A Family Christmas

He’d backed off when he realized that making a wrong marriage would be worse for Lucy in the end. Tess was now a good friend, and happily engaged to a newcomer to Alouette, a writer named Connor Reed who lived in the keeper’s cottage of the Gull Rock lighthouse.

Lucy ran ahead, pushing open the door to the rainbow-hued Victorian house that had been converted into a small library. Evan followed her through the entryway, thinking how good it was to see Lucy so enthusiastic.

She raced into the library proper. He heard her voice, very bright. “Hi!”

After a pause the answer came, and it wasn’t Tess. “’Lo.”

A moment later, Tess chimed in, greeting Lucy with her usual perky cheer.

Evan arrived, his senses already heightened. Wild Rose Robbin looked at him, smiled and then hurriedly looked away, tucking her lips inward as if to keep the smile from escaping. She edged a stack of books across the checkout desk, toward Tess.

“You know Rose, right, Evan?” Tess was saying, looking from Lucy to Evan to Rose with a bright-eyed interest.

Evan cleared his throat. “We’ve met.”

“She showed me how to draw leafs in the woods,” Lucy said. She was staring up at Rose with an awe that approached reverence. One step closer and she’d be hanging off the woman’s sweater, begging for attention. Normally she was shy to the point of invisibility, especially around new people.

“Have you practiced?” When she looked into Lucy’s face, Rose’s mouth curved into a smile that was as natural and pretty as a daisy dancing in the breeze.

“I tried to.” Lucy put her hands on her hips, acting almost belligerent. She bobbed her head. “But my teacher said I was scribbling!”

Evan blinked in surprise. This was a new Lucy. Or, rather, the Lucy his daughter had started out to be, before the loss of her mother.

“I bet she wanted you to make a perfect leaf.” Rose held up one hand and drew a maple leaf in the air.

“Uh-huh,” Lucy breathed. She raised her own hand in imitation.

Rose shook her head. “Your teacher hasn’t really looked at the autumn leaves, then, has she?”

“Nope. They’re all, like, curly and nibbled on and—and—” Lucy scrunched her hand into a fist.

“So that’s how you should draw them,” Rose said. “Right?”

Even while she processed the books, Tess hadn’t missed an inflection of the conversation. She threw a significant look at Evan.

He shrugged, although the interaction was pretty amazing. Even with Tess, Lucy hadn’t come out of her shell so quickly.

“How are you, Rose?” he asked.

“Going to work.” She looked down at her books, a reflex to fill the awkward silence.

He followed her gaze. She’d checked out a large tome of Audubon bird prints, a hardcover he couldn’t see the title of and two paperbacks that featured embracing couples with flowing hair and ample cleavage. Hard to tell which was the male and which was the female.

Rose saw him looking and gathered up the books. “For my mother.”

“I loved Passionate Impulse,” Tess said. Her eyes danced.

Evan was sorry he’d noticed. “Uh, sure. Listen, Rose, I was thinking—”

“I have to go,” she interrupted. She made for the doorway, ducking past him with her rumpled hair falling across her forehead into her face. “G’bye, Lucy.”

Lucy followed the woman’s departure with beseeching eyes. “Bye.”

“Go on, Lucy, find yourself a few books,” Evan said when the door had clanged shut and she still hadn’t moved. The children’s room was adjacent to the main area, a space filled with light, plants, craft projects and colorful decorations. Throughout the summer he’d brought his daughter to story hour twice a week, but now that she’d started kindergarten and he was busy with basketball practice after school, their visits would be less frequent.

Lucy trotted off obediently. Evan stared after her, not yet willing to face Tess’s curiosity. He could feel it rolling off her, ripe with questions.

“The sequel, Passionate Embrace, wasn’t quite as good,” Tess finally said with a laugh in her voice.

“You women.” Evan had to grin. “All that romance gives you barmy ideas.”

“Sure, blame us if it makes you feel better.” Tess was petite, with short coppery hair and a warm personality—the kind of person who was a pillar of the community, with her penchant for running charity tag sales and Scrabble tournaments. “Got something besides romance on your mind, Evan?”

He shrugged. What the hell. In for a penny…

“Don’t read anything into this,” he said.

The librarian made an agreeable sound that he didn’t believe for a second.

“But…”

Tess made an impatient gesture. “C’mon. Out with it, man.”

He gave in. “Tell me about Wild Rose.”

CHAPTER THREE

TESS FROWNED INSTEAD of continuing to tease him. “Like what?”

“How she got her name, for starters.”

“She’s had it forever, it seems. I couldn’t say.”

“You could say. If you wanted to. She’s about your age, right? You must have gone to school together.”

“She was a grade behind me.”

“It’s a small school system. I’m sure you knew her.”

“Yes, but we didn’t hang out. Rose was…”

“Wild?”

Tess shook her head. “Not then. I mean, when we were younger. Maybe a little—she grew up with two older brothers. It wasn’t until later that…” She shrugged.

“So you do know how and when she got the nickname.”

“Evan, why don’t you just go by what she is now? I’ve been the subject of town gossip myself, so I’m not that eager to repeat tales about another person. Especially when it’s old talk. And who knows what’s truth and what’s exaggeration?”