A Kiss, A Kid And A Mistletoe Bride

Maybe it was only Christmas, the lights and smells of hope reaching out to her, making her vulnerable to this belligerent, wide-eyed waif. Or maybe it was her own loneliness and need for a perfect Christmas that shone back at her from this boy’s eyes.

“So, lady, you understand? Right? You gotta find yourself another tree, okay?”

She heard the aggression, heard the rudeness. And in the soft darkness of a Florida night sweet-scented with pine and cinnamon and broken only by the glow of twinkling lights strung high from utility poles, she saw the bone-deep anxiety deepen in those eyes frowning up at her.

It was that anxiety and his dogged insistence that got to her. Bam. Like a hand reaching right into her chest, his need squeezed her heart.

But it was her damnable curiosity, which had been a besetting sin all her life, and maybe amusement that kept her interest as she watched him stiffen his shoulders and glower at her, waiting for her answer.

He was a pistol, he was, this tough little guy who wasn’t about to give an inch just because she was bigger than he was. She took a deep breath. Somewhere in happy song land, elves were shrieking in glee because Santa had asked Rudolph to lead his sleigh. But here in Tibo’s tree lot, as she stared at the pugnacious urchin, Gabrielle felt like the Grinch who was about to steal Christmas.

Wanting to erase that dread from his face, she dropped her hand. The tree wobbled, and she reached out to steady it. The boy’s face scrunched in alarm as she grasped the tree again, and she released it as soon as she saw he was able to keep it upright. “How do you know I didn’t see it first?” she asked, curious to see what he’d say.

“‘Cause I was standing here guarding it. That’s why.” His not-Southern voice dripped with disbelief that she could be so dumb. He let part of the tree’s weight rest against him. “My daddy’s over there.” Keeping his grip on the tree, the child jerked his chin toward the front of the lot “He went to get Tibo. Tibo’s gonna saw off the bottom so the tree can get enough water and last a-a-all Christmas,” he said, finishing on a drawn-out hiss of excitement. “And in case you got any ideas, lady, you better not mess with my tree or with me ’cause my daddy’s real tough. You’ll be sorry,” the boy said, never blinking. “You don’t want to tangle with me and my daddy ’cause we’re a team and we’re tougher ’n a piece of old dried shoe leather.”

“I see.” Hearing the adult’s voice in the childish treble, Gabrielle bit her lip to keep from smiling. “That’s tough, all right”

“Da-darned straight.” The square chin bobbed once, hard. “Nobody tangles with us. Not with me and my daddy, they don’t, not if they know what’s good for ’em.” Sticking out his chest, he pulled his shoulders so far back that Gabrielle was afraid he’d pop a tendon.

This boy was definitely used to taking care of himself. His sturdy, small body fairly quivered with don’t-mess-with-me attitude. Still, in spite of his conviction that he could handle anything, Gabrielle wasn’t comfortable leaving him by himself. He couldn’t be more than five, if that. Well, perhaps older, she thought, reconsidering the look in his eyes, but innocent for all his streetwise sass. And it was a scary world out there, even in Bayou Bend.

How could the father have walked off and left this child alone in the dark tree lot—in this day and age? It was none of her business, she knew, but she wouldn’t be able to keep from telling the father that little guys shouldn’t be left alone, not even in Tibo’s tree lot.

“I’m sorry, but I really think I saw the tree first,” she said, not caring about the tree, only trying to keep his attention while she scanned the empty aisles, looking for one tough daddy.

“Nope.” He tipped his head consideringly but didn’t move a hairbreadth from where he was standing.

“What, exactly, would your daddy do?” she asked, prolonging the moment and hoping the urchin’s daddy would appear. “If I’d messed with—your tree?”

“Somethin’,” her argumentative angel assured her. “Anyways, I know we seen it first. You was nowhere around.”

“I saw this tree right away. I liked the shape of it.” She fluffed a branch but made sure she didn’t let her grasp linger as the boy’s gaze followed her movement. “And it’s big. I wanted a big tree this year.” Her gaze lingered on the truly awful ugliness and bigness of the tree, and her voice caught. “I wanted a special tree.”

He shifted, frowned and finally looked away from her, sighing as he glanced up at the tree. “Yeah. Me, too.”

Again Gabrielle imagined she heard an underlying note of wistfulness in his froggy voice.

This stray had his reasons for choosing Tibo’s sucker tree. She had hers.

