That Christmas Feeling (7 page)

In fact, he had driven past Florence Ross’s home several times hoping to spot Claire, but it seemed she hadn’t found room in her busy schedule to start painting the place.
His normal rounds took him down her street, and even though he saw her lights shining on several evenings, he never caught a glimpse of the woman herself. Even when he visited the high school to give one of his regular talks on the dangers of drug and alcohol use, he failed to see Claire.

Yet their kiss played over and over in his mind, and no matter how hard he tried to convince himself it hadn’t mattered, he knew the truth. She had responded. The moment his lips touched hers, she had softened, melted, gone supple and breathless against him. She had liked it. He had, too. But they both knew better than to make anything of it. Rob didn’t want to date again, and he wasn’t about to get married. And Claire had left no doubt of her own feelings on the subject. She wanted nothing to do with romance.

Mayor Bloom’s juicy little rumor was about to end right now, Rob decided. He opened his mouth to speak.

“There she is, her own self,” Bloom said, pointing to the far end of the float. Claire had just walked around it, her auburn curls bright against the green coat. She was headed their way.

“I invited Claire to ride with us, Chief,” the mayor continued. “Figured you wouldn’t mind. Her on the committee to represent the schools, and all that. Jane Henderson is coming along, too. The shelter can use the community support. A lot of Mrs. Henderson’s funding comes from donations, you know. Everyone’s talking about Florence Ross’s cats and how you all rounded them up, so I thought
it might be a good idea to have the two ladies along. They can throw bubble gum. I brought a whole bucket full of it.”

Before Rob could protest, the mayor pushed a plastic pail into his arms and headed for the squad car.

“Hey, my favorite kind,” Claire said, stepping up to Rob and dipping her hand into the bubble-gum tub. “I didn’t think you remembered.”

If he could have thought of something quick and witty, he would have shot it back at her. Instead, he stared like some goggle-eyed boy as she unwrapped the chunk of pink gum and popped it into her mouth. An expression of ecstasy suffused her face, turning her cheeks an even brighter pink as her lips went moist with delight.

“Good, huh?” Rob mumbled. He handed her the tub. “The mayor wants you and Jane Henderson to throw it out the window for the kids. He bought the gum.”

Her green eyes clouded for a moment. “Should be fun.” She shrugged as they crossed the street toward his car. “Hey, guess what. I have a cat. Remember the first one we caught? The little yellow thing—so scruffy and wild? Turns out he’s actually very quiet, and he loves to snuggle. Opie—that’s his name.”

Rob opened the car door for her, trying not to think about what it would feel like to cuddle up with Claire and her little cat. Trying to remember this was the Christmas parade, and he was the police chief, and…

The pink bubble that emerged between Claire’s lips took him by surprise. But there it was, round and shiny and getting larger by the moment. What else could he do but—

“Robert West!” she squealed as he smacked the bubble with his palm. It popped over the tip of her nose and across the side of her cheek like a big spill of pink paint. “I can’t believe you did that! Oh, great—it’s stuck!”

“Gotcha, Clarence.” Guffawing as loudly as he always had in high school when he popped Claire’s gum, Rob strutted around to the driver’s side of the squad car and climbed in. Hoo, that felt good! Nothing like busting a great big ol’ bubble to lift a man’s spirits.

Mayor Bloom, already seated, gaped as Claire attempted to peel the sticky film from her cheek. He gave Rob a frown and shook his head. Clearly this did not fit his mental image of two lovebirds—which pleased Rob no end. Claire was peering into the passenger’s side mirror when Jane Henderson trotted up, took one look at the predicament and burst out laughing.

“Well, I’ll be. You a history teacher and so sophisticated and all. Get on in, girl. I’ll help you.” Chuckling, she followed Claire into the back seat. “I’d have thought the gum was for the kids, but you never can tell what a grownup’ll do. Every now and then I’ll take it into my head to climb a tree or go wading in the creek. As a matter of fact, three girlfriends and I once ate an entire pan of brownies by ourselves. It’s just one of those things.”

“An entire pan?” Claire asked.

“Yep, and I’ll tell you what, my husband could have throttled me the day I did that. He came into the house after work—he has a good job over at the gas station on the highway, you know—and he smelled those brownies, but there
wasn’t even a crumb left in the pan. Boy, he sulked about that for a week, but anyhow…girl, you have got that gum stuck all over the tip of your nose. Lean over here, and let me see if I can…well, Chief, if you’d quit jerking the car around, that sure would help.”

Rob glanced in the rearview mirror as he led the parade slowly out into the street toward the downtown square. As Jane Henderson tossed a handful of bubble gum to a group of children standing on the sidewalk, Claire fastened her focus directly on him. They eyed each other for a moment, then a slow grin tiptoed across her mouth. Rolling her eyes at him, she looked away, dug her fingers into the bucket of gum and threw a bunch out the window.

