Do Not Open 'Til Christmas by Sierra Donovan (16)

Chloe rang the doorbell as her fellow carolers shuffled on the porch with stapled lyric sheets and flashlights.

“What page is it on again?” Gwen asked in a loud whisper.

“Six!” Kate hissed as the door swung open.

Aaron McNamara’s mother stood in the doorway with a look of slight confusion as she surveyed the baker’s dozen of carolers clustered on her porch. Christmas caroling wasn’t unheard of in Tall Pine, but people still didn’t always know how to respond to it.

Chloe’s brother Joel strummed a slightly off-key chord on his guitar, and they launched into a ragged version of “Jingle Bells.”

She’d seen carolers on Evergreen Lane perform in beautiful a cappella harmony for the tourists. This was nothing like that. Chloe and her friends had been doing this since junior high, and musical proficiency wasn’t a requirement. All you needed was a lot of heart. And a little nerve.

Mrs. McNamara’s puzzled look lifted, and she smiled. A moment later, her smile grew when she spotted Chloe in the group. She nodded to them and turned from the door, as if to round up other members of the household. That was what happened at their most successful stops. That, and sometimes cookies.

This time, Mrs. McNamara didn’t get far, because Aaron was already rolling up behind her in his wheelchair, pushed by a pretty dark-haired girl. A couple followed behind them, holding clear mugs of what looked like eggnog. Chloe didn’t know if the brunette with Aaron was the errant girlfriend, but spirits looked pretty bright.

Then Aaron and his friends started singing along, which made it a great stop. Before the song was over, a man in his forties stood behind the rest, shaking his head with faint amusement at the ruckus on the porch. He hadn’t been there the day Chloe interviewed Aaron, but she guessed he was Aaron’s father.

Joel strummed the last chord of the song with a flourish and shook his hand as if to loosen it. Chloe knew his fingers stung from the cold.

“I’m amazed you’re out here tonight,” Mrs. McNamara said.

“We wouldn’t miss it,” Chloe said. Her eyes fell on Aaron and his friends. “Merry Christmas.”

In point of fact, she didn’t know how long their group of carolers would hold out. Temperatures had already plummeted to the freezing point and didn’t show any sign of stopping. They’d come to Aaron’s house first, the one place she’d insisted was mandatory for the evening.

“Do you know ‘O Holy Night’?” the girl behind Aaron asked, and looked puzzled when they all laughed.

“You do not want to hear us do ‘O Holy Night,’” Mitch said.

“It’s a little out of our range,” Tiffany explained. “We tried it at one house years ago without any practice. We didn’t realize how high it went until—”

“Until it was too late.” Chloe couldn’t help laughing. “I think that was one house that was really glad to see us go.”

“How about ‘Silent Night’?” Aaron asked.

“That, we can handle.” Joel strummed an opening chord.

They stood close together and shivered their way through “Silent Night,” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” while their audience joined in.

* * *

Aaron’s house alone was worth the trip.

Afterward, they left their four-car caravan at the curb and proceeded to two more houses up the street. But the thin layer of snow still on the ground was just enough to get their shoes wet, knees were shaking, and hands were so numb it was hard to turn the pages of their song lyrics. Then Mitch’s girlfriend started to cough, and they left, taking two other members of their company in their carload.

“If I don’t get something hot to drink I’m going to die,” Gwen announced.

Ten minutes later, the remaining nine carolers were at the Pine ’n’ Dine, pushing together a group of tables at the back. Chloe found herself at the far end, next to Tiffany, across from no one, as Sherry brought their cups of coffee or hot chocolate.

“This isn’t your station.” Chloe picked up her cup of cocoa. She’d decided to take a break from coffee for the night. Maybe she’d even go to bed early.

“I didn’t think anyone else could put up with you guys.” Sherry nodded toward the counter, where Darla waited on a group of tourists. Darla had worked at the diner for over twenty years, and she didn’t always have the longest fuse.

