Their Christmas Angel

by Tracy Madison

  “Yes and yes,” he said, taking the chair across the table from her. “I left the door open for him, so he can leave whenever he wants. Is that okay? If not, I’ll go up and get him.”

  “Of course, that’s fine. In fact,” she said over a sip of her juice, “Megan asked earlier if they could have a sleepover. And Roscoe loves them more than me, I think.”

  “Impossible,” Parker said with a grin. “He’s been with you his whole life.”

  She tilted her head to the side. “True. So, perhaps he just has more fun with them. Can’t blame him,” she said with a small, barely there sort of laugh. “Two little girls smothering him with love, affection, rambunctious play and bites of buttered popcorn is hard to beat.”

  “There’s a point.” Then, because he couldn’t not ask, even if he felt like a fool for doing so, he nodded at the juice. “Still feeling okay? Because if you had another dizzy spell, we probably can’t blame it on low blood sugar this time.”

  “I like how you said ‘we.’” She paused, fiddled with the glass for a second and then released a long breath. “I got a little dizzy again, yes, but nothing like what happened earlier, and I think it’s partly low blood sugar, but that’s not the only reason.”

  In a breath, he was sitting across from Bridget, after one of her first doctor’s appointments. “What’s wrong?” he asked, waiting to hear the worst words in the world for the second time in his life. “And why did you tell me earlier I didn’t have to worry if I do?”

  “Because you don’t have to worry. It isn’t cancer, Parker.”

  The knot in his gut loosened. “Okay. Good,” he said. “But what’s the other reason for the dizzy spells, then? And how long have you been having them? And have you seen a doctor?”

  Silence engulfed the air between them for the space of a dozen heartbeats. He knew, because he’d counted his. When Nicole spoke, she did so slowly, as if carefully choosing each and every word. “I don’t know exactly how to tell you this, even though I’ve been thinking about it all day. So, I guess I have to feel my way through it, which means I need you to please do me the favor of hearing me out before jumping to any conclusions.”

  That question instantly put him on the wrong side of this conversation. The defensive side. It shouldn’t have, but the fact that she didn’t already know he’d listen to every word she had to say, ask any questions he might have before “jumping to conclusions,” well, right or wrong, it hit a nerve. But he was a patient man by nature, a master at keeping his emotions under wraps, and he cared about this woman.” So, all he said was “Of course, Nicole. I’ll listen to every word.”

  “Thank you.”

  More fiddling with her cup and another sip of juice before she nodded, twisted her fingers together in front of her and said, “I never expected to meet someone like you, Parker. So, what I’m about to tell you...well, I made decisions based on a lot of factors, some more important than others, but one of those factors is I did not expect to...meet someone, potentially the right someone.” She shrugged and twisted those fingers tighter. “I figured I’d always be alone.”

  “I figured the same,” he said, relaxing somewhat. “Expecting to meet the potential ‘right’ someone never crossed my mind. Mostly, I’ve just focused on the kids and work.”

  “But you have kids,” she said. “Great kids.”

  “I do.” Confused, he went to the fridge and grabbed a beer. Twisted off the cap and returned to the table. “And I agree with your assessment—they are great.” What he thought was about to be a conversation regarding her health seemed to have turned in another direction. “Hey, this is me. You can tell me anything. Just push out the words, and like before, I’ll take it from there.”

  “I’m trying.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. Opened her mouth and closed it again. And then, finally, she said, “I really, really like you, Parker. I think...no, I know...I could love you. So when I say I didn’t expect to meet someone like you, that’s what I mean.”

  Those words did the opposite of the others. They melted him. There wasn’t a better way to put it, even if he sounded like that sixteen-year-old girl again. But something was churning in that blond head of hers, something she was going to tell him that had already sent his fear meter sky-high. “Well, that’s good,” he said, “because I know I could love you, too. Tell me, Nicole.”

