by Sylvie Kurtz
"I'll do my best." The phone rang, and the nurse gave Beth a perfunctory smile before picking up the receiver.
"I don't want him to leave the reception area."
Understanding suddenly dawned on him. She was afraid to leave her son with him. What an impression he'd made! He stood up, drew his bulging wallet from his back pocket.
"Here." He stuffed the wallet into her coat pocket. "That's every last dollar I own. I haven't had a chance to find a bank yet. Take it hostage. I'll watch Jamie, and I promise, we'll both be waiting for you when you come back."
Her cheeks flamed, painting her already flushed face bright red. She reached for the wallet, but couldn't get it out with her swaddled hand. "I-I—"
"The nurse is waiting." He jabbed his chin in the nurse's direction. "You want to get those hands seen to."
Beth lowered her gaze. "I didn't mean.... Okay." She nodded and meekly followed the nurse.
He sank back into a chair, hitching one ankle over the other knee. She was a disturbing, disconcerting woman. Something buoyant and festive clung to her. She reminded him of the coziness of sun-warmed rocks on a chilly winter day. Even her hair smelled like the holidays with its hint of mint. Yet a certain vulnerability edged its way through all the bright packaging as if she, too, held a painful center that hadn't quite healed.
He raked a hand through his hair and massaged the back of his neck. Lack of sleep. How else could he explain the ridiculous thoughts invading his mind? Beth Lannigen wore a pained expression because her hands probably hurt like hell. Nothing more.
He tried to focus on all the things he needed to do to fix the house to his liking, of all the hard work it would take, of the months of mindless effort he'd have to put out, but he couldn't. Thoughts of Beth pierced their way through. And the last thing he needed was someone like Beth Lannigen in his life. He slapped his foot back to the linoleum and shifted his weight.
She wasn't beautiful. Not in the perfect way his wife had been. She was too small, dressed too brightly, talked too much. But there was something about her. Something that roused an unsettling sensation.
Maybe it was the way the powder blue of her eyes made her look so soft and so vulnerable.
Vulnerability meant demands.
He shuddered.
Or maybe it was the way her smile went all the way to the heart of her eyes when she looked at her son, reminding him of his loss.
Had his daughter known how much he loved her?
Or maybe it was the way Beth tried so hard to hide her pain from Jamie, showing Logan a submerged strength that didn't match the delicate package she presented to the world.
Then again, perhaps his brain cells were finally dying from the abuse he'd put himself through for the past two years. He puffed out a heavy sigh. Whatever the source of his uneasiness, Beth Lannigen was trouble with a capital T.
Not only was he stuck in a clinic waiting for her and responsible for taking care of her son, he'd promised to hang the rest of her Christmas lights. Christmas lights, for Pete's sake! How could he have let himself be manipulated this way? After he hitched up her stupid lights, he'd make sure he stayed away from her. All this bubbly perkiness and hard-headed stubbornness would drive him stark raving mad.
But he never learned. Knowing she was hurt and living alone with her son, he would feel obligated to keep an eye on her. And the restlessness he felt around her was bad enough without experiencing this damned protective inclination, too.
Once again he crossed one ankle over his knee and his arms over his chest. The stink of antiseptic set his empty stomach roiling. Hospitals all smelled the same. The last time he'd been in one, he'd watched the life breathe out of his little girl.
The institutional stench and the busy sounds behind the receptionist's desk suddenly became too much. He had to move. Spotting a couple of vending machines in an alcove down the hall, he sprang from the chair. "Want something to drink, sport?"
Jamie looked up from his cards. His eyes widened with anticipation. "Can I have a soda?"
"Does your Mom let you have soda?"
Jamie's halfhearted shrug didn't fool Logan one bit. The kid probably hadn't drunk more than a six-pack of the stuff in his entire life.
"Sure, all the time." Jamie headed straight for the big red-and-white machine.
