Mistletoe and Miracles

“That’s the real scary part, not realizing that there are other people who feel just the way you do. That you’re not alone,” he emphasized, and then he sighed. “I guess if I’d talked about my feelings to my brothers, I would have found that out and I wouldn’t have been so unhappy. It took my stepmom to make me realize that I wasn’t alone and that what I was feeling—lost, scared—was okay.” He ventured out a little further. “I felt angry, too.”

As he spoke, Trent continued to watch Cody’s back for some infinitesimal indication that he’d heard him, some change in posture to signify that his words had struck a chord with the boy. That he was getting through, however distantly, to Cody.

When he mentioned anger as another reaction he’d experienced, Trent noted that Cody’s shoulders stiffened just the tiniest bit.

Anger. Of course.

Why hadn’t he assumed that to begin with? he upbraided himself. Laurel said that Cody engaged in video games that exclusively involved cars. If he focused on crashing them, that was an act of hostility.

Trent wondered how much anger smoldered beneath Cody’s subdued surface. A measure of anger was a healthy response. Too much indicated a problem up ahead.

Something they needed to prepare for.

He continued talking in an easy, conversational cadence, trying to ever so lightly touch the nerve, to elicit more of a response, however veiled it might be. These things couldn’t be pushed, but children were resilient. The sooner they could peel away the layers, the better Cody’s chances were of going back to lead a normal life, free of whatever angst held him prisoner.

“I was angry at my mother for being gone, angry at the plane for crashing. Angry at my father for letting her go by herself, although there wasn’t anything he could have done if he’d gone with her. He certainly couldn’t have stopped the plane crash, even though I thought of him as kind of a superhero. I probably would have wound up being an orphan,” he confessed. “But that’s the problem with hurting, Cody. You don’t always think logically. You just want the hurt to stop.

“You just want your dad to come back even though you know he can’t.” He’d deliberately switched the focus from himself to the boy, watching to see if it had any effect.

He stopped talking and held his breath as silence slipped in.

Surprised by the silence, or perhaps by the fact that the hot feelings inside of him had a name, Cody turned from the window and actually looked at Trent for a moment before dropping his gaze to the floor again.

Yes! Score one for the home team, Trent thought, elated.

Given Cody’s demeanor, he’d estimated that it might take at least several sessions before the boy had this kind of reaction. In this branch of treatment, at times it was two steps forward, one step back, but for the moment, Trent savored what he had.

The boy was reachable, that was all that counted. It was just going to take a huge amount of patience.

Laurel glanced uneasily toward the closed door.

What were they doing in there? Had Trent managed to crack the wall around Cody? Even a little? Had her son said a word, made a sound? Something? Anything at all. Oh God, she hoped so.

The waiting was killing her.

Cody had been talking since he was ten months old. Sentences had begun coming not all that long after that. His pediatrician had told her that Cody was “gifted.” Matt had called him a little chatterbox. Cody could fill the hours with nonstop talk. So much so there had been times she longed for silence just to be able to hear herself think.

Remembering, she flushed with guilt. She would give anything to hear him talk again. These days, she tried to fill the void by keeping on a television set. And when that was off, radio chased away the quiet. Anything to keep the oppressive silence at bay.

Laurel looked away from the door. Staring at it wouldn’t make it open. There was a magazine on her lap. It had been open to the same page now for the last thirty minutes, ever since she’d reached for it and pretended to thumb through the pages for the first two minutes. The articles hadn’t kept her attention and although her eyes had skimmed the page, not a single word had managed to penetrate.

Just as her words didn’t seem to penetrate Cody, she thought ruefully.

Trent had to fix him, he had to.

She had her strengths and she had learned to endure a great many things, but seeing Cody like this wasn’t one of them. The idea of her baby being trapped in this silent world for the rest of his life simply devastated her. It was all she could do not to fall to pieces at the mere suggestion that Cody would never get better.

Fidgeting, Laurel caught herself looking at the closed door to Trent’s office for what had to be the tenth time. It was a struggle not to let another sigh escape her lips.

She could feel the receptionist—Rita, was it?—looking at her.

