Page 2 of The Mountain Man's Christmas Angel
Mary laughed. “I know you do, Mar. But Ju Ju is busy.”
“That’s okay. I always have time for my Marley. And look, Mar, we have a new friend! His name is Wyatt.”
Marley cocked her head to the side and stared intensely at Wyatt who looked like he wanted to sink into the ground and never resurface. “We love new friends, don’t we?”
Marley nodded shyly as she waved her pudgy hand at Wyatt. Wyatt remained quiet but nodded politely, offering a small wave back. I set the toddler down who ran to her mom. “Nice to meet you, Wyatt.” Mary said before picking up Marley and heading towards the kitchen.
“Everyone is friendly around here. You’ll love it.” I reassured him once again.
“Are…are there a lot of kids here?” Wyatt asked and his question took me by surprise, as did his voice. It crackled, as if it were a hard subject for him and the sadness, I saw in his eyes was deep.
“About twenty right now. Most are in school. It gets pretty loud in here around dinner time. We call the hours from five to seven the witching hours. Dinner, bath, bed, it’s all chaos. I’m sure you know. You must have a family at home or?—”
“No.” His sharp tone cut me off, and I clamped my mouth shut.
“Sorry, that was a bit too personal of me.” I offered a smile and took a step back, clearing my throat in the process. “Okay, team, follow me to the back room. That’s where we’ll be working today.” I said to the group.
With a deep breath and a small pep talk chant in my head, I focused on the mission at hand. Getting Christmas ready for these kids.
Not worrying about some mountain man who volunteered despite his not so friendly attitude.
CHAPTER TWO
Wyatt
The volunteer groupfollowed the curvy woman, but I couldn’t bring myself to take a step. Between the feelings this place stirred inside me, to the woman I wanted to throw over my shoulder and carry home, I was a mashed-up mix of nonsense.
My therapist would have a field day if he could see me.
In fact, this entire thing was his stupid idea, and he was going to hear from me about how it didn’t work.
A few heads turned my way. I must’ve looked a fool standing there.Go to the door! You’ll never see any of these people again.
No, you came here for a reason. Stay and see it through.
Heal yourself.
Heal, heal, heal, HEAL.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to erase that word from the fucking English language.
I was so sick of hearing it.
Twelve years had passed, and I still had yet toheal,or at least like how they said. Who were they anyway and why did I have to play by their rules? Why couldn’t I live by my own?
There was no way my soul would ever fully heal. Not when my world shattered in a second. So abruptly. So unexpectedly. And so harshly.
Without wasting another second, I jogged towards the back of the group to catch up. I needed to stick it out. if not for me, then for the kids here who still had a chance at happiness.
And also, forher. Jewels.
I didn’t know who she was, but it didn’t matter. Seeing her was all it took.
She was the balm for my soul, the healer of my heart, and I vowed the moment I saw her to never let her go. Now, if only I could convince myself to actually make a move.
When I walked into the backroom, everyone gathered around the center table. Boxes upon boxes sat in tall piles, on the few tables around the room, on the floor, and even on the chairs. I’d never seen so many boxes in my life, at least not in one area. It was a bit disorganized, and the urge to neaten it clawed at my insides. I liked everything tidy and organized and in its rightful place.
“These are all the donations we got along with the gifts we bought for the children’s Christmas. We need everything unpacked and sorted. We want to set it up like a store by putting all like items put together. Then we can pick items out for each child before wrapping and tagging them. I figured if we all pitched in, we could get it done within a couple of days. Sound good?”
