A Child for Christmas

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Her throat worked. Her coat rustled when she sank down again on the foot of the hed. She knew the relationship between swim buddies was a near-sacred thing. “I’m sorry about your friend. I didn’t know. I know you were...changed after that week away. But you didn’t tell me why.”

  “I didn’t tell you because I knew you would think that we could be different. That was you. Optimistic, thinking you could change the world for the better.”

  “So, instead, you waited until you were on the other side of the globe before you dumped me.” Her lips twisted. “Gosh. Thanks.”

  He’d consumed more liquor before he’d made that phone call than he’d ever consumed in his life. He’d gone so far as to write down exactly the words he needed to say, because he’d known that the moment he heard her voice, he’d likely lose it, and he couldn’t afford that. Instead, he’d gotten her answering machine, and the words he’d rehearsed—careful explanations, inarguable realities—had dried up. He’d stumbled over the words that would end things.

  He’d never realized how harsh, how cold and unfeeling, he’d ended up sounding. “I looked for you when I returned to California.”

  Her hands spread, palms up in her lap, but she didn’t look at him. “So you said.”

  “Despite what I’d said on that message, what I believed, I couldn’t stay away.” There was no point in protecting either one of them, anymore, from the deeds of the past—not when there was a nine-year-old boy who bound them so intimately together.

  He realized a tear had fallen to her soft, vulnerably exposed palm. And damned if he didn’t feel his own eyes burning in their sockets. Concrete Clay. What a joke.

  He crouched down at her level. Folding her slender hands in his. “You had withdrawn from school,” he continued. “Quit that part-time waitressing job you had. Moved from your apartment with no forwarding.” His jaw clenched and he consciously relaxed. “I realized that I’d succeeded.”

  “You could have found me,” she said, almost soundlessly.

  He couldn’t deny that. His resources were considerable, and he’d been tempted—God, so tempted—to track her down. “And only hurt you more if I did. That’s what I believed, Rebecca. If I’d known about the baby—”

  “I’d have known that you were with me only because you felt responsible for Ryan.” She carefully slid her hands from his. “I couldn’t compete against your career then anymore than I can now.”

  “Forget my career, would you? I’ve already—”

  “You put your career between us before, Sawyer,” she interrupted, her eyes glistening. “Maybe, like you say, you thought you were protecting me. I don’t know anymore. All I know is that there was always a third party in our...our relationship, and she came before the rest of us. Even you, it seems. So, no. I can’t forget your career. It’s as much a part of you as being a physician is part of me.”

  “You don’t know how wrong you are.” She was slipping away from him. He felt it. And it hurt even more than it had hurt when he couldn’t remember his own face. “I’ve always loved you, Becky Lee. I’m not leaving Weaver.”

  She closed her eyes for a long moment. When she opened them again, he knew he’d lost. “My name is Rebecca,” she whispered. She rose and he let her. She walked to the door, pausing after she opened it to an afternoon that had grown gray with snow-laden clouds. “You will leave, Sawyer. I’m going to sign your medical release and fax it to your C.O. Your memory is fully returned and your other injuries are nearly healed. There’s no reason you cannot return to active duty.”

  Sawyer stared at the closed door for a long while after she’d walked out. He’d come to Wyoming to find his way back to his life.

  Except that he’d just seen the one woman who gave meaning to his existence walk out of it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I’ve always loved you, Becky Lee.”

  Sawyer’s words kept playing in her mind. Making her heart ache. Making her stomach churn. There’d been a time in her life when she’d have given everything in her soul to hear those words from Sawyer.

  But that time was long passed.

  Wasn’t it?

  Now, sitting in her living room, listening to the wind howl outside, Rebecca felt more alone than she’d over felt. And Suzanne Fielding had just called from Gillette to say they’d decided to wait out the storm. Ryan would be gone until tomorrow. Christmas Eve.

  She’d faxed that medical release just as she’d told Sawyer she would. There was nothing to keep him in Weaver. Only his newfound knowledge of Ryan.

  When the phone rang beside her elbow, she automatically answered it. “Dr. Morehouse.”

