A Family-Style Christmas and Yuletide Homecoming

by Carolyne Aarsen

  “I think you have in the past. I think it can happen again.”

  Sarah glanced away and Logan knew he’d scored a direct hit. He felt a moment’s regret but couldn’t allow himself to give in to that. He had come here with one purpose in mind. Right now, his focus had to be his little brother and his chance to get out of this narrow-minded and petty community. A chance he’d never had.

  Unlike Sarah.

  Yet, as he looked down at her bent head, a resurrection of old attractions, old feelings rushed through him. Feelings of protectiveness, of yearning for the moments of peace he had felt when he was with her. The gentle balm of her giving and caring nature that stilled the anger that could still consume him.

  She was the first person who had shown him how faith worked. It didn’t matter to her that her sister was more popular, more vivacious and, generally, more fun. It didn’t even matter to Sarah that her sister had more boyfriends.

  Sarah loved her sister unconditionally.

  She had told Logan while they were dating that it didn’t matter to her what Marilee had, she had him. Sarah’s simple statement had given him more confidence, more hope, more joy than anything he’d heard since.

  He closed his eyes a moment, shutting out those memories. The girl in front of him wasn’t that girl anymore. The girl in front of him hadn’t even had the guts to break up with him in person or to explain why.

  Though they had only dated for eight months, and in secret at that, she was the first girl he had ever truly cared for.

  And then she had left.

  She looked him straight in the eye now, her own eyes snapping with a surprising anger. “I don’t think you’ll have much luck with Uncle Morris in getting rid of me, Carleton.”

  Her use of his last name set off something in him. It was as if she was deliberately underlining the differences between them, bringing up her family connections to show him where he stood in the Riverbend hierarchy.

  “Of course not.” He laughed, but it was without humor. “I forgot about how this family sticks together.” He pointed to a scar on his forehead. “I believe it was your cousin Ethan who did this to me when I told him that his uncle should have stuck by my dad and believed him when he was falsely accused.”

  He held back the rest of his sentence, bitterness roiling in his gut.

  “And that uncle would be my father,” she said quietly.

  And he could tell from the cool tone of her voice that he had not only stepped over her sacred line, he had obliterated it. Sarah’s loyalty to her father was legendary. He should know. She had chosen her father over him.

  But he didn’t take back anything he said. He meant it then and he meant it now. For seven years, Logan’s father, Jack, had supplied Westerveld Construction with the gravel they needed. When Logan’s father was accused of murder, Frank canceled the contract. In the past few weeks Logan had discovered that Frank had his own secrets, and, possibly, his own misbegotten reasons for taking away the contract his father had depended on for his livelihood.

  This was the man Sarah had always acquiesced to. Always defended.

  Sarah held his gaze, her eyes slightly narrowed as if she was trying to see him differently than with the wide-eyed innocence she’d once had.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said quietly. “I can coach this team as well as anyone else you might suggest. Better maybe.”

  Her icy tone was something he would never have imagined from her before. That he had caused it created a flicker of regret.

  Stay on task, he reminded himself.

  “I guess we’ll see,” he said. Then, without another glance her way, he turned on his booted heel and left.

  * * *

  “I wish I knew what my father was trying to say,” Sarah said as her uncle Morris pushed the button for the hospital elevator. “It’s so hard to watch him struggling to talk.”

  This was the first time Sarah had come to see her father with one of her uncles. Her previous visits had all been solo. She had hoped that what he wanted to say to her would manage to come out despite his unresponsive lips. But each visit he labored to get out even the most basic of sounds.

  When Uncle Morris had found out that her car was in the garage and she couldn’t make the trip to the city, he had offered her a ride.

  Morris stood back, his hands clasped in front of him as he watched the numbers above the elevator flash. “I can imagine, Sarah, but you have to believe that your visits are making a big difference for your father. The doctors and nurses all say he is much happier after you come.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Morris. That makes me feel a bit better.”

  She wished she could be sincere about what she said, but the reality was her visits always felt forced. Fake. She and her father had never had a close relationship. They had never laughed or traded jokes and stories. Marilee was the one who could make him smile even in spite of her antics. Marilee could cuddle up to him when he was busy working and tease away his faint frown of displeasure at being distracted from whatever he was doing.

  She knew basketball bored him. Aunt Dot and Aunt Tilly kept him abreast of the happenings in and around the town. So most of her visits with him were spent reading out loud to him from an old Reader’s Digest or any book she found lying around.

  “He missed you when you were gone, you know.”

  Had Sarah imagined the faint reprimand in Morris’s comment?

  “Funny, I didn’t pick up on that in the lack of letters he sent me,” Sarah said, glancing sidelong at her uncle.

  Morris laid his hand on her shoulder. “I think he feels guilty.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sarah, the whole family knows that Marilee was your father’s favorite and that you were your mother’s. We all thought Frank would change after your mother died, and he did, but not for the better. And showing such obvious preference for Marilee? He should never have treated Marilee the way he did. He didn’t do that girl any favors.”

