Last Chance Christmas

by Hope Ramsay

  “You remember what I said the other day about Granny’s teacup?” Lizzy hissed.

  “Yeah.” Haley realized right then that maybe she needed to apologize to Granny about the teacup, if for no other reason than Lizzy would stop bringing it up.

  “Well, you keep your mouth shut, you hear?”

  “Okay, Lizzy, but you better not be late.”

  “I won’t. But I don’t get what the big deal is. I mean, you’re just a shepherd. When I was in third grade, I got to be the angel.”

  And with that, Lizzy hurried down the porch steps and up the street toward their house. Lizzy’s bike was in the yard, but Lizzy went inside first.

  Haley stayed on the porch and watched. A few minutes later, Lizzy came back out. She had her backpack and the extra quilt from the foot of her bed. She stuffed the quilt into the basket on her bike, and then she headed off in the opposite direction from Cassie’s house.

  Lark rested her head on Stone’s chest, listening to his heartbeat. They lay tangled in the sheets, and a wedge of afternoon light came through the windows. Lark watched the dust motes dance on the air while she listened to the even rhythm of Stone’s breathing.

  She raised her head and studied him: the resolute angle of his jaw, the rugged lines at the corner of his eyes, the firm arch of his brow, the crooked place where his nose had been broken.

  He was a study in peaceful repose. A tiny, satisfied smile curled the corner of his mouth.

  That little upward spiral made her heart ache. She had told him everything about Misurata and Jeb. He had listened to every horrible thing she had to say. He’d taken it all. And he was still lying there sated and smiling in his sleep.

  Man. She’d let her emotions run away with her, hadn’t she?

  He cracked an eye. The little curl at the corner of his mouth deepened as consciousness returned. “Hey,” he whispered and ran his hand through her hair.

  In the past, this was the moment when she would deliver the standard speech—the one about how things were going too far too fast. But she didn’t want to do that this time. She wanted to say something else altogether.

  But he wasn’t ready to hear it.

  He wasn’t ready to love her. Not really. He still thought about his wife. He still loved her. And after what she’d heard about Sharon, Lark knew she couldn’t compete. Sharon had sounded like a cross between a saint and an angel.

  His expression sobered. “Darlin’, are you having regrets? Because that would be funny, given what you said the other night about my being old-fashioned.”

  She plastered a smile on her face. “No regrets,” she said. And really she didn’t have regrets. Not for sleeping with him, anyway. And maybe not even for falling in love with him. But she would definitely regret leaving him.

  He looked at his watch, which rode military-style on the inside of his left wrist. “It’s getting late. I have to get home. Haley’s play at the church starts pretty early because they’re just little kids.”

  She nodded. This was good. She didn’t have to give any speeches. He would do it for her. He would remind her of the things she wasn’t a part of.

  “Are you really okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. I just have a lot on my mind, you know. I’m supposed to be on a plane to Africa day after tomorrow. I hope Nita convinces your father to let me lay Pop to rest as quickly as possible. I need to get back to DC and pack and get ready. This was…” Her words faltered. She wanted to say it had been fun. “Fun” would be the right word for a casual encounter. But this had been earth shattering.

  “You think you’re ready to go back into the field?” he asked, poking her right in her most vulnerable place.

  She met his gaze. “Shooting photographs is what I do. It’s what I am—a mirror on the world. I’ll be fine. I just need to get back to work. This was… fun.” She forced the word out. It turned to ashes in her mouth.

  He sat up, his face unreadable. But the fire in his eyes slowly flickered out. He didn’t say anything. He took her little adult speech stoically.

  They had both gone into this with their eyes open.

  He got out of bed and started collecting pieces of his discarded uniform. He headed into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

  A minute later, the shower started up.

  Lark pulled the blanket around her shoulders and curled up in the bed, watching the dust dance in the sunlight. She felt empty-headed. Empty-hearted. Empty.

