I t was Christmas Eve, a year and a half later and Remembrance bustled with good cheer and people trying to get home to spend the holiday with their families. The snowfall had been light so far this winter, little more than a dusting of white covered the fields nearby and nestled in sheltered pockets in the town itself. But new snow was promised before morning, so there was a good chance of waking up to a white Christmas, after all.
Hardly anyone noticed the lone man who walked down Main Street, coming from the bus station. If anyone had noticed him, they might have thought that he needed a heavier coat. The thin jacket he wore over his jeans was hardly protection against the chill in the air. They might also have noticed the limp that dragged at his step, and, if they happened to look real close, they might have realized that he wasn’t as old as he looked at first glance.
But everyone was absorbed in the need to finish last-minute shopping at the one or two stores that remained open and get home to start celebrating. So the man walked down the sidewalk alone, his eyes hungry as he stared in every shop window. Occasionally, he reached out to touch a window or a winter-dormant tree, as if to assure himself that they were real.
He paused outside a café, drinking in the scent of coffee that drifted out as patrons entered or left. The Scout Café would be open until midnight, even tonight, he knew. And they’d have a few customers until then—those who had nowhere else to go, no one to be with.
But he wasn’t one of those. In this place, he did have somewhere to go. So he turned away from the inviting smells, hunching his shoulders inside the jacket and turning the collar up to give some protection against the biting wind that skidded around the corner of the building and sought out every worn spot in his clothes.
He barely noticed the cold. His eyes were set on a goal as he limped away from the center of town. He could have called a taxi, gotten out of the biting cold, but he wanted to savor every icy step of the path he was on. Home. He was almost home.
***
The Sinclair house was brightly lit, light spilling from every window to create gleaming patterns on the patchy snow outside. Inside, the holiday was being celebrated in style. Family and friends filled the big house to the rafters. An enormous Christmas tree dominated one corner of the living room. Underneath it, an antique train circled. Earlier the train had been a source of great fascination for the gathering’s youngest members.
But Danielle Sinclair and young Colin Sinclair had been dispatched to beds in the nursery upstairs as befitted their extreme youth. How the babies could sleep through the friendly noise below was hard to imagine, but when either Beth or Brittany checked on them, they were sleeping the sleep of the innocent.
Just now, Brittany wasn’t thinking about her daughter. She wasn’t thinking about anything beyond the warm promise of her husband’s hands at her waist and the wicked gleam in his eyes.
She and Michael had been sent to the kitchen to get ice, but Michael didn’t seem to have any interest in opening the refrigerator. He’d trapped her in a corner by the cupboard, claiming that there was mistletoe above her and she couldn’t break tradition by denying him a kiss.
Laughing, Brittany pointed out that she didn’t see any mistletoe, but he just told her to use her imagination and proceeded to kiss her quite thoroughly. She wound her arms around his neck, melting into the kiss, just as she always did. Two years of marriage hadn’t dulled the response she felt each time he kissed her.
***
“I told you not to send the two of them for ice.” Beth glanced up at her husband’s muttered comment. Her eyes laughed into his, seeing the amusement he wasn’t trying very hard to hide.
“It’s Christmas Eve, Donovan. You can’t expect people to be quite as efficient as they usually are.”
“By the time they get out here with the ice, it very well may be New Year’s Eve.
“Then we’ll have a head start on that party.” Donovan grinned at her, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her against his side. “You know, we could slip away from this shindig. Go upstairs and inspect the linen closet.”
Beth smiled but whatever she’d planned to say died unspoken as she looked past him, her eyes falling on the new guest one of their friends had just opened the door to.
“Oh my God.” The words were more a prayer than an exclamation.
“What is it?” Donovan turned, staring at the newcomer.
He didn’t look much like a party goer. His jeans were too worn for fashion, his boots were frankly worn down at the heels. His shaggy blond hair looked as if it hadn’t been cut in months, and there was a stubble of beard on his lean cheeks. But it wasn’t his lack of sartorial splendor that made Donovan curse and start forward.
The move came too late. The kitchen door swung open, and Brittany stepped into the hallway, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. She was carrying a tray of glasses, her head half turned to see if Michael was bringing the ice. She caught Donovan’s quick movement out the corner of her eye and turned to see what had caused it. Her gaze settled on the scruffy stranger. As if sensing her look, he turned, too, his eyes meeting hers.
