had learned growing up with a rowdy brother, dating guys through college and graduate school and living with Matt was that, in general, women tended to appreciate fine dining more than men did. She didn’t want the Malones to think her presence at dinner was a major occasion, but she was secretly pleased that Amy had won the argument about where to eat. Little girls needed elegance in their lives.

  “I’ll cop to the microwaving,” Conor told Eliza as he gave the sauce a stir. “I have a housekeeper who comes in once a week, cooks up a bunch of dinners and then freezes them. By the time I leave work, pick up Amy and get home, I don’t have the time to fix a good meal from scratch.”

  “Or the energy,” Eliza guessed. She often arrived home from work too exhausted to do more than open a can of soup or a tub of yogurt.

  With the three of them collaborating, dinner preparations didn’t require too much time or energy from anyone. Conor uncorked a bottle of red wine—someth
ing Italian; Eliza didn’t know much about wines, but it tasted delicious—and he allowed Amy a tiny taste from his glass before filling a glass with milk for her. “Daddy never drinks wine,” Amy reported. “Not in more than a year.”

  Not since his wife died, Eliza filled in the blanks.

  “My mom always used to let me taste her wine,” Amy went on. “She said she wanted me to have a palate. I’m not sure what that means, but she said she had one, so I want one, too.”

  Conor shot Eliza a look. He appeared anxious, as if he thought discussing his late wife might be in poor taste. She sent him back a reassuring smile. Amy ought to feel free to talk about her mother. That the woman had died didn’t mean she wasn’t an essential part of Amy’s—and Conor’s—history. “By palate, I think your mother meant the ability to taste the nuances in wines,” Eliza explained. “Do you know what nuances are?”

  Amy shook her head.

  “Kind of like subtle differences. Things that make something distinct, but that aren’t obvious. Like in a wine, whether it tastes a little bit like…” She glanced at Conor, seeking help.

  “Fruit,” he said. “Or spices, or…I don’t know, flavors that have to do with how the wine is aged. My wife was the wine expert,” he informed Eliza. “I was always more of a beer guy, myself.” He seemed relieved that Eliza wasn’t troubled by the subject.

  Why would she be? She was a psychologist. She was used to talking about anything and everything.

  Even so, she was glad when the conversation veered away from the Conor’s wife and back to the tree. Amy wanted lots of colorful lights and as much tinsel and garlands as the boughs could hold. The decorations she described would be so bright, the tree would probably be visible from a satellite orbiting the earth from a hundred miles up.

  Or from the height of a flying sleigh pulled by reindeer. “We have to make sure Santa can see it,” she reminded Eliza and Conor. “We never had a tree last year. So this year our tree has to be twice as good.”

  “Some of the old lights might not work,” Conor warned.

  “Then we’ll buy new ones,” Amy said pragmatically. “If Santa can’t see the tree, he won’t bring me what I want for Christmas.”

  Maybe talking about Conor’s late wife’s taste in wine would be safer than this topic: the impossible Christmas gift Amy yearned for. Eliza eyed Conor, uncertain of how he wished to handle the matter. But he gazed only at his daughter. “I don’t think it works that way,” he said. “You make a tree pretty and bright because that’s how you want the tree to look. And Santa brings the gifts he thinks you should have. It isn’t always exactly what you were hoping for—”

  “That’s not true, Daddy,” Amy said solemnly. “Santa makes your dreams come true—if you’re good. I’m trying very hard to be good.”

  “I know that.”

  “And I won’t hit anyone ever again, I promise. Even if he’s a poophead and he’s being mean to me.”

  “Hitting people rarely solves anything,” Conor said, his attention still fixed on his daughter, although his voice wavered. He seemed to be running out of quiet, reasoned arguments.

  Amy, on the other hand, sounded more and more confident. She turned to Eliza. “Santa brings presents to good children—at least the children who celebrate Christmas. Jewish children and Muslims and other children have different holidays and get presents in other ways. But kids who celebrate Christmas get presents from Santa. If they’re good, of course.”

  “The thing is, Christmas isn’t about getting stuff,” Conor reminded his daughter, his tone gaining strength. “It’s about giving. And sharing. And making other people happy.”

  “I make people happy,” Amy said. “I make you happy, don’t I?”

  Conor cracked a smile. “Yes. But I don’t want you to keep thinking me, me, me. That’s not the Christmas spirit.”

  Amy weighed that idea, her smile fading and her eyelids fluttering against a sudden sheen of tears. “Does that mean I’m not good?”

