Was Granny back in the present? It was an emotional relief when Granny’s mind cleared for a few minutes.
“And for crying out loud,” Granny added, “she’s getting married in a few months! She’s marrying the father of her child, and while in my day we hid that kind of thing a little more effectively, I don’t see what the big deal is now!”
No, Granny was stuck in the past again, and Beth pulled a hand through her hair.
“I’m going to tell you something, Ricky,” Granny went on. “I was three months pregnant with you when I married your father. We eloped, he and I, because you were on the way! It was a big deal back then, so we fudged our anniversary so you’d never know. But your dad and I have been very happy together. So stop hounding this poor girl and let her get married!”
Beth stared at her grandmother in surprise. In Granny’s day, that would have been quite the scandal. To think, Granny had shared that secret to stand up for her... Except she wasn’t marrying anybody, and Danny had nothing to do with her pregnancy. Still, Granny had meant well.
“I didn’t know that, Mom,” her father said. “Thanks for telling me.”
“Are you going to give her a break already?” Granny pressed.
“Yes, of course.”
Granny reached out and put a hand on Beth’s arm. “You should probably get off your feet, dear.”
Granny headed back into the living room, and Beth met her father’s gaze with a small smile.
“Wow,” Beth said. “I’m not the only scandal around here.”
Her father shook his head. “She’s told me that about four times already. She keeps forgetting.” Her father heaved a sigh. “I’m only looking out for you, Beth. I’m not judging you. I’m doing my best, and I feel like it isn’t enough.”
“I’m a grown woman, Dad,” Beth replied. “I’ll figure it out. You don’t need to worry.”
Except he would worry. She knew that. Under it all, he was still her daddy, and she had come home in the most vulnerable state possible...right when he had nothing left to give.
* * *
DAN STOOD ON a stepladder to unscrew the bell over the top of the door. It tinkled dully against his sleeve as he worked, and when the second screw finally came out of the wall, he pulled the bell free. How long had this been here?
The corner store had been a fixture in this town, and he did feel a little bit bad that he was the one to tear apart a place with so much history, but a corner store couldn’t make money anymore. Especially not with the chain gas stations selling all the same product cheaper. That was why Rick had gone out of business. Dan wasn’t supposed to feel guilty here, and yet somehow he did. Just a little.
He also hadn’t counted on Beth coming back to town... Pregnant Beth. That had been a shock, all right. He’d thought that he’d cleared his heart of her years ago when she’d walked out on him, but seeing her again had proven him wrong. He definitely felt something, even if it was mingled with anger. He knew he’d messed up by not telling her about his son sooner, but in his defense, he’d never met the boy, and Lana seemed to have dropped off the map. Then when Lana showed up with a little boy with big brown eyes, his world had turned upside down, and he’d hoped Beth would stand by him. But she couldn’t—she was betrayed by the surprise, and he was equally betrayed by her abandonment.
Yeah, he’d messed up, but so had she. Marriage was for better or for worse, and they’d been just days from the ceremony, and she’d still walked out. What about their commitment to each other? This was his son, and any woman who couldn’t love Luke, too, didn’t belong with him, much as it hurt. So whatever he still felt for her was tempered by reality.
Dan put the bell down on the front counter and glanced out the window in time to see Beth approaching. He’d told her to come and take what she wanted, and it looked like she wasn’t wasting any time. He paused and watched her pick her way around icy patches. Her breath hung in the air, and as he watched her careful movements, he remembered an image he’d had in his mind a long time ago...back when he’d asked her to marry him, when he’d thought about starting a family with her and what she’d look like pregnant with their baby.
And there she was—fully, richly pregnant. He stepped away from the window so she wouldn’t see him, but his heart was already beating quicker than it was before. Beth had always done this to him, mixed him up and made him yearn for more...
The front door opened, and a whoosh of cold air swept in ahead of Beth. She slammed the door shut behind her and shivered.
“It’s cold out,” she said.
Dan nodded toward a space heater he had humming in the center of the store. “That’ll help.”
She moved over to the heater and pulled off her gloves, then held her hands out.
“I took the bell down for you,” he said, picking it up from the counter and bringing it to her across the room.
Beth took the bell with a wistful smile. “Grandpa hung this.”
“I thought so,” he admitted, then cleared his throat. “Look, my goal is to have everything cleaned out by Christmas. I want to open shop in the new year. I’ll be working pretty quickly to get it all done.”
“Sounds like you’d have to.” She glanced around sadly.
“There are probably more things around here that you’ll want, but it’ll be hard for me to know what’s meaningful and what isn’t.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” she admitted. “What if I...helped?”
“I hate to break it to you, Beth,” he said with a wry smile. “But you’re pregnant and I’m not going to be responsible for you hurting yourself.”
“Then what would you suggest?” she asked.
“You not helping,” he said with a short laugh. “But definitely come by. I mean, you can go through the stuff I’m tearing out and make sure you’ve got everything you want.”
“I won’t be in the way?” she asked.
“Probably will be,” he admitted. “But I’ll survive.”
“All right, then.” She smiled. “Thanks.”