Clearing her throat, her fingers absently moving the magazine pages back and forth between them, Laurel asked, “Has he been in practice long? Trent, um, Dr. Marlowe, I mean.”

Rita took her time in responding. “Depends on your definition of long.”

Laurel shrugged helplessly. She had no definition for long. She was only trying to make conversation to pass the time.

“Five years?” she finally said.

Rita moved her head from side to side. The short, black bob moved with her. Her eyes remained on the woman sitting so stiffly in the chair.

“Not that long. The other Dr. Marlowe has been in practice fifteen years,” Rita told her. “Ever since she took it over from Dr. Riemann.”

“Oh,” was all Laurel said. The single word throbbed with preoccupation. Her mind raced with thoughts she was afraid to examine.

Rita began to rise from her desk, as if to see to a task. But then she shrugged and sat down again. “Five minutes,” she said to the boy’s mother.

Laurel’s head jerked up. The receptionist had said something to her but she hadn’t heard the words. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve got five minutes,” Rita told her, enunciating each word as if she were talking to someone who had to read lips. “The session, it’s fifty minutes,” she explained. “You’ve got five more minutes to wait.”

“Oh.” The light dawned on her. Laurel forced a smile to her lips and inclined her head. “Thank you.”

Rita said crisply, “It’s customary to pay up front and then I’ll give you the paperwork so that you can mail it in to your insurance company.”

She didn’t work. Matt hadn’t wanted her to. Hadn’t even wanted her to finish college, saying, at the time, she was “fine” the way she was. She realized later it was all meant to control her. Matt liked being in control of everything and everyone.

Shaking her head, she informed Rita, “There is no insurance company.”

Squaring her shoulders, Rita informed her with feeling, “Then payment is definitely up front.”

“We can make arrangements later,” Trent told Rita as he walked out of his office, catching the tail end of the conversation.

Laurel popped to her feet as if she’d been sitting on a spring that catapulted her into an upright position. Startled, she pressed her hand to her chest as she swung around. “I didn’t hear you.”

“It’s the carpet,” he told her with a smile. “It muffles everything.”

Laurel wasn’t listening. She was looking at her son, aware that she’d been holding her breath.

“Leave Mrs. Greer’s account to me,” Trent told Rita.

It was obvious that this wasn’t what the older woman wanted to hear. Accounts and the billing were her domain. She frowned. “I take care of all the accounts, Dr. Marlowe.”

After several years, Trent had gotten used to Rita and her rather unique ways. At bottom, as Kate had pointed out more than once, the woman was a huge asset. He smiled at Rita. “Change is a good thing, Rita. You should learn to embrace it.”

Rita made a noise under her breath and went to get the copy paper.

“I can pay my bills, Trent,” Laurel informed him. And then she glanced at her son. Cody seemed just as withdrawn into his own world as ever. She knew it was too soon for a miracle to take hold, but that was what made them miracles. Facing Trent, her heart rate sped up just a little as she asked, “Well?”

“Not yet, but he will be,” Trent promised.

Chapter Four

Kelsey Marlowe didn’t hear the knock on her door at first. Lost in her studies—why did it seem like there was always another big exam looming on the horizon?—she didn’t become aware of the noise until a louder rap echoed against the wood, startling her.

The next second, the door opened and one of the triplets peered in. Even after all these years, a first glance always made her mentally scramble for a clue to which one it was.

Kelsey realized that it was Trent invading her space about half a beat before he spoke.

“Hi, Kel.” He flashed a smile that was just this side of serious. “Got a minute?”

Uncrossing her legs, she said the first thing that came to her mind. “No.”

Open textbooks, not to mention her laptop, littered her comforter. Two of the books slid onto the floor with a grating thud. The pages she had them opened to disappeared.

Stress and surprise ate away at Kelsey’s usual good humor. “You know, there’s a reason the door was closed.” She exhaled a huff that was filled with frustrated anger. “Does the word privacy mean anything to you? I could have been naked.”

If she had been, he knew the door would have been not just closed but locked. Trent walked into the sunny bedroom. The only one of them still living at home, Kelsey had gotten the room with the best exposure. It used to be his.

