Home for Christmas (Willow Park #5)

by Noelle Adams

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “You should talk to Milton Bucket,” Gabe said. He’d ended his conversation with the girls and had strolled over in their direction, evidently overhearing the last few comments.

  “Who?” Sophie said. She’d never heard that name before. As small as Willow Park was, there were still hundreds of people here she didn’t know.

  “Milton Bucket. He owns The Ledger.”

  The Ledger was the local newspaper, mostly serving a few counties in the mountains of North Carolina around Willow Park. “Surely, they’re not looking to hire someone new for the staff,” Sophie said. “Aren’t all local papers struggling?”

  “They have a pretty established audience,” Gabe said. “There are still a lot of people in these parts who want to hold an old-fashioned newspaper in their hands. But, yeah, he’s been seeing the same changes that other papers are. He wants to rebrand and build a real web presence, but he was complaining that there’s no professional journalists in the area.” He was smiling in a casual way, as if he weren’t just saying something that felt like a gift from heaven to Sophie. “You’d be really good at that, with your experience. Hold on.”

  Mark was listening. Sophie was sure he was listening. And she suddenly felt a surge of intense hope, like this was the answer to her prayers about their future.

  Gabe took a few steps over and opened a drawer under the counter that looked like it was a multi-purpose junk drawer. After a minute, he found what he was looking for. A business card.

  He handed it to Mark. “Give him a call if you want. It might be kind of boring, compared to your other options, but at least you could stay in Willow Park.” His eyes went over their shoulders, evidently seeing someone who had just walked in the door. “Excuse me. I’ve got to say hello.”

  Gabe walked away, leaving Sophie breathless and trying not to shake with excitement.

  “There you go,” Micah said with a grin. “That’s what we call Providence around here. We might win a volleyball game next season after all.”

  Sophie laughed, as she was supposed to, but Mark didn’t respond in any way.

  To smooth over the loose ends, Sophie said, “We’ll have to do some thinking about things. At least we have options, though.”

  An older couple walked over then to say hello. Sophie recognized them as Micah and Daniel’s parents. The conversation turned to small talk, and eventually Sophie and Mark wandered away, toward the fireplace in the living room where a huge tree was set up.

  “It’s not as pretty as our tree,” Sophie murmured.

  “It’s not as fat, anyway.”

  “We discussed this. It’s just big-boned.”

  Mark chuckled and pulled her toward him in a soft hug.

  Sophie’s chest relaxed at the obvious affection. He felt close to her again. This morning hadn’t ruined everything.

  “So what do you think?” she asked softly, looking up at him, her hands still on his chest.

  “About what?”

  “You know what. About talking to the guy at The Ledger.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think you’ll give him a call?”

  “I might.”

  She tried to hide the frustration that surged up at his reticence. There was no reason for her to be impatient with him. “It won’t hurt to talk to him. Would that…would that even be something you’d want to do.”

  “I have no idea what I want to do.”

  “I know. I get it. But it’s going to be Christmas in another week, and then it will be New Year’s, and then we’ll be into next year, and Roger and the station are going to want a decision from you. You can’t hang around doing nothing forever.”

  He stiffened slightly, and she realized her mistake.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a rush, her hands clenching in his shirt. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like that. I know you need time to recover and get…get back into life. But I really think it will be easier for you once you get back into work. You’re not the kind of guy who is happy doing nothing.”

  He closed his eyes. “I know. I just don’t know what I can do anymore.”

  “You can do anything. You can do anything you want.”

  “What if I want to do what I did before?”

  She swallowed over a coil of intense fear at the idea of him going back to the Middle East, back to where it had been so dangerous for him before. But all she said was, “If…if you do, then we can talk about it. Is that…is that what you want?”

  “I just want to be who I was before.”

  Of course, he wanted that. She wanted to be who she’d been before too—happy, laughing, helpless, so completely innocent. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I know, Mark. I want that too.”

  He didn’t reply at all, but maybe he just didn’t have the chance. Someone called out, “The mistletoe is over there,” and Sophie looked over and saw Abigail grinning at her.

  Sophie smiled back, feeling a little embarrassed, although she and Mark had not really been having a romantic moment.

  She wasn’t sure exactly what kind of moment it was.

  They went over to talk to Abigail and Thomas, and Mark was his friendly, natural self. It was like their discussion near the Christmas tree hadn’t even taken place.

  She should be glad he was having a good time and getting to know other people. She wanted that. But it felt like something very important—their future, his career, the way he kept pushing away any support she tried to offer him—had just been swept under the rug.

  She remembered, shortly after he’d returned, when they’d been standing in the park in D.C. and he’d asked her to help him be his old self. Maybe he couldn’t have what he really wanted, but he could still have something. She was still determined to help him, whether he wanted her help or not. If he wasn’t yet ready to live life without some nudging, then she would continue nudging him gently. Mark needed a job—a job he could pour himself into, a job he could genuinely enjoy. Tomorrow, she would give Roger a call and encourage him to call Mark up and feel him out some more, to see if he was planning to take the position with the station he’d been offered.

