Seeing Stars: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Baker, Fran

  “And then?”

  Her smile turned upside down; her heart, inside out. “And then I’m going home … alone.”

  “Damn it, Dovie—”

  “Self-pity is a slow poison, Nick.” She stopped on the bottom step and looked back, watching him do battle with himself until she could stand it no longer. “I wish I had something a bit more original to say, but the only thing that comes to mind is that old standby, ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ ”

  Eight

  * * *

  Silent night …

  Except for the fire crackling in the hearth, Dovie’s house was beastly quiet as she decorated her Christmas tree. Halfway through, she stepped back to study her handiwork.

  Pretty homely.

  The problem was, her tree listed. No matter which way she turned it in the three-legged stand, the scraggly little pine looked as tipsy as a sailor on shore leave.

  Worse yet, the dangly old ornaments and the vintage lights, some with the color partly flaked off inside their globes and some of the migraine-inducing “winking bulb” variety, only emphasized the gaps between its branches.

  Maybe icicles would help. Dovie loved icicles. As a child she’d poetically dubbed them “silver rain.” Now she made a determined effort to separate each clinging foil ribbon from its neighbors and the cardboard it came in, planning to drape it strand by strand until it shimmered. Unfortunately, despite her careful work, the icicles looked like dense webbing.

  By the time she finished topping it off with the tin-can star she’d cut out with kitchen scissors some twenty-five years before, she’d decided that her poor little pine looked like the bad dream of a proud gardener.

  All is calm …

  It was her own fault for waiting until Christmas Eve to buy a tree. All the good ones were gone. But when her brothers and sisters had first announced they wouldn’t be coming for Christmas dinner, she hadn’t had the heart to put one up. And after she met Nick … well, she’d put it off, hoping they could shop for one together.

  So much for the power of positive thinking.

  Goose bumps erupted along her arms. Again. She shivered, and settled into her sewing rocker in front of the fire. Funny, really, the way she couldn’t get warm anymore.

  This morning she’d crawled out of her lonely bed and into an old pair of Pop’s long johns. They were too big for her, as were the clothes she’d pulled on over them. She’d lost her appetite the day she’d left Nick in the park, and the irony of that didn’t escape her. Sometimes it seemed she’d spent her whole life battling ten extra pounds. But now that she was within a cranberry-nut loaf of what she considered her ideal weight, she couldn’t have cared less.

  Round yon Virgin …

  A log hissed in the fire and shot a tongue of blue flame sideways. Rocking slowly, she rolled her head toward the tree. There was more to that scrawny little pine than met the eye. Beyond it she saw Mama sitting at the dining-room table with a basket of Christmas cards and her pinking shears, tagging presents long after the babies were in bed.

  Without warning, Nick’s image replaced her mother’s, and Dovie remembered his dark hand reaching across the table for her own, his thumb rubbing the back of her knuckles as they sat and talked after breakfast.

  Forcing herself to look away, she focused on the leather wing chair positioned directly across from her rocker, picturing Pop sitting there with the youngest child on his lap and the older children clubbed around in anticipation. His deep voice traveled to her through the years as he read aloud from the family Bible. “And it came to pass in those days …”

  Nick’s handsome face superimposed itself over her father’s, and Dovie recalled how he’d always claimed that chair as though by right. She found herself listening for his laughter, his next word, his declaration of love.

  But the chair was empty and the sound of silence grew awesome. Why should it be that, even though he was gone, Nick had the power to control her thoughts? Dovie turned her head toward the fire, feeling his absence keenly, knowing a bleakness more complete and sad than that which she had felt at the death of her parents.

  Sleep in heavenly peace …

  Peace, she thought miserably, glancing at her mantel clock and seeing that it was time to get ready for the Christmas pageant. Was it possible to mourn someone who still lived?

  “What time is it?”

  “A quarter to five.”

  Nick groaned. “I’m running late.” But at least he wasn’t running scared anymore. And never again. He handed his houseman a big soft package wrapped in brown paper and tied with gold cord. “Will this fit in the back of the Bronco?”

