Baby It's Cold Outside (11 page)

In a different time, she might have been beguiled by the magic of the season, of a Christmas season blizzard. A white, merry Christmas, with a houseful of friends and family making memories.

But who did she have to make memories for?

She let the curtain fall. Gordy needed to stop singing or she’d throw him out into a snowbank on his britches.

She opened the bathroom door, and the aroma of breakfast rushed up at her. What right did the man have to invade her kitchen too? He had some nerve, that Gordy Lindholm, digging into her food stores, helping himself to her hospitality duties. But he’d always acted like what was hers belonged also to him.

Her anger seemed a live coal in her chest as she gripped the oak railing and padded down the stairs. The fire in the hearth had died—the stoker humming in the basement. And from the kitchen the humming had switched to “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

Of all the songs to choose…

She skidded to a halt under the arch between the rooms, her heart choking off her breath.

Not Gordy, but Jake stood at the stove, in his undershirt and trousers, a flour cloth tied around his slim waist, holding a spatula. Humming. And making…

“What on earth is going on in here?”

He whirled around, his mouth open, eyes wide. “Oh, good morning, Mrs. Morgan—”

“What are you doing?” She couldn’t shake the anger now sputtering to life inside her. Who did he think he was, to just— “You just help yourself to my kitchen?”

He stared at her as if her tone had stripped the words from him. “Uh…I get up early…I thought…”

She didn’t know what to make of it, or the blush on his face, the way he swallowed then finally turned back to the stove and flipped the pancake before it burned.

She stared at her counter. No spilled flour, no broken egg in the sink, no cloud of smoke.

He slid the pancake onto a plate.

She stared at it—flat, and crispy. “I think you forgot the baking powder.”

“It’s blini. It’s Russian. You serve it with jam. My housekeeper taught it to me. Takes just a couple eggs, some flour, a scant amount of sugar and salt. I used some of your powdered milk, although I cut it in half…” He stared at her, what looked like apology on his face. “I’m sorry. I was trying to help.” He stared at the blini. Back at her.

He had such remorse on his face, she didn’t want to be angry with him. It was just…the smells, the song on his lips. The fact that she liked seeing a young man in her kitchen, stirring up mischief.

She picked up the plate. “Jam, you said? I think I have some apple butter in the pantry.”

He nodded like he already knew that.

She set the plate on the table, retrieved the butter, then opened the drawer and found a couple forks, knives.

A pot of coffee perked on the stove.

She poured the coffee into a cup, found another, and set him a place. Then she slid onto the chair and stared at the thin pancake. It curled, crispy on the edges, but otherwise cooked to a perfect brown. “How do I eat this?”

He turned, a smile darting up his face. “I’ll show you.” He took his own plate to the table, sat down beside her, in Nelson’s place. Spreading a thin layer of apple butter across the blini, he then folded it in half, then half again to make a triangle. When he cut it through and pierced it with his fork, it resembled a stack of flapjacks.

He stuck the pile in his mouth and smiled at her. “Yum.”

She buttered her blini, folded it, and filled her own fork. Yum, indeed. “Do we have enough for the others?”

“Why should we keep breakfast to ourselves?”

She didn’t answer. Good thing he’d made the coffee too strong, because she needed something to blame for the sting in her eyes.

He looked past her to the window as he reloaded his fork. “The storm doesn’t seem to be letting up. We may be stuck here all day today.”

If God was merciful, He’d send a sudden spring thaw.

* * * * *

Call him a pitiful man, but Gordy had always dreamed of waking up in Dottie’s house. Always dreamed of smelling breakfast frying in the kitchen, always dreamed of sitting down at the large oak table, having her join him, asking him what his plans for the day might be.

“I’m going to get the Ford Ferguson running, and then maybe clean the barn.”
Not exciting conversation, even in his head, but it didn’t have to be. In his head, they were an old married couple, so comfortable with each other, they didn’t need to speak. He might slide his hand over to hers, wrangle her sweet elegant fingers between his, despite the roughness of his work-worn hands, and meet her beautiful blue eyes.

And then, their son would bounce into the kitchen from the barn, wearing his work jacket, carrying in a bucket of milk. “Hey, Dad.”