“Good point.”

Sherry bustled her way down the table with the remaining cups. Chloe sipped her drink. Good, but it didn’t compare to Mandy’s recipe. She really ought to get back over to The Snowed Inn sometime soon.

“Are you falling asleep?”

Chloe jerked up out of a brown haze she didn’t know she’d slipped into. But Tiffany had left her seat and Sherry was leaning in front of her, so some time must have passed.

She grinned weakly. “Sorry. I guess this is just the longest I’ve sat down without a computer screen in front of me for quite a while.”

“How’s Bret treating you these days?”

The question caught her off guard, and she looked away. She hadn’t prepared her turtle shell for the Pine ’n’ Dine.

“Good,” she said, a fraction late.

“I was wondering how he’s doing,” Sherry said. “I haven’t seen him in a while. Which is kind of unusual for him.”

Tiny needles of useless jealousy prickled at Chloe. She pulled on a smile. “I may or may not have mentioned you told me about you two.”

“That’s old news.” Sherry didn’t miss a beat. Bret hadn’t reacted much, either. So Bret’s assessment during their trip to Barstow was probably true; whatever romance he and Sherry had had in the past, it was long over. Not that it made a difference to Chloe’s situation.

“He wouldn’t be thrilled with me right now,” she said. “I let him do the town council meeting tonight so I could go caroling. Now here I sit.”

“Playing hooky? I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Chloe sighed. Tiffany still hadn’t returned. Joel, catacorner from her seat, looked like he was trying to make some long-overdue time with Gwen. Maybe that was why Sherry was talking to her. To keep her from being the wallflower at the table.

Keep your nose out of it, Chloe told herself.

Maybe just one intellectual question.

“Why doesn’t Bret like Christmas, anyway?” Chloe lifted her cup to take a casual sip. Part of it sloshed onto the table before it made it to her mouth. So much for casual.

“It’s definitely not his favorite time of year,” Sherry said slowly.

Chloe waited, head tipped. It was one thing she’d learned from her experience interviewing: sometimes you didn’t ask the next question right away. You waited to see where your interviewee would go.

Sherry inclined her head, too, as if deciding. “He never told you about his mom, did he?”

“No.”

Sherry eyed Joel, but he had his full attention on Gwen, and Kate was talking to Lucy. “She died at Christmastime. Right after Bret got out of college. Cancer. It took about four months . . . but it was a really long four months.”

“That would be hard.” Chloe’s voice came out a whisper, because there wasn’t a lot of air in her lungs.

“It was.” Sherry’s eyes were directed somewhere over Chloe’s head, as if she were seeing the past. “They waited until the end of the summer to tell him. And then he shot straight for home. He left behind a job offer at the Washington Post to do it. I think—”

“Job offer?” Chloe interrupted. “He had an internship at the Washington Post.”

Sherry nodded. “And his mom and dad waited until he was finished before they told him. They didn’t want him running home any sooner, and they were right, because that’s exactly what he did. He dropped everything.”

“But a job offer? Are you sure?”

Sherry nodded. “Oh, yeah. I know because he only told me. He made me swear not to tell them. Those four months—he was in here for breakfast most mornings. We talked a lot. I think it was pretty much the only break he let himself take. He was there, at home, helping to take care of her. He lost weight, if you can picture that. And then, when she died, it was right before Christmas. I didn’t see him again until a few months after the funeral. And when he started coming back in, he was Bret again. More or less.” Sherry shrugged. “I think he felt uncomfortable that he’d told me so much. We’ve been friends ever since, but it’s sort of an arm’s-length thing.”

“How can you tell with Bret?” Chloe asked. “It’s like recognizing the moods of Darth Vader. You’re probably the love of his life.”

Sherry looked at Chloe for a long moment. “No, I don’t think so.”

Chloe didn’t miss what Sherry was implying, but her mind whirled with other thoughts. Bret and Christmas. His reaction to her little tree. His wry comment about getting more out of the town council meeting than caroling. And something Sherry had said: I think breakfast at the diner was about the only break he let himself take.

