Cruz and Amory would also be joining us. They were eager to meet Kai’s parents, and eager to show off the newest edition to the family. Scotty the dog now had a sibling, a little fluffball named Hem. Amory worked hard planning parties, and keeping me sane at the lodge just like normal, but on Saturday afternoons she volunteered at the local dog shelter, and it lit her up from the inside out. While party planning would always be her passion, I think the work at the shelter grounded her.
Even Micah and Isla were taking time out of their renovations to the new house they’d just bought and would attend dinner tonight. They worked at the lodge during the day, and spent most nights bashing down walls and then rebuilding them, hoping to get their house finished by summer. I could only imagine how amazing it would look once Isla planted a garden out front and Micah painted the new roof. Their wedding had been a hugely fun night, our bellies had hurt from laughter, and it was obvious how perfect they were for each other. When Micah had serenaded her, there hadn’t been a dry eye in the house. I was glad they were taking a night off their renovations tonight, because I wanted them to share in the special moment with us too.
Summer was around the corner and the lodge was completely booked out for the season. We’d soon be run off our feet, which was very exciting – that and the secret we’d managed to keep thrilled me. I only had to keep my mouth clamped closed for a few more hours, and then I could tell my family and my friends. Finally! It had been torture not confiding in my best friends, but I figured our parents should all find out at the same time.
Everyone would be together and it would be the perfect time for Kai to brandish the tiniest of hiking boots we could find, and tell our loved ones there was a baby on the way…
When you know, you know.
As the sun colored the sky saffron, Kai leaned over and planted a kiss on the soft swell of my belly, and I sent up a thank you to the universe. It was true: coming home had been the best thing I’d ever done…
Christmas at Cedarwood Lodge
Five years later
The office door swung open with a bang, bringing with it the sound of Christmas carols and Cruz’s dark face. Amory moved quickly to hide the gift she’d only half-wrapped.
“What is it?” I asked. Cruz was usually the epitome of cool, but something bothered him this fine Christmas Eve.
“Have you seen the ham hock?”
I pressed my lips together to stifle the laugh that threatened to escape. Ham hock? When no response was forthcoming from me he turned his steely gaze on Amory. “Well?”
She shook her head, innocent eyes wide. Just then a little giggle carried from down the hallway. We did our best to ignore it, knowing quite suddenly where the ham hock had gone.
“What did you need it for exactly?” I asked, buying time. The little giggle was edging closer, bringing with it the cheery notes of ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’.
“I need the hock for soup; waste not, want not.” His words were clipped as they so often were, having given up on me and Amory eons ago when it came to our education in the culinary arts. The only part we were interested in was consuming the delicious dishes – quality control; we wanted no part in the making of them.
“Didn’t we just eat our body weight in ham?” Amory asked. We’d been feasting on Christmas menus for the month of December in light of our festive season guests.
“Yes,” he said, his voice huffy. “And the remnants would make a fine soup. Running a kitchen is all about budgeting and minimizing food waste…”
Amory held up a hand, her eyes getting that particular glaze when Cruz tried to explain his position to her.
Unbeknownst to Cruz, five-year-old Millie appeared, light shining on her blonde head like a halo, the perfect disguise for the little minx she was. In her hand was the vestige of the ham hock, or at least that’s what it appeared to be to my untrained eye. Either that or she’d been excavating the garden for dinosaur bones again, but perhaps not in such snowy weather. You never could tell with Millie, though.
Cruz sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “It was Millie again, wasn’t it? And she’s behind me, isn’t she?”
Millie let her giggles spill out, and we soon followed suit. “Yes,” I said, lips twitching. She wore a bright-red Christmas onesie whose padded feet helped her sashay about undetected.
The tension left Cruz’s face and he turned to the small child. “Ah,” he said, taking the hock from her hand. “I should’ve known you’d be the culprit.” His voice softened. Millie had stolen the hearts of everyone at the lodge, despite her rascally nature. “Who were you saving this time?”
“The doggies,” she said in her cherubic voice. “Amory helped me.”
