Sleigh Bell Dreams (Mistletoe Meadows Sweet Christmas #1)

Chapter 26

Terry stared at Judd. She had been ready to jump him over the Secret Saint things. Her source had told her what the person who was carrying the groceries and presents into Charity’s house looked like. It was getting dark, but the description sounded an awful lot like Judd. Down to his moleskin jacket.

But all of that fled out of her brain at his words.

“Out of here?” she asked, even though she knew what he was talking about. Maybe she just needed to confirm.

“Yeah. Here.” He sounded almost sad, like the idea of her leaving had made him depressed.

“Well, I’ve taken over your kitchen, and I spend a lot of time in the bathroom, especially on the weekends, and more than once, you’ve had to delay your shower until the next day because I was in there, and you didn’t want to ask me to get out.”

“It’s not a big deal. Nobody cares if I shower or not.”

“I’ll tell you what, I would care right now if you hadn’t showered,” she said seriously. She appreciated the fact that he was fastidiously clean. There were things that people could say about Judd, but that he was a slob was not one of them.

She even liked his beard. He kept it neatly trimmed, and it gave him a dashing look that she admired, and she found her eyes roaming to it anytime they were home together.

“I’ll make sure I shower before supper then. As long as you’re working, I shouldn’t have any trouble getting in the bathroom.”

“But you don’t get home in time. You’re trying to get as much done in the evening as I am. And there were a couple of times where I haven’t been very considerate.”

Once she’d gotten on the phone with Amy, talking about Isadora and what they could possibly do, when she was supposed to be doing something with Judd. And once she had taken a bath instead of a shower and had lost track of time as she soaked in the tub, and she had to admit, the main thing she’d been thinking about had been Judd.

Actually she didn’t have to admit that, and she wouldn’t admit it to anyone. Especially not to the man sitting across the table from her.

“I told you I don’t care. It doesn’t make a bit of a difference to me how much time you spend in the bathroom. I figure you’ve earned it. I’m hearing that people are loving the new doctor.”

“Are you hearing that?” she asked, surprised. So surprised that she forgot what they were actually talking about. She’d realized that sometimes he changed the subject on purpose. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who would do that, but he was, and he could be pretty slick about it too.

“I have. In fact, I haven’t heard anything but good things. Sometimes it’s a little bit hard for someone new to come in and fit in in a small town, but you’re native, and everyone loves you. They loved you before, and I think they love you even more now.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. And I don’t know, maybe they won’t like me so much when some people get behind on their bills.” She hadn’t been there long enough for that to happen, but she knew that was one of the drawbacks of a small practice. Every dollar mattered, and sometimes people just couldn’t, or wouldn’t, pay.

He took a bite of his casserole and studied the rest of what was left on his plate like he was going to have to answer a test about it later.

“So, what were you saying? Something about you don’t want me to move out?”

“Yeah.” His voice was soft, and he didn’t elaborate.

“So you don’t need me to look for another house?”

“No. You’re fine right here. I enjoy your company. I look forward to evenings with you. I would feel lonely if you left and I had to start eating by myself again. You brighten the house up somehow, even though we don’t even spend every evening together.” They spent most evenings together. There were a few where they’d gotten called away to other things, but if they were both home, they typically were hanging out in her living room. A couple of times, she had suggested that they go to his, but he would remind her about it being messy, and she knew at times that her mom had been embarrassed when company had stopped by and her house hadn’t been perfect.

Terry had left her perfectionist side behind a long time ago, back in med school somewhere, since she knew that as a busy doctor, she just might not have a perfect house. And that was okay.

Regardless, she didn’t want to make Judd uncomfortable if that’s what it was.

She also noticed that he didn’t say anything about having feelings for her. He just spoke about the company and companionship.

“So you were fine for the first thirty years of your life living by yourself, but now you’d be lonely?” she pressed, wanting to hear just one thing that told her that maybe he would like her for more than just friends.

“If you’re asking if anyone would do, it’s only you,” he finally said, and his words didn’t exactly answer her question, but it answered the question she thought, not the one she spoke.

She smiled a little, appeased. Although she wanted more. She’d been wanting more for a while, but she just didn’t know if it was a good idea. Mrs. Tucker’s words rang in her head, and she knew the entire town would be shocked if Judd and she got together.

They just didn’t seem like the kind of people who would. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t work.

