Beneath the brim of her straw hat, the woman smiled shyly at whatever Pete had last said. Her soft hair fell in loose curls to her shoulders, reflecting the last rays of the setting sun and the indirect light of the gas lamppost that stood sentinel on the edge of her property. Behind Mrs. Perry, lush, overflowing beds of plants and still-blooming flowers hinted at the hours and hours she dedicated to their well-being.
“I hope you and Polly can make it,” she was saying as Mallory stopped beside Pete. “And this must be the amazing Mallory Phillips, the best school nurse and the best friend any little girl has ever had. I’m Sam Perry.” She smiled at Mallory, then at the way Polly hugged Pete’s leg and laid her head on her daddy’s waist. She knelt down until she and Polly were eye to eye. “It’s great having you back at the bus stop this week, even if you have your own personal chauffeur again back and forth to school. Who could pass up a choice deal like that?”
With that, Sam stood, smiled Mallory’s way a final time, and headed toward her house.
Pete had been studying Mallory’s face since she’d arrived. “Would you mind if Polly hung inside with Cade and Joshua for a few minutes?” he called after his neighbor. “Mallory and I need to talk.”
Sam turned with a flash of alarm on her face.
“That…It’s okay,” Mallory rushed to say. She might be irritated, but she wasn’t confronting Pete in the middle of the cul-de-sac for God and everybody to speculate about. “I just wanted to make sure Polly found her dad, and when she took off down the driveway—”
“Please, Sam.” Pete grabbed Mallory’s hand, holding tight. He glanced down at his daughter, his gaze snagging on the pin Polly had attached to her sweater. “It’ll only be a few minutes. Then I’ll take her home for dinner.”
Sam looked as if she were mentally bracing herself.
“Come on, Polly,” she said in a forced tone she clearly wanted to sound welcoming. “I baked the boys Toll House cookies after school. I bet your daddy won’t mind if you have one as long as we find you some milk to drink along with it.”
Sam held out her hand. With a kiss from Pete to the top of her head, Polly followed without complaint. She looked over her shoulder at Mallory, who nodded in encouragement. Why make this any harder for either the kid or Sam, just because Mallory was boiling by now, feeling manipulated twice in one night?
Once the pair had headed up through the decorative door that sported lead glass insets, Mallory rounded on Pete.
“Polly got around to inviting you to come to the party on Saturday?” he guessed before she could say a word.
“Give it a shot?” Mallory mocked.
Pete winced. “For the record, she asked me if you could come when she decided yesterday that she wanted to go herself. I didn’t want to speak for you since you hadn’t made a decision yet. And I didn’t know how to explain why I wasn’t sure you’d want to go to a neighborhood get-together when simply walking across the street and meeting Sam Perry is enough to spike your blood pressure.”
“I…”
Mallory could hear her heartbeat in her ears. She knew if she held her hand in front of her face she’d see it shaking. Yes, she was angry. But Pete was right. Her physical symptoms were about much more.
“Anytime I’m close to you,” she said, owning it, “you and Polly and Sam or any of you people…Yes, I want to turn tail and run.”
He laughed softly as if it were no big deal, her phobia of being around people she had nothing in common with. Why couldn’t he just get it already—that she was too messed up for this to ever work—and put them both out of their misery? Instead, she was in his arms suddenly, and she didn’t remember who’d moved first.
There had simply been the feeling of her reaching and being reached for, blindly searching and being sought after, her anger giving way to the honesty that seemed so easy, so disturbingly easy, with him.
“It’s not hard at school,” she said. “That’s work and I deal mostly with the kids. It gets more difficult when parents and volunteers show up as often as they have the last week or so. The shelters are no problem—no one has time for anything but work there. And that’s helping people, too.”
“And helping more kids.” Pete’s hands rubbed away the chills coursing through her body. “I heard from Dennis Cooper. He asked if he could use me as a reference for the cleaning job. It sounds like he’s a lock for the position. So chalk up one more family you’ve made life better for.”
