The Christmas Company Read online

  A ding from her phone alerted Kate to a text message. She glanced at the GPS signal Michael sent and furrowed her brow. A random spot in a random field.

  “Why are we going there?” she asked, not fully convinced Michael would even tell her if murder was in the plans for tonight.

  “Just do it, okay? You’ll see. Trust me.”

  “Okay… If you say so.”

  “Don’t sound so glum! If this doesn’t make him fall in love with Christmas, nothing will!”

  “I’ll ask him if he wants to go.”

  Fingers still shaking, Kate ended the call. They’d planned something, a secret kept even from her…what could they be up to?

  “What’s up?”

  “Do you want to go on a little drive?”

  Everything about him—his stance, his mouth half-opened and ready to ask a million questions she didn’t have the answers to—told her he wanted to talk about what just happened between them. The kiss. Well. The almost-kiss. The kiss she desperately wanted. The kiss whose absence tingled on her lips. She could only hope everything about her told him not to push his luck.

  “Yeah. Yeah.” His head dipped in disappointment as he dipped out of the room. “Sounds good. Let me get my coat.”

  Ten minutes later, they sat next to each other in the front seat of the car. The GPS gave muted directions to Clark, who had to navigate by headlights because the back forty didn’t have any lights to speak of.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” he asked, scrunching his face as he tried to see further ahead of them than the light would allow.

  She shrugged and leaned into the impossibly comfortable seats of Clark’s car. They needed to get there soon. Any longer in this quiet, dark, comfortable seat and she’d definitely be asleep.

  “I don’t know. Maybe they’re having a bonfire or something.”

  “On my property? Without my permission?”

  “I can’t think of anything else they could be doing. It’s a big, empty field.”

  Kate kept her arms firmly tightened across her chest and her eyes anywhere but Clark’s direction. Pretending to be endlessly fascinated by the dark blurs passing them outside wasn’t easy. It was, however, necessary. She didn’t have the time to parse out her feelings about her impulsive desire to kiss him. She’d only come here to make him fall in love with Christmas and her town, not to make her fall in love with him.

  “Maybe Santa’s real and he’s coming to personally give us our presents,” Clark joked.

  “Or maybe there’s a freak snowstorm and we’ll get to have a snowball fight.”

  “Snow in Texas? Better chance of Santa coming to town.”

  Another stretch of silence met those words as Kate didn’t know what else to say. The only words she could come up with were: I really like you and I want to kiss you, but I don’t think it’s a good idea because you’re trying to destroy my town and maybe liking you means I won’t mind if you do. I have to love my town more than I love you or I’ll lose everything.

  An impulse moved her hand to the dark radio. Some music would distract them both. She almost pressed the power button before remembering his stern words against Christmas music this morning. They’d ridden in silence all the way through Miller’s Point because he hated it; she didn’t need to invite more conversation or conflict with a stupid choice.

  “What’s up?” he asked, when her hand retracted.

  “Oh, sorry. I know you don’t like the music.”

  A pause. Then:

  “Go ahead. I don’t mind so much anymore.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s growing on me.”

  And you’re growing on me. As she turned on the radio and switched the dial to her favorite Christmas station, she kept that particular opinion to herself. It wouldn’t make a difference anyway. She was going to show him the meaning of Christmas (somehow, and apparently with Michael’s help), he was going to give them the company back, and then he’d be gone. Back to Dallas where he belonged. This would be nothing more than a memory. A cocktail party joke he could tell about that time he almost kissed a poor, provincial, Christmas-obsessed girl in Miller’s Point.

  But at least she’d have the festival, right? That had to matter more than anything, including this crush she’d fallen headlong into.

  The problem with breaking the crush completely was that as they drove deeper and deeper into the darkness, Clark started tapping the steering wheel and humming off-key with her favorite song. I’ll Be Home for Christmas. It was so sweet, so unexpected, she almost cried. And if she hadn’t been careful, she definitely would have fallen in love with him right then and there.

  “Well.”

  Upon their arrival, they found no bonfire, no Santa, and certainly no snow. They didn’t even find a single other human being. Only a large, dark, grassy field.

  “Are you sure we went to the right place?”

  “Yeah. This is where the GPS took us.”

  Her illuminated phone was meant to take them straight to the coordinates sent her way by Michael, but he must have gotten them wrong. Or perhaps the dense forest kept the location services from working properly. Kate squinted at the screen and checked her roaming settings. No, this seemed to be the right place. Only, it couldn’t be. There wasn’t anything here. She shot off a quick text to Michael.

  Why’d you send us out to a random field?

  The three little dots appeared. A text followed shortly thereafter. Walk to the edge of the hill. Overlooking town.

  “He wants us to look down into town, I think.”

  Miller’s Point was something of a geographical oddity. More accurately, it was a linguistic oddity due to its actual lack of a point or nearness to a point. Essentially landlocked and settled into the valley between two high, forested hills, Miller’s Point was a fraud. Miller’s Valley was actually correct, though it didn’t have quite the same ring to it. Kate led the way to the edge of the hill, less than fifty yards ahead of them. When the light from the car’s front bumper finished guiding them, the ambient light from the town below led them the final distance, until they could see Miller’s Point down below.

