by Liz Isaacson
Bree stepped right in front of her then, a stern look on her face. “Lily.” She cleared her throat as her cheeks turned a shade of red Lily had never seen before. “I’m just going to say this, and I mean no disrespect. I like you. It’s good to see you. But if you’re just going to run right back to Nashville, maybe you should just go now. I don’t want to see Beau go through…that again.”
“What again?” Lily asked, though she had a very strong suspicion that she knew exactly what Beau had been through since she’d left. And that was her fault.
The lyrics to the love song she’d written for him started on repeat. “We have some things to work out, sure,” she said. “But I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Sometimes we do things unintentionally,” Bree said.
She wasn’t wrong, but Lily didn’t know how to go back in time and somehow convince her irrational self to stay in Wyoming. She wished that were the case, because then maybe she could’ve been warned about what leaving Coral Canyon would do to her.
“I’m here to apologize,” Lily said. “I don’t intend to hurt him, intentionally or otherwise.”
“All right.” Bree continued putting the groceries away, and Lily slipped into the living room to face the giant Christmas tree she’d helped haul through that skinny doorway. Fine, it was a double-wide door, but it had still been a challenge getting the tree inside the lodge.
She stepped over to a stack of boxes, where six red, blue, and gold balls waited. She opened the package and began adding hooks to the end of each ornament.
The work was tedious and slow, with plenty of second-guessing. Was that ornament in the right spot? Had she put too many silver ones too close together?
After about an hour—and eight boxes later—she stepped back to admire her work. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, especially when Bree brought her a steaming cup of coffee.
“Looks good,” Bree said as she stood at Lily’s side. She nudged her with her hip. “And your room is still open if you want to bring in your bag.”
“I don’t have one,” Lily said, yanking her phone out of her pocket to check the time. “I better get down into town to get a few things before everything closes.”
And after that, she just needed to practice the song she’d written for Beau and find the right words to apologize to him.
Twenty-Three
“No, I don’t need a ride,” Beau’s mother said, and disappointment cut through him. He’d stopped by her house to see if she wanted to come up to the lodge with him, but she was steadfastly refusing.
And Beau didn’t want to go up to that huge house all by himself. Yes, Bree and Celia would already be there. The stockings were probably hung, and the whole place probably smelled like salty ham and buttery potatoes. He usually loved the picture-perfect atmosphere of the lodge, but this year he didn’t want to deal with any of it.
“You sure?” he asked for the second time, watching his mother as she flitted around the kitchen.
“Yes. Jason and I are coming up later.” She flashed him a smile, but she wouldn’t look directly at him.
“Mom, what am I missing?”
“Nothing. I just want to wait for Jason. He has to work today.”
“I thought he was retired.”
“He is, but he helps out at the hardware store a few days a week, and they close today at three. We’ll be up after that.”
As it was only noon, and Beau couldn’t just hang around his mom’s place for that long—he had a Christmas tree to decorate, after all—he stood up. Exhaling hard, like his mother was putting him out, he said, “All right. See you up there.”
She waved at him a bit too enthusiastically. “You too. Congrats on your case.”
“Thanks.” He walked out and got behind the wheel, his dread about returning to the lodge almost suffocating him.
“Just go,” he told himself. He had to at least put some lights on the tree, as well as hang as many ornaments as he could. So he pointed his SUV toward the lodge and made it there in record time.
Two cars sat in the parking lot, and he eased past them and into the garage around the side of the lodge. He collected his bag and entered the house, a heaviness settling onto his shoulders he hadn’t expected.
The scent hanging in the air was one part sugar, one part meat, and one part pine tree. Holiday music blasted through the wired-in stereo system, and he didn’t wholly hate it. So maybe he had some Christmas spirit left.
He wheeled his bag down the hall, stopping in the kitchen long enough to say, “Hey, ladies. I’m home.”
