My Kind of Christmas. Робин Карр

what happened is still being disputed—the driver at fault was killed. She lost control of her car, jumped the median on the freeway and hit two oncoming cars, the one I was in and another. There was a witness who said she was cut off by a speeding car that didn’t stop. It was raining and the roads were slick. Another witness said there was no speeding car and that it looked like her car suddenly hydroplaned, like she lost control because of a flat or broken axel or something. Someone suggested she might’ve fallen asleep, but it wasn’t like she’d just come off a twelve-hour shift or anything—she was on her way out to meet a date for dinner and hadn’t driven far. I don’t remember much. I remember lights, sirens, my girlfriend crying—she had a broken ankle, a couple of broken ribs and a really badly shattered wrist, plus lots of bad bruises and cuts. They had to pry both of us out of the car. She remembers that—the sawing and crunching of metal—but I don’t.”

      He was quiet for a moment, in something of a trance. “Man,” he finally said in a whisper. “One killed?”

      “Yes, and the third car was a family with little kids, but thankfully they didn’t have any critical injuries. The kids were in their safety seats and they were in a big SUV. I feel terrible about the lady driver, though. There were no drugs or any alcohol involved. I think, in the end, what we have here is an accident.”

      “And you were badly hurt,” he clarified.

      “All banged up. I was in L.A. at the time, a student at USC, and my parents live in Sacramento so they jumped in their car right away. My dad drove like a bat out of hell so they could be there when I got out of surgery. My mom stayed with me for two months, until I could be moved home to complete my checkups and therapy. The whole time I was in L.A. there was a steady stream of aunts and uncles and cousins visiting to see how I was doing even though some of them had to travel a ways. I come from a big family and I’m the oldest grandchild. My grandpa was there several times. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the experience of looking like absolute shit and feeling even worse and having thirty or so people stare at you....”

      “I’m pretty sure I haven’t,” he said.

      “It sucks. And when I was back in Sacramento, there was even more checking in. I was never alone, never. So—there you have it. Well, no, you don’t have it yet. The thing is, my mother is the toughest, strongest, least sentimental overachiever I know. She’s Uncle Jack’s oldest sister and she’s been pushing him around for over forty years. She’s a journalism professor at Berkeley. But having her oldest child hurt and in the hospital brought her to her knees. Kicked the stuffing out of her. She took a leave from the college and dedicated herself to my care, which was a wonderful thing to do, but I think she lost her mind a little bit. She’s always been domineering in her way…bossy, you might say. The accident really amped that up. She was determined to get me healed and back on track. But suddenly, she wanted to bring my sister Beth home from her senior year at NAU in Flagstaff—she couldn’t sleep at night thinking about her driving those mountain roads. And my littlest sister, Jenna, she wanted to keep in Sacramento at a state college even though she’d been attending UCLA.”

      “And what about you?” he asked.

      Angie couldn’t help but laugh. “She wants me to sleep in a helmet.”

      He laughed a little with her. “I bet you want to sleep in a helmet sometimes, too.”

      “Well, that’s where Mom and I have had a breakdown in communication. I want to not be afraid. I never want to be scared to live life because of one bad experience, as terrible as it was. It’s not like I could’ve done anything differently—I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. So—should I live the rest of my life in a padded room?”

      He shook his head. “No, but you shouldn’t follow strange men into bars, either. Even bars owned by your uncle. You should have yourself a nice young man who has a normal life and calls you for a date, then picks you up and takes you someplace special.”

      “Oh, I had one of those,” Angie said with a sigh. “I had him for months before the accident and he said he loved me. He wandered off sometime during physical therapy.... Haven’t heard from him since.”

      Patrick felt the color drain from his face. And he found himself thinking, I was one of those nice young men who did what his woman expected, and I was left…. He couldn’t believe people did that—abandoned their partner in a time of need. He’d never be so cruel as to run out on a person he’d once loved like that. Angie’s experience with her former boyfriend was very close to the hurt he felt over the woman who had left him behind. Leigh had said she loved him, too. Then suddenly she told him, unemotionally, that they weren’t right for each other. She had a career of her own and wanted a full partner, not some Navy flyboy. He hadn’t been with another woman since then.

      Yet what tore him up the most was the fact that when he’d called Leigh to tell her Jake was dead, she hadn’t come to him. She hadn’t comforted him beyond the telephone condolences of that one call. She hadn’t come to the memorial. She’d sent Marie a card—she might have even had a card sent by one of her assistants—but she hadn’t called her. That’s when he realized they must never have been good together in the first place. If the tables had been turned and she’d lost someone close, he would have been there for her even if they were no longer a couple.

      They’d spent so much time together, the four of them. Didn’t she grieve Jake? Sympathize with Marie? Worry about Patrick’s feelings? It had baffled and hurt him. He felt he had never known her at all.

      He looked at Angie and said, “So he just kind of wandered off?”

      “Yeah. At first he was too busy with school, then he said he just couldn’t watch my struggle, it was too difficult for him. This guy wants to be a doctor! And he couldn’t bear seeing me in pain? Pah! Then one of my friends said he was seeing someone else. I cried. For an hour. But something tells me I got off easy. I’m going to need a much tougher man in my life. I’ll hold out for that.”

      He grinned suddenly. His immediate thought was, And I’ll need a much stronger woman. Could it really be that simple? “You should.”

      “You don’t look at all scary when you smile,” she said in a rather soft voice.

      “You said I didn’t look scary before.”

      “Yeah, well, I didn’t want you to get all bigheaded. So, Patrick Riordan, what’s got you all messed up?”

      He slid back in his chair. “I thought we agreed not to talk about me?” He took a sip of coffee.

      “I certainly don’t intend to insist, but when you’re sharing, you know, there’s usually a little give and take....”

      “I’m a Navy pilot,” he said after a short pause. “I was on a mission and another pilot flying in the same sortie was killed. Shot down. Right beside me. We were flying cover for Marine rescue choppers near Kandahar, avoiding missiles, and then… The unexpected. A heat seeker came out of nowhere. He was my closest friend. I was his lead. He was my wingman.”

      “I’m so sorry. I can understand why you didn’t want to talk about that.”

      “Someone would’ve told you eventually. Jake went down and it’s time for me to get orders—a new assignment somewhere. I just feel like I need a little time to decide if I really want that life. I always thought I did. But lately I’ve been thinking that it might not fit with the other things I’d like to have—like a family, for instance. Jake left behind a wife and two-year-old son.”

      “But do you love flying?” she asked him.

      “I always have, but that…” His voice trailed off.

      “That’s one of the things I’m struggling with, too, Patrick. But I’ve realized that there are fewer NASCAR drivers killed than girls like me who were singing along with the radio one minute and dead the next. None of those people on commercial jets on 9/11 were taking chances. Besides, if you’re doing something you believe in and are expertly trained to do… But then, you might have to ask the woman in your life