12 Stocking Stuffers

by Beverly Barton

  “I don’t want it,” she said, her throat swelling with emotion. “Please, Leo, just go. Leave me alone. You’ve done enough.”

  “It’s nothing much, a token of friendship, that’s all. Something to remind you of Christmas back home when you’re baking under the hot desert sun next year at this time.”

  There it was again, that word “friendship” which could mean everything—but in this case meant not nearly enough.

  He held out the gift. Came closer.

  But she shied away, her composure so fragile she could almost hear it splintering.

  Accepting her rejection, he shrugged and placed the package on top of the others already stacked under the tree. “Just in case you change your mind,” he said, then turned and left.

  CHAPTER NINE

  AVA couldn’t face attending Christmas Eve service at Saint Martha’s in her present mood, not when she knew that everyone on the street would be there, including Leo. So as soon as her parents left for the church, she changed out of her silk-wool dress into warm slacks and a sweater, borrowed her mother’s down-filled jacket, and took Jason for a walk along the lakefront. The overcast sky had cleared somewhat, reducing the snow to an occasional flurry and allowing glimpses of moonlight to flit between ragged streamers of cloud. The air had an unmistakably northern bite to it, sharp and pine-scented.

  This was Owen’s Lake as she’d always known it, the place where she’d always thought she belonged. This was Christmas, pristine and perfect, just as she yearned to experience it when she was thousands of miles away and living in a culture which didn’t recognize the traditional celebrations she’d grown up with. And she could hardly wait to get away from both!

  I hate you, Leo Ferrante! she thought balefully, as she passed the big white house where he’d grown up. You’ve spoilt everything that mattered to me. Home, the holidays, and my friendship with Deenie.

  But he hadn’t done it alone, and that was what grieved her the most. She’d been his accomplice, every step of the way, as much the instrument of her present misery as he was. More so, really. Because he couldn’t have taken over her heart so easily if she hadn’t let him in to begin with.

  A few yards farther along the curving path and just as she drew level with the Manville home, she heard a sound.

  “Psst!”

  Startled, she glanced up and saw nothing but the pale gleam of moonlight on the picket fence running along the bottom of the garden. The house itself was in darkness, except for the winking lights strung along the back porch and one window on the upper floor.

  Deciding her imagination was playing tricks on her she hauled Jason up short on his leash and was about to turn back the way she’d come when a shadow, blacker than the rest, emerged from the bulk of the neighboring hedge. “Psst! Ava!”

  “Deenie?” she exclaimed, recognizing the voice. “What on earth are you doing?”

  “Waiting for you. I saw you coming along the lakefront.”

  “So you thought you’d hide out in the bushes to ambush me? Aren’t you a bit past the age for playing such games?”

  “I don’t want anyone to know I’m here.” As if that wasn’t already clear enough, she tugged Ava into the shelter of the hedge. “Listen, something’s happened, I need a really, really big favour from you, and I don’t have much time to talk about it.”

  “What is it?” Ava asked warily, wondering if Leo had dropped his bombshell.

  But, far from sounding or acting as if she’d just received a dressing-down, Deenie seemed charged with restless energy and a brittle kind of excitement. Casting a furtive glance over her shoulder, she plucked again at the sleeve of Ava’s jacket and said, “Can we go back to your place? No one will think of looking for me there.”

  Not waiting for a reply, much less agreement, she followed up the question by towing Ava and Jason along with her as she scurried like a hunted rabbit over the snow-packed path to the Sorensens’.

  Only when she was safely ensconced in Ava’s room, with the door locked and the blinds drawn, would she elaborate further. “Brace yourself, girlfriend,” she began, curling up at one end of the bed, the way she used to when they were teenagers trading adolescent secrets. “What I’m about to tell you is going to come as a bit of a blow. I’m running off to get married.”

  “No, you’re not,” Ava said flatly. “I already spoke to Leo. I know he’s not in love with you.”

