’Tis the Season Read online

He returned to Billy’s room. “Stop acting like you’re on death row,” he said.

  Billy glanced up at him, his expression defiant and sheepish at the same time. “We were just checking to make sure her house wasn’t haunted, that’s all,” he said.

  Well, that certainly clarified the situation, Evan thought wryly. He shook his head. “Climbing out the window was an idiotic thing to do. Going out alone at night was dangerous. Do you get the idea, Billy? What you did was really, really stupid.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And there’s no such thing as a haunted house.”

  “Well…well, when we saw it Sunday we thought we saw a ghost. We were only going back to check. And she had candles going in the house tonight, so Gracie thought maybe it was a witch inside, and she kind of freaked out.”

  Candles or no, Evan couldn’t imagine anyone ever mistaking Filomena Albright for a witch. “I kind of freaked out, too,” he said, “when I found you and Gracie gone. You scared the hell out of me. I don’t like having the hell scared out of me, Billy. You shouldn’t like it, either. Your life will be much easier if you never, ever scare the hell out of me again.”

  “Okay.” Billy was trying very hard not to cry. Evan could see him biting his lip and forcing his eyes open to keep the tears from accumulating. His little-boy stoicism made Evan want to cry, also.

  Instead, he entered the room and lowered himself to sit on the bed next to his son. “I love you, Billy.”

  “I love you, too,” Billy said, his gaze on his knees.

  Evan gave Billy a harder hug than he’d intended, the remnants of his fear making him want to cling to his son forever, to protect him from open windows and ghosts and all the demons that inspired him to take crazy risks. But no father could protect his child completely from danger. He could only hug, and yell, and make sure his child knew how much he was loved.

  Evan left the room, closing the door behind him, and descended the stairs. The voices of Evan’s friends emerged from the kitchen in a rumble, but Filomena Albright remained in the family room, studying the framed portraits of the kids on display on the mantel.

  “I think this is yours,” he said, presenting her with the muffler.

  “Thank you.” She took it and smiled again. It was an amazing smile, full of energy and vitality, full of soul. He felt bewitched by it.

  “Can I offer you a drink?” he asked. “Or an apology?”

  “Don’t apologize. Your children are adorable. I was hoping they’d come back.”

  “Come back?”

  “They’ve been to my house before.”

  “They’ve been visiting you?” Why didn’t he know this? How much of their lives was he in the dark about?

  “No, they didn’t visit me. They were just snooping around the house, I think. Peeking through the windows. I found your daughter’s barrette near one, and their footprints. It’s an intriguing house. I guess they were drawn to it.”

  He struggled to assimilate this information, plus what he’d gleaned from Billy. “According to my son, your house is haunted.”

  “Haunted?” She tossed back her head and let loose with a rich, throaty laugh that was even more enchanting than her smile. Maybe Gracie was right. Maybe Filomena Albright was a witch.

  “They didn’t say anything to me about my house being haunted,” she told him. “But the house was empty for five years. I suppose it might have seemed a little spooky to them.”

  Five years? Had they been going to her house for five years? That was impossible! Gracie wasn’t even five years old.

  Evan felt, if possible, more overwhelmed, more confused. He was sure everything would make sense if only Filomena Albright wasn’t standing so close to him, looking so utterly gorgeous.

  “Evan!” Murphy called from the kitchen. “Is everything all right, or should I phone the police?”

  “No police,” he shouted back, then smiled at her and explained, “My buddies. I guess they deserve an explanation.” He deserved an explanation, too. Maybe Filomena would offer one.

  Touching his hand to her elbow, he ushered her into the kitchen. The guys were standing around the table, clutching their beers, eyeing Evan curiously—and Filomena even more curiously. “This is Filomena Albright,” he said, discovering that the name rolled rather pleasantly off his tongue. “This is Dennis Murphy, Tom Bland, Levi Holt and Brett Stockton.”

  They stared at Filomena as though she were an alien who’d just dropped in from another planet.

  “Most people call me Fil,” she said.

