Page 22 of Wait a HO HO HO Second!

The job is done. Good luck.

With a grin, he patted Freya on the shoulder, then approached Joy. “Care for a walk?”

“A walk? I’m not sure I can roll these bones anywhere. I sure have missed Freya’s cooking.”

“There’s an easy answer to that,” Kian said, holding out his hand for her to take. Was it a test? Yes. He wanted to see whether she’d accept help or refuse it, especially from him. He was surprised when she slid her hand into his and let him help her up.

“What’s the answer?” she asked, grabbing her crutches and walking down the hallway with him.

Kian had decided it was far too cold and snowy to take Joy outside on her crutches, even though the grounds crew had done a great job clearing the paths. He had a different destination in mind.

“Come over for dinner more often,” he explained as they walked toward his mother’s office. “I know how to make myself scarce.” He hoped the wink at the end told her he understood why she didn’t come over, at least now that he was home.

“You aren’t the reason I stopped coming over here,” she said, her gaze fixed straight ahead.

“You stopped coming over because Mom isn’t here anymore.”

“And that means I have no right to be here anymore,” she added. “This is your house now. I do believe there’s a saying about being in the belly of the beast.”

“True, but I’m rarely here, so why punish Freya?”

“Truthfully, I stopped coming over to avoid the pain and grief of losing your mother. Everything here reminds me of her, even more than the mall does. This was her personal space, the place where we made memories as mother and daughter. I never had a mother, but for the twelve years Lorelei was in my life, I considered her mine. Losing her left me swamped with grief. The same kind of grief I’d experienced twelve years earlier when I lost my only other parent. Getting through each day was hard enough.”

Reaching out, he rested his hand on her back. She flinched, her shoulder blade tucking in as though he’d hurt her rather than comforted her. A little piece of him died at the knowledge that she reacted that way to his touch. Even if he had forever, it still wouldn’t be long enough to undo what he’d done.

“She loved you the same way, Joy. We never had a conversation, whether on the phone or in person, without Mom singing your praises. You were never far from her mind, which tells me she loved you like a daughter. Has it gotten any easier to be here?”

“A bit,” Joy agreed. “But it will never feel the same way.”

“Something is missing,” he said, and she nodded. “Her laughter, her smiles, the way she dressed someone down on the phone and then the moment she hung up, she’d start singing a show tune.”

“Ha!” Joy exclaimed, tossing her head back in laughter. How could she not know how truly sexy she was? Oh, yeah, he was responsible for that, too. Great going, Kian. “I’d forgotten about that! She taught me so much about handling difficult people. I still use many of those lessons today.”

Motioning her into the room, they sat on the settee by the window. It was Lorelei’s favorite spot whenever she faced a difficult decision or a problem to solve because it overlooked the koi pond and gardens. “I saw this picture of you and her,” he said, grabbing it from the desk. “You’re wearing a graduation gown and holding a diploma.”

“Is there a question in there somewhere?” she asked, taking the frame and stroking her finger along his mother’s cheek. He was pleased that at least he hadn’t made her cry…yet.

“Probably,” he said with a slight tilt of his lip. “I couldn’t read what the diploma says, but I know it isn’t from Snowcap Ridge High.”

“Western Technical College,” she answered, turning away from him. “An associate degree in business administration. Peanuts compared to the degrees you’ve collected, but it served me well. I went on to finish my bachelor's online after I took over the assistant general manager position at the mall. When I graduated, Lorelei stepped back and gave me the GM position. She’d been grooming me for it all these years, but I was still so damn proud that she believed in me that deeply.”

“Doubtful you were prouder than she was to do it. I didn’t know which college you’d attended or that you’d done it while you lived here.”

“I hadn’t planned to go to college,” she admitted, and he reared back.

“You were co-valedictorian, but you didn’t plan to go to college?”

“Not only did I not have the money, but I also had to care for my dad, Kian. I may have been co-valedictorian, but the other one got all the scholarships.”

That stung, mostly because she wasn’t wrong. “Just know I’m aware of how ridiculous it was for me to get those scholarships.”

“You earned them,” she answered with a shrug. “You were the top athlete at the school. This girl never touched a sportsball in her entire high school career.”

He snorted, trying to suppress his laughter. “Sportsball. I guess that’s a good umbrella term.”

“The one scholarship I received covered a semester at the technical college, for which I was very grateful and made full use of it. I didn’t know how I’d continue, but I figured anything I learned could only help me find work. When Dad died halfway through the first semester from pneumonia, things got dicey.”

“How so?” Kian asked, sensing the grief she still carried for her father.