We Need a Little Christmas (6 page)

Liv wrapped her arms more tightly around herself—not just against the cold this time, but a strange, niggling feeling she couldn't put a name to. Except that Scotty had been here—for Nammy and maybe for the rest of her family, too—when she hadn't.

She shouldn't hold that against him. Holding it against herself... that was a different matter.

* * *

When you were six-foot-five and wore size fourteen shoes, sometimes it was hard not to stumble into the wrong spot. So Scott did his best to tread lightly when he came back into the roomful of women.

They were huddled around the kitchen table, as if for warmth. Liv was still standing, and his eyes went down to her shoes. Sneakers today. Patterned with blue roses.

“I think I got it going,” he said.

Faye Tomblyn nodded. “I heard the click.”

From overhead, Scott felt the initial rush of air from a vent in the ceiling, cold against the back of his neck. It would take a minute or two for the chilly air to clear out of the ducts; longer than that before the house felt habitable.

“It might be a good idea for me to wait a few minutes and make sure the heater keeps behaving itself,” he said. “Do you have anything ready for me to take out? For donations or anything?”

He hated to ask, but after all, that was what they were there for.

“There's a stack over here,” Liv said.

Arms folded, back straight, she led him toward a modest-size pile of boxes near the front door. Of course, they'd barely started. They'd been working just long enough to give the always-orderly home the disheveled look of a house where someone was moving in or out. A heck of away to spend the Christmas season.

Scott loaded the boxes into the back of his truck, waving off Liv's offer to help. Three women, one of them pregnant, the other one on crutches—no wonder they'd hardly made any headway.

By the time he finished transferring the boxes, Liv and Rachel were boxing up dishes from the cabinet, embroiled in what sounded like a series of momentous decisions over coffee mugs. He wondered how and when they were going to deal with the furniture, but decided this wouldn't be a good time to bring it up.

Instead, he nodded at two stray boxes in the dining room near Faye's feet. “What about those?”

Glances between the women bounced around the room like an unleashed ping-pong ball.

“They're Christmas trees,” Rachel said, looking uncertainly from Liv to her mom, and Scott could feel emotional undercurrents as surely as the warmish air that was beginning to spread its way through the house.

Women were always filled with undercurrents—unspoken thoughts that Scott had spent the past several years of his adult life trying to keep up with. Take those currents, multiply by three, then add in the grief over losing Nammy and the stress of sorting through her belongings. It was the perfect storm.

Nammy had been free of undercurrents, as far as he could tell. What you saw was what you got. Did women have to live that long to get rid of all those complex, unspoken nuances? It seemed like a waste of time to him.

While Scott waited for a judgment call, he noticed that Faye and Rachel's eyes had landed on Liv, as if they'd elected her their new, unofficial team captain.

“Okay.” Liv closed her eyes. “Let's think about this. A Christmas tree spends eleven months out of the year boxed up in a closet . . . and you already have one, right, Mom?”

Faye nodded.

“Rachel?”

Rachel bit her lip. “Brian likes getting fresh ones.”

“Okay. And I don't need one either. We can donate the green one, all right?”

Two nods. What other colors did Christmas trees come in? He supposed he'd seen some trees flocked with fake snow, but . . .

Liv nodded toward the older, blue-and-white box on the floor. “Now, what about the silver tree?”

A thick silence fell, and Scott did his best not to move.

“Well, I can pass,” Faye said. “Do either of you girls want it?”

“Rachel?” Liv prompted gently.

Rachel slowly shook her head. “I guess not.”

Liv sighed, and Scott thought he saw her shoulders drop as she bent to pick up the box, preparing to carry it to the door.

“I can get that,” he said, taking it from Liv as she straightened.

It weighed practically nothing. Strange, for something that seemed to be a topic of such heavy debate. But then he realized she hadn't completely let go of the box, and something was swirling in her hazel eyes as they locked with his. Not as simple as tears; he'd seen signs of those yesterday.

If this house was the perfect storm of female turmoil, Liv was the epicenter. Liv, with her straight posture, practical thinking, and determination to get this job done.

They stood facing each other, supporting opposite sides of the long cardboard box. Liv didn't want to let it go, and Scott held on to his end as if, by doing so, he could help to hold her up. He didn't want to sway her and make what was obviously a hard decision harder. Then inspiration struck.

