Home for the Holidays

by Sarah Mayberry

  “Sorry, did you say something?”

  “I did.” Her mother hesitated a moment, studying Hannah’s face. “Lucas called earlier. He’d like to speak to you.”

  Hannah waited until she’d finished pouring milk on her corn flakes before responding. “What does he want?”

  “I’m not sure. To talk to you, I suppose.”

  Hannah could feel her mother watching her. She crossed to the fridge and put the milk away. What on earth could Lucas have to say? He’d already apologized. She’d refused to take his money more times than she could count. What more was left?

  An insidious, dark thought wormed its way into her mind. What if he and Kelly had had a falling-out? What if he’d decided that he’d made a big mistake, choosing her sister over Hannah?

  What if he wanted Hannah back?

  A few months ago, the thought would have made her heart thump with nervousness and a twisted form of hope. Today, it made her frown.

  She didn’t want Lucas back.

  She froze. When had that happened? When had the wishing for what-once-was faded away to nothing?

  She had no idea, but it felt good. As though she’d shed a weight. Without giving herself a chance to think, she walked to the phone and picked it up.

  “What’s his number?” she asked.

  Her mother’s eyebrows rose toward her hairline, but she reeled off the number without comment. Lucas picked up on the third ring.

  “Lucas speaking.”

  “It’s me. Hannah.”

  “Hi.” There was a short pause. “Thanks for calling.” As always, he sounded uncomfortable. Awkward. Regretful. One of the many reasons why she’d gone out of her way to avoid any contact with him or her sister. She didn’t want Lucas’s pity.

  Apparently she didn’t want his anything anymore.

  She was still getting used to the feeling.

  “Mom said you wanted to speak to me.”

  “I did. I mean, I do. Would it be okay to meet for coffee?”

  Her mother was making a big show out of pouring more water into the teapot, but Hannah knew she was listening.

  “Can’t you just say what you need to say over the phone?”

  “I’d rather do it in person. I can meet you at The Watering Hole or wherever you like,” Lucas said.

  “Not The Watering Hole,” she said instantly. The last thing she wanted was to see Joe again so soon. There was no way she’d be able to look him in the eye without blushing from head to toe.

  “What about the coffee shop near the workshop? Ten minutes?”

  “Twenty. I need to finish my breakfast.”

  “Okay.”

  Her mother deliberately talked about every other subject under the sun while Hannah finished her cereal, but she gave Hannah an extra-fierce hug goodbye when Hannah stood to leave.

  Lucas was waiting at an outside table when she pulled up, his sunglasses resting on the table before him. He was looking the other way, his foot tapping restlessly, but his gaze swung around when he heard the rumble of her bike.

  He stood when she approached the table. He was wearing jeans and a white linen shirt and he needed a shave.

  “Hannah.”

  “Lucas.”

  They both sat at the same time.

  “Thanks for coming at such short notice.”

  Hannah put her gloves on the table and shrugged out of her leather jacket.

  “What’s up?” she said, meeting his eyes squarely.

  He laughed self-consciously. “You never did beat around the bush, did you?”

  “Nope. Life’s too short.”

  “Yep.” He rubbed his hands down the front of his jeans and for a moment she worried that she’d guessed right, that he really was trying to find some way to reconnect with her.

  “I wanted you to be the first to hear. Your mom doesn’t know yet, or my parents. Only me and Kelly. She’s pregnant. We’re having a baby.”

  Hannah blinked, waiting for the old pain to reignite in her chest. Kelly was having Lucas’s child, something Hannah had once dreamed of doing herself. She’d had it all planned—two children, eighteen months apart. She hadn’t cared what sex they were, as long as they were healthy and as long as they had Lucas’s deep green eyes.

  But the pain didn’t come. Slowly her shoulders relaxed. At long last, after six months of dragging her ass around, she’d finally let go of some of her anger and hurt and pain.

  “Congratulations,” she said after a short, intense silence. “When is she due?”

