A Bride For Saint Nick

by Carole Buck

  “You hate me, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. I just—Oh, look. What you said earlier. When we were out front. About your thinking that I was, uh, ‘good’ because I didn’t have any…men in my life.”

  “Y-yeah?”

  Leigh hesitated, knowing what needed to be said but uncertain how to say it. Finally, she opted to be as direct as she could.

  “I’m a single woman with a son, Dee. I’m an unwed mother.

  I’m not—” she took a deep breath, asking forgiveness for what was probably going to come out sounding like blasphemy “—the Virgin Mary.”

  “Having Andy doesn’t make you bad.”

  “But being with a man would?”

  Dee flinched as though she’d been struck. “It made me bad.”

  The assertion seared Leigh like acid, reminding her of the dark desperation that had nearly overwhelmed Suzanne Whitney during the months following her lover’s death. She understood what it was like to feel physically soiled and emotionally stained. The birth of an innocent baby—her baby—had helped purge her soul of the poisons it had taken on.

  But Deirdre Bleeker had no child to hold and hug. No little boy to snuggle up against her and whisper words of unconditional affection. She had…only herself.

  No, Leigh thought on a powerful surge of emotion. She has me, too. For whatever it’s worth, she has me, too.

  Pushing herself away from the desk, she took hold of her assistant’s narrow shoulders. “Look at me,” she ordered sharply.

  After a moment, the other woman did.

  “You are not bad, Dee,” she said fiercely. “You can disbelieve everything else I say, but don’t disbelieve that. You are not bad!”

  “You…you know what I d-did.”

  “Did. Past tense. Not are. Yes, you made some terrible mistakes. Yes, you broke the law. And you paid a price for it. You went to prison. But you are not bad! You kicked your drug habit. You earned your GED. You started a brand-new life. A bad person wouldn’t do that, Dee! A bad person would just keep on…being bad.”

  “You don’t understand!” It was a cry from the heart. “You’ve never—you aren’t like m-me, Leigh. I know I s-said you were. But I was wrong. I—I see that n-now. You—you—”

  “You don’t think I’ve made mistakes?” Leigh gave the other woman a little shake, desperate to get through to her. “You don’t think I’ve done things I’ll regret until the day I die?”

  The redhead went very still, her eyes shifting back and forth, back and forth. “Y-you?” she finally whispered, her skepticism a palpable thing.

  Leigh bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood. The coppery tang triggered a sense memory so vile she almost vomited. Choking down the bile that had risen in her throat, she decided what she had to do.

  “Yes, me,” she quietly affirmed, releasing Dee’s shoulders and straightening. She took a step back. “About six years ago, I got involved with a man. He was a criminal.”

  “You…didn’t know?” Dee’s tone suggested that she was painfully familiar with tales of good girls duped by bad men.

  “Oh, I knew, all right. From the very beginning, I knew exactly what he was.” Leigh paused, remembering several off-kilter moments when Suzanne Whitney had glanced at Nicholas Marchand and caught a glimpse of a man she hadn’t recognized at all yet to whom she’d been powerfully drawn. She’d wondered once or twice whether it hadn’t been this man she’d surrendered to, rather than Saint Nick. “I knew what people said he was,” she resumed, correcting herself. “But it didn’t matter.”

  “Because you I-loved him?”

  “Yes. And because I wanted him. This wasn’t some chaste romance. I wanted this man, Dee. This…criminal. I wanted the taste of him. The smell of him. The feel of him. I knew it was wrong. It went against every rule I’d been taught when I was growing up. Against every standard I’d set for myself. But it just didn’t matter.”

  “Did he love you?”

  Leigh closed her eyes. “He…never said.”

  “But he w-wanted you.”

  “Yes.” Oh, God, yes. Saint Nick had wanted her. Or, rather, the woman she’d once been.

  “What happened?”

  Leigh opened her eyes, meeting the redhead’s searching gaze once again. “He died. In a car crash. He was on his way to visit me.”

  There was a long pause. Then, very quietly, Dee asked, “Was this man Andy’s father?”

