We Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

by Brenda Novak

Cole parked across the street and went to the door. He felt comfortable enough at Rick’s place, having spent so many hours there today, that he almost walked in. Except that this time Cole was afraid of what he might see. Was the person who owned the other car Rick’s love interest? Was it the twenty-year-old girl his brother had mentioned?

  Cole heard Rick laugh from inside the house and decided to leave. Obviously his brother had company. He was just turning to head back to his car, when the door flew open and he found himself staring into the widest brown eyes he’d ever seen, blinking at him from behind a pair of glasses.

  “I told you someone was here,” the woman said to Rick, who came up behind her.

  “Cole, what’s up?” Rick said. “I thought you went to see Jackie.”

  Cole didn’t want to explain. He was still too angry. He wanted to sue Burt for slander or bust Terry’s lip, or both. But he knew doing so wouldn’t help anything. The problem was Jackie’s inability to trust him. What others said or did wouldn’t have any effect on their relationship, if only she could believe in him.

  “She wasn’t home,” he lied, to put a quick end to the subject.

  “Oh.” Rick shifted, looking ill at ease.

  The girl standing next to him nudged him in the ribs. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

  When Rick hesitated, she stuck out her hand and introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Abby Walters. I’m Rick’s study partner.”

  “His what?” Cole repeated, shaking her hand.

  “His study part—”

  “She’s just a friend of mine,” Rick interrupted.

  “I’m his older brother,” Cole said, wondering what the hell was going on. From the looks of her, Abby could easily be the twenty-year-old Rick had mentioned. But unless Cole was mistaken, she’d just said something about being Rick’s study partner. What would Rick be studying? He hadn’t even graduated from high school.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Cole said, getting the impression that his brother wanted him gone. “It was nice to meet you, Abby. I’ll leave you two to—” he glanced at Rick “—your studies or whatever.”

  “Rick’s always talking about you,” Abby called after him. “I feel like I know you already. Maybe the three of us can go to dinner sometime.”

  “That would be great,” Cole said over his shoulder. He got in his car and shut the door, but he didn’t leave right away. Instead, he stared at Rick’s house as the front door closed, trying to figure out the riddle of his brother’s behavior.

  But while he was more confused now than before, he also felt a great deal of hope.

  WHEN COLE LET HIMSELF into his house, he knew he hadn’t drunk nearly enough. He was still conscious and functioning, which meant he still wanted Jackie, still couldn’t quit thinking about her. He considered calling Chad on his cell phone to see if he and Andrew and Brian had left the bar where they’d spent the past hour, thinking he should have had one more drink with them, after all. But the taxi that had brought him home was gone, and calling another one seemed altogether too much effort. It was better that he’d come home. Maybe if he could just fall asleep, he’d forget Jaclyn, at least until morning.

  So much for the plans he’d had for Thanksgiving, he thought morosely. He’d wanted to give Jaclyn the locket he’d bought her and tell her he loved her. He’d said as much on the phone, but not directly, and for the first time in his life he was excited to tell a woman that—to feel strongly enough that nothing she asked of him would be too much. Marriage. Anything. Instead, he’d been confronted with Burt’s letter and rejected, and he’d gone barhopping with his brothers.

  At least he’d enjoyed seeing Brian and Andrew. They were doing well in school, were dating and happy. There had been times when he’d thought he’d never get them raised, but they were adults now, and good men besides. He was proud of them.

  Stripping off his shirt and pants as he made his way down the hall, he didn’t bother with any lights. They’d only hurt his eyes, and he wasn’t particularly worried about putting anything away. His bed was waiting for him. But when he crawled beneath the covers, his sheets weren’t cool and crisp. They were warm and—

  Cole almost jumped out of his skin when his bare thighs brushed up against something warm and wonderful and very much like a woman.

  “Cole? You’re home?” Jackie mumbled, when he cried out in surprise.

