His for Christmas

by Cara Colter/Michelle Douglas/Janice Lynn

  “I should have beaned Mrs. Wellhaven while I had the chance,” he said darkly. And he felt that even more strongly the next morning at breakfast.

  “Daddy, I dreamed about Mommy last night.”

  Nate flinched, and then deliberately relaxed his shoulders. He was standing at the kitchen counter, making a packed lunch, his back to Ace, who was floating battle formations with the remains of the breakfast cereal in her bowl.

  He knew his own dreams about his wife were never good. Cindy swept away by a raging river, him reaching out but not being able to get to her. Cindy falling from an airplane, him reaching out the door, trying desperately to reach a hand that fell farther and farther away…

  He often woke himself up screaming Cindy’s name.

  Nate hadn’t heard Ace scream last night. He tried not to let his dread show in his voice, but didn’t turn around to look at her.

  “Uh-huh?” He scowled at the lunch ingredients. If he sent peanut butter again was Morgan going to say something? When had he started to care what Morgan had to say?

  Probably about the same time he’d been dumb enough to plant that impromptu kiss on her cheek.

  It was ridiculous that a full-grown man, renowned for his toughness, legend even, was shirking from the judgments, plentiful as those were, of a grade-one teacher.

  “It was a good dream,” his daughter announced, and Nate felt relief shiver across his shoulder blades. Maybe finally, they had reached a turning point. Ace had had a good dream.

  He recognized that he, too, seemed to be getting back into the flow of a life. If going shopping and volunteering to help with a town project counted. He suspected it did.

  And did it all relate back to Morgan? Again, Nate suspected it did.

  In defiance of that fact, and the fact that some part of him leaned toward liking Miss McGuire’s approval, he slathered peanut butter on bread. Ace liked peanut butter. And she liked nonnutritiously white bread, too.

  “You rebel, you,” Nate chided himself drily, out loud.

  “Do you want to hear about my dream?”

  He turned from the counter, glanced at his daughter, frowned faintly. Ace was glowing in her new sparkle skinny jeans and Christmas sweater with a white, fluffy reindeer on it. Even her hair was tamed, carefully combed, flattened down with water.

  He turned back to the counter. “Sure. Raspberry or strawberry?”

  “Raspberry. In my dream, Mommy was an angel.”

  Something shivered along his spine. You’ve been my angel, Hath, now I’ll be yours.

  “She had on a long white dress, and she had big white wings made out of feathers. She took me on her lap, and she said she was sorry she had to leave me and that she loved me.”

  “That’s nice, Ace. It really is.”

  “Mommy told me that she had to leave me right at Christmas because people have forgotten what Christmas is about, and that she was going to teach them. She said she’s going to save Christmas. Do you think that’s true, Daddy?”

  After David had died, Cindy had found respite from her grief in that time of year. By the time Ace had come along, she loved every single thing about Christmas. Every single thing. Turkey. Trees. Carols. Gifts. Reindeer poop.

  After David’s death, she’d developed a simple faith that she had not had when they were children. Cindy believed God was looking after things, that there were reasons she could not understand, that He could make good come from bad.

  While not quite sharing her beliefs, to Nate it had been a nice counterpoint toward his own tendency toward cynicism.

  After she had died, his cynicism had hardened in him. In fact, he felt as if he shook his fist at the heavens. This was how her faith was rewarded? How could this have happened if things were really being looked after?

  Show me the reason. Show me something good coming from this.

  And the answer? Yawning emptiness.

  He had buried her in the gravesite in an empty plot that was right beside David. Nate had gone to that gravesite a few times, hoping to feel something there. A presence, a sense of something watching over him, but no, more yawning emptiness.

  So his cynicism hardened like concrete setting up on a hot day, and he didn’t go to the graveyard anymore, not even when Cindy’s sister, Molly, went to mark special occasions, birthdays, Christmas.

  And now listening to Ace chatter about angels, it felt as if his cynicism had just ramped up another gear.

