JACK'S CHRISTMAS MISSION

by Beverly Barton

  Hetty lifted the pot from the counter and placed it on the front right eye of the stovetop, then set the heat on high. "It's not as if I'm asking you to marry the man. But you haven't dated anybody seriously since I've known you. You haven't even shown any real interest in a man before now. So, why not go with what you're feeling and enjoy getting to know our houseguest?"

  "I have no real interest in Jack," Peggy Jo said, her voice a whispered hiss. "That's what I'm trying to tell you."

  Hetty shrugged as she walked to the refrigerator. Before opening the door, she looked right at Peggy Jo. "Fine. Waste a golden opportunity. That's up to you. But get out of my kitchen. If you're afraid of temptation, then go back upstairs to your room and I'll call you when lunch is ready."

  "I am not…" Peggy Jo realized the fruitlessness of defending her position yet again. She couldn't win with Hetty. "Fine. I'll join the others in the den."

  When Hetty opened the refrigerator, Peggy Jo grabbed a canned diet cola, popped the lid and walked toward the den. She hesitated to the right of the sofa and sipped on the carbonated beverage. Jack glanced over at her and smiled. Without giving her response any thought, she returned his smile.

  Jack patted the sofa cushion beside him. "Come join us. You haven't missed much of the parade."

  "Yeah, Mommy, Santa Claus hasn't put in an appearance yet," Wendy said.

  Jack tapped his finger playfully on Wendy's nose. "That's what I'm waiting for—Santa Claus. I'm hoping I've been good enough this year to get a really nice present under the tree from ole Kris Kringle."

  Peggy Jo held her breath, wondering how her daughter would respond and how Jack would react to Wendy's pronouncement, whatever it might be.

  "Jack, you don't have to pretend for me," Wendy said. "I know there isn't a real Santa Claus." Wendy positioned herself on her knees and moved across the sofa to Jack's side, then slipped her arm around his neck. "Did you believe when you were a little boy?"

  "Heck, ma'am, I still believe in jolly ole St. Nick. Whoever told you there's no Santa Claus was sadly mistaken."

  Wendy's gaze collided with Peggy Jo's. "Mommy told me there is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy and—"

  "Well, sugar plum…" Jack put his arm around Wendy's waist. "I suppose that's just a matter of opinion. And I'm of the opinion that little girls have the right to believe in magic and fairy dust and never-never land."

  "What's fairy dust?" Wendy asked. "And what's never-never land?"

  Peggy Jo cleared her throat. Jack met her gaze head-on. "Hasn't your mommy ever read to you about Peter Pan?"

  "No, we don't read fairy tales and stuff like that. Mommy, says that there is no Prince Charming and that fairy tales are a bunch of hooey. We girls have to take care of ourselves."

  "Oh, I see." Jack's brow wrinkled when he frowned. "Maybe Mommy will let me buy you a copy of Peter Pan and read it to you. There's no Prince Charming in the book, but there is a little girl named Wendy."

  "There is?" Wendy's blue eyes widened with surprised delight.

  After placing her canned drink on a coaster atop a side table, Peggy Jo sat down on the sofa between Wendy and Jack. "Wendy, honey—"

  Wendy jumped into Peggy Jo's lap. "Mommy, please, can Jack buy me that book and read it to me? Mrs. Clement has read us some stories with happily-ever-after endings at school and I know better than to believe that they're true."

  Peggy Jo felt about an inch high. What must Jack think of her parenting skills, depriving her child of bedtime stories filled with sentimental hogwash? Her own mother had read those happily-ever-after tales to her once upon a time, and she had believed them with her whole heart. Someday my prince… Oh, yeah, sure. Buck Forbes had swept her up into his white pickup and taken her straight to hell.

  Damn it, she didn't care what Jack thought or what anyone else thought for that matter. She had done what she believed right—she was protecting her child from the disillusionment and hurt that she had felt when she realized the truth. Her main goal was to be a good mother to Wendy, but how could she be a good mother if she didn't protect her child? Perhaps now, as a six-year-old Wendy might miss out on the delights of daydreams that could never come true; but as an adult, she would thank Peggy Jo. Wouldn't she?

