Paint It Black (26 page)

“Tonight?” He cast a frowning look over his shoulder at me. “Can’t we do it tomorrow?” He sighed. “Okay. Yeah, I understand. I’m on my way.”

Bitter disappointment filled me when he disconnected and crossed back over.

“I have to go,” he said, and reached for me.

Pretending I didn’t notice his outstretched hands, I moved past him to grab his jacket from where it lay on the bookcase. Without looking, I tossed it over my shoulder to him. “See you later.”

“That was Kim. I—”

“No explanations necessary.” I plastered on a smile and faced him. “Just be careful out there. The roads are probably a mess.”

His brow knitted. “Are you sure you don’t want to go home and wait for me? I shouldn’t be long.”

“No, thanks.”

He slid into his jacket and adjusted the collar.
“You’re mad.”

“Nope.”

And I wasn’t, really. I simply felt like I was getting too old for this junior-high tug-of-war stuff with Kim. Being with Cougar would be complicated, and my life was complicated enough right now.

He caught my hands in his, and I grudgingly looked up at him. The earnestness in his eyes threatened my resolve. “This is really, really important,” he said. “But like I said, it shouldn’t take long.” He paused. “If you don’t want to go to my place, I could come back here.”

“I’m kinda tired,” I said, but inside I was thinking,
Kiss me. Convince me
. But he simply squeezed my hands.

“Okay.”

I walked him to the door and hugged myself against the blast of frigid air when he opened it. “Be careful,” I said again.

He nodded and turned to walk away. More than a little disappointed, I grasped the doorknob.

Before I could close the door, Cougar shouldered his way back inside and seized me in his arms. He kissed me so hard my knees buckled.

When he released me, I had to grab the edge of the bookcase to keep from falling. He winked as we both tried to catch our breath. “I don’t do so good with temptation, either, and I’ve been dying to do that all day.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I merely stared. Kissed
senseless.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

With a massive effort, I made my head nod.

“Good night,” he said, and I gave a little wave.

When he shut the door behind him, I wobbled over to lock it. My lips still tingled from his kiss. Touching my fingers to them, I realized I was grinning like an idiot. I giggled, then giggled some more.

Mercy, what was I getting myself into?

I got up early the next morning to do some shopping before time to pick up Abby. Two hours later, I had a trunk load of
things
, but nothing I was happy with. I couldn’t outbuy Elizabeth, and it griped me that I felt like I had to try.

The morning didn’t get any better. Elizabeth all but bared her teeth at me when I buckled Abby into the car, and then there was Abby’s less-than-enthusiastic reaction to the apartment…

“I hate this place,” she said without preamble. “I don’t want to live here.”

“We won’t have to live here long,” I said. “Just until the insurance company sends us a check.”

“I want to live with Grandma. I miss my room.”

“You’ve got a new room here. We’ll fix it up, however you like.”

Her little Bramhall nose turned up a fraction of an inch. “I won’t stay here. I want to call my daddy.”

Things deteriorated from there. We argued, and before I knew it, Abby was sobbing in her room and I was on the sofa, fighting back tears of my own.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

My cell phone rang. I dug it out of my purse and checked the caller ID. Flipping it open, I said, “Hey, Cougar.”

“Hey. What’s going on?”

“Fighting with Abby.”

“About what?”

“She hates the apartment. She hates her room.” My voice cracked. “She hates me …”

“Hey!” he said softly. “She doesn’t hate you. It’s a big adjustment for her, but she’ll get used to it.”

“I yelled at her, Cougar. It’s Christmas Eve, and I yelled at her. But when she opened her mouth, all I could hear was my mother-in-law talking. I don’t want my daughter to be like that. I won’t raise a spoiled brat.”

He fell silent, and I laughed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to unload on you. I bet you’ll think twice before calling
me
next time.”

“If you can’t talk to me, who can you talk to? But that brings me to the reason I called … I’m supposed to deliver our Angel Tree presents to the shelter today, and I wondered if you and Abby would like to come along.”

“Ah, I don’t know. We might not be the best company.”

“C’mon. It might be just what Abby needs, to see
that there are others less fortunate than she is.”

