Hell on Heels Christmas (2 page)

“Welcome home, honey.”

Tears trickled down Regan’s cheeks. She imagined this reunion so many times in her mind and never expected this. The harsh words she received from everyone the night she left on Christmas Eve ten years ago was so painful she refused to think about it. She left White Mist with her heart in tatters and the car she drove back into town today. That tight ball of dread in her stomach loosened.

“Have you had dinner yet?” Valerie asked.

Regan blinked and shook her head.

“Paula, I’m taking off,”
Valerie said to Paula who watched mother and daughter with tears in her eyes.

Valerie put an arm around Regan and walked towards the front of the shop. Regan was in shock as her mom pulled her
onto the sidewalk.

“
I have stew in the slow cooker at home,” Valerie said.

“Oh.”

Was this really happening? Regan felt as if she were dreaming. Her mom was acting so nonchalant, as if the ten years since they’d laid eyes on each other didn’t exist.

“Are you here alone?”

Regan cocked her head to the side, frowning. What did that mean?
“Yeah. Why?”

Valerie waved her
hands nervously. “Oh. I didn’t know if you had a husband or kids or something.”

Regan ran a shaking hand through her hair. “No.”

An awkward moment passed as they stared at one another.

“I drove the car,” Regan said and pointed out the old Honda
up the street.

“It’s
still running?” Valerie said, dumbfounded.

They
walked in silence to the car and Valerie got into the passenger seat and waved at Sam and Jericha who watched avidly from the café window.

“You s
till walk to work?” Regan asked, attempting to ignore their audience.

“I like to walk.”

“I remember. You still live in the same house?”

“Yeah.”

Regan drove in silence and for the second time in an hour parked in front of the house she’d grown up in. With her luck she half expected to see Brooks and his kids still standing in front of her mom’s house but he was gone. Unfortunately, the trick or treaters had multiplied in the past hour. They all hollered to Valerie as she got out of the car. Regan stayed in the car and wondered if she should drive to the inn without her mom noticing but her door opened and Valerie dragged her out of the car before she could get away.

“Regan Lee?”

Regan was attacked by a swarm of classmates, neighbors, teachers and church members that she couldn’t begin to place because they wore masks and costumes. Regan escaped into the house and automatically turned towards the kitchen, the Delaney gathering place. Valerie shoved Regan into a chair and plopped a bowl of stew in front of her.

“Now you sit here and eat while I take care of the kids,” Valerie said and shuffled to the front door.

Now that the confrontation with her mom was over she felt more drained than ever. She stared at the bowl of soup and pulled out her cell which she hadn’t looked at since she left New York. Thirty five voicemails, one hundred seventy two emails and eighty six texts. She turned the cell off and tugged off her expensive watch as Valerie walked in again.

“Eat, Regan. You’re too skinny,” Valerie said.

She didn’t have the energy to contradict her mom so she put a spoonful of stew in her mouth. A woman dressed as Cleopatra strutted into the kitchen with a costumed fairy and jellyfish. Cleopatra gaped at Regan and then Valerie, the heavy liner around her eyes highlighting her astonishment.

“What are you doing here?”
Cleopatra demanded.

Regan
swallowed the hot stew and looked from her older sister to the girl’s on either side of her. The one dressed as a jellyfish was a blue blob with an umbrella that had tentacles hanging around her. The jellyfish shuffled over to Valerie while the fairy got a closer look at Regan’s stiletto boots. Once more Regan felt a sense of unreality. This was too much too soon. She hadn’t seen a family member for ten years but within an hour of driving into town she was sitting at her mother’s kitchen table eating stew while she stared dumbfounded at nieces she didn’t know existed.

“She doesn’t need a reason to
come back,” Valerie said firmly and put the jellyfish on her hip.

“Do you want money or something?” Missy
said, ignoring their mother completely.

That charge was so out of line that Valerie and Regan stared at Missy in silence.
Regan thought of the nights she slept in the rundown car parked outside, the women’s shelters and nights she went to sleep hungry. She hadn’t asked her family for a dime and after ten years her sister threw that in her face? Weariness was replaced by ice cold anger. Regan’s heels clacked on the tile as she got to her feet and faced her sister. She saw Valerie tense but she didn’t intervene.

Missy
tilted her chin up and glared. “Well, if it’s not money then why are you here?”

Regan
crowded her older sister and saw with satisfaction the flicker of wariness in her sister’s eyes. “If you want me to leave, say so. It’ll be like I was never here.”

Missy opened her mouth and Valerie
walked forward and slapped her older daughter smartly on her beaded wig. Missy yelped and stared at their mother who wagged her finger threateningly.

“Missy, if you can’t welcome your sister properly get out of my house.”

Regan blinked. Valerie and Missy were carbon copies of each other and had always ganged up on her. Regan had never heard her mom talk to Missy like this. Regan focused on the jellyfish on Valerie’s hip and felt her mouth go dry. Missy’s daughter was an exact copy of Regan from the mahogany hair to the sherry colored eyes. Regan always hated her eyes because they were from her father. Seeing her niece with those eyes made her feel off kilter once again. The girl couldn’t be older than four and she smiled innocently at Regan, oblivious to the tension between the adult women.

“Ma?”

A burly guy dressed like Super Mario stopped in the doorway of the kitchen with a mini vampire and cowboy clutching each of his legs. Mario’s mustache drooped as he posed in the entrance of the kitchen. When no one clapped he looked around and jumped.

“Regan Lee?”

Mario ran to Regan with the boys hanging on for dear life, lifted her off her feet and swung her around.

“
Little sis! How long are you staying?”

“I don’t know,” Regan said, voice muffled against his chest.

