The Man Under The Mistletoe. Muriel Jensen

      “Grandma doesn’t come here. I come with Aunt Rosie.” His beam dimmed. “She never lets me have a banana shake. But I’d really like to have one now.”

      “What if you get sick?”

      Chase shrugged his bony shoulders. “Then I’ll still have had my two favorite things together.”

      That was logical and rather profound; he was willing to pay for what he wanted. Matt found it hard to argue with such a sane philosophy.

      “Okay. Banana shake,” he told Rita.

      “Okay,” Rita said. “Be back with your drinks in a minute.”

      “How’s school?” Matt asked. Rita returned almost immediately with the coffeepot and filled his cup. “Are you in third grade now?”

      “Yes.” Chase made a face. “Multiplication tables. Yuck. But art is fun. I made Grandma a bill holder out of paper plates, and I glued a picture of me and my dad on it. She misses him a lot.”

      Matt looked into his nephew’s open face and saw the sadness there. “You miss him, too?”

      Chase nodded as he opened out his paper napkin. “Yeah. But Grandma doesn’t like to talk about him. Aunt Rosie does, though. Did you know that she used to ride on the handlebars of his bicycle when they were little? You’re not supposed to do that, but sometimes they did it anyway ’cause they were late for dinner and only Dad had a bike. Aunt Rosie almost drowned when she borrowed the bike and tried to ride it into the lake.”

      Matt smiled. He’d heard that story. Water levels had been way down and a precocious seven-year-old Rosie had thought that meant the whole lake was knee deep. “Yeah, your dad told me,” he said.

      Chase looked pensive for a moment. “Sometimes I miss him a lot, but then it’s okay ’cause I loved him very much and he really loved me. Aunt Rosie says not everybody gets that, so you have to be happy that you had it.”

      “That’s right.” Matt wondered if that meant she’d come to terms with the losses in her own life or if she was just giving her nephew advice that she knew would help him cope.

      Chase’s banana shake arrived with a large dollop of whipped cream on top, a little, round slice of banana sticking in it. The boy suddenly lost interest in the conversation.

      ROSIE WAS PERCHED on a stool at a small bar in the kitchen, watching the news on a tiny television, when they came home. There was a bowl of cereal in front of her and a cup of tea. She slipped off the stool to give Chase a hug.

      “Did you have a good time, Chaseter?” she asked.

      “We had dinner,” he replied, sending Matt a look that asked him to honor the male code of silence about the banana shake. “Then we went to the store ’cause Uncle Matt forgot his toothbrush.” He held up the battery-operated toothbrush with a Nemo figure on the top that he’d exclaimed over and Matt had felt compelled to buy. “And look what I got!”

      She admired it, then handed it back. “Cool. You should get to your homework, Chase.”

      He rolled his eyes and blew air noisily. “But Uncle Matt’s only here for two days and I have to go to school tomorrow, then it’s the wedding, and then—”

      “His room is right across from yours. I’m sure he’ll be happy to look in on you and say good night.”

      “Maybe he could tuck me in tonight instead of you.” Chase turned to Matt hopefully.

      Matt nodded. “Of course. I’ll be in my room working on a story. Just come and get me.”

      Rosie looked just a little injured, but smiled at Chase when he hurried off. The smile vanished, though, when she turned off the television with the remote and confronted Matt. “You let him have a banana shake, didn’t you? I saw that guy look pass between you.”

      What the innocent Chase didn’t know, Matt thought, was that women had long ago broken every code men had developed to keep things to themselves. “Yes, I did,” he replied calmly. “If he gets sick during the night, you’ll be back in the guest house and I’ll be right across the hall from him. So I don’t see that you have anything to worry about.”

      “Except the very fact that you let him do something you’re pretty sure will make him sick,” she said judiciously.

      “He made the choice,” Matt argued calmly, “and understood that was a possibility. He said he didn’t care because then he’d have had his two favorite things together.”

      “As the adult…” she countered, drawing closer to him. She did it only in anger, but it revved his pulse, anyway “…you’re supposed to help him understand that he should do what’s best for him.”

      “Considering he’s an orphan living with a bunch of women who love him very much but are all a little eccentric and overprotective, I thought the momentary pleasure of having hot buffalo wings and a banana shake together was better for him than ordering something sensible.”

      “You always have made decisions the easy way,” she accused.

      He was in little doubt what she meant. When she tried to turn away from him to go back to her cereal, he caught her wrist to hold her there. He saw anger flare in her eyes, but he thought he caught a glimpse of something else for an instant. Then it was gone.

      “If I made decisions the easy way,” he said, holding on to her when she tried to pull free, “I’d have made an excuse when Francie called and asked me to come. But I’m here. I knew you’d take every opportunity to blame everything that happened on me, but I came, anyway.”

      “I hate you, Matthew DeMarco,” she said feelingly.

      She looked and sounded completely sincere. But he knew her. He heard that subtle, sad little sound under the harsh declaration, felt the energy in her body drawing her to him even as she tried to pull away.

      “No,” he corrected. “I don’t think you do.”

      She yanked away from him and stormed off.

      He knew her. That didn’t mean he understood her.

      CHAPTER THREE

      IN THE FRONT ROOM of her shop, surrounded by the male members of the wedding party, Rosie studied the fit of their tuxes. Though Derek and his brother had been carefully measured for them, and Matt had assured her in a fax that his measurements for the tux he wore at their wedding remained the same, she wanted to be sure there were no last-minute surprises.

      Despite the animosity between them, she could appreciate how wonderful Matt looked in his tux. Not only did he have the ideal broad-shouldered and lean-hipped frame, but his rugged good looks were lent an urbane maturity she didn’t remember in him.

      On the job, he’d always been rough and ready, no subject too mighty or intimidating to tackle, no detail too small to track down. At home, he’d worn old jeans and sweatshirts while he worked on the house, the lawn, the car. That was what had appealed to her about him in the beginning—he’d been an intellectual with the body of a quarterback.

      Francie’s groom, Derek, on the other hand, was tall and very slender, and the tux gave a sort of polish to his thin-faced, bespectacled self. His brother, Corin, an inch shorter, more thickly built and five years married, was so cheerful and funny that he’d have looked good no matter what he wore.

      “Everyone comfortable?” Rosie asked, walking around them, checking length of sleeves, leg, and smoothness across the shoulder.

      “No,” Derek complained, pulling on the small bow tie at his neck. “I wanted to get married on the beach in shorts and sandals.”

      “It’s December in western Massachusetts,” she reminded him, pulling his arm down to see if she could adjust the tie. “There’s no beach and there’s snow on the ground. You’d freeze to death.”

      He