by Lori Wilde
Raylene clenched her jaw in a vain attempt to stay the pain. She reached up to pat Shannon’s face. To reassure the poor girl. But lifting her arm was a Herculean effort.
“I’ve got her,” a man’s voice said.
Shannon stepped back, and firm masculine hands took hold of Raylene. Familiar hands. Hands she’d known for over fifty years. She blinked, turned her head. There stood Santa Claus, picking her up, gently laying her in the seat.
“Santa?” Raylene whispered.
“Get in the backseat,” Santa told Shannon. “I’ll drive.”
The next thing Raylene knew, Santa was bulleting down the highway, headed for Twilight General Hospital. He turned to look with kind, gray eyes. Kind, gray eyes she’d loved since first grade.
“Earl?” Raylene whispered. But how could it be Earl? Was she dreaming? Earl in a Santa suit, with her long-lost daughter in the backseat? That’s when Raylene realized that if these two things had happened, she must be dead already.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Shannon paced the hallway outside the Medical Intensive Care Unit. The members of the First Love Cookie Club sat in the waiting room, most of them knitting furiously as they waited for word about their dear friend. Several of the ladies had tried to get Shannon to sit with them, and she had for a while, coming clean about who she was. She’d endured their well-meaning hugs, and she was happy they were here, but she was too antsy to stay sitting for long.
If Raylene died before they could really get to know each other, it would be the worst kind of shame. She couldn’t help feeling responsible for her mother’s heart attack. The stress had simply been too much for her.
Just to have something to do, she headed for the coffee machine in the adjacent snack room. She jammed a wrinkled dollar into the slot, but the machine kept spitting it out. Frustrated, she mumbled a string of curses.
A calm hand settled on her shoulder. “Let me get that for you,” drawled a man’s voice.
Nate!
She turned. An expression of concern tightened his eyes. “I ran off with your truck,” she said.
He nodded. “I know.”
“Raylene’s my mother.”
“I heard. The whole town is buzzing with the news.”
“That’s my big secret.”
“I figured.”
“Earl is wearing a Santa suit. He’s been living in an abandoned cabin in the woods just beyond the Horny Toad. No one knows why, but if he hadn’t shown up when he did, Raylene might have died in the parking lot.”
“Now that I had not heard.”
“It’s true. Earl told me.” She looked into his eyes. He took her hands in his. “You came.”
“I did.”
“For me.”
“Nah, I needed my truck to get to work,” he teased.
She gave him a small smile. “Thanks for trying to cheer me up.”
“I was really worried about you. I thought . . .”
“What?”
He shuffled his feet. “That you’d used me and were done with me.”
“I didn’t mean to run out on you like I did. I was overwhelmed.”
“It’s all right.”
“Excuse me,” a little old man leaning on a cane said. “Could you lovebirds get out of the way so I can get some coffee?”
“Excuse us, sir.” Nate waltzed Shannon over to a loveseat in the corner and pulled her down in his lap.
“So what happens now?” she asked.
“We wait to see how Raylene is.” He anchored her to him with an arm around her waist.
“I mean after. Between us.”
He still had hold of her hands. The air filled with the smell of too-strong coffee. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you intend on staying in Twilight or not.”
“You know,” she said. “I sort of have this fantasy.”
“Hmm. Sounds promising. Fantasies. I like the way you think.”
“Sexual innuendo? Really? At a time like this?”
Nate shrugged. “I thought maybe it would help take your mind off things.”
“No you didn’t. You were being a guy.”
“Guilty as charged.” He looked sheepish. “Can you guess what I’m thinking right now?”
“Uh-huh,” she said. But he was right, she was already smiling.
“So about this fantasy . . .”
“I’m thinking about buying that old-fashioned ice cream parlor that shut down recently.”
“Rinky-Tink’s?”
“That’d be the one.”
“Interesting thought.”
“That’s where they held the Christmas-cookie swap I went to with Raylene,” Shannon said. “I walked in, and the place just felt special.”
“So if you bought this ice cream parlor, would that mean you’d be staying in Twilight?” He raised hopeful eyebrows.
“It’s just an idea I’ve been kicking around.”
“I don’t want to rush you. No pressure, but last night . . . well . . .” He glanced around to make sure no one was in hearing distance and lowered his voice. “Best sex ever.”
Shannon felt her cheeks flush. “It was pretty earthmoving.”
“Gotta tell you, I freaked a bit when I woke up and you were gone. I’m not a one-night-stand kind of guy.”
“You’re one in a million, Nate Deavers.”
“Just as long as you appreciate that fact.”
“The reason I left when I did was because I had to go see Raylene and tell her who I was before I could tell you, and I couldn’t go another day without letting you in on my secret.”
“I get it. I know. Just saying for future reference, don’t leave a guy hanging like that.”
“I’ve still got a few issues to work through.”
“I’m here.”
“I have trouble trusting my own judgment.”
“Do you now?” he asked. “Do you trust yourself to trust me?”
She nodded. She did trust Nate.
