The Curl Up and Dye (15 page)

LilyAnn was in shock. The moment she heard that laugh, she knew it was Mike. Even before she saw him—even beneath that full white beard and the wig and hat, even beneath the big fat belly and the red fuzzy suit—she knew it was him.

She sat down in the nearest empty chair with her heart in her throat, watching as Ruby seated him beside the tree. And then she remembered that the servers would also be Santa’s helpers, which meant she was not going to be able to keep her distance.

And sure enough, the moment Santa was seated, Ruby signaled for them to come up.

“God give me strength,” Lily muttered, and headed for the front of the room.

Mike was actually having fun with this. As he was waiting for all the servers to reach the front of the room, he noticed one woman wearing a halo, but he could only see her silhouette, backlit by the light from the windows behind her. When she walked out of the backlight and he got a better view, his gut knotted.

LilyAnn. Well, hell, of course it would be her. I cannot escape her because I am not supposed to. I get it, God. I get it.

He refused to meet her gaze because he’d never get through the task ahead without total concentration, but when he saw the lights flashing on her sweatshirt, he stifled a smile.

Then the first child slipped up and put a hand on his knee, and he got down to business.

Mike looked down, saw the awe in the little boy’s eyes, and realized the importance of what he was doing. He picked the boy up and set him on his knee.

“Ho, ho, ho. Hello, young man. What’s your name?”

The little boy frowned. “It’s me, Billy! Don’t you recognize me?”

Oops, nearly blew that one.
“Well, Billy, you’ve grown so much I didn’t recognize you.”

The little boy’s expression lightened. “Oh yeah, that’s what Grandma said, too.”

Mike patted him on the back. “So, have you been a good boy this year?”

Billy rolled his eyes. “Most of the time.”

“Good for you,” Mike said, and took the present Vesta handed him and gave it to Billy. “Merry Christmas, Billy.”

“Merry Christmas, Santa Claus!”

Billy was all smiles as the photographer took his picture. Then he hopped down from Mike’s lap and ran toward his mother as another child took his place.

As the time went on, the children were so charming in their innocence that LilyAnn forgot it was Mike beneath the beard and got lost in their stories.

By the time a second child had wet on Mike’s pant legs, LilyAnn was struggling not to laugh. If it hadn’t been for the swift action of one mother, another would have thrown up in his lap. The photographer had whipped cream on the back of his pants after a little boy who’d been eating pie with his fingers used the man’s pants for a napkin, and Vesta gave up her reindeer antlers to a little girl with curly brown hair, just so she would sit in Santa’s lap long enough for a picture.

After two hours of kids, presents, and pictures, it was finally over, and LilyAnn was convinced that—even though the only present she opened had been in a FedEx box, even though the only food she’d eaten had been a mini-ham sandwich made with a cold dinner roll and a scrap of ham at home—she’d never had a better Christmas in her life. And, despite his best intentions, she’d still spent it with Mike.

She’d already said her good-byes and was on her way out the back when she heard someone calling her name. She turned to see Santa Claus lumbering down the hall.

“LilyAnn! Wait!”

She stopped, uncertain what to expect and unwilling for this to be another bad experience because she didn’t want to ruin this day.

Mike was puffing when he finally reached her.

“I have to take this off, and I need to talk to you. Will you come with me?”

“Are you going to be mad at me? Because if you are, I don’t want to hear it. This has been a nearly perfect day, and I don’t want it ruined.”

The tremor in her voice was nearly Mike’s undoing. He poked her halo just enough to make it sway, then shook his head.

“No, I won’t be mad, and I won’t ruin your day.”

“Then okay,” she said, and followed him into the office.

He began peeling off the Santa suit one piece at a time.

“Wow, it is hot and itchy under all that,” he said, scrubbing his hands against his face, then shedding the rest of the suit until he was left in gym shorts and a T-shirt.

LilyAnn had seen him in this getup all her life, but all of a sudden she was hit with the intimacy of watching him undress and took herself to a chair on the other side of the room and sat down. He put a tracksuit on over the shorts and tee, then changed back into his tennis shoes. Once he was dressed, he pulled up a chair in front of her and sat down.

