Kitabı oku: «A Miracle For Christmas»

CHAPTER ONE

DAMIAN MCALLISTER hissed out an oath as he glared at the toy store situated directly across the street from his office. That damned sign in the window! Its neon message had been winking at him since November and was driving him crazy:

Merry Xmas To U And Yours

I can’t stand it. He fisted a hand hard against the top of his mahogany desk. I can’t stand it one more minute.

He lurched to his feet.

‘Mrs. Sutton!’ he bellowed.

Marjorie Sutton, the McAllister Architectural Group’s senior secretary, put down the chocolate doughnut she’d been on the point of dunking into her morning coffee. Casting it a regretful sigh, she heaved her snugly corseted body out of her chair and walked through to the adjoining office.

Her boss’s blue eyes, she noted, had a wild expression, and his black hair looked as if he’d been trying to tear it out, strand by glossy strand. Yet she wished—as she did on a disturbingly regular basis considering she was quite happily married—that either she were thirty years younger or that the president of the M.A.G. wasn’t such a dreamboat.

‘Yes, sir?’ Her tone was light.

His answering scowl was dark. ‘Cancel all my appointments till the New Year. I’ve decided to take off for my place in Vermont earlier than planned.’ As he spoke, he kept his back rigidly to the window, though he could have sworn he saw the reflection of the toy store’s Christmas lights and gratingly upbeat message flickering on the wall facing him.

‘Are you feeling all right, Mr. McAllister? You look white. As if you’d...seen a ghost.’

The ghost of Christmases past. ‘I seem to be coming down with something...probably that flu that’s going the rounds.’ Dismissively he slackened the knot of his silk tie, and flicked open the top button of his gray shirt. ‘Now—’

‘What about the big party Friday night?’

‘Party?’

‘The Anthony Gould cocktail party. Your invitation came in the mail last month. You accepted, remember?’

Last month. When he’d convinced himself that this year would be different. This year he wouldn’t be a coward. This year he wouldn’t run from Christmas. ‘I remember. Gould’s going to be showing off his new fiancée.’ He cleared his throat...and winced. His tonsils felt as if he’d raked a cheese grater over them. He opened his desk drawer, rummaged till he found a cough drop and thrust it into his mouth. ‘Cancel,’ he mumbled around the cherry-flavored lozenge. The last thing I feel like doing at this moment is watching Boston’s finest parade his latest trophy—’

‘Mr. McAllister!’

He heard the chiding in her tone, but there was no evidence of remorse in his eyes...eyes that had begun to water as he felt a sneeze gather. ‘Phone.’ He accepted the man-size tissue his secretary obligingly whipped from the box sitting by his fax machine. ‘Get me off the hook?’

‘Right. So—’ she paused while his sneeze reverberated through the office and fluttered a blueprint that lay on his drawing board ‘—will that be all, sir?’

Grabbing his suit jacket from the back of his chair, he shrugged it on, and crossed to hold the door open. ‘I’ll leave everything in your capable hands.’

Mrs. Sutton walked past him but instead of taking her seat at her desk, stood by it...as if waiting for something.

He gritted his teeth. Season’s greetings, perhaps?

He opened his mouth, tried to say the words—Merry Christmas—but they stuck. He muttered something unintelligible. She could decipher his mumblings however she wished, he decided with a feeling of desperation.

And fled.

When he drove out of the underground parking lot a few minutes later, he kept his eyes averted from the Warmest Fuzzies Toy Store...and what a pie-in-thesky name that was! But even with his attention focused glazedly on the traffic ahead, he couldn’t block out the neon pattern of reds and greens winking from the store window...or the sound of the music blasting from a purple Corvette in the next lane...

Garth Brooks, informing him—and possibly everyone else in Boston—that ‘Love Came Down at Christmas.’

Stephanie Redford bit her lip uneasily as she searched the black-tie, black-dress crowd. Where was Tony? She had to talk with him right away. What the Whitneys had said—it was surely all a silly mistake—

Her taffeta blouse rustled as somebody trailed a light fingertip down her spine. She spun around, spilling a few drops of champagne from her glass...and there was Tony, his wavy blond hair gleaming under the crystal chandelier.

His pale eyes were warm with approval.

