Kissmas Wishes (Love In All Seasons 3)

“I'll stay here until you get here,” he tells me.

I end the call and explain what's happened to Carla and Filson. He grabs our jackets and within minutes we're walking down the steps of the community center toward the soup kitchen.

“This is such bad timing,” I say, wringing my hands as I rush toward my granny's heart and soul. Inside, Sheriff Montgomery shows us the damage. The floor is covered in an inch of water and the pipes under the main sink have busted.

“It won't take me long to fix this,” Filson says confidently. “But we gotta take care of this water so there isn’t any damage.”

Sheriff Montgomery wishes us good luck before leaving for another call that just came through on his radio.

“Don't worry about us,” I tell him. “Thank you so much for calling.”

Once he's gone, Filson and I start with the water. I find every towel and rag I can and begin sopping up the liquid. Filson runs back to my house and grabs some more towels and laundry baskets and I began pushing the water out with the mop and bucket trying to dry the floor before more linoleum tiles begin popping off. A few of them already have.

Tears sting my eyes as my frustration grows. This isn't the time of year for this. This place is going to be closed down within weeks, and I'm supposed to end this chapter of my life on a positive note and instead, it looks like everything's going to end on a sour one.

Filson notices my shoulders shaking and he pulls me around so he can look into my eyes.

“Maple, what's going on?”

I wipe my eyes with my hand not wanting to cry in front of him. “Just been a long day,” I tell him. “And I don’t want this place Granny loved so much to fall apart.”

Filson pulls me to him. “Nothing is falling apart except a rusty old pipe. It’s all going to be okay.”

Once the kitchen closes, I won’t even have a job. Looking up at Filson, I forgot to filter myself. “How can you afford to take time away from your own job for me?”

“I just called and told them I’d be gone for a few weeks.”

“Won’t they be angry?”

“Not as angry as I’d be with myself for passing up the opportunity to spend time with Maple St. Claire.”

“For a man with a Grinch-like reputation, you sure do know how to steal a woman’s heart, Filson.”

He shakes his head, taking the mop from me. “No, Maple, it’s only your heart I’m hoping to capture.”FilsonThe next three weeks pass in a blur. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize Maple is a scared little bird. After our night fixing up the soup kitchen, when she shut down instead of opening up, I saw that I need to earn her trust for her to be open with me.

And I figure I’ve waited long enough. I can wait for her a bit more. Only this time I’m staying put in her house.

Still after three weeks, anytime I ask her hard questions about why she's getting this work done, about why she's always so on edge and stressed out, she puts me off. The questions themselves seem to cause her pain and that's the last thing I want.

I want to be her shining light, her saving grace, her one bright star in a dark sky and that means I show up every morning just as she's headed out for the soup kitchen, toolbox in hand. I checked off most of the things she had on the to-do list right away, but if she wants to get her house in order, I figure I can do the things she hasn't seemed to notice.

The mailbox was rusty and needed to be replaced. I spent a whole day reworking the window frames so that the windows were set right. This house is nearly a hundred years old and there are lots of things in it that need tweaking, like the light fixture in the dining room. Every time you turn the light on, you're reminded that the thing is hanging on by a thread or… at least by a wire.

I pick out a new fixture from the hardware store and am I'm standing on the dining room table putting it in when she walks in the door.

“Filson,” she calls. “I’m home!”

Three weeks into this and we've grown more comfortable with each other than I ever imagined. For example, Maple knows I like a hot breakfast and she seems to always have a plate of bacon and eggs ready for me when I show up. “Sustenance,” she says with a smile and God, it takes everything within me to not pull her up onto the kitchen counter and take her then and there.