  “Good isn’t an absolute,” Conor said. At her perplexed look, he groped for simpler words. “Everyone is good at heart, but sometimes they forget to be good in their behavior. We all act selfish sometimes. We all make mistakes. We get angry and lash out. Or we’re forgetful. It doesn’t mean we’re bad. It just means we’re human. Christmas isn’t like getting a grade on a test—if you get an A you get lots of presents, a B, you get fewer presents, a D, no presents at all. I know all your friends and the commercials on TV and the displays at the stores make you think Christmas is about getting stuff. But it’s not. It’s about being kind and generous and thinking of others.”

  “I think of Mommy all the time,” Amy said, her voice quivering. “Does that mean I’m good?”

  Conor reached across the table and gave Amy’s tiny hand a squeeze. “You’re very good. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said in a near whisper.

  The mood at the table subdued, they finished their meals with little chatter. Eliza digested everything Conor had said, the calm wisdom he’d managed to tap into just when he’d seemed to be on the ropes. Where had that come from?

  They didn’t speak about it until the table was cleared and Amy was given permission to watch TV in the family room. Conor refilled his and Eliza’s glasses with wine and they settled on the living room sofa, facing the fireplace and the slowly unfurling tree. Conor flicked a switch and a gas-fueled fire flickered to life in the hearth. “My wife’s choice,” he muttered as he joined her on the sofa. “I prefer chopping wood and lighting matches, but she thought that was too much effort.”

  “Either way, it’s pretty,” Eliza said. “And it warms the room.” She shifted on the sofa’s enveloping cushions so she could look at Conor—and put a little space between them. She wasn’t ready to kiss him again. Over dinner she’d learned more about him—and also realized how much she still had to learn.

  Neither of them spoke for a minute. Then they both spoke at once: “About what happened earlier—” he said.

  “You’re such a good father,” she said. His words reached her as hers reached him, and she wished she’d remained silent. They needed to talk about what had happened earlier. That kiss. That wild, hot kiss.

  But he seemed more interested in following her conversational lead. “I feel like I’m winging it,” he confessed. “Making it up as I go along.”

  “You’re doing fine.”

  “I always counted on Sheila to be the expert parent,” he admitted. “Sheila wasn’t the most warm-and-cuddly woman in the world, but she always seemed able to say what Amy needed to hear. That seems to be a knack reserved for mothers.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a mother-father thing,” Eliza said. “I think some people just have a talent for it.” She paused, then decided to stick to the topic of Conor’s late wife. It made her feel safe. Conor wouldn’t try to kiss her if they were discussing the love of his life. And much as she wanted to kiss him again, she knew she shouldn’t. “I reviewed Amy’s files from last year. It sounds as if your wife had a lot of talents. She was an artist?”

  “She liked to draw and paint. She hadn’t had much time for her art until Amy began attending public school. She was getting back into it. That and long-distance biking.”

  He gazed at the fireplace, his expression unreadable. “She died in a bicycle accident,” Eliza said.

  He nodded. “They say wearing a helmet can save lives. Well, yeah, maybe—if you land on your head. It doesn’t offer much protection to the rest of your organs, though.”

  “She died doing something she loved,” Eliza noted. A platitude, but people often took comfort from the thought.

  Conor nodded again, then sighed. “She died doing something she loved and left me to deal with the aftermath. I’ve been feeling my way ever since, stumbling and fumbling. But I got a lot out of the Daddy School class today. I don’t know what I would have said to Amy if I hadn’t gone to that class. The last time we talked about whether she was good, she fled the room
in tears. This time, it looked like she was close to crying, but at least she finished her dinner.”

  “I thought what you said was perfect. It doesn’t matter whether she believes in Santa. Christmas is about giving, not receiving.”

  “That’s a hard thing to get through a kid’s skull. All they hear, everywhere they turn, is that Christmas is about getting stuff. Toys. Money. Candy. They’re bombarded with gimme, gimme, gimme.”

  “So, the Daddy School taught you how to counter that?”

  “We batted ideas around. No one had any magic solutions. We just exchanged ideas.” He reflected for a moment. “It was good. I heard some things I really needed to hear.”

  “I’m glad you went.”

  He shot her a brief, hopeful smile. “I may need your babysitting services again next week. The class meets every Saturday morning.”

  Did he still think of her as a babysitter? After they’d spent the entire day together? After they’d chosen a tree together?

  After they’d kissed?

  If he was thinking of her as a babysitter, would he kiss her again? Did she want him to? After the mess with Matt, was she ready to get involved with another man? Did kissing Conor mean they were involved?

  Did she want to be involved with him? He obviously still missed his wife. He had a troubled daughter. He was in no position to pursue a new relationship. And Eliza wasn’t the sort of woman who enjoyed casual love affairs. With her, a relationship had to be all or nothing, whole-hearted or not worth the bother.