“Let’s see,” Olivia said. “What does your mommy have scheduled for the day?”
“We’re going inner tubing,” Carlos told her.
“Ah. Well, then, how about baking cookies after you’re done?” Olivia suggested. To Missy she said, “That’ll give me time to clean up from breakfast and do some of my dinner prep.”
“Are you sure this isn’t too much trouble?” Missy asked.
“Not at all. I love to bake. And every little girl should have a grandma to bake cookies with. Isn’t that right, Lalla?”
Lalla nodded emphatically, making her tiara wobble and the other diners smile.
So the day was all planned. But not quite the way James had envisioned. He’d hoped to at least share a cup of coffee with Olivia later that morning while everyone was out in the snow. However, the woman did have a B and B to run. She didn’t have time for coffee breaks with the guests.
She moved on to greet the other guests and the brothers started clearing plates. James supposed he could find plenty to do to entertain himself. But darn, he really wanted to entertain himself with Olivia.
People were beginning to disperse now. The two older women passed their table and Jane stopped for a moment, laying a hand on John’s shoulder. “That girl didn’t deserve you.”
John’s face flushed.
There was no time for embarrassment, though, not when there were children around. “Come on, John,” Carlos said eagerly. “Let’s go.”
“You can come see my doll.” Lalla took him by the hand, leading him from the table, Missy falling in step with them.
Yes, it looked like young John Truman was going to land on his feet.
James was about to follow everyone out when he heard Olivia call his name. He turned to see her hurrying up to him.
“You’re probably getting ready to go to Snow Hill with the kids,” she said.
“Actually, no. I thought I’d hang around here.”
“Oh. Well, in that case, would you like to relax with a cup of coffee? I have a little time before I need to get to work.”
“Great idea,” James said.
“We can sit over in the corner and admire the view.” She pointed to the far end of the dining room.
They grabbed cups of coffee and settled at one of the small corner tables.
“I sure enjoyed breakfast,” James told her, making her beam.
“I do love to cook.”
“And it shows. In the food,” he threw in quickly lest she think he was casting aspersions on her figure. “What you’ve been serving us is as good as anything we’d get in a five-star Seattle restaurant.”
“Oh.” She waved away his compliment.
“No, I’m serious.”
“Well, thank you. Of course, I couldn’t manage everything without help. Thank God for Eric. He’s been a rock all these years.”
“And what about your younger son?” James asked.
“Oh, he’s been supportive, too. Although he doesn’t love the place as much as Eric and I do. I think he’s still trying to find himself,” she confessed. She sighed. “Sometimes I worry about him. I’d love to see him meet a nice girl and eventually get married. Of course, I’d love that for Eric, too.”
James wondered if she’d had a chance to see Eric and Brooke together, if she’d seen the way they’d been looking at each other. “I think he might have taken a liking to my daughter,” he said cautiously. “What would you think of that, Olivia?”
“I think that would make me very happy.” She took a sip of her coffee. “You know, we’ve had so many guests come through our doors over the years, but we’ve never had a Christmas like this. It’s been so special.”
“I feel the same way,” James said. He reached across the table and covered her hand with his.
She smiled at him, tears in her eyes. “I’m so glad you and your family came to stay with us.”
“Me, too,” he said. It was early days yet, but he had a good feeling, the same feeling he’d had when he’d first met Faith, that this was the beginning of something that could change his life. As he smiled at her over his coffee cup, he could almost hear Faith whispering, “Merry Christmas, James.”
* * *
Word got out about the Snow Hill expedition and soon it seemed that half the guests had attached themselves to the party. And it was a party. Brooke found herself laughing as she fell off her inner tube and did a face-plant in the snow. Eric was right behind her with Lalla in his lap and they collided with her and fell off, too, Lalla laughing uproariously.
“Are you okay?” Eric asked, helping Brooke up.
“Never better,” she said. It felt good to laugh again. And in that laughter she could feel her mother’s presence.
The next to come down the hill were John and Missy with Carlos a few feet behind, the dog racing alongside him, barking. Brooke and Eric dodged out of the way and John skidded on past, shouting, “I’m king of the world.”
This was hardly surprising considering the way Missy had been looking at him all morning.
And now here came Vera and Jane, Vera atop her inner tube like a snow lady in a red parka, her plump legs encased in black leggings and boots that could’ve been around since the first North American Christmas. Jane was wearing ski pants and a parka and had a stocking cap on her head. Her long legs stuck out in front of her and she had her arms raised as if she were on a roller coaster. “Whee!” she whooped. Right behind them were the Williams girls, big smiles on their faces.
“Come on, Eric,” Lalla said, “let’s go again.” She grabbed Eric’s hand and started towing him back up the hill.
“I guess we’re going again,” he called over his shoulder, grinning at Brooke.
“I guess so,” she said, following the two of them. Score more points for Eric Wallace. He was so good with kids; he’d make a wonderful father someday.
