Chapter 19 #2
Jack could not think of a single thing to say. Finally, he asked, genuinely curious, “Have you had your heart broken, Miss Starr?”
“Of course I have!” she barked. “Long before you were born, too. But…” She paused, eyeing him shrewdly.
“I can tell you haven’t. You’ve got that shiny, bright-as-a-bandbox glow to you.
So you might not realize just how much it hurts.
” And with that, seeming to have imparted her wisdom, she stumped off toward the soup.
“I see you’ve met Henrietta Starr,” Maggie murmured as she came up to join Jack.
Jack smiled ruefully as he kept his gaze on the elderly lady’s retreating back. “Yes, and it was quite an experience.”
Maggie nodded. “She has a lot of wisdom.”
“She seemed like a savant, or maybe a fortune-teller.” He shook his head slowly, still reeling from what the old lady had said.
No, he hadn’t had his heart broken, at least not in the way Henrietta had meant, but he’d certainly had his fair share of both challenges and disappointments.
Still, he took Miss Starr’s words to heart.
He did not want to be the one who broke Jenna’s heart a second time. No how, not in any way, shape, or form.
“It’s so great to see her enjoying herself like this,” Maggie said as she nodded toward Jenna, who was moving around the store like she owned it—which, Jack supposed, she did.
But he knew what Maggie meant; there was a glow to Jenna, a purpose that shone from her whole being.
She looked radiant, and it filled him with both pride and affection, as well as a yearning he couldn’t ignore.
He’d once had that kind of purpose, that joy.
All right, maybe it had been unhealthy and ended up almost killing him, but he still missed it.
Helping Jenna with Miller’s Mercantile had invigorated him, but it hadn’t actually satisfied him.
Rather, it had whetted his appetite for more.
He wanted to work again. He’d been good at what he’d done, really good, and he had to figure out a way to fit it into his life again…
But in Starr’s Fall? How on earth would that work?
It was a problem for another day, he decided, as Jenna started toward him, her face rosy and flushed, her eyes still sparkling.
“Everyone seems to be having a good time,” she told him and Maggie. “And the Christmas Dinners in Baskets are selling like hotcakes.”
He smiled as he slid his arm around her waist. “It was a genius idea of yours.”
“You had plenty of genius ideas too,” she replied with a laugh as she hugged him. “I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”
The rest of the afternoon spun out in a golden thread. Jenna was kept busy chatting to customers, ringing up sales, and generally swirling about the store, the star of the show. Laurie had pitched in, helping with orders, and Jack became the unofficial bagging boy.
Then, at four o’clock, Jenna came up to Jack looking anxious. “Mike has just texted me to say he can’t be Santa. Annie needs him… Barb has taken a turn for the worse.”
“Oh, no.” Jack put his arm around Jenna. “Poor Annie.”
“We all knew it was coming, but…” She swallowed. “It’s still hard to face.” She glanced around at the children milling around the story expectantly, having been promised a visit by Santa. “What am I going to tell these kids? A lot of them still believe in Santa. I can’t say he was a no-show!”
Jack hesitated, because while he was more than ready to be the hero of the hour… could he be a convincing Santa? Well, he’d just have to be. “I can do it,” he told Jenna, and she looked at him in complete surprise. The notion clearly hadn’t occurred to her.
“ You? ”
“I think, with a suit and a beard, I could do an adequate job,” Jack replied with dignity, and Jenna let out a laugh.
“Oh, Jack, I didn’t mean that. I’m sure you could,” she exclaimed. “I just didn’t think you’d want to be.”
“Well, want and willing are two different things,” Jack replied, and Jenna laughed again as she threw her arms around him.
“You’re amazing,” she told him. “Truly amazing. Come in the back and I’ll get you the suit.”
The suit, of slightly motheaten velvet and trimmed with frayed white felt, made Jack question the wisdom of his suggestion. It smelled like mothballs and old sweat and clearly had been neither washed nor worn in some time.
“Mike didn’t need a beard,” Jenna remarked with a frown.
“But you obviously do. I’m sure I can find one somewhere…
” She dug through the box of Christmas costumes that had come, Jack had learned, from the church basement, where the Starr’s Fall Theater Group’s costumes were all kept.
