A Bride For Saint Nick

by Carole Buck

  “Mommy? John?”

  “He’s definitely got an exceptional pair of lungs.”

  The flash of deadpan humor caught Leigh by surprise. Her heart gave a curious hop-skip-jump. The mental wall she’d built around her past cracked slightly, allowing a memory to slip through. Nick Marchand had also had a sneak-up-on-you kind of wit, she recalled. A keen observer of the human condition, he’d been given to offering quirky, offhand quips about—

  Stop it!

  Leigh shoved the memory back behind the wall and patched the crack as best she could. Forget him, she told herself fiercely. You have to forget him!

  “Oh, that’s nothing,” she said after a moment, hoping the laugh she manufactured didn’t sound as brittle to her companion as it did to her. “If they ever decide to make yelling an Olympic event—”

  “Are you coming yet?” In addition to increasing in volume, Andy’s voice had taken on a distinctly whiny edge.

  “I think the invalid is getting impatient,” John observed, glancing toward the living room. If he thought her behavior peculiar, he gave no sign of it.

  “I think you’re right.”

  Leigh led the way into the living room, her body prickling with awareness of the man who followed a step or so behind her.

  “Sit here, John,” Andy instructed as they entered the living room. He beamed up at his guest, patting the sofa cushion next to him.

  “Thanks,” John replied, accepting the invitation.

  Leigh reclaimed her previous seat, trying to ignore a resurgence of the jealousy she’d felt earlier. It wasn’t easy. Her son’s attention was riveted on John Gulliver to the exclusion of everything else. The expression in his blue-gray eyes as he looked at the older man was…was…

  It was beyond admiring, she decided, clasping her hands together. It was downright worshipful. Andy McKay had obviously found himself a hero. And for the moment, this hero apparently outranked all the other people in his little boy’s universe—including the mother he’d wanted with such weepy desperation just the day before.

  “This is for you, Andy,” John said after a fractional pause, extending the tissue-wrapped package he’d brought with him. He slanted an uncertain look at Leigh. “I hope you don’t object.”

  As if an objection by her would make any difference at this point, she fumed inwardly as she watched the way her son latched on to the offering. Assuming she’d been foolish enough to attempt it, it would have taken a crowbar to pry his fingers from the gift.

  “No, of course not,” she replied.

  “What is it?” Andy lifted the package to his ear and gave it a vigorous shake. “What is it?”

  “Why don’t you open it up and find out?” John suggested. A beat later, he glanced at Leigh once again. “If…that’s all right with you?”

  The man was making an effort not to undermine her parental authority, she told herself, trying to be fair. A remarkably clumsy effort, to be sure, but still…an effort.

  “Go ahead, Andy,” she said.

  Her son needed no further urging. Ripping off the tissue paper with more speed than finesse, he quickly revealed his prize. “Oh, wow!”

  Leigh frowned. What the—?

  And then she identified the object. It was a tomahawk. A lightweight plastic tomahawk decorated with several strings of yellow, red and orange beads and a trio of equally garish feathers. While it wasn’t the tackiest thing she’d ever seen, it could hardly be classified as a tribute to good taste.

  “This is so cool!” Andy squealed excitedly. He brandished the toy weapon back and forth, then looked at his benefactor with shining eyes. A moment later he flung his arms around the older male and gave him a hug. “Thanks, John!” he exclaimed after ending the impulsive embrace. “Really, truly, thanks. I can’t b’lieve you ‘membered what I said!”

  “I remember every word, Andy.”

  The tone of this assertion was soft but intense and triggered an odd jitter within Leigh. It reminded her of the note of pride she’d thought she’d heard in John’s earlier observation about Andy’s intelligence. It wasn’t…appropriate.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked her son. “What did you say?”

