12 Gifts for Christmas

by Various

  Baby Wesley continued to wail.

  “Sorry for all the noise,” she said to the poor soul beside her, holding her son close as she wearily pushed to her feet with her free hand. She had to get out of here, but how? How could she ever escape this downward financial spiral?

  “Rachel?”

  That voice …

  She paused before looking up. But when she did, tingles climbed her spine. “Chance?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  AFTER all this time, was it really Rachel? Raising Wes’s child in a homeless shelter? Why, why hadn’t she just asked for help?

  Chance pressed the heel of his hand to stinging eyes.

  “Y-you look good,” he said, lying through his teeth at the waiflike ghost of the woman he used to know. Dark shadows hollowed pale blue eyes. Wes used to brag about the silky feel of Rachel’s long hair cascading against his chest when they’d made love, but it was now shorn into a short cap. “And the baby. He’s wonderful, Rachel. You did good.”

  “Thanks,” she said above her son’s pitiful cry. “We’re okay.” She paused. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to see you … to help you… .”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “Bull,” he said, taking the now screaming baby from her, cradling him against his chest, nuzzling the infant’s downy hair beneath his chin. “What’s his name?”

  “Wesley,” she said, refusing to meet his gaze.

  He nodded, fighting a sudden knot at the back of his throat. Such a beautiful child, growing up in such cruel surroundings. And why? All because of Rachel’s foolish pride.

  “Get your things,” he growled between clenched teeth, edging her away from a rag-clothed derelict reeking of booze.

  “Wh-what?”

  “You heard me. You tried things your way, honey, and apparently it didn’t work out. Now we’re doing it my way. Your husband’s way.”

  “I—I’m fine,” she said, raising her chin, a partial spark back in her stunning eyes. “Just a little down on my luck. But things will change. They’ll get better.”

  “Damn straight they will.” Clutching the infant with one arm, he dragged her toward the shelter’s door with the other. “You don’t want charity from me, fine. But is this really what you want for your son? Wes’s son?”

  While Chance regretted the harshness of his words, he’d never retract them. Years ago he’d made a promise to her husband, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to back out on it now.

  He glanced away from Rachel to take in a nearly bald, fake Christmas tree that’d been decorated with homemade ornaments. Pipe-cleaner reindeer and paper angels colored with crayons. Though the tree’s intent was kind, he knew Rachel deserved better.

  While killing time on endless stakeouts, Wes would ramble for hours about his perfect wife. About how much he loved her, how she was a great cook, how she always managed to perfectly balance the checkbook. Wes went so far as to offer private morsels he should’ve kept to himself—locker-room details that should’ve been holy between a man and his wife. But because of Wes’s ever-flapping mouth, whether he’d wanted to or not, Chance knew everything about Rachel from her favorite songs to what turned her on.

  Another thing he knew were Wes’s dreams for her. How because she’d grown up in an orphanage, he’d always wanted to have a half-dozen chubby babies with her and buy her a great house and put good, reliable tires on her crappy car.

  Chance had made a promise to his best friend, one that put him in charge of picking up where Wes left off. It was a given he’d steer clear of the husband-wife physical intimacies—she was off-limits. Totally. But when it came to making her comfortable, happy, by God, if it took every day for the rest of his life, that’s what Chance had come to Denver prepared—and okay, he’d admit it, secretly hoping—to do.

  Looking back to Rachel, he found her eyes pooled. Lips trembling, she met his stare.

  “Come on,” he said. “It’s time to go home.”

  Baby Wesley had fallen asleep in Chance’s arms. His cheeks were flushed, and he sucked pitifully at his thumb.

  “I—I tried breastfeeding him,” she said. “But my milk dried up.”

  “That happens,” he said, not knowing if it did or didn’t or why she’d even brought it up … but willing to say anything to get her to go with him.

  Shaking her head, looking away to brush tears, she said, “Wait here. I’ll get our things.”

