“BUT I DIDN’T MEAN—” Christian stared after his mother in horror.
“You did.” Hearing his harshness, Nolan closed his eyes. What was he saying? He was to blame, not this boy. He had let Christian think—
Don’t lie to yourself. The strategy had been his. It had never been only that; he’d wanted Dana from the first day, when she walked into his business. He liked her. He had truly believed they could be happy together. Now, gripped by panic, he knew he loved her. Had for a long time. His pursuit of her hadn’t been about Christian in weeks, if not months.
If ever.
He wasn’t a hearts-and-flowers guy. He’d never been in love. He was comfortable thinking in terms of strategy, practicality. He’d told himself they fit, that the three of them as a family solved problems for them all.
He was a fool.
“Uncle Nolan?” his nephew whispered.
“Give me a minute,” he said, his voice like gravel.
“She thinks everything was a lie.”
No shit.
“I’ll call her,” Nolan said. “Tell her—” His throat spasmed closed. Exactly what was he going to tell her?
“I’m scared.”
Nolan let himself look at a boy who was learning a hard lesson. “Yeah,” he said roughly. “Me, too.”
He found his phone and sank down on the sofa, gripping it tight as he rehearsed openings. You misunderstood. Like she’d buy that. What you heard was a joke. Uh-huh. I’m sorry? He was.
Finally, he made the call. Of course she didn’t answer. He was very conscious of Christian standing stricken in the middle of the living room. This was one of those moments when he looked painfully young. Skinny and awkward.
Beep. “Dana, I think you misunderstood what you heard. I did tell Christian I’d fight dirty back at the beginning, when I didn’t know you and all I was thinking about was protecting him.” He took a breath. “You have to know we’re long past that. That what Christian and I both feel for you has nothing to do with being sure we’d win when we took on your ex-husband. Please.” He bent forward to hide his face, pinching the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb. “I need to talk to you, Dana,” he finished raggedly. “Please give me a chance.” Beep.
“What if she goes back to Colorado?”
“She’ll listen.” Nolan tried again. “She loves you.”
“You mean she used to.” Christian ran for his bedroom.
Nolan jerked when the door slammed. He didn’t have it in him to offer any more consolation. What could be more useless, when he couldn’t convince himself there was hope?
He sat for a long time, asking himself all the same questions Christian probably was. What if she never wanted to see them again? She could be packing right now, with the intention of leaving Oregon first thing in the morning. The people at Helping Hand would be disappointed to lose her, disappointed in her, but that wouldn’t prevent her getting a job in Colorado, where she had connections.
On a flash of agony, he wondered whether she’d gone to the inn instead of home. She could have knocked on Craig’s door and said, I’ve changed my mind. Let’s file for custody. Or even said, He hurt me. Nolan had seen the way the guy looked at Dana today. There’d been bittersweet knowledge in Craig’s eyes; he knew what he had thrown away. Would they—No! Damn it, no. Even if Stewart would cheat on his wife, Dana wasn’t that kind of woman.
She could call in the morning to formally request visitation, preferably in a way that kept her from coming face-to-face with Nolan. Or she could file for custody, while graciously allowing him an occasional weekend. Right now, if she asked for custody, he thought Christian felt guilty enough to pack and move into her small home without argument.
She might feel she’d been better off with dreams of finding her son than with the reality of a boy who’d participated in a plot to use her to get what he wanted.
Nolan shot to his feet. At the foot of the stairs, he stopped only long enough to call, “I’m going to Dana’s.”
When he reached her house, he found it dark. He jogged up to her porch to ring the bell, wait, ring it again, then pound on the door.
“Dana! Let me in.”
Not a whisper of sound came from inside. But he knew—she was in there, all right, huddled on her sofa or in bed, covering her ears. Crying. Or, worse, too shattered for tears.
His chest heaving, he flattened his hands on her door and rested his forehead against it. He wasn’t sure he could make himself go home. He couldn’t imagine sleeping. But...she wasn’t going to relent right now. He couldn’t stand on her porch all night.
And Christian would need him.
Feeling old and very tired, Nolan turned away and started down the steps.
* * *
A SMALL VOICE inside insisted that Nolan and Christian couldn’t have faked everything. No boy was that good an actor. And Dana had a hard time believing Nolan could have made love to her with such urgency, such tenderness, such need, if he didn’t care about her at all.
But she wasn’t ready to listen to that voice.