  “It’s already loaded to the gills, but I’ll see if I can squeeze it in there somewhere.” Harley gave a snort of laughter as he found a place for the huge square package between two of the numerous presents they were hauling back to Spicey Hill. “What’s in that, anyway? It feels like a bundle of feathers.”

  “Come on.” Impatience gnawed at Nick as he climbed into the passenger seat and fastened his safety belt. He dug into his pants pocket and, using his well-honed sense of touch, fingered the faces on the different bills until he found the one he wanted. Ben Franklin. He smiled. “I’ve got a hundred dollars that says you can’t make it in fifty minutes flat.”

  “Put your money where your mouth is.” Harley chuckled as he slammed the door on the driver’s side and buckled up. “It’s as good as mine.”

  Nick had lain awake in his tangled bed last night, wrestling with memories of a woman with boy-cut hair and D-cup breasts and doubting the wisdom of showing up on her doorstep out of the blue.

  Talk about flying blind!

  But Dovie had taught him what it meant to love. To love not because of, but in spite of. He’d been going downhill fast when she’d jerked him up out of his self-pity and made him take a good look at what he was jeopardizing. That was when the healing had begun.

  Now here he was, following his dream—darkly, with neck stuck out.

  “Let me out on the river road,” he instructed Harley forty-nine minutes and a hundred dollars later.

  “I’d be happy to drive you up the hill.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll take the shortcut.” The rushing sound of the river, always different, always the same, told him he was on the right track.

  “I’ll be at the cabin if you need me.”

  “See you in the morning.”

  “With bells on.”

  They shook hands and said good night before going their separate ways.

  “Be careful!” Harley called after him.

  “Don’t worry.” Nick knew his way to Dovie by heart.

  What to wear?

  Something with long sleeves, Dovie decided, reaching into her closet for that old standby, the black wool crepe sheath. Her bare arm brushed against the red silk dress she’d worn the night of the Rodgerses’ Christmas party. On a whim she pulled it off its padded hanger and held it up in front of her, smiling as she remembered how young and giddy and beautiful she’d felt while dancing with Nick in that softly lit hallway.

  Memories.

  Laughter as warm as a tropical breeze … kisses sweeter than blackberry wine … eyes as cold as the Arctic sky. Dovie shivered, her smile disappearing as she put the red dress back in her closet and slipped into the sensible black sheath. Moving to the cheval mirror, she made a moue at her reflection.

  Too severe.

  She heard her mantel clock strike six. The church would be crowded tonight, so she’d have to hurry if she wanted to get a good seat. Turning away from the mirror, she opened the bottom drawer of her chiffonier to look for a pair of gloves.

  Well, for crying out loud …

  Dovie lifted her mother’s long ivory lace scarf from its nest of tissue paper and, on impulse, tied it loosely about her neck, letting the knot lie between her breasts and wishing she had a pretty pin to hold it in place.

  Law, how quickly we forget!

  Standing in front of the mirror
again, she fastened the scarf to the front of her dress with her grandmother’s pin of faux pearls and faceted glass. To further soften her appearance, she added matching oval-shaped earrings.

  Much better.

  The scarf and jewelry set off her delicate jaw and classic cheekbones. Artfully applied makeup made her dark-lashed brown eyes seem even larger than they were, as did her hair, which she’d brushed back off her face, leaving just a few tiny angel-wisps at her temples.

  She looked, in short, like a woman who had taken charge of her life and meant to make the most of it. And she had Nick to thank for that. He’d forced her to face the truth, that it was time to stop playing earth mother to everyone else and start taking care of herself. Now, if only he’d quit playing so hard to forget …

  No!

