Danny opened his eyes. A snowflake landed on his eyelashes. He closed his eyes.
This was a moment Cate knew she’d lock in her heart forever. She looked up and saw Trent watching them. Gone was his stern and interrogating stance. His shoulders had softened. A smile bloomed slowly across his lips, and his eyes twinkled at her like stars. It was the look she remembered from those frightening nights when Brad had first appeared and Trent had been there to hold her. Comfort her.
Trent didn’t move, but his eyes carried a thousand messages to her, and all of them spoke of love.
He loved her. She knew it, and no matter how much he protested that he wasn’t good for her, she knew otherwise.
Danny opened his eyes, righted his head and stretched out his hand. “This one has magic, Mom. Let’s buy it.”
Cate didn’t take her eyes off Trent. His gaze was unswerving. “Yes,” she said. “Magic.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TRENT HAD HELPED Jarod tie two Christmas trees to the roof of the SUV. Just as they started toward town, the pewter-gray skies sifted fat snowflakes across the rolling farmland and divided highway. As they passed a two-story white clapboard farmhouse with green shutters, Trent noticed the couple on the wraparound porch hanging a wreath on the front door. Adjacent to the house, two black-as-night horses bent over a stash of hay just inside a fenced-in corral, oblivious to the snow.
“Mom, look at the horses!” Danny exclaimed. “Just like the song. Dashing through the snow.”
“That’s right,” Cate said, and suggested they all sing Christmas songs.
It had been a long time since Trent had felt like singing or paying the least attention to holidays. If it weren’t for his mother’s pleading, he’d miss Christmas altogether. He liked the way Danny substituted words he didn’t know for the song. He especially liked the sound of Cate’s voice and the way that she glanced at him from time to time, making sure he was joining in the fun. He almost felt he was a part of their...
Life?
No. Impossible, Trent. Get your head where it belongs.
They all kept singing. Trent couldn’t help dreaming and asking himself, what if?
Trent had gone along with “Jingle Bells,” but by the time Mrs. Beabots started singing “Winter Wonderland,” Trent glanced in the rearview mirror and realized that the red Jeep Cherokee behind them hadn’t passed them when several other cars had. Trent was driving five miles under the speed limit due to the trees on the roof.
Danny sang in a voice so clear, Trent encouraged him to try out for the children’s choir. This set off a new round of discussion and kept Cate and Mrs. Beabots busy conversing with Danny, giving Trent a chance to scope out the driver.
He could see two men in the front seats and a third in the back. They were young. The driver wore a hoodie and had the hood pulled down so far that Trent had a hard time making out any of his features, though he thought he saw black hair falling over the man’s forehead. He couldn’t make out the man in the backseat at all.
They’d entered the city limits, and Trent slowed the SUV. He thought seriously of taking a page from Cate’s playbook when she’d circled Indian Lake when Le Grande was following her. The difference was that she’d been alone. He had three passengers. He couldn’t risk their safety.
Trent drove down Main Street and stopped at the light to Maple Boulevard. He eased into the left-turn lane.
The snow was coming down in full force. He turned on the wipers. The headlights were already on. He watched for the Jeep. It was six cars back in the through lane. He wasn’t being followed.
He exhaled. When the green arrow lit up, he turned left. It was only four blocks to Mrs. Beabots’s house.
Trent parked at the curb so that he could untie the trees and take them through the front door.
Trent used his pocketknife to cut the twine that held the trees. He hoisted Cate’s short pine tree off the SUV roof and placed it on the ground.
“Our tree! Now it’s really like Christmas!” Danny said, clapping his hands as Cate grabbed the tree and started up the walk.
“If you’ll hang on a minute, I’ll help with that,” Trent said.
“Should I call Luke next door to see if he can help you with Mrs. Beabots’s tree? It’s awfully big,” Cate said with a smile that warmed Trent more than a mug of hot cocoa.
