A hollow chuckle escaped Janna’s throat, but there was no humor in it. ‘Remember that when he leaves and breaks your heart all over again. That’s when you will be sorry. Sorry you ever met the guy in the first place.’ Janna left the room without another word, floating away with the blanket still draped over her shoulders, like a ghost. The overly opinionated ghost of Christmas past. And present and future, if Janna had her way.
Her older sister’s words still haunted her when Kait awoke the next morning and got ready for work. By some miracle, she didn’t hear either of the boys murmuring to themselves or showing any signs of being awake, and that meant Janna was hopefully going to get some shut-eye while the opportunity arose. With any luck, Kait could get out the door to go and open the diner this morning without having to have any more heart-to-hearts with her sister until later that night, since Janna worked the evening shift and they would essentially switch places once Kait came home. She wasn’t looking for a fight, though. Kait disliked arguing with anyone, but especially Janna. So, she did the only thing she could think of, scribbling a short but sweet note and leaving it beside the coffee pot so she would be sure to see it.
I know you don’t agree with me on this one, but have a little faith, okay? Also, Branch and I are holding a Christmas Eve dinner at Grandma Addie’s house, in her honor. You and the boys are invited. If you can’t have faith, at least have a little Christmas cheer. ’Tis the season.
Love you,
Kait
It wasn’t the most ideal way to break the ice and tell her about her impromptu Christmas Eve plans with Branch, but Kait preferred to tell her now so Janna had the bulk of the day to let the shock settle before they had to see each other face to face later on. That said, of all the people she knew, Janna could use a little Christmas cheer in her life.
She wasn’t sure if the note was a smart move or purely a cowardly one, but Kait set the pen down and left it there, anyway, locking the door behind her on her way out.
The diner was always busy first thing in the morning. It was mostly the coffee crowd, the elderly folks who dragged themselves out of bed before the sun was up and headed toward their designated meeting place to partake in their favorite pastime: Sharing all the news and gossip from the day before, then speculating and embellishing the stories bit by bit to make the plotlines more intriguing. For a small town that relied on routine and boasted a serene atmosphere, Port Landon sure had a lot of small-town soap operas going on if you were talking to the right person.
During the week, however, only a handful of people came in for breakfast. Kait and her coworker, Eve, handled the crowd with ease. As long as there was a pot of coffee brewed and ready to be poured, folks were pretty laid-back as they waited for their food to arrive.
Laid-back was the opposite of what Zach was when the bell above the door announced his arrival and he crossed the restaurant to take up residence at his usual stool near the front counter.
‘Morning,’ Kait greeted him, grinning as she slid a mug in his direction. ‘Coffee?’ She already knew the answer. Just another routine in the long line of them that made up her daily life.
‘Is he staying?’
Kait frowned and she finally paid attention to her friend’s expression. As he shuffled out of his coat, Zach’s jaw was tight, his movements jerky as he tossed his jacket onto the stool beside him, his features set into a permanent glower. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Branch.’ He spat the name out as though it left a foul taste in his mouth. ‘What’s he doing setting up a bunch of light-up snowmen on the front porch of Addie’s house if he’s leaving in three weeks?’
The realization that Zach was counting down the days until Branch’s departure would have rubbed her the wrong way if Kait hadn’t been so ecstatic to find out that Branch was out in the early morning sun tending to some of the outdoor Christmas decorations.
Branch was serious. He hadn’t woken up this morning and changed his mind about their plans for Christmas Eve. He was really going to take on Grandma Addie’s festive tradition. With her.
‘Why are you grinning like a fool, Kait?’
She laughed, then. ‘Because I can just imagine Branch out there in the snow, wrestling with a four-foot snowman.’ She shook her head, wondering what kinds of colorful language he was muttering right about now. ‘We made plans,’ she explained, wiping down the counter so she wouldn’t have to look Zach in the eye. ‘We’re going to host a Christmas Eve dinner in Grandma Addie’s honor. So, Branch must be getting started on the decorating.’
