A Christmas to Believe In (19 page)

unseen answer. Though Clint would wager all he possessed

Ethan would never admit to liking Angel, the kid had gone to

her for comfort. An act Clint had performed so many times

he'd lost count.

Maybe they weren't so different after all. Ethan liked

baseball. Ethan liked horses. The two loves of Clint's life. He'd

found the lock, now all he had to do was find the key. If Jesse

would trust him enough to confide Ethan's past, he'd discover

the way to turn that immobile deadbolt.

But that would be like asking Jesse to reveal all the things

she knew about him and his brothers. Hell, she knew more

about Alex and Heath than he did, and nothing would bring

her to tell him their secrets.

At a loss, Clint shoved the unpleasant evening out of his

mind and turned for home. Even if he could manage to

discover the solution, he couldn't act on it tonight. He'd

conceded this round. Gave Ethan the family time the boy

wanted. Clint refused to interrupt twice in the same evening.

He'd go home. Sit up and watch a movie with his mother.

See if his brothers were around and catch up for a while.

Tomorrow, however, he'd commit his mind to this puzzle, and

somehow, he'd piece it all together.

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A Christmas to Believe In

by Claire Ashgrove

Jesse stepped back and surveyed the twinkling tree. With

blue lights, silver tinsel, and an array of colorful ornaments, it

dominated the front corner of her living room. The angel on

top had been her grandmother's. Handmade, with tiny glass

beads, it marked the first Christmas a new bride spent alone

while her husband crawled through cold, wet, trenches in a

foreign land. It crowned the top of every Saurs' tree since.

She turned an affectionate gaze on Ethan. "It looks nice."

From his perch on the top rung of the stepstool, he

stretched a gangly leg. "Yeah it does. Time for cocoa, Mom."

"Okay. I'll fix it. You open the box of stockings and see if

you can find the nails my dad stuck in the chimney. Hang all

of them up?"

Ethan moved to the dust-covered box, and Jesse weaved

around the now-empty tubs, making her way to the kitchen.

Though the tree filled the house with holiday spirit, Clint's

earlier presence took her back to her childhood. Memories of

the many Thanksgiving vacations she'd spent with the King

brothers, decorating this tree, decorating theirs, eating

Amelia's homemade gingerbread cookies and her mother's

divinity, clung to her shoulders. Once upon a time, life had

seemed so simple. Void of all this conflict. Now, in her

adulthood, the simple magic lurked in front of her eyes, yet

just beyond her reach.

She poured the milk, mixed the Hershey's syrup, and put

the mug into the microwave. While it hummed, she watched

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Ethan. He diligently hauled each stocking to the mantle, hung

it on an old nail, then returned to the box for another. One for

her parents, one for her, one for him. Though Ethan no longer

believed in Santa Claus, she'd fill each one while he slept, and

recreate all the treasured moments her parents had created

for her.

Later Christmas day, they'd sit down to dinner. A dinner

Clint would share with them. Maybe his brothers too, if

Amelia didn't already have a feast planned. Either way, Ethan

would not spoil that holiday gathering, even if he had all the

justification in the world for his reaction to Clint's presence.

When the microwave dinged, she pulled Ethan's mug out

and returned to the family room. Passing it to him, she took a

deep breath.

His fingers closed around the warm stoneware, and he

flashed a boyish grin. Her heart swelled as a glimpse of the

happy, content, young man she knew lurked inside his hard

shell peeked through.

"I want to talk to you, Ethan." She took a seat on the edge

of the couch, careful to keep her tone even, her frustration

carefully cloaked. "Before I start, you should know Clint asked

me not to say a word. So don't take it out on him. He's in

your corner."

Almost imperceptibly, Ethan's shoulders stiffened. He lifted

his head, his expression wary, full of mistrust.

"You're right. He's not your family. But he's close enough

that he feels like mine. Tonight..." He furrowed her brow,

searching for the right words. "Ethan, you know better. Clint

didn't deserve your behavior."

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The hard lines she'd seen all too frequently returned to his

face. He leaned forward, set his cup down on the glass-

topped end table. "Let's not have this conversation."

"Why not? What is it about Clint you can't stand? That I

might have a place in my heart for him too? For goodness

sake, Ethan, he's here a week."

The wall went up, veiling the last of the amicable light in

Ethan's eyes. "You can't make me like him. This is
our
time.

Our
holiday. I don't have to want him around."

"No, you don't," she conceded, as she bit back a flash of

anger. She wouldn't argue with him. This would not

degenerate into a fight. "But for the sake of common

decency, you owe him an apology."

Ethan's snort cut through the room. "I don't owe anyone

anything. I don't want him around, and I don't need to be

friendly with him. He's your friend, not mine."

"You're making my friendship difficult."

His gaze locked with hers, hard and full of unspoken

challenge. "Then stop asking me to hang out with you two.

It's not like you want me there anyway. You'd rather have

him all to yourself."

"Ethan, that's not true!" Appalled, Jesse jumped to her

feet. "If I wanted him all to myself, I wouldn't invite him to

dinner. We'd go out and eat. I wouldn't ask him to help us

decorate. I wouldn't drag him along on outings with my son

and his friends."

"You'd like it
better
if you didn't feel obligated."

"Ethan!" As the sharp cry tumbled off her lips, Jesse

clamped her mouth shut. She would not yell. Fear drove

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Ethan's actions, not stubborn teenage belligerence. This

scene, like so many they'd shared in the first year together,

came from too many years of abandonment. A mother who'd

walked away from her only son. Turning anger on Ethan now,

would solve nothing. Nor would negotiating. It was time to

step up and be the parent.

