Lakeshore Chronicles [10] Candlelight Christmas

by Susan Wiggs

  “It’s a diamond in the rough,” said Logan.

  “Emphasis on rough,” said Al, shading his eyes and checking out the old lodge.

  “It’s got the second-highest vertical drop in the state,” said Logan. “Three thousand three hundred feet.”

  “Could be this is one of those ideas that’s just crazy enough to work,” said Adam, never one to hold back his opinion.

  “How’s that?” Logan’s father’s scowl darkened.

  Logan used to be afraid of that scowl. Not anymore. “The idea’s not crazy at all. This resort is just a few hours from the city. The financials are going to be a challenge, but I can make it work.” Looking out over the vast property, he could picture a vibrant family place, alive with skiers and snowboarders in winter, mountain bikers, hikers and climbers in summer. With or without his father’s approval, he’d find a way to bring his vision to life.

  “Why this?” Al demanded. “Why now?”

  “This place means something to me. It’s unique in the world, and I know exactly what I want to do. I practically raise Charlie here in the winter.”

  “I didn’t know you were so keen on skiing,” said Al.

  You wouldn’t, thought Logan. As a kid, when he wasn’t playing soccer, Logan had barely been a blip on his father’s radar. “I used to come up here with friends all through school,” he reminded him. “I learned to snowboard on this hill when I was younger than Charlie.”

  In high school, his knee injury from soccer had sidelined Logan from everything—except partying and painkillers. That had been the start of a crazy, headlong descent down the wrong path. Then the reality that he’d gotten a girl pregnant had smacked him sober, and he’d put his life back together again. The knee had taken longer to heal, and sometimes still ached, but nothing could keep him from doing sports with his son. He never wanted to be a sideline dad. He wanted to be right in it with Charlie.

  He and Karsten led the tour through the hotel, showing off its signature rooms with their tree branch bed frames and birch-clad furnishings. There was a spa at one end of the complex, an oddly appealing combination of Nordic traditions and Asian innovations. It looked like a hunting lodge with gongs in place of the trophy heads.

  The bar was called the Powder Room and featured furniture and fixtures made from recycled chairlift parts, the walls decorated with vintage wooden skis. The restaurant offered the kind of food you wanted to stuff yourself with after a day on the slopes—mac and cheese, chili, poutine, hot chocolate.

  Logan went out on the deck of the restaurant, which faced an expansive view of the slopes. His father came out with him. “This would be a perfect spot to build the zip line course,” Logan said. “It would be a big draw in summer and winter both.”

  “You’re determined to do this,” said Al.

  “Correction. I am doing it.”

  “Son, I applaud your sense of enterprise. The business plan you drew up is an impressive piece of work. But the fact is, resorts are notoriously risky. You’re choosing a hard path.”

  “If it was easy, everyone would do it.”

  “I just don’t understand,” his father said. “You’ve built a rock-solid business in town. You’re doing well in the insurance field—”

  “Underwriting other people’s risks while taking none of my own,” said Logan.

  “And it’s worked out well for you,” his father pointed out.

  “Has it?” Logan asked. “How so?”

  “You’ve got a beautiful home, your own business to take care of, the respect of the community.”

  Those were the things that mattered most to his father. Logan knew then he’d never make Al understand. He tried to explain, anyway. “I played it safe. I tried to be responsible. I was a good husband, and the marriage still didn’t work out. I’m a good father, and now my son is moving to Japan. I’ve been a good businessman, and I’m so bored some days I want to hit myself in the head with a hammer.”

  “It’s the ebb and flow of life,” said Al, a hint of his Irish heritage coming out.

  “Not my life. I’m done playing it safe all the time. I’ve decided to live the way I want to, taking risks, doing something that matters to me, creating something.”

  “Creating what?” His father seemed genuinely baffled. “A glorified playground?”

  “This is a project I’m passionate about. I have big plans for Saddle Mountain. More mountain-biking in the summer. The zip line. A climbing course. Ice-climbing in winter.”

