“Your choice.”
Megan turned to go back to the party. Elizabeth started to follow her, bag in hand, when the other woman stopped stock-still.
“Elliot,” she breathed, her voice ragged. An instant later she was racing to a scruffy man standing some distance away.
This wild-looking man with the beard and longish hair was really the stuffy, buttoned-up Elliot Bailey? Elizabeth couldn’t quite believe it but the sheer love on the man’s face as he looked at Megan racing toward him confirmed it.
“Hey,” he said, just before Megan leaped into his arms and started kissing him fiercely.
Oh. My.
She felt breathless, achy as she watched their joyful reunion. Luke once looked at her that way. She could remember it. Even if they were apart for only a few hours, Luke always used to look so happy when he saw her, as if she was his salvation.
Could she ever get that back or would he always look at her with that sort of wary, watchful expression, as if afraid she would turn around and run off at any moment?
“I was afraid you wouldn’t make it home for Christmas. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back?” Megan asked between kisses.
Elizabeth wanted to slip away and leave them to their reunion, but they stood blocking the hallway that led back to the party.
“I wasn’t sure when the assignment would be done and I didn’t want to give you false hope. We rounded everybody up and busted the whole ring this afternoon, and the minute I finished the paperwork, I hightailed it for home.”
“I’m so glad.” Megan didn’t need to use the words. Her expression said everything.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make it back for most of the party.”
“You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”
“I’m afraid I’m not really dressed to socialize. I didn’t want to waste time going to the cottage to change. Not when I knew you were here.”
“No one here will care about that. They’ll just be so thrilled to see you, especially your mom and sisters.”
Elizabeth never would have imagined Elliot would fall so hard. She used to tease him about being a workaholic, about being so focused on climbing the ladder at the FBI as quickly as possible that he was losing sight of his friends and family.
Somehow Megan must have helped mellow him, changing that focus a little.
She couldn’t be happier for them.
A moment later, Elliot seemed to notice her. His eyes widened. “Elizabeth! You’re here!”
“Yes. Luke found me in Oregon. Because of...you, I understand.”
How he had found her, she still didn’t entirely understand, but she was grateful. If not for Elliot, she wouldn’t be here in Haven Point again, trying to rebuild a relationship with her children.
Elliot hadn’t done it for Luke, she suddenly realized. All his efforts must have been for Megan, to help her clear her brother’s name.
“We’ll have to catch up,” Elliot said.
“Yes. I’d like to hear how...you found me.” Not now, when he and Megan couldn’t seem to keep away from each other. “I should...return to the party. I would hate for people to think I’ve disappeared again.”
Megan actually smiled a little at that.
“Thank you.” Elizabeth held up the photo album. “Truly. This is the best...gift ever. I can’t thank you enough. Not just for the photos of Bridger and Cassie but for...for loving them when I...couldn’t.”
Her voice broke a little on the words. She hoped they didn’t notice as she forced a smile and hurried past them. She didn’t want to return to the party with all those curious looks and probing questions. But Luke was there and she wanted to be wherever he was.
When she walked into the room, her gaze immediately found him. He was speaking to Ben Kilpatrick and Aidan Caine, a trio of very different but equally compelling men.
She wanted to cross the room to him, needing the reassurance she found from being close to him, but Wynona Bailey Emmett caught her first and expressed her delight in having Elizabeth home.
“I feel like I owe you an apology,” Wyn said.
“Why would you?”
Wyn sighed. “Our dad missed valuable evidence that might have led the investigation to you much earlier. The truck driver who gave you a ride actually called the police department a few months after you disappeared, but Dad didn’t think she had credible information. Then he misfiled the report. I was sick when Elliot told me.”
“That wasn’t your father’s fault,” Elizabeth assured her quickly. She remembered John Bailey well. He had been a good police chief. A little old-school, maybe, but he had loved his town and the people he served. She had been saddened to learn during her first visit to Haven Point as Sonia Davis that he had been shot in the head during an altercation with a robbery suspect not many months after she left town.
“He should have investigated it further, though. I keep wondering what might have happened if Luke could have found you earlier.”
Oh, she did, too. But it would have been impossible. He hadn’t known the first place to look.
Her heart ached for all he had endured. How could she ever make it right?
A few minutes later, Luke broke away from the other men and made his way to her side. “Are you ready to go? We don’t have to stick it out to the bitter end. You’ve been a trooper but I can see you’re getting tired.”
Right now, she wanted nothing more than to return to the little house, change out of her party clothes, slip under a quilt and spend all night looking through the photo album Megan had given her.
That wasn’t her goal tonight, though. She was here for Operation Redeem Luke Hamilton.
“I don’t mind...staying. I should mingle a little more, see if there’s anyone...left who hasn’t heard my...story.”
“You’ve gone over it enough. If you keep talking, you won’t have a voice for Christmas. I think it’s time to go.”
