"The guys have been talking all week about the Christmas tournament you organized," Mr. Bass told me a few minutes later, standing near the fire with a beer in his hand.
The Bass family, and a lot of the other guests who were arriving steadily for the party, were new friends I had met as a result of agreeing to coach a travel soccer team. I’d become one of the leaders in the league, offering direction and helping to organize additional opportunities for the players—like the Christmas tournament.
"I'm excited about it too," I told Mr. Bass. "Your boys have a lot of talent. I'm really glad to have them on the team." The talented twins dashed by right then, chasing Taylor and Maddie through the crowded living room as the girls shrieked. April caught them at the door and I saw her bend down to tell them something and then point back toward the playroom, where movies and toys had been set up to keep the smaller guests occupied.
The house filled up rapidly, guests mingling all through the first floor as the lights glowed and Christmas music played. April and I were busy, hosting and helping our guests get everything they needed, but after a couple hours the party took on its own rhythm, and April found her way to my side.
I put an arm around her, loving the feel of her soft silky skin against my palm. "You look amazing tonight," I told her.
She grinned up at me, "So do you."
"Are you ready to get the game going?" I asked.
April had done a lot of online research about appropriate activities for holiday gatherings, since she had never really been to one as an adult. She'd decided that a party game was needed, and had settled on a game where guests opened gifts in order and could steal from one another. The gifts were all little things, and many of them were kid-appropriate, since April partially organized the game with Maddie and Taylor in mind.
"If everyone could find a seat," April called, turning down the music. "We'll play the game."
Maddie had gone through the crowd, offering everyone the chance to draw a number, which would determine who went first. April had drawn number one—I had set it up that way, and though she'd tried to give it back, Maddie had insisted she had to keep it. So when everyone was settled, April stood back up. "I drew number one, so I guess I'll go first, even though it feels pretty rude at our own party."
"Here you go," Helen Manchester picked up a big box with a glittery green bow and shoved it toward April, nearly spilling her Manhattan in the process.
"Helen," Lottie scolded. "She gets to pick."
"No, she doesn't," Helen assured her friend. "She wants that one."
April glanced at me and I nodded, so she shrugged and took the big box. She pulled it onto her lap as she sat on an ottoman and pulled off the wrapping paper and ribbon, opening the box only to find another box inside. Maddie came over to help her as she unearthed box after wrapped box, accumulating a mountain of paper as she opened each one.
"This is the best present ever," Maddie lisped reverently as she helped open the gifts.
Finally, the box in April's hand was so small, she seemed to realize there could not be another inside it, and just as she was about to open it, Maddie took it from her and handed it to me.
"Hey," April protested.
Taylor stood and came over to pick up all the wrapping paper and stick it into a trash bag, clearing the area around April. And then I stepped in front of her, dropping to a knee with the box in my hand and my heart pounding madly. The girls and I had practiced this, and they'd done their parts perfectly. Now it was my turn.
"April," I said, as her hands flew to her face, which was turning pink. "You barreling into my life was the best thing that ever happened to me. You barged in here, bossy and demanding, and pulled me out of the darkest days I've ever known. You gave me a chance to find myself again, helped me discover a new life and were gracious enough to agree to be a part of it. Since you've been here, I have lived a better life than I ever knew was possible. I face each day with hope and excitement, mostly because I know it will be another day with you."
A tear was streaking down April's cheek and her hands had begun to shake.
I kept my eyes locked on April's as the crowd began to murmur around us, realizing what was happening.
"I'm hoping you might be willing to agree to spend some more time with me," I went on, lifting the small box and opening it to reveal a perfect solitaire diamond ring. "I'm hoping you'll be willing to stay forever. I'm hoping you might agree to marry me."
April was nodding, slowly at first and then madly, her dark hair sliding around her shoulders. "Yes," she whispered, and then she seemed to remember the crowd around them and her role as hostess. She stood up and nearly shouted, "I said yes!" so those in the back could hear.