After making it home, she hadn’t so much as brushed her teeth. She’d stripped to her underwear, crawled into bed and pulled the covers over her head. Curling into a ball, she felt childish, but there was no one to see her.
When her phone buzzed, she guessed who the caller was. When the doorbell rang, she pulled the pillow over her head, too, and kept it there until Nolan gave up and went away.
Sometime during the night, she uncurled and lay stiff, staring at the ceiling as she moved past thinking she never wanted to see either of them again.
Given Christian’s age, connecting with him had been too easy. She had moved to Lookout only—she had to count—ten weeks ago? Or was it eleven? He’d hurt her feelings a few times, but really he had come around with astonishing speed. She should have been suspicious.
And why hadn’t she questioned Nolan’s motivations? Initially hostile, he had done a one-eighty and become her new best friend. Supportive when it came to Christian, eager to spend time with her, happy to include her in their lives. She had deluded herself to think he appreciated her willingness to meet him halfway. It stung—no, worse—when she forced herself to meet head-on her credulity in believing that he’d be attracted to her, out of all the women in the world. Really? Was she that dumb?
Apparently, the answer was yes.
She never did sleep. Dana dragged herself to the bathroom the next morning, cringed at the sight of the zombie she saw in the mirror and stepped into a hot shower. After dressing, she drank a cup of coffee and nibbled a piece of toast.
At work, she managed to laugh when everyone exclaimed that she had to be coming down with something. “Insomnia,” she explained, “but if I’d taken the day off and napped, I’d have ended up really turned around. This way, I’m guaranteed to sleep like a log tonight.”
They bought it, thank heavens. Grateful she had no classes to teach, she spent the morning meeting with a few clients and sharing ideas with Meghan about how to help an unwed pregnant teenager.
Noon arrived. She hadn’t brought a lunch. She wasn’t hungry but was contemplating getting something small when someone knocked lightly before pushing the door open.
Nolan’s shoulders almost brushed each side of the doorframe, blocking any view behind him. Dana stiffened. It was a moment before she could force herself to look at his face. When she did, she suffered a shock. Every line had deepened. His eyes seemed to have sunk farther back into their sockets. He hadn’t slept any better than she had.
She would not soften. “Afraid the master plan is endangered?”
“Did you listen to my message? Or Christian’s?”
“No.”
He lifted a bag. “I brought lunch. Will you talk to me?”
Dana closed her eyes, shaken by that low, deep voice, imbued with so much she didn’t want to hear. With her feeling so vulnerable, this was the worst possible time for him to show up. Someone had driven a spike through her temple this morning. The ibuprofen she carried in her purse hadn’t touched the agony. All it had done was make her queasy. How could she deal with Nolan when she felt like this?
But I’ll have to eventually. Why not get it over with?
“All right.” She grabbed her sunglasses but left her purse locked in her drawer and allowed him to usher her out. They walked in silence the two blocks to the small park. She didn’t let herself look at the cheerful young mothers or the giggly kids running from merry-go-round to slide to swings.
Nolan set the sack on the picnic table. He handed her a bottle of water, followed by a cup of what she prayed wasn’t chili. She couldn’t even pretend to eat that. A paper sleeve held a scone. Lemon, her favorite.
Dana pried the top off, relieved to see soup. It looked like lentil, which ought to be safe enough.
“Christian cried after you left,” he said abruptly.
She lifted her head. “You expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth. He thinks this is his fault.”
“When really it’s yours. No boy his age could come up with a scheme so nasty. Either that, or you embroidered it substantially after the two of you dreamed it up.” Lashing out felt unexpectedly satisfying. “I’d like to think he didn’t suggest you—” she stopped herself from saying something really crude “—have sex with me.”
“You have to know us making love had nothing to do with Christian.”
“Do I?” Suddenly afraid she was going to throw up, she sipped her water and concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths.
“There are some things you can’t fake.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Nolan bent his head. He swallowed, scrubbed a hand over his face and looked at her again, his eyes holding devastation.
“I’ve told you a lot about myself,” he said slowly. “I think I said once that I’m happiest when I have a mission.”
Oh, God. Why hadn’t she taken that as a warning?
“When you first called, defeating you and Christian’s father became my mission. I did tell him then that I’d do whatever I had to.”
“Fight dirty.”
He inclined his head, his eyes not leaving hers. “I knew almost immediately that I couldn’t do that. You’d suffered too much already, and yet you carried yourself with such dignity. I could see you had somehow held on to hope for all those years. There was no way I could hurt you.”
Her laugh ached. “And yet.”
