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“Well,” Denise said and put her arms around me. “I can’t wait to hear this story. But any wife of Ethan’s is bound to be a friend of mine. It’s good to meet you, Lexie.”
Ethan wrapped his arm around my waist and invited Denise and her family to the inn for the Christmas Festival on Christmas Eve. When they walked away, we started walking slowly in the other direction. His arm still around my waist. My hands full of packages.
“I don’t know why I did that,” I said, still shell-shocked.
“I’m glad you did.”
“Me too,” I said, but I wasn’t entirely sure I meant it. We kept walking, doing a little shopping. He carried my bags and I held his hand. There were park benches along the walk, some of them sitting near the gazebo where it was the warmest. And on the one closest to the singers was Chris Kringle.
“Dad?” Ethan said. “What are you doing here?”
“Caught a ride with Matt and Jasmine.” He pointed over to where Matt was signing autographs. “What are you two doing?”
His eyes caught our hands clasped in our mitts and something in his gaze made me pull my hand away. If Ethan noticed, he didn’t say anything.
“Ethan!” Ethan’s assistant, Danny, came up to him.
“Danny. Having a good night at the Jamboree?”
“I was, but apparently there’s a frozen pipe situation at the office and I’m heading over right now to see if it’s as bad as Carol says it is.”
“Shit,” Ethan said. “I’ll come with you. Lexie, you want to sit with Dad for about ten minutes? My office is just on the other side of the square.”
“I don’t want to intrude—”
“Lexie,” Chris said and shifted over. “Sit down. Please.”
“I’ll be right back,” Ethan said. “Here.” He handed me his flask of egg nog. “Don’t drink from Dad’s flask, he adds extra rum.” And then they took off for the dark building across the street.
“Is that true?” I asked and pointed at the flask in his hand, nearly hidden by his big red and green knit mittens. “Is there extra rum in there?”
“No,” he said. “I just tell them that so they don’t drink mine. But you can have some. Save yours for if we run out.”
He handed me flask with a wink. I took a sip and his icy cold egg nog burned down my throat.
“You come to the Jamboree every night?” I asked. This family really could not get enough Christmas.
“No. One night every year. My wife loved this event.”
“Really? More Christmas?”
“Christmas was always Marie’s favorite. She was raised in a foster home. Series of them, really. And she always said when she had a family she’d make Christmas a big deal, because it was always so disappointing for her growing up.”
“I know the feeling,” I said, surprising myself.
“Yeah?”
“My mom…she’s not very good at Christmas.”
“That must be why you love it so much.”
“Oh, I don’t know that I love it.”
He looked at me, wide-eyed. “You’ve been at the inn two weeks and you’ve made the decorations better, you’re doing a kid’s pageant. Your dog has like three costumes. And you don’t like Christmas?”
I had never thought of it that way. I held out my hand for his egg nog and he handed it to it me. “Marie always hoped the kids would stay and work the farm. Keep the tradition going, but I didn’t want them to feel like they had to do anything.”
“You’re regretting that?”
“No. No. Not at all. My kids are doing amazing things and I couldn’t be prouder. But I wish just one of them loved Christmas like their mom did.”
“They take the magic for granted,” I said. “You did too good a job.”
He laughed. “Well, maybe you’re right.”
A woman came up, smiling big at Chris but watching me out of the corner of her eye. And I understood what was happening even before it was happening. “Chris, Merry Christmas,” the woman said.
“Hello, Jane. Merry Christmas to you too.”
“I just heard the craziest rumor and I thought I’d come to you to get it all cleared up.”
“Well, you know me. King of the gossip.”
“Ethan’s married?” Jane asked, eyes wide and bopping from Chris to me and back to Chris.
Chris looked at me and I smiled with all my teeth. “He sure is. I’m Lexie, his wife. It’s real nice to meet you.” I held out my hand and got the limpest shake that was ever shaken and the poor woman tried to hide her shock, but just couldn’t. I let her take a look at me and I knew whatever she thought was going to be all over town in about ten minutes. And that it wasn’t going to be great. I used to dance with a girl like this, we used to call her The News. Anything you wanted to know about what was going on with any of the girls, you went and asked The News.
