Читать книгу The Christmas Company - Alys Murray - Страница 9

Chapter Four

“This all looks amazing! Can we move those candlesticks to the end of the hall? Oh, be careful with those ornaments! Just put the boxes down in the living room. We’ll decorate the tree later.”

Kate wasn’t one to toot her own horn, but even she had to admit it: the Woodward House looked amazing. It wasn’t all her doing, of course. She merely lugged a few boxes and used her copy of the house keys to let everyone inside. When she called Miss Carolyn to tell her of her plan, The Christmas Company phone tree went into full effect, and within an hour, most of the town’s decorations were torn down from their places off of the square and almost one hundred people showed up at the Woodward House to ready it for Christmas. Thankfully, this place wasn’t unfamiliar to the people of Miller’s Point. Mr. Woodward had let them use it as a muster point for the festival for years, so once inside, everyone had a good idea of which archways and bannisters needed the most Christmas-ification.

It was a painfully simple plan, really, and everyone hopped on board quicker than she anticipated. All she had to do was teach Clark Woodward to love Christmas. The process of that began with a Christmas makeover of his house. After seeing his pitiful slump at Mel’s diner, she took to imagining quiet, lonely Decembers passing by him in a dark apartment in Dallas, complete with Hungry Man dinners and falling asleep on the couch. The sort of Christmas she only imagined in her nightmares. It was clear he’d fallen out of love with Christmas—Kate didn’t believe anyone naturally disliked the holiday—because it’d been too long since he’d had a wonderful one. She was going to reintroduce magic into his life, and by tomorrow morning when she was done with him, he’d have to agree to putting the festival back on.

It would be difficult, but she had an ace up her sleeve. Some people claimed it was impossible to change someone’s heart overnight, but Kate knew better. After all, she’d read Dickens.

“I think we’re all done inside. They’re finishing outside, but do you want to light ’er up in here?”

“Yes! Just one second…”

Kate sprinted for the top of the grand staircase, her muscles tingling. Everything had to be perfect, and this was the moment of truth. She nodded to Billy Golden, the load-in specialist for the festival, who’d been running point for her since his arrival this morning. He stood at the foot of the stairs with an electrical dial in hand, waiting for her signal. She held up her hands, as if preparing to conduct a symphony. “Okay. Now.”

Kate blinked, fully expecting that in the split second of her eyes being closed, she would open them to find herself completely immersed in the winter wonderland of her own creation.

“What have you done?!”

Oh, no. The voice of her target echoed through the grand foyer of the Eastlake Victorian-style manor, shaking the paintings on the walls and knocking crystals of the chandelier. All movement—including Kate’s heart—halted. Her eyes lowered, step-by-step down the carpeted, garland-strewn staircase, until she reached the tips of his mirror-shined shoes. She recognized his voice even without peeking at his face.

There was no noise but the driving, tinkling melody of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” It wafted through the house like the smell of fresh-from-the-oven gingerbread cookies.

Apparently, Clark Woodward didn’t appreciate music or delicious gingerbread because he let out another yawp of displeasure:

“And turn that music off!”

Without so much as peeking up from his shoes, Kate touched the pause button on the phone in her pocket, effectively silencing her Bluetooth playlist.

Once, when she was a kid, Kate had gotten caught trying on the Ebenezer Scrooge costume, fake beard and all. The man playing the miser that year had a lisp and a bit of a limp, so she was dragging her left foot around the dressing room saying, “Merry Chrithhhmathh.” To her everlasting shame and regret, he’d walked in on her mid-private performance.

She felt nearly as captured now.

Michael. She cursed his name. He was supposed to keep him busy until noon at least! Everyone was supposed to be safely back home so there would be no way of restoring the house to normal order. That was the entire point of the distraction. If Clark demanded his house be emptied of all Christmas cheer, the plan would be ruined.

