Maid Under the Mistletoe

by Maureen Child

  “Okay, Sam.” Holly grinned and her eyes lit up. “I’ll go ask her right now, okay? And then we can show her the new fairy house and then we can get our big tree and maybe have hot chocolate and—” She took off at a dead run, still talking, still planning.

  He turned to look at the house and saw Joy in the bedroom window, watching them. Would he always see her there, he wondered? Would he walk through his empty house and catch the faint scent of summer flowers? Would he sit in the great room at night and wait for her to come in and sit beside him? Smile at him? Would he spend the rest of his life reaching across the bed for her?

  A few weeks ago, his life was insular, quiet, filled with the shadows of memories and the ghosts he carried with him everywhere. Now there would be more ghosts. The only difference being, he would have chosen to lose Joy and Holly.

  That thought settled in, and he didn’t like it. Still looking up at Joy, Sam asked himself if maybe he was wrong to pass up this opportunity. Maybe it was time to step out of the shadows. To take a chance. To risk it all.

  A scream ripped his thoughts apart and in an instant, everything changed. Again.

  * * *

  Five stitches, three hot chocolates and one Christmas tree later, they were in the great room, watching the lights on the big pine in the front window shine. They’d used the strings of lights Joy had hung on the walls in their room, and now the beautiful pine was dazzling. There were popcorn chains and candy canes they’d bought in town as decorations. And there was an exhausted but happy little girl, asleep on the couch, a smile still curving her lips.

  Joy brushed Holly’s hair back from her forehead and kissed the neat row of stitches. It had been a harrowing, scary ride down the mountain to the clinic in town. But Sam had been a rock. Steady, confident, he’d already had Holly in his arms heading for his truck by the time Joy had come downstairs at a dead run.

  Hearing her baby scream, watching her fall and then seeing the bright splotch of blood on the snow had shaken Joy right down to the bone. But Holly was crying and reaching for her, so she swallowed her own fear to try to ease Holly’s. The girl had hit her head on a rock under the snow when she fell. A freak accident, but seeing the neat row of stitches reminded Joy how fragile her child was. How easily hurt. Physically. Emotionally.

  Sam stood by the tree. “You want me to carry her to bed?”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  He nodded and stalked across the room as if every step was vibrating with repressed energy. But when he scooped Holly into his arms, he was gentle. Careful. She followed after him and neither of them spoke again until Holly was tucked in with her favorite stuffed dog and they were safely out in the great room again.

  Sam walked to the fireplace, stared down into the flames as if looking for answers to questions he hadn’t asked, and shoved both hands into his pockets. Joy walked over to join him, hooked her arm through his and wasn’t really surprised when he moved away. Hurt, yes. But not surprised.

  She’d known this was coming. Maybe Holly being hurt had sped up the process, but Joy had been expecting him to pull away. To push her aside. He had been honest from the beginning, telling her that they had no future. That he didn’t want forever because, she knew, he didn’t trust in promises.

  He cared for her. He cared for Holly, but she knew he didn’t want to and wouldn’t want to hear how much she loved him, so she kept it to herself. Private pain she could live with. She didn’t think she could bear him throwing her love back in her face and dismissing it.

  “Sam...”

  “Scared me,” he admitted in a voice so low she almost missed the words beneath the hiss and snap of the fire.

  “I know,” Joy said softly. “Me, too. But Holly’s fine, Sam. The doctor said she wouldn’t even have a scar.”

  “Yeah, and I’m glad of that.” He shook his head and looked at her, firelight and shadow dancing over his features, glittering in his eyes. “But I can’t do this again, Joy.”

  “Do what?” Heart aching, she took a step toward him, then stopped when he took one back.

  “You know damn well what,” he ground out. Then he took a deep breath and blew it out. “The thing is, just before Holly got hurt, I was thinking that maybe I could. Maybe it was time to try again.” He looked at her. “With you.”

  Hope rose inside her and then crashed again when he continued.

  “Then that little girl screamed, and I knew I was kidding myself.” Shaking his head slowly, he took another deep breath. “I lost my family once, Joy. I won’t risk that kind of pain again. You and Holly have to go.”

  “If we go,” she reminded him, “you still lose us.”

  He just stared at her. He didn’t have an answer to that, and they both knew it.

  “Yeah, I know. But you’ll be safe out there and I won’t have to wonder and worry every time you leave the damn house.”

  “So you’ll never think of us,” she mused aloud. “Never wonder what we’re doing, if we’re safe, if we’re happy.”

  “I didn’t say that,” he pointed out. “But I can block that out.”

  “Yeah, you’re good at blocking out.”

  “It’s a gift.” The smile that touched his mouth was wry, unhappy and gone in an instant.

  “So just like that?” she asked, her voice low, throbbing with banked emotions that were nearly choking her. “We leave and what? You go back to being alone in this spectacular cage?” She lifted both hands to encompass the lovely room and said, “Because no matter how beautiful it is, it’s still a cage, Sam.”

  “And it’s my business.” His voice was clipped, cold, as if he’d already detached from the situation. From her.

  Well, she wasn’t going to make it that easy on him.