  “You’ll lose your shirt.”

  “I’ve lost more than that and survived.”

  Al paced the deck, casting dubious glances at the green and gold hills, the grand view of Willow Lake in the valley with the town of Avalon hugging its shore. “I understand that restless feeling,” Al said. “I was young once, too. But it’s a cockamamie scheme. It’s not that I don’t trust you or think you’re a good businessman. I simply can’t give my approval to your financial downfall.”

  “The plan is to succeed, not fail,” Logan said, struggling to keep his voice even. A decade of anger and resentment simmered just beneath the surface. “And I don’t need your approval.”

  “You haven’t thought this out,” his father said. “You’re panicking because Charlie is going to be moving so far away. You miss him and you’re trying to fill the void.”

  Ah, so now Al was the armchair psychologist. “And what if I am?” asked Logan.

  “Never make a decision driven by panic. It won’t work.”

  “I’m not panicking, and it’s going to work.”

  “You’ll be taking on a terrible burden of debt,” his father blustered. “It could be really bad.”

  “Only if I default.” For some reason, Darcy Fitzgerald’s words came back to him. When it comes to leaps of faith, I’m a frequent flyer.

  Part 4

  There’s nothing like starting the holidays with a spirited breakfast...

  Eggnog Pancakes with Whiskey Butter

  1½ cups all-purpose flour

  1 tablespoon sugar

  2½ teaspoons baking powder

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon nutmeg

  1 cup eggnog

  2 tablespoons oil

  1 egg, beaten

  Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg and salt. Make a well in the center, and pour in the eggnog, oil and egg. Mix until dry ingredients are evenly moist.

  Pour ¼ cup batter onto a medium-hot griddle. When it’s bubbly on top, flip with a spatula, and continue cooking until lightly browned on bottom.

  Recommended: Spray a metal cookie cutter with cooking spray and pour the batter into it to create shaped pancakes. This will elevate you in the eyes of friends and family.

  Serve hot off the griddle with whiskey butter and real maple syrup.

  Whiskey Butter:

  ½ cup butter, softened

  2 tablespoons bourbon

  1 tablespoon maple syrup

  ½ teaspoon cinnamon

  ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

  Blend everything together. Chill until ready to serve.

  [Source: Original; inspired by true events]

  Chapter Five

  “Sorry, I’m afraid I heard you wrong,” Darcy said to her sister Lydia. “Because I think I heard you say Huntley was planning to come to Thanksgiving dinner.” Darcy and Lydia had met at a lunch counter on Madison Avenue. She was juggling a big work project, but she’d made time to meet with her sister to talk about the upcoming holidays. She was already regretting the decision.

  “No, you heard correctly,” Lydia assured her. “You know our families always celebrate the holidays together. It would just be weird if we suddenly stopped.”

  “You know what would be weird?” Darcy demanded. “Forcing me to endure Thanksgiving within a mile of my ex. That would be weird.”

  “Come on, Darce. There’ll be at least twenty people at dinner. You don’t even have to talk to him.”

  I’ll have to breathe the sa
me air as Huntley, she thought, seething. “I can’t believe you think this could work for me on any level,” she stated.

  “I’m still married to Huntley’s brother, or have you forgotten? This puts Badgley and me in an incredibly awkward position.”

  “And where does it put me?” Darcy shot back.

  “At the far end of the room, eating and drinking with friends and family, the way we’ve always done.”

  “The way we’ve always done no longer works for me.” Darcy tried to picture herself spending Thanksgiving the traditional way, pretending all was well as she slowly strangled inside. She pictured the gathering—friends, families, relatives, everyone convivial and excited as they set out the good china and their best recipes for the holiday feast. The gathering would convene at the Fitzgerald place on Long Island, in the house where Darcy had grown up. The big warm kitchen, with its old-fashioned hearth and scrubbed Colonial maple table, would be teeming with chattering women and guys trying to steal a sample of pumpkin pie or toasted sage dressing. Though the image made Darcy nostalgic, she knew she’d end up having a miserable day, trying to pretend that all was well, that the breakup had been so civilized that she could stand to be in the same room with Huntley Collins.

