A Boy's Christmas Wish

by Patricia Johns

  * * *

  THE DOOR STOOD open still, and Dan slammed it shut behind him, cutting off the winter wind. He and Beth stared at each other in uncomfortable silence. He immediately regretted everything he’d just said. He’d told himself he wouldn’t do this—get into their old business all over again. But he’d had it bottled up for so long that when he loosened that cap, it all just came rushing out.

  “You’re right.” Her voice was quiet, but it stopped him short. Was she actually agreeing with him? He hadn’t seen that one coming.

  “What?” His voice was still gruff from emotion, and he turned to face her.

  Her chin trembled ever so slightly. “I left you because I couldn’t handle it. It was too much. I wanted a sweet husband who would build a life with me and have all those firsts with me, not someone else.”

  “Okay, then.” Had he just won this round? He wasn’t even sure. “I wasn’t with Lana for any of it, though,” he added. “She dumped me a month after she took the pregnancy test.”

  “I know...” She shook her head. “But you say that marriage is standing with each other, facing the hard stuff together...and you’re right. But marriage is also being open and honest with each other. You expected me to embrace being a stepmom to a child I had never heard of before, marry you and just figure it all out later? How could I ever be sure that was your only secret?”

  He’d lost her trust—he could see that, and he knew he only had himself to blame.

  “You could have stayed. We could have talked. We could have put the wedding off for a few weeks. There were other options!”

  “I know it was harsh,” she said. “But I grew up with a stepmother. I made her as miserable as possible, and she finally reached her limit with me. The thing is, I can’t claim to be a better woman. I think Linda tried the big heart thing at first.” Beth sucked in a deep breath. “She took me to get my nails done after they got back from the honeymoon. And she took me clothes shopping. She called it a girls’ day out.”

  Dan stayed silent, waiting for her to go on. She looked away, swallowing hard. When she started talking again, he could hear the regret in her voice. “I told her that her breath smelled, even after she brushed her teeth, and that maybe she should see a doctor about it.” Beth’s cheeks tinged pink. “I still remember the look on her face, like I’d punched her or something. Then she just closed off.”

  Ouch. Dan dragged a hand through his hair.

  “And I’m not proud of that,” Beth went on. “But what I’m saying is, there’s a stepfamily dynamic, and while I could have made different choices than Linda did, did I really want to take all of that on? Linda didn’t like me and I didn’t like her. She wedged me away from my dad because he was forced to constantly choose sides, and he always chose Linda’s.”

  “He was trying to stay married, I guess,” Dan said.

  “Very likely,” Beth agreed. “They maintained a united front, if nothing else. Still, I wasn’t entirely innocent, either, so when I look back on all that I put Linda through, I have to ask myself if it’s worth it. If you know that it’s going to come with a whole heap of heartache, why not avoid that altogether?”

  Dan felt those last words like a kick to the gut. It had been five years, and it shouldn’t hurt that much, but it did. He wasn’t worth the challenge of raising Luke together.

  “So you didn’t love me enough,” he said, his voice low. It was better to know that now.

  “I did love you enough! I didn’t trust you enough!” She pulled a hand through her hair. “You’d already told me how many lies to cover up the fact that you had a child, and I was supposed to trust that you’d be mature enough to both parent this little boy and be a supportive husband to me?”

  “Fair enough,” he said. There was really nothing more to say.

  “Besides, Lana made it very clear what my life would be like,” Beth added, and he caught a slight quiver in her voice. Did the thought of Lana still bother her?

  “Lana was just mad I was getting married,” Dan said. “She was jealous of you. She was a single mom, and I was the screwup who’d gotten her pregnant. I wasn’t supposed to be the one who landed a sweet girl and got married.”

  “She was tougher than me.” Beth shrugged.

  “I’ll give you that,” he agreed.

  “And she vowed to be in our life for all eternity...” Beth sighed. “You’re right. I didn’t have the thick skin or the attitude to take her on.”

  Lana had been a regular force to be reckoned with. She’d been tough and mouthy, but most of the girls in his old neighborhood had been that way. He’d learned to look beneath the bravado, but he could see why a woman like Beth would have been intimidated.

  “It was only because she had so much less than you did,” he tried to explain.

  “Maybe so,” Beth agreed. “But that was a lot for me to take on.”

  “Yeah, I know...” Dan sighed. “Lana could be a real handful, but when she dropped Luke off at my place, I got to see what motherhood had changed her into.”

  Beth glanced up. “What was she like?”

  “Tired, mostly.” Dan’s heart welled with sadness at the memory. “She wasn’t quite so tough anymore, either. I mean, she looked very much like a mom.”

  Lana had sat in his living room with her hands clutched in front of her in a white-knuckled grip, and she’d asked him to please take their son for a while. She desperately needed a break. Her clothes were old, and her purse looked a bit ratty. She smelled of cigarette smoke and a bit of weed.

  “And she just walked away from him?” Beth asked quietly.