She would never have guessed it when she’d first met him, but he seemed to be everything she’d been looking for—he was kindhearted, responsible, fun-loving, good with children. Mama would have loved him.
A momentary sadness slipped into Brooke’s heart. If only her mother had lived. She would have so enjoyed this outing.
Brooke remembered one of their many conversations. It had been Valentine’s Day, and Brooke had stopped by the house with a floral arrangement. The subject had turned to love, not something Brooke had wanted to discuss since her latest online Mr. Perfect had not panned out.
“Don’t worry,” her mother had said. “The right man will come along just when he’s supposed to.”
“I don’t think I’m ever going to find the right man,” Brooke had grumbled.
“Of course you will,” her mother had insisted.
Her mother had been correct, as usual. Eric Wallace was the right man; Brooke sensed it way down, soul deep. And he had come along at exactly the right time. This Christmas could have been depressing and hard to get through, haunted by memories. Oh, the memories were still there, but now, balanced by hope and the first stirrings of love, they weren’t so painful. She would always miss her mother, but she would go on and live the kind of full life Mama had dreamed of for her.
“You’ll move on and live your life, and that’s as it should be,” Mama had said. “And that’s how I want it to be. I want you to do me proud by living every moment to the fullest.”
She was doing that today. She was going to be fine. They all were. This Christmas was a new beginning, one her mother would have approved of.
She and Eric and Lalla were at the top of the hill now. He settled Lalla and himself on his inner tube, then smiled up at Brooke. “Race you.”
“You’re on,” she said. She jumped onto her own tube and pushed off and they went down the hill, laughing all the way.
* * *
>
“I’m hungry,” Carlos said.
“Me, too,” Lalla echoed.
“I guess we’d better run to the grocery store and pick up something from the deli before they close for the day,” John said, and they all piled into his pristine car, filling it with the smell of fresh air and wet dog.
“I should have taken my car,” Missy fretted, feeling a little guilty. “Now you’re stuck driving us to the store.”
“Nah,” he said. “I would’ve had to get something to eat, anyway.”
“I think Olivia was going to put out some snacks.”
“I’m too hungry for just snacks. How about you guys?” John asked the kids.
“I’m so hungry I could eat this much,” Carlos said, stretching his arms wide.
“Well, there you go,” John said, grinning at Missy.
He started the car and they drove to the store singing “Jingle Bells” at the top of their lungs.
The Safeway parking lot was packed with shoppers buying last-minute items for their holiday meals and visitors to town getting items before the store’s early closing at two. She hadn’t seen very many restaurants in town that were open. Even the hamburger joint had been closed.
“In a small town like this, family’s important,” John surmised.
“Another reason to like the place,” Missy said as they trudged across the snowy parking lot. “I’d love to live here.”
“Would you really?”
“Of course. Why not?”
He shrugged. “According to Holland, it would get boring.”
Her, Missy thought in disgust. “Well, I don’t think it would. There’s too many nice people up here to do things with. If I lived here, I’d be at that skating rink every Saturday.”
“Me, too,” put in Carlos.
“And in the summer I’d take the kids on picnics in the woods.”
“I like picnics,” Lalla said. “Do you like picnics?” she asked John, slipping her hand in his.
“I sure do,” he said.
Once at the deli counter John insisted on paying for lunch and they purchased fried chicken and coleslaw. “You need your veggies,” Missy insisted.
Carlos made a face. “Veggies. Ick!”
But Missy noticed that when they found a table in the café area, he followed John’s lead and ate some of the salad.
“I hope Buddy’s okay,” Carlos said as he finished the last of his chicken.
“We left the window open for him. He’ll be fine,” John assured him. “He’s probably taking a nap. You guys wore him out. You wore me out,” he added, making Lalla giggle.
But he seemed to have found his second wind once they got back to the lodge. Olivia took Lalla off to bake cookies, and Carlos took Buddy out to the front yard. “I saw some games in the upper lobby,” John said to Missy. “Would you like to play one?”
“Sure,” she said. Anything to keep John with her a little longer.
The Spikes were seated at a table playing Scrabble, and they greeted Missy and John, then went back to concentrating on their words, leaving the new arrivals to look through the stack of board games.
“Hey, here’s Sorry!” John said. “I haven’t played that in years.”
“I haven’t played it at all,” Missy said.
He looked at her in surprise. “You’ve never played Sorry!”
She shook her head.
“Man, what planet were you raised on?” he teased.
Planet Dysfunction. “I didn’t exactly have the best childhood,” she said, and felt the warmth of shame on her cheeks.
“Oh.”
The awkward tone of his voice drove the shame deeper. She couldn’t look at him.
“You know, there’s no crime in that,” he said. “Lots of people have screwed-up parents.”
She sighed. “I always wanted a normal childhood,” she said as they seated themselves at a small game table. “Every year I’d ask Santa to change my mom into Mrs. Brady.” Why was she sharing this? Two tears escaped her eyes and slipped down her cheeks, but she quickly wiped them away.