You’ve got to do something, Kate’s rational brain told her petrified tongue. You can’t just stand here like an idiot. It’s starting to get awkward. Hands shaking in her pockets, she wondered if she hadn’t made a poor decision or two this morning. Not about the choice of an angel as a tree topper instead of a star—she stood by that. She wondered if she’d made a mistake in coming here at all. Was she beaten before she’d even started? Was she even strong enough to save her town? Why did she think she, the town’s resident hem-stitcher and pie-placer, would be good or strong enough to defend them against disaster?

Kate straightened. It didn’t matter if she wasn’t strong enough. He didn’t know she wasn’t strong enough, and she could use that to her advantage. Besides, she had every right to be here. She picked her head up, adopting an impenetrable armor of optimism. This was Christmas Eve. These people were her family and friends. She had to save them all.

And she didn’t know how to walk away from someone with eyes as cold as his. She’d just have to save him, too.

“Clark! How are you?”

Her smile sent him back a step. He must have expected her to whimper and scrape at his booming shouts. Good. She’d caught him off guard already. Once he’d recovered, he walked deeper into the foyer.

“What have you done to my house?”

“Your house? Does it have your name on it?”

Michael helpfully stepped forward.

“It does, actually. It’s on the sign right out front.”

“Don’t you have a clock to check somewhere?” she snarked, sending him scurrying out of the front door, right behind Billy Golden.

With Kate at the top of the stairs and Clark at the bottom, she reveled in the literal high ground. All she had to do was hold onto it. She glanced out of the house’s wide front windows. Though the decorations on the inside of the house were almost entirely complete, a near army of workers on ladders were still hard at work hanging lights outside.

“So.” She placed a steadying hand on the top of the staircase banister, hoping it looked more like a power move than something necessary to keep her upright. “What do you think?”

“What have you done?”

“Is there an echo in here?” The quip, in her opinion, was brilliant, but he either didn’t get the joke or purposefully withheld his laughter. Rude. She gripped the banister tighter and gave a sweep of the grand atrium with her free hand. The chandelier hanging in the high, vaulted ceiling had been dotted with poinsettia plants and evergreens, giving the room a sweet, rich smell. Kate was glad for their perfume; it meant she couldn’t smell the smoke coming out of Clark’s ears. She would’ve been lying, though, if she didn’t secretly derive pleasure from his displeasure. He’d made everyone she knew uncomfortable when he ended their employment yesterday. Maybe he deserved to be uncomfortable, too, even if she was trying to heal what she suspected was his broken, used-up heart. “We decorated for Christmas. Do you like it?”

Don’t shout. Don’t raise your voice. Don’t even let her know this is bothering you. Just be clear, direct, and get the job done. Clark’s internal pep talk was strong, but not strong enough to hold his bewildered frustration at bay. He flexed his right hand, a nervous habit he’d spent almost his entire life unsuccessfully struggling to break, and tried to answer her question. Did he like it?

“I’d like it to be taken down.”

“I’m sorry. No can do.”

She stood at the top of the staircase like some silent film star, taking control of the garish scenery. He didn’t need to look around him to see the marks of her handiwork everywhere. His family’s house—that cold monument to excess and emptiness—had been transformed. In his memory, this place was always closer to Wayne Manor than Hogwarts—a shadowy prison for cobwebs and abandoned family photos.

When he’d driven up with Michael this morning, however, he’d almost turned around, convinced they’d made a wrong turn somewhere. Woodward today looked nothing like it did in his dark memories. With every turn of his car’s wheels, they moved closer and closer to a postcard of a Victorian Christmas, not the palace of pity he’d always known the place to be. Though men and women still busied themselves on high ladders arranging wreaths upon third-story windows and hanging lights along the roof, the picture was clear.

Matters only worsened when he arrived inside to see a house overflowing with decorations and frippery. (Yeah, frippery. He was so enraged he’d had to dip into his grandfather’s vocabulary for a word to describe it.) Fresh, fragrant greenery and cardinal-red ribbons brightened the sallow walls. Fake icicles hanging from the doorways danced in the heated breeze and caught the abundant light. A train—an honest-to-goodness train set—ran circles around the fir standing sentry in the open living room, sending out real puffs of steam from its working engine. And, if he wasn’t going crazy—which, to be fair, wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility—he could’ve sworn he smelled gingerbread baking somewhere.

