Read A Christmas Arrangement Online
Authors: Annie Adams
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Holidays, #Romance, #Romantic Suspense, #Mystery & Suspense, #Suspense
A Christmas Arrangement (17 page)
I heard a vehicle turn into the parking lot, then a car door slamming and feet running through slush.
“Quincy!” Alex yelled. I immediately began to cry at the sound of his voice. I didn’t have to be brave anymore. He could be brave for me. To cover my blubbering, though, I tried jocularity.
“Hey, just hanging out with my friends here.” I opened my eyes, but between the tears and the snow and the haloed lights of the nearby billboard, everything was a blur. Also, my head felt like it was going to explode.
“K.C., where’s the ladder you had in the shop the other day?” Alex asked.
“It’s in the shed over there. But it’s locked,” she said, desperation thick in her voice.
I clearly heard a car door groan open, then a few seconds later, gunshots. Different voices were all talking at the same time now, and I couldn’t make anything out. Then I heard a different metal sound. It was the sound of an aluminum ladder being opened and someone climbing up its rungs.
I opened my eyes at the most beautiful, upside down sight I’d seen in my thirty-odd years. Alex was reaching out to me. “Grab on, babe. I’ve got you.”
He’d positioned himself under me so that, as I reached for him with my free arm, he could support my weight on his shoulder. He held me around the waist and then climbed higher on the ladder which finally put me and the world right side up again.
“We’re almost there, Q,” he said. “Can you grab the ladder with your right hand?”
I reached across my body and held on as best I could. The metal was cold and slippery, and my hands were frozen. “Okay, I’ve got it.” I wouldn’t let go, despite the fact I’d lost nearly all feeling in my fingers.
“You’re doing great. Now you’re going to pull your leg out and hang on tight.”
“Then what?”
“Then I’ll try not to drop you.”
I regretted all the stress-related binging I’d done lately. I’d probably gained more than a few pounds and he was about to shoulder them all.
I pulled my leg off the defective ladder and he supported my entire weight while I carefully maneuvered my feet on to his rungs. I clung to him so tight that I shook. Or maybe the trembling was due to my body temperature. We were sharing space on the ladder and needed to separate to climb down safely, but I couldn’t readily let go.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll go first—”
“Everything is numb. What if I slip?”
“I’ll be here. I won’t let you fall.”
The gunshots had attracted a crowd from those lingering after the celebration. When we reached the bottom of the ladder, the cheers and applause from the collected strangers made the mortification of the ordeal exponentially worse.
“Let’s get you inside,” Alex said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“What in the hell were you doing on the roof?” Alex said once we were alone in the back room.
I was bundled up in my coat, then K.C.’s on top of that. She’d swaddled my head and neck with selections from her silk driving scarf collection. My legs were cocooned in blankets various people had taken from their cars.
“Fixing my compressor.” I looked up at Alex and saw that his eyes were glistening. “You can’t do that!” My eyes instantly became fountains. “See? You’re making me cry too.”
He swiped at his eyes with the back of his coat sleeve. “I’m not crying.” He pulled me in and held me tight. “Please don’t ever do that to me again.” I went to tuck my head under his chin and ended up knocking his face with a giant elf ear.
“Oof.” I cringed. “I can’t seem to quit being a pain to you.” I’ll never understand K.C.’s reasoning in leaving the ears on when she wrapped me up.
“You’re not a pain.” He smiled, slid the headband off that held the ears and rubbed his chin. “You just inflict pain.”
Unfortunately I couldn’t argue with that.
“My mom thought you were trying to kill yourself,” he said.
“What?”
“She said that Daphne said you were overwhelmed and you had gone to the roof.”
I thunked my forehead with the heel of my hand. “I don’t even know where to start. I’m so embarrassed.”
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed. It was her mistake.”
“No, I mean the whole scene.” My soaked tights began to itch from waist to toe. I moaned. “I didn’t even think about how my dress was hanging upside down too. Until now.”
“At least you were wearing the tights.”
“Yeah, no tissues hanging out this time either.” I sighed. “I’m embarrassed about how I looked, but even more embarrassed about the way I’ve behaved toward your mother. She’s just trying to protect you from the likes of me because she loves you.”
A lump grew in my throat and it felt like my heart was expanding in my chest as the blood pounded through it. The time had come to tell him. The nerves tingled all over my body. “Alex, I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, and I feel like I need to tell you that I lo—”
“How’s it going back here, Boss?” K.C. poked her head through the doorway and winked at us in way that involved half the muscles of her face.
K.C.’s interruption completely obliterated my momentum. I’d have to wait a while before I could build up enough courage again to tell Alex that I loved him. Or he could come swooping in and rescue me again, like he just had—but that would require another dangerous predicament on my part. I’d just stick with the excruciating buildup of angst.
“Oh my gosh,” I said. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Don’t you step foot out of this room!” K.C. said to me, stepping into the doorway and wagging her finger. She glanced at Alex and her eyes lingered a second before looking back at me.
I stood up and set the blankets aside. “Look, I’m fine.” I began to unravel the scarves coiled like a boa constrictor around my neck. “I can’t leave you guys alone to clean up.” Even though our three woman crew had kept on top of things during the open house, we’d still been understaffed. I couldn’t imagine what a mess had piled up while I was outside putting on my show, leaving only two people in the shop without any extra help.
Wait.
I turned back to Alex. “I thought you had to work tonight.”
He raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth as if to speak, but then paused.
“Oh, I—”
Jerome came running from the front of the shop.
“Who’s this?” Alex asked as the dog trotted over to him and jumped on his legs to be picked up. Alex obliged.
Just seeing the little guy warmed me up inside. He was beyond adorable. And he was being held by the other guy who warmed my heart. The entire picture was overwhelmingly sweet.
“This is the handsome fellow who was kissing me the other day when you called. I think he’s bumped your status as the one with the best brown eyes,” I said.
“Whose dog is it?” he asked as he scratched between the puppy’s ears.
I shrugged. “I guess…he’s mine now.” I felt some serious guilt for having left all the cleanup for Daphne and K.C. “I’ll tell you the whole story, but I really need to get up there and help out. Would you mind watching him for a few minutes?”
“Um…okay.” He glanced toward the doorway to the front of the shop.
I tilted my head and furrowed my brows. Alex was acting funny.
“Tell me his name,” he said while he looked at Jerome. His voice had taken on a sing-song quality as if he’d spoken to a baby.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
“He’s really yours?” Alex asked.
I looked down at the cherub face. His paws were set on Alex’s forearm and he rested his head on his paws. He peeked up at me and squeaked.
“Yeah, I think I’ll keep him. His name is Jerome.”
Alex made a face. “Funny name for a dog.”
I smiled. “Yeah.”
I shed my coats and left Alex to be licked to death by Jerome, then walked into the main design room. The overhead lights weren’t on, but there were candles flickering everywhere. I thought perhaps I was just feeling more confused than usual from hanging upside down for so long, but I worried the power might have gone out again. The cooler fan hummed in the background, though. I also noticed there was nobody else in the store. I walked into the display room. Again, nobody there.
It seemed odd that Alex’s parents weren’t here, not to mention everyone else. Where had K.C. and Daphne gone? His mother had thought I was attempting suicide, but then disappeared once Alex showed up? I’d thought everyone was just giving me and Alex a little private time while we talked in the back room. I didn’t expect them all to leave. And Alex never did tell me why he was here instead of work. Not that I was complaining—if he hadn’t been, I’d be the poster child for Newton’s Laws of physics.
I turned to go and ask him what was going on, but there he was, just behind me, kneeling on one knee. He flipped open a ring box and flashed me his million dollar smile.
“Quincy McKay, will you marry me?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“No.”
I wasn’t sure who’d said that. But I paused and ran it back through my head and realized it had been me. My heart pounded, my throat was swollen, and it felt like I was plugged in to an adrenaline IV.
Alex blinked slowly and looked up at me from his knee. “Come again?”
“I mean—we can’t—get married. I’m still married to someone else, and your mother hates me and I’m wearing this elf costume and I—” My breaths were shallow and rapid now. Hyperventilation was setting in.
Alex stood up and apparently this was the cue. The front door to the shop flew open, the
Hallelujah Chorus
, was being sung—badly—and suddenly the room was full of family and friends. My knees felt like liquid and it seemed so hot in the shop all of a sudden.
“Quincy,” Alex grabbed my shoulders to keep me upright. “I love you. And so do my parents, but that doesn’t even matter. What matters is what you think—about me.”
“I love you so much it makes me cry just to say it out loud.” I wiped at my dripping eyes. “I just don’t want you to resent choosing me. I don’t want to be the thing that makes your family disappointed in you, because you’re perfect and wonderful and they know it. And I want it to stay that way for you.”
He closed the ring box, put it in his pocket and smiled at me. The carolers caught on and stopped singing—much to everyone’s relief. Alex cradled my face in his hands. “You are perfect for me. And I love you. I’ve loved you from the first time you bossed me around while I stood right over there by the door. And we don’t have to get married right away. We can wait until you’re divorced.”
“What was that?” I heard my mother ask.
“Shush, Annette,” my father said. “I’ll tell you later.”
“And my parents—”
“We love you, Quincy,” Eleanor said. “And it makes us so happy for you and our Leaky.”
“Leaky?” K.C. stage whispered. Alex’s face bloomed red as a rose.
“So now what do you say?”
“The problem is, you’re in the wrong spot, junior,” K.C. said. She put a hand on each of our shoulders and scooched us about a foot toward the front window. She looked up at the ceiling then nodded. “Now,” she said, looking at Alex, “do it again.”
He looked up at the ceiling and grinned. Then, he looked at me, his brown eyes sparkling and got down on one knee. He pulled out the ring box.
I looked up too and realized we were under the mistletoe K.C. had hung in the shop.
“Quinella McKay,” I pulled a face and his smile widened, “will you marry me sometime in the future?”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks once again. “Yes, I will, Alex Cooper.”
It was the best arrangement I’d ever made.
I hope you enjoyed A Christmas Arrangement!
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Also by Annie Adams
The Flower Shop Mystery Series:
The Final Arrangement available now on Amazon.com
Deadly Arrangements available now on Amazon.com
Family recipes
for Funeral Potatoes, (Tasty) Jell-O salad, Christmas Candy and Eleanor’s Sausage and Chestnut Stuffing available to newsletter members only on my website.
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Thank you all!
Annie
DEDICATION
To Grandma Lola and Grandpa Hill,
Thank you for teaching me, loving me and inspiring me.
I’ll miss you forever.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Annie Adams lives in Northern Utah at the foot of the Wasatch with her husband, two dogs and two cats. She loves to hear from readers. Connect online:
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