John reached across the table and laid a comforting hand on her arm. “Hey, it’s not about how you start in life. It’s about how you finish.”
She nodded. “I’m going to finish right. I have to, for the kids. I don’t want them to have the kind of life I had growing up. My mom was...” She shouldn’t share this. “She had a problem with alcohol.” There it was, out in the open, in all its humiliation and shame.
“A lot of people do,” he said, his voice free of accusation.
“I guess that’s why I never touch the stuff. I want to be a good mom.”
“You already are, Missy. Anybody can see that.”
New tears threatened, and all she could manage was a grateful nod.
“Come on, let’s play Sorry!” he said. “Let’s not be thinking sad stuff on Christmas.”
She nodded again. “Absolutely! This day has been perfect, and I don’t want anything to ruin it.”
John explained the game and they began to play. She crowed every time she got a game piece out of Start and pouted every time he drew a Sorry! card and put her back in. And she couldn’t help squealing when she got three out of four of her game pieces safely into Home.
She pointed a warning finger at him. “I’m going to take you down.”
“Oh, no. I’m not dead yet.”
And so they played on, moving their pieces around the board. “You know,” he said, after he’d drawn his next card, “I’m glad I didn’t go home.”
“Me, too,” she said, smiling at him. And something flashed between them, something that made her heart catch.
Now he looked at her seriously. “Missy, is there anybody in your life?”
“Like a guy?”
“Like a guy.”
She shook her head.
“I know I just broke up with someone so it’s tacky to ask this, but would you go out with me sometime?”
Would she! “Yes. I definitely would.”
He grinned. “It’s hard to believe that a few hours ago I thought my life was over.”
“It probably felt like it.”
He let out a sigh. “I really thought she was the one, you know. But I’m not sure why. I mean, we had stuff we liked to do together. And, of course, she was beautiful.”
A lot more beautiful than Missy could ever hope to be. She tried not to make a face.
“But that wouldn’t have been enough in the long run. I can see that now. A couple of times today when we were doing stuff, I asked myself, ‘Would Holland have liked this?’”
“Well, would she?”
“I don’t know. To be honest, I can’t imagine her going inner tubing. Or driving around in a car with a big wet dog. Hey, I know I can’t see her doing that.”
“But kids and dogs—is that what you want in life?” Missy asked. She held her breath, waiting for his response.
“Yeah, actually, it is,” he said, and once again, the look they exchanged sent a jolt to her heart.
Except that she and John came from two different worlds. “I’m not classy like her.”
“No. You’re classier. You’ve got heart.”
She blinked in surprise. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“It’s true,” he said. Now he shook his head. “Man, Holland did me a big favor by turning me down.”
Missy knew Holland had done her one. Thanks for setting him free and giving someone who really appreciates him a chance. She smiled and drew a card. It was just the number she needed to get her last game piece to Home and win. “I’m a winner!” she crowed.
“You sure are,” he said with a grin.
And just when she th
ought it couldn’t get any better, John remembered he had some Sweet Dreams chocolates left in his room.
“Let’s go eat ’em,” she said.
Chocolate was always a high for Missy, but sitting beside John on his bed eclipsed even this excellent chocolate. It stirred her up in places that had been neglected way too long. And the way he was looking at her... Oh.
This is how you’ve gotten in trouble before. “I’d better not rush into anything,” she said, as much to herself as to him.
“Oh. No. Of course not,” he said, acting embarrassed, as if she’d somehow read his mind.
That wasn’t hard to do, since the same thing was on hers. “We should get back downstairs. Lalla probably has cookies made now and will want us to try them.”
He nodded and followed her out of the room. But in the upstairs hallway, when she saw the mistletoe, she stopped. “I really don’t want to rush into anything, but isn’t there something about this stuff? Like when you’re standing under it, you’re supposed to kiss someone?”
He grinned. “It’s a holiday tradition.”
“Tradition is important, don’t you think?”
“Oh, yeah.” He put his arms around her and all her nerve endings began singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” He smiled at her, and her heart did a somersault. “You know, you’re really special, Missy Monroe.”
“Am I?”
“Yeah, you are,” he said softly. And then he pulled her close and touched his lips to hers, and she could feel herself lighting up like a string of Christmas lights.
“Wow,” she breathed when they drew apart. “That was some kiss.”
“It sure was,” he agreed. He took her hand and they started down the stairs together. “You know, I’m beginning to think I was meant to come up here, not because of Holland but because of you.”
She smiled at him. “I think that’s why I’m supposed to be here, too.”
“Funny, isn’t it, how things turn out?”
More like amazing in Missy’s opinion. She just hoped this wouldn’t turn out to be some Christmas dream. Because if it was, she didn’t want to wake up.
Chapter Twenty
We Wish You a Merry Christmas...
The Lodge on Holly Road Page 24
