When the Snow Falls

by Fern Michaels

  Reese smiled to himself while Sutton bathed the back of his head again. He rather liked the way this situation had turned out. He’d wondered how he might get into Veda’s presence again. She’d avoided him for eight years, after all, with not even a call or a letter exchanged. But he could hardly blame her for not keeping in touch. After all, he’d married her old nemesis, Dee Dee Palmer. And hadn’t that turned out to be the worst mistake he ever made?

  Oh, well. Maybe he could get things straightened out with Veda while she stayed here to help with the Co-op, and maybe not. He’d have to wait and see.

  At the dinner table in the big country kitchen, Veda made an effort at conversation, knowing Sutton expected it.

  “How is your father?” she asked.

  “Good,” he answered. “As ornery as ever, still working the old Texaco station and memorabilia store every day.”

  The McNally family owned an old-time Texaco station on the Townsend highway, which also contained a pickup store for small groceries and a memorabilia section filled with Texaco collectibles tourists and locals loved to browse through.

  “I always loved your dad’s Texaco museum, and he always let us get a free cold drink from the cooler.” She smiled at the memory. “Does he still sell those Nehi grape sodas? Do they even make those anymore?”

  “They do.” Reese buttered another corn bread stick. “Dad still makes an effort to get the old Nehi grape and orange sodas and a line of old-time drinks and candies other stores don’t usually sell. Goes along with the ambience of his place. A lot of people stop in for that reason alone.”

  Reese appreciated the effort it cost Veda to make polite small talk to please her uncle. “I built a log cabin where our farm fronts the highway and opened my law office there two years ago,” he said, helping her out. “My cousin Eleanor—you may remember her, several years younger than us—runs the office for me. You’ll have to drop over to see her one day. The law office is adjacent to the Co-op. You can’t miss it.”

  “How nice.” Veda paused, spoon in hand. “And how does Dee Dee like you being back in Townsend? I always thought she saw you as her ticket out of this small hick town. Seems like I remember her saying that.”

  Sutton frowned at her, but Reese chose to answer despite her tone. “Dee Dee and I have been divorced for six years. Perhaps you forgot that, Veda. I came back from the apartment at the University of Tennessee after she left and commuted to finish my education. Dad helped me take care of our daughter, Pamela, since Dee Dee walked out, leaving both of us behind with little thought.” He caught her eyes with his. “She married the man she ran off with later on. They live in Las Vegas, where I believe he owns or manages one of the big casinos. We seldom hear from or see her, and I can count the times she’s come home to see Pamela on one hand.” He held up three fingers. “She gave up custody and decided she could do better than to hang around with either of us.”

  “She always was flighty and self-serving.” Veda glared at him, refusing to show sympathy. “I’d think you might have known that, as many times as she teased and made fun of you when we were younger.”

  “People make mistakes.” He met her eyes. “And they pay for them. All of us.”

  Her face flushed. “Are you talking about my store?” Anger tinged her voice, along with hurt.

  “No.” He backed off. “I was talking about my life, Veda.”

  Sutton looked back and forth between them, a warning in his eyes.

  Both resumed eating, letting the quarrel go.

  Sutton initiated some conversation then, catching Veda up on aspects of the farm, getting Reese to fill in the details around his notes and signs. He wanted Veda to remember the Christmas Tree Shop was now open in the small, tin-roofed cabin at the beginning of Cedar Hill Lane, behind the Co-op parking lot. The Townsend Crafts Co-op and the shop sat on O’Neill land, which stretched uphill toward the mountains past the family farmhouse, only a few blocks off the highway, and then up the hillside through the Christmas tree farm, passing Sutton’s small house and another barn.

  Sutton scribbled a note to Veda, reminding her that Walker Tenney and his grandson, Bovee, a mentally challenged teen, were living in his old house rent-free in exchange for work on the farm right now.

  “Bovee’s a nice kid,” Reese told her. “And a hard worker. I pay him and his grandfather to do things at our farm, too.”

  Veda cut pie for the three of them, put the plates on the table, and then picked out a few pieces of stew beef to spoon into a dish for the corgi.

