The tree lot, set up out in the desert, occupied more than an acre.
“Where do you want to start?” Phyllis asked him, walking across the straw scattered all over the ground, shuffling her feet like a little kid. She was grinning.
“Wherever you’d like.”
In the center of the lot was a bonfire, with several people—mostly women and children—huddled around it.
“I got a Fraser last year and really liked it. What do you think?”
A Fraser? Matt had a feeling they weren’t talking about television shows.
“Sure.”
“I want a tall one.” She turned in a circle, surveying the lot. “I can’t tell how they’re arranged here.”
At a complete loss, Matt looked around for someone who worked there. He saw several college-age guys wearing sweatshirts, dirty jeans and gloves, but they were all helping other people. The lot was doing a booming business.
“I guess you should just pick a tree you like and we’ll go from there,” Matt said.
“Which ones do you like?”
“How about this one?” he asked, stopping by a fir that was tall and green, had a classic Christmas-tree shape and was full enough that he couldn’t see the base.
“It’s a Douglas.”
Was that a good thing?
“Douglases don’t live as long as Frasers or Nobles. Their branches start to droop almost immediately, and they lose their needles the quickest.” She frowned, considering the tree. “They are the cheapest, though, and the most beautiful.”
“But if they don’t last, what does beauty matter?”
Phyllis’s eyes were serious as she looked up at him. “It’s only six days until Christmas. I’m sure it’ll last that long.”
Still, she continued walking, checking out—or so it seemed to Matt—every single tree on the lot.
“Do you think I should get a Noble?” Phyllis asked, stopping by one of the sorrier trees he’d seen. “The branches are sparser, but the needles are soft and Nobles live the longest.”
“But if you can’t stand the sight of it…”
Phyllis gave him a startled look over her shoulder and then grinned. “I guess you’re right. They’re the most expensive, anyway.”
A couple of kids pushed by them, running to show their parents the tree they’d picked out. “This one!” they were hollering. They seemed to be having a great time.
Watching those kids, Matt couldn’t relate. Couldn’t relate to how it felt to be a kid picking out a tree, anticipating the packages that would soon lie underneath it.
“What about the Frasers you were talking about?” Matt asked Phyllis in an effort to move her along.
They found several Frasers that were over seven feet tall, just what she wanted. And still the job wasn’t done. Phyllis walked around each tree, examining it carefully. You’d think she was buying a piece of furniture that was going to last her until the next century, not a tree she’d be throwing out in a little more than a week.
“I like the shape of this one best,” she said slowly, circling a tree. “But it’s got this bald spot.”
Matt went to see. She was right.
“And this one looks good all the way around, but the needles are already brown on the base and on the ends of those branches.”
Didn’t sound good.
“What do you think?” She turned toward him, acting as though the tree meant something to him, too.
It didn’t. Not any more than those babies she was carrying.
Babies. Two of them. For a moment there, he’d actually forgotten. How in hell could he walk away and leave her to fend for herself with two babies?
“I think it’s a toss-up,” he told her when he realized she was waiting for him to answer.
“Why don’t you get one and I’ll get the other?”
“I’m not getting one.”
Phyllis left the tree, walking back to him, a puzzled expression on her face. Her nose was turning red from the chill in the air. She looked young and cute and far too beautiful.
“You already got yours?” she asked. “I’m sorry to have to drag you out a second time. I thought you had to come, anyway.”
“I don’t have one.” Fingers in the pockets of his jeans, Matt hunched his shoulders against the chill, facing the two trees. “I’m not getting one,” he said again.
And she’d better get hers quickly. He’d been there long enough.
“Why not?”
He shrugged.
“Don’t you believe in Christmas?”
“Sure. I guess.” For other people. Any religious beliefs he did or didn’t hold had nothing to do with a day that had no relevance to an event that took place more than two thousand years before. December twenty-fifth was just a day. A day that had as much to do with pagan festivals as Christian ones.
“You never buy a tree?”
“No.”
“Not ever?”
“No.”
She was standing beside him, and he could feel her looking at him, could tell from the direction of her voice that her face was turned toward him. He wondered if there was another tree close by that was perfect, waiting for her to buy it and get it out of there.
“When’s the last time you had a tree?”
Matt clamped his jaws shut. It was either that or say something he’d have to feel bad about.
“Never,” he said when he had his tension under sufficient control and could at least sound civil.
“I don’t mean since you’ve been on your own,” she said, moving so close to him that their arms touched as she adjusted her footing on the straw. “I mean ever.”
“I’ve never had a tree. Or presents, either.”
A family—mom, dad and three kids—came close enough to be within earshot. They were looking at one of the two trees Phyllis had been considering. She stood there in silence, apparently unconcerned that she was about to lose her Christmas tree, until they’d decided the tree was too expensive and moved on.
