Once Upon a Christmas (15 page)

“I
t’s my turn again,” Theo told Elise the next afternoon.

They were sitting in the back den at
Belle Terre,
where they’d just had a lively discussion with Betty Jean regarding everything from politics to potluck dinners. Tired but also obviously invigorated, by the way her green eyes had shined, Betty Jean had gone upstairs to rest before dinner.

“But we’re not finished,” Elise said, thinking with pride that Theo had held his own with her keen grandmother. “We haven’t gone over the difference between semi-formal and black tie.”

Theo leaned close, giving her another one of those sideways looks of his. The kind of look that made her heart go crazy and her mind go reeling.

“I think I can figure that out,
chère.
Semi-formal means you kinda need to get all dolled up, more like church clothes, and black-tie speaks for itself,
oui?
Wear something black, mebbe the tie?”

She laughed, seeing the teasing light in his eyes. “Okay, I guess I’m being a bit too overbearing here, but what if Maggie and you have a chance to attend some of the Mardi Gras events after Christmas. You’d need to know what to wear.”

“I don’t do events.”

“And why not?”

He sighed, rubbed a hand down the five-o’clock shadow on his face. “Because I’m a Cajun, Elise. I like a good old-fashioned
boucherie
instead of some fancy party.”

“You’d rather attend a pig roast with Maggie than a social event that could help you in both your career and your personal life?”

“I’d rather attend a pig roast with
you,
just to show you that everything in life isn’t about seeing and being seen, suga’. Sometimes, it’s just about being with family and friends—real friends, the kind you know you can count on for the rest of your life, not just until the next deal goes down.”

Elise felt the sting of that implication. “I suppose you think all of my so-called friends are just as shallow and petty as I seem to you.”

“Ah, now, don’t go pouting on me,” he said as he slouched down beside her on the couch. “Elise, smile for me.”

She pouted, crossing her arms and giving him a very cold shoulder.

But Theo knew how to charm her. He got closer to her, then put his arm around her. He leaned his head on her
shoulder, then whispered in her ear. “C’mon, smile for me,
chère.
Just one little bitty pretty Elise smile. You know that smile can light up a cloudy day.”

That cold shoulder suddenly became very warm. Elise could feel that sensational warmth moving through her entire system, like the first winds of spring after a cold, cold winter. But she didn’t smile for him just yet. “I won’t apologize for who I am, Theo. And it hurts me that you can’t see inside, to the real me.”

“Why does it hurt?” he asked, his breath fanning her hair, his hand across her back heavy with both security and mystery.

She wanted to tell him it hurt because instead of wanting to reform him, she just wanted to be with him, and she wanted to
impress him.
Just him. The real man. The man she’d fallen for. She didn’t need to change Theo. She liked him just fine the way he was. But she couldn’t tell him that. He’d probably laugh in her face.

“It just upsets me that you think I’m such a horrible person.”

He turned her head with a tanned hand on her hair, his dark eyes roaming over her face. “I don’t think you’re horrible. I think you are a sweet, good girl, Elise. And you’re sure pretty. But we do come from very different worlds.”

She thought about that, about how they’d lived on the same land and never even known each other. “Worlds apart, and yet you’ve been right here all the time.”

He pried one of her hands away from the tight grip she had them twisted in. “
Oui,
I’ve been right here all along. And dat right dere ought to tell you where we stand. You
didn’t even know I existed until your
grand-mère
pointed it out to you.”

“So you intend to hold that against me forever?”

“
Non,
I don’t intend to hold that against you at all. And I’m sorry if I seemed to be putting you down. Will you forgive me for being so impolite?” When she still didn’t respond, he rolled his eyes and said, “I’m an just a big ol’ oaf.”

That made her smile. “You are a big ol’ clown.”

He chuckled. “This clown loves to see you smile.”

Elise’s eyes locked with his as the smile died on her face. He was so close, she could see the black of his beautiful irises. It was as if she were looking into the very depths of the deepest swamp. She thought she’d surely drown in all that mysterious darkness.

“How do you really feel about me, Theo?” She had to understand what was brewing between them. Maybe she was just imagining it. Maybe he didn’t feel anything for her. At least he shouldn’t. He loved Maggie. But Maggie left him.

“You really want to know that?”

She nodded, her heart beating with a solid, steady need.

“I feel like this.” He leaned close, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

Elise melted into his touch. Theo Galliano was kissing her, right here in her grandmother’s den, with all the world and several newly arrived relatives to see if they happened to walk in. But she couldn’t stop him, couldn’t stop herself. This felt like the belonging she’d longed for. This felt like she’d become a part of some
thing so good and right that she had to believe the heavens were truly involved. And she thanked God for granting her this feeling, this hope.

