by Cara Colter
Maybe it was her second glass of wine that made her admit it. “I always felt like the odd woman out. Here was this wonderful inn, out of an American dream, filled with all these wholesome families, like yours and Andrea’s. And then there was the Caravetta clan. A boisterous Italian family, always yelling and fighting and singing and crying and laughing, and whatever we were doing, we were doing it loudly. Next to you and Andrea, I felt like I was a little too much of everything.”
“But you weren’t like that,” Emily said. “You were always so quiet and contained. If you were too much of anything it was way too smart, Doc. Thinking all the time.”
Casey dismissed the comment with a wave of her hand. “I didn’t mean that. You were both tall, reed thin and fair, while I was short and plump, and had skin that came straight from the olive grove. You had well-behaved blond ponytails. I had dark tangles and coils that did whatever they wanted. You both have that all-American look, Emily, with your eyes like jade, and Andrea’s like sapphires.”
“There is nothing wrong with your eyes!” Andrea declared.
“Ha! My grandmother used to look at my eyes and say they were so dark she could see the devil in them. And then she’d cross herself.”
Would Casey’s baby have her eyes? Did she get to choose the eye color of the father? So much to learn!
“The devil? That’s ridiculous, especially given how studious you were. But still, I always thought you were unusually striking, and faintly mysterious,” Emily insisted.
“A model,” Andrea reiterated. “I think you should be a model.”
“A model,” Casey snorted. “Believe me, I’m quite happy doing research at the lab.”
“As noble as medical research is, Casey, isn’t that a tad dull?” Emily asked.
“I love it,” she said honestly. “I have such a sense of purpose to my days, a feeling I could make the world a better place.”
“Isn’t it a little, well, depressing? Childhood cancers?” Andrea pressed.
“My twin brother died of nasopharyngeal cancer when he was six,” Casey said. And so a family unravels.
“I’d forgotten,” Andrea said. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was long before I met you,” Casey said. “Don’t worry about it.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Emily give her little baby bump a protective pat. “And don’t you worry about it, either. Childhood cancers are extremely rare,” she assured her pregnant friend.
Casey was aware she might have chosen her work in some effort to make right all that had gone wrong in her family. But regardless of her motives, the order of science, after the unfolding chaos in her family, appealed to her. The wine hadn’t, thankfully, loosened her tongue enough to tell them why she’d chosen the vow renewal over spending Christmas with her widowed mother.
“Maybe you could model on the side,” Andrea said hopefully.
“Why would I want to?” Casey asked. “Talk about dull. Good grief. Hours on hair—” well, okay, her hair took nearly that long, anyway “—and makeup? I’d expire of pure boredom.”
“Men,” Andrea said knowingly. “You’d meet a zillion guys. How many do you meet in your dusty old lab?”
No sense pointing out there was not a speck of dust anywhere in her lab!
“And then,” Andrea continued dreamily, “you could meet the right one. Look at how much Emily loves being married. Renewing her vows! And Rick and I will probably have a spring wedding. If you could find the perfect guy, all our kids could grow up together here in the summers, the same as we did.”
How quickly things could change! Just a few weeks ago Andrea had been as determined not to fall in love as Casey herself was. Her friend was no weakling, so Casey inadvertently shivered at how love could overpower the most sensible of plans.
Emily shot Andrea a warning look that clearly said, Careful, Casey is recovering from a broken heart—last year’s Christmas crisis. Then she tactfully tried to guide the conversation in a different direction. “Anyway, the inn is for sale.”
Andrea appeared pained for a minute, but then shrugged it off. “I don’t know. I’ve seen how Martin Johnson, the electrician, looks at Carol. I think he’s a man capable of restoring the Gingerbread Inn to its former glory. And it seems it would be a labor of love.”
“Carol is resisting him,” Emily said. “I’m afraid I overheard a bit of a shouting match between them.”
“Well, I’m going to help things along. I’ve already asked him to come and help with the lighting for the vow renewal, and he seemed very eager to say yes!”
“Good for you,” Emily said, but doubtfully. “Honestly, while Cole and I were working things out we bonded over a few cosmetic repairs around the place, but every single thing we did has made us so aware of what else has to be done. Poor Carol, on her own, could not keep up. It may have deteriorated too badly to be saved.”
They all sadly contemplated that.
The Gingerbread Inn was special. It always had been, and there could never be a replacement in Casey’s heart. The walls held memories: laughter and love, families coming together. The ghosts of their younger selves played out there on the waters of Barrow’s Lake, swimming, canoeing, sunning themselves on the dock, playing volleyball on the beach.
There would never be another place like the Gingerbread Inn. It was a refuge of simplicity in a complicated world.
“We could find a different place to spend family summers together,” Andrea suggested tentatively. “Wherever it is, or whatever it is, the three of us will be there with our soul mates. I think that’s what Melissa would have wanted us to learn. That this is what is important. Love. And I hope someday it will include all our babies. Babies who will grow into toddlers as love deepens all around us. Rick and I plan to adopt someday. Tessa would love a little brother or sister.”
