Harmony Christmas Page 4

  “What’d you do with the twenty bucks?”

  Finn shook his head, trying to remember. He hadn’t bought a present for himself, he was sure of that. He’d probably given it to Ma for groceries. Or Dad had found it when Ma let him move back in, found it and used it to get drunk down at O’Grady’s.

  J-Dawg leaned his chair back on two legs. “I wish I could bring presents to my folks.”

  Finn stiffened, trying to think of something to say.

  Dawg said, “You promise you’ll see them, right?”

  “I’ll see them.” Finn bit off the words.

  “You don’t have to spend a lot of time. Just knock on the door and tell ’em who you are. Let them know you saw it all. Say it didn’t hurt. I wasn’t scared.”

  “I’ll tell them, Dawg.” Finn leaned closer to the TV. The picture was back now, the real one. The Celtics were down by two.

  “It’s just they have a right to know. Something more than Cap’s letter. More than what the CNO said.”

  Sure. They had a right to ask questions they hadn’t even imagined when the Casualty Notification Officer stood at attention in their doorway. And Finn would have to give them answers, living through that day all over again, his palms streaming sweat, his belly flashing hot like he was about to puke.

  But it wasn’t just about the day J-Dawg bought it. It was all the rest of it, the following orders, taking out insurgents, doing the job they’d trained to do even if civilians sometimes got trapped in the middle of it all. It wasn’t one big thing; it was day after day after day.

  And the fact that he missed it. Missed it in his bones. Missed knowing his place and his role, and the fact that he made the hard decisions, the necessary ones, every single time. He missed knowing he was good at something. He was the best. And all the people stateside, all the folks in fucking Harmony Springs, would never begin to understand that, not in a million years.

  J-Dawg said, “C’mon Finn. Just do it.”

  “Now you’re selling Nikes? Don’t they have enough to keep you busy up there?”

  The ghost’s laugh was hollow. “Who says I’m up ‘up there’? Gotta weigh the shit we did, man. You, me, and all the other guys.”

  Finn poured himself another shot, made it a double. Before he tossed it back, he cranked the volume on the game. The walls in this shithole were paper thin, but there wasn’t anyone on either side of his room to complain. Everyone else had the good sense to get the hell out of Harmony Springs before Christmas.

  By the time the Jack burned its way to his stomach, J-Dawg had disappeared. The Celtics lost in double overtime.

  4

  There wasn’t enough coffee in the world.

  Finn dragged his sorry ass up the steps of the Orchard Diner, squinting at the neon sign that shouted, “Open.” The squeak of the door’s hinges was like a dentist’s drill at the base of his skull. The woman behind the counter—what the hell was her name? Lexi had introduced them… Anne—Anne’s blinding smile was almost enough to make him resort to instant coffee. Poured straight from the jar. Ground between his teeth and swallowed without water.

  “Breakfast?” she chirped. “This morning’s special is Eggs Benedict. Freshly poached eggs.” His belly lurched. “And homemade hollandaise.” She had to be tweaking him on purpose.

  “Coffee,” he groaned. “To go.”

  Anne grabbed a cup the size of his head, its side plastered with a smiling apple logo. She flashed him another relentless grin as she asked, “Room for cream?”

  “Black.”

  The only thing that kept him from mainlining the coffee right there by the register was the nuclear heat that fried his fingertips. He reached for his wallet, but Anne waved him off. “On the house,” she said. “Welcome to Harmony Springs. Sure you don’t want any breakfast? Maybe biscuits with fresh sausage gravy?”

  He pictured grey lumps in white sauce and almost lost it, right there at the register. This time, he caught the gleam in her eyes—she knew exactly what she was doing. But he had to be civilized if he was going to stick around for a month. “Thanks,” he said, gesturing with the cup. What the hell, he might as well apply all the lessons he’d learned about building rapport with enemy locals. Step one: Seek common ground. “Let me buy another one. For Lexi.”

  Anne’s eyes narrowed, but she picked up a second cup.

  “How does she take it?” he asked, reaching for the old-fashioned sugar dispenser. He’d bet his next week’s non-existent salary on Lexi taking her coffee regular, light and sweet.

