Kentucky Christmas Page 6

  Not that Andrew was jealous.

  “I’m sure the boys are fine,” Andrew said. He knew there was no defending Tina, just like there was no defending his mother around her. “She’s probably busy keeping the boys in line.” Ed called his kids “spirited.” Andrew called them animals. Meeting Billie’s well-behaved menagerie had him reconsidering the comparison. It was so not fair to animals.

  “Those children are angels. I don’t know why she makes such a fuss about them. She acts like they cause trouble without constant supervision.”

  Andrew thought about all of the appliances, glassware, and sheetrock that had not survived a visit from his cousin’s kids.

  “Yes. They are angels.”

  “Anyway, this year Eddie is getting the kids a puppy.”

  “What does Tina think of that?”

  “What does Tina have to do with it? It’s for the kids.”

  His mother had a really selective memory when it came to the helpfulness of young people.

  “I need you to pick up some things for the dog. I’m swamped at the store. And it’s not like you have a lot of shopping to do.”

  Andrew winced. He knew this guilt trip. He and his mother hadn’t exchanged Christmas gifts since she’d bought the store when he was in high school. She was too crazy around the holidays, and Andrew apparently picked out crappy presents. But she still managed to suggest that, at his age, he should have a girl to buy presents for.

  He wondered what Billie would want for Christmas.

  “The only thing I want for Christmas is my darling son home.”

  His phone beeped. “Mom, I gotta go. Someone else is trying to call.”

  “Who could be more important than your mother?”

  “It might be business.”

  “Oh! OK, you go take that call. Make a sale, honey. Make Eddie proud.”

  He grumbled goodbye, and disconnected.

  “Andy?”

  Tina. Tina never called him.

  “Hey, what’s up?” He heard a crash in the background.

  “We’re just decorating the tree.” Another crash, and a scream.

  “You OK?”

  “Yeah, the kids are just killing each other. Listen, I know you’re working, but I have to ask you something.”

  “Sure.”

  “Is Eddie getting the kids a dog for Christmas?”

  “Uhh.”

  “Crap. I knew it. Your mother has been around, talking about picking up shoes and things that can get chewed on. At first I thought she was talking about Joey, but Joey outgrew his shoe-chewing thing months ago.”

  Andrew had lost a good pair of boots to Joey’s shoe-chewing thing.

  “You gotta talk to him, Andy. We can NOT have a dog in this house.”

  Crash.

  “Joey! No! Don’t eat that! Listen, I gotta go. Andy, will you talk to him, please?”

  He loved his cousin’s wife, really, he did. But there was no way he was getting involved.

  He didn’t have to tell her that, though, because she had hung up before he could say anything.

  He wandered slowly back down the hall, to where things were quiet and sleep-warmed and nobody was related to him. Billie was still curled up in bed, her penguin shoulder peeking out from under the quilt. PeeWee had left her perch on the dresser, but Sniffer had taken advantage of Andrew’s absence and was curled up, half-under the quilt, on his side of the bed.

  “Hey, dog,” he whispered. “That’s my spot.”

  Sniffer shifted, and huffed, and sniffed Andrew’s face. Billie stirred, rubbing her eyes and swatting Sniffer’s tail out of her face.

  “Dog—” she started, then noticed Andrew standing at the foot of the bed.

  “Oh. Hi.”

  “Hi,” he said, crawling toward her.

  “You’re still here.”

  “Did you want me to go?”

  “Absolutely not,” she said, pushing Sniffer out of her face. Then she wrapped her arms around Andrew, and he was pulled down to her. He wiggled under the covers, and she wrapped her legs around him. It was cold out. He needed her to warm him.

  Chapter 9

  “More shiny crap?” he asked, opening a box.

  “Oh, good. I was looking for these!” Billie pulled out her favorite decorations: one string of flamingo lights and a box of Christmas rubber duckies. This was almost all that remained of the ironically tacky phase of her late teens.

  “Rubber duckies?”

  “We have to put these up high. Diablo thinks they’re chew toys.” She slid the box out to the Bring Downstairs pile. “Ha, I bet he thought I wouldn’t find them!”

  “Diablo?”

  “My dad hates the flamingoes. Every year he hides them in a different box, hoping I won’t find them to put them up the next year. And every year I’ve foiled him. Ha!”

  “But he always hides them with the other Christmas stuff?”

  Andrew carefully studied whatever was in the box in front of him, but she swore she saw him smile.

  “What?”

  “You guys are cute with your traditions.”

  “Hmph.”

  “Like these flamingo lights. Which are amazing, by the way.”

  At least he had good taste.

  “I mean, he hides them in another box of Christmas decorations. Of course you’re going to find them. But every year, he hides them, and every year, you probably make a big deal out of not making a big deal of finding them and putting them up, right?”

  “Right.” She blushed. She thought she was the only one who knew.

  He sighed, holding up a blue lamé stocking with a picture of Elvis on it. She couldn’t help but brighten—she’d been looking for that one, too.

