by Theresa Weir
She tended to go a little overboard for the holiday.
Logan had put the lights on the tree when she’d started the cookies. He’d told Zach it was a man’s job, making Zach giggle. She’d looked up from her measuring cup filled with flour just as Zach stopped laughing and watched Logan with total concentration, as if he were memorizing his every move. The look on his face had put a lump in Maddie’s throat.
The last batch was in the oven now, with more cookies cooling on the counter and others already in boxes. She knelt in front of a storage box that she’d labeled “GLASS.” She directed Zach to the non-glass decorations. With Logan at the store, it was just the two of them.
She waited for a sense of relief, but it didn’t come. Neither did a sense of sorrow, and she was glad for that. She didn’t want to be like her mother, who was only happy when a man paid attention to her.
As she was hooking a glass reindeer ornament on the tree a moment later, she heard the door open and close then Zach’s laughter and Ginger’s meows…
And was that noise an ornament rolling on the floor?
She turned in time to spot Ginger rolling an ornament toward the hall while Zach laughed again.
“Zach!” She was on her feet as Logan’s chuckles joined Zach’s. “Don’t let Ginger play with the ornaments.”
“She likes it, Mom!”
“Maybe she likes it, but I don’t.”
“It’s plastic, isn’t it?” Logan set the bag on the kitchen table then took off his jacket. “Let them have fun.”
She glared at him then took a deep breath before turning to Zach. Seeing the uncertainty in his face, she felt guilty, though she was saying the same thing that nearly every other mother on the planet would say to her son.
“Just this once,” she said. “And next time ask me first.”
He beamed at her before turning to Ginger, who’d stopped playing as if to listen to her, too. “We can play!” Zach said.
As if Ginger really did understand what he’d said, she whacked the round ornament down the hall toward the bedrooms. Laughing, Zach chased after her, with the cat dashing ahead of him, out of Maddie’s sight.
“You have more than hooks in that bag.” She nodded at the bag on the kitchen table.
“Nuts. And a nutcracker.” He nodded at the decorative nutcrackers on the fireplace mantle. “Ones that really crack nuts.”
“I’m so bad at using them.”
“I’ll crack them for you.” He frowned then, and she frowned, too.
It felt as if they were a couple instead of two people sharing a house for a short time. Cohabiting and not comingling—except for that one incident, which hadn’t been repeated. Nor had it been forgotten, at least not by her, about twenty times a day. She supposed he hardly gave it a thought.
The oven buzzed, and she headed to the kitchen. The cookies looked perfect. She set one pan on the pullout breadboard and the other on top of the stove.
Logan came to her side. “Guess what happened at the store?”
“You ran into Michelle Shiffly?”
“Who’s that?”
She put the cooled cookies into the cookie jar. “Never mind.”
“Someone else you let stay here? That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Just think of all the good deeds you did.” She grabbed the spatula and turned to the first cookie sheet and shimmied cookies off it and onto the cooling rack. “If it wasn’t Michelle, who was it?”
“I was asked to sign a petition to recall the board members.”
Her head snapped up. “Holy shit. Caroline.”
“Your co-worker? It said ‘Citizens Who Care.’”
Maddie’s throat clogged with emotions, and tears dampened her eyes. She swallowed before she could speak. “I don’t know if she can be a public part of it, since she’s an employee, but I bet she’s behind it.” She dropped the spatula and grabbed a napkin from the napkin holder to pat away tears. “She’s crazy. I have to call her.” She sniffed. “As soon as I finish this.”
“I’ll finish it.” Logan picked up the spatula then grabbed the other pan of cookies.
“Mom?” Zach’s tone was plaintive. “Are you okay?”
She turned and saw him staring up at her, his expression scared. She swooped down to hug him. “It’s wonderful, honey, just wonderful.”
“Those are happy tears,” Logan said. “If you’re going to be around women a long time, you’d better get used to it.”
Zach switched his gaze to Logan, his eyes big, as Maddie groaned. “Men cry happy tears, too.” She pointed at Logan, who was pushing the cookies off the spatula with his hands. “And before you touch the cookies, wash your hands.”
Before he could say anything, she grabbed her phone from the counter, Zach giggling behind her.
A minute later, she had Caroline on the phone. “I know what you did,” she said.
Caroline cracked up. “We already have over four hundred signatures. We only need twenty-five hundred to get a new election.”
“Idiot. You can get fired for this.”
“Ha! As long as I do my work, they can’t get rid of me. Let them try to fire me. I dare them. Or maybe we should both walk. If that happens, they’ll be in big trouble.”
Maddie sat heavily in the chair at the kitchen table as Zack ran to play with Ginger in the hallway. “I love you, Caroline, but don’t lose your job over me.”
“They won’t dare. I have too many relatives who vote. And they all have big mouths, too.”
“Who else is doing this with you? Alma, right?”
“Of course. And Dexter. They’re your fans.”
“I love them, too.”
“And everyone you helped, and their families.”
