The Black Sheep’s Baby Page 12

  “Thank God,” Devon muttered, tearing her gaze away from Eric’s with a determined shake of her head. He and his father went back to untangling the strings of lights and bickering about whether to begin installing them at the top of the tree or the bottom.

  Mike contemplated the end of the string he was holding. “Doesn’t this white one have to go at the top? For the star?”

  “Okay,” Eric countered in a disgusted tone, “if you do that, what’re you gonna do with the plug? It’s got to hang all the way down the back of the tree. Shoot, you’re gonna need an extension cord just to reach the socket.”

  “You’re going to have an extension cord, no matter what.”

  “Of course,” said Lucy, looking thoughtful, “there’s no telling how long it’ll take them to get all the roads plowed…”

  “What about you, Devon?” Eric was watching her again, with that curious and unnerving intensity she’d seen in his eyes before. “How do you do it-bottom up, or top down?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said dismissively, veiling her eyes with her lashes as she sipped cocoa. “I don’t usually have a tree, since I’m generally at my parents’ house for Christmas.”

  “No tree?” Lucy sounded horrified.

  “Okay,” said Eric, “so how do they do it?”

  “How should I know?” Devon snapped. Why did she feel as though she were in the witness box, being cross-examined by a hostile prosecutor?

  “You were there, weren’t you? When you were a kid? Don’t you remember-”

  “No,” said Devon, seething with inexplicable anger, “I don’t.” It was too warm in that room, stifling, rather than cozy. Under her cashmere sweater, her skin felt damp and itchy.

  “What I think is,” said Mike, “we should get an artificial tree.” That was met with a loud duet of protests that effectively broke the tension. He put up both hands, laden with lights, as though to shield himself from a shower of thrown objects. “No-wait-hear me out. That way we’d only have to put the lights on once, see? Then we just leave them on when we take the tree down.”

  But nobody was taking him seriously, not even Devon. It was as impossible for her to imagine a fake tree in that farmhouse parlor as it would have been to envision herself serving cookies and hot cocoa to guests in her Los Angeles apartment.

  And just like that she felt a wave of homesickness for her own apartment, for the serenity of its uncluttered furniture and neutral colors…its cool, quiet elegance, and sweeping city-view.

  “I remember,” Lucy said with an air of amazement, “when we still used real candles on the tree.”

  “Come on, Ma.”

  “No-it’s true. It was when I was a little girl-I’ll bet Rhett would remember. Earl might have been too small. We had these little metal candleholders that you clipped onto the ends of the branches. Then there were special little candles that fit into the holders.”

  “Wasn’t that dangerous?” Devon asked, conscious of the century-old wood-frame house around her.

  “They were only lit once,” Lucy explained. Her face was wistful, and her features blurred and softened with it so that she seemed almost to become that little girl she remembered. “That was Christmas Eve. They turned the lights out, Mama’d get her guitar, and everybody’d sing ‘Silent Night.’”

  “Except you, I hope.” Leaving the light-stringing to his dad, Eric had moved close enough to his mother to give her an affectionate bump with his elbow. He threw Devon a grin and explained, “Mom can’t carry a tune to save her life.”

  “Pop couldn’t, either,” Lucy ruefully confirmed. “Who do you think I got it from? And passed it on to Rose Ellen, poor thing. Thank goodness you got Mama’s voice, Eric-like Rhett and Earl. My brothers,” she explained for Devon’s benefit. “They used to sing with our mother-for church and weddings…community get-togethers, mostly.” She looked up at her son and gave him a light swat with the back of her hand. “And I did too sing. Nobody cares that you can’t carry a tune when you’re a child.”

  “That’s true.” Eric sat on the arm of the couch and hitched himself half-around so he could reach for a handful of popcorn. “What about you, Devon?” He lifted an eyebrow, regarding her over one shoulder as his arm came within an eyelash of brushing hers. “You sing?”

  Vaguely embarrassed by the question, she opened her mouth to answer it. And inexplicably couldn’t. She wanted to look away from him and found that she couldn’t do that either.