‘Darling.’ He ran a possessive hand up her arm in an intimate caress. ‘You’re a huge success. I’m so proud of you. Now you must come and be introduced to the Cabots. They’re eager to meet the future Mrs. Anthony Gould—’

‘Tony, the Whitneys just told me that you—’

‘Lower your voice, darling.’ A shadow of displeasure flickered over her fiancé’s patrician features. ‘Paula Whitney’s looking this way.’ Grasping her arm, with smoothly murmured apologies he wove a path through the crowd and out into the deserted hallway. This was the first party he’d put on at his penthouse condo since he’d had it redecorated, and Stephanie knew he wanted nothing to mar the occasion.

‘Now, darling—’ his lips were curved in a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes ‘—what exactly is the problem?’

Stephanie placed her champagne glass on the Louis XVI table by her side and took in a deep breath.

‘The Whitneys,’ she said, ‘have just told me they’re delighted we’ve accepted their invitation to spend Christmas week with them at Aspen.’

‘You’ve never been to the Whitneys’ ski lodge, darling. It’s old-world bijou—you’ll love it—’

‘Tony, we agreed weeks ago that we’d drive to Rockfield and spend the holidays with my folks. The Redford clan always get together for Christmas—it’s a family tradition.’

Tony took her left hand and held it, palm down, by her fingertips. He let his gaze linger for a long thoughtful moment on her lustrous sapphire ring before he responded.

‘Stephanie, rm going to be marrying you soon. You’ll be a Gould, and we’ll be making our own traditions. You’ll be moving in a different circle. My circle. My friends all like you, darling—the Laskers, the Gibsons, the Loebs...’

Stephanie drew her fingers free. Although Tony’s condo was electronically kept at a very comfortable temperature, the air seemed suddenly chilly. ‘You promised, Tony. My parents are looking forward to meeting you—’

‘Darling.’ Tony’s eyes had a coaxing glint. ‘I believed the Whitneys were planning to go abroad this year, and they were... but their arrangements fell through, so they’ve organized this ski party and it’s going to be a blast—’

‘I don’t want to go to Aspen.’ Stephanie met his gaze steadily. ‘I want to go home.’

The tension that had been sputtering between them exploded with an intensity that rocked her. Tony obviously felt it, too. His eyes became wary, a nerve ticked in his neck, directly above his bow tie...

And then, with an unexpectedness that totally threw her, he grinned. Cocking a teasing brow, he drew her into his arms. ‘Darling,’ he said ruefully, ‘are we having our first fight?’ Without giving her a chance to reply, he pulled her hard against him and kissed her.

After a brief moment of resistance, Stephanie exhaled a sigh and yielded. She did love him so, and the comfort and pressure of his body, along with the expert thoroughness of his kiss, swiftly dissipated her tension. Tony loved her, just as she loved him, and he’d sworn, when he proposed to her, that he’d devote his life to making her happy. He wouldn’t let her down. Not on this. It was too important.

She pulled back, and looked up at him with a tender smile. ‘We’ll go, then,’ she said softly, ‘to Rockfield?’

He released her abruptly. ‘Stephanie.’ Irritation emanated from his every pore. ‘Have you not been listening to what I’ve been saying? We’re going to Aspen. You know how important the Whitneys are to me. They were my first clients when I set up my law practice, and they are still my biggest clients—’

‘You’re missing the point.’ Stephanie threaded a shaky hand through the heavy mass of chocolate brown hair that tumbled around her shoulders. ‘A promise is a promise. You just have to tell the Whitneys we’d already made plans. They seem like nice people... they’ll understand.’

‘I’m going to Aspen, Stephanie, let me make that quite clear. You have a choice. You can spend Christmas in Vermont with your family, or you can spend it in Colorado with me.’

Stephanie stared at him disbelievingly. ‘A choice... or an ultimatum?’

Her fiancé lifted his shoulders in a deliberate shrug. ‘If that’s how you want to look at it.’

What other way could she look at it? Tony believed he was giving her a choice, but he was wrong. She had promised her parents she’d be home for the holidays.

Her fingers trembled as she slipped off her engagement ring. She held it out, in the palm of her hand, and the sapphire had never looked more beautiful. Tony stared at it, didn’t take it. He was obviously taken aback. It was probably the first time in his life, Stephanie reflected as she struggled to control her welling unhappiness, that anyone had ever said no to Anthony Howard Gould III.

Gold tinkled against wood as she dropped the ring on the side table. ‘I’ll go and gather up my things, then.’

‘You’re making a mistake, Stephanie. Don’t do this to me.’ For the first time, there was urgency in Tony’s voice. ‘What am I to tell the Whitneys? What am I to—’

Stephanie brushed past him, and made for his bedroom. She was thankful she was managing to control her tears; they would wait, she prayed, till she could get to her van.

