It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

“How could I waste my time on the bunny slope when that great huge mountain was sitting there, waiting for me?” Daisy retorted. “Billy, talk Nell into coming with us.”

Crash’s eyes met Nell’s, and she wondered if he could tell just from looking how brittle she felt today. She’d been tense and out of sorts just a few minutes ago, but now she felt as if she were going to snap.

Crash on the other hand, looked exactly as he always did. Slightly remote, in careful control. That was how he did it, Nell realized suddenly. He stayed in control by distancing himself from the situation and the people involved.

He’d cut himself off from all his emotions. Sure, he probably didn’t feel as if his rage and grief were going to come hurtling out of him in some terrible projectile vomit of emotion. But on the other hand, he didn’t laugh much, either. Oh, occasionally something she or Daisy said would catch him off guard, and he’d chuckle. But she’d never seen him laugh until tears came.

He’d protected himself from the pain, but he’d cut himself off from the joy as well.

And that was another desperate tragedy. Daisy, so full of life, was dying while Crash willingly chose to go through life emotionally half-dead.

Nell was clinging to the very edge of the cliff that was her control, and the sheer tragedy of that thought made her fingernails start slipping.

Crash leaned slightly toward her. “I can teach you to ski, if you want,” he said quietly. “I’d take it as slowly as you like—you’d be in control, I promise.” He lowered his voice even further. “Are you all right?”

Nell shook her head quickly, jerkily, like a pitcher shaking off a catcher’s hand signal. “I can’t go skiing. I have way too much to do.” She turned toward Daisy, unable to meet the other woman’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Daisy didn’t say it in front of Jake and Crash, but Nell could see what she was thinking—it was clearly written on her face. She thought Nell was missing out. She thought Nell was letting her life pass her by.

But life was about making choices, dammit, and Nell was choosing to stay home, to stay warm instead of strapping slabs of wood onto her feet and risking broken arms and legs by sliding at an alarming speed down an icy slope covered with artificial snow. The only thing Nell was missing was fear, discomfort and the chance for a trip to the hospital.

She sat back in her chair, feeling as if the sudden silence in the room was the fault of her bitchiness. Her chest got even tighter and the suffocating feeling she was fighting threatened to overwhelm her. She looked at Crash. He was watching the sky begin to change colors as he sipped soda from his wineglass.

What did it look like to him? Did he look at the beautiful pink and reddish-orange colors with as much detachment as he did everything else? Did he see the fragile lace of the high clouds only as a meteorological formation, only as cirrus clouds? And instead of the brilliant colors, did he see only the dust in the atmosphere, bending and distorting the sun’s light?

“How come you’re not required to drink wine?” Her words came out sounding belligerent, nearly rude. But if he noticed, he didn’t take offense.

“I don’t drink alcohol,” he told her evenly, “unless I absolutely have to.”

That didn’t make sense. Nothing about her life right now made any sense at all. “Why would you have to?”

“Sometimes, in other countries, when I meet with…certain people, it would be considered an insult not to drink with them.”

That was it. Nell boiled over. She stood up and set down her glass, sloshing the untouched contents on the tablecloth. “Could you possibly be any more vague when you talk about yourself? I mean, don’t bother adding a single detail, please. It’s not as if I give a damn.”

Nell was furious, but Crash knew that her anger wasn’t aimed at him. He’d just been caught in her emotional crossfire.

For the past two weeks, she had been in as carefully tight control as he was. But for some reason—and it didn’t really matter what had triggered it—she’d reached her limit tonight.

She was staring at him now, her face ashen and her eyes wide and filled with tears, as if she’d realized just how terribly un-Nell-like she’d just sounded.

Crash got to his feet slowly, afraid if he moved too quickly she’d run for the door.

But she didn’t run. Instead, she forced a tight smile. “Well, I sure am the life of the party tonight, huh?” She glanced at the others, still trying hard to smile. “I’m sorry, Daisy. I think I have to go.”

“Yeah, I have to go, too,” Crash said, hoping that if he sounded matter-of-fact, Nell might let him walk with her. The stress she’d been under for the past few weeks had been hellishly intense. She didn’t deserve to be alone, and he, God help him, was the only candidate available to make sure that she wasn’t. He took her arm and gently pulled her with him toward the door.

She didn’t say a word until they reached the stairs that led to the second floor of the rambling modern farmhouse. But then, with the full glory of the pink sky framed by the picture window in the living room, she spoke. “I ruined a really good sunset for them, didn’t I?”

Crash wished that she would cry. He would know what to do if she cried. He’d put his arm around her and hold her until she didn’t need him to hold her anymore.

But he didn’t know what to do about the bottomless sorrow that brimmed like the tears in her eyes—brimmed, but wasn’t released.

“There’ll be other sunsets,” he finally said.

“How many will Daisy get to see?” She turned to him, looking directly into his eyes as if he might actually know the answer to that question. “Probably not a hundred. Probably not even fifty. Twenty, do you think? Twenty’s not very many.”

