Her Holiday Man

by Shannon Stacey

  It had been a long time since she’d looked at a man and felt the hum of sexual desire. His Henley shirt stretched across his shoulders as he carried the box up the stairs at the end of the garage and she wanted to run her hands over those muscles. And she wanted to feel his hands return the favor.

  Sucking in a breath, Christina yanked the curtains together and snatched up her bathrobe. She was still digging herself out of the hole one man had dumped her into. She didn’t need another. Especially if that man was Gail Broughton’s son.

  * * *

  The nice thing about living over your mother’s garage was the ability to sneak into her kitchen when your first waking thought was crap, I don’t have any damn coffee.

  As a rule, Will preferred to have a couple cups of coffee before doing anything else, but he suspected once his mother got hold of him, she was going to want his company for a while. He showered and dressed, shoving his wallet and key ring in his pocket before going downstairs into the garage. The door to the kitchen had already been unlocked, so she was probably expecting him. Either that or she’d ignored him when he’d told her to start locking it before leaving for Ohio the last time.

  Not only was she expecting him, but she set a mug of coffee on the table in front of his usual chair just as he walked into the kitchen. “Good morning, honey.”

  “Morning.” He sat and took a bracing gulp of hot coffee. “And thank you.”

  “If you’d called to tell me you were coming home, I would have made sure you had coffee upstairs. And other groceries, too.”

  They’d already covered that, so he just nodded and kept drinking. And he put up only a token protest when she pulled the big cast iron frying pan free of its hook. That was the bacon and eggs pan. “You don’t have to make me breakfast.”

  “Nonsense. It’s so good to have you home, so you can humor your old mom today.”

  “I don’t see an old mom in this kitchen. Just a beautiful one.”

  She laughed at the line he’d been using on her for as long as he could remember, having been taught by his dad how to flatter her, and pulled bacon out of the fridge. “What are you going to do today?”

  Will wrapped his hands around the mug and shrugged. “I need to hit the grocery store, obviously. And I figure I’ll visit some old stomping grounds and see if I can scrounge up some work.”

  “You just got home. Relax for a few days.”

  “You know me, Ma. I’m not one for relaxing.”

  “You got that from your father. The man couldn’t sit still for five minutes. Always had to be working on something.”

  The pang of loss didn’t take Will by surprise. It happened every time his dad was mentioned, but he was careful not to let it show. His mom’s mouth was curved in a bittersweet smile, and he knew talking about her husband helped her through the grief.

  “So what’s Christina’s story?” he asked, now that they were alone.

  “Do you remember when a guy named Robert Forrester was all over the news for misusing and losing millions of dollars of other peoples’ money?”

  He shrugged. “Vaguely. I don’t pay much attention to financial crap.”

  “He’s Christina’s ex-husband. She grew up wealthy and then married into even more money. But she divorced him and the banks took literally everything. She fought as long as she could, but those kinds of lawyers are expensive.”

  If they came from wealth, it explained their manners and the way the kid had set the table. “That’s one hell of a fall.”

  Gail nodded, dropping bacon onto the hot cast iron so it sizzled. “But she brushed herself off and she’s starting over.”

  “You’re not giving her money, are you?”

  “That would be my business,” she said sharply. “But I know you’re asking because you’re a loving son, so I’ll tell you. No, I haven’t given her money and she’s never asked me for any. She’s not trying to fleece the doddering old widow.”

  He laughed. “I’m not sure what doddering really means, but I’m fairly certain you’ve never doddered a day in your life.”

  An hour later, fueled by his mother’s delicious breakfast, Will was in his truck and ready to face going to town. Since he’d be stocking his fridge with perishables, he had to leave the grocery store for last. First was letting it be known he was back in town and looking for work. He had enough money to get by, but he’d burned a lot of his savings with multiple flights to New Hampshire in the last year and he’d insisted on paying for his father’s headstone so that money could go into his mom’s savings. The last thing he wanted was for her to have to look for work.

  He decided to start at what took second for the title of gossip central—being barely edged out by the coffee counter at the Crossroads Cafe—among the town’s male citizens, which was Bloom’s Hardware. He’d gone to school with Scottie Bloom, who represented the fourth generation for the family-owned store.

  “Hey, I heard you were back in town,” Scottie said as soon as Will stepped into the store.

  “The hell you did. I got off the highway last night and drove straight home.”

  “You know how it is.” He reached over the counter to shake Will’s hand. “Heard you drove instead of flying, and the bed of your truck wasn’t empty.”

  Will laughed. Many times he’d thought somebody—probably the lady who ran the library—had security cameras hidden all over town and sent out bulletins. “I’m staying.”

  “Glad to hear it. You know your mom would be looked after, but it’ll be good for her to have you back.”

  He nodded. His mom’s friends had dropped hints that were about as subtle as sledgehammers at his dad’s funeral, but he hadn’t been ready to come home then. He’d still been too wrapped up in his own grief. “Know anybody hiring?”

