“Cassie? Gran?” Belle called out as she ran into the house without even bothering to kick the snow off her boots. She didn’t see anyone at first, which made her stomach practically drop to the ground, but when she skidded around the corner into the kitchen, she spotted Cassie sitting at the kitchen table, jotting down notes into Meg’s chart.
“What’s going on?” Annabelle said a little more loudly than she meant to. Cassie set down her pen calmly, obviously used to dealing with hysterical families in times of crisis.
“Have a seat, Belle. There’s no need to panic. I just have some concerns about your grandmother’s health that I’d like to hash out before it becomes an issue.”
Belle sat down across from the nurse, her heart beating a-mile-a-minute. “Okay… what’s the matter?” She could heart the shakiness in her own voice and she knew she wasn’t doing herself any favors if she was trying to convey any semblance of being calm.
“When I got here this morning, I noticed that your grandmother was paler than usual. She’s been a little confused and she appears to be in more pain than she is letting on. I think she needs to go back to the doctor and have her leg checked out again. Sooner rather than later.”
“What do you think is wrong with her?” Annabelle asked, running her hands through her hair with exhaustion. She couldn’t bear the thought of anything being wrong with her grandmother, but she also knew if there were something wrong, they couldn’t ignore it.
“Nothing is wrong with her,” Meg said sharply, wheeling herself into the kitchen. Belle had no idea how she managed to be so stealthy in a wheelchair, but she had already gotten really good at sneaking up on people. “She is fine and would be most grateful if people stopped talking about her like she wasn’t here.”
Belle turned to Meg and tried to put on her most reassuring smile. “Gran, we’re just worried about you. If you aren’t feeling well…”
“I’m fine,” Meg snapped. “And I’d be a lot better if everyone stopped treating me like I was a porcelain doll. It’s just a broken leg. I’ll be back in my dancing shoes soon enough and everyone can go back to minding their business.”
Annabelle flinched. Her grandmother was on edge and she wasn’t used to hearing her talk like that. Even when she was stressed or upset, or things were going a hundred different kinds of wrong, Meg never took her pain out on anyone else, which led her to believe something was going on and she wasn’t being honest about it.
Cassie closed the notebook on the table in front of her and looked at Meg with a serious glare. “Ms. Harrison, would it really be so terrible to just stop by the doctor tomorrow and have your leg checked out? Or I could have him come here. I don’t see how it could hurt.”
“The subject is closed,” Meg said, turning her wheelchair around. “Now, I’m going to sleep, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
Annabelle looked at her phone. “It’s seven.”
“I’m tired.”
She didn’t give either Cassie or Annabelle a chance to argue; she just left the kitchen for the living room without another word. They didn’t discuss Meg’s condition any further, mostly because they were afraid to upset her any more. They agreed to reconvene the next day and see if they could get Dr. Thornton to come out and see her, even if it made Meg angry it was for her own good.
Later that night, once Meg was asleep and Belle had gotten the house settled for the night, she crawled into her childhood bed and pulled the covers over her head, as if it might shield her from everything that was making her crazy. She worried about Meg and wondered what was going on with James… it had all gotten to the point where she thought she might just run out into the snow and let hypothermia make a decision for her.
Instead, she closed her eyes, the glowing starlight of her old planetarium lamp still reflecting in her vision and tried to force everything away. Just the same, James’ face was the last thing she saw before she fell asleep.
12
James
Once the taillights on Belle’s ostentatious SUV had disappeared down the driveway, James walked back into the house at a slower pace. He stood in the doorway for longer that he’d intended, staring over the dining room table at the partially carved chicken and congealing potatoes. There would be a ton of leftovers, it would keep him and Daisy chicken salad sandwiches for at least a week, and would probably even yield a hearty chicken soup, but he poked at it sadly as he considered how abruptly the evening had ended.
He and Belle had practically no time to talk about anything important or even discuss what was going on between them. The terrified part of him was grateful to avoid the confrontation, but he knew well enough that they couldn’t keep going like that forever. They had re-entered each other’s orbits and there was no going back now.
James looked at his watch; and saw it was still early. There was a chance that Daisy was still awake, and she was probably hungry. He wasn’t entirely sure he believed that his daughter was sick again. He suspected that she was just trying to give the two of them time alone; she was sneaky like that. For a little kid, she was far more perceptive than she had a right to be.
He climbed the stairs and poked his head in her bedroom, but instead of finding his little girl awake and watching a movie with her stuffed animals like he expected, she was fast asleep, curled up with Mr. Trunksly and snoring lightly. She definitely looked a little pale but still better than she had the night before. Whatever bug she’d caught, it seemed to be passing. But as James watched his daughter sleep, he was suddenly struck by how peaceful she looked, and how much more she was growing to look like her mother with each passing day. When she was a baby, she had been the perfect mix of both of them, with her father’s light hair and her mother’s huge, glittering brown eyes. But it seemed that each time he looked at her, her features changed just a little, turning her into a clone of Marisa. He knew he would never forget a single detail about his late wife because she lived on so vividly in their daughter.