Logan stood beside him, uncomfortably aware of the boy's nearness, of his small, fragile body, of his little boy shampoo and wet boot scent, and fished coins from his jeans pocket before thoughts of Samantha invaded his already frazzled brain and soaked it with sadness. With a deft sidestep, he put more distance between himself and the boy. "So what'll it be, sport?"
"Can I have anything I want?"
"Sure."
Jamie cocked his head and concentrated on his selection. "Mom's going to be all right, isn't she?"
"Sure, sport. The doctor's patching her up right now. She'll be good as new."
Logan half hoped the doctor would give her a sedative so he wouldn't have to endure her incessant chatter on the way home. It was bad enough to have her sitting in the car next to him without having her hummingbird brightness and effervescence overwhelm him every minute of the way. "So, what'll it be?"
Jamie pointed toward an orange drink. Logan stuffed coins into the machine and let the boy press the button. The can clanged to the bottom of the machine. Jamie picked it up and popped the top.
Logan opted for a cup of coffee from the next machine over.
They headed back toward the waiting area and sat in opposing chairs. Holding the can with both hands, Jamie sipped from it. As the boy shuffled his feet back and forth along the grime-colored linoleum tiles, the tread of his boots made an irritating noise. But Logan didn't mind. Better the sound of boots than the muted buzzes and clicks of hospital machinery. Resting his elbows on the chair's arms, he held the cup close to his nose, edging out the surrounding clinic smells of disinfectant and death with the strong aroma of black coffee.
Jamie's penetrating gaze never left Logan's face. How on earth had the boy managed such a big orange mustache from the can's tiny opening?
"How come you bought Miss Mac's house?" Jamie asked.
"It was for sale." Jamie's eyes were shaped like Beth's—large and open, fringed with long lashes. The hazel of his irises was as soft and gentle as Beth's blue.
"I like my house. Didn't you like your house?"
Logan grunted and took a sip of his bitter coffee. He'd moved because the house held too many memories—the deepest joy, the rawest pain, the greatest betrayal. He'd had to get away.
"How come?"
"Because," he answered, knowing Jamie expected words, wanted comforting. But he couldn't give the boy what he needed. Didn't dare to.
"How come your skin looks green?"
Logan ran a hand along his stubbly cheek. He felt green. Hospitals did that to him. He knew of no way to explain the misery of life to a child, nor did he care to. "You're sure full of questions."
"Mom says you gotta ask questions to learn."
He leaned forward and patted Jamie's knee reassuringly. "Your mom's going to be just fine."
When he felt the fragile bones beneath his fingers, he had to force himself not to recoil. Once more he leaned back in the chair, crossed his legs and arms, and nursed the cooling coffee. "So, are you learning a lot?"
"Yep. I'm in first grade. I can read. Want me to show you?"
No. "Sure, sport."
Jamie scrambled off his chair and climbed into the one next to his. Logan thought Jamie would reach for the Dr. Seuss book on the table littered with magazines and newspapers, but instead he turned over the first hockey card in his stack.
"The Bruins are hot this year. First in their division," Jamie said, leaning his body into Logan's so Logan could see the card. "Tim Thomas's my favorite player."
Logan stiffened against the contact, but didn't move. "How come?"
"He's a goalie and wears a cool mask." Jamie rattled off a bunch of Thomas's statist
ics. More by rote than actual reading, Logan suspected.
"Do you play hockey?" Jamie asked, interrupting himself.
"Not anymore. How about you?" The coffee in his cup no longer warmed his fingers.
"Naw, not the real stuff. Mom says I'm too little. But when I'm eight, I'm gonna play in the Mite league. Bobby's brother gets to play. I wish I was bigger already."
Daddy, please. Everybody's got a bike. Katie and Allison and Jessica. I'm the only one—
Katie and Allison and Jessica are all bigger than you.
But, Daddy...
The boy's chatter brought him out of his miserable memory fog. Like mother, like son. Their home probably never knew a moment of peace and quiet. A bullet of envy ricocheted through him. He shook his head. No, he didn't want that. He wanted silence and solitude.