The tray dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers. The resultant crash brought instant silence in its wake as people looked to see the cause. Brittany stared at the stranger, her hands coming up to cover the sudden pallor in her cheeks, her wide eyes disbelieving.
“Dan.” The name was a whisper.
“Hello, Brit.” He half smiled, his eyes uncertain. “Merry Christmas.”
“Oh my God. Dan. It’s really you.”
The paralysis left her, and she flew across the hall, throwing herself into the arms he held out to her.
“I can’t believe it! You’re here. You’re alive.” She was half laughing, half crying, oblivious to the people watching their reunion, to the murmurs starting up as the guests realized who the shaggy stranger must be. Oblivious to Michael standing in the kitchen doorway, his face white as he watched her embracing Dan.
After a stunned pause, Donovan and Beth acted together. As if they’d planned for just this eventuality, each moved forward, Donovan toward Dan and Brittany, Beth toward her son.
“I think a little privacy might be in order here,” Donovan said. Dan drew his eyes from Brittany’s face, a grin breaking through the worn lines that bracketed his mouth.
“Donovan! Sorry to cause a scene.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Donovan put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder, squeezing roughly. “But in a minute, you’re going to be mobbed. Why don’t we move into the den?”
“Sure, sure. Where’s Michael? Is he here?” Dan’s eyes skimmed the crowd, looking for his friend.
“I think he’s probably waiting for you in the den.” Donovan gently shepherded the two of them across the hall. No one approached, though it was obvious that they were all aware of the drama going on in their midst as they watched the three of them disappear into the den.
Michael turned as the study door opened. He noticed that Dan still held Brittany’s hand. She was looking up at him as if she couldn’t believe the miracle of his presence. But all of that he noticed peripherally.
“Michael! My God, you haven’t changed a bit!”
“It hasn’t been that long.” The two men clasped hands, their grips too tight, each searching the other’s face as if to reconfirm the familiar features.
“You look great! God, everybody looks great.”
“Well, you look like hell,” Michael told him with a grin.
“Thanks.” If Dan’s grin had gotten any wider, it would surely have split his face in two. “Good to see you, too.”
There was an awkward little pause, and then Michael pulled Dan forward, throwing his arms around him in a rough hug.
“You’d better have a good explanation, you SOB.”
Dan laughed, returning the hug before stepping back. “Don’t I always have a good explanation? Remember the time I convinced the music teacher that your dog had run off with my trumpet?”
“Yeah, and she believed it until she found out I didn’t have a dog.”
“Well, I had her going for a while there.” Dan reached for Brittany’s hand again.
“I think we’ll leave the three of you alone. You can fill us in on the details later.” Donovan took Beth’s hand and pulled her out of the room, shutting the door behind them.
“Do you think that’s wise?” Beth asked him, her worried eyes on the door.
“I think they’ve got a lot to work out, and I don’t think we can help them do it.”
“I suppose.” But she didn’t sound sure.
In the den, Dan sat down on the sofa, pulling Brittany with him, reluctant to lose contact with her for even an instant. Michael sank into a chair across from them. He still found it hard to believe that Dan was sitting here, just like old times.
“So come on, out with it. Where have you been for the past two and a half years? And I hope this is a better explanation than ‘the dog stole my trumpet.’ ”
“It’s better, I guess. More complex, anyway.”
“The search party found the plane. They said there were no survivors,” Brittany told him gently.
“I know. At least, I know there were no survivors except me. I left the site of the crash before the search party arrived.” He looked down, his face shadowed, and Michael was suddenly aware of the lines that creased his face. Dan looked older than his years. Older and worn.
“What happened?” Michael leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “We thought you were in the plane. If I’d known you were alive...”
“I know, buddy. You’d have come looking. I knew that.”
There was a moment’s silence while each of them considered how different their lives would have been if Dan had been found by the search party. Michael avoided looking at Brittany, his emotions in a turmoil.
“What happened to you?” It was Brittany who broke the silence, her eyes tracing the lines in his face.
“I was in a prison, actually.” Dan tried to speak lightly, but there was nothing light about the expression in his eyes. “In a stinking hellhole of a prison.”
“Why?” The single question was all Brittany could manage.
“Mistaken identity?” He laughed bitterly, robbing the answer of any humor. He sighed, leaning back on the sofa, his eyes on things only he could see.