Theo seemed to feel the same. His touch was so soft and sure, Elise forgot that kissing him was wrong. She didn’t think about lingering feelings he had for Maggie. Somewhere, in the far recesses of her mind, she was glad he and Maggie had broken up.

She thought she heard thunder.

But that turned out to be her mother’s well-heeled foot stomping against the hardwood floor. “What in the world do you think you’re doing to my little girl?”

Elise felt herself being bodily lifted from Theo’s embrace as her mother showed surprising strength with the yanking of her scrawny hand across the neck of Elise’s sweater. “Get up!”

“Mother!” Elise said, rising in pure mortification to face her angry, shocked mother. “Stop it.”

“No, you two stop it,” Cissie said, one foot still patting the floor as she went into a nervous tizzy full of motherly wrath and protection. “I don’t know what’s going on around here, but I will not tolerate
you
touching my daughter.”

Theo stood, too, the look in his eyes mirroring what Cissie was saying. “You’re right to be angry, Mrs. Melancon. I don’t have any business touching your daughter. I am very sorry.”

With that, he turned in a straight-backed stalk and left the room. Elise heard the front door slamming shut.

It felt as if he’d just shut the door on her heart, too.

“She refuses to come down to dinner,” Cissie announced just outside Elise’s bedroom door in a voice so loud, Elise heard it very clearly from her room. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into that young lady. She won’t even consider dating Jason Pilcher anymore. And he’s a very nice boy—comes from one of the oldest families in Louisiana—and with all that money—he inherited a vast fortune when his grandfather died, you know. I declare I don’t understand why she’d be kissing that…that Cajun.” Elise heard a long sigh. “It’s just so unseemly. We’ve raised her to behave herself, to always hold her head up high. She’s a Melancon, after all.”

Then Elise heard another voice. “You go on down with the others, dear. I’ll see if I can talk to her.”

Her grandmother! Elise couldn’t face her, not yet.

But Betty Jean Melancon didn’t let a closed, locked door stop her. “Elise, open this door right now. You hear me, Boo. I need to talk to you.”

“I’m not feeling well,
Mamere,
” Elise called out. “Please tell the others I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” Betty Jean said. “And we need to talk.”

Elise heard the gentle plea in her grandmother’s words. She couldn’t ignore that. Getting up from the wing chair where she’d been sitting by the window since the awful scene downstairs, Elise walked to the door. “Come in,
Mamere.
”

Betty Jean entered the room, wearing a cream dinner dress and her favorite three-strand pearls. Her eyes wid
ened when she looked at Elise. “Are you all right, darling?”

“No,” Elise said, her lips trembling with tears she didn’t want to shed. “I’m a grown woman, yet I feel as if I’m still seven years old. Mother embarrassed me to no end down there!”

“Come here,” her grandmother said, opening her arms wide.

Elise ran to those comforting arms, remembering other hurts and other hugs.
Grand-mère
would know what to do.
Grand-mère
always knew what to do.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Elise said, her words muffled by cream wool as the scent of White Shoulders lifted from her grandmother’s soft arms.

“Neither did I,” Betty Jean said, patting Elise’s hair. “I shouldn’t have asked this of you. It was wrong. So wrong.”

Elise pulled away, upset to see the distress in her dear grandmother’s eyes. She’d brought that pain. Elise could deal with her own pain, but not her grandmother’s. “I’ve let you down,” she said, stepping away to grab a tissue from a nearby table.

Betty Jean slumped into a chair, a sure sign that she was upset. Her grandmother never slumped. “No, Boo, I’m the one who’s failed. I didn’t see this coming in quite such a way. I mean, I thought—”

“You thought you could depend on me, that you could trust me,” Elise said, falling down on the dainty burgundy brocade bench at the end of the tester bed. “You asked me to do one thing and I messed up that one thing so badly.”

“Hush up,” Betty Jean said. “No real harm has been done. So you kissed Theo. My goodness, that is not a crime in the state of Louisiana.”

“But Mother had to go and make such a scene,” Elise said, anger overriding her hurt. “Theo left in a huff and everyone,
Mamere,
the whole family, heard her screaming at the top of her lungs.”

“The woman has a set of lungs, I’ll give her that,” said Betty Jean, a glimmer of her wit returning to her watery eyes. “I sure wish I’d seen the look on her face—”

“
Grand-mère,
this isn’t funny.”