"When there's more ice on the pond, I'm gonna go skating," Jamie said. "I'm getting real hockey skates for Christmas. And a new stick. A goalie stick. You got skates?"
"I used to." Probably still did somewhere in those boxes scattered all over his house. He'd bought a pair of skates for himself and another for Sam and taken her skating at the Tandy Center. She'd giggled and laughed every minute of their outings even though she'd spent more time on her bottom than on her blades.
"Maybe we could go together," Jamie said, gaze full of hope.
Don't look at me that way. Logan shifted his weight and swallowed cold coffee as a distraction from the growing apprehension in the pit of his stomach. "I've got a lot of work to do, sport. Maybe your mom'll take you."
"Yeah, but she won't play hockey." Jamie shuffled his cards, his disappointment clear in the pout of his lower lip and the rounding of his shoulders. "She's a girl. She just wants to twirl and jump. That's no fun."
"All the good hockey players practice their skating moves." Logan crushed the empty foam coffee cup and lobbed it toward the garbage can, missing it by a mile. He got up to dispose of the cup properly, glad to get away from the child who stirred to many emotions with his innocent questions.
Just then Beth reappeared, looking a little green herself.
"Mommy!" Jamie launched himself at her.
Logan joined them. "Take it easy, sport."
"That's okay." She crouched to Jamie's level and showed him her bandaged hands. "See, I'm perfectly all right."
The nurse made eye contact with Logan. "She needs to have those sutures removed in about a week. Here's a prescription for something for the pain. The pharmacy down the hall is open twenty-four hours."
Before he could say anything, the door closed and the nurse disappeared.
They filled the prescription. Beth waited with Jamie snuggled contentedly by her side and said not a word. Logan paced the tiny space. Her silence seemed worse than her nonstop chatter. Even the bright color of her coat couldn't hide the pallor of her skin. Nor could her smile, directed at Jamie, quite hide the creases of pain around her eyes.
Once in the car and on their way home, Jamie's worry seemed to vanish.
"Knock-knock," Jamie said.
"Who's there?" Beth's parody of perky didn't match the real thing Logan had witnessed that morning. He admired her courage.
"Owl."
"Owl who?"
"Owl aboard. We're going home!"
Jamie laughed at his own joke and peppered his mother with more until she begged for mercy.
Sam had loved jokes, too. Hers ran to the nutty kind.
Daddy, what do angels do to greet each other?
Haven't got a clue.
They wave halo. She'd dissolve into giggles the same way Jamie had. Get it, Dad? Get it? They wave halo?
Logan concentrated on his driving. Amazing how well Beth's old beat-up station wagon handled. Snow tires did make a difference.
"Mom?"
"Yes, Jamie."
"What about the tree? You said we'd get one today."
She tucked a strand of Jamie's soft-brown hair beneath his red-and-white knit cap. "I think we'll have to leave the chopping to someone else this year."
Jamie's head snapped in Logan's direction without a moment's hesitation. "Can you do it?"
"Umph." Guilt carried only so far. He had to draw the line somewhere. And cutting down a Christmas tree was it. "Why would you want to chop down a perfectly good tree and drag it inside?"
"To decorate it, silly."
Beth's gaze glanced at Logan's knuckles turning white from his hard grip on the steering wheel, then to his face. He forced his grip to relax but refused to look in her direction, even when he felt her question as clearly as if she'd uttered it. His aversion to Christmas was his own business.
"He's right, Jamie. This year we'll get a live tree from the nursery. Then in the spring we'll plant it outside and remember all year what a great Christmas we had."
Logan swallowed a groan. She'd probably plant it where he could see stray tinsel all year. Whatever force directed the universe had a wicked sense of humor. Of all the houses he could have bought, what on earth had made him choose the one next to hers?
"Can I pick out the tree?" Jamie asked.
"You certainly may. But not today, okay? Maybe tomorrow when we go in to town."
Jamie whined his disappointment. "But we always put up the tree on Thanksgiving."
"Your mom's hands hurt. She needs to rest them." Logan silently cursed the edge to his voice. All this fuss over a tree. For what? A holiday that had long ceased having meaning to anyone but merchants.