  “That’s the kind of reaction you get from most adults when you ask that question,” Mike said kindly when Devon, at last, gave a helpless shrug. He paused to consider the arrangement of light strings on the tree. “I did a column about that once, years ago-it was after I’d gone to visit Ellie’s kindergarten classroom. Ask a bunch of five-year-olds if they can sing, and every hand goes up. Ask an adult and ninety percent will shrug and look embarrassed. It’s kind of too bad, really.”

  Devon cleared her throat. “I never said I couldn’t sing.”

  “Well, can you?” Eric’s eyes glinted teasingly. So close to her, she found their effect more than ever like swallowing straight whiskey.

  She lifted her chin and glared back at him. “I do well enough.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He tossed a kernel of popcorn into the air and caught it adroitly in his mouth. “So, let’s hear you. Sing something.”

  “Eric!”

  Devon gave an incredulous laugh. “Oh, sure, like I’m going to sing a solo right here!”

  “A duet, then. I’ll sing with you.” He leaned back on one elbow, completely relaxed. His eyes caught hers and crinkled with smile lines. “I’ll bet we’d be good together,” he murmured under his breath, as though for her only.

  Her breath made a surprised sibilance as she stared at him. What’s in that cocoa? she wanted to exclaim. Unless she was badly mistaken, she was almost certain he was flirting with her. In front of both his parents, for God’s sake.

  In the next moment she was sure she was mistaken, that she was being overly sensitive, that she’d misjudged him. Again. Because Lucy was beaming at them both, hands clasped under her chin, and once again her eyes had a wistful shine.

  “Oh, you know, I’ll bet you would be. It would be so nice to hear you two young people sing Christmas songs together. That’s always been one of my favorite things about Christmas-hearing the old carols. It makes me think of Mama and Papa, Christmases when the boys were both home-and when you and Ellie were kids, Eric-remember?”

  The look she gave her son was suddenly fierce and accusing, and her voice had grown husky. “We’ve missed you so much, Eric. These last ten years-”

  “I’m here now, Mom.” He spoke softly, but even from where she sat, Devon could feel the tension radiating from his body.

  “It’s getting late,” Mike interjected quietly from across the room. He was peering out the windows. “Time for chores.”

  But Lucy wasn’t going to be forestalled. “For how long?” she said in a choked voice, transferring her fierce and accusing glare from Eric to Devon. “Until the roads are cleared?”

  “Lucy-”

  “Mom-”

  “I’m sorry,” Devon began. She put down her cup and was appalled to hear it clatter on the tabletop. “It’s not my-”

  “Please let them stay.” With the spriteliness of a little brown bird, Lucy hopped off the recliner and came to take Devon’s hands in both of hers. “Devon, why not? At least until Christmas. It’s only a few days…”

  She’s so small, and yet there’s so much energy, so much power in her, Devon thought. Eric’s mother was a tiny human dynamo incongruously wrapped in a comic-strip cat. She shook her head, feeling dazed. “I can’t-”

  “You stay, too.” She threw her husband a brief, silent plea. “We’d love to have you-wouldn’t we, Mike? So, why don’t you stay for Christmas-all of you?”

  Chapter 9

  T he silence in the room seemed absolute. When, Devon wondered, as three pairs of eyes focused on h
er with varying degrees of intensity, had that cozy parlor begun to seem to her more like a hostile courtroom?

  She freed her hands from Lucy’s grasp and hitched herself uneasily on the couch’s cushions. Beside her, she could feel Eric’s body tense and come upright on the arm. In preparation for his mother’s defense? she wondered.

  Wait a minute, she wanted to shout, I’m not the villain, here, dammit! I’m not the one who took a baby girl and fled the jurisdiction in defiance of a judge’s order.

  “What day is it?” she demanded, her eyes darting around the room as if the answer must be somewhere in plain sight.

  “December twenty-first,” Mike supplied.

  “There, you see?” Lucy straightened and tucked one wing of her chin-length hair behind her ear with an unmistakable air of triumph. “Nothing’s going to happen until after Christmas anyway.” She said that as if it were a done deal, as if the decision had been hers and hers alone to make. “You might as well stay here-spend Christmas with us. Your parents will understand, won’t they, if you miss one Christmas with them?”

