“NOELLE, WAKE UP! Wake up.” Tess was shaking her urgently. “We have to go downstairs and see if Santa came.”
She opened her eyes slowly, loving this moment, and loving this little girl, loving the man who stood in the doorway of her room.
“I’m awake,” she said. “Go get Nana and Rufus.”
“They’re up already. Come on. Come on.”
Noelle got out of bed, self-conscious in the penguin jammies. She quickly put her housecoat on over the top, and followed Tess and Aidan down the stairs.
Tess stopped at the door of the living room. She shrieked and ran in. “It’s Jerry!”
Noelle and Aidan came in behind her. Nana was in the room, but not Rufus. Noelle felt a moment’s regret that her grandfather had missed this delightful moment.
But then Aidan put his hand around her shoulder and they exchanged a smile, bathed in the little girl’s joy. Aidan kissed Noelle casually, on the mouth.
At that exact moment, Tess turned from Jerry. Her eyes went wide.
“Daddy?” she asked softly. “Is Noelle going to be my mommy?”
Aidan felt himself go still. He felt the shock of Tess’s question wash over him. This was how poor a parent he had been. It was beyond bumbling. He’d been thinking of himself. He’d immersed himself in the joy of Noelle loving him.
He’d allowed himself to believe in miracles.
But he, of all people, should know better than that. What, in his world, in his experience, had given him the skill to make a relationship work? Hadn’t he thought, once, filled with hope and dreams, that he could write his own story? That he could learn? That he could overcome the lack of love in his childhood?
His marriage had proved him so wrong. One thing about being good at business? You knew never to repeat the same mistake twice.
And not just for him. How could he drag his daughter down this road? How could he hold out to her a shining promise of a family? A mommy? Only to have her in the front row to view his failings when it all began to fall apart? Hadn’t Tess been damaged enough?
And what of Noelle?
Could he do that to her? Could he take that offering of her sweet love and watch it turn to dust and ash? Could he be the one who put out the light he had seen in her eyes this morning when she had told him she loved him?
Had he really answered her? Had he really given her false hope? Had he really allowed temporary good feelings to sway his judgment for the future?
As a businessman he knew you could not do that. You had to rely on instincts, yes, but then you had to do the hard work, the research, the plausibility studies to back up those instincts. Just jumping in on a hunch, basing your move on a feeling, was catastrophic in business.
The plausibility study, he realized, had already been done. He had not passed the litmus test with Sierra. He could not drag his daughter through another failure.
As a shocked stillness came over the room, Aidan moved a step away from Noelle. She looked as if she was holding her breath, waiting to hear how he would respond to that innocent question.
But he was saved from answering.
“What?” Nana was at the window, and she had looked out, possibly to give the couple at least an illusion of privacy as they contemplated the enormity of the question that had just been asked. “What has that old fool gone and done now?”
Aidan, looking for respite from the awkwardness of the question, went and stood at the window beside Nana.
He felt his heart break in two. Rufus was shuffling across the yard with a pony. There was a red ribbon around its neck.
It wasn’t just Tess. And Noelle. It was Rufus, too. And Nana. All hoping for love to win.
Maybe Rufus had been matchmaking from the start. Maybe he’d gotten a pony for Tess in the hope of keeping all their lives tangled together once Christmas was over. The old guy probably knew any man with a brain was going to fall in love with Noelle given time and the right circumstances. Rufus, with that pony, was setting things up so that nature could take its course.
Aidan felt a crushing responsibility to stop this train before it got too out of control, before it caused a wreck that took everyone down with it.
“Did you know about this?” he asked Noelle. The heartbreak had been stripped from his voice, and in its place was the pure ice of a man who knew he had to be cold enough to save everyone around him who was foolish enough to give him one more chance to get it right.
Noelle joined him at the window. Here came Rufus and Smiley through the snow, leading Gidget, who had a bow around her neck. It did not look like the little horse had cooperated with the bow-tying exercise, as it was hanging crookedly.
