Chapter 7 #2
Slowly, she releases the bag to my hands. I close in until our toes bump. As our body heat mingles, I reach around her, extricating a knife from the block. I slice open the plastic.
A swallow moves her throat. “I could have done that.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Ugh.” She tears the crinkly bag from my hands, glaring at my amusement as she pours out some candies.
I plant my rear to edge of the counter and watch her work. She finds a sturdy, zippered bag, unwraps the sweets, and scoops them into it. Then, she sets the bag between the folds of a kitchen towel. I jump back, play-cowering when she swings a kitchen mallet to the package.
After a series of wall-shaking strikes, she sets the tool aside and mounds spray whipped cream atop both the steaming mugs. Next, she takes the poor, destroyed candies and sprinkles the cheerful red and white splinters and shards over the white cream.
I recoil from the Santa mug she holds out to me. “Why do I get the fancy one?”
“You’re the guest, and I’m a considerate hostess. Take it.” She gestures it toward me again.
“Nope.” I take matters into my own hands, reach behind her, and snag the other cup, licking the blob of cream. That should end the debate.
“Knox.”
“Uh-uh.” I swallow. “Looks better in your hands, anyway.” From a hidden pocket inside me, I pull out something that sees less usage than the dimple, and wink.
It’s more Rand’s MO than mine—but that could change if winks make Everly’s cheeks flush, as they are now, to a shade that nicely matches Santa’s suit.
She huffs and sails past me as if I’ve exasperated the living crud out of her.
Yep, nope. I saw what I saw.
Grinning, probably ear to ear, I catch up to her staring at the tree. Her long fingers wrap the jolly mug while her lips whisper air across the rim of the cup.
“I am so glad this thing is pre-lit. Stringing lights on a tree is not nearly as merry a process as Christmas lore suggests. Trying to get them just right makes me want to cuss every time.” Her expression is cutely apologetic.
I laugh. “Perfectionist?”
“I’ve been accused a time or two.”
“Sounds like we both got lucky then.” I locate an outlet behind the counter, plug it in, and do a ta-da as I stand back.
The tree glistens with twinkly lights. “Clear or color? Lady’s choice, because this baby’s versatile.
” I fish my hand around the lower branches to locate the clicker dangling from the cord.
She claps her hands together. “Color, definitely. The white lights are classy, but this place needs all the festivity it can get.”
Agreeing wholeheartedly, I start clicking until the miniature bulbs glow in rainbows. “And…these babies can also flash.” My clunky fingers fumble for the button to make them blink. “Or strobe…or fade…”
I peer over. Everly’s hand rests at her throat, head tilted. “Fade. It gives the tree life but never goes fully dark.”
I dial up the requested setting. “As you wish, milady.”
She claps her hands again and sighs with far too much drama for the exceedingly average tree. “One more thing…” She dances to the light panel near the kitchen door and switches away. All but one row of can lights over the booths by the front windows darken. “Now this is Christmas!”
Our side of the diner mellows with the soft lighting. The colorful bulbs reflect off Everly’s skin. From her eyes. Create highlights in her hair.
My breath catches. Forget plastic trees and cheap lights, Everly’s beauty is high wattage.
She’s the one.
My lungs stop functioning. No.
There is no way I can know such a thing. No. Way. Every indication pointed toward Becca being the one, and look how that turned out. I’ll never rush into a relationship again.
Huh. I didn’t rush with her either, yet I got my rear dumped on a snowy, pre-Christmas eve all the same. And who’s to say I want a relationship at all?
Then why are you shelling out cash for holiday décor to put a smile on the face of a woman you just met?
Yeah…why?
“Knox?”
I blink out of the crazy-man conversation bouncing off the walls of my thick skull.
Everly eyes me, flopping her pointer finger around with uncertainty. “I can turn the lights back on…”
“Don’t you dare!” It’s perfect.
She is perfect, wreathed in the lights of holiday cheer. I clear my throat—as if it helps any—and remove a box of red ornament balls from the plastic bag. “Ready to deck the halls?”
“So ready. But first…”
Sliding my finger to slice the tape sealing the box, I glance up to find her scrolling her phone. Christmas music begins jingling about the dining room.
The other thing jingling is my own folly challenging my belief in my personal intelligence. I’m not impulsive, and I’m not a believer in love at first sight. Especially not after last year. Been there, done that. Still putting fade cream on the scars and hoping nobody sees them.
Of course, they all do, the people who love me, that is.
Mom pesters me in that mom way to move on.
