Christmas in Destiny

by Toni Blake

  Mike Romo spoke up again. “I’ll head up the barn preparations with Rachel and Logan and whoever else wants to join us.” That made sense since he and Rachel ran the orchard along with Edna.

  And Adam said, “I’ll take on the town square prep with Mick—we’ll both put our snowblowers to some more good use.” He tossed a laugh in Mick’s direction.

  “Sounds good to me,” Mick said. “Whatever it takes to make this happen.”

  “All right then, people,” Grampy said, heartened by it all, “we got ourselves a plan.”

  Though as people started to disperse, eager to get to work on the two venues, Grampy’s gaze landed on Candice, still clearly in the throes of heartbreak—and he started across the store toward her. He knew good and well he couldn’t fix the situation, but he felt obliged to acknowledge her grief.

  He spoke low. “I’m so sorry, darlin’, about Shane leavin’.”

  Candice looked up, tried to smile at him but failed, so she just gave a short nod instead. “Me too.”

  “It’s a disappointment for . . . well, quite a few of us, in different ways. I’m gonna miss the boy pretty dang bad myself. But . . . I’m grateful for the time he was here. And I know it’s early days and a whole different type of emotion, but I hope you’ll come to feel that way as well.”

  Before Candice could even formulate a reply, though, Jenny came over to them both and said, “Grampy, don’t get me wrong, this whole idea is amazing—but . . . I’m not sure how we’re going to convince Anita. Dad says she’s completely despondent since hearing Shane left.” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe it. They find each other after twenty-five years—and he leaves after one day.”

  And without even weighing her words, Candice said, “I think he was just . . . scared of caring. Trusting. You know—like we all are once we’ve been hurt.” And then she tilted her head, realizing that the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. “That’s all it was. Being afraid to care.”

  Just like she’d been afraid to care about him at first. Some people could make that leap . . . and others couldn’t. It didn’t make him a bad person. It just meant . . . she wouldn’t have him in her life to love. Which was still heartbreaking—but, well, she’d just love him from afar. And maybe always be sad for . . . not getting to explore that. But she wouldn’t be angry with him for it.

  “You knew Shane best,” Jenny said to Candice. “Maybe you could shed some light on the situation for Anita, say something to help her feel better.”

  Candice didn’t look forward to seeing the devastated woman, but she could hardly turn down the request. Especially when Grampy suggested to her, “Why don’t you and me go see Anita together?”

  When Anita answered the door—likely only because Grampy wouldn’t stop knocking—Candice barely recognized her. In a bathrobe, with no makeup and her hair uncombed, she looked older than Candice had ever thought about her being. Maybe she hid it well in public, but suddenly Candice saw years of worry and strife in the lines beneath Anita’s eyes and the paleness of her lips.

  She didn’t attempt a smile as she said, “What’s so important that you keep banging on my door?”

  Candice sensed that Grampy was taken aback, too—this wasn’t Anita’s usual way—but he asked, “Can we come in?”

  “Not really in the mood for company,” she said, her voice softer now, but her expression downright haggard.

  “It’s important,” Grampy insisted, then pretty much stepped right past her into her living room—so Candice followed.

  It was a modest home made even more so by the fact that, other than the furniture, everything had been packed into boxes for her move to Walter’s house.

  She turned from the door to face them. “Look, I know he’s gone, and I know I’m the reason. If you came over to try to make me feel better, that’s real nice, but this isn’t the kind of thing a person gets over. Never did before—sure won’t now.”

  The tension lay so thick across the room that Candice’s first instinct was to retreat, leave, let Anita mourn in her own way. But Grampy persevered, taking a step toward her. “I’d never expect ya to get over it, but ya can’t let it eat ya alive, either. You’ve been plannin’ this weddin’ a long time now, and I think you’d be a whole lot happier if you follow through with it and marry Walter tomorrow.”

  At the very mention of the wedding, Anita appeared all the more deflated. “Of course I want to marry Walter,” she said. Then shook her head. “But I want it to be right, want it to be a happy wedding—because Walter deserves that.”

