by Brenda Novak
The radio came on as soon as he started his car and Elvis Presley began singing, “I’ll have a blue Christmas without you—”
Quickly changing the station, Maxim backed out of the driveway.
AS SHE WATCHED Maxim’s headlights swing out into the street, Adelaide felt like crying. But she choked back her tears. She’d done the right thing. Despite all the years they’d been acquainted, she didn’t know Maxim, not really. Maybe he was no better than Mark.
“Getting with me was just another way to protect his political aspirations,” she said. But all the things she remembered him saying to her when they were together seemed to dispute that statement. I can’t pretend to be Mark again. If I make love to you, it’ll be because you want me… We’re talking about a baby, Adelaide. Our baby. My career doesn’t come before that… You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on….
Had he meant any of it? It’d felt real. Unlike Mark, Maxim didn’t use flattery. He only said what he meant. That was why she’d been upset enough to run against him. He’d told some reporter that Mark had been worse for the district than if it had gone unrepresented, that he’d been one of the most selfish individuals on the planet.
And, as she’d just told him, he’d been right. Why was she blaming him for being right?
The message light blinked on her answering machine. Seeing it, she realized she’d forgotten to turn her cell phone back on after the church service. Ruby was probably going crazy with worry.
Trying to put Maxim out of her mind, she crossed the room and pressed the play button. Sure enough, her friend had called a number of times. Adelaide was about to stop the playback without listening to the rest. She was one touch of a button away from erasing the whole thing when she heard a voice she hadn’t heard in a long time—the voice of her former mother-in-law.
“Adelaide? Are you okay? What’s going on? Maxim Donahue just called here. Can you believe it? At midnight on Christmas Eve? We don’t even know him. I mean, we’ve met but never really talked. He was looking for you. Only now I’m thinking he must’ve been drunk, because when I asked him why he wanted to find you he said…he said he was in love with you. And then he hung up. That’s it. Isn’t that crazy? He’s the man you’re running against, isn’t he? The one who never liked Mark? Anyway, give us a call. We’d like to see you this Christmas. You haven’t swung by in a while.”
Another message from Ruby came on right afterward. “Damn it, Adelaide, this isn’t fair. Why the hell won’t you pick up?”
Adelaide scarcely heard it. As she hit the stop button, her mother-in-law’s message was still playing in her mind: He said he was in love with you.
Was it true? Would Maxim really have come right out and said that to Mark’s parents?
Stunned, Adelaide slowly sank onto the sofa. Was she being as smart as she assumed? Or was she letting Mark ruin what she had with Maxim the same way he’d ruined the last few years of their marriage?
Her hand shaking, she reached into her purse, got her phone and turned it on. She’d missed eighteen calls from Maxim. Why would he spend his whole Christmas Eve trying to reach her if he didn’t really care? He couldn’t have been doing it simply to neutralize the opposition. The scandal that had broken tonight would cripple her campaign; he wouldn’t have to worry about her even if she did keep running.
He said he was in love with you.
Her eyes welled up with tears as she dialed his number. She didn’t really expect him to answer. Not after what she’d said to him at the door. But he did.
“Hello?”
“Maxim?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry. I—” Her voice broke but she battled through it. “I think I’m just scared.”
“I’m not like Mark, Adelaide,” he said. “You can count on me.”
Recalling the way he’d hauled her out of that Cessna and made her dig that snow cave, Adelaide smiled. He was right. She could count on him.
“Will you come back?” she asked hopefully.
“Are you kidding? I turned around the second I saw it was you. I’m already pulling into your driveway.”
Tossing her phone aside, Adelaide hurried to the door—and rushed into his arms as he came up the walk.
“Thank God,” she said. “I thought I’d lost you.”
