Christmas at Holiday House

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “I will be fine. Thank you both for worrying about me. I should only be gone a...a few days. When I return, I can tell you...everything. All the things I should have said a long time ago. But now, I really do have to go and pack a bag.”

  She could see the worry in their frowns. Rosa looked as if she wanted to argue more. She might be small, but she was fierce. Elizabeth had long sensed that Rosa herself had walked a dark and difficult road, though her friend never talked about it. Elizabeth had never pried. How could she, when she had so many secrets she couldn’t share?

  Melissa reached out and hugged her first. “If you’re sure—and you seem as if you are—I don’t know what else we can do but wish you luck.”

  “Thank you.” Her throat was tight with a complex mix of emotions as she returned the hug.

  Rosa hugged her next. “Be careful, my dear.”

  “Of course.”

  “You have our numbers,” Rosa said. “If you are at all worried about anything, you call us. Right away. No matter what, one of us will come to get you.”

  Those emotions threatened to spill over. “I will. Thank you. Thank you both.”

  “Now. What can we do to help you pack?” Rosa asked.

  Everyone deserved friends like these, people to count on during life’s inevitable storms. She had once had similar friends back in Haven Point and had turned her back on everyone who tried to help her.

  She would not make that mistake again.

  “I have a suitcase in my room, already...half-filled. Can you find that while I...grab my medicine?”

  “You got it.”

  She deliberately focused her attention on the tasks required to pack, not on the panic that made her feel light-headed.

  After all this time, she was going back to Haven Point. As herself, this time, not as the woman she had become seven years ago when she walked away.

  Two

  She didn’t take an hour to pack. She already had most of her travel things ready, preparing for the trip she had planned to take in a few days to Haven Point.

  By now, she had a routine whenever she returned to the area. She stayed in the nearby community of Shelter Springs at the same hotel every time, an inexpensive, impersonal chain affair just off the highway to Boise.

  The hotel was on the bus route to Haven Point, which made it easier for her to get to the neighboring town. She ate the continental breakfast offered by the hotel early enough to avoid most business travelers and either made her own lunch in her hotel room with cold cuts or cups of soup or chose the same busy fast-food restaurants where no one would pay any attention to her.

  When her visit was done, she loaded up her bag, caught the shuttle back to the airport and flew home.

  Alone, as always.

  The system was elaborate and clunky, designed specifically so that she did not run the risk of bumping into someone who might have known her back then.

  She probably stressed unnecessarily. Who would recognize her? She wasn’t the same person. She did not look the same and certainly did not feel the same. All that she had survived had changed her in fundamental ways.

  She carefully packed her medicine and the collapsible cane she hated but sometimes needed, then grabbed chargers for her electronic devices, the things she always tended to leave behind.

  After one last check of the packing list she kept on her phone for her frequent trips, she zipped the suitcase, then sat on the edge of the bed.

  While she had something to do, her attention focused on preparing to leave, she could shove down the wild turmoil of her emotions at seeing her husband again. Now that her bag was packed, she felt them pressing in on her again, a mixture of apprehension and fear blended with an undeniable relief.

  He couldn’t possibly believe her but she had planned to tell him her identity when she returned to Haven Point later in the week. It was time to come forward. Beyond time. She could no longer hide from the past.

  She sat for several moments longer, breathing in and breathing out, trying to find whatever small measure of peace she could in this creaky, quirky old house. Finally, she released one more heavy breath, then rose unsteadily from the bed, extended the handle on her rolling suitcase and walked out the door of her apartment, locking it behind her.

  She wasn’t at all surprised to find Rosa and Melissa waiting for her in the small furnished landing outside of her apartment. Melissa’s daughter Skye and Rosa’s dog Fiona, a beautiful Irish setter, waited, too. Her own little makeshift family.

  “Are you sure about this?” Melissa asked, her tone as worried as her expression. “I have to tell you, I don’t think you should just take off with some man we’ve never seen before—someone who just shows up out of the blue and expects you to drop everything and leave town with him.”

  She wasn’t surprised at their objections. For some reason, Melissa and Rosa thought it was their job to take care of her, whether that was helping her with her laundry, giving her rides to the grocery store or taking her to doctor appointments.

  She had found no small degree of comfort from their concern but she needed to stand on her own.

  “I have to. Please don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  “Will you be back for Christmas?” Skye asked, worry knitting lines across the girl’s forehead.

  Her heart ached but she managed to muster a smile for the girl. “I should only be gone a few days. Maybe a week.”

  “You promised you would help me put out carrots for the reindeer on Christmas Eve.”

  “I won’t forget, sweetheart.”

  She had done her best to steel her emotions against Skye, to protect herself from the hurt of seeing this girl growing up happy and strong under her mother’s loving care.

