The Christmas Angel Page 6

  Carolyn stared at him curiously. She didn’t say anything at first. “What would we do?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe some sort of mission work. Something more hands on, like James is doing right now. I just got a letter from him last week.”

  “How is James?” Carolyn asked with interest. “And how are Leigh and the baby?”

  “They’re all doing well. James sounds very happy, very productive. I think he thrives on hard work.”

  “Bring the letter home. I’d like to read it.”

  “Yes, I will,” Ben promised. “You know, James said he could use some help there. Well, he hinted at it anyway.”

  “I can see how that type of work might draw you, Ben. But I think I’d miss the kids too much, especially William. And Rachel is talking about having another baby. She’ll need me more than ever then.”

  “Of course she would.” Ben nodded. He could sense that though she had tried to keep her tone calm, his vague talk had scared Carolyn. She had been so happy when he’d come in. Now she looked sad and confused.

  He reached across the table and patted her hand. “I was just talking off the top of my head, dear. Don’t look so worried.

  She sighed. He could see she wanted to believe him, but she wasn’t quite convinced. “We are getting close to retirement age, Ben. I suppose we have to figure all this out sooner or later.”

  “Sooner or later, but not tonight,” he assured her. “We have time. I don’t feel old, not when I look at you.”

  He smiled at her and had finally coaxed a smile in return when the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” she said, rising from her chair.

  “Let’s go together,” Ben said, following her.

  The children came in all in a rush, Rachel and her husband, Jack, leading a waddling little William wrapped in so much winter wear all Ben could see at first were his big brown eyes and the tip of his nose.

  “Look, Grandpa.” As his mother peeled off his coat, William held up a ragged stuffed tiger.

  “My, my. He looks fierce. Does he bite?”

  “Only if he’s hungry.” William shook the tiger at Ben, making everyone laugh. “His name is Willie, too.”

  Ben picked up his grandson, who held the tiger up to face him. “Are you hungry, Willie?” Ben asked the tiger in a scared voice.

  “Cookies, please,” William answered in his tiger voice.

  “We can find some of those for you. Not a problem,” Ben promised respectfully.

  The door opened and Mark came in. “Am I late? Hope not.”

  “Right on time,” Carolyn called out. “Everything’s ready. Why don’t we go right into the dining room?”

  Following the appetizing smells that filled the warm house, they traipsed into the dining room. Ben came last, leading his grandson by the hand. He felt a wave of love and happiness. His family’s laughter and energy seemed to suddenly fill the house, burning away his dour mood like sunshine burns away the fog on a summer day.

  Perhaps the truth was that deep down inside he felt just the way Carolyn did about moving away. He really couldn’t do it. He couldn’t leave his family or his congregation; he would miss them all too much. Surely his calling and work here were as important and worthwhile as in any far-off place.

  This strange, restless mood will pass, Ben told himself. I need to focus here, where I belong.

  IT’S HARD NOT TO LOVE THE GUY, SARA THOUGHT WITH A SECRET smile.

  She stood watching Luke from a distance as he played volleyball with a group of kids in the gym at New Horizons. He was so involved in the game, he didn’t even notice her.

  He’ll be a great father, Sara thought. Kids loved Luke because he had a special way of talking to them, of figuring out what they needed and encouraging the best in them.

  Would she be a great mother? She worried about that sometimes. She liked children. She had been tutoring at the center since it opened and always grew very attached to her students. She missed them when they returned to the city. But those were big kids, usually at least ten years old.

  Sara had to admit, she didn’t feel quite the same about babies. They seemed so fragile, their needs so hard to figure out. She could hardly imagine being responsible for a baby or being pregnant. Sometimes she wondered if being adopted and searching so long for her birth mother had left her with mixed emotions about becoming a mother herself. Some women her age already seemed quite sure about wanting children. But she definitely was not.

  Luke’s pressing for a commitment had made her think about it lately. But even before that, she had been secretly quite interested in her aunt Jessica’s pregnancy. As eager as Jessica had been to have a baby, when her body began changing, Sara could see it had come as a shock. Now, though her figure was trim and sleek once more, Jessica seemed different. Motherhood changed a woman, Sara knew, though she couldn’t exactly say how.

  Was she ready for those changes? She knew in her heart that she wasn’t. Would she ever be?

  “That’s it. You got it, Valdez. Point for blue team!” Luke cheered on the kids.

  Luke said he was ready for fatherhood, ready to start a new stage of his life. Sara knew that was true. He had come such a long way since moving to Cape Light.

  It was still amazing to her that Luke had managed to build this place: the gym and classrooms, the cottages turned into dorms. He had truly made something out of nothing. She remembered the night he told her about his plan, when it was just an idea he had, an inspiration to do some good in the world.

  They were both living on these grounds, each renting a cottage when the land was still owned by Dr. Elliot. She had been working at the Clam Box as a waitress while she figured out how to approach her birth mother, Emily Warwick.

  Luke had come to town drawn by childhood memories. His family had spent summers at the cottages in Cape Light, and he remembered it as a place where he would find peace at times when his life was totally at loose ends.