“Nah, I’ve got it,” he assured her, and walked around to the side of the SUV. He grabbed the tree, hauled it off the roof and held it over his head.
Just as he did, he heard a car driving toward them. It was going fast. Too fast. Trent’s inner alarms jangled. He looked up at the red Jeep.
This time, all three men were staring at him as if they knew him.
Le Grande’s gang! Trent instantly recognized the driver from the mug shots Richard Schmitz had sent him.
Trent pitched the Christmas tree to the ground with no more effort than if the Douglas fir were a toothpick.
“I’ll be back!” he shouted at Cate and Mrs. Beabots, and shot across the street, over the boulevard, across the other side of the street and to the police station parking lot. He took his car keys out of his pocket and hit the remote before he got to his vehicle. He jumped in the car, turned the engine and peeled out of the lot.
At the crosswalk, he turned the car in the opposite direction and sped past Cate, Danny and Mrs. Beabots, who stared wide-eyed at him.
He turned on his siren and lights.
“This time, I gotcha.”
The Jeep was no match for Trent’s Mercedes engine. In seconds he was right on their tail as they hit the southbound highway out of town. There was little traffic, but the snow was coming down thick and heavy.
Trent wasn’t about to let even a whiteout stop him.
The Jeep driver hit the gas rather than slow down.
It was just as Trent predicted—criminals made mistakes. An illegal car chase with police would land these yahoos in the can for a month.
He reported to dispatch his location and asked for backup.
The Jeep increased its speed, and so did Trent. They careened around a pickup truck and a Prius, but kept going. The snow made the highway slick, but the greater danger was the fact that it was becoming nearly impossible to see any vehicles ahead.
“Add reckless driving. Keep it up, boys.”
Before the Jeep topped 90 miles an hour, Trent overtook them doing 110. He rolled down his window and motioned for them to pull over.
The Jeep tried to lunge ahead.
Trent heard sirens in the distance.
He pressed his foot to the gas and sped ahead, then wove just close enough to them to let the driver know he intended to force them off the road if he needed.
The Jeep slowed. Trent kept pace. It was possible they could brake hard and spin. Crash both cars. Kill them all. If they were high on the heroin they sold, there was no telling what they would do. They were loose cannons. Unpredictable and a hundred times more dangerous than sober perps.
The sirens behind him grew louder. Trent could see the flashing lights through the snowfall, making everything look like a winter wonderland.
Before the three backup cops arrived, the Jeep had slowed and pulled off to the shoulder. Trent stopped behind them. By the time he got out of his car, one of the backup cops had shot around to the front of the Jeep and parked his car so that the Jeep driver couldn’t take off. The other two cars parked behind Trent.
He was glad to see Sal Paluzzi and shook his hand. “One of these guys is wanted by CPD. Check out the others. I’m betting they’re all Le Grande’s men.”
“Good work, Detective.”
“Not really. Apparently, they were on to me. I don’t like it.” He looked up at the Jeep and watched as the other officers handcuffed the three men.
“What are my marching orders?” Sal asked.
“For now, take these guys to the station and book them. I’ll be there in half an hour to fill out my report.”
“Where you goin’?” Sal asked.
“I left a Christmas tree on the sidewalk. Once I get it taken care of, I’ll meet you at the station.”
Sal smiled. “A Christmas tree? Never thought I’d see the day.”
Trent playfully socked him in his bicep. “Funny.”
Trent got back in his car, buckled up and drove to the U-turn in the median. He topped the speed limit getting to town.
These men had surely called Le Grande and told him that Trent was hiding Cate at Mrs. Beabots’s house. Trent took a measure of comfort in the fact that he’d be sleeping in the parlor at Mrs. Beabots’s tonight.
He gripped the steering wheel and straightened his back. He was determined to keep them all safe. He had promised Cate.
