The Forever Christmas Tree

by Sandra Hill

  “Okay,” his grandmother said, but she would probably work anyway, even if she called in Sally Morgan. She added, “Make sure I left the Crock-Pot on low. We’re having chili for dinner.”

  Even with all these stops, Ethan was a half hour early for his meeting. The lighthouse section of the beach probably wasn’t the best place to be meeting Wendy, but he hadn’t wanted their conversation to be in the public eye, more grist for the mill. If the town gossips had him closing his business and moving lock, stock, and barrel to the mainland, he could only imagine what they would do with an image of him and Wendy together, the Sweethearts of Bell Cove, second in legendary love only to his grandmother and grandfather. They’d have him chucking this burg again, but this time on his way to California where he would be a househusband to a female Navy SEAL, or else become a SEAL himself.

  As if!

  He was probably worrying about nothing. Wendy probably didn’t even remember that the lighthouse was where they had first made love. Sixteen years old and steaming with testosterone and hormones.

  He got out of his pickup and turned up the collar on his jacket before walking across the sand. The temperature wasn’t that low today, but the breeze off the ocean made it feel like a nor’easter blowing in.

  The weather further reassured Ethan that Wendy wouldn’t have a problem with this meeting place because it had been a hot summer evening when the big event had taken place. Back then, the lighthouse had already been closed for a year, in need of repairs, which it still needed. Maybe he could suggest some of the grinch money go toward its restoration.

  In any case, after that first time, they’d made love whenever and wherever they could, which hadn’t been easy in such a small town, with his father and grandmother always around, or Wendy’s father and aunt. That expression, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” could have been written about them, though. The attic bedroom of the Patterson house on those rare occasions when no one was home (and almost got caught more than once), the barn that still stood back then on his grandmother’s property (the straw rash on both their butts had been like a badge of honor to their fool minds), a bath stall at the pool (whoever said public sex was a turn-on didn’t understand teenage anxiety), a utility closet at school (with the smell of industrial-strength disinfectant being forever after associated in his mind with sex), on the dunes at night (Can anyone say sand fleas?), in the cabin of a rented powerboat (Try fitting a six-foot-two male onto a five-foot cot!) . . . oh, the risks they took! But not where protection was concerned. He had always been meticulous about using a condom until Wendy managed to get a prescription for birth control pills from a doctor over on Nags Head.

  Too bad he hadn’t been as careful with Beth Anne. The reason, pure and simple, had been alcohol. That’s why he’d never overindulged since then, in booze or casual sex.

  He tried to see in the salt-crusted window of the lighthouse, to no avail. There probably wasn’t even any furniture in there anymore, and if there was, it would be rotted with damp and mold.

  He heard a car engine and turned to see Wendy pull into the parking area in her aunt’s old green Camry. He remembered when Aunt Mildred had bought that car and been so proud of its pretty green color, which she’d claimed matched her eyes.

  Once the engine was off, Wendy got out of the vehicle and began to walk toward him. She wore her mother’s red coat, buttoned the whole way up against the chill, and her short hair blew every which way with the wind.

  If I could turn the clock back twelve years, her eyes would light up on first seeing me, instead of gazing at me with suspicion, even fear. She would run full speed, arms spread wide, and I would catch her and twirl us both in a circle, her long hair making a reddish-brown spiderweb around our faces. Pure joy! Just at being with each other! We would get dizzy with the spinning and fall to the ground where I would nuzzle her neck and inhale the sea-salt scent on her skin. Then I would kiss her hello.

  She tripped and said a foul word under her breath. Nothing joyful there.

  When she got close enough to hear him, he started to say, “The reason I wanted us to meet was . . .”

  But she spoke at the same time. “The reason I agreed to meet with you was . . .”

  They both said as one then, “. . . closure.” And laughed because they had always finished each other’s sentences. Some things didn’t change.

  But then he discovered that Wendy’s idea of closure was different from his.

