“All of them,” she said, picking up her coat and pulling it around her.
“Don’t leave.”
She paused by the door. “Why not?”
She would have taken something, anything. But he simply shrugged, and in the end there was nothing she could do but walk back out into the snowy night.
And in the distance she heard a crashing sound.
SHE SLIPPED on the icy road, sprawling in the snow, and the hard slap of the cold against her face was a salutary force. She scrambled to her feet again and ran the rest of the way, calling herself all sorts of names beneath her breath. What the hell did she think she was doing? All he’d had to do was touch her and she’d been ready to strip off her clothes and do anything he wanted. She’d done just what Jeffrey had warned her against, fallen into his bed without a second thought, and it had only been the phone call that had saved her from turning her life into a disaster zone.
Except that it hadn’t been his bed. She’d been aware of very little but the man who was touching her, kissing her. In retrospect, she knew what had felt strange, wrong but right, familiar yet strange.
He had the old wicker sofa from her front porch.
She couldn’t figure out why. Most of the furniture in the place had been broken-down junk, and the green sofa had been sagging badly, the wicker split and cracked. There’d been a few real Stickley pieces in the living room—the Jacksons should have saved those, not a worthless piece of porch furniture.
But it hadn’t been the Jacksons. It had been Brody. She knew that as surely as she knew her own name.
And that was about all she knew at that point. She’d run, the moment she’d had a chance, letting Jeffrey do what he was so good at. Making her doubt everything.
Why had Brody kissed her, why had he saved the ratty old sofa, why had he done any of the unfathomable things he had over the years?
It didn’t matter. If Jeffrey was right, then Brody had accomplished what he’d set out to accomplish.
Then again, why was she trusting Jeffrey at all? He said he’d been her first and her best. Oh, God, she certainly hoped not.
The house should have been dark when she opened the door. She’d left when it was still light, and she hadn’t expected to be that long. She’d blown out the Christmas candle, but she hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights.
But the Christmas candle sat in the middle of the kitchen table, the flame straight and true, filling the room with a warm, comforting light.
She stared at it. She remembered she’d blown it out—she was always very careful about such things, especially since Brody had warned her. She looked around her, wondering whether she ought to be nervous, whether someone had broken into her house while she’d been gone.
But no one had been there—she was certain of it. The place would feel different if there’d been an intruder. And no one would have come in, lit the Christmas candle and then left.
There was no question that the candle was unique—it burned forever with hardly any change in size, it didn’t drip and the ever-shifting scents were a delight to the soul. Maybe the wick was made of some special substance that kept a dull glow, ready to flare back into life again when you thought you’d blown it out, like trick matches. Like childhood crushes. She needed to be more careful in the future.
She plugged in the lights on the Christmas tree, the extra glow filling the room. The woodstove was still going strong, and for the time being she didn’t need to do anything but curl up on the sofa and pretend nothing had happened.
This was not turning out to be the Christmas she’d been determined to have. There were too many unsettled memories, too many voiceless longings.
And the time for denial was gone. Those longings all had to do with Brody Jackson.
Chapter Five
Christmas
He shouldn’t have thrown his answering machine against the wall, Brody thought, but it had made such a satisfying crunch. Almost as good as if he’d slammed it into Jeffrey Hasting’s smug face.
He’d said the wrong thing, of course. Once Jeffrey had begun to spew his nastiness, once she’d stiffened beneath him, pulling away, he’d known he’d lost her.
The question was, had he ever had her? Maybe Jeffrey was right—she was simply the one who got away. Except that despite Angel’s flattering opinion of his irresistibility, there’d been any number of women who’d gotten away, including the first girl he’d had sex with, who’d dumped him for a football player; including his exquisitely beautiful, exquisitely shallow ex-wife and any number in between. He’d had his heart broken and he’d washed the pain away with a bottle of Scotch and emerged bloody but unbowed.
But he’d never gotten over Angel McKenna.
He was an idiot. He wasn’t going to be fifteen again, stealing a kiss on a moonlit porch. He wasn’t going to be twenty again, pretending to be drunk so that he could kiss her in the rain.
And he didn’t want to be. He’d made countless mistakes in his life, lost just about everything, but in the end it had made him a halfway decent man.
And in the end, he still wanted Angel McKenna, and probably would until the day he died.
He ought to just get the hell out of there. Coming back had been a mistake, though his options hadn’t been many.
But he had discovered that the perfect couple of Crescent Cove’s summer population had split, and that Angela had moved up into a house on Black’s Point. And invitations to stay with sympathetic friends in Hawaii, Aspen and Santa Fe had paled next to the chance to see Angel again.
To his shock, he still felt the same. No, scratch that. Not the same. When he was a teenager he’d mainly been interested in getting into her pants. What he was feeling now was stronger, deeper, surer. He wanted her on every level—as a friend, a lover, a sparring partner and anything else that came to mind. He wanted her, needed her, and he had the crazy hope that she felt the same.
He grabbed his coat and headed out the door. It was pitch-black—no moon that night, and snow was in the air. By the time he reached Angela’s farmhouse he’d managed to build up a full head of steam, and his knock on the door was closer to a pounding.
