Just For Christmas. Stella Bagwell

don’t expect smiling comes easy for the boy,” Drake said. Looking at Stevie was like seeing himself thirty years ago, and it was more than a little unsettling. He hadn’t expected to feel much toward the child. After all, he could count on one hand the times he’d seen him since he was born. Stevie was Denise’s offspring. Not his own. And yet it troubled him to think the boy was being raised in the same isolated way he had.

      “Do you think he’s been ill?” Hope asked.

      Drake’s brow puckered into a frown. “I don’t know. Why? Do you think he’s sick?”

      Hope shook her head as she placed a saucepan on the gas range. “No. But I wonder if he has been ill in the past. He’s so pale and thin. He looks as though he rarely eats.”

      Drake grimaced. “I doubt anyone is ever around to see that the child eats properly.”

      “Aren’t there people at the boarding school to see to things like that?” Hope asked. “I mean, children have other needs besides academics.”

      He walked across the room and leaned against the cabinet counter a few small steps away from her. “Now you can see what it does to children when adults can’t be parents. Denise is a poor excuse for a parent. And I’m her brother. Hell, I must have been crazy to ever think I could be different from her—from our own parents. Maybe that’s why—”

      She glanced at him sharply. His face was tight, his eyes dark with shadows. “Why what?” she prompted.

      Jamming his fists into his trouser pockets, he looked away from her. “Maybe that’s why…you had the miscarriage. Fate was trying to tell me I wasn’t emotionally set up for the job.”

      So Abby had been right on one score, Hope thought. Having Stevie in the house was reminding Drake of their lost child. But there would always be reminders. She couldn’t shield him from them any more than she could protect herself from all those painful memories.

      Pulling a jug of milk from the refrigerator, she poured a hefty amount into the saucepan. “That’s what you want to think.” She spoke quietly as she worked. “It makes it easier for you to justify your decision not to try for another child.”

      Drake didn’t want to argue with her. Far from it. This was the first time in weeks he could remember them being together like this, and it brought back all the things about their marriage that he’d held dear. She had always gone out of her way to do little things for him. Like cooking his favorite meals, wearing a dress he especially liked on her, playing the music he enjoyed and making sure the remote to the TV was where it should be. And the hell of it was, he’d never taken her devotion to him for granted. In his own way, he’d tried to do equally for her.

      But once Drake had refused to try to have another baby, everything good and special between them had dwindled. Until finally they had become two people married in name only.

      His gaze was faintly accusing when he turned it to her. “You’ve always wanted to ignore my family and pretend that part of my life doesn’t matter.”

      Hope had heard this argument from him before, but for some reason this morning, it grated on her more than ever. “What is that supposed to mean? I’ve never ignored your family. Remember I’m the one who offered to help your sister out by keeping Stevie.”

      “I’m not talking about that sort of ignoring. I’m talking about the fact that Denise and I aren’t cut out to be parents. We never had any ourselves! But you want to think I can just skip over all that and become father of the year without any sort of background training.”

      A weary sigh slipped past her lips. “You’re hardly an ignorant man, Drake. No one is born knowing how to be a parent. Everyone has to learn.”

      Groaning, he lifted his face toward the ceiling. “That’s true. But you have to have someone to learn from. And I’ve decided it’s just not in me, Hope. A person has to be special inside to be a parent. It’s pretty obvious that Denise sure as hell doesn’t have what it takes. And I’m not about to risk a child’s happiness by trying to find out whether I do!”

      That he would choose this morning to cut into her, when she needed him more than ever, caused something inside Hope to snap.

      With slow deliberation, she turned away from the heating milk to face him. “All right, Drake,” she said, careful to keep her voice low. “You win. You’re not ever going to be a father. You don’t want to try to have a child with me. I read you loud and clear and I accept your decision. So you don’t have to keep pointing that out. While you’re here this month, I won’t bring up the subject to you anymore. And I hope you’ll have the decency to do the same.”

      The fierce resolution in her voice stunned Drake. Since he’d moved out of the house, he’d almost resigned himself to the fact that he was losing her. But to hear her speak the words sent a chill right through to his bones.

      “And what about after this month is over and Stevie is gone?” he asked stiffly.

      Hope couldn’t let him know there were tears clawing at the back of her eyes. She was through letting him see just how much pain he was causing. She was finished with the arguing and cajoling.

      “I’m going to move on with my life, Drake. With or without you.”