Chapter 10
“Honey, you can dance all you want. Just please don’t do it while you’re carrying Great-Grandma’s serving bowl,” Stacey warned.
Vivian slowly lowered one foot back down to the floor. “But I’m not going to drop it.” The lid rattled perilously.
“Please, dear,” Stacey said patiently. “That bowl has been around longer than your grandma.”
The girl turned to Carol with wide eyes. “Older than you? Wow.” With sudden care, she moved smoothly to the table and set the dish down delicately.
Carol snapped a kitchen towel at Stacey. “Thanks a lot. Now, all the kids will be asking me what the first Christmas was like.”
“Who better to tell them than you?” Dylan retorted with a grin.
“Oh, you’re next, buddy!” Carol expertly twisted the towel between her hands and flipped it out.
Dylan moved quickly, but the corner of the towel snapped against the back of his jeans. He howled and grabbed his butt, laughing the whole time. “You’re such a grinch! Honey, I told you not to invite her.”
Stacey was laughing, too. “As if I could keep her away from a good meal.”
Julie watched it all with a smile. This was the liveliest family she’d ever been around, and it made her own family get-togethers as a kid seem boringly tame. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Um, could you check the rolls?” Stacey was stirring and adjusting the seasoning on a big pot of butternut squash soup, but she stepped aside to give Julie access to the oven.
“Oh, definitely done,” Julie reported when she peeked in and saw the golden-brown tops of the rolls. She grabbed a potholder from a nearby hook and pulled them out, loading them into the basket Stacey directed her to.
Bringing them out to the table, she found the rest of their little dinner party. Erin held Arden on her lap as she spoke to Elijah. “I did know that, actually. It’s not too surprising. December 25th used to be considered a pagan holiday, and anything associated with it wasn’t very well accepted.”
Elijah’s ears perked up at a word he didn’t yet know the meaning of. “What’s pagan?”
“It’s when someone has spiritual beliefs that are different from what most people have,” Erin explained patiently. “Take me, for example. I’m a witch, and people like me have been rejected by society for a very long time.”
“But that’s not fair,” Elijah protested.
“No, it’s not,” Erin admitted smoothly. The baby was reaching for his father, so she handed him over to Jace and tucked a bit of her choppy black hair behind her ears. “It wasn’t fair of the Puritans to say that folks couldn’t put up Christmas trees if they wanted to, either.”
“You’re really into history, aren’t you?” Chelsea asked. Her son, Corbin, sat happily in a high chair next to her and munched on a dinner roll.
Elijah nodded emphatically. “Yeah. But not when it’s not fair.”
“I’m afraid you’ll find a lot of that, buddy,” Jace said sympathetically. “If there were more people like you who wanted to educate themselves, things might be different. It’s good that you want to know what’s happening in the world.”
“Well, I’m just glad we’re allowed to have Christmas trees,” Elijah said firmly. “I think we need more of them. I’m going to go ask Mom if I can have one in my room.” He marched into the kitchen.
“A man on a mission,” Julie remarked.
“Who’s talking about me?” Will asked as he stepped in the back door.
Julie’s heart rolled down into her stomach and then leaped back up again.
Those deep brown eyes had squared right up with hers as soon as he entered the room.
Did his ability to stare straight into her soul have anything to do with the bear inside him, or was that just his natural charisma?
She didn’t quite know how to separate the beast from the man.
“We’re talking about Elijah,” Jace filled him in, sparing Julie from having to make any remarks. “If you want to hear everything there is to know about Christmas trees, you should go find him.”
“I might just do that. I’ve got a whole new appreciation for Christmas decorations lately.” He’d glanced at Jace as he began talking, but then his gaze went straight back to Julie.
Feeling all her uneasiness rushing back, Julie took a seat at the table and fiddled with her napkin ring.
Fortunately, the turkey that Dylan had been smoking all afternoon was ready to go.
It wasn’t officially Christmas dinner, but there was no shortage of holiday food.
Julie passed the sweet potato casserole to Lila on her right, and she gladly accepted the green bean casserole from Chelsea on her left.
As she scooped cranberry sauce onto her plate, she made a point not to look directly across the table.
Will had seated himself there. Was it a strategic move on his part?
Did he still have an interest in her, even though the two of them were so different?
Granted, he’d gone out of his way to help her understand during that walk on the beach.
