The Heart of Christmas
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Tara Taylor Quinn
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Chapter 1
THE FIRST THING she noticed that morning was the Christmas decorations.
Walking the picturesque, sleepy block from the bagel place to her shop, Abby wondered how many little Oxnard elves it had taken to bring about the festive transformation since she’d left work the evening before. Someone in this small coastal town just north and a little west of Los Angeles had been way too busy. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. It wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet, and smiling plastic Santas were flapping in the breeze.
Perhaps they were fitting, those reminders of the upcoming holidays. They’d appeared like magic—but, then, people who believed in Santa Claus believed in magic, and usually in dreams, too.
Abby’s dream was about to come true.
It just wasn’t her dream anymore. It never had been hers. It had always been their dream. She and her sisters. All three of them. Together. From the moment of their conception they’d been together. Shared everything. The dream had been no different.
But the other two were gone now. One dead. And one so unreachable she almost felt dead to Abby. Two-thirds of the dream was dead. Two-thirds of Abby was dead.
She walked. She looked. She thought. She just didn’t feel.
She’d lost her faith.
So far removed was she from the world around her that she didn’t even hear anyone approach. Didn’t know she was in danger. Had no warning until suddenly the shoulder strap of her briefcase was pressing into her back, her bagels were rolling on the ground at her feet and a steely arm was around her neck, forcing her off the sidewalk and into the vacant alley used for deliveries by the surrounding businesses. Stumbling from the force of the body hurled against her, she tried to scream, but no sound came out. She tried again, panicked, clutching desperately at the arm choking the air from her throat.
Hot breath panted against the back of her neck as Abby dug her fingers into the arm, knowing instinctively that she wasn’t going to be able to save herself. The arm was too strong, the hold too determined. With a sense of horror, she felt her assailant’s other hand grope for her face. She was choking on terror and trying frantically to breathe. To keep her nose and mouth free. To stay conscious.
She was going to die.
“Hey!” a man called from the sidewalk.
And then, just as suddenly as she’d been accosted, she was free. Her assailant’s arm was wrenched away, bruising her throat with the force of its release. Stunned, Abby fell to the ground, gravel digging into her thigh through the dress slacks she wore. She was free. Miraculously, unbelievably, free. She tried to draw breath into her tortured lungs—and couldn’t.
She was vaguely aware of the short scuffle behind her, the grunts. But it was only when she heard two sets of footsteps running down the alley that she started to shake. And to breathe again. Harsh, gasping, painful breaths that burned her throat, her chest. Lying there, dazed, she dragged air in greedily.
Until footsteps returned.
Oh, God. No!
Scrambling desperately to her feet, Abby prayed she could make it out to the street in time. Surely once there she could attract attention, in spite of the early-morning hour. If only she could make it out to the street...
“Hey!”
That male voice came a second time, but it sounded different—more concerned than threatening. And slightly winded.
Abby faltered, her whole body shivering with fright, just as an arm reached for her again, a different arm, one that caught her around the waist—gently.
“Steady, there,” the man said. “Are you all right? Do you need a doctor?”
Abby shook her head, but which of his questions she was answering she didn’t know. She knew only that she was afraid to move. She wanted to be left alone, to hide, to run.
Her body continued to tremble. She stood frozen in the stranger’s grasp.
“It’s all right. You’re okay now. It’s over....”
His words penetrated slowly, although the deep, even timbre of his voice was soothing. Abby turned into him instinctively, burying her face in the warm, solid haven of his chest, listening to his heart beating a hurried tattoo. It was over. She was safe.
“It’s all right,” he said again, softly, smoothing an easy hand over her hair as he held her securely within his arms.
Her chest shuddered with sobs, shocking her, drawing her attention to the front of her savior’s crisp white shirt—wet with her tears. Abby never cried. She was the strong one.
Embarrassed, she pulled out of his hold.
“I’m sorry.” Tucking her straight blond hair self-consciously behind her ears, she took another step back from him, trying to calm herself. To wipe her eyes without making him more aware of her tears. “I don’t usually fall apart like that.”
“I don’t guess you get attacked on a regular basis, either.”
