An Aspen Creek Christmas

by Roxanne Rustand

  “Stay where you are, so you don’t get trampled. I’ll be right back.” Hannah went through a door leading into the attached garage, leaving it open behind her.

  A moment later a river of puppies exploded into the kitchen. Black ones. White ones. Gold. Spotted and speckled. They tumbled across the floor with squeals of excitement and chased each other throughout the kitchen and living room. The basset snored on.

  Giggling, Cole dropped to the floor, quickly overcome with puppies trying to crawl over his legs. But though a glimmer of a smile briefly touched her lips, Molly held on to her aloof expression and backed away.

  Ethan winced as a white pup with a black spot over one eye careened against his bad right ankle then landed in a heap on his other foot.

  Forgetting his usual caution, he reached down and scooped it up, cradling its fat bottom in his good hand to look into its pudgy face. “Who are you, little guy?”

  “I haven’t named any of them yet,” Hannah said. “That might be a good job for Molly and Cole.”

  She glanced at Ethan’s weak ankle, where his brace probably showed beneath the hem of his jeans, and cocked her head, obviously curious but too polite to ask. But when she lifted her gaze, her attention caught on his prosthetic hand and her mouth dropped open. She quickly looked away. “I...I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry, Ethan. Are, um, you all right now?”

  Unwanted attention.

  Shallow sympathy.

  Platitudes.

  He gritted his teeth. After leaving the hospital he’d encountered those reactions at every turn and he wanted none of it.

  He knew he was fortunate to still have both legs. Fortunate to finally be walking unaided and to have a state-of-the-art prosthesis that once again made him a functional human being.

  But he still struggled with a surge of instant resentment whenever he saw pity in someone’s eyes. So many soldiers had to deal with far worse and deserved sympathy far more than he did. And all too many—some of the best friends he’d ever had—never had a chance to come home.

  He shrugged off her sentiment and surveyed the puppy pandemonium. “This is like trying to count minnows in a bucket. How many of them are there?”

  “An even dozen.” She hitched her chin toward the garage. “The mom was a stray and she was brought here just before she whelped.”

  “Quite a bonanza.”

  Hannah picked up two of the black-and-white-spotted pups and snuggled them against her neck. “Not a record litter, but more than enough. She’ll be spayed before I try to find her a good home.”

  Molly looked up at Hannah. “They all live here?”

  “Not in the house. The mom and pups have a fenced cage, heat lamp and warm bed in the garage, with a doggie door out to the fenced backyard. I bring the little guys inside for socialization several times a day and give their poor mom a break.” Hannah grinned at her. “Now that you’re here, you can help me play with them. I have more friends to show you, but that can wait until I do chores.”

  Now Molly had a half dozen of them crawling over her feet and when she crouched, they tried to lick her face. “You have even more puppies?”

  “No...not right now. But there are some other rescues in the barn.”

  The joy of the romping puppies was too infectious not to elicit a smile and Ethan found himself chuckling at their antics. “Isn’t there a humane shelter in town?”

  “On the other side of the county, but not anywhere close to Aspen Creek. So there are several of us who try to help. We have fund-raisers every year to help with food, spaying, neutering and vaccinations.”

  Two of the pups started chasing each other around the living room, skidding on the hardwood floors and braided rugs. One of them scrambled onto the sofa and scattered the stacks of paper like falling leaves in a stiff wind.

  Molly’s smile faded as she focused on the big cardboard box by the sofa. “‘Rob and Dee’s home office and health records,’” she read aloud. She turned to give Hannah an accusing look. “You’re snooping through my mom and dad’s stuff?”

  Hannah paled at her harsh tone. “I wasn’t snooping, honey. Cynthia collected all of their important papers and sent them to me. They came this morning. We’ll need your health records and other documents for when we get you set up with a doctor, dentist and the school.”

  Molly’s mouth hardened. “Well, if you think you’re gonna find money or something, good luck with that, because we didn’t have any. Sometimes Mom didn’t have enough money for the grocery store. Not even at Christmas, and that made her cry.”

