by Nora Roberts
“Go, Hayley.”
“But see, he didn’t know how to say no, that was the cute part. If Roz doesn’t go for him, I might myself. Okay, no.” She laughed at Stella’s bland stare. “He’s old enough to be my daddy and blah blah blah, but he’s just perfect for Roz. I’m telling you, I know this stuff. Wasn’t I right about you and Logan?”
Stella sighed as she looked at the aquamarine he’d given her as an engagement ring. “I can’t argue about that. And while I’m going to say, firmly, that observing’s all we should do, I can’t deny this may be a lot of fun to watch.”
FOUR
AS A RULEwhen he was working, Mitch remembered to clean his apartment when he ran out of places to sit, or coffee cups. Between projects he was slightly better at shoveling out, or at least rearranging the debris.
He hired cleaning services. In fact, he hired them routinely. They never lasted long, and the fault—he was willing to admit—was largely his.
He’d forget which day he’d scheduled them and, invariably, pick that day to run errands, do research, or meet his kid for a quick game of Horse or one-on-one. There was probably something Freudian about that, but he didn’t want to think too deeply about it.
Or he’d remember, and the team would come in, goggle at the job facing them. And he’d never see them again.
But a man had to—or at least should—make an effort for the holidays. He spent an entire day hauling out, scrubbing down, and sweeping up, and was forced to admit that if he were being paid to do the job, he’d quit, too.
Still, it was nice to have some order back in his apartment, to actually be able to see the surface of tables, the cushions of chairs. Though he didn’t hold out much hope he’d keep them alive for the long-term, the plants Hayley had talked him into added a nice holiday touch.
And the little tree, well, that was ingenious. Now instead of dragging the box out of storage, fighting with parts, cursing the tangle of lights only to discover half of them didn’t work anyway, all he had to do was set the cheerful tree on the Hepplewhite stand by his living room window and plug the sucker in.
He hung the wreath on the front door, set the blooming cactus on his coffee table, and the three little poinsettias on the top of the toilet tank. It worked for him.
By the time he’d showered, dragged on jeans and a shirt, his date for the evening was knocking at the door.
Barefoot, his hair still damp, Mitch crossed the living room to answer. And grinned at the only person he loved without reservation.
“Forget your key?”
“Wanted to make sure I had the right place.” Joshua Carnegie tapped a finger on the greenery. “You’ve got a wreath on your door.”
“It’s Christmas.”
“I heard a rumor about that.” He walked in, and his eyes, the same sharp green shade as his father’s, widened.
He was taller than Mitch by a full inch, but spread the height on the same lanky frame. His hair was dark, and it was shaggy. Not because he forgot haircuts like his father, but because he wanted it that way.
He wore a hooded gray sweatshirt and baggy jeans.
“Wow. You find a new cleaning service? Do they get combat pay?”
“No, haven’t had a chance. Besides, I think I’ve ripped through all the cleaning services in western Tennessee.”
“You cleaned up?” Lips pursed, Josh took a brief tour of the living room. “You’ve got a plant—with flowers on it.”
“You’re taking that with you.”
“I am.”
“I’ll kill it. I’ve already heard it gasping. I can’t be responsible.”
“Sure.” Josh pulled absently on his ear. “It’ll jazz up the dorm. Hey. You got this little tree going on. And candles.”
“It’s Christmas,” Mitch repeated, even as Josh leaned down to sniff the fat red candle.
“Smelly candles. Plus, if I’m not mistaken, you vacuumed.” Eyes narrowed he looked back at his father. “You’ve got a woman.”
“Not on me, no. More’s the pity. Want a Coke?”
“Yeah.” With a shake of his head, Josh started toward the bathroom. “Gotta use the john. We getting pizza?”
“Your choice.”
“Pizza,” Josh called out. “Pepperoni and sausage. Extra cheese.”
“My arteries are clogging just hearing that,” Mitch called out as he pulled two cans of Coke out of the refrigerator. From experience, he knew his son could steam through most of a pie on his own and still stay lean as a greyhound.
