A Family-Style Christmas and Yuletide Homecoming

by Carolyne Aarsen

  Sisters, Sarah thought, allowing herself a smile. Just out of curiosity, Sarah dug her hands in the pockets. Nope. No twenty. Sisters.

  The chimes of the doorbell rolled into the room and Sarah’s heart jumped. Logan was here.

  She dropped the blue jeans and ran downstairs.

  Since Uncle Dan had left, it had started to snow, dusting the shoulders of Logan’s coat, glistening in his hair and glinting off his thick eyelashes. He looked healthy, alive and real. She wanted to hug him but restrained herself.

  “Come in,” she said, standing aside as he stepped into the foyer. “I got started already.”

  “You didn’t want to wait?”

  “I couldn’t anymore.” She bit her lip to stop the faint tremble in her voice then quickly took his coat.

  He either didn’t notice her wobbly emotions or was kind enough to disregard them. Instead he looked around, a frown pinching his eyebrows together.

  “Where’s your Christmas decorations?”

  “Not you, too.” She hung his coat in the hallway closet, right beside one of her father’s.

  “What do you mean?”

  “My uncle Dan stopped by. Said the same thing.”

  Logan shook his head as he glanced around the house. “You don’t have one twinkly light or piece of tinsel up.” He toed his boots off then took a few steps, looking into the living room. “Not even a tree?”

  “I’m out of practice.” Sarah shrugged. “Haven’t been much for Christmas in the past few years.”

  “Fair enough.” He gave her a concerned look. “Well, I came to help you. Lead the way.”

  As Logan followed Sarah up the carpeted stairs, her mind returned to a time when having him in her house seemed an improbable dream. Yet, here he was.

  He followed her into the room, his presence immediately banishing the ghosts, the memories and the emptiness. “Where do I start?”

  “You can put those clothes in bags while I finish up in the closet.”

  As they worked, his practical attitude reduced the memories to items that needed to be dealt with, which helped keep her from feeling overwhelmed.

  Half an hour later, five green garbage bags perched in the center of the room. Four held clothes destined for the thrift store in town and the fifth was stuffed with old papers and other trash. Sarah had arranged some mementos of her sister on a now-tidy desk. A few pictures of Marilee and Sarah, a figurine their father had given each of the girls, an award, and an assortment of the precious few books Marilee liked reading.

  In spite of Marilee’s constant mocking of people who kept diaries, Sarah had hoped she might stumble upon a book with some of Marilee’s recorded thoughts. But other than the obligatory journals for school that Sarah had saved, nothing.

  “I’ll take these downstairs,” Logan said, picking up the bags.

  As Logan hauled out the bags Sarah went through her sister’s desk. She found a cardboard box holding some jewelry. Inside, nestled in the tangle of necklaces, earrings and paper clips lay a friendship bracelet. Alicia Mays, Marilee’s best friend, had been teaching Marilee how to make them. Sarah tucked it in her pocket. Maybe Alicia would appreciate getting it back.

  She experienced a momentary letdown as the last drawer revealed only a stash of forbidden teen style magazines. She put these in another bag.

  Sarah pushed herself to her feet, turning a slow circle, letting the change settle. Stripped of Marilee’s essence, the room suddenly looked sterile. Cold. A sliver of regret lanced her as she wondered about her father’s reaction to this. Would he even be coming home to see what she had done?

  Sarah pushed that thought aside. She couldn’t dwell on the idea that her father might not improve enough to live on his own. Because if he didn’t, she would have to stay around long enough to make a decision about his care. To make plans that meant staying here.

  Could she? Should she?

  Logan came back upstairs and together they finished cleaning out the desk. When they were done, Sarah gave the room one last look, then felt the living warmth of Logan’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Goodbye, Marilee,” she whispered, closing the door. She paused a moment, as if waiting for an echo of farewell.

  Then she and Logan left.

  Chapter Fourteen

  He shouldn’t feel this nervous. Coming to the basketball game had been his idea. But now that they were here, he thought of her aunt Tilly, and cousin Ethan, and Aunt Dot, and Uncle Morris and who-knows-what other Westervelds that might want to attend the game and maybe have negative thoughts about them being together.

  He glanced over at Sarah, surprised when she took his hand. Her smile gave him the encouragement he needed.

  “So you still okay with this?” he asked.

  “It will be interesting to watch the game from a spectator’s point of view. And to wonder if he can manage those boys better than me.”

  The boys were warming up, basketballs bouncing, flying, shouts of support echoing in the gym as Logan and Sarah walked, hand in hand along the bleachers. Logan clutched her hand just a bit tighter as they passed the players bench. Alton Berube glanced up at Sarah and Logan as they passed by. His smile grew huge.

  “Hey, Sarah. Did you get my message?” he called out.

  “No.” Sarah glanced at Logan who shrugged. He had no idea what that was all about.

  “I need to talk to you. The boys said they wanted to try some play called Pop-Tart? I can’t find it in the playbook.”

  “I made it up and didn’t write it down, I guess.”

  “Could you go over it with me?”

  “Now?”

  “Or when you have time.” Alton shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable. “Unless it’s confidential. I mean, I understand.”

