By the time she struggled down the slope to the bottom of the valley’s bowl, the cold had set her whole body on high alert. She didn’t have a single thought of her parents, or the wedding, or even Trevor. Everything in her just wanted to survive.
And to do that, as the grip of the cold tightened on her, something told her to keep moving.
So when she got to the bottom of the bowl, she just kept going, right up the slope in front of her.
She crested it, half hoping she’d immediately see the lights of home, which should only be steps away, if she could just figure out the direction to go.
But instead, she found herself in more snowy forest—snowy forest that looked to her for all the world exactly like the one she’d found on the opposite side of the bowl.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she was immediately surprised by the way they began to sting where they slid down her face in the cold.
Should she go to the left or the right? Or back down into the valley?
As she wondered, a gust of wind blew her a few steps to the right, and she just continued to follow it, putting one foot in front of the other into the blinding snow. As the night had come on, the woods around her had darkened so that all she could see clearly were the hundreds of individual flakes that flew directly around her face, and the black hulks of trees when she got close enough to them.
But most of the time, from what she could make out now, she was in a blizzard that could have just erased the whole forest, for all she knew.
Maybe because of the drop in temperature, the wind had picked up as well, so that the snow no longer fell in peaceful quiet, but whipped into her eyes. The wind slapped her hair, now damp with snow, against her cheeks, and let out intermittent loud shrieks as it blasted through the trees.
But when she started to imagine that it was calling her name, she felt her stomach drop with despair. Was this what she’d read about, when people were freezing to death, the hallucinations they started to have as their dreams took them under?
“Hannah!” the wind called again.
It sounded as if it was getting closer.
Then something caught her by the elbow, and she screamed.
“Hannah,” the voice said again, more gently. “Hey. You okay?”
An arm descended around her shoulders.
Hannah had to push her damp hair away from her eyes to see Luke’s face, but somehow she had already placed his voice.
He gave her an encouraging grin, and her face crumpled with tears.
“Luke,” she said.
“What are you doing out here?” Luke asked as he steered her through the woods.
Hannah shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just needed a minute to myself. I thought I could find my way back to the house, but I couldn’t. I was completely lost out here,” she said, getting herself together enough to wipe at the tears on her face.
“No, you weren’t,” Luke said, as they stepped out of the woods, into the familiar curve of the driveway, with the lights of the inn twinkling just beyond. “Look how close you got.”
Hannah shook her head. “I don’t think I’d have ever found it if you didn’t come after me,” she said.
“Sure you would have,” Luke said lightly, as they came up the stairs to the inn. “You were headed in the right direction. You just didn’t know it.”
“Thank you,” Hannah said, when the door finally closed behind them, shutting out the dark and the wind.
Hannah’s teeth chattered involuntarily as a shiver threatened to spread through her entire body.
Luke grinned. “No problem,” he said. “I’m a trained professional. You want to get that damp sweater off?”
“A trained professional?” Hannah said, peeling off the soaked cashmere. She tugged down the tank top she wore underneath. Luke hung the sweater on a hook, taking a big red-and-black plaid blanket out of a basket by the door.
“I’m an outdoor guide,” he said. “I spend most of my time leading people around in the woods.”
“Rich businessmen?” Hannah asked, as he wrapped her in the blanket. “Out to risk their lives because they don’t get any other excitement?”
Luke looked at her, bemused. “I see your little run-in with the Vermont winter didn’t take the edge off your smart mouth,” he said. “I remember that from when we were kids.”
“All of me is smart,” Hannah said, surprised to feel herself smiling. “I can’t help it.”
“Not smart enough to put a coat on when you go outside, I notice,” Luke said, raising his eyebrows.
Even under the blanket, Hannah was still shivering as she stepped out of the entryway into the lobby.
Iris looked up at her. “Oh, honey,” she said. “What happened to you? Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to go out in the cold without a hat on?”
“I think you probably told her that yourself at least a dozen times,” Luke said with a grin as he hustled Hannah past her.
“Apparently, I didn’t tell her often enough,” Iris retorted as they slipped into the lounge.
“Okay,” Luke said. “Let’s get you over by the fireplace.”
“This is your professional opinion?” Hannah said, following him through the lobby to the giant stone fireplace in the lounge, where a glowing fire danced in the massive iron grate.
She sank down beside it gratefully, feeling the radiant heat seeping into the chill that had set into her bones.
“Thank you,” she said. “I shouldn’t hassle you about your job. I can tell you’re good at it. And obviously, I needed a guide tonight.”
“It’s mostly with kids, actually,” Luke said, turning his back to her to pour a cup of hot chocolate from the gleaming copper thermos that Jeanne had left on a nearby end table, along with an assortment of homemade crackers and cheese. “Although maybe I should try to round up some rich businessmen. It might be easier to pay the bills.”
“Kids?” Hannah said.
“Yeah,” Luke said, putting the mug of chocolate in her hands. “They’re all different, but they’re all struggling somehow. Taking them out in the woods takes their minds off their problems, lets them know there’s more to life than their cell phones and high schools. And learning outdoor skills builds confidence.”
