Christmas in Cambria

by Linda Seed

  “My first husband was like that,” Dolly said. “Always worrying about his career, always working long days that stretched into night. Finally, I’d just had it. ‘Bob,’ I said, ‘you can have that damned job or you can have me, but you can’t have both.’”

  “What kind of work did he do?” Delilah wanted to know.

  “Oh, he was a financial analyst. Still is. His second wife left him a few years after I did.” She shook her head, frowning. “He had a stroke two years ago. The way he’s going, it won’t be his last.” She perked up and patted her hands once on her thighs. “But, my Harold is a gem. If I hadn’t gotten that divorce, I never would have met him. Things have a way of working out, honey.”

  Delilah was beginning to feel the first stirrings of hope that for her, they just might.

  Chapter 24

  Over the following weeks, Delilah spent a lot of time with Quinn, mostly in the company of Jesse and Gavin.

  They drove to Solvang, where the faux-Danish village with its Delft figurines and its pastry shops was holding an array of Christmas-themed activities.

  At a mall in Santa Barbara, they split up into various combinations of adult plus child so everyone could shop for everyone else without ruining the surprise.

  The boys and Delilah baked festively decorated cookies, which Quinn pronounced delicious.

  And Quinn perfected his technique of sneaking out the sliding glass door in Delilah’s bedroom, then making his escape through the back gate, as they couldn’t keep imposing on Dolly every time they wanted to be alone together.

  On top of all of that, there was no way they could miss the biggest holiday event in town: the Cambria Christmas Market, hosted every year by the Cambria Pines Lodge.

  They attended the market on a Wednesday evening—Quinn had warned Delilah that the event got far too crowded on the weekends for them to achieve optimal fun.

  “You’re going to love it,” Quinn told the boys when he arrived that night to pick up the Ballard family. “Santa’s going to be there, but you’ve already talked to him, so we can skip that part.”

  “I want to talk to Santa again,” Gavin said earnestly, looking up at Quinn with wide eyes, Waffles tucked under his arm.

  Quinn looked skeptical. “Well, he’s busy, and he’s already got your list. But I’ll ask if he can squeeze you in a second time. You never know—he might have a cancellation.”

  Gavin nodded and bounced up and down a few times on his toes.

  They drove along Main Street, up Santa Rosa Creek Road, and to the high school, where Quinn found a parking space in the student lot.

  “This doesn’t look like a Christmas thing.” Jesse looked around in dismay as they got out of the car. “This just looks like a closed-up school.”

  “We’re just here to catch the bus to the market,” Quinn reassured him. “The parking lot at the lodge is too small, so people park other places and go there on the bus. You’ll see.”

  They waited in a long line of people dressed in down jackets, hats, and gloves against the December chill. Jesse and Gavin had resisted letting their mother bundle them up, but she’d insisted, and now she was glad she had. The temperature had dipped into the forties, which was mild compared to what they were used to in Connecticut, but which still required proper outerwear.

  The four of them piled onto the bus, rode across town to Lodge Hill—and emerged into a wonderland of so many tiny colored lights that they seemed to make the night sky vibrate in hues of red and green.

  Lights covered wire-framed animals and elves. Lights covered the hedges that separated the lodge grounds from the road. Lights adorned the ground amid imitation snowdrifts and fairy-tale hills. Lights formed an archway over their heads. And even more lights formed the outlines of sleds, reindeer, angels, and gingerbread men.

  Christmas carols played on the speaker system as they followed a path that wound through the lodge grounds, past the Grinch’s hideout, past stands offering hot cocoa and Christmas crafts, and through the beer garden—which they avoided for the sake of the children.

  They stopped at Santa’s cottage, where a line of children waited with their parents to have their photos taken on St. Nick’s lap.

  Jesse had hedged his bets by visiting Santa once, but he’d decided that doing it twice would wound his dignity. So he and Delilah sat on a nearby bench while Quinn took Gavin through the line.

