The Heart of Christmas

by Brenda Novak

  When he strode into the kitchen, she held her breath. She wanted to warn him that he’d better be polite, but that would probably do more harm than good.

  Fortunately, Ted nodded at Rex in greeting and Rex, tentatively, did the same.

  “I didn’t realize you had company,” Ted said. “Where’s the Land Rover?”

  “Rex is driving a rental car,” Eve said. “He parks it down the street.”

  A muscle moved in Ted’s jaw. “He’s called Rex now, is he?”

  Eve felt her pulse pick up. “That’s his real name.”

  “I see. And he parks down the street because...”

  She could feel the tension in him, the disapproval, so she grinned, hoping to get him to lighten up. The contrast between what she was about to say and the gangbanger Rex used to be was sort of funny. “He’s a little old-fashioned.”

  “I don’t want to offend your parents,” Rex clarified with a scowl.

  Ted gave her a pointed look. “They don’t know he’s here?”

  “Sure they do,” she said. “They’ve seen us come and go. We’ve even waved at them a couple of times and stopped to talk.”

  “I’m not hiding from them,” Rex snapped. “I just don’t want to rub their noses in the fact that I’m sleeping with their little girl. To me, that’s rude.”

  Ted placed his hands on his hips. “Am I supposed to be impressed by how considerate you are?”

  “Ted!” Eve exclaimed.

  He turned to her. “Why is this guy still here, Eve? You know he’s been lying to you. First he’s Brent. Now he’s Rex? Is that even his real name?”

  “Yes!”

  “But if he can’t marry you, be the kind of husband and father you want, why are you wasting your time with him?”

  Rex shoved his chair back so hard it hit the wall. “Maybe I’m just that good in bed.”

  Anger flashed in Ted’s eyes. “Or maybe you don’t care about the damage you cause, as long as you get what you want.”

  Before Eve could intervene, Rex stepped right up to him. “Did anyone ask for your opinion?”

  Eve had never known Ted to come up against someone who seemed as volatile as Rex did in that moment but, surprisingly, he didn’t back down. “This is bullshit. Eve’s one of my best friends.”

  “Guys, come on.” Eve’s heart pounded for fear this little confrontation would get worse. “Please, don’t be assholes, either of you.”

  Ted turned to appeal to her. “You’re not really going to throw your life away on this guy, are you?”

  “Like I said, there are things you don’t know. Just...please, calm down and be polite,” she said, but it was too late to smooth over what had happened. Rex glared at Ted for several long seconds. Then he shut down his computer, grabbed his keys off the counter and walked out.

  The slamming of the door echoed in the sudden silence.

  “Why did you do that, Ted?” Eve started to go after Rex, then stopped. She knew it would be futile but was frightened by the thought that, even though some of his clothes were here, Rex might not return. It would be so easy for him to get into his rental car and disappear. So what if he left a few more things behind? He’d left much more in San Francisco.

  How many times had he been forced to start over? He was used to it.

  When he saw her distress, Ted began to pace, wearing a tortured expression. “Damn it, Eve. I don’t want to create a problem between us. I really don’t. But I let you down so badly last year. I can’t let you get involved with the wrong guy. It could ruin your life!”

  “How do you know he’s the wrong guy?”

  “You’re joking, right?” He stared at her.

  “You don’t know him,” she argued. “Not like I do.”

  “What I know about him is enough.” He turned to the window, watching Rex stalk down the drive.

  “I’m already in love with him, Ted,” she said. “Nothing you can do is going to save me now.”

  With a curse, he banged his head against the glass. “Of course,” he muttered to himself.

  Eve took a deep breath. “Not only that but...I’m pregnant.”

  “What?” At this, he whipped around, pulled out a chair and sank into it. “Please tell me that isn’t true.”

  “Rex isn’t what you think.”

  “Exactly my point!” he cried. “He’s not what any of us think! He hasn’t told us a scrap of truth since he came here.”

