Christmas Star (Contemporary, Romance) (10 page)

Starr shared her daughter’s excitement until it dawned on her that the Tehachapis weren’t as high as the San Bernardinos, where they were headed. Starr thrust aside the vague worries and embraced the warmth of the small roadSside café. Soon mother and daughter delighted in the antics of a family of birds outside the window.

“Come on, SeLi,” Starr said reluctantly a good hour later. “Time to go.” She sighed and patted her full stomach. “We’ve eaten enough for four people. If we don’t hit the road, I’ll curl up right here and take a nap.”

“Me, too.” The child yawned. “What time is it? What do you think the guys are doin’?” she asked wistfully.

“Homesick already?” Starr chided, although she suffered another quick, sharp vision of Clay laughing with the children. “Some world traveler, huh? We’ve barely left our own backyard.”

SeLi skipped up to the cashier, making light of her momentary longing for home by talking Starr into buying her a candy bar, which she promised to save for later.

Starr topped up the gas tank, and their afternoon passed in a blur of miles. SeLi made a valiant effort to carry on a conversation, but the gentle sway of the big vehicle soon lulled her to sleep. Starr’s heart swelled each time she glanced over at her. She loved SeLi so much. One dusky hand curled sweetly against shining black braids. In sleep she was an angel.

Wanda Manning had made threats before, but the last one seemed different. More dangerous. Enough to leave icy tentacles around Starr’s heart. Still six long months before the adoption was final. Six months of Wanda chipping away at their foundation.

Were
her reasons for wanting to adopt the child sound? Starr kneaded the back of her neck and thought about how many times she had longed for a brother or sister. Now SeLi was obsessed with fathers. Starr’s neck muscles tightened again. She had no plan to remedy
that
situation anytime in the near future. None whatsoever.

Although one man’s kisses certainly melted her shoelaces.

Increasing traffic soon claimed Starr’s full attention as she entered the spiderweb of the Los Angeles freeway system. The motor home lumbered down the right lane of highway 210. Starr swore aloud when she discovered that getting to the Pomona freeway necessitated moving three lanes left.

SeLi was awakened by the blare of impatient horns. White-faced, she watched Starr slip the massive vehicle between two irate drivers.

“Holy shi—” SeLi, eyes wide in her chalky face, clapped a hand over her erring mouth.

“Don’t panic, kiddo,” Starr said. “We’ll soon be out of this mess and we’ll take a short break.” They did, and in spite of SeLi’s cajoling, Starr kept the length of the refueling stop to a minimum. She didn’t want to tackle a winter mountain road after dark.

As they left the main highway in Banning, the road narrowed and began a steady climb.

SeLi hovered on the edge of her seat with her nose flattened against the window. Though she was enthralled by the thick stands of pine and cedar, she also seemed terrified by the tight hairpin curves. One moment she’d be saying “Look at that!” and pointing out some spectacular sight. The next she’d pelted Starr with strident cries of “Look out, Mom!” as she watched rocky cliffs drop off sharply below.

“Oh, Mom, look. Snow!” The little girl cupped her hands around her eyes and leaned into the side window. The high beam on the motor home’s headlights picked out broad white patches in a deep, granite crevasse.

Starr glanced over, then pulled her eyes back to the road in time to slow down for an oncoming pickup and dim her lights. “Mmm, yes, I do see. Sit back and be quiet please, SeLi. I can’t concentrate on driving with you demanding that I look elsewhere every two seconds.” Because she met and passed another large motor home just then, her tone rose more sharply than she’d intended.

SeLi fell back in a pout. “It’s gettin’ too dark to see the trees and stuff, anyhow. I wish I hadn’t come on this dumb old trip.”

Even though she felt for SeLi’s frustration, Starr didn’t dare take her eyes from the winding road. Besides, she was simply too tired to pander to SeLi’s mood at the moment.

Darkness closed in swiftly. Icy stars shed little light. Starr wished she’d taken a motel in Banning for the night. Beyond each new curve, the terrain grew more wild and rugged. Plots of snow along the fence seemed deeper against the posts. Turning on the heater only made the windows steam. Starr grumbled as she rubbed a larger peek hole with a jacket sleeve wet from an earlier attempt.

When at last the road leveled a bit, they were in a mountain community called Alandale. Starr vowed to pull off at the first overnight campground that came into sight. Easier said than done. The first recreation area was closed for the season, the next full of permanent residents.

