Enright Family Collection (38 page)

Before August could protest, India had paid for the two trees and Nick had tied the fir on top of his car with his Scotch pine. Anxious to get home and start decorating, India found Corri chasing a schoolmate through the aisles,
then set about to look for her aunt. She found her at the end of the dock, facing the Light.

“Our first Christmas without our boy,” August said softly, recognizing India’s footfall on the wooden planks.

“I miss him too.” India put an arm around her aunt and hugged her.

“It’ll never be the same.” August cleared her throat.

“No, it won’t,” India agreed, “but it can still be good.”

“I suppose so.” August nodded.

A languid land breeze bore the scent of pine, and India’s nostrils sought out the underlying salt smell of the bay. Pine plus salt equaled Devlin’s Light at Christmas, she thought, clinging to the smell of both land and sea. It smelled like home to her. She sighed deeply and, with her arm still around her aunt, walked back to the car, knowing full well that the eyes of the old captain followed every step they took.

“We are going to be decorating trees all day!” Corri crowed as the car pulled into the driveway on Darien Road.

“It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.” India nodded.

“It’s not dirty at all,” Corri told her, “’cept maybe in the attic when you go to get the boxes out.”

“I’ll do the dirty work this year,” Nick told her as he swung their tree off the roof of his car. “But in return, you have to keep me plied with snacks and warm drinks.”

“We have lots of good snacks,” Corri assured him. “We made tons of cookies and good stuff to eat. And we can make hot chocolate.”

“There you go then.” He leaned the tree up alongside the back of the house. “Tree stands?” he asked India.

“In the attic. With the dusty boxes.”

“Lead the way.” He stood back while August unlocked the back door.

“Follow me, sir.” India pulled off her red wide-brimmed wool hat and shook her curls loose, fluffing her hair with her hands. “I hate hat-head.”

“Hat-head?” Nick went up the steps behind her, thoroughly enjoying the view.

“When you wear a hat and your hair gets flattened down.” She grinned. “Hat-head.”

“Here, let me help you with that,” he murmured, stopping her halfway through the attic door and running his fingers through her hair, from her scalp to the end of the silky strands. “I have the cure for hat-head,” he told her, lowering his lips to hers.

“Nick,” she said, after kisses that left her breathless, “what has this got to do with my hair?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged and kissed her again. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Save it.” She giggled and tugged on his sleeve, leading him up the steps to the large, well-lit attic. “We have work to do.”

They found the boxes of Christmas ornaments stacked in one corner and, after dusting off the lids, began the job of carrying them all to the first floor, where Corri poked in every one, exclaiming over its contents. Nick found the tree stands and, under August’s guidance, set up the tree in exactly the right spot in the dining room.

“Now, this tree gets the angels,” August told them. “So Corri, you find the box with the angels. First, of course, we need to get the lights on.”

“I’ll do that,” Nick volunteered, “and India, you can get me some of those wonderful spice cookies.”

“It’s almost noon,” August told them. “We’ll have some chowder first, then you can have some cookies.”

“Why do I feel like an eight-year-old all of a sudden?” Nick laughed and set about the task of getting all the lights on the tree, arguing all the while with India over whether the proper progression was from left to right or right to left.

Corri found the angels, and after lunch Nick sat back and watched Corri and India decorate the tree. There were finely spun glass angels, delicate as wishes on the wind, and cross-eyed angels made of bright construction paper by India as a first-grader, angels made of papier-mâché and painted with pale, heavenly shades of pink and blue and yellow, and angels made of porcelain, their wings touched with gold. Nick quietly watched the interplay between woman and child, his heart aching with love, a song of thanks singing somewhere in his consciousness. Not able to
wait until Christmas morning to give Aunt August her special gift, Corri proudly showed off the angel she had made of shells, and she could not contain her joy when August pronounced that it was the very angel that should sit at the top of the tree that year and look over all the other angels. Nick lifted the child to the top of the tree to place her angel there, and he felt a lump in his throat at her delight in the simple act of having her gift acknowledged for the treasure it truly was.

“Auctor pretiosa facit,”
August murmured. “The giver makes the gift precious.”

