Happily This Christmas--A Novel

by Susan Mallery

  Joylyn followed her. Wynn pushed the button to close the garage door, then collected glasses and dessert plates. When everything was prepared, she sat across from Joylyn.

  “You feeling all right?” she asked.

  The young mother-to-be nodded. “Physically it’s all what it’s been. My back hurts, I can’t see my feet. You know—normal.”

  “Considering how pregnant you are, yes.”

  Joylyn picked at her piece of coffee cake. “It’s just everything is different. My friends stopped by yesterday.”

  “Were they the ones driving that great old Mustang? It was a sweet ride.”

  Joylyn pressed her lips together. “They drank all day and hung out by the pool. It’s like we have nothing in common. They’re interested in having fun and getting laid, and I’m just not into that. Not anymore.”

  “You chose a different path.”

  “Was it the right one?” Joylyn looked at her, tears trembling on her lower lashes. “Did I make a mistake?”

  Wynn had a feeling the question was a lot more about feeling lonely than any serious introspection.

  “Are you sorry you married Chandler?”

  “What? No! Of course not. I love him. I’m not sorry we’re married.” She put a hand on her belly. “I wish I hadn’t gotten pregnant when I did, but we were always going to have kids. It’s just everyone’s having fun but me.”

  “You do have more responsibility than your friends. But you’re also more settled. While they’re still trying to figure out their lives, you know where you’re going.”

  “You’re right.” Joylyn sipped her lemonade. “I wouldn’t want to be dating. I’m glad I found Chandler when I did. We’re right together. I guess I’m lonely.”

  “That makes sense. Your husband is deployed, your friends are all somewhere else. You have your dad, but no real girlfriend support system.”

  Joylyn nodded glumly. “I should have stayed on base. If Chandler gets deployed again, I’m staying close to the other Marine wives.”

  “So you have a plan.”

  Joylyn looked at her. “How did you handle having Hunter on your own? I think about my son being born and it terrifies me. I have no idea what to do or how to take care of him. I mean I have younger brothers and I remember when they were babies, but that’s different. My mom was there. This time I’ll be the mom.”

  “You do what you have to do. It is terrifying. The first fever, the first time he gets a cold. It’s a nightmare, but you learn and you get through it.”

  “My mom was really young when I was born. Like seventeen. So was my dad. That’s four years younger than me. I mean they both had their parents, but still.” Joylyn paused. “My dad worked with the DEA.”

  “On a joint task force.”

  “You knew? Did everyone know but me?”

  Wynn picked up her drink. “He told me a few weeks ago.”

  “I just found out yesterday.” Her tone was bitter. “He just left me to be some hero.”

  “I wasn’t there, but my understanding is that you refused to see him. He showed up every weekend for nearly two months, and every time you sent him away. Then he accepted the assignment. Or am I wrong?”

  Joylyn shifted on her seat. “Okay, that’s how it happened, but it’s not how it felt.”

  “How did it feel?”

  “Like he didn’t care about me.”

  “Have you told him that?”

  “He wouldn’t get it if I tried.”

  Wynn sensed that Joylyn was telling the truth—from her perspective, her father hadn’t cared. What she didn’t know was why Joylyn would go there. Garrick had shown up faithfully, begging his daughter to spend time with him. She’d been the one to refuse. So why would that leave her feeling rejected?

  There was something she didn’t know, Wynn told herself. Some piece to the puzzle she couldn’t see.

  “Did you and your dad have any Christmas traditions?” she asked.

  Joylyn picked up her fork and took a bite of the coffee cake.

  “Sure. Lots of them. We always had a tree—a real one. My mom insisted on an artificial one because she didn’t want to deal with the needles and stuff, but Dad got us a real one. He always insisted we get a tree from Wishing Tree, Washington, because he said those are the best. We had our own ornaments, and we always decorated it together.”

  She smiled. “Every year I was into something different. One year the tree was all done in fairies and princess ornaments. It was so girlie—even the lights were pink—but he never complained. He always got me an Advent calendar. One year it was like a jewelry kit. I could make string bracelets and necklaces, adding beads every day.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “It was. He mentioned decorating yesterday, but we started talking about other stuff and it never happened. I miss how it used to be.”

  “It’s not going to be exactly that, but you two could still have fun together.”

  Joylyn paused, as if considering the suggestion. “Maybe. I spent Christmas Eve with him every year, and we would get up at five to see what Santa had left at his place. Then we went out for breakfast and got to my mom’s at about seven. He stayed all day. Even when he was married to Sandy, he did that with me.”

  She finished the coffee cake. “He always took off the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and we always went up in the mountains to play in the snow. One year there just wasn’t any in the mountains outside of Phoenix so he drove us all the way to Utah so we could have our day.”

  “Those are great memories.”

  “They are.”

  “You should talk to him.”

  Joylyn stiffened. “What about?”

