Emily caught her reflection in the mirrors at Namastyle. Some day, she’d actually get Tammy to cut her hair. Even out her bangs. Trim the ends in a straight line. Maybe even do one of those color washes Anne always talked about.
But this wasn’t the day.
She headed straight for the box of white wine on the table in the back room, in the yoga studio. She would have preferred cider, of course. But any port in a storm.
And there was going to be a major storm when she filled everyone in on recent, um, developments in her life. She braced herself with a healthy swallow from her cup. The stuff wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be.
Before long, Anne came rushing in with Lexi Taylor. They both gave Emily a strange look. “What?” Emily asked. “Do I have something in my teeth?”
“No,” her sister said. “I’ve just never seen you get here early.”
“I’m not early!”
“Well, not late.”
“I figured I needed to fortify myself before my interrogation.”
“Speaking of which,” Megan Sartain said, putting on her best prosecutorial voice. “I believe you had a contract with this group? Four dates with one man, before the end of November? You skipped Yoga Night last week, so I assume you came up empty. Again.”
“We have a contract now?” Emily asked, even as the Purr turned over in the back of her mind. “I thought I’d just accepted a dare.”
“You’re delaying,” Megan said severely. “Should we just skip over the part where you whine and complain and tell us why things didn’t work out with whatever poor shlub you chose?”
“I don’t whine and complain!”
“So,” Megan said. “Things didn’t work out.”
As Emily spluttered, Rachel raised her glass of soda water and gave her a wicked smile. “Yeah, Emily. Tell us. Things didn’t work out?”
Well, here goes nothing.
Emily took a deep breath. Without looking anyone in the face, she said, “I sort of fit in my four dates in the four days after Thanksgiving. I’ve got December taken care of too.”
“Holy shit,” someone breathed. It sounded suspiciously like Tammy.
Before Emily could lose her nerve, she said, “Matt-Dawson-and-I-have-kind-of-sort-of-well-you-know-been-seeing-each-other.” The Purr hummed its satisfaction.
Anne recovered first. “You and Matt Dawson?”
Emily nodded.
“And you didn’t tell us at Thanksgiving?”
“Nothing had happened at Thanksgiving.”
“Then what…? How…? When…?”
Emily grinned. “Well, little sister, when a man and a woman love each other very much…”
“You’re in love with Matt Dawson?”
Wow. That was a lot more than she’d intended to say. She wasn’t in love with Matt Dawson. She couldn’t be. She was his sworn enemy. He wanted to run her business out of town, her and everyone she knew.
But after the past ten days, she was pretty seriously in like with Matt Dawson.
Lexi cut to the heart of things. “What does this mean for Save Our Stores?”
“It doesn’t change a thing.”
Rachel snorted.
“It doesn’t!” Emily insisted. “It’s not like Matt and I spend our evenings discussing business strategies.”
“I certainly hope not,” Tammy said. “During shishir, Hindu winter, people should have sex every day. The body is at its maximum sexual strength during shishir.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Exactly,” Emily said. And then she appealed to the group for support. “Look. This is something new for me. I haven’t been in a relationship since high school.”
Since Jon.
Everyone here at Yoga Night knew the truth. That was one of the joys of living in a small town. But no one felt compelled to say anything, because this thing with Matt was too new. Too weird. Too…
“Come on,” Emily said, her voice a little desperate. “Help me out here. Somebody else must have something to share with the group.”
“Why yes,” Anne said, turning to Lexi. “Somebody must have something to share.”
Lexi plucked at the seam of her skirt. Her voice was nearly a whisper as she said, “Finn spent the weekend at my place.”
There were hoots from the crowd. “Wait a second!” That was Rachel. “Back up. Tell us exactly what happened!”
Everyone laughed as Lexi launched into her story. Now that Emily was off the hot seat, she reached into her bag and took out her knitting. The grey heathered yarn shimmered a little in the overhead light of the yoga studio, and her needles flashed as she transferred a cable onto a holder. She’d worked half a dozen repetitions of the pattern now; she had it completely memorized.
