Christmas in Eternity Springs (8 page)

“Okay,” he said a few minutes later. “I see one camp. Stardance Ranch, but I don't think it's the right kind. What the heck is a glam camp, anyway?”

“That's Mr. Brick's camp. Dr. Lori said his camp is for adults only.”

Adults only!
“What do they do—never mind. Who's Mr. Brick?”

“He's Dr. Lori's friend. Not her boyfriend. Mr. Chase is her boyfriend. Maybe her husband. Trevor told me they're getting married, but I don't know when.”

Trevor was Nicholas's friend from camp. He lived in Florida, and every so often, Trevor's parents and Jax allowed the boys to talk on the phone. Listening to them was a hoot. Trevor was a little wild man. Jax knew he should be glad that the kid lived on the other side of the country, but the look of happy anticipation Nicholas displayed prior to every phone call made him wish the boys lived closer. The loneliness in his son's expression when the boys hung up hurt Jax's heart.

“I see. Well, buddy, I'm afraid that except for the Rocking L, I'm not finding any kid camps in that area. I think I should point out that we didn't know Eternity Springs was special until we visited. Maybe we should give other places a try. We might find another camp, another town just as good, if we looked.”

Nicholas shook his head and spoke in a doleful tone. “There's only one Eternity Springs.”

Jax didn't have a response for that, so he took another piece of pizza and polished it off. When Nicholas reached for his fourth piece of pizza, Jax quirked a grin. “Better watch out, kiddo. You eat that and you're liable to have to stay here another day because of a bellyache.”

Nicholas froze with the pizza halfway to his mouth. His big blue eyes filled with fright as he stared up at his father. “Will I die?”

Three times? Jeeze.”No, buddy. No! I was kidding you. I'm glad to see you eat so much.”

“Pizza is bad for you. Mimi says so.”

The Lancaster boys had pizza once a week. Leave it to Mimi to always find a way to get in her digs. “Sure tastes good, though, doesn't it?”

“It's my favorite.”

“I know, bud.” They might just start having it for supper twice a week. “If you want that piece of pizza, have at it.” Deliberately, he added, “A bellyache won't kill you.”

Nicholas flicked a measuring gaze up at Jax, then took another huge bite. He ate all but the crust of his fourth piece of pizza, and when he settled back against his pillow, Jax decided his questions could keep no longer.

However, he wanted to work his way up to the tough ones slowly. Keeping a close eye on his son, he said, “So, Nicholas. You looked really happy when your grandmother said you wouldn't be going to school tomorrow. What's up with that? I thought you loved school.”

His son's head dipped, and he shrugged. “I dunno.”

Well, hell. Obviously, something was going on. How had he missed it?”So what's going on? You having a problem I need to know about?”

A second shrug. An added pout. “I dunno.”

“Please tell me.”

Silence dragged. Nicholas bit at a hangnail. He picked at the blanket on his bed. Although Jax felt the urge to speak and fill the void, he refrained. Recent experience had taught him that Nicholas would eventually respond. He was a boy who rather desperately wanted to please—something else that destroyed Jax.

Finally, Nicholas's eyes began to blink rapidly and Jax felt his desire for answers wane. He didn't want to make his son cry. It would kill him to make his son cry. At the end of his last R & R when he'd had to return to his assignment, the boy had stood at the Hardcastles' front door with big fat silent tears rolling down his face, and it had ripped Jax's heart in two. Climbing into the waiting cab, he'd promised himself never again. At least, not until his son had defeated the demons that his mother's death had brought into his world.

Even as the words “never mind” formed on Jax's lips, Nicholas swiped his hand across his eyes and declared, “I don't like school.”

Well, this is new.
“Why not? What happened?”

“If I miss school tomorrow it'll only make it worse.”

“Are you behind, Nicholas?”

“Behind what?”

“I mean, are you not doing well with your schoolwork?”

“I'm smart.”

“I know you're smart. ‘Smart' doesn't always matter where grades are concerned.”

