The Wrong Man Read online

  She dissolved against him, feeling the steady beat of his heart, his body radiating a heat that slowly thawed the chill in hers.

  It was well after midnight when she finally roused from his embrace and went to her room.

  Alone.

  GEORGIA CHILSOLM PAUSED in the doorway of her immaculate living room. A single dust mote fluttered and settled on the polished surface of the sofa table. She moved forward, wiping the cherry wood with the tissue she held in her hand. Then, walking briskly across the room, she aligned the pillows on the damask sofa, which were off by a fraction of an inch. The latest issues of Architectural Digest and House and Garden lay fanned on the coffee table. She checked to see that the large crystal vase of carefully arranged gladioli held sufficient water. Satisfied that all was in order, she permitted herself to stand before the fireplace, studying the pastel portrait hanging above the mantel. Ashley.

  Every afternoon she spent time with her daughter, studying the serene blue gaze that followed her wherever she sat in the room. Remembering the silky feel of those white-blond tresses. Hearing in her mind Ashley’s laughter, bright and sparkling. She longed to trace once more the smooth, pale pink skin of her daughter’s cheek, to watch her lips form a small O of surprise and delight.

  It was cruel, too cruel.

  Georgia stepped backward, then eased into an armchair, her eyes never leaving the portrait of her daughter, frozen in time at twenty-three. Just before she met Trent Baker.

  It was too late for if-onlys. Georgia had entertained such grand plans for her daughter. She closed her eyes now and pictured the shabby shotgun house in the company mining town in which she’d grown up. She could still remember how her mother hoarded the few dollars she could cajole from Georgia’s miner father before he headed for the tavern. Georgia steeled herself against the memories of nights she went to bed cold and hungry. When she’d married Gus, his thriving construction company promised a better life and a respectable standing in the community. Because of that, Ashley could have married any number of young, attractive, professional men.

  Georgia worried the arm covers of the chair with her restless fingers. So why Trent? It had made no sense. A rough-and-tumble young man, no more at home in a museum or theater than a lumberjack would be. He was handsome, she’d give him that. But she’d raised Ashley to be more discriminating than to be won over by physicality and raffish charm. A twinkle in the eye was scant measure of a man’s ability to provide and protect.

  Ashley had been a delightful, tractable child. A thoughtful and affectionate teen. Nothing in her experience as Ashley’s mother had prepared Georgia for her daughter’s reaction to Trent Baker. Ashley had dug in her heels, deaf to her mother’s pleas, determined to marry the man.

  Then, thanks to his carelessness, the issue had been rendered moot. Ashley was pregnant.

  Not wanting to alienate her daughter, Georgia had done her best to coexist with Trent. He knew she didn’t like him and would have preferred someone else for Ashley. Only the birth of Kylie had softened her stance. He was a loving father to the child, who slowly and inexorably grabbed hold of Georgia’s heart in a way no one except her daughter ever had. Georgia could almost forgive Trent as she marveled over the exquisite little girl.

  Then had come the diagnosis. Abrupt. Devastating. Terminal. Georgia lifted her eyes to the portrait, where Ashley sat poised as if to speak, a smile softening her features. What would you tell me if you could, my darling daughter?

  Through the long months of Ashley’s illness, Trent had remained devoted, exhausting himself with the care of both his wife and daughter. It was as if he’d wanted to graft himself to them in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable.

  Now he was taking her granddaughter away. It would have been kinder had he taken a knife and carved out a section of her heart. This loss, on top of the other, was unbearable.

  The shadows lengthened on the thick Persian rug, but Georgia was oblivious, her eyes trained on the portrait, where Ashley seemed to nod her head imperceptibly as she always had when her mother over-stepped her bounds with Trent. Whether Georgia understood it or not, Ashley had loved Trent to the end. And, in his own way, he had loved her.

  How could he even think of taking Kylie and moving away?

  It was when she turned her thoughts to her granddaughter that the tears began to trickle in earnest down her powdered cheeks.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “WEEZER!” Libby greeted the leather-skinned woman with the single silver braid of hair who was walking toward her classroom. Her legs were encased in worn jeans, her feet clad in knee-high moccasins, and around the neck of her colorful western shirt, she wore a thong of beads, stones and feathers. But it was Louise McCann’s dark eyes and wrinkle-encased smile that captivated people. A member of the Blackfeet tribe, the longtime widow owned the Kodiak Café, a Whitefish institution.

