Santa's on His Way

by Lisa Jackson

  Carol let out a tiny whimper and Annie picked her up in an instant. Heart in her throat, she held the tiny body close and felt Carol’s breath against her breast—a breast Liam had so recently kissed. Annie’s stomach slowly rolled in anticipation at the thought of his touch. “This is such a mess,” she admitted to the baby. “Oh, Carol, I’m so sorry.” She pressed her lips gently to the baby’s soft, blond curls. “I love you so much.”

  And Liam—do you love him, too?

  She snorted at the ridiculous thought. She didn’t even know the man. And yet she was ready to make love to him. She should never, never have let him kiss her.

  What could she do? What if Liam truly was Annie’s father? What if he made good his promise and took the baby away from her? Tears stung her eyes as she thought about how long she’d wanted a child, how desperately she’d hoped that she could have one of her own and now this . . . this little one was in her arms and oh, so precious.

  “I won’t give you up,” she whispered, though she knew deep in the blackest regions of her heart that her words were only a silly, hopeless promise without any meaning.

  Carrying the child, she reached for the phone and while propping the receiver between her ear and shoulder she bit her lip and dialed the number of the sheriff.

  CHAPTER 6

  Nola drew on her cigarette, waited for the nicotine to do its trick, then flicked the butt into the toilet of the Roadster Cafe. She studied her reflection in the cracked mirror in the tiny bathroom of the truck stop where she’d taken a job just two weeks earlier.

  Her face was beginning to show signs of strain. With a frown, she sighed and brushed her bangs from her eyes. Dark roots were showing in the blond streaks she’d added to her hair. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to have turned out. Not by a long shot.

  She still looked good, or so she tried to tell herself as she applied a new layer of lipstick. Hardly any lines around her eyes and mouth—well, nothing permanent. Though she was younger than her sister by nearly two years, most people thought she was the eldest.

  “Hard livin’,” she muttered under her breath as she dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a finger to swipe away a little raspberry-colored gloss that had smeared. “But things’ll be better.” They had to be. She couldn’t stand too much of this. Life on the run wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She was forever looking over her shoulder or spying someone she was certain she’d known in that other life. Was that only months ago? How had she gotten herself into this predicament?

  “Love.” She spat the word as if it tasted foul. And it did. Would she ever learn? Probably not.

  Determined not to follow the dark path down which her thoughts invariably wandered, she tightened her apron around her waist and felt a glimmer of cold satisfaction that her figure was returning to its normal svelte proportions. Still a little thick around the middle, she was otherwise slim and her breasts were no longer swollen. Back to 36C. Nearly perfect despite the pregnancy. “Hang in there,” she told the woman in the reflection, then felt close to tears yet again. God, when would this emotional roller coaster end?

  Probably never.

  Sniffing loudly, she wiped away any trace of tears from beneath her mascara-laden lashes. In the end it would be worth it and she consoled herself with the simple fact that everything she’d done—be it right or wrong—she’d done for love.

  She ducked through swinging doors that opened to the kitchen, where the fry cook—a greasy-faced kid with bad skin and dishwater-blond hair—gave her the once-over. For some reason he thought he could come on to her.

  Like he had a chance.

  But then the kid didn’t know who she was, or that she’d worked in much better jobs than this, making a decent salary in an office in a big city. For a second she longed for her old life back. Then she caught herself. She’d made her decision and there was no turning back. Not ever.

  “I could use a little help up here,” the other waitress yelled through the open window between the counter and the kitchen.

  “On my way, Sherrie.” Checking her watch as she passed through another set of swinging doors, Nola frowned. The call she’d been expecting was half an hour late. Worse yet, there was a customer using the pay phone—that same man she’d seen in here three days running—going on and on about the weather on the interstate. Great. Ignoring the nervous sweat that beaded between her shoulder blades and under her arms, she gathered up knives, forks, and spoons from the baskets at the busing station and began to wrap the utensils in wine-colored napkins.

  Surely the guy couldn’t talk all night.

