Their Christmas Carol (Big Sky Hathaways Book 2)

by Jessica Gilmore

  Linnea flushed. “Will you think I’m terribly forward if I say it wasn’t the food I was looking forward to?”

  Nat’s blood heated at her words, at the glow in her eyes, at the way she moved closer so their arms touched. “Linnea Olsen, are you trying to seduce me?”

  “Not here and now. But hopefully at some point this Christmas.” She looked up then and straight at him.

  Nat caught his breath at the desire and want in her eyes. He was pretty sure his own mirrored the expression.

  He swallowed. “I’m flattered.” How he kept walking he wasn’t sure when all he wanted was to turn to her, to push her back against the nearest tree, and hold her there.

  To kiss her full mouth, run his hands over her enticing curves, to hear her tell him how much she wanted him, to whisper how beautiful she was as he peeled her clothes off… he quickened his pace, hoping the exercise would cool his need.

  “I always wished we had, back then. I thought I should wait until I was in a committed relationship, until I was in love. Truth was…” Linnea paused and Nat looked at her, waiting for her next words while desire thundered through his body. “I think I was in love with you, I was just too proud to acknowledge it to myself, too proud to tell you.”

  Nat released a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “I think I was in love with you too.” Maybe he still was. Maybe he always had been. He just had no vocabulary for the emotion beyond his guitar and the music in his head.

  “I’m older now, learned a lot about regret, about not leaving things unsaid, undone. I think if you were sticking around, I would be in danger of falling for you again, but just because you’re not, doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be with you.”

  Nat looked ahead. Betsy and Biscuit were out of sight around the curve in the path. It was just them, alone in a tree-filled landscape with snowflakes drifting down, landing on heads and shoulders, cheeks and lips and eyelashes. He grabbed Linnea’s hand and pulled her off the path, coming to a stop when she was backed into a tree, every curve pressed against him, her breath coming fast as she melded into him.

  “You deserve more than pasta and Lacey’s spare room,” he said hoarsely.

  His mouth found hers for a few dizzying seconds. He’d told his mother he didn’t know what home felt like—he’d been lying to himself. Linnea felt like home. Holding her. Kissing her. Tasting her.

  “After Christmas, come away with me. For a night. You deserve a hotel room, a spa, a restaurant…”

  “That sounds amazing.” She wound her arms around his neck, pulling him even closer. “I’m happy with a takeout from the diner and the Summer House though.”

  His teeth scraped along her neck as he inhaled her scent, her pulse fluttering wildly against his mouth. “I know you are, but I’m not. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this properly.” He released her reluctantly at the sound of a small pair of feet and four paws running through the snow.

  “I do like a masterful man,” Linnea said. “It’s a date, Nat Hathaway. Tell me when and where and I’ll be there.”

  *

  Betsy and Biscuit were both tired as they all retraced their steps back to the house, Biscuit staying close to Nat’s heels and Betsy holding onto his hand. For a man who didn’t want to be tied down, he looked awful content. Linnea banished the thought, guiltily. She shouldn’t try and read more to Nat than there was, try and domesticate him. He had the career he always wanted waiting for him. She needed to be happy for him.

  To her surprise the front door was wide open, Vika standing out on the porch wrapped up in her coat, an anxious look on her face. “Linnea! Thank goodness,” she cried. “Have you got Elsie with you?”

  Time slowed and Linnea’s heart slowed. Each beat so loud, so painful she could barely breathe. “Elsie? No. She’s in her room. Isn’t she?”

  “She isn’t, I’ve looked everywhere. Oh, Linnea, I don’t know where she is.”

  Linnea staggered, only vaguely aware of Nat grabbing her and holding her. “She can’t be outside! It’s getting dark. It’s snowing.” The rising note of hysteria in her voice shocked her, but she was powerless to stop it.

  Nat’s grip on her tightened. “She might be hiding in the house.” His voice was calm, steady, and Linnea jumped at the suggestion.

  “Yes, that makes sense, she might have fallen asleep. Remember, I did that time, Mom? We should search the house.” But she shivered as she looked out at the darkening orchard and the forest beyond. This was Montana. There were bears out there, bobcats and wolves. Lynxes and mountain lions. Elsie was barely four foot tall.

