A Magical Christmas (7 page)

“Mom knew I was in there with Jamie. We were just listening to music.”

“Just listening to music.”

“Mom knows enough to trust me.”

“I don’t want boys in your bedroom.”

“Why, Dad?” she demanded belligerently, hands
on her hips. “Why can’t you just trust me in my own house with my own family in it? You just hate Jamie, and you just hate him because he’s different. What, Dad? You think I can’t sleep with a guy in a car, a park, an alley, somewhere else, anywhere else?”

He froze. His temptation was to walk over to his daughter and give her a sharp slap across the face.

He didn’t do it.

“Because this is my house, and you’re my daughter, and I’ve told you that you won’t have boys in your room, and that’s that,” he told her. “Because I damned well said so!” he added furiously.

His anger left him quickly. He felt weary, deflated. It wouldn’t work, he thought. She was just going to ignore him and go racing after her boyfriend, and then what was he going to do?

They stared at one another. Damnation, but she was another Julie. Her mother’s eyes seemed to stare at him as she defied him. She tossed back a length of her beautiful blond hair. Then she suddenly cried out, “I hate you, Dad. I hate you, hate you, hate you!”

Hate you…

God, did they all really hate him? What the hell had he done that was so very wrong? All he really wanted to do was love and provide for his family! He hadn’t erred that far; it had been damned
miserable and he’d only looked for someone else back then because…

Julie hadn’t wanted him. Not then. At least, he hadn’t thought that she wanted him.

And his ego had been at stake.

Christie ran past him. He heard her bedroom door slam.

Millie and Jack came into the living room, Julie following quietly behind them.

“You’ve been home five minutes,” Julie said lightly, “and everybody’s happy.”

“I’m so damned sorry if I upset the gerbils,” Jon snapped.

Julie’s eyes were ice-blue with cool contempt.

“These kids can’t just do whatever the hell they feel like doing while you’re celebrating, Julie,” he said.

“They weren’t doing anything that terrible,” she grated back.

“Well, well, busy day!” Jack said, brushing aside the darkening words between them. Jack offered Jon a kindly smile. “We’re going to be getting out of your hair, Jon,” Jack added. “Let you have your home back.”

“It was a great sale,” Millie said, smiling as she gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Your wife made a really, truly, great sale!”

“You’re right, she did,” Jon heard himself saying.
“So where are you two going? Such a great sale can’t have been fully celebrated already.”

Jack Taylor started to frown; Millie arched a brow. “Jon,” Julie began uneasily, “Millie and Jack were just on their way out—”

“That’s silly. Hey, we owe Julie a real celebration, right? We’ll go out somewhere great to dinner. How does that sound?” Jon demanded.

“No, no!” Jack protested.

“You and Julie should celebrate,” Millie said.

“Don’t be silly—trust me, Julie would be crushed if you didn’t come with us.”

He didn’t add that Julie would surely just as soon
not
celebrate with him.

As it was, Julie didn’t look thrilled; again, it didn’t matter. Jon walked around into the kitchen area, calling to his younger children. “Ash, Jordan, wash up, quick. We’re going to take Mommy out to dinner. Oh—Jordan, go call Christie. Tell her we’re taking Mom out.”

Jordan, hands filled with gerbils, frowned. Ashley jumped up, giving him a hug and kiss at last. “Good, Daddy. Can we go to Chuck E. Cheese’s?”

“Well, I’m not sure Chuck E. Cheese’s would be Mommy’s pick for a restaurant, and tonight is just for her. We’ll get to Chuck E. Cheese’s soon, though, I promise.”

“Right. Mommy will get to take you.” His wife’s
dry voice sounded from directly behind him. He hadn’t realized that she had followed him back to the kitchen.

She backed off somewhat when he spun around. The absolute dry and bitter edge left her voice when she spoke. “Jon, this isn’t necessary. Jack and Millie bought me champagne. And I think that Christie will refuse to go. The rest of us aren’t really dressed, and you’re wearing paw prints.”

“Two minutes and I’ll have on a clean shirt and jacket,” he said curtly.

Julie looked as if she were about to protest.

