Christmas at Holiday House

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He laughed heartily. “Good. I’ve been practicing. Want to play me?”

  “Of course, even though I know you’re going to kick my butt, as always.”

  “Maybe we can play later. José is taking me bowling right now after we leave the chairs here. Want to come?”

  She flashed a look at José, who was looking anywhere in the room but at her.

  “I can’t today, but thanks for the invitation. Maybe another day while I’m still in town.”

  “Okay.”

  Even when she had been away a year, she and Rodrigo seemed to pick up where they left off. He loved her unconditionally, just as he loved all the other people in his world, and she always felt like the luckiest girl on the planet.

  “Guess what?” he informed her with a gleeful look. “José has a date tonight.”

  To her chagrin, she could feel her jaw sag. “Does he?”

  “With a lady,” Rodrigo confided.

  “Wow.”

  She didn’t know what to say beyond that.

  “Is it that nice Quinn Bellamy again?” Winnie asked. “I sure like her.”

  “She’s nice and she’s pretty. But not as pretty as you,” Rodrigo said loyally to Lucy.

  She finally risked a glance at José and could see by the hardness of his jaw and the firm set of his mouth that he wasn’t thrilled with the direction his brother had taken the conversation.

  “I’ve got one more load of chairs to bring in,” he said. “I’ll just put them with the rest.”

  “That’s fine,” Winnie said. “Lucy, why don’t you help him while I give Rodrigo one of his favorite sugar cookies.”

  She narrowed her gaze at her grandmother but didn’t feel she had any kind of choice in the matter, especially since her grilled cheese sandwich now looked as appetizing as a plate of dancing shrimp from the night market in Chiang Mai.

  She walked outside with José into the clear, beautiful December afternoon toward his pickup truck.

  “So. Quinn. I guess I don’t know her. How long have you been dating?”

  “We’ve gone out only two or three times. I’m not sure you could exactly classify that as dating.”

  “More than once is dating. Have you slept with her?”

  “None of your damn business.” He pulled two folding chairs from the bed of the pickup, set them against the tire of the truck and reached in for two more, all without looking at her.

  “Really? I would have said you kind of made it my business when you came to Thailand and messed up everything.”

  He faced her finally, and the intensity of his expression made her catch her breath. “I told you I have feelings for you. That I’ve had feelings for you forever. And you basically told me to go to hell. Who messed up what again?”

  She had handled that encounter so badly. If she could do it all over again, would she have done anything differently? She honestly didn’t know. She only knew she hated this distance between them and the terrible fear that she could never regain what they had lost.

  “I didn’t tell you to go to hell.”

  “Not in so many words. We want different things, you said. You don’t believe in love, you said. Why can’t we just have a steamy affair and call it good, you said.”

  Had she really said those words? He made her sound hard, unfeeling. Awful. She wasn’t. Was she? She had only been trying to process a moment that had shocked her to her core.

  “Give me a break. You sprung all of that on me out of nowhere without warning and I didn’t know how to respond.”

  “Come on, Lucy. You’re not blind. You had to see I have feelings for you. Either you ignored it or you didn’t want to see. Everybody else in the damn world seemed to guess except you.”

  She grabbed a chair and held it in front of her as if it were a shield against his words.

  He looked at her, looked at the chair, then sighed. “If I had given you days to prepare, would your response have been different? For instance, if I told you that I’m still in love with you and nothing has changed, what would you say?”

  I would say then maybe you shouldn’t be dating another woman.

  She couldn’t say those words, and felt small and ugly for even thinking them.

  “From my perspective, love ruins everything. Our friendship is a perfect example. We’ve always had fun together and now everything is different.”

  She didn’t know what else to say and felt ridiculously like she was going to cry. Wouldn’t that be a nightmare?

  “You have always been a dear friend to me,” she finally said. “One of my favorite people on the planet. Every time I see you, I’m happy. We like the same kinds of food, the same music, the same activities. We are attracted to each other. Why can’t we just sleep together and let that be enough?”

  “You know why. Because it wouldn’t be enough for me.”

  “How do you know? Maybe we would be lousy together.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “We wouldn’t be,” he said with an absolute certainty that made her toes curl.

  “So it’s your way or nothing. You’re willing to ruin a good friendship because I’m not willing to play romantic games.”

  “It’s not about playing games. It’s about being willing to put your heart on the line. About allowing yourself to be vulnerable to somebody else. You have never done that. You want to be the one in control, the person who holds all the cards. I’ve seen the way you operate, Lucy. The moment anybody tries to get close to you, you run away without looking back. I would rather not put myself through that.”

  His words gutted her, left her feeling attacked and hurting. He said he loved her. How could he when he seemed to respect her so little?

  She couldn’t face him now so she picked up the three chairs, as many as she could carry, and did exactly what he accused her of doing. She walked away.

  Rodrigo was waiting for them in the foyer, a worried look on his face. “I heard yelling. Are you guys mad at each other?”

  “Yes,” she answered at the same time José said the opposite.