The whole thing was enough to make him puke chestnuts.

“Take it down,” he growled.

He could only hope the backdrop of tinsel and baubles didn’t undercut the weight of his infuriated stare. This was his house. His family’s house. And she had absolutely no business being in here, much less taking the whole place over for her personal art project.

“I can’t.” She shrugged and began a descent down the stairs, her high-heeled boots making authoritative thuds with her every step. “Not by myself, anyway.”

Beyond the closed front door, a series of engines turned over and sputtered to life. Clark’s stomach sunk.

“Let me guess…”

“Everyone’s already leaving. They’ve got to go home for Christmas Eve. There’s no way I could take all of this down by myself. It’ll just have to stay up.”

She landed on the step above him, and their body language echoed their last encounter. Back then, she was below him, asking for something she had to know he couldn’t possibly give. Now, he was the one at a disadvantage.

Taking stock of himself, Clark tried to catalogue his feelings. In business, these sorts of exercises kept him from flying off the handle during negotiations. He treated his emotions like items on an inventory list. They first needed to be counted, weighed, measured, and then neatly put away to keep from overwhelming him. It would have been easy enough if her caramel-candy eyes weren’t so distracting. The color was extraordinary, but it wasn’t their beauty he kept tripping over. It was her unguarded warmth he couldn’t quite wrap his head around. What gave her the right to treat him like an old friend, welcome to open the doors of her heart and make himself at home inside? Hadn’t she ever been hurt before? Clark managed to put those thoughts away before he asked any of those questions out loud, opting to reach for the glass icicles over his head.

“Fine. I’ll take it down,” he said.

“And risk breaking everything before you can sell it?” Clark’s expression and stiff arms must have given him away. She adopted an air of false modesty. “Am I wrong? I thought you wanted to make money off of this once you dissolve the company.”

“It belongs to me.” He returned his hands to his pockets. The icicles would have to wait. He didn’t know the first thing about storing all of this holiday garbage, and no one would buy bits of shattered glass. “Why shouldn’t I sell it?”

“Of course you should.” A breeze of sarcasm blew behind her as she stepped down from the staircase and headed straight for the living room. He followed close behind, not wanting her to break or put her Jack Frost spell over anything else in this house. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until Christmas is over. The icicles are here to stay. Besides, you respect a contract, right?”

“A contract?”

“In your uncle’s contract with the city, he stipulates that this home can be used as a muster point for all festival-related activities. I have every legal right to be here.”

Uncle Christopher…why would you do this to me?

“Why are you doing this? What do you want?”

“Let me put it to you this way: The festival was my home. It’s been my home every Christmas since I was seven years old. You took my home away, so I think it’s only fair I get to take yours.” The living room received no less treatment than the rest of the house, only it contained the pièce de résistance. The Christmas tree. Clark seemed to remember the ceilings in this house being fourteen feet high, which meant the undecorated fir was thirteen and a half feet tall. At least. The glistening angel almost brushed the ceiling. “Don’t worry. I’ll be out of your hair once the season’s over.”

Clark tightened his jaw to keep it from dropping to the floor. She couldn’t possibly mean what he thought she meant, especially not with the nonchalant way she swanned around the room, adjusting the nutcrackers on the mantle as if she hadn’t just invited herself over for Christmas.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re stuck with me.”

The decorations, he could handle. He’d just sleep in his car the next two nights and wake up to the world returned to normal on Boxing Day. A strange woman with an affinity for decking the halls? He wouldn’t and couldn’t allow it.

“Oh, no. You’re not staying, too.”

“Of course I am. I bought us matching PJ’s and everything.”

He didn’t want to know if that was true. Picking up her jacket and duffle bag, he started to shove all evidence of her inside. The scented candles waiting to be lit, the pile of inventory papers tucked away on an end table… It all had to go.

“I don’t want you here.”

“I’m also non-negotiable. Contract says so. I’m the foreman.”

“You can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” She scoffed, pulling the duffel out of his hands and returning it to its place in the corner of the room. “Don’t you have a guest room or twelve?”

