“A bit?”
“You’ll get used to it. Decorate it and then, when the season is over, plant it. In a year it will be bigger than the barn.” When he decided she truly didn’t appreciate his humor, he sobered. “Look, Jude, it’s Christmas.”
“I know that, but we have a tree!”
“From what Wes told me, it’s not even big enough to put a present under.”
“Okay. So now we have one that can accommodate an entire toy store!” She huffed, saw her breath, and shivered. “In case you didn’t notice, I could barely open my door enough to send you outside just now!”
He smiled! And shrugged out of his jacket. “Here, take this. I at least have on a shirt and a sweater.” He draped the coat over her shoulders, and two kinds of warmth enveloped her. Only one had to do with the jacket.
“I’m sorry if I overstepped,” he said. “Wait a minute. I’m not sorry. I wanted to do this. Christmas is only a week away.”
She knew she wasn’t going to make him take the tree away. Wesley was already falling in love with the prickly monster. And perhaps it would be nice to have a fully grown evergreen in her yard. Once the decision was made, she glanced toward his car where the ropes that had held the tree on the top were dangling from the roof. “What decorations did you get?” she asked.
He started toward the car. “You’ll love them. Among other things, I got Western-themed ones—horses, sleighs, cowboy boots and hats.”
Okay, this tree would have some redeeming qualities. “No goat decorations?” she said.
He laughed. “They weren’t in stock. I ordered some.”
She came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. “You know, Liam, my concern is about more than just a tree.”
He was serious when he turned around. “I know that.”
“Wesley is completely taken with you. He talks about you all the time. He can’t wait to see you. And since Sunday night, he has been raving nonstop about all the cool things you do. You’ve become a major force in his life whether you want to be or not. I can’t have him thinking that those dangerous activities are in his future. There is no way that, as long as I hold some influence over him, I would allow him to do any of those things.”
“I get it, and it’s your call.” Liam grasped her arms. “I’ll talk to him, Jude. I’ll emphasize how much training is involved for what we do. I’ll make it sound like we have weeks of homework in advance of the actual act. He won’t think it’s so glamorous then.”
She nodded. That might help and put Liam’s endeavors in the realm of a six-year-old’s grim reality. But Wesley’s connection to Liam probably wouldn’t be altered. Kids were messy. They misbehaved. They ate in the car, they brought home strange animals. And Liam hadn’t “signed up” for a relationship with kid duties.
He kissed the top of her head. “It’s Christmas, Jude. Let’s spruce up a spruce.”
She smiled, feeling for the first time this season that it actually was Christmas. “A Douglas fir!”
* * *
IT TRULY WAS a beautiful tree. Once Liam and Jude had moved the furniture around, there was enough room for the evergreen. Wesley enjoyed every moment of decorating, getting a kick out of the cowboy decorations and even some special ornaments of the night sky that Liam had managed to find.
They’d only stopped long enough to eat pizza delivered by the only shop in town familiar with the location of the barn at Dancing Falls. Jude found a bottle of wine in her cupboard, and Wesley was allowed his weekly quota of soda.
Now Wesley was in bed. A fire crackled on the hearth, and the scent of one overly large, magnificent Douglas fir filled the living room. Jude and Liam sat on the sofa. The TV wasn’t on. The tree lights were entertaining enough. Soft, light classical music accompanied the sound of the fire. And the bottle of wine was empty on the coffee table.
Jude sighed with contentment. All was certainly not right with her world, but this moment couldn’t have been any more perfect. “Thank you, Liam. Wesley loves the tree.”
He tightened his arm around her shoulders. “You’re welcome.”
“But don’t think that if Wes calls you and says he wants a swimming pool in the backyard, you can send in an excavator.”
He chuckled. “I get it. Talk to you first.”
“That’s the plan from now on.”
His voice lowered as he spoke in her ear. “So, are we good now, Jude? All that stuff from the other night is over and forgotten?”
He couldn’t be that naive. As comfortable as this cold night, a warm fire and a wonderful tree made them feel, the underlying problem still existed. If all she wanted was a casual relationship, one where she didn’t love too much, then this would be fine. She could see Liam occasionally. He could go off on his exploits, and whatever happened had no power to destroy her heart again.
But she already loved too much, and that was the problem.
“Liam...” She paused. She didn’t know how to answer him. She didn’t want to utter the words that would tell him how she felt and end the moment, maybe forever.
After an extended silence, he sat straight, turned to see into her eyes. “Tell me what your fears are all about, Jude. It’s the only way we can move forward. Tell me about Paul.”
Five years earlier
PAUL HAD BEEN gone for two weeks. No, that’s not true, she kept telling herself. He’d been gone for months. But two weeks ago, he’d been killed by some insidious bomb, and now he was dead. Jude’s days were endless hours of trying to be a mother to the child who would never know his father, trying to convince her worried parents that she was fine, trying to shower and eat and get dressed.
When her father brought the FedEx box from the big house, Jude wanted to scream at him to take it away. The return address from a foreign army post convinced her that she didn’t want to see what was inside. In his most comforting voice, Martin told her opening the box might help her.