Nicholas plopped back against his pillow. “I did make a ninety-eight on a math paper last week. Miss Kelly took off two points because my eight looked too much like a three. But all my other papers are one hundreds.”

The way he flung himself around his bed demonstrated to Jax that at least Nicholas's head felt better. “So it's not your grades. What has happened to make you not like school, son?”

The tears returned to his eyes. He folded his arms and accused, “They're mean!”

Okay. Now we're getting somewhere.
“Who's mean?”

“Aiden. Jackson and Brayden, too, but mostly Aiden.”

“What did they do?”

Jax expected to hear that they made fun of his glasses or his small stature or that they called him Brainiac. What Nicholas said floored him.

“They found out about me and Christmas. They bring stuff to school and surprise me with it.”

The little bastards.
“They're jerks. Bullies. Don't worry, Nicholas. I'll put a stop to that.”

“No! Don't! You can't!” Nicholas said with a screech in his tone. “That will just make things worse. Promise me, Dad. Please! You can't say anything to anybody. Please!”

Jax panicked a little bit himself. If he were responsible for bringing on another panic attack, he'd never forgive himself. “Okay. Okay. I won't say anything.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Good.” Nicholas visibly relaxed.

Jax reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. Great. Just great. Now what did he do? He couldn't let this kind of bs continue. But he'd made a promise to his kid. One hard-and-fast rule he'd made for himself during the debacle of the divorce was that he would never, under any circumstances, break a promise he made to his son.

So what the hell did he do now?

He went with his instincts. “So, I guess if I don't stop this nonsense from happening, we need to figure out a way for you to do it.”

“Me?”

“Yep. We need a plan. Those guys are being bullies, Nicholas. Everyone has to deal with a bully at some point in their lives—”

“Even you?”

“Even me,” Jax replied as the image of Brian Hardcastle flashed in his mind. “Learning how to deal with a bully is part of growing up. Let me think on it a bit, and we'll make it happen.”

“Think fast, Dad.”

Jax reached out and ruffled Nicholas's hair. “We'll have it in place before you go back to Northwest Academy.”

The hope in Nicholas's eyes all but did Jax in. He wanted a distraction before the kid asked him any more questions about this imaginary plan. Things were different in schools now than when he was growing up. His own father's advice to Jax about dealing with a bully simply wouldn't do.

Tackling kids and throwing punches on the playground led to expulsion in this day and age.

“I'm going to duck out real quick and see if the nurse can score me some sheets for my bed. Why don't you see what's on TV?” No way was he going to ask Nicholas about today's doctor's visit after seeing his reaction to Jax's “easy” question.

“Okay.”

When he returned a few minutes later with sheets and a pillow for the foldout bed, Nicholas was watching cartoons. Jax bit back a sigh. Wonder how much this episode of
Paw Patrol
was going to cost him? Wonder how good the employee insurance at Hardcastle Books was?

Fatigue suddenly hit him like an eighteen-wheeler. He kicked off his shoes, stripped down to his T-shirt and slacks, then took a seat in the room's recliner with his feet up, ready to watch Rubble and Tracer and Rocky while yearning for some good old Donald Duck.

Immediately, his thoughts turned to his in-laws. He had two plans to concoct before morning. He simply could not allow their actions today to go unchallenged. Everything from changing the day of the appointment to making a decision about the treatment to trying to oust Jax from his son's hospital room—they'd not only crossed the line, they'd obliterated it. They'd refused to recognize Jax's authority and, frankly, his rights. This couldn't go on. It simply couldn't. Otherwise, things were bound to get ugly between Jax and the Hardcastles, and that wouldn't be good for Nicholas.

Anger that had simmered inside him all evening flared to a raging flame. No one could make him crazy like a Hardcastle. This was the second angriest he'd been in his life.

Lara still held the number one position, and he hoped like hell that nothing ever knocked her out of her spot. If anything ever happened that made him angrier than learning that his wife had run off with then six-year-old Nicholas rather than let Jax have him for Christmas—per their bank-breaking custody agreement—then he feared he was likely to stroke out.

So what are you going to do about it?