I stood too, and slid the ring onto April's finger as her eyes locked on mine again.
"You've made me so happy," I said, leaning in to kiss her.
The gathered guests erupted in cheers and applause, and April whispered, "you can have forever."
I pulled her tightly against me again, my entire body warm and happy as the future glowed like the lights on the enormous tree in the parlor.
Forever sounded perfect. And with April at my side, every day of that forever would be just like Christmas.
* * *
<<<>>>
Sneak Peek: Second Chance Spring (Paige and Cormac’s story!)
CHAPTER ONE: Paige
My Guilt is Organic
The late April rain was pouring down in buckets, sheeting my car and making it nearly impossible to see out the windshield. I squinted and leaned over the steering wheel like an old woman, shouting into the car’s speakerphone. “I’m on my way, Mom, I promise. I’m sorry I’m late.” I swallowed hard and said it before she had a chance: “Again.”
“You be careful out there, young lady. That rain is torrential right now.” My mother’s voice filled the dark car, and though she sounded annoyed, I was still happy for the company. I hated driving in the pouring rain at night. There were no streetlights in this part of our small town, and the low clouds and rain didn’t help with visibility. Mom went on, laying it on thick as only she could do. “Don’t rush just because you’re nearly an hour late for family dinner.”
“Mom, you don’t have to pile on the guilt. I come by it naturally.”
“Good. I’d hate to think I raised you to believe it’s perfectly acceptable to be an hour late to a family dinner.”
I sighed as my hands gripped the wheel, both out of frustration and for better control. “Do you want me to rush or to be careful, Mom?” I guided my little car through a traffic circle and then signaled to turn into Mom’s neighborhood.
“Be careful, for goodness sakes. And try to do it in a speedy fashion.” Standard Lottie logic. “The pot pie’s getting cold. Why do you have to work so late?”
“I told you to go ahead and eat without me!” Frustration sent my hand into my hair, pushing my bangs back off my face as I pulled to a stop at the curb in front of Mom’s colonial cottage. “I’m here. I’ll be at the door in a sec.”
The door of the brick-fronted house opened not two seconds later, and Mom’s rotund figure appeared in the glow from within, holding her phone to her ear as she peered out at the car through the water sheeting down.
I switched off the engine and sighed. Having Mom in my life was a blessing, and the woman loved me fiercely. But sometimes I wondered if it wouldn’t be freeing to have Mom love me just a little less fiercely. Or maybe just as fiercely, but from a greater distance.
I pulled my keys from the ignition, grabbed my purse, and made a dash for the front door. Lottie stopped me just outside under the little overhang. “You’re soaked! Remind me to give you an old umbrella I’ve got before you go tonight.”
I shook the rain from my hair and arms and removed my shoes as I stepped inside. “I have an umbrella, Mom.” It was on the passenger seat in my car. It just hadn’t made sense to go to the trouble of opening it up for a fifteen-foot walk.
“Then remind me to teach
you what those are used for. We must’ve skipped that when you were little.”
“Good to see you, Mom.” I pulled my mother into a hug, and felt her relax.
“You too, Paigey. Come in. Your sister’s waiting.” Mom stepped back and led the way to the dining room.
“Hey,” Amberlynn waved from the table, where she sat with a half-full glass of red wine and an expression somewhere between relieved and irritated. “Took you long enough.”
“You didn’t have to wait,” I said. I’d made that clear to my mother when I’d called from the clinic an hour ago to let her know I was going to be late. Right before I scarfed the fries left over from my lunch and chased it with a vanilla latte supplied by my ever-adored physician’s assistant. Though Leslie’s job in no way meant she was actually supposed to act like my actual assistant, the fact that we were best friends made her a great asset at work.
The clinic where I worked was usually calm and my hours weren’t overwhelming at all, but now and then we had a crazy day. And those days always seemed to coincide with my mother’s dinners.
“Sit down, for Heaven’s sake. Let’s eat. This pot pie is undoubtedly a gelatinous disaster inside a crust at this point.” Mom put the pie down on the table, pursing her lips and shaking her head, making her spray-frozen bob brush her shoulders on each side.
