“It isn’t work that’s bothering me,” she corrected him.
Something flickered in his eyes, a flash of fear or annoyance, or something. “Then what’s the problem?”
She offered a bleak smile. “Oh, Jesse... It’s just that I’m a novice at this,” she explained. “I don’t know how to deal with the morning after.”
Jesse set down his cup, pulled her cup from her, and folded his hands around hers. “There’s nothing to deal with,” he said gently. “It isn’t the morning after. It’s the morning before.”
“The morning before what? Christmas Eve?” Hearing herself enunciate those two emotion-laden words made her shudder.
Jesse continued to study her. After a long minute, he sighed. “Forget about Christmas Eve, Robin,” he said. “One day isn’t worth torturing yourself over.”
Despite his muted tone, his words stung, and she couldn’t shake the suspicion that he’d intended them to wound her. Perhaps he was trying to shake her out of her doldrums—or perhaps he really meant what he’d said. Christmas was just one day to him, worth nothing more than any other day.
How could she possibly love a man who believed such a thing? How, even after making love with him, even after finding refuge from her loneliness in his arms, could she really love Jesse?
Chapter Twelve
SHE LOOKED STRICKEN.
Jesse gave himself a mental kick in the rear end. What had possessed him to say such a thing to her?
He’d wanted to drag her out of her funk, that was all. He’d wanted to rescue her from the depression that was closing in around her. If he’d spoken a bit too sharply, a bit too bluntly, it was only because he couldn’t stand to see her vanishing within a cloud of gloom about the holiday all over again. Dismissing Christmas was a reflexive thing for him. Robin ought to have grown used to his opinions about the holiday by now.
Watching her as she slumped in her chair, her downcast face framed by hair as pale and fine as corn silk, her slim, lovely body hidden beneath a fleecy bathrobe, Jesse acknowledged that his harsh words had arisen from an impulse more complex than simply the desire to cheer her up. As egotistical as it was, he had hoped that last night had been wonderful enough to make her forget about Philip’s absence. Jesse had hoped that one night in his arms would have been enough to vanquish her sorrow. Making love with Robin had been so amazing, so damned glorious. He’d assumed that if it had been half as good for her as it had been for him, she wouldn’t need anything more.
What an ass he was. He ought to have enough sense to realize that Robin’s passion for him couldn’t replace her pain over not having Philip with her for Christmas. At best, Jesse had offered her a pleasant distraction for a few hours.
He wished he could have offered her more, but apparently he hadn’t. And the realization hurt. That was why he’d lashed out.
It was too late for him to retract his barbed words. The moment was gone, beyond salvation. He’d have to make it up to her somehow. “What time does Woodleigh’s close tonight?” he asked.
“Six,” she said dully. Her eyes were opaque, her lips taut as she shaped the solitary word. A narrow crease lined her brow.
It broke his heart to see her so demoralized. He would make it up to her. He had promised that he’d do his best to make her Christmas bearable. Now, more than ever, he was determined to live up to that promise.
“I’ll see you this evening?” he half-asked.
“If you want.”
Her pathetic tone wrenched his heart again. He tried to console himself with the thought that he hadn’t personally caused her sadness.
No, of course he hadn’t. All he’d done was to shoot his damned mouth off and make her feel even worse.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, gulping down his coffee and rising. “I have to stop off at home and change my clothes for work.”
Robin shrugged.
“Robin.” He moved to her chair and bent down beside her. He was close enough to notice the teardrops beading along her eyelashes. Please, he prayed, not even questioning whom he was praying to, please, let me make it better for Robin. Please show me the way. He enclosed her in his arms and kissed her lightly. “I love you,” he whispered. “We’ll have a good Christmas, I promise.”
She nodded, blinked a few times and looked away. Jesse could do nothing more for her now. He straightened up and strode out of the kitchen.
