Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
NATALIE
It might be freezing out here, but it’s a small price to pay for this glorious afternoon at Turtle Pond.
I smack my gloved hands together. Despite being clothed in the handwear equivalent of a duvet, I can’t get my fingers warm.
The sky is the brightest, clearest blue. The snow around the pond and on the surrounding trees glistens in the sun. The needles of the lush evergreens are weighted down, while the bare branches and twigs of those waiting for spring have been transformed into sparkly wands. The white bandstand next to the pond looks adorable with lights wrapped around its uprights. The thick ice on the pond is magically dazzling, scattered with just a dusting of flakes from the flurry that came and went as we walked here from the theater and marked by the skates of those who’ve enjoyed it before us.
The forecast is good for the ice staying safe for the next couple of weeks. But I have a mental contingency to move the play to the picnic area on the other side of the bandstand if we have an unexpected warm snap ahead of Christmas Eve.
Today, though, it’s perfect. Midafternoon on a Saturday it would usually be packed with families skating, but the Christmas art market starts today and that always draws the crowds, so we have it to ourselves for the time being.
And I can’t possibly care about the cold with all those smiles on the kids’ faces as they run in the snow around the pond, coming up with ideas of how to quickly adapt the play to make it work in this new setting.
Not all of them have been great—one kid suggested we introduce a yeti character, another that we should have the Titanic hitting an iceberg in the background, but let’s call this brainstorming.
The storm in my brain is most definitely still raging at Gabe Woods. I’ve never told anyone that I don’t like them, but now I’ve told him more than once—that’s how riled up he gets my insides.
But he deserved it for telling me I don’t stand up for myself enough and just do whatever makes other people happy. He made snap judgments that just happened to be correct. He doesn’t have enough to go on to know for sure. It’s not like he can see into my soul or anything.
Anyway, I showed him. There he was trying to sneak off before the hockey fans among the kids spotted him, and I outed him to them. It’s the most underhand thing I’ve ever done to anyone in my life, but he’d gotten my heart racing, the blood pumping through my veins, and I was all flustered, so he has only himself to blame.
The kids who recognized him were in total awe. Matteo stood there with his mouth wide open, eyes as big as hockey pucks, craning his neck to stare up at Gabe. And little Abigail—at eight she’s not the youngest but is definitely the tiniest of the group—quietly came up onto the stage and asked to shake his hand because “it’s an honor to be in the company of such greatness.” She’s being raised by a single dad who I now assume is an Apollos fan. Her size in contrast to Gabe’s made it all the more adorable when he crouched down to shake her hand and thank her. I guess he can pretend to be nice if he has to.
And a couple of other kids peppered Gabe with questions about his injury and when he would be back. He gave polite if completely noncommittal answers. All while smiling an absurdly handsome half-smile through his stupid sexy beard and occasionally adjusting his hat with his huge sexy hands.
The rest of the kids gave each other puzzled looks and shrugged, no idea who he is. To be fair, I would have been one of them if he hadn’t told me what he did for a living. And even then, I hadn’t realized his significance until my aunt went all lovesick teenager on the phone.
Anyway, where the hell is he? Before we left the theater, he said he had to go do something first and would meet us here. But we’ve been waiting about fifteen minutes and there’s no sign of him. The bastard had better not have snuck off to his home on the hill never to be seen again.
“Over here!” Grayson’s shout snaps me out of my reverie of fury.
Oh hell. The ten-year-old is scooting out across the ice, his sneakers slipping and sliding under him.
I race to the edge of the pond nearest this imminent catastrophe. “Grayson, get back here.”
Then out of nowhere, his best friend Kristopher is skidding out to meet him, shouting, “No. It would be better here.” And he heads off toward the end of the spit of land that protrudes into the pond. “Miss Bourne, wouldn’t this be the best spot for the mayor’s house?”
“The best spot for you both is on solid ground. Come back.”
Instead they both completely ignore me and move farther out on the ice, toward each other.
“It’d be better near the middle where everyone can see it,” Grayson says.
“No, it’d be better near the edge where people can hear what we’re saying.”
“Get off the ice right now.” Broken limbs and parents’ lawsuits and the banning of the Christmas play forever flash through my mind. That is not how I want to bow out of this job, as the one responsible for bringing a tragic end to a decades-old town tradition.
Now the boys are yelling at each other, having an actual full-blown argument on the ice about where the scenery of the mayor’s house should be.
“Putting it there is dumb. Why are you always dumb?” Kristopher shouts.
“Boys,” I yell through my cupped gloved hands. “We do not use words like that. You know better. Stop it. And get off the pond.”
