CHRISTMAS FOR THE DEPUTY

by Helm, Nicole

  Pen frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Ethan thinks you’re some kind of untouchable goddess. Or Mom’s ghost. Or something. But not repugnant.”

  “He said he did.”

  Mack shrugged. “He’s a liar,” she said as if that was a totally possible statement.

  “Ethan doesn’t lie.” He took things too seriously, weighed things too heavily, and was far too dedicated to his job enforcing the law to lie.

  “Guess he started to,” Mack returned. “I gotta go.”

  “Stay longer at Christmas. And give me a hug.”

  Mack sighed, but she let Pen engulf her in a hug, and didn’t squirm away before Pen dropped a kiss to the top of her head. Just like Mom had always done. Before Mack could slide out the door, Pen took her by the chin. “You look just like her.”

  Where Pen would have taken that as a compliment, even if it would have made her sad, it seemed to offend Mack unto her soul. “Later, Pen.”

  “Be safe, Mack.”

  Mack slung her bag on her back then marched out of the back door. On a sad sigh, Pen turned back to dinner prep.

  And couldn’t help but think about Ethan lying. Surely, that wasn’t true. She had never once thought he’d lied to her, but something about Mack’s words stuck, haunting her almost. Looking back over old interactions and wondering.

  The girls and Dad came in, their usual whirlwind as she scolded them all for lack of cool-weather outerwear and the need to wash up.

  Then Sadie and Colt breezed in, Sadie disappearing upstairs to get something, and Colt washing his hands at the kitchen sink, even though she was always on all of them to use the bathroom.

  She nudged him out of the way so she could wash her own hands, but since they were alone, she didn’t scold him.

  “Has Ethan ever lied to you?”

  Something strange passed through Colt’s expression, but Pen couldn’t identify it. “That’s kind of an odd question, Pen.”

  “And that’s not an answer, Colt.”

  He smiled that careless smile of his she didn’t fall for so much these days. “Well, now. I guess I don’t know about any lying.”

  Pen thought about arguing with Colt, demanding he tell her the truth, but Ethan was his brother. As much as the boys Mom and Dad had taken in were like family, she didn’t have the same relationship with the boys as they did with each other. Despite not having the same parents, they’d bonded like brothers.

  Pen had always thought it was sweet, but now it was irritating, because no matter how much she poked at Colt he wasn’t going to be honest with her.

  The girls raced back in, arguing and laughing in equal measure, as they got to their chore of setting the table. Pen loaded up the table with serving dishes and Dad and Colt took their normal seats. Sadie returned and helped finish with the table.

  “Where’s Ethan?”

  “He’s covering someone’s shift,” Sadie said.

  “He could’ve let me know he wouldn’t make it for dinner.”

  Sadie shrugged. “He told me.”

  Pen had a million snippy retorts, but she kept them to herself. She looked around the table, almost all of her family situated around it ready to enjoy the meal she’d put together. She should be happy. She should feel fulfilled.

  But Mom would have made sure the carrots weren’t quite so roasted. She would have been able to tease Addie out of her perpetual anger about life. She would have braided Daisy’s hair so well it wouldn’t be a mess of tangles at the end of every day.

  Ethan would have told Mom he took someone’s shift. Mack would be at this table instead of forever running away.

  You will never be Susannah.

  She’d been able to live with that in San Antonio. Her mother’s ghost had always sat on her shoulders, but here it seemed to stand there with a sledgehammer reminding her of every tiny infraction.

  “Pen?” Sadie looked at her with concern, but everyone else was too busy eating and chatting.

  “I need some air,” Pen managed. She wouldn’t cry in front of anyone. Certainly not for something so stupid.

  Sadie got up, presumably to come with her, but Pen shook her head. “Please don’t.”

  Though worry dug into lines across Sadie’s forehead she sat back down. “Be careful. The porch is icy.”

  Pen nodded sharply, then quietly got up from her chair. Since she didn’t want any company, she went to the rarely used front door. She just needed…a minute. A minute to breathe. To look out at something that wasn’t her failure compared to her mother.

