Home for the Holidays

by Terry Spear

  “All right.” Peter wrapped his arm around her waist, and they went to the kitchen where everyone was busily working on different aspects of the gingerbread masterpiece.

  “I was just finishing up making the sugar glass for the windows of the inn,” Laurel said.

  Trying to set the other business aside, Peter truly was in awe. “I didn’t know you could make glass out of sugar.”

  “Sure. You just combine water, granulated sugar, corn syrup, and cream of tartar, then mix, boil, and pour it onto a baking sheet, and let it cool for an hour.” Laurel pointed at the large golden “pane” of sugar glass.

  “I’ve never seen ‘real glass’ windows on a gingerbread house. That should help to make it a winner. Wait, not a house, but a hotel?” Peter had thought they were making a plain old gingerbread house. He had believed the guys wouldn’t actually do much because they’d be in the way. But he would help if they needed him—as long as he didn’t mess things up too badly.

  “Yes, that’s right. We’re doing a whimsical version of the inn,” Laurel said.

  Ellie and Laurel were cutting out the windows from the sugar glass and Peter began to assist them. He wasn’t sure how much help he could be, but this was fun.

  Then Brett served everyone wine while Meghan brought out the ingredients to make the gingerbread hotel. While CJ was checking on the Irish stew he’d made, Meghan was mixing the dough for the gingerbread: butter, dark brown sugar, dark corn syrup, cinnamon, ground ginger, ground cloves, baking soda, flour, and water, then stirring it until it was well mixed. Then she set the dough in the fridge.

  “It needs to chill until it’s firm for about a half hour,” Meghan explained while Peter watched the proceedings.

  He was finally able to let go of the anger he felt toward Bill and get into the spirit of the gingerbread party, like he’d meant to all along.

  “We’re going to make a replica of the inn as much as possible,” Laurel said as CJ served the Irish stew and Peter set out the silverware and plates.

  “The white picket fence and Christmas lights too?” Peter was looking at all kinds of candy, set in neat little areas on wax paper on the big island counter.

  “Red-and-white candy canes topped with red Jaffas candy balls will be the fence for the replica, so not exactly like our white picket fence.” Ellie pointed to the candy canes already cut to size. “And the Necco wafer candies will form the scalloped roof shingles on the hotel and the gazebo. But we’ll put the actual miniature Christmas lights on the gingerbread hotel once we move it to the inn’s check-in counter.”

  “A gazebo too?” Peter had never seen anything so creative before. Certainly, he would never have thought of it. Of course, in all the years Silver Town had been having the contest, he hadn’t participated in it. This was the first year for Brett and CJ too.

  “Yep, and a snowman and a wolf or two.” Meghan wrapped aluminum foil around a baking sheet they would set the gingerbread hotel on.

  “Yeah, Meghan’s gotten really good at making wolves out of fondant,” Ellie said with pride.

  “Is that so?” Peter smiled at Meghan. There was a lot he still didn’t know about her.

  While they were waiting for the gingerbread to chill, they sat down to eat the stew.

  “Perfection,” Laurel said after taking her first bite.

  “Hmm, just like the way Grandma made it back home,” Meghan said. “Do you know how to cook it yet, Brett?”

  “I suspect my lesson’s coming up soon.” Smiling, Brett toasted her with his drink.

  “Sure thing. Everyone who marries into the MacTire family learns our family’s recipe from the old country.” Ellie leaned over and kissed Brett on the cheek.

  Peter noticed everyone turning to smile at him. He cooked on the outdoor grill, but he often ate out otherwise. Not that he couldn’t fix something to eat in a pinch. But he usually enjoyed being with others and participating in conversations at meals. Of course, of late, he’d mostly had dinner with Meghan. But yeah, if that was one of the tests of being a mate to one of the MacTire sisters, he was game.

