A Town Called Christmas

“And your parents?”

“My father passed away years ago. My mother is on a holiday cruise with her second husband.” Mike quirked his lips into a smile. Casual, to show he wasn’t as alone and lonely as it seemed…as he was. “Nicky took pity on me and hauled me along to join your family for the holidays.”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Yeah?” He wondered what else she’d heard.

Merry’s eyes opened wide. “Oh, shoot, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

He laughed. “Never mind. Every Christmas party needs a poor little match boy.”

Georgie had become restless. She gave the boy an extra hug and let him go, then clasped and unclasped her empty hands. “I’m—we’re all very glad you could join us.” She glanced somewhat warily at her mother. “One extra is no trouble, not when we usually have a half-dozen ‘extras.’ You’ll see what a circus it is around here over the next several days. Our Christmas dinner is bedlam.”

Her eyes were bright blue flames that he wanted to stare into until the image burned in his retinas. Instead, he glanced around the room, absorbing the comforting normalcy of the festive scene. A fire crackled in a potbellied woodstove. The furnishings were overstuffed and well-used. Colonial-patterned wallpaper clashed with the rug, while green and red holiday decorations added another layer to the visual chaos. The thick branches of the blinking tree reached to the ceiling. Already a large number of gifts had been placed beneath it.

“I haven’t had a family Christmas in years,” he said.

“You’ll get one now,” Merry replied, having followed his gaze. She was still fiddling with her fingers, holding them laced against her bulky green sweater. Her face was framed by a crisp white collar and the pale gleam of her hair.

The nervousness didn’t suit her. She had a Madonna-like quality—gracious and gentle.

Except for the intense, burning eyes.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said, and meant it.

She smiled politely before turning her head aside. He couldn’t figure out her bashfulness. She’d seemed self-conscious since they’d officially met, but she hadn’t been like that at all earlier. What had changed? Being around her family? That was more the reaction of a high school girl.

“Who will show Michael up to his room?” Grace ignored the boys, who jumped to volunteer. “Merry, how about you?”

For an instant, she looked horrified. Then she dropped her lashes and politely refused the invitation. “Let Skip and Georgie do it. I’ll get the hors d’oeuvres.” She took the bottles Mike had brought and slipped from the room.

Mike found himself herded upstairs by Charlie and his grandsons. They gave him a small, simply furnished room under the eaves on the spacious farmhouse’s third floor. There was a bathroom next door, and also another guest room that Charlie said Noelle would use when she arrived, since the boys had taken over her old room on the second floor.

Mike set down his sea bag, the large green Navy issued duffel. Although he’d shared many tight quarters aboard ship, close family living arrangements were something different.

The Yorks’s house was filled to bursting. When Nicky had been shipped out, his wife and children had gone to live with his parents for the duration so Shannon wouldn’t be alone with the boys during her pregnancy. Kathlyn had been born while Nicky was deployed, so this was only the second time he’d been able to spend a significant amount of time with her.

While Mike was no family man, he recognized that nothing was tougher than missing the first months of your child’s life. A Dear John letter couldn’t touch that loss.

“Where does Merry stay?” he asked the boys while unzipping his duffel. Charlie had excused himself to follow his nose to the kitchen and check on dinner.

“She has her own house,” Skip said.

“It’s by the tree farm.” Anticipation glistened in Georgie’s eyes when Mike pulled out three wrapped boxes.

He wanted to ask more about Merry, wanted to know everything, but he stopped himself. He had six more days.

“Why don’t you two take these presents and put them beneath the tree?” The boys seized the gifts and Mike called, “Don’t shake them too hard,” as they galloped down the stairs.

He sat on the edge of the bed and raked his fingers through his hair. A day ago, he’d been stationed in San Diego, the aircraft carrier’s home port, prepping for the next deployment. Sunshine and beaches contrasting with the heat of the tarmac and the blast of afterburn. Now this, a cold, white world pocketed with bursts of color and warmth.

His system was in shock.

He held his head in his hands, resisting the unexpected pull to take out Denise’s goodbye letter. Hell, he’d read the thing a hundred times over the past months. Maybe more. He no longer missed his fiancée. He was way past that.

There was something else that tortured him, that wouldn’t let him throw the letter away.