  Delilah watched as Quinn bent down to murmur something in Gavin’s ear and Gavin nodded solemnly in response.

  After they visited Santa and came back, Delilah asked Quinn, “What did you say to him just before you went in?”

  “I told him I had to pull some strings to get him in.” Quinn grinned as they watched the boys, who were ten yards away looking at a display of carved wooden toys. “I said I took the head elf on a nature trek some years back, so I had an in.”

  Delilah laughed. “You did not tell him that.”

  Quinn’s eyebrows shot up. “I did. I told him we had to use elf magic to scare away a bear.”

  Grinning, she linked her arm in his. “You’re great with them. Really great.”

  So much better than their father ever was.

  He shrugged. “I like them. I like the hell out of them. I didn’t know kids could be so much fun.”

  “They can be, when they’re not fighting with each other or refusing to pick up after themselves.”

  “Those two?” Quinn made a show of his surprise. “I can’t imagine they’re ever anything but perfect angels.”

  “Right. Let’s see what you think when you’ve known them for a few years.” As soon as she said it, she wanted to take it back. How could she assume that Quinn would stick around that long? Or that she would?

  “I didn’t mean …” she began.

  “How about some kettle corn?” he said, interrupting her. “There’s a booth back over there, I think.”

  Jesse and Gavin were asleep in the back of the car by the time they got back to Otter Bluff. Carefully, Delilah unbuckled Gavin from his booster seat and Quinn unlatched Jesse’s seatbelt, and they carried the boys inside and lay them down in their beds. The fact that they managed to do it without waking the kids was a minor Christmas miracle.

  When the kids were down, Delilah and Quinn sneaked out of their rooms, closing their doors softly.

  Quinn wanted to tell Delilah she was a lucky woman to have such smart, inquisitive, loving, and funny sons. But telling her that would have left his own wounds raw and exposed. So far, he’d managed to keep this thing with Delilah separate from his issues with his family, and he wanted it to stay that way.

  When they were standing together in the living room, she turned to him. “That thing I said earlier, about how you’d feel differently when you’ve known the boys for years …”

  “Yeah. You looked like you swallowed your tongue right after you said that.” He ran his hands up her arms and let them settle on her shoulders.

  “I just … It popped out, and I … If you thought I was making any assumptions …”

  He kissed her once, briefly. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “This thing between us is so new, and I shouldn’t have expected that you—”

  “Really. Don’t worry about it.”

  But he knew they would have to worry about it at some point—and soon. The clock was ticking, time was running out, and they would have to decide whether to continue their relationship once Delilah’s stay at Otter Bluff was up.

  From his end of things, the answer was yes—he definitely wanted to continue seeing her. But if he said that now, he might be pushing it. He wasn’t sure she was there yet.

  So he played it casual, shrugging it off: don’t worry about it, we don’t have to talk about it, of course you didn’t mean it.

  But he hoped she had meant it, even if she wasn’t ready to admit it yet.

  “Delilah?”

  “Mmm?”

  He ran one thumb gently along her cheek, and her eyes slipped closed a
s she tipped her face up toward his. Then he kissed her. It was a slow and leisurely kiss, soft and caressing, and he ended it by taking her lower lip gently between his teeth before letting her go.

  “Am I staying or going?” His voice was a low murmur.

  Her eyes fluttered open, as though she were waking from a particularly satisfactory dream.

  Instead of answering him, she took his hand and led him toward her room.

  Delilah had set her bedside alarm so Quinn could leave before Jesse and Gavin got up. They were both early risers, so it was barely past six a.m. when she nudged Quinn’s shoulder and whispered for him to wake up.

  Before he’d even opened his eyes, Quinn reached for her, but Delilah put her hands on his chest and held him at a respectable distance.

  “Quinn, you’ve got to go. The boys will be up in half an hour. Maybe less.”

