Читать книгу A Baby In His Stocking - Hayley Gardner, Hayley Gardner - Страница 9

Chapter One

In her office at the department store owned by her family, Shea Denton Burroughs dropped the telephone receiver into its cradle and leaned back in her executive chair, the breath knocked out of her. To suspect having a baby was one thing—to have it confirmed was another.

For a few seconds, she let herself be wrapped up in the warmth of the love she was feeling for her baby-to-be. Boy or girl, it would have a life in her small hometown filled with the tranquillity, love and laughter that she’d always wanted for her children—a perfect life, just like her own.

Perfect in every way except one, she thought, tears misting her eyes. Her baby’s father wouldn’t want it.

“Don’t be sad,” a child’s voice said brightly from the doorway. “It’s Christmastime!”

Straightening at the sight of a sandy-haired girl about four years old, Shea hurriedly dabbed at the corners of her eyes. In Denton’s department store, family was tops and kids usually had free rein, so a child loose in the office wing didn’t surprise her at all. In fact, at this point, the diversion was welcome.

“I’m okay, really,” Shea said, smiling warmly at the child’s concern. “Who might you be?”

“Santa’s helper,” the girl said.

“I’m glad to meet you.” Shea was. The girl’s reply and the beaming smile on her heart-shaped face positively charmed Shea. “I could use some help from Santa right about now.”

“I’ll tell him,” the child promised, nodding solemnly. “But he’ll need to know your name.”

“It’s Shea Burroughs.” Widening her smile a little, Shea added, “Could you also please let him know I’ve been a very good girl all year?”

The little sweetheart giggled. Still smiling, Shea bent over to get a candy cane out of her desk drawer. But when she looked up, the treat in hand, the girl was gone. Shea rose and went to check the hallway, but the tyke, one of the very few in the small town of Quiet Brook whom she did not know, was scurrying down the hall toward the escalators.

Santa’s helper. Smiling at the thought of the day when her own little baby would come up with adorable answers like that one, Shea returned to her desk, sank into her chair and dropped the candy cane back into the drawer.

Frowning, she began writing a list of what the baby would need, but she wasn’t really seeing the words. She would have to tell Jared about the baby, and she wasn’t looking forward to it. In a little over a week, she’d be getting a divorce from the man who had turned from the husband of her dreams into someone cool and distant she no longer knew—a change that had started when she’d made the mistake of wanting a baby too soon.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t told him before they were married that she wanted children. She had. She’d also told him she dreamed of raising her babies in her own hometown, where they would have traditions and values and a grandpa—her dad—who would love them just as her granddad had loved her. Jared had just nodded and said in a couple of years they might be ready. She’d said she would wait.

But last December, when her dad admitted to having heart problems, Shea had remembered the way her own granddad had died unexpectedly right in front of her. She’d known then there was no time to waste in starting the perfect life she’d planned. So on Christmas Day she’d asked Jared for a baby.

He’d said no, he wasn’t ready yet, and that had been the beginning of the end. The more she’d tried to persuade him, the more distant he’d become. Finally, he’d admitted he wasn’t the paternal type and doubted that he would ever be. It was in April, when she told him she wanted to get away by herself for a while to think things over, that he’d announced he was letting her go so she could find someone else who could make her happy with the life and children she wanted so badly.

They’d remained apart until three months ago, when, on their first wedding anniversary in late September, she’d wanted to at least try a reconciliation. Drawn by need, they’d gotten only as far as the bedroom. The morning after, when she tried to talk to him about children, he’d told her nothing had changed. He was still letting her go. She could fall in love with someone else and have the perfect, fairy-tale life she’d always dreamed of. So she’d filed for divorce.

He might be letting her go, she thought, but he was crazy if he thought she would ever fall in love again. She had picked the perfect man for herself the first time, dang it, and having it end between them had just hurt too much. Especially now. The love she had felt had finally given her the child she always wanted, but not the man. With a sigh, she stared down at her list and continued writing.

A slight sound at the door made her look up, expecting to see her little Santa’s helper, or her father, or one of the clerks downstairs. The person she didn’t expect to see was Jared.

Shea stared at him, trying to gather her wits. He lived an hour away in Topeka—so what in the world was he doing here?

Shea looked shocked, Jared thought as he stared at her wordlessly. He’d been sent up to her office with a message, but for the life of him, he couldn’t find his voice. The second he’d seen her again, his throat had gone dry and tight. He was dying of thirst and she was water, only he couldn’t partake anymore. He’d given up that right to let her find the happiness she yearned for.

“How have you been, Shea?” he asked. He knew her father had gone into semiretirement and allowed her to take over the management of the store she loved so much after she’d returned to Quiet Brook last April. “Still running the place?”