“I have an idea,” he said. “There's a new little Christmas hotel in town. It just opened over the summer, and they're trying to put a tree in every room. Last I heard, they were still taking donations. I'll bet they could use these trees. That way you'd know someone was enjoying them.”

Liv's lips quirked up a little. “A Christmas hotel?”

It was as close to a smile as he'd seen on her today, and some of that cloudy look seemed to clear from her eyes.

Liv's mom said, “It's really cute.”

Liv turned toward her mother, her lips widening into a definite smile. “And what are
you
doing hanging out at hotels, Mom?”

She'd loosened her hold on the box; Scott set it down, gently, on top of the box that held the green artificial tree.

“They had a big grand opening this summer,” Rachel chimed in. “Brian and I went there with Mom and Nammy. It was kind of a big deal around here.”

“A Christmas hotel that opens in the summer?”

“It's a long story,” Scott said. “But it's pretty cool.”

“You really ought to see it,” Rachel said.

And just like that, for some reason, his big old feet blundered ahead, probably straight into his mouth. “Want to see it now? You could ride along while I drop the trees off.”

Rachel and Faye looked at Scott; Liv looked at her mom and sister.

“Go ahead,” Faye said. “We'll wait here.”

“I shouldn't leave you guys,” Liv said, but Scott didn't hear any conviction.

“No, you should go,” Rachel said. “It's adorable.”

Liv cast her eyes around the room, and that invisible weight seemed to return to her shoulders. “We've got so much to do.”

“No, go,” Rachel said again. “We're good. The house is warming up, and we've got that pasta salad we brought from the memorial.” She grinned. “We won't work too hard while you're gone.”

Liv's shoulders relaxed a little, and Scott knew the battle was won.

Chapter 6

What had he been thinking? Scott wondered.

Once again, Liv sat in the passenger seat beside him, long hair cascading down her shoulders, a faraway look in her eyes. But he'd had the feeling Liv needed to get out of that house for a while, and the weakness of her protests had confirmed it.

He only knew one way to deal with it. The way he dealt with most things in his life: try to lighten the mood.

He broke the silence. “So, did you find any gold bricks yet?”

Liv turned from her weighty contemplation of Evergreen Lane. He wasn't sure she was really seeing anything outside her window. “What?”

“I was just thinking, with the amount of time Nammy lived there, you could run across just about anything in that house. Like buried treasure, or . . .” He trailed off. “Sorry. Lame joke.”

Liv answered as if she hadn't heard him. “You really don't have time for this,” she said. “We really appreciate everything you're doing. Be sure to let us know what we owe you.”

“It's not about money. You know that.”

He got the feeling Liv would have been more comfortable if it
were
about money. Something that clearly delineated what she owed him. One thing about her that clearly hadn't changed: she was an orderly, organized, list-making kind of gal. She probably didn't like balances left outstanding.

What this
was
about, Scott wasn't sure anymore.

Helping Faye and Rachel by picking Liv up at the airport was a no-brainer. It was what neighbors did for each other, and the fact that they were related to Olivia made the decision even more clear-cut.

Liv . . . not so clear-cut.

She was a complicated mixture of vulnerable and resolutely self-reliant. He couldn't tell which side tugged at him harder. He did have a soft spot for vulnerable women. But the way she'd taken over yesterday's kitchen crisis—that had been impressive. Even so, he'd caught that glimpse of the vulnerable girl trembling under the weight of it.

This morning, with her tousled hair and oversized college sweatshirt, it was obvious she hadn't expected anyone besides her mom and sister to see her today. She looked tired, distracted, and frazzled. And gorgeous. Probably even more so today than yesterday, because she wasn't even trying.

“Seriously,” Liv was saying. “We're cutting into your time.”

He waved her off. “Forget it. You know how things work around here. Next time I'm in a pinch, I'll hit your family up for . . . I don't know, a casserole or something.”

That got a smile out of her.

“You want casseroles?” she said. “We've got casseroles. Mom's fridge is full of them. She says people were bringing them in all week. Then last night, we spent an hour trying to fit in a bunch of leftover side dishes from the potluck. It was like a jigsaw puzzle.”