  He had two decent possibilities, and she was sure he could find more options if he would just take some initiative. She couldn’t slack off on helping him, just because she was getting tired and discouraged. This was too important.

  She wanted the best for him, and it was her job to help him get there.

  Tomorrow, after she talked to Roger, she would see if she could get Mark to call Milton Bucket as well.

  ***

  On Monday morning, when Sophie headed down to the bookstore, Mark was lying on the couch reading. She asked him if he wanted to come to the bookstore too, but he didn’t.

  The store was actually quite busy during the morning and early afternoon, since a lot of people came in to buy Christmas presents. But there was a lull around four o’clock, and she used it to call Roger.

  He was as friendly and sympathetic as ever, and he promised to call Mark right away and give him a little gentle pressure about deciding about the job.

  Then she pulled out the slip of paper she’d written Milton Bucket’s phone number on that morning, having found the business card still in Mark’s trouser pocket.

  She looked at it a long time.

  Then she decided it wouldn’t be fair to do anything without giving Mark a chance first, so she called up Mark instead.

  “Hey,” he said, sounding relaxed, almost sleepy.

  “Hey. What are you doing?”

  “Just reading.”

  “If you wanted to do something today, we can use a trip to the store. We’re out of paper towels and garbage bags, and we’re getting low on laundry detergent.”

  “Okay. I can go. When will you be home?”

  “Not until six, so you’d have plenty of time if you want to go before then. You could go to the—”

  “I know where to go.” He sounded a little abrupt.<
br />
  She blinked, wondering why he was crabby about such an innocuous conversation. But she brushed it away in order to get to the real point of her call. “Okay. Good. You didn’t get the chance to call Milton Bucket, did you?”

  He was silent for longer than was normal in a phone conversation. “No.”

  “Oh. Okay. It might just be good to know if it’s even a possibility. Just to size it up. Not to make any decisions.”

  “I understand that.”

  She bit her lip and waited a few beats to control her impatience. “Okay. Good. Do you think you’ll call him, then?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Okay. I was just checking.” She sounded overly bright and overly casual, but it was the best she could do.

  This wasn’t good for him. This sitting around, procrastinating on starting life wasn’t good for him.

  And he wouldn’t even talk to her about it for real.

  Trying to think of something entirely different to talk about, she said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about Evergreen Farms, where we got our Christmas tree.”

  “What about it?” Mark sounded curious, rather than cool, which was an improvement.

  Encouraged, Sophie said, “There’s an inn there, you know. I was wondering if we should go up there for a couple of days after Christmas. It looked really nice, and Wendy said it was a great place to go and recharge.”

  “Well, she owns it, doesn’t she, so she’d have reason to say something like that.”

  “Yeah, but I really liked the place. I liked Wendy. It might be nice for us to get away for a little while. Do you not want to?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  She frowned. “Well, that doesn’t sound very enthusiastic. If you don’t want to go, you could just say so.”

  “I just said it was fine.”

  “But I want you to want to go too. I don’t want everything to have to be my idea, and you just go along for the ride.” She hadn’t meant to say so much, and she immediately regretted the thoughtless words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “I guess it never occurred to you that I don’t want to be just along for the ride either.”

  “I know you don’t.” She wanted to bite her tongue off for saying something that he would interpret as a complaint about his behavior lately. Hadn’t John told her a few days ago that Mark didn’t want to feel weak and helpless around her? “I didn’t mean you were. I just didn’t want to do a trip that you weren’t excited about.”

  He was silent for a long time on the phone, and she had no idea what he was thinking. Whether he was angry or upset or defensive or sick of putting up with her.

  She’d always thought she was good with people, but she’d done nothing but bumble around and make mistakes with Mark, ever since he got back. And now she was so, so tired of trying to do the right thing, of always being strong for him.

  “I love you,” she said, out of the blue, desperately wanting for him to know it was true.

  There was a brief hesitation before Mark said, “I know you do.”

  “I just want to help.”

  “I know you do. I’ll talk to you later.”

  When she hung up, she stared down at the phone number on the slip of paper again.

  Then she made up her mind. She might be tired. She might be utterly exhausted and on the verge of falling apart. But she was going to help Mark anyway.

  She dialed the number. When a man’s voice picked up, she introduced herself and said that Gabe Alexander had given them his business card and recommended they call.

  Her husband was a world-class journalist, and he was looking into different job options in the area.

  Eleven

  Sophie heard nothing about either of the job possibilities for the next three days.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting to hear, but she assumed she’d hear results from at least one of her calls.

  But she didn’t get a call from either Roger or Milton Bucket, and Mark didn’t mention receiving a call from either of them.

