Simple Gifts Read online

  Maybe he could give me a lift back to town.

  The stars were hiding. A bulb hung from the boathouse, spilling yellow light onto the overflow of cars. A path bisected the snowdrifts and ended at the boathouse door where a snow shovel rested against the batten boards. Shadows flickered in the second-story windows.

  I buttoned my coat and trod to the porch steps, literally an outsider on every level. I knew better than to intrude on a family during the holidays. Not because I wasn’t wanted in some peripheral way—I’d turned this invite down for ten solid years. But this year, Sunny had snagged me by the arm and trundled me into her perky little car, hoodwinking me with her fake encouragement and her false cheer. “You have to see the new house! Please come, please?”

  I shouldn’t have come, because I didn’t belong. That would go in the orphan handbook, because these weren’t my people. Jason Ferris had no people—just a cat named Norm and an apartment decorated with folded bits of paper over a town bar I owned outright. Not much of a life in the grand scope of things, but it was my life. I’d built it myself. I belonged there.

  Snow blew through the yard, punctuating my solitude. I wasn’t afraid of being alone—I didn’t know anything else. But a fleeting, intimate moment in the house with Mrs. Sharpe? That terrified me.

  Cold nipped at my knees, urging me to slide along the path in my slick-bottomed party shoes. I aimed for the boathouse. I needed a ride home, even if I had to go by sleigh. I couldn’t walk eight miles to Cornwall Bridge. I wasn’t that desperate. Not yet.

  As I hunched into the gale, something flashed across the lawn. A sphere bound into the sky, twirling like a giant carnival balloon. It bounced onto the shoveled path and bells jangled. “What the hell…?”

  Another ball bounced off the porch and sailed by, narrowly missing my head.

  Those tacky, inflatable snow globes. They’d come loose from their moorings and now wobbled chaotically toward the driveway as they deflated. Another ball ricocheted onto the lawn. Flying balls. They sort of cheered me, and I laughed for the first time all evening. What an unexpected pleasure to find at Senator Sharpe’s house. The snow globes jiggled crazily across the snow, driven by the December wind. Poor Mrs. Sharpe. She’d have a cow tomorrow morning when she found lifeless balls on her meticulous lawn.

  “Jason! Heads-up!”

  The impact forced the air from my lungs as a blur of smooth, black plastic bowled me over. My head hit the icy ground with a sickly, hollow smack, and a tunneling void swallowed me.

  Chapter Two

  A voice like broken glass yanked me from the deep. “Hey. Wake up. Can you hear me?”

  Cold seeped from the ground and leached all the warmth from my bones. My head pounded like a motherfucker, but my ears worked fine. “Yeah. I hear you.”

  Snowflakes kissed my face. They were angels’ tears, or reindeers’ tears, maybe. I thought I heard bells ringing from across the lake.

  “Hey. C’mon, Jason. Open your damn eyes.”

  “Yeah. I’m awake.” Five more minutes and I’d get out of bed. Just five…more…

  I drifted.

  “Jason. Open your fucking eyes. It’s snowing on your face. Get up. Get moving.” He shook my shoulder with a bear paw of a hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Okay.” I opened my eyes and snow swirled above me, falling like paper confetti. A pair of grim, white faces hovered. They bore a striking resemblance to Lt. Robb Sharpe.

  “Good. You’re back,” they said.

  “Back? Did I go?” My mouth felt funny. Why was I sleeping on the ground? The entire Sharpe clan would frown on my peasant-like behavior, but pain pinned me in place. White light exploded inside my head, and when I moved, stars danced behind my lids. “Holy shit. Did you hit me?”

  “What? No, I didn’t hit you. Thanks a lot. You’ve had an accident and whacked your head.” Robb bent close, kneeling with a crunch of ice. His expression remained unchanged from earlier. Not a hint of the kindness he once possessed softened this guy. Or guys. I had double vision.

  A penlight appeared from thin air, and I shielded my face. “Hey. Not cool.”

  “It’s okay. Let me check your eyes.”

  “They’re blue.”

