Читать книгу The Complete Christmas Collection - Джанис Мейнард, Rebecca Winters - Страница 88

“DIDN’T make it?”

Hope felt like she needed to pull her hand away, but she couldn’t. It would be a deliberate withdrawal and a step back—not at all what she should do at this moment.

Blake had had a brother? She swallowed. As much as she’d argued with her sisters, having them had always been a blessing. Because of them she’d never felt alone. Despite the strain of the responsibility she’d felt, and it hadn’t been easy, they’d been there, given her a purpose. Even if they’d acted out in their own ways, the reason for it had tied them together.

She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to lose one of them.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “That must have been terrible for you.”

“Brad was my twin,” he said roughly. “We did everything together. The bond between twins is...”

“I’ve heard it’s different. That the connection is deeper.”

“I knew what he was thinking, sometimes what he was feeling. We played hockey together and sometimes we were so in tune with each other it was like music.” He pulled his hand away then, and gave a sad smile. “I think of him when I watch the Sedin brothers play now. We could have been like that.”

Hope didn’t know who the Sedin brothers were but she didn’t need to know to understand that Blake still felt the loss keenly.

“I can’t imagine not having my sisters,” Hope replied.

“You’re close?”

She looked down at her plate, annoyed with herself for bringing the conversation back to herself when she really wanted to learn more about him.

“Not particularly. But...I know they’re there.”

She suddenly felt guilty about not keeping in touch more. Not making more of an effort now that they were all grown up and leading their own lives. Faith and Grace weren’t her responsibility any longer, but instead of trying to redefine their relationship, they’d drifted apart. Anytime either of them had asked her for anything she’d turned her back. Maybe it was time that changed.

“I spent a lot of time wishing for Brad back,” Blake said. “It felt like a piece of me was missing. And I really struggled with why he was taken and I was left behind. At the same time I was a teenager, going through all the things that teens go through. We’d talked about going to the NHL together. All the dreams and plans were ours, and without him I had nothing.”

“So what did you do?” She looked up at him, feeling strangely bereft at the grief still shadowing his voice. Had Blake hit rock bottom like she had?

“Got by day to day. Lived in a shell. Shut people out.”

Hope’s throat swelled as she remembered the day she’d finally given up on holding her family together. She’d broken down, and Gram had been there to pick up the pieces, but things had been different from that point on. Ever since she’d kept people at arm’s length. She wasn’t blind. She knew that if she didn’t let anyone too close she didn’t have to worry about disappointments or goodbyes.

Blake had come out of his shell and built this place. She hadn’t, and she hid behind a camera.

“How did you come out of it?”

Blake had, and he’d done something extraordinary.

“My dad.” Blake seemed to relax, and resumed cutting into what was left of his pile of French toast. “He and Mom took the accident hard. It was awful around here. But he showed up in the barn one day and handed me a pair of skates. I hadn’t played hockey in three years—the accident ended my season and I never went back. He told me he’d lost one son and he’d be damned if he’d lose another and told me to put on the skates.”

“And you did?”

He grinned. The way his mouth pulled made him look rakish. “You haven’t met my dad. You don’t argue with him. We went to the pond over at Anna and John’s, laced up our skates and took shots at a net for three hours.”

He mopped up some syrup with a chunk of bread.

“After that I spent some time deciding what I wanted to do. I read an article about the therapeutic benefits of riding and it clicked. The one thing I’d done through it all was work with the horses. They were my saving grace. The more I looked into it, the more I knew. And when Dad retired I made it a reality.”

Hope pushed away her nearly empty plate. “You’re very good at what you do, Blake. And very good with kids. I’m kind of surprised you don’t have any of your own.”

His gaze touched hers. “Been wondering about me, have you?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she replied, feeling heat rise in her cheeks. “I’m not the only one to speculate. Half the women that walk through your stable doors wonder the same thing.”

His eyes looked confused for a moment, but then they cleared and he brushed off her observation. “Women don’t tend to be interested in a man like me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

His blue gaze pinned her again. “You know. They take one look at my face and...” He put his knife and fork on top of his plate. “It’s a lot to get past.”

Was he serious? Hope didn’t know what to say. Sure, she’d reacted to his scar, but she hardly noticed it now. It was hidden by his other fine qualities. His kindness, the way he smiled at the children, the light in his eyes and the strong, sure way he carried himself. Once she’d seen him in his element she’d glimpsed the real Blake. He was the kind of man who could be quite dangerous to a woman like her.

She could reassure him, but that would reveal way too much, so she came up with the only paltry platitude possible. “Someday the right woman will come along and sweep you off your feet.” She smiled. “You’ll see.”