  “Leo?” Deenie’s eyes grew wide with astonishment. “What’s he got to do with any of this?”

  “Nothing. That’s my whole point.”

  “But I didn’t say I was marrying him, silly!” Her face lit up in a dazzling smile and she hugged herself in unfeigned delight. “Oh, Ava, the most incredible, wonderful thing has happened! Marcus and I are together again. He phoned me yesterday afternoon from La Guardia to tell me he was catching the redeye to Denver, and from there to Vancouver, and that he’d be landing at Skellington Airport at eleven-forty this morning.”

  “So that’s where you were!”

  “Huh?”

  “You disappeared without a word to anyone, Deenie. Your parents were worried.”

  “They’d have been more worried if they’d known what I was up to! My mother’s going to throw a hissy fit when she finds out I’m marrying Marcus. She doesn’t think male dancers make good husband material.”

  “I see. So what’s this huge favour you want of me?”

  “Well, we’re eloping tonight. We’ll fly to Las Vegas to get married, then join the rest of the company in Chile next week.” She grasped Ava’s hands in the first show of genuine delight since their reunion. “We’re going to be partners again, in every sense of the word. As soon as the company doctor gives me the all-clear on my ankle, we’ll be dancing together again—but as man and wife this time.”

  “And?”

  “And I want you to explain to my parents. You’ll do it so much better than I will.”

  Ava let out a squeak of stunned laughter. “You must be joking!”

  “No,” Deenie said in an injured tone. “I’ve never been more serious. Look, Ava, this isn’t a decision I’ve made on the spur of the moment. Marcus and I have been in touch constantly over the last week or so. Remember the night of the dinner party, when you came looking for me in my bedroom? I’d been on the phone with him then.”

  “What I remember is that I found you in tears.”

  “Because he’d been phoning nearly every day, begging me to come back to him, but never once offering me the kind of commitment I wanted, and I was afraid he never would.”

  “So you used Leo as a bargaining chip?” Try though she might, Ava couldn’t mask her dismay.

  “No more than he used me—perhaps not as a ‘bargaining chip’ as you so quaintly put it, but certainly as a diversion to relieve the boredom of being laid up with a bad back for so long.”

  “And the Markovs?”

  She made a face. “Okay, so I used them, too.”

  “And that whole business of looking at the house yesterday was just another part of the plan? You conned Leo into meeting you there, then showed up with people you knew would run to Marcus with the tale of how you were on the brink of setting up house?”

  “What do you want me to say? I’m used to giving a convincing performance.”

  “You’re a brat, Deenie, and I’m furious with myself for having let you string me along like this.”

  “Well, there wouldn’t have been much point in putting on an act if I went around telling people that’s all it was, now would there?”

  “Rationalize your behaviour any way you like. My answer remains the same regardless. I absolutely will not act as the go-between here. You’ll have to tell your parents the truth yourself.”

  “I can’t. My mother will weep copious tears and my father will look as if I’ve driven a stake through his heart. But you’ve always been so good with words and with people’s feelings, Ava. It’s why you make such a fabulous nurse.”

  “Butte
ring me up isn’t going to work, Deenie. I won’t do it, and you have no right asking me to. For once in your life, you’re going to have to clean up your own mess.”

  “Perhaps,” Deenie said, a distinct chill entering her voice, “I haven’t made my position clear. My lover—my true love—is waiting for me in the departure lounge at Skellington Airport. I came too close to losing him once already. I don’t intend to risk having it happen again by missing our flight.”

  “If he was half the man you think he is, he wouldn’t be lurking in the next town and letting you face this alone. If he really loved you—”

  “The way you love Leo, Ava?” Deenie’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, please! Spare me the naïve, wide-eyed stare! Do you think I haven’t noticed the way you are around him, circling like some timid animal afraid to get too close, and either blushing like a rose every time he looks at you, or practically falling into a dead faint?”

