by Jillian Hart
“Right. Yes.” She snatched her spare key from his gloved fingertips, keeping her head down, feeling vulnerable to him and wishing with all her might that she didn’t. The last time she’d felt like this had been disastrous. Nick hadn’t been part of her plans, either. Now, what else was she missing? Think, Chelsea. “Oh, my bag.”
Apparently, she was about to lose her mental faculties right along with her heart.
“I’ll get it!” Macie danced through the reflection of the lights on the walkway and disappeared onto the shadowed porch.
“It’s been a good afternoon.” Michael spoke into the pause between them before it could become an uncomfortable silence. “It didn’t hurt that you spent it with us.”
“Well, it was fun hanging out with Macie.” The quip was all she could think of to hide her feelings.
“Just Macie, huh?” His soft chuckle warmed the chill from the evening air. “Not me?”
“Really, do I have to answer that?” She leaned against the icy side of her car, amusement hiding something shadowed in her eyes. “I still have to see you in the clinic twice a week.”
“And there’s the food drive.” Something more than friendship lit his gaze, his caring gaze which searched her face.
Okay, she was imagining that, right?
“I’m harder to avoid than you think.” There it was again in the melted chocolate tone.
“Too bad.” The quip died on her tongue. No, maybe she had it wrong, she thought as he moved in to brush a lock of hair from her eyes. His nearness sent shivers of sweetness through her. His touch was the most tender thing she’d known.
“I’ve got to swing by the grocery store on the way home, so I really have to go.” Distance was the best move. Stumble back into the car, plop onto the seat, keep a friendly smile on her face and drive away fast. “Sara Beth needs milk for dinner.”
Great, Chelsea, now you’re babbling, she thought, fumbling with her key.
“Be safe.” He moved in, one gloved hand on the door. “See you tomorrow in the office. Please pray for Kelsey tonight.”
“She’s on my prayer list.” She wanted to sound breezy, unaffected, the kind of woman who never handed over her heart to a man.
“Thanks.” He closed her door and not even the steel barrier of the car could snap the connection she felt to him.
“Bye!” Macie fluttered her fingers, the glittery stickers on her cast catching the glow from the icicle lights. “Bye, Princess Chelsea.”
“Bye, Princess Macie,” she called through the window glass, started her car, which rolled over on the first try and jetted out of the driveway. She glanced in her rearview mirror at the brick Tudor half swathed in white lights and the man standing in the driveway, watching her go. The man she could love, if she let herself.
* * *
“There you are!” Sara Beth looked up from the stove the instant Chelsea tumbled in through the garage door. “I was just about to text you and remind you dinner is almost ready.”
“It smells divine.” Chelsea shrugged out of her coat, grateful to be home. Doubly grateful for her sister’s gentle smile. Everything was better when she was with her sisters. She plopped the single grocery sack on the counter. “Here’s the milk. Is that Mom’s chicken and dumplings?”
“Johanna’s favorite. I thought she needed cheering up.” Sara Beth stirred something in a pot, set down the ladle and plunked on the glass cover. “She’s been a little down this afternoon. Nothing serious and no idea what’s up, and believe me, I tried to get it out of her, but I couldn’t resist the urge to cheer her up with food.”
“Excellent. Can’t think of a better cure.” Chelsea plopped her bag on the breakfast bar. “Where’s Meg? I’m on barn chore duty with her.”
“She’s out doing your share of the work, but that’s okay. Dad offered to help her.” Sara Beth tugged open the oven door and peered inside. A stronger aroma of seasoned chicken, creamy gravy and doughy dumplings sailed into the air.
Yum. Chelsea’s stomach growled harder. Maybe good food and her family’s company would take her mind off Michael—or more accurately, what she’d glimpsed in his eyes.
“Did you get all your shopping done?” Sara Beth closed the oven door.
