Tasha's Christmas Wish by Sharon Dunn

Author:Sharon Dunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

With only two weeks to go until Christmas, Tasha worked intently on the dolls for Mary, taking time out only to complete the nativity for the Christmas Eve church service. She created molds and poured the heads for both dolls and designed and sewed their clothes. Both the Heather and Mary dolls were dressed in black skirts and red sweaters just like in one of the photographs Philip had given her.

Every time the phone rang, her ears perked up. No one had responded to her ad for studio space. She’d placed an additional ad in the local newspaper—but still no response.

If she was frugal, she had enough money from sales to carry her through February. But after that, her future was uncertain. Every time she reworked her finances in her head or on paper, she breathed the same one-line prayer. I will trust in You, Lord. It was easy to say the prayer, but when the bills came in the mail, it was hard to actually do it.

Sometimes when the phone rang, she half hoped it was Philip. Her thoughts had returned to him often since they’d gone sledding.

The final step in making the dolls was painting their faces. This was her favorite stage of doll making because she could really make the personality come out through her brushstrokes.

The doll heads both had a base coat of skin tone when she placed them on a stand and prepared to start on their eyes. In front of her, she set up a bulletin board that had all the pictures laid out. This was the story of a family—a happy family. There were pictures of Heather embracing her daughter, of Philip holding his wife and daughter. Faces smiled at her from sunny days spent on a beach and from ski hills, their poles planted in the snow, faces red from the cold, but always smiling. More than anything, she needed to be respectful of what she saw there. These dolls were for a little girl who missed her mother.

She stood inches from the bulletin board, studying the eyes in each photo. Mary had gray eyes and Heather’s were a gray-green.

She mixed her paints several times, trying them out on a piece of paper that had a wash of skin tone on it. After several fresh blendings of color and a constant restudying of the pictures, she felt that she had the right color. Tasha dipped the tip of the brush into the green shade and held it up to the Heather doll. Her hand trembled. The first brushstroke always made her pulse race. She dabbed the brush on the iris and then stood back to check the color. Satisfied, she continued to paint.

She had just completed the delicate pupils and eyelashes on the Mary head when a loud banging on the door made her jump. Fortunately, her brush had been pulled back from the doll at the time or Mary would have had a black streak across her cheek.

The pounding at her door continued.

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