i 7d341843b82569de

by Unknown

  “What the hell do you think I’m doing here?” He threw up his hands in frustration. It seemed no matter how many steps he took forward, he ended up taking five steps back. And now Jessica had gone and added a quagmire to the mess he already had with Sarah. “Besides, who are you to tell me how to be a parent? You aren’t one.”

  She recoiled as if he had slapped her, and immediately C.J. wanted to take the words back. “I’m sorry, Jessica. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No, you’re right. I’m not a parent and I have no right to tell you how to be one. I should mind my own business and stay out of yours.”

  They were alone. The Winterfest had ended around the same time Santa’s Village had closed up, and most of the town had gone home, leaving only a few people wandering the park, looking at the lights. But here, in front of the town hall, the streets were empty, Riverbend locked up tight for the night. The snow had stopped falling and all was silent and still, as quiet as a church. C.J. took a step toward Jessica. Her hair was a little askew and flyaway from wearing her Mrs. Claus cap and wig, making her look wild and sexy all at once.

  “I don’t want you to do that,” he said, the anger gone as quickly as it had appeared. Whatever problems he had with Sarah were not Jessica’s fault, after all.

  “To do what?”

  “To stay out of my business. I don’t want you to stay away, period.”

  She shook her head, and the easy camaraderie of earlier disappeared from her face. Already she was inserting distance between them, building an intangible wall. “It’s best if I do.”

  “Why?” He took another step closer, capturing her hands, warming her chilled fingers with his own. He didn’t know where her gloves were—probably forgotten back in the shed—but he was damned glad she didn’t have them on now because he wanted to touch her, feel her against him, any way he could.

  “I shouldn’t get involved with anyone right now.”

  Neither should he, his better sense whispered, but he ignored it. Because her hands were in his, and he’d stopped thinking straight about the time she touched his cheek and told him he, too, deserved a real Christmas.

  Something had shifted in C.J. today, something monumental that he hadn’t time to examine yet but knew whatever it was meant a change, a fork in the road he’d always followed.

  “How long are you going to protect your heart, Jessica?”

  “I’m not—”

  “You are. Your husband has been gone for two years, and yet you’re still alone. I know, because I’ve done the same thing all my life, and I didn’t even realize it until that lawyer showed up on my doorstep and told me I had a daughter. Then all of a sudden, I had a relationship, someone who needed me to figure out how to connect. Then I met you. And you added—” he grinned “—a whole other complication. But every time I get close, you back away. Or remind me that you’re leaving.”

  “Why should I bother? You’re just going to leave, aren’t you? Go back to California. That’s not exactly around the block, you know.”

  “It’s my job. I’m not abandoning anyone.”

  “That isn’t how it feels.” She turned away, pulled out of his grasp and started toward her car again.

  C.J. sighed. He couldn’t win. How could he make Jessica see that he had begun to care—about her, about Sarah—and that just because he had to return to California, it didn’t lessen those feelings?

  As she walked away, another thought struck him, so hard it could have been a giant lightbulb in a cartoon. “Why do you do it?”

  She pivoted back. “Why do I do what?”

  “Surround yourself with children, when you don’t have any of your own? Is it because—” he hesitated “—because you can’t have children?”

  She didn’t say anything for a long, long time. Then she let out a breath, frosted with the chilled air. “It wasn’t me.”

  He waited, silent, for her to go on.

  “Dennis was impotent. He was in an accident when he was a teenager and it turned out he was never able to have kids. We didn’t find out until we started trying, after we’d been married for a while.”

  “But there are other options. In vitro, adoption.”

  “I knew that and Dennis was willing to do anything, but I said no. To be honest, I was relieved.” She turned away from C.J. and went to the bench by the hot chocolate station, sinking onto the wooden seat. “What kind of woman says that? Relieved that her husband couldn’t father a child?”

  “A woman who had her reasons, I’m sure,” C.J. replied, seating himself beside her.

  “Fear,” she said, so softly he almost didn’t hear her. “Fear that I’d end up like my mother, trying to feed a child with nothing. Heat a house with sticks. Make a Christmas out of paper dolls and other people’s charity.”

  “But you’re successful, you’re fine.”

  She spun on the seat. “I’m not. Look what happened, C.J. My husband died and left me—alone. And Dennis, who did such a good job caring for everyone else in the world, did a lousy job caring for himself. He hated going to the doctor, ignored the warning signs, heck, the warning billboards his heart kept sending him, and didn’t leave so much as a dime of life insurance. I had a business to run, employees to worry about. If I’d had a child to care for, too—” She shook her head.

  “You’d have made it work,” he said, laying a hand on hers.

  “How do you know that for sure? My mother tried, and she failed. We ended up collecting welfare and even that wasn’t enough sometimes.” She rose, drawing her coat tighter around her, shutting him out as she did. “I can’t get involved with you, or anyone else. I can’t take a chance like that and end up—” she blew out a breath, her eyes misty “—alone again.”

