Home for Christmas (9 page)

Her jaw shut with a snap, anger crackling around her head like static electricity. “And you are a married man. So whatever you think is going on between us is definitely, officially, completely and in all other ways
over
.”

Damnation. This wasn't going at all the way he'd hoped. Trying to backtrack, Nash lowered his voice. “Look, the marriage thing—it's not real. I mean, Libby is great, but she's not the woman I…”

“Stop right there.” Ivy held up her hands as if she were warding off an over-enthusiastic dog. “I don't want to hear this. I can't believe you're standing here, trying to tell me you don't love your wife so it's okay to flirt with me.”

“We have an understanding,” Nash tried, knowing even as he said the words that they sounded lame.

Ivy clearly agreed. “Does Libby know that?”

“Actually, she does,” Nash declared, relieved that truth gave it some weight. “It's complicated, but I promise you, Libby doesn't love me either. Not that way.”

“How sad for you. But none of that means you and I are going to pick up where we left off in Atlanta. We broke up back then on purpose, Nash. And if your
marriage
isn't a good enough reason to stay away from each other now—which it
so totally is,
by the way—I still wouldn't be masochistic enough to risk my heart on you again.”

With that shot through the chest, she slipped past the barricade and crossed the street, stepping over the train tracks just as the kid-sized Polar Express rounded the curve. Ten open-air cars full of smiling parents and clapping children stopped Nash from going after her, even if he could have thought of anything to say that might change her mind.

Sighing, he stuck his hands in his pockets and wondered if a hot chocolate might help take the edge off this disaster of an evening.

*   *   *

Owen flipped up the collar of his sturdy field jacket and circled around the back of the miniature train, mind reeling from what he'd just overheard.

Sweet Libby Leeds, a woman who clearly trusted too easily, was in over her head with her jackass of a husband. That loser's wandering eye could get her hurt. Beyond the emotional fallout, there was the threat of sexually transmitted disease. It was Owen's responsibility to tell her the truth about her philandering husband. Right?

Or maybe that was just a convenient excuse to talk to Libby once more, this time without any pesky guilt over desiring a married woman. And he had to ask himself: Did he really have the right to focus on anything other than getting to know his own child, for the first time in her life?

 

Chapter Eight

Libby followed the signs for the Nativity, hoping she'd find one of the vendors she passed in adorably decorated stalls selling local hand-crafted goods. There were people dressed as Santa's helpers selling everything from embroidered tree ornaments to homemade marshmallows, but when she finally found the Nativity stall tucked away at the far end of the town square, it was … an actual stall. Like, a barn stall with live animals, all gathered around an empty manger. A low wooden fence encircled the enclosure.

Instead of porcelain figurines of sheep and camels, there were actual sheep munching patiently on the hay littering the floor of the stall. A bored-looking llama smacked its lips in the shadows behind the unlit manger.

Libby blinked. She didn't remember a goat—not to mention a llama—in the original nativity story, but tethered to the manger stood a black-and-white spotted goat with only three legs.

“Looks like we're a little early. Or everyone else is late.”

The deep voice from behind her should have made Libby jump in startlement, but her body recognized Owen Shepard's rough rasp before her mind did. Whirling around, she realized there was no one else nearby. “Hello again,” she stammered, cheeks heating even in the cold night air.

Owen smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes and faded fast, leaving him looking troubled. He checked his watch, and, afraid he might be about to make his excuses and run off, Libby blurted, “I thought they might be selling nativity sets. I didn't realize they'd set up a live one.”

“Apparently it's also a petting zoo. My sister's boyfriend, Sam, is working with the local veterinarian to pull it off. They told me to meet them here, but I guess they're running behind.”

“A petting zoo,” Libby repeated, charmed. “What a great idea.”

“I guess the kids are putting on a little pageant too,” Owen told her. “My daughter is in it, supposedly. So it's good we're early, we should have the best seats in the house. I don't want to miss any more than I already have.”

