spread across his chest in a widening pool of warmth. The temptation was strong to pull her closer, to let himself feel her body all along his and explore the warmth beyond those sweetly parted lips. But there was still that tightness in her muscles, the last bastions of her resistance, so he kept it light, a tentative kind of kiss, and left the options to her.
She ended it finally, twisting her mouth away from the gentle contact as if it were a struggle, tilting her face down so that his lips brushed her forehead instead. A tremor rippled through her; she muttered something he couldn't hear.
'Hmm?' he said, massaging her shoulders, monitoring the tension in them.
'Nothing,' she whispered, and shook her head. 'I didn't say anything.'
She couldn't tell him, because she didn't know herself. It could have been any one of the panicky phrases that were ricocheting around in her head: It's too soon! It's been too long! It's not supposed to feel like this! It feels too good… too good!
It's not fair, she thought. She wasn't prepared for this. No one had told her that beginning to feel again would be so painful and confusing. Or so frightening.
'You're shaking,' Tony murmured. 'Does it upset you that much?'
'Upset me?' She hedged, thinking wildly, Oh God, can he see inside me? Do I betray so much?
'I'll take care of it for you, if you want me to.' His voice was soft and warm, like his eyes.
The mouse. Karen closed her eyes. Of course, he was talking about the mouse. 'Yes,' she whispered. 'Thank you.'
'Stay here.' His lips brushed her forehead, and then he was gone.
Karen let her breath out slowly and sank down on the arm of the couch. Her legs were shaking and her heart was beating like-she glanced at the clutter on the floor at her feet and gave a shaken laugh-like a runaway freight train, what else! She sat still, counting her heart's frantic cadence, until Tony came through the kitchen door.
She rose and said bravely, 'Well?'
He lifted his shoulders and held out his hands. 'Nothing. No mouse.'
'What?'
'
'He got
Tony gave another eloquent shrug. He looked, Karen thought, exactly like an altar boy with a frog under his surplice. 'Must have. The trap's empty. Guess you'll just have to try again.'
She said with a shaky laugh, 'Well… maybe I'll just wait until after Christmas.'
He laughed, too. 'Good idea. A holiday reprieve. Well… if everything's okay, I guess I'll see you tomorrow.' He touched her chin with a knuckle, nudged it upward and brushed her mouth with his. And before she could do more than catch a quick, surprised breath he murmured, 'Good night,' and went out the door.
Karen stood where he'd left her, absolutely transfixed.
In a daze, she wandered into the kitchen. The mousetrap lay on the countertop, disarmed and empty, with not a trace of the peanut butter-smeared cracker she'd used for bait-or anything more grisly-in evidence. She picked it up by one corner and dropped it into a drawer, then leaned her hands on the edge of the sink and stared at her reflection in the dark window. Her face stared back at her, pale and somber and frightened.
Yes! she thought, gripping the cold porcelain while shivers of excitement cascaded through her body. I'm scared-and why not? Falling in love is always scary. And so are miracles.
The next day was dark and cold, with lowering clouds and the promise of snow. December twenty-first, the first day of winter, the shortest day of the year.
After breakfast, while Andrew went to work painting the caboose, Karen mixed up a batch of cookie dough and put it in the refrigerator. While she waited for it to harden, she finished the letter to her former mother-in-law and wrote brief notes in several Christmas cards, some of them to couples who had been friends of hers and Bob's. As always, there was a certain poignancy in the ritual, but this year, for the first time, she was conscious of a growing sense of distance. As if, she thought, she were on a fast-moving train that was carrying her steadily farther and farther away from the times and places of her life with Bob, until now they seemed to her no more real than dots on a distant horizon.
When the dough was hard, she cleared away the Christmas cards and took out the rolling pin and cookie cutters. Andrew heard the preparations and came in begging to help, as he always did. But Karen took one look at his paint-stained hands and sent him outside to play, promising that he could help with the frosting and decorating, which was his favorite part, anyway.
The time passed quickly, while Karen rolled dough and cut out Christmas shapes the way her grandmother had taught her when she was no older than Andrew. 'It's the lemon flavoring that makes the difference,' she could almost hear her grandmother say. 'Put more flour on your rolling pin, Kary, dear…'
Christmas trees and bells and wreaths, stars and angels, Santas and snowmen. 'Not too thick, now…and take them out of the oven when the first tinge of brown shows on the edges!'
Karen was just taking the last pan full of cookies out of the oven when she heard Tony's knock. She carefully slid the cookies onto a dish towel, dropped both the pan and pot holder into the sink, and wiped her hands on her jeans while she took one last look around. Then she went to answer the door.
'Hi,' Tony said, breaking into a grin when he saw her. He sounded out of breath, whether from the cold or because he'd sprinted up the stairs Karen couldn't guess. It didn't matter; she was too winded herself to answer his greeting, or to even gasp when he suddenly reached out and brushed at something on her cheek. 'Flour,' he explained, the smile warming his eyes. 'Been baking something?'
'Just some cookies,' Karen said, sheepishly rubbing her cheeks. 'Oh dear, do I have it all over me? That always happens, I don't know why.'
'It's okay. It looks cute on you.' As casual and easy as if last night had never happened, as if he'd never even thought of kissing her, as if he'd been walking in and out of her house all his life, Tony moved past her and headed for the kitchen, sniffing the air like a hunting dog hot on the scent. 'Hmm… smells good. Can I have one?'
Karen hurried after him, dithering like an overprotective mother. 'Well, they're not finished yet. I don't know…'
'Christmas cookies!' Tony's hand hovered over the cookies cooling on the dish towel. He selected a reindeer and gave Karen a look that would have melted a Scrooge's heart. 'Please?'
Karen managed a laugh and a grudging, 'Oh, all right, if you must. But just wait until you see them all decorated. We make the prettiest Christmas cookies in the world. And the best tasting, too.'
'Hmm,' Tony muttered with his eyes twinkling and his mouth full. 'And she's modest, too.'
'Oh, it's true,' Karen said simply. 'Everyone always says so. My grandmother and I always made them when I was a child.' She smiled, remembering. 'All my cousins would come to help with the decorating-nobody wanted to be left out-but I was her special helper, because I lived with her.'
'How come?'
She glanced at him and shrugged, keeping it light and offhand, because she didn't want him to think she considered herself unfortunate to have been raised by warm, loving grandparents. 'My mother died when I was a baby, and… I never knew my father.'
Tony's eyes were dark and intent. 'No brothers and sisters?'
'No,' Karen said, 'just me.' She smiled and added softly, 'Now it's just Andrew and me.'
'Hmm.' Frowning, Tony popped the last of the cookie into his mouth and brushed crumbs from his fingers. 'Speaking of the kid, where is he?'
'I sent him outside for some fresh air. He should be… ' Karen leaned over the sink to look out the window. 'Yes, there he is… Oh, look, there's Mr. Clausen. I wonder what they're doing?'
'Mr. Clausen?'
'My neighbor,' Karen said, and caught her breath as Tony brushed against her, reaching past her to twitch the curtain out of the way. 'He lives upstairs.'
Tony's laugh gusted warmly past her ear and teased the wisps of hair on her temple. 'Looks just like Santa Claus, doesn't he?'
