Once Upon a Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  A few steps took him to the door, close enough to smell the coconut shampoo in her hair. Frowning, Nick slapped his hand on the thick wood to keep the door closed a little longer.

  To keep her with him a little longer.

  “I don’t get it. What’s so special about this, Chloe?”

  She swiped her hand across her eyes, then sniffed and squared her shoulders. “You can’t tell, genius?”

  Her voice was softer than he’d expected, but the anguish behind it wasn’t. He smoothed his hand over her shoulder. “Nah. Maybe your feminine mystique has got me all confused.”

  Her mood swings sure as hell did. So did the way her father treated her. How, in three years, had he not noticed it?

  Chloe smiled faintly. “It’s simple. I’m having a baby in a few weeks, and the idea of screwing up has got me scared to death.”

  Good going, Steadman, his conscience poked at him. Jump right on her big fears, tough guy. But how could he have known? She always seemed so…certain about everything.

  “Chloe, I didn’t mean—”

  Her choked little laugh cut him off. “Awww, don’t worry, Nick. My mom’s been giving me lots of advice over the phone. I’ll be ready.”

  “There’s always Bruno,” he added, hoping to reassure her. “That package could just as easily have been from him.”

  “Yeah.” Thoughtfully, Chloe squeezed the package in question. “Actually, you know something? It’s funny—I figured the odds of hearing from my dad were about on par with the odds of hearing from Bruno.”

  “Looks as if the odds are on your side, then.”

  She gave him a funny look. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”

  Taking a deep breath, she twisted the knob and opened the door. Sunlight and flower-scented air rushed inside, but all that sweetness and shine held no warmth. Nick rubbed his arms, fighting the urge to drag her against him and do whatever he could to make up for the stupid insensitivity of her family. The proud tilt of her head warned him to stay where he was.

  So did her voice, falsely cheerful enough to make his heart ache.

  “Anyway, I told my mom not to mess up her schedule, but she said she might even be able to drop by the hospital when the baby’s born.” Chloe paused on the threshold. “If there’s time between beauty shop appointments and husband-hunting down at the bingo parlor.”

  “At least there she’s guaranteed a man who can count.”

  She smiled at his joke—quite possibly the lamest he’d made all year—and touched his face. “I knew you’d understand.”

  Her fingers stroked across his temple, warm and feather-light, then whisked away. “See ya’.”

  Nick captured her wrist before she could leave. Briefly, he pressed his cheek in her cupped hand and closed his eyes.

  “I’ll be there,” he promised.

  She made a garbled sound of surprise and pulled her hand away. “At the hospital?”

  “Sure.”

  He opened his eyes to see her shaking her head.

  “Are you kidding me? I’m not that mad at you, Nick. I’m not about to inflict that kind of obligation on you. No way.”

  He leaned closer, raised her chin with his fingertips, and stopped her protest with a kiss. Just a small kiss…fast, soft, and sweet enough to widen her eyes when it was over. Nick put his hands around her waist and tugged her a little closer.

  “What if I insist?”

  Her eyes darkened with something only a blind man would mistake for passion. Chloe shoved his chest and stepped out of his arms.

  “Thanks for the pity party. But no thanks. You’ll have to find another gal to play knight in shining armor with.”

  “Dammit, Chloe! That’s not what this is, and you know it. You—”

  “Anyway,” she interrupted, preparing to leave, “it’s not as though I’ll be all alone. Now that it’s certain my dad and Tabitha won’t be there, my mom probably will be.” She smiled thinly over her shoulder as she headed for the steps, hugging her package as closely as he wished she’d hold him. “I think the beauty parlor bingo-rama was just an excuse to avoid running into them.”

  Nick couldn’t think of a damn thing to say to that. A bitter divorce he could understand. But not neglecting their own daughter because of it. No wonder Chloe was so hung up on having two happily ever-after, crazy in love parents for her baby.

  No wonder.

  It would have been hell growing up with that bunch of marital miscreants around.

  “Listen, I’d better run, Sir Galahad.” Waving, she clomped down the steps in her sneakers. “I’ve got childbirth class in an hour or so. I’ve got to start getting ready.”

