Home for the Holidays Read online

  She was hungry and more than ready for a shower when she rode into the street. She stopped short of pulling into her mother’s garage, however, her attention caught by the car sitting in Joe Lawson’s driveway—a Mazda SUV, same model as the one she’d shown him today, dark navy instead of black. She switched off her bike and kicked the stand out before dismounting. She tugged her helmet off as she walked the distance from her mother’s front yard to inspect the car. So much for I’ve just started looking. She’d been absolutely right—he hadn’t been able to bring himself to buy a car from her.

  She narrowed her eyes as she surveyed the rear of the SUV, then dropped into a squat to peer under the wheel arch. She did a slow lap, squatting once again when she reached the left rear wheel arch, craning her neck to confirm her suspicion.

  “I assume you won’t be billing me for the inspection?”

  She started, then glanced over her shoulder. Joe Lawson stood there, one eyebrow raised. Her gaze dropped to his bare feet. No wonder she hadn’t heard him sneak up on her.

  “Did you get a warranty on this thing?” she asked, standing and jerking a thumb toward the car.

  He crossed his arms over his chest but didn’t say a word.

  “I’m only asking because you’re going to need it. This car’s been in an accident,” she said.

  He glanced toward the Mazda. “It’s been fully inspected by the automotive association.”

  “Which just confirms my opinion of those idiots.” She gestured toward the wheel arch. “Take a look yourself. Something big ran into the back of this thing, ripped the chassis open. It’s been welded back together, but you can see the repair if you look closely. And the shock absorbers are all new. No one puts new shocks on a two-year-old car unless they have to.”

  His hands dropped to his sides. He looked annoyed. Then, as though he couldn’t help himself, he knelt beside the car and craned his neck to see under the wheel well. She knelt beside him and leaned in to point out the line of the weld.

  “They’ve driven around a bit to dirty it up some, but you can still see it there.”

  “Shit,” he said, so low she almost didn’t hear him.

  He was so close his shoulder brushed hers when he shifted his weight. She stilled, then stood, dusting her hands down her jeans.

  “It’s not going to fall apart or anything, but you’ll probably have issues with panel fit and rattles. Once a car’s bent out of whack, it’s almost impossible for them to get it straight again even when they put it on the rack.”

  He stood. “I suppose I should thank you for sharing your expertise,” he said grudgingly. She could tell it hurt.

  “That’s very gracious of you,” she said dryly.

  He crossed his arms over his chest again and widened his stance, as though he needed to brace himself for what came next.

  “Thank you,” he said more sincerely. “I really do appreciate the heads-up.”

  She smiled. She couldn’t help herself. He was so damned truculent, like a surly teenage boy being forced to apologize. “Don’t mention it. It was my pleasure.”

  He raised an eyebrow and she shrugged a shoulder as if to say, “Hey, what did you expect?”

  “You should take it back,” she said, turning to look at the car one last time. “Most of those big dealerships have cooling-off clauses in their contracts. Tell them you don’t appreciate being ripped off and make them give your money back.”

  His chin lifted a little—not much, but enough to tell her that there was no way he was taking the car back. Not now that she’d told him to.

  She could almost admire him for his dedication to his own point of view. Almost.

  “Suit yourself,” she said.

  “Oh, don’t worry, I will,” he said. He beeped the car open, then reached into the back and collected a grocery bag. For the first time she noticed the long, curling scar that ran from the base of his left thumb, around the back of his hand and up his strongly muscled forearm to disappear beneath the pushed-up sleeve of his sweater. Where on earth did a man get a scar like that?

  It hadn’t occurred to her before to wonder what he did for a living, or why he’d moved into the neighborhood, but suddenly both questions were on the tip of her tongue. She bit down on them. As though he was going to answer anything she asked him when she’d made him look like a fool. She might not be an expert on men, but she knew that much.

  He shut the back of the car with a firm click. The grocery bag rustled in his hand. She realized she was hovering for no good reason whatsoever.