Both Bree and Celia looked up, alarm on their faces. “Beau,” Celia said as if she hadn’t expected to see him for days yet. Bree scrambled to turn down the music while Celia bustled around the counter. She glanced behind him, and Beau did too. But there was nothing there.
“What’s going on?” he asked, facing her again.
“Nothing.”
It was the second time someone had said that to him today, and he was growing tired of the fibs. “Right. I’m going to go shower.”
Bree appeared in the other doorway that led into the kitchen, farther down the hall. “Uh, you might want to check on the….” She nodded toward the living room.
Beau groaned. “I know I said I’d do the tree. I just….” Can’t. He didn’t want to decorate it without Lily. His heart squirmed in his chest painfully, and he sighed.
“How are we supposed to have a tree lighting without the lights?” Celia asked. “On the tree?”
“Honestly, I’m surprised you two didn’t do it while I was gone.” He took a step down the hall, still deciding if he had the stamina to face the tree and all those ornament boxes he’d brought in days ago.
“Well, we didn’t,” Celia said. “And think of Bailey. She’ll be so disappointed if the tree isn’t decorated.”
Was it Beau’s imagination or was Celia practically yelling?
“Fine,” he said. “Let me go put my bag away, and I’ll—” His words failed him as he arrived at the doorway to the living room and looked in.
“Lily.”
She stood there, wearing a bright red, festive Christmas sweater that hugged her curves in all the right ways. She wore jeans and big, puffy socks, her nearly white hair spilling over her shoulders.
He blinked, sure he was hallucinating. Maybe it was the flying. The time change. The depression. But when he looked again, she still stood there.
“I started decorating the tree,” she said, her voice just as wonderful and musical as he remembered. “I hope you’re not upset.”
“Upset?” he echoed stupidly. He took in the tree, noting that the whole thing was almost finished, even the branches at the top.
“Yeah, Bree said you wanted to do it.” Lily tucked her hands into her back pockets, worry zipping around in her expression.
“Well, Bree lied.”
“Hey,” Bree protested behind him.
Beau chuckled and left his bag in the hallway, taking a daring step into the living room, closer to Lily. “What are you doing here?”
“I miss you,” she blurted. “And I’m sorry, and I wanted to come back as soon as I left, but I didn’t know how, and—you shaved.”
Beau reached up and ran his hand along his mostly clean-shaven jaw. “Yeah, I had to go to court.”
“I got the email this morning. Celia convinced me not to reply.”
“She did, huh?” Beau didn’t look behind him, though he knew Celia and Bree were standing there watching.
“Thank you for winning all of my cases, Beau.”
Oh, she couldn’t say his name. Not like that. Not like she cared about him and wanted to be with him for the holidays. It wasn’t fair. He couldn’t get his heart shattered again.
“Is that why you came? To say thank you?”
“No.” She took a step toward him, and then rocked back. “I came to sing you a song.”
Surprise made Beau lift his eyebrows. Sure, he knew Lily was a singer an
d a songwriter, but she sure hadn’t done a lot of it over the few months she’d lived at the lodge.
Bree ducked past him and handed a guitar to Lily. She perched on the edge of the couch, the Christmas tree beside her making the perfect holiday image for a country music postcard. Beau’s heart beat in his chest like hummingbird wings while Lily tuned the guitar and then looked up at him.
“My sisters helped me write it,” she said, her voice a bit on the quiet side. “They’ll be here in time for the tree lighting.”
Beau nodded, sure his own vocal chords wouldn’t work right now. Lily had simply walked back into her life here. Not only that, but she’d taken over of some things, like the tree decorating and lighting, and she’d invited her sisters to share the lodge’s traditions.
Not the lodge, he thought as Lily started plucking the strings. The Whittaker family traditions.
“When he was my boyfriend,” she started, her tone matching the guitar’s perfectly. Lily really was so talented.
“The sky shone the deepest blue. The wind hummed a merry tune. When he was my boyfriend.” She looked right at him, her eyes earnest as she sang about how happy she’d been when he was her boyfriend.
