Holiday Homecoming. Jean C. Gordon

was out of hearing range. From his expression, Connor might be even less happy about her family throwing them together than she was apprehensive about it. Not that she blamed him.

      “I’m used to it,” he said. “People are always trying to match me up with single women.”

      And that’s all she was, one more potential match pushed at him. She shivered despite having bundled up for the weather. Had any of those matches worked? She hadn’t heard he was seeing anyone. Unjustified jealousy shot through her. She shook it off. Any chance she’d had of being anything to Connor, even friends, had died five years ago when she’d chosen her career over his proposal. They’d been so young. She felt decades older and knew now that it hadn’t had to be an either/or.

      “What kind of tree are you looking for, long or short needle?” she asked.

      “You’re the expert.”

      The lopsided grin that had replaced his frown went straight to her heart. How many times had she succumbed to that grin and agreed to watch the movie he wanted to see or eat out at his favorite restaurant or help him clean his apartment?

      “Well, the short-needled trees tend to hold their needles longer. But if you like the looks of a longer needle...”

      He touched the sleeve of her navy peacoat. “It’s okay. I was teasing. I know you’re as uncomfortable as I am.”

      Uncomfortable. He sounded so clinical. And she was being oversensitive. Connor was handing her the olive branch she should be giving him, the branch she didn’t even know how to offer him. Memories flooded her head. Them in the parking lot of the big-box store near her apartment in Syracuse looking at the meager selection of trees left for sale. They’d chosen a long-needled white pine that had started shedding its needles before they’d even set it up. Her making him laugh with stories of tree mishaps she remembered from her childhood as they decorated the tree.

      She nodded, afraid that if she spoke, she’d give away emotions she didn’t want Connor to see, that he probably wouldn’t want to see.

      “Since the tree will have to make it through at least a month, I’d better go with something with short needles,” he said.

      “The short-needled balsam firs are to the right.” She pointed in the direction her family had gone, thankful that Connor was back to business. They walked over to the row of trees.

      Connor stopped in front of the first one. “This one looks good.” He started to squat to cut it.

      “No, wait.” She should let him go ahead and be done with it. But she couldn’t without walking around it to inspect the tree from all angles. Too many tree-cutting trips with her mother stopped her from letting him cut the tree.

      “What?” A note of impatience sounded in his voice.

      She walked around the tree, telling herself this was the parsonage tree. She was being fussy because it needed to be right for the church, not because she wanted it nice for Connor.

      “No good,” she said as she rounded back beside him. “It lists to the side. You’ll have trouble keeping it up, and I noticed some holes in the branches in the back. The trees at the end of the row are probably less picked over.”

      He straightened. “Lead on.”

      She stepped in front of him and walked slowly down the row, eyeing each tree, the scent of pine bolstering her spirits. Picking out a perfect Christmas tree was something she’d always liked, enjoyed sharing with her mother. Natalie stopped at the far end of the row.

      “This one?” Connor asked.

      “No.” Her gaze traveled to the next row. “There.” A twinge of excitement bubbled as she pointed. Without thinking, she grabbed his arm to pull him over.

      He stilled for a moment, his blue eyes clouding.

      She dropped her hand to her side.

      “Which one?” he asked with what sounded to her like forced enthusiasm.

      “Next row, second one in.” Natalie rushed over and circled the tree. “It’s perfect.”

      Connor laughed, sending a ripple of remembrance through her.

      “I’ll have to move all of the furniture out of the living room and cut a hole in the ceiling to fit it in,” he teased.

      “No, you won’t. All you’ll need to do is trim some of the wide branches on the bottom and take a foot or so off the trunk, like you had to with the tree at my apartment.”

      Connor’s stance stiffened. Why did she have to go and say that when they’d finally reached a friendly comfort?

      Without a word, Connor attacked the tree trunk with the saw he’d brought. Natalie watched his shoulders work as he pulled back and forth, and she lifted a silent voice rusty with disuse. Dear Jesus, I know I have to talk with Connor, clear the air between us if we’re going to work together on the pageant to glorify Your birth. But I have no idea how to do it.

Chapter Three

      When Connor got back to the parsonage, he stuck the tree in a bucket of water in the far corner of the garage. No need to have it in the house until the church women came to decorate.

      His cell phone pinged. It was a text from Josh: Got done early. You still up for some demolition?

      Definitely, he texted back. Ripping out wallboard with his bare hands sounded like just what he needed to work the memories Natalie had dredged up this morning out of his system. He grabbed his toolbox and headed over to Josh’s place.

      A while later, his little sister, Hope, skipped into the room of the cottage he and Josh were gutting. “Hey, Connor, I’m going to hang out with you tonight.”

      “Hope, hon.” He stopped her halfway across the debris-covered floor. “It would be better if you stayed back in the other room. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

      Jared appeared in the doorway. “Hope,” he said in a much sterner voice than Connor had used. “I told you to wait for Brendon and me.”

      She blew her bangs off her face. “But I didn’t want Connor to make other plans before I told him I was having a sleepover at his house tonight. If he has his cell phone, someone could have called him while I was waiting.”

      Connor couldn’t argue with her seven-year-old logic.

      “Hope,” Jared repeated.

      Connor brushed the plaster dust off his jeans. It bothered him that Jared often ended up playing the bad guy to their sister because she lived with him and Becca, while he and Josh got to be the fun brothers. Although Jared was Hope’s legal guardian in their missing father’s absence, they’d agreed to share responsibility of the motherless girl when her guardian grandmother had died last year.

      Hope retraced her steps back to the doorway where Jared stood. “So is it okay, Connor?” she asked. “You’re not doing something else?”

      “Not a thing. What do you say we pick up subs on our way home for supper?”

      “Can I pick out my own kind? At home, Ari and I have to take turns choosing since we always have to split one.”

      “Life is tough at the Donnelly household,” Jared commented.

      Not anywhere near as tough as it had been at theirs growing up.

      “As long as it’s not the veggie one, since I’m the one who’ll have to finish the other half if you can’t.”

      Hope wrinkled her nose. “Never. And I brought some games and stuff to do.”

      “Great.”

      Her expression turned serious. “Josh, don’t feel left out. I can come to your house next Saturday.”

      Connor