"How is Sunny?" Cale looked faintly amused.
"She's fine. She has a darling little girl named Lilly whom she adopted about two years ago," Quinn told him, wondering if he'd been eavesdropping. "When she divorced her husband, she let him buy out her share of their business-a move we all questioned at the time, but she was adamant. Right now, she's looking for something else to do. Eventually, I imagine she'll probably start another business."
"And your other sisters?" Cale sat in the high-back chair, and Quinn took a seat on the sofa, pushing the pile of blankets aside to make a space.
The cabin was oddly quiet, the boys having gone to bed without fuss after Cale told them a rousing, though slightly embellished, story about how the ghost town of Settler's Head really got its name.
"Liza has her own radio talk show in Seattle-I guess Val told you that-and CeCe is hawking jewelry on television." She grinned.
"She's what?"
"CeCe is a sales host on a shopping channel."
"You're kidding." He laughed.
"No, I am not. And if you see her, you will be wise to wipe off that smirk. She takes her job very seriously, and loves every blessed minute of it. She's having a better time than she ever did reporting the news in Abilene."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that she's happy. I always liked CeCe. She was sort of like everyone's big sister. I remember when she used to catch for Sky and me when Trevor wasn't around."
"I remember. You would never let me play."
"Not while you were little, anyway," he said, ancient memories flooding back, of Quinn throwing wobbly pitches to Cale, which he would hit into the woods. Of the two of them, chasing after the ball and taking their time in finding it…
So long ago.
She blushed, as if she'd lifted the memory from his mind.
Sensing her discomfort, he changed the subject abruptly. "You were great with the boys today."
"They really are a lot of fun, Cale. I enjoyed them."
And you. I loved being with you again. Loved watching your face and making you laugh, loved seeing you covered with flour, and watching your sons taking turns patting you on the back to make little white handprints on the back of your sweater. It's breaking my heart all over again, but I wouldn't trade a minute of this time with you. I'll carry these days with me forever…
"I've spent more time doing things with them this week than I ever did before," Cale was saying, "and I have to admit, it has been fun."
"I think the secret may be just to keep them busy with something they like to do."
"I'm just starting to learn what they like to do." His face sank into a frown. "I hate admitting that, that my sons are four years old already and I hardly know them at all."
"Some fathers never get to know their children," she told him.
"Daddy, I can't sleep." A very small voice emerged from the dark hall.
"What's the matter, little buddy?" Cale's face softened as Evan appeared tentatively, his face flushed, his fisted hands rubbing his eyes.
"I had a bad dream."
"Oops." Cale walked to his son and picked him up, resting the little head on his shoulder. "Maybe ghost stories at bedtime weren't such a good idea, after all."
"Will you stay with me?" Evan yawned into his father's neck.
Cale looked at Quinn and she nodded. "I'm kind of tired anyway," she told him. "I'll just get ready for bed and turn in."
"Well…" He hesitated for just a second, then nodded slowly, saying, "I guess I'll see you in the morning."
"Sure. Good night, Cale." She stood and patted the little boy gently on the back. "Good night, Evan."
" 'Night, Quinn," was the sleepy reply.
Cale's footfall echoed softly on the old pine floor as he carried his son back to his bed. Quinn piled logs onto the fire, and changed into the clothes she had worn to bed the night before. Not stylish, certainly not sexy, she noted, but they were warm. And warm was no small thing in the midst of the storm that continued to rage outside the cabin. She hoped that it would stop tomorrow. She just didn't know how much longer she could stand being here with him. She had held on so tightly to the pain he had inflicted on her that, for years, it had been all she had left of him.
Now, being here with him, seeing his face, hearing his laughter again, hearing him say her name, had eroded the wall she had built to keep him out, to make certain that he-that no one-ever came close to her heart again. But it was no use, she knew.
If anything, she thought as she sighed and punched her pillow, the past two days had taught her something she had suspected for years.
If love is deep enough, true enough, it never dies. No matter what
Chapter Nine
"What are we going to do today?" Evan pounced upon Cale from behind.
"There is nothing to do," Eric whined.
"Christmas is in two days." Evan counted on his fingers. "This is the worst Christmas ever."
"How do you figure that?" Cale asked.
"We're stuck in this dumb cabin. Santa Claus will never find us here." Eric's eyes widened at the realization.
The twins looked at each other in horror.