  “Merry Christmas, Rebecca!” Delaney Vega’s lilting voice greeted her. “You’re sounding a little like the Grinch, I think. Those wild, wild west holidays stressing you too much?”

  It was so good to hear Delaney’s voice. So good that Rebecca realized she was crying before she could stop it. She wiped her cheeks, picturing her friend sitting in her ultrachic glass-and-chrome high-rise apartment, a glass of white wine at her fingertips and bunny-rabbit slippers on her feet. “I was supposed to call you back,” she remembered.

  “Yes, but I’ll just hope that you were busy with the Christmas dance and maybe a romantic man who was keeping you too occupied to phone.”

  Rebecca sighed miserably. “You have no idea.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m not liking the sound of this. Just tell me my favorite honorary nephew is all right.”

  “Ryan’s fine.” Rebecca realized she was sitting there in the dark. But getting up to turn on a lamp seemed too much work. “It’s his, uh, his father.” And the whole story came tumbling out.

  Silence hummed on the line for a moment after she’d finished. “I see.”

  Rebecca sat forward in the recliner, reaching for the throw pillow that ordinarily sat in it. Sawyer always tossed the pillow on the floor when he sat in the chair. Fresh pain accosted her and she shoved the pillow behind her back. “That’s your professional ‘I see,’ Delaney.”

  “I’m not sure you want to hear what the friend in me would say.”

  “You think I should just welcome him into our lives with open arms, with no regard for his coming-and-going ways.”

  “Rebecca, if you really didn’t want something like this to eventually occur, you would never have moved to Weaver. You wanted to get Ryan away from the city, from your apartment filled with memories of Tom and away from the group of friends he’d fallen in with, I understand that But Weaver? Couldn’t you have found another small town that needed a physician?”

  “But Weaver—”

  “Was the one place in this world where you could put your life on hold after Tom died,” Delaney finished gently. “A place where you could justify remaining emotionally uninvolved with the people there—specifically the Clays. A place where you could be on the fringe of people who would care if you’d only let Tom go.”

  “I let Tom go,” Rebecca defended. “I don’t even wear my wedding ring anymore.”

  “Sweetie, you never did wear your wedding ring. Well, hardly ever. You kept it in your grandmother’s antique jewelry case with your other irreplaceable treasures because you said it was too difficult to wear on your finger when you were constantly using sterile gloves.”

  “It’s got that diamond. It always tore the gloves,” Rebecca muttered.

  Delancy laughed softly. “Rebecca as therapist, I’d spend hours getting you to explore the real reasons you didn’t wear that ring, but I’m not your therapist. I’m your friend. So here’s my Christmas present to you, friend. Let Tom go. He died, but you didn’t. You moved to Weaver because it was, ironically enough, a safe place for you to go. A—a waiting zone, if you will. Because this man you’ve never shaken from your heart had a life pretty much separate from the town and his family who live nearby. But you also moved there, because deep down inside you, you knew that this day would one day come. And you could close a wound that’s been open for ten long years
. Well, sweetie, that day has come.”

  It was so true, Rebecca realized with dismay. So ridiculously, pathetically true. “I don’t know what to do about it,” she admitted.

  “Ah, now that’s one I can’t help you with. Even though I am the most brilliant friend you’ve got.”

  “It hurts,” Rebecca said after a moment.

  “Which tells you that you’re alive and well,” Delaney said gently. “Do you love him?”

  No matter how close she and Delaney were, no matter how many times, good and bad, they’d shared, she couldn’t answer that one. “He’s calmer now,” she said. “Not as...driven. But that’s probably just an effect of his accident.”

  “Or the passage of ten years. I’m sure you’re not the same now as you were ten years ago, either, Rebecca. Good grief, ten years ago you probably had visions of joining your parents overseas and curing the world of all its ills!”

  “There was nothing wrong with that.”

  “Not a thing,” Delaney agreed swiftly. “Except that it was your parents’ call. Not yours. I think your calling in life is making house calls on kids with the mumps and delivering babies and helping the aged live and die with dignity. I think your calling is getting involved in people’s lives. Their whole lives, Rebecca. You’re a family doctor. A good one among an unfortunately dying breed. Now get your own family in order. Heal thyself, friend.”