  He wore his T-shirt and uniform pants when he left the bathroom, and she watched him put on his vest and then his uniform shirt. He was kind of obsessive about his body armor—just like the marines in Afghanistan.

  He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “You’re not ready to go back to Africa. Don’t go running there because of me, or Nita, or your father.”

  “That’s not the reason,” she said. The truth was she didn’t have any other place to go.

  He pressed his lips together. “I should probably have my head examined for acting like some kind of horny teenager these last couple of days. I should have stopped you last night. You called me old-fashioned, and I guess I am. I should have been more adult about this. But, well, the thing is, I enjoyed having sex with you. It felt good. And I haven’t felt that good in a while. It was… fun. But—”

  “Good. We’re on the same page,” she said before she heard what came after the “but.” She knew what he was about to say. She was his transition woman—the one who helped him get back into the world of the living. Every broken heart needed someone like that. She knew this truth going in. She had no right to be upset now. None.

  He gave her shoulder a squeeze. He sat there for a long moment, and she prayed he would just keep his mouth shut.

  Luckily, he was down with that program. A minute later he was gone, and Lark turned her head into the pillow.

  Damn it, why did he have to be so articulate, even with his silence?

  A kind of creeping numbness filled Stone as he descended the stairs at the Cut ’n Curl. Something had just happened between him and Lark. Something good. Something real. But it hadn’t ended right. He knew that the minute he’d turned up the hot water in the shower and it hadn’t pierced the cold that had crept through him.

  Lark was leaving. He had known that from the start. They had been honest with each other.

  So why was he feeling so empty?

  He strode across Palmetto Avenue, heading toward Maple Street, where he’d left the Crown Vic. He squinted into the late-afternoon sun and reached for his sunglasses, but he’d left them in the cruiser. A cold wind was building, and it smacked him across the face.

  The sun and the wind made his eyes water. A tear leaked out of his eye and fell down his cheek. He didn’t bother to brush it away.

  He felt so alone. So utterly alone.

  He thought back to the things Aunt Arlene had said a few days ago about there being a hole in the middle of everyone. Well, if that was the case, his hole was getting bigger by the minute. Pretty soon it would be black-hole-sized and it would suck in all the light.

  He couldn’t keep Lark here. But he wanted her to stay.

  There was only one thing that might tether a wild, untamed thing like her. He’d have to love her.

  But he didn’t. He had feelings for her. He was certainly in lust with her. But he didn’t love her.

  Not like he’d loved Sharon.

  For goodness’ sake, he’d only known Lark for ten days. How could you learn to love someone in just ten days? It was impossible. He’d loved Sharon from the time they were kids. He’d loved her for years and years before he’d married her.

  He reached the cruiser and yanked open the door. He threw his hat onto the passenger’s seat and then he slammed the door behind him.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  Lark knew all this, didn’t she? She knew it was impossible. She was all about being casual. Not holding on too tight.

  Stone s
ucked at that. He always held on too tight. Always.

  He rested his head on the steering wheel. Lark was not his soulmate. His soulmate was buried out in the cemetery adjacent to Christ Church. He forced air through the knot in his throat.

  He’d always thought that having Miriam identify his soulmate for him had been one of life’s biggest blessings. Sharon was such an amazing person. She had given him children. She had loved him even though he often didn’t deserve it. She had held things together, even in their darkest moments. They had forged something good together.

  Now Miriam’s forecast felt like a prison. How does a person move on to love another when he has already loved completely?

  He didn’t know.

  And knowing the truth about himself, how could he keep Lark here? She deserved to be loved completely. She deserved to be loved for her own self, by someone who wasn’t always making comparisons or feeling guilty all the time.

  He fired up the engine and headed home. On the way, he turned on the radio and discovered that David Raab was missing. The call had come in just after lunchtime, when he’d had his radio and cell phone turned off. He checked in with county dispatch and learned that the boy had probably run away from home. The Allenberg Sheriff’s Department and Damian, Stone’s deputy, had been searching for him, but so far David hadn’t turned up.