EPILOGUE
AS ADELAIDE FINISHED arranging the last of the presents under the tree, she could hardly believe an entire year had passed since she’d been stranded in the Sierras. So much had changed since then—she’d dropped out of the race, gotten married, had a baby. But she didn’t regret those changes; they’d all been good. She didn’t even regret that Maxim was still in politics. Not only had he won the primary, he’d retained his seat in the November election, but the way he handled his job was so different from Mark.
“What are you thinking about?”
She smiled as Maxim walked into the room carrying Connor, their three-month-old. “How close we came to walking away from each other last year.”
“We didn’t come that close,” he said.
She arched her eyebrows at him and he grinned.
“I was in love. I wouldn’t have let you get rid of me that easily.”
Returning his smile, she adjusted the garland on the tree. “Do you think Harvey ever regrets what he did?”
“I would guess he does. He loved California politics. I’m sure he wasn’t happy when there wasn’t another politician in the state who’d work with him.”
“You have to be able to trust your campaign manager,” she said. “It was nice of Luke not to hire him. He could’ve justified doing it, you know.”
“No, Luke’s a good man. He didn’t appreciate what Harvey did, even though Harvey returned my money.” He held up his son and laughed when the baby gave him a goofy smile. “I’ve been encouraging Luke to run for the state assembly.”
“That’s a great idea.” She reached for the baby. “Here, hand him to me and grab his car seat. We need to head to the airport to get the girls.”
Maxim checked his watch. “You’re kidding, right? We’ve got an hour.”
The wait was making Adelaide crazy. “Maybe they’ll get in early.”
“And maybe we’ll have to drive around that pickup circle a million times until they show up.”
“Come on.” She waved him toward the baby’s car seat, which was sitting near the sofa. “I can’t wait to see them. And I know they can’t wait to see the baby.”
“They just saw him at Thanksgiving.”
“But he changes so fast. And they love having a little brother.”
“They love having a mother again, too,” he said softly. “Thank you for being so good to them.”
Adelaide didn’t even have to try. They enriched her life as much as Maxim or Connor. “I never dreamed I could ever be this happy,” she said.
He raised her chin to kiss her. “And I never dreamed I could ever be this much in love. Merry Christmas, Mrs. Donahue.”
Adelaide closed her eyes as their lips met. She had everything she could ever want, thanks to one snowy Christmas….
A DUNDEE CHRISTMAS
Brenda Novak
To all those who have written to let me know how much they love my other Dundee stories:
1083—A BABY OF HER OWN
1130—A HUSBAND OF HER OWN
1195—A FAMILY OF HER OWN
1242—A HOME OF HER OWN
1278—STRANGER IN TOWN
1296—BIG GIRLS DON’T CRY
1344—THE OTHER WOMAN
1422—COULDA BEEN A COWBOY
CHAPTER ONE
WHEN THE RATTLETRAP truck crested the slight rise that showed Dundee, Idaho, looking stark and barren beneath several feet of snow, Cierra Romero nearly swore. She would have—those words were the easiest English to remember because she’d even heard them growing up in Guatemala—except she’d promised God that if He got her safely to this town, she’d leave all the bad habits she’d picked up
behind. “Fu…dge! You gotta be freakin’ kidding me!”
The farmer and his teenage son who’d brought her all the way from where her last ride had ended—a place called Boise—glanced at each other and started laughing.
Cierra lowered her eyelids but watched them as closely as she could without being obvious. She’d heard that expression a lot since coming to the States. Had she said it wrong? Or was it merely that they had never heard those words spoken with a Spanish accent?
She didn’t know, but now that they were making fun of her, she was glad she hadn’t bothered to listen when they’d given their names. Cierra made it a habit not to grow too familiar with people if she could help it. Especially white people. These men would drop her off in Dundee and go to whatever place they’d mentioned—the name had been unintelligible to her—and she’d never see them again.
