by Irene Brand
But he only chuckled at her question. “Don’t rub that frame too much or the plating might fall off. If you’re willing to drive about fifty miles and shop shoulder to shoulder with other procrastinators, you can find gifts on Christmas Eve, but you might have to sacrifice quality.”
“Don’t you put down my present.” She wagged her index finger at him and then hugged the frame to her chest. “I happen to love it.”
“I’m glad.”
His gaze was mesmerizing. She couldn’t have looked away if she wanted to, and right now she had no inclination to try. Not when this was the most perfect holiday she could ever remember.
Finally able to pull her gaze from his, Allison stepped to the sofa and indicated with a gesture of her hand for Brock to join her. She sensed his nearness before she felt the cushion shift under his weight. Still, she stared into the flames in the fireplace, allowing its melding of reds and yellows to calm her shaky nerves.
Brock sighed. “This is nice. I bet the fireplace insert was your idea.”
“It was. How did you know?”
“It seemed more like you than…the other things.”
“I had it put in when Mom was really sick. She liked to stay warm near the fireplace.”
Brock cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about your mother.”
“Thanks. She’s at peace now.” Again, she waited for him to criticize her beliefs the way he had at the live nativity, but he didn’t.
“I’m sure she is,” he said finally.
So he did believe, after all, even if his belief system was a little jaded.
“Are you still in contact with your father?”
“He passed away when Heather and I were still in high school. Mom never got over losing him.”
“She was lucky to have you with her.”
Allison smiled at that. For a few minutes longer, she stared into the fire, relishing the silence and the company. She didn’t even realize she’d started humming until Brock joined in with her and started singing softly with a surprising bass voice.
“‘Joy to the world, the Lord is come…”’
They finished the hymn together then softly continued singing carols of Bethlehem’s blessing, of a child in a manger, of excelsis Deo. Allison relaxed into the sofa cushions, contentment making her extremities deliciously numb. She’d imagined Christmas mornings like this before, not with sleigh rides and painted scenes but with the warmth of family as they celebrated together God’s wonderful gift to a dark world. With the loving husband and children she’d tried so hard not to wish for anymore.
Okay, she’d hardly imagined an abandoned infant and a disillusioned deputy in her dreams, but this was nice, too. Precious. She lowered her gaze to the frame resting on the end table. Brock probably assumed she would place a picture from her personal life inside the frame. She wondered if he realized that moments from last night and this morning were more poignant than most of the others she could tuck behind that glass.
“You know,” Brock began, his voice soft as he broke the silence, “I think Joy is going to sleep away the whole holiday.” He chuckled. “And after she was too excited to sleep last night waiting for it.”
Allison motioned with her hand toward the Christmas tree. “Do you think we should open her presents for her?”
“Absolutely.” Brock rubbed his hands together in childlike excitement and popped up from the couch.
“Who goes first? Age before beauty?”
Brock drew his eyebrows together. “I know which one of us is better looking, but I don’t know who’s older.”
“That would be me. I’m thirty-five.”
“Oh, I’m thirty,” he said, proving the matchmakers had their information right. “I guess that means I won’t get to take a turn.”
She’d expected shock over her advanced age, but it didn’t seem to matter to him. “Wow, a gentleman—that’s a rare find these days.”
Their gazes caught, held, for what felt like hours in the passing of seconds. The surface of her skin tingled beneath his stare. The way he looked at her made her long to touch, to hold, to cherish. Were those things possible in her life?
A rare find. Brock was certainly that for so many reasons. For his humor, his strength and for the giving heart he’d tried his best to hide, but couldn’t.
Surely, before too long someone else would find Brock. Someone younger, prettier and with more to offer than she. The slice of pain in her belly gave a hint of the ache she would feel when that happened.
For her self-preservation, Allison finally looked away from him and kneeled by the tree, collecting a large, awkward-shaped package. She shook it next to her ear.
“I bet it’s a toy.”
“Wow, you must have X-ray vision.”
“Just me and the other superheroes.” This time she ripped into the package. A standing activity gym with dangling toys emerged from the wrapping paper.
“Think she’ll like it?”
Allison grinned. “I know she will. I sure do.”
She liked everything about today, most of all having Brock here, close enough so that she could see the ocean in his eyes, smell his pine tree-scented soap and feel the timbre of his laughter inside her own chest. Her gaze caught on his smile, on his thin lips and slightly crowded teeth, and she wondered what it would be like to kiss him. Uneasy, she stared at her grasped hands. How pitiful of her it was to wish for impossible things.
Brock opened the next present himself—a police car. “I know she won’t be able to play with it for a long time, but I couldn’t resist.”
The symbolism in the gift tugged at her heart. Was he trying to let Joy know that someone did care about her and wanted to protect her? Of course, he could just have selected it because it was a cool cop toy, but she sensed there was more to it than that.
Allison had just reached under the tree for the next gift, which squeaked as she grasped it, when the telephone rang. For several seconds and two more rings, she only stared at the phone.
“Are you going to answer it?” Brock asked, cocking his head.
