The Christmas Cottage

by Samantha Chase

  “You can’t stay there tonight!” she cried in dismay.

  “Why not? It’s my damn house!” He was slightly winded and Lacey wanted to dare him to say she was heavy but her mind was too busy reeling from the realization that she wasn’t getting rid of him any time soon.

  “Like you said, you have snow boots on and get traction or whatever. You see where the road is, you can easily walk down it. The snow’s not that bad and it’s only half a mile or so.”

  “Only half a…” he started and then stopped himself. “I have already fallen off of a chair, banged my head and slammed my back pretty good. If you think I’m going to try walking down that steep hill in the snow and risking doing that again you’re crazy.” They were nearing the porch of the cottage and he reluctantly put Lacey down. “You know, Lace, if I didn’t know any better I’d swear you were trying to get rid of me. Now what gives?”

  There was nothing more that she wanted to do than to tell him exactly what gives. He turned her world upside down! He ruined her whole plan of getting the cottage ready without having to spend any time with him and now she was essentially going to be snowed in for the night with him! Where did she begin?

  “Look, Ean, it’s been a long day and I was looking forward to the time alone. Your showing up here just threw me for a loop. I’m a very organized person; I make lists, check things off and I don’t like surprises. You being here threw my list off, that’s all.” She sounded cool and flippant and was actually pretty darn proud of herself. Turning, more carefully this time, she made her way up the porch steps and opened the door to the cottage and walked inside.

  Ean stood there looking at the open doorway. He threw her list off? What the hell was that? How was it that seeing her had thrown him completely down for the count and Lacey was so blasé about it? He knew they didn’t leave things on the best of terms twelve years ago but she couldn’t possibly have held a grudge all this time, could she? They were friends at one time, had he ruined that by reacting badly to an awkward situation?

  Feeling the snow seeping in to him all over, Ean trudged up the steps and into the cottage, closing the door behind him. The roaring fire, the smell of something simmering on the stove and Lacey standing in stockinged feet made quite a picture and for an instant all Ean could think was home. It had been a long time since he’d come home at the end of the day and had someone preparing a meal for him. True, it was usually his mother because he never got that deeply involved with a woman to the point of her waiting for him after work.

  But this? This scene before him was almost achingly right. Lacey turned and looked at him expectantly. “I stopped at the grocery store on the way up here. I know I planned on staying at a hotel tonight but I really get tired of take out so I was whipping up some chili and a quick bread. I hope that’s okay.”

  Okay? “That sounds a little bit like heaven, Lacey, thank you.”

  She gave him a shy smile and turned back to stirring the chili. “You should probably take off that wet hat and coat; maybe hang them by the fire and get yourself warmed up.”

  She didn’t need to tell him twice. Within minutes Ean was back to sitting in front of the fire and was soon feeling like himself again. He turned toward the kitchen as Lacey was taking the bread from the oven. She had set the small table that sat against the wall in the kitchen. “There’s not much to choose from to drink, unfortunately,” she said apologetically as Ean walked toward her. “I brought a couple of cola’s with me and there’s coffee and tea if you want something hot.”

  “I think that’s enough of a variety,” he said, noticing for the first time that Lacey was fidgeting. She wouldn’t meet his eyes and she was clearly fluttering around the kitchen trying to keep busy.

  “There’s no beer,” she said quickly and then went back to stirring the chili.

  “That’s okay, I don’t really drink it.”

  “Oh, okay.” Lacey didn’t need to turn to know that Ean was close behind her. She could sense him. How was it possible for him to have this effect on her after all these years? It wasn’t fair! And of all the people in the world to be trapped in a snow storm with, why did it have to be him?

  “It smells wonderful, Lace,” Ean said from right over her left shoulder. “You always did love to cook.”

  He remembered that about her and Lacey got that fluttery feeling in her tummy again. “Well, the whole family is full of budding chefs. It’s no wonder I feel comfortable in the kitchen.” She was yammering and she knew it. Why wouldn’t he move away? “Um, I think we could use another log on the fire and then dinner will be ready.”

  Ean took the hint and did what she asked. True to her word by the time he had the fire settled she was placing two bowls in the table. He walked over and for the first time noticed the mammoth binder on the counter. Curiosity got the better of him and he picked it up on his way to the table. “What’s this?”

  Lacey let out a small laugh. “That,” she began, “is your sister’s dream of what this cottage should look like for her wedding night.”

  Ean opened it and looked at the labeled tabs. “Food…flowers…lighting…,” he looked at Lacey. “How many categories are there?”

  “Seventeen.”

  His eyes bugged a little on that one. “Are you supposed to completely remodel this place? Does this say furniture placement?” he asked incredulously. “How does she expect you to do all of this alone?”

  “Oh, you mean you didn’t get the memo?” Lacey asked, ready to witness what she was sure was the exact expression she’d had when Ava told her the news.

  “What memo?” he asked slowly, not liking the look of mischief on her face.

  “As best man and maid of honor, it is our job to get this place ready for the newlyweds.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me; you and I get the great honor of setting the scene for your sister’s wedding night sex.”