  She stepped out onto the porch. The night was cold for Texas, and Sadie was right, the porch was icy. The stars twinkled above and Pen hugged herself against…everything.

  She took a step forward, being careful—or so she thought—but her foot only slipped out from under her, sending her pitching backward. She put her arm out trying to break the fall.

  The sound of a sickening crack and the sharp blast of pain didn’t even surprise her.

  It all seemed about right.

  *

  Ethan didn’t mind hospitals, and he was normally pretty calm in a crisis. But as he sat in the waiting room, his stomach churned with nerves.

  Fritz entered the room, scowling. He’d been the one to bring Pen in, Sadie and Colt staying back at the farm with the girls. When Sadie had called him about Pen, Ethan had begged the last few hours of his shift off on another deputy.

  “Broke her arm,” Fritz offered by way of greeting.

  Ethan let out a breath. It wasn’t so bad. Pen would see it as catastrophic to be so laid up, but broken arms healed.

  “Told me to go home. Told me she’d handle it. Stubborn girl.”

  “Wonder where she got that,” Ethan returned.

  Fritz only scowled deeper. But Ethan could see the worry, and as much as Fritz had recovered from his bypass surgery, stress was something he needed to be careful about.

  “You go home,” Ethan said, knowing he was in for a fight but keeping his tone calm and reasonable even if he didn’t feel it. “I’ll handle it. She’ll let me handle it. She’s worried about your health, but she’ll let me handle things.”

  “I’m fine and healed and—”

  “I know, Fritz. But she broke her arm. She’s upset. Let me handle it. She’ll feel better about it.”

  “They’re getting a cast on. She didn’t want me there.” It was the hurt in Fritz’s voice that had Ethan laying a hand on his shoulder.

  “She doesn’t want you to worry, or feel hurt that she’s hurt.”

  “I’m her father.”

  “And she’s our mother hen. She wants to protect you. I know that doesn’t set well with you, but let’s give her what she wants for right now.” Ethan knew Fritz would argue unless he pulled out the big guns. “The girls need their grandpa. They won’t believe she’s all right from anyone else.”

  Fritz continued scowling, but he nodded. “She should be released later tonight. You’ll bring her home?”

  “Of course.”

  Fritz looked back from where he’d come. “It isn’t right.”

  “It isn’t wrong either.”

  Fritz grunted, patted Ethan on the back, and then headed for the exit. Ethan smiled at the nurse who buzzed him back to the rooms in the emergency wing. When Ethan entered the room, Pen was alone and staring at the ceiling.

  “Took quite a spill, huh?”

  She looked up at him, then down at the cast like it was an alien life form. Something in her expression was… Well, nothing he associated with Pen. She looked lost, and when her gaze met his, his heart lurched.

  “What am I going to do?” she asked, and if it had been anyone else he might have had a good answer. He might not have been so shaken. But Pen didn’t ask for help. She didn’t ask what to do. She always knew.

  Ethan swallowed. She was on painkillers, that was all. He’d reassure her and things would go back to normal. “You’ll have plenty of help.”

  H
er eyes filled with tears, but they didn’t fall over. “From a man with a heart problem, two people who just got engaged, and three daughters under the age of twelve.” She nodded as if that seemed about right. “Fantastic.”

  He moved into the room to stand next to her bed and took her good hand. He gave it a squeeze because the tears she refused to shed just about killed him. “We’ll all pitch in. All of us.” He didn’t mention it was just a broken arm. She wouldn’t appreciate that.

  “Any other day I’d agree with you, Ethan.” She sighed, and held on to his hand. “I know I’m being melodramatic, but the month before Christmas? I have shopping and cookies and—”

  He couldn’t stand to watch the emotional distress cross her face, clear as day. She didn’t even try to hide it. “We’ll all pitch in. I can handle whatever you don’t want to ask your dad or Sadie for. Promise. Whenever you need me.”

