Once Upon a Groom

by Karen Rose Smith

  “You could be going into Flagstaff.”

  “That’s a trek. Maybe I should donate enough money to build a cardiac rehab center at the urgent care place in town.”

  At first, Zack didn’t think his father was serious, but as he studied his face, he saw that he was. “You’d consider that?”

  “I’d consider giving a chunk and letting somebody start a fund drive. It’s not as if when I die, you’re going to need the money.”

  “No, I won’t, but Jenny might. Have you included her in your will?”

  “Do you think that’s something you deserve to know?”

  “I’m just asking. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.”

  “Stop being so damn diplomatic,” his father ordered with some of his old fire. “You’ve been treating me like a favorite uncle who’s suddenly on his deathbed. I know that’s not how you feel. Don’t you think honesty between us would go a lot further?”

  “And what do you want me to be honest about?” Zack asked, bracing himself for the inevitable.

  “For starters, how angry you are you had to come back here in the first place. I know you don’t want to be here.”

  As Zack remained silent, his father weighed his expression.

  “You don’t, do you?”

  “No, I don’t,” Zack admitted. “But…this time being back here, remembering Mom being here, feels good in some ways.”

  Silas thought about that. “I think about her over the holidays most of all.” Silas stopped at Hercules’s stall and rubbed the horse’s nose. The gelding snuffled and nuzzled Silas’s hand as if he’d missed him.

  “You know, Dad, you’re going to have to make better investments than that horse farm in Kentucky if you want money to give to charity or money to leave to Jenny.”

  “I didn’t buy in to that farm for an investment.”

  “You expected it to lose money?”

  “Expected isn’t the right word. I’m just not surprised. You know, not everything’s about winning or making money.”

  “Since when is that your philosophy?”

  His father didn’t bristle at the comment. “Maybe the past few years. You should see those thoroughbreds, Zack. Their beauty is a gift to this earth.”

  His father never used to talk like this. He never thought about charity or doing something for his fellow man. Could Jenny be right? Was his father changing?

  “And when do you think you’re going to see those thoroughbreds again?”

  “When I’m feeling better than I am now.”

  Zack glanced over the horses in the everyday barn, thought about the other barns, the foals up to the two-year-olds. “You have beautiful horses here, Dad. Why isn’t that enough?”

  “Why do you keep making movies?”

  “You think there’s a connection?”

  “If you think about it long enough, you’ll find the connection. It’s about more and what is and experiencing every little thing while you can. Big things, too. Did you and Jenny have a talk?”

  Understanding the leap in his father’s thought processes from what was important to precious moments, he said, “We talked. She told me about her miscarriage. You don’t have to worry about keeping the secret any longer.”

  “So you’re mad at me for that, too.” Silas exhaled with a sigh.

  “I don’t know. I’m still trying to take it all in. One moment I hear she was pregnant, the next she tells me she lost the baby. Do you think she did it on purpose?” That had been the question rolling around most in Zack’s mind.

  But at that inquiry, his father turned away from the horses and looked squarely at him. “You know Jenny. How could you even think that?”

  “She was young and scared and didn’t know what to do. That’s how I could think it.”

  His father was already shaking his head. “Jenny has more guts than that. I do think, like most teenagers, she might have believed she was invincible. She thought she could ride and train and everything would be okay. But she had too much on her mind, got distracted, lost control of the horse for just a minute. That’s all it took. Afterward, she was so sad I didn’t know if she’d come out of it. Your mom stayed with her, talked to her, sat with her, made her eat and finally she started to heal.”

  Silas capped Zack’s shoulder. “If you’re half the man I think you are, you’re going to need to grieve, too. It’s like it happened when she told you, right?”

  Zack knew now that last night with Jenny, the sexual storm that had driven him, had been about grief and reclaiming life. But he hadn’t confided in his father in much longer than fifteen years, so it wasn’t something he could do easily now.

