The Edge of Heaven (29 page)

Emma went completely still, as did he. Sam glared at them both. Emma started to say something. Rye could have told her she was wasting her breath. Obviously, there was no reasoning with Sam at this moment.

A moment later, Sam sent her away. Rye gathered his bag, walked downstairs, and said good-bye to Rachel. He thanked her once again for the offer to let him stay and made a noncommittal reply to her assumption that as part of the family he would of course spend Christmas with them.

Sam followed him every step of the way. Outside, in the driveway, as far as they could get from the house, Rye turned around and waited, thinking it would be a fine thing to get into a fight on the day he got out of jail. He might be going right back. Not that he had any intention of fighting Sam. But he wasn't sure what Sam was going to do, and as he'd told Emma, he wasn't quite rational when it came to people hitting him. A man in prison learned to fight back or else.

"We've got a problem," Sam said. "She thinks she's in love with you."

Rye tried not to think about that.
Emma loving him.
About how that might feel under any other circumstances. The circumstances were what they were. She was much too young. She didn't really know him. She was never really going to know him, because they were done.

"I don't want to hurt her feelings," Rye said.

"You may have to, because she can't go on thinking there's going to be anything between the two of you."

Rye swore softly. "Okay, I'll do it."

He'd hurt her.

Dammit
.

"Soon," Sam said. "And I don't want you alone with her."

"Fine," he said.

He'd break her heart in public, if that's the way it had to be.

* * *

Rye made a quick trip to Georgia, sublet his apartment, packed his things, and told the contractors he worked with regularly that he was leaving.

He was back in Baxter before Christmas, spent Christmas Eve in blessed solitude, but let his brother's wife somehow convince him to come by Christmas day for what she said was an informal open house with family and friends dropping by all day.

Rye parked a block away, found cars practically crawling all over the house, men standing on the front porch smoking, kids all bundled up in their coats and hats, playing in the snow. It looked like half the town was there, and he had second thoughts about coming. How was this supposed to work exactly? Him being part of this family but staying away from Emma? It was more her family than his.

He made his way down the front walk and onto the porch, where a white-haired man in his fifties with a noticeable limp came forward to shake his hand.

"You must be Sam's brother. I'm George Phelps. I own the drug store on Main," he said. "Merry Christmas. Welcome to Baxter."

"Thank you," Rye said.

He shook four more hands, then rang the doorbell. Rachel answered it, looking festive and very happy. She pulled him inside and gave him a big hug and then a kiss on the cheek. Maybe this was where Emma picked up that particular habit.

"Merry Christmas," she said. "I was afraid you weren't coming."

"I almost didn't," he admitted.

She frowned at him. "We would have come looking for you, you know."

"Then I guess it's a good thing I came on my own."

"Yes, it is. Come meet my family."

She slipped her arm through his and led him from person to person, neighbors and relatives alike. He couldn't begin to keep all the names straight, just smiled and nodded. It seemed any brother of Sam's or defender of Emma's was welcome, regardless of his checkered past.

The house glowed with the light of dozens of candles, fires blazing in the fireplaces. Christmas music was piped in from the stereo in the family room in back. Food was everywhere, as was laughter and conversation.

"I know it's a bit overwhelming at first," Rachel said, when they stopped in the kitchen long enough for her to check on something in the oven.

It was. He wasn't planning on staying long.

"The last time I saw Sam he was in the backyard with my father, but this..." She snagged the arm of a boy of passing by. "Hey, wait a minute. What about me?"

"Sorry, Mom," the boy said, grinning as he turned to face Rye, seeming perfectly at ease having his mother with her arm around him, even in public, surprising for a kid who looked to be twelve or thirteen.

"This is our son, Zach. Zach, this is Rye."

"Hi," the overgrown boy said. He was taller than Rachel, with long, lanky arms and legs, and huge feet. Around the eyes, he looked a little like Emma.

"Hi," Rye said.

"Thanks for taking care of Emma."

"Sure."

"Guess I'll be seein' you around."

Rye nodded. Zach sauntered off into the midst of the chaos in the dining room, sliding up next to another overgrown boy with a big T-shirt with a peace symbol on the back of it, his hair mussed and sticking up every which way.

Rachel rolled her eyes and grinned. "I feel ancient these days. Emma and I went through boxes of things in the attic last year trying to find my old bell-bottoms and tie-dyed T-shirts. They're in again."

"Yeah, I noticed." Emma's generation was wearing them. If that was a subtle way of pointing out the age difference between them, Rye could tell her it wasn't necessary. He was very much aware of it.

The back door opened, and someone shrieked. He turned around to find his brother standing there with a little girl flung over his shoulders. She was laughing as he set her on her feet. Sam stood up straight, smiling. Rye hadn't seen him do that before.

"This is our daughter, Grace," Rachel said.

The girl leaned in close to Sam's side. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. She had the biggest blue eyes he'd ever seen, thick soot-colored lashes, and long, blonde hair. She had on a bright red sweater and a Santa hat, which she'd somehow managed to hang on to while she'd been hanging over Sam's shoulder.

Sam put an arm around her and said, "Grace, this is my brother."

"Hi." She beamed up at Rye.

"Hi," he said, deciding this must be like looking at Emma so long ago. He felt a little hitch in the region of his gut that he didn't like at all. Maybe Emma before all the bad things, or Emma if none of the bad things had ever happened.

