Christmas Steele, A Lacy Steele Mystery Bonus Novella

by Vanessa Bartal

  Chapter 9

  “I still can’t believe you failed to tell me you had a boyfriend.”

  Kill me now, Lord, Lacy silently prayed. Out loud, she said, “Mom, do we have to discuss this now?” She gave a pointed glance to Gladys and her young grandson, Sean who were joining them for dinner.

  “All I’m saying, Lacy, is that you could have let me know. Sometimes I think you purposely try to exclude me from your life.”

  “Mom, Jason is not my boyfriend. We’re just friends, as I’ve told you several times now.”

  “That’s not what it looked like when I walked in with the lights off and you two snuggled up on the couch together,” her mother said.

  Lacy could practically feel Gladys squirm in her eagerness to dart away and begin spreading the news that Lacy and Jason were together and had been caught canoodling. “I thought you were dating Pastor Underhill,” Gladys said, her eyes narrowing shrewdly on Lacy’s face to watch her reaction to that accusation.

  “I’m not dating anyone, Gladys,” Lacy said. “And Jason and I were not doing anything more than sitting on the couch having a conversation. And we were not snuggled together, Mom. We were on separate cushions.” And I shouldn’t have to explain myself to any of you, she thought. Though maybe the diversion was proving beneficial for her family’s other problem. Her mother hadn’t once mentioned the fact that Mr. Middleton had stayed for dinner without being expressly invited. He and her grandmother were sitting sedately by, watching the conversation bounce back and forth between mother and daughter.

  “And I don’t understand why you insist on not dating anyone. You’re a beautiful young woman, even more so when you dress up and do something with your hair. Why waste what you’ve been given? Enjoy life and dating while you’re young,” her mother added as if Lacy hadn’t spoken.

  “Don’t listen to her, Lacy. You’re too young to get serious with anyone,” Lacy’s father said with a patronizing you’ll-always-be-my-little-girl smile.

  “For heaven’s sake, Clint. When we were her age she was already born. She’s twenty six and not getting any younger.”

  “A person doesn’t have to be young to find love,” Mr. Middleton added calmly.

  Lacy could see her mother gearing up for another tirade, so she cut her off at the pass. “I think we’re boring poor Sean to death, everyone. It looks like he and I are both finished with our food. Why don’t we go play video games in the living room, Sean?”

  Sean’s face lit at the proffered lifeline, but she was as glad for the escape as he was, maybe even more so because she had been the center of the discussion for so long now.

  “I’m glad you brought your game system,” she whispered as she left the room. “You have no idea how glad.”

  Sean laughed. “Yeah, I remember you said you like video games. It’s nice to have someone to play with. I don’t know anyone else here, and Gran isn’t one much for games.”

  Lacy thought of Gladys’s plastic-covered living room and felt a wave of pity for Sean. She could only imagine how uncomfortable he was in the old woman’s home. He couldn’t even lie down and relax on the couch without making a squeaking noise like he was lying on a pool raft. “I’ll be glad to play with you any time.” She almost told him she had been lonely, too, and then remembered she was talking to a kid. It probably wasn’t prudent to pour out her heart to someone who couldn’t even shave yet.

  Lacy tried to connect the system to her grandmother’s television—thinking that she should handle the electronics since she was the adult. Then she quickly realized she had no idea what she was doing. Sean tried to tell her what went where, and in the end she simply moved aside so he could do it.

  “I should tell you that I liked video games ten years ago. I have no idea what to do with this system,” Lacy said, staring at the foreign-looking remote in her hand.

  “You’re going to love it, Lacy,” Sean assured her. After a rudimentary lesson, he started with a simple racing game. True to his prediction, Lacy loved it. After the racing game, they progressed to a more interactive game that required more buttons, and after that they played a gory war game that, under normal circumstances, Lacy would have eschewed for its violence. But tonight she simply wanted to shoot things, amazed by how well the game worked to relieve her anxiety. By the time Gladys entered the room in search of her grandson, Lacy was feeling downright mellow.

  She hugged Sean goodbye, promising him a rematch. In many ways, he reminded her of the male version of herself when she was a preteen. Gawky and insecure, he hadn’t quite grown out of his baby fat or into his looks. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, he had been pawned off on Gladys, a woman who seemingly had no idea how to relate to him. Lacy was glad they were coming to the holiday party. She made a mental note to introduce Sean to Tosh, sure they would hit it off well. And Jason, too, for that matter. Younger kids had always worshiped Jason, first for being a football star and then for being a cop. He was the teenage male epitome of awesome.

  Who was she kidding? Jason was the adult female epitome of awesome, too, practically perfect in every way except the one that mattered most—his paralyzing fear of commitment was well known by all. Even if Lacy felt ready for commitment herself, she would suffer no illusions about Jason. Unlike some women, she believed a man if he said he didn’t want to settle down. Why waste time trying to reform someone who didn’t want to be reformed? There were plenty of other men who were happy to commit to a relationship. Tosh, for instance. He wasn’t pathetic or needy, but Lacy knew he was ready to settle down. She felt a constant and gnawing sense of guilt that she couldn’t be what he needed, at least not right now.