  Nat squeezed her shoulder before he stepped away. “Why don’t you look in the house and I’ll get a flashlight and scout the orchard. I’m sure she’s inside, either asleep like you suggested, or awake and bored witless waiting to be found, but I’ll take a look just in case. Call me when you find her, okay?”

  “Okay.” Linnea nodded, her mind whirling with unwanted scenarios each more outlandish than the last.

  Elsie limping barefoot in the snow. Elsie confronting a lynx. Elsie alone on the highway. No. She scolded herself, taking a deep breath. She was the adult here. She had to stay calm for Betsy’s sake, for her father’s health.

  Taking a deep breath and standing tall was the hardest thing she had ever done. Harder than telling her parents she was pregnant. Harder than delivering a eulogy at Logan’s memorial service. Harder than picking her life up and moving it across seven states. She forced a smile and held a hand out to Betsy. “Come on, darling, show me all her favorite spots. First one to find her gets a bar of chocolate from Sage’s.”

  It didn’t take long to search the house from top to bottom. Linnea looked in every corner of the meticulously clean and tidy attic, through every closet, under every chair, table, and bed, behind every pair of drapes. She checked the woodshed, the tree house, and under the porch, her usual squeamishness about spiders or skunks brushed aside. But there was no sign of Elsie. Nat had been gone for a good twenty minutes with no contact and she had to assume he hadn’t had any luck either—although out in acres of snowy orchards, as dusk turned to dark, his task seemed impossible.

  Panic was rising, dark and all-encompassing, but Linnea ruthlessly squashed it down. She didn’t have time, didn’t have the luxury for panic—or for the self-blame hovering at her conscience. She shouldn’t have left Elsie behind while she went for a walk with Nat. She should have spoken to her earlier. She’d been kissing Nat while her daughter was—where? What kind of mother was she?

  Her first emotion when Logan died was anger. Anger that he had gone away without them, that he had chosen such a risky pastime while a father of two young children. That he had been so very irresponsible. She was no better, out flirting while her child was home alone. Unhappy, in trouble, and alone.

  “Any sign,” her mother asked in a low voice when Linnea returned to the kitchen, one eye on an increasingly anxious Betsy and Linnea shook her head. “I don’t think she’s in the house, Mom, which means she’s out there.”

  “Have you heard from Nat?”

  Linnea’s phone was turned up to its highest volume, but she checked it anyway. “No, and it’s far too much for him to search all the grounds alone. Look, can you get Dad to take Betsy over to Pernilla’s? I don’t think either of them should be here right now. I’m going to call the sheriff’s department and get them over here. I’d rather risk finding her somewhere indoors and calling him out for nothing than possibly leave her out there alone a minute longer.”

  “Linnea, I am so sorry. I saw her go to her room. I knocked and when she didn’t answer I thought she was sulking. You know how she can be. I should have gone in earlier, I should have called you, I…”

  Her mother needed comfort and reassurance, but Linnea was finding it harder and harder to hold herself together, there was simply no more to give. Later, later she might have the luxury of breaking down, of holding her mother and letting her mother hold her, but right now sh
e had to fold her lips tight, holding up a hand to stem her mother’s increasingly hysterical flow.

  “It’s okay,” she said, hardly recognizing the cold, flat voice. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Get your things, Betsy-baby. Morfar is going to take you to Aunt Pernilla’s. Can you get your PJs and toothbrush too? No, don’t cry. It’s an adventure.”

  Tears were pouring down Betsy’s cheeks. “I don’t want a sleepover.”

  “I know.” Linnea had no idea how she sounded so matter of fact. “It’s just in case you’re still there when it’s late, in case you get sleepy.” She glanced at her mother who was making a furtive phone call in the hall, relieved when her mother nodded. “I need you to keep an eye on Morfar, can you do that?”

  Betsy made a heroic attempt to choke back her tears. “And when I get back, Elsie will be here?”

  “That’s the plan. Go and get your things.” But Betsy hesitated, her face unsure.

  Vika laid a hand on Linnea’s arm. “Go help her, I’ll call the sheriff. I was the last one to see her, after all.”

