Coming Home for Christmas

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He rolled onto his side, facing her. He could just make out her features in the dim light, twisted with either pain or fear. As he listened, trying to decide whether to wake her, the sound turned into more than whimpering. She cried out, the emotion in her voice tortured and raw. “No. Please. My babies. I need my babies.”

  He frowned, sitting up and scrubbing his face to push away the remaining tendrils of sleep.

  “I’m not Sonia. I’m Elizabeth. Why won’t you believe me? Please. Please! Don’t leave me trapped here.”

  She said a few more things, her words garbled and unintelligible but the distress coming through with grim clarity.

  Finally he couldn’t take it anymore. He flipped on the light on the table between the two beds. “Lizzie? Wake up. You’re dreaming.”

  “Luke. Oh, Luke.” She said his name on a sob, her eyes still closed. He was fairly sure she wasn’t awake but he couldn’t be sure. He did know he hated her tears.

  “Hey, now. Don’t cry.”

  Though he knew it was probably one of the more stupid things he could do, he couldn’t resist sliding out of bed and sitting on the edge of hers. She was trembling. He could feel the bed vibrating with her small movements.

  “Don’t cry,” he repeated. “You’re dreaming.”

  Except this didn’t seem like a dream. She wasn’t here. She was...somewhere else.

  He reached a hand out to calm her. That was all he really intended but the next moment she was somehow in his arms.

  In an instant, seven years melted away. She was here and she was his.

  He had forgotten how perfectly she fit in his arms, how her head nestled against his chest at precisely the right angle and her arms wrapped around his waist. She smelled the same, that mix of citrus and vanilla that always made his mouth water.

  He wanted to bury his face in her hair and inhale, to burn that scent into his memory again.

  He knew the instant she started to awaken. Her whimpering slowed and then stopped altogether. She sighed, and for perhaps sixty seconds, she relaxed in his arms, her body going boneless and calm before he could feel her muscles tighten and she started to fight against his hold.

  “Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me. Take what you want but don’t hurt me.”

  He hated those words. He had never hurt her. He even hated raising his voice. How many times had he walked away when she would explode at him, lashing out in her pain that he should leave her, that he was better off without her?

  “Easy. Easy. It’s me. It’s Luke.”

  She scrambled to the other side of the bed, those familiar-unfamiliar features twisting with confusion. In the low light, she looked...haunted.

  “Luke. What are you...?” Her blue eyes widened and he watched memory click back. “Oh.”

  “You had a bad dream. You were crying in your sleep.”

  “Was I?” She blinked, obviously trying to make sense of the last few moments. She pulled the blanket to her shoulders like a shield, becoming guarded once more. “What...what did I say?”

  “You begged me not to hurt you. And you also said you were Elizabeth. Not Sonia.”

  “I would say...I’m a little of both now.”

  “You also said something about being trapped. It sounded pretty frightening. What did you mean?”

  She looked away, focusing on the banal artwork in the room. “Nothing. I was rambling in my sleep, I suppose. You know how...dreams can be.” She swallowed. “What time is it? Has the weather cleared?”

  His jaw worked, aware she was trying to avoid the questions. She didn’t want to talk about the nightmare or about what her subconscious may have revealed.

  Since he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready to hear her answers, he decided to let her change the subject. “A little after four. The snow had eased a little when I went to sleep around midnight. I’ll take a look.”

  Though the room was carpeted, the floor was still cold on his bare feet as he slid out of bed and walked to the window. Dawn was still a few hours away. The storm had dropped several more inches since midnight but it looked as if the winds had died down. With luck, crews had been hard at work in the early hours clearing the freeway and they could get on their way at first light.

  Good. He wasn’t sure he could take another night, trapped in a hotel room with her.

  “It’s still too early to take off again. We should try to catch a few more hours, then get an early start.”

  “All right. I’m...sorry I woke you.”

  He thought about telling her she’d been giving him sleepless nights for seven years but didn’t want to admit that to her.

  “Good night,” he answered, then climbed back into bed, rolled to face the wall and tried to do the impossible—put her out of his mind long enough to slip back into sleep.

  Chapter Five

  Had he fallen back asleep? When she looked under her lashes at the form in the bed next to her, Elizabeth couldn’t really tell. Luke gave every indication that he was sleeping. He didn’t move a muscle and his breathing was even and steady.

  She couldn’t return to sleep, maybe because she had dozed so much the afternoon before and then had gone to bed earlier than usual after Luke left, simply because she didn’t know what else to do.

  Now, in the aftermath of what she knew was probably a small seizure, the fragments of the nightmare stayed with her, stark and terrifying. Not a nightmare. More memories that she had managed to shove down.

  Driving through the storm the day before had brought back a plethora of things she had avoided facing. Her helplessness, regret, fear. And the long hard journey she had traveled since leaving Haven Point.

  She shifted on the bed, watching the play of red and green on the wall from the Christmas lights hanging on the exterior of the hotel.

