Chapter 30
Judd stood beside Belle’s head, slowly stroking her forehead between her wise old eyes.
Belle didn’t seem to be the slightest bit bothered by all the hoopla that was going on around them. Bands warmed up, people threw batons and balls, kids yelled, and fire truck engines rumbled.
It was a symphony of noises that the horse didn’t usually experience, but she was taking it all in stride.
Bob, on the other side of her, was doing just fine as well. He thought they would be okay. They hadn’t given him a single minute of trouble when he had been picking up kids and dropping them off at church on Sundays.
They had decided to put all the kids that they normally picked up for church in the back of the wagon to ride in the parade. Wilson and he had gone and gotten way more candy than either one of them thought was necessary, and all the kids would have some to throw as they went along the parade route.
Amy and Jones were going to supervise the kids and make sure they didn’t use their candy as weapons and people as targets.
Or whatever else a child could think of, which, in Judd’s experience, was way more than he ever could.
And Terry was going to ride beside him.
Terry had been fine with the plan, and when they’d been talking about it, she had even said that she didn’t need to go along, but Amy had insisted.
There had been some kind of silent communication or at least some long, thoughtful looks that Terry had given her sister.
Personally, Judd thought that Amy and Jones were already in love with each other and didn’t realize it. But he wasn’t exactly an expert on that kind of thing and certainly hadn’t told anyone. Although, if he and Terry were talking, that might have been the kind of thing that he might have told her.
He looked around again, hearing the laughter of the children in the back and knowing that the parade had already started. They were waiting their turn in line. He hoped that Terry was able to get around the traffic.
He also hoped that she wasn’t going to give him the silent treatment all night. He supposed he didn’t need any explanation as to why she ran away from him, and if she didn’t want to talk about it and just wanted to pretend it never happened, he was okay with that. But he hated that things now felt stilted between them. Like in the waiting room today. He’d...touched her arm, and she hadn’t shrunk back, but it felt like maybe he shouldn’t have. And they just didn’t have their...easiness between them, he didn’t even know what to call it, but he missed it. If he did know what to call it, though, he certainly couldn’t find the words to figure out how to tell her that he wanted it back.
“They’re beautiful. Even more beautiful up close,” Terry said as she arrived at his side from the opposite direction that he was looking.
“They’re a good team. And they work well together. Sometimes you get horses together, and it’s like they’re pulling against each other, but Belle’s the one that’s willing to work, and Bob kind of drags in his harness, but she snaps him right to it, and they end up being really good.”
“I see. It’s the girl who needs to keep the guy in line,” Terry said, and her sparkling eyes were back. Did that mean that she wasn’t angry at him anymore?
He didn’t want to ask her and ruin whatever it was between them, and he had just thought to himself that he was going to let it go...
“You’re not mad at me anymore?”
Her eyes got big, and her mouth formed an O.
“I wasn’t angry at you,” she said, glancing around. “I was just...surprised. I kissed you. I don’t know why you were apologizing.”
“Because I let it happen?” He wasn’t sure why either, just he figured he had done something, and he hadn’t meant to. Whatever it was, he wouldn’t do it again if she would just tell him.
“No. I’m certainly not going to get mad at you because I kissed you and you allowed it to happen.” She looked up at him, lifting her brows, waiting until he acknowledged her words with a nod. “Also, thank you for supper. It was delicious.”
“You’re welcome. I was happy to be able to do it for you. You had a big day.”
“You always act like doing kind things for me is a privilege for you.” She laughed and rolled her eyes. “You’re a kind man.”
That made him feel good, but he wasn’t sure whether that was a straight arm or not. He wasn’t thinking that had anything to do with romance or the way he felt about her.
“I just wanted to make sure that the horses were not going to go crazy when all of the noise started. That’s why I’m standing here at Belle’s head. Making sure she settles down. But I think we can safely go get on the wagon seat now.”
“All right. Also, I thought the tree that you put up in the town square looks really nice,” she said as she gave him a last look and then moved to her side of the wagon.
He stood staring at her. So she knew. Had someone told her? Or had she figured it out?
He followed her around, holding a hand out to give her help. “Did someone tell you? Or did you figure it out?”
“We need to talk, but we probably ought to get through this evening first.” She lifted her brows, as though asking whether he would be willing to talk or not. Of course. He wasn’t much of a talker, and he didn’t always enjoy digging through every emotion he ever had, but he genuinely wanted to try to work things out with her. However that looked.
It was encouraging that she wanted it too. Although, he told himself to calm down. She wasn’t saying she wanted to work things out. She was just saying she wanted to talk. Maybe she wanted to explain why she didn’t want to be with him. That was a possibility too. One he couldn’t discount.
“Is it time to go yet?” one of the kids yelled as he climbed up on the seat.
“I can’t go any faster than the people in front of me,” he said, nodding at the fire truck that was right in front of him.
Hopefully it didn’t honk its horn, although he was pretty sure that his horses would be okay with it. Still, after they started, he would be careful to keep a good bit of distance between himself and the truck.
“Does everybody have their candy?” Amy said in a loud, cheerful voice.
