Holiday Hat Trick

by Catherine Gayle

  It only took a moment for Mia to pull herself together and realize she was under siege. She shook her head to clear the snow away, bounded over to Davie’s side, and then the real battle began.

  Shouts and giggles rent through the air, punctuated by the frequent splats of well-aimed tosses. In no time, the lot of us were frozen through and exhausted. It was the good type of exhaustion, though. The sort that only came from enjoyment instead of the type borne of heartache.

  Mia’s cheeks were red from cold and laughter each time she poked her head up over the protective barrier. She and Davie were giving us quite an assault, pummeling us with so much snow that Lila gave up on trying to form snowballs for me and Rory and started tossing them herself as fast as she could. Her little arms weren’t strong enough to get much on the throw, so most of her attempts fell in the open space between our two forts instead of hitting her target, but she didn’t care. She squealed and giggled and threw some more, having the time of her life.

  I was so absorbed in our battle that I didn’t notice when Jason and Zach joined the fray—Jason on my side and Zach stepping in with Mia and Davie. I’d texted them after I’d made my plans with the kids, but I wasn’t sure if they would come or not. I only realized they were there when a well-aimed ball of snow hit my nose. It was too clean a hit for either Mia or Davie to make, so I shook the icy stuff free and looked up to find Zach raising an eyebrow at me in a dare.

  “Oh, now it’s on,” I shouted, gathering up a huge mound to form into my biggest snowball yet.

  “Here, Uncle Mitch,” Lila squealed. I turned to see Jason carrying her over with a monstrous white ball in her hands, almost as big as her head. “We made it for you.”

  I winked at her and took the ball, lobbing it in an overhanded arc so that it crashed down on top of Zach’s head and exploded in every direction. Mia let out an indignant sound as she was sprayed right in the face with the debris. That one blow took out two of the three of them, and my team decided that was our moment. Without needing to talk about it, we scrambled over our bunker, flew through the clearing, and blasted into the other team’s protective barrier. It disintegrated under the force of our assault. Lila and Rory both leaped onto Zach. Davie managed to get away, and Jason chased after him, pelting him with more snowballs as they ran. I somehow ended up on top of Mia, both of us winded and laughing.

  I rolled over, pulling her along with me. Only then did I remember I wasn’t supposed to be touching her, that she wasn’t mine anymore. She didn’t make a move to get up, though, so I held her like that until I could catch my breath.

  “I should be mad at you,” she said reaching up to tug her toque down over her ears.

  “You should.”

  My friends were keeping all the kids occupied, continuing the fight as they all raced through the backyard pelting each other like crazy, so we might as well have been alone out there if not for all the squealing and giggling and screaming. Mia struggled to right herself, straddling my waist and keeping me pinned down. I tried to keep all the memories of nights in our bed when she would rise up over me like this at bay, but my efforts were all for naught.

  “I wish I could be mad at you,” she said at length. “It would all be so much easier if I could.”

  I reached up a gloved hand and brushed a few blond curls away from her face, tucking them under the knitted cap so I could see her face better. “Do you want me to be an ass? I don’t think I can do it with you. It just isn’t in me to do something that would hurt you, baby.” Maybe I already had hurt her, though. Unintentionally. Why else would she be so set on keeping us apart?

  She shook her head and brought a hand up to join mine. “I just—”

  The shouts in the distance suddenly weren’t in the distance anymore, and Mia shot her head up just before three kids and two grown men launched themselves on top of us and we got pulled back into the chaos.

  She just what? I wondered. There was no time to find out now—not with a full-scale snowball fight underway. Brian, Seth, and Grace all joined us after a while, as well, escalating it from a battle to a war. A half hour or so later, we finally drew up a temporary peace treaty and went back inside to warm up in front of the fire with blankets and hot cocoa and more laughter. Marley woke from her nap and started babbling in Mia’s room. Mrs. J went to get her, and she toddled over to join us. She plopped down right in the middle of the big group.

  This was close to the perfect Christmas. So close, except for one small but glaring detail. Instead of having Mia wrapped in my arms, with her favorite scent of lavender tickling my nostrils and the heat of her pressing back against my chest, she was all the way on the opposite side of the hearth.

  But she was watching me. Her eyes were stuck to me like superglue, and I could only think of that as progress. Maybe Zach and Mrs. Jennings were right. Maybe there was still a chance to win her back.

  If there was even a slim possibility, I had to try.

  I WANTED TO kiss Mitch. The unbidden thought struck me like a sledgehammer to the head as I sat in a quiet corner with my camera and assortment of lenses, snapping photos and trying to sort out my emotions-gone-wild.

  I didn’t want to want to kiss him, but ever since he’d rolled me on top of him in the snow there had been little else going on in my mind. I kept remembering the feel of his lips on mine, the sensation of being wrapped up in his arms—warm and safe and loved—and it was all I could do to keep myself at a safe distance. If I let down my guard for even a second, I knew I would be stretching up on my tiptoes and pulling his head down to mine, and then it would be all over. The entirety of the last year—all the heartache and loneliness and frustration—would have been all for nothing.