  “The end of March.”

  Hannah did some mental arithmetic.

  “So she’s only eight weeks?”

  “That’s right. We found out yesterday. Like I said, I wanted you to be the first to know.”

  She looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time in six months. Apart from his obvious nervousness and discomfort at meeting with her, he looked well.

  “Are you happy?” she asked suddenly.

  “About the baby? Of course. You know I’ve always wanted kids.”

  “I meant in general. Are you happy with life, with Kelly, with everything?”

  He glanced down at his sunglasses, clearly struggling to find the right thing to say.

  “Just tell me the truth, Lucas.”

  He met her eyes. “Yes. I’m happy. I wish it hadn’t been at your expense, but I love Kelly.”

  His declaration stung a little, but that was more pride than anything else.

  “Did you ever love me?” She wasn’t going to go home and cry over the answer, but she’d always wanted to know.

  “Yes. I still do. But it’s different with Kelly. I can’t explain it. It’s just…right. With you, it was like we were best friends and you happened to be a woman. It was comfortable. I’m never comfortable with Kelly.”

  She stared at him, trying to understand. “And that’s a good thing?”

  He smiled and focused on something over her shoulder for a second or two, thinking it over. “Yeah, it is.”

  She looked away. “Well, I guess we’re all better off, then.”

  Lucas focused on her again. “There’s no excuse for what we did to you, Hann. It was the last thing you deserved. If I could change it, I would.”

  She smiled faintly. “No you wouldn’t. Not if it meant giving up Kelly.”

  He looked as though he was going to argue for a moment, then he shrugged. “More of that Hannah Napier no-bullshit honesty. I miss it.”

  “Well, you know, I’m happy to be honest with you anytime you like,” she said drily. He laughed and she found herself joining in.

  Incredible. She was sitting with her ex-fiancé at a coffee shop on a Saturday morning and laughing. She wondered if she should pinch herself, to make sure this was real.

  Lucas relaxed into his chair, the smile still playing around his mouth. “You going to have a coffee with me?” he asked.

  “You paying?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then I’ll have a large mochachino. And a piece of orange poppyseed cake.”

  His smile broadened. She stretched out her legs as he called over a waitress and placed their order. He waited until the girl was gone before leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table.

  “There’s something else I wanted to talk you about,” he said.

  “Let me guess—the money.” In the past six months she hadn’t had a conversation with him or Kelly that didn’t include some mention of her debts.

  “Yes.” He pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and put it on the table between them. It was a check, and when he folded it open she saw it was made out to her for $20,000.

  “Let me cover the loss we took on the apartment,” he said.

  She opened her mouth to speak but he held up a hand.

  “Before you rip my head off and stuff it down my neck, let me say my bit. It’s my fault this mess happened. The moment I realized I felt something more for your sister than I should have, I should have put the we
dding on hold. But I didn’t. I let things play out because I couldn’t believe that what I was feeling was real and that Kelly felt the same way. And because I knew I was going to hurt you.”

  He paused as the server delivered their order. Once they were alone again he leaned forward, elbows on the table, expression intense.

  “I’m the one who screwed things up. Why should you suffer? Why should you carry the can for my mistake? Give me one good reason.”

  Not so long ago, Hannah would have had half a dozen good reasons, all of them angry and bitter. She looked at the check and thought about what a difference it would make to her life. She wouldn’t have to delay her road trip any longer. No more scrimping and saving. No more feeling trapped. She could hit the road and follow her dream. North first, to the New South Wales coast. Then on to Canberra to see the nation’s capital. Sydney, Byron Bay, Coffs Harbour—there were so many places she’d circled on her map. And that wasn’t even including the less-traveled parts of the country. The red heart, the small bush towns, the tropical communities at the northernmost tip of the continent.

  “It won’t put it right. It won’t come close to making it up to you, I know that. But at least it will make life easier for you,” Lucas said.

