That Christmas Magic, page 29
“You’re here because I want you here. It’s where you belong.” His control over his temper seemed fragile.
Rather than say anything she would regret later, Ashley pinched her mouth tightly closed.
The dining room table had been extended to accommodate forty guests. Ashley looked at the china and sparkling crystal, and the fir and candle centerpiece that extended the full length of the table. Everything was exquisite, and she was filled with a sense of awe. She didn’t belong here. What was she doing fooling herself?
Cooper sat at the head of the table, with Ashley at his right side. Under normal circumstances she would have enjoyed the meal. The caterers had also supplied four waitresses, and she found herself watching their movements instead of involving herself in idle conversation with Cooper or the white-haired man on her right. Once the salad plates were removed, they were served prime rib, fresh green beans and new potatoes. Every bite and swallow was calculated, measured, to be sure she would do nothing that would call attention to herself. For dessert a cake in the shape of a yule log was carried into the room. She only took one bite, afraid she would end up spilling frosting on her white dress. Once, when she glanced up, she found Cooper watching her, his look both foreboding and thoughtful. If this was a test, she was certain she was failing miserably, and his look did nothing to boost her confidence.
When the meal was finished, she couldn’t recall ever being more relieved.
Cooper’s hand was pressed to her waist, keeping her at his side, as they moved into the living room. She didn’t join the conversation, only smiled and nodded at the appropriate times. An hour later, her face felt frozen into a permanent smile.
A few people started to leave. Grateful for the opportunity to slip away, she murmured a friendly farewell and left Cooper to deal with his guests.
“I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” she whispered to Claudia.
“Don’t worry, you’re doing great. Not much longer now.”
“Where’s Seth?”
“Checking the boys. He’s not much for this kind of thing, either. Haven’t you noticed the way he keeps loosening his tie? By the time the evening’s over, the whole thing will be missing.”
“What time is it?” Ashley muttered.
“Just after eleven.”
“How much longer?”
“I don’t know. Don’t look now, but Cooper’s headed our way.”
His stern expression hadn’t relaxed. He was obviously displeased about something. “I want to talk to you in my den when everyone’s gone.” His look was ominous as he turned and left.
Primly, Ashley clasped her hands together in front of her. “Heavens, what did I do now?” she asked Claudia.
Claudia shrugged. “I don’t know, but for heaven’s sake, humor him. Another day like today, and Seth and I are packing our bags and finding a hotel.”
By the time the last couple had left, Ashley’s stomach was coiled into a hard lump.
The caterers were clearing away glasses and the last of the dishes from the living room when Cooper found her in the corner talking to Seth and Claudia. As Claudia had predicted, Seth’s tie had mysteriously disappeared. His arm was draped across his wife’s shoulders.
Seth looked over to Cooper. “You don’t mind if we head upstairs, do you?”
“No, no, go ahead.” Cooper’s answer sounded preoccupied. He gestured toward his den. “We’ll be more comfortable in there,” he said to Ashley.
She tossed Claudia a puzzled look. Cooper didn’t look upset anymore, and she didn’t know what to think. His face was tight and drawn, but not with anger. She couldn’t recall ever seeing him quite like this.
“Oh!” Claudia paused halfway up the stairs and turned around. “Don’t forget tomorrow morning. We’ll pick you up around ten. The boys are looking forward to it.”
“I am, too,” Ashley replied.
They entered the familiar den, and he closed the door, leaning against the heavy wood momentarily. He gestured toward a chair, and she sat down, her back straight.
Again he paused. He rubbed the back of his neck, and when he glanced up, it struck Ashley that she couldn’t remember ever having seen him look more tired.
“Cooper, are you feeling all right? You’re not sick, are you?”
“Sick?” he repeated slowly. “No.”
“What’s wrong, then? You look like you’ve lost your best friend.”
“In some ways, I think I have.” He moved across the room to his desk, rearranging the few items that littered the top.
Impatiently, Ashley watched him. He’d said he wanted to talk to her, yet he seemed hesitant.
“How do you feel about the way things went tonight?” he asked finally.
“What do you mean? Was the food good? It was excellent. Do I like your friends? I found them to be cordial, if a bit overwhelming. Cooper, you have to remember I’m just an ordinary schoolteacher.”
The pencil he’d just picked up snapped in two. “You know, I think I’m sick of hearing how ordinary you are.”
“What do you mean?” She watched as his mouth formed a brittle line.
“You ran to a corner to hide every chance you got. You wouldn’t so much as lift a fork until you’d examined the way three other people were holding theirs to be sure you did it the same way.”
“Is that so bad?” she flared. “I felt safe in a corner.”
“And not with me?”
“No!”
“I think that tells me everything I want to know.”
“You forced me into coming tonight,” she accused him.
“It was a no-win situation. You understand that, don’t you?”
She stood and moved to the far side of the room. Cooper was talking down to her as if she was a disobedient child, and she hated it. “No, I don’t. But there’s very little I understand about you anymore.”