  “Jackie?” he responded, the buzz he’d been feeling instantly dissipated by the shot of adrenaline that finding her sent through his system. “Where’s your car?”

  “It’s right out front. Didn’t you see it?”

  Cole hadn’t noticed, but then he hadn’t really looked. Sometimes the construction crew parked cars out front and left them overnight. He hadn’t expected Jackie and hadn’t been paying attention to make or model.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. Jaclyn was still wearing her clothes. She’d obviously fallen asleep while waiting for him.

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  Talk. She wanted to talk. But Cole wasn’t sure what she was going to say, and he didn’t want to take the risk that he might not like it. Not when he already had her in his bed, within the circle of his arms. She’d come to him. That’s what mattered. They could talk in the morning, after he’d given her a few more things to think about.

  “Can’t we talk later?” he asked, kissing her neck and pulling her to him at the same time.

  She closed her eyes and seemed to give herself over to him, but just as his hand slipped beneath her shirt, she stopped him with a question. “Don’t you think we should settle some things first?”

  He withdrew his hand and tilted her chin to the left so that the moonlight illuminated her face. “I just need to know one thing, Jackie,” he said. “It’s as simple as that. Are you willing to trust me?”

  She hesitated. “I’m willing to try.”

  “Then, we’ll go from there.”

  “Where? Where will we go, Cole?” she asked.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I need you to tell me.”

  “What do you want to hear, Jackie? That I love you?”

  He felt her body tense.

  “If it’s true.”

  “It’s true,” he admitted. “There’s never been anyone else for me. Only you.” Then he lowered his lips to hers, tasted the sweet moistness of her mouth and felt desire slam through him when she moaned and arched against him.

  That was when she quit trying to talk and simply let go. Cole could feel her start to respond, and vowed in some tiny corner of his mind that he was going to make love to her like this every night for the rest of his life.

  JACLYN WAS EMBARRASSED when she woke up. She’d come to Cole’s house to talk to him, to apologize for doubting him and to promise to work on her issues of trust. But she’d been cold and tired and had fallen asleep in his bed waiting for him. And then she hadn’t gotten very far when he came home. Cole had wanted to communicate in a different way and had made love to her again and again, as though he feared she’d leave him before he could get enough. Their time together had been passionate and heady, but now Jaclyn was left to face the day and wonder if she was going to regret what she’d done….

  What had she been thinking? She started to berate herself, but when she lifted her eyelids and found Cole watching her intently, the panic and the worry evaporated almost instantly.

  “I love you,” he said, as soon as their eyes met. “I never dreamed I could love a woman so much.”

  Jaclyn smiled. How could she not trust this man? She loved him, too, couldn’t imagine life without him. Surely everything would be all right.

  “Will you marry me?” he asked without moving, his eyes still caressing her face. “I know I said I’d take things slow, but they don’t really want to go that way, and I don’t see any point in waiting. I want to build you and the kids a house, right here in Oak Ranch, or in the Sparks development, if you like it better. And I want to come home to you every nigh
t.”

  The mention of marriage brought back a flicker of the old fear. Marriage equaled vulnerability, and vulnerability frightened Jaclyn like nothing else. What if she and Cole married and it didn’t work out? She’d be right back where she had been after her divorce from Terry, only this time she was sure she’d be even more emotionally devastated. She wasn’t sure she could go through that again.

  “I may not be the best man in the world,” Cole was saying, “but I’ll put everything I have toward being a good husband and a good father, Jackie. I’ll make you happy.”

  “Do you think you can love the kids?” she asked.

  “I know I can. I already do.”

  “And what about my work?”

  “What about it?” he said. “That’s really your decision, but if you’re going to work, I’d want you to work with me. I’ll build the houses. You sell them.”

  A team. A partnership. That was something she’d never been able to establish with Terry.

  “What do you say?” he asked. “Will you be Mrs. Perrini?”

