They didn’t answer.
“Please,” he begged as they dragged him down the stairs. Each man had hold of one elbow, and the top of his feet slapped noisily against the stairs. “My father will pay you anything you ask.”
The taller of the two men smiled. His teeth gleamed white, and his eyes filled with hate. Sick laughter broke the eerie silence. “Yes, we know.”
The infamous Christmas tree was decorated. Cain stood back to examine their efforts, then shook his head. It was the sorriest-looking tree he’d ever seen.
“What?” Linette asked defensively. They’d spent the better part of the afternoon stringing popcorn and cranberries. Patty and John’s two children, Mark and Philip, had constructed long paper chains out of strips of colored paper, chattering excitedly and generally eating him out of house and home.
The two boys had returned to their place, and Cain and Linette were left alone once more. But Cain couldn’t stop studying the Christmas tree. No matter which way he looked at it, it was by far the ugliest thing he’d ever seen.
“The star’s crooked,” he announced, dragging a dining room chair across the living room carpet. Standing on the cushioned seat, he adjusted the aluminum star he’d cut from cardboard and covered with foil.
“There?” he asked, attempting to judge if he’d done any good. He glanced down at Linette. “Is it straight now?”
“It’s exactly right.” Linette sagged onto the chair and stretched out her legs. Her arms dangled over the sides. “It’s the most gorgeous tree I’ve ever seen,” she said with a sigh of appreciation.
Briefly Cain wondered if she was looking at the same tree he was.
“It would have been better if I’d remembered to buy ornaments.” Frankly, it hadn’t occurred to him how he intended to decorate a Christmas tree. Never having put up one before, he hadn’t given the matter a second thought.
Vaguely, in the back of his mind, he recalled a Christmas when his mother had been alive. Cain couldn’t have been any more than three or four. He didn’t remember Santa Claus or opening gifts, or any of the traditional things usually associated with the holiday. What he did recall was the sound of his mother singing to him and the lights of the Christmas tree. Like a miser, he’d clung to that memory, one of a few that he had of his mother.
“I like the tree just the way it is,” Linette insisted.
A loud knock sounded against the door, and a moment later Patty stuck her head in from the kitchen. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“No,” Cain assured her, and leaped down from the chair.
“Wow.” A grin brightened Patty’s pretty blue eyes. “That’s some tree.” Doing her best to disguise a smile, she held out a plate of decorated gingerbread men. “I figured you two deserved this for keeping my boys occupied.”
Cain helped himself to a cookie. Frankly, he’d enjoyed himself with those two hooligans. The boys had been a little in awe of him and eager to please. Cain had met the two Stamp children only once, a year or so earlier, and they’d stayed close to their mother’s skirts. He’d never thought much about kids. He wasn’t sure he knew how to act around them.
Linette hadn’t seemed to have a problem, so he’d followed her example. He talked to them as he would anyone, no matter what their age. Before he quite knew how it happened, he was sitting on the rug with them, stringing cranberries with a fat sewing needle.
“You’ve got a fine pair of boys,” Cain said.
“Thank you.” Patty smiled.
“How about some coffee?” Linette offered.
Patty nodded. “That sounds great.”
Linette poured coffee and carried the mugs into the living room on a tray. Cain took it from her and set it on the table.
“Actually…” Patty began, rubbing her palms together slowly, and Cain noticed the way her eyes refused to meet his. “I’ve come to ask a favor.”
“Sure,” Linette said automatically.
Cain knew better than to agree to anything without knowing what it was.
All three sat around the dining room table. Patty’s small hands cupped the coffee mug. “Every year on Christmas Eve, John dresses up in a Santa costume and delivers presents to the boys.”
Cain could tell what was coming.
“But Mark’s in first grade this year, and he told me he doesn’t believe in Santa anymore. He’s just a little boy, and he wants to believe. The thing is, he’ll recognize John. I don’t want to carry this Santa thing too far, but I hate to disappoint Philip. He’s only five, and he believes Santa’s coming Christmas Eve to bring him a train set and cowboy boots.”
