The Christmas Sisters

by Sarah Morgan

  Posy was stunned. She felt as if she’d been blown over by a strong wind.

  The warmth, the security, the kindness, the cuddles—

  “It was you?”

  “Yes. Thanks for remembering by the way. Makes all the trauma worth it.” On the surface, Hannah seemed to be back in control again. Posy might even have thought she’d imagined the stress if it hadn’t been for the rhythmic tapping of her sister’s foot under the table.

  She was still struggling to get her head around this new information. “But—”

  “You clung to me for six months. Until we moved here, in fact. Then you seemed to settle down and just get on with your new life. It was as if your old life had never existed.”

  “If we used to be so close, what happened?”

  “I guess I pulled away,” Hannah said. “It seemed an easier, less painful way to live.”

  There was a silence. It was Beth who broke it. “I didn’t know. It didn’t occur to me that was your reason for staying away from the girls. I...I’m sorry I said those things.”

  “Don’t be. I’m glad we cleared it up.” Hannah gave a wan smile. “I have some issues. I’m the first to admit it. You do, too.”

  Beth looked puzzled. “I don’t have issues.”

  Posy took another big swallow of her drink. “You have issues.”

  “Is this a conspiracy?”

  “No. It’s the truth. You have issues.” Maybe it wasn’t the right time to say it, but it seemed as good as any. “You are super protective of your children.”

  “Every mother is protective of her children.”

  Hannah finished her drink. “You’re not protective in the way other mothers are. You are overprotective. You see disaster everywhere. You catastrophize.”

  Beth stiffened defensively. “Not true.”

  Posy glanced at Hannah. “Let’s forget it. It’s understandable.”

  “Understandable,” Hannah echoed.

  Beth sat up straighter. “I don’t want to forget it. And if you’re implying that an accident that happened twenty-five years ago has impacted on the way I raise my children, I can tell you that’s not the case. Give me an example of when I’ve been overprotective.”

  Posy hesitated. “You virtually hyperventilate whenever the girls want to ride Socks.”

  “Everyone knows you should wear a helmet when riding. It’s common sense.”

  “Yes.” How could she say this as gently as possible? “But given the chance you’d special order chest protectors and airbags.”

  “Plenty of riders protect themselves from falling.”

  “Maybe for competition-level eventing, but to ride my ancient pony around a field? I don’t think so.”

  Beth clasped her hands in her lap. Her knuckles were white. “Socks is a large animal. Any horse can stampede.”

  “I think it takes more than one horse to stampede, and Socks has arthritis. It hurts him to trot. Stampeding would be way beyond his capabilities.”

  Beth flushed. “All I’m saying is that it could happen.”

  “And that,” Posy said, “is my point. You react to all the things that could happen. Not what has actually happened. Catastrophizing.”

  “I anticipate accidents, that’s all. That’s how I prevent them happening.”

  “I think you live every possible accident,” Hannah said slowly. “You see it in your head and it freaks you out.”

  Beth looked as if she was about to deny it, then slumped. “You’re right, I do. I’m always imagining something terrible is going to happen, like it did with us. I’m scared, and I manage that by doing everything I can to stop bad things happening. I try to control every little thing. It’s exhausting.” She stared into the fire. “I have issues.”

  “Maybe it’s time we dealt with our issues,” Hannah said.

  “Yes. I need to try harder to relax. I don’t want to raise nervous children.” Beth’s phone rang and she dug frantically in her bag, sending them a look of guilt and apology. “It might be an emergency. I will try being more relaxed, but I’m going to start tomorrow. Right now I have to answer this in case Ruby has drowned in the bath, or escaped through the back door, or—” She checked the number. “It’s Corinna—”

  “That really is a catastrophe.” Hannah reached across, snatched the phone from her hand and switched it off.

  “What are you doing? I need to answer that!” Beth launched herself from her chair and snatched it back. “You’ll get me fired!”

  “She can’t fire you. She hasn’t employed you yet.” Hannah put the phone on the table. “If it had been Jason or one of the girls, I can understand why you’d take the call, but as this is an evening of truths, then I will point out that Corinna is using you. She’s using you as free labor and you’re letting her.”

  “It’s a goodwill gesture. I need to impress her.”

  Posy was thinking about what Hannah had said. How could her memory have failed her so badly? How could she have remembered the love, but not the person giving it? She stared at her sister’s slim shoulders and elegant form and tried to remember snuggling in bed with her. When, and why, had her memory decided it was Suzanne?

  Hannah was focused on Beth. “Do you really want to work for that woman?”

  “Yes. She’s smart, she’s creative, she’s driven.” Beth paused. “And she thinks I have the exact set of skills she needs for this account.”

  “And what are those skills?” Hannah held her gaze. “Why do you think she wants you in particular?”

  “Are you implying I don’t have skills? I am the one who has profiled the target audience. I understand the woman who used to wear makeup but whose life is now just too busy, and perhaps she’s lost a little confidence and—Oh...” Beth’s voice trailed off. “She didn’t want me to identify the target audience. She wants me because I am the target audience.”

