The Year the Cat Saved Christmas - a novella (9 page)

"Not yet," David said, "but we will be if I
can find out where she went."

"That way," Ted said, pointing north. "Toward
Burnt Sugar Hill."

Suddenly it all made sense. The little
cottage where they had dreamed big dreams. David laughed out loud
and planted a kiss on the baker's weathered cheek. "I owe you, Ted.
Big time."

Ted made a face and wiped off the kiss with
the back of his hand. "Send a greeting card. This kissing stuff is
too continental for me."

David ran through the snowy streets. There
was a shortcut that would take him back to their house. It had been
a long time since he'd taken that route but somehow it felt like
yesterday. He didn't feel the cold. He didn't slip on the ice. He
ran faster than he'd ever run before, as if somebody had attached
jet skis to the bottoms of his shoes. Somebody was watching over
him, maybe the goddess of stupid husbands who'd almost let the best
woman on earth walk away without a fight.

So what if she got mad or slapped his face or
said she never wanted to speak to him again. She'd already said she
wanted a divorce. There was nothing else she could do that would
hurt him more than that. This time he'd stand his ground and fight
for his family and he wouldn't back down.

"Jilly!" She was halfway to Burnt Sugar Hill
when he saw her figure through the swirling snow. "Wait up!"

If anything, she walked faster. Her head was
ducked low against the wind and snow. Her hands were plunged deep
into her pockets.

"Jilly!" His strides ate up the distance.
"Stop!"

She broke into a run. He pulled up even with
her.

"We have to talk."

She darted off the road and started up the
hill. "Go to hell," she threw back at him.

Was that some kind of secret code for
I
love you
? He was willing to cling to any shred of hope that he
hadn't come to his senses too late to save them.

His foot caught on an exposed tree trunk and
he stumbled and almost fell.

"Serves you right," she called over her
shoulder.

"This isn't funny, Jill." He grabbed her
forearm. "Stop! Listen to me! I love--"

Chapter Six

Jill hadn't meant to flip him over her
shoulder but she'd been named Karate Mom of the Week and she
couldn't pass up a golden opportunity like that. He had her so
angry she could probably break boards with her pinky.

"You threw me like a Frisbee," he said, as he
looked up at her from the middle of a snowdrift and gasped for air.
"When did you learn to do that?"

"This summer. Mommy & Me karate classes.
Want to see what I can do with my feet?"

"No, thanks. I've had enough bodily injury
for one day." He held out his hand. "Help me up, will you?"

She shook her head and took a step back. "I
wasn't born yesterday."

His blue eyes were wide and innocent. "I'm
not exactly in an offensive position, Jill."

She hesitated.

"You're the one who flipped me." He really
did look helpless, lying there like a macho snow angel. "My butt's
getting numb."

"I suppose I owe you that much." She reached
for his hand and a second later found herself lying next to him in
the snowdrift.

"You rat! You tricked me."

"Stubborn redhead."

Her fingers curled around some snow. "What
was that?"

"You heard me."

"I was hoping I heard wrong."

He met her fierce look with one of his own.
"I called you a stubborn redhead."

"Take it back."

"The hell I will. You're the most stubborn
woman I've ever known."

"You pigheaded lout. How dare you call me
stubborn."

"You were born stubborn and you'll die
stubborn."

Furious, she scrambled to her knees. "I said,
take it back."

"Make me."

"You asked for it, Whittaker!" She reared
back and aimed her snowball right between his eyes.

She wanted to pelt him with snowballs until
he couldn't see straight. She wanted to bury him in snow up to his
nostrils until he realized what a stupid fool he'd been. She wanted
him to throw himself at her feet and beg her forgiveness. And then
she would withhold it until he really began to squirm.

He lobbed a few snowballs in her
direction.

"That's pathetic," she taunted, gaining
confidence by the second. "Is that the best you can do?"

She landed another missile right between his
eyes.

