Comfort and Joy Read online

  The captain on the other end of the telephone remained unmoved. “And I’ve outlined our position for you, Mr. Lawson. If we grant a leave for Gerald Selby, we’ve got to grant leaves for the entire crew.”

  “I don’t care about the entire crew,” Jesse snapped. “All I care about is one man.”

  “We have our rules, Mr. Lawson,” Captain Stevenson recited. “This is the way the military operates. Without rules, it can’t function. I’m very sorry for your client. But this is the way the investigation is going to proceed. We need the entire crew here for questioning.”

  “You know what’s going to happen,” Jesse argued, not bothering to disguise his caustic tone. “The damned investigators are going to go home for Christmas, and Selby and his crewmates are going to sit around twiddling their thumbs on the base in Newport for the day. There’s no need for that. The investigators can question Selby some other day.”

  “We have our rules, Mr. Lawson.”

  Jesse cursed under his breath. “Newport is three hours from New Haven, where Selby’s mother resides. All he needs is forty-eight hours. He isn’t under suspicion. He understands his obligations. He’s never given the Navy any trouble. I can have him back on base by December twenty-sixth.”

  “That would be contrary to rules, Mr. Lawson. If we allow one man his leave—”

  “Yes, I know,” Jesse interrupted. He didn’t think he could stomach another repetition of the Naval Code. Just beyond his open office door, a hysterical client was ranting in Spanish to one of the paralegals. Outside his window, sleet ticked against the pavement in a staccato rhythm, glazing everything below—including the cramped Mini-Cooper he’d driven to work that morning. He needed a new car. And a coat.

  And he needed to talk about Gerald Selby’s Christmas leave to someone who didn’t respond like a robot. “Consider the holiday,” he implored Captain Stevenson. “Consider the issue of morale. Depriving Gerald Selby of this one special day with his family—”

  “If we grant him his leave, Mr. Lawson, then everybody’s going to want their leaves.”

  “So what?” Jesse retorted. “It’s Christmas, for crying out loud. Even the Navy must believe in Santa Claus!”

  What was he saying? What kind of crazy argument was that? Jesse was a lawyer, and as a lawyer it was his duty to use any and every tactic at his command to turn an opponent around. But Santa Claus?

  The captain on the other end of the line said nothing for a moment. He’s probably Googling me, Jesse thought morosely. Checking to see if I’ve ever been committed to a mental hospital. Or else he’s sending a telegram to Mrs. Selby, recommending that she seek new counsel.

  And then, suddenly, Captain Stevenson started to laugh. Authentic human laughter. The man wasn’t a robot, after all.

  Jesse laughed, too. He didn’t believe in Santa Claus, but if the Navy did—if this one desk-bound officer did—Gerald Selby might have a chance to spend the holiday with his mother. “I tell you what,” Captain Stevenson said. “Send me something in writing. And for God’s sake, ask for twenty-four hours, not forty-eight. I’m not making any promises. I’m operating within a strict hierarchy here. I’ve got to answer to people.”

  “Anything you can do for my client will be greatly appreciated,” Jesse said. “I’ll get the paperwork emailed to you right away. With a copy to the North Pole. Thank you for your time, sir.”

  He hung up and surrendered to another laugh. What some people might call the Christmas spirit, Jesse called good will and human kindness. If more people exercised the spirit year-round, it would no longer be associated with one single day, and the world would be a much better place.

  Such a hope was fruitless; Jesse knew that the good-will human-kindness argument he’d just presented to Captain Stevenson would have been utterly ineffective in June or September. But then, if Gerald Selby’s leave had been scheduled for June or September, Mrs. Selby wouldn’t have been so upset about its postponement.

  She might still wind up disappointed, Jesse reminded himself. Captain Stevenson might not be able to arrange Gerald’s release for the holiday. And that was the least of Mrs. Selby’s problems.

  Jesse had been contacted that morning by the attorney representing Martha Selby’s landlord, George Cabot. “We’ve received a copy of your suit,” the lawyer had announced. “We’ll be filing a motion to dismiss within the next few days. My client has no interest in negotiating a settlement. We’ll leave it up to the courts to decide whether he’s failed to fulfill his obligations regarding your clients’ rental agreements.”