Apparently they’d once done a Christmas play.
“Ah, here we are!” She held up a beard that looked as well-used as the Santa suit. Itchy, too. Jack had to stifle a groan.
“Great,” he said, and Jenna stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Did I tell you you were amazing?”
“Yes, but you can tell me again.”
Laughing, Jenna slid her arms around his waist and gave him a lingering kiss on the mouth as Jack pulled her even closer. “You’re amazing,” she murmured against his lips, and for that, Jack thought he’d do just about anything.
Still, he couldn’t help but feel he made a rather self-conscious Santa as he made his grand entrance, to a chorus of raggedy cheers—and one poor toddler who burst into tears.
Fortunately, that wasn’t a sign of things to come, and within a few “ho ho ho”s, Jack had found his Santa Claus groove, asking children what they wanted for Christmas, laughing heartily and even riffing about what the reindeer were up to.
He only heard one kid whisper that he thought he might not be the real Santa, but instead “the guy who owned that fancy car,” which he counted as a win, although in truth he suspected that every single child knew he wasn’t Santa.
No one seemed to mind, though; there were presents involved, after all.
Outside dusk was drawing in, and the Christmas lights Jenna had strung along the porch railings began to glow in the misty twilight. Jenna was ringing up last orders as people started to trickle outside to join the parade to the center of town for the Christmas tree lighting.
“You’re meant to lead the parade, you know,” Jenna told him with a twinkle in her eye as she tucked an unruly strand of strawberry-gold hair behind one ear. “Don’t fail me now, Santa.”
“I won’t,” Jack promised. He adjusted his beard as he leaned forward for a quick kiss. “But first I need to ask you what you want for Christmas.”
To his delight, Jenna blushed pink. “Maybe you’ll find out later,” she murmured over her shoulder as she went to serve a customer, and Jack gave a very unSantalike grin.
As he headed outside, Jack found himself getting even more into the spirit of the thing, and he held two children’s hands as he “ho ho hoed” his way down Main Street, with what felt like half of Starr’s Fall following behind, everyone in a jolly, festive mood.
By the time he’d made it to the village green, he was ready for a stiff drink, although he still had to be man—or Santa—of the hour, and switch on the Christmas tree lights.
He waited until everyone was assembled, and Lizzy Harper, as chair of the Business Association, gave him the nod before he flipped the switch and a cheer went up as the lights thankfully switched on in a blaze of cheerful color.
Jack took a step back and then, while everyone was focused on the tree, ducked into the church to divest himself of his red velvet.
“Oh, no, Santa’s leaving already?”
He was wearing only the pants as he whirled around to see Jenna standing in the church doorway, smiling.
“I think I’ve done my time.”
“You have,” she agreed as she walked toward him. “Thank you, Jack. You’re a superhero.”
“Well, I don’t know if I would go that far,” he joked, only to have Jenna turn serious on him.
“I mean it. I never would have done any of this without you, Jack.”
He laughed lightly. “I think you might have, Jenna. You’re a strong woman.”
“No, I really wouldn’t have.” She laid a hand on his arm.
“Not to get all soppy or sentimental, but I’m really…
” She paused again, her throat working, as the lighthearted mood turned serious—and intense.
“Really grateful that you pushed me. Challenged me and helped me. Today definitely wouldn’t have happened without you, and I’m so thankful for that.
For you.” She blushed and ducked her head, and as her cheeks went even pinker he thought he’d never seen her look so lovely.
“Well…” He found he didn’t know what to say.
Actually, he did know what to say, but he didn’t know how to say it.
He barely knew how to feel it. She was talking about the mercantile, but he felt so much more.
He’d changed the store, but she’d changed him , Santa suit and all.
He wanted to tell her that, to explain everything or maybe just get the words out, but they were lodged in his chest and all jumbled up in his throat, and in any case, now was not the time to say them, when he was half-dressed in a Santa costume and they had the whole town out there.
Besides, today had been her moment, not theirs.
But he hoped their moment might come sometime soon.
“Jack?” Jenna prompted, a little uncertainly. “Why are you staring at me so ferociously?”
