One Kiss for Christmas (The Happy Holidays Series Book 4)

by Michele Brouder

  Leah grimaced and said, “No, he hasn’t mastered that yet.”

  “Leah, I didn’t pay for your expensive college for you to spend your life potty training cats!”

  Leah laughed. “I didn’t train him. He taught himself.” She sounded like a proud mother. Sometimes he worried about her.

  “That’s worse.” He ignored the amused grin on his daughter’s face and announced, “I need coffee to deal with this.” Still laughing, Leah went back to her room to get dressed.

  Later, as he sat at the table drinking his coffee and reading the paper, Tiny walked by. Jim eyed the cat suspiciously and muttered, “If he ever tells me we’re out of toilet paper, he’s out of here.”

  Leah arrived in the kitchen and glanced at the clock. “The clinic doesn’t open until nine.” She put her hands on her hips. “I’ve got ninety minutes. Why don’t we start decorating the Christmas tree?”

  When Jim appeared to hesitate, Leah laughed. “Okay, Dad. If you can just put the lights on, I’ll do the rest.”

  He looked at her. “Okay.”

  Leah sighed. “I’m just trying to keep myself busy until the clinic opens.”

  “Let me finish my coffee and I’ll put the lights up.”

  “Thanks, Dad. I’ll do the rest.”

  Ten minutes later, Jim began untangling Christmas tree lights. Leah pulled out holiday decorations and set them up around the house. Behind them, Tiny stepped gingerly through the boxes, meowing amidst tissue paper ruffling.

  Leah looked over to the cat. “Aw, he misses Hazel. Dad, would you mind giving me a ride over to the clinic so I can see how she’s doing?”

  “Sure, I’ll drop you off. I have to go into town anyway,” Jim said.

  “Okay, thanks,” Leah said. “We didn’t hear anything from the clinic during the night, so I’m taking that as a good sign.”

  “Me, too, honey,” Jim said reassuringly.

  “If I have time today, I’ll make some Christmas cookies,” she said.

  “That’s a great idea.”

  “Vegan of course,” she quickly added.

  That meant no butter. Jim tried not to wince. “Of course,” he said.

  Later when Jim picked up Leah, she seemed to be in a much better mood. She emerged from the clinic smiling, and Jim breathed a sigh of relief.

  As she got into his car, he asked, “How’s the cat?”

  Leah nodded. “She’s going to be all right. It’ll be a slow road but she’s showing improvement.”

  As Jim rolled out of the clinic’s parking lot, she said, “And guess what? I’ve got a date with that hot veterinarian!”

  “He asked you out? That seems a bit unprofessional,” he said, suddenly feeling protective of his daughter.

  Leah laughed, amused. “Oh, Dad, it’s the new millennium. I asked him out.”

  Jim looked over at his daughter but said nothing. He wasn’t sure how he felt about her going out with Donna’s son. His gut told him he didn’t like it. But he kept his mouth shut for a change.

  “Are you going out tonight?”

  Leah shook her head. “No, the weekend. Oh, and I’m going out Christmas shopping later, so I won’t be home for dinner if that’s all right.”

  “Sure,” Jim said, used to fending for himself.

  Jim’s cell phone rang. Frowning, he glanced at it and saw Donna’s name flash across the screen.

  “Hello?”

  “Jim, it’s Donna.”

  “What’s up?” he asked, unsure but curious as to the reason for her call.

  She hesitated and then asked quickly, “I was wondering if you’d want to come over for dinner tonight?” Before he could respond, she said, “I know it’s short notice, so if you can’t, don’t worry about it.”

  Jim smiled. “Not at all. Actually, Leah has other plans, so dinner would be great,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “What time?”

  “Seven? Or is that too late?”

  “Nope, seven is fine. See you then,” he said.

  “I made a roast chicken. I hope that’s okay,” Donna said, donning oven mitts and pulling a blue enameled roasting pan out of the oven.