  If only it were so easy. Rebecca felt a wry smile curve her lips. “One of these days, I’m gonna turn the tables on you, Delaney, and make you look hard at the things you’re avoiding in your own life.”

  Delaney laughed. “Oh, sweetie, there’s not enough hours in the day for that Do me a favor, will you?”

  “Depends on what it is.” She reached out and turned on the lamp beside the chair.

  “Take a hard look at Sawyer now. At the way you feel now. Don’t view the situation through glasses clouded by the past.”

  “I don’t wear glasses.”

  “Ha-ha. Oh, look. It’s past midnight here. Christmas Eve has arrived. Please tell me that you’re having Christmas dinner somewhere, so that I don’t have to worry about you and Ryan dying of ptomaine.”

  “Actually, we have been invited somewhere,” Rebecca admitted. “I’m not sure he still wants to take us, though. And I’m not sure I want to go.”

  “Because you’re afraid you won’t enjoy yourself?”

  Rebecca shook her head. “Because I’m afraid that I will.”

  They talked for a few minutes more before hanging up. Rebecca pushed out of the chair, feeling older than she should. She took a long, hot shower, and afterward pulled on warm leggings and a soft flannel shirt. She wrapped the last few Christmas gifts for Ryan that she’d kept hidden in her closet. She washed the few dishes in the kitchen, then mopped the floor.

  But, for once, she didn’t kid herself. What she was doing was putting off what she knew she should do. That she couldn’t leave things with Sawyer the way she had.

  She didn’t believe there was a future for them. She couldn’t go that far. But she could, at least, come to some resolution over Ryan. And she couldn’t do it with her on this end of the building, and Sawyer on the other.

  Taking a quick breath, Rebecca pulled on boots and a coat and let herself out the front office door, which was considerably closer to Sawyer’s room. Snow tickled her nose as she quickly crossed the parking lot, to knock on his door. Only he didn’t answer. Not when she knocked. Or pounded. Or called his name.

  Finally, the cold made her return to her office where she strongly considered using her master key. But her pride wouldn’t let her. So she locked her office and went through to her private quarters. She tucked the presents she’d wrapped under the tree and pretended that she didn’t mind Sawyer ignoring her.

  The phone rang just as she’d finally admitted that she might as well turn in. She picked it up, half expecting to hear Delaney on the other end. But it wasn’t Delaney. It was Judy Blankenship. Roy had gone after Dylan. And this time he had a gun.

  Rebecca ordered Judy to stay right where she was. She grabbed her medical bag and her master key and ran down to Sawyer’s room, unlocking it without a second thought.

  Only he wasn’t there. The room was totally cleaned out. No black leather duffel bag. No used towels. No sign that Sawyer had ever even been there except the ruined microcassette that sat in the middle of the small round table.

  She sucked in a pained breath, swearing at herself. She’d known. Dammit, she’d known. So why be shocked now?

  Why feel as if her life had just been wrenched in two?

  She’d faxed his medical release, and he’d wasted not one minute—not even enough time to say goodbye.

  She yanked the door closed and ran around to her garage, stopping cold when she heard the sharp, unmistakable echo of a gunshot rip the still night. Oh, my God.

  The tires of her Jeep spun and skidded as she wheeled out onto Main, gunning for the sheriff’s office. There was a crowd of people around the brick building. Judy ran toward her as soon as Rebecca threw the truck into Park and started toward the crowd. “They’re all inside with the sheriff,” she said, panic-stricken. “Roy was just out of his mind. I couldn’t calm him down. Phyllis came over and said there was no way on earth she was letting her boy get tricked into marrying our Taylor and—”

  Rebecca listened, pushing her way through the people. If the parents would just let Taylor and Dylan be, she herself believed that the kids would find their own way just fine. She made it to the door of the sheriff’s office and knocked on it loudly. “Taylor, it’s Rebecca Morehouse. Is everyone okay in there?”

  “They won’t answer or let you in,” Newt Rasmusson observed. “We’ve already been trying.” He looked like a circus clown in his striped thermals and heavy wool coat. “Phyllis said she’d shoot anyone who tried to break in. Already shot off a round. Don’t know what they did to Bobby Ray. He hauled ’em all in when he found Roy traipsing around like a maniac.”

