The Wrong Man

Eyes widening, she looked at him as if he’d just emerged from a UFO. “Not be a carmpenter? What would you be then?” Before he could begin his carefully reasoned explanation, she hurried on. “I know! You could be the boss, like Grandpa Gus.”

He pulled her up on his lap, snuggling her against his chest. “No, honey, I couldn’t. Even if I were the boss, I would still miss doing all the things I love.”

“You don’t love carmpentry?” She sounded surprised, as if fathers weren’t supposed to change—ever.

“No, honey, I don’t. I love hiking and skiing and fishing and being out-of-doors.”

“Oh.” She nodded her head in understanding.

“You want to play, not work.”

Play? Was that what this was? An immature need to recapture his adolescence?

“What if my work felt like play?”

She giggled. “That’s silly, Daddy.”

“What if I could be—” he hesitated, his mouth dry “—happier?”

Lifting one small hand to his cheek, she studied him. “We’re sad, aren’t we? We miss Mommy, right?”

“But Mommy would want us to be happy again, to laugh and play.”

“Okay,” she said, as if the matter was settled.

Okay? If only it could be that simple. He had gone back and forth about the best way to break the news to Kylie, but now that the time had come, the words stuck in his throat. He licked his lips, cuddled her closer, and then, with a deep breath, began, “I have something important to tell you, and I want you to listen carefully.”

“It’s about Mommy, isn’t it?”

“Not exactly.”

She rubbed her nose. “I know. About your carmpentry.”

“Yes. Yesterday I told Grandpa that I won’t be working for him anymore.” Much as he’d dreaded telling Gus his plans, Trent had been relieved when, despite his obvious disappointment, his father-in-law had claimed to understand. Now he said to Kylie, “I’ve accepted a job in a place called Whitefish that will make me much happier. I think you’ll really love it there.”

“We’re moving?”

Swallowing hard, he nodded.

She jumped from his lap and stood glaring at him, her fingers working the lace trim of her sweatshirt. “No!”

“But, honey—”

“I’m not going.” Her protruding lower lip sent a powerful message.

“Just now you said it would be okay for us to learn to laugh and play again.”

She stamped her foot. “But right here.”

Tension knotted Trent’s gut. “You’ll like Whitefish. It’s where I went to school.”

“I don’t like fish!”

“There are lakes and mountains. You can learn to ski and snowshoe and—”

“No.” She shook her head back and forth, her straight blond hair fanning the air. “We can’t leave.”

Trent tried desperately to see the situation from his daughter’s point of view. She’d had too many changes lately. Did he have any right to inflict one more on her, even one that would free him in ways that made him light-headed with relief? “Why not?”

Kylie stood stock-still, looking at him as if he had just asked the world’s most ridiculous question. “Because Mommy’s here.”

His chest ached. “Sweetie, we’ve been over this so many times. Mommy is dead. Even though she is never coming back, she is always with us in spirit, but she isn’t in Billings.”

He watched, thunderstruck, as Kylie’s face screwed up into a red ball before she screamed at him, “She is too! She’s at that place with the stone. The c-cemcementery!”

“Oh, honey.” Although Kylie struggled against him, he gathered her back into his arms, where she remained stiff and unmoving. “The decision has been made.”

She stared at the far wall. “I’m not going.”

This was harder than he’d imagined. “Where else would you live except with me?”

“With Grandma Georgia and Grandpa Gus.”

Trent bit his lower lip, knowing full well his in-laws would welcome that plan. “Wouldn’t you miss me?”

She shrugged, unwilling to meet his eyes. “You could visit me.”

It was time for a dose of reality. “I wouldn’t be able to visit very often. I’ll be working.”

She didn’t move.

“I’d really like you to come with me. In Whitefish there’s a big lake and a ski slope. You could go to the same school where I went as a little boy.”

Her lips quivered and she wrung the hem of her shirt.

“Looks like we have a problem, doesn’t it? I’m not happy being a carpenter. You don’t want to leave Billings. What do you think we should do about this?”

“What would you do there—in that place?” she mumbled.

Patiently he explained about the adventure-outfitting business. About his love of the out-of-doors, which he wanted to share with her. About how lonely he would be without her.

“Where would we live?”

