Читать книгу The Twins' Family Christmas - Lee Tobin McClain - Страница 14
ОглавлениеCarson waited for the mysterious Lily to answer his knock, wondering at his own intense curiosity.
The pastor part of him had noticed the sad, distant look in her eyes. There was some kind of pain there, and it tugged at his heart. He’d try to establish at least an initial connection. There was plenty of time to do more probing, as Penny had requested, within the next few days.
He also wanted to get a better look at her, and honesty compelled him to ask himself why. Surely not because he found her attractive? He did, of course—he was human, and she was gorgeous—but gorgeous women were not for him. He wanted to marry again, if God willed it; his girls needed a mother, and his own work as a pastor would be enhanced if he had a wife ministering at his side. Not to mention how long and lonely winter evenings could be when you didn’t have a partner to talk to and love.
But this woman wasn’t a prospect.
The door jerked open. “Can I help you?” came a voice out of the cabin’s dimness. A voice that wasn’t exactly friendly.
“We didn’t have the chance to introduce ourselves. I’m Carson Blair. Just came by to say hello, since it looks like we’re going to be neighbors over the holiday.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Her voice didn’t sound pleased. “I’m Lily. What brings you to the ranch? Penny mentioned you live nearby.”
Her interrogation surprised him—in his counseling role, he needed to find out about her, not vice versa—and it made him feel oddly defensive. “My daughters and I are looking for a peaceful Christmas, away from our daily stresses and strains.”
“Your girls are stressed?” She came forward into the light, standing on the threshold. Her wheat-blond hair seemed to glow, and her high cheekbones and full lips were model-pretty.
So were her big, slate-colored eyes. Eyes that glared, almost like she had it in for him.
He took a breath and reminded himself of that old counseling cliché: hurt people hurt people. “I guess it’s just me that’s stressed,” he admitted, keeping his tone easy and relaxed. “Busy time of year for a pastor. But the girls are thrilled to be up here with Long John and the dogs.”
Her face softened a little. “It is nice up here. Good feel to the place.”
“Yes, there is.” He paused. “Say, Penny mentioned that you’re a photographer. And that she’d asked you to take some family photos of us as a Christmas present.”
“That’s right. When are you available?”
Noting that her body language was still tense, Carson decided that this wasn’t the time to work out details. Besides, she wasn’t inviting him in, and her short-sleeved shirt and faded jeans weren’t cold-weather gear. She must be freezing. “We can figure that out in the next day or two. Meanwhile, if you need anything, I’m right next door.”
He turned to go down the steps when two blond heads popped up next to the railing. “Hi,” Sunny, always the bolder of the two, called out to Lily. “What’s your name?”
Carson walked halfway down the steps and stopped in front of his curious girls. “I think Miss...” He realized he didn’t know her last name. “I’m sure our neighbor is busy right now.”
“Whatcha doing?” Sunny slid under the wooden rail and climbed the rest of the way up the steps. “Can we see your cabin?”
Skye, easing up the stairs behind Sunny, didn’t speak, but it was plain to see that she was equally interested.
“Girls.” He put a hand on each shoulder. “We don’t go where we’re not invited.” Watching the pouts start to form, he added, “Besides, we’ve got unpacking to do, and then some dogs to meet.”
“Dogs!” they both said at the same time, their curiosity about the lady next door forgotten.
“Unpacking first,” he said, herding them down the steps. But as he turned to offer an apologetic wave to their neighbor, he thought her stance on the porch looked lonely, her eyes almost...hungry.
* * *
The next morning, Lily shivered in the bright sun, looked at the newly slick, icy road out of the ranch and had a crisis of confidence.
Could her ancient, bald-tired Camaro handle the trip into town?
If not, could she handle staying up here without coffee?
The lack of caffeine had left her head too fuzzy to figure out how to investigate her surprise neighbors, and there was no coffee or coffee maker in the cabin.
She could go to Long John or Carson to see what she could borrow, but she didn’t want to open up that kind of neighborly relationship with Carson, not when she was trying to ascertain his suitability as a father. And she’d heard Long John say that he didn’t drink coffee.
