A Mistletoe Proposal: Marry Me under the Mistletoe / A Little Bit of Holiday Magic / Christmas Magic in Heatherdale

“Understood.”

Feeling at a complete loose end, Andrea got to her feet and did the dishes. Once the kitchen was cleaned up, she took a deep breath. “You know what? It’s late. Why don’t we go to bed, and tomorrow we’ll get up and drink hot chocolate, take a walk to the lake and think about Emily and Cole having a baby and how wonderful life can be. I’ve never been here in the snow.”

“Nor I. If circumstances were different for you and me, this could be a very romantic winter getaway.”

“If being the operative word,” Andrea added wryly to cover her troubled emotions.

At least their plans for the wedding-renewal vows on Christmas Eve had been made. But much as she was thrilled to see Casey and leave the nutcrackers for everyone, their conversation had opened up her wounds and she was bleeding all over the place. This bleakness in her heart threatened to overwhelm her. She needed to get back to work where she wouldn’t think. “Casey—”

“I know what you’re going to say,” Casey interrupted. They read each other’s minds quite easily. “You’re restless as a cat wanting out of a cage.”

“The inn is hardly a cage.”

“It is when you’re needing other things to occupy your mind. Go on back to Providence after breakfast. To be honest, I’m afraid I’m suffering from the same problem. I’ll probably head back when you do. I’ve got a project going for Emily’s baby on my quilting frame at home. I’m making her a special quilt with a picture of the Gingerbread Inn in the center.”

“Oh, how darling!” Andrea cried. “You’ve just given me an idea for a gift that will look perfect in her nursery.” When more rocking chairs and gingerbread men arrived, she’d put a set away for Emily. On the way back to Providence, she’d put in a big order for both items.

In her mind’s eye Andrea kept remembering Tessa rocking back and forth with her prize in her arms.... Oh, how she’d love to see that precious girl on Christmas morning when she ran to find out what Santa had brought her. To give birth to a daughter like Tessa Jenner would be joy beyond measure. But it wasn’t meant to be. The sooner she got that child off her mind, the better.

She turned out the lights and they went up to bed. Clearly Casey was in so much turmoil herself, she didn’t press Andrea to stay longer. They’d said all there was to say for the time being. Now they both needed their own caves to lick their wounds while they struggled to survive.

CHAPTER TWO (#u9c8600ad-2cdd-5907-993a-0890cfd66ca8)

“LADDER 1 RESPOND to art-gallery fire on Lemon Street and Sixth.”

The dispatcher’s voice over the gong galvanized everyone into action. Hearing the address, Rick felt his adrenaline kick in. Lemon Street? After parking his car, he’d walked by that gallery earlier in the morning with Tessa. Only a florist shop separated it from the Hansel and Gretel shop.

He didn’t plan to go there again and had planned to send his housekeeper to buy the gingerbread man for him. Not only did he have time constraints, he preferred to avoid a good-looking woman like the salesclerk who wore no ring. After losing his wife, he wanted to spare himself and Tessa that kind of pain ever again. Another romantic relationship was out of the question for him.

Unfortunately if the fire spread, that shop’s inventory, including the gingerbread man, might go up in smoke before the night was over. The clock said 9:55 p.m. Hopefully the woman had long since gone home from work. He broke out in a cold sweat just thinking about her getting overcome by fumes or worse. Rick knew firsthand what that was like; as a child he’d almost died in a fire. That experience had changed the direction of his life.

“Let’s go!” he called to his crew as he grabbed his turnout gear and headed for the engine. Arney drove them out of the truck bay to the downtown area. Rick got on the phone to the battalion chief discussing methods to proceed when he saw smoke pouring out of the third-story window of the art gallery. Engine 2 was first in, but the alarm had sounded for more help.

“Mel? You work with Arney. Jose? You’re with me.” Out of the corner of his eye Rick saw another ladder truck pull up to the fire ground. Already a couple of men from the engine truck had gone into the building with the hoses.

“Ready, Jose?”

He gave the sign and together they placed the ladder in an alley that gave access to the building and set it against the wall. After putting on their masks, they ascended. Their job was to hunt for any injured or unconscious people trapped in there.

The smoke continued to pour out the third-story window. Everything was black by the time he climbed inside the frame where the glass had blown out. Ladder 2 down the alley was having trouble opening up the side of the building to ventilate. The smoke was really heavy now. Rick’s intuition was that the hoses had extinguished most of the fire and what was left was smoke from the burned electrical insulation.

He and Jose crawled in on their bellies, but after a few minutes of going from room to room, they were satisfied no one was inside except the fire crews. The smoke started to be drawn off, which meant the ventilation was finally working.

Dozens of charred canvases lay in heaps in one of the rooms on the top floor. Something about the arrangement of them didn’t look right—strange even. He had a gut feeling the fire had been started there on purpose. After more probing he knew they had to have been placed in a pile like that.

When he got back to the station he would tell Benton Ames, the head of the arson squad and Rick’s best friend. After more inspection, he made his way down the watery, debris-filled stairway.

Once outside, he pulled off his mask. Thank goodness the fire hadn’t spread. It had mostly been contained on the third floor. The Hansel and Gretel shop was still standing. With a sense of relief that both it and the florist shop had been spared, he helped Jose bring down the extension. Soon they’d done their cleanup, and they rode back to the station. His ten-hour shift was at an end and he could go home.

