“Mary Vaughn, why don’t you sit up front with Howard,” Tom suggested, even as he turned to assist Jeanette into the back. He gestured for Ronnie to get into the far backseat, then climbed in to sit beside Jeanette, who was regarding him warily.
He waited until they were under way and the Christmas music was blasting again before turning to her. “How’ve you been?”
“Okay. You?”
“Good. It’s been a crazy week.”
“Yes, for me, too.”
Tom barely contained a sigh. This wasn’t going well. She didn’t show the slightest sign of having missed him. If anything, she was more distant than ever. He decided then and there to scrap Ronnie’s advice.
He leaned over. “I missed you,” he said in a low voice.
Color bloomed in her cheeks, but she continued to stare straight ahead.
“Did you miss me?” he asked.
That drew a glance. “Not especially,” she said, but the increasing stain on her cheeks suggested otherwise.
Behind him, he heard a barely contained chuckle. He turned and glowered at Ronnie. “You said something?”
“Not a word,” Ronnie claimed, his expression innocent. “But I was thinking the time might go faster if we sang a few carols.”
Jeanette twisted around awkwardly, constrained by her seat belt. “Are you crazy?” she demanded in an undertone.
“Great idea!” Howard said. “That’s just what we need to get in the mood. Mary Vaughn, darlin’, check out the cover of that CD and tell us which song is coming up next so we can be ready.”
Tom groaned.
“It’s ‘White Christmas,’” Mary Vaughn announced in an upbeat tone.
“Now, we all know the words to that, I’m sure,” Howard said. When the song started, he chimed in. After a pause Mary Vaughn joined him, as did Ronnie.
Tom and Jeanette exchanged a commiserating look.
“Come on, you two,” Howard said, glancing at them in the rearview mirror. “Let’s hear it. I think we’ve got the makings of a nice little choir right here in this car. Mary Vaughn tells me we’re going to revive our family tradition of going to a nursing home to sing on Christmas Day. Maybe you all would like to join us.”
“Not if hell froze over,” Tom muttered.
“And Serenity, too,” Jeanette added with such feeling that he laughed out loud.
“Great idea, Howard,” Ronnie said with enthusiasm, just to spite the two of them. “And don’t forget we’re expecting all of you at Sullivan’s for Christmas dinner. Howard, are you up for playing Santa again this year?”
“You bet,” he said. “It’s at the top of my list for the holidays, right after being Santa on the opening night of the festival.”
Jeanette slid down in her seat. Tom reached for her hand, partly because he just plain needed to touch her and that was the only appropriate gesture and partly to show solidarity. To his relief, she didn’t pull away. Instead, she released a barely audible sigh and met his gaze. He felt his heart drop at the longing he read in her eyes.
Maybe Ronnie’s stupid scheme had worked, after all, he decided. If it had made Jeanette miss him, even for a minute, made her question, even once, if he’d lost interest, then the solid week of torture had been worth it.
* * *
The Christmas-tree farm should have been Jeanette’s worst nightmare, but after the first few minutes, she drew in a deep breath of pine-scented air and suddenly recalled all the wonderful Christmases of her childhood, the ones that had been filled with cookies and candy canes, a brightly lit tree decorated with ornaments she and her brother had made and popcorn they’d strung.
There was some chill in the air, after all, just enough to make it feel like Christmas, and every step over the carpet of pine needles released their fresh, wintry scent.
“Are you cold?” Tom asked, walking up behind her and circling her waist with his arms.
Jeanette allowed herself to lean back against him for just an instant before pulling away. “No, this is invigorating.” She gazed up at him. “Doesn’t it smell wonderful out here?”
“It smells like the cleaning solution they use at Town Hall,” he said.
“It does not. It smells exactly the way Christmas morning is supposed to smell.”
Tom shrugged. “In my family, our trees were always artificial. They had to stay up for weeks. Live trees were too messy, to say nothing of being a fire risk.”
She regarded him incredulously. “You never had a live tree?”
He shook his head. “Not that I recall. The decorators insisted that artificial was much more practical.”
“Decorators? You didn’t put the tree up yourselves?”
“Trees,” he corrected. “We usually had half a dozen, one in each of the downstairs rooms, along with boughs of evergreens, also artificial. It took several weeks for the decorators to do their job and turn our house into some kind of holiday theme park.”
“I can’t imagine. What about the decorations? Did you make some?”
“I made a few in school, but they were never on our trees. I think the housekeeper might have held on to some of them, but my mother insisted that the formal trees had to have a theme. It changed every year. My sisters and I were warned not to break any of the glass ornaments or we’d have to pay for them out of our allowances.”
“How awful,” she said. It just reconfirmed everything she’d thought about Mrs. McDonald being a difficult, demanding woman and a snob. “Didn’t you have any special family traditions?”
“Not much beyond going to the Christmas Eve service at the church. Oh, and the round of parties that began right after Thanksgiving. My sisters and I were banished from most of those until we were older and could be counted on to be civilized in company.”
“But Christmas should be magical, especially for kids,” she protested, feeling bad for him. She understood his bah-humbug attitude a whole lot better now. Hers came from having a tragedy rip away a tradition she’d loved. And Tom, he’d never even known how joyous the holidays could be. She wasn’t sure
