The Christmas Secret

But this … finding out that he’d been able to keep his son while she’d had to give up hers … this felt like more than she could handle. Oh, God. Now she was having trouble breathing again. She glanced over her shoulder toward the front of the house. Maybe she should make an excuse to leave. She could tell Kristi and Claire that she had to get home to her mother, that they could continue with the site visit and fill her in tomorrow.

AJ spoke first. “I have work to do so unless you need me for anything, I’ll let the three of you get to it.”

Claire, the consummate professional, was quick to respond. “Of course. Please don’t let us keep you. This should only take an hour, maybe less. We can let ourselves out and I’ll call you tomorrow, after we’ve worked out our expenses and a timeline for getting everything done.”

He responded with a nod and a vague smile and left the kitchen. Sam could tell he was deliberately ignoring her. She wanted to throw her tape measure at him.

She had good aim and she could easily hit him squarely in the back of the head. Seconds later the slam of an outside door was followed by the sound of his footsteps on stairs. Whatever work he had to do, it was in the backyard. With his son.

Claire faced Sam, one hand clutching her iPad, the other on her hip. “What on earth was that all about?”

Tears tickled Sam’s eyelids. You will not cry, she told herself. Not here. He’s not worth it. “What do you mean?” she asked, trying to feign surprise, knowing she failed miserably. Trust Claire to figure this out.

“Don’t give me that. It’s totally obvious you and the man in black have a past, and it clearly didn’t end well.”

That was the understatement of the century. Sam shook her head. “I can’t talk about it here. I’ll fill you in later.”

Claire hugged her. “Sorry, hon. I had no idea.”

Kristi made it a group hug. “Will you be able to handle this?”

Sam momentarily indulged in her friends’ affection, then pulled away and put on a brave face. “I’ll be fine. And there’s no way you could have known. If I paid more attention to who our clients are, I wouldn’t have been blindsided.”

Claire wasn’t letting go that easily. “We’re almost into December and the pre-Christmas season is always slow. This is a big job and we can really use the business right now, but if—”

Sam took a deep breath and a step back. “No ‘buts.’ We’re taking this job. I’ll be fine. It’s just … I didn’t expect this to be his house and seeing him caught me off guard, but I’ll be fine.” She had to be. The company might need the work, but she needed the income even more. “Can we finish up and get out of here?”

“Of course. Let’s check out the rest of the main floor,” Claire said. “There’s a big living room, plus the dining room and a small den. Then we can do the upstairs.”

Sam’s heart started to race again. The bedrooms would be upstairs. AJ’s bedroom. Had he and his wife lived here? Had he and his son moved in after they split up? It didn’t matter. He lived here now, and his bedroom had better not need any work. There could be a gaping hole in the ceiling, and it would stay that way because it would be a frosty day in hell before she would set a foot in AJ’s bedroom.

Half an hour later Sam stood with Claire and Kristi in the upstairs hallway, staring into the bathroom. It had been renovated in the fifties, complete with pink lino on the floor and pink and black ceramic tiles on the walls.

Kristi laughed. “This is one of the tackiest bathrooms I’ve ever seen. What were they thinking? Thank goodness the fixtures are white. That’ll keep the cost down if we decide to renovate.”

Sam thought about the bathroom in the apartment she shared with her mother. It had crumbling grout and no personality, but, oddly enough, she liked this one. Her mother would, too.

Claire stepped into the room. “I’m not sure we should. Bathroom renos are time-consuming and expensive. Leaving this as is would mean more money in the client’s pocket, and this retro look is surprisingly popular.” She picked up a pink crocheted doll covering a roll of toilet paper. “But, oh, my goodness, I’ve never seen a house with so much stuff in it. Bad enough there’s a ton of these kinds of things.” She set the doll down and picked up a matching tissue-box holder. “And seriously, how many doilies does one person need?”

Kristi laughed. “I counted eighty-seven on the main floor before I lost track. On the plus side, if the client is interested in getting rid of the vintage linens, most will fetch a few dollars apiece.”

Sam couldn’t imagine AJ having an attachment to his grandmother’s fussy clutter. And Kristi might be right about the linens, but no one would want kitschy crocheted bathroom accessories.

