Christmas at Twilight (13 page)

Forgiveness, Gideon told him, was his only hope.

Gideon had also given him an assignment. Go out among people wearing fatigues. Accept their praise. Accept his feelings about it. Don't judge either as bad or good. Experience the feelings and let them go.

The minivan pulled into a parallel parking space at the curb on the north side of the courthouse. Hutch was standing on the west side of the square, having anticipated she would come into town off Highway 51. She must not have come straight from home.

He hustled around the square, hurrying to greet them. It wasn't until Jane—wearing leggings, boots, short denim skirt, and gray faux fur jacket—got out of the vehicle, met his gaze, and smiled that Hutch realized he'd been holding his breath.

The kids got out of the vehicle on the curbside of the street and ran toward him.

He crouched to catch one kid in each arm and accepted the dual kisses they rained on his cheeks. In that moment, hell if he didn't feel like a hero. Three days he'd been gone from the house. It felt like three years.

“Aww,” said one passerby to another. “Isn't that sweet. A daddy coming home from the war to see his twins for Christmas.”

Even if he could speak, he wouldn't have corrected their assumptions.

Jane stepped up onto the sidewalk. The smile stayed on her face, simmering like hot soup on a cold winter evening. “Hello.”

He stood, both kids slipping their mittened hands through his. He smiled back, hoping he didn't look as shy and awkward as he felt.

She led the way across the street to Santa's Workshop set up on the courthouse lawn. A long line of children, waiting with their parents, snaked up the walkway. Nearby kiosks sold hot chocolate and roasted nuts. The smell of pine, and peppermint filled the air. An outdoor speaker played “Jingle Bell Rock.”

The children clung to his hands, chattering nonstop. Kimmie told Hutch about a picture she'd drawn for him, while Ben talked about the coolness of Thomas the Train.

Jane stopped at the end of the line. Hutch and the children came to stand behind her. She smelled of yeast and vanilla, as if she'd spent the morning baking.

Seemingly reading his thoughts, she said, “No one booked a massage for today. At the beginning of December, my schedule is jam-packed, everyone wants to de-stress before the holidays, but things are slowing down the closer we get to Christmas. So we've been baking stollen. My grandmother used to bake it every year.”

It was the first time he'd ever heard her mention anything personal about her family. He wanted to ask a million questions. Was her grandmother still alive? How about her parents? If so, what did they do for a living? Was she going to visit them for the holidays? Would they come here to visit her?

He wanted to tell her things too. Like one of the few things he remembered about his mother's mother, who'd died when he was eight, was that she made fruitcakes every year and he loved to steal the candied citron from the ingredients she stacked on the kitchen counter. She never scolded him for it, and in fact, she was the one who first showed him how to cook. How much he missed her when she died because there was no longer anyone to shield him and Ashley from their mother.

Hutch wanted to tell Jane how pretty she was, how he appreciated her help with Kimmie. And he wanted to ask her what she most wanted for Christmas and where she saw herself ending up a year from now.

But even if he could speak, Hutch wouldn't have asked her these things. He was on shaky ground with her and he didn't want to do anything that might tilt the balance out of his favor.

“I'm worried,” she whispered, leaning in so close that her breath warmed his ear, “that Kimmie is going to ask Santa to bring her mommy home for Christmas. She's stopped asking about Ashley, but I know she's still longing for her mother.”

Hutch shook his head. He hated what his sister was doing to her daughter. When Ashley got home, he was going to lay down the law. Either she agreed to treatment for her personality disorder or he was going to take her to court to get custody of Kimmie. On his own, he had little chance of gaining custody of his niece, but with Jane's testimony, he stood a fighting chance.

Would Jane agree to testify in his behalf if he did go for custody?

It was a battle he wasn't really ready to think about yet.

Kimmie sneezed. Jane dug a small package of tissues from her purse and passed one to her.

“Thank you, Mommy,” Kimmie said.

Jane shot him a meaningful look over his niece's head.

