by Kari Trumbo
She turned to leave the kitchen and groaned. There, in the corner, was her Christmas tree, the one she’d put up with Sam, working her way emotionally through all the ornaments. He’d been there with her, held her, talked to her. She’d succeeded only because he’d been there to help her. Even though Christmas Eve was tomorrow, there were no presents under it. The gift was getting the reno house done and spending the holiday with Sam. That wouldn’t happen now.
She went down to the basement, lugged the box for Grammy Jean’s ornaments back up the stairs and dropped it at the base of the tree. She yanked the tree skirt out and folded it quickly, tossing it in the bottom of the box. Next, she unplugged the lights and got a stool to reach the angel.
Why couldn’t life work out? She’d come to Wonderland with her guard up, had kept it up for weeks, but Sam had worn her down. He’d convinced her his love was real. He’d convinced her he’d made a mistake and they should’ve been together.
He’d conned her, pure and simple.
She stomped up onto the stool, grabbed Grammy Jean’s angel and unplugged it from the rest of the lights. But it slipped from her fingers and bounced down the side of the tree, landing on its head with a shattering crash. She rushed over and lifted the delicate angel off the floor. The lady in the white satin dress with real feather wings was missing half her head and many of her lights were shattered.
Ashley let herself fall onto the stool and let her head fall forward. “Why?” Why couldn’t she find a relationship that worked? Why did things like broken angels have to happen? Why did she have to come home to Wonderland?
With greater care, she put away all of the blown-glass ornaments and those she and her mother had made many years before. The garland and lights came off last. Her chest ached from holding back tears for her grandmother, for Sam. Both seemed equally hopeless.
She knelt on the floor to detach the tree from its base. The needles caught in her hair and scraped the back of her neck, but all that mattered was getting it out of the house. It was a reminder of everything she’d lost: her parents who weren’t there, her grandmother who was dead, and the man who’d kissed her right before he’d chopped that tree down.
No Sam. No Christmas. No Wonderland. She was through with all of it – it was just so much heartbreak for her.
Ashley extricated the tree from the base and dragged it out of the house and down to the curb. The county garbage service would pick it up next week. She wouldn’t be here by then.
After a sleepless night, Sam rushed to catch up to the choir on Christmas Eve morning as they headed downhill toward the first of the Ladies. He’d never been one to speak up, but enough was enough. Chelsey had ruined his life, and he’d let her. Well, let’s see what damage he could do to hers.
He reached the group to find Chelsey laughing and chatting away, and that pushed him over the edge. “Why did you do that? What did you hope to accomplish? I’m sick and tired of your flirting. Just stop it!” Getting that off his chest felt good, even if it wouldn’t bring Ashley back.
Max cleared his throat. “Um, Sam? What’s going on?”
Chelsey put on her biggest smile. “Oh, it’s nothing –”
Sam cut her off. “I’ll tell you what’s going on!” he declared as loudly as his ravaged vocal cords could manage. “Chelsey tried to get you all to go up to Sleigh Bell Drive last night because Ashley Rogers is back in town and she wanted to pick on her, just like she did in high school. When you guys balked, she went anyway, and when I tried to stop her, she forced a kiss on me while Ashley watched!”
Chelsey was trying to play it cool, but this time he’d caught her off guard. “Forced? Really?”
“Yes, really! I didn’t want to kiss you. I have never wanted to kiss you! You grabbed me and forced yourself on me, and I am sick and tired of you and your behavior!” That got a couple of cheers from the crowd.
Now Max spoke up. “Your behavior has been highly suspect for a long time, Miss Miles. About time someone called you on it. Come on, folks, let’s go.”
Maggie Crafton held up a hand. “Nah, I want to hear the rest of this. Well, Chelsey – did you do what he said you did?”
Chelsey sneered at her. “I’m not on trial here!”
Maggie put on her most chilly former school teacher look until Chelsey squirmed.
Sam couldn’t help smiling. This was going better than he’d planned. “Well?” he demanded of Chelsey.
