by Nora Roberts
“‘Jingle Bells,’” Marcie said with a sniffle.
“Ah, one of my favorites.”
“And ‘Joy to the World,’” Clara put in. The heater was pumping warm air over her hands and face. “You like that one better.”
“So I do, but I can’t remember just how it starts. How does it start, Marcie?” She smiled at Clara and snuggled her closer.
In a thin, piping voice still wavery with tears, Marcie started to sing. She was nearly through the first verse when they came to the rest of the search party.
“It’s my dad!” Bouncing on Faith’s lap, Marcie started to wave. “He doesn’t look mad.”
With a half laugh, Faith kissed the top of her head. “Merry Christmas, Marcie.”
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Monroe. See you tomorrow, Clara.” Marcie barely had time to open the door before she was scooped up.
“What a night.” There were waves and cheers as the car weaved through the crowd.
“It’s Christmas Eve,” Clara reminded her mother. The world was safe and warm again. “Maybe I should open that one big present tonight.”
“Not a chance,” Jason told her and tugged at her hair.
Faith turned Clara in her arms and squeezed tight.
“Don’t cry, Mom.”
“I have to, for just a minute.” True to her word, her eyes were dry when they arrived home. An exhausted Clara dozed on Jason’s shoulder as he carried her inside. “I’ll take her up, Jason.”
“We’ll take her up.”
She let her arms fall back to her sides and nodded.
They pulled off boots and socks and sweaters and wrapped Clara in warm flannel. She murmured a bit and tried to stay awake but the adventures of the evening took their toll. “It’s Christmas Eve,” she mumbled. “I’m going to get up real early in the morning.”
“As early as you like,” Faith told her as she pressed a kiss to her cheek.
“Can I have cookies for breakfast?”
“Half a dozen,” Faith agreed recklessly. She smiled and was asleep before Faith pulled the blankets around her.
“I was afraid . . .” She let her hand linger on her daughter’s cheek. “I was afraid I’d never see her like this again. Safe, warm. Jason, I don’t know how to thank you for just being there. If I’d been alone—” She broke off and shook her head.
“I think we should go downstairs, Faith.”
The tone made her press her lips together. She’d be ready, she promised herself, to handle the accusations, the bitterness, the resentment. “I think I’d like a drink,” she said as they walked downstairs. “Some brandy. It looks like the fire’s gone out.”
“I’ll take care of it. You get the brandy. There are some things I have to say.”
“All right.” She left him to go to the little cabinet in the dining room. When she came back, the fire was just catching. He straightened from it and took a snifter.
“Do you want to sit down?”
“No, I can’t.” She sipped, but it would have taken more than brandy to steady her nerves. “Whatever you have to say, Jason, you should say it.”
Chapter 10
She stood looking at him, her back straight, her eyes burning with emotion, her hands clasping the snifter tightly. Part of him wanted to go to her, gather her close and just hold on. He’d found a child and nearly lost her in the same night. Did anything else matter? But inside was a void that had to be filled. Questions, demands, accusations had to be answered. There had to be an accounting before there could be understanding, and understanding before there could be forgiveness. But where did he start?
He walked to the tree. There was a star on top that shed silver light over all the other colors. “I’m not sure I know what to say. It isn’t every day a man turns around and finds himself with a half-grown daughter. I feel cheated out of watching her learn to walk, hearing her talk, Faith. Nothing you can do or say can ever give that back to me, can it?”
“No.”
He turned to see her holding the brandy at waist level. Her face was very pale and calm. Whatever emotions she was feeling she managed to restrain. Yes, this was a different Faith than the one he’d left. The girl would never have been able to exert the self-control the woman did. “No excuses, Faith?”
“I guess I thought I had them, then tonight when I thought I’d lost her . . .” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “No excuses, Jason.”
“She thinks Tom’s her father.”
“No!” Her eyes weren’t calm now but brilliant. “Do you think I’d let her believe her father had deserted her, that he didn’t care enough even to write? What she knows is basically the truth. I never lied to her.”
“What is the truth?”
She took a steadying breath. When she looked at him her face was still pale but her voice was calm again. “That I loved her father, and he loved me, but he had to go away before he even knew about her and he wasn’t able to come back.”
“He would have.”
Something rushed into her eyes but she turned away. “I told her that, too.”
“Why?” The fury came back and he fought against it. “I have to know why you did what you did. I lost all those years.”
“You?” Her temper was less easily controlled than her grief. Years of holding back bubbled inside her and burst out. “You lost?” she repeated as she whirled around. “You were gone and I was eighteen years old, pregnant and alone.”
Guilt flared. He hadn’t expected it. “I wouldn’t have left if you’d told me.”
“I didn’t know.” She put the brandy down and pushed back her hair with both hands. “It was just a week after you’d gone that I found out I was carrying our baby. I was thrilled.” With a laugh, she wrapped her arms around her chest. For a moment she looked heartbreakingly young and innocent. “I was so happy. I waited every day, every night for you to call so I could tell you.” Her eyes sobered. The smile faded. “But you never called, Jason.”