He took the frayed envelope from a pocket in his shaving kit and withdrew the letter. One measly sheet of paper. The end of a serious commitment should need more words.

Or not, when the engagement had already withered away to nothing.

Dear Michael…

Music from down below stopped him from continuing. He went to the door to listen. “Deck the Halls.” Of course. The Yorks would play holiday tunes. They probably sang carols, too.

In fact, as he listened, a woman’s voice joined the recorded music. Pure as a bell. He wondered if the singer was Merry.

The letter was crumpled in his hand. Throw it away, said his inner voice. What good’s it doing you?

But he couldn’t let go, not yet. He smoothed the crinkles and returned it to the envelope, then the envelope to its slot in his shaving kit. Moving faster, he undid a couple of buttons and yanked his shirt off over his head. Suddenly he wanted to be downstairs with Nicky’s family, instead of alone and moping over promises broken long ago.

He took the kit and went into the tiny bathroom, having to duck to use the facilities that were fitted beneath the slanted ceiling. He washed and quickly ran an electric shaver over his jaw. Deodorant. A touch of cologne. The pit of his stomach hollow, his senses on point.

Like getting ready for a date.

He left the shaving kit on the ledge of the sink and turned to go.

The staircase off the hallway creaked. He heard a footfall on the landing. “Um, Mike?” said a female voice.

After a moment’s hesitation, he went back and grabbed the leather kit bag. The damn letter. He didn’t want Merry to find it, even though one word from her, one meaningful smile, and he expected that he’d gladly forget it ever existed.

Outside, he almost bumped into Merry. She was bent at the waist, canted sideways, peering in through the partly open door to the guest room.

She jumped at his touch. “Oh! I’m sorry.” Color rose in her cheeks. “I wasn’t spying. That is, Mom sent me up to get you.” Her gaze dropped to his bare chest, then shot upward like an elevator, right up to the ceiling. “But take your time.” She turned away before he could respond, hastily removing herself from his half-naked presence, her boot heels clip-clopping on the wood steps. “We’re having hors d’oeuvres.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

He tossed the kit into his sea bag and pulled on a fresh shirt, smiling to himself as he tucked in the tails. He knew a little about Merry. She was older than Nicky by a year or two, and had been living in Chicago away from her family for years. An intelligent, successful woman, not lacking in experience. She wasn’t likely to be thrown by the sight of a man’s bare chest unless she had a particular interest in the man, and even then, he’d surprised her into the fumbling reaction.

Mike ducked to gaze into the mirror over the bureau, donned in gay apparel and suddenly bubbling with good cheer and a rousing interest that went quite a bit beyond the gentlemanly anticipation he should be feeling.

He touched his smooth jaw. Fa la la la la.

CHAPTER THREE

SHANNON PRESSED her shoulder into Merry’s. “What do you think of Mike?”

“He seems like a nice man.”

“That’s all?”

Merry looked into her sister-in-law’s eyes. She’d known Shannon all of her life, but they’d become much closer since both had returned to Christmas, sans the men in their lives. “Don’t tell Mom?”

Shannon shook her head.

“He’s…” Resist as she might, Merry’s gaze was drawn across the table to Mike’s face. He was handsome in a classic way, like an actor starring as a clean-cut war hero in a black-and-white movie, but it was his air of confidence that she found especially appealing. She’d always liked self-assured men. Even a little brash, as long as they could back up the attitude and didn’t let it turn into arrogance.

“He’s the entire package. Just about perfect.” She dropped her gaze to her plate and stabbed a forkful of mashed potatoes. “I’m not sure that I can trust a perfect man.”

“Greg wasn’t perfect.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Greg,” Merry insisted, but of course it did. Greg had seemed perfect to her for a very long time. She’d believed in him and their life together. Believed it much longer than she should have.

Shannon inclined her head, keeping to a low tone so they wouldn’t be overheard. “They call Mike Captain America, you know. Cappy is his call sign.” Nicky’s was Boots, shortened from his original Father Christmas nickname.

“That’s what I mean,” Merry said. “He’s too perfect. I am not.”

“Yeah, but Mike went through his own breakup, remember? You’ve got that in common.”

Shannon spoke as if that was a good thing to share, but how would she know? Nicky had been her high-school sweetheart. She’d never suffered a broken heart.