  It was a ploy, of course. Any court in the country would toss the motion to dismiss and find against Mr. Cabot. His attorney had to know that. Their strategy clearly was to stall for time and hope the tenants gave up and moved out. The civil court wouldn’t set a date for a hearing for months. By then, Mrs. Selby and her neighbors might well be so sick of living in a building without a working elevator that they’d evacuate on their own. Or else the building would be condemned, Cabot would pay a nominal fine, and the tenants would still have to move out.

  Perhaps Jesse should have mentioned Santa Claus to Cabot’s attorney.

  The Spanish-speaking man had stopped hectoring the paralegal in the hallway, and the sleet stopped drumming against the window. Jesse stood, crossed his tiny office and peered through the smudged glass. An impotent winter sun was fighting its way out from behind the broken ceiling of leaden clouds. Jesse rooted for the sun to win the battle. Even if it did, though, he still needed a coat.

  Buying a coat wouldn’t be as difficult as buying a car. He’d spent his lunch break at a Mazda dealership, listening to a snappy-looking blow-dried kid tell him that a man like Jesse would truly appreciate the power of this model, the bad-weather handling of that model, the luxurious leather interior and accessories of the other model. The sticker prices on the cars he checked out were less absurd than the stratospheric numbers Jesse had heard the last time he’d bought a new car, six years ago. But at least that Mercedes dealer in L.A. hadn’t treated him like a doddering old man who needed push-button controls and an ergonomic headrest.

  One of those days, Jesse thought as he witnessed the ongoing feud between the sun and the clouds. The call from Cabot’s lawyer, interviews with two new clients—a handicapped woman being denied a pension by the Social Security Administration and a distraught teenager who claimed his employer, a gas station owner, owed him back wages—the encounter with the car dealer, and a conversation with a Navy captain. And the sleet, the same treacherous precipitation had that nearly killed Jesse last Friday.

  So why was he in such a good mood? “Robin,” he said aloud.

  He ought to be in a bad mood about her, too, but he wasn’t. He ought to be frustrated, horny, resentful of her refusal to make love with him. What they’d begun on her living room floor last night had been sensational, and she shouldn’t have been so prim and prudish about following through on it. It was obvious that they had both wanted what was happening, that they’d both desired each other.

  Yet he wasn’t resentful. Frustrated, maybe—the lower half of his anatomy had ached for hours after he’d left her house—but not resentful. He admired the courage it had taken her to put a stop to the situation before she was overwhelmed by it. He respected her willingness to trust her mind, and her heart. He appreciated her decency and her principles. He didn’t consider her outdated or immature.

  A woman who wouldn’t sleep with a man she didn’t love... He didn’t know such people still existed. Even the most pious of the folks he’d worked with at Grace Cathedral—sure, they’d claim that a couple ought to be married before they engaged in sex, but love didn’t necessarily have anything to do with it. Men lusted, and they had to pay the cost of that lust by marrying the women they lusted after. Women submitted—that was the price they paid for the security of marriage.

  More sophisticated practitioners of the Grace theology, like Anne, didn’t feel obliged to sanctify their relationships befor
e allowing them to become intimate. But that made people like Anne even more hypocritical, in Jesse’s opinion. “Nobody has to know we’re having an affair,” she had often said. “We’re discreet about it. Nobody’s watching.”

  “What about God?” he’d asked sarcastically. “Isn’t he watching?”

  “I’m sure God doesn’t mind,” Anne had maintained. “After all, we’re doing his work.”

  Robin would never make such a ridiculous claim. Jesse didn’t doubt that she believed in God, but she didn’t cling to the superficial aspects of religion. She hadn’t brought things to a halt last night because she was trying to extort a marriage proposal from Jesse. Nor had she brought things to a halt because she was afraid of bringing God’s wrath upon her. She had acted in the interest of love. And for that alone, Jesse loved her.

