"Can you call? We have cell phones," Holly said.
"I have one, too. Home phones are out, I imagine. I couldn"t get through." He shook his head. "Nope, I"ve got to go. Like I said, it"s not far now. Too bad about the load, but it"s pretty late to sell "em now anyway. Still, one of "em will go to good use."
He walked around to the back of the truck, untied the canvas, and flipped it back. Matthew smelled pine. And when the driver pulled a Christmas tree, all neatly bundled for travel, off the truck"s bed, he just shook his head. "You"ve got to be kidding me."
"Well, I got a deal on "em, you see. There"s only a dozen. Lots of folks wait till Christmas Eve to get their trees, so I figured I could turn "em around for a few dollars" profit." He eyed the nose of his truck. "Looks like they ended up costing me more than I thought." He loosened a string from the tree"s bundled wrappings, used it to make a tow line with which to drag the tree home. A half mile through a blizzard.
"Hey, you folks have a tree yet?"
Holly smiled. "I think we do now," she said.
"Help yourself. Merry Christmas." The man turned and walked away, pulling the tree behind him.
Matthew watched him go. Then he heard Holly mutter, "Thanks, Mom."
He turned to look at her, and then at the truck full of trees, and then at her again. Her smile was as wide and bright as...h.e.l.l, as a kid"s on Christmas morning. "I told you. First, you have to believe." She ran through the snow, toward the truck, calling, "Come on, Matthew. Let"s pick the best tree of the bunch!"
Sheila hadn"t wanted to take the hat from Bernie, but sensed it was important to him, to his sense of pride. And besides, it was just exactly what Holly needed. She"d only just reenrolled in school, and landed a role in the holiday play. She was playing a hobo, and this hat was the one missing piece her costume still needed.
So Sheila gave the hat to Holly. And Holly fell in love with it. Maybe, somehow, she felt its magic. At any rate, she never went away from home without it. She even took it with her on that fateful trip back to her childhood home, twelve years later.
Ten.
BY THE TIME THE SUN CAME UP, THE TREE WAS STANDING IN the living room in a makeshift tree stand Matthew had constructed from an old pail he"d found in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and was held in place by a few yards of twine.
"Now what?" he asked, surveying his work.
"Now, breakfast. I believe it"s your turn to cook."
He studied her with his eyebrows raised, then, seeing that she wasn"t kidding, he nodded. "Okay, breakfast it is."
"There"s a pile of food in the big cooler in the kitchen. I never bothered with the fridge."
"Is there-dare I hope-coffee?"
"Of course there"s coffee. And luckily, I brought the stovetop percolator."
"I"m not sure I know how to use it."
"Then I"ll brew while you cook. Let"s get cracking, we"ve got a ton to do today."
"We do?" He looked around the place as if in search of all the busywork she had lined up. "Like what?"
"Decorate the tree. Make Christmas dinner. And build a snowman."
"I was thinking more in terms of shoveling the driveway and cleaning off our cars."
She stuck out her lower lip. "You"re in that much of a hurry to leave?"
He studied her face, sensing a lapse in her happy-go-lucky, Holly-Golightly mood. "We"re going to have to eventually, Holly. It"s stopped snowing. They"ll probably clear the roads before the day is out."
She lowered her head, licked her lips, then nodded once. "Well, let"s get on with breakfast then. If we"re going to decorate the tree, make the dinner, build a snowman, clear the driveway, and clean off the cars, we"d better get a move on."
But the sadness remained in her eyes, despite her bright smile, as she hurried into the kitchen. Dammit, he thought. He knew it. He knew she was going to get all emotional on him, and want more than just a casual encounter. He hated hurting her. It was like kicking a puppy to hurt a bubbly little thing like Holly. But he couldn"t help it.
G.o.d, he couldn"t even imagine what else there could be between them. They were completely opposite in every way. Living with that cheerful, positive, upbeat, silver lining kind of att.i.tude in his life would...
He was going to say it would be horrible. But he couldn"t quite tell that big a lie, even to himself.
It just wasn"t what he had planned. That"s all.
BY NOON, THE DETERMINED, STUBBORN, FRIGHTENED MAN had shoveled the driveway to within an inch of its life. Yes, frightened, Holly thought. He was scared to death of her, she knew it. And not just of her, but of what she represented-belief. Faith. Reaching for the impossible with every expectation that it would be. He didn"t want to believe in anything, because his past was full of pain. He was just avoiding more of that. Or he thought he was.
But he wasn"t really living.
He wanted to get away from her so bad, she thought if they"d been stranded on a desert island, he would try to swim for it. If they were in a prison cell, he"d have gnawed through the bars. As it was, all he had to do was shovel some snow and wait for the plows.
