“I play with big boys’ toys all day,” he said. “Can’t beat a job like that.”
She studied him, bothered by her thoughts and this sudden, unwanted curiosity about his life. “Business must be good.”
“We’re doing all right. You should come by sometime and check us out. Take a spin on one of the new Arctic Cats.” Using a black marker, he labeled a filled box and set it aside.
“Maybe I’ll do that.” When Antarctica melts. Though she was itching to ask why he’d left the military, she refrained, struggling not to care one way or the other. But something new about him disturbed her, something more than their painful break-up.
When he came around the table toward her then, she took a step backward, wary. The last thing she wanted was for him to touch her or apologize or...whatever he was about to do.
“I’ll get the filled boxes for you,” he said, indicating the two she’d packed and slid to one side. “They get pretty heavy.”
“Oh,” she said, feeling silly. “Thanks, but I’ve still got some muscle.” She raised her sweater-clad arm and made a muscle to prove the point.
Rafe was still a little too close, so much so that his outdoorsy scent tinkled her nose. Amy’s breath caught in her throat as memories flooded her. Her chest filled with an ache too big to hold. She’d once loved him so very, very much.
Heedless of her inward battle, Rafe’s powerful fingers lightly squeezed her relatively small muscle. He whistled. “Spokane girls got the power.”
Yes, they did. The power to back away and remember what Rafe Westfield had done five years ago.
She dropped her arm to her side and turned away to rummage in the donation boxes.
They worked in silence again, sorting, stacking, boxing. Amy tried to focus on the good she was doing, on the families who would benefit from the food and toys they’d deliver to homes shortly before Christmas.
“I wish we had a radio,” she said suddenly.
“Want to use my iPod? I’ve got earbuds.”
“You downloaded Christmas carols?”
“Are you insinuating that guys don’t listen to Christmas music?”
“No, of course not—” Amy looked up to see he was teasing. “How did you know I wanted Christmas music?”
“Because you always did.” Expression easy, he pointed a cake mix at her. “You drove me nuts singing ‘Jingle Bells’ at the first sign of snow.”
Not wanting to remember those good times, Amy tossed her head. “Maybe I’ve changed.”
He stared at her for two beats before saying, “I guess we both have. You gonna sing in the Christmas cantata?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.” But she was thinking about what he’d said. They’d both changed. For some reason, the statement made her sad.
“You should. Trust me, the choir needs your soprano.”
“I doubt that.” She added packs of beans and rice to the three new boxes she’d set between them as barriers. “New Life has plenty of strong voices.”
“None as sweet and pure as yours.”
“Is that a compliment?” She looked up, smiling in spite of her resolve.
His perfect mouth shrugged while his eyes twinkled. “Maybe. Or maybe Darlene Clifford is jockeying to sing a solo.”
Amy clapped a hand to each cheek. “Argh. Say it ain’t so!”
Holding a tea box to his chest, he nodded in mock seriousness. “And we both know Darlene’s voice could take the paint off the walls.”
Amy sniggered. Then she laughed. Rafe joined her. And in the next minute, through shared silliness, she relaxed a little.
“Shame on you.” Amy tossed a bag of noodles at him.
He one-handed it. “You laughed first.”
So she had. Rafe could always make her laugh.
But she’d still be glad when the evening was over.
* * *
The scream jerked him awake. He bolted upright in bed, shaking, heart thundering inside his chest. The rat-a-tat of gunfire resounded in his head. His nostrils full of fire and dust and that peculiar, sickly sweet smell of death.
Rafe shook his head, fighting to gain reality. He was home. In Snowglobe. In his old bedroom. He’d done his job. Let it go.
He sat up on the side of the bed, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. Cold night air prickled the sweat trickling down his neck.
He could hear his own ragged breathing, loud and harsh in the silent night.
The doorknob rattled and the door opened. Light from the hall bathroom crept in around his feet.
He looked up to find Jake a dark shadow standing in the doorway.
“Are you all right?” Jake asked, voice low and worried.
Rafe ran splayed fingers through the top of his hair, collecting himself for the sake of little brother. “Yeah.”
“I heard you.”
Shame calmed the pounding of his pulse. Jake’s room was next to his just as it had always been. Rafe was thankful Mom and Dad were at the other end of the house. But he didn’t want his brother thinking he was a sissy. “Sorry.”
Jake padded across the soft carpet, quiet as a cat, and a welcome presence. “Another nightmare?”
As much as he hated to admit it.
“Something like that. No big deal. Must have been the chili dog.”
Jake hovered, uncertain. “I can get you something. Water. Milk. Ibuprofen.”
Rafe wondered if he’d screamed, if he’d cried out like a scared girl. He wondered if he’d said anything he shouldn’t. But he didn’t ask. Couldn’t. He was a marine. “Go back to bed.”
“You sure? I could stay. Talk.”
“I’m good.” He could handle it. “Don’t say anything to Mom about this, okay?”
Jake hesitated for another few seconds, then squeezed Rafe’s shoulder, slipped quietly out of the room and shut the door with a soft click.
