The Christmas Sisters (23 page)

“Then y'all should come to church.” Willa did not shake her finger in admonishment but she might as well have.

“Willa, show a little respect, young lady.” That it cost Nic to remind her child to pay deference to Claire showed in her tight jaw and rigid back.

Claire laughed. “No, no. She's right. We
should
come to church.”

“We'd love to have you there.” Sam wasn't lying. He would like to see Claire and her children in his church if they came with open hearts to worship God. The churning in the pit of his stomach testified that he did not think that would happen. “Bring Reggie, too.”

“Not a bad idea. That man could use some religion.” She laughed.

Sam tried to join in but could not make it sound natural.

Nic didn't even try.

“Speaking of that man, I better get back and take care of him. Hope you don't mind that my boys each picked out a cookie to take to him.”

“Not at all.
We need to be getting Willa home, as well.”

“We?
You mean the three of you going to your one home, together?”

“We all live in the same house,” Willa piped up.

“So I've heard, darling.”

“I rented that space in the Dorsey house months before the family—the whole family—came down for their holiday stay.”

“Did I suggest otherwise?” She practically pouted like a hurt child as she spoke.

Nic shifted her feet and huffed.

“No.” Sam put on his best preacher-in-the-pulpit face in order not to fuel any talk that he had implied Claire
LaRue
was a liar or gossip. All the while he searched her eyes for any sign of what she might be one or the other, or both.
“Of course not.”

“No,
I
didn't.”

The heavy emphasis on
the
I
meant something, but for the life of him Sam had no idea what.

She patted his arm. “It was a fine time.
A good idea, really.”

He held his breath a moment as if he could somehow discern her sincerity through that fleeting gesture. He sensed nothing. What good would it do trying to read her motives anyway? She had come tonight and brought her children. She had said she would come to church, and if she did that, especially if she brought others with her, he would be grateful. “I look forward to seeing you in services, Claire.”

“And I'll look forward to seeing you, Reverend.” She smiled,
then
turned to Nic. “You, too, Nicolette.”

“Uh-huh.” Nic kept her hold on Willa, all but tucking the child under her protective wing when Claire bent down to touch the girl's nose.

“And so good meeting you, too.
Aren't you just a precious little baby-doll baby?” She straightened and as she turned to go called out, “Night, y'all.”

“Good night.” Sam waved though she already had her back to them.

“Good night and good riddance.” Nic crossed her arms.

Willa, standing directly in front of her mother mirrored the pose to a tee.

Sam chuckled. “Oh, come on now. She wasn't that bad.”

“She came over here to try to sniff out a little trash on you or to rub your nose in the trash she thinks she and that
Dewi's
set already have on you, knowing that as a minister you'd be virtually helpless to defend yourself to her.”

“As a minister the last thing I feel is helpless or defensive.” He laughed.

“I don't care.” She raised her chin. Her line of vision followed Claire
LaRue
, who gathered her young boys, said her good-byes to those cleaning up, and strolled to the nearly empty parking lot. “I don't trust her and I don't like the way she handled herself.”

“Me neither!” Willa added an emphatic nod. “She called me a baby!”

Sam started to make a case for Claire, but when he tried and it became clear to him he couldn't do it convincingly, he just sighed and shook his head. He had to admit the woman had left him feeling a little unsettled, too, though he couldn't put his finger on just why.

“I'm not a baby, am I, Mommy?”

“Of course not, honey. You are a big girl. Big enough to scoot along over to the refreshment table and collect the cookie plates we brought so Hyde Junior can fold up the table and take it back inside.”

“Okay, Mommy. I can do that.” She stepped forward,
then
paused just long enough to say to Sam, “Because I am
not
a baby. I am eight and a quarter years old!”

“Eight.” Sam blinked at the child,
then
turned his gaze to Nic. “Eight?”

“And a quarter years old!”
Willa smiled with pride before she hurried off.

“
Since before you
were a gleam
in your daddy's eye
.” Claire s coy choice of expressions suddenly struck him like a bolt out of the blue. He faced Nic, not sure what to think, what to do, what to say.

“I'd better go help her. You've got enough broken cookies scattered around the church yard already without her spilling another half a plateful.” And fast as a rabbit running from a loud noise, Nic was gone.

He thought about stopping her, about grabbing her by the arm and holding her in place until she explained everything to him. But he did not stop her. He did not demand an explanation. It was too big.
Too new.
The idea that Willa was his child was something he simply could not take in all at once.

Sixteen

Mommy, why did you rush me up to bed so quick? I'm not sleepy.” Willa raised both hands to let Nic drop the flannel nightgown down over the child's head. “I don't go to bed so early. I'm not a baby.”

“Oh no, you're not a baby. You're eight and a quarter years old.” She tugged the gown in place.

“I am. I asked Aunt Collier how long until my next birthday, and she showed me on the calendar. Then she showed me how to group the months.”

“She did?”

“Uh-huh.
How to group them and count them.
There are twelve months in a year.”

“
Only
twelve?”
Funny.
These last few years had seemed about sixteen months long, each filled with about fifty workdays, no weekends, and hour after hour that never seemed to have enough time in them. Still, Nic could not let her weariness overshadow this moment when she could affirm and reinforce what Willa had learned. “Actually, honey, that's very good.”

