The Heart of Christmas

by Brenda Novak

  * * *

  Because of her birthday Eve had planned to take this Saturday off. So after Brent left, she scrubbed down the shower and straightened the rest of the house. But then she thought she’d go to the inn, after all. She didn’t want to lounge around anymore. That gave her too much time to think. And there was always more she could do to make her business a success.

  But as she passed through town, she spotted the expensive baby boutique that she generally tried not to notice. The Cat and the Fiddle was only a couple of blocks from her B and B, but unless she had to purchase a gift, she didn’t go in there. It made her too aware of the fact that she was still single and childless at thirty-five, when that wasn’t the way she wanted it.

  Today, however, she pulled to the curb and went inside.

  “Oh, my God! That’s darling!”

  Eve was holding the sweetest pink dress she’d ever seen when that voice intruded and she turned to find Noelle Arnold standing behind her. Her heart nearly skidded to a halt for fear Noelle would guess the nature of her interest. But that didn’t happen. Before she could respond, Noelle followed up with, “Are you going to get that for Cheyenne’s baby?” Eve breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God for that excuse!

  “I was thinking it might be nice if she has a girl,” she replied, and hung the dress back on the rack.

  “She doesn’t know what it is?”

  “Not yet. She wants a boy. Dylan wants a girl. They’ll wait until she delivers to find out. So...I’ll have to wait on the dress, too.”

  “You’ll be giving her a shower, won’t you?”

  Of course. They were best friends. But...was Noelle angling for an invitation?

  That would be so like her. She’d never taken responsibility for what she’d done to steal her sister, Olivia’s, boyfriend, never apologized for it. She just kept spinning lies in an effort to make everyone believe she hadn’t purposely seduced Kyle.

  “Probably not till the baby’s born,” Eve said.

  “Makes sense.” Noelle started looking at other clothes. “I’ve got to get her something, too. That’s why I came in here.”

  Sure she did. If Eve had her guess, Noelle had seen Eve’s car out front and wanted a chance to gloat over the bad behavior she’d witnessed on Thursday. “What do you think?” She held up a knitted cap with Viking horns that was so cute it would’ve made Eve laugh if she’d been standing there with anyone else.

  Eve reached out to touch the soft yarn. “Since we don’t know the gender, it’s hard to say.”

  “Sometimes a bag of diapers is the smartest thing to get. A new mother can always use those. But...I could never be that practical,” she added with a dramatic sigh.

  Eve glanced at the door. She was trying to come up with a polite way to end the conversation so she could escape when Noelle brought up the night in question.

  “About what happened at Sexy Sadie’s...”

  Here we go... “I’m glad we can talk about that,” Eve said. “I’ve been meaning to thank you. I just...wasn’t sure where to start.”

  “No worries. You were so drunk I had to do something.”

  Eve cringed. “Right. I’m embarrassed about that, of course, about all of it. But I’m grateful to you for getting me home. It...it was nice of you to help out.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed! A girl deserves to have some fun, doesn’t she? And I won’t tell a soul, so you have nothing to worry about there.”

  That was an outright lie. Noelle had already blabbed to Kyle and at least one other person. Kyle had told Cheyenne as much.

  “You haven’t?” Eve couldn’t resist pressing her to see if she could flush out the truth, but it was a waste of time.

  “Nope,” Noelle said solemnly. “So if it gets out, it won’t be my fault. But then...I wasn’t the only person who saw you falling all over him.”

  She hadn’t fallen “all over him” inside the bar. And no one else knew she’d taken Brent home. They’d walked out separately. But what was the point in arguing?

  “Who are they to judge?” Noelle was saying. “What girl in her right mind could say no to that guy, anyway? God, was he hot! Having someone like him in your bed sort of makes up for what Ted did to you last year, doesn’t it?”

  Noelle had to rub her nose in that, too?

  Through sheer willpower, Eve managed to keep her smile in place. “Deep down, I knew Ted and I weren’t meant for each other, Noelle. I’m glad he and Sophia are happy.”