Amory let out a gasp and said, “I most certainly did not.” And then made shushing gestures to Millie behind Cruz’s back. Those two were partners in crime and it warmed my heart, even though Millie often gave her so-called confidante up to save herself.
Cruz just shook his head. “At this rate we’ll go bankrupt but the menagerie will be plump enough to live through the winter.”
We had amassed a number of stray animals at the lodge. Dogs, and cats, and once a pony, which I had spirited away to a friend’s farm before Millie could lay claim. Amory took the dogs home at night, but during the day they roamed the gardens, or snuggled by the fire, being secretly fed by these two conspirators.
“Amory told me no one likes ham soup,” Millie continued, getting her godmother well and truly in trouble.
Cruz turned slowly to Amory. “Did she now?” Amory’s mouth opened and closed while Millie just grinned, like the Cheshire Cat.
“She did.” Millie shrugged her shoulders, as if such trivial things bored her. “Can we open the presents now?”
“Not yet.” Millie’s face fell.
“Maybe I can sneak you one or two later,” Amory said. “How about we go grab a snack while Cruz isn’t looking? Some of those Santa-shaped gingerbread men…?”
Millie squealed.
“I’m right here, you know,” Cruz said, but smiled. He loved feeding people, and secretly delighted that none of his cookies ever made it through a day. There were plenty of hands snatching from the cookie jar.
For someone who didn’t want children of her own Amory sure didn’t mind spending time with them. It was a godsend really. She was the fun aunt, the one who got up to mischief with Millie, or cuddled and crooned to baby Brooklyn when my eyes were popping out of my head from lack of sleep.
Motherhood had been my greatest achievement to date, but I hadn’t been prepared for how much strength it sapped. Brooklyn was only three months old and had trouble settling. Then I’d have Millie up with the sparrows. Luckily I had plenty of hands at the lodge, so I could duck off for a nap when my brain turned to mush from fatigue.
The trio left the room, hands entwined, Millie negotiating for more cookies.
Alone, I kept up with wrapping the gifts, smiling when I came to ones I’d bought earlier in the year when I was fueled with pregnancy hormones. I really don’t know what I’d been thinking. Why would I have bought Kai a compass? The man read the stars, the moon, the sun, the wind… Still, I’d managed to get it all done and the children’s presents too, which were hidden upstairs in the attic. Millie had hunted high and low for them, but she had no idea there even was an attic. She hadn’t clued on yet the little cord dangling down was the access point.
Kai wandered in, his cheeks red from exertion, I hastily covered his present with the bright-red foil. “Been wandering up the mountain?” I asked.
“It was lonely without you.”
I stood and kissed him hard on the lips, tasting the fresh mountain air and his particular Kai loveliness. My heart did somersaults and I wondered if the effect he had on me would ever fade. It was still as strong as ever, but more solid now, more real. “My mountain-climbing days are numbered,” I said. “Until I’ve slept a good eight hours in a row.” Well, that was my excuse, anyway. He still dra
gged me out for midnight yoga over the summertime, and I’d fallen in love with the way it made me feel. Now I did it of my own free will, but cloistered inside, where it was warm in the winter.
I put my cheek against his chest, the thrumming of his heart almost enough to lull me to sleep. It still seemed like a dream, our fairy-tale romance, the fact we’d made a little family together, built up a thriving business and kept our love alive despite long hours and sleepless nights. Unlike my previous relationships, things just gelled with Kai. The more life got hectic, the more I felt his support. When I was stressed or overworked he sensed it and made me climb that godforsaken mountain. And when I noticed the same in him, I made him take time for himself. To wander to go be with nature, to go get lost in that way of his he so yearned for. Eventually, he’d acquiesce, and take his truck and go find some waves, somewhere where it was warmer, somewhere far from here.
