Her Christmas Surprise

“Have you seen this?” He laid a folded copy of the New York Post down on his desk. It showed Keely walking into the building amid a crowd of reporters, her head down, her coat bundled about her. And on the wall behind her, clearly legible, was the Briarson Financial name.

“I’m sorry, Ron. I’ve tried getting here early, staying late. They’re always after me, wherever I go.”

“Hard to escape. Kind of like ticks that way,” he said.

She gave him a grateful smile. “If it wasn’t for this place right now, I don’t know what I’d do. I think I’d go crazy.”

“Keely.” He hesitated. “There’s been some concern from higher up in the organization. We’ve gotten calls from clients who’ve read your name in the papers. Some of the accounts you’re working on.”

Of course, she thought with a sinking heart. Keely Stafford, accountant at Briarson Financial, the center of an embezzling scheme. Not exactly the kind of thing a client wanted to hear.

“Your work here the past three years has been top notch. All of your reviews have been outstanding, even with the high-pressure accounts. We can’t have our clients upset and doubting the organization, though. And every time you show up again in the press it only gets worse. I’ve been trying to keep things on an even keel but the higher-ups are demanding I do something. I think you understand.”

Her lips felt cold. “Are you letting me go?”

“Not now,” he said. “But we need you to take a leave of absence.”

To where? The confines of an apartment that didn’t feel like hers anymore? To the streets or a hotel, to be hounded by the press? “Ron,” she began helplessly.

“Don’t you have family in Connecticut?” Arnold cut in.

“Chilton.”

“Good. Go there. Take the rest of the month. Go home. After all,” he said, “it’s Christmas.”

Chapter Two

How had it happened? Lex Alexander wondered as he drove down the snow-bedecked main drag of Chilton, Connecticut. How was it he was back in Chilton, where everything looked just the same, from the herringbone parking on Main Street to the wrought iron arches that spanned the boulevard? The benches on the town common were green now, rather than the white they’d been twelve years before, but otherwise, little had changed in the time he’d been away.

Except him.

He’d hitchhiked, stowed away and knocked around the less savory parts of pretty much every continent on the globe since he’d turned his back on Alexander Technologies and everything that went with it. He’d sought out places most people in their right minds fled. And those who didn’t faced them armed with a hell of a lot more than just their wits. He was nuts, some said.

If anything he did showed he was nuts, it was coming back to Chilton.

He’d known he was in trouble when he’d heard his mother’s voice crackle over the phone. The fact that Olivia Alexander had tracked him down on the back side of nowhere was impressive in itself. In the places he frequented, he wasn’t Aubrey Pierce Alexander III, he was just Lex, the man he’d made himself into since he’d turned his back on the role of heir apparent, turned his back on his autocratic bastard of a father. Or non-bastard, rather, since nobody had more impeccable breeding than the late Aubrey Pierce Alexander II—Pierce, to nearly everyone who knew him.

As for Lex, he’d been dubbed Trey at birth. Trey. Version 3.0. He hadn’t even gotten a name of his own, let alone a life. Pierce had been relentless in his expectations and pressure. Any step outside the narrow box Pierce had defined earned discipline; the greater the rebellion, the greater the response. Aubrey Pierce Alexander III was by God going do what was expected of him.

What happened when an irresistible force met an immovable object? In Lex’s case, what happened was that he walked away with little more than the clothes on his back. Walked away from the expectations, the family, the eight-figure trust fund. Walked away to remake himself.

Forget about Alexander Technologies. He’d been happy to leave that to his younger brother, Bradley, who’d always seemed to relish being the corporate G-boy and society-column staple.

But Bradley had apparently dug himself a hole that was threatening to swallow him up—and their mother, too. Maybe there were guys out there who could have ignored that desperate call and gone on with their lives, but Lex wasn’t one of them.

No matter how tough he wanted to think he was.

God knew coming home was the last thing he wanted to do. If his father had been alive, it flat out wouldn’t have happened, but the old man was gone and Lex knew damned good and well that his mother wasn’t up to dealing with this on her own. Olivia Alexander might run the local DAR chapter and organize two-hundred-plate benefits with the efficiency of a general planning a military campaign, but she was unequal to facing the authorities and family ruin alone.