In total darkness again, Rafe sat on the side of the bed, adrenaline jacked, his sleep shot for the night. He couldn’t remember details of the dreams but they left him feeling weak and helpless and frustrated that war had followed him home. They didn’t come often—maybe once a week—but when they did, they wrecked him.
He bowed his head, hands clasped between his still shaky knees and prayed. Afterward, he rose and went to the window, pulling up the heavy insulated shades to look outside. The world was peaceful here. Peaceful and safe. Snow fell in the moonlight and glistened like the inside of a snowglobe. He thought of the one he’d carried with him all around the world. The snowglobe Amy had given him.
“Amy,” he muttered against the cold windowpane.
Tonight had been strange. He’d known she hadn’t wanted to be alone with him at the food pantry. Even though he understood her reasons, he was bothered. They’d been such good friends, able to talk about anything and everything, even before becoming engaged. But that, like everything else in his life, had changed.
He wondered again if he should broach the topic of their broken engagement and explain how sorry he was for hurting her.
He scrubbed both hands over his face, whiskers scraping.
He and Amy lived in the same town, attended the same church, but they might as well be as far apart as Spokane and Afghanistan. She hadn’t understood then. She certainly wouldn’t understand now.
Heart heavy, he clicked on a lamp, went to his closet and took down the small snowglobe. As he had so many times before, he twisted the key on the bottom and gave the globe a shake. He returned to his bed and lay down. Globe balanced on his chest, he propped his hands behind his head to watch the make-believe snow fall over the pretty little village and let the melody of “Silent Night” serenade him toward dawn.
Chapter Four
“What are these things?” Rafe asked,
holding up a skewer of meat and fruit.
Jake leaned in and took a bite. Mouth full, he said, “I don’t know but they’re good. Katie knows how to throw a party, huh?”
The birthday/Christmas party was in full swing, the voices of thirty-plus adults competing with a blasting CD player. Rafe figured there was enough food spread on the table, the bar and the end tables to feed everyone in town for a week, and he aimed to sample all of it. Always a gregarious guy, he was having a good time.
“Hey.” Jake’s elbow jabbed his ribs. “Look who just walked in.”
Rafe knew before he looked. Lots of people had come through the front door tonight but Jake would only mention one. Amy.
“So?” he asked, choking down a cracker covered in spicy cheese spread.
“So, go talk to her. She looks lost.”
Rafe made a rude noise. “You should get lost.”
But he watched Amy step inside, her smile tentative, holding a wrapped gift to add to the pile already stacked a foot high under Katie’s twinkling Douglas fir. She did look a little lost as if she’d forgotten how to mingle with old friends.
Before he could consider all the reasons why he shouldn’t, he excused his way through the packed room to her side.
At his approach, Amy looked up, startled. “Rafe. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Same here.” He was glad she’d come. The room seemed brighter, merrier with Amy in it. “You’re late.”
Amy bent to place her gift beneath the tree. Her blond hair shone like the tinsel and a few stray hairs danced with static electricity. Rafe remembered how soft and smooth her hair was and how he’d liked the feel on his rough fingers.
He remembered a lot of things about Amy that he’d liked. Maybe Jake was right. Maybe they could...
She stood, cutting off the thought he shouldn’t be thinking.
“Worked late. Mom had something to do tonight.” Her nose was red, her eyes sparkling from the outdoor chill. She looked energized, the way she always had when she’d been outside in the winter. The same way he felt now that she was here.
When she rubbed her reddened hands together, Rafe resisted the urge to warm them as he used to. He wondered if she remembered.
“Let me take your coat,” he said, not wanting to let her get away but not knowing what else to say.
“You don’t have to.” She unsnapped the down anorak and slid it from her shoulders.
Rafe took it anyway. The scent of fresh, frigid air and Amy’s warm perfume wafted from the thick jacket. “Cold outside.”
Amy gave him a slight smile as if to say, “This is Montana in the winter. Hello! It’s always cold,” but she didn’t say anything. Still, he felt a little schoolboy stupid.
“I’ll put this in the back with the others.” He was gratified when she followed him through the jostling crowd.
Friends stopped them along the way to say hello, joking, and making merry. Amy hugged Todd, the birthday boy, and teased him about getting old. Rafe had a moment of wishing she’d be that warm and friendly with him, not that he deserved anything except the polite reserve he got.
He didn’t know why he couldn’t give it up. Guilt, he supposed. He owed her.
“It feels good to be home for Christmas, doesn’t it?” he asked when they were alone, just for a minute, in the hallway.
“Yes, it does. What’s to eat? I’m starving.” She looked back toward the kitchen as if regretting her decision to follow him toward the coat room.
“No time for dinner?”
“No. This is the busy season.”
He tossed the coat on Katie’s bed with a stack of others and steered her back through the crush. “I highly recommend those kabob things and the hot cheese dip and the pizza and those whirly pinwheel things over there.”
Amy’s eyes widened. “You tried all those?”
“Just getting started, too. What’s your pleasure?” He handed her a red paper plate decorated with a smiling reindeer. “There’s dessert but you need sustenance first.”
“Sustenance. Good word. How about the fruit dip and some of those veggies?”