“To actually solve their problems,” Hannah said.
“Some of them, I hope,” Luke said.
“I remember you always liked to show kids around,” Hannah said. “As soon as a new kid checked in, you were always like, Hey, come out to the woods with us!”
“Do you remember the first time we played in the woods as kids?” Luke asked.
“I do,” Hannah said. “I thought I’d found the entrance to Aladdin’s cave, and you told me you’d been all over the land, and there were no caves for miles.”
“We were both right,” Luke said.
“It’s more like an overhang than a cave,” Hannah said.
“But I never noticed it before you pointed it out,” Luke said.
“And I would never have found that spot if you hadn’t taken me,” Hannah said. “Although apparently my time in the woods didn’t manage to cure my smart mouth.”
“Yeah, but I never thought that was a problem that needed solving,” Luke said. “I always kind of liked it.”
Hannah smiled again and raised her mug of hot chocolate.
“Sit down,” she said. “You’re not going to make me drink alone, are you?”
Luke glanced out the windows, into what was now definitively night. “Ah,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get going. I’m still trying to get to my mom’s tonight. I would have started out earlier, but . . .”
“Someone got lost in the woods,” Hannah said with a rueful look. “And you had to go fish her out.”
Luke grinned. “It was my pleasure, really,” he said. He watched her for just a moment longer, then clapped his hands like a camp leader winding up for a new activity.
“Okay,” he said. “Got to get going.”
“What do you mean?” Hannah asked. “Aren’t the roads closed?”
“You forget, I’m a trained professional,” Luke said.
“Are you sure you should be doing that, even as a professional?”
He shrugged. “It’s that or not make it home for Christmas. It’s an epic storm. No telling when the roads will open again, when we’re this far out of town.”
“Okay . . .” she said. She drew her blanket more tightly around her shoulders.
“Be safe.”
“Always,” Luke said. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” Hannah called after him as he walked out of the lounge, turned the corner into the lobby, and disappeared.
GEOFFREY GODWIN TRAMPED DOWN the flight of stairs that led to the lobby, stopped at the foot of them, and frowned.
Iris resisted the urge to frown back, and then the sudden urge to laugh. The atmosphere of the lobby, with the warmth of the antique furniture, the sparkle from Jeanne’s decorations, and the smells of chocolate and cinnamon that pervaded the whole first floor was so wonderful, and Godwin’s expression was so suspicious, that it was actually comical.
How could anyone, Iris wondered, be dissatisfied in a place like this?
With a sharp glance that seemed to take in every detail, Godwin surveyed the room, showing no expression of delight at any of the touches that usually elicited smiles, or even gasps, from other guests: the bowls full of hand-painted Victorian glass bulbs, the grapevine swags Iris had helped Jeanne dip in pale blue glitter, with sprays of juniper and dried roses peeking out from between the curls of the vines, the rolled beeswax candles on the mantel, the cinnamon wreath hanging on the mirror over the mantel of the entryway’s fireplace.
It wasn’t until his gaze came to Iris that his expression changed. Iris wouldn’t have called it a softening. It looked more like surprise, as if he was startled to discover he hadn’t been alone in the space all that time.
“Hey. Is this fireplace original to the inn? What’s the construction date for this place?”
Iris’s brows knit.
“My name is Iris,” she said, with a satisfying arch of her brow.
At this, a slight twinkle came to Godwin’s eye, as if some of the Claus family spirit had managed to survive within the chill of his Grinchy exterior.
Iris girded herself, ready to fire back some comment of her own if it turned out that his amusement was at her expense.
But apparently, he was capable of laughing at himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Iris. I do forget my manners from time to time.”
If he hadn’t been so curious about the big old house, Iris might have made him stew for just a bit longer in his apology. But whatever the limits of his manners, Iris seldom met anybody who asked such intelligent questions about the place. And there was no topic of conversation she liked better herself.
“This house was built in 1868,” she said. “By a Union soldier who had recently returned from the Civil War.”
The skepticism flared in Godwin’s eyes again as he raised his bushy white eyebrows. “This is a pretty nice spread for a simple soldier,” he said.
“Well, it didn’t start out like this,” Iris shot back, coming from behind the desk. “You can see the whole footprint of the original home here,” she went on, pointing to the lounge, with its giant fireplace. It was spacious enough as a single room, but quite modest as a family home.
“So how did all this come to be?” Godwin asked, gesturing at the sprawling floor plan that now surrounded the lounge, and up at the multiple floors that rose overhead.
“Piece by piece,” Iris said. “As he and his descendants had more funds and opportunity. This beauty,” she said, nodding at the merry flames that danced in the fireplace in the lobby, directly across from her own desk, “was also built by the original owner, after an especially good harvest—and after he and his wife had had enough children that they were eager to have a room of their own. His wife actually created the faces on both of them. You can tell because she had a fondness for pink stone. When they were clearing the nearby fields, she’d have the kids bring her any stone that had a hint of color in it. And in this one . . .” she said, bending over to hunt for exactly the stone she wanted in the lobby fireplace.
