“Don’t you like her?”
“I like her all right. I just don’t think she’s Uncle Jesse’s type.”
Glory smiled. “I see.”
“I want somebody who’ll bring cookies to school and come in my room and hug me if I have a bad dream—like Mommy used to do.”
Glory’s heart twisted, and before she thought, she leaned down and kissed Liza on the crown of her head, just where her bright-penny hair was parted. When she straightened, she saw Jesse standing on the other side of the store’s front window, glaring at her.
Seven
The bell over the bookshop door didn’t jingle merrily as Jesse came in; it jangled in warning.
“Uncle Jesse!” Liza whooped, flinging herself at the man, apparently never noticing his taciturn expression.
Looking on in silence, Glory envied Jesse the child’s wild affection.
“Hi, Button,” Jesse answered distractedly, hugging the nine-year-old and then giving one of her braids a little tug. His eyes never left Glory’s face the whole time, and their expression wasn’t friendly.
She was saved from having to speak to him, at least temporarily, when Ilene appeared, pushing up the sleeves of her bright purple sweater and smiling.
“Hello, Jesse. Want to join us for supper? We’re having Chinese.”
He rubbed his chin, which was showing a stubble of beard, and at last he turned from Glory. He smiled at his cousin. “No thanks,” he answered. “I’m still on duty.” He looked down at Liza’s face then, and now it was as though Glory were invisible to him. “I’m going out looking for a Christmas tree this Saturday, and I’d like you to come along if you want to.”
“Yes!” Liza cried, and her eagerness made Glory’s heart constrict. “I want to! Could Glory come with us, please? And Aunt Ilene?”
“Saturday’s my busiest day, what with Christmas coming on,” Ilene interceded with a gentle shake of her head.
Glory stood awkwardly by, embarrassed, not knowing what to say. It was obvious Jesse hadn’t intended to include her in the invitation, and she could have gotten off the hook by saying she had to do her holiday shopping that day. But the painful truth was that she wanted, just once, to go on a Christmas-tree-hunting expedition with her daughter and the man who had fathered her.
Jesse narrowed his eyes at Glory, as though he suspected her of making Liza ask to bring her along by ventriloquism, but then he said grudgingly, “I guess it would be all right.”
Liza cheered and hugged Jesse again, then scrambled upstairs to get something she wanted to show him. Diplomatically, Ilene went along.
“What are you doing here?” Jesse immediately demanded, placing his hands on his hips.
Glory stepped away from the artificial Christmas tree, realizing only then that she’d unconsciously been trying to hide among its branches. She sighed. “What does it look like I’m doing here, Jesse? I’m spending time with Liza.”
He lifted one finger and shook it at her, starting to speak, but Liza reappeared before he got a word out.
“Here it is, Uncle Jesse,” she burst out, waving a sheet of paper. “It’s my math assignment. I got an A.”
Jesse grinned. “That’s great,” he said, taking the child’s eager offering. “Can I keep it? I’d like to pin it up on the bulletin board at my office, so all the deputies will know what a smart kid I’ve—you are.”
Liza was beaming. “Okay,” she said. And then she turned her bright green eyes to Glory. “Supper’s ready. Aunt Ilene said to lock the door after Uncle Jesse and come up.”
With a chuckle, Jesse bent to kiss Liza’s forehead. “See you tomorrow, kid,” he said. After that, he exchanged a brief look with Glory, silently warning her not to overstep her bounds.
She responded with a grudging nod, and he went out.
That night when dinner was over Glory helped Liza with the dishes and her homework, then read her a chapter of Little House in the Big Woods before tucking her into bed. When she’d kissed the child good-night and closed the door of her small room, she sought out Ilene, who was at the kitchen table, tallying the day’s receipts for the bookshop.
“Thank you,” Glory said.
Ilene gestured toward the colorful teapot in the center of the table with a smile. “Help yourself,” she said. “It’s herbal, so it won’t keep you awake.”