Splat!

Splat!

He was starting to look like a polar bear.
"Jilly--"

"Don't call me that! You lost the right to
call me that."

"--I don't want a divorce."

"Well, that's too damn bad," she said, trying
to ignore the foolish explosion of hope inside her heart. "You
should have thought about that before you accepted that project in
San Francisco."

"I had to make the decision on the spot. I
thought you liked San Francisco."

"Everyone likes San Francisco." She let out a
shriek of frustration. "Don't you get it, you fool? This isn't
about San Francisco, David, this is about you."

#

About him?

David forgot about the snowballs. Of all the
things he'd expected her to say, that was at the bottom of the
list.

"You don't want that job in San Francisco any
more than I want you to take it."

"How do you figure that?"

"Oh, David--" She tossed another snowball in
his direction but it lacked conviction. He told himself that was a
good sign. "If you're going to leave us for some stupid job, at
least leave us for a job that's worthy of you."

"You don't know what you're talking
about."

"I know all I need to know. I know you
haven't been happy for a long time. I know you and I know it's all
wrong for you to put your heart and soul into some
design-by-committee project. You're a brilliant, passionate
architect and you're being wasted--"

"Damn it, Jill, don't you get it? It was
either go to San Francisco or leave the firm."

She didn't even blink. "Then you should have
turned and walked out the door the minute they gave you that
ultimatum."

Deadbeats did things like that. Sons of
bitches who walked out on their families and let their son bounce
from foster home to foster home. The way his father had done to
him.

"You and the kids are my responsibility."

"Why don't you let me be your partner rather
than just your responsibility."

"You've always been my partner," he said as
the truth of her words pounded inside his brain. "You gave up a lot
for me, Jilly and I owe you."

"You owe me." Her voice was soft, ineffably
sad. He wondered if it was finally too late. "If that's what you
think our marriage was about, then there really isn't any hope for
us."

She turned and started to walk away and he
knew that if he let her go, nothing else that happened in his life
would matter a damn.

"Jilly."

She hesitated.

"You could have had an easier life with
someone else."

"Maybe," she admitted, "but I couldn't have
had a happier one."

He reached for her hand. She entwined her
fingers with his. There was still a chance.

There had to be.

"Tell me you want to go to San Francisco,"
she whispered. "Tell me that I'm wrong, that this project is
important to you. Tell me that this job in San Francisco will make
you happy and I'll get the kids and follow you."

The truth was staring him in the face and he
couldn't avoid it any longer. "You're right about the job," he
said. "It's a lousy project and I'd be a pawn of the Japanese
consortium, but if I want to stay on with the company, this is part
of the deal."

"And you call me stubborn." The faintest
beginnings of a smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. "We're
supposed to be a team, you fool. We were a team when you got that
first big promotion. We were a team when I quit my job to write my
book. We were a team all those years when it seemed like we'd never
have a baby. Why should this be any different?"

"You went through hell to have the twins," he
said, remembering. "The doctors, the surgeries--"

"And you worked around the clock to make it
possible. We did it together the same way we can do this. The same
way we can do anything we put our minds and hearts to."

#

He doesn't hear you, Jill. He doesn't
understand
. Her heart sank. David was looking right through her
as if she wasn't even there. She pulled her hand away. "David," she
snapped, "the least you can do is pay attention." This was their
future she was talking about. Their children's future.

"Look," he said, pointing. "It's
Sebastian!"

"Oh my God!" A fluffy cat with huge
muttonchops and a bushy striped tail stood on the top of the hill,
looking down on them.

Sebastian didn't so much as blink as they
slowly made their way up the snowy hill to where he stood. When
they were within ten feet of him, he turned and bolted, running
faster than he'd run in years, straight through the open front door
of the cottage.

Same shutters, same window boxes, same aura
of love and magic. It looked exactly the same as always.

David and Jill exchanged glances.

"There are a lot of memories in that
cottage," she said.