“Not even as a kid?” she asked softly as soon as the family was out of earshot.
“Nope.”
Her hand sliding into his shocked him into complete stillness. Not only because they didn’t touch. Ever. But because there was a completely unfamiliar comfort in having it there.
“I’m sorry.”
Had the words been filled with pity, Matt would have been able to disregard them. But they spoke of caring, of empathy, of genuine sorrow at a perceived injustice, and he could do nothing for a moment but stand there, her hand in his, and swallow the emotion that had risen to his throat.
THAT NIGHT Phyllis broke her own rules. She knew there was no place in her life for a man, that to stay emotionally healthy she had to keep her heart guarded. And to do that, she had to keep an emotional distance—and if necessary a physical one—from any man she started to like too much.
The plan worked. She had a couple of happy years behind her to attest to that.
But Matt Sheffield needed her. So she was going to be there for him. It was no wonder the man had no faith in himself, in the magic of unconditional love, of giving and receiving. He’d never had Christmas.
And the absence of Christmas—in his childhood, especially—was symbolic of so many other absences, other deprivations….
She had to change that.
“Could you put these near the top?” she asked, handing him four little glass angels that Christine had given her a few years before. She’d said they were because Phyllis was her own private angel.
Yet Christine had been the angel among them. And now, the angel watching over them?
Matt placed the angels wordlessly, just as he’d wrapped the lights around the tree and helped her with the unpacking of other ornaments. She’d tried to share their significance with him, but after the first couple she’d stopped. The stories seemed more painful to him than anything else. He didn’t even seem to see the work they were doing. The beauty they were creating.
&nb
sp; He was helping her, but he wasn’t there with her.
“If you don’t need anything else…” His words faded as he looked around. She had several boxes of ornaments left to hang, but the top of the tree was full. It was obvious she could do the rest with little effort.
“Actually, I need you to wait for a while if you could,” she said.
He seemed surprised by the unusual request—and maybe a touch resentful—but then capitulated. “Of course.”
“It’s because the star that goes on the very top of the tree has to be the last thing up, and I’m going to need your help with it.”
“Fine.” He wasn’t looking at the tree. He surveyed the boxes she had yet to get through, his expression vacant.
“And since you’ve done so much of the work, you have to have some hot chocolate, too.”
“I don’t need any hot chocolate.”
“Yes, you do, Matt, trust me,” Phyllis told him. “You just don’t know it yet.” They were making a Christmas memory for him here—a little piece of magic he could carry with him all year round to remind him that there was life and beauty and spirit beyond the ordinary. And Christmas memories had to include at least one cup of hot chocolate.
“Then how about I go in and make the hot chocolate while you finish up in here?” he suggested, the words more statement than question.
It wasn’t quite the scenario Phyllis had in mind. He was supposed to be decorating his first tree. But having him actively engaged in the kitchen was a whole lot better than not engaged at all.
“Great,” she said, determining to do the fastest decorating job in history. “The pan’s in the—”
“I know where everything is.”
The intimacy of that statement made Phyllis smile inside.
But the smile faded when he strode quickly from the room, making it obvious that he couldn’t get away fast enough.
She loved Christmas. Cherished hours she spent decorating her tree. Because with every decoration there was a memory of love given or received. Each one brought a remembrance of a particular loved one.
For her, Christmas was the epitome of all that was good in the world.
And Matt had never experienced a Christmas moment in his life.
He was a man so complete unto himself that there was no door by which anyone could crash his private party.
Phyllis had to wonder if she’d set herself an impossible task. Perhaps there really was no way to remove those shadows from Matt’s eyes. From his heart.
By the time she placed the last ornaments on the tree, tears were dripping slowly down her face.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HE HAD TO GET OUT of there. Much more of Phyllis’s Christmas and he was going to lose his perspective.
“This is great!” she said, sipping the cup of chocolate he’d poured for her. She was sitting in her usual seat at the end of the kitchen table while he stood in his usual spot by the counter.
“So we just have to put on the star and the tree’s done?”
A minute or two more, and he could make his escape back to the things he knew, the life he understood.
When she didn’t answer him, Matt looked up from the geometric design in the tile he’d been studying. The tears gathering in her green eyes brought dread to his gut. And a tightness to his chest that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
She was going to ask something of him that he couldn’t give. The walls were closing in.
Matt thought longingly of his Blazer in the drive. And the deserted expanse of open road just outside town.
“Please tell me why you were sent to prison.”
Matt blinked, took a moment to switch gears. He’d been expecting a question about his childhood. Or a challenge regarding his future.
And actually found the topic she’d chosen preferable to either of the other two. At the moment it would be the easiest one to address.
And maybe the answer would put a stop to whatever was happening here that he didn’t understand. It would certainly establish very clearly—for both of them—that he was not the man to be a father to those babies. It would reerect the barriers between them, barriers that had slipped without his noticing it.