She pushed back her chair and picked up her plate. But Blake caught her wrist as she went to move past him.

His fingers were strong and sure as they circled her wrist. “This place is the most important thing to me right now. And I haven’t said it yet, but thank you for what you’re doing. You were right. I couldn’t afford you by the hour.”

She stared into his honest face. “I’m sorry I ever said that. You touched a nerve that day with the perfect thing.”

He let go of her wrist. “I know I did.”

“Not the way you think,” she answered. “It’s not you I expect to be perfect, Blake, or the children, or anyone else except me. It’s me who keeps falling short of the mark.”

That little bombshell dropped, she escaped to the sink to rinse off her plate.

She heard the scrape of his chair as he pushed back from the table, knew he was behind her. She kept her back to him, the water running uselessly in the sink now that her plate was rinsed.

“There are things in life that happen and that we can’t see coming. That’s just reality,” he said, his voice quiet but full of conviction. “Expecting yourself to be perfect is setting yourself up to fail.”

“How can you say that?” she asked, turning back around and facing him. “How can you, when you are so good at what you do? Do you even have any flaws, Blake? And I don’t mean physical ones.”

“Plenty,” he whispered. “I’m far from perfect, Hope. I just try to stay on the positive side. To find joy in things.”

“But sometimes the heartache doesn’t allow you to trust in the joy,” she replied. “Because you know it could be ripped away at any moment.”

There was a long silence. Finally he lifted his hand and placed his palm along her cheek. “I look at you and I know that there are many ways to grieve without having experienced death. What are you grieving for, Hope?”

“When my friend Julie died...” She scrambled to put together the words, but he shook his head. His hand was warm, comforting on her skin and she bit down on her lip so it wouldn’t tremble.

“No, it’s more than that. There’s something else. Something you lost and never got back.”

She blinked and sidestepped away from his hand, away from his eyes. “Don’t,” she warned. “I told you when I first got here not to go all shrink on me, remember?”

“I just want to help.”

“Then leave me alone. Let me be, Blake, please. It’s been a good week. I took some pictures and got fresh air and I’ve relaxed. Just let that be enough, okay? In a few days we have the sleigh ride, and then I fly out to Boston.”

“For a family Christmas?”

“Yes. Let’s just chill for the next few days, okay? No more digging into our personal lives. I won’t if you won’t.”

She wanted to know more about him, but fair was fair. She couldn’t expect him to open up while she remained a closed door, could she?

There was a long pause, and then Blake’s shoulders dropped. “Okay.”

“Okay. Now, since you cooked I’ll tidy up. And this afternoon I’m going to start going through the pictures I have. Layout’s not my specialty, but I’ll put together a portfolio of shots you can take to a good designer.”

“I’ve got a few jobs to do, as well. I’ll be back by midafternoon. Maybe you can show me then.”

“That’d be good.”

He looked like he wanted to say something more, but then he shook his head. “All right. See you later.”

“Later.”

* * *

When she saw him again she was sitting at the table listening to the hum of the dishwasher, her laptop open before her. Her gaze caught a glimpse of a thick red hat above his black ski jacket. He wore heavy pants, too, and she gathered that whatever he was going to do it was going to be out in the bitter December weather. He’d be cold when he got back in. Maybe she’d make some cocoa to warm him up.

She shivered and turned back to her photos. Scratch the cocoa. After this morning she’d realized she was spending far too much time concerned about Blake’s welfare. She could still feel the gentle touch of his hand along the side of her face. Aw, hell. She was starting to care for him more than she was comfortable with. When he’d talked about his brother her heart had cracked just a bit, and she’d had the crazy urge to take him in her arms and comfort him.

Which made her just about as starstruck as the moms who gazed at him like he was perfection in a cowboy hat.

* * *

He’d seen it on their snowmobile ride, and now Blake trudged the last hundred feet into the barnyard, towing the toboggan behind him. The perfect Christmas tree—eight feet of spruce, perfectly tapered, just the right size for the vaulted ceiling in the family room—was sprawled over it. A good shaking to get the snow off, a couple of taps with the hatchet on the trunk and it would be ready for the tree stand.

He expected Hope would balk at the idea of putting up a tree, but he wanted it up for the Christmas party, and his parents would be arriving Christmas Eve. He gave the rope a hard tug and pulled the toboggan over a small snowbank. If she didn’t want to help decorate, that was fine. He’d done it by himself lots of times. Usually with a hockey game on in the background.

He’d seen the look of longing in Hope’s eyes this morning, though. Felt the squeeze of her fingers in his. She wasn’t as immune as she wanted him to believe. And everyone deserved to have a good dose of Christmas spirit. It didn’t have to go any further than that. Shouldn’t. No matter how attractive he’d found her.

