Merriest Christmas Ever Read online

  If she didn’t have a feeder at Sunny Haven, she should.

  Feeling mellower, he settled down to work. Even if he left here, he wanted to make some improvements. Pulling out paper, pencil, and catalogs, he set to work.

  Hours later, as he was leaving for the day, Merett saw the mural on the divider. Closing the door behind him, he looked back and saw the wreath on the door, star in the window, and tree behind it—beautiful symbols of Christmas—in a totally different light.

  Dinner was ready when Merett arrived home. He’d worked late, and then stopped off to buy a feeder and sunflower seed.

  “Come on, Daddy,” Kirsten said, tugging him by the hand. “Mrs. Jarvis made meat loaf, yours and my favorite.”

  Nodding amiably to his father, he took his seat across from his daughter. Dad still sat at the head of the table. Kirsten nodded toward the empty chair at the other. “We saw Gramma last night. You didn’t get home in time for me to tell you.”

  So the excitement wasn’t totally about meat loaf.

  “Grandma’s still be-yoo-ti-ful. I wish I had blue eyes like hers. They shine like twin skies,” Kirsten said, leaning forward in her eagerness.

  Merett concentrated on his food, carefully arranging a bite on his fork.

  “She has a tiny Christmas tree in her room with twinkle lights. She said it needs a star. I’m going to ask Gracie to help me make one. Gold, I think, with blue diamonds and pearls.”

  Blue diamonds to shine like Mama’s eyes. Merett put down his fork.

  “Gracie has a box of different colored diamonds. They’re not real, of course.” Kirsten chewed a bite of broccoli thoughtfully. “This stuff is awful. The little flowery things tickle my throat.” She lifted her napkin to her mouth.

  “Those are cloth. Don’t spit it out,” Merett warned, remembering having gotten what-for when he did that as a kid.

  “I wasn’t,” Kirsten protested. Frowning, she swallowed hard and pushed the rest of the green vegetable to the edge of her plate. “Grampa says we’ll take the star to Sunny Haven just as soon as I get it done. You should go with us.” His daughter’s eyes were accusing. “Gramma couldn’t remember my name, but she knew me. She said, ‘you’re my son’s little girl.’“

  A lump formed in his throat, as big as the baked potato on his plate.

  “I said, ‘Yes, I’m Kirsten Bradmoore, and Gramma said, that’s a nice name.’ Then she hugged me.” Kirsten nodded at the fragrant red roses on the table. Mama had always insisted on fresh flowers, and Dad saw to it they still had them. “Her skin feels like rose petals.”

  “And she smells like lavender,” Merett said softly.

  “Is that what that is? I like it, but I didn’t know colors had a smell.” Kirsten wrinkled her nose, looking at her pink sweater. “I should smell like cotton candy, but I don’t. Or maybe strawberry. Gawd, I’m sick of pink.”

  Merett stared at his daughter. “Don’t say that,” he said sternly. “You mustn’t use the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “I didn’t. I said G-aw-d. Mama used to say that, and so does Meredith.”

  Holly’s mother, who didn’t like to be called Grandma because it sounded too old, used the word frequently as a lament. Holly had said it occasionally.

  “No matter, I don’t like it and neither does Grandpa.”

  Shrugging, Kirsten looked back at her sweater. “Okay, but I am sick of pink, you know.”

  “I didn’t know,” Merett said, “but now that I do, we’ll see if we can buy you some other colors. Incidentally, lavender is a plant, an herb, and Grandma wears powder made from that.”

  “If you’re sure, but she was wearing a lavender dress, or was it blue, Grampa?” Without waiting for an answer, Kirsten rushed on. “I want blue jeans for Christmas. All the other girls wear them. I could still wear pink tops, I guess, if you really want me to. I know my mother liked them.”

  “You were little then. I’m sure she’d understand you’re growing up now.”

  “Thanks!” Kirsten bounced up and down on her upholstered straight back chair. “Could you take me to Gracie’s now, please?”

  “You were just there after school.” She’d gotten off the bus there, and Gracie had helped her make Spook an outfit, then brought her home.

