Their Christmas Carol (Big Sky Hathaways Book 2)

by Jessica Gilmore

  Of course she had been fooling herself. Nat had set the pattern. After all, the next blond, handsome guy she’d fallen for she’d ending up marrying. “Damn you, Logan,” she whispered, looking over at the Copper Mountain. “It’s Thanksgiving. You should be here.” But there was little heat in her words, not anymore. Just weary acceptance. Each holiday, each special day was a little easier once they were no longer the first without him. She could barely remember Thanksgiving two years ago, still numb with early widowhood, surrounded by Logan’s grieving family, his absence the ghost at the feast.

  It was such a cliché that time healed. But it was a cliché for a reason. She still missed Logan, of course she did, wished he could be there to watch their daughters grow up, to share the burdens of parenting and adulthood, but she no longer felt his absence so acutely, her grief was no longer constantly with her, especially now she was back in Marietta, a place where her memories of him were few and far between. Another point in Marietta’s favor.

  It was a short walk, through the perfectly straight rows of fruit trees, to her parents’ house right on the edge of the orchard. Linnea paused as she reached the small arched bridge which ran over the shallow stream separating the house and yard from the orchard. She’d never expected to live in this house again and yet somehow it had never stopped being home. Painted white with a deep veranda running right round the house, a swing hanging from the old apple tree in the garden, a small wooden house perched high in the same tree, it had been a picture-perfect place to grow up in. Now it was a picture-perfect home for her girls to grow up in.

  Linnea crossed over the bridge and followed the path around the house to the back. She clambered up the steps and unlatched the back door which led into the laundry and general store room. “Hello,” she called and waited for the return greetings.

  No answer.

  Slipping her shoes off, she crossed the room and entered the kitchen. Nothing about the homely kitchen had changed since she’d left for Yale. The same cream wooden cabinets, the same tiled floor, the same blinds at the window. Only the photos had changed; once the memo boards had been filled with pictures of Linnea. Linnea in her graduation gown, in her band uniform, her track uniform, at the piano. Always achieving, always smiling. A few photos of the three of them, Vika and Andreas’s Swedish roots clear in their clean-cut blond looks, Linnea shorter, darker. She’d never minded being adopted, she had just wished so many times it wasn’t so obvious.

  Now the photos were a mixture of the girls’ baby photos, more recent pictures, her wedding photo. She always got a jolt when she saw it, she was so young, not even twenty. So unformed.

  This was the first Thanksgiving she had spent in Marietta since she was eighteen. Then the kitchen would have been full of the rich smells of roasting turkey, fried yams and baking pies, the house filled with the chattering of various Olsens and Wallins, her mother’s family. But at some point in the last decade her father had started to open the store on Thanksgiving morning and her parents had accepted invitations to other people’s houses for Thanksgiving. The old guilt pulsed away. Linnea had always spent Thanksgiving with Logan’s family in their mansion by the Connecticut River. Spent Christmas there too, only returning to Marietta for a week every summer. It hadn’t been enough. All Vika had wanted was a large family to take care of, but it had never happened. They just had Linnea, and she had to make sure she was enough, that she filled the void.

  As if Linnea’s thoughts summoned her, Vika walked into the kitchen, a smile broadening her high-cheekboned face as she caught sight of her daughter. “Linnea, darling, you’re back. How was it?” Vika Olsen had been fond of her son-in-law, and truly heartbroken at the tragedy that had befallen her daughter and granddaughters, but she couldn’t hide her happiness that her only daughter had finally returned home, her granddaughters were now in the same house, that she saw them daily not just a couple of times a year.

  “Hi, Mom.” Linnea walked over to her mother and leaned against her, inhaling that coming-home scent; cinnamon and sugar and the fresh citrusy scent of her mother’s shampoo. As always, she had to reach up, as if she were still a little girl, Vika Olsen was a slim, statuesque five eleven; at barely five four Linnea was a good half a foot shorter than her mother. Their height wasn’t the only difference. Vika’s golden hair had faded to a stylish ash blonde, still straight and fine, cut in a becomingly sleek bob, her eyes were as piercing and blue as ever. Everyone agreed that Vika Olsen was a fine-looking woman; as a small child, Linnea had always felt their physical difference keenly, her own dark eyes and hair, her olive skin marking her as different. The visual proof that she didn’t quite belong, no matter how many times they told her how special she was, that she was their chosen one.

