Christmas at Holiday House

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Oh, dear,” Abby exclaimed. “We’d better hurry.”

  She helped him out of his many winter layers. As soon as he was down to long underwear, Christopher bolted down the hall toward their room.

  “Whew. Hope he made it in time.” Ethan had to smile.

  Abby shook her head, folding up her son’s snow pants. “Lesson learned. The intricate logistics of getting in and out of winter gear is rough on a kid when nature calls.”

  He smiled back at her, struck by the amusement in her green eyes and the wisps of red hair slipping from her beanie.

  He wanted to tug her close, take off that beanie, dip his hands in her hair and kiss her.

  He released a heavy breath, catching himself just in time before he could act on the impulse.

  “Good luck with everything. The show, I mean.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t have much to do with it once the house is ready.”

  “Sounds like you’ve done plenty to make Christmas at Holiday House a reality.”

  “You know, I feel as invested in the fundraiser as if I organized the whole thing myself from the beginning instead of coming in only a few weeks ago.”

  “You should feel invested. You’ve made it possible. The house looks great. Better than I’ve ever seen it. The lights outside as we drove up were beautiful and our giant tree is magnificent, if I do say so myself.”

  She smiled. “You’ve got a new career in the works, if you ever get tired of running a hotel.”

  “I could say the same, if saving lives ever gets old.”

  “How about in the future we both stick to what we’re good at?” she suggested.

  He laughed, again fighting the urge to kiss her. He was glad he hadn’t given in when Christopher came back, drying his hands on his shirt.

  “I made it,” he announced. “And I sang ‘Jingle Bells’ while I washed my hands.”

  “Good for you.” She shifted her smile to her son, and Ethan was aware of that knot in his chest again.

  “I should go,” he said. “Have a good night.”

  “Thank you.” To his astonishment, Christopher followed up his words by throwing his arms around Ethan’s waist.

  He froze for a second before hugging the boy back. “Thank you for going with me.”

  “You’re welcome,” Chris said.

  When the boy stepped away, Ethan wondered how he should say good-night to Abby. She solved his dilemma by leaning up and kissing him on the cheek. The scent of her, vanilla and cinnamon, stirred his senses.

  “Thank you from me, as well. It was a night I know neither of us will ever forget.”

  “Nor will I,” he said, his heart pounding far more than it should from a simple kiss on the cheek as he let himself out the door and headed out into the cold.

  * * *

  Abby watched Ethan go, heat burning deep inside her.

  She had been quite certain he wanted to kiss her again. And she had wanted him to, despite knowing Winnie was somewhere in the house and that Christopher likely would come barging in at any moment.

  She meant her words to him. She would never forget the evening. He had been so sweet. He had seen her fear of heights and had done everything he could to help her manage it.

  The man was an enigma. Brusque one moment, kind the next. Her feelings for him were becoming as tangled as Christmas lights.

  He had been so patient with Christopher all night. It was obvious her son adored him for it. Christopher seemed to have found a kindred spirit. Both of them had seemed to relish the adrenaline kick of soaring down the mountain at high speed.

  She could fall for him without much effort at all.

  Abby frowned. No. She wouldn’t let herself. This was a simple attraction. That’s all. He was the first man to spark that ache inside her since Kevin died.

  She had her immediate future mapped out, and none of it included a detour where she fell for a completely inappropriate man and ended up mired in heartache and disappointment.

  She had to keep her focus on her ultimate goal. After this fun interval at Holiday House was over and after Christmas had passed, she and Christopher would be starting an exciting new phase of their lives. She couldn’t risk that by falling for Ethan, a man who wasn’t at all available for love.

  * * *

  “This is a disaster! Why did this have to happen today of all days? What are we going to do?”

  Winnie’s wail echoed everything racing through Abby’s mind two days later as she stood on the porch beside the older woman, looking out at the carnage of her yard.

  Two trees had been completely uprooted and were lying on their sides in a tangle of broken limbs and Christmas lights.

  In addition to knocking over two trees, heavy winds in the night had also knocked down several branches from other trees.

  Ethan had said they didn’t have tornados here and she had never heard of any in the wintertime anyway, but the scene looked like the carnage from a small cyclone.

  “We have to cancel.” Winnie looked heartbroken. “I don’t see any other choice.”

  “There has to be another option. We’ve worked so hard to get ready for Christmas at Holiday House.”

  “What other option? It’s a disaster out there. Forget about the damage itself, safety is a bigger concern. At this point, we can’t get people safely from the front gate to the house with all those fallen limbs in the way. I had better call the rest of the Belles and cancel the opening night until we can get a crew out here to clean things up.”

  Abby wanted to cry in frustration. All those many hours of work. All ruined in a windstorm. Ethan had warned her high winds were forecast for the area. Throughout the day before, there had been occasional gusts but nothing too terrible. She thought they had escaped the worst of it until she and Winnie had awakened to the power going out around four in the morning and a heavy crash outside, followed shortly by another one. Christopher had slept through it, but she and Winnie had huddled by the gas fireplace in the great room and fretted until the sun came up enough that they could see the damage.

