One Christmas Knight

species. If you stand us up in order, we look like the letter H- I’m the little short piece in the middle.” She sighed, then smiled in the way people do when they want you to think they aren’t hurting inside. “My sisters are both tall, slim, blond and gorgeous. I’m the ugly duckling.”

Well, he didn’t even begin to know what to say to that. Figuring she had to be kidding, or was maybe fishing for compliments, which was a feminine ploy he did not admire, he just mumbled, “Come on…”

He felt a lot better when she laughed. “Oh, I don’t mean now. I mean, well, I didn’t exactly turn into a swan, but at least I think I’m…you know, an okay duck. But you should have seen me when I was a kid.” Which was just what he’d been thinking, too, but he kept his mouth shut.

“Canoty-red hair,” she elaborated, tweaking a rich mahogany strand across her eyes and again making a face at it. “Straight as a stick. Face as round as a Moon Pie and speckled as a turkey egg. And great big glasses. Now I wear contacts,” she explained, flashing her luminous eyes at him and batting her thick dark lashes like the heroine of an old movie. “Oh-plus, I was fat. Well…plump. And short. Built like a fireplug. So naturally I was terrible at sports.” She smiled the hurtin’ smile again. This time Jimmy Joe felt it in his own gut. “All the necessary traits for a guaranteed miserable childhood.”

“I find it real hard to believe that,” he murmured, stunned.

She shrugged, still trying to make light of it. “I had the nicknames to prove it: Carrot Top…Freckle-Faced Freak… Four Eyes, to mention a few. Oh-and Firecracker. I also had one helluva temper.”

And brains, he thought. And courage. And probably a great sense of humor. Hadn’t anybody seen it?

“I was very popular, actually,” said Mirabella, as if she’d heard his thought. “Lots of girlfriends. And the boys, well…” She made the snorting sound again. “I mean, boys just couldn’t seem to leave me alone. Hey, who could blame them? I was just so darn much fun to tease. As you can probably imagine.”

Jimmy Joe didn’t know what to say. He wanted to tell her he wished he’d known her back then, and that if he had, things would have been different. He wanted to believe that he would never have made fun of her, and that he would have busted any kid who dared to do so right in the chops.

He did believe it, because for one thing, he knew his mama would have busted his butt if she’d ever found out he’d been teasing someone, and in a town as small as the one he’d grown up in, she would for sure have gotten, wind of it sooner or later. But more than that, he believed it because he felt as a certainty in his soul that he would have liked that little red-haired girl-freckles, glasses and all. He would have liked her spunk, for one thing. Maybe, in his little boy’s heart, he would even have secretly thought she was cute, although he would never have had the gumption to say so. But he knew for sure he would have wanted to be her friend. He just wasn’t so sure he would have had the courage.

“Must’ve been something wrong with those boys,” he finally mumbled, shaking his head. “That’s all I can say. Must’ve been stone-blind.”

She kind of half smiled at him, obviously thinking he was just being polite. “That’s very sweet of you. But you weren’t there. You didn’t see me back then.”

“Well, I wish I had been,” he said with feeling. It bothered him a lot that she didn’t believe him, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to make her believe him, no matter what he said. Because he could now see what he’d missed before-that the uppity tilt of her chin was there mainly because of the chip on her shoulder that had been there so long it had grown to be part of her basic nature. And that made him sad. More than that-it made him mad.

She was gazing at him now with her chin propped in her hand and a shiny look in her eyes, still smiling that little half-smile. “Jimmy Joe,” she said softly, “do you know that when I was in junior high, you were barely out of diapers?”

“Come on.” Shock jerked him against the brown vinyl seat, his head moving back and forth in pure disbelief. “No way!” She nodded, and he just kept shaking his head. He couldn’t believe it. He had put her age at maybe twenty- six, twenty-seven, tops. “No way you can be that much older than I am,” he insisted, feeling vaguely betrayed and insulted without having the last idea why. “You know, I’m older than I took-Hey, did I mention I’m almost thirty?”

“You did,” Mirabella said, laughing now, but gently. She thought he looked so endearingly affronted, with his hair mused and flopped down across a thunderous frown, and dark eyes flashing lightning. Like one of her sister Sommer’s kids passionately arguing, “But I am big enough! I am.”

Passionate. Oops! Her heart gave a little flip-flop of dismay and of warning. How had the conversation gotten so personal? What was this tension, this glow of awareness that was all of a sudden zapping back and forth across the table like a current between two electrodes?

Just then, as if in response to all the fuss and turmoil taking place one floor above, the tiny tenant who’d been peacefully snoozing beneath her ribs suddenly lurched into wakefulness. For Mirabella it was-literally-a kick from reality. The warm tingle of growing attraction vanished like campfire sparks in a cold night sky, and backache and pressure and overwhelming tiredness came to take its place.

To cover the source of her involuntary gasp, she looked at her watch and murmured, “Wow, look at the time- past midnight. I’m really sorry…I should let you go. You could be getting some rest, at least.” And then she surprised herself by yawning.

Without a word, Jimmy Joe slid out of the booth, snagging the check on his way. Once upright, he pulled his wallet from a hip pocket, took out a couple of dollar bills and dropped them on the table. Then he reached over and touched Mirabella’s arm. “Come on,” he said in a husky voice, jerking his head for emphasis. “I’ll walk you back out there. Put your coat on.”

It was an order, not a subject for discussion, which ordinarily would have ticked her off royally and at the very least triggered immediate and total insurrection. But for some reason all she could summon up was a feeble and completely ineffective, “Oh. no, I insist-”

“Ma’am,” said Jimmy Joe softly, leaning over and looking earnestly into her eyes as if she were a small child on the verge of misbehaving in public, “you and that baby need it more’n I do. Now, we’re gonna give it one more shot, okay?”

Did he have to keep calling her me’am?

And with that thought, suddenly Mirabella found herself in the depths of depression, weary beyond all reason and once more on the verge of tears-very much, in fact, like that contrary child. Was that why she allowed herself to be taken in hand like a helpless wimp instead of proclaiming her right to be proudly and independently miserable, as she normally would have done? She didn’t know. But she did know that there was something indefinably comforting about having the reins taken out of her hands, for once; and that instead of resenting the one who’d wrested them from her, she felt a profound sense of gratitude.

As before, Jimmy Joe waited patiently while she made yet another potty stop and took her arm as they crossed the cold, windy parking lot. This time, though, there was no attempt at polite conversation. Mirabella just waddled as fast as she could, teeth clenched, hugging herself and shivering in waves, far too miserable to worry about how silly she looked or what anybody might think of her. When she saw the royal blue truck with its bright shiny star looming before her, she felt an urge to laugh out loud with sheer joy and thanksgiving, like a half-frozen wanderer stumbling onto a friendly campfire.

“Hold on. just a second…let me get ’er unlocked.”

Jimmy Joe had to let go of her arm while he stepped up to the door, but he kept looking at her sideways while he did, just in case she decided to fold up on him. She reminded him of a poor little bird, standing there all hunched up, with the wind whipping her hair across her face. Like that nursery rhyme-he remembered it from years and years ago-that started out, “The north wind doth blow,/And we shall have snow/And what will the poor robin do then,/Poor thing?”

Okay, he was starting to worry about her. He knew what she’d told him-about her baby not being due for another month-but he also knew from personal experience that babies had a way of doing things their own way and in their own good time. Either way, it was a sure bet that all this stress and strain wasn’t going to be good for her or the baby. What she needed, he thought, was to be safe at home where there were kinfolk to look after her, somebody to make sure she got enough rest, see that she put her feet up, and rub her back for her when she couldn’t sleep.