Upon a Midnight Clear

by Jude Deveraux

  "She has tea parties," Evan said with a mild touch of disdain.

  "She's a girl mouse," Eric repeated, as if that said it all.

  "Well, then, if you were writing the Miss Jane books, what would you do to make them more interesting to boys?"

  Eric and Evan sat uncharacteristically still for an overly long moment.

  "I know!" Eric hopped up and down on one foot. "You could give her a brother!"

  "A twin brother," Evan added.

  "Hmmm." Quinn contemplated the possibility. "And if I gave her a brother, what would I call him?"

  "You could call him…" Eric bit his bottom lip, pondering the very important task of naming Miss Jane's only brother.

  "Jed! For Jedidiah!" Evan shouted gleefully. "Like Jedidiah McKenzieJ"

  "Perfect!" Quinn exclaimed. "Jedidiah Mousewing. Now, what do you suppose he looks like? Describe him for me, so that I can draw him. Help me to put him on paper…"

  For the next fifteen minutes, Quinn bent over the sketch pad, a small boy at each elbow, totally oblivious to the man who stood in the doorway, her forgotten cup of tea in one hand, his heart on his sleeve. After all the nights he'd dreamed of her, all the times he'd unconsciously sought her face in every crowd in every airport he'd walked through, in every stadium he'd ever played in, there she was, calmly sitting there sketching away, looking for all the world as if she belonged there with his sons. As if this was her place, her cabin, her family.

  This is the way it should have been all along, he told himself. The way it would have been, if only she had been here that day.…

  "Is that my tea?" she asked, her eyes bright with the excitement of creating a new character as she sketched to the boys' specifications.

  "Ahhh… it might be a little cool," he told her, realizing that he'd been standing there staring for much longer than he'd intended.

  "That's okay." She smiled at him, and he thought for a moment that the cabin seemed to tilt at an odd angle. "Would you like to meet Jed Mousewing?"

  "Sure." He cleared his throat as he crossed the small distance between the kitchen and the ottoman and peered over her shoulder, much as his sons had done.

  "See, Dad, he's a pioneer, just like Jed McKenzie was," Eric told him.

  "He sort of looks a little like Davy Crockett," Cale noted, trying to ignore that scent of lilac again. "If Crockett had had a tail, two big front teeth, and big round ears."

  "It's the buckskin," Quinn explained, tensing at his nearness. "The boys gave me an excellent idea for my next book. If it works, I'll give them credit."

  "What does that mean?" Eric asked.

  "It means that inside the book, it will say something like, 'Thanks to Evan and Eric McKenzie, for all their help in bringing Jed to life.' Something like that"

  "You mean our names would be in the book?" Evan asked, wide-eyed.

  "Yep."

  "Wow."

  "Of course, you'll have to help me think up things that mice-boys might like to do."

  "We can do that. We're good at thinking up things to do."

  "I think Quinn means things that do not involve rough-housing or breaking things. Or watching TV," Cale offered.

  "Does Miss Jane have a TV?" Evan asked.

  "No, she does not," Quinn replied. "We'll just have to think of other things mouse children would like to do."

  "Well, why don't you two think about old Jed here while you wash up for dinner," Cale suggested.

  "Okay." They nodded, and, miraculously, flew from the room without argument.

  Alone with her, Cale hesitated, feeling awkward. Until she smiled up at him and his knees began to unravel. He sat on the sofa before they could betray him.

  "So, that's Jed, eh?" he said, to have something to say.

  "Jed Mousewing." She smiled, her heart pounding, and she blushed, certain that he could hear it banging against her chest.

  "Where did the Mousewing come from?" He licked dry lips with an equally dry tongue.

  "Actually, her original name had been Mousding, as in small mouse. But the daughter of a friend of mine, who had trouble with her's, pronounced it Mousewing. I thought it was cute, so I kept the name." She shrugged, feeling trapped all of a sudden. While the boys had been there with her, it had been easier to ignore the fact that he was here, and she was here, and after all this time, they were together. Just as she had dreamed they would be someday. It was a dream she had never had much faith in. Until today.

