Abby's Christmas

by Lynnette Kent

  Unbelievably, the jingle sounded again, this time with a long series of knocks.

  Abby shook her head. “Too bad,” she said aloud. “If you’re not Santa Claus, I’m not opening the door. And if you’re Santa, you can come down the chimney. Try the roof.”

  After a moment’s pause, the knock started again. Loud, insistent, shaking the door so hard that the bell danced on its rope, sounding like sleigh bells in the night sky.

  Though she knew she shouldn’t, Abby left the kitchen and crossed the dark dining room. Some people just wouldn’t take no for an answer. When she reached the door, she bent over, grabbed the cord of the blind and jerked sharply, snapping the metal strips up to the very top of the window.

  “Can’t you read—” she started, then stopped. Her throat closed up completely.

  Noah stood on the other side of the glass.

  It had been five days since she’d seen him or heard from him. He’d abandoned her at the dance without even saying goodbye. No one in town knew where he’d gone. And now, out of the blue, he wanted in?

  Her first impulse was to let the blind drop and then hide in her windowless office with all the doors locked until he went away again and she could sneak home. So tempting….

  She tightened her fingers on the draw rope.

  But, then again, why should she let him off so easily? Why shouldn’t she tell him exactly what a jerk he’d been, how miserable he’d made her, how much she’d come to hate him—

  Abby dragged the key out of her pocket, unlocked the door and yanked it open. “Well, well, if it isn’t Kris Kringle. Or maybe the Devil himself. I get them confused sometimes.”

  “Merry Christmas.” He held out a tiny silver box, tied with a red ribbon. The small size was suspicious…a ring?

  She looked into his face again. “No, thank you,” she said, and started to close the door.

  But he slipped inside with her. Then it was Noah who shut the door and Noah who pulled the blind down. They were alone in the dark.

  He didn’t touch her, but he stood very close. “I can’t blame you for being mad at me. But I didn’t have a choice. I had to go.”

  “Oh, of course. Somebody kidnapped you from the gym? Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “That’s pretty close to the truth. Not a criminal, though. A U.S. Marshal.”

  Her knees started to shake. “Why? What did he want? Your parole was legitimate—”

  Noah put a finger against her lips. “Shh. It’s okay. I had to go back to Atlanta. The governor—God bless his soul—wanted to give me a pardon.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Yeah. He’d decided to play Santa Claus and review some of the parole cases from the past year. Turns out Wanda Harrison—the wife of the guy I killed—has written him repeatedly since I was convicted, trying to explain what happened, trying to get me a pardon. And, finally, it worked.”

  “Oh, Noah! So you’re free?”

  “Yeah. I’m still in shock.”

  “You could go anywhere now. You don’t have to stay in New Skye if you don’t want to.”

  He grinned. “That’s true.”

  She didn’t want to know the rest. But she had to ask. “Then why did you come back?”

  Stepping away, he took a chair off the table and eased her down onto the seat, then set another one on the floor for himself. Their knees touched.

  “I talked with Wanda for a while. She stayed in Atlanta, got a job. Her son Mac is in school, and they have a decent place to live. I think maybe she believed there were some sparks between us that could be revived.”

  Abby couldn’t say a word.

  “I appreciate what she did,” Noah continued, “and she’s a good woman. But for the first time it occurred to me that maybe she played me a little, back when she was married to Bull. I saw the bruises and the broken bones he gave her. But she didn’t leave him. She allowed—encouraged?—me to solve her problem, instead.”

  “That’s why you came back?”

  Noah took her hands, and she let them lie motionless in his. During the past five days, she had imagined giving him a blistering with her tongue and then kicking him out of her life. She had imagined him sweeping her into his arms and carrying her away.

  She had no idea how to deal with what was happening now.

  “I came back,” he said, “because I finally realized what kind of man I want to be. And there’s only one place I can become that kind of man.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I want to be dependable,” Noah told her, watching her pale face. She didn’t look as if she’d slept much since Saturday night. He knew he hadn’t. “I want the people I care about to know they can count on me.”

  “That means—”

  He nodded. “That means not running away. Ever again. I want to be able to face whatever comes in life. I’m not dodging the truth about myself or anyone else, ever again.”

  Abby’s mouth had relaxed into an almost-smile. “That’s a hard one.”

  “I want to be strong.” He put his hands together, with hers between them. “I want to be strong for my friends, helping and supporting them the way they all supported me these last few weeks. I want to be strong for my mother, make her life a little easier, a lot more secure.”

  Noah slipped out of his chair to kneel on the floor, looking up into her lovely face. “Most of all, Abigail, I want to be good. I want to be a good man, as my dad wasn’t. I intend to be a good husband, like Rob, a good father…like yours. And I came back because the only place I can do those things is here. With you.”

  She started to say something, but he interrupted. “I should have said, first, that I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I hurt you, worried you, angered you. I’ll spend the rest of my life making you happy….” He stopped when she slipped one hand free to put a finger against his mouth.