  The guilt intensified, hot and smothering. Linnea nodded and took Betsy’s hand, leading her up the back staircase to the pretty bedroom the sisters shared, with the sloping ceiling and dormer window. Mechanically, she collected Betsy’s carefully folded pajamas and put them in a bag. “Fetch your toothbrush, baby,” she said.

  Betsy ran off to the en suite bathroom she and Elsie shared, only to run back, brandishing her toothbrush, her eyes wide and filled with fear. “Elsie’s toothbrush, Mommy. It’s gone.”

  The next half hour passed with agonizing slowness. Linnea’s father didn’t make too much of a fuss about being sent away with Betsy, although he was obviously desperate to stay and help search. Luckily Betsy had attached herself to him with limpet-determination and it was clear she was only happy about leaving if he was with her.

  “I’ll call you the second I have any news.” Linnea promised, kissing them goodbye, praying she would be calling soon, praying even harder the news would be good.

  The sheriff and deputy Rory Watson arrived just as Andreas was pulling away, but instead of heading straight out, they insisted on a full debrief; timings, Elsie’s last seen movements, what she had been wearing, what she had taken with her. Linnea’s heart twisted with shame, with pain when she recounted she had gone for a walk without her already upset daughter, when she told the sheriff that Elsie had packed her schoolbag with her pajamas and toothbrush and Nantucket, her teddy bear. That her beloved daughter had run away.

  If Elsie came home safely, then Linnea would do everything in her power to ensure her daughter felt safe and secure, that she knew how much she was loved. All Linnea needed was her girls. She would never need reminding of that again.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Nat stamped his feet, trying to restore warmth to his toes. He’d dressed for a short daytime walk, not an evening hike as the temperature dived ever lower. If Elsie was out in this… he pushed the thought away. Speculation helped nobody.

  He shone the flashlight around in a circle, calling Elsie’s name, just as had one hundred times before until his throat was hoarse. Looked again for some trace of footsteps. The snow was light, but steady. She must have left the house early enough for them to have been covered by the still-falling snow.

  No answer. The silence in the orchard was absolute, eerie. He checked his phone again and swore under his breath. The police were on the way. This was serious, no longer an angry child having a tantrum. A missing child.

  He didn’t want to turn back, but he’d be no use out here, a lone wolf hunting alone. At times like this the police would call on every neighbor they could to help, would organize a coordinated search to make sure no inch of the orchard was left unscrutinised. They would want to reference and cross-reference and he would be much more help there than he was out here, blindly searching the entire orchard with one flashlight and a heart full of hope.

  Half-turning, Nat paused. He wasn’t far from the shop and café, and the pine forests were just a short walk behind there. It made sense for Elsie to start off her adventure by heading somewhere familiar. It wouldn’t take him long to check and see if she was hiding out near the center, hoping to be found. Decision made, he continued on his way, playing his flashlight around as he walked, continuing to call her name.

  The orchard shop was a very different prospect in the dark, all shut up, looming out of the night sky. Nat scouted all the way around, but he saw no sign that Elsie had passed this way. Nat made a mental note to suggest that Linnea open the café, as a focal point for any searches and a potential beacon for Elsie if she was nearby and started back along the parking lot, ready to retrace his steps back to the house and to join the search when the flashlight caught the edge of something that didn’t appear to be a branch or a stone. He moved nearer, keeping the light trained on the strange, snow-covered lump until he recognized the two button eyes, the round head, and ears.

  “Nantucket!”

  Elsie’s teddy. She had been here. Nat’s pulse began to pick up, adrenaline surging through his body until he no longer felt the cold, just the need to carry on.

  He picked up the teddy, brushing the snow off and quickly texted Linnea, telling her he was going to keep searching. Only he was still one man with one flashlight surrounded by thousands of snow-laden trees.

  “Where is she, Nantucket?” he murmured to the bear and waited, as if the stuffed toy might actually have an answer.

  Something panted in response, a low whine echoing through the trees.

  Nat froze. There were wolves in the mountains. Big cats too. Even bears. But not in Marietta. Not here in Olsen’s Orchard near the elf trail, in the parking lot. Not even on a wintry night. But the hairs on the back of his neck stood up in a primal fear and he turned, slowly, flashlight in hand, to catch the glint of an eye.