I glanced at her closed door. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course, I am. Pick you up in an hour?”

“That depends. You dressing up as Santa?”

“Uh … no.”

“Shoot.”

He laughed. “Well, if it means that much to you … I’ll let you sit on my lap later and tell me what you want for Christmas.”

“It wouldn’t be the same without the red suit and beard.”

“All these years, and I never guessed you had a thing for old, fat guys. No wonder none of my pickup lines worked.”

“Your pickup lines suck. Your problem is that you’re too good-looking. You’ve never had to work at it.”

He snorted. “As insightful as all this is, I’ve gotta run. I have a couple of stops to make before I pick you up.”

I was smiling when I hung up. Feeling a little more hopeful already, I knocked on Abby’s door. When she didn’t respond, I went in anyway.

“Hey, baby. You remember my friend Jason? He—”

“No,” she said sullenly.

“You know, he went to Fat Daddy’s with us.”

“You mean Cougar.”

“Yeah, sorry. His real name is Jason. Anyway, he’s delivering presents to some people today, and he wants us to come with him.”

Her eyes lit up. “Are any of the presents mine?”

“No. They’re for kids who don’t have a home.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well,
I
don’t have a home.”

I did a ten-count, then pasted on a smile. “Get cleaned up, okay? He’s coming by to get us.”

Surprisingly, she did what I asked and even came into the living room to wait with me.

Cougar arrived ten minutes early in one of the raid vans. We met him in the parking lot.

“Hey, ladies,” he said, and gave me a look that made my face heat when I thought about the kiss we’d shared the night before.

He helped Abby into the back and fastened her seat belt.

“I hope you don’t regret this,” I whispered when I climbed inside.

But I found my tension loosening almost as soon as we were on our way. Cougar and Abby joked and chatted. She seemed like a different kid from the surly one I’d spent the morning with.

At the shelter, Abby immediately took up with a little blond girl named Kaylee. They played together while Cougar and I handed out presents, though Abby insisted on giving Kaylee hers.

Abby walked over to me as Kaylee ripped the bright wrapping paper from her gift. “Okay, Mama,” she said. “Give me the rest of hers.”

Cougar and I glanced at each other, then I squatted beside Abby. “Sorry, baby. That’s it.”

“Oh,” she said, and looked over her shoulder at her new friend. Resting her head on my shoulder, she said, “Do you think we can bring her back something? One of my presents?”

“I think that would be nice,” I said, and kissed her forehead.

Abby smiled and ran back to Kaylee.

“You’re a genius,” I told Cougar, and he squeezed my shoulder.

“Hey, what are you and Abby doing this evening? I don’t want to intrude, but if you didn’t have anything going on, I had another idea.”

I thought about how lonely he’d seemed at Thanksgiving, and didn’t think Abby would mind if we shared our Christmas Eve.

I smiled. “No plans. What do you have in mind?”

“An old-fashioned Christmas,” he said with a wink. “Let’s get out of here and find ourselves a tree.”

When Abby scrambled back into the van, she said, “Hey, you left two boxes in here.”

“I know,” Cougar said. “Those are for us. No peeking.”

We stopped at the deli on the corner to buy ham, potato salad, and bread, then drove nearly forty minutes out of town to a Christmas tree farm. Abby had never had a real tree before, and she clapped her hands in
delight when Cougar told her to pick one out.

“Before I get the environmental lecture …” He draped an arm around my shoulder and pointed across the yard at the proprietor, who was busy helping a couple of other last-minute customers. “That guy recycles. I just have to bring it back here when we’re done. They make mulch and stuff out of them.”

“Okay,” I said. “But I don’t have any decorations.”

“You let me handle that.”

Back at the apartment, Cougar wrestled the fat tree through the door while Abby and I carried the boxes and groceries in. After we got the tree upright in front of the window, I left them prowling through the boxes while I went to make sandwiches.

Upon reentering the living room, I gaped at the odd assortment of supplies spread across the living room floor. “What are you doing?” I asked.

Cougar smiled up at me. “We’re going to make our own decorations. I promise, I’ll clean up the mess. Mama never bought any of that stuff at the store, except for lights.”

