Hating Christmas (Holiday Series) (7 page)

***

Her clothes still dripping snowy water, Holly juggled
the mass as she went down the hall from her bedroom. She wished her
mom had an upstairs laundry room. Making her way to the staircase,
she mused on the startling fact that Levi Harper had kissed her.
Really kissed her. Their tussle in the snow had been fun up to that
point, but his kiss had turned chilly fun to steamy pleasure. Good
grief, the guy could kiss better than he had a right to. She wasn’t
quite sure what to make of it, but she’d enjoyed the hell out of
it.

Rounding the corner, her damp clothes in her hands,
she was just coming to the room her mother now shared with Michael,
when her mom’s upset voice reached her ears. Holly paused.

“…can’t believe you did this! What were you
thinking?”

Any child learned to recognize the angry, upset sound
in a parent’s voice and she knew immediately that her mother was
both irritated and distressed.

Holly knew also that standing beside her mother’s
door eavesdropping wasn’t really kosher, but she couldn’t just walk
on past and ignore it. What if her mother needed her?

“I thought you’d be happy! My God, woman! Don’t you
girls like surprises?” It was her mother’s new husband’s voice.

“We just went on a cruise, Michael! The tickets cost
a ton of money--”

Straining her ears, Holly tried to understand her
mother’s muffled words.

“What are you doing?”

Startled in an act she wasn’t completely comfortable
with, she jumped violently.

Levi lounged against the door jamb of the guest room
on the opposite side of the hall. Before she could answer, angry
voices were again raised in her mother’s room.

“Oh!” he said, lowering his words. He stepped into
the hall to stand next to her outside the door.

“Watch out for the wet spot on the floor,” she
murmured, glancing down at the puddle from her thawing jeans.

Her warning had come a second too late. “Thanks.”
Levi stepped back, shaking the moisture from where the droplets had
fallen on the toe of his elegant shoe.

“…we can’t just throw money around. You should have
asked me…”

“They’re fighting, huh?” he shifted around the wet
spot on the floor to move closer to her mom’s door.

“Don’t get too close!” Holly hissed urgently. “What
if they open the door?”

Levi shot her a look. “Then we just go on downstairs
like we were walking by the door—which you were doing until you
stopped.”

“….I have to ask when I want to buy you a gift? I
just wanted to surprise you!” Levi’s dad’s voice rose at the end of
the sentence.

Shifting her wet bundle to her hip, Holly couldn’t
help creeping closer. She knew the fight was pretty much
inevitable—and she’d hoped that they’d see this marriage was too
hasty to work—but she didn’t like her mom being upset.

The voices inside the bedroom grew more
indistinct.

“I think they’re in the bathroom,” Holly whispered to
Levi, creeping to stop right next to him outside the door. He
nodded, not saying anything and they went back to listening.

“I don’t care whether—“

Holly and Levi jumped back from the door as her
mother’s voice sounded clearly without warning on the other side of
the door.

“--we had a good time or not. It makes no sense to go
on another cruise so quickly. We have to build a life on dry land.
We need to watch our money carefully!”

“If this marriage is going to work,” Michael said
angrily, “I have to be able to spend my money without checking with
you first!”

Beside her, Levi nodded his agreement, making an
okay-so-that’s-true face at Holly.

“But it’s not just your money anymore, Michael,”
Audrey shot back in a voice that was growing more angry with every
minute. “When we got married, our funds became
our
money, to
some degree. I just think it would have been good if you’d thought
a little more about this.”

“You mean
check with you
like I’m a school
boy? I haven’t asked a woman’s permission for the last thirty years
and I’m not about to start now!”

They were roaring at each other, clearly audible
through the door and Holly began feeling even more uncomfortable
about standing there while the older couple fought.

“Maybe we should go,” she hissed at Levi.

“What? And miss the show?” He whispered back, his
face was sardonic. “Don’t you want to see what happens next?”

Before she could answer, his father’s loud, angry
voice was heard again. “Do you want to look over my bills, Audrey?
Check the balances on my credit cards?”