“Sam? What are your thoughts?” Claire asked.

She didn’t much care whether AJ saved any money, but she was completely on board with saving time. “I say we leave it. After Kristi works her magic in here, it’ll look great.”

Claire was making notes as she left the bathroom. “Good plan. Let’s check out the bedrooms.”

“How can you walk, talk and type at the same time?” Kristi asked.

Claire grinned. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”

Sam had always admired her business partner’s multitasking abilities, and she had never been more grateful for Claire’s levelheaded business savvy than she was right now because she knew she could count on her to keep her grounded through this ordeal. Kristi was, well, not so grounded. She tended to leap before she looked and talk before she thought, rushed into everything with boundless enthusiasm, and everyone loved her for it. Or in spite of it. But Kristi would have her back, too. Together they’d get through this, and then Sam’s life could get back to normal. Not that she had a “normal” life, but there was a lot to be said for maintaining the status quo.

“Let’s check out the bedrooms,” Claire said. “This looks like the master, and I’m guessing it was the grandmother’s.”

Kristi groaned. “More doilies and plastic flower arrangements. Those must go with the bowl of plastic fruit on the dining-room table.”

Sam looked past the clutter to the flower-and-butterfly-patterned wallpaper. “After everything’s cleared out, I’ll need a day to strip the wallpaper and another day to paint. The oak floor is in good shape, though.”

Claire made more notes on the move. “This must be AJ’s room.” She shot a quick glance at Sam.

Sam hastily perused the room from the doorway and stepped back. The space was neat as a pin, almost austere compared to the grandmother’s, and even better there was no wallpaper.

“From too much personality in Grandma’s room to none in here,” Kristi said. “I get that he’s a guy, and guys usually don’t have a clue when it comes to decorating, but this room is so boring it’s painful. Doesn’t need much work, though. A fresh coat of paint and some new drapes should do it.”

The room had better be able to paint itself, Sam thought, because she wasn’t doing it. The simple fact that it was his room was enough to get her heart pounding, but what if he and his wife had lived here? Conceived their child in this bed?

“Two more rooms,” Claire said. “This must be the nanny’s.”

Sam took one look and fell in love with it. The nanny’s room was hands down the most welcoming space in the house. Although it was a typically gray late-November day in Seattle, the room felt bright, almost sunny. Strangely so, Sam thought. Right now the only occupant was a teddy bear snuggled into the corner of an overstuffed yellow upholstered armchair with a copy of Green Eggs and Ham on the seat next to him. Sam could practically hear the warm laughter that would accompany story time. On the floor next to the chair sat a basket full of colorful yarn and knitting needles, and adjacent to that a small round side table painted bright blue. On top of the table there was a vase filled with fresh-cut flowers and a quirky-looking tea service on a wooden tray, a teapot in the shape of a giant strawberry and two pink china cups and saucers. Tea for two. The nanny and AJ’s son? Sam wondered.

Claire walked into the room and admired the china. “This is so adorable. I’ve never seen heart-shaped saucers.”

Sam’s heart felt as flat as a pancake, as though the life was being squeezed out of it. She had never been entertained with tea parties, not even as a very young child. Even back then her mother hadn’t been well and although her father had dutifully provided the basics, there’d been no fun, no games, no laughter. But this woman, the nanny, had moved in here and created a personal space that both fit with the rest of the house and was yet set apart from it, and its welcome hominess gave Sam a good feeling about her.

“This room is perfect,” Kristi said. “Even the wallpaper works in here. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Neither would Sam.

“Excellent.” Claire made a note of that. “That leaves the nursery, which is right here across the hall. Should we take a look?”

Sam nodded a silent affirmative, and cast one last look at the nanny’s room before reluctantly following her partners to the room across the hall. Earlier when they’d been in the kitchen, she had deliberately avoided looking outside because she was emotionally unprepared to see AJ’s son. And now she wasn’t ready for this.