  “I probably need to tell you more about the Co-op so you’ll be prepared for what you may find there,” Reese said as they dug into one of Mary’s homemade pies, all of them legend around the area.

  Veda sat back down to cut into her own piece of pie. “With Thanksgiving just past and the Christmas season heading in, the store will probably be busy.”

  “Yes, it will. The Co-op always gets a lot of holiday traffic. The homemade crafts items sell well for Christmas gifts, and people like the holiday wreaths, painted tree ornaments, and decorations.”

  Finishing his pie, Sutton let them know he needed to drive up the road to load some more trees on the upper farm to bring down to the barn.

  “Do you want me to help?” Reese asked.

  Sutton signed No, pointing to Reese’s head as he did. He pulled out his notepad and wrote a note to Veda. I’ll drive Reese home in his truck when I get back, and you can follow me in your car and bring me home. I don’t think Reese should drive tonight.

  Seeing the note, Reese argued. “Listen, Sutton, that’s not necessary. I’ll be fine.” But Sutton pocketed Reese’s car keys, as though he was still a kid, and gave him a warning shake of his finger before heading out the door.

  Reese sighed, his eyes moving to Veda’s. “Guess you’re stuck with me a little longer.”

  “Yeah, lucky me.” She got up to begin cleaning the table and putting the food away.

  Trying to overlook her innuendos again, Reese took a breath. “Perhaps I should update you about the Co-op while we wait.”

  “All right,” she conceded. “Want some coffee?”

  He nodded and she poured them both a cup, putting sugar and creamer on the table before sitting back down.

  “As you know, the Co-op sits on O’Neill land and essentially belongs to the O’Neill family, but Rita Jean set it up as a type of legal cooperative for the artisans who sell their work there.” He briefly sketched out for her how the legalities of that worked. “I am one of the members of the Co-op’s board and its legal adviser. I also began to help Rita Jean with the accounting and the books after I moved back to Townsend.”

  “How many people are selling products and working in the Co-op now?” she asked.

  “About twenty people sell handcrafted items and goods in the Co-op and eight volunteer to help run the store. Those who volunteer in the store make more profit on their items than those who don’t. That’s the way Rita Jean set it up.”

  “I remember,” Veda said. “It’s a good incentive to keep the store manned without having to pay for outside help.”

  “As you may also remember, Rita Jean took a small salary as manager for the Co-op, which is the salary I felt the Co-op could continue to pay you.”

  She looked across the table at him. “Why did you ask me to do this, Reese? I was stunned when you called out of the blue and asked me if I would fill in.”

  He considered her question. “Sutton told us in a board meeting that your shop had failed and that you were selling out. He also mentioned you didn’t have another job lined up yet. We all thought it might be a sensible solution to see if you’d be interested in managing the Co-op since you had a good background in store management and had worked in the Co-op as a girl.” He hesitated. “And because you’re an O’Neill.”

  “Why didn’t someone on the board or one of the volunteers step up to take the management role?”

  “None of them wanted it. The board members all carry o
ther jobs, and the volunteers are also artisans and crafters. They want to continue to create their art—quilts, pottery, ceramics, whatever. And most have other life commitments as well.”

  “Nice to know I was chosen by default.”

  He set down his cup after finishing the last of the coffee. “I think we were lucky to get you, Veda. I’m sorry about your business. I really am. I know it must have hurt a lot to lose it. I can imagine how I’d feel to be forced to close up Dad’s Texaco station or my legal practice. You put your heart into these things. It’s not just a business.” He paused. “But the closing gave us a chance to get your expertise and help with the Co-op after a rough transitional time. I thought, in a way, you might like helping to get your aunt’s business back on its feet. I don’t want to see it close, too, Veda. It meant a lot to her and it means a lot to the people in this rural area to have a place to sell what they make.”

  She gave him a tentative smile. “You can actually be nice sometimes, Reese McNally.”

  He watched her for a moment before he spoke again. “Look, Veda, I know there are hard feelings between us from the past, but a lot of years have passed now. We need to find a way to get along better while you’re here. I work with the business, my office is next door to the Co-op, and our families are neighbors. The property lines of the McNally and O’Neill farms join. We used to be good friends, and . . .”