  Catching herself before she could wallow in her misery-laden memories, Dovie grabbed her gloves off the chiffonier and went to find her heavy cardigan sweater. Her movements stirred the attar of roses, which was trapped in the fabric of her dress. In the living room she unplugged the Christmas-tree lights. Then, satisfied that she hadn’t forgotten anything—

  Who could that be? she wondered when the doorbell rang. Assuming it was a neighbor needing a ride to church, she ran to answer it.

  “Merry Christmas.” Nick entered on a draft of frosty air, his hands deep in the pockets of his cashmere overcoat.

  Dovie’s eyes flew to his, and her heart went on an old-fashioned sleigh ride when she saw he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Well …” He cleared his throat as his voice grew thick with words that would have to wait. “Are you ready to go?”

  Warmth laced through her limbs as she put on her cardigan sweater before taking his arm. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Hail, Mary …” Draped in a white sheet and sporting wings fashioned of gold foil, Rebecca got the pageant off to a good start by reciting her piece perfectly.

  Nobody minded that the baby-doll Jesus lay in the manger long before the arrival of Mary and Joseph. Nor did anybody object when one of the shepherds scratched in all the wrong places.

  By the time Rachel made her appearance in a boy’s bathrobe that read “Dallas Cowboys” on the back and brought the production to an end with a resounding “myrrh,” there wasn’t a dry eye in the congregation.

  During the service that followed the pageant, Dovie felt proud to be standing beside Nick. He cut a handsome figure in his gray wool suit, starched white shirt, and wine-colored tie. When they knelt and bowed their heads in prayer, she knew a spiritual high she’d never known before.

  “Why aren’t you singing?” he whispered between the first and second verses of “Joy to the World.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket,” she admitted cheerfully. “So I just lip-synch and hope that God has a good ear.”

  Nick’s voice was rich with meaning, his hand on her nape warm with wanting, as he murmured, “At the risk of sounding sacrilegious, so do I.”

  Dovie’s hand reached for his, and in their clasp the heartache of months dissolved, drowning out doubt and despair. How and when she had insinuated herself into that realm of his consciousness called confidence remained a mystery. Suffice it to say that her love filled the dark corners of his soul with light.

  After the service they joined the rest of the congregation for coffee or juice in the common room.

  “Merry Christmas, Doc.” Charlie greeted him with a hearty handshake.

  Nick noticed a definite improvement in the greengrocer’s grip. “Say, the swelling’s gone down some, hasn’t it?”

  “Thanks to you.”

  “You still need to see a doctor, though.”

  “What’s wrong with the doctor I’m seeing right now?” Charlie challenged.

  A frisson of professional pride raced along Nick’s spine. He shook his head and smiled. “Nothing that a few more patients with your blind faith can’t cure.”

  The two men talked a little while longer, mostly about fishing, before parting with another friendly handshake.

  Nick set his empty coffee cup aside, wondering as he did so where Dovie had disappeared to. Damn it, he’d shared her long enough! Now he wanted her all to himself.

  As though she’d read his mind, she reappeared at his side. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye to Rachel and Rebecca.”

  Guilt twisted his insides when he heard the tension in her voice. He draped a reassuring arm across her shoulders. “Where are they?”

  She gestured vaguely. “Over there.”

  In his gut Nick began to feel a premonition. “With Jack and Jayrene?”

  “Yes,” she admitted nervously.

  “Who else is there?”

  “Curtis and Linda.”

  “And?”

  “Ray and Lon.”

  “What about Merle and Mary?”

  She was surprised he remembered. “They’re there too.”

  Thinking it was high time her family came to its collective senses, he steered her in that direction. “You know, I never had any brothers or sisters.”

  “Nick—”

  “I used to envy the kids who did, wondering how it would feel to have a friend or even someone to fight with living under the same roof.”

  As though he didn’t hear the glacial silence that greeted them or feel the chill of disapproval that iced her skin, he steered her straight to the center of her family circle and demanded, “Where’s your manners, woman? Introduce me to my future in-laws.”

  Dovie’s head snapped up as if he’d just shouted her name. “What did you say?”

  He grinned. “You heard me. Now, are you or aren’t you going to introduce me to them?”

