A Family for Christmas (10 page)

“Did
you get me a…a….a new car?” Ellie shouted, as they traipsed into the house. Her
little face was beaming, and she was tugging on Lydia’s sleeve in her
excitement.

“Ooh,
I want a new car too!” Lydia said, her voice rippling with laughter.

Gabe
had kept his composure the whole time, but he was obviously enjoying himself.
There was laughter in his eyes as he tried to give the two of them a smug look.
“What if
I
want a new car for Christmas?”

“No,
you have to get cars for us!” Ellie was clearly getting overly excited, and
Lydia vaguely hoped there wouldn’t be a crash soon. The girl ran over to Gabe,
who swung her up in a hug.

“You
won’t even be able to drive it.”

“But
Miss…Aunt Lydia can drive mine and hers. Right?” Ellie looked over for
confirmation.

“Right.
I’m afraid we’ve left you no excuse.” Just for fun, she went over to grab his
shirt the way Ellie was.

She’d
never seen Gabe look so relaxed, so happy. The warmth in his face and smile was
intoxicating. No wonder Ellie was so giddy.

“I
think I’m being ganged up on,” he drawled. “And how will the cars fit under the
tree?”

Ellie
giggled at his comeback, but she was easily distracted. “When will we put up
the Christmas tree, Daddy?”

“What
about this weekend.”

“Yay!”
Ellie sprinted into the living room to find the right location for the tree.

“Bed
in fifteen minutes,” Gabe called, still smiling.

When
he turned back to Lydia, she realized that she was still holding onto his shirt.
And one of his hands had slid down to settle on her waist.

She
felt a shiver of excitement, but it wasn’t just physical. She just wanted to be
close to him.

As
close as she could get.

They
stared at each other for a minute, and the feeling between them shifted, got
hotter somehow.

Just
last night, they’d had sex. They could have sex again tonight.

She
wondered if he’d say something. If he’d come to her room.

He
dropped his hand when Ellie came running back, though, and Lydia silently told
herself to get a grip.

She
was still telling herself to get a grip when she changed clothes and went downstairs
for a bottle of water.

She
shouldn’t be feeling this way. It wasn’t what their marriage was about. And it
would soon start to get in the way of what was most important.

Gabe’s
door was shut when she walked past it, but light was visible through the crack.

She
suddenly realized that he would never come to her room. He’d told her from the
beginning that sex was a standing offer, but it was clearly always going to be
in her court.

If
she wanted sex, she was going to have to ask for it.

If
he’d made a move on her, she would have responded. No problem. But she couldn’t
quite bring herself to knock on his door.

She
wanted to. A lot. But maybe it would be better to use tonight to reorient
herself to reality. To priorities.

Her
life had always had clear priorities. A clear purpose.

And
what was behind this door—maybe waiting right now to see if she would
knock—just wasn’t it.

A few evenings later,
Lydia was standing in the church fellowship hall again, watching the chaos
around her.

It
was the first joint rehearsal of the adult and children’s choir for their songs
at the Christmas Eve service, and it had slowly spiraled out of control.

It
had started with everyone sitting quietly in seats, but that was an hour ago.
Now the kids were running all over, and the adults were split into six or seven
groups, conversing about everything from sports to children’s costumes for the
yearly pageant, which would be happening on this coming Sunday evening.

Jessica,
who had been nominated as the organizer for the Christmas choir, was
desperately trying to line the bigger kids up for their recitation of the
nativity account in the Gospel of Luke.

Lydia
had been annoyed at first, since she liked things to run efficiently and
quickly, but now she was closer to laughing.

Ellie
was up with the bigger kids, waiting quietly in line as she’d been instructed.
Since she was all by herself and Jessica was trying to round up the rest of the
kids, Lydia walked over to stand next to the girl.

“Do
you have your verse memorized?” she asked Ellie.

Ellie
nodded. “Dad helped me with it this morning.”

“Maybe
you’ll be able to practice if everyone will get in line.” Glancing around,
Lydia decided that, if more of the parents would help with crowd control,
things would move smoother. Poor Jessica couldn’t do it on her own.

“They’re
all crazy,” Ellie said, observing the kids running around soberly. “I wish they
would get in line.”

“Come
on now,” Jessica said, more loudly than she was wont to speak. She was holding
her rounded belly. “Everyone get in line so we can go through this one time!”

A
few kids meandered over toward the line, but otherwise there was little
effect—other than a few parents calling out for their kids.

Lydia
met Jessica’s gaze, and they shared a dry, resigned smile.

“I
wish they would line up,” Ellie said again.