  Stuffing the turmoil he felt about Jenny and the miscarriage, he gave a shrug. “I’ll deal with it.” In the next breath, he asked, “Are you ready to go back in?”

  Silas shook his head and muttered, “You really are your father’s son. Whether you like it or not, Zack, you’re a lot like me. But you don’t have to make the same mistakes I made.”

  Zack wasn’t going to ask his dad to elaborate on the similarities between them. He concentrated on the differences…because that was a lot easier.

  Snow had started falling again the night before. After Michael and Tanya’s lesson on Saturday, Zack asked Michael what he’d like to shoot. The eleven-year-old announced he’d like to make snow angels with his sister. If Zack would help, they could videotape each other.

  Zack checked the settings on the camcorder, remembering his own when he was in high school. He was used to much more sophisticated equipment now but this would get the job done for Michael and Tanya. He didn’t know where Jenny had disappeared to but maybe she just didn’t want to be out here doing this with him. He really did understand. If they got within a foot of each other, they’d melt the snow all around them.

  Michael took hold of the camcorder to tape his sister. He told her, “Say hi to Mom and Dad and wish them a Merry Christmas.”

  Tanya obeyed with a happy smile and a wave, then she lay down in the snow to make her angel.

  Zack hefted Michael up onto his shoulder.

  “Shoot it from up there. You’ll get a better angle.”

  “Looks great!” Michael said as he let the tape run. He started humming “Jingle Bells” as he taped Tanya and that gave Zack an idea. When Tanya’s turn came, Zack lifted her up onto his shoulder so she could do the same thing.

  Suddenly, Jenny came around the corner from the barn. She stopped short when she saw Zack with Tanya on his shoulder. He could imagine what she was thinking. A child of theirs would be fourteen now, would be learning his talents, or her abilities, would be becoming an independent person, might be rebelling against parental authority.

  Zack caught a glimpse of what Jenny was pulling behind her and felt as if someone had kicked him in the gut. It was the oddest sensation. She was pulling the sled he’d used when he was a boy. His father had bought it for him when he was seven and his mother had warned him too many times to count that he should be careful. Of course he hadn’t been and she’d had to bandage him up. But he and his dad had taken that sled to the highest hills on the property. His father had approved of Zack’s flying over hillocks and around brush, only to trudge up to the top of the hill again and start all over. Where had those memories been hiding all these years?

  But Jenny couldn’t know about that, could she?

  When Tanya finished taping, he swung her down to the ground. She ran over to Michael and tried to hold the camera steady as he wrote “Merry Christmas” in the snow.

  Pulling the sled, Jenny stopped beside Zack. “Look what I found.”

  “Where did you find it?” Zack asked, his voice huskier than he’d like it to be.

  “It was in the storage barn behind some old tools. I’d seen it there when I was looking for Silas’s toolbox. I thought the kids would like to use it in their video.” She studied Zack thoughtfully. “Should I have not brought it out?”

  “No, it’s fine. In fact
, it will be perfect.”

  Snow had begun falling again. Jenny wore a red knit cap, a crimson scarf around her neck and a yellow down jacket. Snowflakes settled on her bangs and eyelashes and Zack suddenly wished he had a camera in his hand to take a video of her.

  “Come on,” he encouraged her. “Let’s get this done before their mom arrives. We wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

  He turned away before she could see too much on his face, too much he was trying to hide yet couldn’t.

  First Michael pulled Tanya on the sled, singing “Joy to the World” and waving. Then Tanya tried to pull Michael but had a tough time of it even though she was a good sport. Zack knew the recorder was taping their laughter as well as their Christmas carols and the fun they were having. That laughter would be the best present they could give their parents.

  Jenny suggested, “Now both of you get in the sled. I’ll pull it while Zack shoots.”

  Zack framed the moving picture, Jenny pulling the two children in the sled. She would make a terrific mother. He felt the hard hand of fate squeeze his heart.

