Love Finds You on Christmas Morning (30 page)

“Okay, let’s drop it for now,” he said. “Maybe when I come home we can talk more. But I can take a hit pretty well, so don’t keep quiet on my account.”

“Wouldn’t think of it.”

Of course she had kept quiet on Drew’s account. The last thing he needed now was her petty problem on top of his important concerns about his father. He had just as much right to the Tronnier house as she did.

She laughed at herself. Legally, he had
more
right to the house than she did. As in, he had all the rights and she had none.

She would make peace with that and depend on God to help her deal with her disappointment. She said as much to Hannah the next time they spoke.

“His father’s heart attack really put it all into perspective. I’m frankly embarrassed that I was pouting so much—or whatever I was doing—that he felt compelled to ask me if he was getting on my nerves.”

“But why haven’t you told him about the Tronnier connection to his house?”

“Because it was beyond awkward. And doesn’t matter. There isn’t a Tronnier connection to his house anymore, and I don’t want him to think there is.”

Drew called her from San Diego two days after he left Cary.

“Dad’s pulling through beautifully,” he said. “He’s a tough old guy. They think he’s going to be fine. He’s already complaining about not being able to have his nightly bowl of ice cream anymore.”

Nikki laughed. “You’d think they would have made him give that up after the first heart attack.”

“Uh, yeah. They absolutely did.”

They both laughed.

“When I say he’s tough, I mean he’s stubborn too.” Drew sighed. “I miss you, Nikki.”

She grinned. Speaking of hearts, hers did a little flip. She answered softly, “I miss you too.
Babe.”

She loved his soft chuckle, and she swallowed before speaking again.

“Hurry home, Drew.”

“Can’t wait to see you.”

She sighed after ending the call. Somehow the crisis with Drew’s father had drawn them closer. She supposed real, honest, messy life had a way of doing that.

Still, she made a point of tucking away her feelings of nostalgia about Grampa and Granny’s home when Drew returned. She was certain that was the proper, Christian thing to do.

She focused on the fun she and Drew had when they got together. She loved watching Grampa and Granny’s house be restored to a modern version of the classic beauty it once was. It no longer mattered that the home of her childhood belonged to someone else.

Nope. It didn’t matter.

Not one bit.

Truly.

They worked together and played together over the summer and well into the fall, whenever both of them were able to get free from their professional obligations. And every time she passed the house or stopped by, Drew had remodeling crews working there. They had almost finished the remodeling and were close to implementing the decorating ideas Nikki had given him. But she was already pleased to see he’d taken her suggestion about the half wall between the dining room and living room. She remembered that half wall from when Granny, Grandma, and Mom would lay out a big family meal on the dining room table, adding their collective six cents to whatever lively conversation was going on in the living room.

Whenever the familiar disappointment crept up, she pulled a Second Corinthians and took captive those thoughts. She handed them over to God. Over and over.

The fact that she sometimes struggled even a tiny bit with the circumstances irritated her to death. She just wanted to get
over
it already.

On the crisp fall day that Drew went with Nikki to meet her parents, she walked out of Harvey’s home and embraced the excitement of merely seeing Drew’s handsome face. Just taking in that tall, gorgeous, kind man who had been nothing short of considerate, accommodating, and a mighty fine kisser over the past months.

And he blended in with the family as if he had been a part of it all along. He accompanied Nikki’s dad out to the garage to let him show off the 1952 Buick he was restoring.

Nikki’s mother watched the two men from the kitchen window while Nikki and Hannah set the dinner table.

“Nikki, if he’s as sweet as he is good-looking, you be sure to hold onto him.”

Hannah laughed as she folded the cloth napkins. “I get the picture that the holding is mutual. And often.”

Nikki smacked at her playfully. “He’s lasted longer than poor Bradley did, anyway. You’re so mean.”

Bradley had come along after Hannah split from David.

Hannah sighed without a hint of true remorse. “Poor Bradley. I just couldn’t take his…blankness any longer.”

Nikki would have asked for clarification, but she had seen Bradley’s empty stares. Nikki knew exactly what Hannah meant.

