The Christmas Keeper (Laurel Holidays #6)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

“ D id I ever show you the last photos of my Kelli’s baby?” I forced myself to stare at yet another picture of another wrinkled little prune wearing a pink knit stocking cap. “This is Diaphony. I honestly do not know where you kids nowadays find these oddball names. Whatever happened to using down-to-earth names like Helen or Margaret or Gypsum.”

My gaze widened. My great-aunt Priscilla blinked at me from behind thick bifocals.

“Gypsum?” I asked loudly because I had to in order to be heard over the band playing “(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty” a mere hundred feet away. Also, Aunt Prissy never wore her hearing aids so conversation with her was always bellowed.

“Mm, yes, that was my dear departed Edgar’s father’s mother’s name.”

I studied the old, old gal on my left. “Her name was Gypsum. Like in the gypsum used as a fertilizer in your garden? That kind of gypsum?”

“No, I don’t garden anymore. It’s too hard to get up and down, although I did have a lovely tomato plant in a container. Kelli planted it for me. I have a picture…” Dear God, please save me from another old lady with a cell phone. “Hmm, I don’t know where the pictures went.”

“Let me go find Kelli for you,” I rushed to say, shot to my feet, and hightailed it across the packed dancefloor of older folks, my parents among them, shaking their booties as if doing the hustle was going to save the world from some sort of catastrophe.

I had no clue who Kelli was, what she looked like, or if she was even here in Ottawa. All I knew about my incredibly distant cousin was that her kid looked like that dog that had starred in Deadpool and Wolverine , and she gave tomato plants as gifts. Didn’t matter. It had gotten me free from another nosy relative asking when I was going to get married because I wasn’t getting any younger and my baby sister had beat me to the aisle. Oh, the shame!

As if I cared Nora had found her prince charming before me. I was happy for her and for Antoine. He was a good guy. Much better than that dickhead she had dated back home. The guy had done her wrong so badly that she had moved from Pennsylvania to Canada to start over as far away from the asshole as she could get. If he’d not run like a scalded cat the moment he’d been caught cheating on my sister with her ex-bestie, I would have stuck him to the wall of my bar with a handful of darts and then punched him in the face. Repeatedly. No one hurts my little sister. I had warned Antoine about that the first time we’d met, and he had taken me quite seriously. Sure, he was a hockey player who had about six inches and fifty pounds on me. Didn’t mean I couldn’t get a fast, cheap shot in before he beat me to a pulp.

I elbowed my way through a pack of Ottawa hockey players to get to the bar. Free bar, so the two tenders were hustling to fill orders for over three hundred people. Antoine was really famous, universally liked, and had a French-Canadian family that numbered in the thousands, or so it seemed. My order was an easy one. A double shot of Irishman’s Grand Reserve with a stout German lager, preferably Guinness. The barkeep was cute and pulled a good beer. I tipped well, took a sip of my cold beer, sighed, and glanced at my watch to count down how many hours were left before I could feign a headache and leave the reception venue unseen by my sister or mother.

“There you are!” Nora slid in beside in a cloud of joy and Estee Lauder Modern Muse. Her bright brown eyes, the same color as mine, were shining as she reached out to take my hand. “They’re going to play the song for our dance next.”

“I didn’t know that there was a dance for the bride and her brother,” I replied and tossed back the shot. It burned nicely.

“They do when the bride asks for one.” With that, my tiny little sibling tugged me from the bar. I quickly tossed a ten to the cute bartender before grabbing my beer. “Plus, you’re not just my brother, you’re the brother of honor, so that calls for a special dance.”

Knowing I would lose this battle—I always lost with Nora—I followed along in her white lace wake, smiling at people I didn’t know, beer in hand. We reached the bandstand before she turned to check me out. “Where is your tie?”

I dug into my tuxedo jacket pocket, pulling a knowing smirk from the guy playing bass. He was cute too. There were so many good-looking guys here. Probably most were straight, or if they weren’t, it wouldn’t matter as I was leaving as soon as the newlyweds drove off with cans clattering behind them or I could sneak out unseen. Knowing my sister and mother, who had eyes like hawks, I’d not be making my break anytime soon. Nora yanked my tie from my hand with a tsk that sounded so much like Mom’s that I had to snicker.

“Your nose crinkles just like Mom’s,” I teased.