Starr dug out their jackets and huddled beneath hers while she listened to the park owner’s discouraging comments.

“You can try Pearson’s in Pine Cove, little lady,” he drawled tugging at one earlobe. “This ain’t exactly tourist season. Most places hereabouts are closed up tight.”

Zeroing in on what he
wasn’t
saying, Starr knew that he thought her an idiot to be out here alone with a small child. Still, she thanked him politely through chattering teeth and climbed back into the driver’s seat, determined to find a space to rent for the night. As the engine roared to life, her breath left vapor trails hanging in the night.

“I’m cold,” SeLi sobbed. “Let’s just go home, can we, Mom?” Starr felt like Simon Legree.

Pine Cove offered nothing and Idyllwild was shut up so tight it might have been a ghost town. Starr turned into a byway tracked with frozen snow and dropped her head to the steering wheel for a moment.

“Blast,”
She stiffened her spine and reached for the briefcase where she’d stowed the address of Harrison’s ranch in the next valley. She’d be darned if she would navigate back down to Banning in the dead of night.

“It won’t hurt to borrow the McLeods’ parking strip for one night,” she muttered, gazing through her icy breath at a hastily scribbled map. Harrison had offered hookups for the motor home. At the moment, Starr was too tired to stand on principles. And it’d just be for one night.

She drove slowly for another thirty miles until she spotted the turnoff. From there the cumbersome rig bumped uncomfortably along a graveled access road. SeLi remained huddled against the passenger-side door. Only her blinking black eyes attested to her misery.

Snow now lay in great patches near the roadside. Starr was about to give up when the wavering headlights illuminated a wooden sign reading Cloud Haven. She released the breath she’d been unconsciously holding. Beyond the sign, nestled in a stand of ice-encrusted trees, Starr identified a darkened house. Exhausted, she didn’t give it another glance; her only interest lay in the concrete pad located some two hundred yards across a moonlit clearing. After the big vehicle came to rest on smooth cement, she could have kissed the pole holding the hookups.

She strained to see any sign of life. Harrison had mentioned a foreman. “No big deal,” she grunted, stepping into the frosty night air. “I’ll find him in the morning and explain. Surely I’m capable of hooking up a few cables.”

“Maybe not,” she muttered, after numerous attempts to connect the cables slung under the low motor home to the electrical box on the pole. She gave up and rubbed her aching arms. The long hours behind the wheel had taken their toll. She shifted from one foot to the other and blew on icy fingers. It felt as if she’d been messing with the hookups for hours. In reality it had been only minutes. Apparently some kind of adapter was needed to mesh the motor home’s hoses with the facilities at the ranch.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the knobs on the butane tanks refused to budge. Starr wanted to cry—and might have, if SeLi hadn’t been sobbing enough for both of them.

She hugged the little girl close until her tears abated. “Things’ll look better in the morning, honey. The best we can do now is break out that down-filled sleeping bag, climb into our warmest jammies and try to get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll find a new place.” Starr was swamped by guilt as SeLi’s tears resumed.

Once the engine was turned off, the interior of the vehicle cooled quickly. Starr rummaged through their suitcases with fingers that felt like ice cubes. Even the light from her one flashlight was growing dim. She was angry with herself for not having a better backup plan.

SeLi’s mood improved slightly when Starr suggested she eat the chocolate bar she’d bought earlier. Then after being helped into her woolly, footed sleepers, the little girl burrowed into the sleeping bag without loosening her braids. Ruefully Starr resigned herself to dealing with SeLi’s sore head in the morning along with everything else.

“Sleep tight.” She aimed a kiss in the vicinity of the girl’s hidden forehead, then turned to take care of her own needs. Too bad there was only one down sleeping bag. Teeth chattering, Starr gathered blankets from a box and piled them in a heap on the mattress next to SeLi.

She delved into her suitcase and found the first humorous thing about the entire day. Adult footed sleepers. Starr muffled her laughter in the fuzzy fabric—hot pink and chartreuse stripes that glowed eerily in the pale moonlight. The glow-in-the-dark sleepers had been a gag gift at last year’s office Christmas party. SeLi must have found them buried in her bottom drawer and tossed them in.