  “I’ll go over it with you after the game.”

  “Good. Good.” He smiled at her, relief etched all over his face. “From what they told me it sounds like it could be effective.”

  Logan glanced around as Sarah talked with Alton. His eyes ticked over the Westerveld family, taking over the bleachers in one corner of the gym. To a person they were watching him and Sarah.

  He felt a flicker of despair. They weren’t going away. They were as much a part of Riverbend as the land and the river that bent it. Did he really think he and Sarah stood a chance?

  One day at a time, he reminded himself. He and Sarah were simply finishing what they had started all those years ago. Yet as he glanced over at her, he knew, for himself, that she had become even more important to him now than she had been back then.

  She comes with so much stuff. Their history. Her family.

  Her father.

  Logan’s resolve faltered.

  Tilly’s phone call was a vivid reminder that Sarah’s relationship with her father would still affect their own relationship.

  He wasn’t sure where things were going, wasn’t even sure what Sarah had planned. Though he had fought it initially, lately it seemed he and Sarah had effortlessly slid into a newer, better place. But what he had created in his head had been a momentary bubble of refuge.

  Sooner or later life was going to intrude. Her father. His father.

  “Maybe I’ll stop by practice on Tuesday,” Sarah said to Alton. She glanced Logan’s way and gave him a radiant smile as she took his hand. “Sorry. Alton just needed some advice.”

  “Of course he did.” He smiled as he squeezed her hand, then glanced around the gym, affecting a nonchalant air. “Where should we sit?”

  “How about your usual spot? Close enough to the players bench that the coach can see you glowering at her, I mean him, yet far enough away that she, I mean he, can’t throw a basketball at you.”

  Her teasing smile lifted his heart, and he lifted one eyebrow in response. “
Very funny.”

  They settled on the bench and a few minutes later the boys lined up to play. As the game started, Sarah leaned forward, her hands on her knees, her eyes darting from their team to the opposition, as if delving for weaknesses.

  But this evening, Logan’s entire attention was on the beautiful woman beside him, her blue eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, her hands alternately clenched into fists or thrown into the air in disgust as the referee made what she thought were bad calls.

  Now and again he glanced at Alton Berube, but he never saw on that man’s face the love of the game that he saw in Sarah even in the bleachers.

  What had he been thinking to take this away from her? How could he have been so selfish? Sure he had been thinking of his brother and what Billy needed and sure Sarah had survived this loss. But as he watched her now he realized that he had come between her and this job.

  He recalled Tilly Westerveld’s conversation with him. He wasn’t coming between her and her father now, but he wasn’t encouraging her to maintain that relationship.

  But he couldn’t bring her father into his life. Not yet. Not now. He and Sarah were just beginning

  to breathe new energy into a relationship that had haunted him ever since they met.

  “Oh c’mon. Get going, guys,” Sarah called out, pulling him back to the game. She jumped to her feet, cheering as the Voyageurs scored another basket.

  She turned to him and grabbed his hands, oblivious to the fact that her family was watching. “They’re doing great, aren’t they?” she exclaimed, her face flushed, her eyes bright.

  Maybe it was her compelling exuberance, maybe it was how her eyes sparkled with infectious glee, maybe it was simply sheer fear of losing the moment—Logan bent over and kissed her.

  In public, in front of a large portion of the population of Riverbend. And to his immense surprise and joy, Sarah threw her arms around him and kissed him back.

  * * *

  “Okay, much as I hate to admit it, that was a great game,” Sarah said, slipping her jacket back on. Somehow in the heat of the game she had tossed it off. “Didn’t you think it was good?” she asked Logan, who had been strangely quiet the last part of the game.

  Sure, it had turned into a bit of a nail-biter and Alton had made some calls she wouldn’t have, but they had won.

  “I think, if you were coaching, they would have done better,” Logan said quietly.

  His words were a gentle gift that boosted her self-confidence just enough that she dared to joke about it. “Well, we know that.”

  He caught her hands and, as the warmth of his fingers enveloped hers, a tingle of awareness flickered up her spine. Logan Carleton was holding her hands in a public place. In the very gym where they had first met.

  On top of his kiss, this felt so right. So sure.

  Did she dare let her wishes take her further? Did she dare dream that more of a relationship might come of this? She looked up into his dark eyes so intent on her and felt her pulse beating against her temples as possibilities danced around them, insulating them from the noise of the people leaving the gym.

  “Hey, Sarah.”

  Sarah dragged her attention away from Logan but didn’t let go of his hand and, with a sense of inevitability, turned to see who wanted her. But the person calling her was not a relative. It was Alicia, Marilee’s good friend.

  Almost as bad, Sarah thought.

  “I want to go congratulate Billy,” Logan murmured.

  Sarah didn’t blame his defection. Alicia was a sweet person, but once captured, it was hard to release oneself from the inevitable avalanche of words that would pour from her.

  “I’ve been meaning to call you and talk. It’s been ages and you haven’t been around much, not that I blame you, but hey, this is your hometown and you know, you gotta come back once in a while if only to see what you haven’t been missing. Of course—” while she talked, Alicia threw a meaningful glance Logan’s way “—I’m surprised, for that one’s sake, you didn’t come home more often.”