“Honestly, Brann, you look so handsome in this tux,” she chided, reaching up to retie the dark green bowtie. Forest green and white were the colors, holiday-themed, or so the wedding planner had explained to me as if I were a halfwit. “You should keep the tie tied and work the room. I’m sure there are some guys here who would love a dance with you.”

“I don’t dance in case you forgot.”

She tugged the bowtie tightly. “You do now. You should learn. Dancing is a great way to meet new people.”

The band stood above us, ending the previous disco song, and the lead singer stepped up to the mic with a rehearsed smile.

“Where would I slow dance with men back home? They closed down the dance hall right after World War II.”

“I’m not talking about dance halls, dork. I mean at the bar.”

“Right. So many of the patrons would love to see two guys slow dancing during Monday Night Football. You’ve been in this big liberal city for too long if you forgot what rural Pennsylvania is like.”

“I haven’t forgotten. I moved to get away from the toxic masculinity BS.” She patted my now righted bowtie with a tiny, French-manicured hand. “I just want you to be happy. You hermit up at home with Fred and Wilma, then spend all day in that bar, wasting your nights with the guys throwing darts at a corkboard, and go home alone.”

“I’m not alone. Fred and Wilma are there. You just said so.” Her lips flattened. “What? You just said it. Geese are wonderful company.”

“Ask Wilkes about how wonderful they are,” she snapped back like a rubber band.

“Wilkes should have known better than to go through the front gate just to deliver the damn gas bill. I have a sign.” If people choose to ignore the BEWARE OF THUG GEESE sign on my little picket fence, then woe onto them, and that applied to Wilkes Lilly.

“You’re lucky he didn’t mace Fred,” she said as she battled to keep a straight face.

“Fred was just protecting his lady love,” I argued as I had with the postmaster after that whole butt pinching fiasco last spring. I’d lost the battle and now had to collect my mail at the post office due to a ‘dangerous poultry situation’ at my home. Some people are so delicate. One little goose pinch never hurt anyone. Well, okay, it did hurt, but the bruise faded in a week or two. Fred pinched me at least once a year on the backside, generally in the spring when hormones were high, but it didn’t require a trip to the ER, for goodness sake.

“Uh-huh. Well, it wouldn’t hurt you to spend some time with people other than the mill workers and your geese, Brann. You’re turning into a real Ebenezer Scrooge.”

Ow. That one stung. I wasn’t a Scrooge. I just didn’t like people or Christmas.

Oh wait…

I downed my beer as she waited for a reply, hands on slim hips. I was about to recite my famous “You can worry about a lot of things, but I’m not one of them” line when the band struck up the song she had chosen for this special moment. My grin was wide when I heard “You Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story . We’d loved that film as kids, watching it over and over on rainy days. I placed my glass on the bandstand, bowed, and took her into my arms.

“You’re such a dork,” she said as her eyes grew misty. I pulled her close, kissed her beautiful brown hair, and led her around the dance floor until her new husband claimed her. I moved aside, melding into the crowds of athletes, their wives, and family members from both sides. My gaze stayed on Nora, my throat tight as she beamed at Antoine. They’d be happy together. He adored her and she him. They would have a wonderful life here in Canada, him playing hockey, and her working for a charity that her hubby was devoted to. I’d done my duty as big brother extraordinaire.

“Brann, oh my goodness, I’m so glad I found you,” Mom gushed as she raced to me, the hem of her lovely red mother-of-the-bride dress up to her knees. Dad trailed after her, smiling in that whimsical way of his whenever my mother was up to something. Nora was the spitting image of my mother, whereas I was a mish-mosh of my parents. Brown eyes for both of us kids but my hair was totally ginger thanks to Dad’s side of the gene pool. Mom’s thick hair was a lush brunette with highlights shot through it. No gray hair dared to peek out of her mane lest it be plucked or dyed on sight. Dad, on the other hand, was more cavalier about his silver. It made him look distinguished, he liked to say, and it did. “Paula Prescott, she’s the lady sitting beside Antoine’s aunt Marie, has a son—”

“Dad,” I whined piteously, throwing my sire a plaintive look. “Can you reel your wife in please?”