He grinned. “This from the kid Mom had to chase after because you liked running around the house naked.”

Embarrassment threatened to change the color of her cheeks. Kelsey struggled to suppress it, not wanting to give Trent the satisfaction.

“I was two,” she reminded him indignantly. Were her brothers ever going to forget about that? She’d gone on to get straight As in every subject in school. Why couldn’t they refer to that instead of the period of her life when her social values and awareness hadn’t kicked in yet?

Trent shrugged good-naturedly. “Still, all the body parts were there.” His grin widened. “And I’ve got a great memory.”

She frowned at him as she tossed her head, her long, straight blond hair flying over her shoulder. “Obviously all long term. Your short-term memory appears to be shot.”

Curious, he bent down to pick up the textbook that had dropped on the side of the bed closest to the door and handed it to Kelsey. “What did I forget?”

She took the book from him. The answer was right there in his hand and he still missed it. Men were hopeless, she thought. “That I have midterms coming up. I’m on quarters, not semesters, remember?” There was no sign of anything dawning on her brother. It figured. “I mentioned it at dinner Sunday. A dinner I had to move things around in order to make,” she added with a touch of exasperation.

“You mention a lot of things,” he pointed out in selfdefense. He’d never come across anyone who could talk as much as his sister. Someday, he fully expected the muscles in her jaw to lock up. “Most of the time, you do practically all the talking at the table.” Again, he shrugged. “I filter things out sometimes.”

Sometimes? Kelsey laughed dryly. “How about all the time?”

That wasn’t true, but there was no point in going around and around about it. “I didn’t come here to spar with you.”

Sighing, Kelsey dragged her hand through a torrent of long blond hair.

“Okay, why did you come?” she asked.

Trent took a seat on the edge of her bed. “I need a favor.”

She didn’t have time for this, she thought. As it was, she was only averaging about four hours of sleep a night. “And I need to learn how to do without sleep,” she lamented.

Sympathy emerged. He wasn’t all that removed from his college years. “That bad?” he asked.

She sighed before gesturing at the books on her bed. “Pretty much.”

Trent got up, careful not to send anything else sliding. “Sorry I bothered you.”

He was leaving? Without telling her what he wanted? Her sense of curiosity wouldn’t allow it. “Hey, wait, where are you going?”

Trent stopped short of the doorway, looking at her over his shoulder. “The favor I need requires time and you obviously don’t have any.”

Kelsey caught her lower lip between her teeth. Damn him. Trent knew how to push her buttons.

She gestured for him to come back in. If that hadn’t worked, she would have hopped off the bed and physically pulled him back. But she didn’t have to. Trent returned under his own steam. “You came here to talk to me, you might as well talk.”

Trying not to smile, Trent sat down on the edge of the bed again. This time the action created an undercurrent and another textbook slid off on the other side.

Watching it, Kelsey struggled with a momentary desire to send all the textbooks to the floor with one grand, angry sweep of her arm.

Trent’s eyes held hers. Hers were a darker shade than his. His expression was completely serious. This was important and he was making a judgment call. “I need you to tutor someone for me.”

Something stirred within her. This was the first time any of her brothers had asked her to do something involving the vocation she’d finally decided on. Trent was treating her as an equal, as an adult. She’d finally lived to see the day.

For as long as she could remember—after she’d given up, at seven, the notion of being the first queen of the United States, she’d wanted to become a teacher. Not just a teacher but one who worked with children who had special needs, specifically the families who couldn’t afford special schools to help their children catch up with their peers.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, then made a guess, choosing the most common problem. “Dyslexia?”

If only, Trent thought.

He began by giving his sister the positive side first. “Cody’s really very bright.” During an extended lunch, he’d gone to Cody’s school to talk to his teachers. The ones who had taught him before the accident. Once Trent had made the teachers comfortable with his reasons for asking—and his credentials—he had gotten what he was after. Confirmation.

If anything, Laurel had downplayed the boy’s abilities. Before his father’s death, Cody’d had read at a fourth-grade level while still in the first grade and, according to his teacher, Mrs. Bayon, he had been articulate, outgoing and happy.