The battalion chief got him on the phone. “When you report to the station tomorrow, take the truck to Lemon Street on your way to training exercises. I want you and your crew to talk to the businesses on either side and across from the art gallery. Get a report if they sustained any smoke damage of significance.”

Another rush of adrenaline charged his body. That meant he might be seeing her again. Just the thought of it raised his blood pressure. Somehow her appeal had slipped past his defenses. He couldn’t figure it out.

“Yes, sir.”

Fifteen minutes later he pulled into the driveway of his house and let himself in the front door. Sharon Milne, his live-in housekeeper, would have put Tessa to bed at eight-thirty. His daughter had made him promise he’d help her write a letter to Santa in the morning.

Rick went to the kitchen and drank from the tap until he’d quenched his thirst, then he headed for his bedroom. After a shower and shave, he put on a robe and walked down the hall to Tessa’s room.

He tiptoed inside and sat on the side of the bed to look at her. In sleep her profile reminded him a lot of his deceased wife, Tina. She’d been gone a year. They’d lost her to leukemia a month before Christmas after a year’s fight against the disease. This was the hardest time for both of them.

Tessa had been very upset with him when he’d dropped her off at kindergarten today. She’d wanted to know why they couldn’t go back and get the gingerbread man.

There’d been several reasons. Once again Rick had given her another talk about being grateful for the things she had and not to expect to be appeased at every turn. After Tina’s death he’d done his share of giving their daughter things to comfort her in their grief, but it hadn’t taken long before he’d realized it was the wrong thing to do.

She expected everyone to satisfy her slightest wish. His wife and her family had done too much of that in the past. Before Tina’s passing, Tessa had already felt entitled. He smoothed the blond hair off her forehead. Rick didn’t want his daughter growing up with a princess complex.

But there was more bothering him. How could he explain to a five-year-old how he’d felt when he saw the clerk looking at him through the shop window with those brilliant blue eyes? She was the kind of woman the guys at the station would call a real stunner—blonde and curvaceous with classic features. Most likely she was married with children. Her response to Tessa had seemed very natural. It meant his thoughts should stop right there. The absence of a wedding ring didn’t always prove anything.

Rick had felt dead inside for so long, he was shocked to discover he could have an emotional response to the looks of a beautiful woman again. The psychiatrist provided by the department had talked to him at length about dealing with his grief. He’d told Rick that one day he’d start to feel alive again, but there was no set time when it would happen.

Rick certainly hadn’t expected the first signs of it to happen this morning. Part of the anger he’d felt masked guilt, because it seemed as if he was being disloyal to Tina even to notice another woman so soon after her death. The psychiatrist had warned him about that, too. He’d said it was perfectly natural to feel guilt, and he might feel it for a long time. If it went on too long, however, then he wanted to see him back in his office.

After the clerk had waited on him, his anger had grown worse because she’d been so incredibly nice and tuned in to Tessa’s feelings. He didn’t want her doing either of them any favors. For one thing, Tessa was his daughter.

The woman obviously thought he didn’t have enough money to pay for the gingerbread man, so she’d lowered the price. He had to admit it had injured his pride. But after having a whole day to think about it, he recognized what he’d really been feeling.

The last thing he wanted was to feel beholden to her or any woman. Sharon, the housekeeper, was different in her caretaker role.

Face it, Jenner. You resent being attracted to her.

That was the truth of it. He supposed the fact that she was the first person since Tina’s death to take his mind off his wife for a few minutes made him feel vulnerable. But for her to play Santa hadn’t sat well with him. So many emotions had bombarded him, he hadn’t been able to get out of the shop fast enough.

No one could take Tina’s place as Tessa’s mother. He couldn’t trust another woman with that job. Rick didn’t want another woman in his life. He didn’t want to have those kinds of feelings ever again. It had hurt so much to lose Tina. He couldn’t live through pain like that a second time. Once was enough for him and Tessa. He’d do whatever he could to protect both of them from more suffering.

Frustrated as hell because he would have to go by her business tomorrow, he leaned over to kiss his daughter’s forehead before leaving to go to his own room. Maybe he’d get one of the crew to do it. Either way, it would be a short visit and that would be the end of it.

Before he went to bed he made a detour to the living room and set up the elf band beneath the Christmas tree they’d bought and decorated last night. When Tessa got up in the morning, she’d run in here to find out what the noise was and be delighted.

Now, if he could just get the woman out of his head so he could go to sleep... But that was a joke, because she’d been flitting through his mind—all the amazing parts of her, starting with her smile and the way her blue eyes shimmered.

* * *

At ten the next morning Arney pulled the fire truck in front of the scarred top half of the art gallery. An inspection team from the arson squad was walking around.

When Rick saw Benton, he climbed down from the truck in his gear and walked over to his sandy-haired friend. He and his wife, Deanna, an attractive brunette, had two children, one of whom was Tessa’s friend Julie at kindergarten. They’d all become close during Tina’s illness.

Benton patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks to your tip, we know this is the work of the same arsonist who started that department-store blaze three weeks ago. Underneath that pile of canvases, he’d filled a plastic milk carton with gasoline and made a wick with a piece of shirt. It was a slow burner, but did enough damage to ignite the whole thing.”