AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Mom?” Laney came stumbling down the stairs, looking freshly fucked and beautiful. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine, honey. Kyle’s on cookie duty.”
“Oh!” Laney smoothed her sweater over her hips. “Okay. Sure. Why?”
He shrugged at his wife. “Apparently her oven isn’t working, and she uses ours.”
“Does…that mean we’re cooking the turkey in two days?”
Claire scoffed. “No. I’m cooking it. But I will be doing that here, yes.”
“Mom! Why didn’t you tell me you need a new oven?” Laney’s eyes went wide as she looked at Kyle, in that can we fix this immediately kind of way.
Meaning, what were the chances he could find a stove tomorrow, on Christmas Eve, and get it back to the farm around everything else they’d planned to do?
“I see you looking at him, Delaney Calhoun. Kyle, you are not allowed to buy me a new stove, you understand? They are not on sale right now.”
“I bet we could—” He cut himself off. Between the two of them, he could argue with Laney later. “Can I preheat the oven for you?”
Claire beamed. “Yes, please.”
They worked together, slicing the cookie dough into rounds and laying them out on the trays. Then they went into the oven, and Claire headed back to the farm just up the road, where her grandchildren were playing ball hockey in the long central hallway of the farmhouse, apparently.
As soon as her mom left, Laney got on her phone. “Okay, let’s make an action plan. We wanted to pick up a tree tonight, and decorate tomorrow. Maybe we wake up early and decorate before breakfast? That would free up the morning to go stove shopping. We’ll have to measure tonight.”
“She doesn’t want us to buy her a new stove right now,” Kyle said evenly.
“But that’s silly. She can’t drive up and down the lane every time she needs to bake something!”
God, he loved it when his wife got all fired up and protective of her family. He took Laney’s phone from her hands, set it on the counter, then pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her neck. “You’re a good daughter. But she’s retired,” he pointed out, tightening his grip as she started to protest. “I think she has time to come over here if she wants to. But maybe she has another reason for not wanting to rush ahead and replace an appliance. Do you think she’s thinking about maybe renovating? Or moving?”
“You think maybe?”
“I don’t know. Either way, our day tomorrow remains wide open for decorating, and we’ll get the truth out of her when she’s ready to share it.” The timer went off. He tapped his wife on her ass. “Let’s get those on the cooling rack.”
“Where did that come from?”
“She’s been using the oven for a while, apparently.”
Laney didn’t know what to make of the odd oven story. But Kyle was dead set on distracting her, so she set it aside and let her husband gently boss her around the kitchen.
They baked two more trays of cookies, then headed out to the Christmas tree farm on the edge of town to pick up the Balsam Fir they had reserved. Kyle held her hand, their fingers tangled, as they drove, and when they got there, he tugged her over to the hot chocolate stand first.
“Want to ruin our appetites for dinner?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.
She laughed. “Sure.”
They each got an extra large takeaway cup, steaming and rich-smelling, topped with marshmallows and chocolate drizzle. Then the strolled hand-in-hand down the main row, where the remaining trees were lined up, to the benches at the back of the lot.
White lights were strung above them, lending a warm glow to the night sky.
“This is nice,” Laney whispered.
“A little calm before the storm.”
“Mm-hmm.” Tomorrow would be spent with her sister’s family. The kids would sleepover with Bean tonight and tomorrow night, and then on Christmas Day, they would head over to Kyle’s brother’s farm for a big Nixon family dinner. That would spill over to Boxing Day leftovers, and more cousin sleepovers, and the rest of the week leading up to New Year’s would be a mix of both families, every single day. Video game tournaments and hikes through snowy woods.
She sipped her hot chocolate, rich and sweet, with a lovely dark bitter edge to it, just a little. And she thought to herself, imagine if we hadn’t found our way back to the man who thinks this is the ideal penultimate pre-Christmas dinner.