  If she’d looked more like her adoptive parents, would she have felt less of a pressure to excel at everything? Less of a need to prove herself worthy? A need she had never quite shaken. “Good, I think. I won’t know the year on year figures until the weekend, but it seemed busy. How’s Dad?”

  Vika sighed. “Refusing to rest, so I took him and the girls over to Pernilla’s early. I thought if he could sit in the den with Nils and watch the game he wouldn’t be fretting about not being at the store to help you.”

  “Why didn’t you stay? You could have messaged me to meet you there?”

  “I didn’t want you to have to drive yourself over on your own. Besides, you might want a glass of wine or two, in which case we only need one car. You deserve to relax after all the work you’ve put in this week.”

  Linnea squeezed her mother gratefully. “Thank you, but I agreed to go over to the Crooked Corner open house later so I’ll hold back on the wine. You and Dad are very welcome too,” she added.

  “Your dad won’t admit it, but he’ll be tired after dinner. Give my regards to Patty and Priscilla and tell them thanks, but not this year. Did they invite you when they collected their cider? It’s very kind of them.”

  “Lacey asked me, she and her dad came to buy trees. Nat came in to the store to get the cider,” she added in as off-hand a voice as she could manage, sure her voice betrayed her.

  “Nat Hathaway is in town?”

  Linnea affected not to notice the sharp glance her mother shot her way. Vika had always suspected there was more to Linnea and Nat’s friendship than Linnea had ever let on.

  “It is Thanksgiving, even travelers wind up home at this time of year. Okay. Let me get changed and I’ll be right with you. We don’t want hold Pernilla up, and you know she won’t start without us.” Linnea had no idea why her cheeks were hot, her stomach squirming, just like when she was a child and caught up in some mischief.

  All she knew was that she didn’t want to discuss Nat with her mother, or to admit to herself just how discombobulated she felt knowing he was back in town.

  At least it wasn’t for long. The longest Nat had ever spent in one place was right here in Marietta when he had lived with his great-aunts at Crooked Corner for senior year, but even then his blue eyes had been fixed firmly on the horizon. That was why she had kept her heart in check back then, not allowing herself to fall too hard for the boy with the guitar and the huge ambition.

  Now he had achieved that ambition, he still belonged out on the open road—and her priorities were right here in Marietta.

  Chapter Four

  Nat stood out on the porch and slid his phone from his pocket. He’d almost forgotten about the unopened and unread SMS in the aftermath of his unexpected reunion with Linnea. Funny, both relationships were well and truly in the past, but although Piper was by far the more recent, she already seemed little but an indistinct dream. Maybe that was because they had never really talked, because she didn’t let down that glossy facade, not even with him. Always the star, always performing.

  In contrast, within two minutes of talking to Linnea, it was as if the past decade had never happened. Given a little more time, Nat might even have found himself confessing his frustrations with the new album. Tol
d her that despite his record company’s excitement, despite knowing he was on the verge of achieving his dreams, something important seemed to be lacking.

  Or maybe not. After all, they were in very different places now and even back then, for all their closeness, Linnea had made it clear she too would not be looking back.

  “You’re the perfect starter boyfriend.” She had told him once. “We both know the end date. We both know we’re planning to walk away so there’s no danger of hearts being broken.”

  He’d laughed, but her words had remained with him, echoing uneasily during his most uncertain moments the perfect starter boyfriend the truth uncomfortably sharp, just like her insistence on keeping their relationship a secret because “I don’t want to be seen as another one of your string of girls.”

  “Because being with me will tarnish your perfect image?” he’d retorted and knowing he was right hadn’t lessened the sting.