Her blue canvas bag was lying half open on the burgundy duvet draped over Tony’s bed. In it she could see a fold of her black lace negligee...the filmy, outrageously expensive negligee she’d been planning to wear later tonight, when she and Tony, for the very first time—

Fiercely she rasped the bag’s zipper closed.

She shrugged on her calf-length red coat, tucked her evening purse into one of the pockets, slung the canvas bag’s strap over her shoulder and hurried out to the hallway again. Once there she paused, and then, hesitantly, looked back. Her heart gave a painful lurch when she saw that Tony was standing where she had left him. His face was as devoid of color as the snow blanketing the world outside. For a moment, she wavered—but just for a moment. She tightened her lips and pulled her coat around her, as if it were a shield. If Tony didn’t believe in keeping promises, they had no future together.

Tonight, he had revealed a side of himself she hadn’t known existed. A side she didn’t like. It must always have been there, though...only she had been too blinded by love to see it; blinded by love and—yes, she admitted with raw honesty—bedazzled by the wonder and sheer exhilaration of being courted by one of Boston’s most eligible bachelors. She should have known better, she thought with an unfamiliar feeling of bitterness, than to get mixed up with someone from the so-called ‘upper crust.’ She shook her head grimly. That was one mistake she would never make again.

Her high-heeled shoes made no sound on the plush carpet as she crossed the hall toward the private elevator; the only sound she could hear was the leaden thud-thud-thud of her heartbeat against her breastbone.

She stepped into the elevator, and didn’t look around till the door began to close. Then it took only a glance to tell her that Tony was no longer standing in the hallway. It was once again deserted.

He hadn’t even waited till she was gone, she realized sorrowfully, before going back to join the party.

‘Tony Gould is a jerk.’ Janey Martin flopped down on Stephanie’s bed and watched as her flatmate rammed gaily wrapped stuffed animals into an enormous orange plastic bag. ‘Aspen indeed! I just hope he breaks a leg skiing.’

Stephanie chose not to respond to her friend’s uncharitable remarks. Instead she muttered a triumphant ‘Gotcha!’ as she finally succeeded in tucking in the neck of a two-foot-high giraffe.

‘He’s not only a jerk—’ Janey’s speckled gray eyes had a derisive expression ‘—he must be out of his mind! Where does he think he’s going to find someone like you again? Not in this life. And I’m not just talking about your looks, though Lord knows you’re gorgeous enough to be a movie star! You’re also one of the nicest people around.’

Stephanie secured the bulging bag with a twist tie, dragged it across the carpet and added it to the three others slumped by the door. Only then did she turn to Janey and say firmly, ‘I don’t want to talk about him anymore.’

‘Okay...but he was going to drive you to Rockfield in his Jag, and now you’re stuck with taking your old van, and you know it’s not all that reliable. It’s been stalling and—’

‘I’ll have my dad look at it when I get home.’

‘You should have someone look at it here, before you leave.’

‘Can’t afford garage bills right now—’

‘You almost wiped out your bank account with that Louis Féraud cocktail blouse.’ Janey sighed. ‘You were out of your league, sweetie pie—’

‘Janey...’ Stephanie’s tone had an edge of warning.

Janey scowled. ‘It’s just that I’m worried you might get stuck on a back road somewhere, and that’s no fun in these winter conditions. Why don’t you go home by bus?’

‘Can you see me carting all these bags onto a bus?’

‘Leave the toys. The kids won’t mind.’

‘My nieces and nephews won’t mind if they don’t get a sample of my Warmest Fuzzies for Christmas? Janey, my stuffed animals are a highlight of their holidays!’ Stephanie dusted her palms on the seat of her cream slacks. ‘Now if you’ll quit scolding and help me carry everything out to the van, I’d like to get on my way.’ She crossed to the dresser mirror, and sneaking the opportunity to blink away threatening tears, adjusted her white-trimmed red toque to a saucy angle that was at direct odds with her aching misery.

When she turned, it was with a bright smile.

‘Right,’ she said, ‘I’m ready.’ She scooped up her red coat from the end of the bed, and slipped it on.

Janey’s russet hair, waist-long and uncompromisingly straight, swung out like it were a sheet of flame as she got to her feet. ‘Have you called your parents? Do they know you’re coming home a day earlier than planned?’

