Christmas in Hawthorn Bay. Kathleen O'Brien

tonight.

      Tonight he had planted the crop that would, he prayed, secure his future. Billings and Pringle were arriving in the morning. They would take his gold for the Cause, and in return they’d give him piles and piles of Confederate paper.

      Joe was a Southerner by birth, and his father before him. But Joe had married a Philadelphia woman, and he’d visited there many times. He knew facts, hard realities about the differences between the two places. He knew things that these naive Hawthorn Bay zealots—men who thought the South Carolina state line was the edge of the civilized world—couldn’t even imagine.

      He knew that, unless God intervened with a miracle, Confederate paper would be worthless within the year.

      And he knew that Julia, with her divided loyalties and her love of all things graceful and easy, would despise him for a fool. She had already hinted that, if foodstuff were to be rationed any further, she might have to make her way home to Daddy.

      Joe wasn’t afraid to live without coffee and sugar and meat. He wasn’t even afraid to die, although that didn’t seem likely, since, bowing to Julia’s charming entreaties, Dr. Hartnett had certified him unfit for fighting.

      But Joe couldn’t live without Julia.

      And so he had buried the gold. Dozens of heavy bars, hundreds of elegant coins, all gleaming dully under the cloudy moonlight, their fire winking out as he shoveled the black dirt over them, spade by spade. When Billings and Pringle came tomorrow, Joe would toss them a few bars, like scraps to the hogs. They’d be surprised, maybe even suspicious, but what could they do?

      Julia would know, of course. She was as clever as she was lovely. She would give Joe one long look, and then she’d bewitch Billings and Pringle until they forgot to be suspicious.

      When he was through, Joe made his way to the bedroom quickly. He’d begun to shake from the cold and the exhaustion of his limbs. As he climbed into bed, a shaft of moonlight fell on Julia’s ivory face, and he told himself it would be all right.

      But, in spite of the perfumed sheets, in spite of Julia’s warmth beside him, the sleep that finally came to him was thick with dreams.

      He dreamed of dead men bursting from black-sod graves. They rose and, like an army, marched slowly toward Sweet Tides to avenge their terrible deaths.

      They had no skin, no flesh to soften their skulls, no eyeballs to gentle their pitiless stares. But their bones shone in the moonlight.

      Bones made entirely of gold.

      WHEN JACK SAW THE BUSTLE in the town square, with the Santa in the band shell and the Christmas tree in the center, he wasn’t a bit surprised.

      Like most little towns, Hawthorn Bay loved a good festival. Without the museums and theaters and operas and bars of a big city, the good people of the community had to break their boredom other ways. So they held parades and picnics and rodeos, carnivals and cook-offs and white elephant jumbles. Any excuse to string the town square with fairy lights would do.

      Jack had actually liked the festivals, back in high school. As the reigning community leaders, “Boss” Carson and his society wife, Angela, had always been in the thick of things, busy with committees and volunteers, organizing the dances and pouring the lemonade. Which had given Jack the perfect chance to sneak away with Nora.

      Back then, he’d always been burning up with the need to touch her. With a girl like Nora, you had to go slow, but over the six months of their romance he had been claiming her, inch by tormenting inch. He’d already owned her soft, sunshine-golden hair, her lips, her cheeks, her ears, her eyelids. He had left his mark on her neck, her collarbone, the inside of her elbow, her swelling, rose-tipped breasts.

      He’d win her all someday, he’d been sure of that. The fire lay so deep inside her that it didn’t often show on the outside, but he knew it was there. He could taste it in the heat of her lips. He could hear it in the trapped-butterfly beat of her heart.

      And then, one day, in a black Killian temper, he’d put the fire out for good.

      But that was ancient history. He gave himself an internal shake and put the memories back in cold storage.

      It had been late afternoon when he’d left Sean at Sweet Tides, and by the time he got to City Hall, though it was only about four thirty, the offices were closed. At The Christmas Jubilee, the sign on the door read.

      He left his car by the municipal complex and walked back to the town square. It was growing colder, and the trees were already casting long shadows on the sidewalk. The sun would probably go down in about an hour or so—he could tell by the light on the river behind City Hall, which was morphing from dark blue to dirty pink.

      The sky was a little busier, too, as the birds made their last-minute flights back to their nests.

      Funny how quickly he could fall back into the rhythms of coastal life. He might have been gone for only twelve days, instead of twelve years.

      He stood at the edge of the square for several minutes, just absorbing the scene. They’d gone all out for this particular festival. Main Street was lined with life-size, blow-up snowmen, which would have been right at home in the Macy’s parade. Every tree, large and small, twinkled with colored lights. At the south edge of the square, an ornate merry-go-round in which every horse was a reindeer twirled to the tinkling sounds of “Jingle Bells.”

      But most of the activity was concentrated at the north end, up by the band shell. That was where Santa was holding court, enthroned in red velvet under the bright lights that usually illuminated the Hawthorn Barbershop Quartet. A long line of children wound down the band shell stairs and out into the square, waiting to sit on Santa’s lap.

      Boss Carson used to do the Santa bit, but Jack knew that Nora’s dad had died quite a few years ago. He wondered who had taken over. He moved up a few yards, to the edge of the bank of folding chairs, to get a better look.

      Well, how about that? It was Farley Hastert. Talk about casting against type. Farley had been the tallest, skinniest boy in Blackberry High. A couple of years older than Jack, he’d been a basketball jock and a straight-A student, on top of having a very nice, very rich father. Naturally, Farley was never without a gorgeous girl on his skinny arm.

      Jack had been so jealous of Farley Hastert, he hadn’t been able to see straight. Once, Nora had let Farley give her a ride home from school, and Jack had gone caveman, getting up close into Farley’s long, hound-dog face and ordering him to stay away from his girl, or something equally Neanderthal.

      Nora had broken up with Jack on the spot, and the week before she forgave him had been pure hell.

      True to form, Farley still had a gorgeous girl with him. Santa had a sexy elf helper this year, dressed in a tight-fitting, very short red satin mini-dress trimmed in white fur. Red tights set off fantastic legs, and a perky red cap perched on top of bouncing blond curls.

      Jack stood up straighter.

      That was no elf. That was Nora.

      “Well, knock me down with a feather! If it isn’t Black Jack Killian himself, all dressed up like a banker!”

      Jack turned. It took him a minute to place the face, which looked like the much-older version of someone he once knew. The red hair was a clue, and finally he made the connection.

      “Amy!” He gave her a hug, hoping his face didn’t register surprise. Amy Grantham was actually two years younger than he was—maybe twenty-nine or so? But she looked forty-five and exhausted. “I didn’t know you were back in Hawthorn Bay.”

      “It sucked me back,” she said with a dry smile. “I married Eddie Folger, he’s got a charter boat business. We…we don’t have any kids yet, but we’re still trying. We do all right.”

      “I’m glad,” he said, but it hurt to see her so drawn and discouraged. He had hoped her life had improved.

      They’d met at an Al-Anon meeting his first year of high school. Amy’s father had been