Abby's Christmas

by Lynnette Kent

  He looked up at her. “Good question.”

  “In other words, you didn’t.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “But you left town a day later.”

  Resuming his effort with the snow, Noah didn’t say anything.

  Abby came closer and put a hand on his shoulder. “Why did you run away?”

  “I could see where the future would lie. I wasn’t going to take the rap for something I didn’t do.”

  “Even if it meant losing your diploma?”

  “I got along without it. Construction workers, mechanics, carpenters, landscape hands…none of them need high school diplomas.”

  “You could have come home a long time ago. Before…”

  “Before I got arrested for manslaughter?” He stretched to his full height. “Maybe.”

  As he straightened, her hand slid along his arm. Abby closed her fingers around the strong column of his wrist. “It’s definitely a case of ‘Better late than never.’”

  For once, he didn’t flinch as she gazed at him. A light began to dawn in his dark face, from a small glimmer in his eyes all the way to the smiling curve of his lips. His free hand came up between them, and he brushed his fingers over her cheek before slipping them underneath her hair to touch the nape of her neck. Their mouths were now just a whisper apart.

  “Abby, I—”

  The rumble of the garage door track above them provided the second’s warning they needed. As the big panel swung up, Abby jumped to her side of the painting and Noah to his. When Dixon and Kate stepped into the garage, they found two people painting furiously and no sign of the battle that had been fought and almost…almost…won.

  But Abby knew. And she would remember.

  THURSDAY, ROB TOOK CALLS for the locksmith service and Noah stayed at the shop all day, reading manuals, talking with Trent and avoiding Mike Warren’s verbal potshots. He avoided Abby, too, with a call to say that he couldn’t meet her that night at Dixon’s garage.

  “You have a hot date?” A thread of strain ran through her light tone.

  “I do.” The silence vibrated like an anvil struck by a hammer. “With a really lusty security-system manual. Rob wants me to take a practice test tomorrow, getting ready to be a certified installer. Aren’t you impressed? I’ll be certified.”

  “Or certifiable.” Her voice had relaxed. “I guess I’ll give you to your work. I might drive over and work on the painting a little bit. If you get bored, come down.”

  Noah spent several painful hours Thursday night acutely aware of Abby just below him, alone, painting. He wanted to go to her. He wanted her to come to him. He wished electronic-surveillance systems had never been invented.

  Friday, in addition to taking the practice test, he went with Rob on another installment job. The resistance wasn’t as fierce as Marino’s or as fearful as Mrs. O’Brien’s, but the homeowner hovered over them every minute they were in the house. The wiring in the house was a convoluted mess—compliments of L. T. LaRue, whose company built the place—and darkness had long since arrived when they finally got the system put together.

  “I want my dinner,” Rob groaned. “And a long night’s sleep.”

  “That’s two of us.” They parted in the parking lot of the locksmith shop. Noah got all the way home before acknowledging that he didn’t want to make his own dinner from odds and ends in the refrigerator. He wanted a decent meal, the kind Abby would make. Seeing her in the crowd at the diner wouldn’t cause too many problems. They’d had a close call the other night, and he considered it lucky Dixon and Kate had come in, preventing him from doing something Abby would regret. The same would be true at the diner—they’d just talk. And he’d get another chance to see her smile.

  After spending an afternoon crawling around underneath the house, he had to get cleaned up before he could go anywhere. Then, as he drove down Boundary Street, he realized he should have thought to check in with his mother first. He planned to be at her house early tomorrow, to make as many repairs as he could get done. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to stop by tonight.

  Through the front window, he could see that the lights and TV were on in the living room, but she didn’t answer his knock. His throat closed as he tried the doorknob and found it unlocked. Sweating, breathing fast, Noah pushed quickly into the house and strode into the living room.

  He stopped short at the sight of his mother in her chair, cocooned from chin to toe in a quilt he remembered from the old days, with her head turned to the side and her eyes closed. Over the TV noise, he could hear her gentle snores.

  Asleep. That was all. He hadn’t lost his chance.