  “Anyway,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “See you around.”

  He didn’t bother responding. She could imagine what he was thinking, though: not if I can help it.

  He headed toward his house. She watched his shoulders rock from side to side with his long stride, then her gaze dropped to his butt. His jeans were faded and soft and they molded his ass faithfully. It was a good ass, too. Firm-looking, round. Quintessentially male.

  Hannah registered what she was doing and swiveled on her heel. Who cared if he had a nice ass? It was attached to the rest of him, and that was arrogant and pigheaded and not-so-nice.

  Still, she’d more than put him in his place tonight. He might have won this morning’s skirmish, but tonight’s battle was definitely hers.

  Grinning, she headed into the house. Score: one all.

  She was still smiling when she pushed open the connecting door from the garage and entered the kitchen. She could hear voices and guessed her mother was already in front of the TV, watching her soaps. Hannah rounded the corner, ready to regale her with the story of her two encounters with Joe Lawson.

  “Hey, Mom, guess what just—” The rest of the words died in her throat when she saw who was with her mother. “What are you doing here?”

  Her sister stood abruptly and smoothed a hand down her skirt.

  “I was just going,” Kelly said. She was very pale and her hands were shaking.

  Hannah felt sick. She hadn’t seen Kelly in months, not since the last confrontation when her sister had begged Hannah to forgive her, to understand, and Hannah had told her she couldn’t.

  Kelly started gathering her bag and coat.

  “Hold on a minute,” their mother said. She put a hand on Kelly’s arm. Hannah looked at it, then at her mother. “Kelly is visiting me, that’s what she’s doing here. She’s my daughter, too, Hannah, and I need to see her and know how she’s doing, just as I need to know how you’re doing.”

  Bile burned at the back of Hannah’s throat. How long had this been going on? How long had her mother been comforting her sister behind her back? Didn’t Kelly have enough attention and love and adoration in her life?

  Without a word, Hannah turned and started for her bedroom.

  “Hannah.” It was Kelly, her voice high with tension.

  Hannah kept walking. She had nothing to say to her sister. Nothing that hadn’t been said before, anyway.

  “I came to talk about the apartment. We both feel really bad about you taking a loss on the sale. Please let us make it up to you,” her sister called after her.

  Hannah shoved her door closed, the echo of the slam loud in the small room. Arms folded over her chest, hands gripping her elbows, she crossed to the window and glared out at the backyard.

  She couldn’t believe her mother had been offering comfort to the enemy, and she couldn’t believe her sister was still trying to foot the bill for the sale of the apartment she’d once owned with Lucas. It had been Hannah’s place, hers and Lucas’s. Their home, not her sister’s. Kelly had had nothing to do with picking the decor, choosing the furniture, deciding which part of town they wanted to live in. Hannah was damned if she was going to let her sister reimburse her for her losses because she and Lucas had been forced to sell in a bad market. Kelly had stolen Lucas, stolen the dreams Hannah had had for her future with the man she loved. But Kelly couldn’t take this one small thing away from Hannah: if it kil
led her, Hannah would pay off her share of the remainder of the mortgage, no matter what. Just to prove to herself and the world that it had happened, that it had mattered. That for a whole year and a half, Lucas Hall had been hers and not her sister’s.

  There was a tap on the door. Hannah tightened her grip on her elbows. If her sister dared to walk through the door…

  “Hannah, it’s me,” her mother called.

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “Fine, but you can still listen.”

  The door opened and her mother entered. Her expression was determined. “I think you should seriously think about your sister’s offer.”

  Hannah made a disgusted noise. “Surprise, surprise.”

  Her mother held up a hand. “Listen for a minute, will you? You’ve been planning this trip around Australia for months. Years, really, since you put it off when you first met Lucas. If you take up your sister’s offer, you can go now. I know that’s what you want, what will make you happy. Why not do it?”

