Coming Home for Christmas

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “I suppose because I was too ashamed.” She looked out the window, as if the passing scenery was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen.

  “Ashamed? Why would you be ashamed? It was an accident. You weren’t even driving.”

  “No. But I wouldn’t have been there at all if I...hadn’t run away that night. If I hadn’t almost...hurt our son.”

  That part had been heartbreaking to hear, that she had felt desperate enough and so alone that she might have been willing to do something so terribly final.

  “That wasn’t you, Elizabeth.”

  “How can any decent mother even think...the kinds of things I did?”

  He didn’t pretend to understand everything she had been going through, but he had studied enough about mental health over the past seven years to understand a little about what had been going through her head.

  “You stopped before you could hurt Bridger. You knew in your heart you couldn’t do it, no matter what the chemical imbalance in your brain was urging you to do. You stopped, Elizabeth.”

  She turned to look at him and his heart ached at the tears in her eyes. “What if I hadn’t?”

  “Don’t go there. You did. You fought off the demons and you left so you could protect our son. Do I wish you had turned to me instead of fleeing into the night? Yes. A thousand times, yes. But the fact that you made that choice doesn’t mean you deserved what happened to you later.”

  She released a long breath, as if setting down a burden she had carried for a long time. “Thank you...for saying that. I still don’t blame you for having...reservations about allowing me to see the children. I would, too, if I were in your place.”

  The kids. What was he going to tell the kids?

  He had no idea, but he knew he couldn’t keep her from them. Not now that he knew the truth.

  “What if I’m beginning to have second thoughts about that?”

  She stared, eyes wide, as if she was afraid to hope for such a possibility. “After everything I’ve told you, you would let me...talk to Cassie and Bridger?”

  He really had been an ass.

  “I don’t think I have a choice. I never really did. They think you’re dead or, worse, that you abandoned them.”

  She hitched in a breath and he longed to comfort her. He didn’t quite know how to bridge the chasm between them made up of all those years without her.

  “I wanted you to help me clear my name. In order to do that, we have to show people you’re alive, which means the kids will have to know the story. I have to tell them something before word trickles back to them that you have shown up in Haven Point after all these years.”

  “I didn’t think about that either. You’re right. They should know first.”

  “Instead of Serrano’s, I think we should just have something at the house so we can figure out our strategy before they get home from school.”

  When she met his gaze, the raw hope in her eyes broke his heart all over again. She loved their children, no matter what choices she had made since leaving town that night. He had no right to keep her from them.

  “All right. Whatever you think best.”

  He didn’t know what was best. Nor did he have any idea how his world had shifted so drastically in only a few hours.

  Chapter Eleven

  She might be able to see her children.

  Elizabeth did not know how to contain the wild joy bubbling through her like the healing springs that surrounded Haven Point.

  Was it possible Luke might find it in his heart to ever forgive her? She knew she didn’t deserve it but she prayed he would be willing to overlook the terrible decisions she had made and let her into their children’s lives, at least a little.

  She felt giddy. Light-headed, even. She might have feared the onset of another seizure but suspected her shakiness could be attributed mostly to the stress of the morning and her foolishness in not eating something before she went to the courthouse with Luke.

  “Here we are,” Luke said a few moments later, pulling his pickup into the circular driveway of a large home perched on a bluff overlooking the lake.

  Elizabeth couldn’t seem to stop staring. “Oh, Luke. What a beautiful home.”

  The three-story structure of honey-colored logs should have been featured in a home show, with wide glass along the angled front, a steeply pitched roof, a porch that looked as if it wrapped around to overlook the lake and a large chimney of the same stones used on the porch pillars.

  From the outside, the house looked warm and cheery against the wintry landscape.

  She and Luke had purchased this property early in their marriage but couldn’t afford to build on it. Their little starter home along the river had been enough for them at the time. Luke had been struggling to get his contractor business off the ground and she had been working at an insurance agency in Shelter Springs to help make ends meet.

  Still, on the sweetly gorgeous summer evenings the people of Haven Point were lucky enough to enjoy, they used to meet here after work. They would set out lawn chairs right where the house sat and watch the sunset over the lake while they sketched out their dreams for the home that they would build together.

  If she wasn’t mistaken, the house in front of her bore striking similarities to the one they had imagined together.

  He must have remembered those sketches. Oh, she knew he had not built the house for her. But if he had, it would have looked exactly like this one.

  She always dreamed of having a house with a wide porch for entertaining, for watching the storms roll across the lake, for sitting out in the morning with a cup of coffee and a book.

  She couldn’t wait to go inside and see if the room layout and trims matched the perfection of the exterior.

  “How long have you and the children lived here?”

  “Since late October. I wanted to finish and be in by the end of the summer, but other projects had top priority, so it took me longer than I planned.”