What had she said? That her brother hardly remembered any of the bad times and her sister had escaped them altogether? Yeah, he could see that. There was an openness and a sheer joy to this girl he didn't think Emma had ever known, and he wished she had.

"We've been waiting for you," Grace confided.

"You have?"

"Yes. For the ornaments."

"Ornaments?"

"Tradition," Rachel said, taking him by the arm again. "You guys round everyone up for me, okay? We have to do this now, because Ellen and Bill have to get to Bill's parents' house soon."

"Do what?" Rye asked.

"Finish the tree."

She took him into the living room next to the big tree, where the decorations did seem a bit scarce. Still, it was nearly two o'clock Christmas day. It seemed a bit late to be decorating.

"Don't go anywhere," Rachel said. "I just need to make sure we have everyone."

Everyone turned out to be about fifty people who eventually gathered around the tree. Two older women pulled out stacks of thin, rectangular white boxes, which he thought he remembered from foraging in the basement himself.

"Hi." Emma came up beside him, slipped her hand through his, letting it rest in the crook of his elbow, and kissed his cheek. "Merry Christmas."

Rye looked up just in time to see Sam frown at them. He let himself glance at her ever so briefly, just long enough to take in the cream-colored sweater she wore and the tiny little skirt. He didn't dare so much as glance at the expanse of legs showing beneath it.

Maybe he really was a dirty old man in the making.

She had her hair pulled back in a neat little twist, diamond studs in her ears. Her bruises were all gone, and there was a hint of color in her cheeks, a pretty smile on her lips.

"Merry Christmas, Em," he said, knowing he shouldn't even be this close.

"Did you meet everybody?"

"How would you ever know in this crowd?" he asked.

"I know. It's crazy, even when it's just family. Did you meet Zach and Grace, at least? Zach's right there in the corner. The tall one. And Grace is right there." Emma pointed to the spot next to the fireplace, Grace sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest and giggling with another little girl about her age. "Isn't she beautiful?"

"She looks like you," Rye said, without even stopping to think that was a bad idea. But the child was beautiful, and Emma was, too.

Emma looked up at him, a faint sheen of tears in her eyes. "Thank you."

He didn't think she'd ever cried because she was happy, at least not around him, and hell, she had to know she was beautiful. No way she could be unaware of that. He was merely stating the obvious.

And this was all such a bad idea.

"Brace yourself," she said. "This always gets to me."

"What does?" he asked, as a man who looked to be in his sixties took center stage beside the tree, everyone gathering around him.

"You'll see," she said, still holding on to his arm, still too close.

The man turned out to be Rachel's father. Her aunts gathered around him holding the boxes, which contained the ornaments, three-dimensional stars made of beveled glass. He held the first one out to one of Rachel's aunts. It spun around on its string, the bevels in the glass catching the light from the candles, glints of light coming off the little star.

With great reverence, he called names one by one, family member after family member, each of them coming forward to put his or her ornament on the tree. There was laughter and lots of hugging going on, tears shed over family members who weren't with them and those who'd passed away.

Rye stood there with a huge lump in his throat as he watched Sam and Rachel put their ornaments on the tree, then Emma slipped away from him long enough to hang hers. Zach and Grace were next, and then Rachel's father looked at Rye and held out one to him.

He felt all eyes turn to him, couldn't have begun to figure out what the man said. Emma squeezed his arm, urging him on. He looked from Sam to her then back to his brother once again.

Sam took the little star himself and brought it to Rye. He turned it this way and that in his hand, seeing his name etched into the side.

They were welcoming him into the family.

He felt his throat close up, felt like he couldn't breathe.

"Go on." Emma squeezed his arm. "Put it on the tree."

He did it, somehow without dropping the thing and breaking it, somehow hanging on to the merest threads of his composure. No one had welcomed him anywhere in the longest of times. He'd never expected this here. Not now. Not once they all knew...

Surely they knew. It was a small town. No way to keep anything quiet, especially a thing so public as what had happened to Emma. Hell, they'd thanked him for taking care of her. They knew.

Rachel gave him another hug, beaming at him. Her father shook his hand. Her aunts hugged him. For a while, they passed him down a line of waiting relatives, smiling, hugging, kissing, slapping him on the back.

Grace was at the end of the line. She tugged on his hand until he leaned down far enough that she could give him a little butterfly kiss, so light it felt like a whisper against his cheek.

When he stood up, Emma was standing in front of him, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"She always cries when we do this," Grace confided, slipping her hand into Rye's and looking up at the tree. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Rye nodded.

If he could have moved a muscle, he'd have fled long ago. But they'd floored him with this. He fought for every breath he took, his chest all tight, and he looked at Emma, begging her with his eyes to save him.

She took him by his other hand, telling Grace, "Can I borrow him for a minute? I need to show him something outside."

"Okay." Grace frowned but let him go.

He let Emma lead him through the crowd, desperate to get away. They went through the kitchen and into a little utility room where there were dozens of coats piled on the washer and dryer.

"Just grab one," she said. "We'll come back in a minute."

He did, shoving his arms into a dark blue coat.

She opened up the door, and he followed her outside to the porch, where he leaned against one of the support columns and took in great gulps of the crisp, cold air.

Jesus, what was that?

What did they think they were doing?

He'd had this, years ago, had a family that looked much like this. Except it had all been an illusion, blown away like so much dust on a hot summer's day. He fished in his pocket for his keys, thinking he'd just get in his truck and go. But this wasn't his coat, dammit, and he didn't have his keys.