The White Christmas Inn

by Colleen Wright

  He tried to turn his screen around so she could see, but all it did was show her a smear of lights.

  “Are you stuck there all night?” she asked. “They’re not going to give you a room?”

  “No, nah,” Jared said. “They’re still talking about getting us rooms. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “I think it’s the least they could do,” Audrey said.

  “Well, they don’t control the weather, baby,” Jared said. Then he grinned. “Yet.”

  Audrey smiled.

  “That’s what I like to see,” Jared said, grinning back. He glanced over his shoulder at the concourse behind him. “Besides, if I do wind up sleeping on the floor here, it won’t be the worst place I’ve ever had to sleep.”

  “Maybe not,” Audrey said. “But usually if you don’t get to sleep in your own bed, it’s for a matter of national security.”

  Jared shook his head. “You’re willing to put up with that, huh?” he said. “Just not flight delays?”

  Audrey grinned back. “I’m never willing to put up with it,” she said. “I just do.”

  “Tell me something good,” Jared said. “Tell me about the wedding. How’s it going?” His tone turned gossipy as his eyes lit up with a mischievous grin. “What are Trevor’s parents like? I could never guess what kind of people turned out a guy like him.”

  A few days ago, Audrey might have stuck up for Trevor against this dig. But now her face darkened.

  “Trevor’s not coming,” she said.

  “Ah, man,” Jared said. “He got caught in the storm, too?”

  Audrey shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “He could have made it. But he never left. He just called the whole thing off.”

  It took Jared a minute to process this. Then it was his turn to shake his head. “Wait,” he said. “It sounded like you said the wedding is off.”

  “That’s right,” Audrey said. “Trevor’s a no-show.”

  Audrey rarely got a glimpse of Jared the warrior. Around her, he was never anything but gentle, always trying to make sure she was happy and to make the best of their time together.

  But suddenly, he got a look on his face that she suspected was the one the enemy saw when they met him in battle.

  “Well, that little . . .” he said.

  He didn’t continue, at a loss for words.

  A moment later, he’d mastered the emotion, his face full of nothing but concern. “How is Hannah?” he asked. “How’s she coping? You know, I never liked that punk. Not from the first time I met him. And it didn’t get better after that, let me tell you.”

  Audrey suppressed a smile. “You didn’t exactly make a secret of that,” she said.

  “I didn’t?” Jared said with mock surprise. “What gave it away? Do you remember when he showed up at Jen’s wedding and wouldn’t eat anything they brought him? He was on some kind of cleanse.”

  Audrey giggled.

  “They brought him a chicken breast,” Jared went on, “and he was like, ‘Can you take this back and get the skin off it?’ I was like, ‘Dude! Give me your plate. I will take the skin off it myself.’ I never understood what Hannah saw in that guy.”

  “That isn’t really the problem with Trevor,” Audrey said.

  “It’s not the biggest one,” Jared agreed. “The biggest problem with Trevor is—”

  “The biggest problem with Trevor,” Audrey said, “is that he doesn’t think anyone else has any problems except for him.”

  “Yeah,” Jared said, raising his eyebrows as he thought this over. “That could be it.”

  “They went through a lot together,” Audrey said. “She was always taking care of him. If she hadn’t always had to do that, I wonder if things might have been different. But it’s hard to leave someone when they need you so much.”

  “I guess so,” Jared said, sounding skeptical.

  “And Trevor was there when her mom was sick,” Audrey added. “He came to the hospital with her every day. And nobody’s perfect,” she said, raising her eyebrows meaningfully at Jared.

  “Ha!” he said. “Now that I’m off the market, you mean, right?”

  “Of course, baby,” Audrey said. “That’s exactly what I meant.”

  As Jared’s smile at their jokes faded, he began to shake his head, his expression sober again. “Poor Hannah,” he said. “I hope she finds herself a better man one day, but still, this has got to hurt.”

