Page 34 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

Now, I don’t know what to do with myself. My chest rises and falls heavily under my jacket, like my body thinks it needs to take a deep breath to prepare itself for something.

“You walk surprisingly quietly for someone so”—she pauses, her eyes grazing my neck, shoulders, chest, and arms so slowly and deliberately I can almost feel their touch—“not quiet-looking.”

Her sentence tails off almost into a whisper. A breathy whisper that makes me wonder what else I could do that might make her talk that way.

Her comment also brings an amused smile to my lips. “How does someone looknot quiet?”

She finally drops her hand from the end of her nose to use it to point at me from the top of my hat to the soles of my sneakers. “By looking the exact opposite of a tiny quiet mouse.”

I can’t suppress a chuckle any longer. And it snaps me out of my Natalie-induced stupor.

Moving back from such close proximity feels like the most unnatural thing I’ve ever done. But the thing that would come naturally to me at the moment would be a dangerous idea for all concerned. And might, quitedeservedly, get me a slap across the face. I mean, it’s not like she’s not been clear she doesn’t like me. You can’t get much clearer thanI don’t like you.

I step around her. “Your nose okay? Or do you need me to make ice packs again?”

And now, as I set my pine tree down next to the one she put at the back of the stage, I’m thinking about pressing the ice-filled tea towel against her ankle as she sat on my sofa three nights ago.

Was it really only three nights ago?

Man, I feel like I’ve been teasing this woman about how annoying she is since we were in kindergarten. It’s just about the most normal thing in the world.

And she is abitannoying.

And she definitely doesn’t like me.

So…

I rub my hands together. “I hate to tell you this, but I have about as much artistic skill in my body as that mop does.” I point to a stack of cleaning materials propped against a wall next to a bucket of murky water.

“Here.” She picks up two small buckets of paint and holds them toward me at arm’s length. Presumably to make sure I don’t get too close again. “Brown and green. It’s easy.”

“The original ones were fancier than just two colors.” I nod at the pile of charred trees stacked with all the other burned remains waiting to be trashed.

“How about you start with these and work your way up.”

“Bet that’s what you say to the six-year-olds.”

“Not at all.” Her voice has dropped ever so slightly back toward that husky tone. “They can manage all the colorson the first try.”

This woman sure does give good banter. And she sure does make me smile inconveniently often.

I shake my head and sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.”

I reach to take the cans from her, making a real effort not to make contact with her hands, but still my fingers brush against hers like they just can’t help themselves.

And there’s that feeling in my chest again—a tremor accompanied by heavy breathing.

This time she looks away quickly, like she doesn’t want a repeat of whatever the hell it was that passed between us a moment ago.

“I’ll help you set up a production line,” she says. “Then I’ll work on the front of the mayor’s house. You clearly can’t be trusted with that if you’re panicking about the trees.”

She points to the large shape of the front of a grand house that’s propped up on the other side of the stage. She couldn’t have set our two painting projects farther apart.

“One good thing about the fire damage,” Natalie says, as we walk back and forth taking trees from the pile and standing them up along the back. “You can slosh paint around on the stage as much as you like since it needs to be rebuilt.”

“How long’s the theater been here?”

“Since just after World War Two.”

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