“Maybe I should!”

Holly hadn’t heard that note in her mother’s voice
since before her dad died. Even though she’d been young when he
fell sick, she had memories of the two of them arguing.

“How are we going to make this a family, if you just
haul off and spend thousands of dollars without talking to me
first?” Her mother sounded as if she were trying to be calm, but
losing the battle.

“Audrey,” The angry note in Michael’s voice was clear
through the door, “I am a grown man. I don’t need you or anyone
else telling me how to spend my money.”

“Apparently, you do!”

Holly exchanged a look with Levi. Maybe they didn’t
need to do anything. The marriage appeared to be falling apart even
before she expected.

“I guess you don’t want to go on another holiday with
me,” Michael raged in huffy tones. “Maybe you’d rather go with your
friends. Save your money for another singles cruise!”

“Don’t be silly—“

“I’m just a silly, foolish old guy from your past.
Well, I beg your pardon! I thought we were building a life
together—“

“We are!”

“—but apparently you never meant to join your life
with mine! You just went through that ceremony, planning to keep
living your single life! Well, I’m not going to let any woman keep
me on a leash!”

“Michael, wait a minute—I never said I wanted
that.”

“You probably regret the whole thing!”

“Michael--!”

Holly jumped back from the door just in time, but
Levi’s father didn’t even seem to notice, slamming the bedroom door
behind him and storming down the hall without even casting her a
look.

Glancing over to Levi, Holly just raised her eyebrows
before heading in to comfort her now-sobbing mother.

Watching her go, Levi continued on down the
staircase. After their big blow-up, his father would certainly be
in the mood to reconsider having married so quickly. Reaching the
first floor, he looked around for his dad, but didn’t see him.
While he went through the first floor rooms, he couldn’t help
remembering his father’s first marriage after Levi’s mother left
them.

His mouth firmed into a line, he thought about the
years both before and after Rebecca. His mother’s abandonment had
been softened for him by his father’s presence. Michael Harper was
a devoted dad. He’d attended to his business while still standing
by Levi at every school function, attending every Scout meeting and
comforting him after every nightmare about his mom having left. Of
course, that had only been in the year or so before Rebecca swam
into their lives…. Damn her.

When his dad wasn’t to be found anywhere in the
house, Levi shrugged in his coat and looked outside the house.

He found the older man sitting on the top of a snowy
pile of logs out behind the house.

Sticking his hands under his armpits to shield them
from the frigid Minnesota December air, Levi leaned against the
wood pile.

“So….rough day?”

Michael’s laugh was short and bitter. “You could say
that.”

“Being married isn’t as easy as you’d hoped,
huh?”

His father threw him a disgusted look. “That woman is
impossible!”

This was promising! Levi tried to keep the
satisfaction out of his voice. “Audrey and you are fighting.”

“I bought her a gift!” his dad exploded, the words
coming out with force. “What the hell kind of woman doesn’t expect
a present at Christmas? But no, not her! She was crazy! Not
appreciative, at all.”

“Mmmmm.” Despite the fact that his ass was freezing
against a chunk of snowy wood, Levi tried to look supportive.

“She thinks she can tell me what to do!”

His dad started speaking in a falsetto voice that
Levi understood was supposed to be Audrey.

“You should have asked me! You can’t spend money
without asking me! You have to have my permission now!”

Levi chuckled. His dad had always been an emotional
kind of guy, easy to read and prone to getting upset when things
didn’t go his way.

“What?” Michael glared at him. “Why are you laughing?
You think I’m kidding? You should have heard some of the things she
said to me.”

Shifting to find a more comfortable seat against the
woodpile, Levi commented in a level voice, “I’d have had to be deaf
not to hear you guys fighting.”

His dad stared at him before returning to what he was
saying. “She thinks she’s the boss now, that just because we’re
married, she’s in charge!”

“Well, Dad, I think you did rush into this marriage,”
Levi shifted on the icy wood. “But—to be fair—I didn’t exactly hear
Audrey say she’s in charge.”