“I suppose it will be easier if I start at the beginning... The project started out great. Everybody gathered in L.A., and we all had our equipment. Dad—” He broke off, swallowing. “Dad was like a little kid. I don’t think I ever saw him more excited. He was convinced we were going to discover some new civilization. More likely we’d have all ended up with sunburn and dysentery, but he was still excited.
“We took off on time, and the whole team was in good spirits. It was a good group. Nice people.”
He stopped again and Michael knew he was thinking about the fact that those people were all dead.
“Anyway, everything was going great until we developed engine trouble. Right over miles of jungle. The pilot tried to set down in a clearing, but there wasn’t really enough room. We hit hard, sort of like belly flopping into a pool. I was right next to an exit door, and the impact popped the door open. It wouldn’t have done me any good except that my seat belt snapped, and I was thrown out. The plane skidded across the clearing and slammed into the side of a hill we hadn’t even been able to see from the air. It blew like the biggest firecracker you’ve ever seen.”
No one spoke for the space of several slow heartbeats. Brittany’s hand tightened over Dan’s, trying to imagine what it must have felt like to watch the plane explode, knowing that your father was inside. To know that everyone in it was instantly dead.
“Were you hurt?”
“A broken leg.”
Dan shrugged, dismissing the injury as minor, which she supposed it must have seemed then, compared to what he’d just seen.
“Why didn’t the search party find you?” Michael asked.
“That was my fault. I wasn’t thinking too clearly at that point. Shock, I guess. For some reason, I decided that the only logical thing to do was to try and walk to civilization. I had this knife Dad had bought me, one of those with every tool known to man in the haft, and there was a compass in there, so I figured I could find the coast and there was bound to be a town on the coast.”
He shrugged. “Like I said I wasn’t thinking too clearly. Anyway, I found a branch I could use as a crutch, and I started walking. If I’d had an ounce of sense, I’d have stayed with the wreckage. But I didn’t.
“Anyway, to make a long story short, before I found the coast, I stumbled into this little village. Turned out that they were guerrilla fighters trying to overthrow the government. I don’t know why the hell they didn’t shoot me on the spot, but I probably looked close enough to death that they figured I wasn’t worth wasting a bullet on.
“They even patched me up, more or less. They didn’t have a doctor, but they had a guy who was pretty skilled in basic medicine. He set my leg and kept me from dying of infection. By the time I was ready to travel, we’d developed a pretty friendly relationship.
“The only problem we had was that they wouldn’t let me leave. They were afraid that, if I went to the capital, I might reveal their position to the government. But they were going to be moving camp soon, and they’d let me go then. Since I wouldn’t know the position of their new camp, I couldn’t do them any harm.”
“Couldn’t they have gotten a message out? Something to let us know you were alive?”
He shook his head at Brittany’s question. “We were miles away from a phone, and there was no other way to communicate with the outside world. Besides, these people were considered criminals. They didn’t dare risk being seen.”
“You must have loved kicking your heels.” Michael remembered Dan’s impatience with delays of any sort. Once he’d made up his mind to do something, he wanted to do it now, not five minutes from now.
“Well, I was damned grateful to be alive. Besides, by then weeks had gone by. I knew I must have been given up for dead. I figured another couple of weeks wouldn’t make much difference to me or the people back home. And they’d been good to me. They didn’t have much, but they shared what little they did have.”
“So what happened? Why didn’t you come home?” Brittany asked.
“Well, it was really a matter of bad timing. They were going to be breaking camp in a couple of days, and they’d already provided me with a map to the capital. My leg wasn’t very strong, but I knew I could make it that far.
“Only, the government got there first. They hit the village hard. It was like the Fourth of July, with rockets screaming everywhere. Except people were dying all over the place.” He rubbed his hand over his face as if to wipe away the memories.
“I was one of the lucky ones. Or at least that’s what I thought. I wasn’t even hurt. When the troops rounded up the few survivors, I started trying to explain who I was. That I was an American and not part of their little war.”
“They didn’t believe you?” Michael asked.
“Well, they believed the part about me being an American. But they didn’t believe the part about me being a noncombatant. I had a map to the capital in my pocket, and they were convinced that I was part of some subversive plot.”
“Didn’t you demand to talk to the American ambassador or consul or whatever?” Brittany questioned.
“Sure. I asked, I coaxed, I shouted. I tried reason, I tried the Bill of Rights, I tried everything I could think of. It didn’t do much good. Although maybe that’s what kept them from killing me outright, which is what they did with most of the prisoners they took.
