Betting On Santa. Debra Salonen
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“I’m busy. I have to work, remember?” He could tell from the concern in her eyes that she didn’t buy his excuse for a minute. She knew the circumstances around the injury. She knew too much. “I’m leaving now.”
She followed him to the edge of the porch and watched him walk to his car. “You have a right to live without pain, Cole. Dad would hate it if he thought you were suffering because of him.”
He pretended not to hear. Nobody could say what Tim Lawry thought, and the man sure as hell wasn’t here to set the record straight.
TESSA AWOKE at dawn and managed to work a good hour at her laptop before Joey woke up. She and Marci had rewarded themselves with a month’s vacation each to celebrate
A.R.E. Consulting’s successful year. Marci and her husband had spent November in Scotland and England. Tessa had planned to use a few of her abundant frequent-flier miles to head to Hawaii the first week in December then return home to paint her spare bedroom. That had been before she got the call about Sunny. Autumn and Tessa had had to pack up and leave so quickly Tessa hadn’t been able to clear everything off her calendar. She’d rescheduled her final couple of follow-up appointments during an extralong, weather-related layover in Denver, but she hadn’t gotten a chance to firm up her first-of-the-year contact list before she left town.
A.R.E. was an acronym for what Tessa and Marci believed was an ongoing process needed to keep any business—big or small—solvent, growth oriented and viable. Assess, Reassess and Evaluate. Their partnership was a perfect model. Every quarter, they set aside one afternoon to go over their records and reports. As she often told clients, “Taking a cold, hard look at your company can save a lot of heartache down the road.”
Tessa and Marci had already set the date for their fourth-quarter review. December twenty-sixth. The day after Christmas. Tessa had planned to have her January clients in the queue, contracts in hand, but now it appeared Marci would have to handle January.
The least Tessa could do was provide a nice, neat contact sheet, complete with payment schedule. If each of these potential jobs panned out, she and Marci would be looking at doubling their income over the year before.
Unfortunately, the contact list was quite spread out geographically. Las Vegas. Baltimore. Anchorage. Houston.
“Houston.” She closed her eyes and tried to picture a map of the state of Texas. She’d been to Dallas twice, once to attend a small-business seminar and a few years later to teach a workshop at the same seminar. She had a vague recollection that Houston was farther south and east.
“I wonder how far Houston is from here—”
Why? Because if she were in the state on business, she’d have an excuse to look up Cole Lawry again?
Her eyes blinked open and she quickly closed her program and logged off. Ridiculous. Wouldn’t happen. Ever.
She stood up and stuffed her lightweight VIAO into its carrying case. She’d already wasted way too much time going over every aspect of their meeting. The compassionate way he’d handled Joey’s vomiting. His pique when he thought she was a stooge working for his ex-wife. The dichotomy of his upper-body strength juxtaposed with his slight limp.
He was intriguing, but so not her type.
“Stop it,” she muttered. “I don’t do intriguing, remember?”
She didn’t normally talk to herself, either.
She nestled the computer in a spot in her suitcase and zipped the bag shut, not caring how noisy she was. It was time for Joey to wake up. After she got him dressed, she would settle her bill then they’d walk someplace for breakfast. Maybe the same diner they’d eaten in the night before. With any luck, they’d be on the road by ten.
“Joey—” She gently touched the child’s shoulder. Some mornings he woke up swinging, duking it out with imaginary villains. Sometimes he’d cry for five or ten minutes, as if his whole world were ending. When he woke up on his own, he tended to be happier.
“Mommy,” he cried, eyes squeezed tight, arms out.
“Oh, honey boy, I’m sorry. It’s me, Auntie Tessa. Come here, love. Let me hold you till you wake up.”
He sobbed against her shoulder, but only for a few seconds. Blinking sleepily, he mumbled, “Brecky?”
Sunny’s word for his favorite honey-sweetened cereal. Tessa had learned not to leave home without it. It dawned on her that he must be famished since he’d lost his dinner on Santa’s lap. She fished a small bag out of her purse.
“Sure. You can nibble on some while I get you dressed, then we’ll go have some pancakes. Or eggs. You can pick, okay?”
The morning sped past, the way time does when you’re dealing with a toddler. The older woman behind the desk of the motel had been perfectly agreeable with Tessa leaving her car while they went to breakfast. The slight overcast of early morning had given way to bright sunlight and Tessa regretted leaving her sunglasses in the rental.
By the time they got back to the motel, her head was pounding. Fortunately, whatever had caused Joey’s upset stomach the night before hadn’t returned. Still, she bought an extra package of wet wipes at the drugstore, just in case.
“Come on, sweets, we have to get going. Grandma is waiting for us.”
“Uh-uh. Play more.”
She’d promised him ten minutes in the sandbox at the playground across the road from their motel. That had been a good half an hour ago.
Not that she blamed him. She wasn’t in any hurry to get back in the car, either. There was something very peaceful and uncomplicated about this town, she decided, staring at the leafless trees standing guard over the aquamarine-colored stream. The Medina River, the motel woman had called it, but it wasn’t a river like the ones in Oregon.
Oregon. A world and a half away.
Home.
But was it home without her mother and sister? There had been times growing up when they hadn’t had a roof over their heads, but Tessa had always had her family.
“Okay, sweets, time’s up. We gotta go see Grandma.”
Joey let out a squeal and took off running as fast as his pudgy little legs would carry him. Laughing, Tessa chased him, stealthily herding him closer to the parking lot. When he realized his mistake, he started to pitch a fit, but Tessa scooped him up in her arms and tickled him until he was laughing again. “Grandma, Grandma, Grandma,” she repeated as she tucked him into his well-cushioned car seat.
He wiggled like a newly caught fish as she tried to clip the two ends of the belt together. “Hold still, kiddo. You’ve already broken most of my nails. There,” she exclaimed triumphantly. “Here’s your juice cup and your tractor.”
Once he seemed content—for the moment, at least—she closed the door. Her purse and the bag from the pharmacy were on the front passenger seat. She reached through the open window to get her sunglasses. As she searched for the case, she heard a horn honking and glanced up to see a woman with long curly hair round the corner on a bicycle.
The driver of the car yelled something Tessa couldn’t make out then kept going as the bicyclist careened into the motel parking lot.
“Goodness. Automobiles think they own the road, don’t they? Oh, hello. I was hoping I’d catch you,” the stranger hailed as she came to a stop a few feet away. She quickly hopped off the bike and engaged the kickstand. With an efficiency that bespoke years of practice, she whipped off her backpack and snatched out a slim, lined notepad before approaching Tessa with her free hand extended. “I’m from the local paper. I thought maybe we could do a piece to rally some support for your predicament.”
Tessa shook her hand, but not because she wanted to. “My predicament? You mean my sister’s accident? Well, thank you for the offer, but I’m not interested. How’d you hear about us?”
“Small