Christmas To Remember Page 11

  “Maybe so. But if that’s the case, why destroy all your hard work by letting that—that back into your life?”

  “We were just talking.” She hoped her father would overlook the telltale heat in her cheeks or else blame it on the sun.

  “There’s no need for you to talk to him. He hurt you, he abandoned you and his baby, he broke your mother’s spirit and he cost this family more than he’ll ever be able to repay. You think I’m going to forget that? That any one of us can forget that? If you allow Beau Buchanan to get within shouting distance of you, it’s too close, Marley. I would’ve thought you’d realize that.”

  A rough laugh escaped her. “He’s just working here. And—whatever happened to turning the other cheek? We were young, Dad, and we made a mistake. Can’t it ever be over?”

  Her father’s gaze narrowed. “God wants us to be forgiving, not fools. If you behave like you did back then, if you get taken in and act the wild child again, do not expect your mother and me to welcome you back a second time. As you said you are not eighteen anymore and only—”

  “Fools get bitten twice,” she whispered, repeating the words in her head for good measure. Getting pregnant wasn’t the worst thing that had happened. No, it was the way she’d gotten pregnant, then the fall and her mother’s breakdown. Those were the things she hadn’t been able to overcome. Would probably never overcome.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Her father nodded once, the move sharp, pointed. His gaze angry, but tinged with sadness and pain.

  “I’ve got to get back to town. I have a school-board meeting in an hour. Marley, you are my daughter, and I love you. But I’m telling you now, don’t do this to us again.” He turned on his heel to walk away, but stopped after two steps. “This morning your mother mentioned having Sunday dinner. One o’clock.”

  “I—I have a lot of work to do.”

  “The work can wait an hour or two. And it’s Sunday. You haven’t been to church in a while.”

  She barely stopped the frown pulling at her lips. “Do you really want me there? The last time I went, Mama wouldn’t even look at me.”

  Her father didn’t comment on that. “I think you need to come, to dinner if nothing else. Maybe sitting across the table from the people who love you will remind you of the damage caused the last time Beau Buchanan talked to you.”

  Marley watched her father climb into his car and pull away. When she couldn’t see him, she walked around the back of the house, hoping the shade there would help cool the heat in her body. It didn’t.

  What had she done? She’d kissed him. Kissed him! Not a sweet kiss on the cheek but a—

  Shame and guilt and anger pulsed through her, surges of energizing emotions that had her dropping to her hands and knees with a moan and grabbing a hand shovel. Frantic, she began pounding it into the freshly tilled soil, pausing only long enough to yank rocks and roots out of the way. Working as fast as she could to get the bad stuff out so that the good could grow.

  Clay wouldn’t have told a soul that Beau was there. Her father wouldn’t have known had he not seen Clay and demanded to know about the fight, but who knew what conclusions people would jump to when they saw Clay? If someone mentioned the scene when she’d first talked with Beau, just the mention of his name with hers could have rumors spreading like wildfire.

  “Marley?” Without warning, Beau knelt beside her.

  She shook her head and ignored him completely, focusing on the task in front of her. No one was going to keep her from proving to her parents, the town and Beau that she wasn’t the same girl she’d been. She wasn’t naive anymore, wasn’t gullible or out to prove the good girl could be bad. How stupid was that? How immature? She’d thought she knew so much, but now she knew better. She wasn’t going to be taken in by Beau’s beautiful eyes and sinful smile.

  He put his hand on her back, the touch light, gentle. Startling her nonetheless.

  “Marley? Honey, take it easy. You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep at it like that. What did he say to you?”

  “What do you think?” She panted, breathing heavily from her frantic digging, every stab of the shovel harder than the last. “I’m sorry, Beau. You might have changed—Lord knows I hope you have because if it’s true then you won’t treat any other woman the way you treated me, but—” She shook her head and her ponytail caught at the corner of her mouth, a reminder of how he’d brushed the tendril away and…“Go away. Please, I want you to go away.”

