Chapter 66

“Ouch! That’s my finger! Wait a second! I’m not ready!” Tessa said from outside.

Jon grunted as he stopped. Sweet fuck, how had his Dad done this every year? “Ready?”

“Okay, ready!”

He yanked to the left to get the bottom of the tree past the doorway. “Could you have gotten a bigger tree, Tessa?”

She pushed at the branches that had poked through the burlap and lifted the top of the tree off the ground. “Yes,” she said then cursed. “But I didn’t want to have it air lifted.”

Jon turned and got a good hold on the trunk wincing when the sawed off edge swiped across his jeans leaving a rip and sticky sap. Giving one good yank the tree made it the rest of the way into the tiled foyer.

“Oh my God,” she said and leaned against the doorjamb. “It’s only a little bigger than my tree.”

“Obviously you were looking at a different tree than the one that ended up on your car.” He dropped the base of the tree and groaned manfully, he hoped.

“It’s only two feet longer than mine,” she said and angled the last of the branches in so she could close the door.

“Two feet? Christ woman, how the fuck big is this thing?”

“Eight feet.”

“Well no wonder it’s a bitch. When I was a kid we got the Charlie Brown tree for the corner that was slightly fucked and barely taller than my Dad.”

“You’ve got a tree stand, right?”

Jon peeked over a branch from his crouched position. “Tree stand,” he said and wiped his arm over his sweaty forehead. Shit, it was more work getting the damn tree in his house than running five miles. “Um, yeah,” he felt the vertebrae of his back pop as he stood up. “It’s in the basement, I think. Let me check with Lotti.”

“Lotti?”

He nodded. “She’s been my housekeeper since,” he trailed off. “Oh, since Jesse was a toddler at least. She knows where everything is. C’mon lets get a slice and a drink then we’ll set this bad boy up.”

“I like that plan,” she said and stepped her way around the branches. She met him at the sink but they both gave up on the sticky sap that gripped knuckle and palm and scrubbed off what they could.

Jon grabbed two glasses and the bottle of wine he’d let breathe for the last hour. Pouring the rich red into a glass for her, then himself he flipped open the pizza box. “One or two?”

“Two, I totally forgot to eat today.” She took the wine glass he offered and sipped. “Oh, that’s good.”

He frowned and dropped two pieces of pizza on her plate and another double for him. “Why didn’t you say something, I would have brought something to you.”

Laughing she folded herself into a chair at the kitchen table. “What you gonna take care of me now?”

He slid a plate in front of her and leaned down, “Evidently you need me to,” and kissed her. Her flavor was rich with the full bodied wine and he went back for a second sip before he sat down next to her. “Well, eat. Lotti will show her face eventually, she’s probably doing a load of laundry before she leaves for the night.”

Taking a bite, she pointed at him with the folded slice, “Must be nice.”

“I let Dot take most of the staff with her but I couldn’t give up Lotti. She’s full time, then there’s a gardener a few times a week, and a crew that comes in for the big clean once a month.”

She swallowed and took a sip of wine. “Well, it is a big house.”

“Yeah, it’s a little too much house for me, but I’ll keep it until the kids are older. I just started paperwork on an apartment in Soho. I have to bid for that one though.” He laughed when her eyebrow winged up. “What?”

She shook her head. “You say it like you just bought a new shirt.”

“Well, between my trips into Philly and the city it seemed easier to have a place there instead of fighting my way into a hotel each night.”

She picked at her crust and dipped it in the sauce and grease of her remaining slice before popping it in her mouth. “I guess.”

“From a business standpoint it’s a good investment and it’s easier to host parties there than here.”

Her green eyes met his with a little frown line arrowing between her brows. It looked as if she was going to say something, but thought better of it and took another bite of her pizza.

“What? I can see your brain working from here.”

A tidy little woman with a short halo of dark hair came into the kitchen and cut off the conversation. “Hello, Mr. Jon. I’ve finished everything for tonight,” she nodded at Tessa. “If there isn’t anything else, I think I’ll retire for the night.”

“Hey Lotti, this is Tessa.”

”Hello Miss Tessa.” Jon watched as Carlotta, or more affectionately dubbed, Lotti, took quick stock of Tessa. Her shrewd brown eyes cleared quickly and there was genuine warmth in her demeanor.

“Nice to meet you, Lotti,” she said and smiled warmly.

“Just one thing, Tessa brought me a Christmas tree. Any idea where the tree stand is?”

Lotti’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Oh, that’s wonderful. I’ve missed having a tree this year. I believe it’s in the basement. I’ll go down and get it,” she said and turned away.

“No, that’s okay I’ll go down and take care of it, you’ve been working all day. Tessa and I will go down and get the decorations to go with it. They’re all together?”

”Yes, in the corner there are green storage units labeled and stacked.”

“Great, thanks Lotti. Have a good night and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Very well, Mr. Jon,” she nodded toward Tessa. “If you need anything just ask.”

“We’ll be fine, though I’m not sure how good the foyer and living room will be by morning.”

“We have a very fine vacuum to take care of that,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes. “Good night.”

“Does she live here?” Tessa asked with a faint blush.

“She’s got a set of rooms off the back.”