  “Lyddie,” she said gently, “as much as I love you, I’ll break out in hives if I have to see Huntley.”

  “Come on, your divorce was amicable—”

  “News flash—there is no such thing as an amicable divorce.”

  * * *

  Darcy struggled with the decision, she really did. Letting down your family simply was not done, not by a Fitzgerald girl. But in the crazy new reality she’d been living since her divorce, letting go had become the more important task. The day before Thanksgiving, she called India. “I’ve been thinking about your invitation. How does your family feel about having stragglers and rejects at Thanksgiving?”

  India didn’t miss a beat. “We’d love to have you. You know that.”

  Thank God. Darcy was determined to make this Thanksgiving different. She grasped at the invitation. India was being incredibly kind and sensitive. One important discovery Darcy had made in the wake of her divorce was that friends were the people who took care of you when your family let you down.

  “We’re in Florida, you know. Can you get a flight?”

  “Sure, I’ll get myself down there. It’ll probably have to be early morning on Thanksgiving Day. Standby is easy for solo travelers.”

  Darcy told herself she liked being a solo traveler. She did. Going it alone simplified everything. Thanks to her work schedule, she would have to return before the weekend was up, but the prospect of a couple of days of sunshine filled her with a powerful craving.

  She needed this. She needed a festive rendezvous with people who didn’t judge her. She needed to sink her toes into the white sand of a Florida beach, far from anything resembling her former life. She needed escape. That was what she was after.

  True to her word, she caught a flight at the crack of dawn, and emerged into the tropical warmth of Paradise Cove in Florida just as most people were having breakfast and getting their turkeys in the oven on Thanksgiving morning. India had sent her a text message, asking her to pick up some flowers for the table and letting her know the back kitchen door was open, and to let herself in.

  At the airport, she rented a car and made a pit stop at a discount liquor store that boasted extended holiday hours. With the help of the navigator on her phone, she found the O’Donnell residence, a luxurious rambler with its own gardens and orange grove, steps away from a glorious sunny beach. The gated neighborhood was old Florida at its finest and most exclusive, a community of broad boulevards hung with Spanish moss, shiny cars parked in wide driveways, manicured lawns and whimsical names for the houses, like “Pirates’ Cove” and “Gem of the Ocean.” It was all very elite, giving her a glimpse of the wealth and privilege of the O’Donnells.

  Darcy decided she could do worse than spend the holiday with people who wanted nothing from her except the pleasure of her company. She just hoped she could be pleasurable enough for them. She had not grown up the way her friend India had. The O’Donnells were vastly wealthy, thanks to Al O’Donnell’s successful worldwide shipping company. They enjoyed the best of everything.

  The Fitzgeralds, by contrast, were merely comfortable. With five daughters, and both parents working as college professors, the concept of a second home in Florida—or anywhere, for that matter—was considered a wild extravagance. The Fitzgerald girls had grown up on the fringes of the elite. Darcy had often found herself in the role of the less privileged friend brought along on trips with girls whose families took them skiing in Gstaad or yachting in Cape d’Antibes. She was the kind of friend favored by parents—polite, unassuming, unlikely to overshadow their own daughters. This was fine with Darcy. She’d been lucky enough to see some of the world that way. She’d attended college on scholarship, excelled at sports and ultimately found a best friend in India O’Donnell.

  Florida opened its sunshiney, welcoming arms to her. It felt good to be away from the cold, hissing sleet of Manhattan, the crowds and exhaust from traffic cramming the dark, wet streets. Juggling her variety case of booze, with a nice Thanksgiving centerpiece perched precariously on top, she backed into the kitchen, determined not to cause a disaster.

  “I’m here,” she warbled. “India? Did you miss me? I brought enough booze to make me forget Huntley Collins and his rotten, soul-crushing kids, as well.”