  “Marley—”

  She jerked her head up, meeting his gaze dead-on. “I chose you over them once, Beau, and look what happened. Now it’s all blowing up in my face—again—because you’re here. If you’ve changed, great. Fantastic! But if you meant what you said about wanting a clean slate—now’s the time because I want one, too. I want one here, in my hometown, and you being in the picture is ruining everything for me.”

  “I’m sorry. I know it takes time for people to forgive and forget.”

  A near-hysterical laugh bubbled out of her mouth. It was horrible to think, to believe, but some so-called good people were the very first to judge. To condemn. Forgive and forget? That seemed impossible to achieve. How many times did a person have to say she was sorry?

  How many times has Beau said he’s sorry to you? Is it enough?

  “It takes more than time, Beau.” She indicated the dirt in front of her. “Look at this. Do you see this? To get something to grow here I’ve got to get rid of all the—the bad stuff that’ll keep it from happening. The same is true for me, for my life. I need rid of the bad stuff and—”

  “I’m the bad stuff,” he acknowledged, his voice low and gravelly and sounding more than a little hurt.

  Pain pierced her. She wasn’t a mean person. Unlike her mother and her friends, she tried to keep an open mind. To not gossip or cause others pain because she’d been on the receiving end. She didn’t want to hurt Beau but…After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. “You’re the bad stuff.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “GET YOUR SHOES ON, DORK. We’re going to get something to eat and get away from the bad stuff Pop’s been cookin’.”

  “Where are we going?” He looked up and saw a boy leaning against the doorway. The kid had long black hair and was tall and lanky, too thin for his size.

  “Does it matter? At least it’s not Pop’s. Boy, I can’t wait for Mom to come home from Aunt Ginny’s. Come on. I call the front seat.”

  He tossed the He-Man figure aside and scrambled to his feet. “But it’s my turn!”

  The kid rolled his eyes and gave him a glare. “I’ll give you a head start, but first one to get there, gets it. Don’t be stickin’ your head out the window like a dog if you win, though. Somebody might see.”

  He grabbed his shoes and pulled them on, forgoing the laces. “Hey, Joe, you think Pop will take us huntin’ for crawdads? He knows how much we like them and Mom’s not here to complain about the mess. Joe? Hey, wait up, Joe! That’s not fair! That’s my seat!”

  “Hey. Hey, come on, son, wake up. Food’s on. You got about fifteen minutes to be ready to fight for your share.”

  Beau opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, the dream slowly fading away like Pop’s footsteps down the hall. How could he have forgotten to ask Pop about the kid named Joe?

  He lifted his hands and rubbed his bleary eyes, blaming his heavily medicated state last time for the lapse. The ever-present headache that came with the memories pounded through his temples and he winced from the pressure.

  “Hey, Pop, do you know a—” Stilling, he could hardly believe it when the name formed on his lips the same time an image sprang into his mind. Full-blown, detailed, he’d know the kid if he saw him in a picture. He’d remembered something else!

  “What’s that?” Pop called from the opposite end of the house.

  Beau hurried out of the bedroom toward the kitchen. He’d worked at the job site, come home to check on Pop and found him holed up in his room, sn
oring as usual. The late night and hot work had caught up with Beau so he’d decided to sleep while he could, reminding himself that he was still recovering from his own hospital stay. The last thing he wanted was for Pop to wake up raring to go while he was too tired to move.

  The E.R. docs had blamed Pop’s asthma attack on stress and fatigue and the grit associated with construction. He couldn’t do anything about the dust and dirt, but he could certainly pitch in more now that he was out of the service and back on his feet.

  His physical therapy was doing wonders and his shoulder didn’t hurt that much anymore. He’d have to watch getting up and down and make sure he didn’t twist the ligaments in his thigh damaged by the shrapnel, but if he was careful, he could definitely put in more hours and help his father out.