It was better not to get attached. To anything. She’d even had to find a new home for the kitten Charlie had bought her when she arrived in Las Vegas—because all her dreams had died when he did, including her ability to take care of anyone or anything she loved. Maybe she’d never been fond of her American fiancé. She hadn’t gotten to know him well enough for that. Almost fifty years her senior, he’d chosen her from a bride website, and although he’d brought her to the U.S. more than two months ago, he’d spent most of that time in his office, running his business.
Still, she mourned him. Maybe he was as perverted as some people—those who disapproved—claimed he was for wanting to marry someone so much younger. But he’d been kind to her and, with the money he’d sent, generous to the three younger sisters who were living on their own in a squalid flat back home, counting on her to provide for them. Too bad he’d had a stroke and died the day before the wedding. If he hadn’t encountered some complications with finishing up his divorce, they would’ve been married right after she arrived, and she wouldn’t be floating around America on an expired visa, hoping to find a way out of her desperate circumstances.
“Dundee ain’t what you expected?” the farmer said.
Hadn’t she already made that clear?
Remembering that she didn’t want to upset anyone, that she was living in this country only by the grace of God and would be sent back to utter hopelessness if anyone turned her in, she averted her eyes to hide her flare of temper. She might be as feisty as any Latina princess—at least, that was what her parents used to tell her before malaria took them to their graves. But she knew she had to appear somewhat docile if she wanted to get along as a foreigner in such a small community. “It will be fine.”
“But you don’t even have a suitcase.”
Because she’d had to leave it when she caught the man who’d given her a ride to Salt Lake City hiding behind the building the moment they stopped for gas, using his cell phone when he said he’d be in the restroom. Afraid he was calling to report her, she’d run off, abandoning her clothes, toiletries and extra money, which were still locked in his trunk.
“Someone waits for me,” she said, and desperately hoped that was true. Arlene, Charlie’s ex-wife, hadn’t been the nicest person in the world. She’d stepped in to handle the funeral arrangements and had eventually taken enough pity on Cierra to send her to work for some brother she hadn’t seen in years, a brother who lived near this town of Dundee. But Arlene had been the most vocal about her objections to Charlie’s plans—and the most unfriendly when Cierra first got to Las Vegas. Cierra had overheard her telling Charlie’s neighbor that it wasn’t fair he’d toss her out like an old shirt after she’d been with him for so long, just to indulge his pedophiliac fantasies. She said he was too old to father the baby he wanted, the baby she herself had never been able to give him, and that he didn’t need to bring in such a young girl to do that, anyway. She said he was marrying a baby.
“Good. I’m glad you have someplace to go because it’s awfully cold,” the farmer said. “You wouldn’t want to spend much time in the snow. Skinny little thing like you would freeze right quick. This area’s experiencing record lows, just in time for Christmas.”
Christmas… She’d been expecting a ring, a cake, a warm, dry place to live—for the next few years, at least. It was supposed to be her best Christmas ever. She’d believed that for once in her life she’d have the money to buy presents.
But maybe what had happened served her right for being so reluctant, in her heart, to marry an old man, even for the sake of her sisters.
“What day is it?” she asked. She no longer knew. The days were beginning to blur together. It was difficult to think when she was so hungry….
“December 16,” the farmer’s son supplied.
The sixteenth? Really? That meant it was Los Posadas, the first of the nine days of candlelight processions in her country, where children and adults alike carried the statues of saints through the streets to reenact the Holy Family’s quest for lodging in Bethlehem.
The farmer brought them to a shuddering stop in front of a drugstore. “This okay?”
Since she didn’t yet know how to find Arlene’s brother, one corner was as good as another, wasn’t it? “Fine. Gracias, señor.” Bracing for the cold, she offered them a polite smile and got out. But as she reached into her purse to retrieve the slip of paper Charlie’s ex-wife had passed along to her, she realized that what she was doing wasn’t so different from the reenactments going on at home. She had nothing but this address and a stranger’s promise that she’d be given shelter. What she found when she actually arrived was anyone’s guess.
“SOMEONE’S AT THE DOOR,” Brent said. “I’d get it, but…I’m a little tied up here.”
