arms raised over her head, whooping as if she were on a roller coaster.
Charlie’s gaze followed her sleigh down the Green, and up again. He counted the people still ahead of him, the number of sleighs loading and unloading.
“You want to go ahead of us?” he said to the mother and her three kids behind him. “We have to finish our chocolate.”
“You sure?”
“Go right ahead.”
“Daddy,” Tony whined as the family moved around them and into the next sleigh. “We could have gone. Everyone else has their hot chocolate on the sleigh.”
“It’s ok, Ton. We’ll get the next one. Hey,” Charlie pointed, “Isn’t that your friend Henry?
“Where?”
“On the sleigh coming up, right there.”
Tony and Millie craned their necks. His daughter scowled but his son waved a hand over his head. The sleigh carrying Henry, Gio, Ian, Julietta, some guy he didn’t recognize, and Johanna slid to a stop. Tony ran to greet his friend, his booted feet clumsy and sliding out from underneath him.
“Ho, there, little man.” The gentleman Charlie didn’t recognize scooped Tony up just as he was about to slide under the sleigh. “Careful.”
“That’s my friend,” Henry said. “Tony McCallan.”
“Pleased to meet you, Tony. I’m Efan.”
Efan offered his hand, man to man. Tony grasped it, pumping enthusiastically. “Thanks. I almost slid into horse poop.”
“That would have been unfortunate.” Efan let go of Tony’s hand to turn back to the sleigh. He offered his hand to Julietta with a chivalrous bow. “My lady?”
“Why thank you, kind sir.”
“’Tis my pleasure to assist a’wan so fair.”
“Move it along, you two.” Johanna nudged her sister from behind. Julietta stumbled forward and into Efan’s arms. Charlie noted that he did not let go of her, but held her even closer.
“Our turn,” Millie shouted, jumping up and down. Charlie offered his hand to Johanna. He, however, let go the moment her feet touched the ground.
“Thanks, Dan.” She waved to the driver.
Charlie hadn’t even noticed his friend sitting there. He murmured, “Hey, Dan.”
“Nice night for this, eh, Charles?”
“I can’t remember a better one.”
“Because there has never been one. That’s what we were just saying, weren’t we Jo?”
“Hey”—Millie pointed—“he called her Joe too.” Millie turned to Johanna. “Why does everyone call you a boy’s name?”
“Only people I knew when I was little. Jo, like Johanna. See? Like people call you Millie, but your name is Camellia.”
“How did you know my whole name? No one ever calls me it, unless I’m in trouble.”
Johanna’s eyes flicked to Charlie. “I’ve known your daddy and mommy a long time. I remember when you were born.”
“You do?”
“Very, very well.”
“Can Henry come with us?” Tony pushed between Charlie and Johanna. “Please?”
“He already had his turn,” Johanna began, but Dan waved him back in—which naturally led to Gio and Ian both begging another turn.
“Climb on in, boys,” Dan laughed. “I’ll need at least one adult, though.”
“We’ll go.” Julietta leapt back into the sleigh. Johanna opened her mouth as Efan climbed in behind her, but closed it again. After the sleigh pulled away with a whoosh and a jingle, she said, “I didn’t have the heart to tell her to give you a turn.”
“I wouldn’t have had the heart to take it.” He held up his now-cold cup of hot chocolate. “I can’t drink this stuff anymore.”
Johanna wrinkled her nose. Even in winter, she had a faint spattering of summer freckles across the bridge. “It’s just so nasty.”
“I never noticed before, until the other morning.”
“I suppose I’ve ruined you for life.” He laughed with her but Charlie’s stomach flipped at the truth she unwittingly told. She took the cup from his hand and sniffed at it. “It doesn’t even smell right.”
She wore a red, fuzzy beret like a frame around her face. Stray curls peeked out there at her forehead, her left cheek. For all her wildness, Johanna Coco could have been an angel looking up at him through those heavy lashes, for the wide innocence of her eyes, the porcelain of her skin. Charlie tried to find words, any words to fill the prolonged silence.
“Who’s the Brit?” he asked.
“Efan, Julietta’s…friend. He’s Welsh actually, but had to tone down the accent to teach here in the States.”
“He teaches where?”
“The boarding school up in Great Barrington.”
The familiar mischief in Johanna’s smile, in her eyes, flipped Charlie’s gut. He never had been able to guess what she was thinking, even when they knew one another so well they could sit for hours without saying a word. Johanna would grin that grin and anything could happen, and usually did.
“I’ll be home for Christmas. You can plan on me. Please have snow and mistletoe, and presents on the tree…”
Johanna turned to the voices singing. Charlie heard them only as sound somewhere far, far away, in a place that might be Bitterly on a December night.
“I love this one.” And she sang along, loudly. Sweetly. Swaying as if she waltzed. For a split moment, it was summer, and he was in the woods, his head on her tanned, flat belly, listening to her sing through the thrumming of her body.
“I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.” Johanna clapped with everyone else.
Charlie did not.
“Aren’t you going to sing?” she asked.
“I’d rather listen to you,” came his automatic response, and Charlie blushed like the boy he had been. “I forgot what a beautiful voice you have.”
“Ha! Never got me a part in the school play, though.”
“Because you didn’t play by the rules,” he said. “The good parts always went to the kids in chorus.”
“Chorus was boring.”
“And Stacy Kinnigan didn’t
