Must Love Mistletoe

by Christie Ridgway

  If it was true, he’d been too drunk to swim free of his tequila stupor and take her up on the offer. If she’d made it at all.

  But there was no mistaking she’d told him he owed her, and he still couldn’t decide what to do about that.

  Stifling a groan, he promised himself for the dozenth time since being released from the hospital that he wasn’t going to drink like that ever again. Each time, he meant it. God, the queasy stomach, the sponge tongue, and the rotisseried brain made it a hell of an easy vow to make.

  But then something would set him off. A talk with Gram’s doctor. A phone call.

  “Ayesha Spencer’s parents called,” he said, staring down at the bottle of aspirin in his hand. It was nearly full, but there weren’t enough tablets in the world to ease this pain. “They’ll be in San Diego next week and want to have dinner with me.”

  Gram’s voice was quiet. “It might make you feel better.”

  Ah, but feel was the important word. He couldn’t afford to feel, damn it. Every agent knew that. Every agent knew it was death to sleep, maybe even sanity, if he started letting the worry and the stress of the near misses, and in his case, the real tragedy, take root inside him.

  Except he couldn’t forget Ayesha’s crumpled body and the responsibility he bore for it.

  Finn’s hands started to tremble, and the aspirins danced inside their plastic. He dropped the bottle back to the counter to halt the telltale rattle.

  “Finn?”

  “Hmm?” He white-knuckled the edge of the countertop and worked at pasting something he hoped was a smile on his face.

  “Are you all right?”

  He chanced a look at his grandmother, for the first time noting the new shadows under her eyes and then her pale hands fumbling with her pill container. With a silent curse for his distracted self, he strode to the table.

  “We should be talking about you and how you feel,” he told her. Impatient with himself, he used unnecessary force to pop the top marked Th for Thursday. Medications tumbled to the tabletop, and he had to corral them with his palms before they hit the floor.

  This time he didn’t keep the curses silent as he scooped the pills in front of Gram. Then he spun toward the sink. “I’ll get you water,” he said, his voice tight.

  Calm down, he reminded himself. Cool it. Ice over all the emotion.

  He managed to fill a glass and set it in front of her without a spill. Calming down. Cooling it.

  His grandmother touched his wrist. “You can’t stop the seasons,” she said. “There’s death and there’s birth. There’s a reason we celebrate Christmas at the darkest time of the year, Finn. To remind us that hope and light will always arrive.”

  Finn closed his eyes. He loved the messenger but the message wasn’t something he wanted to hear. So he let his mind skip from seasons and Christmas to The Perfect Christmas and Bailey. His hand slid into his pocket again. Touched Bailey’s note.

  U O Me.

  What the hell had she meant by that? But his sixth sense was clamoring again, warning him against any investigation.

  December, and there were bikinis poolside. Even though Dan Willis had been a Coronado resident for the last twenty years, the juxtaposition of Santa decorations and suntan lotion still startled him. But it was one of those postcard days, near eighty, that fueled the jealousy of New Yorkers and Chicagoans. He’d been each himself at one time, so he knew.

  All that “land of fruits and nuts” and “Hollywood elite” trash talk was just an outlet for envy. So you couldn’t get a real bagel or a true, bone-jittering wind in SoCal—he’d settle for Baja fish tacos and kids in shorts on skateboards any day. Though Dan wasn’t a native Californian, he admitted to embracing their inner smugness. It had taken him a few years to detect it, but there came a point when he realized that every time someone denigrated the Golden State, the natives clammed up. No defensiveness. No pleas for understanding.

  Just a hidden smile and the inner fervent hope that the naysayer would stay in his own—sunless and/or sea-less—part of the world. Sure there was enough sunshine to go around, but Californians didn’t mind soaking it all up themselves.

  Twenty years and Dan didn’t see himself leaving the place, even though he’d changed addresses from his comfortable suburbanesque single-family home to the caffeinated lifestyle of a modern condominium complex. He let the wrought-iron gate that surrounded the aquamarine pool and pebbled deck clang shut behind him. Women glanced up from their fashion magazines. One of the condo complex’s very few male residents opened his eyes, then dismissed him.