  “Fil?” Evan nodded, then gestured toward a chair. “Please, have a seat. I’ll get you something—a cup of tea, maybe? Coffee? Beer?”

  “No, really, I’m fine.” The men shuffled around the table, presenting her with a chair and smiling bashfully, quizzically. Evan recalled a scene in a movie he’d watched recently with Gracie, the Disney version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In the scene, the dwarfs all made a fuss over beautiful Snow White. His kitchen had only five “dwarfs,” and their physiques ran from average to tall, but they exhibited that same deference, awkward and eager to please the lovely young stranger in their midst.

  “I’m interrupting your game,” she said, noting the piles of chips and playing cards on the table.

  “That’s okay,” Tom said. “I was losing, anyway.”

  Filomena smiled. The guys laughed, except for Evan, who wished they’d all go away so he could learn more about her, her haunted house and how she’d wound up with his kids on a Tuesday night.

  “We could deal you in,” Brett offered.

  Still smiling, she shook her head. “Really, Mr…” She gazed questioningly at Evan. Apparently she’d forgotten his name.

  “Evan Myers.”

  “Evan Myers,” she echoed. “I should be going. You’re busy here and I’ve got things to do, too. I only wanted to make sure your children got home safely.”

  “I want to make sure you get home safely. Let me drive you.” He immediately felt less addled. Driving her home was the right thing to do, and it would give him a few minutes alone with her, an opportunity to find out exactly what had occurred at her house.

  “I can walk,” she insisted, rising from the chair. “It’s just through the woods.”

  “No, I’ll drive you.” He caught Murphy’s eye.

  Murphy motioned with his head toward the door. “Go ahead. We’ll stand guard over the monsters until you get back.”

  Evan sent Murphy a grateful nod. Murphy was the father of twins a year older than Billy. They were a pair of hellions—which, of course, meant that Billy and Gracie idolized them. If Murphy could handle his own children, he could surely handle Billy and Gracie for the brief time it would take Evan to drive Filomena to her place.

  He led her through the mudroom door and into the garage, where he turned on the light so she could see her way around the bicycles and skateboards, the roller skates and hockey sticks, the Velcro dartboard, the footballs, the soccer balls, the whiffle balls and the basketballs that cluttered the perimeter. He admitted to going a bit overboard when it came to supplying his kids with sports gear. But athletic equipment was his business, after all.

  Filomena said nothing as she took in the abundance of jock stuff. He opened the passenger door of his Saab for her, then closed it behind her once she was settled in the seat. After pressing the switch to raise the garage door, he got in behind the wheel and revved the engine.

  Now that he had her alone, he wasn’t sure how to start a conversation. Ordinarily, he had no trouble talking to women, even women he found attractive. He didn’t date much—he had neither the time nor the energy—but when he did, he never felt particularly out of his depth.

  He felt way out of his depth with this woman. She wasn’t glamorous or sophisticated, at least not that he could tell. Yet there was something about her, something in the contours of her smile, in the alluring darkness of her eyes. Something that could make Gracie fear her as a witch one minute and cuddle in the c
urve of her arms the next. Something that entranced Evan.

  “You’ll have to tell me where you live,” he reminded her as he backed out of the driveway.

  “Poplar Ridge Road.”

  “And your house is just the other side of the woods from ours?” He tried to work out the geography in his mind. Poplar Ridge Road wound in a big curve a distance from his own street.

  “As the crow flies,” she said. Her voice was like velvet, soft but textured. “You really shouldn’t have abandoned your card game. I could have cut right back through the woods and been home in ten minutes.”

  I wanted to abandon my card game, he almost said. He turned left at the foot of the driveway, stealing a glimpse of her as he scanned the road for traffic. She wasn’t looking at him, and just as well. He wasn’t at his best right now. His jaw was scratchy with an end-of-the-day growth of beard, and his hair was probably mussed from his having charged through the house in a mad state when he’d discovered the kids were missing. He’d changed clothes as soon as he’d gotten home from work, trading his tailored business attire for faded jeans, an old V-neck sweater and sneakers. The night was chilly, but he hadn’t bothered with a jacket. The car heated up well.

