It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

Crash sat down on the other side of the desk. “Are we having a Christmas party?”

Nell laughed. And then, to her horror, her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them back, but she knew he saw them, because for a fraction of a second, a very peculiar mix of trepidation and an answering flash of pain crossed his face.

“I’m not going to cry,” she told him, fiercely willing herself to do just that. “I’m just…” She forced a smile. “I feel so bad for Jake, you know? In a way, Daisy’s got it easier, because Jake’s the one who’s going to have to go on living. And sometimes, when Daisy’s not around, I see him, and he has this look in his eyes that just breaks my heart.”

Nell sank down, resting her head on top of her desk.

Crash knew she was fighting tears again, and she didn’t want him to see. Nell’s loyalty impressed him. He understood loyalty. It was the one strong emotion he could relate to—and could allow himself to feel.

“You don’t have to be here,” he said.

She lifted her head and looked at him through a curtain of rumpled hair, her expression aghast. “Yes, I most certainly do. Daisy needs me now more than ever.”

“This wasn’t what you were hired to do.”

“I was hired as her personal assistant.”

“You were hired to take care of all the business aspects of Daisy’s career,” Crash pointed out, “so that she would have more time to paint.”

“A good personal assistant does whatever’s needed,” Nell argued. “If the dishes need washing, I’ll do the dishes. Or I’ll clean the fish tank, or—”

“Most people would’ve given their notice weeks ago. Instead of that, you moved in.”

“Yeah, well, the idea of Daisy having to go into a hospice was unacceptable.” Nell swept her hair out of her face as she reached for a tissue and briskly blew her nose. “And she hated the thought of hiring some stranger to provide round-the-clock personal care. But she didn’t want to dump all that responsibility on Jake, so…” She shrugged.

“So you volunteered.”

“I haven’t had any medical training, so when the time comes that she needs a nurse, someone’s still going to have to come in, but at least she’ll know I’ll be there, too.” Nell tossed the crumpled tissue across the room, sinking it expertly into the wastebasket. “It’s no big deal.” She took a deep breath and pretended to look at the computer screen.

“That’s not true and you know it.”

She looked up at him, gazing directly into his eyes. “Are you going to help me, Hawken, or what?”

Crash had to smile. He liked her direct approach. He liked her. He was definitely going to help with whatever it was that she was doing, but first he had to make something clear to her.

“I know we’re all trying to be as upbeat as Daisy is,” he said quietly, “but that gets hard sometimes. I don’t want you to have to worry about what I’ll say or do if you need to cry. You don’t need that weighing you down, too. We’re living with a lot of emotional upheaval here. There’s nothing normal about this, and we can’t expect each other to behave normally. So, let’s make a deal, okay? You can cry whenever you want, but you can’t hold it against me if I stand up and walk away when you do, because…everything that you’re feeling…I’m fighting it, too.”

Nell just sat there, looking at him. Her eyes were rimmed with red, she wore no makeup, and she looked as if she’d slept about as much as he had in the past few days—which wasn’t much at all.

Maybe they’d both sleep better if they shared a bed.

Crash gently pushed that thought away. He knew it would be true, but he also knew that the absolute, absolute last thing Nell needed in her life right now was to become intimately entangled with him.

She was the kind of woman he avoided like the plague when he walked into a bar. He’d recognized her on sight that first time they’d met. She was too sweet, too smart, too innocently full of life and hope and promise.

She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t believe him when he said he wasn’t looking for long-term or permanent. She was the kind of woman who would think that she could change him.

She was the kind of woman who would cry great big, silent tears as he packed his bag—the kind of woman who would beg him to come back.

No, under completely normal conditions, Crash wouldn’t allow himself to get close to Nell. And right now she was a bubbling caldron of high-octane emotions. He knew—not with any sense of ego, but from that same flatly factual voice of experience—that it wouldn’t take very much for her to fancy herself in love with him. He knew because he was experiencing the very same highs and lows himself.

But, like he’d told Daisy, he didn’t do “in love” and he knew himself well enough to recognize that the rush of emotions he was feeling wasn’t real. It couldn’t possibly be real. And giving in to this powerful physical temptation would be the worst thing he could do to this woman, no matter how badly he longed for something—for someone—to hold on to. No matter how badly he longed for the distraction of sexual release.

