No one at the shelter knew what drove her almost desperate connection to her work in Atlanta, or why she’d moved to Chandlerville when she was still so tied to the life she’d built in town. It made Pete’s pulse race to think about the seeming randomness of that decision, and the reality that if not for Polly’s nocturnal wanderings Mallory might never have become a part of their lives. Or maybe it hadn’t been so random after all.
I’ll be here, too, always…Emma had promised that night, a night just after Christmas when Polly had been sleeping peacefully in her bedroom of just-opened presents because they hadn’t yet helped her understand what was coming. Even when I’m gone, I’ll be here. You’ll find me again in someone else. So will Polly. One of our friends, someone you and Polly will know instantly you can depend on. Someone who’ll show you the way to go when you can’t find it yourself. That’ll be me, Pete. You’ll see. When you find that person, you’ll know I’m still here…
A person Polly had known she could depend on long before Pete had opened his eyes and wised up.
He remembered asking his wife for guidance that first night he’d walked over to Mallory’s place. Tears filled his eyes as he accepted what had been pressing toward the front of his mind since the moment he’d crossed their backyards to stomp into her world. At first he’d thought that it had been his daughter’s wandering and Polly’s desperation for a place to heal that had thrown him and Mallory together. Then that their shared concern for his child had been why he couldn’t keep his mind off his neighbor—as a woman, not just as a helpful new neighbor.
Now he wondered if it hadn’t been Emma all along.
He could sense her again as he sat in a shabby break room drinking stale coffee and feeling the grueling loneliness of last spring give way to a peace he hadn’t thought possible again. Emma was there in his heart and mind as he smiled and thought of Mallory’s antics with the shelter kids and her clear devotion to Charlie’s well-being and her courage as she’d first stood up to and then helped Charlie’s down-on-his-luck father believe in another chance to do better for his child.
You’ll find me again, in someone else…You’ll know I’m still here…
Chapter Ten
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth’s superb surprise…
“You okay?” Pete asked as Mallory stared down at the plastic grocery bags someone had left on the floor beside the door of the Kid Zone, the children’s activity area at the shelter.
She nodded, unable to form words, the cloud she’d been floating on for the last few hours popping like an overfilled balloon. Her mind was playing tricks on her. That’s what this was. That’s all it had been all morning. She was dealing still with the lingering memories from her latest dream about her mother, and she was exhausted, and she was simply overreacting.
Yet the handles of the three bags were tied in slipknots that closed off their bulging contents from prying hands. Knots just like the ones her mother had taught her to make around the same time that Mallory had learned to tie her shoes. They’d still been living with her grandparents the way they had Mallory’s entire life because her mother was in and out of hospitals, and when she was out her hold on reality had been tenuous on a good day. It was long before they’d run away, but Mama had already been hoarding nonsense things, hiding them and using intricate knots that only she and Mallory knew how to open without tearing the bags.
“Mallory?” a deep voice from the present said, pulling her back and making her realize that she was still staring at the floor.
“Sure, I’m okay.” She turned away from her neighbor and looked up and down the hallway outside the Kid Zone.
There was nothing there. No one. At least not the long-ago someone her mind had been feeling too close that morning. This was precisely why she’d left her career as a social worker and moved away from the city. Her mother was gone. She’d been gone for over fifteen years. When was Mallory going to accept that?
The bags were just another coincidence, at the tail end of a string of them she’d been stumbling across all day. When she’d first arrived just after the shelter opened, she’d found on one of the lobby tables a rubber-banded, scratched-up-from-endless-recycling ziplock bag full of newspaper clippings. Her mama had saved articles like that, all kinds of them about nothing in particular, yet she’d sort through them and organize them and check to make sure she always had them, over and over again.
Then twice that morning while Mallory had been trying to concentrate on her program she could have sworn she’d seen someone on the outskirts of the crowd of parents and kids who was too tiny to be identified clearly through the other people, wearing an old orange coat that looked just like the one her mother had their last winter together.
“Mallory?” Pete was looking at her as if she’d suddenly grown two heads.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I didn’t sleep well again last night.”
Or maybe it was that she was still in full Glinda regalia while she grappled with ghosts every time she turned around. She gave Pete her full attention and shrugged off her paranoia, accepting that having him and Polly immerse themselves in her natural habitat was ratcheting up her anxiety. Lord, she had to get some sleep tonight. She had another full day tomorrow at a shelter closer to the airport.
Squeals and shrieks of kids at play engulfed whatever Pete tried to say next. The innocence and exuberance of the shelter’s Kid Zone was the irresistible boost she needed. She’d sent Polly there to play so she could finish the last of her paperwork, then had walked Pete over after he’d wandered into the deserted clinic from wherever he’d been passing time since she’d shooed him off earlier.
No matter what children like Charlie Cooper were living through at home, laughter and play and make-believe ruled in the Kid Zone. After a long morning of taking care of what everyone else needed, Mallory always stopped by to see if any of her favorite regulars were still around. And today, right there in the middle of the scramble of happiness, was a totally enthralled Polly Lombard running with the crowd, free and loose and for the moment exactly as Mallory imagined she’d been before her world had fallen apart.