  “Luke was asleep,” Dan said, his mind running over the details of that night. “Remember, he was only three. We laid him on the couch, and I put a blanket over him. She looked at him for a long time, and then she kissed him—” A lump rose in his throat. “She said he liked grilled cheese, and then she kissed him again and almost ran out the door...”

  Tears misted Beth’s eyes, and she blinked it back. “I can’t imagine,” she whispered.

  She probably couldn’t, Dan realized. Beth had had a stepmother, but she’d also had a clean home, a supportive family, new clothes and friends. Her stepmother had been lacking, but the rest of her support network had been solid. When Beth got pregnant, she had a family to help support her and a town that would get behind her. Lana hadn’t been so lucky. And that was what had attracted him to Lana to begin with—she’d understood his background.

  “Lana was overwhelmed,” Dan said. “She didn’t think she could handle being a mom anymore. She said she had no patience and she yelled all the time. She was afraid she’d start hitting him. She’d been abused when she was a kid, and it turned out that it was pretty easy to keep the cycle going.”

  Dan still remembered that little pile of kid stuff she’d unloaded from her car—a car seat, some clothes, a blanket, a tattered teddy bear, a few plastic toys, half a bag of blue training pants and bottle of Coke. It had taken Dan months to wean the kid off caffeinated drinks, and Luke’s baby teeth had suffered for it.

  “But she just left—” Beth seemed to be stuck on that part. She was cradling her belly protectively.

  “Yeah,” he said with a nod. “She just left.”

  “Any woman that would—”

  “No!” Dan swallowed hard. “Beth, don’t do that. It’s easy to judge someone when you’ve had every other privilege. She didn’t want to leave him, I know that.”

  Beth nodded. “But you said before that you were scared she’d come back. If she didn’t want to leave him...”

  She let the implied question hang in the air. If Beth wasn’t allowed to judge Lana’s actions, what about him? He’d obviously been doing some judging of his ex.

  “Okay, yeah,” Dan said with a shrug. “She didn’t want to leave him, but she did. We exchan
ged phone numbers and addresses, and she’s kept me updated so I know where to find her if I need to. Right now, she’s in Vancouver.”

  “And you’re afraid she’ll come for him,” Beth concluded.

  “I am.” Dan sighed. “It’s different for you. You don’t have to worry about the father breezing back in and demanding anything. Lana’s never been predictable. So it’s complicated.”

  “I’m sorry, Dan.” Beth pulled her hair out of her face, and she looked like the same old Beth again with those big blue eyes and the pink in her cheeks.

  “For what?” he asked with a sad smile.

  “For all of it. You didn’t ask for this.”

  The one thing he’d asked for—Beth’s hand in marriage—hadn’t panned out, either. But he still wouldn’t go back if he had the chance.

  “I might not have asked for it,” Dan said, “but it made me grow up. I’m the man I am today because of all the hard stuff. And if you’d stayed with me, we’d have grown into it together.”

  It wasn’t easy, and there were challenges. She would have felt like a failure some days and exulted in a new victory on other days. She would have gone through all the things he did—feeling lonely and other times desperate for a few hours without someone pestering her. She would have messed up—a lot. She would have felt pride and guilt and love all wrapped up together in one heart-crushing emotion. They would have staggered through all those firsts and growing pains together, and they would have been better for it. She wasn’t escaping the experience, either—she was about to do it all on her own with her baby.

  Beth was silent for a moment, then she stepped closer and put out her hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do it.”

  He took her cool, soft fingers into his rough palm, and he stood there, angry, tired, scraped out.

  “And I hope I’ll be able to say the same thing about my own daughter a few years from now,” she added.

  Maybe Dan and Beth hadn’t been meant for marriage. Maybe they’d make better friends as they navigated single parenthood a few blocks apart. But she was back now, and they couldn’t just melt into casual acquaintances.

  “You’ll be okay, Beth,” he said, and he took a step closer. He looked down at her pale fingers, and he longed to lift them to his lips. What was wrong with him? He was supposed to be over her...

  “Are we okay?” Beth asked, looking up at him. She was close enough that he could have bent down and kissed her, and he tried to push the thought back.

  “You mean, are we friends?” Dan asked, his voice catching.

  “Something like that.” She looked up in that moment, and her lips parted as she sucked in a wavering breath. Dan pushed aside all those reasons for keeping his distance, slid a hand behind her neck and bent down so that his lips hovered over hers. She didn’t speak, but she didn’t pull away, either. Then he closed the distance and his lips met hers. They were fuller than before, softer, and his mouth moved over hers, his heart aching for all they’d lost. They could have been something...

  She pulled back, and he released her. It was for the best—he knew that.

  “Sorry,” he whispered.

  “Danny, we can’t—” She stopped, swallowed.

  “I know,” he said huskily. “That was... Sorry. I shouldn’t have.” He was still drawn to her in powerful ways—the very reason he’d proposed to begin with. She was the one woman who stirred his blood like this, who softened his heart, who made him willing to cross oceans for her. But she hadn’t been willing to do the same for him, and now everything was different.

  Beth stepped back and moved toward the door. He’d freaked her out. Great. That hadn’t been the plan, but then neither had kissing her.