  For Rachel, being at the airport and boarding the plane was surreal. As was driving through a fog-shrouded Portland in Chance’s Jeep, stopping off at an all-night Wal-Mart for a car seat and over five hundred dollars’ worth of clothes, diapers, formula and other baby supplies. The Christmas decorations, hundreds and thousands of colorful lights lining each new street they traveled, struck her as foreign. As if from a world where she was no longer welcome.

  “I’ll repay you,” she said from the passenger seat, swirling a pattern in the fogged window. Presumably, he was heading toward his lovely hilltop home that she’d always secretly called the real estate version of a wedding cake. “For everything. The clothes. Plane ticket. I’ll pay it all back. I—I just need a breather to get back on my feet.”

  “Sure,” he said. Was it her imagination, or had he tightened his grip on the wheel?

  “Really,” she said, rambling on about how Wes’s life insurance company refused to pay. “Just as soon as I get the check, I’ll reimburse you.”

  “Know how you can pay me?” he asked, pressing the garage door remote that was attached to the sun visor.

  She shook her head.

  He pulled the Jeep into the single-stall detached garage she’d helped Wes and him build, that same enchanted summer she and her future husband had become lovers.

  It was said a woman’s heart is a deep well of secrets and Rachel knew hers was no different. Squeezing her eyes shut, she saw Chance as she had that first night they’d met at Ziggy’s sports bar—before she’d even met Wes. Despite his physical appearance—six-three, with wide, muscular shoulders and a chest as broad and strong as an oak’s trunk—Chance’s shy, kind spirit made him a gentle giant to whom she’d instinctively gravitated. Never the brazen type, Rachel had subtly asked mutual friends about him, and every so often, when their eyes met from opposite ends of the bar during the commercial breaks of Monday Night Football, she’d thought she’d caught a glimmer of interest. And if only for an instant, hope that he might find her as attractive as she found him would soar. But then he’d look away and the moment would be gone.

  Then she’d met Wes, who’d made it known in about ten exhilaratingly sexy seconds that he didn’t just want to be her friend. Handsome, five-eleven with a lean build and quick smile, Wes hadn’t had to work too hard to make her fall for him, and he had a knack for making any and all occasions seem magical.

  Chance turned off the engine and sighed. The only light was the one that spilled from the weak bulb attached to the automatic opener, and the only sounds were those of rain pattering the roof and the baby’s sleepy gurgle… . Angling on his seat, Chance reached out to Rachel and whispered the tip of his index finger so softly around her lips … she wondered if she were imagining his being there at all.

  “Know how you can repay me?” he repeated. Heartbeat a sudden storm, she swallowed hard. “By bringing back your smile.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  RACHEL awoke the next morning to unfamiliar softness, and the breezy scent of freshly laundered sheets. Sunshine streamed through tall, paned windows. After a moment of initial panic, fearing she may have died and moved on to Heaven, she remembered herself not on some random cloud, but safely tucked in Chance’s guest bed in the turret-shaped room she’d urged him to paint an ethereal sky-blue.

  The room was the highest point in his home, reached by winding stairs, and its view never failed to stir her. Mt. Hood was to the east, while to the west she’d once sworn—long ago, while standing on a ladder, paint brush in hand, nose and cheeks
smudged blue—she could see all the way to the shimmering Pacific. Wesley and Chance had laughed at her, but she’d ignored them.

  To Rachel, the room represented freedom from all that had bound her in her early, depressing, pre-Wes life. The panoramic views, just as her marriage, made her feel as if her soul were flying.

  As she inched up in the sumptuous feather bed to greet a day as chilly as it was clear, the room still wielded its calming effect. She’d awakened enough to realize how late it must be … and yet Wesley hadn’t stirred.

  Tossing back covers, she winced at the wood floor’s chilly bite against her bare feet. With one look at the portable crib that had been among their purchases the previous night, Rachel realized that Wesley’s cries hadn’t woken her because he wasn’t there.

  Bounding to the kitchen, she found her son sitting proudly in his new high chair, beaming, covered ear-to-ear in peachy-smelling orange goo.

