The First Love Cookie Club (23 page)

“I’m sure Jazzy would like to come too, I—“

“Don’t worry, I won’t bite,” he said, and then teasingly added, “unless you want me to.”

Sarah and Travis sat in front of the wide plate-glass window at Rinky-Tink’s, drinking whip cream-laden hot chocolate from thick Santa Claus mugs and sharing a small plate of chocolate chip cookies. The place was mobbed with tourists and they’d been lucky to get the prime sightseeing table just as someone had vacated it. She was still trying to decide if he had actually asked her to move in with him out there by the Christmas tree or if she’d been imagining it. She didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but the lovelorn fifteen-year-old lurking inside her had already taken a header off Mount Everest.

His dark hair was combed back off his forehead, giving him a regal appearance, and his broad fingers were curled around the handle of his mug. She remembered what those fingers felt like curled around her and a shiver shimmied down her spine.

“Well,” she said, “this is nice. You, me, hot chocolate.”

His grin was wolfish. “It would be nicer if we were alone instead of in a crowded ice cream parlor.”

She lifted her mug to her mouth, took a long swallow, felt the hot chocolate warm her up all the way down. Or maybe it was the look in his eyes that was doing the warming. She nibbled a cookie and tried not to read too much into it.

“Before we talk about what I just said out there …”—he jerked his thumb in the direction of the Christmas tree—“I want to give you something. I was going to wait until Christmas, but the time seems right.”

“You got me a Christmas present?” She felt flustered, flattered. “I haven’t gotten you anything yet.” Actually, she’d had no idea what to get him that struck the right tone. What gift said,
We’ve been intimate, you didn’t flip out at my scar, but I don’t know where the heck this is going?
Now she was about to find out.

He leaned over to his coat that was draped over the back of the empty chair and pulled a package from the big front flap pocket. It was wrapped in shiny green paper and tied up with a silver bow. Their fingers touched when he passed it to her. She raised her eyes and he stared right into her.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Open it.”

Self-consciously, she plucked at the silver ribbon, slowly unraveling it. Sarah peeled back the wrapping to reveal a well-worn hardback copy of
A Wrinkle in Time.
Her heart rate quickened.

“It’s a first edition,” Travis said.

“But how? I just told you it was my favorite on Friday night and by Sunday evening you have a first edition?”

“Express mail.”

“Cost you a fortune.”

“I wanted to make sure I got it before Christmas.”

Gently, she opened the book, reverently ran her fingers over the pages.

Looking up, she saw he was nervous. He shifted in his chair and leaned forward, his voice had gone up just a hair, but she noticed the difference. It was touching.

“I love it,” she said honestly. “It’s the most perfect gift anyone ever got me.”

“I wanted to get you something special to remember us by, me and Jazzy,” he said.

Carefully, she laid the book down. “And here I thought you’d just asked me to move in with you.”

He splayed a hand to the back of his neck, looked sheepish. “That didn’t quite come out the way I intended it.”

“I was going to say you were moving kind of fast.”

“After what happened between us at the cabin, we’ve been moving very fast, but I can’t think only of me. Jazzy and I are a package deal and she so badly wants a mother … I can’t … we can’t … rush into anything.” He reached out to lay his hand over hers. “We have to be sure.”

Sarah wasn’t sure of anything except the way her heart jumped whenever she was in the same room with him. It always had. She supposed it always would. No matter what happened. But he was right. This
was
moving way too fast. There was so much potential for hurt on both sides. She was afraid to believe that fairy tales could come true, and Travis … well, Jazzy would always be his first priority and she understood that. Shewouldn’t love him as much as she did if he were any other way.

“I have to go back to New York,” she said. “My book is due after the first of the year.”

“And after that?” He stroked the backs of her knuckles with his thumb.

“I could return for a visit.”

“Jazzy and I could find a new place to live, let you have the cottage.”

She shook her head. “No, I want you to stay in the cottage. It’s the only home she’s ever known.”

“We can move. She’ll adjust. She’s a strong kid.”

“That she is.”

In unison they turned to look out the window to the Christmas tree on the courthouse lawn. Through gaps in the passersby, they could see Jazzy with her Aunt Raylene at a festive kiosk, stringing cranberry and popcorn garlands.

