Christmas with Holly Page 4

  The second time he’d come to visit, Alex had built a set of cubbyholes in Holly’s bedroom closet for her to store her shoes. To the little girl’s delight, some of the cubbies had been set on a hidden hinge, swinging out to reveal a secret compartment. On another occasion, Alex brought over one of his construction crews when Mark and Sam discovered that some of the header beams on the front porch were buckling and crumbling like Styrofoam. Alex and the crew spent a day installing new supports, fixing damaged joists, and putting in new rain gutters. The job had been more than Mark and Sam could handle on their own, so they had sincerely appreciated the help. But knowing Alex…

  “What do you think he wants?” Sam had asked Mark.

  “For his niece not to be flattened by a collapsing house?”

  “No, that would be attributing human motivations to him, and we agreed never to do that.”

  Mark tried, without success, to hold back a grin. Alex was so cool and emotionally distant that on occasion you had to question the existence of a pulse.

  “Maybe he feels guilty for not having more to do with Vick before she died.”

  “Maybe’s he’s using any excuse to spend time away from Darcy. If I didn’t already hate the idea of marriage so much, I sure would think twice about it after seeing Alex’s.”

  “Obviously,” Mark said, “a Nolan should never marry anyone who’s too much like us.”

  “I think a Nolan should never marry anyone who’d have us.”

  Whatever the reason, Alex had continued to contribute to the restoration. As a result of their combined efforts, the house had begun to look better. Or at least like something normal people could live in.

  “If you try to kick me out after all this,” Mark had informed Sam, “you’re going to end up buried in the backyard.”

  They both knew, however, that there was no chance Sam would ever kick them out. Because Sam, perhaps to his own surprise more than anyone else’s, had taken to the child with instant devotion. Like Mark, he would have died for Holly if necessary. She got the best of everything they had.

  At first cautious with her affection, Holly had quickly become attached to her uncles. Although they had gotten warnings from well-meaning outsiders not to spoil her, neither Sam nor Mark could see any evidence that their indulgence was doing any harm. In fact, both of them would have been happy to see a little more mischief from Holly. She was a good child, always doing what she was told.

  When Holly wasn’t in school, she accompanied Mark to his coffee-roasting site at Friday Harbor, watching the massive drum roaster heat raw arabica beans until their pale yellow skins caramelized to deep-gleaming brown. Sometimes he bought her ice cream at a shop near the harbor dock, and they would go “boat-shopping,” browsing along rows of yachts, Nordic tugs, family cruisers, and crab boats with haystacked pots on the back decks.

  Sam often took Holly out with him to tend the vines, or to hunt for starfish and sand dollars at low tide on False Bay. He wore pasta neckties she had made at school, and pinned her artwork on walls throughout the house.

  “I had no idea what this was like,” Sam had said one evening, carrying Holly into the house when she’d fallen asleep in the car. They had spent the afternoon at English Camp, the site where the British had lodged during joint occupation of the island until it had been awarded to the Americans. The national park, with its two miles of shoreline, was the perfect place to have a picnic and throw Frisbees. They had indulged in acrobatics to make Holly giggle, leaping to catch the Frisbee. They had brought her little tackle box and fishing rod, and Mark had taught her to cast for sea perch along the shore.

  “What what’s like?” Mark had opened the front door and flipped on the porch lights.

  “Having a little kid around.” Somewhat sheepishly, Sam clarified, “Having a little kid love you.”

  Holly’s presence in their lives offered a kind of grace neither of them had ever known before. A reminder of innocence. Something happened to you, they discovered, when you were given the unconditional love and trust of a child.

  You wanted to try to deserve it.

  Mark and Holly went into the house through the kitchen, setting the packages and the conch on the table in the old-fashioned corner breakfast nook with built-in benches. They found Sam in the parlor, a painfully bare room with uncovered Sheetrock walls and a fractured chimney temporarily encased in steel mesh.

