Maya’s twins joined in. And then Kara’s Tyler started cracking up, and one by one every adult in the place was laughing.
She was even laughing.
“Daddy, you won’t fit!” Tilda giggle-shouted.
Everyone stopped laughing at once, and Emily looked around. Several hands were either pressed to hearts or dabbing at eyes. Vidalia leaned her head onto her evil husband’s shoulder, her eyes pooling. But then Emily realized Joey’s eyes were on her, and she turned and met them and saw how wet they were. She’d called him daddy just like it was the most natural thing in the world. His eyes pleaded with her to say something, and she got the message that he couldn’t trust himself to speak just then.
“Well, Tilda,” Emily said. “I don’t see any other chairs. And I think you’re the only one who will fit in that chair.”
Nodding hard, Tilda slid down out of Joey’s seat, clasped his hand, and pushed him toward the chair. She climbed up into the high chair all by herself, though Emily’s hands shot instinctively toward her several times. She made it. On her own.
Once Tilda was settled in, Emily relaxed, leaned back in her chair. She saw Maya, mother of the twins Dahlia and Cal, smiling her way and asked, “When does the independent phase end?”
Maya shrugged and looked at Kara. Kara glanced at Tyler and smiled. “I’ll let you know.”
“No, I’ll let you all know,” Sophie said, elbowing teenage Max who sat beside her.
Introductions were made all around. She met the three of Vidalia’s daughters she hadn’t met before, Melusine, Edain and Selene. A waitress brought a dinner plate with hot dogs and french fries for Tilda, and others brought platters of cookies and pitchers of hot cocoa around, leaving several of each at every table. People filled mugs and took cookies. Others had congregated around the piano, and were singing carols in imperfect harmony.
One by one, people wandered up to the tree to hang whatever ornament they’d brought. There was a ladder on either side, staff standing on top to place ornaments safely on the highest boughs. People ate and talked and laughed. And they didn’t stay in one place either; they were milling around, wandering to each other’s tables, visiting.
It hit her what a really unique place Big Falls was. A friendly small town where everyone knew everyone else. It was truly something special.
“We should socialize, Mom,” Maya said to Vidalia. “We look all cliquish over here.”
“Yeah, we’re the hosts,” said Edain. She was beautiful, like movie star beautiful. She wore a one-shoulder black dress and sat beside a man who rocked a pair of faded jeans and a blue plaid western shirt with pearl buttons.
The blonde caught her staring and smiled. “I’m dying to get to know you better, Emily. We’ll have time to visit after we’ve taken the first shift mingling.” She took her husband’s arm, and they both rose.
“Nice to meet you, Emily. You too, Matilda,” her husband Wade said.
Tilda loved the formality of all that, and said, “Nice to meet you, too,” over pronouncing the T’s.
“Save us some cookies,” Edie said, and the two of them wove through the patrons, pausing to chat up each person they came to.
“We’ll join them,” Kara said. “Tyler?”
“I’ll stay here,” Tyler replied with a quick look from his mom to his dad, who wore a police uniform. Jim something.
“Okay,” Kara told him. “Help out with the other kids.”
Emily thought Kara was brilliant. Tyler grew three inches taller at those words. The two of them left the table to circulate among the guests. It was odd to see a family she’d grown up knowing, with this entirely new branch. The Brands and the McIntyres acted like a family that had been united for decades.
Personally, she thought she was going to need flash cards to keep them all straight.
She sat uneasily, trying to listen, but all their words blended into a friendly drone. She just nodded and smiled, not really hearing any of it. She felt every set of eyes though. They took turns gazing adoringly and sadly at her daughter and then curiously at her. Those stares felt probing, questioning, but none were judging or disapproving. They knew what she’d done to Joey. They had no idea why.
One of them knew why, she thought, glancing at Bobby Joe. He was looking very guilty. He ought to, the bastard.
And then her mind gently corrected her. Two people at this table knew why she’d done what she had. Two. Joey knew.