“They threw me into this tiny cell and told me that my case was being reviewed. I kept telling them to call whatever representation our government had in the capital, and they kept saying it was being reviewed. They reviewed my case for two bloody years.
“I’d probably still be there if it hadn’t been for this nun who came to visit the prisoners. I told her who I was. It turned out that she was the sister of the guy in charge of the jail. She believed me and convinced her brother to let me go. She probably threatened him with the wrath of God. For a nun, she was one feisty lady.
“That was a few weeks ago. I went to the American consul, and he got the paperwork moving.” He shrugged. “Here I am.”
“If you got out of prison a few weeks ago, what took you so long to get home?” Brittany asked. “Why didn’t you call or write, let us know that you were alive?”
“I wasn’t much to look at, honey. A year and a half in a Central American prison doesn’t exactly leave you in prime physical condition. If I’d have come home then, I’d have scared everybody half to death.”
Michael tensed at the casual way he’d called Brittany “honey” and then forced himself to relax. Dan didn’t know how much things had changed.
“Speaking of everyone—” Dan glanced at Michael, one brow raised in inquiry “—where’s my mother? I went home tonight first, but the people who were living there seemed to think I might be a dangerous killer, and they wouldn’t tell me anything. Did Mom sell the place?”
“About a year ago,” Michael told him. He thrust his fingers through his hair, wishing there was some way to delay this conversation. His best friend had just come back from the dead, expecting to pick up the pieces of his life. How did he go about telling him that the pieces were so fragmented he was going to have to start over again?
“Where is she living now? An apartment? Somehow, I can’t see Mom in an apartment.”
Michael glanced at Brittany, but she hadn’t taken her eyes off Dan since they’d sat down. Apparently, explanations were his department.
“Your mom is living in Europe. France, I think.”
“Europe? Mom?” It was clear that didn’t fit with the woman he remembered, and Michael knew his next piece of news wasn’t going to make it easier..
“She’s remarried.”
Dead silence followed his words. Dan stared at him, his eyes startled. “Remarried? I don’t believe it. When? To who?”
“About a year ago and to nobody that anybody knows. After your ... the crash, she started traveling a lot. Maybe it hurt too much to stay here. Most people lost touch with her, and then we heard the house was on the market. Apparently she met someone in Europe and married him.” Michael shrugged, wishing he had a more detailed explanation.
“Married.” Dan shook his head slowly. “I can’t believe it. I thought about a lot of things that might have changed while I was away, but I never thought of her remarrying. Do you have an address?”
“No. But I’d guess you could get it from the real estate agent. I know who sold the house.”
“Wow.” Dan blinked and shook his head. “I guess things have changed even more than I’d expected.”
Was that ever an understatement. Michael rubbed at the ache that was building in his forehead. How could he even begin to explain the changes that had taken place? There Dan sat, holding Brittany’s hand. Michael wanted to pull her away from him and announce that she was his wife. But he couldn’t do that. At least not quite so abruptly.
After what Dan had been through, how was he going to take the news that the woman he’d loved had married his best friend, that his child now called that same best friend Daddy?
“Fill me in on the news.” Dan’s smile might have been forced, but it was clear that he didn’t want to dwell on the melancholy. “I feel as if I’ve been gone centuries instead of just a couple of years. The town has really grown. Is anybody we used to know still around?”
“A few,” Michael said, feeling the ache intensify.
“I was surprised to see you here.” Dan turned to Brittany, his eyes studying her as if he still couldn’t believe she was there. “This was the first place I thought of when I drew a blank at home. I figured I’d have to spend some time tracking you down.”
“I’ve ...become rather close to the Sinclairs,” Brittany murmured weakly, careful to avoid Michael’s eyes.
“You couldn’t get close to a greater bunch of people. This place was pretty much a second home to me.”
Under other circumstances, Dan might have noticed the awkward silence that followed his remark. But he was still absorbing the fact that he was home at last.
“So, fill me in on what’s been happening,” he asked again. Michael drew a deep breath and began to talk, telling him what had happened to old friends—who’d married, who’d divorced, who had children. Dan listened, absorbing the small details like a man dying of thirst who’d finally been given water.
During his time in prison, there’d been little enough to fill his time, and he’d spent a lot of it thinking about the people back home, wondering what they were doing, trying to imagine what paths their lives might have taken. Foolish speculations but they’d helped to take his mind off his own situation.