The sky was overcast with temperatures in the mid-forties, nippy with a slight breeze coming in off Lake Twilight, but not uncomfortably so. Jesse and Flynn stood ahead of them in line with their daughter, Grace. They waved and the women called out to each other, having a conversation about something called Kismet cookies.

“Are you comin' back home, Unca Hutch?” Kimmie asked.

He didn't know what to tell her, so he took the easy way out and flagged down a passing vendor pushing a popcorn chart and bought two small bags of caramel popcorn for the kids.

Jane gave him a chiding look. “It'll spoil their dinner.”

Sheepishly, he shrugged.

At the entrance to Santa's Workshop, half a dozen elves greeted them, putting plastic candy cane garlands around their necks and ushering them inside the plywood building painted to look like the North Pole. Inside was Santa's sleigh being pulled by nine animated, talking reindeer, Rudolph in the lead with his shiny red nose.

Kimmie sneezed again and Jane automatically handed her another tissue.

“I wonder if she's allergic to something,” Jane fretted. “Mountain cedar is high this time of year.”

Finally, they reached Santa and their turn came. Kimmie and Ben insisted on going up together, one on each knee. Elves shot professional photographs, but Jane had her cell phone out, snapping pictures like mad.

Ben predictably asked Santa to bring him a Thomas the Train that he could ride on, and when Santa turned his attention to Kimmie, Hutch held his breath. Would she ask him to bring her mother home?

“And what would you like, little girl?” Santa asked with a jolly laugh.

Kimmie looked right in Santa's eyes and said, “I'd wike Auntie Jane to be my new mommy and Unca Hutch to be my daddy.”

Santa looked startled. “Is there a toy I could bring you from my workshop?”

Kimmie's little face fell along with Hutch's stomach. She ducked her head and mumbled, “I guess I wike a princess doll.”

If Ashley had been there, Hutch would have a hard time not grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking some sense into her, but if his sister had been there, Kimmie wouldn't be aching for a good mother.

Santa gave each child a candy cane and sent them on their way, extracting promises that they would be good children.

Jane took Ben's hand and he took Kimmie's. An elf escorted them to the exit. The courthouse clock chimed four as they stepped out onto the south side of the town square.

Hutch wasn't sure what to do now. He glanced over at Jane.

She had stopped in the middle of the walkway, and she was staring off into the crowd, her eyes fixed, her face the color of flour.

“Mommy,” Ben said. “Your hand is cold.”

Jane did not respond.

Hutch followed her gaze, spied a man about his height and build turning the corner on the east side of the square. He glanced back at Jane. The same kind of sheer, hopeless fear he'd seen on the faces of Afghan women and children after their villages had been devastated by warfare. Her entire body shook from head to feet.

Was she having a seizure? Alarmed, Hutch moved closer.

“Mommy?” Ben tugged on her arm.

Jane snapped to, blinked, and met his gaze with utterly desperate eyes. Worry lines curved around her mouth like parentheses.

Who was that man? What was he, that just the sight of him could turn her into a terrified zombie?

More than anything in the world, he wanted to reach out and touch her, but he didn't know where he stood, and touching her would violate the fragile lifeline of forgiveness she'd tossed him when she offered to allow him to come with them this afternoon. And he couldn't ask her what was wrong, or offer verbal reassurance.

So he stood there sending her a look that he hoped showed his concern for her and said what he could not say—
I care, I'm worried, please tell me what's wrong.

“Hutch,” she said, her voice as shaky as her body. “Would you please come home?”

D
ear Lord
, Meredith prayed,
please don't let it be Sloane.

Many times over the last five years she thought she'd seen him in a crowd. The sightings had been more common in the beginning, and had gradually dissipated until he caught up with her in Denver two years ago. After that, she saw him everywhere.

But since her move to Twilight, she'd started to feel safer and she hadn't once had a Sloane sighting.

She didn't know if it was the welcoming community that had lulled her or Hutch's appearance in her life, or both, but she had stupidly let down her guard. She hadn't even realized she was doing it—trusting more, being more open—but bit by bit she had started to feel safe here.