“You want Cain to dress up like Santa?” Linette asked.
Patty turned wide, hope-filled eyes to Cain and nodded.
Cain raised both hands and shook his head. “I’m really sorry, Patty, but I’m no good at that sort of thing.”
“Sure you are,” Linette countered swiftly. “You were great with the boys earlier.”
Cain ignored her. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”
Once more it was Linette who protested. “All you need is a few ho-ho-ho’s every now and again. Anyone can do that.”
Cain cast her a look he hoped would silence her. After the death-defying search for the perfect Christmas tree, he should have known better.
“The costume probably won’t fit,” he suggested next. Heaven knew he was taller and bigger than John.
“It’s one size fits all,” Patty said a little sheepishly. “It was a little big on John, so I imagine you’ll fit into it just fine.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Linette said confidently, as if this were a done deal.
Both women turned to him with a look that said if he were any kind of a man, he’d leap at the opportunity to do this one small thing. Cain wasn’t about to let a couple of women gang up on him. He refused to give in to the pressure. He had a well-established conscience, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to apologize for not making a complete ass of himself dressed in a red suit.
“I’m sorry, Patty,” he said firmly, “but I’m not your man.”
Linette stepped back to examine Cain in the bright red suit and fake beard. “You’re so cute.”
Cain cursed under his breath and caught part of Santa’s whiskers between his lips. He spat out the fake hair. “No pictures.”
“I promised, didn’t I?” She’d batted her pretty eyes at him, and he was lost. Apparently there was no end to the ways he was willing to be made a fool for her. Even now he wasn’t quite sure how it’d happened.
One minute he’d declared there was no possible way he’d agree to dress up as Santa. The next thing he knew, he was standing in front of a mirror with a pillow strapped to his belly.
What truly frightened him was the easy way in which Linette had gotten him from an out-of-the-question no and into this ridiculous-looking suit. What Tim Mallory and the others would say if they saw him didn’t bear thinking about.
Linette adjusted the wide black belt about his middle. “Your cheeks could use a little color.”
Cain knew better than to grumble, otherwise he was likely to get another mouthful of beard. He yanked the thing from his face. “You aren’t putting any of that stuff women stick on their faces on me.”
She gave him an indignant look. “I wasn’t going to suggest any such thing.”
“Good.” He released the beard, and the elastic snapped it back into place.
“You’re being a good sport about all this.”
Linette didn’t know the half of it. He glanced at his reflection in the mirror, and once he got over the shock of seeing himself, he figured he made a halfway decent-looking Santa.
Planting his hands on his belly, he practiced laughing jovially. Not bad, he decided. He tried again, laughing deeper this time.
“How’s that sound?” he asked Linette.
“Santa couldn’t do any better himself.”
Cain studied his reflection once more. Linette was right ab
out the lack of color in his cheeks. He remembered hearing something about Santa’s face being bright. He pinched his cheeks hard enough to cause his eyes to water, but the red drained away as quickly as it came.
“I suppose we should go downstairs and wait for the signal,” Linette suggested.
Patty was supposed to turn on the porch light when they were ready for Cain’s appearance.
“All right,” he agreed.
Downstairs, Cain stopped to look at himself in the mirror once more. “Linette,” he said seriously, “could you come here a moment?”
“Sure.”
He sat on the sofa and when she approached gripped her around the waist and brought her into his lap. She gave a small, startled cry, then laughed.
“And what is it you’d like for Christmas, little girl?” he asked, and for good measure added a couple of ho-ho-ho’s.
“It feels so good to laugh again, to celebrate life and not death. I can’t think of a thing I need more than what I already have.” Her eyes filled with such warmth and happiness that Cain was forced to look away.
