Take Me Home for Christmas

“Right behind you.” Normally, she would’ve stopped to admire the Halloween decorations she’d put up before they left. She loved the holidays, from Halloween to Christmas. But tonight none of that seemed important.

She bumped her suitcase up the steps because she was too tired to carry it, and let them in. The house smelled of grapefruit and mango from the expensive candles Sophia liked to burn.

“Home at last,” she breathed.

“If only Dad was home with us,” Lexi mumbled and, head bowed, started for her room.

“No kiss good-night?” Sophia called after her.

Dropping her suitcase onto the marble floor with a resounding bang, she came hurrying back. “I’m sorry, Momma. I’m just... It hurts. I’m afraid I’ll never see him again.”

“I know.” She held her daughter tight, wishing she loved Skip as much as Lexi did. At least now she wanted him back—for their daughter’s sake and because living with him, difficult as it was, would probably be easier than solving the problems he’d left behind. “Let’s get some sleep,” she said as she straightened.

After Alexa had settled in, Sophia went to bed telling herself that it would all get better in the morning. But the call that woke her in the middle of the night told her it was only going to get worse.

* * *

Ted Dixon almost didn’t attend Friday morning coffee with his friends. It was a ritual, something he looked forward to all week. As a novelist, he sat in front of his computer for hours every day, didn’t get out of the house very often. And he’d known most of the people he met at Black Gold since he was in grade school. He always enjoyed seeing them. But after the shocking news that had swept through town the past week, he could easily guess what the topic of conversation would be, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to participate. Everyone would be studying him, trying to ascertain his reaction—and although he’d had plenty of practice at pretending he wasn’t interested in anything to do with his old flame, he felt that some of his friends could see through him.

On the other hand, if he didn’t go, they’d likely figure out why. Not showing up might give away more than joining the group as if this Friday was no different from any other.

“Hey, you made it.” Callie Pendleton, a photographer by trade, was the first to greet him. She’d had a liver transplant a year and a half ago, but no one would’ve been able to tell. She looked as healthy and robust as any other woman. Levi, her husband, was in line to order, along with Riley Stinson, a building contractor who had a fourteen-year-old son but had never married.

“Why wouldn’t I make it?” he asked, pretending to be unaware of the added interest he was about to face.

“You haven’t heard?” This came from Noah Rackham, who was nursing a cappuccino while sitting next to Adelaide, his pregnant wife. Noah had recently retired from professional cycling, which had taken him to Europe for half of every year. But he still owned Crank It Up, the bike shop in town. To help her aging grandmother, Adelaide ran the diner, Just Like Mom’s—an institution in Whiskey Creek.

Ted hadn’t known Levi or Adelaide very well until they’d started coming to coffee. The same could be said for Brandon Lucero and his wife, Olivia. They were younger, had been behind them in school. Callie, Riley, Kyle, Eve and Noah were the people Ted had grown up with, as well as several others who normally came but weren’t here today.

“Heard what?” Ted strolled over to the table and slouched into his usual seat. “Don’t tell me Baxter’s not coming back for the Halloween party.” Baxter was one of their closest friends, someone who used to have coffee with them every week, but he’d moved to San Francisco a few months ago.

“This year the party’s at Cheyenne and Dylan’s, isn’t it?” Adelaide asked.

“Last I heard,” Callie said. “I don’t know why they’re not here today.” She glanced at the entrance as if she expected them to walk in any second.

“Chey went to visit her sister this morning,” Eve informed them. Eve and Chey both worked at the B and B owned by Eve’s parents, so they stayed in close touch. “But she and Dylan will be at the Halloween party and so will Baxter. I called him last night. He said he’s coming.”

“How does he like his new digs?” Ted asked.

Noah broke in before Eve could answer. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don’t charge down that path. You know I wasn’t referring to Bax when I asked if you’d heard the news.”

Ted eyed the crowd at the register. He wasn’t a man with a lot of patience. He preferred to sit and talk until he saw an opening and wouldn’t have to wait, but today he should’ve gotten in line. That might have provided him with a buffer. Maybe they would have covered Sophia’s situation and gotten embroiled in some other gossip before he returned with his usual—a cup of Black Gold’s finest fresh-roasted coffee. “If you’re talking about Skip DeBussi, of course I heard.”

“That his body washed up on the shore of Brazil?” Noah asked.

“It’s in all the papers, isn’t it?” Ted said. “AOL even had something about it online.”

“And?” Noah prompted. “Don’t you have any reaction?”

“I’m sorry for his parents and his daughter, if that’s what you’re after.”

Riley came back from the counter with a giant muffin, a fruit-and-yogurt parfait and an apple. Apparently, he planned to eat it all himself; his son was in school so he wouldn’t be sharing it as he did during the summer. “You’re sorry for everyone but his wife?” he asked, quickly picking up on the conversation.

Ted tried not to picture Sophia’s face. He’d never seen a more beautiful woman. She turned heads, including his, wherever she went. He hated that she still had the power to affect him and often reminded himself that her beauty was only skin-deep. “I’m sure she’ll manage. She always seems to land on her feet.”

Callie frowned. “You’re so hard on her. I won’t argue that Sophia was a...a difficult personality in high school, but—”

“A difficult personality?” he echoed. “She was the meanest girl Eureka High has ever seen. She stole other girls’ boyfriends, toyed with the guys she collected, manipulated anyone who’d let her and used her power and popularity to lord it over the less fortunate. You can feel bad for her all you want, but let’s not forget the facts.” He left out that she also had a slew of good qualities. That she’d been sexy and funny and determined and just mysterious enough to keep him guessing. At one time she was all he’d ever wanted. He expected someone to call him on that, but no one did.

“People grow up,” Riley said. “She seemed nice when she was coming to coffee.”

Because they hadn’t given her the chance to be anything else. Ted was glad she’d changed her mind about trying to be part of their group. He didn’t think she should have the right to hang out with them after behaving so badly, and he’d made sure she knew it. “Don’t let those big blue eyes fool you.”

Callie shot him a quelling look. “Ted, she just lost her husband. Can’t you have some sympathy?”

No. He couldn’t. He needed to keep up his defenses, because he knew where any softening would lead. He’d tried to rescue her once before. It’d been years since then, but he’d learned his lesson. “Like I said, I feel bad for her daughter and Skip’s parents. Losing a son or father would be hard, but finding out he cheated almost everyone in town and then died trying to fake his own death so he could start a new life somewhere else...” He’d never liked Skip, but he hadn’t expected him to do anything quite that bad.

“Skip died trying to fake his own death?” Levi sat down with some coffee and a yogurt he slid in front of Callie. “Last I knew, they were assuming it might’ve been an accident—that he fell off the boat and drowned.”

“It was no accident,” Ted responded. “No one ‘falls’ off a yacht with a waterproof bag containing a disposable, non-traceable cell phone, a change of clothes and a hundred thousand dollars in cash strapped to his back. What you saw must’ve been before news of the FBI probe broke. I doubt anyone would’ve been leaning toward ‘accident’ if they’d possessed that little detail. Maybe suicide,” he added.

Brandon poured a packet of sugar into his coffee. “So he meant to go overboard, was prepared for it. Why didn’t he survive?”

Ted shrugged. “No one knows. They’re speculating he had some sort of flotation device that he lost for whatever reason. Maybe he encountered a shark or some rocks or fell asleep and slipped out of it. Or he might have given it up, thinking he could move faster without it. Maybe he underestimated the distance to shore or his ability to fight the currents.”

Noah finished his cappuccino. “I could see him doing that. He’s always been over-confident.”