“I didn’t invite you tonight for a reason!” he shouted. “Do you think I don’t already know that?” she flashed bitterly. “I don’t fit in with this crowd.”
“That’s not why,” he insisted loudly.
“If you raise your voice to me one more time, I’m leaving.” Tears welled in her eyes. How she hated to cry. Her eyes stung, and her throat ached. “It’s not the first time, either, is it?”
“What are you talking about?” He tossed her a puzzled look.
“For a while I thought it was just my overactive imagination. That I was thinking like an insecure schoolgirl. But it’s true.”
“What are you talking about?” What little patience he had was quickly evaporating.
“The first time we went out, you chose a small Italian restaurant, and I thought you didn’t want to be seen with me.”
“You can’t honestly believe that?” His eyes filled with disbelief.
“Then Claudia phoned on Thanksgiving Day and I was there, but you didn’t say a word.” She paused long enough to swallow back a sob. “I knew you didn’t want Claudia or Seth or anyone else to know I was with you. Even in church when you held my hand, it was done secretively and only when there wasn’t a possibility of anyone seeing us.”
A tense silence enclosed them.
“You’ve thought that all this time?” The dark, troubled look was back on his face.
She nodded. “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. I want to go home.”
His dark eyes searched her face. She noted the weariness that wrinkled his brow and the indomitable pride in his stern jaw.
He opened the door wordlessly and retrieved her coat. He didn’t say a word until he pulled up in front of her apartment building. “I find it amazing that you could think all those things, yet continue to see me.”
“Now that you mention it, so do I,” she returned bitterly.
His mouth thinned, but he didn’t retaliate.
She handed him her apartment key, and he unlocked the door. She held out her hand, waiting for him to return the key. He didn’t seem to notice, his look a thousand miles away.
When he did glance up, their eyes met and held. The troubled look remained, but with flecks of something she couldn’t quite decipher. A softness entered as he lowered his gaze to her soft mouth. “It’s not true, Ashley, none of it.” With that he turned and left.
Stunned, she stood watching him until he was out of sight.
Her room was dark and still when she turned out the light. She hadn’t behaved well tonight. That was what had originally upset Cooper. But she’d been frightened, out of her element. Those people were important, and she was nothing. The four walls surrounding her seemed to close in. Why had he left that way? For once, couldn’t he have stayed and explained himself? Tomorrow she would make sure everything was cleared up between them. No more misunderstandings, her heart couldn’t take it.
* * *
—
“Are you ready, Auntie Ash?” Johnny asked as he bounded into her apartment excitedly the next morning.
“You bet.” She bent over to give her godson a big hug.
“You should hurry, ’cause Daddy’s driving Uncle Cooper’s car,” John added.
Ashley straightened. “Where’s Cooper?”
“He decided at the last minute not to come. What happened with you two last night?” Claudia asked.
“Why?”
Claudia glanced at her son, who was impatiently pacing the floor. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Uncle Cooper bought the car seat just for Scotty,” Johnny told her proudly when she climbed in the back seat. “He said I was a big boy and could use a special one with a real seat belt. Watch.” He pulled the belt across his small body, and after several tries the lock clicked into place. “See? I can do it all by myself.”
“Good for you.” Ashley looped an arm around his shoulders.
“You should put yours on, too,” Johnny insisted. “Uncle Cooper does.”
“I think you’re right,” she agreed with a wry smile.
It was all Ashley could do not to quiz her friend about Cooper’s absence as Seth maneuvered in and out of the heavy traffic.
“Christmas Eve Day,” Johnny said as he looked around eagerly. “It’s Jesus’s birthday tomorrow, and we get to open all our gifts. Scotty’s never opened presents.”
“I don’t think he’ll have any problem getting the hang of it,” Seth teased from the front seat.
“You’re coming tonight, aren’t you, Ash?” Claudia half turned to glance into the rear seat.
“I don’t know,” Ashley said, trying to ignore the heaviness that weighted her heart.
“But I thought it was already settled. Christmas Eve with us and Christmas with your parents.”
Ashley pretended an inordinate amount of interest in the scenery flashing past outside her window. “I thought it was, too.” Cooper was saying several things with his absence today. One of them was crystal clear. “Maybe I’ll come for a little while. I want to see the boys open the presents from Cooper and me.”
“Do I get to open a present tonight?” Johnny demanded.
Claudia threw Ashley a disgruntled look. “We’ll see,” she answered her son.
The downtown Seattle area was crowded with last-minute shoppers. Amazingly, Seth found a parking place on the street. While Ashley and Claudia dug through the bottoms of their purses for the correct change for the meter, Seth opened the trunk and retrieved the stroller for Scotty.
“Can I put the money in?” Johnny wanted to know.
Ashley handed him the coins and lifted him up so he could insert them into the slot.
“Good boy,” Ashley said, and he beamed proudly.
“Now tell me what happened,” Claudia insisted in a low voice. “I’m dying to know.”
“Nothing, really. He wasn’t pleased with the way the party turned out. Mainly, he was disappointed in me.”