She’d believed all this time that he’d known, anyway.
If she was wrong about that…then she was possibly the worst human being on planet Earth.
#
Something was going on between Emily and his father. Joey wondered if it was as obvious to everyone else at the table as it was to him. He’d never seen his father so quiet at a family gathering. Bobby Joe slumped in his chair like an old man. Even Vidalia was sending him questioning glances every little while. He kept looking at Joey, and then at Matilda Louise, and his eyes were red and had lines of tension and strain at the corners. He seemed to avoid looking at Emily at all, which was weird.
Joey glanced at Emily and noticed her doing the same thing, looking everywhere except at his father, and when her gaze did stray Bobby Joe’s way once or twice, it turned as dark as an Oklahoma storm cloud.
Other than that odd note, the evening went really well. Emily and Tilda Lou hung their ornaments on the tree. The player piano struck up a carol every ten minutes or so, and everyone sang along. Neighbors stopped by the table to meet the newest Big Falls residents, to welcome them. Sunny from the bakery came over. She glanced Jason’s way, and beamed a little brighter when he glanced back. Their soft smiles told him something was definitely brewing between the two of them.
In fact, things were almost perfect until Dax Russell sort of crashed through the batwing doors into the all but empty bar. All the patrons were on the dining room side. He stood still for a minute, looking around, blinking as he seemed to orient himself.
“Jeeze, Dax looks like a lost Viking or something,” Kiley said, getting up and heading his way with Rob right on her heels.
Dax waved a hand at her and stumbled onto a stool at the unmanned bar. He thumped the hardwood with a fist. “Wuzzah guy gotta do to gitta beer aroun' here?”
Rob glanced behind him at the family and mouthed, “Sorry.”
Joey excused himself and went over to help his brother out. This was his place now in every way that counted. Besides, everything in him bristled at the notion of Dax, sweet as he was sober, being anywhere near Tilda Louise in this condition. He’d tried to keep his promise to Kiley, but Dax hadn't returned his calls. He’d been planning to drive out to see him, but, well, things happened.
Kiley was talking to Dax, telling him she’d take him somewhere he could lie down, and Dax was mouthing off loudly. Rob was there and about to step in. Joe clasped his shoulder, and he looked back. “I got this,” Joe said.
Rob nodded. “He’s a friend. Go easy.”
Joey nodded, then stepped up in front of Dax. “You’re drunk. My family’s here. My kid is here. This is not okay.”
“I’ll go get a room key,” Kiley said, hurrying toward the back.
“Number three’s empty,” Rob called after her as she dashed through the doors and into the kitchen that led to the attached office.
Dax blinked. “I’m not that drunk.”
“My place, my call,” Joey said. “You can either sleep it off upstairs or in one of Jim’s cells in town. You pick.” He glanced back at the table and saw that Jimmy’s eyes were on the situation, as focused as a cougar on a bunny.
Joe gave him a nod to tell him he could relax, but he knew Jim wouldn’t, not until the situation was eased. He started to get up, and Dax apparently wasn’t too drunk to notice, and quickly got off the stool. “Okay, okay, I’ll take a room upstairs.”
“Good.”
Kiley returned with the key. “We’ll take him up,” she said.
“Yeah, go ahead back to y
our family.” Rob pulled Dax’s arm around his shoulders.
“Thanks,” Joey said.
The two of them supported Dax between them up the stairs. The crowd in the dining room resumed talking and laughing. Three steps up, Dax lifted his head and bellowed, “Joey has a kid?”
Joey winced and shot a look Emily’s way. But she wasn’t in her seat, and he glanced around the table as everyone resumed talking and laughing. Vidalia was in Joey’s vacated spot having an animated conversation with Tilda and beaming with joy. Bobby Joe wasn’t in his spot, either.
Narrowing his eyes, Joey scanned the place, and then he saw them, in the little hallway that led back to the restrooms, not twenty feet from where he was.
He moved quickly their way, because it was clear they were arguing.