He reached across the table as if he couldn’t help himself, then slowly withdrew his hand when she pulled hers away.
“I think...the need to fulfill the mission kept humming in the background, even when I thought I’d discarded it. Christian knew I wanted us to be a family, but I never came out and told him, ‘I’m not saying that because it gives us the most certainty of staying together.’”
“You wanted us to be a family,” Dana echoed. “What a perfect way to say it was all about Christian.”
He nodded. He held her gaze, his eyes burning. “You’re right. I kept thinking of our relationship that way, even though—”
Please don’t let him say it, she begged. Not now. Believing him right now wasn’t remotely possible.
“I fell in love with you a long time ago.”
She put the lid back on the soup, then set it in the sack and the scone on top. Then she swung her leg over the bench and stood, grabbing the sack. “Thank you for the lunch. You may tell Christian he’s free to call me or...stop by to see me.” She nodded and walked away.
Nolan didn’t come after her.
* * *
WITH THE SUN setting so late now, Uncle Nolan let Christian ride his bike to friends’ houses in the evening as long as he’d be home before dark.
After leaving his bike on Mom’s lawn, he sat down on the porch steps to wait for her to come home. Uncle Nolan said she hadn’t even listened to the messages they’d each left. Christian’s stomach felt as if he’d swallowed a bunch of river water. Didn’t she want to hear what he had to say?
He’d been there for only, like, fifteen minutes when her red Subaru appeared. He thought she’d seen him, because it hesitated partway down the block. What if she didn’t want to talk to him and just kept driving? But she parked in the driveway and sat for a minute without moving. Eventually, she pushed the door open, got out and walked across the lawn toward him.
“Christian.”
He rose to his feet, feeling shaky. “I came to say I’m sorry.”
She didn’t say anything immediately. Finally, she nodded. “I think you need to be honest with me.”
“I will be.”
She passed him, going up the steps. He hovered as she unlocked the door. Would she close it in his face? But she said, “Come on in,” and he hurried after her.
“Let me take off my heels.” She dropped her purse on this little side table and went down the hall to her bedroom.
Christian shifted his weight from foot to foot and began thinking she was taking an awful long time. When she reappeared, she’d changed from her work clothes to jeans and a sweatshirt. She barely looked at him, but he followed her to the kitchen.
“You’re...” He hesitated.
His stomach clenched at her blank stare. He swallowed to keep down this acid taste.
“You’re kind of scaring me,” he blurted.
As if she hadn’t heard him, she said, “There are cookies in the jar and soda and milk in the fridge.”
For once, he poured himself a glass of milk, thinking it might settle his stomach, and one for her, too. He put a few cookies on a plate and carried that to the table, too, even if he was the opposite of hungry.
His mom seemed surprised to see the milk appear in front of her, but she did take a sip, then a longer swallow. When she put the glass down, she focused on him for the first time.
“Christian, from what I heard, it’s pretty clear you still wish I wasn’t in your life.”
“No! That’s not true.”
Her smile looked sad. “I won’t promise to go away no matter what you say. You are my son, whether you like it or not.”
“That’s not—”
She talked right over him. “Would you be happiest if I went back to Colorado and you just came for a short visit once or twice a year? Or if I stay in town and we do things together sometimes and maybe you occasionally spend the night?”
He struggled not to cry. “No! I want...I want everything like it was. With you and me and Uncle Nolan. I thought—” he gulped “—you might marry him.”
“As part of the plan?”
“No!” He’d said that a bunch of times, but she hadn’t listened. “It wasn’t like that. He kept saying if all of us stood together, my dad wouldn’t be able to take me away from you and Uncle Nolan. But...Uncle Nolan, he wouldn’t lie, like you’re thinking he did,” Christian continued desperately. “He looks at you all gooey. My friends pretend to gag. But I like it, even though I don’t tell them that.”
“So exactly how did your uncle ‘play dirty’?”
“I...don’t think he did. I don’t even know why I said that!”
“Did he send you here to talk to me?” Her voice was hard. “Be honest, Christian.”
“He doesn’t even know I’m here.” He held his breath, waiting to see if she believed him.
She looked at him for a long time, not even blinking. And then she closed her eyes and sighed. She seemed to sag, her head bending forward like it was too heavy for her to hold up.
“He looks like he did after my mom...” He gulped. “You know, his sister killed herself. Like the most terrible thing in the world happened. He thinks this is his fault, too, and it’s not! It’s mine. I said something stupid, and now you don’t trust us.” He grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and used it to wipe his eyes, hoping she was still looking down and didn’t see. But when he lifted his head, he saw that she had, too. Her face was twisted with some emotion, but he couldn’t tell what it was.
