Lakeshore Christmas (26 page)

“…had a problem with you since day one,” Julian was saying.

“You think I care about that?” Logan demanded.

It was hard to tell who pushed first. They clashed like a pair of freight trains, the steam of the engine swirling around them, a small crowd gathering. Daisy shoved herself directly between them, narrowly missing a flying punch. “Cut it out,” she yelled. “Quit acting like a pair of jerks.”

“’Top it!” yelled Charlie, now awake in his stroller.

Logan barely slowed down as he neatly went around Daisy, intent on another attack. Julian stepped aside at the last possible second, causing Logan to lurch to the edge of the platform. He teetered there, arms windmilling at empty air. Daisy screamed, flashing on an image of Logan dying under the train’s wheels. Just as quickly, Julian grabbed a fistful of Logan’s jacket and hauled him back. Momentum from the quick save propelled them backward, and they fell in a heap. The fight didn’t end, though. Logan muscled his way out of Julian’s grasp and turned toward him, fists flying. Clothing ripped and things erupted from their pockets—coins, keys, a pocket knife, a subway token, a single leather glove.

“That’s it,” Daisy said, bodily inserting herself between them again, so pumped with adrenaline that she was able to stop a flailing fist. Both guys stepped back, breathing hard, sweating despite the cold.

At some point during the shoving match, a small velvet box had hit the platform and popped open. The glare
from a fluorescent overhead light struck the contents—a diamond solitaire, winking at her.

“Oh,” Daisy said, looking from one guy to the other, her head abuzz with confusion. “Oh,” she said again. “You dropped something.”

T
here was something almost ritualistic in the way a champagne bottle was opened—the quick peel of the metallic foil, the unwinding of the wire basket and the slow, inevitable twisting of the cork. You never quite knew when the cork was going to blow, but the wise drinker took care to keep the neck of the bottle angled away from his face. The entire ritual lasted about twenty-three seconds, Eddie reckoned, because for some reason he didn’t understand, he was counting the twists of the cork. Twenty-three seconds to wash away years of hard-won sobriety.

The cork blew with a satisfying
thwok,
and thumped against the ceiling of the kitchen. He didn’t have a champagne flute, so he poured the dancing liquid into a juice glass from the cabinet over the sink. He watched the tiny bubbles surge upward in the glass, each one a celestial bead of promise.

At times like this, he was supposed to call Terry Davis, the guy who was his sponsor here in Avalon. But the holidays were here and Eddie didn’t want to be a pest. This year in particular, Terry was preoccupied, with his first
grandchild on the way; his son Connor and daughter-in-law Olivia were expecting. Eddie knew damned well that wasn’t how the program worked. When you were about to take a drink, you called your sponsor, end of story. Do not pass go, do not pick up that cold, delicious glass of oblivion and carry it to your lips, do not—

A sharp knock at the door broke into the moment. Eddie set down the glass and went to answer it, glancing at the clock as he crossed the room. Still hours to go before it was time for the pageant.

“Hey, Mr. Haven,” said Omar Veltry, pushing inside without waiting to be invited. “Check this out. We got something to show you.” He was followed inside by his two brothers, then Jabez and Cecil.

“Check what out?” Eddie said.

“You online over here?” Randy demanded, barging toward Eddie’s laptop, which was set up at the dining room table.

Eddie’s laptop was a musician/composer’s dream, tricked out with all the bells and whistles needed for music production. He planted himself protectively in front of it. “Whoa, slow down. What do you want with my laptop?”

“You gotta hear this,” said Moby. “Cecil made it from our session with you the other day.”

“Cecil, man, you’re a freakin’ genius, that’s what you are,” Omar said, typing in an address.

“Hey,” Eddie started to object.

“Just listen,” Jabez said.

A moment later, his original song came through the speakers, the one he’d written for Maureen. No, for the program, he corrected himself. A video appeared, showing a montage of shots from the PBS filming—the crew had been covering rehearsals all week. The images
were interspersed with still-life winter scenes by Daisy Bellamy. There were live-action studio shots of Eddie himself, recording the song. It was a surprisingly professional production, mixed in a way that was curiously mesmerizing.

“You did this?” he asked Cecil.

“Yep,” he said with a shy grin.

“He’s a mad geek,” Omar added. “A genius.”

“Look at the stats,” Randy said. “Look at all those hits. It went viral, man.”

“You’re gonna be famous all over again,” Omar added.

Eddie felt queasy. He didn’t want to be famous. “Take it down,” he said to Cecil. “Seriously—”

“Wait, check this out,” Moby said. “He set it up to enable downloads.”