  “Morning, sleepyhead.” Baby spoon to Wesley’s cooing lips, Chance caught her off guard with the size of his smile.

  “You should’ve woken me,” she said, hustling to where the two guys sat at a round oak table in a sunny patch of the country kitchen. “I’m sure you have better things to do.”

  “Nope,” he said. “I took the day off.”

  “I’ll pay you for your time.”

  He’d allowed her to take the spoon as she’d pulled out a chair and sat beside him, but now, his strong fingers clamped her wrist. “Stop.”

  “What?”

  “The whole defensive routine. It doesn’t become you.”

  “S-sorry. That’s who I am.”

  “Bull.”

  “E-excuse me?” He released her, and the spoon now trembled in her still-tingling wrist.

  “I knew you as playful. Fun. Now, you seem like you’re in attack mode.”

  “And why shouldn’t I be?” she asked. “Aside from Wesley, name one thing that’s gone right for me in the past year?”

  “That’s easy,” he said, cracking a slow and easy grin that, Lord help her, had Rachel’s pulse racing yet again. Had the man always been this attractive?

  Judging by the massive crush she’d had on him all those years ago … yes.

  Making things worse—or better, depending how you looked at it—he winked. “One thing that’s gone very right is how you’re finally back with me.”

  Sensing Rachel needed two gifts above all else that Christmas season—time and space—Chance returned to work Tuesday, and every day for the rest of the week. Come Saturday, though, despite her protests that they should stay at the house, he bustled her and the baby into his Jeep and started off for the traditional holiday ride he’d loved as a kid, but had given up as an adult.

  “Well?” he asked a silent Rachel an hour later, pulling into a snow-covered winter wonderland. “See anything that’d fit in the living room bay window?”

  She glanced at him, then at the sprawling Christmas tree farm that might as well have been Santa’s North Pole because everywhere you looked, Christmas was in full swing. Kids laughing and sledding and playing tag while darting in and out amongst fragrant trees. Families huddling around the fires built in river-rock pits, sipping steaming mugs of cocoa. Upbeat carols played from a tiny speaker.

  “It’s—” she cautiously glanced at the idyllic scene before them, as if they didn’t belong, then back to him “—amazing. But if you want a tree, wouldn’t it be cheaper to—”

  “Look,” he said as he sighed, “I wasn’t going to bring this up until it’s a done deal, but I told my boss about your situation—with Wes’s flaky life insurance—and fury didn’t begin to describe his reaction. Wheels are turning, and I’d say you’ll have a check by the end of next week.”

  “Really?”

  Just then, she was seriously gorgeous, eyes brimming with hope and a shimmering lake of tears. “Yeah,” Chance said. “I’m serious. So what’s with the waterworks? I thought you’d be thrilled to be rich?”

  “I would be—I mean, I am. It’s just that after all these months of barely scraping by, not sleeping because I’ve literally been afraid to close my eyes, it seems a bit surreal to have such a happy ending at all, let alone in such a happy place.”

  He laughed, unfastening his seat belt to grab the baby from his seat. “Don’t you think after what you’ve been through you two deserve a little happiness?”

  Turning away from him while she sniffled and dried her cheeks, he couldn’t tell if she was nodding or shaking her head. “Well?” he asked. “Was that a yes or no?”

  “I don’t know,” she said with a laugh. “Maybe both. I’m just so confused. And grateful. Very, very grateful.”

  “Yeah, well, what you need to be,” he said, Wesley snug in his arms, “is energized.”

  “Oh, yeah?” she asked, again blasting him with a tremulous smile. “How come?”

  “Because me and this kid of yours are about to whomp you in a snowball fight.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “IT’S beautiful,” Rachel said, stepping back to admire the nine-foot fir they’d finished decorating. Heirloom glass ornaments and twinkling white lights hung from each branch. “Perfect.”

  With Chance beside her, carols softly playing and a fire crackling in the hearth, Rachel couldn’t have ordered a more enchanting holiday scene.

