A Merry Little Christmas (2 page)

“Well, then, Mr. Charlie Landau…” Franny’s smile widened with every word. “I have to congratulate you on investing in a one-of-a-kind charming farmhouse, which sits on two-hundred-and-fifty acres of the finest Oklahoma farmland in the state…where the wheat crops rise to meet you, the sun shines always on your back, and the fatted cows just get fatter.” Franny grimaced. “I think I just made a mess of an Irish blessing.”

“I think you did.” Charlie chuckled. And then he smiled at her—a devastating smile.

“All right.” Franny pulled off her head scarf. She no longer needed it anyway. Charlie had made her forget all about the autumn chill. “How about a tour of the property and then a cup of coffee? I have the best: instant Folgers.” She fluffed her hairdo.

“Do you have any Ovaltine?”

“No, but I can make you homemade hot chocolate.” The deejay, fuzzing in and out on the radio, said something about Christmas and Brenda Lee, but Franny didn’t absorb the announcement. She’d gotten lost in the eyes of a man who’d just made the most romantic offer she’d ever heard—a way out of farming, a way to fulfill her ultimate dream to be closer to the music. The transistor whirred to life again like a tiny alien spacecraft, this time playing Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”

Charlie took a purposeful step toward her. “We can’t miss this. It’s got a great tempo. Know how to do the Swing?”

Franny cocked her head at him. “You’re kidding. I’m covered in mud.”

He shrugged and held out his arms. “Shall we?”

His spontaneity and smile were too charming to dismiss, so she latched onto Charlie’s hands and they danced the Swing. As he spun her back and forth, their laughter rose up as bubbly as a freshly shaken bottle of soda pop. When the tune closed, another melody took its place. This time the deejay played Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas.” Franny stepped away from him, a little embarrassed that she’d gotten so carried away—after all, they’d only just met.

But Charlie held up his hands and said, “Who can say no to an Elvis classic?”

Franny moved toward him again and replied softly, “Well, that’s what I’ve always said.”

Then they melted into a slow dance to the smooth serenade of Elvis.

“Seems a mite early for holiday tunes. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.”

She gazed up at him. “This deejay says it’s never too early for a little Christmas music.”

“Well, that’s what I’ve always said.” His grin warmed her all the way to her toes.

Along with the music and mirth, Franny wondered why, after all her lonely years on the farm, God would finally send a pleasant man with possibilities to her door just to have her life go full speed in the opposite direction.

Once their dancing wound down to a mutual gazing session, Franny broke away from Charlie’s scrutiny. “How about a grand tour of the farm?”

“I’m more than ready.”

“All right.” Franny led Charlie toward the fields of winter wheat. She wished she’d taken the time over the years to paint and repair some of the older buildings, but it was too late for that now. Charlie would have to love the farm just as it was.

Franny showed him the creek, the barn, the chicken house, the windmill, a working outhouse for emergencies—which came with its own tarantula under the toilet-seat rim and was said to cure anyone of a sluggish constitution—a herd of beef cattle, two gardens, the brooder house, the orchard, and the farmhouse. Whew! No wonder she wanted to flee to the city!

About a hundred questions and answers later, they both settled in the kitchen with some hot chocolate. “So, what do you think? About the farm and the house?” Franny blew on her beverage but watched Charlie over her mug to get his immediate reaction.

“I think it’s a one-of-a-kind, charming farmhouse, which sits on two-hundred-and-fifty acres of the finest Oklahoma farmland in the state.”

Franny grinned.

“It’s just what I need, actually. As I mentioned earlier, if I can make a profit, hopefully my father will see that I’m capable of running his enterprises.”

She bobbed her marshmallows up and down with her spoon. “What enterprises?”

“Oh, scintillating businesses such as construction, pipeline operations, and oil-field equipment. That sort of thing.” He looked bored with what he’d just said, but his eyes lit up when he added, “But ever since I was a kid I’ve been intrigued with farm life. You know…growing things for a living.” His gaze darted around the kitchen and landed on a cluster of photographs of her parents. “Is this your mother and father?”