When she found it, she straightened, grinning and pointing. “There’s a fossil!”
“You don’t say?” Godwin said, leaning forward and squinting so that he could see for himself: a beautiful, perfectly formed spiral shell, encased forever in stone. “That’s quite a specimen,” he said. “And you seem to know quite a bit about this place. You said you lived here at one point?”
“All my life,” Iris said simply.
“You mentioned the original owner and his descendants,” Godwin asked. “Are you by chance one of them?”
Iris nodded, smiling with pride.
“So the same family has been on this land for over a hundred years,” Godwin calculated.
“Almost a hundred and fifty,” Iris said.
“That’s getting rarer and rarer,” Godwin mused. “Especially here in the States. It must be a special family.”
“Be careful,” Iris said. “If you give me any more compliments on my family tree, I’m liable to pull out pictures of my grandchildren. And there’s no telling where that ends.”
“Heaven forbid,” Godwin said, with a theatrical shudder that Iris couldn’t be sure was a joke, or not. “And how long has it served as an inn?” Godwin asked.
“I sold the place to Jeanne and Tim a little over ten years ago,” Iris said.
“Sold?” Godwin said, his eyebrows leaping in surprise.
“The expenses had gone up so much that I wasn’t sure I could keep up with them,” Iris said. “And none of the kids or grandkids wanted to come back and live out here in the sticks. I didn’t want to get in a place where I couldn’t control whose hands it fell into. I’d never want to see this land broken up, or the house torn down. And Jeanne and Tim loved it as much as I did. Almost as much,” she amended, with a smile.
“And your only stipulation, as I remember, was that you be allowed to stay here to work,” Godwin said.
“That’s right,” Iris said. “I don’t know what else I’d do with myself otherwise.”
Godwin gave her a long look. “I suspect you’d think of something,” he said finally.
“And what about you?” Iris asked. “What brings you to Vermont?”
At her question, all the friendliness went out of Godwin’s expression. His eyes began to dart around the room, not as if he was absorbing details, but as if he was looking for a way to escape.
“That’s a long story,” he said. “And not a very interesting one, I’m afraid.”
“I think all stories are interesting,” Iris said.
But instead of picking up on the thread of her conversation, Godwin glanced into the lounge. “You’ll excuse me to continue my explorations?” he asked.
“Of course,” Iris said. “Let me know if you have any more questions.”
“You may regret having said that.” Godwin stepped into the next room, peering around it with the same sharp, calculating glance with which he’d regarded the lobby.
His demeanor was so precise, and his gaze so intense, that Iris wondered for a minute if he was a man with a military history, or even a spy.
She smiled at herself. That explanation, however outlandish, would explain his capacity for observation, and perhaps his brusque demeanor, but it raised a whole host of other questions, like what a dangerous spy might be doing in the wilds of Vermont on the day before Christmas.
Still, as Iris returned to her desk, she couldn’t help but wonder what, exactly, he had refrained from telling her about himself—and why.
“NO, DADDY, NO, DADDY, no, Daddy, no!” Bailey protested.
Marcus, who was still standing in the doorway of Molly’s suite, which the two girls had just barreled into, shot a glance of mild exasperation a
nd commiseration at Molly, then looked down at Bailey.
Bailey wasn’t in full meltdown mode; there were no red-faced tears or hiccups. But she clearly had deep feelings about the topic under discussion, which was what book they were going to read before the girls went to sleep.
And after she had made her point clear, she folded her arms and stuck out one hip, like a miniature general laying claim to all the territory he could see around him.
Addison, who had been heading obediently to bed before Bailey’s outburst, looked at her sister with mild surprise, then adopted a waiting air, not sure yet whether to take the role of responsible big sister or to join her in a righteous protest.
“But I thought The Christmas Pony was your favorite book,” Marcus said, crouching down to negotiate eye to eye.
“It is,” Bailey said, as if that only made the current predicament worse.
“Well,” Marcus said, with a puzzled air, “is there something else you’d rather read?”
Bailey shook her head decisively. “No!” she repeated.
“Okay, Bailey,” Marcus said. “Then I have to admit I don’t understand. What exactly is the problem with me reading this book to you?”
He had carried the book into the room with him, and now he held it out, trying to entice Bailey with what had apparently until recently been her favorite book in the world.
But Bailey, implacable, simply turned her nose up at it.
“I don’t want you to read it,” she said, then turned and pointed at Molly with a sweeping gesture, as if she were a character revealing the identity of some long-lost family member in a daytime drama. “I want her to.”
“Oh,” Marcus said, and glanced back at Molly to check her reaction.
Addison, in the meantime, seemed to have decided this was a demand she could get on board with. She’d been hanging back, a bit to the side, but now she took up a spot beside her sister and crossed her arms as Bailey nodded to her in solidarity and satisfaction.
“She writes books,” Addison argued. “So she must be good at reading them.”
The White Christmas Inn Page 8
