The Christmas Sisters (17 page)

Nic sat up, her gaze on the star and her back stiff. “Thank you for lifting her up like that; I could tell you wished she'd hurry it up there toward the last.”

“That's okay. She's just a tiny thing, doesn't weigh very much.”

“She wanted to get it just right.” A sentiment Nic appreciated tenfold.

“She sure got a charge out of the lights, didn't she?”

At last, a safe topic—Christmas decorations.
A logical enough leap not to stir Sam's suspicion over her shift in subject.
Yet something she could milk for a few minutes more with Sam before saying good night. “Who doesn't like the lights? I think we should all go for a drive one evening this week to see how everyone has their houses done up.”

“I'm game. I still can't get over Willa though.”

Willa was not a topic Nic considered safe nor one she wanted to linger over.
Especially not with Sam.

“Imagine wanting to eat her dinner out here by twinkle lights.” He shook his head.

“I kind of liked the effect. Don't you enjoy holiday decorations?”

“Sure, I like them okay. I liked the company better.” He smiled. “I guess the lights in the background did give the
mac
and cheese a more festive touch.”

“Well, Colliers cooking can use all the help it can get.”

“Ah, it was fine.”

Nic relaxed her shoulders and started to lean back.

“Willa told me that was her favorite dinner.”

Her spine went rigid before it ever met with the sofa cushion. She faked a smile but had no illusion that Sam bought her light expression. “Willa would live on macaroni and cheese if she could. I make sure she eats her fruits and veggies, though.”

“I'm sure you do. Anyone can see you're a great mom, Nic.”

“Great?” She huffed and ran her hand over her forehead. She neither felt deserving of the accolade or comfortable with the person giving it. She could not talk about Willa with Sam without being aware of the fact that some people suspected he might be her father. How did you put a thing like that out of your mind? Nic had resolved the issue of Willa's paternity years ago
and had committed herself, as an act of pure faith, not to dwell on it again. It was the past, and the past was gone, but if she was not careful, she would let being in Persuasion and seeing Sam dredge it up again.

“And Willa's a great kid.”

“
Okay,
that
I'll give you. I have been blessed.”

“Blessed.
That's exactly the right word for it, isn't it, Nic?

Despite...well, whatever... I can see that Willa is a true blessing to you and to this entire family.
To me, too.”

“You?”

“Yeah, she really took my mind off worry over the church today, for one thing.” He rubbed the back of his neck and kept his gaze focused somewhere across the room. “And when she showed me her snowbird ornament that first day, she gave me a glimpse of how terrific it is to love and nurture a child. A blessing if I ever saw one.”

“Thank you for being so good with her,” she said before she could stop herself.
So much for steering the conversation into safe waters.
“She really thinks you're something special, too.”

Sam shrugged.

She couldn't tell if the response came out of modesty or nonchalance. That gave her very little to go on in deciding what to do next. Nic wet her lips. What harm could there be in letting Sam in on how much he had meant to Willa in the short time she'd known him? Willa would probably tell Sam herself at some point. Why hold back when there was nothing more to it than a child's response to a kind man? “She told me when I tucked her in that she thought you were the nicest, handsomest man she'd ever met, except for her Uncle Park,
cousin
Scott, and the man who hands out suckers at the drive-thru bank.”

“Pretty highly esteemed company.”

“You've struck a chord with her.
Really connected.
That's not always easy to do.”

“Well, I realize she has some...difficulties, but she's still real young, Nic. And pretty articulate for her age, assuming...what is she, about six?”

If he'd asked straight out, she'd have answered in kind. But his hesitance, the roundabout way he came at the question put Nic back on full alert. “She does score high for her age group on verbal tests.”

“I can see that.” He folded his hands together and waited, not saying any more, just watching her.

She had seen so many doctors and counselors do this very thing, hoping that in an anxious need to fill the silence she would spill her guts about feelings and expectations. If he thought that was going to happen, he had the wrong girl. She had a million thoughts and emotions swirling in her head now about the house, her goals, her sisters, her precious child, and even Sam. She did not want to chance muddling those things up and blurting out who knew what because he played some
ultrabasic
psychological game with her.

She folded her hands and mirrored his position.

He said nothing.

She held her peace.

Upstairs they heard shuffling.

Petie
and Collier's voices rose then quieted.

Nic relaxed a bit to remember she and Sam were not really alone and to know she could always use her sisters as an excuse to make a polite exit. She tried not to feel too silly after trying
to prolong the conversation so she could spend just a few minutes more with Sam. She now wanted a backup getaway plan.

“So you're not going to tell me?” he pressed.

She tried not to gloat that he had broken first. Besides, she needed to stay sharp so she didn't let down her guard too much for vague questions obviously intended to draw her out. “Tell you what?”

“Willa’s story.”

“Willa's...?” She put her hand to her throat. Beneath her palm her heart thudded in a furious, frightened cadence. Sam wanted to know Willa's story. Of all the things she had wanted to suppress since coming back to town, he had to ask the one thing that she feared most telling him—the one thing she knew that someday, no matter what happened between them, she would have to share with him.

“Okay, I worded that poorly.” He bowed his head and shaking it, spoke without looking at her. “I had no idea how better to put it. After getting to know that sweet, special kid, I didn't have it in me to look in your face and ask you what's wrong with her.”