  “Right. Of course.” She closed her eyes for a millisecond, inhaled another of those long breaths. “I’m pregnant, Parker.”

  Wait a minute. That wasn’t possible. Unless... No. He wagged his head as if he had water stuck in his ears. “I’m sorry, but what did you just say?”

  “Pregnant,” she repeated. “And I’m happy—no—thrilled about having a baby. I’ve been trying for a while now, and I haven’t known that long. That is why I’m having a problem with dizzy spells. I need to snack more, I guess.”

  He tried, oh, how he tried, to wrap his head around that not-so-small bit of information, but he couldn’t quite get there. “You’re serious about this, right? This isn’t some sort of joke?”

  But he knew the second he phrased the question that Nicole would never, could never, joke about something so serious. It wasn’t in her.

  She didn’t seem to take offense, though. Just said, “Yes, I’m serious.” Now her lips moved into a smile. It was as fake as the day was long, as it wasn’t mirrored in her eyes. He gave her points for trying, though. “You’re not the father. In case you were wondering.”

  Even with his confusion and the questions bopping around in his brain like rapid gunfire, he had to chuckle. She’d lightened the mood, though he doubted it would remain that way. “Thanks,” he said drily, “I might have wondered, otherwise.”

  “Welcome. Just wanted to put your mind at ease.”

  Combing his fingers through his hair, Parker counted to ten and then did so again. Nope, he still couldn’t make heads or tails of this. “I have a ton of questions,” he said. “I’d like to ask them, but...I don’t know if you’re okay with that.”

  “I’ll answer anything you ask,” she said softly. “So, ask away.”

  Well. Okay, then. “Who is the father? Are you married, or...?”

  “Of course I’m not married,” she said. “I used IVF, with a donor.”

  “Someone you personally know?”

  She shook her head. “I know he has brown hair and blue eyes. I know he’s a scientist and how tall he is, what he weighs. I know his health markers, his blood type and how old he is.”

  Okay, okay. Everything was starting to click into place now. IVF. Anonymous donor. But what he didn’t know was “How far along are you? Were you pregnant when we met?”

  “I met you on a Friday, and my last procedure was the Tuesday before,” she said. “So, technically, I was pregnant when we met. I just didn’t know it yet.”

  Again, that made sense. Earlier, she mentioned she hadn’t known for that long. This information relieved him. It meant she hadn’t kept something so vitally important away from him when they’d kissed. Confessed their attraction. Talked about a possible future.

  “You were in your twenties when you were diagnosed?” he asked, remembering their prior conversation. Bridget had been young, too, but they’d already had the girls, so neither of them were concerned about fertility issues. Their only focus had been saving her life.

  “Yes,” she said, looking drained. Uncomfortable. He wanted to ease her discomfort—that instinct was still there—but he had his own to deal with, and a lot to think about. “But I didn’t worry about decreased fertility when I was diagnosed. I just wanted to live.”

  “But at some point, you decided you wanted a baby,” he said, stating the obvious. “And took the necessary steps to try to reach that goal. How long have you been trying?”

  “A little over a year ago, my ovarian function ha
d dropped to the point that if I hadn’t done something soon, I would’ve lost the chance altogether. So, I went through a round of fertility injections, to produce eggs that we could use in IVF.” She said the words almost clinically, without any emotion in her voice. But she didn’t fool him.

  There was a ton of emotion involved in this decision.

  She then went on to explain how each step, each heartbreak along the path of becoming a mother, had just pushed her harder not to give up. How she’d decided to move here, to Steamboat Springs, since this was where her parents and brother lived. So she would have support.

  He listened to every word, not only with his ears, with his heart, too. But as he listened, the images in his head were of those dark days immediately following Bridget’s death. The girls’ confusion. Their fear. The nightmares. And that morning he’d found them huddled together in his bedroom closet, with Bridget’s clothes wrapped around them—almost covering their entire bodies—and those tears that just wouldn’t stop. Those awful, gut-wrenching sobs that had knocked him to his knees, and the stark realization that he was all they had left.