She beamed up at Pete. “That was all you.”
“Hardly.”
“You save people every day.”
“So do you. But it’s not a tenth as hard for me to do what I do as it must be for you. Including living here and working at Chandler and taking Polly on as a cause. She’s wearing Emma’s holiday pin. You know how much of a milestone that is. Working with her rips you up inside sometimes, but here you are still fighting for my daughter—and for yourself. A part of you belongs here, Mallory, no matter how much we scare you.”
“All of me.” He’d gotten Charlie’s dad a job that would change that family’s life if Dennis pulled himself together and stopped drinking and made the most of it. Just like that, Pete had created a miracle, because that was how the Lombards’ world worked. That’s how lives on Mimosa Lane were lived. “All of me wants…” She gestured around them instead of saying that ever since Sunday night it was Pete she’d found herself wanting most of all. “All of me will want all of this forever.”
She looked up at the clear, nearly night sky already bright with icy, white stars. Her breath misted in the air, frosting everything with a hint of unbelievability. There was no window now between her and the sky. She was part of it, drinking in its beauty. She felt herself opening up to the view, to the man sharing it with her, craving the normality of standing with him on a beautiful cul-de-sac after spending an afternoon with his child.
He cuddled her closer. His gaze dropped to her mouth. She lifted onto her tiptoes, wanting his lips again, banishing the last of the space between them.
Their mouths touched, their breath mingled, misty and warm and feeding her need to believe that this fairy tale was exactly where she should be. That sharing Saturday’s invitation with him would work the way she longed for it to.
She broke away, far enough to end the kiss.
“I couldn’t be with you and Polly at the shelter,” she reminded him, “once I saw someone who might be my mother. I’d take that screwed-up moment and a million more like it with me to the party. Eventually, probably not long after we arrive, I won’t be able to be there with you, either. Crowds do that to me. People do that to me. I…do better when I have something else to focus on. When I don’t, I panic. I just…can’t.”
“But you stayed with Polly Saturday. The same night that you saw your mom and you went home from my place because it was too much for you to stay with me, you were with Polly all night. And don’t tell me that was about work. You’re here with me now, and there’s nothing to distract you from how good and bad this feels. And as upset as you were, you were very kind to Sam just now. You can handle people, especially when you realize you’re not alone.”
“She…” Mallory’s mind blurred past everything he’d said to the memory of Sam Perry’s too-bright, too-quick smile and the way she’d practically cringed at the thought of having even sweet little Polly into her home. “Sam feels alone, too, doesn’t she? At least I’m betting she needs to be a lot of the time. The holiday party isn’t going to be much fun for her, either.”
“I’m sure Julia pulled out all the stops to convince Brian to host it. Julia’s purpose in life, like yours and Sam’s, seems to be helping other people. Sam’s lost her way. A lot like you have, though for totally different reasons. And Julia’s technique for helping lost souls can resemble plowing folks over with a bulldozer. Sam and Brian have lived here since before their boys were born, and Sam’s been struggling from the start. It’s hard for all of us to watch and not be able to help. Looks like Julia
’s taking matters into her own hands with the Perrys, since she couldn’t make any headway with me and Polly.”
“Is that what everyone’s going to be doing Saturday? Watching? Sam. Me. Polly. You.”
“They’re going to be spending time together, and the whole neighborhood’s hoping you’ll join them now that the word’s out about your volunteer work. You have Polly to thank for that. Before I drive her to school every morning now, she stops and tells everyone at the bus stop more stories about what you do and who you help and how amazing you were pretending to be a good witch to convince the kids at the shelter to get their flu shots. Everyone’s already in love with you.”
“I…”
“Don’t want them to be?”
Mallory shook her head—not sure herself whether she was agreeing with him or denying his ridiculous statement.