No matter how much she’d surprised him by saying what she had this morning.

Her reaction to his face had been the worst, but now she was acting as though it didn’t matter anymore.

Well, fool me once, as the saying went. They were just words, after all.

But it didn’t change the fact that he sensed she was sad and wanted to cheer her up. He knew what it was like to be in that abyss. So he’d dig out the decorations and make the best of it.

He stood the tree on the porch and went inside, clomping his boots to get the snow off before disappearing into the basement to the storage area for the stand. When he came back up, Hope was looking down the staircase curiously.

“What are you up to?”

He held up the stand. “Christmas tree. Wanna help?”

Just as he’d expected, she took a step back. “You were out getting a tree?”

“Of course. After the sleigh ride we’ll have cookies and hot chocolate in here. The kids will expect a tree.”

He didn’t mention the second part of the plan—the part where he’d be dressing up like Santa Claus and needing an elf. He wanted to hit her with it at the right moment, and give her as little chance as possible to try and get out of it.

“Oh.”

She stepped aside, but he handed her the stand and bent to unlace his boots. He looked up as he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a peg.

She looked awkward and uncertain, and he smiled on the inside. “Come on,” he prodded, nudging her through the door and toward the family room. “Help me move some furniture to make room.”

Together they rearranged the furniture that sat next to the fireplace by moving the sofa down a bit and shifting a heavy side table to the other corner, pushing it against a matching table so that it made one wide rectangular surface. Blake eyeballed the vacant space and put down the tree stand in the precise spot he wanted it.

“You loosen the screws and I’ll bring in the tree,” he suggested, and without waiting for her response went out on the porch in his stockinged feet and picked up the spruce.

Together they fit the tree into the stand, and he held it level while Hope knelt on the floor and tightened the wing nuts. When it was secure she stood up, and he stepped back, admiring. It was the perfect fit. The perfect amount of fullness except for one spot that was a little sparse. He turned that side toward the wall—problem solved.

“Oh, my gosh, that smells so good!” Hope exclaimed, brushing off her hands.

“Wait until we get lights on it,” he said, finally feeling some Christmas spirit. There was nothing like the scent of a real tree to put you in the holiday mood.

“I haven’t had a real tree since...”

“Since?” She’d hesitated, leaving the sentence incomplete. Good memories or bad ones? he wondered.

“Since our family Christmases with my grandmother.”

He looked over at her and caught her smiling wistfully.

“We always had a real tree, too. And Gram did her holiday baking and the kitchen always smelled good.”

“You don’t have a real tree now?”

She shook her head. “I live in an apartment and I travel a lot. A small artificial one is enough.”

“Not this year, eh?” he asked, thinking that the idea of spending the holidays alone in an apartment with a plastic tree sounded very lonely indeed. “I’ll go bring up the boxes of decorations.” He nodded at the television. “There’s a Christmas Classics channel in the music section. Why don’t you turn it on?”

“Really?”

She sounded skeptical, and that just wouldn’t do.

“You can’t decorate without Christmas carols,” he decreed.

By the time he found the boxes and got them upstairs Christmas songs were playing and Hope had disappeared.

“Hope?”

“In the kitchen.”

Her voice came from around the corner, and he put the first box in the living room before going to find her.

She was standing in front of the stove, stirring something in a pot that smelled fantastically spicy.

“Mulled cider,” she announced. “I found the seasonings when I was looking in the cupboard the other day. This is as good a time as any, right?”

“It’s perfect. I’ll start on the lights while you finish up. The lights take the longest.”

He was halfway through putting multi-colored twinkle lights on the tree when she came into the room carrying two mugs, steam curling off the top. He took a break and stood up, stretching out his back as she held out the mug.

“It looks good,” she offered.

“I like lots of lights,” he replied, thinking back to when he and Brad had been boys and their job had been to stand back and squint. The lights had all blurred together, and any blank spots in their vision had meant there were holes that needed to be filled. One year the tree had been so big that their dad had used over fifteen hundred lights on it. “It’s kind of a family tradition.”

He took a sip of his cider and raised his eyebrows. “Mmmm,” he remarked, angling a sideways glance at Hope.

Her lips were twitching just a little.

“I found some spiced rum in the cupboard, too. Thought it might warm you up after your cold hike.”

He swallowed the warm cider, felt the kick of the rum in his belly. It wasn’t just the rum. It was her, wasn’t it? She could have a fun side if she let it out to play more. She put a wall around herself most of the time, but behind that wall he had a suspicion there was hidden a warm, giving woman. A woman he could like. A lot.

