Karen Templeton – Dear Santa (страница 3)

Not yet, anyway.

Grant loomed behind her, much too close, as, through Haley’s open door, Mia could see the child sitting quietly in the middle of her bed in her teddy-bear-flecked pajamas, sucking her thumb—a habit given up months ago. And clutched to her small, far-too-fragile-looking chest, Mia realized with another fiery blast to her midsection, was the stuffed lion Justine had only just given her.

“Hey, little bit,” she said softly, and the child’s head shot up. A second later she’d streaked across the room to wrap her arms around Mia’s thighs.

Then she tilted her head back, hope and worry and confusion tangled in her eyes. “Did Mommy come with you?”

Crap. Mia glanced over at Grant, whose glower had rearranged itself into something much more worrisome, then lowered herself to one knee, lumpy throats and heartburn from hell be damned.

“No, baby,” she said softly, brushing Haley’s curls off her cheek, praying she was striking the right balance between reassuring and serious. “Mommy’s not here.”

Haley disengaged herself to swing back and forth, clutching the toy. “Then are you going to take me back to the city?”

Slowly, Mia shook her head. “No, sweetie pie. You’re going to stay with your daddy now.”

The little girl frowned. “Daddy said Mommy got broken an’ the doctors couldn’t fix her.”

“That’s right,” Mia said, swallowing back tears.

Soft brown eyes shifted from Mia to Grant and back again. “Like Hump-y Dump-y?”

“Yeah, baby. Like Humpty Dumpty.”

“But Hump-y Dump-y’s not real. Mommy said.”

Bugger. “Well, that’s true, but—”

“So where is she?”

Oh, brother. Mia glanced up at Grant, desperately hoping for a bone, here. Justine hadn’t been particularly religious that Mia knew of, and Grant’s spiritual bent was anybody’s guess. However, since no bone seemed to be forthcoming, Mia decided to go with thirty years of Catholic indoctrination and let the chips fall where they may. “She’s in heaven, sweetie. With the angels.”

“What’s heaven?”

Ah. Clearly she was introducing new material. “Someplace really, really nice where people go after they die.”

“It’s far away?”

“Yes. Very far.”

Her brow puckered, Haley fingered Mia’s loose hair. “C’n you get there in a taxi?”

“No.”

“How ’bout an airplane?”

“Nope.”

Almost expressionless, Haley looked at her for a long moment, then down at the lion. A second later, she held the lion out to Mia, who wagged one of the lion’s floppy paws and said softly, “Who’s this neat guy?”

“That’s Henry. Mommy gave him to me.”

“I know. I was with her when she bought him for you.”

“You were?”

“Uh-huh.”

After another moment’s thoughtful consideration, Haley leaned over and whispered, “I have to go to the bathroom,” and Mia whispered back, “Okay,” and the little girl bounced off, Henry safely tucked under one arm. Mia struggled to her feet; her hands stuffed in the front pocket of her hoodie, she frowned toward the bathroom door.

“You’ve already gotten ten times further than I could,” Grant said behind her, the words brittle as dry sticks. Mia turned her frown on him, thinking, And whose fault is that? From what Justine had said, the man hadn’t even tried to fight for joint custody. Not that Jus would have given it to him, but still.

But this was hardly the time to call him on any of it. She walked to the other side of the room, idly poking through the little girl’s collection of Dr. Seuss. “Weird, isn’t it?” Mia said, sliding Horton Hears a Who back into the bookcase. “To think there’s a time when we have no concept of what death means.”

“Do we ever?” he said softly.

She had nothing to say to that.

After several excruciatingly awkward moments, they heard a flush, then the water running. A minute later, Haley emerged from the bathroom, Henry still in tow. “Henry had to go pee-pee, too,” she said, climbing back up onto her bed. “He feels much better now.’ Cept he’s sad.”

“Oh?” Mia said, sitting beside her. “How come?”

“’Cause he misses his mommy.”

Mia braced herself, even as she forced a smile to her lips. “But he has you to take care of him, right? So maybe he’ll stop feeling so sad.”

Haley’s eyes swerved to Grant, then back to Mia. “But I’m not as good as her, she reads stories to him an’ buys him ice cream and toys and stuff to make him feel better after he gets his shots. Who’s gonna read to him if his mommy doesn’t come back?”

Was this normal, Mia wondered, that despite “Henry’s” being sad, Haley herself seemed more perplexed than unhappy? Mia reached out to smooth Henry’s flyaway mane. “Well, I suppose you could read to him,” she said, but Haley shook her head.