“But do you think there’s a possibility that something deeper could develop between us? Something permanent?”

Sarah held her breath. This was her every childhood fantasy come true. Why couldn’t she just say,
Yes, yes, yes, I love you, Travis Walker.
She wanted to say it so badly that it hurt, but she was so afraid of taking that emotional leap, of laying her heart on the line and getting it shattered. She thought of the pain she’d felt when she was fifteen and knew that this would be a hundred times worse.

Honestly, she feared that once he really got to know her, he wouldn’t be so enchanted. Her preference for disappearing inside books for long stretches at a time might get old for someone who preferred having lots of people around. The novelty was exciting, and while opposites did attract, when it came down to it, were they simply too different to make a good match?

Maybe your differences are the very thing that will bind you together. You complement each other. Each one strong in attributes where the other is not.

How she prayed that was the case, but they needed time to find out. She parted her lips to express that very thought when suddenly, Travis jumped up, knocking over his chair in the process, and said, “Son of a bitch!”

His skin had blanched pale and he was staring out the window and his body was trembling all over. He looked like he’d just received an electrical shock.

Sarah brought her hand to her mouth and followed his gaze, trying to see what had alarmed him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Crystal,” he said, “and she’s got Jazzy.”

Travis stormed out of the ice cream emporium, barely aware that Sarah was trailing after him. He had one thing on his mind and one thing only. Getting his daughter away from his ex-wife.

He hadn’t seen Crystal since she’d walked out on him. He’d filed for the divorce and received full custody of Jazzy and she hadn’t contested it. He hadn’t pursued child support because he didn’t want her damn money. What he wanted was to know why she was here.

“Crystal,” he barked, balling his hands into fists.

She was seated beside Jazzy at the garland-stringing kiosk; his Aunt Raylene was nowhere in sight. Both his ex-wife and his daughter glanced up as he approached.

“Daddy!” Jazzy exclaimed. “Look! It’s a Christmas miracle. I prayed for a mommy and look she came back home.”

All the anger left him in one long
whoosh
of air. Seeing the utter joy on his daughter’s face was his total undoing. She was
happy
that her mother was back.

Crystal looked gorgeous with her long blond hair flowing down her shoulders and her tight red sweater and equally tight blue jeans. Once upon a time he thought she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Back when he was young and dumb and horny and hadn’t realized just how superficial that beauty was. Now, he much preferred Sarah’s simple elegance to Crystal’s artifice of heavy makeup, teased hair, and snug-fitting clothes.

“What are you doing here?” he asked tightly, moving across the sidewalk. He’d always had a deep-seated fear that Crystal would change her mind about not contesting the custody agreement and try to snatch Jazzy away from him. He used to have nightmares about it, but the anxiety had lessened with the passing of time. Now, it all came rushing back like a water faucet turned on full blast.

Crystal had her arm around the back of Jazzy’s chair. “I came to see my daughter for Christmas. Is that okay?”

Travis didn’t know how to answer that. He wanted to say hell no, but he knew he could not. Curtly, he nodded.

“Can she stay with us, Daddy?” Jazzy asked. “She can sleep in my bed with me.”

Tersely, he asked Crystal, “Could I speak to you in private?”

“Sure.” Crystal rose to her feet, using the flats of her palms to smooth out her jeans.

He took her elbow and yanked her behind the kiosk. “Okay, out with it. Why are you really here? If you’re looking for money, think again. I’m completely tapped out.”

“I know.” Crystal was having trouble meeting his eyes. “I heard you had to sell the house to pay for Jazzy’s medicine.”

“Where did you hear that?”

She shrugged. “You know this town.”

“Gossip sure gets around,” he said sarcastically. “If you know so much about what’s going on around here, how come we’re just now hearing from you?”

His ex-wife picked at imaginary lint on her sweater. Travis could have sworn her boobs were bigger. Had she gotten implants hoping it would help in her quest for a music career? Trust Crystal to pick enlarging her breasts over actually getting better at her music.

“I was ashamed,” she said, “and I figured you and Jazzy were better off without me.” Now she was pulling her poor-me stunt. Just another way Crystal vied for attention.