“I have a question to ask you,” he said.

“So ask,” Lily said.

“Is T. J. Lachlan stalking you?”

She sighed. “Pretty much.”

“Since when?”

“Well, you saw it. Since Thanksgiving Day.”

“Did you two have a fight or something? Is that why he’s acting like that?”

LilyAnn frowned. “A fight? We’ve never even been introduced! I’ve waited on him in the pharmacy and never even exchanged a hello. Yes, I knew who he was, and yes, we’ve all seen and heard that hot rod he drives, but I don’t know him. And what I do know, I don’t like.”

“Son of a bitch,” Mike mumbled. “So, I owe you this huge apology because I got the idea you liked him and…”

All of a sudden LilyAnn stood up. She didn’t want to have this conversation in the office at the local community center because she didn’t know where it was going to go. She needed the privacy of her own home if the need became necessary to cry… or if she was lucky… to get a hug and a kiss.

“So, now the mystery is solved. Now you know I don’t like him.”

Mike panicked. She was about to bolt and he’d barely begun.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“Home. I haven’t really eaten, and I have gravy in my shoe. I’ll repeat the invitation I offered the other night. Do you want to have Christmas dinner with me?”

Mike’s heart skipped a beat as he smiled.

“Yes, I would like to have dinner with you.”

LilyAnn sighed. “Good. It’s your own fault it will be scrambled eggs and toast.”

“I like scrambled eggs and toast.”

And just like that, her world was once again intact.

“So, I’m going home now. See you in a few minutes?”

He wanted to kiss her. Instead, he settled for cupping her cheek.

“Yep. See you soon. I’m going to drop this suit off at the mayor’s house. His grandchildren are due in tonight and unfortunately for him, he has to play Santa Claus for them in the morning in a suit that smells like pee. I’ll be right there afterward. It’ll give you time to get the gravy out of your shoe.”

LilyAnn laughed, and as she did, the halo bounced from side to side, sprinkling just the tiniest bits of glitter down into her hair.

Mike was certain he’d never seen anything quite as beautiful, but he couldn’t say it for the lump in his throat. She waved good-bye and then went out the door, leaving him to pack up the suit.

LilyAnn’s heart was as light as her steps as she ran across the parking lot to her car. It was just after 4:15. If she hurried, she could get biscuits in the oven before Mike arrived. And maybe fry some bacon and make a little gravy. By the time she pulled into the driveway at her house, she had a whole meal of breakfast for supper prepared in her mind. All she had to do was make it happen.

***

T. J. Lachlan had come to a Christmas Eve conclusion that it was time to get out of Blessings. He’d already had a conversation with Hank Richards, his Realtor, about going back to his home in Tennessee. He didn’t like being the outsider, or treated like some damn pariah. Every time he thought about LilyAnn Bronte, she brought Laverne to mind, which set his teeth on edge. They both had acted like high-falutin’ bitches who needed to be taken down a notch, and while he hadn’t been able to enact any kind of revenge on Buddy and Laverne, he could and would set a new course for the Bronte woman before he left, and he would make sure she would, by God, never forget his name.

When Christmas morning came, he began to pack. It was nearly noon when he left a key to the house underneath a rock near the back door and loaded his bags into his truck. He wanted to go home, but had to dismantle LilyAnn and her high and mighty attitude first.

He knew he was taking a risk, but he’d lived his whole life on the edge and gotten away with it. He had no reason to assume his luck would fail him now. The only uncertainty he still had, as he took a back road into Blessings, was if she would be home. If she was, he
was
going to take her off that high horse she liked to ride and take her down in a most humiliating manner, just like she’d done to him.

He cruised by her neighborhood and smiled when he saw her car gone, as was the car in the drive next to hers. He whipped his truck into the alley, thankful for the six-foot-high privacy fences on both sides, and parked at the gate leading into her backyard.

He went through it without caution, picked a lock on her back door, and went inside like he owned the place. He walked all through her house, looking for the perfect hiding place. Once he found it, he unscrewed the lightbulb, then went back into the living room and settled in to watch for her return.