“Yes.”

“They look happy.” Charlie pointed to the photograph at the end. “And I assume that’s you next to them.”

“That’s me with pigtails and two of my Christmas presents, a Slinky and my first bicycle.”

“Pretty adorable. And who’s the colored gentleman standing next to you?”

“That’s George Hughes. We called him Uncle George.” Franny paused. “He was our farmhand, but after a few years he became like family to us. At Christmastime he used to dress up like Santa Claus and give us all homemade gifts.” She waited for Charlie to disapprove, like so many people had in the past, but he merely nodded.

“I hope you don’t miss this place too much,” he said. “It seems like a wonderful home.”

“I grew up in this house. It was always full of laughter.” Franny ran her finger around the rim of her mug. “But my parents died in an accident over a decade ago.” She looked at him. “Now I’m surrounded by faded memories and yellowed photographs on the wall. But after all these years there are traces here and there of love. I can still feel it.”

“Sounds like a sweet and sad love song.”

“Yeah? Maybe I should write it down.” Franny smiled, feeling a wistful tug at her heart. “Sometimes I think in lyrics.”

Charlie leaned toward her. “So how did your father and mother pass away?”

Franny took a sip of her cocoa, but it was still too hot. With very little encouragement, the scene of her parents’ death played in her mind. “We were having stormy weather that day, and we’d gone down into the cellar. But the door kept banging open, so Daddy went up to secure it. And Momma followed behind him—to help him, I guess. Anyway, in that brief moment, an elm tree crashed through our enclosed porch. The tree fell on the cellar door and killed them instantly.”

Charlie reached out to her but didn’t touch her hand. “I’m so sorry, Franny.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“But it must have been hard on you. How did you ever get over it?”

“Some part of me recovered, but I’m convinced there’s another part of me that will never mend. Anyway, I’ve never been back in that cellar since that day. I always use the hall closet when there’s a storm.”

“It’s pretty heavy. And you must have been very young at the time.”

“I was eighteen.”

Charlie blew on his cocoa and took a cautious sip. “So you stayed. But I’m curious. How did you run a farm all by yourself? You were just a kid.”

“Well, the neighbors all knew what had happened. And even though it was unusual for a girl to run a farm, I didn’t want to leave my home. So, some of the neighbors said they’d give me a hand with the work for a while until I could do for myself. I never did plant and harvest the wheat, though. I’ve always leased the land out to my closest neighbor, and we share the profits from the harvest. But after a few years, I realized that I didn’t want to do this for the rest of my life. So that’s when I put the farm up for sale.”

Charlie’s gaze lowered to her left hand. “And you didn’t get married? At least a man could have helped you with the chores.”

“Yes, a husband would have come in handy, since I’ve had backaches for a decade.” Franny grinned. “But I have this little problem.”

“And what is that?”

“I want to marry for love.” It wasn’t necessary to look at Charlie’s empty ring finger. It was the first thing Franny had looked for when they were dancing. “I see you never married?”

“Never found it…love, that is. I’m thirty-five, and nothing’s ever happened. Nothing real, that is.”

“Real?”

“I’ve met lots of women, but I’m beginning to think it’s impossible to find love. But then, who really knows the interworkings of romantic love except God, who invented it?”

Charlie’s comment surprised her. He wasn’t at all shallow. But for someone as appealing as Charlie, she could easily imagine love arriving at his door in a golden coach. “You’ll find out soon enough that most men around here don’t have many romantic notions about love. They think of women in practical terms. They’re valuable for four things: cooking, cleaning, keeping the house…” She held up her fingers, counting. “Well, and for making lots of babies, especially boys to help with the farming.” Heat rose in Franny’s face, and she chuckled at herself.
Nonsense.
It was the 1960s, not the ’30s. “So, I’m assuming you’ll want to farm your own land and not lease it out as I do. Do you know about plowing and planting and harvesting wheat?”