Hearing Lexi’s recitation of events, Emily realized she’d heard people gossiping about the other woman’s new beau. Amused, she said, “I heard your guy’s from one of those super-rich Boston families. You know—pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd. He has season tickets to Red Sox games. Patriots, too.”
Lexi sighed before she answered. “He’s from Boston. But I don’t think he’s heir to any fortune. Not if he’s staying at the Hyland Motel.”
The Hyland Motel. Usually, the name of the place slipped a dagger between Emily’s ribs, piercing her heart with a perfect sliver of pain. But not tonight. Not after she and Matt had finally spoken about that horrible day. That wonderful day. That day that changed everything in her life.
By the time she dragged her attention back to Yoga Night, Tammy was offering Lexi her usual frank sexual advice. “Orgasm doesn’t have to come from penetration. Your second chakra opens from oral stimulation as well, and from manual—”
Emily schooled her face to impassivity. The last thing she needed was for Rachel to look her way, for anyone to question Emily’s own second chakra, and the stimulation she’d been receiving since Thanksgiving.
She breathed a sigh of relief when Megan came to Lexi’s rescue. “Whoops, ladies. That’s enough yoga for me. I promised Ava I’d check her math homework before she goes to bed.”
The meeting broke up quickly after that. Tammy made her usual attempt to dragoon them all into taking an actual yoga class, but she didn’t seem to take offense at everyone’s poor excuses. Emily collected her knitting and said her goodbyes. And if her girlfriends thought she made her departure a little more quickly than usual, no one said anything out loud.
Matt was waiting for her on the stoop in front of Harmony Skeins. “You must be freezing!” she said.
“I can think of one way to warm up.” He climbed to his feet.
She gave in to a quick experiment, slipping her arms around his waist and matching her hips to his. “Mmm,” she said, pulling back enough to edge a hand inside his coat. “What have you got there?”
“My knitting,” he said. “I made a mistake. I need some help fixing it.”
“Good thing you came to the right place.”
“I hoped you would say that.”
She laughed as she led him up the stairs. She didn’t get around to fixing the knitting until the morning.
~~~
Emily arrived at Harmony Park early on the afternoon of December 24. There was plenty of work to be done before the Fête started at sunset.
She started by taking a slow loop around the green. Four firefighters were engineering the bonfire, laying the groundwork for the giant pyramid they would kindle after dark. Chief Carter was hard at work with two of his patrolmen as well, manning the smoking pit where the Christmas pig already turned slowly on its spit.
The usual booths marched along the footpath on either side of the pig roast. There’d be hot apple cider and steaming coffee. The Jenkins bakery always provided fresh doughnuts, pushing their deep fryer to its limit to produce a constant stream of perfect circles, each boiled in hot oil and finished with a shake of cinnamon sugar and just a dash of salt.
The kids’ games were ready to go as well. Traditional carnival fare lured every child in a thirty-mile radius, tempting them to toss softballs into milk jugs and drop rings over the lips of Coke bottles. The games weren’t rigged, so everyone won eventually. The prizes were always minimal—stickers and plastic animals, a handful of fake coins—but that hadn’t stopped Emily from competing when she was a kid. She’d spent hours mastering each of the games, even practicing during the year. She still had a collection of trinkets in her kitchen junk drawer.
But this year, there was something new at the Fête. This year, tables ringed the bonfire, each positioned a safe distance from where the flames would soar into the December sky. As Emily walked the perimeter, she twitched green and red tablecloths into place, securing each one with metal clamps. She added four signs to every table, each placard emblazoned with the name of an enterprise in the Central Business District. Emily mixed up the participants, alternating stores, restaurants, and services that had agreed to support the SOS effort.
In front of each sign, she put a fishbowl and a roll of green tickets. Townsfolk could enter a drawing for each business, depositing a ticket in every store’s fishbowl, in hopes of winning a special Fête prize.
At the far end of the circle, as distant from the pig roast as possible, Emily set up a separate table for American Discount. It was the only business outside the Central Business District that was offering a prize. Emily had marked that difference with special tickets for the Discount, a garish orange complete with grinning skeletons left over from Halloween. She smiled in grim satisfaction when she saw the jarring contrast to the red and green decor that made the other tables festive.
