by Liz Talley
“Sometimes the simplest of things are the best of things.”
Shelby popped a walnut from the top of the cobbler into her mouth and looked at him. At that moment, John knew nothing was as simple as he wished it. How he felt about Shelby and the child she carried was ten times more complex than anything he’d ever felt in his life. He could talk about one day at a time and simplicity, but he knew that as each day, each hour, each minute ticked by, he wanted Shelby Mackey.
Not just in his life as the mother of his child, but in his bed and by his side.
And that complex thought scared the hell out of him.
* * *
FOR THE NEXT few weeks, Shelby’s life settled into a pattern. She got up and did some yoga stretches recommended for pregnant women, took a nice not-too-hot shower and had breakfast with Bart. After letting the dog out for a romp, she locked up Breezy Hill, hopped in her car and was behind her desk before the other teachers arrived. Matt sometimes came by to check on her, and the other teachers treated her as one of the gang, even inviting her to participate in their Christmas song and dance they performed every year for the Christmas assembly.
Shelby bowed out because dancing in a Christmas mouse costume wasn’t her cup of tea, but she helped make props for the stage and even helped David track down mouse ears. The students adapted well to her teaching style, and preparation for midterms progressed nicely.
Every evening when the sun went down, she and John prepared something for dinner, made their sack lunches for the next day and watched TV. They pretended family, Carla and repercussions didn’t exist.
One evening when Shelby asked about a Christmas tree, John climbed up into the attic and started bringing boxes down. “I never thought I’d use these again.”
“Why not? They’re pretty,” Shelby said, unpacking the antique glass ornaments from the bubble wrap.
“These were Rebecca’s grandmother’s. The old bat, ahem, lady used to collect them. Some are priceless, but last year the thought of dragging this out made me feel sick. Couldn’t do it.”
“I understand. Grief is a powerful wall. Hard to get around.”
“Have you ever lost anyone close to you?”
“Well, my grandfather passed away when I was four. I barely remember him, but what I do remember is that he was a kind man and always had a peppermint in his pocket for me—the soft chalky kind. I loved when I got to visit him at the office.”
“What sort of business was he in?”
“Lumber and some other stuff. They made furniture, too,” she said, not wanting to flat-out admit her family held a lion’s share of stock in a Fortune 500 company. Her mother still sat at the helm of Inabnet Industries. “What about your family? Have they always lived here in Louisiana?”
“Pretty much. My great-great-great-grandfather settled here back in the early 1800s on land granted to him by the governor for his service in the War of 1812. Of course, ol’ Burnsides immediately sold half to pay off gambling debts. The family moved to Chicago and George’s grandson became a minor railroad baron. He sold his shares in the railroad company, bought the plantation house from the woman who became his mistress and settled into building the town. Beauchamps and Burnsides have been here ever since. At one time my family was the wealthiest sugar family in the South. But that’s all gone away. Today we’re merely the guardians of our history. Sugar collapsed and land was sold to corporations.”
“And the Stantons?”
“Been here since after the war. This house was actually rebuilt back in the 1920s after a kitchen fire destroyed much of the main house. This mantel was in the original, though,” John said, running a hand over the mahogany and marble before hanging the garland from the small hooks beneath.
“Fascinating. I visited tons of plantations this past fall. I had just come from Hermitage when I stopped at Boots. You know, I turned into the parking lot at the last minute only because I didn’t want to go back to the Dufrenes’ house.”
He adjusted the garland and plugged in the white Christmas lights twined throughout. “Dufrenes?”
“The family of the guy who dumped me,” Shelby said, picking up two pewter candelabras shaped like reindeer.
“The man is a dumb-ass for letting you get away.”
“Ha. This from a man who ran out of Boots like I’d turned into a man-eating alligator?” Shelby joked, passing him the reindeer so they could anchor either end of the mantel.
“I wasn’t in good shape that night.”
Shelby didn’t say anything, merely walked over to the tree they’d just put up and touched one of the ornaments. “Might as well share my bad history with men since we’re...becoming a team.”
John turned. “How about some hot chocolate even if it’s turned warm for December?”
Shelby nodded. After grabbing a mug and taking one himself, John sat down amid the boxes and bubble wrap and said, “So tell me your sordid past.”
Shelby sank onto the sofa, tucking her leg beneath her. “Well, remember how I told you I couldn’t say no to my housekeeper’s cooking?”
He smiled.
“My siblings were older by twelve and nine years, so I was basically an only child. I didn’t want to go to the private schools my brother and sister had attended. I insisted on public school because I wanted to be normal, like the kids on TV. Anyway, I was a chubby nonentity at public school. I had friends, but I wasn’t popular and I only went to prom because all the science geeks asked me and my friends. Quintessential ugly duckling until the end of my senior year when the weight fell off. Sela took me to NYC over spring break and hired a stylist. Under those shapeless flannel shirts was a gal I never knew existed. I mean, I had these boobs and a waist and pretty kick-ass long legs. When I got back to Seattle a week later, boys were all over me.”
“Yeah, I get that,” he said, leaning back on his elbows. “Who’s Sela?”