  Ean dropped the binder to the floor as if it had burned him and glared at Lacey as she laughed. Her face was full of merriment and innocence and she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Lacey had been a pretty little girl who even at the awkward teen years you were able to see the woman she’d become and yet none of that prepared him for the woman sitting across from him. She simply took his breath away and right now, when she finally let her guard down, he felt like he was looking at the sun.

  “I am not facilitating my sister’s sex life,” he began.

  “Oh, lighten up. She’ll be married and she wants the cottage and her wedding night to be perfect. There are diagrams…”

  “Please tell me they’re of the floor plan and not anything…else,” his appetite was slowly fading at that disturbing thought but then Lacey laughed again.

  “The floor plan, color schemes, foods…she’s clipped things out of magazines, she’s very organized. Part of me loves her for it and another part of me wants to beat her with the binder. She’s fixated on this place.” Lacey nodded towards his bowl. “Eat, please, before it gets cold.”

  Ean took a spoonful and felt the flavors burst to life on his tongue. He’d grown used to take out and his housekeeper’s bland cooking but this simple, quickly thrown together chili was a culinary delight. “This is amazing,” he said finally. “I can’t believe you just whipped this up.”

  Blushing at his compliment, she took her own first spoonful, realizing that she’d waited for him to taste it first, anxious for his opinion. He didn’t disappoint. “Cooking is second nature, but back to Ava. She’s turned into a bit of a bridezilla.”

  “Mom’s told me,” he said around another mouthful of chili. “She was the last person I’d thought would be that way.”

  “I guess you don’t know how you’ll be until it’s your turn.”

  “What about you, Lace? Any trip down the aisle in your future?”

  Her blush this time was out of embarrassment. “No,” she said a little too harshly. The change of subject was swift and luckily well received. “So now that you
know that you need to be a part of this, I guess we can go through the book and divide and conquer.”

  Ean merely nodded wondering why someone as beautiful as Lacey wasn’t attached. Was she just getting over a break up? Was she jealous of Ava? That thought was dismissed before it even took hold. Lacey wasn’t the jealous type; she had no reason to be. Ean loved his sister dearly but she lacked the confidence that Lacey always had. Truth be known, he had been a little dismayed that Ava and Mason were marrying so quickly but he knew his sister had always been a little obsessed with the idea of the following the family tradition and marrying on Christmas. True she could wait until next Christmas…

  He didn’t realize he’d spoken that last part out loud until Lacey dropped her spoon and said, “Exactly! Why does it have to be this Christmas? What harm could waiting another year cause?”

  “So you think this was a little rushed too,” he urged.

  “I do! I asked her about it and it seems that Mason is just anxious to get himself settled with his law firm and having a wife and baby would make him extremely happy. Add that to the fact that Ava wants nothing more than to be part of the Callahan Christmas wedding tradition and it’s like a feeding frenzy.”

  Ean stood so quickly that his chair fell over. “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” he snapped. “Are you telling me that Ava’s pregnant? Do my parents know?”

  Oh, boy. Awkward. “Ean, sit down. Your sister is not pregnant.” Lacey explained to him the conversation she’d had with Ava a week ago. There was a little feeling that maybe she was betraying Ava’s confidence but hey, this was Ean. He was Ava’s brother and maybe he was the key to helping Lacey figure out how to convince her friend to do some serious soul searching before the wedding.

  “So he wants Ava to give up everything and do exactly what he wants?” Ean was pacing the kitchen, his dinner momentarily forgotten. “I’ll kill him! There’s no way my sister is going to…”

  Lacey stood and placed a hand gently on his arm to stop him. “You’re not going to kill Mason. That would be ridiculous.”

  “He can’t force Ava to get pregnant and drop out of school, Lacey. I won’t allow it!”

  She sighed. Poor Ean. He had no idea how crazy he sounded. Lacey knew she’d have to choose her words very carefully so that she didn’t provoke him. “It just seems like they need to have an honest heart to heart conversation. I think that Ava is scared to rock the boat because she wants this wedding so badly. She believes in the fairytale of this house and feels that if they spend their wedding night here, their marriage will be perfect and all of their issues will be resolved.”

  Ean looked at her like she’d grown a second head. “Well, that explains it; we need to get her checked in to a psych ward because clearly she’s crazy!”

  “Why? Because she believes in love conquering all?” She wanted to smack herself. Wasn’t she the one telling Ava that it was crazy to rely on a mythical story about a house and now here she was defending the myth to Ean!

  “Oh, for crying out loud, Lacey, don’t you go spewing that crap too! This house isn’t mystical or magical or anything. It’s a house. It does not have the power to guarantee a lifetime of happiness!” Ean shook her hand off and went back to pacing. He walked over to the fire and stared in to it for a moment before turning to her again. “All of those marriages lasted because back in my grandparents and great-grandparents day, you stayed married. Yes, they were blessed with good marriages but they had their struggles, too.”

  “Does Ava realize that?”

  “She should! We grew up in the same house; we have all of the same relatives and I can tell you that we’ve witnessed our share of family disagreements.”

