“You know I adore you, Winnie, but I have to strongly advise you not to get any ideas about Abby and Ethan. Seriously. Just don’t. She was devastated after her husband was killed. The last thing she needs right now as she’s about to start a new life is to be tangled up with something that will only lead to heartbreak.”
“Who’s to say your brother will break her heart?” Winnie countered. “Maybe he’ll find she’s the perfect woman for him. And vice versa.”
She adored Abby and couldn’t think of another woman who would be better for her brother. But she also knew Ethan. He was raised amid the same chaos she was. They shared many of the same scars.
She considered it proof that he had never had a relationship that lasted longer than a few months, except for Brooke.
“Leave it alone, Winnie. Please. Abby is doing us both a huge favor by coming out to help you. I would hate to repay her by setting her up for a broken heart. That would make me a lousy friend.”
“What would make you a lousy friend? Hi, Lucy.”
She and Winnie both gasped when Abby walked into the room, followed closely by Ethan. How much had they overheard?
“I was saying it would make me a lousy friend if I brought home malong tod, which is fried insects, for the annual Silver Belles white elephant exchange,” she improvised promptly.
“Please don’t.”
“Hi, sis. Happy Thanksgiving.” Ethan leaned over Winnie so that he could be in the frame. As Lucy saw him and Abby together, she wondered if Winnie might be onto something.
She wasn’t sure how she sensed it across thousands of miles, but there was a certain vibe between them.
Was it possible? While she would love the idea of her best friend and her brother being together, she just couldn’t get over her fear that Abby would end up shattered if things went wrong.
Oh, she hoped Winnie didn’t cause trouble for Abby.
“How did you like the house?” she asked.
“It’s an amazing building,” Abby said. “With about eight thousand rooms that need to be decorated.”
Lucy winced, not missing the pointed look Abby sent her. She should have expected her grandmother would enlist Abby’s help, but Winnie’s accident had made her forget all about the upcoming house tours.
“Oh, my.”
“And you know how talented I am at decorating. I mean, my dorm room at ASU was fabulous, right?”
Lucy had to laugh. “By the time we left school and you married Kevin, you had a few more skills, didn’t you? I dragged you to enough flea markets and thrift shops. Some of my genius must have rubbed off.”
Before Abby could answer, Christopher awoke, probably disturbed by the new voices.
“Hi, Mommy,” he said sleepily. Lucy watched as Abby became the consummate mother, hugging her son and smoothing down his hair.
The picture wasn’t completely clear because of the crappy internet in her apartment, but she thought she saw Ethan watching the two of them with an odd look.
They talked about inconsequential things for a few more moments, until she saw Winnie yawn.
“I should go so you can rest. I’m glad you had a good day.”
“Goodbye, sweetheart. See you soon,” Winnie said.
As soon as Lucy ended the call and closed her laptop, she stared at the walls of her apartment—nicely decorated, she had to admit.
He was dating someone.
Only a few months after telling her he loved her, José had decided she meant what she said and was moving on.
Some of her excitement in returning home had dissipated like dew on the grass under the morning sun.
She wasn’t even sure she wanted to go home now, if she would have to face José dating some faceless woman. What kind of name was Quinn anyway?
She started to flip open her laptop to search for the woman online but made herself close it again. It wasn’t any of her business. She had made her position clear and couldn’t blame José for believing her and moving on.
This only proved her own philosophy. Love wasn’t real. It was a construct that turned otherwise rational people into something she never wanted to become.
Seven
If Abby thought coming to Silver Bells would be a nice, relaxing holiday break, she was destined for a rude awakening.
Over the next week and a half, she worked harder than she remembered in her life, even during the tough years when she first started as a nurse, when she was working fifty hours a week to support herself and Kevin, who had been deep into medical school.
That time in her life had been tough, yes, but she wouldn’t have traded it for anything. She and Kevin had been focused on the same goal, excited about their future. She believed their marriage had been stronger because of the hardships they had faced together.
“What’s next?”
Abby pushed away the echo of loss and forced a smile for Mariah Raymond, who had brought her son, Dakota, over to play with Christopher. The two boys were happily laying out a wooden train set Winnie had found in a closet, one she told them cheerfully she had bought for Ethan when he was the boys’ age.
Abby stepped back to look at the vintage-ski-lodge-themed Christmas tree she and Mariah were working on in one of the second-floor bedrooms.
“That looks great to me. I don’t know what I would have done without you and the other Silver Belles. Honestly. Every time I think we can’t possibly get this place ready, someone else shows up to help.”
The women—and a few men—in Winnie’s circle had rallied around the project. Abby strongly suspected that her help wasn’t really necessary. If she hadn’t been there to coordinate things, Winnie still would have been fine. Sofia Navarro likely would have taken charge and organized teams to take care of every item on Winnie’s to-do list.
Since Thanksgiving, Abby and the other Silver Belles had put up and decorated more than a dozen Christmas trees in the various rooms of the house. This one was almost the last.
The Silver Belles had picked specific decorations for each tree. After talking it over, Winnie had decided to do an underlying theme of Christmas Through the Years for the house tours. The music and the tours themselves would focus on the different ways the holidays had been celebrated at the house throughout its existence, from frontier days to now.
Of the trees they had decorated, one of her favorites was done in 1950s style, with old 45 records as ornaments and a huge pink-and-black poodle skirt around the base of the tree. Another was an old-fashioned cowboy tree, decorated with gingham ribbon, strings of popcorn and homespun ornaments.
Of course, the angel room had an angel-themed tree, and the nutcracker tree would definitely be another crowd-pleaser.
This was the last tree she had to decorate, except for the giant twenty-foot-tall tree in the great room.
She was going to have to find someone else to help her with that one, but she knew Mariah had to leave for work shortly.
“You’ve been wonderful,” she said now to the woman she considered a good friend after the past several days. “Thank you for your help.”
“I only wish I could come more often. My work schedule right now is killer. I’m working so much overtime. I hope things relax a little when we actually do the tours on Friday.”
“Who watches Dakota for you?”
“He goes to a good preschool three days a week while I work the day retail job, and then his dad usually takes him on the weekends so I can do my bartending gig.”
“When do you find time to paint?” Winnie spoke up from her easy chair where she had alternated between offering them advice and doing sudoku puzzles.
“I try to paint after he goes to bed or sometimes early in the morning.” Mariah shrugged. “When you’re an artist, you find time whenever you can to create.”
What a struggle that must be, trying to juggle her creative
endeavors around the jobs that put food in her son’s mouth.
Abby was deeply grateful that of all her worries, money really wasn’t one. As a nurse, she earned a decent wage and Kevin had held a healthy life-insurance policy. Added to that, the hospital had paid her a settlement after his death, which she had tucked away for Christopher’s college expenses.
She wasn’t Lancaster-family wealthy, but she had enough for her needs and a little extra.
“I would love to see some of your art,” she said. “Where are you showing it?”
She didn’t have anywhere to hang art right now, but that would change once she and Christopher were settled in Austin.
“The Silver Rose gallery in town. It’s off of Center Street downtown. I’ve had a show there for about a month now.”
“I’ll take a look.”
“Well, I hope you like it.”
“She will,” Winnie piped up confidently. Did the woman know her that well already, or was she merely that certain of the artwork’s appeal?
“What about you? Do you paint or sculpt or do anything creative like that when you’re not saving lives at the hospital?”
Since she had come to Colorado, she was increasingly determined to pick up a few more hobbies once she settled in Texas.
“I’m afraid not. I recently started knitting, but I’m not very good at it,” she said.
“Do you sing? We can always use more strong voices in the Belles.”
“Not me,” she said quickly. “Sorry. Winnie has already tried to recruit me. I love music but much the same way I love art. I can’t draw or paint but can still appreciate beautiful art without actually creating it.”
“What about skiing, cross-country or otherwise?” Winnie asked.
The very idea terrified her. She really needed to get over her fear of heights.
“I’m afraid not. I’ve spent my entire life in warmer climates where snow is rare. It makes it a little tough to become an expert at winter sports.”
“Well, that’s not an issue here. We have plenty of snow,” Mariah said. “You should take advantage of it while you’re here to learn. Skiing is really fun.”
If she was so afraid of climbing the ladder to put the ornaments on a twenty-foot tree, how could she have the courage to strap little sticks to her feet and zoom down an icy mountainside?
“That might be another one of the skills I leave to others. Like singing and artwork.”
“You never know what you’re going to love unless you try things,” Mariah said. “That’s what I tell Dakota. You can’t say you aren’t good at something until you have at least given it a chance.”
“Good advice,” Winnie said.
It was, Abby had to admit. That still didn’t make her want to rush out and buy a lift pass.
“I’m actually pretty proud of myself for following my own advice this year. A guy I was dating wanted to take me canyoneering and I was scared to death.”
“What’s canyoneering?” Winnie asked.
“It’s kind of like rock climbing except you’re going the opposite direction, down a rock or canyon.”
It sounded like the stuff of Abby’s nightmares, but she didn’t want to interrupt Mariah’s point by saying so.
“My point is, I was afraid to do it, but after this guy took me out one day, I fell in love with the sport. The guy and I didn’t click, but that’s another story. The point is, I tried something new, I loved it and now I have a new hobby. I can’t wait until the snow melts so I can go again.”
“No, thank you. I’ll leave that kind of thing to you younger girls,” Winnie said. “But I would agree that you should at least let Christopher try skiing. If you introduce children when they’re young to a lifetime sport like skiing, they pick it up more easily and are more likely to continue it on when they’re older.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Mariah said.
“That’s the whole reason we’re doing Christmas at Holiday House,” Winnie said. “So that everyone can have the opportunity to enjoy our beautiful surroundings and the recreational opportunities here.”
