Abby's Christmas

by Lynnette Kent

  He handed Rob the tool. “Look, this is a bad idea. I’m going to clear out and let the poor lady relax.”

  His boss gave him a level look. “You’ll give up that easily?”

  Noah slapped a hand against the counter. “I’m trying to save the job for you, man. If I leave, you’ll get the work done just as fast, she’ll pay you and it’ll be a good day. If I stay…she’s gonna dither herself into asking us both to leave.”

  A door in the back of the house slammed. “Fluffy,” Mrs. O’Brien called. “Fluffy, you come back here.”

  But Fluffy had reached the kitchen and announced her presence with a chain of high-pitched barks. Rob threw the moppy little dog a dirty look. “Don’t come near me, mutt. I still have a scar on my hand.”

  With the courage of a lion, Fluffy did come nearer, but then detoured to Noah’s feet. When Mrs. O’Brien reached the kitchen, Fluffy was making a thorough inspection of the scents on Noah’s boots.

  “Fluffy. Fluffy, come here.” The old lady stood paralyzed across the room from Noah, afraid to approach him, desperate to get her dog.

  Noah crouched down and put his hand near the dog’s nose. “Hey, Fluffy. You like my boots? You’re a good dog, aren’t you? Taking care of Mrs. O’Brien?” Intent on snuffling, Fluffy dragged her nose over his hand. After a couple of seconds, Noah ran his fingers over the streaked blond head and back, and then his whole hand. With just a little bit of coaxing, Fluffy trusted him enough to let him pick her up. When he walked over to give her back to Mrs. O’Brien, the dog was licking his face.

  “Here you go.” He cradled the dog in his hands until Mrs. O’Brien took hold. “She’s cute.”

  The old lady stared at him as he backed away, and then at the dog. “Well. Thank you.” She looked at Rob, and Noah, and Rob again. “I…I’ll let you get on with your work,” she said, and hurried toward the back of the house.

  “Now, that’s courage,” Rob said, grinning. “I never would have put my hand close to that dog’s teeth.” He showed Noah a red crescent of bite marks on the side of his hand. “See what I mean?”

  Noah couldn’t help his own smile. “Guess I smell better than you do.”

  “Yeah, right. What’s the name of your cologne?”

  “Eau de Roast Beef.”

  They stopped briefly for lunch and then went back to work, finishing up the installation as daylight started to fade. Rob walked Mrs. O’Brien through her new security system while Noah put the tools and equipment in the van.

  “If you drive, I can finish up this paperwork on the way back to the shop,” Rob said. “Then we’ll park the van and be ready to go home to supper.”

  Noah got behind the wheel and adjusted the seat, since Rob’s six-four height left Noah about five inches short of the gas pedal. Once out of the neighborhood, he turned toward downtown and had just cleared the last traffic light when a siren sounded behind him. The rearview mirror showed him a police car on the tail of the van, lights flashing.

  He knew, even without seeing the driver’s face, what was coming. “Sorry,” he said to Rob as he pulled the van over to the curb. “Supper’s going to be a little later than we thought.”

  With the window rolled down, he reached for his wallet and brought out his driver’s license. Rob took the van’s registration out of the glove compartment and Noah held both at the ready when Wade Hayes came up beside him.

  “I thought that was you, Blake.” Wade jerked the registration and license out of his fingers. “And I wondered what the hell you were doing driving a van. Thought I’d better check it out.” He leaned down and peered at Rob through the window. “Let me have your license, too, Warren. I don’t want my man here driving a stolen vehicle.”

  Rob muttered something about what Wade could do with the license, the registration and the van. Noah swallowed a laugh and handed over Rob’s ID as well. Then Wade walked back to his cruiser and stayed there for thirty minutes.

  “I’m damn sure this is police harassment.” Rob had already called home to let Valerie know he’d be late. “You should report him.”

  “They like to play these games. It’s a power trip, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Pete doesn’t play games. His work is serious.”

  “There are usually a few good apples in a rotten barrel.”

