A Holiday to Remember (15 page)

“No cigar,” Chris told him. “You know that. And it’s a little early in the day for brandy. Maybe tonight.”

Charlie started to protest, but Jayne spoke first. “We’ll get the kitchen cleaned up.” She scooted her chair back and stood. “The girls would like to explore a bit, and then we’ll be heading back to the school.”

“Ms. Thomas?” Just as Chris started to panic, Sarah leaned forward from her chair at the other end of the table. “We can take care of cleanup, especially if Uncle Charlie tells us where to put things.” She glanced at him and smiled, which drove the old man’s scowl right off his face. “Just leave it to us.”

Around the table, the girls nodded their heads as Jayne looked from one to the other.

“Okay,” she said, and Chris could breathe again. “I’ll investigate the fascinating books on the shelves, instead.”

“Or—” Chris stepped close enough to lower his voice “—we could go for a walk.”

She lifted one eyebrow as she gazed at him. “Am I the victim of a plot?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll get my coat.”

The clear blue skies of noontime had given way to silver-edged clouds driven by a blustery wind. Both of them buttoned their coats up before stepping off the porch.

“I’m sure this place is beautiful in the spring.” Jayne brushed her hand across the low branch of a dogwood tree. “Are there daffodils everywhere?”

“Used to be.” Chris captured that free hand with one of his own. “I doubt he’s dug them up.”

Her fingers nestled warmly between his. “I’d love to see it.”

They rounded the corner of the house and got their first glimpse of the pond out back. The surrounding forest shaded a long, steep hill sloping down from the cabin, which kept
snow on their sledding run for most of the winter. Rimmed by willow trees and hardwoods, the pond’s silver water reflected a stormy sky.

Jayne halted briefly. “How lovely.” She kept her gaze on the view as they walked to the lip of the hill, where she again stood motionless.

Chris waited in the silence. He didn’t want to push her, didn’t want to speak too soon.

Finally, a huge sigh lifted her shoulders. She turned to him, her eyes dark with tears. “I don’t remember.” Tears choked her voice, too. “I don’t remember any of this.” She bent her head until her forehead rested against his chest. “I should at least remember Charlie.”

“There’s no ‘should’ to this situation.” Chris used his free hand to cradle the nape of her neck. “It is the way it is.”

She sobbed, once, and proceed to cry quietly as he held her against him.

When she eventually drew back, he handed her the handkerchief he’d jammed in his pocket for just this purpose.

“Thank you,” she said, after clearing her throat. Then she looked up, directly into his face. “What if I never remember?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t think it matters, Jayne. That’s the past. We don’t live there anymore.”

Her expression remained doubtful. “What if you can’t forget?”

“Then I’ll be like everybody else, with a girlfriend in my past and a beautiful, vibrant woman to love in the present.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“I know damn well it’s not easy for you.” He couldn’t help the harshness in his voice. “I came into your life badgering you and ordering you around and, oh, yeah, falling on top of you and dragging you to the floor.”

Jayne pretended to rub a bruise on her shoulder. “I remember that.”

“The first time I kissed you, and the second, I was trying to force you to remember something—to be someone I wanted. Something I thought I needed.”

“Yes. I slapped you for it, too.”

“Not hard or often enough.” He grinned slightly. “I deserved to be kicked in the butt and thrown out in the snow. But you…you took me in, made me warm. Kept me alive.”

He pulled her close again. “Your kisses weren’t like anything I’d ever known. I didn’t even realize what I needed in my life until I kissed you, Jayne Thomas. Until I held you, and you held me.”

His frown didn’t lighten, and she turned her hands so she could grip his in return. “What’s wrong, Chris? What are you trying to say?”

He shook his head, staring at their hands. “I want to be good to you, Jayne. You probably can’t believe I have that in me, but I do. I can be kind, and honest, and patient. Not all the time, I guess. But I don’t usually treat women like…like hostages. And I’ll never be cruel to you again. I swear.”

She gave his hands a shake. “What makes you think you need to tell me this?”

“I know how I behaved.”

“I know what I saw, Christopher Hammond. I saw your kindness, when you put yourself out to distract a bunch of spoiled brats whining because they couldn’t watch television.

“I saw your sense of fun and fair play, when you let them win snowball fights, when you carried their sleds for them up the hills, when you gave them a Peace Tree and spent the day patiently making their visions come to life.