“Carmen, you promised no matchmaking at weddings,” Dad said, which got a pout from my mother, who thought it was her life duty to see both of her children happily wed with children before she could pass over. She got that from my great-grandmother, a beautiful woman of ninety-two years. A war bride, Nonna, came to the US from Italy with a very Scottish man with flaming red hair. Nonna was still kicking it in a senior center in the same Boca Raton retirement center my parents now called home, her fingers always in the mix when it came to pairing off anyone not in a committed relationship under the age of thirty. Nonna ran family matchmaking like a mafia Don, only her displeasure was shown in withholding the annual holiday card with ten dollars in it as opposed to a horse’s head in your bed. I’d not gotten ten bucks in a card for over three years. Nonna’s upset was large. Even flouncy men could get married and have children now, she would announce on the family Zoom calls every fourth Thursday.

“If not here, where?” Mom asked, settling her gaze on me as couples bounced around on the dance floor to a Bruno Mars song. “If not now, when? We only see you once a year, twice if we’re lucky, and there is never a man on your arm when we see you.”

“That’s because I’m happy being single,” I argued.

“No, you’re not.” I threw a sour look at my father. “You’ve just let all this silliness on social media taint your thoughts on relationships. Not every man you meet is going to be so extra as Paulie.”

“Mom, I don’t think extra is used in that way,” I explained as Dad shrugged. “Paulie was not extra in any way other than being an extra-large dick.”

“Brann,” Dad chided. Mom rolled her eyes.

“Well, he was,” I childishly replied, folding my arms over my chest just as I had when I was six and my parents did not let me have a llama for my birthday. “My life is good. Honestly.”

Mom opened her mouth to parry but Dad slid in, calm and cool, to deflect. “Carmen, I’m sure that Brann will find the right partner someday, on his own time. Just like Nora has. Speaking of Nora, I think she’s looking for you.”

Mom’s sharp assessment of her poor, lonely gay son flew across the room to her youngest. Nora, feeling that maternal gaze, met our looks with confusion. “Looks like she needs help with her hem,” Dad lied.

“I told her it was coming undone. She should have bought it from Cousin Sophie and had it shipped instead of buying it from some unknown shop in Canada with no Italian seamstresses.” Off Mom went with a full head of steam, leaving me to ponder on how she knew the ethnicity of a gown maker in Ottawa when she was in Florida, and what difference it made.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said.

“Anytime. She means well, Brann. She just wants to see you happy.”

“I know, I do, I know, but love comes when it comes, and for some people, it never comes at all,” I tossed out. He studied me for a moment, then bobbed his head. “I’m truly happy with things the way they are. And no, my being alone has nothing to do with Paulie.”

“Okay, I never said it did. Will we see you for Christmas?”

“No, I’m sorry.” I caught the flash of disappointment in his eyes. “I’d love to fly down, but I shut down the bar for a week for this.” I waved a hand at the festivities. “I can’t do that again in two weeks or I’ll never crawl out of the hole. The holidays are my busiest time. Then there’s the headache of lining up goosesitters…”

“Sure, sure, we understand. Nonna will be sad.”

“I know. She won’t send me ten dollars again.”

That made him snicker before he gave me a quick side hug and fell in behind Mom.

Nora made a face at me that spelled pain in my future. I ducked behind a potted fern, stole a flute of champagne from a passing server, sipped, gagged, and went to sit in the corner until the newlyweds left for a night of passionate consummation. I did not sit alone. I spent the remainder of the reception celebrating with mugs of Moosehead and shots of Canadian Club to show love and support for all the non-Italian Canadian wedding gown makers in the Great White North.

Cheers. To the bride! To the groom!

When I staggered to my hotel room after the blushing bride and her hulking hubby raced off to some remote cabin, I was still humming “Satisfied” from Hamilton. I had concluded that Canadians not only made fine wedding dresses, but they brewed some hellishly good lager. Their whiskey wasn’t too bad either. I fell into bed, with my top hat and tails still on, belched loudly, and drifted off to have randy dreams about getting frisky with a few of the founding fathers.

***

The next morning’s flight out at the crack of fucking dawn was ugly.

Well, to be fair, it was me that was ugly. The flight was okay. I spent most of it, and the hour-plus layover in Detroit sipping coffee to wash down more acetaminophen tablets than were recommended. My connecting flight back to the small airport an hour from Whiteham was far from okay. We took off into some strong headwinds and snow, nothing too bad, but enough to make the small jet thump around as if it was running over a washboard in the sky.

