Rolleen had let herself enjoy the days before Christmas without thinking about the future. But she was troubled by Gavin’s offer to extend their make-believe relationship beyond the holidays. She was afraid to believe he loved her, afraid to believe she could be in love again so soon. She had made one mistake. She didn’t want to make another.
“What are you doing hiding out here while everyone’s inside?”
Rolleen scooted over in the wooden front porch swing that hung from the rafters and made room for her mother under the quilt she’d brought outside to keep herself warm. Then she started the swing moving again with her toe. “I wanted some peace and quiet to think before we leave for the Christmas Eve candlelight service,” she said.
They both listened to the lonely sounds of the prairie. The screech of a windmill that always needed more oil. The soft lowing of cattle. The rustle of leaves in the giant live oak. The whisper of the wind through the buffalo grass.
“Gavin’s a good man, Rolleen,” her mother said.
“I know he is, Mom.” Rolleen avoided meeting her mother’s glance, afraid her mom would read the doubts there—or see the deception.
“Then why haven’t you married him?”
“There are some things we need to work out,” she hedged.
“Your father and I love you, darling, and we’re behind you, no matter what course you choose. I know how hard it is for you to give your trust to anyone. But sometimes—”
“I’m afraid,” Rolleen blurted.
She felt her mother’s arm slide around her shoulder and laid her head against her mother’s breast.
“What if I make the wrong choice, Mom? What if I mess up my life and the baby’s?”
“Shh. Shh,” her mother crooned. “Listen to your heart and believe in yourself and you’ll know what to do.”
Her mother hadn’t offered a solution to Rolleen’s dilemma, only love and trust and the belief that Rolleen could solve the problem herself. It was what she had always given. It was everything a child could want or need.
“Thank you, Mom,” she said.
“Anytime, darling. Will you come inside now?”
“In a little while,” she said as her mother stepped inside the house.
When Gavin showed up on the porch a few moments after her mother had gone inside, he said, “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Rebecca said I’d find you out here. I was worried about you. Why aren’t you inside with your family?”
He didn’t wait for her to invite him under the blanket. He simply lifted it and her and sat himself down with her in his lap.
She laughed and rearranged the blanket over both of them. “You’re getting good at that.”
“It’s going to get tougher as you get bigger with—”
“The baby,” they both said together and laughed.
“Why can’t it be like this the whole year long?” Rolleen said.
“Like what?”
“Everyone so happy, so generous and considerate and kind.”
“I suppose there’s no reason why it can’t be like that,” Gavin said, setting the hanging rocker in motion.
“I wish…”
“What do you wish?”
“I wish this were your baby.”
His harsh intake of breath, the tension in his thighs beneath her and the stiffness in his shoulder under her hand all told a story much louder than words. She wished the baby were his. He obviously did not.
“Rolleen, I—”
She put her fingertips over his mouth to stop his denial. “You don’t have to say anything, Gavin. It isn’t your baby. It isn’t your responsibility. I appreciate what you’ve done so far, and I won’t expect anything from you once the holidays are over, I promise.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled it away. “Rolleen, damn it, there’s a lot you don’t know about me. Things I haven’t told you that are important—that make a difference!”
“It doesn’t matter. None of it matters!” She was up and off his lap a second later, running for the front door. She pulled it open and found herself in the midst of a free-for-all in the living room.
She stopped stock-still in the doorway and stared at Jake and Colt and Frannie and Cherry and Mac and Billy. She and the baby would manage without Gavin. She might not be as happy, but she would be all right. She had her family to love—and to love her.
“Hey, Rolleen,” Frannie shouted, pointing upward. “Look where you’re standing!”
Rolleen saw the sprig of mistletoe at the same time Gavin slipped his arms around her from behind.
“You have to kiss Gavin!” Frannie said, her voice laced with adolescent relish for all things romantic.
The family began to laugh and clap, making it impossible for her to escape without making a scene. It should have been the simplest thing in the world to turn around and kiss Gavin. She had been kissing him for days in front of her family. But now she knew her dreams of happily-ever-after were nothing more than that. Now she knew this fairy tale was not going to have a happy ending.
She didn’t want to pretend with Gavin anymore. When she hesitated, Gavin questioned, “Rolleen?”
“Kiss me, Gavin,” she whispered. “Kiss me one last time.”
* * *
Gavin heard the cheers as he leaned down to touch his lips to Rolleen’s. His heart was thundering in his chest, and it hurt to breathe. He wanted her so much. He loved her so much.
Gavin ended the kiss and stared stunned at Rolleen for an instant. I love her. “Rolleen…”
The room was suddenly silent. Gavin could almost feel her family willing Rolleen to accept him and set a date for the wedding.
I’m not acting, Rolleen. I do care for you. But in this case, loving her was not enough. He must also be able to love her child. And his own.
The phone in the kitchen rang, but no one left the room to answer it.
Gavin saw the troubled look in Rolleen’s eyes and knew what had put it there. She had wished her baby was his. She had offered him that precious gift—a child of hers—and he had not been able to accept it. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he love them both?
Then Gavin realized the enormity of the harm he had done by wanting more than the game allowed. There was more in her eyes than regret. There was love.