“My brother uses a wheelchair after he lost the use of his legs in a motorcycle accident and I know he misses skiing,” Mariah said. “I can’t wait for him to have the chance to do it again.”
Her heavily lashed eyes went soft when she spoke of her brother, which Abby found touching. Mariah might put out a hard front to the world, but in only a short time Abby had discovered the woman had a sensitive center. It made her even more interested in seeing her artwork.
“Your brother lives close?”
Mariah nodded. “He built a house up the canyon and works remotely in computers, developing programs for some company in Silicon Valley. He doesn’t get out nearly as often as he should. I’m hoping the new accessible ski program will change that.”
It was a good reminder about why they were going to all this trouble. The work might be hard and exhausting and completely out of her element, but it helped to remember they were working toward a good cause.
* * *
“That was a really fun day,” Christopher said that night after he had bathed and they were cuddled into a comfortable chair by the fireplace in the sitting room attached to the bedroom they were sharing.
“I’m glad you had fun. Dakota seems like a nice kid.”
“I asked him if he could play again later this week but he said he’s going to his dad’s house.” Christopher looked troubled. “Why don’t his mom and dad live together?”
She brushed his curly dark hair away from his olive features, this sweet-natured son who was the perfect cross between her and Kevin and who seemed like a miracle to her every single day. “We’ve talked about this before, remember? Families come in lots of different shapes and sizes. Sometimes kids have a mom and dad who live together, sometimes they live with only their moms or only their dads. Sometimes they have two dads or two moms. Sometimes they trade off between them. And sometimes, like I did, they live with their mom and their great-aunt. As long as they have someone to love them—someone who loves them and takes care of them and keeps them safe—that’s the most important thing.”
“And in our family, we have a mom and a boy.”
“That’s right. Aren’t we lucky to have each other?”
He hugged her, and Abby cuddled him close while she read him a tender, charming story about a mouse trying to find his way home on Christmas Eve.
Her childhood hadn’t been perfect, she thought as she tucked him into his bed. Her mother had been ill so often and Aunt Elizabeth hadn’t always had the strength to keep up with an active child.
But she had always known she was loved.
“I miss Daddy,” Christopher said as she was kissing him good-night. “I wish he was still here.”
The words came out of nowhere, just about knocking her to her knees.
She gave Christopher an extra hug. “We know he’s here in our hearts. But you’re right. I miss him, too, honey.”
Christopher eased away, already moving on to something else. “So when can Dakota come and play?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to his mom about their schedule, but I promise we’ll set something up another day before we leave for Austin.”
“Do we have to go to Texas? I like it here.”
Where had that come from? “I think you’ll like it there, too. We already have an apartment, remember? And it has that fun park next door with the splash pad and the pickleball courts.”
“Oh, yeah. That was fun when we went there.” He cuddled Mr. Jingles for a moment longer before Abby lifted the cat and set him on the floor. “Will I find friends there?”
She didn’t want to tell her son she had been wondering the same thing about herself.
“I guarantee it. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with a great kid like you?�
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He smiled sleepily at that and hugged her. “I love you, Mommy.”
“Love you, too, sweetheart.” She kissed the top of his head one last time and then turned off the light in the bedroom, ushered out the cat and grabbed the baby monitor she still used to keep an eye on things when she was working in another area of this vast house.
When she walked into the kitchen, she was shocked to find Winnie there wearing a fuzzy pink robe over the nightgown Abby had helped the woman change into an hour ago. Abby thought when she settled her into her bed with a bowl of popcorn and the remote that Winnie would be out for the night.
“What’s going on? Did you need a snack? You should have called or texted me. I could have brought it to you so you didn’t have to miss your program.”
Winnie shook her head. “Ethan texted me a few minutes ago asking if he could drop by to check on me. I recorded my show. I’ll watch it later.”
Why did he have to come visit Winnie so late, after his grandmother was already tucked in for the night? She frowned, annoyed for a moment before she realized that wasn’t fair. Ethan called and texted frequently to check on his grandmother, but Abby knew he had been out of town dealing with a crisis at another of the Lancaster properties.
She hadn’t seen him since Thanksgiving, since that moment when she had been almost certain he wanted to kiss her.
She had to have imagined that look she thought she had seen in his eyes up in the attic. He wasn’t interested in her and she certainly wasn’t interested in him.
Still, butterflies jumped around in her stomach when she realized he would be there shortly.
Oh, she was ridiculous.
“What are you doing out here?” Winnie asked in return. “After the busy day you had, I should have thought you would be sound asleep by now, dreaming about tinsel and popcorn strings.”
Abby held up her water bottle before refilling it from the filtered pitcher in the refrigerator. “That big tree out there in the great room is haunting me. My Moby Dick. I keep thinking that with a few hours of hard work, I can finish decorating it and get that very large monkey off my back.”
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