Heart clenching, Libby searched his shadowed face. She didn't want to pry, but curiosity and concern pricked at her more sharply than the frosty breeze off the nearby ocean. “What part is your daughter playing in the pageant?”

Owen blew out a breath and scrubbed one big hand over his face. Libby could hear the rasp of his leather glove against his stubbled jaw. “I don't know. She wouldn't even talk to me. Not that I blame her.”

Libby's chest hurt at the resignation and pain in Owen's tone. “Give her time. I'm sure she'll come around.”

“I've got until this leg heals and I can convince the army to take me back.” Owen stared off into the darkness beyond the lights of the Holiday Village. “I don't know if that's enough time to make up for nine years of abandonment.”

“Probably not,” Libby said without thinking, “if you're planning to abandon her all over again as soon as you're fit for duty.”

“I have to go back,” he grated out. “My men depend on me. And it's not only that—we started something over there. We need to see it through.”

Filled with remorse for her knee-jerk response, Libby put an impulsive hand on Owen's arm, feeling the flex of muscle beneath the layers of clothing. “I get that. And I can't begin to understand what it must be like for you, torn between family and duty. I don't know what choice I'd make, in your shoes. Well, actually, I do—I never would've had the guts to join the army in the first place, so that would eliminate that option.”

“I don't buy that.” Owen pinned her with an intense stare that felt as if it stripped away every secret Libby had. “You're stronger than you know. And courage comes in many forms. For instance, you were brave enough to take the plunge and get married. That's something I've never had the guts to do.”

Libby's stomach twisted, but Owen's eyes were so serious and intent, studying her as if he knew there was more to the story of her “marriage.” Trying not to squirm, she waved a vague hand in the air and peered down at the toes of her boots. “Oh, you know. Marriage isn't so bad.”

She could practically feel Owen's interest sharpening, but at that moment the lights began to buzz, warming up and illuminating the quiet manger scene. Townspeople and visitors began to drift toward them, filling in the gaps around the fenced enclosure as a hush fell over the audience.

The crush of people pressed her close to Owen, and when someone on her other side jostled against her shoulder, Owen wrapped his free arm around her back and pulled her into the shelter of his large frame. It took everything Libby had not to lean into him, but he was still using that cane to brace his weight, and she wouldn't add to his discomfort for anything in the world.

A gate opened in the tall wrought-iron fence that surrounded the front yard of the large brick building across the street. Through it, Libby glimpsed a swing set and a slide … a playground. There was a sign arching over the gate, but it was hard to read in this light. Libby squinted, then giggled.

“What?” Owen's lips brushed her ear, making her shiver.

“They changed the sign.” She pointed. “Sanctuary Elfementary School. How cute is that?”

A tall silhouette with a smaller one at its side appeared in the gateway. After a brief scuffle, a tiny little boy emerged swathed in white, wearing a pair of glittery wings with a crooked halo attached. The boy rubbed his fist under his nose and hitched up his trailing skirt before starting a solemn march across the school sidewalk.

“Billy!” The hissed voice came from the grown-up behind him. “You forgot something.”

“Aw, geez.” Turning on his heel, Billy scampered back to grab the big silver poster board star from his teacher's outstretched hand.

The soft huff of Owen's laughter ruffled Libby's hair and warmed her chest. “Look, here come the rest of them,” she whispered.

First came a tall boy in a brown robe, carefully leading a gray-dappled pony. Sitting in the saddle was a petite redheaded girl, who kept careful hands on the reins and sat up in her seat as if she knew what she was doing on horseback.

Behind Libby, Owen went still. “That's Caitlin. My daughter. On the horse.”

“She looks like a natural up there,” Libby murmured, half turning to get a peek at Owen's bewildered, broken-open expression. He looked like he was seeing a ghost—or maybe the ghost of a dream he never knew he had.

“She's perfect,” he replied, fierce and sure, as the stunned look faded. The openness stayed, though, as if the sight of his daughter wrapped in Mary's blue robes and quietly directing her mount's steps toward the manger had permanently dismantled Owen's defenses. Libby's heart swelled. She wanted desperately to help these two find their happy ending together.