Since Ilene had also set out a cup, Glory poured some tea and took a sip. “Why are you so kind to me?” she asked, in a voice carefully modulated not to carry as far as Liza’s room. “I mean, I’m a stranger as far as you’re concerned.”
“I have good instincts about people,” Ilene said. “Besides, I believe in families.”
Glory swallowed. She simply wasn’t up to the topic of families, not after an evening of emotional ups and downs that had left her slightly disoriented and tired to the center of her heart.
Ilene patted her hand. “You’ve got good instincts, too, Glory,” she said softly. “And you loved Jesse once. If you’ll just give him time, he’ll come to terms with all of this and start behaving like a human being again.”
That brought a wan smile from Glory. “I hope you’re right,” she sighed, “because it will be very hard to have a relationship with Liza, if Jesse and I can’t get along.”
After that, the two women drank tea and talked about other Christmases, in other places. Glory was tired and pleasantly relaxed when she left to fetch her car from the bank’s parking lot and drive the rest of the way home.
“I guess you’ve done all the thinking you need to do,” Adara said, accurately guessing the reason for Jesse’s unscheduled visit. He wanted to leave it at that, to get back into his patrol car and drive away, but his sense of honor wouldn’t permit such an easy out.
He entered Adara’s apartment when she stepped back to admit him. “I’m sorry,” he said, standing there in the middle of her living room, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket.
The tears shimmering in her eyes filled him with guilt, because he knew she would have done anything to hold them back.
“It’s Glory?” she asked with a despairing lilt in her voice.
Jesse raised his shoulders in a shrug. “I’m not sure. The situation is pretty complicated.”
Adara nodded. “I imagine so. Five people must have come into the shop today just to tell me that you took her to dinner last night.”
“I’m sorry,” Jesse said again. The reminder of the night before, when he and Glory had made love, would be sweet torment for some time to come. He supposed he deserved it.
He went to the door, and Adara followed, speaking quickly. “If you’re not happy with her—”
Jesse touched her lips with the tips of his fingers. “Don’t say it,” he replied quietly. And then he left Adara’s apartment for the last time.
On Wednesday, the movers stopped at the bank to inform Glory that her furniture and other belongings had arrived, and Mr. Baker gave her the rest of the day off to get things squared away. The moment the movers were gone, she unearthed her espresso maker and brewed herself a latte.
She was sipping the mixture of espresso and steamed milk and trying to decide which carton to unpack first, when her doorbell chimed. Expecting Delphine, or perhaps Jill, Glory was surprised to find Liza standing in the hallway, looking slightly ill-at-ease.
Glory never laid eyes on the child without a painful tug at her heart, but she was ready with a smile. “Hi,” she said warmly, stepping back so that Liza could come in.
“Hi,” Liza answered, stepping over the threshold and then just standing there in her little coat and boots, shifting back and forth from one foot to the other.
“Does your Aunt Ilene know where you are?” Glory asked, reaching out gently to unbutton Liza’s coat.
Liza nodded. “I told her. She has a migraine headache and had to go upstairs and lie down.”
Glory was concerned. “Is there anything I can do for her?”
Liza shook her head and tugged off he
r mittens and stocking cap, all of which Glory laid aside with the coat. “Nothing works but peace and quiet. I’m supposed to wait at the sheriff’s office and have supper with Uncle Jesse tonight.”
“Did you call him from school?” Glory inquired, wending her way through the stacks of boxes to the kitchen, where she planned to make hot cocoa for Liza.
“No,” Liza replied nervously. “He’s probably out chasing criminals, anyway. I’ll go straight to the office after I leave here.”
“I think we’d better call him,” Glory said.
Liza stopped her by grasping her hand. “First I have to ask you something.”
A chill went through Glory, followed by a wild hope that this bright, perceptive child had already figured out the secret she and Jesse were keeping from her. “Yes?”
“Do you sew in this lifetime?”
Glory chuckled, at once relieved and disappointed. “Yes, a little. Why?”