The nursery, the only room in the house with a bright modern flair, had been painted a fresh shade of pale green. The child-size trundle bed was covered with a cozy patchwork quilt and heaped with stuffed animals. The green-and-yellow polka-dot upholstery on the armchair and ottoman coordinated with the multitoned green-and-yellow-striped drapes on the window next to them. Had AJ chosen these colors, this furniture? Did he sit here with his son? She didn’t know why, but she found it impossible to picture him as a father. Or had his wife decorated the room before she left? Did she still visit? Did the child live with her part of the time?

“Sam?” Claire’s gentle tone eased her out of her daze. “I was saying the bedrooms shouldn’t take long, since the nanny’s room and nursery are fine as they are.”

“Sorry, and yes, you’re right. The other two bedrooms won’t take long. I guess we should start with the grandmother’s since no one’s living in it. I’ll have to move the furniture away from the walls to get at the wallpaper.”

“You’ll need help with that,” Claire said. “I’ll get Marlie to call the movers as soon as I get back to the office this afternoon and find out when they’re available. We’ll have them do the room when they rearrange things downstairs.”

Kristi stowed her camera in her shoulder bag. “I’m going home to download the photographs I took today and spend the afternoon working on a color scheme. I want to be home when Jenna gets out of school because yesterday my sweet darling daughter had a boy there when I got home.”

“Ah, the teenage years,” Claire said with a grin. “I remember them well. Except I didn’t have a boyfriend,” she added quickly.

Neither did Sam. She’d never invited a friend home, either, and wouldn’t have dreamed of bringing home a boy she was interested in. He would have made a run for it.

“I remember those years, too.” Kristi sighed. “I also remember what teenage boys are like. Hormones permanently in overdrive. That’s kind of how I got to be a mom so young.”

“You were eighteen when your daughter was born,” Sam said because she felt she should say something reassuring. “Jenna’s only thirteen.”

Kristi rolled her eyes. “Thirteen going on twenty-something.”

“And the boy?” Claire asked.

“She says he’s fifteen, which, knowing my daughter, means he’s probably closer to sixteen.”

Claire put an arm around Kristi. “Young girls always date up. Besides, Jenna’s a good kid with a good head on her shoulders. I’d give a lot to have one just like her.”

From the time the three of them had become business partners, Claire had talked about how desperately she wanted children. Now that her marriage was on the rocks, the likelihood of that was slimmer than ever. Sam didn’t allow herself to think about a family, or the future. It was too hard. Hell, just seeing another little boy’s bedroom had sent her mind racing back into the past.

What if …?

If only …

Don’t go there!

“Do you have plans for the rest of the day, Sam?”

She gave herself another mental shake. “Ah, yes. Stop at the drugstore to pick up my mother’s medication. Grab a few groceries.” Precious few after she paid for the prescription.

“How is she?” Kristi asked. “Any better?”

Sam wished she hadn’t said anything. Although Claire and Kristi had never met her mother, she had reluctantly told them about her. There were days when Sam couldn’t leave her alone, and her business partners needed to know why.

She shrugged. “A little better, I think.” She hoped, but she didn’t want to talk about her mother. “After dinner I’ll go over my notes and come up with a timeline for getting all this work done. I’ll email it to both of you and we can go over it at our meeting tomorrow morning.”

“Excellent,” Claire said. “I’ll do two appraisals—one for the house as it is now and another that will include all the proposed updates. We can present the package to … the client.” She eyed Sam over the top rim of her dark-framed glasses. “Then we’ll take it from there.”

The three of them trooped down the back stairs to the kitchen, Sam last and desperately hoping to avoid another encounter with “the client.” In the kitchen they were greeted by an aproned silver-haired woman, who stood at the stove stirring a large pot. The savory-scented steam rising from it reminded Sam’s stomach it was almost lunchtime.

“Hello, girls. I’m Annie Dobson, the nanny.”

“Nice to meet you.” Claire shook the woman’s hand and stepped back. “What are you cooking? It smells wonderful.”

“Homemade chicken noodle soup. It’s a favorite around here.”

Sam’s stomach rumbled hungrily.

“We’ll get out of your way so you can have lunch,” Claire said. “Is Mr. Harris … I mean, is AJ around?”