  So as I watched him playing with Marley and the other kids on the floor, I forced a different memory into my mind—the last night we’d spent together over the summer. We’d both known that would be the last time, that we would never make love again. The divorce had been almost final. We had been separated since January, when he’d been traded to St. Louis and I had refused to uproot my life yet again. It had been hard enough when it had just been me and Mitch. Now Marley was in the picture, though, and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t keep dropping everything.

  But that night over the summer, he had shown up at my door, his eyes had been bloodshot, and he’d said, “Please.” Just one word—a single syllable that had cracked his voice at the same time as it broke my heart. To this day, I still didn’t know what he’d been begging me for. But his voice had been filled with so much love and anguish and fear and tenderness that I’d done the only thing I could think to do. I’d pulled him inside and taken him to my bed, and I’d loved him with my body because I couldn’t allow myself to do so with my words.

  Two days later, my lawyer had presented me with the final divorce papers. I’d signed them, unable to stop sobbing. The tears had smudged the ink of my signature. I’d always wondered since then what had gone through Mitch’s mind when he saw the evidence of my own pain. Did he know that it hurt me as much as it hurt him? He must have. We’d been so close for so long that we always knew what was going on beneath the surface of the other without a word being spoken.

  Right now, I forced myself to think back to that moment as a reminder that it had been the last time we would be together. I couldn’t lose myself in him again, despite it being so terrifyingly easy to do.

  A little while ago, everyone at Mom and Dad’s house had come together and eaten a big meal. Zach had stayed through dinner, but Jason had taken his wife and baby home for their own Christmas traditions. My family had grown so much over recent years that there weren’t enough places to sit at the table, so it was probably for the best that they’d gone. Mitch had propped Marley up on his knee during the meal, allowing her to use her fingers to steal bites of ham and veggies and mashed potato from his plate. About half of it had ended up on his face and in her hair somehow, prompting Mom to dash off for my camera so I could preserve it forever. Now, back in
the living room and all cleaned up, the kids were starting to wind down and yawn, and most of the noise of the day was tapering off. I’d kept my camera with me after that because I liked catching everyone in these relaxed moments when they just behaved as normal and forgot that I was shooting them. There was nothing like a genuine smile, and those had been in abundant supply all day long.

  I was just starting to wonder how much longer Dad would be when he came around the corner decked out in his Santa costume—the same one he’d been wearing since my siblings and I were little—with a worn copy of The Night Before Christmas in one hand and a red bag slung over his shoulder.

  “Ho ho ho!” he said, and all the kids looked up in wonder.

  I was pretty sure Davie, at least, knew that it was his grandpa behind the white beard and red suit. Lila might, as well. Whether they knew or not, they both did a good job of staying attentive and acting as though the real Santa was here to read them a story before going off to sleep.

  Dad sat down on the stool Mom had left for him in front of the fire, and he passed a single toy to each of the kids from his red bag. Marley’s was a soft, white teddy bear with a Santa hat. She wrapped both arms tightly around it, hugging it to her chest, and then toddled over to sit on Mitch’s lap, causing a violent lurch in my chest. One more hole ripping into my heart, I supposed.

  Then everyone settled in to listen to the story. Everyone except me. I stealthily moved around, shooting from different angles, taking advantage of the soft light of the fire and the twinkling Christmas tree lights. By the time the story was half finished, Marley had fallen asleep in Mitch’s arms again. I knew from firsthand experience how easy that was to do. I was glad she was able to have these few days with him, that she could know the security of his arms. She wouldn’t recall this moment, certainly not as vividly as I would, but in some place deep inside—deep in her heart, where it mattered—she would know a father’s love.

  And he was such a good father. I hated that they couldn’t have moments like this more often. Hated that I was the reason. The image before me was so sweet, though, that I put my camera up to my eye again. I stayed hidden in the darker recesses of the room and captured the pair of them in a moment she would never remember but he would never forget.

  I might not have been expecting Mitch to show up for Christmas, and I certainly hadn’t gotten him a present, but I could give him this. Tomorrow, sometime when everyone was settled and quiet and enjoying each other’s company, I would pull up my laptop and go through today’s photos. With the lighting and the soft look in his eye as he stared down at her slumbering form, there wasn’t a more perfect scenario I could come up with for a portrait of them. It would make a great wall hanging, or maybe a huge canvas print. It was something I could give him even though I’d taken so much away.

  When Dad finished the story, all the adults set to work getting the kids and Grandma Molly settled in bed. My parents had built an addition to the house sometime after my siblings and I had all moved out, finally—a family-room-slash-game-room-slash-everything-else-room. We had laid out sleeping bags and pallets, and all the kids were going to sleep in there together. Davie, Lila, and Rory whined about having to go to bed so early with the little kids, even though they were just as exhausted and would likely be asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows. Despite their arguments, we managed to usher them all inside and get them snuggled down for the night.

  Mitch carried Marley in after the others were all situated, lying her on the pallet she would share for the night with Seth and Janet’s three-year-old daughter, Emma. He pulled the blankets up over them both, tucked them in tight, made sure Marley’s new teddy bear was snuggled in her arms, and gave them both kisses on the forehead. Emma giggled at the ticklish sensation of his whiskers, much as Marley had done this morning, and I melted at the easy way he had with those little girls. He wasn’t just a good father; he was a good man. Seeing him with my family again only reminded me how much a part of this family he was.

