Then it was into the heart of Flagstaff, past the cute downtown area where my friends and I used to hang out in the summer when the heat in Sedona got to be too much, then heading north as if we were going to pick up the road that led to the ski areas. But before we got that far, Martin turned off the main road and into a residential area where both the lots and the houses got bigger and bigger as the street climbed upward, until we finally stopped in front of a handsome stone and log house, its eaves blanketed with snow. A pine wreath hung on the front door.
“Here we are,” Martin said, somewhat unnecessarily, and unlocked the doors and got out.
Mystified, I followed suit. Was this like one of those reality shows where the guy acts all cool and mysterious and then surprises his girlfriend with a new house and an engagement ring or something? I didn’t think so, but on the other hand, I couldn’t imagine why we were here.
I followed Martin up the steps to the wide front porch. “You going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked in an undertone.
“You’ll see,” he said, and rang the doorbell.
Well, since I hadn’t known where we were going or who we were calling on, I was glad that I’d done my holiday beauty prep before we left — just in case I didn’t get back to Kara’s until right before dinner. Actual makeup, and a dark green cashmere sweater over black skinny jeans and black riding boots, a paler green scarf shot through with silver threads wrapped around my throat. At least I looked presentable, even if I didn’t know why I was here.
Maybe all that had been for Martin’s benefit, although he didn’t seem to have really noticed.
The door opened, and a handsome older man, probably closer to sixty than fifty, looked out at us. He was smiling, but when his gaze rested on me, I saw something in that smile freeze, as if he couldn’t quite process what he was looking at.
“May we come in?” Martin asked.
The stranger blinked, then said, “Of course — of course.” He stepped out of the way so we could enter, and we moved past him to stand in a foyer with polished wooden floors and dark wood wainscoting rising to meet walls of a warm butter color. All those walls were covered in plein air paintings of the landscapes around Flagstaff and Sedona, and of the Grand Canyon and other places I didn’t recognize but guessed must also be in Arizona, or maybe New Mexico. They were good, too, and faintly familiar in their style, as if I’d seen other works by the same artist in galleries around town.
“Come in,” the man told us, pointing toward a room off to the left.
We followed him into a living room decorated with Arts and Crafts–style furniture, and more of those gorgeous paintings. A fire blazed away in the stone hearth, and for a second I was reminded of my mother’s house in Taos. But there had been something of artifice in that place, as if every piece had been chosen specifically for its value or because it went with the other furnishings, and not because she loved it. Here, I didn’t get that impression at all.
I didn’t see much in the way of holiday decorations, except a simple pine garland draped along the mantel, and found it sort of sad that this stranger would be here alone in this beautiful house on Christmas Eve, and have apparently no one to share it with. Once again I had to fight down that thickness in my throat, trying to tell myself that was silly and that I was still emotional after the loss of Michael and everything else that had happened the past few days.
But then I looked up to see the stranger still staring at me, watching me with silver-blue eyes almost the same shade as my own, and I felt my breathing halt. No. It wasn’t possible.
He said, “Oh, Kirsten. My brave, beautiful girl.”
Unable to say anything, breath still strangling in my throat, I looked over at Martin.
He met my gaze, not flinching. “Yes, it’s true,” he said quietly. “Kirsten, this is your father, Gabriel.”
I’d had my world turned upside down too many times over the past week. “I don’t — I don’t understand.”
Martin came to me then, took my hand in his, as if he knew the thing I needed most in the world right then was the comfort of his touch.
Gabriel — my father — paused for a few seconds. Staring at him, I could see the similarities between us, beyond our eye color. The determined little cleft in the chin, the high cheekbones. His hair was so pale that it was hard to tell which was his original hair color and which was silver starting to come in. He took in a breath, as if groping for words.
Coming to his rescue, Martin said, “He was exiled here, for what they liked to call ‘gross interference.’”
“Just like what happened to you.”
A grim nod. “He was not allowed to reach out to you, to approach you. This was as close as he dared live, knowing that if your paths should cross, he might face even further punishment.”
“Is that true?” I asked. Once again I questioned the wisdom of these greater beings, who would judge those who acted from their hearts, and not the colder wisdom of their minds.
“Yes, Kirsten,” my father said quietly. “I didn’t dare approach, but at least I knew that once you were with your grandparents in Sedona, you were safe. Once I think I even saw you a few years ago as you were here in Flagstaff, sitting in an outside cafe with some friends, laughing and talking about your boyfriends.”
That sounded like Lindsey and me, our senior year of high school. “But you didn’t say anything.”
A shadow passed over his face. “It was forbidden for me to approach you. If you had met me by chance, of your own volition…say, at a gallery show, or a restaurant here in town…that would have been different. But that never happened.”
“So these are all your paintings?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “I had to do something to pass the time.”
I thought of him then, alone in this house all these years, knowing the daughter he’d never met was so close and unable to do anything about it. Painting, trying to re-create some of the beauty he saw around him in an attempt to forget the life that had been taken away.