Chelsey was desperately trying to turn up what she thought was the charm. “Sam, dear Sam. You never were good at putting two and two together.” She patted his arm.
“There, she’s doing it again.” Sandra, a teenager who was usually too stuck in her phone to talk chimed in.
“Yep, I think you’re right,” Sandra’s father Hank said before his wife could object.
Sam removed hand. “Just cut the act. You know what? I don’t even want to know what you’re talking about. The only reason I agreed to carol this year was because you threatened to have your daddy push through that B&B restriction, but you’re going to do that anyway, aren’t you?”
“Of course. That’ll keep you right where you are with your poor family, and it’ll send her away where she belongs. She won’t stay when she can’t make money. I had to wait seven years for this, and it’s worth it.”
Sandra rapidly typed into her phone using her thumbs. “That’s what’s known as extortion … according to Wiki.”
“Yeah, Sandra, it’s sure getting juicy,” Maggie replied.
“Seven years?” Sam had suspected she’d started that rumor, but he’d never followed it up. But of course she had – how else would the whole town know without the Mileses telling them?
“That’s right. I told Evelyne, hoping she’d pass on the goodness to Ashley, and I left you a note – the one you found on your car windshield after caroling on Christmas Eve. Just like seven years ago, Ashley will be gone soon, and this time she won’t be coming back.”
“Why? You know I want nothing to do with you. Everyone knows I want nothing to do with you. You just admitted to ruining the best thing that’s ever happened to me – twice!”
“Assault, extortion, alienation of affections – well, I’m not sure that’s an actual charge …” Sandra ticked her head back and forth with each charge.
“That’s right, you’re planning to study law in college, aren’t you, Sandy?” Max asked.
Chelsey just laughed. “You think this was for me? Hardly. I did crush on you once, because you’re so loyal and quiet, but I’m over that. What I’m not over was how much Ashley took advantage of you. Did she even notice that you gave up your scholarship to State, just to stay here and work on a house you didn’t want to? Did she notice you gave up everything for her? Nope. Because she’s never seen you as anything but her sidekick.”
“That’s not true.” Though it was what he’d worried about. He hated that Chelsey could still plant doubts in his mind. No wonder he was no leader to Ashley. No wonder she felt like she needed to plan. He certainly hadn’t. “And even if it was, you had no right to manipulate me. Who I choose to be with is none of your business. I will talk to Ashley. I will tell her the truth. And I will talk to your father and tell him all these stunts you’re pulling. We’ll see how he feels about that!”
“Oh, look at you, trying to stand on your hind legs like a real man!” Chelsey cooed. “And you sound so cute with your gravelly voice and your shoulders thrown back. But, reality check – my daddy runs this town, and he will listen to me, not you.” She blew him a kiss. “Merry Christmas, Sam. Now it’s time to go caroling …”
“Not for you.”
Chelsey froze, then turned to glare at Max Bernard. “Excuse me?”
“Exactly – you’re excused. I’m sick of your attitude, Miss Miles. Get out of my choir – I don’t want you here.” Max looked over at Sam as half the choir cheered. “I’m glad you joined us this week, Sam, but I’m sorry it was forced on you. You go rest your voice and work things
out with Ashley – we’ll cover for you.”
“Thanks, Max.” He could barely whisper his gratitude.
Chelsey, however, was turning it up to eleven. “You can’t throw me out!” she screeched. “I –”
“I not only can, Miss Miles, I just did. There’s no way the rest of us can have a merry Christmas with you making us miserable. Go away, and don’t come back.” Several others agreed forcefully.
“I – I … I’m going to tell Daddy about this!” She stomped back uphill toward her Firebird.
“Wow, Daddy?” Sandra rolled her eyes and went back to her phone.
“Sandra, stop.”
Max waved for everyone’s attention. “Now that the drama is over, let’s get down to the Ladies. Bye, Sam – Merry Christmas!” Others agreed with the sentiment and gave Sam their best wishes before resuming their course downhill.
