Christmas Stalking

by Selena Kitt

  She felt a delicious shiver run through her at the sound of Nick’s voice, his breath in her ear. She opened her eyes in a slant of morning light, squinting and stretching and yawning. She turned and saw he was lying next to her, fully dressed. At least he wasn’t in uniform.

  “Right ... we’re supposed to go down to the police station today, huh?” she asked, sitting up. The covers fell to her waist before she realized she was no longer wearing any clothes. She quickly pulled them back up.

  “Yeah.” He was admiring the curve of her hip, she noticed. “But let’s get some breakfast first. I washed your clothes and they’re folded in the basket in the hall. There’s a towel in the bathroom for you.”

  “What time is it?”

  “About ten,” he said. “Eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage?”

  “Yes,” she replied without hesitation, and he laughed. “It’s really ten?” She found the shirt she was wearing the night before and pulled it over her head.

  “Do you have somewhere to go?”

  She stood, heading toward the door. “Actually, yes.”

  She took a quick shower, wondering how she was going to get out of here and over to Maggie’s without him. She got dressed, just one layer of clothes for the first time in a long time. By the time she finished packing everything into her backpack, she was drawn to the smell of bacon cooking.

  On the way to the stairs, as she passed his bedroom, she glanced in to see if he was there. The view she saw stunned her, and she found herself drawn to his window. She stood there until she could see her breath appearing on the glass.

  It was still snowing heavily outside, a good foot of snow covering the ground, a truly magical site, but that wasn’t what astonished her now. From this vantage point, she could see into the video store lobby. She was staring at the corner she had slept in for weeks.

  She made her way downstairs and found him in the living room in front of the lit fireplace, drinking coffee and brooding at the Christmas tree. “Pretty,” she remarked, really looking at it for the first time. It was a real tree—she could smell the fresh pine scent as she passed and sat down opposite him on the couch.

  “Yes,” he replied, looking at her and not at the tree. “Do you want to see what Santa left you?” He smiled over the rim of his cup.

  She laughed, and it was a bitter sound. “Santa hasn’t left me gifts since I was six. But I really would love breakfast.” Her rarely appeased stomach was growling quietly.

  “Go look in your stocking,” he said, still smiling.

  She tilted her head at him and then looked at the mantle. Yesterday, there was only one stocking there. Today, there were two.

  “The red one,” he prompted.

  Her heart was beating fast, but she retrieved it and sat back down on the couch. It felt empty. Wouldn’t that just be too funny?

  “So I guess you’ve been busy this morning,” she mumbled. “I didn’t get you anything, you know. Didn’t exactly know you were going to play knight errant to my damsel in distress.”

  “Fat man. Red suit. Ho-ho-ho.” He grinned. “No worries. Just go ahead and look.”

  “Nick...” she started, frowning.

  “Just look,” he gently urged.

  She put her hand in the stocking and pulled out an envelope. That was all. She opened it, tears filling her eyes. “How?” she wondered out loud, incredulous.

  It was her bus ticket, and her twenty dollar bill seemed to have multiplied overnight into quintuplets.

  “Told ya. Santa left it.” He winked, but at the same time, he looked pained. He put down his coffee cup on the table. “I do have something for you, though. Under the tree.”

  “For me? Nick, I don’t...” she began, but he stopped her by sliding across the couch and capturing her lips with his. Her bruised mouth was sore today and she winced but managed to kiss him back.

  “I’ve been waiting to do that for hours,” he whispered into her hair. “Your little mouth finally relaxes when you’re sleeping, did you know that? You look like an angel. Now, will you please let me have this one morning before you run off to California?”

  She didn’t respond, she couldn’t. Instead, she nodded, her arms going around him.

  He encouraged her to retrieve her gifts from under the tree. She was like a fastidious child on Christmas morning, easing open the wrapped edges, folding the bright paper into careful squares. She relished every moment. He had bought her a drawing set, a book, pencils, several drawing pads, erasers, sharpeners, even a triangle and a blending stump. It was perfect.

