Christmas in Cambria

by Linda Seed

  She called Jesse back into the kitchen, put a plate of pancakes with whipped cream in front of him, and went to work on making a batch for Gavin.

  As she worked, she said casually, “Jesse?”

  “Hmmf?” His mouth was too full of pancake for him to utter more than a vague sound.

  “I was just wondering … What would you think if I … if I maybe started seeing someone? Like a boyfriend? Someone other than your father?”

  Jesse chewed, swallowed, and without hesitation said, “Quinn should be your boyfriend.”

  She was so startled that her mouth fell open. Then she composed herself. “He should? Do you think so?”

  Jesse nodded. “Yeah. He’s fun. And you’re different when he’s around.”

  “I’m different?”

  He nodded again and shoved a forkful of pancake into his mouth. When he’d eaten the mouthful, he said, “Yeah. You’re like … sparkly.”

  “I’m sparkly?” For some reason, she seemed to be repeating whatever he said.

  “Kinda. It’s neat.”

  Delilah finished making Gavin’s pancakes, then called him in for breakfast.

  When he was seated with his food in front of him, she posed the same question to him. “Hey, Gavin? What would you think if Quinn was my boyfriend?”

  Gavin’s reaction was even more enthusiastic than Jesse’s. He bounced up and down in his seat, his eyes wide. “Is he? Is he really your boyfriend?”

  “Well … maybe.”

  “So are you going to get married? Is he going to come and live with us?”

  “No, honey. No. We’re just getting to know each other.”

  “But when you’re done getting to know each other? Maybe then?” Jesse asked.

  The boys were so excited, so enthusiastic, that Delilah knew she’d been right to worry that their hearts would be broken if things didn’t work out.

  But what if things did work out?

  “Guys.” Delilah leaned her elbows against the counter to face them. “It’s way too soon to think about Quinn living with us. Way too soon. And I want you to know that if Quinn and I are a couple … it might work out, or it might not. We could date and get to know each other and still decide we don’t want to be together.”

  “Like you and Dad,” Jesse said.

  “Well … sort of.” She reached out and took Jesse’s hand in one of hers and Gavin’s in the other. “Guys … people date to find out if they want to be together. And sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. I’m just afraid that if Quinn and I do become a couple and it doesn’t work out, all three of us will be really sad. Just like when Dad left.”

  “Or we could be happy,” Gavin said.

  She squeezed his hand. “You’re right. That’s possible, too. We could be really, really happy.”

  She called Quinn later that day.

  “I asked the boys what they would think if you and I were a couple.”

  “You did?” He sounded surprised, and she hoped the surprise would outweigh any anger or hurt he might still be feeling.

  “I did.”

  “And what did they say?”

  She let out a breath. “They wondered when you’re going to come live with us.”

  “Oh. I don’t … That’s not …”

  “Relax. I told them you and I are just getting to know each other, and sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn’t. That kind of thing.”

  He was silent for a moment, and she gave him time to absorb what she’d said. Clearly, he was flustered. She supposed she would be, too, under the same circumstances.

  After a moment, he let out a breath. “Mrs. Foster told me you were trying to protect them from getting their hopes up, but I thought … Hell, I don’t know what I thought. I guess she was right.”

  “Mrs. Foster?” Delilah said.

  “Yeah, my neighbor.”

  “Why does your neighbor know about my kids’ hopes?”

  “She’s a friend of Dolly’s. She knows everything, apparently.”

  Delilah wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed with Dolly. On one hand, Delilah didn’t love the fact that her romantic relationship was being bandied about on Main Street. On the other, Dolly had been such a help since Delilah and the boys had arrived in Cambria, it was hard to be too upset with her about anything.

  “Well … yes. Mrs. Foster was right. The boys took to you so strongly from the first moment they met you that I thought it would be devastating for them if they thought we were a thing and then suddenly we weren’t a thing anymore.” Privately, Delilah reflected that it wasn’t just the boys who would be devastated if that happened.

  Protecting her sons was important. Essential. But protecting herself mattered, too.

  Still, if she didn’t take a chance, how would she ever find something good to replace all the bad that had happened to her? How would she ever realize reward without risk?

  “I get it,” Quinn said. “I’m sorry I gave you a hard time about it. I get where you’re coming from.”

  But that wasn’t why she’d called, was it? She hadn’t called to reinforce her position. She’d called to change it.

  “Quinn?”

  “Yeah?”

  She steeled herself to say what she needed to say to him.

  “If this is just fun for you, that’s okay. It really is. But we need to end it now, before the boys get hurt.” And before I do. “But if it might be more than that, potentially … well … I think it’s time for us to be open about it with the boys.”

  “You do?”

  “I do. I really do.”

  Quinn had so many conflicting reactions to what Delilah was saying that he almost felt dizzy. He sat down on the edge of his sofa, the cell phone to his ear.

  The sound of her saying the words I do made him feel vaguely sick—but not in a bad way. More like the way you felt when the bottom dropped out from under you in a carnival ride. You thought you might puke, but that didn’t mean you wanted the ride to stop.