  Stone’s gut twitched, and his parental sixth sense kicked in. If David was missing, Lizzy had to know about it. He flashed on Jane’s comments from yesterday. He sure hoped the town was paying attention. It didn’t take much for a girl to get herself into trouble.

  Damn. He’d been thinking with his pecker these last few days.

  He felt the hole in his middle get a little bigger and wider.

  Stone pulled the cruiser to the curb outside Momma’s house. He was still in uniform, but with this new development, he would have to bypass the civvies. Finding David was as much his duty to the community as it was something he needed to do as Lizzy’s father.

  He got out of the cruiser and headed inside.

  Mayhem greeted him. Haley was wearing her shepherd costume and practicing her lines. Over and over again.

  Daddy was in a deep brood. Apparently the Falcons had lost. Badly.

  Usually Momma would be serene as only Momma could be. But the minute Stone walked into the kitchen, he knew something was terribly wrong.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Momma stared right at him. “Well, I can think of a lot of things that are the matter. The fact that my phone has been ringing all afternoon is just one of them.”

  Well, of course. He hadn’t been thinking, had he? Not after Nita had dropped her bombshell, anyway. He’d simply shut down his rational mind. “Are you going to scold me and ask where I’ve been all afternoon?” he asked. Shame prickled him from his toes to the top of his head. It made his body feel cold and itchy at the same time.

  Momma’s stare turned intimately maternal. Her eyes burned with some emotion that Stone couldn’t quite decipher. She wasn’t exactly angry or embarrassed or worried. It seemed to be some odd amalgam of all those things. It was bad enough to feel guilty for taking so much pleasure in Lark’s body, but to realize that he’d caused Momma grief, had shirked his responsibility to the town, and had become the object of gossip was almost more than he could bear.

  “Honey, everyone has been so worried about you. You abandoned your cruiser on the side of the road. You left it unlocked. And what with Jimmy turning up dead, and David Raab going missing, well, the town is in an uproar.”

  “So you know about David.”

  Momma’s jaw hardened. “I just heard about it not more than ten minutes ago. If I’d known he’d run away earlier, I never would have let Lizzy go out.”

  The guilt turned into fear. “Where is she?”

  “She went out about four hours ago. She said she was going to Cassie’s house, but I just checked. She’s not there. She was supposed to be home almost half an hour ago.”

  “Damn.” He turned around and took a step before Momma called him back.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To look for her. I’m pretty sure that, when I find her, I’ll find David, too.”

  “Haley’s play is in about an hour.”

  “I know, Momma. But I have to find David.”

  He turned back toward the door that led into the dining room. Haley stood there, looking utterly adorable in her shepherd outfit. He felt this sudden rush of love for his child. It came from both the inside and outside and gusted right through him like it had been blown on a sudden wind.

  She had stopped rehearsing her lines. She stood oddly highlighted by the chandelier, almost as if she were wearing a halo. She looked kind of somber. It was a little scary to see an eight-year-old with such a serious face.

  She was the spitting image of Sharon.

  “I promise I won’t miss your play,” he said. His voice came out rusty.

  She nodded. He squatted down to be on eye level with her. The headdress of the costume hid her hair and flopped a little over her right eye. “I promise.”

  She nodded again and then glanced up for an instant. It was as if she were looking at something in the corner. She nodded a third time and looked back at him. Her brown eyes were filling up with tears, and her lips were quivering.

  His heart started to shatter in his chest. Lark was right, he’d been ignoring his little girl. How long had he been in this funk? He needed to get out of it.

  “Uh, Daddy,” Haley said.

  “What, sugar beet?”

  “I gotta tell you something. It’s really, really important.”

  “Okay.” He wanted to tell her that it needed to wait. His gut was twisting with worry over Lizzy. Some sixth sense was telling him that he needed to find his other little girl before dark fell. But he couldn’t walk away from Haley. Not when she had a look like that on her face.

