The Heart of Christmas. Brenda Novak

her father snapped, obviously appalled. Then Eve had to laugh and, once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop. She recognized how her parents felt about her confession, because she felt the same about what her mother had just revealed. She didn’t want to view either one of them as sexual in any way, not even with each other.

      “I’m sorry,” she said as she wiped away the tears streaming down her face. “I don’t mean to laugh, and I don’t want you to think I’m not taking what I did seriously, but—”

      Her mother got up to hug her again. “I’m glad you can laugh. Let it go, honey. We know it hasn’t been easy watching all your friends get married. We were as disappointed as you were last year when things didn’t work out between you and Ted. He’s a good man. But there’ll be someone else, someone very special.”

      She caught hold of her mother’s arm before Adele could release her. “What do you think about me...going somewhere else and...trying something new?”

      “You mean leave Whiskey Creek?” her dad asked.

      “I love it here, but...I’m not sure it’s the only life I want to know.”

      This seemed to sadden them more than the news of how she’d spent last night. Her brothers had gone to Texas A&M on football scholarships, then joined the air force and never returned to California. Her parents often lamented how little they saw of Darren and Dusty.

      “We would certainly miss you,” her father said. “But we don’t want to hold you here if it’s not where you want to be. We don’t want Little Mary’s to hold you here, either.”

      She glanced around. She loved the B and B almost as much as she loved them. But there had to be some way to vanquish the dissatisfaction that had crept into her life and seemed to be growing stronger by the day. She didn’t want to wake up one morning when she was sixty-five and wonder why she’d never made a change.

      “You’re not saying... Should we put the inn on the market?” her mother asked.

      “No, no. Nothing that drastic,” she said. “I’m just thinking of hiring someone to run it for a year so I can try something else before I settle down, you know?”

      Her parents wore somber expressions as they nodded. “We understand. And we want whatever will make you happy,” her father said.

      Eve couldn’t imagine she’d be happy leaving Whiskey Creek. Besides her parents, she had so many good friends here—and she’d be the godmother to Chey’s baby, which would bring a great deal of joy into her life. But would that be enough? Suddenly, it felt as if she was living off the crumbs of other people’s lives and trying to tell herself that she would be content with that indefinitely. “We can talk more about it after the holidays.”

      Her mother managed a smile. “So there’s no hurry?”

      “None whatsoever.” Eve held up the watch. “Thanks for this. I’ve never seen anything quite so lovely.”

      “You’re ten times as lovely,” her mother said.

      She made a face. “Oh, yeah? Be prepared for the rumors that are swirling around town.”

      “No one can change our opinion of you,” her father insisted.

      Cheyenne walked into the parlor almost as soon as Eve’s parents left. The Christmas music playing in the dining room grew louder when the door opened, causing Eve to look up. She was sitting on the antique Eastlake chair she’d purchased from an estate sale in Sacramento last year. She’d been gazing down at her new watch, thinking about how lucky she was to have such wonderful parents and wondering if she’d be doing the right thing by leaving them. She had a responsibility to herself but, since her brothers seemed to feel no obligation to their aging parents, she had to make sure they were happy and well cared for, too.

      They had their RV, however. They could come and see her....

      “How’d it go?” Cheyenne asked.

      “I told them I slept with a stranger,” Eve said.

      Her friend stopped in her tracks. “Are you kidding?”

      “No. I figured it would be better for them to hear it from me.”

      “But they might never have heard it at all!”

      “I didn’t want to take that chance.”

      “I see,” Cheyenne said slowly. “That was probably wise. How did they take the news?”

      “Much better than I expected. I guess I underestimated them.”

      “Or you set even higher standards for yourself than they do.”

      Cheyenne took the seat opposite her. “Is that your present?”

      Eve handed over the watch so Chey could take a closer look. “Stunning, isn’t it?”

      “Gorgeous!”

      “They’re such great parents.”

      “You just made a mistake, Eve. We all know what you’re really like,” Cheyenne said, giving back the watch.

      Eve smiled at the compliment. Her friends and family all thought they knew her, but she wasn’t sure she knew herself anymore. Who was the woman who’d let go of all inhibition and thrown everything she had into making love with a complete stranger?

      * * *

      Rex was in his room, packing up his stuff, when he received a call from Marilyn. He thought maybe he’d accidentally skipped a check he was supposed to sign, and hoped it wasn’t because she’d run into trouble with her car. Her engine had started fine when she gave him a ride to Sexy Sadie’s to pick up his Land Rover....

      Pausing to sit on the edge of the bed, he hit the answer button. “’Lo?”

      “You’re never going to believe this,” she said.

      After what he’d been through in his life, he could believe just about anything. But he tensed, wondering if she’d run across proof that The Crew was indeed coming after him. “What is it?”

      “I got a call from Scarlet Jones, the photographer from San Francisco.”

      He let his breath slowly seep out. “I provided security for her some time ago.”

      “You remember.”

      “Of course.” After splitting off from Virgil back east, where they’d run the same kind of business, he’d hung out his own shingle here in the west and she’d been one of his first clients. “She was getting some strange mail, felt she was being followed. What’s going on with her now?” He knew everything had been okay after his contract ended because he’d checked in with her periodically, although not in the past year.

      “Apparently she’s being harassed again. The first incident happened a few months ago, in September, when she received an email containing a picture of a man’s penis.”

      “So this guy’s another Anthony Weiner? That’s not particularly creative.”

      “She forwarded it to me. What he sent wasn’t particularly impressive, either.”

      Rex had to chuckle. “Sounds like he should have stolen more than Anthony’s idea, maybe something from a porn site. But if this happened in September, why’d Scarlet wait so long to contact us?”

      “The threats she got before never amounted to anything. She thought if she ignored it, this would go away, too.”

      “Let me guess—it hasn’t.”

      “No. It’s getting worse. But what I don’t understand is why whoever it was stopped in the first place.”

      “Maybe the guy went to prison.”

      “That would explain it. Because he’s taking up where he left off, except the