“That night we?” she said and the blush spread down her neck. “When I got the whipped cream?”

“Yeah, her room is right off the kitchen a few yards away.”

“I was…but, there was-“ she broke off and swallowed her crust with the help of a gulp of wine.

Jon laughed, “We were very much alone that night. She was visiting her grandchildren in Phoenix.”

She threw her remaining crust at him and he snagged it, popping it in his mouth. “Hey now, we don’t waste pizza in this house.”

She stood and flicked his shoulder on the way by. He snagged her by the waist and hauled her onto his lap. “You did not just flick me did you?”

With easy affection she looped her arm around his neck and nodded solemnly. “I do believe I did. Just what are you going to do about it?”

He nipped her chin and tugged her down for a kiss. Letting their tongues swirl together he breathed her in. The scent of pine lingered from their fight to the finish at the door and the elusive scent that would always be her teased the edges. Letting himself drift on the taste of her he sighed his way out of the kiss. “C’mon we’ve got some work to do, Miss Christmas.”

Twenty minutes later Jon pushed the last bin of decorations into the kitchen and winced as he stretched his back. “Tell me again, why I’m dragging every bin of ornaments out of my basement?”

“Because this is the first year that you’re doing Christmas alone with your kids and I’m going to find all the homemade things that will make it special for them.”

Jon eased his way onto the dark green plastic, careful to make sure it would take his weight and stretched his legs when it did. “You know they totally won’t notice anything but the presents underneath the tree, right?”

“You’d be surprised by what kids notice.”

Sighing he stood and bent with his legs straight to stretch out the kinks from the stairs and bulky bins he’d maneuvered up the stairs. Pressing his palms flat on the floor for a three count he stood and caught her eye. “What?”

“You’re pretty bendy there, sir.”

He crouched down to her level and caught her lips in a quick kiss. “I can show you just how flexible I am if you’re game.”

She pushed a tray of ornaments into him. “Why don’t we start by you showing me how you reach the high branches?”

He frowned down at the tangle of ornaments packed in bubble wrap. His frown faded when he spotted the crudely glittered ball that Stephanie had made him and lifted it out carefully. “Steph made this in Kindergarten,” he said and watched the light hit the glued on sparkles and mismatched letters to form Dad.

She took the ornament carefully and tucked it back in the tray. “We’ll make sure it has a great spot on the tree, now won’t we?”

Gruffly he backed away from her and lifted the bin without complaint. It was eerie how on target Tessa could be with the little family things, especially when she had no family to speak of. Eerier still that she was giving so selflessly of herself. He wasn’t used to people wanting to do for him. All his life whenever people were nice, it was to get something from him, even family.

When the last bin was moved into the living room he and Tessa wrestled the tree into the living room and somehow managed to get it into the stand. Jon landed himself on his back under the tree screwing in eight inch long screws into the pine as she twisted the tree in for a straighter fit.

“Can I let go?”

Jon twisted the last screw in and dropped his head to the carpet. “Is it straight?”

He watched her backup, her pretty pink toes digging deep into his carpeting as she studied the tree. “Twist it to the left.”

Jon couldn’t help the smirk. “Like this?”

“A little to the right, now.”

The smirk widened and he peeked over his chest but couldn’t see her face. “Better?”

“Nope, more left now.”

His head dropped back on the floor as he shifted the tree. “Now?”

She dropped onto his thighs and he jumped and the tree shifted then toppled. She shrieked and he found himself on top of her away from the tree. “Damn, those thigh muscles are nothing short of amazing,” he said just before he started laughing.

She smacked his arm and he rolled off of her. “What? That was fucking hilarious!”

But instead of the angry Tessa he was certain he’d find she was curled in a fetal ball, a laugh choking her. “Oh my God! I was teasing you with the tree and then it fell over.” She said and gasped.

He crawled over to her and pushed his fingers into her sides to keep the laughter going. “So the tree was straight?”

“Yes!” she yelped and tried to roll away.

“And you left me on my back,” he grunted when her knee hit him in the thigh as she jerked in convulsions. “For no good reason,” he finished.

“Yes,” she said on a wheeze.

He held her down and couldn’t help but laugh back at her when the tickling only left her gasping for air, the laughter more shriek than anything else. He let her roll away and flopped onto his back. “You’re going under the tree this time.”

Her laughter settled into giggles as she crawled to him and settled back onto his thighs a safe distance from the downed tree. “We fucked up.”

He looked up at her and snorted. “Nooo—You fucked up.”

She leaned down and a flurry of pine needles came out of her hair and pinged him in the face. She brushed them away, “Sorry about that.”

“About the pine needles or the tree?” he challenged.

She scooted higher on his thighs, “The pine needles,” she said and pinned his hands playfully as she loomed over him.

Using his stomach muscles he toppled her and smacked her on the ass before she landed on the floor.

“Hey!” she said and sat up.

He dragged her off the floor. “We gotta fix the tree.”

“I wasn’t worried about the tree,” she groused and stood next to him.

“You said we had to do the tree first.”

“You suck.”

“Maybe I will later,” he said and flicked his fingertip down the slope of her nose.

“Maybe you lost your chance to-”

He just looked over his shoulder and she shut up.