No Christmas Like the Present (14 page)

So Fred, the amateur psychologist, had finally hit the nail on the head. Or at least, he'd come close.

Lindsay attempted a casual tone. “Pretty obvious, isn't it?”

“Was it obvious to you?”

“No,” she admitted. But an unwelcome thought snaked in under her skin. Last night and several times today, she'd entertained a wish that was every bit as unlikely as her becoming a prima ballerina. The idea that some divine agency would ever let her keep someone like Fred. She didn't deserve Fred, any more than she ever would have been able to dance in those shoes.

Useless, self-pitying thoughts. She wouldn't let them ruin her last night with Fred; not just for herself, but for him. “Okay. You win. You get your degree in amateur psychology.” She smiled up at him. “But it sounds an awful lot like serious talk to me.”

“You're right. I should be flogged.” He took her hand and started toward the car. “Now, we'd better start back down the hill for that church service.”

 

 

Fred slipped his fingers through Lindsay's, marveling again at what a natural fit it seemed to make. He started to put their hands into his pocket, then reached into the wide, deep pocket of Lindsay's red coat instead. Something scratched at the bottom of the pocket, and he smiled at the memory. “Chestnut shells.”

Her fingers squeezed between his. “I guess it's the first time I've worn this coat since that night.”

Somehow, in less than a week and a half, they'd developed a history. At least, it seemed that way to him. Maybe he was just breaking his own rule against being serious, giving everything a heightened meaning tonight. Like the way it had become second nature to match his pace to hers as they walked, slowing his longer strides when he felt Lindsay begin to quicken her steps to keep up.

Time might be limited, but nothing should feel rushed.

At the car, he opened her door and kissed her cheek as she got inside. He used the brief trip around to his own door to draw some vigor from the cold air around him, and the strength to keep the mood light. At first, he'd tried to pull back tonight, not to touch her too much, thinking it might make matters easier to get back on a more casual footing before he left. He wouldn't be seeing her again, and he might as well get used to it.

But he'd have far too much time to get used to it. Where he went from here, and how long his kind lived, he didn't know. But without Lindsay, it would seem a very long time indeed.

Did other people form deep attachments this quickly? Or was everything compressed for him because his time with her was so short? For Lindsay, this period would probably soon seem like a brief anomaly, a small pocket of time separate from her real, day-to-day life. If she remembered it at all.

He thought of his promise, and resolved with all his might to make sure it came true.

A heavy sigh from Lindsay mirrored his thoughts. He had to be careful. Moods were contagious, and he was a carrier now. Another sign, he supposed, that he'd been here as long as he ought to be.

Time for a diversion.

He pulled up straighter in his seat as the church came into view. “We're early,” he said. “Park around the corner.”

“Why?” Lindsay glanced toward the little digital clock on the lower half of the dashboard, but he kept his knee steadfastly in front of it, the way he had all evening. His legs didn't fit in many other places in this car, as it was.

“Trust me. I'm in charge, remember?”

A little suspicion glinted in her smile, and she parked the car near an evergreen tree alongside the road, where the tree cast a slightly darker shadow.

Fred unfastened her safety belt and reached across her waist. “How does your seat adjust?”

“What?” He'd already found the lever, and the seat fell ungracefully backward, taking Lindsay with it. But grace wasn't the object here. The less serious, the better. Fred leaned awkwardly over her, fumbling for a position, tangling his hands through her hair, breathing lightly across her ear.

Her giggle was music to his ears. “Fred, we can't—”

“Don't worry. Even I can't get us into much trouble in five minutes.”

He moved his lips downward, gently nudging aside the neck of her sweater to nuzzle the soft skin at the side of her throat, until the giggling quieted. Then he kissed her, long and full.

Slowly. He refused to hurry anything tonight. Her arms came up around him as she responded, drawing him deeper into that incredible sensation of warmth, of being connected.

When words failed, there was this. Even with so little time left, her kiss took him to a place where he couldn't even think anymore. Nothing but the two of them, joined together in a moment so perfect everything else ceased to exist.

In Lindsay's arms, five minutes was a very short time indeed. Just enough to lose himself completely, only to have to drag himself back again.

He propped himself up precariously on the corner of Lindsay's headrest, pulling away just far enough to look down into her eyes, nearly lost in the shadows. “We should be going inside now,” he said unnecessarily.