Hands pressed against the counter, Zach stared at her, disbelieving. ‘I can’t possibly have heard you right.’
‘It’s a tribute to Addie, Zach. The whole town could use a little festive cheer … you included.’ Her mouth quirked up. ‘Branch is still only here till the end of the month. That hasn’t changed.’
‘Not yet,’ he replied.
She slammed her fist down hard on the counter between them, but the thump of it was muted by the cloth in her hand. ‘Why is everyone so determined to give me a hard time about spending time with Branch?’ she hissed. Between Zach and Janna, Kait was sick of hearing about all the bad choices she had made as a teenager, and all the wrong choices they seemed to believe she was destined to repeat once more.
‘Because we haven’t forgotten,’ he said. ‘We know what kind of hold he has on you.’ Zach’s voice was soft, his gaze pleading with her to understand. ‘And I don’t think eleven years has changed that fact one bit.’ He attempted to cover her hand with his, but Kait ripped it out of his reach.
There might have been some truth to his words, but Kait hadn’t forgotten, either. She remembered everything, even the things she wished she didn’t. But both Zach and Janna, two people who seemed incapable of forgiving or forgetting, were forgetting one crucial thing.
Kait wasn’t a teenager anymore. Sure, she couldn’t deny that her desire to be near Branch stemmed from feelings his arrival had awakened, emotions she had once thought were dormant for good. But Kait could keep those emotions in check now. She wasn’t going to fall head over heels for him the way her teenage counterpart had. Naive, starry-eyed Kait Davenport had left along with Branch when he sprinted for that town limit sign at her command.
‘This isn’t about what I feel for Branch.’ It took everything she had to put forth that sentence, even and confident.
Zach sighed, pushing his coffee mug away, untouched. ‘Which proves my point perfectly.’
‘How?’ she asked, exasperated.
Zach stood, reaching for his coat. ‘You just said feel, Kait. Present tense.’
She opened her mouth but no sound came out. ‘That’s not what I—’
‘I know you’re bound and determined to forget that night, Kait, but you do you remember it, don’t you?’ Zach paused, his fingers clutching the zippered edge of his jacket.
‘I know what he did to you,’ Kait sighed, defeated. She would never forget that as long as she lived. ‘I remember what happened, Zach.’
‘I’m talking about what he did to you,’ he replied. ‘I caught him in his truck with Holly Raynard, remember? Right before …’ He let the sentence trail off, but Kait was well aware what came next. Kait hadn’t attended the house party being held in celebration of their upcoming graduation, but Branch did. So did Zach. All Kait could think now was that if neither of them had attended that godforsaken party, then none of this would ever have happened. Zach wouldn’t have been injured, Branch wouldn’t have—
No. She couldn’t think about that. To this day, she had barely mentioned Branch’s infidelity that night, and only to Janna and Zach. She never spoke of it to Branch’s face beyond the moment she found out, and never said the words out loud. Not then, and definitely not now. Because the what ifs were potent and venomous, and every time Kait wound up down that caustic rabbit hole, she wound up angry and hurt all over again. Zach had informed her exactly what happened that night: he caught Branch with some girl Kait barely rem
embered from high school, and when Zach called him on it, jealousy reigned, and Zach paid the price. Branch knew what he had done. He didn’t need Kait to throw it in his face.
‘Kait, this isn’t about the fact that Branch hit me.’ Zach’s voice pierced her thoughts and she struggled to focus on him. ‘It’s about the reason he did it,’ he added. ‘You.’
The air suddenly seemed thinner and inadequate in her lungs.
‘There was a time when Branch Sterling would do anything for you,’ he continued solemnly. ‘Something tells me that hasn’t changed. My question to you is, how far would you go for him?’
Zach didn’t wait for an answer, tossing a couple of dollar bills on the counter and walking back out into the wintry morning light.
