A Barker Family Christmas

by Juliana Stone

  “Gramps—”

  But the old man wasn’t having any of it. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather Shane help me out in this, here, particular situation.”

  “I’ve got this Bobbi. I’ll be up in a few minutes,” Shane said, moving a few inches to the right so that Herschel’s wheelchair didn’t clip him on his way out. He followed Bobbi’s grandfather down the hallway and into the dining room where they’d set up a temporary bedroom.

  Herschel pulled up alongside his bed, which was where the dining room table used to be and pulled off his John Deere cap. He gave his scalp a quick scratch and glanced up at Shane.

  “You wouldn’t mind getting this old goat a shot of whiskey, now would ya?”

  Shane arched an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure Bobbi would have a problem with that.”

  “That would be why I’m asking you.”

  Hard to argue with that logic. Shane chuckled. “One shot. That’s it.”

  Herschel’s grin was sly. “That’s all I need.”

  Shane grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the cupboard above the fridge and returned with two shot glasses. He filled them both. Handed one to Herschel—who’d managed to crawl from his chair to the bed—and with a nod they both tipped their heads back. The burn felt good going down, and Shane let it settle a bit before eyeing Herschel.

  Bobbi’s grandfather was quiet for a few moments, rolling the empty shot glass through his fingers.

  “You and Bobbi are having a bit of a tough go lately,” Herschel said.

  Shane wasn’t surprised. The elder Barker had always been intuitive.

  “Yeah,” Shane replied. He set his shot glass down on the windowsill and leaned back. “You noticed.”

  “Hard not to,” Herschel said, shaking his head. “When that girl is upset, she likes to clean. And when she cleans, she mutters.” Herschel grunted. “She’s been cleaning and muttering a lot these last few days.”

  Huh. Shane wondered what it was she’d been muttering, but he wasn’t about to ask.

  “Christmas is always a little emotional around these parts.” Herschel tossed his shot glass onto the end of the bed and ran his fingers through the thick white waves atop his head. “Their mother, Chantal, passed away two weeks before Christmas.”

  Shane cocked his head, studying the man. Shit. Of course he’d known the girls mother had passed away when they were five, but until this moment he’d never known it was so close to the holidays. Chantal Barker wasn’t a subject that Bobbi ever brought up. None of the girls did. Not that he knew of anyway.

  “I’m sorry,” Shane offered. “I didn’t know.”

  Herschel’s eyes softened. “She’s been gone a long time and yet, sometimes I hear her voice.” He glanced up sharply. “Maybe I’m crazy, but some mornings it’s Chantal’s voice I hear calling me out for breakfast.” He smiled sadly. “She loved when the family was together at her kitchen table. She loved to bake and she loved her girls. She was the best part of my son. When she got sick, something in Trent withered and died. He was never the same, and raising three girls on his own was hard. I helped. I helped as much as I could, but when someone as important as a mother passes, she leaves behind a hole. Sometimes that hole gets filled and sometimes it doesn’t.”

  Shane was silent. He’d lost his mother to cancer when he was a teen and the pain of that loss was still inside him. But the hole was plugged. Bobbi had filled it.

  Herschel settled back against the headboard, shaking his head. “My twins are so different from each other.”

  Shane smiled at that. How and when triplets became twins he’d never know, but Herschel Barker had always called them that. His twins.

  “Billie was always so fierce, so passionate about hockey. Her talent was undeniable and Trent kind of locked into that. Maybe he spent more time on her than he should have, but it made him forget, at least for a little while, the pain in his heart. Betty never seemed to care, she always had Matt and her friends to keep her busy, but Bobbi…”

  Shane pushed away from the wall and shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. Herschel’s eyes were bright and watery with unshed tears.

  “Did you know that Bobbi didn’t talk for an entire month after her mother died?”

  Something twisted inside him, and Shane shook his head. Again, he had no words. He had nothing but the sharp stab of pain that rifled through him at the thought of a small, sad little girl, missing her mother so badly that she couldn’t speak. A little girl who’d grown into the woman he loved.