“He had to go out, so he took young William with him. Would you like me to pass along a message?”

So, his son’s name was William.

“Yes, that would be great. Please let him know I’ll call as soon as we have a work plan in place. I’m Claire, by the way. This is Kristi, the interior decorator, and Sam’s our carpenter.”

“Nice to meet you. It’ll be nice having some young women around here for a change, especially a lady carpenter.” Her blue-eyed gaze gave Sam a good going-over. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”

“Um …” Sam searched her memory for an image of the woman. Had she worked for the Harris family when Sam had renovated their corporate offices? She was a nanny, so unlikely. “No, I don’t think so.”

Annie’s scrutiny didn’t let up. “No, maybe not. I usually never forget a face, though, and there’s something about you …” She looked away finally and gave the pot of soup another stir. “I’m sure it’ll come to me. Oh, I almost forgot. Mr. Harris asked me to give each of you a key to the front door so you can come and go as you please.” She pulled the keys out of her apron pocket.

“Thanks.” Claire accepted the keys and passed them around.

Sam tucked hers in the pocket of her jeans. “Nice to meet you. I should go,” she said to Claire and Kristi. “I have lots to do.” And she wanted to get out of here before AJ returned. She still had a lot of questions, like did he plan to live here while they did the work or would he make other arrangements? His parents’ home on Mercer Island was certainly big enough. The apartment Sam shared with her mother would fit in their pool house, with room to spare.

Sam hated giving a rat’s ass about his living arrangements, hated herself for hoping he’d be here every day and hated that she still found him the most attractive man she had ever met.

Chapter Three

After a nearly sleepless night spent contemplating his options, AJ decided to honor the contract with Sam’s company. Getting out of it would take time, and money. Hiring someone else to do the work would take more time. There was also a chance that firing them would raise Sam’s suspicions, and he couldn’t risk that.

Not that it should matter. She had abruptly and cold-heartedly ended their relationship, neglected to tell him she was pregnant and then decided to put their baby up for adoption as though he had no say in the matter. It was purely by coincidence that, months after Sam had broken things off with him, he happened to see her. He’d been sitting in the glass-walled boardroom of the law firm that handled Harris Marketing and Communications’ contract negotiations and had been stunned to see Sam Elliott—a very pregnant Sam Elliott—walk out of Melanie Morrow’s office. Melanie practiced family law. AJ had met her at a handful of social gatherings and didn’t know her well, but well enough to know she wanted to get ahead and make a name for herself, mostly by handling high-profile divorce cases.

He’d never had much interest in contracts—he much preferred the creative side of the business—but his father had insisted he take an active role. That day he had suffered through the meeting and while the lawyers argued about costs and compensations, he had pondered Sam’s protruding belly, performed some mental calculations of his own and quickly came to the conclusion that what was inside that belly could very well be his. Was it possible that the woman he had been so in love with could be carrying his child without telling him? It was impossible to believe she was that coldhearted, and having another man’s baby would certainly explain why she’d given AJ the brush-off. And now she and that other man were already headed for a divorce, or so it would seem. If that was the case, it was none of his business, but he needed to know.

By the time the meeting was over, he’d come up with a plan to stop by Melanie’s office on his way out, invite her to join him for a drink after work and figure out a way to direct the conversation around to Sam. He’d never been much for small talk but that hadn’t mattered because two wine spritzers had been all it took to loosen Melanie’s tongue.

What he learned was something he’d never imagined possible, and it hit him harder than anything up until then, even harder than his brother’s suicide all those years ago. Sam wasn’t married. Her baby was due in two months, the father wasn’t “involved,” she didn’t want the baby and she was setting up a private adoption. Counting back from her due date showed the baby had been conceived when they were together. He wasn’t sure what he thought of Sam at that moment, but he was absolutely sure of two things. She didn’t sleep around, and she was having his baby. A baby she didn’t want. The realization cut him to the core. It had taken a week to come up with a plan, then he’d asked Melanie out for dinner, and the rest was history.