  Smelling smoke, Eve hurried over to the stove, where she shoved the pan in which she’d been frying sausages off to one side. She’d forgotten it, already burned them. “He’s had a shitty life, Ted. He deserves more.”

  “And you think you can give him that? You can change him, heal him, save him, when no one else has been able to do it?”

  It might sound unrealistic, but all he needed was a chance to settle down, to redeem himself. He could achieve that with some consistency and unconditional love. “Everyone needs help once in a while.” She folded her arms as she leaned against the counter. “Well, everyone except you. You’ve always done everything right. And it can be a little sickening to the rest of us.”

  He scowled at her. “Don’t pull that bullshit on me. You’ve never done anything wrong in your life. Until now.”

  “Someone has to care about him!”

  “I’m sure many women have tried.”

  “Don’t! He’s a good man. He may have made some mistakes, but he’s been through hell, and it’s time for that hell to stop.”

  “How can you stop it?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’d like to try.”

  “You can’t do anything if he won’t tell you his real situation. Why’s he here? What’s he running from? Who’s looking for him?”

  She didn’t want to tell anyone else about Rex’s reality. She understood the need for extreme secrecy. But when it came to this type of confidence, she trusted Ted’s discretion as much as Cheyenne’s. “I’m aware of all of that,” she said, and poured herself some more juice before sitting down to explain.

  “What you just told me is supposed to comfort me?” Ted blurted out when she was done. “Learning that he’s an ex-con who’s got a dangerous prison gang after him? That you could get killed simply by being with him? God, Eve!”

  “He was eighteen when he was put away, Ted. Eighteen! Do you remember how stupid we were at that age? And there was some...incident, something that hurt him so badly he can’t talk about it to this day. Whatever it was sent him spiraling out of control, and that’s why he turned to drugs.”

  “He was a dealer!”

  “He was trying to support his own habit. It was the only way to anesthetize himself against the pain.”

  “Pain caused by an event you know nothing about.”

  “I told you! He won’t tell me what set him off. But can you imagine how hard it would be, once you’re on that path, to put your life together again? And yet he’s managed to do it—as much as The Crew will let him.”

  Ted drummed his fingers on the table as he considered what she’d told him. “Does he know you’re pregnant?” he asked.

  She shifted uncomfortably. “Yes. I told him this morning, just before you walked in.”

  He cursed under his breath and shook his head.

  “Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t go all muttery and disapproving. What, exactly, are you thinking?”

  “You don’t want to know,” he grumbled.

  “Yes, I do.”

  With a sigh, he stood up. “I’m thinking it’ll be a miracle if he comes back so what the hell am I worried about.”

  When she flinched, he put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. When you want to hear about my trip, and who I think killed Little Mary, give me a call,” he said. Then he walked out.

  27

  Although Eve was dying to learn what Ted had discovered, she had too much pride to call him, especially when Rex didn’t come back that day. She knew Ted would ask if she’d heard from him. So she tried not
to think about the murder that had cast such a long shadow over her family’s B and B. He probably hadn’t dug up anything definite, anything that would answer her questions, or the truth would have come out before now.

  She’d always loved Victorian Days, more than all the other festivities that preceded Christmas. But her heart wasn’t in it this year. She couldn’t find it in her to care about the decorations or the food or the parties—all the things she usually enjoyed. But it wasn’t only the holidays. She wasn’t even paying attention to her occupancy rate, which was something she always watched very closely.

  She just wanted to be with Rex.

  At five o’clock, she forced herself to change her clothes and hurry over to the inn. But she should’ve been there much earlier.

  “What’s going on?” Pam asked when she entered the kitchen.

  A deluge of guilt hit Eve for stranding her staff with all the work, since they weren’t used to performing without direction and support. Normally, everything had to have her touch. The inn was a showcase, especially at Christmas. “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve been really busy today,” she muttered to stave off the inevitable questions.

  Cecelia came out of the pantry with a platter of their signature sugar cookies decorated like snowmen. “There you are! What’s up? This time of year, you spend all day here, helping us bake. I tried calling but could never reach you.”

