I'll Be Home for Christmas

by Lori Wilde

  Casey groaned and fell dramatically back against the seat. “I feel the need for speed.”

  “That sounds like your mother,” Joe said. “Usually just before she gets a speeding ticket.”

  Gabi listened to the exchange between them. It spoke to Joe’s abilities as a father figure that even after two years apart, he and Casey dropped effortlessly into easy rapport.

  She entwined her fingers together, dropped her hands into her lap. Third wheel. She felt like a third wheel. Hello, self-pity. Knock it off. She was happy Joe and Casey had each other. She just kind of wished she had it too.

  “There!” Gabi pointed. “Straight ahead to your left. Snoopy.”

  “Eagle eye,” Casey said.

  “Good going, Trouble.” Joe laughed. “Case, get ready to take the pic.”

  Casey leaned out the window when he stopped, clicked the photo, slid back inside. Joe turned the car around.

  Gabi spied the Grinch. “Look.”

  “You’re on fire,” Casey pronounced.

  “Now that’s what I call teamwork,” Joe crowed, and zoomed over to the Grinch house.

  And just like that, in a snapshot second, Gabi belonged.

  “According to the rules there’s one last step,” Gabi announced after they’d taken the last photo.

  “What’s that?” Joe asked.

  “In front of some Christmas lights, take a selfie ki— Oh—” Gabi broke off.

  “Oh what?” Joe asked.

  “What kind of selfie?” Casey popped her head over the seat again.

  “Um …” she said, not about to read what it said on the paper in front of Casey—Take a selfie kissing your sweetheart.

  She glanced over at Joe, knew he already knew the rules of the scavenger hunt. He winked and blew her a kiss. They didn’t need a kissing selfie to tell them both what they already knew.

  It was a special night.

  They didn’t win the scavenger hunt. Mac and Coco took the title. But everyone got a conciliatory prize of a basket of cookies to take home. Joe was tickled when Gabi won the candy cane quilt with her guess of six hundred and fifty-seven ornaments on the tree, only seven ornaments off the exact count. Her face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning and when he took the quilt from the wall and folded it up for her, she pressed it against her chest, hugged the cloth, and grinned.

  The party started breaking up around nine when Jenny and Dean took Gramps back to the rehab hospital. Slowly, the guests said their good-byes.

  Joe was antsy to get Gabi back home. He wanted to touch her so badly his palms ached. But it was almost ten o’clock and Tatum still hadn’t shown to pick up Casey. He texted his ex-wife, but she hadn’t texted back. He didn’t want to make a thing of it in front of Casey. Didn’t want the child feeling like her mother had abandoned her.

  “You go on home,” his mother invited. “I’ll look after Casey until her mom comes to get her.”

  Casey moved closer to Joe, reached out to slip her little hand into his. Ah damn. His heart puddled into his feet. “No worries. It’s getting late. I’ll just take her on home.”

  His mother gave him a look that asked the question, What happens if Tatum isn’t there?

  He shrugged slow and easy, silently telegraphed, I’ll handle it.

  “All right,” his mother said, and put her arm around his father’s waist. “We’re here if you need us.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “It’s good to know you’re always there for us.”

  “We’re your parents, where else would we be?”

  It struck Joe just how damn lucky he was to have such loving, supportive parents. He glanced at Casey and Gabi. Casey holding his hand tightly, Gabi clutching the quilt under her arm. Not everyone had that.

  “C’mon, girls,” he said. “Let’s hit the road.”

  Gabi and Casey said good-bye to his parents and then he herded them to his vehicle. By the time they reached the farm, Casey was sound asleep in the backseat.

  Joe pulled up in front of the yurt, and cut the engine. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Gabi said, but he ignored her protest, got out, and hustled around the side of the pickup to open the door for her before she gathered up her purse and quilt and hopped out.

  He took her elbow and guided her to the front steps, his heart knocking like a cold engine. He had so many things to tell, but this wasn’t the time or the place. “I appreciate what you did for Casey.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” she said.