Merry shrugged. “Rebounding balls bounce off each other,” she said thinly.

Her father’s voice rang out from the head of the table, stalling the dinner chatter. “Merry, Shannon. Are you girls whispering about my Christmas present again?”

Merry’s gaze snapped off Mike’s face. She hadn’t felt so awkward around her family since high school. No, even then she’d been relatively confident.

She had to go all the way back to junior high. Her first serious crush on a kid named Jason, who’d been a head shorter than her. Nicky had teased her without mercy. The family’s enthusiasm had mortified her when Jason had arrived with his dad to escort her to an eighth-grade dance, with her mom snapping photos, her dad joking about first kisses and Nicky and Noelle making smooching noises behind Merry’s back.

She smiled to herself. She hadn’t thought of those days in years. The move back home had brought up a lot of old memories.

Shannon answered Charlie’s question. “We’re talking about sports.”

“Sports?” Grace echoed with a genteel but dubious air.

Shannon smiled blamelessly. “Basketball.”

“Our Merry was the MVP of her high-school class,” Charlie said to Mike. “Basketball, volleyball and track. Her teams went to the regionals.”

“Oh, Dad. That was ages ago. No one but you remembers.”

Mike eyed Merry approvingly. “Do you still play?”

“I run, some. I golf during the summer.”

“You look athletic.”

Was he kidding? Everyone had stopped eating. She couldn’t tell if there was an actual hush in the room, or if it was only her own ears that weren’t functioning. Her voice did sound far away when she answered. “Not so much, lately.”

Mike nodded as if he’d noticed nothing out of the ordinary. “There’s really a lot of snow here. Do any of you ski?” Either he was oblivious, or extremely polite.

Merry let the conversation slide by. Her mother’s face was pink. Shannon gave Merry a sympathetic squeeze before turning the other way to link hands with Nicky under the table. The men talked about the weight room they used aboard their aircraft carrier, while Charlie reminisced about learning Ping-Pong in ’Nam during his own tour of duty. Then he started in on his ski-jumping stories, which could end the dinner conversation if no one interrupted.

Merry told herself to relax.

“We built our own ski jump on Sawhorse Hill, a rickety contraption made of old barn boards and cedar poles. It leaned to the left. Climbing the ladder to the top was taking your life in your hands.” Charlie eyed the last piece of beef on his plate, then reached for the gravy boat. “I volunteered to make the first jump.”

“More guts than brains,” Grace said fondly, as she always did at this point in the story.

“A trait of the York males,” Shannon added, making Nicky give a raspy chuckle.

Perhaps a trait of the females also. Merry frequently felt as if she was teetering on the brink of a scary adventure, with no one to catch her when she fell.

She looked at Mike. He was watching her father, nodding along with the story. Skip and Georgie sat on either side of him, lured there by Mike’s intervention when the boys had started fighting over who got to sit next to their dad. He’d called them his dinner service copilots.

Diplomatic, decent, dependable. Not to mention dishy. Merry felt slightly feverish whenever she thought about catching Mike shirtless, and since she thought of that every five minutes, well, no wonder she’d grown so warm.

She tugged at her collar while her gaze rose inexorably from the surface of the table. Yes, he was still there. Captain America, a practically perfect man. Her unexpected gift for the holidays.

Who’d arrived in her life at the worst possible time.

“So there I was at the top of the makeshift ski jump, on a couple of badly warped skis,” Charlie continued. “The ramp was as bumpy as a backwoods road beneath the snow we’d packed onto it. Someone gave a push to get me started.”

Charlie surveyed the table, in his element. The only thing he liked more than telling family stories to a new audience was gravy. His gaze fastened on Mike. “Do you know ski jumping?”

“Sure. Like the Olympics?”

“Well.” Charlie chuckled. “We young pups thought so at the time. After dinner, Grammadear will take out the photo albums. There are a few shots of me in the glory days.”

Shannon nudged Merry. She mouthed “Help.” Dragging out the albums and the same old stories would lead to an entire evening of family time.

Merry nodded. She remembered well. Some fathers kept their daughters’ boyfriends in line with threats. Her dad did it with endless storytelling until the boyfriend du jour went away out of sheer boredom.

“What happened then, Grandpa?” Skip made a swooping gesture. “Did you fly through the air with the greatest of ease?”