  Sam was at the fireplace, building a frame for a soon-to-be-poured cement slab to support a new hearthstone. “This is going to be a son of a gun to fix,” he said, in the middle of taking measurements. “I have to figure out how we can use the same chimney to vent two different fireplaces. This one leads directly to the upstairs bedroom, can you believe that?”

  Leaning down, Mark murmured to Holly, “Go ask him what’s for dinner.”

  The child obeyed, going to Sam’s side and putting her mouth close to his ear. She whispered something and retreated a few steps.

  Mark saw Sam go very still.

  “You’re talking,” Sam said, turning slowly to look at the little girl. A questioning note had tipped his husky voice.

  Holly shook her head, looking grave.

  “Yes, you are, you just said something.”

  “No, I didn’t.” A titter escaped her as she saw Sam’s expression.

  “You did it again, by God! Say my name. Say it.”

  “Uncle Herbert.”

  Sam let out a breathless laugh and grabbed her, pulling her against his chest. “Herbert? Oh, now it’s going to be chicken lips and lizard feet for dinner.” Still clasping Holly, he looked at Mark with a wondering shake of his head, his color high, his eyes containing a suspicious glitter. “How?” was all he could manage to ask.

  “Later,” Mark said, and smiled.

  “So what happened?” Sam asked, stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove. Holly was busy in the next room with her new puzzle. “How did you do it?”

  Mark uncapped a beer and tilted the bottle back. “Wasn’t me,” he said after a biting-cold swallow. “We were in that toy shop on Spring Street, the new one, and there was this cute little redhead behind the counter. I’ve never seen her before—”

  “I know who she is. Maggie something. Conner, Carter…”

  “Conroy. You’ve met her?”

  “No, but Scolari’s been trying to get me to go out with her.”

  “He never mentioned her to me,” Mark said, instantly offended.

  “You’re going out with Shelby.”

  “Shelby and I aren’t exclusive.”

  “Scolari thinks Maggie’s my type. We’re closer in age. So she’s cute? That’s good. I thought I’d check her out before committing to anything—”

  “I’m only two years older than you,” Mark said in outrage.

  Setting down the spoon, Sam picked up a glass of wine. “Did you ask her out?”

  “No. Shelby was with me, and besides—”

  “I call dibs.”

  “You don’t get dibs on this one,” Mark said curtly.

  Sam’s brows lifted. “You’ve already got a girlfriend. Dibs automatically go to the guy with the longest dry spell.”

  Mark’s shoulders hitched in an irritable shrug.

  “So what did Maggie do?” Sam pressed. “How did she get Holly to talk?”

  Mark told him about the scene in the toy shop, about the magic shell, and how the suggestion of make-believe had worked a miracle.

  “Amazing,” Sam said. “I never would have thought of trying something like that.”

  “It was a matter of timing. Holly was finally ready to talk, and Maggie gave her a way to do it.”

  “Yeah, but…is it possible Holly would have started talking weeks ago if you or I had just figured it out?”

  “Who knows? What are you getting at?”

  Sam kept his voice low. “Do you ever think about what it’s going to be like when she gets older? When she starts needing to talk to someone about girl stuff? I mean, who ar
e we going to get to handle all that?”

  “She’s only six, Sam. Let’s worry about it later.”

  “I’m worried that later’s going to get here sooner than we think. I—” Sam broke off and rubbed his forehead as if to soothe away an oncoming headache. “I’ve got something to show you after Holly goes to bed.”

  “What? Should I be worried about something?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Damn it, tell me now.”

  Sam kept his voice low. “Okay, I was going through Holly’s homework folder to make sure she’d finished that coloring page…and I found this.” He went to a stack of paper on the counter and pulled out a single page. “The teacher gave them a writing prompt in class this week,” he said. “A letter to Santa. And this is what Holly came up with.”

  Mark gave him a blank look. “A letter to Santa? We’re still in the middle of September.”

  “They’ve already started running holiday commercials. And when I was at the hardware store yesterday, Chuck mentioned they were going to put out Christmas trees by the end of the month.”