“My sister.” Shelby didn’t have time to explain that complex hate-hate relationship. Sela had never cared for Shelby beyond the standard sister obligation her parents had drilled into her. Besides, Sela had only taken Shelby because their father had refused to pay for Sela’s trip if she didn’t take her sister.
“So anyway, I had no clue how to deal with these guys flirting with me. It embarrassed me, and my social skills were crap. But at my dad’s office, there was this junior attorney from California. He was thirty years old and pretty hot. The kind of guy all the secretaries fluttered about. I didn’t feel awkward around him because I had known him for a few years, but suddenly he started paying more attention to me. Started innocently enough, but it ended pretty much the way things started with us.”
“In a bathroom?”
“No, his office,” Shelby said, averting her eyes. It still hurt to think about what a rube she’d been, how she’d fallen for all his lines and then allowed him to take her virginity next to the copier. Seriously. “And it was complicated. Kurt was married.”
John lifted off his elbows, his brow crinkling. “Married?”
“Technically. His wife had been in a serious car accident, and I know this sounds like a bad movie plot, but she was in an induced coma for an entire month. The doctors thought she wouldn’t make it, and Kurt seemed devastated and lost. I thought I was helping him by being a good friend to lean on. In my naïveté, I didn’t realize he exploited my feelings in order to seduce me.”
And just like that, anger sluiced off John. “If I could get my hands on that son of a bitch...”
“Yeah, he’s a real turd, but thing was I was really stupid.”
“You were a kid.”
“But I should have known better. Should have seen the writing on the wall. He used me, and one of the firm’s partners caught us having sex in Kurt’s office.”
“Yikes.”
Shelby gave a hard laugh. “W
asn’t pretty. My father’s a hard man and scandal is something he doesn’t tolerate in his firm. He fired Kurt and finally embraced the concept of me going to Oregon State. But dumb bunny I am, I declared Kurt loved me and showed up at his house ready to sacrifice everything for him. Of course, Kurt told me it was over, but I didn’t believe it until I saw him a week later at the hospital kissing his wife, tears streaming down his face, for the media’s benefit I might add. His wife had emerged from the coma. I packed my bags and headed to college.”
“That’s a pretty rough introduction to being an adult.”
“No shit,” she cracked. “So I had a few on-again off-again guys in my life my first few years of teaching, but when my father hired Kurt again as if what he had done didn’t matter more than the clients he could bring to Mackey and Associates, I signed up to teach in a naval base school. I got sent to Rota, Spain, where I met a JAG corp attorney from Louisiana.”
“This Dufrene guy?”
“Yeah. He’s from Bayou Bridge and seemed perfect for me. He was interested in moving to Seattle because he didn’t want to come back here. Thing was, he didn’t realize it, but the marriage he thought null and void from his past was legitimate. While waiting for the divorce, he fell back in love with his wife.”
“Another made-for-TV movie?”
“I’m a walking Lifetime movie.” Shelby picked up the wreath with the crushed bow and straightened the wired fabric. “Saying it out loud only makes it sound crazier, but that particular event led me to Boots and a sad cowboy who laughed at my lame jokes.”
John’s face softened. “I’m a sucker for bad jokes.”
Shelby eyed the tree. “I think the tree looks a little crooked.”
John stood and closed one eye and then the other. “Maybe. Are you changing the subject?”
“This conversation feels a little heavy. Saying all my past screwups out loud makes me feel naive. Stupid.”
He moved toward her and brushed back the hair on her shoulder. “Nothing wrong with making mistakes. No one’s perfect. No one makes the right decision all the time. Look at me.”
So Shelby looked at him. At his hard jaw with the five o’clock whiskers emerging, the green eyes she could dive into, the firm mouth she wanted to kiss but wouldn’t. She’d meant it when she said no more kissing until he wasn’t sorry about it.
“Just because you were unlucky a few times, doesn’t mean you always will be.”
Shelby shook her head. “I’m pretty sure you’re the wrong guy to tell me this.”
“Why?”
“Because you very likely will be my next ‘you won’t believe this’ story,” she said, turning from him.
“You think I’m going to hurt you?” His voice was soft. Serious.
Shelby knew the possibility of falling for John was there and creeping ever closer. On one hand, she wanted to keep what they had between them—an easy camaraderie, ever since she’d burned the pork chops—but on the other hand, she didn’t want to live so safely. In her mind, the question what if kept circulating.
What if they gave into the ever-present sexual desire pulsing between them?
What if they were unified by more than the baby growing inside her?
What if they took a chance and went for broke?
What if?
“I don’t know,” she said, turning away so he couldn’t see the uncertainty in her gaze. “I think you could have that power. After all, you just heard me admit how much of a sucker I am for guys who are already committed.”
“I’m not committed.”
“Yeah, you are. Maybe not physically, but emotionally you’re still in love with your wife.”
For a moment, he didn’t answer. “To be in love, there have to be two people present, and Rebecca is no longer here. Part of me will always love her. I’m working on the other part,” he said. His eyes illuminated by the glow of the white lights crisscrossing the tree looked like bottle glass. Truly beautiful. So easy to lose herself in eyes filled with the intent to move past grief. But could he let that part of himself go? Could he truly stop wishing his life were different? And even if he did, would she even be an option?