Her caffeine-withdrawal headache was setting in big-time. So she had to go, and now, full daylight with the sun shining, was the right time, rather than waiting until later when it was likely to snow. And when all the shops would be closed for Christmas Eve.
Because most people wanted to be with their families.
You’re not an orphan; you’re just making a choice. Her father was still living, and he would have certainly taken her in for Christmas. If she could find him, and if he had a roof over his head. And if he was sober.
But in all the years she’d spent Christmas with her parents as a child, she couldn’t remember one where he’d made it through the holiday without heavy drinking. There was no reason to think that now, with her mother gone, this year would be an exception; the opposite, in fact.
And while she hated to think of her father being alone, she knew he probably wasn’t. He was probably carousing with his buddies. He was the friendly type and had a ton of them.
The image of her dad’s jolly face brought an unexpected tightness to her throat.
“It’s her!” came a high, excited shout.
“Hey, Miss Neighbor!”
The two childish voices let her know she’d stood reflecting too long. She turned, and the sight of the twins—Pam’s twins—coming toward her made her heart turn over. Clad in identical red snow jackets, black tights and furry boots, they could have been an advertisement for Christmas family joy.
And she couldn’t make herself turn away from them, even though she should. She’d keep it brief. “Good morning, ladies,” she said, kneeling down to be at their level.
They slipped and slid to her with the fearless footing of children accustomed to snow and ice. “Where are you going?” one of them asked.
Lily studied her. “Are you Sunny?” She’d noticed that Carson had gestured toward the twin in the lead when naming them yesterday.
“How did you know?” Sunny asked, eyebrows lifting high.
“Nobody ever does, at first.” The other little girl studied her, head cocked to one side.
“Just a guess,” she said, smiling at them. Man, were they cute.
Man, did they look like Pam.
“Where are you going?” The quieter girl, who must be Skye, asked.
“Down to town,” Lily said.
“Us, too!” Sunny sounded amazed. “Daddy sent us out to play so he could look over his sermon in peace, but as soon as he’s done that, we’re going down into town, too.”
Oh, right. Pam’s husband was a preacher. According to Pam, it was a cover-up for his abusive ways.
“Is your dad pretty strict?” she asked the twins. And then she wished she could take the words back. It wasn’t fair to ask the girls to tattle on their father. If she wanted to know something, she would discover it by observation, not by grilling these two innocents.
“What’s strict?” Sunny asked.
“She means, does Daddy make us behave.” Skye glanced back at the house. “He tries to be strict, but we don’t always do what he says.”
Lily was dying to ask what kind of punishments he meted out, but she didn’t.
Didn’t need to, as it turned out.
“When we don’t do what he says,” Sunny said, “we get a time-out.”
“Or an extra chore,” Skye added.
“Yeah, we have lots of chores!” Sunny spread her arms wide and nodded vigorously, the picture of childhood overwork. “We have to make our beds every day.”
“And put the silverware in the drawer.” Skye frowned. “Only, here at the cabin, we don’t have a dishwasher. So Daddy washed our dishes last night, himself, and put everything away.”
Lily waited for a continuation of their onerous list of chores, but it didn’t come. Either the list was limited to two not-very-challenging tasks or their attention had drifted elsewhere.
Meanwhile, she had better get going before Carson the ogre came out of the cabin. Even though she needed to check on Pam’s twins, she didn’t want to get sucked into even a superficial friendship. Not when she had secrets to keep. “It was nice talking to you girls,” she said, getting into her car and starting it up.
The girls still stood next to her car, and Sunny’s lips were moving, so she lowered her window.
“Maybe we’ll see you in town,” Sunny said.
“That would be...fun,” Lily said. Not. She would drive down to town, get the coffee and coffee maker she needed now even more desperately than before—her headache was getting worse—and then drive back up and hide out in her cabin for the duration of Christmas Eve.
Spending the holiday by herself seemed a little bit lonelier after talking to Skye and Sunny, but Lily pushed the feeling away. She put the car into gear and started cautiously down the icy road.