He liked Nell too much to use her that way. And knowing what he knew about her, he would be using her.

Crash forced himself to take a step back, to separate a little bit more from his emotions. He’d file his red-hot attraction for Nell in that mental holding area he’d created, right next to all the anger and grief and pain he felt over Daisy’s impending death. All he needed was just a little more distance, a little more detachment.

But Nell finally moved, holding out her hand to him, stretching her arm across her desk. “I’ll accept your deal,” she said. “I want to state for the record, though, that I don’t usually cry at the drop of a hat.”

He took her hand. It was so much smaller than his, her fingers slender and cool. Her grip was firm, and that, along with the crooked smile she gave him, almost made him toss his resolve out the window.

He nearly asked her, point-blank, if she wanted to try to release some tension with him tonight. Daisy had purposely put them in bedrooms right next to each other. It wouldn’t be difficult for him to slip into her room and…

Nell was looking at him, her eyes wide, as if she knew what he was thinking. But then he realized that he was still holding her hand. Quickly, he let it go.

Detach.

He cleared his throat. This entire conversation had started with evergreen trees, swing bands and poinsettias. “So, are Jake and Daisy throwing a Christmas party?”

Nell lifted an eyebrow. “Do you really think they’d do something that mundane or predictable—or easy to plan? No, this is not your average Christmas party. I was just up in the studio while Daisy was painting,” she told him, “and Jake came in and asked her what she wanted to do tonight. He thought maybe she’d want to go to a movie. And she said that lately they only did what she wanted to do, and that wasn’t fair. She thought that tonight they should do something that Jake wanted. And they got into this discussion about Daisy’s list—the list of all the things she wants to do before…you know.”

Crash nodded. He knew.

“So Daisy said she thought it would be fair if Jake made a similar list, and he said that he didn’t need to. He said there was only one thing on his wish list—a wish that she would get well and live with him for another twenty years. And if he couldn’t have that, then his only other wish would be for her to marry him.”

Crash felt a lump forming in his throat. After all this time, Jake still wanted Daisy to marry him.

“So she said yes,” Nell continued softly.

He tried to clear it, but it wouldn’t go away. “Just like that?”

Nell nodded. “Yeah. She’s finally giving in.”

Poor Jake. He’d wanted forever, but all he was getting was a cheap illusion.

Crash felt helplessness and rage churning inside of him, fighting to break free and sweep him away like a tidal wave. It wasn’t fair. He had to look away from the gentle blue of Nell’s eyes, or, dammit, he was going to start to cry.

And once he started, he’d never be able to stop.

“Maybe,” Nell said quietly, “maybe knowing that Daisy loved him enough to give in and marry him will help. Maybe someday Jake will find some comfort in that.”

Crash shook his head, still unable to meet her gaze. He stood up, knowing that if he just walked away, she would understand. But she’d also asked for his help. He sat back down, willing himself to detach even more, to stop feeling so damn much. He took a deep breath and let it slowly out. And when he spoke, his voice was even. “So now we’re planning a wedding.”

“Yup. Daisy said yes, and then turned to me and asked if I could take care of the details—in exactly three weeks. Of course, I said yes, too.” She laughed, and it came out sounding just on the verge of hysterical, just a little bit giddy. “Please, please say that you’ll help me.”

“I’ll help you.”

She briefly closed her eyes. “Thank God.”

“But I don’t have a lot of experience with weddings.”

“Neither do I.”

“In fact, I tend to avoid weddings like the plague,” he admitted.

“All of my college friends who are married either eloped or got married on the other coast,” Nell said. “I’ve never even been to a real wedding. The closest I’ve ever gotten was watching the TV broadcast of Princess Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles when I was little.”

“That probably had just a little bit more flash and fanfare than Daisy and Jake are going to want.”

Nell laughed, and then stopped short. He’d just made a joke. That had been a joke, hadn’t it?

He wasn’t smiling, but there definitely was a glint of something in his eyes. Amusement. Or was it tears?

