Upon a Midnight Clear Read online

  On the day she turned eighteen, they would elope.

  It never failed to amaze Cale that, so many years later, the pain had barely diminished. His heart still hurt, his head still pounded, every time he thought back to that day, when he'd waited for her right here, in the very spot where he now stood on the porch of the old cabin where they had agreed to meet. And waited. And waited until the sun had begun its soft descent into the pastel hills and he knew there was no longer any reason to wait. Had he really believed that a girl like Quinn would give up everything that she had for the son of a hard-drinking truck driver from the wrong side of town? Cale had taken the plane ticket from his pocket—the one he had bought for his bride—and ripped it into a hundred pieces before climbing into the cab of his old black pickup and slamming the door. The truck had screamed down the gravel road and past the Hollister ranch as he had fought the tears of loss, of humiliation, and headed for the Gallatin Field about eight miles west of Bozeman. If he drove fast enough, he'd still make his flight to Denver, and from there, he'd fly to Baltimore. Alone.

  Cale had gone on to fame and glory in the majors, but he never went back to the Montana hills or the cabin where he'd left his dreams of happily ever after with the only woman he'd ever really loved. Until now.

  Cale rubbed his shoulder, as if to rub away the injury that plagued him, the injury that had, on a hot August night in Cleveland, ended his career. He had watched the film of the midair collision of the two men in the outfield almost dispassionately, as if it had been happening to someone else. Over and over he had played it, hoping against hope that the two bodies would not crash into each other, would not fall, one badly angled, to the earth. But each time it ended the same way. Each time he watched, he could feel the ground beneath his shoulder, could hear the crunch as bone gave way to turf. Two surgeries later, he had begun to regain his strength, but not his mobility. He would never play ball again, and that was that.

  So here Cale stood, on the porch of an old mountain cabin, looking off into the dark night, wondering if it had been such a good idea to come here after all. Over the past year, his sister had hired a crew of contractors to rebuild the structure that had been for so long little more than an abandoned shell. The renovations having been completed in the fall, Val had spent two months here alone, escaping from the big city life she had never really adjusted to, seeking a haven from the demands of her modeling career that sometimes threatened to overcome her.

  Although Cale and Valerie had grown up in town, they had spent many a summer day in the hills, and had been as proud of their connection to the old, dilapidated cabin as they had been of the legends that had grown up over the years surrounding its original inhabitant, Jed McKenzie. Surely the changes Val had made to the cabin would have mystified and amused their bachelor great-great-uncle, an early conservationist, who had spent most of his adult life here alone, and had died here alone years ago. Valerie had discovered that nothing really restored her the way a trip back to the hills could do, and this year she managed to convince Cale that some time up in the hills, would be as good for his soul as it had been for hers. She had stocked the freezer and the pantry before leaving right after Thanksgiving, and had planned to meet her brother and his sons here for Christmas.

  "It'll be great, Cale, you'll see," Valerie had promised.

  "Just you, me, and your boys. You'll wish you'd come back sooner…"

  Cale doubted that, especially since he was beginning to wonder if Val's plane would make it to the airport in Lewistown before the storm that threatened to blow down from the mountains would arrive and close not only the airport but the roads as well. And he could do without the memories being in this cabin brought back. Banging his feet on the step to shake off the snow, he went back inside.

  The warmth from the fire greeted him like an old friend, and he sat on the chair near the door to pull off his boots. In thick woolen socks he crossed the old pine floorboards as quietly as he could, lest he waken the twin sleeping devils who were his sons. Eric and Evan slept, one at each end of the sofa, each a four-year-old lump under the big black and tan hand-knitted afghan that their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Lindley, had made for Cale when he had left for college in Bozeman. Cale stoked the fire, then added another log, wondering if he should wake the boys for dinner. Clearly, they had been totally tuckered out from their hike in the deep snow that afternoon. Cale had been tempted to nap for a while himself, but his nights had been so restless lately that he feared an afternoon snooze would just be an invitation to one more long, sleepless night.

  He went into the small kitchen and boiled some water for coffee, hoping that, this time, he'd get it right. Spoiled by all the conveniences that money could buy, he'd forgotten how to perk coffee on the top of the old stove, although this morning's efforts had been a big improvement over yesterday's. Funny, Val had modernized so much of the cabin, but had yet to replace the old stove. There was, she had told him, something about the way food tasted when she cooked on it that she wasn't ready to give up just yet. It made her feel like she hadn't quite lost that pioneer spirit. Just one of Val's little quirks, he figured. We all have them. He poured a little milk into his cup and tasted the hot, dark brown liquid. Better. He'd get it just right before too much longer.

  Quietly placing the cup on the battered maple table, Cale pulled the old wing chair—his great-uncle Jed's favorite—closer to the fire and opened the book he had started the night before. You could hear a pin drop in here, he thought. There was no quiet as deep as that which you find in the hills. It both comforted him and made him jumpy. He'd been away too long to feel at home, but was discovering that he still had enough sense of the hills that the silence was a familiar one. He sighed and leaned back, and started to read the new legal thriller everyone was talking about.

  The top log thumped dully against the back of the firebox, and he quietly rose to replace it. Eric stirred softly, his little foot in its little white sock pushed out from under the blanket. They were so cute when they were sleeping, Cak mused. And such little demons when they were awake. He wondered ruefully if perhaps the secret to raising two such children might not be lots and lots of exercise, much like the hike they'd taken that afternoon. Without wanting to, Cale's mind trailed back to last Christmas, to the big fancy house his wife, Jo Beth, had talked him into buying outside of Baltimore. As big as it was, as expensive as it had been, it had never been enough for her.

  Jo Beth Wilkins had pursued Cale McKenzie from the night she first met him till the night he finally married her. Even then, in the midst of the ceremony, he had had the sinking feeling that he was going to regret it. But Jo Beth had been insistent and he had been tired of dodging the marital bullet, tired of discussing it. Tired of being asked about it. In a weak moment he had agreed to marry her, and it seemed from that moment on there'd been no turning back. She had been totally annoyed to have found herself pregnant, but once she found out she was having twins, she had come to accept the fact that if she had two at once, her job would be done and she'd never have to do that again. As soon as the boys were born, she hired a nanny, joined a spa, and set about the business of being a professional baseball wife again. She had been good at that, he'd give Jo Beth that much.

  On the day it had been confirmed that his playing days were behind him, she'd packed and gone back to Tennessee—with a quick stop at a Nevada divorceatorium—leaving Cale with the boys, the nanny, and the house, which he promptly sold, sending her a check for exactly half. She'd sent him a copy of the divorce decree in his birthday card, and he hadn't heard from her since.

  Waking in her old room—the room she had shared with CeCe as a girl—never failed to bring Quinn face-to-face with the past. At dawn she had yawned and stretched and turned over, hopeful for a few extra hours of sleep on this first day of her Christmas vacation. But every time she closed her eyes, another memory would call itself forth. In this room she had written poetry and love letters and long wordy pages—alternating between bliss an