  “Here’s my family Christmas tradition,” said Andrew. “I pick up my mom, we go to my cousin Ed’s, they both harangue me for not having a job or a girlfriend, his kids eat too much sugar and start whaling on each other, then they get tired of that and start whaling on me, and I always end up hiding in the bathroom.”

  “Because of the whaling?”

  “That, and because I usually drink half a dozen glasses of eggnog.”

  “Ouch.”

  “I told you, it’s a tradition.”

  “You don’t have anything at your house?”

  “Nope.”

  Billie thought that was sad. She might have had a messed up childhood and a runaway mom, but at least she’d had Christmas.

  For someone who claimed not to care, Andrew was being awfully helpful. And enthusiastic. She probably shouldn’t pay him back by gawking at his butt as he leaned into the opening to the attic that was cut into the ceiling. She shivered, remembering how many muscles he had hidden away under those clothes. She thought probably they should hurry and get these decorations up so she could unwrap him again . . .

  “Look out!”

  Billie looked up to see something shiny and metal and vaguely green headed for her head. Then she was jerked off her feet and trapped under something heavy, but not unpleasantly so.

  “You OK? Did you hit your head?”

  She looked up into Andrew’s blue eyes, felt his hands roughly checking her face, her hair.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” she said, starting to swat away his hands. Then she stopped. She kind of liked his hands. “What was that?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.” He sat up a little, keeping a hand gently on her shoulder. She accepted his help sitting up and looked at what had, apparently, nearly killed her.

  “Oh, that’s Katie’s wreath. I usually wait until the last minute to hang it up.”

  “I can see why,” he said, fingering the flowers made out of aluminum cans. “What kind of soda is this?”

  “Ale 8-One. A Kentucky original.”

  She saw him thinking it over. “It makes an ugly wreath.”

  “I know. But it’s the only craft Katie has ever successfully completed in her life, so I feel like I should honor that accomplishment. And I know she ge
ts a kick out of seeing it hung up every year, even though she pretends not to.”

  “Well, it almost killed you,” he said, tossing the can-wreath aside.

  “Hey! Be careful with that!”

  “You care more about that wreath than you do about your health. You must be sick,” he said, leaning toward her.

  Billie saw the sparkle in his eyes, brighter than any of the lights blinking in the living room. “Very,” she said, leaning back until she was flat on the ground.

  “Very,” he agreed, coming over her. His hand tangled in her hair. He whispered something she couldn’t make out but Billie smiled anyway, until his mouth came down on hers, gently, just the way she liked. She ran her hands down his back, over his jeans, and squeezed. God, he was cute. This was all she wanted for Christmas.

  Mariah Carey agreed, but then she started to go off the beat of Billie’s Christmas mix. Was her MP3 player skipping? Andrew could probably fix it.

  “Dammit,” he said, resting his forehead on hers. Then he rolled up and pulled the phone out of his jeans pocket.

  “Oh, hey,” he said. Then he stood up, nodded tensely. “Today? Are you sure? OK. OK, thanks.” He sat back down on the floor and picked up her hand.

  “Car’s ready.”

  “Oh,” she said. Already? Bud never worked that fast.

  “Bud said he wanted to make sure I got home for Christmas.”

  “You don’t do Christmas.”

  Andrew laughed weakly. “I don’t. Not at home, anyway.”

  “When do you have to go?”

  “Soon. Now. Bud said he would stay open for a little while longer.”

  “He probably wants to get home for Christmas Eve. He has a new granddaughter. I’m surprised he’s even open today.”

  “Yeah, that was really nice of him.”

  If it was so nice, Billie thought, why did she want to punch Bud in his hillbilly beard?

  “Can I call you? I mean, I would like to call you, if that’s OK.”

  Andrew was still holding her hand. She looked down at it. She still couldn’t look at his face.

  “All the way from New York?”

  “Yeah. I mean, if you’ve got a string that long. Of course from New York. Maybe you can come visit. I’ll take you around to Rockefeller Center and Fifth Avenue and all of that holiday tourist crap.”

  She looked up at him.

  “Sorry, not crap. I mean, tourist things. Christmas things that I think you’ll like. You’ll like New York.”

  He was so cute, and he looked like he really meant it. He was so sweet he probably thought he meant it. But Billie was under no illusions that he was going to get home to New York and remember anything interesting about his time in Hollow Bend. There was just no way.

  But he looked really sincere behind those glasses, and he was holding her hand and leaning toward her across a sea of homemade, kitschy Christmas decorations. She’d let him think he would call, but she wouldn’t wait for it. She’d let him go, and she’d have Christmas with her dad, with the Carsons, with her friends, and her family. And eventually, probably by the time she turned eighty-five and forgot her own name, she’d forget about the time this cute hipster guy in slim-fit pants with big glasses and hidden muscles under his shirt made her feel really, really good. For now, though, she’d let him believe this wasn’t the end.

  She reached for his glasses and as she pulled them off, he cupped her face. They leaned in toward each other and she closed her eyes, memorizing the feel of his lips on hers, running her hands down those secret shoulders one last time.

  “Thank you for everything.”

  She smiled up at him. God, she would miss him.

  “I’ll call you when I get there,” he said, placing a quick peck on her lips. “And on the way, too.”

