Our First Christmas (28 page)

“You never talked my ear off.” He shook his head. “I always loved talking to you. I didn't have the easiest childhood, as you know, but you were my light. You brought the laughter, the relief, the friendship. You wanted to talk to me. You wanted to be with me. I was not getting that at home.” He paused for a second, breathed deep. “You needed me, and I needed you. I would leave my house and my dad would still be passed out on the couch. Sometimes he'd throw a punch. Or he'd yell, he had that raging temper. We got so many eviction notices I couldn't even count them. He'd get it together, but only when he had to.”

“I remember. He scared me.”

“I was scared, too, as a kid, and so lonely for my mom, but I stopped being scared when I was bigger and stronger than him. He decked me that one night and I hit back, twice, and he was on the floor. Never hit me again, but that's because I soon moved out and into Coach's upstairs apartment.”

“Oh Josh.” I ran a hand over my face. “I'm sorry. My mother and aunt wanted you to move in with us, but they didn't allow it for obvious reasons.”

“I think they were right. I would have been living in your pink bedroom, pushing aside the stuffed animals.”

“What a drunken jerk your miserable father was. It makes me want to cry thinking of a kid living like that. You had to support yourself at only sixteen, alone. I didn't understand the magnitude of that when we were dating.”

“When I have children they will not live as I did. They'll work, I believe that kids need jobs to teach them the value of money, but they will never have to be a teenager working a job so they can buy groceries.” He sounded bitter, and I didn't blame him.

“Where is your father now?”

“He moved to Arizona.”

I could tell he did not want to talk about him.

“I didn't have a sober, calm father, but I had you, Laurel, and that made it all easier. I'd work an eight-hour shift at the grocery store but knew I'd be climbing up that tree outside your window and that got me through. Or, I knew that I'd see you in math the next day or that you and I and our friends would have lunch together. And every day you'd give me a hug and a kiss and a bag of cookies.”

“I loved to bake those cookies for you.”

“I loved to eat what you baked.” He looked down for a second.

“Laurel, the cookies weren't just cookies for me. They were a lot more than that.” He held my hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed every one of my fingers. I watched his mouth. I could hardly breathe.

“Josh. You are not to try to seduce me. It's against the Ten Date Rules.”

“What?” He pretended to be outraged. “I didn't know anything about the Ten Date Rules. I didn't agree to that.” He laughed, deep in his chest. “Could I seduce you if I tried?”

“Yes, handsome one. So don't.”

He knew I was serious. “Okay, Laurel, I won't.”

“Thank you.” Did I mean that?

“It will be my honor to let you seduce me.”

My mouth dropped. He laughed again and so did I.

My. That cowboy was a smoldering son of a gun.

 

Ace sent me a Christmas tree. Full-sized. Decorated in gold. My aunt and mother clapped their hands. The card said, “Rudolph misses you already. He is sad.” But I had made up my mind. My answer was still no.

 

Josy sent me a draft of the Web site.

I called her while staring out the window at Gary, our Christmas frog, and the gingerbread house witch. “I can hardly speak.”

“Okay. Tap once on the phone if you like it.”

I tapped. “I love it. You totally nailed it.”

She actually giggled. “This is one of the funnest Web sites I've ever done. I love the photos of your mom and aunt throwing hay in the hayloft in their aprons and when your mom is pushing your aunt in the wheelbarrow. Your grandma holding the rifle is my favorite. Same with your granddad on that bucking horse. Did you like the photo of your aunt and mom as little girls holding hands next to the photo of them now holding hands?”

When people clicked on The Apron Ladies, the home page of the Web site showed a photo of my mother and aunt, wearing fluffy, ruffly Christmas aprons, one with Santa on the bib, one with Mrs. Claus. They held pitchforks on either side of them, the snowy Swan Mountains in the distance.

Josy had used old-fashioned blue toile wallpaper and antique lace around the edges of the Web site on each page. Down the right column were photographs of their aprons.

The navigation bar had different tabs: The Apron Ladies. Our Aprons. Our Home and Land. Family History. Grandma's Recipes.

Each page was filled with colorful photographs and the text I'd written.