“Because I’m going to be the only angel in the pageant without a costume if I don’t get somebody to help me,” Liza blurted out. “Uncle Jesse’s got something on his mind—he doesn’t even hear half the questions I ask him—and Aunt Ilene used to be a seamstress in France, during a war. It was an unhappy life, and she swears she’ll never pick up another needle and thread—”
Glory resisted an impulse to hug the child and laughed softly. “Sure I’ll help you. Do you have the directions?”
Liza nodded and threw her arms around Glory. “Oh, thank you!” she cried. While Glory was recovering from that, the little girl hurried to her coat and extracted a folded, much-worried-over piece of paper containing basic instructions and a list of materials for an angel costume.
“The first thing we have to do,” Glory reflected, reading over the paper, “is call your Uncle Jesse and let him know exactly where you are. Then we’ll drive to Fawn Creek and get the materials we need.”
Liza’s green eyes were alight at the prospect. “The mall will be all decorated for Christmas!”
Glory nodded, smiling, and went to the telephone affixed to her kitchen wall. After asking Liza for the number, she called the sheriff’s department, identified herself and politely asked for Jesse.
Another voice came on the line. “Glory? This is Deputy Johnson. Jesse’s out on a call right now. Can I help you?”
Twisting the cord around her finger, Glory frowned. She would have preferred to relay the message directly to Jesse, so there could be no mistake, but she couldn’t wait. She’d gotten Liza all excited about the project. “Just tell him, please, that Liza is with me. We’ll be out of town for a while, picking up some things in Fawn Creek.”
“I’ll make sure he knows,” Deputy Johnson promised earnestly.
Glory thanked him and hung up. In the process of preparing Liza and then herself for the cold, she forgot Jesse even existed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked forward to anything as much as she did those few stolen hours with her child.
The two of them had just passed the city limits in Glory’s sports car, happily singing Christmas carols, when a siren sounded behind them and blue-and-red lights flashed ominously in the rearview mirror.
Knowing she hadn’t been speeding, Glory frowned as she pulled over to the side of the road.
It shouldn’t have surprised her, she guessed, that the officer who strode up beside her car was Jesse.
She rolled down her window and opened her mouth, but he didn’t give her a chance to speak.
“Get out of the car,” he ordered in an undertone that, for all its even meter, was girded in steel.
Glory glanced at Liza and smiled to reassure the child, who looked surprised and worried. “It’s okay, honey,” she said. “Your Uncle Jesse obviously didn’t get the message that we left, so he and I have to talk.”
Liza looked relieved. “Hi, Uncle Jesse,” she sang out, wiggling her fingers.
He managed a semblance of a smile, and even though his eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, Glory knew they were snapping with controlled fury. “Hi,” he replied.
Glory opened the door and stepped out onto the snowy roadside, and Jesse immediately gripped her by the elbow and hustled her around to the back of the car.
“Where the hell were you taking her?” he demanded in a hiss, as Glory wrenched free of his grasp.
Outraged, Glory folded her arms and rolled her eyes. “To China, Jesse,” she answered. “We were making a break for it!” She flung her hands out at her sides and then slapped them against her thighs. “Too bad you had to catch us.”
“Do you know how scared I was, when I couldn’t find her?” Jesse rasped.
Glory found it only too easy to put herself into Jesse’s shoes, and she relented a little. “I’m sorry,” she said grudgingly. “Liza came by my apartment and asked me if I’d help with her angel costume. I called your office—I swear it—and left a message with Deputy Johnson that Liza and I were going to the mall in Fawn Creek to buy materials.”
He turned away for a moment, his hands resting on his hips, seemingly taking a great interest in the snow-draped pine trees along the road. Glory knew he was composing himself.
Finally he looked at her again. “I thought you were leaving town on the spur of the moment, like before,” he confessed. “And taking Liza with you.”
It was a marvel that she’d been so angry with Jesse only a moment ago, when now all she wanted to do was comfort him. She wedged her hands into the pockets of her black corduroy pants so she wouldn’t lay them on his broad shoulders. “Jesse, I’m not a scared eighteen-year-old girl, anymore. I’m not going to vanish, and I’d never, never put you or anyone else through the kind of anguish stealing a child would cause.”