Abby looked up at him then, this stranger who’d saved her. His face was lined, not so much with age as with having lived. His dark hair, thick and a little long, as though he didn’t bother with it much, didn’t have even a hint of gray. But it was the depth of concern she saw in his gorgeous brown eyes that took her breath away again.
“No. No, I don’t,” she finally answered, still staring up at him. He was easily a good six inches taller than her own five and a half feet.
“I tried to catch him, but he had the advantage of knowing the neighborhood.”
“If you hadn’t come along...” Abby’s voice trailed off as she was suddenly beset by a fresh surge of panic. She’d have been badly hurt by now. Maybe even dead.
“But I did come along,” he said softly. “I was in the right place at the right time. It was obviously meant to be.”
The words were so strong. So sure. So full of baloney. Maybe once she’d believed in things she couldn’t see, things beyond human understanding. In “powers that be” looking out for them. Maybe once she’d secretly believed Audrey’s tales of Prince Charmings and happily ever afters, too. She knew better now.
“I suppose I should call the police,” she said.
Reaching into the inner pocket of his suit, the man pulled out a small cellular phone and unfolded it. “Use this,” he said, dialing 911 before he handed the little phone to her.
Abby was strangely glad of his presence beside her as she reported the attack. She listened to the unemotional female voice on the other end of the line, answering questions about her whereabouts and condition, declining an ambulance. She felt like some kind of freak.
“They’re sending someone,” she said, still holding his phone, as though there were someone else she needed to call.
He led her to a pretty white bench out by the street. “We can wait here.”
“You don’t have to stay.” She no longer needed a savior, wasn’t looking for a prince. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.
“Of course I do.” He sat down. “I can give a much better description of the guy.”
Abby sat down, too. He had a point. A valid point that had nothing to do with her not wanting to be there alone. He was staying because the police would need to talk to him, not because Abby was scared out of her wits.
“You’re sure?” she asked, looking over at him. “You don’t have someplace else to be?”
“I finished a breakfast meeting earlier than I expected and I have another appointment just down the street at eight.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a few minutes.”
There were those eyes again. So compassionate. So warm. And she’d been cold for so long....
“Thanks,” she said, finally handing back the telephone. She’d been thinking about getting a cellular phone herself—except that there was no one who needed her to be that accessible.
“I’m Nick McIntyre, by the way,” her rescuer said. He slid the phone back into his pocket.
“Why do I know that name?”
He shrugged. If he knew why, he wasn’t saying. And Abby was too rattled to figure out where she might have heard—
“Love’s Way!” She suddenly remembered. She had the book at home someplace. Maria had given it to her, said it was a national bestseller that had helped millions of people. Said it would help Abby. Something about how acts of love, support and compassion were more valuable than words or feelings.
The book had been written by a Nick McIntyre; was it the same man?
“You’ve read it?” he asked.
Abby shook her head. She could hardly tell him that when she’d found out the self-improvement book had been written by a psychiatrist, she’d been afraid to open it. Afraid she’d find out she was crazy after all.
“It’s not for everyone—too academic.” He grinned at her. “I like my second book much better. It brings the actions-versus-feelings theory down to an everyday workable level.”
“You’re that Nick McIntyre!”
“I hope that’s not a problem.”
He grinned at her again, and Abby blushed, realizing how taken aback she’d sounded. “Of course not.” Leave it to her to be rescued by a man with a medical degree who made his living teaching people how to love. “I’m Abby Hayden,” she said to cover her awkwardness.
He smiled, his warm brown eyes still gleaming with compassion. “Nice to meet you, Abby.” He actually tipped his head to her like the Prince Charming of Audrey’s dreams. “In spite of the circumstances.”
As her gaze met his, connected, a split-second spark of excitement shot through Abby. Shocking her. Not so much because he’d inspired it—the man was to die for—but because she’d felt it at all. Felt something good.
Or maybe she’d just imagined she had.
“In spite of the circumstances.” Abby couldn’t help wondering, as she sat there waiting with him, cloaked once again in numbness, what might have happened if she’d met him under other circumstances. Say, two years earlier, before everything had fallen apart. Before she’d begun to doubt herself. Before she’d discovered that her love for others was a curse to them, not a joy.