“You’re not going to ask
why
she’s here, Max?” Missy demanded.

“What for?” Max
pulled away and looked Regan up and down. “She’s home. That’s all that matters.”

Max leaned down and pried
the howling boys off of his legs and held them by the scruffs of their necks like cats while they kicked and hollered.

“This,” he shook the
vampire, “is Bobby and this,” he shook the cowboy, “is Luke. Say hi to Aunty Regan Lee.”

“Hi Aunty Regan Lee,” both boys said
in unison.

“This is Angel,” Valerie said, bobbing the
Regan clone jellyfish on her hip and then pointed to the fairy who was staring entranced at Regan’s shoes. “And that’s Sophie.”

The
doorbell rang and Valerie exited the kitchen with Angel on her hip.

“You each have two kids?”

Regan’s voice was hoarse. When she left Missy and Max were still in college. Many times over the years Regan wondered if her siblings got married, had kids and still lived in White Mist but the reality was so overwhelming that she was just plain numb.

“Missy?”

A guy came through the doorway dressed as a cop. Missy went over to him and whispered in his ear. His brows rose as he looked Regan over carefully.

“Should I lock you up now and save
myself the trouble?” he asked.

Regan
crossed her arms and smiled sweetly at him “Just keep Missy away from me and we don’t have a problem. Who are you?”

“
Chief of police. Name’s Guy.”

Regan paused. With her history in this town she had always been on a first name basis with the cops. Nothing serious but she had been brought into the police station for a firm talking to twice… well, four
times and she made it her business to know who to watch out for just in case.

Missy preened
and splayed a hand over Guy’s chest. “We’ve been married six years.”

Regan
lifted one brow at Guy. “You married the broad? There must be something wrong with you.”

The hand splayed on Guy’s chest curled into a claw and Missy flushed with anger. Guy choked and Missy punched her husband’s arm as he tried to keep a straight face.

“Shut up, Regan Lee!” Missy hissed.

Max
kissed Regan’s cheek. “God, I missed you. Want to come trick or treating with us? Maybe we can “dress up” Mrs. Grant’s house.”

“If by “dressing up”
you mean toilet papering it I’ll skin you alive,” Valerie said, coming back into the room with Angel.

Regan felt a pull on her coat. Sophie stared up at her with shinning eyes. She
looked more like Guy than Missy, lucky child. Sophie motioned to Regan to bend over so she could whisper in her ear.

“Are those Christian Loubo
utin shoes?”

Regan
stared at her niece. How the hell would a kid living in White Mist know a Christian Louboutin shoe at first sight? Missy came over and saw what Sophie was staring at. Her mouth dropped.

“Do you know how much those shoes cost?” Missy screeched.

Regan turned her foot so Missy and Sophie could admire her stiletto boots and Missy’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“Do you have a sugar daddy or something?” Missy asked scathingly.

Regan shrugged, knowing that would piss Missy off. “Don’t be jealous, big sis. At least
someone
married you.”

Missy lunged forward and Max, knowing his sister’s well caught Missy before Regan could swing her famous right hook.
Guy stared at Missy as if he’d never seen before while the nieces and nephews stared with wide eyes. Valerie rolled her eyes, not surprised by the hostility between her daughters. It was the way Missy and Regan reacted when they were together and she’d long since given up trying to get them to play nice.

“Regan, do you want to trick or treat?”
Valerie asked.

Regan sniffed disdainfully at Missy before she turned to her mom. “No. I need to
get a room at the inn.”

“What?”

Regan froze as her mom’s voice dropped dangerously. “I don’t want to bother anybody. I really didn’t come here for all this-”

“You’re not going anywhere. As long as you’re in White Mist you stay in this house.”
Valerie turned to Max, Missy and Guy. “Take the kids out and have fun. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Max clapped Regan on the back
while Guy shot a cop look at Regan before he dragged Missy out of the kitchen. Regan collapsed into a chair and noticed that at some point her nephews had devoured her stew. That was good because she wasn’t sure she could hold it down, considering the fact that her stomach was rolling like she was seasick. Emotional overload.

“That was nice,” Valerie said blandly.

“Two minutes with her and it’s like we’re teenagers again. What the hell?” Regan muttered.

Regan
thought she’d outgrown the smart mouthed, taunting wild child she’d once been. Obviously not. One glimpse of Missy and Regan was ready to rumble. Missy had been the oldest of three and with an absent, single mother trying to run a brand new shop Missy took control of her younger siblings. Missy lorded her power over Regan which caused the youngest Delaney to do everything possible to make her sister’s life hell.

“I think she was surprised too,” Valerie said with a laugh. “She’s always in control. You should’ve seen the way Guy was staring at her. He’s never seen this side of her. They’re probably going to have a long talk tonight.”

Regan rubbed her throbbing temples. “I need to sleep.”

“Sure.”

After giving her Tylenol Valerie shuffled her youngest child up the stairs. Valerie took Regan to her old room which hadn’t changed a bit. When Regan left this room had been torn apart by Valerie and herself. Everything that Valerie threatened to throw away was nicely lined up on shelves. Even the drawers and closet were filled with clothes from high school which was handy because she left New York with what she had on and a bag of her favorite shoes.

“If you need anything, let m
e know,” Valerie said before she went downstairs to handle the demanding trick or treaters.

Regan took a shower in the bathroom she and Missy
used to fight over daily and slipped into a pair of sweats with a sheep pattern. When she tried to put on a shirt from high school she was horrified to find she couldn’t get it over her breasts. She tossed the tee on the floor and dug through her drawers. Her hand paused over a man’s shirt buried beneath her tiny high school clothes. She stared at the shirt for a long minute before she slipped it on. It was in the past, she told herself.