Sweet Christmas Kisses (147 page)

Okay, maybe Michael understood Noelle’s desire to get out of town. There were only so many condolences a person could take before they collapsed under the weight of them. Hadn’t he done much the same thing, only in reverse? Not for the first time, he cursed his brother for taking the coward’s way out and putting Noelle in such a position.

Of course, he couldn’t forget his own role in his brother’s botched wedding. The advice he’d given Doug the night before had set up a disastrous chain reaction. Michael had still been nursing bruises from his divorce and hadn’t realized his brother would take his bitter words so…
literally
.

There was no going back, however. Didn’t look like Doug would be returning to Covington Falls anytime soon, either. Not as long as half the town still regarded the one-time golden boy as Public Enemy Number One.

Doug had left a fracture in their family, as well as Noelle’s, and Michael had a feeling they’d all need a Christmas miracle in order for healing to ever be possible.

Noelle scowled down at the piecrust she was attempting to roll out on the counter. The blob of dough resembled a misshapen snowman rather than a circle. No matter how many times her mother had tried to teach her, she’d never been able to master crust. 

“Auntie Noelle, you’re gonna miss me being a sheep in the Christmas pageant.”

Holding back a sigh, Noelle lifted her gaze from the unfortunate pastry and regarded her five-year-old niece. Ivy’s cupid’s-bow lips were turned down in the most pitiful pout Noelle had ever seen.

“A sheep?” Noelle asked.

“Yeah, and if you go ‘way to Atlanta, you’ll miss it! I get to say
baa
and everything.”

A fierce glare revealed her older sister was chopping celery with a studied diligence Noelle didn’t trust for a moment. There were plenty of people who wouldn’t guess they were related. Holly was the quintessential cover girl, with her shoulder-length fall of golden blond hair and green eyes. Noelle was more of a watered down version with dark blond hair and hazel eyes that tended to change from blue to green to brown according to her moods.

“Really?” Noelle said to her seemingly ignorant sister. “You’re resorting to guilt-o-grams now?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Holly said on an outraged gasp. She placed a hand over her extended stomach. “I swear on the life of my unborn fourth child.”

“It’s a mortal sin to lie on Thanksgiving,” Noelle said, stabbing the air with her rolling pin.

“Says who?” Holly asked, rolling her eyes.

“
The Bible
says so.”

“It does not.”

“Does too.”

“Girls, for heaven’s sake, stop bickering,” their mother said from the sink, though she didn’t bother to look up from the potatoes she was peeling. “You’d think you were both still children.”

“She started it,” Noelle complained.

Holly forgot about chopping vegetables. “Can I help it if you’ve broken your niece’s heart by deciding to move hundreds of miles away from your family right before Christmas?”

“Holly, stop teasing your sister,” their mother said. “Noelle has the right to choose her own path, even if we don’t agree with it.”

Well, at least Holly came by her manipulative streak honestly. “Thanks for the support, Mom.” Noelle dropped the rolling pin on the counter. “I’ll leave the crust to you. You’re better at it anyway. Let me know when it’s time to put the rolls in.”

Finally, Rose Robinson turned from the sink. “Honey…”

“I’ll go set the table.”

Noelle blew out a sharp breath as she escaped to the dining room. She’d known her decision to leave wouldn’t go over well, but the guilt trips were wearing on her nerves. They’d started the moment she’d announced she was moving. No one had believed her, until she’d found a job at a law firm in Atlanta through an old college friend.

Since then, they’d all tried to talk her out of it in various ways. Her mother had cried. Holly had threatened to hunt down Doug Campbell and choke the life out of him. Her grandmother had started sending daily emails highlighting the most violent crimes in Atlanta; whoever had taught Mimi Robinson how to surf the web should be shot. Holly’s father had remained silent, which was somehow worse than scary crime reports about armed robberies and carjackings.

No word from her twin brother, either. Not too surprising since Nicky was fighting in Afghanistan. She figured her move didn’t rank high on his list of things to stress over at the moment. Still, Noelle had blocked out the dissenting voices and continued her march toward a new life.

If only Thanksgiving was over. She only had to endure a few more hours of torture and then she’d be free. Free from the memories. Free from images of Doug’s carefree smile. Free from the fantasies of little golden-haired children with his blue eyes and her nose.