  Despite the gap between them, Quinn nuzzled his face against hers and nipped her earlobe with his teeth.

  “Quinn!” Her tone was the same one she used when she needed to reprimand one of the boys in public: a kind of whisper-yell that communicated urgency without the volume.

  “Maybe they’ll sleep in,” he said.

  “They never sleep in.”

  “Maybe they will today. We had a big day yesterday.”

  “They never sleep in. Never. So get out of bed and put your pants on.”

  Quinn grumbled a little, but he did get out of bed and reach for his pants. “You know, it might not be a complete disaster if they knew I was here.” He scratched at the stubble growing on his chin. “I mean, they like me. I like them. What’s the harm?”

  Delilah got out of bed and put on a robe. “The fact that they like you is the problem. If they get their hopes up that you and I are going to be a permanent thing …”

  “Well … you’ve made it pretty clear you don’t want that to happen.” He pulled up his jeans and snapped them, then found his shirt and put it on over his head.

  “Quinn, that’s not—”

  “I get it, okay?” He slipped his shoes onto his feet, realized he’d forgotten his socks, then found the socks and stuffed them in his pockets. He grabbed his jacket off the chair next to the bed and plucked his car keys from the dresser.

  “Are you mad at me?” Delilah stood there with her hair mussed and her robe pulled around her, her feet bare and vulnerable-looking.

  “Nope. Not mad. Just … adjusting my expectations.” He opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the patio.

  Delilah followed him. She caught his arm as he headed toward the gate that separated the back yard from the road.

  “Quinn, stop. I didn’t mean—”

  “I gotta go, like you said. Wouldn’t want the boys to be crushed when you dump me.”

  He went through the gate, got into his car, and drove away.

  Chapter 25

  Quinn hadn’t meant for his overnighter with Delilah to end so disastrously. The date with her and the kids had gone so well—and then he’d had to show her his hurt feelings.

  Damn it, he knew better than that. When you showed a woman your hurt feelings, you lost your advantage. If he’d ever had an advantage in the first place.

  He could blame it on the fact that he’d been groggy from sleep. He hadn’t had coffee yet. Hell, he hadn’t even peed yet.

  But he’d only said what he was really feeling. He had been hurt by the implication that what he had with Delilah was some dirty secret that had to be hidden from her sons. He’d been hurt by her constant reminders that this thing wasn’t going anywhere and was only a fling.

  He drove home, let himself into his house, and went through his normal morning routine of coffee, shower, breakfast. While he did, he brooded about everything that had happened.

  Quinn had told Delilah that he didn’t mind climbing out the window and falling into the hedges. Metaphorically. But he did mind, it turned out. He wanted a clear, visible place in her life. He didn’t want to be some kind of shameful secret.

  When he was dressed and fed and ready to begin his day, he responded to some e-mails from potential clients wanting to book day hikes; he began making corrections to the furniture website in response to the notes the client had sent him; and he made some notes for an article about largely overlooked hiking trails in the Big Sur area where you could go when you wanted to get away from the tourist crowds and be alone with nature.

  It occurred to him that if he managed to sell the article to one of the larger outdoors magazines, the trails might not be so overlooked anymore. But that couldn’t be helped.

  Just as he was brainstorming ideas for the article, listing trails and some pros and cons for each, someone knocked on his door.

  He got up, dressed in faded jeans and a sweatshirt that was fraying at the edges, and answered it.

  “Oh. Mrs. Foster.”

  His first thought was that he’d been playing his music too loud, then he realized he hadn’t been playing any music.

  “Quinn, dear. I was just popping by to see if you’re okay. I noticed you didn’t come home last night.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t come home a lot of nights.” She’d never come asking about him when he slept in the van after a long hike, so why was she here now?

  “Well, I suppose that’s true. But I’m a worrier, so—”

  “You’re not really a worrier, Mrs. Foster.” Where was this going? What was she getting at?