‘No—oh, darn, how did you get down there!’ Stephanie bent to pick up a teddy bear from under the wicker rocking chair. He was her favourite creation this current season; soft and cuddly, in plush nutmeg brown, he had glass-bead eyes and an endearingly lifelike expression. She undid the thong fastening her duffel bag, and pushed the toy down atop her clothes. There wasn’t quite room, and as she started tightening the thong again, the bear’s head bounced out and he looked up indignantly, as if to say, Hey, I need air! Her lips curved in an amused smile as she gathered the thong firmly around his neck—

‘Steph...your parents?’

‘I haven’t told them. If they knew I was traveling on my own, they’d worry. We can talk once I get there.’

‘And the Warmest Fuzzies Toy Store?’

‘Joyce’s going to look after the store, and her daughter Gina’s going to help out. Apparently Gina’s expecting a baby in June, and she and her boyfriend are saving to get married, so the extra cash will come in handy.’

‘You seem to have everything under control.’ Janey took charge of two of the orange bags and led the way out to the corridor. ‘How long will you be on the road?’ she asked over her shoulder as Stephanie had a last look around.

‘Four or five hours.’ Trailing the remaining bags behind her, Stephanie followed her friend along the lobby of the triple decker building. ‘Since it’s the day before Christmas Eve, the traffic will in all likelihood be busy, but there’s been no new snow for the last few days so the roads should be okay...

‘With luck, I should reach Rockfield before dark.’

The day was bright when Stephanie left Boston, but by the time she reached Montpelier, where she stopped at an Esso station to fill her gas tank, the sky had changed ominously from its previous milky blue to a bruised charcoal gray.

‘Darkness is settin’ in early today.‘ The strawhaired attendant squinted heavenward as he returned her Visa card. ‘And a bad storm forecast for tonight. Goin’ far?’

‘Rockfield.’

‘Rockfield, huh? Watch out for them narrow mountain roads once you leave the highway. They can be right tricky this time of year.’

She gave him a wry smile as she agreed with him. And as he jogged away to attend a waiting truck, Stephanie promised herself she would indeed be very careful as she tackled those ‘right tricky’ mountain roads.

But when she turned the key in the ignition and a foreboding silence greeted her, she had to ask herself if she would be driving those roads that day at all. And after six increasingly frantic attempts to start the engine, she surrendered to the inevitable. Getting out, she clutched her coat around herself and made for the service bay, her nostrils prickling as they were exposed to the frosty air.

A mechanic came out and inspected the van’s innards. ‘Yup,’ he said, ‘we can fix ’er, but we won’t get to ‘er till tonight. You can pick ’er up after we close at nine.’

Nine! Good Lord, how was she going to fill in the time till then!

The mechanic directed her to a nearby mall, where she browsed aimlessly for a couple of hours, had a burger and then lingered for a long while over several cups of coffee, before taking in a movie. When she came out of the mall at quarter to nine, a gusty wind was whipping along the dark street—an icy cold wind, with the smell of fresh snow in it. Chin tucked into her coat collar, she hurried along to the gas station.

The van was ready and the repair cost a bundle. But as she headed out to Route 89, she decided that by the time her Visa bill came in, she should be able to meet it.

At least she had her van... and it was now reliable.

The blizzard struck after she’d left the highway.

She was on a side road, and emerging from the shelter of a covered bridge, when it hit with sudden savage force. Snow billowed down over the windshield, blinding her for a few unnerving seconds till she got the wipers going.

Oh, Lord, she thought, slowing as she peered into the porridge-thick mass and concentrated on keeping to her own side of the road, what have I let myself in for? If only Tony were here—

Scrub that thought! Anthony Howard Gould III was a fake—all style, and no substance. She needed him like she needed a hole in her head!

She had been driving for the best part of an hour when she realized to her dismay that somewhere along the way—disoriented by the storm—she had taken a wrong turning.

She knew that by this time she should have been climbing up the gentle mountain slope leading to Rockfield, not, as she was doing now, going downhill, leading to...?

With a feeling of growing horror, she noted that the gradient here was fast becoming dangerously steep. She braked, but the van gathered speed, continued to gather speed. Damn! She pressed her foot down on the pedal more firmly, praying the van would slow its pace. It didn’t.

She panicked. Rammed her foot to the boards.

The van slewed into a sideways skid.

With her fingers clawed around the steering wheel, she peered desperately into the dark and swirling storm.

And didn’t even see the snowbank till she was in it.