Tessa was the six-year-old who would become Andrea’s stepdaughter. She was hands down the most adorable little girl on the planet.
“It’s what I want for this baby, too,” Emily said tenderly.
That old feeling of being the odd one out whispered along her spine, but Casey reminded herself she was not going to be that for long! But she was going to do things her way.
For as happy as both Emily and Andrea were now, Casey had been a bridesmaid at both their weddings. How those beautiful days had fuelled her longing for romance! But Andrea’s dreams had ended in a terrible tragedy on her honeymoon. And Casey had seen the cracks appear in Emily’s relationship almost before Emily had seen them herself.
Oh, sure, Emily and Cole were like lovers again now, and Andrea was still in the over-the-moon stage with her new love, Rick, but it was too late for Casey to believe in love.
The pain interwoven with the love in those relationships had just helped cement Casey’s resolve to wrestle her weakest point to the ground. And that wasn’t her hair, either!
“Well, you girls can believe in fairy tales if you want. I’m done with that,” she announced.
“I’ve been there,” Emily said sympathetically.
“Me, too,” Andrea said. “But the old saying is true—it’s darkest just before the dawn.” Catching Emily’s warning look, she added, “Okay. Casey doesn’t have to be with someone. She could come by herself.”
“Actually,” Casey said slowly, her heart beating hard, “I may not be by myself.”
If she told them it was like committing. Like carving it in stone. And yet who better to share this gloriously happy decision with than her best friends?
“What?” Andrea squealed. “Have you met someone new? Why did you let me prattle on about your dusty lab if you have? I’m so happy for you! Really, a year is quite long enough to recover from a rascal like Sebastian. I told you when I saw you earlier this month that eventually you would see your breakup as a blessing. And I am a testament to the fact that things can turn aroun
d in an absolute blink.”
It had been a year, almost exactly, since the rather humiliating disintegration of her relationship. Only these two women knew all the details: how a coworker had tipped her off that her fiancé, Sebastian, was seeing another woman, only days before they were going to make a Christmas announcement of their engagement!
“I haven’t exactly met someone,” Casey said cautiously, suddenly feeling vulnerable about saying it out loud.
“What is going on, Casey?” Andrea asked. “You asked me to join you here earlier in the month because you were down, but now you look great. So who is he?”
“It’s not a he. I’ve made a decision to give myself the most amazing gift.”
“What?” her friends asked in unison.
“I’m going to have a baby. I’m going to start investigating third-party reproduction and cryobanks right after the holidays are over.”
Her friends looked stunned. “Cryo what?” Emily asked weakly.
“You mean you’re going to raise a child by yourself?” Andrea finally asked.
“Why not? I’m well established. I’m financially able to afford the procedures. I’m ready. I think, on my own, I could provide as stable a family as most I’ve seen.”
“That seems very scientific,” Emily ventured. “Procedure as a way to make a baby?”
“I am a scientist!” And really, science had given her far more than her family ever had. “I’m done with romantic love. I’m saving all my love for my baby.”
Her friends were very quiet.
“Hey,” Casey said, trying for humor, when she was really disappointed they weren’t more supportive of her decision. “You’re both so serious. I said I was done with love, and that there could be a baby in my future, not that I was going to burn the Gingerbread Inn down!”
“You couldn’t,” Andrea said with dreamy satisfaction. “Rick would rescue it.”
Rick, the adorable Tessa’s father, was a fireman.
“I’m curing myself of romantic notions. I’m tackling my fatal flaw,” Casey surprised herself by announcing.
“Your fatal flaw?” Andrea said, frowning.
“I believed in romantic love,” Casey said. “Worse, I believed in love at first sight. It’s done nothing but cause me grief, and I’m done with it.”
“Love at first sight?” Emily said, puzzled. “I thought you and Sebastian worked together for some time before you agreed to go out with him.”
But her secret, even from Em and Andrea, was that Sebastian had not been her first love. Her first love she had loved at first sight. He was the one who had made her so foolishly long for love that she had been willing to overlook her own family’s history with passion, and imbue her former fiancé with characteristics he did not have.
“I’m done with love,” Casey repeated, even more firmly than before.
“You are not!” Emily said, dismayed. “How can anybody just be done with love?”
“We buried Melissa,” Casey said. “That’s enough all by itself.”
“I understand how you feel,” Andrea said softly. “After Gunter died I wanted to give up on love, too. But I’m so glad I didn’t.”
Though Casey could not say it, the death of Andrea’s husband—on their honeymoon, no less—felt like part of her disillusionment. Giving your heart was a risky business.
“No one would be more appalled than Melissa if you made fear of love her legacy!”
The Gingerbread Girls had always bowed to Emily’s leadership, and Casey conceded slightly now. “Okay. This kind of love I’m fine with. The bonds between friends. The love between a mother and a child. Romantic love I’m done with. Finis.”
“I always love it when you speak Italian,” Andrea said, deciding in the face of Casey’s intensity it was time to lighten up.
“It’s Latin,” she said. “Not Italian.”
