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Normally, Jules would consider herself a Scrooge.
She wasn’t a fan of Christmas. Her family didn’t really celebrate or exchange gifts. She abhorred the holiday parties at school growing up and avoided downtown Amity like the plague when the townspeople lit up the square like the Fourth of July.
Maybe she was an old miser.
Quint, on the other hand, actually liked Christmas.
She supposed it had something to do with the festivities—which always included booze. And although he’d given up his moonshine business, it didn’t stop him from enjoying a drink or two when the occasion called for it.
Jules was caught off guard when he hauled in a pathetic Charlie Brown tree for their third Christmas together and set it up in a corner of the shack. He even hung up a couple of stockings.
She gathered that meant she should give him a present when Dec. 25, but what do you give a crusty seafarer that hunts sharks for a living? What would Quint write on his wish list if he had one? Too bad Matt was back home in Maine for the holidays, otherwise she would have picked the oceanographer’s brain for ideas.
Why was Quint suddenly eager to decorate for Christmas, she wondered. They hadn’t before. Did it have to do with her mother being dead? Was he trying to cheer her up because she might be melancholy this season? He was being a little too jolly for her liking this year.
“What is going on with you?” Jules asked, feeling grinchy when he actually donned a Santa hat after finishing their supper of fish stew that he had simmered that afternoon.
Quint gave her a toothy grin and adjusted the hat on his head.
“Ya don’t like it?” he inquired, a glint in his eye. She rolled her eyes and gave a long sigh. What was happening? Had she stepped into “The Twilight Zone” or something?
There was a rap at the door.
Quint jumped up and answered it. Trailing behind him was Matt, also wearing a Santa hat and a goofy smile.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jules groused when Hooper zoned in for a bear hug. “Now I know something is definitely up.”
“Whatever would give you that idea?” Matt sarcastically joked as he yanked her out of her seat to embrace her. She swatted at him but allowed it. Quint just smirked at her from where he leaned against one of the shack beams.
“Seriously, Matt! What the hell is going on?” she said when she stepped back to stare at both of the men in her life. Quint and Hooper shared a glance.
Jules found herself sandwiched between the two in Quint’s beat-up pickup on their way into Amity, still without an answer to the burning question she’d been asking herself these past three weeks.
They pulled into an empty lot not far from the beach they’d been rescued on after the great white shark attack.
There stood a large sign staked in the sand with Christmas lights strung around it to illuminate the black painted words: Future Home of the Sullivan Oceanic Station.
Jules was stunned, her mouth gaping open. Matt’s face threatened to split in two with how huge his smile was and Quint’s crow’s feet and dimples were severely pronounced as they watched her reaction.
“I don’t understand,” she breathed, glancing at Quint then Matt, her brow furrowed.
“You convinced Quint to let me board the Orca,” Matt explained. “And without you, I would have never had the chance to chase my dream of studying sharks in this region.”
“I told Mr. Hooper it was only right to name it after you once the town approved the site,” Quint added.
“But I didn’t do anything!” Jules protested, returning her gaze to Quint. “It was your boat, your hunt. I was just the first mate.”
She looked back at Matt, who shook his head.
“Jules, you are the reason I got to do this,” he said.
“But…” she tried to protest again before Quint cut her off.
“I agree with Mr. Hooper,” he said. “And I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t fought to pry that shark’s jaws off me long enough for the chief to blow him up.”
Jules bit her bottom lip to stop it from quivering.
“Merry Christmas, Jules,” Matt joyfully proclaimed.
Hooper stayed at the shack for another hour before heading to his hotel for the night.
After he left, Jules emptied their mugs and set them in the sink when Quint tugged her into his lap as he still sat at the dining table.
She regarded him, his bright blue-grey eyes, the curly hair that was starting to grey at the temples, and the silly Santa hat he still wore.
“Merry Christmas, Jules,” he softly said. She ran the fingers of her still fully intact hand across his sideburns.
“Merry Christmas, Sam,” she replied, tilting in for a kiss.