The Christmas Gift

With a toss of her head, Krista preceded him into the kitchen. He fought to keep his eyes from dipping to the sway of her hips, reminding himself that what had happened between them had been very brief and very long ago.

He’d been right to break things off the instant Krista told him she was moving to Europe, no matter how wrenching the decision had been.

A woman who could stay away from her family for eight years, returning home for a few days only because she thought her mother was gravely ill, was not the one for him.

KRISTA COULD BARELY taste the honey ham she was chewing, although she was sure it met her grandma’s excellent standards. Her body was still on Prague time, where it was 2:00 a.m. That wasn’t all.

The mother she thought was dying sat at one end of the long dining room table, her paralyzed father at the other. Grandma smiled and laughed like nothing had changed and the only man Krista had slept with after one date was seated next to her in silent disapproval.

Krista felt like she was caught in a snow globe after it had been shaken. Her vision seemed hazy and her equilibrium off. Her temper, though, was still broiling. How dare Alex judge her when he didn’t know the whole story?

“Nobody’s said why Rayna isn’t here.” Krista and her sister weren’t close. Krista had made some overtures over the years and the miles, but Rayna seldom responded.

“She’s working,” Alex answered. He would have been easier to ignore if he didn’t smell better than the food. “The dentist is open late for the next few days.”

Did that mean Rayna already had her associate’s degree in dental hygiene? Krista was relatively sure her sister was still taking classes at a community college near Harrisburg but could be wrong. Krista certainly wouldn’t ask, not with Alex in the room.

“Why didn’t you bring your girlfriend, Alex?” her father asked.

Krista refused to acknowledge her sense of disappointment. It didn’t matter to her if Alex was involved with someone. Come to think of it, why wasn’t he married? Even eight years ago, it had seemed to Krista he’d been in the market for a relationship with a future.

“Alex broke up with Cindy before Thanksgiving,” Krista’s mother answered before Alex could. “Don’t you remember, Joe?”

“How am I supposed to remember all Alex’s women?” Her father sat in his wheelchair instead of one of the dining room chairs, a constant reminder that he was paralyzed from the waist down. “Seems like he has a new girl every year.”

Krista thought a year was a long time. She couldn’t remember the last guy she’d dated for more than a few months.

“He’s looking for the right woman so he can settle down and raise a family,” Ellie said. “Aren’t you, Alex?”

Grandma wagged a finger at her daughter-in-law. “Don’t put Alex on the spot like that, Ellie. I’m sure he doesn’t like it.”

“I wouldn’t keep coming over here if I minded.” Alex smiled at her mother, but Krista noticed he hadn’t answered the question. She wondered if both Krista and her mother had Alex pegged wrong. He was thirty-two, after all. Maybe he was a serial dater, like Krista.

“You can ask me about Charlie,” her grandmother said.

Krista felt like someone had just shaken the snow globe harder. Who was Charlie?

“He’s auditioning to be my new beau.” Grandma addressed Krista, answering one of her unspoken questions but raising others. Auditioning? “Your grandpa’s been gone a long time so I figured it was time I got myself one. You’ll never guess where I met him.”

“The senior citizen’s center?” Krista guessed.

“The internet!” Grandma announced. “Alex set up one of those computer profiles for me.”

Krista gaped at him, glad for an outlet for her residual displeasure. “You got my grandma into online dating?”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that.” Alex waved both his hands in the air. “Online dating was Grandma Novak’s idea, not mine.”

Alex called her grandmother Grandma Novak?

“In my day, we went on blind dates. That’s how I met my wife,” Milo Costas said. With his olive complexion, dark hair and angular features, he resembled a smaller, older version of his son. Milo’s dark eyes fastened on Krista. “She died when Alex was nineteen.”

Why hadn’t Krista known that? She searched her memory but couldn’t remember Alex mentioning his mother in the past. Then again, they’d probably known each other better in bed than out of it. “I’m sorry,” Krista told Milo.

“Don’t be sorry for me,” Milo said. “I have my memories, my son and great next-door neighbors. It’s a wonderful life.”

Grandma laughed. “Milo works that line in every year. It’s his favorite Christmas movie.”

“It’s his favorite movie, period,” Alex said. “The dogs we had when I was growing up were named George and Bailey after the Jimmy Stewart character.”

“That’s right,” Milo said. “I got your grandmother to stock it at the store, too. The holiday movies are big sellers.”

Krista put down her fork, the better to concentrate on the conversation. “People buy movies at the nursery?”

“Not the nursery, the Christmas Shoppe,” Milo said.

Krista blinked, trying to dispel the haze clouding her brain. “What Christmas shop?”

“The one your grandmother runs next door to the nursery,” Milo said.

The fog Krista was trying to plow through got even thicker. Beside her, she could almost hear Alex asking why she hadn’t known about the store.

“We opened November first.” Grandma seemed to sit taller in her seat. “Our specialty is lighted yard art.”

Considering her grandmother’s love of Christmas, the shop was a logical extension of the nursery business. Had Krista really been so out of touch that the new venture hadn’t come up in conversation? She talked to her mother every month or so, although lately Krista made excuses to get off the phone when her mother started pressuring her to visit.

“Why don’t you come see the shop tomorrow, Krista?” Grandma asked. “If you want, you can even help. We have a lot going on.”

“Sure,” Krista said through a tight-lipped smile. She would prefer avoiding the nursery altogether but would never admit that to her grandmother.

“Great!” Her grandmother clapped her hands. “I’m going to love having you home! I might not let you go back after the new year.”

“If she stays that long,” her father muttered.

“Of course she’s staying!” Krista’s mother exclaimed. “It’s the holidays. There’s no reason for Krista to hurry back to Europe.”

Krista avoided looking at Alex. “Actually, there is. I’m supposed to meet friends in Switzerland the day after Christmas for a ski trip.”

“You can’t go back that soon!” Krista’s mother insisted.

Krista steeled herself against her mother’s protests. As soon as she was through with dinner, Krista intended to book her return flight. She wouldn’t be in Pennsylvania at all if her mother hadn’t manipulated her. “I already paid for the trip, Mom. The reservation’s nonrefundable.”

Krista’s mother stuck out her lower lip. “What if I were still in the hospital?”

“You’re not,” Krista’s father interjected. “Leave the girl alone, Ellie. If Krista has to go back, she has to go back.”

Krista reached for her glass of water to wash down the tight feeling in her throat. Next to her, she was aware of Alex watching her silently.

So much had changed since Krista had left Pennsylvania, yet one thing remained constant—her mother didn’t want her to leave, but her father couldn’t wait to shove her out the door.