  “Black,” Anne said, fitting on a plastic lid. She waved off his money again.

  He took both cups and thanked her a second time, waiting till he was outside to down half of his. The caffeine hit his bloodstream like night vision goggles, rolling back his hangover fog. He ordered his stomach to quit bitching and walked to The Christmas Cat in double time.

  Lexi was opening the door just as he got there. She wore another white shirt, another long skirt, this one red with gold bells. Her hair was twisted into a mess on top of her head, but she’d missed a curl behind her ear.

  “Good morning,” he said, pitching his voice low so he didn’t startle her. A lot of good that did—she still jumped like she’d seen a ghost. He winced. He was willing to bet he was the only one in Harmony Springs seeing ghosts. He shoved the cup of coffee into her hand. “Here,” he said, and he added unnecessarily, “Coffee. From the Orchard Diner.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was deeper than he remembered. There were soft circles beneath her eyes, and he wondered if she’d been up all night like he had. She shoved her keys into her right pocket, leaving her hand hidden.

  He followed her into the store, automatically glancing at the door to the back room, the space behind the counter, the cluttered aisles with their cheerful Christmas ornaments. Everything looked exactly the way it had when he’d come in the day before—except for the empty tree next to the mirrored lake. He ordered himself to relax.

  Lexi was fiddling with light switches, taking a key to the cash register, fishing out her laptop from beneath the counter. Her actions were automatic, efficient, but she seemed nervous, like she was just waiting for him to crash into something new.

  Step Two to build rapport: Leading and pacing. He raised his coffee cup to his lips and took another gulp, letting the rich taste spread across his tongue, clearing away another layer of cobwebs. He took his time swallowing, lowering his cup with precision and setting it on the counter.

  As he’d expected, Lexi followed suit. She set her lips against her own plastic lid and pulled in a deep swallow. And she started coughing like she’d just inhaled a gallon of desert dust.

  He started forward, but stopped when she held up a commanding hand. She managed to get her cup onto the counter, and he couldn’t help but notice the perfect red print her lips had left against the plastic. She struggled to pull in a full breath, and then another, and then she tilted the cup to glare at the smiling apple on the side.

  So much for fucking rapport. He said, “Anne said you take it black,” like he was trying to weasel out of extra night-sentry duty.

  “Anne lied. I take three sugars. And extra cream.”

  Well, shit. At least his instincts had been right. He had to say something, do something before Lexi wasted too much time trying to figure out why her friend was putting up road-blocks.

  Step Three, then: Seek common ground. He nodded toward the back room. “So why don’t you show me what your brother was working on?”

  Brother. There. That should make her feel more comfortable, more secure. He purposely kept his distance as Lexi led the way to the back room.

  She pointed out water marks on the floor, the clear path of leaks from the ancient window. The frame was shot; even across the room, he could feel the cold air eddying inside. He’d need to replace it. And it wouldn’t hurt to channel overflow from the creek, to send water away from the building instead of allowing it to exploit the weakness.

  L
exi leaned down and picked up a length of one-by-eight from the floor. A small lumber yard worth of wood leaned against the wall—sheets of quarter-inch plywood and knotty pine boards. Cardboard boxes had been pressed into service as sawhorses. Half a dozen lawyer’s bookcases hulked behind the mess, their glass fronts covered with sawdust.

  Lexi shook her head. “This is all the stock from Chris’s store, and the only fixtures worth saving.”

  He glanced at the words scribbled on the boxes, reading the closest one out loud. “Manassas?”

  “It’s a Civil War battle.”

  “Yeah.” He knew about war. “I’m just wondering what it has to do with James Beard Award Winners and Jack the Ripper.”

  “Chris’s taste is a bit…eclectic.”

  That was one word for it. But Finn kept his mouth shut in service to Step Four: Be empathetic. No reason to piss off Lexi, to make her come to her brother’s defense. Instead, he tugged open a nearby box, this one without a label. He was greeted by neat rows of lead soldiers, each painstakingly accurate grey uniform nestled in a bed of white foam.