  Andy turned toward her, clearly eager to tell the tale. “It was in the doctor’s, when I was waitin’ for you after my owwie got fixed. Me and John talked. I telled him I didn’t want people to know that a swing hitted me cuz it would sound dumb. Then he telled me that I should make up a better story—”

  “I wasn’t encouraging him to lie, Leigh,” John interrupted quickly, causing her to shift her gaze back to him. He grimaced as their eyes met, plainly embarrassed. “Well, actually…I suppose I was. But I don’t want you to get the impression—I mean, I didn’t intend—”

  “I understand,” she replied, unexpectedly affected by his awkward attempt to clarify why he’d said whatever it was he’d said to her son. John Gulliver hadn’t struck her as the type of man who set much store by other people’s assessments of him. Yet he obviously wanted to retain her good opinion. Why this should be, she didn’t know. But it touched her.

  “Yeah,” Andy chimed in. “He wasn’t ‘couragin’ me to lie, Mommy. He even said tellin’ the truth is the best thing. And I said that’s what you always say, too. And then I telled him that made-up stories aren’t the same as bad lies and that maybe it would be okay if I said I got my head owwie from a fight with an Indian ‘stead of a dopey old swing.”

  “I…see.”

  “The Indian was gonna be tryin’ to scalp me.” Andy used his new toy to underscore the drama of his words. “And that’s how come John gave me this.” He looked at his fellow sofa-sitter. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.” Leigh noticed that John looked her son squarely in the eye as he spoke. She liked that. She also liked the fact that he didn’t seem inclined to condescend. Andy hated to be talked down to. “I just hope you’ll be careful with your tomahawk. I wouldn’t like to hear that you’ve started clobbering people with it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Andy assured him. “I won’t. And I won’t let anybody else clobber people with it, either. I’m gonna take my tommy-hawk to show-and-tell when I go back to preschool, then I’m gonna put it away in a really safe place in my room. It’ll be like how Mommy keeps her gun.”

  Like how Mommy keeps her gun…

  There was a volatile silence. Leigh sat rigidly in her chair. She knew John was staring at her. She could feel the penetrating power of his gaze. Finally, steeling herself, she turned her eyes toward his.

  “You have a firearm in the house, Leigh?” His inflection was difficult to interpret. Likewise, his expression.

  “It’s legal.” She told herself she had no reason to feel defensive. She also reminded herself that this man had no right to question anything she did. “And I’ve been trained how to use it.”

  “It’s in a box with a lock in a drawer in her bedroom,” Andy confided. “I’m not s’posed to open the drawer, though. Or the box. And I can never, ever touch it. ‘Cuz a gun isn’t a toy. Even if I think one might not have any bullets in it, I have to leave it alone. That’s the absolute rule.”

  John scrutinized Leigh for a moment longer, his reaction to what he was hearing still impossible to gauge. Then he glanced at Andy.

  “You’re always going to obey that absolute rule, aren’t you, buddy?” he asked in a quietly compelling tone…

  After a brief hesitation, the little boy bobbed his head. “Yeah,” he pledged in a small, solemn voice, clearly awed by the older male’s ultraserious manner. “Always. Cross my heart.” He made an X on his pajama-covered chest. Then he leaned forward, his eyes wide and curious. “Do you know any rules about guns, John?”

  “Andy—” Leigh was desperate to get off this subject and stay off it. Her status as a gun owner was something she preferred to keep to herself as much as possible. Her relocation inspector knew about it, of course. And, given the amount of time Nonna P. spent in the house, she�
��d felt compelled to inform the older woman about it, too. But aside from that…

  Her son’s awareness that she had a gun dated back to a rainy Sunday afternoon about six months ago when he’d taken it into his head to “help” by cleaning out her bedroom drawers. She’d panicked when she’d walked in and found him rattling the gray metal lockbox in which she kept her weapon:

  Once she’d recovered her composure, she’d realized there would be no fobbing Andy off with the assertion that what was inside the box was not for little boys and therefore none of his business. She’d made too great a fuss to get away with that parental ploy. So she’d unlocked the box, removed and unloaded the handgun, and shown it to her son. After he’d had a chance to study it from every angle, she’d laid down the “absolute rule” about leaving it alone.

  She supposed she should be thankful that her lecture had made such an impression, she reflected. Too bad she hadn’t thought to include a prohibition against blabbing about the contents of the lockbox to strangers!

  “Yes, Andy,” John replied evenly. “I know some rules about guns. But since your mom’s obviously made sure you know all the important ones, why don’t we talk about something else?”