  “I’m going to go,” she said, and she pulled her coat closer around her and opened the door.

  “Beth—”

  She disappeared as the door swung shut behind her, and Dan shut his eyes and muttered an oath. What would he have said? Nothing. He wasn’t meaning to toy with her. He’d crossed a line, and that couldn’t happen again. They both knew why they couldn’t work, and he was playing with fire.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THAT KISS HAD shaken Beth, and she’d been thinking about it ever since it happened the day before. Danny shouldn’t have done it—but then, she should have stopped him. They were both culpable there. What was she thinking? She had a baby on the way, and whatever she’d felt for Danny five years ago had no business coming back now.

  She knew this. So why hadn’t she been able to step back when he’d bent over her, his dark gaze moving over her face, his breath tickling her lips? He’d been waiting for her to stop him—she knew that. And she hadn’t.

  Beth stood in the kitchen, absently munching on a bowl of trail mix. Her father stood in front of the open fridge, gazing into its depths. He’d said something, and she’d missed it.

  “Sorry, Dad. What’s that?”

  “We should go tonight,” Rick said, pulling out a carton of eggs.

  “Where?”

  “The tree-lighting ceremony. We always went when you were a kid. It would be nice.”

  The park by the church already glowed with colored Christmas lights on every tree except the central spruce. It was a massive tree that took the local fire truck and its ladder to decorate, and the tree-lighting ceremony was an exciting night for the town. There was free hot cocoa and a visit from Santa, and a collection was taken up for the North Fork Food Bank.

  A lovely evening, to be sure, but Beth wasn’t in the mood. She was used to living alone in Edmonton, and now she was sharing the house with her father and grandmother. What she really wanted right now was a night to herself, and for everyone else go without her. She needed to think, to process. She needed to get her emotions in order so that she wouldn’t find herself kissing Danny again.

  “That’s okay, Dad,” she said. “I’d rather stay in.”

  Besides, she had personal memories attached to that park. It was at the tree-lighting ceremony six years ago that Danny had proposed. He’d tugged her away from the crowd, behind a tree, and pulled out that little velvet box. His eyes had been full of pleading, and she could still remember the words he spoke: I love you, Beth. So much. I just want to get married...

  The ring was a simple band and the stone was small, but it had been so beautiful to her. It was a little too big, but she hadn’t cared, and she’d refused to get it sized, because it would mean taking it off again.

  “Your granny wants to go,” Rick replied, heading to the stove and letting the fridge close behind him. “Besides, I have my little girl home again for the first time in ages. Remember how you and I used to watch that tree light up when you were small? You’d sit on my shoulders and get hot cocoa in my hair.”

  Beth smiled. Yes, she did remember that—vaguely. There were pictures in the family album of Rick pulling Beth and Michael on a sled through the park, and their mother holding hot cocoa in her mittened hands with that beautiful smile of hers... Beth also remembered how their family enjoyment of the Christmas tree lighting had changed once Linda came into the picture. Instead of Rick standing close to his kids, he’d been holding hands with Linda, Linda’s head on his shoulder, and Beth and Michael standing off with their friends. Beth had said she preferred it that way, but that was a lie. She’d wanted her dad’s attention, for him to take some joy in her for a change. But her father had seemed happy enough with Linda, so—

  “Come on,” Rick coaxed. “It’ll be fun. Hot cocoa...Santa... It’s Christmas, Beth!”

  Her dad needed this, she could tell. He’d had a rough year, too, and this Christmas he seemed to be harkening back to those seasons when her mom was alive and they’d all been happy. Before their hearts had all been broken, and before Linda.

  “All right,” she agreed. “For you.”

  Besides wanting so
me quiet, she knew that avoiding every reminder of Danny wouldn’t be possible, either. She’d have to start some new traditions with her own daughter and push those old memories far into the past where they belonged. Maybe she could start that process tonight.

  “Great.” Her father grinned. “Omelet?”

  After a supper of omelets and peanut butter sandwiches, Beth, Rick and Granny ventured out into the night. The park was walking distance from their home, and considering the number of people who would be driving into town, trying to navigate the parking didn’t make sense.

  When they arrived at the park, they stopped by the hot chocolate table and each got a foam cup filled with frothy cocoa. One large marshmallow floated on the top of Beth’s, and she took a scalding sip. It was as good as she remembered. There was no skimping on the Christmas cocoa in North Fork. It was made with whole milk, melted dark chocolate and as many marshmallows as would fit on top.

  “I need two, please,” Granny said to the teenage girl who was serving.

  “Why do you need two?” Beth asked.

  “One for your grandfather, dear,” Granny replied patiently, and she held up two gloved fingers for the girl’s benefit.

  Beth sighed. This would be awkward, and Granny would likely spill hot cocoa on herself and get burned, or chilled, or just sticky. They couldn’t let her wander the park looking for her late husband.

  “Why don’t I hold Grandpa’s cocoa,” Beth said. “I’ll give it to him when I see him.”

  “Will you?” Granny looked perplexed. “All right. Thank you, Beth.” Beth took one of the cups, which left her hands full.