Charlie put his fists beneath his chin. His shoulders hunched. Georgie and Skip hunched with him. “I started down the hill. Picking up speed. The spectators were shouting. ‘Jump, Charlie, jump!’”

Merry looked tenderly at Georgie, who was entranced, his eyes like glass marbles. Mike was doing the same. Their gazes intersected. They exchanged smiles and the heat flushed through her again, only this time she wasn’t thinking about Mike’s physique, but what a natural inclination to fatherhood he seemed to have. He was the type of man—strong, quietly confident, even heroic—that any woman would like to have as the father of her children.

Hormones. Merry clutched the napkin in her lap. Even considering that Christmas was the season for miracles, she was getting carried away.

“Snow was flying,” Charlie continued. “The boards rattled beneath my skis. One of them popped up beneath me as I hit the end of the ramp.”

Georgie gasped.

“I shoved off with all of my might, snapped my arms out and cranked the skis up to my chin as I leaned into the jump.” Charlie extended his arms and did an airplane maneuver over the crowded table. “I must have flown for a mile.” He winked at the grown-ups. “The spectators cheered. And then—” he focused on the boys “—I dropped out of the sky.”

“Bam,” said Skip, slapping a fist into his palm.

“I hit hard, you betcha. Nearly bit my tongue in half. One of my skis snapped like a twig and I went head over heels.” He drew circles through the air. “Cartwheels, I did. All the way across the landing zone.”

“Were you hurt, Grandpa?”

“Nope. A snowdrift saved me when I landed in it headfirst.” Charlie’s chest expanded. “I set the hill record on that very first jump and nobody ever did beat it.”

Skip’s eyes narrowed with skepticism. “How far did you fly?”

“Eh. The exact number’s in dispute because we didn’t have a tape measure. About…” Charlie inched his hands apart like a fisherman with a tall tale. “Forty feet. Give or take.”

“Wow,” Georgie breathed.

“More giving than taking, is what I’ve been told, my dear.” Grace rose. “Are we having second helpings? Thirds? No? Then, who wants to help me clear?”

Both Mike and Merry started to get up, but Shannon shot to her feet, dragging Nicky with her. “We’ll do it. You sit down, Grammadear.” She handed her husband the meat platter and potato bowl and swept up several dinner plates, escaping through the swinging door between the dining room and kitchen.

A short silence settled among those left at the table.

Skip’s expression was solemn. “Mom and Dad want to kiss in the kitchen.”

Merry pressed her lips together, but she caught Georgie’s eyes. They giggled.

“Silly,” Grace said with a bemused smile.

“I already caught Mom and Dad kissing on the staircase,” Skip informed them. “They didn’t even have the mistletoe.”

Mike straightened. “There’s mistletoe?”

“You rascal.” Charlie chuffed. “Look out, ladies! I know how these jet jocks operate.” He waved a finger at Mike. “Don’t even think about stealing a kiss from my pretty gal. You hear me, Grammadear? I’m giving orders. You’re to stay away from this one.”

Grace’s eyes shined behind her bifocals. “Oh, Charlie.”

“Uncle Mike can kiss Aunt Merry,” Georgie said.

“No, he can’t,” Skip corrected. “Because—” “No one’s kissing me,” Merry interrupted. She laughed awkwardly. “I’ve sworn off mistletoe for the duration.”

Mike studied her from across the table. “Got a boyfriend?”

She gathered silverware. “No.”

“She’s gonna be a single—”

“Skip. That’s quite enough, young man,” Grace interrupted smoothly despite the high color in her cheeks. “You and Georgie take the rest of the plates into the kitchen, please.”

“Knock first,” Charlie joked.

Merry couldn’t bring herself to stand, not when Mike was looking at her so closely. Curiosity was written across his face. She’d begun to believe that he hadn’t noticed what seemed so obvious to her—obvious and slightly embarrassing. She was her mother’s daughter.

“Woodstove needs stocking,” Charlie said with a harrumph. “Let’s go into the family room. We’ll get out those picture albums I mentioned.”

“Sounds good,” Merry said, making a motion to rise. Any distraction sounded good.

While Mike went to pull out her mother’s chair, Merry dropped her napkin and bustled about clearing the table before following the others toward the archway that opened to the family room.