Noelle scanned Aidan’s face. He looked so very cold, his beloved features cast in stone. She didn’t want to admit she’d known, but she couldn’t just throw her grandfather under the bus, either.
She nodded, and something hardened in Aidan’s face.
“Please keep Tess away from the window,” Aidan said tersely. And then without even putting on a jacket he slipped into shoes by the door and went out into the cold.
Noelle could not bear to watch what happened. She got down on the floor with Tess, who was busy taking Jerry out of his wrapper and exploring the Juicejar house.
It seemed like a long time later that Aidan came back, followed by her grandfather, who gave her a baffled look and lifted his shoulder. Neither man said anything about the pony.
“Time for us to pack our bags,” Aidan said, knocking the snow off his boots, refusing to look at Noelle.
So, he was on his original schedule, after all.
“I’m not leaving!” Tess screamed. “I’m not leaving Smiley. I’m not leaving Noelle and Rufus. We’re building a snowman today. We’re making cookies. We’re—” her voice dissolved into a sob.
Noelle went and gathered the little girl in her arms. What could she say? She could not make her any promises. When she glanced at Aidan’s face, she did not see any hope for a future there. How had it all fallen apart so quickly?
But for now, it was not her heartbreak she needed to focus on. It was Tess. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” she whispered to the little girl, feeling her chest get wet with tears. She stroked her hair. “Everything will be all right,” she said. As she glanced again at Aidan, it didn’t feel that way. It felt like nothing could ever be right again.
“Can I see you outside?” Aidan asked Noelle. The coldness in his tone chilled her to the bone.
Noelle, with a final kiss on Tess’s silky hair, put the little girl away from her. “Go gather up your things,” she said softly.
She put on her coat and went outside. He already had his vehicle warming up. She hugged herself, quite a different hug than the one last night.
“What happened?” she asked, scanning his features so closed to her.
“I’ve had a wonderful time,” he said formally. “As has Tess. I can’t thank you enough for the Christmas you have given my daughter and myself.”
Who was this cool stranger?
“I won’t be seeing you again, Noelle.”
Even though she had already sensed it, this announcement was like being hit with a pail of cold water. Her mouth fell open. Her voice was trembling. “W-w-what? W-w-why?”
“I can’t do it to Tess,” he said softly. “I can’t hold out all this hope to her, and then watch her world come tumbling down around her again.”
“Does it have to? Come tumbling down?”
“I trusted you. I told you the only rule for Christmas was no pony, and you knew. Can you see how that would have forced us to keep coming back here? Forced us to tangle our lives more and more with yours? And your grandfather’s? It was extremely manipulative.”
“You pompous ass! My grandfather was trying to make a little girl happy. How dare you make that about you? How dare you make those judgments of him when he has been nothing but generous to you? That speaks to you. Not to him.”
“Yes,” Aidan said sadly. “It does. It speaks to me. Goodbye, Noelle.”
She stood there quivering with fury and shock. She would not give him the satisfaction of crying in front of him. She whirled and went back in the house.
She hugged Tess and Nana, who were both coming down the stairs with their packed things, looking shocked.
And then, as quickly as their guests had come, they were gone, and Noelle was there alone with her grandfather.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think through the pony thing.”
“Oh, Grandpa,” Noelle said, and went and put a reassuring arm around his shoulders. “You have the best heart of any man I know. Don’t ever doubt that.”
“Why did they leave then?” her grandfather asked grumpily.
She thought of Tess’s innocent question, and she thought of that word poking out from under the Christmas wreath on the front door. Hope.
“It has to do with the most dangerous thing of all,” she said softly.
“Ah,” Rufus said. “Love. He’ll come around.”
But Noelle thought of the stony look on Aidan’s face, and somehow she doubted that he would, even as she nursed the most dangerous thing of all.
Hope.