  “It’s just…” She looked up at him plaintively. “Daisy still believes in Santa, and Brynn does too—though she tries to act like she doesn’t because she wants to be more mature than all that, but she has such an imagination. She can’t help but believe. I don’t want to drop the ball and ruin that. Not yet.”

  Ethan’s heart twisted. “I promise. Everything will be fine.” He’d do whatever it took to make it all okay for Pen. For the girls. “You rest. When they let you out of here, I’ll take you home. We’re just going to take things one step at a time.”

  She nodded, swallowing and blinking back those awful tears. “Thank you. I don’t know how you got Dad to leave, but thank you. He needs to be home. He needs—”

  “For right now, we’re just going to worry about what you need, okay?”

  She started to argue, but he released her hand and gently pressed her back into the bed. Which was an uncomfortable position, looming over her all laid out on a bed, the blonde strands of her ponytail spread out on the pillowcase.

  A hospital pillowcase. A hospital bed, sicko.

  “Will you do me one favor?” she asked.

  “Anything.”

  “Wherever that Christmas music is coming from—can you tell them to shut the damn thing off?”

  Ethan tried to suppress a smile. “I’ll see what I can do.” He leaned forward, with half a thought to kiss her forehead. He would have, if it was Sadie or Mack. But…

  He straightened instead and headed out of the room to try and find the source of the Christmas music.

  It was quite a few hours before they released her. She dozed on the drive back to the Martin farm, but she talked in her sleep.

  Lists mostly, of things she had to do. Worries about the girls. She was stressing him out and she wasn’t even awake. If that was what was in her head all the time…

  Well, she needed help, and she didn’t want to take it from her father or from Sadie. He shifted uncomfortably as he pulled his truck in front of the Martin house. Maybe he hadn’t planned on being quite so hands on, but he’d dedicated his adult life to helping people. Strangers. Why wouldn’t he help someone he cared about?

  Pen jerked awake when he turned off the engine, then hissed out a pained breath.

  “Easy.”

  She looked at the house, tears filling her eyes again. She was exhausted, that was all. She’d be fine once she got some real sleep. “They’re going to fuss over me.”

  “What’s so wrong with that?”

  “I remember when I was eight Mom had pneumonia, and she still did everything for us.”

  “You don’t have to be Susannah.”

  She immediately moved to open the door, but since her right hand was in a cast and a sling, she struggled to reach across. But she was out of the truck before he could get around to open the door for her.

  She trudged toward the house, frustratingly determined.

  “Let us help you,” Ethan said, coming up next to her. She moved away from him when he tried to take her good arm.

  “I just want to go to sleep.”

  He’d never heard Pen sound so… He didn’t even know the word for it. He’d seen her deal with the death of her mother when she’d been a teenager. The death of her husband, even more cruel and untimely. And yet he’d never seen her so…defeated.

  It ate at him, even as he opened the back door and ushered her into the mudroom. She toed off her shoes, using the wall and her good arm for balance. Before they moved into the kitchen, she took a deep breath and something…clicked.

  This was the Pen he knew. In control. In charge. Ready to face any challenge.

  But he’d seen those moments where she wasn’t that at all and had to wonder… Was it all an act?

  Pen strode into the kitchen and Ethan followed. Sadie and Colt were sitting at the kitchen table with mugs of coffee.

  “I hope you didn’t wait up,” Pen said.

  “No. It’s about milking time,” Sadie returned, getting to her feet. “Come on. I’ll—”

  “Please don’t. I’m just going to go upstairs and sleep. I don’t want to be bothered.”

  Sadie blinked, opened her mouth to argue as Pen moved through the kitchen toward the stairs. Ethan shook his head and Sadie closed her mouth without a word.

  Once Pen was gone, Sadie looked at him. “She’s not handling it so well?”

  “Uh. No.”

  Sadie wrung her hands together. “This is terrible timing. Everything with Christmas and getting ready for the cattle.” She looked at Colt, regret in her expression. “Maybe we should move back into the big house until—”

  Ethan answered before Colt could agree. “No.”

  Sadie and Colt looked at him with twin expressions of surprise.

