Page 43 of The Forever Christmas Tree

“Buy the damn cookies from the supermarket. Who needs homemade?”

“Bite your tongue, boy.”

“Go to the church bazaar then, and buy a whole table of homemade goodies.”

“And let everyone know I was too lazy to make any of my own?” His grandmother looked at him as if he’d lost a few screws.

“We’re not moving, are we, Dad?” Cassie asked, giving a quick glance out the door to where Zach was carrying a bound tree to someone’s car.

“No, sweetheart, we’re not moving.” Anytime soon. To his grandmother, he said, “I’m going home to change clothes and make some calls. I’ll be back in a bit. And, honestly, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, take tomorrow off. That high school girl, Pastor Morgan’s daughter, has been wanting extra hours.”

“Okay,” his grandmother said, but she would probably work anyway, even if she called in Sally Morgan. She added, “Make sure I left the Crock-Pot on low. We’re having chili for dinner.”

Even with all these stops, Ethan was a half hour early for his meeting. The lighthouse section of the beach probably wasn’t the best place to be meeting Wendy, but he hadn’t wanted their conversation to be in the public eye, more grist for the mill. If the town gossips had him closing his business and moving lock, stock, and barrel to the mainland, he could only imagine what they would do with an image of him and Wendy together, the Sweethearts of Bell Cove, second in legendary love only to his grandmother and grandfather. They’d have him chucking this burg again, but this time on his way to California where he would be a househusband to a female Navy SEAL, or else become a SEAL himself.

As if!

He was probably worrying about nothing. Wendy probably didn’t even remember that the lighthouse was where they had first made love. Sixteen years old and steaming with testosterone and hormones.

He got out of his pickup and turned up the collar on his jacket before walking across the sand. The temperature wasn’t that low today, but the breeze off the ocean made it feel like a nor’easter blowing in.

The weather further reassured Ethan that Wendy wouldn’t have a problem with this meeting place because it had been a hot summer evening when the big event had taken place. Back then, the lighthouse had already been closed for a year, in need of repairs, which it still needed. Maybe he could suggest some of the grinch money go toward its restoration.

In any case, after that first time, they’d made love whenever and wherever they could, which hadn’t been easy in such a small town, with his father and grandmother always around, or Wendy’s father and aunt. That expression, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” could have been written about them, though. The attic bedroom of the Patterson house on those rare occasions when no one was home (and almost got caught more than once), the barn that still stood back then on his grandmother’s property (the straw rash on both their butts had been like a badge of honor to their fool minds), a bath stall at the pool (whoever said public sex was a turn-on didn’t understand teenage anxiety), a utility closet at school (with the smell of industrial-strength disinfectant being forever after associated in his mind with sex), on the dunes at night (Can anyone say sand fleas?), in the cabin of a rented powerboat (Try fitting a six-foot-two male onto a five-foot cot!) . . . oh, the risks they took! But not where protection was concerned. He had always been meticulous about using a condom until Wendy managed to get a prescription for birth control pills from a doctor over on Nags Head.

Too bad he hadn’t been as careful with Beth Anne. The reason, pure and simple, had been alcohol. That’s why he’d never overindulged since then, in booze or casual sex.

He tried to see in the salt-crusted window of the lighthouse, to no avail. There probably wasn’t even any furniture in there anymore, and if there was, it would be rotted with damp and mold.

He heard a car engine and turned to see Wendy pull into the parking area in her aunt’s old green Camry. He remembered when Aunt Mildred had bought that car and been so proud of its pretty green color, which she’d claimed matched her eyes.

Once the engine was off, Wendy got out of the vehicle and began to walk toward him. She wore her mother’s red coat, buttoned the whole way up against the chill, and her short hair blew every which way with the wind.

If I could turn the clock back twelve years, her eyes would light up on first seeing me, instead of gazing at me with suspicion, even fear. She would run full speed, arms spread wide, and I would catch her and twirl us both in a circle, her long hair making a reddish-brown spiderweb around our faces. Pure joy! Just at being with each other! We would get dizzy with the spinning and fall to the ground where I would nuzzle her neck and inhale the sea-salt scent on her skin. Then I would kiss her hello.

She tripped and said a foul word under her breath. Nothing joyful there.

When she got close enough to hear him, he started to say, “The reason I wanted us to meet was . . .”

But she spoke at the same time. “The reason I agreed to meet with you was . . .”

They both said as one then, “. . . closure.” And laughed because they had always finished each other’s sentences. Some things didn’t change.

But then he discovered that Wendy’s idea of closure was different from his.

She reached out and slapped him across the face, hard.

Chapter 11

Heaven laughed the day man invented the word “closure” . . .

“Oh. My. God!” Wendy put a stinging palm to her chest and stared, appalled, at the rising marks on Ethan’s cheek. “I am so sorry, Ethan. I never intended to do that.”

Ethan stared at her, equally shocked, but then he yanked her into his arms and kissed her, hard. Then soft. Then hard again, before putting her away from him and shaking his head with disbelief. “I never intended to do that, either. I swear I didn’t.”

They gaped at each other.

She pressed her fingertips to her lips, testing for bruises, or just to check whether he’d actually kissed her. If you could call it a kiss! More like a reciprocal slap!