Once Upon a Christmas (56 page)

“The Nick Steadman I know wouldn’t just stand by and
let some other guy steal his girl.” Blithely, Red propped her hands on her
bony hips as she rolled her carrot around her mouth. “The Nick Steadman I
know would fight for her.”

Nick cast her a miserable glance. “How can I?”

He thought of the conversation he’d heard earlier, thought
of his sisters listening openmouthed and teary-eyed as Chloe described her
mysterious, romantic Bruno, and knew he couldn’t destroy her chance at
happiness. Not if that was what she wanted.

Even if the bastard still hadn’t managed to get in touch
with her. For some reason, she obviously wanted him anyway.

“If you could only see her eyes when she talks about
him,” he told Red. “It’s like—like—”

“Like she’s in love with him.”

He nodded. “And the crazy thing is, I have this
feeling…”

“Go on.”

“I’ve been remembering things…” He rammed his
hands in his hair, realized what he was doing, and straightened his glasses
instead. “Things…awww, hell. They can’t be true, Red. Otherwise—”

“Otherwise?” She edged closer. The carrot stick
disappeared between her lips.

“Otherwise Chloe’s been—”

A movement in the kitchen doorway stopped his words. Nick
clamped his mouth shut as Chloe stepped inside.

“Been what?” she asked, her gaze darting from Nick
to Red and back again. “Besides surprised, revived, and treated like
royalty?” Grinning, she lifted the full coffee pot and assessed its
contents, then flipped open the cupboard above it. “This guest of honor
stuff is great,” she went on in a muffled voice as she rooted around
inside. “Thanks so much for the party, Nick. It was really sweet of you.”

Consider it my send-off
, Nick thought, watching her
hot-pink-clad backside sway as she searched.
Straight into Bruno’s arms
.

“You’re welcome. I think even Larry, Moe, Shemp and
Curly had a good time.”

“Thanks to your sports drinks. That was a brilliant
idea. Did you see them lap up that stuff, Red?”

“Sure did. Looks as if you’re fixing to help us lap up
some of your special coffee, too.”

“Nick’s sisters asked me to.” Bright-faced and
happy, Chloe plunked a half-full bottle of Kahlúa on the countertop and started
arranging cups beside it. She glanced over her shoulder at Nick. “Since
alcohol’s off-limits right now, your mother said she’ll drink an extra cup for
me.”

“That’s my mom. Generous to a fault.”

“I know.” Chloe sighed and lifted the bottle. “Hey,
I’ll make some for you, too, if you want. Interested in Kahlúa and coffee?”

And sympathy?
his brain added, half on autopilot.

He looked at her standing there, swinging the Kahlúa bottle
between her fingertips and waiting expectantly for his answer. Suddenly,
answers for all the half-formed questions he’d had for months clicked in place.
Kahlúa and coffee and sympathy
. Chloe’s never-fail remedy for disastrous
job interviews, bad hair days…and Nick’s months-old heartbreak over what’shername.

The night they’d spent together crystallized in his mind,
clear for the first time in months and heartrendingly remembered too late. An
image of Chloe’s comfy sleigh bed—and waking up in it—the morning after. Her
sheer orange bra, those sexy purple-dotted silk boxers she’d had on…the way
she’d called him
darling
and smiled at him sleepily from beneath the
sheets. He’d held her in his arms and in his heart that night, and wakened
denying everything.

What was that he’d said?
Tell me this isn’t what it looks
like, Chloe. Tell me I didn’t take advantage of you last night.

So she had.
Nothing happened here last night except too
much Kahlúa, too much talking, and way too much sympathy.
Damn, damn, damn.

But Chloe was wrong. Everything had happened between them
that night, including love.

Including a baby.

How could he have been so blind? So ready to believe her,
despite all evidence to the contrary?

The same way he’d been blind to missing Danny’s birthday
party, the family Thanksgiving dinner, the annual tree-trimming preholiday
brunch with his sisters and their husbands and his nieces and nephews. The same
way he’d turned into an invention-obsessed workaholic without realizing it.

The whole truth hit him like a whap on the head.

Chloe’s baby was his baby, too.

He was going to be a father.

Nick’s knees buckled. He slammed his hand on the tabletop
just as Red jabbed her elbow in his ribs. Luckily, the motion helped keep him
upright.

“Well, sonny?” she asked.