Lindsay nodded, fingering his chin, which he knew was as smooth as it had been this morning. He couldn't read her thoughts and he shouldn't want to. But he could guess. He would have liked to have those bristles back too, if it meant he could stay with her.

The church clock began to strike eleven. Only one hour left.

“Now look what you've done. Made us late.” Fred smiled down at her with a lightness he didn't feel, and got out to open the door for her.

The church Lindsay had chosen was small and placid, and Fred felt something settle inside him as soon as he entered. It was the right place for him to be now, to remember that there were things much larger than his own problems. The age-old holiday had existed long before him, and would continue to do so long after these small, earthly issues were forgotten.

Still. He was, for the moment, flesh and blood, and he would accept that for the gift it was. These final moments shouldn't be wasted.

So, with his arm around Lindsay, he sang along with the old traditional songs, songs he knew without ever having learned them. When he touched his candle to hers, he prayed he was passing something more on to her than just a flame. And he walked outside with her, their candles still lit, keeping firmly focused on the fast-waning present.

 

 

The candlelight service was short, and Lindsay's apartment was just a few minutes away. In spite of that, it was all she could do to keep from speeding on the way home. Fred rested a hand on her leg. “It's all right. We still have fifteen minutes.”

Fifteen minutes? How could he be so calm? His knee still blocked her view of the clock on the dashboard. But at least his touch reassured her that he was still there. That made it a little easier to keep her eyes on the road.

When they reached her front porch, Lindsay started to open the door, but Fred rested a hand on hers. “This is where I leave you.”

Lindsay swallowed hard and turned around to face him. Not much point wasting time trying to talk him into coming inside for a cup of coffee. She fixed her gaze on him, trying to take in every detail of his features. Fred seemed to be doing the same thing. No man on earth, she was sure, could ever match the way his dark eyes looked at her.

Don't let me forget,
she thought.

Fred stepped close and rested a hand on her cheek. His eyes left hers briefly to glance around the porch area, illuminated by its lone, diamond-shaped lamp. “You'll hang some lights outside next year, won't you? Wherever you are?”

It sounded a little too much like a last request. Lindsay nodded, not trusting her voice.

“I don't know what to say.” Fred's voice brushed against her ears, always a wonderful sound, perhaps a bit huskier than usual. “So maybe I'll just give you your Christmas present.”

From the pocket of his overcoat, he slid out a long, narrow box, neatly packaged in gift wrap Lindsay recognized from the supply in her closet.

“Fred, you didn't have to.”

“I wanted to.”

She gave up arguing. They didn't have time for that. Lindsay tore away the paper and beheld a jewelry store box, warped and discolored with signs of water damage. Her breath drew in sharply.

“Sorry,” Fred said. “It went in the lake with me. But the contents held up surprisingly well.”

She remembered the way Fred had asked about his coat the next morning. It had seemed like such an odd non sequitur at the time. Now, with trembling hands, she opened the water-stained cardboard box. Inside was a second, hard-shelled box. And inside that box, a delicate gold wristwatch, the crystal over its face showing the faintest remainder of mist.

“It's still running,” he said.

Lindsay could see that. The tiny gold second hand traveled around a slender, oval face. It read five minutes to twelve.

Fred turned the watch over on its velvet bed. At first she thought he was trying to hide the time from her, but then she saw the inscription on the back. Lindsay angled it under the porch light and read, “No Time Like The Present.”

“Did I do all right?” Fred sounded concerned.

You can do this. Don't cry in front of him.
“It's perfect. Thank you.”

He held her, and she clung, hard, to the back of his neck. She didn't want to let go, and she didn't want him to see the tears starting to leak from the corners of her eyes.

“Shh.” He didn't seem to realize he held her waist as tightly as she was holding on to him. “It's all for a reason, my love.”

He pulled her back to look at her. The outside of his fingertips touched her face. “Lindsay, I—” He broke off. “You're lovely. Did you know that?”

She shook her head mutely, the ache in her throat too huge for her to talk around it.

“Never forget it. The man who gets you is a lucky man indeed.” His voice dropped. “There's one more thing for you in the bottom of the box.”

Lindsay lifted away the velvet backing with care. At the bottom of the box, she saw something small and white. A slip of paper. Written on it, in neat script, was Steven's name, with an address below it.

Her stomach muscles tightened. “How did you get this?”

“Headquarters. Although I suspect you could have gotten the same information from a telephone directory.”