  “Sure you are,” she said with a disbelieving snort.

  “It’s true,” Eve insisted.

  “Fine. If that’s what you want me to believe. But—” Noelle grinned and nudged her with a sharp elbow “—tell me this. Who’s better in bed?”

  Eve longed to give Noelle a piece of her mind. Noelle had that effect on most people. But she didn’t want her running around town saying they’d gotten into an argument over Thursday night. “I was so out of it I couldn’t say,” she told her instead.

  “What a shame. Maybe you should invite him over again—when you’ll be able to remember it.”

  Eve fidgeted uncomfortably but didn’t respond.

  “Or maybe I will,” Noelle said with a suggestive laugh. “He new in town?”

  Something akin to possessiveness raised the hair on the back of Eve’s neck. I have no claim on him, she reminded herself. But she didn’t like the idea of him sleeping with Noelle, even if she’d been the one to suggest it the night before. “Just visiting.”

  “For how long?”

  “He’ll be gone in a matter of...days.” He’d surprised her at breakfast by saying he’d be in town through Christmas, but that was information Noelle didn’t need to have.

  “Too bad,” Noelle said. “I was hoping he might be the man of your dreams. I know how badly you want to get married.”

  And the hits kept coming.... “You do?”

  “What else is there in this town?” She rolled her eyes. “But take it from me. Marriage is highly overrated.”

  Eve couldn’t believe she’d say that. Her ex was one of Eve’s best friends, and Eve knew that Noelle had made Kyle’s life absolutely miserable during the six months they’d been together.

  “I’d really like to get out of Whiskey Creek,” Noelle confided.

  “So why don’t you move?” It wasn’t easy to ask that question without sounding too eager.

  “I would if I had the money.”

  After four years of paying an exorbitant amount of spousal support, Kyle had gone to court to see if he could have it lowered. He’d won his case last month, which was probably why Noelle was now waiting tables as well as punching a time clock at the dress boutique where she’d worked, on and off, for years. She’d never been one to save money or use it responsibly, and had spent a great deal on clothes, jewelry and various surgical enhancements.

  “I guess you’ll have to save up if you’re serious about it.”

  “Or marry a rich man.” She chuckled, but Eve couldn’t appreciate the humor, not with the way Noelle had taken advantage of Kyle.

  “I’d better be going,” she said. “I have to get back to the inn.”

  Cecilia was covering for her today, but Noelle didn’t know that. Usually, Eve had only Sunday and Monday off.

  “Before you go...” Noelle reached into her purse and pulled out a slip of paper. “The guy you were with left this in my backseat. I haven’t seen him since, but I thought you might be able to return it to him.”

  It was a piece of stationery from a motel in Placerville, another Gold Country town about forty-five minutes away, with a number on it. Eve didn’t recognize the area code, but cell phones weren’t always tied to a particular area so that didn’t mean anything. Although it was written in what looked like the same hand as the numbers jotted on the pad in Brent Taylor’s room, there was no name, nothing to indicate that it was of any importance.

  “What makes you think he wants it back?” she asked.

  Noelle picked up so
me cute little booties. “Maybe he doesn’t. But I thought I’d try to return it, to be nice.”

  Noelle didn’t do anything to be nice, which made Eve wonder if she’d already called the number and knew it belonged to another woman. But she managed a polite “Thanks” as she pocketed the paper.

  “No problem. Maybe I’ll see you at Cheyenne’s shower, huh?”

  “Maybe so,” Eve said, and turned to walk out the door.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was sitting in her office in the back of the B and B, staring at the number Noelle had given her. Brent had checked out; she’d gone up to see. He’d said he’d be staying at Mrs. Higgins’s, so she could run this over to him. But she didn’t want him to think she was creating an excuse to see him again—the way Noelle had created an excuse to approach her. Now that he was gone, she was done with him. It would be easier on both of them if she tried to forget what had happened between them. Unless she was pregnant and couldn’t, of course. Then they’d have to decide what to do. For him that would amount to monthly payments, she supposed—if he followed through and actually paid them.