“In you?” Claudia looked surprised. “What did you do? I thought you were fine.”
“I don’t understand him, Claudia.” She couldn’t conceal a sigh of regret. “First, he pointedly doesn’t invite me and openly admits he didn’t want me there. Then he forcefully insists that I attend. And to make matters worse, he doesn’t approve of the way I acted.”
“If you ask me, I think he’s got a lot of nerve,” Claudia admitted. “I hardly spoke to him this morning. But something’s wrong. He’s miserable. He loves you, I’d bet my life on it. It would be a terrible shame if you two didn’t get together.”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose?” Claudia drawled the word slowly. “If you love one another, then nothing should keep you apart.”
“Spoken like a true optimist. But I’m not right for Cooper,” Ashley announced sadly. “He needs someone with a little more—I hate to use this word, but…finesse.”
“And you need someone more easy-going and fun-loving. Like Webb,” Claudia finished for her.
“No, not at all.” Ashley’s cool blue eyes turned questioningly toward her friend. “I’m surprised you’d even suggest that. Webb’s a friend, nothing more.”
Clearly pleased, Claudia shook her head knowingly. “I don’t think you realize that you bring out the best in Cooper, or that he does the same for you. I don’t think I’ve seen a couple who belong together more than you two.”
“Oh, Claudia, I hope we do, because I love him so much.”
“Have you ever thought about letting him know that?”
A blustery wind whipped Ashley’s coat around her, preventing her from answering.
“I think we should catch the monorail,” Seth suggested. “It’s getting windy out here. Agreed?”
The two women had been so caught up in their conversation they’d hardly noticed.
“Fine.” Ashley nodded her head.
“Sure,” Claudia said, looking a little guilty as Seth handled both boys so she could talk.
For a nominal fee they were able to catch the transport that had been built as part of the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962. The rail delivered them to the heart of the Seattle Center, only a few blocks from the Food Circus.
The boys squealed with delight the minute they spied the Enchanted Forest. Scotty clapped his hands gleefully and pointed to the kiddy-size train that traveled between artificial trees.
“Are you hungry?” Seth wanted to know.
“Not me.” Ashley’s thoughts were on other things.
“I wouldn’t object to cotton candy,” Claudia confessed.
“I had to ask,” Seth teased, and lovingly brushed his lips over his wife’s cheek.
Ashley viewed the tender scene with building despair. Someday, she wanted Cooper to look at her like that. More than anything else, she wanted to share her life with him, have his children.
“Ash, are you all right?” Claudia asked.
Quickly, she shook her head. “Of course. What made you ask?”
“You looked so sad.”
“I am, I…”
“My goodness, Ash, look, Cooper’s here.”
“Cooper?” Her spirits soared. “Where?”
“Across the room.” Claudia pointed, then waved when he saw them.
His level gaze crossed the crowded room to hold Ashley’s, his look discouraging.
“I’m going to do it,” Ashley said, straightening. Claudia gave her a funny look, but didn’t question her as she started toward him.
They met halfway. He looked tired, but just as determined as she felt.
“Ashley.”
“I want to talk to you,” she said sternly.
“I want to talk to you, too.”
“Wonderful. Let me go first.”
He looked at her blankly. “All right,” he agreed.
“You asked me last night why I continued to see you if I believed all those things I confessed. I’ll tell you why. Simply. Honestly. I love you, Cooper Masters, and if you don’t love me, I think I’ll die.”
Ten
“That’s not the kind of thing you say to a man in a public place.” He studied her face for a tantalizing moment, gradually softening.
“I know, and I apologize, but I couldn’t hold it in any longer.”
“Why couldn’t you have told me that last night?”
Oblivious to the crowds milling around, they stared at one another with only a small space separating them.
“Because I was afraid, and you were so…”
Cooper rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Don’t say it. I know how I was.”
“When you weren’t with Claudia this morning, I didn’t know what to think.”
“I couldn’t come. Not when you believed that I didn’t want to be seen with you—that I was ashamed of you. You’ve carried that inside all these weeks, and not once did you question me.”
Her teeth bit tightly into her lower lip. “I was afraid. Sounds silly, doesn’t it?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Afraid if I brought my fears into the open and forced you to admit it, that I wouldn’t see you again. I couldn’t face the truth if it meant losing you.”
“The day you started ranting about your mother being my cook and your father being a steelworker…Was that the reason?”
She looked away and nodded.
Slowly he shook his head. “I can understand how you came to that conclusion, but you couldn’t be more wrong. I love you, Ashley, I—”
“Cooper, oh, Cooper,” she cried excitedly and threw her arms around him, spreading happy kisses over his face.
His mouth intercepted her as he hungrily devoured her lips. Although she could hear the people around them, she wouldn’t have cared if they were in New York City at Grand Central Station. Cooper loved her. She’d prayed to hear those words, and nothing, not even a Christmas crowd in a public place, was going to ruin her pleasure.
When he dragged his mouth from hers, his husky voice breathed against her ear, “Do you promise to do that every time I admit I love you?”