“Nothing like the Christmas parade to put a body into a good mood,” Jane commented. “Let me tell you what. I’ve been at every parade Buffalo’s had since the day I was born, and that’s saying something. I’m talking about homecoming parades and Easter parades—all of ’em. Yessir. It’s just one of those things. But this is the first time I ever got to ride in the lead car with the mayor. Kind of puts a different perspective on things, you know, riding in the front. I’ve been on more than one float where you’re out there in the fresh air and you can near see the whole parade one end to the other if you’re up high enough. But inside this car and leading all the floats and the marching bands…well, it’s just a little different is all. Not that I don’t like it. I do, but you just don’t quite get the whole experience….”

Unable to concentrate on Jane’s running monologue despite his top speed of two miles per hour, Rob drove with
one hand and waved with the other and tried to keep from glancing at Claire in the rearview mirror. Occasionally he obliged the crowd by whooping the squad car’s siren in little bursts that made the kids cover their ears and shriek in delight. The mayor called out the names of friends, neighbors and colleagues as the car rolled past. And Claire, in the back seat, threw gum and attempted to blot the sticky residue on the end of her nose. And she tried her best not to look in the mirror at Rob.

Like Jane Henderson, he had been at most of Buffalo’s parades, Rob realized as they approached the square with its brick courthouse and festive storefronts. The Christmas celebrations were his favorites—with the marching bands playing carols, floats depicting Christ’s birth or a family reading the Bible around a living-room fireplace, and the watching crowd bundled up to their necks in coats and mufflers. But this particular parade might take first place as the all-time, number one best of show.

The reason, of course, was the red-haired, green-eyed, sticky-nosed woman in the back seat. Despite everything sensible, and every good intention in his head, Rob knew he was going to have to find a way to kiss her again. As Jane Henderson would say, it was just one of those things.

“N
o, don’t open that! Not that!” Florence Ross tottered across the room, her ratty pink bathrobe flying out behind her skinny legs and her hands clawing the air in agitation. “You stay away from there, girl. That’s mine. It’s my private business!”

“Okay, Aunt Flossie. Relax.”

As the early-afternoon sun crept over the parlor windowsill, Claire sat back on her heels and blew out a breath of frustration. Right after the Christmas parade that morning she’d grabbed a sandwich, driven over to Ross Mansion and forced her way inside. Just getting through the front door had been a challenge. But convincing Aunt Flossie to let her throw the piles of newspapers and trash into garbage bags had been a veritable Everest.

No way would the job be finished by the time Claire had to leave that evening. Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest, but Rob West had left her with no choice but to return
to the filthy old house tomorrow. Though Claire had told herself that her work on behalf of her great-aunt was something of a ministry, she would much rather have stayed home and propped up her feet. Every move she made turned into a battle of wills with the elderly woman.

“I won’t open the chest,” she told Flossie, “but I have to clean it. There’s an inch of…well, I don’t even know what this is. Newspapers cemented onto the top, old food wrappers, and here’s a sweater. A blue sweater. It was probably very nice once, too. Aunt Flossie, why have you let this happen?”

“Let what happen?” Flossie grabbed what was left of the sweater—a wad of tangled yarn covered with cat hair—and pressed it against her belly. “I was living here peaceful and happy till you and that—that—”

“Rob West. He’s the police chief, and it’s his job to take care of people in this town. Including you.”

“
Take care
of me? Stealing my guns—my only protection? Hauling off my cats? Invading my privacy? And then he ordered you to come barging in here to mess up my things. You call that helpful? You call that kind?”

“I don’t like being ordered around any better than you do, Aunt Flossie. But you and I both know there’s no option other than to clean this place. Besides, you’ve got Homer and Virgil over there to keep you company after I’m gone.” The pair of mature male cats—recently neutered by Mayor Bloom, the town veterinarian—lay curled up on the hearth.

“Thanks to the fire department, your fireplace is work
ing again,” Claire reminded her aunt as her fingers ticked off the improvements. “A home-health-care nurse came over to treat your flea bites and make sure you have vitamins. I scheduled a dental appointment for you.”

“Which I won’t go to.”

“Yes, you will, if you intend to keep the teeth you’ve got left. My church donated a stack of clean clothes and a nice warm winter coat.”

“Which I won’t wear.”

“The senior center is bringing you some good food to eat instead of this awful—”

“I happen to be a connoisseur of European cuisine,” Flossie huffed as Claire peeled the remains of a frozen-dinner box from the lid of the old chest. “I enjoy Italian food. French. Spanish. Even Greek.”

“European cuisine? This was a TV dinner! Lasagna.”

“That’s Italian.”

“How did you cook it?”

“I put it on the fire.” She snatched the box and flipped it over her shoulder. “Oh, what do you care?”