"No Christmas presents?" Evan whispered.
"We don't even have a tree," Eric moaned.
"I wish we'd never come here," Evan announced. "I want to go home."
"We want to go home," Eric repeated.
Just finishing up washing the breakfast dishes-Cale having made his world-famous gloppy eggs that morning-Quinn paused at the sink, then dried her hands on the towel.
"Get your coats on, boys," she told them.
The boys groaned in unison.
"NO. Not a walk," Eric protested. "Daddy, don't let her make us go for a walk!"
"We are going to build a snowman on the front porch," she told them. "There's plenty of snow. Come on."
Without giving anyone an opportunity to protest further, she pushed the boys to the door and assisted Cale in getting them dressed for the outside. After bundling themselves up, Cale and Quinn led the twins through the front door onto the porch.
"Quinn's right," their father told them, "there's more than enough snow for a good snowman."
Soon the snowman began to take shape, and the boys wanted features for the frosty face. A pile of pinecones found under the snow in one corner of the porch supplied eyes, nose, and mouth. The boys admired their creation, but, cold and bored, now that the distraction had ended, they began to complain again.
"We want a Christmas tree, Daddy," Evan told him solemnly. "If we have a tree and Santa does find us, he'll have a place to leave our presents."
Cale had planned on chopping one of the small pines from the back to bring into the cabin. He hadn't counted on a blizzard. A Christmas tree wasn't too much for his sons to ask, he knew. Of course, if Val couldn't get here with their presents, there wouldn't be anything to put under the tree, but he'd worry about that later.
"Guys, go insid
e with Quinn and warm up. I'll be in in a few minutes."
"What are you going to do, Daddy?"
"It's a surprise. Go on." Cale opened the door and shoved them through. "Maybe Quinn can make something hot for you to drink."
"Sure, Cale, but what are you…?" she asked as he scooted her through the door behind the boys.
"You just go on." Cale motioned for her to follow behind his sons, and closed the door. He turned to the snowman and asked, "What would Christmas be without a tree?"
"Well, boys, what do you think?" Cale stood the little tree upon its cut trunk and gave it a twirl.
The boys looked at it in horror.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"What's that?" They frowned.
"This," Cale told them, "is our Christmas tree."
" That's not a Christmas tree!"
" That's a twig!"
Crestfallen, Cale stepped back to take another look at the little tree he had chopped from where it had grown at the foot of the porch steps, trying to see it through his sons' eyes. It had been the only tree he could get to without running the risk of being lost in the storm.
It was a bit… scraggly.
"Why, that tree's just right," Quinn announced, having seen the look of disappointment cross Cale's face. "It'll be wonderful, once we decorate it You'll see, guys. It'll be perfect."
"'We don't have any decorations," Evan wailed.
"Then we'll make them," she told them. "Eric, get out that art kit of yours."
"Oh, brother," the boys moaned joylessly.
"Here." Quinn handed Eric a pair of scissors and a pile of construction paper. "You cut out strips, like this." She folded the paper into strips of equal width, then cut out the first two.
From the art kit, she withdrew a container of paste and, removing the lid, told Evan, "And you can glue the strips together into a chain, see?"
She demonstrated, then held up the two resulting circles. Cutting one more strip, she added the third circle and handed them to Evan.
"We used to do that, Val and I did," Cale said softly from behind her. "With our grandmother. We never had anything on our tree that we hadn't made."
Quinn turned to him, wanting to put her arms around him. From somewhere across the years, the old Cale had come back. She recognized every fiber of him now, recalled all the hurts he had shared with her, all the pain of his mother leaving and his grandmother dying, the shame of having a father who came home only when he had nowhere else to go.
"We made things, too," she told him as she sorted through the pile of colored paper until she found the white. Sitting next to him at the table, she cut wide strips, then folded the strips into squares, over and over until the entire strip was little more than two inches wide. With the scissors, she clipped and trimmed, then unfolded the strip and held it up for him to see.
"It's a chain of hearts," Quinn said simply, holding it out to him.
He met her eyes from across the table, then reached out and took the simple gift she offered, his hand lingering on hers for just a moment.
"Hearts are for girls," Eric said, looking over his father's shoulder.
Cale frowned, and began to fold one of the white strips that Quinn had cut and laid upon the table. When the paper was nothing more than a square, he cut as he had seen her do, then held the paper up so that the hearts unfolded, as hers had done. Smiling, she took his chain and pasted it to the one she had made, and for a long moment, it seemed that time stood still, and they were alone.