  Just him.

  Crawling into the closet with them, he’d shuffled his girls onto his lap and held them just as tightly as they held Bridget’s clothes. And he cried right along with them, all that loss and pain and devastation. The fear of the past year and all he feared moving forward. Would he be enough for his girls? Could he provide them with everything they would need?

  One moment after another clicked through his brain. All of them connected to the girls, to how losing their mother had affected them, to their tears and their questions, and their never-ending thirst to “know” Bridget. He then thought of that afternoon, just a few weeks ago, when Erin had exploded into tears in the back seat of the car over her belief that she’d somehow disappointed her mother, due to a role in a play. And again, how he’d held his girls while they cried. In loss and pain and devastation. It never ended. Never completely went away.

  And he doubted it ever would.

  With stark clarity, he remembered the skiing accident that could have ended his life, if he’d been even slightly less fortunate. The weeks spent in the hospital. The surgeries to put his body back together. And how, in that time, he realized how selfish he’d been, putting himself at risk as Erin and Megan’s only parent. What had he been thinking? His job as their father demanded more than putting food on the table and a roof over their head.

  His job was to protect them, to see to their welfare, to keep them safe and whole, and to let them know they were always loved. He couldn’t do any of those things if he was dead. And that was when he decided to give up skiing. A hard decision in some ways, yet an easy one in others. Sure, his time on the slopes—until the accident, anyway—had always served him well. Cleared his head, energized his body, soothed his soul. Good stuff.

  And while he missed the benefits that skiing had provided—a momentary escape from the demands of life, single parenthood, that chance to let everything go for a short while except the sheer thrill of the sport—the thought of getting on those slopes again...well, it didn’t appeal. Frankly, it scared the hell out of him. He didn’t need it; neither did his girls.

  They needed him. It was as simple as that.

  He’d done okay these past few years, finding a balance between work and home, family and friends. And then, in walked Nicole, shaking the very ground where he stood.

  He could love this woman. Was halfway there, as it was. His daughters could love her, too, and yeah, they were likely already on that path. She was good for them, just as she was good for Parker. He’d recognized both almost right away. Yet, that crippling fear that she’d get sick again, that his path with her would merge into the path he’d already taken with Bridget, wouldn’t disappear. Even that fear he’d been dealing with, trusting in his heart, in all he hoped could be.

  But now, Nicole was pregnant, and here she sat, explaining all the reasons why she’d tried so hard to conceive. And he understood. He did. She wanted to be, yearned to be, a mother. Had formed decisions to help her achieve that goal, even to the point that she’d moved to a new city, for the purpose of being close to her family. He got it. He did.

  As much as he could, anyway.

  Except once again, the landscape had changed. Loving Nicole now meant loving another life—her child. He could do that. There weren’t any restrictions on how much love the human heart could hold. But his fear had doubled, and then tripled, and now was about as high as it could get. So many things could go wrong, yet only one thing could go right.

  Betting everything—his heart, his girls’ hearts—with those stakes did not make any sense. And while it was wrong to question, because Nicole’s life was hers to live as she deemed appropriate, with all that he’d learned, how could she purposely bring a baby into this world? There wasn’t a father. If her cancer returned, her child wouldn’t even have what Erin and Megan had. He or she wouldn’t have another parent waiting in the wings to be there, to support, to cherish. And yeah, it bothered him that she didn’t see it that way.

  “You’ve been quiet for a while,” Nicole said, still twisting her fingers. “I...I don’t know what else to say, I guess. Just knew you needed to know. And...and...”

  Her words trailed off, but he heard the question she didn’t ask. It hovered in the air, bounced from wall to wall, and ceiling to floor. Just waiting. And it was the question he’d been asking himself repeatedly, ever since learning Nicole had fought the same disease as Bridget. That question was weightier now, for all the reasons he’d already gone though. Hearts were on the line. His. Erin’s and Megan’s. Nicole’s and now her child’s.