  “OK. Don’t call me while you’re driving, though. I don’t want you crashing into someone else’s bar.”

  He laughed. “Maybe I’ll come back in the spring. Or you can come to New York. New Year’s Eve or something.”

  “Sure,” she said, and kissed him one last time.

  Chapter 10

  As Andrew pulled out of town, he didn’t look back. He couldn’t. A fine rain was washing the snow away, and he didn’t want to go skidding into one of the houses on the side of the road. They looked much less sturdy than the Cold Spot, and besides, they looked so pretty with their twinkling lights and baubles. Even those gigantic inflatable snowmen looked whimsical.

  He hated those snowmen.

  Well, a few days ago he hated those snowmen. He carefully turned on the GPS, because he had already forgotten the directions back to the interstate that Bud had given him. The sun was just setting, and Andrew figured if he drove straight through, he would get home about the same time as his mom got done with the store. Plenty of time. He would get home in plenty of time for his mother to sleep in, for them not to exchange presents, and to have a horrible time at Ed and Tina’s. Maybe this year would be different, he thought. Maybe this year he would appreciate the oversized tree and excessive presents for the kids. Maybe this year he wouldn’t be bothered by the smug, superior look on Ed’s face when he brought in his pitiful sales numbers. Maybe Ed would be proud of him for making some progress.

  Maybe he would only drink one glass of eggnog.

  Andrew stopped at a T and wondered what Billie was doing right now. She was probably just finally able to pick herself up off the floor after the devastation of his leaving. No, even at his most cynical, he knew that wasn’t true. She was probably making hot cocoa for homeless squirrels and organizing a choir of lonely senior citizens who would fall in love with each other and get a new lease on life.

  That wasn’t fair, either. That wasn’t even funny. What had this girl done to him that even his own cynical jokes weren’t funny to him?

  He bet he knew what she was doing. She was wearing some ridiculous Christmas outfit that would still look really hot on her. She was exchanging presents with her dad—just one, that was the tradition—and then she would put antlers on the dogs and let them out one last time before she settled in to watch bad Christmas movies. Which she thought were good Christmas movies.

  He pictured her snuggled in front of the fire. She was probably wearing antlers of her own, her hands curled around a mug of hot chocolate. He bet she made it with whole milk and real cocoa.

  His GPS beeped, telling him to make a right for County Road 23 West.

  “West?” he said to the non-human GPS. “I need to go west to get east?”

  The GPS just blinked. 23 West.

  “Fine,” Andrew muttered. “The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

  But as he drove, he noticed that some of the land looked familiar. He couldn’t believe that he was actually able to identify different pieces of fence, but he did. Then the fences gave way to inflatable snowmen . . . this was definitely the way back to Hollow Bend.

  “Lady, what are you trying to do to me?” He picked up the GPS and shook it.

  County Road 23 West, it blinked. In one point five miles, turn left.

  There was no way. In one point five miles, he would be turning back onto Billie’s road.

  “Did I program this wrong?” he muttered, checking the destination in the settings. Home, it said.

  Home.

  Screw it. And he kept driving.

  Billie was opening her second Christmas Eve present from her dad. Her first was always a pair of pajamas, and she always ran upstairs to put them on. Then she got to pick out one more present to open. She’d been doing it since she was a little girl, since her mom left. It felt silly now, especially since she and her dad had agreed to treat each other like adults, but she liked traditions. And presents.

  “Open this one,” he said, handing her a small box with a red bow.

  “Hey, I thought I got to pick,” she said, eyeing a much bigger present under the tree. So much for outgrowing traditions.

  “Give your old man a break,” he said, putti
ng the box in her hand.

  As tradition dictated, she sniffed it. Then shook it. It rattled. Probably not jewelry. Hopefully not a glass figurine.

  “Open it,” her dad laughed.

  She ripped off the bow and tore open the box so fast she didn’t even have time to drop it. Inside was . . . her house keys.

  “Uh, thanks?” she said. She thought she’d lost them, so this was a good present. This was a good present, right?

  “I didn’t have enough paper to wrap the whole thing.”

  “No, it’s . . . great. Thanks, I thought I lost them.”

  “Billie! Did you think I was giving you your own keys for Christmas?”

  She blinked up at him. She sort of did.

  “The house! I’m giving you the house!”

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Well, since you finally convinced me to retire, I’m going to do what I always talked about. Do you remember?”

  “The RV?”

  “Yes, the RV. Bud got me a good deal. It’s all worked out. I’m spending New Year’s in Miami with Bob and Doris, then I’m going to the Outer Banks with Carla and her granddaughters.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “You didn’t think I’d give you the house and expect you to put me up, did you?”

  “No, no. Well, to be honest, I didn’t think any of this.”

  “I’ve been planning this for a while, talking it over with people.”

  “People?”

  “I know you love this house, but if you want to sell it, that’s OK, too. It’s yours now, so you can do what you want. But I thought you might like to stay. And your animals are so comfortable here.”

  “Dad—”

  “I knew I was going to leave you the house, but then I thought, why wait until I’m dead?”