Scott remembered. By the time he pulled Rachel's car up to the front of the church last night, several women had caught up to the three women to offer them a small arsenal of casserole dishes and Tupperware containers. Liv and her family had been visibly weary, but gracious, as the well-wishers loaded down the backseat.

After a moment of silent contemplation, Liv said, “I shouldn't have left them at Nammy's like that.”

“You know something? I think they knew you needed a break.”

“We just barely started, and there's so much . . .”

“Know something else? I think they needed a break, too. Unless they were just really dying to get into that potato salad.”

“Pasta salad.”

Whichever. “It's a lot to take on, Liv. It's okay to pace yourself.”

“It needs to be done.”

“I get that. But remember, your grandmother's memorial was
yesterday
.”

She looked out the window again. “You think I'm pushing too much?”

Scott fingered the steering wheel. He wasn't trying to be hard on her. Just the opposite. “I think you're pushing
yourself
too much. Just remember, you're only human. And the first day is probably going to be the hardest. I imagine it'll get a little easier as you go.”

“At least Rachel balances me out a little bit. She's so supportive with Mom.”

At the word
supportive
, Scott saw the two younger women flanking their mother on the way out to the church parking lot, ready to steady her at the first wobble.

“You don't have any brothers or sisters, do you?” Liv asked.

“Nope. My folks decided to quit while they were ahead.”

She sent him a puzzled frown.

“I was a hard act to follow,” he said. “I think my mom's exact words were, ‘Never again.'”

That surprised a laugh out of her. Good.

“I weighed eleven and a half pounds,” he said. “And when I started walking and talking, I was even
more
trouble.”

He felt her eyes on him. “When did you outgrow it?”

“Who says I did?
Outgrow
implies that somewhere along the line I grew up.”

She was still studying him, he was sure of it. Then again, it was easy to get convinced someone was staring at you when you were trying so hard not to look at them. He was afraid she was going to say something embarrassingly serious.

Instead, she said, “I remember the senior prank.”

Good. He was used to defending himself on that one. “It wasn't just me,” he protested. “The other guys just . . . left me holding the goose.”

While the other seniors were doing something innocuous like toilet-papering houses, Scott and a couple of his friends had been thinking big. And talking bigger. So they'd kidnapped the rival school mascot, the goose of Mount Douglas High.

And ended up setting it free.

“It wasn't my fault,” he protested. “When we got it back to Tall Pine High, we were going to put it in the principal's office. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.”

Liv started to laugh.

“But when we got into the principal's office and opened the cage, that sucker fluttered out so fast, right for the door, like he'd been waiting for that moment all his life . . .”

“And you didn't think to close the door behind you first?”

He slapped the steering wheel. “That was Dane's job. He had
one job
.”

She was laughing again. It felt good to hear her laugh.

“And who in the world knew the thing could really
fly
? I figured he had his wings clipped.”

She tried to get her breath. “So, you had how many accomplices?”

“Three. You'd think four guys could've handled one goose. Ron was standing lookout, fat lot of help
he
was—”

“But you were the only one who got in trouble.”

“Code of honor. I didn't name names. It was my car they picked up on the security cameras, and the picture was pretty fuzzy . . . but I was a lot taller than the other guys. It was pretty obvious.”

“The clown car. I remember.”

Six-foot-four by the time he was sixteen, and he'd picked an orange VW bug for his first car. He had to admit, it was partly the ridiculousness of the size that had won him over. It was also a car he could afford on his salary from the local burger joint—and he'd been told Volkswagen Beetles were easy to work on.

“Yep. I took the rap. They almost didn't let me walk at graduation. My folks finally talked them into letting me work it off by doing landscaping work for Mount Douglas High over the summer. But you don't know the worst of it.”

Scott glanced at her, and of course she was watching him.

He said, “People hold me personally responsible for the goose population at Prospect Lake.”

“What? There were
always
geese at that lake. One of them chased me when I was four.”

He nodded. “Still. Whenever that happens to anyone around here, they let me know one of
my
geese went after them. Now, am I wrong? You have to have at least
two
geese to make more geese. Unless I kidnapped a pregnant goose. And the Mount Douglas goose was male.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, his name was Harold, for one. And I heard they made sure to get a male goose, because who wants to hassle with the eggs?” Scott shrugged. “I did my homework. You can't say I didn't case the crime scene.”