Lex pulled his rental car off onto a wide, quiet residential road bordered by stone walls, and felt the familiar sense of suffocation. Beyond the walls, at intervals, rose the stone and brick mansions of the Chilton ton, all decked out in their holiday finery.

The sudden urge hit him to just keep on driving. There were a dozen places he’d rather be, a dozen things he’d rather be doing. But first, he had to finish what he’d come here for.

And who knew how long that would take?

With a swing of the wheel that was as irritated as it was automatic, he pulled into the driveway that led to the Alexander estate and stopped at the intercom by the gates to press the button.

“Hello? Who is it?” A maid’s voice, unfamiliar, not surprisingly. What was he supposed to answer? Lex would draw a blank. Aubrey Pierce III wouldn’t do much better. “Trey Alexander,” he said finally, and the gate buzzed open.

Trey Alexander. The person he’d thought he’d left behind. The life he’d thought he’d left behind.

He passed up the drive and pulled the car to a stop at the front steps of the house. Might as well get it over with, he thought, raking his dark hair back off his forehead as he headed up the steps. He’d done far tougher things than this in the years since he’d walked out. At least here, no one was likely to shoot at him, not even verbal missiles now that the old man was gone. If he hadn’t known he was walking into a mess of trouble, he’d have even felt a bit of anticipation at seeing his mother again. Curiosity, at the very least. But there was trouble, he’d known it instantly by the tone of her voice. All she’d had to say was—

“Trey?”

She stood at the open door, staring at him. Twelve years had added some lines, but otherwise she looked the same, still trim, still stylish. Still richly, discreetly brunette—Olivia Alexander wasn’t the type to give in to the gray. Except for his father, Olivia had always remained firmly in control of her world. Or maybe not, Lex realized as he kissed her smooth cheek and felt the slight tremble in the hand he held.

And then she was wrapping her arms around him, hard, in the warmest hug he could ever remember getting from her. “You came,” she murmured. “I wasn’t sure you would. It’s been so long.”

He hadn’t been sure, either, just found himself on a plane without ever having made a conscious decision. He’d always scoffed at people’s notions of family, at least when it came to his family. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t so foolish after all.

When she stepped away from him, he saw the sheen of tears before she blinked them back.

“Hey,” he murmured.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” she said quietly. “Twelve years without a word.”

“I’m here now.”

“You’re here now,” she agreed.

He’d been the one to finally break the silence two years before. Stuck at a godforsaken Somali airfield, flipping through an out-of-date English news magazine, he’d turned the page to see an obit on his father. “The financial world mourns,” the headline had trumpeted.

Lex hadn’t, not a bit. But he’d spent a long night brooding over a bottle of whiskey and when the day had dawned he’d placed a call to his mother. Granted, three-month-overdue condolences weren’t exactly timely, but better late than never. After that, he’d found himself with a strange compulsion to check in a couple of times a year. The conversations were awkward at times, full of silences during which they both groped for conversation, but he always found himself picking up the phone again.

And when the time had come, she’d figured out how to find him.

“Put your bag down and come sit,” she said. “I’ll have Corinne bring us something to drink.”

It looked different, was his first thought as they walked through the house. Lighter, brighter. There was less of the oppressive heaviness the rooms held in his memories. Perhaps it had been his imagination. Or the shadow of Pierce. “The place looks good,” he said as they walked into the living room, now inviting and airy.

She hesitated. “I changed a few things after your father passed away.”

Interesting. Pierce had always insisted that his family home be kept as it had historically been—dark, ponderous furniture, ornate wallpaper, heavy drapes. Left to her own devices, Olivia had recovered the dark walls with pastels, pitched the dark green velvet window hangings of his youth for something softer. Luxurious, sure, and still traditional, but there was an inviting feel to the room, an openness it hadn’t had before.

“I like it,” Lex said as they walked to the chairs that overlooked the grounds. “You’ve done a nice job.”

“It was time for something new.”

Boy, wasn’t that the truth? Too bad the something new involved legal action.