It didn’t.
The contents were now in a locked box on her closet shelf, up high where Wesley couldn’t get to them until she felt the time was right. For days she considered throwing the items away, but, in the end, she kept them so her son might know something about his father that her bitterness prevented her from ever telling him.
On that horrible day when the box was delivered, while her father held her young son, Jude went through the items one by one. Paul’s wallet with her picture first, their son’s birth picture second. The wallet had contained thirteen dollars in American money. He’d just received a paycheck and, as usual, had sent the majority to her. Maybe he’d intended to get a beer with the money. Or shaving supplies, or maybe a stake to play cards for dimes and quarters. She didn’t know what soldiers did with their money.
There was a rabbit’s foot. Silly, but he’d gotten it as a child and he always carried it. His cell phone, a flip type that no one even used anymore. One playing card, an ace of hearts. She didn’t know why he carried that. There were other odd items. A polished stone, a menu written in Arabic, a label from a Budweiser bottle. She knew alcohol was not sold in Arab countries and imagined the symbol of an American beer was a reminder of home.
Along with these things, she made a copy of his last email and put it in the box. Going to accompany a small division delivering supplies tomorrow, Judie. I’ll be fine. The road has been checked for explosives. Just a reminder, sweet thing, I love you with all my heart except for that part reserved for Wesley. Tell him his daddy loves him. And remember... I will come home to you soon.
Damn you, Paul, she’d thought at the time—the reaction she always seemed to have when she read his promises. Damn you for leaving me. And, even worse, damn you for dying. Why did you have to be a hero? Heroes often don’t come home. And what do the ones who love them have to show for this heroism? A rabbit’s foot and a Budweiser label.
He’d stood, tucked the box under his arm. “I’m sorry this has caused you such pain,” he’d said. “I’d hoped that looking at these things would make you see what happened in a new light. But, Jude, honey, you can be proud of the man...”
“Don’t even say it, Daddy!” she’d ground out through gritted teeth. “He shouldn’t have gone. He should be here now! Any pride I might have felt is wasted on a dead man.”
Weeks later her father brought the box back to her along with his earnest suggestion that the items belonged here, with her. She put the box on the closet shelf. She never opened it again, and her resentment grew like black mold in her bloodstream, and her guilt for feeling this way consumed her. Pride for the hero did not warm her bed at night. She was over the cruel machinations of men and the inexplicable reasons they found for doing unreasonable things.
* * *
SHE STARED INTO Liam’s soft brown eyes, and her next breath caught in her throat as if there wasn’t enough air in the room to fill her lungs. And slowly, deliberately, she began to tell him about Paul ending with the story of her greatest loss.
Liam listened with what seemed to be his entire self. He didn’t move, hardly blinked, didn’t even appear to breathe. He let Jude tell her story her own way without asking questions. And because he kept himself in the background of the events of her life, she was able to get through it.
Chronologically and almost unemotionally, she presented the facts of what had happened beginning when she first met Paul. She explained Paul’s announcement on the night he told her he’d enlisted, the night that changed everything. And she explained her reaction. And somehow she even managed to tell about the day the army chaplain came to her house and later, when the box arrived.
When she was finished, Liam gently put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Jude,” he said.
She blinked when her eyes began to burn. “I guess what made it even worse is that I waited my whole life for Paul. I didn’t know it, of course, but the day I met him I just knew he was the one. I immediately decided that there was no better man for me than Paul O’Leary. He had been born to be with me.”
Though her bottom lip trembled, she smiled. “I was never popular,” she said. “Alex had several brainy boyfriends, ones who were wired to succeed. And Carrie... She had all sorts of boyfriends from the cutest to the most athletic. All she had to do was bat her long eyelashes, and the guys came running. I was the wild one who attracted the wrong guys, the ones who dared me, got me into trouble, but never really saw me as serious girlfriend potential.
“My mother told me to try and be less intimidating. ‘You don’t have to win every argument, Jude,’ she’d said. ‘You don’t have to win at every game. Life isn’t always about competition.’ It was good advice. I just didn’t know how to implement it. I was always fighting. Fighting to be noticed. Fighting to protect some poor creature. Fighting for a cause. Mom said I scared the right kind of boys away. Maybe she knew what she was talking about. But in the end, the right guy did find a way into my life, and my future was set. I could quit fighting. I’d been noticed.”
Liam took her hand. “Believe me, honey, you are still being noticed. No one could ignore a beautiful bridesmaid in tennis shoes.”
She managed to smile at the image she must have presented that night, fighting even then to prove she was not part of the crowd. “You’re just being nice, but I appreciate it even so.”
“I’m not being nice. I believe my fall for Jude O’Leary began that night on the country club balcony, and it has been an unpredictable ride ever since. It hasn’t been easy, but it hasn’t been boring. And now I want a future with you, Jude, for as long as we want to be together. But I also know that our life is not about just the two of us. There seems to be always four people in the room—you, me, Wesley and Paul.”
“And what about Wesley? He has to be my first concern and he already is infatuated by you. He admires you, hangs on your every word. Are you willing to give up your summer adventures to stay with us?”
