We Need a Little Christmas (12 page)

The air between them seemed to stir with invisible atoms of unease. “No,” Liv said. “I mean, I want to sort through the attic, and Tuesday's a great time to do it. I won't have to worry about Mom or Rachel trying to climb around like mountain goats.”

As she referenced his comment from last night, she cracked a smile, and Scott gladly returned it. The awkwardness was still there, but maybe they were past the worst of it. “The heater guy gave me one of those great time windows,” he said. “Between noon and four. When is your mom's appointment?”

“Two thirty.”

Behind him, Scott heard Jake hanging up. Scott straightened from his leaning position, and Liv took another step back.

“I'd better get going,” she said. “I told Mom and Rachel I was picking up donuts. I want the room to be a surprise.”

Scott nodded. “See you Tuesday. I'll be there by noon.”

As Liv walked to the door, his eyes dropped to her retreating shoes. Rose-patterned tennies again, but this time the roses were actually rose-colored, probably to go with the maroon sweater she wore. Scott's eyes lingered on the door as it closed behind her.

“Give her a break,” Jake said. “Her grandmother just died.”

Scott turned. “Give her a break? What does that mean?”

“I mean, I'm sure Liv has a lot to deal with. And you're looking at her like she's another Tiffany. Or Angie.”

Was
that
why Jake was always so carefully polite to him? Really?

Scott leaned against the counter again, forcing a casualness he didn't feel. “I didn't know you were so interested in my social life. You didn't even live here when I was going out with Angie. What exactly are you getting at?”

Jake let out a slow breath, as if he was trying to get a handle on his usual good manners. “Never mind. Tell me about the sink.”

But today, for some reason, Scott found he
did
mind. “No. Back up a minute. What makes you think—”

Mandy came in from the kitchen, two whipped-cream-topped mugs in hand, and Scott fell silent. She raised her eyebrows. “What is it?”

Suddenly Scott wished he'd just kept his cool.

Jake, looking shamefaced, gave the time-honored reply: “Nothing.”

Mandy scrutinized them, clearly not buying it. “I brought you both a hot chocolate.” Her tone was slightly disapproving, like a parent who'd walked in on a couple of eight-year-olds squabbling over a game of Monopoly.

“That's okay,” Scott told her. “You can have mine. I was just heading out.”

“Wait,” Jake said. “First I need to know about the sink.”

Scott heaved a sigh. He usually avoided criticizing other workmen, but today he found he just didn't have the patience. “Your problem,” he said, trying and failing to keep the terseness out of his voice, “is the guy you hired didn't know better than to use copper pipes up here. So when we had that big freeze Sunday night, the pipes cracked. Now you need to decide—”

Mandy strode past him to the little coffee bar and set both drinks down. “Drink your hot chocolate. And, please, whatever's going on with you two, fix it.” She turned, her eyes darting between them. “Really, I don't get it. The two nicest guys I know, and it always seems like you're one step away from butting heads.”

Scott wouldn't have thought it was obvious to anyone else.

“We weren't . . .” Jake began, and ran out of steam under Mandy's skeptical stare.

“Sit. Drink. Please.” She threw up her hands like an orchestra's maestro.

She vanished back into the kitchen before either of them came up with a response, and the two of them stood alone in the cheery lobby. Scott wasn't annoyed anymore. Just really uncomfortable.

“Okay.” Jake passed a hand roughly through his hair. “That was embarrassing.” The edge had gone out of his voice, returning them to their usual strained unease.

“Look, I'm going to go.”

“Not so fast. Remember, I have to live with her.” With a rueful shake of his head, Jake made his way to the coffee bar. “And I think I owe you an apology. Come on. You don't want to pass up Mandy's hot chocolate, anyway. Trust me.”

Scott eyed the exit longingly. “What happens if I bail instead?”

“I have no idea. This has never happened before.”

Scott could argue that he didn't have time for this. Or he could drink the darned hot chocolate and satisfy Mandy, who usually didn't have a cross word for anyone. So he joined Jake, taking the high-backed stool one down from Jake's, leaving an empty seat between them.

Scott took an experimental sip of cocoa and no longer regretted sticking around. It was amazingly rich, and the perfect drinking temperature. “So,” he said, after relishing his drink for a moment. “The pipes. You can either replace the copper with PVC pipe, which I recommend, or—”

“Done. Put in what we need.”

“You don't want to know how much?”

“I trust you. Your prices were better than the other guy's anyway.”