  Finally, Wade moseyed back to the window. “Sorry about the delay.” He flipped the two licenses and the registration into the dark interior of the van, where they fell between the seats. “The computers were down and I had to wait for the system to come up again. You’re free to go. Watch your step, Blake.” With a slap on the roof of the vehicle, he walked back to the police car and turned off the flashing lights.

  “So now I’ve got a headache the size of the county.” Rob rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I hope you get to punch that guy out someday.”

  “Not half as much as I do,” Noah told him. “And it had better be someday soon.”

  AFTER HIS SECOND SUCCESSFUL workday, Noah decided to stop by and see his mom before he went home. Just because she didn’t want him living there didn’t mean he couldn’t at least visit.

  As he waited at a traffic light on the far end of Boundary Street, he glanced at the car parked along the curb next to him and recognized the same beatup white Toyota he’d seen on his first day in town, with the same little kid in the back seat. Tonight, the child was asleep in his car seat. Through the window, Noah could tell that his face was dirty and tear-stained. Again. The jeans and shirt looked like the same ones he’d worn almost a week ago. Had anyone changed his clothes since then?

  The Toyota sat in front of Chico’s Fiesta Lounge. Judging by the music coming out the door, they had a real party going on inside. Noah was tempted to go in after the miserable excuse for a parent who would leave a little boy in a car outside a bar while he went in to get plastered.

  When the light changed, he went so far as to turn the corner, instead of going straight, and parked in a no-parking zone nearby. But with his hand on the key, he stopped to think.

  How many times had he rushed in to solve somebody else’s problem, only to end up getting shafted himself? The last time, he’d spent three years in prison and had his life pretty much destroyed. Would this be simply one more example of Noah Blake setting himself up to take the fall? Just when he was trying to set up a new life?

  He could call the police—and end up facing Wade Hayes again. Noah knew how that would turn out. Chances were good he’d be in jail before morning. Unless…

  Putting the bike in gear, he drove on up the hill and parked in front of his mom’s house. By the time he reached the porch, he felt almost confident. He had a reason to be here. She couldn’t just throw him out.

  The door opened a few inches and she peered out at him. “What do you want?”

  Glad to see you, too. “Hey, Ma, I need to use your phone. Can I come in?”

  “You get kicked out by the Bells already?” She grumbled, but she also stepped back and let him inside the house.

  “Nope. But I need to report a kid left in a car outside a bar.” He dialed 911.

  “A kid in a car? So what?”

  “A little boy, strapped in his car seat all by himself, outside a bar. And it’s not the first time. I saw him the day I came into town.”

  The police dispatch station finally answered his call. “Yeah, I need to report an abandoned child.” He explained the situation to the skeptical operator. “Chico’s Fiesta Lounge, that’s right.”

  When she pressed him for his name, he disconnected the call. “I guess they can get the records for the call if they really want to,” he told his mother. “But as long as they take care of the kid, it’ll be okay.”

  “So now you’re leaving, I guess.”

  “I’d like to sit down and talk, if you’ve got time.”

  “Humph.” She sat down in her chair again and picked up the remote, but only to turn down the volume.

  “I was thinking,”
Noah said into the relative silence, “about doing some work on the house.”

  “What’s wrong with the house? What kind of work?” He could hear her breath rasp in her chest.

  So he tried to be gentle. “There’s a shutter hanging loose. Screens torn. The fence is rusted and falling down in a few places. I can fix all that. I can even paint the house, when it gets a little warmer.”

  “Did you come back to town just to criticize the way I’ve taken care of the house? It’s not like I’m rolling in money, you know. My social security barely covers food and electricity.”

  “I know, Ma. I’m not criticizing. Just trying to help.”

  She banged the remote control on the arm of the chair. “Well, I’m not paying for that kind of nonsense. House stays warm and dry, that’s all I care about. God knows nobody else ever cared even that much.”