  She leapt into his lap, straddling his long, thick thigh, and hugging him tight, feathering kisses over his cheek. “When did you get this? How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “Cops are always good at deduction. Do you want breakfast?”

  She didn’t know if she could take any more kindness. There was a thick lump in her throat that she was trying to swallow. She followed him to the kitchen, finding exactly what he had offered on her plate—bacon, sausage, eggs, and pancakes.

  “So what did you mean, about deduction?” she asked after he had retrieved ketchup for her eggs. Less than a day of eating real food in a real kitchen and she was rediscovering a thing called preference.

  “Well, I knew you were homeless, probably a runaway,” he explained logically, pouring syrup. “I knew you needed help. I also knew if I approached you, you’d just run again, and I didn’t see how that was helping you.”

  She listened, chewing thoughtfully.

  “When I saw you rummaging through the garbage for food ... god, Ginny, I couldn’t stand it. So I started leaving you things.”

  She nodded. “The Scrunchie?”

  “Your hair is in your face all the time.” He smiled, looking sheepish.

  She smiled too, not sure if she was flattered or disturbed.

  “Were you just going to leave the drawing kit in your garbage?” she asked, smirking. He shrugged, eating his eggs quickly. “Seriously, it’s kind of creepy.”

  “I didn’t know how to get near you. I tried, that day in Borders. But you were so afraid you practically jumped out of your skin every time you saw me.”

  She snorted, rolling her eyes. “You’d jump too, if you knew Patrick.”

  “I wish I did,” he said darkly.

  They ate in silence for a while and Ginny sipped her orange juice like it was liquid sunshine.

  “What I don’t understand...” he said, his voice changing a little bit as he mopped at his eggs with a piece of toast, “is what you did with the money?”

  Her heart lurched in her chest and she covered it with her hand, sure it was going to leap out. Her face burned.

  “What?” she whispered, although he had been clear, unmistakably clear. The look on his face was pained, torn.

  “I saw it all happen. I called it in myself, although ... I don’t know why I didn’t tell them about you. I should have.”

  The silence roared between them. Ginny thought she had forgotten how to breathe for a moment. When she dared to look at him, she saw his torment in the working of his jaw and the sadness in his eyes.

  “When you didn’t come back, I thought you must have used the money to skip town. I was as surprised as I’ve ever been when I saw you there last night. I sat here, knowing I could make one phone call and do the ‘right’ thing...” He sighed, rubbing his fingers over his eyes. “I don’t know what the right thing is anymore.”

  She didn’t know what to say. Despite the delicious meal she had just eaten, she had an awful taste in her mouth.

  “I didn’t want it,” she confessed. “I didn’t know what to do with it. If I returned it, I was afraid I’d get caught. If I kept it, I was a thief.”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Do you really want to know where it went?” she asked him, her heart aching wide open.

  “I don’t know ... Do I?”

  She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “Will you take me somewhere?”
/>   “As long as it isn’t a bus station,” he said, his heart in his eyes.

  She shook her head and smiled.

  —

  “Oh my god, what happened to your face? Who is this?” Maggie stood at the door in her nightgown, although it was almost noon, the boys chasing each other around inside the apartment behind her.

  “Merry Christmas to you, too.” Ginny smiled. “Can we come in?”

  Maggie frowned, then hugged her, pulling her into the apartment, away from Nick. He stood in the hallway, hesitating, waiting.

  “Come on.” Ginny reached her hand out for him.

  Maggie did her wide-eyed “What is this?” look behind Nick’s back.

  Ginny called to the boys. “Hey, guys, I’d like you to meet my friend, Nick.”

  A chorus of two screaming, “Aunt Ginny!” surrounded them in an instant. Ginny swept them both up, groaning under the weight.

  “You guys need to stop getting so big. Sean, Michael, this is Nick.” She made brief introductions, because they were already asking their mother if they could now open their presents from Aunt Ginny.

  “Let them.” Ginny smiled, pulling Nick over to the couch to sit.

