by Cara Colter
And then a door slapped open.
“Are you done yet?” Nana’s shrill voice carried across the snow as clearly as the wolf song had.
“Art takes time!” Rufus yelled back. “Where have you been? I needed you to hand me the string of lights marked number fourteen. I had to get down and get it myself. I’m old. I can’t be expected to go up and down a ladder a hundred times!”
It was possibly the first time Noelle had ever heard her grandfather refer to himself as old.
“Oh, be quiet, you ancient coot. Do you ever stop complaining? I was helping! I went in to find something for supper.”
“Do you think this has been going on since we left?” Aidan asked. He didn’t even try to hide his amusement.
“No doubt. I’m not sure what it is. My grandfather never acts the way he does with her.”
“You don’t know what it is?” Aidan said, looking at her with interest. A smile was tickling his lips.
“No. Do you?”
“It’s the age-old game.”
She felt shocked. “But my grandmother has only been gone a few months. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Maybe that’s what he thinks, too,” Aidan offered softly. “That it needs to be fought. That it isn’t right.”
“They don’t like each other,” she insisted, but for some reason she was thinking she had said nearly those same words to Aidan. I don’t like you.
And he had said them to her.
And then, despite that initial animosity, only hours later, they had come very close to kissing. A shiver went up and down her spine as she contemplated the fact that she might be playing the age-old game with Aidan.
It had to stop. It could only end in pain.
Her grandfather’s voice came with clarity through the cold air and across the snow again.
“I hope you didn’t meddle with supper.”
“It’s already in the oven.”
“I have a plan I’m following!”
“Oh, well,” Nana said, unrepentant. “I think I can figure out how to heat a frozen lasagna.”
“That’s not for tonight! Tonight was cabbage rolls. It was marked right on the containers. I had Mrs. Bentley mark them.”
Noelle smiled. Her grandfather was so organized he’d had one of the neighbors prepare frozen dinners for him and for the company he was expecting. It was just so endearing...and yet again, it nagged at her. Much preparation had gone into this. Why hadn’t he told her what he was up to?
Apparently Nana missed the endearing part of an old widower hosting guests for Christmas.
“Oh, don’t be so stuck in your ways. The label must have fallen off. Aidan and Tess and Noelle will be home soon, and they’ll be hungry. Shouldn’t they be home by now? What if Aidan’s bleeding to death out there?”
“Maybe all of them got attacked by that wolf pack. Being eaten as we speak.”
“What wolf pack?”
“You can’t hear them? If you’d stop talking for three seconds... Plug in the lights.”
“Wolves?” That shrill note again.
“Plug in the damned lights!”
And into the sudden silence and the gathering darkness, the lights of the house winked on. They were bright primary colors: red and yellow, blue and green. They ran around the roofline, making globes of reflected color in the snow. They marked the gables. They wrapped around the porch pillars and the railings, and they outlined the windows. Noelle could not be sure how two old people had gotten this much done.
Maybe, despite the bickering, there was a certain magic in the air.
Certainly, the house seemed to be saying that. It had transformed from an old ranch house to a gingerbread house, something worthy of a fairy tale, in just an afternoon.
There was something about standing here, with Aidan and Tess, listening to the quarreling of Rufus and Nana in the distance, that made Noelle’s heart stand still. And in the silence of her heart not beating, she was sure she heard a little voice.
There are other ways that game can end, it said: all good fairy tales end with and they lived happily-ever-after.
But Noelle reminded herself firmly of the red dress in her closet, her reminder of broken dreams. This was no fairy tale, she admonished herself sternly. There was no point casting Aidan in the role of a prince, despite his lapse in calling her beautiful and despite the near-miss kiss. He had made it abundantly clear he was not interested in a romance, and that she had better not be, either!
Grabbing the tree again, Noelle moved deliberately away from the lure of the magic in the air and toward the house. Aidan and Tess joined her and they dragged the tree up onto the porch. And then Noelle and Aidan stood, looking at it, while Tess danced around it.
Rufus and Nana admired their find and declared it perfect.
“Are we going to decorate it tonight?” Tess asked. “Please? Please? Please?”
There was something about the hopefulness of a child that made magic very hard to outrun.
CHAPTER SIX
AS IT TURNED out there was no tree-decorating that night. Despite a valiant effort to keep her eyes open, Tess went to sleep during dinner. She fell asleep instantly and completely, her hand clutched around her fork. She suddenly just sagged, the fork dropped, and she would have slid to the floor, like a silk dress off a stool, if her father had not risen from his own chair and scooped her up.
Aidan looked down into Tess’s sleeping face, and Noelle felt it was a moment worthy of a painting. Not mother and child, but something even more precious, perhaps, for the rarity of its capture.
Father and child.
Strength and vulnerability. Independence and dependence. Largeness and tininess. Worldliness and innocence.
Aidan’s face was a study in contrasts: the softness of love, but underneath that a certain fierce protectiveness that she had glimpsed when he’d heard the wolves. This child in his arms? This was what he was willing to die for.