  “It does,” Audrey said.

  “And at Christmas,” Jared said. “What a jerk, to let it get this far if he wasn’t serious. He couldn’t even tell her the day before? He let all of you get all the way up to Vermont before he even mentioned anything?”

  Audrey nodded. “Yep,” she said. “And maybe if—” She couldn’t get the thought she wanted to say out, because her voice choked and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Honey,” Jared said. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

  Audrey shook her head, trying to fight the tears back down. But they weren’t going, and Jared looked more concerned with every second that passed. “It’s nothing,” she said. “It’s just that, if he’d told us earlier, I would have stayed in Boston. And maybe I could have gotten a flight to Orlando and—”

  She trailed off again, but Jared, as he so often did, had already caught her meaning.

  “Maybe we could have spent Christmas together?” he asked.

  Audrey nodded, smearing away the tears that were running down her face. She did her best not to dissolve when she was talking with Jared. He already knew how much she loved and missed him. And his life as a soldier was tough enough without him having to deal with her outbursts.

  “You know what?” she said. “I could still try. This storm has to break sometime. I could leave first thing tomorrow morning, and—”

  “Look, sweetheart,” Jared said. “Even if you’d been there, we’d never have found out about the storm in time to get you a ticket out. Especially not with everyone on the entire East Coast trying to rebook at the same time.”

  “I guess,” Audrey said. “But maybe I could have gotten in the car and—”

  “Baby!” Jared said. “Have you taken a look outside? They’ve got eight inches on the ground already, even in Boston. It’s supposed to be two feet by morning. I’m not sure one of our tanks could make it through at this point.”

  “I just wish you were here,” Audrey said.

  “Me too, baby,” Jared said. “Me too. But you know what?”

  Audrey shook her head. “What?”

  “That’s a good problem,” Jared said. “That we want to be together.”

  Audrey looked at him, skeptical.

  “When we’ve got a real problem,” Jared said, “is if we don’t care whether we’re together or not.”

  “Maybe,” Audrey said, starting to smile.

  “I’ll take this problem over that one, any day,” Jared said.

  He glanced back over his shoulder, as something indistinguishable squawked over the public address system in Orlando.

  “That’s lodging for the night,” he said. “They’re paging my group about lodging.”

  “Go, go,” Audrey said. “Get yourself a room at the inn.”

  “It is Christmas,” Jared said with a grin. Then he kissed his fingers and pressed them to the screen. “We’ll be together soon, baby, I promise. I’m going to do everything I can to get there. And just knowing you love me, that’s all I need for Christmas. That’s enough for me.”

  “I love you,” Audrey said.

  “I love you, too, baby,” Jared said. Then the connection beeped and cut out as he shut down the application from his side.

  For a long moment, Audrey stared at the screen, sending up a prayer that he’d find a place to lay his head that night.

  Then she shut her computer and stood up.

  She thought she had heard Hannah come into the room next door while she and Jared were talking.

  If she had to be stuck here instead of with Jared, at least
she had a mission. And her mission was to take care of Hannah.

  She’d better go check on her.

  “HELLO, DEAR,” IRIS SAID when Molly padded down the stairs, into the lobby of the inn. “Marcus is right in there.”

  She nodded at the lounge with a merry smile, as Molly wondered just what made Iris so sure she was in search of Marcus.

  Then again, Molly realized, Iris wasn’t wrong. Molly had come down there looking for him.

  “Oh,” she said, smiling back. “Thanks.”

  In the cozy lounge, Marcus scrambled to his feet when Molly finally came padding down the front stairs. The warmth of the dancing fire behind him grew more and more inviting the closer she got to it.

  “Is everything okay?” Marcus asked. “You need me to take over?”

  Molly shook her head, sinking down in the large stuffed leather sofa opposite the one Marcus had been sitting on.

  “They are both dreaming peacefully,” she said. “At least, as far as I can tell.”