“No, not even close.” The wonderful afternoon rolled back in perfectly clarity. Michael’s kindness, the heated iron pressure of his arm tucked against hers in the sleigh, the icy wind burning her face, the love taking root in her heart. Was she ready to share those things with anyone, even her sisters? Could she admit to being so foolish? She opened her mouth, but the words didn’t come out. They stayed stuck like peanut butter on her tongue.
“Go see what we did in the living room.” Sara Beth wandered over to the cabinets and began counting out enough plates for the table. “Johanna got the brilliant idea of putting out Mom’s ceramic Christmas towns, you know, the light up ones? Johanna’s up in the attic digging out a few more pieces.”
“If you don’t need help here, I’ll go lend a hand.”
“Go on. I’ve got this.” Sara Beth dealt plates around the kitchen table like a pro. She sidestepped dear old Bayley, who’d fallen sleep next to Dad’s chair. “Maybe Johanna will open up to you.”
It was hard to think of her youngest sister hurting. She knew just how Johanna felt the moment she stepped into the living room. The brilliant Christmas tree glowed with rich color, presents beneath the lowest branches gleamed faintly from the twinkle lights and half of a ceramic village sat on the mantel. Mom could have been here; it felt as if she’d just walked out of the room.
Burt purred a greeting as she walked by the couch. She stopped to scrub his ears on her way out of the room. She followed the faint scuffling sounds until she found Johanna in the attic behind a pile of cardboard boxes coated with dust.
“I can’t find them.” Johanna blinked hard and fast and turned her back, poking through another box. “They have to be here, right?”
“Right.” Chelsea picked her away across the bare floor, around an old chest and the pile of cardboard boxes. “Tell me where to start and I’ll help you look.”
“Good. Check out any dusty box. I definitely could use the help.” Johanna gave a surreptitious sniffle, pawing through the box in front of her. “Remember how Mom would put her towns up every year?”
“Are you kidding? She had them everywhere.” Chelsea opened the first container she saw and ignored the puff of dust when she pried off the lid. “Dad used to tease her that if she kept collecting pieces, there wouldn’t be any space left for us in the living room.”
“I know. She had so many pieces. Why am I not finding them?” Johanna’s attempt at lightness failed. “I just want Christmas like it used to be.”
“It’s impossible, sister dear.” She pawed through the container and pulled out an art project. Not what she was looking for, but the little ceramic hand from decades ago made her gasp. “Look. Mom saved this.”
“Did you find them?” Johanna dropped what she was doing and swerved around the pile of boxes. Hope sparkled in her eyes bright with unshed tears, tears she blinked away with great determination. “Oh, I’m so relieved. Is it the church with the stained glass steeple? I—” She skidded to a stop.
“It’s yours.” Chelsea brought the piece of plaster into the fall of light from the overhead bulb. “These are your little handprints.”
“I made that in kindergarten.” Johanna sidled in, silken dark hair falling like a curtain to shield her face. “For Mother’s Day.”
“Let’s see what it says.” The letters written in the plaque were hard to read. Chelsea shifted the prints until the words came clear beneath the overhead light. “It says, ‘I love you, Mommy.’”
“I remember telling that to my teacher when she asked what to write for me.” Johanna swiped at her eyes, her battle lost to
hold back her grief. “What’s this on the back?”
Chelsea flipped it over to see a sticky note clinging to the backside. In Mom’s writing, she read, “‘For the scrapbook. Write down the memory of Johanna giving this to me after Grant and the girls made a Mother’s Day breakfast. Big blue eyes, so sincere she said, God gave me the best mommy.’”
“He really did.” Tears rolled down Johanna’s cheeks, beautiful tears of love. “Look, this container is full of Mom’s things. How did this get up here anyway?”
“Remember Aunt Gretchen packed up Mom things for Dad?” Just after the funeral. “It was too painful for any of us, so she did it and brought the things up here.”
“Here’s a ribbon from one of Sara Beth’s first riding competitions.” Johanna knelt before the bin, gently moving things aside. “Look at this.”
“A picture of us.” Chelsea had to swipe her eyes to see the photograph clearly, a picture of a happy young family in matching holiday sweaters. “It was from that Christmas when we got the kittens. You were a baby.”