He’d probably live to regret this, but his guilt for taking over a place that meant so much to the Thomases had been piqued. Dealing with Rick’s resentment would have been one thing, but Beth’s arrival back in town had softened him.
For the next hour, Beth sat on a crate and sorted through the last of the product that Rick hadn’t already taken. Dan dismantled a slushie machine and carried it outside piece by piece. On his last trip to the garbage bin out back, he entered the store to find Beth behind the till. She was sorting through some drawers, and she held up a small, triple frame that held three photos—one of Rick, one of a teenage Michael and the other of Beth in her girlhood.
Dan crossed the room and took it from her fingers to look closer. Beth had been pretty then, but the beauty that would develop was still sleeping behind big teeth and crooked bangs.
“That’s you, all right,” he said. “You were a cute kid.”
“I gave this to Linda one year for her birthday,” Beth said, then shook her head. “Dad pressured me into making an effort, so I did. I thought I’d give her something that showed she was part of the family. I gave it to her here, and she didn’t take it with her.”
“She left it in the drawer,” Dan concluded.
Beth nodded. “Dad told me later that it hadn’t sent the message I thought. It was a frame with me, my brother and my dad. Linda wasn’t included.”
“You hated your dad marrying her, didn’t you?” he asked.
Beth sighed. “I wasn’t easy to deal with. I’ll admit that. I didn’t like her from the start because she wasn’t my mother, and my mother had been wonderful. Mom loved us with her whole heart, and no one could eclipse her...”
“But your dad must have been lonely,” Dan said. “Your mom was gone, and he was on hi
s own with you kids.”
She took the frame back from him and looked down at the faces for a moment. “You’re a single dad now, too...”
“And I can appreciate how hard that is,” Dan admitted. “Being a dad—it’s amazing, but it’s lonely. I’d never undo Luke. He’s the best thing in my life, but parenthood can be isolating. You child doesn’t take the place of a partner.”
“I guess I’ll find that out soon enough,” she said.
“Yeah. It’ll be the best ride of your life, hands down.”
“You say your child doesn’t take the place of a partner,” she said. “So you must date, then.” A blush rose in her cheeks. She must have realized how it sounded, and he shot her a teasing grin.
“We’ve done that once, Beth. Probably best if we don’t do it again.”
“I’m not interested in dating you,” she retorted. “I’m asking because I’ll be a single mom very soon, and I can’t imagine trying to juggle dating and a baby.”
“It’s not easy,” he admitted. “And no, I don’t really date. I’m busy with Luke, I’m careful about who he meets, and that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for a relationship.” Her eyebrows went up, and he shot her a grin. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”
“I’m not used to seeing you as a dad.”
“Ditto.” He smiled faintly, and she looked down at her belly.
“Oh...well, yes. I suppose we’re even there, aren’t we?”
Dan regarded her thoughtfully. He was curious about Rick and Linda—all of North Fork was. They were one of those established couples that everyone expected to bicker good-naturedly until they died. Rick was the quieter one, with his laptop set up on the store counter, and Linda was the go-getter. It had shocked everyone when they announced their intention to separate.
“So what happened between your dad and Linda?” Dan asked. “From the outside, there weren’t any cracks.”
“She left him,” Beth said.
“Really.” Dan sighed. “That’s rough. How come? Another guy?”
“Not that we know of,” Beth replied. “But Linda was always a little frustrated by Dad. She wanted him to be the alpha male, but she didn’t like being countered, either. So no matter what he did, she wasn’t happy.”
“Hmm.” Dan nodded. “She decided to leave and your dad just went along with it?”
That was the weird part. Rick hadn’t gotten soppy or angry—at least not in public. He’d just been the supportive guy he’d always been, as if they were announcing Linda was taking a job, or something. But it had been the end of their marriage.
“Dad was tired,” she replied. “And I don’t know...I mean, I was in the city. Whatever their relationship morphed into, I have no idea. But I do know that when Linda said she was leaving him, he was both sad and kind of relieved. I think he was just...tired.”
“After so many years together,” Dan said. He’d always been curious, at the very least. Not that Rick and Linda had ever been nice to him.
Beth met his gaze. “I’m not going to argue that they should have stayed married.”
Neither would he. “I know Linda was hard on you.”
“Kids need love, Dan. She was big on structure and manners but pretty low on affection. And while I might have been a hard kid to love, I still needed more than she gave.”
Hard to love. Was that how she’d seen herself? And she might have been—he hadn’t known her then, but the thought of her feeling unlovable as fragile preteen who’d just lost her mom was heartbreaking.
“You were a kid, Beth,” he said. “You couldn’t have been that hard to love...”
Beth turned her attention back to the drawer. “Pass me the garbage.”
Dan did as she asked, and she dumped the rest of the contents of the drawer into the trash can, then replaced the drawer.
“Dad never did stand up to her,” Beth went on. “He could have told her that she needed to be kinder. He could have told her to back off and let him have some time alone with me. But Linda was always there, guarding her turf as if I was competition for my dad’s love.”
“I agree there,” Dan said quietly. “He should have stood up for you. You were his daughter, and you were the child. You needed your dad to be your champion.”
Beth smiled. “Thank you. It’s nice to be agreed with on that.”