“Why don’t you have some cookies? They’re good.”
“I don’t—My stomach feels all—”
“Mine, too.” Her smile was sort of crooked. “I’ll think about what you said, okay?”
“I like it when you come to Wind & Waves and have dinner with us and...” He couldn’t say the rest. That he wanted a mom who talked to his teachers and watched his games. Stuff his other mom—Marlee—had never done.
Her eyes were wet, too. She used the back of her hand instead of her shirt to catch tears. “Okay, Christian. Please don’t look so worried. I’ve loved you since the day you were born. There isn’t anything you could do to make me quit loving you.”
“Even if, I don’t know, I killed somebody or started taking drugs or...?” He ran out of ideas.
Suddenly she was smiling as if she meant it. “Even if. I might be mad at you, but that’s different.”
His nose was running now. He lifted his hem again but then caught her eye. “Um, I guess I should...”
She actually laughed. “Paper towels are on the counter.”
He jumped up and grabbed one, blowing his nose. He was crying like a baby, but he didn’t care. He felt great! He hadn’t ruined everything after all.
After he threw the wadded paper towel in the trash, he said, “I could make tacos tomorrow night again. If...if you’d come to dinner.”
Mom looked startled, and then her eyes went unfocused for a weird minute. Finally, she blinked and he knew she was seeing him again. “Thank you for the invitation, Christian. I think...I’d like that. If your uncle doesn’t mind.” Momentarily, she sounded stern. “If he does, you need to let me know. I’d rather have honesty than any more pretense.”
“We weren’t ever pretending.”
She nodded slightly, not as if she totally believed him, but as if she needed to think about it, the way she’d said.
He never did eat any cookies, and as he rode his bike home, he suddenly realized he was starved.
* * *
DANA WAS COMING to dinner.
Too jumpy to sit down, Nolan prowled the living room, with an occasional detour to the kitchen to check on Christian’s preparations.
She was coming to dinner. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea. What did it mean? Had she forgiven him? And Christian? Or did she just want a civil setting for a painful conversation?
She’d been so sure he was lying to her, but she had agreed to have dinner here, anyway. Nolan shook his head in bewilderment.
This time when he passed the front window, he saw headlights. A car turning into the driveway. It had to be her.
“Dana’s here!” he called.
Christian replied; Nolan didn’t take in what he said. He moved away from the window so she wouldn’t think he was pathetic.
The doorbell sent a jolt through him. When he let her in, she smiled at him, a little cautiously, but any kind of smile surprised him.
“Dana.”
“I brought dessert.” She thrust a dish at him. “Blackberry cobbler.”
His stomach growled, probably because he hadn’t eaten much in two days. Dana laughed and went with him to the kitchen.
Christian turned from the stove. He’d already grated the cheese and it looked like he’d just dumped the chicken strips into hot oil. They exchanged shy greetings that still left Nolan without a clue.
“Would you like some wine, or...?” he asked.
“Not right now, thank you.”
“Shall we go sit down in the living room?”
Her fingers curled tight, then straightened. So she was nervous. “Thank you.”
They were all being polite, when she’d spent enough time here it felt as if she belonged.
She surprised him again by sitting at what he’d come to think of as “her” end of the sofa instead of choosing a chair well distant from him. Tucking one foot under her, she faced him at the other end. The middle cushion felt as wide as the Columbia River.
“I have something to say.”
God. Here it came. “All right,” he said warily.
“I need to apologize for overreacting.” Dana shook her head when he opened his mouth. “I didn’t like what I heard, or the expressions on your faces. You were celebrating because you’d put something over on Craig.”
She was right. That was how juvenile they’d been. Christian had an excuse; Nolan didn’t.
“Christian...upset me,” she continued, her gaze unwavering. “It meant a lot that he’d started to call me Mom. Hearing him revert to Dana the minute he got what he wanted...” She gave her head a little shake. “But I was hurt most of all by the idea that you’d befriended me from the beginning to get me on your side. Even worse was thinking you’d set out to use my attraction to you to cement my support.”
“I didn’t.” He couldn’t let her keep thinking—
“Yesterday I asked Christian to be completely honest with me. I’m asking the same of you. I can handle the truth. Later—” she gave an awkward shrug “—it would be much worse.”