"All right. I'm not going to argue with you. I'm your mom.

Here's how the rules work." She crossed the room and pulled

her coat off the back of the chair. "If I invite company over,

and you don't think you can be civil—not pleasant, not

friendly, but
civil
—then you say hello, and I'll excuse you to

your room. There will be no more storming off from the

dinner table. There will be no more slamming doors."

"Whatever."

"If you do it, you can count on a week of being grounded."

She stuffed her arms into her coat. "Now, I'm going over to

Amelia's house, and I'm going to apologize to Clint for your

behavior. I'm going to talk to the friends I haven't seen in

ages."

"Fine."

"When I get home, if you're still up, and you've thought of

anything you want to add to this conversation, we can talk."

"Not gonna ha—"

She closed the door on the rest of his remark. Outside, she

took a deep breath. The cold air filled her lungs, tempered her

anger. It had been a long time since she'd had to put her foot

down with Ethan. A tiny part of her heart hated being hard on

him. But this was her holiday as much as it was his, and she

refused to let him dictate her happiness. He had a say in their

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lives, she welcomed his opinion. On the same hand, when she

wasn't asking him to consider Clint as part of the family,

those opinions only carried so much weight.

She made her way to her car, climbed behind the wheel.

The engine purred to life. Headlights washed across the

glistening snow.

Jeans exchanged for his comfortable cotton pajama pants,

Clint padded barefoot from the kitchen, two mugs of hot

coffee in hand. In the living room, he handed his mother one,

then dropped into the sofa and stretched his legs out atop the

coffee table. The warmth of the glowing fireplace seeped into

his feet. He indicated a uniformed Nicholas Cage on the

television screen. "What are we watching?"

"
Captain Corelli's Mandolin
. I've seen it a couple times, but

I just love Nicholas Cage in this."

Clint resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The uniforms and

tanks shouldn't have fooled him. When it came to movies, his

mother had to have romance mixed in with heavy action.

"Where is everybody?"

"Heath stopped in and said he'd be in town a couple days.

I'm not sure where Alex is." She looked away from the

television long enough to ask, "Where's Jesse?"

A sliver of apprehension tightened the base of Clint's

spine. Was she fishing? "She and Ethan are putting up the

tree."

His mother nodded slowly. "So you've met Ethan. Nice

boy, isn't he?"

A knock at the front door cut off his response. Rising to his

feet, he asked, "Expecting anyone?"

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"Not this late. It's almost eleven." Amelia craned her neck

to peek out the curtain on her right. "It's Jesse."

Jesse? Here? Clint went to the door.

On the other side, huddled into her coat, she greeted him

with a hesitant smile. "Did I wake anyone up?"

"No, Mom and I were just watching a movie. Is everything

okay?"

Her gaze shifted. Darting across the window, the

doorframe, then the overhead light, it stopped on his face. A

touch of color rushed into her cheeks. "I, ah, wanted to

apologize for Ethan's behavior, Clint. I'm sorry he's this way."

With a light chuckle, Clint caught her elbow and tugged her

close enough to dust a kiss over her cheek. "Stop worrying

about it. He's thirteen. It happens." Backing up, he opened

the door wide. "Come on in."

The cold clung to Jesse as she swept inside and shucked

her coat. He took the dark wool out of her hands and hung it

on the peg behind the door. When she passed him her hat

and scarf, he draped them over the collar and turned around

to find her already seated in the corner of the couch, opposite

his coffee cup. Sock-clad feet tucked under one hip.

"Want coffee, Jesse?"

"No thanks, I'm good."

"Hello, Jessica," Amelia called from her chair.

"Oooh,
Captain Corelli's Mandolin
," Jesse cooed. "I love

this movie."

Clint did a double-take as he eased into his seat. Jesse and

romance? Was that part of the new
Jessica
thing? He lifted an

eyebrow. "I thought you liked action and horror?"

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Her grin crinkled the corners of her blue eyes. "But who

can pass up Nicholas Cage playing a mandolin?"

He gave in to the eye roll with an exaggerated groan. "You

like chick flicks now."

She unfolded a leg to kick his thigh. "It's drama, not a

chick flick."

"Hush," Amelia scolded.

Clint snapped his mouth shut and looked to the television

in time to see Nicholas Cage draw Penelope Cruz into a kiss.

He folded his hands in his lap as a rush of restless energy

slammed into him. All too aware of Jesse, and how her long

dark lashes fluttered shut in the same manner, he muttered a

silent curse. Just what he needed—a vivid reminder of her

soft and pliant mouth before he went to bed alone.

Stifled by the sudden heat in the room, he stood up,

retrieved his still-full cup of coffee and headed for the kitchen.

"I'm getting a refill—you sure you don't want anything,

Jesse?"

Her hair tumbled over her shoulder as she turned. The

firelight glinted off the silky locks. "As long as you're in there,

go ahead."

"Well kids, I think I'll call it a night."

Halfway inside the kitchen, Clint came to a stop. He gaped

at his mother as she rose from her chair and grabbed for her

crutches. She never walked out on movies. For that matter,

he couldn't recall a time when she'd so much as dozed off

during one. So rarely did she take the time to sit down, when

she made the commitment, she saw it through to the end.

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Her gaze fell on him, laden with silent meaning he couldn't

comprehend. She was up to something. But...what?

"I insisted Heath come back for breakfast. I don't see you

boys nearly enough. We'll eat at nine."