The car picked up speed on the incline, and she hit the brake reflexively. The car fishtailed a little, even though her pace was slow. Her heart beat faster, and her hands on the cold steering wheel were slick with sweat. If she went off the road, who would help her?
You’re tough; you’re a soldier. She just had to remember that you braked gently in icy conditions.
She gathered her courage and took her foot off the brake. The car started moving again.
There was a shout behind her, and when she looked into the rearview mirror, she saw the two little girls running after her. That wasn’t safe. What if they got too close and the car went out of control? She braked, harder this time, and the antilock tick-tick-tick-tick didn’t stop the car from sliding sideways. It stopped just at the edge of a two-foot dropoff. Not deadly, but... She put the car into Park and got out just as the girls reached her.
“We saw your car slide and we told Daddy!” Sunny said.
“And he said you could ride to town with us.” Skye looked up, her brown eyes round and hopeful. “We have a big truck.”
“Oh, no, it’s okay.” She walked to the front of her car, and it was, in fact, okay. About three inches from being not okay, but okay.
She looked back toward her cabin and saw Carson Blair striding toward them, flannel-shirted and boot-clad and looking nothing like any preacher she’d ever seen.
More like a lumberjack.
Weren’t there social media sites and photo calendars about good-looking lumberjacks?
She shoved that ridiculous notion away, her face heating as Carson reached them.
“Everything okay?” He patted each twin on the back and then walked around to look at the front of her car.
“It’s fine,” she said.
“But her car went sliding. Like a sled!” Sunny demonstrated with a complicated hand motion.
Carson nodded. “I like the rear-wheel-drive Camaros,” he said, tapping the hood, “but they’re not the greatest on snow and ice.”
“I didn’t think of that before I came,” she admitted. “Not much snow in Phoenix. But it’s no big deal for me to get to town,” she added while her body cried out for caffeine.
“Daddy’s a good driver,” Skye said earnestly.
“You should come to town with us!” Sunny was wiggling her excitement, which seemed to be her normal state of being. “You could come to church!”
“Oh, I...” She trailed off, part of her noticing that the girls seemed enthusiastic about church and life in general, nothing like abused children were likely to be.
“You’re welcome to join us,” Carson said. “We’re picking up a couple of things at the hardware store and then going to church for Casual Christmas Eve.”
That made sense of Carson’s lumberjack attire and the girls’ outdoorsy clothing. “Are you staying until midnight? Because I can’t...can’t do that.” Can’t deal with you and your girls for that many hours in a row.
Carson waved a hand and smiled, and he went instantly from good-looking to devastatingly handsome. “I scored this year. Got the afternoon service, and the other church in town—Riverside Christian—they’re doing the evening services.” He held out his hand. “Come on. I’ll drive your car back up, and you can ride into town with us.”
His comfortable, take-charge manner both put her at ease and annoyed her. It was nice to think of someone else driving on the slippery roads—and it was really nice to think of coffee—but she didn’t know Carson. Or rather, she only knew of him, and none of what she’d heard from Pam was positive.
Besides, she didn’t want to be that wimpy woman who needed a man to drive her around.
His hand was still out for the keys, but she held on to them.
A smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “If you want to drive it back up yourself, go for it,” he said, “although I’ve been itching to get behind the wheel of a cherry-red Camaro since I was seventeen.”
She suspected it was a ruse to make her comfortable letting him drive and help her save face. Okay, that was nice of him. She handed him the keys.
* * *
Carson was glad they ended up taking Lily to town. Beyond Penny’s request, he found himself curious about the shy photographer. She said she was working on a college project, and he had surmised from all the camera equipment that it involved photography. But that was all he knew.
He was about to ask when she turned to him. “So, how long have you and the twins lived in this area?” she asked.
“We moved here when they were born,” he said. “We’ve always lived in Colorado, various parts, but a job opened up here at just the point when we were ready for a more stable life. How about you? Where are you from?”
“Most recently, Phoenix.” Lily didn’t elaborate but instead asked another question. “Do you like the job?”