Daisy slept like a log, so James knew he wouldn’t wake her up when he leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. As he expected, she didn’t even stir; she just kept right on dreaming, holding on her to ragged stuffed elephant, both of them bathed in the purple light from her bedside lamp.
With his heart full of love for his little girl, he whispered a goodnight to her, crept out of her room, and back downstairs to finish doing dishes. The Christmas music he’d put on earlier was still playing quietly in the background while he worked. Once his chores were done, he wandered into the living room, lit only by the Christmas tree, and plopped down on the couch. Between the soothing strains of “Ave Maria” and the soft glow of the twinkle lights, it wasn’t long before he drifted off to sleep.
It was an unpleasant surprise when a knock on the door startled him awake. He was thoroughly annoyed for a moment and then it occurred to him that it might be Belle, causing a joy greater than he was willing to admit even to himself. James jumped to his feet and hurried to the front door, but when he opened it, his heart, and stomach, completely sank.
“Addison? What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the restaurant?”
Addison smiled and walked past him into the house without asking permission, acting as if she lived there. “They didn’t really need me. You know things quiet down after nine.”
James looked at his watch and was shocked to see it was already almost 10pm. He couldn’t believe he’d been asleep that long. “Fair enough, but what are you doing here?”
She didn’t say anything; she just kept walking through the house and into the kitchen, where she grabbed two wine glasses from the cabinet and then took a bottle of wine from the tall rack in the corner. James followed her, saw what she was doing, and retrieved the bottle of wine from her hands, putting it back in the rack before she could open it.
“It’s ten at night and Daisy has her pageant tomorrow. I have to be up early to finish her costume. I really don’t have time for whatever this is, Addison.”
“Well, when you’re a parent, it’s not always about what you want. I really need to get to bed.”
“I just want to talk for a minute. You don’t have one minute to talk?”
James took a stool from the middle of the counter and put it on the edge so there was no way that Addison could sidle up next to him. Then he sat down and crossed his arms over his chest. “One minute. And then you need to go home.”
She nodded happily as if she’d won a chess match and sat on the closest stool to him she could manage without being obvious. “I heard from the kitchen staff that Annabelle Harrison was in the restaurant again today and you two kind of got into a fight.”
James had to force himself to stay calm. “We didn’t get into a fight, and even if we did, I fail to see how that is any of your business. Did you really come all the way out here in the middle of the night to ask me about Belle?”
Addison laughed demurely. “It’s hardly the middle of the night, James. I just thought that maybe you’d want to talk about it with someone who knew you and understood what you’re going through.”
James was having trouble processing what was going on. It was as if there were some alternate reality that Addison was living in where she and James were a lot closer than they actually were. Because as far as he knew, she was his daughter’s babysitter and a waitress at his restaurant and that was it. He had no idea what could have led her to believe that she was someone he would want to confide in about anything, let alone his love life, or what love life there was to speak of.
“This is all really throwing me for a loop. I don’t understand what it is that you think I’d want to talk to you about. Belle and I didn’t fight. She came here for dinner tonight. Everything is fine.”
At the mention of Belle being in the house, Addison’s cheeks turned bright red, as if she were simmering with rage and it was about to explode out of her. “She was here? Why?”
“Because I invited her.”
Addison’s forehead crinkled in a way that made James nervous; he had seen that look on her before, right before she was about to yell at another person on the wait staff for stealing a table or not sharing enough of their tips with her. He was starting to wonder why he hadn’t fired her yet.
“She’s not the right woman for you. You’re aware of that right?”
James felt his spine stiffen just a little. “What? What are you talking about?”
Addison jumped down off the stool and instead of sitting, leaned against the counter as if she was trying to be provocative. Instead, she just looked vaguely menacing. “Her whole life is in New York. She has a fancy restaurant and money and what I’m sure is a glamorous apartment. Do you really think she wants to give that all up to come back to Wintervale and be a wife and a mother to someone else’s child?”
He recoiled at the harshness of her words. They were cold, almost shockingly so, as if she had been practicing how to say them with the least emotion possible. James couldn’t speak for a moment, unsure of what to say, or how to say them.
“Addison, you don’t know anything about Belle. Or me, for that matter. Or what Belle and I have been through together. And it’s never a great idea to make sweeping pronouncements involving things you know nothing about.”
She inched a little bit closer to him, forcing him to slide his stool farther away from her. “I know more than you think I do. I see things. And I know she isn’t right for you. You deserve better than a city girl who left you behind, so she could make fancy cakes for rich people.”
All at once, James was taken over by a swift dose of clarity.
“You need to leave, Addison. Now. And maybe it’s best if you don’t watch Daisy anymore. I think you’re getting confused about things and being around us so much isn’t helping anyone. We will just see each other at the restaurant, for now, and that will be it. And if you’d like to keep your job there, I suggest you remember that I’m your boss. Nothing more.”
