Sleigh Bell Dreams (Mistletoe Meadows Sweet Christmas #1)

Chapter 10

Judd wanted to put his head in his hand. What a cliché. Everyone said that. Yet there he was, spouting off nonsense. He wanted to sound more intelligent. After all, she was a doctor.

But he couldn’t change what he was. Just a man, with little education, who did his best to try to be a blessing wherever God put him.

He had never felt the need to move, but he had always felt the need to do more. And along with that, his desire to not put himself out front, or show people what he was doing, or brag about it.

He hated that, and it made him feel as terrible as helping people made him feel good.

Regardless, he had the most interesting woman sitting at his supper table that he’d ever spoken with in his entire life.

He admired her in school, obviously knew who she was, but hadn’t really considered that they ever might talk. Even though they spent six years in the same homeroom.

But now, now he not only cooked for her, she was sitting at his table eating, and yet...he couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say.

And he definitely didn’t want to talk about his nonexistent love life. She would probably think he was some kind of loser who couldn’t keep a girl, because he didn’t have the excuse of spending his entire adult life in school, being trained to be a doctor. As she did. It made sense that someone as interesting as she was wasn’t married.

With her golden-brown hair, and her brilliant blue eyes, the color of the September sky, and her wide mouth that broke into a grin easily, he thought she was beautiful.

But she was already looking for another place to live and obviously didn’t want to spend any more time with him than she had to. He didn’t want to make a fool out of himself.

Also, having the doctor in on his scheme might be beneficial, but he wasn’t sure he could trust her even though Wilson said she was good. Or maybe it was himself he couldn’t trust.

“You were just telling me about all the eligible people in town,” she said, and then, to his everlasting gratitude, she changed the subject. “You did an excellent job on this meal.”

“It’s very simple, easy to make, but so, so good.”

“You’ll have to let me know what your spice blends are. I could eat this every day.”

“I could make it every day and often do. I cooked a little more chicken than I normally do, but sometimes I’ll buy a family pack and just eat it that week.”

“Wow. I don’t know if I could eat it that often.” She sighed. “Why do we care about what we eat? Why is it such a struggle?”

“Just one of those things that help shape our character. At least that’s how I look at it. Because you’re right, God could have just made us eat grass or whatever. Think about cows, their diet hardly ever changes. Fresh grass in the spring and summer and maybe fall, and dry grass in the winter. Hope you like grass.”

“You’re right. And they never get tired of it.”

“Although, I can say that in the spring when you first let them out on grass, they can’t wait to get in there and belly up, and stuff themselves. You can see that they enjoy it. But after they’ve been on grass for a month or so, if you stick a hay bale in there, they’ll eat that. It’s interesting, like they like the new thing. Now, once they’ve eaten a little bit and had the novelty, they go back to the fresh grass, if they get a choice.”

“You know a lot about cows. Wow. Did you live on a farm?”

“I grew up on one.”

“Oh, you did?” she asked, and he felt like she was getting a little too close for comfort to things he didn’t want to talk about. At least not yet.

“We went to school all of our lives, and you never even knew where I lived. I suppose I should be offended over that.”

“A lot of people would,” she said easily. She’d been done for a while but had set her fork down beside her plate and just sat there, like some dinner table conversation was welcome.

“I guess if you want dessert, you’ll have to make it.”

“If you’re cooking the main course, I’ll be responsible for dessert, but... I usually don’t eat it at every meal.”

“Same. In fact, I never do. Unless I buy it somewhere, since I’m just not cooking something sweet for myself.”

“So you’re not a baker?”

“You read between the lines and understood that I would if I could, but I can’t.” He wasn’t sure what it was, but talking to her just made him feel humorous. And he liked that he didn’t have to spell everything out for her, but that she could figure things out. Although, that wasn’t good for him keeping his secret identity from her.

“I was getting that impression. My mom is a baker, and I cooked a lot when I was growing up, but as I started to get into high school and of course college and med school and then residency... I stopped, first of all because of time constraints, but nothing that you make in the dessert category is good for you.”

“But you want to be able to live a little. You don’t want to spend your entire life in austerity and deprive yourself of everything good.”

“I agree that there should be moderation. The Bible says so.”

“Let everything be done in moderation.”

“Isn’t eating part of everything?”

“Good point. I guess sometimes people try to take the Bible and apply it to things it doesn’t apply to, but you’re right, it says everything, and we can assume that God actually means everything.”

“I think that’s a good assumption, but regardless, we all know that excessive amounts of sugar are bad for you, and moderate amounts of sugar are not good for you, and no amounts of sugar are the best, so you can take that and do with it what you will.”

“Most people take that and ignore it,” he said, taking a sip of his water and feeling full and satisfied and happy like he hadn’t in a long time. Doing kind things for people did satisfy his soul in a deep and meaningful way, but this was more...maybe man’s need for companionship. Someone who understood him. Not that Terry fit that bill. They barely knew each other, but she seemed to get what he said and not be intimidated by his need to warm up to people before he started chatting.

