Angel's Rest (17 page)

“We should have killed more of those dirtbags when we had the chance.”

“I completely agree. Anyway, I brought the letters with me. Figured the local historical society had more use for them than I do.”

Jack drained his coffee cup, then set it aside. Gabe sensed the change in subject even before his friend said, “Pam called me.”

“I figured as much when you showed up here out of the blue. Don’t you have something better to do on Christmas than babysit an old friend?”

“Actually, I do.” Jack shifted his stare away from the sad excuse of a Christmas tree and met Gabe’s gaze. “I’m headed to one of those other homes I mentioned for a week or so of R, R, and R.”

“Rest, relaxation, and …?”

“Rum. It’s my place in the Caribbean. I just stopped by here to see if you wanted to tag along.”

Gabe rose to his feet. “When do we leave?”

“As soon as you can throw your swimsuit, flip-flops, and a toothbrush in a bag. Although”—Jack gestured toward the tree—“it’s probably best to go ahead and take that down before we go. Fire hazard, you know.”

Emotional hazard, he meant, and he was right. No sense running away from Christmas just to find it waiting for him when he got back. Half an hour later, all sign of the holiday had been returned to boxes and stored out of sight. “What about the dog?” Jack asked. “If he was smaller, we could take him with us, but he won’t ride easily in the bird.”

Gabe looked at the boxer, who responded with a lazy thump of his tail against floor. The obvious person to call for help here would be Nic, but he’d rather eat glass
than make that call here in front of Jack. “I’ll text somebody in town to come get him. The letters, too.”

“Excellent. Then let’s roll. I want to watch the sunset from my beach cabana with an umbrella drink in my hand.”

As they left the house, Gabe turned to his friend. “Jack … I … thanks.”

“Merry Christmas, Gabe,” Jack Davenport said with a grin. “You can call me Santa.”

The mouthwatering aroma of roasting turkey wafted through Sarah’s house early in the afternoon on Christmas Day as Nic heard her cell sound the arrival of a text message. She flipped open her phone, checked the message, and her chin dropped. “A text? He sends me a text?”

Sarah looked over her shoulder. “Who sent you a text?”

“That jerk!”

“Your ex?”

Apparently. If she even could be considered an ex. After all, it hadn’t even been a one-night stand. She hadn’t even had a night. “Gabe Callahan.”

“You’re calling Gabe a jerk? Why?”

“Look.”

Nic shoved her phone at Sarah who read aloud. “ ‘Leaving town. Dog @ EW. Code 195847362. Pls get him & letters for C.’ I guess EW means Eagle’s Way, and I guess C is for Celeste? What letters?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. He’s got a lot of nerve. This is Christmas! He shouldn’t expect me to drop what I’m doing and run up to his precious estate.”

Sarah handed back Nic’s phone. “Maybe it’s a trick. Maybe he’s trying to lure you up to his lair. I think he has a thing for you. He looks. I’ve caught him watching you.”

Nic stared at the screen on her cell. She hadn’t told the
girls about the Christmas Eve event. What had happened at Eagle’s Way was personal and private and … devastating. For that short time, she’d become a part of Gabe’s pain, and it had destroyed her.

It wasn’t the sex that had left her quaking like a stand of aspens on a breezy day while she drove back to town yesterday. To be honest, sex with Gabe Callahan had been the most thrilling—if not satisfying—of her life. But afterward, to see him lose it, to watch him break down and mourn from the depths of his soul, had literally changed something inside her. Yesterday, through his grief, Gabe had shown her love with a capital
L
. Love like she’d never experienced.

If it hurt him that much to lose it, think of how wonderful it must have been to live it. How different from her own marriage it must have been.

She’d mourned her marriage and the dreams it had represented when it ended. She had loved Greg, or at least she’d loved the man she’d believed him to be. But even at the very worst of it, she’d never felt even a tenth of the emotion that Gabe had demonstrated yesterday. It had taken her years to recover, to get to the point where she could be ready to try again. If she’d needed years, Gabe Callahan would need decades. Chances were he’d never be ready to love again.

