Silent Night, Star-Lit Night (Second Chance at Star Inn)(4)
She dipped her head and said nothing.
“Hey. Mia.” He reached over and put his hand on her arm while the light was red. “Are you okay? Want me to pull over? There’s a shopping center right there.”
She shook her head, fumbled for a tissue in her bag, then blew her nose. “I’m fine.”
The light changed. He eased forward, trying to assess the situation. “I see that.”
She almost laughed. “No, I mean it, I’m really fine. It’s just . . .” She sighed and waved a hand at the air, the baby, the car . . . him. “Hormones. They do a number on you during pregnancy, and the littlest things that never would have bothered me before make me either laugh, cry, or spitting mad. And I can’t tell which it’s going to be from one minute to the next. Last month I got mad because my ankles started to swell. This month I can’t see them, so it’s no longer a big deal.”
“I actually noticed your ankles looked great when you were walking to the car. Not that I was checking them out or anything. So why the tears, out of the blue?”
She leaned back against the seat. “You’re being nice to me.”
Her words swelled his country-boy heart.
She got choked up because he was being nice to her. Because he was concerned for her comfort. Because Dan wasn’t here to do that. No one had been around to do that throughout this pregnancy.
Jed stared ahead, thinking of the hard time he’d given his mother and Auntie P. about this trip.
He shouldn’t be away right now. They were all aware of that. Uncle Pete was already on a tear at the store, and it wouldn’t surprise Jed if half the staff walked out after the holidays, because Pete hadn’t had a good day in months. And as good-hearted as the women were, neither one could step into Jed’s shoes at the store or the ranch and this month’s sales were a huge part of end-of-year profit margins.
But Mia was shedding tears because someone was being nice to her, and that meant his mother was right. Again.
He took the ramp onto the interstate and aimed north. “You good with this?” He jutted his chin toward the traffic-filled highway in front of them. “Or would you rather take Route Ninety-Nine?”
“You did your homework on the way.”
He wouldn’t mention that he’d been studying the fastest, most direct way home so he could get back to work.
“The interstate’s fine. I know this isn’t what you expected to be doing during the busiest time of the year at the store.”
“December’s busy, sure.” He tapped his finger against the steering wheel, trying to gauge the flow of traffic, but the number of impatient drivers zipping in and out of lanes made that impossible. “But April and May have taken hold as the busiest. The seed and feed side of the store is busy from open to close then, and farm supplies have taken off since the Gables closed up their shop.” Chet Gable and his wife had run a small feed supply store east of the Taylors’ store, just off I-90.
“Gables’ closed?”
Jed nodded as he changed lanes. “Tim’s a P.A. in Seattle and Becky’s a schoolteacher in Ellensburg. Chet passed away just before we lost my dad, and Jean shut things down. With no kids to hand the business down to, she sold things off and moved closer to Ellensburg to be near the grandkids. We absorbed some of their inventory to help out. And a good share of their business, too.”
“And time goes on.”
“You know what we need?” The melancholy look on Mia’s face pushed him to hit the radio button. “Christmas music.” He started to scroll through stations, then gave up to focus on the road. “You’re riding shotgun; that puts you in charge of music while I try to navigate more traffic than should be humanly allowed. Don’t any of these folks know there’s like a bajillion acres in the heartland? Why would anyone live in all this, given a choice?” He didn’t ease to the next lane left; he shot into it, in a kill-or-be-killed NASCAR-style move.
“Your country roots are showing.”
He grinned, eyes on the road. “All-American boy, at your service.”
She tuned in eighties mellow rock, guaranteed to put him to sleep at the wheel by mid-day, but Jed kept his mouth shut. If this soothed her, then good. The sun-soaked highway seemed more beach friendly and less holiday themed, but he’d left twelve inches of early snow on the level in Roslyn.
They’d get to dreaming of an old-fashioned white Christmas soon enough.
Chapter Three
Christmas music? Mia stabbed the radio tuner with more force than necessary, because if she could figure out a way to stop Christmas from coming . . .
She sighed, sounding more Grinch-like than anyone should be.
Next year she’d play the part. She’d do all of the things a new mom was supposed to do to show her daughter the beauty of the holiday season. She’d take her baby to see bright lights, animated figures, maybe even a living Nativity.
But this year Mia still kind of wanted to punch someone, and that wasn’t exactly the Christmas spirit folks wrote home about.
Don’t do much good for a body to waste time lookin’ round at others when there’s so much to improve in ourselves.
Grandpa Joe’s wisdom. He’d worked so hard to give her a sense of normal, him and Aunt Pauline both. Why had she taken his health at his age for granted? Why hadn’t she visited more often?