“To start with, in Weezer McCann’s guest cabin.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Weezer? Who’s that?”

“I’ve told you about her. Remember, she’s the lady who helped Grandma Lila and me when I was a little boy. She was like my second mother. You’ll love her. She tells the most wonderful stories.”

Kylie twined her fingers around his wrist. “What about?”

Good Lord, had he actually succeeded in capturing her interest? “Native American legends about birds and fish and animals. Why they’re named what they are. Why they do what they do.”

“Like beavers and bears and stuff?”

“Exactly.”

Just when he thought he’d convinced her, she scowled. “No,” she said, adamantly shaking her head. “I have to stay here.”

Gently he ran a hand over her soft hair. “Can you tell me why?”

She sniffled against his shirt. “Mommy.”

He held her close, feeling her fists curl against his chest. “Mommy is in heaven. Don’t you suppose she wants us to be happy?”

Seconds passed. Then she looked up at him. “I ’spect so.”

“Our love for Mommy and our memories of her can go with us anywhere in the whole wide world, right?”

A teary nod.

“So whaddya say we take Mommy with us to a place where you and I can be happy? She would love it. It’s beautiful country filled with wildflowers, big green trees and gurgling streams.”

She squirmed to the end of his knees and regarded him thoughtfully. “Did you say mountains?”

“Spectacular mountains.”

“Ice cream?”

The non sequitur made him laugh. “Scoops and scoops of it!”

She looked directly into his eyes. “Daddy, I like it when you laugh. Do you think you can laugh again when we go to that fish place?”

Laugh again? Dear God, had he been that out of touch? He reached for her and enfolded her in a huge bear hug. “Yes, sweetie, I’ll laugh again—lots more. And so will you.”

“Okay, then.”

He kissed the top of her head. “I’m glad you’re coming with me.”

“But there’s one thing.”

At this point he would gladly have presented her with the entire state of Montana had it been within his power. “What’s that?”

“I know Mommy’s with us in spirit, like you said, but what about that cementery? Could we go say goodbye before we move?”

Trent’s heart shattered. “Tomorrow, honey.”

With the wisdom given only to children, she had hit upon the one act he now realized he, too, needed to perform.

LIBBY DUCKED her head as she and Doug climbed the steps of the bed-and-breakfast following the symphony. Brahms and Mozart had done little to soothe her nerves. Instead, she’d spent most of the concert thinking about whether her insistence on two rooms had jeopardized her best chance for love and family.

“Feel like a nightcap?” Doug asked in the lobby as he removed her coat. “There’s a wonderful gas fireplace in my room—and a bottle of Amaretto.”

Doug, always considerate, deserved her enthusiasm. “It’s hard to turn down a cozy fire and an after-dinner drink.” She smiled. “Not to mention one very nice man.”

“Good,” he said, his eyes warm with affection.

The fireplace cast light and shadow over Doug’s room, which was decorated in deep burgundy and green tones. Settling her on the love seat, he filled two goblets, then sat beside her, raising her glass in a toast before handing it to her. “Here’s to you, Libby.”

The toast was definitely more than a casual “Here’s to ya.” Libby watched him sip from his glass, then sit back in satisfaction, before she took a swallow, letting the almond sweetness linger on her tongue.

To fill the silence, she started a discussion of the concert. She’d always loved music, even as a tiny child. A dim memory returned, a long-lost vignette. Her mother sitting in the corner of the high-ceilinged living room, the sun falling on her dark curly hair as she bent to the harp, the melody of the plucked strings sending a thrill through Libby’s small body. How old had she been? Four? Five? Gazing now into the dancing flames, she treasured the immediacy of the image before recalling the dark days that followed. When she was six, her mother died, and the silenced harp gathered dust in the corner until her stepfather had finally sold it.

“You’re awfully quiet all of a sudden,” Doug said, taking her half-empty glass and setting it on the coffee table beside his.

“Just remembering.” His arm settled around her shoulder. “Music does that for me.”

“Evocative,” he said quietly.

“Very.”

“Feel like telling me about it?”

She shrugged.

“You don’t talk much about the past.”

What was the point? Talking didn’t change anything. “No.” She tried a cheery smile. “The present and future are so much more compelling.”