  So do I, Nick thought, waving goodbye as he watched her cross from his yard to her flower-bordered one. Ready for big important things.

  Big important surprising things.

  This time, he had more in mind than inventing beef-and tuna-flavored Gatorade for Chloe’s pets.

  Chapter Ten

  Chloe spent the entire holiday season—aka her ninth month of pregnancy—in a constant state of red alert. Every kick, every contraction, sent her diving for the phone and the overnight bag she kept packed for the trip to the hospital.

  She’d stand there beside her scrawny, gaily decorated Christmas tree, clutching the birthday bag handle in both hands, gauging the chances that this time it might be the real thing, keeping one eye on the clock’s sweeping second hand…and the other eye on the view outside her bedroom window.

  The window that faced Nick’s house.

  And his bedroom.

  She never saw him. Although light usually filtered between his mini-blinds, showing he was home, his shadow never darkened those tasteful beige slats. His big hand never reached up to nudge one down, allowing him to look past their adjoined yards and into her room. He never sneaked a glance from the edge of those blinds, wondering how she was doing.

  But Chloe did.

  She shouldn’t. It was stupid and pointless. After all he’d said about her father’s gift—after all he’d said about her!—she should have been able to quit caring. I know more than you do.

  Ha. Not anymore, she told herself, plunking the birthday bag on the carpet for the thousandth time. She’d prepped and planned, grilled Naomi every time she brought over Danny, befriended all the women in her childbearing class. She was as ready as a woman could be to bring a new little person into the world.

  “Except for providing the father,” she muttered.

  “What?” Red asked on the other end of the phone.

  Chloe had red-alerted her ten minutes earlier for a Braxton-Hicks contraction. Between peeks at Nick’s window, they’d been talking since then. Not everyone had a boss, a surrogate mother, and a birth coach all rolled into the same bighearted, redheaded pet shop owner.

  “You’ve been provoking the father?” Red went on. “Well, hon, no wonder you need me to drive you to the hospital, if you’re badgering the fella.”

  Make that redheaded pet shop owner busybody, Chloe thought grumpily. If Red poked much deeper, she just might confess everything. Lying to herself was bad enough. Lying to everyone she loved was even worse.

  She rebalanced the phone on her shoulder and paced through her living room. Absently, she fingered the ribbons and bows on the gifts piled beneath her Christmas tree. “That’s not why I need you, Red. I’d drive myself, but—”

  “But nothing. I’m driving you and that’s that.” Red’s cigarette-roughened voice lowered. “If you’d tell me where to find that Bruno of yours, I’d bring him, too. He should be there, hon. Nothing makes a man a daddy like seeing his own child born.”

  That’s what I’m afraid of. Chloe patted one very special gift—the one for Nick, wrapped in a big red bow. She swiveled toward the armoire to select another Christmas-music CD, trying not to think about Nick’s assurance that he’d be at the hospital, even if no one else was. If he did, would he realize the truth?

  She’d never find out.

/>   Because she, like a dummy, had told him not to come.

  Anyway, at the rate he seemed to be working, her baby might be toddling over to pick petunias from Nick’s yard by the time he emerged from the invention-induced haze he was in. Since Thanksgiving, their contact had been mostly limited to waving as they strung their individual Christmas lights and decorations, waving as Chloe power-walked with Larry and Moe and Shemp, and waving as Nick scribbled invention brainstorms on his mail before carrying it inside.

  “Anything from Bruno?” he’d ask when he saw her carrying hers in.

  “Not yet,” she’d always answer—just as though a letter might actually arrive someday. In truth, she was about as likely to hear from her make-believe Marine as she was to fall in love with anyone other than Nick.

  On the phone, Red made an exasperated sound. “Hon, it’s hard to raise a child alone. Ease up on that pride of yours and call the man!”

  Pride? Was that what it was?

  No. It was not being really, truly loved that was the danger here, to her and her baby both. Chloe paced down the hallway toward the cordless phone stand in the kitchen, pausing to adjust the Christmas stockings—one regular size and one baby size—she’d hung by the fireplace.