Dan was the kind of dad who would do just that—stick up for his son. Like Beth said, kids needed love, and if he was ever put into a position to choose between his son and a woman, his son would win. In fact, looking back on it, Beth had done him a favor by walking away. Because even if their wedding had been earlier, Luke would have still ended up on his doorstep, and Dan was glad that he’d never been put into the position to choose between his child and his wife. How had she put it? Danny, asking me to marry you and asking me to be a stepmother to your child are two different proposals! I can’t do this!
He might not have been mature enough back then to make the right choice often enough.
CHAPTER THREE
THAT EVENING AT HOME, Beth stood in the living room, looking at the place in front of the big window where they normally put up the tree. The room was bare of Christmas cheer. She’d been home for several days now, and they still hadn’t gotten around to decorating.
“We need to put the tree up, Dad.”
“I’m not real festive this year, kiddo,” he said.
“All the more reason for us to do it,” Beth replied. “I don’t feel like it, either, but I think we need this.”
“I don’t know...” Her father sighed.
“For me.” Beth caught his eye. “I could use some Christmas cheer.”
He pushed himself up from the couch. “If I drag the tree out, then you’ll have to decorate. Deal?”
Rick pulled the artificial tree out of the basement, and Granny joyfully helped add the family ornaments to it. Rick was quiet, but he put a few baubles on the tree, pausing to look at the more meaningful ones like Baby’s First Christmas or one of the few surviving school craft ornaments Beth or Michael had made years ago.
“Do you remember this one?” He held up a Popsicle-stick Christmas tree.
“Not really. I must have been pretty small,” Beth said with a short laugh.
“Well, I remember it.” He put it on one of the branches. “You came home from kindergarten with globs of glue in your hair, but you’d produced this. It was your masterpiece.”
He’d have to remember for the both of them, but his retelling of the story made Beth smile. Over the years, as the glue broke apart and those school-made ornaments crumbled, Linda would toss them in the trash without a twinge of emotion.
“Linda bought this one,” he said, holding up a custom ornament of a book with the cover of her father’s first release. “I know she was difficult sometimes, Beth, but that woman understood me.”
“Your writing, you mean,” Beth clarified.
“She read every book I wrote about three times each,” he said. “She could quote from them. And she knew what I needed to be productive...” He hung the ornament with a low sigh.
Her mother had respected Rick’s writing, too, but she’d been a little less in awe of his abilities. Mom had kept Dad down-to-earth. Linda had admired him more, Beth had to admit. She’d always encouraged him to write, even if it meant she saw less of him. His writing had been her passion, too.
“Where’s the star?” Beth asked as she got to the bottom of the box of ornaments. She looked around.
“Oh...” Her father scrubbed a hand through his gray hair. “It’s up in the attic of the store.”
“What?” Beth frowned. “Why?”
“I couldn’t fit it in the closet without crushing it, so I tucked it up there. I figured it would last longer.”
And Be
th could understand that protective sentiment—it was the same star they’d used on their tree for as long as Beth could remember. Nothing exciting—plastic and tinsel. It probably used up insane amounts of electricity when they plugged it in, but it was tradition, and she was softened to realize that her father had quietly protected that star over the years. It was one thing Linda hadn’t gotten her hands on.
“I’ll get it tomorrow,” Beth promised. “You can still drive me to my doctor’s appointment, right?”
“Sure thing, kiddo,” her father said with a nod.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY, the doctor was kind and thorough. Dr. Oduwale was her childhood best friend’s mother, and when she was done examining her, she’d looked her in the eye earnestly and asked, “What do you need, my dear?”
“Nothing,” Beth assured her. “I’m fine. I’ve got Dad, and we’re sorting it all out. How is the baby?”
Dr. Oduwale assured her that all was well and they were simply waiting now. Well, waiting—and pretending she was more confident than she was, Beth thought... So she thanked Dr. Oduwale and tried to smile more brightly than she felt.
“Just keep your stress low and get ready for the baby,” Dr. Oduwale said. “Everything looks great. You’ve got to call Abby. She’s missed you.”
And Beth would call Abby...just not yet. She wasn’t sure how much more brilliant confidence she could pull off without cracking.
As Beth walked to the store later that day, she felt more optimistic—and this time it wasn’t an act. Maybe there had been more going on behind the scenes between her father and Linda than she’d ever noticed. Maybe she wasn’t quite as alone as she’d thought if her father had been guarding something as precious and fragile as a twenty-year-old Christmas star all these years by storing it in the one place Linda would never venture...
Deeper down, Beth saw something uncomfortable to acknowledge—unfair, even. Linda’s Christmases had all been spent around an artificial tree with memories attached to it that predated her. She’d bought some new ornaments every year—mostly representing things that mattered between her and Rick—and she’d put them on the tree in a prominent place. Beth had resented that attempt to insert herself, but then, Beth had resented almost anything her stepmother had done. Seeing her father look at that custom-made ornament of his book, she realized that Linda’s Christmases wouldn’t have been ideal. Beth wasn’t proud of that, especially now. A little bit of charity wouldn’t have killed her.
A Boy's Christmas Wish Page 3
