Christmas at Holiday House

by RaeAnne Thayne

  She had spent the first year after his death in limbo, lost and grieving for the future they planned to build together. Six months ago, she had decided the time had come to emerge from that cocoon of pain and begin figuring out the rest of her life with her son.

  As soon as she made that decision, a hundred different things came at her, telling her it was time to make a new start and to do it before Christopher started grade school.

  She had started making lists of all the possible places they could go. As she and Kevin had already researched Austin, moving there seemed the logical choice. It was scary and overwhelming and exhilarating, all at the same time. She still wasn’t sure if she was making the right decision, but the alternative was complacency and even stagnation.

  “I always worry about what signals I might be missing because I’m too busy to pay attention,” she said now to Winnie.

  The older woman nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly. I’m so glad Lucy asked you to come help me. We’re going to have such fun. Now, have you ever made a pumpkin pie?”

  She had tried once, but Kevin had always preferred pecan pie like his grandmama and mama used to make.

  “I’m not an expert at it, but I’m more than willing to learn.”

  Winnie’s laugh sounded more like a cackle.

  “I like your grit, honey. Let’s do this, then. I like to gather all my ingredients and measure them all first, like they do on cooking shows. That way if I’ve run out of ginger, I don’t have to run to the neighbors in a panic halfway through the recipe. They call that mise en place.”

  “That’s a funny word,” Christopher said from the table. He tried to repeat Winnie’s phrase in an exaggerated French accent that made the older woman laugh.

  “Close enough. Why don’t you finish your cinnamon roll, and you can help your mother find everything she needs for the pie?”

  She could do this, Abby told herself. She was already tackling much harder challenges in her life than making a simple pie.

  * * *

  Ethan dreaded holidays.

  Oh, he didn’t mind the actual celebrations themselves. It was hard to live in a place as relentlessly festive as Silver Bells and actually hate the holidays. But as someone who worked in the hospitality industry, he knew holidays could be headaches for a hundred different reasons. Supply chains, staffing issues and overall guest satisfaction, to name a few.

  By two on Thanksgiving, he had put out as many fires as he could. Everything else could wait until the next morning, he decided.

  He walked down to the lobby and was surprised to find José Navarro at the concierge desk, talking to a guest.

  “I didn’t expect to see you working today,” Ethan said when their conversation finished and the guest left satisfied. “Are you running the concierge desk these days in addition to managing our three hotels in town?”

  “Pinch-hitting. We’re shorthanded with the holiday, and I just sent Stacey Delacorte home to have dinner with her family.”

  That was one of the reasons José made such a great operations manager—and also why Ethan planned to some day make him the chief operations officer for the entire hotel group. He cared about each employee and wanted the best for him or her.

  José was an invaluable partner. Together, he had helped Ethan expand the Lancaster brand into new markets. Ethan missed his leadership and his business acumen, though it was now focused closer to home running the company’s flagship hotel and ski resort along with two smaller properties in town.

  “What about your own family? Shouldn’t you be with them? I don’t want to get on Sofia’s bad side.”

  “Who does?” José said with a laugh. “No worries. My mother would never blame you for anything. You know you’ve always been her favorite.”

  He adored José’s entire family. He could even admit now that at one point in his youth, he had been jealous of the loving, squabbling, hectic normalcy of it. He had loved hanging out there during visits with Winnie and Clive.

  “Don’t worry about it,” José went on. “My sisters are at their in-laws’ today, so we’re doing our family Thanksgiving celebration over the weekend. And my mom and Rodrigo are heading to Holiday House shortly for dinner with Winnie.”

  “That’s right. I forgot they were on the guest list. Winnie is stubbornly insisting she’s still doing Thanksgiving, despite a broken wrist and a sprained ankle.”

  “She and my mother are cut from the same cloth, bro. I told Mama the restaurant here is open, and she and Rod should just come here and grab something to eat, but she wouldn’t miss dinner with Winnie.”

  “My grandmother is all about tradition, even if she has to cook the turkey from a hospital bed.”

  José smiled. “Your grandmother is quite a character. Good thing you’ve got Abby there now to help you keep her in line.”

  He couldn’t quite hide his surprise. “You know Abby?”

  José was suddenly busy stacking papers on the desk that already seemed neat enough. “Not really. Only through what Lucy has told me over the years and I went with Lucy to her husband’s funeral.”

  He hadn’t remembered that, which wasn’t really a surprise. He tended to avoid any reminder that his sister and his best friend had a friendship independent of Ethan, one he didn’t like to examine too closely.

  Ethan had often wondered if there was something between the two of them, something more than friendship, but he really didn’t want to think about that. Whatever it was, he knew it couldn’t be too serious. Lucy was fiercely independent, determined above all else not to become their parents.

  He worried that she was shutting herself off from a happy future with someone who adored her above all else. Lucy could be as stubborn as their grandmother. Even if she cared about someone, she seemed to do her best to maintain that careful distance so no hearts were involved.

  He hoped José didn’t end up with his broken by Lucy’s obstinacy.