  Eve had seen those calls come in. She’d ignored them, which she’d justified by telling herself that her employees had it easy. Most of the time that was true. She was more of a workhorse than any of them, but she could at least have given them some idea of when she’d arrive. “I had complete faith that you guys would do a fabulous job.”

  Pam and Cecelia exchanged a look that suggested this was not the response they’d expected, that they couldn’t believe she wasn’t rushing around, tweaking everything they’d done.

  “Cheyenne had her baby last night,” she told them, partly to get out from under the magnifying glass through which they seemed to be studying her.

  “Seriously?” Cecelia cried. “I hadn’t heard.”

  In previous years, she’d had only one of them help her through Victorian Days, to avoid a lot of overtime when her employees were the least likely to want to put in those hours. Cheyenne worked with her for free, for the sake of the charity. But with her best friend so pregnant, she’d asked Pam, Cecelia and Deb to be on hand, and now she was glad she’d done that. She’d had no idea Cheyenne would go into labor early.

  Pam removed the plastic covering the cookies. “What’d she have?”

  “A baby boy. Weighed nine pounds, two ounces.”

  Cecilia smiled. “Wow. That’s a big baby.”

  “So that’s where you’ve been,” Pam said. “Makes sense now. How’s she feeling?”

  Eve didn’t correct her. She’d stopped by the hospital to visit, but much more briefly than they assumed. “Great. The baby’s doing great, too. She’ll stay over one more night—”

  “Why?” Cecelia broke in, her face creased with concern. “Nothing’s wrong...”

  “No. She had the baby in the middle of last night, so she hasn’t been there twenty-four hours yet. Her insurance covers forty-eight, so she’s going to take advantage of that.”

  “Good. Maybe she’ll be able to get some rest,” Pam said. “My first baby was so colicky I couldn’t get three hours of sleep in one stretch.”

  “Hopefully, little Kellan won’t have that problem.” Eve genuinely wished Cheyenne the best, but she’d had a hard time acting like herself when she’d been at the hospital earlier that day. She’d brought a plant and a card, then promised to call or text everyone on Cheyenne’s guest list to let them know she’d had the baby early and wouldn’t be having the Christmas party this year. The whole visit lasted only a few minutes, since she left with the excuse that she needed to get ready for Victorian Days.

  But she hadn’t gone directly to the B and B afterward. She hadn’t returned home, either. She’d driven aimlessly around town, past Mrs. Higgins’s and Just Like Mom’s and any other place she thought Rex might be, which had turned out to be a waste of time. She hadn’t found any trace of him.

  I’m thinking it’ll be a miracle if he comes back...

  Was he gone for good?

  “Eve?”

  She blinked as Deb held out another tray of cookies. “Um, shouldn’t we set these out?”

  “Definitely.” Assuming her usual sense of purpose, she took the tray and headed to the front. Fortunately, her staff had cleaned the inn from top to bottom, and all the Christmas lights were on and twinkling. The B and B was beautiful, even without all the extra attention she gave it. She loved it here, loved her work. And yet none of it meant what it had before, not since meeting Rex.

  “I’ve got to snap out of it,” she murmured.

  “Did you say something?”

  Eve turned from where she’d been putting down the platter. Sophia had come in. “No, sorry. Just...talking to myself.”

  “I came to volunteer. I figured that, with Cheyenne in the hospital, you could use some help tonight. The inn is such a focal point during Victorian Days.”

  Sophia could be thoughtful. Eve had to give her that. “How nice, but I’m fairly certain that we have it covered.”

  Sophia leaned a little closer. “Ted told me about this morning, Eve. I’m sorry. He feels terrible about it. He doesn’t want to make you unhappy. He just...feels so protective.”

  “You mean he still feels guilty because he dumped me for you.”

  She winced. “Don’t use that word. He didn’t dump you. That’s not how I look at it.”

  “Really?” Eve crossed her arms. “Then maybe you wouldn’t mind explaining how you see things. I’ve always wondered.”