“SLIGHT BUILD, strong and wearing a Dodgers baseball cap?” The Oxnard policeman—“Officer James,” his tag read—recited from the small tablet he held.
“Yes,” Nick concurred.
“What about eye color? You didn’t see his face at all?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Nick muttered, feeling Abby’s discomfort beside him as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I got only that one glimpse when I hollered and he glanced around, but the alley was darker than the street where I was standing and his face was shaded by the cap.”
He wished he could tell the cop more.
“What about you, ma’am? Did you get a look at his face?”
Abby shook her head. “Just the work boots and the pant leg of his jeans,” she said, in complete control as she repeated what she’d already told the man. Other than those first few minutes after the attack, she hadn’t missed a beat—or shed another tear. “They were designer jeans,” she added.
Nick stared at her. Designer jeans?
“I’m a fashion designer,” she told the policeman, who nodded and wrote it down. Abby spelled the name of the jeans’ French maker.
A fashion designer. But even so, in the midst of an attack, she’d noticed the style of the guy’s jeans? She had to be the most levelheaded woman he’d ever met.
“Were you carrying a purse?” the policeman asked.
Abby shook her head a second time. “Just my briefcase.” She indicated the leather satchel that rested against her hip; its long strap crossed her body, leaving an enticing view of the breasts it rested between on the way down to her waist.
“Were you wearing it like that?” Officer James asked.
“Yes.” Abby clutched the strap. “That’s what I felt first,” she explained, “the strap pressing into my back as he slammed against me.”
“Chances are that’s what the guy was after,” Officer James said.
Nick tapped his knuckles on the white bench beside him. “You think the briefcase was the target, rather than Abby?”
“Yeah,” Officer James said, “I do.”
The expression of relief on Abby’s beautiful features was unmistakable, but was too quickly gone, replaced by the same vacant-faced fear she’d been wearing since her attack.
“He was strangling me,” Abby said, the words soft but in no way weak.
The policeman nodded thoughtfully. “He tried to get your bag, and when he realized you were wearing it over your head instead of just over one shoulder, he panicked.”
Abby didn’t seem completely convinced, but Nick agreed with the officer’s assessment. And he ought to know. He made his living understanding what motivated people, helping them to understand themselves and one another. Someone desperate enough to attempt a mugging in the first place would certainly panic when the plan backfired.
After a couple of other questions, they made a quick trip to the alley, where the only evidence of Abby’s attack was the strewn gravel and the scattered bagels—which they gathered up and threw in a nearby garbage can. Officer James closed his book. “I’ll have some men search the area,” he said, looking in the direction Abby’s attacker had fled. “But if, as I think, this was simply a botched mugging attempt, the guy’s long gone.”
The doubt on Abby’s face told another story, but she didn’t say anything more.
“I’m guessing the guy was young, based on his strength and speed and the fact that he panicked so completely,” the officer continued. “Probably just a kid.”
Just a kid. A kid who’d almost killed one of the most beautiful women Nick had ever met. Just a kid. A reminder that no matter how many hours he squeezed into a day there was still so much work to be done. So many messed-up lives that needed to be straightened out, so many despairing people looking for a little hope.
Abby looked like she could use an injection of hope herself as she shook hands with Officer James, promising to call if she thought of anything else. The minute he’d climbed into his patrol car, she began to brush at her sleek black slacks and matching vest, as though she could rid herself of the entire episode if only she brushed hard enough. Her business attire was none the worse for wear, other than a little gravel dust on one leg—which she quickly took care of.
“Thanks again. I owe you one,” she said when Nick didn’t leave. She was still fidgeting with her clothes.
A fashion designer, she’d said she was. She looked more like a model. And yet, there was something so no-nonsense about her. Something that attracted Nick almost as much as her shining blond hair and striking, unforgettable face. Her control intrigued him.
“Have dinner with me.” The words were out of his mouth before he’d even considered them. Considered the fact that he didn’t have time to pursue an attraction.
She hesitated, and Nick was afraid she was going to turn him down. Really afraid. Like her answer was important.
He tensed, uncomfortable. The internal voice of self-discipline that governed his life reminded him of the risk he’d be taking if he put too much stock in a dinner invitation, in the dinner itself...in the woman.