  “It’d eat Pen up if you two moved back in here. She doesn’t want things to change. She’s worried about all the help everyone is going to give her.”

  “She needs help,” Colt pointed out.

  “Yeah, but we need to be sneaky about it. Listen…” Ethan hated the idea that had popped into his head on the drive home, but the way Pen was acting…

  “I’ll move into the big house for a bit. My lease is up at the end of the year. I’ll tell everyone I’m going to look for a house, but I need somewhere to stay in the meantime so I don’t have to sign another year away. That way it’s not about her, but I can be here to help out. She’ll take help easier from me.”

  “I’m her sister,” Sadie bristled.

  “And she doesn’t want to be a burden when you and Colt are planning so much. She doesn’t want your father stressing himself out worrying over her. But I don’t have anything going on. She won’t be taking anything from me—she won’t see it that way. This will be for the best.”

  “I guess so,” Sadie replied, frowning.

  Ethan ignored Colt’s considering look and forced himself to smile. “It’s settled then. I’ll move in and help out, and everything else will go on as it always does.”

  Colt’s mouth quirked. “Sure it will.”

  Ethan didn’t have a clue why that sounded sarcastic, but he didn’t want to know.

  Chapter Three

  Pen wasn’t a baby, and she wasn’t a complainer. She was no martyr either. But she wanted to be all three when it came to the cast on her arm.

  She’d convinced herself if she’d only broken her left arm things would be fine. But how was she supposed to do it all with a smile on her face when her good arm was in a cast and sling?

  She was about to give in to another crying jag before she faced the day—well, what was left of it, but her bedroom door squeaked open and a little head appeared.

  Six-year-old Daisy tiptoed in and hopped up onto Pen’s bed. Daisy touched Pen’s face as if to assure herself Pen was real. Pen felt like a failure all over again. She should have known her girls would be upset. Would need reassurance. After Henry, and even Dad earlier this year, she should have—

  “Can I draw on your cast?”

  A laugh bubbled up, and God it felt good to let it escape. “Only if you’re going to draw a unicorn.”

&n
bsp; Daisy grinned. “Okay.”

  “I’m okay, you know that, right?”

  Daisy nodded and Pen gave the top of her head a kiss.

  Before she could say anything else to reassure her youngest, Brynn bounded in. Her entrance was the complete opposite of Daisy’s. She threw the door open so it banged against the wall, and then ran and jumped onto the bed.

  Pen grimaced as the jump onto the bed jarred her arm.

  “I want to draw on it too!” Brynn announced.

  “You’ll all get to draw on it.” Pen glanced at the door where Addie stood looking anxious.

  Pen worried about all her girls, but Addie’s behavior gave her the most to worry about. Because Pen recognized hurt and grief and blame. She’d been that girl once, and she didn’t know how to fix her daughter.

  Not when she still felt all of those things about losing her own mother.

  She forced herself to smile at Addie. “All of you,” she repeated pointedly.

  Pen looked down at Brynn who was bouncing at the end of her bed. “Who braided your hair? It’s a mess.”

  “Ethan did. I think it looks beautiful,” Brynn replied with a pout.

  “He tried real hard,” Addie said, jumping in to defend Ethan.

  It was sweet, and she didn’t always consider her daughters very…sweet. They’d had a rough few years, and they’d been indulged. Rightfully so, but Pen had started to get worried that they were so caught up in their own loss they didn’t think about anyone else’s feelings.

  Apparently they cared about Ethan’s.

  “I’m sure he did. But let’s fix…” She trailed off because she wouldn’t be able to fix any of it with one hand. She was so not used to being out of commission like this, but she would have to find a way to deal with it. “What did you have for breakfast?”

  “Aunt Sadie burned the eggs,” Brynn said with a giggle. “And said all the bad words.”

  “So Ethan brought donuts,” Addie said, giving Brynn a censoring look. “Aunt Sadie didn’t mean to. She was trying to help me with my project and she forgot about them.”

  “I can help you with your project. We still have the weekend.”