Once Upon a Christmas

by Lisa Plumley

  “My guy?” she wheezed.

  “Yes, tell us!” Nora urged. “We’d love to know all about your mystery Marine, uhh…B-something…shoot, what was it again, Nadine?”

  Chloe devoutly hoped memory loss wasn’t an inescapable consequence of motherhood. Poor Nora only had three children, but she couldn’t remember her way out of a paper bag.

  “Bruno,” Nadine supplied. She smiled at Chloe. “Yes, do tell us all about him.”

  “Arrgh!” In the kitchen, Nick slammed his forehead on the refrigerator, gripping both sides hard enough to wobble the appliance. “I can’t take it anymore, Red. It’s ‘Bruno this,’ and ‘Bruno that.’ ‘Bruno’s sooo wonderful.’”

  “I heard.” Red grabbed another carrot stick. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “What am I going to do about it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Pound a new head-shaped dent in my Frigidaire.

  Nah, that wouldn’t help. Pound a new dent in Bruno.

  “The Nick Steadman I know wouldn’t just stand by and let some other guy steal his girl.” Blithely, Red propped her hands on her bony hips as she rolled her carrot around her mouth. “The Nick Steadman I know would fight for her.”

  Nick cast her a miserable glance. “How can I?”

  He thought of the conversation he’d heard earlier, thought of his sisters listening openmouthed and teary-eyed as Chloe described her mysterious, romantic Bruno, and knew he couldn’t destroy her chance at happiness. Not if that was what she wanted.

  Even if the bastard still hadn’t managed to get in touch with her. For some reason, she obviously wanted him anyway.

  “If you could only see her eyes when she talks about him,” he told Red. “It’s like—like—”

  “Like she’s in love with him.”

  He nodded. “And the crazy thing is, I have this feeling…”

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve been remembering things…” He rammed his hands in his hair, realized what he was doing, and straightened his glasses instead. “Things…awww, hell. They can’t be true, Red. Otherwise—”

  “Otherwise?” She edged closer. The carrot stick disappeared between her lips.

  “Otherwise Chloe’s been—”

  A movement in the kitchen doorway stopped his words. Nick clamped his mouth shut as Chloe stepped inside.

  “Been what?” she asked, her gaze darting from Nick to Red and back again. “Besides surprised, revived, and treated like royalty?” Grinning, she lifted the full coffee pot and assessed its contents, then flipped open the cupboard above it. “This guest of honor stuff is great,” she went on in a muffled voice as she rooted around inside. “Thanks so much for the party, Nick. It was really sweet of you.”

  Consider it my send-off, Nick thought, watching her hot-pink-clad backside sway as she searched. Straight into Bruno’s arms.

  “You’re welcome. I think even Larry, Moe, Shemp and Curly had a good time.”

  “Thanks to your sports drinks. That was a brilliant idea. Did you see them lap up that stuff, Red?”

  “Sure did. Looks as if you’re fixing to help us lap up some of your special coffee, too.”

  “Nick’s sisters asked me to.” Bright-faced and happy, Chloe plunked a half-full bottle of Kahlúa on the countertop and started arranging cups beside it. She glanced over her shoulder at Nick. “Since alcohol’s off-limits right now, your mother said she’ll drink an extra cup for me.”

  “That’s my mom. Generous to a fault.”

  “I know.” Chloe sighed and lifted the bottle. “Hey, I’ll make some for you, too, if you want. Interested in Kahlúa and coffee?”

  And sympathy? his brain added, half on autopilot.

  He looked at her standing there, swinging the Kahlúa bottle between her fingertips and waiting expectantly for his answer. Suddenly, answers for all the half-formed questions he’d had for months clicked in place. Kahlúa and coffee and sympathy. Chloe’s never-fail remedy for disastrous job interviews, bad hair days…and Nick’s months-old heartbreak over what’shername.

  The night they’d spent together crystallized in his mind, clear for the first time in months and heartrendingly remembered too late. An image of Chloe’s comfy sleigh bed—and waking up in it—the morning after. Her sheer orange bra, those sexy purple-dotted silk boxers she’d had on…the way she’d called him darling and smiled at him sleepily from beneath the sheets. He’d held her in his arms and in his heart that night, and wakened denying everything.