The address was in Durango, about half an hour from her parents' house. Lindsay stared at the handwriting on the slip, presumably Fred's. She'd never seen his writing before.

“He'd better deserve you,” Fred said suddenly, his voice returning to nearly its normal tone. “Or I'm coming back next year. As a vengeful spirit. Yowling, clanking chains, the whole bit.”

She hugged him again, with all her strength. Something somewhere between a laugh and a sob caught in her throat. Fred seemed to have that effect on her.

“It doesn't make any sense,” she said.

“It's what's best for you.” His words were buried in her hair. “They're never wrong.”

“They are this time,” she whispered fiercely.

He kissed her, and she knew this one had to be the last. Lindsay held on tight, not wanting it to end. She felt a world of longing behind it; any of Fred's pretense of not being serious was gone. He raised his lips from hers slowly, not letting go of her, his eyes heavy on hers.

She had to say it. Why hadn't she said it before? “Fred, I—”

He released her and stepped back, outside the dim ring of her porch light. And for the first time tonight, Lindsay felt the bitter bite of the winter air around her.

“You don't need to say it.” His voice sounded strained, and somehow fainter.

Tears blurred her vision. She sensed, rather than saw, Fred take one more step back.

His words seemed to come from far away: “I love you, too.”

Lindsay blinked her eyes hard to clear them, and when she opened them, she was standing alone on the porch.

Where Fred had stood, and out in the night beyond, a fine, white snow began to fall.

Chapter 14

On Christmas morning, Lindsay woke up with a broken heart.

She couldn't look at a single thing in her apartment that didn't remind her of Fred. The Christmas decorations. The toaster. The couch where he'd so often draped his overcoat. And if she closed her eyes, she smelled the pine fragrance of the tree he'd brought her. It looked and smelled as fresh now as it had the day they put it up.

Even last night's light dusting of snow—enough to decorate lawns, bushes and trees, but not enough to stick to the pavement—bore testimony to Fred's promise of a white Christmas.

Everything made her think of Fred. But that was better than forgetting.

So she wore the watch, packed a bag, and drove the nearly empty highway to her parents' house, with presents in the trunk and Steven's address, like a lump of burning coal, in her pocket.

Her mother loved the glass deer from the street fair. And if she noticed anything amiss in her daughter's behavior, she was tactful enough not to mention it. When Lindsay was with her mother and father, when she was busy, sometimes she felt almost normal. Almost. When she was alone, and had time to think, the hurt seemed to be there waiting for her, like prickles of barbed wire.

The Saturday after Christmas, Lindsay made the drive to Durango, and Steven. It still didn't feel right. But Fred had asked her to. And, though he hadn't seemed concerned about it, she wasn't sure what might happen to him if she didn't.

The directions she'd gotten online brought her to a pretty little gray house on a quiet suburban street. The bare branches of a willow tree formed a huge, bony umbrella over most of the front yard. In the summer, the shade must be lovely. The place seemed warm and homey enough, not unlike the neighborhood where they'd grown up.

A dark blue sedan sat in the driveway, so Lindsay parked at the curb. It would be just her luck to scrape her ex-boyfriend's fender before he ever laid eyes on her again.

Ex-boyfriend. And once, for a few days, he'd been her fiancé.

Lindsay pried her hands from their tenacious grip on the steering wheel, got out of the car, and walked up to the doorstep. It looked as if they hadn't had snow here in the past week. She knew her parents hadn't. Everything just looked brown and wet, except for the sky, heavy with gray clouds. She'd chosen a gloomy day to do this, but she figured Saturday was the most likely day to catch him at home.

She stood, hand poised over the doorbell, wondering why she hadn't called first.

Because Fred's slip of paper had included an address, but not a telephone number. On the phone, it would be easy for Steven to tell her not to come, and give her a coward's way out. Again. It was much harder to turn someone away when they were already standing on your front porch.

Lindsay stopped trying to gather her courage. She'd never be ready enough. She rang the bell, remembering the first time she'd sold Girl Scout cookies as a child. Back then, she'd ring the doorbell and wait nervously for a few seconds.
Not home? Oh, too bad.
She'd turn to leave, and then the door would open.

Today she held her ground, though retreat still sounded tremendously tempting. The door opened.

A very recognizable Steven stood framed in the doorway, wearing jeans and a red sweater. His face had lost that adolescent leanness, taking on a more adult look, but he wore the last ten years well. She would have recognized him anywhere.

