“My mom’s. Every year we got her a different building until she could build a whole town. Look.” He reached inside a large plastic ice cream container and took out a tiny LED light. “Put this inside and it lights up.”
“Pretty. Where do you normally put it?”
“On the long table in the hall.”
Hope held the porcelain carefully in her hands and looked up at him, dismay turning her lips downward. “But you can’t enjoy it there. You only see it as you pass through.” She looked around and then her eyes lit up. “Look. What about the two tables we pushed together?”
“It’s big enough.”
“We need a white cloth. Just a minute.”
She disappeared upstairs and returned with a snowy white towel. He watched as she draped it over the tables and put the schoolhouse down. She stood back and put a finger to her lips, then went back to the box again and again. She went into the kitchen and came back with something in her hand he couldn’t discern, but she tucked it under the towel and before his eyes a hill of snow seemed to appear. Tiny figurines of children followed, punctuated by green bottlebrush-like trees and a snowman in a black top hat. Before he knew it she’d arranged the whole village—church, school, bookshop, houses—along the table, with snowy white hills forming a backdrop.
“How did you do that?”
She beamed. “Do you like it?”
“I do. What’s more, I think my mom will, too. It’s a shame you’re not going to meet her.”
Not meet her...not be here for Christmas Eve and then Christmas morning...it surprised him to realize he wanted her there. He liked having Anna around, but there was something right about Hope being in the house, wandering through the barns. She added something to the place—a sense of sophistication and class that he found he appreciated. And ever since that first day with Cate he’d been able to tell that even when she held back, there was something about the children that she responded to. She was fitting in rather well, considering the hoity-toity photographer who’d arrived only days ago.
Perhaps fitting in too well. Considering lately he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
* * *
Hope saw the look in Blake’s eyes and nerves bubbled in her tummy. She’d seen that look before: a softening of the features, a warming of the eyes, the slight parting of lips. There were times she tried to elicit this precise expression for the camera. Other times she’d seen it in the moments before she’d been kissed.
And Blake was looking at her that way, making her knees turn to jelly and her pulse pound.
Kissing him would not be the smartest move. All it would do was complicate things. This was supposed to be an easy ten days, then off to Gram’s for Christmas and back to her life in Sydney, just as she’d created it. Granted, she’d been thinking about him a lot. Granted, she’d had to move past her own “rules” and face some old demons in order to give him what he wanted for the facility. That had put her out of her comfort zone.
Funny how out of her comfort zone it seemed kind of...well, cozy and right.
But in the end everything would go back to normal—which was Hope looking after Hope and not fretting about everyone else. Not getting involved.
She suspected that kissing Blake was definitely something a girl wouldn’t walk away from without fretting on some level, so she nodded toward the boxes, breaking the spell of the moment while the music station shifted to a horrendous version of “O Holy Night.”
“We should probably put on the rest of the decorations. Are they in this box?”
The warm intensity of his eyes cooled and he stepped back. “Oh, right.” He opened the box and pulled out the bag that had ropes of red and green garland poking out of the top. “This is next.”
It was tacky and cheap and slightly gaudy to Hope’s artist’s eye. Still, it was his tree, his house. And having grown up with Gram she did hold the slightest remnant of knowledge that traditions were not to be messed with—especially on the holidays. She took the first mass of tinsel in her hands and began looping it around the tree in a precise scallop pattern while Blake held the end.
“You’re very exact.”
She frowned and adjusted a swoop of garland. “I like things balanced. If they’re imbalanced they have to be intentionally so, you know?”
“Not exactly. But you’re having fun with it, so go for it.”
He was teasing her now, and she didn’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed.
Together they added ornaments to the tree—cutesy homemade types that were hand-painted or stitched: old-fashioned gingerbread men and knitted skates and bells, red and green boots with paperclips as blades, and gold-shot yarn bells with tiny brass jingle bells dangling from the centre, catching the light of the bulbs.
It was a long way from her red-and-white tree and the delicate glass balls that she had at home.
It was, she realized, a family tree. A tree with years of memories and love. And Blake was here alone. His brother was gone and he was stuck decorating the tree with a stranger.
Well, not exactly a stranger—not anymore. But definitely not family.
She wondered if the tree was up at Gram’s. Wondered what Beckett’s Run looked like, dressed for the holidays. Wondered if Gram had baked Hope’s favorite holiday cookies—the chocolatey ones in powdered sugar.
Good heavens. She was homesick.
“Are you all right?” Blake’s voice brought her back to earth and she realized she was standing holding an ornament, the string looped over her finger.
“Oh. Of course. Just thinking.”
“About what?”
She drew in a breath that was shakier than she liked. “It’s silly, really. I was just remembering Christmas in Beckett’s Run. No matter what was going on in our lives, we always went home for Christmas.”
“Good memories, then?”
She nodded. “Mostly.”
She hung the ornament and saw Blake was holding a small oval one in his hands. His face changed, a mixture of love and pain twisting his features. When he’d hung it gently on the tree she could see it was a photo frame, and when she stepped she closer realized it was black with a big red “C” on it—the logo of the Calgary Flames. Inside the frame was a picture of two boys in oversize jerseys, hockey sticks on the ice, grinning widely for the camera.
Blake and his brother, Brad. Eleven, maybe twelve years old. Blake without the jagged scar down the side of his face, before puberty hit full force. His twin, Brad, looking so much like Blake it was uncanny, but with something different around the eyes and mouth.
She touched her finger to Blake’s figure. “That’s you, right?”
“Not everyone could tell us apart.”
“It’s the eyes and the shape of your mouth. And you’re big as a barn door now, Blake...stands to reason maybe you were a little taller than Brad.”
“I was the better checker,” he said softly, “but Brad had faster hands.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about.” He stared at the photo a while longer. “It is what it is. I miss him every day. But nothing will bring him back. I stopped making those sorts of wishes long ago. Now I just remember.”
“And put this ornament on the tree?”
Blake’s mouth twisted, and once more Hope noticed how the stiffness of his scar pulled his lips slightly. She wondered how horrible it must have been for him as a teen, dealing with that sort of disfiguration. Dealing