  “Sounds great,” Jim said. “Leah’s a vegan so meat’s off the menu for me.” He removed his jacket and laid it on the chair. “Is there anything I can do?”

  She nodded to a pot on the stove. “Would you mind mashing the potatoes?”

  “Sure thing,” he said. Jim looked into the pot of boiled potatoes, butter, and milk. He frowned. “You heat up the milk?”

  Donna nodded as she transported the chicken from the pan to a platter. “Yes, it makes the potatoes starchier. I’ve got the electric hand mixer set up over there,” she said with a nod to the mixer set up on the other side of the counter.

  “No hand masher?”

  She shook her head. “Not worth the hassle.”

  As Jim mashed the potatoes, Donna drained the carrots and set about making gravy from the pan drippings.

  Once everything was ready, they sat down at the table.

  “I thought it would be nicer to eat here in the kitchen since it’s just the two of us,” Donna said.

  “It’s perfect,” he said. He uncorked a bottle of white wine he’d brought with him.

  “Oh, I forgot the stuffing,” Donna said. She stood back up, retrieved a pan, and scooped stuffing onto their plates. “You’re probably wondering why I invited you over to dinner.”

  “It may have crossed my mind,” Jim said, taking the gravy boat and pouring gravy over his potatoes.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately,” Donna admitted. “Well, to be more precise, since the issue of the letter came up.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Jim said, putting a forkful of chicken and mashed potatoes into his mouth. “This is delicious, by the way.”

  “Jim, we’re not teenagers anymore and I’d prefer to be upfront and honest with you,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said cautiously. “I appreciate that.”

  “First, can I ask what you wrote in that letter? Other than the proposal?” she asked.

  Jim nodded as he finished chewing. “I don’t remember it verbatim but I do recall the gist of it. I said I’d made a huge mistake in breaking up with you. I asked for forgiveness. I said that I could handle anything including war but what I could not handle was us not being together. I asked you to marry me. And since I ruined your Christmas, I promised to make it up to you the following Christmas and all the Christmases thereafter.”

  “Oh,” Donna said.

  They were quiet for a few minutes as they let this settle.

  “I admit to there being a bit of residual anger over you dumping me all those years ago, but that’s gone now. When I first saw you, it was my twenty-year-old hurt self that reacted to you and your presence in Orchard Falls. I did not react from the perspective of the woman I am today,” she said.

  She paused and Jim waited. He was perfectly happy to let her speak while he listened and enjoyed a roast chicken dinner.

  “I think we need to make peace with the fact that had that letter arrived, our lives would have turned out very differently,” she said.

  “Agreed,” he said.

  “But that letter didn’t arrive, and here we are, with our lives as we know them because of it.”

  “But no matter how things had ended up, I always planned to retire to Orchard Falls,” he said. “I’ll be the first to admit, though, that that’s been a bit of a challenge.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m happy to be back, but I’m still not sure where I fit in,” he explained. “I’ve been gone so long I wondered if coming back was a mistake. That maybe the old saying, ‘You can never go home again,’ was true for me.”

  “Do you still feel that way?” Donna asked, her eyes never leaving his face.

  “If I’m honest, yes, I do,” Jim said. He struggled to get the right words together. It was important for her to know e
xactly how he felt. He was leaving nothing to chance or worse, misinterpretation. “But I am working on trying to fit in here.”

  “Good,” she said with an encouraging smile.

  Jim helped Donna clear the plates and they sat back down, letting their food digest and waiting for the coffee.

  “I’ve made peace with this lost letter and I hope you will, too,” Donna said. “Of course, it changes my perspective of the past.”

  “The letter has become an annotated asterisk on our history?” he asked.

  “More like a footnote.”

  “You were really angry with me,” Jim said quietly.

  “I was,” she said. “But not anymore.”

  “You’re very philosophical about it,” he noted.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s time to let the past rest.” She looked at her cup on the table. “I just feel that everything worked out the way it was supposed to. At that particular point in time, for whatever reason, we were not meant to be together.”

