We Need a Little Christmas (18 page)

She didn't remember.

He'd been Tall Pine High's star hitter, with a pretty decent throwing arm in the bargain. His coach had urged Scott to try out for the minor leagues, but he hadn't been interested. Playing against Mount Douglas—and kidnapping their goose—was as competitive as he got. He knew the professional sports world was intense, maybe even cutthroat. The idea of leaving Tall Pine, traveling across the country to compete, hadn't interested him on anything but a fantasy level. He just liked hitting the ball.

He wasn't that competitive. Which, he supposed, was why Liv was in Dallas, and he was still in Tall Pine.

He sent every one of the machine-pitched balls soaring, wishing he could at least get the satisfaction of wearing his muscles out. The way he felt right now, he'd need another couple of hours to do that.

Coming here to the cages was usually a good way to vent his frustrations, if he had any. Mostly he just enjoyed keeping his swing in shape. Liv probably wouldn't understand that.

And that remark of hers about the other women he'd dated—

The light on the machine went out, and Scott reloaded the tokens quickly, before time ran out and the place shut down.

Liv's comment bothered him so much he should probably think about it, but it felt wrong. All wrong. The other breakups had left him scuffed and bruised, but not mortally wounded. This was something else. It wasn't even over, had never even really started, and he felt like hell.

Scott would finish the job on Nammy's house. Liv's mother would pay him with a check he didn't even want. Then Liv would get on a plane, and that would be that.

Two intense kissing sessions. Not even one date. And Liv Tomblyn was breaking his heart.

Chapter 19

Liv woke up feeling as if she'd been run over by a whole convoy of buses. When she opened her eyes, the room looked faintly gray. What was it, five in the morning?

Propping herself up on her elbow, she checked the digital clock on the night table on the far side of the bed. Usually she had to look over Rachel's head to see the time. Today, only a pile of squashed pillows rested between Liv and the clock. It read eight forty-five.

That startled her into sitting fully upright. It was two hours later in Dallas. Terri would be waiting to hear from her. And Liv didn't know what to say.

She'd sent Terri a quick text on the way to the batting cages:
Got your message. I'm sorry for the mess. My brain is processing. I'll call you tomorrow and we'll figure things out.

In Liv's world, “processing” now apparently meant hitting one fly ball, kissing Scotty Leroux, and running for the hills. Again.

Liv scrubbed her fingers over her sandy eyes and willed herself to concentrate. Things were supposed to look clearer in the morning. But all she could see was the same thing she'd seen, on and off, all night long while she tossed: Scott's eyes under the artificial lights at the batting cages, with their changing expressions of warmth, teasing—and, finally, blue frost.

It hurt, all the way down to the pit of her stomach. She kept coming back for a taste of something she knew she couldn't have. It just wasn't possible.

Melt into Scott's arms, for a little while. Stop being strong, for just a moment. But then, the inevitable tearing-away process when she pulled away to stand up straight again. It wasn't good for either one of them.

She wiped at her eyes again, alarmed because this time they felt wet instead of gritty.

This wouldn't do. Where was her cell phone?

The bedroom doorknob turned. Liv jumped at the sound, her heart racing as if she'd gotten caught naked in Dillards' display window.

“Hey, Rip van Winkle.” Rachel came in, obscenely perky, in an oversized blue sweater and navy leggings. For the first time since Liv's arrival in Tall Pine, Rachel was fully dressed while Liv was still in bed. “I came in to see if you died.”

“Just woke up.” Liv turned her head away as she slid out of bed, hoping her red eyes hadn't registered with her relentlessly chipper sister. She spotted the red metal glint of her cell phone on the floor next to the old dresser that served as Liv's nightstand. She picked it up. The battery was still half full. But no new messages.

“You were restless last night,” Rachel said. “It was like sleeping on board the
SS Poseidon
.”

“Welcome to my world.” Liv knew she'd been tossing, but she was surprised her sister knew it, as much as Rachel had been snoring.

“I know something that'll make you feel better.”

“A Christmas cookie?”

Rachel didn't answer. Liv turned to see her sister pulling back the curtains of the bedroom window. Watery daylight filtered into the room.

Liv joined Rachel at the window and beheld a world of soft gray and white.

That
was why it looked like five
AM
in here. It had snowed overnight, and it was still trying, pale flakes drifting lazily to rest on the juniper hedges in front of the window.

“I didn't want you to miss it,” Rachel said.

