An Unplanned Christmas

by Lizzie Shane

  “Shelby…” Carly glared at her sister—as if she’d broken some unspoken rule.

  “No, she’s right. I should have told him.” Rachel had the feeling all three of Cam’s sisters were protective of him, but Shelby was the most aggressive about it, if the way she held Rachel’s gaze was anything to go by. In a way it was almost a relief to have one of them challenge her, stripping away the illusion that they were all chummy.

  The anxious knot in her stomach pulsed. “I wish I had a better explanation. I just freaked out. He was already in LA and I’d convinced myself he was the kind of guy the baby and I would be better off without. It’s no excuse, but I wasn’t really thinking clearly and all I can do is try to do better now. I am trying to do better.” Even if it wasn’t always easy, letting him back into her life.

  Shelby’s face stayed impassive, like in her mind the jury was still out on that, but Carly reached over and gently clinked her glass against Rachel’s. “That’s all any of us can do. To the future.”

  Ashley raised her glass, grinning. “To the future.” And even Shelby reluctantly tapped her glass to her sister’s.

  Maybe, just maybe, the future would be something worth toasting.

  * * * * *

  “Aren’t you just the smartest baby? Yes, you are.”

  Cam tried to focus on his mother cooing at Sofie, but his attention kept drifting to where Rachel was being interrogated by his sisters. He wished he could hear what they were talking about. Rachel looked as prickly as she had since she walked in the door—but at least she didn’t look any more prickly, so maybe he should take that as a good sign.

  She’d been avoiding him. They were both trying to adjust to the situation, but he felt like they were two lions warily circling one another—or a pitcher trying to figure out a batter’s strengths without a scouting report. They were both figuring it out as they went along and the awkwardness was digging underneath his skin.

  He wanted to be able to talk to her. He wanted her to be able to talk to him. He wanted a moment with her when things didn’t feel stilted and uncomfortable. And he wanted to not be jealous of his own sisters because she was actually talking to them.

  “Cam?”

  He glanced up, catching his mother watching him with a knowing look. He cleared his throat, trying to clear away the indecision. “I should go rescue Rachel.”

  Thankfully, his mother didn’t comment on the fact that Rachel didn’t look like she needed rescuing. Carly and Ashley were laughing and even Shelby seemed to have lost some of the sharp distrust she’d carried around since they found out about Sofie. Rachel’s smile was more hesitant, but it was peeking out around the edges—and he was jealous again. Jealous that someone else had made her smile.

  God, he was an idiot.

  “Are you three playing nice?” he asked as he approached—and watched Rachel’s spine stiffen. She glanced over to where his mother was showing Sofie an alphabet toy. “She’s fine,” he assured her. “And my mother’s in heaven. Thank you for this.”

  “Of course,” she murmured, as his sisters stood up and began moving toward the baby.

  “Time to go dote on my niece,” Carly declared, leaving Cam and Rachel alone at the bar.

  Rachel watched the exodus, not meeting his eyes.

  “You okay?” he asked softly. She was so contained, like she was holding herself together.

  Her gaze flicked over to his then back to the tableau in front of the tree. “I’m good. I just…it’s a lot.”

  “You’re telling me. A week ago I was going to a meeting about a bachelor auction and now everything is different.”

  “Not everything. You better still be at that auction. I don’t have time to find another headlining Bachelor. I already have half a dozen emails I need to reply to about the fundraiser to make sure everything is in place. I haven’t had time to do my Christmas shopping—which is usually done and wrapped under the tree by now—and now there’s meetings with you and your family to fit into a schedule that was already too full.”

  “I could help,” he offered. “I could take Sofie while you do your shopping…” He trailed off, seeing the refusal on her face before she said a word.

  “No, it’s fine. I’ll manage. I always do. It just feels like something has to give and I don’t want it to be Sofie’s Christmas. My mother was always scrambling until the last minute too, wrapping my presents on Christmas Eve to try to get them in before the wire. I want Sofie to have the chance to anticipate, to let the excitement of the season build.”

