A Kiss, A Kid And A Mistletoe Bride

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That was why she’d come home. To find that joy she’d lost, the joy she believed in her heart Milo needed.

What did she want?

And where did Joe Carpenter and his son fit into the new life she was shaping?

She wanted the best Christmas she could make, and being around Joe made her sparkle and feel alive. Made her look forward to the next hour or day, when she hadn’t looked forward to anything since her mother’s death.

Being around Joe made her feel like the Christmas cactus, all tight pink buds waiting to burst forth.

If he decided to take a pass on an impulsively issued invitation, she couldn’t blame him.

But as her attention focused on the cactus buds, the truth slapped her in the face.

She wanted him and Oliver to ring her doorbell. She wanted them in this old house, sharing the tradition of arranging ornaments to hide the bare spots on the tree. She wanted to see them spoon out heaping bowls of jambalaya and hear them sing carols around the ancient upright piano.

She wanted all the corny, traditional trappings of the holiday, all the gaudy color and glitter and sound. She longed to surround herself with heaps of packages wrapped in shiny red-and-gold paper and elaborately tied bows.

For whatever reason, she wanted Joe and Oliver to be part of that richness, not left by themselves to celebrate Christmas in a hotel on the highway.

“Hope these damn shrimp taste as good as they look.” Milo held a glistening shrimp up to the light and examined it critically before adding so casually that Gabrielle was immediately alerted, “Didn’t know you know Joe Carpenter?”

She knew what he was doing. Joe Carpenter wasn’t the real issue. Her dad wanted to talk. Like a cat stalking a bird, he’d sneak up on what he really wanted to talk about and, sooner or later, pounce.

That’s when the feathers would fly.

She could wait.

Because Milo wasn’t happy with her. She was pretty sure he was ready to launch into a lecture about her return to Bayou Bend, and she was in no hurry to tangle over this particular subject with a stubborn Irishman.

Double dose of hardheaded, is what she called him.

“So how do you happen to know Carpenter?” He plopped a shrimp back onto the heap.

“It’s a small town, Pa. Why wouldn’t I know him?”

“Bayou Bend’s small, all right. Folks know everybody’s business more than they should. Seems funny, though, you knowing Joe. He’s older than you, and he left town before you were in high school.”

“No, he left his senior year. I was in tenth grade. I used to see him around town. That’s all.” She wasn’t about to tell her dad about that long-ago night. Harmless as it had been, it felt private. Special.

“That’s right. You were only a sophomore. I’d forgotten.” His frown disappeared. “So you saw him at Tibo’s and invited him? That’s all?”

Puzzled, Gabrielle glanced at her dad. “Sure. Why? Is inviting him a problem?”

“No.” Milo poked at the shrimp, cleared his throat. “Just—oh, Joe Carpenter’s had a hard life, least that’s what I’ve heard. I wouldn’t want you getting hurt, that’s all.”

Gabrielle avoided addressing the implied question. “It was a friendly invitation to new neighbors, nothing more. Is there a problem?”

“Nope. Not at all. Joe’s welcome in my house.”

“Maybe not in other houses?”

“Probably not in a lot of houses,” Milo agreed.

Joe’s tough, don’t-give-a-damn exterior made it difficult to see him as vulnerable to the town’s opinion, but her heart ached as she imagined Joe with his son, seeking shelter from Bayou Bend’s coldness. He needed a friend.

She could be a friend.

“Here, Pa. Your scalpel.” Gabrielle handed him the deveining knife. Poking her father lightly on the shoulder, she studied him surreptitiously.

Usually thin, he’d lost even more weight since she’d last visited.

“Thanks, honey.” He ran the knife down the back spine of the shrimp, discarding the vein on a paper.

“Want help?”

“Nope.”

Thinking of the conversation the day before at the tree lot, Gabrielle added, “Didn’t know you’d had Joe Carpenter to dinner.”

“Not recently.” Milo pitched the shrimp into the colander, picked up another. “And it wasn’t exactly a dinner party, for your information, missy.”

“You’re making me curious, Pa.”

“Well, we know what curiosity did to the cat.”

Gabrielle opened the refrigerator and found the mushrooms and red onions she’d sliced earlier. Digging around the overloaded interior, she plucked out bags of lettuces and endive. “I can’t help being interested.”

“Be interested. That’s fine.” He ignored her whuff of exasperation.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” Gabby tilted her head.

“Not my place to. If you’re so interested, ask Joe. It’s his business. If he wants you to know, he can tell you. I already told you Joe and his son were welcome here.” Holding up the knife and using it as a pointer, he stopped her midsyllable. “And that’s all I’m going to say about that, Gabrielle, so don’t go poking around trying to make me tell you, hear?”

“We’ll see.” From under lowered lashes, she glanced at her dad.