“I needed time to set things up—a steady job, a place I could ask you to live in.”
“You never understood it didn’t matter where I lived, as long as it was with you.” She shook her head before he could speak. “It doesn’t matter now. That part’s over. A week passed, then two, then a month. I got ill, just tension, morning sickness, but I began to realize you weren’t going to call. You weren’t coming back. I was angry for a while, acknowledging you just hadn’t wanted me enough. Small-town girl.”
“That’s not true. That was never true.”
She studied him a moment, almost dispassionately. The lights of the tree fell over his dark blond hair, glimmered in the deep, deep eyes that had always held their own secrets. Restlessness. “Wasn’t it?” she murmured. “It was certainly true that you wanted out. I was part of Quiet Valley and you wanted out.”
“I wanted you with me.”
“But not enough to let me go with you.” She shook her head when he started to speak. “Not enough to let me come to you until you’d proved the things you needed to prove. I didn’t always understand that, Jason, but I began to when you came back.”
“You weren’t ever going to tell me about Clara, were you?”
She heard the bitterness again and closed her eyes against it. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t.”
He drank, hoping it would warm the ice in his veins. “Tell me the rest.”
“I wanted the baby, but I was scared, too scared even to tell my mother.”
She picked up the brandy again but merely warmed her hands with it. “I should have, of course, but I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Why did you marry Tom?” But even as he asked, he realized the old jealousies were fading. He only wanted to understand.
“Tom would come by almost every night.
We’d talk. He didn’t seem to mind me talking about you, and God knows I needed to. Then one night we were sitting on the porch and I just broke down. I was three months pregnant and my body was changing. That morning I hadn’t been able to snap my jeans.” With a shaky laugh, she ran a hand over her face. “It sounds so silly, but I hadn’t been able to snap my jeans and it was terrifying. It made me realize there was no going back. Everything just poured out while we sat there. He said he’d marry me. Of course I said no, but he began to reason it all out. You weren’t coming back and I was pregnant. He loved me and wanted to marry me. The baby would have a name, a home, a family. It sounded so right the way he said it and I wanted the baby to be safe. I wanted to be safe.”
She drank now because her throat ached. “It was wrong, right from the beginning. He knew I didn’t love him, but he just wanted me, or thought he did. The first few months he tried, we both really tried. But after Clara came, he couldn’t handle it. I could see every time he looked at her he thought of you. There was nothing I could do to change the fact that she was yours.” She paused and found it easier to say it all. “There was nothing I would have done to change that. As long as I had her, I had part of you. Tom knew it, no matter how much I tried to be what he wanted. He started drinking, picking fights, staying out. It was as though he wanted me to ask for a divorce.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I didn’t because I . . . well, I felt I owed him. Then one day I came home from taking Clara out and he was gone. Divorce papers came in the mail, and that was that.”
“Why didn’t you ever try to contact me, Faith, through one of the magazines or newspapers?”
“And say what? Jason, remember me? By the way, you have a daughter back here in Quiet Valley. Drop in some time.”
“One word—one word from you and I’d have left everything and come back. I never stopped loving you.”
She closed her eyes. “I watched you walk away from me. I watched you get on the bus and leave me without a trace. I stood there for hours, half believing you’d get off at the next stop and come back. I was the one who had to stay behind, Jason.”
“I called. Damn it, Faith, it only took me six months to get something started.”
She smiled. “And when you called I was seven months pregnant. My mother didn’t tell me for a long time, not until after Tom had left. She said you made her promise.”
“I needed my pride.”
“I know.”
That she didn’t question. He saw the way she smiled as she said it, as if she’d always understood. “You must have been terrified.”
Her smile softened. “There were moments.”
“You must have hated me.”
“Never. How could I? You went away but you left me with the most beautiful thing in my life. Maybe you were right; maybe I was. Maybe we were both wrong, but there was Clara. Every time I looked at her, I could remember how much I loved you.”
“How do you feel now?”
“Shaky.” She laughed a little, then folded her hands, determined to do what was right. “Clara should be told. I’d prefer doing it myself.”
The idea made him reach for the brandy again. “How do you think she’ll take it?”
“She’s learned to get along without a father. It doesn’t mean she hasn’t needed one.” She sat up straight and raised her chin. “You have a right, of course, to see her whenever you like, but I won’t have her bounced around. I also realize you can’t be here for her all the time because of your work, but don’t think you can just pop into her life and out again. You’ll have to make an effort to keep in touch with her, Jason.”
So this was another fear she’d lived with, he realized. Maybe he deserved it. “You don’t trust me, do you?”
“Clara’s too important.” She let out a little sigh. “So are you.”
“If I told you I fell for her before I knew, would it make a difference?”