  Noah stood up before the conversation could get worse. “I’ll come over Saturday and see if I can get a few things done. If you think of something you want me to do, here’s my new phone number.” He set a card on the table by her elbow. “G’night.”

  “Humph,” she said again, just as he shut the front door. But when Noah looked back into the house through the front window, he could see his mother sitting in her chair, staring at that card.

  By now, any ambition he’d had to cook his own dinner had melted away. Heading toward the diner, he passed Chico’s and got the satisfaction of seeing a couple of police cruisers parked out front with their lights flashing. In the next second, he realized that the white Toyota was missing from the picture.

  He circled the block and came back to the corner across the street from Chico’s. This time, he killed the motor, swung his leg over and left the bike parked. Joining the crowd gathered on the sidewalk in front of the bar, he started asking questions.

  “What happened? What’s going on?”

  After a dozen I-don’t-knows, he got hold of a guy who did. “Place was robbed, not fifteen minutes ago. Police showed up on time for once, but they didn’t get the guy. He was long gone.”

  Shaking his head, Noah turned away. The police had come on his call and missed both the child abuser and the robber….

  When the thought occurred to him, he nearly tripped as he jolted off the sidewalk into the street. How likely was it that both the robber and the neglectful dad would be in the same bar at the same time?

  Not nearly as likely as the idea that the robber left his kid in the car while he went inside to stick up the place.

  By the time Noah finished giving the information to the police, his stomach had started roaring for food. He drove down to the diner, not sure if they’d even be open this late, or have anything left he could eat. He’d settle for a mug of hot chocolate, and one of Abby’s smiles.

  The lights were still shining inside the Carolina Diner, though, and he recognized Dixon Bell’s truck in the parking lot. His stomach grumbling, he pulled open the door and heard the welcome jingle of the bell.

  “Noah! You’re just in time.” Kate got up from her seat and came to meet him, caught his hand and led him back to a table where a crowd of people sat over the remains of a meal. Besides Dixon and Kate, Mary Rose and Pete Mitchell were seated, along with Adam and Phoebe DeVries. Abby was nowhere to be seen.

  “Is this a meeting I was supposed to show up for?”

  “No, but you’re welcome to join the celebration.” Dixon pulled back a chair beside him. “Have a seat. Abby is whipping up dessert. She’ll be back in a minute.”

  “So what are you celebrating?” Noah dropped into the chair.

  Kate held up a sheet of paper and fluttered it in the air. “This is it. I did it. I’m in.”

  He thought a second, then grinned. “Law school?”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” She threw the paper into the air above her head and caught it as it drifted down. “Ten years later, I get to go.”

  “That’s terrific, Kate. Congratulations.”

  “This will be handy,” Pete said. “Having a lawyer in the family means we can get ourselves out of jail, sue whoever we want to, make our own wills…”

  Mary Rose rolled her eyes. “Hush. What kind of law are you going to practice, Kate?”

  She looked at them all for a long moment. “I’m thinking about going into the public defender’s office.”

  Pete groaned and buried his face in his good arm, folded on the table. Mary Rose looked stunned. Baby Joey took advantage of the moment to pull her hair.

  “Ow.” Easing the golden strand from her son’s chubby fingers, she pretended to frown. “Go to your father, rascal. I’d like five minutes alone.”

  Pete took over the little boy, whose dark hair and gray eyes made him the spitting image of his dad. “I don’t have enough hair to pull, so what are you gonna do now?”

  Joey closed a fist around Pete’s nose and squeezed.

  While they were all laughing, Abby came around the counter, carrying a cake flaming with candles. “I didn’t have any decorations that looked right,” she said, setting the creation in front of Kate on the table. “So I decided we’d just light up the night.”

  “It’s beautiful. Do I get to blow them out?” Kate looked at her husband, who nodded.

  “Damn right, you do.”

  Joey chose that moment to notice the candles. He stretched his arms out, making an “ahahaha” sound. Before Pete could move, Abby swooped the little boy out of his dad’s hold and walked to the other end of the table.