“We’ve got a special thing going here. It could just keep getting better and better. I don’t want to rush you, but I’m head over heels for you, Shannon, and I don’t fall easily.”
Nate was falling in love with her. It didn’t scare Shannon. Not the least little bit. “I’m falling pretty hard for you too, Nate Deavers.”
“Shannon,” Patsy Cross called from the doorway. “The doctor came out to speak to us. Raylene is going to be okay. They said we could see her in a few minutes.”
“Thank you.” Relief sagged through her body. When she leaned her head back, Nate’s shoulder was there.
“I’ve got your back, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Never doubt it.”
The sound of his voice rumbling through his chest made her feel safe and secure.
Looking into his eyes, she saw all her hopes and dreams. “I belong here,” she whispered. “I belong here with you.”
“Yes, you do.” Nate folded his arms around her, and kissed her for a long, long time. “Yes, you do.”
The Watcher sat in the chair beside Raylene, holding her hand and listening to the heart monitor beep. She lay in the bed, looking so small. His tough Raylene helpless. It tore at his soul.
He was still wearing the Santa suit because he couldn’t bear to take it off. Even though the doctor had said her heart attack had been mild, that she would pull through, and that with a few lifestyle changes she could live to be a ripe old age, he was still terrified.
Raylene stirred open her eyes. “Earl? Is it really you?”
He nodded.
“What the hell are you doing in a Santa suit?”
Same old Raylene. The woman he’d loved since he was six years old and pushed her down on the playground to prove it. But now came
the hard part. Once she knew what had happened, would she still want him?
“Got a job as the town Santa,” he said.
“Whatever for?”
“To be near you.”
A puzzled frown pinched her brow. “Why didn’t you just come home?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
He couldn’t meet her eyes. A terrible fear of rejection, the same fear that had kept him in hiding, bunched up inside him.
“Earl.” She squeezed his hand. “What is it? Why did you punish me so cruelly? Why did you leave me wondering and fretting about what happened to you?”
It had taken him months to work up the courage to come home, and still he couldn’t come right out and tell her.
“Let me tell you what I know,” she said. “And you can fill in the gaps. Last year, after you found out about Shannon, you went to find her.”
“Yes.” His eyes cradled her face. To him, she was just as beautiful as she’d been on their wedding day. He’d always considered himself the luckiest man on Earth to have such a spectacular woman. When he learned she’d had a baby with Lance Dugan during the time they broke up when she was a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, it just about killed his soul. He’d been mad. The maddest he’d ever been. But even so, he’d never once stopped loving her.
“You told Shannon about me.”
He nodded again.
“What happened after that? Where did you go?”
“I was still too upset to come home,” he said slowly, carefully paving the way for the terrible thing he had to tell her. “I went down to Houston and took a job drilling gas rigs.”
“Earl Pringle.” She struggled to sit up. “At your age? What were you thinking?”
“Lay back down, woman,” he growled. “You just had a heart attack. You’re in no position to chastise me.”
“Shannon came here because you told her to,” Raylene said, softening. “We squared things between us. She forgave me.”
“I’m glad,” he whispered, squeezing her hand. “She’ll soon find out what a big-hearted woman you truly are beneath that crusty exterior.”
“What about us, Earl? What’s going to happen to us?”
He was quiet for a long time. “It all depends on you, Ray, whether you want me back or not.”
“Of course I want you back, you old goat. Why wouldn’t I want you back? You’re the other damned half of me.”
He hauled in a deep breath, dropped her hand, and got up. He felt ridiculous in the Santa suit, but it was his only protection.
“Earl?”
In that moment, propped up on those white pillows, covered by a white sheet, wearing that god-awful hospital gown, his tough wife looked so utterly vulnerable that it just about broke his heart. Maybe this wasn’t the time or place to break the news.
“You’re really scaring me,” she said.
He was scared himself. So scared he felt as if he’d been doused in ice water. “I didn’t mean to stay away so long. I figured I’d be gone a month, and it would get my point across that I was well and truly pissed off at you.” Earl paced the end of her bed, his Santa boots making a snicking noise against the linoleum. “I wanted to work in oil and gas again like when I was a kid. I thought it would make me feel young.”
“So how did one month turn into twelve?” Her thin hands, roped with blue veins, worried the sheet.
This was the hard part. He couldn’t look at her. He moved to the window, stared out at the parking lot. Nate Deavers and Shannon Dugan were leaning against Nate’s truck kissing like there was no tomorrow. They made a cute couple.
“There was an explosion on the rig,” he murmured. “Small one. Didn’t even make the statewide news.”
He heard Raylene’s sharp intake of breath. “Earl?” she asked, her voice full of suspicion.
“I was hurt. Knocked unconscious. When I came to in the burn unit, I couldn’t remember who I was.”
Raylene let out a strangled cry. “You were burned!”
Earl spun around to see she had both hands to her mouth, tears misting her eyes. Oh, damn. He shouldn’t have told her now. Not when she’d just had a heart attack. It was so hard. So very hard.
“Oh, oh.” The monitor beeped faster.