Of course, he couldn’t remember the last time a woman had refused to have dinner with him. His reaction was probably no more than latent male ego sneaking up on him.
Or perhaps it was the doctor in him, the counselor, wanting to take that empty look from her eyes.
“I understand your being leery, especially considering what just happened,” he said, more comfortable now that he understood his own motives. “I am, after all, a total stranger.”
Meeting his eyes for the first time since the policeman had left, she said, “It’s not that....” And then, “Yes, I’d like to have dinner with you. Thank you.”
“Would seven o’clock tomorrow be all right?” he asked, having run through his mental calendar, searching for a couple of free hours to spend on dinner with a beautiful woman. Tonight was out for sure. He had that session with the family out in Mission Viejo.
“Sure.” Abby lifted her briefcase over her head, then removed the strap from around her body. “Any night’s fine.”
Nick smiled. “Great.”
It sounded as if she was completely unattached. Which shouldn’t matter to him at all.
But it did.
ABBY KEPT her appointment later that morning with the clothing manufacturer she’d been courting for more than a year. Considering the start to her day, she could have called to reschedule, but saw no real reason not to go. It wasn’t as though she had anything better to do that would help her forget the horrifying attack. Or anyone to run to for comfort. And even if she’d had somebody who’d lend her a shoulder to cry on, she’d still have kept the appointment.
She wasn’t going to let fear, or the irrational notion that the attack had been anything more premeditated than a simple mugging, keep her from carrying on. That was what Abby did. She carried on. When they were growing up, she’d known with complete certainty that her sisters looked to her for their cues, their example. If Abby could cope, so could they.
Anna and Audrey had needed her—or so she’d thought—and she’d somehow taken over all the responsibility, all the decisions, for the three of them. She hadn’t been much more than seven that time she’d baked cookies for Audrey to take to school because their mother had forgotten to bring some home. If Abby remembered correctly, her mother hadn’t even brought herself home that night.
And then there’d been the time no one remembered to pick up valentines for the three of them to trade at the party at school—in spite of the fact that Abby had called both her parents to remind them. That was when Abby had first started drawing. She’d stayed up way past her bedtime, making valentines for Anna and Audrey to give away. She’d meant to make her own, too. She’d just fallen asleep before she got to them.
And there were the nights when one of her sisters was sick either physically or at heart and their mother was pulling another all-nighter at the office, or her parents were out of town. If Abby hadn’t stepped in to fill their shoes...who would have? Who’d have held Anna’s hair while she threw up, or dried Audrey’s tears as she swept from one true love to another? Who would have made sure Audrey did her homework assignments? Or helped her get ready for her first big date—the homecoming dance at school their freshman year? Who would have been there to quiet Anna’s fears when she’d been the first to get her period—and hated it and herself?
Certainly not the line of strangers her parents’ baby-sitting service sent over. Sure, until the girls were twelve or thirteen, there’d always been someone in the house with them when the Haydens weren’t, but never the same someone—at least not on a regular basis. Because the Haydens kept such strange hours, both freelance corporate attorneys, they had one of their secretaries call the service each day with a fresh work order. The girls never knew, when they got off the school bus each afternoon, which of the many women the service employed would be waiting for them—or if one or the other of their parents would be home, instead, holed up in his or her office. Only once in all those years had they had the same woman enough times in a row that she’d actually learned to tell the girls apart.
It meant that always the responsibility for her sisters’ lives had rested on Abby’s shoulders. Always she’d borne the weight of their needs. For as long as she could remember.
Abby’s stomach fluttered uneasily as she waited on a couch in the reception room of Doug Blair’s office. It was more than a year since Abby had first approached him with the designs for her line of durable but fashionable girls’ wear—a line that Abby, Anna and Audrey had been producing on a small scale ever since their senior year in college. Doug had finally said he was ready to make an offer.
Until now, sitting in the plush, sound-buffered office with fashion magazines on the table in front of her, she’d felt nothing in regard to Doug’s call. But now that the moment was upon her, she wanted Doug’s offer to be good. For herself, but for her sisters even more. It comforted Abby to think of them smiling, gloating with pride at their success. If only Audrey hadn’t died. If only Anna hadn’t run off to New York demanding that Abby not contact her, if she hadn’t been in the subway crash that had wrenched away all her memories.