* * *
CATE’S HEAD WAS filled with a constant replay of Trent tossing Mrs. Beabots’s monstrous tree onto the sidewalk and bolting across the street to his car. She hadn’t seen anything that would cause her to worry or be on alert. But Trent had. Before she’d dragged her little tree to the front steps, four police cars had shot out of the police station lot and raced past the house, lights flashing, sirens screaming. Danny had covered his ears. Mrs. Beabots had looked unfazed. She’d turned to Cate, adjusted her vintage Chanel purse on her shoulder and said, “Trent is taking care of business, I see. Let’s go inside and worry about the trees later.”
Cate had yanked the tree another few feet, but Mrs. Beabots was already walking quickly toward them both with her hands out to her sides as if herding geese.
“Inside.”
Mrs. Beabots had ushered them into the kitchen where they hung their coats on the white wooden pegs in the back entryway. “I’ll make us some tea,” she said, hustling to the sink to fill the painted kettle. “Danny, would you like a cookie? After all that work picking out a tree, I should think you’re famished.”
Danny’s eyes grew wide and wary as he shot a glance at Cate. “Can I, Mom?”
Cate didn’t miss the wink Mrs. Beabots gave her. “Sure. But just one.”
“I’ll make a large pot of strong tea. Trent will want some when he gets back,” Mrs. Beabots said, turning on the gas stove.
“Did he tell you that? He just took off so strangely...”
Cate hadn’t known what to think of his actions. Her first thought was that he’d gotten some kind of text from the dispatcher. Obviously, he was still on duty, though he’d told her that she and Danny were his primary case.
“He didn’t have to. I know my way around police fairly well,” Mrs. Beabots replied with mixed tones of assuredness and vagueness. She was forever dropping hints about things that could only relate to her past.
“You do?” Cate wasn’t about to let this one go. For one thing she wanted to know if Mrs. Beabots knew aspects of Trent’s character that Cate had missed or overlooked. Secondly, there was the woman herself who was one of the most interesting mysteries in town. Perhaps it was because Cate had told so many lies about her own past that she was curious about Mrs. Beabots. Cate had seen too many tap dances instead of direct answers to questions from the elderly woman. No, there was something here. She knew something.
“Of course, dear. I’ve been on the board for their Widows and Orphans Fund for decades. That’s only the beginning.” Then she busied herself with the tea, cookies and lemon slices.
“I’m sure,” Cate said, and helped carry the tray to the front parlor where they could watch for Trent’s return.
Within twenty minutes, the snow stopped and Cate could easily see his car as he pulled in to the police station lot. He sprinted across the street, picked up the huge Christmas tree and rang the bell.
Danny abandoned his cookie, and raced to the door to welcome Trent with a huge hug.
“Hey, buddy. Now, Mrs. Beabots,” he said as Cate and Mrs. Beabots had walked into the foyer, “just exactly where is the tree going?” He smiled brilliantly at Cate, never taking his eyes from her face.
She felt herself blushing. And putting her hand to her cheek. And looking away as if his stare would turn her to jelly or dust or something unpleasant. She wondered if Mrs. Beabots could see that, too, with her finely tuned sensitivities.
Cate took her cue from Trent who obviously was not about to tell her anything. “I’ve placed a plastic tarp in the library where Mrs. Beabots wants the tree this year.”
“In the corner next to the fireplace,” Mrs. Beabots added.
Danny scrambled past Trent and Cate, shot down the main hall to the library and flung open the huge mahogany pocket doors. “In here! This is where Santa will come down the chimney!”
She and Trent placed the tree and righted it. He wired the trunk with some fishing line to a hook screw he’d placed in the wall next to a gilt-framed portrait of Raymond Beabots, with permission from Mrs. Beabots.
When they’d finished stringing the lights, it was dinnertime. Mrs. Beabots, who gave the impression that every meal was a culinary extravaganza, ordered pizza. They sat on the library sofa, eating and talking about the position of lights.
