Just For Christmas

Once they arrived home, Hope took Stevie to the bedroom directly across the hall from hers and Drake’s. Over the past week, she’d worked at night to change the room into something more suitable for a child. The spread and curtains were printed with cowboys and horses. At the foot of the bed, a wooden crate painted bright red and yellow was filled with various toys that were inexpensive, but favorites of most children. On the wall, she’d pinned Looney Tunes posters and several glossy pictures of kittens and puppies.

“This is going to be your room while you’re here,” she told Stevie. “Does it look okay?”

The boy’s head jerked up and down before turning to watch Drake enter with his suitcase. Once again, Hope noticed Stevie’s dark eyes flicker with interest. Maybe Denise had been right when she’d said the boy was starved for male attention. He was certainly drawn to Drake for some reason.

Drake deposited the suitcase on the bed, then glanced with interest at the change in the room. As his features grew rock smooth, Hope knew the decor was taking him back to the bright colorful nursery the two of them had prepared in the bedroom next to this one. As her pregnancy had advanced, Drake had added more and more to the room until it was stuffed with teddy bears, baseball caps and gloves, stacks of little books and a chest of Tonka toys. Once he’d finally gotten used to the idea of her being pregnant, he’d wanted a son so badly. But then so had she.

“When did you do this?”

Swallowing the tightness in her throat, she said, “The past few nights I’ve been working on it. I wanted Stevie to feel comfortable.” She turned her gaze on the child, who was clearly absorbed by the sight of the bedspread. Apparently he’d never seen anything like it. “Stevie, would you like to change clothes now?”

He looked at her with a hint of defiance. “Do I have to go to bed?”

Hope darted Drake a puzzled glance before she knelt in front of the boy. “Why, no, Stevie. You’re not feeling sick, are you?”

Glumly, Stevie’s head swung back and forth. “No. But sometimes my mommy makes me go to bed.”

Drake stepped forward to join the two of them, and even though he didn’t appear outwardly angry, Hope could tell from the tight clamp of his jaw that he was furious at the information Stevie had just given them.

“Stevie, no one around here goes to bed unless it’s bedtime. So while you’re here you forget about what your mommy made you do at home. Do you understand?”

The boy looked at Drake as though he couldn’t quite believe him. Yet he nodded in compliance.

Hope straightened to her full height and zipped open the suitcase Drake had placed on the bed. “Let’s find you some jeans and a sweatshirt to change into and then you can come down to the kitchen and I’ll make us some cocoa. How does that sound?” she asked the boy.

Ducking his little chin, he mumbled, “I don’t have jeans or a sweatshirt. Can I come to the kitchen anyway?”

“Dear God,” Drake muttered, clearly unable to keep from expressing his anger. “Right now it would give me a great measure of joy to ring my sister’s neck.”

Hope turned from her husband’s disgusted face to Stevie’s lost one. She wanted to take the child in her arms and hold him tightly. She wanted to kiss his pale cheek and tug at his chin. But it was too early to try to smother him with physical affection, and she somehow doubted a hug was enough to make this troubled child smile.

Instead, she said, “Of course you may come to the kitchen. I’ll see what I can find you to wear, and then later on today, the two of us will go shopping.”

“Will he go with us?” Stevie asked about Drake.

Hope didn’t bother to ask Drake if he wanted to join the shopping excursion. He’d already made it clear he was losing valuable work time.

Shaking her head, she said to Stevie, “Drake won’t be going with us. He has to work. But he might drink hot chocolate with us before he leaves.”

She glanced at Drake, who’d gone to stand near the window. Grim-faced, he pulled his attention away from his nephew long enough to give her a nod, then quickly left the room.

With Drake downstairs, Hope turned her attention to unpacking Stevie’s suitcase. There were stacks of dress trousers and crisply ironed shirts, but nothing close to jeans or any sort of play wear. Apparently the child was always dressed like a little businessman.

Eventually, at the very bottom of the case, she discovered a pair of khaki trousers and a navy blue lambswool sweater. She placed the clothing on the bed.

“Change into these, Stevie. I’ll be back up to get you in just a few minutes.”

The only response the boy gave her was one wary nod. Deciding it was far too early to try for more conversation, Hope left the room and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

She found Drake already there, standing in front of the bay window. He appeared to be watching the cardinals and blue jays vie for the bird feeder that was nestled in the crook of a twisted juniper branch. Yet Hope seriously doubted his mind was on the birds. Stevie’s arrival had disturbed him. That much was obvious. What she didn’t know was whether it had been in a good or bad way.