Familiar blue eyes stared at her as if an ostrich had appeared on his porch. “Lindsay?”

She'd thought of about eighty things to say on the drive up, and none of them were any good. “Hi,” she began.

A little girl, about four years old, appeared beside him. Standing close to Steven's leg, she peered at Lindsay curiously. “Who is it, Daddy?”

Lindsay's mind raced as she looked down into the brown eyes of the little girl. Maybe this was beginning to make sense. If this little girl needed a mother—

“Sweetie, come back and finish your lunch.” A pretty blond woman joined the little girl beside Steven, and looked questioningly at Lindsay with the same brown eyes as the child. “Hi.” She scooped the girl up.

This didn't add up. Lindsay knew she was far from perfect, but a home wrecker she wasn't. And surely Headquarters didn't intend that, either. So why had they sent her here?

Steven still stared at her. She wasn't sure if he'd blinked yet. “Honey, this is Lindsay.”

“Oh.” Clearly, the woman had heard of her. Lindsay prayed for a crack in the pavement to slither into.

“Lindsay, this is my wife, Karen, and our daughter, Hannah.”

A world of questions lay behind those introductions. Lindsay said inanely, “Nice to meet you.”

Karen said, “Let her in, sweetie. It must be freezing out there.”

Oh, great. The gray, overcast day only made her look piteous.

“Sure. Sorry.” Steven stepped aside, and Lindsay walked in, wondering why she was here and not the moon.

Karen hitched Hannah up on her hip. She was the kind of woman who could take five seconds to twist her hair up loosely into a clip, the way it was now, and look fabulous. “Can I get you anything? Some coffee?”

Oh. No. Weird. Way too weird. “No, thanks. I just dropped by for a minute.”
To humiliate myself.

“Oh.” A perfect blond strand fell loosely over Karen's eyebrow, and she tilted her head to move it aside. “Well, I was just trying to get Hannah to finish her lunch, so . . .”

Karen nodded with a vague smile and headed off through a doorway to the left, with Hannah peering back over her shoulder at Lindsay. Obviously a secure woman. But then, what could Lindsay possibly do? Run off with her husband?

Steven motioned her in the opposite direction, toward the living room. Lindsay took a seat on the couch, while he sat in an armchair facing her. The look of bewilderment had never left his face. “Excuse the mess.”

The Christmas tree stood framed in the window, the carpet around it littered with Barbies, stuffed animals, and some new-looking furry pink slippers. It looked just the way a little girl's living room should look three days after Christmas. “No, it's fine.”

Lindsay searched for some proof that she was still able to put together a coherent sentence. She closed her eyes and tried to equate this baffled stranger with the person she'd known so well, so many years ago. “Steven, this is really dumb. I'm not even sure why I'm here.”

Fred's words echoed in her memory:
Make it right.

“I guess it's to apologize. And maybe explain.”

“You don't have to do that.” His blue eyes made a perfect mirror—cool, opaque, and much harder to read than Fred's. “It was a long time ago.”

“I know.” Lindsay searched her mind, trying to come up with some sort of explanation that didn't involve angels or Headquarters or getting herself carted away on that overdue trip to Bellevue. She didn't want to seem any more crazy or pitiful than she already did.

All she could come up with was the truth. “If there's anything I've ever done that I wish I'd done differently—that's it. And I'm sorry. For the way I handled it, I mean. I just wasn't ready, and I didn't have the guts to tell you. I don't think I knew what I wanted.”

Steven leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, a posture that reminded her more of the person she used to know. “To tell you the truth, I kind of wondered if I was supposed to go after you. Like it was some kind of test. I thought maybe that was what you wanted, but . . .”

Fred would have come after me.
As if it made any difference. “But you didn't.”

“No. I can't remember now if I was more hurt or more ticked off.” He gave her a curious half-smile. “This isn't some kind of twelve-step thing, is it? Like Alcoholics Anonymous, where you go back to people you—”

“No.” Lindsay's face scorched. But she'd come this far and endured this much. This was one thing she was going to do right. She eyed the tree. “I didn't ruin Christmas for you, did I?”

He chuckled. “Well, the first year afterward was nothing to write home about. But no.” He nodded toward the indistinct sound of voices from the other side of the house. “Things turned out fine. In fact—”

He leaned forward and reached down to pull up a branch near the bottom of the tree, to display an ornament Lindsay had almost forgotten. A ridiculous purple cow. She'd given it to him, probably their junior year, as a joke. It was even more hideous than she remembered.