“That's because copper's more expensive. It didn't used to be, but now some people assume it's better just because it costs more.” Either that, or the other guy had been looking for ways to jack up the price. But Scott held his tongue.

Instead, he asked, “So why hire somebody else?”

Jake took a deep drink and appeared to consider. “Maybe because I wanted to give another contractor a shot at some of our business—”

Scott had heard that one before.

Jake sighed. “Or maybe because you got on my nerves.”

Now they were getting down to it. Did he really want to hear this? “Why?”

“Okay, I'll just say it. The first time I ever saw you, you were eyeballing my wife. I guess I've never forgotten that.”

Scott tried to remember what Jake was talking about. Then it came back to him. A late summer evening a couple of years ago, out on the town square. Mandy Reese, with some guy he'd never seen before. He'd been staring, all right. Mandy was always pretty to look at. But that night, what had really drawn his eye was the way she was looking at the stranger in the polo shirt. “She wasn't your wife yet.”

Jake shrugged. “I didn't say it was rational.”

“You can't be serious. You
got
the girl. I haven't been able to pull that one off yet.”

“Either that, or you've gotten a few too many.” Jake's tone didn't have the earlier sharpness, but he grimaced at his own words. “Sorry. That didn't come out right. I was trying to be funny.”

“It's not what it looks like.”

“I know.” At Scott's double take, Jake went on. “Angie works for us. She comes in nights to help Mandy with the coffee bar.” Jake fiddled with his mug. “And she only says nice things about you.”

Scott laughed. So that was how he knew about Angie. “So you were worried about me and Mandy?”

“I wouldn't say worried. But sometimes first impressions die hard. Dumb, I know.”

“I don't think she even forgave me for nicknaming her ‘Mandy Claus' until about two years ago,” Scott said.

“Oh, yeah.” Jake grinned. “There was that, too.”

“Truce?” Scott stuck out his hand.

Jake took it.

Scott returned to his hot chocolate. “The fact is,” he heard himself admit, “I've never seen her this happy. And I've known her since kindergarten.”

Jake quirked an eyebrow. “Nice to hear. I just hope I'm not wearing her out with this hotel. When she married me, she ended up married to the business. And she's great at so much of it. She's a genius at decorating, people love her, and she makes amazing hot chocolate. But organization isn't her strong suit. And she knows she can't do everything herself, but she hates telling people what to do.”

“Liv's good at that,” Scott said before he thought. He remembered the way she'd fearlessly recruited the waitresses to make sandwiches, and the way she'd made sure they knew they were appreciated.

“Is she looking for a job?”

Scott wasn't entirely sure if Jake was kidding. “Wouldn't that be nice.”

Jake raised an eyebrow again, but said nothing.

“What? You don't have to worry about Liv, either,” Scott said. “She's only here for a few weeks. I couldn't do any damage if I tried.”

That sounded dangerously close to self-pity, so he lifted his mug again.

“Mandy says you and Liv both graduated the same year she did,” Jake said. “Is this the first time you've seen her since high school?”

“Just about. I must have seen her at Rachel's wedding, but . . .” He didn't remember much about that day. He'd been in the middle of a fight with Angie, who'd been one of Rachel's bridesmaids. And Liv, being Liv, had probably taken the next flight back to that business of hers in Texas.

“The thing is,” Scott said slowly, “there are two kinds of people in Tall Pine. The kind who never want to leave, and the kind who can't wait to grow up and get out of town. I'm the first kind. Liv's the second.”

Definitely
veering into self-pity. He took another drink of the warming chocolate to shut himself up.

“There's a third kind,” Jake said suddenly. “People who come here for the first time, and find out it's home.” He frowned. “I sound like a greeting card.” Jake tilted his mug forward and studied its remaining contents. “What's
in
this stuff, anyway?”

Scott took a whiff of his own nearly empty drink. He smelled only rich chocolate, and maybe some cinnamon. He did feel more mellow, but surely . . . “Mandy wouldn't do that.”

He didn't think so, anyway. But this was easily the longest conversation he'd ever had with Jake.

Scott stepped down from the tall chair and found he was steady on his feet. And now that he was on his feet, he remembered he had work to do. “Okay. Time for me to go.”

Jake stood, too. “We're good, then?”

Scott nodded. “We're good.”

As he walked out to his truck, he felt perfectly fine. But just to be sure, before he climbed inside, he tipped his head back, extended his arms and touched the tip of his nose with each index finger. He was sober, all right.

And, as he'd always reluctantly suspected, Jake Wyndham was a decent guy.

* * *

Jake drained the last of his hot chocolate and carried the mugs to the kitchen.