“Huh?”

He was going to have a baby.

“Are you having some of this or not?” Chloe
elaborated, swirling the liquor around inside the bottle. “I think there’s
just enough for everyone to try a little.”

Nick, Jr., maybe.

“Nick?”

Holy cow!

“Should I fix you some Kahlúa and coffee, or not?”

He looked up at her. “Are you dishing out the truth
along with that Kahlúa? Because that’s what I’m really interested in.”

She went white, down to her fingertips wrapped around the
bottle. It wobbled in her hand as Chloe stared at him.

He stepped forward and grabbed it. The cool, dark glass
slipped from her hand as easily as the lies had come from her mouth, month
after month after month.

“We can start with Bruno.”

“B—Bruno?”

“Yes.”

She licked her lips and gave him a wary look. “What do
you want to know?”

Sticking with her alibi, all the way down the line. Nick’s
heart twisted.

“I want to know why you didn’t trust me with the truth.”

Chloe backed into the counter behind her, twisting her hair
like a hairdresser on fast-forward. Nick followed.

“I want to know why you didn’t tell me
I’m Bruno
,”
he said, his voice rising. “I want to know why you hid my baby from me
and—”

“
You’re Bruno
?” Red shrieked, staring,
dumbfounded, at them both.

He kept his focus on Chloe. “I want to know why the
hell
you didn’t come to me first and let me help you!”

“Maybe because I thought you’d react just like this,”
Chloe yelled back, rising on tiptoes to face him better. “Just like
a…a…a
man
!”

Nick planted both hands on the countertop, fencing her in. “I
am a man,” he said quietly. “As it turns out, I’m going to be a
father, too.”

“
You’re Bruno
?” Red asked again. She shook
her head and tapped out a cigarette from the case in her hand. “My, my,
my—”

“I had a right to know!” he shouted.

“Why? So you could abandon your dreams, just like every
other steady Steadman has for generations?” Chloe asked.
Twist, twist
,
went her hair. “So you could ‘do the right thing’? So you could jump in
and take over and—”

“Yes, dammit! We could have already been married by
now. Had all this settled! Not be doing—”

“Doing something that’s totally wrong for us?” She
shoved at his arms caging her in. “You don’t have any obligation to me,
Nick.”

“—doing
this
, a week before your due date! I
damn well
do
have an obligation to you. I—”

“Four days.” Red puffed furiously on the cigarette
she’d lit. “Her due date’s in four days, not a week.”

Gritting his teeth, Nick squinted through the haze of
cigarette smoke. “Could you do that someplace else?”

She looked at her Lucky Strike as though it had sprouted,
fully lit and smoking, from her fingertips. “Sorry. I crumple under
pressure.”

“Let me go!” Chloe demanded with another
shove—this one at his chest. “I’ve got a party to finish.”

“
A party
?” Was she in denial? Or just too
stubborn to realize how she’d shut him out…how she was still shutting him
out? “You want to get back to your party, in the middle of all this?”

“Uncle Nick?” Danny stuck his head around the
corner. “My mom wants to know if you’re coming to our house on Christmas Eve.
We’re making a gingerbread village, remember?”

“Never mind,” Red said.
Puff, puff.
“Looks
as if the party’s come to us.”

“She said you should bring some toothpicks. Lot and
lots of toothpicks,” Danny went on, “if we’re going to make that
fancy design you told me about. Look, I drew a picture of it.”

His nephew held out a folded piece of paper. The hopeful
expression on his little face was like a knife to Nick’s heart. How much time
had he missed with Danny while trying to make his mark as an inventor?

How many chances to watch his baby grow had he missed,
thanks to Chloe’s deception?

Hell.

Nick took the paper from Danny’s hand just as Naomi’s head
appeared above her son’s. “Honey, I told you to ask Uncle Nick another
time. He’s, umm, busy right now.”

“You mean fighting with Chloe?” Danny squinted at
the adults. He shook his head with the supreme confidence of a seven-year-old. “Nah.
She’s his best friend. Best friends always make up.”

“Don’t bet on it.” Nick glared at Chloe.

“I tried to tell you!” she cried, waving her arm. “Out
on the porch, remember?” She stepped closer to the kitchen doorway, moving
farther and farther away from Nick. “You wouldn’t listen. You—you—you—”

Were thinking about getting her to the surprise baby
shower before somebody gave it away.