“Yeah,” Grayson shouts at his friend. “Don’t fucking call me that.”
“And we definitely do not use words like that ,” I holler right as Grayson shoves Kristopher, who loses his balance, his feet flailing, even his winter boots unable to gain any traction on the slick surface.
He grabs onto Grayson for support. “Don’t be a dick,” he yells just before finally losing his fight with gravity and landing hard on his butt and pulling Grayson down on top of him.
For a moment it looks like they might be laughing. But then I realize they’re wrestling, and not in a best friends kind of way. More in a mortal-enemies-fighting-to-the-death kind of way.
“Stop it,” I shout, helpless to do anything about two kids rolling around on the ice trying to smack each other completely out of my reach. I haven’t felt this out of control of a situation since my first day as a student teacher when a kid said he’d spotted a mouse and half the class ended up standing on their chairs squealing. A couple of them cried and one of them peed their pants. We never did find the mouse.
“Just stop it. Get up. And get to the side. Carefully.” No matter how loud I shout they probably can’t even hear me over whatever they’re yelling in each other’s faces.
“Yeah, pack it in,” a voice beside me cries. I look down to see little Abigail, brow screwed into a disapproving scowl, mittened hands curled into fists at her sides.
Nine-year-old Wesley appears next to her. “Nah, serves Grayson right for eating my last cookie.” He punches the air in front of his face to illustrate the scale of cookie-eating punishment he would like to see administered.
It would never have crossed my mind that this chess-loving kid would have an aggressive streak. “Wesley. That is not nice.”
“No.” Abigail turns to face him and stomps a foot into the snow to emphasize her point. “Violence is never the answer.”
And suddenly almost all the kids have gathered around to witness the scrap. Cries of “It’s not worth it” mingle with “Get him” and other shouts of encouragement and remonstration that I can’t make out because they’re all yelling on top of each other and because I’m absolutely terrified that one of those kids rolling around out there is about to crack their head open on the ice. Or maybe both of them.
“Hey!” a voice booms to my left.
Abigail gasps in wonder as we all turn to see Gabe appear out of nowhere, his long, powerful legs jogging across the snow toward the pond.
“That’s enough.” His gruff voice sends a shiver through me as he transitions from snow to ice without missing a step, in the same way an amphibious creature moves from land to water effortlessly because they’re equally at home on both.
Grayson and Kristopher pause mid-grapple and turn their heads to look at him—either that or they wondered what was making the ice under them shake. It’s like they’re in a video that’s been paused.
“Stop being idiots and get off each other before one of you smashes a skull,” Gabe says.
While I would never advise calling a child an “idiot,” the overall sentiment is sound.
“Come on,” he says and reaches down to grab the hoods of each of their parkas. And in one swift movement he picks them up and lands them upright—much like he did with me when I was struggling to stand up in my bunny suit.
Their feet slip a little, but they regain their balance.
Gabe offers each of them an elbow and orders them to hold on. Aside from making faces and scowling, the two combatants show no sign of moving so Gabe delivers the ultimate threat. “If you don’t hold onto my arms, I’ll hold your hands. ”
Both kids immediately grab an arm.
And my ovaries ache like a pair of throbbing, starving beasts who haven’t had a good meal in way, way too long.
Towering above the kids, Gabe leads them to the safety of solid ground and doesn’t let go until they each have two feet off the ice. Then he bends down and talks to them, more quietly this time so we can’t hear what he’s saying.
And that ache in my lower belly rises to my chest, where it turns into a flutter that radiates to warm my chilly fingers.
“Are you listening, Miss Bourne?” A tug on my coat sleeve brings me back to reality. It’s Abigail, her angelic face as earnest as ever. “I said that was a nice thing for Mr. Woods to do.”
“It was, Abi.” I put my arm around her shoulder, and we stand and stare at the man who appeared out of nowhere two nights ago and took up residence on Fool’s Hill.
“Well, there’s a smile I haven’t seen in a while,” says a familiar voice behind me.
I turn to see Mrs. Bentley and her walker making their way up the cleared path across the lawn toward us, Aunt Lou at her side.
“What are you two doing here?” I ask them.
“I have to get out for a walk every day to keep all the parts moving,” Mrs. B. parks her walker beside me and maneuvers herself to sit in it.
“And I thought I’d come and keep her company,” Aunt Lou says. “Make sure she didn’t get her wheels stuck in the snow.”
Yeah, sure, highly likely. “And you just happened to decide to come to the pond?”
“Well, it is one of the prettiest places to walk,” Mrs. B. says.
“Visit the scene of the crime often, do you?” I ask her.