Mandy's cocoa really was the best he'd ever tasted. The flavor might be a little different today—if anything, maybe even better than usual.

In the kitchen, he found her wiping down counters. Jake held up his empty mug. “Mandy, what was in this?”

Eyeing the mugs, she flushed. “You caught me.”

Jake stared at her in mild alarm. “Are you serious? We're not licensed to serve alcohol.”

Mandy raised her eyebrows. “Are
you
serious? I just meant, I put in some ground cloves this time.”

He peered into his mug again and saw a few dark grains. But then, Mandy always put in some cinnamon.

“I've been playing with the recipe,” she went on. “I didn't want to make it like a chai, exactly. Just a little richer. Too much?”

He frowned. “So there's really no alcohol in it?”

“Of course not. Why?”

Jake leaned against the counter. “Well, you told us to sit down and make up, and darned if we didn't.”

Her blue eyes shimmered with amusement. “You made up with Scotty, so you thought I got you two liquored up?”

“It's hard to explain.” He loaded the mugs into the dishwasher and gave her a wry grin. “But maybe you ought to lay off the cloves for now. And maybe . . . we ought to keep an eye on the people we serve hot chocolate to. If they're not getting along—I know it's crazy, but I think the cocoa might make a difference.”

When you married a woman who'd seen Santa Claus, Jake had discovered, you learned to expect unexplained things. Like the first Christmas they were married. At the crack of dawn, he woke up and realized he'd forgotten all about Mandy's stocking. Pretty embarrassing, especially since her present to him the year before was a stocking she'd needlepointed herself. Nevertheless, that morning, her stocking had been filled with an orange to round out the toe, peppermints, chocolates, even a gingerbread man.

He didn't think she'd done it herself. He'd just never had the nerve to ask.

“Jake,” Mandy said, “that's silly. I thought
I
was supposed to be the one with the vivid imagination.”

“Sue me.” He crossed the room and folded his arms around her, relishing the easy, warm way she fit against him. “After all, you're the one who got me believing things I never thought I'd believe in.”

Chapter 13

Liv, Rachel, and Mom couldn't face the task of boxing up Nammy's clothing, so they asked Rachel's husband to do it.

The three of them took a quick look in the closet and dresser drawers of the master bedroom, and that was hard enough. Clothing was so personal. It wasn't as if any of them could really wear any of Nammy's old outfits, but nearly every article brought back a memory. Mom saved a crocheted scarf, and that was all any of them could manage before turning the job over to Brian.

While he worked, the three of them put their energy into the seldom-used guest room down the hall, where most of the items didn't hold any personal memories. They'd boxed up most of the room inside of half an hour when Brian appeared in the doorway.

“Done,” he said, and Rachel went to him with a grateful hug.

If the chore was hard on Brian, he didn't show it, but it probably would have been hard to tell. Tall, sturdy, and blond, he'd been patient and uncomplaining these past couple of days—the textbook illustration for strong-and-silent. His support of Rachel was palpable, but Liv wondered if her sister ever got starved for dialogue.

One arm still around Rachel, Brian nodded at the new stack of boxes. “Want me to take those out to the living room?”

“All but the one in front of the closet.” Rachel nodded toward an open box on the floor, still half-empty. Brian scooped up the other two and carried them toward the living room.

They emptied the closet in short order and had the last box ready a few minutes after Brian returned. They accompanied him out to the living room, where he added the box to the to-go pile. It had grown substantially in the last couple of days. Except for the barely touched living room with all its furniture, the house was looking less and less like Nammy's. It had to be done, but it hurt.

Faye eased into one of the living room armchairs, this time without any prodding from Liv or Rachel, and propped her foot on the ottoman in front of the seat. She was showing more fatigue today, and Liv was struck once again by the amount of gray hair her mom had picked up over the last few years.

Liv leaned against the arm of Mom's chair, not quite sitting on it, but close. “Tired?”

“A little.”

Rachel perched on the other arm of Mom's chair. “You can have another painkiller, you know. Dr. Melendez said that's what they're for.”

“Then I'd be tired
and
groggy.”

Brian stood by, waiting for more orders. Liv thought clearing Nammy's closet had probably been easier for him than it would have been for Scotty. Brian had known her, but as far as Liv knew, Nammy had never had a chance to feed him soup.

She missed Scott.

The thought came out of nowhere and hit her right in the solar plexus. She missed Scott, not just for the bazillion ways he'd helped them, but for his warm, steadying presence. The way he had of lightening the mood. The way he looked at her, his eyes turning serious at moments when she least expected it.

