Once Upon a Christmas (57 page)

“It’s a deal.”

Almost an hour later, Chloe had ten perfectly polished
toenails, one updated and gift-wrapped pregnancy journal, and one very antsy
soon-to-be-ex-boss.

“I’m the labor coach!” Red cried, dogging Chloe’s
heels all the way to her bedroom as she pulled on her winter coat and took one
last look around to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. “I can’t be
late!”

“
You
can’t be late?” Between contractions,
Chloe grinned. Red snatched the packed birthday bag right out from under her
fingertips and hustled out of the room. “What about me?”

On the front porch, Chloe carefully locked the door behind
them, feeling strangely calm now that the time to head to the hospital had
arrived. She hugged her finished pregnancy journal to her chest, gazing across
the yard at Nick’s house.

The journal, detailing her thoughts and dreams for their
baby, described her pregnancy all the way from the contortionist pregnancy test
she’d taken to the contractions she’d been having this morning. It was only one
of the concessions she wanted to make—just one way to share what he’d missed
with Nick. What would he say when he read it?

Red stopped halfway down the front walk. “What are you
dilly dallyin’ for?” she hollered, jangling her car keys. “That baby’s
not waiting all day.”

She turned, saw Chloe’s desperate clutch on the pregnancy
journal and her equally desperate watch on Nick’s house, and her expression
softened. She clomped up the walk.

“Giving him that is the right thing to do, hon. I know
it.” Affectionately, she draped her arm over Chloe’s shoulders and
squeezed. “He was madder over your keeping the baby a secret than over
fathering him, you know.”

“Or her.”
Then I’ll teach her to play football
anyway.

“Sure.” Red held out her hand for the journal. “I’ll
make sure he gets that.”

Red pulled. Involuntarily, Chloe’s fingers clamped harder on
the vibrant fabric-covered book.

“I can’t!” she wailed. “Oh, Red. What if I’m
making a big mistake?”

“You’re just scared, ‘cause taking a chance on that man
wasn’t something you planned on doing.” Gently, Red pried Chloe’s whitened
fingers from the book, one by one. “But hon…love never is something you
plan.”

Fear clutched at Chloe’s belly. Or maybe that was another
contraction. Either way, it hurt like crazy. But sticking with her Bruno alibi
hadn’t worked. Keeping the truth from Nick hadn’t worked. And fooling herself
any longer was impossible.

She had to give Nick the chance to love them…her and the
baby both. She had to trust him to be the best friend he’d always been.

And more.

“Okay.” She gave the journal one last squeeze for
luck. Then she gave Red her sternest look. “But he doesn’t get this until
tomorrow. Not until
after
his investor meeting.”

“Now hold on—”

“Not until tomorrow afternoon, Red. Not until Christmas
Eve. I mean it.” She was willing to be flexible about things for a
change—all except for this
one
thing. “I won’t wreck Nick’s shot at
making his invention a success.”

Red rolled her eyes.

“I’m not changing my mind.”

She rolled her eyes again and clucked her tongue, too.
Disagreement personified.

Chloe wavered and grabbed the porch railing. “Ohh,”
she moaned. “I think I feel a sit-down strike coming on. You’d better
alert the media and call up the—”

“All right, all right!” Red yelled, throwing up
her hands. She yanked the journal the rest of the way out of Chloe’s grasp,
grabbed her arm, and hauled her to the car. “I heard ya’ the first time. I
won’t give the dang thing to him until Christmas Eve.”

 “I’ll look forward to receiving the agreements.”
Nick smiled at the man who, upon signing those agreements, would become his
growth accelerator’s first investor. “Thank you for meeting with me,
especially right before the holidays.”

The man, who looked about as patrician and big-business as
he imagined Chloe’s absentee father did, smiled too. “It’s our pleasure,
Mr. Steadman.” His nod indicated the video camera and remote conferencing
setup Nick had arranged. “This is nothing less than we’d expect from an
innovator like yourself.”

Nick was just glad it had worked. The video conference—his
first step toward cutting back his work hours and putting some balance back in
his life—had linked him with his California investor in less than a quarter of
the time it would have taken him to attend the meeting in person.

