Standing by the picture window that overlooked the park, he remembered the Christmas his mother and sister had been killed. The shock and pain of it seemed as fresh now as it’d been all those years ago. No wonder his father still refused to celebrate the holiday. Jake couldn’t, either.
When he looked out, he noticed how brightly lit the park was. Horse-drawn carriages clattered past, and although he couldn’t hear the clopping of the horses’ hooves, it sounded in his mind as clearly as if he’d been out on the street. He suddenly saw himself with his parents and his sister, all huddled under a blanket in a carriage. The horse had been named Silver, he remembered, and the snow had drifted softly down. That was almost twenty-one years ago, the winter they’d died, and he hadn’t taken a carriage ride since.
Mrs. Miracle had suggested he go for a walk that evening. An odd idea, he thought, especially after a long day spent dealing with harried shoppers. The last thing he’d normally want to do was spend even more time on his feet. And yet he felt irresistibly attracted to the park. The cheerful lights, the elegant carriages, the man on the corner selling roasted chestnuts, drew him like a kid to a Christmas tree.
None of this made any sense. He was exhausted, doubting himself and his judgment, entangled in memories he’d rather ignore. Perhaps a swift walk would chase away the demons that hounded him.
Putting on his coat, he wrapped the cashmere scarf around his neck. George, the building doorman, opened the front door and, hunching his shoulders against the wind, Jake hurried across the street.
“Aunt Holly, can we buy hot chestnuts?”
The young boy’s voice immediately caught Jake’s attention. He turned abruptly and came face-to-face with Holly Larson. The fourth time in less than twenty-four hours.
“Jake!”
“Holly.”
They stared at each other, both apparently too shocked to speak.
She found her voice first. “What are you doing here?”
He pointed to the apartment building on the other side of the street. “I live over there. What are you doing here this late?”
“How late is it?”
He checked his watch. “Twenty to ten.”
“Ten!” she cried. “You’ve got to be kidding. I had no idea it was so late. Hurry up, Gabe, it’s time we got to the subway.”
“Can we buy some chestnuts first?” he asked, gazing longingly at the vendor’s cart.
“Not now. Come on, we have to go.”
“I’ve never had roasted chestnuts before,” the boy complained.
“Neither have I,” Jake said, although that wasn’t strictly true, and stepped up to the vendor. “Three, please.”
“Jake, you shouldn’t.”
“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun.” He paid for the chestnuts, then handed bags to Holly and Gabe.
“I’m not sure how we got this far north,” Holly said, walking close to his side as the three of them strolled down the street, eating chestnuts. “Gabe wanted to see the carriages in the park.”
“Lindy told me about them.” Gabe spoke with his mouth full. “Lindy Lee.”
“Lindy Lee’s my boss,” Holly explained. “The designer.”
Jake knew who she was, impressed that Holly worked for such a respected industry name.
“We went into Holly’s office to decorate for Christmas, and Lindy was there and she let me put up stuff around her desk. That’s when she told me about the horses in the park,” Gabe said.
“Did you go for a ride?” Jake asked.
Gabe shook his head sadly. “Aunt Holly said it costs a lot of money.”
“It is expensive,” Jake agreed. “But sometimes you can make a deal with the driver. Do you want me to try?”
“Yeah!” Gabe said excitedly. “I’ve never been in a carriage before—not even once.”
“Jake, no,” Holly whispered, and laid a restraining hand on his arm. “I should get him home and in bed.”
“Aunt Holly, please!” The eight-year-old’s plaintive cry rang out. “It’s Saturday.”
“You’re turning down a carriage ride?” Jake asked. He saw the dreamy look that came over Holly as a carriage rolled past—a white carriage drawn by a midnight-black horse. “Have you ever been on one?”
“No…”
“Then that settles it. The three of us are going.” Several carriages had lined up along the street. Jake walked over to the first one and asked his price, which he willingly paid. All that talk about negotiating had been just that—talk. This was the perfect end to a magical day. Magical because of a plate of silly sugar cookies. Magical because of Holly and Gabe. Magical because of Christmas, reluctant though he was to admit it.