  “Yeah. No kidding.” A ghost of his old smile appeared, stiff from lack of practice. Now, that’s an improvement. “You cleaned your clock pretty good, and you’re bleeding on my mother’s Frosty the Snowman.”

  “Did I deflate it?”

  “Flat as a pancake. Happy Christmas. You’re using it as a pillow.”

  “That explains my headache.” The light disappeared, and I blinked into the whirling snow. “What happened to your voice?”

  “Smoke inhalation. That’s what had happened. An accident. We’ll talk more later.”

  “You sound like Harvey Fierstein.”

  Robb peeled off his parka before barking to someone over his shoulder. “Start the truck. Crank the heat.”

  “Truck? I don’t think I can drive. Is it stick?” A chill wracked my limbs. “Man, it’s freezing.”

  “Jason. Focus.” Robb draped his coat over my chest, and his body heat saturated my senses. I latched on to that warmth as I had the frigid air earlier. His parka smelled of down and pine. “Can you wiggle your toes?”

  I could. “My toes are fine. It’s my head and—I need to get up.” Pieces of the accident came together, but a new disaster loomed. Nausea forced me onto my right side, and I fought against a flood of eggnog, meatballs, and curry. What had I done? What was wrong with me? “Give me a second.” My teeth chattered, and I bit to cover the sound.

  All business, Robb waved his hand inches from my nose. “How many fingers do you see?”

  “Two. No. Four.”

  “Two. Congratulations. You have a concussion.”

  “No, I don’t. I’m fine. I’m just winded.”

  “You’re a lot of things, Jase, including clumsy, but winded doesn’t make this list. If you need to puke, now’s the time. Better here than in the truck. We need to move.”

  Move? What was he expecting? Mortar fire? “I can’t believe I’ve been taken down by one of your mother’s lawn ornaments.”

  “You were. You cracked the hell out of your skull. Good thing it’s thick.” Robb shifted and behind him, a field of onlookers popped into my vision like cartoon characters. Sunny and her boyfriend Lyle—pop pop—the Sharpe twins Ana and Jane—pop pop—and a few stragglers I didn’t know. I didn’t see the senator—thank God—but voices whispered from across the yard.

  I would keep my supper down if it killed me. I wouldn’t puke for this crowd, or Robb. Not in any scenario. Of course, I’d sworn I’d never fall on Robb’s feet again in this lifetime either, and here I lay.

  A pair of Tory Burch party shoes stepped in front of my nose. Sunny crouched beside her older brother, and side-by-side, with their short black hair and matching deep-set eyes, they still looked more alike than the twins. Her wooly mitten stroked my cheek. “You okay, Jason?”

  “Fine. Aren’t your feet cold? Where are your boots?” My feet were freezing. “Can you drive me home? I’m sort of partied-out.”

  “You do look a little beat, but let’s stop by the hospital first. Okay? You smacked your head pretty hard. I heard the ice crack all the way inside the house. And now you’re bleeding on my mother’s balls.”

  I couldn’t even laugh, that’s how bad I felt.

  “Bleeding?” I touched my scalp gingerly, and my fingers came away wet. My stomach roiled anew. “How bad?”

  She bit her lip. “Not too bad.”

  “You’re lying to me again? Right now? Seriously?”

  “You’re not bleeding to death or anything.” She pressed something against the back of my head. A frown creased her forehead. “You’re fine.”

  “Great.” Sarcasm took energy I didn’t have, so I closed my eyes and didn’t open them until the truck’s tires crushed the snow ten feet from my Frosty the Snowman bed. A tunnel of white fog floated above m
e.

  Robb stuck a meaty hand under my armpit. His bare fingers circled my sleeve, and his left arm slid around my back. “On three; you ready?”

  Was I ready? A half dozen Sharpe faces peered over the porch railing, watching my sickly progress. Icy sweat formed above my lip, and my belly soured again. “Yes. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Roger that. Here we go. One. Two. Three.” The world tipped back to center as he hauled me to my feet. I swear to God, every drop of blood in my body drained straight to the soles of my feet, except for the real stuff flowing from my scalp and wetting my collar. My vision tunneled, my head swam, but Robb Sharpe held me by belt and shoulder. What a way to reconnect. “The sickness will pass in a sec. You’re fine, just a little hypothermic. Take a breath.”