  Sophia clasped her hands in front of her. Since Ted and Sophia had appeared on her doorstep last Christmas to apologize, whenever they were around Eve simply pretended she and Ted had never been together. But that almost made it more awkward than addressing the reality. “I prefer to think that...that for whatever reason, Ted and I were meant to be together, and I’m grateful to you for being as gracious as you were when we...we realized our feelings for each other.”

  “I doubt that if I’d chosen to be less gracious, it would’ve made any difference,” she said with a humorless laugh.

  “That’s not true,” Sophia argued. “Your feelings mattered a lot to both of us. They still do.” She clutched Eve’s forearm. “You were kind to me when I had no one else, when I couldn’t fall any lower. I will never forget that.”

  Impulsively, Eve hugged her. So what if the uncertainty of her current situation triggered memories of the rejection she’d suffered before? It was selfish to let what was happening in her life adversely affect her friends. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’m just...”

  “Pregnant?”

  Sophia finished her sentence when Eve couldn’t find the words to explain the angst and longing that were making her so miserable.

  Eve glanced behind her. She didn’t want anyone else hearing that, didn’t want it getting back to her parents before she was ready to break the news to them herself. But the two of them were alone, and Sophia had spoken softly. “Ted told you about that, too?”

  Sophia nodded. “Are you excited or scared or—”

  “I can’t say yet,” Eve responded. “There’s so much going on in my head and my heart. But...it’ll be a good thing, no matter what happens.”

  “Of course it will. Just...know you won’t have to go through it alone. I’ll do whatever I can to make life easier. Help out here at the inn. Go to doctor’s appointments with you. Babysit after the baby’s born. You’ll have Cheyenne’s help, too, of course, but with her being a new mother and all, you might need someone else, and I want you to know I’ll be happy to do anything I can.”

  She was so sincere. “That’s a lot to offer when you’ll probably be having a baby of your own soon.” Eve couldn’
t help remembering Ted’s statement to Cheyenne when they were feeling her baby move.

  “I’m thinking we should put it off for a year or so, get you through this first.”

  Her response brought tears to Eve’s eyes. “I’ve never heard anything so generous.”

  “You saved me that night you came over after Skip’s death, Eve. Thanks to you, I’m so much happier—and able to offer my daughter the security she needs. I can’t tell you what that means to me. I’ll do anything for you. I promise.”

  “Then maybe you’ll tell me what Ted found out on his trip,” she teased.

  “He didn’t tell you this morning?”

  Eve made a face. “We didn’t get that far.”

  “It was Harriett.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. Ted said it was John’s descendants who had a story to tell, not Harriett’s. John’s great-nephew, a man by the name of Patrick Hatfield, claims Harriett killed Mary.”

  After believing John was the culprit for so many years, Eve had a hard time grasping this new theory. Harriett had told her sister he was innocent, but Eve hadn’t really believed that. “Why? What would ever make a mother do something like that?”

  “What makes mothers do that kind of thing these days? Depression? Mental illness? Extreme narcissism? Rage?”

  “Which was it?”

  “We don’t have all the details. It was just a fluke that Ted managed to locate Pat.”

  “I can’t imagine Mary’s descendants kept track of the Hatfields. So how did he do it?”

  “It’s convoluted, but the husband of one of Mary’s cousins went to college with Pat for a year. They even played rugby together on weekends—never realizing they had a family connection until it came up one day. So when Ted contacted Mary’s relatives, they put him in touch with Pat. To make the story even more spectacular, Pat lives in London now. He married a woman who was born there. But he makes documentaries and was in Toronto on a project. So Ted talked him into a quick meeting and flew up there to speak to him.”

  “Sounds like it was worth the time.”

  “It was. Pat says that Harriett was never quite right in the head, that John protected her and took care of her for years. He didn’t feel he had any other alternative. He couldn’t bear the idea of a woman going to prison. Back then, most people didn’t believe that women could really be that terrible. And he thought an insane asylum would be even worse.”