The Winter Berry House

by Caroline Flynn

  God, he missed them. The two people who took him in when he had no one else, and who believed in him and his abilities regardless of his aptitude or belief in himself.

  Letting out a heavy sigh, Branch forced himself to kill the engine and get out. He couldn’t sit in the driveway and hide forever. Besides, this was Port Landon. The SUV had been in Grandma Addie’s driveway for only a few minutes, but the ever-watching eyes of the neighbors would have seen it by now. If people didn’t already know he was back in town, which he highly doubted, they would soon enough. Nothing and no one went unnoticed in a small town. Or unspeculated. Or un-gossiped. Those weren’t real words, but they were very real things within the town limits of this place.

  Branch didn’t bother locking the Escape. He hadn’t been here since Grandma Addie’s funeral the year before, and even then he’d only stayed a handful of days, but he doubted things had changed so much that folks had to lock up their vehicles and homes in broad daylight.

  One glance at the old Ford Bronco in the driveway and he was glad he had chosen to rent a car instead of taking a gamble on his grandparents’ vehicles. The Bronco was Grandpa Duke’s, and though he had passed away three years before Branch’s grandmother, the old vehicle hadn’t moved since the day he went into the hospital and didn’t come home. Grandma Addie never touched it, and she certainly wouldn’t sell it. She couldn’t. It wasn’t hers to sell, she said. And his grandfather had been adamant to anyone who’d listen about who’s Bronco it was. It was to be Branch’s should anything ever happen to him.

  Along with everything else, it turned out.

  His grandparents’ only child was Branch’s mother, Lucinda, and when she died alongside Branch’s father in a car accident when Branch was only eleven, they lost not only their immediate family, but the rightful heir to all the assets they’d accumulated throughout their lives. Which left Branch, the kid who inherited it after they had inherited him all those years ago.

  And now, as he stared up at the looming Victorian home he had grown up in from the tender age of eleven onward, the house that had held so much warmth and comfort and unconditional love, Branch knew he would give it all up in a heartbeat if it meant he could have one more day with the man and woman who made him into the man he’d come to be.

  On paper, Grandma Addie’s estate had been dealt with a year ago. Branch could have requested time away from work and taken the time to sort through their house and belongings then. There was no reason why it couldn’t have been dealt with by now.

  No reason except that it wasn’t just a bunch of tangible belongings to him. Just like Port Landon wasn’t just a town. His grandparents’ home had been his home, and everything in it was a painful reminder of what, and who, he was never going to get back. He didn’t care about the monetary value of any of it. That just wasn’t who he was, or how he was raised. He’d never required a lot of money to survive, and his job in a fly-in, fly-out remote location in Northern Alberta as a mechanical engineer gave him what he needed. Besides, his grandparents made sure he wasn’t somebody who saw money as a measure of success.

  Branch didn’t want money, he wanted his family. He wanted the life he’d dreamed of right here in this house when he was a teenager, back when he thought the universe cared at all about his hopes and dreams. At the time, he didn’t think he was asking for much: a good job, a family he could support and be supported by, and a love that made the movies of Hollywood pale in comparison. At eighteen years old, he thought he was on course to have exactly that.

  Then, it was all ripped from his grasp.

  So, when he passed the Port Landon town limit sign, he didn’t look back.

  Until now.

  More than ten years ago, Branch had left the only home he’d ever really known, and now he was back. He was back, and that home was his. It was the only thing he had left.

  Unlocking the front door and stepping over the threshold, he didn’t know how he was going to do it. Sort through the six decades’ worth of stuff inside his grandparents’ home. Deal with the prying eyes of everyone who passed by and offered him a fleeting glance. Most of all, he had no idea how he was going to face all the emotions and memories he had tried so hard to outrun. He had run full circle, ending up exactly where it all began.

  And ended.

  Somehow, Branch knew the house would be the same as the Bronco in the driveway – untouched and exactly the way he remembered it save for signs of wear and elapsed time. Grandma Addie had always been an advocate for change, and welcomed it when it came, but she had never seen the need to change something unnecessarily. Therefore, though the lights all worked and the furnishings were well maintained, most things inside the sprawling Victorian home were either antique or blatantly outdated.

  As soon as he kicked off his work boots and began to dawdle slowly from one room to the next, he didn’t see it so much as felt it – the familiarity, the solace … the feeling of home. The same rush of relief spread through him that he’d felt the moment he drove into town, passing the town limit sign at a crawl. Branch might not have wanted Port Landon to be his home, but he couldn’t seem to tell his heart otherwise.

  What was he going to do with this place? A thick coating of dust covered everything and there were spiderwebs strung about the corners of each room. Even the spiderwebs had dust on them. Grandma Addie would have had a conniption fit.

  Thinking of her, with her easy manner and constant puttering around this big old place, caused a violent clenching in Branch’s chest. It was impossible to be here and not think of her. He had made sure to call her and check on her regularly, but Branch knew his absence had been hard on his grandmother. It had been his choice, and she never once reprimanded him for it, but he knew that Grandma Addie would have done anything to have him home more permanently. He visited as much as his work schedule allowed, sporadic visits that mostly consisted of late-night arrivals, remaining hidden inside the sanctuary of 14 Crescent Street, and disappearing again like a thief in the night the day before he was due back at work. Usually, his visits were unplanned and spontaneous; anytime he thought he heard even a hint of longing in Grandma Addie’s voice – a hint of longing that matched his own. But there was one visit a year that was always guaranteed.