Chapter 10
Branch
Branch was stuck in his own version of Christmas hell.
When he and Kait made their pact the night before, his first thought was that his bittersweet memories of the holiday shenanigans Grandma Addie was so well known for would be his own undoing. As he balanced on the middle rung of the ladder, tangled up in extension cords and growing more frustrated by the second that the hooks on the outdoor lights kept snapping off between his fingers, Branch realized that this, right here, was going to be what truly pushed him over the edge.
Yet, he pressed on. Up and down the ladder he climbed, digging through the boxes to find spare hooks, attaching each light meticulously under the eaves trough, perfectly spaced and even.
It needed to be just right. Branch had never been one to believe in perfection, but he was striving for it every step of the way when it came to the decorations. Grandma Addie had never settled for anything less; she’d spend hours putting together the perfect Christmas centerpiece on the entryway table, moving pinecones and poinsettias this way and that until she was undeniably content with it, something Branch would have thrown together in only a few minutes or not done at all.
But this year, he was doing it. All of it. Anyone who had been to the house during the holidays knew the care and effort that went into the decorating of each of the main rooms as well as the over-the-top scene of decorations that cloaked the exterior of the house in holiday harmony. Every year as long as Branch could remember, his grandmother had decked the halls of the inside and outside of her home with the same festive fervor, and he remembered exactly where each ornament and decoration was supposed to be. Everything had a place, and it was etched into his mind so deeply there was no way he could forget. He would put everything in its rightful place, just as she would have. No blinking or burned out bulbs, no broken hooks, no half-hearted attempts, and no—
Branch’s foot slipped and he grappled wildly for the ladder, clutching it like a lifeline. In the process, he tugged on the string of multi-colored lights still tangled between his gloved fingers. With a dramatic domino effect, the first half of the lights that had already been strung up under the eave came snapping off one by one, pop, pop, pop, landing unceremoniously in the snowbank below.
‘Sterling, are you trying to break your neck, Christmas-style?’
In his distress, Branch had failed to hear Jason’s Dodge rumble into the driveway. The man was jogging awkwardly through the deep snow in the front yard when he turned to face him, fending off the long list of curse words he struggled to swallow down. All that work, all the acrobatics he had pulled off in the process of getting those lights up, down the drain.
‘What I was trying to do was make a little leeway, but breaking my neck might be more feasible at this point.’ He threw down the cord still clutched in his glove and descended the ladder. ‘Not working today?’
Plucking the strings of lights from the snow with his bare fingers, Jason began to re-coil it around his elbow and palm. ‘Dad isn’t feeling well, and he needed someone to take Mom to one of her specialist appointments in the city.’
‘Is there anyone to pick up the slack at the garage while you’re away?’
His friend shrugged. ‘Benji Carson works as a mechanic alongside me, remember him? But he’s only part-time, and I’ve got a high school student as a helper for us both. Benji wasn’t scheduled today, and he wasn’t able to come in on short notice, so I had to cancel my appointments for the day. People were pretty good about it, though. Folks know I’m short-staffed, and that my family comes first.’
It wasn’t fair, but his comment hit Branch square in the chest. Family comes first. Idly, he wondered what came first when someone had no family left. Someone like himself.
‘Sounds like you need a hand,’ he replied, taking the coiled lights from Jason when he offered them.
‘Yeah, well it looks like you need one, too,’ he chuckled, squinting in the sunlight as he glanced around at the pile of lawn ornaments near the front door, waiting to be set up. ‘What in the world are you doing? If you got a side hustle as Santa’s elf, you’re pretty miserable at it.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Branch side-eyed the trio of large plastic snowmen perched on the front step, plugged into a timer and ready to illuminate brightly come dusk. They had been so easy to maneuver into place and get set up. Too easy. In hindsight, it had been the calm before the storm, giving him just enough confidence to think he could handle this on his own. Discarding the string of lights over the front railing to deal with later, that confidence was dwindling fast. ‘I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew, Jay.’
