LITMIR.BIZ

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never been to a real tree lighting before. Uncle Ben knows I don’t believe in Santa Claus, right? I mean, that’s for little kids.”

      “It’s just for fun, you know that.” Debra had grown up in a family where Santa Claus was a secular icon and therefore not part of her childhood, but she didn’t feel as strongly on the subject as her mother had. Millie had been a very strict Christian and disciplinarian. Debra smoothed back a lock of Mia’s baby-fine hair out of her eyes, glad that so far things were going well.

      Then a blur of movement at the edge of her vision caught her attention.

      Jonah. He was the reason that she’d been distracted throughout her conversation with Ben. The big man had hunkered down to his work carefully sanding a portion of the crib. Debra couldn’t help noticing how his big artist’s hands expertly worked the small square of roughened paper over the delicate scrollwork, she supposed to get it exactly right.

      She didn’t know him, but what she did know about the man she liked very much. He was so disciplined and exacting. He obviously cared about his work. It must take a lot of the patience and dedication to build something so intricate and perfect.

      She admired that kind of stick-to-it-ness. The muscle-bound man looked out of his element kneeling in front of the delicate crib. She never would have pictured him as a minister’s son.

      The man was an interesting contradiction; maybe that’s why she kept wondering about him. Why her eyes kept finding him. Why he stayed at the edges of her mind. He seemed different from most men she knew. In the corporate world, she dealt with a lot of power-hungry men, men concerned with their image, wearing the right suit, driving the right car and having the right title beneath the name on their business cards.

      Men like that, she deeply suspected, were like Mia’s father. Men who made promises they couldn’t keep, weren’t man enough to keep.

      Jonah looked like a man who knew how to keep his promises and honor his commitments. Not that she was seriously considering even trying to date again. No, it wouldn’t be good for Mia to get attached to a man who decided, in the end, to leave.

      Debra pushed that old sadness out of her heart and smoothed the last of the damp remains of snowflakes from her daughter’s hair.

      “Mom,” Mia leaned in to whisper. “Isn’t Uncle Ben the greatest?”

      “He sure seems to be.” Please let him be, she wished. Not that she was religious anymore, but if she were to pray, she would have one simple request. Please, let this work out. Don’t let Mia get hurt.

      “Mom. We get to go to the dinner at the hotel tonight, too, right?”

      “Of course, kid. If it’s what you want.”

      “Uh, ye-ah!” Mia grabbed Debra’s hand and held on tight, the way she used to do when she was a little girl. There was so much brightness in her smile and so much hope in her spirit that it just shone right out of her. “Isn’t this the greatest day ever?”

      “Well, it certainly has been a very good one.”

      “Uh-huh! Remember how we never thought we’d get over being so sad when Grandmother Millie died? I’ve been praying and praying ever since. And look what happened. God found us more family to love.”

      Mia’s hopes were far too high. They had both taken her mother’s death hard, each in her own way. Mia was only now just starting to come out of the grief.

      Debra felt a horrible sinking feeling in her chest. What could she do to protect her daughter? She didn’t have a single idea. Not that she believed a prayer made much difference, but if it could, she hoped hers had risen on angel’s wings. What were the chances of all this with Ben coming out all right?

      They had talked about that on the drive here to Virginia. Debra had done her best to try to be sensible and prepare Mia for the truth of relationships. You just couldn’t know how people were going to decide to treat you.

      There was Jonah, watching her out of the corner of his eye. Or was that her imagination?

      When she turned toward him, he was absorbed in his work. Acting as if he didn’t know she was on the same planet, much less in the same room.

      Fine, it was her imagination, after all.

      “Leah says hi and welcome,” Ben said as he pocketed his phone. “You are coming to our precelebration dinner, right?”

      “Right!” Mia jumped in with a high-pitched answer. “Cousin Olivia’s coming, too, right? And baby Joseph?”

      Ben’s chuckle of delight was charming. “Absolutely. Olivia’s talked about nothing else for days. And talked and talked. Girls,” he said, shaking his head in friendly amusement. “If it wasn’t for baby Joseph, I’d be really outnumbered.”

      “You don’t look like you’re suffering much,” Debra commented, unable to keep from sharing a smile with her half brother.

      “No complaint here. I’ve got more blessings than I can count. Family, that’s what’s important.” He shot a look over to the workman crouching strategically behind the crib. “I keep telling Jonah that, but to no avail. He’s still stubbornly single. I keep hoping to change that.”

      “He doesn’t even have a girlfriend?” Mia perked up at that bit of news, twisting toward the woodworker to study him intently. “Is that true, Jonah?”

      “Yep, it’s true.” He grinned over the top of the crib. “I’m too busy to have a girlfriend. I keep telling your uncle Ben that, but does it look like he listens?”

      “No.” Mia answered. “How can you be too busy to have a girlfriend?”

      “Look at me, working through lunch. Next thing I know, I’m working away and I look up and it’s way past dinnertime.”

      “That’s just like my mom.” Mia wrinkled her nose. “She’s always at the office. And when she isn’t, do you know where she is?”

      Debra could feel Jonah’s gaze on her. And Ben’s, too. She felt her chin shoot up and all her defenses, too. It wasn’t easy being a single parent, but she was doing her absolute best.

      The big man on bended knee reached for a fresh sheet of sandpaper. “If your mom’s anything like me, she probably brings work home.”

      “That’s it exactly,” Mia confirmed.

      “I don’t think it’s much of a secret why she works so hard.”

      “It isn’t?” Mia took a step toward him, transfixed.

      Deb realized that’s how she felt, too.

      “Nope, it’s easy to see.” Jonah’s baritone sliced right through her every defense. “She works that hard for you. Isn’t that right, Debra?”

      “Y-yeah.” With her shields down, she felt the impact of his words with her unprotected heart. She’d walked around with those shields up for so long, she felt way too exposed. The odd thing was, she also felt touched that this man she’d only just met understood her. “That’s right, Jonah.”

      Their gazes met. No one had ever seen her truth so clearly.

      “Seems that we have a lot in common, Debra.” Ben, who’d been quietly watching them, stepped forward, into the light. “We’re more alike than either one of us guessed.”

      Her throat ached with emotion. “Maybe we are.”

      “So, Jonah.” Mia, irrepressible Mia, focused her big innocent eyes on the woodworker. Again. “Don’t you want a family?”

      Here we go again. Deb mentally groaned. What was she going to do about her child? The girl cared about everyone. That wasn’t a bad thing in itself, of course, but all anyone had to do was to look at poor Jonah, blushing a bit as he debated exactly how to answer, to see that he needed rescuing. “What was I just saying to you, kiddo?”

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