  Herschel’s voice was low and Shane heard a tremble.

  “She didn’t say one word. She wouldn’t speak to any of her sisters, nor to her father or myself. She spoke to no one. She buried herself somehow. I can’t explain it. At the time we were at our wits end. Dealing with the loss of Chantal and then our little Bobbi going mute. The doctors said she’d come around eventually and if she didn’t, well, they’d treat her. One day— a cold, clear day in January—she walked down those stairs and came into the kitchen and asked for a bowl of hot porridge. I can still see her pale face and those big eyes lookin’ up at me over the top of the kitchen table.”

  “Did she…” Shane cleared his tight throat and took a moment. “Was she okay?”

  “She seemed right as rain. She never mentioned her mother again. Not once.”

  Shane frowned. “That’s not a normal reaction for a child.”

  “No.” Herschel shook his head. “It’s not. But at the time, it seemed easier to let it go. Right or wrong, we were two men with three little girls in our charge, and we carried on. Trent enveloped himself in Billie’s world of hockey and I tried my best to keep the other two in line.”

  For a moment there was only the sound of the wind and the ice pellets hitting the window.

  “I tried my best.” Herschel’s voice broke. “But the best isn’t always good enough. Last week she was up in the attic for a long time and when I asked her what she’d been doing up there, she told me that she’d been organizing. That no one had been up there in years and it was a mess. At the time I didn’t think much of it—as I told you earlier she’s been muttering and cleaning for days now. But yesterday I heard her crying in the laundry room and when I asked her about it, she tried to push it off as nothing. Told me she was just overtired.”

  Shane’s throat closed up and his fist bunched as he regarded Bobbi’s grandfather in silence.

  “She had a picture in her hand. A picture of her mother, and that’s when I knew that whatever this is going on between the two of you, well, it has to be connected somehow. The ghosts that she never dealt with must be haunting her.”

  Shane’s throat was tight and he remained silent.

  “I’m sure you’re already aware of the way her brain works. She’ll push you away if she thinks things are going south. She’ll bury herself again. It’s what she does. How she survives.” Herschel scrubbed at his face and sighed. “Don’t give up on her Shane. Promise me that.”

  Shane gave a curt nod and slowly released his bunched fists. He stretched out his fingers and rolled his shoulders once more before turning to leave. He would never give up on Bobbi. He just hoped she had enough faith not to give up on him.

  Chapter Three

  When the door opened behind Bobbi, her heart sped up so fast that it made her dizzy. Arms crossed over her chest, she shivered, trying to find some warmth and hoping like hell she didn’t crumple to the floor in a pile of loose limbs and weak bones.

  Focus, she thought, staring out the window at the swirling snow.

  “It’s getting bad out there,” she whispered, and winced—lame attempt at deflection and not something Shane would fall for.

  She heard Shane’s boot scuff across the worn floorboards of her old bedroom and saw his reflection in the window. Their eyes caught and she swallowed away the tightness in her throat.

  “Your grandfather’s in bed. He’s good for the night,” Shane said quietly.

  “Did he talk you in
to giving him a shot of whiskey?”

  “I could lie and say no, but…”

  She closed her eyes. That knotted pit in her stomach wasn’t going away anytime soon, and she knew that small talk wasn’t going to solve their problems.

  “Bobbi,” Shane said, voice low and rough. “We need to figure this out and it can’t wait any longer.”

  Eyes still squeezed shut, she nodded. “I know.”

  Seconds ticked by. Seconds that turned into long moments of strained silence.

  “Bobbi, I’m not talking to the back of your head so turn around.”

  She exhaled and slowly turned to face Shane. He’d tossed his navy Henley on her bed and stood watching her intently. His white T-shirt stretched tight across wide shoulders and the paleness of the color against his dark skin made the tattoo on his bicep more dramatic than it already was.