  In the living room he stopped to take a look at the few picture frames scattered among the bookshelves. The moving company had not only packed them up, but using Polaroid pictures, they’d also unpacked and arranged things as close as they could to the Cincinnati house. He didn’t see the kid he’d dreamed about, though.

  “Lookin’ for something?”

  Beau nodded and moved to the last part of the three-sectioned bookcase. “I had a dream—a memory.”

  “What about?”

  He kept looking, examining each picture closely. Most of them looked to be of him as a kid. “There was a kid named Joe. Do you remember him?”

  “Son, come and eat. There’s time for that later.”

  “Think back, Pop, are you sure? Dark hair, thin? I remember him really well. All I have to do is see a picture of him. Where’s the pictures of me as a kid? Snapshots of my friends? Are they here somewhere?”

  “Son—”

  Beau lifted a hand and pressed it hard to his throbbing temple. Joe, Joe, Joe. He remembered him, it was all right there. All he had to do was get through the fog. “You’ve gotta remember him. We must’ve hung out together. I remember him a lot, like he was always around.”

  His father didn’t so much as blink, but he looked pale and he was searching his pocket for his inhaler again.

  “Pop?”

  He put the plastic end in his mouth and squeezed, inhaling and closing his eyes. The wheezing continued and actually got worse.

  “Hey, Pop, take it easy. Are you all right?”

  His dad backed up until he leaned against the arm of the couch, his hand shaking as he used his inhaler again. Pop nodded slowly, avoiding his gaze.

  “Pop, it’s fine. Whatever it is. Marley told me what happened between us and I handled it okay. I won’t lose it the way I did at the hospital.”

  “I can’t.” Pop shook his head. “Too dangerous.”

  Beau fought his frustration. “Joe was a friend, right? Did something happen to him?”

  Pop pulled the puffer from his mouth, his breath rasping in and out of his chest, the dark circles under his eyes prominent. “The doctors—I don’t want to hurt you. Give it time.”

  Disappointment crowded him, but he didn’t have the guts to push things further. Not with Pop’s health at stake. “Okay. It’s okay, I understand.”

  Pop knew something about Joe, something big. But would Pop not tell him what it was because of his health? Or because Pop couldn’t handle the news himself?

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON Marley seated herself across the table from Clay and ignored the angry glower on his face because she hadn’t been able to talk Angel into accepting his invitation to lunch.

  Marley had added her request to Clay’s, but Angel had said something mysterious about a business call and taking a run when she’d left, and Marley hadn’t seen her since.

  “Let’s say grace.”

  They bowed their heads and her father asked God for extra support and a loving hand for his wife, guidance for those struggling to make the right decisions for the good of their family. She got the point.

  Once the Amens were said, her father grabbed his bowl from the table in front of him and began spooning soup into it.

  “I thought Mama was going to join us.”

  “She was. Now she’s not.”

  Marley fiddled with her napkin. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it to church this morning.”

  “It’s just as well.”

  Okay. “Did Mama go?”

  “For a while. We had to leave early.”

  “Why?” Clay pressed. “Something happen?” He shot Marley a quick glance.

  “She got upset. The message was purity of body and thought and—”

  Marley dropped her spoon and it clattered onto the plate. “And she thought of me,” she finished for him.

  “Parents worry about their children, Marley. No matter their age.” Her father looked at her intently, then turned his attention to Clay. “You aren’t a hotheaded kid anymore. We can’t let that man’s presence in this town get the better of us.”

  Us. He said that as if she wasn’t one of them. “Wait a minute, Mama knows he’s here? That’s why she went to bed?”

  Her father nodded grimly. “I was afraid someone would tell her and thought it best she hear it from me. She went to church to seek comfort, but couldn’t find it.”

  “So she came home and found it in her medicine. She knocked herself out again, didn’t she? Beau’s in town, Dad, not in my bed.”

  “Marley.” Clay shot her a warning glare.

  “That is quite enough,” her father agreed.

  Desperate, Marley gripped the edge of her seat and decided to speak her mind. At this point, what did she have to lose? “Why can’t I speak honestly? It’s just us.”