The image had the power to turn his chest into a knot as he stared at the brown paneled ceiling of Dottie’s den.

But he’d never been
Dad
to Nelson
.
Just Gordy. And, most of the time, that felt like enough. More than enough, really. Because as Nelson got older, he spent nearly as much time at Gordy’s farm as he did with Dottie. And it never seemed that she resented it.

He remembered the day she waved to him from the porch, smiling. As if she might invite him in. Nelson, about sixteen, had even suggested it.

“Ma always makes too much food anyway.”

But, like always, whenever he got too close, the hurt would rise to strangle him. “Naw. I have chores.”

He couldn’t ever quite erase from his memories the look of disappointment on Nelson’s face.

Gordy had managed to sleep the entire night on the dark leather sofa, warm enough under a wool blanket. Now, as he sat up, clad in his thermals, the cool room shook him awake. Back to reality.

He had a farm to run, a cow to milk.

And if he stayed much longer under the roof of Dottie Morgan, his longings might devour him whole.

He stood at the window, gauging the weather, and shook his head. He couldn’t even see Dottie’s barn across the drive, the snow heavy and blinding. And, in the night, a thin veneer of ice filmed the window, pasted the cracks.

So much for milking. Harriet was nearly dry anyway, and skipping her milking would seal her fate. Maybe by this afternoon…

He pulled on his wool trousers, then his flannel shirt, buttoning it before he opened the door, peeking into the hall. He heard voices in the kitchen—so Dottie had already risen, probably to make breakfast. He tiptoed up the stairs to the bathroom. Last night she’d issued them all toothbrushes and towels. At least he could make himself presentable.

It took an eternity for the hot water to reach the shower. He washed up, wishing he had clean clothes, then scrubbed his hair dry with a towel, staring in the mirror.

He didn’t usually care about his appearance, but this morning, in Dottie’s oval mirror, he appeared ancient. Saggy around the jowls, his beard grizzled, like an old hermit, his eyes tired. Once upon a time, in that visage had been a man who had made Dottie laugh, who had coaxed her onto his Ferguson tractor for a drive out to the back forty, who had believed she’d say yes to his proposal of marriage.

He drew his hands down his face. He needed a shave. He needed a haircut.

He needed the last twenty-seven years back.

What if—what if this were his one chance to remind Dottie of what they could have had? What if—what if today he wooed her back into his arms?

He stared at the old man with his schoolboy longings, and shook his head. No. He’d never been enough for Dottie. Sheesh, twenty-plus years of her saying no, in word and deed—and he hadn’t yet figured that out?

He brushed his teeth and exited the bathroom. He heard singing in the kitchen now—a duet of voices—male and female.

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful…”

Dottie?

He hung on the banister, listening. The impulse returned to him. What if today, trapped in her home, the one built for family, he could stir up the past, the
good
memories? The ones where he wasn’t a specter of guilt or shame. The ones where he’d been enough, or even more than?

“Can I have this dance?”

The memory shook him through, and for a moment, he clung to it.

He’d learned to dance especially for her, for that night. The lights twinkled, tacked around the perimeter of the Germanic hall and on a Christmas tree in the corner. The band played something jazzy, new, and he’d gotten his hair cut. She wore her blond hair in waves, as if she’d tied it up in rags the night before, and he longed to touch it. He liked it shorter, although it scared him, the way she’d changed in three months since graduation from high school. She didn’t need makeup, but she’d painted her lips anyway, her eyes darkened too, like the other girls at teachers college. She wore a long red dress that clung to her curves too much, but he didn’t mind. He’d missed her so much this fall, her absence drilled a hole right through his chest. When she arrived home, he’d barely waited an hour before he strolled by her house.

He planned to ask her to go skating with him on the pond. And then, under the crisp moonlight, with their mingled breaths in the air, he’d get down on one knee and beg her to stay in Frost, to build a life with him.

But first, they had to dance.

He’d held out his hand, and she smiled into his eyes. “Why, Gordon Lindholm, when did you learn to dance?”

In the kitchen with his mother, the yard with his dog, and even a rake in the barn. “I promise not to step on your toes,” he said, barely able to form words.