  And that’s when Kate realized Michael’s plan.

  “Wow.” To her surprise, Kate realized she wasn’t the one who said that. Clark did. Whipping her head back to see him a few paces behind her, she spotted him, illuminated by the light of the town, the image below reflected in his emerald eyes. “What is happening down there?”

  In his official letter of dissolution of The Christmas Company, Clark demanded the immediate removal of all decorations from the town square. They were to be put in storage immediately. And to their credit, the grounds crew team of the festival, both paid and volunteer workers, all stayed through the night to get the job done. The only thing not packed away for storage was the Christmas tree itself, which stood unlit in the center of town. Not a single decoration accented the square. The only lights that should have been coming from town were the actual lights of the houses down below. People should have been tucked away in their living rooms or in their beds, ready to celebrate tomorrow’s holiday.

  Only, they weren’t all tucked in their beds. They weren’t silently waiting for the morning to come and the now private festivities to commence. The town square of Miller’s Point was alive, as active and full as any evening of the actual festival. Without the decorations or trappings of the season, they made their own color and illumination. Tacky Christmas sweaters and red and green tights were lit by hundreds of white candles, held by singing people. Even here, high upon a hill just on the edge of their village, their voices rose up to Clark and Kate’s ears.

  Kate realized her misplaced cynicism in Michael. He hadn’t organized this for their benefit. He’d been invited and wanted them to share in it. It wasn’t a trick to get Clark on their side; it was a sincere expression of a
town’s faith.

  O Holy Night

  The stars are brightly shining.

  It is the night of our dear savior’s birth…

  Their voices didn’t ring out in perfect harmony. The song was at times too fast and at times too pitchy to be easily recognized as O Holy Night, but Kate’s soul still moved with the music.

  The lesson Clark was, no doubt, brought here to learn hit her just as hard. She’d been so certain Miller’s Point needed the festival to stay together, never once considering that it wasn’t the festival keeping them together at all. It was their love for one another. Nothing could break that, not even a businessman with a heart of steel.

  “Do you…” His voice shook. A grumbling sound came from his throat as he attempted to no avail to clear it. “Do they do this every year?”

  “No. This is the first time they’ve done this. At least, I’ve never seen it before, and I’ve worked with them since I was seven.”

  “So, they just came together on their own? To celebrate?”

  “Yeah. I think so.” When he didn’t reply, she gave him a slight nudge. There was emotion in his eyes she’d never seen before, a fullness she didn’t recognize. “Are you okay? Do you want to leave? Do you want me to leave?”

  Clark ran a hand through his golden locks and stammered, two things Kate wasn’t sure she’d seen him do.

  “No, please. Will you…” He trailed off, voice thick with emotion. “Will you sit here with me for a while? I need to think. I want to watch.”

  At the edge of a hill that might have been the edge of the world, they sat in the damp grass, not caring how the wet seeped into their clothes. They shared in the awe of the sight before them. Clark promised to take everything from the people of Miller’s Point. Kate promised to do everything to get it back. Yet, there they were. Spending the most sacred night of the year being in fellowship together, lifting their voices up and coming together as a community. There was nothing there but their love for one another and their belief in the goodness of this holiday.

  Kate’s humility consumed her. She thought she needed to save the world, but really…what was she doing? Trying to make herself the town hero? Trying to force herself into the center of a conflict that wasn’t really there? Was she really so self-obsessed to think anyone in this town needed her? That it would die if she didn’t save the day? She swallowed hard to hide the tears. She didn’t want Clark to see them.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Rats. Too late. Clark saw everything; Kate considered it his worst quality. Too perceptive. She sniffled.

  “It’s just beautiful, that’s all.”

  Until now, they’d been sitting an honest distance apart. Close enough to feel his heat, but far enough that she thought he couldn’t easily reach out and touch her. Another miscalculation. His warmth wrapped its way around her as his arm crossed her shoulders and pulled her into his side. At first, she resisted. But it felt so nice. Beyond nice to be held when she wanted to fall apart in her own shame. She’d lived in Miller’s Point her entire life and still didn’t understand anything about it. Collapsing into his side, she welcomed his chaste embrace. There wasn’t a bit of harm or prowl in it. It comforted her.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “Me either.”

  “I thought it was just for the money, you know? A way to drum up tourism for a few months a year, but you all really love Christmas, don’t you?”

  “We love each other.” All the ways she could think of to describe the sensation either fell short or sounded profoundly cheesy. Better to be accurate. “I think Christmas is just the excuse to love each other publicly.”

  The empty field whistled behind them, and their voices stayed in whispers. Being overheard was an impossibility here. Still, they couldn’t help but confide in one another as though they stood in the middle of a crowded room. Time danced on the edge of a cliff while Clark’s chest tightened and his heart hitched in his chest, a movement of muscles Kate heard loud and clear. Her head on his shoulder felt better than any pillow.