It was near four when a white panel truck pulled into the driveway and stopped near the end. Corri peeked through the curtains and shouted, “It’s Captain Pete with the big tree!”

India opened the front door, and Nick went out to assist in bringing the tree inside. The captain, obviously cold and tired after standing in the wind all day but still gallant, in his own peculiar way, started slowly up the front steps of the house to greet India.

“For heaven’s sake, come in, Captain Pete.” India showed him into the front hall. “You look like you’re frozen.”

“Well, I admit it’s been a long day, India.”

“Come in by the fire,” she insisted.

“Maybe just till they get the tree in.” He let her take his arm and lead him into the sitting room, where he looked around slowly, as if taking it all in. “Funny how some things change so little over the years.”

“What’s that?” India asked.

“Oh, this room.” He waved his cane in a one-eighty turn. “The smell of this house at the holidays. Brings back memories.”

Really
, India mused.

“Why don’t you sit right here on the settee and let me get you something hot to drink.” India gestured to the small red love seat.

“Well now, India, I’m only here to deliver a tree.”

“From the looks of things it’ll take a few minutes for Nick and your son to get that tree in here. You just sit right down and relax for a few minutes. What would you like to drink?” she asked from the doorway.

“What?” His eyes had wandered around the room again, as if searching for something that was no longer there. “Oh. Coffee would be appreciated, India. Very much, it would be. I’ve had enough hot chocolate today to turn my blood to sugar water.”

“I’ll be right back,” India promised.

Crossing the threshold into the kitchen, India saw her aunt gazing out the back door.

“Aunt August, Captain Pete is here.”

“Is he now?” August turned back to the stove and lifted the lid on a pot of chili. Without looking at India, she slid a pan of cornbread into the oven.

“Yes, he’s in the sitting room.” India took down a mug and filled it with fresh coffee. “I should have asked him what he wanted in this.”

“Black,” August muttered without turning around. “The captain always took his coffee black.”

“Oh.” India’s eyebrows raised slightly.
So. She knows how he takes his coffee, does she?

“Aunt August said you took your coffee black,” India said as she handed the cup to Captain Pete.

“Oh, she remembered now, did she?” He smiled softly and spoke as if only to himself. “Fancy that.”

Nick and young Pete brought the tree in, then struggled with the stand, which was not inclined to hold so tall a tree. After forty minutes of effort, they finally had it in the stand, albeit tied to the mantel on one side and the bookcase on the other. India refilled the captain’s cup twice, the second time just as his son was ready to leave.

“Oh, stay and finish that.” India smiled as she placed a plate of cookies on the table in front of the settee and gave Nick a tap on the shin with the toe of her shoe. “We’ll drive you home, won’t we, Nick?”

“Uh, sure we will.” He nodded. “Be happy to.”

“Hmmph.” August stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips, surveying the jerry-rigged technique used to secure the tree. “I hope no one gives that rope a good tug.”

“How are you planning to get an angel to the top of that tree, young miss?” Pete asked Corri, pointing to the topmost tip of the tree, which brushed up against the ceiling.

“Someone will have to help me,” she said. “But first we
have to decide what to put on the top of this tree. We have all angels in the dining room.”

“Is that a fact?”

“It is. Want to see?”

“I’d be pleased to see your angels.” Pete pushed himself up off the settee with the use of his cane. “You don’t mind, do you, August?”

“Of course not, why should I mind?”

“Good.” He brushed past her.

“That is one ornery man,” August muttered, plumping the pillows on the love seat to give herself something to do.

“Really?” India snickered.

“And what is so funny, miss?” August’s eyes narrowed, seeming to challenge India to answer.

“Nothing, Aunt August.” India shrugged innocently.

Corri’s girlish laughter floated from the dining room.

“Sounds as if Corri doesn’t find him ornery at all,” Nick noted.

“Corri is six years old. She’ll laugh at anything.” August sniffed and swept back to her kitchen, pausing in the doorway to the dining room, where Corri saw her and called her in. The woman hesitated a moment before joining them.

“Let’s go to my place,” Nick whispered in India’s ear.

