Home for Christmas (31 page)

“She went this way.” The trail led toward the pinewood behind the Leeds house, and Owen ran for it. The only sound was Libby's fast, shallow breaths at his back.

Once they hit the cover of the trees, the snow thinned out. He couldn't tell which way Caitlin had gone. Pausing in the middle of a copse of evergreens, Owen held up a hand to ask for Libby's silence. He breathed in, the cold air like chugging a glass of icy water, chilling him from the inside out.

Or maybe that was his fear. Because Owen was discovering that none of his training, none of his experience with overcoming fear was helping him now that his fear was all for his daughter.

“How long has she been gone?” he muttered, all of his senses trained on listening to the world around him, hoping for a sign of which way Caitlin might have run.

“I don't know.” Libby's reply was equally soft, but he clearly heard the distress in her voice. “There was so much going on in there, she could have slipped away any time.”

“She was right next to me.” Self-loathing sat like a stone in the bottom of Owen's belly. “How could I have lost her when she was right there, beside me?”

“You didn't lose her,” Libby argued at once. “She was upset and she ran off. Kids do that.”

“Caitlin did it when I first met her,” Owen admitted. The remembered pain of that moment was nothing compared to the all-consuming desolation he felt now.

“She's come a long way since then.”

“Until today. When I sent her backsliding into insecurity and distrust of the very people who are supposed to take care of her.”

“Stop it.” Libby's voice had lost all softness and her eyes were fierce when she grabbed Owen's arm and forced him to look at her. “You standing here and punishing yourself isn't going to get Caitlin back. Focus, Owen.”

She gave him a little shake, and somehow it snapped him out of the state he was in and brought his head up. Behind Libby, at the edge of the woods where the snow had drifted a little deeper, Owen thought he saw a strange shape pressed into the white powder.

“What's that?” he asked, pointing and loping toward the shape.

Libby grabbed his hand when she saw what he was looking at, the strength of her grip taking him by surprise. “Oh. Owen. It's a snow angel.”

The three of them had spent a happy afternoon after the first snowfall teaching Caitlin how to lie down in the snow and brush semicircles with her arms to make the impression of wings, and with her legs to form an indentation in the shape of an angel's robe. The part Caitlin had needed help with was getting back up without stomping all over the middle of her new creation, and it seemed she hadn't learned how to do it on her own since that first day. Because there in the middle of the snow angel were several sets of small boot prints.

And leading away from the angel, down a gentle slope that had hidden it from Owen's view before, were Caitlin's prints.

He and Libby took off again, skidding down the hill and following the trail along the slight valley that seemed to run in the direction of the shed where they'd spent the night. About halfway there, Owen caught sight of her up ahead of them.

Shivering and alone, head down, Caitlin was trudging doggedly along with her arms wrapped around her thin chest and snow slush darkening her brown leather boots in splotches. She didn't look up when Owen shouted her name, but she didn't try to run away either. She just … stopped.

Unreasoning terror throttled Owen, morphing into anger a moment later. “What were you thinking?” he yelled, skidding to a stop in front of Caitlin and taking in the blue tinge to her lips.

She shrugged, chin tucked to her chest, but Owen could still make out the tear tracks drying on her pale, freckled cheeks. When she shivered again, her teeth chattering lightly, Owen cursed and unzipped the gray cashmere sweater Andie had given him that morning. He had it wrapped around Caitlin's unresisting body by the time Libby caught up to them.

But Caitlin still hadn't said a word.

 

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Is she okay?” Libby gasped, falling to her knees in the snow, uncaring of the icy wet seeping through her cable-knit tights. “Oh, honey, we were so worried.”

“Why?” There was no emotion in Caitlin's toneless voice. “I left. That's what people do. It doesn't matter.”

“It
does
matter,” Owen argued, and Libby winced. She could've told him that was the wrong tack to take, and Caitlin proved it a second later by looking up at him with an accusing glare.

“
You're
leaving. And if you go, there's no reason for Libby to stay.”