Andrea rolled her eyes at the correction and went on as if she had not been interrupted. “You aren’t done with it. You’re hurting right now. But it has been a year, and I think you have healed more than you think you have. You are planning on having a baby, after all. Though I do wish you’d wait for the right guy to come along, and spadoodle, life as you know it, over.”
“Spadoodle?” Casey laughed in spite of herself.
“I thought it sounded Italian,” Andrea offered with an impish grin.
“Sort of,” Emily said, as if she was considering. “Like spaghetti and noodle mixed.” And then they were all laughing, like the carefree girls they had once been. It felt again like a homecoming, it was so good to be with them.
“I agree with Andrea, though. The right guy will come along and you’ll see that every single thing about your life, including the parts that seem bad, were getting you ready for that moment,” Emily said. “Should you put off having a baby until that happens? Really, I know that’s not for me to say.”
Casey felt her friend was not entirely approving and had decided to keep it light, and she was grateful for that.
“From spadoodle to deep philosophy in the blink of an eye?” Casey said, lightly. “It’s enough to make my head spin.”
Emily grinned. “Way too deep, eh, Doc?”
“Way,” Casey said with an answering smile, and it all seemed okay again. Her decision to come here had been a good one. The sisterhood between them that allowed them to squabble and exchange confidences and well-meaning advice, and then just rest in pure love and laughter again, was balm to her soul.
“I wish you’d give love a chance,” Andrea insisted.
“I have given love a chance,” Casey said firmly. “What’s that old saying? If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got. Falling in love, for me, equals heartbreak. And I’m not doing it anymore.”
“You sound sure of yourself,” Emily mused.
“I am.”
“Maybe Andrea’s right. Maybe you’ve spent too much time in the lab and it has given you this illusion about what you can control. Maybe before you fully commit to the idea of having a baby on your own, you should try getting out a bit.”
“I’m getting out. I’ve joined yoga! And I’m taking a calligraphy class. My life is exceedingly full.”
She inwardly begged Andrea not to mention that desperate call a few weeks ago when she had been so unbearably down.
Andrea, blessedly, didn’t.
But Emily said, “Full does not mean fulfilling.”
“That’s why I want a family of my own. Besides, when did you become such a philosopher? Now you two quit picking on me.”
“I’m sorry,” Emily said, “I didn’t mean to pick on you. If this decision makes you happy, I’m happy for you.”
Casey just wanted to change the subject. “Andrea, tell me what I should get the adorable little Tessa for Christmas. I was thinking a nice chemistry set.”
They all laughed, and it didn’t take much of a shove to get Andrea talking about her new life and her new family. “I’ve already tucked away the giant gingerbread man Tessa fell in love with at the shop.”
Andrea went on to talk about what she was getting Rick. She was glowing with passion, that thing that Casey was most suspicious of.
Both her friends knew what a philanderer her father had been. He’d no doubt made moves on both their mothers at some time over the summers here! And when her own mom had found out? Shrieking and pot throwing and breaking glass.
And then passion clouding the poor woman’s judgment all over again.
“How is your mother since your father passed?” Andrea asked suddenly, as if she had picked it up telepathically. Such was the way between old friends.
You don’t want to know. “Fine,” Casey said briefly.
“I wish she would come for the vow renewal,” Emily s
aid. “She’s not going to be alone because you’ve come here, is she?”
“Oh, no,” Casey managed to squeak. “She’s not going to be alone.”
She could feel her throat tightening suspiciously, and she swallowed hard and focused quickly on the inn’s dog, a gorgeous golden retriever mix named Harper. The female dog came up with her happy grin and put her head in Casey’s lap.
“This kind of love I can live with,” Casey said lightly, scratching the dog’s ears and smiling at the tail thumping on the floor. “Oh, look! It’s snowing.”
She gently maneuvered free of the affectionate pet, then got up and went to the window. She shouldn’t have told her friends she had given up on love. Maybe she shouldn’t have told them she was thinking of alternative ways to have a family, either. She had left herself wide-open to a Christmas campaign to make her change her mind.
But she’d had enough proof of the folly of love to last her a lifetime, and it should be easy enough to change the subject when it came up.
As she looked out the window, headlights illuminated the thickly falling snow. A cab emerged from the night and pulled up in front of the inn, sliding a little when it tried to stop on the icy driveway.
A man got out of the back, dressed casually in a parka with a fur-lined hood, jeans tucked into laced snow boots. He strode around to the rear and waited for the driver to retrieve his bags from the trunk. Then, with his luggage at his feet in the snow, he paid the cabbie, clapping him on the shoulder at his effusive thanks for what must have been a great Christmas tip.
It was dark and it was snowing hard, but there was something about the way the new arrival carried himself that penetrated both the storm and the night.
Something shivered along Casey’s spine.
She had the alarming feeling it might be recognition, but she shook it off.
It simply was not possible that, following so quickly on her announcement to her friends that she had sworn off love, Turner Kennedy—the first man who had ever stolen her heart—would show up here.
CHAPTER TWO
“DID SOMEBODY JUST ARRIVE?” Andrea asked. “Another member of my little work party?”