  Cam arched a brow. “She really won’t know the difference.”

  “But I will.”

  “Don’t you think you’re stressing yourself out over nothing? At this age, she’s going to play with the box. If anything, she’s going to pick up on the fact that her mom is putting unnecessary stress on herself trying to make everything perfect.” It was the Christmas tree all over again. “Besides, if you force everything around Sofie to be perfect all the time, what do you think she’s going to think she has to be?”

  He only meant that she needed to try to enjoy the things that weren’t part of her plans, to laugh at the things she couldn’t control. He knew firsthand how hard it was to keep up the appearance of perfection—but he saw his mistake the second Rachel raised her eyes to his.

  Chapter Twelve

  Anger rushed through Rachel like a flash flood. “Are you implying that I’m giving Sofie a perfectionism complex?”

  How dare he? How dare he criticize her parenting? She was doing her best, damn it. She didn’t want Sofie to be perfect. She wanted everything to be perfect for Sofie. There was a difference. A huge one. She would rearrange her entire life for her child—had already done so in a hundred ways—and here he was in his first week as a father thinking he could tell her all the ways she was messing up their daughter?

  Cam held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, that isn’t what I meant—”

  “What did you mean then? Explain to me how I misunderstood.”

  “I just meant maybe don’t sweat the small stuff.”

  “The small stuff, as you put it, is what she’s going to remember. They’re the patterns that are going to shape her entire life. She’s learning right now. She’s absorbing everything—so everything matters.”

  “Which is a good way to give yourself a nervous breakdown. Some things are outside of our control and she’s gotta learn to take the unexpected and roll with it. To keep playing even after an error or a strikeout. To just play at all without worrying about the future.”

  “Says the player,” she snapped.

  “Yeah. A ball player. Not a player player. I never played you, Rachel. And I’m not going to apologize for wanting you to relax and have a little fun.”

  “My life is fun!” She knew how to have fun, damn it. “Sofie’s life is fun. We play all the time.”

  And if it was all scheduled playtime that was just the way life had to be. She needed the order. She needed the plan. She’d tried spontaneity when she first met Cam and look what had happened. She couldn’t let her guard down and be impulsive. The universe was waiting to smack you in the face when you did.

  “We should go.” The words were stiff, the muscles in her neck tight with tension. “It’s getting late and I don’t want to upset Sofie’s sleep schedule.”

  “Rachel…don’t leave angry.”

  “I’m not.” This feeling, this wasn’t anger. It was frustration. Exhaustion. The need to go home and wrap herself in a protective cocoon, because she felt like she literally could not take one more thing without completely falling apart. “But we do need to go.”

  The goodbyes took a while.

  Cam took charge and shouldered his family’s disappointment by being the one to announce that Sofie and Rachel had to leave. He stood firm against the wave of protests so she didn’t have to, but it still took several minutes for everyone to hug Sofie. Carly and Ashley hugged Rachel and she trie
d not to stiffen in their arms as the entire group migrated toward the door. Carly handed her a card and urged her to call anytime. Cam’s mother patted her arm and told her they should make sure they had a chance to talk next time—and Rachel smiled and nodded, though thinking about next time made her stomach roil.

  They were so nice. Behaving so perfectly. The freaking dream in-laws. And she felt like she was braced against it, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sure, they were nice on the surface, but they had to hate her, didn’t they? They must think she’d done Cam wrong. They must be mad at her for keeping Sofie a secret. The smiles just made her feel nervous. And guilty.

  She’d never been so relieved to get out of a house.

  Cam walked her to her car, carrying Sofie tucked against his chest. He watched Rachel buckle her into her car seat and spoke softly when she tugged the straps to check their snugness.

  “Thank you for coming tonight.”

  Of course she’d come. What kind of person would refuse when he wanted his daughter to meet his parents and siblings? Even if part of her had wanted to slow everything down, she hadn’t felt like she had a choice. Ever since Cam had come back into her life, she’d felt boxed in, and it was exhausting. The soft gratitude in his voice just made her feel worse. Like an ogre for wanting to snatch Sofie away and run home.