“I’m not laughing, dear. But your mother’s rantings are the least of my concerns. I’m more worried about you. You did nothing wrong, Boo. Except maybe kissed the man you’ve fallen in love with.”

Elise sat straight up. “How can you tell that?”

“I’m your grandmother,” Betty Jean said with a shrug. “And you are so like me. I remember when I first knew I was in love with your grandfather. Of course, my parents objected immediately. And openly. Just as your mother did today. But that all turned out fine in the end.”

Elise smiled at the memory of her dear grandfather, Jacques. “I wish things could turn out fine now, but Theo and I, we shouldn’t even be having such thoughts. He was in love with Maggie not too long ago. I’m sure he still is, isn’t he?”

“Has he talked about her with you? Has he actually told you he still loves her?”

Elise thought back over the last week and all the conversations she’d had with Theo. They’d talked about
manners and etiquette. They’d talked about family and faith. They’d covered art and culture and politics and good books and the kind of music they enjoyed.

And all the while, she’d always been the one to bring up Maggie. She’d been the one to assume that Theo still loved Maggie, that he was doing this to please Maggie, to hopefully get things straight with her.

“Boo, you haven’t answered my question,” her grandmother said, a hand on her arm.

Elise looked over at her grandmother, realization making her heart hammer in an erratic fashion. “No,
Mamere,
now that I think about it, Theo has never once said he still loves Maggie. In fact, he barely mentions her unless I bring up her name.”

Betty Jean lowered her head, her eyebrows lifting. “Don’t you find that rather odd, dear?”

“Very odd indeed,” Elise replied. “And I intend to find out why.”

“That’s more like it,” Betty Jean said, getting up with a spry quickness, her smile intact again.

Elise turned to give her grandmother a quizzical look. “You seem too pleased about this,
Mamere.
”

“Of course, I’m pleased,” Betty Jean said, her eyes completely innocent, her smile practiced and steady. “I can’t bear to see you in tears, darling. And now you’re not crying anymore.”

“No, I’m not,” Elise said, a new determination making her stand up straight. “I’ll be down to dinner in just a minute. I seem to have regained my appetite.”

Betty Jean clasped her hands together. “As I said, just like me.”

Elise watched as her happy grandmother left the room.

“Too much like you, I imagine,” Elise said. “Way too much.”

“L
et me see if I understand this,” Cissie said two days later.

It was Christmas Eve and the whole gang had arrived the night before. The men and boys were off on the traditional Christmas Eve bird hunt. Elise and her mother were sitting at the table in the garden room, having a quick breakfast before they dived into the rest of the holiday cooking. Later that night, they’d all go to the Christmas Eve candlelight services at church, then return here for a casual dinner and the opening of one present each.

“Your grandmother asked you to ‘tutor’ this man in time for Christmas. To teach him manners and how to be a proper gentleman so he could win back his girlfriend, who’s coming to dinner here tomorrow night?”

“Yes, Mother, that’s right,” Elise said, careful to keep her tone calm and reserved. She wouldn’t cause a scene, not with her mother, nor with Theo. That is, whenever she had a chance to see Theo again.

He’d been avoiding her.

“Well, the man obviously hasn’t learned too many manners. He should know that kissing one woman while he’s trying to impress another one is simply bad form.”

“It was a mistake, Mother,” Elise said, thinking in her heart that kissing Theo had been anything but a mistake. “We got carried away. I know it was wrong, and it won’t happen again.”

“I’m sure it won’t, and you really should just nip this in the bud right now by refusing to go anywhere near that man again. In fact, I’ll tell Reginald to make sure he seats you two as far away from each other tomorrow night as possible.”

“I think that’s a very good idea,” Elise said, too heart-sick to argue with her mother. “Besides, as soon as Maggie shows up, Theo will only have eyes for her.”

Cissie dropped her fork to stare over at her daughter. “That’s as it should be, darling. I can understand how you might develop a little crush on that man. I mean, he is handsome in a diamond-in-the-rough kind of way. But those bad-boy types can lead to no good. And you deserve better. You have to remember who you are, Elise. You are a Melancon.”

Elise shook her head and threw down her napkin. “And being a Melancon means that I have to be proper and above reproach at all times, right, Mother?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what it means,” Cissie said, her blue eyes flaming. “You have to think of your image, Elise. Of the company’s good name.”

“That same image, that same good name that has
helped pollute this very land?” Elise said, getting up to stalk toward the kitchen. “Right now, Mother, I’m not so sure I’m proud of being a Melancon.”