Right now she looked barely past twenty, with her straight hair in a perky ponytail and hardly any makeup. He could think of more pleasant ways than mulled cider to warm up, and all of them included her, in his arms.

Which would be a very, very bad idea. They were hardly even friends. It was a big leap from their newfound civility to being lovers. And there was no point in starting something he didn’t intend to finish.

“It’s good,” was all he said, and he took another drink for fortification. It didn’t help that she looked so cute in her snug jeans, when her long fingers curled around the mug as she blew on the hot surface of the cider with full pink lips.

He got to work putting on the rest of the lights while she dug through the boxes for ornaments and the tacky red and green tinsel garland he put on the tree each year. By the time he’d finished she’d pulled out a box and was sitting on the sofa, surrounded by nearly a dozen porcelain shops and buildings—his mother’s Christmas village.

“This is adorable,” she said, lifting up an ornament that depicted a red square building with a steeply pitched roof and the word Schoolhouse on a sign above the door.

“My mom’s. Every year we got her a different building until she could build a whole town. Look.” He reached inside a large plastic ice cream container and took out a tiny LED light. “Put this inside and it lights up.”

“Pretty. Where do you normally put it?”

“On the long table in the hall.”

Hope held the porcelain carefully in her hands and looked up at him, dismay turning her lips downward. “But you can’t enjoy it there. You only see it as you pass through.” She looked around and then her eyes lit up. “Look. What about the two tables we pushed together?”

“It’s big enough.”

“We need a white cloth. Just a minute.”

She disappeared upstairs and returned with a snowy white towel. He watched as she draped it over the tables and put the schoolhouse down. She stood back and put a finger to her lips, then went back to the box again and again. She went into the kitchen and came back with something in her hand he couldn’t discern, but she tucked it under the towel and before his eyes a hill of snow seemed to appear. Tiny figurines of children followed, punctuated by green bottlebrush-like trees and a snowman in a black top hat. Before he knew it she’d arranged the whole village—church, school, bookshop, houses—along the table, with snowy white hills forming a backdrop.

“How did you do that?”

She beamed. “Do you like it?”

“I do. What’s more, I think my mom will, too. It’s a shame you’re not going to meet her.”

Not meet her...not be here for Christmas Eve and then Christmas morning...it surprised him to realize he wanted her there. He liked having Anna around, but there was something right about Hope being in the house, wandering through the barns. She added something to the place—a sense of sophistication and class that he found he appreciated. And ever since that first day with Cate he’d been able to tell that even when she held back, there was something about the children that she responded to. She was fitting in rather well, considering the hoity-toity photographer who’d arrived only days ago.

Perhaps fitting in too well. Considering lately he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

* * *

Hope saw the look in Blake’s eyes and nerves bubbled in her tummy. She’d seen that look before: a softening of the features, a warming of the eyes, the slight parting of lips. There were times she tried to elicit this precise expression for the camera. Other times she’d seen it in the moments before she’d been kissed.

And Blake was looking at her that way, making her knees turn to jelly and her pulse pound.

Kissing him would not be the smartest move. All it would do was complicate things. This was supposed to be an easy ten days, then off to Gram’s for Christmas and back to her life in Sydney, just as she’d created it. Granted, she’d been thinking about him a lot. Granted, she’d had to move past her own “rules” and face some old demons in order to give him what he wanted for the facility. That had put her out of her comfort zone.

Funny how out of her comfort zone it seemed kind of...well, cozy and right.

But in the end everything would go back to normal—which was Hope looking after Hope and not fretting about everyone else. Not getting involved.

She suspected that kissing Blake was definitely something a girl wouldn’t walk away from without fretting on some level, so she nodded toward the boxes, breaking the spell of the moment while the music station shifted to a horrendous version of “O Holy Night.”

“We should probably put on the rest of the decorations. Are they in this box?”

The warm intensity of his eyes cooled and he stepped back. “Oh, right.” He opened the box and pulled out the bag that had ropes of red and green garland poking out of the top. “This is next.”

It was tacky and cheap and slightly gaudy to Hope’s artist’s eye. Still, it was his tree, his house. And having grown up with Gram she did hold the slightest remnant of knowledge that traditions were not to be messed with—especially on the holidays. She took the first mass of tinsel in her hands and began looping it around the tree in a precise scallop pattern while Blake held the end.

“You’re very exact.”

She frowned and adjusted a swoop of garland. “I like things balanced. If they’re imbalanced they have to be intentionally so, you know?”

“Not exactly. But you’re having fun with it, so go for it.”

He was teasing her now, and she didn’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed.