Once upon a time, it had been so easy with her, her laughter like sunshine on his heart. He’d head over to her house after he finished his chores and they’d spend hours exploring the creek or stealing apples from the Nystrom’s orchard, or just walking in the tall field grass. She wanted to see the world, and that had frightened him a little too. But he dismissed it. Probably too easily.

Definitely too easily. He held her in his arms, silently counting out the foxtrot, smelling her silky hair—apples, cinnamon—and dreamed up their future. He’d build them a house, and she could teach at the school until they had children. They’d have a passel of boys and he’d teach them how to farm and hunt. And every night he’d come home to her, hold her in his arms, and yes, dance in the kitchen if she wanted.

“Did I tell you that the girls and I are going to Minneapolis right after Christmas? One of my dorm mates has invited us for New Year’s Eve.”

He frowned, met her eyes. “But…I thought we could go skating.”

She smiled at him then leaned her forehead to his shoulder. “You’re a wonderful dancer, Gordy.” He might have dreamed it, but he thought she’d pressed her lips to his neck. “I promise to be back in the spring.”

He drew a breath, leaned his head against hers. “I’ll be right here, waiting.”

But she hadn’t returned then—not until summer. And a week later, Dapper Dan had arrived.

Gordy had proposed all right. But not under the moon, with the words like magic, caught in the air. No, his proposal had emerged almost angry and desperate, in the back stall of the barn, in a moment neither of them probably wanted to remember.

But he could change it all today. Hadn’t he spent over twenty-five years showing her he’d wait? That he’d forgiven her, if she could only forgive him back? That they could start over?

He just needed one day to show her that she needed him, that he’d been here all along. That he wasn’t going anywhere.

One day to bring warmth, even Christmas, back into her life.

“As long as you love me so, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”

He caught the song, humming the tune as he hit the landing and headed toward the kitchen. He’d fetch her fresh wood and start a fire, maybe even pop some corn.

He stepped into the kitchen expecting to see Dottie with her hands in sudsy water, Jake, perhaps holding a towel, adding his tenor to her song.

But, no. Violet sat on the counter, wiping dishes and singing as Jake stood elbow deep in the suds at the sink, matching her tune. No Dottie in sight.

The song died inside as Jake turned. “Good morning. We saved you some breakfast.” He gestured to the table, where a cloth lay over a plate.

Good grief, since when was he the last one to rise? “Where’s Dottie?”

“She’s out in the barn getting more wood.”

“It’s a whiteout—why did you let her go alone?” He didn’t care that his tone made Jake jerk, or that shame flashed in his eyes. Well, he should feel ashamed. “What kind of man are you?”

He stormed past Jake, into the mudroom, pulled on his boots, his wool coat, hat, and mittens, and headed out into the cold.

Where, apparently, he and Dottie belonged.

* * * * *

What kind of woman was she? Twelve hours after Alex’s death and all she could think about was Jake. She’d wakened with the feeling of his arms around her, the smell of him as she’d hung onto him through the snow, those devastating blue eyes in hers as he’d packed her knee and ankle in snow.

She liked him too much for a girl supposed to be grieving for her long-lost love, and the shame of it could fill her throat if she stopped to consider it.

Only…the thought continued to pulse at her: Even if Alex had cared for her, even if she had been “everything” as Jake claimed, Alex still hadn’t come for her two years after the war ended. She’d even written, telling him when she was passing through Minneapolis on her way home from Europe. Had looked for him as she pulled into the station, ready to disembark, hoping.

No Alex.

Maybe the silence of the cold room—the way she’d shivered the night away, huddled under the covers, then risen early to wrap herself in blankets and sit on the settee, watching the storm cover the earth, had helped her hear the truth.

Alex hadn’t really loved her, despite her fantasies.

Her mother’s voice found her as she shivered the night out, the darkness turning to gray.
Sweetheart, no man is going to marry a gal who can change her own tires. Men need to feel needed.

Like, perhaps, when she’d clung to Jake’s neck last night, and even let him help her up the stairs to this frigid room? He’d wished her good night, a sort of tug in his gaze she couldn’t quite figure out.