But their mother turned from the window and carried dinner plates into the dining room. “Blankness?”

Hannah shrugged and took the plates from her mother. “I just don’t think he has many original thoughts, you know? I mean not clever ones. He had thoughts like ‘I should cut down on how much corn I eat.’ But that’s about how stimulating conversation got with him.”

“You see how mean she is, Mom?” Nikki went back to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to get the iced tea. “Good grief. What’s with all this milk in here?”

“Oh.” Her mother stood in the kitchen doorway and rested against the frame, her arms folded across her chest. “The weatherman’s calling for possible snow. Early for snow, but that’s what they’re saying. And the two percent was on sale this week. And I had a coupon.”

“But you have three gallons in here, and it’s just you and Dad. You guys hardly even drink milk as it is.”

Hannah walked in and stood next to Nikki at the open refrigerator door. “Wow. That there is what you call a boatload of milk.”

Their mother laughed, clearly realizing she had overbought. “They said it could be a
lot
of snow. How do I know when my next chance to buy milk will come along?”

Nikki looked at her, and they both laughed at the absurdity of her comment. The closest grocery store was actually within walking distance.

Hannah reached in and pulled out one of the gallon jugs. “Well, I’ll do my part and have some with dinner. Does a body good. But they’re calling for a possible snowstorm, Mom, not a nuclear holocaust. I think there might still be a few dairy cows around after the great thaw.”

Drew and Nikki’s father walked in from the garage to find all three Tronnier women laughing together.

“Ben, honey, tell your girls to stop picking on me.”

Nikki’s father scowled at his girls. “You leave your dear old mother alone.”

“Old?” She planted her hands on both hips and feigned indignation. “Never mind helping me, mister.”

Nikki watched Drew through this exchange and felt a flush all over. He wore a genuine smile as he watched the teasing. He fit this family perfectly.

He suddenly turned his smiling eyes on her, and they had their own private moment of appreciation. Talk about a great thaw. She could have just melted.

Dinner went smoothly, and Nikki thought she couldn’t have asked for a better time to have introduced her family to Drew.

Afterward, as he helped her into her coat, her father said, “Now where do you live, Drew?”

Hannah and her mother were talking to Nikki about the coming week, but from a distant point in her mind, she sensed a reason for tension.

Drew said, “I’m at the Cambridge Garden Apartments right now, just renting while I have my house remodeled. We’re almost done, so it shouldn’t be much—”

“Oh, that’s right,” Nikki’s father said. “You’re the one who bought my grandparents’ place. I almost forgot about—”

Apparently her father had just noticed the sudden silence in the foyer.

Drew was wrapping his scarf around his neck, but he stopped mid-wrap, tilted his head as if he doubted his own hearing, and said, “Did you say your grandparents’ place?”

“Uhh…” Her father simply looked from Nikki to his wife and back to Nikki again.

Drew’s confused expression slowly scanned across the mute Tronnier family members, one by one, and Nikki saw something more than confusion there by the time he finally stopped at her.

“Drew, we need to talk.”

He said nothing, so she took him by the arm and practically shoved him out the door. She followed right behind and glanced back at her family. They all looked concerned. Well, her mother looked concerned. Her father looked guilty, and Hannah’s thoughts couldn’t have been more clear had she held up a giant placard that read: “I Told You So.”

Drew felt a rush of conflicting emotions, and he wasn’t sure which to express first. Nikki had been talking at an auctioneer’s pace, explaining herself, the entire time they had been driving. Now they were near Harvey’s mansion, and Drew breathed deeply to keep from sounding too angry when he talked.

“Why in the world would you deliberately keep something like that from me, Nikki? Were you only dating me because I was the one who bought your grandparents’ home out from under you? And to what end? What did you think—?”

“No!” She sat facing him as he drove. “I was dating you because I—I liked you. And I never planned to not tell you. I just
didn’t,
and then too much time went by and we kept dating and it would have been weird to tell you after we got so…involved.”

