Free Turkey in the Snow by Amy Lane Page A

was still there. But, like he’d imagined, having Justin to fill the quiet places in all that routine also filled the empty places in Hank. Having him spend the night—quite a lot of them, for two weeks—well, damn.
    Hank could never remember waking up every morning and being so incredibly grateful.
    Josie had woken up that first night that Justin slept over and tiptoed into Hank’s room. (He’d expected this—they were both chastely dressed in sleep shorts and T-shirts by then.) Hank had walked her back to her own this night, but she’d seen Justin, still sleeping, on the other side of the bed.
    “Will he be here in the morning?” she’d asked, as he pulled the covers up to her chin.
    “Yes,” Hank said, not doubting it for a moment.
    “Good,” she yawned. “I can sleep if he’s going to be here.”
    Hank had no idea how that worked, but as he’d gone back to bed and pulled Justin against him, he’d thought blearily that it was probably just magic.
     
     
    S O TWO weeks later, the biggest thing he was stressing about was what to get Justin for Christmas. He’d gone back to the bath shop and bought Sky—the entire line, bath scrub, body spray, shaving cream, man-sturizer, the works! But it didn’t seem enough. Although it was personal, maybe the most personal thing he’d ever bought for a man (Alan had preferred gift certificates and DVDs) it just didn’t encompass all of the good things, all of the hope and the joy and the oxygen that Justin had brought into his life.
    So when Hank sat down at his desk after his lunchtime run, the question of whether gloves were lame as a gift and a worry about taping the Charlie Brown Christmas special on television that night were the only two things on his mind.
    And then his desk phone rang and his world ended.
    “Henry! How ya doin’, big brother? How’s my baby girl?”
    Hank had heard about a person’s “bowels turning to ice,” but even though he’d been in a car wreck when he was seventeen, he’d never had it happen to him.
    Until now.
    He almost hung up the phone, but like social niceties, cowardice wasn’t his strong suit either.
    “Hello, Amanda,” he said, pulling out the files he’d been planning to review and a pen and pretending like this was any other office call. “You couldn’t use my cell phone?”
    “Didn’t want you to hang up on me,” she said impishly. “You can’t turn the office phone off!” No one had ever said she was stupid.
    “Yes, well, only cowards run away,” he said coldly and was not surprised to hear her gasp.
    “That’s not fair, Henry! I was desperate!”
    “You were tired!” he snapped back. “And I totally would have helped you out, but you didn’t ask for that, did you! You just...” his voice threatened to shake and break and he took a deep breath. “You abandoned your child, and you were just lucky you left her with me, because Josie’s in a good place now. I’m just waiting to see what fresh hell you’ve got waiting for your daughter now.”
    “Henry! Don’t be mean to me! I want to come back!”
    “Why?” Hank lashed out, hating himself but unable to stop. “So you can dress her up like a doll and parade her in front of your friends? So you can leave her alone while you go to the movies? Yeah, Amanda—she told me about that. She told me that you snuck out while she was sleeping, and she told me about different men every morning.”
    “God, the kid’s a freakin’ narc!” Amanda whined, and Hank took a deep breath and tried to control himself. This… this blame thing wasn’t going to help the situation. Besides that, his voice was rising, and his co-workers were eyeballing him and, dammit , he didn’t like drama!
    “What did you need, Amanda?” Hank asked, because that had to be the only reason she called, right?
    “I just…” Amanda’s voice dropped. “I just wanted to see her, that’s all,” she said. “I… I was passing through town and I wanted to wish her a Merry