She wasn’t willing to play those odds. How could she compete with a dead woman? She couldn’t, so she wasn’t going to try. She’d played second fiddle enough in her life already. She refused to do it again.

“He might look, Sarah. He might even be willing to taste. But I want more than that. I deserve more than that. I won’t risk my heart for anything less.”

Sarah’s eyes widened and she drew back. “Whoa there, girlfriend. I wasn’t suggesting you fall in love with the man. I was thinking more along the lines of a kiss beneath the mistletoe.”

“Yeah, well, mistletoe can kill you.”

Sarah tilted her head and studied Nic for a long minute. “All right. What am I missing here? What aren’t you telling me?”

Nic debated how to respond. She and Sarah had a long history of sharing the highs and lows of their love lives. Ordinarily she would at least admit that something had happened, even if she didn’t provide details. This time was different. She didn’t have the words to explain what had happened yesterday even if she’d wanted to do so. Instead, she dodged the question by saying, “Believe me when I say that Gabe Callahan is unavailable. I didn’t realize just how unavailable until lately. I don’t think that sending me this text was his ham-handed way to ask me for a date. I think it’s just what he said. Gabe Callahan has left the building … and he’s neglected to take along his dog.”

The skeptical look in her best friend’s eyes told Nic that Sarah wasn’t buying her claim. “I’ll let it go for now. It is Christmas, after all. That said, I’m no dummy. I know there is more to the story of this text message than what you are telling me. Don’t think that we won’t revisit the subject.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Now, in the meantime, speaking of mistletoe …” She nodded toward Sarah’s entry hall, where one of the more interesting residents of the county, the mountain man known by only one name—Bear—crooked his finger in an attempt to lure his woman beneath the mistletoe. Patricia Robertson, who prior to joining Bear in his yurt northeast of town had worked for NASA as an honest-to-God rocket scientist, giggled like a schoolgirl as she allowed her lover to bend her over backward in a thorough kiss.

“Isn’t love amazing? You know what Patricia told me this morning when I asked how she could stand living on the mountain in winter with only a wood stove for
heat? She said all she needed was a rug, a blanket, and a Bear to keep her warm.”

“Ahhh …”

When the kiss broke up and Bear set Patricia back on her feet, they saw Sarah and Nic watching. Bear winked, and Patricia said, “Missed your chance, girls. He’s mine.”

Nic thought about that moment an hour later as she drove toward Murphy Mountain. How powerful the force must be to have compelled Patricia to abandon her career to live in the back of nowhere with a man who considered indoor plumbing a luxury. She envied those lucky enough to find it. She wondered if they realized just how blessed they were.

She wondered if Gabe considered himself blessed or cursed.

In the big scheme of things, which was worse? To have that sort of love for a short time and lose it, or never to have known that depth of love at all? Obviously the answer would be different for different people, but since Nic believed that life should be lived to the fullest, she’d rather have a great love and lose it than never experience it. Of course, what she wanted most of all was a grand love that lasted the rest of her life.

“Hey, it could happen,” she murmured aloud as she stopped at Eagle’s Way’s gate and rolled down her window to input the security code. “Just not with the likes of Gabe Callahan.”

And yet, as she continued up the drive toward the house, a subtle tension stirred within her. Could Sarah have been right? Would he be waiting for her, an apology at the ready? If so, how should she respond? What should she say? What did she
want
to say to him?

Except for telling him what she’d thought of his text message, Nic drew a blank. She’d have to see what he said first and go from there.

As it turned out, she need not have concerned herself with the question. Unlike yesterday, the house was dark. No smoke rose from the chimney. No Christmas carols floated on the air.

Taped to the front door, she found a folded note with her name written across the front. She yanked it off the door, opened it, and read:
He’s in the mud room. Same security code as the gate. Sack of letters on the workbench. G
.

“I was right the first time. He is a jerk.”

For the next week, Nic quietly fumed and tried her best to put Gabe Callahan, jerk, out of her mind. She told herself that she refused to let him ruin her holidays, so on New Year’s Eve, when she would have preferred crawling into bed early with a good book, she packed an overnight bag and joined her friends at Cavanaugh House for a previously planned event.

