“Gina,” Ma warned, “don’t you hurt him.”
“Yeah, little sister, don’t you hurt me,” he mocked, still holding his hand aloft.
But Ma wore only mild concern beneath a smile that testified to her joy at all her chicks being home together under one roof on this Christmas Eve.
Gina glared at him, but her smile gave her away. “Fine. But so help me, if I find out you cheated, I will hurt you!”
The doorbell interrupted their merriment.
Ma looked up at the clock. “Eight-fifteen? Geoff must have gotten away early!” Her face lit up and she slipped from her chair and started for the door. “I’ll get it.”
“You might wanna take your cards with you!” Gina smirked and hollered after her, “That is, if you don’t want certain people peeking at them.”
“What?” Lucas feigned outrage. “You don’t trust me? Since when have I ever been a cheater?”
“Since tonight, for one.”
His sister’s impish grin prompted him to pop her in the bicep, then duck out of reach before she could return the favor.
It had been a good night. They all felt Pop’s absence keenly, but unlike last year when their grief was so fresh, they’d been able to talk about Pop and even laugh together, summoning funny stories from Christmases past. Surprisingly, it had been a Christmas full of laughter and full of love. Lucas could almost feel Pop’s presence in the remembering.
He’d been reminded especially of a Christmas Eve twenty years earlier when Pop had told the Christmas story the way he always did. Only on this night a seven-year-old Lucas had taken the story to heart. Pop had segued from Christmas story to Easter story, and Lucas had opened his heart to the truth of Christ’s life and death.
He’d faltered from that faith over the years, but his father’s example lived on, and recently Lucas had felt God’s presence strong with him, the way he had as a little boy on that Christmas night.
He was three weeks into his recovery from the most recent surgery, and time was going far more quickly than he’d anticipated. It helped having his sisters home from college, especially since Gina had taken over Sparky’s basic training for the time she was home.
He’d managed to keep plenty busy researching and filling out applications to the various K-9 and accelerant detection training schools around the country, and at the same time, he was working on developing a specialized program for training Sparky himself—just in case he didn’t get accepted into any of the established programs.
One way or another—he was going to do this.
The day he’d come home from the hospital, he’d not only felt God’s peace come over him—in a way so convincing he had yet to try to explain it to anyone—but he’d become convicted of God’s calling. This passion he felt, the urgency to take Sparky and complete the training with him, was more than a whim. God was behind it somehow and had put Sparky in his life for a reason. He felt certain of that now. And he was going to do whatever it took to follow through. Unless he heard God say “no more.”
Feminine voices—familiar voices—in the entryway drew him from his reverie.
Ma was talking in animated tones. “No, really,” she chirped. “Please come in. I know he’d love to see you.”
Next thing he knew, there stood Jenna beside his mom under the archway between the living room and the great room where they’d set up their rowdy card game.
Jenna looked decidedly uncomfortable and decidedly beautiful, her cheeks flushed from the cold and her hair in wispy waves about her face.
She put up a hand in an anemic wave. “Hi, Lucas. I heard … you got hurt. I thought maybe you were still in the hospital.”
“I’m home. Have been for a couple of weeks.” Scraping back his chair, he held her gaze, trying unsuccessfully to read what was in her face. He wondered if she was angry he hadn’t called. He’d wanted to. Started to a couple of times. But then the words would come back to haunt him. Words he’d felt so strongly after the last time they were together: She was Zach’s wife.
And then he’d gotten hurt and went into the hospital. … He shook his head to clear his thoughts and hopped over to where Ma had put his crutches.
“Oh, please don’t get up.” Jenna backpedaled toward the entryway. “I’m not staying.” She turned to his mother, then back to him. “I’m really sorry to interrupt your family’s Christmas. I just wanted to make sure you were … okay.”
Victoria put her cards down and hurried around the table. “Nonsense. Pull up a chair. We were just about to beat Luc’s socks off.”
He shot Jenna a sheepish grin. “They were after more than my socks, let me tell you.”
“Luc!” Gina and Victoria chided in unison as if he’d said something risqué.
He laughed and hobbled back to his chair, motioning Jenna after him. He was surprised—shocked really—that she’d dropped by like this. But he had to admit she was a sight for sore eyes.
Gina dragged another chair up to the table, and Victoria scooted over to make room beside Lucas. He patted the chair. “Come on, Jenna. Have a seat.”
“I really didn’t mean to intrude,” she said again. But she sat beside him.
Ma made casual introductions, and Lucas was grateful she did it without mentioning Jenna’s relationship to Zach. Victoria and Gina went out of their way to make Jenna feel welcome, offering her a glass of soda and dealing a new hand of cards to include her in their game.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that his sisters were in cahoots playing matchmaker. He wondered what they’d think if they knew this was his buddy’s wife sitting beside him. As high schoolers, Victoria and Gina had met Zach at the station and shared a crush on him before they found out he was married.
But his mother knew who Jenna was, and she didn’t seem to think it mattered. In fact, if he was reading things right, she was in on the matchmaking shenanigans.
He slid to the far side of his chair, not about to give them any satisfaction for their efforts.
While they were explaining to Jenna how to play the card game—Hand and Foot—the doorbell rang again.
“There he is.” Ma’s coloring heightened again, and she scooted her chair out. “Deal Geoff in, will you?”
Lucas reached for the pile of cards four decks high in the center of the table and counted out another set.
Geoff joined them and Lucas watched Ma with him—the way they touched every chance they got, the way she looked at him the same way she used to look at Pop. Gina and Victoria had struggled a little with the idea of their mother remarrying, but they hadn’t seen how happy she was with Geoff—or perhaps more important, being off at school, they hadn’t seen how heartbroken Ma was in those first months after Pop died.
He let himself imagine Jenna looking at him with that same longing. Her presence beside him was unnerving. The scent she was wearing made him want to move closer. But he kept his distance.
At first she seemed almost embarrassed to be there, but as the evening wore on, her laughter lost its nervous edge, and she even joined forces with Victoria and Gina in giving him a hard time. When she won the second round, she almost came off her seat with triumph. They all laughed good-naturedly and she blushed. But it made him happy to see her enjoying herself.
Had she been alone on Christmas Eve? This was her second Christmas without Zach.
After another round of Hand and Foot, which he won soundly—without cheating—his sisters wandered down the hall to the bedroom they shared. His mom and Geoff went down to the family room to watch It’s a Wonderful Life, a tradition Pop had insisted they keep annually.
“Do you want to watch the movie?” Lucas asked Jenna.
“Oh, no. Thanks, but I need to get going. I really didn’t intend to stay. I’m sorry for barging in on your Christmas.”
“Cut it out. Around here the policy has always been ‘the more the merrier.’”
“Well, I appreciate it. I … had fun.”
“My rowdy family didn’t
scare you off?”
“Are you kidding? I love them!” She looked embarrassed to have blurted it out like that.
“Yeah, me too.” He grinned, touched by her enthusiasm. He sought to set her at ease. “I was about to have some of Mom’s pecan pie. How about a slice with some coffee? We’ve got decaf.”
Jenna hesitated.
He winked and looked pointedly at the clock, which was about to strike ten. “You have a hot date or something?”
“No, but—”
“Stay.” It came out more like a command than he intended, but she didn’t seem to notice. He hopped up on one leg and grabbed his crutches. “Please … I want you to.”
“Tell me where things are and I’ll get them.”
He cringed. “Have you seen the kitchen?”
She looked into the next room to where dishes and pots and pans were piled high in the sink and everywhere on the countertops. “Okay, on second thought, you come with me and talk me through it.”
She led the way and he pulled out a high stool at the bar counter and straddled it. He watched her, thoroughly enjoying the view, while he directed her to what she needed for making coffee and dishing up pie.
“So you thought I was in the hospital, huh?”
She didn’t look up from slicing the pie. “Clarissa told me about it.”
“Did you try to see me … at the hospital?” he risked.
She glanced up briefly from her task. “No.” She didn’t elaborate.
When he hadn’t called her as promised after their date, he assumed that would be the end of it. And he’d begun to believe that was for the best. Their relationship was too fraught with complications.
But having her here, watching her interact with his family, he was having second thoughts. Somehow, she seemed as if she belonged here, as if she’d always been a part of them.
While the coffee brewed, Jenna started washing dishes.
“Hey, leave those. Ma will have a cow if she hears I let a guest in this house do dishes while I sat here and watched.”
“I don’t mind. I’ll just do up a few while we wait on the coffee.”
Lucas didn’t argue and went on watching her.
When the coffee sputtered its last, she brought the dessert plates and mugs to the counter and slid onto the stool beside him.
Looking pointedly at his cast, she frowned. “Clarissa said Sparky caused your accident.” It wasn’t a question and he heard the guilt in her voice.
“No,” he said. “Lucas was the cause of my accident.”
Her eyebrows arched in a question.
“The grass was slick with frost that morning. Sparky came running like he always does, and I just slipped. It was my own fault.”
“I’m so sorry, Luc.”
Her use of his nickname was endearing.
“Why would you apologize?” But he knew why.
“Because I’m the one who pushed Sparky off on you.”
“Stop it. You didn’t twist my arm to take him.”
“No, I guilted you into it.”
“Yeah, you big bully.”
She made a face. “I really am sorry. I feel terrible.” She eyed his cast. “How long do you have to wear that thing?”
“Is that why you came tonight? To apologize? Because I’m the one—”
“No, I came because Clarissa said you’d been in the hospital.” She bent her head and stared at the coffee in her mug. “It—scared me. I didn’t expect you to be here. I was just going to find out from your mom how you were doing. I sure didn’t expect you to be up and hopping around.”
He shrugged but couldn’t help smiling. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
She didn’t return his smile, and the furrow in her brow deepened. “I’m relieved.”
“Did you have Christmas with the Morgans?” He was ready to change the subject.
“I—just came from there.”
“I’m glad. I was hoping you’d mend things with them.”
She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t exactly there by invitation.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Wrong subject.
“No. I took them a gift. It—didn’t go very well. I really don’t want to talk about it.” She fingered the necklace at her throat. The same goldfish she always wore.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
She waved him off. “No … I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to come out so rude.” She rose and cleared their plates to the sink. “I’d better go. Thanks again for everything. I really enjoyed the evening.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean to run you off. Don’t go.” He slid from the bar stool and made his way to her, favoring his casted leg and using the countertops as vaulting blocks.
Supporting his weight against the counter, he circled her wrist with his fingers. “Please don’t go, Jenna. I’d like you to stay. I—I owe you an apology.”
She stood stone still, not wanting to break the spell.
26
An apology? What for?” Jenna was keenly aware of his hand on her wrist. His warmth offered something she desperately needed tonight, and she stood stone still, not wanting to break the spell. Not wanting him to realize he was still touching her, and let go.
He studied the kitchen tile before looking up and holding her gaze. “I promised I’d call you and I never did. That night of the fire.”
“Yeah … I noticed.” She let a grin come, then waited, wondering what reason he would offer.
“I’m sorry, Jen. I should’ve—I started to call. More than once.” He ducked his head as if to hide the boyish grin he wore. But when he met her eyes again, his expression had turned serious. “I wish I could say it was just because of the accident. Being in the hospital. But … It just all seems so complicated—you and me.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” she risked. “We can—just be friends. If that’s easier …”
He shook his head. “That’s not where this is headed and you know it.”
She acknowledged the truth of that with a nod. “Okay. Then we can take it slow … to wherever this is headed.”
“Let’s go sit in the living room.” He rubbed at his knee. “My leg is killing me.”
She cringed. “I am so sorry.”
Swinging like a gymnast between his crutches, he gave her a stern look. “No more of that. I mean it. Come here.”
She followed him into the living room, where the scent of pine enveloped them. Old-fashioned colored lights twinkled on a crooked pine—one that looked as if they’d cut it from the woods behind the house. The room was strewn with gift wrap and ribbon, evidence of the family Christmas that had happened here tonight. An acute pang of envy sliced through her.
With one broad sweep of a crutch, Lucas cleared off a space on the sofa.
She laughed. “That’s one way to do it. Glad there wasn’t anything breakable on there.”
“Sit,” he said, looking stern.
“You’re awfully bossy tonight.” But she obeyed.
He sat down on the opposite end of the sofa and tucked his crutches on the floor beneath his feet. The murmured conversation of Lucas’s sisters drifted down the hall to them, bursts of girlish giggling interspersed. Below them, Emily and her fiancé watched the movie, their laughter mingling with the movie’s soundtrack. What must it have been like to grow up in a house like this, surrounded by love and laughter?
They’d lost husband and father—had almost lost Lucas—in the Grove Street fire, and yet the pall of tragedy didn’t lie over this house the way it did the Morgans’. They’d honored Manny’s memory, speaking of him freely and fondly, even in Geoff’s presence.
She tried to put it into words. “You guys seem so … at peace. About your dad, about everything you’ve been through.”
He shrugged. “Christmas was a little easier this year. As hard as it is to see Ma with someone else, it helps to see her happy again.” A shadow passed over his face. “Forgive me. I’m sure it hasn’t been easier for you—this year, I mean. Especia
lly with things the way they are between you and Zach’s parents.”
“Lucas … I wasn’t in love with Zachary.” Why had she just blurted it out like that?
He drew back, looking stunned. “I don’t understand. Is that why the Morgans are angry with you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No one knows—except Bryn. It’s the whole thing with Bryn that set Clarissa off,” she reminded him. “They don’t know … the other. Please don’t say anything.”
“Of course not. But … how could you not—” He shook his head. “Zach was crazy about you, Jen.”
“I didn’t know. Until you told me that night at the coffee shop.”
“How could you not know? The man was absolutely nuts about you. It’s why—one reason—I’ve been so hesitant to—”
“Zach never knew. I … was a great pretender. I never should have said anything. Let’s change the subject.” She pressed her lips together. Why had she started down this road? It was Christmas Eve. She was a guest here. This was not the time. If there ever could be a time for such an ugly admission.
He turned toward her on the sofa and reached for her hand. “Why do you do that?”
She shook her head, not understanding.
“Every time we edge close to sharing something personal, you back away like a scared kitten.”
She forced herself to look into his eyes. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t know why.” She was evading again, and it wasn’t exactly true. She was starting to understand why. But she couldn’t explain it to him.
“Well, stop it.” His tone was gruff, but his eyes held that twinkle that warmed her from the inside out.
“There you go being bossy again.”
He gave her a smug look.
But she couldn’t tease him back. She wanted to change. Especially since Lucas seemed determined to get to know her—the real her. But surely that would scare him off. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about him—or about learning to be more “real.” She forced a smile. “Okay. I’ll try.”
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