Glancing at her watch, noting that Doug had kept her waiting more than fifteen minutes, she considered taking her portfolio and heading straight back into the Southern California sunshine. The flutters in her stomach had multiplied, until her entire midsection was churning with nerves.
She was afraid Doug Blair was going to try to take advantage of her. That his offer was going to be insulting. Had she encouraged her sisters to sacrifice, to work long, hard hours for nothing? Had she led them wrong here, too? Let them down one more time?
For a second there, she almost wished for a return of the void that had left her so emotionless these past months. Surely numbness, a sort of living death, was preferable to this torment.
“Ms. Hayden? Mr. Blair’s ready to see you now.”
Armed with her portfolio, and with the faith her sisters had so blindly placed in her, Abby entered Doug’s office, completely in control again. Her designs were good. Selling them would be a final goodbye to her triplet sisters, to the life they’d shared.
“WE WOULD ALSO expect you to design exclusively for us for a minimum of three years. We’d like you to continue with entire lines, as you do now,” Doug Blair was saying, his bushy eyebrows meeting above the bridge of his nose.
Exclusive rights. Entire lines. Abby sat silently in the modern-framed upholstered seat in front of his massive metal desk. She’d heard his words, but her brain couldn’t seem to function beyond the unsurpassable sum of money the manufacturer had just offered her.
He was leaving her no choice but to sell to him. To say that goodbye.
“I’m sure you’ll want to have your attorney go over this,” Doug said, handing her the official-looking paperwork.
Abby nodded. Yes. An attorney. That would buy her some time. Because she hadn’t realized, until just that moment, how badly a part of her didn’t want to sell the business at all. It was the only thing she had left of her life with Audrey and Anna—except a lonely beach cottage filled with remnants of the lives her identical sisters had left behind.
She flipped through the papers, more because she knew Doug expected her to do so than because she could make sense of any of them.
And then, turning back a page, she saw that astronomical sum again.
“How soon do you need an answer?” she asked.
“Yesterday.” Doug smiled for the first time that morning. “We’d like to begin production in time to get something on the racks by spring.”
“That soon?” She wasn’t ready to change her life so drastically. Not yet. Not so quickly. So irrevocably. “I have my shop, my staff. Inventory. Orders I’ve already committed to fill.”
“When you read those—” he nodded toward the pages she held “—you’ll see we’ve attended to all that.”
Abby continued riffling through the thick packet of paper. These things were supposed to take time. Lots of time. Doug had waited a whole year to even make an offer. She’d expected at least another year to adjust to the coming changes. Time for Anna to recover, to remember who she was, remember Abby, remember that they had a shop to sell...
“Your shop is to be closed by January 1, which gives you through the holidays to sell whatever inventory you have in stock. The two women who currently work for you are being offered the opportunity to interview with us. We can always use seamstresses of their caliber. Any additional orders you receive will be filled by us.”
Abby nodded, sliding back into the familiar void she’d been occupying for most of the past year. She’d be a fool to turn down Doug Blair’s offer. All the details had been dealt with. She’d be set for life.
But what life? She wouldn’t even have a business to run. The more than forty hours she spent in the shop each week—arranging, ordering, accounting, selling, working with the customers who’d become almost friends to her—would, instead, be endless hours mocking her with their emptiness.
“I think you’ll also find the deadlines for the designs for your fall line, and all future lines, to be quite manageable,” Doug said, sitting back in his leather office chair, hands folded over his rock-hard belly. “If not, they’re negotiable.”
She’d still have the designs to do. But that wasn’t a job. Or even a full-time endeavor. She drew in the evenings. To relax. Because drawing was the one thing she did for herself.
Doug Blair waited, the picture of a patient man, although they both knew he was anything but. He was too trendy for her taste, in his pristine, pleated pants, colorful tie and suspenders to match. And too sure of himself.
But he was fair. The best in the business. And with the money he was offering, plus the guaranteed purchase of future designs, he was giving her the chance of a lifetime. A lifetime that had come frighteningly close to ending just that morning.
“Can I have until tomorrow?”