  Why did he have an ugly feeling he knew exactly where this was going?

  “I hope so, honey.” Because, despite the cynicism, he was aware nobody needed Christmas saved more than him and his daughter.

  Unfortunately, he was pretty damned sure Ace’s dream had a whole lot more to do with Mrs. Wellhaven’s ill-conceived announcement about one of Ace’s class being chosen the Christmas Angel than with her mother.

  Ace confirmed his ugly feeling by announcing, sunnily, “In the dream, Mommy told me I’m going to be the Christmas Angel!”

  Nate struggled not to let the cynicism show in his face. Still, he shot a worried look at his daughter.

  Even with the new clothes and better hair, Ace looked least likely to be the Christmas Angel, at least not in the typical sense he thought of Christmas angels: blond ringlets, china-blue eyes, porcelain skin.

  Ace looked more like a leprechaun, or a yard gnome, than an angel.

  “Poor Brenda,” Ace continued. “She thinks it’s going to be her. I wonder if she’ll still be my friend if it’s me.”

  Brenda Weston, naturally, took after her mother, Ashley, and looked like everyone’s vision of the Christmas Angel. Chances were she didn’t sing flat, either.

  “You know it was just a dream, don’t you, Ace?”

  “Mrs. McGuire says dreams come true.”

  Thank you, Miss McGuire. There she was again, somehow front and center in his life.

  “Miss McGuire,” he said, choosing his words with great care, “doesn’t mean dreams you have while you’re sleeping come true. She means dreams you think of while you’re awake. Like you might dream of being a doctor someday. Or a teacher. Or a pilot. And that can come true.”

  “Oh, like stupid Freddy Campbell thinks he’s going to be a hockey player?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  “Can he?”

  “I don’t know. I guess if he works hard enough and has some natural talent, maybe he could.”

  Ace snorted. “If Freddy Campbell can be a hockey player, I can be the Christmas Angel. See? I’m dreaming it while I’m awake, too.”

  There was no gentle way to put this.

  “Ace, don’t get your hopes up.” He said it sternly.

  She smiled at him, easily forgiving of the fact he was doing his best to dash her dreams. “Don’t worry, Daddy, I won’t.”

  “You know what?” he said gruffly. “You’re the smartest kid I ever met.” Six going on thirty. Maybe that wasn’t such a good thing, but Ace beamed at him as if he’d presented her with a new puppy.

  “The Christmas Angel probably has to be smart,” she decided happily.

  He sighed. Over the next few days, he’d try and get it through to her. She wasn’t going to be the Christmas Angel. And he’d better let Morgan know he didn’t want this particular brand of hopeless optimism encouraged.

  An excuse to talk to Morgan, a little voice inside him, disturbingly gleeful, pointed out.

  He had to deliver her the board he’d made for her coat hangers anyway. So, maybe he’d kill two birds with one stone. And then he’d be out of excuses for seeing her.

  And then he’d get back on track in terms of distancing himself from her, protecting his daughter and himself from the loss of coming to care too deeply for someone.

  Which meant he knew the potential was there. That Morgan McGuire was a person you could come to care too deeply about if you weren’t really, really careful.

  “Come on, squirt, I’ll drive you to school.” He shoved Ace’s lunch into a bag, and wen
t to the table. He roughed her hair, and she got up and threw her arms around his waist, hugged hard.

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  And for one split second, everything in his world seemed okay, and Ace, the one who had given him a reason to live, seemed like the most likely angel of all.

  Morgan’s doorbell rang just as the Christmas tree fell over. Thankfully it made a whooshing sound, probably because it was so large, so she heard it and leaped out of the way, narrowly missing being hit by it.

  “Hell and damnation!” she said, regarding the tree lying in a pool of bent branches and dead needles on her floor.

  Her bell rang again, and Morgan climbed over the tree that blocked her entrance hallway and went and flung open the front door.

