Lucy scolded as she accepted the small flat box wrapped in candy cane paper from Devon, but her face lit with a smile when she lifted the tissue paper and saw the scarf inside. “Oh, Devon, it’s beautiful,” she cried as she held the square of richly colored silk to her cheek. Then her eyes began to sparkle. “Great minds think alike,” she murmured, handing Devon a small flat box decorated with Santa Clauses.

Inside, Devon found a scarf in a lovely shade of green, with an all-over print featuring tiny snowmen. “So you’ll remember the Christmas you spent with us,” Lucy said in her brisk, blunt way. Devon’s eyes stung as she tied the scarf around her neck. Lucy put hers on, too, though it clashed gloriously with the poinsettia print on her sweater.

Mike gave Devon a pair of fur-lined leather gloves, because, he said, “The first thing Lucy noticed about you was that you didn’t have any.” He seemed pleased with the electronic pocket planner she gave him.

Devon was relieved that there was no gift for her from Eric, since she hadn’t anything for him, either. But at the same time, when all the gifts had been distributed and opened-including way too many for Emily-she felt a kind of void, a sense of disappointment.

She thought of the mistletoe, and Mike sweeping Lucy into a classic Rhett Butler embrace. She thought of her vision of this same parlor filled with warmth and laughter and love, and of all those things embodied in a pair of arms wrapping themselves around her from behind…a whisper, sweet as music in her ear.

I have to talk to him, she thought-and remembered she’d had the very same thought at the beginning, that morning after she’d first met Eric. She’d told herself then that she needed to learn more about the man who was her clients’ adversary-get to know him. Now-what was it?-four days later, he seemed more of a mystery to her than ever.

She almost wished they could go back to the way things had been then-even the open hostility of those first moments. Those had been honest, straightforward emotions, at least. Then had come confusion-the confrontation in the barn, Eric’s terrible accusations, and finally, what had seemed like the beginnings of a grudging acceptance of her. And later, that first evening with his family in the parlor…Eric stringing tree lights with his father, sitting so close to Devon on the couch, challenging her, teasing, taunting her.

So much had happened since then. So much had changed. But what did I do, Devon wondered, to make him so distant? What did I do to make him hate me?

I have to talk to him about this, she thought. She had to. But when? Tomorrow was Christmas; there would be company-Eric’s cousin and her parents. It would almost have to be tonight.

She lingered, nervous with both resolve and dread, helping Lucy pick up wrapping paper and ribbon and tidy up the parlor, thinking she would catch Eric after his parents had gone to bed. But he excused himself, said good-night and went upstairs while Devon was carrying the popcorn and eggnog dishes and leftovers to the kitchen.

Later, she promised herself, dizzy and twanging with unspent tension. I’ll talk to him tonight…later.

Eric sat on the edge of his bed and stared down at the large flat Christmas-wrapped package in his hands. It wasn’t particularly pretty paper, now he really looked at it, kind of a muddy gold with sprays of evergreens and pinecones on it. But it had been that or Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer-the only pieces of wrapping paper left that were big enough to accommodate a 16 x 20 inch picture frame. What he was wondering now was why he’d bothered.

For the better part of two days, as he worked to put together the collage, searching through piles of photo albums, picking out scenes from his own childhood and his mother’s and copying them on his dad’s computer, he’d thought a lot about what he was doing, and why…daring to fantasize about what Devon might say when he gave it to her. These are memories…memories of childhood, he’d say to her. Since you don’t have any of your own, I wanted to give you some of mine…

And she would say…what? What was he hoping for? Some kind of breakthrough? That Devon would take one look at the photographs and remember that her parents were monsters who’d molested and abused her and driven her sister out of their house and into a life of hell on the streets? Was he hoping for a miracle?

What had made him think he could bring about in a few days what could take trained therapists months or even years to accomplish? Or never.

Ah well, the collage had been a stupid idea, but he’d worked on the damn thing for two days, and if he didn’t give it to Devon now, Dad-Mom, too, since it was a safe bet there weren’t any secrets between those two-was going to wonder why. Devon was in her room now-he’d heard her door close a while ago-and his mom and dad were in theirs, and Emily asleep in there with them, in his old bassinet that his mom had hauled down from the attic. Tomorrow, Caitlyn and her folks would be here, and tomorrow night… Hell, who knew where he’d be tomorrow night?