  Ethan tensed, remembering all the times his brother had asked him for loans. Had things been even worse for them than Rob could admit? “I’m so sorry. If I’d known...”

  Hannah glanced up at him with a frown, then gave the children a faint smile. “You know what? I think these pups would love to run and play with you two in the backyard. Want to grab your jackets? Then after you’re done playing, I want you to meet Penelope.”

  She had the kids bundled up and the whole lot of them—exuberant puppies and kids—outside in minutes. He’d watched every move and still didn’t know quite how she’d done it with puppies running everywhere and Cole too excited to stand still.

  Cole ran around the yard with the pups, though Molly perched on a picnic table and chewed her fingernails, doing her best to look bored.

  Despite the awkward history between them and his determination to take the kids back to Texas, Ethan couldn’t help feeling a newfound appreciation for Hannah as they stood on the back deck to watch the melee. “You’re good with them.”

  “Never had any of my own, of course, but one learns.” She shrugged. “Corralling kids when armed with vaccination syringes does take some practice.”

  “You mentioned the clinic earlier. Are you a nurse?”

  “I’m a PA—physician’s assistant.”

  He blinked, surprised. “Where did you go to school?”

  “I’ve got a Masters from UW-Lacrosse. My clinical phase was at Mayo.”

  He whistled softly. “When we first met, you had a part-time job at a burger place and didn’t have a clue about your future.”

  “I always planned on college,” she said simply, keeping a close eye on Cole. “I just needed to save money first.”

  “You never married?” The question escaped before he thought it through and he’d have done anything to snatch it back.

  A long, awkward silence stretched between them.

  “No,” she said finally, angling a glance at him that could have sliced through steel. “Though I understand you did—your brother was more than happy to let me know that you’d gone on to far better things. Rapidly, in fact.”

  He felt heat crawl up his neck. After the hard life he’d led and the things he’d done for his country, he wouldn’t have imagined that he was capable of such a reaction, yet here it was—heart-stopping regret, awash with embarrassment over what a fool he’d been. But he’d paid for it, in spades.

  Janet had been one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

  “I regret a lot of things in my life. That’s one of them.”

  “I never asked Dee or Rob about you over the years. The subject was strictly off limits, and they knew it,” she said. “But since no one is here with you, I assume the marriage didn’t last.”

  “Never guess that every twenty-one-year-old guy is actually mature.” He gave a humorless laugh. “I was lonely and impetuous. Janet worked on the base and was on the rebound. Let’s just say it was not a match made in heaven. The ink was barely dry on the certificate when Janet’s ex turned up and she left me.”

  Her gaze fixed on forest beyond the backyard, Hannah didn’t answer for a long moment. “And that’s what I was, too. Just a brief fling.”

  “No.” His heart wrenched at what she belie
ved and what had been the truth. He’d dreamed of her for years afterward, regretting what he’d done. “You were the one who stole my heart and never gave it back.”

  She raised an incredulous eyebrow and snorted. “That’s not how I remember things, but it’s all in the past and I’m pretty sure we both dodged the proverbial bullet. All for the best.”

  Hannah descended the deck stairs. “Hey, kids, can you help round up these guys? C’mon, puppies—dinnertime!”

  Some of the little critters followed, others went the opposite way. One black-and-white pup industriously tugged at Cole’s shoelace, trying to wrestle it free. But in a few minutes they all disappeared into the garage with Cole and Hannah, where metal food dishes rattled and Cole’s laughter rose above the din.

  After Hannah retrieved the mixed-breed mom from a separate outside enclosure and took her to her brood, she stepped outside and started for a weathered-wood shed at the far end of the yard.

  It looked like a classic, hip-roofed barn the size of a double garage, with a walk door on the side and two big, sliding barn doors at one end. A wood-fenced corral enclosed a small pasture behind it and to one side there was some sort of pen surrounded with a high chain-link fence.