“I was so cute, even if I do say so myself. Look at that happy face.” Johanna leaned in to marvel at the faces, captured in smiles, frozen in time when Mom was young and beautiful. “This is the way I always remember her. With her hair in soft curls, her wide smile like Julia Roberts’s, her joy just beaming out of her.”
“Look at Meg as a toddler.” She held the old picture with care, studying the two-year-old with big doe eyes standing alongside the little six-year-old she herself had been.
“Oh, look at Sara Beth and her thick beautiful hair. Adorable.” Johanna caught a tear before it could fall. “Do you ever wish you could go back and do things differently?”
“All the time.” Like not fall in love with Michael. Like not leave Mom before her final illness. Yes, life do-overs would be merciful.
“I shouldn’t have gone back to vet school after that last Christmas.” Johanna’s lovely face crinkled with misery. “I should have put my last semester on hold and stayed here with her.”
“You were in the last year of vet school.” Chelsea laid the picture carefully down on a box top. “If you hadn’t finished, it would have put you so far behind.”
“I should have been here with her.”
“I know how you feel.” Why hadn’t she seen this earlier? Maybe because Johanna was hiding her guilt the same way Chelsea was, trying to move forward but it was like an anchor holding her back. “I was in the middle of my residency. I feel the same way.”
“I can’t let it go, Chelsea. I just wish I’d known.”
She saw herself in Johanna, and really felt what Sara Beth had told her. “Neither of us knew. Remember, her oncologist said she had maybe a year to eighteen months to live after her last round of chemo. That’s what we all thought. Even believing she had all that time, I was torn, needing to continue my schooling and wanting to be home with Mom.”
“Exactly.” Johanna lowered her hands, revealing her tearstained face. “Mom used to say to me, ‘Chelsea’s sticking with her program. You stick with yours.’ I did, I was counting down the months until I could be home and help her, but then Sara Beth called saying Mom had that infection. If I’d known, I would have stayed with her. I would have—” A tear dripped off her chin. Her shoulders slumped with the weight of her regret. A regret Chelsea shared.
“But the thing is, we couldn’t have known. Only God knows the future. We all thought we had more time. We did the best we could.” A weight felt lifted off her shoulders. She wrapped her arm around Johanna, drawing her close.
“We were blessed to have her for a mom.” Johanna sighed as she gestured toward the photograph.
“Very blessed,” Chelsea agreed. “I wouldn’t trade her for anything.”
“Me, either. Thanks, Chels, I feel better.”
“Me, too.”
“Hey, I’ve figured out a gift for Dad.” Johanna’s chin wobbled.
They studied the photograph together. Dad, so happy, Mom so vibrant. Little girls, safe and sheltered and loved. Yes, Chelsea thought, it would be a perfect gift. “This was our first Christmas all together as a family.”
“Not that I remember it.”
“It was good. Christmas kittens. The squeal of three little girls when we woke up Christmas morning to see the huge pile of presents under the tree.” Chelsea didn’t know if she was laughing or crying. Maybe both. “You were blinking in Mom’s arms, trying to wake up and see what was going on, while Dad handed out presents.”
“Those times are never really gone, are they?” Johanna’s smile wobbled along with her chin.
“No, I guess not. They are still here within us.” Proof true love never died. It was up to them to carry their love for their mother into the future. “If we find a photographer to blow up this pic, we could get a cool frame.”
“And hang it over the living room fireplace,” Johanna finished. “C’mon, let’s go tell Sara Beth. I think she’ll love it.”
“You go ahead.” Chelsea handed Johanna the picture. “I’ll finish up here finding the rest of the town pieces.”
“Thanks, Chels.” Johanna clutched the photograph carefully, a great treasure, proof of love gone by and love everlasting.
Chelsea swiped the dampness from her eyes, listening to her sister’s footsteps pound away. The attic didn’t feel as empty or lonely as she pulled a ceramic church from its nest of tissue paper. Maybe heaven really was closer than you thought. Maybe it was always close to your heart.