  Christmas.

  This house had held so many massive holiday dinners that Branch had lost count. His grandparents went all-out, with Grandma Addie spearheading the huge orchestrated event. It was never simply a meal around the dining room table for a few friends and family members. Oh no, that wasn’t enough for his grandmother. Instead, there had always been an open invitation on Christmas Eve, and anyone who was around, available, with their own families or without, were welcomed to fill up the home and enjoy more homemade food, fun, and togetherness than they’d witnessed in the other three-hundred and sixty-four days of the year combined. As an adult, he had missed the Christmas Eve extravaganza every year, using work as an excuse for his late arrival long after the guests had retreated home. But as a child, he had helped his grandparents with the decorating. It took weeks to transform every room into a festive backdrop, but they’d done it. Every year, without fail.

  Until last year, when his grandmother was stricken with chest pain. She’d called her next-door neighbor, who then called the ambulance once he arrived and called Branch from the hospital. Eighteen hours later, Grandma Addie passed away in her hospital room, with that neighbor by her bedside.

  Four hours after that, Branch made it to the hospital, but he was too late to say goodbye. He wasn’t sure he would ever forgive himself for that.

  Standing here now, knowing she was gone and she wasn’t coming back, Branch didn’t know how he was going to stand being in this house, in this town, without her. Losing Grandpa Duke had been hard enough three years ago, but at least Branch and his grandmother had each other to help themselves through it. In theory, anyway. Branch had stayed as long as he could then, as well, ultimately hightailing it back to the airport in Detroit to escape his
grief and occupy himself with his career. Branch realized now that he’d left Grandma Addie to pick up the pieces of her heartbreak then just as she was leaving him to do now.

  It was merely another item to add to the list of reasons he felt so guilty.

  He could have stayed in Port Landon, helped both of his grandparents more as they aged, been there for them as they’d been there for him for so many years. Instead, he’d thrown himself into a job that couldn’t have been further away from home. It was the easy way out, the coward’s way out. Purely because the town that had welcomed him with open arms in the wake of his parents’ tragedy had chosen to turn its back on him. Because he’d made mistakes he would never be forgiven for.

  Even as Branch thought it, he knew it wasn’t the entire truth. At eighteen, he hadn’t cared at all what everyone in Port Landon thought of him. He didn’t much care now, either, honestly. Sure, his grandparents’ opinion mattered, and he strived to make them proud – God, he hoped he had – but there was only one other person in this town whose opinion of him had mattered back then.

  And she had given him no room to misread what that opinion was when she told him she hated him and didn’t ever want to see him again.

  Kait.

  It had been more than ten years. They had just been kids back then. But they had known love. Known it, felt it, become fevered by the all-consuming nature of it. And they had lost it amongst the destruction of his mistakes and the rumors his actions had flooded the town with.

  Shaking his head, Branch moved back out to the front door where he had entered. He couldn’t think about that catastrophe, especially not on the heels of the guilt he carried about his grandmother. His failure to be the man that Kait Davenport deserved on top of the disappointment he undoubtedly caused his grandparents was too much to bear separately. Rehashing both of those shortcomings together … the weight of his guilt would drown him, for sure.

  He shoved his work boots back on and headed back out to the driveway to collect his luggage from the Escape. Branch just needed to make it through December. By then, he would have his grandparents’ house sorted and cleaned, and he would have made a decision as to what to do with it before he left Port Landon. For good. He would have no reason to ever set foot in the small town again after that.

  Thirty-one days. Surely he could manage to get through one month without causing anyone here any more trouble.

  As quickly as the thought entered his mind, it was thwarted by a simple reality. He was pretty sure his presence alone would be enough to cause a boatload of trouble in this neighborhood. Not even a decade could change that.

  Chapter 3

  Kait

  Kait was exhausted, and it wasn’t just from the six shifts she had worked in a row – which were definitely contributing to her burning eyes that yearned to close for a solid ten hours or so and the sluggish heaviness of her limbs that she figured had to be obvious in the way she dragged herself along from table to table instead of effortlessly bouncing from one to the next the way she normally did. No, it was also because she’d had to defend herself from the constant mention of Branch’s name since yesterday. Arnold’s faux pas had only been the beginning.

  To Port Landon’s credit, no one was cruel enough to talk about her ex-boyfriend’s arrival to her face. On second thoughts, maybe it had nothing to do with social graces and everything to do with the whole lot of them being plain and simple cowards.

  Because everyone was talking about Branch Sterling. At least, they were until Kait showed up. Every patron of the diner seemed to get suspiciously quiet each time she approached their table or booth, staring up into her pale jade eyes with a wide, you-caught-me expression.