He helped Holly up into the carriage. When she was seated, he lifted Gabe so the boy could climb aboard, too. Finally he hoisted himself onto the bench across from Holly and Gabe. They shared a thick fuzzy blanket.
“This is great,” Gabe exclaimed. “I can hardly wait to tell my dad.”
Holly smiled delightedly. “I’m surprised he’s still awake,” she said. “We’ve been on the go for hours.”
“There’s nothing like seeing Christmas through the eyes of a child, is there?”
“Nothing.”
“Reminds me of when I was a kid…”
The carriage moved into Central Park and, even at this hour, the place was alive with activity.
“Oh, look, Gabe,” Holly said, pointing at the carousel. She wrapped her arm around the boy, who snuggled closer. “We’ll go on the carousel this spring.”
He nodded sleepily. The ride lasted about thirty minutes, and by the time they returned to the park entrance, Gabe’s eyes had drifted shut.
“I was afraid this would happen,” Holly whispered.
“We’ll go to my apartment, and I’ll contact a car service to get you home.”
Holly shook her head. “I…appreciate that, but we’ll take the subway.”
“Nonsense,” Jake said.
“Jake, I can’t afford a car service.”
“It’s on me.”
“No.” She shook her head again. “I can’t let you do that.”
“You can and you will. If I hadn’t insisted on the carriage ride, you’d have been home by now.”
She looked as if she wanted to argue more but changed her mind. “Then I’ll graciously accept and say thank-you. It’s been a magical evening.”
Magical. The same word he’d used himself. He leaped down, helped her and Gabe out, then carried Gabe across the street. The doorman held the door for them.
“Evening, Mr. Finley.”
“Evening, George.”
Holly followed him onto the elevator. When they reached the tenth floor and the doors glided open, he led the way down the hall to his apartment. He had to shift the boy in his arms to get his key in the lock.
Once inside Holly looked around her, eyes wide. By New York standards, his apartment was huge. His father had lived in it for fifteen years before moving to a different place. This apartment had suited Jake, so he’d taken it over.
“I see you’re like me. I haven’t had time to decorate for Christmas, either,” she finally said. “I was so late getting the office done that I had to come in on a Saturday to do it.”
“I don’t decorate for the holidays,” he said without explaining the reasons. He knew he probably sounded a little brusque; he hadn’t meant to.
“I suppose you get enough of that working for the store.”
He nodded, again avoiding an explanation. He laid a sleeping Gabe on the sofa.
“I’ll see how long we’ll have to wait for a car,” he said. The number was on speed dial; he used it often, since he didn’t own a car himself. In midtown Manhattan car ownership could be more of a liability than a benefit. He watched Holly walk over to the picture window and gaze outside. Apparently she found the scene as mesmerizing as he had earlier. Although he made every effort to ignore Christmas, it stared back at him from the street, the city, the park. New Yo
rk was always intensely alive but never more so than in December.
The call connected with the dispatcher. “How may I help you?”
Jake identified himself and gave his account number and address, and was assured a car would be there in fifteen minutes.
“I’ll ride with you,” Jake told her when he’d hung up the phone.
His offer appeared to surprise her. “You don’t need to do that.”
“True, but I’d like to,” he said with a smile.
She smiled shyly back. “I’d like it, too.” Walking away from the window, she sighed. “I don’t understand why, but I feel like I’ve known you for ages.”
“I feel the same way.”
“Was it only yesterday morning that you paid for my latte?”
“You were a damsel in distress.”
“And you were my knight in shining armor,” she said warmly. “You’re still in character this evening.”
He sensed that she wanted to change the subject because she turned away from him, resting her gaze on something across the room. “You know, you have the ideal spot for a Christmas tree in that corner,” she said.