He was scheduled to meet that morning with the gas station owner who had cheated Jesse’s client out of his back wages. It was the kind of appointment that called for a suit and necktie; Jesse wanted to intimidate the jerk, to compel him to cough up the money he owed quickly and save them all the hassle of a protracted legal battle. The total amount owed came to less than three hundred fifty dollars—a pittance in the circles in which Jesse used to travel, but a fortune to the young man Jesse was currently representing.
After the session with the gas station owner, Jesse would have to plow through a mess of paperwork at his office. Negotiations with George Cabot’s attorney seemed to have reached a stalemate, and Jesse feared that not long into the new year, the building’s residents might find themselves homeless.
In the meantime, however, he could see to it that they had decent Christmas dinners. Jesse wasn’t good at celebrating Christmas himself, but he was willing to help others celebrate it. He intended to buy those needy tenants a feast.
He wanted to indulge Robin, too. He would do whatever he could to make sure she celebrated her holiday.
His meeting with the gas station owner went better than expected. As he’d hoped, Jesse overwhelmed the tight-fisted man with his impeccably tailored suit and a cascade of scary legal jargon. By the time Jesse was finished reciting his list of contingencies, estoppels and adjurations, the poor man had his personal checkbook in hand and was busy punching numbers into his calculator, figuring out the precise amount of wages and interest he owed. Jesse drove directly from the service station to his client’s apartment to deliver the check.
The young man’s elation at receiving his money bolstered Jesse. But his satisfaction was tempered by the phone message awaiting him at his office, from Cabot’s attorney. According to the message, the landlord had decided, after investigating the cost of performing the necessary repairs to the building, not to do the improvements to the building. He’d take his chances in the civil court.
Jesse cursed. Five hundred was a spectacular batting average in baseball, but not in life. Jesse had gotten a service station employee his back wages, but he hadn’t gotten Cabot to make his property livable for his tenants. Jesse had brought Mrs. Selby’s son home for Christmas, but he was powerless when it came to Robin’s son.
Jesse had won Robin’s love last night, but he’d lost it this morning.
On the other hand, the old guy supposedly pulling the strings from above wasn’t doing much better. The sky was a clear, cold blue, the streets clean and dry, the few parks and the Yale University campus in downtown New Haven naked, in a frozen grayish-brown state of hibernation.
If God existed, the least he could have done was given Robin some snow for Christmas.
***
WOODLEIGH’S REMAINED FRENZIED until five thirty. Then, as if answering some silent command, the customers vanished, toting their purchases with them. At ten minutes to six, one final, hysterical customer entered, snatched up the last three soldier-nutcrackers, paid for them in cash and whisked away. And then it was over.
After wishing her staff a happy holiday, distributing bonus checks and shooing the clerks out the door, Robin locked it and turned to survey the shop. The place was a shambles: merchandise picked over, shelves empty, a pewter pitcher resting upside-down on a table, a glass candy dish smudged with fingerprints.
There would be time enough for cleaning up and sorting the leftovers for the post-holiday sale. Robin sighed as she crossed to the cash register and released the drawer. The store would be closed tomorrow, but she could come in early on Saturday to organize th
e place before the expected rush of returns.
Or—what the hell—she could come in tomorrow, she thought glumly. Other than stopping by at Joanna’s house to exchange gifts, Robin had no holiday festivities planned.
Christmas would be easier to live through if she were sure of herself. But she was sure of nothing at the moment, nothing but the fact that spending the night with Jesse had been sublime. If she didn’t love him, she couldn’t have responded so wildly to his lovemaking. Yet if she did love him, she would have to accept some basic concepts about him—most significantly, that he shunned the beliefs and rituals she considered central to her life.
A tap at the door startled her, and she swore generally at all the idiots who left their Christmas shopping to the last minute. Sliding a stack of ten-dollar bills back into their slot, she shut and locked the register drawer and turned toward the store’s entry.
Jesse stood outside the door, his hand shielding his eyes as he peered through the glass. His coat was unbuttoned, and he had on a dress suit underneath it, with his tie hanging loose and his shirt collar unbuttoned. His breath emerged as small white puffs of vapor in the evening cold.