  She maneuvered the cardboard case to a countertop and set it down. Moving the centerpiece aside, she found herself looking at Logan O’Donnell.

  Logan O’Donnell, of the big shoulders and red hair and killer smile. Her heart flipped over. She hadn’t seen him since the end of summer in Avalon—but that didn’t mean she’d stopped thinking about him. Far from it; she thought about him every day.

  “Oh God,” she said. “Tell me you won’t judge me for saying that.”

  He grinned. Yep, killer smile. “I make it a practice not to judge anyone struggling with substance abuse.”

  She grinned back at him. She couldn’t help herself. “It’s use, not abuse. Alcohol is useful to me. Helps me get over my rotten marriage and even rottener divorce.”

  “So, you were married. To...Huntley Collins? No wonder it didn’t work out. No one could stay married to someone named Huntley Collins.”

  “Good point.” Maybe she was being too flippant and dismissive, but it was hard to think clearly around him. At the moment, he was wearing board shorts and flip-flops, and a dusting of sand on his bare chest. She couldn’t keep herself from noticing he was a true redhead, with ginger-colored chest hair that came together in an arrow shape, pointing south. She found herself wishing she’d worn more attractive clothes for her flight instead of the usual yoga pants and shapeless top.

  He helped her move the bottles from the case to a sideboard bar—vodka, tequila, rum, bourbon. “You’re bringing coal to Newcastle,” he said. “This is the O’Donnell place. Booze is as plentiful as water.”

  “It’s my contribution to the feast. Along with this amazing centerpiece.” It was a crazy arrangement of birds-of-paradise in the shape of a turkey.

  “Nice,” he said. “Mom will love it.”

  They finished unloading everything and he stuck out his hand. “Welcome to Sea Breeze. Yes, my parents named their house. I had nothing to do with it.”

  She looked around the kitchen—granite countertops, stainless-steel appliances, a view of the flat forever of the Atlantic. “It’s beautiful. Really nice of your family to have me.” She looked around the kitchen again. “Where is everyone?”

  “The beach,” he said. “We’re having a beach day.”

  “Sounds nice. I’ve never been to the beach on Thanksgiving.”

  “I just came back to get the turkey in the oven and get a jump on some of the side dishes.”

  “Oh, he cooks, too? I’m impressed.”

  “Just wait unti
l you taste my cooking. I’m awesome in the kitchen.”

  She thought he’d be awesome in any room of the house. “Wait a minute. I need to alert the media.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I need to tell them that hell has frozen over. It’s Thanksgiving, and a man is preparing the feast all by himself.”

  “Not anymore, he’s not.” He tossed her an apron. “You’re going to help me.”

  “Fair enough. I guess.”

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Get your beach things on and you can give me a hand in the kitchen. Then we’ll head down to the beach and join the others.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He helped her with her bag and showed her to a guest room, which was airy and bright with white painted plantation shutters and bedding in tropical prints, a stack of fluffy towels in the adjoining bathroom.

  “You should find everything you need here,” he said. “My mom loves having company.”

  “This is an amazing room. Better than a five-star hotel.”

  “If you forgot anything, you’ll find stuff in the closet—extra swimsuits, robes, flip-flops, you name it. Just help yourself.” As he set her suitcase on the bamboo luggage rack and stepped out, she felt herself, for the first time in forever, feeling happy about the holiday.

  She opened her suitcase and studied the contents, feeling a scowl gathering on her forehead. She’d done a lousy job packing, having rushed home from work late the night before. Her swimsuit was old—and admittedly homely, the suit she used for masters swims at the West Village Y.

  Of the five Fitzgerald sisters, Darcy was the least stylish, a deficit she freely admitted, and one that usually didn’t bother her. The fashion sense chromosome had missed her completely. She should’ve made her sister Kitty take her shopping for this trip. Kitty was the stylish one; she would have helped Darcy pick out cute sundresses and sandals, maybe a swimsuit that didn’t look like a high school swim team practice suit.