  Don't let Jack Parker make you doubt yourself, make you doubt that you're a good mother!

  Okay, so what would it hurt if she let Jack buy Wendy a copy of Peter Pan? She would just have to remind her child that the story was make-believe and that no one, not even Peter Pan, can live in never-never land and remain a child forever.

  "Mommy!"

  "Oh, sorry, sweetpea." Peggy Jo lifted a stray curl off Wendy's cheek and tucked the silky, black strand behind her ear. "If Mr. Parker wants to buy a copy of Peter Pan and read it to you, he may. If you're sure you want to hear it."

  "I do, Mommy. I do." Wendy threw her arms around her mother's neck and hugged with all her might. "Can we go buy the book today?"

  "Not today," Peggy Jo said, "but—"

  "How about we make a trip to the bookstore tomorrow?" Jack suggested. "You and your Mommy and me."

  "Yippee!" Wendy cried. "Mommy, can I call Martha Jane and tell her that Jack's going to buy me a book and we're all going together tomorrow to buy it?"

  "Well, yes, I suppose…"

  Before Peggy Jo could finish the sentence, Wendy jumped off the couch and flew into the kitchen, where she shoved a chair up to the wall telephone. Within minutes she had dialed her friend's number and was chatting away like mad.

  Jack leaned back into the soft, overstuffed sofa, spreading his big body into a comfortable position. He studied Peggy Jo, looking her up one side and down the other.

  "Do you think you've been fair to Wendy, denying her the magical world of imagination?" Jack asked.

  "I don't consider it denying her something," Peggy Jo replied. "I see it as protecting her from future hurt and disappointment. My mother fed me all that garbage about Prince Charming and magical worlds where everyone lives happily ever after. And when I learned it was all a lie, it hurt me more because I had once believed in it."

  "Once again, we have a difference of opinion. My father taught me to believe in all the same bunk. I was told there was a Santa Claus and a Tooth Fairy." Jack avoided her direct gaze. "When I learned some of life's hard lessons, I found it rather comforting to remember a time when I'd believed in magic, when life had been fun and easy and anything was possible."

  "Good for you," Peggy Jo said, then realized how sharply she'd spoken. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you."

  "Have you really lost all your faith in those magical, mystical things you believed in as a child?"

  How could she answer him without exposing more of the hurt and anger that never quite went away, that stayed buried deep inside her? She was saved from responding by Wendy, who came racing back into the den and plopped down between Peggy Jo and Jack.

  "Martha Jane asked me if Jack's your boyfriend," Wendy said. "And I told her he was our friend. Yours and mine. Was that okay?"

  Peggy Jo laughed. "Yes, that was okay."

  Wendy reached out both arms in opposite directions and latched on to Jack's neck and then Peggy Jo's neck. Her little hands encouraged them to draw closer, bringing them together, with only her small body between them.

  "Oh, boy, this is the best Thanksgiving ever," Wendy said.

  Peggy Jo glanced at Jack who was staring at her. Their gazes locked and held, a silent, sensual message passing between them. For the life of her, Peggy Jo couldn't break eye contact, and when Wendy slipped down and off the sofa, leaving only a narrow space between the two adults, Peggy Jo couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

  "Friends kiss friends sometimes, don't they?" Wendy rubbed her hands together, her wide-eyed expression hopeful.

  Peggy Jo sucked in a deep breath. Jack's lips spread into a wide grin, then he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Her face flushed with embarrassment. And her body warmed with sensual heat.
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  Wendy clapped her hands as she jumped up and down.

  * * *

  "That had to be the best meal I've ever eaten," Jack said, rubbing his full stomach as he lounged on the den sofa. He hadn't shared Thanksgiving with a family in several years. Not since he'd spent his mother's last Thanksgiving with her and her fifth husband in their Dallas penthouse. Before her death four years ago, Libbie Reid had buried two husbands and divorced three. She had gone through mates as if they were disposable tissues.

  He'd asked Peggy Jo's permission before putting his feet on the coffee table and had been surprised when she had plopped down beside him and put up her feet alongside his.

  "Thanks for the help in the kitchen," Hetty said. "Y'all enjoy your football game. I'm headed upstairs to my room. Got a good book waiting for me."