“And now?” I asked, but the question was directed at Martin.
“I thought they’d kept you two apart long enough. I’ve already been punished — what else can they do to me?”
It seemed tempting fate to even ask such a thing, but Martin didn’t seem particularly worried.
“Why?” I whispered.
And I heard his voice in my mind, almost making me sob with relief, that this connection hadn’t been taken from us. Because I know things didn’t go well with your mother, and I thought you should at least have this.
How he had realized I still had that little hole in my heart, the one my parents should have filled, I didn’t know.
Actually, I did know.
It was because he loved me.
I went to my father then, arms outstretched, and let him fold me into a strong embrace, hug me fiercely, as if trying to make up for all the years he’d been kept from me. They weren’t a stranger’s arms, though. Going into them, I felt as if I were going home in a way I certainly hadn’t when I met with Marybeth in Taos.
At length, though, he released me, but only to stand back and gaze down at me, as if trying to memorize my features in case this was the only opportunity he’d get to see me. Not that I was going to let that happen.
“Do you have any plans for tonight?” I asked him, and he looked surprised at the question.
“Not really. That is, I had an invitation to a friend’s house, but I hadn’t confirmed for sure.”
“Well, good,” I said. “Because you’re coming to Christmas dinner with us. Isn’t he, Martin?” And I shot a look in Martin’s direction that told him I wasn’t going to take no for an answer — from either of them.
“Yes, I suppose he is,” Martin replied, and I saw it then, the hint of a smile around his mouth that had been missing for the past few days. “Don’t bother to argue with her, Gabriel — you’ll only lose.”
The blue eyes that were so like mine twinkled. �
�I was beginning to get that impression. Well, let me fetch my coat.”
We waited while he went upstairs. There were so many things I wanted to say to Martin, but somehow I knew this wasn’t the time. Instead, I pulled out my phone and called Kara.
“What, Keeks?” She sounded harried, and I couldn’t really blame her. Cooking Christmas dinner for even a smallish group wasn’t a walk in the park.
“You’ll need to set two more places for dinner. I’m bringing a couple of guests.”
“Two…?” she began, and trailed off. I could tell from the confusion in her voice that she wouldn’t have been all that surprised if I’d brought Martin along but couldn’t figure out who the second person might be.
I had a feeling she was about to be very surprised.
“Two,” I said, a little flutter of happiness stirring somewhere inside me. Maybe things were going to turn out all right after all.
“Okay.” Resignation was clear in her tone. “I’ll have Lance put another leaf in the table. Of course, that means we’ll have to set it all over again — “
“I’ll be there in about an hour. I’ll take care of it.” I hung up, and saw that Gabriel — my father — was paused in the doorway to the living room, pulling on a pair of gloves. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” he said, and smiled at me. It was like watching the sun come up over the mountains.
Then it was the three of us driving back down to Sedona, my father asking about Kara, about the shop and my web design business, showing that he’d been paying attention to what we were doing, even if he couldn’t approach me directly. Sad that he seemed to care so much more than Marybeth had, even though Kara was none of his flesh and blood.
The look of astonishment on her face when we came in the door and I introduced Gabriel as my father was so extreme that I had to keep myself from bursting into laughter. But then she recovered herself and made the introductions, as Paul and Persephone were already there, and everyone was so relaxed and easygoing about it that I blessed them all silently, knowing that this peculiar, wonderful group of people could take almost anything in stride.
That happiness was dimmed a little when Lance held up his glass at dinner and said, “To absent friends.” We all repeated the words, and my eyes stung, but I thought of Michael looking down on us, seeing where we’d started and how far we’d come, and knew he would be happy for all of us, and I vowed to be happy, too, even in the midst of missing him.
Martin and I didn’t have much chance to talk, and after the food was eaten, the wine drunk (well, sparkling cider for Persephone and Kara), he said quietly that he needed to drive Gabriel back, but that he would see me the next day. I had to be content with that; at least he wasn’t going to abandon me on Christmas Day.
It felt good to clean up the mess afterward, to stand in companionable silence with Kara as she washed the dishes and I dried them, Grandma’s china and silver being too sacred to be placed in a lowly dishwasher. After a while, Kara remarked, “He seems very nice.”
I didn’t have to ask which “he” she was referring to. “He’s the best present Martin could have given me.”
She gave a little nod but didn’t say anything. I wondered if she was thinking about her own father, who had divorced Marybeth when Kara was barely four. From certain things she’d said, I guessed that she remembered him, but they’d had no contact beyond a few visits before I was even born. He’d paid child support, one of the only reasons Marybeth had ever been able to hang on to an apartment for any length of time, although I had a feeling that the support stopped soon after we came to live with our grandparents. I didn’t even know his full name, as Marybeth had taken back her maiden name after the divorce.
“You okay?” I asked, and Kara nodded again.
“Sure. It was good to be with everyone. I guess…I guess I’m just feeling a little at loose ends. Here we’ve won, and I thought it would be this big celebration and we’d all be dancing in the streets or something. But…”
“But?”
“But Michael’s gone, and things are settling down, and we’re just sort of…living.”
“I think that’s the most important thing of all.” I set down my dish towel and gave her a quick hug, ignoring the soap that dripped from the bowl she was holding. “That we all…live. That’s what he would have wanted.”
* * *
Christmas morning was quiet enough, although I did have fun watching Kara and Lance unwrap all of Grace’s presents for her. Of course she was too little to do much more than just stare, big-eyed, at all the toys and bows and torn wrapping paper, but I couldn’t deny how adorable she was as she sat in Kara’s arms, wearing a green plaid onesie, a red bow perched precariously in her already thick dark hair.
Martin had said he’d come by around eleven, and he was right on time, looking particularly gorgeous in his long black coat with a sapphire-blue scarf knotted around his neck.
“Hi,” I said, still not sure exactly where we stood with one another.
“Hi,” he replied, and bent and gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek, since Kara and Lance were watching from the living room.
I followed him down to the car and got in. He drove us eastward from Kara’s, and for a crazy moment I thought maybe we were going to Persephone and Paul’s for some reason. But he took an earlier turnoff, climbing up into the hills, winding through narrow residential streets, until he pulled into the driveway of an impressive-looking Santa Fe–style home built on the crest of the hill. Then he unfastened his seatbelt and got out.
Frowning, I did the same, then paused next to the car and asked, “So…are we here to meet another of my long-lost relatives or something?”
“Not exactly.” He took off his sunglasses, squinting a little in the bright morning sunlight. Today there wasn’t a cloud to be seen from Mingus Mountain to the Mogollon Rim. He added, apropos of nothing, “Forest Houses closes after the first of the year.”
I gave him a wary look. “And?”
“And you probably don’t want to crash in Kara’s guest room forever, do you?”
I managed a head shake, while at the same time my heart started to beat a little faster. He couldn’t mean….
From his inside coat pocket he pulled out a small gift box and handed it to me. Small enough for…
…yes, small enough for a ring.
Fingers shaking, I opened the box. A brass key lay inside.
About all I could do was send a mute, questioning gaze upward, into eyes that seemed in that moment the same color as the sky, as the scarf he wore.
A smile — no, a grin — and he plucked the key from the box and led me to the front door, then inserted the key in the lock and brought me inside. The house was empty, except for a few lone side chairs in the dining room. On the granite counter in the kitchen I saw a couple of flyers — Beautiful Southwest property! Lease with option!
Finally I found my voice. “This — this place is yours?”
“Well, technically, I’m just renting it right now, but there is an option to buy. It’s a little big, though, so I was hoping you might want to come here so I don’t rattle around in it quite so much.”
Joy welled up in me then, bright water rising from a very deep spring, and I launched myself at him, felt his arms go around me, his mouth on mine, kissing me wildly, tongues meeting, every cell in my body seeming to spark with happiness and need. I held him, tasted him, smelled the scent of wood smoke in his hair and coat and scarf. My worry was gone, melted away like ice under a brilliant, blazing sun.
He pulled me away from me slightly, eyes still twinkling. “I take it that’s a yes?”
“Yes,” I said. Then I looked around again. Not that I was the type to track every up and down of the Sedona real estate market, but I knew this place was way above an FBI agent’s pay grade. Not that he was really an FBI agent, but —
“I know what you’re thinking,” he told me, and brushed a lock of hair away from my cheek. “But you don’t need to wo
rry about that. We exiles aren’t exactly cast into the outer darkness. Look where your father ended up.”
Well, that was true. “So, what…they just gave you this house?”
“‘Gave’ is probably too simplistic a concept. Let’s just say they arranged it so it would be mine.”
“Wow,” was about all I could manage.
Another one of those grins, and he took me by the hand and led me across the living room to the sliding glass doors that opened out onto a huge wraparound concrete deck. From there you could see a huge swath of the valley, from Schnebly Hill almost all the way out to Capitol Butte. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to stand out there at sunset and watch the red rocks blaze with hidden fire.
We stood there in silence for a moment, the brisk wind blowing our hair, the air fresh and clean and alive. Even knowing he wanted me here with him, that he wanted me in his life, I found I had to ask. “And it’s — it’s all right? Being here? Not — where you came from?”
Martin turned away from the red rocks to stare down at me. Those blue eyes held mine, clear and calm. He smiled, and took my hands in his, and I knew then that he had no regrets. He told me,
“I can’t think of anyplace else I’d rather be.”
* * *
The Sedona Files will continue with Grace’s story in Star Crossed. To be notified of the release of future books in the Sedona Files series and other new releases by Christine Pope, please sign up here.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
The Sedona Files are, of course, works of fiction. However, no work exists in a vacuum, and a number of books were invaluable to me during the research process for the trilogy. I’m listing them here in case anyone is interested in further reading in the strange and wonderful world I touched on only lightly in the book.
Sedona Awakenings — Richard E. Carmen, ed.
The Day After Roswell—Col. Philip J. Corso
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