“But his father died a year ago and Cody withdrew from everyone,” Trent told her. “His grades are all down. He’s on the way to failing everything but sandbox one-o-one.” He knew that would elicit pity from Kelsey and, judging from the look in her eyes, he was right.

“Why?” she asked. “Lots of kids lose a parent early in life. They don’t all respond like this. You didn’t. Trevor, Travis and Mike didn’t. Dad told me,” she added when he looked at her, mildly curious. “What makes Cody different?”

“Well, for one thing, he was with his father when he was killed in a car accident.”

“Oh.” Incredibly empathetic, Kelsey instantly thought how she would have felt if she’d been in that situation. Her heart twisted and went out to the boy she hadn’t even met. That made up her mind for her. “When would you want me to get started?”

He had known he could count on her. “As soon as possible.” And then a stab of guilt made him ask, “Can you?”

She shrugged. “I could eke out a few hours on Saturday and Sunday,” she speculated. “Maybe an hour or two during the week.”

He didn’t want to put her out, but he also knew in his gut that she was the right one for the job. “Anything would be great, really.”

He sounded so enthused. A red light went off in her head. This was, after all, her brother, the one who used to plant crickets in her bed. Was this some kind of setup?

At the very least, she needed reasons. “Why come to me?”

Trent’s answer was simple. “Because you’re good at it.”

She thought that herself. But there was a flaw in his answer. “You’ve never seen me work with kids.”

He smiled at her. He didn’t blame her for being leery. He’d done his share of teasing when it came to Kelsey. They all had. But Kelsey could hold her own with the best of them, which was why he knew he had been right to come to her.

“Call it instinct,” he answered. “I know when you do something, you don’t do it by half measures. And you’ve had experience, student teaching. You don’t get the kind of grades you do by slacking off.” Kate had told him all the effort Kelsey put into her projects with the children. Only a completely dedicated person would go those extra miles.

Kelsey looked at him for a long moment, stunned. “That is probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He grinned, nodding. “Yeah, it probably is,” Trent agreed. “Don’t let it go to your head. By the way, I don’t expect you to do this for free. I’m going to pay you.”

“You couldn’t afford me,” she informed him. She didn’t want his money—she wanted his soul, she thought, swallowing a chuckle. “I’ll figure out some way for you to pay me back.”

“Should I be afraid?” Trent deadpanned.

Kelsey paused for a moment, pretending to think about it. And then she nodded. “Yeah.”

He had to get going. Rising from the bed, he kissed the top of her head. “You’re the best.”

“About time you noticed that,” she sniffed, pretending that the comment didn’t get to her.

“I’ll get back to you and fill you in on the details,” he promised, beginning to leave. And then he remembered that he’d left out something. “Oh, one more thing. Cody doesn’t talk.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Doesn’t talk?” she echoed in surprise.

Trent took a couple of steps back toward the bed. “Not a word since the accident.” He watched Kelsey for a moment. Was she going to back out? He didn’t think so, but there was always that chance.

And then she sighed as she shook her head. “You do like giving me a challenge, don’t you?”

He let go of the breath he’d been holding. “Nothing I don’t think you’re up to.”

Her mouth dropped open for a beat, and then she rallied. “Damn, two compliments in one session and me without my recorder.”

His hand on the door, Trent winked at her. “Next time.”

“Yeah, like there’s going to be one,” she murmured, getting back to her studies.

Trent closed the door behind him, grinning.

It was early evening and Laurel almost ignored the doorbell when it rang. She wasn’t expecting anyone and she didn’t like unexpected visits these days. But the doorbell rang again and she had a feeling that whoever was on the other side wasn’t about to go away until she sent them on that route.

One glance through the peephole made her quickly pull the door open.

Laurel stared wide-eyed at the man on her doorstep. What was he doing here? How did he know where she lived? And then she remembered that she’d had to fill out all those forms at his office.

Idiot. She upbraided herself for being so naive.

She didn’t bother trying to force a smile to her lips. “Did I forget something?”

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