He felt as if his well-ordered life were slowly beginning to come undone, not unlike the Christmas presents he’d soon be delivering. Soon it would be too late. It almost was now. He knew what it felt like to hold Linette, to taste her. To feel her silky-smooth skin beneath his fingertips. She was like a madness that had taken hold of his senses.
Neither spoke, and emotion thickened the air until it demanded all Cain’s effort to continue breathing. He marveled at the beauty of the woman in his lap. Her laughter was like music.
He’d kissed her twice now but had avoided anything more, promising himself he wouldn’t, couldn’t get physically involved with her. Despite his good intentions, he noticed the way her breasts tightened beneath the white silk blouse. Her nipples seemed to stab through the thin material like gold-embossed invitations.
Cain’s breath burned in his chest. Slowly he removed the stocking cap and fake beard and set them aside. He wove his fingers into Linette’s dark hair and directed her mouth down to his. His kiss was gentle, mainly because he feared what would happen if he kissed her the way he wanted.
Linette’s lips parted, and with a groan of surrender he thrust his tongue inside. Her own shyly met his with soft, welcoming parleys. Her nipples, hard and hot, seared holes straight through his chest.
All Cain knew was that if he didn’t touch her soon, he’d die. His good intentions swooshed down the drain. All the silent vows he’d made about not laying a hand on her vanished.
When he dared to look at her, he discovered her eyes were filled with longings that, he feared, mirrored his own. He raised his hands to her blouse and fumbled with the buttons, his fingers trembling so badly that he could barely unfasten the tiny openings. Linette kissed his jaw, then brushed his hands aside and completed the task. After pulling the blouse free of her waist, she reached behind and unfastened her bra.
Cain stopped breathing entirely as her breasts sprang free of the confining material. He lifted each one and felt a shiver run through her. He lowered his mouth to one pouting nipple, and she moaned even before his mouth closed over it. He sucked at the pouting peak so strongly, her back arched and she clasped her hands against his head and held him to her. It wasn’t enough to satisfy either of them for long. Linette writhed atop him, her soft derriere creating a torture all its own.
“Linette,” he said, gasping, dragging himself away from her bounty. He kissed both puckering nipples once and then, with a supreme act of will, closed her front. “Someone’s coming.”
She gasped and flew off his lap as if she’d sat on a hornet’s nest. She made it into the bathroom just in time to close the door before John walked boldly into the living room. Cain reached for the cap and beard.
“What are you doing here?” John demanded. “The porch light’s been on for a good ten minutes.”
“Sorry,” Cain managed, hoping that if John guessed what had delayed him, he’d be kind enough not to mention it. “I got distracted.”
“Say, you look great.” John slapped him companionably across the back. “How’d you manage to get your cheeks so red? Man, you’re damn good at this sort of thing, aren’t you?”
Cain glanced over his shoulder as he walked out of the house to find Linette peeking out from behind the bathroom door. She beamed him a wide smile and blew him a kiss.
There was a limit to what he was willing to do to please this woman. He should tell her, just so she’d know.
A half hour later he learned exactly how much he was willing to do for Linette.
“Church,” Cain repeated, nearly choking on a hot buttered rum. He sat with Linette in John and Patty Stamp’s living room. His stint as ol’ St. Nick had gone amazingly well.
Mark and Philip were busy with their new toys, and Cain was about to suggest he and Linette return to the main house. If the truth be known, he was far more interested in picking up where they’d left off before John’s untimely arrival.
“What a wonderful idea!” Linette leaped on Patty’s suggestion as if the woman were handing out gold coins. “I didn’t dare hope there would be church services anywhere close by.”
“It’s an old country church. You probably saw the white steeple when you drove in.”
“We didn’t,” Cain inserted, hoping Linette would pick up on his decided lack of enthusiasm for this latest adventure.
She didn’t.
“Well, it’s there,” Patty said, casting him a snide look. She turned her attention back to Linette. “Every Christmas Eve John gets the old sleigh ready and we ride to church in it. I look forward to the sleigh ride every year.”
Linette scooted to the edge of her seat, her enthusiasm bubbling over.