  He’d been wanting her to tell the kids. He’d pushed her to do it. But now that she was giving him what he wanted, it also meant that he had to take a stand, here and now.

  Either he thought this thing might become serious, or he didn’t.

  Suit up or go home.

  “Quinn?”

  It wasn’t until she spoke that he realized he hadn’t said anything.

  “I’m in,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Hell … yes. I’m all in.”

  He couldn’t know this soon into the relationship whether things were going to become serious. But he knew he wanted to find out, and he knew he didn’t want her to leave at the end of the month without him.

  The idea of getting to January first and never seeing her again? Hell, never seeing Jesse and Gavin again? It was intolerable. It was a worst-case scenario that he couldn’t let happen.

  The whole thing felt a little bit like diving into a swimming pool without checking first to see if there was any water in it.

  But, hell. He’d will the water into existence if he had to.

  Chapter 26

  Quinn and Delilah took the boys out for pizza at JJ’s to talk about what it meant that they were, in fact, a couple.

  They couched it in all sorts of disclaimers, saying they were just dating, it might not work out, they were just getting to know each other, etc. But it felt to Delilah like a momentous occasion—because it was.

  Jesse reacted with unbridled excitement, leaping out of his seat, bouncing up and down on his toes, and exclaiming with enthusiasm. Gavin silently inserted his thumb into his mouth—a sure sign that something was bothering him.

  “Gavin? Sweetheart, what are you thinking?” Delilah asked.

  Wide-eyed, he pulled out the thumb just long enough to ask, “Does this mean Dad isn’t our dad anymore?

  Delilah’s heart ached, and her throat grew thick with emotion. She wondered if all of this was a mistake.

  “No, honey.
No, it doesn’t mean that. Your dad will always be your dad.”

  “Listen, big guy,” Quinn said. “I don’t want to take anybody’s place, okay? I’m not trying to be your new dad—I know you already have one. I just want to get to know your mom better and maybe be your friend. Do you think you’d be okay with that?”

  Gavin nodded, the thumb back in place.

  “Does this mean you’re going to live with us?” Jesse asked. “Are you gonna come to Connecticut when we go back there? Are you and Mom gonna get married?”

  Jesse and Gavin had asked similar questions when she’d first brought up the subject of her relationship with Quinn. That had been awkward enough, but having the questions asked again with Quinn in attendance was worse.

  Delilah’s head swam with all of the questions, but she took them calmly, one by one.

  “No, Quinn isn’t going to live with us, but he is going to visit a lot. We haven’t talked about what will happen when we move back to Connecticut. Yes, Quinn is my boyfriend. And it’s far too soon to talk or even think about getting married, Jesse. Does that answer all of your questions?”

  “I guess,” he said. “Except, can we go hiking again?”

  “Sure we can,” Quinn said. “If your mom says yes.”

  “I’m sure we can make that happen,” Delilah said.

  Later, when the boys were occupied with a board game in Jesse’s room, Delilah and Quinn sat on the back patio and assessed how the conversation had gone.

  “Gavin seemed really excited about the idea of the two of us when I brought it up with him before. But now … God. When he asked if Mitch won’t be his father anymore? I almost lost it.”

  “I think you handled it well, though.” Quinn took Delilah’s hand as they sat side by side in Adirondack chairs facing the ocean.

  “You did, too. Still. Did you see how he stuck his thumb in his mouth as soon as we started talking about it? He does that when he’s anxious or upset. It started after Mitch left, and he’d been getting better about it. But then, there it was again.” She let out a ragged sigh.

  “Are they going to see their father at all at Christmas?” Quinn asked.

  “No!” Delilah threw her free arm into the air in frustration. “Before we came here, when I was figuring out what to do, I begged him to come and visit them. But he can’t be bothered. He’s too busy with Celine.” She said the name as though it belonged to a mythical beast that threatened to destroy humanity.

  “Was the guy always an asshole, or is that a new development?”

  Delilah considered the question. “You know, when he first told me he was leaving me, I’d have said it was a new development. But now, in retrospect … I guess he was always an asshole. I just didn’t see it until it was flashing in neon letters.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” He sank deeper into his chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him. “We all tend to see what we want to see, especially when there’s so much at stake—your marriage, your kids’ well-being. Your whole way of life.”

  “The way of life I can do without,” she said. “But the kids and the way they feel about their lives? The way their sense of security was taken away from them? That’s the hard part.”

  “I imagine it’s all hard.”

  “Yes. It is.”

  Bringing a new man into the mix was probably going to make things even harder. But sitting here with Quinn, just talking with him, didn’t feel hard at all. It felt like the easiest thing she’d done in a very long time.

  Shortly after that, Quinn started getting the phone calls.

  The first one was from his younger brother, Jared.

  “Why the hell are random people calling me asking about you?” He launched into it without the small talk that generally started a conversation.

  “What random people?”

  “How the hell should I know? That’s why I’m asking you.”

  Quinn was at home, standing in his kitchen with his butt leaning against the countertop. It was early in the morning, and he hadn’t had his coffee yet.