  As he drove to the end of his block, he tried to think of a conversational gambit, then gave up. He had legitimate questions, pressing concerns, and he didn’t want to waste what little time he had with her on small talk. “I need to know what happened tonight,” he said. He also needed to know what was happening right now in his car, but he didn’t expect her to explain that. She might not even be aware that anything was happening. It might not be happening to her.

  “I was sitting in my living room, listening to some harpsichord music on the stereo and sipping a glass of wine, when I noticed your children spying through my window,” she said, making it sound like the most normal, mundane event in the world.

  “Spying through your window? Like Peeping Toms? I don’t believe it.” He sighed and shook his head. “I mean, I do believe it. I just don’t like it. I don’t know what got into them, doing something like that.”

  “The house is big and old and kind of odd. I guess they discovered it while it was still empty, and it intrigued them.”

  The way its current resident intrigued their father, he thought, deeply unsettled by just how much she intrigued him. “You recently moved in, then?”

  “Sunday morning,” she said.

  The kids had been out exploring Sunday afternoon, he recalled. And they’d come home and acted strange. “Were you in the house Sunday afternoon?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I think my kids were there then. They must have seen you and taken you for a ghost or something.”

  “Tonight they took me for a witch,” she said. “At least, Gracie did.”

  He glanced her way and found her smiling. “You don’t find that insulting?”

  “Now that they’ve met me, they don’t seem to think I’m a witch anymore.” She settled back in the seat and gazed at him. Even when he was watching the road, he could feel her eyes on him. What did she see? he wondered. A scruffy man at the end of a long day? A harried dad? A neglectful poker player? The kind of parent who raised Peeping Toms?

  “I’m really sorry they bothered you,” he said, stopping at the corner and turning to her.

  She dismissed his apology with a laugh. “I’m not sorry and they didn’t bother me. It’s lonely all by myself in that house. I was delighted that they came to visit. I just wish they had come at a reasonable hour.”

  “Really? You want them to visit?”

  “Is that a problem?” she asked, her smile fading.

  “No, not at all.” At least, he didn’t think it was a problem. He hardly knew this woman, though. He shouldn’t automatically trust her enough to let his children visit her. “Where did you move here from?” he asked casually, steering around the corner.

  “Manhattan.”

  She must be one of the rich city folks who bought vacation retreats in the Arlington area. They mostly settled west of town, not in Evan’s hilly north-side neighborhood, but why else would an attractive young woman buy a house in Arlington?

  Actually, he could think of lots of reasons. For example, maybe she had a husband who’d been transferred to the area. “Are you married?” he asked, then realized what a tactless question that was. He hastened to remedy any offense she might have taken. “I’m just wondering why you left New York City to move into a haunted house. If you’ve got family here or something…”

  Her mood seemed to change, her smile losing its alluring radiance. “No family, but I did grow up in the house.”

  That would explain it, he supposed. “I’m sorry if you thought I was being nosy, but…well, I just worry about the kids, that’s all.”

  “I understand.” But her smile didn’t return.

  He turned onto Poplar Ridge Road. “You’ll have to tell me which house.”

  “It’s up a way. You can’t see it from the street.”

  They drove in silence. His apology couldn’t erase the low-level tension that hummed in the car. He wasn’t sure why he felt so contrite—it wasn’t just because of his kids or because he’d inquired about her marital status. He suspected it had something to do with the fact that as soon as he’d calmed down enough to look at her when she’d first appeared in his backyard, he’d practically stripped her naked in his imagination.

  In and of itself, that wouldn’t be a crime. He was a man, single and unattached. He was allowed to appreciate an attractive woman, allowed even to fantasize about her. But Filomena Albright wasn’t simply an attractive woman. She had an aura about her. Maybe it was her elaborate earrings, or her long, flowing hair. Maybe it was the sight of her with Gracie in her arms—like a powerful savior who’d rescued his fragile pajama-clad daughter from the evil shadows of the forest.

  There was nothing fragile about Gracie, of course. But he’d been taken by the way Filomena had looked holding her: strong yet protective. More than a savior—an Amazon goddess, a magical spirit, a warrior endowed with mythical powers.

