Free That Christmas Feeling by Catherine Palmer, Gail Gaymer Martin Page B

that! Not that!” Florence Ross tottered across the room, her ratty pink bathrobe flying out behind her skinny legs and her hands clawing the air in agitation. “You stay away from there, girl. That’s mine. It’s my private business!”
    “Okay, Aunt Flossie. Relax.”
    As the early-afternoon sun crept over the parlor windowsill, Claire sat back on her heels and blew out a breath of frustration. Right after the Christmas parade that morning she’d grabbed a sandwich, driven over to Ross Mansion and forced her way inside. Just getting through the front door had been a challenge. But convincing Aunt Flossie to let her throw the piles of newspapers and trash into garbage bags had been a veritable Everest.
    No way would the job be finished by the time Claire had to leave that evening. Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest, but Rob West had left her with no choice but to returnto the filthy old house tomorrow. Though Claire had told herself that her work on behalf of her great-aunt was something of a ministry, she would much rather have stayed home and propped up her feet. Every move she made turned into a battle of wills with the elderly woman.
    “I won’t open the chest,” she told Flossie, “but I have to clean it. There’s an inch of…well, I don’t even know what this is. Newspapers cemented onto the top, old food wrappers, and here’s a sweater. A blue sweater. It was probably very nice once, too. Aunt Flossie, why have you let this happen?”
    “Let what happen?” Flossie grabbed what was left of the sweater—a wad of tangled yarn covered with cat hair—and pressed it against her belly. “I was living here peaceful and happy till you and that—that—”
    “Rob West. He’s the police chief, and it’s his job to take care of people in this town. Including you.”
    “ Take care of me? Stealing my guns—my only protection? Hauling off my cats? Invading my privacy? And then he ordered you to come barging in here to mess up my things. You call that helpful? You call that kind?”
    “I don’t like being ordered around any better than you do, Aunt Flossie. But you and I both know there’s no option other than to clean this place. Besides, you’ve got Homer and Virgil over there to keep you company after I’m gone.” The pair of mature male cats—recently neutered by Mayor Bloom, the town veterinarian—lay curled up on the hearth.
    “Thanks to the fire department, your fireplace is working again,” Claire reminded her aunt as her fingers ticked off the improvements. “A home-health-care nurse came over to treat your flea bites and make sure you have vitamins. I scheduled a dental appointment for you.”
    “Which I won’t go to.”
    “Yes, you will, if you intend to keep the teeth you’ve got left. My church donated a stack of clean clothes and a nice warm winter coat.”
    “Which I won’t wear.”
    “The senior center is bringing you some good food to eat instead of this awful—”
    “I happen to be a connoisseur of European cuisine,” Flossie huffed as Claire peeled the remains of a frozen-dinner box from the lid of the old chest. “I enjoy Italian food. French. Spanish. Even Greek.”
    “European cuisine? This was a TV dinner! Lasagna.”
    “That’s Italian.”
    “How did you cook it?”
    “I put it on the fire.” She snatched the box and flipped it over her shoulder. “Oh, what do you care?”
    Aunt Flossie’s question reverberated through Claire. The evening she had been perched high in the old oak tree outside the mansion, she had flung that same question at Rob.
    He did care, he’d told her. In his eyes she had read the depth of meaning behind the words. But instantly he’d covered the intensity of feeling with the comment that a newspaper article about her falling out of the tree could harm his reputation. He had hidden his emotion just assurely as he’d made certain she knew the mayor had bought the bubble gum on the day of the parade.
    Rob said everything so