  “I know, but she’s decorating her tree tonight, maybe both trees if she can get them done in one evening. Her sister Hope’s promised to come and help. I hope she shows up. I don’t think she’s appendable.”

  “De-pendable.”

  “Gracie’s worried, I can tell,” Kirsten said, turning up her nose at his correction. “About Hope, I mean, and she wishes her other sister could help too, only she doesn’t live around here. I’ll be the only one to help if Hope doesn’t show up. She’s glad she’s got me. I’ll bet she’d be glad to have you and Grampa help, too.”

  “This is my night for the board meeting at the club,” Harry said, patting his granddaughter’s hand.

  “I brought work home from the newspaper,” Merett said.

  His dad appeared startled, and Kirsten was openly doubting. “You never bring work home.”

  “I did tonight. Besides, I’m sure Hope will show.” A thought occurred to him. She’d manipulated him. His daughter hadn’t asked if she could help Grace, only that he take her. “I don’t remember you asking me if you could go. It’s a school night.”

  “Please. I stayed very clean today, so I could skip my bath. Just this once. I made A + on my spelling test cause I got the extra words right. And I’ve done my homework. All of it. Pretty please with meat loaf on it.”

  How did you argue with logic like that? Especially when it had meat loaf on it? Smiling, he relented. “Okay. I guess...”

  Kirsten ran around the table to hug him and plant a big kiss on his cheek. “You’re the best dad a kid ever had.”

  She was definitely a con artist, but he was a sucker for her kisses. “And you’re the best kid a dad ever had, princess.”

  * * *

  Merett walked Kirsten to the door. He hadn’t told Gracie he ran the Reporter yet, so he couldn’t tell her how much the staff liked the decorations. Opening the door, she smiled faintly. “I thought it was Hope.”

  “Isn’t she here?” Kirsten asked, dragging Merett inside. The house was warm, and the aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg wafted into the foyer.

  “Not yet.” Gracie’s cheeks were flushed. With her tangle of curls drawn up on her head in a narrow band of velvet, she looked girlish, but her velour shirt and pants hugged her breasts and hips, accenting her luscious maturity. He shifted uneasily, remembering how he’d left her and him both wanting the last time he was here.

  “She called to say she might be late. Frank wanted to take her to dinner first.” Gracie cast an anxious look toward the parlor. “I’m in a bit of a tangle. I was trying to place the lights strategically.”

  “Maybe I can help.” Shrugging off his jacket, Merett knelt before the tree and began working at the twists and knots. A bit of a tangle? Half a dozen strands were wound up on the floor, snaking their way around and into the tree, and each other. “You have enough lights here for the tree in Rockefeller Center.”

  “I like a lot of lights.”

  “Me too.” Kirsten tapped Merett on the back, and pointed to his jacket on the floor. “I’m hanging my coat on the hall tree. Want me to put yours there?”

  “I’m not staying, thanks. I just want to straighten these out for Gracie.”

  Her Mary Janes clicked across the hardwood floor. Did she hate those as much as pink? They wouldn’t look good with the jeans she wanted. Merett, concentrating on the work at hand, patiently tried to undo the disastrous mess.

  “I’ll help.” Gracie plunged her hand into a clump of wires.

  “No, please.” He lay his hand over hers. “Let me.”

  Her lower lip jutted out. And a lovely lip it was. Full and rosy-soft. “Two pairs of hands are too many. We’d pull opposite ways and add to the confusion.”

  Gracie
wiggled off the hardwood floor onto an area rug, making herself more comfortable. She had an enticing wiggle, and as she settled herself and inhaled, her breasts bounced distractingly. With a flick of the wrist, she settled her mane of golden curls.

  Sweat beaded on Merett’s brow as he threaded one string of lights back through the other. The floor was hard on his bad knee, and he sat down, scooting onto the area rug beside her. She leaned closer to inspect the task he was performing, and her hair brushed his cheek.

  “Don’t you just love Christmas?”

  Her enthusiasm crackled through the air like static electricity. He’d made a mistake sending Kirsten home last year. If he’d kept her with him, he would have gone through the holiday motions instead of drinking away two weeks of his life away before learning booze didn’t help. And that period destroyed his faith in himself, sending him on a downhill skid. Not that he’d ever drunk too much again, but he’d seen a dark, helpless side of himself he didn’t know existed. Everyone loses sometime, Gracie said. Did everyone feel helpless now and then?

