His Holiday Heart (7 page)

“So close. For a minute there, I thought we were on the same page, Caleb.”

“Marriage isn’t so miserable.”

“Sure it is.” And if his dad was happy in his second marriage and if his brothers-in-law were always grinning, then he didn’t have to put that into the equation. “I’ll be at the bookstore. Swing by when your shift is done.”

“Working late?”

“Tomorrow’s a big shopping day. We open at seven.”

Caleb trudged through the snow to his cruiser parked on the other side of the street. Spence shook his head, sweeping the last of the ice flecks from the glass. He must really have been lost in thought not to notice his brother-in-law drive up. It just showed how much this thing with Lucy bothered him.

He waded around the side of the car, working on windows and wrestling down thoughts of her. Of how lovely she looked when she laughed, how nice she was to his family, how everyone loved her.

You don’t have that crush on her any longer. He took up the shovel and dug into the snow in front of the low-slung VW. Every strike of his shovel into the hardpacked snow was a reminder he was only fooling himself. He wouldn’t be out here frozen to the bone and so cold he could no longer feel half of his face for any other reason.

Maybe he
was
sweet on her, but he wasn’t going to let a woman like Lucy get anywhere close to him. He would not be lulled by the sadness he’d seen in her eyes or by the bite of his conscience.

Once he’d cleared a path in the snow, he tossed the shovel in the back of his truck and folded his big frame into her little front seat. He shut the door, and everything Lucy surrounded him—her sweetness, her sunshine, her memories. His chest tightened, but it wasn’t the feel of his heart longing.

No, it couldn’t be. He had grown too hard for that. A heart made of stone could not love. It was as simple as that. He put her car in gear and guided it out onto the street, closing down every thought of her. Every feeling.

It was the smart thing to do.

With her laptop on the coffee table plugged in to the Internet and the TV blaring the dialogue of a romantic comedy, she shoved the dessert plate away. That chocolate cream pie was heavenly, but her waistline was not going to thank her tomorrow.

She took a sip of tea and frowned at the screen. She had e-mail waiting from friends she had left behind in Portland. She knew every one of them was going to ask why she didn’t come visit for Thanksgiving.

She thought of Jim and his son, and it was like jumping off the edge of the earth. It was easier to be here, where there were no memories of happier times and of sadder ones. It was why she was putting off reading her e-mail.

“Rrowr.” Bean nosed in and stood awaiting attention.

“Oh, so now you’re talking to me.” Lucy obliged by running her fingers through the soft long hair. “I’m sorry I left you.”

The cat slitted her eyes and hopped away to the window seat. The blinds were drawn, but a sudden ray of light glanced between the slats. Strange. Nobody ventured down her driveway, especially in this weather. She would have dismissed it as the neighbor kid, whom she paid to plow her driveway, but he had already come and gone. She set her cup on the coffee table, uncurled her legs and crossed the room.

She lifted a slat and peered through the blinds. It was dark out and a truck’s headlights sliced through the inky blackness with eye-hurting brightness. A door slammed shut, drawing her attention toward the garage. She recognized the curved hump of her car, dark as the night, and a tall, broad-shouldered form hiking away from it.

Spence McKaslin. Her pulse skipped five beats. Shock drew all the air from her lungs. Rooted to the floor, she couldn’t move as he swung up into the passenger seat. For a moment, the overhead dome light haloed him. She could see the cut of his high cheekbones, blade-straight nose and the snow dusting his dark hair.

He really was a handsome man with classic rugged good looks combined with a masculine strength of character that gave him a hero quality. Her soul sighed against her will. She thought of what Dorrie had said, how he pushed women away on purpose. She was deeply sad that his ploy had worked.

She should let go of the blind slat and step away from the window, but some unknown force held her in place. It wasn’t curiosity. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but she watched as the passenger door swung shut. The dome light illuminated him as he reached for his seat belt, turning toward the house and toward her.

Their gazes met. Her blood pressure fell, pooling in her toes. She saw the bleakness in his blue eyes and in his heart. The passenger light blinked out, and he was gone from her sight.