“How can you say that?” Cissie called after her, her hand fluttering in the air. “Elise, I’m not finished talking to you. That man has already turned your head, and against your own family at that. You have to end this, right now.”

“It’s over already, Mother,” Elise said as she grabbed her beige wool topper and headed out the door. “I’m going for a walk.”

“It’s freezing out there,” Cissie said on a long whine.

“I need some fresh air,” Elise said over her shoulder.

“No, you need to have your head examined,” her mother shouted. “And so does your grandmother, if you ask me.”

“Maybe we do at that,” Elise said under her breath.

Theo
felt
her coming even before he saw her. He was that in tune to Elise Melancon. So in tune that he’d made the fatal mistake of kissing her. And wishing he could kiss her again.

He turned from where he’d been pruning winter-dead branches from the boxwood hedges that lined the white wooden fence around the perimeters of the vast estate. Turned and took a breath as his heart began to hurt with a pain that didn’t seem familiar.

She looked so pretty, all bundled up in beige, with a red wool scarf tucked around her neck. She was wearing jeans and expensive low-heeled, pointy-toed leather boots
the same rich beige color of her coat. Her flaxen-colored hair lifted out in the crisp morning wind like silken wheat. Her cheeks were a bright pink. Her expression bordered on petulant, but she had a look of resolve about her.

He loved her.

Theo accepted that fact and let it rush over him with the same gentle force as the cool wind. He closed his eyes, said a quick prayer for direction, and took in the contrasting warmth of the bright morning sun.

When he opened his eyes, she was near and she was looking at him like a fawn caught in the forest, that same realization of love shining brightly in her own eyes.

“Morning,” he called, hoping to appear as bland and blank as the white fence behind him.

“Hello,” she replied, her eyes glowing with unspoken fears and hopes. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“I didn’t plan on being here,” he responded, his hedge clippers suddenly heavy in his hands. “Just finishing up some work I’ve been neglecting.”

The cutting edge of that remark caused her to take in her breath. “I guess I’ve been taking up too much of your time.”

“It’s okay,” he said, turning around to clip tiny dry leaves. Because it felt good to let his rage out in such a sharp, harsh, snippy way. “I picked up my suit yesterday. Fits perfectly.”

“I knew it would.”

He turned, threw down the clippers, marched toward her and pulled her into his arms. Then he kissed her and this time he made sure it left the right impression. He
wanted her to know that he loved her, but he also knew that what he’d done was wrong. He’d woven this tangled web and now it was up to him to untangle things. He never should have agreed to this arrangement.

But when he let go and looked into her eyes, his heart sputtered out of control and went careening off in another direction. “We’re in big trouble,” he said on a winded breath.

“I know.” She backed away and wiped at the moisture in her eyes. “And I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t want to stop you from getting back together with Maggie.”

“I said the suit fits, Elise. That doesn’t mean
I
will ever fit. You have to remember that.”

She whirled to glare at him. “Because you refuse to fit, Theo. You’ve already judged me and I’m sure that the way I’ve acted—the way I’ve reacted—to you hasn’t helped. You must think the worst of me.”

He urged her back into his arms, then stroked her hair away from her face. “
Non,
you know what I find? That I’m thinking the best of you. I’m thinking that I could fall for you.”

“Stop,” she said, pulling away to lean over the fence. All around them, the ancient oaks held sway like protective sentinels, while the squirrels and birds and other forest creatures went about their normal fussy business. “You can’t fall for me. I won’t allow that to happen.”

“Because I’m not good enough?”

“No, because you
are
good enough. Too good. I won’t allow you to ruin what you want with Maggie—”

“Leave her out of this.”

She looked up at him, her eyes full of questions. “How can I? How can I forget that we started this because of her? And I know by the way you don’t like to talk about her that you’re trying to do the right thing. You don’t even want me to be a part of what you share with Maggie. Isn’t that right, Theo? Isn’t that why you don’t talk much about her? You want what you have with Maggie to stay private.”

It was his turn to walk away, to put some distance between them. To put some distance between himself and his guilt. “There is a lot about Maggie and me that I can’t talk about,” he said, the sick feeling of dread shrouding his soul like a too-warm blanket.

He heard her hand hitting the fence. “You see, that’s one of the things I appreciate about you. You are a gentleman, Theo. You
are
a gentleman in all the ways that really count. You’re protecting the woman you love. And that means I have no part in your life.”

“Does that mean we’re done, finished?”

“Yes,” she said, the word so soft and final he thought he’d heard her wrong. “I’ve done my job and I’ve seen that you don’t need instructions on etiquette, or manners, or knowing the right thing to do.”