He got the odd feeling she was trying to ask him questions to deflect attention from herself. “I do. It’s a wonderful church and community. Not without its problems—there’s a lot of poverty—but people are good-hearted here. It’s an old-fashioned community. Neighbors look after neighbors.” Great. He sounded like his grandfather, hearty and wholesome and focused on his own small town. Not fun and exciting.
Pam had always criticized him for being boring.
But how could he not be? He’d grown up on the straight and narrow, with strict parents. Now he was a pastor and a frazzled single dad.
What chance did he have to be full of scintillating conversation, when his biggest social activity all season had been helping at the kids’ classroom holiday party?
“And how about you girls?” Lily turned in the seat to look back at them. “How do you like your town?”
“There’s an ice cream store,” Skye said matter-of-factly, as if that were the feature that determined the worth of a town.
“And our teacher, Ms. Garcia, is so nice.” Sunny launched into her favorite theme. “She brings her dogs to school sometimes. And when we told her we want a dog, too, she said one of her dogs is having puppies!”
Not this again. “If we ever did get a dog,” Carson said, “we would get one from the shelter. Not a puppy.”
“That’s okay, Daddy,” Skye said. “We like all dogs. We don’t have to get a mala... Mala...”
“Malamute?” Lily glanced over at Carson. “A malamute puppy would be adorable, but a lot of work. And hair.”
“Exactly.” Carson turned the truck onto Esperanza Springs’s Main Street. “Look at the decorations, girls,” he said in an effort to distract them from their dog quest.
It worked. Even though it was early in the afternoon, it was a gray enough day that the streetlights had lit up. The town resembled a Christmas card scene.
“So beautiful,” Lily murmured, leaning forward and staring out the window, elbows on knees.
“You said you live in Phoenix?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She wrinkled her nose. “We have Christmas decorations, but where I live, they tend to be giant inflatable cartoon characters and lights wrapped around the trunks of palm trees. This is prettier.”
Carson pulled the truck into a parking space just down from the hardware store. Across the street, the Mountain High Bakery was doing a surprisingly brisk business—people picking up their Christmas desserts, no doubt. In front of La Boca Feliz, Valeria Perez folded the signboard and picked it up, shaking her head at an approaching couple with an apologetic smile. Closing down for the day: good. That meant Valeria would be able to attend church with the rest of her family.
“Oh, wow, look!” Sunny bounced in her seat. “Mrs. Barnes’s new dog has reindeer antlers on!”
“Can we go pet it, Daddy? Can we?” Skye leaned forward to beg.
“In a minute. Get out on Lily’s side.” He came around and opened Lily’s door. Growing up as the only child of older parents had certainly had its drawbacks, like making him into a total nerd, but at least he had learned old-fashioned manners. His women friends always praised him for that. Usually in the process of making it clear that he was just a friend, no more.
And why did that matter? He automatically held out a hand to help Lily down from the high truck seat. He didn’t look at her, not wanting her to read his thoughts.
Once he’d helped her down and dropped her hand almost as fast as she pulled it away, he opened the back door of the truck. The girls tumbled out and rushed to Mrs. Barnes, an older member of the congregation known for pressing other church members into service doing things they didn’t want to do. At a ranch fund-raiser last summer, she had come to meddle but had ended up falling in love with one of the senior dogs. Now Bosco plodded slowly beside her, indeed sporting a pair of light-up antlers.
“Girls,” he warned, a hand on each one’s shoulder. “Make sure you ask Mrs. Barnes if it’s okay to pet Bosco.” He knew it was, but he also wanted the twins to practice safety around other people’s dogs. Plus, he knew that Mrs. Barnes enjoyed talking about Bosco, reveling in the attention and status her dog brought her. Indeed, several other people had already clustered around to admire the dog in his costume.
“Dogs sure do a lot for people,” Lily said, closer than he had expected.
He looked at her and saw that a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“Oh, no,” he said, mock-serious, “you’re not going to throw me under the bus. I am not getting a dog.”
She raised mittened hands, laughing openly now. “Did I tell you to get a dog?” she asked innocently.
Her cheeks were flushed in the cold, and strands of blond hair escaped from the furry hood of her jacket. Her lips curved upward, and her wide eyes sparkled, and Carson’s heart picked up its pace.
