A Bramble House Christmas (Carrigans of the Circle C Book 6)

by CJ Carmichael

  “Sure!” Scout played Santa, reading the labels on the wrapped gifts, then handing them out to the appropriate people. Willa had chosen books for Marshall and Eliza, since she knew they both enjoyed reading. But for Mable, she’d had to think a little harder, eventually selecting a vintage tin of her favorite Darjeeling tea.

  “This is...perfect. Thank you, dear.”

  They were the nicest words Willa had heard the woman say during their entire visit. “You’re welcome.”

  Next Scout opened his gifts, exclaiming over the Lego set that Marshall and Eliza had purchased, and politely thanking Mable for the socks. He was thrilled with his new Everyday Sam book, of course. But when he opened his skates, he actually whooped. “Can we go skating right now, Mom?”

  “I have a few more gifts to open, honey. And we still need to get dressed.”

  From Marshall and Eliza, Willa received a print of a local artist’s rendering of Copper Mountain. “It’s lovely. Thank you so much.”

  “It was meant to remind you of your time spent in Marietta,” Eliza said, her kind eyes uncertain.

  “Scout and I have had a wonderful Christmas here,” she assured the other woman. “This is the perfect gift.”

  “Wait ’til you open mine, Mom!” Scout pulled out a package he had clearly wrapped himself, about the size of a small magazine.

  Inside, however, was a home-made book. On the cover was a little boy wearing a cape and standing victorious on a hospital bed. The title was written in bold red letters, Everyday Sam Beats Cancer. Below the title and the picture the author was listed as Scout Fairchild. In much smaller letters, at the very bottom of the cover, Illustrated by Finn Knightly.

  “I wrote a book for you, Mom! Finn helped me. And he drew the pictures, too.”

  “Oh, Scout.” Willa’s throat threatened to close right over. She gave her son a tight hug, then kissed his cheek. “I’m so proud...of you.”

  She couldn’t say more than that without crying. Instead she held out the book to him.

  “Want me to read it to you?”

  She nodded.

  The story was a simple one. A little boy finds out he has cancer. His daddy goes away. His mommy stays. He is sick a long time. His friends are scared to play with him. He gets better. He becomes an NHL hockey player.

  As Scout read, Willa could feel the emotion building in the room. Mable, Eliza, Marshall. None of them had known Scout’s story until this moment, when he used his six-year-old words to tell it.

  “The end,” Scout pronounced proudly, unaware of the huge revelation he’d just made to the others in the room.

  Mable was the first to speak. “My dear boy. That is a wonderful book.”

  “You’re very talented, Scout,” Eliza concurred, giving him a hug.

  Even Marshall’s eyes were tearing up. “That Sam sure is a brave kid.”

  “And a good hockey player, too,” Scout said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Finn didn’t return to the B&B until after lunch, when he was sure Willa and Scout would be at the lake skating. Christmas carols were playing softly from a speaker in the sitting room. The fire was burning and Ace was in his usual sleeping spot.

  He went upstairs to get his laptop. The doors to the White and Red rooms were open, so he could see the beds had been stripped of their linens. He paused for a moment at Willa and Scout’s closed door. All seemed quiet inside. They must be out skating as he’d guessed.

  The guilt and regret that had kept him awake all night threatened to drown him again. He’d been such an idiot. And why? He had no decent excuse, not even for himself.

  Once he had the laptop he went downstairs and found Eliza in the kitchen, chopping up leftover vegetables for her daily batch of homemade soup.

  She set down her knife when she heard him come in. “Finally! What in the world happened between you and Willa last night? She looked almost as miserable this morning as you do.”

  Finn knew he looked rough. He hadn’t slept. Hadn’t shaved. And hadn’t eaten, other than the coffee he’d overdosed on at the Graff that morning. He sat on a stool on the other side of the butcher block counter. Then he took the envelope from North West DNA Labs from his jeans pocket and slid it over to her.

  Eliza looked at it warily. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “The results of our DNA test.”

  “And?”