  “The real reason you stopped seeing him. You’re angry because he hasn’t guessed what it is. Here’s my life secret—no one can read your mind, and if you’re waiting for that to happen, you’re going to be disappointed for the rest of your life. You love your dad and you miss him. The only way to fix the problem is to tell him what’s wrong.”

  She thought Joylyn might burst into tears or start screaming or even run out of the room. Instead, she sucked in a breath and nodded.

  “You’re right. I should do that. I don’t know if I can, but I need to try.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  GARRICK WAS WEARY to the bone. His morning had started at three with an Amber Alert. The missing kid was a four-year-old boy who had been taken by his noncustodial father. While Happily Inc didn’t have a lot of crime, bad stuff happened everywhere. His officers had issued the alert and started patrolling the area, looking for the man’s car. The father’s violent past had added urgency to the search.

  The department had been contacted by a concerned citizen who had heard screaming while on a morning run. Garrick had joined his officers on the edge of the desert and had found the boy and his dad, setting up camp. The father had defied the police order to put up his hands. Instead, he’d gone for his gun. When the shooting had stopped, two officers were injured, the man was dead, but the boy was safe. Traumatized, but safe.

  Garrick had spent the rest of the day dealing with the paperwork that followed a situation like that. The boy had been bruised from a beating, but otherwise physically all right. Back in town, the mother had a black eye and a broken arm. Garrick had insisted that in addition to a medical checkup that they both got counseling to deal with the aftermath of what they’d been through. He didn’t believe killing a suspect was ever a positive outcome, but sometimes there wasn’t a choice and every now and then, he thought maybe the world was better off because of it. This was one of those days.

  He’d spoken with all the officers involved in the shooting, visited the two injured officers at the hospital, been reassured they would be released in the morning and had given an accounting to the local TV station. Garrick told himself the kid and the moth
er were safe and that was what mattered, but he didn’t like the reminder that the world could be a dark place, even in Happily Inc.

  By the time he got home, he wanted nothing more than a shower, a beer and a couple of hours of watching his favorite football team kick someone’s ass. Instead, he found his daughter pacing in the living room.

  “I heard,” she said, staring at him wide-eyed. “About that man kidnapping his son. There was a shoot-out. Are you all right?”

  She sounded worried, which felt kind of nice. Without thinking, he held open his arms, before remembering that for some reason, Joylyn didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. Only instead of rejecting him, she raced into his embrace and hung on tight.

  “I was so scared,” she said.

  “I’m fine. I wasn’t in any danger.”

  He held her, aware of the differences in her body. Her huge belly got between them, reminding him that his little girl was a grown woman and soon to be a mother herself. He thought about how scared the boy’s mom had been and knew if something like that ever happened to Joylyn, he would move heaven and earth to keep her safe.

  She stepped back. “Did you go to the shoot-out?” she asked.

  “It wasn’t a shoot-out. It’s not like in the movies.”

  She glared at him. “Did the suspect have a gun and did he fire at officers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were any of them injured?”

  Damn. “A couple.”

  “So you were in danger.”

  “I was coordinating the action. I wasn’t in the direct line of fire.”

  “But you still could have been shot.”

  “I suppose, but I wasn’t. I’m fine.”

  He thought she might continue to grill him, but instead she nodded. “Okay, Dad. I know you want to take a shower. We’ll talk after that.”

  Twenty minutes later, he joined her in the kitchen. When she saw him, she got a beer from the refrigerator and opened the bottle, then poured herself some water. She put out chips and dip, along with a plate of cut-up vegetables.

  “Thanks,” he said, both surprised by and wary of her thoughtfulness.

  She picked up a slice of red bell pepper but didn’t take a bite. He waited, wanting her to tell him what was on her mind. He assumed she would want to know more about the morning’s events, but she surprised him by asking, “Were you working for the DEA when you were gone that one year?”

  He groaned silently. Not a topic he wanted to discuss with her. He didn’t like talking about that time in his life. So much had happened that still haunted him. His capture and torture, Raine’s death, the realization that someone he’d trusted had betrayed him.

  He nodded slowly. “Yes, I was on assignment in Colombia, working undercover. I wasn’t supposed to be gone that long, but the cartel found out who I was and took me prisoner.”

  Her eyes widened. “Wh-what?”

  He raised one shoulder. “It was a long time ago and I’m fine.”

  “It wasn’t a long time ago. You came home less than four years ago.” She brushed away tears. “I thought you were just living your life. No one told me.”

  “I’m sure your mother didn’t want to upset you.”

  “Upset me? She didn’t tell me my own father was held captive by some drug cartel? How did they even know who you were?”

  “Someone on the inside told them.”

  The tears stopped. “Do you know who did that?”

  He nodded. “He’s dead.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  He managed a slight smile. “No. I don’t do revenge killings. The cartel did it. While they appreciated the information, they knew he could never be trusted, so they killed him.” He didn’t mention they’d slit open his belly and left him to bleed out and be eaten in the jungle.

  “Did they hurt you?”

  He thought about the scars on his torso, reminders of the knife fights he’d been forced into. He thought of the beatings and the starvation, of how they’d poisoned him just enough to make him wish he would die, but not enough to actually kill him.