“For the library,” Cecil interjected. “Every download sends a donation to the library.”

“No way,” Eddie said. “That’s insane.”

“That’s the Internet, man,” Omar said.

Eddie stepped back, incredulous. “You’re sure that’s how it works?”

“That’s exactly how it works,” said Jabez.

“Wait till Miss Davenport sees this,” Randy said. “She’s going to love you for it, man.”

“Doubtful,” said Eddie.

“They’re fighting,” said Omar.

“How do you know we’re fighting?” Eddie demanded.

“That’s what Jabez said.”

“And how do
you
know?” Eddie asked the boy.

He shrugged. “Lucky guess?”

Eddie furrowed his fingers through his hair. “I screwed up,” he admitted.

“You did,” the brothers agreed.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

They nodded in unison. “What are you going to do about it?” asked Randy.

“Me?” Eddie asked. “Nothing I can do.”

Jabez chuckled. “Right. We have to go get ready for tonight. See you later, Eddie.”

They left in a jostling whirlwind. Eddie stood listening to the music on the computer. Those kids were amazing, producing this practically out of nothing. A totally unlikely friendship had sprung up between the ultracool Veltry brothers, Jabez and geeky Cecil Byrne. Without the pageant, they never would have become friends. Thrown together, they’d made this…this thing people all over the world were downloading at a furious rate.

Eddie dared to scroll down to read some of the comments, which already numbered in the thousands. Damn. He was famous all over again. Not exactly what he wanted, but if the boys were right, this might be exactly what the library needed. Holy crap, thought Eddie. It was his own personal Christmas miracle.

He went back into the kitchen. There was no hesitation. He took the champagne bottle in one hand and the glass in the other, clinking them together in a toast. “Cheers,” he said, and poured everything down the drain.

M
aureen was proud of herself for not falling apart over Eddie Haven. She’d known from the start that he was a mistake, but she’d been swept away. She’d allowed herself to forget the pain and shame and risk that came from handing her heart over to another person. Ignoring the lessons of the past, she had dared to dream of a future. Where had that foolishness come from? She should have known better. Eddie had blinded her. He was like that, as dazzling as the sun.

Her doorbell rang, causing her heart to leap, proving that even though she’d resigned herself to the end of her and Eddie, some foolish part of her still dared to hope. She fixed her hair and straightened her sweater, then opened the door.

“Oh,” she said. “Mr. Shannon.” One look at his face, and she knew something was wrong.

“I wanted to tell you in person.” The president of the library board took off his knitted cap. “It’s about the library fund.”

Her spirits sank. “We didn’t make our goal,” she said.

He nodded, his face bleak. “I’m sorry to tell you this
on Christmas Eve. I’m going on vacation tomorrow night and won’t be seeing you until…until the closure is done, and I wanted to tell you in person.”

“So what you’re saying is, the library will be closed for good.”

“Maureen, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

There was nothing left to say. She simply nodded her head, accepting the inevitable. The emotional one-two punch of Eddie, followed by the library failure, left her reeling. Somehow, she managed to keep a brave face as she insisted on making up a plate of cookies for him, then bade him a merry Christmas.

Just get through tonight’s performance, she told herself. After that, she’d throw herself into finding a new job. And she’d never have to deal with Eddie Haven again. For the time being, the best therapy was to stay busy. For pity’s sake, stay busy.

It was easy enough to do. She still had a few last-minute gifts to put together. She took special care with her mail carrier’s annual assortment of Christmas cookies. Maureen’s street was at the end of Carolyn’s route. On Christmas Eve, it would be one of the final deliveries before the holiday kicked into high gear. A sweet treat at the end of the day would be just right for Carolyn. Maureen chose a selection of iced lemon bars, chocolate mint gems, soft molasses cookies and gingerbread men.

She nestled each morsel in wax paper in a pretty basket and found a CD with her favorite Christmas songs to tuck in, as well. The cats deemed her tears boring and padded away to nap by the radiator. Tears? Good heavens, she was working with tears pouring down her face; she was falling apart at the seams. Pull it together, she admon
ished herself. She turned on the TV for company while she worked.

When she heard the familiar opening strains of
The Christmas Caper,
she hurried to change the channel…and then stopped herself. Just because she and Eddie were over didn’t mean she had to go cold turkey. She still had to live in a world where this movie played, where his photo ran in the occasional magazine and his voice came over the radio. There was no point in hiding.

She had to prove she could survive the hurt. This meant letting herself feel the pain, acknowledge the terrible lash across her heart and carry on in spite of it.

Almost defiantly, she turned up the volume just in time to hear little Jimmy Kringle deliver a line: “I’m not giving up hope, I swear I’m not.”