  “Hush.” She was smiling for real now, and crying at the same time. “Just stop talking and kiss me. And then give me the ring.”

  “IT’S SNOWING!” KELSEY turned from the window, her face shining with delight. “Abby, it’s snowing for your wedding!”

  The women in the room—nine of them, and the bride’s chamber at New Skye Baptist Church barely held them all—clustered at the two tall windows. “Look at that,” Phoebe said. “I’ve never seen such huge snowflakes in my life. And falling so thick and fast!”

  “Two years in a row, we’ve had snow on New Year’s Day,” Kate declared. “This is amazing!”

  Or maybe just a miracle. Abby smiled, and went back to stand in front of the full-length mirror for a last-minute inspection. “Is it ten o’clock yet? Is my hem straight?”

  “Ten minutes,” Valerie said. As matron of honor, she wore a crimson velvet dress and carried white mums in her bouquet. “And you are beautiful.”

  “We’re all beautiful.” She’d asked her friends to wear Christmas colors and they’d obliged, filling the room with a tapestry done in deep greens and reds, the gold of Jacquie’s silk suit, the purple velvet of Kate’s first maternity dress.

  Noah’s mother wore the soft pink of a Christmas rose. As everyone but Valerie left to find their seats in the chapel, Abby held Marian Blake back a moment.

  “I just wanted to say thank you,” she told her soon-to-be mother-in-law. “And to promise I’ll take care of him.”

  Mrs. Blake shook her head. “Then you’ll be doing better than I ever did.” She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “But maybe you can keep him from getting into trouble from now on. The whole town will thank you for it.” Hesitating, she reached up to touch Abby’s cheek with her fingertips. “I will, too.”

  Charlie stepped up to the open doorway as the older woman hurried across the hall to take Dixon’s arm and let him escort her to her pew.

  “Are you about ready, Abby girl?”

  “I am.” She faced him across the threshold. “You look good in a tux, Dad.”

  He tugged at his tie. “Haven’t worn one of the
se for at least thirty-five years.”

  “Since your own wedding?”

  “That’s right.” He looked at her sadly. “I wish your mama could have been here today.”

  “Me, too.” Abby kissed his cheek. “But you’re here, and that’s the most important part.” She stepped out of the bride’s chamber and closed the door behind her. Side by side, they walked to the center of the entry hall and waited for the music to start.

  “I’m gonna miss you,” Charlie whispered in her ear.

  She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. “I love you, Daddy. Always.”

  He put his palm over her fingers and squeezed, gave a big sniff, cleared his throat, then nodded at Dixon. “Let’s march.”

  NOAH HAD NEVER ATTENDED a church wedding in his life, and wasn’t sure he would survive this one.

  He almost jumped out of his clammy skin when the music changed from a soft medley of carols to a bright trumpet call. Before he realized what was happening, the organ started playing a song he couldn’t help but recognize. Da-da-tee-da…

  What have I gotten myself into?

  When he glanced at Rob for help, his best man was staring down the center aisle of the church, and Noah followed his gaze to see Valerie approaching, carrying white flowers and looking beautiful in a dark red dress. As she neared the place where they stood at the front of the church, the smile she gave her husband was like sunshine on a cloudless summer day. Noah only hoped his wife would look at him like that in a year’s time…or fifty years’ time. He intended with everything in him to deserve that kind of love.

  Da-da-tee-da started over again, even louder. The people in the pews got to their feet—the church was practically standing-room-only, anyway. A movement at the very back drew his attention. He looked, and his breath deserted him.

  Abby glided down the aisle like a princess, graceful, elegant, and so lovely he wanted to cry. No veil hid her face from him, but she wore an ivory fedora, with a white rose tucked into the band, over her shining curls. She’d told him her wedding suit was made of ivory brocade, whatever that meant besides gorgeous. Kate had helped him choose the bouquet—more white roses tied up with red-berried holly leaves and sweet-smelling herbs. Surrounded by the smiles of her friends, and with snowflakes falling outside the church windows like blessings from heaven, she came to him with her gaze fixed on his face.

  Charlie shook his hand, then gave him Abby’s fingers to hold. From that moment on, all Noah could see was his beautiful bride, his wife. Suddenly, a wedding was no reason to be nervous. Instead, it was the perfect place to promise Abby and all their friends and family that he would take care of her every day he lived on this earth.

  For the first time in his life, he understood what cherish really meant.

  THOUGH THEY COULD HAVE held the reception in the diner, Abby had not wanted her dad to work on her wedding day, so they partied in the church fellowship hall, instead—a good thing, since otherwise they’d all have had to drive through the several inches of snow now lying on the streets to go anywhere else. Marian filled a plate and picked up a glass of punch, then found a quiet corner of the room to sit down in. She didn’t need to socialize. She just wanted to watch.

  A goodly number of the town’s rich people had shown up for the wedding. All the Bells and Crawfords—Daisy Crawford must be almost ninety, but she looked every bit as pretty as she had at thirty. Her grandson kept an eye on his wife as if she was an egg about to hatch—Abby said she was expecting in the summer. Marian wondered if…when…she might become a grandmother herself.