  The boys opened their respective packages with the same attitude they did everything, Sean tearing in without a second thought, Michael carefully lifting each taped edge.

  “X-Men!” Sean exclaimed, flipping through the pages.

  Maggie stared over his shoulder. “Oh my god, Ginny. Did you draw these?”

  Ginny nodded, watching Michael’s face as he goggled at Sean’s book, and noticed he was edging his package open much faster now.

  “You did?” Nick looked stunned. “Hey, buddy, can I see that?” he asked Sean, who reluctantly handed it over.

  “I got Spiderman!” Michael exclaimed, delighted.

  Nick glanced over at Michael’s booklet of drawings, too, shaking his head in wonder. “Wow, these are really good,” he told her, leafing through them.

  Maggie was nodding, looking proud. “Isn’t she amazing? I keep telling her she needs to go to art school. She should have used the money she gave me as the deposit on this place for school, but nooo...”

  Maggie looked fondly at her anyway, and Ginny smiled back at her sister. Sean snatched his book back from Nick, going to compare his with his brother’s.

  Nick turned to Ginny, his eyes softening. “When did you move?” he asked Maggie, not taking his eyes off Ginny’s.

  “It was such a gift, about a week ago, just in time for Christmas,” Maggie told him, gathering up the wrapping paper on the floor. “We didn’t have anything, we were living in a women’s shelter...”

  Nick nodded, his eyes moving over Ginny’s face.

  “We still don’t have very much, just what was donated to us. At least the boys are getting a real Christmas, in a real home...” Her voice trailed off as she looked affectionately at her sons huddled together on the floor.

  Ginny flushed when Nick lifted her chin and kissed her fully on the mouth. Both boys noticed and whooped. Maggie stood there with wrapping paper in her hands, stunned.

  “Did I do the right thing?” Her voice trembled.

  “You are the right thing,” he whispered in her ear, and she felt something loosen in her chest, spreading like warm liquid through her middle.

  They spent several hours with Maggie and the boys, Nick making numerous piggyback runs to and from their beds to the couch and back while Maggie listened across the kitchen table with growing horror to her sister’s quiet tale. She hugged both Nick and Ginny tearfully as they left.

  The only thing she didn’t reveal, Ginny realized as they drove back toward Nick’s house, was that she had a ticket in her pocket for a bus that was leaving in about two hours.

  “I thought I’d make you dinner,” he said, pulling into the driveway. “For the road.”

  They sat in the car for a moment, listening to the ticking of the engine.

  “Sure,” she agreed.

  He decided on hamburgers, something quick and simple. “Not much of a Christmas dinner.”

  She shrugged. “I’m glad to have any dinner at all.”

  They ate in silence, and she helped him clear the table and load the dishwasher before excusing herself to use the bathroom. He finished up in the kitchen while she wandered around his living room, touching surfaces as she went as if she could absorb him somehow through them.

  “Your bus leaves in an hour,” he said, coming in and starting a fire. “Do you want me to take you to the station?”

  She sat on the floor in front of the tree, looking into the fireplace, but she didn’t answer. He settled himself behind her, pulling her close, and she snuggled back between his legs. He kissed her neck, tugging at her shirt to expose her shoulder. They were small, sparing kisses, almost as if reluctant to begin anything they couldn’t finish.

  “Nick?”

  “Hm?”

  “Why haven’t you asked me about the tape?”

  He sighed, kissing the top of her head. “I thought right and wrong was black and white before I met you. Now ... I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?” She leaned back into him.

  “It’s not my decision to make,” he finally replied. “And I trust you to do what’s right for you.”

  She felt a lump growing in her throat. “Thank you.”

  “Ginny ... you’re an amazing artist ... and an amazing woman. And ... I don’t want you to go...” He sounded resigned, like he was conceding something. He rested his chin on the top of her head.

  She changed the subject. “Hey, did you check to see what Santa brought you?”

  He leaned in to look at her, smiling, quizzical. “What did you do?” he asked, unable to keep the anticipation out of his voice. “Draw me something?”

