We Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Jackie’s car had disappeared around a corner, and Cole finally tore his attention away from the road. He closed the door. “I’m here.”

“So what’s up?” His brother indicated Cole’s towel and grinned. “You have a guest last night? She must have been pretty good. You certainly stood in that doorway like a lovesick fool long enough. I guess that means things are really over between you and Laura, huh?”

Cole gave Rick a look designed to warn him away from the subject, but Rick only laughed.

“That evil-eye thing used to work when we were kids, but in case you’ve forgotten, I’m almost as big as you are now.”

“Ha! That evil-eye thing never worked on you,” Cole said. “You forced me to take you to the mat on everything. But you’re twenty-eight now, and not likely to get much bigger. I’ve still got you beat by a couple of inches, so you’d better watch yourself or I’ll whip your ass again.”

Rick angled himself into a chair and propped his feet on the desk. “Like that time when I was fourteen and I wrecked Dad’s truck?”

“I didn’t whip you for wrecking it,” Cole said. “I whipped you for stealing it.”

Rick shook his head and put his feet down. “Creepers, Cole. How’d you keep us all in line? We were somethin’, weren’t we.”

Cole laughed, because he could—now. The hard part was over. Despite his mother’s illness, their poverty and his father’s long hours in the mine, he’d kept his brothers safe. He’d seen to it that three out of the four of them—all except Rick—received a high-school diploma, that they learned the value of hard work, and that they stayed away from drugs and alcohol. As the oldest, he’d done his best by them, but he’d had to crack a few heads along the way, usually Rick’s.

“It wasn’t easy,” he admitted, rubbing his neck. “And you were the worst of the bunch.”

Rick started going through the papers on his desk; Cole took a moment to check the messages on the answering machine before heading back to dress for the day.

“Yeah, Andrew was the one you liked,” Rick said. “He was always your favorite.”

Cole shrugged. “He was the baby of the family and not likely to challenge me.”

“And look at him now. He’s going to college, just the way you told him to, right? Andrew’s still a good little boy.”

Cole noted the subtle change in Rick’s voice, but wasn’t exactly sure what to attribute it to. Was he jealous of Andrew’s opportunity? Cole couldn’t have afforded to put Rick through college seven years ago. He didn’t have a high-school diploma, anyway. Chad had also missed out on any higher learning, but the younger Perrinis were now at the University of Nevada in Las Vaegs. “You could go back and finish high school, if you want,” he said. “Then go on to college. Brian and Andrew would even let you room with them, if you hurry.”

Rick didn’t answer right away. He slammed one of the drawers in his desk and took a calculator out of another. “Maybe someday I’ll overcome my wild past and do just that.”

Cole grinned, pausing from his task of writing down the myriad messages he needed to return. “‘Wild past’ is right. Remember Mrs. Tiller? She invited us over for dinner, and you brought all those garter snakes in your pockets. I thought the poor woman was going to have a heart attack when one slithered past her plate.”

Rick shook his head. “How could I forget? You gave me a whippin’ the likes of which I’d never had before.”

“Hers was about the only good home cookin’ we ever got, besides what Granny Fanny gave us. And Mrs. Tiller never invited us back after that. I coulda killed you,” Cole said, but he felt a prick of conscience all the same. Had he been too hard on Rick? Is that what stood between them? If so, it hardly seemed fair. Cole had been young and desperate to keep them all from winding up in separate foster homes. Maybe he’d forced Rick to knuckle under one too many times—but Rick had been so difficult. Riding him hard was the only way Cole could keep him in line. “I didn’t pound on you because I liked it,” he added, more gruffly than he’d intended.

Rick shrugged. “Hell, no. I deserved it.”

For the first time in his life, Cole was tempted to share with him how heavy the load of raising his four brothers had been, how young and inexperienced he’d been at the time, how panicked. There were occasions he had gone without supper so his brothers could have more. Other days he took their turn sitting with Mom so they could get enough sleep to be ready for school. But Rick would never understand what life had been like for Cole. No one would ever understand. Which was why those years were better forgotten, along with Feld, the dusty little town where it had all happened.