Ken Holbrook lifted his head. They were working in the area off the kitchen, which was next to the living room, but he hadn’t heard anything. “I don’t think so.”
“You might want to check. Maybe Mom and Gabe came up, even though we told them to let us get the cabin out of mothballs first.”
“No, they had other plans.” If anyone was at the door, it was more likely their real father. Since Ken had returned to Dundee, Russ had been dogging his every step, doing his damnedest to talk him into yet another loan, which he called “an infusion of working capital,” for whatever business he was starting next. “No one’s here,” Ken said, hoping it was true. “There’s a storm watch on.”
Scooting over to get to his toolbox, Brent dug around blind since he was lying on his back and still had his head partway inside the furnace. He retrieved his wrench, then froze at the sound of a light tap. “There it is again. I’m pretty sure that’s a knock.”
This time Ken heard it, too. Had Brent invited Russ to the cabin? It’d be like him. Brent didn’t feel the same resentment toward their father that Ken did. He’d been in elementary school when Russ was busy screwing up their lives, which had somehow imbued him with more forgiveness. But Ken didn’t ask Brent, didn’t want to talk about Russ, because he knew it would lead to an argument. Russ was the only thing they ever argued about.
With the wind kicking up, Ken still held out hope that it wasn’t a visitor, especially their father. “I’ll see what’s going on. Just get the damn furnace fixed.”
Leaving the cardboard box he’d been unpacking, Ken strode into the living room and peered through the peephole Gabe had drilled in the front door when their mother married him and they came to stay in this cabin that first summer. They didn’t have any heat, so Ken didn’t plan on opening it if he didn’t have to. It was already cold enough to see his breath. But the moment he saw a petite woman with long dark hair standing on the porch without a hat, boots or much of a coat, he yanked the door wide—and gaped at the zip-up sweatshirt she wore with blue jeans and snow-covered tennis shoes.
They had a visitor, all right. But it wasn’t their father….
Angling his head, he scanned the drive for a vehicle.
Other than his own Land Rover, which he’d parked outside because there wasn’t room in the garage, he couldn’t see one. How had she gotten so far into th
e mountains without a car, and dressed like that? “Can I help you?” he said uncertainly.
Chocolate-dark eyes, framed with the longest lashes he’d ever seen, appealed to him from a café au lait face. She was somewhere in her mid-twenties, and she was pretty. Really pretty. It was like finding Salma Hayek on his doorstep. But he was fairly confident the lack of color in her lips wasn’t a good thing.
“I—I’m Cierra,” she said, rolling the r’s, and reached out to give him a piece of paper that’d been crushed in one hand. Before he could accept it, however, she swayed and would’ve fallen had he not let it go and caught her instead.
“Brent!”
A clang, and subsequent cursing, indicated that Brent had dropped his wrench. A few seconds later, Ken could hear his younger brother jogging toward him. Nothing Brent did was ever very subtle. He was only twenty-one and still in college, but he was bigger than Ken, although, at six feet two inches and two hundred and ten pounds, Ken had never been considered small—except, maybe, when analysts compared him to the front line in football.
While he held her, Cierra’s eyelashes fluttered as though she was fighting for consciousness but, a second later, she lost that battle and her eyes drifted shut.
“What is it?” Brent asked, coming up from behind.
Ken turned to show him, and watched his brother’s mouth fall open.
“Wow!” he breathed. “That’s exactly what I wanted for Christmas. How’d you know?”
There was no time to acknowledge his joke. “Grab the purse she just dropped and fix a place to put her. I think she’s suffering from hypothermia.”
Brent dashed inside, just ahead of Ken, straight to the master bedroom, where Ken had left his bags when they arrived a few hours earlier, and peeled the plastic cover off the mattress. The cabin had been closed up for so long it had a musty odor, but that would go away once they aired out the place. At least covering the furniture had kept it from getting too dusty.