“It’s so-o-o c-cold,” she stuttered. “Maybe these things are a blessing in disguise.” Hopping on one foot, she yanked them on over her socks and jeans. She snapped off the flashlight, then dove under the pile of blankets. And stirred only once, partially wakened by a droning vibration. As the noise receded, Starr curved more comfortably around SeLi’s warmth.

Suddenly she was jolted completely awake by a loud banging that seemed to rock the motor home.

SeLi moaned, turned onto her back, then relaxed in sleep again.

Starr rubbed her eyes. The interior of the motor home was swathed in inky blackness, and the cold air stole her breath.

As the noise escalated, Starr searched blindly for her flashlight. But when found and clicked it on, her frightened gaze met only continuing blackness. The batteries, already weak, had apparently given out. Starr tossed the worthless thing aside.

The pounding seemed to be coming from the area of one door. That could only mean the foreman had discovered them. At least, she assumed that was what it meant, since burglars didn’t, as a rule, knock.

For a few seconds the pounding stopped. Starr watched as a light beamed through a window and flashed around the cab. Using this trail of light, she made her way to the door. She opened it a crack, shivering in the frigid night air. A gust of wind jerked the door from her grasp and slammed it into the side.

“Hello?” she called uncertainly. Another gust of wind ripped her words away. Starr heard the shuffle of feet moving along the cement and strained to see who was approaching. Too soon she was forced to raise a hand to ward off a blinding light.

“What the hell?” a voice muttered. Starr froze at the familiar voice. Surely her ears were playing a cruel trick. God wouldn’t punish her like this. Fighting to calm her racing heart, she blinked, still trying to see the face behind the dazzling light.

Abruptly the beam lowered to her feet, and the pupils of Starr’s eyes constricted to counter the sudden plunge into nothingness. Again the light moved slowly up her body, and again she was sightless in its wake. Not, however, before she identified the man holding the annoying beam.

“You!” The one shocked word was all that tumbled from Starr’s blue-tinged lips.

Deep laughter skipped away on the frosty air, and the light bobbed.

“You look like a phosphorescent Easter Rabbit in that getup,” said Clay McLeod, making an unsuccessful attempt to stifle his laughter. “Somehow I would’ve thought Harrison’s tastes ran more to a different kind of nightwear.” Again he struggled to rein in his mirth.

“What are you doing here?” Starr demanded. She stared with envy at his denim, sheepskin-lined jacket. He could keep the dark Stetson he’d pulled low enough to hide his laughing eyes.

She tried to melt behind the door.

“Isn’t that my line?” he growled. “Unless something’s changed, this is where I live.”

“Clay? Clay?” A trilling voice pierced the black night. Starr glimpsed a pale blur hovering in what appeared to be an open door at the main house. “Did you find out who’s camped on our land?”

“I’ve got everything under control, Vanessa,” Clay shouted. “Get back in the house out of the cold before you catch your death.”

Jealousy ripped through Starr, unwarranted though it was. Damn him for worrying about his brother’s wife when he didn’t seem to have any qualms about keeping
her
standing in subzero weather.

But what did she care? If he let her stay the night, tomorrow she’d be gone—even if she had to find a place in Banning and drive that mountain every day, she vowed with a return of spirit.

She stepped back into the motor home, determined to get out of the cold. Clay, however, had other ideas. His wide shoulders blocked her attempt to close the door.

“Please...” she began tiredly. But he climbed in and held up his hand to silence her and flashed his light around the paneled walls.

“Good Lord, woman, it’s as cold as a well digger’s knees in here.”

“Really? I hardly noticed.” Her sarcasm was lost on him.

“You’re not in the city. Turn up the damned heat.” He stepped closer, enveloping her in a ring of light. “My God, your lips are blue and you’re shaking like a leaf.”

“I can’t turn up the heat,” she said defiantly. “I couldn’t figure out how to hook up the electricity.”

“Doesn’t this fancy rig have butane?”

It killed her to say, “No. The tanks are frozen closed.”

Clay grinned and touched her cheek. “Somehow I didn’t think that was your normal nightly attire. But what the hell was Harrison thinking, not to give you a key to the house? After all, he had no way of knowing I’d be here. I only decided today.”

Not thinking how it might sound, Starr blurted, “Did he even know you and Vanessa were still in San Francisco? I certainly didn’t tell him.”