  The letter was unsealed. He’d read it this morning. “According to the kinship index, there is a very high probability you and I are related.” His voice sounded devoid of animation, which struck him as odd. Because this was pretty major shit. By all rights, he ought to care.

  “We are? That’s—incredible.” Eliza opened the envelope and read the results for herself. Then she shook her head. “You were right. Who would have guessed? I mean, what are the odds?”

  “Better than you think,” Finn confessed. “I didn’t come totally clean with you the other day.”

  “Oh, boy. Something tells me I’d better sit down for this.”

  “That’s probably wise.”

  “Does this have anything to do with Willa?”

  “It does.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “It also involves my sisters, Molly, Keelin and Berneen. Do you mind if I Skype them in? I’d rather just go through this once.”

  Eliza put a hand to her hair, which was pulled back into a ponytail.

  “You look great,” he assured her. And she did. If you discounted the silly sweater she was wearing.

  “I wish I could say the same for you.”

  “Frankly, I couldn’t care less how I look.” He set his laptop sideways on the counter so both he and Eliza would show up on the camera. Earlier he’d told his sisters he wanted to talk to them without their mother. They were all gathered at Molly’s place right now. Their mom was at her sister Betty’s for a few hours and Charlie had taken the kids to the park to blow off some steam.

  Within sixty seconds they were connected. His sisters were sitting on Molly’s family room couch, with Molly in the middle holding the laptop and the other two leaning in.

  “Finn? What the hell happened to you?” Berneen was the first one to talk.

  “Merry Christmas to you, too,” Finn answered, trying not to feel cross. “Keelin, Molly and Berneen, this is Eliza McKenzie. She and her husband run the B&B where I’ve been staying the past three weeks.”

  There was a jumble of conversation while everyone said hello at the same time.

  “Okay,” Finn interrupted. “If everyone will be quiet for a few minutes, I have some major explaining to do. First, to Eliza. I booked in here using the nom de plume I use as an illustrator, Finn Knightly. But legally I’m Greg Finnegan Conrad.”

  Eliza looked at him blankly. “Why did you do that?”

  “Because Willa Fairchild would have recognized my legal name. The patient who gave her the ring that looks like your great-grandmother’s? He was my father, Greg Conrad.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense.” Eliza glanced from him to his sisters. All three of them were looking rather sheepish.

  “We thought Willa had somehow tricked our father into leaving her that ring—as well as a lot of money,” Molly explained. “We didn’t know he felt sorry for her because her son had been through leukemia treatments and left her heavily in debt.”

  “We only found out this morning that Scout had been sick.” Eliza turned to Finn and frowned. “So you came here because you thought Willa swindled your father?”

  “Something like that,” he admitted. “Of course as soon as I got to know her I realized she wasn’t that sort of person. But it was too late to tell her my real name by then. She would have been furious. And I—didn’t think I could handle that.”

  “Oh, my God,” Molly said. “You’ve fallen in love with her.”

  Finn didn’t deny it. “Doesn’t matter. She hates my guts now.”

  “Well, who could blame her,” Eliza muttered. “I’m sorry, Finn, but serious
ly. How could you?”

  “Don’t blame Finn too much,” Keelin said. “Our mother pushed him pretty hard on this.”

  “As did the three of us,” Molly added. “Or at least Berneen and I did. We were pretty shocked that our father would leave so much money to someone he’d only known six weeks.”

  “I guess that must have seemed odd,” Eliza agreed.

  “We could have handled the situation a lot smarter. But it’s too late now. What we do need to discuss though is what I’ve learned about Dad’s ring. It turns out it was one of four designed for Henry Bramble back in the early nineteen hundreds.”

  “How did Dad end up with it?” Berneen asked.

  “Impossible to say for sure. But my guess is that Grandma Judith had an affair with Henry’s great-grandson, Steven Bramble, and our father was the result of that affair.”

  “So,” Eliza continued with his logic, “You believe Steven gave Judith the ring? And that she then gave it to your father?”

