by Robyn Neeley
The sky rapidly darkened as she quickly opened the door to the chicken coop and carried the big red rooster and one of his hens, both protesting vigorously, to the rear of the old barn, perching them carefully on the edge of a stall. Then she shut the big, sliding door and felt her way in the failing light from the skylight directly overhead back to her quilts.
Young John Broussard had already put Cork, her grandfather’s old plow horse, and Eloise, the milk cow, into their respective stalls. Both animals commented softly on Casey’s presence, and with more vehemence on the loud bock-bock noises the chickens made. The animals sounded exactly like they had the night she and Kalin had spent together on a similar bed. The couple’s passionate murmurs had kept the animals disturbed.
Within moments of curling up atop the pile of hay and snuggling one of the quilts up around her ears, the restlessness suddenly left her, and Casey fell soundly asleep.
She awakened some hours later to a dense blackness when a rooster’s crow shattered the silence. Shuffling sounds and a nicker told her Cork and Eloise remained awake and unaccustomed to chickens inside the barn.
She might have slept one hour or six. She peered into the total, cold blackness and tried to orient herself before becoming aware of other presences in the old barn.
Dawn must have arrived, because she suddenly found she could see quite clearly what was near her, even though the far areas of the barn were still midnight black.
A woman approached her makeshift bed and smiled down on her.
“I figured you’d be out here, Casey,” she said. “You should be ashamed of yourself. You fell asleep again.”
“Why, Granny,” Casey exclaimed. “You’re well. Dr. Johnson said you weren’t likely to recover.”
“Jack Johnson is a smart man, but he doesn’t know everything.” Alice sat beside Casey on the hay.
Casey sat up and looked closely at her grandmother. Alice looked younger than Casey could recall ever seeing her.
“Why didn’t you call me?” she asked. “I’d have come to the hospital and picked you up. Who brought you home?”
“Don’t be silly,” Alice said. “I don’t need a car where I’m going.”
“Can’t you spend at least one night in your own bed before you take off? What time is it? I’ll cook you some supper.”
“Do you hear that, Ewing?” Alice turned to the man who approached down the long, central corridor of the barn, seeming to materialize out of the darkness. “She wants to cook for us.”
“Grandpa,” Casey exclaimed, unable to recall at the moment why she was surprised to see him. “Where have you been?”
“I’ve been on the other side of the universe.” Ewing Gray laughed and came to stand beside Alice. “I came to apologize for accusing you of being pregnant.”
“Sir?” Casey shivered in the cold barn air.
Ewing Gray smiled. “I knew you spent the night out here with that McBryde boy on Old Christmas Eve. Came out to check on you and heard voices. Sure enough, there was that red car of his parked on the dirt road behind the barn.”
Casey thought a moment. “So you knew about that.” Her brain refused to function. “Why didn’t you come in and run him off?”
“It was four A.M.,” Ewing said in dry tones. “I figured it was already too late. I didn’t want to cause you to run away like your mother did. I accused you falsely and you ran anyway.”
Casey shook her head. “I didn’t leave because of you. I left because it was time. We didn’t make love that night, you know.”
“I know that,” Ewing said. “Now.”
“Kalin is trying to restore my self-esteem. Once he succeeds, he’ll probably find a woman more worthy of him.”
Ewing and Alice exchanged glances.
“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Alice said. “What makes you think you aren’t worthy of him?”
Casey balanced her chin on her knees. “He’s been so good to me, and I’ve failed him miserably.”
Ewing Gray sat down on the hay bed beside Alice, and Casey obligingly scooted over to make room. The white shock of hair falling across his forehead that Casey had thought so handsome when she was a child looked darker. No doubt it was a trick of the strange half-light in the barn.
“It seems to me that you have a little problem, Casey,” Ewing said. “You’ve hurt him, and now you’re unwilling to go to him and ask his forgiveness.”
“I’m not unwilling,” Casey said. “But some things are difficult to overcome in a single apology. He has a right to know I’ve changed, and that takes time to prove. By then he might be married to Sunny Cansler or somebody like her.”
“Who’s Sunny Cansler?” Ewing asked.
“The Houston Canslers are definite social improvements over an unknown country bastard,” a new voice struck in.
“Who are you?” Casey grabbed for a weapon and came up with only a handful of hay. “What are you doing here?”
Walter McBryde looked at her contemptuously. Casey had never met him, but she recognized the lean, chiseled face and broad, slashing eyebrows instantly.
“The door was open.” He laughed coldly. “You never will be worthy of my son. He will be a great man someday.”
Alice and Ewing Gray looked at him with pity.
“It was Jack Johnson who raised that boy and saw that he turned into a decent human being,” Alice said. “You’d have ruined him. If you had ever paid him any attention.”
Walter McBryde seemed to swell in his exquisitely tailored business suit. “Jack Johnson will never be anything more than an unknown country doctor.”
“And a darned fine one,” Ewing Gray said. “Plus, he’s already got what people like you slave all their lives to get — a place in the country with plenty of hunting and fishing nearby.”