“So that’s it then?”

“Yes. That has to be it. I won’t come between you and Maggie. It’s not right and it would cause too much heartache. I’ll see you at dinner tomorrow night.”

He heard her boots hitting dirt, knew she was walking away from him for good. He wanted to run to her, assure her that he didn’t love Maggie now, tell her the truth, that
this had started out as some sort of black joke, his way of getting even with Elise because she was a good girl who brought out the bad in him. But it had turned into something so rich and full of hope that it brought him to his knees with longing. Elise, with all her wholesome goodness, made him want to be good, too.

But he didn’t tell her any of those things.

Instead he just turned and watched her walk away.

The house was glowing with the warmth and charm of the holidays. Outside in an open area of the back gardens, a bonfire that Theo had helped build, burned brightly in the night sky. Some of the relatives were gathered around it, sipping hot apple cider and hot chocolate.

Elise stood at one of the big windows in the dining room, the scent of cinnamon and mulberry candles mingling with the rich smell of Reginald’s Cajun fried turkey with seafood stuffing. The long mahogany dining table was set with the gold-etched Christmas china. The shimmering light from the antique silver candelabras sitting on each side of the evergreen-and-magnolia leaf centerpiece cast a thousand glistening shadows across the room. The massive sideboard groaned with the weight of three different kinds of bread puddings and pound cakes, pecan pies and decorated sugar cookies. In the great entranceway, the huge tree sparkled with all the ornaments and baubles of her grandmother’s life. Ornaments and baubles Elise had helped collect and hang there. She could see the fire from the parlor’s great big hearth reflected in the shimmering ornaments.

Everything here is so precious.

Elise turned from the window, closing her eyes as she listened to the sounds of family and home. Her cousins laughing and running in the other rooms, her aunts and uncles moving about in the kitchen, her grandmother’s gentle instructions carrying throughout the house and Reginald’s reassuring answers, her mother’s shrill complaints said in that endearing Southern voice that brought Elise both pain and comfort.

I belong here, she thought, her hand reaching out to touch the velvety red blossoms of a poinsettia placed on a side table. I belong here.

Now, she understood why her grandmother had called them all home. Now, she understood why her grandmother had insisted she help Theo. Now, she understood why her grandmother wanted her to be a real part of Melancon Oil and Gas. It was all about family and home, all about doing the right thing, no matter the sacrifice.

Just as our Lord did, Elise thought. She said a prayer for peace and hope, a prayer for thanksgiving and salvation.

I will try, Lord,
she promised.
I will try to do what I know is right in my heart.

Except, now that she’d discovered she wanted to be back here at
Belle Terre,
she’d also discovered that she’d fallen in love with a man she could never have. How did she reconcile the two decisions in her heart? How could she possibly be here every day, knowing Theo would be near?

I’ll just have to remember my duty to
Grand-mère.

That should keep her in check. That should occupy her thoughts and time. It would have to be enough.

With that declaration clanging in her mind, Elise smiled and took a deep breath of resolve. She would be all right.

He’d be all right. Theo stood in the yard of the great house, his gaze taking in the glow of candlelight and bonfire.
Belle Terre
shined like the great jewel of the bayou it had become. It was a beautiful house, but more so, it was a lovely home. He thanked God and Betty Jean Melancon for allowing him a glimpse of that kind of life, and in the same prayer he thanked God for his own family.

He thought back on last night when he’d taken his father to the cabin, thought of the tears of joy and pride in his papa’s eyes. His
maman
had clapped her hands in praise, while his entire slew of brothers and sisters, cousins and kin had applauded his efforts. They had an old-fashioned
perlot
right there on the bayou. They’d eaten the rice and chicken concoction with cornbread and sausage, they’d laughed and shared tall tales and opened modest but precious Christmas treasures. His papa had read the Cajun version of the night before Christmas, always a favorite among his younger nieces and nephews. And then, his
maman
had asked Theo to read the second chapter of Luke—the story of the birth of Jesus Christ.

And Theo had understood things at last.

I belong here, he thought now. But he didn’t belong in that mansion. I belong on the bayou with my family. No sense in hoping for dreams that couldn’t come true. No
sense in wishing for something he couldn’t have. He’d just have to let Elise go back to her way of life and he’d continue to fight for his own.

“I’ll will try to do right by You, Lord,” he promised. “I will try to be a good man.”

With that resolution, he headed up to the big house, not to gloat and celebrate, but to lay his heart bare.

He was going to tell Elise the truth.