  Jim dared to ask, “And what about this point in time?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that yet. But I would be willing . . .” her voice trailed off.

  Jim leaned forward in his chair, hopeful. He helped her fill in the blanks. “To hang out? To become friends? Dare I ask it—to go out together?”

  She nodded with a laugh.

  “I’m interested in starting right here, right now with you,” he said, thumping his forefinger on the table.

  “You are?” she asked, her eyes lighting up.

  “I am.”

  She smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Good,” Jim said. He wondered if she knew how beautiful she was to him even now, a little older, with a little extra weight and those fine lines on her face. She was more beautiful to him now than she had been at eighteen.

  “Why the sudden change in heart?” he asked.

  She appeared thoughtful for a moment. “My husband died unexpectedly at the age of thirty-four.”

  Jim shook his head. “That’s rough, I’m sorry.”

  She gave him a small smile. “The one thing I took away from all of that was that you have to live in the moment—because that’s all we have.”

  A slow smile emerged on his face. “So, what are we?”

  “What do you mean?” Donna asked.

  “Going forward, I don’t want any ambiguities. How would we define our relationship? Friends, neighbors, dating, boyfriend-girlfriend, or all of the above?”

  Donna gave him a small smile and said, “It’s complicated?”

  Jim burst out laughing. Oh yeah, he was going to love hanging out with Donna.

  Restlessness consumed Jim as he thought about the conversation that had taken place earlier in the evening with Donna. He was as excited as a kid on Christmas Eve. Late that night, when he couldn’t sleep, he found himself getting dressed and going for a walk, thinking the cold night air would help to settle his mind. As he headed down Main Street to the outskirts of town, something caught his eye at the underpass to the thruway. There was a gathering of people. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was just before midnight.

  With a bit of hesitation, Jim walked toward the group to investigate. The last thing he wanted to do was to stumble onto a gang, but he wasn’t truly afraid. He didn’t think there was any gang activity in Orchard Falls.

  As he neared the gathering, he slowed his pace as he eyed the situation. A group of men stood behind a long folding table, doling out food in bowls to a line of people. As Jim got closer, he saw in the line what appeared to be homeless people. They held Styrofoam bowls and plastic spoons in their hands as men behind the table doled out soup and bottles of water. Jim scanned the environment. Beneath the underpass, at the top of the embankment, he could see sleeping bags and cardboard boxes tucked against the concrete.

  A thickness invaded his throat and he tried swallowing to dislodge it. How had he not known that Orchard Falls had a homeless population? He drove through this underpass at least once a week and he had never noticed people sleeping rough beneath it, vying for protection from the elements.

  Curious, he walked toward the group. As he approached the table, the men behind it gave him a slight nod of acknowledgement. There was a small line of people—mainly men but some women—lined up with bowls in their hands. They wore layers of clothing. They did not make eye contact with Jim.

  Uncomfortable with standing around and doing nothing, Jim asked the guy at the end of the table nearest him, “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Hold on.” The man, in his seventies, turned around and called to another man unloading boxes from the back of a van. “Bob?” When the other man looked toward him, he nodded his head toward Jim.

  Bob walked over. He was a heavyset man wearing a hoodie, a knit cap, and a winter jacket. “What can I do for you?”

  Jim smiled and looked around at the setup. “More like what can I do to help?”

  “As you can see, we offer something hot to eat on cold nights. Soup, chili, stews, whatever we get from our volunteer cooks. In the summertime, we give out sandwiches and popsicles on the real hot nights.”

  Jim raised an eyebrow, impressed. “I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t know that there were homeless people in Orchard Falls.”

  Bob nodded. “Most people don’t. It isn’t addressed too much.”

  “It’s a little cold out here. Is there a shelter they could go to?” Jim asked.

  Bob shook his head. “We don’t have a purpose-built shelter as of yet. Right now, the church lets us use their parish hall on the really cold nights—when the mercury drops below freezing.”

