“Oh, you mean like this?” Jace asked, moving a piece of bacon toward his mouth at a snail’s pace.
Ginny darted in and nipped it neatly out of his hand.
“You little imp!”
“You snooze, you lose,” she said, without contrition.
Tara all but doubled over with laughter.
“Well, I guess you showed me.”
They plowed through bacon, eggs, and biscuits, then the adults took their coffee into the living room.
“I hereby dub Austin the official elf of this morning’s festivities.” Livia produced the elf hat Jace had worn Christmas shopping and plunked it on Austin’s head.
Her brother began passing out gifts. For nearly an hour, they lost themselves in the happy chaos of ripping open paper, and prying open boxes. Ginny tried unsuccessfully to keep hugging the model horses, while opening the rest of her gifts. Austin ended up with a mountain of art supplies to go with his new drafting desk. Linda and Livia ooed and ahed over the custom earring and necklace sets Tara had made them. Jace immediately put on the leather cuff bracelet she’d fashioned to resemble horse tack. All four of the Applewhites proudly put the ornaments the kids had made them on the Christmas tree.
As the pile dwindled, Austin brought one last box over to Tara. “From me and Ginny.”
“Oh. Thank you.” She ran her hands over the package, wondering what they’d made. It had some pretty serious heft. Tara ripped off the paper to find a magnifying lamp. Definitely not made.
“For your jewelry work,” Austin told her.
“We sold ornaments to pay for it,” Ginny said proudly.
“And had enough left over for a trip to Chuck E Cheese at some future date,” Jace added.
Tara felt her heart swell, both that her siblings had thought of this and that Jace had helped make it happen. She tugged both of them in for a hard hug. “Thank you, both.”
“Looks like that’s everything,” Austin said.
“Nope, there’s one more for Tara,” Jace announced.
Everybody looked reflexively under the tree, but the space around it was empty.
“We have to go into town to get it.”
“Town? But it’s Christmas morning. Nothing’s open,” she said.
“This will be.”
Tara narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you up to?”
“A surprise. Everybody load up.”
So they did, piling into two cars and caravaning into Wishful. She’d though maybe he’d done something at the house, but Jace drove them into town proper, down Front Street and turning onto Broad. When he parked in front of The Madrigal Theater, she frowned. “Did you leave something here the other night?”
“Just wait.”
Everybody else spilled out onto the sidewalk.
The lobby doors were open. Jace ushered her into the quiet hush and pulled open the door to the auditorium.
“After you,” he said.
Tara stepped into the theater and stopped almost at once. A single spotlight was trained on the stage, illuminating a package. In the shadows beyond its glow, she could see that the set from the final scene of White Christmas was still in place.
Jace took her hand and led her down the aisle and up the steps onto the stage. “Go ahead.”