A Family for Christmas Read online

  “Because I couldn’t trust him anymore. Not like he’d be unfaithful to me. Or even lied to me. He never did either. But because I couldn’t trust who he was. Because none of it was predictable. It didn’t make sense. Because I never knew what would make him jealous. Or why he got jealous. Or even when. He didn’t always go off on me right away. It might be a week later...maybe I set a bottle of something down on the table and for whatever reason he knocks it off, or someone else does, and he explodes on me for setting it down.”

  It was as though a bolt of lightning shot through the dimly lit room. She’d just told him why she’d reacted as she had the night before. Or how her fear had been so instinctively, instantly, automatically born.

  “Sounds like walking on eggshells,” he said, feeling inane.

  She nodded. “Yes. All day. Every day. You could be going along, feeling good, and suddenly the monster comes out of the closet and lashes into you...”

  Her face shadowed then. In a way that cut him clear through.

  “I’m sorry.” She stood, leaving her glass on the table. “I’m taking up too much of your evening.”

  It was almost as though he’d known her retreat was coming. He didn’t stand. Didn’t do anything to stop her—in spite of the instincts that were pushing him to go to her.

  “I’m fine, Cara. Stay if you wish.”

  She shook her head. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to use the restroom and then go to bed.”

  She’d already done his drops. Was no longer taking any pills.

  “Of course I don’t mind,” he assured her.

  But he did.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Santa Raquel, California

  DARKNESS HAD FALLEN, dinnertime had come and gone, and Lila hadn’t noticed. In a brown pantsuit, coming from a bungalow in the middle of the second cul-de-sac along the winding flowered walkway that ran through the grounds of The Lemonade Stand, she was thinking about the nineteen-year-old woman whose boyfriend had brought her to them because he’d suspected that her father was abusing her.

  He’d been right—though not as he’d thought. Harold Abernathy hadn’t been having sex with his daughter, he’d been punishing her for her sexuality. Binding her breasts. Putting a locked belt over her genitals. And whipping her every time he suspected she’d talked to a boy. Taking in the low-voltage lighting along the path, the spotlights on the flower beds, Lila thanked God for loving boyfriends.

  “Lila, there you are.” Molly Wilmington, one of the women in Joy Amos’s bungalow, came up the walk. She was in a sweater and housedress, and her arms were wrapped around her middle. “We called Sara and she thought I should contact you, but we haven’t been able to find you...”

  Switching mental gears, Lila smiled at the woman. “I’m here now, Molly, what do you need?”

  “It’s Dr. Mantle, ma’am. He was upset when he left, and we thought Sara should know. She was going to call him. I’m not sure if she got through or not. I’ve been busy looking for you. She thought you might like to be told...”

  The woman, a widow in her sixties who’d been abused by a nephew she’d taken in, was going to be leaving them soon. The nephew was in jail and she had family in Arizona who desperately wanted her and had already found a condominium for her to purchase. She’d finish her counseling there.

  She didn’t need the tension that filled Lila at the mention of Edward’s name.

  “Do you know why he was upset?” she asked, carefully schooling her voice as they stood in the fifty-degree air.

  Molly nodded. “I was sitting right there,” she said. “You know Joy’s been spending nights with him at his nephew’s house.”

  Of course she knew. Three nights, to be exact. With Julie and Hunter in the background. Sleeping over, saying good-night, but not spending any time with the little girl at all. All three nights had been successful. Edward would be going it solo soon.

  And then he and Joy would most likely be heading to Florida.

  Just like Molly’s imminent move to Phoenix.

  Residents moved on. It was a requirement. They were interim family at the Stand. Which was the only kind of family Lila could be to anyone.

  “He asked her if she wanted to go home with him tonight. She said yes, and when he held out his hand to her, she even took it. I thought he was going to cry. It was just...so wonderful.”

  The older woman’s eyes filled with tears. Lila might have joined in the moment if not for the fact that she needed to know why Edward had been upset.

  “It just takes time,” she said, instead of asking the question she wanted to ask. “It just takes time.”

  Molly nodded. Sniffed. Nodded again. Their residents were emotionally fragile. Every one of them, in one way or another. She honored that. Gave Molly the understanding she needed. A warm smile. And patience.

  “Anyway, Joy asked him if Julie could read her her bedtime story. Edward told her that Hunter and Julie weren’t going to be there tonight, and Joy pulled her hand out of his and said that she didn’t want to go. When she asked him if she had to, he said no. Of course not. But he left right afterward. He seemed...different. You know...like...not emotional at all, or something...”

  Nodding one more time, Lila thanked the woman.

  “I just, if you don’t mind me saying, I see the way you look at him and...it’s just...you know, being older, it doesn’t take away our feelings. Our desire to be loved. Or to have someone to share the ups and downs of our days.”

  It took Lila a second to realize that Molly was trying to counsel her.

  “I know we aren’t friends,” Molly continued. “I just want you to know that if you ever need one, you’ll have my number in Arizona. You do so much for everyone here. You’ve given me my life back. Given me hope for a new and better future. I’ll never forget that. Or be able to repay you for the kindness you, in particular, have shown me.”