  Could she do it? Could she trust him enough? It was like standing on the edge of a cliff with Cole standing across from her on another, prompting her to jump to him. In between them was a deep gorge with a rock-strewn bottom. If she fell…

  “Say something,” he prompted. “You’re scaring the hell out of me.”

  Jaclyn squeezed her eyes shut and fisted her hands. Don’t look down, she told herself, then shoved the doubts and fear aside and made the leap. “I will,” she said.

  He pulled her into his arms, his chin above her head, the beat of his heart thrumming a steady cadence in her ear. It seemed to say, You’ve made the right choice, the right choice, the only choice.

  “We’ll make it, Jackie,” he murmured. “We’ll do it together.”

  “I know,” she said. “I love you, Cole.”

  “YOU’RE WHAT?” Chad and Rick stared up at Cole from where they were sitting around his kitchen table, their mouths agape.

  “I’m getting married,” he told them, putting the frying pan he’d used to cook eggs into the sink to soak. “Just after Christmas.”

  Rick whistled and drummed his fingers on the table. “Jeez, Cole, I was only joking that day I said we should get fitted for tuxes. I never dreamed you’d tie the knot so soon. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “I’m sure,” he told him, putting the orange juice away and wiping off the counters.

  Cole had invited his brothers over for steak and eggs, but it was Thursday, a workday, and he knew Chad had a construction crew waiting to pour concrete for the driveways of the model homes over at the Sparks development.

  Chad shoved the rest of his breakfast into the center of the table and stood. “Isn’t this a little sudden?” he asked. “I mean, what happened to an engagement period and all that?”

  Bottom line, there didn’t seem to be any point in waiting. He and Jackie knew what they wanted. They were only trying to hold off long enough to give the kids time to adjust. They’d broken the news to them together on Sunday night after Terry had dropped them off, and in the four days since, Cole had been spending a lot of time at their place to ease them into having him around on a permanent basis.

  At first Alex had seemed resentful of having another man in his mother’s life, especially when Cole touched Jackie or kissed her. But Cole had taken Alex to the stock car races this week, and they were planning a trip to Sand Mountain with the dune buggy over the Christmas holidays, which helped show him some of the positives to the arrangement. Fortunately the little girls had been happy about having Cole as a stepdad from the beginning. They didn’t perceive him as a threat. Alyssa, especially, saw him as another adult willing to give her love and attention, which was exactly what he planned to do.

  Cole was starting over. Amazingly enough, the responsibility of raising Jackie’s kids no longer frightened him as it once had. He’d be part of a team this time—a team of three because he had to include Terry, the children’s father, in their lives. With sufficient goodwill they’d manage…. It was a second chance for Cole, a chance to do better than he had at eighteen. And though he was marrying the girl from his high school English class, Feld and what had happened there had never felt farther away.

  “We’ll do it before Andrew and Brian have to go back to school,” Cole told them. “It’ll be a small, intimate church wedding.”

  Rick and Chad looked at each other and shrugged. “We’re with you, if that’s what you want,” Chad said.

  “That’s what I want.” Cole smiled, feeling happier than he’d ever been in his life. He remembered the many times he’d sworn he wouldn’t marry. He’d eat those words when he stood at the altar by Jackie’s side, but he’d be grinning like a fool when he did it.

  “Is Jaclyn going to come back to work at the office?” Rick asked.

  “She’s not sure. We both think it might be good for her to get experience elsewhere for a while, working with different types of buyers and loans and other real-estate transfers. But I hope she’ll want to come back eventually. I’d like to have her here with me.”

  Rick’s chair scraped the floor as he scooted back to cross his legs. “So where are you going to live? Here?”

  “No. Jackie likes the house at the end of Golden Leaf Court. We need to get it finished so we can move in come January.”

  “The one with the big backyard?” Chad asked.

  “Yeah. I’m going to put in a pool for the kids this summer.”

