She was too dumbfounded to make actual words come out of her mouth but did manage to make a sound somewhat resembling an “Oh?”
“It’s a skill not enough people utilize because they worry it might make someone mad. And it might do exactly that. But don’t let it stop you.”
“Um, okay.” The word came out as more of a question than she’d intended.
“And Noelle?” His voice was lower than usual, and her name sounded different from how he normally said it.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for staying with Aiden.”
She hung up the phone and looked up at the ceiling of the gazebo, knowing that she was in trouble. She had worked for Jack for a year and a half and hadn’t once gone home thinking thoughts about how attractive he was—inside or out. Yet, she knew she’d be going home thinking about him today.
And that was very bad.
six
JACK
Jack knockedon the door of what he was pretty sure was Noelle’s parents’ house in Mountain Springs. The address seemed right. So did the decorations. Although most homes in the neighborhood had Christmas lights on their houses and a tree or two, this house was, by far, the one decorated the most. Noelle had said that her family was enthusiastic about celebrating Christmas, but he still hadn’t imagined it to this extent.
Lights outlined the house and windows and covered the dozen trees and shrubs in the front yard. The decorations rivaled the ones that had been in Downtown Park during the snow sculpture competition—the nativity and Santa’s village both included.
Aiden ran through the snow and wrapped his arms around one of a set of three giant Christmas tree bulbs that were nearly as tall as him like he was giving it a hug. “Look at how big they are!”
Aiden stomped the snow off his feet as they walked to the front door and then knocked. A girl who looked like she was about seven years old answered and invited them inside. A blacklab was at her side and gave a single bark of a welcome, and Aiden immediately reached out and pet his head.
The girl pointed to a living room that was just off the entryway and said, “You can put your coats in there.”
They both shrugged off their coats and added them to the pile on the couch. Jack asked the girl for Noelle, and she said she was in the kitchen before skipping past a living room and into a family room he could see from the doorway.
They followed her and the dog and entered an area filled with people and Christmas decorations, Christmas music playing overhead. They were at the back of a family room that was open to a kitchen, with the most enormous dining room table he’d ever seen separating the two rooms. A twelve-foot tree rose to the ceiling in the family room, and about ten little kids played with toys in the open area in front of it.
A few adults were in the family room area, too, sitting on the couches holding a toddler or on the floor with the kids or standing, bouncing a baby. The rest of them were in the kitchen area, which was a hive of activity.
Aiden tugged on Jack’s shirt, not taking his wide eyes off the rooms full of people, so Jack leaned down.
“Allof these people are Noelle’s family?” he whispered.
“I think so. I know she has four sisters, and I think three of them are married and have kids.” There were definitely four people he could guess were her sisters in the kitchen, but six women were about the right age. And, taking a quick count as he looked around, there were enough spouses for five people. So maybe there were more than just siblings here. There were literally a dozen little kids, from babies to possibly seven years old, and he saw a couple who were an age that he could only assume meant they were her parents.
“How did they get so many?”
“I don’t know, buddy.”
A pack of three kids, all boys, two who looked Aiden’s age and one maybe a year younger, were building a tower out of something that looked like magnetic tiles. One of them got up and came over to Aiden. “Want to come play with us?”
Aiden looked up at Jack, and Jack nodded, so Aiden ran off to join them. One asked what his name was, and that was all it took for them to become friends. Aiden was helping them, a big grin on his face.
Noelle spotted Jack from where she stood in the kitchen and wiped her hands off on an apron she had tied around her waist as she made her way to him.
“Hi! I’m glad you could make it. Come on, let me introduce you to everyone.” Then she grabbed him by the hand and pulled him past the family room and the dining table to where the bulk of the people were working on getting all the gingerbread parts ready in the kitchen, and he tried to ignore how it felt to have Noelle’s hand in his.
“Hey, everyone, this is my boss, Jack. And that little guy over there playing with the boys is Aiden.” Then, rapid-fire, she introduced everyone to him. He quickly caught her sister’s names—Becca, Hope, Julianne, and Katie—since he’d heard them before, but the rest of the names were lost the moment she pointed to the next person and said their name. He did catch that two adult males were cousins, and two of the women she’d pointed at were their spouses. The names didn’t stick, but he did remember which ones were sisters, and he kind of caught which spouses were married to each other.
“Oh, and while we’re all here,” Noelle said, “does anyone know anything about who sent me the box of Christmas activity cards that Gran-gran painted?”
Everyone shook their heads, a few with eyebrows raised, but they all looked like they didn’t know what she was talking about.