The maid brought coffee and for a few minutes the conversation was taken up by the safe and easy questions of cream and sugar; no, for him, in both cases. Then the maid bustled away and they settled back, watching one another in the silence.

“So.” Olivia took a sip of coffee. “How was your flight?”

He gave a wry smile. “Which one? There were four.”

“Any. All of them, I guess.”

“Uneventful. Which is a fine thing in a flight.” Especially the kinds of flights he habitually took. It had taken him days to work his way from the bush to Chilton, just one of the prices he paid for the life he led.

So different than here. He stared at the grounds outside the window, now covered with a light dusting of snow. “When did you get this?” He nodded at the drifts.

“A couple of days ago. A nor’easter. I lost two rose bushes. The gardener didn’t get them properly mulched in time.”

“Don’t you hate when that happens?”

She blinked. “What?”

“Maybe they’ll come back in the spring,” he said instead.

“Perhaps. In the meantime, we’ve got all this snow. I don’t know how much of it will stick, though.”

“Why, is it supposed to warm up?”

“For a few days.”

They both stared out at the snow as though it were the first time they’d seen it. The truth was, they didn’t know how to be with each other after all these years. It was worse than being with a stranger—with a stranger, what he said wouldn’t matter. Here, every word had resonance. The seconds ticked by. The silence stretched to the breaking point. Lex cleared his throat. “This is—”

“Is your—”

They stopped. “You first,” Olivia said.

He nodded at his cup. “Good coffee.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“One of the things they do well where I go is coffee.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know why you insist on going all these dangerous places.”

“You can get in worse trouble in some neighborhoods in New York.”

“I don’t know why a person would go there, either.”

He resisted the urge to say the obvious. Instead, he cleared his throat. “So how is the DAR?”

“Fine. We’re working on the Christmas gala. It’s only two weeks away.”

“A lot to do.”

“Oh, there is. Flowers, seating charts, music.”

“Sounds like a lot of meetings.”

“Always. I’ve had more cups of coffee in the past two weeks than you’d believe.”

“Coffee can be good.”

“It can. You always liked it, even when you were young. It’s so strange to have you here,” she blurted.

Out in the open, he thought. “It’s strange to be here.”

“You’re a man.” She shook her head. “When you left, you’d barely started shaving.”

“Once a week, whether I needed to or not,” he said ruefully, brushing his knuckles over his shadowed jaw.

“I guess time has a way of changing things.”

“Generally,” he agreed.

“I’m talking around it, aren’t I?”

“You’re allowed.”

“Not when you’ve come all the way from Africa to help me. I’m sorry. I just didn’t know who else to call.”

“So where do things stand?”

“I assume you’re referring to Bradley’s legal troubles.”

“Actually, I’m referring to yours.”

It took her a moment to reply. “We have an appoint ment tomorrow at two with Frank Burton, to discuss the details.”

Frank Burton, his parents’ lawyer for as long as he could remember. “He on the case?”

“He’s been in touch with the authorities and can tell us what they’re doing to find Bradley.”

“I assume you’ve tried the obvious stuff like calling his cell phone.”

“The service is shut off.”

“E-mail?”

“No reply.” She shifted in her seat. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”

“If there’d been a reasonable explanation, he wouldn’t have bolted.” And if she’d truly believed in it, there would have been no distress call. “Even if he’s innocent, running makes him look guilty.”

“I just can’t believe that Bradley would do a thing like this on his own. It had to be that girl pushing him into it.”

That girl. A wealth of disparagement in the words. “His fiancée? I thought you liked her. I thought she fit right in with this scene.” Which made her about as far from anyone he’d want anything to do with as possible, but, hey, it wasn’t his life.

Except for the fact that he was now thrown into the middle of it.

“I don’t think she was good for Bradley.”

He heard the obstinate denial in her words, knew that she wanted above all to avoid believing the worst of her son. “Mom,” he began, “I don’t think—”

She waved her hand, dismissing it. “There’s no point in speculation. Let’s wait for the details. They’ll find him and we’ll know everything soon enough.”

Or not. Lex, of all people, knew how easy it was to go underground when you wanted to.

Olivia stood. Conversation over. “Why don’t I show you to your room?”