“Mommy, Mommy, we’re going out special for
you
!” Ashley cried happily. “I’m so happy! It’s like your birthday.” She diverted Julie’s cold gaze from Jon’s eyes.

“Oh, yeah. Just like,” Julie said.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Jon told them.

“But, Jon—” Julie protested.

“Is there anything to eat in the house?” he demanded bluntly.

She flushed. “I was—I was busy with Pearson late. Making his offer, negotiating… I mean, it all happened in one afternoon. I didn’t get a chance to go to the store, and we were in sad shape to begin with. But I didn’t see it as a problem; I’d figured we’d order pizza in.”

“We’ll go out.”

“But it’s rather late—”

“I haven’t eaten all day. I don’t want a damned pizza. Decide where you want to go.”

He left her in the kitchen.

They went to an Outback Steakhouse, a mistake, because they had to wait almost an hour for a table. Even Ashley, who loved to hold the little buzzers that summoned each dining party when their table became ready, lost patience waiting for her little gray cube to jiggle.

Still, once they were seated and fed, dinner was decent enough. Or he was starving by then, one or the other. He wasn’t in a mood to cut fat—he was in a meat mood. He-man canned beer and red meat mood. If he clogged a few arteries that night, so be it. His steak was delicious.

Millie was a barracuda—Jon had long since discovered that—but oddly enough, she seemed to be on Jon’s side that night, though she was usually a bra-burning antimale militant. She was friendly throughout the meal—asking serious questions about the Bobo Vinzetti pizza case.

Maybe Millie was just trying to make sure that Jon and Julie didn’t have much of a chance to talk.

Maybe that was damned fortunate.

Christie had come along meekly enough. She ordered a small steak and actually appeared to be
eating it rather than shoving the little pieces around on her plate. She did argue with him throughout the meal about driving to school with Jamie. She did it well—she set forward her facts. Jamie Rodriguez had gotten straight A’s in driver’s education. He drove a beat-up old car, but it was a beat-up old Volvo wagon, and he was extremely careful. “If you only took some time, Dad, you’d like Jamie. He’s a straight-A student all the way round.”

“Thank God someone is. It’s your last year, kid,” he told his daughter. “If you don’t get your grades up, you’re going to be out of the colleges you want.”

“I want to go to a state school,” she said firmly.

“Christie, you’re not looking at your opportunities.”

Again his daughter stared at him with her mother’s eyes. “That’s interesting. You want your wife to stay at home and blow noses but you want your daughter to be superwoman, a Harvard grad.”

“What’s the matter with Harvard—other than the fact that Jamie Rodriguez won’t be there?”

Christie stared at him—with her mother’s condemning eyes, once again—and then excused herself in an icy tone to go to the bathroom.

Ashley knocked her silverware on the floor and spilled a Coke.
Jordan, who usually ate well, ordered a huge steak—and didn’t touch it.

The restaurant was really busy. It had taken a long time to sit, a long time to eat, and even a long time to get coffee.

By the time it was all over, Jon had just one thought.

The meal had been exhausting.

It was almost eleven before they were home. Julie was saying they’d never get out of the house in the morning. Ashley was going to be cranky and miserable.

“I told you, I’ll drive the kids in the morning,” Jon said irritably.

“Right. Well, good. Then I’ll only have them whining for the first hour of the day because they’re so damned overtired,” Julie said.

“They can’t possibly whine more than you do,” Jon muttered.

He braced himself, ready for her response. Amazingly, she didn’t have one. Maybe she hadn’t heard him.

They were in his car, and Ashley was sleeping on her lap. Christie and Jordan were bickering in the backseat.

He pulled up in front of their house. He started
quickly from his own seat to come around and lift Ashley from Julie’s lap so that she could get out.

Julie was already out of the car, Ashley crushed to her breast. In quick, precisely whispered words, she told him what he could do to himself.

Apparently, she had heard him.

She hurried into the house.

The older kids muttered good night.

He stood by his car for a few minutes, staring up at the sky. A feeling of hopelessness suddenly invaded him. Where the hell had it gone so wrong? They should have had everything. He did have a great job—even if he’d liked the D.A.’s office better. They had a good home with a decent, payable mortgage. He and Julie had their own cars, and they’d planned on buying one for Christie when she graduated from high school as long as she kept up a B average or higher.