  “You need to forgive,” she said.

  “What?”

  Haley flicked her gaze to the corner and then back. She nodded again. As if she were nodding to someone else. “You need to forgive. I think you need to forgive me about the angel. Or maybe you need to forgive the angel. Or maybe it’s because I broke Granny’s teacup.”

  “What?” Momma said from behind Stone.

  Haley looked up at Momma. “I’m really, really sorry. I knocked it off the shelf a long time ago, and then I buried it in the backyard and lied about it. It wasn’t the angel who broke it either. It was me.”

  Momma didn’t say anything. The teacup had been missing for a good two years. Everyone had figured that one of the girls had broken it.

  “Honey,” Stone said, “the teacup isn’t very important. I’m sure Granny will forgive you for it. It was wrong to fib about it. But we still love you. And we forgive you. Okay?”

  Haley frowned. “Uh, I guess.” Her eyes flicked to the corner and back again.

  Stone turned to look. There was nothing there.

  “You don’t see her, do you?”

  “The angel?”

  “She’s there. She’s been with you all day. I don’t know why. She’s been acting kind of weird the last couple of days. And she really means it, Daddy. You need to forgive. I’m not sure who. Maybe Lizzy.”

  A strange thought occurred to him. “Sugar beet, do you know where Lizzy is?”

  Haley nodded solemnly. “She’s with David at the golf course. She took a blanket and a backpack with her when she left.”

  “Haley, did you know she wasn’t going to Cassie’s when she left?” Momma asked.

  Haley looked down at the carpet, a picture of abject misery. “She said I was going to get spanked because of the teacup. She said she was going to tell you about it if I tattled on her.” Haley’s body went rigid like she was expecting corporal punishment to be inflicted at any minute.

  Stone let go of a deep breath and pulled his little girl into a fierce hug. She wrapped her hands around his neck, and he buried his nose into t
he corner of her neck. The damn costume was scratchy as hell.

  “C’mon, Hale, let’s go get your sister and drag her back to church for your play.”

  “Stone, do you think you should take Haley with—”

  “I’m not worried, Momma. Lizzy is a smart girl. If she took a blanket out to the Ark it’s only because it’s gotten pretty cold outside. My guess is that David left home without much preparation, and Lizzy is a Girl Scout. She probably took him food, too, if I know her.

  “I’ll bring them both back to church. Wouldn’t hurt David to be exposed to shepherds and angels and Jesus in a manger. Although I’m sure his mother will be upset about it. Honestly, Momma, the woman is a bigot. She told me in so many words that she didn’t think Lizzy was good enough for her son. I have a feeling this disappearing act was his way of telling his momma to back off.”

  Stone scooped Haley up into his arms. He turned toward his mother. The worried look on her face was gone. Her eyes looked unusually bright.

  “Something’s come over you, son. I hope you embrace it.” Momma blinked a couple of times. “Now, go on, get your daughter and her beau. But just remember that we can’t have a Christmas play without a shepherd.”

  “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass,” Haley said in a big stage voice. “I don’t think I’m going to forget my lines.” Then she rested her head on Stone’s shoulder. She was still holding on to him like she wasn’t ever going to let him go.

  Maybe Haley wasn’t all Sharon’s creation after all. Haley held on to things real tight. And so did he.

  CHAPTER

  19

  David propped his head up on his hand and stared down at Lizzy. The kids back in Michigan would probably laugh at him, to see him lying in a hayloft in a barn that looked like Noah’s Ark. But this was where he wanted to be.

  “You can’t go back to Michigan,” Lizzy said, looking up at him with those big eyes of hers. The afternoon was getting old, and the light kind of slanted in from the clerestory windows. Lizzy’s hair was rimmed with golden light, as yellow as the hay.

  David wanted to raise his camera and capture the moment, but he resisted. He would have to press this into his memory. Because it was probably the last time he would ever see Lizzy Rhodes.