He groaned. “I know what that means. You’re going to pester me until you winkle out what you want to know, aren’t you?”

“Probably. After all, I learned from the master. I didn’t grow up a lawyer’s daughter without picking up a few tricks.”

He shook his head, grinning back at her. “My sins are coming back to haunt me. And speaking of coming back—”

Interrupting him, a tiger-striped cat thudded onto the counter.

“Down, Cletis!” Flapping her hand, Gabrielle made frantic shoo-shoo motions at him. “Take your greedy self off this counter this instant. If you know what’s good for you.”

Cocking a hind leg and licking it, Cletis mewed inquisitively, “Mrrrr?”

“Yes, you, mister. I mean it. Down. Now.”

Working his head under a paper bag lying on the counter, he made himself as invisible as twenty pounds of fur-covered creature could.

“Sorry, buster, I can see you.” Gabrielle hoisted the cat off the counter and took out a saucer from the cabinet.

His attempt to hide from her was no more successful than hers had been as she knelt at Joe Carpenter’s well-shod feet yesterday. An errant sympathy for Cletis moved her to swipe a piece of sausage from the jambalaya.

Chopping up bits of sausage, she used her hip and leg to keep him on the floor even as he chirped and twined himself around her legs. “Here, beast.” She placed the saucer on the floor and stooped to scratch him between the ears. “You are one spoiled fat boy.”

Cletis slurped and gnawed enthusiastically.

Milo was suspiciously quiet.

Kneading the cat’s head, Gabrielle glanced up at her dad. “You’ve been letting him on the counter, haven’t you, Pa?”

“Once in a while.”

Cletis nibbled her thumb as she started to stand up. “Hah. Every night is my guess.” She could understand. The cat was company for her dad. “Lord, he’s gained weight while you’ve lost at least ten pounds. You’re feeding him and not making meals for yourself, just nibbling from the refrigerator and counter, not sitting down for a real dinner, right? It’s a good thing I came home to take care of you.”

Milo thwacked the spoon on the edge of the pot. “That’s what I want to talk to you about, missy.”

“And what’s that?” Gabrielle rested her arms gently around her dad’s bony shoulders. As she’d thought, the discussion about Joe was a red herring. Push had finally come to shove.

“This damn fool notion you have. That you have to look after me. What makes you think I need any help? I have most of my hair, my hearing and, with bifocals, I see pretty damn well.” He slapped the spoon on the counter.

Cletis looked up hopefully.

“You’re not taking care of yourself, Pa. I can see that. You look worse than when I came home when you were in the hospital. You haven’t bounced back from your surgery.”

“It was minor surgery, and Doc Padgett says I’m fine. I feel fine. So I’m fine, Gabrielle. This nonsense about selling your business and moving back to Bayou Bend is—” He frowned, twirled the spoon between his fingers. Rice grains speckled the counter. “Honey, I love you. You know that. And I’m pleased as punch you’re home. For a while.”

A sharp pang whipped through her. She went motionless, stunned by the unexpected pain and sense of rejection.

“Now, don’t look at me like that.” He patted her hand. “I’m doing fine. We should have talked over this decision of yours before you leaped headfirst into this kind of change.”

Gabrielle decided to be as blunt as he had been. “Pa, I don’t like the way you look. Your face has all the color of a banker’s suit. I think you’re sick—”

“Damn it, missy. I was in the hospital for three weeks before Thanksgiving. I lost my appetite, that’s all.” He scowled at her. “I was a skinny guy even before my surgery.”

“And I wouldn’t have known you were having surgery if Taylor Padgett hadn’t called me.”

“I’m right annoyed with that boy, too.”

Taylor Padgett was thirty-six years old and had been practicing in Bayou Bend ever since he’d finished medical school. “Why?” she asked with exaggerated patience.

“I didn’t want him bothering you.”

“Bothering me? Bothering me?” Pacing in a circle, she waved her arms in frustration. “Heaven forbid that my aged father should bother me. I certainly wouldn’t want to miss out on my busy social schedule because my father was in the hospital.”

He picked up another shrimp and sliced it down the back. “You’re worrying too much, Gabrielle. And I may be sixty-four years old, but I’m not aged, so don’t get sassy.” Head down, his fists balancing him on the counter, he stopped, sighed. “Somehow you got it in your head that I can’t manage alone since your mama died.”

“Pa, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Gabrielle rested her cheek against his paper-thin one. She remembered too well her panic at the sight of her strong, bullheaded dad surrounded by tubes and IVs. “I want you to get well, to be your old ornery self.”

He snapped his head up and went back to deveining shrimp with a vengeance. “Then don’t worry me any more with this idiotic plan of sacrificing your life to look after me, Gabrielle Marie. You’re a good girl, and you mean well, but, honey, I’m fine. I don’t need you here to baby-sit me.”