  “I don’t know, I’m not…” She let her voice trail off. She wasn’t used to being steamrolled and didn’t know how to respond.

  At some point, Eric had quietly gotten up from the arm of the couch and was now bending over the baby carrier on the floor beside the recliner. Devon watched him hunker down, balanced on the balls of his feet, the fabric of his jeans stretching taut over the flexed muscles of his thighs.

  He seems so much younger like this, she thought. With that gaunt face and those aged eyes of his turned away from her, nut-brown hair curling long on the back of his neck, broad shoulders angular and rawboned even beneath the drape of his sweatshirt.

  Something twisted inside her chest, and she uttered a faint, unconscious sound of protest.

  “Hey, you know what? It’s Winter Solstice,” she heard Mike announce.

  Lucy gave a gasp. “That’s right, December twenty-first!” She turned to her husband, eyes alight, and she was smiling again as if that moment of emotional intensity with Eric and Devon had never happened. “Oh, that calls for a celebration.”

  “Break out the champagne,” Mike said, grinning back at her.

  “Sorry,” said Lucy, “no champagne. Guess cocoa will have to do.” She found their mugs, poured a dollop of cocoa into each from the carafe and handed one to her husband. Grinning at each other, with the air of observing an old ritual, they clinked the mugs together, and then Lucy turned to Devon and Eric with a sweeping gesture that included them both. “Come on, you two-join us in a toast to the shortest day of the year!”

  Devon threw Eric a mystified look. His eyes met hers above the pinkish gold head bobbing on his shoulder, but without their warm, brandy glow they seemed remote and faintly mocking. Awkwardly, she lifted her mug toward her hosts, and as they did, drank down her last swallow of lukewarm cocoa.

  “Well-chore time,” said Lucy briskly when that was done. She was already halfway to the door. “Coming, Mike?”

  “Right behind you.” He paused in the doorway to lift his mug in a farewell wave. “Carry on, kids,” he said with a wink, and then they were gone. Devon could already hear the clank of buckets coming from the utility room down the hall.

  In the now-silent parlor, Eric watched Devon turn to him with a look of bemusement, and braced himself for her soft, disparaging laugh. Funny, he thought, a moment ago he’d been embarrassed by his parents’ behavior; why now did he find himself preparing to defend it?

  “What was that all about?” she asked in a hushed undertone.

  “What was what about?” Without thinking, he had pressed his lips to the top of the little one’s-no, Emily’s-velvety-soft head and was breathing in the sweet, baby smell of her. He felt himself already growing calmer, quieter inside.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever toasted the shortest day of the year before,” Devon said, regarding the mug in her hands with an expression on her face that barely avoided mockery. “I don’t know, I guess it never seemed like cause for celebration to me. Is there some significance there that I’ve missed?”

  “The cause for celebration,” Eric gently explained, joggling the baby in his arms and slowly pacing, “is that, from now on, the days get longer. If you’re a farmer, in a place where you actually have winter, that means something, yeah.”

  “Oh,” said Devon. She set the mug on the coffee table, not looking at him. He heard her take a breath, and it seemed to him her shoulders had a slump to them now, as if she felt defeated, a condition he imagined she wasn’t much accustomed to. “Living in L.A., I guess I never really noticed.”

  Living in L.A., I guess you wouldn’t, he thought. Whisperings of sympathy stirred through him, but he couldn’t think what to say to her to let her know how he felt-or even whether he should. Better, maybe, that they should stay enemies.

  Holding his breath, he flipped the second lightswitch on the plate beside the door, then murmured, “Hallelujah…” as the tree erupted in tiny multicolored lights.

  After gazing at them for a moment, he said without turning, “You don’t have a clue what we’re all about, here, do you?”

  “No,” said Devon humbly, “but I’m trying.”

