Her mouth dropped open. “You mean the Santa everyone saw waving was you? When people mentioned it to me, I couldn’t believe it. I thought maybe Molly’s Santa had returned. It was you?”
“Me.” He nodded his head. “I was on the far side of the big tree in front of the courthouse, a few feet away from where you and Mr. Griswold had your little talk.” Turning, he walked into the brightness of the kitchen and the Christmas scent of a holly berry candle, trusting she would follow.
She did—with a question.
“So you knew I found the Grinch but you didn’t say anything?”
“Neither did you, sweetheart.” He shot her a brief, sardonic grin as he pulled out a chair for her.
“Yeah, but me I can understand,” she said, sounding more glib than she felt as she slipped off her jacket and hung it over the back of her chair. Still standing, she caught his eye again and gave him a long, searching look. “If you knew it was over, Jared, why did you stay on?”
If he didn’t break Christmas spell, he was going to end up making them all miserable in the long run. “I guess I was curious,” he said quietly. “When you didn’t tell me about the Grinch, I wanted to see what else you were up to.”
“What else? You mean you guessed what I was trying to do by making you play Santa?”
“Learn to love kids?” He stared at her incredulously. “I may not have a heart, Shea, but I do have a brain.”
“Oh, Jared,” she said with a long sigh, “of course you have a heart.”
She sank onto her chair, looking exhausted, and Jared almost went to her. But he stiffened. He couldn’t be crazy. He had to make her see why it would be best if he got out of her and the baby’s lives now.
“I wanted you to stay after I found Mr. Griswold,” she told him softly, gazing up at him, “to buy the time to try and make sure you had at least one merry Christmas in your life. One you would always remember.”
Although he remained well away from her, Jared’s expression was haunted. Perhaps he finally understood she’d been doing these things for him, even knowing they might not work. Shea supposed they hadn’t if she was to believe his words. But she could have sworn he was happy during the past few days, and more than once. Like the time when he’d played Santa and been talking with the children, while he’d laughed at her jokes...and while he’d held her tightly that afternoon when they danced.
So why couldn’t he see it, too?
“I guess you succeeded there,” he said finally. “This has been one heck of a crazy Christmas. Probably,” he said, “the best one I ever had.”
At least she’d given him that much, Shea thought, directly or indirectly. But it wouldn’t be enough. He was still leaving. She could read it in the way he stood, in the glances he was giving her. He might be talking to her now instead of silently walking away as he used to when they’d been living together, but eventually, he was still going to walk away. Everything might have changed for him—but in reality, nothing had.
Nothing would.
“I may have shown you Christmas fun, but I haven’ t helped you understand the joy and the spirit that goes with it, have I?” she asked.
“It’s something I guess I’ll have to figure out on my own.”
With his words, Shea felt the steam go out of her.
She’d failed.
Uttering a soft sigh of surrender, she lifted her hand to cover a mouth that was twisting as she held back tears. “What if I tell you I like you just fine the way you are?” she asked. “And begged you to stay?”
“It won’t work,” Jared told her, his voice gentle. “You’re everything I could have hoped for, Shea, but it won’t work. Sometimes...” He gave a groan of exasperation, not knowing how to explain it to her, but realizing he had to try. “Sometimes I feel like I’ll always be cold. You don’t need that kind of person in your life. Neither does the baby. It needs Quiet Brook, it needs your warmth and love and...and—” he gestured widely “—and holly berry candles in the kitchen at Christmas.”
Tears trickled down from her eyes. Jared’s lips tightened together in a grimace as he grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the counter and handed them to her.
“Hell, now I’ve made you cry.” Feeling like the Grinch himself, Jared watched Shea dab at her eyes, which seemed huge to him. Wide and beautiful. It was killing him not to reach over and pull her into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But can’t you see? You’re choosing to bury yourself.”
“Hell,” he said, sounding even more exasperated than before. “I’m not choosing to be this way. I am this way. There’s a difference.”
