The Promise of Christmas

His head tilted just a bit as he peered at her. “There’s no reason to be embarrassed about that, Les,” he said, no hint of laughter in his eyes, or his voice. “In fact, I respect the hell out of you for it.”

She didn’t have anything to say to that. So she took another sip of wine. This might end up being a three-glass night.

“You’re still planning to accept guardianship of Kayla.”

“Yes.”

“How can you do that?” In that moment, he reminded her of himself as a twelve-year-old boy watching her mother make pancakes. He’d insisted on trying for himself and sent batter flying across the stove when he attempted to flip one.

She frowned. Whether it was due to exhaustion, wine, or just because she was with Kip Webster, Leslie felt unable to keep up the running game of let’s pretend with which she faced her days. “You want the completely honest version?”

“Aren’t you always honest?”

“To a point.”

“Then yes,” he said, leaning forward, arms on the table, as he held her gaze. “I want the completely honest version.”

“I have no idea.”

He sat back, still watching her. She suspected it hadn’t been the answer he’d been hoping for.

“I really don’t know, Kip.” She glanced over as two older couples came through the door, wearing Michigan colors. Their alma mater? Were they local or had they driven in?

Had Cal taught Jonathan the “Go Blue” theme song, as their father had taught them? Would she teach Kayla?

“I just know I have to do this.”

He nodded, dropped his eyes, tore slowly at his napkin. “You’re really going to take her tomorrow?”

“I’d love to find a reason to delay, but I can’t. I have to get back to Phoenix. I’ve already been away too long. And…” She waited for him to look up at her. “It might seem strange, but now that I know I’m going to be her mother, I don’t want to leave without her.”

“What about Jonathan?”

Here came the really tough part. She took a sip from her nearly empty goblet, wishing the table hadn’t been cleared. She could use a few French fries to play with. Some ketchup to dip them in.

“What about him?” she asked, needing to hear his concerns before she attempted to tell him what she’d been thinking.

“He just lost his father!” Kip said. “Wouldn’t it be cruel to snatch his sister away from him so soon? Without warning? Forever?”

“You think it’d be easier for him to lose her six months from now? Will he love her any less then? Need her any less?”

“No. Of course not.”

“I know it’s sudden, but there doesn’t seem to be a good time to break up the only home they’ve ever had. And yet, it’s going to happen. One way or another. Ada is not their mother and as much as she loves the kids, she’s no longer able to raise them. In one sense it seems cruel to prolong this for any of them. Including Ada.”

“Jonathan knows something’s going on.” Kip’s words were so soft she barely heard them.

“He said that to you?” She stared at him, finding it difficult to breathe.

Kip nodded. “He’s sure I noticed that his skin is a lot darker than his sister’s.”

“Oh.”

“At the same time, he was quick to point out that other than her hair, Kayla looks pretty much like us and he asked me if I thought there was any chance you or your mother would take her. He wanted me to know that he didn’t have to come along if that would hurt her chances any.”

Tears sprang to Leslie’s eyes and she didn’t even try to hide them. “What did you say?” she whispered.

“I told him you and your mother are good people and that the color of his or Kayla’s skin would not make any difference to you at all. And I told him I liked his hair because it reminded me of his dad, whom I miss very much.”

She wiped at the tears sliding down her cheeks. “And you think you aren’t father material?” she asked him before she remembered she wasn’t going to say anything he might construe as pressure to take custody of her nephew. An unwanted guardianship wouldn’t be fair to him, or to Jonathan.

“I have no idea where the words came from,” Kip said.

Silence fell for a moment. The bell over the door tinkled again and a man in his early twenties, wearing jeans and a black parka, took a seat at the bar. If he was looking for some action, he’d come to the wrong place.

“My home is…impersonal,” Kip said next. “Decorated by a professional, cleaned once a week by a professional.”

Was he considering this, then? Her heart pounded heavily.

“I hardly think a child’s happiness would be irreparably damaged by either of those factors.”

“It’s in a gated community that doesn’t allow children.”

Well, that could present a problem.

“Kip?” She wasn’t ready for this. But then, she’d hardly been ready for most of the big events in her life. Starting with her father’s death.

He glanced up at her, his brows raised. He wasn’t classically handsome, but there was something about Kip that had captured her heart at twelve or thirteen and pretty much never let go.

Not that she was the only girl whose heart had been affected by him. Kip’s list of women could rival that of Hawkeye Pierce from all the MASH reruns she used to watch when her roommates were out partying. An especially exciting weekend for her was those thirty-six-hour MASH marathons a local cable station used to run.

“I’ve been thinking….”

He took a sip of what had to be warm beer. “What?”

“I’d like us to talk to Jim Brackerfield. Find out if I can take both kids. I mean surely…” When it looked like he might interrupt, she rushed on. “If Cal gave me Kayla, the court would acknowledge that he found me a suitable parent.”

“He gave you a little girl.”

“I hadn’t pegged you for a sexist, Kip Webster.”

“I’m not,” he said, scaring her with his seriousness. Things would go much easier for her if she had his cooperation on this.

“Mothers raise boys all the time,” she reminded him.

“Cal grew up without a father.” Kip’s voice had lost all compromise. She didn’t recognize this adamant, straight-faced man. “It was hard on him. A lot harder than you probably know,” he continued.

She’d bet her life he was wrong on that one.

“He doesn’t want that for his son.”

“Surely he’d prefer it to foster care.”

He motioned for another round of drinks, waiting while their glasses were removed and replaced. Then, after a long swallow, he continued.