“Please?” Her question was barely a whisper.
Setting down his cup, Matt leaned back against the counter, crossing his ankles, bracing his hands on either side of him.
“I was twenty-four, teaching junior-high- and high-school theater,” he started, his gaze directed toward her but seeing inward.
He couldn’t do this if she was going to keep looking at him as if he really mattered.
“Your first job?”
And not if she intended to take this journey with him. He needed her to be a silent listener, not a participant.
“Yeah. I was in my second year, though.”
“Where?”
“Flagstaff.”
“Where you grew up.”
“Yeah.” And that mistake had been one of many. “I had some crazy idea that I’d go back and show them all that I’d made something of myself.”
“And help some of the other kids who were having as hard a life as you’d had?” she asked, her elbow on the table, chin resting in her palm.
Matt studied her with an intensity he couldn’t hide. He’d never told anyone that. Was rather ashamed of what an idealistic fool he’d been back then.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes warm as she continued to watch him. “I’m way off base, right?”
“No,” he heard himself admit to her. “But how did you know that?”
Phyllis shrugged. “I know you.”
“Yeah?”
“That’s the type of man you are, Matt, always thinking of the other guy, giving every ounce of yourself to someone else, never to yourself.”
He wanted to deny her words for the nonsense they were, but he couldn’t speak for a second or two. It was long enough for her faith in him to fill up places he hadn’t known were empty.
Shaking her head, Phyllis let her hands drop to her lap, slide together between her knees, as though she were putting them under lock and key. “I’m really sorry, Matt,” she said. “I have a tendency to do that—to work out other people’s feelings and motivations.”
“No, don’t apologize,” he said, finding his voice. “Whether it’s true or not, I like what you see.”
Of course, her perception of him was about to change…
“There was this girl in a couple of my classes, involved in the community theater where I volunteered—and then she signed up for drama at school, helping me with sets and lighting for the annual school production. Her name was Shelley Monroe.”
It was still her name—the one Matt wrote on a check every single month. She’d wanted more from him, wanted them to write to each other, keep open some form of communication. Matt had refused.
But he never missed a month sending her those checks. They were all he could do for her.
He thought back over the months with Shelley, trying, as usual, to see in them something he’d missed, something that would change what came after. And, as usual, failing.
“Tell me about her.”
“Shelley was very troubled and old beyond her years, but an extremely promising student. Her home life was hell, an alcoholic father, an abused mother—you can imagine…”
Phyllis nodded, her eyes knowing.
“Yet, in spite of seeing things a kid her age should never see, Shelley was a great kid, smart, ambitious, reliable. She worked her ass off, doing whatever job she was given.”
“Kind of like Sophie.”
Matt hadn’t made that connection. “Maybe,” he allowed, considering the idea. “In some ways.” And in other ways not at all. But that was yet to come.
“I could relate to her,” he continued. “And I was a living example that you could come from a home like that and still make something of yourself. If you had what it took and were willing to put every bit of your soul into trying.
&
nbsp; “Shelley had what it takes, and I was determined to make her succeed. I spent a lot of time with her, demanding that she give her best, encouraging her to use her talents, stretch them, convincing her she could make something grand out of less-than-stellar beginnings.”
Matt swallowed. Wished he had a shot of whiskey. Or at the very least a cold beer.
“That was, after all, the reason you were there. Teaching.”
Yeah, he supposed it was. So why hadn’t anyone else ever seen that? Of course, by the time anyone else was involved, things had already gotten too far out of hand.
Staring at the back door, Matt went on, his tone as emotionless as the rest of him. The past…well, it was what it was. There was nothing he could do about it.
“I made a point of telling her often how much value I saw in her. As is the case with most kids in her situation, she was pretty low on self-esteem. She really believed that because of what she’d seen and done, there was no innocence left in her, no goodness, and that no decent man was ever going to want to marry her. And my comeback—because I couldn’t let statements like that go—would always be to tell her that when she was older, any man would be lucky to have her as his wife.”
A quick glance in Phyllis’s direction showed him how completely still she was. Just as she’d seen his reasons for taking that damn teaching job in the first place, she’d probably jumped ahead in this story, too.
His gaze back on the door, he continued, “While I was busy trying to build her self-esteem, she was misinterpreting my interest. One Saturday we were at school working on a particularly complicated set design when she suddenly didn’t feel well. She was sweating, white as a sheet and her vision was blurred. One side of her head hurt intensely. I recognized the signs of a migraine—something she’d suffered from before—and offered her an analgesic and the use of my office couch until she felt better.”
“You never give a student medicine.”
“I know.”
“I’d have done the same thing.”
His eyes met hers, locked on.
“She slept for a long time and when I finally tried to rouse her, it wasn’t easy. She was groggy for a while, but eventually got up and went home.”
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