  She knew nothing good came from hashing and rehashing the past. She had learned grim lessons from that journey. Right now, she had to focus on how she was going to make it through the next few days.

  At least she would be able to see her children. Maybe even hug them. If the price for that glorious gift was time spent with a man who hated her, she was more than willing to pay for it.

  * * *

  “Yes, the interstate is open now. But I would still stay put if I were you.”

  The highway patrol officer at the checkpoint before the freeway entrance looked cold and exhausted, with rosy cheeks, bleary eyes and heavy lines pulling down the corners of his mouth as he spoke. “This is the safest place for you, at least for a few hours. The roads might be open but they’re still slick and snow-packed.”

  “Even on the interstate?” Luke asked.

  “After the storm came a nasty fog that’s socked in everything from here to Boise. It will be at least noon before we can advise travel again for anything except emergencies. I know it’s an inconvenience, but it’s only a handful of hours.”

  Luke’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. He didn’t look at her but awareness still seethed between them.

  He didn’t want to wait another few hours to be rid of her.

  He didn’t have to say the words for her to know what was going through his mind. She knew she had earned every ounce of his scorn, though that did not make it any easier to bear.

  “I appreciate the advice, sir, but I’m sure we’ll be fine. We have four-wheel drive and I put the chains on this morning. We’ll go slow.”

  The patrolman shook his head. “I can’t stop you since the roads are open. I tried to warn you. Just remember that.”

  After that ominous warning, Luke nodded, waved at the man, then pulled slowly away from the checkpoint and onto the freeway.

  They proceeded much as the officer had warned, at a slow pace, though it seemed conditions were better than she had feared. While there were certainly pockets of fog, they lifted for long stretches of time, revea
ling a pristine white landscape that made her grateful for her sunglasses.

  She tried to make conversation at random intervals, but Luke shut her off every time with terse, monosyllabic answers. Eventually she tired of fighting the silent treatment and reached into her bag for a novel.

  She had never been much of a reader, always too busy playing with friends or helping her dad out in the garden. Months of forced inactivity and the long tedium of a recovery with little else to do had introduced her to the sheer joy of losing herself in a story, reading about someone else’s troubles and triumphs instead of dwelling on her own all the time.

  This book was fascinating and well written, and she was able to immerse herself in the story, grateful for the diversion from the tension, until Luke stopped for gas again near the Idaho border.

  She got out to stretch her tight, aching leg and limped into the convenience store to use the facilities, then bought another protein bar and an apple.

  She wasn’t inside long, but when she returned, Luke was already sitting behind the wheel, ready to go. The man could be a machine sometimes. He didn’t even seem to need so much as a cup of coffee to keep him going.

  “We made...better time than I expected,” she said when they were on the road again.

  “Still too slow,” he said. “But I’m glad we didn’t hang around at the inn.”

  He didn’t seem inclined to say more and Elizabeth sighed. She tried to return to her book but increasingly felt her attention wandering.

  She had so many questions she wanted to ask him. About the children, about his construction business, about the community she had once loved. He didn’t want questions from her. He didn’t want anything.

  A lump rose in her throat at the sobering realization, but she swallowed it down along with a bite of her protein bar.

  While she didn’t feel particularly tired, the tedium and her restless night—added to the extra medication she had taken to make sure she didn’t have another seizure—eventually caught up with her.

  After she found her attention wandering away from the story and realized she couldn’t remember what she was reading, she moved her bookmark back to the previous chapter heading, closed her book and created a makeshift pillow out of her coat. She didn’t expect to sleep—Haven Point was only a few hours away, after all. Yet one moment she was watching the lines go by outside the windshield, the next she had escaped into her dreams.

  She wasn’t sure how long she was out of it. When she awoke, the trees and mountains on either side of the road began to seem familiar. She knew this landscape, had seen it from the time she and her parents moved here when she was ten.

  They were close to Haven Point. Her heart started to pound and her hands felt sweaty. Oh Lord. She couldn’t do this.

  Luke seemed to become more grim and foreboding the closer they traveled to their hometown. His jaw looked hard enough now to slice through granite.

  “I’m...sorry I fell asleep.”

  He glanced over, his eyes as hard as the rest of him. “It was fine. The fog lifted right after you fell asleep. It hasn’t been a bad drive since then.”

  She turned her attention out the window, catching glimpses of the pure blue of the lake through the trees as they neared it.

  She loved that lake as much as she hated it. Yes, it had brought her joy through her childhood. She had wonderful memories of picnics by the shore, swimming at the beach near downtown, kayaking with her girlfriends in high school.

  But it had taken so much from her.

  Every mile seemed to contain more memories, not only of Luke but of her parents. Her childhood had been filled with joy, with parents who adored each other and her from the moment she was born, in stark contrast to what Luke endured.

  Whenever she thought about the few things he had revealed about his childhood, she wanted to cry. Those memories had come back to her slowly, probably because they were so painful. She remembered he hadn’t wanted to tell her anything, preferring to focus on the present and about the future they wanted to build rather than his heartbreaking past.