  “That’s right. Maybe in his mind it made up for the fact he wouldn’t marry her. Judith must have given Dad the ring when he got married so he could give it to Mom. But she didn’t like it and never wore it. Either because it had come to hold too many unhappy memories, or maybe because he couldn’t decide which of his daughters to give it to, Dad then gave it to his nurse.”

  “He sure was fond of her.”

  “She was nice to him. She spent hours talking to him when he was in pain and couldn’t sleep. Plus he felt sorry for her. Willa’s had a lot to deal with.”

  “I’m so glad she was there for Dad, when none of us could be,” Molly said softly. “We have a lot to thank her for.”

  “Agreed.” Finn couldn’t say more, his emotions were too raw on that subject right now.

  He cleared his throat. “As an interesting addendum to this story, a few weeks ago Eliza and I sent samples of our saliva out for DNA testing. I wanted to confirm my hunch that our dad was a Bramble.”

  Eliza held up the papers she’d just read so his sisters could see them. “And it’s true. Your brother and I have DNA that is similar enough to suggest that we’re cousins.”

  There was a burst of overlapping comments from his sisters, who were clearly overwhelmed by the news.

  Eliza stepped in at the first pause, “I’m the self-appointed Bramble family historian, so you can imagine how exciting this is for me.”

  “A whole new branch of the family tree,” Keelin said.

  “That’s right. I’d like you all to consider this your official invite to Marietta, Montana.”

  They chatted a few minutes longer, mostly his sisters and Eliza exchanging news about each other. Then Molly’s husband and kids came home and they had to sign off.

  For a while all was quiet in the Bramble kitchen. Playing softly in the background was James Taylor’s version of Go Tell It On The Mountain.

  Eliza started drumming her fingers on the countertop. “I don’t know whether to welcome you to the family or bop your head with my wooden spoon.”

  “I’ll take the wooden spoon. I just realized that being welcomed to the family would mean Mable is my aunt, too.”

  Eliza smiled at this, then she sobered. “And to think I just published our family history. Talk about bad timing.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “I’ve already wrapped copies of my book for all my cousins for Christmas and it’s too late to buy them something else.” She sighed. “I’m just going to have to give them the books. Maybe I’ll wait until Boxing Day to tell them the book is missing some major plot twists. Unless, you want to come for Christmas and meet your new cousins?”

  He rubbed his chin, feeling the stubble. He might not be looking his best right now...but it was still a lot prettier than the way he felt inside.

  “I’d like to meet them sometime. But not this trip.”

  In the end, Finn couldn’t keep away from Willa and Scout entirely. It was mid-afternoon as he rounded the bend for the final approach to Miracle Lake. Though the sun had been shining all day, white crystals of hoarfrost still clung to the branches of the trees, making a dazzling contrast against the sapphire-blue sky.

  About twenty people were out skating, and at least that number again were standing around the bonfire sipping hot cocoas or rubbing their hands.

  It was a cheerful, colorful picture, and on instinct he reached for his Nikon. But he hadn’t brought his camera with him this time.

  It didn’t take long to spot the number nineteen Coyotes jersey he’d bought for Scout. The young boy was zipping around the ice like an old pro. The taller girl beside him—Savannah, Finn thought—seemed to be having trouble keeping up.

  A few seconds later he saw Willa doing slower laps around the lake with Sage. She wasn’t wearing the scarf he’d bought her, but she had on the skates that had been wrapped under the tree and labeled ‘To: Willa, From: Santa.’ Guess she hadn’t figured out they were from him, too, or she probably wouldn’t be wearing them either.

  Finn sat on a wooden bench close to the trees at the far south side of the lake, well apart from the crowd. He was glad to see Scout was in high spirits. He couldn’t read Willa’s mood, though. She was in an animated conversation with Sage, too engrossed to even notice him.

  Which was fine.

  He hadn’t come here to talk. He knew he had no right to ask that of her. He’d just needed to see them, to know they were having a nice Christmas. Because after all they’d been through they deserved that much.