  But then again, Ethan wasn’t exactly in the best position to even offer an opinion on someone else’s love life. Not when his own was such a disaster.

  “You really should join your mom and brother for dinner at Winnie’s. I know she won’t mind one more.”

  José looked undecided for a long moment and then finally nodded. “That would be nice. My mom’s taking her famous cherry pie, and I would walk barefoot across the ski slope for some of that.”

  “Dinner’s at five. I’ll let Winnie know you’re coming so she can set an extra place for you at the table.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ethan walked away, grateful someone would be at the table that he could always trust to have his back.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe we pulled it off.”

  “Correction. You pulled it off,” Winnie said firmly. “I sat here on my keister doing absolutely nothing while you worked away all day long in a hot kitchen.”

  “Not true. Your list was perfect and you supervised me wonderfully. Plus, you kept Christopher out of my hair so I could work. I can’t believe he fell asleep.”

  A few hours earlier, Winnie had moved to the sofa in the sitting area next to the kitchen. Her sprained ankle and her wrist were both elevated, and she had even agreed to take a pain pill.

  Christopher had plopped down beside her, ostensibly to be close to run errands in case she needed anything. It had only taken him about fifteen minutes to fall asleep curled up beside Winnie, his feet resting on her lap.

  “He’s a darling boy, Abby. I’ve had so much fun hanging out with him today.”

  The two seemed immediately smitten with each other, which Abby found so heartwarming. Christopher didn’t have anything resembling a grandmother in his life. She loved that he had found that with Winnie, even if it was only for a few weeks.

  “What else do I have to do?”

  “I think everything’s done.
Our guests will be arriving soon.”

  “Ready or not, right?”

  Winnie smiled. “It all looks wonderful. You’ve been such a dear to jump right in and throw everything together, even though I’m quite sure that wasn’t in the job description when Lucy talked you into doing this.”

  “I said I was available to do whatever you need. I mean that.”

  “Well, thank you. I suppose I could have canceled, but I didn’t want to waste all that food I had already bought for Thanksgiving.”

  “It was no trouble, really.” She paused. “I’m not sure you really needed a full-time nurse, do you? I haven’t done much to help you in that department, other than getting you a drink of water and helping position your ankle. It appears to me you’re handling most things just fine on your own.”

  “Not everything.” Winnie looked suddenly uncomfortable. “I do have something else I need to talk to you about. Something I probably should have mentioned before now. I suppose the time has come for total honesty between us.”

  Abby raised an eyebrow. Now was the time for total honesty? After nearly a day together? Honesty would have been nice before she drove eight hours to come here to Silver Bells.

  “The truth is, I’m in a pickle and need help, and not just someone to hand me pills and find me a clean nightgown.”

  “That’s good, as you haven’t let me do either of those things since I arrived,” she said tartly.

  Winnie looked abashed. “I’m a stinker. I know. I’ll be the first one to tell you that. I’m also the last one to ask for help unless I’m really desperate. I’m really desperate.”

  Abby sank down onto the adjacent chair at the sincerity of Winnie’s words.

  “What can I do?” she asked immediately.

  Winnie gave a heavy sigh. “I may have gotten in over my head with something and need somebody to help pull me out of the mess I’ve made.”

  “Now you’re scaring me,” Abby said, only half joking. “What’s going on?”

  And why hadn’t Winnie mentioned any of this earlier, when they had been working together all day on Thanksgiving dinner?

  “How much of the house did you have the chance to see when you came in last night, before you went to bed?”

  She frowned a little at what seemed an unrelated question. “Not much. The great room, your bedroom, my bedroom. Today I’ve seen this room, the kitchen and the dining room where we’ll be eating. Oh, and the outside, which is beautiful. It’s a gorgeous house, Winnie. I can see why you love it. It’s obvious this is a house that has been lived in and loved.”

  “Holiday House is historic here in this region. A treasure, really. One of the truly great leftover estates from the silver boom.”

  “Maybe I’ll have time tomorrow to walk through and see everything.”

  “I hope so. And I hope you love it as much as I do.”

  “What’s this about, Winnie? Why do you want to know how much I’ve seen of the house?”

  “That’s a bit of a long story.” Winnie again shifted in her chair. Abby couldn’t tell if she was physically uncomfortable or trying to avoid answering.

  “I belong to a choir that has existed in one form or another since the first miners’ wives used to sing together over their laundry. We’re called the Silver Belles. Belle with an e.”

  “Cute,” Abby said, though she still had no idea what any of this had to do with her.

  “We now have about thirty members. It used to be all women, but we decided about five years ago we were being discriminatory so we opened up to men, too. We now have twenty-three women and seven men to hit the low notes for us.”

  “That sounds like fun. Do you put on concerts?”

  Winnie nodded. “We do four main seasonal concerts a year, usually. In the summer we perform in the concert at the park series, and the rest of the time we use the high school auditorium. But we often do other events throughout the year. Church services, club meetings. That kind of thing. Do you sing? We can always use another strong voice.”

