CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      SHANNON’S MOTHER deposited her in the living room, left and returned with a cup of tea. “Drink this.”

      Her tears now dried up, she took the tiny china cup and saucer from her mother’s hands. “Did you remember sugar?”

      Her mom smiled. “Yes.”

      She took a sip, closed her eyes and sighed.

      “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

      Her automatic response was to say, “I’m fine.” But remembering the wonderful sense of release she had being around Rory after having confessed the truth, she wouldn’t let herself lie, not even to protect her mom.

      She cleared her throat. “I…um…told Rory that I couldn’t have kids.”

      Her mom’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

      “Because he was starting to like me and I felt he needed to know the truth.”

      Her mom’s face fell in horror. “You scared him off?”

      Oh, Lord. She’s never thought of it that way. “I didn’t want him to get involved in something that wouldn’t work for him.”

      Stacy drew Shannon into her arms and hugged her. “You always were incredibly fair.”

      She squeezed her eyes shut, grateful that her mom understood and even more grateful that the feeling that she’d done the wrong thing had disappeared. “He’s a good man who wants more kids.”

      “And you can always adopt—”

      She pulled out of her mom’s embrace, caught her gaze. “I am going to adopt.”

      “On your own?”

      “Yes.”

      She hugged her again. “And you always were brave, too.” She squeezed her tighter. “I’m glad.”

      Shannon returned her mother’s hug, closed her eyes and contented herself with the fact that being around Finley had given her enough confidence that she could go on with the rest of her life. So what if it was without Rory? So what if she didn’t have someone she felt connected to? Someone who made her feel special? Someone who loved her unconditionally?

      Her heart broke a bit. Though Rory and Finley had helped her to make the decision to adopt, she couldn’t begin looking immediately. She didn’t want to associate getting a child to losing Rory and Finley. She wanted her child to come into her life when she was totally over the loss.

      And she didn’t think she would be for a while.

      Two hours later, Rory was battling traffic on I-95, wondering why so many people needed to be out on Christmas Eve. It was two o’clock in the afternoon when people should be at home with their families.

      “So, then, I kinda peeked at Santa’s ear and I think I saw something holding his beard on.”

      Rory absently said, “You might have.”

      “Because it was fake?”

      He glanced at her. Now that she was “into” Christmas a whole new set of problems had arisen. Her beliefs were so precarious and so fragile that he didn’t want to spoil the magic. But she was a smart kid, a six-year-old, somebody who probably would have been realizing by now that Santa wasn’t real.

      He had no idea what to say and reached for his cell phone to call Shannon. She would know.

      His hand stopped. His chest tightened. He couldn’t call her. He’d hurt her. Walking out of Raleigh’s he’d convinced himself that leaving was sad, but justified, because he wasn’t sure he loved her and didn’t want to hurt her. But that was a rationalization. He had already hurt her. In a few short days, they’d fallen into some romantic place where it didn’t matter if they wanted to like each other. It didn’t matter if they spent every waking minute together or thirty seconds a day—they still wanted more. They’d clicked, connected.

      But he was afraid.

      Who was he kidding? He was terrified.

      “So was his beard fake?”

      He glanced at Finley, all bright eyes and childlike smiles. “Well, you saw the real Santa come in and take over. So the guy whose lap you sat on was like his helper.” A thought came to him and he ran with it. “There’s a Santa in every shopping mall around the world for the six weeks before Christmas. The real one can’t be in all those places. So he trains lots of helpers.”

      “Oh.” She frowned, considering that.

      A few miles went by with Rory maneuvering in and out of the traffic. He spent the time alternating between wondering if he’d told Finley the right thing and forcing his mind away from the sure knowledge that Shannon would have known exactly what to say. Then a worse thing happened. Suddenly, he began wishing he could call her tonight and tell her about this conversation.

      “So if there are lots of Santas, that explains how he gets everywhere on Christmas Eve to deliver presents.”

      “Exactly.”

      “So that means not everybody gets a real Santa. Most of us get a fake!”

      Panicked, Rory glanced at her. “No. No. He’s a special magic guy who can go around the world all in one night. Because he’s special.” He floundered, grasping for words. “Magic. It all has to do with magic.”

      “But you told me magic is just some guy who knows how to do things really fast or by getting you to look away from what he’s really doing.”

      Caught in the web of an explanation he’d given Finley after they’d seen a young man doing magic tricks on the beach a few months before, he wanted to bounce his head off the steering wheel. This is what he got for having a super-intelligent child. “That is true with most magic. But this is Christmas magic.”

      “What’s the difference?”

      He peered over at Finley again. Shannon would have handled this so easily. She would have told Finley the truth. And maybe that was what he needed to do. Tell her the truth. Not the big truth that Santa wasn’t real. But the other truth. The truth most parents hated admitting.

      “I don’t know.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because I’m a guy who buys stores and fixes them up so that they make lots of money. I’m not the guy in charge of Santa. So I’m not in on those secrets.”

      She nodded sagely, leaned back in her car seat. “I miss Shannon.”

      He struggled with the urge to close his eyes. Not in frustration