Holiday Wishes Read Free

daughter.”
    That was the biggest fear, the biggest hope, the dream she’d put to rest years ago. She bent casually to pick up the veil. “Clara?”
    “Just outside. She was about to mow down some boy named Jimmy.”
    “Yes, that’s Clara.” The smile came quickly and just as stunningly as it had on the child. “She’s a vicious competitor,” she added, and wanted to say like her father , but didn’t dare.
    There was so much to say, so much that couldn’t be said. If he had had one wish at that moment it would have been to reach out and touch her. Just to touch her once and remember the way it had been.
    “I see you have your lace curtains.”
    Regret washed over her. She’d have settled for bare windows, blank walls. “Yes, I have my lace curtains and you have your adventures.”
    “And this place.” He turned to look around again. “When did all this start?”
    She could deal with it, she promised herself, this hatefully casual small talk. “I opened it nearly eight years ago now.”
    He picked a rag doll from a bassinet. “So you sell dolls. A hobby?”
    Something else came into her eyes now. Strength. “No, it’s my business. I sell them, repair them, even make them.”
    “Business?” He set the doll down and the smile he gave her had nothing to do with humor. “It’s hard for me to picture Tom approving of his wife setting up a business.”
    “Is it?” It hurt, but she set the china doll on a counter and began to arrange the veil on its head. “You always were perceptive, Jason, but you’ve been away a long time.” She looked over her shoulder and her eyes weren’t nervous or even strong. They were simply cold. “A very long time. Tom and I were divorced eight years ago. The last time I heard, he was living in Los Angeles. You see, he didn’t care for small towns either. Or small-town girls.”
    He couldn’t name the things that stirred in him so he pushed them aside. Bitterness was simpler. “Apparently you picked badly, Faith.”
    She laughed again but the veil crumpled in her hand. “Apparently I did.”
    “You didn’t wait.” It was out before he could stop it. He hated himself for it, and her.
    “You were gone.” She turned back slowly and folded her hands.
    “I told you I’d come back. I told you I’d send for you as soon as I could.”
    “You never called, or wrote. For three months I—”
    “Three months?” Furious, he grabbed her arms. “After everything we’d talked about, everything we’d hoped for, three months was all you could give me?”
    She would have given him a lifetime, but there hadn’t been a choice. Struggling to keep her voice calm, she looked into his eyes. They were the same—intense, impatient. “I didn’t know where you were. You wouldn’t even give me that.” She pulled away from him because the need was as great as it had always been. “I was eighteen and you were gone.”
    “And Tom was here.”
    She set her jaw. “And Tom was here. It’s been ten years, Jason. You never once wrote. Why now?”
    “I’ve asked myself the same thing,” he murmured, and left her standing alone.
    * * *
    Her dreams had always been too fanciful. As a child, Faith had envisioned white chargers and glass slippers. Reality was something to be faced daily in a family where money was scarce and pride was not, but dreams weren’t just for nighttime.
    She’d fallen in love with Jason when she’d been eight and he ten and he’d bravely vanquished three boys who’d tossed her into the snow. It had taken three of them. Faith could still look back on that with a sense of satisfaction. But it had been Jason fiercely coming to her rescue and sending her opponents scattering that she remembered best. He’d been thin, and his coat had been too large and mended at the elbows. She remembered his eyes, deep, deep brown under brows drawn close in annoyance as he’d looked down at her. Snow had coated his pale blond hair and reddened his face. She’d looked into