Chloe and Danny would have been so proud.
Nick
glanced at the six boxes of toothpicks he’d bought. Out of camera range, he
smoothed his fingers over the drawing of the gingerbread monolith he planned to
construct with his nephew after he’d wrapped up the meeting.
I’m finally
doing the right thing
.

By doing less of the right thing. It had all the makings of
a new Steadman family tradition.

On his computer monitor, his new investor’s image beamed
with satisfaction at a job well done. “That just about wraps it up. Have a
merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you,” Nick said. “I’ll be
in touch.”

He signed off and shut down the equipment, then looked
around the empty room. He slapped his hands on his thighs, grinning like an idiot.
He’d done it
!

News this momentous was meant to be shared. Still smiling,
Nick tromped down the hallway to his bedroom and lifted the mini-blind slats
with one hand. He’d never spotted Chloe gazing across their adjoining yards the
way he did, but it was the fastest way to find out if she was at home.

Also the fastest way to make a good mood plummet
, he
realized when he saw her lights were out and no curvy, Chloe-shaped shadows
moved behind her dusky windows.

Should he go over anyway? He’d been waiting—since she’d been
the one to walk out on him at the baby shower—for her to let him know she was
ready to talk things over. It had seemed the best way to make sure he didn’t
make her, the woman who never cried…cry.

Again.

Nick waited a few minutes, then looked again. Okay, mixing
business with pleasure he could take. Maintaining a balance in his life he
could handle. Waiting for Chloe to make her move was another story altogether.

He was going in.

He opened his front door and stepped onto the porch, nearly squashing
the gift-wrapped package waiting there for him. The name and address written on
it in green ink confirmed it was for him—whatever it was—and the minute Nick
recognized Chloe’s squat, round handwriting, he knew his make-up mission was
going to have to wait a little longer.

He ripped open the wrapping and pulled out the heavy
notebook inside. Slowly, Nick sank to a seated position on his front porch
steps. He started to read.

He was hooked from page one.

But it was the final entry—dated earlier today—that made him
thrust the journal in his coat pocket and sprint to his motorcycle. He just
hoped he wasn’t too late.

Chapter Thirteen

“Try to get some rest,” the nurse told Chloe,
reaching beside her shoulder to affix the call button more securely to the
hospital bed’s mattress. She pulled up the crisp white sheet and tucked it in
snugly, then smiled and squeaked to the door in her cushioned shoes. “We’ll
let you know just as soon as baby Carmichal wakes up.”

“Thank you.” Chloe watched as the nurse pulled the
thick hospital room door halfway closed, then left. “I’ll try.”

She’d never felt more deeply tired, more utterly relieved,
more proud of herself then she did right now. Looking around her
flower-bedecked, private room—arranged for, somehow, by her father’s number-two
secretary Lucinda—Chloe had also never felt more lonely.

Because Nick wasn’t coming.

Naturally, the baby looked just like him. Except a little
more squashed. Also smaller, pinker, and slightly more adorable. But otherwise,
their child looked exactly like his father.

Sighing, Chloe gazed out her window at the velvety, starless
night…until suddenly the view blurred and she had to look away. Funny how
tears made everything look soft-focused and a little more sparkly.

She sniffed and blinked. Her hospital room came back into
focus. It would have looked just like home—if home was a really, really
antiseptic log cabin.
Okay, concentrating on ambiance isn’t helping
.
Chloe closed her eyes and thought about the baby instead. She felt pretty sure
no one else in history had ever had a more perfect child.

A ghost of a smile quirked her lips. If only Nick were here,
everything would be wonderful. Maybe it had been a mistake not to call him. She
reached for the phone.

Before she could dial, someone knocked on the door. “Ms.
Carmichal?”

Hallelujah
! The baby must have woken up, and one of
the nurses was bringing him in. Chloe bunched the pillows at the small of her
back and sat up higher so she could hold him again.

“Come in,” she called, fiddling with the neck of
her gown.

A hospital worker entered, carrying…something that
wasn’t
the baby. It looked like…

A length of white picket fence, about as high and as wide as
her hospital bed, and just as dazzlingly bright. The hospital worker unfolded
it, magically erecting a three-sided white picket fence beside her bed.