"I know," he said, reaching for her hand.
"But I can take it if you can."

They crossed the threshold and the years
seemed to fall away.

"I can almost see us," Jill whispered, "the
way we used to be."

David nodded. "By the window, where we used
to watch the sun rise."

"Oh, Davey," she said. "We look so
young."

"We look so happy."

"We were happy."

"We didn't have a pot to pee in."

"We had everything we needed." She drew in a
deep breath. "We had each other."

"I love you, Jilly." He gently drew her into
his arms. "Everything I've ever done in life, I've done for
you."

"I know," she said. "I was afraid you'd
forgotten."

"Never. When you asked for the divorce, I
thought--"

"Shh." She raised up on tiptoe and placed her
index finger against his lips. "I never really wanted a divorce."
She told him how much she'd missed him, how much she hated the way
they'd drifted apart. "All I wanted to do was make you open your
eyes and realize we need you more than we need your paycheck." She
hadn't expected the avalanche of emotions her words would set in
motion.

He kissed her with all the passion and pain a
heart could bear. They had come so close to losing everything that
mattered, all that was real and true and lasting.

"We might be in for some more tough times,"
he said, stroking her hair back from her face.

"Maybe not that tough," she said, her eyes
twinkling. "I'm a lot more successful than you realize." She quoted
him a figure. She saw the look of fear flicker behind his eyes.
"I'm with you because I want to be, Davey. Not because I have to
be."

"Give me a year," he said, his voice husky
with emotion, "and I'll give you some competition."

"Give me your heart," she whispered, "and
I'll give you forever."

Sebastian meowed from atop a kitchen
chair.

"You big wonderful cat!" Jill forced him to
endure a hug.

David scratched Sebastian behind the ear. "We
owe you fella. There'll be a Christmas catnip bonus in your
stocking tonight."

"Oh my God!" Jill cried. "It's almost five
o'clock on Christmas Eve! We've got to get home!"

She reached down to scoop up Sebastian but he
leaped from her arms and darted toward the living room.

"What's his problem?" David asked as Jill
hurried after the cat. "We're taking him home to a warm house and a
full dinner bowl. You'd think he had something better to do."

Jill's laugh floated toward him as he reached
her side. "Apparently he does have something better to do!"

"You old son of a gun," he said, shaking his
head. "Who would have guessed you had it in you?"

Sebastian stood guard while a beautiful
tortoise-shell cat nursed a quartet of kittens, one of whom bore a
strong resemblance to a certain Maine coon cat.

Jill looked at David. David looked at
Sebastian. Sebastian's chest seemed to swell with pride.

"If I didn't know better," Jill said to
Sebastian, "I'd think you planned this whole thing to bring us back
together." She met David's eyes. "That's impossible, right?"

He hesitated. "If you'd asked me that this
morning, I would have laughed."

"David--"

"Look at the evidence, Jilly. We're here in
the cottage with Sebastian and his offspring. Pretty incredible, if
you ask me."

"And we're together," she said as a sense of
wonder built inside her heart. "You wouldn't think a cat
could--"

David looked at the little kitten who was
Sebastian's mirror image. "I'm starting to think anything's
possible on Christmas Eve." He drew her into his arms. "We found
each other on Christmas Eve, didn't we?"

"Twice," she said as her heart soared. "And
this time I'm not letting go."

Epilogue

Outside the snow fell steadily, brushing
against the window like angel wings. There was music in the air and
more than a touch of magic. It was Christmas Eve and Sebastian's
family was home where they belonged.

The Boy and Girl were settled upstairs in
sleeping bags. His people had told them Santa Claus came early and
brought them a wonderful surprise. Who could resist kittens? Even
Sebastian had a soft spot for the little balls of fluff.

And Princess wasn't half- bad herself.
Sebastian was only a cat, after all. Even he couldn't help being
partial to a pair of big green eyes and a silky coat.