  What was that he’d said? Tell me this isn’t what it looks like, Chloe. Tell me I didn’t take advantage of you last night.

  So she had. Nothing happened here last night except too much Kahlúa, too much talking, and way too much sympathy. Damn, damn, damn.

  But Chloe was wrong. Everything had happened between them that night, including love.

  Including a baby.

  How could he have been so blind? So ready to believe her, despite all evidence to the contrary?

  The same way he’d been blind to missing Danny’s birthday party, the family Thanksgiving dinner, the annual tree-trimming preholiday brunch with his sisters and their husbands and his nieces and nephews. The same way he’d turned into an invention-obsessed workaholic without realizing it.

  The whole truth hit him like a whap on the head.

  Chloe’s baby was his baby, too.

  He was going to be a father.

  Nick’s knees buckled. He slammed his hand on the tabletop just as Red jabbed her elbow in his ribs. Luckily, the motion helped keep him upright.

  “Well, sonny?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  He was going to have a baby.

  “Are you having some of this or not?” Chloe elaborated, swirling the liquor around inside the bottle. “I think there’s just enough for everyone to try a little.”

  Nick, Jr., maybe.

  “Nick?”

  Holy cow!

  “Should I fix you some Kahlúa and coffee, or not?”

  He looked up at her. “Are you dishing out the truth along with that Kahlúa? Because that’s what I’m really interested in.”

  She went white, down to her fingertips wrapped around the bottle. It wobbled in her hand as Chloe stared at him.

  He stepped forward and grabbed it. The cool, dark glass slipped from her hand as easily as the lies had come from her mouth, month after month after month.

  “We can start with Bruno.”

  “B—Bruno?”

  “Yes.”

  She licked her lips and gave him a wary look. “What do you want to know?”

  Sticking with her alibi, all the way down the line. Nick’s heart twisted.

  “I want to know why you didn’t trust me with the truth.”

  Chloe backed into the counter behind her, twisting her hair like a hairdresser on fast-forward. Nick followed.

  “I want to know why you didn’t tell me I’m Bruno,” he said, his voice rising. “I want to know why you hid my baby from me and—”

  “You’re Bruno?” Red shrieked, staring, dumbfounded, at them both.

  He kept his focus on Chloe. “I want to know why the hell you didn’t come to me first and let me help you!”

  “Maybe because I thought you’d react just like this,” Chloe yelled back, rising on tiptoes to face him better. “Just like a…a…a man!”

  Nick planted both hands on the countertop, fencing her in. “I am a man,” he said quietly. “As it turns out, I’m going to be a father, too.”

  “You’re Bruno?” Red asked again. She shook her head and tapped out a cigarette from the case in her hand. “My, my, my—”

  “I had a right to know!” he shouted.

  “Why? So you could abandon your dreams, just like every other steady Steadman has for generations?” Chloe asked. Twist, twist, went her hair. “So you could ‘do the right thing’? So you could jump in and take over and—”

  “Yes, dammit! We could have already been married by
now. Had all this settled! Not be doing—”

  “Doing something that’s totally wrong for us?” She shoved at his arms caging her in. “You don’t have any obligation to me, Nick.”

  “—doing this, a week before your due date! I damn well do have an obligation to you. I—”

  “Four days.” Red puffed furiously on the cigarette she’d lit. “Her due date’s in four days, not a week.”

  Gritting his teeth, Nick squinted through the haze of cigarette smoke. “Could you do that someplace else?”

  She looked at her Lucky Strike as though it had sprouted, fully lit and smoking, from her fingertips. “Sorry. I crumple under pressure.”

  “Let me go!” Chloe demanded with another shove—this one at his chest. “I’ve got a party to finish.”

  “A party?” Was she in denial? Or just too stubborn to realize how she’d shut him out…how she was still shutting him out? “You want to get back to your party, in the middle of all this?”

  “Uncle Nick?” Danny stuck his head around the corner. “My mom wants to know if you’re coming to our house on Christmas Eve. We’re making a gingerbread village, remember?”