She blinked. It was still there. Chloe whipped her gown
closed again.
This
situation definitely didn’t call for the football
hold the nurse had suggested for breast feeding.

“What’s this?”

“I’m just delivering it like the fella asked.” The
hospital worker jerked his thumb toward the doorway. He shrugged. “I guess
some folks don’t think flowers are enough. You got plenty of those, though.”

She had, thanks to her father and Tabitha—and her mother and
her new bingo partner. They’d all sent gorgeous bouquets. Her mother had even
phoned. Twice. At length. With advice. Clearly, grandparenthood hadn’t effected
any drastic changes in her family yet. Certainly none that would call for
delivery of a white picket fence.

In amazement, Chloe stared at it. Was it from Nick? But Nick
was probably in California for his meeting by now. Maybe Red had thought the
fence would make a kooky gag gift for Christmas?

“Ms. Carmichal?”

“Yes?”

A tall, thin man entered, carrying a black velvet box on a
silver platter. Without a word—but with a grin wider than his waistband—he took
up a position beside the bed, just inside the fence.

“Chloe?”

“
Red
? Do you know what’s—”

“Hang on. You’re about to find out,” Red
interrupted, speaking louder to be heard over the sudden murmur of voices
coming from the hospital corridor.

Visitors? Chloe pulled up the covers and patted her rat’s-nest
of a hairdo. How could she have enough visitors to create an audible
murmur
?

Red came nearer, followed closely by Jerry. “Don’t kill
me over delivering that journal early, neither,” she added.

Chloe was too busy staring at the paper banner they carried
between them to question what she meant.

As they neared the bed, Sun City’s newest retirees-to-be
unfurled the paper.
And here he is
, it said in fancy foot-high block
letters.
A man who loves you
!

Chloe gasped. It couldn’t be…

“Hiya, Blondie.”

Nick.

He came in her room carrying a white-wrapped bundle of
snoozing baby. His face was luminous. If joy wore faded blue jeans, it would
have looked just like Nick. As he neared the bed and slipped inside the white
picket fence, Chloe knew she must look exactly the same way. That radiant
feeling shimmered all through her, leaving her trembling beneath his smile.

“I got here as fast as I could,” he said. “I
had some things to arrange first.”

A silly, nervous giggle burst from her lips as she looked at
the fence, the banner, the man with the silver platter. “I—I—so I see.”

Nick folded back a portion of the blanket and gazed down at
the child in his arms. His child.
Their child
. His smile could have lit
the midnight outside her window.

“He’s as beautiful as his mother.” Nick stroked
the baby’s pudgy cheek. “Only a little less well-coiffed.”

Laughing, Chloe swept her palm over their baby’s
sweet-scented swirls of fine blond hair. “Give him time. He’s just getting
started.”

“So am I.”

Nick nodded to the platter-bearer, who opened the hinged
black box and displayed its contents to Chloe with a flourish of silver.
Glittering back at her was a gold and diamond engagement ring.

“Oh, my!”

Carefully holding the baby against his chest, Nick bent to
one knee beside the bed. He reached for her hand. His fingers quivered as they
touched hers, then squeezed.

“Chloe, I brought you the white picket fence, the ring,
and the man who loves you…that’s me, by the way—”

“I know.” Tears prickled her eyes. Suddenly Nick
was all soft-focused and sparkly, but Chloe didn’t care, just as long as he was
with her. “Oh, Nick! I love you, too.”

His hand clasped hers tighter. “There’s only one thing
left, and the fairytale ending will be complete.” He smiled, kissed the
baby’s forehead, and hugged him close. “And that’s you. I need you, Chloe.
I love you so much I’m crazy with it.”

“You’re not crazy. You’re brilliant.”

“You’re beautiful.”

“Brainiac.”

“Blondie.”

“Beloved,” she murmured, and the tenderness in his
gaze sent her smile into overdrive all over again.

“Aww, Chloe. Please say you’ll marry me.”

She looked at him, just long enough to really let his words
sink in.
Nick wanted to marry her
! Then Chloe raised her hand and spread
her fingers to get ready for the ring.

“Just try to stop me.”