The Promise of Christmas

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “WAIT!” Jonathan cried from his knees as, ten minutes later, Leslie stood to go and make breakfast. The boy had been snapping together the easy tracks from an oversize electric train set Santa had brought him. He looked up at Kip, who nodded.

  “We have one more present for you,” he told Leslie.

  “I’ve had far too many already,” she said, so filled with blessings she wasn’t sure she had room for more.

  “I think you want this one,” Clara said, moving over to perch on the edge of the couch. “Sit.”

  Leslie tucked the violet silk robe beneath her and sat.

  “Kayla, come here,” Jonathan said in an urgent whisper, as though Leslie wasn’t meant to hear. He grabbed his sister’s hand, yanking her away from the wooden puzzle she’d just dumped on the floor.

  Kip followed right behind the kids as they walked toward her.

  “Okay, Kayla,” Jonathan said importantly. “Who’s that?” He pointed right at her.

  “Ma ma ma ma ma!” the little girl said, then toddled back to her puzzle. At least that was where Leslie thought she’d gone. She couldn’t quite see through the haze of tears.

  Her mother was right. She wanted this gift. And would spend the rest of her life living up to it.

  She’d waited thirty years, hoping, always hoping. Today, the promise of Christmas had been kept in full.

  THE RED ROCK MOUNTAINS of Sedona were one of a kind, miraculous, a colorful marvel to all who saw them, and the perfect setting for a wedding that would transform the impossible into reality. A damaged woman had found healing and happiness, orphan children were being given parents and a real family for the first time in their lives, and a man who’d been satisfied to settle for affection had found true love. They were a pretty fair match for the amber and maroon cliffs that rose above the city and touched the sky.

  An hour before the outdoor wedding was due to begin, during that week between Christmas and New Years, that time between ending and beginning, Clara found her daughter in the hotel suite where she’d spent the night. Leslie had just finished her shower and slipped into the toweling robe she’d wear until it was time to put on the beautiful beaded gown her mother had found for her. And then altered to fit Leslie’s thinner waist.

  “Mom, is something wrong?” Leslie asked, when she saw her mother standing outside her door without Kayla. Clara was dressed in the long, snug-fitting violet gown Leslie had picked for her, and she looked every bit as lovely and elegant as Leslie had known she would.

  “Can I come in?”

  “What is it?” Leslie asked. Surely she wasn’t going to lose everything now, not when she was so close to having it all. “Is it Kayla?”

  “No, dear,” Clara said, tucking a strand of Leslie’s flyaway hair behind her ear. Kip had asked her to wear it down today. “She’s with Ada.”

  The older woman had arrived in Phoenix the morning before and had driven up to Sedona with them. She’d hand-carried the papers from Ohio that had made Kayla and Jonathan officially Leslie and Kip’s children.

  “Is it Kip? Is he here?”

  “Of course he’s here,” Clara said, pulling Leslie down on the bed beside her. “You think anything’s going to keep that man away from you and the kids?”

  She hadn’t thought so, but this believing thing was hard work.

  “I came because I wanted to talk to you,” Clara said. “I want to make certain that you’re really happy.”

  “Oh, Mom, of course I am!” Leslie almost laughed at the irony. Might have if she hadn’t been afraid she’d cry instead. For thirty years she’d been waiting for her mother to ask that question. To ask any really personal question. And now, when Leslie had finally found her way alone, Clara was there.

  “All I ever wanted was to be a good mother,” she said, and Leslie’s heart missed a beat. Did Clara know something, after all? Could her mother possibly have been aware and done nothing?

  Leslie didn’t want to think so. Couldn’t bear to think so. Didn’t think so. Clara would never knowingly have allowed Leslie to be hurt. She knew that from the depths of her heart.

  And with that knowing came the peace and forgiveness she’d been struggling to find for years. Her mind had accepted the truth years ago. Today, her heart had.

  “You were a good mother,” she said, happy tears in her eyes as she said the words, free at last.

  “I have a confession to make.” Clara looked down, her cheeks flushing.

  “What?”

  “I overheard you and Kip the night he asked you to marry him.”

  She almost asked which night. But didn’t want to give that much away.

  “You told him you couldn’t,” Clara continued. “It was so clear that you’d been hurt, baby,” Clara said, trying to restrain a sob. “Badly hurt. And I didn’t know anything about it.”

  Thank God for that. Knowing would have killed Clara. And for no gain. Her mother couldn’t have taken back what Cal had done, couldn’t possibly have erased the memory, for any of them.

  “I was always trying so hard not to repeat what my grandmother had done to my mother,” she said, her eyes creased with pain. “And what your grandmother did to your father and me…”

  “I know, Mom, it’s okay. I always knew you loved me,” Leslie told her mother. “Girls get hurt, Mom. Heartache’s part of growing up. And they sure don’t run to their mothers about it all the time.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Kip is the man of my dreams, Mom. Surely you know that.”

  Clara grinned then, the lines of concern in her face disappearing. “I wish I knew more about your life, sweetie,” she said, touching Leslie’s cheek. “I wish we’d shared more.”

  “It’s not too late to start,” Leslie said, her heart bursting with happiness. It might have taken her all these years to find herself, but the life she was discovering was turning out to be worth the effort.

  “I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Mom, let’s make a deal,” Leslie said softly. “You ask all you want, and if it ever becomes a problem, I’ll tell you.”

  “You promise?” Clara asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And I promise I’ll listen when you do,” Clara said, standing.

  Leslie stood with her mother, opening her heart completely as the older woman wrapped her in her arms. She figured, based on Kip’s retarded-growth theory, that she’d just about caught up with herself.

