Christmas Star (Contemporary, Romance)
Page 25
Starr touched the white star that radiated from the stone’s center. “The Christmas star,” she whispered. “Clay, it’s beautiful. It’s perfect. I love your mother. I love you.”
He smiled. “You’re beautiful. You’re perfect. I love you, too. Does all that mean yes? Will you marry me, Starr?”
“She will!” two hushed voices proclaimed in unison.
Clay and Starr looked up as the children ducked back into the living room.
Laughing, Clay caught Starr close for another long kiss.
“I second that,” she murmured the moment she was able. And she’d never meant anything more. For the first time in several days, she believed it was going to be a beautiful Christmas.
Was she crazy, or did the star sapphire Clay placed on her finger suddenly glow brightly?
It was magic. The magic of the Christmas star.
EPILOGUE
CLAY HEARD the commotion out in the hall and asked the caller on the telephone to hold. It was past suppertime, and the ranch house seemed strangely devoid of cooking odors. The last he’d seen Starr, she was busy helping SeLi make Christmas decorations for some event at school.
The phone call from his brother was a surprise. Harrison was due home next week, and according to the plan, he was supposed to begin picking up the pieces of his life. But he was calling to say that he’d decided to stay on in New Mexico even after finishing his five-year community-service sentence. He’d asked Vanessa to join him and she’d said yes.
Clay knew from the occasional phone call that Harrison had come to love the legal work he did in the remote Native American village, as well as the quiet, less hectic pace there.
Funny how things worked out, Clay thought. Perhaps it was fitting that Harrison end his sentence negotiating tribal water rights. Apparently the tribal council had invited him to stay. A few years ago, when Harrison’s concern for the state’s economy had overshadowed his good sense, Clay had doubted that his brother would ever see this particular sentence through, let alone change his ways. Especially after Calexco’s fine had helped bail out the state and nothing much had happened to the men who’d been Harrison’s so-called friends. He’d expected Harrison to appeal.
Wait until Starr heard the news. Clay needed to find her, anyway, because Harrison had asked if the whole family could come to Taos for a real old-fashioned Christmas this year.
As he stepped into the hall, he was hit in the knees by his red-haired, blue-eyed, three-year-old daughter, Joy.
“Whoa! Where’s the fire?” Clay reached down, hoisted her aloft and kissed her soundly on her button nose. She was such a bundle of energy, and such a combination of himself and Starr, that it always made him smile.
“SeLi won’t play with me,” she pouted prettily. “So I tooked her ol’ comb.”
Clay saw that indeed she held an elaborate, jeweled comb in her chubby hand. “No way. Time you learned you can’t just take things that don’t belong to you. Is your sister in her room?”
Joy nodded. “And Mama.”
Clay grinned. What had SeLi done now? On the way to the girl’s room, he snatched up a piece of mistletoe someone had thoughtfully left on the hall table. It never hurt to be prepared. Not that Starr could be bribed. But Clay always enjoyed trying.
“Okay, princess, let’s go see what’s up with those two.”
As he stepped silently through SeLi’s open door, his heart leapt. His wife, beautiful even in her state of dishabille, was on her knees adjusting the wide, velvet skirt on a dress that made their adopted daughter look grown-up beyond her fourteen years.
His shock was audible, the message from Harris forgotten.
Starr glanced up and smiled. “You like it?” Say yes, she mouthed.
Clay needed no prompting. “It’s gorgeous, SeLi. You look wonderfully grown-up. Twenty, at least.”
SeLi floated across the room, went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Brian Flaherty invited me to the Christmas dance. Will he like this dress, do you think?” She did a little pirouette.
“A dance?” Clay’s brow furrowed and he set his youngest down on the pink-checked bedspread. “Starr—a dance?” he whispered.
SeLi overheard. She rolled her eyes and plucked the comb from her little sister’s busy fingers. “You didn’t say anything last week when Moe asked you to help him choose a Christmas gift for Whitney Desmond.”
“Yeah,” Starr said, getting to her feet to unzip SeLi’s dress. “You wouldn’t be a teensy bit chauvinistic, would you?”
Clay held up his hands. “If that’s the difference between being an uncle and a father, then I’m guilty. But hey, I know when I’m outnumbered. Speaking of Moe and Christmas, I’ve got to call Harrison back. He plans to continue helping the tribe file injunctions until they win. You guys want to go to New Mexico for the holidays?”
Starr laughed. “Your folks are dangling an East Coast amusement park to tempt us into going to Florida this year. My folks are doing the same with one on the West Coast—they’re big on family now that they’ve remarried and Dad’s retired. Plus, they’ve thrown in a studio tour for good measure.” She shook her head. “After finally finishing my doctoral dissertation and everything we’ve been doing to bring Calexco to its knees, I just want some time alone with my husband and children. Is that selfish of me?”
“Time alone?” Clay’s eyes gleamed. He waggled his eyebrows and chased after her, mistletoe held aloft.
SeLi returned from hanging her dress in the closet, tied her robe and scooped her little sister from the bed. “You guys haven’t had much time alone with Mom always running back and forth between San Francisco, college and the ranch.”
“I explained all that, SeLi. I was determined to get Drixathyon off the market. I thought we were all in agreement.”
“We were. And we’re proud of you, Mom. Wouldn’t it be cool if the whole family did get together for Christmas this year? Including Woody, Trader John and my real grandpa Forbes? If you guys wanna talk about it privately, I’ll take Joy into the den and read her one of the Christmas stories Nana Patrice sent.”
Starr started to protest, but Clay picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. “It’s a good idea, and a private discussion is exactly what we need.” He winked at SeLi and jogged toward the master bedroom. “When you get to the den, SeLi, tell your uncle Harrison I’ll get back to him later.”
“Much later,” Starr said, laughing.
“Whatcha gonna do, Daddy?” called Joy.
Hearing the click of the lock on her parents’ bedroom door, SeLi grinned at her sister. “C’mon, squirt. Let’s go see if the Christmas star is out tonight.”
SeLi put her down and the two raced into the den. After SeLi had stopped to pass on her dad’s message, she joined Joy at the bay window.
“Tell me again,” the little girl begged, “how Nana Patrice wanted a baby and she wished on the Christmas star. Are you pos’tive my mama was borned before the next Christmas?”
“Born,” SeLi corrected primly. “Don’t you remember how I said I wanted a dad and I wished on the Christmas star? Starr and Clay got married, didn’t they?”
“And me.” The impudent child clapped her hands. “You said you wished for me.”
SeLi wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t know little sisters were such pests.”
Joy’s pretty blue eyes clouded. Her lips trembled.
“Hey, I was kidding. I only meant the Christmas star is powerful. You gotta be careful what you ask for, okay?”
“Can I ask for a brother?” Joy asked, scrubbing the faint tears from her eyes. “Then when Morgan visits and you guys play ‘Nopoly, I won’t hafta be alone.”
“Monopoly,” SeLi said absently, listening to Starr’s shrieks of laughter in the other room. Then there was a soft bump as the headboard of the bed hit the wall, and all was silent in her parent’s bedroom.
“A brother might be the ticket at that,” SeLi said, her face thoughtful. “It won’t be all that long until
I go off to college. Nobody should have to be alone, Joy. Nobody.”
SeLi helped her little sister kneel on the window-seat cushion. Together they searched for and found the brightest star in the sky.
“Be careful now and get this right,” SeLi warned. “Repeat after me—Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight...”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8604-7
Christmas Star
Copyright © 1995 by Rosaline Fox
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