  “He does, and so do you,” Grampy said. “And you can still have that tomorrow.”

  Her eyes opened wider on him, her look laced with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “Is that so? I’m sorry, but just where do you think we’re going to have this happy wedding?”

  “Town square,” Grampy said simply. “Everybody’s workin’ on it right now.” And as he went on, explaining in more detail, Candice saw Anita warring with her emotions.

  She was clearly touched to hear the whole town was pulling together yet again on her behalf. “Took me a long time to feel like a real part of things here,” she said, “and I guess this means I really am now. But . . .” She shook her head once more, dropped her gaze to the floor. “I just don’t know if I can. So much has happened and I’m just so tired. My heart’s broken into pieces right now.”

  And since Candice knew that part was about Shane, she took it as her cue to step up and take one of Anita’s hands into hers. “Mine is, too,” she assured the other woman. “But the thing is—he only left because he was afraid. Afraid of facing that his dad lied to him about you. Afraid of facing the past. Afraid of caring.” Then the spot behind her eyes ached with a further truth that made her shut them tight for a second. “And it’s possible I pushed him into leaving. I . . . I told him I loved him. And he acted okay with it, but I think, now, that maybe he just wasn’t ready for that. Ready for any of this—me, you, everything. But . . . that doesn’t mean he didn’t care. About me. And about you, too.”

  Anita cautiously lifted her eyes and spoke quietly, somberly. “I don’t have any reason to think he cared. In fact, I think he wishes he’d never laid eyes on me. That I was a complication he didn’t need.”

  “I saw the way he hugged you,” Candice said. “I saw the look on his face. And . . . he took the picture. The one you gave him. He took it with him. It’s a small thing, maybe, but if he hadn’t cared, he wouldn’t have taken it. And what’s between you two is complicated at best, I know—but I believe with my whole heart that he loves you. And that he knows you love him. And . . . that might just have to be enough. For you to know he’s alive and well. To know you got to tell him you love him. To know he took that in and will always have it now.” She stopped, shook her head. “But you can’t let it steal the rest of the happiness in your life.”

  Anita drew in a breath, let it back out—and met Candice’s gaze. “What about you?” she asked gently. “Are you going to let losing him steal your happiness?”

  The loss still felt like an anchor on Candice’s shoulders, chest. Every time she remembered he was gone, it got hard to breathe. She hadn’t slept last night—mostly just cried on her pillow. But she said to Anita, “That’s why I’m here right now. I’m trying to just . . . go on. Because even as much as this is killing me, I guess I think the best thing to do is try to go on.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Grampy said. “Everything else is just lost time. The more ya make yourself go on, the sooner ya get back to livin’. So what do you think, m’dear? You wanna put on a pretty dress tomorrow night and get married beneath the lights of that big Christmas tree? You wanna go on livin’?”

  Anita appeared wholly uncertain about all of it, and Candice had no idea how the other woman was going to respond—until she looked at Grampy and said, “One condition. My parents died a long time ago, and so . . . would you do me the honor of givin’ me away?”

  Grampy’s
eyes lit at the request and Candice understood: This is what happens when you do go on living despite the bad things. You get that—to live. To love. And to celebrate the joys when they come.

  Ohio and Kentucky had been snow-covered, along with the mountains of northern Tennessee. But by the time he crossed over the Georgia state line, the snowy weather was nothing but a memory. Like the rest of it would be soon. Just gotta get to Miami and everything else will fade.

  As Shane pumped gas into his truck just off I-75 in Adairsville, Georgia, The Kinks singing “Father Christmas” over gas station loudspeakers, he reached into his coat pocket in search of his wallet—and instead pulled out the picture of him and his mother.

  He hadn’t taken the coat off since leaving Destiny—he’d driven most of the night, then slept for a while in his truck at a rest stop in Tennessee after reaching warm enough temperatures for that—or the picture wouldn’t still be there. He didn’t want to look at it and tried not to see it, but it was too late.