Oh, God, Rolleen. I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen.
“I—I—think…” she stuttered. She turned and stared at the kitchen doorway. “Shouldn’t someone answer that phone?”
“Set a date! Set a date!” Frannie chanted.
“Frannie,” Rebecca chided lovingly. “Give Rolleen a chance to speak for herself. Get the phone please, Jewel.”
“Don’t say anything till I get back,” Jewel shouted to Rolleen as she raced to the kitchen. “I don’t want to miss this!”
Everyone groaned.
Jewel quickly returned from the kitchen and extended the portable phone to Gavin. “It’s for you, a friend of your grandmother’s named Ruby Jenkins. She says your grandmother’s ill. She said you should come home right away and bring someone to take care of your daughter.”
Gavin felt every pair of eyes in the room focus on him. He knew they were all wondering why he had never mentioned a daughter. He clutched Rolleen’s hands to keep her from jerking away, turned to her family and said, “I’m sorry, Zach, Rebecca, everybody. I’m afraid Rolleen and I are going to have to cut our visit short. My daughter can be a handful.”
Gavin held his breath. It was up to Rolleen now. She could either call everything off, or come along with him.
He looked into Rolleen’s eyes and winced when he saw her pain and confusion. He should have told her sooner. He had thought he would have more time. Only, time had run out.
“I have to leave, Rolleen. Are you coming with me?”
* * *
Are you going to keep your part of the bargain?
Gavin didn’t say those precise words, but Rolleen heard them. She felt like Alice, and she’d just fallen down the
rabbit’s hole into Wonderland, where nothing was as it seemed.
But she knew for sure now that Gavin hadn’t really wanted her to set a date. Not when she knew nothing about the existence of his daughter. She realized how close she had let herself come to believing in happily ever after. She had to remember the rules of this game.
She felt both angry and hurt at Gavin’s secretiveness. Realistically, there was no way she and Gavin could have learned everything about each other in two weeks. But a daughter was a pretty sizable omission.
Why hadn’t he told her about the child? What was wrong with her? Was she sick? Dying? Was that why Gavin counseled dying children? Rolleen wanted answers, and the only way she was going to get them was to go with him.
She turned to her parents and said, “Momma, Daddy, I’m sorry to leave like this, but I need to go with Gavin. I should have told you sooner, but I’d planned all along to spend part of the holiday with his family. We’ll just be leaving a little sooner than we’d planned.”
“We’ll miss having you here,” her mother said.
The concern on her parents’ faces made her want to confess everything, but so far Christmas had been wonderful. She wanted to leave her family with that lovely feeling.
Rolleen smiled, a look she hoped conveyed her gratefulness to her parents and her love for them. “I’ll be fine, Mom. I’ll call you when we get there. Merry Christmas, Daddy. Merry Christmas, everybody!”
Rolleen felt herself being moved through the room by Gavin’s strong arm around her waist as her family reached out to wish her well, her brothers shouting, “Merry Christmas, Gavin!” and her sisters saying, “Call as soon as you can, Rolleen!” and “Let us know how your grandmother is, Gavin!”
Rolleen hugged her parents hard and watched from the corner of her eye as Gavin shook her father’s hand and said soberly, “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll take care of her.”
Rolleen said nothing while she and Gavin packed their bags. She kept her silence as they drove to the airport and turned in the rental car. She waited patiently, biding her time until they were several thousand feet in the air where Gavin couldn’t escape, before she began asking for answers.
“Tell me about your daughter.”
He avoided her gaze. “What would you like to know?”
“How old is she? What’s her name? Why have you kept her a secret?”
“She’ll be five on January 22. Her name’s Elizabeth Harriet Talbot, Beth for short. And I haven’t mentioned her before because…she’s the real reason I wanted you to come home with me this Christmas.”
Rolleen brushed a nervous hand through her hair. “Well. That sounds like the truth, at least.”
“I’ve never lied to you, Rolleen,” he said.
“But you edited something pretty important out of your life, Gavin. What else have you kept a secret that I ought to know about?”
She heard the gusty sigh and knew there was more. “You don’t have to worry that you’re going to be obligated to me beyond the holidays,” she said.
He turned sharply to look at her, then said, “When my wife died, she left a note telling me that Beth isn’t my daughter.”
Rolleen felt an ache in her chest at Gavin’s revelation. She didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” didn’t seem like enough. “How awful!” sounded wrong. And any comment about his wife’s behavior was too judgmental, when she knew nothing about their life together.
“You must have been devastated,” she said at last.
“It hasn’t been an easy year,” he conceded. “I’ve gone home to visit Beth more this fall than I did in the spring, but I haven’t been able to look at my daughter without…” He swallowed hard before continuing, “Without thinking about who her father might be. Without imagining… I’ve done my best not to let on to Beth how I feel. But it isn’t easy when she wants me to hold her, and…” He swallowed hard again but said nothing more.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
When Rolleen had been silent for several minutes, Gavin said, “Aren’t you going to ask me anything else?”
“I don’t want to cause you any more pain,” she admitted.