  Scottie thought about it for a minute. “Tony’s kid went off to college this year and his arthritis has been acting up. He might need somebody, especially with the cold setting in.”

  Both of them had worked part-time in Tony Hammond’s auto repair shop during high school, so it would be weird to circle back to him. But he’d been doing landscaping for a while and he preferred working on cars. “I’ll stop by. Appreciate the heads up.”

  “You ready to part with Big Red yet?”

  Will laughed. Scottie had been trying to get his hands on Will’s 1983 Honda three-wheeler, which were all called Big Red, for years. They’d stopped making the machine in 1987 because they were considered dangerous, so they could be hard to come by. Scottie was probably hoping the fact he was looking for work might mean he needed money and, if he did, he might finally be willing to sell the machine that had been sitting under a tarp in the back corner of his parents’ garage for a lot of years.

  “Not a chance, Scottie.”

  “I’ve only been asking for about twenty years. I’ll wear you down yet.”

  “Have you ever heard of eBay?”

  Scottie snorted. “I helped you rebuild and repair that machine more times than I can count. I want her and I’ll wait.”

  He’d be waiting a good long time, but Scottie already knew that. Will shook his hand again and went on to the next thing. Tony was not only glad to see him, but happy to learn he was looking for work. The wage wasn’t exactly competitive, but Will didn’t have a lot of expenses, the hours were flexible, and he already knew he liked working for Tony. They shook hands and Will agreed to show up on Monday morning.

  After hitting the grocery store, he drove back to the house and carried the groceries up to his apartment. He put away the refrigerated stuff, but left everything else for later. He’d bought his mom a half-gallon of her favorite ice cream and he wanted to sneak it into her freezer now, since her car hadn’t been in the garage.

  After sticking it in her freezer, he decided to leave her a note and went in search of pen
and paper, but stopped short when he walked into the living room. Christina was at his mom’s computer desk, tapping her fingers on the mouse as she read something on the screen. Her hair was loose today and she was twirling strands of it around her right index finger.

  “Hi.”

  She whirled around, clearly startled. “Will! I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I know all the squeaky spots in the floor,” he said with a smile. “Years of practice during my teenage years.”

  “Did you ever sneak out or back in without your mom knowing?”

  He laughed. “No. Hearing is definitely her superpower. Speaking of Mom, where did she run off to?”

  “Her friend Marjorie down the street has her grandsons today. Nathaniel gets along well with them, so they all went to the park. Gail asked me to tell you they won’t be too long.”

  That answered the question of whether or not his mom knew Christina was alone in her house. While he did occasionally think his mom was too easy to give her trust, he had to admit her neighbor didn’t really set off alarm bells in his gut. At least not for that reason.

  With her cheeks still a warm pink from being startled and her hair framing her face, he was struck again by how pretty she was. Then the computer monitor over her shoulder caught his eye and he frowned. “Are you researching smoke detectors?”

  Christina sighed and turned back to the computer. “I have one beeping.”

  “It needs a new battery.”

  “I’ve got that much. Now I’m trying to find the right model of smoke detector to get the right battery and learn how to take the cover thing off.”

  Since her back was to him, Will didn’t bother hiding his grin. “It’ll take a 9 volt, and you should do them all at the same time. Actually you should have done it with the time change, that way you know you have fresh batteries twice a year.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And the covers pop right off. I can run over and do it for you.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he winced. He needed to make sure Christina didn’t get it in her head he was interested in her and being alone with her in her house wasn’t a good idea. But he wouldn’t retract the offer. She didn’t need to be struggling on a stepladder doing something he could do easily.

  He’d be in and out in less than ten minutes.

  * * *

  Knowing Gail the way she did, Christina wasn’t surprised Will offered to change the batteries in her smoke detectors. They were just good people. But she’d promised herself when she got on her feet again, she would never depend on a man ever again. She was going to learn how to take care of herself.

  “Thanks,” she said, “but I should learn how to do it so I can do it in the future.”

  “Okay, how about I do a few to show you how, which will be a lot easier than watching a how-to video and then running across the street before you forget what they did, and then you can do the rest.”

  What he said made sense. Maybe part of standing on her own two feet was knowing when she needed help. “If you’re sure you don’t mind, I would appreciate it. I remember seeing a bunch of 9 volt batteries in the cabinet over the fridge.”

  “Probably there for the smoke detectors. You want to do it now?”

  Five minutes later, Will was standing on a stepladder in her living room and Christina was trying not to stare at his eye-level ass in worn jeans. It was a tempting view and she was having trouble paying attention to his demonstration.

  “You just lift up on the cover a bit and give it a counterclockwise twist and it’ll come free,” he said, and showed her how easy it was. “Here, I’ll trade you for a battery.”

  She took the plastic cover and handed him a fresh battery, then watched as he pulled the old one out and replaced it. Then she handed him the cover and he popped it back on. It looked pretty easy and she felt a little silly for not trying to figure it out before looking it up on the internet.

  “My mom told me a little bit about you,” he said as he did the next one. “But not why, of all the places in New England or even the country, you ended up in this town.”