  “Hey, baby, how ’bout a refill?” At the counter, one of the customers, a trucker from the looks of him, was leaning over a nearly empty cup of coffee. The wedge of pecan pie she’d placed in front of him fifteen minutes earlier had disappeared, leaving only traces of nuts in a pool of melted ice cream. God, this place was a dive.

  She plastered a smile on her face, the smile guaranteed to garner the best tips from these cheapskates, and reached for the glass pot of coffee warming on the hot plate. “Sure,” she said. “On the house.”

  He chuckled and pulled at the ends of a scraggly red moustache. “Thanks, doll.”

  “Anytime,” she lied as she glanced at the pay phone again. The guy had hung up and taken a table in the corner. Good.

  Now, for the love of Jesus, call!

  “Order up!” the cook shouted and rang a bell to catch her attention. She nearly jumped out of her skin and sloshed coffee onto her apron.

  “Geez, Lorna, you’re a bundle of nerves,” Sherrie observed with a shake of her head. Her teased, over- sprayed black hair barely moved. “That’s the trouble with you big-city girls. Jumpy. You got to learn to relax.”

  “I’ll try.” Wonderful. Now she was getting advice from a woman who raised chihuahuas according to the phases of the moon and believed that space aliens had visited her on the anniversary of her second husband’s death. Good-hearted to a fault, Sherrie Beckett was a woman who could never hope to get out of this tiny town in the southeastern corner of Idaho.

  Nola, or Lorna, as she called herself in these parts, grabbed the platter and carried the special—a hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and canned cranberry sauce on the side—to the booth in the corner where the man who’d been monopolizing the telephone had settled with a copy of USA Today and a cigarette. He barely glanced at her as she slid the plate in front of him, but she had a cold impression that she’d seen him somewhere before—somewhere other than this podunk little town.

  “Anything else?”

  “This’ll do just fine.” He flashed her a disarming grin, jabbed out his smoke, then turned to his meal.

  Man, if she were paranoid she would believe that she’d met him somewhere. But that was impossible. No one knew where she was, not even any member of her family. She’d chosen this wide spot in the road to hide for a few weeks, just until things had cooled down; then, after she heard from her accomplice, she’d split. For Canada. From there the plan was to head to the Bahamas.

  And you’ll never see your baby again.

  Again the stupid tears threatened to rain. Shit, she was a wimp. A goddamned Pollyanna in the throes of postpartum trauma or whatever the hell it was. She had to quit thinking about the baby. The little girl was safe. With Annie. No one in the world would take better care of her. So why the tears? It wasn’t as if Nola had ever really wanted a kid.

  But she couldn’t stop thinking about that little red-faced bundle of energy that had grown inside her for nine long, nervous months.

  Oh, hell, the guy hadn’t even taken a bite of his food and he was back on the phone, tying up the lines. She glanced out the window at the bleak, dark night. A single strand of colored bulbs connected the diner with the trailer park. Inside, a twirling aluminum tree was placed in a corner near the old jukebox. Familiar Christmas carols whispered through the diner, barely heard over the rattle of flatware, the clink of glasses, and the buzz of conver
sation in this truck stop.

  I’m dreaming of a white Christmas . . .

  Nola sighed and poured coffee in the half-filled cups sitting before patrons at the counter. Yeah, well, I’m dreaming of a tropical island, hot sun, and enough rum to soak my mind so I forget about all the mistakes I made. For love.

  “Hey, could we get some service over here?” an angry male voice broke into her reverie.

  “On my way,” she said with a brightness she didn’t feel.

  “Well, make it snappy, will ya?”

  And Merry Christmas to you, too, you stupid s.o.b. “Sure.” She handed the three twenty-odd-year-old macho yahoos their plastic-coated menus and prayed that he would call—and soon. Before she lost what was left of her mind.

  * * *

  “Looks like you were right about Talbott. I’ll be sure soon.” Jake Cranston’s voice crackled and faded on the cellular phone.