“Well, when it sounds so appetizing,” I said.
“Don’t sit yet, Paige,” Amberlynn said, her voice low.
“I thought you were starving.”
“Just thought you would want some wine before the inquisition begins.” Amberlynn pointed to the kitchen just beyond the table.
“Oh please,” Mom said as I ducked past her to pour myself a glass of wine.
“Mom? You want?” I raised the bottle and looked over my shoulder.
Mom sighed dramatically. “Well if we’re all going to behave like lushes tonight, I guess I’d better. Are you planning to stay over then, Paigey?”
I returned to the table with the bottle. “Mom, one glass with food before I go home in two hours should be fine.”
My mother raised an eyebrow, but put up no further argument, and I poured myself a glass much less generous than I would have without the presence of the judgy eyebrow.
“The pot pie is great, Mom,” I said around my first bite. It was. And it was miles away from the usual protein shakes and cereal dinners I made for myself.
“Oh, you’re just saying that.” Mom waved a hand and pretended the compliment wasn’t absolutely required at Sunday dinner.
“Of course she is, Mom. You’d be annoyed if one of us didn’t say it.” Amberlynn took another big bite, and through a full mouth added, “though she’s completely right. This is amazing.”
We talked about her cafe on the town square in downtown Singletree, which she had recently renamed and had a huge sign made for, and about Amberlynn’s job at the high school. And then all eyes turned to me, and I gave as brief a summary of my work at the family clinic where I was a general practitioner as I could. It turned out that hearing about scads of kids with runny noses and coughs didn’t make for great conversation, and as busy as I always was at work, very little changed in the small-town practice I ran.
“And did you treat any handsome men today, Paigey?” Mom looked ever hopeful as she brought up her favorite topic and Amberlynn grinned expectantly. Since my younger sister was engaged and my older sister had escaped to New York City, they were rarely the subject of Mom’s matchmaking meddling at this point. But in my aging and clearly withering state as a divorcee at almost thirty-one, I was dead in the crosshairs.
“That would be a no.” Not that I would have been excited about the idea of dating a patient, but at this point, if a good-looking single man happened to wander through the clinic doors, I wouldn’t send him to the other family practice across town.
“You have to get over Adam,” Mom said sadly, shaking her head and folding her small hands over her generous middle.
“Mom, stop that!” I half laughed, half snorted. “We are not grieving my marriage. I was married less than a year and the whole thing was clearly a mistake.”
“The wedding was so beautiful,” Mom said sadly.
“Turns out marriage is about a lot more than the actual ceremony,” Amberlynn said through a mouthful of peas and carrots. “Don’t think Adam got the memo.”
This was not my favorite topic, but it was practically a requirement of Sunday dinner to rehash my short-lived marriage to my high-school boyfriend. The fact we’d stayed together as I’d gone off for college and medical school made Adam seem loyal and true. I should have known that no red-blooded eighteen-year-old male would agree to wait for eight years for regular sex. It turned out Adam wasn’t waiting. He was waiting for me, don’t get me wrong—he just hadn’t realized that monogamy was an expectation of marriage. It was easy to cover his dalliances when we were both away at school, but it turned out to be tougher to do when we shared a house in a small town like Singletree, Maryland.
Adam was not a bad guy. But he was not husband material, and the entire experience had made me feel like I’d wasted the best years of my life with one man who didn’t deserve me in the end. Now I was over thirty and still getting grilled about my prospects over Sunday dinners. I imagined these same dinners in the future—seeing myself as a sixty-five-year-old woman, getting interrogated by my ninety-year old mother.
I sighed, finishing the meal and pushing my plate away. “Let’s not rehash all that tonight,” I suggested hopefully.
Mom shook her head and finished her meal, sipping her wine. “Amberlynn, I’m just glad you and Wiley both understand the commitment you’re making.”