  "I'm going to stay down here with Mommy and Jack," Wendy said as she crawled up into Jack's lap. "Jack's going to teach me about football."

  "Oh, he is, is he?" Hetty chuckled as she walked out of the kitchen.

  "Sure you don't mind me monopolizing the TV this afternoon?" Jack asked.

  "If we get tired of football, Wendy and I both have sets in our rooms," Peggy Jo replied. "But for now, I think we'll just stay put. I want to watch you teach Wendy about the game."

  Jack sensed that Peggy Jo wanted to see how long his patience lasted with a six-year-old. Every time he turned around, it seemed that she was testing him, scrutinizing how he would react in any given situation. She had reluctantly admitted that she trusted him, but he figured that trust went only so far. She trusted him to do his job, to protect her, but in every other way she saw him as just another man. And she believed that men in general were not trustworthy. He figured that a woman had to have been mighty disillusioned to bear such strong resentment toward the entire male sex. He wondered if she made every man in her life jump through hoops to prove himself worthy.

  Jack snuggled Wendy comfortably on his lap. "Now, let's see where to begin. Hmm. Okay, there are two teams. The members of one team are all wearing red jerseys and the members of the other team are all wearing blue jerseys."

  "What's jerseys?"

  "Shirts," Jack and Peggy Jo answered simultaneously. Wendy studied the burly players, then glanced over at Peggy Jo. "They're all men. Don't girls play football?"

  Peggy Jo lifted her eyebrows, tilted her head and stared straight at Jack, as if daring him to answer the question without coming off sounding like a total chauvinist.

  "Girls don't play high school, college or professional football," Jack said. "Take a look at those guys. They're mighty big. Not too many girls grow up to be that large, so if they played football with those big ole bruisers, they'd be at a disadvantage."

  "What's disvantage mean?" Wendy frowned.

  "Well, it just means it wouldn't be fair to girls if they played a sport with boys that are twice their size." Jack spoke to Wendy, but kept his gaze fixed to Peggy Jo's face. She was just waiting for him to slip up, to say something politically incorrect, so she could jump on him with both feet. Well, he had no intention of proving her right about men. He planned to be the most charming, easygoing good ole boy she'd even known. Why, by bedtime tonight, Miss Peggy Jo just might find herself liking her bodyguard.

  "Oh, I see." Wendy yawned. "Okay, so tell me some more about football."

  Jack winked at Peggy Jo, then began again, doing his best to explain in simple, six-year-old-girl language the basics of the game. By the time the game got into full swing, Wendy's eyes blinked open and shut and instead of commenting on what he was telling her, she just made little affirmative noises. And by halftime, Wendy was sound asleep.

  "Want me to take her upstairs and put her in bed?" Jack asked.

  "Yes, thanks," Peggy Jo replied. "She doesn't usually take a nap in the afternoons, but she's had a big day today."

  Jack rose to his feet, the sleeping child in his arms, and headed for the hallway. As he made his way upstairs, the warm, cuddly weight of Wendy's little body held close to his heart, Jack's mind filled with some rather unfamiliar thoughts. Thoughts about a home and children. And a wife.

  He laid Wendy in the center of her canopy bed, then covered her with a hand-crocheted afghan of pink roses. A lock of unruly dark curls fell across her check. Jack eased the curls back into place, then leaned over and planted a kiss on her forehead.

  Hell, who'd have thought that spending two days with a precocious six-year-old would have him yearning for hearth and home, for pipe and slippers. Maybe his age had something to do with these unbidden thoughts. After all, he was thirty-eight, an age when most men were married and raising a family.

  But he'd never wanted marriage and was too old-fashioned to bring children into this world outside the bonds of holy matrimony. He figured kids had it hard enough as it was, why burden them with the extra problem of having unwed parents? He had sworn when he'd been thirteen and his father had killed himself—put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger—that he would never let a woman have enough power over him to send him into a suicidal tailspin if she left him.

  Libbie had been a beautiful woman with the ability to reduce men to blithering idiots. His father had been the first of many who had succumbed to the lady's irresistible charm. There had been a time when even Jack had been under her spell. He'd thought she was the most fabulous lady on earth and had loved it when people compared him to her. His father had said many times, "Jack looks like his old man, but he's got his mother's charm."