She nodded, trying not to feel the disappointment already flitting on the edges of her happiness, as she moved to the phone and lifted the handset. Who was on the line didn’t matter because the call had already interrupted the moment, had brought them slamming back to reality.
No matter how much she wished it otherwise, this Christmas-morning family was only in her imagination. Brock wasn’t her husband. Joy wasn’t her child. And her Cinderella moment, when she could pretend to be whomever she wanted, to have whatever she chose, had passed.
She could no longer pretend she was someone with endless possibilities. She worried, though, that she would never be satisfied with her life again.
Brock didn’t need Allison to reveal who was on the phone, when watching her told him all he needed to know. Her expression fell. Breath seemed to whoosh from her lungs. Then her gaze shot over to the baby, who lay there wide-eyed, having awakened with the ringing phone.
“Oh, Margaret, I’m so glad to hear you’re back in town…. Merry Christmas to you, too…. I have a four-week-old female infant to place…. Yes, the abandoned child in the newspaper… Oh, you saw it on TV?” She paused in her telephone conversation and frowned at Brock before continuing. “You’ll be able to take her? That’s great.”
Her carefully blank features and her curled shoulders as she looped the phone cord around her fingers suggested the situation was anything but great. His own gaze drifted to Joy, who was glancing about at her newfound world. Soon Allison was planning details about delivering Joy to the foster parent named Margaret.
Without taking the time to dissect his gut response, Brock moved to the car seat and gathered the baby into his arms. He didn’t want her going anywhere but where she was. She was safe here with Allison…and with him.
Okay, buddy, you’re losing it now. He’d lost his edge. What was he doing there, enjoying the holly and the ivy and playacting downright domest
icity, when he needed to be out there finding this child’s birth mother?
He rested the baby against his shoulder. As if to prove her strength, Joy pushed her head back and stared up at him. He couldn’t let her down. No, wouldn’t. She didn’t need his failure to add to that of the most important person in her life.
Brock glanced at Allison as she lowered the phone back to its cradle. She looked so tired, lavender half-moons of exhaustion suddenly apparent under her eyes. Until now, she’d been wearing her lack of sleep well, her contentment easily masking it.
“I guess you heard,” she said when she stood close enough to brush back the baby’s sweaty hair.
“You’ve done your job. I need to do mine.”
She nodded, but he could see the sadness in her eyes. He needed to believe that her distress was over having to deliver the baby, not his leaving. She’d be making a huge mistake if she started to rely on him. If she did, that might tempt him to put his trust in her. That was something he just couldn’t do.
Chapter Six
Allison’s eyes burned as she descended the foster home’s front steps. Her feet felt so heavy. Her hands…empty. So many times before she had left children in the loving care of foster parents, but it was different this time. It felt as if she’d left a part of herself with the bundled child and her stack of Christmas toys.
She couldn’t say Joy wasn’t in good hands. As soon as Allison had walked through the door, Margaret Ross had relieved her of the infant car seat, unbuckled its precious cargo and gathered the baby to her bosom. Her husband, Bob, appeared next to her and ruffled Joy’s dark hair. Soon teenagers—the Rosses’ biological and foster children—swarmed the living room to meet the new arrival.
There was plenty of love to go around in the Ross household, enough to share with an abandoned child. Too bad none of the warmth Allison felt there could go with her as she walked out into the gray Christmas afternoon.
In her car, she switched on the radio but kept flipping through stations as all seemed to have dedicated their December 25 playlists to holiday music. That only reminded her of singing carols earlier with Brock, of sensing his nearness at she watched flames shimmying in the fireplace, of sharing Joy’s first Christmas. Finally, she just shut off the radio.
Her dark mood followed her as she returned to her house, too quiet without the sound of a baby crying for her next bottle or Brock’s deep, rich laughter. An emptiness enveloped her that even the twinkling Christmas tree lights couldn’t penetrate. The empty silver picture frame that before had offered such promise only mocked her.
Maybe to torture herself further, she trudged down the hall to the room she’d always thought of only as “Mom’s room,” at least until Joy had slept there. The portable crib still sat in the corner. All of it—the picture frame, the deserted crib, even the empty space beneath the tree—reminded her of the life and the family she would never have. She’d never missed the unknown so much before.
But it wouldn’t do her any good to think about that now. Restless energy had her packing the portable crib into its case and collecting the remaining blankets to take to the Rosses’ when they met for the court hearing that night at seven o’clock. She’d stalled as long as she could, but they were running out of time.
When everything was packed away, she returned to the kitchen and started capping bottles in the drying rack by the sink. As she dried the last, she noticed the blinking light on the kitchen phone for the first time. How long ago had someone called? Was it Brock? She shook her head, determined to think sensibly. The call could have come from anyone—David, another friend, her boss or a representative of the court. Her sister could even have called. It wasn’t unthinkable on Christmas Day.
But despite her plan to be sensible, her pulse raced when she read “Cox Co. Sheriff” on the caller ID box. She held her breath as she hit the answering machine button. A female voice came on, asking if she could collect some gifts left at the department offices for Baby Doe.