  As she chatted, Sarah slipped her hands in her pockets and then found a way to take control of the conversation.

  She waited for an infinitesimal pause on Alicia’s part and dove in. “I found this in Marilee’s dresser when I cleaned out her room,” she said, pulling out the friendship bracelet. “I think you must have made it for her.”

  Alicia took the bracelet and for a moment her eyes glistened. “I helped her make it.”

  She handed it back as she gave Sarah a slow, sad smile. “Actually she had plans to give it to Logan, to give to you. The night she died.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. I remember her saying that one way or another she was going to figure out how to get you two together again, so she was going to meet Logan at that party.”

  Sarah heard the words but couldn’t seem to string them in any coherent order. “She wrote me a note that night. Something about if I didn’t want Logan...” She stopped, trying to remember.

  “I remember her writing that note. She was in a hurry because that Setterfeld boy was coming to pick her up to go to that party.”

  “You were over that night? I don’t remember.”

  Alicia’s eyes held a glimmer of sorrow. “Yeah. Last time I saw her alive. We snuck out of the house. Marilee didn’t want your dad to know what she was up to. Said he’d be fuming mad if he found out she was trying to get you two together again. She wrote that note out so fast, I said I’d be surprised if it was readable, but, you know Marilee, she said you would know what it was about. I just wished she wouldn’t have decided to get hammered at that party. Things would have turned out so different.”

  Sarah fingered the friendship bracelet, clinging to the reality of it as she sorted through what Alicia was saying.

  Marilee had tried to get her and Logan together. How could she have misread that note so completely?

  Misconception upon misconception.

  What had she done? She glanced over at Logan and she felt the relentless onslaught of misunderstandings that had been created by her perception of her sister, her lack of trust in Logan, her lack of self-confidence and her overwhelming desire to please her father.

  She clutched the bracelet and pressed her lips against the flutter of sorrow working its way up her throat. “Thanks, Alicia. I really appreciate you telling me this.”

  And before Alicia could say another word, Sarah left. She had much to think about. Much to rediscover.

  Her sister had tried to get her and Logan together. Sarah almost stumbled as another wave of sorrow and regret washed over her. She had ruthlessly cleaned out her sister’s room, had tried to purge her life of memories.

  But now, she had a new one, a good one to take their place.

  Logan was still talking to Billy by the time she joined them. Billy gave her a curt nod. “Hey, Miss Westerveld. You coming back to help Mr. Berube?”

  Still bemused by what she had just discovered, Sarah could only shake her head.

  “’Cause he said you were coming to practice.” Billy sighed. “You should come. I mean, Mr. B’s okay, but—” Billy lifted one shoulder in an exaggerated shrug “—he doesn’t know the game like you do.”

  His words settled past her confused emotions. “Really?”

  “Yeah. The plays he wants us to do are so basic the other teams can anticipate every move we make. Makes it brutal to try and score on them.”

  “And this matters to you because...” she couldn’t help add, grabbing onto the very orneriness of Billy to ground her back in reality.

  Billy just rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Miss Westerveld. I know I was a jerk, but hey, I want to win, too. Logan kind of made things clear to me and Nelli is cool with me going to college. So yeah, I want to win.” He leaned forward, as if his sheer height and size wo
uld intimidate her into agreeing. “Whaddya say? You gonna help him? I know the other guys would like you to come back.”

  “Even though I’m only a girl?” Sarah couldn’t resist the gibe.

  Billy had the grace to look sheepish. “Yeah, well. You’re still better than Berube.”

  “It depends on what the parents say.”

  “Derek was plenty ticked at his mom for what she pulled off.” Billy slid Logan a quick glance as if including his brother in this censure.

  Oh, the fickleness of youth.

  “We’ll see.” She gave Billy a polite smile, then tucked her arm inside his brother’s and gave Logan a proprietary tug. “And now, we have to go.” They didn’t, but she had much to think about and she wanted to have Logan to herself. She wanted to tell him what Alicia had just told him. Wanted to fix what had been broken between them all these years.

  Billy’s eyebrows lifted a fraction, then his mouth curved in a smirk. “Well, ain’t that a picture.” And with that eloquent comment, he left to join his teammates.

  Logan looked down at her, covering his hand with hers. His eyes smoldered. “So, where is it we have to go?”

  “Sarah. There you are.”

  She suppressed a groan as her relatives descended on her en masse. She felt suddenly torn. Most of her wanted to be with Logan, to discover where this relationship, if she dared call it that, might be going. Things were still so uncertain between them and she wasn’t sure herself.

  And yet, this was her family. The people she loved.

  “You coming with us?” Janie touched Sarah’s arm, as if laying a small claim on her. “We’re going to celebrate at Cal’s.”

  Sarah glanced at Logan, hoping he would say he would come with them, hoping she wouldn’t have to choose between him and her family.

  And yet, circling that thought was another hope that he would want to be alone with her.

  “Actually, Logan and I have other plans,” Sarah said, making her choice.

  Janie sent Sarah a frown but Sarah just smiled. “Some other time maybe,” she said, letting Logan pull her away from her relatives.