  He called to them, “We’d better call it a wrap, or your mom’s going to catch us doing this.”

  The kids tumbled from the sled and ran over to Zack.

  Michael beamed up at him. “Thank you so much for helping us do this.”

  Zack had reviewed some of the footage on the camera. “You did really well, both of you. Now I have a question for you. If I can find a machine that will transfer your video onto a DVD, are you interested?”

  “Really, you can do that?” Michael asked enthusiastically.

  “Sure. I can even put a beginning and end on it like a movie. Would you like that?”

  Both kids were jumping up and down now. “That would be great,” Michael enthused. “We have a DVD player. We’d still have the tape, right?”

  “Right. You’d have both. Your parents might like that.”

  “Thanks so much, Mr. Decker,” Michael said, giving him a huge hug. “You’re going to make our Christmas super.”

  Tanya was a little more sedate about her thanks, but she gave him a hug, too. Zack couldn’t remember when he’d last been hugged like that by kids. His heart seemed to warm up and grow and forget about everything that wasn’t good and innocent and carefree.

  “I’ll take the sled back to the barn,” Jenny said.

  “Better stow the camera in your backpack,” Zack reminded Michael.

  Before he did, Michael removed the tape and handed it to Zack.

  They had just reached the arena when Michael and Tanya’s mother drove her truck onto the gravel. The two children went to join her. She waved, watched them climb into the truck, then took off.

  Zack turned the tape around in his hand. What more could parents want than memories of their children in living color?

  Staring down at the tape, Zack didn’t hear Jenny when she came up beside him, but he did feel her hand when she placed it on his jacket and squeezed his arm. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking losing a child isn’t a pain that goes away easily.”

  “Oh, Zack.” She stepped into his embrace, letting him hold her again because he was the one person who understood better than anyone.

  They gave comfort to each other, oblivious to the snow landing on their noses and settling on their cheeks. When Jenny looked up at him, he saw the tears and he knew her telling him had opened the old wound wide. He hugged her again and she snuggled into his shoulder. She fit there so perfectly.

  “Kiss me, Jenny.”

  “Do you think the pain will go away if I do?”

  “No. I tried that last night. It didn’t work. But when you do kiss me, I forget about everything else for a little while.”

  “So do I,” she admitted, lifting her mouth to his.

  He didn’t mean to deepen the kiss. He didn’t mean to coax every ounce of life out of it. He didn’t mean for the world to fall away until only the two of them stood there. But that’s what happened.

  He broke the kiss, leaning away to look at her. “Attraction’s hard to deny.”

  “But we’re both trying to, and we have to. Maybe it will be easier this week with Thanksgiving and all. I want Silas to know he’s loved and cared about. So I’m asking Mikala and her aunt Anna to join us. They really have nowhere to go for the holiday, either. We can celebrate together and maybe Silas can see he still has a lot of years to go. That can be meaningful.”

  “Are you going to have help other than Martha for this dinner party?”

  “No. Mikala said she’d help.”

  “So you want an old-fashioned Thanksgiving?”

  “Yes, I do. Don’t you?”

  “Holidays don’t mean much to me anymore, Jenny.”

  “You don’t go anywhere special for Thanksgiving or Christmas?”

  “I might not even be home over a holiday. I’d rather be shooting a film somewhere. I don’t see holidays the way Mom did, the way you do.”

  “Holidays should be a time to spend with family and friends, to appreciate the reasons you’re together.”

  He frowned when he realized that’s exactly what she truly believed. “I think you’ve read too many greeting cards.”

  “It’s the way I feel, Zack. It has nothing to do with greeting cards, or what the commercial world is trying to sell me. It’s about the feeling I have in here—” she tapped her chest “—when I’m with people I know care about me.”

  “We have such different views of life,” he said.

  “They don’t have to be so different. Promise me something.”

  “What?” he asked warily.

  “That at the end of Thanksgiving Day, we’ll talk about this again.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Yes, I am. Is it a promise?”