“Nell, I don’t—”

She turned and started quickly up the stairs. “I have to do better than this. This cannot happen again. I’m here to help her, not to be more of a burden.”

He followed, taking the steps two at a time to catch up to her. “You’re human,” he said. “Give yourself a break.”

She stopped, her hand on the knob of the door that led to her room. “I’m sorry I said…what I said.” Her voice shook. “I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

He wanted to touch her, and knew that she wanted him to touch her, too. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t take that risk. Not without the excuse of her tears. And she still wasn’t crying. “I’m sorry I…frustrate you.”

It was a loaded statement—one that was true on a multitude of levels. But she didn’t look up. She didn’t acknowledge it at all, in any way.

“I think I have to go to sleep now,” she whispered. “I’m so tired.”

“If you want, I’ll…” What? What could he possibly do?

“I’ll sit with you for a while.”

At first he wasn’t sure she heard him. She was silent for a long time. But then she shook her head. “No. Thanks, but…”

“I’ll be right next door, in my room, if you need me,” he told her.

Nell turned and looked up at him, then. “You know, Hawken, I’m glad we’re friends.”

She looked exhausted, and Crash was hit with a wave of the same fatigue. It was a nearly overwhelmingly powerful feeling, accompanied by an equally powerful sense of irrationality. It was all he could do to keep himself from reaching out and cupping the softness of her face, and lowering his lips to hers.

Instead, he stepped back, away from her. Detach. Separate. Distance.

And Nell slipped into her room, shutting the door tightly behind her.

At two in the afternoon, the trees were delivered.

As the huge truck rolled into the driveway, Nell pulled her brown-leather bomber jacket on over her sweater and, wrapping her scarf around her neck, went out to meet it.

She stopped short before she reached the gravel of the drive.

Crash was standing next to one of the trucks.

What was he doing there?

He was wearing one of his disgustingly delicious-looking black turtlenecks, talking to the driver and gesturing back toward the barn.

It was starting to snow, just light flurries, but the delicate flakes glistened and sparkled in his dark hair and on his shirt.

What was he doing there?

The driver climbed back into the cab of the truck, and Crash turned as Nell came toward him.

“I thought you went skiing.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the sound of the revving engine and the gasping release of the air brakes.

“No,” he said, watching as the truck pulled around the house, in the direction he had pointed. “I decided to stay here.”

He started following the truck, but Nell stood still, glancing back at the house. “You should get a jacket.” She was suddenly ridiculously nervous. After last night, he must think her an idiot. Or a fool. Or an idiotic fool. Or…

“I’m fine.” He turned to face her, but he didn’t stop walking. “I want to make sure the barn is unlocked.”

Nell finally followed. “It is. I was out there earlier. I picked up the decorations in town this morning.”

“I figured that’s where you went. You left before I could offer to help.”

Nell couldn’t stand dancing around the subject of the night before one instant longer. “You didn’t go skiing today because you thought I might still need a baby-sitter,” she said, looking him straight in the eye.

He smiled slightly. “Substitute friend for baby-sitter, and you’d be right.”

Friend. There was that word again. Nell had used it herself last night. I’m glad we’re friends. If only she could convince herself that friendship was enough. That was not an easy thing to do when the very sight of this man made her heart beat harder, when the fabric of his turtleneck hugged the hard muscles of his shoulders and chest, clinging where she ached to run her hands and her mouth and…

And there was no doubt about it. She had it bad for a Navy SEAL who called himself Crash. She had it bad for a man who had cleanly divorced himself from all his emotions.

“I want to apologize,” she started to say, but he cut her off.

“You don’t need to.”

“But I want to.”

“All right. Apology accepted. Daisy called while you were out,” he said, changing the subject deftly. They walked around the now idling truck toward the outbuilding that Jake and Daisy jokingly called the barn.

But with its polished wood floors, one wall of windows that overlooked the mountains and another of mirrors that reflected the panoramic view, this “barn” wasn’t used to hold animals. Equipped with heating and central air conditioning, with a full kitchen attached to the ballroom-sized main room, it was no ordinary stable. Even the rough, exposed beams somehow managed to look elegant. The previous owners had used the place as a dance studio and exercise room.

Crash swung open the main doors. “Daisy said she and Jake were getting a room at a ski lodge, and that they wouldn’t be back until tomorrow afternoon, probably on the late side.”

She and Crash would be alone in the house tonight. Nell turned away, afraid he would read her thoughts in her eyes. Not that it mattered particularly. He probably already knew what she was thinking—he had to be aware of what she wanted. She’d been far less than subtle over the past few weeks. But he didn’t want the same thing.

Friends, she reminded herself. Crash wanted them to be friends. Being friends was safe, and God forbid he should ever allow anything to shake him up emotionally.

Crash stepped to the side of the room, gently pulling Nell with him as three workmen carried one of the evergreen trees into the building.

She moved out of his grasp, but not because she didn’t want him to touch her. On the contrary. She liked the sensation of his hand on her arm too much. But she was afraid if she stood there like that, so close to him, it wouldn’t be long before she sank back so that she was leaning against him.