  In a completely uncharacteristic move, Lila reached forward and hugged the woman.

  For a second there, she’d been tempted, honestly tempted, to admit that she did need a friend.

  The second passed and Lila was already on her cell phone, calling Sara by the time Molly had made it back to the door of her bungalow.

  * * *

  “MAY I SIT DOWN?” It took everything Lila had to keep the relief out of her voice. And the tremor of emotion, too. The fact that Edward hadn’t been answering his phone, that he had several people looking for him, worried about him, wasn’t on him.

  He hadn’t asked The Lemonade Stand to take him on. He’d only asked for help for Joy.

  He didn’t glance her way. Didn’t even seem surprised that she was standing next to his barstool in the upscale hotel where he’d been living.

  He stood and she feared that he was going to walk out on her. Wanted to be able to compel him to stop. But knew she couldn’t.

  She had no hold over him.

  “There’s a booth,” he said, pointing to a high, padded-leather seating area by windows that faced the ocean.

  Behind the booth was a natural rock fountain, several feet long with live greenery throughout.

  Edward had invited her out many times since they’d met over these many weeks that his granddaughter had been with them. They’d been on outings with Joy and Hunter and Julie, but she’d never been alone with him anywhere but at the Stand.

  She watched the ease with which he lowered his tall, manly body into the booth. Noticed, of all things, the wrinkles on the back of his suit coat. Gray. To go with his silver, white and gray-striped tie.

  Edward was always impeccably put together. Probably more so than necessary. What did it say about her that she really liked that about him?

  Resisting the urge to check the pins in her bun, she slid in across from him. It didn’t matter that the l
ight makeup she wore had long since faded away. Or that her chin was starting to show a hint of wrinkles—one on each side. She was there as a professional.

  At the very most, as a friend.

  Not as a woman.

  He ordered a scotch on the rocks. She wanted a daiquiri—strawberry banana—but asked for a beer. Not a time to look feminine. And she was driving.

  When they discovered that neither of them had had dinner, they ordered a couple of appetizers to share. They both named their top two choices and found them to be the same—bruschetta and stuffed mushrooms. She was not going to make anything of that.

  And wasn’t going to consider why she’d chosen to struggle to read the menu rather than wear glasses that made her feel old.

  “You haven’t been answering your phone,” she said as soon as they were alone, afraid, when she heard herself, that she sounded accusatory. “I say that only as an explanation for why I’m here,” she hurriedly added. “I tried to reach you several times.”

  His head shot up then. “It didn’t... I should have thought right away... But you wouldn’t have sat down and ordered if... Joy... Nothing has happened, has it?”

  The unusual stuttering, along with the stark fear in his gaze, confirmed what she already knew. Edward’s emotions, while not much on the surface, ran deep.

  Reaching out a hand to cover his, she assured him, “She’s fine.” When he turned his hand over to take her fingers in his, she realized what she’d done. Pulled back.

  “Sara was concerned with the way you left,” she told him, deliberately bringing in the counselor’s name. “When she couldn’t reach you, she called me.”

  Lila had called Hunter, too. And Julie. Before she remembered that they were in LA at a theater event that evening—and spending the night. Edward had purposely chosen that evening for a solo run with Joy. At Hunter’s house instead of Edward’s hotel.

  Maybe she’d overreacted, coming here...

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he told her, meeting her gaze. He looked tired. The all-the-way-to-the-bone kind. It had to be getting to him—his only child still missing. His granddaughter’s rejection. Being away from the medical practice that gave him purpose.

  She didn’t know how she’d make it one week without The Lemonade Stand.

  Their drinks arrived and she took a sip of beer. She didn’t drink often, and beer almost never. But that night it tasted good.

  “I’m not getting it right, Lila.”

  “Getting what right?”

  With one hand on his highball glass, he gestured with the other. “The whole parenting thing.”

  “You just need to give it time. Things take time.” Seemed like it had been years since she’d gone a day without repeating the phrase.

  “What time? Joy’s been with you almost two months. It’s not healthy for a little girl to be living like that. She needs family. A home. Normal school with regular kids...”

  He stopped, shook his head. “Not to say that the schooling there isn’t great or that the kids are abnormal, but the situation... The security to protect victims from abusers, the counseling... Kids shouldn’t have to be faced with that every day.”

  “It’s okay, Edward.” Lila smiled. “I knew what you meant. And I agree completely. State-run facilities are only allowed to keep residents six weeks,” she told him. “With good reason. Because we’re privately funded, we have more leeway, but we don’t want any of our residents to make a home at the shelter. We’re just there to help them recover, get back on their feet, start anew...”

  “It’s time to get her out of there and she doesn’t even want to spend the night alone with me.”

  “She held your hand today, Edward!”

  Lila remembered several weeks back when Edward had celebrated for two days because his granddaughter had looked at him.

  He looked over at her, emotion shining, and then shook his head. “I can’t tell you how that shook my heart, feeling that little hand slide trustingly in mine. It was like I was thirty-two again and my Cara was back, trusting me to keep her world safe and secure. ‘Come on, Daddy,’ she’d say...”