  Looking into Jenny’s coffee-brown eyes, reading the pleasure she got from standing out here in the snow with him, talking about things that mattered to her, he said, “I promise.”

  But as soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t. He didn’t make promises anymore. They were too easy to break. But with this one, he had a feeling Jenny wouldn’t let him break it.

  What kind of holiday would Thanksgiving Day be?

  On Thanksgiving Day, Jenny trimmed holly leaves from a branch, washed them and used them as decoration on a large fruit tart. The delicious aroma of roasting turkey filled the kitchen. She hadn’t seen Zack all morning. He had a habit of closeting himself in his office when he didn’t want to deal with her or his father. Of course, she hadn’t searched him out, either. Being with Zack was too exciting, too painful, too regret-filled.

  Martha checked the cooking potatoes one last time and said, “I’m going to make sure the dining room is ready,” then left Jenny alone in the kitchen.

  Not long after, Zack strode in. “Everything smells wonderful,” he said. “Dad wants to know if he gets a free pass for today.”

  “Not exactly a free pass. We won’t be using cream in the whipped potatoes. The turkey’s good for him and I made apple stuffing instead of the usual sausage. We’re good to go.” As Zack approached her, the heat level in the kitchen seemed to go up a few degrees.

  “And what about the desserts?” he asked with a quirked brow, as if normal conversation was all they needed between them, as if normal conversation could solve everything.

  “Martha made a low-fat, low-sugar pumpkin pie, and the fruit tart has a whole wheat crust. He can have a sliver of each.”

  Beside her now, Zack checked her handiwork. “Did you do this yourself?”

  “I did.”

  Slowly, Zack reached toward her, his thumb brushing her upper lip. “I think somebody was tasting the fruit.”

  She laughed self-consciously, because his touch made her tremble all over. “You caught me. Strawberries.”

  The simmering desire in his blue eyes told her he wanted to do more than touch her. He wanted to kiss her again. But he wouldn’t, and she wouldn’t let
him. She had to do everything in her power to stay away from him.

  The timer went off on the stove. “That’s for the turkey,” she said a bit shakily.

  “Do you want me to get it out?”

  “That would be a help. Martha and I wrestled it into the oven, but we certainly wouldn’t want to drop it now.”

  Zack chuckled as he went to the oven, opened it, then took the oven mitts from the counter. He lifted the pan so easily, Jenny wondered how much he worked out in L.A. He’d always been all muscle, with broad shoulders and a lean torso. The past fifteen years hadn’t changed that. It hadn’t changed a lot of things. He was wearing a snap-button shirt today and black jeans, just like he used to. His boots were ever-present now.

  She’d dressed carefully, telling herself she wanted to be festive for their company. She’d worn the pearl earrings Olivia had given her. In her turquoise sweater and skirt and suede high-heeled boots, she felt festive and put-together. After all, today was Thanksgiving. She’d felt like dressing up.

  She’d thought about all the times her father had missed holidays with her. Would he even call today? She couldn’t expect him to. And without the expectation, she wouldn’t be disappointed.

  “Did you get much work done?” she asked Zack as he took the lid off the turkey and took a whiff in appreciation.

  “I wasn’t working, at least not in the office. I was out there with Dusty. He actually took a piece of apple from my hand.”

  “Oh, Zack, that’s wonderful! Did he run afterward?”

  “Of course. He wasn’t going to wait around to see if I wanted it back.”

  She laughed. “You’re making such progress with him. I just hope when you leave—”

  “He’s not as skittish with you anymore, either. Is there anything else you need me to do?” Zack asked, looking around the kitchen, unwilling to address the subject of his leaving.

  “Not right now. Everything else is last minute. As soon as I see Mikala’s car in the drive—she’s bringing veggie casseroles—I’ll put the water on for tea.” When Zack would have turned to go, she asked him, “If you were in L.A., what would you be doing?”