  “But it’s not just the older generations; you’ve had cousins that have gotten married here and…”

  “That’s true but ten years or so of marriage does not equal love everlasting,” he shouted with a hint of derision, “and I am pretty sure that none of them started out their marriage with a list of demands that one of them change their entire life to suit the other. This is a recipe for disaster, Lacey, I’m telling you. Ava has got to call this wedding off!”

  Lacey knew she should be agreeing with everything Ean was saying but for some reason she found herself getting angry with his words. “You cannot tell Ava to call of the wedding, Ean.”

  “Why the hell not? It’s a mistake. She’ll regret it as soon as the honeymoon’s over.”

  “Well then that’s her decision to make. Look, you’ve been gone for a long time and you have no real idea who your sister even is anymore. She’s a dreamer, she’s whimsical and she has her heart set on this wedding and following in the Callahan family tradition. If you push her on this the only thing you are going to accomplish is pushing her away and losing the fraction of a relationship that you have now.”

  Collapsing down on the ottoman beside the fire, Ean’s face was one of defeat. He ran a weary hand over his face before looking up at Lacey standing before him. “What am I supposed to do, Lace?” he asked gruffly. “She’s my sister. I don’t agree with a lot of the things that she does but at the same time I wouldn’t want her to change one bit.”

  “Well, you kind of do,” she said cautiously and took a step back when Ean’s fierce gaze met hers. “You want her to call of the wedding, to not believe in love and fairytales…that’s who your sister is.”

  “So again, what am I supposed to do?”

  Against her better judgment, Lacey sat down beside him, the fire warm at her side. “You talk to her; you express your concerns with love, not anger. You have to listen to her side of the story and not judge her or try to force her to change her mind. Ava does not like to be pushed and if you try, she’s going to go through with this wedding and to hell with the consequences.”

  Turning his head to look at her, Ean was struck with just how amazing this woman was. The fire reflecting off of her hair, the fierce love for her friend showing in her eyes and her sweet gentle voice were almost his undoing. At this moment he’d promise her anything to make sure that she was the one that was happy.

  “I doubt she’d listen to me no matter what I had to say. I haven’t been the best brother since I moved away.”

  Lacey reached over and took one of his hands in hers. “Ava is an independent spirit, Ean. She rarely listens to anyone’s advice. She’s so proud of you and you have been a wonderful example to her that you can be whatever you want to be.” She paused. “I guess that’s one of the things that bothered me most about this situation; the fact that she’s been working so hard to get her degree and pursuing her dream of opening her own bookstore and that one comment from Mason has her ready to give it all up.”

  Looking at their fingers twined together, Ean gave a gentle squeeze. “Thank you for saying that – about how she’s proud of me. I’ve been selfish with my time; cut all of my ties or as many as I could and went on to be what I wanted without thinking of the ones I left behind.” He stared purposefully in to Lacey’s eyes. “It was never my intention to hurt anyone.”

  They were no longer talking about Ava or his family. Lacey knew what he was trying to say and she was uncomfortable with the memory. She tried to tug her hand free but Ean wouldn’t let her.

  “At first I was just anxious to get away, have my independence. Then it was about proving that I could make the grade and be at the top of my class. The jobs came easily and they were time consuming. I viewed those random visits with my family as intrusions into the life I was trying to make for myself but now I realize that they were what was keeping me strong and pushing me to keep going even when I felt overwhelmed.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I don’t think I could’ve made it this far with my business if not for them having my back.”

  Lacey smiled. “They have always been so proud of you. You could’ve worked in the mail room and they still would have been proud of you.”

  They sat in silence for a long moment before Lacey glanced over to their forgotten dinner. “C’mon
, let’s go and finish our meal. I can heat it back up in the microwave and we’ll get to work on this binder of your sister’s and we’ll come up with a realistic plan to get her and Mason to sit down and work through some of their problems before the wedding. I think between the two of us we should be able to multi-task and figure it out.”

  They stood and Ean smiled down at her. “We always were the more level headed ones anyway, right?” Lacey nodded and they walked back over to the kitchen and to their reheated dinner.

  Chapter Four

  “Flannel sheets.”

  “But the book clearly states silk.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s going to be cold, flannel sheets are more practical!”

  “It’s their wedding night, Ean, practical isn’t what they’re looking for!” They had made it through dinner and the clean up and the first ten sections of the binder. The divide and conquer plan had worked out perfectly. Ean was ordering flowers, Lacey was handling the food. Ean was looking into switching out the light bulbs to give the place the soft glow Ava wanted along with making sure the cottage would be well stocked with wood.

  Though she found most of it ridiculous, Lacey agreed to see to the music selections that would be available along with ordering one hundred white pillar candles. With her connections at the design firm, she’d get a great deal on them and have them delivered.

  They agreed to have a cleaning service come in a few days before Christmas and give the whole place a thorough cleaning rather than taking the task on themselves. There was a list of Christmas decorations that were in the attic that they would have to go through at some point as well, but currently they were battling on the pros and cons of the bedding selection.

  “Silk is not the kind of bedding you want when it’s below freezing outside, Lacey. Be realistic!”