  "I guess you've done well for yourself, then," he said.

  "I'm doing what I like to do." She shrugged and tried to sound nonchalant.

  "So was I," he told her, the slightest hint of shadow darkening his face.

  "I was sorry to hear about your accident," she said softly. "I know how much it must have meant to you, to have been able to play…"

  He started to shrug it off as perhaps not so big a deal, as he had done so many times over the past six months, then stopped, suddenly feeling no need to pretend.

  "It hurt like hell to give it up," Cale said quietly, his words barely above a whisper.

  "I'm sorry, Cale." Instinctively, she had placed a hand upon his, and the softness of it, the tenderness of the gesture, shot through him like a bolt.

  "Well, so am I." He stood abruptly and her hand fell away. The place where her fingers had touched his wrist seemed marked as if by fire. He cleared his throat again—a nervous gesture that he hadn't found the need to use for years—and backed away from her in the direction of the kitchen. "Dinner will be ready in about two minutes. I hope you don't mind having your spaghetti sauce come out of a jar."

  "Not at all," she assured him.

  Cale fled back into the safety of the small kitchen, where he would not have to look into her eyes.

  "How ‘bout if I set the table?" Quinn was just a few steps behind him.

  Cale resisted the urge to sigh openly. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide…

  "Sure." He forced a smile and pointed to the cupboard behind him. "Plates and glasses in there."

  He tried to pretend that her presence wasn't disconcerting, that he wasn't watching her, but it was impossible not to in so confined an area. Their backs collided mildly as she reached for plates from the shelves above her head. She brushed against him when she sorted through the flatware drawer for knives, forks, and spoons. His awareness of her was closing in on him at a pace that was rapidly accelerating.

  He turned and brushed aside the curtain at the kitchen window. If anything, the storm had intensified. There was no chance she would be leaving before the morning.

  How would he last a whole night with her here, under the same roof with him?

  She looked up and smiled again, and he felt his insides begin to twist and twitch.

  This could very well be the longest night of his life.

  * * *

  Chapter Seven

  "Would you like some music?" Cale stood in the middle of the living room, his hands on his hips, wondering just what to do next. Quinn was emerging from the kitchen, where she had offered to clean up from dinner while Cale put his sons to bed.

  "Sure." She nodded.

  "What's your pleasure?"

  "What are my choices?"

  "Whatever we can get on this old radio." He slowly turned the dial, distracted by her nearness. "Not much of a variety tonight, I'm afraid."

  "That's fine, right there. Christmas music would be nice."

  Cale adjusted the dial to eliminate the static, taking his time while he tried to figure out what to do with her.

  In his dreams, he had known exactly what to do. Now that she was really here, he had changed into a bumbling adolescent in the space of a few hours.

  "I was listening to this on tape while I was driving up the mountain today," she told him as "I'll Be Home for Christmas" began to play.

  "I've always liked it," Cale said awkwardly.

  "Me, too." She nodded.

  "Ah, why don't you sit down"—Cale folded up the blankets on the
sofa to give her room—"and I’ll…" He looked around wildly for something to occupy himself with. "I'll… put more wood on the fire."

  Quinn sat on the sofa, pulling her feet up under her and easing back into the cushions. Cale lifted a few logs from the stack and placed them on the fire, using the bellows to build up the flames. Quinn exhaled, a long silent stream of air. Her face was beginning to hurt from having forced a carefree smile for the past several hours. Her chest and stomach hurt from having been so close to him after so long. She watched him, his back to her, and though she tried to will her eyes away from him, she could not It had been too long a drought, and now that she could, she drank in every bit of him. The way his dark hair curled over the back of his collar. The way his hands grasped the logs as if they were twigs, the way the bottom of his jeans rounded when he leaned back on his haunches to stack the logs…

  She rose abruptly and went to the window to look out. Maybe a miracle had occurred while they were eating dinner and the snow had stopped.