She remembered Fred's words:
Some of the best Christmas decorations are hideous.

“You still have that thing? You've got to be kidding.”

“Hannah loves it. She has to be the one to hang it, every year.”

Lindsay listened to a rhythmic clatter, somewhere behind her, of silverware banging out an improvised pattern against a plate. “You just have the one?”

“So far.”

“She's beautiful,” Lindsay said. “They both are.”

She prodded herself for any sign of jealousy, but couldn't find any, unless it was in the notion that the little girl might have been hers.

“I'm happy for you,” she said. “I really am.” And found she meant it.

Steven sat back a little, his face relaxing into a more natural smile. “That's really all you came for?”

She shrugged. “That's it.”

“Well, you didn't have to. But it was nice of you.”

Lindsay couldn't think of anything else to say, but something in her lightened. She felt a sense of completeness.

Reconciled.
Belatedly, comprehension of the word hit her. Fred hadn't been sent to reunite her with Steven permanently; just to resolve her unfinished business.

Headquarters could have saved them both a lot of pain if they'd just
said
that.

“What about you?” Steven was saying. “Are you married?”

“No. Not yet,” she bluffed.

She wondered now if it would ever happen for her. It had never been an everyday preoccupation for her, but now . . .

Lindsay pulled herself to her feet. “I'd better be going.”

A chapter of her life had been put to rest. But the rest lay before her, an unfinished book.

 

 

“You must be having one lousy vacation,” Jeanne said. “If I was off work, I wouldn't come within ten miles of here.”

They sat in the Thai restaurant across the street from the office, two days after Lindsay's visit to Steven. “It's been a strange Christmas,” she admitted.

These days, Lindsay knew Jeanne better than Steven, but she still couldn't think where to start. But if Jeanne could learn anything from her mistake, it would be worth it. She waited until their coconut soup arrived before she started beating around the bush in earnest.

“Jeanne—” Lindsay poked a mushroom down into her soup. “This is none of my business, but I wanted to talk to you. About Brad. I could be totally wrong, and you can tell me to—”

“Brad?” Jeanne snorted and jabbed two skinny red straws into her Thai iced tea. “Don't even mention the name.”

Lindsay raised her head. “Cubic zirconia?” she said before she thought.

“It might as well have been. The day after Christmas, he started making noise about how short he was on cash. And he never took his eyes off my finger.”

“So what did you do?”

Jeanne held her bare left hand over the table with a dismissive flicking motion. “Told him to take a walk.”

“Oh.” If Lindsay had been less distracted, she would have noticed the ring was gone.

“Why? What were you going to say?”

“It doesn't matter. I just—” There was no need to go on. Jeanne's problem had already been solved, and she seemed to be holding up surprisingly well.

“No, really. Did you know something I didn't?”

Lindsay combed her fingers through her hair. “Like I said, it was none of my business. But I was worried about you. When you showed me the ring, you just looked a little—”

“Green around the gills?”

Lindsay nodded.

“You know who really looked green? Brad, when he was trying to worm out. I guess I was kind of relieved.” Jeanne set down her spoon, and Lindsay realized the other woman hadn't started on her soup. “I never should have said yes in the first place. I shouldn't be that anxious to get married. But when someone asks—I don't know, I guess I felt like it might be my only chance.”

“I felt that way, too.”

Jeanne's head lifted.

“I was engaged once. Back in college. Not for very long. But that's what I wanted to tell you. After I said yes, I had this feeling in my stomach—”

“Like you swallowed something and it was sitting there like a rock?”

“That's it. And I thought maybe you felt the same way. I didn't want to butt in if it was what you really wanted, but I felt bad not saying anything.” Lindsay stopped. She was babbling again. She seemed to be doing a lot of babbling these days.

“You're a good friend, Lindsay.” Jeanne stirred her iced tea. “And here I didn't even know you'd ever been engaged. How come we never do anything away from the office?”

“I don't know.”

“Come to my New Year's party tomorrow night. You always say you'll try, but you never make it.”

“You're still having it?”

“Sure.” Jeanne finally took a spoonful of her soup. “I'm not in mourning. I just feel kind of stupid.” She smiled. “If you really want to cheer me up, bring a batch of that fudge. The almond kind. It was awesome last time.”