  “I’m glad your business is doing well.” She wanted to tell him he deserved to have everything he dreamed but couldn’t find the right words.

  “Well enough. I’ve been fortunate to stay busy with all the new development in the area from Caine Tech coming in. I do quite a lot in Shelter Springs but I’ve also finished some commercial remodeling to the buildings downtown after Aidan Caine bought several properties from Ben Kilpatrick.”

  Why wouldn’t he be busy? Anyone would be stupid not to use him on their new build or remodel. Luke had always been a hard worker who specialized in high-end finishes and creative problem solving.

  “It’s really...lovely. You always did...beautiful work.”

  He looked surprised and, she thought, pleased at the praise. “Thanks.”

  As a contractor, he had always tried to keep prices reasonable while not sacrificing quality. He loved nothing more than building the perfect house for families.

  She knew some of that desire to create beauty and peace for others stemmed from his own dysfunctional childhood, from having a father who had been vicious and abusive and made Luke’s own home a living nightmare.

  So much of his character had been shaped by his father. Other men might have become cold and angry themselves but Luke hadn’t been like that. He worked doubly hard not to resemble his father in any way.

  She wanted to think that when they were dating and first married, she had provided him a place of refuge and peace. Of course, all that had changed when she left.

  “It will be nice when everything is finished,” he said as he unlocked the heavy door inlaid with a glass panel that had horses etched into it. “It feels like we’ve been building it for the better part of four years.”

  “What do you have left?” she asked as they walked inside. She did her best not to gawk at the gorgeous soaring great room dominated by the fireplace the chimney o
utside had hinted at.

  “The house itself is done. All I have left is mostly landscaping. That’s our spring project but I haven’t been able to wrap my head around it yet.”

  Landscaping had been her purview. He would plan the houses and she would spend hours designing the yards. Perhaps that was why she found such peace and calm working in the Brambleberry House gardens and at her part-time job at the garden center.

  She looked out the window. Right now, snow covered everything, but she could tell the yard had possibilities, especially with that stunning view out the back.

  With a craving so intense it took her breath away, she wanted to be the one designing that yard out there. She ached to be here in spring, picking out seedlings, bringing in topsoil, scouring local nurseries for exactly the right perennials and shrubs.

  She wanted to create a beautiful garden for Luke and their children, somewhere they could escape the stress of life and find home.

  She wouldn’t be here, though. She would be back in Oregon, alone.

  “It will be wonderful when you’re finished,” she said.

  “I hope so.”

  A dog with floppy ears and curly yellow fur came racing out of a back room. He growled a little at Elizabeth, then jumped for Luke to lift him.

  “Who’s this?”

  “This is Finn.”

  “Hi, Finn.” Elizabeth held out a hand, trying to look unthreatening. After a minute of scrutiny, the dog licked her hand and wagged his tail.

  “Yeah, he’s fierce. As you can see.”

  Still holding the dog, Luke led the way to the kitchen just off the great room, which featured gleaming professional-grade appliances and a huge island topped with textured, sand-colored marble.

  “Is soup okay? Are you sick of minestrone?”

  “Not at all. It sounds perfect. I can heat it, though.”

  “I’ve got it. Sit down. You’re still looking pale.”

  She was feeling shaky still, but mostly she wanted to wander around the house to see if the rest of it matched her idea of perfection.

  She obediently slid into one of the swivel bar stools attached to the island. Some instinct told her this was probably where their children liked to hang out best. Did they do their homework here or did they use the large table in the dining area and kitchen? Maybe they preferred to do homework in their rooms, without distractions.

  What did she know? Her children were strangers to her in every way that mattered.

  The reminder deflated her a little as Luke handed her a bowl of soup. She waited to eat until he heated one for himself, then sat down across from her, almost as if he was afraid to be too close.

  “So,” he said after a few spoonfuls of soup. “The kids. What do you think we should tell them?”

  She set her spoon down next to her bowl, her stomach twisting with nerves. “I don’t know. I...don’t want to tell them anything.”

  “You can’t just show up again without some kind of explanation, Elizabeth. We owe them some information.”

  She owed them. Luke shouldn’t feel any responsibility in this.

  “All of it?”

  “I don’t know if we need to get into all the nitty-gritty details.”

  She didn’t know if she could bear telling Bridger and Cassie about the terrible darkness that had almost consumed her.

  “We can stick to the truth,” he went on. “I’ve told them before that you were sick and that you must have thought leaving for a while would help you get better. I told them something must have happened to you or you would have come back earlier.”

  “That was...uncannily accurate.”

  “It was a cop-out. I didn’t want to tell them I suspected you might have hurt yourself.”

  She closed her eyes, hating that part of her history, hating everything she had put him through. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  He frowned. “You had severe depression. I should have figured out a way to put you into an inpatient program. I was in denial and we all paid the price for that. You, more than anyone.”

