The three of them would leave no stone unturned. They would parse and dig, extracting meaning from every lift of an eyebrow or moment of silence. They would build out stories and tell them back to each other, and they would make sense of Gray that way. They would make Gray and Abby work, one way or another.
This was what the three of them had always been for each other. The kind of safe, supportive space Abby had always imagined family ought to have been. Because in every way that mattered, Rae and Hope were her family. Her sisters.
But as much as they were in her life and integral to it, they weren’t in her marriage. And Gray wasn’t the older boy she’d talked about in high school, all daydreams and what ifs and maybe when I’m older. Not anymore. That boy had been a construction the three of them had put together around tables a lot like this one, telling each other stories about the character of Gray they’d made up who was solid and gorgeous and perfect for Abby.
The real Gray was a living and breathing man. He was complicated and often grumpy and a stern, brick wall when he wanted. He was also delightfully wicked, could stop the world with that rare smile of his, and a good deal funnier than she’d ever imagined.
The real Gray was just that. Real. And if Abby truly wanted to be married to him, if she wanted it to work, she somehow knew that chewing over every detail of their life together was exactly the wrong way to go about it.
At a certain point she had to talk about her marriage with the person she was in a marriage with. Or it wasn’t real. It would never be real.
And if she had any kind of Christmas wish at all, it was that somehow, someday, this thing with Gray might feel real all the way through.
So this time, when she smiled, she made it a good one.
“I’m more than okay,” she said, and she looked at each of her friends in turn to make sure they were hearing her. “Really.”
“You don’t have to prove anything,” Rae shot back, a kick of emotion in her voice that surprised Abby. And Hope too, whose eyebrows rose. “It’s okay to admit if you made a mistake. No one’s going to think any less of you.”
It was a clue—not that Abby had needed another one—that Rae wasn’t as over her doomed marriage to Riley, the most dangerous of the Kittredge boys, as she liked to pretend.
“I knew what I was signing up for,” Abby said quietly. “That doesn’t make it a mistake.”
“I’m not saying you made a mistake,” Rae replied fiercely. “But if you did feel that way, at any point, there’s no shame in admitting it. People talk about marriage like it’s a prison sentence. That you’re locked in it forever with no key or way to escape.”
“Or, you know, you made vows,” Abby murmured, curling her fingers so she could press her thumb against the gold band Gray had put on her left hand.
“All of those things are important, I’m not saying they’re not.” Rae shook her head. “But that’s part of the reason it’s so hard for people to admit that they were terribly, horribly wrong about someone. And it shouldn’t be that hard to admit. You should be able to acknowledge if you made a mistake, and move on.”
“Abby doesn’t think she’s made a mistake, Rae,” Hope said, a warning in her tone. “Just because things aren’t all love songs on a loop doesn’t mean they’re wrong.”
“I knew what I signed up for,” Abby said again, when all eyes swung her way. “I’m good.”
“You deserve to be happy,” Ray said with quiet intensity. “We all deserve to be happy. If there’s another point to life, I don’t know what it is.”
“I am happy,” Abby replied simply. “I know you don’t think that’s possible, but I am.”
“You told your husband that you love him, and he said nothing in return,” Rae retorted, that directness of hers like a punch. “How can anyone be happy with that?”
Once again, Abby felt that wall between them that she didn’t think her friends even knew was there. Because she could answer that question. She could talk about what love was for a man like Gray, how much of it he’d experienced, and what she thought he needed …
But her husband was a man who kept his own counsel. Always. And there was no way he would view her discussing his deepest, darkest feelings with anyone as anything but a betrayal.
A terrible, unforgivable betrayal.
Abby had no intention of joining the list of people who’d betrayed Gray.
“I’m sorry if my happiness doesn’t look the way you think it should, Rae,” Abby said as evenly as possible. “But when I tell you I’m good, I am. I promise.”
“But—” Rae began.
“I have to change the subject,” Hope said, leaning forward. “We can come back around to arguing about Abby’s marriage in a minute, but I need both of you to stealthily turn—stealthily, Rae—and check out who just walked in the door. Looking hale and hearty, healthy as a horse, and notably, not on fire.”
“Are we in seventh grade again?” Abby asked with a laugh. She didn’t swivel around in her seat like Rae. She kept her gaze trained on Hope. “Are we checking out boys in the rearview mirror?”
“It’s better than seventh grade.” Hope looked satisfied. Smug, even. “Because seventh grade was apparently the beginning of a long-term downward spiral. But since you refuse to look for yourself, I’ll share with you that it turns out a downward spiral isn’t the end of the story.”
Abby sighed. “Somehow I’m certain I don’t actually want to know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh,” Rae murmured, still turned around in her chair, “but you do. It’s like a phoenix rising, and right before Christmas.”
“A Christmas phoenix? Is that a thing?”
Hope leaned closer to Abby, dropping her voice dramatically. “It’s Tate Bishop, back from the dead or prison for arson or wherever he was.” Her dark eyes met Abby’s then, something knowing in them. Something kind. It felt a lot like a hug. “See that? It’s proof that anything can happen at Christmas. Anything at all.”