  The sight catapulted him back twenty-five years. He was seven years old, and it was Patriots Day, April 15. School was closed for the holiday, and his mother had dragged him along to a house she was cleaning. He’d been planted in front of the TV, told to watch the rare Red Sox morning game and not to touch anything.

  Ordinarily, the promise of daytime baseball would have been enough to make even Finn mind the rules. But this house belonged to some rich guy, an old man who had an entire room filled with treasures. There, inside a glass box, was a rifle with a wicked cool bayonet. And another box held a tri-corner hat. A table filled most of the room, covered with pretend green grass and a winding river and hundreds of little soldiers. The ones dressed in bright red filled one side of the table, but it was the others who were more interesting—men and boys wearing torn shirts and stained pants, holding guns and rakes and stuff. Battle of Lexington said a shiny plaque.

  Every one of those little men in ragged clothes was a patriot. Every one had fought for his country. Finn had studied the battle all morning, memorizing every last detail.

  But when he’d described the carved figures at the dinner table that night, his father had gone ballistic. “They’re fucking dolls!”

  “They aren’t,” Finn had argued. Dolls were made out of plastic and dressed in clothes. Girls played with dolls.

  “Don’t contradict me, boy.”

  “But they weren’t dolls,” Finn said. “They were sol—” He didn’t get the word out of his mouth before his father’s fist slammed into the side of his head. His mother screamed, and his father reared up from the table, stripping his belt from his dungarees like it was a living snake. Finn felt the buckle bite into shoulder, but only once, because his mother was half-carrying him, half-shoving him, forcing him into the tiny bathroom. Mary and Martha were screaming, and the baby too, but Finn was the only one his father ever hit. Finn, with his too-long legs and his too-skinny chest and his too-black hair, when all the other kids, all his sisters and his brother, were short and fat and had mud-brown hair to match their father’s.

  Now, in Lexi’s shop, Finn felt his breath coming fast, sharp enough to throw him down the Tunnel. Slowly, purposefully, he stretched his hands, letting some of the energy flow from his fingers. He made himself take a single deep breath, filling every corner of his lungs. He counted to ten on his exhale. He hadn’t realized his eyes were closed until he heard Lexi close the box that held the Civil War soldiers.

  “So, fly-boy,” she said, arching her eyebrows. “You think you can handle fixing things up here?”

  He heard what she was doing. He understood the invitation in her tone, the distraction she offered. He turned his back on the Tunnel and said, “Fly-boys are pilots. I’m Army.” He caught himself. “I was Army.”

  Her grin told him she’d been fully aware of her mistake. “Army Strong, right?” She cast an appreciative look at his arms, like she was measuring him for a job.

  “Something like that,” he said, purposely taking a step closer. What the hell. If she was offering… He heard her breath catch in her throat. He was close enough to see her eyes dilate.

  This was too soon. He didn’t know her. Hadn’t been with any woman for way too long. He didn’t trust his judgment, not with J-Dawg sitting in the corner last night, not with the Tunnel calling him, urging him to take a stroll. So he forced himself to smile and ask, “What exactly did you have in mind?”

  She took her time, moving past him toward the window. He was pretty sure her ass didn’t need to sway like that as she stepped around a pile of boxes. He knew her teeth didn’t need to catch on her lower lip before she spoke. “First things first,” she said, and the words sounded like a promise. “Fix things up here, before any more damage is done.”

  “Here?” he asked, bulling his way over to the window.

  “Mm-hmm.” She ran her fingers along the wooden sill.

  He knew he was supposed to trace the course of the leak. He was supposed to test the wall, measure the water damage, make sure he didn’t need to pry off the drywall, maybe get to the studs underneath.

  But that’s not what he wanted to do. So, he reached out to the curl of hair that had escaped from the tumble at the top of her head, and he twisted it around his fingers.

  He heard her breath catch, felt her muscles grow still beneath the back of his hand. No, not still. She was trembling like a mouse; he could feel her pulse rocketing through her veins. She was waiting for him, gauging the threat he represented. He could smell coffee on her breath, and his gut tightened as he remembered the scarlet ring she’d left on the cup out in the front room.

