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SPENCER WAS CONTENT. Tatum sat in his truck, singing along with the Christmas carols on the radio and holding a steaming cup of hot chocolate in her hands. He drove five miles an hour down Cedar Bend Lane, uncaring that they were wedged, bumper to bumper, among the opening-night crowd. At the rate they were going, it would take an hour before they were done. And he couldn’t be happier.
Not that their adventures in the bedroom an hour ago hadn’t been amazing. They definitely were.
“Wow,” she said, tapping the window at one especially lit-up home. “Check out those animatronics. Do you get extra points for that?”
“Depends on the judging committee. There was a big fallout a few years ago, the younger home owners wanting a voice on the judging committee and all.”
“Sounds like serious stuff.” She smiled, cocking her head as they drove past another house with a psychedelic lighting scheme. “I wouldn’t give this one high marks... So what happened?”
“It was close, but the committee did have some turnover and there’s a more even distribution of judges.”
She glanced at him, sipping her hot chocolate. “I heard that.”
“Heard what?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Sarcasm. What does ‘even’ mean?”
“Let’s just say the whole age thing was fixed. But the overall mentality of the committee remains the same.” He smiled at her. “I’ve never seen a first-time winner.”
“Hmm.” Tatum turned to look out the window. “That sounds like a challenge. If I’m still here next year, I’ll have to pull out all the stops and see if I can steal one of those revered winner signs for my yard.”
He heard the “if.” He didn’t like it. Not that now was the time to talk about what she meant. Not yet, anyway. As they pulled up to a large white column-fronted mansion with a double lot, he slowed. “Betty Brewer’s grandmother still lives there.”
She stared. “She’s still alive?”
He chuckled, nodding. “Betty says her grandmother will live forever just to drive the rest of the city crazy.”
“I remember her and her causes. The city-hall clock being a minute off. The need for school buses to have their brakes regularly oiled—to reduce noise pollution. Wasn’t she one of the loudest voices in the fight to make this a dry county?”
“Damn happy that one didn’t work out,” he said. He loved the dimple in Tatum’s left cheek. Loved the way her eyes creased when she smiled.
“I take it she hasn’t mellowed with age, then?”
He shook his head. “Last city-council meeting she wanted to discuss trash pickup times. Too early disrupts her sleep, too late and it’s unsightly.”
“She needs a hobby.” Tatum laughed. “She and my mother got along famously—they played bridge together a couple of times a week. I remember visiting her house twice. The second time I bumped into an end table and knocked a tiny crystal lamb onto the floor. Its leg was broken. I felt terrible but Mrs. Brewer was so angry we had to leave. I wasn’t allowed to come back after that and my butt was sore for days.” There was no bitterness in Tatum’s voice.
“How old were you?”
“Um...around six, I guess,” she said, shrugging.
She might brush it aside, but the story reminded him of just how difficult Tatum’s upbringing had been. Especially after her father had left. How many family dinners had been disrupted in their own home? His mother would sit there wincing as Mrs. Buchanan’s shouts grew louder, staring at their father until he stood up, stomped across the street and warned Mrs. Buchanan that her behavior was crossing a line. Some nights, Tatum had come over to have dinner with them. And on one of those nights, he’d fallen completely in love with her.
“Does she win every year? Mrs. Brewer, I mean?” Tatum’s question pulled him from the past.
He took a deep breath and eased his iron grip on the steering wheel. “Her house was disqualified from judging last year because she’d hired a decorating company.”
“That’s against the rules?” Tatum glanced his way as she took a sip of her hot chocolate.
“Only if it’s not a local company.”
“So I won’t be disqualified? Since you and your cousins are from here?” she asked, turning her gaze back out the window. “I should do something for them—Jared and Dean, I mean. It was nice of them to lend a hand on their day off.”
“Dean would love that,” he muttered.
Tatum’s shoulders were shaking. The sound of her giggle startled him. “So, it’s okay for me to do something nice for Jared?”
“He’s not trying to get you into bed.”