That she even felt she had to ask was killing him. Voice raw, he said, “Dana, what I told you yesterday was true. Every word. I swear.”
Her eyes searched his in a way that left him feeling emotionally naked.
“Hey. Dinner’s ready,” Christian announced from the archway.
Nolan jerked. Dana’s pupils shrank, then dilated. The timing couldn’t be worse. But he stood and said, “Smells good.”
Dana forced a smile and rose, too.
Dinner took an eternity. Nolan made himself eat even though his stomach kept spasming. Christian was proud of his cooking and excited that Dana had agreed to come. She smiled and chatted with Christian, at least pretending interest in what Jason or Ryan or Dieter said and which of his new video games had been awesome.
When they had all finished, Christian said eagerly, “We have ice cream to put on top of the cobbler, right, Uncle Nolan?”
He smiled. “We do, but can we wait for a bit? I’m pretty full.”
Christian opened his mouth to complain, met Nolan’s eyes and said, “Sure. Dieter said to call. So...” He eased out of the kitchen and then thumped his way upstairs, displaying unexpected understanding.
Nolan looked at the dirty dishes on the table and saw that Dana was doing the same. Then she giggled. “I think I’ve volunteered for KP a few too many times.”
Nolan laughed, too. “You’re not cleaning the kitchen tonight. Let me get the coffee started.”
She did clear the table while he poured coffee and got out creamer. They both sat down again and looked at each other, neither reaching for their cups.
“Sunday,” she whispered, “was worse than when I realized Craig was seeing another woman. Worse than when he told me he wanted a divorce.” Her fingers twisted together. The pain in her eyes gutted Nolan. “When I thought it was all a lie... The way you touched me and looked at me and—”
He shoved back his chair and circled the table, pulling her to her feet. He wanted to haul her into his arms and never let her go, but he had to make her believe him first. “These two days, knowing what you thought—” he swallowed with difficulty “—that you might never forgive me... These were the worst days of my life.”
It was the truth. He’d been an idiot not to have recognized what he felt until he’d screwed up and lost her. He had no defense.
“Please,” he managed, hearing how broken his voice was. “I love you, Dana.”
Again she looked deep. When she let out a cry and threw her arms around his neck, it felt as if his heart had just burst open. Messy, painful, exhilarating.
She pressed her lips to his. There was no finesse. Their teeth clanked together; he tasted blood from her lip or his, he didn’t know. Finally, finally, he got it right, deepening the kiss, gripping her butt to lift her, exultation more powerful than any physical hunger.
They spun in a circle, kissing until they had to come up for air, then diving back in again. “I need you,” he managed to say at one point. And she whispered the words he craved.
“I love you.”
They thumped into a wall. He wanted to tear off her jeans, unfasten his and bury himself inside her. It still wasn’t all physical. What he felt was more primitive than that. His hips rocked and she moaned.
Thud, thud, thud.
A part of his brain knew what that sound meant. The rest of him didn’t care. He somehow squeezed a hand between them to cup her breast.
“Love you,” he said gutturally.
“Can we have cobbler now?”
The cheerful voice calling down the stairs had the effect of a cattle prod. Nolan groaned, tore his mouth from Dana’s and whispered, “Can we ditch him?”
“He’ll be in the kitchen any second.”
Nolan said something obscene, but he also retreated a few inches, not letting go of her.
“Oh, there you are.” This time the voice came from right behind him. “Are you kissing?”
Nolan started to laugh.
“What’s funny about that?” Christian asked indignantly.
Nolan couldn’t quit laughing.
Dana punched him. “We were kissing.”
“Oh. You mean you’re not mad anymore?”
She succumbed, too. Hooting and giggling, they clung to each other like a couple of drunks staggering out of a tavern.
“I guess I should go away, huh?”
At the tentative, possibly offended question, Nolan shook his head and turned. “Hey. Come here.”
Christian took a slow step, then another. Nolan held out an arm and pulled this boy he loved so much into an embrace shared by all three of them. “We don’t want you to go away,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Even if privacy can be hard to come by for parents.”
“Parents?” Christian’s head came up, his hope as naked and vulnerable as anything Nolan had ever seen in Dana’s eyes. “You mean...?”
“I do mean.” He hadn’t asked, but all he had to do was look at her to know what her answer would be. “Cobbler sounds good to me,” he heard himself say, ushering Dana back to the table.
Once they’d eaten... Christian was a big boy. He’d be okay home alone for a couple of hours.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from CHRISTMAS WITH CARLIE by Julianna Morris.
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