  Her eyes held his, calm, steady, making him question which was a lie—her mild gaze or the rioting heartbeat he felt through the back of his fingers. She raised her chin just a fraction, her lips barely curved into a smile. He couldn’t say if she was daring him, or if she was issuing an invitation.

  He shifted his weight to test her reaction, twining her hair another half-turn so he could cup the nape of her neck with his palm. She flinched at the contact, but she leaned into his hand, tilting her chin up so her lips were at a better angle.

  His own pulse took off, burning away the last of his morning fog. He could remember the dry-leaf crackle of J-Dawg’s laugh, the dead dust smell of the pillow where he’d buried his head to scream in the middle of the night, but now his ears were filled with the soft music of Lexi’s breathing, a quick pant that told him she was as excited as he was. He leaned in closer, filling his lungs with the sweet vanilla scent of her, breathing it from her hair, from the delicate patch of skin where her jaw met her ear.

  He played his tongue against her carotid pulse, and her quick breaths tightened into a whine. Grinning, he transferred his attention to her mouth, barely brushing his lips against hers, until he felt her hands on his back, clutching him, pulling him closer. He obliged, matching his tongue to hers.

  And then the chimes rang over the front door of the store, announcing someone in the other room.

  Lexi froze, all the softness draining out of her. He let her go, let her step away, even though his lips burned and his palms itched as if he’d scoured them with desert sand.

  She cleared her throat. Refusing to meet his eyes, she licked her lips and called out, “Coming!”

  That wasn’t a promise, asshole. He thought savage orders to his dick, focusing on freezing December storms, on ice crackling across the Charles River, on snowdrifts up to his waist in the worst of Boston’s winter blizzards.

  Apparently unaware of the battle he was fighting, Lexi twitched her skirt into place, smoothing down the pleats at her narrow waist and centering the formidable line of buttons on her blouse. She pressed the back of her hand to her lips for just a moment, as if she could erase her bee-stung pout, and then she hurried across the disaster area of her brother’s construction zone.

  When she got to the door, she rest
ed one hand on the jamb, as if she were taking a steadying breath, bracing herself to face whatever customer waited in the shop. But before she walked out to make her first sale of the day, she flashed a wicked grin over her shoulder. “Perfect, Finn,” she said. “I think you’re absolutely on the right track.”

  He scrubbed a hand across his own mouth, wiping away any trace of her lipstick as he started to organize the workspace.

  Lexi turned to the front room, telling herself she should be thrilled to have a customer so early in the morning. But she wasn’t thrilled. She only wanted to flip the sign on the front door to “Closed,” to creep into the back room and finish whatever it was she’d started with Finn.

  Instead, she pasted on a smile and said, “Mrs. Dawson!”

  The woman stood by the Holiday Town miniatures, studying a cute little candy shop. Lexi couldn’t help but glance toward the back room. If Finn had heard her exclamation, he’d be listening in. After all, the Dawsons were the reason he’d come to Harmony Springs in the first place.

  “Lexi,” Susan Dawson said, gently setting down the miniature. “You should come to my house and set up my town! Yours is so beautifully laid out.”

  “You just need to add a few more pieces to your set,” Lexi said with a laugh.

  “Spoken like a true salesperson,” Mrs. Dawson said. “But no Holiday Town for me today, I’m afraid. I’m looking for some pillar candles, the fat ones.”

  Lexi clenched her right hand into a fist, hiding it in the folds of her skirt. “I’m sorry,” she said, fighting to sound sincere. “I don’t carry candles.”

  She was a fool not to. She sold candlesticks, lots of them—fancy brass ones appropriate for any formal table, cute clay ones with elves and angels, glass ones with reindeer painted on their sides. They were scattered through the store, brightening half a dozen displays.

  But Lexi had never been able to bring herself to add candles to her inventory. She knew her decision was idiotic. If the store caught fire, artificial Christmas trees would burn just as well as candles, maybe even better. But it felt dangerous to have wicks lying around. Like she was inviting disaster.