With a sense of apprehension, Chloe asked, “Did his mother die at home?”

“Yes.”

Chloe’s mouth went dry. “She was on hospice, wasn’t she?”

Sherry nodded. “That’s right. Why?”

Chloe asked, rhetorically, “You don’t read the paper, do you?”

Her heart pounded in her ears. She stood up just as Tiffany returned to the table.

“I had to call back a message on my voice mail,” Tiffany said. “A boy saw one of our flyers about the cat. His family lives a couple streets behind the parking lot here.”

Chloe hesitated as she shrugged her coat on. “Did he describe the cat?”

They’d decided against putting a picture on the flyers. In case, for some reason, the wrong person wanted to make off with the cat they’d . . . appropriated.

Tiffany nodded. “Brown and white. Raspy meow. He said his mom can pick him up here in the morning. I’m sorry, Chloe.”

“It’s okay. He belongs with his owners.” Trying her best to ignore the twinge she felt inside, she pushed in her chair. “Joel, could you give Tiffany and Kate a lift home? I’ve got—somewhere I need to go.”

* * *

Bret descended the three wide concrete steps that led from the town hall to the sidewalk, almost grateful for the fierce cold that greeted him outside. The small crowd from the council meeting rapidly went their separate ways, not lingering to converse the way they usually would. Instead, they made straight for the public parking lot just past the town hall building. Less than a week before Christmas, the council members had practically outnumbered the audience, and Bret couldn’t help noticing Jake hadn’t been there. Jake, who had been the one to suggest last year that Tall Pine really should have a town council that met more than once a month.

And then Mark Farren, the new kid on the town council, had picked tonight of all nights to bring up the bright idea of putting parking meters on Evergreen Lane. Someone new came up with that brainstorm every few years, and it usually took about three meetings of arguments to put the suggestion back in its rightful place.

Somehow the council had found enough fuel in the old debate to spend an extra forty-five minutes on it before tabling it for the next meeting. Otherwise, everyone could have been home and warm by now.

Bret fisted his hands inside his coat pockets and drank in several gulps of brittle air. Tonight there was no cloud cover, and it made the cold dry and ruthless. The stars overhead were everywhere, like fine shards of smashed glass in the dark sky.

For some reason, instead of turning left for the parking lot like everyone else, Bret was drawn straight ahead by an unlikely beacon: the town Christmas tree. Festooned with big, old-fashioned multicolored bulbs, this was the thing Chloe had been in such a hurry to see them light up a few weeks ago.

Bret drew toward the tree with caution, the way he might approach a growling mastiff, until he stood at its base. He craned his neck to see the top; it was a long way up. Reputedly, the town had been named for the tree, and Bret had to admit, it certainly was a tall pine.

He tried to strip away the last seven years and see the tree the way Chloe saw it. The way he might have once seen it. Maybe he’d simply never paused long enough to look, even back then.

Somehow, the bite of the cold air helped. It cleared his head, made the colored lights stand out in brilliant detail. He tried to remember what Christmas had been like before.

What came to mind, strangely, was a line from a Christmas carol, taken from a Longfellow poem. And wild and sweet, the words repeat . . . of peace on earth, good will to men.

Bret closed his eyes, as if he could will it. An answer wasn’t long in coming.

He heard a quiet crunch of footsteps on the scrupulously shoveled pavement that surrounded the tree. The steps were slow and careful, taking pains not to slip on any surprise patches of ice that might be hiding on the cold ground. Slow, careful—and light.

He turned to see Chloe walking up from the direction of the city parking lot.

“Hey, stalker.” He greeted her without surprise. Her presence here felt somehow inevitable. “What happened to caroling?”

“It got cold. We wimped out.” With a few remaining steps, she joined him beneath the tree. She wore the same light brown coat she threw over the back of her chair every day at work. Like Bret, she had her hands shoved into her pockets, arms pressed close to her sides as if to hold in warmth. Standing in the darkness, she reminded him, not for the first time, of the little match girl.

