Once Upon a Christmas (53 page)

“Umm, I can see my teeth in it.” He made a goofy
face at his reflection. “What do you know about that?”

“I know!” Chloe burbled, dancing up on tiptoes. “Isn’t
it great?”

“It’s—it’s—” He turned it over and experimentally
hefted it like a tiny barbell. “What the hell is it, Chloe?”

She quit dancing. “It’s a baby rattle. From one of
those exclusive department stores back east.”

“A baby rattle?” Nick looked at the cold, hard thing
in his hands. Even wrapped in a bow and soft paper it looked bleak, somehow. He
clapped on the lid. “Not for your baby, it’s not.”

“Nick!”

He raised the box overhead, trailing bubble wrap and ribbon
like pastel tears. “He’ll knock his teeth out with it.”

Chloe put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Babies
are born without teeth.”

“He’ll knock himself unconscious the first time he
lifts that thing. It’s not safe.”

“Babies have hard heads.” She reached for the box.
“It’s a built-in safety mechanism to reassure overprotective fathers.”
Struggling on tiptoes, she bumped her belly into him and all but climbed his
feet to get higher. “Give it to me!”

“No. He’ll put his eye out with it.”

“You’re being ridiculous.” She reached higher,
grabbing his upraised arm to steady herself. “You don’t know anything
about babies.”

“I know more than you do.”

Her body went rigid. Chloe shoved his elbow to push herself
away. Far away.

“That’s a low blow, Nick.”

“It’s the truth.” Pretty irrefutable logic, as far
as he was concerned. Obviously she disagreed, if her fire-breathing expression
was anything to go by. “Nobody’s born knowing this stuff, you know.”

He reached to pull her close again, but she stepped back
before he could touch her. Threading her fingers through her hair, Chloe looked
out the window, at the floor…anywhere but at him.

“It’s not the truth,” she said in a voice like
ice. Clipped. Precise. Totally Un-Chloe-like. “I’ve been taking classes,
reading books….”

Practicing on Danny, grilling my sisters for baby tips,
he thought, but couldn’t say it.

“I know. Inexperience isn’t a crime. I only meant that
I’m already an uncle and you’re—”

“Leaving.” Stiffly, she held out her hand for the
box. “What I am is leaving, before this gets ugly. You’re the king of
botched explanations, Nick. Good intentions with disastrous results. So why don’t
you just quit, okay? This time at least, quit while you’re ahead.”

This time? What was she talking about? Anyway, he couldn’t.
Not without one last stab at making her see reason.

“This isn’t a baby gift, it’s a—a—” He shook the
box, trying to think up something suitably pretentious, then flung his arms
wide. “—it’s a damned paperweight, Chloe! What’s the matter with you?”

Her hand fisted, then dropped to her side. Carefully, coldly,
she stuffed the note from her father back in the envelope, then snatched the
few scraps of wrapping they’d scattered.

“This is an implement of baby destruction,” Nick
protested. “If you want a rattle, I’ll get you a rattle. A nice, safe,
well-padded one with something friendly on it. Like bunnies. Not a stupid
designer logo.”

“It’s a family monogram.”

“Whatever.”

Biting her lip, she raised her hand toward him, palm upward.
“Give it to me, please.”

Maybe a small concession was called for. Nick tried out a smile.
“Okay. What do I know, right? I’m just an uncle. I—”

“Please, Nick,” she whispered, blinking hard. A
suspicious sheen brightened her eyes. Her lower lip wobbled with the beginnings
of what he could tell was a gigantic, stifled sob.

This, from a woman who never cried.

“Awww, hell.” How had he done it to her again? The
tears in her eyes had him pressing the stupid box in her hand even before he
realized he’d decided to do it.

“Thanks.” Sniffling, Chloe pushed the box back in
the envelope again, then went to the door. “Talk to you later,” she
mumbled in a choked voice.

“Wait.”

Somehow, he’d botched things big-time. How had it all gone
from jumpy-jivey happiness to tears so fast? Judging by the way she clutched
her damned envelope, he suspected it had as much to do with his reaction to her
father’s gift as it did with what he’d said to her. But why?

A few steps took him to the door, close enough to smell the
coconut shampoo in her hair. Frowning, Nick slapped his hand on the thick wood
to keep the door closed a little longer.