  “It isn’t magical like when I was a kid.”

  “The magic is still there.” Gracie touched his shoulder, and he paused in what he was doing. “I know you had some bad things happen near Christmas last year, but you can’t shut out sorrow and pain without shutting out other emotions, like excitement and joy.”

  And love. “How do you know that?” She seemed so content.

  “I’ve experienced my share of heartbreak. Mom’s poor health. Faith going wild. Mom and Pop dying within months of each other. My failure at marriage. Not having...” Her lip trembled. Her violet-blue eyes looked like pansies kissed with morning dew. She shook her head. “Never mind.”

  Not having? Money? Was Gracie worried her business wouldn’t succeed? He rubbed the back of his thumb along her cheek. “You said your failure at marriage. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ll bet Sonny didn’t do his part.”

  “It’s still a failed marriage, and I was part of it.” Drawing up her knees, Gracie rested her chin on them. “I left home to marry Sonny because I wanted my own life. I always had to run the house and take care of Faithie, and I didn’t think it was fair. But I let her down, and didn’t do myself any favors in the long run. Sonny and I were never meant to be, and when I was ready to admit that and come home, my parents were dead, and Faithie had disappeared. Pop always said I’d get my just due for leaving, and I was down on myself for a while. I remembered you told me to always hold my chin high, and I finally figured out I’d done the best I knew how at the time.”

  “I didn’t know how hard that advice would be to follow later in life. I wanted to accomplish more career-wise...wanted to be somebody.”

  Gracie grasped his arm tightly. “You are somebody.”

  The editor of a rinky-dink newspaper.

  She gave him a little shake. “You have a daughter who loves and needs you. Stop beating up on yourself.”

  Merett stared into the Christmas tree branches, still unlit. “I’m not even sure I’m doing a good job with her. She drives me nuts with her talking, and cons me, and comes up with off-the-wall-problems. She just told me she’s tired of wearing pink.”

  “I was well aware of her talking and conning.” Gracie’s eyes twinkled. “It’s the charming part of being a kid. As for pink, buy her some new clothes.”

  He started working on the lights again, patiently, slowly, untwisting. It wasn’t such a big problem, and Gracie’s infectious smile pulled a grin from him. There was a pause between Christmas carols, and he could hear Kirsten walking through the rooms calling Spook. She probably was a normal kid. He was doing the best he could with her, if that really counted, like Gracie said.

  “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem” pealed forth from the piano as he clipped a set of lights to the tree. That one done, he strung another. The music was peaceful, and the aroma of fresh cookies blended with the scent of pine. It could have been another December in a time past, when he was single in his parents’ home, and the woman sitting at his feet lived across town. So much had changed, and yet, something of Christmas remained. In his heart. “Thank you,” he said softly.

  She smiled as if she knew what he was thanking her for, even if he wasn’t sure himself.

  “Got that mess fixed yet, Daddy?” Kirsten bounced back into the room, the black kitten in her arms. “I found him in the workroom under a chair,” she explained to Gracie. “Fi-nally. He’s really good at hiding.”

  Merett started to string the last set. “I won’t be long now.”

  “Is this your new tree topper, Gracie?”

  Merett looked up to see Kirsten hold up a silver filigree star.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, raising it the light.

  “And fragile, so put it down,” Merett warned. Spook was struggling to get out of her arms. “Now!” Merett ordered.

  The kitten jumped. The star hit the hardwood floor. Gracie gasped. Kirsten covered her mouth with her hand. Merett groaned. The cat leaped on the star. The song on the piano ended, and there was dead silence.

  Kirsten grabbed up the kitten in one hand, the star in the other, and held them apart. “Look,” she cried, relief evident in her voice. “The star’s not hurt. Well, maybe, just a tiny bit bent.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “It’s okay,” Gracie said quickly. “It won’t be noticeable from way up there at the top of the tree. Besides, I’m still searching for a ceramic star with an angel like we had when I was a child.”