I squeezed my eyes shut to keep from rolling them. Wiley was a great guy, and I knew Amberlynn had found one of the good ones, but I didn’t want to play the comparison game or hear about my sister’s wedding plans—for the ninetieth time—tonight.
“He’s great, Mom, and I think we’ll be good. We’ve talked about everything. We should be fine. Happy, I hope.”
I gave Amberlynn a reassuring smile. I didn’t want to take one second away from her happy ending just because I didn’t get one of my own, though it seemed like there was something behind her forceful assertion that they would be happy. “You guys will be fine,” I said softly.
“So,” my sister said, rising to clear the table. She smiled sweetly at Mom and then we both carried plates into the kitchen. “Did you tell Mom you’re moving yet?”
I glared at her and looked back to make sure Mom hadn’t heard.
“So that’s a no, I guess.”
“Not yet. It’s not a sure thing.” I set the dishes on the counter and opened the dishwasher, and my sister and I fell into our routine, her rinsing plates and handing them to me to put inside the racks. “I told them I’d need a few weeks to think about the offer.”
Amberlynn nodded. We’d talked at length already about the job offer I’d gotten from a clinic in Baltimore. It would be a bigger practice in a bigger place—and would hopefully represent bigger opportunities for me. Both as a physician and as a woman who might like to meet someone besides the handful of single men still in the small Maryland town where I grew up. “I’ll miss you if you go, sis.”
I stopped moving for a minute and looked at my sister, brushing a strand of her long blond hair back over her shoulder as she rinsed dishes. “I’ll miss you too.”
We finished up and I kissed my mom and sister good night, and then drove home to my own quiet cottage. This was the life I’d built, and it was good. I had everything I needed. I had a family that loved me, a dog to greet me at the door when I came home. I was successful and healthy. So why didn’t I feel happy?
CHAPTER TWO - CORMAC
Rocks are not Nutritionally Balanced
“Here’s a snack. And here’s a snack. And you can have this one, and this one.” My older daughter, Taylor, had never met a rock she didn’t like, and every single one of the tiny pieces of gravel
that filled the Singletree Park playground evidently seemed a perfect snack for her three-year old sister Madison to her. She was filling up Maddie’s upturned shirt with rock after rock. “You can eat these before dinner,” she told her sister. Madison stared up at her big sister with adoring eyes filled with trust.
“Or maybe we just save them for later,” I suggested, deciding I’d better intervene before Sunday night turned into a fun-filled night of emergency room visiting. “Rocks don’t taste good and they’re not easy on the teeth. Also, your body can’t digest them.” I reached down and helped Madison smooth the front of her shirt, letting all the little pebbles fall back to the ground.
Madison looked relieved.
“Taylor, it’s your job to look out for your little sister,” I said, squatting down to look into the deep serious eyes of my older daughter. They reminded me so much of her mother’s eyes that I actually had to fight off the choke that rose in my throat every time she looked at me a certain way. “You know she can’t eat rocks, but she might not know that.”
A small crease appeared between Taylor’s eyebrows—also like her mother, and I swallowed hard. “I have to be the mommy now.” The deep liquid pools of my daughter’s beautiful eyes at once revealed the deep misery she felt over losing her mother, and the strong sense of responsibility she’d managed to take on at only seven.
“No, Sweetie. You have to be a little girl. Your job is to play and have fun, but you do have to look out for your little sister and help her get bigger like you.” I tried to keep my voice upbeat.
“But she needs a mommy,” Taylor said, and the crack in her voice matched the one deep in my heart. Despite the warmth of the sunny Sunday afternoon, despite the glorious sunshine, brilliant green trees and fresh-cut grass, I was having trouble remaining positive.
“She has everything she needs in her daddy and her big sister,” I told my serious older daughter. “Now go up in the crow’s nest and see if you spot any pirates. I thought I heard cannons a second ago.” I turned to address Madison too, who’d been watching our conversation thoughtfully while testing a small rock with her teeth. I took it from her and shook my head. “We don’t eat rocks,” I said.
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