* * *
The living room felt snug this time of night with a low fire dying in the grate, Bayley lightly snoring on his bed by the hearth and the rest of her family nearby, watching television. The drone of a legal drama murmured in the background as she finished her email to Susan and hit Send. A lot of local businesses had pledged funds for the town food bank. She and Susan planned on doing a pickup during their lunch hour tomorrow.
“Hey, Burt.” She reached over to the cat on the couch beside her. His eyes glowed in the light of her tablet computer. “Thanks for hanging out with me tonight, big guy.”
Burt purred rustily in answer, closing his eyes when she hit his favorite spot behind his right ear.
Bing, went her iPad, signaling a new email. “It’s probably from Susan.”
Burt kept on purring as she checked her screen. She blinked at the name sitting at the top of her inbox. Michael Kramer. Her fingers moved of their own accord, opening the message.
Thought you might like to see the finished product. His words marched across her screen. My dad saw me struggling with the gables and stopped to help. I think it looks pretty good.
She clicked on the attachment and a picture popped onto her screen. His house rimmed in lights looked like a Christmas card, merry and bright.
The best part is the garage, if I say so myself. She typed and hit Send, realizing she was smiling. Realizing she missed him like a physical pain.
“Hey, you’re not still working, are you?” Sara Beth waltzed around the corner, her dark hair shining in the firelight. “You have your iPad out. You are working. I know you’re not watching a movie on it.”
“I was working, now I’m emailing.” She had the sudden urge to close the picture so her sister wouldn’t see or guess the truth, but she was too late as that wily Sara Beth snatched the tablet from her.
“Wow, I thought you weren’t interested in Michael.”
“I’m sure it’s a passing thing. Here today, gone tomorrow.” She held out her hand, wanting her iPad back. “You know men and love. You’re smart not to count on them.”
“Sometimes.” Sara Beth eased onto the cushion beside Burt, handed back the iPad and scratched the cat’s head. “There are men who are dependable. Men who stick with their wives when they’re sick. Men who try their best to raise their children.”
>
“I know.” She did. She took one last glance at Michael’s house and the afternoon flooded back. The warm, comforting feeling when he took her hand to help her into the sleigh, of his iron warmth as she snuggled against his side and how right it had felt, like coming home. And especially dangerous was remembering the moments when they laughed together. Things with him came easily and had gone way too fast. “Whatever this is, I have to nip it in the bud.”
“Before you get hurt?”
“Before I fall in love with him,” she corrected. Sara Beth’s understanding meant everything. “It hasn’t happened yet.”
“So, what are you going to do? Retreat from him and throw yourself into your work, or just shoot him down kindly? Do you really think that will work?”
“Yes, and it’s the sensible thing.” The safe thing. She turned off her tablet and set it on the coffee table. “I’ve always been able to stop myself from feeling this way. This is the first time—” She bit her lip, not wanting to bring up the past.
“The first time since Nick?” Sara Beth asked gently.
Unable to speak, Chelsea nodded. She could still hear Nick’s angry words before he slammed her apartment door and walked out of her life. Do you know how hard it was to love you, Chelsea? You and your plans and your lists. God knows I’ve tried, but you’re not worth it. That’s what three years of love and trusting Nick had come to in the end. That’s where setting aside her plans had led her.
She blew out a shivery breath. Even now, his words still hurt. She knew when he said them, he was angry and hurting too, but that didn’t excuse him. She’d risked her life’s dreams for him only to have them come crashing down. He hadn’t loved her enough. What were the chances another man couldn’t either? She thought of her carefully designed future in a document on her iPad. Finish med school. Check. Finish residency. Check. Help sick kids, which was her life now. That was a fine plan, one she’d designed long ago to keep her safe.
“What if I put my heart into someone and love them with all I am, and it doesn’t work out?” she asked her sister. “I’m afraid to take the risk. Every time I have the chance at love, I stop it, right here. I nip it in the bud. But with Michael—”