At least, if she was intimidated, she did a good job of hiding it.

“It sounds like this is going to become a regular thing?” he started. “But I don’t want you to feel pressure. I understand that with your job, you might have to work late some days, and the idea that you might feel like you’re dropping the ball and didn’t provide a meal when you were supposed to—”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I wouldn’t mind splitting the cooking duties, and we negate the issue you just brought up if you cook Monday through Thursday and I do Friday Saturday and Sunday when my workload is lighter. I can’t say that I would never open up the clinic for someone who needed me, but I should at least be able to get a couple meals on the table.”

“All right. I don’t want you to do it if you don’t really want to.” He had gotten the idea that she was reluctant.

“I’ve done this with people who didn’t pull their fair share. You know? You have someone who’s assigned to take out the trash and someone who is assigned to do dishes or whatever, and it seems like I’m the only one who ever cleans up or does anything, and it gets annoying.”

“I see. Well, maybe that’s just because you were young and the people you were with were the same age. I’ve been cleaning up after myself for a while now, and cooking as well. I think I can probably be responsible for meals.”

She looked a little abashed and apologized immediately. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t responsible.”

“No. I didn’t take it that you did. I got the idea that you’ve been burned.”

“That’s exactly right.”

He pushed back away from the table, loathe to end their conversation but knowing that he had some things that he needed to do that evening.

“We might have to revisit this in the summer, when I’m busy with mowing grass. But for now, I usually quit by dark, and if you’re going to change your hours and close your clinic at six, it’ll be seven until you’re ready to eat.”

“Especially if I walk home. Which I want to try to do. If I were my patient, I would tell myself to lose a little weight.”

“If I were your patient, you’d tell me to lose weight too.”

She grinned and didn’t bother to deny it. He wouldn’t want her to lie to him. And he was glad that she hadn’t felt the need to deny his words somehow, when they both knew that they were true.

“That dessert I don’t cook sometimes happens to jump into my freezer as ice cream.”

He took both of their plates and walked them to the sink. Doing the dishes wasn’t hard, and while two was twice as many as one, the conversation and company at the table made up for it. He hadn’t realized how nice it could be.

“I think I’m down for ice cream as well. Although more in the summer.”

“Yeah, it’s holiday baking that gets me now.”

“The hot chocolate and doughnuts,” she said, and he was glad he had his back to her, facing the sink.

Had she heard about that? Did she mention it because she suspected him? Surely not. He had gotten completely away with it, even people who lived in town didn’t have any idea. She couldn’t have come into town and figured everything out in just a couple days. There was just no way.

But she was a smart woman. He had to give her that.

“Hot doughnuts, fresh out of the grease, are the best,” he said. Completely ignoring the idea that she might have known and perhaps was looking to get a reaction out of him. But if she was, why had she waited until he turned around not looking at her so she couldn’t watch his face?

He didn’t like hiding things from people. That wasn’t his goal, and this wasn’t anything bad. He just didn’t like to be out in front of people, grabbing a lot of spotlight and attention for the good things he wanted to do. He had considered that perhaps it was good to be an example to people, but more of him wanted to just keep a low profile and not put himself out there.

But he wasn’t going to worry about it. If she knew, she knew and he would deal with it. Otherwise, he would enjoy his time with her until she found a new place.

It was funny though, that most of him did not want her to go. He hadn’t been sure when Amy suggested that she stay with him that he wanted a housemate or that he wanted to go along with their matchmaking efforts, but... He found Terry was even better than Amy had said.

“It’s chilly this evening, and I thought I might spend an hour in my living room with the fire. You’re welcome to join me if you’d like.”

He hadn’t been planning on building a fire at all; he’d been planning on going out and getting started on the job he knew had needed to be done for a while. He just hadn’t had a chance. It was a kind of job that was going to take more than one night. Thankfully, Wilson was willing to help him, and they had a plan. Wilson wasn’t going to be in town until after midnight. Typically from twelve to four were the best times when everything was shut down. They could get started a little earlier if they weren’t going to be working right on the main street of town.

“That sounds really nice. Do you do that often?” she asked as she finished wiping the table and stood beside him, wringing the rag out.

“I do it a good bit in December. It’s like Christmas to me. Sometimes in January, just to take the chill off the house, but by February, I’m ready for spring and I’m not really interested in fires at that point.”

“That sounds perfect,” she said. “I have some work I need to do tonight, but I’ll definitely take a rain check on that if you don’t mind.”

Tempted to tell her that she could bring her work over—he wasn’t inviting her because he needed someone to talk to—he didn’t. Instead, he just nodded. “Any time I’m over there with the fire, you’re welcome to come over.”

“Might you have a date at some point? I’m sure you don’t want to be interrupted.”

“That hasn’t happened yet,” he said, wondering how they got back to that subject. He thought he’d dodged it nicely the first time. He didn’t expect her to circle around, although she did not seem like the kind of woman who’d give up easily.

But that was okay, because he wasn’t that kind of man.