  Without thinking, she touched her own tattoo, there behind her ear, a Gaelic symbol that they shared. A symbol that meant forever. She tried to find that place of calm but it seemed to have fled, and she bit her bottom lip, shivering again.

  “Look at me Bobbi.”

  She dragged her eyes up to his.

  “I could make small talk and ease into this, but I gotta tell ya, I don’t think that’s going to work. We’re way beyond small talk. Something’s been off for weeks now and for the life of me, I have no idea what it is. But this can’t go on. You have to stop pulling away from me.”

  He was right. Of course he was right.

  “I don’t think that I can have a child,” she whispered, surprised that the words fell out of her like that. So easy—deceptively so. Because the words were anything but easy. They were hard, and they were brutally honest.

  “I don’t understand.” Shane paused and she saw his confusion.

  “I mean I can physically have a child, at least I think I can, but I don’t…I don’t think that I can do it,” she said, heart in her throat and beating so loud that it filled her ears. “And I know that you want kids and it’s not fair and…” Her voice trailed off because she wasn’t sure what to say and even if she had the right words, they were stuck inside her.

  Shane ran his hands through his thick waves and cocked his head to the side. His eyes were soft, kind of sad, and in that moment, she felt as if he could see into her soul.

  “Okay,” he said after a few moments. “Okay.”

  “But it’s not okay,” she replied, taking a step forward. “You want kids. How does that make this okay? How are we ever going to make that work?”

  “I want kids with you, Bobbi.” He swore under his breath. “But if that’s a game changer for you, I’ll deal with it.”

  “You say that now, but—“

  “No buts, Bobbi. I’ll deal with it.”

  “I’m sure you think that it’s something we can work through. But I see the way you look at Billie and Logan’s son. I see the way your eyes light up when you hold him, and it breaks my heart because I don’t think I’m strong enough to give that to you.”

  “Why?” He interrupted Bobbi, his eyes narrowed and intense. “Why don’t you want kids? Does this have something to do with what happened before? The miscarriage?”

  She thought back to those dark days and shook her head.

  “No,” she said hoarsely. “I mean, I don’t know. It’s part of it.” How could she make him understand when she didn’t even understand herself?

  “Does it have to do with your mother?” he asked gently.

  She froze at his words, eyes sliding away. She didn’t do this. She didn’t ever talk about her mother.

  “No.”

  Yes.

  She glanced to the table beside her bed and Shane followed suit. There, beside her purse and a murder mystery book she’d been trying to read for days, was the picture she’d taken from an old family album she’d found earlier in the week. There was nothing remarkable about it, really. Her mother was about twenty-five in the photo. Her hair was up in a loose ponytail and she was leaning against a picnic table in the back yard peeling an orange, her long hair covering most of her face. There was a slight smile playing around the edges of her mouth, as if she was listening to whomever it was taking the picture. It was candid. Lovely. And it broke Bobbi’s heart.

  Shane picked it up and studied it for a few moments while Bobbi watched him, chest painfully tight.

  “You girls look like her,” he said quietly.

  She nodded, wanting to look away but unable to.

  “She never said goodbye,” Bobbi said slowly.

  Shane glanced up and waited for her to continue.

  “When I was little. When she died. She never said goodbye. I didn’t know what death meant. I didn’t know it was final. So after it happened, I waited for her to come and say goodbye. I waited for days after Gramps told me that she was gone. I guess I thought that she would at least do that. That she’d be able to do that.” She frowned as a wave of memories rushed through her. Images of a sad little girl who wouldn’t speak to anyone in case her mother whispered into her ear.

  “But she never came. She never spoke to me again not even in my dreams. She just went away and after a while I stopped waiting.” She was silent for a few moments. “I stopped waiting,” she repeated. “Eventually I even forgot what she looked like. What she smelled like. I forgot what it felt like when she’d hold me and stroke my hair.” Bobbi’s long lashes swept up as she gazed across the room at Shane. “But I never forgot how much it hurt and I…I can’t be responsible for giving anyone that kind of pain. Especially a child.”