“Oh, yes, she did,” his father insisted. “She wants
me to run every purchase past her first. I can’t even buy a stick
of gum without asking her first!”

Levi just looked at the older man, struggling to keep
the grin off his face. Things had certainly blown up before he
thought they would.

“She does,” his dad insisted at his grin. “I mean,
what woman can’t accept a gift at Christmas? She must have never
let her first husband get her anything.”

Levi’s fairness gene again prompted him to say, “This
wasn’t exactly perfume or earrings, you know.”

“How do you know what I gave her?” His father looked
pugnacious as he asked the question.

“Again, Dad. You were yelling at each other. It
wasn’t hard to hear what you were saying.”

His father looked away, a little sheepishly. “Well,
maybe I did get loud—“

“I’d say.” Levi’s butt cheeks were numb with the
cold. He spared them a fleeting thought, wondering if Holly would
mind helping him warm up. Even if she had totally crossed the line
with going directly to Mac about her documentary, that girl could
kiss.

“I made a mistake, Levi. I thought Audrey loved
me…that she enjoyed the cruise together.” His father swallowed. “I
thought she’d like to do it again. We had a wonderful time.”

Levi didn’t say anything for several long minutes. He
put his arm around his father’s shoulders, giving him a squeeze.
“You’re the greatest, Dad.”

His father turned to look at him, his eyes damp. “I
thought I’d found someone special. You know how long I’ve been
dating. After that mess with Rebecca….” Michael dropped his head
again. “I’ve been careful. I know you were concerned because Audrey
and I hadn’t seen one another in very long, but we’ve talked a lot
about how we feel about things. She seemed like the warm, loving
person I remembered. I thought she loved me.”

“She didn’t say she didn’t love you.” The words were
out before Levi realized it.

“But she can’t really care about me if she doesn’t
want to spend time with me.” Michael shuffled his feet in the
trampled snow.

He knew he should agree with this, but Levi couldn’t
bring himself to lie outright. “Unless I missed part of the very
loud discussion you were having, she didn’t say she doesn’t want to
spend time with you.”

“But that’s what she meant,” Michael said glumly. “I
mean, what woman turns down cruise tickets with a man she
loves?”

Levi chuckled. “I can think of several answers to
that—women who get seasick, those who just like dry land
vacations—“

“You know what I mean.”

It wasn’t his experience that women worried about
out-spending a guy’s wallet, but Levi had taken note of what Audrey
had said about the cost of the trip. To his surprise, he agreed
whole-heartedly with what she’d said. Of course, she was probably
starting out in the financially-conservative role to set his dad up
not to question her later expenditures. Still, going to the lengths
of having a big fight over it seemed odd.

Levi again shifted on the frozen log pile. “Yes, but…
Audrey didn’t say she didn’t want to be with you…she seemed to be
more worried about the expense. Of course, that might not have been
the truth, but it was what she said.”

“How likely is it that she’s worried about my money?”
his father asked in disbelief. “Another cruise isn’t going to dent
my retirement. I’m okay, aren’t I? I worked hard all those years
and saved my money. I can afford to splurge now.”

He stared into space for a moment. “Of course, I’ve
never known Audrey to lie.”

“You were actually
splurging
when you went on
the cruise where you met her,” Levi pointed out. “And, um, I kind
of get her point—“

What the hell was he saying? He was supposed to be
encouraging his father to divorce this woman!

“At least what I heard of her point with you both
yelling” Levi amended, frustrated when he heard himself add, “And
it is kind of soon to go on another cruise.”

It was just that he agreed with Audrey’s point in
this argument! His dad ought to have conferred with his wife, if
they were really ready to be a couple.

His dad wiggled the toe of his boot in the snow.

“You think I over-reacted?” He glanced over at his
son.

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Levi admitted
reluctantly, straightening from the snowy pile. His butt was frozen
stiff and he’d let his own innate sense of fairness keep him from
stoking his father’s resentment. He tried to make up for his own
stupidity. “Maybe you aren’t ready to be a couple….”

Michael didn’t even seem to have heard the last part.
“I guess I owe her an apology for that.”