  He loved her for more than that, of course. He loved her for having known how cold he would be and building a fire in her fireplace. He loved her for buying her son a Christmas tree. He loved her for listening, for wanting to know, for not condemning him for his beliefs.

  He did have beliefs. They differed from most people’s, but they were just as valid. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told Robin he believed; he believed in the inherent goodness within people, in human strength, in bravery and conviction.

  He believed in Robin.

  And, as the clouds closed in front of the sun again, dark with foreboding, he believed in the practicality of buying a warm coat.

  ***

  ONE HOUR and five hundred dollars later, he left a men’s clothing shop on the Post Road in Belleford, wearing a brand new coat of gray cashmere. The evening air was bitterly cold, and he didn’t even want to think about what the wind-chill factor might be. But with the coat on, he felt snug and toasty. He would have to thank Robin for having talked some sense into him.

  In fact, he could thank her now. Woodleigh’s was just down the road, and the store wouldn’t have closed for the night yet. He climbed into his rental car, grimaced at the faint rattle of the engine as he revved it, and drove down the road to Woodleigh’s.

  Entering the store, he spotted Robin almost at once. She was hard to miss, standing on the top rung of a ladder and reaching for a boxed set of woven placemats on an upper shelf. In her brown pinafore and her buoyant ponytail, her pleated skirt and loafers, she looked like a prep school student. But the shapely calves visible between those loafers and the hem of her skirt were much too sexy for a high-schooler, and Jesse suffered a fresh twinge of discomfort below his belt as he recalled how close he’d come to having his way with her on the carpet of her living room.

  He directed his attention to the dwarf Christmas tree on the counter until his libido simmered down. By the time he risked glancing back at Robin, she had descended the ladder and was handing the box of placemats to a grateful customer. Bypassing numerous other shoppers and clerks in a meandering path through the store to the cash register with her customer, Robin noticed Jesse and hesitated. Then she smiled. Another twinge ripped through him as he remembered how great it had felt to kiss her.

  “I’ll be right with you,” she said by way of greeting before she glided around the counter to ring up the purchase. Jesse waited near the counter, gazing at her small hands as they efficiently scanned the purchase, produced a receipt and gift-wrapped the box. Those slender fingers that manipulated the wrapping paper and ribbon with such finesse had run through his hair and down his back, had dug into his muscles and compelled his body.... No. He’d come here to show her his new coat, not to pressure her into picking up where they’d left off Sunday night.

  The customer departed, and Robin slipped away from the register to greet Jesse. “I love it!” she exclaimed, circling him and examining the coat. “It looks so warm. And the color is perfect.”

  “It cost a fortune,” he complained.

  “And worth every penny,” she assured him, stroking the sleeve and sighing at its soft texture. Abruptly she pulled her hand away, as if embarrassed at having touched him.

  He wouldn’t increase her embarrassment by commenting on it. “Do you have a minute?” he asked.

  She surveyed the bustling store and frowned. Apparently she didn’t have a minute. “I’m sorry, Jesse, but it’s crazy here tonight. And I’ve got to work till nine. With the extended holiday hours...”

  “One minute,” he repeated, holding up a single finger for emphasis.

  She raised her eyes to his. He sensed doubt in them and wondered whether it was doubt about her feelings for him or doubt about his claim that he’d take only a minute of her time. Either way, it didn’t matter, because he also sensed humor in those glittering hazel irises, and joy at seeing him. “One minute,” she said, holding up her own finger in response and then beckoning him to follow her to the rear of the store.

  At the back of the store, they passed through a door and into a hallway. She stepped through another door which led into a minuscule lounge, equipped with a coffee maker, a water cooler and a compact refrigerator. A two-seat couch of orange vinyl was jammed against a wall of the windowless room, but she didn’t bother to sit. She paced the brief length of the lounge, fidgeting with the tie of her pinafore.

  Now that they were alone, Jesse admitted to himself that he hadn’t come here to thank her for talking him into buying a coat. He came here to see her, to hold her, to reassure her that last night meant everything and nothing, that it meant whatever she wanted it to mean. When she reached the far end of the room and about-faced, he caught up to her and slipped his arms around her narrow waist. “Hello,” he murmured, resisting the urge to kiss her. Hugging her would have to do for now.