Yep, it was a good thing she had a break from him. She couldn't afford to get used to having him around. She'd see him Tuesday, when they'd get together to clear the attic.

That was still two days away.

Brian surveyed the living room. “Have you decided what to do with the furniture yet?”

“We're leaving that for last,” Mom said. “There might be a couple of pieces I'll keep, and the girls are welcome to anything they want. After that, I think we'll start showing the house with the furniture in it. A lived-in look might be nice. And the buyers can decide what they want to keep.”

“The boxes are piling up,” Brian said. “Do you guys know anyone with a truck?”

“We gave him the weekend off,” Liv said, too quickly to be nonchalant.

* * *

Monday saw Brian headed back down to San Diego for his next standby shift, thanking Liv for their two nights at The Snowed Inn. Sunday night, Brian and Rachel had shared the double bed in Mom's guest room, while Liv tangled herself up in a pretzel twist on the torture-couch.

And Tuesday, Liv went to Nammy's house on her own to wait for Scotty and the heater expert.

“Wow,” Scott said when he stepped into the living room. “You guys have really been at it.”

The living room still had all its furniture, but the stacks of boxes had grown monumentally. Liv suspected they'd need to weed more things out of the to-keep pile before it was over, but they'd cross that bridge when they got to it. Just beyond the living room, the kitchen was all but gutted, leaving nothing but the old Shaker table and the refrigerator. Nammy had never seen the need for a dishwasher.

“It's starting to echo,” she said as they walked into the kitchen. The heels of her boots clattered on the floor.

“Boots?” Scotty said.

“They're comfortable,” Liv said defensively. “And warm.” And they had heels.

“Speaking of warm, any trouble with the heater this weekend?”

“Come to think of it, no. But it was warmer this weekend. We didn't need it much.” She crossed the floor to the hallway and looked up at the recessed door, clearly framed, in the ceiling. “So, there's the door to the attic,” she said. “How do we get up there?”

Scott went out to the garage. Moments later, he returned with a stepladder, grinning in satisfaction. “Right where I left it last time.”

Liv's mom's house had a crawlspace, too; the door leading up into it was a similar recess in the ceiling. As a little girl, she'd begged to see inside, and her father had finally caved in. He'd stood on the two-foot kitchen stepladder and pushed the rectangular slab that served as a door up into the crawlspace. Then he'd held Liv on his shoulders, and she'd poked her head up through the opening. She didn't remember what she'd expected—probably hidden treasure—but she'd been disappointed to see a small, dark area about three feet high. Her father's flashlight had revealed nothing but raw wooden beams, insulation, plenty of dust and, undoubtedly, spider webs. It hadn't been long before she asked him to set her down.

He'd offered Rachel a look, too, probably trying to avoid having to go through the same process again in the future. But for four-year-old Rachel, her big sister's disappointed and slightly repulsed reaction was apparently enough to end her curiosity.

Her family had never stored anything in the attic because her father said it was a firetrap. Nammy's attic must offer a little more space than that.

“Will we actually be able to fit up there?” Liv asked as Scotty climbed the ladder.

“You'll see.” Scott pushed up at the trap door. “It's not exactly roomy, but—”

He shoved upward again. After several seconds of resistance, the door flung up into the ceiling, accompanied by crackling noises, a shower of dust and other unidentified particles.

Then it slammed back down. Liv jumped involuntarily.

“Oh, right.” Apparently unperturbed by the dust that now sprinkled his head and shoulders, Scott pushed the door up again. This time it didn't resist as much. He climbed the ladder ahead of her and held the trap door open. Liv started up after him. Near the top, she paused and waited as Scott, now on his knees in the attic, slid a box in front of the door to hold it in place.

“I forgot that,” he said. “It's on hinges, and it won't stay up by itself. It goes up to ninety degrees and stops.”

“Weird.” Liv resumed her climb, accepting Scott's hand to bring her the rest of the way in as she stepped onto the floor of the dimly lit attic.

“Watch your head.”

He said it just in time. Except for a neighbor kid's tree house, she'd never come so close to hitting her head on a ceiling before. She stood slowly, knees bent, as Scott's hand steadied her. The room was about five feet high.

“Thanks.” Once she'd stopped flailing for balance, she let go of Scott's hand. “Who on earth makes a room
almost
tall enough to stand up in?”

“Maybe people were shorter before World War II.”

“It's that old?”

“I'm not sure. That's what Nammy told me. She said it's one of the oldest houses in Tall Pine. I do know she and your grandfather weren't the first people who lived here.”