And then he was gone from the dining room, and Noelle felt her own weariness catch up with her. It had been a jam-packed day, full of surprises, physical activity and emotional twists and turns. It had been sometimes exhilarating and sometimes exhausting.
“If you could leave the dishes,” she said to Nana and her grandfather, “I’ll look after them in the morning. Good night.”
She sought the safety of her room. It was untouched by time. A bed was covered in the pillows, quilt and plush throw—all in shades of pink and white—that she had brought with her when she had moved here at age twelve.
Her grandmother had made the curtains, sheer fabric embossed with pink polka dots, and embellished them with frilly trim. Really, her adult eye could see it was too much, like the room was the unfortunate result of a mating between cotton candy and a tutu. Noelle’s teen self was represented by photograph posters on the wall, one of a field of dandelions and one of a rainbow over an old barn. They told her to Dream Big and Never Give Up. The silver-framed picture of her mom and dad was on the dresser.
Except for the addition of the posters when she was around sixteen, Noelle did not change things. She had always loved the room just the way it was, even when she was old enough to want something else. To this day, she loved the remnants of her old life, the bedding she and her mother had chosen together.
The bed was a twin. When she and Mitchell had come to meet her grandparents she had stayed in this room, and he down the hall. Even though her grandparents knew she was living with Mitchell, they had not approved of the arrangement, and Noelle felt it would have been disrespectful to share a room with her boyfriend under her grandparents’ roof.
Noelle felt glad of that now. That this room was what it had always been to her, untainted by unhappy memories, a haven in a world that had turned topsy-turvy on her more than once. She got her pajamas out of her suitcase, put them on and flipped
out the light. It was usually very dark out here in the country, but tonight brightness from the Christmas lights reflecting off the snow on the roof came through her window and cast her room in muted rainbows. She crawled under her covers, appreciating again the freshly laundered linens, and all her grandfather’s hard work to welcome her and others to his home.
She realized she hadn’t talked to him as she had intended.
And then she realized she hadn’t gone to the barn to check Mitchell’s many social media posts for the day, either.
It wasn’t too late. It was early. She could get up. She could hear her grandfather and Nana downstairs, the quiet clink of dishes being washed, their voices low and conversational, for once.
A good time to leave them alone and not a good time to find out why she, Noelle, had been excluded from his grand plan for an old-fashioned Christmas.
This would be the perfect time to slip out the door and sneak to the nearest place on the ranch that got cell service.
But her muscles ached pleasantly from chasing through the snow today and from hauling the tree home. She found herself unable to leave the sense of safety and security in her room, unwilling to get out from under her warm down quilt, not wanting to leave the state of languid relaxation both her mind and body were enjoying.
But then she heard sounds and realized Aidan must have tucked Tess into the little bed in the room under the eaves. Now he was in the hall bathroom, brushing his teeth. The water ran for a while longer. Possibly he was shaving. It all seemed very intimate!
Then his footsteps padded by Noelle’s door as he went down the hall. She heard him go into the room next to hers, and through the thinness of the old walls she was sure she could hear his clothes coming off and whispering to the floor.
The springs of the bed next door creaked. It seemed to her that he had not had time to put something else on. What would he wear for pajamas? Did he wear pajamas? She had the sudden, totally uninvited thought that he might have slipped in between the sheets naked.
The fact that she would have such a thought made her blush. She wondered if these wayward images in her mind were going to make her blush the next time she saw him.
Her own pajamas now seemed woefully inadequate. She had chosen them for the ranch, for opening presents Christmas morning with her grandfather, not with Aidan Phillips! Red flannel, printed with penguins wearing Santa hats. Was she going to have to change every time she went down the hall to use the bathroom?
Why? To impress Aidan Phillips?
To make him whisper beautiful again?
It was all very awkward. It felt suddenly as if the sanctity of her room and her home had been invaded. As if a fine tension had crept into her snug nest. She had never felt this way when Mitchell was down the hall!
Red dress, she whispered to herself, her reminder of the pain of broken dreams, a reminder not to leave herself open to debilitating romantic fantasies.
I’ll never be able to sleep now, she thought, watching the gentle play of the Christmas lights on her bedroom ceiling.
And it was the last thought she had before morning.
* * *
Aidan lay awake in the unfamiliar bed for a long time, contemplating the day. The room was humble, not what he was used to. A small bed was crowded under a sloped roof that looked as if it had leaked a long time ago. A spring was poking him in his behind. Cheery Christmas lights were shining in the small window, and it was irritating.
But the worst thing was that he, iron man of self-control, had nearly kissed a woman he barely knew. He had told her she was beautiful and watched as the sun rose in her eyes at the compliment, as if Noelle was not used to receiving them.
Aidan considered himself a smart man. And he knew what the smart thing to do would be. It would be to get up in the morning and announce something had come up, that they wouldn’t be able to stay for Christmas, after all.