  Sarah tried to shrug away the well-meant sentiment. Truth was, it was embarrassing to discover that Frank’s favoritism was so blatant that the entire family had seen it. Had the community, as well? Wouldn’t that make her look like the loser of the decade.

  The elevator doors opened and Sarah hoped this was the end of the discussion.

  “Then, a few years after you left, your father changed,” Morris continued as they exited the elevator. “I don’t know what happened, but he grew softer. He talked about what you were doing. We were all glad he was finally showing interest in you. He missed you.”

  “He had a funny way of showing it. In all the time I was gone, he never sent me a personal note.”

  “But he said he wrote you every month.” Morris frowned.

  “He wrote a check every month, Uncle Morris. Nothing else was ever in the envelope.”

  “You know your father is not a chatty man. He doesn’t know how to display affection.”

  “Maybe not, but would it have been so hard to even put one small note in the envelope? Just once?” Sarah felt frustrated that the old pain returned so easily.

  The first few months she got her checks, she had eagerly ripped open the envelopes, hoping for some personal note. But every month the only paper was the money. Her second year of school, she ripped up his monthly checks, determined to make her own way.

  But her father kept sending them. She had gotten used to it, but each month the lack of a letter stung.

  And now her uncle was saying that her father missed her? Was that what his succinct note was about?

  The elevator doors opened and they walked to her father’s room.

  They caught the doctor making his rounds, and while Sarah spoke to him, her uncle wheeled Frank down the hall to the visitor’s section at the end of the hallway.

 
When Sarah joined them a few minutes later, Uncle Morris was relating a play-by-play of the basketball game.

  “You should have seen those boys, Frank,” Morris said, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Sarah is really whipping the team into shape.”

  Frank glanced from his brother to his daughter. Her own frustration had left, as it always did when she actually saw her father. Anger was always easier in

  the abstract. When she saw Frank sitting hunched in

  his wheelchair, his body a mockery of his former strength, his face loose and slack jawed, sympathy easily erased any negative emotion she could have felt.

  She thought of what Uncle Morris had said. Clung to it, in fact. She knew her father wasn’t demonstrative. Even Marilee, his favorite, had complained about it.

  Maybe Uncle Morris was right. Maybe her father did miss her. Maybe he simply didn’t know how to show it.

  She gave her father the benefit of the doubt and a careful smile.

  Had Sarah imagined his eyes lighting up? Did the lift of one side of his mouth represent a smile? Then he raised his hand a fraction and moved it toward Sarah.

  The joy she felt at that simple movement was almost out of proportion to the action.

  She took his hand and held it in her own. He nodded and Sarah felt, for the first time, that her visit was worthwhile.

  “I...I...for...” He struggled to formulate the words and Sarah leaned forward, almost willing the sounds past his immobile lips. Then his fingers tightened on hers.

  Sarah squeezed back. “It’s okay, Dad. It will come. The doctor is really pleased with your progress.” And so was she. This was the most personal response she had gotten from him since his stroke. “Once you’re transferred to Riverbend, I can visit you more often.”

  Frank nodded, his eyes on Sarah.

  All the tension of the past six years seemed to loosen. Would she and her father get a second chance at some kind of relationship? The thought settled, and for the first time since she had run away from Riverbend, tears in her eyes, angry and hurt with her father, missing her beloved Logan, she felt as if maybe something good was going to come for them.

  Morris and Sarah talked for a while, and for the rest of their visit, Frank kept his hand in Sarah’s, his eyes on hers.

  When she hugged him goodbye, he gave her the semblance of a smile.

  The nurses were stringing tinsel along the nurses’ station as Morris and Sarah left. Christmas was creeping up on them, Sarah realized. She hadn’t been paying attention to the season.

  One nurse called out a greeting and Sarah waved back, her heart lighter than when she had arrived at the hospital.

  “Your dad seemed interested in your basketball team,” Morris said as he held the door of the ward open for Sarah.

  “I’m surprised. But the team is doing well. I just wish Billy would get his head in the game. It’s almost like he’s blowing this big chance.”

  “Billy has other fish to fry, I’m afraid.” Morris sighed. “Billy’s marks haven’t been stellar.”

  Sarah rubbed her temple with her forefinger. “So you’re saying his place on the team might be in jeopardy?”

  “Emphasis on might. He still has time. I don’t want Billy to be cut, but he needs to focus...” Morris let the sentence trail off as the elevator arrived.

  Sarah stepped inside, and stood beside an intern frowning at his clipboard. “I need that boy on the team.”

  “I’m surprised you stick up for him. Logan has been pushing me to get you replaced.”

  The elevator stopped and the intern got out and they were alone again. “Doesn’t matter. I can’t let Billy go.” She couldn’t help remembering the blaze of conviction in Logan’s eyes when he had spoken of his desire to get Billy out of Riverbend.

  “Well, we’re not sure how to proceed.”

  The elevator felt suddenly claustrophobic as Sarah sifted through her options. She had to find a way to make Billy realize what he was giving up by his thoughtless rebelliousness.