"Daddy, are you going to let her hang hearts on our tree?" Eric asked suspiciously.
"I would let her hang whatever she wants on our tree," Cale said softly.
"Boy," Evan grumbled, wondering what had gotten into his dad.
"How might Christmas cookies look on the tree?" Quinn asked.
"Christmas cookies?" The boys asked in unison. Now she had their attention. "Like the ones we made yesterday?"
"Different ones today. Special ones to put on the tree," she told them.
"Yea!" They clapped their hands, and the little demons turned back into little boys again.
"You guys finish the chain," she instructed. "And while you do that, I'll make us some lunch and get stuff ready for cookies."
"How long does the chain have to be?" Eric frowned.
Quinn tried to gauge how long it would take her to make soup from a can and the first batch of cookie dough.
"The chain should reach from the door to the sofa." She nodded, figuring that ought to buy her a little time and keep the boys occupied.
Cale watched her later as she worked with his sons, as she rolled out the dough and patiently showed them how to cut shapes. He watched the small faces of the boys, so intent on learning the new skills, so pleased with their efforts, so eager for Quinn's attention and approval. Their faces were wonders to behold, the boys' and the woman's, and the simple joy of the scene settled around him. As the warmth of the day spread through him, it occurred to him that he could not remember the last time he had been this happy. He wanted to hold on to it with both hands. Instead he leaned against the counter and willed himself not to weep at the sight of the beautiful woman and the two beautiful boys who were busy cutting uneven stars out of cookie dough.
It was all exactly the way he had dreamed it would be. He wondered if it was true what they said, that it was never too late for dreams to come true.
"The tree looks pretty good, fellas," Quinn commented as Cale prepared to carry one young boy under each arm into the waiting tub of warm water.
"It's a great tree," Eric sang gleefully, "and we made it ourselves."
"It doesn't have any sparkly lights," noted Evan.
"It doesn't need lights." Eric tried to swat at his brother. "It's like a pioneer tree, and pioneers didn't have 'lecticity. Right, Dad?"
"Right, son." Cale hoisted the slipping boy a little higher and headed down the hallway.
While Cale was tending to his sons, Quinn cleared up the kitchen and made two cups of tea, which she placed on the table near the fire. It was all so right, it all felt so right, that she wanted to cry. She felt too much at home here. If things had turned out differently, she might have actually belonged here, been a real part of their lives.
She touched the ornaments gently, one then the next. The boys had been so cute making their little cookie ornaments. Lacking food coloring to make colored dough, they had added cocoa to some of the batter, and from the light brown dough had made little bears and wolves, and deer like the ones they had seen in the mountains. Then, from the plain batter, they had made baseballs and bats to hang on the tree for their father. Lastly, they had made mittens in the shape, of their hands out of red and blue construction paper, insisting that Cale and Quinn trace and hang their hands, too. Then they had hung them all on the tree together.
They looked so dear to her, the four hands of colored paper, like Poppa Bear, Momma Bear, and the two Baby Bears. Dear eno
ugh to set her heart to breaking if she dwelled too long on the sight. She wondered what would happen to the decorations once Cale took his sons back to Maryland.
"The boys would like you to come say good night," Cale told her as he came into the quiet room.
"Okay," she said, and set off toward the end of the hall.
It was twenty minutes before she returned to the front of the cabin, the boys having talked her into a story before letting her turn out the light. Cale was stacking wood on the fire and had already made her bed for her.
"The boys had such a great time today," he said without turning around. With the boys in bed, there was little to focus on but Quinn. On her eyes, on her face. On her body. It was only a little less difficult if he couldn't see her. Knowing she was there, behind him, was hard enough.
"I had a great time, too. They are really a lot of fun," she said to his back. "When they're not tying you up, of course."
"I'm sorry about that." Cale laughed, then made the mistake of turning to face her. The nearness of her pierced him to his soul.
His laughter died in his throat and he rested the fire poker against the stone of the face of the fireplace.
"Quinn…" He searched for words, then realized he wasn't even certain of what he had wanted to say, beyond speaking her name. He cleared his throat. "Thanks for all you did with the boys today. I can't remember when I saw them have so much fun. I'll see you in the morning."
If Only in My Dreams Page 9
