by Teri Wilson
I glance up at the stained glass windows, where snowflakes pitter-patter against the colorful glass, casting kaleidoscope shadows on the chapel walls in watercolor shades of blues, pinks and violets. Aidan shifts the box of teddy bears in his arms, and when I glance over at him, I’m struck once again by the startling blue of his eyes, as breathtakingly beautiful as stained glass, hidden deep within the evergreens.
“Aidan, good to see you,” someone says from the back of the chapel, and when I turn around, I can’t help but laugh.
The man who has just entered from the side door off the main chapel—Pastor Mike, I presume—is dressed in an odd combination of Christmas attire. He’s got a clerical collar around the neck of his simple black shirt, but on top of his regular clergy uniform, he’s wearing an oversized felt Santa suit. Plus, there’s a pair of black leather ice skates slung over his shoulder, dangling by the laces. It’s as if he took every item of clothing in a Victorian Christmas village and piled them all on at once. I do a double take and then let out a giggle. I can’t quite help it.
“I know,” he says, gesturing toward his outfit. “It’s a lot of look, isn’t it?”
“That it is, my friend,” Aidan says.
He deposits his box of bears onto a nearby pew and shakes Pastor Mike’s hand in greeting, but Mike pulls him into a man-hug that Aidan doesn’t seem quite prepared for. Still, there’s clearly a warmth between them. I’m happy that Aidan has friends and people in his life who care about him, but it’s also strange to think about everything he’s experienced since I left. Especially now that the feelings swirling between us are starting to feel all too familiar.
“Mike, this is Ashley.” Aidan takes the box from my arms and piles it on top of his while Pastor Mike and I exchange pleasantries.
“Ah, Ashley.” Mike’s gaze flits between Aidan and me, and the corner of his mouth twitches into a half grin. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
This comment pleases me far more than it should. Doubly so when I glance at Aidan and notice that the tips of his ears are almost as red as Pastor Mike’s Santa suit.
“What’s with the skates?” Aidan asks, arching a brow as he takes in the entirety of Mike’s outfit. “Not to mention the rest of it. I’ve never seen you in a felt beard before.”
“It suits me, don’t you think?” Mike says, stroking a hand down the ridiculous oval of felt strapped to his chin with clearly visible elastic. It’s the worst fake beard I’ve ever set eyes on. By far.
“Absolutely,” Aidan deadpans. “You should wear it to your next Sunday sermon.”
“I will, so long as you wear yours the next time you save a kitten in a tree.” Pastor Mike waggles his eyebrows. A challenge.
Aidan’s eyes narrow. “Mine?”
“Yes, yours. You and Ashley are here just in time for North Pole’s first annual Santa Skate. I’ve got a pair of Santa suits set aside for you two, if you’re up for it,” Mike says.
I glance at Aidan, but he seems just as clueless as I am.
He cocks his head. “Dare I ask what a Santa Skate is, exactly?”
“One frozen pond and dozens of townspeople dressed as Santa, all skating in circles to Christmas music under a perfect, starlit sky for a few magical hours.” Mike shrugs. “Sounds like fun, right?”
He had me at magical.
“Yes!” I blurt without waiting for input from Aidan. “We’re in.”
Aidan glances over at me. “We are?”
“Totally.” I grin up at him, despite the nervous flutter in my belly.
There are only four charmed wishes left on my bracelet that haven’t come true yet, and one of them is an ice skate. If I’m trying to slow things down and make my magical Christmas last as long as I possibly can, I should be running for the hills.
But so far, most of what Aidan and I have done together has been Aidan’s doing. He’s the one who invited me to classic movie night, albeit with a little prompting from Josh. The whole reason we’re here in North Pole right now is because Aidan called and asked me to come with him. He’s also the one who brought up our past and opened the door for us to finally talk about our breakup, whereas I’m the one who keeps running away every time things get serious.