“After we finish our pizza,” Trent said, “I’ll get your tree upstairs for you, Danny. You can put the lights on tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Trent,” Cate replied, reaching for another piece of pizza at the same time as Trent. Their hands skimmed each other. The zing she felt was familiar but still stunning. She dropped the slice. “Sorry.”
“Did you want that one? It has more sausage.”
Heaven help her, she looked into his eyes and melted faster than snow on a spring day. He quickly turned his head and asked Danny a question about Christmas, and Danny launched into his near-delirium over the upcoming school pageant.
All Cate’s thoughts focused on Trent. Tonight he would be sleeping in the front parlor. He was downstairs. Right beneath her bedroom. Yet, he could have been a million miles away.
She knew now the wall he continued to build between them was due to his PTSD. She wished she could show him how wrong he was—allowing himself to be a slave to a disorder that was treatable. She wanted to help him, but he allowed barely any conversation between them. Every topic was inane and shallow. Polite chatter. And heartbreaking for her because she wanted so much more.
True to his word, Trent put up the little tree, said good-night to her, hugged Danny fiercely, then ruffled his hair. “Go have your bath and say your prayers,” Trent said. “I’ll be right downstairs.” He looked at Cate meaningfully. “I’ll be working on my report on my laptop so that I don’t have to go to the station to file it. I can just email it in.”
In that space of mere seconds, she believed she could hear his thoughts. He wanted to say more to her, be more to her, give more to her. But it was as if barbed wire and trenches had been erected between them. Things were what they were. She was his charge, and as such she was his duty he had to perform. For some reason he didn’t believe that he could find treatment, even a cure. He’d been wounded so long he was used to it. It was his comfort zone.
What he didn’t know was that Cate was determined to wrench him out of that place and show him that maybe he could have a different life. A better life.
“See you in the morning.” Danny waved as Trent left the apartment.
* * *
“MOM? EARTH TO MOM?” Danny poked her cheek with his forefinger. “Do you think Trent will really be there to see me in the Christmas pageant? I beat out four kids to be the angel.” He puffed out his chest. “He just has to see me!”
“I know for a fact that he wouldn’t miss it.”
“But what if he has to go away? Like today? You know, on an emergency?”
“Then I’ll video y
our performance on my phone.”
“He just has to see me,” Danny said with a sigh that only a six-year-old could expel, filled with expectation and devastation over promises not kept by adults.
Cate enfolded him and held him close, smelling baby shampoo and the vanilla shower gel he loved so much. “Trent would do anything for you, Danny.”
Danny hugged her back. “Then can we ask him for Christmas dinner, too?”
“Sure.” She released him and finished buttoning the top button of his pajamas.
“What about asking him to come on the Candlelight House Tour with us?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And what about Christmas Eve? He could go to church with us. And open a present with us. I got him something, you know.”
Cate sat back on her heels and held Danny by the shoulders. “When did you do this?”
“Mrs. Beabots and I went shopping. She helped me,” he said proudly. “I bought yours, too.”
“And where did you get the money for this?”
“Piggy bank.” He rolled his eyes like she was clueless. “Where else?”
“My goodness. You’re way ahead of me.”
He nodded as he climbed into bed. “I know. But you have to work, and that takes up too much time.”
“It does.” Cate and Danny recited his prayers.
“And God bless Mom, Mrs. Beabots, Annie, Timmy, Mr. Luke and Miss Sarah and my friends and especially Trent.” Danny smiled at her, held out his arms and hugged her.
“Now close your eyes,” she said as she shut the bedroom door and went to her room.
She showered, washed her hair and dried it. She slipped on a pair of flannel pajamas she’d bought on sale at the discount store. They were thin and would never keep her warm enough, but she was too tired to put on a cardigan. Instead, she climbed into bed and drew her knees to her chest.
She wondered if Trent was warm on the sofa. Did he sleep soundly after that car pursuit, which he couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her about? Did he think about her even half as much as she thought about him? And if he did, what were his thoughts?
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