It was on this pond three years ago that Mrs. B. fell while attempting a pirouette far too adventurous for whatever her age was then and broke her hip. I’m not sure if something didn’t heal right, but she’s had to use the walker ever since.
“My, oh my, the scenery is extra pretty today.” Mrs. B. gives me an exaggerated wink and nods her sparkly pink-hatted head toward Gabe, who’s heading our way flanked by the two young ice-wrestlers.
I do my best to give Aunt Lou one of her own glares. She looks away, tightening her scarf. “You mentioned you might be here with the kids, so we thought we’d stop by to see how the new plans are going.”
“And we ended up catching you smiling at Mr. Muscles over there,” Mrs. B. says.
If my face was cold before, it certainly isn’t now. “I wasn’t smiling.”
“Totally were,” Aunt Lou says.
“And in a trance,” Abigail chips in.
“Where did you learn about trances?” I ask her.
“Definitely very trancelike,” Mrs. B. says before Abigail can answer.
“Like you’d gone to your happy place,” Aunt Lou adds, incredibly unhelpfully.
“Look.” I turn my back to Abigail and lower my voice. “Gabe Woods is not my happy place. He’s my incredibly irritating place. But I need him because there’s no one else to help me salvage the play.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll help save the play like an incredibly handsome phoenix rising from the ashes of the theater fire,” Mrs. B. says.
“Shhh” I hush her, as Gabe and the boys approach.
“Here you go,” Gabe says. “The two miscreants are returned.”
“I’ll talk to you two later,” I say to the boys. “In the meantime, go see why Lina and Katie are trying to move those two huge rocks.”
“Thank you,” I say to Gabe. “That was good. Um. Yeah…a good thing…that you did. Very, um, helpful.”
I shove my hands into my pockets. Perhaps that’s where I might find my power of speech because I’ve certainly lost it somewhere.
And the fact that it might be in those green eyes, or the full lips smirking from within that beard, or the square shoulders, or the broad chest, or the biceps, or the thighs, or whatever else he keeps under his clothes, is too dangerous to even imagine.
“Yes, it was good,” Aunt Lou says to Gabe.
“Very good,” Mrs. B. adds. “I’m Mrs. B., by the way. That’s what my friends call me.” I swear she just fluttered her eyelashes.
“And I’m Natalie’s Aunt Lou.” She emits a giggle I’ve never heard before. “We spoke on the phone.”
“Of course, yes.” Gabe flashes them a smile so charming it makes a lie of everything I’ve said about him being cranky. “Nice to meet you, Aunt Lou and Mrs. B.”
“Darn!” Aunt Lou clicks her fingers. “I should have brought Nat’s pink skates with me so she could show you her twirling.”
Oh dear God.
Half my internal organs shrivel in on themselves, the other half try to claw their way out of my body so they can disown me.
Gabe’s gaze slides slowly from Aunt Lou to me, his brows moving a tiny bit higher over eyes that have quite the amused sparkle in them. “Twirling?”
“No. I…” My armpits are sweaty, my fingers and toes freezing, and my mouth and brain are acting like they’ve never met.
“I’d love to see it.” A restrained snicker plays on his lips. “Maybe another time.”
“God, no. Aunt Lou’s kidding.” I give her my most pleading look.
She says nothing, but that’s probably preferable.
“Anyway,” Gabe says. “I have to get back to the house for a video PT session.”
“Thank God.” Shit. “Oh, I don’t mean thank God you’re going.” I do mean that, I absolutely mean that. “I mean, good that you’re able to get your physical therapy remotely.”
I glance at Aunt Lou and Mrs. B. who are watching us like we’re a piece of amusing performance art.
Suddenly my brain reactivates. Is he trying to get out of helping? Urgh, I knew he would. Well, he doesn’t get off that easily. A deal is a deal.
“We’re going to need to make some new scenery,” I say. “Some that can stand up on the ice. I’ll figure it out with the kids, then plan it all tonight. But I’ll need some help making it tomorrow. Can you meet me at the theater in the afternoon?”
“Two-ish work?” he asks without missing a beat.
I was expecting a lot more reluctance than that. “Sure. Yes. That’s actually perfect.”
“See you then.” And with a nod at Mrs. B. and Aunt Lou, he strides off, hands in pockets, boots crunching on the snow, thighs looking as awesome from behind as they do from the front.
If only my best chance of pulling this shit show together wasn’t a grumpy sports dude who hates Christmas and people and makes me feel all twirly inside.
“See?” Mrs. B. says.
“See what?” I ask.
“That smile. You’re doing it again.”