  Marcus sighed with relief. “You’re some kind of miracle worker,” he said. “Half the time, it takes me at least twice this long to get them down.”

  As Molly laid her head back on the cushions, she felt something incredibly soft beside her cheek. “Oh my goodness,” she said, reaching up for it. “What in the world is this?”

  “It looks like fur,” Marcus said as she pulled it onto her lap: a thick white fluff, backed with substantial red satin. She ran her hands over it, dazzled by the incredible pleasure of the softness.

  “It’s probably left over from the days when Iris was queen of the north,” Molly said.

  “You can make a story out of anything, can’t you?” Marcus said, his eyes crinkling in a smile.

  Apparently not anything, Molly thought to herself, thinking of the blank pages still waiting on her desk, now between the sleeping girls.

  But there was something she liked about the friendliness in his eyes. And it was good to be reminded that other people saw her as a storyteller. Maybe it would help her start to see herself that way again.

  “The world is full of stories,” she said.

  “Ah,” Marcus said. “But not everybody sees them.”

  As he said this, he crossed behind the couch to a little table set with a silver thermos and a plate of cookies.

  “Are you much of a reader?” Molly asked as Marcus poured a stream of hot chocolate into a beautiful blue mug.

  Marcus glanced over his shoulder. “You mean of anything longer than children’s books?” he asked with a self-deprecating look.

  “Children’s books count as books!” Molly exclaimed.

  “That’s right, that’s right,” Marcus said. “I forgot my audience. Here,” he said, setting down a steaming mug and a plate with a few brownies on it in front of Molly.

  “They’re delicious,” he added, taking up a seat on the couch across from her. “I was tempted to eat them all before you got here, but I managed to restrain myself.”

  Molly looked down at his offerings.

  “Do you like brownies?” he asked. “And hot chocolate?”

  Molly shook her head, picking up the mug to give it a taste. “I don’t like hot chocolate at all,” she joked. “And I especially don’t like brownies,” she added, popping one in her mouth.

  Marcus laughed. “Well, besides children’s books and blueprints,” he said, picking up the thread of their earlier conversation, “I can’t claim to do much reading.”

  “Blueprints?” Molly asked. “Are you in construction?”

  “Maybe I should be,” Marcus said. “That seems to be where the money is. But no, I’m an architect.”

  Molly’s eyes widened. “So also an artist,” she said.

  “I think I used to tell myself that,” Marcus said with a wry smile. “Many years ago. Before I’d lived in the real world for as long as I have now.”

  “I don’t know much about actual architecture,” Molly said. “But I always feel like I’m . . . building something when I work on a story.”

  Marcus nodded. “That’s interesting. Because I always try to make a place that isn’t just the setting for a story. It tells one itself.”

  “I’d like to see a place like that,” Molly said.

  “So would I,” Marcus said. “But I’m afraid not much of what I try to build actually gets made.”

  “You must make some things,” Molly said.

  “I make many, many things,” Marcus said. “It’s just that they don’t usually wind up to be what I started out making.”

  “I understand that,” Molly said.

  “Oh, no,” Marcus said. “You forget I’m familiar with your work. You’re an artist. No question.”

  “Well, thank you,” Molly said. “I wonder if you’re not more of one than you think.”

  “Maybe,” Marcus said. “But you certainly don’t want to be around an artist who thinks he’s a great artist. I can tell you that much.”

  “Amen,” Molly said. She popped another brownie in her mouth. She’d encountered several self-appointed geniuses over the course of her own career. She snuck a glance at his face, which was glowing in the warm light of the fire. “Thank you for these,” she said. “They’re wonderful.”

  “You’re more than welcome,” Marcus said. “The truth is I’m never going to be able to thank you for taking us in from the cold. Let alone for playing babysitter to the girls.”

  “It was hardly babysitting,” Molly said. “They’re wonderful. It was fun to get to spend some time with them.”