They climbed the staircase, walked down the familiar hallways. And stopped at the door of his old room. “I hope it’s all right. It’s the only one that’s made up, except for Bradley’s. We turned yours into a guest suite after you left.” She gestured at the pale green walls, the color of spring.

New beginnings.

Old memories.

Lex walked slowly inside, ignoring the new furnishings, heading toward the window. It had been the view he’d liked best, even when he’d been shut in for punishment. He could look across the grounds and off in the distance see a slice of blue where the sea glittered under the sun.

And dream about escape.

He heard Olivia walk up next to him.

“I missed you when you were gone,” she said quietly, staring out at the sea on the horizon. “It’s a terrible thing on a parent when their child disappears.”

Guilt knifed through him. “Mom,” he began helplessly, not knowing at all what to say. Knowing only that leaving had been his sole choice.

“I used to wonder every night where you were. If you were alive, if you were safe…whether you were somewhere wanting to come home. I always hoped that if you needed help, you’d tell me.” Silence fell. And suddenly she was leaning her head against the cool window glass. “Why did he do it, Trey, why? Did we do something to him—to both of you?”

Oh, hell, he thought, and reached out a hand awkwardly to lay it on her back. “You didn’t do anything to either of us.”

“I let your father run roughshod over you.”

“That’s like saying you let the nor’easter hit. He did what he did. I did what I had to. Bradley made his decisions, too. None of it was anything you could have changed or stopped.”

She straightened and turned to him with eyes that were dry, he saw in relief. “I don’t know if that’s true. I think you’re being kind but I’m glad you’re here.”

“Not a problem.” And suddenly he found himself reaching out to give her a hug that felt right.

“I just… I didn’t know what to do,” she said against his shoulder.

“Don’t worry. We’ll find Bradley, we’ll figure it out. Everything’s going to be okay.”

He hoped like hell he was telling the truth.

“I can’t say I’m sorry to see the back of that Bradley Alexander,” Jeannie Stafford said to her daughter as she slipped a stem of baby’s breath into an arrangement of gerbera daisies.

“I could have done with a different exit.” With absent efficiency, Keely twisted ribbon together into a bow, added on an “Jeannie’s Floral Creations” tag and handed it to her mother to tie onto the vase.

“I never liked him.”

“He’s not good enough for you, girlfriend. None of those Alexanders are, for that matter,” said Lydia Montgomery, Jeannie’s longtime clerk—and Keely’s good friend since they’d begun working together in the shop’s first days.

“He was always a little too pleased with himself. And now, look at what he’s done to you,” Jeannie fumed. “Look at the trouble he’s gotten you into.”

“And Olivia Alexander spreading rumors it was all your fault,” Lydia added. She set aside the arrangement and began another.

“You don’t know that she said that,” Keely countered. She hoped not, she really hoped not. Olivia Alexander had seemed like one of the few genuine people in the social whirl. Keely had always thought Olivia liked her, that she’d approved of the match.

Lydia put her hands on her ample hips. “Well, Sandra Maxwell told me she overheard Little Missy Olivia talking when she was waiting on their table at Petrino’s, and she usually tells me straight.”

“I’m sure Olivia doesn’t want to think that her son could do anything like that,” Jeannie said. “What mother would? You’d hope that you’d raised them better.”

“Well, she should wake up and smell the coffee.” Lydia shook her head so hard that her red plait of hair swung back and forth. “She’s been fooled. Everybody’s been fooled.”

Including yours truly, Keely thought. “Look, how about if I go get us some coffee and donuts?” she interrupted. If she didn’t get out, she was going to go nuts.

Lydia and Jeannie gave each other a rueful look. “We’re ranting, aren’t we?” Jeannie asked.

“Well…”

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” She gave Keely a hug. “He just makes me so mad, that’s all.”

“You deserve better,” Lydia said.

“Why don’t you take a break and go get us some coffee,” Jeannie suggested. “We’ve got half an hour to finish the rest of these centerpieces for Lillian Hamilton’s tea and you’ll just distract us.”

“I’ll help when I get back.”

“You’re supposed to be relaxing.”

“I relax better when I’m busy.” Keely winked and walked out onto the street she could have navigated with her eyes closed.