The singing elves gave way to a jazzed-up “Jingle Bells,” which boomed over her, and Gabrielle sighed. She and her dad had always made a point of dragging home the neediest tree they could find just to hear her mama rip loose with one of her musical giggles.

Last year, dazed and in a stupor, they had let Christmas become spring before either one of them climbed out of the pit they’d fallen into with her mama’s death.

Christmas had always been Mary Kathleen O’Shea’s favorite day.

Gabrielle and her dad hadn’t been able to wrap their minds around the vision of that empty chair at the foot of the big dining room table. No way for either of them to fake a celebration, not with that image burned into their brains.

And so, in spite of a sixty-degree, bright blue Florida day that enticed Yankee tourists to dip a toe into the flat blue Gulf of Mexico, Christmas last year had been a cold, dark day in the O’Shea house.

This year, the giggles might once again be only a memory, but everything else was going to be the way it used to be. They’d have the right tree, the brightest lights strung on all the bushes around the old house, the flakiest mincemeat pie. Everything would be perfect. They’d find a way to deal with the empty chair, with all that it meant. In hindsight, she wondered if they shouldn’t have forced themselves to face that emptiness last year, get past it. They hadn’t, though, and the ache was as fresh as it had been barely a year ago.

But this Christmas, one way or another, was going to be perfect. Whatever perfect was, under the circumstances.

She sighed again and saw the boy’s gaze flash to her face.

He shifted uneasily. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, so softy she almost missed it. “But this is my special tree for me and my daddy.”

She wanted to hug him, to wrap him in her arms and comfort him. Instead, knowing little boys, she tried for matter-of fact.

“Well, that’s life.” Gabrielle thought she’d never heard a kid invoke daddy powers so often in so short a space of time. “Win some. Lose some, she said, hoping to erase the frown that still remained.

“Yeah. That’s life,” he repeated glumly before brightening. “Except at Christmas.”

She heard the hope in his gruff treble. Well, why shouldn’t it be there? All these Christmas lights strung up created a longing even in adults for magic, for something in this season when the world, even in Florida, seemed forever suspended in cold and darkness.

Her throat tightened, but she plunged ahead, desperate to change the direction of her thoughts. All this sighing and reminiscing weren’t going to help her create her perfect Christmas. “You didn’t see me over by the fence? I was there, scoping out this very tree.”

With his too-wise eyes, the boy examined her face, then shook his head with certainty. “Nah. You’re trying to pull a fast one on me.”

“Really?” The kid was too smart by half. “I might be telling the truth,” she said thoughtfully, watching as he continued to study her face.

“Nope.” He grinned, a flash of teeth showing in the twilight of the tree lot. “You’re funning with me now.”

Intrigued, she kneeled, going nose to nose with him. “How do you know?”

“I can tell.” He shifted from one foot to the next, his attention wandering anxiously now from her to the front of the lot. “Grown-ups don’t tell kids the truth. Not a lot, anyways.”

“Oh.” Gabrielle wrapped her arms around her knees to steady herself as she absorbed this truth from a kid who shouldn’t have had time to learn it. “That’s what you think I’m doing?”

“Sure.” His mouth formed an upside-down U. “You’re teasing me now, that’s all.”

This child had learned that his survival depended on knowing when the adults in his life were lying to him. She sensed he’d learned this truth in a hard school, that survival had depended on it. “You can tell when grown-ups are—funning with you?” She made her tone teasing.

“Funning’s different from not telling the truth,” he said matter-of-factly, his gaze drifting once more to the front of the lot. He, like her, was seeking the tough-but-absent daddy. “Funning’s okay. No harm in funning. Most of the time.”

“I see.” Again that squeeze of her heart, that sharp pinch that made her catch her breath. “Want to draw straws for the tree?”

“No way,” he scoffed. “You’re still funning with me.” Suddenly delight washed over his face. “I remember! My daddy took the sticker off the tree, so we got proof.”

“Ah. My loss, then.” She smiled at him easily, letting him know their game was over.

In back of her, a foot scraped against one of the boards that formed narrow pathways between the aisles of trees. An elongated shadow slanted across her, and, still kneeling, still smiling back at the boy who’d shot her a quick grin, she pivoted, looking up at the silhouette looming above her.

“Daddy!” The boy wriggled from head to toe and launched himself at the silhouette, dragging the tree with him. “Daddy!”

Relieved, Gabrielle lifted her chin toward the tough daddy who’d finally shown up. Words formed on her lips—pleasant, instructive words designed to let this man know he should keep a closer eye on his son.

And then she saw the man’s face.