Aunt Flossie’s question reverberated through Claire. The evening she had been perched high in the old oak tree outside the mansion, she had flung that same question at Rob.

He did care, he’d told her. In his eyes she had read the depth of meaning behind the words. But instantly he’d covered the intensity of feeling with the comment that a newspaper article about her falling out of the tree could harm
his
reputation. He had hidden his emotion just as
surely as he’d made certain she knew the mayor had bought the bubble gum on the day of the parade.

Rob said everything so carefully. His words insisted that Claire was simply a friend from high school—nothing more. Yet his eyes, his touch, his face…and his kiss…told a different story.

Claire studied her great-aunt, who was so wrapped up in her own miserable existence that she didn’t even know how bad things had gotten. Pretending it was pleasant to live with a horde of feral cats inside a stinking, garbage-strewn house. Believing herself content. Carrying on a futile effort to convince herself that she was satisfied with her lot in life.

Was Rob doing the same thing? Was Claire? And if so, why? What was it about her that caused Rob to build walls of protection so high around his heart? He didn’t seem to find her unattractive. She knew he enjoyed teasing her. He recalled their long-ago conversations, and clearly they both still enjoyed talking together.

Maybe the problem wasn’t Claire. Maybe Rob was seeing someone else. Maybe—despite their unhappiness together—he was still mourning his wife. Or maybe he had made up his mind to live alone for the rest of his life.

Claire herself had chosen the latter route, hadn’t she? Licking her wounds, she had decided to hide her hurt in the haven of her work, her church life, her volunteering and her little house. Now she had Opie. And she was doing her best to make it seem as if that was enough.

But it wasn’t. Deep inside, under the layers of defense,
a hunger burned in her heart. A need to connect. To touch. To love and be loved. And she knew God had put it there.

It made sense, after all. God had created people in His image, created man because He Himself ached for companionship. Then He made woman so man wouldn’t be alone. This urge to reach out and hold another human being was part of her fiber, Claire realized, but she had denied it by hiding away in her comfortable nest. Rob had repressed it by building a fortress around himself. And Aunt Flossie kept people at bay with her meanness and her lifestyle. But God had put His own desire for communion into each of them, and Claire knew it was time to open the door to her heart.

“I care about you, Aunt Flossie,” she said softly. She laid a hand on the woman’s bone-thin arm. “I really do. I don’t want you to be so alone anymore. I can’t be happy if you’re not.”

“I was happy before you came over here and ruined everything!” Flossie barked, jerking her arm away from Claire’s touch. She filtered her fingers through her thin white hair and stared out the window. Her lower lip quivered a moment before she spoke again. “Once upon a time, I had it all.”

“You can have it all now, too. You don’t have to push everyone away. You can have friends. A family. A lovely home and a social life—”

“I don’t want those things! None of ’em!” She swatted Claire on the shoulder. “Now get up. Get away from my chest. This is mine. Right here is what I had once. This—
and a lot more. I see you eyeing it. You think it’s money in there, don’t you? That’s what you’re after. I know your kind. You come in here and pretend you care about me. All you want is my money! Well, you can’t have it. So there!”

“I don’t want your money, Aunt Flossie, for goodness’ sake.”

Disgusted, Claire stood and moved away from the filthy trunk. Despite her resolve to reach out to her aunt, she could feel her ire growing again. The Christmas parade and this cleaning job would put her hours behind in grading papers. The last week of school before the winter break began this coming Monday, and she could feel the pressure mounting. There was no way she could have the house painted by Rob’s deadline. The whole situation was impossible—and now Aunt Flossie was accusing her of plotting a theft.

“I have my own money,” Claire told her aunt. “I’m a teacher with a salary. I bought a house and a car,
and
I have a microwave oven in which I can cook TV dinners. Why would I want your money? What good has it done you? You have to cook your meals over a smoky fire. You wear rags. Your furniture is falling apart. You have nothing, Aunt Flossie. Nothing and no one.”

“I have Homer and Virgil!”

“Cats?” Claire set her hands on her hips. “There’s more to this world than cats! I admit, there are times all I want to do is hide in my house with Opie. When he crawls onto my lap and starts to purr, I feel wonderful. But people should count for more than cats, Aunt Flossie.”

“People? Ha!” Flossie’s thin lips twisted into a sneer. “I suppose you’re one of those pie-in-the-sky types who thinks people are basically good at heart. People mean well. People care about you. Well, I say that’s a bunch of hooey!”

She stood there glaring at her niece, as if daring Claire to defy the accusation. “You know what? I agree with you, Aunt Flossie,” Claire replied. “God created us in perfection, but Eden’s gates were barred a long time ago. People are fallen and flawed and mean-spirited and ugly. We may do a little good here and there, but basically we’re all the same. As rotten as that sweater you’re clutching so tightly.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then what are you doing here trying to make nice? Get on home and rot like everybody else.”