Mallory laughed herself, marveling at a lost little princess coming back to her happy self amid the hastily scattered Christmas decorations Mallory had helped the shelter manager put out last week. She turned to Pete in triumph.
“Look at her,” she said, exhaustion and worry falling away. “Flu season could have made this a drudge of a day for me. But you helping Charlie’s dad and Polly having such a good time and me wearing my favorite work clothes…” She twirled, his wide smile making her feel as if she were wearing sparkling wings instead of a secondhand costume. “I’m so glad you two came for a visit.”
Pete opened his mouth once more to say something, but the happy uproar of no less than fifteen kids rose another decibel. He placed a hand on her arm, the contact so startling she jumped with the memory of feeling his strength surrounding her as they’d both held Polly in her kitchen. She suddenly, desperately wanted to be there again. The look of surprise on Pete’s face made her wonder if he were remembering the same moment.
When he’d returned to the clinic there had been a glimmer of sadness behind his handsome smile. But whatever had been troubling him had vanished as he’d watched the kids along with Mallory. And now he was leading her down the hallway beyond the Kid Zone, a new intensity to his expression, a new heat sizzling through her from his touch.
But that was ridiculous. They were simply caught up in the magic of watching Polly. The tension she’d felt sparking between them on Monday had been one-sided, just as any subtext to what he was doing now existed in her imagination alone. He simply wanted to talk with her in private.
She pulled herself together as they stopped walking, intending to make an excuse to slip away before she embarrassed herself. Only she couldn’t. She simply couldn’t. It felt too good to be standing so close to him, feeling him, having him focused on her as if ther
e weren’t space enough in that moment for anything else but them.
Pete rubbed his hands up and down her arms, which were bare compliments of her Glinda garb. Awareness and pleasure and chill bumps darted everywhere at once. He bowed his head. He was so close she could have stretched up on her toes and brushed her lips against his temple. She didn’t. She didn’t dare move for fear of unsettling whatever was happening between them.
He straightened.
The world around them faded away.
“What you’ve done for Polly…for us…” His hands cupped her shoulders. “This last week has been a miracle. Polly’s getting better and better, and you’ve given her that power. You’ve set her free somehow, and I…”
His voice broke, and there were tears in his eyes. The muscles in his jaw clenched. He was so clearly trying to control himself. He’d been trying to keep it together and be okay for so long. And he was so much stronger and closer to being better than he realized.
“You’ll be free of it, too,” she promised.
Not that anyone was ever really free of the pain and damage and shock that losing someone you loved could create. But this strong man was going to make it. He had to know that.
“It will come back,” she said, “the natural way you and Polly have always loved each other. It will feel good again.”
His grip tightened, deepening the physical connection he was creating between them.
“As good as it feels with you right now?” he asked. “You’ve got to be half-dead on your feet. But the sound of my daughter laughing makes you light up like your Christmas tree. I could stand right here with you, listening to her having fun down the hall for the rest of the day. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since anything has felt this easy?”
She shook her head, not knowing what to say or what to deny first. She’d been a confused, muddled mess most of the morning, not shot through with light. If she were so amazing, why was she selfishly longing to cling to him and lose herself in his compassionate gratitude, taking advantage of his weak moment so she could be held in this strong man’s arms for just a little longer?
“I’m glad you both are doing better,” she said. She gasped when his hands cupped the sides of her face. “But really, it’s noth—”
“Don’t,” he said over her.
She shook her head, rubbing her cheeks against his palm. “What?”
“My family was speeding toward a cliff, and you’ve helped us pull back. Don’t cheapen what you’ve done by shrugging it off, even if you’re not feeling the same things I am. If you don’t want to hear any of the rest, at least let me be grateful.”
She blinked.
“What…?” She’d wanted to ask him to repeat himself, to explain. But she knew better.
Soon he and Polly would be fine on their own. The novelty of whatever he was feeling for Mallory would wear off, and so would his interest in the offbeat parts of her he thought he was beginning to understand. Or maybe she’d be the first to pull away. Regardless, she would be left alone once more trying to carve out her own place in Chandlerville. There was no point in growing dependent on the Lombards to help her feel as if she were as much a part of Mimosa Lane as they were.
There was only pain waiting for Mallory when this got too hard for all of them.
“You’re helping more than just Polly with everything you’ve done for us,” he said, his voice vibrating with need, tempting her. His gaze dropped to her mouth, torturing her. “And I—”
She was kissing him before she was aware she’d pushed up onto her toes. Reckless or not, it felt so good to have his lips pressed against hers. His harsh intake of breath said it was the same for him, that she wasn’t the only one lost in the possibility of connecting instead of pulling back, wanting instead of shying away, feeling instead of shutting down.
He angled her head so he could deepen their kiss. This wasn’t gratitude or appreciation or even a celebration of how far he and Polly had come so quickly. Mallory could feel his need, his desire, his wanting—for her.