  Because she had been right as well—he was a serial dater throughout high school; his parents had, only half-jokingly, called him the family sailor with a girl in every port. Even then Nat had known some of his success was due to his height, his looks, his easygoing, laidback attitude—but most of it was because he personified the perfect first relationship; short, sweet, and due to end in a flurry of tears and promises to keep in touch that neither party expected to keep.

  Besides, he had a guitar and he knew how to play, how to sing to a girl as if she were all that he saw. What else did a guy need? And he’d been happy with that. There was no point wanting more, needing more when he would be moving on in a matter of weeks or months.

  Yet somehow he’d allowed Linnea to slip under his skin. And still she let him go with a last kiss, a tear, and eyes fixed firmly on her future.

  Nat inhaled the sweetly bitter mountain air. It had been too long since he’d last visited the family ranch, perched high on a plain between the Montana mountains, nothing around but fields and trees and mountains. All Hathaway land as far as the eye could see. But not his. He hadn’t been bred to it as his cousins had been. He had been bred to his guitar.

  He pressed his index finger onto his phone screen and watched it blink into life, swiping the icon to open his messages.

  “Happy Thanksgiving! Hearing amazing things about the new album! Just wanted to give you a heads-up on some news before it goes global—I’m engaged! I know, right?! Cal is amazing! You’ll love him! Thanks, Nat. For everything. You were the perfect cure for heartbreak—you should be on prescription! This summer was so much fun! See you around? P XXXX”

  Nat blinked, more from the profusion of exclamation marks than the content of the message. It wasn’t that much of a surprise. If Nat had been—was—a serial dater then Piper was a serial monogamist, never happy unless she was in love. Her engagement to a Hollywood actor had finished just as her tour started, six months later she had taken up with a successful tennis player. And in between? Nat. The cure for a broken heart.

  Maybe that was what he should call the new album. After all, it was as ephemeral, as carefully crafted to please as a summer fling. Nothing substantial, not from the heart, but fun and easy. Did it matter if it didn’t feature on any list of top albums, if it was barely remembered in fifty years’ time, if it bought people pleasure now? Was successful? His parents considered writing music geared toward commercial success selling out, he just considered it pragmatic. It was a different way of measuring achievement.

  He stared at the message for a few moments before quickly keying a reply. The kind of reply a summer fling would write.

  “Congrats! Really happy for you. He’s a lucky guy. Have a great Thanksgiving.”

  Nat pocketed his phone as Lacey opened the screen door two mugs precariously balanced in one hand. “These are hot, take one!” she said, thrusting them toward him, the liquid sloshing as she did so. “Grandma’s gingerbread mocha.”

  Nat took one as instructed, grateful to be focusing on something other than his love life and career. He inhaled the rich scent, which instantly invoked childhood visits to the ranch. “Thanks. I was just thinking I could manage some dessert.” Looking up he realized his sister was staring at him. “What?”

  “You just ate six pieces of pie.” Lacey informed him. “Six. I counted.”

  “You counted? How old are you? Ten? Besides, it gets lonely living on the road, living off takeout and diners. You can’t blame me for filling up on good, homemade food while I can.” He was being more than a little disingenuous.

  After all, he’d spent six months touring as support for a hugely successful singer-songwriter, which meant that most days there was a gourmet caterer on site and Nashville had a great restaurant scene.

  Lacey took a sip of her own drink. “You also had three helpings of Thanksgiving dinner. Gluttony, pure and simple, no matter how you dress it up.”

  “It was a good lunch. The kind of lunch that makes me realize why some people like to stay in one place. If Grandma made those sweet potatoes with bacon every day? Who knows, maybe I’d hang up my guitar and go and ranch for a living myself.”

  “As if you’d know how to,” Lacey retorted, but she was laughing as she spoke. “But, if those sweet potatoes mean we get to see you more than once every two years, I’ll learn to make them myself.”

  Lacey’s lack of cooking skills was legendary in the family and Nat winced. “That’s a lovely thought, but hasn’t Zac banned you from touching the stove for anything other than boiling water?”