“So, you gonna tell me about your lady friend?” Rick asked.

Cole ripped off the sheet of paper he’d been writing on and jammed the pen back into its holder. “She’s just someone who’s looking for a job.”

“She got her real-estate license?”

“No.”

“She a contractor, bricklayer, landscaper or roofer?”

“She look like a subcontractor to you?”

Rick chuckled. “Hardly.” He punched a few buttons on his calculator and scribbled something down. “She was mighty fine, though. What does she do?”

“She married out of high school. She’s recently divorced with three kids. I doubt she’s worked many places.”

“So did you give her the ‘boy, did you screw up not getting a college education’ speech?”

Cole chose to ignore Rick’s needling. Whatever his brother held against him, he couldn’t change the past. “I told her we don’t have anything except the sales position right now.”

“That’s true.”

Taking his messages with him, Cole headed down the hall. He needed to get dressed before anyone else arrived. “You think we could use some help here, around the office?” he asked, turning back.

Rick looked up. “Another salary wouldn’t translate well on the projected profit and loss statement we need to provide the bank for that new loan.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Forget it.”

Cole went to his room and dressed in a pair of jeans and a Perrini Homes T-shirt, then settled in his private office, where his primary tool was the telephone. Rick, with his natural talent for numbers, was the company controller and ran the front office, and Chad, as general contractor, handled most of the subs. But there were still a million details Cole felt more comfortable handling himself—like meeting with the county planners, coordinating inspections, dealing with the appraisers, signing the escrow papers when each house closed, approving new building plans and arranging financing for future projects. His days were long, but he loved his work. Nothing was more fulfilling than seeing a family pull into the driveway of a house he’d built, get out and water their flowers, or stand at the curb and talk to their neighbors.

But today Cole couldn’t seem to settle into his usual routine. In his mind’s eye, he kept seeing Jackie, the trembling of her lip, the proud tilt of her head, and knew he couldn’t ignore whatever it was that was wrong.

Finally he picked up the phone and called information. They had no listing for Jaclyn Wentworth, but they had a J. Wentworth. He jotted down the number and dialed it. An answering machine picked up, and a child’s voice told him to leave his name and number.

He hung up and grabbed his keys. It was time to return to Joanna’s Restaurant.

COLE DOUBLE-CHECKED the address the waitress at Joanna’s had given him, pulled to the side of the road and sat staring at Jaclyn’s small house.

Damn. He’d had to go back to Joanna’s, hadn’t he. He just couldn’t leave well enough alone. And now he knew Jaclyn had been fired and that she’d needed the job she’d asked him for, a whole lot more than she’d let on. Which left him with a decision. He could involve himself further and try to help her, or he could turn around and drive away.

His better judgment urged him to drive away. Jackie’s problems weren’t his problems. Lord knows, he’d had a hard enough time pulling himself and his brothers out of Feld, keeping food on the table, supporting his parents until they passed away and trying to build a new life and a business here in Reno. The last thing he needed was to take on more dead weight. It wasn’t as if he had money running out of his ears. Perrini Homes was dangerously over-leveraged. If Oak Ranch didn’t sell well, he could lose everything.

But Jaclyn’s getting fired had come on the heels of his interference with that jerk who wouldn’t pay his check yesterday, and he feared he might have cost her her job. Beyond that, he’d once been where she was right now—desperate, alone and new in town.

With a heavy sigh, Cole cut the engine and strode to the house. At his knock, the porch light came on. Jaclyn cracked open the door, then stepped back and swung it wide when she recognized him.

“Cole. How did you—”

“Hi,” he said. “Looks like I’ve found the right place.”

“How did you get my address?”

“Maddy at Joanna’s gave it to me.”

“You went back to Joanna’s?”

“Yeah, I was looking for you.”