I want to finally show Aidan how much I love spending time with him, even though that time is running out faster than I can stand. Besides, I’ve pretty much turned into a professional snowman architect and the snowman charm has still refused to chime. I’m beginning to think the bracelet has plans of its own. Maybe we can put on Santa suits, take a spin around the North Pole pond and nothing will happen at all. It’s possible, right?
“Let’s do it.” I nod. I haven’t been on skates in years, but how hard can it be? It’s probably just like riding a bicycle.
Deep down inside, a nagging voice interrupts my shining optimism. You were never that great at cycling either, remember?
I ignore the warning, because the thought of seeing Aidan on skates, donning a felt beard like the one Pastor Mike is currently wearing, is too good to resist.
“All right, then,” Aidan says, and the way his face lights up makes me forget all about the conversation we had in the car just moments ago.
My days in Owl Lake might be numbered, but I’m determined to live every one of them to the fullest.
Chapter Sixteen
My Santa suit is at least three sizes too big, but by some Christmas miracle, the rental stand at the North Pole skating pond has one last pair of white skates in my size. I do my best not to notice that they look exactly like the silver skate charm dangling from the bracelet on my wrist, but there’s no mistaking the ache in the back of my throat. The resemblance is unmistakable.
It doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself. All skates look alike.
Except Aidan’s skates don’t resemble mine in the slightest. When he meets me at our designated picnic table at the edge of the pond, the pair of skates in his hands are made of black leather instead of white, and the blades are long and sleek, like runners on a sleigh.
“All they had left in my size was hockey skates,” he says as he drops down beside me on the worn wooden bench.
Fruitcake greets Aidan as if a year has passed since he’s last seen him, even though it’s been all of five minutes. Everyone at the skating pond is dressed in matching Santa suits, but there’s no fooling Fruitcake. He knows Aidan immediately.
“Hey, boy.” Aidan grins and ruffles the scruff of golden fur on the dog’s chest. Watching the two of them together never fails to tug on my heartstrings.
“Can you make it around the ice in those things?” I narrow my gaze at Aidan’s skates. “They look dangerous.”
Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all. The sight of countless Santas gliding in slow-moving circles around the ice is undeniably charming. An old Johnny Mathis song drifts from the loudspeakers with dreamy lyrics that promise a marshmallow world in the winter—a whipped-cream day—and the commingled scents of hot cocoa and fresh snow hang heavy and delicious in the air. But now that I’m up close and personal to a real pair of skates, I’m beginning to doubt my ability to complete a lap around the pond in an upright position. I’m certain I can’t skate and sip hot chocolate at the same time.
“No problem. I played in a peewee hockey league when I was little.” Aidan shoots me a wink as he gets his skates on faster than I can make sense of the laces on my own pair.
I can’t believe I didn’t know Aidan played hockey as a little boy, but it makes perfect sense. Hockey is huge here in upstate New York. And I have to admit that I kind of love that we’re still discovering things about each other, even after all this time. Aidan never fails to surprise me, and the charm bracelet has made me realize that not all surprises are bad. In fact, I’m beginning to like them. A lot.
“Here, let me help you get laced up.” Aidan kneels in the fresh snow and reaches for
my foot.
His hand around my ankle is warm and sure. A shiver flutters through me that has nothing to do with snowy weather. I bury one of my hands in Fruitcake’s soft fur, hoping to steady my galloping heartbeat. My dog rests his chin on my lap, and I feel like three of us could be a cozy scene on a glittery Christmas card.
The fluffy ball dangling from Aidan’s Santa hat falls in front of his eyes, and he bats it away. I laugh, and he pulls a face. Then our eyes meet, and my stomach does a little tumble. How does he manage to make a tacky Santa suit look so good?
“You look cute in that silly thing,” he says, mouth curving into a teasing grin as he nods at my own Santa outfit.
“It’s swallowing me whole,” I counter. Seriously, how am I supposed to skate like this? “I’m going to end up tripping over it and sliding all over that ice like Bambi. It’s not going to be pretty.”
Aidan laughs, and the low, masculine sound of it seems to tickle the insides of my ribs.
I bite my bottom lip. “Whose idea was this, anyway?”