She didn’t react the way he expected her to; she just swept her dark curls away from her face with a smile and stood up straight, brushing her fingers across her arm in a way that made him shiver nervously. “If that’s what you want. But I don’t think we’re done talking about this, James.”
He didn’t even follow her to the door; afraid of any further interactions with her that might encourage the insanity she had been brewing unprompted already. He just waited to hear the sound of her car pulling out of the driveway before he moved.
Once he was sure she was long gone, he went back into the living room and peeked through the curtains to confirm there was no one there. Even though he was sure, he stood there for a while just the same, staring at the reflection of the moonlight on the snow in the front yard.
Addison may have proven to be slightly delusional, but she also wasn’t entirely wrong. Why would Belle want to leave a glamorous life in New York to come back to Wintervale?
She had worked so hard to establish herself there and she had finally achieved the success she had always dreamed of. There was no reason for her to abandon all of that. At least, James couldn’t imagine that he was enough of a reason. And even if she wanted to, he wasn’t sure that he could ask her to do it.
He knew he couldn’t keep going back and forth and like this. He had to talk to Belle, and the sooner the better. They couldn’t keep going on like they were, wondering about the other’s intentions and driving themselves crazy over it. At least, he thought she might be doing that too. If she wasn’t, all of his worrying was for nothing.
James went to bed that night resigned to talk to Belle after the pageant. He just had to figure out what to say first and how to say it…
13
Belle
Belle skidded into Wintervale Elementary’s parking lot as Meg screamed at her from the back seat.
“Slow down, Annabelle! The trays are sliding around!”
Belle had hastily loaded both her grandmother and a dozen small Christmas cakes into the SUV at the last minute, and then bolted from the house over to the school. She didn’t want to be late, but she also wanted the cakes to still be warm when the kids finally got to eat them. The problem was, Belle had underestimated how difficult it was going to be getting Meg into the car when she was having trouble balancing and the SUV was so high off the ground. By the time they finally got away from the house, they were already running twenty minutes behind and Belle was in a panic.
But, when she finally got Meg out of the car in the school parking lot and into her wheelchair, she was able to load a bunch of the cakes into her grandmother’s lap which saved a ton of time. They rushed from the lot into the school and straight into a crowd of children dressed like Christmas trees, sparkly-wrapped presents, and gingerbread cookies. Meg laughed happily at the sight of them; it was the first time Belle had seen her smile since she’d arrived in Wintervale. Even her smelly old cat didn’t seem to be bringing her the same joy he usually did, so Belle was happy that this trip out was lifting her spirits.
They wheeled through the crowd until they spotted James and Daisy in the back of the hallway, close to the auditorium. James was hastily sewing the bottom of a sugarplum fairy dress. His glasses were balanced on the end of his nose as he squinted at the needle in his hand while holding a pin between his teeth.
“You have to stop bouncing, peanut. I’m going to end up sewing your dress to your tights if you keep it up,” he mumbled as they approached. Daisy waved, her wings fluttering with the movement. A strand of hair fell out of the braided bun on the top of her head and Belle couldn’t keep her smile hidden any longer. James looked up, his forehead creased with stress, and Belle couldn’t help but laugh. She retrieved the pin from between his teeth, secured it in her own sleeve, and tucked Daisy’s hair back into the bun.
“James, why don’t you take these cakes wherever they need t
o be and get my gran settled? I can finish this hem.”
He mouthed a desperate “thank you” as he handed Belle the needle, threaded with sparkling pink thread, and disappeared into the auditorium with Meg.
Belle squatted down on the floor in front of Daisy with a smile. “You look absolutely enchanting, Miss Sugarplum Fairy,” she said as she began to fix the drooping hem. “Did your daddy do this?”
Daisy nodded. “Mostly! He took my princess costume from Halloween a few years ago, made it bigger, and sewed wings and more sparkles on it! I love sparkles.”
“Me too, kiddo,” Belle said as she finished the last stich on the hem and made sure it was even. Once she was sure it was, she put the needle and pin back in the sewing kit on the floor and fluffed Daisy’s skirt and her wings to make sure they were in good shape; she smiled a little wider as she registered that James had actually done a more than decent job, and then grabbed Daisy’s hand. “Ready to go! Let’s find your dad, huh?”
They rushed into the auditorium where at least fifty kids in precious Christmas themed costumes were hurrying around, trying to finish getting pulled together, or figuring out where they belonged. Teachers nervously attempted to corral the excited students, but it was clear they were all already completely overtaken by the spirit of the holidays, along with the promise of a nice long break from school.
Belle could practically feel the electric buzz of joy coursing through Daisy’s hand.
“You’re going to stay for the show, right Belle?” Daisy asked, dancing back and forth as they walked down the rows of chairs to the stage.
“You bet I am! Like I would miss my favorite sugarplum fairy singing… what are you singing?”
Daisy winked at her. “It’s a surprise! I didn’t even tell daddy. Are you going to sit with him?”
A Sugar Cookie Christmas: A Sweet Holiday Romance (Wintervale Promises Book 1) Page 9