  She heard the whispers, the incessant buzz of gossip and chatter. It was like she had screamed at Branch only yesterday while standing in that hospital hallway, the way folks were chattering on about it. You would have thought the eleven years that had passed since were a figment of her imagination, or that their small town had come to a group decision that Kait couldn’t handle what had happened all those years ago.

  Well, maybe no one else had got over their scandalous breakup, but she sure had. More than a decade had passed, and it’d passed by without the likes of Branch Sterling in it. He might have shattered her heart into a million pieces, and a friend might have been badly injured in the process, but Kait wasn’t the same woman she was at eighteen. Her eyes were wide open now, and she didn’t need Branch to be happy. She didn’t need him then, despite what she’d naively thought, and she sure didn’t need him now.

  Branch Sterling was her past. Just because the folks around here didn’t want to focus on the future didn’t mean she had to follow suit.

  Kait was thankful Janna wasn’t working alongside her today. They rarely worked together, as their boss was good about scheduling them on opposite shifts as much as possible in order to keep childcare costs down, but sometimes it just wasn’t possible to avoid an overlap in their work schedules. Yesterday had been the first time in months she and her sister had been paired up to take on the lunch rush. After eight constant hours of Janna’s perfectionism and overbearing demeanor, Kait felt a little guilty at how relieved she was to know it would undoubtedly be a while before the schedule called for them to work together again. Lunchtime hadn’t been as busy as expected, though, and the two women had managed to get the Christmas tree and two big boxes of decorations out of the storage room. Janna, always the one to plan and organize everything to death, had sorted the decorations into countless piles, deciding in a meticulous fashion which decorations would go where. Kait knew better than to question her reasoning. That’s why she focused on getting the ratty-looking artificial pine tree up, sticking its bent wire branches into the rickety wooden base. She half expected the poor thing to collapse the moment she started stringing garland and lights on it.

  It didn’t, however, and the vintage tree was still standing tall today while she carefully hung a mismatched collection of ornaments on the branches. With only a few tables to serve and the lunch crowd now come and gone, Kait welcomed the change of pace. Janna would have had a fit if she’d seen her choosing ornaments and hanging them without a concrete color scheme or well-thought-out plan, but Kait didn’t operate like her sister did. Okay, so she would have chosen a color scheme and planned her ornamental execution a little more thoroughly if there had been a choice of ornaments that allowed for such luxuries, and if she didn’t have to stop what she was doing each time the bell above the door rang out. Besides, it was Christmas decorating, not choosing a seven-course meal for the Queen.

  Kait had always been the more impractical of the two. Always the one to use her heart more than her head. As she plucked a faded plastic nutcracker from the cardboard box and looped it onto one of the branches, she could barely contain an indignant snort.

  Follow your heart, they said. She’d had that phrase engrained in her by every adult she knew since she was a little girl. And look where that had got her. Still working in the same diner she’d managed to get a part-time job at back in high school, still joined at the hip with her older sister, still fending off the same unwanted affections from a friend she’d never deserved, and still wishing things had been different. She liked her job, and loved her sister and Port Landon more than words could say; she would never contest that. But Kait wished she had made different choices, with her head and not her heart. Wished that she was maybe just a bit more like Janna and that she had never met—

  ‘Branch.’

  She had been scanning the room sporadically, making sure the two tables she was still serving – a booth near the front door and a table beside the window across the room – didn’t need her assistance. As she raised her gaze, the door swung open, the bell above it ringing sharply to announce the new patron’s arrival.

  Kait was convinced she knew it was him before she consciously recognized him. Like something inside her felt his presence before her mind fully registered it. But if it wasn’t her mind tha
t recognized him first, that only left …

  Damn you, heart.

  If Branch had expected to see her, he was a really good actor. Kait, however, knew him well enough to know he never could master the art of a poker face. He had never been a good liar. At least, she hadn’t thought so until she discovered the massive lies he’d managed to keep from her. She didn’t know what to think anymore.

  Unfortunately, the only thing she could think about clearly at the moment was that Branch Sterling looked even more handsome than she remembered. He seemed taller, somehow, although it could have just been the way the sun’s rays were bursting through the windows, highlighting his lanky outline and making the contours of his jaw more pronounced. His jacket was thick to block out the frigid winter cold, his boots bulky and tucked under a pair of faded Levi’s. Dark curls of unruly hair peeked out from under a Lakers cap, and the beak of it cast a shadow across his dark eyes, deepening the hue from a chestnut brown to an undeniable espresso.

  And those eyes were trained on her, unblinking. Round and haunted, as though he was seeing a ghost.

  Kait didn’t think she looked anything like her teenage self, but she also didn’t doubt it would be a shock to see her, here, in the same uniform that hadn’t changed since the beginning of time. Her straw-colored hair was longer than she had worn it back then, but not much else had changed. She still pulled it back into a tight ponytail while at work, still refrained from wearing much in the way of makeup, and still knew the value of sturdy, although bland, footwear. She might be older, but there was enough resemblance remaining that she didn’t blame Branch for staring the way he was.

  She suddenly realized she was standing there, hand suspended in mid-air, about to place an ornament on a Christmas tree she had forgotten existed. It was about the same time she noticed that a few people in the diner were staring, too.