Each jolt made my stomach lurch and my head pound. Since the turbulence was so nasty, no smiling attendant was handing out shortbread cookies and ginger ale. They were all buckled in just as we were, which was fine, but man some ginger ale for the hungover ginger would have been nice. Coming into the rural airport was fun. Not. Intense snow squalls had raced over the state, creating whiteout conditions that not only made driving perilous, it made landing a plane dicey. The runway was cleared but icy in spots, and the wind was brutal and filled with snow. When the wheels touched down, a collective sigh ran through everyone on board.

No one was happier than me—perhaps the flight crew might have been—to disembark and head to the single luggage conveyor belt in front of the lone car rental kiosk. It was midday, but the sky was so dark and heavy with snow that it appeared to be evening as I glanced through the thick glass walls overlooking the parking lot.

I briefly noticed a man sitting on a round stuffed seat as I followed the other passengers to baggage claim. Just a fast glance as you do when you’re surrounded by strangers with a headache and a gutful of sour. He was leggy, that much I’d clocked at a glance. Long legs, thin, Jack Skellington legs that were crossed at the knee, a ratty six-string on his lap. A headful of dark curls bowed low over his instrument as we filed in, cranky, with only one thing on all of our minds: how shitty it was going to be driving home in this white crap. Or maybe that was just me. Snow sucked. Sure it was pretty but unless you were seven and getting a day off from school, which the poor kids didn’t even get anymore thanks to internet classes, snow was nothing but a nuisance. It meant shoveling, plowing, skidding off dirty roads that weren’t cindered, slow days at the bar, and clearing out a goose pen for Fred and Wilma. White Christmases? Bah-humbug. I’d rather have a clear day in the 80s. People drank lots more beer in the summer.

So the guitar man had been just that. Some dude waiting for someone, probably. It wasn’t until he began to play that I lifted my sight from a text I was sending my neighbor Mr. Blum to ask if he had placed bedding in the pen for the geese to lie on. Everyone around me quieted when he began to sing and strum. His voice floated over the small terminal, pure and clear, with a slight twang that spoke of southern roots. A deep baritone, filled with emotion, that pulled me into the country song he was singing. It was a voice reminiscent of Luke Combs, not that I personally was into country but when you ran a small pub in a rural town, you listened to country all day long, either on the radio or on the old Rock-Ola jukebox in the corner. Whoever this guy was, he certainly could have been on any modern country station. Hell, he was better than most of the singers I heard while washing glasses or shooting darts. His empty case sat at his scruffy sneakers, open, with a sign asking for holiday donations.

My gaze touched on his hands, long fingers, skilled, moving over the neck of his guitar as he did a cover of “Welcome to My World” that left me speechless. Inky dark eyes framed with thick lashes met my awed stare. A smile pulled at sensuous lips. His curls twisted around his ears, tickling some thin silver earrings in his lobes. His face was stunningly handsome, a proud nose that spoke of some Middle Eastern ancestry perhaps, and a slim strong jaw covered with unmanicured scruff. The clapping of the dozen or so passengers pulled me out of the fog his voice and face had launched me into.

“Thank you,” he softly said, sparing no time before starting on a holiday song about a hat made of mistletoe. The passengers tossed bills into his case as he sang, his ratty blue scarf hanging open to reveal a long neck inside a thick sweater. His coat was used, and used well, with small tears on the elbows but that took nothing away from him. He was beautiful. I took a step closer, then another. The sound of the suitcases tumbling down to the belt was white noise when his gaze met and held mine. My mouth opened to let something fall out when two airport security guards arrived, looking quite pissy. The music stopped dead. The passengers, now intent on getting their bags and going home, paid little attention to what was going on.

“Come on, you can’t do that inside. Take it outside,” an older man in a dark uniform told the singer. The musician, to his credit, immediately started to gather his tips, all the while nodding along with the rousting he was getting.

“Can I play in the vestibule? My car is just so cold,” the singer said, his tone respectful as he was hustled along like he was some sort of vermin. The lady at the car rental kiosk was bobbing her orange head, her nose crinkled as if she’d just sniffed a skunk’s ass. “I won’t touch anyone coming in or out. If you can just let me stay for another hour or two, I can afford a room at a motel.”

“Sorry, you’re outside or we call the cops and they arrest you for soliciting.” Older guard gave the singer a gentle shove to the revolving doors as the check-in clerks behind the two airlines that flew out of here watched in morbid fascination.

“Okay, no, okay, it’s fine. I’ll play outside,” the singer, cowed now, said as he was herded to the doors.

My feet moved on their own, propelling me past the old bat in the car rental desk, and planting me in front of two tired TSA agents.