  The doorbell rang again. “Is anyone home?”

  The voice from the hallway sounded much like Gracie’s. Setting back on his heels, Merett watched Gracie rush across the room to hug her sister. Hope was thinner than he remembered.

  Gracie took Hope’s beige suede jacket from her hand, dodged around the corner to put it on the hall tree, and ducked into the room again. Only then, did she seem to remember he was there. A startled look crossed her face, and Hope followed her eyes.

  “Merett Bradmoore,” she said, smiling. Dressed attractively in beige slacks and a matching sweater, Hope wore pearls that looked real, and diamond rings on both hands. She must have married someone with money. “I’m so glad you came to help decorate Gracie’s tree.”

  “I was just...helping for a minute. Gracie had a little tangle.”

  “Big tangle,” Kirsten said, holding out her hand. “I’m Kirsten Bradmoore, his daughter.” She nodded at Merett.

  “I can tell that.” Hope slipped an arm around her shoulders. “You look like him.”

  “I do?” The color deepened in Kirsten’s cheeks, and she turned to stare at him.

  “High cheekbones. Aristocratic nose. A tiny dimple in your chin like the one in his cheek. And a wonderful smile.” Hope touched Kirsten’s features as she named them.

  Merett had only seen Holly in his daughter’s face, but when he looked at her now, he felt strangely pleased.

  “Oh, Gracie!” Hope exclaimed. “Your piano is beautiful.”

  “I knew you’d like it if you ever made it over here. Two months, and you haven’t visited once.” Gracie turned her smile into an exaggerated pout.

  Two months, and Hope was her closest relative in the world, except for Faith, who was missing. The Singleton girls were close. What had happened? Raking his fingers through his hair, Merett backed slowly toward the parlor door. Life was tough enough without trying to figure what made other people tick. “I’ll pick you up at eight-thirty, Kirsten.”

  “Frank wants me home by nine,” Hope said. “I can drop her off on my way out of town, and save you a trip.”

  “We have two trees to decorate. We can’t do one in that amount of time.” Gracie was still protesting her sister’s early departure when Merett shut the door behind him.

  * * *

  Gracie showed Hope the house, then poured steaming cocoa from a stoneware pitcher into cups and set out a tray of snickerdoodles, Hope’s favorite cookie. Sipping and munching, the two of them and Kirsten,
started decorating the downstairs tree.

  Kirsten hung three ornaments on touching branches. “Don’t bunch too many together,” Gracie warned. “We won’t have enough to go around.”

  “We have plenty. You don’t need any on the corner side where no one can see.” Spook batted a shiny silver ball with her paw, and Kirsten moved it to a higher branch. “If you have some unbreakable ones, we could hang them down low.”

  Gracie looked at her admiringly. “You’re very good at this.”

  “Yeah. Well.” Kirsten bent to take another ornament out of a box. “Gramma’s dog Tippy knocks the ornaments off the lower branches, so Grampa taught me that last year when I stayed with him. But what I said about decorating the back of the tree, I figured out myself in New York.” Kirsten tossed her hair over her shoulders. “Mommy didn’t do holidays, and Daddy was too busy to buy more ornaments, so we had to make the ones we had stretch.”

  “Why didn’t your mother do holidays?” Hope asked.

  Gracie shot her what Hope used to call “the look.” She’d always been too openly curious.

  “Because Grandmother and Grandfather Lagere didn’t. Isn’t that the silliest thing, missing Christmas, and birthdays, and everything?”

  Hope looked uncomfortable, and Gracie thought she deserved it. Maybe she would learn yet, not to open her mouth without thinking. They worked in silence for a while, even Kirsten.

  “This tree is beautiful,” Hope said. “Remember the pitiful ones we had when we were kids?”

  “What do you mean, pitiful?” Kirsten stepped close to her.

  “We couldn’t afford a nice tree. We never had a store-bought ornament until that Christmas—”

  “We made paper chains for decorations.” Gracie cut her sister off. Kirsten didn’t need to know about Merett and their past. Not just now, anyway. “Have you ever made them, Kirsten?”

  “In kindergarten, we made red and green ones.”