Mine. I know it was. It sounded so whimsical and romantic at the time—like a whipped-cream evening, as Johnny Mathis might say. I should probably stop getting enchanted by the idea of a perfect holiday date and concentrate on living in the real world. The last time I thought I was going to have the ultimate Christmas date, I ended up breaking up with my boyfriend of three years. I’m still haunted by the thought of mozzarella cheese.
But the breakup was truly for the best, and my time in Owl Lake has felt far more like a dream than actual reality, thanks to the bracelet.
“This was your idea, darling,” Aidan says, and the endearment make me feel warm all over. I’m practically baking inside my Santa suit. “And it was a good one. Don’t you know by now that I’d never let you fall?”
Well, then.
Perhaps this experience won’t be such a disaster, after all. My gaze swivels toward the pond, and there are skating Santas as far as my eyes can see. This is madness—sweet, hilarious madness. Pastor Mike was right. The Santa Skate is pure Christmas magic.
The clergyman wizzes past us with outstretched airplane arms and a look of mild terror on his face. Aidan calls out to him, and he waves wildly at us until his balance starts to falter. He lurches forward a few steps, then seems to regain his footing. I am so not ready for this.
Aidan ties my laces into triple-knots, then stands and pulls me to my feet. I let out a squeal.
“Ready?” He waggles his eyebrows. Fruitcake woofs as if he thinks watching us out on the frozen pond is going to be every bit as entertaining as the Ice Capades.
I push my Santa hat further back on my head and nod. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Aidan wraps his big hand around mine, and we head toward the pond. I’m a little wobbly on my skates, and we haven’t even hit the ice yet. But then I step tentatively onto the frozen surface of the pond and within seconds, we’re gliding, hand-in-hand.
It feels like we’re floating. Our skates slide against the ice in perfect unison, and it’s like Aidan and I are dancing, only better. It’s so serene, and everyone around us is smiling and laughing—a merry, moving blur of holiday cheer. This is even better than I pictured it. A whipped-cream date, indeed.
We’re surrounded by Santas. There are Santa couples, skating hand-in-hand like Aidan and me, tiny tot Santas and entire families, linked arm-in-arm. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I wonder briefly why the skating rink at Rockefeller Center hasn’t hosted something like this, but I dismiss the thought as quickly as it comes. The Santa Skate belongs in North Pole. It’s the perfect place for this.
I take a deep breath as we head into the first turn, and cold air prickles my lungs, like I’ve just taken a big bite out of a snow cone. My ankles wobble like crazy, but Aidan grips my hand tighter and we make it safely around. In the center of the pond, one of the Santas leaps into the air and then lands on the ice with one foot, executing a graceful pirouette. The crowd erupts into a huge cheer.
Aidan gives my hand a squeeze and when I glance over at him, the wind against my face makes my eyes water. At least that’s what I choose to believe, because if I’m so happy that I’m crying, I won’t be able to leave this marshmallow world when Christmas is over, no matter what kind of promises I’ve made or how many times I’ve reminded everyone that I don’t really live in Owl Lake anymore.
Aidan blinks against the wind. His eyes look just as shiny and wet as mine feel as he lifts my hand to his lips and presses a gentle kiss to my mitten. His earlier promise spins round and round in my head, like a skater twirling on ice.
Don’t you know by now that I’d never let you fall?
It’s too late, though. I’m already falling…I’ve been falling for Aidan Flynn all over again since the moment I saw him outside of the toy store back in the city.
I blink hard, then the blade on my right skate hits a groove in the ice. The lovely, floating feeling in my chest winds itself into a tight ball of panic. My feet seem to slide in completely opposite directions.
I’m going down. I just know it.
I let go of Aidan’s hand and windmill my arms, trying to regain control, but it feels like the pond is turning sideways. Somewhere above the Christmas carols and the scrape of skates against the ice, I hear Fruitcake barking in alarm. I look toward the picnic tables where he’s waiting for us, as loyal and obedient as ever. It’s okay, I try to tell him with my eyes. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.