Behind her, someone laughed outright. Casey turned and saw a slim, shapely woman, with great blue eyes and thick golden hair. The blond wore a short skirt that exposed a pair of eye-stopping, long legs.
“Sic ’em, Daddy,” the blond said.
“Not one word more out of you, young lady,” Ewing Gray said.
Casey admired the blond’s fine-boned figure and delicately sculpted face, wondering how she had gotten into the barn. There must be another entrance she had temporarily forgotten, because a man had joined the blond, a man whose darkly handsome face and expressive gray eyes had captivated a generation of women.
“You’re a loser,” Derrick Davenport told Walter McBryde. “Not even your own son respects your memory.” He gave his famous movie star chuckle. “Join the club, old boy.”
“What do you know about it?” Walter McBryde sneered. “You’re no better. For a man who repudiated his daughter and legally evaded child support payments so he could marry that whore, Megan Murphy, you sound like a preacher.”
Derrick smiled at Casey. “Actually, my daughter is better off. What do you think her life would have been like if every reporter knew who she was and where she was? I did my child a favor, old boy. But that’s neither here nor there.”
“Right,” Alice said. “Both of you stay out of this. I’ve got something I’ve been wanting to say to Casey for some time. I should have spoken sooner.” She turned to Casey, who was staring, bemused, at Derrick Davenport and the slender blond at his side. “Now pay attention, Casey Gray. Your young man was right. Using your mother’s tragedy as a threat to make you behave was very wrong of me.”
Casey transferred her gaze to her grandmother and wondered why she felt she had strayed into a madhouse.
“I didn’t realize the impression you’d gain from it,” Alice said. “It simply never occurred to me that you’d think she was a money-hungry tart who preferred to earn her living on her back.”
Casey swallowed and looked down, ashamed.
“She wasn’t like that at all,” Alice said. “She was a dreamer, and she had that same steadfast determination to achieve her goals that you have. If you’d ever asked, I could have told you about her. I should have overcome my hurt and told you anyway, but thinking about Cynthia and the way we failed her always made me cry.”
Alice nodded briskly as Casey’s eyes widened in comprehension. She added, “Remember how I told you Ewing and I were terrified when I came home with you in my arms? It was as if we had a second chance, and we’d better not muff it this time.”
Casey stared at her up-drawn knees. Over the past week she had begun to understand why her grandparents had been so grimly determined to rear her carefully.
“So in a way, it was our fault you lost your young man. But it’s your fault if you don’t do anything to get him back,” Alice finished.
“Oh, don’t be so hard on her, Mom,” the blond said. “You’re the one who made her think she had to work like a slave so she wouldn’t turn out like me. No wonder the poor kid was so messed up. Casey, honey, the last thing that young man wants is for you to be ashamed of the way he makes you feel. Heck, he’s even willing to beg for your favors if that’s what it takes.”
Casey stared at the blond.
“No, I don’t feel ashamed of begging Derrick to marry me. I loved him, you know, and I wanted my baby to have her father. Besides, I might have succeeded. You have to take risks on people. You win some — ”
“Hold your tongue, Cynthia,” Alice said.
“Why should I?” the blond asked. “It’s high time I got to have my say. Casey, baby, you go out there and seduce old Walter’s son. He’s already crazy about you, and there’s nothing like a romp in the bedroom to clear things up.”
Alice snorted. “Is that your philosophy?”
Cynthia laughed. “Come on, Mom. I knew where I stood with Derrick all along. I just didn’t want to believe it.”
Casey blinked and shook her head. “Now I know what’s wrong here. This is a dream. All of you except Granny are dead. I knew there was something weird about this.”
Cynthia tilted one hip forward in imitation of a model’s stance. “You’re the one who believes in all Mom’s nonsense about Old Christmas. And they do say spirits walk on Old Christmas Eve.”
“I’m getting out of here.” Casey felt her hair attempting to lift off her scalp. “Come on, Granny.”
Alice chuckled. “No one here means you any harm, Casey. We all want the same thing — your happiness.”
Casey reached out tentatively to touch Alice. Alice’s skin was warm and solid, not cool and fragile as it had been in the hospital.
Casey swallowed and regarded her grandmother in shock.
Alice smiled. “Don’t try to hold me, Casey. I’m more than ready to go. It’s Old Christmas Eve, you know. I only came to apologize for teaching you to be ashamed of your mother’s actions. I simply didn’t realize how it would affect you.”
Casey squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again, and forked her hair back to stare wildly around the barn. She couldn’t see two inches in front of her face.
She was alone.
Chapter 12
“Casey? Are you in here?”
Kalin’s voice cut through the dense blackness, and she heard the scraping sounds as he pushed the heavy, sliding door aside.
The animals commented in various ways on the disturbance.
“Toward the back.” Casey realized she trembled like one of her most tender custards.
“Thank God.”
She heard the door scrape shut, then a small beam of light bounced over the walls and played down the long, central corridor. Footsteps approached, and moments later, the beam located her makeshift bed.
“I got worried when no one answered the door, so I found the key and went in. Why didn’t you leave me a note or carry your phone with you?” Kalin sat down beside her on the hay.