  At the two-hundred-unit Crown Palms, men were at a premium, he’d found. And so attracted more than their fair share of attention.

  “Dan!” As if to prove that last thought, a pretty, thirty-something brunette waved at him from her spot near the shallow end. “Just the person I hoped to see.”

  “Is that right?” He settled in the lounge chair beside hers, his ego puffing like a balloon. This morning he’d been with a bright, blue-eyed blond, and it looked as if this afternoon he’d be busy too.

  These women needed him. Appreciated him. Even if Tracy didn’t.

  He shut his estranged wife out of his mind and turned on his hip to give Brenda—the brunette—his full attention. His smile was for her alone, in gratitude for all the ways she’d distracted since he’d moved and set upon his single life.

  Her dimple dug deep into her right cheek. “You’re looking good, Dan. Sleeping better now?”

  When he’d first moved to the complex, his biggest complaint—besides the ache in his heart—was insomnia. He’d taken to whiling away the late-night hours in the weight room, and it was there he’d met Brenda. And Lynn. And Cherry.

  If he called them his little harem in the privacy of his thoughts, it didn’t offend anyone.

  Leaning on his elbow, he propped his head on his fist. “I’m working out in the mornings now. How ’bout you?”

  “Not getting into the gym as much as I’d like.” She shrugged, shifting the oiled curves of her breasts in the tiny turquoise triangles trying to contain them.

  While he didn’t ogle, Dan let his gaze sweep over the feminine flesh laid out on the other lounge. He thought it was expected of him. Even appreciated. “Whatever you’re doing looks fine from here.”

  Brenda gave him another of her smiles. It did seem grateful. “You always know the right thing to say.”

  Not to Tracy. One September afternoon it had hit him hard. She didn’t see him. She didn’t hear him. Though they worked together every day and went to bed in the same room every night, he’d become a piece of furniture. No different from a chair. The computer. Not a man. Not her lover.

  Panic had sent him to the mirror. It had shocked the hell out of him. In his mind’s eye he’d seen himself as young and fit as his eighteen-year-old son, Harry, but in the impersonal reflection of the mirror there was a middle-aged guy with too much gray, going soft around the middle.

  No wonder Tracy looked past him, he’d thought.

  But all that he’d done—his personal Extreme Makeover episode—hadn’t changed a thing. She hadn’t even noticed.

  Crushed by her disinterest, he’d moved out.

  “You’re going sad on me, Dan.”

  He wrenched his attention back to the younger woman. “I’m not.” Sad was how he’d felt each time Tracy looked through him. He lowered his voice and sent Brenda his new, six-hundred-dollar, blinding-white smile. “But I’m hoping you were happy to see me for a reason.”

  She nodded. “I need you, Dan. You’re the only man I know who’s been able to make it…I don’t know what you’d call it exactly. Hum?”

  He pushed down his sunglasses to look at her over them in disbelief. “I’m the only one?”

  She nodded. “No kidding. It’s been four years that I’ve struggled. Then one hour with you and…”

  “Hum.”

  “Yeah.”

  They smiled at each other. While his time with Bre
nda—and Lynn, and Cherry—didn’t completely obliterate the pain of his messed-up marriage, it soothed some rough edges, filled some empty hours. They thought he was good for something. Almost fifty years old and maybe he did know a thing or two that other men did not.

  “Well, whenever you’re ready I’m prepared to make my magic,” he said. A few more tricks and maybe he’d have Tracy out of his mind forever.

  Brenda swung her legs off the lounger. “I don’t want to wait a minute longer.”

  They stopped off at his place for protection. A few minutes later they were in Brenda’s cream-and-apricot condo and ready for action.

  “The real trick is in how you put it in,” he instructed. “Careful. Gentle. Then you move it gently too.”

  “Gentle,” she repeated, her breath warm against his neck.

  “If you get another man here, tell him not to shove it in or push too hard. Tease it.”

  He put his hands over hers to show her exactly what he meant. They worked it together for a few minutes, playing with the pressure. “Easy,” he murmured. “Not too hard. Take it easy.”

  Then, suddenly, the tension broke.