  Eventually he’d have to find a way to convince Willa to keep his dad’s money. He couldn’t let his foolish actions unravel his father’s last act of kindness. But since the will was still in probate, he had time for that.

  Finn was standing, preparing to leave, when Scout suddenly spotted him.

  “Hey! Finn!” The little boy broke away from the crowd and skated to the other end of the lake, coming right to the edge closest to Finn. “Thanks for my sweater! How did you know Shane Doan is my favorite player?”

  “Lucky guess. Looks good on you, buddy.”

  “Did you bring your skates?”

  “No...I just wanted to say good-bye since we’re both going home tomorrow.”

  “Aren’t you coming for Christmas dinner?”

  “Uh—don’t think so sport.” When they’d made their reservation a week ago, that had been the plan. But now Finn was prepared to settle for a bowl of Eliza’s homemade soup. Maybe he’d catch a movie after that.

  Hopefully the local theater wasn’t still playing It’s a Wonderful Life. Finn didn’t think he could handle watching it ever again.

  Willa must have noticed him, because she was skating toward them now.

  Judging by her expression, she wasn’t pleased that he was here. Finn would have obliged her and left, but Scout was still talking to him.

  “Mom really liked the book we made her.”

  By now Willa was close enough to hear. “Yes. It’s a great book. Thanks for helping Scout with that.”

  The words were polite, but her tone had a frosty edge meant to put him in his place and keep him there.

  Finn swallowed. None of this was made easier by the fact that she looked fantastic. Her gorgeous chestnut hair framed her face in soft curls. And her ivory skin glowed as if she’d had the best night’s sleep of her life, which he kind of doubted.

  He took a backward step. “It was a fun project. Scout, if you ever want a break from the NHL, you can write children’s books for a living.”

  “Maybe we can be partners again,” Scout said hopefully.

  Willa went behind her son and placed her hands on his shoulders. “You better say good-bye, honey. I don’t think we’ll see Finn again before we leave.”

  In other words, she didn’t want to see him. Which was what Finn had expected.

  But hearing her say the words broke his heart, all the same.

  He turned to oblige her, and get out of her life as quickly as possible.

  Then
at the last moment he decided there was something he wanted to say. Though Scout had skated off, she was still standing there. Some of the ice had left her eyes. When she blinked, even though he was too far away to see them, he knew she had tears in her eyes.

  “I just thought you should know that the envelope you saw last night had the results of a DNA test comparing my DNA with Eliza’s. Turns out we’re cousins.”

  The news seemed to stun her. “Do you think your father knew?”

  “I wish he had. But, no, I don’t think so.”

  After a moment she nodded. “Well. Thanks for telling me that.”

  He tried like crazy to think of a way to prolong their conversation, but she was already skating away.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Christmas dinner at the beautiful historic Graff Hotel was a scrumptious six-course affair, but the fine food was wasted on Willa and Scout.

  She still had almost no appetite. And Scout was no gourmet. He eschewed the chestnut soup and roasted acorn squash salad for extra rolls and butter. And the orange and cranberry glazed Cornish game hens just puzzled him.

  “I wish we could have some of Grandma’s turkey.”

  “This is sort of like turkey. Let me cut it up for you.” But, she too suddenly found herself homesick for her mom and dad and their unvarying holiday menu—served for Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving—of turkey and mashed potatoes, sweet potato pie and broccoli cheese casserole.

  Even as she missed them, though, she did not look forward to flying home tomorrow.

  The condo in her parents’ gated community had been wonderfully practical and convenient when Scout was ill.

  But it had never felt like home. All their neighbors were over fifty and Scout’s school was a thirty minute drive away.

  There were many nice family-oriented communities in Phoenix, and now that Scout was healthy there was lots to explore in Arizona. But this town had a special aura, a vibrancy and a warmth. The people were friendly—well, except for Aunt Mable—and the surrounding ranchlands and mountains had an in-your-face beauty that continually made her catch her breath. She was even becoming a fan of winter. It certainly suited her son and his love of skating and hockey.