  Leigh wanted to look away but found she couldn’t. Tangible as the tilting of a child’s teeter-totter, the emotional balance in the room had shifted. Where she’d been strong, she now felt weak. Where Deirdre Bleeker had been shattered and unsure, she now appeared calm and capable of offering succor.

  “I’m not sure,” answered the woman who’d spent seven nights dreaming of a man whose outer scars seemed strangely matched to her own inner wounds. “I’m not…sure.”

  More than that, Leigh McKay couldn’t—wouldn’t—say. She’d never told anyone what had happened between the end of Suzanne Whitney’s final phone conversation with Nicholas Marchand and the arrival at her apartment of the law-enforcement officials who’d informed her of his death. She wasn’t sure she ever would.

  Dee’s expression changed. Leigh saw in her face the same flooding compassion she’d felt earlier.

  She knew.

  Somehow, some way, Deirdre Bleeker knew what had happened to her.

  The redhead got to her feet, bits of tissues fluttering to the floor like confetti. She took a step toward Leigh. Then, very awkwardly, as though she were unfamiliar with the mechanics of the gesture, she put her arms around her and gave her a hug.

  “It’s okay, Leigh,” she said in a gentle voice. “It’s…okay.”

  Chapter 9

  John frowned at the Closed sign hanging inside the front door of Leigh’s bookshop, then checked his wristwatch for the second time.

  It said 4:45 p.m.

  According to the neatly lettered schedule in the window, the store was supposed to be open from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

  The lights were off, he observed with a trace of uneasiness. But Leigh’s station wagon—the “sort of old” one that Wesley Warren supposedly had fixed as good as new—was parked by the curb.

  He glanced at the bouquet of flowers he’d purchased from the florist down the street. He’d gone into the place on impulse, thinking that Leigh might enjoy a bit of spring in the middle of winter. The first thing that had caught his eye was a bunch of blush-pink roses. The sight had jolted him, triggering a host of memories.

  “Pretty, aren’t they?” the florist had asked, sizing him up in a politely mercantile way.

  “Yes, they are,” he’d agreed, stroking the velvety outer petals of one of the tightly furled blossoms with the tip of his right index finger.

  “Twenty-five a dozen, including a couple of nice sprays of baby’s breath and some fresh greenery.”

  He’d been tempted, but only for a moment. Because, lovely though they’d been, blush-pink rosebuds had seemed inappropriate for the woman Suzanne Whitney had become. Lush cream ones with well-guarded hearts and a few hidden thorns would have been closer to the mark, if they’d been available.

  He’d ended up picking out an assortment of flowers. Exactly what he’d bought, he had no idea. He’d simply pointed at items he thought would appeal to Leigh. A couple of those whatever-they-were with the ruffled petals. Three—no, four-of the big blue ones with the purple centers. A couple of bunches of those golden orchidy-looking things. And two of those. And two of these. And a half-dozen sprays of the goodsmelling white ones.

  The florist had seemed mildly amused about the haphazard selection process but more than a little pleased by the final tab.

  John checked his watch again. Something was wrong, he decided. Leigh wouldn’t hang up a Closed sign during business hours unless there were. What if she’d taken ill? What if there’d been an emergency involving
Andy? What if Deirdre Bleeker—

  He froze, his attention riveted on the shop’s unlit interior.

  Movement! Dammit, yes, there was movement in the back of the store. Someone was inside.

  Fisting his left hand, John banged it against the door. “Hello?” he called through the glass. “Hello?”

  Nothing.

  He banged again, harder. “Hello? Anybody in there?”

  A moment later several of the shop’s overhead lights flickered on. A moment after that, the redhead emerged from the shadows.

  She’d been crying. John made that out long before she reached the door. Even viewed through a finger-smudged piece of glass at a distance of eight or nine feet, she looked as though she’d been bawling her eyes out.

  She also looked…well, not happy exactly. He had a feeling that “happy” hadn’t been in Deirdre Bleeker’s emotional repertoire for a long time. But there was a hint of softness in her face that he’d never seen before.