  Mitch had come from a broken home. His parents had fought all the time, and often his father had hit his mother. More than a few times, his father had hit Mitch, too. Once we’d started dating when we were freshmen in high school, my parents had told him he could come over anytime, that our home was a safe place for him to be, and that he was always welcome. There’d been many nights he’d shown up unannounced at the door with a haunted look in his eye. Without a word, Dad would usher him inside and set him up on the couch; Mom would ply him with cookies and the sort of motherly love he’d so desperately needed; Grace and Seth treated him just like a brother.

  By the time we’d graduated from high school, he’d taken to spending more time at my house than at his own. My parents had convinced him to play college hockey so he could get a degree instead of going into major junior, since there were no guarantees about him playing pro. Dad had been the one driving him to and from his games and practices. Mom had been the one to make sure he got a haircut when he needed one and had clothes and shoes that fit. It was my family that had accompanied him to the draft and traveled to his college games and were with him the first time he’d played in the NHL.

  Mitch hadn’t just married into the family. He was family. He belonged here. With us. But when he and I had divorced, I’d taken the only bit of normality he’d ever known away from him. I’d taken his family away.

  He should hate me for that. Instead, he kept telling me how much he still loved me.

  “’Night, Pumpkin,” he said to little Emma before straightening away, checking the baby monitor next to the little girls, and moving toward the door where I was waiting to turn off the lights. I melted just a little more as he slipped past me with a heated look.

  I flipped the switch, left the door cracked, and then leaned my back against the wall with my eyes closed while I waited for the shivers to stop racing along my spine.

  Once I’d collected myself, I headed for the voices coming from the kitchen. Dad had apparently gone to change out of the Santa suit. Seth and Brian were finalizing their plans for deep frying a turkey tomorrow. Grace and Janet were busy unloading the dishwasher and putting everything away from earlier. It was on Mom and Mitch that my eyes fell, though.

  “You seem to have moved the extra blankets and pillows,” he said quietly to her. “They aren’t in the hall closet anymore.”

  She was standing at the bar, butcher knife in hand as she chopped candy canes to bake into her brownies tomorrow. “Were there not enough in there for the kids?” She brushed a curl of hair away from her face, using the back of the hand with the knife. “I could have sworn—”

  “The kids are fine. I was asking for me.” He opened the wrapper of another cane and set it on the cutting board for her. “Need to make my own pallet for the couch.”

  “Oh, I…” Mom glanced over at me, then back at Mitch. “Oh. Right. I wasn’t thinking.”

  On the contrary, I was positive she’d been thinking very clearly. She was hoping he would end up in my bed.

  I stepped in a little closer and grabbed a couple of pieces of chopped candy cane, popping them in my mouth. “Come on. There’s more in Mom’s closet. I’ll help you get the sofa situated.”

  He followed me, quiet and pensive, his shoulders hunched tight the way they always were when he was uncomfortable. He’d lost that tension in the snowball fight, and there hadn’t been a trace of it while he’d played with Marley. It was only now, when it was just the two of us, that it became so evident.

  I took out a set of sheets, a pillow, and a couple of blankets, handing some of it over for him to carry. “I’m sorry she did that. She just…”

  “She just wants us to get back together. I know that. Everyone wants us back together but you. There’s no need to apologize for your mother.” With his arms loaded, he turned and headed out the door.

  Mom hadn’t made any effort to hide her attempts at getting us together again, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that everyone wanted us back togeth
er. But maybe I was missing something that he’d picked up on. All of my focus had been on him since he’d shown up on my doorstep this morning, so I hadn’t really noticed what anyone else was doing or the way they might be watching us.

  “Mitch!” I called out, to no avail. He kept going as though he hadn’t heard me. I followed, racing to catch up with him. I put a hand on his elbow to stop him, not that I was strong enough to force him to do anything he didn’t want to do. This time it was enough. He spun around and looked at me, but then I couldn’t think of what to say. Why had I chased him like that? How could I possibly respond to what he’d said? The part about me not wanting us to get back together wasn’t entirely true. It didn’t matter, though. I couldn’t afford it, no matter how much I might want it.

  He lifted a dark brow in question when I could only stand there gaping at him. I shrugged, still at a loss.

  He didn’t make any move to keep going, though. We stood in the hall, our arms filled with bedding, staring at each other until it became more than simply staring. It was heat and need and an entirely too familiar longing, and I could only count my blessings that a bunch of pillows and blankets were between us.

  After a minute, he glanced up above my head, and a sinfully sexy grin spread over his lips. “Mistletoe,” he murmured just before he pressed those very lips against me. I couldn’t help myself. I let out a sigh, allowing his tongue entry to brush against mine. The pillows landed on the floor with a soft thump, and my arms were around Mitch’s neck without any conscious thought. I kissed him with everything I had, clinging to him, pressing every inch of my body against his because he was air, and he brought the dying parts of me back to life, filled the hollowness with a desperate sort of hope that I couldn’t allow to take purchase.