  “It’s not just your business, Sam. It’s mine. It’s Holly’s. She told me she asked you to be her daddy. Did that mean nothing to you?”

  “It meant everything,” he said, his voice a growl of pain and anger. “It’s not easy to turn away from you. From her.”

  “Then don’t do it.”

  “I have to.”

  Fury churned in the pit of her stomach and slid together with a layer of misery that made Joy feel sick to her soul. “How could I be in love with a man so stubborn he refuses to see what’s right in front of him?”

  He jolted. “Who said anything about love?”

  “I did,” she snapped. She wasn’t going to walk away from him never saying how she felt. If he was going to throw her away like Mike had, like every foster parent she’d ever known had, then he would do it knowing the full truth. “I love you.”

  “Well,” he advised, “stop.”

  She choked out a laugh that actually scraped at her throat. Amazing. As hurt as she was, she could still be amused by the idiot man who was willing to toss aside what most people never found. “Great. Good idea. I’ll get right on that.”

  He grabbed her upper arms and drew her up until they were eye to eye. “Damn it, Joy, I told you up front that I’m not that guy. That there was no future for us.”

  “Yes, I guess I’m a lousy listener.” She pulled away from him, cleared her throat and blinked back a sheen of tears because she refused to cry in front of him. “It must be your immense load of charm that dragged me in. That warm, welcoming smile.”

  He scowled at her.

  “No, it was the way that you grudgingly bent to having us here. It was your gentleness with Holly, your sense of humor, your kiss, your touch, the way you look at me sometimes as if you don’t know quite what to do with me.” She smiled sadly. “I fell in love and there’s no way out for me now. You’re it, Sam.”

  He scrubbed one hand across his face as if he could wipe away her words, her feelings.

  “You don’t have to love me, Sam.” That about killed her to say, but it was truth.
/>   “I didn’t want to hurt you, Joy.”

  “I believe you. But when you care, you hurt. That’s life. But if you don’t love me, try to love someone else.” Oh God, the thought of that tore what was left of her heart into tiny, confetti-sized pieces. “But stop hiding out here in this palace of shadows and live your life.”

  “I like my life.”

  “No you don’t,” she countered, voice thick with those unshed tears. “Because you don’t have one. What you have is sacrifice.”

  He pushed both hands through his hair then let them fall to his sides. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She took a breath, steadying herself, lowering her voice, willing him to hear her. “You’ve locked yourself away, Sam. All to punish yourself for surviving. What happened to your family was terrible, I can’t even imagine the pain you lived through. But you’re still alive, Sam. Staying closed down and shut off won’t alter what happened. It won’t bring them back.”

  His features went tight, cold, his eyes shuttered as they had been so often when she first met him.

  “You think I don’t know that?” He paced off a few steps, then whirled around and came right back. His eyes glittered with banked fury and pain. “Nothing will bring them back. Nothing can change why they died, either.”

  “What?” Confused, worried, she waited.

  “You know why I had to drive you into town for Holly’s sleepover?”

  “Of course I do.” She shook her head, frowning. “My car wouldn’t start.”

  “Because I took the damn distributor cap off.”

  That made no sense at all. “What? Why?”

  Now he scrubbed his hands over his face and gave a bitter sigh. “Because, I couldn’t let you drive down the mountain in the snow.”

  “Sam...”

  Firelight danced around the room but looked haunting as it shadowed his face, highlighting the grief carved into his features, like a mask in stone. As she watched him, she saw his eyes blur, focus on images in his mind rather than the woman who stood just opposite him.

  “I was caught up in a painting,” he said. “It was a commission. A big one and I wanted to keep at it while I was on a roll.” He turned from her, set both hands on the fireplace mantel and stared down into the crackling flames. “There was a family reunion that weekend and Dani was furious that I didn’t want to go. So I told her to take Eli and go ahead. That I’d meet her at the reunion as soon as I was finished.” He swiveled his head to look at Joy. “She was on the interstate and a front tire blew. Dani lost control of the car and slammed into an oncoming semi. Both she and Eli died instantly.”

  Joy’s heart ripped open, and the pain she felt for him nearly brought her to her knees. But she kept quiet, wanting him to finish and knowing he needed to get it all said.

  “If I’d been driving it might have been different, but I’ll never know, will I?” He pushed away from the mantel and glared at her, daring her to argue with him. “I chose my work over my family and I lost them. You once asked me why I don’t paint anymore, and there’s your reason. I chose my work over what should have been more important. So I don’t paint. I don’t go out. I don’t—”

  “Live,” she finished for him. “You don’t live, Sam. Do you really think that’s what Dani would want for you? To spend the next fifty years locked away from everything and everyone? Is that how she wanted to live?”

  “Of course not,” he snapped.

  “Then what’s the point of the self-flagellation?” Joy demanded, walking toward him, ignoring the instinctive step back he took. “If you’d been in that car, you might have died, too.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “You don’t, either. That’s the point.”

  Outside, the wind moaned as it slid beneath the eaves. But tonight, it sounded louder, like a desperate keening, as if even the house was weeping for what was ending.

  Trying again, Joy said, “My little girl loves you. I love you. Can you really let that go so easily?”