  “Before Thanksgiving? Before Halloween?”

  “Yes. All part of an evil worldwide corporate marketing plan. Don’t try to fight it.” Sam handed him the sheet of paper. “Take a look at this.”

  Dear Santa

  I want just one thing this year

  A mom

  Please dont forget I live in friday harbor now.

  thank you

  love

  Holly

  Mark was silent for a full half minute.

  “A mom,” Sam said.

  “Yeah, I get it.” Still staring at the letter, Mark muttered, “What a hell of a stocking stuffer.”

  After dinner, Mark went out to the front porch with a beer and sat in a comfortably beat-up wooden chair. Sam was tucking Holly in and reading her a story from the book bought earlier that day.

  It was still the time of year when sunsets were long and slow to fade, painting the sky over the bay in saturated pinks and oranges. Watching the shallows glitter between the brackets of deep-rooted madrone trees, Mark wondered bleakly what he was going to do about Holly.

  A mom.

  Of course that was what she wanted. No matter how Mark and Sam tried, there were some things they couldn’t do for her. And although there were countless single dads who were raising daughters, no one could deny that there were milestones that a girl wanted a mother for.

  Following the child psychologist’s advice, Mark had set out a couple of framed pictures of Victoria. He and Sam made certain to talk about Victoria to Holly, to give the child a sense of connection with her mother. But Mark could do more than that, and he knew it. There was no reason Holly had to navigate the rest of her childhood without someone to mother her. Shelby was as close to perfect as it got. And Shelby had made it clear that despite Mark’s ambivalence about marriage, she was willing to be patient. “Our marriage wouldn’t be like your parents’ marriage,” she had pointed out gently. “It would be ours.”

  Mark had understood the point, even agreed. He knew he wasn’t like his father, who had thought nothing of backhanding his children. Theirs had been a tempestuous household, filled to the roof with caterwauling, violence, drama. The Nolan parents’ version of love, with its screaming fights and lurid reconciliations, had featured all the worst components of marriage, and none of its graces.

  Understanding that even though his parents’ marriage had been a perfect disaster, it didn’t have to be that way, Mark had tried to remain neutral on the concept. He had always thought that when or if he ever found the right person, there would be some kind of inner confirmation, a sanction of the heart that would remove all doubt. So far that hadn’t happened with Shelby.

  What if it never happened with anyone? He tried to think of marriage as a pragmatic arrangement with someone you cared about. Maybe that was the best way to approach it, especially when you had a child’s interests to consider. Shelby had the kind of personality—calm, pleasant, affectionate—that would make her a great mother.

  Mark didn’t believe in the illusions of romance, or of soul mates. He was the first to admit that he had an earthbound mind, anchored in cold, hard reality. He liked it that way. Was it unfair to Shelby to offer marriage based on practical considerations? Maybe not, as long as he was honest about his feelings—or lack of them.

  Finishing his beer, he went back into the house, tossed the bottle into the recycling bin, and went to Holly’s room. Sam had tucked her in and left the night-light on.

  Holly’s eyes were heavy-lidded, her small mouth twisting in a yawn. A teddy bear had been tucked in beside her, its bright button eyes regarding Mark expectantly.

  Staring down at the little girl, Mark experienced one of those moments when you had a sudden and intense awareness of who you had been not all that long ago, and discovered that you were now in a different place entirely. He leaned over to kiss her forehead, as he did every night. He felt her spindly arms go around his neck, and heard her say in a drowsy, dream-colored voice, “I love you. I love you.” And, turning to her side, she snuggled her bear and went to sleep.

  Mark stood there blinking, trying to absorb the impact. For the first time in his life he knew what it felt like to have his heart broken…not broken in a sad or romantic sense, but broken open. He had never known this before, the desire to surround another human being with perfect happiness.

  He would find a mother for Holly, the perfect mother. He would build a circle of people for her.

  Usually a child was the result of a family. In this case, however, a family was going to be the result of a child.

