Christmas, Actually. Anna J. Stewart
men and hit the street. Let Jack explain her exit. All the better if he couldn’t.
Something about those toys had pushed her over the edge. She felt betrayed again, as if she still loved him. It wasn’t going to be enough, telling him his name would be on the birth certificate.
She’d thought she’d known Jack Banning, but that man had been a lie. A soldier who lived by the code of “Leave no man behind,” a doctor who cared more for his patients than himself, a man who didn’t know how to be dishonorable.
Sophie didn’t need his infuriating promise of financial support. She’d take care of her daughter, with love and everything else her child might need. But she might lose her mind if she couldn’t understand what had turned Jack into a stranger no sane woman could love.
JACK STARED AFTER her, his only thought that she shouldn’t be walking on icy streets.
“You know the lady well?” Gary Cook asked.
“We’ve met.”
Sophie had him pegged. Except for one thing—she didn’t know that every time he touched one of those boxes, he heard the echoes of a child’s cry.
He opened the door and went after her. “Sophie.”
She didn’t stop. She didn’t look back. He’d tried to make her see her best choice was to stay away from him. Now that he’d succeeded, he couldn’t let her hurry through icy streets while she was so angry she might forget she was working with a different center of gravity.
“Sophie, let me give you a ride.”
“No, thanks.” She pulled a kind of beanie from her purse and tugged it onto her head.
He caught up with her. “You should be more careful. At least walk on the other side of the street, where the ice has had time to melt.”
She turned. Her anger hit him like a burst of heat, full in the face. She crossed the street, but she wasn’t trying to be safer. She just didn’t want to be near him.
Jack stopped abruptly. He’d succeeded at last. Since the night they’d discovered she was pregnant, he’d had one goal. Make Sophie happy to stay away from him. Make her forget him.
When he’d seen her after the accident, concern had surprised him. Fear had ripped through him, when he’d thought he’d turned off his emotions.
But now he’d made sure she knew nothing had changed. He hadn’t changed.
A car honked, and he discovered he’d stepped into the street. Jack waved at an angry Santa behind the wheel of a vintage VW van, and hurried to catch up with Sophie.
Santa ground his gears and honked again as he passed them. Sophie looked up, as startled to see Jack as she was to be harassed by Santa’s clown horn.
“What do you want?” She tugged at her mittens. “Need these, too? Maybe you don’t feel I should dress warmly, but you can hand out my clothing to your Christmas Town neighbors. I hope they’re not all hypocrites like you.”
“Hardly any of them,” he said. “Except Santa. Will you slow down?”
“I’m cold.”
“You’re pregnant. You might fall.”
She turned her face to his, rage sparkling like ice in her eyes.
Jack held up both hands. “Given the current...situation, the last thing I want to do is take toys to children, but it’s tradition. I can either do it or invite my brother and sister to diagnose me like you’re trying to.”
“That does make me feel like one of the community.” Sophie edged away from him. “I didn’t ask for your company, and I don’t want your help. Go back to putting on a show for the people here—they obviously don’t know the real you.”
“You don’t know me, either,” he said.
“Which works out for both of us, since you want to be alone.” Without another word, she whirled into a store and turned back to close the door in his face.
Sophie was wrong. When he was alone, memories crowded in, sharp-edged, growing ever more dangerous.
* * *
“ARE YOU SURE you’ll make it home for Christmas?” Marisa Palmer asked. Her concern was the first real warmth Sophie had enjoyed all day.
“I’m positive, Mom. There wasn’t that much damage.”
“But you’re sure you and the baby are all right?”
“Absolutely no sign of a problem.”
“You could always ask Jack to drive you home. A few hours in the confines of a car, and you might be able to extract the truth from him.”
“He’ll never explain,” Sophie said, “and I’ve spent too much time trying to understand. Maybe he was just the wrong guy for me, but I’m starting to think he’s definitely the wrong father for my baby.”
“I don’t want to believe that’s true,” her mother said. “He’s been a good man, but something’s happened. Well, keep me updated on when you plan to return, and drive carefully in the snow, okay? We don’t want another accident.”
“Uh-huh.” Sophie stood as a clatter and loud swearing outside dragged her to the window. A man was dusting himself off as someone else righted a fallen ladder. Bystanders were checking on another man, who seemed to be wearing one of the metal-framed Christmas stars that were going up on light poles all over town.
“Everything’s going to be all right. I raised you on my own. You never felt you were missing a father.”
The truth quivered on the tip of Sophie’s tongue, but she held it in. Her mom couldn’t change anything now, and admitting she’d felt abandoned—how much she’d envied her friends who’d casually talked about their dads—wouldn’t help anyone. “I’ll have you, too, Mom. We’re all going to be fine.”
“The three musketeers,” Marisa said, relief in her tone. “Don’t forget your seat belt. I have some research I need to do, honey. I’ll talk to you later. Or tomorrow.”
Her mother was head of the psychology department at Gaudy University, one of Harvard’s sister schools. In Sophie’s elementary school days, her mom had always been working and didn’t have time to join the class trips or show up bearing baskets of cupcakes. But she’d tried to make Sophie understand she could count on herself. She’d reminded Sophie she was loved.
And she would always find time for Sophie’s daughter. Better to be one of a group of musketeers than a lone ranger.
Sophie turned back to the dressing table and tucked her new cell phone and her electronic reader into her purse. She wanted to check on Tessie Blaylock.
* * *
SINCE JACK HAD arrived at the hospital, he’d performed one surgery on a collapsed lung and another to relieve pressure from a subarachnoid hematoma. After consulting with the physicians who’d be taking over his cases when they reached the treatment floors, Jack showered and started his rounds.
He was eager to check on Tessie. She’d be going home the next day, as long as her blood work improved.
Outside her room, Jack heard a familiar voice—light, sweet, melodic. A voice that refused to vacate his mind.
Sophie was asking Tessie a question, and the young woman responded.
“I think I remember you,” Tessie said. “You’re the lady I ran into. You’re a nurse.”
“I should have introduced myself when I came in. I’m Sophie Palmer.” She sounded different. More certain.
“My parents tell me