  “You always did have a vivid imagination, Deenie,” Ava retorted, feeling the betraying blood surge into her cheeks.

  “And you always were a rotten liar, though why you feel you have to fib to me I can’t imagine. Listen, maybe you care about him, and maybe you don’t. That isn’t the real issue, is it? What matters is that you and I have been friends for too long to let anything or anyone come between us. So please, do this one thing for me and I’ll never ask you for another favour as long as I live.”

  “No.”

  Deenie studied her in silence for a moment, then said, “I really hate it when you get that look on your face. You’re not going to budge, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Not even if I grovel?”

  “No.”

  “I half expected you might take this attitude.” She sighed and pulled an envelope out of her bag. “Will you at least give them this, then? Tomorrow, after I’m gone?”

  “No.” She was tired of being put in the middle. Tired of trying to accommodate everybody else at the expense of her own sense of decency.

  “It’s just a letter explaining—”

  “I don’t care. Give it to them yourself. They’re your parents, for pity’s sake! Show them some consideration—some compassion.”

  “Good grief, whatever made me think I could count on you?” Deenie flounced off the bed and planted her fists on her hips. “You’ve changed, Ava. All that desert air has dried up your sweet nature and left you miserable as an old prune.”

  “I’m sorry if I disappoint you,” Ava said, sadly. “But the truth is, we’ve both changed. Our values are different. We want different things out of life.”

  Deenie glared at her a moment, then burst out crying. “I know,” she sobbed, flinging herself into Ava’s arms and hugging her fiercely, “and I can’t stand it. But I can’t help who I am, either. I’d find living in this town about as interesting as watching paint dry. But Marcus and I are two of a kind. We belong on a wider world stage. So please be happy that we’ve finally found our way back to each other.”

  “If he really is the right man for you, then I am,” Ava said, returning the hug before asking, “As a matter of interest, does Leo know about any of this?”

  “Oh yes!” Deenie rolled her eyes in mock dismay. “I told him this evening after he collared me just before dinner and read me the riot act for letting people think our relationship amounted to more than it really was. He can be a real pain when he puts his mind to it, spouting off about moral integrity and such. Why do you ask?”

  “I just wondered.” Wondered if he’d followed through on his decision to speak up, or if he’d slithered out from under the responsibility when he learned Deenie had set her sights on someone else and thereby spared him the aggravation of having to play the heavy.

  “He’s much more your type than he is mine, you know.”

  “Perhaps.” Ava steered her to the door. “Listen, Deenie, the church service must be just about over. Go home and wait for your parents and do the decent thing. You’ve got plenty of time before you need to leave for the airport.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” She scrubbed at her face and pulled on her coat. “We’ll be in touch?”

  “Of course.”

  But it was a bittersweet goodbye, even though neither of them came right out and said so. Because they both knew things would never again be the same between them. Too much deception had eroded the openness and trust which formed the cornerstone of their friendship.

  Christmas Day passed quietly. Word that Deenie had eloped with her dance partner percolated through the neighbourhood and added a little extra spice to the roast turkey and plum pudding. Her mother threw the predicted hissy fit and her father hid in the solarium with his orchids.

  “Would you be terribly disappointed if I went away for a few days?” Ava asked her parents, after dinner that night.

  “Not a bit,” her mother said. She’d seen the unopened gift from Leo still sitting under the tree. “We understand perfectly.”

  “Your mother might,” her father declared, “but I don’t. Where would you go?”

  “I’d like to drive up to Topaz Valley Resort and do some skiing.”

  “On your own?” Her father didn’t look impressed. “Doesn’t sound very exciting to me, spending Christmas with strangers.”

  Nor to me, Ava thought miserably. But it beats hoping Leo will show up at the front door, vow his undying love, and ride off into the winter sunset with me thrown over his shoulder—something which clearly isn’t in the cards.

  As if she could read Ava’s thoughts, her mother said sympathetically, “It’ll be a nice change. You’ll meet new people, make new friends.”