  Gladys and Sean took their leave, and Lacy’s mother, father, and grandmother entered the family room. Mr. Middleton was nowhere in sight, and Lucinda was looking strained. Lacy’s mellow mood faded away, to be replaced by anxiety again. “Where’s Gr—Mr. Middleton?” she amended herself in the nick of time, guessing correctly it wouldn’t go well with her mother if Lacy called him “Grandpa.”

  “Getting some air,” Lacy’s father said tightly.

  Lacy zeroed in on her mother. “What did you say to him, Mom?”

  “I simply reminded him once again that he’s not my father,” Frannie said, striking a petulant pose with her arms crossed over her chest.

  Lacy looked helplessly at her grandmother who returned her expression with a slight shrug. With a growl of frustration, Lacy stormed from the room and slammed out of the house. She was so angry that it took her a moment to find her grandfather, though he was sitting sedately on the porch swing, slowly drifting back and forth. Lacy looked at him, trying to read his expression, but it was too dark outside.

  “Times like these I’m almost sad I gave up smoking my pipe so many years ago,” he said serenely.

  “I’m sorry things aren’t going well,” Lacy said, shuffling over to sit next to him. He moved aside, making room and then used his feet to slowly swing them again.

  “I don’t know that I expected them to be any different,” he said.

  Lacy frowned, feeling tears tickle the back of her throat. Why should he have expected things to go well when most of his life had been spent watching his family through a stranger’s lens? “Mom is, well, you know…She has her good points.”

  He chuckled. “You don’t have to try and sell me on her, Lacy. She’s my daughter, warts and all. Sometimes in life you make choices, good or bad, and you can spend a long time paying for those choices. I hope you make wise ones.”

  “I’m trying,” Lacy said. “Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do.”

  “Twenty-six is an odd age,” he agreed. “Everyone says you’re an adult, but most days you don’t feel like it.”

  “Exactly,” she said, relieved that someone had hit the nail on the head so succinctly. “Living with Grandma is nice, but it doesn’t exactly make me feel like a grownup.”

  “You’re living with her because you choose to, not because you need t
o. There’s a big distinction.”

  “Now I’m living with her because I choose to, but when I first came home it was definitely out of necessity. It was either here or Florida with Mom and Dad, and you see what that would have been like.” She shuddered.

  “You did what you had to do at the time,” he said.

  Lacy laughed, realizing he would defend her even to herself. “There’s really no way for me to say what a loser I am is there, Grandpa?”

  “No way I’ll believe,” he said tenderly.

  She linked her arm through his. “Did you buy me a locket for Christmas?”

  “No. In fact, I didn’t buy you anything. I made you something instead. I’ve been waiting for the best time to give it to you, out of view of your mother. Now seems like as good a time as any, I guess.” He reached to the ground beside him, lifted something heavy, and set it in her lap.

  “It’s a scrapbook with all my family history, as well as a few pictures of Barbara. Some are even of us together when she was carrying Frannie.” He paused, nervously clearing his throat. “I, ah, hope you like it.”

  She catapulted herself into his arms, belatedly grabbing the book when it started to slide off her lap. “I love it. You can’t imagine how much it means to me to have this, to know some of our family history. This is something that I’ll always treasure and be able to tell my kids about. Thank you.” She kissed his weathered cheek, wetting it with her tears; she was simply so touched that she couldn’t keep them in. Imagining him laboring over the scrapbook was enough to make her rush into the house and demand her mother make amends with him.

  He gave her a tight, one-armed hug in return, awkwardly patting her back. “Would you rather have had a locket?” he asked.

  She laughed, easing away from him to hug the book to her chest. “No, I already have one. Someone sent it to me anonymously. It wasn’t Tosh, and it wasn’t you.”

  “I suppose that just leaves Jason,” he said sagely, swinging them with his feet again. “Not sure how I feel about a young man giving my granddaughter jewelry.”

  “Do you approve of Jason?” she asked.

  “Well that’s an impossible question to answer correctly,” he said. “If you’re asking if I think anyone is good enough for you, then the answer is no. No one is good enough for you. But, realizing that you’re eventually going to have to settle for someone, do I believe Jason can foot the bill as well as anyone? The answer is maybe.”

  “Why maybe?” She thought he liked Jason.

  “Jason is a good man, but he has a lot of baggage. Baggage can weigh even the best man down. I think he needs to purge some of what he’s holding onto before he can commit to anyone.”

  Great, so not only was Jason afraid of commitment, but he was also one of the walking wounded. He was like the perfect off-limits bad boy, just waiting to be reformed and tamed. “I don’t want to love Jason,” Lacy declared.

  “But you do,” her grandfather said. He didn’t seem to expect an answer, which was good because Lacy had none to give.