Coming Home For Christmas. RaeAnne Thayne

stand on her own.

      “I have to. Please don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

      “Will you be back for Christmas?” Skye asked, worry knitting lines across the girl’s forehead.

      Her heart ached but she managed to muster a smile for the girl. “I should only be gone a few days. Maybe a week.”

      “You promised you would help me put out carrots for the reindeer on Christmas Eve.”

      “I won’t forget, sweetheart.”

      She had done her best to steel her emotions against Skye, to protect herself from the hurt of seeing this girl growing up happy and strong under her mother’s loving care.

      Her own daughter was only a few years older than Skye. For the past seven years, Cassie and her brother had been without their mother. Elizabeth knew she couldn’t make it right, all the hurt she had caused by her disastrous decisions, but she could at least give Luke and their children a little closure.

      “I’ll be back before you know it,” she told them all.

      “Are you very sure?” Rosa asked one last time.

      When she nodded, her friend sighed but took the handle of the suitcase and headed for the stairs to the ground floor.

      When they all reached the entryway, Elizabeth felt tongue-tied with all she wanted to say. She didn’t have time for any explanations. Luke would be waiting.

      She hugged her friends and saved her biggest hug for Skye. “You watch over my garden for me, will you?”

      “You bet,” Skye said. “And Fiona will help.”

      “I know. She’s a great dog.”

      She petted the dog’s head, filled with intense longing for slow summer evenings when she could sit on a bench in the garden with Fiona curled up at her feet while the ocean murmured its endless song.

      Finally, she couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to face her husband.

      She straightened, gripped the handle of her suitcase and walked out to the wide wraparound porch.

      He was waiting for her. No surprise there. Her husband was a man of his word. When Luke said he would be somewhere in an hour, he meant an hour.

      She thought she saw that flare of awareness in his eyes again, but he quickly blinked it away before she could be sure. His mouth tightened. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to come in and drag you out.”

      She didn’t bother with a response. For all his hard talk, she knew he wouldn’t go that far. Or, she corrected, at least the man she had left seven years ago would never behave like a caveman. She wasn’t entirely sure about this version of Luke Hamilton, with the unsmiling mouth and the hard light in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, even during the worst days of their marriage.

      “I’m ready,” she said.

      “Let’s go, then. We’ve got a long drive.”

      Without waiting for her to respond, he grabbed her suitcase and marched toward his vehicle through the lightly falling snow. He threw it into the back of the pickup, which at least had a covered bed to keep out the elements.

      Her bones ached as she walked down the steps and limped toward the pickup truck. She did her best to ignore the pain, as she usually did. The low pressure system from storms always seemed to make the pain worse. She had already taken the maximum dosage of over-the-counter pain medicine but it wasn’t quite taking the edge off. She didn’t trust herself with anything stronger.

      At the door of the vehicle, she hovered uncertainly, struck with the humiliating realization that she was stuck. She couldn’t step up into the vehicle. It simply was too high. She couldn’t move her bad leg that far and didn’t have the upper body strength to pull herself up.

      “We’ve got to move,” he growled. “Storm’s going to get stronger.”

      How could she possibly tell him she needed help? She closed her eyes, shame as cold as the wind blowing off the water.

      She could do this. Somehow. Over the last years, she had discovered stores of strength she never would have guessed she had inside her. She gripped the metal bar beside the door—the sissy handle, her dad used to call it—and tried to step up at the same time, but her foot slipped off the running board.

      Luke made a sound from the other side of the truck but came around quickly.

      “You should have said something,” he said gruffly.

      Like what? Sorry, but I have the muscle tone of a baby bird?

      Without a word, he put his hands at her waist and lifted her into the pickup as if she weighed nothing, less than a feather from that baby bird.

      It was the first time he’d touched her in seven years. The first time any man had touched her, except medical professionals.

      The contact, fleeting and awkward, still was enough to fill her with an intense ache.

      She had craved his touch once, had lived for those moments they could be together. She had loved everything about his big, rangy body, from the curve of his shoulders to the hardness of his chest to the line of dark hair that dipped to points lower.

      The memories seemed to roll across her mind, faster and faster. His mouth on hers, his hands in her hair, falling asleep with his warm skin against her.

      Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how very much she missed a man’s touch. Not just any man. This man.

      She gave a shaky breath as he closed the vehicle door. Then she settled into her seat and pulled her seat belt across with hands that trembled.

      She couldn’t do this. Eight hours alone in a vehicle with Luke Hamilton. How could she survive it?

      He climbed in and fastened his seat belt, then pulled away from Brambleberry House. As she watched her refuge disappear in the rearview window, she told herself it was only a drive. She could endure it.

      She had lived through much worse over the past seven years.

      Luke drove at a steady pace through the falling snow, heading east on the winding road toward Portland. On summer Sunday evenings, Elizabeth knew, this road would be packed with tired, sunburned beachgoers heading back to Portland for the week ahead. Now, on a Sunday evening in December, they encountered very little traffic going in either direction.

      He said nothing, the silence in the vehicle oppressive and heavy. With each mile marker they passed, she felt as if the weight of the past pressed down harder.

      “How did Elliot find me?” she finally had to ask again.

      He sent her a sideways look before jerking his gaze back to the road. “You will have to ask him. I don’t know all the details.”

      “I’m still having a hard time believing he and...Megan are together. Last I knew, she was still grieving Wyatt Bailey. Now...you tell me she’s marrying his brother.”

      “She grieved for Wyatt for a long time. But I guess people tend to move on eventually.”

      He said the words in an even tone but guilt still burned through her. She had earned his fury through her choices.

      “What is Megan up to? Is she...still running the inn?”

      He didn’t answer her for a full moment, focused on driving through a tight series of curves. Finally, he glanced over. “Don’t expect that we’re going to chat the entire drive to Haven Point.” His jaw was firm, his hands tight on the steering wheel. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want anything to do with you. In fact, I’m going to pretend you’re not here, which isn’t that hard since you haven’t been for seven years.”

      She