  “But you already are alone, Jessica.”

  “At least it’s an alone I know. There aren’t any surprises this way.” She turned on her heel and began heading toward her car again.

  “Now who’s running out on who?” he said to her retreating figure, frustrated that this woman, who drove him crazy and who needed—and deserved—love in her life more than anyone he knew, pushed it away like it was a hot stove waiting to burn her.

  She turned back. “You said I’m the one who needs to open up my heart, C.J., but I think you still have a few wounds to heal of your own before you start telling me about mine.” Her gaze softened. “It’s Christmas. Maybe you should call your father and tell him he has a grandchild. Give him a chance to start over again with a second generation.”

  “I doubt that would make much of a difference. He’s not a man who changes easily.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Why have you never had a Christmas?”

  “I told you about my father, my childhood.”

  “No, I meant after you grew up. You could have gone to a Christmas party. Bought your own tree, heck, built your own winter wonderland in your backyard, but you never have. Why?”

  He scowled. “What is this, twenty questions?”

  “Oh, you can probe into me, but vice versa doesn’t apply?”

  She was right—and he hated that she was right. He’d asked her plenty of tough questions just a second ago, and Jessica had been honest. All she wanted in return was the same.

  He gave her a lopsided grin. “I guess we’re more alike than different, Jessica. I didn’t want to be disappointed. To find out it didn’t measure up to all I’d imagined.”

  “Oh, C.J., it’s all that and more,” she said, a soft, sweet smile on her face. “Believe in yourself, in what you can do, as a father. After all, wasn’t it Santa—or a man pretending to be Santa—who told me just the other day that miracles can happen, especially on Christmas?”

  He chuckled. “Using my own words against me?”

  “Whatever works.” Jessica smiled, then sobered. “I hope you work things out with Sarah. She’s a wonderful girl, an unbelievable blessing.” Jessica put a warm hand against his cheek, then replaced it with a kiss of goodbye.

  CHAPTER T
EN

  “O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM” played on the loudspeakers, an odd juxtaposition to the laughing swimmers in the pool, the hot sun beating down on Jessica’s body and the waiters weaving in and out of the dozens of lounge chairs with trays of umbrella-decorated drinks.

  December twenty-third, two days before Christmas, and Jessica was down in Miami, as she’d planned; yet, even here, she was as surrounded by the holiday as she had been back home.

  Except here the wreaths dangled from the palm trees and the snow was made of sand. The snowmen were plastic, the Santas sweated in their costumes, and the twinkling lights competed with the evening neon signs.

  She should have been happy. Laughing, smiling, like the dozens of people surrounding her at the luxury resort. But she was miserable.

  Depressed even.

  She missed the streets of Riverbend. Missed the children. Missed the decorations. And yes, God help her, she even missed the snow.

  And most of all she missed Sarah and C. J. Hamilton.

  “Ma’am? Is there anything I can get you?” The waiter stood before her, blocking the bright sun, providing a moment of shade. Of respite, sanity.

  “Yes,” Jessica said, feeling like she could finally think straight. “There is. A telephone.”

  The truck bumped over the rough road, as if it didn’t want to make the journey any more than C.J. did. Sarah had fallen asleep about five miles earlier, her blond head using C.J.’s right arm as a pillow. At a stop sign, C.J. glanced down at Sarah and realized that at some point having Sarah in his life had become a constant, no longer a surprise.

  When had that happened? When had he gone from C.J., single man, to C.J. and Sarah, package deal? About the same time, he realized, as he took in her cherubic features and felt everything within him melt like a spring thaw, when he had started to love his daughter.

  And he knew exactly when that had happened, too. When she had broken his heart back in that little shed at Santa’s Village.

  How ironic. And yet how true. Wasn’t there a saying about knowing you loved someone the minute they were capable of shattering that very same heart?

  He reached out his arm and drew Sarah as close as the seat belt allowed. Tucking her against his side, he bent down to inhale the Johnson & Johnson scent of her golden curls. Somehow, he vowed, he’d find a way to make her happy. A perfect compromise for all of them.

  Just as Santa had promised.

  A beep sounded behind him and he drove on, coming far too quickly upon the turn he sought. He stopped the truck in front of the palatial two-story house in the woods, its glass front looking out over the beautiful Ohio landscape. Money dripped from every balustrade and perfectly landscaped shrub, a testament to the power of the dollar to buy beauty.

  But not happiness. C.J. roused Sarah, who rubbed at her eyes and stared at the unfamiliar surroundings. “Where are we?”

  “Your grandfather’s house.”

  “Kiki’s daddy? Isn’t he in heaven, too?”

  Kiki’s parents had died when she was a teenager, her father of a drug overdose, her mother following in his footsteps a few years later, a real-life Romeo-and-Juliet ending. Kiki had grown up in a turbulent home and ended up living a turbulent life of her own. Frankly, C.J. was surprised Sarah had turned out as well adjusted as she was. Clearly, Kiki had done her best when it came to her own child. “No, not Kiki’s daddy. This is my father’s house,” C.J. explained.