  Fat chance.

  "I'm afraid it's only gotten worse, Quinn," he said from behind her.

  "I guess I should call home." She turned slightly and found him closer than she had anticipated.

  "That's probably a good idea," he agreed, telling himself to back away so that the scent from her hair would not be able to reach his nostrils, but his legs seemed unable to obey the command to move.

  "I left a message on the answering machine earlier, but I think my mother will worry until she actually speaks to me," she said. The urge to reach her hand up and touch his face was so powerful that she had to force her hands behind her back.

  She was the first to move, the first to step away. Averting her eyes, she stepped around him and reached for her bag. Refusing to look at him again while she searched for the phone, she turned her back while she dialed the number and spoke softly and paced nervously while she explained the situation to her mother.

  "My mother said to tell you hello and to thank you for giving me shelter from the storm," Quinn said as she dropped the cell phone back into the bag.

  Cale nodded. "It's my pleasure."

  If you only knew, Quinn.…

  "So," Quinn said, forcing herself to sound perky. "What book are you reading?" She walked to the chair and lifted the hardback he had left there the night before and inspected the cover. It was a thriller, written by a favorite author of Quinn's. "Oh. I heard this was great."

  "It's pretty good," he told her, looking for something to do with himself. "But I liked his last one better."

  "I loved that book," she agreed. "Had you figured out that Janelle was the murderer before the last scene?"

  "No." He shook his head. "I thought it was Desmond."

  "So did I." Quinn laughed. "He sure had me fooled."

  "Me, too." Cale nodded.

  That common ground having been exhausted, silence began to surround them.

  "I'm sorry about the boys. I mean, tying you up and stuffing the sock in your mouth," he said awkwardly, at a loss for words now that she was really here.

  "I'm sure they thought they had bagged a felon, that they had done something really good." She couldn't help but smile. "They certainly seemed proud of themselves."

  "You may be giving them too much credit," he said with a wry smile.

  "They're just little boys, Cale."

  "Quinn, my sons are spoiled, undisciplined little hooligans," he told her bluntly. "And while I find it all too easy to blame their mother, I can't deny that I've had as much of a hand in their turning out to be hellions as she did."

  Quinn leaned back, watching his face.

  "I spent very little time at home, Quinn. I played ball during the season, then spent the off-season rehabilitating whatever injuries I had accumulated over the previous few months. Then it would be time for spring training, then the season would start all over again. I spent no more time with them than their mother did. I hardly knew them at all, so it really isn't fair for me to place all the blame on her."

  "And you're trying to make up for it now."

  "I'm all they have, Quinn." He ran nervous fingers through his dark brown hair. "She left them months ago and has never looked back. She has not asked to see them, hasn't even called."

  "That's so difficult to understand, why a woman would leave her children___"

  "It's probably a lot easier when you never wanted them in the first place," he said, his eyes turning grim. "And when you don't care much for their father, I guess it's even easier."

  How could any woman not love you, the thought rang in her head, so loudly she startled, certain he must have heard.

  "I'm so sorry," she said softly, wondering what the confession might have cost him.

  "Marrying Jo Beth was a mistake. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. The boys were the only good thing that came out of the relationship."

  "They must miss her."

  "Actually, I dont think they do," he said, adding, without apology, "any more than I do."

  "That's very sad for them."

  "I can't argue that, but that's how it is." He tried to lean back in his chair, tried to act real casual, telling himself that she was just any old friend from high school that he happened to run into. His pounding heart and frazzled nerves told him otherwise. "But I am determined to make up for all the time I didn't spend with them. If that's possible. Sometimes it's a little difficult to keep them busy. More than a little, actually. They've had years of electronic baby-sitters. I'm trying to wean them from the television, as you've probably noticed."

  "I guess taking them to the wilds of Montana must have sounded like a good idea."

  "It did when Val suggested it. Now I'm not so sure. It gets harder every day to find something new for them to do. But what about you, Quinn? Any spouse or children waiting for you back at the High Meadow?"