I guess we found that balance, and learned to intuit what the other needed. His parents were coming soon, to stay for the winter. I worried they’d freeze with their Australian bodies, so used to heat and sun, but they assured me they’d acclimatize quickly, climbing mountains if need be to keep warm. Not hard to see where Kai inherited his love of hiking from then… I loved Kai’s parents. They were laid-back and easy-going, and all the adoption business had been squared away. It still came up every now and then, but there was no bitterness any more, just a sense of wonder at what might have been.
There was a knock on the door. I pulled myself away from Kai. Dazed from his proximity.
“Sorry to disturb you two lovebirds,” Micah said with his impish grin. “But Aunt Bessie is here. Says she wants to make an early start on dinner.”
I checked my watch. It was barely eight in the morning. “That’s Aunt Bessie. I’ll call Mom.”
I buzzed Mom’s extension and she said she’d come right over.
“Where’s Isla?”
Micah shrugged. “In town, doing some last-minute Christmas shopping, I imagine. She won’t be long.”
Isla’s parents couldn’t make it this Christmas, so she was all set to fly out to them the day after Christmas for the week.
“As long as she’s not working.” When winter set in and snow began to fall there wasn’t much need for a landscaper, so Isla helped out with the guest activities. She relished the work, and I often had to tell her to turn in for the day, so caught up was she with sorting dance lessons, or art classes, that she lost track of time.
“I’ve hidden her work file, so she can’t.”
I smiled at the knowledge. Isla didn’t have an off button and it was easy to work too hard at the lodge because there was always something that needed doing. “Good, she needs a proper break.”
He nodded. “I keep telling her.”
“Maybe she should take a few weeks over Christmas?” I said, mentally trying to rearrange staff, and who’d step in for her. Isla needed time to recharge her batteries and she would only do that if she wasn’t here.
“You tell her then. She won’t like it.” And she wouldn’t. That was the problem. Isla loved the lodge as much as I did.
“Yoooo hoooo,” a voice rang out.
“Aunt Bessie, we’re in here!”
My aunt sauntered into the room, her bleached-blonde hair curled to perfection, her face made up. I kissed her heavily rouged cheek, her flashing candy-cane earrings making me blink. “Merry Christmas,” she said.
“Merry Christmas, Aunt Bessie!” I darted a glance over my shoulder, hoping she couldn’t see her present. I’d found her the sweetest silver bracelet with little donut charms, perfect for the woman who’d taken the humble donut to the next level. In the years since she’d embraced Instagram she’d become something of a social media sensation, which had led to her being invited onto a plethora of mid-morning TV shows to do baking demonstrations, and now she had her very own cooking show. Filming wrapped in November so she was back at Puft, plying her wares and sharing all sorts of celebrity gossip with her goggle-eyed customers. But she was still the same old Aunt Bessie, a breath of fresh air and fun to boot.
“Where’s Anabelle?”
“Mom’s on her way,” I said as she took Micah into her arms, swishing him from side to side as if he were a little boy and not a full-grown man.
Just then the baby monitor rustled to life with the cries of Brooklyn. “Oh, my baby is awake,” Aunt Bessie said, grinning. “I guess that means you get to unload the car, and I’ll sort that precious little bundle out?”
Aunt Bessie loved my kids like they were her own grandbabies. She was the veritable baby whisperer when it came to Brooklyn, and when all else failed I called on Aunt Bessie to come and help if I couldn’t get her to settle. “I was going to bath her.”
“Leave it to me. Has she got some gorgeous little Christmas outfit?”
I grinned. “Of course. She’s Santa’s little helper, didn’t you know?”
She clapped her hands and rushed off toward the stairs.
***
That afternoon we had a full house. With everyone present we finally let Millie decorate the tree in the front salon. We had other Christmas trees scattered around the lodge, but they were professionally adorned by Amory, and more for the enjoyment of the guests. This one was all Millie’s and she’d made all sorts of garlands for it, including strings of popcorn she and Amory had laced that morning.
“Now, Mama?” she asked.
I kissed the top of her head. Her hair smelled like apples and innocence and I felt a fierce tug in my heart. How I loved her. “Now,” I agreed, and she shrieked and grabbed her grandma’s hand. Mom smiled, and bent over the box with Millie, discussing the pros and cons of putting the tinsel on first or last.