  His sister had revealed more. Megan had been the one to tell Elizabeth about their brute of a father, his drunken rages, his abuse and how he had singled out Luke for the worst of it.

  Her husband would not have been happy with his sister for telling her that. He had only told her that his relationship with his father had not been a good one.

  Like so many other things, Luke had shoved down his deepest emotions. He tried so hard not to show anger but sometimes that had translated into burying everything so deep, it was hard to bring anything out. Joy, happiness, love. She knew he felt those things, but during their marriage, he had struggled to show them.

  She and her parents had provided a sanctuary for him, a place where he had been loved and accepted from the moment they started dating. She could remember her father taking Luke on fishing trips into the mountains and her mother showing him something she was growing in their beautiful gardens. Luke had lapped up their attention.

  When her parents had died so unexpectedly, she had withdrawn into herself and her pain, leaving him with nothing.

  She fought the urge to rub her hand against the ache in her chest. Unlike her parents, she had made the choice to leave him alone and she couldn’t blame him if he could never forgive her for that.

  As Luke drove around the lake toward home through a beautiful wintry scene, blue skies contrasting with the new snow that coated everything, her heart began to pound. Whenever she returned to Haven Point to see the children’s plays or ball games—always sitting in the back, always trying to stay anonymous—she felt the same sense of peace, as if this was the one place in the world she belonged.

  Sometimes before heading back to Boise to the airport, she would have the car service she hired drive past their house, the one on Riverbend Road. If she were extraordinarily lucky, she might see the children playing outside in the yard with their dog or Luke doing something around the house.

  Those moments were rare and precious and she cherished them, yet they were like a beautiful, perfect rose that came with plenty of thorns. Seeing the children at home, growing bigger each time she saw them, also made her feel terribly lonely as she rode out of town. She would often cry silent tears the entire way to the airport.

  This time would be different. This time she would actually be able to see them. Talk to them. No matter how difficult it was to see Luke again, she could hold on to that joyful thought.

  What would they think of her? The reality of the situation started to seep through. Would they be as angry and closed off as Luke? Or would they maybe be a little bit happy to see her again?

  As he turned onto their road, panic welled up, cold and relentless, and she had to force herself to breathe slowly and evenly. She could handle this. Couldn’t she?

  When he pulled into the driveway, she thought the house looked cold and rather forlorn. She could see no sign of life.

  Luke turned off the engine. “I tried to find a room for you at the inn when we stopped for gas, but Megan says they’re full. Some holiday event going on at Caine Tech and they’ve booked the whole place.”

  No room at the inn. How appropriate for this time of year.

  “I don’t mind. This will be fine,” she answered. Did he really think she would rather stay at a hotel instead of with their children?

  “There’s not much here,” he said, an odd sort of warning in his voice. He unlocked the door and walked inside. As soon as she followed, she knew exactly what he meant.

  The place was empty.

  No pictures on the walls, no knickknacks, no furniture except an old sofa.

  The house where she and Luke had started their marriage with so many high hopes was now a hollow shell.

  “I don’t...I don’t understand. Where are...Cassie and Bridger?”

  He set her s
uitcase down with a thump beside the front door. “In school until I pick them up. Then they’ll be at home. My home.”

  “Oh. I thought...” Her words trailed off as she only now realized how stupid and shortsighted she had been.

  “You thought I would let you see them? Talk to them? Hell no, Elizabeth.”

  Of course he wouldn’t let her see the children. She should never have been foolish enough to expect otherwise. Disappointment rolled over her like a snowplow, with sharp, fierce intensity.

  “You...won’t?”

  “You lost any rights where Bridger and Cassie are concerned when you walked away from us. I won’t let you break their hearts again.”

  She could feel herself sway, her legs unsteady. For one horrible moment she was afraid she would fall to her knees. She reached behind her for the wall, hoping he didn’t notice the gesture.

  “I would never hurt them,” she said, her voice small.

  “What do you think you have been doing for the past seven years?”

  She had hated his silence during the drive but this bitterness was far worse. Elizabeth closed her eyes, the pain and loss and loneliness almost more than she could bear.

  He would never agree, but everything she had done had been in her misguided effort to protect her children. They were the entire reason she had left in the first place.

  “I...see.”

  “You created this situation, Elizabeth. Because of you, I have been their sole caregiver. I’m the only one who gets to decide what’s right for them. You gave me that responsibility when you left—before then, actually, when you checked out emotionally after Bridger came along.”

  She drew in an unsteady breath, hating his reminder of what a terrible state she had been in, lost and depressed and overwhelmed.

  She had suffered severe postpartum depression made worse by the clinical depression. She hadn’t asked for it, had she? Hadn’t wanted it. He made it sound as if she had chosen to be depressed instead of fighting it with everything she had. She had tried prescription medicine, therapy, everything the doctors recommended. The next step would have been an inpatient program, which in retrospect had probably been exactly what she had needed.