  He peered first at the woman next to him in the frame. Remembered that woman. Her smile brought back . . . warmer memories than most of the ones he’d spent his life focusing on. He’d always recalled her being angry with him, disappointed—but this picture . . . it forced him to remember times long forgotten. It forced him to remember . . . laughter, playgrounds, picnics, holidays. It forced him to remember . . . she had loved him.

  But when the pump shut off, he shoved the picture back in his pocket. He didn’t want to think any more about that, or about what it meant regarding his father’s version of things. Because like he’d told Anita, none of it mattered anyway. Maybe all that mattered was leaving this shit behind and getting back to the business of his new life. It was going to be a hell of a lot simpler, that was for sure.

  Simpler than dealing with his mother.

  Simpler than getting too serious too fast with Candy.

  She’d been . . . fun. Special, even. She was a great girl.

  And something tightened in his chest when he allowed himself to wonder, just a little, if she would miss him now that he was gone. If it would change her life in any real way.

  But probably not. People came and went in each other’s lives all the time. And who was he to think he was important enough to change somebody’s life? No matter what Clarence the Angel had said about people leaving a void.

  His future was in Miami, and he was glad to finally be on his way to the existence he’d been aiming for when he’d left Montana, finally back on track. Fast cars, fast women, fun in the sun—here I come, baby. There was no looking back now.

  Twenty-five

  “Every time you hear a bell ring, it means that some angel’s just got his wings.”

  Clarence Odbody, Angel 2nd Class, It’s a Wonderful Life

  As Candice stood across from town square, outside Amy’s bookshop, just after dark on Christmas Eve, she couldn’t believe it, but she felt . . . happy. Okay, not when Shane came to mind—she still ached at missing his touch and longing to look into his eyes and even just yearning to see his thick, cuddle-worthy socks because apparently he’d created in her some sort of bizarre man-sock fetish—but as people began to gather for Anita and Walter’s wedding, the scene warmed her heart.

  The square was aglow with thousands of twinkling colored lights on the big Christmas tree that Grampy loved so much, and Mick and Adam had strung white lights from poles and draped more in the smaller trees around the grouping of white chairs. Red velvet bows adorned the chairs along the center aisle.

  The day had been bright and mild, leaving temps warmer than they’d been in weeks, and though it was still winter out, between the temperatures and the portable heaters, the air felt quite tolerable. Given the change in venue, the event had been declared casual, so many guests were arriving in blue jeans and parkas, but she still saw little girls dressed up in their Christmas best, a few men wearing suits and overcoats, and women in brightly colored coats and hats and scarves. The guitar player hired for the occasion had set up near one of the heaters and gently strummed pleasant acoustic versions of Christmas carols.

  The bookstore served as Anita’s dressing room, while Walter got ready in his office at the police station across the square. When Candice opened the shop door and peeked in, she saw Anita wearing a lovely long white gown, a white faux fur cape around her shoulders. She gasped and said, “The white fur is perfect! You look like a snow princess.”

  “It belongs to my mother,” Amy said merrily, looking up from where she stood nearby. “She insisted Anita use it when she found out the wedding was outside.”

  As Candice stepped in and let the door shut behind her, Anita laughed and said, “I’m a little too old to be a princess, but maybe . . . a snow queen?”

  “Absolutely,” Jenny said, standing behind Anita in a long-sleeved red dress, adjusting the veil as they both peered into a standing oval mirror brought in for the occasion. Jenny and Mick were serving as the matron of honor and best man, and of course little Dustin would be the ring bearer. In the corner, Rachel was putting a sparkly white cardigan sweater onto her little girl, over her fluffy red flower girl dress.

  “It’s so good to hear you laugh,” Candice told Anita.

  Anita glanced up at her, her expression wistful. “I still wish Shane were here, of course, but you and Grampy were right—it’s better to push on and keep living.”

  Candice stooped down beside where Anita sat and said to her privately, “For what it’s worth, Shane wouldn’t have wanted to mess up your wedding. Even as recently as the day before yesterday, he was up at the church seeing if he could help with anything.”