  “Jesse.” She let out a long breath and rested her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry about last night.”

  “You have no reason to be.”

  Evidently, she disagreed. “It’s just...” Her words were muffled by the thick fabric of the coat and she pulled away. Turning, she eased out of his arms and began to pace again. “I’m—I’m new at all this, Jesse. I mean, I—I haven’t dated much since my divorce. That’s a lie. I haven’t dated at all since my divorce.”

  “It’s okay, Robin,” he insisted.

  She pivoted, facing him from across the lounge, her arms folded defensively over her chest. “It’s more than that, Jesse. Ray—my ex-husband—he was the first...what I mean is, he was the only man I’ve ever...” Dropping her gaze to the floor, she drifted off.

  “Robin.” Jesse didn’t want to laugh; she might be insulted if he did. But she appeared so unnecessarily upset, all worked up over something he considered irrelevant. “I don’t care about your past, Robin. All I care about is us.”

  “I care about us, too,” she allowed, toying with the tie of her pinafore again.

  Jesse couldn’t bear to see her fidget. It indicated that she was nervous, and he couldn’t bear the thought that he made her nervous. Closing the space between them, he enveloped her hands with his to immobilize them.

  “And it’s just—well, we haven’t known each other very long, and you aren’t like anyone I’ve ever met before, and—”

  “Relax,” he whispered, brushing his mouth against hers. He wasn’t kissing her to pressure her, he told himself. He was only kissing her as a means of putting an end to her babbling.

  She laughed anxiously and turned her head. “What can I say? I’m a dowdy old mother and—”

  “And you don’t have to say anything,” he argued. “How do I shut you up?”

  She laughed again, a genuine, heartfelt laugh this time. “You must think I’m nuts.”

  “I think you’re wonderful,” he said. “When can we see each other for longer than a minute? Are you going to have to work late all week?”

  She shook her head. “Just tonight and Thursday. But I’ve got to save some time for Philip. I hate it when I work late and don’t get to spend the evening with him. Especially now, at this time of year. I promised him that we’d decorate the rest of the house when I
got home tomorrow, and he and I have a hot date at Papa Gino’s lined up for Wednesday. And Joanna’s hosting a Christmas party for some of the neighborhood kids after dinner on Friday, and I told her I’d help her out—”

  “You’re a busy lady,” Jesse conceded. “How’s Saturday?”

  “I don’t know yet. Can you call me a little later in the week?”

  “I think I can manage that.” He kissed her again, a light, lingering kiss on her lips. “My minute must be up,” he whispered reluctantly.

  “I forgot to time you,” she confessed, touching her mouth to his once more and then breaking from him. “I’d better run. Drive carefully tonight, Jesse. It’s slippery out there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He accompanied her out of the lounge, and the instant she reentered the store she was accosted by frantic clerks. Where were the extra boxes of star-shaped crystal tree ornaments? What should be done about the woman whose credit card was rejected? Where did Kevin put that morning’s shipment of sterling silver napkin rings? Could Robin please deal with the cranky dude who wanted to return the beach umbrella he’d bought at the store last July?

  Tossing Jesse a beleaguered smile, Robin allowed her employees to sweep her away.

  ***

  WHAT WAS SHE THINKING? How could she treat the man so shabbily? Sunday night, she’d pushed him away after blatantly encouraging him to seduce her, and today she’d declared that she was all but unavailable to see him for the next century. If he had any brains, he’d wash his hands of her.

  By nine-fifteen, she’d waved off the last of her sales clerks and locked up the store. Trudging through the back door to the employee parking lot, she let out a groan and shook her head. She had essentially told Jesse that she didn’t have time for him. He would have to be superhuman to put up with her. And he wasn’t superhuman.

  The truth was, she didn’t have time for him, not now, not during the most important month for business at Woodleigh’s. She didn’t have time to build a friendship with a man when she scarcely had time for her own son. Whatever free moments she could scrape together belonged to Philip.