She stepped away from the window, and the blind slat remained, stuck in place like a peephole. The truck turned around and lumbered off, the taillights brilliant pinpricks of diminishing light. They grew smaller and smaller until the night swallowed them, and she was alone again.

“I
need to talk to you.”

Spence snapped his briefcase shut and scowled at his sister standing in his office doorway. Danielle had been especially perky all morning long. While he was glad she was happy, he wasn’t sure he approved of happiness—or at least not when there was work to be done. The Christmas shopping season was in full swing, and they were busy.

“I have no time. You’ll have to talk with me on the way to the church,” he said and grabbed his winter coat. “If you need to hire more help, then handle it. I have a folder of applicants in my top left desk drawer.”

“Excellent. I have been hounding you for the last two weeks, you know.”

Yeah, he knew. He was tired of hearing it. She had worn him down. “We have a bottom line, don’t you forget it.”

“Impossible with you here to remind me, brother dear.” She smiled sweetly. Wearing Christmas colors of red and green, she was positively glowing. He had never seen her look better.

“I’m glad to see you’re happy again, Dani. It’s been a long haul for you and Jonas.”

“Our lives are almost back to normal. We’ll hear on his job situation late next week sometime.” Danielle was always going to be the eleven-year-old sister he remembered with light brown curls and a quiet smile, regardless of how the years passed. When Dad had married her mom, life had changed for the better in the McKaslin household. Of all his sisters, Danielle was the most sensible—not that he was sentimental or anything. To prove it, he scowled. She was blocking the doorway. “Just don’t go walking off the job and leaving me high and dry without a manager, you hear?”

Her hand landed on his wrist, stopping him from trying to shoulder around her. “I would never do that to you, Spence. You know that.”

He did. “Are you ready? You don’t have your coat.”

“I told you we need to talk before
you
go.”

“
We’re
going to be late to the meeting. The committee head has to attend. You have less than three weeks before Christmas.”

“There’s something I need to tell you.” Danielle looked apologetic.

Uh-oh. “You’re going to bail on the committee, aren’t you?”

“I’ve already spoken to my second-in-command, and she is going to sit in for me this morning. She has all the notes.”

“You can just stand there smiling like this is great news. Why are you bailing on me?”

“I need to take it easier these days.” She gazed up at him expectantly, and there was quiet joy on her face.

“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” He frowned harder. He loved being an uncle, so this was good news. But as the manager of the bookstore, he was losing yet another assistant manager to motherhood. “Who am I going to get to replace you? I’ve run out of sisters. Not that a one of you is useful, getting married and leaving me with a store to run and no one to help.”

Tears sparkled in Danielle’s eyes as she went up on tiptoe, understanding perfectly what he could not say. What he could never say. His chest felt battered by a hurricane, but he made sure he couldn’t feel a single lick of emotion.

“I love you too, Spence.” She kissed his cheek, squeezed his wrist and walked away.

Sisters. He swallowed hard and closed the door behind him. He didn’t know what he was going to do without them. They were all married, becoming mothers; they didn’t need him anymore. He was in an especially fierce mood as he headed around the front counter and across the floor, briefcase in hand.

He had nothing but more problems. Before it was employee staffing deficits, and now he had to find someone to fill in her place at the committee. With any luck, whoever was second-in-command could step up and fill Danielle’s shoes. He certainly wouldn’t do it. He was strictly managerial.

He pushed through the door and into the bitter wind. The snow had hung around, but the sun was beating down with blinding brightness. An apple-green Beetle crept through the parking lot. He froze, panicked. Lucy.

Mercifully the car kept on going. He got a glimpse of the driver as it passed by—a brunette. It wasn’t Lucy. There was a MSU bumper sticker, so he knew it wasn’t even her car. He was safe. Whew. His knees were watery as he walked to his truck and unlocked it. There was no sense trying to purge her from his thoughts. He had been trying since Thanksgiving, but it was impossible.

He climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. All he could think about and all he could see was Lucy standing at her window, peering at him between the blind slats. Her big, soulful green eyes had watched him with a look he could not name, but it was one his heart felt.