Willa tipped her chin up. Her cheeks rounded high to frame a wide grin. Without her glasses on, her eyes seemed deeper brown, and the Dorsey family resemblance was more pronounced than ever. Sitting here in the halo of the bedside lamp she looked like the image of Collier transported through time. At least to Nic she did.

Other folks, even those who knew nothing about Nic's past or had some speculation about
who
Willa's father might be, had told her, “She must take after her daddy.” But Nic had never seen it. To be fair, she had never looked.

She never searched her child for similarities to anyone but the Dorsey family. Self-preservation, she believed. Seeking clues or confirmations of Willa's parentage in the girl were pointless. It would prove nothing.

“I didn't know you and Aunt Collier had worked so hard on your months,” she said too brightly as she folded back the covers on Willa's bed.

“Uh-huh. She spent the afternoon showing me the calendar. I liked it.”

“First time I think I ever heard you say you liked having someone teach you something.” She helped the child slide her legs between the crisp sheets.

“It wasn't like teaching, Mommy.”

“It wasn't?” Collier did have a way of making everything a game, especially where Willa was concerned.

“No. It wasn't like teaching at all. It was like...” Willa cocked her head and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “It was like
learning
.”

Nic sat back a bit, startled by the child's subtle grasp of the difference in how she, at least, perceived the two. “That's neat, Willa. That really is.”

“I wish I could learn like that all the time.” She put her chin in her hand.

“Maybe you can.”

“Really?”

“Sure. They have all kinds of teaching methods at your new school.
Things that I, or even Aunt Collier, couldn't begin to know how to do.”

Willa pulled her arms in close to her body.

Nic reached out to quiet the flailing hand motions she knew would follow.

Willa curled her fingers into fists and bowed her head. She sat perfectly still.

“Willa? Willa, honey,
are
you okay?”

“
Shh
.”

“
Shh
? Willa did you just shush me?”

“
Shh
, please, Mommy. I'm praying.”

Praying.
Nic longed to ask what for?
but
in her heart she already knew. Willa did not want to go away to school. It broke Nic's heart to see how much her child did not want to go, almost as much as it broke her heart to have to send her. But what could she do? She had to think of her child's future.

Sam had to talk to Nic. He needed answers.

He stood at the door of his office in the church. Monday was usually his day off, but today when his frustration at not getting any time alone with Nic made him snap at Collier for the lumps in the oatmeal, he knew he had to get out of the Dorsey house.

Willa had asked him to take her along. She had wanted to show him the surprise her aunts had helped her make for her mother. The little girl's mother seemed to have enough surprises already to Sam's way of thinking. And he'd done nothing but think on the surprise he'd been handed since Willa announced her age last night.

He'd wanted to talk to Nic about it after things settled down in the house last night, but she had gone up to tuck Willa in and never came back downstairs. Though what he would have said to her, he was not sure. How would he ask? Would he demand? How could he curb his anger over her keeping this secret from him? Over keeping him from knowing Willa was his child while living under the same roof with the girl and her mother?

Funny how all this time the one thing they had avoided, avoided like the proverbial elephant in the room which everyone was painfully aware of but pretended to ignore, was their shared past. Even when others had alluded to it, when situations had brought it to the forefront, when it seemed the only reasonable thing to discuss, they had suppressed the subject. Last night, that all changed.

A night of rest, and reflection was what they'd both needed, he'd told himself. But looking back at all the lost opportunities he wondered. Maybe, just maybe, he had not really wanted to know the truth.

Willa, his child?
The
thought staggered his imagination, humbled his heart, and angered him to the depths of his being. He braced his arm against the door frame and looked through his office and out the window that faced toward the house on Fifth and Persuasion.

“Nic, I know I did you wrong.” He spoke with quiet power as if she might hear him all the way over here in the church. “I told you I'd love you forever and convinced you to give yourself to me against your faith and judgment in order to prove your love for me. Then I ran off and betrayed you.”

He bowed his head.

The wind kicked up. The window rattled. The old church creaked.

“But what you've done, Nic... How do I come to terms with that?”

“We
ain't
got much of a congregation here to speak of.” Bert's palm landed dead center on his back, the heat of her touch spreading out slowly through his tired muscles. “But don't tell me things gone and got so bad you've taken to preaching to yourself.”

He lifted his head, wondering how long she'd been standing there, how much she had heard. Instead of asking, though, he simply faced her and tried to make light of things. “Not preaching, thinking.
Thinking aloud.
Just trying to sort through a few things, figure them out.”

“Me, I've found I get a far better caliber of answer when I stop thinking out loud and start praying out loud or otherwise. Stop looking for answers in my sad old self and take it to a higher counsel.”

“I've done my share of that, believe me.
But for this one?
I'm afraid I need some answers directly from an earthly source.”

“Nicolette?”

Tell me about Willa's father
. The request burned on his closed lips but he held it in. This was not fodder for a third party discussion. “I need to have a long talk with your niece, but the right time never seems to present itself. Something always interferes.”

“Conveniently.”