  “Where’s your mommy?”

  “She died when I was a baby.”

  Sarah turned to him. “So you’re like me, and you don’t have a mommy, either.”

  The words hit him harder than he expected, and C.J. swallowed, then bent to catch his daughter’s gaze, realizing a connection that went beyond their DNA. “Yeah, Sarah, just like you.”

  She reached out then, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him tight. Tears stung at C.J.’s eyes. Holy cow. Sarah was hugging him.

  No. His daughter was hugging him.

  Such a simple gesture of sympathy, and yet it moved him more powerfully than a tidal wave. He held her tiny frame tight, giving back the same warmth. Two motherless children, decades apart, yet each needing the other. More than they probably knew.

  After a moment Sarah drew back, then glanced out the window, picking up her stuffed unicorn off the seat and clutching it tight to her chest. “Do you think he’ll like me?”

  “Of course he will. Because I do. In fact…” He caught one of her curls around his finger, then cupped her jaw. “I love you, Sarah.”

  Sarah stared at him. C.J. told himself it didn’t matter if she ever said the words back. That he didn’t care, because he loved her, and he’d finally found the words to tell her.

  But then Sarah surged forward with a second hug, this one so tight it nearly took his breath away. C.J’s heart swelled, then almost burst when Sarah whispered in his ear, “I love you, too, Daddy.”

  And C.J. realized it did matter. A lot. C.J. held tight to that hug, those words, for as long as he could. Someday, he knew, she’d grow up and be gone. But he’d never forget this moment.

  Everything else in his life paled in comparison. There was no award he could win. No prize he could be handed. No dollar amount he could imagine that could ever be as magnificent as the gift of Sarah.

  Before releasing her, C.J. glanced out the window. And mouthed a heartfelt thank-you heavenward.

  “Come on, kiddo.” C.J. cleared his throat, ruffled Sarah’s hair. “It’s time to go in.” He got out of the truck and came around to the other side to help her down. Then C.J. took his daughter’s hand and together they climbed the granite steps to ring the doorbell. A symphony pealed inside, announcing their arrival.

  Paula opened the door immediately, as if she’d been watching for them. “C.J.! You came.”

  “I brought along someone else, too.” He gestured to Sarah. “This is Sarah, my daughter. Sarah, this is Paula, your…” He glanced at his third stepmother, not sure what designation, if any, she wanted.

  “Grandma is fine. If it’s okay with you.” Paula’s smile wobbled a little on her face, as if she were unsure whether she would be included in the family, and C.J. decided it was time he stopped judging Paula from a distance and widen the circle.

  “Grandma,” C.J. agreed.

  Sarah beamed. “I like having a grandma. I never had one before.”

  “And I like having a granddaughter.” Paula returned Sarah’s smile, with a stronger, firmer version this time. C.J. met Paula’s gaze and gave her a nod of thanks and friendship. Her eyes welled up briefly, but then she whisked the tears away before bending down to Sarah’s level. “Can I get you something to eat, Sarah?”

  “Do you have peanut butter? And jelly?”

  “Peanut butter and jelly? Why those are my favorites. I’m sure we do.” She put out her hand. “Let’s head into the kitchen and let your dad visit for a little while by himself. Okay?”

  C.J. watched the two of them head down the hall, Sarah wide-eyed and clutching her unicorn. When they were gone, the house fell silent, save for the regular clicking of a machine coming from a room to his right. C.J. drew in a breath, then followed the sound, feeling the gap of years close with every step. “Dad?”

  When C.J. rounded the corner, he came to a sudden halt, breath lodged in his throat. A stranger lay in the bed, slashes of sunlight from the blinds seeming to carve him into pieces. John Hamilton had become skinny and pale, dwarfed by sheets and pillows. The last time he had seen his father, John had been tall and strapping, his booming voice still carrying the same authority as his presence. But illness and age had reduced him to a fraction of himself. A ghost, not a man.

  C.J. forced his feet to move across the room, but the space seemed ten miles wide, every step taking ten minutes. One machine measured his father’s blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen level. Another dispensed medicine, a third waited to release morphine. Above him, IV poles dripped steady droplets of saline and other things C.J.
didn’t recognize into John’s veins. “Dad?” he said again.

  His father turned toward him, moving a frame at a time, like a movie in slow motion. It took a moment for recognition to set in, and then his father’s eyes widened. “Christopher?”

  “Yes, it’s me.” C.J. pulled up a nearby chair and took a seat. He hesitated, afraid to disturb the fragile balance of medicine, machine and man. But then his father’s hand slid across the sea of white and reached for C.J.’s. Paper-thin skin, cold, but still it held the root of firmness, of the man he used to be.

  “I’m glad you came, son.” His father paused, drew in a breath that ended on a shudder. “Surprised you came.”