“I’m sure there wouldn’t be enough room for the two of us,” Cain said confidently. He’d seen that old sleigh stored in the barn a hundred times. There was barely room for the Stamps, let alone two others.
“We’ll make room,” John insisted. “It’s the least we can do to thank you, if you get my drift.” To emphasize his point, he nodded toward the two boys.
Cain got John’s drift all right, but this wasn’t the reward he was looking to collect.
“Could we?” Linette eyes were liquid with a tender kind of wanting. It simply wasn’t in Cain to disappoint her. Hell and damnation. This evening wasn’t going anything like he wanted.
All right, all right, he revised mentally, perhaps a trip to church was for the best. If he returned to the house with Linette and touched her again, he wouldn’t be able to stop with a few deep kisses, and he knew it.
Before either of them had an opportunity to think through what they were doing, he’d be making love to her. Once wouldn’t be near enough to satisfy him, either. It would mushroom from there into something completely out of his control.
Cain couldn’t allow that to happen.
In the beginning he’d needed Linette’s softness as an absolution of who he was and the things he’d done. In a matter of days it had gone far beyond that. His entire body ached for her. This was the kind of ache that a cold shower wasn’t likely to help. He needed her, warm and willing, beneath him.
“Sure, we can attend church services,” Cain said, offering John and Patty a weak smile. He remembered the last time his figure had darkened a church door. He must have been around fifteen, he guessed, and in love with the Baptist preacher’s daughter.
An hour later, just before nine, they all climbed into the horse-drawn sleigh. Fat, glistening snowflakes drifted down from a dark, moonless sky. Linette settled next to him, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. Because there was no place else for him to sit, five-year-old Philip was nestled in Cain’s lap.
Patty and Mark sat across from them, and John sat on the narrow seat up front, guiding the horses.
Philip’s head was bobbing. The five-year-old was exhausted, but too proud to admit it. The lad pressed his head against Cain’s chest and promptly fell asleep. F
or a moment Cain suspected something might be physically wrong with his heart. It actually ached. He hurt for the child he was never allowed to be, for the son he never planned to sire. For a simple life in the country that would never be his.
Just then, softly at first, the sound barely above a whisper, Linette started to sing “Silent Night.” Her soprano voice was hauntingly beautiful. Soon Patty’s voice blended in two-part harmony with Linette’s. In all his life, Cain had never heard the old carol sung more beautifully.
By the time they arrived at the church, the parking lot was crowded. A number of other ranchers had arrived in sleighs as well.
He handed Philip, who was fast asleep, to Linette, climbed down, and then helped Patty and Mark down, while John dealt with the horses. When he looked up to assist Linette, he hesitated. Seeing her with a sleeping child in her arms produced that funny ache in his heart once again. Only this time it hit him harder, stronger.
Godalmighty, what was he doing? The question was there, but not the answer. He didn’t belong in church any more than he belonged with this woman. The uncomfortable feeling refused to leave. Talk about a fish out of water. He was a killer. He had no business walking inside a church with these good people.
The thundering music from a pipe organ swelled through the old church. They sang a number of favorite Christmas carols. Cain hadn’t sung in years. At first he mouthed along, not wanting Linette to think he couldn’t sing. Gradually, as the music infected his spirit, his voice blended with the others.
Before he realized what had happened, Cain relaxed. The preacher, a silver-haired man around sixty, with a voice a sports announcer would envy, gave a short message about love and peace and goodwill toward all mankind. Heady stuff, if you dared to believe such matters were possible in this day and age of hate and war. But then there’d been hate and war nearly two thousand years earlier, Cain realized.
At the end of the service, tapered candles were passed out to everyone in the congregation. The lights were turned out, and darkness settled over them. Then the first candle was lit. Its warm glow spread like a beacon through the bleak night. Then the pastor lit the candle of the first person in each row, and they in turn passed the flame from one to the other until the entire church glowed with light.