A Mountain Springs Christmas

Chapter 14

fourteen

JACK

A massive weight seemed to be dragging Jack down as he drove from Golden to his sister’s house in Mountain Springs. All he wanted to do was bury himself in work, sleep, run a few miles, or do anything else that would keep him from having all of his thoughts directed at Noelle and how he’d ended things. And to keep his mind off how his heart was aching at the thought of things going back to the way they’d been before he’d asked for her help.

If they could even go back to that.

But he knew how much tonight meant to Aiden, and he wasn’t about to go back on his word to him. When he walked into Rachel’s house, Aiden did his customary run down the hallway and leaped onto him, giving him a starfish hug. He hugged Aiden back, then set him back on the floor. “Where’s your mom?”

“In here,” Rachel said, her voice sounding weak.

He walked into the kitchen to see her carrying a bowl to the sink, looking like she didn’t have the energy to even stay standing long enough to get to a chair. He rushed to her side. “Are you okay? What do you need? Do you need me to take you to the hospital?”

She shook her head. “I’m just so tired today. That’s all.”

“Then you should sleep. Do you need anything before going to bed?”

“No. But I was going to...”

He put an arm around her back to support her. “I know. But do you think you have the energy for that?”

She sighed, seeming resigned. So he scooped her into his arms and carried her into her bedroom, and placed her gently on her bed. “Where’s your phone?”

“On the table, I think.”

Aiden had followed them into the bedroom, so he asked him to run out and get his mom’s phone. When he got back, he laid it on the nightstand beside her. “Just sleep. Don’t worry about anything. Aiden and I are going to have a great time tonight. I’ll wake you up when I bring him back home and get him to bed.”

“Are you sure you don’t need anything right now?”

“I’m sure.”

“Call or text me if you do need anything, okay?”

She nodded. He gave her hand a squeeze, and Aiden pushed into the space between them and gave his mom a tight hug. “I’ll tell you all about the parade later, okay?”

She kissed Aiden on the forehead, and Jack led him out of the room.

The two of them looked at the bag of supplies that Noelle had dropped off that they somehow had to make a dog costume out of. He was already feeling lost without Noelle and was hoping that Rachel would be feeling great and could give them some direction.

“Well, buddy,” he said, “it looks like it’s up to us to figure this out.”

“When is Noelle going to get here?”

This was the question he’d been dreading. “She’s not going to be here. I’m sorry.”

Aiden let out a breath that made his chest sink and his shoulders slump. “Will she be at the costume parade?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

They moved the coffee table in the family room off to the side then emptied the bag’s contents onto the floor. The little colored puffs were obviously meant to be ornaments, and the ribbon, he was guessing, was probably a garland. Oh, and there was a hot glue gun; he plugged that into the outlet and put it on the coffee table. He was glad he found out how that worked on Saturday night. But the two foot square of green felt? He didn’t have a clue what to do with that.

“Well, where do you think we should start?”

“Noelle didn’t tell you how we make it?”

He shook his head. He hadn’t even thought to ask.

Aiden tapped a finger on his lip, thinking, a mannerism that always made Jack smile. Aiden grabbed hold of the felt and turned it, smoothing it out. “We should make it a diamond, like this, instead of a square. Maybe this point at the top can be the top of the Christmas tree, then these points at the side can wrap around onto Bailey’s stomach.”

He was impressed at the kid’s ability to figure this out. “Come here, girl,” he said to Bailey, and the dog walked right over to him like she was all-in on this project. He and Aiden laid the fabric on Bailey’s back, and Aiden pressed the sides down and held them in place under Bailey’s stomach. Okay, that could work.

“And then maybe we should just cut this bottom point off,” Aiden said, marking it with his hand, “so it’s flat, like the bottom of a tree.”

He nodded and spread the fabric out on the floor. He handed the scissors to Aiden and said, “Do you want to do the honors?”

Aiden grinned and started cutting as Jack drew a line with his finger just ahead of Aiden's cut. It was an extremely jagged line, but Christmas trees were like that, anyway. And Aiden was so proud of it.

He looked at the ribbon and pom-poms, then to the glue gun. “This glue gets really hot, so I think I better do that part. Do you want to just choose an item, I’ll glue it, then you point where to put it?”

Aiden nodded, and they went to work. Aiden hadn’t exactly had the same picture in his mind as Jack did about how the ribbon should go on, but he let him make it his own. In the end, the ribbon went in wavy lines in three crisscrossing directions, and pom-poms were stuck everywhere.

Aiden sat back on his heels, surveying their work, and grinned. Then he put out a fist, and Jack bumped it with his.

Then he looked down at his hands in his lap. “I really wish Noelle had come. I miss her.”

“I do, too, buddy.” So much.

Aiden nodded and reached out to scratch the top of Bailey’s golden head. “Do you want to try this on? Stand up, girl.”

Bailey complied, and they laid the fabric on her a second time. It looked better than Jack thought it would. But then Bailey barked and wiggled her back in excitement, and the tree costume fell right off.