  Anita tilted her head, looking surprised, touched, and Candice realized why that mattered and that she probably should have mentioned it before. She squeezed Anita’s hand and said, “I’ll leave you to the rest of your preparations. Only fifteen minutes until wedding time.”

  Though as Candice stepped back out into the chill, again taking in the lovely scene, her heart wilted a little. Because the truth was . . . this wedding was a grand distraction. And maybe she’d wanted Anita to go through with it as much for Candice’s sake as for her own. Candice had spent the day working with a large group in Edna’s barn, getting it decorated for tonight. She’d run errands and helped set up portable fire pits and tables and chairs. She’d made table decorations involving sprigs of holly and candles and Mason jars.

  And tomorrow it would be over.

  Not for Anita. She and Walter were honeymooning in the Caribbean, taking a cruise. And she was moving in with Walter, and contemplating selling the Dew Drop Inn in order to spend more time with him, and with little Dustin. Anita had lots of big changes and a whole new existence on the horizon.

  And even Grampy had a fun, new aspect of his life. He and Edna were suddenly . . . dating or something. Which everyone in town thought was adorable and that it was about time, Candice included.

  But for Candice, after tomorrow, after Christmas, life would return to the same old boring routine as before Shane had come knocking on her door in the middle of the night. He’d blown into town with that blizzard—and then blown right back out again. And what she had to show for the whole thing was . . . a whole lot of snow. And some grand memories. And the locket she wore beneath her coat right now.

  She reached up instinctively, pressed her mitten to it through the coat, and felt the hard metal against her chest.

  That was when the bookshop’s door opened to let Anita, Jenny, and the rest of the ladies—as well as little Farris—exit, ready for Anita’s walk down the aisle. “You look beautiful, Anita,” Candice told her—and she truly did.

  A few minutes later, the crowd was all seated and Walter and Mick stood near the Christmas tree along with a minister. As the guitar player strummed “What Child Is This?”, Jenny walked up the aisle, followed by adorable Dustin and Farris, who sprinkled poinsettia blossoms along the way. At one point, Farris started drifting toward her dad, Mike, in one of the white chairs, but
Dustin took her hand and drew her the rest of the way up the aisle where his parents and grandpa waited, gently coaxing him forward.

  Candice sat on the aisle in the back row, near where Grampy and Anita now stood. As Anita looped her arm through his, it gently began to snow—and even as much drama as snow had caused in Destiny this past month, something about the timing of this snow felt magical, and a few people even gasped in wonder.

  “You ready to put bad times behind you, m’dear?” Candice heard Grampy whisper.

  Anita’s smile looked slightly strained yet sincere as she said, “Yes.”

  And that was when Candice saw . . . the strangest thing, a . . . a vision or something. She tilted her head, focusing, trying to make sense of it. The lighting was dim, but . . . a man who looked remarkably like Shane stood a few feet behind the bride and her escort.

  Then he cautiously stepped up behind Grampy and Anita to ask, “Am I . . . too late?”

  Candice gasped as her heart leaped to her throat, and even lifted her mittened hand to cover her mouth. Because he wasn’t a vision at all—he was flesh and bone.

  “N-no,” Anita stammered, looking just as shocked as she had the other day in Miss Ellie’s garden upon figuring out he was her son.

  Now Shane switched his gaze back and forth between Grampy and Anita. “Can I . . . cut in?”

  “Good Lord, of course,” Grampy said, stepping aside. “This is where you belong, son.”

  Funny how quickly things could change. Candice had never been to a wedding filled with more joy. She could truly feel the love and elation just spilling from Anita as Shane walked her down the snowy aisle toward Walter. She could feel Walter’s happiness, too, and everyone’s actually—there was hardly a dry eye on the Destiny town square when the minister asked who gave this woman to be wed and Shane quietly said, “Her son.” Even every snowflake that fell on lips and noses and shoulders felt infused with pure Christmas joy.