To keep her with him a little longer.

“I don’t get it. What’s so special about this, Chloe?”

She swiped her hand across her eyes, then sniffed and
squared her shoulders. “You can’t tell, genius?”

Her voice was softer than he’d expected, but the anguish
behind it wasn’t. He smoothed his hand over her shoulder. “Nah. Maybe your
feminine mystique has got me all confused.”

Her mood swings sure as hell did. So did the way her father
treated her. How, in three years, had he not noticed it?

Chloe smiled faintly. “It’s simple. I’m having a baby
in a few weeks, and the idea of screwing up has got me scared to death.”

Good going, Steadman
, his conscience poked at him.
Jump
right on her big fears, tough guy
. But how could he have known? She always seemed
so…certain about everything.

“Chloe, I didn’t mean—”

Her choked little laugh cut him off. “Awww, don’t
worry, Nick. My mom’s been giving me lots of advice over the phone. I’ll be
ready.”

“There’s always Bruno,” he added, hoping to
reassure her. “That package could just as easily have been from him.”

“Yeah.” Thoughtfully, Chloe squeezed the package
in question. “Actually, you know something? It’s funny—I figured the odds
of hearing from my dad were about on par with the odds of hearing from Bruno.”

“Looks as if the odds are on your side, then.”

She gave him a funny look. “I guess that’s one way of
looking at it.”

Taking a deep breath, she twisted the knob and opened the
door. Sunlight and flower-scented air rushed inside, but all that sweetness and
shine held no warmth. Nick rubbed his arms, fighting the urge to drag her
against him and do whatever he could to make up for the stupid insensitivity of
her family. The proud tilt of her head warned him to stay where he was.

So did her voice, falsely cheerful enough to make his heart
ache.

“Anyway, I told my mom not to mess up her schedule, but
she said she might even be able to drop by the hospital when the baby’s born.”
Chloe paused on the threshold. “If there’s time between beauty shop
appointments and husband-hunting down at the bingo parlor.”

“At least there she’s guaranteed a man who can count.”

She smiled at his joke—quite possibly the lamest he’d made
all year—and touched his face. “I knew you’d understand.”

Her fingers stroked across his temple, warm and
feather-light, then whisked away. “See ya’.”

Nick captured her wrist before she could leave. Briefly, he
pressed his cheek in her cupped hand and closed his eyes.

“
I’ll
be there,” he promised.

She made a garbled sound of surprise and pulled her hand away.
“At the hospital?”

“Sure.”

He opened his eyes to see her shaking her head.

“Are you kidding me? I’m not that mad at you, Nick. I’m
not about to inflict that kind of obligation on you. No way.”

He leaned closer, raised her chin with his fingertips, and
stopped her protest with a kiss. Just a small kiss…fast, soft, and sweet
enough to widen her eyes when it was over. Nick put his hands around her waist
and tugged her a little closer.

“What if I insist?”

Her eyes darkened with something only a blind man would
mistake for passion. Chloe shoved his chest and stepped out of his arms.

“Thanks for the pity party. But no thanks. You’ll have
to find another gal to play knight in shining armor with.”

“Dammit, Chloe! That’s not what this is, and you know
it. You—”

“Anyway,” she interrupted, preparing to leave, “it’s
not as though I’ll be all alone. Now that it’s certain my dad and Tabitha won’t
be there, my mom probably will be.” She smiled thinly over her shoulder as
she headed for the steps, hugging her package as closely as he wished she’d
hold him. “I think the beauty parlor bingo-rama was just an excuse to
avoid running into them.”

Nick couldn’t think of a damn thing to say to that. A bitter
divorce he could understand. But not neglecting their own daughter because of
it. No wonder Chloe was so hung up on having two happily ever-after, crazy in
love parents for her baby.

No wonder.

It would have been hell growing up with that bunch of
marital miscreants around.

“Listen, I’d better run, Sir Galahad.” Waving, she
clomped down the steps in her sneakers. “I’ve got childbirth class in an
hour or so. I’ve got to start getting ready.”

So do I
, Nick thought, waving good-bye as he watched
her cross from his yard to her flower-bordered one. Ready for big important
things.

Big important
surprising
things.