With a shake of her head, Noelle went to the display cabinet and took out the china set that had once belonged to her maternal grandmother. The set that would have been hers had Noelle actually gotten married, and that she might even now be using to set her own table.

“Stop it,” she mumbled to herself as she tried to keep from slamming the precious dishes to the ground. “No more wallowing.”

“They say talking to yourself is a sign of an unstable mind.”

The delicate dishes almost did tumble to the floor as Noelle jumped. Her sister’s husband leaned against the archway, a grin on his handsome face.

Noelle went back to setting the table. “Taken some psychology courses, have you?”

“Not lately,” Drew said. “I don’t blame you for taking out your frustration on the plates, though. The Robinson family sure does know how to twist the screws.”

“No kidding. You going to stand there or do you want to help with the table?”

“Actually, I came to tell you Mike Campbell is here. He’s out on the porch.”

She glanced out the front window in surprise. “Why didn’t you invite him in?”

“Maybe he thought anyone with the last name Campbell should steer clear of Casa Robinson, especially now,” Drew said, with his usual sardonic good humor.

“Seriously? Have we turned into the Hatfields and McCoys all of the sudden?”

Noelle left her brother-in-law to finish the table and hurried to the front porch. Michael Campbell turned from his contemplation of the fern planter at the top of the porch steps. Doug and his brother were almost like a picture negative. One light, the other dark. Doug tended toward the feminine in looks, with his smooth features, golden hair, and crystal-blue eyes. There was nothing the least bit feminine about Michael. Except for the matching blue eyes, the brothers looked nothing alike. Michael was all dark angles and hard muscle. Chiseled. Brooding. Like some kind of medieval warrior set to plunder an unfortunate village.

And where had such fanciful notions about Michael come from?

The Robinsons and the Campbells had lived across the street from one another since before Holly was born, but she and Michael hadn’t hung out much. There was enough of an age gap between them that they hadn’t crossed paths too often. When she and Doug started dating, Michael had still been living in Washington, D.C., with his wife. But after her botched wedding they’d forged a strange kind of friendship that even Noelle couldn’t explain.

Right now her friend looked ready to go on a rampage.

“No one should look that fierce on Thanksgiving,” Noelle said, hoping to head off the
Charge!
reflected in his eyes.

Michael didn’t take the bait. “Were you even going to tell me you were leaving?”

“You were gone on one of your fishing trips.”

“For three days.”

“The idea’s been percolating for a while I think. It just crystallized all the sudden.”

He leaned back against the railing. “So, you are running away.”

“No, I’m trying to make a new life,” she said, unleashing a year-and-a half’s worth of disappointment and heartbreak plus a week’s worth of guilty conscience. “Why won’t anyone see that I can’t go on like this? Every day, I have to drive by the house Doug and I bought on my way to work. I can’t go to the falls because that’s where Doug proposed. Our first date was at Devon’s restaurant. I still can’t go in there. Do you know what that’s like? Seeing memories of Doug everywhere I look?”

“Yeah, I do.”

His answer was quiet, melancholy almost. Of course Michael probably did understand. Hadn’t he fled to Covington Falls after his marriage ended?

“You ran,” Noelle said.

His brows drew together. “What?”

“You left D.C. and came home. Wasn’t that to get away from memories of Felicia?”

“I wanted to get back to what I loved,” he said, eyes darkening. “My life in D.C. was making me miserable. Felicia was the final nail in the coffin. Nice trick, though, turning the argument onto me.”

Noelle stuffed down another dose of guilt over using Michael’s personal loss to deflect more questions. She knew the subject of his ex-wife was guaranteed to make him clam up. He didn’t talk about Felicia or his marriage. Ever.

“Look, maybe I am running away,” Noelle said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to heal here. I have to take a positive step, and if it means making a completely new life, that’s what I’ll do. Having everyone sympathize and pat me on the head all the time only makes it worse. I’m exhausted and miserable. Please say you understand.”

“I do.”

His choice of words caught her in the solar plexus, and she flinched. “You know, for the first couple months I kept hoping Doug would come back. I dreamed about it. He’d stride into town and tell me what a horrible mistake he’d made. Beg me to take him back.”