And until this moment, when she spotted the man who looked eerily like her ex-husband, she hadn't realized what a huge mistake she'd made.

The man had been too far away for her to know if it was a false alarm or not, but she wasn't taking any chances. She had to either leave or get Hutch back in the house at once. Even then, she should probably just pack up and go. If it wasn't for Kimmie and Hutch, she would immediately flee home and start packing her things.

Maybe she would do that anyway as soon as Hutch was asleep.

Hutch was staring at her strangely.

She forced a smile. “We miss you.”

He neither nodded nor shook his head. Just stood there silent and strong as an old oak, his eyes tender and filled with concern. She had such an overwhelming urge to bury her head against his chest and confess everything.

A few days ago, she'd been worried about his capacity for violence. Now, weighed against the idea that Sloane might have found her again, she wished that she could tell him and unleash every bit of warrior that he had in him on her ex-husband.

“Yah!” Kimmie exclaimed. “Unca Hutch is comin' home with us.”

“Hutch?” Meredith asked, her voice unnaturally high. “Are you coming home with us?”

He smiled a smile that belied the wariness on his face and the tension in his body. She wasn't fooling him. He knew something was up. He made her wait one beat, two. Then slowly, he bobbed his head up and down.

Relief expelled the air from her body in an exaggerated sigh. “Thank you,” she said, her gratitude as heavy as the cold humidity. Snow was on the way. She could feel it. “Thank you.”

Kimmie sneezed.

“Come on, sweetie. Let's get you home and get some warm soup into you.” Meredith picked up the little girl, and Hutch hefted Ben on his shoulders. They hiked back to their vehicles together, Meredith frantically searching the crowd for signs of Sloane. She didn't spot him again, but just the fact that she
thought
she'd seen him was enough to send her into panic mode.

“Could you take the kids home in the minivan?” she asked Hutch when they reached the vehicles.

She hated to have Ben out of her sight for even a second, but she had to start covering her tracks. If she couldn't have him with her, Hutch was the only other person she truly trusted to take care of her son right now. The man was a Delta Force operative. If he couldn't best Sloane, then neither could Satan himself.

His eyes were suspicious, but he nodded and they swapped vehicles.

She climbed into his truck, watched him help the kids into their car seats. The cab smelled of him, manly and comforting. Her pulse thudded erratically and her hands shook against the steering wheel.

Inhaling deeply, she practiced a series of yoga breathing techniques to calm herself. Acting out of panic would only cause her to make mistakes, as she'd done the day she had pepper-sprayed Hutch. She had to be cautious. She could not afford a single misstep.

Her very life, and that of her son, depended on her keeping a cool head.

T
hat night, Hutch's bedroom door creaked open, jolting him awake from a dead sleep. Automatically, he rammed a hand under his pillow going for the gun he'd forgotten wasn't there. He'd put away his weapons when he'd gotten home, locking them in a gun safe to keep the children protected. Fat lot of good that did him now against an intruder.

But his midnight invader wasn't some unknown threat.

Instead, it was his niece padding over the threshold. The moon shining through the part in the curtains, bathed her in a creamy yellow light. Behind her, she dragged a baby blanket, and she was whimpering softly.

Christ! Good thing he had locked up those guns.

Hutch swung his legs off the bed, reached for his blue jeans thrown over the footboard. Normally, he slept in the buff, but with kids in the house, he'd taken to sleeping in boxer shorts.

Kimmie rubbed her eyes. “I don't feel berry good, Unca Hutch.”

He wrestled on a T-shirt, knelt in front of her, and tucked her against his chest. She crumpled into the crook of his elbow, pressing her head against his shoulder.

The kid was burning up!

With Kimmie clutched tightly in his arms, he rose to his feet and reached over to turn on the bedside lamp. Her face was red, perspiration beaded in that spot between her button nose and Cupid's bow mouth, and her lips were cracked and dry.

She had a fever and she was dehydrated.

