Coming Home for Christmas

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He had said earlier that she had never been lost, but both of them knew that wasn’t strictly true. Seven years ago, the wife he had cherished with all his heart had been lost to him, trapped in a deep, dark place, a tangle of postpartum depression and grief over the accidental deaths of her parents.

  He hadn’t been able to reach her. Nor had any of the professionals he had taken her to or any of the therapies they had tried.

  For seven years, until Elliot Bailey took up the search and found Sonia Davis, he thought his beloved Elizabeth had surrendered to that vast chasm of depression and taken her own life.

  He had never imagined that she had simply moved away, changed her appearance and her name and started a life without him and their children.

  He let out a breath, pushing away the deep betrayal. “We have to go.”

  “I...I was planning to go to Haven Point next week. I have a plane ticket and everything.”

  “Not good enough. Sources tell me charges are being filed this week. The DA’s office won’t listen to reason, but I figure she’ll have to listen when the supposed victim herself shows up. We have to get back to town before then. This storm is only going to intensify and I would like to beat it. Grab your things and let’s go.”

  He wouldn’t let her slip away this time. His children depended on it.

  * * *

  Luke was here.

  After all these years, he was here, standing on the porch of Brambleberry House.

  She couldn’t quite believe this was really happening. Her day had started out so normally. She took her dozen different medications, meditated, went through the routine of exercises she used to keep her battered body from seizing up. She had gone to the greenhouse for a few hours. Her hands still smelled like the pine branches she had woven together for evergreen wreaths.

  All in all, it had been a routine day. She never expected that before the day was out, she would be here talking to her husband, the man she had loved since she was eighteen years old.

  She had imagined this day so many times, had dreamed of the chance to see him again, to explain the choices she had made and the terrible consequences that had resulted from those choices.

  Now that he was here, she felt tongue-tied, constrained by all the years and miles and choices between them.

  What could she say? No words would ever make up for what she had done.

  Of course she couldn’t go with him. She had a job here. She worked at the garden center and was busy this time of year selling Christmas trees and wreaths, working on floral arrangements, planning ahead for the growing season.

  She was also responsible for the gardens here at Brambleberry House—though admittedly, that wasn’t a very good excuse this time of year. She had already supervised the Christmas decorating in the garden and wouldn’t have anything to do until spring began its slow return to this part of the Oregon Coast.

  Returning to Haven Point didn’t terrify her. As he pointed out, she had been back a dozen times over the last several years.

  It was the idea of returning to Haven Point with Lucas Hamilton that made her blood run cold.

  Her stomach twisted into knots. He wanted her to drive there with him. It was eight hours from here. Eight hours in a car with a man who had every reason to despise her. She couldn’t possibly do it.

  But what choice did she have? If she could believe him—and she had no reason to think he was lying, as he had always been honest with her—she had to return to Haven Point or he would be arrested. She couldn’t let that happen. She had already put him and their children through so very much.

  She owed him. This was the least she could do.

  Accused of her murder! How was that even possible? Luke had never raised a hand to her, and she hated that there were apparently people in Lake Haven County who didn’t know him well enough to understand that.

  “Hurry up.” Her husband’s voice was resolute. “You can take your return flight once we’re done with the legalities or you can rent a car in Boise and drive back.”

  She wished that were possible, but the simple act of driving a vehicle was one of the abilities she had lost.

  Wild tendrils of panic made her palms sweat and her stomach roll. She wanted to go back to her second-floor apartment and curl up in her bed with the covers over her head.

  “I...I need time to make arrangements.” She tried one more time. “I can’t just leave town without a word.”

  His raised eyebrow made her all too aware of the irony of what she just said. That was exactly what she had done seven years ago when she had walked away from him and their children and the life she had destroyed.

  “One hour. You have one hour and then I’m coming to get you, wherever you are. You’re going back to Haven Point, even if I have to tie you up and toss you into the bed of my pickup. Don’t think I won’t.”

  He was so cold, hard as tungsten. This version of Lucas Hamilton was very different from the one who had been all sweet tenderness during their dating years and the first glorious months of their marriage.

  She had created this version. She had forced the joy out of him, not only because she left but during those troubled years in between.

  It was time to make things right. She had to do her best to fix what she had destroyed.

  “All right,” she finally said, trying hard to keep the trembling out of her voice. “I can be ready in one hour. What will you do in that time? Do you...? Do you want to come in?”

  She did not want him in her home, her sanctuary. Brambleberry House had become her refuge over the past few years. She wouldn’t say she had completely healed here, but this was at least where she had started the process.

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “There are several nice...restaurants in town, if you need to grab a...bite to eat.”

  Did he notice the way she stammered now, the awkward pauses she hated? Of all the things she had lost, tangible and intangible, fluent speech was one of the gifts she missed the most. She hated scrambling around for words, having them right there on the tip of her tongue but not being able to find them.

