Stranded for Christmas

by Noelle Adams

  He was okay though.

  He was going to hold it together.

  He wasn’t going to believe that he had lost her for good.

  He wasn’t going to fall apart.

  He would go back to being patient and careful, and then he’d wait until it was the right time again.

  BETWEEN THE SUN AND Chuck and Ed’s work, the road through the tree farm was passable. Russ parked his SUV in its normal place and then went into the big farmhouse to see what was going on.

  Nothing was going on.

  No one was around.

  Most of the employees had gone home yesterday and hadn’t come in today since everything was closed because of the snow. Penny and Olivia had both been stranded overnight and weren’t back yet, and Phil and Rebecca were in Richmond.

  Laura was picking up Tommy.

  The quiet in the offices on the first floor of the house was unsettling. Disturbing. Russ checked email and straightened up his desk and then just sat in his chair in the silence.

  It felt like he’d been gone an eternity, but it had been less than twenty-four hours, and Holiday Acres had been closed for most of it.

  No crises had occurred.

  No urgent business had come in.

  He had a lot of email to sort through since he normally stayed on top of everything that came in throughout the day, so it never piled up this much.

  But other than that... nothing.

  Everything was normal.

  He could sit here for a few more minutes, clear out the easy stuff in his email, and then go home and take a shower and change into clean clothes. He could rest and recover and start again after the weekend.

  That was what he should do.

  Give himself a break.

  Get away for a little while.

  Let his heart recover from what had happened to it.

  No one needed him here. Laura wasn’t going to want to see him. Not today. The easiest thing for him to do would just be to get out of here.

  If he was alone, if he was at home, he wouldn’t have to work so hard at holding it all together.

  The idea was so tempting that he speed-read his email, deleting the junk, filing the nonessential stuff into folders, replying to the simple messages, and then leaving the few messages that needed more complicated answers or required work to be done.

  Then he turned off the computer and got up.

  He could sit here for the rest of the afternoon and suffer for no reason, or he could go home where he could be alone and let down his guard for a while.

  No one was going to care if he stayed here or not. Laura would probably prefer him to be elsewhere.

  He was going home.

  He got his stuff together and left the office, scrawling a note on the front desk in case someone wondered where he was.

  He had a phone. If they needed him, they could call him.

  He was heading for the front door of the house when someone burst in through it and nearly slammed into him.

  He barely caught his balance and hers.

  Olivia.

  One of Laura’s younger sisters.

  She was about Laura’s height and had the same shiny brown hair, but she had blue eyes and didn’t have Laura’s freckles or her no-nonsense intelligence.

  Russ had always liked her though. She was pretty and spirited and kindhearted.

  “You made it back,” he said as he reached out to hold her shoulders to steady her.

  Olivia’s face twisted dramatically. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Her voice was raspy.

  Russ frowned. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” Olivia’s features contorted again in what was obviously an effort to keep from crying.

  He was going to go home. Let down. Start to recover.

  But Olivia had been trapped with Scott all night, and now she was about to cry. There could be only one reason for it.

  “Olivia, what happened with Scott?”

  “Nothing!” It sounded like she was getting angry, frustrated, like she might lash out at him. But then she gave a little sob and tucked her head. “He doesn’t want me after all.”

  She gave another sob as she pulled out of his hands and ran across the entryway and then up the stairs.

  Russ stood where he was and watched her, the numbness in his heart cracking just a little.

  For a moment he wished that he could cry like Olivia.

  He knew how she felt.

  To almost have something and then watch it slip out of your fingers.

  He knew what it felt like for the person you wanted to not want you back.

  For the person you wanted to want you back but not be willing to take what they wanted.

  He turned suddenly and strode to one of the front windows, looking out to see that Scott was parked out front in his expensive car.

  Russ waited, watched, but Scott didn’t back out of the parking place and leave. He just sat there.

  Scott wanted Olivia. He’d been in love with her for ages—maybe even since both of them had been kids. Russ might not have always been close with his nephews, but he wasn’t unobservant, and he’d always been able to see that.

  Olivia had just come into the house crying, thinking Scott didn’t want her when Russ knew without doubt that Scott did.

  Russ felt a surge of hot anger even though he almost never got angry.

  Scott could have Olivia. All he had to do was reach out and take her. And he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.

  When the woman Russ wanted was impossible to reach.

  He stood, breathing heavily for a few more minutes, but Scott didn’t get out of the car to follow Olivia and he didn’t drive away.

  Finally Russ had had enough.

  How dare Scott not take the gift he’d been given, when Russ wasn’t given any such gift?

  He strode outside, propelled by the white-hot rage. The cold air nipped his skin, and the sun beat down on his bare head. He was going to let Scott have it.

  When he was halfway down the sidewalk, however, something happened. His fists relaxed at his sides and his breathing slowed down.

  His normal self overtook his pained outrage after all, and the howling, heartbroken boy had been pushed down, hidden beneath the controlled man he’d always been.

  He opened the passenger door of Scott’s SUV and got in.