  “I can’t imagine loving anyone that much. Or being loved by anyone that much. It’s almost freezing, and they’re out there singing.”

  “Really? You’ve never loved anyone that much?”

  What a sad, empty life. Kate could barely imagine the darkness of a life lived unloved. No wonder he resented them so much at the start. Kate’s nightmares could only conjure up who she’d be without the love of her town.

  “My parents, but…” She marveled at the careful way he considered his words. Upon meeting him, she pegged him as the decisive, cold type who spoke and assumed his words would have the desired impact because he said them with such authority. “I think sometimes I forget what loving them felt like. Like, I buried it so deep for so long that it doesn’t feel right anymore. I’m remembering a memory of a memory so I don’t know if it’s real or imagined.”

  From her place on his chest, Kate couldn’t get a good view of him. Maybe it was for the best she didn’t. He needed her compassion, but he didn’t need her romance. Torn between his bewitchingly handsome face and her convicted town, she settled for playing with a loose thread on his hastily acquired overcoat.

  “I think anyone’s capable of that kind of love,” she said.

  “Even me?”

  She’d never heard two words so filled with the promise of hope if confirmed and the threat of despair if denied.

  “Especially you.”

  Neither of them were wearing watches. They didn’t dare look at their phones. There was no way of marking time except for the passing of songs from the assembled crowd below. Kate and Clark remained frozen in their poses, two breathing statues carved from flesh and awe, entranced by the groundswell of spirit coming from Miller’s Point.

  “Do you want to go down there?” Kate asked as the music paused long enough for someone—Kate swore she recognized Miss Carolyn, with her fake antlers stuck on her head of silver hair—to walk up to the podium for a reading. Michael sent them up here to see the festivities, but Kate didn’t want Clark to miss out if he wanted to join in. She hesitated to encourage it, just in case his presence sent a ripple of rage through the crowd, but wanted to offer all the same. “It could be fun to be right in the thick of it.”

  “I’m happy where I am, thanks.”

  He saved her from the freezing water. He tolerated Christmas, maybe even learned to like it… The dance. The almost-kiss. He wanted love. Her love.

  For the first time in her life, Kate didn’t know if she wanted to share her love with another person. A friendship was one thing, romance was quite another. Especially on Christmas. Christmas gave everything a Heaven-touched glow; it sang of forever.

  Her thoughts tore at one another in a bench-clearing brawl as Miss Carolyn stepped down from the podium and the crowd returned to their singing.

  I heard the bells on Christmas Day

  Their old familiar carols play

  And mild and sweet their songs repeat

  Of peace on earth, good will to men.

  “I don’t know if I like that song,” Kate said, scrunching up her nose. She never met a Christmas song she didn’t like, but this one always rubbed her the wrong way. Clark chuckled, sending white puffs of warm air out into the dark night air. The temperature was dropping rapidly. Kate didn’t know how much longer she could hold out before shivering took hold of her, especially after her dip in the river this afternoon. Billy McGee at the general store had sworn up and down this coat would protect her against any weather Miller’s Point could produce. She’d have to call him up about his 30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee.

  “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Peace on earth, good will to men,” Kate shrugged and finally sat up. After goodness-knew how long resting on his chest, she finally stitched herself together enough to support her o
wn weight again. Instant regret flooded her. A chill a minute ago turned into full-on shivering with the sudden loss of their shared body heat. “They don’t seem to care about women.”

  “I care about one of them.”

  A bolt of light broke the darkness around them, invisible to anyone but Kate. Her foolish, wanting heart wanted to throw herself in his arms and kiss him. It clung to that light, never wanting to let it go. Her frightened, skittish self retreated into the shadows.

  Dangerous. Risky. Impossible. Loving Clark Woodward was all of these things. She couldn’t let herself want it.

  “Clark,” she admonished, pushing herself to standing. The more distance between them, the safer she’d feel. “You really shouldn’t…”

  “Shouldn’t? I don’t understand. All day you’ve been showing me what it means to love someone and now that I want to, you’re saying I shouldn’t?”

  He followed as Kate strode closer to the cliff. Surely, he wouldn’t follow her off a cliff? A hundred possible tactics flew at her and she grabbed hold of the first one she caught. Play dumb. Be obtuse. Deliberately obfuscate.

  “You should care about everyone. All of those people—”

  “I do care about them, but I don’t… I’m not falling in love with them. I’m falling in love with you.”

  She froze at the edge. He stood behind her, not near enough to touch but somehow near enough to reach into her chest, grab her heart and hold it so tenderly the heat of oncoming tears burned her eyes.

  “You barely know me.”

  “You don’t feel the same way?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  It was as good as an admission, but she couldn’t even think the words. She marveled at the ease with which she said, “I love you,” and “love ya,” to her friends and neighbors, only to balk now when something real and magical waited just three steps away from her.

  “Then what is the point? You love so many people. Why not me?”

  “…It’s scary.”