He half expected her to ignore it, which wasn’t an option, but after a moment the door opened and she stood there, looking small and wan, and some of his righteous anger vanished.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“We’ve got unfinished business,” he said abruptly. Not the best thing to say—she immediately folded her arms across her chest in an instinctive defensive posture. “Not that,” he said, irritated. “Though God knows that’s been hanging fire for too damn long.”
She didn’t say anything. Behind her he could see a soft glow emanating from the living room, and the scent of bayberry mixed with the smell of Christmas cookies hanging in the air. Who would have thought Christmas cookies could be erotic? But then, that was his constant state of mind when he was around her.
After a moment she moved out of the doorway, holding it open for him. “All right,” she said. She kept well out of his way when he walked into the room, which was probably a good thing. He might have forgotten his noble resolve and kissed her again, and as long as Jeffrey Hastings didn’t call they’d finish what they started. But he’d rushed it. Just because he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her for the past ten years didn’t mean she’d spared him a thought. He had to take his time. Give her time.
He closed the door behind him to keep the winter air out, but he didn’t take his coat off. She looked as if she’d been crying, and a pang of guilt hit him. Angela wasn’t the kind of woman who cried easily—she never had been. The question was, was she crying over her lost husband or him?
“I think we need to start over. From the beginning again,” he said. “The history gets too confusing, particularly with your ex-husband’s little tricks.”
“Start what?”
“Start us.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she sa
id carefully.
“Maybe not, but I don’t tend to give up easily. I want to set a few things straight. The only reason I hated Jeffrey was that he had you. Oh, and the fact that he’s a total moral vacuum. There’s no rivalry between us. There’s only you.”
He couldn’t read the expression on her face, but he persevered. “I’ll tell you what, Angel. I’ll leave you alone for now. Give you time to think about it. About whether you’re over Jeffrey…”
“Over Jeffrey?” Her laugh was genuine. “I got over Jeffrey a couple of years before I caught him cheating. The worst thing about it was that I was relieved when I caught him and had an excuse to leave. One can’t break up a perfect couple with no excuse.”
He took a deep breath. “Okay. Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t want to be another in your long line of summer conquests.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake! In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s winter. The time for conquests is over. I’m in love with you.”
He should have regretted blurting it out like that, particularly given the look on her face, but he couldn’t.
“Go away,” she said in a cold voice.
“For almost fifteen years, Angel. Since the first time I saw you, curled up on that green wicker sofa, crying over Little Women. You were my best friend, the first girl I kissed, and I want you to be the last girl I kiss. It’s embarrassing, unlikely, and from the expression on your face I can guess that it’s entirely unwelcome, but the fact is, I’m in love with you, and all the distractions in the world can’t seem to shake it.”
“You’re lying,” she said, but her voice was doubtful.
“If it makes you feel better you can believe that. You can spend the rest of your life missing Jeffrey.”
“I don’t give a damn about Jeffrey!” she said. “But I’m not about to trust your highly improbable declaration of love.”
“Of course you’re not,” he said soothingly. “So we’ll take it slow. Just promise me one thing. That you won’t run. You’ll keep an open mind, and we can see what happens.”
“You don’t love me.”
“Just forget I ever said that,” he said. “I promise I won’t say it again. At least, not until I think you’re ready to hear it.”
“You don’t love me,” she said stubbornly, and she sounded close to tears. A very good sign, he thought. If she didn’t care about him then his stupid-ass declaration wouldn’t bother her so much.
He didn’t bother arguing. “I’m going to leave this up to you,” he said. “The ball’s in your court, Angel. You make the next move. But I’ll be ready when you are.”
She bit her lip, and for a moment he thought she might be wavering. He took a step closer, just in case. But she took a step back, and he accepted the inevitable. For now.
“Don’t take too long, Angel,” he said. “And don’t forget to blow out the candle when you go to bed. It’s a fire hazard.”
“I’ll be fine.”
She would, unfortunately. She didn’t need or want him half as much as he needed her. But maybe that would change. It had to.
SHE WAS OUT of her mind, Angela thought. Totally and completely out of her mind. Brody Jackson wanted her, and he said it had nothing to do with Jeffrey. He even thought he was in love with her, though she had her doubts about that. But there was no doubt at all that he wanted her.
Almost as much as she wanted him. Which was the danger—she didn’t want to risk that kind of cataclysmic relationship.
She needed time, she thought. He was right about that. He was right about a lot of things. He had no idea she’d spent seventh grade writing “Mrs. Brody Jackson, Mrs. Angel Jackson, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson” in her math notebook.
He didn’t know just how pathetic she was when it came to him, and she knew she was going to have to tell him. Sooner or later. Preferably later. It was the night before Christmas Eve, her baking was done, her presents were wrapped, and maybe the safest thing would be to see if she could get a last-minute flight to Hawaii to have Christmas with her vacationing parents.
It would mean she wouldn’t have to do anything about Brody for at least a week. She could just put him out of her mind, concentrate on the season.
And pigs could fly. Besides, Hawaii was no place to celebrate Christmas—Vermont was made for the season.