  Nate Hathoway stood there, looking like damnation itself. Despite the cold out, he wore a black leather jacket and jeans. Whiskers darkened his cheeks. His eyes sparked with a light that would have put the devil himself to shame.

  “I thought you were opposed to cussing,” he said mildly, white puffs of vapor forming as his hot breath hit the cold air.

  Silently, she cussed the lack of insulation in her old house that had allowed her voice to carry right through the door. She also cussed the fact that she was wearing a horrible pair of gray sweatpants and a sweatshirt that said Teachers Spell It Out.

  While she was on an inward cussing spree, Morgan also cursed the fact that she could imagine, all too well, what the slide of that warm breath across her neck would feel like.

  “I am opposed to cursing in front of children!” she defended herself. “In cases of duress, amongst consenting adults, it’s fine.”

  His eyes narrowed with fiendish delight. She wished she would have chosen a term different from consenting adults. It was a mark of how flustered his unexpected appearance had made her feel that she had said that!

  And it was obvious he was thinking that phrase usually referred to something quite a bit more exciting than cussing.

  “What was the crashing noise?” he asked, peering over her shoulder.

  “Nothing!” she said stubbornly. It was her first Christmas by herself. She had never set up a tree before. Frankly, it was one of the loneliest and most frustrating experiences of her single life. And she wasn’t pretending otherwise because Amelia Ainsworthy, someone she did not know, and was not likely to meet, thought such efforts at aloneness were character building!

  He glanced behind her. The tree was lying there, blocking the door.

  “Did your tree fall down?”

  He did not sound gentle. Did he? Maybe he did, a little bit. But it didn’t matter!

  “I set it there,” she lied, hoping to hide both her loneliness and her frustration from him. “It’s too tall. I’m going to put the lights on before I stand it up.”

  “Don’t take up poker,” he advised her solemnly. “You made that decision after it fell, didn’t you?”

  She shrugged, trying not to let on how his appearance had made her aware of a dreadful weakness in her character. Morgan wanted a big, strong guy just to come in and take over.

  She wanted a man to figure out the blasted stand, saw off those bottom branches, muscle the huge, unwieldy tree into place, put the star on top and figure out lights that looked as if they required a degree in engineering to sort out.

  Nate truly was the devil, arriving here at a horrible moment, when she felt vulnerable and lonely. He was tempting her to rely on something—or someone—other than herself. She was sending him back into the night.

  “Do you want help with the tree?”

  “No,” she spat out quickly before the yes, yes, yes clawing its way up her throat could jump out and betray her.

  He nodded, but he could clearly see the horrible truth. She was the kind of helpless female the new her was determined not to have any use for!

  “I brought over the board to put the coat hangers on. I could put it up for you if you want.”

  Her eyes went to what he was holding. A helpless female might weep at the beauty of the board he had reclaimed for her. It was honey-colored, the grains of the wood glorious, the surface and edges sanded to buttery smoothness.

  Well, right after he put it up for her, she was sending him back into the night. She would draw the line at allowing him to help with the tree.

  Despite wanting to rebel against the teachings of the blissfully single Amelia, Morgan knew she would be a better person, in the long run, if she put that tree up herself. She stepped back from the door, and he stepped in.

  She touched the board. “That’s not what I was expecting,” she said. “Something worn and weathered. When you said it was barn wood, I thought gray.”

  “It was, before I ran it through the plainer. Some of this old wood is amazing. This piece came from a barn they pulled down last year that was a hundred and ten years old.” His fingers caressed the wood, too. “Solid oak, as strong and as beautiful as the day they first milled it.”

  Morgan was struck again by something about Nate. His work always seemed to be about things that lasted. There was something ruggedly appealing about that in a world devoted to disposable everything.

  Including relationships.

  There was a tingle on the back of her neck. A relationship with this man would be as solid as he was, a forever thing, or nothing at all.

  Don’t you dare think of him in terms of a relationship, the devoted-to-independence woman inside her cried. But it was too late. That particular horse was already out of the barn.

