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Callan planted a tiny kiss on my sealed mouth, and my eyes rounded in worry. I turned my head, "at least let me go gargle or something."
"Your breath is fine." Callan's eyes widened now. "Oh, is this one of those things like how you're never supposed to turn down a mint? Is it me?" He covered his own mouth with a hand.
Through my hand, I assured him it wasn't him.
"Now I'm paranoid," he said, and ducked under the covers. "But maybe down here it won't matter." He slid down beneath the covers, along the length of my body. I started to protest, but within seconds had lost the ability to do it with much force.
"I do need to get going," I moaned.
"I'll be fast."
I made a noise that sounded somewhere between 'okay' and just 'ohhhh,' and Callan was as good as his word. Minutes later, I was sliding from the bed to stand on shaking legs. "I don't know how you did that," I said, my skin still heated from his touch.
Callan lay with his arms behind his head, a satisfied grin on his face. "I'll show you tonight if you come back," he said.
I wondered if it would be better to try to put a little distance here, not to dive in too quickly. But every cell in my body wanted to spend as much time as I could with Callan, and before I could talk myself out of it, I said, "Okay. What do you have in mind?"
Callan's face broke into an incredible grin, his dark eyes gleaming and his perfect teeth on full display, just like in that underwear ad. "Well, I have the girls until about five-thirty," he said. "But I thought maybe after that we could go visit the Half-Cat."
"The distillery?" I tried to weigh the pros and cons quickly. Pros included being with Callan, spending more time with Callan, getting to touch Callan… cons included potentially being seen with someone I was not supposed to be seeing socially, potentially losing my job, potentially ruining my life.
"Yeah, the distillery. You up for it?"
I had never been good at pro and con lists. "Sure!"
"So just come over whenever you're done. If you get here in time to see the girls, I know they'd be excited to see you."
I wrinkled my nose, thinking about the way I’d left last time I’d seen them. Callan had been angry at me. Maybe it’d be better if I didn’t get between him and his nieces, if they kept their relationship separate. "You sure?"
"Definitely."
A warm happiness spread slowly through my chest, and I took a quick shower in Callan's bathroom, thinking about how nice it was here in Singletree—with Callan, and the girls…
"What are you humming?" Callan asked from outside the fogged glass door.
Had I been humming? "I don't know," I said. "I was humming? I didn't even realize it."
"Yeah, and I think it was ‘Winter Wonderland.’”
"Impossible. I never hum Christmas music. I have a strict policy." I realized he might be right. I did have the song running through my mind, now that I thought about it. What was happening to me?
"Okay, if you say so."
A few minutes later, Callan was sending me out the door with a cup of coffee and a piece of toast. "I just have time to run to the hotel to change and get to the house we're filming today. I'll see you later!"
"Have a good day, dear," Callan said in a sing-song voice. He stood at the door until I had pulled away and could no longer see him at the front of his big house.
* * *
The day went smoothly for filming the second house. The homeowner, a cute older woman just outside town, had a farmhouse and no unusual house pets—at least none that the crew and I had to contend with as we were shooting the very festively decorated house.
Filene Easter didn't favor the plastic elves, snowmen and flashing lights that so many holiday fans seemed to insist increased their cheer, and I was glad for it. In fact, in the little farmhouse, decorated with pinecones and simple trees, hand-knitted stockings and the beautiful homemade wreaths Mrs. Easter said she made herself, I saw a glimmer of a holiday décor I could possibly get behind. If I were going to change my mind about the holiday, that was. And I was not. Not after all this time.
To me, Christmas was a painful reminder of everything that had gone wrong in my life from an early age. It was better ignored. Other people could have it.
"I want you to have this," Mrs. Easter said as we packed up to leave her house that afternoon. The old woman handed me one of the prettiest wreaths, woven in a dark brown wood with just a touch of red foliage tucked in here and there. There was a slim gold filament peeking out in a few spots, but otherwise no sign of glitter or glitz. Just a beautiful handmade wreath.
"No," I said, staring openmouthed between Mrs. Easter and the gift. "This must take so much time to make. I couldn't…"
