Home For Christmas. Catherine Lanigan

peered through the windows and tried the latch. It was unlocked.

      “What?” Why would the door be unlocked? Had the attorney unlocked it? Perhaps when she met Kyle Evans, she’d gain more insight.

      She pushed the door and stepped in. She wasn’t prepared for the shock.

      As if she’d been swallowed by a time warp, she was eighteen again, rushing in on a Saturday morning to see her grandfather already at the cash register, his big Chicago Cubs coffee mug filled with steaming coffee as he counted the money. She remembered her mother, dressed in jeans, a floral blouse and a rubber apron while she watered the flowers and sang to them. Her father whistled while he carried in heavy sacks of humus and fertilizer to sell. She’d forgotten how much she missed his whistling.

      As the door swung closed behind her, a numbing chill enveloped her. The sight of empty shelves, dusty counters and cobwebs around the ceiling where garlands and Christmas ornaments once hung was heartbreaking. The walk-in flower cooler was dark and smelled like mold. The carpet needed shampooing. Worst of all, there were no poinsettias, no life, no energy.

      “No Grandpa. No Mom or Dad.”

      Joy walked to the checkout counter, where she used to wrap gold and silver foil around the flowerpots and swathe the flowers with colorful print paper to protect the delicate poinsettias. She and her mom would work the counter together. She could almost smell Mom’s rose soap.

      Unwinding her scarf, she walked behind the counter and was surprised to see full boxes of ribbons, foil and cellophane, and bolts of wrapping paper sitting in the same spots as they had a decade ago. “Not everything was sold or discarded.”

      She looked toward the back of the retail gift area. Two French doors led to a smaller greenhouse where specialty orchids, amaryllis and hybrid poinsettias used to be displayed on long wooden tables. That was Joy’s favorite area, where her grandfather would test his yearlong projects of coral-and-white-striped poinsettias, yellows, ambers, and try as he might, the absolute impossible task of creating a blue poinsettia. Blue poinsettias didn’t exist naturally, and he would dye white ones to please designers in Chicago, but he was a dreamer. He’d often told her he wanted to create a flower that was not only beautiful but timeless. Something the world would never have seen if it hadn’t been for him.

      Behind the special greenhouse were the storage rooms, where the new shipments of gift items, table linens, Christmas stockings, birdbaths and feeders, scented candles and bath oils and washes used to be delivered and stored until they were put out for display.

      “I wonder if any stock is left…” Joy started toward the storage room when she heard a door slam. She halted. “What was that?” She peered through the French doors. Was someone breaking into the greenhouse?

      “Hello? Is someone there?”

      Peering through the windows, she saw a tall man, wearing a buckskin-yellow suede jacket with a sheepskin collar and lining, jeans, a scarf around his neck and a tan cowboy hat that was pulled down low so that she couldn’t see his face. He was carrying a large sack of something on his shoulder as he pushed one door open with his booted foot.

      His presence filled the room as if he owned the place and she was the one intruding.

      He placed the sack on the cement floor of the greenhouse, then slapped his hands together, creating a cloud of white dust. He pushed the tip of his cowboy hat up and leveled on her the bluest eyes she’d ever seen.

       Familiar eyes.

      Eyes that probed her in a way that went straight to her heart.

      “Adam?” She almost choked out his name, being both stunned and oddly pleased to see him.

      “Hey.”

      He continued to stare at her, assessing her as if she were one of his cogs in a machine he was creating.

      “Hi,” she returned.

      Unsmiling, he said, “I heard you might come back.”

      “Yes. Of—of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

      “Been a long time.”

      Joy didn’t like the accusatory tone Adam used. Nor did she like the fact that he’d matured into a handsome man with flashing, mesmerizing eyes. And how was that possible? They were “over” a long time ago.

      “He was my grandpa.”

      “And you came back because he died.”

      “Excuse me?”

      “Sorry. I mean I’m sorry about Frank. He loved you a lot.”

      “And you know this…how?”

      “He never stopped talking about you.”

      Joy felt a pang of guilt for not being there more for her grandfather. But she didn’t like Adam’s tone. She glanced through the French door, propped open by the sack of cement he’d deposited. She saw a compressor, metal pipes, PVC pipes, vent apparatus and coils of copper tubing. A toolbox with wrenches, hammers and screwdrivers sat next to the pile of materials.

      “Just exactly how did you get in here?”

      “Key.”

      Joy had to consciously halt her eyes from flying wide open. “You? Have access to my grandfather’s place of business?”

      “Clearly—” he waved his hand across the empty retail area “—it’s not a business anymore.”

      “I was told Frank closed it years ago.”

      “He did. Five years, to be exact.”

      Joy put her fingertips to her temples. None of this made sense. “I don’t understand. I flew him to New York for Thanksgiving every year. He told me he had to hurry back here to get the poinsettia shipments in. He said business had never been better.”

      “He lied.”

      “I got that, Adam!”

      “Don’t jump on me!” he shot back, all too quickly and with twice the force.

      “Why didn’t he tell me the truth?”

      “He didn’t want to disappoint you,” Adam replied, dropping his harsh tone.

      Her eyes were tearing again, but she didn’t care. “He told you that?”

      “He did.”

      “But nothing he would do could ever, ever disappoint me. I loved him. That’s all. The attorney told me on the phone that Grandpa was too proud to ask for my help.”

      “That, too.” Adam glanced down as he asked, “Would you have come back if he asked?”

      “I don’t know. No. Maybe…if he’d told me how bad it was.”

      Adam shook his head. “Well, we’ll never know.”

      Adam took off his hat, and as he did, his thick black hair fell over his forehead.

      Joy nearly gasped as the movement reminded her of when they’d been in love.

      “I know that Frank didn’t want to destroy your memories of this place. How it was.”

      “It was glorious, wasn’t it?” Joy felt her first smile creep slowly to her lips as she remembered so much.

      “It was,” he replied wistfully, still staring at her.

      “From the time I was nine or ten, it was my job to keep those tiles clean. I took pride in scrubbing them—”

      “Until they glistened,” he interrupted. “I remember.”

      “Adam.”

      “I remember a lot of things.”

      She paused, fearing what she wanted to ask, but daring to say it. “Like us?”

      “Yeah, like us.”