“Girl food, but okay. Beats MREs.” Rafe popped a cookie in his mouth, having a better time than he’d expected. At least Amy was talking to him. She was cool but conversant.
The need to discuss the past pushed in. He pushed back. Don’t mess up the moment. This time last year he’d been lying in a dirt sleeping hole in the barren outposts of Afghanistan. He’d daydreamed of home, of Christmas parties like this, of good friends and good times, and if Amy occupied a lot of those dreams, it was only natural. They’d been together since junior high.
“Amy. Rafe.” Katie appeared next to them. “This is awesome. I wasn’t sure you’d both come, but seeing you together again just makes my day.”
Amy made some light remark before Katie moved on, but Rafe felt her withdrawal. She went from friendly Amy to a stiff stranger who quickly wandered away. And Rafe was left out in the cold.
* * *
The party was great. The food was delicious. The Dirty Santa game hilarious. Watching grown men finagle and fuss over a pair of snow goggles proved to be the hit of the night. Amy was having fun. Truly. She’d reconnected with her high school friends, including Mack Jennings, who showed more than a passing interest in her homecoming.
“I’m going for more punch,” Mack, standing at her elbow, said. “Want some?”
“Sure, if you don’t mind.”
With a wink, he took her cup and disappeared through the crush. She took an olive from a tray and swiveled around on the bar stool. The first person she spotted was Rafe. She started to turn away but curiosity got the better of her. He hadn’t seemed the least bothered by her avoidance of him. That was good, she supposed. They were both going on with their lives, dealing with the past the way mature adults should.
Katie’s comment, her insinuation that Rafe and Amy were together, had bothered her. So much so that she’d slipped away from Rafe at the first opportunity. No matter what well-meaning friends thought, painful experience had taught her to protect her heart. Sure, Rafe was the hometown hero, the nice guy who delivered food baskets and taught disabled kids to ski, but that didn’t make him trustworthy.
She watched him now, sitting across the big living room in an armchair sharing laughs with his brother and Gabby Ralick. The Westfield brothers, in her opinion, were the best-looking men in the room, and Gabby, a divorcée with two kids, seemed to be thrilled with the attention.
Mack returned with her refilled cup of punch and slid onto the stool next to her. “It’s not polite to stare.”
Amy lowered her gaze to the paper cup and nonchalantly sipped the sweet liquid. “I wasn’t staring.”
“He was.”
“No, he wasn’t! Why would he be?”
“Maybe he still has a thing for you.”
“I certainly hope not,” she said hotly, but a flutter of...something...stirred beneath her rib cage.
Mack lifted his cup in a toast. “I’ll drink to that.”
They bumped cups.
“The clinic is having a party next Wednesday afternoon. Want to come over and hang out with us medical types?”
The invitation caught Amy off guard. Mack was a radiology tech at the local medical clinic, and she knew practically everyone else who worked there, too. At least, she used to know them. While she was considering her reply, the growl of Katie and Todd’s karaoke machine interrupted.
“Karaoke Christmas, everyone!” Todd shouted into the microphone, which caused a feedback squeal that killed any notion of conversation.
Amy pressed her hands to both ears, laughing.
Todd kicked off the karaoke by barking a hilarious rendition of “Jingle Bells,” and others followed, singing the silliest holiday tune
s they could find. Mack brought the house down when he sang “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” in a girly soprano, and not to be outdone, Jake warbled and acted out “Randolph, the Bowlegged Cowboy.”
When he finished and the stomps and claps subsided, Jake shot an ornery grin toward Amy and then toward his brother. Amy got a funny feeling in her stomach and slid down on the bar stool.
“Who wants to hear Rafe and Amy sing?” Jake shouted. “Just like old times. A duet.”
Amy’s gaze flew toward Rafe, who had the same deer-in-the-headlights expression she suspected was on her own face. But unlike Amy, Rafe unwound his tall form from the armchair, shedding Gabby as he came toward the front of the room and the karaoke machine.
“How about it, Amy?” Jake called, urging her on, his grin so annoying she wanted to pinch him. “Come on, now, don’t be shy. Amy. Amy.”
The crowd picked up the chant. “Amy. Amy.”
As much as she didn’t want to sing “their” duet, the situation was getting embarrassing.
She shot a frantic look at Mack, who hitched his chin toward the front. “Might as well get it over with.”
Gulping down panic, Amy headed to the front amidst good-natured catcalls and whistles. If any of these so-called friends recalled the history between Rafe and Amy, they’d been struck with a sudden case of group amnesia.
Or maybe that’s why they were so insistent.
Well, she’d show them. She could sing with anyone. But she would not sing their song.
She’d no more than thought the thought than Todd slipped a CD into the karaoke machine and the music started. She looked at Rafe in panic.
“No,” she whispered.
“Don’t make a big deal of it.” He squeezed her hand. “It’s just a song.”
Just a song? Did he know how much that hurt?
And when had he taken hold of her hand?
He smiled into her eyes.
“I don’t even like you,” she whispered.
His lips curved upward. “I know.”
Then the intro ended and Rafe began to sing the first verse of “All I Want for Christmas is You.”
A Snowglobe Christmas Page 3