  Andy fiddled with his tomahawk for several seconds, clearly not pleased with the prospect of moving on to another topic. But he also seemed wary of trying to buck John’s authority.

  “Like what?” he eventually questioned.

  “Like—uh—uh—”

  “Like whether our guest would like some refreshments,” Leigh quickly suggested, responding to the SOS she saw in John’s eyes.

  “Huh?” Andy gave her a blank look.

  She nodded toward the plate he’d been snacking from earlier, figuring that food was one of the few subjects that might— just might—interest him more than firearms. It took a couple of seconds, but her son finally picked up the cue.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Yeah. ‘Freshments!” He selected a cookie and extended it to his sofa mate. “Here, John. Eat this. You’ll really like it.”

  “Thank you.” The older man accepted the treat with alacrity and took a bite. “Mmm. Very good.”

  “Nonna P. made them.”

  “Nonna P.?” The inquiry was quick. Very quick.

  “She’s this really nice lady who take cares of me sometimes.” Andy chose a small, fruit-studded pastry for himself. “Only not today. Today it’s Mommy.”

  A wide smile accompanied the last word. The sight of it warmed Leigh like spring sunshine. The jealousy she’d felt toward John Gulliver suddenly seemed very foolish.

  “Sounds like a good deal.”

  “Uh-huh. Totally good. It’s part of my re-cooper-tating.” Andy nibbled at his home-baked treat, then gestured toward the plate of goodies. “You want more ‘freshments?”

  “I’m fine for now, thanks.”

  “Mommy? You want a cookie?”

  “No, thank you, sweetie.”

  There was a pause. It was somewhat longer than the one that had followed Andy’s handgun revelation, but infinitely less charged.

  “So, John,” Leigh eventually said, feeling it was incumbent upon her to pick up the conversational ball and run with it. She also saw an opportunity to get answers to a few of the many questions she had about their guest. “What brings you to Vermont? I mean—you’re not from around here, are you?”

  “I’m based in northern Georgia.”

  “Ah.” He didn’t have a Southern drawl, she noted. But that signified nothing. She lived in Vermont and she didn’t have a New England accent. “So you’re—what? Up here visiting someone?”

  “‘Course, Mommy.” A giggle. “He’s visiting us.”

  John’s features seemed to tighten at this smart-alecky interpolation. He shifted his position, his gaze moving from her to Andy and back again.

  “I guess you could say I’m on a working vacation,” he finally replied, appearing to consider his words very carefully before he spoke them. “I own a travel agency in Atlanta—”

  Something clicked inside Leigh’s brain.

  “Good heavens!” she blurted out, wondering why she hadn’t considered the possibility before. It wasn’t as though his last name was a common one. “Are you talking about Gulliver’s Travels?”

  John nodded, his posture relaxing a few degrees. “That’s right.”

  “I can’t believe this! I met two of your clients a few months ago. Marcy-Anne and Maxwell Gregg. They were staying at a local inn as part of a fiftieth anniversary trip your agency organized for them and they came into my shop—I own a bookstore near the village green—several times. They were so warm and friendly. And they had nothing but raves for Gulliver’s Travels. If Marcy-Anne mentioned your agency once, she mentioned it a dozen times.”

  “Mrs. Gregg had some very complimentary things to say about you, too.”

  This pulled Leigh up short. “You…talked to her about me?”

  “Not exclusively. The Greggs sent some photographs from their trip to the agency’s office manager and she passed them along to me. I followed up with a phone call. The Greggs have used Gulliver’s Travels a number of times in the past and I wanted them to know I value their business.”

  Leigh nodded slowly. What he’d just said had sounded perfectly plausible. But it had also sounded rather…canned. As though he’d thought the answer out in advance and practiced it.

  “In the course of our conversation,” John continued, “Mrs. Gregg mentioned you and your shop.” One corner of his mouth quirked up. “As well as a number of other things.”

  The wryly understated addendum prompted Leigh’s own lips to curve into a reluctant half-smile. Although she’d liked the fluttery and flirtatious Marcy-Anne immensely, there was no denying that she’d found her garrulousness a bit overwhelming.