  “I don’t suppose anyone wants to see what I’ve got in here?” she called over her shoulder.

  Cole followed at her heels as Hannah disappeared into the shed, while Molly just hunched over her folded arms on the picnic table and made no move to follow.

  Ethan strolled over to her and sat at the opposite end of the table. “So...what do you think about all of this?” he ventured after a few minutes of silence.

  She lifted her gaze to the surrounding forest and scowled. “It’s not Texas. And it’s cold.”

  “True.”

  A thin whinny echoed from inside the barn. One of the sliding doors opened and Hannah emerged leading a woolly Shetland pony with Cole on top. She led the little buckskin in a slow circle then toward the picnic table.

  Cole beamed. “This is Penelope. She’s really old.”

  “She’s a rescue, as well. It’s probably time to hop off, but she should gain some weight in a few months and feel stronger, and after that maybe you can ride her a bit longer.” Hannah reached up and helped Cole dismount before pulling a small brush from her jacket pocket. “In the meantime, you can lead her if you want and bring her carrots. She also needs to be brushed every day. Anyone here interested in doing that?”

  Cole nodded, accepting the brush. He began brushing Penelope’s neck. “She’s pretty.”

  “I heard you talking to Cole in the house,” Molly said to Ethan after watching her brother for a while. “And I don’t get it, either.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How you could be our uncle—our only uncle, but we never met you. Not ever.” Her mouth flattened. “Maybe we shouldn’t believe you.”

  He considered that. “But it’s true. Your dad and I were brothers. He was three years older than me. Let’s see... He had a great sense of humor, he could charm his way out of trouble and he was great at every sport he tried. He had a long scar on his left inner arm from when we were playing in your great-grandfather’s workshop. Did he ever tell you how it happened?”

  Her lower lip trembled. “He said his brother snapped a piece of wire at him.”

  Typical Rob. “No. He stretched out a coiled length of wire, planning to snap it at me. But he lost his grip on one end and it zinged back. He actually had to have eight stitches.”

  Her brows drew together. “He had a collie. What was its name?”

  “Radar.” Ethan smiled. “I’m glad to see you’re such a smart girl. It’s good to be cautious with someone you don’t know.”

  She turned to give him a long look. “You don’t look like my dad. And—” The moment her gaze dropped to his right hand, her eyes filled with horror and she recoiled. “What is that?”

  Cole stopped brushing the pony and craned his neck for a better view. His mouth dropped open. “Wow.”

  Ethan had just gotten out of Ward 57—Amputee Alley—at Walter Reed a week ago, a place where the loss of his hand and damaged leg were minor compared to so many who had lost a great deal more. Compared to the three men in his platoon who had paid the ultimate price the day of the explosion.

  But seeing the kids gawk at his missing hand reminded him that he would always be different in this civilian world. And to them, he might even seem scary.

  “I was in Iraq. An insurgent lobbed a grenade into the back of our transport vehicle. I lost my hand.” He flexed the fingers, demonstrating the dexterity of his prosthesis. “This gives me back some of that function.”

  Cole’s eyes rounded. “So now you’re like a bionic robot guy—with superpowers?”

  “Somebody has seen way too many movies,” he said with what he hoped was an easy smile. “But it would be tough having just one hand and my prosthesis does help a lot.”

  “It...it looks like real skin on it,” Molly whispered.

  Ethan nodded. “Supposed to. But that’s just a skin-colored cosmetic cover, so it doesn’t draw attention. I don’t always wear it.”

  Molly surveyed him from head to toe, her eyes filled with blatant curiosity.

  “No other mechanical parts,” he said, guessing at her unspoken question. “Though several bones in my right leg were shattered. I still wear a brace.”

  “Forever?”

  He shrugged. “I hope not.”

  “I’m so sorry about all you’ve been through, Ethan,” Hannah murmured. “When did it happen?”

  He glanced at Molly and Cole, once again unsure of what to say in front of them. “Last spring. A couple weeks...before.”

