dozen sugar cookies decorated individually like giftwrapped Christmas parcels.”
“Good for Ashley.”
“Mrs. Campbell sent three dozen chocolate-dipped snowmen. Sharon McKinley sent melt-in-your-mouth shortbread, shaped like Christmas balls, with icing ribbons.”
“How did you know they were melt-in-your-mouth? Are you sampling the cookies, Miss McGuire? Tut-tut.” He heard her bite back laughter.
Why were the simplest things such a joy with her?”
“Mrs. Bonnabell sent—
“Look, it sounds like you have plenty of cookies. You won’t even need the box of Peek Freans I sent over.”
“That is hardly the point, Mr. Hathoway.”
“What is the point?”
“Everyone else made the effort.”
“Fine. I’ll ask Molly to whip me up a batch of brown snowmen, with ribbons around their necks, holding Christmas parcels. Individually decorated.”
“Your listening skills are very good, Mr. Hathoway.”
“Thank you.” Ridiculous to feel pleased that she had noticed how closely he listened to her every word. However, he guessed.
“However,” Morgan continued, “I don’t really think it’s fair to ask Molly to contribute to our class project.”
“I don’t know how to make cookies.”
“Well, yes, I understand that. It is a situation that can be remedied. I mean, a few short weeks ago, I didn’t know how to hang a coat hanger.”
“You’re not exactly ready to start building furniture.”
“No, I suppose not.”
Said a bit doubtfully, as if she might actually be considering trying to build some furniture. He reminded himself he’d have to follow up on getting her a new hammer before she wrecked something else trying to use the one she had.
“The point is,” Morgan said, “I was willing to learn. If you and Ace would like to come over this afternoon after school, I would be happy to teach you how to make Christmas cookies.”
His schedule had become insane because of the volunteer hours he was putting in on the set of The Christmas Angel. He still had special orders he had to get out for Christmas, as well as the gate commission.
Plus, he was avoiding Morgan. And her lips. And the clear invitation he had seen in her eyes the other night after the disastrous sleigh ride. Boy, if a sleigh ride like that couldn’t scare a girl off, what would?
And there was the other disastrous thing, too. Telling her about Cindy and David had poked a little hole in the dam of feelings walled up within him…He was all too aware that he might be like the little boy hoping his finger poked in that hole was going to be enough to hold it back.
The thing was, her voice on the other end of the phone was like a lifeline thrown to a man who had been in the water so long he didn’t even know he was drowning.
The thing was, he knew it had cost her to make the move, and he could not bear to hurt her. It seemed she had experienced quite enough hurt in her life. Not at the hands of fate, either, but at the hands of the very people who should have loved and protected her.
Though there was probably a far more sensible way of looking at that. Hurt her a little now. Or a lot later.
He didn’t feel like being sensible. Or maybe, closer to the truth, he was not as sure as he had been a few weeks ago about what sensible was.
“Sure,” he said, as if he grabbed lifelines every single day. “What time would you like us to come make cookies?”
AS IT TURNED OUT, after school, Ace had been offered a Christmas shopping outing to Greenville with the Westons. She still had to buy something for her daddy, she informed Nate, and it would be much too hard to keep it a secret if he came with her.
She was so excited about going shopping with her new friend Brenda that he didn’t have the heart to tell her she would be missing making cookies with her teacher. Having to make such a momentous choice would have torn her in two.
Nate knew he could phone and cancel, and maybe even should phone and cancel, but as he moved up the walkway to Morgan’s house, he contemplated the fact that he hadn’t.
And knew he was saying yes to the Light.
Even though he knew better. Even though he knew, better than most, life could be hard, and cruel, and made no promises.
When Morgan opened her door, that’s what he saw in her face. Light. And he moved toward it like a man who had been away for a long time, a soldier away at the wars, who had spotted the light pouring out the window of home.
An hour later her kitchen was covered in flour and red food coloring. He was pretty sure there were more sprinkles on the floor than on the cookies.
And, despite the fact she was the world’s best teacher, calm, patient, clear about each step and the order to do them in, those cookies were extra ugly. Sugar cookies, they were supposed to look like Christmas tree decorations. They didn’t.
He held one of the finished cookies up for her. “What does this look like?”
She studied it. “An icicle?”
“Morgan, it looks like something obscene.” He bit into it, loving her blush. “But it tastes not bad.”
She put her hands on her hips, still very much Miss McGuire, pretending that kiss of a few nights ago wasn’t hanging in the air between them like mistletoe, pretending her face wasn’t on fire. “Has anyone ever told you you’re incorrigible?”
“Of course,” he said, picked up a misshapen Santa and bit his head off. “That’s part of being a Hathoway.”
“Really?” She surveyed the cookies, apparently realized they were not going anywhere near Wesley’s welcome party, picked one up and bit into it. “Tell me about growing up a Hathoway.”
And oddly enough, he did. In Morgan’s kitchen, surrounded by the scent of cookies baking and a feeling of home, Nate told her about how it was to grow up poor in a small town.
“But,” he said, making sure she knew he was not inviting pity, “we might have been poor, but our family was everything. We were fiercely loyal to each other. My dad couldn’t give my mom much materially, but I don’t think a man has ever loved a woman the way he loves her. He would fight off tigers for her. For any of us. There was an intense feeling of family.
“And we might have been poor, but we were never bored.” He told her about working in the forge since he was just a little boy, starting on small chores, working up to bending the iron.
He told her