How had this happened so fast? She'd been fine this afternoon. Sitting on Santa's lap, making unrealistic wishes for a family of her own. Her blue eyes, normally so clear and bright, turned murky and her gaze locked on him for a moment, her lashes dusted with a fine mist of tears. She rubbed the back of her hand over her lips, but dropped her arm halfway through the movement. She was too weak to hold her arm up even long enough to wipe her mouth.

Poor kid.

Her eyes shuttered closed and his chest carried the full weight of her little body. Her breathing was quick and hot. Too quick and too hot. Her hair, damp from sweat, was plastered against her head.

Hutch's pulse took off at a gallop, chasing a chill through his bloodstream in freezing contrast to Kimmie's thermal heat. Gooseflesh blanketed his skin. Acid bile burned his gut and a taste like oxidized pennies flooded his mouth. Fear, as strong as any he'd ever felt, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shook him like a baby cottontail in a pit bull's mouth.

He staggered from the bedroom, one arm cupped around Kimmie's pajama-clad bottom, the other pressed firmly against her back, her little legs dangling around his waist. Wrenched open the door to the downstairs bathroom, flipped on the light.

Kimmie grunted against the brightness, buried her face against his chest.

Sorry, baby, sorry.

Frantically, he did a one-handed search, pawing through drawers, yanking open cabinets, tossing around the contents. No thermometer. Damn his sister anyway. She had a four-year-old. How could she not have a thermometer in the house?

He had medical training. Everyone in The Unit knew more than just basic first aid and CPR, but he'd only used it on burly grown men. He'd applied tourniquets, stitched up wounds, given injections. But this was a kid here. He couldn't mess around. He wished he could ask her what else was wrong. Did she have a stomachache? A headache? Did she hurt anywhere?

His mind felt liquid, scattered, like it had turned to mercury, and he was trying to pick it up with his bare hands and it kept rolling through his fingers, shiny, bright, and hopelessly out of reach.

Don't lose it, man. This kid is depending on you.

Jane. She was a mother. A good mother. She would have a thermometer.

Relief poured through him. Jane would know what to do.

Hefting Kimmie up higher on his hip, Hutch scaled the stairs two at a time. He saw a light on under her door. Thank God, Jane was already awake.

He didn't knock. He was that upset, just turned the knob and bolted into her bedroom.

Her bed was still made up and a suitcase, stuffed with clothes, lay open on the bedspread. What was this? She was packing? Leaving?

The packed suitcase disoriented him and for a moment he thought he was dreaming. But he could feel the braided rug beneath his bare feet and the burn of Kimmie's fever against his skin. Dreams weren't this tactile. Unless this was a nightmare. He'd been having a lot of those lately, but they always revolved around combat.

From the trundle bed, Ben roused and sat up, yawning. His hair stuck up in the air like a woodpecker's topknot. He blinked and called out, “Mommy.”

Jane opened the adjoining bathroom door and peeked out; she was toweling her hair dry. Hair that had once been coal black, but was now the color of burnished copper.

Her eyes widened at the sight of Hutch.

He rushed toward Jane, grabbed her startled hand. She dropped the towel stained with hair dye and it fell to the floor. Still holding her by the wrist, he pressed Jane's palm to Kimmie's forehead.

“She's burning up.”

He nodded.

“Put her on the bed. Here wait, let me move the suitcase.” She grabbed the suitcase without zipping it closed and tossed it in the corner. It hit the ground with a loud smack, slipping clothes all over the floor.

Hutch set Kimmie on the bed. She drooped against the mattress, moaned softly, and then her eyes rolled back in her head and her body stiffened. Ah shit! Hutch clutched at the sides of his head with both hands. What was happening to his niece?

Instantly, Jane turned Kimmie on her side and gently propped pillows around her while the tremors ran through her little body. “She's having a febrile seizure.”

Kimmie's body shook, twitched.

Someone made the keening sound of a wounded animal caught in a trap and he realized it was he. Kimmie was having seizures. He wasn't messing around. He was calling 9–1–1. He leaped to grab Jane's cell phone lying on the table beside the bed, turned it on, and realized he couldn't tell the 9–1–1 dispatcher a damn thing.