  “You made the night special for her.” He peered into her eyes. “And for me.”

  She shrugged as if she sprinkled magic wherever she went and it was no big deal. “You and Casey made the night special for me. From the time I was a small child I dreamed of Christmas celebrations like yours. I’m honored to have been a small part of it.”

  He bent his head. She raised her chin.

  “I want to kiss you so badly I can’t stand it,” he murmured, pressing his hot forehead to hers. “I want to come inside, come inside you.”

  She closed her eyes, leaned against him, her breathing rough and ragged. “You can’t,” she said. “Casey is watching.”

  He turned his head, and saw she was right. Casey was sitting up in the backseat peering through the windshield at them. He swore softly. He wasn’t even going to get to steal a kiss.

  She shifted the quilt from underneath her arm to her chest. “I had a really great time tonight.”

  “The best Christmas party ever. Having Casey here and you,” he said, speaking for himself as his delight bumped against regret that he wasn’t going to be able to go inside with her. A smile nudged at the corners of his mouth.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “You.”

  “What about me?”

  “How you kept spotting the Christmas decorations. How you won the quilt.” How my heart slams into my chest every time you walk into a room. He thought about what Gramps had said to him about falling in love with Gabi and chill bumps broke out across his back.

  Oh damn, he was in trouble.

  But here was the kicker. He welcomed this brand of trouble with open arms.

  “You better go,” she said. “Casey’s waiting.”

  “Yeah,” he said regretfully, stood there a moment longer, peered deeply into her wide blue eyes. “I’m honored to know you, Gabi Preston.”

  Her eyes went shiny in the vague light from the security lamp. “Hey, what’s this?” she asked, her voice husky and quiet. “I’ve still got thirteen days left. It sounds like you’re already saying good-bye.”

  “It is good-bye for now,” he said. The rest of the night without her seemed to stretch into infinity. Whenever he was not with her, he felt less than. It was a new feeling for him, all at once startling, scary, and compelling.

  He kept standing there, not moving, peering deeply into her eyes, mesmerized by how she made him feel.

  “Go,” Gabi said, physically turning him around and pointing him toward his truck. “That little girl is depending on you.”

  “I wish—”

  “Shh.” Gabi reached up to press her index finger to his lips. “Don’t say it. You wanted Casey home for Christmas and you’ve got her.”

  Gabi was right. As much as he wished he could be with her, Casey was what mattered right now, and he loved Gabi for understanding.

  “Go,” she said, leaned up, and kissed his cheek.

  Then she turned and went inside, leaving him standing on the porch with the realization that she’d already changed him and he was never going to be the same.

  CHAPTER 22

  May the spirit of Christmas bring you peace. The gladness of Christmas bring you hope. The warmth of Christmas grant you love.

  —Anonymous

  Building a fire in the fireplace, Gabi struggled to get her breathing and her emotions under control.

  Her fingers flicked the lighter Joe had used to start a fire the first day she’d
arrived. He’d touched this. His hand. Right here where hers was now. She traced a finger over the trigger of the lighter, one click and whoosh—flame.

  She moistened her lips, her body hot and damp and achy—achy for him. “Oh, Joe.” She sighed and pressed her forehead against the mantel. Before Tatum stranded Casey, Gabi had decided she was going to grab hold of caution and sling it straight into the wind by inviting Joe to spend the night. But that opportunity had evaporated.

  Good thing, she told herself. Very good thing. She was already teetering on the verge of falling wildly in love with Joe and one more night would surely push her over the edge.

  Tonight only brought home what she was already painfully aware of. She was a visitor to this town. She was only temporary. What else could she be? Long-distance romances didn’t work.

  But she couldn’t stop herself from spinning fantasies. She’d come here to explore her options, embrace a new world, and she was up to her elbows in it and it was wonderful.

  Don’t label things. Just let them be what they are.

  So easy to say and yet so hard to do.

