Beneath the Mistletoe: Make-Believe Mistletoe / Christmas Bonus, Strings Attached. GINA WILKINS

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СКАЧАТЬ he shrugged. “Do you think they would like them?”

      Lucy beamed at him. “Of course they will. They’re lovely gifts.”

      She ran a gloved hand over the smooth footboard of a doll-size Shaker cradle. He had built the cradle out of pine and had stained and buffed it to a rich golden glow. Sitting beside the cradle was an eight-inch-high semi cab, hooked to a foot-long trailer that hauled a detailed backhoe tractor, all crafted of oak and finished to a matte sheen.

      The truck-and-backhoe rig represented quite a few hours of work. It was a project Banner had made of scrap wood after seeing the pattern in a woodworkers magazine. He hadn’t made it for anyone in particular, but because the project had appealed to him at the time.

      The cradle was left over from a batch he’d made to sell in a Branson craft store. It had lacked only a final light sanding with very fine sandpaper, which he had just completed. He would go over it again with tack cloth to collect dust, and the cradle would be ready for play.

      Even before he had known that Lucy and Joan were planning a visit from Santa, he had decided to give these toys to Tyler and Tricia. It just seemed to him that kids needed a little extra attention at Christmas. Lucy had come up with the arts and crafts projects, while Pop and Bobby Ray had entertained with music and funny stories. Working with wood was Banner’s only talent.

      “The detail on this rig is amazing,” Lucy marveled, lifting the jointed front-end loader and backhoe with the attached side levers. “I can’t imagine how much time went into this.”

      “I don’t watch a lot of TV, and I don’t socialize much,” he replied, pleased by her compliments. “Working with wood helps me pass the time. This was a pattern I wanted to try just for the heck of it. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but I’d like to give it to Tyler, if you think he would like it.”

      “What boy wouldn’t like it? And what little girl wouldn’t love this cradle? Of course,” Lucy added, “I suppose I’m being sexist. Tricia will probably enjoy playing with the truck and tractor, too, and Tyler might very well have a favorite stuffed toy or doll that he would enjoy putting to bed in the cradle.”

      “So which did you prefer when you were a little girl? Dolls or trucks?”

      “I played with trucks,” she replied, then wrinkled her nose in what he considered to be an adorable expression. “But I really loved my baby dolls.”

      “I can tell by watching you with Tyler and Tricia that you like kids.”

      “I love children. I’d like to have at least two of my own—once I find that Santa Claus substitute to father them,” she added with a laugh.

      Banner couldn’t imagine that it would be difficult for Lucy to find someone willing to fill that role. She certainly seemed to have a great deal to offer a man who was interested in marriage and kids. Which didn’t include him, of course.

      He had tried the marriage thing, and it had been an abysmal failure—something he should have predicted from the start. Considering his history with relationships, he had no desire to risk making a fool of himself like that again.

      Not that Lucy would be interested even if he was, he assured himself. After all, she was looking for a frigging jolly Santa Claus.

      “What’s that expression?” Lucy asked him suddenly, studying him with her head cocked curiously to one side. “You’re frowning as if someone just stomped on your ingrown toenail.”

      That comment changed his frown to a slight smile. “I don’t have an ingrown toenail.”

      “So what’s the problem?”

      “No problem. I was just wondering if I should ask Joan’s permission before giving her kids gifts.”

      “She’ll probably be delighted.”

      “Still, it might be best for me to clear it with her first.”

      Lucy had wandered back over to the rocking chairs. Banner had noticed that she wasn’t the type to stay in one spot for very long.

      “These are beautiful. You’re so talented. Have you always been a professional woodworker?”

      “I’ve had other jobs but nothing I liked this much. When my great-uncle left me this place, I was able to take over the business he had started. He’s the one who taught me everything I know about working with wood.”

      “It sounds as though you were very close to him.”

      “I was,” he answered with the familiar lump that always came into his throat when he thought of his uncle Joe. He still missed the old coot.

      Lucy sat in the one finished rocker and began to rock, sliding her gloved hands appreciatively over the armrests.

      “Are your parents still living?”

      “Yes.”

      “Where do they live?”

      “Why?”

      She shrugged. “Just curious.”

      He doubted that her curiosity would be satisfied with a simple answer, so he gave her the expanded version. “My father and his wife live in Nashville, Tennessee. They have a daughter who is finishing medical school at Vanderbilt and a son who’s in his first year of law school. My mother and her husband live in Lexington, Kentucky, close to their two grown daughters. Both the girls are married, and they each have one child.”

      She had followed his family details attentively, and he had no doubt that she could quote it all back to him. Lucy was definitely a “people person”—someone who was actively interested in other people’s lives and opinions. Again, unlike himself.

      “Your siblings aren’t much younger than you,” she commented. “Your parents must have divorced when you were very young.”

      He reached out to idly roll the truck back and forth with one finger. “My parents were never married. They split up before I was a year old.”

      If that shocked her, she didn’t let it show. “Did you live with your mother?”

      “Part of the time with my mother, part of the time with my paternal grandparents here in northern Arkansas. This is where I preferred to be because my great-uncle was here. He never married and he had no kids, so he and I sort of bonded.”

      She was studying his face a bit too closely now, obviously trying to read his emotions. Long accustomed to keeping his feelings hidden, he wasn’t concerned that she would see more than he wanted to reveal.

      “Did you see your father very much?” she asked.

      “I spent the occasional weekend and holiday with him and his family. We get along fine, just don’t have much in common.”

      Lucy rocked a bit faster, which Banner figured was a clue to the questions racing through her mind. “Didn’t you want to spend the holidays with family? Didn’t your parents want to see you?”

      He shrugged. “My parents have plenty of family around for the holidays. They both invited me, but I wasn’t in the СКАЧАТЬ