The sight of him brought on a sudden rush of happiness within her. She ought to have been just as troubled by him now as she’d been that morning—and she imagined that once the wave of joy receded, she would be. Even so, she darted around the counter and raced to the door to let him in. A temporary joy was better than no joy at all.
As soon as she opened the door he pushed inside, eager to escape the frigid evening air. His lips were cool but comforting as he kissed her cheek. Slinging an arm around her, he scanned the store. “If it’s closed, how come you’re still here?” he asked.
“Maybe I was waiting for you.” Robin wasn’t certain that was true, but she felt good saying it. Seeing how much her statement pleased Jesse made her feel even better.
“This is a strange place to wait,” he argued good-naturedly. “I stopped by your house, assuming that you’d be there. But you weren’t, so I cruised over here to see if you’d decided to keep the store open an extra hour.”
“You came straight from work,” Robin observed, scrutinizing his outfit.
“Yeah, well, I’ve got an errand to run. I thought I ought to take care of it first, and then go home and unwind.”
“What errand?” Robin asked. Maybe she could join him. Running around town with Jesse would take her mind off the Christmas decorations and untouched gifts for Philip that were waiting for her at her house.
“I’ve got some food to deliver to my clients in New Haven. Would you like to come along for the ride?”
“Food?” she questioned. “Food baskets, you mean?”
Jesse chuckled and glanced through the glass front wall to his car, which was parked by the curb. “Food bags. I stopped at the supermarket and picked up a few things I thought they could use. I know what their finances are like. I didn’t want them to be stuck eating hot dogs and peanut butter for Christmas.”
Robin’s eyes narrowed on him. This man, this Grinch who thought Christmas was just one more day, had purchased Christmas meals for his indigent clients. What a phony he was. Blustering about his lack of faith, his rejection of God and religion—and here he was, the personification of Santa Claus himself!
Jesse met her quizzical gaze and smiled sheepishly, clearly attuned to what she was thinking. “It’s just some stuff in cans,” he said. “Don’t get the wrong idea.”
“I’ll tell you what the wrong idea is,” Robin argued, feeling her energy and her sense of purpose revive. “The wrong idea is to give people their food in bags instead of baskets. If you’re going to do this, you have to do it right.”
“Hmm,” he grunted, his smile widening. “Okay, Robin. How do we do this right?”
“First, we get some baskets,” she said, hurrying across the store to the display of woven wicker baskets. Most of the fancy baskets, the ones with lids and compartments for chilled wine bottles and glasses, had already been sold, but a few plain, open-top baskets still stood on a low shelf. “How many do we need?”
“Four,” Jesse told her, taking the baskets as she handed them up to him.
“They don’t match,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll use this larger one for the Selbys. They’re a big family—I bought them a bigger ham.”
“Ham?” Grinning, she stood and marched down the side of the store until she came to the remaining Christmas linens. “You’re the one who’s a hypocrite. Pretending to hate Christmas, and you went and bought these people hams.”
“I’m not a hypocrite,” he defended himself. “I’ve never objected to giving. All I object to is concentrating a year’s worth of giving on this one day, and then not giving for the rest of the year.”
“Sure,” Robin scoffed as she plucked four red-and-green tablecloths from a shelf. “And how many other days of the year do you give your clients hams?”
Jesse conceded with a grin. “I think it would mean more to them on Christmas than it would at some other time. They’re the ones who are celebrating, not me.”
Robin laughed. “Of course,” she said with fake solemnity. “Your act of giving isn’t any sort of celebration, is it.”
“Lighten up,” he protested, although he was laughing too. “You’re the one who’s fixing up these ridiculous baskets.”
“They aren’t ridiculous.” Robin folded the linens to a manageable size and then used them to line the baskets. “If you do a thing, you do it right.”
“Who’s going to pay for all this stuff?” Jesse asked, smoothing out the corner of one of the tablecloths.
“I am,” Robin said simply. Before Jesse could object, she went on. “I get an employee discount. Or better yet, I’ll convince Jack Woodleigh to donate them. Or at least just charge the wholesale price for them. It’s for a good cause.”
