The Brands Who Came For Christmas

by Maggie Shayne

Chapter 5

  Eight and a half months later…

  Sighing, Maya walked, belly first, to the kitchen window, parted the red-checked curtains and stared out at the snowdrifts and blinding white sky. It was crispy cold outside. In here it was warm and fragrant. She had molasses cookies baking in the oven, a nice stew in the slow cooker. No husband to cook for—not that she needed one. No children. Yet. She really was going to be a fantastic mother, she thought, pressing her palms to her expanded belly. And as long as she lived, she would never, ever do anything to embarrass her children. Not ever. And eventually she would prove to this town that a woman could be a single mother and an upstanding citizen. They would accept her into that exclusive club of the respectable and socially acceptable. They would. The back door opened, admitting a rush of frigid wind and bundled bodies. Vidalia stomped the snow off her boots, and whipped off her red-and-white striped scarf and matching hat, an act that set the mass of jet black curls free. She was far too old, Maya thought, to keep her hair so long. Much less dress the way she did. Then again, her mother wasn’t old. Not even fifty yet. Vidalia’s coat came off, revealing skintight designer jeans and a black spandex top. She kept herself in great shape for a woman her age. She had every right to be proud of her looks. If only she wasn’t so determined to be loyal to the memory of her long-dead husband, she might even find love again. God knew the lying, cheating, jerk didn’t deserve her loyalty.

  And if she said that out loud, her mother would probably smack her.

  “Mmm, molasses cookies, Maya?” Vidalia asked, sniffing the air. “They smell better than a strong man on a hot day.”

  “Mother.”

  Vidalia shrugged and sent her a wink, her black eyes sparkling. “Still miserable, I see. Just checking.”

  “I’m not miserable. I’m tired, and my back is killing me, and I keep getting horrible leg cramps that make me want to claw the flowers off the wallpaper, but I am not the least bit miserable.” Maya went to the oven, opened it and bent to check the cookies, but couldn’t bend very far. Sighing, she gave up and reached for a pot holder.

  “Let me get them,” Kara said, hurrying off with her coat and coming forward. Towering over them all, except for Edie, of course, she snatched the pot holders from Maya in spite of Maya’s protests. Kara was too tall for her own good, and her feet were too big, and she was always tripping over them. Kara the Klutz was the nickname bandied around town, but never in front of her sisters—at least, not since the time Mel had overheard it and left the unfortunate speaker with a bloody nose and a split lip.

  “Really, Kara, I can manage,” Maya said.

  “You should be sitting down with your feet up,” her sister argued.

  “Kara’s right, hon.” Vidalia took Maya’s arm and urged her toward a chair. And Maya could only look grimly back at the damp coats hanging on the peg near the door, snowy boots dripping all over the mat underneath them, and then at Kara and whatever mess would come next. With a sigh of resignation, she sat down as her mother instructed, even as Kara got the tray of cookies out, burned her finger, tripped over her foot and sent cookies flying everywhere.

  Vidalia pressed her lips together to keep from saying a word, as poor Kara stared helplessly at the cookies falling to the floor. Then she tossed the cookie sheet toward the sink, turned and ran out of the room. Maya heard her feet pounding up the stairs.

  She looked at the mess, then at her mother. “What’s wrong with her? She usually laughs it off when she does stuff like that.”

  “Kara had a bad day, hon. Or…her latest beau did anyway.” She clicked her tongue. “Poor Billy.”

  “Oh, no.” Maya closed her eyes. “What happened to this one?”

  “Bus hit him when he was crossing the street.” Vidalia bent to begin picking up the fallen cookies. Her jeans were so tight Maya was amazed the woman could bend at all, but that was her mother. She was nothing if not flexible. “Billy was blaming it on the snowy roads until one of those damned nurses over at General started telling him about Peter and Mike. By the time Kara got to the hospital to see him, he was showing distinct signs of cooling toward her.”

  Maya started to get up, but her mother held up a hand to stop her, so she settled back in the chair. “So you think he’s going to dump her?”

  “He dumped her before they even finished his CT scan.”

  Maya’s lips thinned. “Coward.”

  “Darn straight.”

  “How bad did he get hurt?” Maya asked.

  Vidalia shrugged. “No worse than he deserved. And not nearly as bad as Peter or Mike did. Couple of busted ribs and a few stitches where his head hit the pavement. But it’s Kara I’m worried about.” Dumping the cookies into the wastebasket she brushed off her hands, set the cookie sheet down and turned off the oven. Then, turning, she leaned back against the counter, folded her arms over her chest. “But she’ll be all right. She’s a Brand, and my daughter. Now, how about you, Maya? Any twinges today? Any signs?”

  She might be notorious and outrageous and tactless, but Vidalia Brand loved her daughters, Maya thought smiling inwardly. “Not a one,” she said. “These babies seem determined to stay right where they are.”

