Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
After an early dinner of stew and cornbread, which Fiona whipped up from Mom’s recipe box, she got up to stack the dishes.
Rhett said nothing throughout the meal, courteous and careful, saying “please” and “ma’am” as if hard living and harder lessons had carved the words into him. But he glanced rather often with such tenderness in his eyes that it concerned her.
Worrywart. It was Dad’s voice in her head, teasing her for being nervous when things were going well.
But of course she worried. Born cautious, reliable, hardworking… boring.
Jamie talked enough for all three of them. Odd, since her son wasn’t talkative by nature. He chattered about how well the sled held together, about riding Cupcake at Tessa’s, and Rhett’s top.
Rhett listened, his intent blue-eyed gaze moving between them as though this little kitchen table in the breakfast nook was a wonder worth memorizing. As if their ordinary meal was something precious.
Hyperaware, his rapt attention warmed her as much as it unsettled.
“Jamie, go do your homework. I checked the weather, and there’s no more snow on the way. School should be open tomorrow since the snowplows were out all day.”
“Aww, Mom.”
“Go do it, sweetheart. It won’t take you long.” She filled the sink with water as hot as she could stand and added a squirt of liquid soap.
“Can we put up the Christmas tree when I get done?” he asked.
It was only five-thirty. Plenty of time to put up the tree before bed, and she did need to get the thing up ASAP. Why not do it while she had Rhett there to assist?
“All right. We’ll do it when you finish your homework.”
“Yay!” Jamie hopped from his chair and raced from the room.
Rhett got up and came toward her. “Let me help.”
Of course he would offer. The man didn’t know how to sit idle.
Ahem. Pot. Kettle. Black.
She rinsed the bowls and slipped them into the sudsy water. “You relax. I’ll take care of this.”
“No ma’am.” He came to stand at her elbow. “I need to pay for my supper.”
The apartment didn’t come with a dishwasher and was marginally cheaper because of it, but now she really wished she had ponied up the extra twenty-five dollars a month so she could tell him she didn’t need assistance drying her dishes.
“Let me help.” He rolled up his sleeves, showing arms marked by years of outdoor labor; tan lines spoke of summer sun, old scars pale against weathered skin, and a long silvered nick near his wrist.
Fiona couldn’t think of a single man she had ever dated who would have insisted on helping once she absolved him from pitching in. In 1878, people considered dishwashing as women’s work. Under those circumstances, it was even more impressive that Rhett was offering to help.
Why?
As if reading her mind, he said, “I used to dry the dishes while Clara washed them. I could do the same for you.”
She passed him a hand towel. “Who’s Clara?”
He froze and ducked his head. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
Horrified, she wondered if she pulled this man away from his family. She assumed he was single, a cattleman, a trail drover. “Is sh-she your wife?”
His mouth pressed into a thin flat line. “Was.”
“She died?”
He nodded and toweled the wet plate she handed him.
“I’m sorry.”
“The fever took her….” He paused for so long she feared he wasn’t going to say anything else, then inhaled and said, “My boy Matthew too.”
“Oh, Rhett.” Without stopping to consider if it was a wise idea or not, she reached out a damp hand, wrapped it around his right wrist, and stroked his skin with her pinky finger.
He yanked back, an expression of sheer shock on his face.
Why? What did she do wrong? Fiona dropped her hand and tried not to feel hurt by his intense withdrawal.
“Rhett?”
“It’s okay.” He pulled a palm down his face. “I’m sorry I overreacted.”
“You don’t need to apologize. I shouldn’t have touched you without permission.”
“It’s not that.” Shamefaced, he ran a hand through his thick dark blond hair.
She said nothing, not wanting to press, and went back to washing.
“It’s just…” He exhaled but still didn’t meet her gaze. “Clara. When I got upset, she used to touch my wrist like you did and stroke me with her little finger. It was her sign she loved me.”
“I see.”
Silence stretched long.
Jamie bounced back into the kitchen at the right—or was it the wrong—time. “All done.”
“That was fast.” Fiona pulled the plug on the drain, watching the soap bubbles swirl away. “You sure you finished everything?”
Jamie started listing, in his monotone way of speaking whenever he focused, all the work he accomplished.
“Okay, okay. I believe you.” She wanted to glance over at Rhett and read his facial expression, but she didn’t dare. “Time to put up the Christmas tree.”
“Do you have an axe?” Rhett asked.