“I managed to find a pair of khakis and a sweater for Stevie to change into. I’ll go get him in a few minutes.”

Drake glanced over his shoulder at her. “What do you think about Stevie?”

His question surprised Hope. She didn’t think her opinion mattered much to him anymore. Especially her opinion of a child.

“I—to be honest with you, I’ve never been around a child quite like him. He’s so serious. He hasn’t once smiled since we picked him up at the airport.”

“I don’t expect smiling comes easy for the boy,” Drake said. Looking at Stevie was like seeing himself thirty years ago, and it was more than a little unsettling. He hadn’t expected to feel much toward the child. After all, he could count on one hand the times he’d seen him since he was born. Stevie was Denise’s offspring. Not his own. And yet it troubled him to think the boy was being raised in the same isolated way he had.

“Do you think he’s been ill?” Hope asked.

Drake’s brow puckered into a frown. “I don’t know. Why? Do you think he’s sick?”

Hope shook her head as she placed a saucepan on the gas range. “No. But I wonder if he has been ill in the past. He’s so pale and thin. He looks as though he rarely eats.”

Drake grimaced. “I doubt anyone is ever around to see that the child eats properly.”

“Aren’t there people at the boarding school to see to things like that?” Hope asked. “I mean, children have other needs besides academics.”

He walked across the room and leaned against the cabinet counter a few small steps away from her. “Now you can see what it does to children when adults can’t be parents. Denise is a poor excuse for a parent. And I’m her brother. Hell, I must have been crazy to ever think I could be different from her—from our own parents. Maybe that’s why—”

She glanced at him sharply. His face was tight, his eyes dark with shadows. “Why what?” she prompted.

Jamming his fists into his trouser pockets, he looked away from her. “Maybe that’s why…you had the miscarriage. Fate was trying to tell me I wasn’t emotionally set up for the job.”

So Abby had been right on one score, Hope thought. Having Stevie in the house was reminding Drake of their lost child. But there would always be reminders. She couldn’t shield him from them any more than she could protect herself from all those painful memories.

Pulling a jug of milk from the refrigerator, she poured a hefty amount into the saucepan. “That’s what you want to think.” She spoke quietly as she worked. “It makes it easier for you to justify your decision not to try for another child.”

Drake didn’t want to argue with her. Far from it. This was the first time in weeks he could remember them being together like this, and it brought back all the things about their marriage that he’d held dear. She had always gone out of her way to do little things for him. Like cooking his favorite meals, wearing a dress he especially liked on her, playing the music he enjoyed and making sure the remote to the TV was where it should be. And the hell of it was, he’d never taken her devotion to him for granted. In his own way, he’d tried to do equally for her.

But once Drake had refused to try to have another baby, everything good and special between them had dwindled. Until finally they had become two people married in name only.

His gaze was faintly accusing when he turned it to her. “You’ve always wanted to ignore my family and pretend that part of my life doesn’t matter.”

Hope had heard this argument from him before, but for some reason this morning, it grated on her more than ever. “What is that supposed to mean? I’ve never ignored your family. Remember I’m the one who offered to help your sister out by keeping Stevie.”

“I’m not talking about that sort of ignoring. I’m talking about the fact that Denise and I aren’t cut out to be parents. We never had any ourselves! But you want to think I can just skip over all that and become father of the year without any sort of background training.”

A weary sigh slipped past her lips. “You’re hardly an ignorant man, Drake. No one is born knowing how to be a parent. Everyone has to learn.”

Groaning, he lifted his face toward the ceiling. “That’s true. But you have to have someone to learn from. And I’ve decided it’s just not in me, Hope. A person has to be special inside to be a parent. It’s pretty obvious that Denise sure as hell doesn’t have what it takes. And I’m not about to risk a child’s happiness by trying to find out whether I do!”

That he would choose this morning to cut into her, when she needed him more than ever, caused something inside Hope to snap.

With slow deliberation, she turned away from the heating milk to face him. “All right, Drake,” she said, careful to keep her voice low. “You win. You’re not ever going to be a father. You don’t want to try to have a child with me. I read you loud and clear and I accept your decision. So you don’t have to keep pointing that out. While you’re here this month, I won’t bring up the subject to you anymore. And I hope you’ll have the decency to do the same.”