A Baby In His Stocking (Harlequin Treasury 1990's)

by Hayley Gardner

  Except he had felt none of the thrill he knew he should have felt at the surprise. When he caught the expression on his face in the mirror on the dresser after he’d found the presents, he’d realized it was one of indifference. He could never look like that in front of his kid on Christmas morning. If he stayed, he would kill every bit of joy in both the baby and Shea.

  And he loved her too much to do that to her. He had to let her go. He thought of her warmth, her gentle caresses and the way she made him grin, and as his hand rested on the soft green velvet of her dress, he wished that she was right, that there would be a Christmas miracle. But he knew better.

  Shea wished she knew what Jared was thinking. So many times during the past two days, she caught him just staring at her. She wasn’t sure if he was waiting for her good spirits to cease, or for her to demand something of him, but either way, she did her best to show him nothing but love.

  For the baby’s sake.

  The change in him had been hard to spot, but it was happening, ever so gradually. He played Santa with a quiet kind of spirit that captivated the kids. Then, even though he hated the suit, he’d put it back on to make Denton’s annual Christmas run with her and Mack to the houses of the less well-off kids. And now he was dancing with her not dressed as Santa, which was the best treat of all. It almost seemed as if they could actually be happy.

  Could, maybe, but she had a lingering fear. Had the change in him been deep enough to let them be happy together for real this time? And would it last?

  She didn’t know. All she knew was that the clock was ticking faster than she wanted it to—toward Wednesday and the divorce.

  And her heart was breaking. She had to get him to stay, to realize what a wonderful man he was and that all the happiness in the world could be his if he would only start reaching out and believing in the Christmas magic that was all around him. But how?

  By the time they arrived home and changed and met back downstairs, Shea had started a batch of cookies and come up with yet another project that would buy her some more time with Jared. Her father was out helping Molly and her mother pack to move over to their garage apartment, and it was a great time to get him involved in all their lives. But first, she had to convince him that he was needed.

  She found him at the dining-room table, typing on his portable computer.

  “I hate to interrupt you—” she started, only to be interrupted herself by the wry, half grin on Jared’s face when his eyes left the computer screen and found hers.

  “I’d be willing to make a little Christmas wager that you don’t mind interrupting me at all,” he said, pushing the computer aside. “What can I do for you, Shea?”

  His eyes looked kind of sad, and an irresistible need to be closer to him drew her to his side of the oak table. “It’s not for me.”

  “No kids tonight, Shea,” he said quietly.

  “You sure? It’s a treat for Molly.”

  This time when Jared looked at her, she could tell for certain—he wasn’t teasing her. His expression was closed. “I’m sure.”

  “Oh, okay,” she said, trying her best to sound nonchalant as she left the table with a growing lump of disappointment in her throat. “No problem.”

  Her mom had been wrong, bless her loving heart. She’d lost. Love and laughter didn’t do a thing for a person when he’d spent most of his years without any.

  Walking to the door leading directly into the kitchen, she pulled the batch of cookies out of the oven. It was moments later, after they’d cooled and she’d slipped them off the rack and into the jar, that she realized she had no real desire to make any more. And as she heard Jared tapping away furiously on his laptop, she put a lid on both the cookie jar and her hopes and dreams for the baby. She leaned dejectedly against the counter, wondering if she should just go to bed.

  “Oh, hell.” The tapping of the computer keys stopped, and seconds later, Jared was at the kitchen door. “Okay, I give up. What does Molly need?”

  She should have been elated, but instead, she felt tired, tired of fighting a battle she didn’t seem to be winning. She gave him a sad smile. “I wouldn’t want to force you into something you didn’t want to do.”

  “Force?” The barest hint of a grin formed on his lips. “More like gently manipulate, I think, with those huge green eyes of yours batting at me so hopefully. You were always pretty good at getting me right where you wanted me.”

  “If I was that good, Jared, we would be together now.”

  He moved out of the doorway, found a spot next to her and leaned against the counter, his eyes twinkling. “In case you haven’t noticed, we are.”

  Her breath caught. Whenever he got close like this, she could feel the power he had over her. The power that reminded her how much she wanted him. The good Lord help her, she would want him forever, even after their divorce went through.

  “I’m going to do whatever you want me to do for Molly,” he said. “The question is, why?”

  She smiled at him, trapped between wanting to push him away because she was afraid to get too close, and wanting to hold him so tightly he would never go. “You’re a nice guy?” she tried.

  “Not that nice. What’s in it for me?”

  “That would depend, I think, on what you want.”

  “I’m thinking,” he said, taking another step toward her, suddenly a whisper away.

  She didn’t want him to move. “You close in fast.”

  “Maybe it’s just that the distance between us isn’t as wide as we think it is.” Reaching out, he brushed a lazy, swirling tendril of her dark hair away from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear, where his fingertips rested on the edge of her earlobe. They trailed down to the silver hoop she wore, one of the pair that he’d given her on her birthday. “You still have these?”

  “Of course,” she said simply. “They were the first present you ever gave me.”

  His expression quickly became a mixture of pleasure and pain. “And the last present I’m ever going to give you is our baby.”