  “You talked to him?” Liam’s hand tightened over the steering wheel and he squinted against the coming darkness. Heavy snowflakes fell from the slate-colored heavens so quickly that the Jeep’s wipers were having trouble keeping the windshield clear.

  “Not yet, but it won’t be long.”

  “How long?”

  “Well, I found our missing link.”

  “Nola?” Liam couldn’t believe his ears.

  “Bingo.”

  “Where?”

  “Southeastern Idaho. A remote spot.”

  “But how?”

  “Clever detective work.” There was a chuckle, then his voice faded again. “ . . . Got a break . . . speeding ticket . . . checked with the Idaho . . . police . . . ”

  “I can’t hear you. Jake?” But it was useless. He couldn’t hear a thing. “Call me at Annie’s cabin. The phone there works.” He rattled off the number that he’d memorized several days earlier. “Jake? Did you get that? Oh, hell!” The connection fizzled completely and he hung up. He’d spent the last three days doing some investigating on his own, if you could call it that. With his four-wheel drive rig and chains, he was able to travel around the hilly streets that had been sanded, plowed, and then snowed and iced over again and again. The entire northern Willamette Valley was caught in the grip of a series of storms that just kept rolling in off the coast and dropping nearly a foot of snow each time. Emergency crews were working around the clock and electrical service had been restored to some of the customers, only to be lost by others.

  Liam had spent as much time as he could tracking down the people he’d worked with at the construction company and the rest of the time, he’d been at Annie’s cabin, keeping his distance while trying to learn everything she knew about her bitch of a sister. The damned thing of it was he kept finding excuses to hang out there, to get closer to her. The baby was the primary reason, of course, and the most obvious, but, whether he wanted to admit it or not, his emotions ran deep for the woman who had decided to become the kid’s new mom.

  She’d been nervous around him although he hadn’t touched her again and had resisted the compelling urge to crush her into his arms. He’d slept in the Jeep and dreamed about kissing her until dawn, making love to her until they couldn’t breathe, holding her close until forever. He hadn’t, because she was scared of him and the situation. Every time the phone had rung she’d jumped as if jolted by an electric shock. Twice he’d caught her looking out the window, staring down the drive as if she expected someone to appear.

  Who?

  Nola?

  He’d begun to believe that she really didn’t know if Nola was the mother of the baby, but something was keeping her worrying her lip and wringing her hands when she didn’t think he was watching.

  He turned into the drive and his headlights picked up fresh tracks in the snow. Someone had decided to visit Annie. Fear froze his heart. What if she’d decided to leave? To pack up the baby and take off? Had Nola sensed that Jake was on to her? He tromped on the gas past the main house and then, as he rounded the final corner to the cabin, he stood on the brakes. The Jeep shimmied and slid but stopped four feet from the back of a Sheriff’s Department cruiser. Annie’s Toyota truck was parked in front of the tiny garage, thirteen inches of snow undisturbed on the cab and bed.

  What now? His hands, inside gloves, became clammy. For the first thirty-eight years of his life he’d respected the law and all officers thereof, but ever since his arrest and the days he’d spent in jail, detained on suspicion, his admiration had dwindled to be replaced by serious doubts. There were a dozen reasons the cops could be here—none of them good—but the worst would be if Annie or Carol were in some kind of trouble. Since there were no emergency vehicles screaming down the lane, Liam assumed that they were both all right.

  No, this wasn’t a medical emergency. The deputy was here because of him.

  Bloody terrific.

  He snapped off the engine, grabbed the two bags of groceries he’d bought in town, and stepped into the fresh snow. Whatever the problem was, he’d face it.

  * * *

  Annie heard the sound of the Jeep’s engine and wished she could drop through the old floorboards. She’d called the Sheriff’s Department three days earlier, explained about her predicament, and been told by a patient but overworked voice that they’d send someone out when they could. Other life-threatening emergencies were deemed more important than being visited by a man who claimed to be the father of a child who had been abandoned but was being cared for. Social Services would call back. The Sheriff’s Department would phone when they were able, but she was told to be patient.