“You’re wanted here,” he said, “just the way you are. But that’s not what’s worrying you. You don’t care if people are watching or how you look to them. You live your life your way, to hell with what anyone expects from you. You can’t help yourself. It’s one of the first maddening things I admired about you. What you’re afraid of is that you’ll be all the things you think folks won’t understand, and you’ll find out you’re welcome anyway. And I’m convinced a part of you still doesn’t believe you can deal with that.”
“I…” She wasn’t her mother, wandering from one town to the next, one set of nameless people to avoid after another, shameless and ashamed and never really being anyone to anybody. “Just because I can’t make myself like parties and hordes of people doesn’t mean I don’t want to be here.”
“You don’t have to make yourself do anything.” Pete kissed her firmly, longer and longer until her latest flash of irritation bled away and there was only him in her mind, making her feel priceless and special because he was overwhelming her senses with how much he wanted her in his arms. “Let this Saturday be whatever it’s going to be. Stop expecting it to be anything. Stop feeling different because that’s more comfortable than the possibility that you might actually belong. Be who you were that first night you ranted at me and dragged me over to your place to find you spoiling my child until she couldn’t help but fall in love with you.”
“Who?” His kiss, his words were impossible to resist. “Who was I that night?”
“A woman falling in love herself.” He had tears in his eyes. “You opened your heart to Polly. You were ready to rip me a new one if I didn’t wake up and start taking care of her the way I should have been all along. When are you going to give the rest of us a chance to mean that much to you?”
Sunday, he’d asked her for a week.
Only two days later, it felt as if he was wanting so much more.
“What…What if I can’t do this?” she whispered, clinging to him because she wanted to be wrong. “Even with Grams, I’ve never been able to make normal work.”
“You already are,” he promised. “Stick this out, Mallory. Fight for something new, something beyond helping people and then watching them move on. No more sitting alone, staring at your beautiful tree with no presents under it, thinking that’s all the holiday you need. No more telling yourself that the rest of us aren’t just as messed up as you’ve convinced yourself you are. Come see the three-ring circus we like to call a Mimosa Lane Christmas party. You’re already head and shoulders beyond the rest of our half-baked attempts to look pulled together. You just don’t realize it yet. Give us a chance.”
You’re a brave little girl, the nurse had said when Mallory had been a wandering no one, a nobody with only a quarter to her name, terrified of making the only choice she had left to make. A choice she’d secretly wanted to make for six years. A choice that had probably saved her mother’s life even if it had meant losing her forever.
The happy, fulfilled life Mallory had been grasping for since age twelve still wasn’t hers. Not really. Not if she let what she’d lost with her mother keep her from believing in people and trusting the ones she cared for to always be there for her in return, no matter what. That was the world, the home, Pete wanted her to see on Saturday.
“There’s nothing I’ve ever wanted more.” She grabbed Pete in a crushing hug. “My entire life, I’ve wanted to believe in something like you and Polly and this beautiful place.”
“We’re right here,” he said, holding her. “We’ve been right here waiting for you to find us. Tell me you can believe that.” Pete heard himself begging the way Polly used to when she didn’t want to go to school. Him. Begging. Emma used to tease that he’d welcome a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking before he’d admit that he needed or wanted anything more than what he already had.
Well, he needed this chance with Mallory.
He felt his heart soar when she nodded yes against his shoulder. Then she held on even tighter.
“I’ve put the word out within the rescue community,” he said. She’d agreed to let him help, and he’d been planning on calling to share his update later that night. “At fire departments and police precincts and even city hospitals—wherever I have contacts. Everyone I know in the city is searching for the woman we saw at the shelter, on top of everyone from your network. We’ll find her. I know how hard seeing her will be, but we’ll get you there. Then we’ll get you through that, too.”
And they’d all make it through the holiday party when a part of him knew he’d want to run the same as Mallory as soon as they arrived. Polly probably would, too. But together the three of them would find just a little bit of Christmas to enjoy.
“You can do this,” he said, kissing her softly. “You’ll see. We all can.”
