As Noreen watched Darius jump joyfully into Santa's plump red velvet lap she thought, At least he'll sit still for a second and I can catch my breath.
"Silent Night," her favorite Christmas carol, was being piped over the sound system. For the first time since seven that morning when she'd climbed into the Liskas' Suburban, she relaxed. She glanced down at her wristwatch. She and Darius still had an hour to shop before they were to rendezvous with the Liskas and their four children for lunch on the river at Casa Rio.
Noreen groaned inwardly as she watched Darius unwrap the peppermint candy cane that Santa had given him and whisper into Santa's ear at the same time. Santa was going to have sticky ears. Sugar made Darius absolutely hyper. He wouldn't eat lunch, and he probably wouldn't nap on the way home.
"So what special present do you want Santa to bring you this year, young man?" Santa asked.
"Special?" The word was new. Darius licked his candy cane thoughtfully.
"The best present you've ever gotten?" Santa prompted.
Darius whispered again, but Santa couldn't make out the whisper and told him so.
Darius's eager, piping voice rang through the store. "The best present ever? A daddy that's even better than Leo's, that's what!"
Noreen looked up sharply at her son, all the old sorrow upon her. Her brown eyes grew bleak. She had tried to explain so many times to Darius that his father was in Heaven. She'd framed her favorite picture of Larry and kept it in Darius's room.
Noreen scarcely heard Santa's low rumble. But she heard her son's matter-of-fact reply. "Nope. Just a daddy."
"What about a toy truck or a car?"
Darius shook his black head as stubbornly as his father would have. As stubbornly as any Hale.
Santa was setting the child down, helping him get his balance as Noreen came over and gently took Darius's hand.
"You could have told me what you wanted," she said softly to her son, her voice immeasurably sad.
"Do you think Santa can really bring me a daddy?"
"Honey, I told you how your father died. You have his picture on that little table by your bed."
Darius's big blue eyes, so like his father's and his Uncle Grant's, grew solemn at that memory. "But I need a real live daddy, too."
She rumpled Darius's black hair. "A daddy is… well… er… That's a very complicated present."
"That's why I asked Santa, Mom. 'Cause he's magic."
Noreen remained silent. She turned helplessly back to Santa, who had been eavesdropping. But Santa was no help. With a merry jingling of tiny bells, he just tipped his hat and gave her an audacious wink.
For a moment she remembered her marriage, Larry's death, Grant, the bitter loss of it all. And suddenly she was so cold inside that she could feel nothing else.
Noreen was in a hurry now, a hurry to leave the mall and make it to the Casa Rio by one-thirty to meet Sara and Jim and their brood. She had shopped in a frenzy ever since she'd found out what Darius really wanted for Christmas. She couldn't provide the father he wanted, but she could get him other things. Now she was so loaded down with bags that she could no longer hold them all, and Darius was even carrying the two he'd bought for Leo and another friend.
They were on the escalator when the nightmare she had dreaded for five long years became a reality.
There was no time to prepare. No time to run. She and Darius were trapped on that gliding silver stairway.
They were going down.
Her ex brother-in-law was going up.
Fortunately, Grant wasn't looking in her direction when she saw him. She went rigid with shock, turned her head away, and lifted her shaking hand to cover her features. But not before his harsh, set face had etched itself into her brain, and into her heart and soul, as well.
He looked tired. Tired and haggard in a way that wrenched her heart.
But he was as handsome as ever. He was taller than other men, and broader through the shoulders. So tall he dwarfed her in comparison. His face was lean and dark, his hair as thick and black and unruly as her own, his eyes the same dazzling blue she remembered, his mouth still as beautifully shaped.
As if she could have forgotten him.
As if any woman could.
Her heart was beating like a mad thing gone wild. She was almost safe. They were gliding past each other. She would probably never see him again. Why would she? He was a Hale and, no doubt, by now one of the most powerful lawyers in San Antonio. She was a nobody, a small-town librarian.
How many nights had she dreamed of him? He had probably never given her another thought.
A fatal impulse possessed her. Forgetting her fears for Darius, forgetting she was risking her new life in doing so, she couldn't resist glancing over her shoulder for one last glimpse of him.
She did so just when Grant was looking back.
Their eyes met.
And so did their souls. One fleeting instant of mutual longing bound them before other, darker emotions stormed to the surface.
Slowly his black brows drew together-in a smoldering rage or in hate, she did not know which. Terror welled up in her.
Fortunately, the moving escalators were crowded. Fortunately, the railing was high, and Grant couldn't see that she was with a child.
"Norie!"
The husky sound of his voice crying her name cut her like a knife.
Grant shouted a second time as she scrambled to get off the escalator, pulling Darius, juggling packages.
One of her packages fell. She looked back. Her new pair of sparkly red high heels had tumbled out of their box. But she raced on, into the nearest store where she grabbed a wild assortment of jeans and tops and took Darius with her into a tiny dressing room.
There she stayed for an hour, reading to Darius in a whispery voice from one of the storybooks she.had bought for the school library.
A long time later, a saleslady called to them. "Does anything fit?"
She heard male voices in the next fitting room, saw a pair of male legs on the other side of the divider of her stall. It was only then that Noreen noticed she'd grabbed men's jeans, and she and Darius were hiding in the men's fitting room.
She began to laugh silently, a little hysterically, and Darius watched her with huge worried eyes.
When Noreen and Darius were a breathless thirty minutes late to the Casa Rio, the Liskas were too dear to criticize.
They were a handsome couple. Jim was tall and dark, gentle and strong. His wife had soft brown hair, brown eyes, and a sweet face. They'd been high school sweethearts and had one of the happiest marriages Noreen had ever seen.
Noreen sank down beside them, offering neither excuses nor explanations, and let Jim order her lunch.
Sara, who'd grown up in a small town and simply adored gossip, studied Noreen's white face with avid curiosity.
Fortunately, before Sara could start quizzing her, the children took over. First Leo knocked over his soda. Then Darius tried to feed a chip dipped in hot sauce to a pigeon, leaned back too far in his chair, and nearly fell into the river.
At last the chaos of lunch was over and the Liskas had bribed Raymond to take his younger siblings and Darius off to ride the paddleboats.
The table was set in a cool and shady spot. Mariachi music was being played softly in the background. Sunlight sparkled on the river and shimmered in the golden leaves overhead. Jim, who worked as a science teacher at the same school Noreen did, was finishing the last of his beer. Sara was holding his hand. Noreen sipped her cup of tea.
"We'd better enjoy this before the kids come back," Sara said. "Noreen, the kids were terrible in the mall. I guess it's just that they're all so excited. Leo wanted everything in sight. Raymond kept teasing him, telling him he'd been so bad Santa was bringing switches this year. How was Darius?"
"He told Santa that he wants a daddy."
Jim put down his beer bottle. His dark eyes lit with humor. "That's certainly going to set the town on its edge. I can just see the headline now: Town's Mystery Librarian Gets Son A Daddy!"