Bride Under the Mistletoe: The Magic of a Family Christmas. SUSAN MEIER
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little boy as Wendy had been, he’d made a few mistakes.
So had she.
Yet she’d taken everything personally. Forgetting, or maybe not even noticing, that at the office and in their private conversations, he’d always been a perfect gentleman.
Running her hands down her face in misery, she rose from the sofa to make a cup of hot cocoa, but a blood-curdling scream sounded from upstairs. She dropped her book to the coffee table, raced upstairs and burst into Harry’s room.
Sitting in the center of the bed, Harry sobbed. He wasn’t wearing his glasses and she could see the tears that poured down his cheeks. She sat on the edge of his bed and he leaped into her open arms.
“It’s all right. It’s all right.”
Sobs racked his small frame and he clung to her. “No, it’s not!”
“Did you have a nightmare?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m here now. You’re safe.”
“I want Cullen.”
Surprised, she pulled in a breath. Not only did it sting that her comfort wasn’t enough, but also she wasn’t really sure Cullen would come. “It’s late. He’s at his hotel.”
“He said if I ever needed him I could call.”
“I’m sure he meant it but it’s—”
“I want Cullen!”
He clutched her upper arms tighter and pressed his face in her shoulder, his tears wetting her T-shirt.
Wendy stroked his soft hair. She had to at least try. “All right. I’ll call him.”
Cullen didn’t ask for details. Hearing Harry had had a nightmare and was inconsolable, he raced to Wendy’s house. She opened the door before he even knocked. She didn’t mention their argument. He didn’t either. What happened between them was between them. What happened with Harry wasn’t just separate, at the moment it was the only thing that mattered.
“How is he?”
As she led him up the stairs, Wendy said, “Once I called you he stopped crying. So it must have been the right thing to do.”
“Let me see what’s going on.”
He stepped into the little room that had been his own when he and his parents had lived in the house. The bright-blue walls he remembered had been repainted a soothing blue. Trains and dump trucks decorated the comforter. The base of the lamp was in the shape of a football.
Sitting up on the bed, partially covered by the thick blanket and sliding a small plastic car on his thigh, Harry said, “Hi, Cullen.”
He sat on the bed. “Hey.” He ruffled Harry’s hair. “What’s wrong?”
Without looking up, he said, “I had a nightmare.”
“What kind of a nightmare?”
Harry shrugged.
“Monsters?”
He glanced up. “No.”
“Then what?”
“Kids at school.”
“Are the kids at school bothering you?”
He shrugged again. “Some.”
“Just some?”
“Just one.”
“Who is that?”
“Freddie.”
“Is he hurting you?”
“No. He just told me I was an organ and nobody wanted me.”
Not feeling the need to tell him organ was probably orphan, Cullen reached over and hugged Harry, then drew him onto his lap. “Wendy wants you so much that she was willing to go to court for you. Why do you think Randy Zamias gives your mom so much trouble?”
Standing just outside the doorway, Wendy leaned against the wall. She wondered if Cullen had slipped up in calling her Harry’s mom, but doubted it. He was a very smart guy. He realized Harry needed reassurance, continuity and he was giving it to him in the most subtle way.
Harry twisted to look up into Cullen’s face. “Because he wants me?”
“No. Because he needed to be sure the right person has you.”
Running the car up his pajama-clad thigh, Harry said, “Did kids tease you when you were in school?”
Watching Cullen’s facial features harden, Wendy’s brow furrowed. She’d never considered what it might have been like for him to live in the town where his dad’s grandparents started the company that provided jobs for nearly everyone in town and his mom was the president who ran it. But it must not have been a joyful experience. Otherwise, his expression wouldn’t have gone from sympathetic to hard in an automatic reaction he hadn’t had time to stop.
Thinking back to his first day at the plant, she remembered that he wouldn’t go onto the plant floor without introductions and none of the employees had treated him normally. Men had grunted hellos. Women had giggled.
Wendy had treated him normally, but only because he’d stayed at her house the night of the ice storm. And she wasn’t from Barrington. She’d only moved here four years ago. She had no idea how he’d been treated as a child.
“Yes, kids teased me. But not for the reasons you think. My mom was sort of everybody’s boss. When I got into third grade, the kids thought it would be cool to hit me and stuff.”
Wendy smiled at the way he brought the language of his conversation to Harry’s level.
“Our neighbor down the street, my dad’s partner in the candy store, waited for me one day after school and set them straight.”
Harry’s eyes widened. “He did?”
“Yep. He handed me a brand-new ball and bat, with nine mitts. Enough for an entire team.”
“Wow.”
“Then he told the kids who’d gathered around us that if we wanted to become a Little League team he would coach us.”
“Wow.”
Cullen laughed. “He’d coached his own kids, but they’d outgrown Little League and he hadn’t.”
Wendy tilted her head to the side as a clear image of that day formed in her head. She could see eight-year-old Cullen being teased and tormented, and a family friend stepping in to help him because apparently neither of his parents had noticed.
A shudder of sadness passed through her. He’d been as alone as Harry. But he probably hadn’t been an easy mark. She couldn’t imagine that even as a child he’d let anybody push him around, but she also knew most children weren’t equipped to defend themselves against a gang.
A sudden realization swamped her. He’d spent most of his life in this town alone, a child constantly being forced to prove himself. Only she had treated him normally. Until Friday night when he had asked about her husband and tried to kiss her a second time, then everything had changed. She’d put her back up and refused to talk, wanting to protect herself. But even though she had explained that, she had nonetheless become another person from Barrington who treated him coolly. Then she’d made the ultimate mistake by accusing him of trying to buy her. Lord, could she have been any more wrong?
Harry shook his head. “Freddie already has a mitt.”
“And you don’t need to buy gifts to make friends. You said only he teases you. do the other kids like you?”
He nodded.
“Then you’re just going to have to ignore Freddie.”
Glad he hadn’t