* * *
Abby considered the Tate Bishop situation the next morning while she packed up her car with her cookie deliveries, then spent her morning driving all over the Longhorn Valley, dropping off her version of Christmas cheer the way she did every year on Christmas Eve. Assuming the roads were passable.
The Tate who had come in to the Sensitive Spoon, with two people who had Aspen-by-way-of-California written all over them, was certainly not the Tate Bishop that Abby remembered. He’d looked more than simply healthy, she’d confirmed when she’d finally snuck a look. He’d looked pulled together and prosperous. Hot, even.
Abby was happy for him in the abstract. What stuck with her was what Hope had said. Anything can happen.
Like love, maybe, Abby thought when she’d dropped off the last of the cookies and was finally headed back toward the ranch. Not from town this time, but from way out in the outer valley, where all the Kittredges lived. This particular drive was one of Abby’s favorites, especially at this time of year. The county road wound out through the fields, on and on forever, as if it might go straight on up into Wyoming if she wanted to risk the mountain passes at this time of year.
As she took the road back toward the ranch, driving slowly because the road was packed with snow and icy just beneath the surface, she could see the whole valley spread out before her. Snow on the fields and clinging to the trees. Frozen creeks and rivers. And the dark blue, snowcapped mountain heights that her Douglas ancestors had stared at as they’d carved their lives out of the land more than a hundred years ago. They’d settled this valley next to Everetts and Kittredges, all those years ago, and here they all still were.
Delivering cookies to each other on Christmas Eve. Marrying and farming and breeding cattle out here, shouldering the enduring weight of these Colorado skies as they did it.
History was a funny thing.
It meant Abby could feel rooted here, as much a part of this land as the dirt and the trees. The crystal blue rivers that ran with snowmelt in
the summer. The fields and pastures that had been the center of Abby’s world for as long as she could remember.
But history could also be like last night, when everyone in that restaurant had turned to stare, most of them immediately leaning in to whisper stories about Tate Bishop and that arson rumor, back in the day.
It was no different for Abby.
Rae wasn’t the only one who felt the need to perform a happiness check on Abby. Every person she’d seen today had done the same thing, some more skillfully than others. Old family friends she knew from church. Folks she’d worked with at the coffeehouse. People she’d gone to high school with and was still friendly with. Each and every one of them seemed to look much too closely when they asked her how she was doing.
As if she was a janky old car with its engine light on for everyone to see, no matter how many times Abby kept insisting the motor was fine.
She laughed a bit at that, her own throat feeling rusty, as she passed the turn for the ranch and continued along the county road toward the farmhouse.
There were worse things than being a beater with all its warning lights on.
Her mother, for example.
Abby ordered herself not to worry about that when she pulled up into the yard and parked next to Lily’s car.
She had saved the best of the cookies for Grandma, of course. Abby gathered up the baking sheets she’d used, holding the cloth bag of cookies in her other hand. She slammed her car door closed with her hip, then started toward the back door.
She was working on the calm, unbothered, serene face she planned to show her mother when her grandmother appeared at the back door and pushed it open.
“Merry Christmas Eve, Grandma,” Abby said, smiling up at Martha from the foot of the steps. “I brought you your favorite cookies.”
“You always were my favorite grandchild, Abigail.”
For a moment, everything felt easy. Good. The way it should on a crisp Christmas Eve with no storms in the forecast. Just the dusk falling headlong into the perfect silent night.
Grandma took the cookies while Abby carried the baking sheets into the kitchen. Then busied herself putting them away, taking her usual odd pleasure in the loud noise kitchen items made. She supposed it was as close as she got to clanging pots together, the way she had as a little kid.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come back,” Grandma said. Mildly enough. “Even if it is Christmas Eve.”
When Abby looked over, her grandmother had gone back to take her place at the kitchen table. Where her hands were never idle, ever, and today were occupied with clipping her coupons.
“I’m not going to hide away,” Abby said, matching her grandmother’s mild tone as best she could. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t know the way home because she’s here.”
“Good.” Grandma stopped what she was doing and set her scissors down on the table. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“I’m not going to pretend I don’t know the way home, and I’m not going to pretend I don’t know you,” Abby said, more fiercely. “You can depend on that. I love you, Grandma. No matter what.”
They both stayed where they were for a moment. Abby could hear the television in the other room because Lily liked to watch her television shows a whole lot more than she liked to, say, pitch in around the house. The way Abby would have been doing if she still lived here.
There was a part of Abby that would always be furious about that. Part of her that wanted nothing more than to charge into the other room and demand that Lily do something useful for change, knowing full well that it was a futile gesture. That all Lily really wanted was the fight.
Maybe she doesn’t know any better, she told herself, because it was Christmas Eve and Tate Bishop was a surprising local phoenix, so why not Lily too? Maybe she really can’t help herself.
But she knew her mother was fully aware she was here. Lily was deliberately staying out of the room because these were the games she played. The games they played.
It stung, but Abby had to accept that historically, she had a part in this. Because she kept playing.
