Undercover Christmas. B.J. Daniels
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little kiss? Instead she should be worrying about how El was going to take the bad news. She’d tried to call her sister before climbing into bed but the phone line was dead. Probably the storm.
She stopped a moment to listen, almost sure she’d heard footsteps out in the hallway again. As she drew the covers up around her shoulders, she assured herself the house didn’t feel exceptionally imposing or hostile and that all those grunts and groans, creaks and crackings were just from the storm outside. This was Chase’s doing. Him and his “you and your baby aren’t safe here.”
Only silence came from the adjoining room. Chase had no doubt gone to bed and was sound asleep by now. So much for his guilty conscience keeping him awake.
She’d really believed that once she had him alone, she could get him to admit his part in Elise’s pregnancy. At least she would have accomplished that much. Not that he planned to do anything about it. But instead, he wouldn’t even consider she might be part of his lost memory. If indeed he suffered from such a convenient affliction.
Marni squeezed her eyes closed and searched for sleep, wishing she’d grabbed a book from the library. Nothing could distract her mind faster than a book.
Her stomach growled. How could she be hungry when she’d devoured such a large meal just hours ago?
She tried to ignore the hunger pangs and the mental picture that kept flashing in her brain. Cake. A moist white cake, rich with buttery frosting.
Her stomach rumbled loudly. She opened her eyes. It would be incredibly rude to raid the refrigerator. Not for a woman who was eating for two, she argued, as she slid her legs over the side of the bed.
The embers had burned down in the fireplace and the storm’s icy chill settled in along with Chase’s warning. He didn’t know her very well if he thought he could scare her that easily.
She reminded herself that he didn’t know her at all. He knew Elise. And the truth was, Elise probably wouldn’t have budged from her bed until morning.
Marni opened her bedroom door cautiously and peered out. The hallway was empty. And dark except for a light at the far end beyond the stairs. The house seemed to hunker in silence as if waiting for something. For her, the voice of reason warned. But a piece of cake, rich with frosting, was calling. The cake won. She stepped out and, quietly closing the door behind her, tiptoed down the hall.
A cold draft crawled over her bare feet. She pulled Chase’s robe around her. The robe was thick and warm and like the shirt, smelled faintly of its owner, a scent that was both disarming and comforting.
When Marni reached the stairs, she trod down them carefully, her near accident still too fresh in her memory for comfort.
Someone had left a light on and Marni wondered if she was the only one up raiding the fridge. The thought of running into Vanessa almost changed her mind. Marni tiptoed across the foyer, peeked into the dining room, then headed for what she figured would be the kitchen.
The kitchen was spacious like the house. But unlike the house, it had a warm, almost homey feel to it. Marni guessed it was probably because Vanessa never set foot in it It was the first room that Marni could say she actually liked. And it was blessedly empty.
She found the cake without having to raid the fridge, cut herself a large slice and sat down at the table. The cake was delicious. She licked the frosting from her lips as she eyed another piece. Oh, what would it hurt?
As she was scraping her plate to get the last of the crumbs, she marveled at her increased appetite. Was it just nerves? Or was her body somehow kidding itself into believing she really was eating for two?
Whatever it was, she had to quit or she’d gain a ton.
A short while later, she made her way toward the library. The house groaned and moaned around her. Snow piled up at the windows and cold crept along the bare wooden floors like snow snakes.
Marni had started down the hall when she heard something that made her freeze in midstep.
Crying. At first she thought it was the baby again. Then realized it wasn’t the same sound she’d heard earlier coming up through the heat vent. The heart-wrenching sobs pulled at her and she found herself trailing the sound past the library toward the back of the house.
A faint light shone from a far corner of what appeared to be the living room. The thick, dark curtains along the bank of windows were open to the night. The darkness outside blurred in a thick lattice of falling snow.
Lilly Calloway sat slumped in a large log rocker, in a golden circle of light from a floor lamp beside the chair. She clutched something in her arms and rocked, Marni noticed with a start. Beside the rocker on the floor sat a half-empty wine bottle. The room smelled faintly of gardenias.
Marni reminded herself again that this was none of her business. She should backtrack and go up to bed. But the woman’s wail tore at her heart.
“Lilly?” she asked softly, half expecting the woman to rebuff any attempts to console her. After all, Marni was a stranger. And no one in this house had been what she would call friendly.
Neither the crying nor the rocking stopped.
Marni stepped around in front of the woman. “’Lilly?”
Lilly slowly raised her head, her rocking motion slowed. The storm outside lit her pale heart-shaped face and Marni saw what the woman clutched in her arms. A rag doll, its face worn and grayed, its yarn hair matted with age. Lilly glanced down at the doll crushed in her arms. For a moment, she made no sound. Then her eyes swam with tears and great, huge sobs racked her body.
Marni knelt and opened her arms to the woman. The rag doll tumbled to the floor as Lilly fell into Marni’s embrace. ‘There, there,”’ Marni whispered, sympathizing with the woman’s pain. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like losing a child. “It’s all right.”
As the crying subsided, Marni heard the scrape of a boot sole on the wooden floor. She looked up with a start, not sure who she expected to see.
Even in shadow and even if he hadn’t had the crutches, she would have known Chase Calloway. He filled a doorway. Not only with his body but with his anger.
He stood, watching her, suspicion in every line of his body. She could feel the heat of his gaze on her as surely as she could feel the reproach in that gaze. She glanced down at Lilly, wondering what made Chase so angry with her, that he thought she was pregnant or that he thought she was trying to trap him? When she glanced up again, he was gone.
Marni didn’t know how long she held Lilly. The crying had stopped, but the slim arms still held her tightly, as if Marni were Lilly’s only anchor in some blizzard far worse than the one outside this room.
After a while, Marni looked down to find Lilly had dropped off to sleep on her shoulder. Carefully, Marni laid her back into the rocker and covered her with a knitted afghan from the couch. Lilly whimpered softly but continued to sleep the sleep of the dead. Or the inebriated.
Marni switched off the lamp and left her in front of the bank of windows and the storm, hoping Lilly slept off the wine before she attempted the stairs.
On the way to her room, Marni stopped at the library and quickly found Pride and Prejudice. As she turned out the light and headed for the stairs, she told herself she was ready at last for some sleep of her own.
But back in bed, Marni lay, listening, waiting for Chase to come storming in to admonish her for interfering in family business. After a while, when she heard no sound, she opened the soft, worn volume to chapter one, realizing it had been years since she’d read this book.
The first line jumped off the page at her. Marni groaned as she thought of Chase Calloway. Who was this impossible single man in possession of a good fortune her twin had fallen in love with? Certainly not a man in want of a wife—or a baby, as Elise had been led to believe. That was one truth at least Marni acknowledged.
A few pages into the book, she heard Chase return to his room, heard