Was he? He let out a little laugh. “Sorry… I’m just so proud of you.” And then he pulled her toward him and kissed her, both because he could and because sometimes actions were better than words.
* * *
So what had that been about, Jenna wondered as she left Jack in the church to finish changing.
He had seemed as if he’d been about to say something, but then he hadn’t.
Judging from the way he’d been scowling at her, she wasn’t sure it had been a good thing.
Or was she just still paranoid, because that was all she knew and even though today had been so very wonderful, some part of her was still bracing for the worst?
She wouldn’t let herself overthink it, Jenna decided as she went back out to the village green to join the festivities.
The mood of the evening was jovial, and a little ramshackle, with kids running up and down the street and Liz Cranbury’s little chihuahua barking like crazy, almost as if in accompaniment to the unsteady rendition of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” that Starr’s Fall’s three-piece brass band was playing in one corner of the green.
Jack came out to join her, and she slipped her arm through his. “This is really quite something,” he remarked, and Jenna laughed.
“This beats anything you’d see in New York, doesn’t it?” she teased, and he nodded seriously.
“Absolutely.”
“Even the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade?” she challenged.
“Definitely. Who needs giant balloons, marching bands, and clown crews,” he exclaimed, sweeping his arm toward the straggling scene, “when you have all this?”
“Fred Byars on the trombone is kind of sensational,” Jenna remarked just as that instrument let out a sound like a sheep bleating or maybe giving birth.
“It’s all fantastic,” Jack proclaimed.
She shook her head slowly. “And to think you almost chose Litchfield over this.”
“To think you dared me to,” he reminded her, and she smiled at the thought of how awful they’d been to each other. It felt like a long time ago now; it had become part of their story, their meeting.
They walked along the village green, saying hello to various people they knew.
Rhonda was dishing out hot chocolate from a massive tureen, her scrawny arms flashing fast as she barked at someone to go easy on the squirty whipped cream she’d provided.
Main Street looked magical, strung with lights, store windows glimmering from within.
Jack squeezed her hand, and Jenna squeezed back, and then her heart felt as if it were expanding to fill her chest.
This was happiness. This was hope . No paranoia, no dread of the future, no regret for the past. Just this… and everything that this moment encompassed.
She loved her life in Starr’s Fall, she realized with a wonderful ferocity.
No matter how suffocating it could sometimes seem, with everyone and their cousin up in her business, she loved this town—and her place in it.
She might have come limping back here because she’d had no other place to go, but she was so very glad she had—and that she’d stayed.
There was no other place she’d rather be.
She squeezed Jack’s hand as they stood on the edge of the village green and, tilting her head up to the starlit sky, Jenna watched the first snowflakes begin to fall.
* * *
It was still snowing when she and Jack walked back to the mercantile, big, fat flakes drifting down in the dark like something out of a movie. Jack was holding her hand, swinging it slightly as they walked along through half an inch’s dusting of snow.
Jenna felt tired in a happy, satisfied sort of way, replete from the food she’d eaten, the work she’d done, the friends whose company she’d enjoyed.
And Jack… Jack most of all, by her side pretty much the whole evening—smiling, laughing, holding her hand, touching her back, giving her teasing looks, being the best Santa that ever was…
because she’d asked him. She’d reveled in it all, in the simple joy of being important to another person.
“Good day?” Jack asked her as Miller’s Mercantile came into sight ahead.
“Yes, a very good day.” Jenna squeezed his hand. “But, full disclosure, I don’t think I should have eaten that funnel cake.” She pressed one hand to her middle. “It was so delicious, though.”
“It was, as was the hot chocolate,” Jack replied with a chuckle. “Though I think Rhonda might have been lacing the hot chocolate for the grownups. There was a decided rum aftertaste.”
Jenna laughed. “That sounds like Rhonda.”
Her steps slowed as she came up to the mercantile; there was a car parked by the porch, the light dusting of snow on top suggesting it had been there awhile.
“Who—” she began, only to stop when she saw the woman stepping out of the driver’s seat with a wobbly, uncertain smile, her hands deep in the pockets of her coat.
“Hey, Jenna.” The voice wobbled as much as the smile, and even though she couldn’t see the woman all too well in the dark, she still recognized her.
It was her mother.