  “This isn’t appropriate conversation for Sunday dinner.”

  “Yeah, well, apparently I gave up being appropriate long ago,” she murmured drearily. “Look, Beau’s in town and we’re going to have to deal with it. All I’m wondering is why Mama has to go upstairs and take a pill. Hiding behind a closed door is one thing, but she drugs herself, too.”

  “Do not talk about your mother like she’s—”

  “An addict? Maybe she is.”

  Clay’s eyes bugged out of his skull. “Marley.”

  “It’s prescribed medication, and you’re questioning why she needs it?” Her father’s hand landed on the table. Dishes clattered. “How insensitive are you that you can’t see the problem, Marley?”

  A knot formed in her stomach. “I know I stress her. I always have, Dad, and that was back when I was just another teenage girl, but I don’t live here now. Her responsibilities for raising me are over, and I’m just saying most moms talk a situation out or—or yell and get upset and then they get over it. But not Mama. She drugs herself to keep from facing reality and you both need to acknowledge that. It’s getting worse.”

  “She’s fine.”

  Marley couldn’t hold back a laugh because Clay and her father growled the statement in unison. She pushed her plate aside. “She’s not. When are you going to see her behavior for what it is? How can she get better if she can’t move on? She claims to be a Christian, but what kind of Christian holds on to my mistake with both hands and—”

  Her father stood up from his chair so quickly the chair fell backward, striking the antique buffet cabinet behind him and leaving a gash. “You want to discuss religion? Really?”

  Heat rushed into her face. “I’m not perfect,” she whispered. “I know that very, very well. I—I’m just saying I think Mama needs help because she’s getting worse. She needs to get out of the house. She needs to do things, go see a professional, because drugging herself repeatedly certainly isn’t helping.”

  Her father tossed his napkin onto the table. “And I think you need to look inward for the source of her pain. If you can’t do that, look across the table. Your brother fought the man who used you and tossed you aside and what do you do? You defend Beau Buchanan’s right to stay in town. You’re sitting in my house—my house!—taking up for him instead of your family! You blame your mother for wanting peace from her upset and yet all you’ve done is cause more cha
os by taking a job working with the very man who put your mother in this condition in the first place!”

  “I didn’t know that when I took the job! And it’s not Beau’s fault that Mama can’t—”

  “You blame others for their faults, but you can’t see your own! You feel sympathy for other people, but not your own family. You’ve made choices you knew we wouldn’t approve of, and now you’re doing it all over again?”

  “I’m not doing anything! I’m just trying to—” Marley broke off and watched her father stalk out of the room. Seconds later the front door slammed, and she flinched at the sound.

  Clay scooted his chair back and got up, as well.

  “Clay, please.”

  “We all make mistakes, Mar, but accusing Mom of being an addict wasn’t the way to go about getting Dad to see your view. Especially not after telling him you’re still going to work with Buchanan.”

  “I know I screwed up. Clay, how can I not know it? But Beau and my contract aside, all I want is to get Mom the help she needs. She’s upstairs drugged out of her mind!” Clay looked torn between believing her and upset that she defended her position with Beau, but she pressed on. She couldn’t do this by herself. “Do you think I’m to blame for all of this? For Mama?”

  Jaw tight, her brother didn’t quite meet her gaze. “I think we’re all to blame. And I think you need to figure out a way of helping Mom without making things worse.” He shook his head. “And I think that’s not really possible right now, not while Buchanan is here.” That said, Clay left, too.

  Marley remained at the table for a long time, staring at the mess that should have been a good Sunday dinner. The kind they used to have until that fateful summer.

  Trembling, she gathered up the dishes and put the unused ones back in their place and the rest in the dishwasher, desperate to busy herself and get her mind off the kiss she’d shared with Beau. Maybe she was focusing on the changes in him more than she should, but between Beau and her family right now, Beau seemed to understand her better. He’d changed. And so had she.