The White Christmas Inn

by Colleen Wright

  “That would be great,” Luke said. “Thanks, man.”

  Molly took this as her cue. “I’m going to get out of your bunkhouse,” she said, “and get back to my own.”

  Marcus stood up with her. “Thanks again,” he said, looking into her eyes with a grateful smile. “You let me know if you need anything at all.”

  “Good night,” Molly said, a shy smile of her own forming in return.

  Luke nodded at her, and she suddenly felt awkward that he was there, watching the exchange.

  She padded toward the stairs, then looked back. Marcus was silhouetted against the fire as he bent over to make his bed for the night. The shadows of the nativity scene danced in the corner, mirroring the play of the fire in the fireplace.

  We made some more room at the inn, Molly thought as she went up the stairs.

  “I’M SORRY, HONEY,” HANNAH’S mother said, blotting at Hannah’s damp hair with a towel that had been warming in a basket by the fire in her parents’ room. “We didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Hannah nodded. “I know, Mom.”

  When Luke had first brought her back to the house, her whole body had just been in survival mode. All thoughts had been driven from her head except the bite of pain as the cold seeped into her extremities, the rising panic as it became harder to breathe in the frigid air. She thought at first that she had managed some genius trick, chasing out any thoughts of Trevor in the face of much more elemental concerns.

  But as she began to warm up, the mug of hot chocolate and the heat of the welcoming flames on her skin, a dull, low-grade dread began to build in her, despite the cozy surroundings and the sweetness of the chocolate.

  It didn’t come with any thoughts yet, but she knew they wouldn’t be far behind. Which is why she had climbed the stairs back to the second floor. And why she had walked past the door of her own room, and gone instead to her parents’.

  That helped, but it didn’t drive the heaviness in her heart away. If anything, it seemed to be getting heavier, just barely perceptibly, moment by moment.

  “You know we love you, Hannah-belle,” her father said from the easy chair he’d sunk into across the room. “We just didn’t know the right thing to say.”

  “I’m not sure there is a right thing to say,” Hannah’s mother said. She gave Hannah a squeeze. “But we’ll get through it. We always have.”

  Usually, Hannah loved her mother’s hopefulness. And usually it gave her hope of her own. But tonight, nothing seemed to be making a dent in the pain that throbbed a little more with each beat of her heart, like an injury waking up as the anesthetic wore off.

  At the door of her parents’ room, there was a gentle knock.

  Hannah’s parents exchanged a glance. “You expecting someone?” Hannah’s father asked.

  Her mother shook her head.

  For a minute, Hannah’s heart leapt with the crazy hope that it was Trevor, having changed his mind, come through the storm to beg for another chance. They could still make it work, she calculated quickly. There was no reason the wedding couldn’t go on like they’d planned, just as long as he was here now.

  But when her father went to the door, it was Audrey’s head that peeped through. “Have you two seen Hannah?” she half whispered. “I just went to check on her, but she’s not in her—”

  Before she could finish, she caught sight of Hannah.

  “Hey, honey,” Audrey said, “where have you been?”

  To Hannah’s relief, Audrey’s voice wasn’t full of the sympathy that laced her parents’ voices. As much as Hannah appreciated their concern, it was hard to deal with them, even when they weren’t busy shouting insults about Trevor. She felt like she needed to feel better, so that they could feel better. And the fact was, she didn’t know right now if she would ever feel better.

  But Audrey just gave Hannah the same matter-of-fact treatment she always did, even when Hannah didn’t answer her question.

  “I just went downstairs looking for you,” she said. “And someone put a fresh plate of warm sugar cookies out by the front desk. I think it’s a sign that we’re supposed to drown our sorrows in Christmas cookies.”

  “Well,” Hannah’s mother said, a serious expression on her face. “I don’t know if now is exactly . . .”

  But Hannah was already hopping down off her bed, shedding the towel her mother had placed around her neck, and the blanket Luke had wrapped her in when they’d come inside.

  With a grin, Audrey swung the door open. Gratefully, Hannah escaped through it, into the dim hall.