  “Nothing that happened was your fault.”

  He was always so good at taking responsibility for everything wrong in the world. It was part of his character, probably stemming back to childhood. He had always blamed himself for not being able to protect his mother or stepmother from Paul Hamilton’s viciousness, despite the fact that he’d only been a boy at the time.

  “I would say the same to you,” he answered. “Look, neither of us asked for this situation but here we are. We have to deal with it in the smartest way possible.”

  “I don’t want to upset the status quo.”

  He gave a rough-sounding laugh. “Our status quo is survival. Can both kids make it to the bus stop each morning before the bus pulls away? Can I remember to feed them breakfast and make sure they have a nutritious lunch packed? Will I be done at the job site after school in time to pick them up or do I need to call the babysitter? It’s all a juggling act.”

  “As far as I can tell, you’re doing it...well.”

  “Thanks.” He studied her for a moment, long enough that she could feel herself blush, wondering what he saw.

  “Thank you for lunch. I didn’t...want to admit how much I needed to eat.”

  “I could tell.”

  Luke was a natural-born nurturer, always looking out for those he cared about. When she was pregnant with both of the children, he had been right there with her, running to the store to pick up anything she might have a craving for, handling as many of the household chores as he could while juggling his job, rubbing her feet when they were swollen and sore.

  He had shown that same care and love to the kids when they came along. He was a wonderful father, so very different from his own example.

  Elizabeth had lost the right to be counted among the lucky people Luke Hamilton loved. She tried not to let that realization break her heart.

  “Could I...see the rest of the house?”

  He looked at the large clock on the wall between the kitchen and great room. “Sure. The kids won’t be home for another forty-five minutes. It will only take us a few minutes for the grand tour. But are you sure you don’t need to rest a little longer? You still look pale.”

  She couldn’t say she felt her strongest but she could certainly handle a trip through his house. “I’m not an invalid. Please don’t think I am. My...my speech is slow and I don’t move as quickly as I would like, but I am trying very hard not to let that stop me.”

  She would never win a marathon or be able to climb to the top of the Redemption Mountains, but she preferred to focus on the skills she had managed to regain instead of what had been forever lost.

  After he took their bowls and rinsed them in the sink, he led the way through the house.

  “I guess you saw the great room when we came in.”

  “Yes. It’s beautiful. I especially love the...burled logs you used for the supports. They add character and...style.”

  He looked surprised that she had noticed. She remembered all those times they had looked through log home books together, studying methods and techniques. She’d always loved the way some builders focused on using burled logs, where diseases or other stress had caused the living tree to form an interesting outgrowth. They were imperfect, knotty and gnarled in appearance, but that was why she liked them.

  “There’s a master suite on this level but I made another one upstairs so I can hear the kids if they wake up in the night,” he said.

  Oh, he was an impossible man to resist. He always had been for her. Luke Hamilton might seem tough on the outside but inside he was as soft and gooey as hot caramel.

  He showed her the large ground-floor suite, beautifully furnished with a huge four-poster bed and a seating area surrounding another rock fireplace with a gas insert that turned on with the flick o
f a switch. Large French doors led out to the deck that overlooked the lake and the mountains.

  What a delicious retreat. She could imagine sinking into that sofa on a snowy afternoon with a book and a cup of tea.

  If things had been different, this might have been the room she shared with Luke.

  Her face grew hot at the idea, the seductive memories of being in his arms. They had never had trouble with intimacy. Luke had been an amazing lover, with that same attention to her needs that he showed in other aspects of his life.

  She swallowed, trying not to remember how they had fit together so perfectly, how they couldn’t get enough of each other in those early months of their marriage.

  She had started every morning in his arms and gone to sleep the same way.

  “This is lovely,” she said. The words sounded strangled.

  “It’s one of my favorite rooms in the house. I use it for an office sometimes when I need a quiet place to work, though I have an actual office with a separate business entrance on the other side of the house.”

  “I wouldn’t want to leave,” she said when she trusted her voice again.

  “When Bridger gets a little older, I’ll probably move down here. He still has nightmares sometimes, though, so I like to stay close.”

  She didn’t like knowing their son’s sleep was troubled. Was it because he had lost his mother at such an early age? Did he have some subconscious memory of the night she had almost given in to the demons?

  “Do you want to see more?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can you make it upstairs?”

  Yes. That was why she insisted on that second-floor apartment at Brambleberry House, so she could challenge herself each day to do hard things.

  When she nodded, he led her up the winding staircase, with more burls and imperfections on the balustrade. He had paid attention to every aspect of the home, with his usual care. The house was a real showpiece, a clear demonstration of his abilities.

  He showed her a guest room on that level as well as the room he used for his own, much smaller than the downstairs master bedroom but with an en suite bathroom and a lovely view of the lake.