  “Never mind,” Red said. Puff, puff. “Looks as if the party’s come to us.”

  “She said you should bring some toothpicks. Lot and lots of toothpicks,” Danny went on, “if we’re going to make that fancy design you told me about. Look, I drew a picture of it.”

  His nephew held out a folded piece of paper. The hopeful expression on his little face was like a knife to Nick’s heart. How much time had he missed with Danny while trying to make his mark as an inventor?

  How many chances to watch his baby grow had he missed, thanks to Chloe’s deception?

  Hell.

  Nick took the paper from Danny’s hand just as Naomi’s head appeared above her son’s. “Honey, I told you to ask Uncle Nick another time. He’s, umm, busy right now.”

  “You mean fighting with Chloe?” Danny squinted at the adults. He shook his head with the supreme confidence of a seven-year-old. “Nah. She’s his best friend. Best friends always make up.”

  “Don’t bet on it.” Nick glared at Chloe.

  “I tried to tell you!” she cried, waving her arm. “Out on the porch, remember?” She stepped closer to the kitchen doorway, moving farther and farther away from Nick. “You wouldn’t listen. You—you—you—”

  Were thinking about getting her to the surprise baby shower before somebody gave it away.

  “Wouldn’t listen,” he said, and it was hideously, unarguably true. He’d been absorbed in his own thing, concentrating on nothing except the goal to be reached.

  The same way he’d focused on his inventions, even at the expense of everything else.

  Your whole point is doing the right thing, Chloe had said. No matter what the cost. Nick hadn’t known then what she meant. Now he did.

  “Awww, Chloe.” He reached for her. “This is never going to work between us. Not this way.”

  Her eyes misted. Her lips wobbled, setting off all the telltale, weepy signs. Dammit, somehow he’d done it again…except this time Nick felt like bawling right along with her.

  Chloe lifted her chin. Her fingertips brushed his jaw like a fluttery, warm kiss goodbye. Her voice sounded husky when she spoke.

  “Didn’t you know, Einstein? That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along.”

  With one last, sorrowful glance, she put her hand to her rounded belly. She slipped away between Danny and Naomi. An instant later, the front door opened and closed, as quiet as the whole crowd of partygoers had become.

  Danny’s hand nudged Nick’s. His small arm wrapped around his uncle’s waist, then his voice broke the silence Chloe’s departure had left.

  “Look at it this way, Uncle Nick,” he said, giving him a man-to-man squeeze. “You know all that nice stuff Chloe was sayin’ about Bruno? It was really about you!”

  “Yeah,” Nick mumbled, feeling forlorn. “That’s really great.”

  “Can we go blow up some stuff now?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I knew Nick would never forgive me,” Chloe said.

  “He’s just mad, hon,” Red replied with a knowing shake of her head. She settled sideways on Chloe’s cushy plaid sofa and reached for the bottle of red nail polish Chloe held out to her. “That was a real whopper you kept from him. It’s only been two days. Give the man some time! He’ll get over it.”

  “Get over me, you mean.” Feeling morose, Chloe leaned against the sofa pillows and extended her bare foot.

  There was no worse time to be heartbroken than Christmas, she’d discovered. Every carol, every twinkling light, every ribbon and bow and sprig of mistletoe only made her feel worse. As long as she’d known Nick, they’d spent the holidays together. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve…and they’d never been farther apart.

  “If you’d give Nick half a chance, he’d forgive you.” Red twisted open the nail polish and dunked the brush a few times. She squinted up at Chloe. “Are you sure you want to take time for this beauty rigmarole?”

  “You bet. It’s my last chance to look glamorous.”

  “Raising a child is not a lifetime sentence of frumpery. Besides, glamour comes from within.” Grinning, Red waggled her fingertips over her head like a cowboy-boot-wearing, red-pompadoured fairy godmother awakening Chloe’s Inner Glamour-puss.

  “Beauty comes from within. Glamour comes from the Estée Lauder counter.”

  “You’re turning into a real cynic, Chloe Carmichal. I just might be having second thoughts about selling my pet store to someone like you.”