  “A friend of mine has a summer home on Lake Winnipesaukee and when Nathaniel and I were out of options, she let us stay there. But then they wanted to have some friends—mutual friends of ours, actually—up for a Labor Day cookout and she was sure I’d understand how awkward it would be for everybody if I was there. This is the town where I was able to get a job, so this is where we are.”

  “No offense, but you have some really shitty friends.”

  As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t deny that. As shocking and disappointing as Robert’s betrayal had been, being dropped by the circle of women she’d thought of as her best friends had been almost as painful.

  “Some of them tried for a while,” she said. “But it wasn’t just a matter of me being disgraced. Robert actually stole money from them. If I’d stayed in Manhattan or Connecticut, some of them may have kept in touch with me, but I couldn’t. The kids were so horrible to Nathaniel at school.”

  He carried the ladder up the stairs to do the hallway smoke detector, which was the one beeping. “How’s he doing here?”

  “Really good. He likes most of his classmates and his best friend’s name is Dylan...something. Randall?”

  Will laughed, and the sound of it made Christina shiver. It wasn’t the soft polite laugh she was used to. It was deep and genuine. “Dylan Randall’s old man beat the crap out of me in second grade. I returned the favor in fourth grade and by sixth grade, we were friends. They’re a good family, so I’m sure Dylan’s a decent kid.”

  “That’s good to know. It’s kind of a fresh start for Nathaniel and we had some rocky days when they asked why he didn’t have a dad and he was probably more honest than he needed to be, but kids get past things pretty quickly and none of them seem to care anymore.”

  “It’s a fresh start for both of you.”

  “Yes, it is, and I’m thankful we’re doing okay. I convinced the judge to let me keep the Mercedes because I needed transportation for Nathaniel. When I finally sold it, when we had to leave the lake house and go to a motel, I had enough to buy the Subaru and still have a little nest egg to keep us going until I found a job. And then I met your mom and she introduced me to the Porters and it’s been a lot better since then.”

  He had her go up the ladder for the smoke detector in Nathaniel’s room. It took her a couple of tries, but she managed to pop the cover without falling off the ladder. Then she took the battery from him and replaced it. She replaced the plastic cover in the first try and grinned down at him, feeling proud of herself.

  He smiled back at her. “You should have been an electrician.”

  Laughing, she started back down the ladder, taking his hand to steady herself without thought when he offered it. But when her feet were back on the carpet and his fingers were wrapped around hers, she suddenly felt self-conscious.

  “Thanks,” she forced herself to say in a casual tone, pulling her hand free.

  The awkwardness only felt more pronounced when he carried the ladder into her bedroom for her. At least her bed was made and she didn’t have underclothes strewn about. But being up on the ladder, arms over her head, with her bed as a backdrop, made her keenly aware of his proximity.

  When she fumbled the cover and dropped it, he simply picked it up and handed her a battery. She finished the job as quickly as she could and breathed a sigh of relief when they were back downstairs in her kitchen again.

  In her nervousness, she shoved at her bangs, which were hanging in her eyes again. Pretty soon, she was going to have to get the scissors and trim them herself. They might not be straight, but at least she’d be able to see.

  “We have a couple of salons in town who could help you with that,” Will said.

 
“I just haven’t had the time.” That was only part of the truth.

  “How long can it take for a woman to trim your bangs?”

  “I don’t have the extra money to spend on a trip to the salon right now.” She saw the understanding cross his face and willed herself not to be embarrassed by her confession. She’d felt enough shame in the months after Robert’s arrest and refused to now. “When I think of the thousands of dollars I’ve spent just on my hair...look at me now, reluctant to spend forty dollars, even though the color’s growing out and it looks funny.”

  “You should ask my mom to let you know when Erin is coming to visit,” he said. “She went to beauty school and used to cut hair until she had her first kid. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind trimming your hair in Ma’s kitchen. She’s done mine enough times.”

  “I think your family’s done more than enough for me.”

  “You’re very focused on what my family has done for you, but you should also think about what you’ve done for my family. My parents were together almost forty years, since high school, and my dad passing left a huge hole in Mom’s life. I can already tell Nathaniel helps get her through it. And your friendship, too.”

  “Since meeting Gail, I’ve learned what friendship is really supposed to be,” Christina said quietly, trying not to get too emotional. “She’s like family to me already.”

  “What about your parents or your other family?”

  “My parents were killed in a freak ski lift accident in Europe shortly after Robert and I got married. They were only children and so was I, so I don’t really have any close family.”

  “If your parents were wealthy, don’t you have money from them?”

  She felt as if she was being interrogated, but she didn’t let her annoyance show. He was the kind of guy who’d look out for his mom and probably be suspicious of a stranger insinuating herself in their lives. Or maybe he was just nosy. “I did. But I gave it to my husband to invest for me, and now it’s gone.”

  “Okay, what about your husband’s family? His parents would be Nathaniel’s grandparents. Didn’t they offer to help?”