“Because you can’t, all right? You just can’t.”

The last thing Clark was inclined to do was examine her question. Why can’t I stay here? The question was more thorny than she probably gave it credit for, and he wouldn’t prick himself on the brambles just to satisfy her curiosity.

“What? You’re going to kick me out in the snow?”

“It’s not snowing.”

She clucked, leaning back on the couch, as comfortable and at ease as if she were in her own house.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

He didn’t know what possessed him. His rational mind knew it wasn’t snowing. Better still, he knew it couldn’t be snowing. In Texas, even as far north as they were, the worst they usually got was the occasional cold wind, frosty pond, or hypothermic cow. Yet, his raging heart shoved him towards the window, where he threw open the curtains to reveal that, indeed, not only had the entire front yard of his home been covered in a thick layer of snow, but there was a gentle snowdrift passing by the window.

In a small, private humiliation, Clark’s breath caught at the sight. Then, he remembered himself. Snow in Texas wasn’t beautiful. It couldn’t be beautiful because it wasn’t real. He remembered the town square, which had been similarly covered in a layer of snow so thick and so realistic he’d almost reached out to touch it, and his awe dissolved.

“Fake snow?”

“It’s not a Dickens Christmas without snow. Lots of it.”

“I wouldn’t know.” He slammed the curtains shut, a gesture which resulted in little more than an impotent swaying of fabric. “I’ve never read it.”

Back turned, he couldn’t see the shock play on her face, but he did hear the genuine gasp of surprise she let out at this declaration. He shouldn’t have expected any less from this Christmas freak.

“Never read A Christmas Carol? Well, thank goodness you’re letting me stay.” He turned in time to see her rustling about in her bag, determination written on her soft features, but even the softest, sweetest, most determined face in the world couldn’t deter him. “I think I’ve got my copy in here somewhere.”

“I’m not letting you stay. You’re leaving.” He scooped up her jacket and offered it to her. “And now.”

“But think about it: do you really want to be alone in this big house on Christmas?”

“Yes!”

It came out as more of an emotionally charged, beastly roar than he anticipated, but if his own shaking voice shocked him, it was nothing compared to the surprise he felt as Kate’s defensive charm softened into sweet sacrifice. Her smile morphed from practiced composition into something altogether more compassionate, tender.

She no longer armed herself or wielded her warmth as a weapon. She held it up as a peace offering. Peace with this woman scared Clark even more than the thought of battling with her.

“I’m not letting you. No one should be alone during the holidays.”

He reached for his cell.

“I’m calling the police.”

“Great idea. You can tell Chief Stan and Officer Harris I said Merry Christmas. I think they’re on duty until midnight, then the Fitts siblings take over.”

This woman was just crazy enough about Christmas to wish anyone a happy day, even the men he called to arrest her, but this wasn’t a genuine request. She was reminding him where the loyalties of this town actually lay, and it certainly wasn’t with the man who was going to end the town’s most important festival. The police probably weren’t going to be on his side, especially not if they saw Kate as their champion.

Besides, his uncle had signed that contract.

“You’re not going to leave, are you?”

“I’m not a monster. I’m not trying to steal your house or anything. I’ll leave after I have my perfect Christmas.” Kate pointed to the kitchen, which was connected to the living room by a swinging servant’s door. Clark was sure now he smelled fresh gingerbread cookies. “Can I get you some eggnog?”

“I don’t want eggnog. I want you to put everything back to normal.”

Clark examined his options—the few he had. The decorations and the woman were fixtures here, at least for another few days. So, he saw only two courses of action. He could leave. Or he could stay.

“You’re in Miller’s Point for Christmas, Clark,” she said, not unkindly. “This is normal.”

He’d have to stay. He didn’t have to stay in this room, but he would have to stay. Cutting his losses, Clark walked for the door. He’d just go upstairs and find an office to work in. Normal in Miller’s Point… What, all smiles and well-wishes and cartoon red-nosed reindeer?

“Yeah. That’s what I’m afraid of.”