  “Don’t worry,” she heard Audrey promise over her shoulder. “I’ll take good care of her.”

  “Thanks, sweetie,” Hannah’s mother said.

  “You heard from Jared?” she asked Audrey as they headed for the stairs. Her mother’s comment reminded Hannah that she wasn’t the only one having a bad day.

  Audrey sighed. “He’s in Orlando,” she said. “But I don’t know when they’re going to start letting flights land in the Northeast again. At least they gave him a place to stay in the airport hotel. I wonder if I should have just told him to stay in San Diego. At least he could have gotten some rest there. I’m afraid now he’s going to spend his entire leave in airports, and by the time the snow clears it’ll just be time for him to turn around and go back.”

  Hannah gave Audrey a quick squeeze and the two of them started down the stairs, following the buttery scent of fresh-baked sugar cookies.

  But when Hannah reached the last step, she looked up to see the back of a tall man who looked remarkably like Luke, dressed in a sweatshirt and a pair of loud red pajama bottoms printed with large multicolored Christmas bulbs. He was filling a plate with cookies from a tray on the low buffet in the entryway. He had so many cookies piled on the plate that it looked like they might topple over.

  “Luke?” Hannah said.

  Luke turned around. When he saw Hannah, his eyes darted around the room like he was looking for an escape, and his face flushed a bright red. He looked down at his pajama bottoms, and after a second his face broke out in a wide grin.

  “I don’t know which I should be more embarrassed about,” he said. “The pajamas or the cookies. In my defense,” he said, lifting the plate, “the cookies are dinner. My grandma just set them out, and they’re amazing.”

  “What are you doing here?” Hannah asked. “Didn’t you just leave?”

  “That eager to get rid of me?” Luke asked, putting on an expression of mock hurt.

  As he did, Audrey came down the stairs behind Hannah.

  “Hello,” Audrey said, in a tone of voice that carried the clear implication of, And who in the world is this?

  At the interest in Audrey’s voice, Hannah caught a momentary glimpse of Luke in a new light: a handsome stranger, tall, friendly, and grinning. Years ago, if they’d accidentally run into someone like Luke, it would have been the highlight of their evening.

  But they weren’t just two young girls anymore, out to explore the world together, Hannah thought. So much had happened since then, for both of them. Hannah’s stomach turned. She took a cookie from the tray.

  “I’m Audrey,” Audrey said when Hannah failed to introduce her. She stuck her hand out, and Luke shook it.

  “Pardon my pajamas,” Luke said. “I’m crashing on the couch tonight.”

  “You couldn’t make it out?” Hannah asked. She nibbled on the cookie.

  “And this is Hannah,” Audrey said, in a tone that conveyed her apologies for Hannah’s bad manners.

  “Oh, I know Hannah,” Luke said, grinning. “Hannah and I go way back.”

  “Really?” Audrey said, turning to Hannah with a we’ll discuss this later look.

  “Hannah was my first love,” Luke added.

  Hannah choked on her cookie. Audrey slapped her back, and Hannah slowly swallowed.

  “That’s right,” he said, eyebrows raised. “You could climb a tree, and you knew all the lyrics to my favorite Guns N’ Roses album.
I was twelve. I couldn’t think of anything else I could want in a girl. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I can now.”

  “You two dated?” Audrey asked.

  Hannah began to shake her head vigorously.

  “Of course not,” Luke said. “I had no idea how to talk to girls back then. And this one,” he said, nodding at Hannah, “was too busy climbing trees to notice me.”

  “I haven’t climbed a tree since then,” Hannah said. “I don’t know if I still can.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” Luke said. “You’ve still got it.”

  He picked up a cookie from his plate and took a bite of it. “You’ll excuse me, ladies,” he said, heading for the lounge. “You arrived just in time,” he called over his shoulder. “If you’d waited any longer, I’d have picked that tray clean.”

  As Hannah stood there, watching him disappear into the shadows of the lounge, Audrey picked up a pair of plates and filled them with a few of the cookies that had survived Luke’s raid.