  “No, Jared, that’s where you’re wrong,” she said, shaking her head very slowly, her eyes never leaving his. “The last present you gave me was saving my Christmas by staying long enough to frighten off the Grinch and by doing your best at playing Santa Claus for the store. I know how hard it was for you, and you have no idea how much your trying to help meant to me.”

  “So tell me, how much?” he asked, his voice thick with some unnamed emotion.

  She was tempting Fate and she knew she had no right to, but she suddenly couldn’t stop herself. Rising on tiptoe, she slipped both her hands around his neck and he obliged her by lowering his head until his mouth met hers. His hands came to rest on either side of her waist, and within a couple of seconds, he was pulling her toward him until her body was nestled against his.

  It was a kiss that made her yearn for every single one she had missed during the months they had been apart. A deep kiss of desire that made her tighten her arms around him and want desperately to hold on to the forever he could offer.

  His grip on her also tightened as he deepened the kiss, his lips pressing and probing and making her want to take him upstairs. Maybe she would have, if on the cue of her breathless sigh, the warmth of his lips against hers had not faded in intensity and he had not ended the kiss.

  But he had.

  Wanting to give them both some thinking room, Shea backed away, one hip against the counter to stabilize a world that had slipped off its axis. She didn’t know what to say or what to do. The kiss had not assuaged the ache in her; it had just intensified her need for him. But did it really change anything?

  Her eyes still caught up in the blue depths of his, she pulled in a deep breath of control. She had to say something—but what?

  Jared cleared his throat. “Molly?”

  “Hmm?” Whatever she’d been about to blather stuck in her throat. Shea knew she ought to be pleased he was thinking about the child; nevertheless she also couldn�
�t help feeling a tinge of disappointment at the change in direction he’d taken.

  Don’t push, she reminded herself. Don’t go too fast. Think about how you really feel. Don’t destroy the both of you by making another mistake. But no matter how much she might tell herself that, the simple fact remained that the clock was ticking and bringing the moment of their divorce closer and closer....

  While she was beginning to think she’d fallen back in love with her husband.

  “Mack...” She stopped to take another deep breath and started over again. “Dad wants to string lights across the front of the garage apartment for Molly—as a surprise for when they move in. But I don’t want him up on the ladder. I told him I would ask you.”

  “All right.”

  Her eyes lit up. “You’ll do it?”

  Jared shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. The kiss had thrown him for a loop, and not understanding why she’d started that, he’d wanted to bolt, but the hopefulness she probably didn’t even know was in her eyes had ensnared him in her Christmas spell one more time.

  Put simply, he wanted to make her happier. He wanted to increase that joy. He shouldn’t, because he knew he was going to have to put an end to this—tonight. He was no good for her—or their child. That was pretty evident. He didn’t know how to love and never would.

  He’d agreed to put up the lights not out of any great wish to make Molly’s day, but rather because the waters he’d just been in with Shea had been pretty deep, to say the least. After that kiss—hell, even before that kiss—he’d been wound up like a jack-in-the-box ready to spring. Some physical exertion and cold air were exactly what he needed, along with distance from her intoxicating scent.

  “Thanks,” she said. Reaching up, she laid her fingers on his arm and squeezed gently, shooting bolts of desire through him. He had a suspicion she knew exactly what she was doing—getting him under her spell.

  And it was working.

  Damn.

  On the other hand, he could be wrong. He knew they ought to have this out, that there was a whole lot more to be cleared up between them. But he couldn’t do that to her. Not right now. Not after that kiss. Later, after he’d been outside in the cold and his temperature had gone back to normal, he would tell her he was leaving.

  “Molly will be ecstatic,” she said, still eyeing him as if she half expected him to change his mind. “I’ll go call Dad and make sure he keeps Molly away until we’re done.”

  Jared watched her as she walked out of the room. The warmer things grew between them, the more confused he was getting. Did she want him back as he was, or was she trying to change him? And why, when she’d had plenty of chances, was she still hiding the fact that the Grinch was no longer a problem?

  Having her so responsive to him, so able to ride along with even his remoteness and make him feel content again when he was with her, had definitely worn down his resistance. As he’d sat there typing, his thoughts had centered on Shea and on how much he wanted her and her warm, cozy, perfect life again with all his heart.

  But so help him, he was still too scared. He could show her he loved her his way; he knew how to do that. But as hard as he tried, he couldn’t let loose enough to feel in his heart whatever everyone else seemed to be feeling—the joy, the enthusiasm, the warmth.

  And without feeling it in his heart, his relationship with Shea seemed like a poor facsimile of what he knew she wanted. That, he guessed, would end up hurting all of them if he stayed—because Shea would soon discover that he didn’t want what she did with all his heart. And it would hurt her.

  It occurred to him that he and Shea were total opposites—she was always inside, all heart, warm and cozy, while he was always outside, cold, braving the elements, his nose pressed up against the window, wishing for something that could never be.

  Cold. That’s what he needed right then and there, to be outside in the two-inch-deep snow. He headed toward the back door and was slipping on his jacket, ready to take a break from being around Shea, when he realized something.