He was cleaning off the cars now. Hers as well as his own. And he"d be done soon. Her time was running out.
She bundled up and headed outside. "Enough work for one day," she announced, s.n.a.t.c.hing the snow brush from him. "It"s time for some fun."
"You"ve got the tree all decked already?"
"What, you thought I was going to do it alone? No way. You, Ebenezer, are going to help me trim that tree. I"ve strung the popcorn and cranberries, though, and dinner"s in the oven."
"Won"t it be done awfully early?"
"Mmm. I figured that way you could eat with me before you take off. It hasn"t snowed all day, and the plows have got to be out and making their way to us." She eyed the driveway, the cars. "And it looks like you"ve accomplished your chosen goals for the day. So all that"s left..."
"Oh, not the snowman."
"Yes! The snowman." And with that she set the s...o...b..ush beside the car, and ran into the snow. She started forming a s...o...b..ll with the heavy, damp snow. "It"s perfect for snowman building. And what a day. I mean, look at it, Matthew."
He did, she watched him. He looked up at the bluest sky imaginable, with the sun streaming down. It was, she suspected, about forty degrees. Pleasant and beautiful. While he was still staring up at the sky, she lifted her arm and pegged him square in the chest with the s...o...b..ll.
"Hey!" He brushed the snow off, but even as he did, she bent to form another.
"Defend yourself, or suffer the consequences!" She fired again, but he ducked behind the car-her car, not his, she noticed. When he sprang up again, he was firing right back at her, and she took one to the side of the head before she found cover behind a drift. When she peeked up again, he was right on the other side, ready to nail her, so she pushed him hard, hands flat to his chest. He grabbed her wrists to keep from falling and wound up pulling her down in the snow on top of him.
They were both laughing, and then they both stopped. She held his eyes, licked her lips, prayed he would kiss her. And then he answered her prayer and did.
He kissed her, softly, then more deeply, and then his tongue swept into her mouth and she moaned around it. His hips arched against hers. She arched right back. They twined and tangled and fed from each other.
And then a roar made her lift her head. And she felt her heart break a little as the snowplow rumbled past, blasting snow out of the road like some kind of monster.
It felt like a monster to her just then.
There would be no snowman. No Christmas dinner with him. No tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the tree. No more lovemaking. He was leaving; she could see it in his eyes when she lifted her face enough to stare down into them.
"I...can still make my flight," he said.
And why did it hurt so much when she"d only known him for such a short time?
She got up and turned toward the house, because her eyes were burning and she didn"t want him to see that.
But he caught her shoulders, turned her around, and looked at her tears. "I"m really sorry, Holly. I never meant to hurt you."
"You"re not supposed to leave. I know you don"t believe in signs, Matthew, but we were meant to meet. We were meant to be together, here, like this. And I can"t believe that the universe went to all the trouble to set this up, just to give us one night of great s.e.x."
"Holly-"
"There has to be more to it than that. There has to be."
He sighed, and lowered his head. "It was coincidence. That"s all. There"s no deeper meaning, no universe plotting our lives. Things just happen, Holly. This...just happened. That"s all."
She lowered her head, nodded. "Your keys are on the mantle. I"ll get them for you." And with that, she walked back to the house, through the door. Angrily, she tugged off her mittens and brushed away her tears. Then she took the box she"d wrapped in old newspapers and decorated with a piece of pine all twisted around with a bit of her popcorn and cranberry garland. She picked up his key ring, and blinked her eyes as dry as possible, then she went back outside.
"What"s this?" he asked when she handed him the box.
"It"s a Christmas present." She shrugged. "It"s stupid, really. Just something I thought..." She let the words die. "I, um-I put my phone number in there, too. I mean, at least that way, when you don"t call, I"ll know it"s because you don"t want to, and not because you don"t know how to reach me."
"Holly-"
"Just go, okay? Just go, Matthew."
He sighed deeply. She couldn"t keep the tears back any longer, so she turned and ran back into the house, fast, because she didn"t want to lose it in front of him and make him feel worse than he already did. It wasn"t exactly fair-she"d told him she wouldn"t make anything out of this, and then she had.
And yet, she couldn"t help it.
Leaning back against the door, she waited until she heard the Porsche start up and pull slowly away. And then she cried her eyes out.
Eleven.
HE MANAGED TO DRIVE FOR ABOUT TWO HOURS BEFORE HE had to stop for gas and food and to kick himself a little more thoroughly than he had been for the last hundred miles. What the h.e.l.l was wrong with him? He was fighting the most irrational urge to turn the d.a.m.n car around and go racing back there. And what good would that do? It wasn"t like there was any future for the two of them. It wasn"t like you could meet someone and fall in love in freaking twenty-four hours. It wasn"t possible. It wasn"t real.