Casey noted absently that the bed had shifted in exactly the same way when Ewing Gray had sat down beside her. Once more, the hair gently lifted off her scalp.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think of a note.” She reached beneath the quilt and produced the phone. “And I do have my phone.” She sounded strangled. “But it never rang.”
“You nearly gave me a heart attack,” he said. “Your bed hadn’t been touched, but you’d opened your present. Then I remembered it was Old Christmas Eve.”
She felt his fingers touch her cheek, then his lips found hers. Casey flung her arms around him, trembling, and wished she could melt her body into his.
“Are you cold, darling?” He ran his hands lightly over her sweatshirt. “You’re shivering. Let’s go back to the house.”
Casey drew in a deep breath. “I’m all right. I’d rather stay here for a little longer. It reminds me of old times.”
He laid her back on the quilt and stretched out beside her. “I hope your memories are as good as mine.”
“Better, probably. Kalin, I have something to tell you.”
“Don’t say anything, darling. Kiss me.”
Casey kissed him with all the passion at her command, and sighed with pleasure when he ran his fingers into her hair and held her face still while he kissed her eyelids and her nose. He hadn’t shaved and his chin scraped the delicate skin of her face, but Casey loved it.
The time had come to take a chance. She had no idea where the thought had come from, but she agreed with it wholeheartedly.
You win some …
“Kalin, I love you,” she said quickly. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” he said immediately. He came up on his elbow to lean over her, even though he couldn’t see her face. “Provided the wedding is very soon. Say, within the next two weeks.”
His lack of hesitation gratified her. “How about next week?”
“You have yourself a deal.” He laughed, a breathless, happy sound in the darkness. “Once I’m your husband, I can put my foot down and make you stay in bed for a week.”
“I’ll stay there now, if you stay with me.”
“I’m afraid to ask what brought this on,” he said. “So I’m not going to.”
She forestalled him by locking her arms around his neck and pulling his face down to hers. She knew at once when he relaxed and began concentrating on what he felt.
Automatically, her mouth opened to allow his entry, and he followed up the small surrender by demanding more and more. By the time he broke the kiss, they both needed air.
“Let’s go to the house.” Kalin nuzzled her neck. “It’s Old Christmas Eve, you know. We don’t want your grandfather’s spirit searching for his shotgun.”
Casey choked with laughter. “He knew we were together out here that time on Old Christmas Eve. That’s why he thought for sure I was pregnant.”
“He knew? I’m lucky he didn’t shoot me. He’d never have believed we didn’t make love. Stop that,” he said with a groan. “We’re disturbing your rooster.”
Casey threaded her fingers into his hair. “My mother said there’s nothing like a romp in the bedroom to clarify things.”
She used her hold in his hair to lock his lips to hers while she teased him mercilessly with her tongue. Kalin returned the caress, allowing his body to seek hers once more.
Casey rested her hands on his shoulders. “I love you, Kalin. I want to have your babies, and cook delicious things for you. I’ll even defeather your ducks, and clean your fish.” She paused and added, “Every now and then.”
“What happened out here tonight?” he asked. “Don’t tell me. I probably don’t want to know. Next, you’ll be inviting me on a fishing trip.”
“How about this weekend?” she interposed quickly.
“Oh, Lord.” His chest was moving with his laughter. “You act like a
person who’s seen the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. How long will this conversion last?”
“Until the birth of our first child, which will probably be within nine months of the wedding. At that time, I’ll have to give up the fishing trips for a while.”
Kalin buried his face against her neck, still chuckling. “I almost forgot. I have some interesting news for you, darling.”
“What is it?”
“You’re going to have to postpone your plans for instant pregnancy.”
Casey stiffened. “What for? I thought we discussed this five years ago. Have you changed your mind?”
Kalin never stopped laughing. That in itself aroused her mistrust. She wound her fingers into his crisp hair and tugged. “All right, Kalin McBryde. What have you done?”
“Me? I’m innocent. It’s just that nursing a baby while you’re attending law school would be a major stress on you.”
“You know good and well I never had any intention of going to law school. Besides, I’ve probably flunked the LSAT.” She tugged harder on his hair. “Stop laughing.”
“Sorry. It’s a bit difficult. Especially when I was contacted today by the SETEX Farmers Auxiliary. They’ve established a scholarship fund at the Gulf Coast Bank. They want to help pay your way to law school.”
Casey froze, horrified. The SETEX Farmers Auxiliary was a group of older women whose husbands had been involved in rice farming. Alice had belonged, and Casey had spent many a night baking special items for members who had lost a loved one.
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
“They thought I would know how to set up the account and oversee the — the scholarship fund,” Kalin said and dissolved once more into laughter.
“This is not funny, Kalin.” Casey sat up, alarmed. “You didn’t set it up, did you? How could you? And they’ve gone so far as to collect money? Oh, this is awful.”
“It’s only a small postponement of your plans,” Kalin pointed out. “After you’ve completed law school, we can get started on the four children. Now, Casey, be reasonable. After the ladies have gone through this much trouble — stop that.”