  He didn’t know a damned thing about putting up Christmas lights. He was going to need her help.

  It figured.

  Despite the frosty air, it had been a moonlit night with shooting stars and laughter, Shea thought, her eyes watching Jared, her heart filled with peace. A night to see Santa stomping on the roof...only this Santa was wearing jeans and a parka and uttering an occasional curse.

  It was a night that made her hope that the connection between her and Jared would never end. A night for wishes sent to Santa that might just come true.

  “A bit more to the left with that string and it’ll be centered,” she told him, waving her hand in the appropriate direction.

  After shifting the lights, Jared stapled them in place the way Shea had told him, connected one last plug, then climbed down the ladder. Meeting him at the bottom, she took hold of his arm and pulled, holding on perhaps a little more tightly than she needed to.

  “Where are we going now?” he asked.

  “To get your reward for being such a good boy,” she said, shooting him a wicked, wicked grin. “I’m going to light up your night.”

  “Out here?” The image of her lithe body lingered before Jared’s eyes, but he shook it off. “I’ve heard of blankets of snow, but somehow I don’t think it would be as cozy as it sounds once the clothes come off.”

  “That’s not what I had in mind, and I think you know it.” But she was smiling as she pulled him to the sidewalk at the far end of the lawn, well away from the garage. Continuing that vibrant smile and starting to hum “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” she hurried back to the garage and flipped on the outside light switch.

  The darkness around the garage was lit up with red, green, blue and orange dancing twinkle lights. On the garage roof, a red-and-white outline of Santa in his sleigh sparkled merrily. Jared stared at it. He’d done that? Himself?

  She was back at his side in a second. “So what do you think?”

  “I think it’s a child’s paradise,” he said gruffly. his throat thick with emotion.

  “Molly’s going to love it,” Shea said softly. “I’ll make sure she knows you did it for her.”

  “I didn’t do it for her, Shea,” he said slowly.

  “Of course you did it for her.” She beamed at him. “You only think you’re afraid of children, Jared. Actually, you’ve been wonderful with them—once you warmed up, that is.”

  “No, I’m afraid you’re wrong.” He had to let her know how he felt now and why he couldn’t stay, or he’d find himself unable to leave.

  And he had to. He couldn’t stay around to watch the baby inside her grow, watch Shea blossom into motherhood, wanting to touch her as he did but never having her again. It was best to lay it on the line, call it quits. He couldn’t be this near to all her warmth, not even for one more night.

  “You’re still a little scared of being a father, Jared, but I’ve been watching you. And I know that everything will turn out fine once the baby’s here.”

  “I don’t think you should count on that,” he said firmly, his gaze remaining on the lights until he couldn’t stand her silence. He dropped his eyes to hers.

  The glow had left her beautiful face. Jared could feel what he had of a heart breaking, but there was no helping this. He knew what he was and wasn’t capable of; he knew it too damned well. It was time to let her know.

  “I put up those lights because I knew they would make you happy, Shea. I went with you to get a tree you ended up hating and then out again on a wildtree chase to get it back, then scouted out Molly’s lost Santa, looked for the Grinch, played Santa Claus and went dancing with you—” he paused and took a breath “—all of it just to make you happy. None of it meant anything to me in any other way.”

  He knew he should walk away right then and there, not stand around and hurt her underneath the glimmer of the first Christmas lights he’d ever put up himself, but he couldn’t help it. He had to make her se
e that it wouldn’t work, that he couldn’t be the perfect daddy to their beautiful baby, couldn’t be a loving husband to her, because he simply didn’t believe he had the warmth it took in him. He just didn’t feel anything except the need to be around her. He knew there was something more that Shea was feeling. He could see it in the depths of her eyes whenever she looked at him. But he didn’t have a clue how to drum it up inside himself. No matter how many Christmas activities he’d been involved in, no matter how happy he made Shea, he just couldn’t feel all this joy that others seemed to be feeling.

  He touched her cheek and wiped a crystal tear away. “All I wanted to do was make you happy, and I couldn’t even be perfect at doing that. Face it, Shea. I’m never going to be the man you need, not for the baby, and not for you. I don’t know how. I can go through the motions, but I can’t feel it inside my heart. I almost brought you down to my level once, and I can’t stick around and do it again.”

  Hating himself, he headed toward the house. He had to get back to his place in Topeka. It wasn’t home—he would always think of home as being where Shea was, whether they were married or not. But he couldn’t stick around her any longer, wishing for something that would never be.

  Shea was seconds behind him as he went into the foyer. The reopening and closing of the door confirmed it.

  “Please, Jared, don’t go.”

  Slowly, he faced her, keeping more than an arm’s length away. “There’s no real reason for me to stay any longer, is there?” If she wouldn’t let him go, then he had to make sure it was over himself. Mr. Cold Heart. He could do it. And he would hate himself every minute of the rest of his life for it, too. “No reason, because Mr. Griswold’s been behaving himself quite nicely since you caught him, hasn’t he?”

  “You knew?”

  “Let’s just say I didn’t waste any time before following you out of the store.”