Liv surveyed her dusty new world. They'd actually entered near the tallest part of the attic. The ceiling slanted downward, matching the angle of the roof outside. The lowest point was probably about three feet high. Near the top of another wall, a short, wide window let in the dim sunshine. Dust motes flittered aimlessly in the air where the direct sun came in. And half a dozen boxes littered the aging wooden floor, away from the walls, probably to spare their contents the worst of the temperature extremes outside.

Stepping away from the trap door, Liv found a higher section of the ceiling. If she stayed right here and didn't move, she could actually stand up straight. Scotty wouldn't have that luxury.

She brushed her hands against her jeans, already feeling as if she were absorbing the dust. “So,” she said, “let's get started.”

* * *

Liv found her prime directive, the color wheel, in its original box from the manufacturer. She set it near the trap door. It would be the first thing down. What remained to be seen was whether any of Nammy's other stored items would be worth keeping.

So far, every box should have been labeled
Miscellaneous
.

“Another jar candle,” Scott reported, holding up the fourth one.

“What flavor is this one?”

He squinted at the label. “Vanilla.”

“I wonder why so many.”

“They're all the same size, and they look like the same manufacturer. I'll bet these are the ones the kids from school sell door to door, along with magazine subscriptions and peanut brittle.”

Liz made a face. “Definitely the most useful choice out of that group.”

“What do you mean? I always buy the peanut brittle. I
love
peanut brittle.”

“That takes care of my Christmas shopping for you, then.”

Being with Scott, even in this tight space, was starting to feel almost normal. It looked like they'd put the discomfiture of last week behind them, and for that, Liv was grateful. She couldn't fight the urge to keep chattering, though. As if another uncomfortable moment was waiting behind the next silence.

“Dishes,” Liv said. “Here's a whole set of dishes, still in the box they came in.”

“She already
had
a set of dishes.”

Liv studied the picture on the box. “Pretty pattern.” But obviously, she'd never used them. “I wonder if she was starting to get a little of that hoarder gene.”

“Doesn't sound like her.”

“And the rest of the house didn't look like it.” Except for those decorating supplies. Liv brushed the troublesome thought aside. Nammy had been eighty-three, after all, and if she'd had a couple of eccentricities near the end, they'd certainly been mild ones.

From down below, the doorbell rang. Scotty half rose and edged his way to the trap door. “That must be our guy. Want to come down with me?”

“Do you mind going ahead, and letting me know when he's ready to give me the results? I'll be more use up here for now.”

While Scott was gone, Liv continued sorting. As she worked, she heard the heater click off; several minutes later, there was the familiar preliminary click, followed by the sound of the unit kicking back on again. The process repeated a few more times while Scott was gone. As the heat rose into the attic, she started to wish she'd worn something other than a sweatshirt, or that she'd worn something lighter underneath so she could shed the warm layer. This was turning into one of those perverse December days in California when it felt more like spring than winter.

Half an hour later, Scott's head poked back up through the rectangular trap door. Somehow, Liv wasn't surprised by the news: “He can't find anything wrong, either.”

“Just like a car. It won't act up in front of the repairman.”

Liv followed Scott down the ladder. Down in the hallway, she met a khaki-shirted man with the name
Russ
stitched over his pocket.

“Congratulations,” he said. “You've got me stumped. I couldn't get it
not
to come on.”

“What do we do?” Liv asked.

“For right now, keep track of it. If it keeps acting up, do me a favor and write down the days and times. I'm going to talk to corporate and see if they'll offer a replacement if it keeps happening. I should have an answer by the end of the week.” He held out a business card to her.

“Thanks.” Liv took the business card and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans.

When Russ-the-repairman left, they climbed back into the attic. Liv contemplated the mini-mound of boxes. They'd gotten about halfway through. She turned to Scott. “You know, you don't need to stay for all of this, if you've got something else to work on—” Why did she say
if
? Surely he had somewhere else to be.

Scott shook his head. “A bigger name on the other line? Nah. Besides, I don't want to find out tomorrow you took a spill when no one was around.”

“What if I knock you down the ladder and we
both
take a spill?”

“Let's don't do that.”

She was starting to give up arguing with him. And as the afternoon wore on, she didn't know if going through things with Scott was actually faster, but it was easier.

“Now, here's something you don't see every day.” Scott held up a white ceramic cow's head, about the size of an orange, obviously designed to be mounted on a wall. Straight-faced, he said, “I hope I'm not treading on a sacred cow.”