  Pass. Please pass.

  When had I turned into such a squalling infant? I’d been hurt before. I’d had a hundred stitches on my thigh when I fell down a ravine in the seventh grade and stuck myself on a pine tree. I’d had my appendix removed, my tonsils snipped, and God knows, I’d had my heart ripped out. I could handle a simple blow to the head.

  As Robb promised, the nausea and vertigo faded, and my vision cleared. He didn’t drop my arm, he held fast. I let him. “Let’s move.”

  “Sunny,” Robb barked at his wide-eyed sister. “Call ’em and tell ’em we’re on our way.”

  “Isn’t she coming?” I didn’t see her leave, but her footsteps retreated. The wind blew my hair as he stuffed me into the warm cab and, in another second, Robb climbed behind the wheel. With a shift of his hand, we backed onto the driveway.

  I caught a quick glimpse of Mrs. Sharpe’s pale face and Sunny holding a cell phone to her ear as we took the driveway at bone-jarring speed. “Really. I’m much better now.”

  I spoke to myself, of course, because Robb didn’t say a word. I held the dash with one hand, and with the other palm, I pressed some scrap of cloth to my head. In the mirror, my pupils were huge and my golden hair matted.

  “You’re okay. Those cuts can bleed, but they’re usually nothing. You need your head stitched. I offered, but my mother said it wouldn’t do. Not in the house.”

  He couldn’t do what? Lay me on the kitchen table next to the beef Wellington and sew me together with a trussing needle?

  In that fleeting second of disbelief, I remembered something vitally important. Health insurance. I had none. I barely had a dime in the bank to cover expenses, and certainly, I didn’t have enough nickels squirreled away to pay for something as frivolous as a visit to Sharon Hospital.

  I nearly asked him to give me the home repair job, but I wasn’t going back inside the Sharpes’ lakehouse come hell or high water. So, I closed my eyes and let him drive.

  Chapter Three

  Robb clammed up the second I signed a Discharged Against Medical Advice form, so the world was white noise and white snow on the walk back to the car. There was nothing to say anyway. He drove, and I stared at the road while painkillers dulled my mind. The nausea that threatened me earlier reasserted itself every time he turned the wheel too fast, but I managed. I couldn’t afford a stay at the hospital. Not to be observed for thousands of dollars I didn’t have.

  I hadn’t said much to Robb, and in my own defense, he didn’t seem to mind.

  We passed Cornwall’s white clapboard church, the snow-covered cemetery lined with crooked headstones, the one-roomed Post Office, and, at the end of Main Street, Riley’s—my bar. The lights were burning, and the place looked busy. I should be there, working my tail off and earning my mortgage payment. Two stories above my business, a lonely apartment waited in darkness. I pressed my nose to the passenger window as we drove past.

  I should be there.

  Wishing wouldn’t make going home any more likely. That wasn’t part of the deal I agreed to when I signed the DAMA, so I buried my disappointment and let Robb drive me toward my worst nightmare—A Holiday at the Sharpe McMansion.

  Colorful lights whizzed by in a blur, and the last glimmer of Cornwall faded from the rearview mirror. I made one final stab at autonomy. “I feel much better.”

  “Save it.” Robb croaked and stuffed an empty coffee cup into the cup holder. He squinted through the windshield, and by the dashboard’s glow, the black stubble covering his head made him look a little like a Chia Pet. “I promised my mother and Sunny I’d keep an eye on you. This was your choice.”

  “Right, but I’m only staying one night. We agreed.”

  “We’ll see how you look tomorrow. The old man thinks you might sue him—he may insist you stay.”

  “He should let me go home, then. I can’t sue him if I’m dead.” Christmas with the senator? Honestly? I’d rather slip into a coma.

  Robb shot me a look. “Not funny. I’ve seen head injuries take a turn for the worse more times than I want to count.”

  I believed him. Something dire had happened to Robb—probably recently, given the purple shadows under his eyes and the deep lines fanning from the corners of his eyes and bracketing his mouth. He’d lost a lot of weight, his cheeks looked hollow, and his voice? Absolutely ruined. That might explain his silence.