Crash turned his head and examined the toe of his boot. With his lids lowered, Nell couldn’t see his eyes, and when he looked up again, he was carefully devoid of all expression.

“We should probably make a list of all the essential supplies for a wedding,” he suggested.

“We’ve got the bride and the groom. They’re pretty essential, and we can already cross them off the list.”

“But they’ll need clothes.”

“A wedding gown—something funky that’ll make Daisy feel as if she’s still thumbing her nose at convention.” Nell started an Internet search. “There must be some kind of wedding checklist somewhere that we can use—so we don’t forget something important.”

“Like wedding rings.”

“Or—God!—someone to perform the ceremony.” She looked up, pushing the phone and the yellow pages toward him. “Trees,” she said. “A half a dozen twelve-foot Christmas trees. Live.”

“Delivered ASAP,” he said. “You can already cross it off your list.” He reached for the phone, but she didn’t let it go, and he looked up at her.

“Thanks,” she said quietly. They both knew she was talking about more than just his help with this project.

Crash nodded. “You can cross that off your list, too.”

“A prenuptial agreement?” Nell’s voice was loaded with disbelief.

Crash paused in the kitchen doorway, looking in to find her sitting at the table across from Dexter Lancaster, Jake and Daisy’s lawyer.

She’d made them both tea, and she sat with her hands wrapped around her cup, as if she were cold.

Lancaster was a big man. He had at least five inches and seventy pounds on Crash, but most of those pounds were the result of too many doughnuts and Danishes in the morning and too many servings of blueberry cheesecake at night. Age and a sweet tooth had conspired to take the sharp edges off Lancaster’s WASP-y good looks and as a result, somewhat ironically, he was probably more handsome at age forty-nine than he’d been at thirty.

He was a friendly-looking bear of a man, with warm blue eyes that actually twinkled behind round, wire-framed glasses. His hair was sandy-blond and still thick and untouched by gray.

He sighed as he answered Nell. “Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy, but in a way, it’ll clarify exactly which parts of Daisy’s estate she wishes to leave to persons other than Jake. If it’s in both the prenup and the will, it’ll speed the process along after she’s…” He shook his head, taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes with both hands. “Sorry.”

Nell took a deep breath. “Don’t be. It’s coming, you know. Daisy faces it. She talks about it matter-of-factly. We should be able to do that, too.” She made a sound that was half laughter, half sob. “Easier said than done, though, huh?”

Dex Lancaster set his glasses down and reached across the table to cover her hand with his. “You know, your being here is a godsend to both of them.”

The exact same thought had crossed Crash’s mind at least three times a day. But he’d never said it aloud. He’d figured that Nell surely knew.

She smiled at Lancaster. “Thanks.”

The lawyer smiled back at her, still holding her hand.

The man liked her. He more than liked her.

Dexter Lancaster had a thing for Nell. The man was twenty years her senior, at least, but Crash knew from his subtle body language and from the way he was looking at her that he found her undeniably attractive.

Lancaster was no fool. And judging from the fact that his law firm had one of the best reputations in the country, he also was not an underachiever. Any second now, he was going to ask Nell out to dinner.

“I was wondering…” Lancaster started.

Crash coughed and stepped into the room.

Nell slipped her hand out from beneath Lancaster’s as she turned to look up at him. “You’re back,” she said, giving him a smile. It was a bigger smile than the one she’d given Dex Lancaster. “Did you have any problem getting the rings?”

Crash took the two jewelers’ boxes from the inside pocket of his jacket and set them on the table in front of her. “None whatsoever.”

“You know Dex, don’t you?” she asked.

“We’ve met a few times,” Crash said.

The lawyer stood up as he held out his hand, and the two men shook.

But their handshake wasn’t a greeting. It was a not-so-subtle sizing up. It was more than obvious, from the once-over Lancaster was giving him, that he was trying to figure out what claim—if any—Crash had already staked out.

Crash met the older man’s gaze steadily. And after the handshake was done, he moved slightly to stand closer to Nell, putting one hand on the back of her chair in a gesture that was clearly possessive.

What the hell was he doing?

He didn’t want this girl.