She shook her head. “No, you’re choosing it. And as long as you think you can’t feel love, as long as you don’t open up your heart and risk the hurt, you aren’t going to feel it.”
Jared waited quietly for her to get it all out. She deserved the chance to give him what-for. She’d tried harder than anyone else ever had to make him happy.
“You’re still leaving, aren’t you?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
He nodded solemnly.
“You’re going to end up alone and crotchety like your father,” she warned, wiping away more tears.
“I know,” he admitted. “But you see, Shea, I can’t even feel anything about that. It’s as if it was destined. I think it would be easier if we just said our goodbyes and started learning how to become polite strangers.”
She took a deep breath, feeling like he’d just shattered her heart into a million pieces of ice. “Don’t go, Jared. I love you any way you are.”
His dark blue eyes seared into her. “This is already too damned hard for me, Shea. Please don’t make it worse.”
“Fine.” He was frozen solid again, she could see it in the way he held himself and in the shuttered look in his eyes. But all she could do was love him. “You do what you need to. But know that I love you—I always will. If you start believing in that kind of magic again, Jared, you know where I’ll be.”
With a last, long look at her, Jared reached over and brushed a tear away from her cheek. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
She couldn’t reply. A few seconds later, she didn’t have to because he’d left her alone in the kitchen. Shea lowered her cheek down to her folded arms on the tabletop. It was over. She’d given her best as well as her heart, and she didn’t know how else to reach him anymore.
But she knew better, didn’t she? Nothing could save her marriage now, not even Santa Claus—and she used to believe he could do anything. Jared had once said he wished she would understand that sometimes life couldn’t be as perfect as she wanted it. He’d been right. Saving her marriage was going to take a Christmas miracle.
The problem was, though, just like Jared, she wasn’t sure she believed in them any longer.
Chapter Ten
The hell of it was, while Jared couldn’t muster out of the emptiness inside him any feelings he imagined were profound joy and love, back in Topeka, on his own again, he quickly discovered that he sure could plumb the depths of misery and anger. Just thinking he would no longer have any real claims to Shea made him want to bash in walls. So much so that when his lawyer told him on Monday that he didn’t have to be in the courtroom late Wednesday when the judge issued the decree, Jared told him to go ahead without him and not to call him afterward—just mail him his decree and his bill.
After that, trying to pretend Shea and his baby didn’t exist, Jared worked in his office. Then on a stakeout far into the night. Home briefly for a quick shower and a change of clothes. Back in his office. All day. Into the night. Working hard so he didn’t have to think about how much he didn’t want to be on the outside looking in anymore, and how that would never happen. He wanted to feel numb, but that was a feeling only exhaustion seemed to bring. So he worked some more.
He’d been working so hard, in fact, that on the evening his divorce supposedly became final without him, when the grandfather clock in the corner of his offic
e—a gift from Shea he’d never had the heart to get rid of—bonged ten times, he thought he heard a deep voice calling his name. Jared jerked awake with a start, having fallen asleep at his desk.
“Well, finally!” the voice boomed again. “I thought I was going to have to call out a rescue squad!”
Jared blinked quickly, his wits waking up faster than his weary body, and finally, slowly, his eyes focused in on the speaker, an old man with a white beard and a red-and-white velvet suit and hat, standing on the other side of his desk. He looked strangely like...Santa Claus.
Not that there was such a thing.
“It’s way too quiet in here.” Walking over to a radio on Jared’s bookcase, Santa picked out a station with Christmas music and left it playing softly in the background. “There, that’s better.”
Watching the guy, Jared realized he hadn’t locked his office door before he’d passed out from exhaustion. Brilliant. Leaning forward, ready to react if necessary, he placed his right hand over the edge of the drawer where he kept his gun and regarded the man warily. With the great cynicism of those who have been there and seen everything lacing his voice, Jared said, “Santa, light?”
