She gave him a smile that would melt any snowman, and he warned himself to turn away and get on with the task at hand. It worked. Hoisting the tree over to one corner of the garage, he knew he also couldn’t let himself think about being around his child. The baby would need a parent who could give it the wonderful childhood he’d never had—and that parent would be Shea. He would not stick around trying to fit into her perfect world here, only to end up making her life hell. He couldn’t—and it hurt.
Toward seven o’clock that evening, Shea put a plate of iced Christmas-tree cookies on the coffee table and grinned at Jared and her father as they stepped back from the tree. The two men had been together since Jared had arrived, working at chopping the bottom of the tree to fit the stand, and now that it was up, looking it over carefully. While she couldn’t tell if Jared was having fun, he was at least involved. And he’d shown up. Somewhere inside her, her baby latched onto a little star of hope.
“A beautiful tree.” Mack surveyed it with a discerning eye and a nod of approval. “Jared says you chose it in less than ten minutes?” He chuckled. “That has to be a record in decisiveness for you.”
“Yes, well, Jared convinced me that the tree’s flaws gave it character.”
Her father frowned. “What flaws?”
“The branches.”
Her father lifted his eyebrows as though he had no idea what Shea was referring to. Frowning, she walked over to the tree, peeked around the back and then to either side. Knowing full well that the tree should appear a tad hollow somewhere because of the stunted branches and the damage she’d done to it, she shot Jared a questioning look.
“What happened to my tree?”
“Your tree?” he countered, reminding her with an ironic grin that she hadn’t liked the tree at all. “Maybe the Grinch stole it.” He shrugged his shoulders and asked, “What’s the big deal? He left another one in its place.”
Shea caught a glint of something mischievous in Jared’s eyes—just like the good old days.
“Besides, Shea,” he continued, “this one is perfect.”
His emphasis on that last word was not lost on her. He was behind this tree switch, not any Grinch, but the question was, why?
She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know, but she did want her tree back. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon in her office thinking about that flawed tree and its significance. It was the first tree that Jared had picked out ever, and she’d decided her baby’s ornament belonged on it. It was only right.
And Jared had changed it. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. No, she did know. Love and laughter.
Humbug.
“I want my tree back.”
Her shocked father stared from her determined face to Jared’s closed-off one, then did the only logical thing—retreated, mumbling about getting some ornaments from the garage. Jared started to follow, but Shea snagged his sleeve with her fingers.
“Uh-huh. You’re staying here.” Waiting just long enough to hear the back door open to be sure her father was well outside, she asked, “Where’s my tree?”
“Your tree?” Jared was incredulous, spreading his hands out wide. “But you hated that tree.”
“That was hours ago. In the meantime, I decided differently. What happened to it?”
“In the meantime, I decided differently,” he repeated in a suffering, but teasing, tone. “You’ve never changed your mind this fast before. You used to make a choice and stick with it forever. Maybe it’s the pregnancy that’s changing you. I sure hope it is because then I could believe you aren’t doing this to make me crazy.”
“I’m the one who’s starting to feel a little crazy here, Jared,” she said warningly, taking a couple of steps closer to him. “Where’s my tree?”
His eyes twinkled as he stood his ground. “Why is it so important for you to suddenly have a tree you hated six hours ago?”
“It’s a totally sentimental reason you would just roll your eyes over.”
He considered that for a second or two, rubbing his teeth against his bottom lip. “Try me. Why do you suddenly want an imperfect tree in the middle of your perfect Quiet Brook Christmas?”
She wanted to say it would never again be a perfect Christmas without him, but she couldn’t, no matter how much being this near to him enticed her senses. She wanted to curl up in his arms on a rug in front of a fireplace, but her only alternative was to stand there and explain what had occurred to her that afternoon.
“I spent a lot of time thinking about this, and...” Her words drifted off as she tried to choose the right words so he would understand. “It’s the first tree you ever picked out, and when you hung that ornament I gave you on it, I guess I thought it would be the beginning of a tradition for our baby that I could always tell it about. The Christmas its daddy chopped down the tree for its very own ornament. It would have been...perfect.”
That single word hung in the air between them.
“I’m sorry, Shea. I never thought to look at it that way. I ruined it for you, didn’t I?”
He looked sadder, Shea thought, than when she’d told him she was divorcing him. That wasn’t good. She was trying to help him, not make everything worse. And for that reason, she knew she had to lie.
“You didn’t ruin a thing,” she told him, even though she knew in her heart the picture-perfect pine inches away wouldn’t be the same. “You tried to make me happy with a better tree. That was really nice. Forget it. We have this one.” She gave him a weak smile. “I love it.”
“You never were a great liar.” After regarding her for another minute, he leaned forward and grabbed her hand. His expression never changing, he pulled her toward the kitchen. “C’mon.”
Because she had no choice, she followed him right into the kitchen where the aroma of oranges she’d brought home was mingling with the cinnamon of the sugar cookies that were still cooling on the rack. Mack had deposited two medium-size cardboard boxes on the floor and next to them was testing a string of fat, old-fashioned Christmas lights for burnouts.