‘You?’ Even with his oil-smudged hat on, Jason’s eyebrows arched high on his forehead. ‘Can’t imagine,’ he smirked. ‘Enlighten me. Just what have you gotten yourself into this time?’
Inwardly, Branch cringed. Jason was right; it was so like him to take on something over the top and think he could deal with it by himself. He levelled his friend with a neutral stare. ‘I’ve decided to hold Christmas Eve here,’ he said. ‘Like Grandma Addie would have done if she was still around.’
‘No way.’ Jason’s eyes rounded, but the wide smile that spread across his face was practically childlike. There was no one who didn’t understand the magic of his grandmother’s Christmas Eve tradition. ‘Dude, that’s great. What made you decide to do that?’
Branch cleared his throat. ‘I, um, made a pact with Kait.’
Instantly, Jason’s eyes narrowed. ‘Kait?’ He crossed his arms, unable to hide his amusement. ‘I should’ve known. Oh, this should be good. And what pact would that be?’
‘I agreed to hold the shindig, but only if she and I did it together.’
Jason wasted no time in buckling over, laughing loudly and proudly. It wasn’t quite the reaction Branch expected, but he waited him out, anyway, choosing to dig through the cardboard box on the front step for more plastic hooks to pass the time.
‘You suckered her into spending more time with you,’ Jason snickered once he had mostly recovered.
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say I suckered her into it,’ Branch replied curtly. ‘It didn’t take much persuasion, really.’
‘Of course it didn’t.’ Jason reached for the Christmas lights he had slung over the railing, pointing toward the ladder. When Branch didn’t respond, neither moving nor looking like he understood the English language, Jason shook his head. ‘You do realize she still loves you, right?’ Then, he held up his hand. ‘Wait, maybe asking if you realize you still love her is the better question.’
Glaring at Jason, he bypassed him, his pockets full of more hooks, trudging through the snow to move the ladder back into position near the corner of the house before stepping up the rungs. ‘Trust me, I know I still love her. I don’t think I would have offered to do this if I didn’t.’
‘So, you’re past the denial stage. That’s a start.’ The corners of Jason’s mouth curled up. He held the string of lights while Branch, one by one, began to hook them underneath the eave again. It was so much easier to get them into place without gravity pulling the unhooked part of the cord downward while he wrestled to keep his balance and the lights in check. It was also easier with another set of
hands, he had to admit. ‘You’re doing this for Kait, then, is that the deal?’
Branch sighed, letting his arms fall to his sides. ‘I’m starting to believe she’s the only reason I’ve ever done anything in my entire life, to be honest.’ One look down at the scrutinizing expression of his friend, with his cold hands and calculating gaze, had Branch raising his hands above his head again, getting back to work while he confided the things he hadn’t dared to utter before now. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I want to hold Christmas Eve for Grandma Addie. She deserves that. But there ain’t a person in Port Landon who could fill the shoes of that woman, least of all me.’ He paused, letting out a long breath to ease the pressure building in his chest. ‘But I thought maybe if Kaitie and I did it together, not only would she realize there’s still something there between us, maybe we would have half a chance of doing Grandma Addie proud.’
‘Sterling, there’s not a damn thing you could do that Addie wouldn’t have been proud of you for.’ He fed a few more feet of the lights upward to him. ‘All she ever did was go on and on about your fancy job and how good you’ve done for yourself.’
‘Good Lord, it’s not a fancy job,’ Branch bit out, stretching out his arm to hook another light into place. ‘I work at a mining site, for God sake.’
‘You’re missing the point.’ Jason chuckled. ‘Or, maybe that’s my point exactly. Your grandmother saw your job as something to be proud of, even if you don’t. You’re practically thirty, yet you could’ve colored her a picture and she would have tacked it up on the refrigerator.’
The Winter Berry House Page 9