  “Greetings, little one. Ready for me?”

  Libby moved into the hall. “Oh my, yes. The kids can’t wait.”

  “With the Christmas vacation so close, I imagine they’re more restless than usual.”

  Libby rolled her eyes. “Remember that Super Bowl commercial about herding cats? You get the picture.” Grinning, she ushered Weezer into her classroom. “Trust me, you’re a godsend.”

  “I’m no savior, just a storyteller.” Weezer moved to the back wall to examine the construction-paper Santa Claus figures plastered there. “Are you going home to Muskogee for Christmas?”

  Home? “No. My stepfather is staying in D.C., and I’m not excited about presenting him with a holiday photo op.” Weezer turned to face her, but said nothing. Libby knew people didn’t understand why she avoided her stepfather, the Honorable Vernon G. Belton, United States senator from Oklahoma. But neither Washington, D.C., nor Muskogee, Oklahoma, had been home for a long, long time. And “Daddy” Belton, as he’d insisted she call him after he married her mother, had always been far more interested in politics than in his albatross of a stepdaughter.

  “We’re having a community Christmas dinner at the café. You could pull up a chair with us.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve been invited to the Traverses’.” Libby warmed at the thought. She’d spent Thanksgiving there, too, surrounded by Doug’s parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. Norman Rockwell couldn’t begin to do justice to the gathering.

  “I’m glad. You won’t be alone, then.”

  Weezer didn’t have to complete the thought. Like you were that awful Christmas twelve years ago. Libby willed away the painful memory, then cupped her ear. “Hark! Is that the prancing and pawing of little feet?”

  In trooped the second-graders, flushed from recess, and the room filled with excited chatter and the odor of damp mittens. “Weezer, will you tell us about Brother Moose?” “No, I wanna hear ’bout Winter Wolf.” The children hurriedly removed their coats and boots, then clustered around the old woman, who calmed them with one raised hand and a softly spoken, “Once, many moons past, Old Man made…”

  Libby sank into her desk chair, drawn into the legend by the gentle cadence of Weezer’s voice, the expressive gestures of her hands and the sense of something ancient, unchanging and enduring. She envied the woman her roots and traditions.

  What were her own legacies? Libby closed her eyes, weariness suddenly overcoming her. They didn’t bear thinking about.

  TRENT ROLLED OUT of the unfamiliar bed and moved stealthily to the window. He glanced back at the other twin bed where Kylie slept, one hand curled beneath her chin, the other clutching a white plush polar bear with a red plaid neck scarf. Though it was still dark, a glaring street lamp had awakened him from a restless sleep.

  The Chisholms had invited Kylie and him to spend the night of Christmas Eve with them. Holidays were for family, they had insisted. Trent could hardly refuse. As the day of their departure for Whitefish neared, his in-laws had become increasingly protective of Kylie, and while Gus maintained a stiff upper lip, Georgia, saying little, targeted
Trent with accusing eyes. In fairness, he could hardly blame them. Since Ashley’s death, the two of them had grown even more attached to Kylie and she to them. He couldn’t expect jubilation when he was moving their only grandchild nearly five hundred miles across the state.

  Their Christmas Eve dinner had been formal, even pretentious, complete with china, crystal and enough forks to confuse Miss Manners. Ashley’s place was conspicuously vacant, and the conversation among the three adults was forced, at best. Gus had talked business, then switched to sports until Georgia, a distressed look on her face, objected. Kylie had kept silent, picking at her food, occasionally casting worried glances at her grandmother, who addressed the girl’s nervousness by slipping her after-dinner mints.

  Trent returned to his bed, lying on his back, his hands cradling his head. Gus was all right, a fair person. But Georgia’s disapproval of him had been obvious from the get-go. He was the man who had gotten her unwed daughter pregnant. The one who wasn’t worthy of Ashley, who, as Georgia had taken pains to inform him, had been destined for marriage to a white-collar professional, not a jack-of-all-trades with a limited future. Even Kylie’s birth had failed to mellow her at first, as if the baby had symbolically represented Georgia’s failed hopes for Ashley. But soon the infant had won her over, and from that time on, the challenge had been to keep her from spoiling Kylie rotten. A fussy, particular woman, intent on overcoming her humble origins, Georgia fixated on appearances, sometimes failing her granddaughter in fundamental ways, although she would vigorously have denied that assessment.