  “You can stop right there, Reese.” She sent him a steely glance. “Used to be is the right term. We used to be a lot of things, but those times are past. Now we are two people who have to work together congenially for a time. I want you to remember, as I told Sutton tonight, that this is a temporary work position for me. I’ll be looking for another store to manage again, like the Hargreaves’ store I ran in St. Augustine before I opened my own place. I don’t want to stay here. Too many painful memories stir in the air. I find it hard to breathe here sometimes. I don’t plan to settle in.”

  Before Reese could pose a response, Sutton came in the back door, letting in a cold blast of December air—highlighting Veda’s words and sending a chill to Reese’s heart. His earlier optimism that he might bring Veda around while she was here took a decided nosedive.

  Chapter 3

  Two weeks later, Veda sat on a stool by the downstairs register in the Townsend Crafts Co-op, finalizing the work schedule of her employees for the coming week. The volunteers generally worked the same days and times each week, but doctors’ appointments, illnesses, and other complications usually necessitated some rearrangements in the schedule.

  Veda was surprised at how quickly she’d settled into her work at the Co-op. The people around the community and the shop’s artisans and volunteers seemed pleased and relieved to have her managing the store.

  Loreen McFee, one of the locals visiting the store the day before, offered a typical comment. “It jest seems right somehow having you here at the Co-op, Veda Trent, you being Rita Jean’s girl and all.”

  Mrs. Marsden, shopping the same day, chimed in. “You know, Loreen, I taught Veda’s daddy, Bobby Trent, in the fifth grade—hair as red as Veda’s. He was takin’ pictures with a little camera of his own even back then, a real artistic boy, and enterprising, too. I can see why he went far.”

  Loreen laughed. “He went far from here, that’s for sure, and carried Skyler O’Neill away with him. It about broke Rita Jean’s and their daddy’s heart for Skyler to leave the way she did, and her only eighteen. Henry O’Neill sure was sweet on that youngest girl of his, and he grieved over her runnin’ off to the big city and marrying Bobby Trent at some courthouse on the way. Not even havin’ a proper church wedding. It happened right after Skyler’s oldest brother Ruben got killed in the military, too.”

  She turned to Veda, as if remembering her, and shifted the subject. “We all felt real sorry to learn about your mother gettin’ killed in that tragic way, Veda, and over in some foreign country, too.” She sighed. “Skyler sure turned out a beautiful woman, though. I collected pictures of her modeling in those big-city magazines for a long time. I might still have some in a box if you’d like them for keepsakes, Veda. I guess it makes you real proud to remember how famous your mother got to be. Your daddy’s right well-known for all those photographs of models he takes, too. I’m sorry your parents split up, but it seems like those celebrity types have trouble keeping their marriages together.”

  Veda saw Mrs. Marsden lean over to Loreen to add, “I can tell you someone else besides Rita Jean O’Neill whose heart was pure broken up when Veda went off to college.” She glanced toward the Co-op’s side window to the view of Reese’s law office next door.

  “Isn’t that the truth?” Loreen dropped her voice, as if Veda couldn’t hear both of them easily in the small store. “And that Dee Dee Palmer he married wasn’t worth the paper a dollar bill is printed on—ran off and left Reese with a little two-year-old while he was trying to finish his college schooling. I remember he had to move back to Townsend and commute to school so his daddy could help him with the child and all. It was a shame. Poor little mite.”

  This was the kind of talk Veda heard her whole first two weeks back in Townsend. You’d think she hadn’t been gone eight years at all. She’d caught up on every gossip scandal in the valley in barely more than a week and, in most cases, learned more than she cared to about others’ business, including her own and what people knew about it.

  Beth Robbins came out of the back room, carrying her coat and searching for her car keys in her purse. It had been a treat for Veda to find Beth working as one of the crafters and volunteers at the Co-op. She’d been one of Veda’s few friends in school, except for Reese. Beth had married a Maryville boy, Matt Robbins, whose family owned an auction company on the highway between Maryville and Townsend. Now they lived in a house on the Little River, close to the old swinging bridge Veda had loved so much as a girl.