For some reason, Noelle finally remembered what her grandmother had said, that night she had overheard her grandparents talking during her and Mitchell’s visit to the ranch.
What’s wrong with him? her grandfather had asked of Mitchell.
For the longest time, Noelle had not remembered her grandmother’s answer. But now she did, so clearly she wondered how she could have ever thought she’d forgotten.
It’s not what’s wrong with him, her grandmother had said. It’s what’s wrong with her to accept that kind of treatment.
That was why it had flitted around the edges of her mind, like a wily cat that did not want to be caught. Because she could not bear it that her beloved grandmother had thought there was something wrong with her.
Now, the entire conversation came pouring back.
She longs to be loved, Rufus had said. He doesn’t deserve that.
And her grandmother had said, You don’t choose a man like that if you long to be loved. I think you choose a man like that if you are scared to death of being loved. It has already hurt you so badly, you can’t do it again.
Right there, on Boxing Day, Noelle stood in the wisdom and light and truth of her grandmother’s words. She had chosen Mitchell because he would require less of her heart, not more.
She was aware she was not that woman anymore.
Noelle was aware she had spent too much of her life already waiting for a man to come to his senses. She was done with that. She would not demean herself in that way again.
She loved Aidan, but it occurred to her, after she had left her grandfather’s and gone back to work, that love didn’t weaken people. It made them stronger.
And so she vowed to be stronger for loving Aidan. She vowed not to be a woman scared to death of being loved.
She refused to sit around eating ice cream for supper and sulking. She fought the temptation to weep and wring her hands, and ask what might have been. Instead, she decided to become the woman in the red dress, to own her own life.
She quit all her social media outlets. She did not miss them. She didn’t want to live vicariously. She wanted to live! And so she became a volunteer who read to children at the library. If it made her yearn for Tess, that was part of the price of loving. She took a ballroom dancing class, and loved that so much she signed up for a jazz class, too.
Still, every time the phone rang, she hoped.
Every time she saw a dark head moving through a crowd on a downtown street, she hoped.
Every time she heard “Could I Have This Dance,” she hoped.
Because now she knew something she had not known before: that life could change in a second, that good things and miraculous things could come to you as quickly and as shockingly as loss.
One night, her phone rang as she was leaving her dance class, which had run quite late. Her grandfather would not call at this time of the night unless there was a problem. She answered the phone with a faint fear beating in her heart.
Silence.
And then a whisper. “Noelle?”
It was not her grandfather. The hair stood up on the back of her neck as she recognized that childish, sweet voice. “Tess?”
“We need you.”
“What?”
“You said everything would be all right! You promised.”
Noelle knew she had not promised, but she also knew the little girl had heard a promise, of sorts, and she felt the agony of missing them. “What’s wrong, Tess?”
“My daddy was happy. He was happy when we were with you. I miss him being like that. I miss you.” She started to cry. “He’s so grumpy. He says he’s not mad, but he acts like he is. He’s on his phone all the time. I need you to come make my daddy happy again.”
“Where are you?” Noelle asked, worried. Why was Tess whispering? Where was Aidan? She could not imagine he had allowed Tess to make this call.
“Daddy went in the shower so I took his phone. Because I hate his phone. I was going to hide it, but then I found your name. N-o-e-l-l-e.”
Noelle tried to think why her number would be in his phone. Then, vaguely she recalled he had taken it when they were Christmas shopping, in case they lost track of each other in the busy mall.
“Did you remember I know my alphabet?”
“I remember everything about you, sweetheart.”
“Before I hid it, I pushed your name. And you answered! I have the best hiding place for the phone. He’ll never find it here. He won’t even hear it ring. You want to guess?”
“The fridge?”
Tess laughed happily. “Farther away than that.”
“Umm, the coat closet?”
“Nope, farther, even. You probably can’t guess how far.”
“You didn’t go out of your apartment, did you?” Noelle asked, alarmed.