“If you need some more, I’ve got plenty, and we’re not keeping any until next year, so make sure you throw it all out today,” Jones said, holding up a big bag of candy.
Amy and Jones’s eyes met, and Judd turned back around. They had everything well in hand.
“Is this your first parade?” Terry asked as she sat beside him.
“It is. You?”
“No. I was in the band in high school. I played in a ton of parades, and I rode in a float in the homecoming parade, but this is my first time on a horse-drawn wagon.”
He remembered the homecoming parade now that she mentioned it. She had been beautiful that night, and even though he knew that he would never be with her, he had admired her as she’d gone by.
She had been with someone else, the student council president or something like that. He couldn’t remember. But he admired beauty, and to him, Terry was the epitome of beauty.
“Do you want to drive?” he asked as the fire truck ahead of them slowly started out.
“Are you serious?” she asked, sounding shocked.
He nodded his head, then looked over his shoulder. “I’d better start out, so I don’t lose anyone out the back.” Even though the endgate was closed, he didn’t want anyone tumbling. “As soon as I get them going, there shouldn’t be too much to driving them. They’ll just go straight unless we guide them one way or the other. Of course, sometimes they get off-kilter a bit. But I’ve been driving them around, so I don’t think they’re going to have too much push and pull in them.”
“You mean Belle already has Bob in line?” she asked, and then she said, “Are their names from the line ‘bells on bobtails ring’?”
He laughed. “Yeah. It took a little bit, but she got there.”
“Oh goodness, that’s not exactly obvious,” she said, looking at the horses and shaking her head. Her laughter was easy, and that made him feel better.
“You know, I saw you ride in the homecoming parade. You’re beautiful.”
That felt a little random, but it had been in his head since she mentioned it, though maybe he should have just kept his mouth closed.
“I have better company tonight,” she said, and she looked him in the eye, and as her words penetrated, his heart started to smile.
“Belle and Bob are pretty nice horses,” he said, grinning.
“They are, and you’re a pretty nice guy.”
He did not want nice. Nice was not good. Nice was not what he was aiming for. Okay, nice was good, it just wasn’t his goal.
But he couldn’t make her feel something she didn’t. So, he just tried to be himself.
“It’s too bad you can’t enter the hot chocolate contest. The hot chocolate that you made while we were decorating the Christmas tree was really good.”
“It was mostly a mix. I always add a couple of Hershey’s Kisses if I have them in the cupboard. That’s all that makes it different.”
“Wow. I knew there was something unique about it, but we were doing so many other things that I never thought to say anything.”
“Now you know my secret.”
“What are you doing for Christmas?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose it probably depends on you.”
“Me?”
A muscle twitched in his cheek, and he tried to relax. “I don’t typically kiss girls and then walk away from them. If I look like that kinda guy, I’m sorry. But yeah. I’d like to be with you on Christmas. But I don’t know how you feel about it.”
They had reached the edge of the crowd and parade route, and the kids had started to throw candy.
“Someone’s waving at you.” She nodded toward the other side of the street.
He looked over and nodded his head at a little girl who had her hand up and was waving for all she was worth.
“I think she’s waving at you,” he said, giving Terry a look.
“All right,” Terry said, lifting her hand up and waving.
“I’m going to my mom’s, and I was wondering if you wanted to come with me?” she said as she waved to a few people on the other side, not looking at him.
“Yes.” That was an easy answer. No matter what she said to him tonight, whether she decided that kissing him was a mistake and she didn’t want to do it again, he still wanted to be with her. That hadn’t changed. He didn’t think it probably would, not for a long time, if ever. He wasn’t the kind of guy who fell in love with a whole pile of different women. After all, it had taken him thirty years to find this one, and everything in him said that she was the exact right one.
“I want a whole bunch of children. Like, ten,” she said, laughing at some kids along the road as they scrambled for the candy that was being thrown.
“Same. I don’t want any child to have to grow up by themselves. They should have siblings.”
She paused, looking at him. “You would know.”
He wasn’t sure why they were talking about this. But she could just take the lead and go where she wanted.
“Dana’s daughter had an ear infection, and it looked like the beginning of strep throat. I gave her some samples of medication that I had in the office, and then we went to the pharmacy and I filled her prescription for her after I took a culture.”
“Thanks for taking care of that.”
“You do that a lot?”
“I told you. Typically I have cash that I give to people, but I’d used it for something else and hadn’t gotten anything else out. I didn’t have time today.”
“Because you are too busy doing your other good deeds?”
“Who told you?” he asked instead of answering her.
“You keep being evasive. It makes me feel like I can’t trust you.”
That brought him up short. He didn’t want her to wonder where he was or what he was doing because she thought he might be doing something with someone else.
“I’m not in this by myself, and I don’t want the person who’s doing it with me to be outed even though I was. You know?”
“So someone else is funding you?” Terry said, keeping her voice down so it didn’t travel to the back of the wagon.
“No.”
Her eyes narrowed, and then someone caught her eye across the street and she smiled and waved. “You’re doing it yourself? Paying for it yourself?”