And kids.
Acid bubbled in his stomach. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. And the anger, always on the edge of erupting, tasted like blood in his mouth. If he didn't vent his fury soon, he couldn't be sure how it would explode. He didn't want anyone to witness one of his descents into hell.
* * *
Spotting her house around the curve proved a great relief. Beth didn't know how much longer she could keep up the pretense of cheerfulness. The pain wasn't so much the cause of her discomfort—the drugs had taken care of that—but the tension emanating from Logan had her mind whirling with a thousand questions. None of which were her business, and none of which she should give two hoots about.
But for some inconceivable reason she did. She needed to make sense out of the man who'd bowled his way into her life. After all, he was her new neighbor.
For Jamie's sake, she rationalized.
But that line of thought didn't go far. Something else altogether made her mind whirl. Just like the teenage girls who flocked to her at the high school where she worked—"just to talk, Mrs. L., if you've got a minute"—she recognized in Logan the signs of a troubled human being. And something in her couldn't help responding.
"We're home! We're home!" Jamie shouted.
Logan pressed the automatic door opener and pulled into the garage. The car had barely come to a stop when Jamie scrambled out of the seat belt, bolted over Beth and out the door before she could stop him. "Jamie—"
"I gotta go, Mom!" He continued his mad dash for the bathroom without a backward glance.
Logan switched off the engine and shifted his impenetrable gaze in her direction. "I don't suppose you're the type of woman who takes advice kindly."
Now what would make him say that? She considered herself one of the most easygoing people she knew. And he was one to talk. The way he'd forced her to go to the clinic certainly proved his stubbornness. "Not any more than you're the kind of man who takes no for an answer."
"I'll give you some anyway." He removed the key from the ignition and dropped the chef's apron key chain into her open purse. "Rest. You'll heal faster."
"I can't." Didn't he know what day this was? For her, Christmas started Thanksgiving Day. After stuffing the turkey and placing it in the oven to roast came the annual raid of the attic for the multitude of seasonal decorations she kept there. While the turkey cooked, she always trimmed the outside of the house. After consuming an early dinner, they always went out to chop the tree. The day always ended with sippi
ng hot chocolate, stirred with a candy cane, while she and Jamie decorated the tree. As they placed the angel on the treetop, they always sang Christmas carols.
She needed this time alone with Jamie to prepare herself for the official start of the holiday season at the pie extravaganza at the Fellowship Hall. This ritual got her in the Christmas mood. This ritual made her remember her promise. This ritual helped her temper the pain of her loss. "It's Thanksgiving Day."
Logan pressed his hands into the steering wheel. He stared blankly straight ahead and ground his teeth in a tight circle. She could almost hear him counting and trying to swallow his anger. What was with him and the holidays?
"What's so important about a damned holiday meal?" His carefully modulated words sounded like shattering icicles.
Unable to round up her scurrying feelings and give him a cohesive answer, she looked down at her bandaged hands. The nurse had taken off her wedding band to accommodate her swelling fingers, shaving another piece of Jim from her. The ring burned in her pants pocket and she longed to wear it next to her skin once more to calm the horrifying fear that Jim would leave her heart as he had her life.
"It's a matter of survival," she said finally.
Logan nodded once. In that instant she felt close to him, knew he understood perfectly the effort living sometimes exacted. But even as she wondered how he could, tiredness from the painkiller enveloped her in a weighty blanket.
"I think I will take a nap." She dragged her heavy legs from the car and headed toward the welcoming warmth of her home.
As Logan got out of the car, the vinyl seat shifted. "I'll see to your lights."
"You don't have to." A dullness overcame her, making each movement an effort.
"A deal's a deal. I always keep my word."
A man of honor. Like Jim. She nodded once and watched him leave.
Jamie bounded back into the garage. "Can I help?"
"No!"
At Logan's bark, she startled and Jamie instinctively retreated toward her, lifting his arms around her waist for protection. What on earth had warranted such a forceful reaction?