  Hannah said nothing, but there was sympathy in her eyes.

  “This is the part where you tell me I’m wrong,” Beth said in a small voice.

  “You’re not wrong.”

  Posy tried to soften it. “She could be wrong. She doesn’t know for sure.”

  “I know for sure,” Hannah said, and Posy felt an ache in her chest.

  This night was turning out to be worse than any of her most grueling rescues out on the mountains. She felt battered and bruised.

  Beth had been so excited about the job. She didn’t want to see her hurt. “Look on the bright side—you got all those free samples. Although not Everyday Red, because that is mostly on the kitchen wall.” Deciding that humor might not be the way to go, she gave Beth’s arm a squeeze. “There are other jobs. Better jobs.” Were there? She didn’t know, but she thought it best to sound encouraging.

  Beth stared at her phone without touching it. “She invited me in because I’ve been at home with kids for seven years. I’m not her top pick for her new team, I’m her market research project. I’m a lab rat.”

  “I don’t see you as a rat.” Posy gave Hannah a desperate look. She’d started this, and now she needed to shut it down in a way that didn’t leave Beth feeling awful.

  Beth put her phone back in her bag. “Goodbye, dream job.”

  “Working for Corinna is no one’s idea of a dream job.” Hannah was brisk. “She has no idea how to manage people. Never work for a bully, especially when they own the company.”

  This time Beth didn’t argue. “You’re right. She is a bully. I knew that, but I tried to forget it because it seemed like an easy way back into work and hearing that she wanted me for her new company boosted my confidence when I was feeling low. But she doesn’t really boost your confidence—she destroys it because you never quite measure up.” Her voice faltered. “She has this way of making you feel that if you’re not bringing your A game to every conversation you’re a failure. When I w
orked for her before, I spent my whole time waiting to get fired. She makes you feel so useless you become convinced no one else will ever want you. And when anyone did find the courage to leave, she gave them a lousy reference.”

  “So I ask you again,” Hannah said. “Do you really want to work for her?”

  “No, but no one else will take someone with my profile. I’ve been at home for seven years. My confidence is rock-bottom because I haven’t been working.” She glanced at Hannah. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Your confidence is at rock bottom because the last person you worked for was Corinna and she left you feeling as if you didn’t measure up. The worst thing you could do is work for her again. You want an energetic, positive work environment where your skills will be valued.”

  “Do I have skills?”

  A smile spread across Hannah’s face. “You do. All the qualities that made you good at your job before you had kids are still there. You’ve been focusing on different things, that’s all. So you need to shift the focus back.”

  “I’ve lost my contacts.”

  “Which you built up from nothing in the first place and can undoubtedly do again. You need some coaching to work out what you want and how to best use the skills you have.”

  Beth stared miserably at the fire. “And who is going to do that for me?”

  “I am.”

  “You’d coach me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to bill me?”

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.”

  “I know how busy you are,” Beth muttered. “I’d owe you, big-time.”

  “There is no owing between sisters. And I’m sure there will be a time in the future when I’m going to need your help, too.”

  Posy wondered if Hannah was thinking about the baby, and what lay ahead for her.

  “You’re going to make me cry, and my mascara isn’t waterproof.” Beth rummaged for a tissue. “You really think someone else will want me?”

  “I know they will.”

  Posy felt a rush of warmth that had nothing to do with her proximity to the log fire. Hannah was going to help Beth. Up until tonight she’d felt as if the three of them had mostly lived their lives swimming along in separate lanes, but now they were all in the same lane, looking out for each other. “This is good.” She raised her almost-empty bottle. “To the Christmas Sisters.”

  She promised herself that she was going to do her bit, too. She was going to be more understanding. If Hannah wanted egg whites, Posy would whisk her egg whites. She could always make custard with the yolks.

  Wrapped up by this warm blanket of sisterly togetherness, they left the pub arm in arm.

  “It’s freezing,” Hannah said. “Why did we walk?”

  “Because we’d had a drink. Also, it’s only ten minutes away.”

  “Ten minutes seems like ten hours when your toes are frozen. And I don’t like walking down country roads in the dark.”

  Posy steered her round a patch of ice. “You’re such a townie.”

  “I am. We should call a cab.”

  “This isn’t Manhattan. There’s only Pete, and he was at the bar, so we don’t want him driving us.”

  “If he’s the only cab in town, why was he at the bar?”

  “Because the whole village is in the pub, so he knows no one is going to need him.”

  Clutching each other for warmth and stability, they stumbled along the lane toward the lodge, using the light from Posy’s phone to see where they were going.

  Beth started singing carols and Posy joined in until Hannah threatened to drop her in the ditch.

  As they turned the corner, they saw a car outside the front door, the engine still running.

  “That’s a cab,” Hannah said. “You said there were no cabs.”

  Posy peered at the logo on the side.

  “Not local. It’s an airport car.”

  As they watched, a man stepped out from the back and handed over a couple of notes.