  So, on Christmas Eve morning, she was starting to assume that nothing was going to happen after all. Milton had said he was going to look into some options and then figure out if he was ready to make a big change for the newspaper—one that would make Mark’s experience in journalism an asset to him. Maybe he’d decided he wasn’t ready, that he wanted the local paper to basically stay as it always had and mostly provide folks obituaries and coupons for the grocery store.

  Maybe there really was no place for Mark here in Willow Park. Maybe Sophie was being selfish to want to keep him here, when his career would naturally lead him to a bigger city.

  Maybe Willow Park wasn’t really as good for them as she believed it would be.

  She thought and she prayed and she worried about it as she sat behind the cash register at the bookstore at ten o’clock in the morning. A few people had come in right at nine to buy last minute gifts, and she was keeping the store open until noon, in case there were any other stragglers. She’d volunteered to take this shift herself, since she and Mark weren’t planning to do anything until the afternoon.

  She’d suggested they go to the Christmas fair going on a few towns away, and Mark had seemed agreeable to the idea. Then, this evening, they were going to the Christmas Eve service at the church, and they were going to have a quiet evening with just the two of them afterwards.

  She was trying to be excited about it, but she was so emotionally exhausted—so stressed about his mental state and apathy regarding his future—that she couldn’t really look forward to it the way she otherwise would have. He’d been back in the country for almost two months now. And she had absolutely no idea how long it would take him to really get back into life.

  At a little after eleven, she hadn’t had a customer in an hour, and she was thinking she might as well close up for the day. Then her telephone rang, and she fumbled it slightly when she saw it was Roger calling.

  “Hi, Roger,” she said, feeling a little breathless.

  “Hey, Sophie. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine. I’m doing really well. How about you? How are Carol and the kids?”

  “Everyone is doing great on my end. Hey, I just hung up the phone with Mark.”

  Sophie swallowed. “You did? On Christmas Eve?”

  “Yeah. I’ve called him a couple of times, and he didn’t return my messages, so I figured I’d try to catch him today, just in case.”

  She felt a little sick at the way Mark had ignored Roger’s calls like that. She understood that the idea of his job situation would create angst for him, but he had to do something. He couldn’t keep stringing the station along forever, when they’d already been incredibly generous about giving him whatever time he needed. “I’m sorry he’s been hard to catch. We’ve been…well, it’s been a hard transition.”

  “I know it has. I understand. I just wanted to touch base with you, since you seemed worried when we talked on Monday. It doesn’t sound like he wants the New York job. I looked into some other options, but he doesn’t sound too excited about those either.”

  She closed her eyes, unsure of whether to be even more concerned or hopeful that he was seriously considering staying in Willow Park. “Okay. He’s been conflicted about it, and it was hard for him to make a decision.”

  “Well, we’ll be sorry to lose him if he decides in a different way, but sometimes that’s for the best. After what he went through, maybe it’s easiest for him to have a clean break.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it is.” She opened her mouth to ask Roger how Mark had sounded on the phone, but then she thought again. She didn’t want it to seem like she was checking up on her own husband. “I really appreciate you making an effort.”

  “Of course. He’s going to give me a final answer after the holidays, but either way we’ll have to keep in touch.”

  “Definitely. Merry Christmas, Roger.”

  “You too. If anyone deserves to have a
good Christmas, it’s you and Mark.”

  Sophie was almost crying as she disconnected the call, and she wasn’t even sure why.

  She just wanted a moment of peace, and she hadn’t had one in so long—almost three years now, it seemed.

  She prayed for peace, and for wisdom, and for answers, and for the ability to love Mark the way he deserved. But it felt like she’d been praying forever, and nothing ever got fixed.

  Sometimes it felt like things were getting better, but then another trail would appear out of nowhere.

  She wasn’t sure how strong she could be in the face of the endless road in front of her.

  She took a few shaky breaths and gathered her strength, and then she started to close up the bookstore.

  Mark was waiting upstairs. They were going to have Christmas together. They were closer now than they’d been at first. They’d definitely made some progress. Things were getting better. She shouldn’t expect everything to be fixed all at once.

  She kept giving herself a mental pep talk as she made her way upstairs.

  The apartment had a strange vibe to it when she opened the door and set down her purse, phone, and keys. She looked around as she slid off her coat, trying to figure out what felt so strange.

  Everything looked normal—pretty much picked up, all their furniture in the normal places. Mark wasn’t visible, but it didn’t take long for her to figure out where he was.

  He was in the shower. He’d slept in late this morning. Maybe he’d just now taken his shower.

  That wasn’t really like him, but maybe she simply didn’t know what was like him anymore.

  She shook away her strange vibes and sat down to call her parents, since she might not get the chance later today. She and Mark were supposed to go down to Florida to visit them next week.

  She chatted with them for twenty minutes, and Mark still didn’t come out of the shower.

  He hadn’t taken showers this long since he’d first gotten out of the hospital.

  Maybe there was a reason for the strange vibes she’d felt on entering the apartment. Maybe something was wrong with him.

  She waited a few more minutes, and then went to knock on the bathroom door. “Mark?”