“No.”

“Do you know how to operate machinery?”

Charlie shifted in his chair. “Uh, no.”

“Or about animal husbandry?”

He looked bemused. “That doesn’t sound quite right.”

Franny chuckled. “Guess you weren’t in FFA.”

“I don’t think so.” Charlie rested his thumb on his chin. “But I was a scout leader one time. Does that count?”

“I don’t think so.” Franny grinned.

“So what’s FFA?”

Oh dear.
“It’s Future Farmers of America.” Franny wondered if it were ethical to sell the farm to Charlie. He was likely to perish in an accident on his first day on the job. Or he could be injured. Fortunately, the local doctor only charged a dollar for house calls. “I must warn you, there’s a lot to know about farming. What you don’t know can kill you…or, at the very least, put you in the poorhouse.”

“I’m not scared of dying, and I’m not worried about the poorhouse.”

“But there’s a lot to know. You’ll need to keep records on the hogs—when they’re bred and when they’ll give birth. That way you’ll be ready and the sows won’t have their babies in the field. There are recipes for their various feeds, depending on how old they are. You’ll need to know—”

“Doesn’t sound
too
impossible. Does it?”

“Yes, but there are hundreds of things like this to know.”

“I’ll just hire a farmhand.” Charlie shrugged. “Once I get into town, I’m sure I can find someone—pay somebody to help me out.”

“Honestly, I’ve never heard of anybody wanting to call himself a farmer that badly. You know, to hire someone else to do the work.” Franny hated to be a dream killer, but the more she talked to Charlie, the more he didn’t sound like farmer material.

Charlie looked at her as if he were peering over reading glasses. “You know, you’re not like other women I know.”

What did that have to do with anything? “True. Other women don’t have pig manure under their fingernails.”

Charlie chuckled. “I mean that you’re different in the way you express yourself. And you have a boy’s haircut, kind of like Audrey Hepburn in…what’s the movie?”

“
Roman Holiday
?”

“Yeah. I like it. Unfortunately, most of the women I know are somehow convinced they’ve got to look just like Jacqueline Kennedy. They all look the same to me…carbon copies.”

“A fancy bouffant just doesn’t work out here. All that ratting and spraying and primping—
oof
!” Franny blew her bangs off her forehead. “The pigs wouldn’t appreciate it anyway.” She shook her finger. “But now that you’ll be buying the farm and I’ll finally move to the city, maybe I’ll change my style. Pluck my eyebrows and grow out my hair.” She raised her shoulder in a shrug, hoping it came off as feminine. Working on the farm all day didn’t give her much time to practice her flirting skills.

“I like your style—just the way it is.”

His words seemed cozy and familiar, and the sound of his voice made Franny feel as though she’d eaten a red-hot chili pepper.

Charlie played with the cloth napkin. “You mentioned moving to the city, but what are you looking for?”

“A life.” She took a swig of her cocoa and then wiped off her marshmallow mustache with the back of her hand.

“Oh? Are you sure about that?”

She puckered her face. “Well, I’m surer of making it in the city than
you
are in farming.”

He laughed. “All right. That’s funny.
You’re
funny.”

Franny relaxed her expression. She hoped he meant that she was funny in an adorable way and not a clownish sort of way. His brown eyes offered a mellow gaze. She broke the connection by looking down into her brew.

Even though they’d just met, she knew Charlie had the power to make her forget about leaving. But Oklahoma City would have plenty of fine Christian men to choose from. And most of all, there’d be lots of radio stations where she could be close to the magic—close to the music. She would apply at every radio station there. Beg if she had to. And if there weren’t any openings for a deejay, she’d be a receptionist until something opened up. God would make a way. After all, He was the one who’d put the music in her soul.

Charlie’s mug struck the table, which startled her back to the present. “By the way, my father has an attorney. They’ll take care of the transaction right away. That is, if it’s all right with you.”