“Yeah. I am.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that? But I’ve been here. I’ve seen you. You’re not working full time. You’re just doing odd jobs.”
“Not everything is the way it seems, is it?”
He knew this wasn’t the best place for them to be having this discussion, but the idea that she didn’t trust him bothered him. It hadn’t occurred to him that that was the way she was feeling.
And he wanted to tell her everything. Let her know anything she wanted so that he was an open book. Because he could be.
“I’m not doing anything wrong. Morally or...to you. It bothers me that you said you couldn’t trust me. I promise you, I don’t know how to handle one girl, let alone more.”
“Sometimes I don’t think men realize that being too kind to too many women makes the one that they’re interested in feel like she’s not special.”
His mouth opened, and then it closed. He wasn’t quite sure what she was saying.
“I’m interested in you, and it’s important to me that you know that you’re special. Because there isn’t anyone else.” He huffed out a breath and looked between Belle’s ears for a moment. “There really never has been.”
“I wondered. I don’t really remember you too much in high school, but I don’t remember you being part of a couple.”
“I wasn’t.” Mostly because no one was interested in him, and even back then, he had known that he didn’t want to date around.
“So I guess that if you think a girl is special, you won’t keep secrets from her.”
“I wasn’t sure where we were. That...kiss took me by surprise. Not that I didn’t want it,” he said, turning to face her fully so that she would see how sincere he was. He had dreamed about that kiss. But she ran away. “I couldn’t share any secrets if you’re not willing to talk to me.”
“Yeah. You’re right. I guess I was blaming you, when I should have been looking at myself.”
“No. It’s not my desire to make you feel bad.”
“The truth shouldn’t make me feel bad. And if it does, it’s not your fault,” she said, smiling and waving over his shoulder.
The bells on the horses’ harness made a cheerful sound that filled the silence as they rode without speaking for a bit. They were more than halfway through the parade, and thankfully the hot chocolate competition booth would be at the end of the line, and he’d already scoped it out. There was a place where he could tie the horses until he was ready to go back to the trailer where he’d unloaded them.
“I don’t regret the kiss either,” she said softly.
He smiled. That was really all he needed to know.
“I had an uncle who wasn’t rich, but he had a nice nest egg that he’d gotten from investing over time. When he died, he left me his money.” He wasn’t sure what to say about his parents, and then he figured he just might as well throw it out there. She wanted the truth. She didn’t want secrets. And he thought that was right. He shouldn’t be holding anything from her, if they were truly interested in each other, and he didn’t think that she was any more inclined to have a superficial relationship than he was.
Maybe he should mention that first.
“I haven’t had a whole lot of relationships, because I have a tendency to be serious. I don’t go into them thinking it’s just going to be a good time. I go into them thinking that this could be my life partner.”
“I love that. It’s my philosophy too. And probably the reason that I didn’t date a whole lot in med school. There was a lot of getting together and breaking up, and I don’t want to do that.”
That was all he needed to hear. “My parents are rich. They own one of the big horse farms on the way down to Whisker Hollow. But my money isn’t coming from them. It’s from the inheritance I had. Even though they’d like for me to be in their business, it’s just not something I’ve ever been interested in. I...have always wanted to do what I’m doing right now. Helping people, working when I can, and...not having the whole life of pressure, meetings, phone calls, emergencies that need to be addressed on a daily basis. That’s just not me.”
“You inherited money, and instead of spending it on yourself, you’re using it to...help others?”
He nodded. “I get a monthly amount from the funds I have set up, and I spend it all if I can.”
“Wow. How much?”
It wasn’t a small sum, and when he named it, she stiffened and looked at him in shock. “That’s more than my clinic should make in a month.”
“You have expenses related to your clinic. I don’t have anything but taxes, and the number that I just gave you is with the taxes taken out.”
“Wow.” She sighed, sounding sad, and looked away.
“What?” he asked, scared that he’d said something that bothered her. Did she think that he should be living in a mansion on a hill?
“I...wasn’t really looking for someone who is rich.”
“Are you serious? You’re going to discriminate against me because I have money?”
“I don’t know. Money destroys people.”
“But you just said that you would have as much as I do on a monthly basis.”
“True.” She nodded. “I’m sorry. It just changes the whole way I think about you. I thought you were...poor, and that is fine. It didn’t bother me at all, but now everything is shifting. You come from money.”
“Yeah.” The fire truck in front of them turned off as they reached the end of the street, and it went up the block to go down a backstreet and head to the fire station.
“There’s our booth,” she said. “It looks like folks are already in their places making hot chocolate.”
“That was the point, I think. To have folks be able to get hot chocolate at the end of the parade. Just you and I are supposed to be in our booth, and we’ll get a sample from everyone, taste them, and pick a winner.”
“All the pressure,” she said, smiling.
“I don’t know. People get pretty serious about their hot chocolate around here.”
“When you live in a town called Mistletoe Meadows, I think you do need to be serious about hot chocolate, and Christmas, and Secret Saints.”
His head swiveled to hers, and he saw she was smiling, maybe teasing a little, and he thought that everything was okay.