  “Oh, all right.” She deflated a little at being caught out in her lie. “My friend Dolly told me your car was in front of that Delilah Ballard’s place all night, and I came to find out if you’re finally going to settle down with a nice girl. By the way, I’d love a cup of tea. Do you have some?”

  “So, she basically told me to get out.” Quinn wrapped up his story as Mrs. Foster finished her tea. “It’s like she thinks I’m going to corrupt her kids or something.”

  “Oh, Quinn, she doesn’t think that.”

  They were sitting at his dining table, a mug of tea in front of Mrs. Foster, Quinn with a cup of strong coffee. He’d scrounged around in his cupboard and found an unopened pack of cookies he’d forgotten about, and several of them sat on a plate between them.

  “Really?” he said. “Because it sure seemed that way.”

  “She’s protecting her children. You can’t blame a mother for that.”

  “Protecting them from me? I’ve never been anything but nice to those boys.”

  “Oh.” She waved a hand to dismiss what he’d said. “She’s not protecting them because she thinks you’re some kind of danger. She’s protecting them because she doesn’t want to break their hearts. Honey, those kids have lost their father. Yes, he’s still there, but he’s half a world away, and he didn’t choose them. That hurts. Delilah doesn’t want her boys to love you and then lose you if things don’t work out.”

  He shifted in his chair to face her more fully. “Who says things won’t work out?”

  “Delilah’s life experience, for one.” She shook her head sadly. “A woman gives her life to a man—really gives it to him—and then gets thrown aside for someone else? You don’t get over that right away, and for her, it probably feels like it happened yesterday.”

  He could see the sense in what she was saying, and he reluctantly had to admit she had a point.

  Even though he felt like shit, he allowed Mrs. Foster a slight grin. “You know a lot about Delilah for someone who’s never met her.”

  “I know a lot about people, that’s all.” She shrugged. “That, and the fact that Dolly and I do like to talk. What fun is it to live in a small town if you can’t know everything about your neighbors?”

  Delilah went through her morning routine worrying about how she’d left things with Quinn.

  Part of her was angry. She’d explained to him why she couldn’t let Jesse and Gavin know they were a couple. Hadn’t she? And hadn’t he said he understood?

  If he couldn’t live with the conditio
ns she’d set on their relationship, then maybe he should find someone else and move on.

  But the idea of him finding someone else made her sick with dread. What if he did? What if he really did decide that dating Delilah was too complicated? He could find another woman—someone single, someone fully available to him—in a heartbeat.

  When Delilah thought of how he made her feel, when she thought of all of the fun they’d had together, the thought of never having that again felt like a death—like a tragedy.

  And, okay, maybe she hadn’t been fair to him.

  As she made pancakes for Jesse and Gavin, she thought about how she would feel if she were seeing someone she cared about and that person treated their relationship like some kind of shameful secret.

  She hadn’t done that—not really. Quinn had spent lots of time with the boys. She wouldn’t have allowed that if she hadn’t thought he was good for them.

  But she’d kept the nature of the relationship a secret from them, and to Quinn, that had to hurt. He might understand it better if he were a father, but he wasn’t. There were some things you just couldn’t explain to someone who hadn’t lived them.

  She flipped a batch of pancakes on the griddle, lost in thought. She didn’t realize Jesse was talking to her until he’d raised his voice to repeat himself.

  “Mom! I asked if we could have chocolate chips in our pancakes.”

  She blinked a few times as though she’d been startled awake. “Oh. No, sweetie, we still don’t have any.”

  “Aww.”

  “But we do have some leftover whipped cream from our hot cocoa. You could put that on your pancakes.”

  Mollified, Jesse scrambled down from the barstool at the kitchen island and went to tell his brother about the whipped cream windfall.

  It seemed to Delilah that she had to make a decision. Did she think things with Quinn were serious enough to let the boys in on the fact that they were dating? Or was this secrecy thing a hill she was willing to die on?