  It was far worse than she had feared. All the hard work the lighting crew had done earlier in the week was for nothing. Strings of lights hung everywhere, drooping off the porch and dangling from the few undamaged trees.

  How could they possibly clean this up in time for the tours to begin in only a few short hours?

  They had to try, didn’t they?

  She held out a hand. “Wait. Don’t do anything yet. We can figure this out.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice shaking. Tears burned, and she wanted to sit down right there on the front porch and cry out her disappointment.

  At the moment the tears threatened to spill over, she felt Winnie’s arm around her shoulders. “It will be okay. We’ll just cancel tonight and hopefully clean this up for tomorrow.”

  Abby rested her head on Winnie’s shoulder, drawing on the woman’s strength.

  “Okay. Where do we start?”

  “I’ll call the same crew that put up the lights and see if they can—” Winnie broke off before finishing the sentence, staring down the driveway.

  Abby followed her gaze in time to see the gates swing open and a man walk through, up the driveway toward them.

  Ethan.

  Abby could feel her heart begin to pound. How had he known they needed him so badly?

  He made his way around the fallen limbs and uprooted trees.

  “My boy. Look at this mess.” Now it was Winnie’s turn to sound emotional, and in a moment her grandson wrapped his arms around her.

  “José called me first thing and said he’d heard this neighborhood was hit hard by wind last night. He was worried about things over here. He wasn’t exaggerating, was he?”

  “It’s a nightmare. We’re
going to have to cancel the entire event.”

  “Or maybe not. Let me make a call. I can get the grounds crew from the hotel here within the hour. We can fix this.”

  “It’s such a mess,” Abby wailed. “And it was so lovely before.”

  “Everything is ruined.”

  “I can’t guarantee it will look like it did before, but we can at least clear away the debris from the driveway so your visitors can park and reach the front door.”

  Winnie looked stunned. “You would do that, even though you were against this fundraiser from the beginning?”

  “This is important to you, so it’s important to me,” he said simply.

  Oh. How was she supposed to resist a man like this, who could be so overwhelmingly sweet to his grandmother?

  “Give me a minute to make some calls.”

  While Abby fixed bacon and her famous whole-wheat pancakes, Ethan sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee and making call after call.

  By the time he finally closed his cell phone and took a moment to eat a couple of pancakes, she was in awe of his negotiation skills.

  “These are delicious,” he said with an appreciative smile. “Wish I had time for about a dozen more but the first crew is going to be here any minute.”

  A honk sounded from outside and Ethan slid away from the table. “That should be them.”

  She and Winnie both went with him to the door and watched a utility vehicle pull through the gate. The doors opened and several men and a couple of women climbed out in all-weather coveralls.

  On the surface they might have looked rough, but as far as Abby was concerned, they were angels.

  “Thanks for breakfast,” Ethan said, throwing on his own work gloves. He kissed his grandmother on the cheek, then surprised Abby by kissing her, too.

  When he hurried off the porch to join his crew with handshakes and smiles, she watched him for a minute, then turned to find Winnie watching her with a particular gleam in her eye.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” the older woman said, her pink hair a fuzzy cloud around her head. “Nothing at all. We should probably go in out of the cold, that’s all. With all that noise out there, that boy of yours is going to be waking up. I’m surprised he’s not already up looking for you.”

  She spared one more look at Ethan, who appeared to be taking complete charge of the crew. He might be a polished executive by day but it was obvious he had no problem getting his hands dirty.

  She shivered a little, thinking of those hands on her the other night, then hurried inside to make a few more pancakes for Christopher and get ready for the long day ahead.

  * * *

  She was so busy taking care of last-minute details for the evening ahead that she didn’t have a chance to talk to Ethan until a few hours later, when she bumped into him in the kitchen, grabbing another cup of coffee.

  Dirt smeared his cheek, and sawdust from the chainsaw was sprinkled over his jacket. Her hands itched to brush it away, but she managed to refrain.

  He had taken his beanie off, and his hair was plastered to his head.

  She found she liked this side of him as much as she liked the man who could look so gorgeous in bespoke Italian suits.

  “How’s it going out there?”

  “We’re making slow progress. It’s a shame about the two pine trees she lost, but I had worried about their integrity as far back as last summer. They were a bit too pampered and never put down deep enough roots. There are a couple others that lost significant limbs. The good news is, none of them caused any damage to the house or the other structures on the property.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “It’s a miracle actually. I don’t know quite how. As I drove here and saw some of the other damage in town, I was afraid I would show up and find the roof collapsed.”

  “What a relief.”

  “We’re going to try to string the lights as best we can, but it probably won’t look as good as it was originally. I’ve talked to the original company that hung them, and they’re going to come out Monday to rearrange everything. I’m afraid that’s the best I can do.”

  “It’s wonderful. Thank you so much, Ethan. Seriously.”

  He smiled down at her and Abby felt breathless all over again.