While they were occupied, I ambled to the kitchen and checked in on Aunt Bessie, who was helping Cruz with the Christmas Eve dinner prep.
Amory must’ve smelled something on offer and crept up behind me. “I hope you’re making gingerbread coffee to go with those,” she said, pointing to the tray of Santa gingerbread men.
“Aren’t we banned?”
Our last attempt to make eggnog had resulted in carnage. At least for the eggs involved. How exactly did one separate the yolk from the white? We didn’t think it mattered, but clearly it did. Cruz bemoaned the fate of so many eggs, and banished us with a stiff warning never to attempt cooking again.
“Technically. But this is just a snack, and you can’t mess up coffee. That’s the one gift you do have.”
Aunt Bessie shooed us out. “Come on, you two, you’ll set fire to something, or turn the oven off by mistake. Get out and we’ll make you some gingerbread coffee, yeah?” Baby Brooklyn was snug in her capsule, smiling and gurgling at Aunt Bessie’s voice. I gave her a kiss. She looked adorable in her little Santa’s helper suit complete with Santa hat. “I better feed the munchkin,” I said, taking the warm bundle. “We’ll be in the front salon then. Out of harm’s way.”
Amory snatched the tray of biscuits when Cruz had his back turned and we stole out of there like the thieves we were. I settled Brooklyn for her feed, while Millie and Mom heaped the poor fir tree with baubles of red, green and gold, as she bent Mom’s ear about everything she’d done that day, an exhausting list by the sounds of it. My little girl reminded me of me and Micah, and the fun we’d had on the grounds of the lodge growing up. So many places to explore and mischief to get up to.
Amory sat next to me, munching on a gingerbread man. Her wedding ring flashed under the Christmas lights, reminding me of their wedding. Well, their elopement actually. A few years back they’d announced breezily they were off to Vegas to get married, simple as that, as if they were talking about a weekend getaway. In typical Amory style she’d been married to the man she loved, wearing a flame-red dress, with just her, Cruz, and a witness they’d paid ten bucks.
“What’s that look you’re wearing there?” she said, squinting at me.
“What look?”
“You’re all misty-eyed…�
�
“Am I?” I laughed and dashed at my eyes. Weddings… I loved them no matter what scale they were on. “I was thinking of your elopement, actually, and how radiant you were coming home.”
The fire crackled behind as she contemplated. “It was perfect for us,” she said, her voice softening. While Amory was all bravado and brisk efficiency when it came to Cruz, she was almost shy about revealing her feelings. Eloping had been the right choice for them. It did make me wonder, as a wedding planner myself, if I’d ever get to walk down the aisle. I guess Kai and I had done things backwards: built up the business, had the babies. Did we really need a certificate to prove our love? Probably not in his eyes, but in mine, it was all about the celebration of that love. About sharing that precious moment with people who made your life complete. Still, we didn’t discuss it. But I often imagined my own wedding, what I’d wear, how we’d decorate the chapel, what on earth I’d say in my vows that would be enough to describe my love for him…
“What is it about Christmas that brings all this to the fore?” she asked. “You know, the memories, the love, all that soppiness.”
I laughed. “It’s the time of year to reflect, and hope and dream.”
“You’d look amazing in a backless gown,” she said, waggling a brow. Golly, the girl knew me so well, she could read my mind.
“Why, thank you,” I said, pretending not to understand. “But it’s a little cold for that.”
“Oh, please, you know what I’m talking about. Don’t make me open Pinterest.”
I colored. So, I’d been adding pins to my dream-wedding board? I was a wedding planner!
Isla wandered in, and our talk fell silent. “Take a seat,” I said, smiling. In the years she’d worked at the lodge, she’d grown even more beautiful with her fire-red hair, and willowy frame. But it was more than looks alone, it was an inner confidence she’d found that made her so striking.
Winter at Cedarwood Lodge Page 37