  His gaze snapped to hers. “I told you that earlier today, I actually thought that maybe I could risk it. Maybe there was a chance. And then Holly was hurt and my heart stopped.”

  “Kids get hurt, Sam,” she said, still trying, though she could see in his eyes that the fight was over. His decision was made whether she agreed or not. “We lose people we shouldn’t. But life keeps going. We keep going. The world doesn’t stop, Sam, and it shouldn’t.”

  “Maybe not,” he said softly. “But it’s going to keep going without me.”

  Ten

  Joy spent the next few days taking care of business. She buried the pain beneath layers of carefully constructed indifference and focused on what she had to do. In between taking care of her clients, she made meals for Sam and froze them. Whatever else happened after she left this house, he wouldn’t starve.

  If she had her way, she wouldn’t leave. She’d stay right here and keep hammering at his hard head until she got through. And maybe, one day, she’d succeed. But then again, maybe not. So she couldn’t take the chance. It was one thing to risk her own heart, but she wouldn’t risk Holly’s. Her daughter was already crazy about Sam. The longer they stayed here in this house, the deeper those feelings would go. And before long, Sam would break her baby’s heart. He might not mean to, but it was inevitable.

  Because he refused to love them back. Sooner or later, Holly would feel that and it would crush her. Joy wouldn’t let that happen.

  She would miss this place, though, she told herself as she packed up Holly’s things. Glancing out the bedroom window, she watched her little girl and Sam placing yet another fairy house in the woods. And she had to give the man points for kindness.

  She and Sam hadn’t really spoken since that last night when everything had been laid out between them. They’d sidestepped each other when they could, and when they couldn’t they’d both pretended that everything was fine. No point in upsetting Holly, after all. And despite—or maybe because of how strained things were between her and Sam—he hadn’t changed toward Holly. That alone made her love him more and made it harder to leave. But tomorrow morning, she and Holly would wake up back in their own house in Franklin.

  “Thank God Buddy finished the work early,” she muttered, folding up the last of Holly’s shirts and laying them in the suitcase.

  Walking into the kitchen of her dreams, Joy sighed a little, then took out a pad of paper and a pen. Her heart felt heavy, the knot of emotion still stuck at the base of her throat, and every breath seemed like an event. She hated leaving. Hated walking away from Sam. But she didn’t have a choice any longer. Sitting on a stool at the granite counter, she made a list for Sam of the food she had stocked for him. There was enough food in the freezer now to see him through to when Kaye returned.

  Would he miss her? she wondered. Would he sit in that dining room alone and remember being there with her and Holly? Would he sit in the great room at night and wish Joy was there beside him? Or would he wipe it all out of his mind? Would she become a story never talked about like his late wife? Was Joy now just another reason to block out life and build the barricades around his heart that much higher?

  She’d hoped to pull Sam out of the shadows—now she might have had a hand in pushing him deeper into the darkness. Sighing a little, she got up, stirred the pot of beef stew, then checked the bread in the oven.

  When she looked out the window again, she saw the fairy lights had blinked on and Holly was kneeling beside Sam in the snow. She couldn’t hear what was being said, but her heart broke a little anyway when her daughter laid her little hand on Sam’s shoulder. Leaving was going to be hard. Tearing Holly away was going to be a nightmare. But she had to do it. For everyone’s sake.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Holly put on her stubborn face.

&n
bsp; “But I don’t wanna go,” Holly shouted and pulled away from her mother to run down the hall to the great room. “Sam! Sam! Mommy says we’re leaving and I don’t want to go cuz we’re building a fairy house and I have to help you put it in the woods so the fairies can come and—”

  Joy walked into the main room behind her daughter and watched as Holly threw herself into Sam’s lap. He looked at Joy over the child’s head even as he gave the little girl a hug.

  “Tell her we have to stay, Sam, cuz I’m your helper now and you need me.”

  “I do,” he said, and his voice sounded rough, scratchy. “But your mom needs you, too, so if she says it’s time to go, you’re going to have to.”

  She tipped her head back, looking at him with rivers of tears in her eyes. “But I don’t want to.”

  “I know. I don’t want you to, either.” He gave her what looked to Joy like a wistful smile, then tugged on one of her pigtails. “Why don’t I finish up the fairy house and then bring it to you so you can give it to Lizzie.”

  She shook her head so hard, her pigtails whipped back and forth across her eyes. “It’s not the same, Sam. Can’t I stay?”

  “Come on, Holly,” Joy spoke up quickly because her own emotions were taking over. Tears were close, and watching her daughter’s heart break was breaking her own. “We really have to go.”

  Holly threw her a furious look, brows locked down, eyes narrowed. “You’re being mean.”

  “I’m your mom,” Joy said tightly, keeping her own tears at bay. “That’s my job. Now come on.”

  “I love you, Sam,” Holly whispered loud enough for her voice to carry. Then she gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek and crawled off his lap. Chin on her chest, she walked toward Joy with slow, dragging steps, as if she was pulling each foot out of mud along the way.

  Joy saw the stricken look on Sam’s face and thought, Good. Now you know what you’ve given up. What you’re allowing yourself to lose.