The words shot through Libby like an arrow, piercing her to the core. She desperately wanted to refute it but there was a grain of truth there—if Libby's relationship with Owen ended, she'd have no claim to Caitlin at all and no reason to be part of her life … no reason other than love. “Even if that happened, you'd still have your aunt Andie and Sam.”

Caitlin's mouth worked as if she were trying not to cry. “Not if Daddy is leaving because of me. They won't want me around anymore either if I made him go away.”

Heart breaking, Libby reached for Caitlin, but the little girl shied away as if Libby had raised her hand to slap her. The full-body flinch knocked Caitlin into Owen's hip, on the injured side, but he absorbed the blow without wincing. He really must be close to a full recovery, Libby thought numbly as she picked herself up from the cold, wet ground.

“Caitlin. Sweetheart, listen to me.” Owen urged his daughter to turn with his hands on her shoulders. “I'm not going anywhere.”

Libby suppressed a gasp, her heart galloping.
He means something else,
she thought wildly.
That he'll always be her father, no matter where he is in the world.

But Owen was looking at Libby over top of Caitlin's head, and there was a promise in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” Caitlin asked, baring her bruised, suspicious little heart.

“I mean I'm staying here. On Sanctuary Island, with you.”

Caitlin burst into tears, and Libby knew exactly how she felt. Joy so bright it almost hurt spread through Libby like a sunrise. She wanted to believe in it, but she had to be sure. “You're not going back to the army?”

Owen's smile faded a bit, but his hands were steady and sure as he pulled Caitlin in to bury her face against his stomach, her shoulders shaking under his too-big sweater wrapped around her like a blanket. “My injuries were so severe, the military hospital put me on the Permanent Disability Retirement List without even passing my case in front of a review board. When I'm able, I'm going to petition to be moved to the Temporary Disability Retirement List, and from there I'll join the Reserves. I have to do at least that much, Libby. The rest of it … we'll have to see how my recovery goes. But we have time.”

“I understand,” she said, and she did. He wouldn't be the man she loved if his sense of honor and duty were any less developed. “What made you change your mind about going back to active duty as quickly as possible?”

“Something you said has been rattling around my brain for days now, changing an idea here and shifting a perception there.” Owen's mouth twisted up in a half smile. “You told me that there was more than one way to be a hero. And I realized … I have a sacred responsibility to Caitlin. She's my daughter and she needs me. I'm not all she's got—a lot of people love her—but I'm the only father she has. Every other duty has to take a backseat to that, and if I insist on leaving her to put myself in danger, am I really being noble? Or am I being selfish and letting my egotistic idea of heroism take precedence over my child's well-being? Because the truth is, my men are fine. I didn't want to admit they could survive without me, but they can. They have. And maybe now it's time for me to move on to a new challenge.”

Libby couldn't catch her breath. Her mind was spinning with questions and possibilities. “And joining the Reserves will let you stay home most of the time.”

“Well, I'll likely be doing some traveling, because I just got offered a job.”

Libby wished she could sit down without getting her rear end as freezing cold and wet as her wobbly knees. “A job?”

He nodded, his gaze never leaving her face. “Military liaison to The Hero Project. Apparently, helping wounded veterans navigate the complex infrastructure of the U.S. military's benefits system requires special skill and experience, which I have. Hannah Swift offered me a job as a consultant. I'll be helping to advocate for returning vets, advising on reintegration to civilian life, stuff like that.”

“And you already accepted.” Libby really wasn't sure how much longer she could stay on her feet.

Owen frowned slightly. “Maybe I should have waited and discussed it with you first, as a family.”

That was it. Libby officially didn't care about having a wet butt. She let her legs give out and sat down in the snow.

Owen's eyes widened in concern. “Are you okay?”

“Miss Libby!” Caitlin cried, spinning around and seeing her on the ground. The little girl tore away from her father and ran over to where Libby was sitting, and all of a sudden, they were both laughing and crying at the same time, with Caitlin's arms around her neck and Owen was staring down at them bemusedly.

