The game all played out.
Bailey Sullivan’s Vintage Christmas
Facts & Fun Calendar
December 9
In 1939, Robert L. May created Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for a storybook given away by the Montgomery Ward department store. As a boy, May had been teased about his small size, so he developed a character with a physical quirk. May’s boss was concerned the shiny red nose might be associated with drunkenness, but after seeing sketches of the reindeer, the company was won over.
Chapter 9
Perhaps it was the highlights in her hair that brightened Tracy’s outlook. The new cut that fluffed around her face to end in soft wisps at her jawline. Or maybe it was the sunshine streaming through the downstairs window and the promise of another seventy-something-degree day. For whatever reason, she found herself with her hand on the front door. For the first time in weeks, she walked out into the sunlight. She even dressed up for the occasion, dumping the sweats and taking a pair of Bailey’s jeans from the pile of clean clothes on the dryer.
She was wearing a lot less gray hair and a dozen fewer pounds. The “divorce diet,” she supposed, recalling a phrase coined by one of her friends.
Outside, warmth bathed her face. She sucked in a deep breath and smelled heated green-the combination of the grass and the hibiscus hedge and the leaves from the jacaranda tree growing in the front corner of the yard. Her mother and father had been late-in-life parents, and she’d lived here since birth. It had always given her a sense of comfort and security, until Dan had left.
Last night she’d decided they were probably done, but maybe she could find peace again. Alone, in the house built by her parents, she could become one of those women who found contentment in work and a safety net in a caring circle of other single females.
Who needed a man? What were they good for?
Still savoring the warm air, she strolled to the mailbox nailed to a post at the bottom of the front walk, noticing someone had decorated it with a lush bow of red ribbon. Tracy ran her forefinger over its velvety surface. Even though the season was always hectic because of the store, she’d still managed little holiday touches like this once she and Dan married and the children were young.
But now with Bailey only an occasional visitor to her life and Harry’s hectic presence off to college, there was no reason to put forth the effort. She wasn’t someone’s mother anymore, she realized with a wrench.
Worse, she wasn’t sure who she was without that.
The metal mailbox was almost hot to touch, so she pried the door open with a fingernail, then pulled out the pile of envelopes stacked inside. She scanned the names on them.
Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Willis.
Mrs. Daniel Willis.
The couple was dissolved. That woman didn’t exist anymore.
A burn rose from her suddenly clenched stomach. Damn Dan! How could he take this away from her! How could he take herself away?
No, no. She slammed the mailbox shut, and the violent clang shut off the anger rising inside her. The new woman she wanted to be wasn’t going to feel like this. The new Tracy would choose her emotions just as she chose her identity.
She was going to be a serene person, she decided. One of those types who floated over the highs and lows of life.
As she turned back to the house, a car coming down the street caught her eye. Her hand tightened on the mail, creasing the cable bill. Serene, she told herself. Tranquil. Peaceful.
It was her footsteps that rushed in a panic up the front walk. Inside, she was a calm sea.
The calm sea didn’t make it through the entry before Dan was out of his car. “Tracy?”
She shut the door when he was on the sidewalk. Locked it as he mounted the porch steps.
Then, her heart clattering in her chest, she slid down against the painted wood, her legs no longer able to hold her steady. She rested her forehead on her upraised knees, fighting for breath.
It was still a struggle when she heard the scratch of a key in the lock. Her head jerked up, and she scrambled to her feet. She just managed to move away before the door hit her in the butt.
Then he was framed in the doorway. Her husband.
Her estranged husband.
“What the hell are you doing?” Her heart jumped again, astonished by the curse-she never cursed-and The Exorcist rasp of her voice.
“I have a key. My name’s on the deed. Why wouldn’t I enter my own home?” His dark hair was longer than she’d ever seen it. It swung over his brow like a boy’s-like Harry’s-and she could see the faint whiteness of the crows’ feet at the corners of his watchful eyes.
He was tan, damn him. No hiding out in dark rooms for the SOB who’d walked out on her.
Anger rose like bile again, but Tracy managed to swallow it down as she turned her back and strode off toward the kitchen. “Get what you came for, and then leave,” she said over her shoulder.
God, she was good. That had sounded somewhat sane. Poised, even. As if she were in control of her emotions and not the other way around.
She could carry off this serenity thing. Be it, even. She could.
Until she felt Dan’s hand on her elbow. “Tracy-”
She whirled with a screech, as if he’d burned her. “Get your hands off me.”
He lifted them, surrender style. “I just want to talk.”
“No.” She backed away.
He stalked forward.
Her heart hammered against her breastbone as she retreated down the hall. “Come back some other time.”
“Now is the time.” His voice was hard, his gaze intent on her face. It had been years since she was aware of how strong he was. Though he wasn’t a particularly tall man, his build was powerful, thanks to solid shoulders, lean hips, sturdy legs. He’d been working out, that was obvious.
Bastard. Probably bench pressing bunnies at that Sodom and Gomorrah he called home.
No, he’d just called here home. Anger shot through her bloodstream like a drug. She started to tremble under its all-consuming influence.
“Tracy.” Her gaze dropped from his face to the sinews in his arm as he held out a hand to her. “Now.”
“No.”
He took a step forward, and she whirled again. Ran.
Get away. Get free. Panting already, she sprinted down the hall, hearing his heavy footsteps behind her.
“Damn it, Tracy!”
No. Damn him. Damn him for making her miserable. Angry. Alone.
Catching the baluster at the bottom of the stairs in her hand, she swung herself around and took off up the steps. Yesterday her knees had been creaking. Today she felt supple, strong. A gazelle. A lioness.
A woman running from heartache and all the other emotions that were trying to catch up with her.
Her pulse was pounding in her ears as she gained the upper hall. Dan was still behind her, determined.
To bow her. Break her. Make her cry.
Never. Never never never.
Her first husband had torn her skin off her bones on his way to shattering her heart. She wouldn’t be so vulnerable again.
The master bedroom doorway was in sight. The double doors locked and there wasn’t a key to open them. Dan was too civilized, surely, to break them down.
Just three…more…steps.
She flew through the doorway even as Dan’s big hand clamped down on her shoulder. With a wrench she yanked away from his touch.
But it was too late to lock him out of the bedroom.
Her gaze trained on his face, she backed off again, putting the king-sized mattress between them while he stood, unmoving, at the entrance to the room.