Confessions. Lisa Jackson

her melancholy dissolved as she stared at the hopeful eyes of her son. “Sometimes.” Nadine wished that Ben were still around. He’d be home soon, after ten years in the army and she couldn’t wait to have him back in Gold Creek. Ben was the only member of her fractured family to whom she still felt close.

      Bobby seemed placated slightly. “Well, John doesn’t know anything! I saw Santa Claus and I’m not gonna say I didn’t!” he stated with a firm thrust of his little chin. He dropped a handful of marshmallows into his cocoa and watched them slowly melt.

      To her son’s delight, Nadine broke open an Oreo and ate the white center first, licking the icing from the dark wafer. “And what was Santa doing last year—when you saw him?”

      Bobby lifted one shoulder. “Dunno,” he muttered. “Prob’ly tryin’ to figure out which present was mine.” His brow puckered again. “I hope he gives John a lump of coal!”

      “I don’t think that’ll happen,” Nadine said as he gulped his cocoa then wiped one grubby hand across his mouth.

      “Sure it will. Santa knows when John’s lying. He knows everything.”

      “I think it’s God who knows so much,” she corrected.

      Her son lifted a shoulder as if God and Santa were one and the same, and she didn’t see any reason to start another argument. Obviously Bobby’s imagination was working overtime. But she loved him for his innocence, his bright eyes and that mind that buzzed with ideas from the moment he woke up until he fell asleep each night.

      “Come on, you,” she said, touching him fondly on the nose. “You can help me dig out all the Christmas decorations and wrapping paper. I think most of the stuff is in the closet under the stairs—”

      “Mom, hey, Mom!” John’s voice echoed through the small house.

      Bobby rolled his eyes and sighed theatrically. “Oh, great. He’s back.”

      “Hey—there’s someone here to see you! Says you left somethin’ at his place,” John yelled.

      Nadine glanced out the window to see John, riding his old bike as if his tail were on fire. Hershel galloped beside him, barking wildly.

      Nadine froze for an instant when she recognized the reason for all the commotion. Her back stiffened to steel. Behind the boy and bike, striding purposefully up the path to the house, his angled face a mask of arrogance, was none other than Hayden Garreth Monroe IV.