He opened his mouth but closed it again without speaking.
She turned to look at him and waited.
“I can’t…” He huffed out a breath and said, “I don’t feel the same way toward Beth that I did before…before.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Are you saying you blame Beth for what her mother did?”
“I don’t love her anymore,” he said flatly. “I can’t bear to look at her. I don’t want to be in the same room with her. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
He was breathing hard, as though he’d been running, but Gavin was still sitting in the same pilot’s seat where he’d been when he’d started talking. He gave a ragged sigh. “I feel a tremendous responsibility toward Beth, but that’s all. My grandmother can’t seem to grasp the fact that my feelings have changed.”
“What is my presence supposed to accomplish?” Rolleen asked.
“I figured if you were there Hester would understand why I’d rather be with you than with Beth and wouldn’t be throwing me and Beth together so much.”
“Is that what she does? Throw you and Beth together?”
Gavin scowled. “All the time!”
“From that phone call you got, it sounds like she’ll likely be in bed sick and not bothering anybody.”
“Hester’s a sturdy old bird,” he said. “Nothing keeps her down for very long. Believe me, she’ll be back to her old, interfering self in no time.”
“You could at least play with Beth while your grandmother’s sick, couldn’t you?”
He shook his head. “No. No, I couldn’t.”
Rolleen was trying to understand, and she was afraid she did. Her white knight’s armor was beginning to look a little tarnished.
“I was adopted, Gavin, so I know adults can learn to love children who aren’t their own. Couldn’t you try that with Beth? Couldn’t you pretend she’s a child you found in an orphanage and learn to love her all over again?”
“But she isn’t!” he snarled. “Every time she smiles I see my wife’s smile. And every time I look into her eyes I see some stranger—some man who took my wife to bed—looking back at me!”
Gavin was shaking with anger. Rolleen had the feeling that if he’d been in a boxing ring he would happily have pulverized his opponent. If he’d been on the road, he might have rammed the nearest tree. Fortunately they were up in the air with nothing to run into but a bank of clouds and plenty of sky in which to maneuver.
Rolleen was trying to understand and appreciate and sympathize with Gavin’s pain. Instead she found herself wearing Beth’s shoes, because she’d worn them once herself and because she knew how much they hurt.
“Have you thought about what Beth must be feeling?” she asked.
“She’s just a kid,” Gavin said.
“Kids have feelings. At least I did.”
She watched the frown burrow deep into Gavin’s forehead. He didn’t answer her, but she knew she’d made her point.
“You should have told me what you had in mind from the beginning,” she said. “I could have told you then I couldn’t be a part of it.”
He turned to stare at her in disbelief. “What?”
“I couldn’t possibly help you ignore your daughter just because she isn’t your own flesh and blood, Gavin. I’ve been where she is. I’ve felt what she’s feeling. Once we get on the ground, I’ll find my own way back to Houston.”
“I helped you out,” he said furiously. “I gave you the Christmas you wanted. Now it’s your turn. We made a bargain, Rolleen. And I’m not letting you out of it!”
“I won’t go off with you and ignore Beth,” she retorted, just as heatedly.
“Fine. Play games with her. Talk to her. Do anything you want with her. Just keep her away from me!”
Rolleen stared at Gavin, appalled at what h
e was saying. She had felt herself falling in love with him during the time they’d spent at Hawk’s Pride, but she realized now what a good thing it was she hadn’t said anything. He had let her down, but she wasn’t going to let his daughter suffer as a consequence. That little girl was going to get the love she deserved at Christmas.
“All right,” Rolleen said. “I’ll come home with you.”
“As my fianc;aaee?” Gavin asked.
“Is that really necessary? Couldn’t I just be your friend?”
He hesitated and shook his head. “I don’t think so. I want the same thing for Hester that you wanted for your mom and dad. My grandmother doesn’t have a lot of Christmases left, and I want this one to be happy for her.”
“And seeing you engaged will make her happy?”
“Having me married would make her a lot happier,” Gavin said, “but this is as far as I’m willing to go. Hester’s afraid I won’t be able to love another woman after what happened with Susan. You’ll be proof that isn’t the case.”
“What happens when we don’t get married?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
They sat in silence thinking about what they’d done. Realizing what they’d wrought.
Rolleen wondered if Gavin could love another woman. Wondered if he could love his child. Wondered if he could love hers. She had to admit she still fantasized about a future with him. Foolish woman. That really was living in Wonderland.
“What were we thinking?” she muttered, shaking her head.
“We weren’t,” he said flatly.
Runway landing lights appeared in the distance. “Where are we?” she asked.
“That’s a private air strip on my ranch,” he said.
“This is your ranch?” she said, perusing the vast rolling hills studded with an occasional live oak that were visible in the pink light of Christmas morning.
“We’ve been flying over it for the past half hour.”
Rolleen stared at him. “All that land was yours?”
He nodded. “The Lady Luck has been in the Talbot family for generations.”
“I see,” she murmured, realizing for the first time that if the Lady Luck went to Beth, it would be going to someone who was not a Talbot. “It’s beautiful,” she conceded.
A Hawk's Way Christmas Page 8