But then he thought of Tess’s enjoyment of the day, her deep pleasure in small things: her kinship with the old dog, her glee in the snow, her wonder in finding the perfect tree, her happy exhaustion at the end of the day. He could not remember a day—ever—not even after full agendas in Disneyland, where she had not hauled out her collection of stories to be read as the day died. Tonight, the stories were not even unpacked.
Would he really shatter Tess’s Christmas in order to protect himself? No, he wouldn’t and he couldn’t. But he had to be on guard.
“On guard,” he muttered, very softly, so that his voice would not carry through the paper-thin walls. “On guard, on guard, on guard.” The chant, unfortunately, seemed to be taking on the tune of “Frosty the Snowman,” as if some unwanted magic was worming its way inside of him.
“You can do anything for a few days,” Aidan told himself firmly. And he knew, with a touch of satisfaction, that it was true. He would make any sacrifice to allow his daughter happiness.
Maybe he wasn’t such a colossal failure as a dad, after all.
* * *
Noelle awoke to familiar sounds: her grandfather opening the back door to bring wood in, the sounds of coffee beans being ground, the old iron door on the woodstove creaking open. She glanced at the bedside clock. It was very early.
She got up, and hesitated over the pajamas. It seemed too early to get dressed. It seemed like some kind of concession to him that she did not feel comfortable in her own home wearing what she had always worn. So, defiantly, she left them on. In her closet was an old plaid robe, and she put that over the pajamas. And then Noelle determinedly shoved her feet in the only slippers she had brought with her. The old ranch house floors could be like ice in the morning.
She looked down at her feet and warned herself to stop worrying about Aidan Phillips’s impressions of her.
Her grandfather was kneeling in front of the stove, blowing lightly, coaxing heat from last night’s embers, feeding in little pieces of kindling.
“You’re up early,” he said. “I’m glad. I got some things to show you.”
He pulled a file down off the top of the fridge and presented it to her with shy pride. Noelle opened it.
“You can find so much stuff on the interstate,” her grandfather said eagerly, hovering over her shoulder. “The library has a printer you can use for twenty-five cents a sheet.”
From the thickness of the file, the library should be able to buy a new printer strictly from the proceeds of her grandfather’s printing activities.
In the file were snow activities for children. Coloring snow with spray bottles of water and food coloring. Ice globes made with water frozen in balloons. Creative snowmen. And women. And snow caterpillars. Homemade snow globes. Feeders for birds. Frozen soap bubbles. “Noughts and Crosses” in the snow. Snow forts and snow castles.
“Wow,” Noelle said, shutting the file.
“Which one should we do today? With Tess?”
“We could let her choose. I think the morning will probably be used up decorating the tree.”
“I’ve got all the decorations in the attic ready to bring down.”
“Grandpa.” Noelle tapped the file. “You’ve been collecting ideas for quite some time.”
He nodded happily.
“And you’ve done a lot of work planning meals. And getting rooms ready.”
He seemed to figure out this was going somewhere. He moved over to the counter and his ancient coffee maker. He shot her a look out of the corner of his eye and busied himself measuring his freshly ground beans.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked softly. “I’m your family. Why didn’t you let me know? Why were you making Christmas plans without me?”
“Without you?” he said. “That’s silly. I couldn’t have Christmas without you!”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant the ad on I-Sell. I meant telling me about Aidan and Tess and the Old-Fashioned Country Christmas.
Why did you keep me in the dark?”
“It was a surprise,” he said stubbornly.
“You know I don’t really like surprises.”
“Well, that’s just it,” he said, his back completely to her now as he fiddled with the coffee maker.
“What’s just it?”
His shoulders hunched uncomfortably.
“Tell me.”
At that moment an ear-splitting scream came from upstairs. “Stop, stop! You slathering beast!”
Noelle catapulted up the stairs. Her grandfather was already going up them two at a time.
At the top of the stairs, Aidan was coming out of his room. She nearly collided with him. Despite the fact that the screaming continued, she felt the world go still around her.
His hair was sleep-roughened. There was a shadow of morning whisker on his face.
And he was naked.
Partially naked.
He was wearing pajama bottoms, but his chest and torso were free of clothing. Deliciously so.
There was a carved beauty to his physique that was so compelling Noelle felt completely able to ignore the fact that it sounded as if Nana was being murdered in her bedroom.
His pajama bottoms were plaid, and hung very low on his hips. His feet were bare. How come she had never noticed how incredibly sexy bare feet were before?
“Get off me!” Nana shrieked.
“Oh, stop it,” Rufus said. “It’s just a dog.”
It seemed to Noelle that Aidan’s gaze might have rested on what showed of her penguin-pajamas-clad legs jutting out from under the housecoat for just a little too long. Her feet were not sexily bare. They were stuffed into slippers her grandmother and grandfather had given her a long time ago.
“Cookie Monster?” he said, as if he, too, was able to shut out the sounds of Nana screaming.
“Animal.” She tilted her chin just to let him know she didn’t care what he thought. Though a part of her did. Very much.