One his heart
still
felt. All his defenses were like ice cracking away. He didn’t know why he hurt so much. Maybe it was from a lifetime of not letting himself feel a thing. Perhaps, too, it was something more. It was that he wished things could be different. He wished he could take back what he had said to her. He wished he could have held her hand a little longer.

It was a good thing none of his family knew that little tidbit. He wheeled out of the parking lot, turning his thoughts to Danielle—good for her. She and Jonas had wanted another child. Katherine was due in a few weeks. The twins were both due in the spring. Life was changing for the better. So why did he feel stuck in place? Left out?

It made no sense. He didn’t want to get married—end of story. He could never trust a woman that much.

The minute he pulled into the Gray Stone Church’s parking lot, Spence knew something was wrong. But what? He whipped into a parking space by the church’s annex door and grabbed his briefcase. The feeling that something was wrong remained as he launched out of the truck and into the airy snowfall.

The minute his boots hit the powdery snow, he knew what it was. He was staring directly at the passenger door of an apple-green VW bug. He knew that car. He had driven that car. There were books all over the front passenger floor.

Lucy. His heart gave one final beat. Dread filled him like water in a barrel. His feet carried him over the curb and onto the sidewalk, but he wasn’t aware of it. He was too busy thinking of all the reasons why she might be at the church on a Wednesday morning because there was no way she would be at the meeting—none at all. She had never been at a meeting before. Suddenly he was at the door without remembering how he got there.

Lucy. He could see her through the window in the door. Dressed in a sort of white fuzzy sweater and black jeans and fashionable black boots, she looked as if she could have stepped right off the page of an elegant magazine. Casually styled hair fell in artful curls around her heart-shaped face and her emerald eyes were warmer than any jewel, deeper than any he’d ever seen before.

Why exactly was he noticing? The toe of his right boot caught on the lip of the doorway. He stumbled into the room. Typical. Lucy scrambled his system as effectively as crossed wires. His ears were buzzing. His head was in a fog. What was a man to do about that? He had a meeting to attend. He had to pull himself together.

“Spence?”

Suddenly she was saying his name. Whoever she had been speaking with had gone into the conference room. They were alone in the hallway with his words from Thanksgiving afternoon echoing between them—with the memory of her hand in his and her unshed tears.

“This is going to be awkward.” She didn’t look at him.

He tried to concentrate, but it was impossible with all the static in his head and the sharp bite of his conscience. She really didn’t like him now. He could see it on her face. Once, he would have cheered about it. Now he felt small. He didn’t like it one bit. “What’s going to be awkward?”

“Didn’t Danielle tell you?” She looked down at the floor between them. She was little, for all her bubbling energy and life. She was slim and small boned, and when she was quiet he saw a depth in her that drew him a step closer. That made him want to know her better.

“I’ll probably be taking Dani’s place as the chair.”

“What?” The word came out like a thunder clap. He ground his teeth. That sister of his. She set him up. “I’m going to have to disown Danielle from the family.”

“Something tells me that’s just bluster. Danielle cares about you. Why?
That’s
the real question.” Her chin went up, and there was a challenge in her eyes but no malice in her words.

It was almost as if she were blustering, too. All right; he deserved that. He could be a good sport. “I’ve been asking that question for years. Dani won’t stop liking me no matter what I do.”

“She has your number, Spence McKaslin.” She almost smiled. It hovered in the corners of her rosebud mouth and in the gentleness of her voice.

His eyes smarted. He knew in that moment she had forgiven him for what he had said. Gratitude gathered in his throat, and he didn’t try to speak. She had a generous heart, and he was indebted to her for it. He was a hard man to forgive. No one outside of his family had ever managed it.

He wanted to thank her, but he didn’t know how. It would probably make him look like a pansy if he did, so he held his ground and his frown, although he instinctively knew that didn’t fool her either.

“Thank you for delivering my car. That was a lot of trouble for you to go to.”

“It wasn’t so much.” He shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable. “I didn’t want your car blocking the entrance to the parking lot.”