Time to get businesslike. “The hardware store is right there,” he said, gesturing toward Donegal’s Hardware. “Come on, girls, let’s leave Mrs. Barnes to her errands. We have a few of our own to do.”
“What are you buying, Miss Lily?” Sunny tucked a hand into Lily’s.
Not to be outdone, Skye took Lily’s other hand.
They walked ahead of Carson, and the sight made his heart lurch.
Maybe this was a very bad idea. Carson didn’t need the girls getting attached to some model-perfect photographer who would be here only a few days. He’d noticed that they tended to be drawn to young women, probably because they missed their own mother. They’d been four when she died, so their memories were patchy, but despite Carson’s best efforts to be both mother and father, some part of them knew what was missing in their lives.
“I’m buying coffee and a coffee maker,” Lily said, “because I love coffee so much, and there isn’t one at the cabin.”
“You’re like our daddy!” Skye tugged at her hand. “Daddy isn’t very nice if he hasn’t had his coffee.”
Lily laughed back at him, and he couldn’t keep his own mouth from lifting into a smile. Their eyes met.
Color rose into her cheeks, and she looked away, and then the girls tugged her into the store.
Inside, tinsel and ornaments hung from the ceiling and Christmas music played. Long lines of customers waited at the two front registers, some holding wrapping paper and others bags of salt. Two men both approached the last snow shovel in a rack, and then one waved his hand in good-natured defeat. “You can have it,” he said, “if you’ll come over and shovel my walks when the snow starts.”
“Deal,” the other man said, laughing.
Lily and the twins had disappeared, so Carson took advantage of the opportunity to pick out two boxes of ornaments. They had a few, but not enough to make even their small artificial tree look as colorful as six-year-olds demanded.
Of course, Carson ran into several of his parishioners, and by the time he’d greeted them, Lily and the twins emerged from the back of the store. “Success!” Lily said, holding up a box with a coffee maker in it.
“And I have something for you.” With a fake-gallant gesture, he poured her a paper cup of free, hardware-store coffee and handed it over.
“You’re my hero,” she said, taking the cup and inhaling appreciatively. She took a sip and her eyes met his.
He started to feel giddy.
When they reached the counter with their purchases, Marla Jones, the cashier, reached over the counter to shake Lily’s hand. “So you’re Penny’s niece? Penny told me you were staying up at the ranch.”
Lily’s smile was a little shy. “I’m just here for a few days, to photograph the dogs. My senior project.”
“You know,” Marla said, “I’d like to talk to you about going back to school for photography. I’d really like to finish my degree, but I’m worried that I’m too old.”
“You should! It’s been a great experience for me. And there are lots of older students at colleges these days.”
“Do you mind if I get your number? It’s Liliana...what was your last name?”
“Watkins,” she said.
Shock exploded like a bomb in Carson’s chest. He must have made some weird sound, because she glanced over at him. When she saw his reaction, her eyes widened, and she turned quickly away.
The clerk rang up Lily’s purchases, still chatting, and then punched her number into Lily’s phone. Meanwhile, all the implications slammed into Carson. Lily was Liliana Watkins? Pam’s party-happy roommate? The one with all the boyfriends? He shook his head, but he couldn’t shake the pieces into place.
Why was Liliana at the ranch? Was she here to dry out? To bring a message from Pam? Most important, was it safe for his girls to be around her?
His eyes narrowed. Had Penny known the connection between Lily and Pam when she’d asked Carson to check on her?
Lily grabbed her purchase and her change, gave a quick, artificial smile to Marla and then hurried toward the door.
He wasn’t letting her escape. “Hey, wait up,” he called after her as he handed cash to Marla.
Lily hesitated, then turned.
Carson took his change and strode over to where she was standing. “I need to talk to you later, after church,” he said.
“Okay.” She looked pale, but she didn’t ask him why. For some reason, that angered him.
The girls were calling to him, talking to Marla, collecting his bags. “I’d like to get some information from you, Liliana,” he said, keeping his voice low, “about Pam.”