“Now? But we just said we’d take Pete …” She paused, then smiled. “… home.”

“I guess he could wait till we got back.” Nick nibbled on her earlobe. “Or perhaps August could drive him.”

“I should tell her that we’re leaving,” India said.

“Let’s put our coats on first so she doesn’t have time to stop us.”

“Good idea.” India nodded.

As quietly as humanly possible, India and Nick tiptoed into the hall and retrieved their jackets, sliding their arms into sleeves and fingers into gloves without making a sound.

“We’ll ambush ‘em,” Nick deadpanned, “then bolt for the door, got it?”

India giggled, and he steered her into the dining room.

“We’ll be back,” Nick announced. “We’re just going to run my tree out to the cabin.”

“Won’t be long.” India waved and backed out of the room.

“But …” August’s protests were lost as, even as she rose to speak, Nick and India were out the front door and closing it behind them.

“Nick?” India asked as he was backing out of the driveway.

“Hmmm?” Nick had turned on the radio and was searching for a song to sing along with.

“Are we really driving all the way out to your place just to drop off your tree?”

“Of course not.” He looked at her as if she was daft. “Are you planning on seducing me?”

“Yup.”

“Nick?”

“Yes?”

“Drive faster.”

Chapter 23

A mean fog had rolled in off the bay and spread like a down quilt through the marsh. Nick had slowed to a crawl on his way up the lane. The sensor lights on the back of the cabin were barely visible as anything other than a dim, opaque glow at the end of the drive.

“This is so spooky,” India whispered as she opened her car door and hopped out. The crushed white stones crunched slightly under her weight, the soft grinding of stone on stone the only sound in the dense night.

“No, no, sweetheart.” Nick draped an arm over her shoulder and ambled gently to the steps leading to the wraparound deck. “Think of it as a low-lying cloud come to wrap us inside. It’s much more romantic.”

Unconvinced, India glanced uneasily behind them as they reached the front of the cabin, their shoes an echoing
tap tap tap
on the wooden walk, giving her the feeling of being followed. Nick unlocked the back door and held it open for her to pass through, and she did so gratefully.

“It’s cool in here,” he noted, glancing at the thermostat. “Would you like me to build a fire for you?”

“Not in the fireplace.”

She could hear his chuckle in the dark as he relocked the back door. Dropping her jacket on the nearest chair and kicking quietly out of her shoes, she slipped into the hallway
and down two doors to where she remembered his room to be. A scarce minute later he followed her.

“Hand over old Otto,” he told her, and from the opposite side of the bed she tossed the bear.

“Careful with the old boy,” Nick said, pretending to scold her. “You know, my mom and dad gave me this bear when I was three. Best Christmas present I ever got.”

She pitched her sweatshirt across the bed and hit him in the chest with it.

“Until this year,” he mumbled, and she laughed, her jeans following the sweatshirt. He met her halfway across the king-sized bed and pulled her down and under him.

“Kiss me, Nicky,” she demanded, drawing his face to hers.

“That’s the very least I plan to do to you tonight,” he promised.

“I will hold you to that.” She sighed as his lips skimmed the tip of her chin to the hollow of her neck. She arched slightly beneath him, inviting him to feast, and he accepted the gift of herself hungrily.

By the time they were sated, the fog had started to recede across the bay, and a moon of majestic proportions had just begun to push its face through the clouds.

“Is it still Sunday?” India asked, opening heavy eyelids and searching for a clock in the unfamiliar room.

“Only barely.” Nick sat on the edge of the bed and placed a tray between them. “Sit up.”

“What is that?” she asked sleepily.

“Dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“Nothing elaborate.” He gestured for her to sit and handed her a plate upon which sat a perfectly golden grilled cheese sandwich and some chips.

“You’d make a great short-order cook.” She wrapped the soft flannel sheet around her chest and sat up a little higher on the pillows. “Nick, this is heaven. It’s wonderful.” She took the tall glass he handed her and sipped at the sparkling water. “You are spoiling me. No one ever served me dinner in bed at midnight.”

“Good. You deserve to be spoiled.” He grinned. “And we should have dinner at midnight in bed often.”