she was still infatuated with Garrett McCrae. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. She was too old for crushes, especially on someone who’d made it clear that kissing her had been the worst mistake of his life.
Are you kidding me? Kissing Jodi would be about as thrilling as kissing our Labrador retriever. And she’d probably double up her fist and belt the first guy who tried.
Her breath caught at the still-vivid memory. After a heart-soaring kiss only a short while earlier, she’d overheard him joking with his buddies later that same night, after the Christmas Eve service. One of them—Richard?—had mumbled something she didn’t catch, and Garrett’s mocking response brought a round of laughter that she could still hear. Could still feel the hot waves of humiliation that had coursed through her.
Thankfully, neither Garrett nor any of the others had seen her, and shaking all the way to her core, she’d slipped silently away. But it cut deep, making it the worst Christmas of her whole life. The worst, that is, until she lost a baby to miscarriage four years ago this very month.
Looking back now, she recognized that she’d allowed overhearing Garrett and the laughter of the other boys to set her up for a fall when, not too many years later, Kel O’Connor blarneyed her—and her rickety self-image—right into his arms and into his bed.
Jodi clenched her fists. She was not going to think about Kel right now. Or Garrett. Not even Anton, although he was an innocent party in all of this.
As she took a step away from the window, she glimpsed an SUV making its way up the pine-lined lane to the cabin. Garrett. What was he doing here? He hadn’t said anything about stopping by.
There was someone in the seat beside him, too. Sofia? No, thankfully it was Dolly. Sofia, although seemingly as sweet as could be, was one of those women who made her overly aware of her own shortcomings in the domesticity department. Those cookies she’d delivered while Jodi was at the church hadn’t looked store-bought, but what exactly was her relationship with Garrett that she was stopping by his office in the middle of the morning? Hadn’t he mentioned on Sunday that she worked someplace full-time?
“This is a surprise,” Jodi said as she ushered her guests in from the cold.
“I told Dolly about the bargain I’d made with you.” Garrett unlooped what looked to be a hand-crocheted scarf from around his neck—Sofia’s work?—and hung it on the coatrack by the door. His jacket joined it. “You know, how if you helped with the Christmas project, I’d see that you got assistance cleaning this place.”
“He bullied you into cleaning, Dolly?” Jodi gave Garrett a look of reprimand as he helped the older woman off with her coat. He’d said earlier that he’d have high schoolers pitch in, not drag one of her grandma’s friends into it.
“In case you haven’t noticed, he’s more of a sweet-talker than a bully. Which is why we’ve been delighted to have him heading up Christ’s Church’s ministry.” His landlady smiled at him with affection in her eyes. “I told him I’d be happy to help, and he suggested we find out firsthand exactly what you need to have done.”
“Well...” Jodi looked around the space somewhat helplessly. A housekeeper came in once a week in Philly while she was at work, so she wasn’t certain what all might be involved in that vaguely mysterious process. Kind of like the baffling nuances of home cooking—that’s what delis and restaurant takeout were for, right? “Mom and Dad haven’t been here this year, so everything’s dusty. And they said they haven’t done deep cleaning in years. I’ve found more than a few cobwebs.”
Which she was not touching.
“Cobwebs?” Garrett’s eyes gleamed. “That must have made your day.”
“Funny.” She gave him a smirk, then offered an explanation to Dolly. “When we were kids Garrett talked me into going first when we were exploring one of the attic spaces under the eaves, knowing full well spiders had strung their sticky webs across our intended path.”
She shuddered at the memory, and Garrett laughed.
“That’s our Garrett.” Dolly shook her head in amusement. “Is it okay, Jodi, if I take a look around? That will give me an idea of what type of cleaning supplies I need to bring.”
“Look to your heart’s content. And I’ll pay for any supplies.”
Dolly disappeared in the direction of the bedrooms and bath. One bathroom. How on earth would her family get through next week in a packed house?
Garrett clapped his hands together. “So, how’s it going with the project? Have you drummed up any donations?”
Jodi rubbed her hands up and down her sweatered arms to warm herself up. Another thing she’d need to get—firewood. “I made a few calls with little to show for it.”
As in nothing.
“I plan to hit it hard this afternoon,” she continued, unwilling to admit defeat. “But I may call Melody first. See if she has any tips.”
“I remember her saying that some years she’d get more of one thing than another and had to fill in for what came up short.”
This year might take a lot of supplementing if the results of the initial phone calls were an accurate gauge.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
His attention abruptly focused across the room. “Hey, what’s all this? Christmas decorations?”
Before she could stop him, he covered the distance to the holiday-designed boxes, crouched down, and popped the lid off one. “Oh, wow. I remember this.”
He carefully lifted out a rustic-looking wooden crèche, a good eighteen inches tall and a maybe two feet wide. “This sat on the console table over there, didn’t it? And baby Jesus never put in an appearance in the manger until Christmas morning.”
“You have a good memory.”
She moved to stand beside him as he continued to rummage, reaching in for the Bubble-Wrapped wooden figurines and freeing them from their plastic-encased confines one at a time.
“Remember the year we nearly ransacked this place trying to find where your grandma hid baby Jesus so we could kidnap him?”
“You thought Grandma would pay the ransom in chocolate chip cookies.”
“Brats, weren’t we?” He lifted up a black-bearded wooden figurine, a wise man cloaked in a turquoise robe. “This guy, he was my favorite. Remember how we’d march them around, making them talk about the star and going in search of baby Jesus?”
“And got them into Star Wars battles along the way.” She knelt down beside him and picked up one of the sheep. She hadn’t seen this nativity set since she left for college. Since before they stopped coming to Hunter Ridge for Christmas when Grandma’s health deteriorated.
Frowning, Garrett pawed through the plastic.
She placed the sheep down next to the other pieces. “What are you looking for?”
He dug around a bit more, then sat back on his heels, a solemn look on his face. “Sorry you lost your baby, Jodi.”
Her breath caught, a wave