“It's okay, Hutch,” Jane said calmly. “She's coming out of it.”

Kimmie's eyes fluttered opened. They looked glassy and confused.

Jane stroked Kimmie's hair. “There, there, sweetheart, you're all right,” she cooed.

“Is Kimmie okay?” Ben asked, looking worried.

“She's got a little fever, honey, that's all. Try to go back to sleep,” she told her son.

Ben settled back under the covers, but kept an eye on Kimmie.

Hutch sank against the wall, his legs no longer strong enough to hold him up.

Jane glanced over at him. “While febrile seizures are scary to watch, in children they don't usually require any treatment. I'll take her temperature and give her some children's ibuprofen to lower the fever, and then we'll take her to the doctor tomorrow. There's no need for an expensive and traumatic ER visit in the middle of the night.”

Hutch's chest heaved, his throat tightening like a noose. His head spun and he slid down the wall until his butt hit the floor.

“You're hyperventilating.” Jane got up and went over to put a hand on his shoulder. “I don't need two patients. Remember the yoga breathing I taught you. I'm going to let you deal with that while I go get the ibuprofen and a cool cloth for Kimmie's head.”

Hutch nodded. What the hell kind of Delta Force operator was he? Going to pieces like that? Yeah, well, bullets and stab wounds were one thing. But a sick kid? Jesus. He pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead.

Jane went into the bathroom and he sat there, breathing deeply, trying to wrest back some shred of dignity and self-control. A minute later, Jane returned with an electronic thermometer, a damp washcloth, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a plastic one-ounce Dixie cup. She took Kimmie's temperature, pressed the cool cloth to the child's forehead. Her movements were so practiced. As if she'd done this many times before.

“A hundred and three,” she told Hutch.

That sounded awfully high to him.

“Does she have a history of febrile seizures?”

Hutch lifted his shoulders in a helpless gesture. He had no idea.

“Do you have a headache?” Jane asked Kimmie.

Kimmie shook her head.

Jane bathed her face with the cloth. “Does your neck hurt?”

“No,” Kimmie mumbled in a tiny voice.

“Can you do this?” Jane tilted her head from one shoulder to the next.

Kimmie imitated her movements.

“Good girl.” Jane stroked Kimmie's cheek with a finger. “That's an encouraging sign,” she called over her shoulder to Hutch. “If spinal meningitis were causing her fever, she'd have a splitting headache and/or neck stiffness and pain.”

Hutch hoisted himself off the floor, came over to stand beside the bed.

“I'm going to sit you up now,” Jane told Kimmie. “So you can take some medicine to bring down that fever. Can you swallow?”

Kimmie nodded mutely, her cheeks as red as Santa's suit. Jane measured out the medication into the plastic cup, and lifted up Kimmie's shoulders. “Swallow it fast to get it down.”

His niece gulped the medicine down and Jane went back to the bathroom to get Kimmie a cup of water to wash it down with.

“Good girl.” Jane patted Kimmie's back. “You're going to sleep right here with me tonight.” She peeled back the covers and helped Kimmie scoot underneath them. To Hutch, she said. “I'll let her sleep here so I can keep a close eye on her.”

Hutch wanted to argue. To tell her it was his job to take care of his niece, but he had no voice, and the Magic Slate was all the way downstairs.

Jane turned out the bedroom light, but kept the one in the bathroom on. Kimmie's eyes closed and her breathing slowed and within five minutes she was asleep.

“I've got it from here if you want to go back to bed.” She stood there, her new red hair shining in the slant of light from the bathroom, looking like a professional nurse, the upended suitcase on the floor behind her, clothing strewn all around.

He remembered how she'd changed after they came out of Santa's Workshop. How her gaze had been fixed on a man disappearing in the crowd, how her face had paled, how she'd trembled all over. How she'd sent him on home with the children ahead of her. He'd known all along that she was hiding something. He couldn't play ignorant anymore.