He’d resolved to stay away from her, to keep his distance, both physically and emotionally.

But as much as he didn’t want her, he didn’t want to see her taken for a ride, either.

Crash didn’t trust lawyers any farther than he could throw them, and Dexter Lancaster was no exception to his rule, despite the fact that his eyes twinkled like Santa Claus’s.

Lancaster checked his watch. “I have to get going.” He twinkled at Nell. “I’m sure I’ll talk to you soon.” He nodded at Crash as he slipped on his overcoat. “Nice seeing you again.”

Like hell it was. “Take care,” Crash lied in return.

“What was that all about?” Nell turned to ask as the door closed behind Dexter Lancaster.

Crash opened the refrigerator and pretended to be engrossed by its contents. “Just a little Army/Navy rivalry.”

Nell laughed. “You’re kidding. All that tension just because you’re in the Navy and he was in the Army?”

Crash took a can of soda out and shut the refrigerator door. “Crazy, huh?” he said as he escaped into the other room.

Chapter 3

Nell glanced up from her computer to see Crash standing in her office. She jumped, nearly knocking over her cup of tea, catching it with both hands, just in time.

“God!” she said. “Don’t do that! You’re always sneaking up on me. Make some noise when you come in, will you? Try stomping your feet, okay?”

“I thought I’d made noise when I opened the door. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She took a deep breath, letting it slowly out. “No, I’m sorry. I’ve been…feeling sideways all day. There must be a full moon or something.” She frowned at the half-written letter on her computer screen. “Of course, now I’ve got so much adrenaline raging through my system, I’m not going to be able to concentrate.”

“Next time, I’ll knock.”

Nell looked up at Crash in exasperation. “I don’t want you to knock. You’ve been working as hard as I have—this is your office, too. Just…clear your throat or play the bagpipes or whistle, or something.” She turned back to the letter.

Crash cleared his throat. “I’ve been ordered to tell you that after two days of rain, the sky’s finally clear, and the sun’s due to set in less than fifteen minutes,” he said.

Sunset. Nell glanced at her watch, swearing silently. Was it really that time already?

“I’m waiting for a fax from the caterer, and Dex Lancaster’s supposed to call me right back to tell me if Friday is okay to come out and discuss some changes Daisy wants to make to her will, but I guess he can leave a message on the machine,” she told him, thinking aloud. “I’m almost done with this letter, but I’ll hurry. I’ll be there. I promise.”

Crash stepped closer. “I’ve been ordered to make sure you arrive on time, not five minutes after the sun has gone down, like last Monday. Daisy said to tell you that the rest of the week’s forecast calls for total cloud coverage. In fact, the prediction is for snow—maybe as much as two or three inches. This could be the last sunset we see for a while.”

The last sunset. Every sunset they saw was one of Daisy’s very last sunsets.

Every clear day for the past two weeks, Daisy had brought Nell’s work to a screeching halt as they’d all met in the studio to watch the setting sun. But now there was less than a week before the wedding, and the list of things that needed to be done was still as long as her arm. On top of that, the sun was setting earlier and earlier as midwinter approached, cutting her workday shorter and shorter.

It was also reminding her that the passage of time was bringing them closer and closer to the end of Daisy’s life.

Nell looked at her watch again, then up into the steely gray of Crash’s eyes.

To her surprise, there was amusement gleaming there.

“I’ve been ordered not to fail,” he told her, giving her an actual smile, “which means I’m going to have to pick you up and carry you downstairs to the studio if you don’t get out of that chair right now.”

Yeah, sure he was. Nell turned back to the computer. “Just let me save this file. And wait—here comes that fax from the caterer now. I just have to—Hey!”

Crash picked her up, just as he’d said he would, throwing her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold as he carried her out of the door.

“Okay, Hawken, very funny. Put me down.” Nell’s nose bumped his back and her arms dangled uncomfortably. She wasn’t sure where to put her hands.

He seemed to have no problem figuring out where to put his hands. He held her legs firmly with one arm, and anchored her in place by resting his other hand squarely on the seat of her jeans. Yet despite that, his touch seemed impersonal—further proof that the man was not even remotely interested in her.