“I haven’t celebrated Christmas in more than twenty years,” Jake blurted out, shocking himself even more than Holly.
“I beg your pardon?”
Jake went back into the kitchen and found that his throat had gone dry and his hands sweaty. He never talked about his mother and sister. Not with anyone. Including his father.
“You don’t believe in Christmas?” she asked, trailing after him. “What about Hanukkah?”
“Neither.” He’d dug himself into a hole and the only way out was to explain. “My mother and sister were killed on Christmas Eve twenty-one years ago. A freak car accident that happened in the middle of a snowstorm, when two taxis collided.”
“Oh, Jake. I’m so sorry.”
“Dad and I agreed to forget about Christmas from that point forward.”
Holly moved to his side. She didn’t say a word and he was grateful. When people learned of the tragedy—almost always from someone other than him—they rarely knew what to say or how to react. It was an uncomfortable situation and still painful; he usually mumbled some remark about how long ago the accident had been and then tried to put it out of his mind. But he couldn’t, any more than his father could.
Holly slid her arms around him and simply laid her head against his chest. For a moment, Jake stood unmoving as she held him. Then he placed his own arms around her. It felt as though she was an anchor, securing him in an unsteady sea. He needed her. Wanted her. Before he fully realized what he was doing, he lifted her head and lowered his mouth to hers.
The kiss was filled with urgency and need. She slipped her arms around his neck, and her touch had a powerful effect on him.
He tangled his fingers in her dark shoulder-length hair and brought his mouth to hers a second time. Soon they were so involved in each other that it took him far longer than it should to hear the ringing of his phone.
He broke away in order to answer; as he suspected, the car was downstairs, waiting. When he told Holly, she immediately put on her coat. Gabe continued to sleep as Jake scooped him up, holding the boy carefully in both arms.
George opened the lobby door for them. Holly slid into the vehicle first, and then as Jake started to hand her the boy, he noticed a movement on the other side of the street.
“Jake?” Holly called from the car. “Please, there’s no need for you to come. You’ve been so kind already.”
“I want to see you safely home,” he said as he stared across the street. For just an instant—it must have been his imagination—he was sure he’d seen Emily Merkle, better known as Mrs. Miracle.
Six
Forbidden fruit creates many jams.
—Mrs. Miracle
The phone rang just as Holly and Gabe walked into the apartment after church the next morning. For one wild second Holly thought it might be Jake.
Or rather, hoped it was Jake.
Although she’d been dead on her feet by the time they got to Brooklyn, she couldn’t sleep. She’d lain awake for hours, thinking about the kisses they’d shared, replaying every minute of their time together. All of this was so unexpected and yet so welcome. Jake was—
“Hello,” she said, sounding breathless with anticipation.
“What’s this I hear about you turning my son into a girl?”
“Mickey!” Her brother’s voice was as clear as if he were in the next room. He tried to phone on a regular basis, but it wasn’t easy. The most reliable form of communication had proved to be email.
“So you’re baking cookies with my son, are you?” he teased.
“We had a blast.” Gabe was leaping up and down, eager to speak to his father. “Here, I’ll let Gabe tell you about it himself.” She passed the phone to her nephew, who immediately grabbed it.
“Dad! Dad, guess what? I went to Aunt Holly’s office to help her decorate and then she took me to see the big tree at Rockefeller Center and we watched the skaters and had hot chocolate and then we walked to Central Park and had hot dogs for dinner, and, oh, we went to see Mrs. Miracle. I helped Aunt Holly roll out cookies and…” He paused for breath.
Evidently Mickey took the opportunity to ask a few questions, because Gabe nodded a couple of times.
“Mrs. Miracle is the lady in the toy department at Finley’s,” he said.
He was silent for a few seconds.
“She’s really nice,” Gabe continued. “She reminds me of Grandma Larson. I gave her a plate of cookies, and Aunt Holly gave cookies to Jake.” Silence again, followed by “He’s Aunt Holly’s new boyfriend and he’s really, really nice.”