“Good. You two are just in time to start hanging the ornaments,” he said, pointing toward the boxes.
Letting go of her hand, Jared stepped around the lights and reached for his coat hanging by the rear door. “No decorating tonight, Mack,” he said, pulling on his jacket.
He was leaving? Shea stared at him, confused.
“What do you mean, no decorating tonight?” Mack asked, plugging in the string. “I thought that’s why you came back here early instead of spending the evening at the store.”
Shea watched as the floor lit up in bright colors, giving a false gaiety to the scene. Feeling miserable for having driven Jared away, Shea could only stare at her almost ex-husband.
“Shea and I have something we have to do.” Jared took her coat off the hook, stepped around the lights again and handed it to her as he headed back into the living room. “You’ll need to hurry, though, Shea. I’m not sure how much time we have.”
“To do what?” she asked, following him, aware her father was trailing along after them both. She was filled with relief that Jared wasn’t retreating again—not exactly anyway. But then she only grew more confused as Jared neared the tree, reached into the branches and lifted the whole thing up, stand and all.
“Hey!” Mack said. “Where are you going with our tree?”
“Sorry, Mack, I need it. I’m going to try to retrieve Shea’s perfect Christmas tradition that I gave away,” Jared said. “To do that, we’ll have to trade trees.” He moved the tree to the front door, which he opened with his free hand, then he stopped long enough to glance over his shoulder at her. “Are you coming?”
A glad feeling like Shea had never had before filled every inch of her. Yanking on her coat, she started doing up buttons. Because Jared didn’t have to go after that tree, it was, she thought, perhaps the nicest thing he had ever done for her. She wasn’t even going to question it.
“Did I miss something here?
” Mack asked, looking from Jared to her. “Why on earth isn’t this tree good enough?”
“Because its branches aren’t stunted and shaved,” Shea said, buttoning her last button and shoving on her gloves.
As she hurried toward the door, she stopped for a second and took in the sight of her father raking his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair in confusion.
“By the way,” she said, her voice filled with happiness, “I thought you might like to know, since we could be a while and we were going to tell you this evening anyway—”
“Know what?”
“You’re going to be a grandfather.”
“Very funny,” Mack said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes as though he thought she was kidding. “Kids.”
“Honestly, Dad, I’m having Jared’s baby,” she said.
Smiling widely, she slipped outside and shut the door behind her. If she knew her father the way she thought she did, she and Jared needed to get going fast or they’d never shake loose of Mack Denton this evening.
She hurried down the walk to the truck just as Jared was opening the door on the driver’s side. It was his turn to be perplexed as she slipped into the seat and counted, “Three, two, one...”
The front door jerked open and Mack’s voice exploded into the evening air. “Shea Denton Burroughs, you’re what?”
“I’m coming back soon, Dad!” she called. “We’ll discuss it then.”
“I’ll be waiting, and, Jared, you’d better come back with her!”
“Yes, sir.” Jared climbed into the truck and gave her a look that said he was glad they were leaving.
She grinned at him. “Told you you would have heard the news in Topeka.”
Chuckling, Jared shook his head and became serious. “Do you think that’s wise, telling him right before we leave? News like that could give a man a heart attack.” He lowered his voice and said, almost to himself, “Believe me, I know.”
“I have a way of getting to people, don’t I?” Shea bit back her smile, remembering she had told him that Mack was worse off than he was in order to convince Jared to stick around in Quiet Brook. “Dad looked worried about what was going on, and I wanted to leave him with a smile and something pleasant to think about.”
A doubtful look on his face, Jared peered past her to the front door to see if her news had worked. Mack still stood on the front porch, arms folded across his chest. And sure enough—he was also grinning from ear to ear.
“My tree is in the store?” Shea asked as Jared pulled into the parking lot behind Denton’s. Halfempty, and it was only seven-thirty in the evening, with hardly any shopping days left till Christmas. She would hazard a guess that most of the shoppers with children were walking the mall that evening while their children saw Santa. She had to do something about that, and fast. But first, the tree—for tradition’s sake. “My tree is in the store?”
“Not exactly.” Jared got out and rounded the truck to open her door. He had refused to tell her any details on the short ride over, saying it would be easier just to show her about the tree. She wasn’t sure she understood, but she trusted him. She hadn’t always liked what he had to say, but he always had very logical reasons behind whatever he did.
Which was why they weren’t together, she reflected as she stepped out onto the gravel, the frosty air nipping her cheeks. He took her hand, and she followed, thinking about how much she liked having her hand nestled inside his big one and traipsing around with him to wherever.
But she shouldn’t think about what she liked and didn’t like about Jared while he was there in Quiet Brook. If she did, she might start believing anything was possible again, and that would not be a good idea.
The sudden realization that they were not going into the back entrance of the store startled her out of her treacherous thinking. What on earth was Jared up to that he was taking her to her tree in, of all places, the alley?