A breeze picked up around four in the afternoon. Emily took advantage of a lull in the action to hurry back to Harmony Skeins. She’d left a stack of coupons sitting on the counter. Each one promised a free hour of knitting instruction and five percent off all purchases made in a single visit.
She didn’t have goody bags. She’d never planned on having goody bags. She’d just told Matt about the expensive promotion because she’d known he would jump on her announced plans. His own super-competitive streak would be his downfall.
She gathered up the one prize Harmony Skeins would award that evening. She’d used an old hand-woven basket she’d picked up ages ago. In it, she’d placed two skeins of sock yarn, along with a set of double-pointed needles and a book about knitting socks from the toes up. She’d completed a little tent card with a hand-lettered announcement: Enter Our Raffle Today and Warm Your Feet in the New Year! The whole thing had cost her less than fifty bucks.
Time to head back to the Fête. She didn’t want to miss the look on Matt’s face when he realized he’d been had.
She was a block from the park when she came upon Caden Harper. The boy was pushing a dolly. Or rather, the boy was trying to push a dolly. The cart, which was laden with large rectangular boxes, seemed to weigh more than a ton. Caden was cursing to himself as the dolly’s wheels kept veering to the right, forcing him away from the curb cut he needed to reach the Fête.
“Need some help there?” Emily asked.
Caden set the cart upright and swept his hair out of his eyes. “These damn, er, darn wheels won’t roll straight.”
“Sometimes that happens when the boxes aren’t weighted evenly.” She helped him shift the packages, turning every other one around. “What’s inside?” she asked casually. She couldn’t wait to see what Matt had done, how he’d exploited the false information she’d purposely shared with him.
“I can’t tell you,” Caden said. “Mr. Dawson swore me to secrecy.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”
“I’ve got another two loads to bring down from the store, the ones that wouldn’t fit in the back of Mr. Dawson’s truck. He’s still loading up the pickup, back at the store.”
“I’d better let you get back to work then.”
Emily barely bit back a laugh as she made her way to her table. The other merchants had begun to arrive, and there was a lot of light-hearted holiday chatter. She put her prize for the Harmony Skeins drawing at her own space and walked around to see if she could help others.
“I don’t understand,” Kitty Moran complained as she peered out over her floral display of pine boughs and holly berries. “We’re all crowded together here, and the American Discount store gets its own table. It’s not fair.”
“Just wait and see,” Emily said.
Kitty turned back to her tablemates. “Does this make any sense to you?”
Emily left before she heard their answer.
Looking around the park, Emily was truly impressed by the creativity of her fellow merchants. Mona Benedetti was offering the chance for someone to create a signature cocktail. Charisma was promising a free hour of wardrobe analysis, along with a ten percent discount on every item bought to replace something out-of-date. Heather March was staffing the library booth and donating a free storytelling birthday party to one lucky parent.
Matt didn’t arrive at his table until a quarter to four. He was lugging a massive box and looking over his shoulder, clearly trying to track down Caden in the growing crowd. Emily saw the moment he realized his table was isolated from the others. She watched him pick up the tail of his garish orange tickets. He rubbed them between finger and thumb and shook his head in apparent disgust.
She waited until he took a box cutter to the huge package he’d been carrying before she wandered over to his station. “Need any help?” she asked, her voice a perfect image of holiday sweetness.
“Happy Halloween?” he asked, nodding his head toward the tickets.
“Whoops! That’s all they had left at the party supply store.”
“Cute,” he said. But he didn’t seem all that upset. He plunged his hands into the box and wrestled to free whatever was inside.
Emily curled her fingers into fists to keep from helping him. She wanted to see what he’d come up with. She wasn’t disappointed.
The American Discount prize was set up in a five-gallon bucket. It looked like someone had gone on a shopping spree down every aisle of the store, tossing in items without regard to form or function. Rolls of aluminum foil jostled tinsel garland. Lunch bags printed with Santa faces slipped behind dish soap.
Any one item might have been inviting. But taken together, they looked cheap. Everything looked like an afterthought. And because the American Discount table stood by itself, the over-large bucket looked puny.