  “Do you know, Matt Robbins got me out on that thing and started swinging it about the first day we moved in our house,” she told Veda, laughing. “It nearly scared me to death, but of course he thought it real funny, and so did Laurie.” Laurie was Beth’s eight-year-old daughter, and the couple also had a young son who’d just turned two.

  “I’m so glad to be able to work here at the Co-op a couple of days a week,” Beth confided. “It gets me out of the house, lets me talk with people who like crafts, and gives me a better idea of which of my things people like the best.” Beth, a skilled seamstress, created one-of-a-kind purses, wall hangings, aprons, children’s clothing items, dolls, and an assortment of charming small crafts, that were piled in baskets and on shelves around the store.

  She walked closer to the register where Veda sat. “Is it all right if I go home a little early?” she asked. “I need to pick up Laurie at her Brownie meeting. Mother has Jacob, but I didn’t want to ask her to get him out in the car just to drive over to get Laurie at the church when it’s right on my way.”

  Veda smiled at her. “You go on, Beth. I’ll finish the schedule and post it on the bulletin board and then close up.”

  Beth glanced over at the Christmas tree in the corner, its lights twinkling and blinking. “We did a real pretty job decorating that cedar tree you brought in from the O’Neill Farm. But it seems like every day we need to put more ornaments on it, since everyone keeps buying the ornaments off the tree instead of looking for duplicates in the baskets underneath.”

  “I know.” Veda could see several bare spots on the limbs now. “I’ll add a few ornaments to the tree before I go home, too.

  Beth leaned on the counter. “Plans are coming along really well for the special Christmas Eve service at the church. I’m glad you’re going to be here for that this year.”

  The O’Neills had always gone to the Creekside Independent Presbyterian Church in Townsend, their family being one of the original church founders. Veda had started going with Sutton since coming back, because at the O’Neills, if it was Sunday, you always went to church and that was that.
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br />   Beth started pulling on her coat to head outdoors. “You know, Reverend Westbrooke wanted me to ask you if you’d consider reading one of Rita Jean’s stories in her memory at the service. She told a story on Christmas Eve every year. This will be the first year since she died. . . .” Her voice drifted off.

  “It’s a nice idea, but I’m not a storyteller like Rita Jean,” Veda said.

  “But you’ve heard all the stories since you were only a girl—many of them over and over again. You said once you practically had them memorized.” Beth smiled. “Surely you could tell or read one of her stories for the service. It would be a nice tribute. Reverend Westbrooke already talked to Sutton about it. I know he’d like it if you’d fill in for Rita Jean this year.” She paused. “It’s tradition, Veda. It won’t be the same Christmas Eve service without one of Rita Jean’s stories.”

  A group of tourists coming in the shop saved Veda from more argument and, noting the time slipping away, Beth waved and headed out the door.

  Veda greeted the new customers and let her eyes follow them around the shop. They oohed and aahed, especially over all the Christmas decorations, and Veda felt pleased to watch them stopping to notice all the holiday crafts and decor she and the volunteers had worked so hard to arrange.

  The Townsend Crafts Co-op made its home in a red-roofed log cabin on the highway. A shady porch and rockers greeted visitors in the front, with Christmas lights twinkling among cedar greenery on the porch railings. On the door hung a large wreath decorated with pinecones, chestnut balls, berries, and a big red bow. Veda and the staff had created similar wreaths for sale in the store and all the crafters had made Christmas gift items to sell during the holiday season. On the rustic shelves around the store were handmade Christmas socks, bowls and baskets of handmade tree ornaments, spicy bags of holiday potpourri, pumpkin- and evergreen-scented candles, and handmade nativity scenes. The rest of the store held the usual array of crafts on consignment—quilts by Estelle Ogle, wooden canes and hand-carved birdhouses from Emmett Springer, Arthur Chance’s old-time brooms and baskets, Carol Ann Poston’s colorful ceramics, Farley Wheaton’s tinkling wind chimes and whimsical garden stakes, and the Sea-grens’ rich glazed pottery. There were other crafts, of course, but Veda knew these the best because they’d been fashioned by her store volunteers.