  “I have a sandwich in the truck. I’ll eat there. To be honest, Elizabeth, I don’t want to leave this spot. If I go anywhere, who knows if you would still be here when I come back?”

  She nodded, hating his contempt but knowing that she deserved every bit of it. “I’ll...try to be quick.”

  Her hands were shaking. Everything was shaking. She felt nauseous, and her head hurt. Oh, sweet heaven. She did not want to have a seizure today. They were mostly controlled these days but tended to sneak up on her when her reserves were low.

  She slipped back into the house. As she had expected, Rosa was waiting inside the entryway, along with Melissa Fielding, the tenant of the first-floor apartment.

  “What is going on?” the nurse asked, eyes filled with worry. “Rosa tells me that man says he is your husband and that your name is not Sonia Davis but Elizabeth something-or-other.”

  She sighed. “Rosa is right. Both of those things are...true. I’m...I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It is a very long and painful story. A past I...thought I had put behind me.”

  It was a lie. She hadn’t put the past behind her. She lived with it every single day, haunting her every waking moment. Luke. Cassie. Bridger. They were etched on her heart.

  The only bright spot about Luke bursting back into her life was the possibility that she might see her children beyond random glimpses from a distance. She might be able to talk to them. Hug them. Perhaps try to explain, if she could find the words.

  “What does he want?” Melissa trailed after her up the stairs, Rosa behind her.

  “He wants to...take me back to the place where I lived with...with him. Haven Point, Idaho.”

  “I hope you told him no way in hell,” Melissa said. “You don’t need to go anywhere w
ith him. He might be your husband, but that doesn’t make him your lord and master. He can’t just show up out of the blue and drag you off like some caveman.”

  “Luke is not like that,” she protested. “He is a good man. That is...that is why I have to go with him.”

  She paused outside her apartment door, desperate to be alone—to breathe, to think, to recover—but also well aware she needed to convince her friends not to call local law enforcement on her behalf. They were so concerned about her, she wouldn’t put it past either of them.

  “Look, I know you’re...worried about me. I am grateful for that. More grateful than I can say.”

  She reached for their hands, these two women who had taken her into their generous hearts and befriended her. She had lied to them. She had deceived them about her identity, about her past, about everything.

  It was yet one more thing to feel guilty about, though small compared to all she had done to her family.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to explain everything. I can tell you only that I made a...a terrible mistake once, many years ago. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time but...nothing turned out the way I planned. Now my...my husband needs me to go with him so that I can begin to try to make amends. I have to, for his sake and for our...for our children.”

  Rosa and Melissa gazed at her, wearing identical expressions of concern. “Are you certain this man, he means you no harm?” Rosa asked, her Spanish accent more pronounced than usual.

  She was not certain of anything right now, except that. Despite his fury, Luke wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that without one fiber of doubt.

  “I will be fine. Thank you both for worrying about me. I should only be gone a...a few days. When I return, I can tell you...everything. All the things I should have said a long time ago. But now I really do have to go and pack a bag.”

  She could see the worry in their frowns. Rosa looked as if she wanted to argue more. She might be small, but she was fierce. Elizabeth had long sensed that Rosa herself had walked a dark and difficult road, though her friend never talked about it. Elizabeth had never pried. How could she, when she had so many secrets she couldn’t share?

  Melissa reached out and hugged her first. “If you’re sure—and you seem as if you are—I don’t know what else we can do but wish you luck.”

  “Thank you.” Her throat was tight with a complex mix of emotions as she returned the hug.

  Rosa hugged her next. “Be careful, my dear.”

  “Of course.”

  “You have our numbers,” Rosa said. “If you are at all worried about anything, you call us. Right away. No matter what, one of us will come to get you.”

  Those emotions threatened to spill over. “I will. Thank you. Thank you both.”

  “Now. What can we do to help you pack?” Rosa asked.

  Everyone deserved friends like these, people to count on during life’s inevitable storms. She had once had similar friends back in Haven Point and had turned her back on everyone who tried to help her.

  She would not make that mistake again.

  “I have a suitcase in my room, already...half filled. Can you find that while I...grab my medicine?”

  “You got it.”

  She deliberately focused her attention on the tasks required to pack, not on the panic that made her feel light-headed.

  After all this time, she was going back to Haven Point. As herself, this time, not as the woman she had become seven years ago when she walked away.

  Chapter Two

  She didn’t take an hour to pack. She already had most of her travel things ready, preparing for the trip she had planned to take in a few days to Haven Point.

  By now, she had a routine whenever she returned to the area. She stayed in the nearby community of Shelter Springs at the same hotel every time, an inexpensive, impersonal chain affair just off the highway to Boise.

  The hotel was on the bus route to Haven Point, which made it easier for her to get to the neighboring town. She ate the continental breakfast offered by the hotel early enough to avoid most business travelers and either made her own lunch in her hotel room with cold cuts or cups of soup or chose the same busy fast-food restaurants where no one would pay any attention to her.