  Joe was the answer to her metamorphosis. The key that would turn the lock. She already knew what she had to do and who she wanted to be, but he was what gave her the courage to go for it.

  On the day after they’d made love, that same day Tatum rolled into town, she had told him that she was pulling the plug on the sexual part of their relationship because his life was simply too complicated.

  But that was an easy excuse.

  The real reason she’d backed off? After their hot night together the seed of startling new feelings had been planted. Feelings she’d been too scared to examine. Feelings just like the ones she was feeling now after seeing how he was with his family and Casey.

  She loved him.

  Yes. There. She’d fallen in love with him. Holding off on the sex hadn’t helped stave off the feelings. If anything it had only intensified her longing.

  Yes, she accepted fully that in the end her heart was going to get broken. But knowing him, loving him was worth the price. She’d allowed fear to hold her back too many times from going for what she wanted.

  And she wanted Joe.

  Gabi had two weeks left in Twilight, and she wasn’t going to waste another breath on fear.

  Joe carried a sleeping Casey into the farmhouse and laid her gently on the bed in the spare bedroom, his heart so filled with love that he feared it might swallow him whole.

  He spread a quilt over her, and leaned down to kiss her head.

  She stirred. “Daddy Joe?’ she murmured groggily.

  “What is it, sweetheart?”

  “Can I call you just plain daddy?”

  Joe felt as if his heart had been shucked right out of his chest. “Why sure, you can.”

  “Good,” she said, smiling, her eyes drifting closed again.

  He backed out of the room, and left the door open a crack in case she called for him. Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, he paced the living room listening to Tatum’s phone ring.

  Finally, she picked up on the fourth ring.

  “Where are you?” he growled, fighting to keep his anger in check.

  “Your front yard.” She sounded exhausted, bone tired.

  “What?” He moved to the window, peered out, saw her clunker parked in the yard.

  “Why are you sitting out there?”

  “Working up the courage to come in.” Her words were slurred.

  “Get in here,” Joe snapped, hung up, and tossed his phone on the table.

  A minute later, Tatum’s footsteps echoed on the wooden porch. He flung open the door, glowered at her. In the light from the porch lamp, she looked tortured, haunted.

  “You’ve been drinking,” he said, lowering his voice so he didn’t wake Casey. He knotted his hands into fists, and let them drop to his side.

  Tatum swayed. “Just a couple of beers.”

  “And you drove under the influence.” He spat out the words, barely able to contain his outrage.

  “That’s why I didn’t come get Casey. I didn’t want to drive with her in the car. So I stopped drinking and I waited until it wore off.”

  Hell, he supposed that was something, even though she hadn’t waited long enough. “You could have texted me.”

  Tatum ducked her head. “I’m sorry. I misplaced my phone. I couldn’t find it until you called me. It had fallen out of my purse and slid under the car seat.”

  “I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” Joe grabbed her by the arm and dragged her over the threshold. He couldn’t help casting a glance over at the yurt.

  A light was on. Gabi was still awake. He yearned to go to her, to tell her what his grandfather had said. To tell her that, yeah, maybe Gramps was right and he was falling in love. But he couldn’t do that because his past was standing in his living room with shaky knees and bloodshot eyes.

  “Sit.” He pushed Tatum down onto the couch. Not gently. He trod to the kitchen, clenching and unclenching his hands, anger a hot cushion pressing against his lungs. Brewed a cup of coffee. Took it back and thrust it in her hands. “Drink.”

  She looked like she might argue, but something in his face must have told her to obey. She sipped the coffee.

  “This can’t go on,” he said.

  “I know,” she mumbled into her cup.

  “Casey deserves better. You deserve better. Have some self-respect.”

  “I’ll try,” Tatum said. “That’s why I came back to Twilight. Why I came home.”

  He’d heard her empty promises before. He no longer believed them. Folding his arms over his shoulder, he rested his butt against the wall, glowered at her. “I can’t keep cleaning up after you.”