“I know how you feel, and we need to talk about Wesley and your concerns.”
“Are you?” she said again. “I can’t let him follow you in all that you do.”
“One problem at a time, okay?” He sighed. “Wesley’s a good kid and I think we’ll work it out, but first, I don’t know what to do about Paul.”
“What do you mean?”
“I now know who he was, how you met, why you loved him. I know how you felt about him from the day you first saw him. But I’m not sure how you feel about him now. And of all the stumbling blocks that exist between us—differences about the foundation, distance between where we live, your feelings that I might corrupt Wes...” He smiled. “I think your feeling for Paul is the one we need to conquer. I don’t expect you to forget him. I don’t even expect you to release him from your heart, but if it’s going to work between you and me, you have to make room for someone else.”
She blinked through gathering moisture in her eyes, but gave him a steady gaze. “I will always love him, but I don’t believe I will ever forgive him.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “I know that sounds selfish, but he volunteered, Liam. He wanted to join the army. He didn’t have to go. He wanted to. He didn’t even discuss it with me. And when he told me, I realized I’d never known this part of him at all, not the man he truly was. And that’s the part I can never forgive.”
Liam released a deep sigh. “It’s impossible for me to judge a man I’ve never met. I do know you, Jude. And the way I see it, you have to do one thing to get on with your life.”
“One thing?” Could the confusion and bitterness of the last few years be cured by the application of only one thing?
“Yep. You have to forgive Paul. You have to accept the man he was and let it go. He will never be able to explain himself to you. He will never be able to make you understand why he enlisted. He will never tell you about the last moments of his life and why he made the decisions he made. I understand that you want those answers. But, Jude, you can’t have them, so you have to let them go unanswered. To do that you have to remember the man who loved you and forgive the man who hurt you.”
He covered her hands until she stopped twisting her fingers. Then he raised one palm to his lips and gently kissed it. “Can you do that?” he asked.
“I don’t know. The idea of forgiveness has become one with my feelings of guilt. How can I feel this way about a hero, a man who gave his life to save others? What kind of horrible person am I to resent a man who died for his country? But I do resent him. He didn’t have to be a hero, any more than you have to risk everything you do every summer...”
She took a moment to quell the trembling in her stomach. “I don’t know if my son and I can be a part of your life, Liam, if you put these dangerous exploits above our needs. If I can’t trust you to stay safe and put my concerns above those of your friends, how can I trust you in other things?”
He remained silent for long moments, her hand still in his. Finally he said, “Jude, what is danger anyway? Does it only exist in a war zone, or on a mountainside or on the Appalachian Trail? Honey, danger is all around us. It exists in our cars every time we take the wheel. It exists in crowded classrooms where kids are petri dishes for germs. It exists in the barn where that cranky horse of yours scares everyone. Heck, this beautiful Douglas fir could catch fire tonight. Danger is everywhere, but you can’t stop living. You can’t barricade yourself in these four rooms.”
She wanted his words to change her. She wanted them to make sense, and they did, but they couldn’t alter her thinking. “A person can still make choices, Liam, and your choices are not mine and never will be. And your choices are not right for my son, and I will neve
r compromise about that. He thinks what you do is fun and exciting. He’s too young to know any better.”
He stroked the hair where it fell to her shoulder. “Jude, honey, what I do is fun and exciting, but I approach every activity with caution and common sense. To some people diving headfirst off the high board is fun. But would you do it without knowing how deep the water is? It’s fun to ride the river rapids, but would you do it without a life jacket?”
She bit her lip, knowing that what she was going to say would destroy all of Liam’s arguments. “And I suppose the thought of war is exciting to some, but would you go if you didn’t have to, if you had a wife and child on the way?”
She took her hand from his and touched his cheek. “I’m sorry, Liam. You are a good man. I care very much for you. But I can’t pretend that I will support your efforts to challenge death every summer. I can’t go through the loss of someone I...” She stopped, knowing what words were about to slip from her mouth “...someone who is close to me,” she said. “This time, I don’t think I would survive.”
He layered his hand over the one that still touched his cheek. “It’s okay, Jude. Let’s not talk about it anymore tonight. Let’s just agree that it’s a beautiful tree.”
When her lips curled into a grin, she felt renewed. “Yes, it is. I love it, and Wesley is thrilled.”
“That’s enough for tonight, then,” Liam said. “But if you think I’m giving up on us, then you don’t know me too well. You, Jude O’Leary, are the most hardheaded, fascinating, wonderful woman I have ever known. And perhaps the most wounded, but I hope, I pray, that can be made right.”
Her face flushed with warm, intense emotion. And when he bent to kiss her, the warmth spread throughout her entire body. She kissed him back, telling him in her own way, thanks for listening, for understanding. She didn’t have any answers tonight, but for now, she had Liam.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TWO YEARS AGO, for his Christmas gift, one of Martin’s patients gave him a police scanner unit. Many nights he listened to the calls coming in to the local station. The activity kept him informed on his neighborhood and made him more aware of potential problems.
The Bridesmaid Wore Sneakers Page 18
