Carroll buttoned her jacket as she walked down the steps behind Slade. He handled the large carton as if it were no larger than a shoebox, she noted enviously. When he slid in on the passenger side, her brows rose. A man who didn't mind being driven by a woman. Nice.

She settled behind the wheel, squinting up at the leaden sky. "Do you think it's just possible that Kris might be right? Could we really get snow?"

Slade groaned. "Don't even think it. He'd be impossible to live with. He's already bad enough."

Sliding a quick glance in his direction, she asked, "What's he up to now?"

"Aside from wanting me to wear an elf costume and help deliver presents?"

She chuckled. "You can wiggle out of that one. Christy and I are already signed up as Santa's helpers. We can get the job done."

Suddenly the idea didn't sound so bad. They could probably use some help with the heavy packages, he mused. He wondered idly what an elf costume looked like.

"We came at a good time," she told him. "The traffic doesn't get bad until the lights go on."

The lights. Always the lights. Slade leaned back in the seat, taking note of all the lights that weren't connected to someone's house. They were on more trees than he could count, running up and down streetlights, wrapped around trash cans and along the backs of park benches. Probably the only reason they weren't strung around mailboxes was due to a federal ordinance prohibiting such shenanigans.

"Here we are, and there's a parking place right in front," Carroll announced with satisfaction. "You get the box and I'll open the door."

Lindy, a slim woman with graying hair and a broad smile, beat her to the door. "Hi. Come in. You're an answer to my prayers." She stepped aside to let Slade in and waved him to the counter. "Thank God it's a big box. However many you have, I can use even more. Believe it or not, I've got a waiting list for these babies."

Carroll closed the door, stepping past a rocking horse, several homemade dolls and a baby carriage. Two of Noel's landscapes hung on the opposite wall, both marked with Sold signs. Lindy not only carried exquisite gifts, she was an outlet for the local artists and craftsmen. "At least your customers aren't standing outside pounding on the window. You've got them well trained."

Lindy opened the box with eager hands. Looking up at Carroll, she laughed softly. "I can't afford to lose any customers, and I was afraid that if they hung around here, Kris would have lights strung on them. I told them I'd call when I had the cakes in my hot little hands."

She turned to Slade and measured him with a frankly assessing gaze. Giving an approving nod, she held out her hand for a businesslike shake. "I'm Lindy Miller. No, you don't have to tell me who you are. Slade Ryan, right? You're helping Kris with the lights. He tells us you're going to get the lights turned on for Christmas Eve. We've been waiting for this for years." She took the rest of the cakes from the box and turned to Carroll. "I understand the chamber of commerce is trying to get some local TV coverage for the big event."

"TV?" Carroll asked faintly, turning to Slade. He looked as stunned as she sounded.

"Are you sure about that?" he asked.

Lindy's nod was definite. "Tom, my husband, is the treasurer. He told me that Kris came to their meeting last Tuesday and said everything was arranged. The play will end at five, we'll all go outside in the park, the lights will go on, and all the animated scenes will start up."

She gave them a droll look. "Kris has ordered snow, so it will be snowing. He'll come out with Anderson's hay wagon decorated like a sleigh-pulled by Blitzen and Rudolph, of course-and hand out the presents. That's the part they thought a news program might be interested in."

She paused to count the cakes and write a receipt for Carroll. "By the way, the chamber invited all the marines who helped with the lights up for the festivities. Those who can't get home are coming. Yesterday Tom and I spent some of the chamber's money and bought gifts for them. Naturally they're all invited to the pot-luck supper."

"Naturally," Carroll echoed, darting a glance at Slade's expressionless face.

"We'll get all their names to you before Christmas Eve," Lindy added.

"Fine."

The heavy silence in the car was finally broken by Slade, just as they pulled into the driveway. "TV? Did you know about this?"

Carroll slammed on the brakes and snapped off the ignition. "No, I didn't." Turning to him furiously, she said, "Do you really think I'd let you walk into a situation like that without any warning? What kind of a person do you think I am?"

"Loyal. To your family."

"You're right," she admitted, curling her fingers around the steering wheel. "I am. But I also have a sense of fair play. I would have told you."

