Page 40 of Wounded Christmas Wolf
Holly found her gaze slipping back to Jace, time and again. The snow collecting in his hair. The way his eyes flickered gold when he looked at her, hot and hungry looks.
In another lull between customers, Holly collected the trash and used paper cocoa cups.
“You know what I’m thinking?” she said to Jace when he returned from stowing the chainsaw. “Let’s play hooky this afternoon. Dad can stop hiding out in the barn tinkering with the tractor or whatever he’s doing in there, and watch the tree farm for a while. Noelle’s flying in tomorrow afternoon, and I haven’t done any Christmas shopping at all yet. And it’s going to be absolutely lovely in town with the falling snow.”
“Is it safe enough to drive in this weather?” Jace asked.
“Oh, yeah, there’s not nearly enough snow to be dangerous. We’ll want to be back before dark, that’s all.” She held out a mittened hand, and Jace took it in his with a wondering expression. His fingers curled around hers, perfectly normal and human. “Come on, let’s go tell Dad we’re taking the farm truck and see if he needs anything from town, and then let’s go soak up some small town Christmas spirit.”
JACE
Jace foundthat watching Holly drive in the snow was unexpectedly fascinating, even hot. She really was good at it, steering the old farm truck deftly while hot air blasted from the vents and Christmas carols played on a car radio so old it still had a tape deck.
Of course, by now Jace could have watched her do absolutely anything for hours. Filling out the farm business ledger. Painting fence posts. It didn’t really matter, as long as Holly was doing it.
She had swapped the beat-up old tan coat she wore on the farm for a smart white puffy coat with a hood surrounded by snowy fluff, which made her look like the main character in one of those Hallmark Christmas movies that Jace definitely wasn’t the target audience for. (If Holly wanted to watch one, he would make popcorn and curl up under a blanket with her. In fact, that sounded wonderful.) She had a matching white knit hat pulled over her brown hair.
It made him realize that he was seeing City Holly for the first time. This must be what she had been like in her big cityjob. It made that image of her seem a little more real, somehow.
He kept one hand near her the entire time. His gloves were off, his hands still completely human. When she didn’t need both hands on the steering wheel in the slippery conditions, she laced her fingers through his.
The drive felt much shorter with Holly to talk to than it had on his first trip out to the farm. As Holly turned off the highway into downtown Pine Junction, Jace found himself marveling at how strange it felt to be back here just a few days later.
He hadn’t really been in a position to appreciate the way the town had turned out all their decorations for the holidays. Jace had been focused on other things, like finding a job and a place to sleep. He’d been seeing the seedier side of the town, the bus stations and the shelter and employment agency.
Now, when Holly turned into the downtown, he felt as if he was seeing it with entirely new eyes.
Lights sparkled along both sides of the street, gracing storefronts and wound around lampposts. There were wire-frame reindeer spaced along one side of the street, lit up with sparkling strings of fairy lights, and the large concrete planters that probably held flowers in the summer were now hosting small artificial trees in a variety of colors: green, silver, pink, blue.
Head-in parking lined both sides of the street. Holly pulled in and parked, and they got out.
The heavier snow from earlier had settled into a light shower, drifting down on everything and gracing the scene with winter wonderland magic. You couldn’t create a scene like this for a movie, Jace thought. You’d have to use fake snow, and it wouldn’t have that perfect, drifting quality.
“There are box stores out on the highway if we can’t findwhat we need here,” Holly said, clasping her hands together. “But I love shopping downtown at Christmastime. It just feels so satisfying, somehow. All the small businesses roll out the red carpet for the holidays.” She took Jace’s hand again. He’d put his gloves back on when they left the truck, but her fingers settled in as if they belonged there, and his hand remained human-shaped as far as he could tell. He was so captivated by the feeling that he almost missed her next words. “Come on, let’s start at the candy store. I don’t know if we’ll actually buy anything, but it smells so good, and they always have sipping chocolate around the holidays.”
“You mean hot cocoa?”
“Oh no. Wait until you taste it. There’s nothing else quite like it.”
She led him past storefronts featuring festive displays of books, toys, gifts. One store called Pine Junction Hobbies featured a model railroad in its display window, and Jace paused for a moment to look, overwhelmed with sudden memories of a toy store back in Georgia that used to have one of those. He would gaze at it through the window and daydream. Of course he never could have had it. Even if he’d somehow managed to get a gift other than the cheap toys and chocolate that all the group home kids got at Christmas, he had nowhere to set it up, and no way to carry it, when all his belongings had to fit in a single bag that he could take with him wherever he went.
Holly paused while he looked. “Do you like model trains?”
The urge to just say no was very strong. Fend off the question before it could cut open his chest and expose the softer places inside.No, they’re stupid. A kid thing.
But he couldn’t disappoint Holly’s soft green-gold eyes.
“Yeah, I used to want one when I was a kid.”
The words were shockingly hard to say. But then they were out, and there was no condemnation, no laughter, just agentle sympathy as she squeezed his hand, perhaps understanding some of what he hadn’t said.
Snowflakes settled in the wisps of hair escaping from under her hat. He had never seen anything so beautiful as Holly in the snow.
“You know, there’s a train for the model village,” she said. “We never set it up anymore, because the toy village was really more Merry’s thing, and Noelle’s son isn’t old enough for the train yet. But I can see if I can find the boxes when we get home.”
It took him a moment to find the words to reply. “That .... that would be great.”
Holly squeezed his hand and led him onward. He stumbled behind her, aware of some part of him that wanted to claw his way out of his skin and escape this beautiful, idyllic downtown and the family Christmas beginning to close around him like the jaws of a trap.
