A Proposal for Christmas: State Secrets / The Five Days Of Christmas

“David, what is it?” she finally dared to ask, watching wide-eyed as he completed the angry rite by jerking his boots back onto his feet.

He might have stormed out without saying anything at all if Holly hadn’t spoken when she did, but then he froze, his back turned to her, rigid and impassive. “It was a mistake,” he muttered at length.

“It was your idea!” Holly cried, wounded.

David lowered his head but did not turn around to face her. “Yes. It was my idea,” he conceded raggedly.

“You feel guilty, don’t you, David?”

Now he turned and met her eyes. “I’m sorry, Holly. I wanted you so badly I lost my head.”

“You lost your head?” Holly was suddenly energized, electrified. But this time it was fury, not passion, that surged through her. Heedless of her nakedness, she flung back the quilt and bounded off the bed. “I beg your pardon?” she screamed.

David silenced her by laying three fingers gently, ever so gently, over her mouth. His eyes were dark with some pain that Holly couldn’t understand and couldn’t share. But whatever it was, she would gladly have traded her own confused, hurt feelings for it.

“Believe me when I tell you, Holly, that I’ve never wanted or needed a woman the way I needed you just now. Never. But it was a mistake. We can’t let it happen again.”

It would have hurt less, Holly was certain, if he’d slapped her. “What do you mean, it was a mistake? It was...it was...”

David kissed her forehead, wiped away the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes with practiced thumbs, then turned to walk away. He closed the door quietly behind him, but Holly waited until she was sure he was out of the house before flinging herself facedown on the bed to cry.

6

The telephone rang. Sitting up on the bed, brushing her tangled hair back from her face, Holly reached out for the receiver, overriding the answering machine downstairs. Please, God, she prayed, let it be David.

“I left you two messages last night!” Craig blurted out the moment she said hello. “Don’t you return your calls anymore, or is it something I said?”

Craig. Holly settled back on the pillows, which still bore the scent of David, and sighed. “I’m sorry, Craig. I was busy and—”

“You were busy? Good God, Holly! Remember me? I’m your brother, the man who is in trouble?”

Holly’s throat was thick with despair, and her head ached. “We all have problems, Craig,” she reminded him quietly, thinking of David Goddard.

“Sure, Holl. I know you’re probably all torn up about whether to pay your Keogh Plan before the end of the year and what color to paint your toenails.”

The sarcasm, following the scene with David as it did, was too much. “Listen, Craig. I care about you and you know it. I do everything I can to help you. But you’re the one who got yourself into this mess—kindly remember that!”

He subsided. “I know. Holly, I’m so scared.”

Tears smarted in Holly’s eyes, sudden and hot. It was a surprise because she had been certain that there were none left to cry. Images of another Craig, bright and fit and funny, rose in her mind. Dear God, what had happened to change him this way? During the troubled years after their father’s death, when their mother had been so confused and distracted, he had been Holly’s strength, her lifeline.

“I know, Craig, I know. I beg of you, give yourself up.”

“I can’t, Holly. I just can’t. You don’t know how these guys treat a fink—”

“Craig, they’re not going to hurt you. I’ll have a lawyer present. You’re still a citizen and you still have rights.”

“Not anymore, I don’t,” he muttered. “I’ve had dealings with al-Qaeda, Holly, and they know it.”

“Why, Craig? Why did you turn to...to those people? Why did you do it?”

He made a strange sound and Holly was shattered to realize that he was crying. “I have a habit, Holly,” he finally said.

Dread electrified Holly, and she bolted upright. “What kind of habit?” she whispered, her eyes wide and burning. “Dammit, Craig, what kind of habit?”

“Cocaine,” he said.

“Oh, God,” Holly groaned.

“Listen, I need money. Cindy managed to bring me what you sent, but that’s gone now.”

“No.”

“What did you say?” Craig sniffled, and his voice sounded angry again.

“I said no, Craig. I’m not giving you money to buy poison! I absolutely will not!”

“Holly, I need—”

“You need help and I haven’t been giving it to you! Oh, God, how could I have been so stupid—”

“Get the money, Holly. Send it to this address—” He rattled off a post-office-box number in a small Oregon town. “I mean it, Holly. If you don’t, I’ll be home for Christmas. And not to turn myself in.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, sister dear,” he answered with tart patience, “that if you don’t help me I’ll take Toby on the road with me. That’s what I’m saying.”

“No! I won’t let you! I won’t let you expose him to that, drag him around the country—”

“You won’t be able to stop me, Holly. I know where he goes to school, and I know where you live. And remember I’m a former federal agent—I’ll find the kid no matter where you try to hide him.”

“Craig!”

“Send the money,” he said. He repeated the address once more and then hung up.

Slowly, her hand trembling so hard that she had to make several attempts before she could manage the task, Holly replaced the receiver in its cradle.

She sat there on the bed, cross-legged, her head in her hands, until she heard Toby downstairs. “Mom!” he yelled exuberantly, probably still excited from his afternoon at the Ice Capades, “I’m home!”