“Maybe I should talk to your father now,” Holly inserted, wishing Gabe hadn’t been so quick to mention Jake’s name.
Gabe clutched the receiver in both hands and turned his back, unwilling to relinquish the phone.
“Jake took us on a carriage ride in Central Park and then…” Gabe stopped talking for a few seconds. “I don’t know what happened after that ’cause I fell asleep.”
Mickey was asking something else, and although Holly strained to hear what it was, she couldn’t.
Whatever his question, Gabe responded by glancing at Holly, grinning widely and saying, “Oh, yeah.”
“Are you two talking about me?” she demanded, half laughing and half annoyed.
She was ignored. Apparently Gabe felt there was a lot to tell his father, because he cupped his hand around the mouthpiece and whispered loudly, “I think they kissed.”
“Gabe!” she protested. If she wanted her brother to know this, she’d tell him herself.
“Okay,” Gabe said, nodding. He held out the phone to her. “Dad wants to talk to you.”
Holly took it from him and glared down at her nephew.
“So I hear you’ve found a new love interest,” Mickey said in the same tone he’d used to tease her when they were teenagers.
“Oh, stop. Jake and I hardly know each other.”
“How’d you meet?”
“At Starbucks. Mickey, please, it’s nothing. I only met him on Friday.” It felt longer than two days, but this was far too soon to even suggest they were in a relationship.
“Gabe doesn’t seem to feel that’s a problem.”
“Okay, so I took Jake a plate of cookies like Gabe said—it was just a thank-you for buying me a coffee—and…and we happened to run into him last evening in Central Park. It’s no big deal. He’s a nice person and, well…like I said, we’ve just met.”
“But it looks promising,” her brother added.
Holly hated to acknowledge how true that was. Joy and anticipation had surged through her from the moment she and Jake kissed. Still, she was afraid to admit this to her brother—and, for that matter, afraid to admit it to herself. “It’s too soon to say that yet.”
“Ah, so you’re still hung up on Bill?”
Was she? Holly didn’t think so.
If Bill had ended the relationship by telling her the chemistry just wasn’t there, she could’ve accepted that. Instead, he’d left her with serious doubts regarding her parenting abilities.
“Is that it?” Mickey pressed.
“No,” she said. “Not at all. Bill and I weren’t really meant to be together. I think we both realized that early on, only neither of us was ready to be honest about it.”
“Mmm.” Mickey made a sound of agreement. “Things are going better with Gabe, aren’t they?”
“Much better.”
“Good.”
“He’s adjusting and so am I.” This past week seemed to have been a turning point. They were more at ease with each other. Gabe had made new friends and was getting used to life without his father—and with her. She knew she insisted on rules Mickey didn’t bother with—like making their beds every morning, drinking milk with breakfast and, of course, putting the toilet seat down. But Gabe hardly complained at all anymore.
“What was it he told Santa he wanted for Christmas?” Mickey asked.
“So he emailed you about the visit with Santa, did he?”
“Yup, he sent the email right after he got home. He seemed quite excited.”
“It’s Intellytron the SuperRobot.”
At her reference to the toy, Gabe’s eyes lit up and he nodded vigorously.
“We found them in Finley’s Department Store. Mrs. Miracle, the woman Gabe mentioned, works there…and Jake does, too.”
“Didn’t Gabe tell me Jake’s name is Finley?” Mickey asked. “He said he heard Mrs. Miracle call him that—Mr. Finley. Is he related to the guy who owns the store?”
“Y-e-s.” How dense could she be? Holly felt like slapping her forehead. She’d known his name was Finley from the beginning and it hadn’t meant a thing to her. But now…now she realized Jake was probably related to the Finley family—was possibly even the owner’s son. No wonder he could afford to live where he did. He hadn’t given the price of the carriage ride or the car service a second thought, either.
She had the sudden, awful feeling that she was swimming in treacherous waters and there wasn’t a life preserver in sight.