  “We should be out of here in a few hours. That should give you plenty of time before the first guests start arriving.”

  She wanted to hug him, right there in the kitchen, but Mariah Raymond walked in before she gave in to the crazy impulse.

  The other woman’s gaze lit up when she caught sight of Ethan. “Mr. Lancaster. I didn’t know you were here.”

  Abby was startled at the sudden burst of possessiveness she felt toward Ethan. Where had that come from?

  Ethan gave Mariah a polite smile. “My crew is cleaning up the wind damage outside.”

  “I saw them when I pulled up. I didn’t realize they were from Lancaster Hotels. That is so wonderful of you.”

  Mariah was definitely giving him a flirtatious look. Abby drew in a breath, annoyed at herself. Mariah was her friend. What did it matter to her if Mariah was interested in Ethan or vice versa? One heated kiss didn’t mean Abby had some sort of claim on him.

  She would be leaving Silver Bells soon anyway, possibly as early as next week, depending on when Lucy could make it home, which was still up in the air.

  Really, when she thought of it, the two of them would be good for each other. They would make a lovely couple. Ethan was so good with children. She thought of his gentleness and kindness with Christopher when they went tubing. He would be great for Dakota.

  Somehow the rationalization didn’t make her feel any better.

  The two of them talked a few moments more, then Ethan set down his coffee mug and reached for his work gloves.

  “I’ll see you both later.”

  “Will you be here tonight for the first night of our fundraiser?” Mariah asked.

  Abby expected him to say no. She would have assumed Ethan wanted to stay as faraway as possible from his grandmother and her friends.

  Instead, as he had been doing since she arrived in Silver Bells, Ethan once more surprised her. “I wouldn’t miss it,” he said promptly. “After all the hard work everyone has put into making it a success, I’m sure the night will be wonderful.”

  Mariah smiled broadly. “Great. I’ll look forward to seeing you twice in one day.”

  He gave her a distant sort of smile, waved to both of them and headed out the door.

  Mariah watched after him, then shook her head. “Well, that was interesting.”

  “What was?” Abby asked absently.

  “That man. I might as well be invisible to him. I keep trying to get Ethan to notice me, but I might as well be one of those Christmas trees scattered all over the house.” She raised an artfully shaped eyebrow. “You, on the other hand, get a completely different reaction out of him.”

  Abby felt her face heat. “You’re crazy.”

  Mariah gave her an amused look. “Am I? I don’t think so. I thought I noticed a certain vibe between you on Thanksgiving, and it was more obvious today. Is something going on between you two?”

  Abby willed herself not to blush, trying to push away the memory of that heated kiss. “Nothing. We’re friends. That’s all.”

  They were, she realized. She never would have guessed that day she had arrived at Holiday House that she would become friends with Ethan, but she genuinely liked him.

  And, okay, she was fiercely attracted to him, but that was an entirely separate issue.

  “Lucky you,” Mariah said with a teasing smile. “Half the women in town would love to be friends with Ethan Lancaster. Friends with benefits, anyway.”

  Abby rolled her eyes and tried not to think about how much she truly missed benefits.

  Eleve
n

  He didn’t know what standards the Silver Belles were using to judge how well Christmas at Holiday House was going, but from Ethan’s point of view the evening was a smashing success.

  Later that night, he was sitting at a table in the great room with a middle-aged couple he had learned were from Nebraska and were staying at the Lancaster Silver Bells hotel.

  Bill and Nancy Maughan were sipping hot cocoa out of Winnie’s elegant Christmas-themed china, listening to the choir perform their final number, a beautiful rendition of “Silent Night.” Nancy had tears in her eyes as she listened and even Bill looked touched, though he wasn’t crying.

  Around them, the great room was filled with others who lingered over their cocoa and cookies to listen to the music.

  He hadn’t really been able to catch the vision of what Winnie wanted to do until this evening. Apparently, the ticket holders were divided into small groups of twenty or so, with staggered arrivals. Winnie led his particular tour group, but he had seen different Silver Belles leading others.

  Visitors were given some of the history of the house, including things Ethan hadn’t known. The tours discussed Christmases through the years since the house had been built and how various historical events had shaped the celebrations.

  All along the way, other members of the Silver Belles performed Christmas songs that were popular during those significant moments in history.

  He had to admit, he was impressed. Everyone seemed to enjoy the tours immensely, and those in his group lingered in each room to examine the contents and talk about Winnie’s collection.

  His grandmother was definitely in her element. She seemed to love talking about the house and the people who had lived here. She glowed as he hadn’t seen her do since probably his grandfather died.

  The evening was an intimate, unexpected delight, and he couldn’t wait to tell Winnie and Abby how much he had enjoyed it.

  The number came to a tender close, and the choir was met with thunderous applause from those in the great room.

  “Oh, that was so marvelous,” Nancy Maughan said. “I’m so glad we were able to get tickets. I grew up in Silver Bells and used to dream about coming to a Christmas party here. It always looked so elegant and festive to me when I was a child, like something out of a movie set. I can’t believe we actually had the chance.”