“Who’s there, Rod?”
“Figs.”
“Figs who?”
“Figs your doorbell, it’s not working.”
He groaned, which made Rodrigo bust up laughing.
“I’ve got one,” Abby said. “Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?” Rodrigo said quickly.
“Police.”
“Police who?”
“Police let me in, it’s chilly out here.”
He laughed even harder at that one. “Now you, Ethan.”
“Wow. It’s been a long time since I did a knock-knock joke. Let’s see. Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?” Rodrigo said.
“Nana.”
“Nana who?”
“Nana your business.”
Abby and Rodrigo groaned, and then Rodrigo started another round.
All in all, it was the most fun Ethan had ever had doing dishes.
Rodrigo Navarro held a very special place in the hearts of everyone who knew him. He was endlessly loving, filled with kindness and joy toward everyone he met. He was so popular in town that a birthday party in his honor each December—a gingerbread house competition for charity—was one of the highlights of the holiday season.
Being around him always made Ethan feel like a better man than he was. Or at least made him want to be a better man than he was.
“There you are, mijo.”
Sofia joined them when they were nearly finished.
“I’m helping,” Rodrigo said proudly.
“He’s been wonderful,” Abby told Sofia. “I had no idea anyone could dry dishes so quickly.”
“And I tell good jokes,” Rodrigo said, obviously preening under her attention.
“You sure do.”
“Are you about ready to go home?”
“I’m having fun with Eth and my new friend Abby.”
“You can come back and visit her another day. But your sisters and your nephews and nieces are coming tonight. They’ll be here soon and we don’t want them to come home to an empty house, do we?”
“I guess not.” Rodrigo carefully hung the towel on the stove and waved to Abby, then held his hand out. Ethan knew what he wanted. He dried his hand so the two of them could once more perform their regular complicated handshake ritual, developed over years of friendship. It seemed to become more elaborate every year.
“You need to go tubing on the new hill,” Ethan said. “I hear it’s a lot of fun.”
Rod’s face lit up. “Can we go tomorrow?”
Sofia laughed and shook her head. “You can’t tomorrow, remember? We’re having another Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. That’s why everyone is coming tonight.”
“How about Saturday, then?”
“Maybe not Saturday,” Ethan answered. “But soon, I promise. We’ll get you there.”
“Thanks, Ethan.” The handshake apparently wasn’t enough because Rodrigo reached out to hug Ethan. He hugged him back.
“Bye, Abby.” Rodrigo hugged her, too.
“Bye. It was nice to meet you. I hope I see you again before we go.”
“Hey, knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?” Ethan and Abby said in unison.
“Europe.”
“Europe who?” Ethan said.
“No I’m not, you are,” Rodrigo said gleefully while Sofia shook her head.
“And on that lovely joke, we will say adios.”
She ushered her son out of the room, which left Ethan alone with Abby.
Tendrils of auburn hair had escaped her loose bun, curling around her face in the steam of the kitchen. Her green eyes were bright with laughter.
Ethan felt a jolt go through him. He wanted to curl a finger around one of those tendrils and to kiss each one of those light freckles scattered across her nose.
“He’s wonderful,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly, trying to get himself under control. “One of my favorite people. I wish everybody had a Rodrigo in their world to remind them what’s really important in life.”
She looked startled, eyes wide, and he regretted saying anything.
“That looks like the last of the dishes. That wasn’t so bad.”
“Not at all. I guess I’d better check on Winnie and Christopher.”
The two of them walked together to the great room, where they found Winnie playing a card game with Elijah Shepherd, and Christopher asleep on the sofa nearby under a blanket.
“Did everyone go home?” They hadn’t been in the kitchen that long, had they? Maybe he had lost track of time.
“Yes. The Shannons were the last to go and they left a moment ago, right after Sofia and her boys. That’s one of the problems with having Thanksgiving dinner in the evening, I suppose. Afterward, everyone wants to go home and sleep off the tryptophan.”
“I should probably go, as well,” Elijah said. “I promised I would stop in and visit Charlotte Frye this evening. She’s still recovering from her heart valve surgery and didn’t feel strong enough to go out.”
“Thank you for coming,” Winnie said.
“Thank you for a delightful evening and a delicious Thanksgiving, all of you. The holidays make me miss my family in Boston, but spending time in these beautiful surroundings with such convivial company took away much of the sting of missing them.”
Ethan wasn’t sure how he did it, but Eli Shepherd somehow managed to make even the most banal of statements sound like a sermon.
“We love having you, Elijah. You know you’re welcome anytime,” Winnie said graciously.
She made a funny little signal to Ethan, and he interpreted it to mean she wanted him to play host and show the man out.
“Your grandmother seems to be feeling better after her accident,” Eli said as they walked toward the front door.
“I hope so.”
“She’s a remarkable woman. It’s so brave of her to go forward with her plans to open this beautiful house up for tours during the holiday season, despite her injuries.”