“I can’t tell what all the words are yet. Mostly I just look at the pictures.”

“Ah. But you know, I bet Henry would like looking at the pictures with you. Or maybe,” she added with another darted glance in Grant’s direction, “Henry’s daddy could read to him? Why not?” she added when Haley shook her head again, more vigorously this time.

“’Cause I don’t think he knows how, either.”

“You don’t think his daddy knows how to read?” Mia said, her words piercing Grant’s almost palpable stillness.

Haley hugged the toy harder. “I don’t think he knows how to read to Henry.”

“Well…maybe Henry could show him?”

A faint crease marring her brow, Haley seemed to think this over for a second before she shrugged and said softly, “Maybe.” Then she yawned and knuckled her eyes, a sleepy, overwhelmed little girl whose mother was dead and whose father, Mia uncharitably thought, had turned out to be a major disappointment.

“C’mon,” she said gently, tugging the covers out from under Haley’s itty-bitty butt. “Time for sleep.”

Without protest, Haley squirmed underneath the covers, hugging Henry. “Will you be here when I wake up?” she asked, and Mia’s heart broke.

“Oh, honey…I wish I could, but I’ve got work to do in the city tomorrow. But I’ll be back soon.”

Wide eyes searched hers. “You promise?”

Damn. But then, what were the odds of her being creamed by a semi or offed by a trigger-happy mugger or a flowerpot falling on her head within forty-eight hours of Justine’s death? So Mia sucked in a huge breath that was equal parts prayer and willpower and said, “I promise, baby,” she said, then bent over to wrap the little girl in her arms. “Big squeezies. No—biiiig squeezies!” she said again, and Haley strung her tiny arms around Mia’s neck and hugged her for all she was worth. Then they rubbed noses and Mia laid her down again and gave her about twenty kisses before finally tearing herself away.

As she stood, however, she mouthed, “Your turn,” at Grant. Who, after a moment’s panicked eye-lock, moved toward the bed…only to pivot back to Mia with a weird mixture of sorrow and relief on his face.

“She’s already asleep,” he whispered, and Mia thought, You wanna bet?

Grant trailed her down the stairs, thinking about God knew what, Mia thinking that as much as she hated—hated—leaving Haley, she could not wait to blow this joint. Preferably while her guard was still firmly in place. But when she zeroed in on the curvy-legged table in the foyer where Etta had parked her stuff, Grant said behind her, “Don’t go yet. Please.”

She owed this man nothing. Not her time, and certainly not her emotional energy. That particular “on” switch had been disabled a long, long time ago. So more fool she for whatever it was that derailed her, made her turn back. Provoked an actual flicker of sympathy at the vulnerability in those icy eyes.

“I really have to get back—”

“Ten minutes,” he said, and she sighed and dumped everything back on the table, then tromped back across the foyer, past the Jackson Pollock dominating the east wall, underneath the opera-house-size crystal chandelier suspended from the twenty-foot ceiling, over the Persian rug larger than her first apartment.

Money, money, money…

Grant stood aside to let her enter the office, gesturing for her to sit. Anywhere, apparently. At least a half dozen chairs begged for the privilege, mostly contemporary leather numbers in rich browns and tans, a tweedy club chair or two for variety. Funny, she would have expected lots of chrome and glass, assorted shades of black.

An open stainless steel casket, maybe, discretely placed in a far corner.

Mia briefly shut her eyes, picturing nuns the world over sighing in dismay. However, the only alternative to the grossly inappropriate flashes of black humor that overtook her whenever she was majorly stressed was grief-induced catatonia. And anyway, she could have sworn the casket comment had been in Justine’s voice, accompanied by a burst of laughter and a lifted glass of Chablis.

Shoving aside an image of Justine as Mia last remembered her—runway beautiful and pulsing with energy, her eyes sparkling with mischief as they tromped down Madison Avenue arm-in-arm on a spur-of-the-moment shopping spree—Mia flopped down in one of the leather chairs. Still, the image, and the truth, lurked at the edges of her consciousness, waiting to pounce.

Ten minutes, she thought, her jeans rough against her palms as she scraped them over her thighs. I can hang on for ten more minutes—

“Were you able to eat before you came up?” Grant asked quietly, his brows slightly dipped. Mia shook her head. “Would you like something, then? A sandwich, at least—”