Page 136 of Our Little Secret

After their last brutal struggle, she’d hoped she’d never hear from him again.

No such luck.

Now she prayed that this reminder was the last.

And now she knew for certain that he hadn’t died that night. Even though she’d seen him haul himself out of the water, she’d wondered if he’d survived his wounds or bled out later. There had been so much blood.

Her only confirmation that he’d survived had been the fact that he’d sailed out of Seattle. She also hadn’t trusted the woman she’d talked to at the marina. She was too anxious to get off the phone. Brooke had double- and triple-checked that Gideon hadn’t returned. She’d driven by the marina several times and taken note that theMedusahad not returned to her berth, or any other one that Brooke had noticed. Also, she hadn’t found any death notices, no hospitalizations she’d unearthed, no police reports posted. She’d checked for what seemed weeks on end and finally accepted that he’d left, that he was out of her life.

Until now.

A chill ran down her spine just knowing he’d been here, had walked down these hallways. Possibly he’d been in this bedroom. On her bed. Fantasizing and—

“Stop it!” she growled under her breath. Gideon loved mind games and she was letting him get to her, falling right into his trap.

The lights flickered and she glanced around the pine walls nervously.

Great.

The last thing they needed was to lose power. The last!

Checking her watch, she realized that nearly two hours had passed. She closed down her laptop, preserving its battery life.

The house was quiet aside from the storm outside and the quiet hum of the old furnace. She didn’t hear Neal downstairs.

Weird. She’d heard signs of life earlier, the creak of his footsteps on the stairs, his off-key whistling, and Shep’s claws on the old hardwood.

But as she opened the bedroom door, she sensed she was alone.

“Neal?” she said, the scent of coffee reaching her as she padded barefoot downstairs. She reached the archway to the living room and stopped short. “What the hell?”

While she’d been upstairs Neal had put up some Christmas lights around the window, strung another set over the Christmas tree, such as it was, a little artificial pine that made Charlie Brown’s look like it belonged in Rockefeller Center. And he’d found the crèche. The Nativity scene with its miniature creatures sat on the mantel. Except something was wrong. Baby Jesus, who usually appeared on Christmas Eve, was already in his manger—a common mistake in Nana’s opinion—but there was no Joseph. Mary was in the stable, shepherds and animals were all situated around them, the Magi farther away. Even the perennially broken angel was in her spot over the stable’s roof.

The back door opened with a gust of cold air and Neal, wearing his parka and heavy work gloves, deposited a basket of firewood on the hearth. “Hey!” he said. “Thought you’d died up there.” He hitched his chin toward the ceiling.

“What on earth are you doing?” She motioned to the decorations he’d arranged, all old, some cracked, all filled with memories. Dusty boxes lay open and she recognized a string of oversize bulbs and ancient glass decorations that Nana’s mother had purchased long ago at a sale in a Woolworth’s in a previous century. “I didn’t even know we still had these.”

“Rescued them from the attic.”

“Really?”

“Um-hmm.” He smiled, pleased with himself. “I figured we’ll have a retro Christmas! Do you know there’s an old portable stereo up there and some LPs from fifty-sixty years ago?”

“Probably longer,” she said, remembering her grandmother with a mug of hot chocolate laced with peppermint schnapps in hand as she decorated the forlorn little tree while singing along with the recordings of “White Christmas,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” and a host of other favorites.

Brooke recalled those Christmases past with Leah, Mom, Nana, and Nana’s lazy cat, Tabitha. They’d spent many Christmas vacations on the island, weathering winter storms, dealing with power outages, and even cooking chili and cornbread in the massive fireplace once when they’d lost power. She’d been six or seven the last time she’d seen snow on the island, a rare occurrence.

As a child she’d been thrilled by the snow; she and Leah had built a snowman that listed far to one side. They’d created snow angels in the small open area off the deck. They’d been freezing cold, ice clumps hanging on their matching wool caps and gloves, which Nana had knitted for them.

Those thoughts touched a part of her that she’d pushed down deep, stirring happier memories of a childhood that had been partially tragic but also a little magical. As taciturn as Mom had been at home when they were in school, here on the island she’d let them run free. Brooke and Leah were allowed to explore the island with few restrictions and they’d felt a freedom and connection to the wildness of nature that few children, including Brooke’s own daughter, had experienced.

And now?

What about this Christmas?

She was “celebrating,” if that was the correct word with a husband who had become a stranger and a daughter who, at “almost sixteen” thought she was an adult.

“So where’s Joseph?” she asked, touching the edge of the mantel where the ceramic characters were displayed. “We’re missing a key player here.”