But then my feet slide out from under me and I go airborne.
It all happens too fast for me to scream. All I can do is close my eyes and wait to slam into the ice. But the moment of impact never comes. Instead, I feel a pair of warm, solid arms catch me on my way down.
I gasp, and when my eyes flutter open, I’m clutching the front of Aidan’s Santa suit for dear life as he cradles me against his chest. He’s still gliding along with the rest of the Santas, carrying me in his arms and smiling down at me.
“I told you I’d catch you,” he says.
I’m sparkling inside. “You sure did.”
Jingle, jingle.
A tiny piece of my heart breaks at the special ring of another charm come to life, but it’s hard to be sad, even though it means there are only three charms left. I’m scared to fall. I’ve done it before, and it ended in disaster. But there’s a candy-cane breeze in my hair, my cheek is nestled against Aidan’s shoulder and we’re surrounded by Christmas magic on ice.
Maybe it’s okay to let myself go, just this once.
Later that night, I sit on my bed and pull out the bag of broken jewelry that Susan gave me from Enchanted Jewels. I can’t sleep. Dozens of Santas are skating through my head, and I can’t stop thinking about Aidan gathering me into his arms so I wouldn’t fall on my face. I have to find a way to occupy my restless mind and emotions, so I do what I always do whenever I’m troubled—lose myself in a collection of abandoned treasures. Running a polishing cloth over the neglected pieces is soothing. Rubbing away the tarnish feels like ridding the vintage treasures of the ravages of time.
Hours into the chore, I find a pocket watch near the bottom of the bag. It’s sterling silver, with swirls etched onto the back of its clock face and a serpentine chain. I turn it over in my hands, examining it. It’s missing its cover—a casualty of years gone by—but when I wind it up, it clicks a steady beat, ticking out the minutes one by one. My heart does a little leap. I can’t believe it still works.
I shine it until it’s perfect, my hands moving swiftly over the silver. Times passes in a pleasant, hazy blur as I gently remove layer upon layer of neglect, and when I glance at my phone and see how late it is, my fingertips go still. I sit back to rest against the pillows and take inventory of all the work I’ve done. It’s a lot, but as usual when I’m tinkering with my vintage jewelry finds, it didn’t feel like work.
Time never passes this quickly when you’re at Windsor.
I start to pick everything up, wrapping the newly shined pieces carefully in a terrycloth bath towel instead of tossing them back into the bag. When I get to the pocket watch, I pause, wondering what I might have on hand that I could fashion into a substitute cover. If I can find something just right, it might make a nice Christmas present for Aidan.
I’m not sure what I could use, though. And Christmas Eve is the day after tomorrow, so making the watch into something special for Aidan by that time seems unlikely. But as I climb beneath the covers, I vow to give it some thought.
My time would probably better be spent working on parade logistics, but hours spent creating never feel wasted. I wonder why that is?
Maybe because my mom is right, and deep down, I do wish I was doing something other than working in the charms department. I always meant to start an Etsy shop for my designs, like I’d mentioned to Betty on the train. Somehow that never happened, though. There just didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day, while working a full-time job and spending time with Jeremy.
Betty hadn’t seemed all that impressed with the Etsy idea, though. She told me to dream bigger, which seemed ridiculous at the time. I do dream big, don’t I? Isn’t dreaming big what got me to Manhattan and to Paris…almost? What dreams could be bigger or better than that?
I thought that was how I felt, but the longer I’m home, the more content I become and the more I question whether my dreams have been pointing me in the right direction or not. It’s been days since I’ve wondered what I might be missing in the city or what fabulous thing Jeremy is probably doing in France.
I cradle the pocket watch in my hands. It fits perfectly in the center of my palm, and the sensation is almost familiar. Then I pull open the drawer of my nightstand and spot a glimpse of something almost the same size and shape as the pocket watch among my childhood trinkets. And I understand right away—I know just what to do with Aidan’s gift. A warm glow blossoms deep inside of me, along with a most inconvenient truth.