Wait. What was she thinking? Was she seriously thinking that she might want to be more with Judd?

He had said he didn’t want her to leave, but it sounded like it was more like companionship.

He made a show of looking at his phone. “Wow. If we’re going to decorate the tree tonight, we probably ought to get started. I can turn the chocolate on while we’re clearing off the table.”

“And I can get some Christmas music up on my phone. I have a bigger speaker upstairs. I’ll go get it,” she said, gathering their plates and cups from the table and setting them on the sink.

He usually did the dishes on weeknights, and she typically did them when she cooked. It seemed like it would work better the other way, but that really wasn’t how they did it. Honestly, most of the time they helped each other.

They just seemed to get along.

They’d never really technically divided the work, other than the cooking, everything else just happened. He usually swept and scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom and hall once when he was on cooking duty. On Tuesdays, usually. Which seemed to be a slow day for him. And then she did it all once over the weekend.

Neither one of them had said that they had to, they just did.

Too bad she couldn’t have had a roommate in college like that, but she never had.

By the time she had gotten her speaker and come down and had Christmas music playing softly out of it, he stepped into the room with a hot chocolate in each hand.

“Are we gonna talk about this? Are we just gonna throw some decorations on it? Yours and mine?”

“You have decorations?” she asked, surprised. He had said that he didn’t have a tree because it was just him and that type of thing, which she thought was kind of sad. But she understood when he said that he liked to think about the reason for the season. She just...enjoyed the pretty lights. She liked to look at them, contemplate them, and let the beauty sink into her soul. She thought about the reason for the season, but the lights helped get her in that celebrating, reflective mood that she only had during the Christmas season.

“I have a few. But they might not match yours. I’ve heard that women are kind of picky about that kind of thing.”

“Oh, you have?” she asked, wondering for the first time if he had prior relationships. It was funny that she’d never considered it. She supposed she just thought that he’d been alone all his life, and since he was so quiet, it made sense that maybe he didn’t have relationships.

“Occasionally I’ve been reminded of that.”

“So is that from a prior relationship?” she asked, making sure her words sounded light and not accusatory.

“No, not really.” He hesitated, blowing on his hot chocolate but not taking a sip. It was steaming, and she knew it would burn her mouth if she tried, so he probably figured the same thing. She assumed it was a stalling tactic.

Finally he said, “My mom. She was pretty picky.”

“Was?” she asked, knowing that he’d said he was going to his parents’ house for Thanksgiving.

“Sorry. Is. I guess I just think of it in the past, because I don’t have to do Christmas with her anymore. I mean, I usually try to spend at least half a day with my parents, but she was not necessarily a fun person to be around. Because everything had to be just so. And it kind of took the fun out of everything, at least in my childish eyes.”

“I can see why that would be. I don’t think anyone enjoys decorating whenever you’re working for someone who’s impossible to please.”

He nodded, so she knew her guess had been right. Interesting that he would mention that about his mom. And it made her curious.

“So, I assume they live around here?” It was funny that she had never even thought to ask about his parents before.

“Yeah. Down the mountain toward Whisker Hollow.”

“Oh.” She knew there were a bunch of high-dollar farms in the area, and she imagined whatever home they had was probably worth a good bit because of that. But she had assumed that he had come from a more modest, maybe even poor, area.

But maybe there were some groups of houses that she hadn’t noticed. She’d have to check on her way down the next time.

“You want us to both go get our decorations and we can take a look and see what might look good together?” he asked, like he was trying to change the subject.

She’d almost forgotten that they were even going to decorate a tree. She was trying to form her next question while still trying to figure out where he lived and what exactly kind of family he’d come from.

But he was right. They could talk while they were decorating.

It didn’t take long for them to both grab their decorations. His were up in the attic, but hers were under the bed where she’d stowed them when she’d moved in. She didn’t have many. But she always decorated a little bit for Christmas, even if it was just some tinsel and bulbs on a windowsill. Maybe a candle.

He had a much bigger box, which was probably a good thing, since she hadn’t thought to buy anything.

“You don’t have much,” he said, looking at her paltry supply of Christmas decorations.

“I guess I need to start collecting things. Or I can be minimalist like you are.”

“I have a bigger box than you do, so you can’t really complain about me.”