  “Which is it?”

  “We’re just having a disagreement. It’s no big deal,” she lied.

  José said nothing, only gave her a hard look as he walked past her to set the chairs in the great room.

  “We better go,” he said to his brother. “Those bowling pins won’t knock themselves down.”

  Rodrigo apparently found that hilarious. He guffawed, knocking his shoulder against José’s.

  She watched the two of them together, touched by the generous affection between them. One of the things she admired most about José was his commitment to his family. He was a wonderful, loving brother and son.

  Why did he have to ruin everything?

  “I’m just going to say goodbye to Winnie and Christopher, then we can go.”

  “Okay,” Rodrigo said happily.

  José walked into the kitchen, and she heard the murmur of voices underneath Rodrigo’s recitation of how bad he was going to beat his brother at bowling.

  A few moments later, José returned. “Let’s go,” he said to his brother.

  “Bye, Lucy. I’ll see you later.”

  “Have fun bowling,” she said. “And José. Have fun on your date tonight.”

  A muscle flexed in his jaw but he said nothing, only ushered his brother out the door, leaving Lucy feeling this odd, empty ache inside.

  It wasn’t love, Lucy told herself sternly. What she felt for José was simply...admiration. Respect. Attraction. But not love.

  She refused to let it be love.

  Twelve

  “I had such a wonderful time last night. It was just the best. Are you sure there aren’t any more tickets available? I’d love to take my sister, who lives over in Hope’s Crossing.”

  Abby, her arms full of grocery bag
s, shook her head at the woman in the expensive-looking down coat who had waylaid her as she walked out of the store.

  “Winnie says all the tickets sold out the day they went on sale. I’m sorry.”

  “If you find out differently, please let me know. Maybe there’s a waiting list or something I could put my name on. My schedule is pretty flexible.”

  A waiting list. That was a good idea, one she wasn’t sure Winnie had thought about.

  “I’ll mention starting a waiting list to the Silver Belles.”

  “I would like my name at the top. Louise Arnold. My husband owns the real estate agency over on Pine Street. I would be a Silver Belle myself but I can’t sing worth a darn. Last night sure made me wish I’d taken voice lessons or something.”

  “Thanks, Louise. I’ll make sure to pass along to Winnie and the others how much you enjoyed your evening.”

  “So much. I’ve already told all my friends from out of town how wonderful it was. If Winnie opens up any other dates between now and Christmas, I’m sure she could fill them in a heartbeat, especially as it’s for such a good cause.”

  “I’ll tell them. Thank you.”

  Louise waved at her, climbing into a luxury SUV while Abby loaded her bags.

  She would say the first ever Christmas at Holiday House had definitely been a success. Louise was the third person who had stopped Abby during her short shopping excursion to tell her how much they had enjoyed it.

  Everyone had been so kind, treating her as if she alone had been responsible for the evening’s success, merely because she had been the one who answered the door and took tickets.

  Was everyone always this genuinely nice, or was her reception here because of her close connection to someone so obviously beloved as Winnie?

  Leaving this place would be hard. In only a few weeks, she had come to love so many things about Silver Bells, from the gorgeous setting to the kind people to the historic architecture.

  She could stay.

  This wasn’t the first time the idea had popped into her head. Christopher was already lobbying hard for that option. As before, she quickly pushed the possibility away. She was struggling enough not to make a fool of herself over Ethan. The smartest thing for her right now would be to go back to Phoenix, finish packing up their apartment and head straight to Austin to start her new life there.

  The idea appealed to her about as much as trying to do a 360 off the ski jump in town.

  Austin had history, too, and she was quite certain she would find the people there every bit as kind as those she had met here. She had a job waiting for her, an apartment already. She had investigated schools, neighborhoods, extracurricular programs for Christopher.

  She had everything figured out, and she wasn’t going to throw away months of planning simply because she had enjoyed this holiday break so very much.

  With that thought firmly in mind, she drove through the picturesque streets toward Holiday House.

  She reached the house just as a shiny blue pickup truck pulled through the gates heading out. José Navarro lifted a hand in greeting from the driver’s seat and his brother, Rodrigo, waved with wild enthusiasm.

  She waved back, feeling heartened as she pulled up to the house.

  When she carried the groceries into the kitchen, she found Christopher eating a grilled cheese sandwich while Lucy entertained him and Winnie with card tricks.

  They all greeted her. Lucy jumped up. “Can I carry in groceries for you?”

  She held up the multiple bags hanging on each arm. “This is everything. I take it as a personal challenge to carry all the bags in one trip.”

  “Everybody needs a goal, I guess,” Lucy said. She smiled, but Abby thought she detected shadows in her friend’s expression. Maybe she was still just tired.

  “Hey, Mom. Guess what?” Christopher beamed at her around a giant bite of sandwich.

  “Finish what you’re eating, then you can tell me.”

  He sighed but chewed several times and swallowed, then chased it down with a glass of water.

  “Guess what?” he repeated. “My friend Rodrigo and his brother were just here. They’re going bowling. Can we go bowling sometime? Maybe we could take my friend Dakota.”