As she donned the Christmas gift Sage had given her in the bedroom Celeste had assigned to her, Nic glanced in the mirror and finally shook off her blue mood. Okay, maybe Sage’s idea wasn’t so stupid after all. Feeling delightfully silly, Nic headed downstairs. At the second-floor landing, she paused and eyed the banister. Dressed like this, she was tempted to slide her way to the ground floor.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sarah said from the ground floor below. “I wanted to do it, too.”

Nic looked at her friend and laughed. “Oh my gosh, Sarah. You look ten years old.”

Like Nic, she wore fleece footed pajamas, green frogs against a pink background print. “I think I look darling.”

“You do look darling. We both look darling.”

“That yellow looks good on you. I love the puppies.”

“Thank you.” Then, indulging in her inner child, she
balanced her butt on the banister and slid her way to the floor. She and Sarah both were laughing when they entered Celeste’s drawing room to find Sage and Celeste already waiting for them. Noting the prints on their pajamas—butterflies for Sage and angels for Celeste—Nic shook her head and asked, “How perfect. Where did you find these, Sage?”

“A little store in New England. The owner bought one of my butterfly paintings, and she sent me my pair with a note saying that my work inspired her.”

“Well, I love my pair,” Celeste said, holding out a foot and wriggling it. “They’re so soft and warm and perfect for a slumber party. Now, y’all take a look at the sideboard and tell me if I’ve forgotten anything.”

Nic spied chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cake, pimento cheese sandwiches, popcorn, peanuts, chips, crackers, and party mix. “I get a stomachache just looking at all that food.”

“Not me,” Sarah said, filling a plate with fats and calories. “I’m starving. I was running late leaving Gunnison, and I didn’t stop for dinner.”

Celeste offered her a kindly smile. “I’ll bet your mother loved her room. Meadows Place is a wonderful facility.”

Earlier today, Sarah had taken her mother to a memory-care assisted-living facility for a week of respite care—Sarah’s Christmas gift from Celeste. Sarah had been reluctant to keep the reservation until Nic and Sage lobbied long enough to convince her that Ellen Reese would enjoy the activities the five-star facility had to offer. “It’s a great place, Celeste, and a too-generous gift.”

“Nonsense. Every woman deserves a week of pampering now and then.”

“Here, here,” Sage said, snagging a cookie off Sarah’s plate. “Now, what’s this big surprise you promised us,
Celeste? The one that’s supposed to make us forget we are sitting in footie pajamas drinking hot cider with nary a man in sight on New Year’s Eve?”

Nic tossed a piece of popcorn at her. “Hey, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t this sleepover your idea? Didn’t you buy these PJs specifically for tonight?”

“Yes. You’re right. My bad. It’s because of the date from hell last New Year’s Eve.”

Sarah spoke to Celeste. “If we stay up late and get silly, ask her to do her imitation of Gareth Hollingsworth the Third.”

“No.” Now Sage threw popcorn back at Sarah. “I promised I wouldn’t make fun of him anymore. It wasn’t kind.”

“He’s a man. You don’t have to be kind.” Nic dropped down into her favorite chair in the room, the wooden rocker that felt like it had been made for her butt. “Except when it comes to Colt Rafferty. I love this chair. The man is an artist with wood.”

Sage wrinkled her nose, her usual reaction to the mention of Colt Rafferty. The woman had a competitive streak a mile long when it came to her art. Nic found it amusing to watch.

“The surprise, Celeste?” Sage repeated before Nic could think of a good way to tease her further about Colt.

Celeste nodded and lifted an envelope from the mantel. “As you may know, a few weeks ago I contacted Jack Davenport in search of any information he might have regarding our Cellar Bride. As a result of that query, he provided me letters written by Daniel Murphy to Jack’s great-great-grandfather, Lucien Davenport. One of them proved quite illuminating.”

“Awesome,” Sarah said.

Celeste continued, “Nic, would you read it aloud for me?”

Nic wiped her fingers on a paper napkin, then accepted the envelope from Celeste. Paper crinkled as she carefully removed a folded sheet of paper and opened it. She read aloud: