12 Stocking Stuffers

by Beverly Barton

  “So why all the strain and tension, honey? Did you Leo have some sort of falling out?”

  Falling in, was more like it! “No,” she said, too quickly, and almost jumped out of her skin when the phone rang.

  “That’s probably Deenie again,” her father remarked, still watching her thoughtfully. “She’s called twice already this morning, and I must say, you make quite a pair. She’s wired tighter than a drum and you’re as jittery as a cat on hot coals. What’s with the two of you?”

  “I’m not jittery,” Ava said.

  But denying the obvious didn’t carry much weight when she promptly put the lie to her allegation by giving another start as her mother called out from the kitchen, “Phone’s for you, Ava. It’s Leo. Take it in the library, why don’t you?”

  She waited until her father had trudged upstairs with her suitcases and she heard her mother hang up in the kitchen, then cradling the telephone receiver furtively, whispered into the mouthpiece, “What do you think you’re doing, calling me here?”

  “Where else do you suggest I call in order to get in touch with you?” Leo inquired, and even the sound of his voice was enough to send an unlawful tingle of excitement down her spine.

  “You shouldn’t be phoning me at all,” she snapped, taking refuge in umbrage. “What if my parents were to overhear?”

  “What if they did? I hardly think they’d take exception to my letting you know I found your watch on the floor in my vehicle.”

  Not believing him, she pulled back the sleeve of her sweater and saw that her watch was, indeed, missing. “Well, how did that happen, do you suppose?”

  “Search me,” he said equably. “Maybe it fell off when you tried wrestling me into the back seat so you could have your wicked way with me.”

  Fuming, she spat, “I’m glad one of us finds this whole situation so amusing!”

  “Actually, I don’t, but it beats the way you’re reacting.”

  “And how is that?”

  “By donning sackcloth and ashes, and bleating to the whole world that you’re a fallen woman.”

  “I am not bleating—and nor, for that matter, am I a fallen woman, though that’s hardly something you can take credit for!”

  “Sweetheart,” he said, his patience clearly flagging, “no one’s going to buy that argument for a minute unless you stop acting as if our farmer hosts caught us stark naked and rolling around on the stable floor having sex.”

  “I am not your sweetheart.”

  “No, you’re a pain in the butt, but it being the season of goodwill toward men and all that, I’m trying my damnedest to be charitable.” He didn’t sigh exactly—he wasn’t the sighing type. “Look, Ava, the watch is obviously expensive and I thought you’d want to know it’s safe, that’s all. And since I intend giving it to Deenie to pass on to you when you see her later on, I also thought you’d like to be prepared for the event, rather than be caught by surprise and overreacting to a perfectly innocent occurrence—which, by the way, is what you’re doing now.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she admitted. “And thank you. It is an expensive watch.”

  “Solid gold, from the looks of it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Souvenir of your exotic travels?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m glad it didn’t fall off when you were trekking through the snow, or it’d be lost for good.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Enjoy your lunch with Deenie.”

  “Thank you. I’ll try.”

  “You’ll do better than that, and we both know it. She can’t wait to see you.”

  She’d never imagined there’d come a time when she wouldn’t feel the same way. As it was, when Deenie phoned about ten minutes later and made arrangements to pick her up at half past noon, Ava knew only a sickening sense of dread.

  “You look wonderful, you know! So tanned and healthy and glowing. And I love the way you’re wearing your hair.” Deenie, who hadn’t once stopped talking from the second she’d arrived to pick up Ava at the house, plopped herself down at a window table in the Owen’s Lake Country Club dining room. “Have I said that already? I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m so glad to see you, Ava.”

  But she didn’t look glad. She looked drawn and painfully thin. Her smile was too fixed, her nerves too taut. She’d always been highly strung, but the restless agitation that kept her jerking like a poorly controlled marionette was pitiful to behold.

  “What shall we order? Let’s have champagne cocktails. To celebrate your coming home.”

  “How about to celebrate our both being home at the same time again?” Ava suggested.