  He wore a long, dark coat with the collar turned up against the cold.

  Posy guessed he was a couple of inches above six foot, and there was an edge of sophistication to his looks that should have made him look uncomfortably out of place in these surroundings, but somehow didn’t.

  He looked expensive, she thought. And if she’d wondered for a moment who he was, she didn’t have to wonder for long because beside her Hannah made a strangled sound.

  “Adam?”

  Adam? The expensive guy was Adam?

  Posy’s first thought was that he looked as good as he sounded, and her second thought was that Hannah didn’t generally like surprises.

  Was she going to be pleased to see him?

  She could feel Hannah’s fingers digging into her arm.

  “What is he doing here? There is absolutely no reason for him to be here, except—” Hannah paused for a moment, her breath clouding the freezing air, and then she turned to Posy, all the warmth frozen out by the ice in her eyes. “Did you tell him to come?”

  “No! I mean—” Posy thought back, her heart plummeting “—not exactly. I might have mentioned it when we were joking about the terrible signal. I said it would be easier to come here in person to have a conversation, but I didn’t think... New York is a long way... Why would he... He said he loved you.”

  Hannah looked stricken and she snatched her hand away from Posy’s arm as if she couldn’t bear to touch her. “What have you done?”

  The fragile shoots of their new relationship froze and snapped.

  If Posy had hoped that the evening had signaled a fresh start and a new closeness with her sister, that hope was dead now.

  “Hannah—I was just trying to—”

  “To what? To interfere, like you all do? Is Hannah seeing anyone? When is Hannah going to settle down? What business is it of yours? So much for being the barrier between me and the rest of the world. Or were you trying to ruin my life?”

  “No.”

  I love you. You’re my sister. I’ve messed up and I’m so sorry.

  Posy didn’t know what to say. And she had a feeling that nothing she said was going to make a difference.

  23

  Hannah

  The front door opened and her whole family was crowded there. Suzanne and Stewart, with Melly and Ruby peeping around their legs. No doubt Jason was hovering in the background, too.

  Flanked by her sisters, Hannah felt as if everyone was looking at her, waiting for her reaction.

  Her reaction was one of panic.

  She hadn’t had time to get used to the idea of being pregnant. She hadn’t worked out how she was going to handle it. She didn’t know what part Adam would play, or if he wanted to play any part at all, and she didn’t know how to handle that, either.

  She certainly wasn’t good with men showing up on her doorstep unannounced.

  She’d planned on taking the few weeks over Christmas to think hard about what she wanted and how much of a risk she was prepared to take. Her intention had been to come up with a plan and then execute it carefully, step by step. Instead she felt as if she was being swept along by a tidal wave, gasping and drowning, unable to save herself.

  How could Posy have done such a thing?

  And what had possessed Adam to show up here without speaking to her first? Why wasn’t he in the Caribbean as planned?

  Like it or not, he was here, and she had no choice but to invite him in and accept the overenthusiastic scrutiny of her family. She could almost feel their minds working. They’d be asking themselves questions. They’d be asking her questions.

  She felt as if his arrival had somehow exposed her.

  Digging deep to find the part of her that used to feel in control of her life, she walked
toward Adam, trying hard not to slip on the icy surface.

  Posy reached out to her. “Do you want to take my—”

  “No, I don’t.” She wasn’t holding on to anyone. The only person you could really trust in the world was yourself. And fortunately, this time, she didn’t let herself down. Her feet planted firmly and she didn’t slip. “This is a surprise.” She could see from the wary look in his eyes that he could tell it wasn’t necessarily a good one.

  “I took a chance.”

  And that, she thought, was the difference between them.

  Hannah didn’t take chances. She never leaped unless she knew her landing was secure. She never started a journey without knowing her destination.

  The cab drove off and she noticed the small suitcase by Adam’s feet.

  “Come inside!” Suzanne opened the door wider. “You must all be freezing.”

  Hannah didn’t want to step inside. She wanted to run. She didn’t care if she slipped on the ice and fell flat on her face.

  It was only as she stepped through the door that she remembered Luke and the reason they’d gone to the pub in the first place. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d been talking with her sisters. She’d felt lighter than she could ever remember being. That part of her that had been closed for a long time had begun to open up. After Beth had revealed her own insecurities, Hannah had been on the verge of telling her about the baby and admitting her own feelings of vulnerability and inadequacy. She’d considered asking Beth’s advice.

  Now she felt herself shutting down again, ready to protect herself.

  Suzanne offered her hand to Adam. “I’m Suzanne. Good to meet you. I apologize for this rather crazy household.”

  Hannah could imagine how this seemed to Suzanne. Hannah has a love life! Finally.

  She felt the same suffocating pressure she always felt when she was back home.

  Adam shook her hand, all charm and confidence. “I’m the one who should be apologizing for descending unannounced. I’ve booked a room at the pub—”

  Oh great, Hannah thought. So now the whole village would know Hannah McBride finally had a man. He might as well have taken out an ad in the local paper.