“Brave.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say, completely taken off guard. Last he and Winnie had spoken after her accident, he thought she had decided to cancel the whole damn thing, which he had never approved of in the first place.
“It can’t have been an easy decision. What a blessing that she has the wonderful Ms. Powell here now to help her get the house ready and carry some of that burden.”
Was that the real reason she had wanted Abby to come from Phoenix to Silver Bells, so that Winnie would have someone to help her run the event Ethan had vigorously opposed? He should have suspected as much.
“Yes,” he said mechanically. “Isn’t that great?”
“He’s a nice man, don’t you think?” Winnie said when he returned to the sitting room. She had turned the cards into a solitaire deck. “Much warmer than old Reverend Simon. Elijah’s sermons are still a little dry, truth be told, but they seem to be getting better every week. It will come, I’m sure.”
“No doubt.” He sat down across from her, trying not to glare. “I did find his parting words quite interesting. For some reason, Father Shepherd has the crazy idea that you’re going ahead with the Christmas at Holiday House tours that I was quite certain you had decided you should cancel after your accident.”
His grandmother snorted, slapping another card down. “You mean the event you decided I should cancel. I told you I would have to see how quickly I recover.”
“Winnie. I admire your determination to help out a good cause, but this isn’t the year for you to take on something like this. You know I think the accessible outdoor recreation center is a good cause or I wouldn’t have agreed to donate the land to build it. But surely there’s another way your Silver Belles can raise the necessary funds. You’ve got the gingerbread contest. That’s always a
big event.”
“It is. But we can’t raise nearly enough with the contest alone. We’ve already made twice what we do for that event in ticket preorders for the house tour. That’s not including the proceeds from the gift shop we’re going to set up in the front parlor. This is important, to me and to the other Silver Belles. I can’t cancel it now, simply because I wasn’t watching where I was going one evening and suffered a little fall.”
Her accident was much more serious than a little fall. He frowned. “You can’t be everything to everyone, Grandmother. You just can’t.”
She reached for his hand, her expression softening. “I know that. I only want to help where I can, which is offering Holiday House—your ancestral home—as the venue to help people find a little holiday spirit.”
“You can barely walk and you’re down to one arm. How are you possibly going to be able to do all you need to get the house ready?”
She pointed to Abby, who was sitting by the fire, leafing through a magazine. “She’s going to help me. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Ethan could think of a few other choice words besides wonderful. Abby was blushing, he could see that now. He wished he didn’t find that so enticing.
“It’s going to work out perfectly,” Winnie went on. “We made a great team today while we were working on Thanksgiving dinner. I just figured we could do the same thing while getting the house ready. We’re already working on making a list. I only have to find a comfortable chair where I can sit and boss her around.”
Abby gave a small, strangled sort of laugh but didn’t say anything.
He looked between the two of them, not willing to let the matter drop. “I appreciate your work-around solution, Winnie. I do. I’m sure Abby could be a great help. But, as I told you after your accident, I still don’t think it’s a good idea to open your home and have strangers traipsing through every night during a time when you should be focusing on resting and recovering.”
“I’m nearly eighty years old,” Winnie said, her voice suddenly stern. “I’m not a child. While I appreciate your concern, the decision is ultimately mine and I’ve made it. Christmas at Holiday House is going forward, and that’s my last word on the subject.”
“No matter what I think.”
Winnie sighed. “I know you have my best interests at heart, darling. I appreciate that, I really do. I love you and I’m so grateful to have you in my life.”
“But?”
“But I need you to accept that I am still perfectly capable of making my own decisions.”
“I never said otherwise.”
“You want me to move out of the house I have lived in since the day I married your grandfather. To sit in a rocking chair in some assisted living center and waste the rest of my life instead of using this house to benefit a cause I care about.”
“I never said I wanted you to waste the rest of your life. I just don’t want you overdoing it. There’s a big difference between sitting in a rocking chair and running a marathon. You just got out of the hospital, Winnie.”
“I spent one night there, only because that young pup of a doctor wanted to cover his ass and make sure I didn’t have another injury they hadn’t found yet.”
That wasn’t the entire story, as Winnie well knew. The doctor had wanted to be sure she didn’t have internal bleeding.
“Look,” Winnie went on, “the event doesn’t start for two weeks, and I’m sure I’ll be feeling much better by then.”
“What if you’re not?” he countered.
“I will be. Anyway, I’m only leading some of the tours and talking about the history of the house and Christmases past. Other Silver Belles will be taking care of the entertainment, the food and the hot cocoa. Abby has agreed to help me get the house ready and a few days after we start the tours, Lucy should be home.”
He knew without question that his sister would take Winnie’s side of this disagreement. “What you’re saying is that my opinion doesn’t matter. You intend to go ahead with it despite my view that you’re making a mistake and will be taxing yourself unnecessarily.”
Her features softened and she reached for his hand. “I know you mean well, darling, and are only worried about me. But this is a cause I am passionate about.”