  The house felt cold, he realized as he relaxed. The thermostat was set at sixty degrees—no wonder she’d wrapped herself up in the quilt. A week ago, she’d had the heat on unbearably high, now she seemed set on freezing to death. Why?

  Noah didn’t wake her up to ask. Questions could wait until tomorrow. And his mother didn’t stir while he was in the house. He locked the door as he left.

  The bank clock he passed on the way down Boundary Street read nine-fifteen—Abby should have closed the diner by now, if not earlier. Chances were good that she’d be gone by the time he got there. Chances were good he’d be settling for odds and ends, after all. The thought of missing her depressed him, and the cold air chilling the sweat on his body made him feel sick. Maybe he’d go to bed without any dinner at all.

  Across the highway from the school, he could see the diner lights still shining. Only one car sat along the outer edge of the front parking lot, with Abby’s Volvo parked near the back door. There wouldn’t be a crowd around to protect her, after all. He’d just have to behave himself.

  Noah parked the Harley near the Volvo and got off to walk around to the front. Again he glanced at the car across the parking lot—a white Toyota. From here, he could see the child’s seat in the back. And without the noise of the bike, he could hear the kid screaming.

  A glance through the window to his left showed him Abby standing at the cash register. Beside her, a man wearing a ski mask and a padded vest held a gun in one hand and an open paper sack in the other.

  The barrel of the gun was jammed into the vulnerable flesh just beneath Abby’s jaw.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “HURRY UP.” HE EMPHASIZED HIS point by pushing the gun farther into Abby’s jaw, making her wince.

  “I can’t do anything like this.” Talking hurt. But she hoped if she kept him here long enough, somebody would come along. Surely somebody would come.

  “Get that cash in the bag.”

  “If you’d back off—”

  The gun poked her again. “Do it.”

  Her hands shook so much, she didn’t have to fake fumbling with the bills. This guy hadn’t killed anybody so far. She prayed that she wouldn’t be his first. She’d never been out of North Carolina….

  The bell on the front door jingled and Noah stepped into the diner. Abby’s sob of relief was choked off as the man beside her wrapped his arm around her neck and pulled her back against him. The paper bag bounced against her breast. The gun drilled harder than ever into her throat.

  “Let her go,” Noah said calmly. He didn’t have any kind of weapon to enforce the order. He held a little boy in one arm. A sniffle broke the tense silence.

  Her captor jerked her even closer. “Put the kid down. I’ll kill her.”

  “Here’s a better idea. You let her go, I put the kid down and you leave with the cash.”

  “Hell, you already called the cops.” The guy dragged Abby backward, out from behind the counter. “Come on, Tyler. Get down and come to Daddy.”

  The little boy looked across the room but didn’t make a move to get down.

  “Tyler, get over here.” He tried to moderate his voice. “Come on, Tyler. You come to me and we’ll go get some ice cream.”

  “Tandy,” the little boy said. “Tandy.”

  “Jeez…candy. Fine. We’ll go get candy. Just come here.”
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  “Uh, he’s trying to tell you he already got his candy,” Noah said. He held up the wrapper of a chocolate bar. “You should feed him before you pull these jobs. Now…” He took a couple of steps forward. “You send her here, and then you get the boy.”

  Indecision—desperation—thumped into Abby’s back with each beat of the heart behind her. Mostly the guy just wanted money and a getaway. When would he realize he could shoot both Noah and her and have everything he wanted?

  He withdrew the gun from her neck, and she knew he’d discovered his power. Extending his arm, he pointed the pistol at Noah. “I’ll kill you and her. Put the kid down.”

  Noah stood motionless for a second. “Sure. Okay.” He took another three steps, bringing him a table’s width away from her. Bending low, keeping his eyes on the gun, he set the little boy’s feet on the floor. The child began to cry and reached for Noah. “Wannaaaaa…”

  “Abby, move!” At the instant of his shout, Noah grabbed the edge of the table between them and shoved. Abby jerked hard to the side and found herself suddenly free. As she fell, the table screeched by, skidding across the floor, then slammed into Tyler’s dad with a thud. Gun and paper bag went flying. Noah put his head down and drove the table all the way to the wall. Pinned between the heavy tabletop and concrete block, the robber slumped over the table and was still.

