by the growing morning light. Her shoulders drooped. “The pond probably looks the same way. How am I going to get that cleaned up for Holiday Happenings?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
She looked annoyed. “I was talking to myself, not expecting you to volunteer. And you don’t have to fix the door, either.” She made a grab for the screwdriver, but he held it away from her.
“If you could refill that kettle and put it on the fire, I can heat something up for the baby. Not to mention get a coffee into you. Sheesh. Prickly.”
She turned from him abruptly, and then Ryder noticed it wasn’t angels on her pajamas at all.
Pigs flying.
And then the baby screamed. Not her normal wakeup crabby cry but an animal shriek of pain and panic.
He set down the screwdriver and raced back into the great room, frightened that Tess had tried to climb out of her crib and had fallen.
But she stood at the side of her crib, screaming and jumping up and down, fixated on the fire.
He went and scooped her up, tucked her in tight to his shoulder, swayed with her.
“Shhh, baby,” he said, and then not knowing where the words came from, only that he needed to say whatever would bring her comfort, he said, “Shhh. Mama’s here.”
And for a man who did not believe such things, he did feel as though Tracy was there, in some way, helping him soothe the baby, because Tess quieted against his shoulder, but refused to be put down, and would not even look in the direction of the fireplace.
Would a more sensitive person have realized the fire was going to traumatize the baby?
He felt the burden of his inadequacy, and then he realized Emma was watching him, a tender little smile on her lips and tiny tears sparkling in her eyes.
“I’m leaving,” he said, before she admired him too much, before he became like a junkie, unable to live without that look on her face.
It was a look that erased his insecurities about not being sensitive and not being good with hair, a look that said, as clearly as if Emma had spoken, that she thought he was enough.
He rested in that for a moment, in the relief that someone thought he was enough for this child.
But then he steeled himself, reminded himself Emma did not know the whole story, and said again, more firmly than before. “I’m leaving.”
RYDER told himself he wasn’t just being mean and selfish, either. Tess was terrified of the fireplace and the fire within it, her tiny body trembling against his chest, her fist wrapped in his shirt so he couldn’t get away from her.
He couldn’t stay here with her. Even now, he was being very careful to use his body as a shield, placing it between Tess and the fire.
“Is Tess okay?” Emma asked. “What happened?’
“The fire scared her.”
Thankfully, Emma accepted that explanation without asking him to elaborate. Her eyes went to the window where he’d opened the drape. Sunshine was beginning to spackle the walls.
“Is that wise? To leave? You should at least wait to hear what condition the roads are in. They could still be closed.”
She had no electricity. He wasn’t going to “hear” anything here. But he could tell it was not a rational explanation that she wanted.
Trying to take the screwdriver from him had been a token effort. Emma wanted him to stay, as if she had already formed some kind of attachment to the man who could least be trusted with attachments.
“The roads are never closed for long,” Ryder said. Hopefully. The 1998 ice storm had been called the storm of the century for a reason: such storms happened once a century.
Of course, it was a new century now, and so far his luck had been abysmal.
“It’s not as if you have urgent business,” Emma said, and that furrow in her brow deepened as she turned worried eyes to the baby. “Your cottage isn’t going anywhere.”
But, of course, he did have urgent business. He had to reclaim the bastions that had had cracks knocked into them last night, he had to repair that hole in the wall she had slipped through. Even repaired, it would be a weak place now, and she knew where it was. If he stayed, she might slip through it again.
“I appreciate the shelter from the storm, Emma.”
He appreciated more than that: the refuge, for a moment when he had laughed, and for another when he had remembered Christmas past, from the storms within himself, the glimpse of what it would be to be a different man, to have that feeling of home again.
But he wasn’t ready and there was a possibility he never would be. People could only get hurt if he tried.
“We’ve imposed long enough.”
She looked as though she had something to say about that, but she bit her lip instead.
“If you’ll provide me with a bill, I’ll finish getting Tess ready. I don’t suppose you accept credit cards?”
Breaking it down to a business deal. Reminding her it was a business deal. Despite the mattress thing. Despite him sharing a memory with her of a long-ago Christmas that shone in his memory. Magic.
Despite knowing she had never had a good Christmas.
She looked insulted. “I’m not taking money! Hot dogs for supper and a bed on the floor! No, consider your stay at the White Christmas Inn my gift to you, humble as it was.”
Ryder didn’t want to accept a gift from her. He hated it that she was offering one. Was she intent on giving that Christmas spirit to everyone, even those completely undeserving? Who would not make Santa’s nice list?
But she had that mulish look on her face, and he wasn’t going to argue. He’d mail her a check when he got home after Christmas. No, an anonymous money order because she’d probably be stubborn enough not to cash a check with his name on it.
Even if by after Christmas she’d mortgaged the place to pay for her hot dogs, and her falling-down house, and her fantasy Christmas day for the needy.
So, he’d make sure it was a darn generous check.
“Speaking of hot dogs,” he said. “Don’t forget, if the power stays out much longer, you’ll have to take them out of the freezer.”
What a hero, Ryder told himself cynically, leaving her without power, but making sure to dispense hot-dog-saving advice before departing.
A sound broke the absolute silence of the morning, a high-pitched whining engine noise. A snowmobile.
It was now full light out.