  Her own daughter was only a few years older than Skye. For the past seven years, Cassie and her brother had been without their mother. Elizabeth knew she couldn’t make it right, all the hurt she had caused by her disastrous decisions, but she could at least give Luke and their children a little closure.

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” she told them all.

  “Are you very sure?” Rosa asked one last time.

  When she nodded, her friend sighed but took the handle of the suitcase and headed for the stairs to the ground floor.

  When they all reached the entryway, Elizabeth felt tongue-tied with all she wanted to say. She didn’t have time for any explanations. Luke would be waiting.

  She hugged her friends and saved her biggest hug for Skye. “You watch over my garden for me, will you?”

  “You bet,” Skye said. “And Fiona will help.”

  “I know. She’s a great dog.”

  She petted the dog’s head, filled with intense longing for slow summer evenings when she could sit on a bench in the garden with Fiona curled up at her feet while the ocean murmured its endless song.

  Finally, she couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to face her husband.

  She straightened, gripped the handle of her suitcase and walked out to the wide wraparound porch.

  He was waiting for her. No surprise there. Her husband was a man of his word. When Luke said he would be somewhere in an hour, he meant an hour.

  She thought she saw that flare of awareness in his eyes again but he quickly blinked it away before she could be sure. His mouth tightened. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to come in and drag you out.”

  She didn’t bother with a response. For all his hard talk, she knew he wouldn’t go that far. Or, she corrected, at least the man she had left seven years ago would never behave like a caveman. She wasn’t entirely sure about this version of Luke Hamilton, with the unsmiling mouth and the hard light in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, even during the worst days of their marriage.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  “Let’s go, then. We’ve got a long dr
ive.”

  Without waiting for her to respond, he grabbed her suitcase and marched toward his vehicle through the lightly falling snow. He threw it into the back of the pickup, which at least had a covered bed to keep out the elements.

  Her bones ached as she walked down the steps and limped toward the pickup truck. She did her best to ignore the pain, as she usually did. The low pressure system from storms always seemed to make the pain worse. She had already taken the maximum dosage of over-the-counter pain medicine but it wasn’t quite taking the edge off. She didn’t trust herself with anything stronger.

  At the door of the vehicle, she hovered uncertainly, struck with the humiliating realization that she was stuck. She couldn’t step up into the vehicle. It simply was too high. She couldn’t move her bad leg that far and didn’t have the upper body strength to pull herself up.

  “We’ve got to move,” he growled. “Storm’s going to get stronger.”

  How could she possibly tell him she needed help? She closed her eyes, shame as cold as the wind blowing off the water.

  She could do this. Somehow. Over the last years, she had discovered stores of strength she never would have guessed she had inside her. She gripped the metal bar beside the door—the sissy handle, her dad used to call it—and tried to step up at the same time but her foot slipped off the running board.

  Luke made a sound from the other side of the truck but came around quickly.

  “You should have said something,” he said gruffly.

  Like what? Sorry, but I have the muscle tone of a baby bird?

  Without a word, he put his hands at her waist and lifted her into the pickup as if she weighed nothing, less than a feather from that baby bird.

  It was the first time he’d touched her in seven years. The first time any man had touched her, except medical professionals.

  The contact, fleeting and awkward, still was enough to fill her with an intense ache.

  She had craved his touch once, had lived for those moments they could be together. She had loved everything about his big, rangy body, from the curve of his shoulders to the hardness of his chest to the line of dark hair that dipped to points lower.

  The memories seemed to roll across her mind, faster and faster. His mouth on hers, his hands in her hair, falling asleep with his warm skin against her.

  Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how very much she missed a man’s touch. Not just any man. This man.

  She gave a shaky breath as he closed the vehicle door, then she settled into her seat and pulled her seat belt across with hands that trembled.

  She couldn’t do this. Eight hours alone in a vehicle with Luke Hamilton. How could she survive it?

  He climbed in and fastened his seat belt, then pulled away from Brambleberry House. As she watched her refuge disappear in the rearview window, she told herself it was only a drive. She could endure it.

  She had lived through much worse over the past seven years.

  * * *

  Luke drove at a steady pace through the falling snow, heading east on the winding road toward Portland. On summer Sunday evenings, Elizabeth knew, this road would be packed with tired, sunburned beachgoers heading back to Portland for the week ahead. Now, on a Sunday evening in December, they encountered very little traffic going in either direction.

  He said nothing, the silence in the vehicle oppressive and heavy. With each mile marker they passed, she felt as if the weight of the past pressed down harder.

  “How did Elliot find me?” she finally had to ask again.

  He sent her a sideways look before jerking his gaze back to the road. “You will have to ask him. I don’t know all the details.”

  “I’m still having a hard time believing he and...Megan are together. Last I knew, she was still grieving for Wyatt Bailey. Now...you tell me she’s marrying his brother.”