Fiona turned, confused. “An axe?”
“So I can go chop you down a tree. Although it might take me a while in the dark, even with your modern flameless lanterns.”
“No, no.” Laughter bubbled up from inside her. “We don’t need to cut down a tree. We have an artificial one.”
He frowned. “A what?”
“It’s a fake tree.”
“Why would you want a fake tree when the woods are filled with real ones?” he said, befuddled by the concept.
“Cleaner, less of a fire hazard.”
“Where do you keep it?” he asked.
“In a box under my bed. I’ll go get it.” She raced off before Rhett could offer to help because the last thing she wanted was a red-hot time-traveling cowboy in her bedroom.
The box was heavier than she remembered. She tugged it from underneath her bed and wrestled it to the door, but Rhett was already there waiting for her. He lifted it from her hands like it weighed nothing. His muscles flexed beneath the flannel, and she glanced away.
He carried it to the empty spot in the living room reserved for the tree and set the box down. “A Christmas tree is in here?”
“Uh-huh. It’s been with me since college. It followed me through three apartments and a marriage.”
Jamie circled the box. “That’s the tree, Mr. Rhett. We have to assemble it and fluff it before we decorate.”
“Fluff it?” Rhett raised an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Make it look real,” Jamie said, tearing at the tape.
“Reckon I can do that.”
They opened the box, and Rhett pulled out one section of the tree, studied the metal trunk, and the color-coded wire branches. “This is peculiar.”
Jamie held up one branch like it was something sacred. “Bottom row goes first. They’re marked with crimson tape.”
Rhett crouched beside him, bringing his height down to Jamie’s level. “Show me.”
Jamie demonstrated, slotting the branches into the base with the careful precision he brought to everything. Rhett mirrored him.
Fiona watched them work side by side. Her son explained each step in his somber, detailed way, and Rhett followed every instruction as though Jamie were the foreman and he a hired hand.
It should’ve been funny. Part of her wanted to laugh at the absurdity. A cowboy from 1878 assembling a fake Christmas tree on her living room floor. It was funny, a little. But there was something deeper too, something that made her chest ache and her throat go tight.
Jamie’s voice was confident in a way he rarely was with adults.
Rhett’s patience never wavered when Jamie corrected the angle of a branch or insisted they redo a section. The ease between them, the natural rhythm they fell into, was like they had done this for years instead of hours.
Was this how Rhett had been with his son, Matthew?
When the last section locked into place and they fluffed it to a fare-thee-well, Rhett stood back, hands on his hips, surveying their work.
“Now the lights,” Jamie clapped his hands.
“Oh boy.” Fiona lifted a hand. “The lights are a nightmare. They tangle themselves in storage out of pure spite.”
Rhett arched a brow, amusement playing at the corners of his mouth. “How bad can stringing lights be?”
“Famous last words.” She shook her head.
Jamie retrieved the tangled strand from the box. The loops and twists entwined, like something breeding in the dark all year.
Rhett took it, studying it like a problem worth solving, turning it this way and that in the light. They sat on the rug, Jamie feeding the wire while Rhett worked the knots loose with slow, deliberate care.
His patience was remarkable, the kind that couldn’t be faked or forced. Every time Fiona reached to help, he said, “Got it,” and he did.
“You’ve done this before.” She settled cross-legged beside them.
“Untangled 2025 Christmas lights? No, ma’am. But rope? Harness? Wire? You betcha.” He pulled another loop free. “Once you find the tension point, you can see where to ease.”
The phrase caught her, lodged somewhere beneath her ribs. Ease. He made it sound simple, as if everything broken or snarled just needed time and gentle hands. As if patience was the answer to everything. The last knot slipped free, the strand falling loose.
Jamie cheered. “Plug it in!”
Fiona crouched by the outlet, took a breath, and connected the plug.
Nothing.
“Fuses,” she said, disappointment settling heavy. “It’s always the fuses.”
Rhett crouched beside her, close enough that she caught the fragrance of him smelling like Jamie’s bubble gum-scented shampoo. “A what now?”
“Tiny thing inside the plug that blows if it overheats.” She flipped the latch and replaced the spare fuse from the pack taped to the cord. She fumbled, aware of him watching. “Try again.”
This time, the lights flared bright, warm white light spilling across the room, pooling on the floor and reflecting off the window.
Jamie cheered, clapped, and jumped up and down. Rhett appeared as pleased as if he had lassoed the moon and pulled it down for them.