Mike glanced back at her over the tops of her parents’ heads, silently signaling for a wingman.

She nodded, sympathetic to his plight. Although she’d rather head home, she couldn’t desert him, despite the likelihood that her brief fantasy of a Christmas romance was about to sputter and die like a neglected fire.

“I’ll be along in a minute,” she said. In all my glory.

She sighed. The warmth had been nice while it lasted.

MIKE STOOD WITH Meredith in the enclosed entryway of the farmhouse. The walls were paneled in knotty pine, with what seemed like a hundred family pictures hung in random configurations above the rows of coat hooks. While he held Merry’s coat out for her, his gaze skipped through the annual class pictures, following her from white-blond pixie haircuts and toothless grins to poufy marshmallow hair with lots of lip gloss. Apparently, she’d had no awkward teenage phase—only clear skin and a shining smile.

“Let me walk you home,” he said.

She pulled her hair free of the collar. “You don’t have to. It’s only a quarter mile down the driveway, then a short turn off the highway.”

“But it’s snowing. And dark.”

“I can manage.”

From the family room came the sounds of Charlie scraping ashes in the stove. A cabinet door closed and the lights went off in the kitchen. It was not even 9:00 p. m., but the Yorks were closing up the house for the night.

On their way upstairs, Nicky and Shannon stopped to glance into the entryway. “Good,” he said. “You’re walking her home.”

“Her?” Merry jammed the red knit hat down to the tips of her ears, which peeked through the strands of her hair. “She’s walking herself.”

“Meredith, don’t be stubborn.”

She looked at Nicky. Her lips twitched with a sassy retort left unsaid. From their many long talks aboard ship, Mike knew that the siblings had always been combative with each other, but it seemed that Merry wouldn’t argue tonight.

“All right,” she conceded. “You win. He can walk me home.”

“Take care of her like a brother,” Nicky said to Mike with a wink.

Merry made an inarticulate sound of frustration. “Argh.” She was shaking her head and smiling at the same time, a gesture similar to one Mike would direct at his own brother.

“You look like an elf,” he said when Nicky and Shannon had disappeared up the stairs. He couldn’t resist touching a finger to the pink curve of Merry’s exposed ear. “An aggravated elf.”

She rearranged her hair, brushing away his hand. “Are you saying I have big ears?”

“No, pointy ones.”

She fingered a lobe. “Really?”

“Maybe a little.” For a couple of seconds, he watched her fiddle, sliding the hoop earring through tender, pierced flesh. His breathing became shallow. The small gesture was unexpectedly intimate. Almost erotic.

He wanted to lick her lobe with his tongue. Brush away her hair and kiss the downy skin of her nape.

They’d sat on the couch for the past hour and a half, with Charlie between them. Whenever he’d gotten up to poke at the woodstove or sneak another Christmas cookie, one of the boys or even Grace had taken the empty place before Mike could slide closer. Sitting quietly among the chatter about family history and town happenings, Mike had been content with watching Merry. She’d contributed a few wry comments and hearty laughs; she had a wonderfully full, rich laugh that rang like a bell. But for the most part, she’d been subdued, not the bold older sister of Nicky’s stories.

Mike remained intrigued. Why was she holding back?

“I have to walk you home,” he said. “I need to stretch my legs.”

What he really needed was to walk through the falling snow, holding hands with a woman who didn’t quite make him forget his self-imposed isolation and the impending deployment, but who somehow seemed to give a more meaningful sense to it all. Perhaps he felt that way because his arrival in Christmas had revived his patriotic protectiveness for hometown America. Or maybe not.

What he knew for certain was that for now, for one quiet moment, he wanted to think only of Meredith and how good it would feel to be the man reflected in her bright eyes.

Her lashes lowered, then lifted, almost in slow motion. He thought he could hear the soft brush of them against her skin. Her lips parted. “Mike. I’m sorry about that—spending the evening on the couch with my parents, not able to get a word in edgewise. We’re all a bit overexcited about having Nicky home.”

“I enjoyed it.”

Her musical voice dropped an octave. “You don’t have to be polite with me.”

“No?” He moved closer.

Her eyes widened. “What I meant is…” She stopped and laughed with a slow chuckle that danced along the surface of his skin. He felt her nearness in every follicle and fingernail and heartbeat. “You know what I meant.”