Page 28 of Single All the Way

“You are rare, Ben Holloway.” I let out my breath and nearly wilted with relief that my bedtime was considerably closer than I’d thought. “Thank you for that too. My debt load increases even more.” I kept my voice light for the last bit, not wanting to incite yet another debate of whether I owed him or not. I did. No question. “I’m helping you clean though. You need to sleep too.”

“If you insist.” He turned on the sink and poured in dish soap. “The pans need to be hand-washed. I’ll wash; you dry?”

“Deal.”

As he stacked pans and mixing bowls by the sink, I wiped down the counter. “You really think Sky won’t run off again?”

“I’d put today in the not-a-good-experience category for her. I really don’t think she will.”

She’d been extra clingy and full of hugs this evening, which I didn’t mind at all. I’d needed them as much as she had.

“Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. It’s going to be special,” he said.

I held in a groan.

Ben glanced over at me and chuckled. “It is. You’ll see. My kids love it, and I think yours will too. Then we’ll go to the tree-lighting ceremony in the evening.”

My kids did love the ceremony, but I hadn’t even thought about going yet. We’d had too much happening for me to be able to plan more than one day at a time. “Yeah,” I said on an exhalation. “Good idea.”

“That kicks off the holiday season. We’ll keep the kids so Christmased up, Skyler won’t have time to think about her worries.”

“Ugh.” The word slipped out before I could stop it.

“I know you’re not feeling it,” he said as he rinsed a saucepan. “I understand that more than you know.”

That made me laugh. “Okay, Ghost of Christmas Present.” I took the pan from him and dried it.

Instead of grinning, he went serious. “After Leeann died, the last thing I was up for was Christmas cheer. For years.”

I nodded. Blake’s death had definitely had that effect on me, but that was only a fraction of why I wasn’t busting out the red and green.

“When I bought this place, I very deliberately decided to make the holidays a magical time for my kids, even though I wasn’t feeling it.”

I eyed him sideways because I had a suspicion his “not feeling it” was different from mine.

“Really,” he insisted. “My heart was still heavy from Leeann’s death. My parents started their tradition of cruising over the holidays. I was overwhelmed from moving out here, being a single dad, building the clinic, all the things.”

“All the things,” I repeated, grasping on to something I felt in my soul. “Yes. What did you do? How’d you make yourself be holly jolly?”

“Faked it.”

I shot him another skeptical look as I put a pan in the cabinet.

“I made a list of holiday activities. Tree ceremony on the square. Cutting our own tree down and decorating it. Christmas concert at the high school. Cookies and candy making. Letters to Santa. Gingerbread houses.”

The thought of adding even half of those to my to-do list made me want to curl up in a ball and weep. During this time of year, making sure my kids had a reasonably nutritional dinner was almost more than I could handle. To me, the holidays meant a filled-to-the-brim schedule at the salon, requisite holiday parties and dinners, school programs, and gift buying. This year I’d be managing it all for the first time without Kizzy’s help.

I kept my concerns to myself and tried to put a lid on my bone-deep dread. “That’s a big list. Obviously you made it through.” I forced lightness into my voice.

“A weird thing happened. About halfway through, I didn’t have to fake it anymore. Seeing my kids’ joy?” He shook his head and chuckled. “There’s nothing better.”

“How do you handle all of that on top of your clinic? And, you know, feeding them and getting them to school on time.”

“I get help when I need it. Colby, my office manager, goes above and beyond when I ask her. Berty’s a godsend year-round but especially in December. She loves it as much as the rest of us, so that helps.” He scrubbed the last pan. “I suspect Skyler will get so caught up in all the holiday stuff, she won’t have time to think about Kizzy’s house or the way things used to be.”

“I hope you’re right.”

As Ben handed off another pan and I took it, he bumped his hip into mine. “We’ll get you into it too if you just give it a chance, Ems.”

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