  And then Noah was on his knees beside her. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded but couldn’t make a sound.

  “Are you sure?” He looked her up and down. “Wait—there’s blood. What’s wrong?”

  A throbbing pain separated itself from the rest of her aches. “My foot,” she whispered.

  Noah turned to look. “Aw, man.” The table leg must have raked over her foot. Her shoe was gone, her sock ripped, and a big gash opened over her instep. “I’m sorry, Abby. God, I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  Before she could reassure him, he was tackled from behind by an anxious toddler. “Tandy?”

  With a laugh that sounded like a sob, Noah turned to pick up the little boy. “How about cookies? Do you like cookies?”

  “Tookies” was the grinning reply.

  “I’ve got to call the police,” Noah told her. “Just sit there and don’t move. I’ll find him something to eat and then help you off the floor.”

  But while he was in the kitchen rummaging through the pantry for cookies, Abby decided she could get herself to her feet—a concept that worked better in theory than in practice. She used a stool at the counter for leverage and actually stood up, only to find she couldn’t put any weight on the hurt foot. As the pain escalated, she began to wonder if something was broken.

  “Do you ever follow orders?” Noah stared at her from the kitchen door. Tyler perched happily on his hip, holding a box of vanilla wafers. Several were already smeared on the little boy’s thin face.

  “I follow orders all day long, day in and day out, for fifty weeks a year,” Abby said, irritated. “There was no reason I couldn’t stand up by myself.”

  “Oh, sure. So why don’t you just walk over and sit down somewhere? The police will be here in a couple of minutes.”

  Her bravado faded. “Um, well, walking could be a problem.”

  “You think?” Noah set Tyler down on the seat of a nearby booth with the box of cookies. Then he came toward Abby. Without another word, he put an arm around her shoulders and another under her knees and swept her up against his chest. She was still gasping when he gently set her down across the table from Tyler.

  “Scoot back against the wall so you can rest your legs on the seat.” This time she did as she was told, and Noah nodded. “That’s better.”

  He sat down next to Tyler and said. “I also called your dad. So all we have to do is wait.” Holding out a wafer, he smiled. “Want a cookie?”

  THE NEXT TWO HOURS were ones Abby would be happy to forget. The police arrived and wanted to arrest Noah, until she made them look at the man behind the table. Her dad’s entrance created chaos all over again. He yelled. He stomped around in his uneven way. He insulted Noah, didn’t so much as say thank you.

  And every time he looked at Abby, he had tears in his eyes.

  She answered the questions she was asked and tried to listen in as Noah answered questions, most of them hostile and suspicious. A social services representative took charge of Tyler, but couldn’t leave without taking the vanilla wafer box along. That little boy knew what he wanted and how to get it.

  An ambulance arrived, and Abby was actually relieved to let them take her to the hospital for X-rays, away from her dad and the mess of the dining room. But then, propped up on a gurney in an emergency-room cubicle, she found herself suddenly shaking, teeth chattering, freezing cold—though they’d covered her from chin to ankles with blankets—and on the verge of tears.

  “What’s this?”

  Almost afraid to believe in that voice, she looked to see Noah standing at the foot of her bed.

  “Noah,” she whispered.

  Whatever he read in her face was enough. The next thing she knew, he was sitting beside her on the bed, and his arms came between her and the pillow. He cradled her against his chest, rocking a little, making soothing noises and pressing kisses on the top of her head. Abby relaxed for the first time in what felt like forever. She didn’t need to cry anymore.

  “What have we here?”

  Noah turned his head to look over his shoulder. A doctor dressed in green surgical clothes stood at the entrance to the cubicle, smiling. That probably meant he should let Abby go.

  Easier said than done, but he did manage to lay her back against the pillow and stand up. She wouldn’t let go of his hand.