“That wasn’t me. That was Logan.” She glanced at him, and one side of his mouth was jerked up and so was one eyebrow.
She turned her head away.
“Maybe the house was his, and he gave you permission,” Caroline said, “but everyone knows you’re the one who championed them. There’s no way he would’ve known unless you told him. And guess what this means?”
“I’m awful at guessing.” And she didn’t need any more surprises today. She was wrung out by them.
“It means you can’t leave. We’re all fighting for you, and you have to fight for you, too.”
She winced. “Caroline, you’re evil.”
Caroline gave a witch’s cackle then said she had to go to hand out more petitions. She hung up before Maddie could say anything.
Setting down the phone, Maddie saw Logan leaning against the counter, not even pretending he hadn’t been listening.
“I suppose you’re going to say something,” she said and heard the huskiness of her voice. This had been so…unexpected. Maybe more unexpected than the stab in her back by the board members.
“You’ll save them a lot of effort and printing costs if you tell the board you know why Duane was fired.”
“Blackmail them,” she said, hearing the flatness in her voice.
“Some people deserve to be blackmailed.” He stepped toward her. From Zach’s room, she could hear him playing chase-the-cat, a game he never won. Ginger was not only twenty times faster than him, when she got tired of playing, she hid in places where no human could find her.
“Why don’t you fight for your place?” Logan asked. “People are fighting for you, but you aren’t fighting for yourself.”
She looked down and then at the tree in front of the big living room window. Christmas was less than two weeks away, but she liked to buy a real tree, and some of them dried out so fast. When Christmas was over and the New Year came, that’s when she wanted to hold on to Christmas for as long as she could. And not Christmas, not really, but the love and the joy and the goodwill.
“I’m doing what I feel is right.” She raised her chin and stared into his eyes.
He looked back for a long moment, as if he were trying to see all the way into her mind.
Good luck
with that, she thought. Sometimes she didn’t know why she did things.
And who was he to criticize what she did? Besides living in his house, of course. “What about you and your dark queen?” she asked.
He pulled back, and she stepped toward him, her arms out, cringing inside, wanting to take the words back. “I didn’t—”
“Forget it. You’re right. I’m not one to talk. What you do is none of my business.” He turned toward the stairway.
“No, Logan, I’m…” She stopped. He reached the stairway and ran up the stairs as she closed her mouth and clenched her hands to keep herself from calling him back to her.
A meow and Zach’s laugh pulled her attention to the hall where he was carrying Ginger toward her, his face lit up.
She forced herself to put on a smile, even as she wondered why she was messing up her life so badly. For the past five years, it had been going so smoothly.
And then he had come, forcing her to see that so much of the life she was leading really wasn’t her own.
Now almost every part of her life was falling apart.
She bent down on her knees and hugged Zach and Ginger. Every part but this one, which was the part that mattered most.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mama.”
The cat wiggled between them, and Maddie drew back so Ginger could jump loose, then she grabbed Zach again, hugging him for a long moment before he squirmed away, having enough hug time, and she let him go.
Sometimes it felt to her as if the only ones she trusted with her heart were her son and her cat. She was holding back from life, and that wasn’t a good way to go.
She made up her mind. Tonight after Zach went to bed, she would tell Logan he was right about her. And tell him why.
Her throat tightened, and she had to consciously breathe.
Just thinking about it scared her. But maybe, once she told him, she wouldn’t have a reason to be afraid anymore.
Chapter 21
By the time Logan headed downstairs for his story, the tree was up and so was Zach, who’d stayed up later tonight to help Maddie decorate. The living room looked warm and welcoming. Logan was used to professionally decorated homes for Christmas, meant to impress and wow instead of to brighten a heart. His parents had never been into decorating for the holidays. They’d had a small imitation tree that they put on the side table every year as they grumbled over moving their piles of books to make room for it.
Maddie was their opposite. The house had a mix of many holiday items, including a stuffed Santa with a bell inside it that rang every time Zach threw it at Logan and when he threw it back at Zach. Both of them laughing each time until Maddie told Zach it was time for him to go to bed.
As she made sure he brushed his teeth then tucked him in bed and kissed him good night, Logan threw the Santa up in the air and caught it, over and over. Ever since he’d made love to Maddie, his writing had come faster and easier. As if she were the antidote to whatever it was that had stopped him. Today, he’d written his next to last scene in the book.
Tomorrow he was going to write the unhappy ending.
The heroine wasn’t going to die, but she was going to be alone, this woman who lived in a fairy-tale bubble and was afraid to come out of her room. She was a prisoner of her insecurity.
He’d wanted an unhappy ending, and he’d gotten it. It should make him happy.
“You want something to drink?” she asked.
He dropped the Santa on the floor. “Sure. Whatever you have.”
“Spiced wine?”
Turning, he saw her heading to the kitchen in her tan slippers, Green Bay Packers sweatpants and a sweatshirt with a Christmas tree design.
“Anything but that,” he said.