  “There,” Brenda breathed. She was still for a moment, then she smiled up at him. “Thank you, God. Thank you, Dan.”

  Withdrawing his pole, Dan grinned down at her. “You’re more than welcome.” He reached over to flip the switch.

  The garbage disposal—instead of being frozen—hummed.

  They both drew off their protective safety goggles and listened to the happy sound.

  Satisfied it was in good working order again, he turned it off. “Do you want my special tool?”

  She laughed at him. “Someone could take that wrong, you know.”

  “I meant my special sawed-off broomstick.” The complex’s garbage disposals were notoriously finicky. One too many lemon peels or celery tops and they went from happy hum to high-pitched whine. That’s when you knew the blades weren’t turning.

  Once he’d shared his solution with one woman, word had gotten around. This morning he’d fixed Lynn’s, the blue-eyed blond. Now Brenda’s. Cherry’s wouldn’t be far behind, he supposed, and he was always glad for the chance to do something.

  “Cold drink?” Brenda asked.

  “Sure.”

  They settled into matching wicker chairs on her small patio. Over a tall hedge of jasmine was the sweeping curve of the Coronado Bridge that linked the island to San Diego. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, the younger woman tossed him a little glance. “You’d make someone a fine husband, Dan.”

  And just like that Tracy was in his mind again. He wished he could see himself as someone else’s anything. But so far, it seemed he was a one-woman dog.

  He’d caught sight of Tracy a couple of days before when he couldn’t stop himself from driving past the house like a teenager with a crush. But he didn’t need that glimpse to remind him of what she looked like. He had a dozen images of her stored in his memory. A hundred.

  Windblown hair, her nose sunburned, one hand holding a little girl’s, the other gripping a plastic pail of sand. Their first date.

  Smooth ponytail, little white suit, roses trembling in her grasp as they told the judge, “I do.”

  Happy tears, sweaty bangs, the perfect curve of her arms as she held their newborn son.

  Tracy with a pencil behind her ear. With a fire in her stride as she went toward the neighborhood bully who’d pushed Bailey off her bike. With her fingers trembling as she brushed imaginary lint off Harry’s comforter after making his college bed.

  He saw again the flinch of her body, then the distant, almost vacant look in her eyes when he’d told her he was leaving.

  “I couldn’t believe she married me in the first place,” he heard himself say. “She’d been hurt by her ex.”

  Brenda gave an understanding nod. “Been there. Done that. Have worn the hair shirt.”

  “I was persistent.” It had taken time, but he’d won Tracy over. Not Bailey, though. As much as he’d tried, as much as he regretted the failure, he knew he’d never quite cracked that hard shell she’d built after her father left. And it was as if Tracy had retreated behind that very same barrier now too.

  He shook his head. “The garbage disposals aren’t going to do it, are they? And not the sticky doors or broken cabinet hinges?”

  Brenda looked into his eyes, then away. “I don’t think I’m going to do it for you either, Dan. Not me, or Lynn, or Cherry. At least not now.”

  Not ever, Dan corrected.

  He let the truth of that sink deep. It pierced his heart and fell like an anchor into his churning gut.

  Moving away couldn’t move his wife out of his mind, his thoughts, his emotions.

  His soul.

  But no! He couldn’t let that be a certainty. They’d had happy, but not ever after, and he couldn’t, wouldn’t let himself be miserable without Tracy for the rest of his life.

  Finn went on a long walk that afternoon to relieve his fidgety legs and restless memory. Head down, hands in his pockets, he didn’t realize the path his feet had taken him until he heard a familiar voice hail his name.

  He looked up, then down, into the amused eyes of tiny Trin Tran, pushing a stroller so laden with shopping bags and drooling toddler that it had to weigh more than she did.

  “Come by to check on your old flame?” she asked, a saucy smile on her lips.

  Uh oh. Finn was standing in front of The Perfect Christmas.

  He resisted the urge to duck down in case Bailey was looking out the windows. U O Me. He still didn’t know what the hell she wanted from him. He still didn’t want to know.