  “Hi, Ian,” Abby whispered.

  “I heard you had been brought in and thought I’d better come down and see what the fuss was.” He looked at Noah and extended a hand. “I’m Ian Baker.”

  “Noah Blake.”

  “Ian’s married to Cass,” Abby explained. “You remember her from high school? Ian came from Atlanta to work and they were practically an instant couple. Cass’s Sugar and Spice catering company will be making the food for the dance.” She coughed after this long speech. Noah found a cup of water by the bed and offered her a drink.

  “So what happened?” Ian came to the other side of the bed and smoothed Abby’s bangs back from her forehead. “You look a little beat up.”

  Noah didn’t miss the hint of suspicion edging the glance the doctor cast in his direction.

  “That guy who’s been robbing businesses came into the diner.” Abby coughed again. “Noah turned the tables on him, literally. If he hadn’t, I’d probably be dead.”

  Until that moment, Noah hadn’t let himself think that far. Bile rose into his throat. He forced himself to swallow it down.

  Ian looked at him with an entirely different expression. “Then we all owe you a debt of gratitude,” he said. “We wouldn’t know what to do without Abby to take care of us.”

  Abby waved the idea away. “Anyway, I’m just a little sore. The table caught my foot, which might or might not be broken. So here I am.”

  “And here I am,” a nurse said, pushing a wheelchair to Ian’s side of the bed. “You’re going to X-ray.”

  The nurse and the doctor got Abby into the chair without fuss. “Can Noah come with me?” she asked. Her scarred voice twisted his heart.

  “Sorry. Patients and staff only, except with children.”

  Abby looked back at him as they wheeled her away. “Stay.”

  Noah nodded. No way would he leave her here by herself.

  After about twenty minutes, he heard the sound he should have expected all along. Somehow, as he’d followed the ambulance on the drive to the hospital, he’d completely forgotten about Charlie Brannon.

  But the voice booming out in the waiting area was certainly Abby’s dad. The sound came closer, and then the curtain on the cubicle was jerked aside.

  “Where is she?” Charlie limped up to the bed. “Wher
e’s my girl?”

  “They took her for X-rays. She’ll be back anytime now.”

  “God, I hate hospitals.” The older man looked as if he could spit thunderbolts. “Too much time spent in them.” He saw the chair by the head of the bed and dropped heavily onto the seat. “My place is a wreck. I’m closed tomorrow. I’ll be losing thousands.”

  Noah didn’t have an answer.

  “I guess I owe you,” the gruff voice went on. “You were there to take care of my girl. There’s nothing in my life that matters more than Abby.”

  Noah got to his feet. “You don’t owe me anything. I did what I could for her.” And for me. “Since you’re here now, I’ll hit the road.”

  For a second, he thought Charlie would object. But then he simply nodded. “Good idea.”

  “Tell her…I’ll be thinking about her. And to take it easy.”

  “Sure.” From the lack of enthusiasm in the word, Noah doubted his message would get through to Abby.

  Back on the bike again, he shivered in the cold night air. Somewhere a church bell rang midnight. Stars glittered in the black sky like…well, like the glitter Abby loved, used sparsely on velvet.

  Abby’s injury might be enough to keep her from finishing the panel with him. And that might not be such a bad thing. Each time he saw her turned out to be more of a disaster. He touched, he kissed—he couldn’t seem to stop and Abby showed no inclination to exert control. Taking their relationship any further in this direction would be downright wrong.

  For once in his life, though, Noah really wanted to do the right thing.

  NO BROKEN BONES, just a deep cut, now stitched. Scrapes and scratches. A badly bruised throat.

  And a sense of abandonment, to find Noah gone. She loved her dad. But she wanted Noah. To leave without a word…

  Abby tried not to pout on the way home, tried to respond to her dad’s real efforts to take care of her. She smiled at Elvis’s feverish welcome, his willingness to curl up next to her good foot and leave the injured one alone. Choking down a grilled cheese sandwich, she listened to Charlie vent about the nerve of a guy who thought he could rip off the Carolina Diner.