  We drove through thickening snow. The Housatonic River snaked blackly on one side of Route Seven and the forested hills of Cornwall towered along the other. White houses hugged equally whitened lawns, and somewhere beyond Coltsfoot Mountain, the stars hid their pale light.

  I gripped my discharge papers—which consisted of a dire list of what to watch fors—and while those papers made tonight’s sleepover at the lake necessary, they didn’t make the stay any more palatable. Sunny would be at her parents’ house, but she had her own life. And, of course, she had her new life, with Lyle.

  The paper blurred, and I blinked to clear my vision. I’d become a burdensome thirteen-year-old again, trucking toward another home where I didn’t belong, nothing more than a charity case. A misfit. All I lacked was a paper sack of clothes on my lap and an overworked social worker at my side.

  I smoothed the wrinkles from my discharge sheet before making the first, clean fold down the center, just like old times. Leaning into the headrest, I worked without a plan, folding and creasing from memory until the sprightly form of a reindeer revealed itself in careful paper pleats.

  Voilà. Origami reindeer. If only I could make a team of them and fly myself away.

  I set the piece on the dash. “Rudolph will guide the truck tonight.”

  Robb gave Rudolph a flat look and shook his head. “Man. You haven’t changed at all, have you?”

  I couldn’t tell whether the idea pleased him or disappointed him. Still, I cringed. “Actually, I’ve changed in more ways than you can imagine.”

  “Really?” The noise he made resembled a cough more than a snort. “You fell at my feet earlier, and now you’re making origami animals. It’s like the last ten years never happened.”

  Fell at my feet earlier. Well, hell. “You do remember.”

  Robb gripped the wheel. His stare didn’t waiver from the road. “Of course I remember, Jason. I was eighteen. I’m not the one who got hit on the head. I remember everything.”

  Everything? I envisioned Robb’s younger self, his rough hand slithering inside my jeans, his mouth hot on my neck, and his long hair brushing my cheek. Don’t think about sex, no matter how earth shattering that sex was. I cleared my throat. “You didn’t act like you knew me earlier.”

  “Yeah, well, right back at you. You walked past me how many times? Not even a glance. Nothing. Not a nod, or a ‘hey, nice to see you.’”

  “I didn’t recognize you. You’re…” Gaunt wouldn’t sound nice. “You look different.”

  “You look exactly the same.”

  We hit a bump, and the fragile paper reindeer fluttered to the floor. Robb’s hard jaw clicked shut, and tension filled the cab, smothering the air inside like a blanket. Since the radio didn’t work, the only relief came from the sputter of the fan pushing heat through the vent.

  He turned ont
o an unpaved road, and rocks banged inside the wheel wells and pinged around inside my bruised head. “Can you maybe take it a little easier?”

  “Hang on. We’re almost there.” He eased his foot off the gas, and I cut him some slack. Because of his mother’s rogue snow globes, the man had missed his family reunion, even if his only enjoyment came from standing alone, back to the mantle, frowning past tittering lady friends. His first time home in years and the family didn’t radiate joy over his homecoming. They tiptoed around him. I’d seen them firsthand. Still, I didn’t need The Handbook for Orphans to tell me some gratitude on my part was in order.

  “Thanks for driving me to the hospital.”

  “Why? Total waste of time. You should have stayed. I don’t know why I’m surprised. You were always that way.”

  “What way? Poor?”

  “No. Determined to do things on your own. The second things get real, you sever ties, run and hide.”

  Floored, I gaped at him. Robb had been the one who’d run fast and far, not me. Unless he counted tonight. “I’m just saying that I appreciate you leaving the party on my behalf. That’s all. Thank you.”

  “I should probably be the one thanking you.” His jaw clicked shut. A vein throbbed on the side of his fuzzy head, and despite my irritation, I wanted to know what the hell had turned him into such a dick. Maybe he deserved standing alone all night.

  Or maybe he preferred standing alone. I know I usually did. Maybe he’d become more like me. Maybe he was hiding too. His parents sort of acted like they wanted him hidden.

  “I should have said hello. You’re right. I apologize. Glad you’re back. You look good.”