  He gave a surprised laugh. He didn’t know what sort of response he’d expected from her, but he knew for sure it wasn’t humility. He paced back toward her, gently joggling the baby, inhaling again her uniquely soothing smells. “Any chance of you taking my mother up on her invitation?

  She gave a light, ironic laugh. “It sounded as though she doesn’t mean to give me a choice.”

  He acknowledged that with a smile. “She doesn’t look it, but Mom can be a real steamroller.” He paused to settle himself on the arm of the couch within arm’s reach of her, and instantly felt the tension in her mount, as if he’d crossed some invisible line. “She does have a point, though,” he said after a moment, looking at her along one shoulder. “Nothing’s going to be done about anything until after the holidays.”

  She shifted her gaze to the tree. “That’s not the only consideration. There are my parents. They are expecting me, you know.”

  “So, go-be with them.”

  “Without you and Emily?” Her eyes lashed back at him with stinging green fire. “Not a chance, Lanagan.”

  He shrugged. After a moment she made an exasperated sound and abruptly rose and walked away from him, rubbing at her arms. “Is it true? Has it really been ten years since you last saw your mother?” She paused for a sharp, mirthless laugh. “It seems to me you and my sister had something in common.”

  Anger surged through him, and he forced himself to answer calmly. “Ten years since I was here for Christmas. I’ve seen my parents a few times in the meantime-other occasions, other events. Family crises… Not the least of which,” he added wryly, “was having my uncle elected president of the United States.” He paused. “But yeah…for Christmas, it’s been a while.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s not my fault.” She’d halted in front of the tree and was staring at it, and the lights splashed her face with a wash of luminous color, like stained glass. The photographer in Eric caught his breath in awe; his fingers itched to be holding a camera. “Look-your issues with your parents have nothing to do with me or Emily. It’s not fair of you-or your mother-to use that to coerce me.”

  “Nobody’s coercing you.” He managed to keep his voice quiet, but his body refused to obey the same command. He left his perch on the arm of the couch and paced a few restless steps, while his fingers gently rubbed the baby’s back in calming circles. Calming himself, not her. “Hey, can you blame her for wanting to have me-and her first and only grandchild-with her for Christmas?”

  She whirled on him, primed with the contradiction, “Emily’s not-” then froze when she saw how close to her he was.

  “Mom doesn’t know that,” Eric shot back before she could continue. “And even if she did, do you think it would make any difference? If I say the
kid’s mine, that’s all that matters.”

  Her mouth opened, and he knew she meant to lash back at him. For some reason, though, the harsh words didn’t come. Instead, she glared at him, breathing hard, and he glared back while his heart banged around in his chest like one of those crazy balls that keep gaining energy with every bounce.

  It occurred to him that Emily had begun to squirm and fuss, picking up on the tension around her, he thought, and by the looks of things, was about to launch into a full-blown temper fit. And because he childishly wanted to blame someone else for that, he threw Devon a look of dark accusation as he went to collect a disposable diaper, the plastic jar of baby wipes and a fresh bottle of formula and retreated to the couch. Accusation, spoken and unspoken, hung in the room like fog.

  By that time the baby was in full voice, which could be spectacular when a person wasn’t used to it; he was surprised Devon hadn’t gone running for cover at the first squall. Instead, she stood with her back to the tree and watched him with a tense, stoic look on her face while he got the diaper changed-something the kid didn’t enjoy at the best of times. Then he had to get her calmed down enough to accept the bottle, and all the while his insides were swirling with emotions he didn’t know what to do with and wasn’t even sure he could name.

  He thought about what his dad had said about maternal feelings being so powerful. Obviously there were some powerful emotions involved in being a father, too. He’d known, for example, the first time they’d placed the little baby girl in his arms, that from then on there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to protect her. He wished he knew how to explain that to Devon.

  The thing was, the feelings that kept coming over him whenever he was around Devon, the emotions churning around in him right now, for instance, sure as hell weren’t maternal. He was pretty sure they didn’t have much to do with being protective, either.

  “Eric?” The voice was harsh in the peace that came abruptly, as the baby’s mouth closed at last around the nipple and the room filled up with the hungry sounds she made when she ate.