He didn’t have to ask her twice. “All...right. I only need to grab my coat.”
It took them several minutes to take their leave, by the time they said goodbye to friends. To her shock, many of the members of the Haven Point Helping Hands gave her hugs.
“You should come to another one of our Haven Point Helping Hands meetings,” McKenzie said. “We would love to see you. Our next one will be after the holidays.”
She started to tell McKenzie she was leaving town Christmas Eve but couldn’t summon the energy for explanations.
“Thanks. I might do that,” she lied. Then she and Luke walked out into the cold night toward home.
* * *
Elizabeth had been amazing.
Though he could tell the evening had been a struggle for her, she had spoken with nearly everyone at the party and told her story time after time.
The reaction to her explanation for leaving town seemed to be mixed, but many people had come up to him to tell him they were sorry for all his family had been through.
He had expected vindication to feel so much better. Yes, it was nice to have that burden off his shoulders and to know that he didn’t have to face the possibility of an arrest. He would enjoy being able to attend the children’s events without feeling the stares and hearing the whispers when he walked through a room.
She had paid a heavy cost for his new peace of mind.
When they reached the house they had fixed up together, he reached to take her arm but she held tightly to the gift bag she carried out of the inn.
Even after she unlocked the front door and walked inside, she didn’t seem to want to set the bag down on the entry table, even to take off her coat.
“Who’s giving you presents?” Curiosity finally made him ask.
“Megan. And it’s the best present ever.”
Megan? That was a surprise. His sister had made no secret of her anim
osity toward Elizabeth for leaving her children, though perhaps she was mellowing.
“Really? That was nice of her.” He could only pray it wasn’t a bottle of rat poison.
“You can see what she gave me, if you would like. It’s remarkable, really.”
She sat on the sofa he and the kids had left behind. After a moment, Luke sat on the other end and took the bag she handed him.
“It’s a photo album,” Elizabeth said before he could reach into the bag and see for himself. “But then, you know that. She said it was your idea.”
Oh. After telling Megan about that first visit to the district attorney, Luke had suggested they find videos and pictures for Elizabeth to help her catch up a little on what the children had looked like at various stages of life.
It had been one of those random, off-the-cuff suggestions, but Megan had apparently run with it.
“Your dear sister made...copies of photos she’s taken of the children over the...years and put them together in a book for me so that I could see some of the things I’ve...missed. I only had a moment to look through it but it’s...amazing.”
Her eyes were shiny, bright with unshed tears.
“If it’s so amazing, why are you crying?”
“I missed so much. I knew it intellectually but the few pictures I looked at drove it home. Birthday parties and Halloweens and Easter egg hunts. And Christmas. I’ve missed all their Christmases. And now Cassie hates me and Bridger...Bridger doesn’t even know me and...and I don’t know how to fix it.”
She burst into tears and buried her face in her hands. The ordeal of the evening had exhausted her, Luke realized. That was the source of this raw emotion, this self-recrimination. She needed to sleep.
“Hey, now,” he said, feeling helpless. Not sure what else to do, he wrapped his arms around her and she came willingly with a little sigh that told him perhaps this was exactly what she needed. Just as he had drawn comfort from her embrace earlier in the evening, he hoped she could find comfort from his. “We can’t change what happened, as much as we might wish we could.”
“I know. I wish it so much.”
He kissed the top of her head, soft tenderness soaking through him. “I know it does nothing to ease your pain but I hope you know the kids have been happy. I’ve had a lot of help over the years from good people who cared about them. Bridger and Cassie always knew they were loved by me and by Megan and all the caregivers they’ve had over the years.”
She sobbed a little more, a tiny little whimpering sound. “How can I ever...make it up to them, especially when Cassie h-hates me?”
“We can’t erase the pain of the past seven years. All we can do is try our best, moving forward.”
She couldn’t leave. He had to persuade her that the children needed her in their lives. A few random visits a year to see her in Oregon would not be enough.
“Do you think you can arrange your travel plans to stay in Haven Point through the holidays? At least through Christmas?” That was only a few days away. It wouldn’t nearly be enough time with her but it would be a start.
“Christmas?”
“I know you had plane reservations and intended to stay only through Christmas Eve. How hard would it be to extend that a few days?”
“I would have to...check with the airline. But I’m sure I can.”
“Let’s start there.”
“All right,” she said after a moment. “I’ll call them in the morning. I would...love to be here through Christmas.”
“Perfect.” While he was asking things of her, he decided to go for it. “And I think you should consider moving permanently back to Haven Point.”
Her eyes widened. “Move back? Are you serious?”
He shrugged, feeling inordinately nervous, for reasons he couldn’t have explained. “The kids are here. If you want to be part of their lives moving forward, you would be better off here. You can’t forge a new relationship with them if you’re eight hours away. There’s email and messaging and video phone calls, but they’re not the same as face-to-face contact.”