  “How many gingerbread houses have you made?” Peter asked the sisters. It wasn’t just idle curiosity on his part. Money prizes were being offered in three categories: adult, youth, and professional. Two hundred dollars would go to the first-place winners, and a hundred for the runner-up in each category for originality, creativeness, overall appeal, and neatness. Each house had to be made of all edible materials, except for the Christmas lights for those who added them. Peter thought the sisters might stand a really good chance of winning this year.

  “We’ve made about twenty gingerbread houses over the years. But we’re not professional bakers, so we’d come under the adult category. Every time we renovated a hotel, if we were still there over Christmas, we would make a gingerbread hotel to put on display on the check-in counter. Things were kind of hectic last year, so we didn’t make one here. But each one is unique with a special, personal touch. Everyone who visited the hotels loved them,” Meghan said. “We’ve never won anything, if you’re thinking you should team up with someone else who has a better chance at winning.”

  Peter laughed. “Hell no. Even if we don’t win, the fun is in making it and doing it with friends.”

  The ladies smiled. The guys all raised their wineglasses to Peter in salute.

  “But then again, we never entered the hotels in contests before,” Laurel said. “We just did it as a fun Christmas activity and to share with our guests.”

  “I’d say we’ll have a sporting chance,” Brett said. “Not to put a damper on the conversation, but I just wondered if there was any more word on Rollins. I heard Bertha thought she might be missing a container of oatmeal and a package of brown sugar from her bed-and-breakfast. From what I understand, she doesn’t keep an inventory list on hand, but she swore she had more in the cupboard or she would have shopped for extra.”

  “Her place is like the inn. People come in and out all the time,” Laurel said. “Oh, damn, you know we meant to check our supplies at the inn but never got around to it. We don’t keep formal inventory either. We don’t serve breakfast there on a regular basis like Bertha does with her bed-and-breakfast, but we do try to make scones and other baked treats for the morning and evening, if we have time.”

  “I’ll run over there and check to see if anything’s missing while we’re waiting for the gingerbread to bake and cool,” Meghan said.

  “I’ll go with you.” Not only did Peter want to spend some time alone with Meghan, but he didn’t want her going anywhere unprotected. After what had happened with Bill, he suspected Rollins would make his next move. “As to Brett’s question about Rollins, nothing new, except we now know he’s an escaped convict, and that means we might have outside law enforcement checking us out.”

  “Possibly more trouble than we already have,” Brett said, everyone agreeing.

  After they ate dinner, Laurel pulled out the bowl of gingerbread dough. She rolled it out on a large cookie sheet while the rest of them were cutting out paper pattern pieces to the correct specifications. After they set the patterns on the dough, they began cutting out the pieces of the house, leaving them in place on the cookie sheet.

  Ellie had already started the oven, and it dinged to let them know it was the right temperature. Laurel placed the sheet in the oven to cook it for fifteen minutes.

  “Let’s check out your pantry while the gingerbread cooks and then cools,” Peter said.

  Meghan agreed. He chased her through the snow in the garden to the inn to check the stock of food in the kitchen. She was trying to outdistance him, but with his longer stride and his eagerness to have her in his arms, he caught her halfway there. She stifled a squeal and laughed out loud as he swung her around, before he kissed her. He noticed both Brett and CJ peering out the window, making sure they were all right. He smiled at them, hol
ding Meghan tight against his body, and she smiled up at him. It was too cold to linger long out here dressed the way they were without wearing coats, hats, and gloves, but he loved just being with her alone in the dark, all the Christmas lights reflecting off the white snow and icicles. Magical. Yet more than the snow and the Christmas lights, Meghan made the moment truly magical.

  “I love you, honey,” he said, declaring what he’d felt for her for a very long time.

  She kissed him tenderly on the mouth, tears dribbling down her cheeks. “I love you right back.”

  He smiled a little. “I hope those are tears of joy. I better take you in before they freeze on your cheeks.” He’d heard the hesitation in her voice, proclaiming her love for him. The unspoken “but.” He kissed away her salty tears and hugged her tighter. “We’ll get through this somehow.” And he meant it.