“Would you look at that,” he said, such awe in his voice that her throat squeezed.
Following Jamie’s precise instructions, they worked as a team to string the lights. Fiona climbed the small step stool, Jamie passing loops up to her while Rhett kept the strand from twisting.
His hands brushed hers when she leaned down for the next section, not a shock, not even a jolt, just warmth surging through her and sinking deep.
Her pulse kicked. She busied herself adjusting the bulbs, making sure they faced outward, anything to avoid making eye contact with him.
“Exceptional.” Rhett peered up from below her.
“Not bad for fake pine and ragtag lights.”
Jamie tipped his head back, his face glowing in the reflected light. “Can we do ornaments now?”
“Go for it, buddy.”
He dove for the second box like he’d been waiting his whole life for this moment, lifting tissue-wrapped bundles one by one with reverent care.
“This one’s me at preschool.” He showed a paper snowflake photo frame with his gap-toothed smile preserved behind plastic. “And this one’s from Gammie and Pap’s tree.”
Rhett crouched beside him. “Every one tells a story, huh?”
Jamie nodded, solemn. “Mom says that every year.”
Rhett glanced up at her, and something unreadable moved across his expression, soft and intent at once. “Then let’s make it an exceptional story.”
They worked their way around the tree, Jamie directing the placement with the authority of a general deploying troops. “No, higher. That one goes near the angel.”
Rhett obeyed without question, without the exasperation most adults showed when Jamie got particular.
The tree filled out with memories. From the glitter stars losing their shine to faded ribbons from her childhood to the glass globe from her first Christmas that somehow survived every year.
By the time they finished, the tree glowed against the window. Jamie said, “It’s perfect. Now cocoa!”
“Cocoa it is.” Fiona headed for the kitchen, filling the kettle, trying not to think about how easily Rhett fit into this space.
Rhett joined her at the counter, moving into her space like he’d been doing it for years. “Need help?”
“Sure. Mugs in that cabinet.” She pointed.
He found them without asking which shelf, as if he had opened the cabinet a hundred times before. She smiled to herself, small, involuntary, dangerous.
Jamie arranged Oreos on a plate with geometric precision, humming to himself.
They settled on the couch, three mugs of cocoa topped with marshmallows melting into white foam, a plate of cookies between them, the gas fireplace insert glowing bright and warm.
Jamie’s head rested against her shoulder. “It’s the best tree ever.”
Rhett’s gaze was on the crooked star at the top. “Can’t argue with that.”
Fiona peered at the tree; the cranky old lights wouldn’t work next year, the star had lost half its glitter, and the way the ornaments leaned together like old friends sharing secrets made her feel something crack open in her chest.
The moment was perfect. Too perfect. And that was the danger.
Because Rhett wasn’t hers to keep. She borrowed him from time, borrowed magic, a temporary answer to a desperate prayer.
She could already feel the ache building, the one that came from knowing happiness had an expiration date stamped on it in invisible ink. The one that whispered to her. Don’t get used to this. Don’t let yourself want this. Don’t fall.
He didn’t belong to this century, or this life, or her small apartment with its secondhand furniture and persistent draft. And she’d just built a memory with him that would hurt when it ended, and it would end.
The magic would take him back the moment she stopped needing him, and she’d be left with a Christmas tree full of ghosts.
Rhett caught her watching him. His smile softened, and his voice dropped. “You all right?”
She nodded, forcing a smile that felt brittle at the edges. “Just tired.”
“Long day.”
“Yeah.” The understatement of the century. Of two centuries.
Jamie drifted off against her arm, his breathing evening out, the rise and fall of his small frame grounding her even as her heart twisted. She should move him to bed. Should clean up the cocoa mugs. Should do a dozen things that needed doing.
She didn’t move.
Rhett rose, gathered the empty mugs, and took them to the kitchen. When he came back, the tree lights caught the edges of his face, the strong lines, the warmth in his eyes, the way he looked at her like she was exceptional.
He lowered his voice so he wouldn’t wake Jamie. “You did well, Miss Fi. The boy’s happy. You should let yourself be, too.”
She tried. God, she tried. She swallowed against the knot in her throat and tried to believe that this moment, this perfect, borrowed moment, could be enough.
But as he crossed the room and the glow from the tree haloed his shoulders, backlighting him like something out of a painting, she knew with terrible certainty that she was falling for a man who could disappear in an instant.