Christmas garland festooned the trees, every shop was decorated, emphasis on quaint. Growing up, she’d always vainly hoped that her parents would move to the city, any city, just somewhere more exciting than Chilton. After all, they’d had the money to do whatever they wanted.

At least back then.

But Staffords had lived in Connecticut for decades, centuries, all the way back to the days of British rule. They weren’t budging now.

Of course, things had changed in that time. Maybe they still lived in the big fieldstone house her great-great grandfather Clement Stafford had built in 1891, but the family money was gone, eaten away by the crash of 1987 and the subsequent bursting of the Internet bubble. Her father had many fine qualities, but stock-market savvy was not one of them. He’d ridden some big losers right down into the ground.

Oddly, he seemed happier now that the bulk of their holdings had been lost. Instead of facing a self-imposed pressure to increase the family fortune by the thirty or forty percent his predecessors had managed, he went to work every day to the shipping company that had brought him on as CEO. The company’s stock kept rising and her father thrived.

As did the florist shop that Jeannie had launched right after the crash with the last of her own trust fund, hoping to keep the creditors at bay. She’d taken the skills that had won her Garden Club awards and parlayed them into a successful business. And if some of her DAR cronies looked down on her for working, she was happier being productive. So they’d had to sell off the houses in Provence, Vail and St. Bart’s, the pied-à-terres in Paris and Milan. They were happy and they were comfortable, and that was all that mattered.

I never liked him. How had Keely missed that? She hadn’t wanted to hear it, she acknowledged. Bradley had been her perfect golden boy, her teenage crush grown up, and she hadn’t wanted to lose that illusion.

Instead, she’d lost all of them.

And now, her parents would wind up being out money on deposits for the reception and the flowers and the music, money they could ill afford to lose.

Then again, if things didn’t go Keely’s way, they might find themselves spending a whole lot more helping her pay for a lawyer.

Keely shook her head. She wouldn’t think about that now. She wouldn’t think about the fact that she’d had to notify Stockton before she’d left Manhattan. A weekend. She’d work in her mother’s shop, maybe go out for lunch with Lydia and give herself a weekend of thinking about nothing more demanding than irises and poinsettias. Come Monday, she’d tackle the whole mess and figure out how the heck she was going to reclaim her life. For now, she’d let the future take care of itself.

A few feet ahead of her, someone walked out the door of Darlene’s Bake Shop, and the scents of fresh bread and coffee that wafted out after them had her mouth watering.

Some things never changed, Keely thought with a smile as she walked into the store. The same mismatched wooden and upholstered chairs sat around the same ragtag collection of tables in the café area. The walls were faded to the color of butter, still hung with the same antique pressed-tin signs and sepia photographs. The same wooden children’s toys, knickknacks and memorabilia still sat on the blue shelves. And Darlene still stood behind the counter, a little older, maybe, a little wider, but with the same broad smile. “Keely Stafford. I heard you were back,” she said.

“You heard right. I figured I’d come spend the holidays with my parents.”

“I bet they’ll like that,” Darlene said. “I’m sorry to hear about your troubles.”

It was a simple comment, casually uttered. How was it that it had her eyelids prickling? “Thank you,” Keely said, blinking. “It’s going to be fine.”

“I’m sure it will be. They’ll figure out soon enough you weren’t involved,” Darlene said comfortably. “You just be patient. Now, what can I get you?”

“Got anything fresh out of the oven?”

Back in the kitchen, a timer peeped. “You must be a mind reader,” Darlene said. “Give me just a minute.”

As she bustled into the kitchen, the front door jingled. Automatically, Keely glanced over to see who had come in.

It was a man, dark and unshaven, rumpled-looking in jeans and a black leather jacket. His build was rangy, his stride careless as he headed to the counter. His dark hair ran thick and undisciplined down to his collar, as though he didn’t much care about what it did. When he got closer, she saw the lighter streaks of brown on the top. Sun, maybe? It would go with the tanned skin. Who had a tan in New England in December?

It was his eyes, though, that caught her attention, an almost unnatural green, smudged now with fatigue. There was something disturbing in those eyes, that direct gaze, something that gave her a little shiver deep down.