  “I’m afraid not. If you were after another voice for your choir, you won’t find it here.”

  She enjoyed singing but was well aware that her voice and range, while adequate, would never earn her a celebrity coach on a TV reality show.

  “None of us is terribly gifted. There are a few who think they are, but most of us are amateurs. Still, we have fun together and it’s always for a good cause. At our concerts, we usually ask for donations of food for the local food bank in lieu of admission, that kind of thing.”

  “That sounds nice.” She was still baffled about why Winnie was telling her this. Hopefully, the other woman would work her way around to it.

  “This year instead of the food bank, we decided on our most ambitious project yet.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A couple of our members have children with disabilities. One is my best friend Sofia Navarro, who is coming to Thanksgiving dinner with her son Rodrigo. He’s amazing and funny and kind and happens to have Down syndrome. Another member of our choir has a daughter, Haley, who is nine years old with muscular dystrophy. She’s the greatest kid, with the biggest heart.”

  “That’s wonderful.” As a pediatric nurse at a major university hospital, she had a great deal of experience with differently abled children and always loved having them as her patients.

  “We wanted to do something for Rodrigo and Haley and other people with disabilities in our community, so we’re trying to start an adaptive outdoor recreation program.”

  “What a great idea!”

  “Isn’t it?” Winnie beamed. “Other places have them but we have never started one here, and it’s a real shame. We certainly have a large enough population who could use it. We were able to get a grant to buy adaptive skis and sleds, but need a place to store them and also a small accessible lodge at the ski resort where differently abled skiers and their families can hang out if they need a quieter environment than the main lodge.”

  “That sounds ambitious.”

  “Yes, well, we’ve had a few corporate donations to help get it off the ground. It’s going to take much more, of course, but it’s a start.”

  She paused to take a sip of water.

  “Do you need something more for the pain?” The nurse in her had to ask.

  “No, I’m fine. Where was I? Oh, yes. This year we had the idea of combining our talents and offering an evening of music but more, too. We wanted to create more of an event, really, which we hope becomes an annual tradition around here.”

  “That sounds intriguing.”

  “Oh, it’s going to be wonderful. We’re calling it Christmas at Holiday House. It’s an exclusive evening of history, music and food, and all the holiday spirit you could ever want.”

  “Christmas at Holiday House. You’re talking about having it here?” Did Ethan know what his grandmother was cooking up?

  “That’s the big draw. People have been dying to see inside this house for years. You wouldn’t believe the people who just drive by and ring the bell to ask if they can walk through. I figured, why not give them the chance?”

  Why not, indeed. Did Lucy know about this? If she did, she hadn’t bothered to mention it when asking Abby if she could come and stay with Winnie.

  “The tour will run for just over a week, and we’re only selling a hundred tickets a night. And guess what? We’re already sold out!”

  “Wow. That’s terrific.”

  “I know. One of the women in the Silver Belles has a catering company in town and another one owns a bakery. They’re handling the refreshments, which will be pastries and hot cocoa, mostly, and there are others who make handicrafts, needlework, homemade soaps and lotions, that sort of thing. They’re all donating their work for the gift shop area, which we plan to set up in the room I call the blue drawing room.”

 
; “This sounds great. You seem to have everything figured out. Where do I come in?”

  Winnie sighed. “Holiday House just isn’t in the state I would like it to be for visitors. I have a cleaning service and they do a fine job of keeping the dust away, but I need someone to spruce up the collections, arrange furniture, put out my holiday decorations. That kind of thing. I thought I could handle it myself, but that was before, well, before I fell down the stairs.”

  Winnie needed a Christmas decorator, and she was actually looking to Abby for that? She wanted to laugh but had a feeling this wasn’t a joke.

  “I am the least qualified person you could find to help you with this, Winnie. I don’t know what Lucy told you, but decorating is definitely not my strong suit. In our dorm, her side of the room was gorgeous, with handwoven rugs, a couple of art-glass lamps she picked up at a thrift store, a landscape she found at a flea market. I only had a tacked-up poster of the human anatomy I bought at the campus bookstore.”

  She had to smile at the memory. Lucy had taken one look at her side of the room and begun to subtly interject color and style. First she bought a few throw pillows, then a colorful quilt she found for cheap in vivid colors. By the time their first year ended, Abby’s side had been as cozy and warm as Lucy’s.

  Fortunately, Kevin had had a much more highly developed interior design style than Abby, so she had left all the furniture decisions for their apartment up to him.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Winnie insisted now. “You said yourself what a good team we made fixing Thanksgiving dinner today. This can be the same thing. I can supervise and tell you just what to do. I just can’t do it myself with this stupid arm in a sling.”

  “Surely you have friends who have skills better suited for what you need,” she said, hearing the slightly desperate note in her voice.

  Drat Lucy Lancaster for dragging her into this without giving her the full picture.

  “Yes, but they’re all doing other things to make Christmas at Holiday House a success. I already told everyone I could handle getting the house ready.”