Liv drank in the sight of the white coating that covered the back lawn. The first snowfall since Nammy's memorial. To most people in Tall Pine, snow meant an increase in tourist traffic. To a few, it meant a commuter's nightmare. To local kids—and adults who hadn't outgrown it—it meant beauty and wonder.

Liv found she hadn't outgrown it.

“I want to hear it.” Liv lifted the window sash, letting in a cold blast of air that her T-shirt nightie was no match for. She listened to the whisper of snow falling on snow.

Nothing like this in Dallas, is there?
Scott's words from a couple of weeks ago echoed in her mind. She steeled herself. Then her teeth started to chatter.

“Okay, that's enough.” She closed the window. “Before we die of frostbite.”

“I was thinking maybe we could take a walk in it.”

Liv looked at Rachel and saw two people: the little girl she'd once been, and the pregnant grown woman who stood before her now. A grown woman who might have a hunch that the snow was just what Liv needed. Liv hadn't said much to Mom and Rachel when she got home from the batting cages, declining a cup of hot chocolate and heading straight to bed.

Maybe the kid in Rachel just wanted to go out in the snow, or maybe the adult in her wanted to give Liv a chance to talk. Maybe the teenager, somewhere in between, was waiting for a chance to pounce with questions before she exploded.

It didn't matter. Liv loved them all.

She cracked a smile. “Give me twenty minutes. First I've got a phone call to make.”

* * *

“I'm sorry,” Terri said. “I should have told you before. I've been trying to reach Kevin since the first, and when I finally got hold of him . . .”

“He weaseled out,” Liv finished for her. “I don't know why you're apologizing to me. I'm the one he suckered into this whole storefront thing in the first place.”

“It hasn't exactly paid for itself.” Terri had left that unsaid the entire time they'd had the lease. The physical location had brought an increase in business, to be sure, but not enough to compensate for the increase in overhead.
Give it time
, Kevin had said.
You have to take the long view
. Worm.

Sitting on the bed, legal pad propped up on her knees, Liv pressed the fingertips of one hand above her jaw, willing the pressure to help take away some of the tension. Her sketchy night of sleep wasn't helping her concentrate. So far the legal pad was blank except for aimless black scribbles.

“What we need to do,” Liv said slowly, through the ache in her jaw, “is figure out where we go from here. Whether it makes more sense to keep the lease till it runs out, or walk away from it now. Have you asked what it would cost to get out of the lease?”

“No, I didn't want to talk to the landlord until I talked to you.” Terri paused, and Liv heard the weight of something unsaid on the other end of the line. “There's something else.”

Liv tried for dry humor. “What? If a tornado hit the building, our troubles could be over.”

“Nothing like that.” It wasn't like Terri to stall, or to be indirect. “That event planner we did the home office for last month? She offered me a job.”

Terri wasn't telling her this because the client had paid her a nice compliment. Liv gulped. “It must be a pretty good offer?”

“The money's decent,” Terri said. “And it's a regular paycheck. I wouldn't be thinking about it, except now—”

Liv nodded, though Terri couldn't see her. “The variable income thing is tough. I know. We've made it work for five years, but . . .”

Terri didn't elaborate. “I said I'd think about it. I don't want to leave you in the lurch. But since we need to rethink, I guess I thought I'd throw it out there. See how you felt. In case you might be ready for a change . . .”

With one hand, Liv pressed her temple as hard as she could. With the other hand, it was all she could do to hold on to the phone. “Let's both think about it,” she said, her mouth dry.

“It's just one option,” Terri agreed hastily.

She'd worked with Terri for five years, been friends in college for the four years before that. Terri wasn't a weasel-worm like Kevin. And if Liv demanded that she stick it out, at least for the duration of the lease, she was pretty sure Terri would do it.

What Liv
should
do was let her go with no argument. But she wasn't ready to say the words just yet. Her mind was too much of an avalanche to make a permanent decision.

The part of her brain that was so good at sorting, sifting, and deciding hadn't been much use to her since she'd been in Tall Pine.

“Let's talk again in a few days,” Liv finally said. “Give ourselves some time to chew it over some more. And Terri?”

“What?”

“Thanks for taking this all on this month. I picked a heck of a time to leave, and I had no idea what a hassle I was leaving you with.”

“Honey, it was your
grandmother
. It was what you needed to do.”

When Liv hung up, one decision was already made. She wouldn't force Terri to stick around. She had to let her go, with her blessing.