“I did some reading on the Internet this afternoon.”

He’d been in her mother’s home office when she’d come down from speaking with Nancy.

“Like you said before, one of the most dangerous, life-damaging challenges biracial children face is a sense of not belonging anywhere. They’re often unable to feel completely part of one culture or the other. They can suffer terrible insecurities and even self-loathing that sometimes leads to a life of bitterness. Their belief systems can be shakier. I mean, think of it…” He paused for a second and Leslie stared at him. She’d thought about all of this in the past twenty-four hours, of course, but hadn’t worked out how to handle these challenges.

Cal’s children were just that. Children. Her dead brother’s children. Her niece and nephew who needed love. Not black. Not white. Not mixed race. Just children.

“…who are they on Martin Luther King day?” he continued after another sip of beer. “One of the people still fighting for equal rights, avenging their forefathers? Or one of those—like you and me—white race who feel guilt for the actions of people who lived before us, people whose actions were completely separate from us and over which we had no control?”

“I don’t know.” They were children. First and foremost. They needed a home. Security. Love. It was all she could take on at the moment. “You make it sound so hopeless.”

“It’s not hopeless.” He reached across the table, took her hand. “In all the accounts that I read today—and I read about a hundred firsthand accounts on some blogs I found—the insecurities commonly felt by children of mixed heritage can be effectively counteracted within a strong family unit.”

Did that mean he wouldn’t fight her if she tried to keep Jonathan out of foster care? Reading him as though he were an important investor, Leslie remained quiet. Waiting.

Or maybe she was just too scared to speak.

“I…” He stopped, glanced at her, and she almost started to cry again when she saw his obvious emotional struggle. “I find that I can’t turn my back on them, either.”

CHAPTER FIVE

THE WORDS WERE the last thing Leslie had expected—at least once she’d prepared herself to take this on all by herself, even though she had no idea how she’d pull it off. She’d been afraid to hope for anything different, had had to convince herself that going it alone was best….

“You aren’t saying anything.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t want me to take Jonathan?” he asked.

The honest doubt in his eyes tore at her. “Of course I do!” she said, only then realizing he was still holding her hand. She gave his fingers a squeeze. “I’m just speechless. Relieved. Thrilled. I’ve spent the past eight hours trying to figure out how I was going to handle all of this alone….”

Kip sat back. Withdrew his hand to pick up his beer mug. “I’m not so sure I’ll be much help.”

“Just knowing that Jonathan’s being cared for, loved—”

She broke off when he shook his head.

“Didn’t you hear anything I said?” he demanded.

“Of course I did.”

“Jonathan needs more than my love, Les, he needs a family unit. A strong family unit. And I don’t think anyone would call separating him from his only sibling a way to go about creating a ‘strong family unit.’”

She wished she hadn’t had any wine. She was struggling to keep up with him. That wasn’t typical for her.

“I’m not sure what you’re suggesting. You live in Ohio. Your job is here. Mine is in Phoenix.”

“Actually…” He sat forward again, both hands around the half-full mug of beer as he gazed at her from lowered lids. “The home office for my business is in Phoenix. I’d already been contemplating a move….”

Her heart began to race. Sporting International. How could she have forgotten, even for a minute? She’d instructed Nancy just that afternoon on the necessary actions to ready themselves for the probable takeover. Would Kip lose his job if that happened?

It wasn’t a question she could ask him—the takeover wasn’t something she could mention—not to an employee in a management position. Being charged with insider trading was a serious risk, even with a personal conversation if it could be construed as somehow sharing privileged information. She’d spent ten years of her life building a reputation that she wasn’t going to damage with a few poorly chosen words.

And really, would it affect their decision tonight if he did lose his job? She couldn’t see how. And if he was in Phoenix, she could help him out if he needed her to, help with Jonathan, until he got back on his feet.

“Do you have any idea where in Phoenix you’d live?” she asked him. How long had he been thinking about this? If Cal hadn’t died, would he have looked her up when he got to town?

She hated that it mattered.

“That’s just it,” Kip said, drumming the table with his fingertips, his eyes darting away before coming back to rest on her. He wore that predatory expression she’d seen him bestow on any number of cheerleader types during her growing-up years of unrequited love. “I haven’t had any time to think through the details yet,” he was saying, “but I believe it would be best if we all lived together….”

Leslie stared at him, horrified, immobile. She finally understood the old cliché about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. She would’ve preferred to remain ignorant of that particular insight.

“LET’S GET OUT OF HERE,” Kip said when his living arrangement suggestion was met with a solid minute of openmouthed silence from his lovely companion. He’d just, for the first time in his life, asked a woman to live with him.

Somehow, whenever he’d pictured this moment, with anticipation or aversion, it hadn’t gone anything like this. In all his scripts, the woman had been beside herself with joy. Sometimes she’d cried. Sometimes she’d shrieked and laughed and shouted her acceptance from the nearest rooftop. Sometimes she’d wildly torn off her clothes and launched herself at him with thirsty kisses. Of course, those last scenes had been set in private places.

Kip welcomed the blast of cold air that hit him square in the face as he pushed through the heavy wooden door at the front of the bar, and then stood holding it for Leslie, who was still zipping up the parka she’d borrowed from her mother.

She was a beautiful woman—Leslie, not her mother, although Clara was attractive, too, for a woman of her age. But Leslie… Even after four days in her company, he still wasn’t used to looking at his best friend’s little sister and seeing this gorgeous and completely grown-up woman.

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