“For now.” Shea could see that Jared was watching her every movement, but she had no idea what thoughts lay behind those dark blue eyes. She never had, she realized suddenly. From the second Jared, a former Quiet Brook cop, had stopped a thief from stealing the store’s receipts and hurting her dad, she’d fallen in love with him, but she’d never really known the man.

She’d been living the fantasy she’d always dreamed of.

“What can I do for you, Jared?” she asked, wanting him gone so she could have a peaceful Christmas to recover from the hurt of their breakup.

“Your father asked me to come get you. Said there’s new trouble at the Santa Station. Seems Santa is sneezing and the Grinch has probably struck again. He needs you down there.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Shea hastened toward the doorway, expecting him to move out of her way. Perfectly in tune with her movements, he did, letting her slip through, then falling into step beside her. “You should have told me about Dad first thing,” she scolded, all too aware of the riotous feelings his presence was evoking in her body now that she wasn’t ten feet away from him. But she’d be a fool if she gave in to pure lust again. It wouldn’t melt Jared’s ice-cold heart.

“I didn’t because you seemed preoccupied,” Jared returned. “Just like you seem right now.”

With the news of the baby, she thought. She gave him a curious glance. He had a dusky five o’clock shadow she’d never seen him wear before. It lent a sexiness to the chiseled lines of his face, a haunted cast to his eyes.

As he returned her look, she imagined she saw a flicker of vulnerability in his blue gaze. But then it was gone, and she knew it had just been a romantic notion on her part. Jared Burroughs would let himself be vulnerable at the same moment that the Grinch became Santa Claus. He had always been very much in control of his emotions, even when she had walked out on him. He could be warm, she knew that, but there seemed to be some level of feeling that he just wasn’t able to reach.

“So what’s all this about a Grinch?” Jared asked. “Wasn’t that some Christmas legend?”

Stepping onto the escalator, Shea grabbed the black grip for balance. “Some prankster has been trying to drive off our store Santas with practical jokes.”

“Why is having a Santa so important?”

Surely that was obvious, she thought. But since he’d asked, she told him. “Mack and I put some of our money into renovations this year, counting on the normally huge Christmas sales to make up the difference. But without Santa, a lot of families are driving the extra half hour to the mall for the sake of the kids and spending their money there.” She stepped off the escalator. “We can’t let Denton’s get into serious financial trouble, Jared.”

Which was an understatement. They already were. The truth was, Denton’s would go under if it didn’t have a total turnaround in business, and fast And if Denton’s failed, Shea would lose the job that she loved and wanted, needed to keep. She didn’t want her fantasy to fade any more than it already had—for her baby’s sake.

A nd for her father’s, Mack’s, sake, too. The store had been in the family for three generations, four if you counted her, and she didn’t think her father could handle losing it—and neither could she. She needed the store just the way she needed Quiet Brook, the sleepy little town they lived in, to recover from the heartache of her failed marriage.

All too fully aware that Jared was trailing her through the maze of counters and aisle dividers filled with Christmas toys, she just barely missed being hit by a shopping cart when she rounded another holiday display. Stopping suddenly, she felt Jared bump into her from behind.

The physical contact between them left her warm and wishful, two feelings she couldn’t afford to associate with Jared, and she blinked hard as she waited until the customer went by. When she looked up again, Jared was watching her with a frown on his face.

He was sticking to her like gum to the bottom of a shoe, and she didn’t want him to. “My fault,” she said stiffly, through a throat that had seized up tightly. “Sorry.”

“Don’t let my presence put you in a tizzy, Shea. I’ll be gone soon enough.”

“The door is straight down that aisle,” she said, pointing toward it. “I have a Grinch I have to catch.”

A sneeze that had to have blown down at least one wall assaulted Shea’s eardrums, and hurrying once again, she took a shortcut between the branches of two six-foot Christmas trees bedecked with red ribbons and lots of tinsel. A couple of seconds later, Jared muttered behind her, “Who thought up this danged holiday anyway!”

She. didn’t want to turn around, but then she heard the smacking sounds of what were probably, judging from the fact that decorated trees were in the aisle, ornaments hitting the floor.

Let them be the wooden ones, she begged Jared silently, only to hear his lowly uttered, “Damn!”

That did it. Turning to survey the damage, she frowned at Jared. Broad shouldered as he was, his following her through the closely placed trees had caused several ornaments to fall. He was kneeling, trying to hook a wooden rocking horse back into place, a funny, pathetic look on his face that tugged at her heartstrings.