She observed a question in his eyes, but he didn’t press her, for which she was grateful. “I could get interested in discussing the present and the future,” he whispered, drawing her into his arms. “Starting with tonight.” He lowered his head and began kissing her.

Libby’s awareness hovered somewhere above and beyond the pressure of his mouth, the tingle of his fingers running through her hair. He’d kissed her before, of course, but this was different. Not unpleasant, but no longer merely platonic.

She tried to relax, to give in to the sensation of being held, of arousing a man again. He cupped the back of her head, deepening the kiss, his tongue seeking hers. Involuntarily, an erotic response flared within her, irritating her. She didn’t want this, yet at the same time, she did. It was the best thing that could happen. Doug made her feel desirable. Safe.

When he withdrew, he framed her face with his hands, and his eyes were glazed with desire. “You’re sure about the two rooms?”

She bit her lip. Was she? Sooner or later… Suddenly it all seemed too pat, too contrived—a seduction scene. Then, out of the blue, another memory hit her—this one about spontaneity, blood-pounding need and the frantic urge to bare her body in a mindless frenzy. She froze.

“Libby?”

“Not tonight.” The words sounded like a parody of every bored, headachy housewife.

“Soon?” he asked hopefully.

She ducked her head. She wanted a husband. A home. Tears darted to her eyes. Children. Especially children. “We’ll see.”

Doug would make a wonderful father. Sadly, she knew from bitter experience that the same could not be said about some men.

One in particular.

Almost unconsciously, she pressed her hands over the flat of her womb, sensing the emptiness within.

From somewhere outside her, she heard Doug’s voice. “I care about you, Libby. I can be patient.”

She dissolved against him, feeling the steady beat of his heart, his body radiating a heat that slowly thawed the chill in hers.

It was well after midnight when she finally roused from his embrace and went to her room.

Alone.

GEORGIA CHILSOLM PAUSED in the doorway of her immaculate living room. A single dust mote fluttered and settled on the polished surface of the sofa table. She moved forward, wiping the cherry wood with the tissue she held in her hand. Then, walking briskly across the room, she aligned the pillows on the damask sofa, which were off by a fraction of an inch. The latest issues of Architectural Digest and House and Garden lay fanned on the coffee table. She checked to see that the large crystal vase of carefully arranged gladioli held sufficient water. Satisfied that all was in order, she permitted herself to stand before the fireplace, studying the pastel portrait hanging above the mantel. Ashley.

Every afternoon she spent time with her daughter, studying the serene blue gaze that followed her wherever she sat in the room. Remembering the silky feel of those white-blond tresses. Hearing in her mind Ashley’s laughter, bright and sparkling. She longed to trace once more the smooth, pale pink skin of her daughter’s cheek, to watch her lips form a small O of surprise and delight.

It was cruel, too cruel.

Georgia stepped backward, then eased into an armchair, her eyes never leaving the portrait of her daughter, frozen in time at twenty-three. Just before she met Trent Baker.

It was too late for if-onlys. Georgia had entertained such grand plans for her daughter. She closed her eyes now and pictured the shabby shotgun house in the company mining town in which she’d grown up. She could still remember how her mother hoarded the few dollars she could cajole from Georgia’s miner father before he headed for the tavern. Georgia steeled herself against the memories of nights she went to bed cold and hungry. When she’d married Gus, his thriving construction company promised a better life and a respectable standing in the community. Because of that, Ashley could have married any number of young, attractive, professional men.

Georgia worried the arm covers of the chair with her restless fingers. So why Trent? It had made no sense. A rough-and-tumble young man, no more at home in a museum or theater than a lumberjack would be. He was handsome, she’d give him that. But she’d raised Ashley to be more discriminating than to be won over by physicality and raffish charm. A twinkle in the eye was scant measure of a man’s ability to provide and protect.

Ashley had been a delightful, tractable child. A thoughtful and affectionate teen. Nothing in her experience as Ashley’s mother had prepared Georgia for her daughter’s reaction to Trent Baker. Ashley had dug in her heels, deaf to her mother’s pleas, determined to marry the man.

Then, thanks to his carelessness, the issue had been rendered moot. Ashley was pregnant.