“Even at the wholesale price, this stuff must be expensive.” Jesse ran his fingers over the delicate weave of the largest basket.
“If your clients deserve a ham dinner, then they deserve to receive it in style. Go get the food.”
By the time he returned to the store, lugging two bulging paper bags, Robin had added to each basket a clove-scented candle, a brass candlestick, and a carved wood tree ornament shaped like a snowflake. The truth was, none of the items was terribly expensive at wholesale. If Jesse knew how much Woodleigh’s marked up its merchandise he’d be horrified, so she thought it best not to enlighten him.
“Here we go.” He dumped the bags onto the counter and unloaded them. Along with the hams, he’d bought canned sweet potatoes, canned string beans, and tins of fruit cake and boxes of Christmas candy. Robin and Jesse distributed the food among the four baskets, then folded the flaps of the tablecloths over the tops of the cans.
“Let me get my coat,” Robin said, untying her pinafore as she strolled to the staff room at the rear of the store. Humming We Wish You A Merry Christmas to herself, she removed her barrette and brushed out her hair, smoothed her sweater into the waistband of her skirt, and pulled her coat from its hanger. After slipping it on, she turned off the light and joined Jesse in the store. “I’ll leave my car here,” she decided, gathering up two of the smaller baskets while Jesse lifted the third small one and the large one. “We can pick it up later.”
It wasn’t until they were on the turnpike, traveling to New Haven, that she wondered what had happened to her melancholy mood. She’d been so busy arranging the baskets attractively that she’d forgotten how lonely she was without her son. Delivering food baskets to indigent strangers had never been one of her precious holiday traditions, but she was thrilled to be doing it. In fact, she thought, it would be a lovely ritual to add to her annual Christmastime rituals.
She wondered, too, what had happened to her doubt about Jesse. That he deliberately twisted the radio dial to a grating rock-and-roll program the minute he heard a fragment of the Halleluiah Chorus on another station didn’t bot
her her in the least. She’d gladly provide the carols—over his objections, if necessary. She’d provide the tree and the gingerbread house and the pretty gift-wrapped boxes, as long as Jesse provided the Christmas spirit. And that he was doing, grandly.
Robin didn’t often have occasion to visit New Haven, and even less often did she drive through the part of town Jesse was now entering. The buildings were shabby and aged, battered cars were parked along the dimly lit roads. Jesse steered past a public housing project, a block of dilapidated two-family houses and a row of gloomy apartments, finally coasting to a halt in front of a run-down four-story building with a few cracked and boarded windows gracing its front wall. Robin cringed at the realization that people actually lived inside such a dark, unwelcoming building.
To her surprise, Jesse seemed inordinately pleased by the sight of the place. “They collected the garbage!” he shouted, swinging open his door. “It’s about time.”
“You mean, it could have been worse?” Robin blurted out, trying to picture the building with the added blight of garbage heaped around its front door.
“It has been worse,” Jesse said, leaving the car and moving around to her side to help her out. They walked together to the trunk, opened it and pulled out the baskets. “I wonder what prompted Cabot to pay for the garbage removal. He’s the landlord—the guy we’re suing.”
The Christmas spirit prompted Cabot, Robin almost said. But Jesse might think she was teasing or nagging him if she mentioned anything that corny, so she only smiled and followed him inside the grim apartment building.
Jesse knocked on a door in the first-floor hallway. A stocky young man holding an open bottle of beer answered. “Mr. Lawson?” he asked, speaking loudly to drown out the babble of voices and salsa music emerging from somewhere inside the apartment. His gaze flew to Robin, and his eyebrows rose. “Who’s this? Another lawyer?”
“Hello, Mr. Martinez. This is a friend of mine,” Jesse replied. “We brought you some food for tomorrow, in case you want to make a Christmas dinner.” He took one of Robin’s baskets and handed it to the man, who peeked underneath the linen and whistled in amazement. “I wish I could have come with good news about Cabot,” Jesse added, “but this was the best I could do.”
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