They reached the turn onto the main highway, the one that had brought them from the airport. This time Scott continued up the mountain. The next town, Mount Douglas, was nearly an hour away.

“How far is it?” Liv asked. “I don't want to be gone too long.”

He sensed a little tension returning as she twisted in her seat, as if to look back at the responsibilities she was leaving behind.

“It's not much farther.” He slid a glance her way, enjoying her puzzlement and the slight element of mystery.

They were leaving Tall Pine proper behind, as the businesses alongside the highway grew farther apart. They passed a lumber yard, an ancient gas station, and the town's one and only car dealership. Then, open fields on either side of them. Last night's snow, still pristine and unbroken, shimmered in the late morning light. Scott squinted, wishing he'd brought his sunglasses.

Liv showed a fresh interest in the world outside her window. She blinked against the bright glitter of sun on the snow. “Wow.”

“Nothing like this in Dallas, is there?”

The atmosphere in the cab of the truck shifted again with a new silence from Liv.

Women. It was too easy to say the wrong thing.
Give her another fifty years
, he thought.

A moment later a large sign with an arrow showed up on the right, marking a turn that otherwise would have been easy to miss. Fashioned from rustic wood— pine, what else?—it looked as if someone had already gotten out here to brush away any snowfall that might have obscured the letters last night.

“‘The Snowed Inn?'” Liv let out a laugh that was half a groan.

He could really get used to hearing that laugh.

“Not my idea,” he said. “That's one bad joke you can't blame me for.”

From the sign that marked the turn, it was just a few hundred yards to the inn itself—a long two-story building reminiscent of a ranch house or a ski lodge. It was flanked by pine trees that, ironically, had needed to be transplanted to the spot. Before that, the land had been a large vacant field. Scott watched Liv to see if she recognized the location. The uniform blanket of new snow surrounding the building would make it harder. The tall trees neatly outlining the far outer edges of the property would be the best clue.

Scott pulled up in the wide front driveway. “Any idea where we are?”

Liv frowned, then looked past the hotel to the trees that once would have formed a barrier to keep the people outside the property from seeing the big outdoor screen. “It's the old drive-in movie theater, isn't it?”

“A cigar for the lady,” Scott said, and one of the wide double doors of the inn swung open.

He'd hoped Mandy would be the one to greet them, but it was Jake Wyndham who stepped out, wearing a pullover sweater over a collared shirt. Barely over thirty, Jake had come to Tall Pine from back East a couple of years ago and managed to get this place built literally from the ground up. People in town—the females, especially—often remarked that Mandy Reese had landed quite a catch when she and Jake got married.

Like most of the women in Tall Pine, Liv looked suitably impressed as the brown-haired, brown-eyed East Coast transplant walked up to the truck. Scott groaned inwardly. Not that it should bother him.

Then she murmured, “He looks really . . . preppy.”

Scott laughed out loud as he climbed out to help Liv out of the truck. Not one to wait, she already had her door open. “Hold on,” he said. “The driveway could be pretty slippery.”

But by the time he reached her side of the truck, to his mild annoyance, Jake had beaten him to the gentlemanly act of giving Liv a hand down. It wouldn't do, of course, for The Snowed Inn to be held liable for a visitor taking a spill from the snow and ice in the driveway. But Scott knew Jake didn't think that way. No, Mr. Ivy League just had really good manners.

“Welcome to The Snowed Inn,” Jake said, releasing Liv's elbow once she stood steadily on the ground. “I'm Jake.” He cast a questioning glance past her to Scott.

“We come bearing Christmas trees.” Scott rested his hand on the back of the pickup. “And I thought you might be able to give Liv the nickel tour while we're here.”

“Absolutely. And thanks.” Jake nodded to Liv before turning back to Scott. “Let's grab the trees and get out of the cold.”

Scott picked up one box while Jake took the other, although it was hardly a two-man job. Scott winked at Liv as she followed them inside, hoping his instincts were right and she'd like what she saw. Maybe that's what this errand was all about. His gut told him she needed some distraction and Christmas cheer. Especially this Christmas.