A Brand of Christmas

by Maggie Shayne

Brand-New Heartache

  Prologue

  It made him sick that he liked her so much. In Wade's mind, she represented everything he hated about this town, this high school. When he passed her in the hall, she looked right through him, just like almost everyone did.

  Wade Armstrong lived in a rusty, lopsided trailer with three junk cars-none of which ran very often-in the drive-way. His old man was the town drunk and got tossed into jail at least once a month for being disorderly at one of the local bars. Even, every now and then, the one her mother owned. He didn't remember his own mother. They said she hanged herself when he was three.

  He didn't think Edie Brand was so much better than him. Sure, she had a mother, but her old man wasn't in the picture. Folks said he'd had another family on the side. Wade heard he'd been shot down in a gangland execution. That might be way more romantic than hanging yourself, but the old man was just as dead.

  Of course, there was more standing between him and Edie Brand than that. Edie's mother owned a saloon, kept her daughters in decent clothes and shoes. Wade's father spent most of his time in saloons and most of his money on whiskey. Wade's own clothes never looked like much and were rarely a perfect fit. He couldn't afford to be fussy. His part-time job at the garage in town barely paid enough for him to keep the power and heat turned on in the trailer and buy a few groceries now and then.

  Edie lived in a house. No mansion, but it was worlds above his place. Still, her family was almost as scandalous as his own. She just had a way of outshining her background. A way that almost made him jealous, though he would die before he would admit it out loud. Why the hell couldn't he breeze through life as if he was just a hair short of royalty, despite the truth?

  Hell, he knew why. Because guys were different. The jocks in this school detested him, and they never let him forget how far above him they saw themselves. It wasn't overt. Just the looks they'd send. The way they would huddle in a group and watch him pass, talking softly, then laughing aloud. Matt McConnell was the worst offender. In various little ways over the years, he'd managed to make Wade feel about as important as a piece of gum on the quarterback's shoe.

  Wade turned, leaned against his locker, and watched Edie Brand as she walked away from him, hangers-on milling around her like gnats around a bug light. Everyone wanted to be near her-as if she gave off some kind of magnetic energy that drew them. He didn't know what the hell it was. True, she was beautiful. More than just your normal, garden-variety prettiness-Edie Brand was beautiful. Movie star beautiful. Her smile made people act like idiots, tripping over themselves to get closer.

  That could easily include him, unfortunately. It was a constant effort to appear as if he didn't give a damn whether she was on the planet. God, he was pathetic.

  She didn't even know he existed. He was sure of that much. When he met her in the halls at school, she never looked him in the eye, always kept hers averted. Never said hello, and he would be damned if he would speak first. He was invisible to her. Her whole crowd-the jocks, the cheerleaders, the popular kids-ignored him. They didn't mess with him, but they didn't speak to him, either. He didn't exist in their world. They were content to keep it that way.

  He would show them someday. He would show them all.

  For now, though, he just watched, and willed her to look his way as she stopped at her locker, faced it and began spinning the dial on the lock while smiling and talking to her admirers. His fantasy spun out in his brain the way it always did. This was his senior year. Prom was coming up. She was only a sophomore. Not that it mattered-he wouldn't go anyway. But in his fantasy, he did. He rolled up to her farmhouse in a long black limo, and he got out wearing a tux. She came to the door in a white dress that reached the floor, looking just like an angel. Smiling with those baby-blue eyes, right up at him.

  Hell. It was a dumb dream. He couldn't afford a tux or a limo. He would be lucky to get one of the junk heaps on the lawn running long enough to drive to the school gym and back, and a tux would be out of the question. He'd been idiotic enough to check the prices for rentals. Then there would be tickets, a corsage, dinner out somewhere beforehand, like all the socially acceptable couples had. Maybe if he didn't eat for a week?.

  A squeal of girlish laughter shook him out of his thoughts, and he looked again at Edie Brand, as her friends nudged her and giggled. Matt McConnell was standing near Edie, holding her hand, smiling at her, waiting.

  She parted her lips to speak, and Wade found himself straining to hear, moving closer without even realizing it

  "Sure, Matt," she said. "I'd love to go to the prom with you."

  Something burned like acid in Wade's chest as he watched the confident high-school quarterback lean close and plant a kiss on Edie's cheek. And he vowed he would hate that girl forever.