“What are you two doing down there?”

Libby beamed up at him, knowing every bit of her heart was shining in her face and not even caring, because she knew now that Owen would take good care of it.

“We're making snow angels,” she cried, throwing herself backward and pinwheeling her arms and less.

“Yeah!” Caitlin grabbed her hand and lay down next to her, making her own, smaller snow angel.

“Libby, you're going to freeze to death. And oh, man, Andie is going to kill me when she sees that sweater.” Owen shook his head, laughing. “But I can't resist you two.”

And with that, he stepped over Libby and lay down on her other side. Tangling their fingers together, he turned his head to smile at her as all three of them waved their arms and legs through the snow. It was cold, so bitterly cold that the snow almost burned where it touched her bare skin, but Libby hardly felt it.

Everything inside her was warm with the knowledge that she was right where she'd always longed to be—in the middle of her family.

Later, after they'd admired their trio of mommy, daddy, and baby snow angels, and made it back to the house to be bundled into dry clothes and fed hot chocolate by the rest of their relieved family, Libby left Owen to explain things to the rest of them while she went and finally got the main course of their forgotten Christmas feast on the table.

She'd spent too darn long cooking all that food to let it go to waste.

Flicking the oven on, she set the roasting pan inside with its precious beef tenderloin nestled in a rack. After the Turkey Debacle, Owen had been the one to find the perfect, time-saving (if not money-saving) solution. Beef tenderloin. Special, delicious, and perfect for feeding a big group, beef tenderloin cooked in a mere half hour—unlike their huge turkey, which would've taken hours to roast.

Libby pulled the pans of mashed potatoes and spinach casserole from the fridge, pausing as she set them on top of the oven. The spinach casserole looked as if someone had spooned up a giant bite right out of the middle. Geez. It hadn't been that long between courses that anyone needed to sneak a snack in the middle of the meal, had it?

Rolling her eyes cheerfully, she smoothed the top of the spinach casserole with a spatula and put it and the pan of potatoes on the bottom oven rack to warm. Sniffing deeply at the rich, deliciously meaty smell of the beef roasting, she reflected that Pippin might have done her a huge favor by eating that turkey.

She thought it again once everyone was gathered back around the dining room table—family only, this time. But not just blood relations. This was the family they were creating by choice, the family they'd picked and fought for and built with their own hands. And when her family oohed and aahed as she triumphantly set the plate of sliced roast beef in the center of the table, pink and juicy and drenched in fragrant cognac sauce, Libby finally understood why so many people had loved her columns. They'd been chasing this feeling, this fullness and richness of emotion. The satisfaction of nourishing themselves and each other at a communal table filled with love.

Thankfulness swelled inside Libby, an emotion too big to contain. A little might have leaked from the corners of her eyes, but when Owen clasped her hand and brought her fingers to his lips, Libby found it easy to smile through her tears.

“Okay, everybody,” she said, grinning around the table. “Dig in! Don't be shy. I'm ninety-nine percent sure it won't poison you.”

Everyone laughed and started passing dishes, piling plates high with tender slices of beef, snowy mounds of buttery mashed potatoes, and sweet marshmallow cream fruit salad … but the star of the meal was undoubtedly the spinach casserole. No one could stop raving about it—Sam was on his third helping. Even Libby had to admit that it was very tasty.

“It's official,” Ivy announced. “I'm sorry, Nash, I can't marry you. I'm marrying this spinach casserole instead.”

“It's even better than the way your grandmother used to make it,” her grandfather said, his voice a little thick and husky.

“It tastes like home to me,” Ray put in, and Libby pressed a hand to her heated cheeks.

“That's the best compliment anyone could give me,” she told him, reaching for his hand, but he evaded her in favor of forking up another bite, and maybe that was the best compliment of all.

“How did you make it?” Andie asked.

“It was surprisingly simple,” Libby confessed, “once I read my mother's notes about how to squeeze the liquid out of the cooked spinach so the end result wouldn't be soggy. I'm glad you all like it.”