“I heard yelling and wanted to check on you.” Kirk looked from Mary to Imogene. “Everything okay here?”
“Yes, everything’s okay.” Imogene had gone back to sounding like a teenager, and rolling her eyes like one, too. “She’s fine. Your girlfriend’s fine. I was just leaving.” Imogene kicked at the box of ornaments as she walked by it. Then she took an inordinate amount of time finding her coat and getting into it.
Kirk looked at Imogene, shrugged and turned back toward Mary. “There’s another reason I stopped by. Let’s go see Goody’s puppies. We need to put a down payment on one because apparently, they’re going fast.”
Mary welcomed the change of subject. It gave her a chance to settle her chaotic emotions, even if Kirk was being his usual pushy self. “Is Goody still mad about the whole situation?”
“Not so much,” Kirk said with a chuckle, “now that she’s realized how much of a gold mine these poodle mixes are.”
At the door now, Imogene turned to face them, her face tightening. “You can afford an expensive dog but you can’t help me financially?” She called Mary a bad name under her breath, but audible to both of them.
“Have some respect,” Kirk scolded.
“Shut up! Just shut up, old man!” Imogene glared at Kirk and then at Mary. “Don’t even try to be nice to me. Cooking me one lousy meal doesn’t make up for anything you did.” She stepped through the door and then leaned back in. “I’ll be in touch, and it won’t be pretty, unless you give me what we talked about.”
Weariness pressed in on Mary. She lifted the window curtain and peered out to make sure Imogene was gone and then sank down on the couch. “Oh, my, what a mistake,” she said. “I thought I could make a connection, but I was wrong.”
“Why do you even want to connect with that woman?” Kirk sat down on the edge of the couch and then stood again, his face red. “I get that she’s your stepdaughter, but she’s extremely disrespectful. What does she have on you?”
Mary’s throat tightened to the point where she couldn’t talk. She just waved a hand and shook her head, then stood and started putting ornaments back into the box.
When she came upon the old star Ben had liked to put atop the Christmas tree, she went still and held it in her hand. It was as if that kind man had come back to her. He would never have endorsed Imogene’s behavior.
But without Mary’s coming into his life, he might very well be alive now, providing Imogene with the guidance she so desperately needed, guidance she hadn’t gotten from her self-centered mother.
Mary should never have invited Imogene over, but the guilty young stepmother inside her still yearned to make things right with Ben’s angry, grieving daughter.
She should have known better. Even before the disaster, Imogene had tried to embarrass her in front of her friends and discredit her in front of Ben. In her eyes, Mary had stolen the attention of her only decent parent, her father, sweet Ben.
Thinking of him, thinking of her hopes and dreams of forming a strong, protective family for herself and her daughter and Ben and Imogene, Mary’s heart ached.
“I’m glad you came by,” she said to Kirk. “Thank you. But I can’t go see the puppies right now. I need a little alone time to pull myself together, if you don’t mind.”
Kirk came to stand beside her, took her hand and squeezed it. “I respect that,” he said, “and I’m always happy to help you, whatever the issue. Remember that.”
As he left, Mary looked after him, biting her lip. He’d help her now, but if he found out what had happened, he’d be singing a different tune.
* * *
ON SATURDAY NIGHT, Amber put an arm around Erica and squeezed her shoulders. “Thanks for coming. I needed a sisters’ night out.”
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss Crabby Christmas for anything! And there’s no one I’d rather be here with than you.”
“Not even your handsome husband?” Amber teased.
“Not even him,” Erica said firmly. “Because I wouldn’t be able to relax and enjoy cocktail hour if he and Hunter were here.”
“Cheers.” Amber tapped her mocktail against Erica’s glass and then leaned back on her bar stool to survey the scene. DiGiorno’s Restaurant was lit with tiny white lights and candles on each table. Big windows looked out on the bay, and the remains of a spectacular sunset lit the sky pink and orange. The room was loud with people talking and laughing and glasses clinking.