  “You won’t find accommodation,” her father grumbled. “You’re talking about Zach Alexander’s place, and it’s always booked solid over Christmas.”

  “There was a cancellation. I spoke to him in person this afternoon, and he assured me I can rent one of the cabins for the week. I know you’d rather I stayed here, Dad, but I need to be by myself for a while.”

  Her father scowled. “Will you at least come home for New Year’s Eve?”

  Would six days be enough to get over the ridiculous urge to bawl her eyes out, and pull herself together? Hardly! But the disappointment in her father’s eyes tugged at her heartstrings. “Yes. I’ll be home for New Year’s Eve.”

  Leo spent Christmas Day with his parents and Ethel. Inevitably, the conversation turned toward the gossip buzzing around town that Deenie Manville had run off with a man in tights.

  “That girl never was happy unless she was in the spotlight,” his mother observed, wading through her turkey-with-all-the-trimmings dinner. “Nothing like that nice Ava Sorensen. Now there’s a girl with breeding!”

  “You always did have a soft spot for her,” his father said, with a smile. “Not that you really believe any woman’s quite good enough for our son, but if Leo were to get married, she’s the one you’d have him choose.”

  “Is it any wonder? She was genuinely lovely, inside and out.”

  “She still is,” Leo said, with enough feeling to make his father sit up and take notice. “I’d even go so far as to say she’s improved with age.”

  His mother sighed into her plum pudding. “I hope we have a chance to see her before she leaves town again.”

  Not nearly as fervently as he hoped he would! If truth be known, he hoped like the devil that she wouldn’t be leaving town at all!

  As for Deenie, setting the record straight with her had taken a load off his mind. He hoped she really had found her true love—and that he hadn’t left it too late to find his.

  CHAPTER TEN

  FOR three days, Ava rose with the sun and except for a half-hour break at lunch, skied until the lifts closed. Then, exhausted, she trudged back to her little guest house, stoked up the fire, loaded a disc into the CD player, slipped into something comfortable, and had a meal delivered to her door.

  The staff and other guests tried to include her in the holiday program, inviting her to join them for
après-ski cocktails in the main lodge, or the nightly dinner-dance in its elegant dining hall. But the hurt she suffered went deeper than sore muscles unused to the strenuous downhill slopes. She ached inside, in a place neither a whirlpool spa nor kindly strangers could reach.

  A relationship she’d treasured all her life had crumbled. And if that weren’t bad enough, she’d fallen in love with a man who might be attracted to her but who appeared not to be interested in any sort of lasting commitment. The knowledge left her so sodden with grief, for a lost friend and a lost love, that it strangled the life out of any pleasure she might otherwise have taken in the Topaz Valley Resort. She simply couldn’t drum up the energy to put on a cheerful front for people she’d never see again, once her respite there was over.

  So when a knock came at her door, just after seven on the evening of the thirtieth, she assumed it was the busboy delivering the sandwich and soup she’d ordered. Probably the Christmas music playing on the stereo had drowned out the sound of his motorized cart drawing up outside.

  But it wasn’t the busboy, it was Leo. Leo in blue jeans and a dark red sweater with a navy racing stripe down the side, a black canvas sports’ bag slung over one shoulder, and a pair of skis balanced on the other.

  Leo, looking like an ad for a posh European ski resort. Like a god making a brief visit to earth to see how mere mortals like her were faring. Leo, looking so mouth-wateringly gorgeous that saliva pooled under her tongue.

  For long, tense, unsmiling seconds, he simply drank in the sight of her. Probably because he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing, she thought glumly. Probably because, if he opened his mouth, he’d start laughing and wouldn’t be able to stop!

  She was wearing yellow fluffy slippers and a long, voluminous flannel nightgown so circumspect that even her great-great Victorian forebears would have approved it. She’d tied her hair up in pigtails, rag-doll style, for pity’s sake! The injustice of it all was enough to give her the heaves.