  He had quit the Boston police force under a cloud of suspicion and humiliation after a shoot-out that left his partner dead and Luke with permanent scars and a metal rod in one leg. But the physical damage was the least of his injuries; stripped of his identity as one of Boston’s finest, Luke was adrift, feeling his life was meaningless.

  Then he got the idea to buy the Cranberry Cottages and property when Dr. Elliot put them up for sale. Soon after, Luke heard of an organization devoted to helping at-risk inner-city kids—kids who got in trouble at school or had minor scrapes with the law, kids who still could be guided from moving in the wrong direction. The idea intrigued him: preventing crime by preventing kids from choosing those wrong turns in life.

  Suddenly, it all made sense to him. He found what he wanted to do with his life. But even after he made the connection with the New Horizons foundation and found the funding, many town residents fought long and hard to keep the center from opening.

  Luke persisted and, with Emily’s help, won that battle, too. Cape Light was now proud to be the home of a New Horizons center and many, including Sara, volunteered there.

  Maybe he had never been a supercop on the streets of Boston, but in Sara’s eyes, Luke was a real hero where it really counted. She knew she was lucky to have him in her life.

  “Hey, Sara. What’s up?” Luke waved to her and started to walk over. The game was still going strong, but another coach took his place.

  “I just finished tutoring. Thought I’d say hello.”

  “Hello.” He smiled and kissed her on the cheek. “Want to stay for dinner? I’m having mystery meal—whatever doesn’t walk out of the fridge when I open the door.”

  She laughed. “Sounds good to me. I was having the same at my place.”

  They left the gym and started down the path to Luke’s cottage. He still lived in the same one he rented when Dr. Elliot had owned the place, but he had substantially renovated it.

  Luke had saved the wood-burning stove in the living room. As Sara entered, he picked up a few lo
gs from the pile near the front door and quickly built a fire.

  The cottage had an open floor plan: one large room with a sitting area on one end and a small kitchen on the other. A kitchen counter broke up the space. The vaulted ceiling and new, large windows gave the rooms an airy feel. The wooden floors had been refinished and covered with area rugs.

  “Okay, let’s take a look in here if we dare,” Sara joked as she pulled open his refrigerator door.

  “My, aren’t you the brave one.” He walked up beside her and rested his hand on her shoulder.

  It wasn’t too bad, she thought. Though the pickings were spare, they did manage to find the makings of a cheese omelet, a salad, and a bag of frozen French fries.

  They cooked together in the small kitchen, with Luke teasing Sara about her lack of culinary skills. “You modern women,” he said. “How will you ever hook a guy if you don’t know how to cook?”

  “I thought I’d already hooked a guy. He didn’t seem to notice.”

  Luke grinned and kissed her quickly as she beat the eggs. “He noticed. He just didn’t mind that much.”

  Sara turned back to the eggs, her mind troubled. Luke was so sweet; he always made her feel so well loved. Why did she have to be so contrary, so stubborn? She should just tell him, yes, let’s get engaged. What in the world was her problem?

  But she couldn’t do that. It might feel good for a moment to make him happy, but she knew in her heart she just wasn’t ready. She had to tell him tonight. She had to try to make him understand why.

  They ate at the small table, sitting across from each other. “This isn’t bad,” Luke said, tasting a bite of the omelet.

  “At least I didn’t burn it this time. Well, not your half,” she added.

  “You’ll have to make this for us at least once a week when we’re married.” She could tell from the glint in his eyes he was teasing, but not entirely. More like testing the water. The thought made her uneasy.

  She moved a bite of food around her plate without picking it up. “Luke, there’s something I’d like to talk about,” she began.

  He didn’t answer at first, just kept looking down at his food. Finally, he picked his head up, his expression unreadable. “I hate when people say that,” he quipped without smiling.

  “Yeah, so do I,” she admitted. “It’s just that I’ve been thinking a lot about Saturday night, what happened at the jewelry store. I need to talk about it more with you.”

  His expression softened and he sat back. “What’s on your mind? I have a feeling you’re not going to ask me to run over to Newburyport tomorrow and buy you that ring.”

  That was Luke. Making it easy for her, even when it probably hurt him to say such a thing. She reached across the table and touched his hand.

  “I’ve been thinking about our talk, about your proposal—”

  “You never actually let me propose,” he pointed out, “but go ahead.”

  “Honestly, I love you so much and I love the way we are together. I feel so good with you. I can’t see myself with anyone but you. But I’m not ready to get engaged, not for Christmas. My life is just still too unsettled to make that commitment.”

  “Unsettled?” He sat back with a puzzled expression. “How is it unsettled? You have a good job on the paper; you’re doing well there. And you have a great relationship with Emily now.”

  She shrugged. “I can’t see myself writing for the Messenger my whole life.”

  “Of course not, but you haven’t been there all that long.”

  “I know. But a small paper in a small town—it gets tiring quickly.” She paused. “I’ve been thinking of applying for a job on a bigger paper, in Boston maybe or some larger market. I sent some of my clips around just to see if anyone’s interested.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” She could see the admission had stung him. They usually told each other everything.

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I just did it on the spur. I was going to tell you if anyone answered. So far, I haven’t gotten any replies.”