Maybe the best thing would be to hold on to this house on the river. It was partly hers, anyway. She could live here and work on forging a new relationship with Cassie and Bridger.
“Is that...what you want?”
“It’s not about what I want. It’s what the kids need,” he said bluntly. “That has been my driving force for almost ten years, since the moment I took Cassie in my arms in the hospital.”
She looked stunned by the suggestion, and he quickly realized that springing this on her when she was already exhausted was wholly unfair. He should have thought things through a little better.
“You don’t have to make any decision right now. We’ve still got the show tomorrow and Christmas to get through, especially now that you’re staying a few extra days. Even after you go back to Oregon, we can work on figuring things out.”
“Yes. I would need...time.” Her voice sounded small and he could see the lines of fatigue feathering out from her eyes. Her hands were shaking slightly.
He wanted to tuck her into bed. Better, he wanted to tuck her back into his pickup truck and take her home, where he could watch over her.
His rapid shift in perspective still left his head spinning. Somehow he had moved from grief over the woman he thought was dead to anger and hurt when he found out she was living hours away under another name to this strange, tender protectiveness after he heard her story and learned all she had endured while she was gone.
“We don’t have to make any decisions right now. I can see you’re overwhelmed. Think about it and we can talk again later.”
“Yes. All right.”
Reluctantly, he rose from the sofa. “Get some rest. You wouldn’t want to be worn out for the kids’ big show.”
“I...hope I’m not too much of a...distraction.”
Tenderness welled up inside him, sweet, nourishing, beautiful. “You’ll be great, as you were tonight. Good night, Elizabeth.”
He kissed her forehead, then couldn’t resist lowering his mouth to hers. One more quick taste. That was all he wanted. Even as he thought the words, he knew they were a lie. One more kiss would never be enough. He would always want more.
Her mouth was soft, tender. Eager. He could taste the need in it. She had missed him, too; he was certain of it. They kissed for a long time, until he was aching to lay her back on the uncomfortable sofa.
No, that wouldn’t solve anything, especially with so many unresolved issues between them.
He wrenched his mouth away. “I need to go, or I won’t be able to.”
Her sigh was filled with regret and hunger. He wanted to throw caution to the wind, just pick her up and carry her to the bedroom, but things between them were complicated enough. Not to mention the fact that she was completely exhausted.
“Cassie wants you to do her hair tomorrow before the show, right?”
“Yes. Can you believe it?”
“Why don’t I pick you up sometime after lunch? That way you can be at the house when the kids get off the bus.”
“That works. I’ll be ready.”
Was he ready, though? It was one thing to have her in his life for a few days, maybe a week. It would be something else entirely if she moved back here permanently.
He wasn’t sure he would be able to keep his hands off of her, at least judging by his track record that evening.
Chapter Eighteen
Elizabeth still couldn’t quite believe her world had shifted so dramatically.
In her wildest imagination, she never would have expected that day that she would find herself sitting at the kitchen table of Luke’s beautiful log home in Haven Point, brushing her daughter’s hair while Bridger read a Christmas book aloud next to them.
She couldn’t seem to stop smiling, sheer happiness like a t
housand sparkling fairy lights glowing inside her.
She loved these children. Though she hadn’t been with them in person for seven years, she had carried them in her heart, even when she didn’t completely remember them.
“What do you...think?” she finally asked when she had arranged Cassie’s hair in the style her daughter had said the other girls in her ensemble group had agreed upon.
Elizabeth did not consider herself an expert at hair, usually content with a quick braid or ponytail for herself. She had a photograph to go by, though, and thought she’d done a pretty good job.
Cassie held up the mirror and angled her hair from side to side. “It looks good. Wow. I look at least twelve or thirteen.”
She made those advanced ages sound positively ancient and Elizabeth had to hide her smile. “You look very grown up. You’re lovely.” She paused, then added, “You resemble my...mother. She had your same smile.”
“Really?” Cassie looked intrigued. “We go to the grave sometimes and take flowers to your mom and dad. One time Dad said he feels close to you there because you loved them so much.”
“And he said since you weren’t here to remember them, it was our job,” Bridger added.
Her heart melted at the words. Luke had said that? How sweet of him, to show respect to her parents and to tell their children about them.
Oh, how her mother would have loved having grandchildren. She would have spoiled them terribly.
The familiar sting of loss hit her but she refused to let it dim her happiness in this moment. Her parents would not want her grief over losing them so suddenly to cloud her joy in being with her children.
Her daughter studied herself in the mirror. “It looks great. So much better than Dad could have done. He tries hard but he can never figure out the curling iron. I think it’s because his hands are so big.”
Elizabeth loved those big hands. They worked hard but could be gentle, tender, loving.
She shivered and set the brush back on the table.
“He tries, though. A lot of fathers would just give up.”
Coming Home for Christmas Page 22