  Trent turned onto his side, watching the gentle rise and fall of his daughter’s chest. She needed a warm, cuddling grandmother who smelled of cinnamon and flowers and read stories and played Pretend.

  As for his own mother… Lila did her best on her infrequent visits from Las Vegas, where she worked as a cashier at a casino, but even her best was questionable. Always so busy making a living, she’d had little opportunity to exercise her maternal instincts. She had the ready laugh of a survivor, but she would never be one to sew doll clothes or bake cookies. Teaching Kylie Crazy Eights was about as good as it got.

  Was this one reason he couldn’t stop thinking about Libby, the most selflessly loving person he’d ever met? She would be so good for Kylie.

  He forced himself to derail that train of thought. He couldn’t imagine she would ever give him another chance. Not after what had happened.

  Flopping over on his back again, he struggled to think about St. Nicholas, reindeer, even visions of sugarplums dancing in his head, whatever the hell that meant.

  But all he could think of was Lib, and how she’d be good, all right. Not only for Kylie. For him.

  THIS WAS A PICTURE-BOOK Christmas. Libby glanced around the living room of the Traverses’ large chalet-style home. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows was a breathtaking view of Whitefish Lake. In one corner stood a nine-foot-tall spruce, decorated from base to top with ornaments made through the years by Doug and his brother and sisters. Aromas, savory and tantalizing, wafted from the kitchen. Doug sprawled on the floor, helping his brother and nephew lay track for an electric train, while his sister Melanie’s four-year-old twin girls cuddled on either side of Libby as she read Dr. Seuss’s “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”

  Bedecked in green tights with a long red-knit sweater, Mary Travers entered the room carrying a bowl of frothy eggnog, which she set on the buffet. Smiling from one twin to the other, she addressed Libby. “You look like a natural.”

  “I’ve had plenty of practice at school.”

  Mary shook her head, an impish smile playing across her lips. “That’s not what I meant. You look like a mother.”

  The illustration of the Whos down in Whoville blurred. “Maybe someday,” she managed to say.

  Slanting her head toward Doug, Mary winked and said, “I’ll work on it. Meanwhile, after you get that mean old storybook Grinch in the Christmas spirit, come have a glass of eggnog.”

  “You gonna drink eggs?” Margot, the twin dressed in green, stared up at Libby. “Yuck.”

  Maddy, the more serious of the two, shook her head. “Not eggs. Nog.” The triumphant look slowly faded from her face. Finally she got up on her knees and whispered in Libby’s ear, “What’s a ‘nog’?”

  Giving her a quick hug, Libby answered. “It’s what the Grinch drinks to remember how much he likes Christmas.”

  Across the way, Doug caught her eye, a sappy grin on his face. “You gals make a nice picture.”

  Brushing aside the implications of the compliment, Libby quickly finished the story, then moved to the buffet and helped herself to the eggnog. Doug came up beside her and put his arm around her. “Having a good time?”

  “Yes, I am.” It was the truth. The easy give-and-take of this family and her overwhelming sense of welcome, especially from Mary and her adorable husband, felt heady for a woman accustomed to living alone with her cat.

  “Feel like a walk before dinner?” Doug asked.

  “Do we dare sneak off?”

  He tightened his grip on her waist, then grinned wickedly. “Dare? I think it’s expected.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  Outside the air was crisp, and the sun shone weakly through the snow-dusted trees. Doug tucked her arm through his as they started briskly down the road.

  “I’m glad you’re here with us for Christmas. That’s the best present you could give me.”

  “Your family has made me feel very welcome.”

  “They’re crazy about you.”

  Flustered, she stopped to adjust her scarf. “I, uh, I like them, too. Your sister Melanie is such fun, and your brother makes me laugh.”

  “And don’t forget Izzy.”