Their kids were healthy. Damned healthy. And they both knew they had to be thankful for that.

How the hell had they managed to have everything and yet be so miserable?

He walked into the house. It was already in darkness, only the night-lights on. He went into his own bedroom, shedding his jacket and shirt as he did so.

Julie was already in bed. All the way on her own side of it—in fact, it looked as if a sudden breeze would roll her onto the floor. Well, she didn’t want
to touch him. And she didn’t want to be touched by him. It was surprising that she didn’t throw a pillow and blanket out on the sofa.

But then the kids would have seen that. And somehow Julie was always the one who came out smelling like a rose to the kids.

He stripped down to his briefs and crawled into bed.

His side of it. No sense touching her.

“Congratulations on selling the house,” he told her.

“Thanks,” she said curtly. Then she made a point of yawning. Fine. He didn’t have anything else to say anyway.

He was shocked, minutes later, when she spoke.

“I made that reservation.”

“What?”

“I made the reservation for Christmas. For that place. Oak River Plantation.”

Jon lay very still. He exhaled after a long moment, his feeling of absolute hopelessness fading. In fact, something close to warmth filled him.

He loved his wife.

He didn’t even want to love her anymore, but he did.

He loved his wife.

“That’s great,” he heard himself say.

“That’s just Christmas,” she responded firmly.
He rolled over, touching her shoulder, trying to talk to something other than her back.

But she cringed. Cringed, just at his slightest touch.

He swore, loudly, angrily.

And he left his bed.

The hell with her, and the kids. The damned couch was starting to look mighty fine.

Christmas Eve
1862

T
he greatest sin seemed to be that it was such a beautiful day.

A beautiful day in which to die.

The captain stood upon the hastily erected scaffold on the rise by one of the oaks in front of his own property. It was a good oak, a strong oak. The men would be taken along the scaffolding one by one, and hanged from that oak.

He listened while the chaplain droned on. He felt both the courage and the fear of the men lined up by his side, and when he opened his eyes, he could see the anguish in the faces arrayed before him, both the faces of friend and foe, for even their enemies were heartsick at their duty.

Not one of his men was blindfolded, nor as yet were they bound. No execution had ever been carried out with greater dignity, perhaps because the executioners were nearly as shaken as those about to die.
He could see the noose, hanging over a strong limb of the old oak tree. The rope didn’t touch him; it was many feet away. And still, he could feel it as if it already chafed against his neck.

Life.

Just minutes now remaining…

Snow lay on the ground. A light snow, a new-fallen snow. Clean and clear and pure. A soft crystal blanket of ethereal beauty. The sun shone upon that snow, dazzling in its brightness. The sky was blue, breathtakingly blue. Not a cloud marred the perfection of it. The air was cool and crisp; the day not the kind of cold that was uncomfortable, just chilly enough to wake a man up with each breath, and let him know that he did breathe, that he was alive.

The sheer beauty of the day, the touch of sun and sky and snow upon his senses, told him that life itself was precious. And now that he was about to lose it, he wondered if he had ever thought to be thankful for it. Yet he could leave life behind, the blueness of the sky, the crystal beauty of the hills and valleys that rolled so gently in their winter blankets. He could close his eyes and say that he had seen the beauty, and he could let it go.

If he could just see her face one more time again.

Life was precious; love was the gift that made it worth living against all odds. He didn’t hear the
words that the chaplain was saying, but he thought in his heart that it was a sad time indeed to die, for Christmas had been the hope and the promise of life everlasting, the greatest gift of love. Oh, God, if he could just see her face…

Talk with her, laugh with her, one last time. Hold fast and tight, knowing then that the little things were just petty things, that love was strong, love was what mattered. If he could just see his son…

Stroke his daughter’s cheek, see her eyes.

If only.

While the chaplain continued with his prayers, the company about the scaffolding, Yanks and Rebs alike heard the coming of the horsemen.

No cry of alarm was given by the Federal lookouts, nor was a cry necessary, for the men who rode toward them were a company of Yanks. Standing very still, the captain realized the company was being led by a brigadier general, and the brigadier general, in charge of the command, was now dismounting from a fine sorrel horse.