  “Oh, that!” Deenie waved a dismissing hand and turned to stare out at the lake, covered at this time of year with ice thick enough for people to skate on—but not before Ava caught the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “We’ll do that tomorrow.”

  “What’s happening tomorrow?” Ava pretended not to notice the tears, and wondered how it was that years of complete trust and sharing between her and her dearest friend could splinter into the shallow chit-chat of mere acquaintances. Was it her fault? Had her manner alerted Deenie to the fact that something amiss had occurred the night before?

  “Didn’t your mother tell you?” Deenie’s smile was back in place again, dazzling and totally superficial. “My parents are throwing their usual pre-Christmas bash, and combining it with a family and friends’ reunion. Our house is bursting at the seams with relatives I haven’t seen since I was in diapers and Leo’s expecting company, too, but his parents winter in Florida now and aren’t flying in until Christmas Eve, so the only person he’ll be showing up with is some dotty old woman he calls ‘duchess’ because one of her many husbands was some displaced European aristocrat, or so she claims. She’s a nutcase, if ever there was one.”

  I’d say, from the way you’re acting, you’re not far off from that yourself, Ava thought, watching her. “Then it’s to be a big party, I take it?”

  “About forty people. Big enough.” Deenie rearranged her cutlery, moved her water glass a fraction of an inch to the left, and picked a wilted leaf off the potted poinsettia in the middle of the table. “Doesn’t the clubhouse look wonderful? I love all the wall hangings and the way they’ve done up the tree in the foyer. Did you see it? It must be twenty feet tall and have about a million lights on it.”

  “I don’t care about the Christmas tree in the foyer, Deenie,” Ava said, reaching across the table to still those restive hands. “I care about you. How are you, really?”

  “Really?” Deenie let out an overwrought giggle. “I’m a walking disaster, can’t you tell? Thanks to my dance partner, I’m recovering from a torn muscle in my shoulder and damaged tendons in my ankle. I suppose I should be grateful he only dropped me. If he’d landed on top of me, as well, I’d probably be dead.”

  “He must feel dreadful about it.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. Marcus isn’t a man to waste a lot of time on guilt.”

  Taken aback by the venom in Deenie’s tone, Ava said sharply, “But it was an accident, wasn’t it?”

  “Let’s just say that’s the conclusion everyone reached.”

  “What are you implying?” Aghast, Ava stared at her. “That he dropped you on purpose?”

  “I think he wanted to see his latest protégée dancing the lead in The Nutcracker, and having me sidelined with injuries came at a very convenient time.”

  The contempt with which she spat out “latest protégée” spoke volumes. Stunned, Ava said, “Oh, Deenie, were you personally involved with this Marcus? Did he cast you aside for her?”

  Deenie looked up, eyes bright with angry tears. “Yes, to both questions.”

  “But you always said you’d never—”

  “So I broke my own rules and fell in love with a colleague. Sorry if I’ve disappointed you, but we can’t all be as morally high-minded and disciplined as you.”

  Ava reared back in her chair, shocked as
much by her friend’s bitterness as by her own ongoing sense of shame. “I’m the last person to judge you, for heaven’s sake!” she exclaimed, feeling as if she’d just kicked a puppy in the teeth. “I’m just so sorry you were hurt.”

  “Not anymore, I’m not! I’ve moved on to bigger things.”

  “And you’re happy?”

  Again, that too bright smile which stretched the skin over Deenie’s cheekbones until she looked almost skeletal. “Wouldn’t you be, if you were dating Leo?”

  Heavenly days, yes! “We aren’t talking about me, Deenie. It’s how you feel that matters.”

  “I already told you—like celebrating. Which reminds me, I want you to come shopping with me for something to wear to the New Year’s Eve dinner dance here at the club. There’s quite a smart little boutique downtown—very upscale for a backwater town like this. Designer labels and the works, with all kinds of neat accessories. Say you’ll come.”

  “Well, sure. I’m always game to go shopping, you know that.”