  She reached out and slapped him across the face, hard.

  Chapter 11

  Heaven laughed the day man invented the word “closure” . . .

  “Oh. My. God!” Wendy put a stinging palm to her chest and stared, appalled, at the rising marks on Ethan’s cheek. “I am so sorry, Ethan. I never intended to do that.”

  Ethan stared at her, equally shocked, but then he yanked her into his arms and kissed her, hard. Then soft. Then hard again, before putting her away from him and shaking his head with disbelief. “I never intended to do that, either. I swear I didn’t.”

  They gaped at each other.

  She pressed her fingertips to her lips, testing for bruises, or just to check whether he’d actually kissed her. If you could call it a kiss! More like a reciprocal slap!

  Then they both burst out laughing.

  “Well, now that we have that out of the way,” Wendy said with a calmness that surprised her because inside her emotions were roiling.

  What would he do if I put my hand to his face and traced the red finger marks I raised? Would he turn his mouth against my palm the way he used to? Would the tip of his tongue tickle the skin and raise goose bumps on other parts of my body?

  Or maybe he would trace my lips which he’d just kissed so hard, in anger. Then softer, in apology? Then hard again?

  His emotions must be conflicted, too.

  “Can we start over?” Ethan inquired, smiling sadly.

  She flashed back to the present with his words. Surely, he didn’t mean . . .

  Without waiting for a reply, he said, “Forget that bad start there. I’m glad you came, Wendy.”

  Oh, so that’s what he meant. Not that I would want him to mean it any other way.

  “I know this isn’t an ideal meeting place, especially with the chill factor, but I didn’t want the gawkers-turned-gossipers to have a field day. Damn, I’m rambling like an idiot, aren’t I?”

  She nodded her understanding, of both the need for privacy and of his nervousness, and motioned for them to walk, in the opposite direction from the lighthouse. The brief dart of his gaze toward the old structure told her loud and clear that he remembered as well as she did what had happened there. On the other hand, he was a guy, and guys weren’t sentimental about such things.

  Although the view off the barrier islands was spectacular, there were no nice beaches on Bell Cove, and this section was no different. Some sand and sea grass and occasional scrub pines, but mostly rocks. Luckily, they both wore flat-heeled boots and were able to manage the uneven terrain. It was cold so close to the water with the wind biting the bare skin of her face, but her mother’s coat was warm, and, frankly, she felt a bit overheated with nervousness. Ethan was dressed for the weather, too, in a drab green parka over an ivory, cable-knit sweater and jeans. Whether he was overheated or not didn’t bear thinking about.

  “You first,” Wendy said. “You’ve implied that I deserted you twelve years ago without giving you a chance to plead your case.”

  “I’m not sure that ‘pleading my case’ is the right term. There was no excuse for what I did, but it’s what happened afterward that knocked me flat. Call it an eighteen-year-old’s delusion, but when I confessed my sin, I thought you and I, together, would be able to weather the storm.”

  “Are you mocking me when you use the word sin, like it was no big deal?”

  “Huh? I said sin and I meant sin. Not in the church sense, but in a wrong I did you. Hell, Wendy, don’t get your feathers all ruffled over semantics or we�
��ll never move forward.”

  Her feathers got further ruffled at his mentioning her feathers, but she managed to tamp her temper down. “You expected me to stay in the same town where a woman—a girl, really—was growing bigger and bigger with your child?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking. It’s just that all my life, till then, it had been you and me. A couple. I foolishly thought our love could weather any storm.” He stumbled over the word love as if he wasn’t sure it was the right one to describe their teenage emotion. “I sound like a friggin’ Hallmark card.”

  Yeah, he does. In an adorable way. But no, no, no. I will not let him distract me. “Ethan! Beth Anne had already moved into your house. That was more than a storm. That was a tsunami.”