  What else could she do? She introduced him. “Nick, you remember my brother Curtis.”

  “Sure do.” He extended his hand. “Good to see you again, Curtis. How’s the baby?”

  “Fine.” Curtis ignored his hand.

  Nick thought about offering him a knuckle sandwich instead, but suppressed the notion and moved on. “And whom do we have here?”

  After giving Curtis a glare that would have freeze-dried coffee, Dovie said, “This is my brother Jack. I don’t see Rebecca and Rachel right now—they’ve probably gone to change clothes—but he’s the proud papa.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Jack.” Nick kept his hand out, daring him to shake it. “If I don’t see the girls before I go, would you tell them how much I enjoyed their performance tonight?”

  Jack ignored both his hand and his request.

  And so it went, with Ray and Lon and Merle and Mary rejecting him in turn. Infuriated to think he’d met with such discourtesy from her own family, Dovie realized that the time had come for that confrontation she and Arie had discussed some time ago.

  “I never thought I’d say this about my own flesh and blood,” she said, seething, “but I’m ashamed of you—all of you.”

  “Dovie,” Nick said in a tone of soft rebuke. He could understand her flare of temper, but saw no sense in adding fuel to the fire. “It’s not important.”

  She felt the restraining hand he laid on her shoulder and turned her head slightly in his direction. Then her eyes roamed around the circle of people with frozen expressions surrounding them, and twenty years of all give and no take boiled up inside her.

  “It’s important to me,” she insisted firmly. “I raised them, but I hardly recognize them. And I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and let them insult the man I love.”

  God above, Nick thought as he turned her loose, what he wouldn’t give to see her now! He could actually feel the anger radiating from her lush body. And he could picture her saucy little chin pointed skyward. Better yet, he could just imagine her ripe breasts heaving with fury on his behalf.

  “Now, Dovie—” Curtis began.

  “Don’t you ‘now, Dovie’ me!”

  “We only want what’s best for you.”

  “Then you’d bette
r shake Nick Monroe’s hand, brother dearest, because he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.” When her challenge went unanswered, she rounded on the lot of them. “You don’t want what’s best for me. You want what’s best from me. And you don’t want to share it with anyone else.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Mary demanded.

  Dovie wheeled on her sister. “Who stayed up night after night making your wedding dress? Who sewed all those tiny little buttons down the back and up the sleeves? Who hand-stitched yards and yards of lace to the hem and the collar and the cuffs?”

  Mary’s mouth dropped open, then closed in chagrin.

  “And you, Merle. When your second-grade teacher put you in remedial reading, who sat at the kitchen table with you after everyone else had gone to bed and worked with you until you could tell your b’s from your d’s?”

  Merle hung his head.

  “Ray, who cried buckets of tears when you and those juvenile delinquents you used to run around with took a joyride in the sheriff’s car? Then who saw to it that you toed the mark until the judge released you from probation?”

  Her brother’s face turned as red as if he’d been on the river all day.

  She looked straight at Lon. “Who typed your résumé when you wanted to change jobs last year? And corrected your spelling in the process, I might add?”

  Lon looked away.

  “And Jack, who spotted the ‘For Sale’ sign in front of that big old house that you and Jayrene and the girls are living in? Then who insisted that you have the house inspected for termites and talked the owner down five thousand dollars because of the damage?”

  Jack stared at the tips of his shoes.

  At long last she turned to Curtis. “Who found you and Linda lying half-dead in your bed? Who went to the delivery room with her and witnessed your baby’s first breath? Who came straight to Intensive Care with the news that you’d fathered a healthy boy?”

  Curtis swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down convulsively.

  “All of you have had exclusive use of my eyes for twenty years, but …” Dovie paused, recalling the vigils she’d kept. Even knowing she was finally doing the right thing, she felt a terrible sense of loss. “But it’s time you learned to share them. And as much as it pains me to say this, it’s past time you started looking our for yourselves.”