It looked like, if he was ever going to give the collage to Devon, it would have to be now. He took a breath and stood up. Shifted the package under one arm and strode the three long paces to the door. Opened it-and froze in his tracks.

His heart catapulted through several layers of chest wall to lodge somewhere in his throat. “Devon-” he croaked. She was there in the doorway, almost nose-to-nose with him, one hand upraised to knock on his door.

“Hi.” It was a whisper, hushed and hoarse. Her face was almost luminous in the dim hallway, her eyes lost in shadows. “I’m sorry-I didn’t mean to startle you. Were you-?” She made a vague traveling gesture with her hand.

“No-no! In fact-” he hefted the package “-I was just-” Remembering where he was, he backed awkwardly out of the doorway and motioned her in. He closed the door as quietly as possible, then turned and looked at her and felt a strange and fleeting sense of unreality.

It struck him how out of place she looked-ludicrously so-standing there in his boyhood room with its faded denim curtains and horse-head lamp, his battered desk and worn paperback books. Slim and tall, elegant in black slacks and a sleeveless turtleneck shell-and on her even the green snowman scarf his mother had given her tonight seemed elegant-she made him think of the world she’d come from-a world of BMW’s and valet parking, of Gucci shoes and Rolex watches and restaurants where famous people dined. A complicated woman, he thought-and as contradictory as the picture she presented now.

Looking at him the way she did now, with her chin up and her eyes green fire, she was all self-assurance, fearless and unyielding, beautiful yet untouchable-always in control, always in command. Yet, he’d seen her fearful. He’d touched her and felt her yield, at least to him. He’d felt her tremble on the brink of losing all control.

He knew that, if she were to turn just a bit, lower her head, just a little, he would see, below the sophisticated upswept hairdo she wore, caressed by a few errant tendrils of fiery red hair, the slender white column of a neck as fragile, as vulnerable as a child’s.

“I was just on my way to see you,” he said, and lifted the package, not thrusting it at her, just drawing her attention. “I wanted to give you this.”

Her eyes flinched. She raised both hands in a small gesture of dismay, then clasped them together in front of her. “I didn’t get you anything.”

His smile dismissed that. “I never thought you would. Here-just as well open it.” He nudged the package toward her.

“Oh, Eric…” She closed her eyes, then reluctantly took it from him. “Oh, God-” and she gave a light, unhappy laugh “-it feels like a picture frame. What did you do, blow up one of those horrible pictures you took of me floundering in the snow like a beached whale?”

He nodded toward the present. “Go ahead. Open it.”

Devon’s heart fluttered against her ribs. Her chest felt tight, and the laugh she tried didn’t do a thing to relieve it. She took a breath, summoned strength, then began to tear away the wrapping paper. As the pieces fluttered to the floor, she felt herself go still and cold. Her heart no longer pounded; she couldn’t feel it beating at all.

From a distance she heard Eric say, “It’s in there-the one you’re worried about. That’s it…right…there.”

Oh, it was there, all right-funny that she’d focused on it first, even without his finger pointing it out to her-unmistakably Devon, even in all those layers that made her look like a pregnant penguin, with her hair shining like a beacon in all that snow. But not big, not blown up-oh no. Tiny. And not alone. There were others, so many others, some large and some small, square, oblong, round and oval, and except for hers, they were all of children. A little girl on a swing, pigtails flying, a plump little boy romping with puppies, children swimming in a pond, sleek as otters, children playing in mud, blowing bubbles in a bathtub, finger painting, making snowmen, eating watermelon, blowing out birthday candles, dressed up in costumes for Halloween, mugging for the camera with crossed eyes and stuck-out tongues, children in their Sunday best, grinning to show off missing teeth. There was even one of Emily, asleep with one hand curled against her cheek like flower petals.

“What is this?” Her voice was bumpy.

“They’re memories,” he said. “I thought, since you don’t have any of your childhood…” He let it trail away.

She stared at him for a long, silent moment. His arms were folded on his chest, and his face was set-fierce and hawklike. Defensive, she thought. Defiant.

“Why?” she said in a tight, trembling voice. “Why did you do this? Because you wanted to give me your childhood? No-I’ll tell you why. It’s because you want me to remember mine. That’s it, isn’t it Eric? You want me to remember my childhood, but not a childhood like this-”she turned the picture frame and thrust it toward him “-all happy and sunshiny and bright. Oh, no. What you want is for me to remember a nightmare. That my parents were evil monsters-”