  Jim tried to process all this information. And he knew immediately that he wanted to be involved. “And you’re here every night?”

  “We are. Rain or shine. No matter what the weather. Weekends. Holidays.”

  “Do you need help?”

  “We always need help. What can you do?”

  “Anything,” Jim said. “I can do anything you ask me.”

  “That’s good to know. Give me your number and I’ll be in touch,” Bob said.

  Jim took out his phone and rattled off his number.

  “If you want to help tonight, you can take Ernie’s place behind the table,” Bob suggested. “Ernie has to run back to his house and get more soup. On the colder nights, we have bigger crowds.”

  “Of course.” Jim took over from Ernie and began doling out soup to the people in line. The soup smelled good. Steam rose off of it, and Jim saw that it was heavy with noodles and vegetables and pieces of chicken.

  Within the hour, they were all finished and Jim helped with the cleanup. He told them he’d be back the next night. As he walked home, his head held high, he whistled, feeling better than he had in a long time. He was a good kind of tired.

  Chapter 9

  Donna sat in her office with Tim and Dottie Fields. This was one of those days that reminded Donna how much she loved her job. Tim and Dottie had been loyal customers almost as long as Donna had been with the bank. They hadn’t always had it easy. In the past, Tim had been laid off from the plant and there were many years of unemployment, and Dottie had only a high-school education, but they’d managed to scrimp and save, raise four children, and send them all to college.

  Out of the blue, they’d received a large and unexpected windfall. A distant relative of Dottie’s had passed away and left Dottie her entire estate. Nobody had been more shocked than Dottie. And no one deserved it more, thought Donna. They were good people. Over the decades, Donna had been behind Dottie in line more than once at the grocery store and it was always the same thing: lots of coupons and generic-brand items. They had one old car that they shared, and there was nothing flashy about them. Donna didn’t think much would change, despite the huge windfall. Frugality born of necessity sometimes became an ingrained habit.

  “As excited as we are about this money, we want to be careful with it,” Dottie said. “W
e’re not going to go out and buy a new car or anything like that. But we are going to treat ourselves to a dishwasher.” Her husband smiled at her.

  They’d all gone to high school together. Dottie and Tim had also been high-school sweethearts. But unlike them, Tim hadn’t left town, and there was no lost letter to upend their lives. As Donna listened to their chatter, she thought that this was what it would be like to have spent decades with the man you loved, and to finally be getting to the good times. To have all that common history and time together, behind you and a part of you. A lump formed in her throat.

  Her thoughts drifted toward Jim, as they always seemed to be doing lately. She was glad he’d come for dinner. She was happy about their agreement but at the same time, she wanted to keep it to herself. It felt special to her.

  Once she went over in detail some proper investment vehicles for the Fieldses, she gave them some literature to look over and penned in a follow-up appointment in her diary.

  They’d no sooner left than her cell phone rang.

  “Hi, honey,” she answered when Brent’s name flashed across the screen.

  “Hey, Mom, I’m just calling to let you know that I won’t be able to make dinner tonight,” he explained.

  “Are you working late again?” she asked, trying to keep the worry out of her voice.

  Brent laughed. “Actually, I have a date.”

  Donna perked up and hope filled her. “You do? That’s wonderful! With who?”

  “With Leah O’Hara, your neighbor’s daughter,” Brent said. “You know, the one whose cat got run over the other night.”

  Donna sank back in her executive chair. “I know who you mean.”

  “I thought you’d be happy,” Brent said.

  “Oh, happy isn’t the word,” Donna said truthfully.

  “I’ve got to go; my next appointment’s here,” Brent said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Bye, Brent.” Donna stared at her phone for a solid minute.

  Brent going out on a date with Jim’s daughter was not a good idea. How on earth would she tell her son that his mother had a significant history with his date’s father? How would she explain that Jim O’Hara had been her great love before Brent’s father?