Sam watched them go, a sad smile on his face as flakes of snow began falling slowly. That had been years in the making, but finally he had stood up on his own two feet and called her out. And he was pleasantly surprised how many others had supported him. The Mileses had pushed the townspeople around for years, just as Chelsey had done to him. Maybe now things would change, for him and Wonderland.
But for now, he had another crisis to handle. As he headed back to his truck, he pulled out his phone, texted Ashley … and froze. Delivery failed. Invalid destination or service blocked at destination. He tried again, and got the same message. She’d blocked his number? He got into his truck and drove over to Snow Lane, but she wasn’t at the reno house. He headed up to Sleigh Bell Drive – he had to talk to her, had to straighten out what Chelsey had bent.
But the first thing he saw when he got there was the Christmas tree they’d selected, bare of ornaments and sitting in the gutter.
Exhaustion and despair hit him like an opposing lineman on a pulling block. She hadn’t just given up on him, she’d given up on Christmas. She wouldn’t answer her door, wouldn’t receive his texts. What could he do now?
He got out of his truck as the snow blew in harder. A white Christmas had been guaranteed a week ago, and this would make all the snow fresh and pretty. For those who believed in Santa, it would be a dream come true. But all his dreams were being blown away.
He looked up at the clouds ruefully, realizing they might be his last line of defense. Ashley didn’t have a car and, without a rental or a ride, couldn’t go anywhere until the snow let up. Maybe she wouldn’t be gone before he could bring her to her senses. Maybe he had one last chance.
Because Sam was pretty sure there wouldn’t be another.
Chapter Seventeen
Ashley sat at the kitchen table, dully touching the hem of the broken angel’s satin gown. It looked like she felt: shattered, irreparable, barely able to produce false light. How could everything go from being perfect to ruined so fast? The angel had. So had her life.
“So what am I doing here in Wonderland, God? Did I have to come here to finally let Sam go?” The angel went out of focus through her tears, and the mural on the wall blurred.
That mural hidden behind the kitchen wallpaper in Grammy Jean’s house had kept her busy all week when she wasn’t working on the reno and Sam was off with the choir—and apparently with Chelsey. Now the top left corner was finished, revealing what looked like a late 19th-century cityscape with wagons and horses and women in pretty gowns. It would raise the value of the house, yet it had been covered up with that awful paper all these years.
She stood, abandoning the angel, and went to find her scraper. She squirted the area at the bottom edge where the paper still clung, and after a few minutes, the work of gently scraping and spraying eased her hurting heart. Work, as always, would be her best medicine.
She peeled off a satisfyingly thick section, then stopped short, dropping the tool on the countertop. She’d revealed a Victorian home at the top of a hill, white with black trim Someone had tried to repaint the door red and part of the house orange, but the paint had smudged and clotted, ruining the mural. “Oh, no.” She took two steps back and stared at what could only be a mistake made by her amazing Grammy Jean. She’d loved her house with the welcoming red door and orange siding.
Grammy Jean never made mistakes and didn’t hide from anything, as far as Ashley had known. Yet here was just that. Her grandmother, at some point before Ashley could remember – probably before Ashley was born – had tried to make the mural match the house’s new look, had failed, and had covered it up under not just one, but two layers of ugly wallpaper.
The rest of the mural made sense now. There were the eight Ladies all in white, right where they were now. But without Grammy Jean’s house, she hadn’t realized she was looking at a picture of Wonderland as it had looked around 1900. Even the reno house at 52 Snow Lane was there in its original glory.
She approached the painting and touched the image of the reno house. She didn’t need it. But maybe Sam did. He needed a place he could work, and having that house would give Chelsey the attention she always craved, should she and Sam ever marry. Her heart seized even at the thought, but she’d witnessed that kiss. How many more had there been that she hadn’t seen?
She rummaged through her purse for her phone, thought for a moment about unblocking Sam’s number, then decided against it and called Evelyne instead.
“Hey, girlfriend – I was just on my way to pick up lunch for us. What’s up?”