  But everything changed the day his father died. The day Jack discovered the suicide note lying beside Jeb Parker's body. He had memorized his father's final words:

  Libbie, my dearest love, I know I must set you free to be with another. But I cannot bear the thought of living without you. Be happy, and if you ever think of me, think of me kindly. And try to help Jack remember me as a good man and a good father.

  He hadn't cried for his father ever again, not since that day. He had loved the guy! Why hadn't his father lived for him? Even if Libbie had left them, they could have made it all right without her. Why'd he have to go and kill himself?

  Jack took his time going back downstairs. Peggy Jo was probably wondering what was taking him so long. He had no intention of telling her his thoughts—not his laments about his parents nor his foolish thoughts about a family of his own.

  When he returned to the den, he found it empty. The halftime show was still on TV. Where was Peggy Jo? If she had gone upstairs, he would have met her on his way down. Surely she hadn't gone outside for some reason. He moved into the kitchen, scanning the area thoroughly. The back door stood wide open. Damn! What had she been thinking? Didn't she know that if her stalker could leave a box on her back porch, he could just as easily be there himself, waiting for her. Jack's Glock 9 mm—that had a safety lock on it—was upstairs. Peggy Jo had asked him not the wear the gun in the house around Wendy, and he had reluctantly agreed.

  He eased carefully toward the door and looked out on the porch. There she was, kneeling over something on the ground. He surveyed the backyard and saw nothing unusual. Trees, shrubs, winter-dead grass, Wendy's small playhouse, which was attached to her wooden gym set. As he stepped out on the porch, Peggy Jo rose to her feet and turned sideways. She held a scruffy orange-and-white kitten in her hands and spoke to it in a low, soothing voice.

  "Hello, there little fellow. Are you lost or did someone just toss you out with the trash. Huh?" Peggy Jo brought the dirty ball of fur close to her face, but wisely kept enough distance so that if the kitten lashed out, it couldn't strike her.

  He watched as she continued talking to the stray animal. Cooing to it. Stroking it lovingly. Suddenly she snapped her head around, apparently sensing his presence. An odd expression crossed her face, as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't.

  "Hi," she said. "I heard a crying sound coming from the backyard and when I looked outside I saw this little fellow. He's just a baby, probably only a few weeks old."
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br />   Jack came down the steps and out into the yard. "You don't suppose he belongs to a neighbor and just wandered away."

  She shook her head. "No, I don't think so. I think maybe somebody dumped him. Look how skinny and dirty he is."

  Jack reached out carefully to pet the kitty's head, but the tiny animal didn't react. Poor little ratty-looking thing was practically lifeless. "Well, why don't you bring him inside and let's see if he'll drink some milk. I have a feeling he's half-starved."

  "I can't bring him inside."

  "Why not?"

  "If Wendy sees him, she'll want to keep him."

  "So?" Jack shrugged.

  "You don't understand. I've never allowed her to have a pet."

  "Why not?"

  Peggy Jo avoided looking directly at Jack, instead, she studied the kitten. "If I got her a pet and something happened to it, she'd be devastated. I just couldn't risk—"

  Jack groaned. "Okay, why don't you tell me about it?"

  "About what?"

  "About the cat you loved and lost."

  "It wasn't a cat. It was a dog. My mother's dog," she said. "Buster was the most adorable little Boston terrier you've ever seen. He'd been given to my mother as a sixteenth birthday present, so she loved him like a baby. When Mama died, I was seven. Buster was fourteen. After we lost her, he grieved himself to death."

  "That must have been rough for you." Jack felt an overpowering urge to pull Peggy Jo—and kitten—into his arms. She had no idea how adorable she looked standing there holding that damn scraggily, half-dead cat.

  "The worst part was that my father refused to allow me to have another pet." She paused, as if considering carefully her next words. "When he remarried, he and his new wife bought her son a little bulldog their first Christmas together."

  "Son of a bitch," Jack cursed under his breath. "Come on—" Jack put his arm around Peggy Jo's shoulder. "Let's take Fur Ball into the kitchen and find him some cream to lap up."