“Nuh-uh,” he replied, picking at the knee of his khaki uniform pants. “I won’t be there anymore.”
No, she thought with a sigh. He wouldn’t be, and the silence that followed hinted at how very much that new change disturbed him.
Thinking the Christmas carols playing on the radio might distract him, she turned the volume up over the hum of the heater and encouraged him to sing along.
That didn’t work. Neither did any of her other attempts to console, cajole or otherwise ease away his dispirited expression.
Fighting discouragement herself, she finally conceded that she had no idea just then how to make everything better for her little boy.
That disheartening fact had just registered when her eyes widened on what should have been nothing more than the dusk-gray shapes of the road, the woods and the distant rectangle of Harbor Market & Sporting Goods.
Peering past the headlights, she heard Tyler’s sudden “Oh. Wow!”
Wow, indeed.
The market stood glittery bright in the encroaching dark. Every pillar, post and eave, its roofline, even the chimney had been outlined with twinkling white lights. The bare branches of the apple tree at the near end had been wrapped in peppermint stripes of white lights and red. It was the snowman beyond it, though, that had her attention. Glowing blue-white, his top hat cocked at an angle, the tall, grinning Frosty stood as bold and impressive as the only person she knew who would have put it there.
The light on her answering machine was blinking when she finally coaxed Tyler out of the cold and into the kitchen. Hitting Play, she heard Erik’s recorded voice say he was checking to see if she’d finished the inventory and ask when she’d be available to discuss the business plan. He mentioned nothing about the dazzling Christmas lights that hadn’t been there when she’d left that morning.
She hit Redial. Apparently taking his cue from the number on his caller ID, he answered with an easy, “You’re home.”
“We just got here. Erik,” she said, her tone half laugh, half hesitation, “I can’t believe what you’ve done.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“I don’t know.” She honestly had no idea how to weigh her son’s reaction against her next electric bill.
“Does Tyler like it?” he asked while she figured it out.
“Like it?” This is ours, Mom? he’d asked, his eyes huge. “He hasn’t stopped grinning since we got here. He’s practically stuck to the window right now watching the icicle lights.”
The sequential lights strung along the overhangs looked like dripping ice. Even the back of the house had been decorated. They’d noticed the lights wrapped around the side of the building the moment they’d driven up the rise. “He loves the snowman.”
“You said he would have liked the one my grandparents had,” he reminded her over the drone of what sounded like an electric saw. “My grandfather always put theirs facing the sound, but I had it put farther back on the lot, thinking Tyler could see it from the window.”
Truly torn by what he’d done, she dropped her scarf on the phone desk and unbuttoned her coat. When they’d talked about his grandparents’ traditions with the store, he’d seemed to see maintaining them mostly as a good approach to business. Yet her mentor’s gift clearly had less to do with marketing than with the little boy pressing his nose to the glass.
She didn’t want his thoughtfulness to mean so much. She just wasn’t able to help it. Not with her little boy so totally captivated.
“How did you get it done so fast?”
The drone beyond him grew quieter. Nearer, voices rose, then faded.
“This close to Christmas, lighting companies are usually finished putting up decorations and are just waiting to take them down. I called a company a client uses, told them what I wanted, gave them the building measurements and they did their thing.”
Just like that. With one phone call, he’d managed to do what she hadn’t been able to do no matter how hard she’d tried and totally distracted her son from his dejection.
“It’s just lights, Rory.”
The man had a serious gift for understatement. He’d used the same think-no-more-of-it tone right after he’d proved that the shell of control she fought to maintain around her life was about as thin as paper.
It was just a kiss, he’d said.
He was only being kind when he’d reached for her. Just as he was only being kind when he’d overlooked how she’d practically crawled inside his shirt when she’d kissed him back—shortly before he’d pointedly minimized the moment of comfort, security and whatever else she’d felt in his arms.
He, on the other hand, apparently hadn’t felt much of anything at all, other than anxious to get out of there.
But this wasn’t about them. Not that there was a them, she insisted to herself. This was about what he’d done for her child.
“It’s more than lights, Erik. To us, anyway.” He had to know that. “And Tyler loves them.” That was all that she would let matter at the moment. For her son’s sake, she wasn’t even going to panic over the electric bill. Yet. “So thank you. From both of us.”
“You’re welcome. Listen,” he continued over the thud of heavy boots on metal stairs, “I have to get back to the payroll right now, but we need to discuss your business plan and address inventory. I have to be in Tacoma before noon tomorrow, so let’s do it over the phone. Are you okay for an eight-thirty call? That’ll give us a couple of hours.
“You there?” he asked when she hesitated.
“Can we make it Sunday?”
“Sunday’s not good for me.”
“Actually,” she began, wondering if Sunday involved the woman he’d taken out last week, “I’m not quite finished with the inventory.” She hated telling him that. “I’d have finished last night, but we had to bake cookies.”
With the bang of a door, the noise and conversations beyond him died.
“Had to?”
“I told Tyler’s teacher I’d bring treats for his class today. And I’d promised him he could help. So, yes,” she insisted. “I had to.”
She’d also brought cookies for the staff—which meant she’d spent the past two afternoons and evenings baking and filling tins and decorating twenty-two gingerbread girls and boys. With Tyler’s help, the project had taken twice as long as it might have, but she’d wanted something for him that she’d never had as a child, holiday memories of flour on noses, sugar sprinkles, the air scented with vanilla and spice. Her mom’s idea of baking had been heating a muffin in the microwave.
“What about tomorrow? Will you have it finished