  Four

  The four major islands in the area—San Juan, Orcas, Lopez, and Shaw—were all accessible by Washington State Ferries. You could park your car on the ferry, go to an upper-deck seating area, and prop your feet up during the hour and a half it took to get from San Juan to Anacortes on the mainland. The water was calm and the views were spectacular in summer and through the autumn.

  Maggie drove to the ferry terminal at Friday Harbor, after dropping her dog off at the local pet hotel. Although she could have taken a half-hour flight that went directly to Bellingham, she preferred the ferry to flying. She liked looking at seaside homes, the island coastlines, the occasional glimpses of dolphins or lazing sea lions. Often flocks of feeding cormorants could be seen along tidal rips, black as cracked pepper scattered from a grinder.

  Since one of her sisters was going to pick her up at the Anacortes terminal, and she wouldn’t need a car while staying with her family, Maggie boarded the ferry as a walk-on passenger. The vessel was a steel electric-class ferry capable of accommodating almost a thousand passengers and eighty-five vehicles, and traveling up to thirteen knots.

  Carrying her canvas overnight bag, Maggie went to the enclosed part of the main passenger deck. She walked along one of the rows of broad benches flanking the large glass windows. The Friday morning ferry was full, with passengers headed to Seattle for appointments or weekend entertainment. She found a pair of benches that faced each other. One of them was occupied by a man wearing khakis and a navy polo shirt. He was engrossed in a newspaper, a few discarded sections beside him.

  “Excuse me, is this…” Maggie began, her voice fading as he looked up at her.

  Before she saw anything else, she saw his blue-green eyes. She felt a hot jolt, as if her heart had been attached to jumper cables.

  It was Mark Nolan…clean-shaven, well dressed, sexy in his unvarnished masculinity. Focusing on her, he set aside the paper and rose to his feet, an old-fashioned gesture that disconcerted her even further. “Maggie. Are you going to Seattle?”

  “Bellingham.” She damned herself for sounding breathless. “To visit my family.”

  He gestured to the bench opposite his. “Have a seat.”

  “Oh, I…” Maggie shook her head and cast a quick glance at their surroundings. “I wouldn’t want to disturb your privacy.”
/>   “It’s okay.”

  “Thank you, but…I don’t want to do the airplane thing with you.”

  His dark brows lifted. “The airplane thing?”

  “Yes, when I sit next to a stranger on an airplane, I sometimes end up telling him—or her—stuff I’d never admit even to my closest friends. But I never have to regret it, because I never see that person again.”

  “This isn’t an airplane.”

  “But it is transportation.”

  Mark Nolan stood there staring down at her with a disarming glint of amusement in his eyes. “The ferry ride’s not all that long. How much could you spill about yourself?”

  “My entire life story.”

  He struggled with a smile, as if he didn’t have many to spare. “Let’s take our chances. Sit with me, Maggie.”

  A command rather than an invitation. But she found herself obeying. Setting her weekend bag on the floor, she took the bench opposite his. As she straightened, she noticed his gaze moving over her in a quick, efficient sweep. She was dressed in slim jeans, a white T-shirt, and a cropped black jacket.

  “You look different,” he said.

  “It’s my hair.” Self-consciously, Maggie combed her fingers through a few long, straight locks. “I flat-iron it whenever I go to visit my family. Otherwise my brothers make fun of it, tug it…I’m the only one in the family with curly hair. I’m just praying it doesn’t rain. As soon as it gets wet—” She made a gesture that mimicked an explosion.

  “I like it both ways.” The compliment was delivered with a grave sincerity that Maggie found a thousand times more charming than flirtatiousness.

  “Thank you. How’s Holly?”

  “Still talking. More all the time.” He paused. “I didn’t have the chance to thank you the other day. What you did for Holly…”

  “Oh, it was nothing. I mean, I didn’t really do anything.”

  “It meant a lot to us.” His gaze locked on hers. “What are you and your family doing this weekend?”