  “I know, I know.” She set the coffee cup on the end table.

  “This is serious.”

  Tatum lifted her head, and her eyes were so starkly desperate her expression jolted him, and he realized she wasn’t so much drunk as emotionally wrung out.

  “What happened?” he asked, kicking off from the wall and coming to sit in the chair across from her.

  Her shoulders jerked up tight as if tugged by marionette strings, hovered near her ears before dropping in a loose slump.

  “Talk to me.”

  “No big deal,” she mumbled, not meeting his gaze.

  “Something happened to cause you to drink too much when you knew you had to come pick up your daughter. You’re impulsive, Tatum, but you would never intentionally hurt Casey. I know that.”

  She stared down at her feet, nervously ran her palms repeatedly over her knees. Was this for real or was she pulling a stunt?

  “If this is another one of your bids to get me back, it won’t work.” He injected steel into his voice.

  “I know,” she said, sounding like she not only meant it, but she finally understood they were completely over. “I see the way you look at your new girlfriend.”

  Joe tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it wouldn’t go down. Tonight, just after he’d told Joe he was giving him the farm, Gramps had said something similar. He hadn’t even had time to process that information, much less examine the truth of his feelings for Gabi.

  “You never looked at me like that.” She pulled her knees to her chest, curled up small on his couch. “Why didn’t you ever look at me like that?”

  It occurred to him that he was witnessing an authentic moment. He’d seen plenty of the false performances she used as a tool for manipulating people. But the glimmer of awareness in her eyes, the way her lips pulled in honest remorse, the devastating drag of her body as if she wasn’t strong enough to fight off gravity, clued him in that Tatum was experiencing a moment of true clarity.

  “I’ve ruined everything,” she keened. “Lost it all.”

  “Not everything.”

  “Name one thing. I’ve messed up every relationship I’ve ever been in. I can’t hold down a job. I’m broke.”

  “Casey. You’ve got Case
y.”

  “It’s only a matter of time before I mess that up too.”

  “She’s a great kid. You’ve done something right, but if you don’t change your ways, you’re going to lose her.”

  Tatum’s bottom lip trembled, and she blinked hard, trying to hang on to her emotions. That was different too. She loved drama, but for once she wasn’t overplaying it.

  “I … I …” She stopped, inhaled sharply, started again as she exhaled. “If anything should happen to me … if … I’m ever not there for her … you’re the one who should … I want you to …” She put a hand to her mouth, shook her head. “You … take care of her. Take care of her as if she were yours.”

  “Always, Tatum.” He moved to the couch, put an awkward hand on her shoulder. “I’ll always take care of Casey.”

  She nodded. “Could you watch her for a few days?”

  His muscles stiffened. “What are you up to?”

  “Jeez. Love how you assume the worst.”

  “Past experience. You have to change first before you can win my trust.”

  She gulped visibly, and finally dredged her eyes up to meet his. “You asked me what happened.” She paused for so long he thought she wasn’t going to continue. “I went to a party tonight and a man came into the room that looked so much like him …”

  “Your stepfather.”

  Closing her eyes, Tatum pressed her hands together, interlaced her fingers, and brought them to her mouth. “I started shaking all over. I couldn’t breathe. I broke out in a sweat—” She closed her eyes again.

  “That’s why you drank too much.”

  “Stupid.” She scrubbed a palm down her face.

  “Understandable. You haven’t dealt with what he did to you.”

  “I thought … sleeping dogs …” One shoulder did that jerky shrug. “Ya know.”

  “You need to confront him.”

  “Tonight showed me that. I’m no better than my mom, who dragged me from town to town as she went from man to man. I’m doing the same thing to Casey, and what if one day I end up with a guy like my stepfather—” Tears overcame her and she buried her face in her hands. “I can’t let that happen to Casey. I won’t.”

  Joe let her cry. This was a hard lesson and a long time coming, but Tatum had gotten there at last. He reached over, pulled a tissue from the box on the end table, and pressed it into her hand.