She laughed shortly. When she came back, she handed him a brandy. She had a glass of red wine for herself that she sipped before sitting on the couch, her legs stretched out on the ottoman.
“About what you said earlier—”
“Forget it.” He held out one hand, as if to stop her words. “I don’t want to hear about it.”
She looked down, and her shoulders hunched. He could practically see her crawling back into her shell. She seemed so brave, but her bravery roared out for other people. Her son, mostly, but also the people she helped. Even the cat, who was the reason she’d ended up here.
When it came to herself, her bravery shrank.
“Once upon a time,” she said, her voice falling and rising into her storytelling rhythm, “there was a miller’s daughter.”
“There’s always a miller’s daughter,” he said.
“They were very common at the time. Must have been something in the bread, because millers and their wives seemed to propagate easily. And not all millers’ wives were happy about having so many children. They wished their husbands would stick their equipment in another mill, if you know what I mean.”
“I can follow the dots.” He sat back, sipped his brandy, and wondered where this story would take her.
“This miller’s wife was different. She only had two daughters, and the older one left, which left her with just one at home. But even one was too much for the mother. To put it plainly, her mother was not happy spending money on her daughter. She would rather spend her time and money on herself and her new husband.”
“New husband? Not the miller?”
“No, the miller had to go to a faraway land to protect the king. While he was gone, his wife found another man.”
“So she’s not really the miller’s wife anymore.”
“No. But their daughters are still the miller’s daughters. And now that the mother was stuck home with her daughter, she became mean.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s her nature. And you can’t change your nature.”
“Sure, you can. Laughter, a few friends, a few drinks—”
“The miller’s ex-wife did a lot of drinking, but it didn’t make her happy. It just made her meaner.”
“She was a bitch.” He set down his glass.
“In fairy tales, they’re called witches.”
“Are you sure it’s a fairy tale?”
She frowned at him. “Witch or bitch, her mother wasn’t nice to her. No matter what she did, good or wonderful, her mother didn’t love her. The girl used to envy Cinderella, not for the prince, but because Cinderella’s real mother had loved her.”
He stared at her. Except for the furnace, and their voices, it was silent in the house. Cozy. With the lights on the Christmas tree, it felt…more intimate. Almost magical. “Cinderella’s mother died. How could the girl be jealous?”
“Because she wanted her mother’s love, and she never got it.”
“And then what happened? It didn’t end there, did it?”
“How do you think it ended?”
“I hope Prince Charming isn’t coming to her rescue.”
“Please. Prince Charming only did the easy stuff. Like kissing the sleeping princess. Dancing with her at a ball.”
“That’s true. I never heard of a prince kicking ass. My guess is the girl ended up with a boyfriend who used her and ended up beating her.”
“Using her sounds about right. No beating her. That didn’t happen.”
“She was used to being undervalued. Not appreciated.”
Instead of replying, she took a sip of her wine. It was hard to tell with the different colored lights on the tree reflecting on their faces, but he thought he saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes.
“She never fought for herself,” he said, “or stood up for herself, because she tried that when she was a kid and always got shot down.”
“Or punished.” Her voice cracked.
“She was a piece of work, the miller’s wife. But the daughter can change.”
“She knows that now. It’s on her radar. In fact, the daughter recently found some evidence that would help her get rid of her nasty boyfriend. But she…” She took another sip. “But she…” S
he sighed and took another sip.
“Was advised that she should use it,” he said, taking over the storytelling.
“Well, yes.”
“And instead of thanking her advisor, she turned on him.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I wouldn’t put it like that.”
“I would. In fact, it’s my guess he was surprised at her sudden timidity—”
“Timidity?” She sat straight, radiating indignity.
“Yes. She was usually someone who seemed pluckier.”
“Plucky? Perhaps you should wait for the storyteller to tell the story. The storyteller doesn’t care for the word plucky. It sounds like a feather pulled out of a turkey’s butt.”
“You have a way with words.”
Her close-mouthed smile held as much humor as a prune. “Thank you. Now—” Her phone rang. She looked toward the kitchen. The phone rang again. She stood. “It might be important. My life is a little crazy now. I’d better answer it.” As she walked away, she glanced behind her. “That’s what a plucky heroine would do.”
He watched her leave, half smiling. Now he understood, though she hadn’t told him the real story. Just a few sentences. But with a good storyteller, a few sentences painted a big picture.
In less than a minute, she hurried back to him, holding her cell phone out. “For you. Someone says he’s your friend. Cyril.”
He stiffened. The only Cyril he knew was Olivia’s personal trainer. Maddie stopped in front of him. “He says it’s important.”
As if the phone were a snake, he reached for it carefully. As soon as he took it, Maddie snapped around and crossed back to the kitchen.
“What is it?” Logan asked.
“Is that a good way to greet an old friend?”
“An old friend would call me on my phone.”
“Perhaps if you’d reply to old friends who called you, your old friends wouldn’t have to go through irregular channels.”
He scowled at the phone. He’d only given Maddie’s phone number to his personal assistant. “Don’t call this phone number again.”