Not wanting to alienate her daughter, Georgia had done her best to coexist with Trent. He knew she didn’t like him and would have preferred someone else for Ashley. Only the birth of Kylie had softened her stance. He was a loving father to the child, who slowly and inexorably grabbed hold of Georgia’s heart in a way no one except her daughter ever had. Georgia could almost forgive Trent as she marveled over the exquisite little girl.

Then had come the diagnosis. Abrupt. Devastating. Terminal. Georgia lifted her eyes to the portrait, where Ashley sat poised as if to speak, a smile softening her features. What would you tell me if you could, my darling daughter?

Through the long months of Ashley’s illness, Trent had remained devoted, exhausting himself with the care of both his wife and daughter. It was as if he’d wanted to graft himself to them in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable.

Now he was taking her granddaughter away. It would have been kinder had he taken a knife and carved out a section of her heart. This loss, on top of the other, was unbearable.

The shadows lengthened on the thick Persian rug, but Georgia was oblivious, her eyes trained on the portrait, where Ashley seemed to nod her head imperceptibly as she always had when her mother over-stepped her bounds with Trent. Whether Georgia understood it or not, Ashley had loved Trent to the end. And, in his own way, he had loved her.

How could he even think of taking Kylie and moving away?

It was when she turned her thoughts to her granddaughter that the tears began to trickle in earnest down her powdered cheeks.

CHAPTER TWO

“WEEZER!” Libby greeted the leather-skinned woman with the single silver braid of hair who was walking toward her classroom. Her legs were encased in worn jeans, her feet clad in knee-high moccasins, and around the neck of her colorful western shirt, she wore a thong of beads, stones and feathers. But it was Louise McCann’s dark eyes and wrinkle-encased smile that captivated people. A member of the Blackfeet tribe, the longtime widow owned the Kodiak Café, a Whitefish institution.

“Greetings, little one. Ready for me?”

Libby moved into the hall. “Oh my, yes. The kids can’t wait.”

“With the Christmas vacation so close, I imagine they’re more restless than usual.”

Libby rolled her eyes. “Remember that Super Bowl commercial about herding cats? You get the picture.” Grinning, she ushered Weezer into her classroom. “Trust me, you’re a godsend.”

“I’m no savior, just a storyteller.” Weezer moved to the back wall to examine the construction-paper Santa Claus figures plastered there. “Are you going home to Muskogee for Christmas?”

Home? “No. My stepfather is staying in D.C., and I’m not excited about presenting him with a holiday photo op.” Weezer turned to face her, but said nothing. Libby knew people didn’t understand why she avoided her stepfather, the Honorable Vernon G. Belton, United States senator from Oklahoma. But neither Washington, D.C., nor Muskogee, Oklahoma, had been home for a long, long time. And “Daddy” Belton, as he’d insisted she call him after he married her mother, had always been far more interested in politics than in his albatross of a stepdaughter.

“We’re having a community Christmas dinner at the café. You could pull up a chair with us.”

“Thanks, but I’ve been invited to the Traverses’.” Libby warmed at the thought. She’d spent Thanksgiving there, too, surrounded by Doug’s parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. Norman Rockwell couldn’t begin to do justice to the gathering.

“I’m glad. You won’t be alone, then.”

Weezer didn’t have to complete the thought. Like you were that awful Christmas twelve years ago. Libby willed away the painful memory, then cupped her ear. “Hark! Is that the prancing and pawing of little feet?”

In trooped the second-graders, flushed from recess, and the room filled with excited chatter and the odor of damp mittens. “Weezer, will you tell us about Brother Moose?” “No, I wanna hear ’bout Winter Wolf.” The children hurriedly removed their coats and boots, then clustered around the old woman, who calmed them with one raised hand and a softly spoken, “Once, many moons past, Old Man made…”

Libby sank into her desk chair, drawn into the legend by the gentle cadence of Weezer’s voice, the expressive gestures of her hands and the sense of something ancient, unchanging and enduring. She envied the woman her roots and traditions.

What were her own legacies? Libby closed her eyes, weariness suddenly overcoming her. They didn’t bear thinking about.

TRENT ROLLED OUT of the unfamiliar bed and moved stealthily to the window. He glanced back at the other twin bed where Kylie slept, one hand curled beneath her chin, the other clutching a white plush polar bear with a red plaid neck scarf. Though it was still dark, a glaring street lamp had awakened him from a restless sleep.