For the first time since she’d left Joy with the Rosses, she smiled. She shouldn’t have been surprised that the people of Destiny were reaching out to the foundling, especially since Joy had become something of a holiday celebrity around town.
So many times Allison had resented her community’s outpouring of support for the less fortunate at Christmas because those efforts assumed that people weren’t hungry, lonely or suffering any other time of the year. Tonight, though, she sensed her friends’ compassion as they reached out to Joy, just as she and Brock had. She wished Joy could grow up in Destiny and have the opportunity to be enveloped in such warmth.
She glanced at the tree again. It looked so lonely without that pile of gifts, as lonely as she felt in the house where she’d been mostly content until today. If not content, then settled. She was neither now.
If only she had accepted one of the many invitations from friends to share Christmas dinner so she didn’t have to stay home. Her gaze shot back to the answering machine light that was no longer blinking. Well, there was one place she could be. Someone needed to pick up those gifts from the sheriff’s department.
She wouldn’t be going just to see Brock. Nor was the possibility of seeing him the reason for her getting ready for a shower and laying out her new red sweater with the bell cuffs and her favorite black slacks. She just wanted to get some wear out of the sweater, a Christmas gift from her sister, and red was a good color for the holiday.
She was just coming out of the shower when the phone rang again.
“Have yourself a merry little Christmas,” her best friend’s crooning voice filtered from the receiver.
“Merry Christmas to you, too, David. Why are you calling me? Is the dating schedule a little slow?”
David made a wounded sound into the phone and then laughed. “You know full well I’m suffering through the traditional Wright family Christmas gala. But speaking of social calendars, how’s our Deputy Chandler?”
Allison swallowed hard and wished she hadn’t talked about Brock last night when David had called. She’d convinced herself it had only been a casual mention, but David had this annoying habit of seeing through her.
“He brought the baby some presents this morning.” She didn’t mention the gift Brock had brought for her, but she smiled over her secret.
“Oh, am I interrupting?”
“He isn’t here. Neither is Joy.”
“You placed her?”
Allison made an affirmative sound in her throat though her heart squeezed.
“Then you’re free for Christmas dinner, aren’t you?”
Getting out of her friend’s invitation while sidestepping his questions took some fancy footwork, but she managed it while keeping most of her dignity.
Within minutes after hanging up, she stood with damp hair before the mirror, applying eyeliner and mascara that she usually skipped and reminding herself that Brock probably wouldn’t even be at the office. He would be out on patrol or following up leads on the investigation.
But if their paths did happen to cross while she was there, then at least he would finally get to see her looking her best. Even the small prospect of seeing him again that day made her Christmas merry after all.
Just after noon, Brock gripped the edge of his desk so tightly that his fingertips turned red while his knuckles flashed white. Okay, it didn’t feel as freeing as punching a wall would have, but it did take the edge off the stress mounting inside him. He released the desk and rubbed his fists against his gritty eyes. Something had to cut through the tension if he was going to be able to take a fresh look at the investigative report.
Maybe he needed another blaring wake-up call like the one this morning to help him get his head on straight. That call from the foster parent had reminded him that, Christmas Day or not, it was time for him to get back to this investigation, even if the trail had gone colder than the temperature outside.
He’d sure needed some kind of wake-up call at Allison’s, something to awaken h
im from the domestic way he’d sat there with her. Since when did he go around singing Christmas carols, anyway? But he didn’t really have to ask, remembering well the music that was alive in Roy and Clara Chandler’s living room.
Just thinking about this morning’s cozy scene made him feel warm, as if he could still feel the heat of the fire’s glow on his face. He could even smell the floral scent of Allison’s shampoo as it had imprinted on his senses.
No wonder he couldn’t come up with any new ideas for the case when his thoughts kept flitting back to her. Instead of feeling guilty over being distracted, all he could think about was finding a different excuse to see Allison now that she was no longer caring for Joy.
He would have continued to berate himself the way he deserved if the object of his distraction hadn’t stepped through the glass door to the receptionist desk. She didn’t look like herself with her hair all twisted and tied up off her neck, her face made up and fancy clothes and a long dress coat in the place of her comfortable things. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, but he couldn’t decide if it was because he preferred this glamorous version of her or if he couldn’t get over how she’d messed up a good thing.
“Excuse me, you’re Jane Richards, aren’t you?” Allison asked the dispatcher. “I’m Allison Hensley.”
The woman laughed. “I know who you are. I was in your mom’s book club.”
Brock pretended not to notice how Allison conducted a conversation with the dispatcher but appeared to be studying him instead. Her cheeks became like twin berries when he nodded at her.
Jane glanced back and forth between the two of them and quirked an eyebrow. “I take it you’ve already met Deputy Chandler.”
“Several times,” Brock answered.
Allison nodded and rolled her lips inward, smudging all that lipstick she wore.
The older woman cleared her throat. “Hey, you made a great Mary the other night.”
“Thanks,” Allison answered. “The night didn’t quite go as we planned.”