“Sure, I understand.” As her car had been nowhere near to blocking the entrance, she got what he was trying not to say. He had called a truce, and that worked for her. “The children’s wing of the hospital is very important to me. I was behind the scenes in last year’s Project Santa.”

“I see. You’ve been helping Danielle?”

“Yes.” At least she wouldn’t have to have too much contact with him. He would probably be overseeing the budget and the project’s progress and nothing more. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but she would have to be an insensitive clod not to have seen the apology and remorse on Spence’s face when he’d walked into the church hall. He also had to have done a powerful amount of snow shoveling to free her car. That, in her book, was the sign of sincerity. “I have all the information I was compiling for Danielle. Including the funds request.”

“That’s a relief. Thank you, Lucy.”

“Let me assure you, we won’t have to cross paths often. I have everything ready to go.”

“Good.” The tension eased from his shoulders. “This won’t be the kind of crisis I was fearing.”

“Do you always fear crisis?”

“Don’t you?” He appeared dead serious, standing as tall and as immovable as a mountain.

“Not always. Sometimes it is God’s way of pointing us in the right direction.” She might not have any clue what her own personal direction was, but God was at the helm so she wasn’t too worried. What she did worry about was if Spence was going to let her stay on the project. “You aren’t going to ask me to step down, are you?”

“Never crossed my mind.” He was pure sincerity.

This man was more and more a puzzle, one she could not afford to start liking again. This was a man who was hurting and had hurt her out of his own pain. She did not need that kind of man in her life. “Again, this project is important to me.”

“How long have you volunteered?” he said that as if she had just announced she was a former citizen of Mars.

“For a long time. I believe in living a purposeful life and helping others.”

“So do I.” A small smile softened his granite face.

He really is a handsome man, she thought, unable to help herself. She didn’t want to like Spence, but she did understand him. “I think they’ve started the meeting without us.”

“Oh.” He looked around, the movement scattering thick locks of his dark hair. He moved past her like a man of steel, in control. His voice sounded like iron. “Follow me.”

The order boomed down the hallway, and she resisted the urge to give him a sound retort, but she bit her bottom lip to keep it in. The project was more important. If only she wasn’t so confused and frustrated, she might be able to figure out the best way to handle this man. She wanted a truce with him. A part of her saw how he was hurting and understood it too well. She battled the same feelings once. Bleakness and sorrow had nearly taken all the good from her life.

She forced her feet down the hall and followed Spence into the conference room.

I believe in living a purposeful life and helping others.
Lucy’s words were tormenting him, rolling around in his head. Spence leaned back in the chair, unable to force his gaze from the woman across the conference table. Light spilled onto her blond hair like liquid gold, framing her heart-shaped face and big, caring eyes.

You do not like her, Spence. He was resolute. You cannot like her no matter what.

“Spence?” Pastor Mark was looking at him expectantly.

They all were. Spence scanned the familiar faces around the table and gulped. How had he let his mind wander away from business at hand? He was not that kind of man. He was not prone to mental wandering of any kind. He did not approve of daydreaming.

“Spence, is this all right with you?” The pastor was still waiting for an answer.

To what? He didn’t have a clue. He looked around the big table, hoping to glean some sort of hint as to what he was agreeing to, but nothing. There were just expectant faces smiling at him, pleased with something. He wasn’t about to admit he hadn’t been paying attention. He didn’t approve of people who didn’t pay attention.

“Ah, sure,” he finally said, annoyed at himself. He wasn’t about to let anyone else know he’d drifted off. “It’s fine.”

“Wonderful. That’s just what I’ve been hoping for.” Pastor Mark smiled warmly, and the rest of the table nodded and murmured in approval. “You’re an excellent leader, Spence, and no one can manage better than you. But I think a hands-on approach, pushing up your sleeves and working with the people we are helping is just what you and the program need.”

What? He blinked. Hands-on approach? Pushing up his sleeves? Working with people? What had he agreed to? At the edge of his vision, Lucy pressed the heels of her slender hands to her forehead, her blond hair scattering around her shoulders like sunlight, looking as lovely as a hymn
and
looking as if she had just received some very bad news.