  “Great. Not tomorrow, though, because I’m expecting guests from out of town and have to meet them at Skellington Airport, but maybe the day after that?”

  “Fine.”

  “And before I forget, here’s your watch.” Deenie groped in her bag and slid the watch across the table. “Now, let’s get down to some serious celebrating.”

  With a snap of her fingers, she brought a waiter hurrying over. “Two champagne cocktails, please,” she ordered, then abruptly changed her mind. “Better yet, just bring a whole bottle and have done with—whatever you’ve got on ice will do.”

  As the man raced off to do her bidding, she glanced defiantly at Ava and said, “What are you looking so sour about? I thought you’d be happy to get your watch back.”

  “This isn’t about my watch, and I’m not looking sour! Surprised, maybe. I’m not used to downing a whole bottle of wine at lunch and the last I knew, you weren’t, either.”

  “Oh, stop being so po-faced! You’re my friend, not my mother, and it’s Christmas, for heaven’s sake! What’s wrong with living it up a bit when a woman’s future’s looking so rosy?”

  But the speed with which she knocked back two glasses of champagne resembled someone desperately seeking escape from today, rather than one in happy anticipation of tomorrow.

  “Are you sure you’re headed in the right direction with Leo?” Ava asked her cautiously. “I know you mentioned in your last email that you and he were serious, but has he actually said anything about getting married?”

  “Not in so many words, perhaps, but he will. It’s only a matter of time.” Deenie swigged down another mouthful of champagne and smirked suggestively. “A man’s actions often speak louder than words, if you get my drift!”

  There was hardly any missing it! “If that’s the case, why are you so…twitchy? Is it the idea of a wedding?”

  “No. It’s the bit which comes after that’s worrying me.”

  “You mean the honeymoon?”

  Deenie laughed tipsily. “I mean the marriage, dopey! I mean facing Leo across the breakfast table every morning, and ironing his shirts, and being the gracious hostess when he invites his colleagues over for dinner.”

  “Aren’t they what marriage is all about?”

  “For types like you, perhaps. But I’m not cut out to be a small-town hausfrau.”

  “In that case, why are you even thinking about becoming engaged to a man like Leo?”

  “Because a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do.” Deenie hiccuped and regarded Ava owlishly. “You know what they say about the means justifying the end, right? Sometimes, you have to play hardball to get what you want. Well, guess what! I’m playing hardball.”

  Despite the mixed metaphors and slurred words, there was nevertheless a certain steely determination in her voice that left Ava very uneasy. “You’re up to something, Deenie,” she said, “and I want to know what it is.”

  Deenie shook her head—let it flop foolishly from side to side, actually. “No. S’too late for true confessions.”

  “It’s never too late, Deenie.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said, with exaggerated solemnity. “Let’s have another drink.”

  “Forget it! You need food.” Ava wasn’t sure if Deenie really meant what she was saying, or if the champagne was to blame for the disquieting confessions spilling out of her mouth. But she did know that trying to hold a rational conversation with someone close to falling-down drunk was a waste of time. Sober, Deenie might be singing quite a different tune.

  On the other hand, in vino veritas…!

  Flagging down their waiter, Ava ordered club sandwiches with French fries. Not the most healthful meal on the menu by a long shot, but at least the carbohydrates would soak up some of the wine.

  “And bring us another bottle of champagne,” Deenie said, tripping over the words.

  “Bring us coffee instead,” Ava countermanded. “A very large pot of it, please.”

  “You’ve spent so long overseas tending to the poor and underprivileged, you’ve forgotten how to have fun,” Deenie pouted. “You’re being a real party pooper, Ava.”

  “No. I’m being your friend.”

  But a good friend, a real friend, would hear what Deenie wasn’t saying, and would give her the kind of unselfish, unbiased advice she obviously needed.

  Don’t take up with one man when you’re still in love with another, she’d say. Don’t use Leo. He deserves better than that.