  “I’m sorry about the false alarm, Red,” she broke in. I’m sorry to tell you only half the truth. She dragged in a breath to ease the ache in her chest. “Listen, I’ve got to run. See you at the shop tomorrow?”

  “You bet, Sweets.”

  Red inhaled. The faint crackling of her ever-present burning cigarette came over the line. I’ve got to get that loan, get Red retired, and get her a truckload of stop-smoking gum. Maybe Nick could invent something, some kind of non-smoking…

  Stop it, Chloe ordered herself. She had to quit depending on Nick. Starting yesterday.

  Red exhaled. “I’ll be there. You open up shop, though, okay? I’m meeting with another one of those buyers at the Downtown Grill. Nine o’clock. Maybe this one won’t be itching to tear down the place and build one of those godawful tourist traps with sooouvenirs and pink suede cowboy boots.”

  Chloe grimaced. “Red…I’ve got a pair of those boots.”

  “You would, darlin’. You would.”

  Her friend’s raucous laughter crackled over the line before they said their goodbyes. Chloe hung up the phone. The thought of bulldozers rumbling over her beloved pet shop made her fingers turn to ice. What if she never persuaded Griggs to give her the loan? What if Red got desperate and sold out to a developer before she could make any headway with her plans?

  It was time to settle her future, once and for all.

  Or at least part of it.

  The same left-hand turn that brought Nick onto Main Street brought him his first view of the crowd. From the looks of it, a third of the town had turned out. Men, women and children clumped around the town plaza’s Christmas-decorated courtyard in bunches, talking, pointing, and peering in the artificially snow-frosted windows of Saguaro Vista Cattleman’s Bank. Police cars blocked the street, lights flashing. The town’s sole newspaper photographer ducked behind one, aiming for a Territorial-worthy shot of the fracas.

  It’s Chloe, his sister Naomi had told him on the phone. Chloe needs you at the bank.

  That’s all he’d heard before dropping the phone and sprinting to his motorcycle. Now, steering between a woman wearing pink sponge curlers and a sheriff’s deputy directing traffic, Nick wished he’d waited to hear more. Was Chloe being arrested? Had she finally had a hormonal breakdown, snapped, and assaulted Effram Griggs?

  The town’s fire engine careened around the corner. Suited-up firefighters piled out. Nick’s heart slammed harder. He wrenched his bike to a stop at the curb and ran through the crowd. They surged along with him all the way to the bank’s front door, where the first-comers spilled out along with incongruously cheerful Christmas music.

  Nick elbowed his way inside.

  He spotted Chloe’s blond head first. She was near the wagon-wheel table in the middle of the bank, the same one used to hold deposit slips and pens on chains and—he looked closer—today, one very pregnant woman wearing wild hot pink clothes and an expression he’d never seen before. While Nick edged closer, Effram Griggs came in view, flapping a sheaf of paper toward Chloe like a human ceiling fan. She bent forward in the breeze. Her head disappeared from view.

  Dear God, Nick thought, realizing what all the paramedic-packed fuss was about. Chloe was in labor.

  Right on top of the glossy home-banking brochures.

  She’d probably come to the bank to confront Griggs about her loan—minus Nick, because he’d been too busy working on his growth accelerator to help her, dammit—and his latest refusal had sent her over the edge. Those lunatic hormones of hers could probably cause just about anything to happen.

  “Chloe!” he yelled.

  “Nick?”

  He reached her and held her face in his hands, keeping her still so he could make sure she was all right. She felt all right, silky and warm beneath his palms. She looked okay, sort of pink and glowing…but then again, that could have been the reflected glare from her clothes. Her hot pink mini-dress looked vivid enough to peel paint.

  “Hiya, brainiac,” Chloe said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Naomi called me. Danny’s bus driver was late because she had to detour around the bank. The street’s completely blocked outside. You’re the talk of the town, Chloe.”

  Looking pleased, she sat up straighter. “The street’s blocked?”

  “The Territorial’s outside, too. You’ll probably make the evening edition.”

  She beamed. “That’s great!”

