Читать книгу When Snow Falls - Brenda Novak - Страница 16

8

Cheyenne had the creamiest-looking skin Joe had ever seen. He’d noticed before, of course, but as they wandered through the Christmas-tree lot in Jackson, with the cold adding a tinge of pink to her cheeks, he realized she was even prettier than he’d given her credit for. She was interesting, too. She saw the world so differently from the women he’d dated in the past.

“What about this one?” he asked. They’d finally arrived at the corner of the lot where St. Nick’s displayed their best and most expensive trees. Joe had been searching for this section all along. He knew finding it would make the decision an easy one. But Cheyenne wasn’t convinced. She scrunched up her nose as she inspected the ten-foot-high blue spruce with the $150 price tag.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “It’s perfect.”

“That’s just it,” she said with a sigh. “It’s too perfect.”

This surprised him. “How can a Christmas tree be too perfect?”

“Anyone with enough money can buy a tree like this. An expensive artificial tree would be, technically, even more perfect—no branch out of place and that sort of thing. The challenge is to take something that has serious flaws and make it beautiful.” She turned in a slow circle, inspecting the options around them before pointing at a specimen that had been shoved off to the side. “What about that one?”

He couldn’t believe it. She’d chosen the ugliest tree he’d ever seen. Whoever owned the lot obviously agreed with him because it bore a clearance tag that read, Only $35!

To humor her, he went over and tried to stand it up straight. “You’re kidding. Look, it has a broken branch.”

She didn’t move on as he expected. “I can see that.”

“What about all the gaps and holes along the bottom, where it should be the fullest?”

“We can use garland and decorations to fill that in.”

Was she trying to help him save money? Show him how thrifty she could be? “Why mess with it? What you’d save on the tree itself, you’d spend on decorations.”

“Maybe. But bringing out this tree’s true beauty would be a worthy challenge. Then it wouldn’t have been chopped down for nothing.”

A lot of trees were going to be wasted. He couldn’t save them all. But he supposed it was refreshing that she wasn’t demanding the best money could buy. She saw value in a tree that had been tossed aside and rejected by everyone else who’d already come through.

“Now I understand why you picked the tree you did for your own house,” he joked.

She gave him a guilty-as-charged expression. “It would’ve been wasted, too.”

“I see.” He wondered how his girls would react. At eight and ten, they were still pretty young. Maybe they wouldn’t notice the tree’s imperfections. “You think you can make it look decent?”

“With enough lights and ornaments, we can make any tree look decent.”

This woman was quirky. Of course, her background and situation would make her a bit different, but he’d never thought he’d like those differences as much as he did. Suzie had known nothing but safety, security, love and praise. She’d been so terribly spoiled that she couldn’t settle for the attention of just one man; she’d had to have the attention of every man in their social circle.

Cheyenne, by contrast, had no compulsion to be the center of attention. She’d grown up living on the fringe, saw beauty in the unconventional.

“Or…maybe you’ll like that other tree better,” she said, suddenly second-guessing herself. “Get the nice one, if it suits you.”

He glanced between the two options. He’d automatically chosen the expensive, seemingly perfect Christmas tree when he’d fallen in love with Suzie. He’d been young, too young to marry, but he’d never questioned that she’d be a wonderful wife. Maybe it was time to try a tree that hadn’t been placed in the best corner of the lot, one that’d had to struggle just to survive.

It was an interesting thought. One worth considering. “I’m fine with this one,” he said, and motioned to the employee who’d been trailing them through the lot. “We’ll take it.”

The young man’s eyebrows went up. “Seriously? Dude, we were about to throw that tree out.”

“Now you don’t have to,” Joe said.

With a shrug, the guy waved to a coworker wearing a Santa hat and, together, they muscled it off the lot and into the bed of Joe’s truck. Joe was just paying the thirty-five dollars when he turned to say something to Cheyenne and spotted a man standing in line he’d hoped never to see again.

* * *

“Hey, that you, big guy?”

A jolt of alarm shot through Cheyenne when someone recognized Joe. She assumed the person lived in Whiskey Creek, which meant Eve might hear about them being together. But when she looked at the handsome, blond-haired man who’d come up behind them, she realized she’d never seen him before. At that point, she would’ve relaxed—if Joe hadn’t stiffened.

