A Family for Christmas Read online

Cara wanted nothing to do with politics.

  And always gave money when she saw someone begging—as long as Shawn wasn’t right there. Then he gave the money.

  She’d always wanted to go to college—Shawn hadn’t seen the point. She knew enough to work in the family business. They’d made enough money to live comfortably. And college would have put them in debt.

  She’d wanted to be a child life specialist—one with a degree in child development who advocated for the rights of children, usually in a hospital setting.

  Simon had asked if she’d ever wanted children.

  She’d excused herself to bed on that one. It had been the night before. He’d been missing her ever since. Acutely. More than made sense, considering it was only six in the morning and she’d been sleeping in the room next door all night.

  More than should have made sense. Except that Simon had spent most of the night awake, sitting up on the couch, admitting to himself that he was falling in love.

  With another man’s wife. Someone who thought he was kidding himself that he’d ever see out of his right eye again—someone who didn’t think he’d ever have his career, his life’s work, back.

  * * *

  IF NOT FOR the calendar that Simon kept on the refrigerator, Cara would have lost all track of days. As it was, she avoided looking. She’d been with Simon more than a month and while she was fine right where she was, she knew the life was unrealistic—as was any life for her, other than jail.

  Maybe, then, that was her lot? Rather than dying, she was to spend the rest of her days behind bars?

  The idea panicked her. Oddly, though, not because she cared anymore about jail—she could sit around and wait anywhere. The idea scared her because it didn’t feel right. She was sure now that Karma could have a job for her to do there. A way to use her useless life.

  Maybe it was just the fear that Shawn would get her before they put her away that kept her rooted in nowhere land.

  And maybe it was that she was the most selfish creature on earth, as Shawn had said so many times when he’d been beating her. Or on the way to beating her. Maybe she was still in the cabin in the woods, avoiding jail—or Shawn—because she wanted to be with Simon for as long as she could be.

  Mom had always told her to listen to her heart and Lord knew she was trying. Confused, and frightened a lot of the time, resigned to the rest, she couldn’t figure out what Fate was trying to tell her.

  If only she could remember more than just horrifying snippets of that last day at home. If she could tell a court what she’d done—If she could understand why she’d done it, how she could have been so disassociated from who she knew herself to be...

  But then, what did she really know?

  Hiking on the mountain with Simon the first Monday in November—something they did every afternoon now—Cara’s mind continued to attack her perceptions to the point that she considered asking Simon to check her into a mental institution. She didn’t feel that far gone. But she didn’t feel lucid, either.

  Nothing rested comfortably inside her anymore. Nothing.

  She’d been so certain her father had walked out on them emotionally when her mother got sick. His constant refusal to accept that she was going to die and let them build as many meaningful and happy memories as they could with the time they had left. The way he’d practically bullied her into more and more procedures...

  Including giving up his own kidney so her diseased body could kill that, too...

  She hadn’t thought of that in years. And yet now she remembered how she’d felt when her parents had told her the plan. Her Aunt Betty had come to stay with her, but as sweet and loving as she’d been, her aunt’s presence in her parents’ place had scared the shit out of her.

  That was when she’d realized she was on her own. That she couldn’t count on either of her parents to always be there for her.

  That her dad would willingly risk his life, that he was willing to die and leave Cara orphaned...the emotion welling up nearly choked her.

  And then, as had been happening again and again during the weeks since she’d told Simon about him...she saw another side. Another view.

  Edward Mantle had been trying to save his wife’s life. Save his family. He was a doctor. He’d gone about the whole thing in the only way he knew how. By continuing to try.

  Just as Simon continued to try to see.

  Shaking her head as she slipped on a rock, trying to keep up with Simon’s pace, she’d have liked to tell both men that Fate was much more powerful than any kind of science man might study or determination man might have.

  And that Karma would be the final decider, no matter how much anyone did to fight the inevitable.

  But wait... Karma was based on your own actions. You created your Karma. Good or bad.

  So...she’d done all of this?

  She slipped again. Looked backward and watched the trail of rock slide down the steep cliff they were climbing. Simon wanted to get to the top of the peak just behind the cabin. They’d started out with small, short hikes in other less-steep areas. They’d explored over a mile’s radius around them—seeing no wildlife at all, but finding some coyote beds.

  She’d heard coyotes howling during the night several times since she’d been there. Calling to their mates, Simon had said. He’d also said that bobcats could sound similar. That they roamed these hills. Which was why he always carried the .22 when they climbed. And never wore his patch.

  The rocks continued to slide behind her. Cara continued to fall farther behind Simon. She was tired, but not so much that she couldn’t make it to the top. She could follow those rocks bouncing to the bottom. She could slip. Fall. Not on purpose—she could not take her own life; it was wrong, Mom had told her. Which was why her mother had agreed to all of the medical procedures. She had to do all she could to live until her life was taken from her. That was when she’d know she was done.