  “Joylyn, I’m fine. Why do you want to talk about this?”

  “Because I should know what happened to you. What if you’d died? What if the last thing I ever said to you was that I didn’t want to see you anymore? I thought you were just ignoring me, and now I find out you were in Colombia and kidnapped and I never knew.”

  “Maybe if you’d bothered to talk to me, this wouldn’t be such a surprise. I showed up every damned weekend for months before taking the first assignment. When I got back, I kept showing up. Every weekend, Joylyn. Until you graduated from high school. What the hell?”

  She stared at him, wide-eyed. “You’ve never sworn at me before.”

  “You’ve never poked at the open wound before.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I won’t swear at you again.”

  “It’s okay. I probably deserve it.”

  He leaned toward her. “Tell me what happened. Please. I want to know. Why did you turn your back on me? I want to say it was just some teenage thing, but I know it wasn’t. I can’t think of a single thing I did that was worthy of that kind of rejection. Just tell me.”

  She lowered her gaze before looking at him again. “It was Sandy.”

  “My ex-wife? What does she have to do with anything?”

  Sandy had never been thrilled to have a stepdaughter, he thought, then reminded himself it wasn’t the stepdaughter she’d objected to as much as Garrick’s devotion to Joylyn. That was what had pissed off Sandy.

  “When you two split up, she came to see me.” She bit her lower lip. “She said you’d thrown her out because you’d gotten tired of her. She said you’d never really loved me and that she wanted me to prepare myself because I was next. She said you couldn’t wait for me to grow up so you could be done with me.”

  “What?” he roared, coming to his feet.

  Joylyn stared at him without speaking. Probably for the best, he thought, pacing the length of the kitchen, looking for something to throw through the window.

  How could she? That bitch. Only the word wasn’t strong enough and he couldn’t think of one bad enough. How could she have done that? Who would have done that to an impressionable kid?

  He returned to the table and sank back in his chair, then stretched out his arms and took Joylyn’s hands in his.

  “I love you,” he said, doing his best to keep his voice calm. “Joylyn, I have always loved you. Do you believe me?”

  She hesitated before nodding.

  “Good. Now look into my eyes so you can see I’m telling the truth. I did not dump Sandy. She left me because she hated everything about our life. She made that very clear. She was angry that I wouldn’t move to a different city or find another job. She wanted me to sell insurance or some such nonsense.”

  “You’d be really bad at that.”

  “I probably would. Salespeople have skills I don’t begin to understand. Anyway, I came home one day and she was moving out. She had a whole list of reasons.”

  “Was I one of them?”

  Now it was his turn to pause. He weighed the consequences of lying, only to realize he had to be completely honest. “Yes.”

  “She never liked me.”

  “I think the person she didn’t like was me, kid.”

  One corner of Joylyn’s mouth turned up. “That might be true.”

  He squeezed her hands. “I never wanted to stop seeing you. I didn’t look forward to you growing up and moving on. If it were up to me, I would have kept you nine forever.”

  “Why nine?”

  “It was a good age.”

  She smiled. “Dad, I couldn’t be nine my whole life.”

  “You didn’t even try.”

  She laughed, then started to cry. She pulled her hands free
and wiped her cheeks. “Sorry. I’m one blubbering emotion these days.”

  “It’s okay. I want you to believe me. I’ll give you the phone number of some of my friends back in Phoenix. You can text them and get all this confirmed. I didn’t dump Sandy, and I would never abandon you.”

  “I know.”

  Some of the tension left his body. “You believe me?”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  “Was that really why you refused to see me? You were leaving me first?”

  “It wasn’t a very formed plan. Part of it was that and part of it was me testing you, I think. I wanted you to push back. I wanted you to get mad and demand I see you.”

  “I would have, only I was giving you space.” Completely the wrong thing to do, he thought grimly. “The whole time you assumed my actions proved what you already believed.”

  She nodded.

  “I wish you could have talked to me,” he said.

  “Me, too. And I wish you would have told me more about the divorce.”

  “I didn’t want you to worry.” He ran his hand through his hair. “We are terrible communicators.”

  She smiled. “Mom’s at fault, too. She should have made me see you.”

  “I’ll be sure to mention that the next time we talk. She always enjoys being told she’s wrong.”

  Joylyn laughed.

  He reached for her hand again. “Can we start over? Can you believe that I’m so happy you’re here and that no matter what, you’re never getting rid of me?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I love you, Joylyn.”

  She swallowed. “I love you, too, Dad.”

  He let the words wash over him. For this moment, things were good. He wasn’t dumb enough to believe one conversation could fix five or six years of problems, but it was a start.

  “You want to go out to dinner?” he asked. “You can pick where. We can even go to that horrible barbecue place you like.”

  “Why don’t you like it? You like barbecue.”

  “It’s too cute. They’re trying too hard.”

  “You just don’t like the dancing pigs. I think they’re the best part.”