“Lance.” He gave a slight tilt of his head, but there was no warm smile, no pleasure Cheyenne could detect in meeting this person.

The man seemed oblivious to Joe’s negative reaction. Or he was too interested in whatever he could learn to let the lack of welcome bother him.

“I can’t believe it!” He slapped Joe on the back. “It’s been years, buddy! What are you doing here? You can’t be living in Jackson....”

Joe accepted his change and shoved it in his pocket without counting it. “No, Whiskey Creek,” he responded, and stepped out of the way so they wouldn’t hold up the line that had formed.

When Cheyenne moved with him, Lance’s eyes cut to her. “This your new wife?”

“Actually—”

The cashier interrupted. “That’ll be eighty-five dollars,” he said, waiting for Lance to pay.

Lance handed him some cash but never took his eyes off Joe. “Last I heard, you were still single.”

“That hasn’t changed.” Joe didn’t explain what Cheyenne was to him, but he performed a perfunctory introduction. “Chey, this is Lance Phillips. He was my—” he seemed to be picking his words carefully “—neighbor when I lived in Sac.”

“Nice to meet you,” she murmured.

As Lance shook her hand, Cheyenne got the impression he was sizing her up, wondering if she and Joe were romantically involved. Deciding whether or not he found her attractive enough to be considered a good catch. “They call you Chey?”

“Yes. It’s short for Cheyenne, Cheyenne Christensen.”

“My pleasure.” His gaze lingered on her, then shifted back to Joe. “How are your girls?”

A muscle twitched in Joe’s cheek. “You’re asking me? You probably see them more often than I do these days.”

Lance blinked several times, obviously taken aback. “Not anymore. Suzie didn’t tell you? We moved here shortly after you, er, left.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“Who’s we?”

“What do you mean?” He laughed awkwardly. “Me, Maddy and the kids, of course.”

“So Maddy stuck with you.”

The cashier handed Lance his change.

“Yes,” Lance said, losing some of his false cheer. “Things got a little rough, as you know, but then we found out she was expecting and decided we had too many reasons to hang on to our marriage. That child turned out to be the little girl she always wanted,” he added, attempting another smile.

“A girl,” Joe repeated.

“Yes.”

A strained silence followed. It felt to Cheyenne as if Joe had just suffered a blow of some sort. She’d watched him for too many years not to recognize when he was upset. Something about this conversation, this person, was all wrong. Maybe they’d once been neighbors, but Joe had no liking or respect for Lance. Was he one of the men rumored to have slept with Suzie? Gail had mentioned infidelity, and Cheyenne couldn’t imagine anything else making Joe act like this.

“Congratulations,” Joe finally said, the word so dry Cheyenne wondered how it hadn’t turned to dust in his mouth.

“We named her Madeline, after her mother. She’s been a real blessing.” Lance talked fast, as if doing so might carry him into friendlier territory. “Came at the perfect time.”

“For you, maybe. I don’t see how a pregnancy forcing Maddy to give you another chance could’ve been a blessing to her.”

All pretense of camaraderie disappeared. “I’ve apologized, Joe.” Lance shoved his hands in the pockets of his worn jeans and hunched forward in his wool pea coat. “I don’t know what more I can do.”

“You can quit pretending we’re friends,” Joe said, and guided Cheyenne away.

Cheyenne could hear Joe’s labored breathing as he marched to his truck. With his hands curved into fists, he walked so quickly she could barely keep up.

“Why do you hate that guy so much?” she asked once they’d both climbed inside the cab. Although she had her suspicions, she had no idea if she was right.

He gazed at her, but she was fairly certain he wasn’t seeing her. His mind was somewhere far away. When he came back to himself, he seemed almost startled to realize she was in the truck with him.

“I’m taking you home,” he said. “This was a mistake.”

* * *

Presley stared down at Eugene Crouch’s business card. All his information was there—his name, the name of his agency, his P.I. license number and his email address. She could contact him easily, right now while her mother slept, with a phone call or an email, and put an end to the mystery of the blonde woman.

She owed her sister the chance to assume her rightful identity, didn’t she? The chance to have the respectable family she’d always longed for. Those ringlets in Cheyenne’s hair, the expensive party dress and the pretty shoes suggested she’d come from a very different situation than the one in which she’d been raised, a far superior situation—

“Presley?” Anita called. “Where are you? Aren’t you going to turn on our show?”