  But...

  “Hey, you getting tired? We can stop for today.”

  Simon was back. Not even a little bit out of breath. Looking just too damn good in those jeans that hugged his butt and the flannel shirt that covered the arms, chest and shoulders that had once cradled her...

  His eyes held the light of life as he gazed at her. His features alive and...filled with concern, too. He held out a hand to her.

  More than anything, she wanted to reach out and take it.

  “I was...just enjoying the view,” she told him, climbing up to him on her own. “I’m fine. I can make it.”

  “You might think I’m going soft, but I’ve got this feeling that this climb is kind of symbolic for us,” he said, looking up to the last quarter of the ascent. His face was just a foot away from hers. His right eye seemed to be looking at her, but based on their exercises, on what he described seeing on TV when he had his patch over his good eye, she wasn’t seeing any sign of returning vision.

  Not that she’d voiced her opinion aloud. After a while, he’d quit telling her about it.

  “How is it symbolic for us?” she asked, her heart breaking at the thought of Simon not reaching the goal he was so determined to achieve.

  “Our lives. We’re both on our own uphill struggle right now, but if we keep going, we also both have what it takes to reach the top.”

  She didn’t doubt that part.

  “But what happens if we get up there and the view isn’t what we expected?”

  For the first time in ten years, Cara was thinking about Edward Mantle and seeing something entirely different. Over the past few days, she’d actually thought about contacting him.

  Until she remembered the rest of her life—the time since she’d been his little girl. The things she’d done.

  He’d be disappointed. Maybe even distraught. He’d try to fix something that she’d broken and th
at couldn’t possibly be fixed. She couldn’t do that to him. Let him think she’d run off to la-la land and was living happily ever after...

  “You can get help, Cara.” Simon hadn’t taken another step. He was watching her with that assessing way of his—but even that seemed to have changed. “As soon as you’re ready... I’d go with you. Be there for you...”

  He’d go with her?

  She stared at him. Started to shake from the inside out at the thought of a life ahead with Simon in it.

  There wouldn’t be one. The rational part of her knew that. But...what if he came to visit her in prison? Even only once a month. Life would be worth living for that. There would be a future to look forward to in that.

  But would he really come? What if, after a year passed and he couldn’t see, he gave up hope? Would he blame her for bringing her doubts into his world up here?

  She could see herself, sitting alone at a table in a prison visiting room, waiting, and having him not show up.

  Not that her penance was about her.

  When was she ever going to quit thinking about herself? It was just like Shawn had said...

  But...how did a person listen to her own heart and not feel self? How did one not look after self?

  Most particularly when one had the responsibility to look after self?

  She shook her head. She was doing it so much she was getting dizzy.

  “I wasn’t actually thinking about me when I said that about the view not being what we expected.” She hadn’t been. But was afraid to continue the conversation.

  Just as Simon respected the parts of her that were off-limits, she had to do the same for him.

  “What were you thinking about?”

  He’d asked. If she wasn’t thinking about her own view... There were only two of them there...

  He kept pressuring her to take his solution to her problem. Maybe she needed to return the favor. Maybe she wasn’t being a good enough friend to him, letting him believe in the impossible rather than planning for the life ahead.

  “What if your vision doesn’t come back one hundred percent, Simon? What then? You don’t seem to even consider the possibility. To have a plan B.”

  Sucking in his lips, Simon appeared to chew on them a minute. He gestured vaguely.

  “Being a surgeon is all I know,” he told her. “I can’t do that with one eye. So I know the vision is going to come back. I’m being tested. I’ll pass the test.”

  With that he turned and started to climb again.

  Feeling an anguish she knew wasn’t her own, but one that she now understood, she followed him. Staying up with him. Not looking back at all.

  * * *

  THE VIEW FROM the top was... It moved him. Standing up there with Cara by his side, Simon felt as though he could accomplish anything he set his mind to. Filled with his own power, his own strength, he knew that there was not a test too tough for him to face.

  Bursting with the sense of it all, he said as much to Cara.

  “So what if the test you must face is being partially blind in one eye?”

  He was on top of the world. Could see the vastness of endless possibility spread out before him. He’d met a beautiful woman who was climbing inside his soul one step at a time.

  And she didn’t believe in him.

  He’d known, of course. For weeks. He still didn’t have any good response for her. Cara didn’t deserve his anger. She couldn’t help how she felt.

  “What if it’s like my dad?” The wind almost carried her words away. She wasn’t standing close to him. Wasn’t looking at him. Yet he knew how much the words were costing her.

  And so, when she continued speaking, he didn’t cut her off. He just guarded himself against any impact from her words.

  He had to persuade her to get herself help. To get her out of his immediate life.

