“It’s Ginger again,” she said with a grin. “I’m comin’ back to work in January.”
“Aw, Ginger!” said Teresa, coming around the counter to give her a big hug. “I’m sure glad to hear that, honey. I’ll let the girls know too! We missed you!”
And that’ll show you, Cain Wolfram, that I am gettin’ back on my feet again and I do not require your assistance or goadin’ or interference anymore.
Pushing open the door to Gran’s room, Ginger was surprised to find the room festively decorated for the holidays: a small boxwood with tiny red velvet bows, flanked by two poinsettias, sat on the dresser. A dark green, bright white, and red afghan was neatly folded at the foot of her bed, and a statue of a Santa Claus with a little blonde girl on his lap sat on her bedside table.
“Well, Gran!” she said, leaning down to kiss her grandmother hello. “What little elves have been here to visit you?”
“Gin-ger,” she said, her lips attempting a wobbly smile. “Hel-lo, d-doll baby.”
“Hello, beautiful,” said Ginger.
“You’re . . . in high . . . s-spirits.”
“I’m comin’ back to work,” she said. “Three days a week and every other Sunday.”
Gran’s eyes lit up, and Ginger could hear her small gasp of pleasure. “I’m s-so . . . p-pleased.”
“I’ll spoil you tons, Gran. Sneak you contraband ice cream and the like,” she said, flicking an eye around the room. “Now are you goin’ to tell me who keeps bringin’ you flowers?”
“N-no.”
“Why not?”
“It’s m-my . . . s-secret for . . . now.”
Ginger pulled a book off her grandmother’s bedside table. “The Christmas Box. May I read it to you?”
Gran looked up at Ginger thoughtfully, then made a small sound like laughter and said, “Yes, b-baby . . . start on . . . the b-bent page.”
“Oh. Someone’s already readin’ it to you?”
Her grandmother nodded, leaning back on her pillow and closing her eyes, a rare look of composure and contentment relaxing her face. “Started it . . . l-last n-night. B-but . . . you can . . . r-read it t-to . . . me . . . t-together. In f-fact . . . that’d b-be . . . p-perfect.”
***
When Cain pulled up in his daddy’s truck on Friday night, Ginger was reluctantly ready to go caroling and stepped out onto the porch in jeans, a white turtleneck, and a bright red cardigan halfway buttoned. She wore her gran’s pearls around her neck and had a red velvet hairband in her blow-dried hair.
Cain rolled down the window. “Would’ve come to the door. I’m not a total caveman.”
“Yes, you are . . . and besides, I didn’t need you to,” she said, walking around to the passenger side and opening her own door. She stepped up into the truck and pulled the door closed, giving Cain a saucy look. “And for your information, I’m goin’ back to work in January.”
He nodded, his dimples deepening, respect or pride shining in his eyes, and it meant so much to her, she felt her own lips tilt up in return.
“Goin’ back to work. Way to go, princess. Big step.”
“Yes, it is.” She buckled her seat belt as he backed up and headed down the driveway of McHuid Farm. “What exactly did you think? That I’d just sit around in my house forever watchin’ Lifetime?”
“You were doin’ a real good imitation of makin’ that your life’s mission.”
“I just needed some time, Cain.”
“I can understand that,” he said softly, turning out of McHuid’s to head into town. “I’m glad to hear you’re movin’ forward, Ginger . . .” He glanced over at her and sniffed experimentally. “. . . and showerin’ regularly again.”
“Always such a flatterer,” she said, giving him a pissy look.
“If you’re lookin’ for someone to blow sunshine up your ass, I ain’t a contender for the job. Ain’t never seen you as a china doll, princess. Sorry.”
His words sank in, and she felt the stark and utter truth of them. Cain had never treated her like she was fragile. Hell, her mother barely let her leave the house after her heart issues, but there was Cain, goading her into jumping from a two-story barn window. There was Cain, who didn’t soften the blow of his rejection when he told her he didn’t want her. And now here was Cain, threatening her, forcing her out of her house, back into the world, when, truth be told, she would have kept watching TV in dirty pajamas for a much longer time.
This was textbook Cain for as far back as she could remember—challenging her, getting under her skin, but treating her like an equal, even though he called her princess. There were times when he had her back, as he had at the funeral parlor, when Miz Sophie jumped down her throat, but as a rule he didn’t mollycoddle her, and unlike everyone else, he didn’t underestimate her either. Somehow the way Cain treated her made Ginger want to be more, to be stronger, to be better. Maybe because he believed in her in a way that nobody else did. He believed she was strong, and that made her strive to be strong.