Oh, to be twenty again.
He speed-dialed the local pizza parlor, ordered a large for Josh, and a medium veggie-style for himself.
When he turned, he saw Josh leaning against the jamb, feet crossed at the ankles of his Nike Zooms. “You’ve got flowers in the john.”
“Poinsettias. Christmas. Deal.”
“You’ve got a woman. If you haven’t bagged one, you’ve got one in the sights. So spill.”
“No woman.” He tossed one of the cans to Josh. “Just a clean apartment with a few holiday touches.”
“We have ways of making you talk. Where’d you meet her? Is she a babe?”
“Not talking.” Laughing, Mitch popped the can.
“I’ll get it out of you.”
“Nothing to get.” Mitch walked by him into the living room. “Yet.”
“Ah-ha!” Josh followed him in, plopped down on the couch, propped his feet on the coffee table.
“I repeat: Not talking. And that’s a prematureah-ha . Anyway, I’m just feeling a little celebrational. Book’s done, which means a check will be in the mail shortly. I’m starting on a new, interesting project—”
“Already? No decompressing?”
“I’ve had this one dangling awhile, and I want to get on it full steam. It’s better than thinking about Christmas shopping.”
“Why do you have to think about it? It’s still a couple weeks away.”
“Now, that’s my boy.” Mitch raised his Coke in toast. “So how are your mother and Keith?”
“Good. Fine.” Josh took a long swallow from his can. “She’s all jazzed up about the holidays. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, I do.” He gave Josh an easy slap on the knee. “It’s not a problem, Josh. Your mom wants you home for the holidays. That’s the way it should be.”
“You could come. You know you could come.”
“I know, and I appreciate it. But it’d be better if I just hang out here. We’ll have our Christmas deal before you leave. It’s important to her to have you there. She’s entitled. It’s important for you, too.”
“I don’t like thinking about you being alone.”
“Just me and my cup of gruel.” It was a sting, it always was. But it was one he’d earned.
“You could go to Grandma’s.”
“Please.” Exaggerated pain covered Mitch’s face, rang in his voice. “Why would you wish that on me?”
Josh smirked. “You could wear that reindeer sweater she got you a couple years ago.”
“Sorry, but there’s a nice homeless person who’ll be sporting that this holiday season. When do you head out?”
“Twenty-third.”
“We can do our thing the twenty-second if that works for you.”
“Sure. I’ve just got to juggle Julie. She’s either going to Ohio to her mother’s, or L.A. to her father’s. It’s seriously messed up. They’re both doing the full court press on her, laying on the guilt and obligation crap, and she’s all, ‘I don’t want to see either one of them.’ She’s either crying or bitchy, or both.”
“We parents can certainly screw up our children.”
“You didn’t.” He took another drink, then turned the can around in his hands. “I don’t want to get all Maury Povich or whatever, but I wanted to say that you guys never made me the rope in your personal tug-of-war. I’ve sort of been thinking about that, with all this shit Julie’s going through. You and Mom, you never hung that trip on me. Never made me
feel like I had to choose or ripped on each other around me. It sucks when people do. It sucks long.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“I remember, you know, before you guys split. It was rugged all around. But even then, neither of you used me as a hammer on the other. That’s what’s going on with Julie, and it makes me realize I was lucky. So I just wanted to say.”
“That’s a . . . That’s a good thing to hear.”
“Well, now that we’ve had this Hallmark moment, I’m getting another Coke. Pregame show should be coming on.”
“I’m on that.” Mitch picked up the remote. He wondered what stars had shone on him to give him the gift of such a son.
“Hey, man! Salt and vinegar chips!”
Hearing the bag rip, and the knock on the door, Mitch grinned, and rising, took out his wallet to pay for the pizza.
“IDON ’T GETit, Stella. I just don’t get it.” Hayley paced Stella’s room while the boys splashed away in the adjoining bath.
“The sexy black shoes that will kill my feet, or the more elegant pumps?”