  Rebecca ignored him, pounding on the door again. If Sheriff Hayes had lost control of the situation, it could only be because something terrible had happened to him. Adrenaline pumped through her and she turned, spying Bennett. “Who all is in there?”

  Even Bennett appeared shaken by the night’s events. “Bobby Ray, Roy, Phyllis. Dylan and Taylor. Sawyer.”

  Rebecca gasped, her stomach clenching. She pressed a shaking hand to her mouth and turned once more toward the building. Sawyer would know what to do. Had someone been shot? If there was a way to diffuse this nightmare, Sawyer would use it.

  She closed her eyes, wishing the sound of that shot would stop repeating over and over in her head. She looked up at Bennett. “Is there another way inside?”

  Bennett rubbed his gloved hands together, stomped his feet. “There’s a window around back,” he said. “Leads into the breakroom. But it’s small and always locked, and you’re crazy if you think any of us are going to let you try to go in there.”

  The crowd was growing. Ruby and Hope Leoni were there. The minister from the church, Jolie Taggart and her husband, Drew. Feeling utterly helpless, Rebecca rested her palm flat against the locked door. “Please be all right,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me again.”

  Taylor was crying softly, and Dylan was a tensed coil of young testosterone ready to explode. Roy Blankenship and Phyllis Reese were squared off on opposite sides of a desk, both of them holding shotguns, and Bobby Ray was lying on the floor beside Sawyer, his face contorted in a spasm of pain.

  Sawyer wasn’t all that sure he didn’t feel some sympathy for Roy wanting to protect his teenage daughter, especially against Phyllis’s nasty accusations that Taylor was trying to trap her son with this pregnancy business. But he sure in hell didn’t like sitting smack dab between two shotguns aimed over his head.

  He also didn’t like knowing that Rebecca was standing on the other side of the heavy door. Until he got the weapons away from these two fools, everyone standin
g inside or outside the office was in danger. He’d tried reasoning with both parents, to no avail. Now, Sawyer only hoped to God that Bobby Ray wasn’t having a heart attack.

  He moved off the chair, crouching beside the older man. “How you doing, Bobby Ray,” he asked quietly.

  The sheriff moaned, unable to answer, and Sawyer quietly swore. “Dylan,” he spoke to the boy who was nearly a man, and was aware that everyone jumped. “Come over here and help me with the sheriff.”

  “Don’t you move, Dylan,” Phyllis screeched.

  “Oh, Ma!” Dylan yelled. “You want to shoot me like you tried to shoot Mr. Blankenship?” His deep voice broke and he sidled around the rear of his out-of-control mother.

  “You keep your mouth shut, Dylan,” she hissed. “None of this would be happening if that tramp hadn’t taken advantage of you.”

  “Phyllis, I swear if you call my girl a tramp one more time, I’m gonna shoot you just for the pleasure of shutting that vicious mouth you’ve burdened this town with for the last two decades.”

  Dylan clouched down beside Sawyet just as Bobby Ray cried out, clutching his chest. Then he fell back, deathly still.

  Sawyer swore, not quite so silently this time and felt for a pulse. He yanked open the sheriff’s puffy down vest and started CPR, making sure Dylan was watching his actions. “You people are fighting over who is trapping whom when you’re all gonna benefit when that little baby is born,” he said tersely. “Can’t you think beyond your own noses to your grandchild? To your son and your daughter who you claim to love?” Sawyer would give everything he possessed to regain the years he’d lost with Rebecca and Ryan.

  “That boy is going to do right by my little girl,” Roy said tightly.

  Taylor cried. “Daddy, I don’t want to get married. Why can’t you listen to me?”

  Beside him, Sawyer felt Dylan wince. He grabbed the boy’s big hands and planted them over Bobby Ray’s chest. “Don’t stop,” he murmured firmly. Dylan’s eyes were scared but his gaze didn’t waver. And he didn’t stop the CPR. The kid had more guts just then than Sawyer had when he’d been the same age—running away from the life that hadn’t been exactly the way he’d figured it ought to be.