Rand has asked twice in two weeks if I’ve found someone to date while I’m languishing in this boring small town.
Mr. Big City imagines me in the seventh circle of hell down here.
Chandor isn’t that bad. In truth, it’s much closer to my speed than the hustle and bustle of urban living.
Suddenly, I can hardly look at Everly, even though looking at her is all I want to do.
Peering into one of the sacks I brought with decorations, she asks, “You don’t happen to have any ornament hooks in that bag over there, do you?”
“Um…” I clear my throat. “Yeah. Sure.” I find the small box and punch through the perforation on its backside, then hand it over to her impatiently wiggling fingers.
“Everything alright over there?” Freeing a hook from a tangled glob, she develops a thoughtful crease between her eyebrows. “You going dark on me, Knox?”
No, more like the Ghost of Christmas Past has gotten in my face. “I’m good. Just thinking.” I pick up an ornament, palming it.
Everly turns her back as she hooks a ball onto a bough. “About?”
The air stills. She wasn’t supposed to ask. Miss Cautiously Guarded has turned into Miss Chipper Talky-Talky.
No way am I divulging the rando notion that snagged me like a spindly branch in the forest and refuses to let go. “Last Christmas wasn’t so hot.”
Brows lifted, she pivots, positioning the ornament just so.
But I’m not bringing her with me for a swim in a pool of shark-infested memories. I locate a smile from the bleak corners of my mind. “I’ll tell you sometime—but tonight is for fun.”
Fine lines crinkle at the corners of her eyes. “Fun it is.”
We empty out the box of red balls, following with a box of silver ones. I take a seat at the nearest table, where my cocoa waits, and pat the wiped-down surface. “Pull up a chair. Your drink is going to be stone cold.”
She steps over the decorating debris and joins me. “You know, the books make it seem totally doable, drinking hot cocoa and tree decorating simultaneously.”
I grin over the rim of my mug where the mountain of whipped cream has indeed melted into an unimpressive speed bump. “Can’t believe everything you read.”
She laughs before puckering her lips for a sip. The peppermint shards float like debris littering river water after a flood.
I stare through the window at my truck in the parking lot.
If my eyes linger too long on Everly’s lips, I’ll do something stupid, and I’ve already set myself up for enough trouble as it is.
I am not on the hunt for a relationship, and I’m certainly not a player.
I don’t mean to be a baby about things, but betrayal—and yeah, rejection—linger like foul odors that have infiltrated my senses.
Then what are you doing here, pardner?
Excellent question.
And I have an answer. At my core, I am an introvert.
I can pass the time with my nose in a book or lose myself in a podcast as well as the next guy who tends toward overthinking, but solitude does eventually max me out.
A month by my lonesome in Chandor has accomplished exactly that.
Everly is easy to be with and nice to look at.
That’s all this is and the story I’m running with for as far as it will take me.
There’s a smudge of cream on the bow of Everly’s lip that labors mightily against my intentions. Thankfully, she rips a napkin from the table dispenser and dabs it away. Whew, because my mind had already conjured a couple of different ways to take care of the problem for her.
“Is this what you do all the time? Travel for work?”
Ah, a safe topic. I run my finger along the arc of the mug’s handle.
“I do, just not always this far. I’m often close enough to spend weekends at home.
” I tap the handle, sighing. “I never should have gotten a dog. After this job, I think mine may petition the courts to let my parents permanently adopt him.”
A giggle conveys appreciation of my humor. “What kind of dog do you have?”
“Dozer is a French Bulldog.”
Her head tilts.
“What?”
“I’m sorry. Doesn’t fit. They say dogs match their owners.”
“What does fit?” I’m wildly curious.
“A retriever, maybe.”
“Why is that?”
“Retrievers are big. Friendly.”
And intelligent—which I notice she doesn’t mention. Is that how she sees me? A big, clumsy animal with its tongue flopping out, drooling spit on everyone in a bid for affection? Has this tree thing made me out to be desperate for attention?
You’re being an overly sensitive baby, Knox. “Hey, a Frenchie wasn’t my first pick either, but they are great dogs.”
“I’m sure they are. They’re all over the internet these days—and I hear they’re wicked expensive.”
“Tell me about it. The vet bills are ginormous, and apparently, pampering is a must.”
She laughs. “I meant expensive to buy—but, yeah, I’ve heard that too.” She bends her leg onto the chair with her, tucking it under the opposite one. “Why did you get a Frenchie if it wasn’t your first choice?”
Ouch. I set myself up for the question, didn’t I?