  Scott was visibly surprised at his presence. He’d been in some sort of emotional daze, and Russ could see the pain and turmoil in the tension on his face, in the way he was holding his shoulders.

  “What’s going on here?” Russ asked. He’d felt like shouting a minute ago, but his voice was quiet now.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’ve been sitting here for ten minutes, and I’m not blind. Something is wrong.” Russ was amazed at the sound of his own voice. How cool and dry it was.

  He sounded like his normal self.

  Like he hadn’t lived and died in the past twenty-four hours.

  “It’s not important,” Scott murmured hoarsely.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “Then why do you look like the slightest impact would shatter you into pieces?”

  Scott didn’t answer. His face and body clearly reflected the same kind of pain that Russ was feeling, and for the first time Russ genuinely sympathized with his nephew.

  He loved Scott and didn’t want him to hurt. Even if he was just hurting himself.

  “Hey. Scott. Talk to me.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Damn it,” Russ muttered, thinking about his family, about how broken they’d always been. Even him. Especially him. “You boys are all the same. All three of you. You know, I loved your father. He was a lot older than me, so we were never very close, but he was my brother and I loved him. He had it much harder than I did growing up since our folks didn’t have any extra money until I was born. He had to work really hard. A lot harder than me. He didn’t get a chance to go to college.
He didn’t have a lot of the things I had as a boy. He had it rough.”

  “I know he did. He let us know it all the time.” Scott sounded faintly skeptical. His father had hurt him a lot.

  “I know. He had it rough, and it took its toll on him. And then he took that toll out on you boys. I wasn’t around, so I didn’t see it, but I can see the aftermath.”

  “What aftermath?”

  “What happened because he didn’t know how to love you boys and because your mama died too soon.” Russ shook his head, clearly seeing a picture now when he’d never been able to see it before. “He didn’t teach you how to love. He taught Kent to hide and Phil to run away and you to...”

  “To what? He taught me to what?”

  “To put on a mask for the world. To never be vulnerable. To always try to be someone you aren’t.”

  “I don’t always do that.”

  “Yes, you do. You know you do. You haven’t been yourself since you went to college.”

  “It wasn’t just Dad.”

  For the first time, Russ was surprised. Jolted out of his own heartbreak. Scott had just told him something. Something important. Something he hadn’t known. “What else was it?”

  Scott didn’t answer.

  Russ was genuinely worried now. He’d always known something had changed for Scott after he graduated from high school, but he’d thought it was a simple process of growing up and dealing with the damage left from his father. But there was something else that had hurt him. “Did something else happen?”

  Scott was still silent. Tense.

  “Scott? Is there something you need to tell me?”

  “No,” Scott said, something aching in his voice. “Nothing. Just life.”

  He wasn’t telling Russ the truth, but Russ was too smart to push right now. Scott was dealing with too much, and any more pressure would make him lash out. So Russ let it go, vowing to find out more at a different time.

  He asked in a different tone, “So now that you know what you’re doing, you should be able to take the mask off. Right?”

  No answer.

  “Olivia deserves better from you. She deserves the real thing.”

  To Russ’s surprise, Scott turned to him in sudden anger. “Fuck you, Russ. Who are you to tell me what Olivia deserves? When have you ever even tried for the real thing? You sit there and watch the world go by from a safe distance. You’ve never even tried to be in love. Who are you to lecture me about it?”

  Russ felt another surge of outraged indignation. Pain. Heartbreak. But he pulled it all back inside before it got out of his control. He was able to reply mildly, “You’re right. Maybe I’m a hypocrite. Maybe I have no ground to stand on when it comes to this. But you’re wrong about my never being in love. And at least I tried to step up.”

  “What? You did?” Scott was clearly astonished.

  “Yeah. I did. I tried, and it didn’t work. And maybe that’s her final answer and I’ll have to live with it, but at least I gave it a try. Did you try? Did you really try to step up?” Russ shook his head, so tired suddenly that he could barely keep his head upright. “Maybe being a Matheson means we have these weird brown eyes and we’re all emotionally damaged. Family can do that to you. But Phil stepped up, and he’s happy now. He’s getting better. Why the hell shouldn’t the same be true of you?”

  “Rebecca loves Phil. Olivia doesn’t—”

  “Do you know that? For sure? Did you even give her the option? The Holidays might have had it better than you did growing up. At least they had a mother who loved them. But they didn’t have an easy father either, and they had to learn to be strong and rely on themselves, rather than trusting in men to take care of them. That means they’re never going to make it easy. They’re not going to let down their guard unless they know for sure the man is offering them everything. That’s true of Olivia as much as it is of the rest of them.”

  “Olivia doesn’t want...”

  “Then why was she crying just now as she came into the house?”

  “She was crying?”

  “Yes. I have to assume it was your doing. You might think about that for a minute.”

  Russ couldn’t deal with any more. He’d done what he could. If Scott was going to keep being an idiot, then there was nothing more he could do to make him change his mind.

  He wanted Scott to be happy, but he couldn’t force him into it.