The song took a turn in the middle, toward finding her own way, and then she sang, “So when I go back, I hope he’ll forgive me. I hope he’ll see I love him. I hope, hope, hope, that he’ll be my boyfriend again.”
Her fingers moved along the guitar strings effortlessly for a few more seconds, playing out the last notes of the song.
She finished and stood, her eyes shining with tears, and Beau swept toward her and gathered her right into his arms, where he always wanted her to be.
“I love you too,” he whispered into her hair as they swayed, as her shoulders shook and she cried. “Shh, now, it’s all right. I love you too.”
But he felt like crying too. He’d never imagined that he’d find Lily in his house when he got here. If he’d known, he wouldn’t have stopped by his mother’s and tried to get her to come up to the lodge with him.
He’d have driven as fast and as straight as he could. He heard sniffling behind him, and he turned to find both Bree and Celia wiping their eyes, and he smiled at them. “I suppose you all think this is just wonderful.”
“It is,” Bree said, her voice a bit throaty.
“Pat’s coming to dinner,” Celia blurted. “Will you please be nice to him?”
“Pat Rusk?” Beau asked, tucking Lily against his side as she wiped her tears too. “Of course I’ll be nice to him. I’m nice to everyone.”
Celia nodded and sniffed and said, “I’m sure I’m letting something burn.” She scampered out of the living room, and Bree went a moment later too.
Beau surveyed the Christmas tree, impressed with how much Lily had done. “When did you get here?” he asked.
“Yesterday about lunchtime,” she said, gazing up at him. “I really am sorry. I…I don’t know what happened. I was scared, I suppose. I thought maybe I did want my recording life back.”
“And do you?” Because she was a gorgeous singer, and if she wanted to write songs and perform all over the world, Beau thought he’d just buy an RV and follow her around.
“Yes and no,” she said. “Vi, Rose, and I want to keep writing songs, but we’ve talked a lot about me living here and using technology to collaborate and communicate. We think it’ll work.”
He nodded and reached out to straighten a blue ornament that looked crooked.
“I’ll have to go to Nashville sometimes,” she said. “But once the recording starts, it honestly doesn’t take that long.”
“And touring?” Beau honestly wanted to know, but his heart was terrified of the answer.
“I’m not going to tour. I’ve already told Vi and Rose, and we’ve let Shawn, our manager, know as well. He’ll be talking to the producers about that.”
“No tours,” Beau whispered. “Are you sure, Lily?”
“It’s three hundred days on the road,” she said. “I might have enjoyed it before, but I was kind of hoping to put that time toward learning to ride a horse, and maybe having a baby….”
Beau let her words sink right down deep into his soul. “A baby?” He turned and looked at her then and found hope and happiness shining in her face.
She shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, I think I could be a decent enough mom, and I think I’ve finally found a man I want to have a family with.”
He blinked at her, a bit flabbergasted.
“It’s you, by the way,” she said with a giggle. She reached up and ran her fingertips along his jaw to his ear. “I would like the beard back, though.”
“Oh, you would, huh?” Beau grinned at her, the strength of his feelings almost making him sink to his knees. Relief that she’d come back. Gratitude that the Lord had given her what she needed, but also allowed her to return to him.
“I like the mountain man look.”
“Hmm.” He leaned down and touched his nose to the tip of hers. “Can I kiss you without the beard?”
“I suppose.”
So he did, and it was just as magical and magnificent as the first time, the love he felt between them swirling and solidifying into something he knew he’d never be able to deny.
Twenty-Four
Lily should never have doubted that Beau would forgive her and take her back. The man really was a great big teddy bear, although kissing him without a beard was definitely a new experience.
She broke their kiss and drew in a deep breath of his woodsy cologne, the pure male smell of him. “So you had to go to California for court?” she asked.
