A Nantucket Christmas Read Free Page B

Nicole,” James reminded her.
    Kennedy whimpered. “I want my parents to be together.”
    James exhaled, losing patience. “That’s not going to happen. We’ve been over this before.”
    Fine
. Then Kennedy wanted to be with her mother. But Katya was much too busy playing tennis with her
lover,
Alonzo, and furnishing her new Boston condo. The fact that her mother didn’t want Kennedy around made Kennedy hate her father’s new wife even more. She knew, somehow, this wasn’t logical, but who ever said emotions were logical, especially during pregnancy?
    Kennedy glanced over at her husband, seeing his strong profile as the streetlights flashed past. She could tell by the way his jaw was clenched that he was exasperated with her. She couldn’t blame him. She might be a pain in his neck, but
she
had pain everywhere! He wanted this second child as much as she did, but she had to do all the heavy lifting. Literally.
    James didn’t understand the stress of parenting. Choosing the right preschool; keeping her child away from the evils of sugar, fat, and pesticide-spiked protein. Trying to keep the world safe by not buying plastic, while at the same time trying to give her child fun toys to play with. Keeping her four-year-old away from the damages television could inflict on an innocent mind, protecting her son from the sight of monsters, swords, and cannons … The list was endless. It was all up to her, because James was so busy supporting the family.
    And now it was the Christmas season! Maddox was begging for a puppy, but Kennedy was going to have a baby. How could she cope with puppy poop as well as a new baby?
    Sometimes she just wanted to cry and cry.
    “Buck up, Kennedy.” James clicked the remote that opened their garage door and guided his BMW into its berth. “We’re home. You can go to bed.”
    Right. There was another issue: bed. Bed with James. They hadn’t made love in forever. Why
wouldn’t
James want to have an affair with one of those sleek young secretaries in those tight-fitting dresses?
    Kennedy burst into tears.

4
NICOLE’S TO-DO LIST
    Make ten dozen cookies for Stroll.
    Make Buche du Noel and freeze.
    Make beef Wellington and freeze.
    Lose ten pounds.
    Make gingerbread house; use sugarless candy for decorations.
    Find sugarless candy.
    Christmas tree.
    Laurel around stair banister?
    Find freezable breakfast casserole recipes.
    Start buttock-tightening exercises.
    Early on the morning of the Nantucket Christmas Stroll, glittering crystal sunlight streamed through the mist onto the shops, streets, houses, and harbor, a mirror-like light it seemed you could almost touch with your fingertips.
    But then the temperature plummeted and white clouds pillowed the sky, shaking out feather-like snowflakes.
    Standing in her Nantucket kitchen, Nicole snapped the Saran Wrap off the roll with such force the sheet flew up in her face.
    Live in the now
, she admonished herself.
Cherish the day.
    Smell the damned roses.
    She unpeeled the plastic from her nose and carefully covered the last platter of cookies for the library bake sale at the Stroll. She poured herself another cup of coffee, sank into a kitchen chair, and forced herself to appreciate her surroundings.
    Honey-warm wide-board floors laid in 1840, a fireplace with a simple Greek Revival mantel, and an antique pine table mingled perfectly with state-of-the-art appliances and slate countertops. It was Nicole’s good fortune that Katya chose to keep the Boston house in the divorce and Sebastian decided to live here permanently. The house was a masterpiece—especially, Nicole mused with a satisfied grin, the brand-new bed she’d insisted on having installed in the master bedroom.
    Nicole had made other changes in the décor. Though small and inexpensive, they had transformed the house from a museum-like sterility into a welcoming home. She placed plump cushions in jaunty patchwork designs on the chairs around the kitchen table, filled colorful pottery