“...no matter what happens, you will never put your hands on my little girl. Never!” Emily said.
She sensed him there as she finished her threat, and her eyes shifted toward him.
Bobby Joe didn’t see him yet, and his reply was fervent. “Emily, whatever you may think of me, you need to believe what I told you. Joey never knew.”
Joe stepped closer, revealing himself to his father. “What are you talking about, Dad? What didn’t I know?”
His father stared at him for a long moment, then said, “We’ll talk later. I hope. But I’m gonna leave now. Tell Vidalia I was overtired, just needed to go home.”
“Don’t leave on our account,” Emily snapped. Then she turned to Joey, her eyes sparking. “I need to take Tilda and go.”
He nodded. He still didn’t know what the hell was going on, but his father headed for the exit, and he knew it was something major. “She’s been waiting for the tree-lighting,” he said. “I told her she could throw the switch.” His voice was hoarse with worry. What the hell was going on?
They both looked toward the table. Vidalia was teaching Tilda “Oh Little Playmate” and practically glowing. Emily swallowed hard, he heard it. “You really don’t know what’s going on, do you?”
“Between you and my father? No clue, Em, but I don’t like it.”
She nodded slowly, but then looked past him at Tilda Lou. “Then I need to tell you. But not here.”
He nodded. “Let’s wrap things up, then.” He didn’t like the feelings inside him. Clearly his father had kept something from him, and he couldn’t think of very many things it might have been. It was something to do with Emily. And there was only one theory that came to mind.
He could not imagine his father knowing that Joey had a child and keeping it secret. He couldn’t imagine it.
He walked Emily back to the table, his hand on her elbow. She eased into her chair, trying to force a normal expression, but his cousins saw right through it. The men were oblivious, but those Brand girls could read a face a half mile away.
“Everything all right, Joey?” Vidalia asked, her dark eyes hopping from him to Em and back again. “Where’s your father?”
“Too many cookies, I think,” Joey said. “He said he’d see you at home.” Then he clapped his hands together, “You ready to light up that Christmas tree, Miss Matilda Louise?”
“Yes!” She put down the cookie she’d been eating, stood up in her chair and reached for him.
“Wait, wait,” Emily shot to her feet, quick-drawing wet wipes from her bag like a seasoned gunfighter.
He’d already grabbed Tilda, though, panicking that she’d fall out of the chair if he didn’t, and she was squeezing his cheeks between her chocolate coated hands and saying, “This is the best Christmas ever!”
Emily peeled one of Tilda’s hand off his face to wipe it clean with an expert swipe, then repeated the trick with the other one, and then she gave a quick swipe around her little mouth. It was all one motion, long practiced and perfect. It would’ve taken him ten minutes to get all the goo off.
Then she plucked a few more wipes and leaned in to wipe the chocolate off his cheeks, still smiling.
She was so beautiful when she smiled like that. He recognized the effect Tilda had on her mother. It was the same effect she had on him. Everything else just dissolved when she had his attention. Resentment, anger, impatience, worry, fear. All of it just melted away.
Emily had been furious a second ago; now she was smiling as serenely as an angel and gently dabbing chocolate handprints from his cheeks.
Her eyes moved just enough to meet his, and he looked into them for as long as she let him.
Then she blinked and stepped away.
He adjusted Tilda at his waist, and carried her over to the main switches on the wall.
“Turn the round button that way,” he said, pointing with his thumb. “That way is left. Did you know that?”
“I know left and right, but not which is which.”
“Hold up your hands,” he told her. She did, and he spread her fingers out, and then traced her left forefinger down the outside and out along her inner thumb. “That’s an L. L is for left.”
She frowned and held up her other hand. “That’s an L, too.”
“No, that’s a backwards L.”
“It’s a upside-down seven,” she added, turning her hand downward.
“Okay, so left is never the upside down seven. Got it?”
She nodded hard and reached for the dimmer switch, then turned it slowly. As the lights went down, she said “ooooh” and cranked it the other way, making them, brighter, then dimmer, then brighter, then all the way dark, then blinding.