“I ran away,” she said stubbornly.
“Are you in your apartment?”
Silence.
“Are you in the building?”
“Maybe,” Tess said coyly.
“No one’s with you? Where is Nana?”
“Nana’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“To be with Rufus and Smiley.”
Beneath her alarm, Noelle contemplated that. Not a word from her grandfather. How recent was this development?
“When did she go?” Noelle asked, trying to get some idea of how long Tess had been off on her adventure.
“I want to be with Rufus and Smiley, too.”
“Are you by yourself right now, Tess?”
“Jerry is with me. I’m in a room with brooms. And shovels. It smells funny, but I don’t care.”
For a moment Noelle panicked. Jerry? Who was Jerry? Some creep who had found Tess and led her to the broom closet that smelled funny?
Oh! Jerry! Jerry Juicejar.
Noelle’s mind raced. She could not hang up and call Aidan. She didn’t even think she had Nana’s number. Both must be frantic. Or did Nana even know? Did Aidan know? Or was he still in the shower?
“How long have you and Jerry been in the broom closet?” Not in their suite, Noelle deduced. They wouldn’t need snow shovels in their suite. Tess was in the building. In some kind of janitorial room in the building.
“A long time,” Tess said with a sigh. “I ate my chocolate candy already.”
Noelle could tell Tess firmly to get out of the closet and go home. But the child was five! What if she took a wrong turn? Or met the wrong person?
Noelle oriented to where she was. She had walked to her dance class. She began to run toward Aidan’s condo complex. Five minutes? Ten? She could not let Tess hear her panic.
Trying to keep the breathlessness out of her tone, she said, calmly and conversationally, “How is Jerry?”
“He’s not as much fun as Smiley.”
“Smiley misses you.”
A little hiccupped sob. “I know. I miss him, too.”
“Did I ever tell you about the dog I had when I was a little girl?”
“No.” Reluctant curiosity.
“His name was Puddles.”
“That’s a good name!”
“Yes, it was, because at the beginning he made puddles all over the place. That’s what puppies do.”
Tess giggled.
“When he stopped making puddles, he got into other mischief. Once, when we were sleeping, he went into the bathroom and grabbed the end of the toilet paper roll in his teeth and ran all through the house with it. There was toilet paper everywhere.”
Tess laughed. And Noelle kept talking. Five blocks.
“Once, my mom had made roast beef, and it was on the counter. She just left it for a minute, and when she came back in the room it was gone. And Puddles licked his lips and then he burped.”
Four.
“Noelle! Dogs don’t have lips.”
“Don’t they?”
“Smiley burped after he licked Nana’s face.”
Three.
“Yes, he did.”
Two. She could see his condo complex. There were police cars in front of it! Noelle put on a burst of speed, grateful for those jazz classes improving her lung capacity. She raced in the door.
Aidan was standing in the lobby in the middle of a knot of policeman. He was in his robe.
In a split second Noelle saw everything there was to see about him. She saw how deeply and completely he loved.
How deeply and completely he wanted to protect what he loved.
How deeply and completely he felt loss.
He saw her come in the doors. At first, it barely pierced his distress. But then, before his guard came up, she saw it.
The relief that she was here. The love—his love—that he had tried to protect her from, somehow seeing it as imperfect. Flawed. Doomed to failure.
She took the phone from her ear and pressed it to her chest, put a finger to her lips. The lobby went silent.
She went to him and stood on tiptoe.
“Maintenance room?” she whispered.
And he was racing down the hall with her behind him, and the police behind them both. He went down an emergency exit to the basement, raced down a dark hallway and threw open a door.
The ribbon of light that went in the door revealed Tess, Jerry pressed tight against chest, her mouth smeared with chocolate. She dropped the phone she had pressed to her ear.
Her father scooped her up and held her so tight it was a wonder the little girl could breathe.
“Daddy,” Tess whispered, touching his cheek. “Are you crying?”