  “Well, don’t worry about the house. I’ll get it finished before you’re even married. It’ll be my wedding present.” He downed the rest of his orange juice and headed to the door. “But for now I gotta run. Congratulations, big brother.”

  Cole said good-bye and watched Chad go, then stared across the table at Rick. Silence fell, and for a moment Cole feared Rick would leave, too. He didn’t want him to. There was still some awkwardness between them, and he hoped to say something that would make it go away, for good. Something that would open the channels of communication between them at last.

  But it was Rick who spoke first. “I’ve decided I’d like to come back to work on a part-time basis, if that’s okay,” he said, leaning forward again and pushing the last of his food around with his fork. “I’m draining my savings account pretty fast, and I’ve got more time than I thought I’d have.”

  “Studies are going pretty well then, huh?” Cole asked, taking a chance.

  Rick didn’t look at him. “Yeah.”

  “When do you get your G.E.D.?”

  “I got it a while ago.”

  Cole tried not to show his surprise. Rick was acting as though he wanted his going to school to be taken in stride, and Cole was doing his best to play along. “So this is college?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m proud of you,” Cole said, and he meant it. But he was a little amazed that such praise came so easily to his lips. Maybe he was making more progress where Rick was concerned than he’d thought.

  Rick looked embarrassed, but Cole could tell he was pleased with himself, too.

  “I’ll get another desk out front for Brandon,” Cole went on, so it wouldn’t seem as though he was making too big of an issue of it. “Are you eventually coming back to stay? After you graduate?”

  Rick shook his head. “I doubt it. I know you want me to, Cole, but I’m not like the others. I have to do my own thing.”

  Cole sipped his coffee. “And what’s that?” he asked.

  There was a slight hesitation, but finally Rick met his gaze. “Computer Programming.”

  Computer Programming. So his little brother, a high school dropout, had big plans indeed. “I understand,” Cole said, smiling in spite of his effects to act as though nothing had changed. “The job will be here if you want it, but whatever you do with your life, I know you’ll be successful. You’re one of those rare individuals with the ability to do anything.”

  Surprise reflected in the depth
s of Rick’s blue eyes. Though Cole had said similar things over the years, this was probably the first time he wasn’t using it to beat Rick over the head for something he’d done wrong. You have so much potential. You could do anything, be anything and, instead, you quit almost before you start…. Now Cole was on the level and simply meant what he said, every word of it, and somehow Rick knew the difference, because surprise wasn’t the only thing in his eyes. There was hope, as well, and a willingness, at last, to believe.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “I’M BACK HERE, Jaclyn hollered when she heard Cole call her name from the front of the house.

  His tread sounded in the hall, then he opened her bedroom door.

  “Burt Wentworth just called here, trying to get hold of you,” she told him as he bent to kiss her. It was just days before Christmas, and she was sitting in the middle of the floor, wrapping the presents they’d bought for the kids on one of their many shopping excursions over the previous week. “What’s going on?”

  “Why are you wrapping presents today?” he asked above the Christmas carols playing on her radio. “School’s out for the holidays. Alex or Mackenzie could walk in on you.”

  “They know to knock first. Besides, Alex is next door having Mr. Alder help him raise his bicycle seat, and Mackenzie and Alyssa are at their baby-sitter’s house making gingerbread men.” She left the wrapping, stood and stretched her back. “Aren’t you going to answer me? Burt’s trying to reach you.”

  He smiled. “I know. He’s been trying to reach me at the office, too. But I’ve been over at the Sparks project, meeting with decorators who are bidding on the models. Why didn’t you give him my cell phone number?”

  “Because I wasn’t sure I wanted him to have it,” she said, bending to peel a piece of tape off the carpet. “What do you think he wants? And why am I lucky enough to see you at this time of day? It’s just after noon.”

  Cole shrugged. “I couldn’t go any longer without seeing you.”

  “You came over for breakfast this morning,” Jaclyn said, laughing. “It’s only been four hours.”