I showed my mother and aunt.

“Whoee! We're The Apron Ladies,” Aunt Emma said. “Mature models.”

“A smart woman is proud of her body and grateful to still be in it and not”—my mother pointed to the sky—“up there.”

“Or,” my aunt Emma said, “down there.” And she pointed to the floor.

 

Date Three with Josh was snowshoeing. I brought the beer cheese soup, bread, hot chocolate, and salad for our lunch. He was thrilled; his whole face lit up.

Date Four was a trip to Glacier, the park covered in snow, pure white and silent. I brought my grandma's Irish truffles, as Josh wanted. That don't-mess-with-me face lit up again.

Date Five was a party at a high school friend's ranch. Afterward, we drove around the lake, watching it shimmer under the white rays of the moon, people's colorful Christmas lights reflecting off the snow.

We talked and talked, a whole range of subjects. We were quiet, too. I was dating the new Josh. Somehow, in all the years apart, we'd grown together. We were different from our life experiences . . . but we were still Josh and Laurel.

Josh didn't kiss me, but I felt him every second. I had to force myself not to make an awkward lunge onto his lap. I wanted to reach my arms around him and hug him. I wanted to pull his head down to mine and kiss him until I couldn't think, which would take about one second. I wanted to knock off that cowboy hat, strip open his shirt, and yank down his pants. Then I wanted to push him back onto a bed and straddle the man.

That same gut-wrenching, desperate passion for Josh, which I knew was buried in my soul, was still there.

It had never left.

But I had left . . . and I would leave again.

 

Date Six was different. Josh and I had dinner at my house, my mother and aunt out at Feminist Book Club. I made salmon, his favorite fish, baked potatoes, a shrimp appetizer, and chocolate cake, also a favorite.

“Laurel, thank you so much. That was incredible.”

Maybe it was the heartfelt thank-you. Maybe it was my long years of feeling lonely and alone, even through the frantic busyness of my life. Maybe it was that face of his, hard and angled, familiar and dear.

I stepped toward him, and smiled, I know I did. He smiled back and took charge, his arms pulling me in. I lost myself in that kiss.
Poof.
All rational thought gone. I didn't let myself think, only feel. And what I felt was Josh, those lips knowing exactly what to do, those big hands knowing exactly where to go, those arms holding me so close I thought we were one person.

I undid the buttons on his shirt as I was kissing him, then ran my hands straight up his chest, loving the warmth, the muscles. I heard him inhale, felt his heart pounding like mine. He untied my red and white ruffled Christmas apron and dropped it to the floor, then my sweater went flying over my head, followed by my purple bra.

We were skin to skin, hands flying, lips meeting, our lips only parting when they moved lower.

Later, I would have to blame Zelda for breaking up my free-flowing lust. I heard her shriek-meow at the dogs. The dogs weakly barked back, then scampered up the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, Zelda let loose again with a murderous scream, paws clawing the air. The dogs whimpered.

I pushed at Josh's chest, his hands pulling off my jeans, my breath coming in unattractive gasps. “Okay, stop, Josh, please.”

“What?” He pulled back. “Stop?”

“Yes, please. I'm trying to resist you, Josh.”

“Please don't.” He bent to kiss me again and I gave in for another minute because he is delicious.

“You're ruining my resisting,” I gasped.

“Happy to hear it, honey.” He ran his hands up my naked back, then back down to my waist while kissing me.

“Don't honey me.” Ah, he was a scrumptious, manly man.

“Okay, darlin'.” He kissed my neck. He was still breathing hard, like me.

“Don't darlin' me, either, you seducer.” He laughed as I turned shakily away and grabbed my bra, which had landed on the Rudolph cookie jar. His warm hands fell away. I tried to snap my bra, but my hands were trembling and I couldn't.

Josh did it for me, but said, “Poor me. I wish I wasn't doing this.” Then he kissed my shoulder.

“Thank you.”

“You're not welcome. I would rather you kept it off. I like the purple.”

I reached for my sweater, which had landed near the coffeepot, and pulled it on. Unfortunately Josh did not button his shirt, so I was forced to feast my eyes on that chest again.