Together they added ornaments to the tree—cutesy homemade types that were hand-painted or stitched: old-fashioned gingerbread men and knitted skates and bells, red and green boots with paperclips as blades, and gold-shot yarn bells with tiny brass jingle bells dangling from the centre, catching the light of the bulbs.

It was a long way from her red-and-white tree and the delicate glass balls that she had at home.

It was, she realized, a family tree. A tree with years of memories and love. And Blake was here alone. His brother was gone and he was stuck decorating the tree with a stranger.

Well, not exactly a stranger—not anymore. But definitely not family.

She wondered if the tree was up at Gram’s. Wondered what Beckett’s Run looked like, dressed for the holidays. Wondered if Gram had baked Hope’s favorite holiday cookies—the chocolatey ones in powdered sugar.

Good heavens. She was homesick.

“Are you all right?” Blake’s voice brought her back to earth and she realized she was standing holding an ornament, the string looped over her finger.

“Oh. Of course. Just thinking.”

“About what?”

She drew in a breath that was shakier than she liked. “It’s silly, really. I was just remembering Christmas in Beckett’s Run. No matter what was going on in our lives, we always went home for Christmas.”

“Good memories, then?”

She nodded. “Mostly.”

She hung the ornament and saw Blake was holding a small oval one in his hands. His face changed, a mixture of love and pain twisting his features. When he’d hung it gently on the tree she could see it was a photo frame, and when she stepped she closer realized it was black with a big red “C” on it—the logo of the Calgary Flames. Inside the frame was a picture of two boys in oversize jerseys, hockey sticks on the ice, grinning widely for the camera.

Blake and his brother, Brad. Eleven, maybe twelve years old. Blake without the jagged scar down the side of his face, before puberty hit full force. His twin, Brad, looking so much like Blake it was uncanny, but with something different around the eyes and mouth.

She touched her finger to Blake’s figure. “That’s you, right?”

“Not everyone could tell us apart.”

“It’s the eyes and the shape of your mouth. And you’re big as a barn door now, Blake...stands to reason maybe you were a little taller than Brad.”

“I was the better checker,” he said softly, “but Brad had faster hands.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about.” He stared at the photo a while longer. “It is what it is. I miss him every day. But nothing will bring him back. I stopped making those sorts of wishes long ago. Now I just remember.”

“And put this ornament on the tree?”

Blake’s mouth twisted, and once more Hope noticed how the stiffness of his scar pulled his lips slightly. She wondered how horrible it must have been for him as a teen, dealing with that sort of disfiguration. Dealing with people’s reactions. It wasn’t much wonder he’d been curt with her when she’d arrived. The first thing she’d done was stare at him like he was some sort of freak.

But he wasn’t. He was the strongest man she’d ever met.

“There’s just one thing left to do,” he said, clearing his throat. “Put the angel on the top.”

He reached into the box and took out a rectangular carton. He opened the flap and carefully took out the most beautiful Christmas angel Hope had ever seen. A flawless porcelain face was framed by a coronet of hair the color of cornsilk; a white circlet atop her head was a halo. The dress was white silk shot with gold thread, and softly feathered wings flowed from the center of her back, the tips nearly reaching the hem of the dress. It was a work of art—a family heirloom.

“Do you want to do the honors?” he asked.

“Oh, I couldn’t.” She put up her hands. “That’s gorgeous, Blake.”

“It’s been in the family a long time.”

“It’s your tree,” she said. “You should be the one to put it on.”

Blake disappeared to the kitchen and came back with a step stool. He put it on the floor and held out the angel. “It’s your tree, too,” he said.

“Blake...”

“Please?”

Her hands trembled as she took the delicate figure from his hands and stepped up on the stool. He stood beside her, and she was acutely aware of his shoulder next to her rib cage as she leaned forward and carefully placed the angel over the top bough of the tree. The cone inside the skirt slid over the pointed top and settled firmly into place as Hope let out the breath she’d been holding and turned around.

The step stool put her higher than Blake, so that his face was just below hers. He was standing close...so close she could feel the warmth of his body, smell the faint spiciness of his aftershave.

“Perfect,” he whispered.

He wasn’t looking at the tree. He was looking at her. Gazing into her eyes with his own deep blue ones.

She felt herself going, losing what was left of her common sense in the depths of them. Before she could think better of it she lifted her hand and laid it along his cheek—the one with the scar. She ran her finger down the length of it slowly, carefully, her heart breaking at the difference in texture of the scar tissue, its smoothness oddly perfect when its very presence was a symbol of such pain and loss.

His hands spanned her ribs and lifted her from the stool, put her feet firmly on the floor.

And once she was steady he took her hand from his face, squeezed her fingers and kissed her.