“I meant you should cut back on your hours, not quit altogether.”
“Now I’ll have more time at home.”
He said this as if he thought it was a good thing. She suppressed a shudder. Of course she loved spending time with Jimmy, but she had her routines—she didn’t want him around all the time.
“And this will be a lot less stress,” he continued. “Much better for my health.”
“You don’t think getting a new business off the ground is stressful?” And what about financial stress? He’d just thrown away a six-figure paycheck for the promise of nothing.
“I’ve always taken care of you, haven’t I? Everything will be fine.”
“You should have asked me.” A combination of terror, disbelief, and anger rocked her, so that she had a hard time breathing. And the tears that had been threatening all morning rose dangerously close to the surface. She pushed up out of the chair and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Jimmy called after her.
“Out.” Away from this depressing cabin, and from him, and from the damning knowledge that he didn’t see her as a partner in their marriage, but as someone who needed protecting—a helpless person who needed taking care of.
Chapter Three
The wind had died down, but the snow still fell in a gentle white curtain, settling onto Barb’s hair and the shoulders of the mink. If she stood still long enough, she’d come to resemble a frozen bear, or maybe a snow sculpture—Socialite On Ice.
The cabins were separated from each other by a small yard that contained a picnic table and a charcoal grill, both now cloaked in white. Barb picked her way along a path to the next cabin in the row of four. In front of the Cabin Number Two, two little boys pounded the dry snow into a misshapen snowman while Pearl romped between them, wagging her tail and barking.
“Hello!” The younger of the two boys grinned at Barb, revealing a missing front tooth. His brown eyes were the color of melted chocolate and his cheeks glowed red in the cold. His snow suit was a little big for him, and patched with silver duct tape at the knees.
“Hello.” Barb stopped beside the boys, hands shoved deep in her coat pockets. “You two look like you’re having fun.”
“Mama said we should build a snowman so Santa Claus would know where to find us,” the younger boy said. He hugged the dog. “Pearl is helping.”
“Roberto is worried Santa won’t know where we are if we have to stay here Christmas Eve.” The older boy dumped a double handful of snow on the squat body of their creation and began patting it into place.
“Santa knows,” Barb said. “He’ll find you, come Christmas.” She hoped that was true, that the boys’ parents had presents with them in the family car.
“But how do you know he knows?” Roberto asked.
“If he knows when you’ve been sleeping and he knows when you’re awake, then he knows where you’re doing the sleeping and waking,” she said. Geez, Santa sounded like some CIA spy.
“That’s what I told him,” the older brother said. He was taller than Roberto, with a thinner, more solemn face. Maybe eight or nine, Barb decided. No longer a believer, but trying to keep the dream alive for his little brother. She remembered Michael at that age, fighting to hang on to Santa for a little longer, for his parents’ sake as well as his own.
“Mama says we can have Christmas here just as well as at our Tito Ramon’s,” the older boy said.
“Papa said we can cut a tree and decorate it,” Roberto said.
The door to the cabin opened and Elena looked out. She was a petite woman, at least four inches shorter than Barb, with eyes so brown they were almost black set in a heart-shaped face, and thick, dark hair that fell straight almost to her waist. She looked more like the boys’ older sister than their mother. “The boys are telling me their plans for Christmas,” Barb said. “They’re pretty excited.”
“This isn’t what we planned for Christmas, but we’ll make do,” Elena said. “How you coming on your cabin?”
“I was on my way to get the cleaning supplies now.”
“The woman who runs this place doesn’t seem happy about having us here.”
“I guess seven unexpected guests is a lot to take in at once.” Barb didn’t know why she felt the need to defend Mae; she had been unpleasant and there was no getting around that. “But yes, she is a bit of a grouch.”
“She ought to be happy she’s getting money in winter, when no one else is around.” She looked toward the boys. “Come inside, niños, and help me make the beds.”
Barb moved on, toward the main house. Pearl, abandoned by the boys, fell into step beside her. The house, which was painted the same faded green as the cabins, sprawled in a series of added-on rooms and porches. Assorted fishing memorabilia was tacked to the walls—a bait net, old fishing rods, even a pair of rubber waders with a hole in one heel.
She found a door marked “Office” and knocked. After a moment, Mae opened it. “I came for some cleaning supplies,” Barb said.
“Come in and I’ll see what I have left. You’re the last to ask.”
Barb wondered if this comment was a criticism of her slowness to launch into cleaning mode. Did Mae think she’d been waiting for someone to do the cleaning for her and had given up? She stepped into the house and waited for Pearl to follow before she shut the door behind her. She stopped in the small entryway to stamp snow from her boots and look around.
The large front room was paneled in dark wood, though little of the paneling showed behind a gallery of patchwork quilts. More quilts covered the sofa and two easy chairs, and draped over tables—their bright reds, blues, green and yellows lending vibrancy to the dated maple furniture and worn rugs. “Did you make all these quilts?” Barb asked. She fingered a coverlet composed of crossed pick axes against a background of muted browns.
Mae paused in her search through a closet and looked back at the quilts, as if she’d forgotten they were there. “I did. After my husband died and the kids moved out, the winters got pretty long. It was either quilt or drink.”