"Sorry." He reached across and brushed his thumb over her knuckles. "I should have known."

In silence she turned her palm up, lacing her fingers through his. "What are you going to do?" she finally asked.

In a voice heavy with defeat, he said, "I don't know. I haven't been able to convince Kris that he's asking the impossible any more than I've been able to convince you that I won't desert you the first time you turn your back."

Chapter Seven

I won't desert you.

It was a little after three in the morning when Carroll admitted the obvious: sleep was a lost cause. She tossed back the blankets, shrugged into a warm robe and quietly went down to the kitchen. A few minutes later she carried a cup of tea into the dark living room, curled up in the corner of the sofa and covered herself with a woolly afghan. From where she sat, she could see light streaming out of Slade's office windows.

I won't desert you.

He was still working. An anxious frown drew her brows together. He didn't take care of himself, she fretted. Guilt etched the furrows even deeper between her brows. If it weren't for Kris and the two lost hours each day, Slade probably wouldn't still be at the computer. But for all she knew, Carroll thought hopefully, he was a workaholic who simply preferred toiling twenty hours out of every twenty-four.

Gloom settled again. More than likely he had to be there. When he had moved to Pinetree, Slade had undoubtedly expected to be isolated, to produce quantities of work. A mountain cabin had probably seemed an ideal location. Then Kris had appeared and blown not just holes, but craters, in his schedule.

I won't desert you.

Carroll concentrated fiercely on her train of thought. Slade. Work. Schedule. Kris. Slade wasn't given to sulking or complaining. He also didn't talk much about his work. She realized with a mild sense of surprise that she hadn't the foggiest idea what he was doing over there. Oh, he answered direct questions and murmured something about radar; she had even seen the colorful graphics on his monitor, but they meant less than nothing to her. She would ask him after the holidays, she decided, sipping her tea.

So Slade would neither complain nor sulk. What would he do? Exactly what he was doing. Work every minute that he could. He would make his deadline come hell or high water. Whatever it took, he would do. And in his spare time-such as it was-he would fret about the problem that Kris had created.

I won't desert you.

She tossed aside the afghan and jumped to her feet, admitting that she had stalled as long as she could. All right! He wouldn't desert her. So he said. And he undoubtedly meant it. For now. But so had Jeffrey.

Jeffrey.

Okay, admit it, Carroll. At least to yourself. Say it just once. Jeffrey had been no more mature at twenty-two than she had been at nineteen. He'd had no more grasp of the depth of the vows he had taken than she had. They had thought they were in love. And they had been-with love, not each other.

Reality had been living in a tiny apartment that they couldn't afford, having no marketable job skills and learning that she was pregnant the third month of their marriage. Even so, reality had barely dented her optimistic outlook. "Things will work out," she had said. Repeatedly. But reality had presented a different face to Jeff, one that he found frightening. He didn't wait for things to work out. He left when she was seven months into her pregnancy; he had never seen his baby. He had never called or written to ask about her. Carroll divorced him and gave Christy her maiden name, and now there was no remnant of Jeff in her life-except for memories.

But Jeff wasn't the villain of the piece, Carroll reflected. There was no villain. He had been weak, and they had both been very young. But still, something good had come from the situation: Christy.

Carroll stared out the window at the lights slashing into the darkness around Slade's house, remembering. Something else had happened. She had grown up. She had managed to return to school and get a good grounding in secretarial work and business administration. It hadn't been easy, but with the help of Kris and Noel it had been possible. Running her own business had been her goal, and had become her achievement for the past four years.

Her life was predictable, secure, just the way she wanted it to be. She was independent and in control, also just the way she wanted to be. And she was happy. Carroll took one last lingering look out the window and turned away. She was happy.

Upstairs, she crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to her ears, trying to ignore the haunting refrain that had made it impossible to sleep.


I won't desert you.

Late the next afternoon, Carroll decided to brave the evening traffic so she could drive Christy into town. They wanted to be in the park when Kris turned on the first bank of lights. It was a long-standing tradition on their part, one that not even a cast and crutches could prevent.