  “Of course,” she murmured, closing Sofie’s car door and opening her own. “Thanks for inviting us.”

  “I’ll see you soon?”

  The hopeful lilt in his voice was another subtle, grating push. He just wanted to spend time with his daughter. If she said no, she was automatically cast as the bad guy, but sometimes she simply didn’t have the emotional energy to say yes. He didn’t want her, he wanted Sofie—he’d made that clear in the last week in the way he only called to try to see the baby—but she was the one who had to make it work. She was the one being backed into a corner over and over.

  “Sure,” she murmured, keeping it vague, trying to make her escape. “G’night, Cam.”

  “Good night.” He stepped back as she closed the door and started the engine. He stood there watching, making the hair raise on her neck until she drove away.

  Sofie was babbling to herself in the backseat and Rachel concentrated on the sounds. “Did you have fun tonight, baby?”

  Sofie babbled cheerfully back, none the worse for having been passed from stranger to stranger for the last hour. She’d always been good with being passed around. So tiny, and already so confident, so independent. Was that Cam’s DNA at work? She rarely clung to Rachel, only pitching a fit and insisting on her mama when she was tired or sick. Yaya said it was a sign that she was secure that she was loved and safe, and that she trusted the adults in her life to never give her to someone who wasn’t trustworthy—but a perverse part of Rachel sometimes wished Sofie needed her and only her a little bit more.

  The babble had quieted by the time they arrived back at the apartment. Sofie slumped in her car seat, fast asleep. Rachel didn’t put much faith in her chances of getting Sofie upstairs and into bed without her waking up and being fussy for three hours, but she carried her up the stairs in stealth mode. Sofie stirred once as Rachel shifted her to unlock the door, but she settled back on her shoulder with a sleepy sigh as the door creaked open.

  Her mother was sitting on the couch, watching Love Actually for the ten thousandth time, and Rachel put a finger to her lips to urge her to silence before she could greet them. She toed off her shoes and crept into the bedroom—

  And made it all the way to the crib before Sofie opened her eyes and began a ninety minute campaign to reject sleep.

  The final scenes of Love Actually were playing when Rachel finally dragged herself into the kitchen to reward herself for surviving bedtime with a cup of cocoa and to get ready for the next day. Her mother sniffled into a tissue as she watched the ending, crying as if she hadn’t memorized the entire film word-for-word.

  Andie hit the mute button as the final song began to play. “How’d it go tonight?” she asked as Rachel sank down on the couch beside her with her cocoa.

  “They were great. Everything was great,” she said, knowing her tone sounded anything but great, but too worn down to infuse false enthusiasm into her voice.

  Her mother rested her hand on top of Rachel’s on the couch. “I know it’s awkward now, but you’ll be grateful Sofie has those relationships in the long run. I always wished you’d had more contact with your father’s side.”

  Rachel pulled her hand away, disguising the move by wrapping both hands around her mug as she lifted her cocoa to her lips.

  She hadn’t had more contact with her father’s side because her father didn’t want anyone to know she existed. It might have tarnished his perfect image. Big Aaron, the golden god of the NFL, who was practically sainted in his hometown.

  And then there was her mother, who always talked about him like he was a hero and not the married man who had lied to her and strung her along. Rachel barely remembered him. He died when she was so young that most of her memories of him came from the stories people told, but he must have been charming because no one ever seemed to hold him accountable for his actions.

  “Weren’t you mad at him?” she asked, the words erupting from deep inside where she’d pushed them down a thousand times.

  Her mother frowned. “Cameron?”

  “My father. He lied to you.”

  Andie grimaced, her expressive face twisting. “I wasn’t happy about it, but I suppose I didn’t see what holding onto anger toward him would accomplish.”

  “Accomplish? It would show him he can’t do whatever he wants all the time—that there are consequences.”

