No Angels (Willow Creek Christmas)

3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Mike

My brother is one of the most buttoned-up, holds his own counsel, people I know. But he’s a great listener and when he does say something, it’s on point and usually the perfect solution.

“She’s back,” I mumble morosely over my pizza.

It’s our weekly Friday night football ritual - pizza from Salvatori’s, beer and ESPN on the wide screen with surround sound. I don’t know how Derek swings it, but he never has to work night shift during football season. There are only three other deputies, so the tradeoff has to be a nightmare. He’s probably doing their laundry or mucking out stalls.

Or maybe he volunteers for the graveyard shift for the rest of the year. He’s always stuck working Christmas and New Year’s Eve, so maybe that’s the sacrifice he makes.

When I don’t elaborate Derek shakes his head. “There’s only one girl that ever made you question the entire meaning of your life. Bianca. ”

“Dude. It’s like she never left and time just stood still until WHAM SHAZAAM I’m in deep again the second I see her.”

“Maybe you need a catharsis.”

“A catharsis? You mean like an exorcism?

“No. You need to ger her out of your system for good. Maybe the only way to do that is to bang her and kill all those fantasies.”

I don’t think that’s the answer. I think it’ll just make my infatuation worse. “What if banging her has the opposite effect?”

He shrugs. “It’s a chance you have to take if you ever really wanna know for sure.”

I almost kissed her behind the curtains the day we were re-introduced. And I swear she has more freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose. I always wondered if she had them sprinkled in other places too. Maybe she’ll let me play connect the dots or draw constellations on her skin.

“So you think I should ask her out?”

He cocks his head. “Yeah, that would be the logical place to start.”

Great, my younger brother thinks I’m an idiot with no chill when it comes to women. “I have game,” I defensively tell him.

His eyes glimmer with a hint of mischief. “I never said you didn’t, Big Brother. But I never thought I’d see the day you came to me for advice about a woman.”

“I wasn’t really asking for advice.”

He snorts. “If you say so. Just do me a favor and don’t let on how much you like her. Or that you never stopped liking her. Letting a woman know you’ve carried a torch for that long makes you sound desperate.”

“I’ve been married.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Your marriage doesn’t count. It only lasted for a year. You didn’t even make it out of the honeymoon stage.”

“We weren’t right for each other. And she was on the rebound. As soon as her ex was free again she filed for divorce. The only good thing that came out of that fiasco was the kid.”

“It would have ended anyway, bro. You never got over Bianca Cassidy. And yeah, Brady definitely makes life more interesting.”

“It’s not like that. I was over her when I got married.”

“You can lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself. Tell me what your plans are this weekend.” He crosses his arms and raises a brow.

“I’m fixing some fence for Bianca’s mom.”

“And if you catch a glimpse of your lifelong crush in the process it’s a bonus.”

“That’s not why I’m helping out. I’ve been helping out for the last ten years.”

“You need to examine why that is, because you’re a good guy, but your motives aren’t entirely pure.”

He’s wrong. My motives have always been pure. Serena Cassidy, Bianca’s mom, always treated me like a son, and I couldn’t let her farm or business suffer when Bianca abandoned her. I’ve been helping out for the last ten years because she’s special to me in her own right. It breaks my heart that her cancer is out of remission.

“You’re wrong. They’ve always been pure. Because I never expected her to come back.”

“Well she’s back now and maybe it’s a good thing all around. You can finally do something about the way she’s haunted your life.”

“I’m gonna follow your advice and ask her out. We’ll see where it goes from there.”

I knock on the back door at six a.m. She flings open the door on the second rap, her brows lowered in distress.

Bianca motions me inside and quietly shuts the door behind us. “She’s having a really bad morning and finally fell asleep again.”

I keep my eyes on her face instead of the long, long legs that stretch below the hem of shorts so abbreviated they should be outlawed. The ragged t-shirt she’s wearing isn’t much better. It has a hole in one armpit and it’s falling off her shoulder. The cotton is so worn it’s almost threadbare, and I swear I caught a glimpse of peaked nipple behind the fabric. She’s completely unaware of the effect her sleepwear is having on my anatomy.