As he leaned down, a branch smacked against his cheek. He shoved it out of the way; it hit him again. Feeling sorry for him, she went to his side and helped put the fallen ornaments back on the tree. Clearing the way, she watched as he pushed himself free with a sigh of relief.

“It’s just not your holiday, is it, Jared?” she quipped, finally letting the tiniest of smiles touch her lips.

“Nope,” he said. “I’m a Fourth-of July type myself. Lots of fireworks.” Reaching up, he trailed his finger along her cheek. “If I remember right, you loved them, too.”

His words and his touch were filled with double meaning, which only confused her. Drawing back, she looked at him with troubled eyes. “Fireworks are the last thing I want around here in the middle of my Christmas,” she told him sadly.

His warm gaze met her eyes.

“As far as I’m concerned,” she added in a manner she hoped would leave no doubt in his mind exactly where they stood, “I’ve sworn off the Fourth of July. No fireworks—not even a sparkler. Never, ever again.”

He stared at her for a long minute. “So why am I here, I wonder?”

She made a gesture of bewilderment. “Dad has some silly last-minute idea of reuniting us?”

“He’d know better than that, wouldn’t he?”

“Would he?” she asked.

The question hung in the air between them until a loud voice boomed from not too far away in the direction she was supposed to be heading.

“No, Mack, sorry,” the deep voice reverberated. “I’m quitting, and no one can stop me.”

“Oh, sheesh,” Shea said, turning her head toward the sound. “That’s our Santa. Dad’s waiting for the cavalry and here I am playing around with you!” Throwing up her hands in disgust, she rushed forward down the aisle, throwing a quick smile down at the same little sandy-haired girl she’d seen earlier as she dodged around her.

“I wouldn’t call what we were doing playing around,” Jared corrected, keeping up. “I remember really playing around with you—and it was a lot more fun than I’ve been having in the past ten minutes.”

With his talking like that, Shea was totally unable to concentrate on the argument Santa was having with her father.

“That’s not fair, Jared,” she told him as they passed the gift-wrapping section. “The minute I get ready to divorce you, you suddenly find your sense of humor again.”

“Missed it, did you?”

Yeah, she had. They used to laugh a lot over little things before last Christmas. After that, well, they’d stopped laughing. The thought made her hurt all over again, and her words came out a little more tersely than she wanted them to.

“Just go away, would you?” They were approaching the double line of children and the few adults who were waiting to see Santa, but who were being treated instead to a show of Santa and her father arguing about Santa’s flying the coop. “I’ve already spent too much time worrying about you when I should have been worrying about Dad. His chest pains are nothing to sneeze at, you know.”

With a suddenness that caught her off guard, Jared’s hand covered her shoulder. She stopped dead in her tracks. His hand felt warm through the wool of her green-and-tinsel-knit pullover, and she missed his touch so much. Not only his touch—everything about him. Having him there when she came home every night. His smiles over coffee in the morning. Loving him.

Gazing up into his eyes, she wished she could have her happy life back again, and for a long minute, Jared looked as if he was wishing that, too. But she knew in her heart they were fooling themselves. Without his loving and being a wonderful father to their child, without his wanting the same things as she did in life, she wouldn’t be happy, and he’d been right to let her go.

“What chest pains, Shea?” he asked quietly.

Her heart twisted. Jared was never effusive about his feelings, but from the solemn way he spoke now, she could sense how fond he was of Mack—and how worried about him he was.

Two ladies with their shopping carts were quickly approaching them, so, grabbing his jacket sleeve, Shea pulled him out of their way and into a side aisle between counters piled high with foil-wrapped Christmas candies and chocolate Santas. She was in a hurry to get to her father, but she thought this was something Jared needed to know.

“Dad started having heart problems a little over a year ago, and he had a scare back in May.” Since she’d already left Jared by then and had been considering filing for the divorce, she hadn’t felt much like turning to Jared at the time even though she had known he would come if she called. “You two have been on a fishing trip or two since then—I’m surprised he never told you.”

“We talk about fish during our fishing trips,” Jared told her. “Not anything personal.”

“How do men survive?” she asked, her lips parting in a wry smile.

“You have a point.” Jared took a step forward. He was so close now she could smell his aftershave and feel his body heat. “Maybe we should start.”

“Start what?” she asked, feeling breathless and fidgety at his nearness.

“Start talking to each other.”

For one long moment, she held her breath. Then, with a sinking heart, she realized what he’d meant. “You and Mack should, you mean.”

His dark brown eyebrows rose in question. “Of course. Whom did you think I meant?”

“Never mind.”

“Just how serious is his condition?” he asked, the confusion on his face gradually turning back into concern.