“Wouldn’t listen,” he said, and it was hideously,
unarguably true. He’d been absorbed in his own thing, concentrating on nothing
except the goal to be reached.

The same way he’d focused on his inventions, even at the
expense of everything else.

Your whole point is doing the right thing
, Chloe had
said.
No matter what the cost
. Nick hadn’t known then what she meant.
Now he did.

“Awww, Chloe.” He reached for her. “This is
never going to work between us. Not this way.”

Her eyes misted. Her lips wobbled, setting off all the
telltale, weepy signs. Dammit, somehow he’d done it again…except this time
Nick felt like bawling right along with her.

Chloe lifted her chin. Her fingertips brushed his jaw like a
fluttery, warm kiss good-bye. Her voice sounded husky when she spoke.

“Didn’t you know, Einstein? That’s what I’ve been
trying to tell you all along.”

With one last, sorrowful glance, she put her hand to her
rounded belly. She slipped away between Danny and Naomi. An instant later, the
front door opened and closed, as quiet as the whole crowd of partygoers had
become.

Danny’s hand nudged Nick’s. His small arm wrapped around his
uncle’s waist, then his voice broke the silence Chloe’s departure had left.

“Look at it this way, Uncle Nick,” he said, giving
him a man-to-man squeeze. “You know all that nice stuff Chloe was sayin’
about Bruno? It was really about you!”

“Yeah,” Nick mumbled, feeling forlorn. “That’s
really great.”

“Can we go blow up some stuff now?”

Chapter Twelve

“I knew Nick would never forgive me,” Chloe said.

“He’s just mad, hon,” Red replied with a knowing
shake of her head. She settled sideways on Chloe’s cushy plaid sofa and reached
for the bottle of red nail polish Chloe held out to her. “That was a real
whopper you kept from him. It’s only been two days. Give the man some time! He’ll
get over it.”

“Get over me, you mean.” Feeling morose, Chloe
leaned against the sofa pillows and extended her bare foot.

There was no worse time to be heartbroken than Christmas,
she’d discovered. Every carol, every twinkling light, every ribbon and bow and
sprig of mistletoe only made her feel worse. As long as she’d known Nick, they’d
spent the holidays together. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve…and they’d never been
farther apart.

“If you’d give Nick half a chance, he’d forgive you.”
Red twisted open the nail polish and dunked the brush a few times. She squinted
up at Chloe. “Are you sure you want to take time for this beauty
rigmarole?”

“You bet. It’s my last chance to look glamorous.”

“Raising a child is not a lifetime sentence of
frumpery. Besides, glamour comes from within.” Grinning, Red waggled her
fingertips over her head like a cowboy-boot-wearing, red-pompadoured fairy
godmother awakening Chloe’s Inner Glamour-puss.

“Beauty comes from within. Glamour comes from the Estée
Lauder counter.”

“You’re turning into a real cynic, Chloe Carmichal. I
just might be having second thoughts about selling my pet store to someone like
you.”

“Too late…ouch! You already used the money for the
down payment on that retirement place in Sun City.”

Red laughed. She examined Chloe, then frowned. “Was
that another contraction?”

Chloe nodded, panting as she clicked on the stopwatch in her
hand and set it on the coffee table beside the plate of Christmas cookies—with
sprinkles—Red had brought to cheer her up. “They’re coming about fifteen
minutes apart now.”

At the onset of the contractions earlier this morning, Chloe
had been excited. Finally! It was almost time for her baby to be born. Now the
excitement had mixed with fear, and both emotions were roller-coastering
through her insides. She wasn’t ready yet.

Not without Nick.

“Look, the fancy pedicure can wait.” Shaking her
head, Red got to her feet. She started toward the bathroom to put the polish
away. “We’re going to the hospital.”

She made it almost to the fireplace—where the Bruno letters
and the “Macho Men of the Military” pinup calendar that had started
the whole stupid mess crackled merrily—before Chloe grabbed her hand and eased
her back beside her.

“No! I’m not ready to go yet, anyway. Not until I
finish this.” She tapped the fabric-covered notebook in her lap and gave
Red a beseeching look. “Please?”

“Oh…” Red made a reluctant face, rolled the
crimson polish bottle between her palms, then sighed. “All right, hon. But
I make no guarantees if those contractions speed up.”