And if she made it through the night without going to him she was going to be amazed.
Did she believe him? Was she willing to risk it? There didn’t seem to be any choice in the matter. Sometimes fate handed you a gift so powerful that you were afraid to grab it.
She went to the door, looking out the frosty pane of glass into the cold night air. It was a clear night, not a stray snowflake in sight. Nothing to keep her from going out, maybe discovering if he really meant what he said.
Her boots were already on when the phone rang, and she grabbed it, breathless, certain it was Brody.
“Get your ass over here,” Patsy snarled. “I’m in labor, damn it.”
And Brody would have to wait.
IF ANGELA HADN’T BEEN so exhausted she would have been highly amused. Patsy’s manner of dealing with labor was to cuss everything and everybody, and even her husband’s steady demeanor began to fray a little. Angela had had nine months of trying to talk Patsy out of a home delivery, but Patsy had strong opinions about everything, and Merline Kittredge was the best midwife in the Champlain Valley; plus, unbeknownst to the soon-to-be mother, the rescue squad was standing by, ready to whisk her off to Burlington at the first sign of trouble.
But there was no trouble at all. Harriet Patricia made her appearance after four and a half hours of very efficient labor, and she came out yelling almost as loud as her mother. Even Patsy was silenced by the sight of her perfect, healthy daughter.
“You’re crying,” Angela said.
“Am not,” Patsy insisted, staring down in wonder at the tiny creature she’d just managed to deliver. “It just hurt.”
“Pain’s over, and you didn’t cry during labor. You just cursed,” Angela pointed out.
“Don’t bother me. Can’t you see I’m bonding like any good mother?”
“And I’m taking you to the hospital,” Ethan announced. “You got to have your blissful crunchy granola back-to-nature home birth, and everything’s fine, but we’re going to check the two of you out and then we’ll be right back. It won’t take more than a couple of hours. Assuming the storm lets up.”
“S-s-storm?” Angela stammered.
“Yup. A Christmas Eve nor’easter. They’re figuring twelve to eighteen inches of snow, maybe more, with high winds and maybe even some freezing rain. If I were you I’d stay right here until we get back. We’ve got an extra bedroom.”
“You think she’d drive in this stuff?” Patsy emerged from her rapturous examination of her infant for a brief moment. “She’s the all-time wuss of the universe. Besides, she doesn’t have to be anywhere. Her family’s in Hawaii and there’s no one else who matters. Is there?” She looked her calmly in the eyes.
“I should have never told you anything,” Angela muttered.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ethan demanded.
“Angie’s in love.”
“I am not!”
“With who?” Ethan asked, clearly bewildered.
“The same person she’s been in love with since we were kids. Brody Jackson. The problem is, the only way she’s going to get to him is through a blizzard, and she barely drives on cloudy days. And here it is, Christmas Eve, and there’s never been a better time to admit it and be with him.”
“Go to the hospital and get checked out,” Angela snapped. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
Patsy smiled a catlike smile. “Sure you will.”
They went off in the ambulance, driving slowly, the red lights flashing. They disappeared into the swirling snow almost immediately, and Angela closed the door behind them, leaning her forehead against the cold window.
Spendi
ng Christmas Eve with Patsy and Ethan and the brand-new baby was a perfect way to celebrate. It was safe and warm here, and people loved her, and there wasn’t any risk of getting her heart broken, or driving off a cliff, or…
It was Christmas Eve, and she was too much of a Christmas slut to ignore it. She shoved her feet into her boots, pulled her coat around her and stepped out onto the porch. The icy snow whipped against her face like a cold slap, and the wind was howling down the main street, obliterating the lights and the town Christmas decorations. She walked down the steps, through the thick snow—they’d had almost a foot of snow since she’d first come to help Patsy, and it wasn’t about to let up any time soon from the looks of things. The snow was mixing with pellets of ice, the kind that would probably cover every available surface and send her sliding into the lake. If she tried to drive in this stuff she’d die. It was that simple.
She managed to open one of the car doors, letting snow fall onto the seat, and grab the snow brush. She started at the front, moving around the car, brushing off the thick, wet stuff, and by the time she reached the windshield again another inch had piled up. She was going to die.
Maybe the car wouldn’t start. She climbed behind the wheel, knocking the snow off her boots before closing the door, and turned the key. The damn thing started like a charm.
She took a deep breath. “You can do this,” she said. “All you have to do is drive very, very slowly. You can do this.”
Unfortunately, no one was listening, especially not her subconscious. She shoved the car into gear, put the four-wheel-drive in low, flicked on the lights and began to inch forward.
She could barely see five feet ahead of her. Visibility was slightly easier with the lights on dim, and when she tested the brakes she only slid for a moment before the reassuring chunk-chunk sound of the antilock brake system kicked in. She had her seat belt on, and she was clutching the steering wheel so hard her fingers were growing numb. She turned on the radio—there were nothing but Christmas carols playing on Christmas Eve and she figured that might help her to breathe. Or at the very least she’d die in a state of grace.
12 Stocking Stuffers Page 49