Matt set his prize on the table and turned it to a better angle. Or, more precisely, he turned it to a different angle. He frowned and rearranged some of the items, pulling some too-bright squares of gift-wrap to the front, pushing a plastic-handled gardening trowel to the back.
He finally gave up and transferred his attention to the other boxes scattered near his table, the smaller ones that Caden had been transporting. The boy was still ferrying loads from Matt’s truck. Using a bit more energy than seemed strictly necessary, Matt sliced through the tape on the first box.
Inside were half a dozen buckets, miniature pails that mimicked the American Discount grand prize. Each was filled with cheap trinkets. There was no-name foil-wrapped chocolate that promised to be far more wax than candy. Christmas ornaments purported to be singing elves, but the first one Emily saw had already lost his songbook. There were coloring books for the Black Iron and Jaguar Girl, superheroes Emily had never heard of, and there were packages of four off-brand crayons in muddy colors that all looked grey under the street lamps that ringed the park. And tucked amid the detritus was a piece of red paper with the American Discount logo blazoned across the top. Fifty Percent Off All Purchases One Visit! the note declared. Each S was decorated as a dollar sign.
“Wow,” Emily said. “These look, um, great.”
Matt scowled. “They looked fine back in the shop.”
“I’m sure people will love them.”
Caden came up panting with the last of the boxes from Matt’s truck. “What do you want me to do now, Mr. Dawson?”
Matt handed him the box cutter. “Let’s get the buckets on the table. People will be arriving soon.” Caden set to work with the enthusiasm of the young.
Matt finally took the time to look around. “Where are all the other tables?”
Emily gave him a sweet smile. “We decided to do something a little different. We thought it would be more inviting if the Central Business District kept things small. Homey.”
Matt gave her a look. It was the beginning of the realization he’d been had. “All right,” he said evenly. “Let’s see what you did for Harmony Skeins.”
Leading the way over to her table, she considered taking his hand, lacing her fingers between his. But she wasn’t sure he’d feel too flirty when he realized she’d lied to him, back in her store, back when he’d warned her not to share her ideas because he’d steal them.
She watched him take in the four spaces at her table, the three other businesses that shared the promotion with Harmony Skeins. She saw him study her tasteful prize basket. He picked up the printed coupon. “Free knitting lessons?” he said. “That’s what you’re giving away?”
“I’ve found lessons keep people coming back for more. More than goody bags would.”
His lips twitched, even though he was obviously trying to be angry. “This isn’t what you told me you were going to do.”
“I told you one version of my plans.”
“You never had any intention of doing…what I did.”
She looked over at the cheap plastic that littered his table. “No. I guess I didn’t.”
“You lied to me.”
Her heart fluttered fast. “I may have…spread a little disinformation.”
“You lied.” His eyes glinted dangerously.
“Yeah,” she said, her belly executing a slow somersault. “I lied. But it wasn’t personal. Remember? Just one of those things?”
He laughed then. He threw back his head and he laughed. And then, in front of all of Harmony Springs, he caught her hair against the nape of her neck and leaned down to kiss her, hard enough that she saw stars behind her closed eyes.
“I’ll show you personal,” he growled against her lips. “After the Fête is over.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
His shoulders were shaking as he stalked back to his table.
~~~
Emily had gotten him. That was the simple truth. She’d gotten him good.
He’d set himself up for it, latching onto her plans. He’d pitied her the entire time he was ordering the crap for his goody bags. He’d thought he’d teach her a lesson, let her know he really was out to win this business game, no holds barred. But she was the one who’d had the last laugh.
He was already figuring out ways to make her pay. Ways that would leave her trembling and spent for a week, if he had anything to say about it.
“Matthew.”
Well that was a splash of cold water over a perfectly good dirty picture: his mother’s voice, coming out of the darkness. It wasn’t just her voice, though. It was the fact that she used his full name.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as she stepped forward. Her pale face was an oval in the deep twilight.
“I wanted you to know, dear. I tried to get your father to tell you. I waited, because I thought he’d talk to you. But we’re out of time, and you shouldn’t be caught completely off-guard.”
Ice sliced open his spine. “What are you talking about? Mom? What’s going on?”