“Believe me, after today, I’d welcome that.”

“You’re here because you’re afraid of that police chief, aren’t you? Afraid he’ll make you take me into your house. Afraid of what that might do to your cozy life.”

“I won’t deny that’s what got me over here to round up the cats. But you might remember I came to see you before, Aunt Flossie. I brought you a wreath to wish you a merry Christmas. And despite the fact that you threw my gift into the mud, I came back here today because I do care about you.”

“Hogwash!”

“I’m just a fallen sinner, but God forgave me. He’s why I come to see you.”

“Now, don’t be giving me that religious claptrap, girl. I’ve seen your kind of people. I know about those preachers on television and how they take people’s money. Bunch of hypocrites, all of you.”

“Maybe so. I have plenty of flaws. But I am a Christian, Aunt Flossie, and that means I’ve surrendered all my ugliness and sin and failure to Jesus Christ. He took it to the cross, where He destroyed its power to control my earthly life and sentence me to hell.”

“Oh, so now you’re saying I’m doomed in this life and the next, are you?”

“I’m saying that the Holy Spirit lives in me, Aunt Flossie. He’s whatever is good inside me. Whatever’s righteous. Whatever is pure and kind and loving.”

“Hush with your nonsense! There’s not a good bone in your body. You took my cats. Stole ’em away from me. Left me all alone with no one but Virgil and Homer to love. Well, guess what? I don’t care! I don’t need anyone! I’ve been alone for more than fifty years—fifty years since they took away my life. Fifty years since they tried to kill me. And I was doing just fine! I’ve been perfectly happy, and that’s all you need to know!”

Claire gazed at her great-aunt and the mounds of detritus still heaped around her. She shook her head. “Who tried to kill you? What are you talking about?”

“Them! Those no-gooders!” She hurled the old sweater to the floor. “They killed him, and they thought they killed me. Killed us both. But I fooled ’em. I’m not altogether dead yet. I have my house…and my cats…and…and…”

Flossie sank suddenly to her knees and covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders heaved, and a strangled sob escaped her mouth. Claire gazed down in confusion at the old woman. What was her aunt talking about? Who were the no-gooders? And who was this person who’d been killed? Despite the mental disorder that had led to her hoarding the cats, until now Aunt Flossie’s speech had always made sense.

Claire knelt and slipped an arm around the frail shoulders. “Aunt Flossie, are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?” Fiery blue eyes flashed at Claire. “I haven’t been okay for fifty years, and you want to know why? I’ll tell you, Miss Nosy. Open that chest right now. Open it up. There you go. What’s in it? Tell me what you see. None of that precious money you’re after, is there? Hah! Told you! You’re not getting a thing out of me. Not one red cent!”

Claire hesitated before prying open the lid. She reached into the wooden trunk and lifted out a stack of letters tied with a length of yellowed lace. The postmarks and stamps were Austrian. The ink, still black and clear, directed the letters to Mrs. Schmidt of Buffalo, Missouri. The return address also bore the surname Schmidt.

“Give ’em here!” Flossie cried. “You can’t have those. They’re mine. Let me see ’em.”

She took the letters and cradled them in her lap. A prickle of excitement ran up Claire’s spine. Maybe there was more to her great-aunt than met the eye. “Who wrote those letters?”

“Hans, that’s who.” Flossie slipped the first letter from beneath the ribbon and opened it. She read for a moment in silence. When she spoke again, her voice was wistful. “After the war, when I was barely eighteen, I joined the USO.”

“The USO? I never knew about that.”

“Nobody remembers it. I was the youngest of the children, and our folks had died three years before. Flu took the both of ’em, just like that. By the time the war was over, my brothers were already married and busy with their jobs and families, so they didn’t pay attention to me. I was gone to Europe for two years, singing for the troops. Entertainment is all it was—just to encourage the boys. The USO trained us, you know, and off we went. Helping out. Doing our part. The fighting was done, but the soldiers were still over there. Rebuilding. Setting things in order. You don’t forget your men just because the war is over.”

“So you went to Austria?” Claire asked.

“I went all over—how do you suppose I learned to appreciate European cuisine? Educated my palate is what I did. And when I got to Austria, there he was. Hans Fredrik Schmidt. We met in a bakery in Salzburg. He bought me a cup of tea. He had been studying in Switzerland when Austria was annexed by Hitler, and he stayed in Switzerland, helping the resistance movement from there, until the war was over. Hans came from a good family. Very wealthy and influential, so no one suspected them of secretly aiding the Austrian resistance movement during the war. They were nice folks, took to me right off, thought I was something
else. I was, too. I was pretty in those days. Had all my teeth, you know. Good figure and smart and, boy, could I sing.”