Julie didn’t know if either one of them knew just what the future could hold.
“Lila, what’s on your Christmas wish list?” Vivian asked. She’d rushed to grab a seat next to her stepsister, and she now looked up at her with pure admiration.
“Tinted windows for my car,” Lila replied.
Vivian looked disappointed. “You can’t wrap that.”
“No, but it’s a little different when you get older. I don’t need or want very much, so Dad usually just gets me one big thing,” she explained.
“We talk about it, to make sure it’s something she really wants,” Dylan added.
“So it’s not even a surprise?” Elijah asked, his eyes wide. “I don’t want to grow up.”
“You don’t have to for a very long time,” Stacey assured him, leaning over to kiss his forehead. “I promise you’ll still have a surprise on Christmas morning. Lila probably will, too. She just doesn’t know it yet.” She winked at her stepdaughter.
Lila, worried that she’d ruined something for the kids, laid down her fork.
“You know, one of the best Christmases I can remember is when Dad got me the Barbie I wanted. She came with two different curling irons and a set of rollers, so you could style her hair, comb it out, and then do it all over again. My friend Bella told me that her mom had already tried to get her one, and they were sold out, so I figured I wasn’t going to get one at all.
Then, there she was under the tree on Christmas morning. ”
Dylan wiped his mouth with a napkin and laughed a little. “I can’t even tell you how many stores I tried. I just had to keep working my way down the Cape until I finally managed to snag one.”
“You went and bought a Barbie?” Elijah asked. Clearly, the poor kid was learning a lot that evening.
“Sure, I did,” Dylan replied easily. “I was happy to do it, too. I whistled all the way home, where I did an absolutely terrible job wrapping it.”
“I didn’t even notice,” Lila promised.
Julie remembered her own journeys to find just the right gifts for Molly.
She let her guard down as she reminisced and accidentally looked across the table.
He caught her again. Damn it! The guy must have incredible instincts if he could detect the flutter of an eyelash.
She vowed not to look at him again, but that didn’t last very long.
She glanced away as soon as she was caught for the third time, but Julie thought she noticed a triumphant grin on his face as she did so.
Though the food and company were delightful, Julie was more than happy when everyone was finished. She stood and picked up her plate as well as Lila’s. “Let me get that for you.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Lila protested.
“Sure, I do.” Easily falling back to her waitressing days, Julie began picking up plates and stacking them. “Everyone here has been so generous. Guest or not, I want to feel like I’m doing my share.”
With her tower of dishes, she escaped into the kitchen.
Julie could still hear everyone else chatting and laughing, plus the clink of a few glasses that weren’t yet emptied.
She happily rinsed off the plates and loaded them into the dishwasher.
It really was nice to be a little productive, even if she was technically on vacation.
Seeing the neat row of rinsed plates was actually far more satisfying than any of the bits of work she’d done since arriving there.
The sound of the kitchen door behind her was subtle, but it made her ears perk up. Every nerve in her back fired off like she knew she was being watched. Julie forced herself to concentrate on the silverware.
“What’s your secret?” Will’s voice said behind her.
She kept every muscle in her body tense so she wouldn’t whirl around to look at him. “To clean dishes? Honestly, it’s using the name-brand detergent. I like going generic wherever I can, but this is one area where it just doesn’t seem to cut it.”
He laughed, and the fuzzy feeling in her back concentrated along her spinal column. Will was closer now. “Good tip, but not what I’m looking for.”
“Then what?” Julie glanced over her shoulder out of instinct and quickly regretted it. Damn, the man was handsome. She couldn’t deny her attraction to him. Would she still have slept with him if she’d found out about his identity beforehand? The magnetism between them suggested as much.
“You know my secret, or at least the biggest one,” he replied, leaning against the counter. “Maybe it would help if you shared one of yours.”
Julie carefully put each fork and spoon in the dishwasher, glad that she at least had something to keep her hands busy. “Who says I have any secrets?”
“Everyone has a secret,” Will insisted. His eyes traced over her body.
Julie swore she could feel that gaze as if it were his hands running along her curves all over again. She could feel blood surging through her body, and that tingling feeling she’d had in her spine had spread out along with it. “I don’t think I really have any secrets. I’m pretty boring.”
“I don’t think you’re boring.” He took another step closer.