  “How are you, Trin?” Finn said, warding off a Bailey discussion. “And how is your, uh…” The child was dressed in a one-piece thing of nubby brown fabric, complete with an antler-topped hood.

  “Raindid,” the kid said, a trail of drool running over its bottom lip. A little plump hand waved overhead. “Raindid.”

  “That’s right, baby. You’re so smart.” Trin, whom he’d always considered a logical, reasonable human being, gazed at the drooler with fanatical pride. Christ, his sister and parents were going to go nuts when his nephew was born. “He’s telling you he’s a reindeer.”

  “Yeah? Uh, impressive.” That river of drool was pretty amazing too.

  The kid was staring up at Finn now. A finger pointed at his face. “Pie-did.”

  “Pie-deer?” Finn guessed. “Is that some new species?” They were just miles from the world-famous San Diego Zoo. Maybe the kid was a zoologist in the making.

  Trin’s gaze cut toward him, a frown between her brows. “Something wrong with your hearing? That’s pirate.”

  “Sorry.” Touching his eye patch, he grimaced. “I’m not real familiar with little kids.”

  “Oh, really?” Trin fiddled with the collar of her white shirt. There was a piece of “jewelry” pinned to it, a one-by-two-inch LED screen that flashed naughty? nice? at three-second intervals. “We—I was wondering if you had any little Finns wandering around the world. We—I didn’t know if there was a woman in your life in the recent past, or the now, or the near future.”

  “We pie-dids like to keep a little mystery going,” he replied, unwilling to play criminal to her cop.

  At the narrowing of Trin’s eyes, he hastened to divert the topic again. “So,” he said, pointing to the bags hanging off the stroller. “Getting started on your Christmas shopping already?”

  She made a weird little sound. Something between a hoot and a screech. Frankly, it was frightening. Even the raindid looked up at his mom, with wide eyes and the Schweitzer Falls roaring over his bottom lip.

  “‘Started’?” she repeated slowly. “‘Already’? Have you seen any Go-Go Toaster trains in the stores? Any Flash It–Paste It–Post It software programs? What about the Demons Behind the Wheel video game?”

  “Uh, no?” Seemed a safe answer.

  “That’s right. It’s because they’ve no
t been available since the day after Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh.”

  She talked right over him. “I bet you’re just like my husband. I bet you don’t believe people are out shopping at five in the morning on the Friday after Turkey Day. But let me assure you they are. This year you could get Howard Stern or Nemo to give you a wake-up call at four a.m.”

  Finn didn’t know who Nemo was, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to confess it to Trin.

  “And for your information, people shop early on December twenty-sixth too—for the next year!”

  Good God. With the exception of this Christmas because of the whole nephew-in-the-oven thing, Finn shopped on the twenty-fourth…twenty-third if he was at loose ends. It boggled his mind to imagine a world as Trin described. Lucky for him, it appeared the incensed woman didn’t expect a response as her voice rose in obvious passion.

  “So good-bye, pie-did. I have to go home now and see if the elves baked the fifteen plates of cookies for my husband’s office party tomorrow night. And maybe they’ve planned the menus for our holiday get-together, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day, and done the three-stop grocery shopping trip too. Perhaps they’ve been nice enough to wrap all the family presents, the gifts for the babysitter, the gardener, the mail carrier, and my hairdresser, not to mention the hostess thank-yous I picked out for the seven parties we’re invited to between now and New Year’s.” Rushing past him, she ran over his foot.

  He yelped. “You’re scaring me, Trin.”

  That gave her pause. She turned, shooting him an unreadable look. “And I’m a woman who likes Christmas. Think about the kind of mood the elf in there is in.” She jerked her thumb toward the store’s front door, then went on her way.

  What elf?

  Duh. He knew what elf.

  But he wasn’t going in. Except, though he couldn’t swear to it, he thought Trin’s pin had suddenly stuck on naughty naughty naughty. Was that supposed to be a clue to Bailey’s mood?

  What red-blooded American man would think that…and think about the feel of her under his hands in the car the other night, then walk away?

  So he pushed the door open, wincing at the telltale clatter of jingle bells. His plan was an anonymous little peek at the anti-Christmas elf, just…just because he couldn’t stop himself.