  “Thank you for telling me about the baby,” Parker said, his voice even and calm, without a hint of the battle that raged inside. “I did need to know. I...I guess I just don’t know how to process this information yet, or what to do with it. That’s the God’s honest truth.”

  Green-gold eyes grew misty with tears. “That’s okay,” she said. “I understand. This is a lot to take in, for both of us. And we’ve barely gotten started, you know?”

  Every part of him wanted to pull her into his arms, crush her against him and reassure her that he was still here. That he wouldn’t leave. That he would be there for her, no matter what. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not yet. It was too terrifying to take that step, too much was at risk.

  The ratio, the stakes, weren’t in his favor.

  Chapter Twelve

  Standing backstage, Nicole watched the final act of the Christmas play, and oh, she was so proud of her kids. They had done remarkably well, better even than she’d expected. There were mistakes, naturally, but none of them were huge. A misspoken word or two, a few abbreviated pauses over a forgotten line or when a moment of stage fright hit, or a giggle when someone’s enthusiasm got the better of them. But really, she couldn’t be prouder.

  For her first production, she thought she’d done about as good a job as she could, and her kids had knocked it out of the ballpark. Now, with only a few lines to get through before the final curtain call, she was exhausted and ready to go home. Sleep. And enjoy her Christmas break. Most of which she would spend getting her house in order.

  She was going to buy that sofa, finally, for one thing. Some bookshelves, and maybe a low-to-the-ground, square coffee table that someday in the not-too-distant future, her son or daughter could use for games, crafts, or to eat a snack while watching TV.

  She’d also sleep a lot. Curl up with Roscoe and cry, too, she was sure, as that had become a regular occurrence over the past week. Parker hadn’t reached out since that night at his house. Not with a phone call or a text or anything. She missed him terribly.

  Oh, they’d seen each other around the school. He’d waved and smiled; they’d greeted each other, but nothing else. No other conversation. If she didn’t know better,
she could almost believe their time together had never happened, and that she’d imagined all of it. But she did know. She could still feel the connection between them, even when they weren’t together.

  It was there, constantly. Probably always would be there to a certain extent. Even if, well, even if the way things were now didn’t change course. That was the likeliest scenario. She had to believe that if Parker wanted to talk, wanted to try to figure this out, he’d have contacted her by now. Since he hadn’t, all she could safely assume was that they—whatever that meant—were over. And she didn’t blame him. How could she? She’d gone and thrown a baby into an already-complicated, complex mix. But she hadn’t stopped hoping she was wrong, either.

  Hope, she’d decided, was only dangerous if you didn’t give it wings.

  The sound of applause erupted through the auditorium, shaking her from her thoughts, and when she peeked out, she saw the audience was on their feet. Oh! A standing ovation. Unfortunately, Erin-the-Fairy-Godmother had one final line as the narrator, but every time she started to speak, the constant loud clapping and hollering from the audience unnerved her, so she’d shut her mouth, wait another few seconds and try again. With the same result.

  Nicole crossed the stage as quickly as she could, to get to Erin. When she did, she saw the girl’s eyes were filled with tears, and when she put her arm around her shoulders, Nicole felt the trembles skittering through her slight flame. Poor kid. She’d worked so hard, practiced so long that this probably felt like a failure, and knowing Erin, the ten-year-old was blaming herself.

  Well, that wouldn’t do. Leaning close, Nicole whispered in Erin’s ear, “It’s okay, sweets. All this noise means they loved the performance. They’re showing their appreciation.”

  “Well, I know that,” Erin whispered back, her hand over the microphone. “But I’m not done yet, and they won’t listen to me, and I don’t know how to make them stop clapping so they will.” She gave Nicole an imploring look. “What do I do, Miss Bradshaw?”