  “Where’s Ace?” she said, glancing behind him.

  “The Westons took her to the Santa Claus parade and then she’s sleeping over at their place. Ace is thrilled.”

  As she closed the door, she read a moment of unguarded doubt on his face. “You, not so much?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t quite get the purpose of it. I get going tobogganing, or to a movie. I don’t get sleeping at someone else’s house.”

  Don’t blush, she ordered herself. They were not talking about adult sleepovers.

  “Sleeping is not an activity,” he muttered.

  “Believe me, they won’t be doing much sleeping. Probably movies and popcorn. Maybe some makeup.”

  “Makeup?” He ran a hand through his hair and looked distressed. “I hoped I was years away from makeup. And don’t even mention the word bra to me.”

  Believe me, that was the last word I was going to mention to you.

  He could fluster her in a hair, damn him. She tried not to let it show. “Not serious makeup. Not yet. You know, dress-up stuff. Big hats, an old string of pearls, some high heels.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is there something deeper going on with you?” she asked. “Something that needs to be addressed?”

  Morgan saw she could fluster him in a hair, too.

  “Such as?” he asked defensively.

  “Any chance you don’t like losing control, Nate?”

  He scowled, and for a moment she thought she was going to get the lecture about knowing everything again. But then she realized he wasn’t scowling at her. After a long silence, he finally answered.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he admitted reluctantly. “I felt like I wanted to call the Westons and conduct an interview.”

  Interrogation, she guessed wryly. “What kind of interview?”

  “You know.”

  She raised her eyebrows at him. He sighed. “Just casually ferret out information about their suitability to have Ace over. Don’t you think I should know if anyone in the house has a criminal record? Don’t you think I should know if they consume alcoholic beverages? And how many, how often? Don’t you think I should know if they have the Playboy channel? And if it’s blocked?”

  Morgan was trying not to laugh, but he didn’t notice.

  “Even if I got all the right answers,” he continued, “I still would want to invite myself over and just as casually check their house for hazards.”

  “Hazards? Like what
?”

  “You know.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t even imagine what kind of hazards might exist at the Westons’ house.”

  His scowl deepened. “Like loaded weapons, dogs that bite, unplugged smoke detectors.”

  She was biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. She knew it would be the wrong time to laugh. “The Westons are very nice people,” she said reassuringly. “Ashley is active in the PTA.”

  He sighed. “Intellectually, I know that. That’s how I stopped myself from phoning or going in. I grew up with Ashley Weston. Moore, back then. She was a goody-goody. I guess if Ace has to sleep somewhere other than her own bed, I want it to be at a house where I know the mom is a goody-goody. Sheesh. The PTA. I should have guessed.”

  “Don’t knock it until you try it,” Morgan suggested drily.

  “I’m not trying it. Don’t even think about sending me a note.”

  There were quite a few single moms in the PTA, probably the same ones who swarmed him at the supermarket, so, no, she wouldn’t send him a note.

  “Still—” he moved on from the PTA issue as if it hardly merited discussion “—what about next time? What if Ace gets invited to someone’s house where I didn’t grow up with their parents? Or worse, what if I did, and I remember the mom was a wild thing who chugged hard lemonade and swam naked at the Old Sawmill Pond? Then what?”

  No wonder he had an aversion to doing his grocery shopping locally. That was way too much to know about people!

  “I’m not sure,” she admitted.

  “Oh, great. Thanks a lot, Miss McGuire! When I really want an answer, you don’t have one. What good is a know-it-all without an answer?”

  Morgan was amazingly unoffended. In fact, she felt she could see this man as clearly as she had ever seen him. She suddenly saw he was restless. And irritable. He had needed to do something tonight to offset this loss of control.

  “Is this the first night you’ve been apart since the accident that took her mom?” she asked softly.

  He stared at her. For a moment he looked as though he would turn and walk away rather than reveal something so achingly vulnerable about himself.