Chapter Thirteen
“Plug her in, let’s see how she looks,” Clara called out from her perch atop the stepladder beside the common room tree. Zane smiled up at her. They’d strung the tree with lights and added a multicolored star with an angel in the center at the top of the tree.
“She? Her? Why do you assume this tree is a woman?” he teased, bending to plug in the lights.
“Because she’s beautiful and will be even more so once she’s all decked out in jewels. No man was ever this beautiful.”
He stood up and looked at the tree, and then at Clara. “Yes, Miss Clara,sheis beautiful.” She was; the blue and white LED lights made Clara’s face glow, but not as much as her happiness did. She was lovely. Like totally, grab her off the ladder and kiss her senseless lovely. Exquisite. Perfect. Adorable. Her cheeks flushed and he realized he was staring. He turned away before he made an awkward situation worse.
“What’s next? Ornaments? Garland?”
“Neither. Hang on.” She hopped off the ladder and raced from the room. Two minutes later she was back with two bulging black garbage bags. She held them aloft and declared, “Now, this.”
“Garbage? The tree’s not that bad,” he teased.
“No, silly. Popcorn.” She set the bags down and started pulling out an enormous length of strung popcorn. “I made this last night. I think it looks pretty and I’ve never been able to string a tree with popcorn. I’ve wanted to since I saw it on a friend’s tree as a child.” She climbed back up the ladder and started artistically draping the white garland. “How does it look?”
Zane tilted his head left at right, pretending to look at the tree. Instead, he studied Clara from different angles, trying to figure out what it was about her that had him hooked. Her addictive smile? Her adorable, eager attitude? Her lovely curves? Probably all of them, but he was touched by her unsurety. It bothered him that every now and then she seemed to put herself down, as if she wasn’t good enough. Someone had damaged her self-confidence and he was going to fix it.
“It’s lovely. You’re lovely, and you’re doing a fabulous job. I haven’t seen popcorn on a tree in at least a decade. Fabulous idea.” He better not go overboard on the praise, or she’d think he was weird, creepy, or worse.
A slow smile blossomed on her face. “You really think so?” She nibbled her lower lip. “I mean is the tree really lovely?”
He’d made her happy, and nervous. Interesting. “The tree is going to be stunning. There’s only one thing missing.” Her smile drooped. “We need Christmas music. Something we can sing along to. Not that I’m much of a singer. I noticed you didn’t turn the music on this morning. I miss it.”
“I wasn’t sure if everyone wanted music all day.” She looped a few more strands.
“If you like it, what’s the harm? It’s not like you’ve been playing non-family friendly music. Mostly classic rock or instrumental. I say blast away whatever you like. Want me to plug my phone into your stereo? I can stream something Christmassy.”
“That’d be great! Thank you. Hand me another strand?”
He passed her a string of popcorn, hooked his phone to the small stereo, and started the music. The soft classical strains of White Christmas filled the air. “Is this going to the whole house, or just this room?”
“Should be the whole main floor. I don’t pipe music upstairs, though I could if I wanted to. There’s a switch on the left. Top is whole house, middle is main floor, bottom is this room. Can you switch it to the main floor if it’s not there already? Thanks. It’s hard to tell where it’s going without leaving the room. It took me days to figure out the switching on that thing.”
He checked the switch and adjusted the volume before returning to her side and helping with the popcorn.
“It looks fabulous,” he said when they finished the garland. “What’s next?”
“Ornaments.” She popped the lid off a box and reverently removed a tissue wrapped ornament and held it in the air to admire the light green crystal tree with a glittery gold star on the top. “I never got to spend Christmas with Aunt Tilly. I really only met her once that I recall.”
“I think using her ornaments will help you get to know her. That one’s a beauty. It would look great hanging in the window. Its facets will cast light all over the room when the sun hits it.”
“Oh! Great idea. I’ll set it aside for later.” She rewrapped the crystal tree and set it on a corner table before extracting the next bundle of tissue. She held a white crocheted angel up. “Lovely.”
One by one, they unpacked and placed the ornaments on the tree. Brand new ornaments in their original packaging came from the same box as vintage ornaments. “Oh, I’ve read about these,” she exclaimed, holding up a cluster of pink grapes. “They can be valuable.”
“Do you want to hang something valuable on a public tree where it might get knocked off?” He’d be terrified of it being broken.
“It seems a shame not to display it, but I don’t want it broken.” She cupped the ornament gently in her palm. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Why don’t you set it aside for now? Maybe we can figure out a way to display any valuable ones. Not in the window like all those crystal ones. There has to be a way to show them off without too much risk.”
Clara smiled at him, and his heart tripped into rapid beats. “I like that idea. You’re brilliant.”
“I don’t know about that.” Her praise made him uncomfortable. He wasn’t brilliant, but he wasn’t stupid either. Average would be his guess. He was a great engineer and had risen quickly to his current position, but he knew bugger all about relationships. He wished he knew more because he’d like to start something with Clara.
She’s not the type for a quick hookup, his mind warned him.And you’re only here temporarily. Rather than dwell on his conflicting thoughts, he pulled another tissue wrapped decoration from the second box.