  Everyone seemed to be Christopher’s friend, which she found one of the best things about her son. She smiled. “That does sound like fun. We’ll have to see if we can find time while we’re here. I’ll see if I can arrange it with Mariah.”

  She had started putting away groceries when she noticed Winnie wincing a little and flexing her fingers.

  “Are you hurting? Do you need a pain pill? I was worried yesterday was too much for you.”

  “I am just fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Maybe you should try to rest for a while before tonight. It’s going to be another long evening for you, leading tour groups.”

  “I will,” Winnie promised. “I need my strength.”

  “That reminds me,” Abby said. “You are the talk of the town right now. While I was shopping, everyone had wonderful things to say about Christmas at Holiday House last night. I was even asked about a cancellation list.”

  Winnie’s wrinkled features brightened. “Oh, that’s a good idea. We had two people cancel yesterday and ask to come a different night. I had to tell them every night was full. I’ll talk to the board members about figuring out a system to keep track of a waiting list.”

  They talked about the logistics of it for a few more moments and details they still needed to iron out. Lucy was uncharacteristically quiet while they talked.

  As Abby finished putting away the last of the groceries, she saw Winnie wince again.

  “You know, I can wake you when dinner is ready. I’m making more of that chicken enchilada soup you liked.”

  “That does sound good. All right. Only because you’re making me,” she said with a dour look as she rose and made her way down the hall to her room.

  “Chris, it’s rest time for you, too.”

  “I’m too old to take a nap. I’m five years old now.”

  This was not a new argument between them but one her son had yet to win.

  “I’ve told you that you don’t have to take a nap. You only have to play quietly in your room for a half hour. You can read a book or play with your toys. It’s up to you.”

  She had been trying to keep some sort of routine while they were here in Colorado. She wanted to think it had been good for him. She knew it had been good for her.

  “Only half an hour, right? Then I can come out again and play with Lucy?”

  “Unless she has something else going on.”

  “I’ve got no plans,” Lucy said. “I’m all yours.”

  Her son gave a heavy sigh and trudged off to their room as if he were carrying Santa’s entire pack on his back.

  After he left, Lucy cleared away the plates the three of them had been eating sandwiches from. “Don’t tell me to nap. I’ve been sleeping for the past fourteen hours.”

  Though Lucy tried to make a joke, Abby could still see something was bothering her.

  “Is everything okay?” she finally asked.

  Lucy looked startled but forced a smile. “Sure. Everything’s fine. Perfect. I’m home. What could be wrong?”

  She obviously didn’t want to talk about whatever was bothering her. Abby could wait. She had learned when they were roommates that Lucy sometimes needed to process things in her own way before she was ready to share.

  “I’m so glad you were able to make it here a few days early. Your grandmother seems overjoyed to have you back.”

  Lucy’s face softened. “Thank you for taking such good care of her these past few weeks.”

  Abby poured a cup of coffee and sat across from her. “I enjoyed every minute of it, as I’m sure you knew I would. I can see why you’ve a
lways raved about your grandmother. She is a remarkable woman.” She paused. “You take after her in a lot of ways.”

  Lucy gazed at her and then, to Abby’s total astonishment, she actually sniffled a little. What in the world was going on? Lucy never cried.

  “She’s pretty wonderful. I wish I could be a tenth the woman she is.”

  Abby touched her friend’s hand. “Why do you always put yourself down like that? You’re bright, beautiful, caring. Winnie’s granddaughter, through and through.”

  “I love you, you know,” Lucy said.

  “I love you, too,” Abby said.

  “I don’t have another friend I could have called at the last minute to help out with Winnie.”

  Abby didn’t know why Lucy was in this strange, reflective mood. It was very unlike her.

  “It worked out for all of us.” She hesitated, then plunged forward. “We’ve had a wonderful time here in Silver Bells, but now that you’re back, I was thinking maybe Christopher and I should take off and go home to Phoenix.”

  “No!” Lucy said, eyes widening. “You can’t go already!”

  “Winnie never really needed my help, at least not with her health. She has a vast network of friends who could have stepped in for the minimal care she needed, which was mostly helping her wrap up her arm so she could shower at night and helping her dress. She’s become so used to the cast she doesn’t need even that now. I was glad I could help get things ready for the Silver Belles’ event, but that’s all done now. Now that you’re home, there’s no real reason for us to stay.”

  “Other than I want you to! I was so looking forward to spending the holidays with you and Christopher. Can’t you stay at least through Christmas?”

  “That’s another week and a half.”

  “Right. Not long at all.”

  What would she do here for a week and a half? Besides spend time with her son enjoying a winter wonderland.

  “Winnie will want you to stay through Christmas. You know she will. And of course I want you to. Ethan probably does, too. You two looked like you were getting along great last night.”

  Abby could feel herself blush. How could she explain to Ethan’s sister that he was the main reason she worried that she should leave now, before she did something completely stupid like fall in love with him?