  “You want to sit down here for a while?” Audrey asked.

  Hannah shook her head, looking into the lounge, where she could already see one figure stretched out on a couch near the fire, apparently dead to the world. Luke was settling in with his plate.

  “Someone’s already sleeping in there,” she said. “Let’s go back upstairs.”

  Audrey barely let Hannah get one foot inside the door of her room before she turned on her, eyes wide with excitement.

  “You know that fine-looking man down there?” she asked. “You two were childhood sweethearts?”

  “Hardly,” Hannah said, biting into one of the warm cookies and feeling a faint twinge of pleasure at the perfectly balanced butter and sugar, with just a hint of vanilla. “Mostly, I remember him wanting to argue about the best brand of truck. I didn’t care what kind of truck was best, and that drove him nuts. Also,” she added, “throwing pinecones at me in the forest. He thought that was hilarious.”

  “But he is so handsome now!” Audrey said. “And so nice!”

  Hannah remembered his kind words as he led her into the house, and how gentle he’d been when he’d wrapped the blanket around her.

  “He is nice,” she agreed. “But I’m not exactly interested in romance at the moment.”

  Audrey shook her head. “Well,” she said, “whenever you are ready . . .” She trailed off with a meaningful look.

  Hannah tried to smile, but couldn’t manage it.

  She set the plate of cookies on the table beside her bed.

  “Thanks for coming to check on me,” she said. “But I think I just want to be alone for a while.”

  “You sure, honey?” Audrey asked.

  Hannah nodded.

  “Okay,” Audrey said, heading for the door. “Well, I’m just next door.”

  “I know,” Hannah said. “Thanks.”

  When the door closed behind Audrey, Hannah’s thoughts returned to Luke. Audrey was right. He was handsome, and more than nice—kind.

  But her heart was too heavy to even feel a tingle at the thought of him.

  As she looked around the room, her gaze fell on her wedding dress, still hanging up on the old antique wardrobe where Audrey had placed it when they first came into the room. It was white and pristine and hopeful, as if nobody had told it yet what had gone on today.

  With a sigh, Hannah got up, pulled the dress down, stuffed it into the empty wardrobe, and closed the doors.

  Then tears began to slide down her face.

  The wash of doubts and anger and sadness returned, without her mother or Audrey or someone else to distract her. Her mind kept replaying the same images and questions over and over. She remembered the good times with Trevor and ached that there would never be any more. She remembered the bad times and couldn’t stop asking herself why she hadn’t seen the warning signs. And all of the times she had pushed Trevor to take care of himself or be more careful, and he’d pushed back, with a laugh or a sharp comment.

  Should she have just let him be?

  Should she have tried to be more free and easy herself?

  But then what about all the times he’d been so grateful to her, telling her that she was the only one who really knew what he needed, the only one he couldn’t live without . . . his little “emergency kit.” She used to love when he called her that.

  Her stomach turned over at the thought now. That he’d discarded her without a second thought. At the very moment when it mattered most.

  Her heart, which had been so open and hopeful in the days leading up to the wedding, hadn’t been remotely prepared for any kind of rejection, let alone the end of such a long relationship.

  It was bad enough that Trevor had wasted everyone’s time, money, and energy. But now she felt broken, like there was something fundamentally wrong with her. She wanted to believe she was worthy of love, but now, perhaps for the first time in her life, she was afraid she would never find it . . . or that she didn’t deserve it. But then again, Hannah thought, she was supposed to be his girlfriend, his wife, not his nurse. Maybe she’d lost sight of the thing that mattered most.

  Looking around at the empty inn room, she became acutely aware of the fact that she had never had a relationship where her partner put her needs above his own. And now she was alone. When she was broken, who would take care of her? As Hannah sobbed into her pillow, she feared that no one would ever want to.

  “I KNOW WE’RE STUCK, Jeanne,” Tim said through gritted teeth. “If we weren’t, I assume we’d be moving.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jeanne said, in a tone of voice that made it pretty clear she really wasn’t. “I just thought maybe you hadn’t noticed it wasn’t working, because you hadn’t stopped pushing.”