She wrung her hands, twisting her fingers as if she’d never wash away a blood-stained memory. “Your father and I… We’ve commissioned a plaque for the high school. A memorial for Jon, to go in the gym.”
She wasn’t making sense. Why would he care if they put up a plaque?
“We’re dedicating it tonight. Because the whole town’s together. Because Jon always loved the Christmas Fête, ever since you were little boys.”
Shit. He couldn’t believe they were springing this on him now. He’d have to pull together something to say, tell everyone how much he’d loved his brother, how much it hurt to know Jon was never coming home again. Thank God for all those years of media coaching, special training for press conferences with professional advice on how to speak to crowds, how to get across what he wanted to say.
“It’s okay, Mom,” he made himself say.
“Your father—”
Of course Dad was the one who was dropping this on him at the last minute. From the first time Matt had won a baseball game, Dad had been waiting for him to fail. He set him up, over and over again.
But memorializing Jon wouldn’t be a failure. “It’s okay,” Matt said again. “I’m used to talking in front of crowds. At least this one’s friendly.”
His mother shook her head. “I’m making a mess out of this.” She finally met his eyes. “Your father doesn’t want you to speak.”
An icy cavern opened in his belly, one he thought he’d filled in years before. You’re the big brother. You have to be the responsible one. You have to keep Jon safe.
“He’ll do it himself, then,” Matt heard himself say. He sounded reasonable. Calm. Accepting.
“No, dear.” Something about her tone told him to brace himself. This was going to hurt, like a fastball drilling into his shoulder at a hundred miles an hour. “There’s someone else who’s going to present the plaque. A soldier who served with Jon, his best friend from the unit. A man named Tom Finnegan.”
Fuck that, Matt wanted to say. I’m Jon’s brother. I’ll present the goddamn plaque.
He didn’t say it though. Because his mother was already crying. Because it wouldn’t make anything better.
Instead, he took a deep breath. He exhaled slowly. He pulled himself in to that place he’d spent a career carving out, the precise spot where he could see a catcher’s signal, where he could shape a pitch to get past the sharpest batter in the league. It was a cold place. An emotionless place. But it let him say, “Don’t worry, Mom.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
“It’s your father. He’s just not himself—”
“He’s exactly himself, Mom. But I’m fine.”
Chief Carter loomed out of the darkness. “Are you ready, Susan? I think it’s time to start.”
“I’ll be there in a moment.”
The policeman nodded. But before he turned away he said to Matt. “I’m sorry for your loss, son. It’s a fine thing that you can be here tonight.”
Matt nodded, because the chief meant well. He started to turn back to his table of gaudy crap.
“Matt?” his mother said. “Will you come by for Christmas breakfast tomorrow?”
“I don’t think so, Mom.”
He saw her start to argue. She swallowed a question, or maybe a statement, another declaration that his father was grieving. She settled on, “Your father feels terrible about what he said to you. On Halloween.”
“No he doesn’t,” Matt said flatly, a little surprised that Dad had shared their conversation. “He meant every word.”
“You have to understand. He’d do anything to protect you boys.”
“He’d do anything to protect Jon.”
“Matty…”
He heard fresh tears in her voice. Shit. He didn’t want to make her cry. He never wanted to make her cry. He thought about the pink scarf he’d finished for her with Em’s help. The wrapped box was sitting on his kitchen table so he could bring it by in the morning, so he could watch her open it beside the Christmas tree with the felt-and-pipe-cleaner ornaments he and Jon had made in elementary school.
He sighed. “I’ll talk to him, Mom. But not tomorrow.”
She nodded and kissed his cheek. He watched her walk to the edge of the bonfire, to the towering pyramid that waited for a torch. She wore her warm winter coat, but her neck was bare. She looked cold. Alone, even though she was surrounded by friends, her husband at her side.
The ceremony itself was simple. Chief Carter stepped forward with a velvet covered box. Some guy, it must have been Tom Finnegan, took the box and pulled back the cloth. He stared at whatever was inside for a minute, and then he raised his hand in a sharp military salute. He held the pose for a count of ten, and then he held up the plaque for everyone to see.