“It was too cold,” he said, “so you decided to take a nice stroll through Antarctica?”

“We stopped at the Pine ’n’ Dine first.” In the illumination given off by the Christmas tree lights, her eyes searched his face. “I talked to Sherry. She told me about your mom.” She paused. “And about the job offer from the Post.”

Hands clenched in his pockets, he let out a long sigh that sent up generous plumes of white vapor. “I thought Sherry was more discreet than that.”

“I don’t think she’s ever told anyone else.”

“And she told you.” Bret looked away, and there was that tree again. Why Sherry, after all these years, would talk about his private life to Chloe—

Maybe it was more proof that his old friend knew him too well.

“Bret, why are you still in Tall Pine now?” Chloe asked.

Are we really doing this? When it’s twenty degrees outside? But Bret stayed where he was. Maybe he was literally frozen to the spot. “You know the timeline on this, right? I called home with my flight information, and before I could tell them I’d be going back to Washington permanently, I found out my mother was dying. They waited for me to finish out the internship before they told me. My mom didn’t want me to come running back before it was over.” He drew up his shoulders. “It was the longest four months of my life, and she was gone so quick. And I don’t ever, ever want to talk about it.”

He turned away from the tree, away from Chloe, directing his eyes toward the vacant town square. And for some reason, he kept talking anyway.

“We decorated for Christmas that year,” he said on a ragged sigh. “She wanted to. She loved Christmas. And I think—” Pulling a hand out of his pocket, he pinched the bridge of his nose. When he was sure he could speak again, he said, “I think, human nature being what it is, you think that if you put a Christmas tree up, that means you’ve got to be around long enough to take it back down. It didn’t happen. After that—”

Dear God, why was he still talking? Because she’d asked? Surely she hadn’t asked for all this. If he ever wanted to talk about this, which he didn’t, he’d be better off spilling his guts to some anonymous hospice case worker. Someone he never had to see again. This was Chloe, who stood behind him in absolute silence. And he’d have to face her in the office after this.

But she’d asked, and maybe she’d understand. Maybe he wanted her to understand. Maybe then she’d see why all of this, why any idea of the two of them together, was such a bad idea.

So he went on.

“After that, I couldn’t turn around and go back to D.C. Between my mother and the Washington Post, you’ve got to know which one I’d want back. So—it felt wrong to want the job. There was almost a fiancée back there, too, but that never happened. I didn’t go back, and she didn’t come here. She didn’t offer, and I didn’t ask her to. It seemed like too much to ask. The kind of shape I was in by the end—I think maybe I was grateful.”

And even Sherry had never known about that part. Somehow, a near-engagement to his college girlfriend of two years had receded into fine print. Just one more part of everything that was stripped away.

“Anyway. By the time I started feeling better, it was a year or so later. When I started to think about trying to start things up again at the Post, my father had his first heart attack.”

Chloe echoed, “His first heart attack?”

Bret nodded. “If I was a mess, my dad was worse. He pretty much stopped caring about anything after my mother died. My sister was already settled back East with a family and a law career, and I was here. So I accepted the inevitable, and I stayed. And bought the Mustang. Early midlife crisis. I was twenty-four.”

He pivoted back around to see Chloe’s reaction. It was about what he expected. Her eyes were wide, a little shell-shocked. He supposed that was the effect he’d been looking for.

He shrugged. “You asked.”

She parted her lips to form some sympathetic response. Bret didn’t wait. He walked past her, striding toward the parking lot. He felt raw, laid open, and he didn’t want her to see it.

“Bret.”

His name was short. How could it sound so different when she said it?

He stopped. Just a few strides would take him back to her. One more thing he couldn’t want. He didn’t go back to Chloe, but he didn’t quite have it in him to ignore her, either. So at last, he turned around.