  “Because I won’t let her buy her way out of her guilt,” Hannah said. Her sister had always made more money than Hannah in her high-end IT job. Kelly’s yearly bonuses alone were sometimes triple Hannah’s salary as a mechanic. Even with the global financial downturn Kelly was still hauling it in hand over fist.

  “I don’t think that’s why she wants to do it. She wants you to be happy,” her mother said.

  “Then she shouldn’t have stolen my fiancé.”

  “Would you really want to be married to a man who was in love with another woman? Do you think your sister should have stepped aside and let that happen, Hannah?”

  “It should never have even been an issue. She’s my sister and he was my fiancé. The thought should never even have entered her head.”

  “Or his head. But it did. Sometimes you can’t stop yourself from falling in love with someone, sweetheart.”

  “Bullshit! I don’t want to hear this, Mom. And I’m not taking her money. It was my apartment. Mine and Lucas’s. I’ll pay for my fair share of what’s left of the mortgage. She can’t take that away from me.”

  Her mother shook her head. “My God, you always were a stubborn one.”

  “Yeah, that’s me—stupid, loyal, stubborn old Hannah.” Her voice broke on the last word and her mother stepped forward, hand extended. Hannah jerked away from her. She was angry with her mother, unfairly or not. Kelly had hurt her, betrayed her utterly. It felt like a further betrayal to learn that her mother had been seeing her sister all these months behind Hannah’s back.

  “I need to work on my bike,” Hannah said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  HANNAH DIDN’T STOP WALKING until she was safely in the garage, breathing in the smell of damp concrete and engine grease. She sank onto her upright tool chest, pressing her hands to her face. For a moment she was so angry and sad she could barely breathe.

  I’m so sick of this. I’m so sick of feeling this way.

  The problem was, she didn’t know what to do with her anger. She’d thought that not seeing Kelly or Lucas for all these months would have made a difference, taken some of the heat out of her feelings. But she’d only had to look into her sister’s perfectly made-up face to feel it all surging back. That, and seeing the pity in her mother’s eyes…

  Of course, her mother wasn’t the only one who felt sorry for poor, jilted Hannah. It had practically become a national pastime once the wedding had been canceled. Their family, all of her and Lucas’s friends, the neighbors, her customers—they’d all offered their condolences and shaken their heads. After all, it wasn’t every day that a tomboyish older sister was cast aside for her younger, more glamorous, more beautiful sister. It was a classic tale of woe and everyone could relate. And more than anything—perhaps even more than the pain of betrayal and loss—Hannah resented being cast as a victim. It wasn’t until her life had crashed around her ears that she’d understood how much pride she took in her independence and her unusual vocation and her own unique, take-no-prisoners view of the world. And now, thanks to Kelly and Lucas, she was simply poor Hannah, victim. Object of pity and sympathy.

  And right now she was acting exactly like a victim, wallowing in her own messy emotional soup. No wonder her mother felt sorry for her.

  Hannah surged to her feet and crossed to her bike. There was still an hour or so of daylight left and she might as well use it while she attempted to fix the muffler. Seizing the handlebars, she rocked the bike off its stand and pushed it down the driveway. After propping it on its stand again, she went back for her toolbox.

  She deliberately focused on what she was doing, on what she needed to do next as she worked, and slowly she calmed. Later, she would apologize to her mother. Hannah knew she hadn’t exactly been a dream to live with the past six months, and although she burned every time she thought about her mother listening sympathetically to her sister, she knew it was her mother’s right to do what she thought was best. And Hannah was the first person to admit she was hardly unbiased in this situation.

  Her stomach rumbled with hunger but she wasn’t ready to go in yet. Instead, she grabbed a beer from the bar fridge she kept in the garage and palmed a handful of peanuts from the jar on the workbench. She’d downed half the beer when she became aware that someone was watching her.

  She glanced across into a pair of big, intent blue eyes.