A history that yesterday had crashed into his life like a steamroller. He had always intended to get away from Seattle before this could happen. Now that it had, and as bizarre as it sounded even in his head, keeping Sam around to do the work was safer than sending her packing. Claire DeAngelo, who seemed to be the one in charge although she insisted the three of them were equal partners, thought the work would take several weeks and she’d have the house on the market before Christmas.

He’d been up since before dawn, moving everything from the sunroom he used as an office to his bedroom. Satisfied that his temporary work space would provide a welcome escape from the past and present, he went downstairs to join Will and Annie for breakfast and wait for Sam’s return.

After an early-morning run, Sam dawdled over her cornflakes and coffee while she watched her mother study the jigsaw puzzle pieces strewn across the other side of the table. For the first time in forever, she was tempted to join her. The notion of withdrawing from reality and into her mother’s fantasy world had never held any appeal—until this morning. There’d be no puzzles in Sam’s dreamworld. It would also be a world devoid of lying, cheating, two-timing ex-lovers.

In spite of the psychiatrist’s diagnosis, years ago, that Tildy Elliott had an illness, a mental illness, Sam had always wondered if some past event had caused her to retreat into a fantasy world. Maybe something Sam’s long-absent and now deceased father had done, or something another man had done. Until her run-in with AJ yesterday, Sam had never thought of it in exactly those terms, but now as she watched this delicate woman intent on finding the puzzle’s flat-edged border pieces, Sam had a hunch that a man had to be behind her mother’s illness. Men were nothing but trouble.

On the weekend, Tildy had been as delighted as a child on Christmas morning when Sam brought the six new puzzles home. This one—a photograph of a castle somewhere in Europe—had immediately captured her mother’s interest. It also had a thousand pieces and would easily keep her busy all day while Sam was at work.

Sam dismissed the guilt pangs. When she wasn’t working, which was rare these days, she tried to get her mother out of the apartment or at least encourage her to do something other than puzzles, playing solitaire or watching television. But when she had to leave her here alone, she worried less knowing she was occupied, and she knew Tildy would work tirelessly on the puzzle until it was finished.

This morning Sam’s very existence felt a lot like those scattered bits of cardboard. Broken pieces of what had been, until yesterday, a whole picture, albeit a tenuous one. Much as she disliked puzzles, she would give almost anything to stay here and lose herself in the mind-numbing activity of putting that picture back together. Instead she had demons to face, and AJ Harris was one hell of a demon.

He’d inherited an incredible house but it needed a lot of work. Still, if she worked long hours and brought in a couple of assistants to help with the painting and wallpaper removal, she should be able to finish in three weeks. Barring any unforeseen problems. To her question about potential problems like mold or termites or faulty wiring, AJ had given one of his silent shrugs. Huh. The privileged pretty boy with the perfect home and an adorably cherub-faced, at least according to Kristi, little boy knew nothing about construction. No surprise there.

There might have been a time when she could have forgiven him for getting his father to do his dirty work, but knowing he’d then gone ahead and had a child with another woman while she’d had to give up hers? That was unforgivable. That was the agony she’d have to endure every day for the next three weeks. To make matters worse, he worked at home now. Somehow she would have to guard against drowning in the depths of his dark, soulless gaze. Keep her heart from hammering its way out of her chest every time she watched him cross a room, because to save her sanity she couldn’t stop picturing his magnificent male form, completely unclothed.

She jumped up from the table. Do not think of him naked. AJ Harris is not the most heart-stoppingly handsome man in the universe. He’s the arrogant jerk who ruined your life. An arrogant, adulterous jerk who’d been screwing her while he’d been busy getting his wife pregnant. Well, to hell with him. Sam had coped with a lot of crap in her life, and she would find a way to cope with this, too.

She gathered up the breakfast dishes. The soggy remains of her mother’s cereal went down the drain—she’d eaten a few mouthfuls, at least—and then Sam quickly washed her breakfast dishes and put them in the drain rack on the counter. Her mother’s head was still bent over the puzzle pieces. “More coffee, Mom?”

“No, thank you, dear.” She snapped another puzzle piece into place. “Look at this. The top edge and one side are almost done.”

Sam dried her hands on a towel and hung it on the handle of the oven door. “I see that. You’re doing great.”