“Good, good, we have that cleared up right away,” the visitor said, his deep voice rumbling merrily. “I haven’t got all day, you know!” he added. “There’s plenty for me to do back home, packing up toys for the children. It isn’t easy.” He wagged one of his white-gloved fingers at Jared. “But do you care? Nooo! Sleeping the evening away, when you could be out there doing something useful.”
“This is not a good dream,” Jared said to himself. “But that would be silly, because who would have nightmares about Santa?”
Santa grinned, held on to his belly and laughed. “Exactly, my boy, exactly!”
It had to be a dream, Jared told himself, but even so, he began to slide the desk drawer open with his fingertips just in case Santa’s irritation with him turned into something worse.
“A gun?” Santa threw back his head and laughed again. “Ho, ho, ho, boy, you won’t need that. Here, let me show you I’m harmless.” Reaching inside a massive pocket Jared remembered only too well, Santa pulled out candy canes, lollipops, a couple of small cars and a Santa on a rocking chair and piled them all on Jared’s desk. Finished, the bearded man tapped on the Santa toy and set it to rocking. “I’m kind of fond of that one myself,” he said, grinning at Jared.
When Jared didn’t grin back, Santa then turned his other pocket inside out, sat down and slipped out of his boots, presenting each foot for Jared’s perusal. His socks had little Christmas trees on them. Once his boots were back on, he stood and stomped his feet. “Is that good enough, son? I hope so, because we need to get down to business.”
Jared still felt wary. “You need to hire me?”
“Well, not me exactly. This concerns a little friend of mine I met in Quiet Brook. Molly.” All merriment disappeared from Santa’s sky blue eyes as he reloaded the small toys into his pockets. “You’re needed in Quiet Brook, son. You have to go back there—now. I’d go myself, but I can’t help everybody—there aren’t enough hours in a day.”
Jared got the drift that this must be Molly’s transient Santa. The question was, what the hell was he doing here in Topeka? And in his office? And since “Santa” was here, how would the man know what was going on sixty miles away? Jared wanted to tell him to hit the road, but the same feeling he’d once had that Molly had turned up in his life for a reason came rushing back full force, and he couldn’t.
“What about Molly?” he asked.
“Sad situation.” Santa shook his head, his eyes worried as they peered down at Jared over his wire-rimmed glasses. “I kept telling her I couldn’t give her this particular Christmas wish, but I’m afraid she didn’t listen. She keeps believing in me, and, well, it’s going to lead to disaster for her, and maybe for your wife if she goes outside in this weather, and with her big heart, I know she might. But I really can’t do a thing myself—you need to go back to Quiet Brook.”
A feeling of dread had slowly built up inside Jared as the man added word after word to his scenario. “What do you mean ‘disaster’?” he asked quickly, wondering if he should call in the police.
“For Molly.” Santa reached up under his hat and felt around, then pulled out a folded piece of paper, which he opened and read. “‘Dear Santa.’” He paused and looked at Jared. “That’s me.” At Jared’s scowl he cleared his throat and continued. ‘“I have an important Christmas wish to tell you. Please come to the park tonight I’ll be there.’” Rattling the paper in his hand, Santa peered over his glasses again directly at Jared. “There’s more, but I gave you the important stuff. I took it out of Denton’s Santa mailbox when I was passing through earlier, but I didn’t get to read it until just a little while ago. That’s why I’m so late. You’ve got to hurry.”
As he said that, the clock chimed the quarter hour, and Santa’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. Got to catch the 10:20 back to the Pole. The missus needs me. Says things are gettin’ a little behind.” He wiggled his eyebrows and put the paper in his pocket.
Jared shook his head as he watched Santa hurrying toward the door. He had to be dreaming.
Santa stopped, gave him a last look, then shook his head in disgust. “You’re dawdling! There’s no time to waste. If you leave right away, you might just stop a catastrophe and get everything you ever wanted for Christmas.”
“That’s impossible,” Jared replied, looking up—but the door was just swinging shut, and the man was already gone.