“Your honesty was always on display, of course.” She
winked at him. “You never hesitated to let me know what you thought.”

Finally, his lovely mouth curved into a smile.

“You’re a good man. I knew that early on, if not right away. And…” She needed a deep breath to finish. “And I love you.”

He brought her hands to his lips, keeping his gaze on hers. “Does that mean you’ll marry me, Jayne Thomas?”

“I can’t remember a time when I wanted anything else.”

Chris dipped his head and Jayne put her arms around his neck, drawing him down for a kiss.

If they heard the applause and cheers coming from inside the cabin, they chose not to notice.

A
BANDONING HIS PLANE
reservation and his next assignment, Chris stayed on with Charlie, sorting through the books and clothes and papers of a lifetime. Without needing to say a word on the subject, he and Jayne scheduled their wedding as soon as possible after school started again in the New Year. Just to be safe.

That was how Chris found himself, on a Saturday afternoon during a warm spell referred to as “blackberry winter,” standing at the front of the dining hall at Hawkridge. Charlie stood beside him, both of them wearing what his granddad called “monkey suits,” and waiting for the music to start.

Facing him were all of Jayne’s students, plus the entire school staff—including Mr. Trevino, wearing the new winter coat Chris had given him.

“Don’t drop the ring,” Charlie whispered.

“I don’t have the ring,” Chris said quietly, for the third time. “You have the ring.”

“I do?” Charlie patted his pockets. “Now, where would it be, I wonder?”

“I am not going to panic,” Chris told him. “If you lose the ring, no problem. I’m not nervous. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me in my life.” He winked at his granddad. “Besides growing up with you.”

Charlie gave a snort. “You’re no fun.”

The Hawkridge String Ensemble began to play at that moment, and the doors to the dining hall opened from the outside. Taryn and Haley came down the center aisle between the rows of chairs, wearing dark red dresses and looking almost too excited to breathe. Beth and Selena followed, dressed in dark green gowns, pretending to be too old for nerves. Yolanda and Monique, in midnight-blue, lived up to their promise as young women facing the future with strength and grace. Sarah walked in by herself, as the maid of honor. She wore a vivid teal dress and carried the same white lilies in her bouquet as the others.

Chris turned to the girls and gave them what he hoped was a decent bow. “Seven has always been my lucky number,” he said. “You all look beautiful.”

The music changed, and he looked up just as Jayne stepped through the doorway. She started toward him, holding the arm of her friend Mason Reed, a former teacher at the school.

Good thing this is our wedding,
Chris thought.
Otherwise, I’d be jealous. The guy is too damn handsome.

He couldn’t stop grinning as she walked toward him, wearing the smile he loved and her hair curling around her shoulders. The cream dress she’d chosen was nice, though she could have shaved her head or worn biker leather and he’d be just as happy.

She was here. Nothing else mattered.

“Hello, stranger,” she said as she stepped up beside him in front of the minister. “Don’t I remember you from somewhere?”

He leaned close enough to whisper, “I’m the guy who’s taking you to paradise tonight.”

Her smile deepened. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Chris thought he heard a chuckle from Mason Reed on her other side.

Charlie hadn’t lost the ring, of course, though his fingers trembled as he reached into his breast pocket at that point in the service.

“Be happy, both of you,” he said, clasping Jayne’s hand with his free one as he offered the golden circle to Chris. Then he stepped back, pulled out his handkerchief and wiped tears from his cheeks.

Chris turned back to Jayne and locked his gaze with hers. “I, Christopher, take you, Jayne,” he said, without prompting, “to be my lawfully wedded wife. To have and to hold, from this day forward.” He’d been waiting to say this for weeks. “For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. Forsaking all others, as long as we both shall live.” He slipped the band on her finger, and bent to kiss her hand.

Sarah handed his ring to Jayne, and she began the same promise. “I, Jayne, take you, Christopher, to be my lawfully wedded husband.” The time-honored words went straight to his heart. He would keep them there forever.

They said the final words of the pledge together. “And thereto I plight thee my troth.”

“Which means,” Chris translated for the benefit of the bridesmaids, “I may now kiss my bride.”

With seven tearful girls surrounding them, in front of three hundred swooning students, smiling faculty and his grandfather, that’s exactly what he did.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-4329-7

A HOLIDAY TO REMEMBER

Copyright © 2009 by Cheryl B. Bacon.

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