  And for her... It would change her life. But she’d always wanted to be a mother, after all.

  Tossing the paper in the wastebasket, she turned on her computer. She had a couple of hours to kill before her parents’ birthday dinner and figured she might as well get caught up on what she’d missed.

  But she couldn’t stop thinking about Brent Taylor, which made her far too curious about that number....

  As soon as her email filled the screen, she bent down to dig it out of the wastebasket.

  Could this be important?

  After first blocking her own number, she dialed the ten digits. She wanted to know who’d answer. Maybe it would be a call girl or a business of some kind, and she could toss the number without worrying that she was disposing of information Brent might need. If this slip of paper had indeed belonged to him, he must’ve brought it from the motel in Placerville for a reason....

  But the person who answered wasn’t an employee of some business. Eve doubted it was a call girl, either. A woman picked up and, from the breathless sound of her voice, she’d rushed to get the phone.

  “Hello? Hello?” she repeated when Eve didn’t say anything. Eve was about to hang up when she heard, “Rex? Is it you? If so, please don’t hang up. Talk to me. Your brother’s at the hospital. He had a patient go into cardiac arrest. But I know he’d like to hear from you. The family’s been torn apart long enough, don’t you think? No one blames you for what happened to Logan. No one blames you for anything. That was so many years ago, anyway. Just...if you won’t say anything to me, at least call back when Dennis is here, okay? He may not be able to say it, but he loves you. He—”

  Eve hung up. She shouldn’t have listened that long, but she’d been absorbed by the entreaty in the woman’s voice. Whoever it was had sounded so sincere, so eager to put something right. But surely that woman had no connection to Brent Taylor. She’d been pleading with a person named Rex....

  Again, Eve threw the number away. Maybe Noelle had been mistaken and someone else had dropped it in her car. Or maybe this was a business associate of Brent’s who’d assumed she was receiving a personal call because it had come from a blocked number.

  Except...Brent had said that one of his brothers was a doctor. That struck her as odd. And the handwriting looked so similar to what she’d found in his room.

  Was it all a coincidence?

  Eve called up the notes section on her phone. She’d recorded the phone number on the tag attached to Brent’s luggage. She was glad now. Should she block her number again, muffle her voice so he wouldn’t recognize it and ask for Rex? See what he said?

  Butterflies whirled in her stomach as she considered the idea. She’d spent two nights with him and could be carrying his child. She deserved to know if Brent was his real name, didn’t she?

  Taking a deep breath, she blocked her number, covered the phone with one hand and prepared to talk in a high voice. But he didn’t answer. She got a recording saying the number had been disconnected.

  “Who or what are you hiding from?” she murmured as she set the phone aside. But then she pressed a hand to her stomach. The details of Brent’s life didn’t matter. For better or worse, they’d done what they’d done—and now she could only march on and accept whatever came of it.

  10

  Rita Higgins was probably seventy-five and lived all by herself in a well-kept 1950s rambler tucked away in the hills surrounding Whiskey Creek. She was listening to Christmas music while decorating her tree when Rex let himself in the front door, using the key she’d given him when he signed the month-long lease. He would’ve arrived earlier in the day, but he’d spent the past three hours having lunch alone, then nursing a cup of coffee at Just Like Mom’s while waiting for Scarlet to join him. She’d said she’d be there by one, but it was after two when she finally returned his many calls to admit she wouldn’t be coming to Whiskey Creek until Monday. She was having a hard time abandoning her usual life, didn’t really want to believe she could be in serious danger.

  Rex had run up against that kind of denial before, with other clients. Human beings were nothing if not resilient. Somehow, now that she’d had some time to rebound, she’d managed to cope with the shock of having her home invaded and had convinced herself that whoever had stolen her panties wouldn’t harm her.