“Shh, shh. It’s okay. Calm down.”
“Wh . . . when did this happen?”
“The end of January. I went through months of rehab and numerous surgeries.”
“I can’t believe you went through all that trauma alone, far from home. Why didn’t anyone call me? I could have been there with you. Helped you every step of the way. I feel so horrible that you had to go through that by yourself.”
“I told everyone on the job that I had no family.”
Raylene winced, and he knew he’d hurt her. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said.
“You’re not the one who has anything to be sorry about. Every bit of this was consequences of my mistakes.”
“No. I made my choices, just as you made yours. After my memory came back, I was too afraid to come home.”
She was throwing back the covers, trying to get out of bed. Earl rushed over. “You can’t get up, Ray.”
Her eyes beseeched him. “Why were you afraid?”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t want me anymore.” Tears burned his nose. He knelt at her bedside.
“Why in the hell would you think that? Earl Pringle, don’t you know I’ve never loved any other man?”
“You had Lance Dugan’s baby.”
“I know. Even though we were broke up, you were the one I loved. It was wrong of me. I have no excuse. None.” Raylene’s lip trembled. “I’m so sorry for the way I hurt you. So, so very sorry.”
“I know,” he said. “I know. I’m sorry too.”
“I still love you, Earl.”
“Wait,” he said. “There’s something you have to see.” Earl pulled in a deep breath, braced himself for the horror he knew he would see on her face, and slowly took off the Santa beard.
Raylene’s eyes widened, and her hand trembled. She did not look horrified or disgusted, but he could see the devastation in her eyes. She hurt because he had hurt. “Oh, Earlie, how you must have suffered!”
“The worst part was being without you.”
Her fingers gently skated across the burn scar that ran from just under his left cheek, past his jaw, and down his neck to his chest and shoulder. “I could have been with you. I could have shared your pain.”
“Do you still want me?”
“I’ll always want you. No matter what. I love you, Earl Pringle, and have from the time you pushed me down on the playground. We’re fated. Meant to be. Yes, we were both damned stupid. Guess that’s one of the reasons we’re a perfect match.”
“Oh, Ray.” He hiccuped. “I can’t believe I made it back to you.”
“I just got one thing to say to you.”
“What’s that?”
“You hang on to that Santa suit, mister, because as soon as the doctor gives me the thumbs up on having sex, I want you coming down my chimney.”
“You bawdy old woman.”
“Damn straight. It’s one of the things you love most about me.” Raylene scooted over, patted a spot on the bed beside her.
Earl kicked off his Santa suit and climbed in beside her. He pulled her into his arms, and she rested her head against his chest. There in Twilight General Hospital, two former high school sweethearts, who’d lost their way, were finally, at long last, reunited for good.
Christine
CHAPTER ONE
Even though she wished she could fast-forward her life and skip right over Christmas this year, Christine Noble smiled at her departing customers.
“Happy holidays,” she called over the merry jangle of jingle bells fixed to the door, wrigg
ling her fingers in a wave she hoped didn’t look as half-hearted as she felt.
The smell of yeast, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin permeated the cheerful yellow walls of the Twilight Bakery on that sunny Monday morning. Christine hummed along with “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” playing on the satellite radio. She took a bite of cookie from the sample pieces she kept on the counter beside the register. A spicy burst of chipotle-spiked chocolate melted sweetly on her tongue. The texture of the cookie had just the right combination of chewy crispness. It was a new recipe. Her own creation. And pretty darn tasty, if she did say so herself.
A casual observer would assume Christine was filled with Christmas spirit. He would be wrong.
Despite the smile on her face, the delightful aroma in her shop, the upbeat song on her lips, and the flavor of the perfect cookie in her mouth, Christine’s heart was breaking. Her parents were spending the holidays in Europe with her younger G.I. brother and his wife and kids. She hadn’t been able to go, because she was baking the wedding cake for a Christmas Eve wedding. Her darling cat, Cocoa, which she’d had for fifteen years, had passed away three days before. And then there was the letter that had arrived that morning from the last-chance specialist confirming what many other physicians had told her over the years. In spite of all the marvels of modern fertility medicine, Christine would never, ever be able to have children of her own.
She was thirty-one, single, and childless, when what she wanted more than anything in the world was a baby in her arms. What seemed so easy for most people was for her the equivalent of scaling Mount Everest in December without a Sherpa. Futile. Hopeless. Impossible.
What man would ever want a woman who couldn’t bear him children?
But life after her accident had taught her one important lesson. Attitude mattered. So she refused to have a pity party. She smiled, and she hummed, and she took pride in her bakery. She tried hard not to think too much about everything she was losing.
The buzzer in the back of the bakery went off. She limped toward the door separating the bakery storefront from the kitchen. The smells were richer in there, robust and warm. She grabbed industrial potholders, took banana-nut cupcakes from the oven, and put them on a cooling rack. They were the last batch of the day, so she turned off the oven and tracked over to the sink to wash her hands. She pulled a tube of lotion from her apron pocket and slathered it over her chapped skin.