“I understand. That still doesn’t make me happy about it.”
“I know. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t expect you to lift a finger to help. Not one single finger. I know what a busy time of year this is for you.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
Winnie glanced at Abby. “Well, almost nothing.”
He frowned, not liking the sound of that. “What does that mean?”
“I was hoping you might show Abby the rest of the house. She’s only seen a few rooms on this level.”
Abby, he couldn’t help but notice, looked slightly alarmed at that suggestion.
“I’m sure I’ll have the chance tomorrow to wander through on my own,” she said quickly.
“Why would you want to do that when you could have someone from the family show you around?” Winnie asked. “Ethan knows all the history of the house and can share things with you that you won’t get simply from walking around on your own. You should take advantage of him.”
“Excuse me?”
“It shouldn’t take you long to walk through the house. Go on. I can keep an eye on young Christopher, here. If he wakes up, I can find a Christmas movie for us on the Netflix.”
“You want us to go now?” Ethan asked.
Winnie shrugged. “What better time? You’re here, she’s here. If you don’t show her tonight, I’ll have to do it, and I’m not sure I’ll be up to the task tomorrow.”
“I just thought Abby might be tired, after a long day of driving yesterday, then spending today in the kitchen preparing Thanksgiving for a bunch of strangers.”
Winnie looked stricken. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. Forgive me, my dear. I should have been more considerate.”
The younger woman looked at Winnie and then at Ethan. “I’m fine. I’m up for a tour, if you are. It shouldn’t take us that long. I would actually find it quite helpful so that I know where to start first thing tomorrow.”
He had to help. What choice did he have? He couldn’t refuse a direct order from his injured grandmother.
“All right. I’m game if you are.”
“Let me just grab a notebook so I can jot down a few things as we go. There’s one in the kitchen I can use.”
She hurried away, leaving him to wonder what in the world he had just gotten himself into.
Five
What in all that was holy had she gotten herself into?
Abby hurried into the kitchen for the notebook and pen she had been using earlier to make a list with Winnie.
She did not want to spend a moment longer than necessary in the company of Ethan Lancaster. Not when she was fighting this extremely inconvenient attraction to him. She ought simply to have told him she did not need his help and left it at that. She could have explored on her own later tonight after Christopher was in bed or in the morning. She wouldn’t have had the full historical context about the house, but she could always get that later from Winnie.
Maybe this was a good thing. Maybe spending a few moments with the man, getting to know him a little better, might help her relax so that she could feel more comfortable with him going forward.
He seemed kind, underneath his somewhat brusque exterior. She had seen the genuine concern in his expression when he had discussed his grandmother’s plans to open her house to strangers. On some level, she empathized with him. When her great-aunt had been dying and Abby had been her caregiver, she had been just as protective.
Winnie wasn’t dying, though. While the other woman had injuries that might slow her down physically right now, Abby had spent the entire day with her a
nd had come to know a sharp, energetic woman who definitely knew what she wanted.
And right now she wanted Abby to take a tour of the house in the company of Ethan Lancaster, like it or not.
With a deep breath for courage, she returned to the great room.
“Okay. I’m ready,” she said. It was a complete lie, but neither of the Lancasters needed to know that.
“We shouldn’t be long,” she said to Winnie. “I have my cell phone with me. Just call or text if Christopher wakes up or if you need something.”
“Got it. Have fun.”
She managed not to roll her eyes at that as Ethan led the way up the big, sweeping staircase. “What did you want to see first?”
She followed a few steps behind him. “I have no idea where to start. What would you suggest? I suppose I need to see everything.”
The look he aimed at her over his shoulder was almost sympathetic. “You have no idea what’s up here, do you?”
That sounded ominous, but maybe she listened to too many true-crime podcasts.
“You make it sound like your grandmother is hiding Frankenstein’s monster in a back bedroom.”
“She very well could be, for all I know. I’m not certain anyone but Winnie has seen all the rooms up here. I am fairly certain she couldn’t tell you everything that’s up here or where to find it.”
That sounded both fascinating and terrifying. “Why don’t you start by telling me what you know about the history of the house?”
“That is not a small order.” He flipped on a light switch, illuminating a long hallway with rooms on either side. Christmas music wafted up the stairs from something Winnie must have turned on in the great room.
“All right. Start by telling me when it was built.”
“Okay. See that portrait there of the dastardly looking guy with the big beard? That’s my third great-grandfather—Winnie’s husband’s great-grandfather, William Lancaster. He was a silver miner in his youth who staked a claim on a small plot of land and ended up extraordinarily lucky when he discovered one of the richest veins of silver in the area. He was a crafty young man who didn’t tell anybody about his discovery. I don’t know how he managed to keep it quiet, but over the course of a year he somehow managed to acquire the stakes of everyone else in the area until he owned the entire mountainside. He then turned his claim into one of the most lucrative silver mines in the entire West, the Lucinda.”
Christmas at Holiday House Page 7