  Rex hoped she was right—but he wasn’t so sure. He tried telling her that this type of behavior could escalate, that it could even be deadly. But she wanted to join her friends at a Christmas party tonight and take a young girl she mentored shopping tomorrow, and she insisted no one had the right to steal that from her.

  “I won’t let some bully do this to me,” she’d said while they were arguing about her decision.

  Rex didn’t feel she had any choice except to protect herself. But he couldn’t force a client to do what he suggested; he could only advise her and hope that, for her own safety, she listened to him.

  Considering his own decisions of late, he couldn’t criticize her for disregarding his advice, anyway. Ever since he’d come to Whiskey Creek, he’d been disregarding his own advice. He couldn’t remember a time, at least not once he’d gotten his life into some semblance of order, when he’d been this reckless. Since he’d met Eve, he’d done just about everything wrong. He’d drawn attention to himself and raised her suspicions, and he hadn’t left when he should have. He felt it was only a matter of time before he dropped his guard completely and decided to live the way he wanted to, even if that meant taking his chances with The Crew. Although, he was ultimately drifting in that direction, he couldn’t reveal himself, couldn’t let go of his current identity yet. He didn’t want The Crew to spoil this perfect place.

  “There you are!” Mrs. Higgins was hard of hearing and hadn’t realized he’d come in until she saw him. He found her teetering on a stepladder in an attempt to get her angel tree-topper on the highest bough. So he set down his luggage—this time he’d remembered to rip off the tags—and insisted she trade places with him.

  “Look at that!” she said when it took him only a couple of seconds to put the angel where she wanted it to go. “It’s so handy having a man around again.” She craned her neck to peer through the front window. “Where’s your sister? I was looking forward to meeting her.”

  “Something came up and she won’t be able to join me until Monday.”

  She’d better come then, he told himself.

  “Oh, well. Monday will be here before you know it.”

  He nodded. “You’re doing a great job with the tree, by the way.” His mother had always taken great pride in things like that....

  The memory of his childhood home made him miss his mother so deeply, so poignantly, he almost couldn’t breathe.

  “I didn’t get the tree up last year,” Mrs. Higgins nearly shouted. “I just wasn’t in the mood after my husband passed away. But now that there’s going
to be other people in the house, I thought it might be worth the effort.”

  If she was doing this for him and Scarlet, she didn’t need to. He didn’t require Christmas decorations, didn’t want to be reminded of all those Christmases he’d spent with his own family. But this seemed important to her. And, for all he knew, the tree and the stockings lining the mantel would cheer Scarlet, too. He couldn’t help thinking of his mother, anyway, especially at Christmas.

  “It’s nice of you to go to all this trouble,” he told her.

  “If you have time, maybe you could string some Christmas lights on the front of the house,” she suggested. “There’s a box of them in the garage. I’d do it myself, but I don’t even know where to start. Buck always took care of the outside.”

  Buck. He’d heard that name before, from Eve’s mother. Buck was Mrs. Higgins’s deceased husband. “When did you lose him?” Rex asked.

  “Just after Thanksgiving a year ago. We were sitting at dinner when he looked up at me as if he was startled by something. Then he gasped and slumped over.”

  “So it was...his heart?”

  He wished he hadn’t asked when she began to tear up. “Took him that fast,” she said with a snap of her fingers.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Maybe I could’ve handled it better if we hadn’t already lost our only son to a drunk driver.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “It’s been twenty years. Buck and I got through those years together. We were married for fifty, you know.”

  “That’s a long time to share your life with someone.”

  “There’s no avoiding death. But—” her voice softened “—the reality of that doesn’t make me miss him or our boy any less.”

  “I’m sure it doesn’t.”

  She seemed to master her emotions. “So what do you say about the lights?”

  Rex checked his watch. Why not? Now that Scarlet wasn’t coming to town right away, he didn’t have anything else he needed to do this afternoon. The weather was cold but clear, nothing that would make the job more difficult.

  “Sure,” he said. “Let me get settled in, and I’ll see what I can do.”