Across the small distance he’d put between them, she looked smaller and colder, more like the little match girl than ever. But her stunned expression had faded, and he fancied he saw a trace of that resolute set of her chin again as she crossed the space between them. Her boots grated on the cold pavement. When she reached him, her eyes were shimmering.

“Hey,” he said. “Don’t you cry.”

“I’m not,” she lied.

He kept his hands stashed in his pockets, because now that he’d finished his talking jag, he had to fight the part of him that ached to reach for her.

“Bret, I’m sorry.” Her voice broke a little. “The hospice story—I swear, I didn’t know. I must have pushed every button you’ve got.”

“Yeah, I’ve thought about that.” He dredged up a wry smile. “Tell me something. Do you have any memories before you came to work at the paper?”

She frowned. “Of course. Why?”

“Because sometimes I think you were put here on earth just to mess with me.”

It got a shaky laugh out of her, which was what he wanted.

Then she stepped forward, wrapped her arms around his neck, and fell against him in a hug, which was not what he expected at all. It was the hug of a friend, he decided, one who didn’t know what else to say. And it set off a whole marching band of emotions inside him.

Hadn’t he been blunt enough, abrupt enough, to chase her away? But she kept reaching past all the barbed wire he put up, as if she could sense what he really wanted.

Bret closed his eyes tight. He didn’t want to respond. Wasn’t sure how, after years of keeping people back, especially Chloe. He felt someone’s heart hammering between them, his or hers, he couldn’t tell, and felt something loosen inside him. Slowly he put his arms around her, tentatively at first, then more tightly.

He couldn’t let this happen. She’d reached past the wall he’d built up, and he’d have to rebuild. But for now, he rested his cheek against her hair and pulled her closer. Because, yes, he was a guy. And she pushed that button, too. He felt her trembling. Or maybe she was just shivering.

He spoke with his lips against her hair. “You’re cold.”

He pulled back, just enough, and before he knew what was happening, his lips found hers again.

A voice in his head tried to intrude.

And then he didn’t hear a thing.

She was still shivering, and he could only hope it was from more than the cold. But it didn’t feel like a pity kiss. It felt like she’d been waiting for this as much as he had. Her fingertips dug into his shoulders as she pressed closer. Then her lips parted to his, and there was no mistaking the passion in her response.

His eyes were closed, but in his mind’s eye he saw the lights of the giant tree, and he knew he’d found a Christmas memory worth keeping.

At last he broke the kiss and buried his face in the soft hair falling at the side of her neck.

The words wanted to tumble right out of his mouth, and Bret bit his tongue to keep them from coming out. Saying it would be all kinds of wrong. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it wasn’t fair. There was more pain to come, and he knew it. Bringing her into his life would be selfish. And, more selfishly, he didn’t want anyone else around to see him go through it.

He pressed her closer, stealing a few more moments of warmth. Because that was exactly what it felt like: stealing. It would only get harder to let go. And it certainly wasn’t getting any warmer out here.

He’d feel better in a month or so. He knew that. December was the worst. But he couldn’t kid himself that things would get much easier. How many times would his father be in and out of the hospital? It could be quick or it could be slow, but he had no business wishing it on anyone.

So, with all his resolve, he took her by the shoulders and gently pushed her back. Saw her eyes looking up at him, questioning.

“I’m sorry,” he gritted out. “I can’t drag you into my mess.”

An attempted smile played at her lips. “Don’t I get a vote?”

He matched her faint smile with a humorless one of his own. “I think it kind of has to be unanimous, don’t you?”

He wanted to say something else, but he didn’t dare. He’d already said too much tonight. Anything he could add would only amount to, Talk me out of doing the right thing. And keeping Chloe from getting entangled in his problems really was the right thing.

Unable to help himself, he squeezed her shoulders one more time, because she was already starting to shiver again.

“Go home and get warm,” he said. Then he turned and left, this time without looking back.

And this time, she didn’t call his name after him.