Small Town Christmas Read online

  “I know all about what happened. I know how you guys fought that night at the motel. I know how he walked away in a huff. He told me everything.”

  “He told you all that?”

  “He told me a lot of things. You talk about things when you’re getting shot at. And God knows, we got shot at a lot when we were in Baghdad on our first deployment. You were the girl he never forgot, Annie. You’re the girl he regretted. The one he missed. He never married, you know.”

  They stared at each other for a long emotion-filled moment; then he leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. She saw what was coming and turned her head to meet his lips. It was a pretty brazen thing to do, given the fact that Matt had been talking about how Nick had loved her. But Nick had walked away twenty years ago and never come back.

  Annie tried, for all she was worth, to take the kiss a little deeper, but Matt pulled back. He looked up. “So, ah, that’s what mistletoe is all about, huh?”

  Annie followed his gaze. Sure enough they were standing under a sprig of the stuff. Disappointment swallowed up her Christmas merriment.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” he said in a voice loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, “seeing as you were standing there under the mistletoe.”

  “Do you remember what you said last night?” she whispered.

  “Yeah, I remember. I was insane last night. I don’t know what came over me.” He let go of a long breath and turned to look at Mother’s parlor, filled with the members of the book club.

  “I don’t belong here. This is Nick’s place, not mine.”

  “But—”

  He turned and held up his hand. “I’m a guy from Chicago, Annie. And they don’t have snow here. I’ll probably go back to the Midwest and see if I can get a job as a dog handler someplace like Milwaukee or St. Louis. There isn’t anything for me in Last Chance. I just came here because I wanted to see if Nick’s stories were true. I wanted to meet his grandmother. So I’m going to go up there to the nursing home tomorrow. I’ll pay my respects, deliver Nick’s present, and be on my way.”

  “But—”

  “Annie, I’m not your soul mate, no matter what Miriam Randall says. And don’t you go mistaking me for Nick Clausen either. Because I’m not him. If you believe in what they say about Miriam, you should keep the cat. I’m guessing that there’s a handsome veterinarian in your future.”

  Matt went to midnight services along with all the members of the book club. He sat in the back of the church. He wasn’t a believer. He was out of step with the people who came to celebrate the birth of Jesus that night.

  The only thing that kept him in his place was the choir.

  When they sang the “Hallelujah Chorus,” Matt’s skin prickled. But that reaction was nothing compared to what happened when Annie sang her solo, especially when she got to the last couple of lines.

  Traveler, darkness takes its flight,

  Doubt and terror are withdrawn.

  Watchman, let thy wanderings cease;

  Hie thee to thy quiet home.

  Traveler, lo! the Prince of Peace,

  Lo! the Son of God is come!

  There seemed to be a message in that song, even for an unbeliever. He needed to firm his resolve, push his own needs aside, and visit Ruth tomorrow. Nick had wanted his grandmother to have a Christmas gift last year, and Matt had kept it from her. He needed to go and let her know just what a good friend Nick had been.

  Early the next morning, after a night of very little sleep, Matt found himself in the Christ Church van, sandwiched between Miriam Randall and another, equally ancient church lady. Making good on her promises, as Matt suspected she always did, Annie took the wheel of the van and drove everyone up to Orangeburg.

  The church ladies came laden down with gifts like the wisemen. They carried cookies and gingerbread and a bundle of quilts the size of pillowcases that they called prayer blankets. He was literally surrounded by a bevy of ancient angels of mercy.

  Within an hour, he stood alone on the threshold of Ruth Clausen’s room at the nursing home, holding a brightly wrapped shirt box in his hands. The box wasn’t very heavy, nor did it rattle. It was surely something to wear—something Ruth Clausen, now consigned to this small room, didn’t need anymore.

  He stepped up to the bed. The old lady looked pale and tiny, her gray hair thin. She had an oxygen tube hooked over her ears. She seemed to be having trouble breathing.

  “Ruth,” Matt said gently.

  She opened a pair of hazel eyes, the exact same color as Nick’s. Man, staring into those eyes threw him for a loop. They seemed clear and aware and alive.

  A little smile quivered at the corner of her lips. “Nicky, you’re home,” she said.

  Matt opened his mouth to correct her. But just as he was about to speak, something came over him. He flashed on the sound of Annie’s voice singing that carol from the night before. He said not one word.

  Instead, he pulled up the chair and took Ruth’s hand in his. Her skin was paper-thin, her hand cold. He rubbed it between his.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” Ruth said.

  “Me too, but you didn’t expect me to miss Christmas, did you?”

  “Christmas?” Ruth’s voice sounded frail and confused. Her eyes dulled a little.

  “Yes, Grandma, it’s Christmas. The best time of year. You remember that year when we had the snow?”

  She nodded, and her lips quivered. “It wasn’t really snow, Nicky, just a dusting.”

  “I made a snowman.”

  “It was three inches tall.”

  “It was still a snowman. Size is not that important, Grandma.”

  She laughed and squeezed his hand. “I love you, boy, you know that?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I do,” Matt said; then he launched into one of Nick’s favorite Christmas stories that involved a dog named Gonzo and an apple pie that disappeared when no one was looking.

  Ruth enjoyed that story, and the five other Christmas stories Matt told her as if they belonged to him.

  At some point, just as Ruth was beginning to fade off into sleep, he became aware of someone behind him. He turned and found Annie and Miriam standing in the doorway of the room. He had no idea how long they had been there listening. Both of them had tears in their eyes.

  “So,” Miriam whispered, “you going to give her that present or not?”

  Matt realized that he hadn’t said a word about Nick’s present. It still rested on his lap.

  Suddenly the present seemed kind of stupid. Ruth didn’t need or want a present like this. All Ruth wanted for Christmas was Nick. And in a way Nick lived on, in the stories he’d told when the bullets had been flying or the boredom had set in. Matt knew them all by heart.

  He couldn’t bear to look at Annie or Miriam because his own eyes were overflowing with the tears he’d been holding back for a long, long time.

  Annie strode into the room, bent over, and put her arms around his shoulders. Her hair spilled over him like a veil. “You’re staying, of course,” she murmured in his ear. “I couldn’t imagine Christmas without you.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. You aren’t Nick. I know that even if Ruth doesn’t. You’re kinder than Nick ever was. And you came home, when all Nick ever wanted was to wander the world. He may have told great stories, Matt, but he left Ruth alone. He walked away from me and everyone he loved in Last Chance. He never came back to visit, even when he wasn’t on deployment. Instead, every year, he sent Ruth a Christmas present, as if that were enough. They came like clockwork. She always put them in the charity box. She never even unwrapped them.”

  “You knew this all along and you didn’t tell me?”

  “We all knew it. Why do you think I asked you about your reasons for coming? Why do you think Nita questioned your motives last night? I guess once you explained yourself everyone understood that you’d come here looking for something Nick had thrown away without really looking back. No one wanted to dash your ill