“Wrong?” she practically choked on the word.

“I'm sorry.” He held his hands up and met her gaze again, his eyes filled with kind concern. “I don't know the proper term for what's, you know,
different
about her, Nic.”

She let her breath out slowly. She tried to find her equilibrium again without an obvious show that she had almost lost it entirely. She ran her hand through her hair and tucked a strand behind one ear. She let her gaze drop and focused it on a splash of wayward glitter brightening the leg of her faded jeans. “What's different about Willa is that she is brain injured, Sam.”

“Brain...?”

“Injured.”
She looked up. She had always spoken frankly about Willa's condition, no reason to change that now. “Brain damaged.”

“Oh, Nic.
When?
How?”

“Probably at birth.
We can't prove that; though, believe me, we did try.”

“I don't understand.”

She shut her eyes but that did not dispel the emotions welling up within her. “And I don't want to talk about it, not now, at least.”

“Nic—”

“I'm not trying to hide anything from you.”

“I never thought you were.”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“This is obviously very painful to you.”

“Every bit of it.
The cover-ups, the outright lies, the casual disregard for a child's well-being, and a parent's right to know and best care for that child.”
She cut herself off. She wasn't making sense and she knew it. “It is, Sam, very painful. What happened when Willa was born and in the time shortly after that shaped my life and the decisions I made regarding caring for her in ways you cannot begin to imagine.”

“I believe you.”

Nothing else he could have said would have meant more to Nicolette. He believed her. The level of trust implied in that simple sentence spoke volumes to her bruised self-esteem. She put her hand on the side of his face.
“Oh, Sam.
Thank you.”

“For what?”
He stroked a tear from her cheek with the side of his thumb.

She had no words to explain it to him. She sniffled, shut her eyes, and shook her head.

When he drew near, she did not lurch away. When he kissed her temple, she took a deep breath and turned toward him. When he slid his fingers under her chin and gently coaxed her into the perfect position for a long, sweet kiss, she—

“That's it! No ifs, ands, or buts.”
Petie
seized the living room like Sherman bearing down on Atlanta, her jaw clenched, her eyes bugged, and her hair woolly as wildfire through a hayfield. “It's official. Parker
Sipes
is either dead or he will soon wish he were.”

Tw
elve

Calm down,
Petie
.” Sam bolted up from the sofa, trying not to look too much like a teenager just caught stealing a kiss.

“Calm down?” She plunked her hands on her hips. Her feet, in stretched out, wool hunting socks, remained planted firmly on the threshold between the living room and kitchen. “
Ohhh
, I hate that.”

“Sam didn't mean anything by it.” Collier breezed past her older sister like she hadn't a care in the world, but the dark look she shot Nic and Sam said otherwise.

“Why do men insist on telling any woman who is simply expressing an honest emotion to calm down? Why is that, huh?”
Petie
strode into the room, dominating the once serene setting with her perfectly pink bathrobe, her quiet but commanding tone, and her blazing brown eyes.

The sofa springs drowned out Nic's exasperated groan with an eerie, low creak as she edged forward but stopped short of standing at Sam's side. “
Petie
, no one said—”

“He did.” She pointed dead center of Sam's chest. “Calm down. That's what all men say when they want to make a woman feel like she's suddenly gone careening out of control.
And all because she doesn't feel the need to suppress and deny what's going awry in her life in order to appease the empathy-impaired men around her.”

“Fair enough.”
He held both hands up, knowing when he had met his match. “I take back my 'calm down' and substitute a nice, friendly, gender neutral 'sit down' instead.”

Petie
glowered at him.

He motioned to the sofa.

She dropped into the overstuffed chair on the other side of the coffee table.

Sam sat down, mindful of not landing in Nic's lap, or even close enough to her to imply some kind of intimacy between them. “I don't suppose you'd like to talk about this to a potentially empathy-impaired male but otherwise good-hearted minister and old family pal?”

“What's to talk about?”
Petie
wrapped her robe around her like armor.

“All right then.” Sam slapped his hands on his thighs and made a move to get up again. Excuses about the long day past and the even longer one ahead of him began to form in the back of his brain. Even though he would rather do anything than go to bed and lie there thinking about services tomorrow and what they would bring, he figured
Petie's
reticence to talk was his clue to leave the sisters alone. “I guess I'll just scoot on to—”

“My husband of twenty-two years has left me.”
Petie
said
,
staring at the tree, as plainly as if she were just pointing out a light was broken.

Nic gripped Sam by the arm, as if desperate to keep him in his place.

She shouldn't have wasted her strength. After a remark like that, he wasn't going anywhere.

“
Petie
, what exactly are you talking about?” Nic asked.

“Park.”
She turned her gaze to Nic then Sam then Nic again. “He's left me.”

“Now you don't know that for sure.” Collier perched on the arm of her oldest sister's chair.

“I know,”
Petie
whispered. “Either he has left me or something horrific has happened to him. Those are the only possible explanations.”

“For what?
Details, girl, give us some useful details.” Nic managed to sound compassionate yet annoyed at the same time.

That alone gave Sam more information than anything the other Dorsey siblings had offered since flouncing into the room a minute ago. Obviously she had some concern for her sister's experiences, but underneath it all suspected yet another play for attention on
Petie's
part.