  With a quirk of his lips, he took a long sip of scotch.

  “It’s clear that Joy, and Cara, too, are your whole world,” Lila said, the words coming straight from her heart. A heart this man had touched. “You’ve put your entire life on hold, your career on hold, to be here.”

  He nodded. Sipped again. Then, with his hands clasped on the table, he leaned forward. “It just isn’t enough,” he told her. “I’m not enough.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Who am I kidding here, Lila? I drove my own daughter into the hands of a fiend.” Intensity shouted from the softly spoken words.

  Lila hadn’t been there. She’d never met Cara. But... “From what you’ve said, you did everything you could to protect her from him.”

  Edward shook his head and then sat back as their food was served, leaving Lila disappointed at the interruption.

  That night, sitting in the hotel bar with him, she felt like someone she didn’t know. Living a life that was not hers.

  They talked about Santa Raquel. About her welcoming, close-knit people. About the cooler water in the Pacific compared to the warmer Atlantic waves he was used to.

  He talked about taking Cara to the beach when she was little. And about all of the times he’d missed doing so because of work.

  And she listened, soaking up every tidbit he would give without her asking. She’d already given him any answers she had.

  And yet, when their plates were empty and cleared away, she didn’t want to just get up and go.

  She’d only finished half her beer. Figured she could nurse it a little longer. And wasn’t sure she should.

  “You going to be okay?” They’d resolved nothing. Joy and Edward needed more time. Life didn’t often come with easy answers.

  As she asked her question, Edward caught the bartender’s attention and held up his glass. “I just need to drink tonight,” he said. “And before you get the wrong idea, I’m not much of a drinker. Never have been. But tonight...”

  She’d thrown away part of a bottle of wine the last time they’d had a drink together. She knew he didn’t make a habit of consuming alcohol. She also didn’t judge.

  But... “Be careful, okay?” she said. She meant to reach into her purse. To take out enough bills to cover her half of their impromptu meal. Instead, she looked straight into his eyes. Afraid for him.

  He took hold of her hand as though reaching for a lifeline. “Sit with me while I drink?”

  How could she do anything but nod?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  WHEN EDWARD HAD said he needed a night of drinking, Lila had been picturing multiple glasses consumed in quick succession. A picture with which she was intimately familiar—growing up, and later, too. Which was one of the reasons she’d agreed to stay. She knew what to expect, and how to handle what could come.

  She just hadn’t expected the man to nurse his second scotch like she was nursing her first beer.

  “I’ve been looking back a lot,” Edward was saying toward the end of that second scotch. “Trying to see with fresh eyes, with open eyes. Clearly, I failed Cara. She didn’t feel safe coming to me when she was struggling. I broke her trust, somehow.”

  Lila had nothing to contribute but a willingness to listen and a desire to be there.

  He met her gaze. “Frankly, the more I look, the less I like what I see.”

  She knew that feeling. Too well. “We are our own worst critics.” She told him something it had taken her a long time to learn. “Taking an honest look back is hard,” she continued, not as the managing director of a women’s shelter, but as a person who’d been there. “It’s also sometimes the only way to move forwa
rd. To learn what went wrong so that, best-case scenario, you can fix it. And if you can’t do that, at least you can prevent it from recurring.”

  “Exactly,” he said, his eyes growing dim as he took another sip and signaled for another drink. “I won’t do to Joy what I did to Cara.”

  No! That hadn’t been where she was going with that.

  “You love her, Edward. All that little girl needs right now is love and family. You’re it. You’re all the family she has. She needs you.” Lila had never been more certain of anything than she was of that.

  “I loved Cara, too. I’d die for her.”

  She couldn’t let him give up.

  “So what went wrong? When did it go wrong? Were you ever close to her? When did it all change?”

  She asked him questions she’d been asking herself on and off since childhood. Questions for which she’d found answers. For her, the quest had led her to be alone. Because she was who she was. But Edward... The man was a healer—and not just as a profession.

  “Everything changed when Emily got sick,” he said without any pause at all. “She and Cara were so close...”

  He talked about how his little girl had always been a bit of an introvert. How she liked to be with her mom more than hang out with friends. How she’d been Emily’s little shadow. She’d loved to read. And to cook. To go with her mom to volunteer at the church and deliver meals to those in need.

  “She loved to play, too,” he said. “But quietly. Board games and hunting for treasures on the beach rather than riding bikes, climbing trees or playing in the waves. Which was why it was so off, from the very beginning, that she was so taken with Shawn Amos. He ran a surfing school! Cara not only didn’t like surfing, she just wasn’t the athletic sort.” He grinned. “Emily and I used to love to watch her try to bowl. She’d get the stance just right, the approach, the delivery, her ball would go right down the middle—and knock over a pin or two. There just wasn’t enough force to make anything more happen...”

  Another hour passed as Edward talked about his lovely family—and it was a pipe dream to Lila, the picture he painted. Listening to him...reliving it with him...gave her a bit of what it felt like. She didn’t want him to stop.