  Shane set the picture back down onto the table.

  “Bobbi, you’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “No, I guess I don’t,” he said. “But babe, you can’t live your life afraid to do something because of a ‘what if’, and you sure as hell can’t shut me out. I’m in this for the win, Barker. I’m not going anywhere. I put that ring on your finger because it belongs there. Because you belong to me, Bobbi. After everything we’ve been through, we deserve a life together.”

  “But you want your own children, Shane. How can you be sure that you won’t end up hating me or resenting me if I don’t give them to you?”

  He took a step toward her. “That’s the thing, Bobbi. If it’s only gonna be us, I’m one hundred percent on board with that. But Jesus, you have to have enough faith in us to at least face this shit head on. You’ve been pulling away for weeks now, and I had no idea what was up with you. Do you know how hard that was? I was going out of my mind trying to figure out what the hell I’d done.”

  “I’m sorry,” she managed to say. “I just…I thought if I didn’t talk about it, it might go away. Maybe I’d get over it. Stupid I know, but the more I thought about us and marriage and a future, I knew kids were part of your plan and I…”

  She blew out a long, shaky breath. “Shane it’s not that I don’t want your child, I just don’t know if I can get past the fear of having one. Of being responsible for a little person. Of falling in love with a baby and having that child fall in love with me knowing that things can change in the blink of an eye. I know it’s probably irrational, but it’s there. It’s in me. It’s always been there. Every time you’d bring up planning our own wedding, I’d freeze. I started to think that maybe you’d be better off with someone else. Someone who can give you what you want. Someone who isn’t afraid. Someone who’s not still waiting for her mother to come back to her and say goodbye.”

  “I don’t want anyone else. I love you, Bobbi. You’re it.” Shane threw his hands out, palms up, eyes so intense they looked darker than the night sky.

  Bobbi swallowed hard and tried to keep it together. She knew this was going to be the most important conversation she was ever going to have.

  “There never was anyone else and there never will be anyone else. This right here…” He paused and Bobbi knew he was dead serious. “It’s the end of the line for me. I’m not inter
ested in moving forward with anyone who’s not you. Kids or not. Wedding or not.”

  “You say that now,” she replied, trying to keep her voice steady. “But what about five years from now? Don’t you want easy? Things are always so hard for us and I’m not making it any easier. But I don’t know how to change me.”

  “It’s all right. Hard can be good. Hard means that there are real feelings involved. The thing is, Bobbi, we’re both flawed and probably always will be. I’m good with that. I don’t want easy. It’s not my thing, and I sure as hell know it’s not yours. So if we don’t make it. If we don’t end up together. It’s not going to be because I’m not trying to hold on to the pieces.” Shane’s expression was fierce. “It’ll be because you let go. I can hold on babe. I can hold on longer than any man you’ll ever meet. But I can only hold on for so long by myself.”

  “Oh Shane,” Bobbi whispered.

  But he shook his head and she fell silent.

  “You have to stop running when things get complicated, because I gotta tell ya, Bobbi, we’re fucking complicated. We’re messy and loud. We argue a lot and then we make up. We yell and then we make love until we yell again. It’s what we do. It’s how we are. It’s how we’re wired. It’s not for everyone, but that’s when things are good for us. You get that, right?”

  He moved closer and Bobbi lifted her chin and nodded.

  “Yeah. I get that.”

  “I’m not perfect. In fact, I’m far from it.” Shane said hoarsely, running his hands over the stubble on his chin. “But you and I are the same. We’re made up of raw emotion and most of the time, we act before we think. We’re flesh and bone and want and need. We’re not smooth lines or perfectly executed corners that fit together. We’ve got to fight to keep those pieces in line. We’ve got to fight to keep them strong. But isn’t that what love is? Fighting? Isn’t love about staying in that fight when things get rough? Isn’t it about staying here with me, emotionally and physically, even when you want to run?”

  Bobbi’s eyes overflowed and she wiped at the corners. “Yes,” she whispered.