I clear my throat. “Is there anything I can do? I’m here to repair the fence in the west pasture.”

“I could use some company over my morning coffee.”

I’ve tried staying away because of the way she makes me feel. Tongue-tied and stumbling and on the edge of my seat. But what’s the harm in a cup of coffee?

“Come in if you’re going to. It’s not like I’m going to lace it with arsenic or something.”

She holds the screen door open, hopping from one foot to the other because it’s a frosty morning.

“Coffee sounds great,” I mumble as I brush past her. I sit down at the battered Formica table and pick up the newspaper.

“Do you still drink it black?”

I’m surprised she remembered. Her mom started letting us have it when we were twelve and I love the way it smells when it’s undiluted by cream and sugar. “Yep. Do you still use the paper to hunt for yard sales?”

She hands me the cup she just poured and lowers herself into the seat across from me. “Yep. Best place to score vintage clothes and vinyl. I already circled a couple for next weekend.”

I sip the coffee and remember the way she used to dig through the boxes from someone’s garage looking for old show tune records. I’ll never forget the look on her face the day she found a pristinely preserved copy of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes. “What made you start collecting them?”

She laughs. “Mom, of course. She wore out her cast recordings of The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady . It was always my dream to strut across the stage belting out The Rain in Spain as Eliza Doolittle.”

“Did you ever get the chance?” I’ll never tell her I kept up with her career and I know the answer to the question.

“No, and it’s something I still hope will happen someday.”

“You could always just serenade the town after the pageant.”

“ My Fair Lady isn’t a Christmas play. It wouldn’t fit.”

I shrug, because I don’t think the audience would care. “You’d make it fit.”

She shakes her head, her expression unreadable. “My voice isn’t the same. I don’t think it ever will be.”

I’ll never forget the first time I heard her sing. It was the sixth-grade talent show and she closed her eyes, clasped her hands and broke into My Favorite Things . She’d been humming it for a week, but whenever I asked why, she changed the subject. When her voice soared over me I was hurt because I’d never heard anything so beautiful and I couldn’t believe she hadn’t shared it with me. Later on, I realized I fell in love with her that day, while she was standing in a pool of light holding an entire audience captive. I’d probably loved her since the day she peeked her head over the fence that separated our yards and blasted me with her water gun. But that’s the first time I couldn’t imagine my life without her.

Singing was everything to her, and my heart breaks at her confession. “Just because it’s changed doesn’t mean it’s different in a bad way. I bet you still sound like an angel.”

She snorts. “An angel who smokes three packs a day. It’s raspy now, and I can’t hit the higher registers.”

“But you just need to rest and it’ll come back, right?” I can see the shattered pieces of her dream laying at her feet. Even though I want her to stay here, I don’t want that mess to be the cost.

“I don’t know.”

She sounds defeated and I need to distract her. “Are you sure there’s nothing you need me to fix besides the fence line?”

“I’ve been meaning to check the propane level in the tank outside. Mom can’t remember when she filled it up.”

“Done. Are you sure there’s nothing else?” I want to ask if she’ll let me fix her.

“No.”

I get up and make it to the door before her hand lands on my forearm. I can feel her touch even through my fleece-lined flannel. “Yeah?” I clear my throat and ask.

“Thanks, Callihan. For everything. I appreciate the way you’ve taken care of her and the farm and the store. I know it wasn’t easy and I want you to know I’m grateful.”

“I didn’t do it so I could hold it over your head.”

“I know. You did it because that’s who you are. The guy who takes care of people.”

“I would have taken care of you too if you’d let me.” I want to take back the raw confession as soon as it leaves my mouth.

“I know that too.” She removes her hand, her expression inscrutable. “Be careful out there and make sure you come in for lunch if you’re still here. I’m making Mom’s cheesy potato soup.”

“I will,” I reassure her without looking back. And then I hightail it out of there before I lose the last shred of my dignity and beg her to stay in Willow Creek so I can show her how well I’ll take care of her.