  “I could talk to him,” Sarah said.

  “That would help.”

  Sarah wasn’t sure it would. Billy seemed to have his own secrets. But she didn’t want him to miss out on a good opportunity because he was distracted by them.

  She thought of Logan and his campaign to get rid of her. She wished he would realize they were on the same side in this matter.

  Chapter Five

  “Block out. Block out,” Sarah called, and bodies realigned themselves on the basketball court, shoes squeaking out a protest on the wooden floor at the sudden shifts and spins as the team members maneuvered to get into position.

  The final game of the tournament was only five minutes away from being won by a team with less experience, shorter players, and, even more important, a male coach.

  Sarah knew she should be watching the boys as they fought back. But, as if of their own will, her eyes veered right and found him.

  Logan sat leaning forward, his clasped hands pressed against a stubbled chin. He must have come straight to the game after work.

  Then, as if he sensed her scrutiny, he stared directly at her. The animosity in his eyes was a direct reflection of his brother Billy’s.

  She jerked her glance away in time to see a shot from the opposing team bounce off the rim. Billy Carleton hooked the ball out of the air and charged down the court.

  She had to block out the noise of the home-team spectators, stop thinking of the aunts and uncles and cousins who were probably in attendance tonight, stop thinking of Logan hovering on the sidelines.

  “Pop Tart! Pop Tart!” she called out, reminding Billy of the play they had gone over again and again. Now was the time for his hook shot.

  Then, inexplicably, he stopped, dribbling, his eyes grazing over the court. Was he daydreaming?

  “Cut your head in,” Sarah shouted out her frustration.

  But in the split second Billy had taken to judge the play, an opponent had stripped the ball from him and run down the court to score on the Voyageurs’ sleeping defense.

  When Billy mouthed an obscenity, Sarah signaled the referee for a time-out.

  Sarah shut out the jeers of the visiting spectators, ignored the groans and complaints of the home-team boosters, blocked Logan’s frustrated glare and directed her complete focus on the very upset high school boys gathered around her.

  Sarah wasn’t short, but most of these boys topped her height by almost a head. “We practice plays for a reason,” she said, quietly but intently, looking around the circle. “We had these boys at the beginning of the game and then we lost momentum.” She tried to think of all the things her own coach would tell them when her team was down, which words would make the connection, make the difference. She wished she could tell the team that she had more to prove tonight than they did.

  Not only were her friends and relatives in the stands, watching the girl who they still thought of as Little Sarah, but Logan Carleton also watched her every move. Even now, with minipanic swirling in her mind, she sensed his eyes on her, felt his displeasure.

  “You’ve given up already. You need to practice winning. Don, you’ve got to hustle.” She hesitated and then plowed on. “Billy, don’t pull back on your team. Be a leader.”

  Billy’s gaze rested on her for a split second, then flicked away. Sarah felt the hostile force of his glare and tried to brush it off.

  The shrill blast of the whistle indicated the end of the time-out.

  “You guys can beat this team. They’re getting cocky and lazy. Watch their center. They’re depending on him way too much.”

  She stepped away as the boys nodded and jogged off to take up their positions on the court.

  Five minutes later the buzzer sounded.

  The Voyageurs had lost.<
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  * * *

  “Too bad about the game,” Uncle Morris called out as he left the gym.

  Sarah gave her uncle a quick nod as she picked up the game stats. She had just returned from talking with the boys, feeling some of her momentum lost from having to wait until they finished in the locker room.

  She had hoped the gym would be empty by the time she came back to the bench to gather her things. A few parents stood in a huddle at one end of the gym, discussing intently, Sarah was sure, her lack as a coach.

  Don’t be paranoid, she warned herself, shuffling the papers she would be poring over. It was your first major game. You can’t blame yourself.

  As she slipped the papers and the videotape of the game into her gym bag, she sensed a presence beside her.

  “Close game.” Logan’s voice was a low rumble.

  Even after all these years, even after a couple of meetings, the sound of his voice could still affect her. She clenched her fists to delete the older memories, then turned to face him. Logan stood with his hands in the pockets of a grease-stained down-filled jacket. He still wore heavy work boots and from his clothes Sarah caught the familiar scent of diesel and dirt, underlining her initial impression that he had just come straight here from his work.

  His eyes could still mesmerize her.

  If she let them.

  “It would have been a ‘won’ game if the so-called star captain would suck up his petty squabble with his female coach.”

  “Young men don’t take directions from women very easily.” Logan’s dark eyes challenged her as strongly as his words.

  His anger roused her own. He had no right to hover over her, criticizing what she was doing when his own brother was part of the problem.

  “So if I were to tell you to take a hike, you’d just stand where you are,” she snapped, irritation and weariness making her forget her manners.

  “Well, now, it seems that Kitten has claws.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she said with more anger than she intended. Kitten was Uncle Morris and Aunt Dot’s pet name for her. One day, while she was walking down the school hallway, he’d called her that. Logan had been right behind.