“You would have done it?”

“I don’t know.”

The front door flew open, and her father appeared. Both she and Michael stood bolt upright. Michael waited, rigid with expectation, and Noelle swallowed unease at being caught talking to her almost brother-in-law. Not that she’d done anything wrong.

“Michael,” her father said, his expression revealing little of his feelings about finding a Campbell on his doorstep.

He nodded. “Sir.”

“Nice of you to drop by. How’s your family?”

“They’re fine.”

“Do you want to come in? You don’t have to lurk on the porch, you know.”

The prospect of facing a room full of Robinsons must have scared him to death, because Michael’s tanned face turned ashen. “No, no. That’s all right. My parents and I are heading to my aunt’s in Augusta. I just wanted to talk to Noelle.”

“I see. Were you any more successful in talking her out of moving than the rest of us?”

“No,” Michael said after a brief, panicked glance in her direction. “Noelle is an adult. If she feels like it’s time to make a change, that’s up to her.”

If her father hadn’t been standing there, Noelle might have kissed her Michael. Finally, someone understood.

“That’s what I’ve been telling her mother,” Nicholas Robinson said.

Noelle’s mouth fell open. Long enough that Michael reached over and shut it for her.

“Dad?” she said.

Her dad gave a little grin, but his eyes were shadowed by resignation. “That’s what mothers do, sweetheart. They want to hold on to their children, no matter how they old are. Parents never outgrow the need to protect their babies, even when they’re supposed to be able to protect themselves. Someday you’ll have children of your own, and then you’ll understand.”

“I do understand, but I just can’t—” Noelle’s voice broke as tears threatened to overwhelm her.

Her father wrapped his arms around her. “No crying now. If your mother sees those, she’ll never let you go.”

“Thank you, Daddy,” Noelle said, kissing his cheek.

He muttered something that sounded like
“stupid idiot”
before addressing Michael again. “You have a good Thanksgiving, son. Say hello to your parents for me.”

“Sure,” Michael said, clearly understanding he’d been dismissed. He sent Noelle a narrow-eyed glare. “You’ll say goodbye before you leave?”

“Skipping town without saying goodbye is a
Campbell
family trait,” her father responded in a dry, and, yes, still-bitter tone.

Noelle sent a glare in his direction before turning to Michael again. “I’ll see you.”

“Come on back inside, Noelle,” her father said. “Your mother actually sent me to look for you. She needs your help snapping the green beans.”

“Or did she send you to check up on me?”

“A little of both,” he admitted with a wink. Then he grimaced and rubbed his chest.

“You all right, Dad?”

“Yeah sure,” he said, forcing a smile. “Indigestion, I think.”

Noelle followed her father back into the house. Her personal drama took a back seat to intense food preparation over the next few hours. Casa Robinson was ground zero for Thanksgiving. Holly and Drew and their progeny, Drew’s parents, Aunt Vi and Uncle Irving, as well as cousins, Millie and Eddie, and their spouses were all gathering for a late lunch. At least preparing a major meal for a hungry horde took some of the heat off Noelle.

Extra extensions had to be placed in the antique table, which had also belonged to her maternal grandmother.

“So how has your big news gone over with the family?” Millie asked as she brought her plate to the table and sat down.

“About as well as you might expect,” Noelle said. “Lots of hand wringing and gnashing of teeth. I think Mimi Robinson must have a direct connection to the Atlanta police scanner because I know about every violent and plain bizarre crime in the metro area. Did you know there’s a serial underwear burglar in Buford?”

Gurgled laughter escaped. “A what?”

“I’m serious. Apparently someone has been breaking into houses and stealing women’s underwear out of the dryers.”

“How does he know they’re doing laundry?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was casing the homes.” Noelle shrugged. “Seriously though, it’s been pretty grim.”

“You knew leaving wouldn’t be easy. You are the baby of the family, and you’ve been through a traumatic experience.”

“I got left at the altar,” Noelle said with exasperation. “It’s not like I’m facing daily bomb threats or seeing my friends get killed in front of my eyes. Not like Nicky. I’m just the sap who trusted the wrong guy… and girl.”