This time, he had more in mind than inventing beef- and
tuna-flavored Gatorade for Chloe’s pets.

Chapter Ten

Chloe spent the entire holiday season—aka her ninth month of
pregnancy—in a constant state of red alert. Every kick, every contraction, sent
her diving for the phone and the overnight bag she kept packed for the trip to
the hospital.

She’d stand there beside her scrawny, gaily decorated
Christmas tree, clutching the birthday bag handle in both hands, gauging the
chances that
this time
it might be the real thing, keeping one eye on
the clock’s sweeping second hand…and the other eye on the view outside her
bedroom window.

The window that faced Nick’s house.

And his bedroom.

She never saw him. Although light usually filtered between
his mini-blinds, showing he was home, his shadow never darkened those tasteful
beige slats. His big hand never reached up to nudge one down, allowing him to
look past their adjoined yards and into her room. He never sneaked a glance from
the edge of those blinds, wondering how she was doing.

But Chloe did.

She shouldn’t. It was stupid and pointless. After all he’d
said about her father’s gift—after all he’d said about her!—she should have
been able to quit caring.
I know more than you do
.

Ha.
Not anymore
, she told herself, plunking the
birthday bag on the carpet for the thousandth time. She’d prepped and planned,
grilled Naomi every time she brought over Danny, befriended all the women in
her childbearing class. She was as ready as a woman could be to bring a new
little person into the world.

“Except for providing the father,” she muttered.

“What?” Red asked on the other end of the phone.

Chloe had red-alerted her ten minutes earlier for a
Braxton-Hicks contraction. Between peeks at Nick’s window, they’d been talking
since then. Not everyone had a boss, a surrogate mother, and a birth coach all
rolled into the same bighearted, redheaded pet shop owner.

“You’ve been provoking the father?” Red went on. “Well,
hon, no wonder you need me to drive you to the hospital, if you’re badgering
the fella.”

Make that redheaded pet shop owner busybody
, Chloe
thought grumpily. If Red poked much deeper, she just might confess everything.
Lying to herself was bad enough. Lying to everyone she loved was even worse.

She rebalanced the phone on her shoulder and paced through
her living room. Absently, she fingered the ribbons and bows on the gifts piled
beneath her Christmas tree. “That’s not why I need you, Red. I’d drive
myself, but—”

“But nothing. I’m driving you and that’s that.”
Red’s cigarette-roughened voice lowered. “If you’d tell me where to find
that Bruno of yours, I’d bring him, too. He should be there, hon. Nothing makes
a man a daddy like seeing his own child born.”

That’s what I’m afraid of
. Chloe patted one very
special gift—the one for Nick, wrapped in a big red bow. She swiveled toward
the armoire to select another Christmas-music CD, trying not to think about
Nick’s assurance that he’d be at the hospital, even if no one else was. If he
did, would he realize the truth?

She’d never find out.

Because she, like a dummy, had told him not to come.

Anyway, at the rate he seemed to be working, her baby might
be toddling over to pick petunias from Nick’s yard by the time he emerged from
the invention-induced haze he was in. Since Thanksgiving, their contact had
been mostly limited to waving as they strung their individual Christmas lights
and decorations, waving as Chloe power-walked with Larry and Moe and Shemp, and
waving as Nick scribbled invention brainstorms on his mail before carrying it
inside.

“Anything from Bruno?” he’d ask when he saw her
carrying hers in.

“Not yet,” she’d always answer—just as though a
letter might actually arrive someday. In truth, she was about as likely to hear
from her make-believe Marine as she was to fall in love with anyone other than
Nick.

On the phone, Red made an exasperated sound. “Hon, it’s
hard to raise a child alone. Ease up on that pride of yours and call the man!”

Pride? Was that what it was?

No. It was not being really, truly loved that was the danger
here, to her and her baby both. Chloe paced down the hallway toward the
cordless phone stand in the kitchen, pausing to adjust the Christmas
stockings—one regular size and one baby size—she’d hung by the fireplace.

“I’m sorry about the false alarm, Red,” she broke
in.
I’m sorry to tell you only half the truth
. She dragged in a breath
to ease the ache in her chest. “Listen, I’ve got to run. See you at the
shop tomorrow?”