Letting go of her hand, Jared pulled a flashlight out of his pocket, clicked it on and scanned the outside wooden wall of the building. There was nothing even faintly resembling a tree resting there, and an apologetic look appeared on his face.
“I’m too late,” he told her. “She must have gotten someone to take the tree to her house.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Your little friend, Molly, about five years old, sandy hair. She said she knew you. Maybe she’s still in the building. I saw her a couple of times this morning while I was interviewing employees, and then again this afternoon when she started talking to me. She has this annoying habit of disappearing before I can ask her where her parents are. I think she must live nearby.” Turning before Shea could reply, Jared headed toward the back door of the store and held it open for her. “If we find her, maybe we can get her mom to trade trees. Since you know her and the store, where do you think a kid who spends a lot of time here might hang out?”
Shea stared at him. Jared had just given a tree to a child he didn’t even know? She slipped inside, nodded at the security guard they’d employed part-time for the evening hours ever since the day they’d been robbed—the day she’d met Jared—and then turned directly in front of Jared to stop him from barreling ahead through the store.
“I have one or two ideas where children might hide,” she said, “but there’s one problem about all this.”
“I thought you wanted to get your tree back,” he said, running his hand through his dark brown hair in obvious exasperation.
“I do.” Pulling down the hood of her coat, Shea stared up at him in total bewilderment. “The problem is, I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
Chapter Six
“What do you mean you don’t know who I’m talking about? The child said—” Jared abruptly stopped speaking. What had Molly said? Just that she had seen Shea, not that she personally knew her.
They moved out of the way as a lone shopper left with a single bag, the security guard walking her outside.
“Start from the beginning,” Shea suggested.
He told her of their first meeting, leaving out the part Molly had said about Shea almost crying. “Today, while I was interviewing store employees, she popped up out of nowhere and told me that this ‘real’ Santa of hers needed a tree.” He shrugged. “I figured she was making it up and probably meant her own family. She doesn’t look like her folks have much.”
She nodded for him to continue.
“I knew you hated the tree I picked out, so I told the kid that in about an hour, I’d put a tree in the alley with her name on it. That’s when she told me her name. Molly ‘Claus.’ Obviously, the kid is heavy into this Christmas fantasy.”
“Obviously.” Shea had to smile. Jared looked so skeptical, but he’d helped Molly anyway.
“Then I told her to have her dad or mom there to pick up the tree so no one else would take it. I figured I would wait there and talk to them about their kid going up to total strangers. Then I had to move out of the way for a clerk, and when I turned around, Molly had disappeared. Since I still had your keys, I went back to your garage and got your tree.”
“And?”
“Nobody showed in the alley, so I left the tree there and got you another one.”
He’d been worried about her Christmas. Shea couldn’t help but give him a big, knowing smile.
His face taking on a cautious look, Jared backed up and sent a warning look her way. “Shea, I was just using common sense in a rough world. The kid’s been going up to total strangers and offering to take them off to meet this mythical Santa. That isn’t safe. The right thing to do, I figured, was to get her a tree so she wouldn’t ask anyone else, and then to get someone to look after her. Since she chose me to approach, I felt responsible. That’s all it was. Don’t read anything else into it, okay?”
“Sorry, Jared,” she said, lowering her chin to her chest as though she were a child being admonished, trying hard not to grin.
He regarded her reaction solemnly until he finally felt like
smiling, too. “You never give up, do you? You’re so determined to find the good in me, aren’t you?”
“No, Jared,” Shea said softly, her expression turning serious. “I’m just determined to help you see the good in yourself.”
For the first time, Jared wondered if he could pretend to feel all the things he knew he was supposed to be feeling—the love of holidays and the need for tradition...the need for a family. Could he? When he was a kid, he’d made up a family, with a mother who laughed at his jokes and a father who played ball with him in the backyard. When he eventually realized it wasn’t going to happen, he’d buried that desire deep, so deep he no longer felt anything but an emptiness.
He had to get out of there. Find the tree, then find the Grinch...then find his way back to Topeka. He wished it sounded more appealing.
“We need to see if Molly is still around,” he told her.
Shea had been watching Jared for so long she had almost forgotten why they were back at the store.
“The tree!” If she could get her tree back, it would be almost a sign that there was hope for this Christmas to be something more than a holiday of misery. Unbuttoning her coat, she hurriedly hung it on the empty coat rack near the door meant for the customers. “You think she’s still somewhere inside, even though the tree’s gone?”
“You never can tell.”
“Let’s split up, then,” she suggested. “I’ll ask the clerks about her, and you can start checking under the counters and behind booths, places where kids might like to hide. If you see her, yell your head off and I’ll come running.”
“I’d rather stick with you.”
“If only,” she said wistfully, but he didn’t seem to hear.
Where anything connected to the little girl was concerned, they ran into a pattern of cautious denials that sounded suspicious to Shea, although for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what anyone could be hiding. When she caught reflected in the security mirror a surreptitiously given “everything’s okay” sign sent from one employee they’d just finished interviewing to another, she knew she was right
A Baby In His Stocking (Harlequin Treasury 1990's) Page 7