When Stella stood, one of each pair on either foot, Hayley stopped pacing long enough to consider them. “Sexy.”
“I was afraid of that. Well.” Stella took them both off, replaced the rejected pair in her closet. Her outfit for the evening was laid out on the bed, the jewelry she’d already selected was in a tray on the dresser.
Now all she had to do was settle the boys down for the night, get dressed, deal with her hair, her makeup. Check the boys again, check the baby monitors. And . . . Hayley’s pacing and muttering distracted her enough to have her turn.
“What? Why are you so nervous? Do you have a date going on for tonight’s party I don’t know about?”
“No. But it’s dates I’m talking about. Why would Roz tell Mitch to bring a date? Now he probably will, because he’ll think if he doesn’t, he’ll look like a loser. And they’ll both miss a golden opportunity.”
“I missed something.” She hooked on her earrings, studied the results. “How do you know Roz told him to bring a date? How do you find this stuff out?”
“It’s a gift of mine. Anyway, what’s up with her? Here’s this perfectly gorgeous and available man, and she invites him for tonight—points there. But then tells him he can bring somebody. Jeez.”
“She’d have considered it the polite thing to do, I guess.”
“You can’t be polite in the dating wars, for God’s sake.” On a long huff, Hayley plopped down on the foot of the bed, then lifted her legs out to examine her own shoes. “You know,date ’s from the Latin—or maybe it’s Old English. Anyway, it comes fromdata —and it’s afemale part of speech. Female, Stella. We’re supposed to take the controls.”
Since she hadn’t yet started her makeup, Stella was free to press her fingers to her eyes. “How? How do you know that kind of thing? Nobody knows that kind of thing.”
“I was a bookseller for years, remember. I read a lot. I don’t know why I retain the weird stuff. But anyway, it’s a holiday party here—her house. And you know she’ll look amazing. And now he’ll show up with some woman and screw everything up.”
“I don’t actually think there’s anything to screw up at this point.”
Hayley tugged at her hair in frustration. “But therecould be. I just know it. You watch, you just watch them tonight and see if you don’t get the vibe.”
“All right, I will. But now I’ve got to get the kids out of the tub and into bed. Then I have to get dressed, and strap on my sexy shoes with the single goal of driving Logan crazy.”
“Want a hand? With the kids, not with driving Logan crazy. Lily’s already sleeping.”
“No, you’ll get wet or wrinkled, and you look fantastic. I wish I could wear that shade of red. Talk about sexy.”
Hayley looked down at the short siren-red slip dress. “You don’t think it’s too . . .”
“No, I think it’s exactly.”
“Well, I’ll go down, see if I can give David a hand with the caterer and all. Then I can get his take on the outfit. He rules in fashion.”
Roz was already downstairs, checking details and second-guessing herself. Maybe she should have opened the third-floor ballroom and held the party there. It was a gorgeous space, so elegant and graceful. But the main level, with its hive of smaller rooms, the fires burning, was warmer and more friendly somehow.
Space wasn’t a problem, she assured herself as she checked the positioning of tables, chairs, lamps, candles. And she liked throwing open the rooms this way, knowing people would wander from here to there, admiring the home she loved.
It was a clear night, so they could spill onto the terraces, too. There were heaters if it got too chilly, and more tables, more seating, more candles and all those festive lights in the trees, the luminaries along the garden paths.
And you’d think, for heaven’s sake, that it was the first party she’d given in her life.
Been awhile, though, since she’d held anything this expansive. Because of that, the attrition rate on her guest list had been very low. She was going to be packed.
Avoiding the caterers and extra staff bustling around, she slipped outside. Yes, the lights were lovely, and fun, she decided. And she liked the poinsettia tree she’d created out of dozens of white plants.
Harper House was designed for entertaining, she reminded herself. She’d been shirking her duty there, and denying herself, she supposed, the pleasure of socializing with people she enjoyed.
She turned when she heard the door open. David stepped out, holding two flutes of champagne.