She thought of the toboggan, of the way he’d looked when Clara had thrown her arms around his neck. “She needs all the love she can get. We all do. She’s so much like you, I—” She broke off when her eyes filled. “Damn, I don’t want to do this.” Impatient, she brushed tears away. “I’ll tell her tomorrow, Jason. On Christmas. You and I can work out the arrangements. I know you’re leaving soon, but if you could stay a few more days, give her some time, it would make it easier for all of us.”
He rubbed at the tension at the back of his neck. “You never asked me for much of anything, did you?”
She smiled. “I asked you for everything. We were both too young to realize it.”
“You always believed in magic, Faith.” He pulled a box out of his pocket. “It’s nearly midnight. Open it now.”
“Jason.” She pushed her hands through her hair. How could he think of presents now? “I don’t think this is the time.”
“It’s ten years past time.”
When he thrust the box at her, she found herself gripping it with both hands. “I don’t have anything to give you.”
He touched her face, almost hesitantly. “You’ve just given me a daughter.”
Relief poured through her. Instead of bitterness, she heard gratitude. Love, never dimmed, shimmered in her eyes. “Jason—”
“Please, open it.”
She pulled off the glossy red paper and revealed the black velvet box beneath. With fingers not quite steady, she opened it. The ring was a teardrop, frozen in place, glorious with the reflected lights from the tree.
“Paul told me it was the best he had.”
“You bought this before you knew—”
“Yeah, before I knew I was going to ask the mother of my child to marry me. We’ll be legal, the three of us.” He took her hand and waited. “How about a second chance? I won’t let you down, Faith.”
“You never did.” Close to tears again, she reached out her hand to his cheek. “It wasn’t you, it wasn’t me; it was life. Oh, Jason, I want this. Understand, all I’ve ever really wanted was to be married to you, have a family with you.”
“Then let me put the ring on.”
“Jason, it’s not just me. If it were I’d leave with you this instant. We’d go to Hong Kong, Siberia, Peking. Anywhere. But it’s not just me; I have to stay.”
“It’s not just you,” he repeated. He took the ring and tossed the box aside. “And I have to stay. Do you think I’d leave you again? Do you think I could leave what’s upstairs or the chance to have more that I can watch grow up? I’m not going anywhere.”
“But you said—Hong Kong.”
“I quit.” When he grinned he felt the pressure of years melt away. “Today. That was one of the things I took care of this afternoon. I’m going to write a book.” He took her by the shoulders. “I’m out of a job, I’m living in a room at the inn and asking you to marry me.”
The breath backed up in her lungs. Her heart was pounding. Yes, she’d always believed in magic. It was standing in front of her. “Ten years ago, I thought I loved you as much as it was possible to love. You were a boy. In the last few days I’ve learned that loving a man is something quite different.” She paused and saw the ring in his hand explode with the joyful lights on the tree. “If you’d asked me ten years ago, I’d have said yes.”
“Faith—”
With a laugh, she threw her arms around his neck. “You’re going to get the same answer now. Oh, I love you, Jason, more than ever.”
“We’ve got years to make up for.”
“Yes.” She met his mouth with equal hunger, equal hope. “We will. The three of us.”
“The three of us.” He let his forehead rest against hers. “I want more.”
“We’ve more than enough time to give Clara a baby brother or sister for next Christmas.” Her lips sought his again. “We’ve got more tha
n enough time for everything.”
They both heard the bells peal out from the town hall. Midnight.
“Merry Christmas, Faith.”
She felt the ring slide onto her finger. All wishes were granted. “Welcome home, Jason.”
All I Want for Christmas
Prologue
Zeke and Zack huddled in the tree house. Important business, any plots or plans, and all punishments for infractions of the rules were discussed in the sturdy wooden hideaway tucked in the branches of the dignified old sycamore.
Today, a light rain tapped on the tin roof and dampened the dark green leaves. It was still warm enough in the first days of September that the boys wore T-shirts. Red for Zeke, blue for Zack.
They were twins, as identical as the sides of a two-headed coin. Their father had used the color code since their birth to avoid confusion.
When they switched colors—as they often did—they could fool anyone in Taylor’s Grove. Except their father.
He was on their minds at the moment. They had already discussed, at length, the anticipated delights and terrors of their first day in real school. The first day in first grade.
They would ride the bus, as they had done the year before, in kindergarten. But this time they would stay in Taylor’s Grove Elementary for a full day, just like the big kids. Their cousin Kim had told them that real school wasn’t a playground.
Zack, the more introspective of the two, had thought over, worried about and dissected this problem for weeks. There were terrible, daunting terms, like homework and class participation, that Kim tossed around. They knew that she, a sophomore in high school, was often loaded down with books. Big, thick books with no pictures.
And sometimes, when she was babysitting for them, she had her nose stuck in them for hours. For as long a time as she would have the telephone stuck to her ear, and that was long.