She grabbed Rachel's pillow, hugged it to her, and pulled her knees to her chest. Eyes closed, face scrunched into the pillow, she made herself breathe slowly and deeply.

Everything was falling apart. This wasn't a batting-cages moment. This was a curl-up-and-eat-chocolate moment.

By now Scott was at Nammy's house, starting the day's work, undoubtedly not surprised that she hadn't shown up. It was five days till Christmas. At the moment she could think of only two options.

Pull the covers back over her head. Or go out there, grab some toast, and take a walk in the snow with her sister.

* * *

Scott didn't make it to Olivia Neuenschwander's house until nearly ten o'clock, stopping along the way to shovel the front walkways of a few of the older people in town. Millie Bond. Stan and Emma Fratelli. His uncle, Winston Frazier, although Scott knew Winston would be insulted if he caught him.

Thankfully, the unexpected snow hadn't resulted in any more frozen pipes. Otherwise his voice mail would have been going crazy.

No, it was less than a week before Christmas, and for most people, home repairs could wait unless they were an emergency. The perfect time frame to finish up on Nammy's house. And he knew he'd be doing it alone.

He sighed as the chilly living room greeted him. He flipped the thermostat up to a hardy sixty-two degrees and set up shop in the living room. By the time he'd pushed the furniture to the center of the living room and put down the drop cloth, he'd warmed up a bit. But it was still probably about forty degrees in here. And he hadn't heard the heater click on.

Scott sighed and went into the belly of the beast: the garage, where the heater lived. He switched the unit off, waited for a ten count, then flipped it back on.

He went back inside and set up the ladder.
Work from the top down, always. Period. Don't argue.

The heater still didn't click on.

Back to the garage. The behemoth sat stone cold. Scott switched it off and counted off a full sixty seconds. Then, just to be sure, he counted off sixty more. Then he switched the heater back on.

And waited for the click that didn't come.

Up to now, his Captain Obvious method had always worked. Not today.

He stared at the heater with his arms crossed over his chest. “Are you serious?”

It wasn't the first time he'd spoken to an inanimate object. But it was the first time he'd halfway hoped to get an answer.

The heater had behaved perfectly for the past few days. While he and Liv were working amicably together on the house. The correlation was hard to ignore, much as he wanted to.

“What do you want from me?” he demanded.

But of course, the heater couldn't answer him. Neither could the house. And any other explanation was even more ridiculous. It was time to stop fooling around.

Liv had the business card from the heater rep, but he had the manufacturer's number in the call log of his cell phone. And if Faye Tomblyn wanted to sell this house, it needed to be taken care of.

He got into his truck and headed to the corner in front of Coffman's Hardware.

* * *

Liv and Rachel walked side by side in the gray quiet. The snow was too fresh and soft to make much noise under their feet, and Liv almost hated to break up the pure, smooth whiteness as they walked down the street. The scattered snowflakes, the mist from their breath, and the cold air brought Liv a kind of Zen feeling, at least for moments at a time. Every few steps brought back a thought of Scott, or the business, or Terri, but a deep breath was enough to shrivel the inside of her nose and shock her back to the present moment.

“Is it hard to go back to San Diego?” Liv asked suddenly, surprised by the sound of her own voice.

“It was at first,” Rachel admitted. “But it's home now. It's where Brian's job is. And I always know I'll be back here before too long. I'll probably come up here less, once the baby's born.”

“Maybe Mom will make a few trips to San Diego.”

“Oh, she's planning on it.” Rachel laughed. “She's always telling me how fast babies grow. She doesn't want to miss it.”

Before Liv went out in the snow with Rachel, Mom had handed her an English muffin with a tomato slice on top. Another favorite of Nammy's, from her childhood back in Minnesota, if Liv remembered right. And prepared rather capably, as Mom rounded the kitchen on just one crutch. Gray hair or no gray hair, she was definitely on the mend.

Up at the end of the street, three kids scurried in their yard, gathering up material for a snowman. Their bright hats and scarves stood out against the monochrome landscape. It reminded Liv of a Christmas card.

“You're lucky,” she told Rachel.

“Why?”

“If it wasn't for your delicate condition, I'd be looking for a chance to belt you with a snowball.”

Rachel's gray eyes glimmered. “You wouldn't dare.”

The street took an uphill slant, and Liv felt a little out of breath, working against both the incline and the fresh snow. She ought to get more exercise. She paused as they reached the next corner. “One more block, or turn back around?”