The Chisholms had invited Kylie and him to spend the night of Christmas Eve with them. Holidays were for family, they had insisted. Trent could hardly refuse. As the day of their departure for Whitefish neared, his in-laws had become increasingly protective of Kylie, and while Gus maintained a stiff upper lip, Georgia, saying little, targeted Trent with accusing eyes. In fairness, he could hardly blame them. Since Ashley’s death, the two of them had grown even more attached to Kylie and she to them. He couldn’t expect jubilation when he was moving their only grandchild nearly five hundred miles across the state.

Their Christmas Eve dinner had been formal, even pretentious, complete with china, crystal and enough forks to confuse Miss Manners. Ashley’s place was conspicuously vacant, and the conversation among the three adults was forced, at best. Gus had talked business, then switched to sports until Georgia, a distressed look on her face, objected. Kylie had kept silent, picking at her food, occasionally casting worried glances at her grandmother, who addressed the girl’s nervousness by slipping her after-dinner mints.

Trent returned to his bed, lying on his back, his hands cradling his head. Gus was all right, a fair person. But Georgia’s disapproval of him had been obvious from the get-go. He was the man who had gotten her unwed daughter pregnant. The one who wasn’t worthy of Ashley, who, as Georgia had taken pains to inform him, had been destined for marriage to a white-collar professional, not a jack-of-all-trades with a limited future. Even Kylie’s birth had failed to mellow her at first, as if the baby had symbolically represented Georgia’s failed hopes for Ashley. But soon the infant had won her over, and from that time on, the challenge had been to keep her from spoiling Kylie rotten. A fussy, particular woman, intent on overcoming her humble origins, Georgia fixated on appearances, sometimes failing her granddaughter in fundamental ways, although she would vigorously have denied that assessment.

Trent turned onto his side, watching the gentle rise and fall of his daughter’s chest. She needed a warm, cuddling grandmother who smelled of cinnamon and flowers and read stories and played Pretend.

As for his own mother… Lila did her best on her infrequent visits from Las Vegas, where she worked as a cashier at a casino, but even her best was questionable. Always so busy making a living, she’d had little opportunity to exercise her maternal instincts. She had the ready laugh of a survivor, but she would never be one to sew doll clothes or bake cookies. Teaching Kylie Crazy Eights was about as good as it got.

Was this one reason he couldn’t stop thinking about Libby, the most selflessly loving person he’d ever met? She would be so good for Kylie.

He forced himself to derail that train of thought. He couldn’t imagine she would ever give him another chance. Not after what had happened.

Flopping over on his back again, he struggled to think about St. Nicholas, reindeer, even visions of sugarplums dancing in his head, whatever the hell that meant.

But all he could think of was Lib, and how she’d be good, all right. Not only for Kylie. For him.

THIS WAS A PICTURE-BOOK Christmas. Libby glanced around the living room of the Traverses’ large chalet-style home. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows was a breathtaking view of Whitefish Lake. In one corner stood a nine-foot-tall spruce, decorated from base to top with ornaments made through the years by Doug and his brother and sisters. Aromas, savory and tantalizing, wafted from the kitchen. Doug sprawled on the floor, helping his brother and nephew lay track for an electric train, while his sister Melanie’s four-year-old twin girls cuddled on either side of Libby as she read Dr. Seuss’s “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”

Bedecked in green tights with a long red-knit sweater, Mary Travers entered the room carrying a bowl of frothy eggnog, which she set on the buffet. Smiling from one twin to the other, she addressed Libby. “You look like a natural.”

“I’ve had plenty of practice at school.”

Mary shook her head, an impish smile playing across her lips. “That’s not what I meant. You look like a mother.”

The illustration of the Whos down in Whoville blurred. “Maybe someday,” she managed to say.

Slanting her head toward Doug, Mary winked and said, “I’ll work on it. Meanwhile, after you get that mean old storybook Grinch in the Christmas spirit, come have a glass of eggnog.”

“You gonna drink eggs?” Margot, the twin dressed in green, stared up at Libby. “Yuck.”

Maddy, the more serious of the two, shook her head. “Not eggs. Nog.” The triumphant look slowly faded from her face. Finally she got up on her knees and whispered in Libby’s ear, “What’s a ‘nog’?”