He seemed as excited as Abby, and that was saying something. They devoured their food in record time. Cougar was showing Abby how to cut snowflakes out of typing paper before I was even halfway finished with my sandwich.

I stood and brushed my hands on my pants. “What can I do?”

Cougar reached into the box and tossed me a couple
of packs of microwave popcorn. “Would you?”

“Sure.”

By the time I returned with the popcorn, Cougar was helping Abby glue sequin eyes on cut-out gingerbread men. I sat on the floor beside him and munched a handful of popcorn.

Cougar nodded at the box. “Mom sent a package of peanut-butter candy and fudge.”

“Oooh, I love your mother!” I set the popcorn aside and dug the Christmas tin out of the box. Jerking the lid off, I inhaled deeply. “Oh, man …”

I abandoned the popcorn while we still had enough to string and stuffed my face with chocolate. We spent the afternoon laughing, eating, and decorating. Cotton-ball snowmen, toothpick-and-pipe-cleaner reindeer…I couldn’t believe all the things Cougar could make out of
nothing
. I was seeing a whole new side of him, and Abby seemed as dazzled and charmed as I was.

“Ta da!” Cougar yelled.

Abby and I clapped when he plugged in the lights.

“We’ve never had a more beautiful tree,” I said.

The dingy little apartment suddenly seemed like a home. It even smelled like one. Pine, chocolate, Elmer’s glue … the occasional whiff of Cougar’s cologne.

“Now what, Martha Stewart?” I asked while Cougar swept the floor.

He mimed swatting me with the broom. “Now we
color. Wanna color, Abby?”

“Yes!”

“I’m going to fix hot chocolate,” I said, while he pulled a stack of Christmas coloring books out of the box.

In the kitchen, I smiled and hugged myself. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so content. It was scary to feel optimistic about anything, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to help it.

I stirred the chocolate in the cups, then wandered back to the living room. “Now, be careful,” I said. “It’s—”

“Shhhh,” Cougar said.

I glanced at him and he winked. Abby’s cheek lay on her coloring page, a red crayon dangling from her fingers. She was fast asleep.

“Oh!” I said with a laugh.

“One minute she was talking, the next… she just fell over.” He shrugged and pushed himself up. “Want me to carry her to her room?”

“Yeah.”

Abby mumbled, but didn’t wake when he lifted her. I ran ahead of them to turn down her blankets.

“She’s a doll,” Cougar said, and gently brushed a kiss on her forehead.

I pulled the blankets up under her chin and did the same.

He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into him. Like an old married couple, we walked
back to the living room.

I looked at the tree, then smiled up at him. “You are just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“Got one more.”

He pulled away from me and reached into the box to pull out two presents. One bore Abby’s name in bold letters, the other mine. He put it in my hands.

“Oh, Cougar. You really shouldn’t have. I didn’t—”

He silenced me with a finger to my lips. “Open it.”

I tore back the paper to reveal a slim ivory photo album. A lump rose in my throat when I thought about what I’d said to him the night of the fire, and that he’d remembered.

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered. “I can’t wait to fill it with new memories.”

He smiled. “We’ll have to get you another one for that. This one’s already full.”

I stared at him, then flipped open the first page. An eight-by-ten of my mother stared back at me. I gasped. “Wh-how did you get this?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and gave me a rueful grin. “That was the Kim favor from last night. She’s got a friend who works with the DMV. That’s an old license photo that we blew up.”

A tear slipped down my cheek, followed by another. I swiped them away with the back of my hand and kept flipping. Pictures of Abby filled the pages.

“I got most of those from Bill, but we all had a few.
I spent half the night at the CVS making copies.”

The back section was filled with pictures of our team. With a shaking hand, I touched one of me sandwiched between Cougar and Angel at last year’s New Year’s Eve party.

I snapped the book shut harder than I intended to and threw myself into Cougar’s arms, hugging him fiercely. “Thank you!”

He hugged me back, then tilted my chin up and wiped away my tears.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“I’m sorry. It’s the best present I’ve ever gotten. I just feel guilty, because I don’t have anything to give you.”

“You’ve given me today,” he said quietly. “This is the first time I’ve felt at home in ten years.”