Barb shuddered at the thought of being alone all winter in this isolated spot. “I guess I’d have had to take up drinking. I don’t have a crafty gene in my body.”
“This ammonia in water will clean just about anything. Just be careful of the fumes.” Mae thrust out a blue plastic bucket that contained a wad of gray rags and half a bottle of yellow ammonia.
“Thanks,” Barb said. “Do you really stay here alone all winter?”
“I have Pearl.”
They both turned to look at the dog, who had stretched out on a dog bed by a worn tweed recliner. “She’s pretty good company. My son got her for me from a shelter in Denver a couple of years ago.”
“Your son lives in Denver?”
“One of them does. They’re always inviting me out to see them, but after a few days we all grate on each other’s nerves too much. Better to stay put here.”
And how many years had she “stayed put”? A lot, judging by all the quilts. “You said your father started the business?”
“Back in 1965. He bought the land before the lake was ever built. There wasn’t enough water in it to float a boat when he opened the first cabins, but it didn’t take too many years before the fishermen and boaters came flocking.”
“And then you and your husband took over running it?”
“I took over running it. Moved back here when the boys were little.” Her gaze focused on Barb’s coat. “You might not think it to look at me now, but I had a mink like that once. When we lived in Chicago. My husband was in real estate. We had about as different a life from this as you could imagine.”
“What happened?” Had her husband decided to chuck his job for the carefree life of the self-employed?
Mae’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t see as how that should make any difference to you now.”
Ouch. Barb backed up. “Well, thanks for the supplies. I’ll return everything when I’m done.”
“Wait a minute.” Mae put up a hand, then disappeared into a back room. She returned in a few minutes with a bundle of clothing. “You’re about my size, just a little shorter. You can roll up the pants legs.” She thrust the bundle at Barb. “You don’t want to ruin your clothes cleaning.”
“Thanks. That’s very thoughtful of you.”
“I’ll put it on the state’s bill.” She stepped back, as if afraid she’d done or said too much. “Go on. I’ve got plenty to do without wasting my time talking all day.”
Dismissed, Barb stepped back out into the whiteness that felt even colder and bleaker. She wondered if Mae still had her mink coat somewhere. Did she ever put it on and remember a fancy house and exciting parties in Chicago? Or was it better to lock those kinds of memories away, to only look forward because looking back hurt too much?
Jimmy made himself scarce when Barb showed up with the cleaning supplies, which was fine with her. She changed into the worn jeans and denim shirt Mae had lent her and attacked the cabin with the bucket full of sudsy ammonia. The stinging odor of the cleaner made her eyes water, and brought back the memory of Saturday housecleaning with her mother in a series of shabby rent houses in Beaumont, Texas. As the oldest of six children, Barb had been her mother’s chief helper. All those Saturdays trying to clean houses that were marred by years of ingrained grime had strengthened Barb’s determination to leave and never come back.
She’d never been particularly brainy, but she’d always been pretty—blonde and blue-eyed, with big breasts and a little waist. She’d been genetically blessed and she worked it for all she was worth, spending hours poring over magazines to learn how to dress and do her hair and makeup. In high school she was a cheerleader and a runner-up in the Miss Texas pageant. She’d gone to SMU to get her MRS degree and one of the first things she did after she and Jimmy were married was hire a maid who came every week.
Clearly, the woman’s Christmas bonus wasn’t large enough, Barb thought as she surveyed the cabin an hour later. She’d managed to banish the smell of mouse and the worst of the grime, but the place still reminded her too much of those dismal rent houses in Beaumont. She pushed the memories back into the shadows where they belonged, and changed into wool slacks and a sweater.
Jimmy came in, balancing a covered pot carefully in front of him. “What’s that?” Barb asked.
“Dinner. Elena Ramirez made some stew and sent some over for us.”
“Where did she find ingredients for stew?” Had her husband gone out and shot a deer in the blizzard? Or did she have the makings of the meal in their car?
“She found a bunch of canned goods in her cabin and figured with all the cleaning you were doing you wouldn’t feel like cooking.”
“She was cleaning, too. And she had two children to look after.” Did she think Barb looked that helpless?
Jimmy set the pot on the table, and pulled bowls from the cupboards. “Let’s eat before it gets cold.”
When the aroma of the stew reached Barb, her stomach rumbled. Suddenly, she was starving. Bless Elena. “Do you really think it will take two more days for them to get the roads open?” she asked after her first few bites of stew.
“I guess that depends on how long it keeps snowing. Reuben told me he was once stranded in a hotel outside of Rifle for four days during a blizzard.”
“When did you talk to Reuben?”
“He and I walked down to the lake. It’s a pretty nice place—a boat ramp and a picnic area. If the weather clears I might try ice fishing. I’ll bet Mae has some gear I can borrow.”
“We’re not here on vacation,” she said. “We’re here because we’re stuck.”
“Might as well enjoy ourselves.”
He might enjoy himself ice fishing, but there was precious little here to distract her from thinking about the fun Christmas she was missing. “We should have stayed in Houston,” she said. “We’d be at the Davidsons’ party right now.”