  “What’s wrong with it?” the little girl asked, toes hanging over the edge of the curb as she hovered near the bike.

  Hannah had never been very good at guessing kids’ ages, but the girl was small and skinny with a delicate, pointed face and Hannah figured she must be about eight or nine. Her very blond hair was caught up on either side of her head in pigtails, and her top featured lots of sparkles and stars in various colors of pink. When she clasped her hands in front of her tummy, Hannah saw her nails were painted with glitter polish.

  “There’s a hole in the muffler. I’m about to patch it,” Hannah said.

  “What’s a muffler?” the little girl asked, taking a step closer.

  Hannah pointed to the round tube at the head of the exhaust pipe. “It’s this part here, in front of the exhaust pipe.”

  “What does it do when it’s not broken?” She took another step.

  Hannah could see the girl was aching to touch the shiny red finish on the gas tank and she nodded encouragingly. “It’s okay, you can touch it.”

  “It’s so shiny,” the little girl said, glitter-tipped fingernails gliding over the paint.

  “The muffler is supposed to stop the engine from sounding so loud,” Hannah said, answering the girl’s earlier question. She tapped the motor. “When the bike is going, there’s a whole lot of noisy stuff going on in here, and the sound has to escape somewhere. The muffler is supposed to turn the volume down.”

  “But yours has got a hole in it. Is that why it was so noisy last night?”

  Hannah shifted guiltily. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that this was one of Joe Lawson’s kids. She had his blue eyes, for starters. And there was something about the way she held her head…Which meant he’d been right last night—Hannah had woken his kids when she’d been fooling around in the garage.

  “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t realize you guys had moved in yet,” Hannah said.

  “It’s okay. I didn’t mind.” The little girl thrust her hand forward. “I’m Ruby Lawson, by the way.”

  Hannah suppressed a smile. She held up her own hand, displaying the grease on it.

  “I’m dirty, sorry. But I’m Hannah,” she said.

  “I don’t care about dirt,” Ruby said, and before Hannah could stop her she’d reached out and grasped Hannah’s hand, her small fingers wrapping around Hannah’s larger ones.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Ruby said solemnly.

  It was impossible for Hannah to hide her smile then. “Pleased to meet you, too, Ruby.”

  Ruby smiled back, then looked at the bike. “Can I help you fix it?”


  Hannah flicked a glance at Ruby’s sparkly top and purple pants. She didn’t exactly strike Hannah as the tomboy type. Still, Hannah wasn’t about to discourage her—she’d been laughed at and sent on her way too many times when she was a curious kid to hand out the same treatment to another little girl.

  “Sure. You can pass me tools when I need them, if you’d like.”

  “Okay. You might have to tell me which one is which, though.”

  “Deal,” Hannah said.

  They worked side by side for a while. Ruby was a fast learner, quickly working out how to tell what size the various spanners and wrenches were by checking the little markings on their sides. She took great delight in slapping each requested tool into Hannah’s hand with vigor. Hannah figured the kid must have seen more than her fair share of medical dramas on TV over the years.

  “My dad used to work with tools like this,” Ruby said as they were refitting the patched muffler.

  Despite herself, Hannah’s curiosity pricked up its ears. “So your dad is a mechanic, is he?” It couldn’t hurt to know a bit more about the man. He did live next door, after all. Might as well know what she was up against.

  “My dad is an oilman. He works on the offshore rigs,” Ruby said proudly. “He’s done every job there is.”

  Hannah didn’t know much about oil work, but she was pretty sure that offshore postings meant the person was away a lot. “You must miss him when he’s working, huh?”

  She knew she was being nosy, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.

  “He’s been working in an office since Mommy died, and now he’s going to be a businessman.”

  Hannah froze for a second.

  A dead wife. It went a long way to explaining the look in Joe’s eyes.

  Suddenly she felt as though she’d invaded her new neighbor’s privacy. She was almost one hundred percent certain that he would hate for her to know about his sad personal life.