  She’d regretted the call since she’d placed it and now, seated on the edge of the sofa, feeding Carol a bottle, she felt foolish.

  “ . . . It was a mistake,” she said, not for the first time. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  “But the child’s not yours.” The deputy, fresh-faced and not more than in his mid-twenties, wasn’t about to be put off. Determined to a fault, convinced that he was upholding every letter of the law, he scratched in his note pad and Annie gave herself a series of swift mental kicks for being so damned impulsive and calling the authorities.

  Liam had returned and she’d never mentioned the call to him; instead she’d kept a distant and quiet peace with the man. He no longer frightened her and she nearly laughed when she remembered that she hadn’t trusted him at first, that she feared for the baby’s well-being. Since that first day she’d observed him with Carol and noticed the smile that tugged at his lips when he looked at his baby. His hands, so large and awkward while holding the infant, were kind and protective. No, as long as Liam O’Shaughnessy was around, the baby had nothing to fear.

  “No, the baby isn’t mine, but I have reason to believe that she is my sister’s little girl. I’ve alerted the proper agencies and talked to Barbara Allen at C.S.D. She said they’d call when the storm passed.”

  “But this O’Shaughnessy was harassing you—”

  “No.”

  “Trespassing?”

  “No. He, um, just thinks the baby may be his. He’s agreed to a paternity test and—”

  Clunk! The door burst open and Liam filled the doorway. His eyes flashed blue fire as he set two full grocery bags on the table and kicked the door closed. “Is there a problem?”

  “No.” Annie was on her feet in an instant. Still carrying Carol, she stood next to Liam. “I was just explaining to Deputy Kemp how I found Carol—and about you.”

  “I’m her father.”

  The deputy scratched his chin. “So you came to claim her?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What about the mother?”

  “Still looking for her. Annie’s sister, Nola Prescott.”

  Deputy Kemp’s eyebrows shot up to the brim of his hat and he started scratching out notes in his condemning little pad again. “The woman who accused you of breaking into the offices of the company where you worked, Belfry Construction, right? Where the night watchman ended up getting clobbered over the head and dying?�
�

  “One and the same.”

  “You were hauled in for that one.”

  “Questioned and held. Charges were dropped.” He saw Annie’s eyes widen as she realized he’d spent time in jail.

  “All because of Ms. Prescott’s testimony—that she recanted.”

  Liam’s nostrils flared slightly and he glared at Annie as if in so doing he could make her disappear. “Yep.”

  “Why would a woman you . . . well, you had a baby with want to send you to jail?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.” Every muscle in his body tensed and white lines around his lips indicated the extent of his ire. The stare he sent Annie would have melted nails. “When I locate Nola, believe me, I’ll find out.”

  “The Seattle police don’t seem to be very convinced that you weren’t involved in the crime.”

  “They’re wrong.” Liam’s lips were compressed into a razor-thin seam that barely moved when he spoke. “Was there anything else?”

  “No.” The deputy snapped his notebook closed and tipped his hat at Annie. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Thanks,” she said weakly.

  “And I’m sure C.S.D. will want to speak with you.”

  Liam followed him to the door and watched through the window as the cruiser skidded around his Jeep and slowly disappeared down the lane through the trees. Once satisfied that they were alone, he turned slowly, his irritation evident in the set of his jaw. “What was that all about?”

  “I thought . . . I mean a few days ago when you came barging in here threatening to take Carol away and charging after Nola, I was scared and—”

  “So you decided to turn me in?” he accused. “Damn it, woman, you’re cut from the same cloth as that sister of yours!”

  “No!”

  “Both of you trying to set me up.”

  “Liam! No!”

  Carol let out a whimper and Annie removed the nipple from her mouth and gently lifted her to her shoulder. Softly rubbing the baby’s back, she sent Liam a look warning him not to raise his voice. He stalked to the window and stared outside while Annie, after burping and changing Carol, sat in the rocker and nudged the infant back to slumber.