Page 30 of Christmas Cove

And the moment passed them by.

Releasing her, he stood back at a safe distance and brushed his hair back again. “See you tomorrow,” he said and headed back to his truck.

There was no looking back, just an exit from an exhilarating encounter that she hoped would happen again someday. Once her breath was back to normal, she headed inside, like an elf on a mission, and determined to make the most of that bare tree.

CHAPTER17

Leo stared at the television.A blind-date show, where couples humiliated themselves with ridiculous tasks and competed against other pairs, was on. He had laughed during the segment when two teams went head-to-head gift-wrapping one another. Now the segment switched to a cooking challenge, and all Leo could think about was when he had prepared eggs and toast for America.

He switched off the television and looked around his home, a small fifth-wheel he had purchased as a temporary domicile while he built his forever house on the bank of the cove. The trailer was never meant to be permanent. Now, five years later, it was a daily reminder of where his dreams and reality had disconnected.

On the stove, a pile of folded laundry teetered on the brink of collapse, and the stack of Cup Noodles in the corner looked more at home in a dorm room than a mayor’s house. Leo stood and walked to the counter, picked up his laundry, and took it to the bedroom where he put the things inside a built-in dresser. As he turned around, he saw the bed was completely unmade, and couldn’t recall the last time he had done it up properly. His mother would have had a thing or two to say about it if she was there to see it.

Leo missed his mother at that moment, and made the bed in a way that she would have been proud of. After making the bed up, he turned his attention to the kitchen area, where the few dishes he owned sat dirty in the small sink. Leo ran the water and squirted some blue dish soap directly onto the mess, wishing he had a dishwasher. The tedious task was a welcome distraction from America’s olive skin and black hair flashing in his mind.

As he put the last clean bowl in the one upper cabinet, he took stock of the space. Now clean, it was missing something, anything lively. Leo pictured a small decorated and lit Christmas tree sitting atop the table, and some string lights hung along the ceiling. He couldn’t help but think how nice it would be for someone, perhaps a beautiful single writer, to bring him a tree.

Leo bit his lips at the thought of America again. He had done only a mediocre job at temporarily diverting his attention, but she was back in the forefront. His own face laughed back at him in the reflection of the dark exterior windows, and he saw a man in distress.

“How can I be so stupid?” he asked himself, and pulled the shades down. “This is never going to work!”

“What’s not going to work?” Edwin called from outside the door.

Leo opened the door outwards and nearly took Edwin out. “Sorry, Pa. You can hear me from out there?”

“Those walls are as thin as cardboard,” he said.

Leo motioned the man to enter. “Good to know. Now, what are you doing here? It’s nearly midnight.”

“Exactly,” Edwin said.

Leo was missing something. “What exactly—?”

“I’m here, reporting for duty. Now, get your coat.”

“It sounds like I’m the one needing to follow orders,” Leo quipped and grabbed his coat from the dining bench. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” Edwin smirked, which made Leo nervous. “If I tell you, I’m afraid you won’t come.”

“Oh, goodness gracious. Do I have a choice?”

“No. Now get in the truck.”

Leo obeyed, mostly because Edwin never gave orders, and sleep seemed a million miles away. In all the years that Leo had been loitering in his trailer on Edwin’s property, the old man had never once knocked on his door at midnight. Whatever was afoot, Leo was in.

Edwin drove the truck over his plowed field and to a dirt road on the edge of his land, where Leo was sure he saw flashlights sweeping along the tree line. Leo was too afraid to ask and assumed he was about to discover the orders Edwin proclaimed he was acting on. The truck’s headlights flashed with every bump until Edwin switched them off.

“Are you crazy? Why are the lights off?” Leo shouted.

“Hush. I know what I’m doing,” Edwin said. “I have the eyes of an adolescent raccoon.”

Leo laughed. Unsure of a raccoon’s visual acuity, he kept his thoughts to himself.

Edwin slammed the brakes and yanked the wheel hard to the left like he was in a street racing movie. When the truck came to a stop in a cloud of dust and the scent of burned rubber, Leo practically fell out of the door and planted his feet on solid ground.

“I stand by what I said about you being crazy.”

“Relax, boy. I did worse than that in Desert Storm. Grab those gloves out of the back, will ya?”

---