His laugh was short on humor. “Oh, that was a good plan.
This
isn’t weird at all. I mean, I feel as if I’ve been the brunt of some bizarre joke the entire time we’ve been seeing each other.” He pulled up Harvey’s driveway and parked. “Your family—what did you do, tell them to wait until I left before openly discussing what a jerk I am for interfering with your plans for your family home?”

“Obviously not! Couldn’t you tell my father completely forgot about it until you two were talking on our way out? I stopped fussing about losing the house quite awhile ago.”

“I guess so, since
I
never heard about it.” And then it dawned on him. He pointed at her. “
That’s
what the funny looks were about. Oh, Nikki, there were
so
many times you thought about it, weren’t there? I even asked you about that, about the annoyed faces you kept making, back ages ago. I asked if there was something I had done that bothered you. You had plenty of chances to be honest with me.” He held the steering wheel and stared outside. “And I kept going on and on about ‘my house this’ and ‘my house that.’ I feel like such a selfish jerk.”

“That’s not how I see you.”

Now the past several months streamed through his mind. He groaned and gripped his forehead. “What you must have thought when I asked you to decorate for me.” He looked at her again, still baffled. “What
did
you think? How could you do all of that without coming clean? You just let me be an idiot with my stupid little project.”

“But you weren’t an idiot. And it wasn’t a stupid project. It was the same project I would have had if…”

“If I hadn’t swooped in and trashed your big dream.”

“Drew, look. I was upset at first, I’ll admit it. Maybe longer than just at first. You bought the house just as I had saved enough to make an offer. My Realtor had expressed an interest to the seller—”

“That was you! You were the other person interested in the house! That’s why I offered them the full asking price.”

“But we didn’t know each other yet, Drew. I’m sorry I ended up costing you money.”

He heard a hint of anger—or maybe hurt—in that comment. He tried to soften his tone.

“That’s not even an issue, Nikki. If you honestly didn’t know I was the buyer, you couldn’t have deliberately affected what I paid. And I had already made the offer by the time we met. That’s right, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “I think so. It was all happening about the same time, I think. I didn’t realize you were the buyer until the first day we went out. Right before we went to Ashworth’s soda fountain—when I stopped at the house and you were in the kitchen with your general contractor. I guess I thought I’d tell you about my great-grandparents if we ended up liking each other enough to keep seeing each other. And then I just couldn’t find a comfortable time to tell you. But what I was going to say is that I no longer look at you and see the man who—how did you put it? Trashed my dreams?”

“You no
longer
see me that way? Nikki, how could you? I mean, we’ve been—” How could he delicately ask how she could have let him kiss her and stroke her face and gaze into her eyes all these months when she resented him even a little? The thought embarrassed him all over again. “I mean, what’s
wrong
with you?”

He saw her flinch, and then she looked down at her lap.

The meanness of his question lingered there in the air after he said it. But he couldn’t bring himself to take it back.

“I don’t know,” she said, her head still down. “I honestly don’t know what I was afraid of.” She looked up at him, and he saw that she was fighting tears. “I guess I was afraid of something like this.” She gestured back and forth between them. She opened the car door and stepped out.

“Nikki.”

“Mmm-hmm?” Her voice was falsely light, and she didn’t bend down to look at him through the window. He doubted she’d be able to say anything else without crying.

He leaned toward the passenger seat so he could look up at her. “I’m sorry I’ve been so angry. I was just caught by surprise. I think I need to do some thinking. Can I call you later?”

She gave him a polite smile and nodded. She lifted her hand in a negligible wave before turning and walking swiftly toward the mansion.

He drove down the driveway and passed the spot where he and Freddie had first seen Nikki walking out of Harvey’s house with Riley. That had been the day he’d thrown the leash on Freddie and sought her out. He had tracked her down as if she were the sweetest prize. That seemed so long ago. A lot of time had gone by. Now he knew her so well. Or did he?

This new facet of their relationship—new to
him,
anyway—was important enough for him to weigh seriously. How had it changed the way they would relate to each other? Did they need to
fix
something between them? Could they?