Shelby gave herself a mental shake and stepped back from the intimacy. She had waited for weeks for John to open up about where he was in regards to his grief, in regards to her. But now it felt too vulnerable to open herself to that hope, especially after lifting the veil to reveal the warts and bruises beneath her sunny exterior. It was likely safer for her and John to remain what they were—friends who cared for one another.
Friends who wanted to rip the clothes off each other.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She shrugged, picking up a box they hadn’t opened. “It’s fine to grow closer, but we can’t cross that line. We have to stay friends. Easier that way.”
He watched her as she opened the box, which held two embroidered stockings. One had a jolly St. Nick sitting in a sleigh full of gifts, the beading and sequins catching the light of the tree. John’s name was written at the top. The other depicted an angel in white, golden beading glowing around her head. Rebecca’s stocking.
“Let me take those. We don’t need stockings.” John folded the stockings and put them back inside the box with the foam liner.
Something in the way he moved so quickly, something in the sadness that ripped across his face, made her heart ache.
“Yep, Santa is passing you up ’cause you’ve been a bad boy,” Shelby teased, trying to draw them back to the easiness they’d had before she’d admitted her sordid past. “Knocking up girls in roadside bars and then inviting them to live with you. Some preacher’s boy you are.”
Easier to joke than cry.
Rebecca’s stocking had made her want to cry.
An angel.
After Carla had rammed her cart into Shelby’s at Schwartz’s a few weeks ago, Shelby had set Rebecca’s journal on the top shelf next to the porcelain china doll. Every time she opened the closet to find something to wear, her eyes went up to where it sat.
An angel...but was that who Rebecca truly was?
Shelby’s perception of John’s late wife was based on everyone else’s grief, but she didn’t know who the woman had been. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to know the woman John had loved. But the fact she could know more if she opened the journal tempted her. All she had to do was lift her arm and grab the story of Rebecca.
John folded the flaps of the box, interrupting her thoughts. “Guess I should expect a lump of coal, huh?”
“Well, you can use coal for a lot of things. To keep warm and draw. You can even make a diamond out of coal.” Shelby took the box and set it atop the ones John would return to storage. They’d finished decorating the house, and the living room looked different with the holly, greenery and red velvet bows. The trappings of Christmas had brought life to the room, making it feel like a home.
“I’m glad we did this,” he said, standing back and folding his arms. The gesture made his shoulders broader, his jaw harder. Well, it actually didn’t, but to Shelby, he seemed more masculine than seconds before.
“I’ve never decorated a Christmas tree before,” she said. “My parents had decorators put up our holiday decorations. In Spain I just hung a wreath.”
The look he gave her said enough.
“Yeah, I’m pitiful.”
“No, you’re beautiful, and I’m glad you stayed here.”
Shelby looked back at the sparkling world spread before her. “I’m glad I stayed, too.”
Later, Shelby went up to her room the way she did each night. Using the stairs. And very much alone.
Until an hour ago, John had refused to move into any other realm than friendship. During the past few weeks, they’d been decent roommates, agreeable pals, mutual fans of T
he Walking Dead—who wasn’t?—and that was all. Well, John wanted her physically, of course. Shelby hadn’t climbed off the boat yesterday and knew that much.
So why when he finally moved toward something more intimate than “pass the salt” had she pulled back?
Perhaps because ticking off all the shitty decisions she’d made over the guys in her past reminded her she couldn’t trust her heart. Wanting John and something more than a platonic relationship scared her, because now she couldn’t walk away and never see him again. Their child would link them forever.
So wouldn’t it be better to ignore the unspoken attraction between them and settle for friendship rather than risk their hearts? Probably.
But then again, when had Shelby ever done what she was supposed to do?
Only on the fourth of never.
“You can’t be so irresponsible anymore, chickadee,” she said to herself as she closed the door and switched on the bedside lamp. Rubbing the stomach that had finally started getting poochy, she pulled her Oregon State sweatshirt over her head. With a yawn, she went to the closet and hung it up, glancing at the journal on the top shelf the way she did every day.
No one wanted the journal...it was forgotten.
Shelby had tried to give it to John, and then Carla hadn’t even given her a chance to tell her about her daughter’s journal. So maybe fate or whatever one wanted to call it had left Rebecca’s journal to Shelby.
What had John said earlier? Meant to be? Maybe this was the same thing. Maybe Shelby was meant to read Rebecca’s journal for whatever reason, which was definitely a higher purpose than Shelby being nosy.
Sliding a glance at the unlocked door as if she were about to sneak a copy of Playgirl, she pulled the journal off the shelf.
Don’t be silly, Shelby. He’s not coming in to catch you reading his dead wife’s journal.
She tossed Rebecca’s journal on her pillow and quickly pulled on her gown, scrubbed her face and brushed her teeth. When she settled into bed, piling up the goose-down pillows behind her, the alarm clock read 9:47 p.m.