“Yep. But it was a fast hearing, and wow, the ocean is beautiful even in December.” He glanced around the living room, with all of its beautiful, raw wood, those high-as-the-sky ceilings, and the stained glass window. “Wyoming is so…gray.”
Lily laughed and kept her arms wrapped tightly around him. “You have money, Beau. Why don’t you travel?”
“I’ve never thought about it, I guess.”
“Well, instead of me touring, we should travel the world.”
Beau smiled down at her, pure love shining in those dark, gorgeous eyes. “I’d like that.”
“Now.” She exhaled and stepped out of his arms. “The Christmas tree. Do you think it’s ready?”
He turned to face it, really taking his time to examine every branch. “I think so. Are you going to do the lighting?”
A blip of fear stole through Lily. “I—doesn’t a family member do that?”
“Not always,” he said, though it was clear he wasn’t really telling the truth. “I’ll talk a little and welcome people. Then we light the tree and pass out gifts. It’s informal, really.”
Lily scoffed and shook her head. “It is not, and you know it. I can’t believe you hadn’t even put up one ornament.”
“I…couldn’t,” he said. “It was too painful.”
“Why’s that?”
“We were supposed to do it together.”
Lily heard all the emotion in Beau’s voice, and another round of guilt struck her right behind the ribs. “I know. And then I did it all alone.”
“Not quite.” He stepped away from her and picked up a box she hadn’t seen around the side of the tree. “There are four left.”
She smiled and hugged herself as he hung the silver ornaments on the tree, even directing him to a bald patch several feet up on one side.
“I’m starving,” he said.
Lily laughed. “Yeah, you really worked up an appetite putting on those few ornaments.”
“Let’s go see what Celia will let us steal from the kitchen.”
“Oh, you’ll get nothing there,” Lily said. “She sent me down for sandwiches for dinner last night.”
“Really?” Beau stepped into the kitchen, where the holiday music was once again blasting through the speakers. Lily watched him walk over to Celia, and the man must really possess words of magic, because she tipped her head back and laughed, t
hen went to the fridge and pulled out a container of something.
Beau motioned for Lily to join them, and she did so reluctantly. She liked watching him from afar, witnessing his warm spirit and how he seemed to genuinely like everyone. And they all liked him too.
“Ham and split pea soup,” he said. “It’s delicious.”
“I didn’t realize grown ups ate this,” she said. “This looks like what my grandmother would feed us as girls.”
“It’s so good,” Beau said, accepting the plastic container from Celia and moving over to the microwave himself.
“Can I have toast with mine?” she asked. “Gramma always let me have toast.” Her last two words echoed through the kitchen when the Christmas song that had been playing suddenly ended.
Beau looked at her and then Celia, and right as Jingle Bells came on, he started laughing. Celia too, and Lily couldn’t help but join in. Oh, how she loved this place, and these people. And she knew that she had been led here by a higher power, and that she had absolutely made the right decision in returning to Wyoming to spend Christmas in Coral Canyon.
When Beau stopped laughing, Lily joined him in front of the microwave. “Can I go to church with you now?” she asked.
He bent, got a loaf of bread out of a nearby drawer, and handed it to her. His expression radiated joy when he said, “I sure would like that.”
“This is Vi,” Lily said, indicating her sister with the short hair. “And Rose. My sisters.” She beamed at them, glad she’d been able to make the drive to Jackson Hole to pick them up. Well, Beau had driven. And once he’d pulled over so he could kiss her on the side of the road. But they had picked up her sisters at the airport and brought them back to the lodge.
Beau’s mom grinned for all she was worth. “The Everett Sisters. Lily. Vi. Rose. It’s so good to have you here.” She hugged them all, and Lily was glad she’d warned her sisters about the hugging.
“And my grandparents. Stu and Thea.” She put her arm around Pops and started naming off the members of Beau’s family, as well as Celia and Bree. At least Pat, Celia’s boyfriend, looked like he’d been hit with a cement block too.