“We were,” he said, knowing it was cruel but saying it anyway. The woman had put him through hell.

“I’m not asking for anything more than to spend some time with my daughter.” She raised two fingers. “I promise. And if you could see it in your heart to let me crash at your place, I’d appreciate it. I’m pretty well tapped out myself.”

He folded his arms over his chest and glowered at her, but said nothing.

She crossed her arms over her chest, mirroring his body language. She used her chin to point in Jazzy’s direction. “She’s looking really good. Not a hint of wheezing even though she’s out in the night air.”

“The medication is working.”

“It’s pretty expensive, huh?”

“Twenty-five hundred dollars a shot and she has to have one every two weeks.”

“Insurance doesn’t cover it?”

“No, it’s off-label.” He explained what that meant.

“Well, you have to keep doing it.”

“Of course. Which is why I sold the house.”

“But you’re still living there?”

“I’m renting it from the new owner.”

“Oh.”

They stood there staring at each other, but she was a stranger to him. She always had been, he realized. He’d never understood her. She’d had a desperate yearning to be famous. He wondered if she still did.

“How’s Nashville?” he finally asked, not knowing what else to say.

She nodded. “It’s okay.”

“Any movement on the recording career?”

“I’ve got some irons in the fire,” she said, and he knew she was lying. Whenever she lied she rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“Where you working?”

“I’m waiting tables at the Opryland Hotel.”

The small talk petered out.

“So.” She took a deep breath. “Can I stay with you during the Christmas holidays?”

He was going to say no. Yes, he’d let her see Jazzy, but he wasn’t going to let her bunk down at his house. She’d given up that right when she’d abandoned them.

“Daddy?”

He turned his head to see Jazzy standing behind him. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“Please let Mommy stay with us, Daddy. Please, please, please. It would make this the very best Christmas ever.”

The minute she saw Crystal and Travis together, all Sarah’s old fears of intimacy kicked her squarely in the teeth and she did what she’d always done when relationships got complicated.

She retreated.

With the first edition copy of
A Wrinkle in Time
that Travis had given her clutched in her hand, Sarah set off across the courthouse lawn, zigzagging around revelers, headed for the Merry Cherub.

Don’t feel, don’t feel, don’t feel.

But no amount of chanting to the contrary could stop the burning deep in her heart. Too late. She’d fallen for Travis Walker all over again and just when she was about ready to admit that to him, here comes Crystal with the timing of a Swiss watch.

Tears she did not want to shed pushed at the backs of her eyelids. She would not cry. She couldnot cry. She was not a crier. Teardrops fell from her eyelashes, dropped to her cheeks, and rolled wetly to her chin.

God, she hated this. Feeling so deeply. It was horrible, the torture of being in love. She was so affected by the emotions tearing at her, but it was her habit not to feel at all. To stay emotionally in balance. Or so she told herself. Was it simply that she preferred to be emotionally closed off? Feeling nothing at all. How did she get back that armor that had once kept her so safe?

Fool! She’d known better than to come back to Twilight. And yet here she was. Feeling and hurting and caring too damn much. She could kick her own ass.

Tears clogged up her nose. Did she have a tissue? She jammed her free hand into her coat pocket to see and instead of a tissue, her fingers brushed against a harder object. What was this? She pulled it out.

Jazzy’s angel ornament with her Christmas wish list attached. The lump in her throat swelled. Through the mist of tears, she read the last item on the little girl’s list.

I wish for a mommy so my daddy won’t have to be all alone when I die.

Had some stupid part of her secretly been wishing she could be the mommy to fulfill Jazzy’s wish? The tears ran hotter, faster. Sarah could scarcely see where she was going. All the same, she quickened her pace, escaping from the noise of the celebration behind her, escaping into the darkness beyond the friendly lamplights.

“Sarah, Sarah.” Travis was grabbing her elbow, spinning her around, pulling her into his arms.

“No.” She jerked against his restraining arm. “Let me go.”

Immediately, he released her, stepped back. In the soft glow from the porch light, she could see he was breathing heavily. She kept her gaze averted, not wanting him to see her red-rimmed eyes and tearstained cheeks.