Merry Humbug Christmas (30 page)

finger. Now twist the tip downward toward its seam in a

quick, even motion.”

Reese followed Jeane’s instructions to the letter, and the tip of the bean gave a firm, crisp snap!

“Perfect!” Jeane said. “Now do the other end of the bean.” She

rubbed Reese’s shoulder before moving on to stand behind Reggie.

“Regina, don’t go so quickly that you toss the tips without looking.

You’ve got more of them on the floor than in the bag.”

“I’m doing just what you told me,” she objected.

“Snap-toss-snap-toss.”

“Do I need to update it for you?” Jeane countered. “Snap-toss
in
the bag
.”

Reese tried to keep up with the rhythm of the snap-toss-snap-

toss song, but she hadn’t spent much time around string beans. Her mother rarely prepared them, and when she did, Reese hadn’t been

asked to
snap
anything, and aside from
tossing
a prepared bag of them 239

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into the microwave in the break room at the hospital, there hadn’t been much of that either.

Hannah smiled at her from across the island. “It takes a lot of

food to feed our family. We’re like a small country or something.”

“I don’t want to hear you complaining over there,” Sofia teased

her. “It’s the wives . . .” She paused and glanced at Reese. “. . . and the girlfriends who are responsible for the
side deeshes
. You could be outside in the snow with the other children and your
grandpapi
.”

“How many thousands of string beans do we need?” Courtney

asked. “Haven’t we been at this long enough to feed a village?”

“You know the drill,” Jeane retorted. “Each boy gets to choose

one side dish, and all of the women work together to make them.”

Reese grinned as she imagined her own mother’s reaction to such

an antifeminist statement. “And it’s your husband who chose string beans with almonds and thyme, missy, so get to snapping. You’re

nearly finished.”

Courtney chuckled as she stepped up the pace.

“What did Damian choose?” Reese asked.

“The same as always,” Sofia chimed in, and the other women sur-

rounding Reese sang along in four-part harmony.
“Chest-nut stuf-fing.”

She didn’t even know Damian liked chestnuts.

“Jeane’s chestnut stuffing is to die for,” Courtney told her.

“She doesn’t put it inside the goose. She makes it in this giant

glass dish,” Hannah said, “and she bakes the goose with all this fruit and stuff instead.”

“Goose?”

“That’s our traditional Christmas Eve meal,” Jeane explained as

she lifted the massive colander filled with cleaned string beans, set it into the deep stainless steel sink, and turned on the cold water.

“What’s the matter?” Hannah asked when she noticed Reese’s

expression. “You don’t like goose?”

“I have no idea,” she admitted with a grin. “I’ve never met one.”

“Just wait until you find out what you’ve been missing!” the

young girl exclaimed. “Grandmom’s goose is the best in the world.”

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“One son down,” Jeane announced as she shut off the water.

“Next son is up. Elijah has chosen candied sweet potatoes. Let’s get started skinning those sweet potatoes.”

Sofia and Courtney groaned, but Hannah hopped up from her

chair and rounded the island, hugging Jeane around the neck. “Little marshmallows, right Grandmom?”

“Of course.”

“You’re going to love her candied sweet potatoes, Reese.”

“Shall we stop and have some hot tea and cookies before we start

them?” Jeane asked, and everyone, including Reese, chimed in their agreement.

They scattered for a short break, and Reese took her cup of

Darjeeling and a sugar cookie with her to the large picture window beyond the Christmas tree in hopes of getting a look at Damian and the boys out in the snow. When she spotted movement off to the side of the house, she squinted to get a closer look.

Reese drew in a sharp breath when her line of sight landed on a

large deer standing just beyond the woods at the edge of the Palmers’

property. She wondered if she’d imagined the eye contact between

them just as the buck reared its head and lifted its tall antlers, staring straight at her with wide, bright eyes.

“What does a deer eat?” she asked as she flew past the women

and into the kitchen. “Do they like carrots, like a horse?”

“I believe they do,” Jeane said, reeling around to watch Reese

speed past her. “I believe they like sweet potatoes too. There’s a sack of them in the pantry on the—”

Reese remembered seeing them. She grabbed several carrots

from the counter, and then found two misshapen sweet potatoes in

the netted bag on the pantry shelf. Snagging her coat on the way, she dashed out the side door and hurried around the back of the house.

Panting for breath, she skidded to a stop when she saw it. She

couldn’t be sure, but something told her she’d looked into those very same eyes—black and glassy, outlined in unique white fur circles—

once before.

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“Hi,” she said, and her voice sounded gravelly as she spoke. “I’m Reese. You might remember me, right?”

The deer didn’t even blink. He just kept his sight fixed on her.

She noticed his back leg trembling, no doubt in preparation for quick flight.

“Reese, what are—”

“Shh!” She stopped Damian in his tracks. “Do you see him?”

He moved cautiously toward her and came to a silent stop at her

side. Finally, “I see him,” he whispered. “What are you doing?”

“I think he’s hungry.”

Damian snickered. “Baby, the chances of this deer being the one

from the other night—”

“It’s him, Damie. I know it. Do you think he’ll let me get any

closer?”

“I doubt it.”

Reese thought it over for a moment before giving the buck a

timid smile. “I feel really bad about what happened,” she told him, and she took one step forward. “It’s not that I think food will make up for everything, mind you. But I’m pretty sure it couldn’t hurt.”

“Uncle Damian, is that one of Santa’s reindeer?” Jeremy cried as

he rounded the corner of the house. Reese shushed him sweetly.

“Don’t scare him, okay, sweetie?”

“Okay,” he said, and Damian picked him up. “It’s not Rudolph,”

the little boy whispered, “because he’s got a regular nose. Maybe it’s Blitzen!”

“I don’t know, buddy.”

