The Kid Who Stole Christmas
Page 22
Chelsea nodded. “Nathan said he apologized.”
“He’s also up in the mountains right now, helping to clean a certain white Berber carpet,” Shannon told her. “Is Nathan mad?”
“It’s always hard for me to tell what Nathan is,” the girl told her. “He’s...I don’t know. Cold. Not like Daddy used to be.”
They arrived at the cafeteria and Shannon made them some hot chocolate, waving off the help of the staff so they could go about their business.
Shannon watched as Chelsea just stirred her cocoa without tasting it. “Is that why you’re here, Chelsea? Do you need someone to talk to about your father?” she asked softly.
Chelsea nodded. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I do love him.”
She looked up at Shannon, her brown eyes so much like Rick’s that Shannon felt her heart skip a beat. Shannon could tell there was more the child wanted to say.
“Go on,” she prompted.
“But I love my momma, too. I know she’s told some lies about him. She...she isn’t always so nice to me, either. I don’t want to be just like her and she keeps trying to make me that way. I get mad at her. It doesn’t feel right.”
Shannon reached over and stroked the girl’s silken blond hair, reassuring her. “It’s okay to be mad at your parents, Chelsea. Just because people make us mad, that doesn’t mean we don’t love them.” She had recently learned that firsthand.
Chelsea fixed her with an appraising gaze. “You love my daddy too, don’t you?”
The question took Shannon by surprise. But the answer wasn’t hard to come by. “Yes, Chelsea. I do.”
“Are you going to marry him?”
That one was a bit harder. “Well, for one thing, he hasn’t asked me yet. And for another, there are some things we have to resolve first.”
“Oh.”
“Why do you ask?”
Chelsea sighed deeply. “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I didn’t live with Momma and Nathan anymore. If she just visited me when she wanted to. It’s not as if she’s around all the time, anyway.”
Shannon took her hand and squeezed it. “I know how that feels, Chelsea. My mother was that way.”
“Shannon?”
“Yes, Chelsea?”
The girl looked down at her hot chocolate, and her voice was very soft when she spoke. “You’d make a good mother.”
Shannon could feel the tears well up in her eyes. She knew exactly what the child was hinting at, and didn’t have the slightest idea how to respond.
“Why, thank you, Chelsea. Someday, maybe, I...I think I might like to try again.”
“Again?” Chelsea asked, looking up at her.
“I had a little girl once. She passed away when she was very small.”
“I’m sorry. That must have hurt.”
Shannon nodded. “It did. But I’m better now.”
“Good,” Chelsea said. She took a sip of her cocoa. “Would you mind if I ask my daddy?”
“Ask him what, sweetheart?”
“If I could come live with him and you someday.”
“No, honey. I wouldn’t mind at all.” She stood up abruptly. “Would you excuse me just a second?”
Shannon managed to get to the hallway before her tears started flowing in earnest. She sobbed quietly in the silence, everyone on this floor having long since gone to the party.
Or so she thought. A man cleared his throat, and she turned around, an excuse forming on her lips.
But Rick kissed it away. She clung to him until her tears began to subside. “I’m sorry,” she told him with a sigh. “What a way to behave on Christmas Eve.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve spent a few that way,” he told her. “What on earth caused this?”
Shannon put a finger to her lips, then motioned for him to look through one of the round windows in the cafeteria doors. His eyes went wide.
“Chelsea!”
“She came to see me, but now, I think she’d like to talk to you, as well,” Shannon told him.
Rick suddenly looked as nervous as a cat. “What about?”
“Lots of things, I imagine,” she replied. She took his hand and held it against her cheek. “But she has a couple of tough questions I think I’d better prepare you for. And answer in advance. It’s yes, both times.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m ready to get married again, Rick. And I’m ready to have more children. If it’s just Leo and Chelsea, then I’ll consider myself the luckiest woman alive. But it would be nice to have some of our own.” She tugged on his hand and opened the swinging cafeteria doors. “Now come say hello to your daughter.”
Chelsea saw him and got up from her chair. She moved hesitantly toward him. Rick released Shannon’s hand and got down on one knee, his arms spread wide. “Chelsea, honey! I’m so happy to see you!”
“Daddy!”
Chelsea ran into his arms and they hugged, while Shannon watched. She had changed her mind. Crying was just fine on Christmas Eve, as long they were tears of joy, and you shared them with the ones you loved.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8363-3
The Kid Who Stole Christmas
Copyright © 1994 by Steven and Melinda Hamilton
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