“Okay, okay, okay. You’re gonna give people convulsions.”
“What’s that?”
He couldn’t stand how cute she was. It was adorable. “I’ll explain that another time. Now, just slowly turn the lights down until I say stop, and then leave them there so you can turn on the tree. Okay?”
“Okay.” She put her hand on the dial and watched him, utterly focused.
“Go ahead, nice and slow.”
She turned the dial slowly and the lights went down lower and lower. “Okay, stop,” he said just before it was too dark to see.
He moved her a couple of inches, touched the wall switch and said, “All you have to do is flip this switch. You know how to do that?”
“Mm-hm,” she said, nodding and putting her fingers on the switch.
“Okay. But before you do it, look at the tree.”
She turned her head and flipped the switch. The tree lit up, and she squealed and hugged his neck.
Joey’s chest filled up, and he had to close his eyes to keep the tears from spilling over. Someone started singing “O Christmas Tree,” and he carried her closer to the twinkling pine. She snuggled into his arms and sang along as best she could. He wished someone was recording her sweet little voice, singing the words “O Christmas tree” over and over. She laid her head on his shoulder and he looked back at Emily, who was staring at him and tearing up a little herself. And little Tilda grew heavier in his arms, her body entirely relaxed.
He inclined his head, and Em got up and came to him. “She’s asleep, isn’t she?”
Em nodded. “Out like a light.”
“I’ll drive you home. I can walk back. It’s a nice night for it.”
“Okay.”
Chapter Seven
Joey leaned into the car, unfastened the buckles and scooped Tilda out. Emily closed the car door behind him. She had a key for the front door of the boarding house and opened it ahead of him.
Miss Ida Mae was in the foyer when they walked in, her tender gaze on Joey and the toddler in his arms, her expression all sweet and soft. She didn’t say a word but gave them a little finger wave as they passed by, blowing a kiss to Tilda Lou.
He carried Tilda up the broad, perfect staircase. The curving hardwood railing gleamed and the carpet under his boots made him feel guilty for not pulling them off on the porch. The whole place smelled clean and citrusy. They reached the tall wooden door, and Emily used her antique key again. She hurried inside, turning on the smallest lamp in the room, a
Gone-with-the-Wind style hurricane lamp.
She pulled back the covers of the most inviting bed he thought he’d ever laid eyes on. Everything about it was white and fluffy. It was like a cloud.
He lowered his girl into the bed, then crouched on the floor to carefully untie and wiggle off her little shoes. Tiny, pink Converse high tops. Smiling, he whispered, “Nice, touch, Mom.” And then he peeled off Tilda’s socks, and frowned at the little patterns they left in her chubby calves. “Is that—“
“Normal. Perfectly normal.”
He pulled the blanket over her, then straightened and looked at Emily. “Thank you for bringing her back to me.”
She looked at him for a long time, standing there beside the bed. “I didn’t have a choice, or I might not have. And I think that would’ve been a mistake…if you really didn’t know about her this whole time.”
“I didn’t know,” he said. “But my father did, didn’t he?”
Holding his gaze, she nodded. And when his eyes and hers started touching in a way that was a little too familiar, she turned quickly away, opened a dresser drawer and pawed around inside.
“He offered me fifty grand to have an abortion.” She said it like she was sharing the weather forecast. Like it didn’t drive a black blade of betrayal right into his spine.
“He said that to you? That he’d pay you to—”
“Not to me, to my father.” She pulled out a sweet pink nightgown and moved past him to the bed, peeling back those fluffy covers. “I told my father I was pregnant. He promised he’d take care of everything. I was such a coward that I couldn’t face you myself. I was so afraid you and your family would think…”
“You thought we’d think it was deliberate. Because we’re so wealthy.”
She nodded. “Daddy assured me I was right. But he said he’d talk to your father. Later that same day, he handed it to me. Stacks of cash all strapped together in colored bands. I could smell the ink, you know? Like it was new.”
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