  “So you want to be a reporter in Boston. What about me?” Now he was angry; she heard it in his voice. “We’d see each other on weekends? Maybe? Even less than we see each other now?”

  Sara took a breath and looked down at the table. “Well . . . actually, I thought maybe you might move back to Boston with me. I mean, if anything ever came of it—and so far, nothing has—you could take that job at New Horizons, the one they offered you awhile back?”

  Earlier, when they went through other problems as a couple, Luke had considered an offer from the main office of the New Horizons foundation as a liaison who would find new sites and start up centers around the country. Finally, they had made up and he had turned down the job, preferring to stay close to Sara.

  “That was two years ago, Sara. Besides, even if they still wanted me, I’m not interested in working at the main office. There’s a lot more I want to do right here. I can’t just drop everything and run into Boston because you feel restless and want to work for a bigger paper.” He shook his head, looking distressed. “I don’t know, Sara. Where would that leave us? You haven’t said a word about getting engaged or married. Does that fit into your agenda at any point?”

  Sara didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t thought this conversation would be easy, but she hadn’t expected him to be so hurt and angry. She was trying to be honest with him. Didn’t that count for anything?

  “I’ve never thought of moving on without you in my life, Luke. That’s the truth. I do want to marry you . . . someday. But I just can’t get there in my head right now. I don’t know exactly why. Maybe I need to feel I’ve accomplished more in my career before I make that commitment. Maybe I have to do more with my life. You’re older than me,” she said finally. “You’re at a different place.”

  “Oh, the age thing now.” Luke rolled his eyes. “I should have seen that one coming.”

  “Luke, please. Don’t make it sound ridiculous. It’s just a fact. Ten years is a big difference. You know you were different when you were in your early twenties.”

  He let out a long breath. Although he was trying to hear her out, it was hard for him to come up against this particular stumbling block. Luke had always been protective of her, a handsome guardian angel who seemed to swoop in when needed most. He had never acted condescending or treated her like a child. If anything, she often felt like the more mature one. They just seemed to suit each other from the start. Their age difference never seemed to matter, though Emily had once warned her that someday it might.

  Well, it looked like her mother was right. Someday is here, Sara thought.

  “Yes, I am in my thirties and you’re still in your twenties,” he acknowledged. “But honestly, Sara, if we weren’t more or less at the same place emotionally, if this didn’t work for us, do you think we would have stayed together this long? Let’s not measure our relationship against whatever the typical thing to do is, okay? I don’t think we’re the typical couple. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it just works for us.”

  “I’m not trying to turn us into the typical anything,” Sara protested. “You know that’s not what I want. But you’re at a different place in life than I am.”

  Luke stood and left the table. He walked over to the stove, tossed another log inside, then poked the embers around until they glowed.

  “I hear what you’re saying. I just don’t think that’s true. I think you’re just scared of making a commitment, or marrying me, or something. As far as accomplishing more with your career, I would never hold you back, Sara. You know that. But plenty of women manage to work and have a marriage. It’s the latest thing, haven’t you noticed?”

  “Is it really? Wow. Maybe we’ll even get the vote,” she said, matching his facetious tone.

  “Okay, that was a little out of line, but give me a break. You make it sound as if the two are just impossible to reconcile. Besides, I don’t understand all these newspaper ambitions.
You used to tell me how all you wanted to do was write a good novel or a book of short stories. If you’re bored at the paper, maybe you should go back to your real writing.”

  Sara felt stung by his remark. Who was he to say what was real writing and what wasn’t? Who was he to decide how she would spend her time or her talent? “Writing for a newspaper is real writing,” she corrected him sharply. “Some might say fiction isn’t.”

  He rubbed his cheek with his hand. “So you’re not interested in writing a novel anymore? Is that it?”

  “It’s just not what I want right now. I’ll get back to it someday, when I’ve lived longer and have more to write about. I’m a reporter. I like it. Besides, what difference does it make what kind of writing I do? That doesn’t solve anything between us.”

  “If you were focused on your own writing, you wouldn’t be talking about moving to Boston,” Luke pointed out. “It would solve that problem at least.”

  When Sara didn’t answer, he added, “So you don’t want to get engaged for Christmas. I got it. We won’t talk about this anymore until you’re ready, okay?”

  She nodded, feeling let off the hook but still upset and unsettled. She hated fighting with him.

  “Okay, fine,” she said quietly.

  “If you want to talk about it, if you want this discussion to go any further, you’ll have to be the one to bring it up. I’m done,” he said simply, but his words had an ominous ring.

  “I will bring it up,” she promised. “You’ll see.”

  “I guess we will have to wait and see.” His look gave her a chill. Had she gone too far and damaged their relationship beyond repair? She suddenly felt so scared of losing him, she nearly ran across the room and threw herself into his arms. At that moment, she was willing to agree to get engaged, get married, even have a dozen kids if that’s what he wanted.

  But she didn’t. She stood up slowly and cleared their dirty plates from the table. The phone rang, but Luke made no move to pick it up. Sara brought the plates to the sink and started washing them. The answering machine picked up on the third ring, and Sara heard a woman’s voice come on the line.