Brittany listened to Michael’s words with half an ear. She felt as if she had fallen into a dream and couldn’t wake up. It just didn’t seem possible that Dan was sitting next to her, holding her hand. How many times had she dreamed of just this, fantasized about it? In those first few months after the crash, she’d thought of little else.
But things had slowly changed. Her grief had been muted by time, her life had moved on. Michael. Danielle. How were they going to explain things to him? He’d just come back from the dead. It seemed cruel to simply dump it all in his lap. And yet, her marriage to Michael, her child—Dan’s child—those weren’t the kind of things you could hide for long.
Brittany didn’t know how long it had been since Michael had stopped speaking when the silence penetrated her absorption. Dan was staring at her, his thumb moving back and forth over her wedding ring. Her wedding ring. Her eyes met his, wondering if he’d realized the significance of the plain gold band. It was clear from his eyes that he had.
He looked more regretful than surprised, and Brittany felt a tremendous surge of guilt. He’d been through so much, lost so much. It didn’t seem fair that he had to deal with yet more changes so soon after returning home.
“You’re married,” he said quietly, a statement, not a question.
Brittany opened her mouth, fumbling for an appropriate answer. She was vividly aware of Michael watching the awkward little exchange.
“It’s not important,” she blurted finally, thinking that this conversation could surely be postponed.
Dan’s mouth twisted in a half smile, his eyes still sad. “I doubt if your husband would agree. Who is he? Anyone I know? Is he here tonight?”
Brittany stared at him, her mouth half-open as she sought the proper answers to his questions. He had a right to the truth, but she couldn’t bring herself to hurt him.
Unconsciously, her eyes sought Michael’s. More than two years of marriage had taught her that he could always be depended on. But for once, he couldn’t help her. He seemed just as tongue-tied as she was. The silence stretched.
Dan looked from one to the other, suspicion flaring in the ice-blue depths of his eyes. His gaze dropped to Michael’s left hand, which lay clenched against his knee.
“You bastard.” The quiet words held a wealth of bitterness.
Michael felt the pain of betrayal as sharply as if it had been his and not Dan’s. “It’s not what you think,” he said quietly.
“You and Brittany aren’t married?”
“We’re married.”
“Then it’s exactly what I think.” He dropped Brittany’s hand as if it had suddenly become contaminated, and he stood up.
Michael rose to his feet, his eyes meeting his friend’s. “We need to talk about this,” he began.
Hot rage flashed in Dan’s eyes. Remembering the volatility of his temper, Michael braced himself, aware that Dan was just as likely to lash out with a fist as he was with words. But perhaps spending two years in a prison cell had taught him control.
“I don’t think we have anything to say to each other.”
“Dan, please. Listen to him.” Brittany stood and set her hand on his arm, but he shook it off, the contempt in his eyes as searing as a hot brand.
“Save it. You’re Michael’s wife. That’s all I want to know.”
He spun on his heel and strode from the room without another word. Brittany took a step as if to follow him, but Michael caught her arm, stopping her.
“Let him go. He’s not going to listen to either of us right now. Give him some time to cool off.”
“He was so hurt,” she whispered. The eyes she turned to him swam with tears. “Did you see the look in his eyes?”
“I saw it,” he said grimly.
“I feel like we’ve just stabbed him in the back.”
“We didn’t.” He released her arm. “Dan always had a hot temper. He’ll get over this and start thinking a little more rationally.”
“I hope so.”
Michael watched her, wondering if that was all she hoped. Did she hope that Dan would come back and open his arms and his heart to her again? It was clear that Dan had had no thought of anything else until he’d realized that she was married.
And she’d gone into his arms as if it were the only place in the world she wanted to be.
Don’t be a fool. Of course she was happy to see him. You felt the same. That doesn’t mean she’s still in love with him. You’ve had a lot of time with her. You’ve got a strong marriage. She’s not going to walk out on that just because Dan has returned from the dead.
But she loved him. She had his child.
That was a long time ago. Danielle is your daughter in all the important ways. And Brittany is your wife.
He wanted to let the little voice convince him, but doubt roiled in his gut. He kept hearing Dan ask about her marriage and Brittany saying that it wasn’t important. Had she only been trying to avoid hurting Dan, or had she been speaking what was in her heart? Now that Dan was back, just how important was their marriage to her?
The answer to that question could have stilled the uneasiness, but he didn’t ask. He was too afraid of the answer.