  “I don’t know,” Chance said, finger to his lips as he stood beside her, surveying their afternoon’s work. “Something’s missing.”

  “You’re right,” Rachel said. “We forgot the angel.”

  “I didn’t see it, did you?”

  “Not in the boxes we’ve been through. Maybe—” She looked down to see Wesley sucking the top corner of the angel’s box. “Aha! Found it.”

  “Thanks, bud.” Chance took the box from the baby, replacing it with the teething ring he had been contentedly gumming. “How about you do the honors?” he suggested, handing the golden angel to her.

  “I’d like that,” Rachel said, embarrassed to admit just how much the small gesture meant.

  At the orphanage, placing the angel on top of the tree was generally a task reserved for the child who was newest to the home. Since Rachel had gone to live there the summer just before her fourth birthday when her parents had been killed in a car accident, she’d never had the chance. By the time Christmas rolled around, she had only been the third-newest kid.

  Knowing this, Wes had made their first Christmas together as a married couple extra special by taking her to pick out an especially extravagant angel that they really couldn’t afford. In Denver, at a desperation yard sale she’d held in a futile attempt to stay financially afloat, it had devastated her to have to sell that precious angel to a cranky old guy for the princely sum of three dollars.

  Rachel swallowed hard at the bittersweet memory of how dearly she’d loved sharing Christmas with Wes. There was a part of her struggling with the guilt that she was once again immersed in holiday cheer … but Wes was gone. It somehow felt disloyal for her to be so happy.

  Trying to focus on the task at hand, Rachel climbed onto the small step ladder she’d used to hang the ornaments from the highest branches, but she still wasn’t tall enough to reach the tree’s top.

  “Let me help,” Chance said, inching up behind her, settling his hands around her waist, then lifting her the extra inches needed to get the job done.

  His nearness was overwhelming, flooding her senses to the point she nearly failed her mission. Had his hands lingered on her waist longer than necessary after he’d set her back to her feet? Was that the reason for her erratically beating heart? What kind of woman was she to one minute reminisce about her deceased husband, and the next wonder at the feel of another man’s strong hands?

  “Thank you,” she said, licking her lips, by habit going to push at her long hair that was no longer there.

  “You’re welcome.” As if he’d sensed the awareness between them, too, they both fell into awkward step, bustling to clean the wreckage of tissu
e paper and boxes.

  Once they’d finished hauling the mess to a spare bedroom Chance used for storage, they were in the dark upstairs hall when Chance asked, “Why’d you cut your hair?”

  The question caught her off guard, made her feel even more uncomfortable than she already did. “It was too much trouble,” she said.

  “It was beautiful. Not that it’s any of my business, but you should grow it back.”

  She looked down to hands she’d clenched at her waist.

  “Not that you aren’t still attractive,” he said. “It’s just that Wes always had a thing for your hair. I think he’d be sad to see it gone.”

  What about you, Chance? Did you like my hair?

  Rachel was thankful for the hall’s lack of light—the question, even if asked only in her head, made her uncomfortable. Why would she even care what Chance thought of the way she used to style her hair? Worse yet, why did his question leave her feeling lacking?

  Suddenly, she was wishing she at least had a little more length to work into an attractive style instead of the boyish cut that’d been easy to keep clean and neat at the homeless shelter. This cut hardly made her feel feminine or desirable. But then until her reunion with Chance, she’d had no use for vanity.

  “Chance?” she asked, her voice a croaked whisper.

  “Yes?”

  “When we first met, you know, back when you, me and Wes used to just be friends, hanging out at Ziggy’s, did you find me pretty?”

  He cleared his throat. “What kind of question is that?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Sorry I asked.”

  Because she truly didn’t know, Rachel returned to the living room, where holiday cheer and the sight of her contented child banished doubts and fears. The question had been silly. As was her growing awareness of her husband’s best friend.

  For a moment she felt better, but then Chance returned, his essence filling the room.