  “My mom had a terminal disease. She was going to die. He couldn’t accept that, so instead of helping her and going through it together, with me, instead of easing Mom’s suffering by letting her go naturally, he kept refusing to accept the inevitable, and in the end, we were left with nothing. No Mom. No family. He even sold our house, the home where we were a family, because he couldn’t accept that she was gone...”

  Simon had already lost his small family. Had his own home. His need to see wasn’t hurting anyone. To the contrary, when he could see again, he’d be saving lives.

  “It’s the whole doctor thing,” she said. Turning to look at him then. “Are you all alike? Thinking you’ve got some secret power the rest of us don’t have? Stubborn to the point of hurting those around you?”

  The short answer was of course not. But Simon didn’t give it to her. Maybe a person who studied medicine, who believed in medical science to the point of dedicating his life to it, did have a certain sense of being able to save the world. Maybe not.

  He hadn’t been able to save Opus.

  But he heard so much more in Cara’s words than just her insight into his situation—much of which she knew nothing about. Clearly, she’d been doing a lot of thinking about her own life. And, based on the fact that she was beginning to see her father in a different light, she was making progress.

  He rejoiced for her.

  And knew a stab of pain, too. Because soon, very soon, Cara was going to be ready to leave him. He needed her to be ready soon. The feelings he was developing for her were getting out of hand. And there was no future for them.

  He couldn’t see himself ever, ever, ever marrying again—putting himself in a position where, if feelings changed, when people changed as they did, he’d be trapped by finances and laws and whatever home and life they’d built together. Forced to stay in an unhealthy environment. Until one of them snapped...

  And it was growing clearer by the day that that kind of security was the only thing that would ever make Cara happy. She’d been seeking it since she was fifteen years old. There was no way he could ever ask her to live without it.

  By all counts, their time at the cabin had to end. And so did their time together.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Santa Raquel, California

  LILA WAS COMING from the clinic at the Stand the first Saturday evening in November—having just registered a new resident being treated by Lynn Bishop, the nurse practitioner who lived on site with her family—when she felt her phone buzz for a text message. Pulling the cell out of her jacket pocket immediately, ready to present herself where she was needed, she saw who it was.

  Brett Ackerman, the Stand’s founder, never called her. They communicated mostly through his secretary and occasional notes. More and more, since his marriage and the birth of his first child, he’d begun texting her.

  She figured it was because time had become more precious to the new father and businessman whose charity accreditation company took him all over the country. And suspected his reason was more than that.

  Ella, Jerimiah and I would like you to come to dinner tomorrow night.

  They’d asked her to dinner several times. And their wedding, too. They wanted to share their young family with her. They, like everyone else, didn’t understand that she couldn’t be part of a family. That she was a danger.

  Her answer to them was always the same as it had been to Edward Mantle.

  That night, she faltered for a second. A hard second. But only a second.

  I truly appreciate the invitation. I’m so sorry I cannot be there.

  She’d meant to type no thank you.

  But hit Send anyway.

  * * *

  WALKING DOWN THE hall to her office minutes later, Lila smiled at a couple of residents passing her on their way to the cafeteria. There was an ice cream social that night. She’d peek in if she got the chance.

  The library door was
open and she noticed an older woman, one of their newer residents, sitting in a plush leather armchair in the corner, engrossed in a book. Paperwork in hand, Lila stopped in. Said hello. Made certain the woman was truly after some reading time and not feeling lonely and then made her way to her office door. As she rounded the last corner, she saw Edward push away from the wall he’d been leaning against.

  Obviously waiting for her.

  His tie was loosened, but his dark suit looked as crisp as usual; his wing tips had their usual sheen.

  Desire pooled instantly.

  She kept walking toward him, the same smile she’d just given the reading resident on her lips.

  “How was Joy today?”

  “She wants to go to Hunter’s.” He shrugged. “She wanted ice cream, too, so we settled for Julie and Hunter taking her to the ice cream social, and then I’ll tuck her into bed.”

  The issue of Joy leaving with Edward, staying with him, had been temporarily tabled as Shawn Amos took up his life, had a winter surfing class going in the big garage where he stored surfboards and wet suits, and still claimed to know nothing about his wife’s whereabouts.

  He was only out on bail. The cops were watching him like a hawk, whether he knew it or not, and so far he had done nothing that could implicate him in anything.

  Law enforcement officials and others were extremely suspicious of the fact that he hadn’t asked to see his daughter. Technically, he could have visitation rights if he sought them out. Could possibly even fight for custody. He knew that Joy was currently staying at a shelter. Probably even knew that Edward had been granted temporary guardianship.

  But he hadn’t even asked after her.

  Because he knew that if Joy saw him, she could unravel and reveal all kinds of things that he’d rather people didn’t know? Could perhaps lead them to evidence that would convict him?

  Or because he didn’t want to confuse the little girl when she’d already gone through such a hard time and could very well lose him all over again?

  Was he staying away for Joy’s sake? For his own? Or just to buy himself time before he took the law into his own hands?