Gail Gaymer Martin - With Christmas in His Heart

“He’s a nice young man who needed a place to stay. I thought I told you.”

“You did, but you mentioned he has a job. Is it here on the island?”

Her grandmother’s eyes brightened. “Not just a job. He owns a store in town.”

“Really?” So Will Whatever-His-Name was a businessman. “What kind of a store?” Hardware, she figured.

“He’s an artist. Stained glass. It’s so beautiful.” Her grandmother’s left arm twitched, and a look of despair washed over her. “I keep forgetting,” she said, then gestured to the window with her right arm.

Christine looked to her left and saw a glass angel glinting in the growing sunlight. A rainbow decorated the carpet. She rose and wandered to the faceted design. Clear beveled glass shaped the figure about eight inches high. The angel clasped a vibrant floral bouquet, the only color in the lovely artwork.

“It’s beautiful.” The unbidden words slipped from Christine’s mouth.

“Thank you.”

His voice jarred her, and she turned toward Will, standing beside her grandmother, holding a tray.

He looked away and set it on the old chest her grandmother used as a coffee table. “Here you go,” he said, handing her grandmother a mug.

Christine grimaced as she watched Ella struggle to grasp the drink with one hand.

“Sorry,” he said, retrieving the heavy crockery and pulling a straw from his pocket. “You’ve always been so independent it’s hard to remember.” His warm smile seemed attentive as he tore the paper wrapper from the straw and lowered it into her cocoa, then held it up for her to sip.

The chocolate aroma wafted in the air and reminded Christine of the years she was a child and her mother would make her hot chocolate in the evening as a lure toward bedtime.

Christine observed his attentiveness. He was not only a gentleman, but a gentle man. It seemed strange to her, and she couldn’t help but question his motives.

When Will finished, he grasped another mug and offered it to Christine. The movement brought her back from her thoughts. “Thanks,” she said, accepting the drink.

He pushed her coat to the far end of the sofa and sat. In silence, they sipped the chocolate, and Christine sensed each of them had sunk into their own thoughts. Hers asked questions about the man who sat across from her looking as if he belonged there while she knew she didn’t. She belonged behind a desk at Creative Productions, where she generated unique promotion ideas for other companies’ ad campaigns. The whole situation coursed through her like a bad case of stomach flu.

When she lifted her head, Will was eyeing her as if trying to read her thoughts. She turned to her grandmother. “Does your therapist fly in from St. Ignace?”

“She’s from Vital Care located in St. Ignace,” Will said, “but the nurse is on the island. She works at the Medical—”

“I was asking my grandmother,” Christine said pointedly.

Ella shook her head. “Will knows the answers to all your questions, Christine.”

“I know that, Grandma Summers, but—”

“He’s been through the whole thing with me. He and Linda.”

Christine lowered her gaze, reeling from her grandmother’s subtle reprimand. She looked at Will. “I appreciate your help.”

Ella’s frown thawed. “Now that you’re here, Christine, you can take over, and we can give Linda and Will a break.”

Christine blinked. Bathe her grandmother? She worked in a think tank, not a bathtub. She paused while indignity coursed through her, not for herself but for her grandmother. How did she feel having to allow others to help her with tasks most people took for granted? “And Mom will be here soon,” she said.

Ella lifted a warm gaze to Will. “Did I thank you for meeting Christine at the ferry dock?”

“No thanks necessary.” He set down his mug and rose. “I should get over to the studio. I have a big project I’m trying to finish.”

Christine watched him stride toward the door, then pause and look back at them with his casual grin. A young John Wayne, she thought again.

He wasn’t such a bad guy, she supposed, but he seemed way too familiar with her grandmother. He had to have an ulterior motive, and she felt determined to learn what it was.

Will stood inside the small stable and placed the saddle pad on the horse. She whinnied and stamped her foot as if to say she wanted to go and wanted to go now. The action reminded him of Grandma Ella’s granddaughter. She seemed to lack patience worse than the mare. And trust? She had less trust than a mother bird. He pictured her clinging to her carry-on at the ferry station, as if she had the crown jewels inside the little case.

He shifted to reach the saddle and lowered it on the horse’s back, adjusting it on the pad to make sure it didn’t rub the horse’s withers. He gave Daisy a pat. Women. He didn’t understand Christine at all, and rubbing? He must have rubbed her the wrong way. She didn’t like him, and since the moment he’d met her, he’d trudged through his thoughts trying to imagine how he’d offended her. He must have, because she obviously had an attitude toward him with a capital A.

Still, she was prettier than the baroque glass he worked with in some of his stained-glass artwork. Like the glass, she had texture and lines—very pretty lines, he had to admit. Working with his art, he could lay out his pattern and select the most unique whorls and designs in the glass created by the melding colors, but with Ella’s granddaughter, he had to deal with the whole of her. He couldn’t lop off the parts that weren’t as nice. Her attitude fell into that category.

Will bent down and buckled the cinch snug around the horse’s belly. He checked the tightness, then adjusted the stirrups. When he rose, he paused a moment while Christine’s image filled his mind. When he’d stood beside her near the taxi, he’d noticed she was only a couple inches shorter than his six feet, and she was as slender as a bead of solder. She was a work of art with a bad attitude.

He could still picture how her golden hair fell in waves and bounced against her shoulder. In the taxi, he couldn’t help but admire her glowing skin, her wide-set eyes that studied him so intently. Hazel eyes, he guessed, as changeable as she seemed to be.

Will reached for the bridle and moved to the horse’s left side. He placed his hand on the horse’s forelock and pressed gently. Daisy lowered her head, and he grabbed the headstall, separated the mouthpiece from the reins and held it to the horse’s mouth. She opened it, and he slipped the bit gently inside, then pulled the headstall over the horse’s ears. After he adjusted the chin strap, he gave Daisy’s shoulders a pat.

“You’re not bad-looking yourself, young lady.” He tucked his hand into his pocket and pulled out a sugar cube. Daisy sensed it and lifted her head to nibble the sweet from the palm of his hand.

An unexpected thought came to him. What treat could he use to have Christine nibbling out of his palm? He wiped his hand on his jeans and gathered the reins. He leaned against the stall as once again his thoughts filtered through the morning’s events. The woman had a message in her eye, warning that she didn’t trust him and didn’t want to try. He’d seen the same look of disdain on his father’s face more often than he wanted to remember.

Will pulled his back away from the boards and led Daisy to the stable doorway, then shifted his focus toward the house.

He needed a plan. If he had to spend a week with this woman hovering beside Ella—her granddaughter no less—he had to find a way to get along with her. Daisy’s sugar cube entered his mind again.

He kicked a stone with the toe of his boot and grunted. Get along? He got along fine with everyone else. The problem belonged to Christine.