“It’s five degrees outside and the snow is blowing sideways,” I chimed in, getting a look of utter shock from Curly as he juggled his guitar case and a small duffel.

“That sucks, I get it, but he can’t play in here. I suggest you get your luggage, sir, and let us do our jobs,” the younger burly fellow informed me. Getting into it with airport security was not on my to-do list, so I lifted my hands, palms out, and gave Curly a “I tried, dude” look that got me a soft smile of thanks that made me forget how to walk properly.

I stumbled into a trash can as my sight stayed on the busker being shown the door. Wind right off an iceberg blew in as the door spun, flakes as big as my hand rushed around the singer, lifting his curls from his high forehead. His shoulders rose to his ears. When he turned to look at the guards, they motioned him to move from the doors. So he did, his face into the wind.

I grabbed my lone bag from the conveyor belt, shot the guards a dark look, and stomped outside into a squall that robbed the air from your lungs. I saw Curly crossing into the short-term parking lot, and I followed, my old suitcase thumping behind me.

“Hey!” I shouted, the word lifted and blown into the next county. Curly paused, looked back at me, and then walked toward me. “Hey, listen, I don’t know why they did that but tossing anyone out into weather like this is shitty.”

“It’s how it is. Thank you for trying to help.” A flash of white teeth set off a total mental shutdown the likes I had not felt since…forever. “I should get to my car. It’s parked on the street over there, and if I don’t get back to it by six, the city will tow it and all my possessions are in it.”

“You live in your car ?” I asked and instantly regretted how terrible my emphasis on car had been. “I mean, it’s really cold to be sleeping in a car.”

“Yeah, it’s chilly, but I have blankets.”

I stared at him as snow swirled around us. Tiny white specks of frost clung to his eyelashes and whiskers. I couldn’t stop admiring the way his nose sat on his face so perfectly. That was probably why my mouth started making offers that my brain would eventually be horrified about.

“I have a spare room above my bar that you can sleep in,” I blurted out as the speakers that usually announced flights leaving and arriving was now playing Christmas carols. Dolly Parton, to be exact. Curly stared long and hard at me as if weighing whether to accept or run for the guards inside the airport. “I’m not after…I’m just…” And there I floundered because I had no fucking clue why I had just offered this stranger a room above the alehouse. “I don’t want anything. I swear. I just wanted to help. To be…helpful.”

“Right. Look, I’m busking, not hooking, so whatever you think is going to happen isn’t.” A fire lit in those mahogany eyes of his.

I felt my face ignite with shame. “What? No, no, I’m not trying to hook up. Shit, no, not at all. I’m totally the opposite of that guy.” Snow attacked us…like it honestly assaulted us. My nose was starting to run. “I’m not after anything other than…”

“Than what? My spleen?”

“I…spleen?! God, no, I’m not after your spleen. I’m just trying to be kind. Just a kind offer to a fellow human being two weeks before Christmas. You can turn me down, and to be honest, I would turn me down too.” I pulled my sleeve under my runny nose. This cold was crippling. “I’m trying to do a good deed. That’s all. I’ll be sleeping at my place, which is not near my bar.”

Nora’s off-handed, or I hoped it was off-handed because who wanted to be a Scrooge, had cut deeper than I would ever admit to her, or this man. Maybe I was a little puckery about the holidays, and human beings in general, but I wasn’t some old dude who hated everyone.

I just hated certain people. The ones who pissed me off, which was mostly everyone sure but…well shit.

He appeared to be contemplating. I wished he would contemplate faster. My balls were now nestled inside my body and my toes were brittle from the cold. If I wiggled them, they’d snap off.

“I’m not sure I should be that close to temptation, but hey, maybe it’s a test from the big man?” He pointed skyward. I glanced up to see a large plastic St. Nick and two wobbly reindeer secured to the roof of the canopy over pick-ups and drop-offs.

“Santa?”

Dark eyes flickered upward. Lush lips, wet from melted snow, twisted at the corners before his sight dropped back to me. His dark gaze stayed on me for ages before he nodded, just once. I could not begin to explain how happy seeing him bob all those curls made me. Obviously, I was suffering from some sort of alcohol-induced mental slip. What other reason would I have to do what I’d just done?

“Thank you. I guess the Christmas spirit isn’t as dead as people say it is.”

Oh right, Christmas spirit. Yeah, that was me. I was just full of holiday cheer. So not.