  Trouble was, her own motivation was too murky to allow her to speak so plainly. Because the truth was, she’d like nothing better than to throw a monkey wrench in the works and set Leo free to pursue a relationship with her.

  And what kind of friend did that make her?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HE AND Ava were avoiding each other. Beyond exchanging a flickering glance of acknowledgement when she arrived at the Manville’s home for the dinner party, she’d behaved as if he were just another piece of highly polished furniture, and he’d gravitated to the other end of the room to take up his post next to the glittery artificial Christmas tree.

  “Who’s that lovely, long-legged stork of a gal?” Cousin Ethel inquired, sidling up to him as the pre-dinner cocktail hour began to wind down.

  “Which one?” he asked, gazing vacantly around the room at the mob of guests, and doing his utmost to look properly puzzled.

  Playing dumb with the duchess had never worked. She was too smart, too observant and too outspoken for her own good, and the fact that she’d just turned eighty-four—she wasn’t actually his cousin, but his father’s several times removed—didn’t impair her faculties in the least.

  “This might be my third martini, boy, but I’m a long way from being plastered,” she declared, chewing on her olive. “You know very well which one, given that she’s the reason you’re lurking behind this appalling tree so you can ogle her through its silly artificial branches.”

  “Oh, her!” he said, removing a skein of tinsel festooning his left ear, and feeling as big a fool as he no doubt must look. “She’s just the daughter of one of the neighbors.”

  Not to mention the sexiest creature in the western hemisphere. In her sleek retro dinner dress, Ava might have stepped out of some classic 1930’s drawing room drama. “Elegant” was the word which most immediately sprang to mind, although other, less intellectual parts of him stirred with an even greater appreciation for what lay beneath that shining length of slinky black satin.

  “Then she’s a friend of the diminutive Deenie’s?”

  “That’s right,” he managed, on a strangled breath as Ava shrugged one shoulder and sent ripples of reflected candlelight shimmering down her torso.

  “Aha! Introduce me.”

  “What?”

  Ethel knocked back the rest of her martini and eyed him balefully. “Something wrong with your hearing, Leo, or has joining the sleaziest profession on God’s earth addled your brains to the point that you can’t underst
and simple English?”

  Caught squarely between amusement and annoyance, he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and cruised her over to where Ava leaned against the grand piano, sipping champagne and chatting altogether too cosily with some imported suit wearing too much jewelry.

  “Hi,” he said, striving to appear unmoved by the sight. “Someone here wants to meet you. Ethel Whitney, this is Ava Sorensen. And…?”

  “Bret Turner,” the suit supplied, flashing a mouthful of perfectly capped teeth. “Charmed to make your acquaintance, madam.”

  Ethel nodded. “No doubt. Go amuse yourself with someone else, young man, and leave me to get acquainted with this enchanting lass. Not you, Leo,” she commanded, snagging him by the elbow just as he was about to make his escape. “I’m talking to Mr. Turner. You stay put and be sociable.”

  His problem, Leo decided, stifling a groan, had less to do with the fact that Ethel was a domineering dowager used to doling out orders with imperial disregard for the wishes of others, than it had with his having been brought up to show respect toward the elderly regardless of how unreasonable their demands might be. So, like a dog highly trained in obedience, he remained rooted to the spot even though his every instinct told him to hotfoot it away with all due speed.

  Ava offered her hand. “How do you do, Ms. Whitney? I’m delighted to meet you.”

  Ethel inspected Ava’s short oval nails, painted the same rich cranberry colour as Leo had noticed on her toenails two nights previously, and the slim, capable fingers. “Good hands as well as good manners,” she pronounced with satisfaction. “Good bones, too. Are you a model, child, or merely a model child?”

  Ava laughed, a low rich ripple of amusement which further captivated Ethel. “Neither, I’m afraid. I’m an ICU nurse, and my mother blames me for all her grey hairs.”

  “A nurse? The hell you say! And was Leo your patient when he injured his back?”

  “I was never in ICU, duchess,” he said, almost breaking out in a sweat at the thought of Ava giving him a bed bath.