“Amen. Who’d have thought the weather would get so bad so quickly?” Jorja opened the door and stepped out, only to slip and fall square on her butt.
She started to grab the tire and work her way back up when Cameron scooped her up and started for the back door with her in his strong arms. “Are you hurt?” he asked.
“Just my pride,” she answered. “I should have kept my rubber boots on.”
“Honey, as slick as this damn parking lot is, we need ice skates to get around.” He set her down on the back stoop and unlocked the door. “I’ll bring in the groceries if you’ll put them away.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that deal.” She headed down the short hall to the doorway leading into their living quarters. Never had a little efficiency apartment looked so good as that one did after what seemed like a sled ride home.
“Home,” she muttered as she pulled off her coat and stocking hat, then kicked off her boots.
Nashville had not been home even though she’d lived there for years. She’d always thought of her place as “the apartment.” Home was Hurricane Mills where she’d grown up. How could home suddenly be an old honky tonk in a town thirty miles from a Walmart and a doctor’s office?
Sometimes Santa Claus brings you a present you didn’t even ask for. Her grandmother’s voice was back in her head. Last spring you told me you were ready to get serious and settle down, but there were no good men left in the world. Then you said that you would love to be your own boss. Merry Christmas, darlin’ girl.
Jorja remembered that conversation as if it had happened only yesterday and then her mother’s words from years ago came back to haunt her. Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it and not know what to do with it.
Cameron brought in two fists full of plastic bags and set them on the table. “Got about that many more. We forgot to stop and get ice cream for tomorrow. I’ll drive back to the convenience store and get it when I get done unloading.”
“You will not!” she exclaimed. “We slipped and slid on the ice so much that we barely got stopped once. No sense in testing fate a second time no matter how lucky you think you are. We’ll get some whipped cream from the bar and use it on our cobbler.”
He held up his palms defensively. “Hey, with that tone, I won’t even think of arguing with you. I like whipped cream on my pie as well as ice cream anyway…and if we’re discussing whipped cream…” He grinned.
She pointed a finger at him. “Don’t go there.” She’d blushed more in the past twenty-four hours than she had in her entire life.
And you felt more alive in that time than you ever did before. Her grandmother was back again.
“Go where?” he asked, and there was that innocent look again.
“I bet you could sweet-talk a nun into falling into bed with you,” she smarted off.
“Never tried, and quite frankly, I’d be kind of afraid of that. I’m fast, but honey, lightning is faster than I could ever be.” He chuckled as he went back out for the rest of the groceries.
She found herself humming “Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Star” as she put the food away.
Then suddenly, the song filled the whole apartment and Cameron brought in the last of the groceries. “I stopped by the jukebox to play a little music while we make some popcorn and hot chocolate and get ready for our movies. I only plugged in three songs. If we need more, I can go back and put more money in.” He put the bags on the table and held out his arms. “May I have this dance?”
She set down two cans of green beans and walked into his embrace. He two-stepped with her around the apartment, between the beds and then out into the bar where there was more room. To her surprise, he’d not only put money in the jukebox, but he’d turned on the Christmas tree lights. She glanced out the window as he danced her around the tables with chairs sitting on top of them to Merle singing about a lucky star, and there were two raccoons staring right at her. They had their little paws on the outside windowsill, and she could’ve sworn they were smiling.
The sky was gray with heavy clouds so there were no stars shining that night, but the one on the Christmas tree was glowing all pretty and bright. When she was in a position to see out the window again, the raccoons were gone, but she had no doubt now that the universe really was sending her signs right and left. Everything, including the warm, fuzzy feeling in her heart, said that the past had faded like the sky, and her future was that lucky star sitting on top of a thirty-year-old Christmas tree.
“It’s an omen,” she whispered.
“What is?” he asked.
“All this.” The song ended and Mary Chapin Carpenter started singing “I Feel Lucky.” Cameron spun her around in a swing dance. Both of them were laughing when he brought her back to his chest.
“What about all this? How can it be an omen?” he asked.
She laughed and looked up into his twinkling eyes. “Both songs talk about us being lucky, and everywhere we look there’s two of something. I just know it means something.”
“Maybe it means that it’s great to have a partner,” he said.
“Don’t you get the feeling we were meant to be right here at Christmas?” she asked.
Life in Mingus, Texas, was going to be just fine. She’d found one of the last good men in the world and their journey together might not be what she expected when she made that wish last spring, but it would be their story no matter where it led.
He brushed a soft kiss across her lips. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
Chapter 8
Jorja hummed songs about feeling lucky while she watched the bag of popcorn in the microwave. A scraping noise behind her made her whip around to see Cameron moving his bed across the floor. If he thought a few kisses gave him permission to turn two beds into one, he had rocks or cow patties for brains. She opened her mouth to say something and then realized that he had made an L-shape out of the beds.
“Now we’ve got a sectional to use to watch our movies,” he said. “We won’t have to strain our necks trying to see the television. I don’t know why the folks who put it in hung the damned thing on the wall.”
“Probably because they didn’t have room for an entertainment unit or even a stand to put it on.” Couldn’t he see how small the place they shared really was?
“Maybe so.” He put the first movie in the player that was sitting on a chair from the bar and picked up the remote. “Need some help over there?”
“I got it under control, but I’m wondering what we’re going to use for a coffee table or end table to set our mugs on.” She poured two big cups full of hot chocolate and added a fistful of miniature marshmallows to each of them.