  “I noticed.”

  Jeanne sighed, then shivered. Usually, temperatures stayed pretty close to freezing when snow was falling, but tonight, long after the sun had gone down, the cold was starting to turn bitter. And the snowfall around them showed no sign of coming to an end. “If it’s not working,” she said, “maybe we should try something else.”

  “Okay, Jeanne,” Tim said, standing back from the side of the sleigh where he had just been straining with all his might, pressing his shoulder into the curve of the sleigh in hopes of knocking it free of whatever obstruction lurked under the snow. “What do you suggest?”

  “I don’t know,” Jeanne said. “What’s out of the box?”

  This had been a favorite question of theirs for years. It was asking that question that had actually prompted them to dream of starting Evergreen Inn in the first place, instead of just continuing to claw their way up the corporate ladder in New York. And it was a question they had returned to again and again as they made decisions about the design and hospitality at the inn.

  But when she said it, Tim just shook his head.

  “I don’t know, Jeanne,” he said. “What’s out of the box?”

  Jeanne felt a pang in her heart, hearing the beloved question in such a dismissive tone.

  In front of the sleigh, Magnus flicked his tail and whinnied.

  Tim stared at him for a minute. Then he turned back to Jeanne, his expression serious.

  “You know what?” he asked. “How about this: we leave the sleigh here, and take Magnus back home. That will at least get you home and out of the cold. I don’t want you here all night.”

  “I don’t want either of us here all night,” Jeanne shot back. “But what about the produce?”

  “Well,” Tim said, making a clear but failing attempt to sound positive. “We could leave it out here until we figure out a way to bring it back. It’s freezing outside, so it’ll just be kind of like leaving it in a big fridge.”

  “Except it’s not a fridge, is it?” Jeanne said, in a tone that made it clear how crazy she thought his idea was. “It’s a freezer. You’re talking about leaving butter lettuce, and chives, and top-of-the-line meats in a freezer.”

  “You know, Jeanne,” Tim said, “it’s not the end o
f the world. An hour ago, we didn’t have any of this at all.”

  “Well, if we only came out here to bring it out in the cold, where it was going to freeze into nothing,” Jeanne said, “we might as well not have even come out at all.”

  “What do you want me to do, Jeanne?” Tim asked.

  “I don’t want you to give up!” Jeanne exclaimed. But it wasn’t until her voice cracked and tears sprang to her eyes that she realized that she was talking about something else. Something much bigger than the sleigh, or the produce.

  Tim seemed to realize this the same moment she did. But instead of softening his mood, it just seemed to make him feel worse.

  “I never gave up, Jeanne,” he said. “But sometimes you have to admit when you’re beat.”

  He sighed and laid a hand on Magnus’s back to comfort the old horse.

  “It’s just facing reality,” he said.

  At this, a ferocious resistance rose up in Jeanne. Without really knowing what she wanted to do, she leapt down from the seat of the sleigh, where she’d been sitting so that she could guide Magnus forward if Tim was able to get the sleigh free.

  Tim caught her arm and steadied her as she wobbled, trying to get her footing.

  “Hey,” he said. “What are you doing?”

  “What is this stuck on, anyway?” Jeanne said, kicking at the snow around the sleigh.

  Tim looked at the deep piles of white that surrounded them, rising up past both their knees.

  “The snow’s three feet deep,” he said.

  But Jeanne was already digging at the snow with her hands, picking up armfuls and throwing them into the storm. Half of it blew back in her face, but she made headway anyhow, digging down until she could see the glint of the sleigh’s runner, and the frozen tendrils of the grass buried deep beneath the snowfall.

  “What do you see?” asked Tim, who had tramped over to her, holding his arm over his face to avoid the small storm she was creating herself.

  But as she revealed the terrain around that part of the runner, she couldn’t find the obstruction. She brushed and pushed snow away for a foot in either direction, but found nothing but clear ground.