  Quinn scrubbed at his face with his free hand. “Look. Can I call you back in ten minutes? I haven’t had my coffee, and if you want me to know what the hell you’re talking about, I’m gonna have to do that.”

  Talking with his asshole brother was unpleasant under the best of circumstances. Without caffeine, it would be unbearable.

  When Quinn’s coffee had been brewed and one good-sized mug had been consumed, he braced himself and called Jared back.

  “It took you long enough.” Jared inexplicably chose that as a greeting instead of the more traditional hello or hi or even hey there.

  “Yeah, well. I’m here now.”

  “Great. Now tell me why some random fuckhead is calling me asking about you.”

  Quinn leaned against the kitchen counter and sighed. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t we pretend I have absolutely no idea what you mean. Because I don’t. Can we maybe take it from the beginning and get me caught up?”

  Obviously irritated, Jared went through it: how he’d gotten a phone call from a man he’d never heard of who peppered him with questions about Quinn—his romantic history, his financial history, his work history, his personality traits. Jared had refused to answer any of them and hung up.

  Then the guy had visited Jared’s office.

  “I don’t need that shit,” he went on. “I don’t need people coming to my work. It’s not professional, and I don’t need to lose this job. So you can just tell him—”

  “I can’t tell him anything. I don’t know who it is or what he wants any more than you do.”

  “I need this job,” Jared went on as though Quinn hadn’t spoken. “I’m not like you, sitting on a big inheritance you didn’t earn. Or, I guess you were sitting on it. What the hell happened, Quinn? Did you lose it all gambling or just being a dickhead, or what?”

  If Quinn had been confused before, he was even more so now. “Again, I have to ask, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “Well, I’m assuming the guy’s a debt collector.”

  “A debt collector? Why would you assume that?”

  “Because he said he’s a private investigator. Why else would a private investigator want to know about you? Unless you’re screwing someone’s wife.”

  Quinn was struck silent by this piece of news. When he finally could form a response, he said, “You might have led with the part about the private investigator.”

  “Yeah? And you might kiss my ass.”

  Then Jared hung up on him.

  That was just the beginning of the phone calls. He got more from his mother, his former employer, his former landlord, and Mrs. Foster. All of them were pretty much the same: Who was this guy who wanted to know about Quinn? And why did he want to know?

  People who had a generally good impression of Quinn assumed it was some kind of security clearance for a job application. People who had a generally bad impression of him assumed he was in some kind of legal or financial trouble.

  He wasn’t in any legal trouble that he knew of, he had a healthy savings account, and he hadn’t applied for a job. What the hell was this?

  The whole thing was so unsettling, so strange. And so unexplainable.

  Until he remembered one thing Jared had said to him: unless you’re screwing someone’s wife.

  He wasn’t. But he did have a relationship with someone’s ex.

  Delilah’s ex-husband, as a lawyer, almost certainly worked with private investigators and had access to any number of them.

  Could that be it?

  He thought to ask her, but he wasn’t ready to do that yet. Instead, he went to Mrs. Foster’s house one day when he saw her car in the driveway.

  “Oh, Quinn. It’s lovely to see you. Come in, come in. I just bought some muffins at the Cookie Crock. They’re chocolate chip. Would you like one?”

  He was about to decline, but then he realized he liked chocolate chip muffins and he’d skipped lunch, so he was st
arving.

  “That sounds great, actually. Thanks.”

  One muffin, one cup of tea, and a lot of chitchat later, Quinn left Mrs. Foster’s house with the phone number of the private investigator who’d been asking about him.

  He went home, called the number, and got voice mail.

  “This is Quinn Monroe,” he said. “I assume I don’t have to tell you what I want, because you already know more about me than either one of us is probably comfortable with. Call me.” He left his number and hung up.

  The guy never called back—either because he didn’t want to tell Quinn who’d hired him or because he thought Quinn might hunt him down and kick his ass.

  Or both.

  When that didn’t work, Quinn Googled attorney Mitchell Ballard Paris. Within minutes, he had an e-mail address for Delilah’s ex.

  Using it without talking to her first felt like a betrayal, so he didn’t do that. He just hung onto the address while he thought about what to do.

  If Quinn confronted him and the guy really didn’t have anything to do with it, that would embarrass Delilah, and Quinn didn’t want that.

  All he could do, he decided, was wait to see what happened.

  For a while, nothing did.

  Chapter 27

  Quinn, Delilah, Jesse, and Gavin spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together at Otter Bluff.

  On Christmas Eve, they listened to Christmas carols, decorated the house with pine boughs and big red bows, baked cookies for Santa, watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, then set up Santa’s plate of milk and cookies on a table near the fireplace.

  It took a long time to get the boys settled down to sleep—along with several threats that Santa might not come if he knew the kids were still awake.

  When the kids were finally asleep, Quinn and Delilah brought their stashes of wrapped presents out of a closet in Delilah’s bedroom and placed them under the tree—putting the ones marked From Santa up front.