Chapter 15
Knox
Sunday afternoon, beneath a slate sky, I line the rental car along the curb in front of the Wilkes household.
Rimming the archway above the front door, a string of multicolored Christmas lights that weren’t there last night glisten.
On a ladder, Everly strains precariously.
Her feet perch on the topmost safe step, but one shoe is raised, and she is most definitely considering going higher.
The loose end of the light strand is coiled in one hand.
I shove the car into park and jog up the sidewalk, gripping the ladder with both hands. “You looking to spend the holidays in traction, Ev?”
She spins, teetering the ladder despite my grip. “Oh, hey, Knox.”
I shake my head. “‘Hey, Knox,’ she says.”
With a smile, she lowers her rump to the top step. “You’re early.”
“Funny you say so, because it feels to me like I got here just in time. This ladder isn’t set in concrete you know?”
She places the coil of lights in her lap. “I’m perfectly fine.”
Since she’s safely seated now and I’m here to make the catch should she tumble, I cross my arms over my chest and let my scowl do the talking. She was seconds and centimeters away from disaster.
“I can’t move the ladder any further because of the bushes.” Her grin turns adorably grumpy. “But I was being careful.”
“Don’t even try to tell me you weren’t about to get on that next step.” I raise my eyebrow. “I know what workplace carelessness looks like, lady.” My guys know the rules yet push them almost daily.
“Ugh. Spoil sport.” I swear she comes close to sticking out her tongue.
Having to stifle a chuckle, I gesture to the bare space above the gutter. “You want me to reach that corner for you?” I have a few inches on her.
A chilly breeze whips hair the shade of roasting chestnuts across her cheek. “I could do it, you know.”
“Sure you could—but who wants to spend a great football Sunday in the ER, am I right?”
She peels blowing threads of hair from her face. “Fine, but you’re bossy.”
“Takes one to know one…”
Everly mumbles her way down the ladder, and I climb up.
“I could do it if my arms were longer.”
“Coulda, woulda, shoulda.”
I chuckle at her snotty huff and relieve her of the light coil.
After hooking the last section in place, I hand her the pronged business end of the cord. She plugs it into a green extension cord, and voila. Backdropped against the wintry sky, the lights dance.
“My dad’s always been the one to hang the lights, but with him gone…” Her sentence drifts away on the breeze.
I step off the last rung and onto the sidewalk. I put the teasing behind us and soften my voice. “When did he pass?”
She whips around. “Oh my gosh, no! Dad didn’t die. He’s been working overseas and can’t make it home for Christmas.”
The words, so different than what I expected, digest in slow motion. “Oh. Wow. That is far less depressing than what I was thinking.”
She elbows my side. “Don’t bring me down like that, Knox.”
I scratch the back of my head, feeling like an idiot. “Um, sorry. My bad.”
She retrieves the empty cardboard light box out of a barren flowerpot. “I’m teasing, big guy.”
“What does your dad do?” I ask as I fold up the ladder. Looks like we’re finished here.
“Dad’s an engineer and works for a defense contractor. They’re paying him stinkin’ good money to work overseas for two years. Mom went with him for a while, but there wasn’t much for her to do. He was working all the time, and she missed home.”
Boy, I know the feeling—but what I wouldn’t give to have the person I loved with me on these out of town jobs. Once I meet the right one, I may have to reconsider office work and stick close to home.
I quick-peek Everly’s direction. The right one?
I hang the ladder on my shoulder. “How is she feeling about him being gone at Christmas?”
“Sad. Frustrated.” She rolls her eyes, eyes decked with more makeup than usual. “It doesn’t show this year, but Mom’s a Christmas-aholic. Normally, by Thanksgiving, this yard is decorated like Santa’s workshop, and the inside of the house looks like a Christmas store.”
“I take it your dad is her helpful little elf?”
Everly smirks. “How did you guess?”
“Your mom strikes me as the marching-orders type.”
“You don’t know the half of it. But, this year, she’s going to have to chill. I’m hoping that getting these lights up around the entryway will take the edge off her sense of stuff going un-done.”
I tuck my fingers into my pockets and rock onto the balls of my dress shoes.
“I could hang the rest of the lights.” I reconsider.
“What I mean is, you and I could do it together.” Don’t want to waltz in and take charge like this is a jobsite.
Or as if Everly isn’t capable…although, I confess to being less than impressed by her ladder skills.
“Oh, goodness. I wasn’t suggesting that.”
“Didn’t think you were…but I wouldn’t mind helping out.”