  THE CEREMONY WASN’T LONG, but every single word was significant. Leslie held Kip’s hand and then, when it was over and they were pronounced husband and wife, she took one of Kayla’s hands, as well. Kip, with Jonathan on his other side, escorted his family down the aisle between the dozen or so folding chairs. They’d been set up on the mountain outside town.

  There were only a few guests, as Leslie had requested. The moment was too personal, too intimate; she didn’t want to be conscious of onlookers.

  But they were having a huge party on New Year’s Eve for much of Columbus and Phoenix combined it seemed. They’d had to reserve half the rooms at the Phoenix South Mountain resort. Kip’s friends from Ann Arbor would be joining them, too.

  But for today, it was just her small family. Plus Ada, and Nancy. And of course, Juliet. Kip had met Leslie’s counselor the week before, and it had been a mutual admiration party all around.

  “Leslie, can I see you for a minute?” Ada asked, pulling Leslie aside after the lunch they’d had in a private room at one of Sedona’s plushest resorts.

  “Of course,” she said, always conscious that her children had been Ada’s children first. They’d already made arrangements for Ada to spend a couple of weeks with them in February.

  “Cal asked me to give you this,” the old woman said as soon as they were out of sight.

  “He asked you? When?”

  “The night before he left on that climbing trip.”

  “What is it?”

  The woman shrugged. “He didn’t tell me that. Just said I w
as to keep it and if’n you and Kip Webster ever got married, I was to give it to you.”

  Leslie thanked her, shoved the envelope into the white clutch she’d bought to go with her wedding gown, and promptly forgot about it. Cal no longer had power over her.

  She found the letter again later that evening, in her hotel room with Kip, when she was transferring her things to the bag she was taking on her honeymoon. Kip had rented a villa for the two of them on the island of Capri, off the coast of Italy. Clara would be bringing the kids and joining them for a fortnight in Sorrento the following week.

  The envelope she’d forgotten about earlier burned her fingers. A month ago, two weeks ago, she’d have hidden it away, feared it, until it drove her to open it. And then only when she was alone.

  Tonight she turned, handed it to Kip. “Ada brought this. She says it’s from Cal.”

  Watching her, Kip opened the envelope, cringing when Cal’s handwriting became visible. He fell to the end of the bed, and Leslie dropped down beside him as, together, they read her brother’s last communication.

  Leslie and Kip,

  Other than my sweet Abby, you two are the people dearest to me. I am leaving in the morning for the final adventure of my life. I will climb nearly to the top of one of my favorite mountains in Colorado, and then I will slip, get tangled in my rope and fall. The thought brings me peace—something I’ve been without for most of my years.

  There is no place for me in this life. I cannot stand to live with myself since losing Abby. Before I knew her, I didn’t know what forgiveness and acceptance felt like, but now that I’ve had it, I find I can’t live without it. I also find I can’t live in the same world as my precious little Kayla. I am afraid for her, afraid of myself around her. I choose to die rather than risk hurting her as I hurt the only other little girl in my life, a child I adored as much as I adore Kayla.

  That child was you, Les. I cannot stand the fact that I have ruined your chance at happiness. I know you’ve always loved Kip. And I know that you, Kip, are the only man I’ve ever known, who is worthy of my little sister. If anyone can help Les find happiness, it will be you. If anyone can help her find peace after living with a demon all those years, it will be you. You saw good in me, too, which is something I’ve never understood.

  Kip, my friend, all you ever wanted was a family of your own, and a love that is real and deep. Leslie can give that to you. I am leaving the two of you my children because there’s no one else I trust them to, but also because this is the only way I know to bring the two of you together—to break through the barriers and let you find each other.

  If it’s meant to be.

  If it doesn’t happen, you will never receive this letter, as I don’t want to force my thoughts and desires on either of you. I’ve already done far too much of that.

  I have no excuses to offer. Only this. I have been sorry with every breath I’ve taken for the past eighteen years.

  Dear, sweet Les, I am so sorry.

  The letter was signed simply Calhoun.

  The piece of paper drifted to the floor as Leslie started to cry and Kip, with intense and very mixed emotions about his old friend, reached for her.

  “I love you, Les.”

  “Even if I still love him? The person he was despite what he did to me…”

  It wasn’t as hard for him to understand as he might have thought. If Calhoun Sanderson were alive, Kip would do all he could to see him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. He’d see him sent to prison for the maximum sentence allowed by law, take his daughter away, have him registered as a sex offender. He’d never forgive or condone the horrible crime Calhoun had committed repeatedly for more than four years, regardless of the good the man had done. But he was no longer feeling murderous.

  “Especially then,” he told Leslie now. “That has nothing to do with Calhoun or what he did, Les, it’s about you and your heart. You see the best in people. You look for good in a world where it’s so easy to focus on the bad. And you find it—and show it to the rest of us.”

  She glanced up at him through her tears, so beautiful his heart ached. “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “Do I show good to you, Kip?”

  “Particularly to me, honey, because I know how hard you had to look to find it.”

  Her lips trembled, but her smile was bright. “Never that hard, even back then,” she said. “Because right beside Cal, there was always you.”

  Pulling her close to his heart, Kip lay down with her, finding a release, a peace and euphoria far greater than any orgasm he’d ever known as she rested her head against his chest and fell asleep.

  It wasn’t a traditional wedding night. But it was perfect.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6264-9

  THE PROMISE OF CHRISTMAS

  Copyright © 2005 by Tara Taylor Quinn.

  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.

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  *Shelter Valley Stories