“He’s been holding his own for months, but the doctor said no more stress and that he needed to step down from management of Denton’s. That’s why I took over here.” Her eyes softened. “I’m sorry, Jared. I thought Mack had told you, or I would never have blurted it out that way.”

“I know that.” He did, Jared thought. And he also knew Shea would tell him if his friend was really in a bad way. So he pushed his concern aside for the moment

“Dad’s going to be fine with me watching out for him. Don’t give it another thought, okay?”

He heard the compassion in Shea’s voice and could feel himself begin to melt as he stood there, looking down into her evergreen eyes. For a few seconds, as he tried to keep himself from pulling her into his arms, it felt like the two of them were the only people in the store.

In the world.

“I’d forgotten how much you could care about people,” he said. And he’d forgotten how good it made him feel to have her care about him. No, maybe he hadn’t. He’d just pushed it to the back of his mind, the same place he pushed everything about Shea so he’d be able to manage without her.

Jared’s words sent a soothing warmth through her, a wistful reminder of the way things used to be, and Shea almost smiled back up at him. But then she remembered they were getting a divorce, and she was having the baby he would never want, and she couldn’t smile anymore.

Why had her father invited the man here anyway? What could he have been thinking of? All Jared’s presence was going to do was bring back these yearnings that she didn’t need right now.

“I know it would be easier if I wasn’t here—” Jared stopped short. He’d almost called her “hon.” He wanted to call her that. But he didn’t know how to make the hurt that was still between them go away, short of giving in to what Shea wanted—a family. And he knew with all his heart that his becoming a father would be a disaster. She was waiting for him to continue, so he drew a breath. “But I’m not leaving until I see your father.”

“Then please wait in Dad’s office for him. I’ll send him up there as soon as I can.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Of course. The way things have been going around here, the only direction left for anyone is up.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Jared said in total agreement. Finally turning, he left her alone, and she dove into the crowd.

Her father, by inviting Jared here, had created yet another problem for her, Shea thought, trying to get irritated with Mack so she wouldn’t break down and cry about Jared. After she worked on their current Santa to persuade him to stay on, she’d get after her father to see what was going through his mind in reference to her soon-to-be-divorced husband. And she was not looking forward to it. Her dad was almost as big a handful as Jared. No, bigger. Her dad would not retreat into silence.

As Shea threaded through the kids and their moms to reach her dad and Mr. Whitney—Santa—she smiled her best public-relations smile and glanced around. All she saw were the familiar faces of her neighbors, friends and regular customers who sat nearby in the snack section watching the “fun.” Surely none of them could be playing these little practical jokes on their Santas?

The mischief had started when someone had sprinkled itching powder throughout the first Santa’s suit, causing an allergic reaction that had forced the poor man into retirement. With their second recruit, it had been fake snakes and a real mouse inside the Santa sack that was supposed to hold holiday giveaways. That St. Nick had run back to the North Pole with his reindeer—at least so she assumed, because he never returned to the store. And now, with Mr. Whitney, she could only imagine the worst had happened.

Upon seeing her, her father ran his hand through his thick salt-and-pepper hair in what looked like a gesture of relief, then grinned at the man in the red velvet suit who was standing at the bottom of the Santa Station’s off-ramp. “Now, Santa, here’s Shea. She’ll explain why you can’t quit.”

She frowned at Mack. “You look far too happy to see me. Don’t be.”

To her irritation, her dad seemed to grasp she was referring to Jared and grinned even wider, as though he was quite pleased with himself. With a glance at the crowd, he said jovially, “So my Christmas present made it to your doorstep, did it?”

“I’m returning it.”

“We’ll see.”

“No, we won’t.”

“I want to see Santa!” one of the boys yelled suddenly from the line. He was immediately shushed by his mother but she was too late. A clamor went up from more restless kids.

“I’ll deal with you later,” Shea promised her father, pushing wayward wisps of black hair behind her ear. “Go talk to Jared. He’s waiting in your office.” Looking thankful for the opportunity to escape, her father turned away. Before he could scoot entirely out of sight, she caught his arm and added, “Get rid of him, Dad.”

One more devilish grin, and her father was gone, leaving every muscle in her body tight with tension. With that look, Mack would probably be inviting Jared for Christmas dinner, and she would be the turkey.

At least Mack wasn’t stressed. If he was stressed, then she would have to worry.

Santa started sneezing again. Shifting her stiff shoulders, Shea began damage control and tried not to think about Jared and their pending divorce or how she really should tell him about their baby—or what, exactly, her father had in store for them. Whatever it was, Mack wouldn’t have a chance to carry his plan through because Jared was one Christmas present she was never unwrapping.