“Hello, beautiful. Can I interest you in a glass of champagne?”
“You can. Though I should be inside, helping with the madhouse.”
“Under control.” He tapped his glass to hers. “Another twenty minutes, and it’ll be perfect. And look at us! Aren’t we gorgeous?”
She laughed, slipped her hand into his. “You always are.”
“And you, my treasure.” Still holding her hand, he stepped back. “You just shimmer.”
She’d chosen a gown of dull silver in a long, narrow column with an off-the-shoulder neckline that would showcase her great-grandmother’s rubies.
She brushed her fingertips over the platinum necklace with its spectacular ruby drops. “I don’t have many opportunities to wear the Harper rubies. This seemed the night for them.”
“And a treat they are for the eyes plus they do amazing things for your collarbone. But I was talking about you, my incandescent beauty. Why don’t we run away to Belize?”
Champagne and David, the perfect combination to make her feel bubbly and relaxed. “I thought it was going to be Rio.”
“Not until Carnival. It’s going to be a wonderful party, Roz. You just put all the other crap out of your mind.”
“You read me, don’t you?” She shook her head, staring into the gardens as she sipped champagne. “Last time I threw one of these holiday bashes, I walked upstairs into the bedroom to change my bracelet because the clasp was loose, and what do I find but my husband nibbling on one of our guests instead of the canapés.”
She took a longer, deeper sip. “A singularly mortifying moment in my life.”
“Hell with that. You handled it, didn’t you? I still don’t know how you managed to step back out, leave them there, to get through the rest of the party and wait until everyone was gone before you pitched the son of a bitch out on his ear.”
His voice heated up on the rant, his fury for her lighting little fires. “You’ve got balls of steel, Roz. And I mean that in the best possible way.”
“It was self-serving, not courageous or ballsy.” She shrugged it off, or tried to. “Causing a scene with a house full of guests would only have been more humiliating.”
“In your place, I’d’ve scratched both of them blind, then chased them out the door brandishing one of your great-great . . . however many greats-granddaddy’s muskets.”
She let out a littl
e sigh, sipped again. “That would’ve been satisfying, and damn if I don’t wish I’d thought of the musket after the guests had gone. Well, we didn’t let him spoil that evening, and we won’t let him spoil this one.”
She polished off the champagne and turned to David with the determined look of a woman prepared for battle. “Let’s get the rest of these candles lit, put some music on. I’m ready for a party.”
YES,IT WAS good to open the house again. To have wine and music, good food, good friends. She listened to snippets of gossip, political debates, discussions on sports and the arts as she moved from group to group, from room to room.
She hooked her arm through her old friend Will Dooley’s, who was also Stella’s father, and Roz’s landscaper, Logan Kitridge’s future father-in-law. “You slipped by me.”
“Just got here.” He brushed his lips over her cheek. “Jo kept changing her shoes. She just went upstairs with Hayley. Said she had to peek at the baby.”
“I’ll find her. Lose your fiancée, Logan?”
“She’s everywhere.” He shrugged, sipped from his pilsner. “Woman can’t rest until she’s checked every detail personally. Nice party, Roz.”
“Oh, you hate parties.”
Now Logan grinned, a quick grin that added charm to his rugged looks. “A lot of people. But the food’s first-rate, the beer’s cold, and my date’s the most beautiful woman in the world. Tough to complain. Don’t tell her daddy, but I plan to lure her out to the gardens later to neck.”
He winked at Will, then shifted his gaze. “Your Dr. Carnegie just came in. Seems to be looking for you—or somebody.”
“Oh?” Roz glanced around, and those expressive eyebrows lifted. He’d worn a suit, stone gray, that flattered his lean build. He’d gotten a haircut since the last time she’d seen him, she noted, and was looking a little moreGQ than professorial.
She could admit, to herself at least, that it was a treat to study him either way.
Still, he seemed slightly befuddled with the crowd, and shook his head when one of the efficient servers offered him a glass from a tray of champagne.