Scrooge and the Single Girl. Christine Rimmer
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open the door, and Jillian Diamond blew in on a huge gust of snow-laden wind. She was wearing a red wool hat, a big shearling coat, faded overalls, lace-up boots and a red-and-green striped sweater with a row of red reindeer embroidered on the turtleneck collar. In her left hand, she clutched an animal carrier from which suspicious meowing sounds were issuing.
Will couldn’t believe this. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Now, wasn’t that going to be fun to explain? Jilly thought. She caught the door and pushed it shut, then set Missy’s carrier on the warped linoleum floor, sliding her purse off her shoulder and dropping it next to her unhappy cat.
“I asked you what you’re doing here,” Will demanded for the second time.
She didn’t know where to start, so she countered provokingly, “I could ask you the same question.”
He studied her for a moment, his head tipped sideways. And then he folded his big arms across his broad chest and informed her, “I’m here every year from the twenty-second or twenty-third until the day after New Year’s.”
Jilly swiped her hat off her head and beat it against her leg to shake off the snow. “Well, sorry. I honestly didn’t know.”
He grunted. “You could have asked anyone. My mother—” Oh my, Jilly thought, surprise, surprise. “—my brothers. Even, more than likely, your two best friends.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
“Well, this may come as a rude shock to you, but asking if you were going to be here never even occurred to me.” Yeah, okay. Maybe it should have occurred to her. Given what she knew about Caitlin Bravo, it all seemed achingly obvious now. But that was called hindsight and it and $3.49 would get you a venti latte at Starbuck’s.
He was glaring at her, as if he suspected her of all kinds of awful things, as if he didn’t believe a word she had said. She didn’t even want to look at him.
So she didn’t. She looked away, and found herself staring at the single place-setting and the thick hard-bound book waiting on the ancient drop-leaf table about three feet from the door. Delicious comfort food smells issued from the pot on the stove.
“Answer my question,” he growled at her. “What are you doing here?”
From the carrier, Missy meowed plaintively. “Look,” Jilly said with a sigh. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I swear I didn’t have a clue that you were going to be here.”
He made a low scoffing sound. Jilly could see it all, right there in his gorgeous, lagoon-blue eyes. He thought she was after him. He believed she had known that he was staying here, that she’d followed him up here to the middle of nowhere to try and hook up with him.
She threw up both hands. “Think what you want to think. The deal is, though I truly hate to put you out, it’s very bad out there. I’m stuck here for the night and we both know it.”
He did more scowling and glaring. Then at last he gave in and muttered grudgingly, “You’re right. You’re going nowhere tonight.”
Oh, thank you so much for admitting the obvious, she thought. She said, “Right now, I need to get a few things in from my car.” Missy meowed again. “Like a litter box and some cat food, for starters.”
“All right. That’s reasonable.” Various coats and wool scarves hung on a line of wooden pegs beside the door. He grabbed a hooded down jacket. “Let’s go.”
Nothing would have given her more pleasure than to tell him she didn’t need his help. But there was her pride—and then there were her suitcases, the cat supplies and the various exotic lettuces and veggies and the hormone-free fresh turkey she’d brought to roast for her happy single-girl’s Christmas feast. And what about that bottle of good pinot grigio she’d bought to enjoy with her Christmas dinner, not to mention the pricey champagne she’d bought to toast the New Year? No way she was leaving them outside to freeze. If she trekked everything in alone, it would take two trips, maybe three. And it really was cold out there.
“Thank you,” she said tightly as she stuck her hat back on her head.
Outside, even under the protection provided by the porch, the icy wind seemed to cut the frozen night like the blade of a bitterly sharp knife. Once they moved off the porch and into the open clearing, it got worse. They struggled against the wind, getting beaten in the face with freezing snow, finding no shelter as they passed beneath the single bare maple tree between the vehicles and the cars. It wasn’t really all that far; it only felt like a hundred miles.
When they reached the cars at last, she went around to the rear of her Toyota and lifted the hatch. She passed him a twenty-pound bag of cat litter and another bag containing cat food and a plastic litter box. He managed to handle all that with one arm, so she also gave him the smaller of her two suitcases—it had her pjs in it, and a change of underwear, all she’d need for one night. Then, after giving him a backhanded wave meant to dismiss him, she turned to the bags of groceries and started going through them, consolidating the food items that had to go inside.
Will hadn’t budged. “What the hell are you doing?” he yelled at her over the howling of the wind.
“Just go on inside!” she shouted back.
But of course, he didn’t. What was it about some men? Congenitally incapable of following instructions.
“I asked you what the hell you’re doing!”
So she told him. “Perishables!”
He didn’t say anything after that. Just stood there, looking at her, eyes narrowed, mouth turned down at the corners, ice collecting in his bronze eyebrows, his ears and that handsome blade of a nose turning Rudolph-red.
Jilly turned back to her bags of groceries. It didn’t take all that long to get everything that wouldn’t hold up in a freezing car down to four plastic bags—one of them being the turkey. She hefted the bags out of the car and shut the hatch.
“Here,” Will shouted. “Give me—”
“No,” she hollered back. “I’ve got the rest. Let’s go.”
He gave her another of those dark, mean looks he was so good at. Now what? He was peeved because she wouldn’t let him carry the heaviest load? Was there no end to reasons for this man to be mad at her?
She turned her back on him and started for the porch. He was right behind her when she got to the front door. She set down the bags in her right hand to reach for the knob—and his hand came around and grabbed it first. She resisted the urge to glare at him over her shoulder. He pushed the door inward. She picked up her bags again and stepped inside.
It only took a few minutes to set up Missy’s comfort station in a corner of the bathroom, which was right off the kitchen. She let the cat out of the carrier as she dished up the Fancy Feast and filled a water bowl.
Once Missy was taken care of, Jilly joined her in the bathroom, shutting the door on Will, who was standing by the ancient drop-leaf kitchen table, staring bleakly at the bags of groceries.
Jilly used the facilities and washed her hands. When she entered the kitchen again, he’d moved her grocery bags to the long counter beside the darling, classic-looking round-sided Frigidaire. “What is this turkey doing in here?” he demanded.
“The rumba?” she suggested cheerfully.
He opened the Frigidaire and began stashing her lettuce and vegetables inside. “You know what I mean. You could have left it in your car.”
“No way. If I’d wanted a frozen turkey, I would have bought one. That’s a free-range, all-natural fresh turkey and it’s going to stay that way.”
He grumbled something under his breath. She couldn’t make it out and decided it was probably better if she didn’t try. He moved stuff around on one of the shelves in the fridge, then he picked up