  There was also no denying that she’d been unnerved when the older woman had begun interrogating her about her personal life and background. Over the years, her relocation inspector had given her a great deal of cogent advice on how to answer—or, more accurately, how to avert or evade—potentially compromising inquiries. The most effective tactic seemed to be to reverse the conversational flow and get the questioner talking about him- or herself. Still, it was a stressful proposition. Always being on guard was difficult. Leigh missed the luxury of casual chitchat, the pleasure of saying whatever happened to pop into her head.

  Marcy-Anne Gregg’s version of the third degree might have proved more than she could handle but for one fortunate circumstance. Although the older woman had asked dozens of intimate questions, she’d almost never paused to hear the answer to them!

  “I can imagine,” Leigh said with a hint of humor. “MarcyAnne seemed to have a lot to say on a lot of subjects.”

  “Did that Gregg lady say how to get to our house, John?” Andy suddenly queried.

  Leigh’s heart skipped a beat as she registered the implications of her son’s innocent question. Her stomach knotted. God! she thought, appalled by her carelessness. Why hadn’t it occurred to her to wonder how John Gulliver had discovered their address?

  “I don’t think Mrs. Gregg has any idea where you live, Andy,” John said.

  “Then—then h-how did you find us?” The inchoate anxiety that had nagged at her from the first moment she’d laid eyes on the man now sitting next to her son coalesced into a genuine sense of alarm. She struggled to keep what she was feeling off her face and out of her voice. If their visitor had a satisfactory explanation for how he’d happened to turn up at her front door one day after his dramatic entrance into her life, she didn’t want him thinking she was paranoid or had something to hide. But if he didn’t…

  John looked at her, his gaze very direct. His expression told her that her efforts to disguise her unruly emotions had been only marginally successful.

  I know you, it said. I know all your secrets.

  “I knew your last name, Leigh,” John stated quietly. “Remember? The staffer at the clinic who came into the examining ro
om called you Ms. McKay. So I looked up McKay in the phonebook, but I didn’t find anything. Then I called the operator. She said your number was unlisted.”

  “I know it!” Andy volunteered. “It’s five-five-fi—”

  “Shush,” Leigh said, cutting him off.

  “But—”

  John turned toward the little boy. “I’ll bet you have an ‘absolute rule’ about not giving your phone number to strangers, don’t you?”

  “Well…yeah.” Andy blinked rapidly, glancing from John to his mother, obviously trying to figure out what was going on. “And one about not takin’ candy from strangers or gettin’ into cars with ‘em, either. And there’s a special rule that I don’t have to let anybody give me bad touches. Ever. Not even if I know them really good and they say it’s okay. But…you’re not a stranger, John. I mean, you helped me.” He looked at Leigh again. “He did, Mommy. I heard you tell Nonna P. he was like a hero! So how come I can’t tell him our phone number?”

  “You can, honey,” she replied, striving for a soothing tone. “Just not right now. Right now, you have to let him finish telling us how he found out where we live. It’s…important.” She waited a beat or two then asked, “Okay?”

  Pulling a face, Andy fingered the feathers of his tomahawk. Finally he sank back against the sofa cushions and muttered, “Okay.”

  Leigh returned her attention to John. He leaned forward, his gaze meeting hers without wavering. The force of his will—of his desire that she believe what he was about to say—was palpable.

  “I wanted to get in touch with you,” he told her. “To make sure Andy was all right. I didn’t think the clinic would give me any information, so I drove over to the preschool and talked to Thalia Jenkins.”

  “And she just told you our address?”

  “Only because of what happened yesterday.” John was emphatic. “If she hadn’t recognized me, I doubt I would have gotten a word out of her.”

  That wasn’t good enough, the woman who’d once been Suzanne Whitney told herself. A chill of apprehension shivered through her. This lapse in security was her fault. She’d assumed that the good, decent people at Andy’s preschool could be relied upon to protect his privacy. She should have made it clear to everyone at the time of his enrollment that it was vital—absolutely vital—that no information about him be disclosed to anyone without her express permission.