“Phil Davidson is a bore. He always corners me and wants to talk about his stock portfolio.”
“But I like Sandy. And the food at their parties is always wonderful.”
“Only because you gave her the name of your caterer.”
“True. I hope she’s thinking fondly of me now.”
“I hope Michael hasn’t decided to invite all his friends to the house to drink all my Scotch.”
She laughed. “Do you really think he’d do that?”
“I would have at his age.”
“I was married to you at his age. My parties were always perfectly proper. I was too busy learning to be the perfect wife for an up-and-coming executive to do anything wild.”
“You’ve had your moments.” He gave an exaggerated leer that made her laugh.
“One advantage of getting older is that it’s supposed to make you braver about taking risks,” she said. But was she really brave? She still cared what people thought of her; she wasn’t really so different from that nineteen-year-old bride who’d been so determined to make a good impression, though maybe she hid the insecurity better behind expensive jewelry and a fur coat.
“Exactly right. Risks like starting my own business. Or heading to Colorado for Christmas in a snowstorm.”
“Let’s hope your business venture turns out better than this trip.”
“We’ll get to Eureka eventually.” He pushed away his empty bowl. “For now we’re safe and warm and fed, and that’s what counts.”
“I hope we’re not stuck here through Christmas,” she said.
“You’ll feel better in the morning,” he said. “It’s been a rough day.”
The bed was narrower than the one they shared at home, the mattress hard and the sheets scratchy. Barb closed her eyes and tried to count her blessings, but instead her thoughts turned to the idea of risk. She put on a bold front, and she wasn’t afraid to try new things, but she wasn’t a daredevil, either. She would have thought at this point in her life she’d have been past the age where she had to take chances, but the opposite seemed to be true. All around her, the people she loved were risking everything, changing their lives completely. Not just Jimmy, quitting his job and launching this new business, but her best friend Maggie had moved to Colorado to live in a remote town where she hadn’t known a soul and started over with a new job, a younger man, and a completely different life.
Barb didn’t want a different life. She liked the life she had. But she also didn’t want everyone moving on without her. The worst feeling in the world had to be that of being taken for granted.
She would have thought she couldn’t sleep in the strange cabin, on the creaky bed, but she eventually surrendered to weariness and dozed. She woke a few hours later, cold, and curled into Jimmy, who put his arms around her and drew her close.
“Jimmy, are you awake?”
His only answer was a soft snore.
She shook him. “Wha?” he moaned.
“You should have made me listen to your plans to open a business,” she said. “You should have made me see how important it was to you.”
“Mmm.” He pulled the covers closer around him.
“I’m not helpless,” she said. “You don’t have to protect me. We’re supposed to be partners.”
“Partners,” he muttered.
She sighed and laid her head on his shoulder. He draped his arm around her. “Go to sleep,” he said.
So she closed her eyes and to her surprise, drifted off almost immediately.
Chapter Four
After a breakfast of tea and a protein bar, Barb set out to return the cleaning supplies and clothing to Mae.
“It’s stopped snowing!” Roberto ran up to her almost as soon as she stepped out of the cabin.
“That’s great news,” she said. The sky was still low and gray, but the air was clear and still, though stinging cold.
“Papa says we can get a tree today,” the older boy said. “We’re going to make paper chains and stuff to decorate it.”
; “That will be fun.” And it would keep the boys occupied a while.
The door to their cabin opened and Elena emerged. She wore a man’s checked flannel shirt over jeans, the shirt much too big for her, giving her the appearance of a child playing dress up. “Good morning,” she said. She hugged her arms around herself and looked up at the sky. “It’s stopped snowing.”
“Maybe they’ll open the roads soon.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t look confident.
“Roberto said you were going to his uncle’s for Christmas?”
“Not just for Christmas. We’re moving there. My brother thinks Ernesto can get a job with his employer, at a machine shop.”
“Is that the kind of work he did in New Mexico?”
Her eyes narrowed. She was silent so long Barb wondered if she’d asked the wrong question again. “Ernesto can do a lot of different things,” Elena said finally. “He’s a good mechanic and he knows about engines and fixing stuff. His main problem is he has a temper and that gets him in trouble at work. If he doesn’t like something a boss is doing, he tells him.” She shrugged. “He’s lost a few jobs for speaking his mind. I’m hoping this will be a fresh start.”
“We’re making a fresh start in the new year, too,” Barb said. “My husband’s decided to go into business for himself, with our son.”
“Maybe that’s what Ernesto should do. Then, if the boss messed up, he’d only have himself to be angry with.”
“Not so easy to do, though.” Barb scuffed the toe of her boot in the snow. “My husband says things will be fine, but change is scary.”
“I hope this is a good change for us,” Elena said. “Though we hadn’t planned on this detour.”
“Mama! Can Roberto and I dig a snow fort over by those trees?” The older boy, a snow shovel over one shoulder, gestured toward a cluster of trees just beyond the gas pumps.
“All right, but be sure to keep your mittens on. I don’t want any frozen fingers.”
“How old are they?” Barb asked as they watched the boys race for the trees.
Secret Santa Page 27