  He stepped back, fight and flight warring with each other, when the animal stepped into the circle of light and Nat cried out in surprise. “Biscuit! What are you doing here? I thought you were resting back at the house? You shouldn’t be out on a night like this.” Sheer relief made him almost giddy, until Biscuit sniffed the bear and Nat remembered why he was out there in the first place.

  He eyed the dog speculatively. There was some kind of terrier in Biscuit’s unknown heritage—there was probably some kind of every dog known to man in Biscuit’s heritage. Holding the bear out, he allowed Biscuit to sniff it again, crouching down and murmuring encouragement. “That’s it, take a good long sniff, get the scent. Can you smell Elsie? Can you find her? Where’s she gone? Where’s Elsie?”

  Biscuit whined, his ears pricked forward, eyes fixed anxiously on Nat. “Find Elsie,” Nat said again and, after another whine, the dog turned and trotted slowly along the side of the shop, away from the house, heading toward the pine forest, Nat following, feeling more than a little foolish. Biscuit was no trained sniffer dog, he was probably scenting a chipmunk or a squirrel and Nat was wasting valuable time. But now Biscuit had a spring in his step, his nose close to the ground as he purposefully headed into the forest. Nat muttered a prayer and quickened his own pace, following the dog into the dark trees.

  “Elsie,” he called, his voice echoing through the night. “Elsie?” Further they went, and then further, not a light to be seen in the winter-heavy skies. Just one flashlight and a phone against the all-encompassing Montana night. Still Biscuit trotted and Nat did his best to keep up. “Elsie!”

  Biscuit stopped, his ears moving forward and he whined.

  “What is it?” And then Nat heard it. Weak, hysterical, but real.

  “Help me!”

  With a sharp bark, Biscuit bounded toward the voice, Nat on his heels, crunching over snow, ducking between branches and the slim trunks, barely feeling the scratch of needles and twigs. “Elsie? I’m coming. Don’t move. Nearly there, sweetie.” And there she was, huddled in a dry hollow on the ground, tears streaking her face, her hair falling out of its br
aids, dirty and nursing her ankle but otherwise mercifully unhurt. Biscuit was on her in a flash, licking her face, his tail wagging at warp speed and Elsie flung her arms around the dog and burst into tears. Nat released a breath he didn’t know he was holding, offering up a prayer of thanks, of relief.

  “I think this belongs to you,” he said shakily, handing Nantucket over to Elsie, then stooped down and scooped her up. “Hold tight. Let’s get you home.”

  *

  It was late by the time all the fuss died down. The sheriff and his deputy left, promising to swing by the next day to check on the runaway and then Linnea loaded Elsie into the car to get her ankle checked out. Nat offered to drive them, but Linnea barely acknowledged him, all her focus on her daughter.

  An hour ticked by. Nat waited in the kitchen, Biscuit pressed close to his leg. He wasn’t sure how much use he was waiting, but he didn’t want to go home until he knew everything was okay. Finally, Linnea entered the kitchen, shadows purpling her eyes, lines of exhaustion around her mouth. Nat wanted to hold her tight, to let her lean on him, into him, to tell her everything was going to be okay, but he held back. The barrier she had erected around herself was so palpable it was almost physical and Nat had no idea how to broach it.

  He pushed the coffee pot her way. “How is she?”

  “Sleeping.” Linnea hooked a chair with her foot and dragged it out, sliding into it with the bonelessness of the truly weary. “Her ankle is twisted, but she has escaped hypothermia, which was my biggest worry. She was chilled through.” She looked over at him. “Thank you.”

  “Thank Biscuit. He’s the hero of the hour.”

  “Elsie found Biscuit and he returned the favor. No good deed as they say…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Did she say what she was doing?”

  “She wasn’t really running away, she just hoped that she might scare me enough I would consider moving back east.” Linnea’s mouth twisted as she held in tears and Nat realized he hadn’t seen her crumble once all evening, not after that first, shocked stagger. “Her plan was to hide out in the barn. She didn’t realize it was locked. She headed into the forest to find somewhere to shelter and got lost—and then she twisted her ankle. If you hadn’t found her…”