“You go right on hoping, little fella. See where it gets you,” said the cynical Beasley, who played the head of the orphanage.

There was no reason a cringe-inducing line like that should work, yet in the context of the heart-touching movie, it did. For a moment, Maureen just stared at the boy’s face on the screen. He was every child who had ever been scared and lonely. That was his magic. The naked yearning in his enormous eyes was palpable. He showed the kind of vulnerability most people kept inside, buried beneath layers of protective armor. Eddie left it all out there, as a small child and all his life. Even in this performance, he was emotionally fearless. She knew now that this talent had led him to highs and lows, to falling in love repeatedly, to feeling pain so deeply he tried to numb it by drinking, and finally to have the courage to change.

He claimed she never truly took a leap of faith, that she was always hedging her bets. Was she? Perhaps so, but
flinging herself into things—into passion, music, love—was just not her way of conducting herself. She couldn’t turn into someone else. She did believe there was a way to live her life without fear, to bring meaning into every moment. It was up to her to find optimism and faith, even in the midst of heartbreak. That would be her project, then, she thought, her way of getting over him.

He’d grown into a remarkable man, she thought, but she was not so starry-eyed about him that she considered him perfect. He was flawed and human. His issues with his parents ran deep. She should know better than to fall for a guy who didn’t want to be around his own parents. A guy like that couldn’t be right for her. Could he?

She put the finishing touches on the mail carrier’s gift, dangling the last of the curly ribbon to Franklin and Eloise to play with. The cats leaped upon it as though it was the treasure of Sierra Madre. She stared at the face filling the screen now. No wonder she’d fallen in love with Eddie. She thought about the pain he was actually feeling at that age and the unhappy times he’d had with his family at Christmas. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize how much it would hurt you. I didn’t know it would ruin us.”

These were things she needed to say to the real Eddie. And she would. Maybe. Just not…not now. He made her care too much, feel too much. Maybe that had been what had driven her to contact his parents. Perhaps she’d felt a secret need to throw an obstacle in the way and she’d found the perfect thing—his parents. Meddling where she had no business—what better way to sabotage their relationship? No. That wasn’t her motivation and she knew it. The reason she’d contacted his parents, the reason she wanted him to reconnect, was that she loved him.
Against all good sense, she loved him and wanted him to be happy.

Her immediate concern was to put on a Christmas pageant that would not be a complete disaster. That, and get her emotional body armor back in place, praying the hairline cracks would not become a gaping wound.

In the falling twilight, the streetlights diffused by snow flurries, she saw the mail carrier approaching and hurried down with her basket of homemade cookies. Despite the snow, Carolyn had a spring in her step, probably because the workday was nearly over.

“I’ll trade you,” said Maureen, holding out the gift basket.

Carolyn’s face lit up. “From the cookie exchange?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re an angel.” She handed Maureen a batch of mail.

“Ditto,” said Maureen, sifting through the stack. Plenty of junk mail, ads for sexy garments she would never wear, places she would never go. There were also Christmas cards—a few stragglers from people in far-off places. And, at the bottom of the stack, an official-looking business envelope. “Oh,” she said.

“Everything all right?”

“Yes.” Maureen turned the envelope over, touched her thumb to the return address. “This is the kind of thing you both expect and dread. I believe it’s a contract for another job.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I might not have a choice. Everyone’s worked so hard to keep the library from closing, but we fell short. There’s no way to reach the goal in time.”

“Change is always hard,” Carolyn observed. “But it’s usually for the best, right?”

“Right.”

“Merry Christmas,” Carolyn said. “Thanks again for the cookies. See you at the pageant tonight.”

Maureen managed a wobbly smile. Then she fled upstairs and ripped open the envelope. There it was in black and white. An offer from the securities firm in Boston. She would be a corporate librarian, in charge of company documents and archives. It was for a bigger salary than she had ever dreamed of. And it couldn’t have come at a better time. A securities firm. Even the name sounded—well, secure. Safe. She ought to be feeling a sense of relief, not defeat.

She dressed for the evening in clothes she believed suited a pageant director—a charcoal-gray wool jumper, dark leggings and knee boots with low heels and soft soles. The outfit suited someone who was meant to be behind the scenes, in the background. Invisible.

Her one concession to whimsy was to don the Christmas earrings the little ones had given her. For a moment she was tempted to wear her hair long and loose, the way she had the night of the tavern. No. She didn’t want to send the wrong message and besides, her hair would only get in the way.

“I need to quit fussing over myself,” she told the cats, expertly clipping her hair into a bun. “You two wish me luck. It’s showtime.”