  She turned away from him, trying to think and unable to do it properly while he was watching her with those familiar green eyes. Was she letting her sister and her ex off the hook by taking the money? Or was she being smart, looking out for herself?

  A dark navy SUV pulled up at the curb. Joe swung out of the driver’s seat, Ben exiting the passenger side. Joe slung his arm around his boy’s shoulders as they walked toward the Balas’s corner store, bending to say something that made Ben laugh and squirm out from under his father’s arm.

  She told herself to look away, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Joe. There was so much arrogant masculinity in the way he walked. As though he owned the world. It made her remember the way he’d pushed her against the wall last night, the utter solidness of his body pressed against hers.

  Just before they entered the store, Joe turned his head. He was wearing sunglasses, but she knew he’d caught her watching him. She jerked her gaze away, but not before he’d nodded his head in acknowledgment.

  “So, what’s it going to be, Hannah?” Lucas asked.

  Her hand closed around the check without her even willing it. She folded it in half and slid it into the front pocket of her jeans. Lucas smiled.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You have no idea what this means to me. And to Kelly.”

  She looked him dead in the eye. “I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for me.”

  “I’m just glad you’re doing it.”

  She took a mouthful of her coffee. Lucas looked as though he was ready to break into song and skip up the street. He hadn’t been lying when he said he was relieved.

  She searched her heart and realized she was relieved, too. She’d cut the last tie that bound them all together. What happened next, she had no idea. But she was sick of living in the past.

  JOE TRIED TO CONCENTRATE on what Mr. Balas was saying, but his mind was outside, wondering what Hannah was doing with the blond-haired guy in the white shirt. Was he a friend? A customer?

  He kept thinking about the way the guy had been watching her, as though right at that moment she was the most important thing in the world to him.

  So not a friend, then. Something more.

  It took Joe a moment to recognize the emotion burning in his belly as jealousy. It had been a while since he’d had reason to be jealous of anyone.

  “So, Dad, I’ll see you after two, okay?” Ben said.

  “Sure, no problems. Call my cell if you finish early.”

  He kept his gaze on his car as he exited the store, but he could still see Hannah and her friend out of the corner of his eye. They were talking, leaning toward one another. He told himself what she did and who she did it with was none of his business. It didn’t make any difference to the burn in his gut.

  Ruby was having a playdate with one of her friends from school so Joe had the house to himself when he got home. He tidied the kitchen, then threw on a load of washing. By the time he’d straightened the living room and cleaned the bathroom, he was all out of busywork. He did a lap of the house, walking from the living room to the kitchen and through the hall to the bedrooms, restless energy and a vague sense of dissatisfaction gnawing at him. Finally he came to a halt in his bedroom doorway.

  The bed was a mess, a tangle of sheets and quilt, a couple of pillows thrown on the floor. He’d had a bad night’s sleep, tossing and turning, his mind full of images and sense memories: Hannah’s breast, full and warm in his hand; the taste of her in his mouth; the feel of her firm, rounded ass. Somehow, somewhere in the dark hours, Hannah and Beth had gotten mixed up in his dreams and he’d found himself looking into Beth’s face but pressed against Hannah’s body, guilt and desire twisting inside him until he didn’t know which was which. He’d woken sweaty and agitated, the sheets wrapped around his legs in a confining snarl.

  Now, he sat on the end of the bed, thighs wide, hands on his knees, his unfocused gaze on the carpet.

  When Beth had died, the emptiness she’d left in his life had seemed so profound, so all-encompassing that he hadn’t been able to see past it. He hadn’t been able to imagine ever wanting another woman again, let alone taking the risk of loving someone again.

  And then he’d met Hannah.

  He’d tried like hell not to notice her, but his body had had other ideas. She fascinated him and aggravated him in equal measures. She made him laugh. And she made him want things he had no business wanting. He wanted to touch her, slide his skin against hers, lose himself inside her. He wanted to make her smile. He wanted to tease her, just to see her rise to the bait. And he wanted to chase away the shadows in her eyes.

  He didn’t know how to reconcile all that want with his memories of Beth and what they’d once had together. The reality was that he and Hannah hardly knew each other. There was a physical attraction. There was the potential for more, maybe. But he had to take the next step to find out. And he wasn’t sure if he was ready to do that.

  By the time he’d stripped all the beds and remade them and put on yet another load of laundry, it was time to collect the kids.

  “I’ve decided what I want to get for Hannah,” Ruby said the moment she climbed into the car.

  They’d discussed buying Hannah a thank-you gift on the way home from the parade last night, in between Ruby scrolling through the photos he’d taken with the digital camera.

  “Okay. What did you come up with?”

  “Perfume. Carly’s mom has this really pretty stuff in a bottle shaped like a lady’s body, but with no arm or legs or head.”

  “Right. Well, perfume it is, then. We can swing by the mall after we pick up Ben.”

  Once they got to the mall he sent Ben off to prowl the video game shop while he and Ruby hit the department store. Ruby sampled almost every perfume on display until she spotted one with a bottle shaped like a shiny red apple. Joe suspected it could have smelled like insect repellent and she’d still have chosen it.

  “Can we take it to her now? Please?” Ruby pleaded in the car on the way home.

  “Sure, if she’s home.”

  He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to be or not. He still didn’t have his head on straight after last night. But he also wanted to see her.

  What are you doing, man? What are you thinking? She kissed you, that was all. You have two kids and so much baggage it’s ridiculous. You’re not exactly a great catch.

  But apparently that didn’t matter, because when they pulled into the street and he saw Hannah in the garage at her mom’s place, his gut tightened and his palms got sweaty.

  What are you, a teenage girl?

  Ruby was out of the car in a flash, running next door to the Napiers’. Joe followed more slowly, Ben trailing behind him. Hannah was holding the wrapped gift in her hands b
y the time they reached the garage.

  “You didn’t have to do this,” Hannah said, but the smile on her face said she was pleased.

  “I wanted to. I had such a good time last night and we had the best clothes in the whole parade and no one else looked as good as we did,” Ruby said.

  Ben made a rude noise at his sister’s shameless vanity.

  “Ah, the modesty of the young,” Joe said.

  Ruby frowned. “But it’s true, Daddy. None of the other women looked even close to as good as Hannah did.”

  Hannah gave Ruby’s shoulder a light nudge. “I think you might be a little biased there, sport.”

  “No, I’m not. You’re beautiful,” Ruby said.

  Deep color stained Hannah’s cheeks. She didn’t seem to know what to say and she shot him an anguished, self-conscious look.

  “Open your present,” he said, a little amused and a lot touched by her reaction.

  She seemed grateful for the diversion. She ran her thumb under the tape and pulled the paper open carefully. Not a ripper, like his kids, Joe noted. But her spotless workshop and attention to detail showed that she was a woman who appreciated order and workmanship.

  “Oh, wow, this is lovely, Ruby,” she said as she discovered the perfume.

  Ruby was bouncing on her toes, thoroughly enjoying her moment of generosity. “I picked it because of the bottle. It’s shaped like an apple.”

  “Cool. I can’t wait to try it.”

  “You should put some on now,” Ruby said.

  “Okay.” Hannah glanced at him quickly from under her lashes before she pried the box open. He wondered what she was thinking, if she was remembering last night.

  The smell of sweet toffee apples and something more floral filled the air as Hannah sprayed her wrists.

  “Mmm, that’s really nice. Thank you so much for such a great present, Ruby,” she said. She pulled Ruby close for a hug.

  Warmth spread through Joe’s chest as he watched the way Ruby hugged her back, her small hands clenching Hannah’s T-shirt.

  Ben had been lingering on the threshold, but now he stepped inside, drawn to the bike parts laid out on the garage floor. He touched a rusty mudguard with his toe, curious, and the piece of metal teetered for a few seconds before falling over with a loud clang.