He faced her with a heavy sigh and shoved one hand through his hair. “Have her back in time for supper,” he said. “And be careful. The roads are slick.”
Glory smiled. Ilene had expressed the hope that Jesse would turn back into a human being, and it did seem that he was making noticeable progress toward that end. “You’d better go and tell Liza it’s all right,” she said, gesturing toward the passenger side of the car, “or she’ll worry the whole time we’re gone. Pleasing you is important to her, Jesse.”
He gave her a look that might have contained a modicum of amused chagrin, shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, and proceeded to Liza’s window.
“Have a good time, kid,” Glory heard him say, as she rounded the car to get behind the wheel again. The lights on top of Jesse’s patrol car were still splashing patches of blue and red over the snow.
“Were we going too fast?” Liza asked, with innocent concern, as she and Glory pulled back onto the highway. In the rearview mirror, Glory could see Jesse standing there at the side of the road, watching them go from behind those damnable sunglasses of his.
Glory shook her head. “He didn’t get the message we left for him, so he was worried. Sometimes when parents—people—are scared, they act the same way they would if they were angry.”
Liza nodded thoughtfully. “Then Gramps must be scared all the time,” she reflected. “He’s always mad.”
“Gramps?” Glory asked, before it came to her that Liza was talking about old Seth Bainbridge, Jesse’s grandfather. The hatred she’d always felt for the man seemed to ebb away, leaving sadness and pity in its wake.
“His son was Daddy and Uncle Jesse’s father,” Liza explained in that amusingly adult manner she sometimes assumed.
The reference to Jesse’s brother as “Daddy,” indirect as it was, reminded Glory that her gain was Gresham and Sandy’s loss, and she wished there was a way to promise them that she’d keep their memories alive in Liza’s mind if she could. After all, for six of the little girl’s nine years, they’d loved and taken care of her.
“I miss my mommy and daddy a lot at this time of the year,” Liza said with a little sigh.
Glory’s eyes burned, and she reached out to touch Liza’s knee briefly. “I knew your daddy, though not
very well.” She thought of how Gresham had comforted Jesse after Seth had driven her out of town all those years before. “He was a nice man. Strong, with a ready smile.”
Liza giggled. “He used to chase me around the house trying to tickle me,” she said.
From then until they reached the mall at Fawn Creek, Glory kept the conversation turning around Gresham and Sandy, and talking about them seemed to be a great relief to Liza. The words and memories, mostly happy, bubbled out of her.
At the mall, Glory bought cups of cocoa for them both, and they sat at a table on the concourse, planning their strategy.
The stores were decorated, and Christmas music was being piped in over a sound system. Although she’d been something of a Scrooge for the past few years, embittered by her breakup with Jesse, the loss of her child and Dylan’s subsequent death, Glory found herself getting into the spirit as she and Liza went from shop to shop.
Mindful of Jesse’s edict that she have Liza back in Pearl River in time for supper, Glory didn’t linger as long as she would have liked. Snowflakes were falling like big feathers shaken from a goose-down pillow, when the two shoppers left the mall with the makings of an angel costume.
It wasn’t hard to find Jesse when they got back to town; his patrol car was parked in front of Delphine’s diner, and he was standing at the jukebox when Glory and Liza came in.
“I’m going to be the best angel there ever was!” Liza crowed, hurrying to his side and waving the bagful of supplies.
Glory lingered just inside the doorway, very much aware of being outside the circle again. “If Liza could stop by tomorrow sometime, after I get home from work, I’ll be able to get started on the costume.”
Jesse was holding Liza close against his side, as though he feared to let go, and he didn’t look at Glory. “You’ll have to talk with Ilene about that,” he answered.
After coming close enough to reclaim the shopping bag, Glory turned on one heel, her vision blurred, and hurried out of the diner into the cold and snowy night.
“How come you don’t like Glory?” Liza asked, an hour later, when she and Jesse were seated at the table in the mansion’s immense dining room, eating her favorite meal of chicken from a bucket.
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