But friends didn’t do that.

Friends kept their distance.

And there was no need to embarrass herself in front of this man two days in a row.

Chapter 4

Crash held the stepladder while Nell positioned the angel on the top of one of the trees.

She’d brought a portable CD player into the barn, and Bing Crosby sang “White Christmas” over remarkably natural-sounding speakers. Nell sang along, right in Bing’s octave, her voice a low, throaty alto.

She looked out the window as she came down the ladder. The snow was still falling. “I can’t remember the last time it snowed for Christmas. Certainly not since I’ve lived in Virginia. And last year, I visited my parents in Florida. I was on the beach on Christmas Eve. The sand was white, but it just wasn’t the same.”

Crash was silent as he carried the stepladder to the last tree, as Nell removed the plastic wrapping from the final angel.

“You didn’t make it out here to the farm last Christmas, did you?”

“No.”

Nell glanced at him and he knew what she was looking for. She’d tossed him the conversational ball, and wanted him to run with it. She wanted him to tell her where he’d spent last Christmas.

He cleared his throat. “Last December, I was on a covert military op that is still so top secret, I can’t even tell you which hemisphere of the globe I was in.”

“Really?” Her eyes were wide. And very blue. Ocean blue. But not the stormy blue of the Atlantic, or even the turquoise of the Caribbean. Nell’s eyes were the pure blue of the South China Sea. In fact, there was a beach there that—He cut his thought off abruptly. What was he doing? Allowing himself to submerge in the depths of this woman’s eyes? That was insanity.

He turned away, making sure the stepladder was close enough to the tree. “Most of what I do, I can’t talk about. Not to anyone.”

“God, that must be really tough—considering the way you love to run off at the mouth.”

She’d caught him off guard, and he laughed. “Yeah, well…What can I say?”

“Exactly.” Nell paused on the rung of the ladder that brought them eye to eye. “Actually, I shouldn’t be making jokes. It’s probably really hard for you, isn’t it?”

Malaysia. The beach was in Malaysia, and the ocean had been an impossibly perfect shade of blue. He’d sat there in the sand for hours, drinking it in, watching the sunlight dance across the water.

“It’s my job,” he said quietly.

Unlike in Malaysia, Crash forced himself to look away.

He could feel her gazing at him for several long moments before continuing on up the stepladder. She set the angel on the top branch of the tree, carefully adjusting its halo.

“I know that part of what Jake does has to do with these…covert ops you’re sent on. Although…they were called something else, weren’t they? Black ops?”

Crash waited several beats before speaking. “How do you know about that?”

Something in his voice must have been different, because she glanced down at him. “Uh-oh. I wasn’t supposed to know, was I? Now you’re going to have to kill me, right?”

He didn’t laugh at her joke. “Technically, your having access to that information is a breach of security. I need to know what you saw or heard, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

She slowly came back down the ladder. “You’re serious.”

“There are only five—now six—people in the world who know I work covert ops for Admiral Robinson,” Crash told her. “One of them is the President of the United States. And now one of them is you.”

Nell sat down on the second to last rung of the stepladder. “Oh, my God, you are going to have to kill me.” She looked up at him. “Or vote me into office.”

He nearly laughed at that one. But in truth there was nothing funny about this. “Nell, if you knew how serious…” Crash shook his head.

“But that’s just it,” she said imploringly. “I don’t know. How can I know when you won’t even finish your sentences? I know close to nothing about you. I’m friends with you almost entirely on faith—on vague gut instincts and the fact that Daisy and Jake think that the sun rises and sets with you. Do you know that in the past two weeks, you’ve told me nothing about yourself? We talk about books, and you tell me you’re currently reading Grisham’s latest, but you never say if you like it. You wouldn’t even tell me your favorite color! I mean, what kind of friendship is that?”

The problem she had with him was nothing compared to the problem he currently had with her. He pinned her into place with his eyes. “Nell, this is extremely important. I need to know how you found out I was working with Jake. Have you mentioned this to anyone else? Anyone at all?”

She shook her head, holding his gaze steadily. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive,” she said. “Look, I overheard Jake and Daisy talking. I didn’t mean to, but they were being loud. They were…exchanging heated words. It wasn’t quite an argument, but it was the closest to it that I’ve ever heard. Daisy accused Jake of sending you out on a black op. Those are the exact words she said. A black op. I remember because it sounded so spooky and dangerous. Anyway, Daisy wanted to know where you were. It was back when all that trouble was happening in the Middle East, and she was worried about you. She wanted Jake to stop using you for those dangerous covert missions—again, that’s pretty much a direct quote—and he told her there was no one he trusted as much as you to get the job done. Besides, he said, you could take care of yourself.”

Crash was silent.

“They both love you an awful lot,” Nell told him.

He couldn’t help himself. He started to pace. “You had a security check run on you before you started working for Daisy,” he said, thinking aloud.

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