Crabby Christmas was an annual event that started with an adult cocktail hour and then continued with various family activities. Most people in town participated in at least some of the festivities. Amber spotted Kirk James and his father, Drew and Ria Martin, and even Goody, who was rarely seen outside her own restaurant.
Bisky Castleman was serving as an emcee, resplendent in a gem-encrusted red dress that was a departure from her usual worker’s attire. Her hair was pulled back as usual, but it looked softer when accentuated with big sparkling earrings, and she wore makeup that emphasized her eyes and high cheekbones. Amber wasn’t the only one who noticed the transformation, judging from the admiring way several local men watched her.
“You know, Bisky is actually gorgeous,” she said.
“Right? I never noticed that about her before. She usually hides her looks.”
“She has a spectacular figure, now that it’s not covered up in fishing clothes.” Bisky was tall and always looked fit, but in the dress she was wearing, her tiny waist, well-endowed chest and long legs were displayed to advantage.
Bisky waved to them and then grabbed her microphone. “Okay, everyone, start making your way over to Goody’s. I hear Santa’s arrived, and there’s hot chocolate and cookies for all the nice little boys and girls. And even some of you rascals,” she added, winking at Kirk’s father.
A couple of the watermen, also looking different in their dressed-up clothes, catcalled Bisky, and old Mr. James blew her a kiss, prompting her to go over to him and give him a big hug. Amid a lot of laughter, people started toward Goody’s.
Amber and Erica followed the crowd past the stores with Christmas-decorated windows. The streetlamps glistened with garland. Across the street on the bay side, tiny white lights wound around the railing.
A hum of excited voices and the smell of Christmas baked sweets drifted out from Goody’s. As she walked in behind Erica, Amber spotted Paul, who was hard to miss because Davey was on his shoulders. Her breath caught.
He was laughing, lifting Davey down to go inside, obviously enjoying his son’s excitement about Santa. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. Couldn’t stop herself from thinking about what it had felt like to kiss him.
She’d been trying to forget that kiss for the past four days, to no avail. Involuntarily, she took a step toward him.
“Wait.” Erica gripped her arm, holding her back.
She turned to her sister, puzzled because Erica had seemed to be in favor of her having at least a friendship with Paul.
Erica’s eyes squinted a little, the same worried expression she’d had when they were kids and Amber was about to make some kind of mistake. “I think he might be with someone.”
“What?” Amber looked back in Paul’s direction. The crowd parted enough for her to see Davey let go of Paul’s hand...and grab the hand of Miss Harris, his teacher, on his other side.
At the same moment, Paul put his hand on Kayla Harris’s back to steer her through the crowd and toward the line of kids waiting for Santa.
Amber felt like all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. Her throat got tight, filled with an impossibly big lump.
Miraculously, the table beside them was empty. Amber sat.
Erica grabbed the chair across from her and leaned forward. “Did you see that? What’s going on? I thought...” She trailed off, studying Amber’s face, frowning.
Yeah, Amber had thought, too. Sh
e’d thought that kissing her the way Paul had kissed her meant that he felt something for her, actually felt a lot, wanted to date her.
But how much more perfect for him to be with Kayla Harris, who was pretty and sweet and healthy. Probably, she didn’t have the kind of checkered past Amber had. Davey’s grandparents wouldn’t have anything against her. And Davey obviously already loved her.
It was perfect, and Amber...wasn’t. She stared down at the table, picked at a dried speck of ice cream that whoever had wiped the tables off had missed. Around them, the festive crowd sounds seemed discordant.
“Well, that jerk,” Erica said after a minute. “I thought he was a nice guy, but I don’t like this at all.”
“She seems lonely,” Amber said. She was articulating clearly, as if she were on the radio. As if she had no feelings whatsoever about the matter. “Kayla, I mean. She and her mom have had a hard row to hoe, from what I’ve heard.”
“Everybody has problems,” Erica said, her voice impatient. “Paul acted like he cared about you. Are you just going to let this go?”