  “Well, hon, you’re gonna have to stop letting them hear the weather reports out here! I don’t blame them for wanting to stay put!” As she spoke, Vidalia came away from the counter. She pulled a chair into position, then lifted Maya’s feet onto it. “And speakin’ of babies, where’s mine?”

  “Selene is upstairs in her bedroom doing… whatever it is she does up there. I smelled some god-awful incense burning, and she was playing that drum of hers, so I didn’t bother her. But tell her when she comes down that those cookies are completely vegan-friendly.” Her mother looked at the wastebasket and cocked her brows.

  “Not those cookies, Mom. The ones in the cookie jar. I’ve been baking all afternoon.”

  “Oh.” Then her mother looked at her. “Why?”

  Maya shrugged. “Resting all the time makes me tired.”

  Vidalia grinned. “You sure do look tired now.”

  “I am. I’m bushed.”

  “Well, you go on now and have a nap. I’ll get dinner, and Mel will be along any time now to help me. Go on. You know I won’t take no for an answer.”

  “I wasn’t going to give you no for an answer.” Maya put her feet down and got out of the chair, belly leading the way. One hand immediately went to the small of her back, but she took it away to give her notorious mother a hug. “Thanks, Mom. And as for dinner, it’s already made. In the slow cooker.”

  Her mother released her and hurried to the pot to remove the lid and sniff the steam. “Girl, you ought to be cooking in Paree.”

  “Yeah. I hear they love stew and biscuits in Paris, Mom.” She sent her mother a wink and a smile, then headed through the large living room and on up the stairs. In the hallway she passed her youngest sister’s room and smelled the familiar herbal scents coming from beyond the door. The door itself had Selene’s idea of a Do Not Disturb sign hanging from it. It read Out Of Body, Back In Five Minutes.

  She walked slowly down the hall, past the next door, which bore a sign that used to be funny but today seemed to sting: “Enter at your own risk.” Maya heard Kara’s voice coming from inside her room. She was speaking to someone, probably on the telephone, so she didn’t bother her, either. She secretly hoped the injured Billy had changed his mind about breaking things off.

  Shaking her head slowly, Maya finished the trek to her own bedroom and went inside. It was actually a two-room suite, the largest in the house. It was the master bedroom and had been her mother’s, but Vidalia had insisted Maya take it so there would be room for the babies.

  Already, there were two cribs flanking her own bed. They were in the process of finishing up the adjoining room, which would serve as a nursery. Wallpaper with baby ducks and chicks already lined the walls, but the linoleum floor wasn’t quite finished. Carpeting, in a baby’s room, Vidalia had decreed, woul
d have been about as practical as whitewash in a chicken coop. Tiles could be washed daily if needed—and it would be, she promised. So Maya had reluctantly agreed.

  Maya ran a hand over the smooth rail of one of the old cribs. Both of them had been in storage in the attic. Vidalia’s five girls had been born little more than a year apart, one from the other, so she’d needed more than one crib at a time. And she’d kept everything. Growing up, Maya’s mother had been very poor. The daughter of migrant workers from Mexico, she’d been named for the crop they were harvesting on the day she was born. And it was a name that suited her, because she had the thick, tough skin and sharp bite of an onion when she needed it, softened by the sweetness that only the vidalia strain possessed. Damn good thing, too. It hadn’t been easy, raising five daughters alone.

  It was not a path Maya had ever thought she would follow. But as it turned out….

  Hell. She’d never meant for it to turn out like this. Sighing, she lay down on her bed, pulled a cozy fleece blanket around her and rested her head on the pillows.

  Maya opened her eyes when something tickled her face some time later. A stuffed bunny with yarn eyes stared at her. She looked past it and saw dark, impish Mel, curled up on the other side of the bed, also staring at her. “You okay?” she asked.

  “Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Maya sat up in the bed, picked up the pink terry cloth bunny and squeezed it. It was so soft you couldn’t help but squeeze it.

  Mel sat up, too, her short, black hair not even messed from the pillows. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you’re eight and a half months pregnant with twins.” She reached behind her, and pulled out another terry bunny, this one blue. “I picked these up in town today. Couldn’t resist.”

  Maya smiled. She couldn’t help but smile. She’d told Dr. Sheila she didn’t want to know the genders of her babies, but her youngest sister had made her own decree. “I should assume you’re backing Selene’s prediction that the newest Brands are a girl and a boy?”

  Mel shrugged. “Have you ever known Selene to be wrong about anything?”

  Thinking of that long ago night, when her spooky kid sister had told her that Caleb was her soul mate, Maya said, “Yes, actually. I have.”

  “Well, not often enough so you’d notice it,” Mel said. She frowned down at her sister. “This isn’t working out the way you had it planned, is it, Maya?”

  She only shrugged.

  “Hell, if I ever see that no-account phony cowboy again, I’ll break his arms off and use ‘em to cave his head in.”

  “Don’t worry, sis. You aren’t very likely to see him again.”

