Taste of Honey Read Free Page A

voice trailed off, and he looked down at his Air Jordans that were two sizes bigger than last year’s. He was small for his age, but his feet seemed to have a life of their own.
    “I know,” she said gently.
    “It’s nothing against you, Mom.”
    “I know.”
    “It’d be different if Dad were here.”
    “You miss him, don’t you?”
    He gave her a sheepish look. “Sort of … but only a little.” His brand of loyalty, she knew. He must think he was sparing her in some way.
    “Look at it this way,” she said. “Think of all the fun stuff he’s missing out on.”
    A dark and decidedly unchildlike look flitted over her eleven-year-old son’s face. “Yeah, like what?”
    “Christmas with you guys, for one thing, and—”
    “Snow?” A corner of Justin’s mouth hooked up in a wise-guy smile.
    “Okay, but a time-share in Tahoe isn’t exactly what the guy who wrote ‘Jingle Bells’ had in mind,” she said dryly.
    Her son fell silent, his unspoken words hanging in the air: He could have invited us anyway. Not that Justin would have preferred spending Christmas with Mike and Cindy, just that it would’ve been nice to have been asked. Gerry knew exactly how he felt. Hadn’t she spent the better part of fifteen years waiting for Mike to do right by her?
    “Mom, watch it.”
    Gerry’s eyes dropped to the candle precariously atilt in one hand, molten wax a hairbreadth away from dribbling onto her knuckles. She tipped it so that the wax drizzled onto the sidewalk instead. “We’ll have a wonderful Christmas, just the four of us—you, me, Andie, and Grandma,” she said in what she hoped wasn’t too hearty a tone. “You’ll see.”
    The procession inched forward. Justin took a shuffling step, only the toes of his sneakers protruding from the jeans puddled about his feet—gravity-defying jeans that rode so low on his hips the back pockets were roughly in line with his knees. “Is Grandma spending the night?” he asked.
    “If it’s okay with you.” Her mother lived only a few miles away, out by Horse Creek, in the ramshackle Victorian Gerry had grown up in, but her eyesight had gotten so bad she no longer drove, and it would save Gerry from having to pick her up in the morning. The only thing was that Mavis would have to bunk in with Justin since his was the only room with two beds.
    “Sure.” He shrugged, though she knew he was secretly pleased. “Except Buster won’t like it.”
    “It won’t kill him to sleep on the floor for one night.” Their elderly Lab was far too spoiled as it was.
    “You should’ve let her come,” he said with mild reproach.
    Now it was Gerry’s turn to sigh. Mavis was still recovering from a bout of pneumonia that had left her with hardly a scrap of meat on her bones—though naturally she claimed to be fine, insisting she had the constitution of an ox. If she’d still had her car, she’d have driven here on her own. “It’s too cold,” she said. “We wouldn’t want her to get sick again.”
    “She hates being left out even more.”
    From the mouths of babes. Maybe she was being overly protective. But somebody had to play the bad guy. She only wished it didn’t always have to be her. Mavis was peeved. Half the time Andie didn’t speak to her. And Justin … well, he’d only be a little boy for so long.
    They were nearly at the crosswalk. On their right lay Muir Park, with its adobe walls over which a dark crown of treetops rose. Directly across the street a spotlight showcased the two-hundred-year-old mission with its fluted bell tower and rows of campanario bells ringing in the Yuletide. On the sloping lawn out front the procession had slowed before the life-size crèche. One woman was snapping pictures. Gerry recognized former classmate Gayle Warrington, no doubt gathering material for another of the brochures she was always putting together in her tireless effort to boost winter tourism in Carson Springs. Gayle, who’d been school spirit commissioner