  When her visit was done, she loaded up her bag, caught the shuttle back to the airport and flew home.

  Alone, as always.

  The system was elaborate and clunky, designed specifically so that she did not run the risk of bumping into someone who might have known her back then.

  She probably stressed unnecessarily. Who would recognize her? She wasn’t the same person. She did not look the same and certainly did not feel the same. All that she had survived had changed her in fundamental ways.

  She carefully packed her medicine and the collapsible cane she hated but sometimes needed, then grabbed chargers for her electronic devices, the things she always tended to leave behind.

  After one last check of the packing list she kept on her phone for her frequent trips, she zipped the suitcase, then sat on the edge of the bed.

  While she had something to do, her attention focused on preparing to leave, she could shove down the wild turmoil of her emotions at seeing her husband again. Now that her bag was packed, she felt them pressing in on her again, a mixture of apprehension and fear blended with an undeniable relief.

  He couldn’t possibly believe her but she had planned to tell him her identity when she returned to Haven Point next week. It was time to come forward. Beyond time. She could no longer hide from the past.

  She sat for several moments longer, breathing in and breathing out, trying to find whatever small measure of peace she could in this creaky, quirky old house. Finally, she released one more heavy breath, then rose unsteadily from the bed, extended the handle on her rolling suitcase and walked out the door of her apartment, locking it behind her.

  She wasn’t at all surprised to find Rosa and Melissa waiting for her in the small furnished landing outside of her apartment. Melissa’s daughter, Skye, and Rosa’s dog, Fiona, a beautiful Irish setter, waited, too. Her own little makeshift family.

  “Are you sure about this?” Melissa asked, her tone as worried as her expression. “I have to tell you, I don’t think you should just take off with some man we’ve never seen before—someone who just shows up out of the blue and expects you to drop everything and leave town with him.”

  She wasn’t surprised at their objections. For some reason, Melissa and Rosa thought it was their job to take care of her, whether that was helping her with her laundry, giving her rides to the grocery store or taking her to doctor appointments.

  She had found no small degree of comfort from their concern, but she needed to stand on her own.

  “I have to. Please don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  “Will you be back for Christmas?” Skye asked, worry knitting lines across the girl’s forehead.

  Her heart ached but she managed to muster a smile for the girl. “I should only be gone a few days. Maybe a week.”

  “You promised you would help me put out carrots for the reindeer on Christmas Eve.”

  “I won’t forget, sweetheart.”

  She had done her best to steel her emotions against Skye, to protect herself from the hurt of seeing this girl growing up happy and strong under her mother’s loving care.

  Her own daughter was only a few years older than Skye. For the past seven years, Cassie and her brother had been without their mother. Elizabeth knew she couldn’t make it right, all the hurt she had caused by her disastrous decisions, but she could at least give Luke and their children a little closure.

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” she told them all.

  “Are you very sure?” Rosa asked one last time.

  When she nodded, her friend sighed but took the handle of the suitcase and he
aded for the stairs to the ground floor.

  When they all reached the entryway, Elizabeth felt tongue-tied with all she wanted to say. She didn’t have time for any explanations. Luke would be waiting.

  She hugged her friends and saved her biggest hug for Skye. “You watch over my garden for me, will you?”

  “You bet,” Skye said. “And Fiona will help.”

  “I know. She’s a great dog.”

  She petted the dog’s head, filled with intense longing for slow summer evenings when she could sit on a bench in the garden with Fiona curled up at her feet while the ocean murmured its endless song.

  Finally, she couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to face her husband.

  She straightened, gripped the handle of her suitcase and walked out to the wide wraparound porch.

  He was waiting for her. No surprise there. Her husband was a man of his word. When Luke said he would be somewhere in an hour, he meant an hour.

  She thought she saw that flare of awareness in his eyes again, but he quickly blinked it away before she could be sure. His mouth tightened. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to come in and drag you out.”

  She didn’t bother with a response. For all his hard talk, she knew he wouldn’t go that far. Or, she corrected, at least the man she had left seven years ago would never behave like a caveman. She wasn’t entirely sure about this version of Luke Hamilton, with the unsmiling mouth and the hard light in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, even during the worst days of their marriage.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  “Let’s go, then. We’ve got a long drive.”

  Without waiting for her to respond, he grabbed her suitcase and marched toward his vehicle through the lightly falling snow. He threw it into the back of the pickup, which at least had a covered bed to keep out the elements.

  Her bones ached as she walked down the steps and limped toward the pickup truck. She did her best to ignore the pain, as she usually did. The low pressure system from storms always seemed to make the pain worse. She had already taken the maximum dosage of over-the-counter pain medicine but it wasn’t quite taking the edge off. She didn’t trust herself with anything stronger.