Chapter Sixteen
I’m nobody. Who are you?
Julia Davis smiled from behind her living room curtains, charmed by the sweet scene unfolding across the lane. Pete Lombard and Mallory Phillips were wrapped around each other like long-lost lovers.
She wasn’t all that surprised. The way Pete had bragged to the families at the bus stop about just how fabulous Chandler Elementary’s school nurse was and where Mallory spent all the free time everyone had been so curious about…Clearly he was already half-smitten.
Julia had admired Mallory herself that day at the school clinic when Polly had gotten so upset. Mallory had handled Julia’s nosy bossiness with the grace and tact of a seasoned politician. Then she’d faced down Julia like a dragon while her supposedly shy, introverted, hands-off neighbor had held a crying Polly as if she’d never let her go. Julia had wanted to applaud.
She felt the same way about the embrace and the kisses Mallory and Pete were sharing now beneath golden lamplight and a crisp December sky. It was a beautiful moment. She should look away. But she couldn’t, like she couldn’t stop trying to remember the last time she’d felt so connected with another human being, so in the moment that everything else faded away.
She was watching people connect in a way she hadn’t experienced in her own world, in her family, for years. Possibly in forever. Mallory had made an impact on Sam just now, too. Something that had taken years for some of the other women in the neighborhood to achieve. Sam had hesitated, but for Pete and Mallory’s sake she’d escorted Polly inside, an offer to come closer that she never would have made on her own. And an offer Julia was certain Polly wouldn’t have accepted before a couple of weeks ago.
There was something about Mallory that seemed to transform everyone she came into contact with. Yet she appeared to be more than a little lost herself, unable or unwilling to take part in the community thriving around her. Her defenses were coming down, though, at least where the Lombards were concerned. And hopefully now the Perrys, too. Polly had mentioned just that morning that Pete was trying to convince Mallory to attend the holiday party with them. Something told Julia he’d just succeeded.
A twinge of jealousy made it harder than normal to smile as she walked into the den to find her husband and boys glued to whatever ball game was playing on the TV. She headed into the kitchen
to prep for dinner, shaking off her melancholy. This was their nightly routine. It was comfortable and welcoming and peaceful, knowing her way around a life that floated along as it had for as long as she could recall.
Then again, not being able to remember when she’d last clung to her husband or looked into his eyes and felt both lost and found, safe and consumed, left her heart aching a little. The thought of Pete finding love again so soon after losing Emma brought tears to Julia’s eyes.
The younger couples in the neighborhood kept Julia young, she’d always told herself. Even watching Brian and Sam Perry, as difficult as Sam’s condition made their relationship, was often like watching a romance novel come to life. The way they gazed at each other in unspoken devotion over the heads of their boys, or when Brian left for work each morning and Sam watched him go as if her day wouldn’t be completely right again until he returned. Touching tableaus like that used to remind Julia to count her blessings and the bounty of her own happy life.
Lately, though, signs of the intimacy others shared made her feel old. Given the challenges the Perrys, the Lombards, and Mallory Phillips were facing in their hectic lives, why was it starting to feel as if Julia would have to be extra cautious at the Christmas party to hide just how envious she was of the lot of them?
Mallory couldn’t help but stare Saturday night, her mouth practically hanging open as she and Pete and Polly walked into the Perrys’ house and the Mimosa Lane Christmas party.
Sam’s decor was a surprise. It wasn’t nearly as formal or close to suburban perfection as Mallory had expected. Like the woman’s gardens, there was a casual, laid-back elegance to what she had accomplished indoors with her mix of contemporary and antique pieces. Dark woods, glass-and-metal accents, ornate fixtures, and rough-hewn, distressed-looking picture frames and moldings. The natural colors of outdoors filled each room, mixed with the vibrant reds and more subdued jewel tones that covered the furniture and softened the windows. And all of it worked together somehow, along with the frenzy of holiday decorations strewn pretty much everywhere.
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