  It was worse than he’d thought. She’d gone temporarily crazy. Who knew pregnancy could do this to a person?

  Nick rubbed his thumbs gently over her cheeks. This didn’t look like the writhing, screaming childbirth they showed on TV—or the grueling forty-eight hour laborathons his mother and sisters had moaned about—but he couldn’t be sure. Chloe’s method of having babies was bound to be one-hundred-and-eighty degrees different than anyone else’s.

  “Are you all right? Is the pain bad? Is the baby—”

  “The baby’s fine.” She smiled against his hands, making him realize how much he’d missed the feel of her. Then she slipped her fingers around his wrists and tugged downward. “So am I. You’re acting as if I’m going to pop out the kid right here, or something.”

  If she was, she was being pretty blasé about it. Nick frowned, casting his arm toward the noisy crowd. “You’re not? But there are paramedics outside, police and firefighters and—” Something else occurred to him. He gave her a stern look. “Are you still mad about our argument? Because if you’re just saying this to make me go away, I—”

  “No, I’m not. Not mad, not in labor, and not fibbing. The crowd’s here because of the sit-down strike, the police are probably here for crowd control, and the firefighters are probably here in case Griggs locks me in the bank vault after all.” She peered closely at him. “You’re looking a little woozy, Nick. You want to sit?”

  “Uhhh—”

  Scooting over the table’s thick wagon-wheel rungs, Chloe flashed her knee-high boots and made room for him. “Come on. Hop aboard. You probably need some of the Christmas-blend coffee they’re serving today, too. Griggs?” She put her hand on Nick’s shoulder and gazed through the murmuring crowd like a queen calling her court jester. “Oh, Griggs!”

  She had snapped. “Another sit-down strike? Chloe, come down from there. I’ll take you home.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, I—oh, there you are.”

  Effram Griggs appeared beside Nick, looking as though he’d just emerged from a sauna. His forehead looked shiny with sweat, and his western shirt had twin wet spots under the arms. Clearly, having Chloe hold court in the middle of his bank wasn’t his usual Monday afternoon routine.

  She inclined her head regally toward him. “Would you bring Mr. Steadman a cup of your complimentary
Ho Ho Ho blend, please? I think the crowd’s too much for him.”

  “Right away. Have you finished the, ahh—”

  “When you bring the check.” Chloe tucked a pen in the top of one boot. The motion called attention to the rolled-up sheaf of papers stuck partway beneath her thigh. They looked like the ones Griggs had been waving around earlier. “And the coffee.”

  “I don’t want any coffee,” Nick put in.

  Too late. Griggs had already left.

  He swiveled toward Chloe, who, having dispensed with both her pen and the pesky Mr. Griggs, cheerfully tapped the papers against her boot.

  “The check?” Nick asked. “A payoff for not causing a bigger riot?”

  “For my loan.” She rubbed her other hand over her round, round belly and smiled at him. “My loan for my pet shop.”

  “You got it?”

  “Yes!” She patted the table. “Come on up. Celebrate my victory, Nick.”

  “I can’t believe you got it.”

  Griggs returned, a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and a slip of paper in the other. Solicitously, Chloe set the Ho Ho Ho blend on the table within Nick’s reach, then snatched the paper. She held it up for the crowd to see.

  “The check!”

  Bedlam erupted. Shouts of “Hurray!” mixed with clapping and whistling, then mellowed into a chant. It sounded like…

  “No more Neanderthals?” Nick asked.

  She laughed and flipped over a homemade poster from the table beside her. It showed a club-toting caveman’s body encircled by an “O” with a diagonal slash through it. Effram Griggs’ head, sour-faced in an old newspaper photo, was pasted on the caveman above the words: No More Neanderthals. Say Yes to Loans for Ladies.

  “Turns out,” Chloe said, shoving the poster through the wagon-wheel slats, “that Griggs has a policy of refusing loans to women. He’s turned down half the ladies in my childbirth class. Most of whom were forced to get loans in their husbands’ names.”

  She frowned at the injustice of it all. Nick tried not to wonder if she’d have married him for her loan’s sake, if he’d asked.