  “She moved into our house because she had nowhere else to go. Her parents kicked her out when they learned of her pregnancy. You remember how religious the Collins family were and how strict they were with their kids?”

  Actually, she didn’t remember the Collins family, at all, and she’d barely known Beth Anne in high school. In those days, all of Wendy’s attention was focused on Ethan, or her swimming, or her best friend, Laura. That was it.

  “I don’t mean to be callous, but why couldn’t she have gone to one of those agencies that help pregnant teens?”

  He raised his chin defiantly. “It was my baby, Wendy. I had an obligation.”

  She shrugged. In truth, she wouldn’t have expected any less of the boy she had loved back then. And, yes, she had loved him, no matter how he tried to color it now. “So, our parting was predestined from the moment you got the news from Beth Anne.”

  “No! Not at all! My family would have helped Beth Anne through the pregnancy. We didn’t have to marry. I could have still gone to the university to begin my studies. I know, I know, it sounds naïve now, but I truly believed you and I, together, could make it work with . . .” He let his words trails off.

  “With love?” she jeered. More Hallmark wish-wash, in her opinion. “So, how soon after I left did you marry Beth Anne?”

  He rubbed a hand over his face for a moment before looking at her, directly, and admitted, “One month.”

  She gasped, never expecting it had been so soon. And, for a guy who claimed marriage wouldn’t have been necessary, why had he done it at all?

  “At Beth Anne’s first prenatal visit, it was discovered that she had the beginning stages of MS. Some forms of the disease are more virulent than others, and one thing that can trigger acceleration is stress. Even pregnancy itself can be a stress factor. The doctors recommended abortion, but Beth Anne was adamant about having the baby. She figured it might be her only chance. As a result, she spent most of the pregnancy in bed or in the hospital.”

  “And that’s why you never went to college?”

  He nodded.

  “I pictured you there, at UNC. With Beth Anne. Living in married housing or something. The perfect little family.”

  He made a scoffing sound. “Never left Bell Cove.”

  “And the baby? You said your daughter doesn’t have MS, but is her handicap related to Beth Anne’s condition?”

  He bristled.

  Something she’d said must have hit a sore spot.

  “Cassie was born with some hip complications. They can be corrected with surgery, and she’s already had six of those, but the problem is that she’s a growing child, her bones are still developing. It’s best to wait till she’s sixteen, or reached her full growth, before doing a full-blown hip replacement. After that, she would ideally need only two or three more operations over a lifetime. Otherwise, she can lead a normal life. I don’t like to think of her as handicapped.” He glanced over at her sheepishly, realizing he’d probably overreacted by over-explaining.

  So, that’s how she’d offended him, with the word handicap? “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive. It’s obvious how much you love your daughter, Ethan.”

  “I do. More than I ever imagined caring for another human being.”

  Including me? she wondered, but what she said was, “Even having to give up your dream of becoming a vet?”

  He combed his fingers through his hair, which was damp from the mist off the water, while he sought the right answer. “The thing about dreams is they’re not real. I probably wasn’t meant to be an animal doctor, and I would have discovered that along the way if Cassie hadn’t come along.”

  “You’re not saying that you shifted your dream to that of your father and grandfather?” That was too much of a stretch for Wendy to accept. Growing up, Ethan had hated tree farming, and especially the obsession the males in his family had with developing an Outer Banks Christmas tree.

  “Hardly. I still hate digging in the dirt, mucking about in fertilizers, picking off bugs, the constant pruning, but I discovered that I have a knack for business and sales.”

  “Actually, I knew that, as of this morning. Based on something Aunt Mil said, I googled ‘Rutledge Trees’ on the Internet. Very impressive stats! Plus, the rumor mill has it that you just bought a lot more land to increase production.”

  “The rumor mill! Remember what Nana used to say about gossip? The Devil’s Radio,” Ethan said with a shake of his head. “Now it’s your turn to bare all.”

