Page 150 of A Merry Mountain Christmas

Don’t read too much into it, Mary. Maybe he just wanted to see Ms. Liu.

There’s a strange, unpleasant prickle inside me as I remember the way Aidan’s teacher looked at Jace before we left. She literally ran after him, almost tripping on a stray Hot Wheels toy some kid must have dropped, and presented himwith her number, written on the back of a vocabulary flashcard in purple crayon. Now, how would the children learn the spelling of “soccer”?

You’re just jealous, the voice accused.

It wasn’t wrong. Ms. Liu was young and beautiful and, aside from the Hot Wheels incident, graceful.Cool.If my attraction to Jace was inappropriate before, it’s even more so now.

And stronger.

“I still haven’t given Jace his ankylosaurus painting,” Aidan says, jolting me out of my thoughts.

“You’ll have plenty of time, honey,” I assure him. “Although I’m not sure how long he’ll be able to stay. You might only be able to get in one round of the game.”

He considers this. “I’ll have to teach him the rules,” he says. “That might take a while. You know, I think I’ll save his painting for Christmas too,” he says. “It’ll look better in a frame.”

I wasn’t so sure Jace would want to see us—me—again after today, although I still planned to offer a much better apology than the one I’d whispered in the hallway of Thomas Edison Elementary. Aidan would be with Tom and Ruth this weekend. Maybe I could ask Jace for a private meeting.

Something shivers through me, and I catch myself darting a glance in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, his red truck is behind us. Even from this distance, I catch a glimmer of his impossible blue eyes, and that shiver pools into something hotter in my core.

Good grief, this inappropriate attraction has turned me into a madwoman.

“You’re not going to make Jace go away again, are you, Mom?”

I heave a sigh. “I’m going to try not to.”

He spends the rest of the ride telling me about the ankylosaurus’s tail club, which I could probably write adissertation on at this point, but I nod along and listen as intently as if it were new information. I’m just glad he’s feeling better. We’re pulling into the driveway when Maisie calls over Bluetooth.

I answer it on my cell phone, not wanting to overwhelm Aidan with the noise. My impulse is not to answer at all, because Jace is just a minute or so behind us (he got stuck at a light), and I’m kind of pissed at her and Molly, though they must have had a good reason for not answering the school’s calls.

“Is Aidan okay?” she asks in a quick burst. I can hear Molly in the background.

“He’s fine,” I reassure her. “He’s with me now. What happened to you two?”

What follows is a largely incoherent story about Tea of Fortune. Apparently, Dottie asked Maisie to bring in a few puppies for an adoption meet and greet in Tea of Fortune’s event room, and Molly joined her so she could write about it for the local paper (one of her many freelance gigs). The idea was for Tina to do a funny-slash-sweet fortune reading for the puppies. Unfortunately, Tina had to go home early with a headache, so Josie did the honors. She predicted the first puppy would spend fourteen years in Maisie’s shelter before dying of old age, the second would be run over by a bus, and the third would bite one of the watching guests—specifically, an old woman wearing pants covered in hamburger pictures—in the butt. Someone tried to steal the second puppy, yelling that they’d save it, while the first fluffball ran into the tearoom, got into a plate of “cleansing” sandwiches, and proceeded to poop all over the floor. Meanwhile, Josie’s third prediction came true, and the woman with the hamburger butt started shouting about lawsuits until Dottie calmed her down with a gift certificate. It had been mayhem, and Maisie and Molly had helped get everything undercontrol—an hours-long process. Their phones had been ignored in the ruckus.

Mabel had apparently spent longer than usual with Maisie’s husband, Jack, at his family’s brewery, leading to a number of baby memes getting posted on Buchanan Brewery’s Instagram account. (Two out of three of Jack’s sisters also have babies, and it just so happened that they were all there this afternoon.)

I watch in the rearview mirror as Jace parks at the curb. I find myself feeling a pulse of gratitude that he didn’t park behind me because I have a clear escape path if I need it, which is insane because (a) it’s my house, and (b) this inappropriate attraction is probably not something I can outrace.

“Mom,” Aidan calls out. “Come on. Hang up on them. Jace is here.”

“Aidan, that’s rude,” I chide. But he’s also right, so I say, “Sorry, I have to go.”

Maisie squawks, and Molly says, “I heard that! Jace is there? What color panties do you have on?” and I’m very relieved to hang up.

We get out of the car, and Jace meets us at the stoop, where a large Amazon box is waiting. Thank God. If the game hadn’t shown up on schedule, Aidan would have flipped out. They could have played a different game, of course, but this one has become fixed in his mind.

Aidan picks it up, beaming. “I get to open this now because it’s not a Christmas present,” he tells Jace. “Remember when I told you that Mom left our game with Nana and Gramps? She said they need toys for when I stay with them.”

I glance up at Jace. “He stays there every other weekend. It’s a sort of—”

He nods as if to say he gets it. Actually, I’ll bet he does. This man has been far more understanding than I deserve, and perhaps it’s time to tell him so. My inclination was to wait untilAidan’s in Charlotte, but if I put off the apology, I might chicken out.

I smile at Aidan. “Why don’t you go inside and open that, honey? You can get it set up, and Jace’ll be right in.”

Aidan gives me a suspicious look. “The last time you talked to him alone, it didn’t go so well. I’m not sure this is a good idea. You probably need supervision.”

“I just have to apologize to him,” I say, feeling Jace’s eyes burning into me. “Nothing bad. I promise. Then I’ll make you both hot cocoa.” Maybe I can also get him to eat something. I suspect he left his lunch untouched.

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