“You are the most beautiful woman I've ever met, Laurel,” he said, his voice soft. “Outside and inside.”

“I don't feel that way.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I know who I am, Josh.”

“I know who you are too, Laurel.” He put one hand on either side of me on the counter, then bent to look me straight in the eye. “When you want to talk, when you want to tell me why you don't feel beautiful inside, I want to hear it. I know something is making you unhappy, and I want to know what it is so we can work it through.”

“There's nothing to work through.”

“Sure there is.”

His voice was low, strong, and confident. Josh was a true man. Masculine and chivalrous, a take-charge type, who had always let me be myself, but the man had a gentle side.

I wanted to wrap my legs around his waist and forget everything.

“Can I have one more kiss?” he asked. “Just one.”

Oh no. I'd be a goner. I'd have him up in my pink bedroom within seconds. “No way, cowboy.”

“I'll take a hug then, cowgirl.”

He held me close. I could live in that hug the rest of my life.

Zelda screech-meowed at the dogs again. The dogs whined. Poor things.

“Those dogs need to toughen up,” Josh drawled.

 

My mother and my aunt's Web site launched. We loved it.

That evening, I checked to see if we had any orders.

There were two. I was not surprised. No advertising, no marketing.

My mother and aunt, however, were thrilled.

“We're modern ladies,” Aunt Emma said. “Building our own, independent online business.”

“We make aprons for feminists who love to cook for those they love,” my mother said.

“Women power in the kitchen,” my aunt declared.

Josh came by our house two days later.

My aunt Emma spotted his black truck coming down our driveway toward Gary, our Christmas frog.

“Laurel,” she said, “I'll give you three guesses. He's not tall, dark, and handsome; he's tall, blond, and reeks of a sexually adventurous man.”

I didn't need three guesses.

“I'll be back in a minute.” I fairly flew out of that sewing room.

“Hi, Josh.” I stumbled out to the porch and shut the door. I could feel my face heating up. Why did he have to look so seductive without trying?

“Hi, Laurel.” He handed me a huge Christmas bouquet with carnations, red roses, white chrysanthemums, and red and gold ribbons.

“Oh. Oh my.” It was lovely. My voice wobbled. “Thank you.”

“You're very welcome, ma'am.” He tipped his cowboy hat at me. “I wanted to thank you for dinner the other night and for letting me take off your sweater.”

“I can't believe you said that.”

He grinned. “And your purple bra. I appreciated that.”

I could feel myself blushing. He took two steps closer, then kissed me. Didn't take long for that kiss to take me to a better place. “I . . . we . . . it's . . .” I pulled back an inch, tried to get control. “It's the same, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is, darlin'.” His voice was low, and deep, and yummy. “It's the same.”

“Together we . . .”

“Get out of control. It's fun. I like it.”

“I don't know what to do. You're overwhelming and messing up my plans.”

“Plans are meant to be messed up sometimes, honey.”

I tapped his cowboy hat. “Don't do this, Josh.”

“Don't do what?”

“Don't be so darn sexy.”

“Okay. I'll try my hardest.” He snapped his fingers. “I've got it. I'll put on a long blond wig and a dress next time. That should smash the lust.”

“It won't because underneath I'll know you're still Josh.”

“That would be hard to change. I believe you owe me four more dates.”

Yes, I did. I would need a bunch of Christmas elves to go with us so I wouldn't let him strip off my clothes.

He held up a hand. “I promise I won't take off your shirt this time.”

“Thank you.” I didn't mean it. I wanted to take off my shirt right now so I could feel his hands on me.

“I'll wait until you take off your own shirt. Then I'll let you take off mine.”

“Josh.” I had to laugh. It had always been like this between us. So hot, and yet, we were friends, we laughed, we joked. “I don't think—”

“You don't need to think about this too much, Laurel,” he said.

“Come out with me tomorrow night for dinner. I know of a new lodge with a restaurant overlooking Blackfish Lake. You'll love it. Candlelight. White tablecloths. Crystal. Your style.”

My style. Josh always made me feel classier than I knew myself to be.

I hesitated.