It was too dark to read the words, especially from a distance. But that was okay because Dad stepped forward. He took the plaque from Finnegan’s hands and then he embraced the guy in an awkward, one-armed man-hug. Tears tightening his throat, Dad read the words: “In loving memory of Jonathan Lewis Dawson. Loyal soldier and beloved son.”
There was more. Something about Jon’s graduation class. About his being captain of the football team. Nothing about his being a brother.
Dad looked up from the memorial and said a few words about how grateful he was for the community to come together, about how proud he was that Jon had served his country. Coach Gunderson spoke too, his gravelly voice breaking when he told about how Jon scrambled for the end zone in the final game of his high school career, how he’d won the state championship with pure grit and courage.
The crowd was generous with its applause. After the plaque was returned to its velvet box, the firemen lit the bonfire. People began to storm the tables, talking to merchants, picking up coupons, putting tickets in fishbowls in hopes of winning a prize.
A few people turned to Matt, shaking his hand and expressing their condolences. He nodded gravely, monitoring each voice for the hidden message, for the sickening words that haunted his dreams: It should have been you. The oldest Dawson boy. You should have been over there.
But that was ridiculous. No one blamed him for Jon’s death. No one except his father.
When Matt finally got back to the American Discount table, he found Caden holding down the fort. The boy looked longingly at the far end of the park, at the food that was sending tantalizing messages on the breeze. Matt said, “Go ahead, Caden. You’re through for the night.”
“Oh no, Mr. Dawson. I’ll hand out buckets.”
“It’s a one-person job. And you put in plenty of extra hours getting everything ready.” He reached for his wallet and took out a crisp twenty-dollar bill. “Get yourself some doughnuts. Some cider too.”
“Thanks, Mr. Dawson!” Caden ran half a dozen steps before he turned back. “Merry Christmas!”
Matt waved a response before he sank into the chair behind his lonely table.
Two hours later, the cold had seeped into his bones, and he was ready to call it a night. The lure of free stuff had finally worked some magic; he’d managed to give away a couple of dozen pails. He’d have to choose a winner for the grand prize from the twenty or so tickets that swirled in the glass bowl.
“Hey, good-looking.”
He looked up to see Em, her face shadowed by the bonfire behind her. Because he didn’t want to be a prick, he waved a hand toward the SOS tables. Even from here, he could see their bowls were overflowing with tickets. People still gathered around many of the downtown merchants, and the night was filled with excited chatter. “This round goes to you.”
She laughed softly as she sat on his lap. “What did you say at the beginning of the night? You were going to show me something personal?”
He sighed. “Can I get a raincheck on that? I just want to go home.”
“I’ve always wanted to see the inside of Old Man Marshall’s place.” Her fingers walked up the front of his coat.
He closed his hand over hers. “Em, I’m a mess tonight.”
“I’m good at cleaning up messes.”
His rueful laugh sank like a stone in his belly. But she leaned in, close enough for him to whisper, “I hate him, Em.”
He felt every muscle in her body turn to stone before she asked, “Jon?”
He shook his head. He’d never hated Jon. Been exasperated by him, sure. Worried about him. Resented the way he got the easy love of every single person around him. But he’d never, ever hated his brother. He sighed before he said, “My father.”
She set her palm against his jaw. “You don’t mean that.”
He pulled away enough to say, “I do. Tonight, I really do. It’s no excuse that he’s in mourning. I don’t care if my mother loves him. He’s a cold-hearted son of a bitch who fucked up his own life, and I’m tired of him taking it out on me.”
She set her palm against his jaw. “That’s why you need someone to take care of you. Let’s go home.”
“I’m no good for anyone tonight.”
She put a finger against his lips. “You’re good for me. Come on. You’ll drive us home. You’ll climb into your bed and I’ll sleep in the guest room. And in the morning, if you want to, you can have Christmas breakfast with my family.”
He groaned. “Don’t tell me they eat that Indian potato shit for breakfast.”
“Of course not. Christmas morning calls for Thai food.” She put her hand over his heart. “Deal?”
He shook his head. “I don’t have any sheets for the guest room.”
She smiled. “I think we can figure something out.”
And she kissed him, with just enough heat, just enough promise that he was certain they could solve the problem. Together.