  As they’d been walking along the shore, every little thing Ethan said or did evoked a memory.

  The way he combed his fingers through his hair, short as it was, when at a loss for words. He’d been doing that for as long as she could remember. Kindergarten, even, when she’d asked him if she should color the sky blue or gray on her picture. He’d been so cute back then, shy, inclined to blush when singled out by of all things, a girl! He still was. Cute. Well, more like handsome now. As for blushing, yes, there was a slight flush at his inadvertent use of the words “your turn to bare all,” which was exactly what he’d said that first time they’d made love.

  He’d taken off all his clothes, and although they’d been “making out” every which way but actual intercourse, driving each other crazy, for more than a year, it was the first time she’d actually seen him in the buff. At the time, his saying it was her turn to bare all had seemed like the sexiest, coolest thing in the world.

  But she knew what he meant now, and it had nothing to do with sex.

  “I was shocked and devastated, Ethan. In retrospect, I could have handled things better, especially in how my behavior affected my dad and Aunt Mil. My only excuse is that I was eighteen and emotional.”

  “Where did you go?” he asked and took her hand to steer them around a large piece of driftwood and back the way they’d come. When he didn’t let go but instead laced his fingers with hers, she should have objected. But it was probably just a reflex action and her calling attention to it would make it seem as if his touch bothered her.

  Which it did.

  Funny how couples today don’t appreciate the sensuality in little things, like holding hands. They are always in a hurry in this fast-paced digital world where speed is king. Maybe that’s why my relationships since Ethan have been unsuccessful. I haven’t found a good hand-holder. There’s something to be said for just the press of a large male palm against a smaller, softer female one. The slow slide of skin surfaces, causing nerve endings to stand to attention. Then, fingers spreading and sliding into nature’s intended slots, male and female. Finally, the press of two hands into one fist. It was a slow dance, when done properly. A preamble to more intimate things. But, oh, the joy of just holding hands!

  “Wendy? I asked you where you went when you left Bell Cove,” Ethan reminded her.

  She shook her head to clear it of wandering thoughts. “At first, I went to my mother’s stepsister in Maryland. I don’t know if you remember, but Lizzie Samuels came to Mom’s funeral, the first I’d known she even existed. She was a lot older and they’d never been raised together, but anyhow, I just showed up on Aunt Liz’s doorstep in Annapolis, and luckily she took me in until I could decide what to do.”

  “I lo
oked for you, but no one would tell me anything. In fact, your dad threatened to get a restraining order if I didn’t stop bothering him.”

  “I didn’t know that, but then I warned Dad and Aunt Mil to never mention your name or I’d cut off contact totally.” She thought for a moment. “It sounds so melodramatic now, but it was the only way I could move forward back then. Maybe if my mother had been alive, she could have talked some sense into me.”

  “Still, you must have landed on your feet. You went to college. Not UNC, but at least you got an education. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t continue on to med school, instead of joining the Navy. I mean, really, Wendy, you, a soldier?”

  “You’d be surprised.” She made a fierce fighting face at him, which caused him to laugh. She liked that she could make him laugh when he was in such a serious mood, especially after she’d practically decked him with that slap. “I really floundered in college, in pre-med. I discovered that I really didn’t like all that science. In fact, I hated it, and for the first time began to question my medical vocation. It was the Navy that came to me, not the other way around. Well, the Navy special command in Coronado that encompasses SEALs and WEALS. They recruited me for the program. It was my swimming that got me noticed.”

  “They do that?”

  “Sometimes. They look to Olympic and college athletes who excel in skills that would do well in their programs. In my case, swimming and diving. I was still doing that on a competitive level.”

  “Yeah, I know. Flipper.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Your friend, JAM. Met him in the bookstore earlier.”

  She considered asking what else JAM disclosed but set that question aside for now. “At the time WEALS came shopping, I was undecided about what direction I wanted to head next, and a friend of mine was trying out.” She shrugged.