“It needs to connect,” Aiden said. “How do we do that part?

“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. They couldn’t exactly use hot glue to glue it into place without endangering Bailey or one of them. Plus, he didn’t know if they’d be able to get the costume off after that.

“Can we tie it?”

Jack tried, but it wasn’t quite long enough for a knot. He also had the idea to pull off one of the pom-poms and glue it to one point underneath and cut a slit in the other point to use it as a button, but he’d apparently used way too much glue on the pom-poms to be able to remove one.

“I really miss Noelle,” Aiden said again.

“She made stuff like this look easy, didn’t she?” He hadn’t fully appreciated that trait of hers until just then. He looked down at his watch. They needed to leave within the next minute or two if they wanted a chance of being there in time.

“Oh!” Jack said, bunching the fabric at Bailey’s stomach in his hand. “We could just use a rubber band to hold it like this! Do you know if you have one?”

Aiden jumped up and ran to a drawer in their kitchen and started rifling through it. “What about this?” he asked, holding up a hairband.

“Perfect.”

Bailey was remarkably patient as they tried with the costume once again. The hair tie worked, and the outfit looked like it might stay in place for a bit. Hopefully for long enough.

“Okay, run and get your shoes and coat on. I’ll get Bailey’s leash.”

Ten minutes later, they pulled into a parking spot at the community center and ran with Bailey and her costume to get inside. Pets dressed in all kinds of Christmas costumes and their owners were everywhere, and Jack had to work to keep Aiden and Bailey at his side while he checked in. Then someone led them to a room beside the gym to get Bailey’s costume on.

It was less easy getting the hair tie holding the costume on this time around because Bailey was so excited to be around all the people and other dogs who shared the room. But eventually, they managed to, not long before someone came in.

“Okay, listen up. You’re Dogs Group Two. I want you all to file in behind me. I will lead you through the parade route, and then you’ll be free to come back here to get anything you left behind, or you can join the folks sitting to watch the parade.”

She led them back to the gym, where everyone sat in the middle of the room while all the dogs paraded around the perimeter. Instead of looking at the other dogs, every minute that his eyes weren’t on Aiden and Bailey, they were scanning the crowd for Noelle, desperately hoping to catch even a glimpse of her.

But they made the circuit around the room, and he couldn’t see her at all. They found seats and sat down while Aiden told Bailey over and over how good she did and how proud he was of her.

Maybe Noelle was bringing her parents’ dog to the show. His mind raced with all the things he could say to her and what it would be like seeing her. He wondered if they were ever going to be able to get things back to the professional relationship they’d had before.

And he spent plenty of time cursing himself for ever letting his feelings take the driver’s seat. She was his employee, and he’d decided long ago when he first started being attracted to her that he was never going to let anything happen. And then he did and ruined everything.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, though. How could he not fall in love with her by spending time outside of the office with her? Still, he should’ve made different choices. He owned the company, so it wasn’t like he could stop being her boss.

His heart leaped when he spotted Noelle’s parents walk into the gym with their black lab, Captain, at their side, dressed as Rudolph and pulling a tiny sleigh. It took a bit for them to make their way around all four sides of the gym and to where he was sitting, but when they got close, he stood up and went to them to say hello. They said hello to Aiden and Bailey, too, and said how much they liked her costume.

“Is Noelle here?” Feelings of hope were caught in his chest.

But they both gave sad shakes of their heads. Then her mom said, “Her gran-gran had a little tan and white terrier named Daisy, and Noelle and Gran-gran used to work together on a costume and dress her up every year for this event. Daisy passed not long after Gran-gran did—this is our first Christmas without her. Between that and...” She didn’t say whatever came after the “and,” but it was clear that she meant Jack ending things earlier today. She cleared her throat. “Well, it was just too much.”

He closed his eyes for a quick moment. He'd stopped things right before an activity that was probably already so difficult for her. He didn’t want her to feel bad and wished he could go to her and comfort her without making things worse. “Is she okay?”

Her dad lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Not yet, but she will be.”

Her mom reached out and gave his hand a squeeze, looking at him like she was trying to impart something to him. Courage? Hope? Forgiveness? He wasn’t sure. All he knew was that it wasn’t a look of harsh judgment like he deserved. “It’s good to see you, Jack, Aiden, Bailey. I hope we get to see you around again soon.”

As they turned and left, he suddenly remembered their Christmas Eve plans, which also happened to be Noelle’s birthday plans. He, Aiden, and Rachel had all been invited to the big dinner and celebration. It hadn’t hit him until just now that he was ruining Rachel’s and Aiden’s Christmas Eve plans, too. And he ended things with Noelle just days before her birthday.

He’d gotten them all into quite a mess, and he had no idea how to get them out. He ran his hands over his face.

Aiden tugged on his coat. “Why is Noelle not okay?”

“It’s just been a really tough couple of days, buddy.”

He nodded like he understood. Then he said, “Well, then we should do something to make things better.”

“I know. I just wish I knew how.”