  “Too late…ouch! You already used the money for the down payment on that retirement place in Sun City.”

  Red laughed. She examined Chloe, then frowned. “Was that another contraction?”

  Chloe nodded, panting as she clicked on the stopwatch in her hand and set it on the coffee table beside the plate of Christmas cookies—with sprinkles—Red had brought to cheer her up. “They’re coming about fifteen minutes apart now.”

  At the onset of the contractions earlier this morning, Chloe had been excited. Finally! It was almost time for her baby to be born. Now the excitement had mixed with fear, and both emotions were roller-coastering through her insides. She wasn’t ready yet.

  Not without Nick.

  “Look, the fancy pedicure can wait.” Shaking her head, Red got to her feet. She started toward the bathroom to put the polish away. “We’re going to the hospital.”

  She made it almost to the fireplace—where the Bruno letters and the “Macho Men of the Military” pinup calendar that had started the whole stupid mess crackled merrily—before Chloe grabbed her hand and eased her back beside her.

  “No! I’m not ready to go yet, anyway. Not until I finish this.” She tapped the fabric-covered notebook in her lap and gave Red a beseeching look. “Please?”

  “Oh…” Red made a reluctant face, rolled the crimson polish bottle between her palms, then sighed. “All right, hon. But I make no guarantees if those contractions speed up.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Almost an hour later, Chloe had ten perfectly polished toenails, one updated and gift-wrapped pregnancy journal, and one very antsy soon-to-be-ex-boss.

  “I’m the labor coach!” Red cried, dogging Chloe’s heels all the way to her bedroom as she pulled on her winter coat and took one last look around to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. “I can’t be late!”

  “You can’t be late?” Between contractions, Chloe grinned. Red snatched the packed birthday bag right out from under her fingertips and hustled out of the room. “What about me?”

  On the front porch, Chloe carefully locked the door behind them, feeling strangely calm now that the time to head to the hospital had arrived. She hugged her finished pregnancy journal to her chest, gazing across the yard at Nick’s house.

  The journal, detailing her thoughts and dreams for their baby, described her pregnancy all the wa
y from the contortionist pregnancy test she’d taken to the contractions she’d been having this morning. It was only one of the concessions she wanted to make—just one way to share what he’d missed with Nick. What would he say when he read it?

  Red stopped halfway down the front walk. “What are you dilly dallyin’ for?” she hollered, jangling her car keys. “That baby’s not waiting all day.”

  She turned, saw Chloe’s desperate clutch on the pregnancy journal and her equally desperate watch on Nick’s house, and her expression softened. She clomped up the walk.

  “Giving him that is the right thing to do, hon. I know it.” Affectionately, she draped her arm over Chloe’s shoulders and squeezed. “He was madder over your keeping the baby a secret than over fathering him, you know.”

  “Or her.” Then I’ll teach her to play football anyway.

  “Sure.” Red held out her hand for the journal. “I’ll make sure he gets that.”

  Red pulled. Involuntarily, Chloe’s fingers clamped harder on the vibrant fabric-covered book.

  “I can’t!” she wailed. “Oh, Red. What if I’m making a big mistake?”

  “You’re just scared, ‘cause taking a chance on that man wasn’t something you planned on doing.” Gently, Red pried Chloe’s whitened fingers from the book, one by one. “But hon…love never is something you plan.”

  Fear clutched at Chloe’s belly. Or maybe that was another contraction. Either way, it hurt like crazy. But sticking with her Bruno alibi hadn’t worked. Keeping the truth from Nick hadn’t worked. And fooling herself any longer was impossible.

  She had to give Nick the chance to love them…her and the baby both. She had to trust him to be the best friend he’d always been.

  And more.

  “Okay.” She gave the journal one last squeeze for luck. Then she gave Red her sternest look. “But he doesn’t get this until tomorrow. Not until after his investor meeting.”

  “Now hold on—”

  “Not until tomorrow afternoon, Red. Not until Christmas Eve. I mean it.” She was willing to be flexible about things for a change—all except for this one thing. “I won’t wreck Nick’s shot at making his invention a success.”