Amber closed her eyes for just a moment, then opened them and met her sister’s gaze. “I told him he should date someone else. I told him I could have a recurrence.” She just hadn’t expected him to take her advice quite so quickly.
Erica slapped a hand down on the table, the sound making a few surrounding people look their way. “He could be hit by a car! He could get sick! In fact, he already is sick. He’s got enough PTSD that he can’t own a gun. It’s not like he’s such a prize.” She glared over in Paul’s direction. “Idiot.”
Through the pain that was squeezing her gut, Amber felt the corner of her mouth lift. Oh, how she loved her loyal sister. Erica understood Amber’s health issues more than anyone else, because she carried the same genetic mutation that Amber did, had some of the same susceptibility to illness that Amber had.
Erica propped the side of her head on her fist. “I knew—I know—that I’m at more risk than the general population. And yet I got married.” She spoke like she was feeling her way. “And I’m glad I did, despite the possibilities of something bad happening to me. Trey and I are good together. We’re good for Hunter, too, even though there are times I worry about what the future will hold for him and for Trey, if I get sick.”
Amber nodded slowly. “You were right to get married, and you and Trey are a great couple. But this is a different situation. Paul has Davey, and Davey already lost a mom to cancer. He can’t risk losing another one, and I think Paul understands that. Paul has to put Davey first.”
“But what about you, your feelings?”
Amber stared at the table. Images of Paul’s hand at the small of Kayla’s back, of Davey grabbing Kayla’s hand, kept flashing before her eyes.
“You okay?”
Amber forced herself to meet her sister’s eyes. She even tried on a smile, but it wouldn’t stay on her face. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Hannah’s getting home tomorrow for Christmas break, and I’ll concentrate on her, and forget about him.” Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy, but she didn’t want Erica fussing over her. Erica was definitely a fusser.
“What’s Hannah got to do with it?” Erica scooted her chair closer to the table to make way for the increasing crowd. “I think she’d be glad if you fell in love.”
“Well...maybe.” Hannah had said she wanted Amber to date someone, but that was probably related to her worries about her mother’s health.
Erica frowned at a man who’d jostled her chair, and then her face softened when she saw the struggling little girl in his arms, who kept shouting, “Wanna see Santa! Wanna see Santa!”
“Sorry,” the man said as he sidled past their table. “Shh, honey. We’ll see Santa, but we have to wait in line.”
The noise around them was getting louder now—other excited kids, Christmas music, even a few dogs barking. Goody didn’t normally allow dogs in her shop, but it seemed like she was relaxing the rule at Christmas.
“Hannah would probably be a little jealous at first,” Erica said, speaking up over the crowd, “but I bet in the end, she’d be fine with you having a relationship. She’s such a thoughtful kid. And she wants the best for you.”
“Yeah, and she worries about me.” Amber leaned closer to her sister so she could be heard. “She did the whole, ‘I’m gonna go to community college here so I can take care of you’ thing at Thanksgiving.”
“Hannah?”
“I know, right?” Hannah was the last kid who’d want to stay local and limit her ambitions, at least in any ordinary situation. But having a mom who’d been terribly sick, not once but twice, wasn’t exactly ordinary.
Erica frowned. “She might feel more like she could go on with her own life if she knew you had a partner and she didn’t need to look after you. But whether or not you’re seeing someone, you know I’ve always got your back, and Hannah should know it, too.”
“That’s what I told her.”
Erica cupped a hand around her ear and shook her head, and Amber smiled and shrugged and waved a hand. No point in trying to have a serious conversation now, with the crowd growing by the minute.
But she couldn’t stop the thoughts swirling in her head. If Amber were in a relationship, maybe Erica was right and it would be a relief to Hannah. Only because Hannah would feel reassured that Amber would have someone to take care of her.
But Amber couldn’t impose that on Paul. He had enough on his plate. And besides, he’d taken her advice to heart and was dating someone else.
