The Man Under The Mistletoe

“Yes, she does.”

“And so does Aunt Rosie.”

She certainly did. The raspberry-colored dress clinging to her breasts and waist, and yards and yards of filmy stuff flying out around her, lent color to her complexion and drama to her very presence. Everything was going so well that she’d stopped being the wedding planner and reverted to her role as maid of honor.

He had a sudden flash of memory of when she’d been the bride and the sparkle in her eyes had been all for him. That had been an eternity ago.

“Hey, handsome.” Sara Ross, Rosie’s old high-school friend, sat down between Matt and Chase, looking very glamorous in a plum-colored suit and a broad-brimmed hat in the same color. She patted Chase’s hand. “Or should I say, you two handsome men?” Chase preened. “You guys look so cool,” she went on. “And I hear you’re on your way to China with a hefty advance in your bank account, Matt.”

Matt reached for the carafe in the middle of the table to pour coffee into her cup. He remembered her as a smart but plain young woman, not at all the curvaceous beauty she was today. He didn’t even remember that she’d been blond. He had to stop himself from staring. “I am,” he replied finally. “And what have you been up to? Whatever it is, it agrees with you.”

“I’m working for a law firm here,” she replied, placing a pink linen napkin on her lap. “And I’m going back to school next term to get a law degree.”

“I’m impressed.” As he recalled, she’d worked for the city, the hospital, and clerked in several stores. She’d even done a stint in the army, though there was nothing remotely military about her appearance. “Ambition is very appealing in a woman.”

Her cocoa-brown eyes widened.

“To whom, exactly?” She heaved a big sigh as she picked up her fork. “I had a life of domestic bliss planned,” she said in a jocular tone, “but that doesn’t seem to be working out, so I’m making new plans. Smarts and money are my focus now.” She winked at him and picked up her fork. “Well, tell me what you’ve been up to. If Rosie knows, she isn’t talking.”

They spent half an hour catching up, then Corin and his wife joined them, and by the time they noticed that the crowd was thinning and Francie and Derek were ready to leave for their honeymoon, it was midafternoon.

Everyone collected coats and gathered outside where Francie threw her bouquet. It was caught, ironically, by Sara. The small crowd pressed the bride and groom toward a waiting limousine, but Francie broke free to throw her arms around Matt’s neck. “Thanks for coming,” she said. Her smile was blinding. Then she grew serious and said for his ears only, “Make this work, Matthew. Get her back.” Then she kissed him noisily on the cheek and got into the car.

They drove off to cheers and applause and birdseed thrown after them. Matt looked for Rosie, but she’d avoided him all day.

“You think I could have one more piece of cake?” Chase asked him, following him back inside.

“No.” He did head for the buffet table. “Did you have anything at all substantial today? Ham? Cheese? Deviled eggs?”

Chase made a face. “I thought there’d be hamburgers or hot wings.”

“It’s a wedding. They have classier stuff.” He studied the array of food. “How about some vegetables and dip?”

“How about more cake?”

“No.”

Chase looked betrayed. “You sound like Aunt Rosie.”

“That’s because we love you and want you to be healthy.”

Matt finally talked Chase into eating a spring roll by telling him it came with hot sauce. Chase felt honor-bound to try it.

By the time he’d finished two of them and a few carrot sticks, the Yankee Inn’s banquet hall was empty of guests and the waitstaff was beginning to clean up.

Sonny appeared, changed out of her elegant pink suit and wearing casual slacks and a faux fur-trimmed black parka. She was still very chic. As Matt stood, she wrapped him in a fragrant embrace.

“A cab’s picking up Ginger and me to take us to the airport. You’ll be long gone when I return, so I just wanted you to know how good it was to see you again and…” Her smile seemed to falter and that deep sadness he’d often seen in her came to the fore. “And…how much I wish things had turned out differently for you and Rosie.”

“So do I.” He returned her hug. “I haven’t given up yet, though she’s not doing much to inspire hope.”

“I think you should kidnap her,” she said, “and take her to China.”

“I’ll give that some thought.”

Ginger shouted from the doorway that the cab had arrived. Rosie, still wearing the raspberry gown, had pulled her coat on over her shoulders and hurried toward them from the other direction. She and Matt and Chase followed Sonny and Ginger to the cab.

It was almost four and the sun was already low on the horizon. Snow-covered rooftops and church steeples were pink in its glow.

There were hugs all around.

“Do think about what I said,” Sonny murmured to Matt as she followed her sister into the cab. She held the door open when the cabbie would have closed it. “I’ll be home the night before the community Christmas dinner,” she shouted at Rosie. “If anybody needs me for anything, you can give them Aunt Sukie’s number. You know Carol Walford. Everything’s a crisis!”

“Okay, Mom. Don’t worry.”

“What’s that all about?” Matt asked.

“Mom’s giving the welcoming speech at the Revolutionary Dames’ annual Christmas dinner on the tenth. Carol Walford is the chair, and Mom swears she wears starched underwear. You can imagine how stiff she is if Mom thinks she is.” The cabbie closed the door. “I heard her tell you to think about something. What was that?”

“She wants Uncle Matt to kidnap you and take you to China,” Chase reported, looking from one to the other.

Rosie gasped indignantly.

Matt brought his fist down playfully on top of Chase’s head.

He should have let him have another piece of cake, then he’d have been too engrossed in it to overhear their conversation. “Just a little joke, Rosie,” he said placatingly.

Rosie turned to wave as the cab drove away with the snick of tire chains in the rutted snow. Quiet settled over the parking lot, now empty of cars. The staff still inside were parked in the employee lot in back.

“Like carting me off somewhere would solve anything,” she said while she continued to wave. “You and I just aren’t…”

Matt heard only part of her assurance that nothing in the world could bridge the chasm between them. His attention was caught by the glint of a slanting ray of setting sun on metal or glass. It had an eerie familiarity. He’d been a soldier during Desert Storm, and he’d covered a year of battles in Yugoslavia before he decided that he missed home too much and gave up being a foreign correspondent.

His brain processed what he saw more quickly than it reeled out the accompanying thoughts. He’d already pushed Chase to the ground when a bullet smashed into the ground between him and Rosie.

Rosie turned at the strange sound, and Matt lunged toward her to knock her to the ground as a second shot rang out.

Something slammed into his upper arm, burning like a branding iron, and knocked him to his knees.

He heard Rosie scream, saw her white and horrified face as she knelt beside him, and thought with perverse satisfaction that he finally had her attention.

CHAPTER FOUR

ROSIE COULDN’T SEEM TO get enough air. Shock, disbelief and horror at the sight of blood spreading on the sleeve of Matt’s jacket took control of her body. How could this keep happening to her? The bloodstain brought back the memory of the red on the side of her father’s face, streaming to his shoulder, the stuff dried on the sleeve of his shirt, congealed on the arm of the chair, in a little pool at his feet, her own backward tumble off the porch.

With that came the wrench of pain in her stomach and the certainty that something awful had happened to the baby she carried. Then there was blood on her legs, on her tennis shoes.

She remembered hearing herself scream and that sound came back to her with all the shrill clarity of the moment she’d made it.