Scowling, he hurried to the door, pushed it open and looked outside through the falling snow in time to see the tail end of a red suit disappearing around the corner. He started to chase him down toward the end of the strip mall, but then the wind starting whipping up and blew a piece of paper right onto his pants leg, distracting him. When he kicked it away, he happened to notice it had the same odd green Christmas tree with the same multicolored gifts that Molly had shown him when he’d been playing Santa.
Scowling, he returned to the office so he could decipher the words in the light. He could read “park” and “come” and “Santa,” but it didn’t look like a child had written them. However, there was no mistaking that tree and the word “Molly” beside it.
“Hell.” Did he believe all this, or not? Every logical bone in his body told him just to call Shea and ask her to check on the kid since Molly was now living right across the yard from her. He knew she wouldn’t be particularly thrilled to hear from him, but this was too strange to ignore.
So he tapped out Shea’s number. Busy.
Scowling, he got the number for the sheriff’s office, but he got repeated busy signals there, too, for over ten minutes. The operator told him the line might be down because of the storm. In Quiet Brook, that happened, and the weather didn’t even have to be that bad.
Jared rose and went for his jacket. He knew the guy couldn’t be Santa Claus—Molly was just a kid whose bright, hopeful eyes were filled with a trust in Christmas magic. He didn’t know what her wish was, but he thought it had to be really important for her to venture out in the dark for it.
But making sure she got her wish, whatever it was, was not why he was yanking on his jacket, shutting off the lights and locking the door to his office. He swore it wasn’t. If he was going to give anyone her wish, it would be Shea.
No, he was hopping into his truck for the sole reason that if Molly went to the park at night because she thought Santa would be coming, that wasn’t good. Anything could happen.
Anything. Because as much as Shea wanted her little corner of the world to be perfect, it wasn’t. A stranger had Molly’s letter to Santa. A stranger knew Molly was going to the park. A total stranger had mentioned Shea’s name particularly in the same breath as catastrophe.
Shoving the gearshift into reverse, he backed out of his parking spot. He didn’t want to set foot near Shea, didn’t want to feel that pain again, but a wildly cascading tens
ion in his gut warned him to check out this Santa’s story. Every ounce of his common sense was telling him to get to Quiet Brook.
And to hurry.
As the wind gusted snow into her face, Shea tucked her muffler higher up around her cheeks, waved her flashlight into the darkness of the park and called Molly’s name again.
No answer.
She shouldn’t be out in this weather, she knew, not with visibility poor and every step under her holding icy potential for a fall. But she’d felt guilty staying inside with most of the town out searching for the little girt who had turned up missing. So when she’d remembered that Molly had asked her to spell out “park” and a couple of other words on a letter to Santa a couple of days before, then found the phones were dead so she couldn’t report it to anyone, she’d known what she needed to do.
Besides, she couldn’t stand being alone with her misery for one minute longer. She wanted Jared so badly she was getting no joy out of the holiday, no peace from the Christmas hymns. All she could think about was how terribly wrong she’d been to try to change him when she should have loved him just the way he was and made him understand that. No wonder he’d thought he would make her miserable if he stayed. By trying to change him, she had given him the impression that he wasn’t fine just the way he was.
She’d always been like that, wanting everything fixed to her own satisfaction. Well, she’d learned. She’d really learned that some things are best just as they are.
Like the love you already had.
“Mollyl” she shouted again, and the wind carried the word in an eerie spiral of snow away from her. She was scared for the little girl, frightened that she could slip and hurt her and Jared’s child, and more than that even, morose over how stupid she’d been about Jared.
A couple of tears fell and froze on her muffler. She shook her head. She couldn’t cry. She had to get tough and cope, just the way Jared had done his whole life. If Molly was indeed out here, and she remained tough, she could stick it out and find the child. If she started crying, she might as well go sit in the car and give up.
A Baby In His Stocking (Harlequin Treasury 1990's) Page 13