Bottom line? Whatever was best for Nicholas.

He needed a job—one independent of Brian Hardcastle. He needed to assert himself when dealing with the Hardcastles. He needed to—

“Dad?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“I don't think I'm getting any better.”

Jax sat up. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his thighs, as he studied his son. Nicholas stared straight at the cartoon, but Jax sensed he wasn't seeing the TV at all. “Because of what happened today?”

“I liked Dr. McDermott a lot better.”

Dr. McDermott. Jax mentally ran his finger down the long list of doctors his son had seen during the past two years. “Your doctor at summer camp?”

“Yeah.”

Dr. McDermott. What did Jax recall about him? Wasn't he the guy Jack Davenport had brought in who'd worked at Walter Reed with veterans suffering from PTSD? “He's older than Dr. Meacham.”

“He's old. He's retired.”

The seed of an idea that had just begun to form blew away in the wind of Nicholas's words.

“He told me he liked Eternity Springs so much he was going to move there.”

“He did, did he?”

The seed blew back and planted itself in the once barren soil of Jax's wishes and desires, now fertilized by the manure supplied by Nicholas's grandparents.

By the time he made up his bed, kissed Nicholas good night, and turned off the light, Jax knew how to handle the bully situation. He knew how to deal with Brian and Linda. He just needed a few things to fall together. He'd start making calls first thing in the morning. By the time he drifted off to sleep, the seed had sprouted into a fully formed plan.

He dreamed of a field of red and green lollipops planted like corn. A puffy white cloud floated in a heavenly blue sky. From it rained sparkling, nourishing, healing … angel dust.

 

Chapter Six

Fantasies enrich your life.

—CLAIRE

Claire awoke in a full Grinch mood. Probably because she'd dreamed about lawyers last night. A lawyer. The lawyer.

She was lonely.

She didn't want to get out of the bed. She wanted to lie there with the covers pulled over her head and indulge in a pity party. Even as she contemplated doing just that—at least for a few minutes—her gaze fell upon the journal on the nightstand beside her bed. “Positive thoughts,” she murmured. “Think positive thoughts and positive things will happen.”

Maybe.

Probably not.

Life wasn't fiction. Grinches stay Grinched and Scrooges don't change.

Lawyers live.

“Now how's that for positive thinking. Not.” She threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. She needed to do something to shake off her blue mood. Today was Tuesday. Nothing much was going on in town right now. The next conference booked into Angel's Rest didn't begin until Thursday. Traffic in the store would be light today. Maybe she'd close down for a few hours and go for a walk around the lake. Autumn leaves were glorious right now. The golden leaves on the white-barked aspen made the hills literally glow. Snow had yet to make it to the valley, but Murphy Mountain now wore a top hat of white. The Deck the Halls Festival would be here before she knew it.

Thinking of the festival made her think about little Nicholas Lancaster. She wondered how he was doing. She'd received another two dollars in the mail for his layaway last week. She wished he'd said something more than “For my Captain ornament” in the note he'd sent along with it. Maybe when she sent his receipt back she'd include a little note of her own for Jax. That wouldn't hurt anything, would it? Just being friendly. Friendly was the Eternity Springs way.

She wouldn't have to tell him that he was the star of her fantasy life. Her very active fantasy life. After all, Claire was a girl with a vivid imagination.

She could see it now.
She'd be dressed in something filmy and flowing. Emerald green. Seated at a Queen Anne writing desk, a fountain pen in hand. In front of her, the same stationery that the Duchess of Something uses, a cream color with her name in robin's-egg blue. Dear Jax, she'd write in beautiful, flowing handwriting … poof!

That was too much fantasy for even her imagination. Claire had never had pretty handwriting, much to her despair.

Amused at herself, she threw back the covers and climbed out of bed, feeling somewhat more positive about the day. She made coffee, then showered, dressed, and walked downstairs to open Forever Christmas.

The delivery driver arrived a few minutes after nine. Will Brodsky greeted her and added, “I have a truckload for you, Claire. Literally.”