Okay, maybe it felt possible. But that was nonsense. You couldn"t form the basis of a relationship in one day. You couldn"t. It just didn"t happen. There was no such thing as love at first sight. Maybe infatuation. Maybe great s.e.x even, but not love.
It didn"t happen. And there were no signs, and he was not meant to be with her. It was all coincidence. That"s all. Coincidence.
He sat in the car outside the diner, where he"d stopped for a quick lunch. He had an hour to spare before his flight, and only a few more minutes to the airport. But for some asinine reason, he couldn"t convince himself to go inside. Not just yet. He was eyeing the box, the gift Holly had given him, and knowing that he wasn"t going to get out of that car until he opened it. Because he was wallowing in feeling guilty for hurting her, and the gift, whatever it was, would certainly make him feel even worse, so he might as well take it.
Love at first sight. Bulls.h.i.t. And this was just one more Christmas to add to the list of horrible ones. One more pile of the romantic c.r.a.p people heaped on the holidays. If it hadn"t been Christmas, she might not have been quite so vulnerable.
It was like she thought her mother had delivered him to her as a Christmas present. The way she did the tree.
And how about that tree, anyway? She said there would be one, and then there was. How the h.e.l.l did that work out?
"Coincidence," he said. "Tell you what, Holly"s mom. If you"re so good at communicating from beyond the grave, why don"t you send me a message or two? Or better yet, have my dad send me one. Prove to me this is real and I"ll go back there so fast your freaking heads will spin."
He sat still a minute, caught himself waiting, watching, listening, looking all around, as if he really expected something to happen.
"Idiot."
Sighing, he took the bit of pine with its popcorn and cranberry strand off the package, and then he tore the newspapers off it. It was an old cardboard box she"d probably found in the attic. On the front was a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it and read, "Thanks. Last night was the best Christmas present I ever got. This gift isn"t the original, but I"ve had it for years, and I always loved it. I thought maybe you"d enjoy it, too." She"d signed it, "Love, Holly," and jotted her phone number underneath her name.
If he was smart, he"d crumple that paper up and toss it out the window.
But he wasn"t smart, because he folded it and tucked it into his pocket instead.
Then he took the lid off the box.
Inside was a hat. An old, black felt fedora.
His throat closed off. He couldn"t even breathe for a second. And he thought his hand was shaking as he picked the hat up out of the box and turned it slowly in his hands. My G.o.d, it was exactly-maybe a little more worn but-no. It wasn"t the same hat. Of course it wasn"t. But it was so like that old hat that lived in his memory-so very much like it that he couldn"t help himself.
He turned it over, and looked at the tag that was sewn into the lining.
The initials were there. Faded, barely readable, but there. His father"s initials.
He couldn"t remember the last time he had cried, but right then, Matthew came close. His eyes were burning and so blurry that he could barely see. Because if this wasn"t a sign, if this wasn"t some kind of magic, he didn"t know what was. He lifted his head, and whispered, "Dad?"
A truck pulled into the parking lot beside him. It was an orange truck and the men inside looked to be a road crew. There were signs in the back. One, the one facing him that caught his eye, read, "WRONG WAY. GO BACK."
A smile split his face. He nodded hard. "All right, Dad. I"m going."
He put the hat on his head, almost laughing out loud as he adjusted it to the same c.o.c.ky tilt his dad always used. Then he turned the car around, and headed north on I-81.
HOLLY CRIED UNTIL SHE WAS SPENT, AND THEN SHE PICKED herself up, told herself to stop being pathetic, and to do her best to enjoy Christmas. For her mom"s sake, she could do that.
She decorated her tree, stringing the popcorn and cranberry garland all over it, and topping it with a foil-and-cardboard star. At 4 p.m. the power came back on. She set her table-an upturned crate in front of the sofa, topped with a bath towel for a tablecloth. She"d brought some real china for the occasion, even had two tall taper candles, one red, one green, in crystal holders to add the finishing touch. And winegla.s.ses, one of which she filled.
Her holiday dinner was keeping warm in the oven. Turkey breast, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, mixed veggies, squash, and pumpkin pie. It was more than one person could hope to eat. More than four or five could probably manage, but she would try to do it justice.
But first, as long as the power was on, she decided to take a long, hot shower, and put on the dress she"d brought along. She always dressed for the holiday. And this one would be no different.
The shower was soothing, but she battled loneliness through the whole thing. If only Matthew would have stayed one more night. If only he would have celebrated Christmas with her.