“I wasn’t complaining, and I actually think that’s probably a good idea. I think we do get too wrapped up in making everything perfect, having all of our dreams come true, or whatever it is. And we definitely lose sight of the reason we celebrate.”

“I wonder if that’s the devil. He always seems to want to distract us from what’s really important. He does that with politics too. We get so enraptured about what’s going on, and so intent on telling the other side how they’re wrong, that we forget that, as Christians, we’re supposed to be about loving others and showing them Jesus. Not winning a political argument.”

“Ouch.”

They laughed a little together, but she was definitely thinking that he was absolutely correct. She got sidetracked way too easily, thinking things were important that really weren’t.

They surveyed their boxes, figuring out what they thought would look best, and ended up using most of it.

“It will be a hodgepodge, but those kinds of trees can look pretty too. Maybe by next year, I’ll have collected enough decorations and figured out a theme. And if you want, we can put a tree up in your living room as well, and then there will be a tree in both front windows.”

She stopped. She was talking like she was going to be here next year.

She had her mouth open, but no words came out as her eyes slowly moved until they met his.

He’d noticed too.

What they had said in the kitchen earlier came back to her. He wanted her to stay. And it wasn’t just anyone, it was her.

But she hadn’t given any kind of response back. He had let her know that she was special to him. Special in a unique way. She wasn’t just a friend, she was the friend he wanted.

She hadn’t returned that, not even a little. And she didn’t know what to say. Did she want to?

Immediately, her heart said yes. She wanted him to know that she had never done this type of thing with anyone before. And she was treading on entirely new ground. But it felt a little dangerous too, because she wasn’t sure that she wanted to...what? Be with him?

Why not?

“So what was your dad like?” he asked, his voice a little rough. He tore his eyes away and looked at the decorations they had out in front of them, grabbing a string of lights.

“He was awesome. Fun, funny, always trying to make us all laugh. He was the perfect dad to have six kids. But he worked hard, and we didn’t always have a whole lot since Mom stayed at home and raised us. I always admire that, but I guess I never really thought about doing that myself. Now I wonder why. Because the idea of having a child, I guess I’d kind of like to raise it myself too. What’s the point otherwise?”

“If you give it to someone else to raise?” he said easily as he found the end of the light string and plugged it in. The lights came on. For some reason, she’d been thinking that they might not work.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s your child, God’s given you the responsibility to raise it, and if I’m off working, and I send it to someone else to take care of for most of its waking hours, I mean, it just seems...dumb.”

“I think a lot of things we do in our society today are dumb. But we’ve accepted them as good or smart or necessary.”

“Yeah,” she said, thinking about what Mrs. Tucker had said to her in the church lot about Judd. How he should have a job and he should be making more money and he was never going to be able to take care of a family. Maybe he was just doing things differently than everyone else did. And was there any problem in that?

He was dependable, had not missed cooking a meal since he said he would, he was considerate, clean, and kind.

Did it matter that he didn’t have a lot of money?

“You were talking about your dad, and somehow we got off the subject,” he prompted as he started to string the lights around the tree, and she pulled a second string out.

“Well, he and Mom seemed to have a really great relationship, and I always wanted that, and I never really thought about how it probably wasn’t compatible with being a doctor. Or maybe wasn’t compatible with studying to be a doctor anyway. I could make being a doctor a nine-to-five job, although Dad was a truck driver, so he didn’t really have a nine-to-five.”

“I bet that left your mom home by herself a lot,” he said, seeming to understand immediately that driving a truck wasn’t a comfortable, easy job.

“Yeah. He was regional, so he wasn’t gone for weeks at a time, but there were lots of overnights. Mom has stories about when us kids were little and she was home by herself, but as we got older, it was probably good for us, because she gave us a lot of responsibility at a young age, and I know that some people will say ‘oh, kids shouldn’t have too much responsibility, they should be able to be kids,’ but I think we let our kids be kids for way too long.”

“I can’t disagree.”

“What about you?” she asked, trying not to show how interested she actually was.

“I was an only child. I was just going to ask what it was like to grow up with a whole pile of siblings.”

“It was awesome. We always had a playmate, because even if one of them was mad at you, someone else would play. Except those very rare times when everyone ganged up on one person and we were all mad at them. But usually it was because they deserved it.”

“Deserved?”