And she could feel herself opening up to him the way her heart had always been wide-open with his daughter, no boundaries, no choice on her part. Her hands were sliding up his arms, then her arms were encircling his neck because she couldn’t make herself stop. This was a day she wanted to remember feeling free and alive and needed, not lost to the scary shadows of a past she couldn’t seem to escape no matter how hard she tried.
You just keep on bein’ strong…Grams’s voice echoed through her mind.
Pete Lombard was giving her something to cherish forever as their tongues found each other and began to dance. No matter what happened next, this was an amazing moment in time she refused to deny herself.
His powerful arms engulfed her, his hands sliding down and up her back, and then down again to the curve or her waist. He consumed her thoughts and her feelings and her awareness until there was nothing before, nothing beyond, just now.
“Daddy?” a tiny, trembling voice said.
Mallory and Pete sprang apart as if electrical current had arced through them. Polly was staring at them from the Kid Zone doorway, her bottom lip trembling.
“Sweet pea…” Pete said, his head down and his hands on his hips as he sucked in the oxygen Mallory couldn’t get her own lungs to process.
“Mallory?” Polly asked, looking between the two of them as if they’d stolen her perfect day.
“Sweetie…” Mallory stepped toward her, her Glinda dress rustling. She reached her hand out, to do what she had no idea.
“Leave me alone!” Polly took off toward the lobby, leaving Mallory grasping at thin air.
“God,” Pete said, starting to head after her.
“No.” Mallory’s touch stopped him. “Let me talk to her. You two have enough to deal with. Let me try to help her understand.”
But understand what, exactly?
Mallory took off after the little girl who’d already disappeared into the lobby Mallory hoped was still deserted. A part of her accepted that she was running away from Pete, too, and her own shock at what they’d done. She bolted down the hallway, grateful that their focus was once more on Polly. She turned the corner and came to a skidding halt. She rubbed at her tired eyes.
But her vision wouldn’t focus, or clear, or whatever it would have taken to transform what she was seeing into something else.
She as just standing there. In her hands were more plastic bags like the ones Mallory had seen earlier. And the woman standing beside Polly—both of them gazing up at the center’s sagging, barely decorated Christmas tree—was dwarfed in the atrociously filthy, oversize orange coat Mallory had noticed blipping in and out of her sight line that morning.
Given the center’s aggressive heating system, the gray-haired woman had to be sweltering in the garment. But she’d never take it off, Mallory knew. She’d never, ever take it off, or someone might steal it as soon as she wasn’t lookin’…
It couldn’t be.
Mallory couldn’t be seeing her mother standing beside Polly Lombard, both of them staring silently at the shelter’s artificial tree. Every adult, emotionally healthy, reasonable thing within Mallory froze. Her feet, her breaking heart, literally wouldn’t move.
“Who is that?” Pete asked, rounding the corner beside her.
“It’s…” She couldn’t say it.
“Do you know her?” An edge of unease tightened his voice.
“I…” No. She didn’t know the woman. She didn’t know herself in that moment.
“Polly?” Pete called to his daughter. “Come here, sweet pea.”
Polly looked back at them, her eyes sparkling, the tree’s lights reflecting in her tears. Then she looked up at the woman and smiled, as if she’d made a new friend in just the few seconds it had taken Mallory and Pete to reach her.
“It’s okay, Daddy,” she said, reaching for the woman’s hand and holding on when her friend didn’t pull away.
“Mallory?” Pete asked.
“Who is that? Do you know that woman?”
“I…I don’t know.” All she knew suddenly was that she wanted Polly with her and Pete instead of standing beside a ghost from Mallory’s past. “Polly, can I talk with you for a minute?”
A little girl could look so grown-up when there was anger and disappointment and a sliver of betrayal flashing in her eyes. But this little girl, no matter how upset she still was as she glanced again at Mallory and Pete, had a soft spot in her heart for the people she cared about.
With one last glance at the tree, then up at the street lady she’d found next to it, Polly let go of the wrinkled hand she’d been holding and walked slowly across the lobby. When she was close enough, Pete picked her up and hugged her stiff little body close.
“I’m sorry Mallory and I surprised you that way,” he said into her curls. “It…We were surprised ourselves, darlin’. And the last thing we wanted was to upset you when you were having so much fun. Please talk to us.”
We.
Us.
Believing that she belonged had never been an easy thing for Mallory. It was as much of an impossibility for her now as when she’d been a little girl and had been treated like a pariah as she and her mother wandered in and out of dingy small towns and shelters. The instinct never went away, to feel safer on the sidelines where no one really saw you.
Through the years she’d carved out her happiness in other ways, watching the world she lived in more than she’d actually lived in it. Only now her world was full of people like the Lombards and Julia Davis and her colleagues at school like Kristen Hemmings. And a good man’s kisses and his bravery and his determination to save his daughter’s Christmas were making Mallory want to be part of a we more than ever, a connection she hadn’t truly had with anyone since her mother, not even her grams, no matter how hard Mallory had tried.
It felt both terrifying and right to ease into Pete’s arms as he reached for her, and to be pulled into a group hug with Polly.
Christmas on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel) Page 14
