What She Wants for Christmas. Janice Kay Johnson
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would take.
By this time, Nicole was sitting bolt upright, legs crossed. Like tomorrow. She wouldn’t let her mother stop at the school office. No, she’d insist that someone give them a tour, show them the lab facilities—did this school know what a lab was?—and the library. Another of the things Mom went on and on about was how important a good education was. Nicole smiled. If her mother thought they wouldn’t get a good education here, they were gone.
Back to Bellevue. Yes.
JOE GLANCED at his watch. Noon. “Take an hour,” he called, and the two men he’d brought out on this job nodded and carried their chain saws to the open back of his pickup.
They consulted briefly and then Brad Mauser said, “We’re going to run into town and get some burgers. Want to come?”
Joe’s glance strayed to the kitchen window of the farmhouse, where he could see the blur of a white face and dark hair. “Nah.” He shrugged. “I brought a sandwich.”
Though he was used to the scream of chain saws and the thunder of falling trees, the silence after the men left was welcome. Autumn sunshine warm on his back, he looked around at their morning’s work.
A dozen trees lay on the ground between the house and fence, lined up as neatly as pick-up sticks pulled from the pile. Most of the downed trees had already been shaved of their limbs and were ready for loading. If all went well, they’d have the other half down this afternoon. Come morning, they could get the timber out of here and clean up. Give the slash a few weeks to dry and he’d come back and burn it. If he was smart, he’d come back on a day when Dr. Teresa Burkett was working and therefore not home.
The jolt he’d felt in his gut when she opened the door that day last week had scared him a little. She was out of his league. He was lucky to have a high-school diploma. She’d finished God knows how many years of college. He was a small-town boy with no ambition to leave his home. She was a big-city professional woman who probably thought White Horse was pretty and peaceful. It was. But, unlike him, she’d be heading for Seattle every time she got bored.
He couldn’t afford to acknowledge his attraction to her or the spark of interest he’d seen in her dark eyes.
Sandwich, he reminded himself, before his glance strayed again to her kitchen window. He grunted and turned toward the driveway where his pickup was parked. Rounding the house, he walked right into her.
Joe reached out and grabbed her before she went tumbling. Eyes wide, she looked up at him. “I’m sorry! That was dumb. I wasn’t watching—”
“I don’t know who was dumb,” he interrupted. “I’m the one who almost ran you down.” Reluctantly he let her go. Her shoulders felt as fragile under his hands as she’d declared her psyche to be. “Did you come out to see our progress?”
“Well, actually—” her tongue touched her lips “—I came out to invite you and your men in for lunch.”
He had trouble not staring at her mouth. “They went into town.”
Damn, she was beautiful, tiny, with these huge brown eyes and delicate features emphasized by the severity of the French braid that confined her dark hair. But it was neither the tiny nor the beautiful that got to him; it was the defiance in her eyes, coupled with the smile that played most of the time at one corner of her mouth.
“Well, then.” She met his gaze boldly, though now her cheeks were touched with pink. “Can I talk you into lunch?”
“You don’t need to cook—”
“I already did. Homemade minestrone soup and fresh-baked bread.”
“I’m too dirty to come in.”
“You can take your boots off.”
What could he say? A moment later he padded in stocking feet into her bathroom to wash his hands. Waiting for the water to warm up, he frowned at his image in the mirror. What the hell did she see in him? All that met his eyes were dirty denim, callused hands and a haircut that was long on function and short on style. She’d discover soon enough that his conversation could be summed up about the same way.
But, by God, at least he was clean when he returned to the kitchen. She’d set the table there: two quilted place mats, a glass jar of spiky asters and late daisies, stemmed water glasses, silverware laid out properly, with an extra fork for some unseen dessert. It was pretty—and made him feel awkward. Only the sight of her black Labrador lying under the table belied the formality.
Her eyes touched his face and shied away. “You’re my first guest in this house. I thought I’d celebrate.”
He nodded and sat down while she ladled steaming fragrant soup into his bowl and offered him slices of crusty warm bread.
“Would you like a beer?” she asked, and he relaxed a little. At least she wasn’t pouring French wine.
“No, thanks. I don’t drink when I’m going to operate a chain saw or heavy equipment.”
“Oh. No, of course not.”
“I haven’t seen a woman blush in a long time,” he heard himself say.
That did it. Her cheeks were now as rosy as though a winter freeze were biting at them. But she also laughed.
“I don’t usually blush. I think it must be you.”
Him? What was she saying? If she’d been any other woman, he would have known, but her? Why him?
“I’m sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable,” he said clumsily.
He almost thought he heard her sigh. “Are you married?” she asked.
His heart did a peculiar heavy-footed dance in his chest. “No.”
Her cheeks hadn’t faded one iota. “Engaged or…or…”
He helped her out. “No.”
“Oh.”
A slow smile was growing on his face. “Are you going somewhere with this, ma’am?”
“I’m just curious,” she said with dignity.
He laid down his butter knife and said quietly, “Good.”
Their eyes met and held for a long quivering moment. The breath of air he sucked in seared his chest.
“I know you’re not married,” he said. “Are you divorced?”
“Widowed.” Pain, or at least regret, twisted her mouth. “Five years ago. My husband was an idiot. He made an ultra-light from a kit. He was flying it when it drifted into some electrical wires. The day was windy—” She snorted. “But he had to go up.”
“You didn’t approve of his hobby, I take it.”
“I hated it!” He felt her tension. “I haven’t forgiven him yet.”
“I don’t blame you,” Joe admitted. “I’ve never understood why someone would risk losing everything—” a woman like you “—for some kind of momentary thrill.”
“It was what he did to the kids.” Her eyes appealed to him for understanding.
“Tell me about them.”
She did, while Joe had three bowls of soup and more slabs of bread than he wanted to count. The woman was not only beautiful, she could cook. And he’d better quit thinking this way.
Mark, he heard, was almost eleven, a fifth grader who’d taken the move philosophically and had already signed up for soccer.
“Boys,” she said, with an expressive shrug. “They always seem to play in mobs and accept one more kid without question. Girls, now…”
Her fifteen-year-old, whom Joe had seen over Teresa’s shoulder last week, was another story. When he asked about her, an odd expression crossed her face, half