He’d been waiting for less than an hour when he saw her car turn a corner up the street. He waited until she was pulling into her driveway before he left the living room on the run, quickly settling into his hiding place.

***

Biscuits and Mike were on Lily’s mind as she unlocked her door and went inside. The first thing she did was drop off her shoes in the utility room and hang the halo on a coat hook. She’d get some spot remover for the gravy later.

She ran barefoot through the house, anxious to change and get to work. She didn’t know where the conversation with Mike would go, but just the fact that he was no longer mad at her was enough.

She flipped the lights on in her bedroom and then headed for the walk-in closet, but when she opened the door, it was in darkness. Thinking that the bulb had burned out, she was already turning around when she was hit from behind in a flying tackle.

Her heart was pounding with sudden terror, but she didn’t have the breath to scream as the weight of her attacker pressed her into the carpet.

“What’s the matter, bitch? Cat got your tongue?”

She recognized the voice at the same time she recognized the danger. With Mike on the other side of town, there was no one to save her but herself.

She threw her head back as hard as she could and heard him grunt when it hit his nose, then she bucked him off and heard his head hit the footboard of her bed. With only seconds to get out, she scrambled to her feet and bolted out of the door.

He caught her in the hallway, slamming her up against the wall and slapping her face so hard blood spurted on the inside of her mouth.

Now she was screaming as she constantly struggled to get free, but she’d bloodied his nose with her head-butt, and in his rage he continued to overwhelm her, pinning her arms above her head and ramming his knee between her legs.

LilyAnn was on autopilot, fighting him with every ounce of strength that she had, and yet he kept pushing harder and harder against her until she was pinned so tightly between him and the wall that she was all but motionless.

He was laughing when he put his cheek against hers, then turned just enough to lick the side of her face from her jaw to the side of her nose.

The fear in LilyAnn was crippling until she felt his wet tongue against her skin. It was like having water thrown in her face. She turned her head just enough to bite down on his ear. Blood spurted in her mouth as the flesh separated. She spit it out in his face.

His scream was deafening, but now she had room to maneuver.

T. J. didn’t know his earlobe was gone, but he did know the blood on her face and shirt was his and that he had seriously underestimated his prey.

He doubled up his fist and swung, but as she ducked beneath the blow, he ran his fist through the Sheetrock instead. She came back up in front of him as he was trying to pull his hand out of the wall and stabbed her fingernails into his face, raking deep gouges into the skin and leaving raw, bloody tracks.

The pain on T. J.’s face was crippling; he was nearly blinded by his own tears.

“Bitch! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you,” he kept screaming.

But she was still on the attack, which had taken him off guard.

He took a step back in an effort to get out of her reach, but not soon enough, as she jammed her knee into his groin and, when he shrieked from the pain, drew up her foot and kicked what was hanging between his legs with such impact that she heard a pop.

He staggered backward, bent double from the pain and gagging from a sudden wave of nausea.

Lily ran and didn’t look back—out of the hall and into the living room, heading for the front door. She couldn’t believe it when she heard his footsteps again! He was still mobile.

Then she happened to glance out her front window, and like an answer to a prayer, she caught a glimpse of Mike’s car in her driveway, then Mike himself, walking toward the house.

She screamed his name at the top of her lungs, her fingers curling around the knob.

The adrenaline urge to kill was so strong that Lachlan was oblivious to body pain. He caught her just as the door came open, slammed it in her face, and choked off her scream. Then he grabbed her arm and threw her against the wall, knocking the breath out of her body and rendering her momentarily senseless.

Lily moaned and was struggling with her equilibrium when she saw him coming at her with a knife.

***

When Mike heard the scream, it was so shocking that he froze, trying to locate the source. Then he saw the front door to LilyAnn’s house begin to open, caught a glimpse of the blood and terror on her face just before the door slammed shut, and then he bolted.

LilyAnn had a brief glimpse of the door flying inward and then a man in motion sailing past her, hitting Lachlan chest high. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs, fighting for control of the knife.