He put an arm around her and they walked that way for a few steps, following Davey. And Amber flashed on the future she’d never let herself dream of. Cookies baking in the kitchen, and a little boy to wrap presents with, and a wonderful, kind, handsome man at her side.
Her eyes filled with unexpected tears. And what was that all about? She stepped away from Paul as they entered the kitchen, checked the cookies in the oven and pulled them out just in time.
She set the pan on a trivet beside the stove and managed, via a lot of rapid blinking and by sipping water, to get her emotions under control. “I guess you heard we got the house for the new program,” she said, keeping her voice businesslike. “I’m really glad. I think it’ll cheer Mary up, and she needs that right now.”
“Did the funding come through?”
“The funding isn’t a problem with Mary,” Amber said, “but it was more getting the inspection and closing done this close to Christmas. It’s working, though, thanks to Kirk James.”
Davey was unpacking the bag of wrapping paper and ribbons, strewing things everywhere.
Paul moved to assist him. “Let’s put the rolls all in a row over here,” he suggested, pulling out one of the chairs. “And we can leave the ribbons in the bag, or you can line them up along the edge of the table.”
“I’ll line ’em up!” Davey started doing just that.
Paul raised his eyebrows and smiled at Amber. “Sorry to take over your kitchen like this. But I’m glad to hear that Mary is getting the house for the new program. What’s our next step?”
“It’s up to us to make sure the program is planned well enough to apply for some grant funding in the spring,” Amber said. “Mary is providing the initial funds, but lately, she’s been really keen on having everything set up so that even if she’s not able to keep funding the whole thing, the program will continue.”
“It’s definitely needed,” Paul said. “I’m sure we can get the state groups to contribute or at least endorse it.”
“Come on, Daddy.” Davey tugged at Paul’s arm. “We got to decorate and wrap and stuff!”
“Okay, sure, sorry.” Paul grinned at Amber and it took her breath away. He was incredibly handsome. And he cared about Mary as well as his son. He’d even been kind enough to come here to help her out, almost certainly realizing that she’d be bored and lonely on a day like this.
She sat down at the table and started looking through the wrapping paper they’d brought. “Why are you going all black and white and brown?”
“It’s classy?” He shrugged. “Wendy’s family always went for these colors for their wrappings. And it does look nice under the tree.”
“Not questioning that.” Amber was sure it looked like House Beautiful. “In fact, I bet they use white lights rather than multicolored ones, right?”
“Yes, they do,” Paul said. “Davey and I do, too.” He glanced at her and then away, and it seemed like he was expecting her to make fun of their drab ways.
She had always been a multicolored lights person herself, admittedly verging on the tacky. But that wasn’t important. “I think it’s nice that you keep some of Wendy’s traditions alive,” she said quietly.
She thought about the woman she’d met so briefly. She had definitely seemed tense and anxious to Amber. And she’d been really troubled, because she’d done something on impulse that she couldn’t figure out how to fix except by lying. From everything Amber knew about Wendy, everything she’d heard as well, it seemed that Wendy was normally a very moral person. The fact that she had strayed from Paul, that the results of her affair were alive and in front of her every day in her son’s beautiful face, must have been terribly hard for her.
But the hardest thing, harder even than that, was the fact that she’d gotten so sick so young. Amber had had a taste of the fear a mother felt at the thought of possibly not being there for her child. She’d worried about Hannah constantly from the moment she’d gotten her diagnosis almost ten years ago. She worried about Hannah still.
But for Wendy, it had to have been so much worse. Wendy had been the mother of a younger child, more vulnerable, and what’s more, she had known that he wasn’t biologically Paul’s child. How that must have terrified her, the thought that Paul would find out and abandon Davey.
And from what Georgiana had said, the biological father wasn’t willing to take responsibility. Wendy had probably known that about him, or at least guessed it.
In a terribly difficult situation, in a traumatized state of mind, Wendy had made the best decision she knew how to make.
Amber got a sudden impulse. “Do you have any pictures of how Wendy and her parents decorated and wrapped their gifts?” she asked Paul.
“Do I...” He frowned. “Actually, I do. We always took a lot of pictures on Christmas.” He scrolled through his phone and soon came upon several examples of Christmas morning pictures, with the gifts wrapped in tastefully matching shades of black and white and tan, with matching bows. “It looks like you did a different color of bows each year,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s right.” He opened one of the shopping bags he brought, and inside was a jumble of various colors of bows. “I didn’t go that far, though. These are left over from other years.”
“Tell you what. Let’s use the neutral wrapping paper and we’ll choose a color family for this year. It looks like you might have enough blues and purples and greens to do all your packages. If not, I can probably dig up some bows in those colors myself.”
“Thanks.” He let his hand rest briefly on hers, and she heard what he wasn’t saying. Appreciation for her willingness to carry on Wendy’s traditions in this area, for Davey’s sake.
“When are we