  Hannah winced and closed her eyes briefly. “And that’s why you couldn’t come back for the funeral. I’m sorry about what I said to you earlier. I had no idea that you were injured. Cynthia should have said something to me at the funeral...or later.”

  “She didn’t know yet. She and I were rarely in touch over the years.”

  Cole turned back to brushing the pony.

  Molly seemed to have lost interest in the conversation, as well. She wandered along the fenced perimeter of the backyard and peered into a chain link at one end of the barn, jumping back when an explosion of black-and-white feathers flew into the air.

  “That’s Mabel,” Hannah called out. “She’s gets herself in a kerfuffle at the least thing, but Ruth and Louise are a little less silly. They’re probably taking a nice sensible nap inside the barn, where it’s warm.”

  Molly looked over her shoulder. “You rescue chickens?”

  “A lady near town had them. When she passed away, her family brought them here. They actually do lay eggs once in a while, but not so much now that it’s winter.”

  “Chickens. Back in Texas, I expect they would have been dinner by now,” Ethan mused.

  A glint of humor sparked in her eyes. “Maybe so, but I could never eat something that has a name—or such individual personalities as those hens do.”

  Her gaze dropped to his jeans and he realized he’d been idly massaging the deep hollow along his outer right thigh, where the explosion had ripped away most of the muscle. “Does your leg still ache a lot?”

  He shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Right. And poor old Mabel has an IQ of two hundred.”

  He snorted.

  “Still, I haven’t noticed you limp at all.”

  “Only if I’m tired, or walk too far. Or,” he added with a short, humorless laugh, “if I step on it wrong. Which means a return to active duty isn’t yet on the horizon.”

  She lowered her voice. “I can only imagine how many surgeries you’ve been through and the months of rehab.”

  “I have no memory of the explosion, and very little of the month a
fterward. And later—with the ongoing surgeries and the intensive rehab—I wasn’t able to focus on much else. I didn’t look at email or snail mail for months.”

  She rested a gentle hand on his arm. “And no wonder. I’m so—”

  “I don’t want sympathy,” he retorted, his voice too harsh. “I never should have—”

  He stopped himself in time and looked away. Until this moment, he’d never talked about the explosion or its aftermath. Not even through his wasted months in support groups or the attempts of a private counselor. Regrets were a waste of time, because he deserved what had happened to him.

  Nothing would ever change the truth of what occurred that day. And nothing could ever erase his guilt.

  Chapter Three

  At the sound of a car pulling to a stop outside, Hannah glanced at her watch and gave the table a final, critical glance.

  Four settings of her grandmother’s china were placed on the cranberry tablecloth, flanked with her own silverware, folded linen napkins and her mother’s sparkly water goblets.

  Warm, flaky biscuits were already nestled in a napkin-lined basket and, from the sound of approaching footsteps outside, the rest of the dinner had arrived.

  She hurried to the front door and ushered in Keeley and Sophie, some of her best friends in town. The aroma of roasted turkey, buttery sage dressing and sweet potatoes flooded her senses.

  She closed her eyes and inhaled. “This is incredible. I can’t believe you did all of this for us!”

  Keeley and Sophie set the food on the counter. “We have at least one more trip in,” Sophie said with a cheerful smile as she turned for the front door. “Then we’ll leave you in peace.”

  Ethan, seated in one of the upholstered chairs by the fireplace, stood and turned to face them with an easy grin.

  Keeley blinked and darted a quick, questioning glance at Hannah, her eyebrows raised. Sophie stumbled to a halt and simply stared.

  Disconcerted, Hannah cleared her throat. “Uh, Ethan Williams, I’d like you to meet my dear friends, Keeley North and Sophie McLaren. They knew things were going to be a little crazy here and volunteered to bring Thanksgiving dinner. And, um, Keeley and Sophie, Ethan is—or was—my sister’s brother-in-law. He came to see his niece and nephew.”