  Old Jonah, miserable sot that he was, would never have believed the town’s mayor would show up at his son’s wedding.

  But Adam and Phoebe DeVries stood there big as life, laughing at something Noah had said. They’d brought a little boy with them, and took turns holding him—Marian understood they were keeping the toddler Noah had rescued that night at the diner during the robbery attempt. Tyler, his name was. Would Abby and Noah have such a cute little boy?

  Would she manage to be a better grandmother than she’d been a mother?

  As she sighed, not wanting to face the question, Charlie Brannon sat down in the chair next to her. “You found a place to relax, I see. This wedding stuff has me worn out.”

  “That’s why folks get married when they’re younger and have the energy.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  They both watched the party for a while, without talking. Then Charlie shifted in his chair. “I don’t know how I’m gonna manage, having my girl married and living somewhere else.”

  “You manage,” Marian told him, from experience. “You don’t get a choice.”

  “I figured they’d be off on their adventures as soon as they got back from the honeymoon,” Charlie said. “But now she tells me they’ll be settling here in New Skye after all. Noah wants a home, and she wants to be with him.”

  “You’re still going to have to get some help at that diner of yours, you know. Abby’s not going to want to stay there all hours of the day and night, with a husband to take care of.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” His voice was sharp, but Marian didn’t take offense. She knew how hard today had been on Charlie. Her own dad had bawled like a baby at her wedding to Jonah.

  Maybe he’d known what kind of man her groom would turn out to be.

  “I’ve got an ad scheduled to run in the paper this week,” Charlie said, more gently. “I imagine I’ll have some applications.”

  “Be patient with them—they won’t be as good as Abby, but they’ll get better.”

  He glanced at her from the side. “You want to apply?”

  “Me, a waitress? Hah.” She laughed. “That would be your worst nightmare, Charlie Brannon.”

  He grinned. “You’re damn right it would.”

  The good thing about Baptist wedding receptions was that they didn’t have dancing so they didn’t last too long. Abby and Noah talked to everybody, cut their cake and toasted each other with ginger ale punch. Then, before Marian realized it, they had disappeared from the room. As the guests started to wander out of the hall to get their coats, Valerie Warren came to the corner where Charlie still sat with her.

  “Noah and Abby asked if you could come say goodbye before they leave,” the young woman said. “Both of you.”

  They followed her to the closed door of the pastor’s study. Charlie turned the knob, walked right in…and caught Noah and Abby in the middle of a deep kiss.

  “Sorry,” the big man said, and started backing out, right into Marian, standing behind him.

  “Watch where you’re going,” she told him loudly, with a slap on the back.

  “Come on in, Dad.” Abby left her husband, with only a sweet blush betraying her embarrassment.

  “Hi, Ma.” Noah came across the room and put his arm around Marian’s shoulders. “Did you enjoy the wedding?”

  “Real nice. You looked like a gentleman.” She shook her head. “Something I never thought I’d see.”

  Abby was hugging her dad, with tears in her eyes. “Thanks,” she whispered in his ear. “I love you.”

  “Love you, too, Abby girl.” Charlie turned to Noah. “I don’t have to tell you to take care of her, do I?”

  Noah shook his head, then grinned. “No, sir. That’s what the next fifty or sixty years are for. I promise.”

  Out on the church porch a few minutes later, the snow was still falling, thick and heavy, with flakes the size of biscuits. When Noah and Abby appeared at the top of the steps, a cheer went up from the crowd and birdseed began to fly through the air. Abby held up her bouquet and tossed it high, where it fell apart into a rain of petals and ribbons that showered them all.

  Then, with Noah’s hand in hers, the bride skipped down the steps to the motorcycle waiting on the drive. They both wore jeans and boots and long coats just right for riding in wet weather, with matching helmets. The crowd laughed loudly as they saw the writing on the back of thos
e helmets—Noah’s read “Just” and Abby’s read “Married.” A tail of ribbons, shoes and tin cans attached to the back of the bike added the final wedding touch.

  With a roar of the engine, Noah set the Harley in gear and wheeled down the driveway, leaving a single trail in the thick snow. He drove slowly past the front of the church as Abby waved and the crowd waved back. In a moment, the bike and the newlyweds were gone. The silence of snowfall claimed the day.

  “A pretty town.” Charlie stood with Marian on the church steps, looking out over downtown, after the rest of the crowd had drifted away. “Especially in the snow.”

  “A good place to live,” Marian conceded. “To raise children.”

  “To be a kid,” Charlie added.

  “To get old and be a grandparent,” Marian concluded.

  They looked at each other and smiled, with joy and a little sadness, too.

  “The Carolina Diner will be open tomorrow for breakfast,” Charlie said. “Want to come by for a meal?”

  “I’ll be glad to,” Marian said. “Sounds like the right way to start a New Year.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-2895-5

  ABBY’S CHRISTMAS

  Copyright © 2004 by Cheryl B. Bacon.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.