  Trick of the lighting, he thought as he watched her begin to unlock the door. Or maybe just a trick.

  The door opened with a silvery jingle.

  “Mr. Gulliver,” she greeted him, blotting her nose with a mangled piece of tissue. “H-hi.”

  Thrown by the comparative cordiality of her tone, John stepped inside and glanced around. Dee shut the door but did not relock it. She also flipped the Closed sign over. The move seemed automatic.

  “Are you…all right, Dee?” he asked, following her over to the checkout counter. He was careful not to crowd her.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, starting to straighten a stack of bookmarks. Like the move with the Closed sign, the action appeared automatic. “I’m sorry about the door. Leigh and I—”

  “Is she here?”

  “She’s in the back. She’ll be out in a minute. She, uh, decided to lock up early because it was a really slow day. But then we, uh, got hooked on this old movie—Leigh has a little TV in her office—and we sort of, uh, lost track of time. It was one of those, uh, ten-hankie deals.” She gestured with the bunch of tissues she’d been using. “Or ten hunks of tissue, as the case may be.”

  Two realizations struck John almost simultaneously. The first was that Deirdre Bleeker had just made a joke. A very weak joke, to be sure. But still a joke. The second realization was that Leigh’s assistant was a lousy liar. A really lousy liar.

  “I…see, “he said.

  “Are those for Leigh?” she asked, indicating the flowers.

  “That’s right.”

  “They’re beautiful.”

  “You think?”

  “Especially the freesia.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The little white ones. They smell terrific, you know.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “I noticed. Freesia, hmm? The florist said the name when I picked them out. I—uh—thought she’d sneezed.”

  Dee laughed, just a bit. Then she sniffed and began dabbing at her nose.

  “Here.” Before he really considered the implications of what he was doing, John plucked a spray of freesia from the bouquet and extended it.

  The redhead stiffened, a hint of panic entering her expression. “N-no. I couldn’t.”

  “Please.”

  “John?”

  He had it bad, he thought. The sound of Leigh McKay saying his name made his breath catch and his heart stand still. And he’d only kissed her twice!

  He turned.

  She’d been crying, too. A lot. Yet there was something in her expression that suggested the tears had been a much-needed catharsis. It suddenly occurred to John that he—or rather, Nicholas Marchand—had never seen Suzanne Whitney weep. Not that he’d wanted to. God, no! But it was another example of the emotional reticence he’d sometimes found so frustrating.

  Which had been damnably unfair of him, considering how much he’d held back from her. Like who he really was. What he really did. How he actually felt about her.

  “Leigh!” Dee exclaimed, retreating a step. “I was just explaining to Mr., uh, G-Gulliver about the, uh, old movie we were, uh, watching. On your TV. In the back. It was a, uh, real sobfest, huh?”

  “A total tearjerker,” Leigh smoothly agreed, hooking a lock of pale blond hair back behind her right ear as she came forward. She offered John a gentle smile. Like the one in the photograph Lucy Falco had sent him the day before Thanksgiving, it didn’t quite touch her eyes.

  Evidently the catharsis hadn’t been as cathartic for the employer as it had been for the employee, he reflected with an inward frown. On the other hand, Leigh McKay appeared to be a lot more at ease with prevarication than Deirdre Bleeker was.

  At least in this particular instance.

  “He brought you flowers.”

  Another smile. And this one did brighten Andy’s mother’s beautiful sky-blue eyes.

  “Thank you,” Leigh said, accepting the bouquet. Her fingertips brushed John’s as she did so. A hint of color stole up into her cheeks. She lifted the flowers to her nose and inhaled. “Mmm. Freesia.”

  “I was trying to get Dee to take some,” John said after a moment, conscious of a stirring in his groin. He made an awkward gesture with the stem he was still holding.

  “I told him I couldn’t,” Dee said quickly.

  “Why not?” Leigh asked.

  “You wouldn’t…mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  The redhead turned toward John, her expression uncertain. He simply held out the spray. In the same instant she took it, the front door opened with a bright ring-ting-a-ling and a brief burst of wintry air.