“No need, promise. That roof is steep and it takes Dad a full Saturday. Really, he needs to start hiring someone. Scares me to death every year when I think of him climbing around up there. One wrong move, and…” She clutches her elbows, shivering.
“However…” Soft hair flows about her shoulder as she tilts her head.
“Some of Mom’s favorite yard decorations are too heavy for her to carry alone, and I’ve been awfully busy… ”
I gesture to the ladder still dangling from my shoulder. “I make a darn good pack mule.” Size and strength are practically my party trick. Need an item from the useless-to-most top of the cabinets? I’m your man. Moving to a new home? Dial Knox the Ox.
Happy to spend every second possible with Everly, I trail her through the crunchy, winterized grass, around to the backyard, and stop at the front of a storage building. I rest the ladder against it. The green structure has a barnlike roof and an x on the front door.
I have to move a few boxes across the cobwebby space to clear a path to the painted-plywood designs. A jolly Santa. A toy-stuffed stocking. A train loaded with festive, waving stuffed animals and dolls. I can’t help a small laugh.
“Kinda cheesy, right?”
“I wouldn’t go that far…” But I’m reasonably certain she hears the gurgle of laughter in my throat.
Everly tugs the zipper of her puffy jacket all the way to her chin.
“Sure they are. They make the yard look like a five-year-old lives here. And wait until you see the inflatable snowman. Plus…” She points her finger to the far corner.
“Throw in that nativity off to one side, and I’m sorry. Tacky, tacky, tacky.”
A smile spikes one side of my face. The classic nativity deserves the spotlight. “The two themes don’t mix well, huh?”
“Not at all. If it were my house, I’d go for white lights and Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus front and center,.” She shrugs “But that’s just me, and I’m kind of a fuddy duddy.”
An adorable fuddy duddy with spunk and attitude.
“Will we be holding up dinner if we start this now?” The thought hits me halfway across the yard with good ol’ St. Nick under one arm. Staying on Mrs. Wilkes’ good side feels wise.
Everly’s steps crunch behind me. “Funny story. Mom messed up setting the time on the roast before church this morning, so lunch is delayed. She was beside herself when she got home and checked the oven. Sorry, by the way.”
“No worries. The motel’s continental breakfast isn’t half bad.”
As we carry our loads side by side, her smile warms me. “Look at you. No lunch and put to work instead. You’re quite a trooper.”
“Hey, I like a homecooked meal as much as the next guy, but work is my middle name. Lots of days, the jobsite gets so crazy I never get lunch at all.”
“Yeah, I have those days at the office, too.”
“I’m sure.” I stop walking. “Why don’t you let me come back for that stocking, Ev.” The wooden decoration is smaller than Santa, but she’s having to drag it.
She shakes her head hard, dancing the waves that are trying to curl from the misty air. “No way. It’s bad enough you’re having to work for your dinner. I’m not going to let you do it alone.”
Not a problem, but I’m not going to argue, either.
On the return trip to the storage shed for more suburban kitsch, I glance toward the windows along the rear of the house. “Is your mom cheering our efforts from a window somewhere?”
“Nope. That’s another funny story. She asked what you liked to drink, and when I said iced tea—which no one in our house cares for—she hightailed it to the grocery store. She ought to be home any minute.”
“Aw, man. She shouldn’t have done that.”
“I told her you wouldn’t want her to, but you should know, Mom’s sort of fixated on you.”
My feet stop so fast Everly is forced to backpedal in order to not run into me. Darn it. Having her against me would have made my day. “Fixated?”
Her cheeks seem pinker from more than exertion, as if our minds veered onto the same rabbit trail. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Yet now you have…”
Thoughts race behind her eyes. She sighs. “Have you ever read Pride and Prejudice?”
“Can’t say I have—but Honey—that’s my grandmother—asked me to watch it with her once. My grandfather had just died, and she was feeling pretty lonely.”
Everly jabs her fists to the hips of her jeans. “Are you aware that you’re a saint?”
I snort. “Don’t you start that.”
“Start what?”
I wave her off. I’m unashamed of who I am, but the guys’ ragging on me for being Saint Knox gets old. Yes, I have a strong faith and follow the rules. What of it? “Never mind. My point is, making Honey happy was well worth a couple hours of my time.”
“Um, in case you didn’t catch it, you just made my point a second time.” She stares for a taut breaths before letting the subject drop. She starts walking, continuing down the sloped yard. “Anyway. You might remember Mrs. Bennett had five unmarried daughters?”
I grimace at the thought of wedding costs the family must have faced. “That’s a lot.”
“Yeah, well three isn’t much better according to Mom, and she’s starting to fret.”