  "No," she said, not bothering to elaborate. Why bother telling him that she had never fallen in love with anyone else? Oh, there'd been a few close calls, but nothing that had set her heart and blood on fire the way he had, but why go into that?

  "You write children's books and live… where?"

  "Right now I'm renting an apartment in Missoula. I'm substituting at the university this semester through the end of January."

  "And then…?"

  "I'm not sure." She shrugged. "I might stay in Missoula, I might come back to the ranch. I might go someplace else. I haven't decided yet." This isn't really so difficult after all, Quinn told herself. If I just look at that spot on the wall behind him, right there above his head, instead of at his face, I'll be fine.

  "I guess that's an advantage of doing the type of work you do. You can live just about anywhere."

  "Anywhere there's postal service and electricity for my PC." She nodded. "How 'bout you? What are your plans?"

  "You mean beyond accepting the fact that my ball-playing days are over?" His eyes darkened and the crevices near the corners of his mouth seemed to deepen.

  "It must be very difficult for you to have to start over."

  He stood up and paced just a little, like someone who had been confined to a very small space for far too long. "Everyone says, you can coach. You can get a job with radio, or TV. You can be a broadcaster."

  ''It's not just about a job." She stated what to her was obvious.

  "No. It's not just about a job. Baseball is so much a part of what I am, that I don't know who I am without it." He paused, then added, his voice barely above a whisper, "Maybe I'm afraid to find out who I am now. Maybe I’ll find out that I'm really no one at all."

  His solemn candor stunned her and took her breath away.

  Before she could reply, he turned his back and said, "I guess it's a good time to turn in. You must be tired from walking through the storm."

  She could only nod, suddenly grateful to know that within a few more minutes, she would be alone, away from his haunted eyes and the sorrow that seemed to overtake him, away from her sudden urge to put her
arms around him and comfort him, to reassure him.

  "You can have my room. I'll sleep out here."

  "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather sleep out here. I don't want to put you out of your bed," she said, knowing there was no way she would be able to sleep in a bed where he had lain. No, thank you. Sleeping in Papa Bear's bed might have worked for Goldilocks, but Quinn Hollister would stick to the sofa.

  "I really don't mind…"

  "I'd really rather," she said firmly.

  "I'll get some blankets." He nodded as if he understood and went off down the hall, returning a few minutes later with a pile of blankets and a pillow, which he dropped on the sofa.

  "I thought maybe you might be more comfortable sleeping in these." He handed her a dark gray thermal shirt and a pair of light gray sweatpants. "Val left a few nightgowns, but I doubt they'd be warm enough."

  "These are fine. Thank you. Where can I change?"

  "The bathroom is the first door on the left." He pointed toward the hallway.

  She hesitated before asking, "Is there a shower?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you mind if I use it?" She felt sweaty from the exertion of her walk.

  "Not at all. I’ll get you some towels."

  Quinn nodded her thanks and followed him the short walk to the bathroom. He removed several fluffy towels from a small closet and handed them to her. "Soap's in there." He pointed through the open door as he reached behind her to turn on the tight.

  Cale tried to concentrate on preparing a bed for Quinn on the sofa, piling the blankets and fluffing the pillow, and not on the fact that she was, at this moment, in his shower. That the water he could hear running on the other side of the wall was sliding down her back, across her shoulders…

  He had added yet another log on the fire, and poked energetically at the embers, when he heard the bathroom door open, heard her soft footsteps behind him as she came into the room. Turning to her, his words stuck in his throat. He watched her as she placed her folded clothes into her bag, his stomach tightening, and he tried in vain to look away. Even with her long hair damp from the shower and wrapped in a towel, Quinn was, if possible, even more lovely than she had been as a girl. She had filled out just a little, rounding here and lengthening there, until she was, as he could plainly see, nearer to perfection than any woman had a right to be. He could not help but notice, too, that she filled out his old gray thermal shirt in ways it was never intended to be filled.