Reese took another step forward. The buck quaked slightly, but

he didn’t bolt.

“I thought maybe you’d like some carrots,” she said and took one

more step. “I’m hoping you like sweet potatoes too. I’ve got a couple of those here.”

Before her foot touched the ground again, the deer backed up

and blinked at her.

“Okay, okay,” she said with her hands raised. “I won’t come any

closer. I’ll just toss you a carrot. Okay?”

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She pitched one of the carrots toward the animal, and it landed

a foot or so from its front hooves. Instead of sniffing the offering the way she expected, the buck simply turned and bounded away into

the woods, its fluffy white tail standing erect, an unmistakable limp as he ran.

“That’s him!” Reese cried, and she grabbed Damian’s free arm

and shook it. “Did you see him limp as he ran away? That’s him,

Damie.” After a moment she tossed the rest of the vegetables, and they landed near the carrot she’d offered the deer. “Maybe he’ll come back if we all go inside.”

“I gotta go tell the other kids!” Jeremy cried, and he nearly leaped out of Damian’s arms.

Reese and Damian clasped their hands together and meandered

around the house behind him.

“My brothers and P.J. went sledding up the road. I came back for

the little ones. Do you mind if I join them up there?”

“Not at all,” she replied. “The womenfolk are busy preparing the

Christmas Eve dinner anyway.”

Damian chuckled. “I can’t come to grips with my pediatrician

fiancée as one of the womenfolk. It’s just too
Doctor Quinn, Medicine
Woman
.”

“You like Jane Seymour,” she reminded him with a giggle.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“So why don’t you go off and chop some wood and ride some

sleds while we stay behind and rustle up some grub.”

Damian laughed and planted a kiss on her. “See you later, Jane.”

Once inside, Reese found the next segment of the food prepara-

tion triathlon already in gear. Hannah, Sofia, Reggie, and Courtney had resumed their places around the island while Jeane stood over the sink rinsing the beans they’d prepared.

“How can I help?” Reese asked.

“You can put away the lemon and creamer while I baste the bird.”

Reese happily picked up the condiments and headed for the

refrigerator. Jeane opened the oven door and pulled out the rack, removing a tent of aluminum foil. Reese’s eyes bulged open at the Merry Humbug Christmas.indd 243

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disconcerting sight before her:
A fat, headless goose sitting naked in a
large, shallow pot.

Its partially raw flesh looked strangely acne ridden. An epiph-

any crested on the fringe of her suddenly numb, vacant thoughts;

and, in that instant, Reese knew where the term “goose flesh” had originated.

“Meet Gerard,” Hannah said as she stepped up beside her. “Our

Christmas Eve dinner.”

A decade or more of Tofurkey-laden holiday tables flashed across

her mind, and an operatic reminder of parental monologues extoling the humanitarian virtues of veganism chimed in echoes throughout

her brain . . . all while Blitzen limped around outside and Gerard sat there in that pot, still and lifeless, his head chopped off and his little webbed feet glaringly absent from his light golden brown torso.

A wave of nausea crashed over Reese, and cold perspiration

erupted all over her body.

“Reese?” Hannah asked her. “Are you . . . all right?”

The room began to spin, and it felt as though she’d been socked

in the stomach really, really hard.

By the time she realized what might occur, she had to gag back

the acidic liquid on the rise in her throat, and she covered her mouth with both hands. In a frantic effort not to hurl everything she’d consumed for the last two days over naked, half-baked Gerard, she spun around and threw herself over the edge of the sink and spewed into it.

Unfortunately, her short-lived relief capsized and fell, the gasps of everyone around her echoing in her thrumming ears.

“
Ay caramba!
Did she just
vahmeet
on the string beans?”

REESE HADN’T SAID A word in the entire fifteen minutes that had

passed since Damian found her on the front porch. Every time he

tried to inquire about her obvious distress, she simply held up her hand, shook her head, and lowered her face over the side of the icy railing.

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“Come on,” he prodded, wrapping his arms around her. “What’s

going on?”

“Puke,” she finally muttered. At least he thought that’s what she said.

“You feel sick? You’re going to throw up?”

She shook her head, then nodded on second thought, then shook

her head again.

“Reese. Help me out here. Are you feeling sick?”

“Hey, bro,” Eli called from the side yard. “We’re making another

run down the hill. You in or what?”

“So much for his sore foot, right?” Damian commented. “I’m

out,” he shouted, waving one arm at his brother. “Are you sick?” he repeated softly to Reese.

“Yes,” she managed before leaning over the railing again, her

glossy blonde hair falling down around her face.

“Can I get you something?”

She shook her head in frantic swipes before suddenly gasping and

popping upright in front of him. “Unless . . . Can we go into town and buy a whole lot of string beans?”

“You . . . want string beans?”

“Well, no,” she said with a soft shrug. “I mean, they’re not for me.

I don’t really care for string beans, if you want to know the truth. But your brother Matthew really does, and that’s what he picked for his side dish and . . . Why don’t I know how much you love chestnuts?”

That one left him reeling a little. “Pardon?”

“Oh. Sorry. Your mom told me you choose chestnut stuffing

every year as your side dish, and I didn’t even know you liked chestnuts. My mom has a recipe for roasted chestnuts. I could try and

make it for you.”

“Reese.”

“Oh. And Eli picked candied sweet potatoes with little miniature

marshmallows on them, and then Matthew chose string beans, and

we spent two hours snapping and tossing and snapping and tossing—”

“Baby.”

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“And then I saw the goose,” she cried, her blue eyes glistening,

round and shiny as freshly packed snowballs. “You know?”

He leaned forward and put his hands on both of her shoulders.

“Not really,” he told her. “No.”

“The goose, Damian! The goose!”

“The one we’re having for—” And it dawned like a floodlight