  Mel averted her eyes. And Maya knew—she just knew—that Mel had learned something. “What is it?’’

  “Nothing.”

  Sitting up, Maya held her sister’s gaze. “Don’t you know better than to test the patience of a woman as pregnant as I am?’’

  Licking her lips, Mel finally looked down, and sighed. “You have a right to know. I just…didn’t want to have to be the one to tell you.”

  “To tell me what?”

  Mel got up off the bed and reached into her sweater pocket, pulling out a folded-up newspaper. She opened it, turned it and laid it on the bed facing Maya.

  Maya looked, and the babies kicked her so hard she gasped. A grainy black-and-white photo of Caleb Cain stared back at her from the page. And the caption read Will He, Or Won’t He?

  Blinking back tears of surprise at seeing that face again…at seeing it on the body of a man dressed in an expensive designer suit and tie, with his hair all slicked back, and no battered hat in sight, Maya read the words underneath out loud.

  ‘“Cain Caleb Montgomery III, former mayor of Springville, is still refusing to say whether or not he plans to enter the race for the U.S. Senate, though political insiders say it’s only a matter of time before Montgomery makes the formal announcement declaring his candidacy. If that’s true, he’ll be following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather before him. There is no doubt, that should he enter the race, campaign finances will be the least of his worries. Montgomery is ranked the third richest man in the United States. But just where does he stand on the issues?’’’

  Mel took the newspaper out of Maya’s hands. “Come on, Maya. Do you really care where he stands on the issues?”

  Maya closed her eyes. “I can’t believe this. He let me think he was a penniless drifter.”

  “Well, of course he did. He didn’t want you coming back to haunt him later. Now that we know who he is, however, he’s got some explaining to do. When I see him, I—”

  “God, no! Mel, you wouldn’t. You won’t, I won’t let you!”

  Mel went silent and blinked down at Maya. “Well, gosh, sis, you have to tell him….”

  “No, I don’t. I’m a daughter of Vidalia Brand. I don’t have to do a damned thing I don’t want to. And I don’t want to tell him about these babies.”

  Frowning until her brows touched, Mel said, “But why?”

  “My God, Mel, can’t you see what would happen? I’d be the biggest tabloid target since Monica Lewinsky, for God’s sake! The man’s going to run for the Senate! No. No, if I thought the scandal of being an unwed mother was bad, it’s nothing compared to the scandal of being at the center of a sex-and-politics story. Forget about it…and for God’s sake, don’t tell Mom.”

  “Don’t tell Mom what?”

  They both turned to see Vidalia stepping into the bedroom. She had a newspaper in her hand. “You wouldn’t mean this, by any chance, would you?” she asked, holding it up.

  Maya sighed. “Mom, I don’t want to be dragged out and flogged by the press. I don’t want my babies born in a flurry of political scandal and tabloid gossip. I won’t have it.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  Maya met her mother’s eyes. “Then you…you agree with me?”

  “Oh, sure, hon. But that doesn’t mean the man doesn’t have a right to know he’s going to be a father.”

  Pressing her lips tight, Maya shook her head. “I…kind of thought he gave up that right when he lied about his name and skipped town without a word,” she said. She met her mother’s eyes. “These are my babies. Not his.”

  Her mother held her gaze for a long moment, and Maya knew she didn’t approve. She might make a lot of tacky, off-color remarks and come off as an irreverent, outrageous woman old enough to know better—but the truth was, her mother’s moral code ran deep.

  “Maya, darlin’ I’ve made some giant mistakes in my life. I’ve got no right to tell you the right thing to do when I’ve so often done just the opposite. But honey, it’s that experience of getting it wrong that makes me know what’s right.”

  She frowned, having no real idea what her mother was referring to. Her own father had known about all his daughters, he just hadn’t particularly cared. “I have a right to make my own mistakes, though. Don’t I mom?”

  Vidalia heaved a sigh and said, “You’re an adult. Soon to be a mamma yourself. I think you’re making a mistake, daughter, but that’s your right. So we’ll do this your way.”

  Maya sighed in relief. “Thank you.”

  Vidalia nodded and glanced at Mel. “Agreed?” she asked.

  “No. Someone ought to contact that man and make him face his responsibility.”

  “Mel, it’s not your place—”

  “I’m the babies’ aunt,” she said. “Anyone who wants to hurt them or slight them is gonna have to go through me to do it. Why should they be sleeping in…in twenty-year-old cribs or riding in that used minivan Maya bought, while their father sleeps in a mansion and drives around in a limo or something! It’s not fair to the babies.”

  Maya eyed her sister. “We got by just fine without mansions or limousines, Mel. My babies will, too.”

  Mel pitched the newspaper onto the floor and stomped out of the room. And while Maya looked after her worriedly, Vidalia only sighed. “Give her some time. She’s always seen herself as the
protector of the family. She’ll cool down in a day or two.”

  “I hope so,” Maya said. But deep down, she wasn’t so sure.