  Evan was not given to flights of fancy. He couldn’t begin to guess why Filomena inspired him to imagine such things.

  “There,” she said, pointing toward a barely visible driveway, its entrance flanked by two short stone columns. He turned onto the gravel driveway, pebbles crunching beneath his tires. His headlights guided him up the curving drive until suddenly the house loomed before him.

  It was huge. He wouldn’t call it a palace—there was nothing elegant about it—but the house had a rugged grandeur. Its walls were constructed of randomly shaped stones, its double door arched, its windows filled with light. The cast-iron lamps hanging on either side of the door illuminated not just the porch but the shaggy front lawn and untrimmed shrubs. The driveway ended in a circle near an overgrown path of slate leading to the broad front steps. Astonished, Evan shut off the engine and gawked. “This is your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow.” He craned his neck to admire the roof, whose patterned tiles sloped sharply above the third story. “I never knew there was a house hiding back here. How old is it?”

  “Around a hundred years, I think.”

  “Wow.” No one would have built a house like this today. It would have required too much labor, and the land it sat on—a huge parcel, given the length of the driveway—would have been zoned into smaller lots. “I guess I can understand why my kids were curious about the place.”

  “Do you think it looks haunted?”

  He eyed her. Her smile had returned, warm and tantalizing. “It looks like the sort of house that would be haunted by a woman named Filomena.”

  Her eyebrows flicked upward. “Oh?”

  “Unusual name. Unusual house.” Unusual woman, he wanted to add, but he had no way of knowing whether she was unusual. He only sensed it. “And my house is really just through the woods?” he asked, scrutinizing the expanse of forest behind the house.
r />   “There’s a path. It wasn’t too clear to me, but Billy had no trouble following it even in the dark.”

  He turned his gaze back to the house. He couldn’t imagine Filomena rattling around in it by herself. She’d said it was her childhood home. Had she endured an odd childhood? Or an average one in an odd house?

  He tried to picture her the way she’d been before Sunday, in Manhattan. He envisioned her as an artist, living a bohemian life in SoHo or TriBeCa, or whatever Manhattan neighborhood was funky-chic these days. He envisioned her in long skirts and flamboyant earrings, drinking espresso and discussing the latest gallery showings with adoring men clad in black. What he couldn’t envision was her becoming friends with a divorced father of two in Arlington, Connecticut.

  Yet he wanted to become friends with her, at least until he could figure out why his nerves seemed to sizzle from her nearness, why her gaze seemed to suck him in. What he felt in her presence wasn’t anything as simple as healthy male lust. Sure, he appreciated her beauty, but that wasn’t it.

  She made him anxious. She fascinated him. She knocked him off balance.

  Or maybe he reacted strangely to her because he was strung out over his kids’ stunt. Maybe it had nothing to do with Filomena Albright herself.

  “So what brought you back to Arlington? Were you homesick?”

  She shook her head. Her hair glided around her face, smooth and glossy. “I inherited the house. I’ve got to spruce it up and sell it.”

  “Oh.” Someone must have died, then. “My condolences.”

  “Thank you.” Her eyes shimmered and her smile looked brave and shaky. Once again he felt undermined by her. If she was going to collapse in a fit of grief-stricken weeping, what would he do? Hug her? Comfort her? Pass her one of the fast-food napkins he kept stored in the console between the seats, handy for mopping up the kids’ messes?

  Fortunately, she didn’t fall apart. She blinked a few times and her smile grew less forced. “I figured I’d stay here in Arlington through New Year’s Day, enjoy the house and get it into shape, then put it on the market in January.”

  She was going to be in town until January? His brain abruptly shifted gears. She would be in town until the holiday retail season was over and his schedule calmed down. She would be just a short walk through the woods from his house during the next few weeks, when his life was going to be chaotic, when his daughter’s preschool teacher believed he would need help in the form of a baby-sitter so he wouldn’t keep picking Gracie up late. Filomena thought his children were adorable, and Gracie had trusted her enough to rest her head on her shoulder, and—