She
was starting to sound a little frustrated, and Lydia felt a wave of intense
sympathy. She knew very well how it felt to want something to happen when
people wouldn’t cooperate. In response, she used her most resonant voice and
boomed out, “Everyone age six to ten line up over here immediately!”

Her
voice carried loudly all through the fellowship hall. There was an immediate
silence in the aftermath, and then a soft ripple of murmurs as the kids started
to move into place.

Jessica
laughed and mouthed, “Thank you,” and Lydia felt a silly swell of pride at
having accomplished such a feat.

Ellie
moved closer to her and whispered, “That was really good.”

Lydia
grinned down at her, recognizing real appreciation on the girl’s face for the
first time.

Ellie
actually smiled back and kind of pressed herself against her side.

Lydia
put her arm around the girl with an unexpected wave of affection.

Without
conscious thought, she glanced up and over to the far side of the hall, where
Gabe was working with a few other people who were constructing the backdrop of
a stable for the pageant.

He
was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and he was looking over at her and Ellie at
the moment. Their gaze met for a few seconds, and she had no idea how to
understand the expression in his eyes.

But
it made her feel even warmer, even deeper somehow.

It
also made her feel rather uncomfortable, so she distracted herself by turning
away and helping Jessica get the kids lined up in the right way.

It
felt like Gabe might have still been watching her, but Lydia didn’t glance over
to check.

***

About a half-hour later,
the rehearsal had broken up, after they’d rather sloppily gone through the
entire program once.

Not
everyone had left immediately, and some of the kids were running sprints back
and forth across the fellowship hall as the remaining adults were putting the
room back in order.

Lydia
was helping to move chairs back around the tables so it would be ready for
adult Sunday school. In the process of turning around with a chair in her
hands, she jerked to a stop when she saw a toddler wobbling toward her.

Micah
was right behind the little girl, and he scooped her up before she ran into
Lydia.

“Sorry,”
he said, grinning in his warm, charismatic way. “Once she started to walk, she
just won’t stop.”

“She
gets around really well. She wasn’t even walking at Easter.” She smiled at the
pretty, blue-eyed girl. “Hi, Cara. You look very pretty in that red sweater.”

Cara
hid her face in Micah’s shirt.

“She’s
still really shy,” he said, giving his daughter a little hug. “According to
Alice, she needed some Christmas outfits, so we bought her all kinds of stuff.”

“Oh,
yeah.” Lydia glanced over at Ellie, realizing that the girl would probably want
something to wear for Christmas too. She hadn’t even thought about it. “Gabe
and I should look for something for Ellie, I guess.”

“If
he’s like me, the idea might not even cross his mind.”

She
sighed. “It hadn’t crossed my mind either.”

“How
are things going with Ellie?” Micah looked genuinely interested—and sympathetic
in a way she appreciated.

“Okay.
They’re getting better. It’s hard, you know, but she’s a really sweet girl.”

“You
seem to be getting along really well.”

“Really?”
Lydia perked up at the thought that an outsider might have thought she wasn’t a
complete failure as a stepmother.

“Yeah.
Don’t you think so?”

“I
don’t know. I don’t think I’m very good at it.”

“It’s
probably harder because she’s older, but she seems to like you okay.”

Lydia
felt even more optimistic. Maybe things were getting better than she’d realized.
“I hope so.” She glanced around, realizing she hadn’t seen Micah’s wife this
evening. “Where is Alice?”

“She’s
working at the library this evening. They’ve finally been able to give her more
hours.”

“Oh.
Good for her.” Lydia smiled, remembering all the years when Micah had seemed so
lonely and lost—even in the midst of his very active social life. She was so
glad that he seemed to be happy now.

In
response, she reached over to give Micah a friendly, one-armed hug.

“What
was that for?” he asked, appearing genuinely curious.

“Nothing.
Just that you did really well getting Alice.”

He
laughed. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

His
eyes moved over her shoulder, and Lydia turned automatically to see what had
distracted him. She jerked in surprise when she saw Gabe was standing right
behind her.

She
dropped her arm from around Micah and said, “Oh. Hi there. Are you ready to
go?”

“Pretty
soon.” Gabe wasn’t smiling—at her or at Micah. “Ellie is still playing.”

Lydia
saw the girl evidently trying to give instructions to two boys in arranging the
chairs a certain way. She chuckled. “It looks like she’s starting to make
friends.”

“Yes.”

Gabe’s
voice seemed unnaturally cool, and he put his hand on her back as he stood
beside her, moving her farther away from Micah without Lydia even really
noticing it.

