Page 64 of Season of Gifts

His eyes flew open on their own.

“Or shall we abide in silence?”Emma, in a black turtleneck and a pale blue shoulder drape thing, stretched her hand in front of him and swiveled the sad napkin cat around.“I confess, I’m more than a bit surprised that you are here and not sitting down to one of Henry’s delicious meals.”

“No homecooked meals tonight.Henry and Alice are out of town.”He swallowed the impulse to put on a happy act.This was Emma; she wouldn’t believe it for a second.“The house feels empty without them in it.”

She hummed agreement, stroking the little cat’s head.“It always does.”

A wave of heat flooded him.His pain was temporary, a few days at most.Hers was forever.“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”

“Be comparing experiences?Pfft.”She pushed the cat aside and took his hand, her wedding ring a solid band against his knuckles.“Jay, you and Henry and Alice are very dear to me.What’s sent you here?A month ago, to the day, I watched the three of you exchange such tender vows.On a night you ought to be celebrating, why is your home empty?”

She remembered.The day wasn’t even hers, and she remembered.He brushed his forehead against their joined hands and took a deep, deep breath.

The story tumbled out, sideways and confused.He wandered ahead of himself and backtracked, the whole mess, all of it—Mom’s heart attack, Henry’s distance, Alice’s work trip, Mrs.Eickhoff’s death, the disaster of their gift calendar, missing his familiar role as fun Uncle Jay.“The last two weeks have just been…” He searched for answers along the back of the bar, the bottles all neatly lined up, labels facing out.“They hurt.”

“And no wonder!”Blue eyes flashed; she squeezed his hand and gently thumped the bar.“When Henry decided against offering classes this month, I expected he intended a honeymoon for the three of you at home.The universe has cruelly snatched that time away from you, Jay.Of course you grieve it.”

But this wasn’t the right time for his messy emotions.Henry and Alice needed him to—hell, nothing.They needed him to nothing.To not need them for a while and take care of his own damn self.

“Being upset doesn’t make you a bad person, and it doesn’t make you care any less about what your spouses are going through.”Lips pinched, Emma delicately puffed air out her nose.“I don’t know the details of why they’ve made the choices they have, but I do know, without doubt, that your service to them does not require you to deny your feelings and your pain.The opposite, I imagine—if something is going horribly wrong, it is your responsibility to speak up.”

He opened his mouth, and she waved her finger at him.

“Yes, even in the midst of complications.Yes, even if it makes you feel selfish to ask for more.They would want to know, Jay—even if neither of them can do anything in this moment to solve the problem other than listen.Being heard is sometimes all we need to keep us going for another day.”She lifted her hand from his.“Have you ordered dinner yet?May I join you?”

Dizzy, wishing he could play that advice track again from the start, he managed a nod.“I’d like that.I did order, but—”

Amelia settled on her elbow in front of them.“Booth just opened.”With one finger, she pointed down the bar toward their regular spot.“I can have dinner sent over.Emma, I went ahead and put in a ticket for one of your favorites.”

“Thank you, Amelia.That was thoughtful of you.”

The women’s smile-and-nod exchange for sure meant he was being handled, but it was funny how letting all the words out had made space inside him for other things, like appreciating a bartender who knew when to call for backup.And food.Jiminy Christmas, was he ravenous.

He slid off the chair, slung his coat over a shoulder, and offered Emma his arm.“Shall we?”

She pressed her head to his bicep.“Good man.Amelia?A champagne toast as well, please.We’re celebrating.”

The crowded bar settled around him like a well-sealed patch, strong enough to get him back on the road and moving forward.Things just needed to hold until Saturday.That wasn’t so long.

Chapter thirty-four

Alice

Retracingherstepsinthe design space and the physical space yielded zilch.Zippo.Nada, nothing, pure frustration, what the hell was she missing?!

Alice’s team had done stellar work over the last year, improving the versatility of industrial presses for metal stamping and offering cold tubular stamping superior to extrusion.The factory could flip from commercial to retail jobs with minimal setup, machine parts in-house, and go straight from manufacturing to assembly.When the metal press at the front of the line wasn’t misaligning.

Alice could definitively say the system provided by her team held no defect whatsoever.The installation matched bang-on with the design.The system gave all green lights on the test punches.The press should’ve been turning blanks into perfectly formed shapes that would transform into high-end appliances shipping out the loading docks at the other end of the factory.

But saying no problem existed didn’t fix the problem; that didn’t make the client happy.That didn’t mean she could degrease her hands and fly back to Boston.By midafternoon, it was a guaranteed conclusion that she’d be in Sioux Falls another day.

The only bright spot had been her morning messaging with Jay.She’d sent him a quick love note when she woke, not expecting a response; his day started later than hers in any time zone.But he’d messaged back while she was toweling off from her shower, and she’d suggested video, and that had maybe gotten more handsy than she’d intended, but damn.At least she’d started her day with a bang and sent Jay off to his shower with a few added instructions.

Instructions.

The system was shut down while she crawled all over it.But when it was running, the entire machining process was hands-off, overseen by a human but following software guidance.They’d demoed the process for her yesterday, but she’d been watching the misfire, not the screen.

“Wade!”She jogged off the floor and into the conference room they’d been given as headquarters.“Got an idea.I need access to the software set, all of it.”Writing code was not her thing.But if she could find an error there, and the system functioned optimally once it was corrected, she’d be a damn hero.Her company wouldn’t be on the hook for the losses incurred by shutting down to fix a malfunctioning machine they’d designed.Millions, maybe.“I don’t think we’re at fault.”

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