  “But I didn’t want the consequences,” Andie said simply. “I didn’t want to shut him out of our lives. I had to decide if I was going to be okay with what had happened in the past so we could have a future.”

  Rachel set her cocoa down too hard on the end table. “But you didn’t have a future. He was never going to leave his wife.”

  “I know. And I knew then. I wasn’t a complete fool. There were only so many times I could talk myself into ignoring the way he danced around the truth. Always evading the question. I’d ask him if he still loved her and he’d never just deny it—he’d tell me I was silly. But he didn’t lie.”

  Rachel remembered those arguments—though she’d been so young at the time she wasn’t sure whether she remembered the actual arguments with her father or the later fights between Andie and Yaya about him. Don’t be ridiculous, Andie. I love you. As if that was a get out of jail free card.

  She’d always thought her mother was gullible, but if she hadn’t believed his crap…

  “But why? Why stay with him when you knew?”

  She shrugged. “He was your father.”

  Rachel leaned back as if she could physically avoid the implication of those words. “Please tell me you didn’t continue an affair with a married man for me.”

  Her mother made a small frustrated noise. “He wasn’t just a married man. You always try to oversimplify things. To make them black and white, right and wrong, when the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. You’ve always wanted me to regret getting involved with him, to blame him for lying or be mad at myself for trusting him—but I’m not sorry. I’m glad I did what I did. He wasn’t perfect, but I truly loved your father—but more than that, I love you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me and I’m never going to be sorry for the way you came into my life. Not ever. I thought you would understand that when you had Sofie.”

  Rachel looked away, unprepared for her mother’s passionate words.

  “I never set out to be the other woman,” she went on. “It’s not like I wanted that for myself. Sometimes life just happens. It can’t always be planned. It can’t always be perfect. But that’s the best part. The things we don’t expect can be the biggest blessings. And yes, I felt like a fool, and yes, I was mad at him, but what g
ood would it do anyone to hold onto those feelings? I had you. I wanted you to know your father. And our family may not have been normal or right, by some people’s definitions, but I was going to make the best of it. For us. Holding onto anger will eat you alive.”

  Rachel studied her mother in the light of the Christmas tree and the reflected glow of the muted television that was now playing a rerun of The Big Bang Theory.

  Her mother was always late, always behind on the rent. It had been easy to dismiss her as a beacon of bad judgment. Irresponsible Andie. She’d been calling her mother that in her mind so long it was hard to remember when it had started. Middle school? Earlier? Rachel had become hyper-organized as a defense mechanism, learning to lie to her mom about when she needed to be places so she would actually get there when she wanted to. She’d always seen herself as a tower of responsibility—which was why it had stung so much when she found herself following in her mother’s pregnant-by-a-married-man footsteps.

  She’d seen her mother’s past as a litany of mistakes, not of choices. She hadn’t noticed Andie making the best of a bad situation. Too focused on what should have happened. Too angry that Andie wasn’t angry.

  “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  “What? Oh, honey, you never have to apologize to me.”

  Rachel shook her head, shame climbing up her throat. “Yes, I do. You’re a great mom.”

  Andie laughed. “I don’t know about that. But I do my best. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. You know that.”

  She did. She’d always known.

  Maybe she was too rigid. Trying to force things toward perfection a little too much. Maybe Cam was just a little bit right and she needed to be more like her mother.

  Her mother always made the best of things—even their crazy, dramatic Christmases. Her mother always waited until the absolute last minute to do things and rushed through them in a frenzy, but it was because she was trying to do too much, not because she didn’t care.

  Not that she wanted to be as disorganized as her mother, but Andie was amazing at letting past mistakes and frustrations roll off her back. Just like Cam. It had always annoyed Rachel—the way she never seemed to learn from her mistakes because they genuinely didn’t bother her—but maybe she needed to take a page out of her mother’s book and learn not to hold onto things quite so much. Her mother didn’t apologize for all the ways her chaos impacted the lives around her, but she also never needed an apology. She could look past her hurt and focus on the good, and the future.