“Do it for the house and five acres.” He dropped a kiss on my cheek. “Or do it so that I don't go out of my mind sitting at home alone thinking about you and your purple bra.”

I didn't want to sit home alone, either, not when blond King Kong was ten minutes away. I looked down at my Christmas bouquet. Josh was such a kind man. So masculine and sexy, but comforting. I could not fall in love with him again. I could not risk that heartbreak. I could not live through it a second time.

“Yes.”

 

In the ambulance, on that icy, disastrous night, my body shaking from cold and shock, my father's hand in mine, the other covered in blood, he had a stroke.

His face collapsed on one side, his eyes went blank, and he pitched straight over.

“Dad!” I yelled. “Dad!”

The paramedic grabbed him and began care, starting with an oxygen mask. I panicked again. It took a while to get to the hospital because of the ice, but we finally made it, the doors whipping open as doctors and nurses took us both in separately.

The wicked stepmother, Chantrea, cried over my father. She hugged me tight, her tears flowing down my cheek as I lay in the hospital bed after my X-rays. My mother, after getting the call that I was in the hospital and had nearly drowned, was near hysteria. She and my aunt flew over. Aunt Amy rushed in, her face pale, along with Camellia and Violet.

Josh was there within minutes after Camellia called him. He kissed me full on the lips and I clung to him, but then I remembered what I'd said to my father, what I'd done, what I'd caused, my shame, my mortification, and pushed him away. I saw the confusion in his eyes, the hurt.

My father had managed to get out of our sinking car. He went up for air, over the roof, and down to my side. He slammed his fist into the window and broke it. He'd pulled me out, then up on the bank.

He was not conscious for twelve hours after his stroke and the doctors did not know if he was going to live or what type of life he would have if he did.

I fundamentally changed during that twelve hours. Who I was on that slick road and who I became while waiting for my father to wake up, to breathe, to talk, was a different person. I went from a rebellious, mouthy, immature teenager who had almost drowned, to a young woman who almost died from guilt.

The next day when Josh came to sit with me at the hospital when I was sitting with my father, I hardly spoke to him. He was kind and gentle and hugged me but I couldn't respond. I was shut down hard, depressed, panicked that my father would die because of me.

When my father woke up, his left side was paralyzed.

I bent over his chest and cried. I saw his right hand move slowly, oh so slowly, to stroke my hair. “I'm sorry, Daddy,” I whispered. “I'm so sorry.”

The tears flowed out of both his eyes. His left side was immobile, his face drooped, but the left side of his mouth was frozen in a slight smile. He looked friendly, welcoming.

I did not leave his side at the hospital, except when it was my turn to babysit Aspen, Oakie, and Redwood. My older sisters also took time to babysit, as did my mother. In fact, my mother moved the boys into her house several times so Chantrea and I could concentrate on my father.

My father had saved my life even though my meanness, my inexcusable rant, had made him take his mind off the road, which caused the crash, which caused the stress, which caused his stroke. He might never be the same again, and he had three young boys, plus my sisters and me, to take care of

My despair was complete.

I had almost killed my father,
our
father.

I deserved nothing in life, including Josh. I could never be happy again. If my father died, I was the reason for it. That was the night I started to hate myself.

I cried until I couldn't.

 

I loved The Apron Ladies Web site.

It was unfortunate that the orders were trickling in.

I called the newspapers and the media and sent photos of the aprons via e-mail. I put tags on all our aprons advertising the Web site. I took out ads in the local newspapers.

But most of the time I sat around and sewed aprons and thought about Josh.

What did I like about him?

Everything.

 

“Have you traveled, Josh?” The restaurant overlooking Blackfish Lake was classy. It was decorated for Christmas with a wreath made of branches on the stone hearth and a towering tree in the corner adorned in silver ribbons and ornaments. There were white tablecloths, candles, and crystal. It was a far cry from the sack lunches with anemic sandwiches and baggies of cookies we used to share.

He nodded. “I have. I've traveled every summer for the last seven years. About sixteen days, total, each time. It's all I can take off.”

“Where have you gone?”