The rest of the pageant was steeped in cuteness. Shepherds of varying ages and sizes jockeyed with the three wise men, who were of varying ages and genders, to get into the enclosure with the animals. A few teachers dressed as angels did their best to keep the peace, but it wasn't until a truly beautiful woman with curly dark hair under her glittering halo entered the manger that everyone settled down.

The prettiest angel carried an adorable toddler with a shock of black hair spiking from his head and a pair of inquisitive blue eyes. She whispered to him and he nodded very seriously before she set him gently down in the manger. She stood back to let Caitlin and the boy playing Joseph kneel down in the hay, but she didn't go far, and Libby's lungs squeezed at the look of tenderness on the young mother's face as she smiled at her baby boy.

Would Libby ever have that? Did she even deserve it?

One of the teacher angels, a slim young man with brown hair, stepped up, and all the children's eyes turned to him. He raised his arms and the kids breathed in, then started to sing. The slow, faltering notes of “Silent Night” drifted up into the sky, gaining strength and confidence as the children sang together, and Libby felt a shudder of pure joy rush through her.

“This is magical,” she whispered, not even meaning to say it aloud but unable to hold back. Owen didn't reply, but his arm tightened in a quick squeeze that reminded her she wasn't alone, and she shivered all over again at the transcendent pleasure of his muscular strength pressed in a lean, hot line against her side. Libby breathed in the cold night air, tasting a hint of snow, and memorized this moment so that she could relive it over and over in her imagination.

After the song, the pageant broke up as the kids gave in to the excitement of being in a play with real live animals. A set of mischievous twins got into a mock fight with their shepherds' crooks while a stern-faced man stopped a little girl from putting her angel wings on the three-legged goat before scooping the giggling baby out of the manger and reeling the pretty mother angel in for a kiss.

At her side, Owen stepped away from her. His muscles went taut with expectation as he searched the chaos, probably looking for his sister or his daughter, who had ducked away from the manger as soon as the singing was over.

Released from the spell of the song and the moment and the nearness of the man, Libby swallowed around her desire for the kind of close, easy connection shared by the couple who'd contributed the live animals and the baby to the manger scene.

Instead, she had a fake marriage to a cousin she barely knew, and a heart-twisting attraction to a man she couldn't have.

“Come on,” Owen said, setting off with his halting gait. “I want to find Caitlin and tell her how great she did. If she'll even talk to me.”

Grateful to be jarred out of her small bout of self pity, Libby moderated her pace to match Owen's as they skirted around the fenced enclosure toward the back of the stall where the pony Caitlin rode had been tethered. “Do you really think she won't talk to you?”

“She ran away from me when I first showed up this afternoon,” Owen confided grimly. “And then they had to come over here to the square to get ready for all this, so I stashed my stuff on my sister's couch and took a walk around.”

Libby frowned. “You're sleeping on a couch? That can't be good for a man recovering from injuries like yours.”

“Believe me, I've slept worse places than a soft couch.” Amusement lightened Owen's tone for a moment, and Libby felt her heart lift just as they rounded the rear corner of the stall.

Beside the small dappled pony stood the miniature red-haired Mary in her blue robes, staring up at Owen's sister with such a heartbreaking look of fear that Libby stopped in her tracks.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Andie was saying, kneeling down to put herself on Caitlin's level. “No one is going to take you away.”

“But he's my dad,” Caitlin argued, tears and a stuffy nose turning her voice thick. “I used to want him to come find me and take me away with him to somewhere else, but now I don't want to go.”

Libby's heart cracked in two at the way the little girl's eyes filled with tears as she wailed, “I … I don't want to leave Peony!”

Throwing her thin arms around the pony's neck, Caitlin buried her face in Peony's mane while Andie got to her feet with a sigh. She caught sight of Owen and Libby hovering uncertainly by the stall, and hurried over to them.