And getting there was impossible without help. As a little thing, she’d been unable to reach the cord that hung down. Now, though…She stretched out her arm, stood up on tiptoe, and closed her hand around the plastic grip at the end of the cord.
“Wow,” she said. “If that doesn’t drive home how long it’s been, nothing will.” She glanced over her shoulder with a smile, but Matthew was only frowning at her. “I could never reach this before,” she explained.
“Oh.”
He seemed a little tense, was looking at her with a new intensity. Well, she guessed some people didn’t deal well with it when you talked about death or loss. They were facts of life, just like the good stuff. There was no point in walling them off in some kind of soundproof room within your head. They were real.
Shrugging, she said, “Stand aside,” and when she felt him move, she tugged the cord. The trapdoor came downward, and the attached ladder extended itself and slid to the floor all on its own. Holly flipped the latches on either side that would keep it that way, then stepped on up, aiming her flashlight beam ahead of her.
Cobwebs met her halfway, but she’d never been afraid of them, or of spiders for that matter, so she just brushed them aside and kept ascending, until she stood on the attic floor. She stepped to one side to make room for her guest, and shone her light this way and that, looking around the place with wide eyes.
He came up and stood beside her. “Man, there’s a lot of stuff up here.”
“Yeah.” No need to elaborate. He’d stated the obvious. “Aunt Sheila and I sold everything that was worth much, just to help us get on our feet. She came back here while I was in the hospital and got most of my things out for me, so I wouldn’t have to. And she told me she’d stored everything she couldn’t sell in the attic and the shed outside. I just…”
For some reason her breath caught there, and her throat went real tight.
“You had no way of knowing what stuff was stored and what stuff was sold?” he asked.
She swallowed, nodded. “I never asked.” Her voice was raspy, the muscles in her throat still clutching hard at her windpipe.
He cleared his throat. “I owe you an apology, Holly. I uh…misjudged you.”
“People tend to think I’m either an airhead or that I’ve been living in a charmed little bubble. I promise, neither one is true.”
“I got that. So how do you manage to love the holidays so much?”
“Not just the holidays. I love life.” She shrugged. “Hell, I figure Mom didn’t send me back here to be miserable. Mostly I think she sent me back to take care of Aunt Sheila.”
“Your aunt’s not well?”
“MS,” Holly said. Then she met his eyes. “Don’t look like that. You’d never know, aside from the wheelchair. Hell, I’m pretty sure she’s having a fling with the new cook at our diner.”
He tipped his head to one side.
“She loves life, too. Runs in the family, I guess.”
He just looked at her, as if he didn’t quite know what to make of her. She glanced at the TV—a big console model with a knob to turn the channel, and no remote control. “Noelle and I used to lie on the rug watching cartoons on Saturday mornings.”
“I used to do the same thing with my kid sister, Cindy.”
She nodded. “That TV was outdated, even then.” Then she shook off the wave of sadness the memory brought. “What was your favorite?”
“My favorite what?” he asked.
“Cartoon. Mine was Scooby Doo.”
“Oh. I don’t know. I liked the Turtles a lot.”
“The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, you mean.” She smiled. “I liked them, too.”
He sighed, turned, and pointed. “There’s a sofa. Should we take it downstairs?”
“You offering to help?”
He made a face at her in the glow of the flashlight. “No. I’m gonna leave and let a woman who just fell off her own roof try to manhandle a two-hundred-pound sofa down two flights, single-handedly.”
“Don’t even think I couldn’t do it,” she said.
He smiled, and it was the first relaxed, genuine smile she thought she had seen cross his face. “You know what? I don’t doubt it for a minute.”
“Shall we?” she asked.
He nodded. Holly stuck the flashlight into a back pocket, and they each got on one end of the sofa, picked it up, and began the awkward task of maneuvering it through the opening and down the ladder to the hall below, and then farther, down to the living room.
They lowered it to the floor, then positioned it just the way Holly wanted it, facing the fireplace, with a view to the windows.
“Perfect,” she said with a satisfied nod.
“Anything else before I leave?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
She sat down, and patted the sofa until he sat beside her. Then she said, “Tell me why you hate Christmas.”
Matthew lifted his brows and stared at her. “Now what makes you think I hate Christmas?”
“Are you saying you don’t?”
“No. I’m asking how you knew.”
She nodded, grateful for the honesty. She’d half expected him to deny it. “Your reaction to the decorations, your comments about the season in general, all that kind of stuff. It’s pretty obvious.”
“Well, obvious or not, it’s not important.”
She met his eyes, held them. “I think it is.”
“Hell, Holly, don’t be ridiculous. In less than a minute, I’m gonna walk out that door, get into my car, and drive back to my hotel, and you’ll probably never see me again. So how in the world could my childhood traumas matter in the least to you?”
“They do.” She drew a breath and then blew it out. “I think you’re here for a reason. We both are. And I hate to let you leave before I figure out what it is. So it’s something from your childhood, then. A trauma?”
Matthew got to his feet, looked down at her, and extended a hand. “It was nice to meet you, Holly. You’re…” He shook his head. “One of a kind, I think. But I really need to get going.”
She took his hand, but instead of shaking it, used it to pull herself to her feet. Then she went to the fireplace to get his boots and coat for him.
He sat on the sofa putting them on, and the silence was taut. She needed to break it. “So, are you going to put an offer in on the place?”
“Depends,” he said. Both boots were on and he was bending over to tie them. Without looking her in the eye, he said, “Did you want to buy it back yourself?”
She looked around, felt herself getting misty. “I hadn’t even thought about it. It’s really not an option right now.”
“I see.”
“Why did you ask?”
“No reason.”
“Liar.”
He looked up from tying his boots, and met her eyes.
She went on. “You wouldn’t buy it if I had said I wanted it, would you?”
“Sorry,” he said. “You must have me mistaken for that Samaritan guy. Or maybe Santa Claus. I do what’s best for me. Period.”
“Oh, really? Then why did you ask?”
“Curiosity, that’s all. Besides, I haven’t decided yet if I want the place. It looks like a pretty good investment at first glance, but I never make a decision until I have my contractors inspect a place.”
“Oh. So step two is to send them up here to take a look.”
“That’s right.” He pulled on his coat, started for the door, paused halfway there, and turned back around. “Listen, are you sure you’re going to be okay out here all by yourself overnight?”
She tipped her head to one side. “You like me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why are you all concerned all of the sudden? You like me. Admit it.”