  “Dee?”

  Deirdre flushed, clutching the freesia to the front of her duncolored sweater. “W-Wes!” she exclaimed, pivoting around.

  The mechanic walked forward, his eyes shifting from Dee to John to Leigh and back to Dee again. “Came by about a half hour ago, sign said you were closed,” he reported. “Thought maybe there was some kind of problem.”

  “The ladies were having a private sobfest,” John said, noticing the way the other man’s gaze kept drifting toward the freesia nestled against Dee’s flat chest, then jerking back up to her blotchy face.

  “Huh?” Wes demanded, a frown creasing his face.

  “Dee and I were watching an old movie, Wes,” Leigh elaborated easily. “A classic weepie.”

  “Which movie was that?”

  For a moment John thought Wes was trying to trap the women in their obvious lie. Then he realized that the guy had accepted Leigh’s spiel as gospel. The mechanic was interested in the movie’s title. Sincerely interested.

  Something very weird was going on.

  “Doctor Zhivago,” Dee blurted out.

  “Anna Karenina,” Leigh responded in the same breath.

  Wes seemed flummoxed.

  “It was a double feature,” John interpolated, beginning to wonder whether he might have misread the other man. “Tragic Russian romances.”

  “Huh.” Wes took a moment to absorb this bit of information then looked straight at Dee. “From books?”

  “Y-yes,” the redhead stammered. “Boris Pasternak and Leo T-Tolstoy.”

  “In stock?”

  “I…uh…think. We c-c-could…look.”

  “Sounds good.”

  The two moved off. An obviously odd couple, but strangely in sync.

  “You want to tell me the real reason for the waterworks?” John asked in an undertone after a beat or two.

  “A…misunderstanding.”

  “About?” He shifted, edging nearer to Leigh. The sweet fragrance of the flowers she was holding tantalized his nostrils. The ear she’d revealed when she’d brushed her hair back looked incredibly tempting to him. He wanted to trace its delicate outer curve with his tongue. To nibble on its dainty lobe with the edge of this teeth.

  She raised her eyes to his. Something sparked in their sapphire depths. Racheting up her chin another notch she said, “Dee was upset because you spent Saturday night at my house.”

&n
bsp; Arousal gave way to anger. “Wes told her—“

  “No.” Leigh laid a restraining hand on his forearm. John shut up. He didn’t have much choice. The feel of her fingers-even experienced through several layers of clothing—caused his throat to close up. “Not really. Yesterday morning at church, she overheard some woman talking about having seen Andy and me having dinner with you. And later, Thalia Jenkins’s cousin—”

  “Edith from housekeeping,” John managed as Leigh removed her hand. “And she’s Thalia’s second cousin. On her mother’s side, if I recall correctly.”

  “You know her?”

  “We’ve spoken on the phone.”

  “Ah. Well, Edith and Thalia belong to the same fellowship group as Dee and during last night’s meeting your name came up in connection with Andy’s accident. One thing led to another and Edith apparently mentioned that your room at the inn hadn’t been slept in Saturday night.”

  “And Dee assumed—”

  “Exactly. She also ran into Wes this morning at the café.”

  “Small-town gossips,” John muttered acidly, shaking his head. “Man. They could teach the FBI a thing or two about surveillance.”

  Leigh’s face lost much of its color. She took a step back, gathering the bouquet against her as though it were a shield.

  What the—? John wondered, recognizing shock when he saw it.

  “Leigh?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “N-nothing.” The denial was quick and palpably false. “It’s just that—I mean—uh—What an…odd thing to say. About the FBI.”

  “You’d never heard it before?”

  “Not exactly.” Andy’s mother took a deep breath, obviously willing herself to calm down. After a moment she summoned up a slightly crooked smile and said, “Although—now that I consider, it makes a lot of sense. The idea that the residents of small towns would have a certain, uh, expertise in keeping track of people, that is. I mean, they do tend to know their neighbors…and their neighbors’ business.”

  “Which you’d just as soon they didn’t in your case?”