Today, she refused. Because it was Christmas Eve, and she wasn’t having her usual Christmas. And because it turned out she was pretty much done with playing games. All across the board.
“This is the thing about love,” Grandma said into the cozy quiet of the kitchen that still felt as if it belonged to the two of them alone. “It never, ever looks the way you think it will in your head. Those are fantasies. Real life has wrinkles and a bad back. An ugly tongue when it gets riled, and no good reason for half the things it does. Real life is angry and ungrateful, sometimes ugly and spiteful, but you love it all the same.”
Abby tried to smile, but knew she’d missed it by a mile. “Even if it hurts?”
Grandma didn’t smile. But her eyes were steady and kind, with steel there too.
“Especially when it hurts. Whoever told you love wasn’t supposed to hurt?”
“Everyone. Valentine’s Day. Corinthians.”
Grandma smiled then, the way she did when she knew better. Which Abby had learned was pretty much all of the time.
“Love isn’t supposed to hurt you,” Grandma said. “But that’s not to say it won’t hurt. It’s the difference between an assault and an ache.”
Abby wanted to deny that she ached. That anything hurt at all. But her throat was too tight, and there was a hard knot in her stomach.
“It’s like any muscle in your body, Abby. If you use it, it’s going to hurt at some point or another. That doesn’t mean it’s bad for you. It means you need to practice more, like anything.” Grandma’s smile turned sad. “Some people never learn this.”
Neither one of them looked out toward the front room, where the television was blaring and Lily was practicing nothing. Because the only thing she’d ever practiced consistently was leaving.
“Some people never learn,” Abby agreed, but the words seemed to tangle themselves around her as she spoke. And she suddenly didn’t know who she was talking about—her mother? Or herself?
“If I could tell you one thing, it would be this,” Grandma said quietly. “Don’t be afraid of what hurts. That’s how you know it’s worth it. How you know it’s—”
“Real?” Abby supplied, barely more than a whisper.
Her grandmother nodded. “Real things matter, Abby. Because they stick. Because they take work and time and care. And yes, sometimes, because they hurt. They’re supposed to.” This time when she smiled, Abby felt it everywhere, like a burst of hard winter light. Or the shattering beauty of a cold and dark Christmas Eve out here in these mountains, blooming deep inside her like a song. “Or what would be the point?”
21
Gray managed to make it all the way to dark before anyone forced him to recognize the fact it was Christmas Eve.
He would have congratulated himself on that being some kind of record, except it was his kid who was staring right back at him, daring him to pretend he didn’t know.
“I heard you, Becca,” he said gruffly when she continued to stand there in the door to his office, staring at him as if the sight of him behind his desk was an outrage. Which was how he felt about the sparkly little dress she was wearing, God help him. “I know what day it is.”
“Do you? Because you’re sitting there working like it’s any other night.”
“Because it is any other night. To me.”
He took the way his once too-perfect-to-live daughter rolled her eyes then as a compliment. It meant she really was comfortable at last.
So comfortable, in fact, that she could revert to being a regular teenager.
Careful what you wish for, he told himself, just keeping himself from grinning. He knew she’d take it badly if he did.
“Well, I have several Christmas parties to attend,” she told him grandly, after staring at him long enough for Gray to wonder if she wanted him to comment on her outfit—a risky proposition at best, he knew from experience. As long a
s she was covered, he tried to let her do her own thing. “Don’t worry, I already have a ride home.”
“I wasn’t worried.” He leveled his sternest look at her. “I trust you.”
To make good choices. To call if she had a problem. To be back by her curfew. To be the good kid he’d raised. Not the always-worried kid who’d raised herself.
“Merry Christmas Eve, Dad,” Becca said, a certain defiant glint in her gaze that he blamed directly on Abby.
But all Gray did was smile back at her. Without taking the bait.
Long after he heard the back door slam shut, he stayed where he was.
The reality was, he didn’t have any work to do. Nothing pressing, anyway. With Abby’s help in the office over the last weeks, he was in better shape than he’d been in as long as he could remember.
He didn’t know why admitting that felt like surrendering.
Or why, when he finally left his office and walked into the main part of the house to find Abby sitting at the dining room table wrapping Christmas presents, he didn’t feel as pissed as he should have.
If anything, he felt like Scrooge and the Grinch wrapped into one.
Except a whole lot uglier.
“Don’t worry,” Abby said in that cheerful way of hers. Gray couldn’t even tell anymore if it was forced or real. “I won’t assault you with a present. These are for other people.”
“I never said you couldn’t give people presents.”
“I think you’ll find, Gray, that when you cancel a holiday, you generally cancel all the things that go along with it. So I understand if you feel like me wrapping something for your brothers is breaking the rules.”
Something pricked at him that he didn’t want to define. He scowled at her instead. “It’s fine.”
“That’s good. Because I also wasn’t going to stop.”
She smoothed a piece of tape into place with one finger, and he didn’t know what to do with the way she smiled at him. Sweet and defiant all at once. It shouldn’t have been possible.
And it certainly shouldn’t have been … cute.
A True Cowboy Christmas Page 27