Lydia
looked up at her husband in surprise, but he wasn’t looking at her.

“How
are you liking the house?” Micah asked, obviously trying to be friendly.

Gabe
arched his eyebrows. “It’s fine.”

She
frowned at him, afraid that Micah would think he was being rude. “We really
like it,” she told Micah. “It’s wonderful.”

She
looked up at Gabe, hoping he’d add more to the conversation. He didn’t, though.
He just watched Micah with a look that appeared almost challenging.

She
was baffled by his mood, when he’d seemed in a perfectly fine mood earlier. And
she hadn’t seen anything happen this evening to justify such a decline.

Evidently
sensing the conversation wasn’t going anywhere, Micah said he needed to get
Cara home to bed and said goodbye with another friendly grin.

Lydia
told them goodbye, and Gabe just nodded.

With
a frustrated inhale, Lydia turned to glare at him. “Why were you so rude?” she
asked in a low voice.

“I’m
not aware of doing or saying anything rude.” Gabe was looking at her now, and
he definitely wasn’t happy.

Her
lips parted. “You were all cold and off-putting. Micah is a good guy, and he’s
going to think you don’t like him.”

“I’m
sure my impressions are of no interest to him at all.”

“What
the hell, Gabe?” Her voice was still low, so no one else would hear. “What’s
wrong with you?”

“Why
do you assume something is wrong with me?”

“Because
I know you, remember? This is not how you normally act. What happened? Did
something happen? Micah is a good guy and a friend of mine, so I’d appreciate it
if you’d at least be polite to him.”

His
eyes narrowed, and she felt a familiar tension radiating off him—the kind that
told her he was angry. “You’ve now told me he’s a good guy at least four times.
Continually telling me isn’t going to change my impression of him.”

Lydia
gaped, suddenly hit with a realization, an answer that explained almost everything
about Gabe’s strange mood. It was just such a ridiculous idea that she could
barely process it.

“What?”
Gabe demanded, after a minute, his shoulders stiff and his gaze still cold.

“Are
you jealous?” she whispered, leaning forward to speak even softer than she’d
been before. “Are you jealous of
Micah
?”

“Why
do you sound so surprised? You’re my wife, for whatever reason we got married,
and I don’t think any husband would appreciate watching his wife embrace
another man in front of the entire church.”

She
was almost choking on the shock and disbelief. “It was just friendly!
Obviously, it was just friendly. We weren’t embracing, and no one watching
would have thought so—except for you. You must be crazy to think…” She trailed
off, too surprised to even finish the thought.

“I
must be crazy to think what?”

“That
there’s anything but friendliness between me and Micah.” She put her hand on
his chest and leaned toward him so she could speak into his ear, just to be
sure no one else could hear. “Gabe, seriously. Micah is married. He’s crazy in
love with Alice. He’s never had any real feelings for me, even when we were
dating in high school. And I have absolutely no feelings for him. How can you
even think I would…I mean, I’m your wife. Don’t you trust me at all?”

She
got more and more upset as she continued, until her voice cracked on the last
words. He’d told her three months ago that he could never trust another woman
with his heart, but it was only now that she was understanding what it meant.

It
meant he might assume that she would cheat on him with the first man who passed
by.

And
it hurt. For some reason, it hurt a lot.

“Yes,
I trust you,” he murmured thickly. His mouth was about three inches from her
face now. “I don’t think anything is going on between you and Micah.”

“But
you just—”

“I
don’t think you are doing anything. Why should I assume you don’t want to?”

They
stared at each other for a tense moment, and she felt so emotional that she
held onto his shoulders. “Because…because I don’t,” she whispered at last,
telling him the truth—as she always did when she had no idea what to say. “I
don’t.”

“You
don’t?”

“No.
You’re my husband. And that…means something to me.”

As
she said the words, she realized how true they were. No matter how practical
and non-emotional their marriage, she had no interest in any other man. The
idea of wanting someone else wasn’t even on her radar anymore.

Evidently,
the words got through to him because she saw his expression break for just a
moment. “It means something to me too.”

She
suddenly realized that he felt the way she did. Maybe he’d just realized it
too.

For
a moment, they seemed to completely understand each other.

She
wasn’t sure who moved first, but she ended up pressed tightly against him, his
arms around her, holding her against him.

And
it felt good. So good. Like he needed her, like he was offering strength and
taking it both.

“I’m
sorry,” he murmured into her ear. “I know I need to work on trusting you.”

“I
hope you do,” she said, pulling away. “I can see how it might be hard, but I
hope you can. I’ll do everything I can to live up to your trust. I hope you
believe me.”