Ashley bit her lip. “I’m leaving.”
“Well, where do you want to meet, the reno?”
The plan came together as it came out of her mouth. “No, I mean on the 26th I’m taking my remaining funds and I’m getting on the first plane out of Rapid City. Wherever it lands, that’s where I’ll stay. But I need you to do something for me. Sam wanted Grammy Jean’s house. Sell it to him – don’t even worry about the price, just take whatever he offers. I don’t want to have to come back. As for the reno, draw up a contract giving him the right to sell. He can keep it if he likes, but if he sells, I want my half.”
Evelyne turned off the television on her end. “Ashley, wait – why are you doing this? I thought things were going so well.”
“Because I love him.”
“Tap the brakes. If you love him, again, why are you leaving?”
Evelyne could seem like she didn’t understand, but she always did. Evelyne knew her better than anyone except maybe Sam. “I love him, but I can’t have him and I can’t watch him with anyone else. So I have to go. It hurts too much to stay.”
“You said that last time. I know you regret leaving last time, running away. Why would you do that twice? Don’t you regret not finding out what was going on so you could work it out together?”
Ashley headed down to the basement where the leftover cans of touch-up paint were stored under the stairs. “Yes, I did, because I felt like I’d been left out of the decision. He didn’t want to see me anymore, I didn’t know why, and that hurt. This time, I know why.” She picked up the orange one, toted it upstairs and began digging through her box of leftover acrylic paints and brushes that she brought back from the reno. She could repair the blue sky around the orange smudge, then fix the house with a little care.
“Oh, for crying out loud … so what could possibly be between you and Sam now?”
She pried open the can of orange paint. It had separated and looked like a mess, but once she stirred it the color would be perfect. “The same thing that’s always come between Sam and I. Chelsey.”
“Sam doesn’t want Chelsey. No one wants Chelsey. Why would you even think that?”
“I saw them kissing. He didn’t make a move to stop her. He’s been with her all week because he said she’d blackmailed him into caroling, but now I know the real reason.” Her shoulder ached from stirring the paint, and her head ached from tossing and turning all last night, but she was going to wrap things up here if it killed her. She tested the paint by pulling the stick out. The paint ran down smoothly and the color was consis
tent.
“Okay, so he didn’t stop her. Did he have a chance? Did he explain? You know how passive he can be sometimes, and you know how aggressive Chelsey is. Are you sure she didn’t just jump him again?”
Ashley had to think about that. Everything Evelyne said was true, and it would explain the whole situation. The timing was odd too – why would he want to kiss Chelsey on her – well, Grammy Jean’s doorstep? That’s the kind of show Chelsey would put on, not him. And for all his faults, he’d never been a liar before. Either he was a champion at it now, or … “No. I guess I’m not so sure.”
“There you go. I’m telling you, you left without having it out with him before, and you got seven years in the wilderness. You want another seven? Care to go for a full forty, like the children of Israel?”
Ashley dropped the stir stick back in the paint pail. “No. But I also don’t want to spend any more time here. Can you draw up the paperwork?” Now that she’d decided what to do and had a plan to fix the mural, there seemed like little reason to deviate. The damage had been done and now she’d move on.
Evelyne sighed, long and loud. “Yes, I’ll draw it up. But you need to meet with me before you head out – if you’re forcing me to do this, I’m going to make sure every I is dotted and every T crossed.” She grumbled something indistinct, then added, “If you were anyone but my closest friend, I’d charge you an arm and a leg to draw this up on Christmas.”
“It’s not like you don’t have access to my bank accounts. You know there’s not much in them. Now I need to get everything square here. You can drive me to Rapid City Regional on the 26th.” Ashley said goodbye, hung up and went back to her acrylics.
First she repaired the blue sky – it took a few tries to get a blue that would dry the correct shade. She had to redo the outline and the porch on the house and let them dry. By about 2 p.m. she was finished. Now, Grammy Jean’s house looked just like it did now, standing out among all the white houses in Wonderland.