Trying not to be obvious, Amber looked around to see if Paul and Davey and Kayla were still here, but from this sitting position, she couldn’t see them.
She ought to be glad about it. Paul and Davey needed a woman in their lives. And oh, how she ached to have it be her, but there was no way.
Erica scooted her chair around so she was right next to Amber and practically shouted into her ear. “What if you were a hundred percent healed now, sure you wouldn’t have a recurrence? What would you do about this thing with Paul?”
Wouldn’t that be a dream come true, to have what she’d long ago stopped taking for granted—normal health? “It still wouldn’t work.”
“Why not?”
Amber hesitated. “Can you keep a secret?” she asked finally. She’d promised not to tell, but telling Erica wasn’t really telling. Erica was the most trustworthy person on the planet.
Erica nodded. “You know I can.”
Amber leaned closer and spoke into Erica’s ear. “Davey’s not really Paul’s son. Wendy told me, shortly before she died.”
“What?” Erica’s mouth fell open and she stared at Amber. “He has no idea?” she asked finally.
“None.”
“You’ve got to tell him!” Erica’s expression was shocked, but the conviction in her voice left no room for doubt.
“I can’t,” Amber said. “What if it pushed him away from Davey, and Davey had to go live with those awful grandparents?”
“But what if there’s a genetic issue? We of all people know how important that is.”
That was something Amber had avoided thinking about. “You’re right, but...I promised Wendy I wouldn’t tell. Anyway, I don’t even know who the father is. What good would it do to tell?”
Erica’s forehead wrinkled and her mouth twisted to one side. “Right, sure. So you’re going to keep quiet and leave him to someone else. To Miss Harris the schoolteacher.”
“Exactly.” Amber leaned back and crossed her arms.
“Come on, then.” Erica stood and took Amber’s hand and tugged at it. “If you’re doing so fine, let’s go say hi to him and Davey.”
“I’m not that fine!” Amber protested. “But I do want to get out of here. It’s a little close.” In fact, she felt almost dizzy from all the emotion as well as the crowd.
“This
way.” Erica dragged her toward the exit, which was near Santa.
“Miss Amber!” Davey’s voice rang out, sweet and high above the noise. “I’m gonna see Santa!”
Could she pretend she hadn’t heard him?
No, she couldn’t. Slowly, she turned, focused on the child’s sweet face, and walked over to the line of people. “That’ll be really fun,” she said to Davey. She didn’t look at Paul.
“I know!” Davey bounced up and down.
“Hi, Amber.” Paul’s voice sounded strained. “Do you know Kayla?”
She met his eyes then, and the communication that flashed between them was intense, and nonverbal, and she knew exactly what it meant.
You told me to date other people and that’s what I’m doing.
Fine. I’m not arguing with you.
But that kiss...
“We’ve met.” Kayla’s voice sounded funny. Wry, almost.
“Nice to see you,” Amber lied, and then she couldn’t look at either adult anymore. Thank heavens for Davey. She knelt to his level. “What are you going to ask for from Santa?”
“A ’lectric train!” Davey half yelled. “A really, really big one!”
Amber lifted an eyebrow and looked up at Paul. “Is that Davey’s idea, or yours?”
“Busted,” he said, a grin starting to form on his face. Then he looked from Amber to Kayla and the grin faded.
Amber couldn’t stand it anymore. Her heart ached and her throat felt tight and there was no way she was going to stay here and cry. She stood. “I’m sure Davey will love a train,” she forced out. “Nice talking to you.” She turned to Erica, who’d been watching the whole exchange. “Come on, I need some air.”
And some space. And some recovery time because seeing Paul with another woman felt kind of like being hit by a really big train.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“SO, HOW LONG HAVE you been crazy about Amber Rowe?”
Kayla’s question took Paul by surprise and he looked at her blankly. It was dark, and Davey and a couple of his friends were leaning on the low railing that fronted the bay, watching the boat parade. Kayla and Paul sat on a bench behind them.
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