  “We’ll keep you safe down here,” she crooned, “while your aunt Kate blows out her candles.”

  “Here I go,” Kate said, drawing a huge breath. She gave a mighty whoosh and the flames disappeared, to applause and congratulatory shouts. Grinning, Noah clapped his hands with all the rest, then looked at the other end of the table, where Abby stood.

  “Noah,” she said as a surprised smile stole over her face. “I didn’t know you’d come in.”

  She stared at him with an expression he’d never seen before. Yes, it was a smile, but at the same time something more than a smile, something warm and sweet and welcoming that seemed to move into him and take hold in the gentlest, softest way imaginable. For the first time in his life, he understood the word transfixed.

  While he stared back, he had a chance to take in the picture Abby made with the little boy. Joey was pulling her long ponytail, playing with the curls in a way Noah longed to do. The sight of the two of them together—the baby happily resting on Abby’s lush hip, with her right arm curled around his legs and her left hand resting on his waist—delivered a punch to the gut that robbed Noah of any breath at all.

  The possibility of having a real life flashed through his brain—one that included babies and friends to celebrate with, a job he enjoyed, a chance to do some good for his town. For a second, he felt as if he could reach out and touch the future.

  His future…his and Abby’s.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Diary of Abby Brannon

  August 27, 1985

  Dear Diary,

  High school is very cool. The teachers don’t treat us like babies anymore. We don’t have to eat lunch if we don’t want to. I’m not even taking gym class this year!

  I saw the whole gang—Dixon and Rob have gotten tall. Adam’s still cute and nice and Pete is still sports crazy. Mary Rose and Kate spent the summer at the beach and are tanned and beautiful. Jacquie rode every day and she’s tanned, too. Beside them, I feel like a lump of biscuit dough. I don’t eat much most days—being around food all the time kills my appetite. The magazines say exercise is important, and I walk every afternoon and all day Saturday and Sunday—between tables at the diner. I guess I’m just doomed to be pale and fat. Nobody’s idea of a girlfriend.

  Noah is in my homeroom, but no other classes. We’re sitting in alphabetical order again, so he’s right in front of me and he smiled as he walked in. It’s such a nice smile, I can’t believe he’s as bad as they say. He’s a lot taller this year, too, and bi
gger somehow. Really tanned. I didn’t see him all summer, so I don’t know what he did. He walked to first period with Kim Curry, who looks like Barbie, only better.

  I think there are some doughnuts in the kitchen. Maybe I do eat too much. I’ll try to be better. Tomorrow.

  November 12, 1985

  Dear Diary,

  I couldn’t go to sleep if I wanted to. My heart’s still pounding and my hands are shaking. I want to cry, but I keep smiling, too.

  Dad let me off work at seven-thirty tonight so Jacquie and I could go to the football game. We met up with Kate and Mary Rose and Adam at the stadium. Dixon and Rob wandered up, as they usually do, and we all sat together. Pete was out on the field, along with Rob’s brother Trent, and we were winning against Southern Pines High. Yay.

  In the third quarter, I decided to go to the bathroom, behind the concession stand. When I came out, there were three guys from Southern Pines hanging around the men’s room door. I turned the opposite way, but all at once they were on either side of me, and one of them moved to block my way. I tried to flirt my way out, and when that didn’t work (of course) I tried to be just nice, then mean. All the time, they’re backing me up against the wall, brushing up against me. And, yeah, they groped my chest and my rear end.

  Then this voice came from behind them. “Back off. Now.”

  Two of the guys turned around and said something nasty. Noah said, “Make me.”

  And then there’s this fight going on right in front of me, Noah against these three big guys, punching, kicking, swearing at one another. I just knew the security guards would show up with Mr. Floyd and Noah would be in so much trouble.

  But nobody came. The game was tied at that point, Jacquie told me later, and so maybe they were all watching. Anyway, Noah laid those three creeps out on the ground like corpses. By the time he finished with them, they just lay there groaning.

  Then he came over to me. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”