  Isabelle, Doug’s other sister, had been busy in the kitchen all day. A chef at a pricey Seattle restaurant, she was cooking the Christmas dinner. “How could I forget her?” Libby rubbed her stomach. “I’ve gained five pounds just smelling that food she’s preparing. And I haven’t even eaten.”

  Doug gently held her by the lapels of her coat, his expression turning serious. “And what about me?”

  “You?”

  “Yeah. Do I rate as highly as my siblings?”

  She fumbled to keep her answer light. “Well, you’re fun like Melanie and your brother, but as for your cooking…”

  He laid his forehead against hers. “I’m not talking about cooking.” He hesitated, his breath forming small clouds in the frosty air. “I guess I’m asking…could you love me, Lib?”

  His eyes were close, so rich and deep a brown they took her breath away. Could she? Love him? Suddenly, in that moment, she thought perhaps she could. “I think maybe so, Doug.”

  “Good,” he murmured, pulling something from his pocket.

  Libby didn’t know what she’d expected, but not the sprig of mistletoe he now held over her head.

  “Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” he whispered, before tossing the mistletoe in the air and kissing her in a way that would have delighted the reformed Ebeneezer Scrooge.

  AT HOME LATER that evening, Libby sat, pensive, in the rocker she’d brought from Oklahoma, the only piece of furniture she’d moved. It was the chair in which her mother had cuddled her before bedtime. Mona, a sleek gray cat with a white, diamond-shaped mask, sat in her lap, purring with contentment. The occasional crackle of a log settling and the ticking of the cuckoo clock were the only other sounds.

  The perfect Christmas.

  Convivial company, delicious food, laughter, plenty of hugs. It was the Christmas she’d always dreamed of—and a far cry from those girlhood holidays after her mother died. Oh, there had been no shortage of gifts. To the contrary. Everything she’d ever wanted had been provided. And that was the operative word: provided. Not given.

  At that time Daddy Belton was serving in the Oklahoma legislature. His secretary bought and wrapped Libby’s presents. Christmas Eve at their Muskogee home was traditionally celebrated with a huge open hous
e for her stepfather’s influential constituents and political allies. On Christmas Day, the two of them opened their gifts, Daddy made obligatory phone calls, and then they were served a late lunch by the housekeeper in the drafty old dining room. Libby spent Christmas afternoons alone in her bedroom.

  In her youthful naiveté, she had dreamed of creating a real family, complete with a loving husband and a houseful of children. Life, however, had taught her the folly of such dreams.

  She nestled Mona closer, drawing her fingers up and down the cat’s ridged back. Today had been both perfect and disturbing. It scared her how badly she wanted to be part of a family like the Traverses. This afternoon she had sensed Doug was on the verge of offering her the fulfillment of her fantasies.

  Could you love me? he’d asked. She had been taken aback by the directness of his question. A marriage without love would be empty. Ruefully, she bent her head and nuzzled Mona’s neck. Had she committed herself by giving Doug a definite “maybe”? And what kind of cowardly answer was that?

  On the wall, the cuckoo clock repeated its call twelve times—each syllable taunting her. She was “cuckoo,” all right. Doug hadn’t asked the one question she would ultimately have to answer.

  Not could she love him, but did she love him?

  WEEZER RUBBED her gnarled hands in anticipation. Dark, and still no sight of them. She checked the mantel clock. No point standing at the window fretting. She strode to the fireplace, picked up the poker and jabbed at the bottom log, sending sparks up the chimney. Trent knew how to drive in these conditions. He’d be careful. Yet what if…

  Despite Trent’s eagerness to get back to Whitefish, Weezer had picked up on his concerns. Kylie’s aversion to school. Separation from her grandparents and her familiar surroundings. Beyond that, the child had to still be grieving her mother, probably struggling to mask her pain.

  Trent ought to know all about that. He’d been skilled at it. From the day that worthless cowboy Charlie Baker walked out on Lila and Trent, the boy had acted as if he didn’t give a damn, practically daring the gods to zap him, be it on a skateboard, bicycle or snowboard. Then later in a two-man raft shooting rapids, or rappeling from precipitous cliffs. Whenever Lila or Weezer had asked him if he thought he was invincible, he had merely laughed and said, “A guy’s gotta have some fun.”