  “We will,” she said sincerely.

  He could have set her down on the ground and they could have walked the rest of the way hand in hand, but he scooped her legs up, then saw her sisters had joined their mates at the window. He smiled, shook his head at their audience, turned, and carried Meghan the rest of the way to the inn.

  When they were at the back porch, he set her down and they knocked the snow off their boots, then went inside.

  They greeted Bryce, who was typing away at his laptop at the check-in counter. He was a big, burly guy, their resident horror author, and he loved his night job working for the ladies. They couldn’t have found a better man for the job.

  “Getting some writing done?” Peter asked, his hand resting on Meghan’s back.

  “You bet.”

  “We’re just here to make sure Rollins didn’t steal any of our food,” Meghan said.

  Bryce frowned. “I sure as hell hope not, or it would be on me. I doubt he would have done it in the middle of the day.”

  “Hopefully, he’s never been here,” Meghan reassured Bryce, and then she and Peter went into the kitchen and began opening cabinets.

  Since he didn’t know what she would have in the cabinets, he started watching her instead.

  “Everything looks like it’s here.” Then she looked in the pantry. “Oh. No. Except for the cans of soup we keep in case we have a bad snowstorm and people are cut off from going anywhere. We usually have about twenty cans in here. There are about half that number now.” Meghan got on her phone. “Laurel, last time I looked, we had about twenty cans of soup. Unless you or Ellie moved the others or used them up when I didn’t know about it, they’ve gone missing.” She glanced at Peter. “They were there two days ago? I think that’s about the last time I looked in the pantry too. Thanks. Yeah, about ten cans are gone. He probably left the rest to disguise the fact that he’d taken the others. I’ll put it on the grocery list.” Meghan wrote it on the list on the fridge. “Okay, we’re headed back now.”

  “Hell,” Peter said, waves of ice flooding through his system when he realized Rollins had actually been at the inn. “I can’t believe Rollins was here. But when?”

  “I can’t either, but it might have been before we knew he was in town and had all the guys guarding us on a regular basis.” She kissed Peter. “The inn is locked through the night, though guests can use their key cards to get in whenever they want.”

  “But lupus garous can use lockpicks to get in. He had to have done it in the middle of the night some time when you and your sisters were gone and your night manager was busy.”

  Bryce was frowning as they passed the check-in counter. “Hell, I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for the missing food.”

  “No way, Bryce,” Meghan said. “If the guy got in, he could have done it any time. I doubt he’ll do it again now.”

  But Bryce still looked down about it.

  “Put it in your story,” Peter said. “Come on, Meghan, let’s get back to the party.”

  “Yeah, I can add it to the story, but if he shows up here again, he’s dead meat,” Bryce said and sounded like he meant it.

  “Hey, yeah, we all agree on that account,” Peter said, angry they kept missing the bastard.

  When they returned to the house, CJ was having a discussion with the others about Rollins and the stolen cans. “Hell, Laurel, you and your sisters could have been injured.”

  “Or worse,” Peter interjected as he and Meghan walked into the kitchen.

  “Let’s get back to the business of the gingerbread hotel. I don’t want to think of him having been at the inn right now. We’re here to have fun. Okay?” Laurel asked.

  The others agreed with her.

  “Sure.” Peter began fixing the after-dinner cocktails that tasted like Almond Joy.

  “Ohmigod, this is good,” Meghan said, sipping from her cocktail.

  “Oh, yes,” Ellie said. “You’re officially our dessert-cocktail bartender.”

  Peter smiled, appreciating that everyone seemed to see him as part of the family already. “Frosty winter cocktails are great, as long as you like chocolate and coconut.” He’d already checked with Brett and CJ to make sure all the ladies liked the ingredients he would use to make the drinks.

  Laurel placed the paper templates for the house parts on the cooled gingerbread, and the sisters cut them out again, using sharp knives.

  “Now is the fun part.” Meghan mixed the icing made of egg whites, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract.