  She smiled, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Well, go look.”

  He stood up to go get the stocking hanging on the fireplace.

  “It’s the green one,” she joked.

  He smirked, coming to sit by her again, reaching into the stocking. His face changed when he pulled the tiny cassette out. It looked so small in his hand, and Ginny wondered at it again, how impossible it seemed that it could contain something so big.

  “Are you sure?” His eyes met hers.

  “Yes,” she replied, and she was. “But there’s more in there ... keep looking.”

  Shaking his head, he reached his hand back into the stocking. “Paper. Hm, I wonder what it could be...” He teased, winking at her.

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “Go ahead and look.”

  He pulled out an envelope and stared at it for a moment.

  “No?” she asked, disappointed.

  He looked up at her, at the tears in her eyes, at the fear of rejection and abandonment there and then back down at the bus ticket in his hand. “Yes,” he breathed, holding his arms out for her and gathering her in. “If it’s what you really want, then yes, Ginny. Yes.”

  She searched his eyes for the truth and found it, searched her heart for her own, and found that as well. She knew there was nothing she wanted more than to be here in this man’s arms, feeling safe, protected, and for the first time in her life, truly loved.

  “It is what I want,” she whispered. “More than anything.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, sounding uncertain.

  She turned, plucking the bus ticket from his hand and after saying a quick and unequivocal goodbye to white sand and sunshine, she tossed it into the fire to watch it wither and curl, turning to ash.

  “Well! I guess so.” He chuckled. “But Ginny, hon ... I think that ticket was refundable.”

  She looked shocked for a moment, then laughed. “So much for the dramatic!”

  “I think we’ve had enough drama, don’t you?” He smiled, teasing her.

  “Nope,” she assured him, snuggling against him in the light of the fire. “I bet we’ve got a lifetime of drama left to live.”

  “I hope
so,” he whispered against the softness of her mouth.

  Their kiss turned hungry, filled with the relief that it wasn’t their last. It went on and on, their mouths raw and aching, their bodies strung like taut wire. Nick pulled her to the floor in front of the fire, and they rolled back and forth so many times she was breathless and dizzy on top of him when their kiss finally broke. He wouldn’t let her go, his fingers digging deep into the flesh of her behind. She struggled with the button and zipper on her jeans, and Nick tried to help her, until after much fumbling and laughing, she was finally straddling him in her panties and t-shirt.

  “Sit up.”

  He guided her and she used her hands against his chest for balance. She could see the flash of his eyes in the firelight, half of his face in light, the other half in shadow. His hands moved up her bare legs and hips, over her ribs, taking her shirt with them. She reached around and unhooked her bra, so he could slip it off over her head. Ginny shivered as the air touched her bare skin.

  She was sitting on top of him just wearing a pair of white cotton panties, and his eyes swept over her from top to bottom. “You’re beautiful,” he said, trying to span her waist, and she felt beautiful under his hands. He gathered her in to him, kissing her breathless again, pressing her nearly naked body against his fully clothed one, and she squealed when his belt bit into the tender skin of her belly. “That’s hardly fair.” She reached down and unbuckled the damn thing.

  Nick leaned back as she unzipped his jeans and struggled to pull them off. Smiling, he didn’t help except to lift his hips. His eyes darkened with lust, as he watched her inch them down. She ignored the bulge in his boxers and started at the top button of his shirt, working her way down and spreading it wide when she was through, exposing his chest and belly to her eager hands.

  His eyes were soft and warm as he gazed at her, and she was startled by how much she found herself caring about him. He was out of uniform now, but the memory of him in blue was sharp in her mind. She had a sudden flash of fear, not of him, but for him. She remembered how worried her mother would be every time Patrick left the house to go to work. Could she live with a man who was a cop, knowing he was putting his life in danger every time he walked out the door? Her fingers moved over his ribs, his chest, feeling the strong beat of his heart. Knowing that just one bullet could stop it forever made her crazy with fear, longing, and some sort of desperation. She wanted to keep him like she had never wanted anything else.