And after two weeks of living in the same house, sleeping in a room one door down the hall from his, and working together twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, on this wedding that had somehow grown from a small affair with forty guests into a three-hundred-person, Godzillasized event, Nell probably didn’t need any further proof.

William Hawken wasn’t interested.

Nell had given him all the full-speed-ahead signs—body language, lingering eye contact, subtle verbal hints. She’d done damn near everything but show up naked in his room at night.

But he’d kept at least three feet of air between them at all times. If he was sitting on the couch and she sat down next to him, he soon stood up on the pretense of getting something from the kitchen. He was always polite, always asking if he could get her a soda or a cup of tea, but when he came back, he was careful to sit on the opposite side of the room.

He never let her get too close emotionally, either. While she had babbled on about her family and growing up in Ohio, he had never, not even once, told her anything about himself.

No, he was definitely not interested.

Except whenever she turned around, whenever he thought she wasn’t looking, he was there, looking at her. He moved so soundlessly, he just seemed to appear out of thin air. And he was always watching.

It was enough to keep alive that little seed of hope. Maybe he was interested, but he was shy.

Shy? Yeah, right. William Hawken might’ve been quiet, but he didn’t have a shy bone in his body. Try again.

Maybe he was in love with someone else, someone far away, someone he couldn’t be with while he was here at the farm. In that case, the careful distance that he kept between them made him a gentleman.

Or maybe he simply wasn’t interested, but he didn’t have anything better to look at, so he stared at her.

And maybe she should stop obsessing and get on with her life. So what if the most handsome, attractive, fascinating man she’d ever met only wanted to be friends? So what if every time she was with him, she liked him more and more? So what? She’d be friends with him. No big deal.

Nell closed her eyes, miserably wishing that he were carrying her to his room. Instead, he took her all the way down the stairs and into Daisy’s art studio.

Jake had set up the beach chairs in front of the window that faced west. Daisy was already reclining, hands lazily up behind her head as Jake gently worked the cork free from a bottle of wine.

The last sunset. Crash’s words rang in Nell’s ears. One of these evenings, Daisy was going to watch her last sunset. Nell hated that idea. She hated it. Anger and frustration boiled in her chest, making it hard to breathe.

“Better lock the door before you put her down,” Daisy told Crash. “She might run away.”

“Just throw her down fast and sit on her,” Jake recommended.

But Crash didn’t throw her down. He placed her, gently, on one of the chairs.

“Watch her,” Daisy warned. “She’ll try to squeeze in just one more call.”

Nell looked at the other woman in exasperation. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, okay? But I’m not going to drink any wine. I still have too much work to—”

Jake put a wineglass in her hand. “How can you make a toast if you don’t have any wine?”

Daisy sat up to take a glass from Jake, who took the chair next to her. She leaned forward slightly to look across him to Nell. “I have an idea. Let’s just let this wedding happen. No more preparations. We’ve got the dress, the rings, the band’s set to come and nearly all the guest have been called. What else could we possibly need?”

“Food would be nice.”

“Who eats at weddings, anyway?” Daisy said. Her cat-green eyes narrowed as she looked at Nell. “You look exhausted. I think you need a day off. Tomorrow Jake and I are going skiing over in West Virginia. Why don’t you come along?”

Skiing? Nell snorted. “No thanks.”

“You’d love it,” Daisy persisted. “The view from the ski lift is incredible, and the adrenaline rush from the ride down the mountain is out of this world.”

“It’s really not my style.” She preferred curling up in front of a roaring fire with a good book over an adrenaline rush. She smiled tightly at Crash. “See, I’m one of those people who ride the Antique Cars in the amusement park instead of the roller coaster.”

He nodded, pouring soda into the delicate wineglass Jake had left out for him. “You like being in control. There’s nothing wrong with that.” He sat down next to her. “But skiing’s different from riding a roller coaster. When you ski, you’ve still got control.”

“Not when I ski,” Daisy said with a throaty chuckle.

Crash glanced at her, his mouth quirking up into one of his near smiles. “If you had bothered to learn how to do it instead of just strapping the skis on for the first time at the top of a mountain—”