  “He prefers for me to use a microwave even for that,” Lacey admitted, her eyes soft.

  Nat grinned at her. “If I came home more often then your life would be very different. Think about it, if I’d shown up earlier this year and allowed you to you to bully me into entering that bachelor bake-off then you and Zac might not be engaged now. I did you a favor, little sister. Feel free to thank me at any time.”

  “I admit you inadvertently played Cupid, but don’t pretend you canceled being our bachelor out of altruistic motives. You let us down, and if Zac hadn’t stepped in we would have been in real trouble.” Lacey tilted her chin defiantly and for once Nat had no comeback. Family was important to his sister—it was to him as well—and his last minute decision to tour rather than return to Marietta had hurt her. But how could he have turned down the chance of a lifetime?

  “How about I make it up to you and stay in Marietta until the New Year? I’m not needed in Nashville until then.”

  “Stay in Marietta? Why? Is this because of Linnea?”

  “Linnea? Why on earth would it have anything to do with her?” Nat’s pulse sped despite his best attempt to look nonchalant as he took a sip of the rich, dark drink.

  “Because the two of you used to have something going on?” Lacey said shrewdly. “It just seems a weird coincidence that you see her again and suddenly you are planning to extend your stay, that’s all.”

  “No, I mean, it was odd seeing her, unexpected. I didn’t think she would ever return here,” Nat said slowly, remembering all those nights when Linnea had confided in him about how much she wanted—she needed—to find her feet outside Marietta, find out who she was when she wasn’t the Olsen’s’ adored adopted daughter. “And for her to be back working at the orchard threw me a little. But, no, everything is suddenly changing really fast for me. I could do with a few weeks grounding myself amongst my family.”

  “Life as an up-and-coming star not all you thought it might be?”

  Damn, he always forgot not to underestimate Lacey. Under her bubbly, chatty exterior was a keen brain and a journalist’s unerring instinct for a story. Just because she used her powers for good most of the time didn’t mean she didn’t have powers.

  “I’m not sure what Mom and Dad will think of the new album,” he admitted. “They were a little noncommittal about the last one. Did they say anything to you?”

  “They always knew you were more country than blues at heart,” Lacey said. “I think they were just surprised at how poppy it w
as.”

  “It’s a different scene to the one they started out in. Integrity only gets you so far. I admire them, of course I do. I would just prefer to play to more than ten people at a time.”

  “Hey, they are huge in Finland. That was crazy!”

  “And in Norway.”

  Lacey laughed and leaned against him, the two siblings united by memories of their nomadic childhood.

  “They made it work though. They’re so well respected. Their music gets used in films and on TV shows and covered all the time—if I had a dollar every time someone said they had been influenced by them then you would be getting a much swankier Christmas present.”

  “I know, Lace. I would just like some success now. Being an influence and a revered older statesman is all very well, but I’d like to enjoy some success while I’m still young. And if adding some pop into the mix gets me the airplay and the sales and tour then I think that’s a valid choice.” Even if it did betray the values that had been instilled into him since he was a small child.

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Nat. I’m on board whatever you decide to do, whatever you play and how you play it. Are you going to stay with the parents?”

  “I thought I might rent somewhere for the month. Crooked Corner seems kind of crowded now that the great-aunts have a permanent lodger and Mom and Dad are still settling in.”

  Lacey squealed. “I have a totally brilliant idea! Don’t rent. Stay with us, you have to! We haven’t spent more than a few days in the same place for years. Zac won’t mind, we have more rooms than we know what do with. You can have your own studio, privacy if you want it—in fact, Zac’s in San Francisco a couple of nights a week and I travel around a lot with my job, so you’ll have the place to yourself sometimes.”

  “Are you sure you want me living with you? You’ve not been together for even a year yet.” That was another downside now he thought about it.

  Zac and Lacey were adorable in small measures with their private jokes, googly eyes, and the way they constantly touched each other, but they were also a constant reminder of everything Nat didn’t have. Everything he wasn’t sure he would ever have.