  He could barely force himself into doing what he knew needed to be done.

  So he got out of the SUV and turned when he heard a vehicle approaching.

  Laura. Bringing Tommy back home.

  Russ should have left. He’d been planning to leave, go home, rest and recover. But he couldn’t make himself do it as he watched Laura driving into the lot and then parking the SUV.

  Tommy scrambled out of the passenger seat. “Uncle Russ!”

  All the tightly reined emotion, fisted into a little ball in Russ’s chest, shuddered dangerously at the sight of the boy as he raced over toward him on the slippery sidewalk.

  His feet slid out from beneath him once, and he went down, but he popped right back up the way kids do.

  Tommy’s face was flushed and beaming as he ran toward Russ, again calling out, “Uncle Russ!”

  He hurled himself at him, and Russ caught him with both arms, pulling the boy up into a hug.

  He was shaking helplessly as he hugged the boy, and for a moment he was sure he was going to break down completely.

  For no good reason.

  Except Tommy loved him.

  And wasn’t afraid to show it.

  Russ loved the boy back.

  After a few seconds, Russ knew he needed to loosen his arms, let Tommy go. The boy was giving him an exuberant greeting, thrilled at being home after being trapped with Mae overnight and eager to share all his adventures. But he was a six-year-old boy. He wasn’t going to want to be hugged liked this for long.

  He didn’t need it the way Russ did.

  Let him go.

  Let him go.

  Tommy wasn’t his to seek comfort from this way.

  Russ managed to loosen his arms.

  Tommy slid back to the sidewalk, grinning uninhibitedly. “I thought it would never stop snowing!”

  “I know. It was a lot. Everyone got stuck.”

  “You got stuck with Mommy,” Tommy said, as if he were presenting new information. “And you didn’t have any lights or TV or anything.”

  “I know. It was a long night.”

  “Mommy is upset about it.” Tommy’s voice lowered to a conspiratorial stage whisper. He looked back at Laura, who was getting out of the car. “She’s pretending she’s happy, but she’s not. Did you and her have a terrible time?”

  Russ turned to look at Laura, unable to stop himself.

  She’d paused on the sidewalk, staring at him without speaking, without moving.

  She looked chilly, fragile, like she might break into pieces.

  She wasn’t happy about the decision she made. The look she gave him ached.

  Then she turned and walked away.

  Russ watched her go.

  It felt like she was walking away from him for good, and everything inside him rose up in defiance. He wanted to run after her, grab her, blurt out how much he loved her—how much he loved both her and Tommy and wanted them to be his family.

  But that would be a mistake, and Russ didn’t make mistakes anymore.

  So he reached down to ruffle Tommy’s head. “There was too much snow to be fun, but everything is fine now.”

  “Were you going home?” Tommy’s brown eyes were wide.

  Russ wanted to go home almost as much as he wanted to run after Laura.

  But instead he said, “No. I can hang out with you for a while.”

  Nine

  A WEEK LATER, ON CHRISTMAS Eve morning, Tommy woke up before Laura did.

  That almost never happened because the boy was a night owl who liked to stay up late and sleep in. But Christmas wa
s almost here, and he was excited. So he woke up before dawn and came bounding into her bedroom, waking her up from a heavy, exhausted sleep.

  She’d only gone to sleep a few hours ago. For the past week, she’d been trying to work herself hard enough to forget how bad she was feeling, but then she’d lie awake for hours after she went to bed.

  All this to say that having a six-year-old boy jumping on her at five fifteen in the morning was not the way she would have chosen to start the day.

  After she’d woken up and recovered from her shock, she managed to pull herself together enough not to yell at him. He was giggling and burrowing into her. He was so excited about Christmas.

  It wasn’t his fault that Laura wanted to go back in time. One week ago. One year ago. Four years ago.

  Back to when the sight of Russ working at his desk in their shared office didn’t tear her apart.

  “There aren’t any presents today, you know.” She reached out to pull Tommy in closer to her, rearranging him so his elbow wasn’t digging into her gut. “It’s only Christmas Eve.”

  “I know. But the party tonight! Rebecca is making those cookies! And Chuck said I could help him with the big fire this afternoon.”

  She chuckled and ruffled his soft hair. “Well, that does sound like a good day. But don’t you think you’d enjoy it more if you got a few more hours of sleep. You were up late last night playing that game with Uncle Phil.”

  “Uncle Phil is good,” Tommy said seriously. “But not as good as Uncle Russ!”

  At the sound of his name, Laura had to fight not to tense up.

  She’d expected it to be hard coming back after her ill-advised night with Russ a week ago, but she hadn’t expected it to be as hard as this.

  Maybe if she could have taken a vacation—lain on a beach somewhere with a book by herself for a few days—she could have started to get some distance. But that was impossible. The week before Christmas was the busiest time of the year for them at Holiday Acres. It was all hands on deck. She couldn’t leave them in a lurch just because she had something that felt like a broken heart.

  She could have been with Russ this week. If she’d made a different decision.