  Laurel filled six pastry bags with icing, and each had different tips for the various jobs. They began decorating the piping on the cut-out pieces: doors, windows, roof line, and so on.

  Once that was done, Brett made them more drinks, and they visited a while longer until the frosting had hardened sufficiently. Then they returned to the kitchen to finish decorating the gingerbread hotel.

  Laurel began gluing the sides of the hotel together with frosting while Peter and Meghan held the pieces, and Brett and Ellie worked on another corner. CJ was gluing yet another, and then they finished up the last corner. They propped the house up and let the icing set up before they began to work on the roof. Once it was secure, they could finish decorating everything.

  But CJ and Brett had their own ideas for decorating and kept trying to take over.

  Laurel finally pulled out a clean mixing bowl and handed it to CJ. “Maybe you guys should make your own gingerbread house. You’ve seen us making our hotel. You know now how to do it. You could have fun saying you’d made your very own.”

  CJ and Brett both smiled, looking ready for the challenge. Peter wanted to help Meghan and her sisters, not rock the boat with them, but the guys both looked at him as though he had to be on their side.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and help the guys, Peter. We can have a mini competition,” Meghan encouraged him as if she realized he was struggling with which side he should be on.

  He was glad it was out of his hands and hurried to dive in to help the guys make their first gingerbread house.

  Chapter 16

  “We can make the gingerbread dough for you,” Meghan said, feeling bad for the guys. Laurel wasn’t being mean, but she loved to challenge CJ and he loved taking up the challenge, which was why he’d made the Irish beef stew tonight.

  “No, if we’re going to do this right, we have to make this from scratch.” CJ was mixing all the ingredients.

  The sisters said they could use any leftover sugar glass they had.

  Meghan thought they were going to let the guys do this all on their own, but Laurel supervised them so their gingerbread dough was correctly made and baked. Meghan was certain Laurel wouldn’t help them with decorating tips. Meghan was going to assist them with their sugar mixture, but Brett said they had it.

  After that, she continued to help decorate the hotel and landscape scene.

  Meghan was filling the yard with sugar snow while her sisters were setting the candy cane fence posts, then topping them with the red candy ba
lls. Then they created a snowman from rolled fondant. They also made green garland on the windows, a green wreath, and candles with yellow flames in each of the windows, all from fondant. After creating evergreen trees in the yard and decorating them with sugar snow and red-hot candy hearts, Meghan glanced at the guys to see how they were coming along. They were doing the final cutouts on their house, but it was small.

  Then they were putting it together, and the sisters all paused to watch as the guys put too much frosting on it to hold it together. It was too runny, the drips running down the sides. Then they finally got the right consistency and started again.

  Meghan saw the door with a crescent moon cut out. She laughed. “An outhouse!”

  Her sisters laughed.

  The guys just smiled and continued to work on their building.

  The sisters created a gazebo of frosting-covered pretzels, a gingerbread roof, more pastel candy shingles, and frosting snow sprinkled on top. Snow frosting icicles hung from the roof.

  Meghan fashioned a wolf weather vane from fondant to set on top.

  Laurel and Ellie used some of the leftover fondant to create a little forest of trees. Then they topped them with snow icing. Meghan worked on three wolves.

  Once they were all done, they stood back to admire the two buildings and the scenery.

  “Now I guess we need to carry it to the inn,” CJ said, motioning to the gingerbread hotel.

  “And the outhouse?” Peter asked.

  “We can display it either at the jailhouse or the newspaper office,” Brett said.

  “We’ll toss a coin for it. Heads, it goes to the newspaper office,” CJ said. He tossed a quarter, and it came up heads.

  Brett smiled.

  Peter and CJ shared looks, then Peter said, “Let’s make another one.”

  The ladies laughed, but Meghan made a wolf for each of them to go with their outhouses.

  It was late when they finished the second outhouse and everyone helped to clean up the kitchen.

  When they got ready to carry the gingerbread hotel replica to the inn, CJ said, “You know we should have made this there.”