“Like, I don’t know, they did something that got us all in trouble. Like didn’t weed the garden when they were supposed to and we all had to go out and weed their share, since Mom didn’t understand that it was just them. You know? Did your mom always listen to you whenever you tried to explain stuff to her?”

“I don’t remember, but I would think with your mom, six kids would take up an awful lot of time. It would probably be hard to listen to everyone explain everything. You’d never get anything else done.”

“That’s true. Kids often have a lot of explanations for stuff. And by explanations, I mean excuses.”

He laughed, as she figured he would.

“So you’re an only child? Wow. I want to ask if that was lonely, but if it was your normal, then maybe it wasn’t.”

“I suppose I got lonely, but I always was pretty happy by myself, so maybe I’m an introvert and that’s the best kind of person to be an only child.”

“Yeah. What were your parents like?”

“Distant. You were talking about having someone else raise your kid. I was one of those.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No. I guess what happens to you, it’s just normal. Right? You don’t know what it would be like to have been raised by your mom, and just daycare is the way your childhood went. I guess I don’t recall ever being confused about who my mom was, but I do know sometimes I was sad when I left daycare and happy when I got to go back.”

“Oh. That’s terrible.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t that I liked daycare so much, it was just... It seemed happier there than in my home.”

“Wow.” She felt so bad for him. She couldn’t imagine liking being somewhere other than her home. For her whole childhood, even school, which she loved, didn’t compare to hanging out at the house with her siblings. Now, she was like every other kid, she supposed, and as she got older, her friends became more and more important, until she probably would have chosen her friends over her parents, but leaving for college had been hard, not because she was leaving her friends but because she was leaving her home and her family.

“What did your mom do?”

“She didn’t work, she just didn’t want to take care of me.”

Her jaw dropped at that. She had known that there were kids out there with parents like that. Although, she didn’t think a whole lot of them went to daycare. But she supposed there were some moms who sent their kids to daycare just so they could have a break from them.

“Wow.”

He nodded. “I think parenting is hard. I don’t really blame her, because I’ve seen parents who didn’t want their kids, and the kids end up abused or neglected. So at least they sent me somewhere where I was going to be taken care of.”

She felt her heart clench. He kind of justified everything as fine, and she didn’t want to argue with him. After all, it was his experience, and he put the best possible spin on it. Far be it from her to try to tarnish that image. But it made her a little bit angry at his mom. For being so...selfish. Except, he was right. She knew that raising kids was hard. Her mom had mentioned more than once how often she had wanted a break, but she had grown up in New York and their dad had grown up in Florida, and they had compromised when they moved to Virginia when they got married.

She handed him the second string of lights, and he plugged it into the first and started stringing it without comment.

His fingers had brushed hers, and she turned from him, balling them up into a fist and just standing there, trying not to think about the fact that their fingers had brushed.

“Are you okay?” he said from behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She startled and jumped, and his hand dropped.

“Sorry. I was lost in thought there for a minute.”

“You don’t need to get depressed about my childhood. It was okay. I mean, I think I’m okay now. I guess we’re shaped by our childhood, and it sticks with us all of our life, better than so many other things, but we’re not bound by it. If it wasn’t good, we can overcome it. God says we can overcome anything through Him. So, don’t be sad. It just gave me something that made me stronger. A trial that strengthened me.”

“Yeah. You have such a great outlook on that,” she said, taking a breath and trying to clear her mind from other thoughts. She just needed to remember that she couldn’t touch him. That was a bad idea.

“So what made you decide to go to med school? You loved sewing up your brothers and sisters every time they needed it?”

“No. Honestly, all I wanted to do was come back and have a clinic here in town. I didn’t even really think about being a doctor. It was just the idea. Which is weird, I know, but true.”

“You must have had some aptitude for it. It’s not like anybody can be a doctor.”

“I think if you’re willing to work hard enough, anybody can. Yeah, it takes a lot of studying, and if you’re not naturally gifted, it’s going to be really hard, at least the book learning stuff. All the Latin and drug names that you have to learn. And you’re supposed to have all of that on the top of your head. And a lot of times, you don’t have a whole lot of time to study because you’re busy with rotation and all the other things that they make you do. But I was definitely not the smartest person there, and I was able to get through it.”

He jerked his head but didn’t say anything more. She didn’t go into all the college classes and the science classes which were rather hard, but she knew a lot of med students who had needed tutoring and who would probably make really good doctors, once they got through the rigorous studies.