  “She grieved for Wyatt for a long time. But I guess people tend to move on eventually.”

  He said the words in an even tone but guilt still burned through her. She had earned his fury through her choices.

  “What is Megan up to? Is she...still running the inn?”

  He didn’t answer her for a full moment, focused on driving through a tight series of curves. Finally, he glanced over. “Don’t expect that we’re going to chat the entire drive to Haven Point.” His jaw was firm, his hands tight on the steering wheel. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want anything to do with you. In fact, I’m going to pretend you’re not here, which isn’t that hard since you haven’t been for seven years.”

  She folded her hands in her lap, telling herself she couldn’t let his words wound her. “You don’t want to know...what happened or why I left?”

  “I especially don’t want to hear that. I don’t give a damn, Elizabeth. After all these years, I can honestly say that. You can spill all your secrets, spin all your explanations, to the district attorney.”

  She wanted to argue but knew it would be pointless. Her words would tangle and she wouldn’t be able to get them out, anyway. “Fine. But I’m not going to...sit here in silence.”

  She turned on the radio, which was set to the classic rock she knew he enjoyed. She was half-tempted to turn the dial to something she knew would annoy him—Christmas music, maybe—but she didn’t want to push.

  After several more moments of tense silence, the leaden weight of everything still unsaid between them, she settled into the corner and closed her eyes. She intended only to escape the awkwardness for a moment but the days’ events and the adrenaline crash after the shock of seeing him again seemed to catch up with her.

  She would never have expected it, but somehow she slept.

  * * *

  Elizabeth.

  Here.

  Sleeping next to him. Or at least pretending to, he couldn’t be sure. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even and measured, but he couldn’t tell if she was genuinely asleep or simply avoiding conversation. He couldn’t really blame her for that, since he’d shut her down hard when she tried to talk to him.

  She was close enough he could touch her if he wanted—which he absolutely didn’t.

  His hands tightened again on the steering wheel. At this rate, his fingers would stiffen into claws by the time they reached home.

  Since the moment Elliot had handed him that piece of paper with a single name and an address, he had imagined this moment, when he would see her again.

  His whole world had been rocked by the revelation that she wasn’t dead. Months later he still hadn’t recovered. He had done his best to put it aside, figuring if she wanted him to know where she was, she would have told him herself.

  After finding out about the district attorney’s plans the day before, that choice had been taken out of his hands.

  He had to retrieve her and take her back to Idaho so he could clear his name. He had been so focused on the task at hand, though, that he hadn’t given the rest of it much thought.

  The grim reality was sinking in now. He would have to spend several hours trapped in a vehicle with the wife who had walked out on him and their children without a backward look.

  Or had she looked back? He had to wonder. If she hadn’t looked back, why would she continue returning to Haven Point to check up on her children?

  He thought of her the last time he had seen the mystery woman, at a play Cassie’s school had performed for Halloween. Cassie and a couple of her friends had played a trio of witches trying to prove they weren’t as bad as everyone thought. He remembered seeing the intriguing stranger—how again hadn’t he guessed she was Elizabeth in disguise?—sitting in the back row, clapping enthusiastically.

  That jarring information seemed again to twist everything he thought he knew about her.

  He cringed, remembering he’d actually had the wild idea at the play that the next time he saw her, he should strike up
a conversation to at least ask her name and what child she was there to support.

  What if he’d done it, walked up to her and tried to talk to her without knowing she was his own freaking wife?

  He felt like a fool.

  He released a breath, fighting down the resurgence of anger.

  How was he supposed to endure several more hours of this proximity with her?

  He could handle it. For the sake of his children, he had no choice. He had to clear his name. A cloud of suspicion followed him everywhere he went in Haven Point and it was long past time he shed it.

  He knew Cassie and Bridger heard the whispers. While he had his undeniable supporters, with his sister and her friends chief among them, plenty of people in Haven Point still believed he had murdered his wife and dropped her body down an abandoned mine shaft or carried it up into the mountains where it had never been found.

  Hell, the new Lake Haven district attorney was so convinced Luke had done just that, she was willing to press charges above the protests of nearly everyone in local law enforcement.

  He had to move on. He had known where Elizabeth was for months. He could have hauled her back to town long ago and this whole thing would have been done but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to face her.

  He hadn’t been ready, he supposed, and had needed time to absorb the new reality that she hadn’t taken her own life, she had only chosen to walk away from the one they had created together.

  The winds began to blow harder as he left Portland, swirling sleet and snow against the windshield. It was taking most of his concentration to keep the vehicle on the road, yet Elizabeth slept on soundly, face tucked against the leather seat as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  Once, she had been the best thing in his life, the one who made him laugh and see the joy and beauty around him. Sometimes he felt as if he had loved her forever but it hadn’t been until the summer after her junior year of college that he’d really known her as anything more than one of his younger sister’s friends.