“Scotland and England, one trip. Turkey. Kenya. Greece. Thailand and Cambodia. Chile, Belize. I know we planned to travel when we were kids, and a few years after I started my company, I decided to go. I planned the trip to Cambodia and Thailand, loved it, was surprised at how much I loved it, came home, and planned another one. After my first trip I realized how much travel changed a person, made them grow and learn. It gave me a whole different perspective.”

Our conversation took off then, happily, with great excitement, as we had been to many of the same countries.

“I loved seeing new cultures, new places, meeting people,” he said. “But when I come home to Kalulell, I'm glad to be home. I'm a Montana man, and I love it here, love my land, my business, my life here.”

We had seen the world as we'd planned as teenagers. Our
National Geographic
talks worked, but we'd traveled separately. I thought of us in Greece together, on a ferry to the islands. In England, at a pub. In Scotland, watching a dance with men in kilts. How would Josh look in a kilt?

“Do you consider Los Angeles to be your home now, Laurel?”

“No.”

“Kalulell?”

“I don't know anymore.”

“I wish it was. It's a Laurel place to live. Skiing . . . the lake . . . hiking... fishing.”

Why did he have to smile at me like that? A few snowflakes clung to the windows of the restaurant. Outside the trees were lit up with white lights for Christmas. “I wish it was, too, sometimes.”

“How about all the time?”

Those green eyes, I swear, they were twinkling at me. Twinkle, twinkle. I wanted to cuddle up on his lap.

“You're impossible, Josh.”

“Thank you. I missed you, too.”

 

“Don't try anything on the way home,” I told him, before he closed the door of his truck.

He climbed in. “Sit right here beside me, honey.” He patted the seat.

“Tempting, but no.”

“Please? Think of it as a Christmas present for me.”

I pretended to sigh. He sighed back. We both laughed and he pulled me into his arms quick as a hopping reindeer and I hopped on that passion train.

He knew exactly what to do with that mouth.

This time I kept my clothes on. I was wearing a mocha-colored dress with a ton of blue buttons down the back and blue knee-high boots.

“You're killing me, Laurel,” he said, as I pulled away. “And I don't like the looks of all those buttons.”

“Why do you think I wore this dress?” I tried to get my breath, darned if it wasn't hard to start breathing right again. “It's like a button chastity belt.”

He groaned. “What color bra tonight?”

“Burgundy. With black lace.”

“Torture me further.” He touched my pink tipped hair. “You're my Christmas elf, Laurel.”

“I'm a Christmas elf who's keeping my clothes on.”

“For now. But you might want to take them off, soon.” He looked outside, the snow falling steadily. “It's awfully hot out there.”

He held my hand and kissed it, three times. I swear I felt those kisses going straight to my heart.

 

I put new red thread into the sewing machine. I loved the apron I was working on. My mother had made the pattern. There was a vee neckline, crisscross back straps, and three different fabrics. I would add white lace.

I studied our “feminist Christmas tree” with the women power sayings. I thought of my mom and aunt's comments about romance and aprons and naked cooking.

Pretty, unique aprons for independent women.

Cooking aprons. Bedroom aprons.

Aprons to be naked in.

Sexy aprons.

Ruffles. See through. Cleavage. Fun. Frilly. Lacy. Role playing. Chiffon and silk. Not cooking aprons. Bedroom aprons.

“Mom,” I said. She turned to me.

“Aunt Emma.” Aunt Emma turned to me.

“This idea came from both of you. It's all yours. I wasn't taking it seriously at first, but . . .”

They clapped their hands when I told them.

“Bravo!” my mother said. “I've always wanted to be a porn apron star.”

“This way I can show off my figure . . . tastefully,” Aunt Emma declared. “Nudity is about class. It's about the human form, with all my curves. A woman's curves are physical art, nothing to hide.”

We planned. We drew designs. We made patterns. We chose new materials. We laughed.

“We're naughty!” Aunt Emma said, taking off for the fabric store with my mother.

“Naughty as can be. Mrs. Claus would be proud of us!” My mother kissed my cheek. “And most proud of you, dear daughter.”

 

I received two letters in the mail with pictures of Christmas trees, an ant wearing a red bow, and a skinny rabbit with five feet.