  “We’ll see what you think after you’ve spent a little more time, then,” Marcus said, but with a smile that made it clear he adored his girls. “I can’t tell you what a great surprise it was for them to get to meet a favorite author. I mean, any author at all would have been a thrill for them. But you’re very high on their list of all-time favorites.”

  “That’s a high honor,” Molly said. “They’re very bright girls.”

  “I like to think so,” Marcus said. “But I’m afraid I might not be an impartial judge.”

  “Dads aren’t supposed to be impartial judges,” Molly said with a smile.

  “I guess not,” Marcus said. “In any case, you turned this whole day around for us. Until we met you, everything had been going wrong.”

  “What happened?”

  “First of all, we left Mr. Wimple at home, and didn’t realize it until we were two hours on the road.”

  “Mr. Wimple?” Molly said.

  “A stuffed bear,” Marcus said. “And a very old friend of the family. So old that Bailey doesn’t remember life without him.”

  “I can see why that might have caused some upset in the travels,” Molly said.

  “Although around that time, we did have the distraction of driving directly into one of the biggest storms on the Eastern Seaboard in the past ten years,” Marcus said.

  “That would be a major distraction,” Molly agreed.

  “But not as major as one might hope,” Marcus said. “When you have happened to leave poor Mr. Wimple at home. On Christmas, no less.”

  “What will poor Mr. Wimple do at home all by himself?” Molly asked.

  “Exactly,” Marcus said. “And furthermore, what is the point of opening presents on Christmas if Mr. Wimple is not there to enjoy them with you?”

  “Well, it’s never the gifts that make Christmas, Christmas,” Molly said. “It’s who you’re with.”

  “My girls have certainly learned that lesson,” Marcus said.

  But the smile he gave at that joke dissolved even as he said it, as if some other, much more serious thought had chased it away. He shook his head and raised his eyebrows, staring into the middle distance.

  Instantly, Molly knew that he was referring to whatever had happened with their mother. But instead of asking him about it, she stayed quiet, letting him take his own time, and choose his own words.

  After a moment, he looked back at Molly. “It’s been three years s
ince we lost their mom,” he said. “Cancer.”

  The way he said the single word carried a whole world of hurt with it: fear, sorrow, anger, loss.

  He took a breath. “People told me it would get better,” he said. “At first I didn’t believe them. Turns out, it’s true. It does get better. But it never goes away.”

  Molly nodded. She knew the feeling, from losing her own mom and dad: how the spike of pain finally faded, but there was an ache that never did.

  “She must have been special,” Molly said.

  “Well,” Marcus said, a smile breaking through his more somber thoughts, “since you’ve met the girls, you know a lot about her. They both got her smarts, and her spirit, and her smile.”

  “They’re great girls,” Molly said, smiling back.

  As she said it, the front door slammed. Both of them turned their heads as a snow-dusted figure emerged into the entrance area, stomping his feet and brushing snow from his hair.

  “Another stranded traveler,” Marcus said.

  Molly shook her head. “That’s Luke,” she said. “I met him before. He’s related to Iris at the front desk.”

  As they watched, Luke had a quick conversation with Iris, then strode into the lounge, straight up to the fireplace.

  He nodded at the two of them as he held his hands out to the flames, obviously trying to coax some feeling into them after a blast of cold.

  “What’s it like out there?” Marcus asked.

  “Well,” Luke said, “I didn’t get too far before a Vermont state trooper turned me back. But from what I could see—it’s snowy.” He grinned.

  “Yeah,” Marcus said. “That’s how we wound up here.”

  “I thought I might be able to use my country wiles to get to Burlington tonight,” Luke said. “But I guess I’ll be spending it here. I’ve just got to see if they can find me a space, now that all the rooms are booked up. Maybe in the kitchen, by the fire,” he joked. “Gram said I could sleep on her floor, but she snores so loud I wouldn’t get any sleep.”

  “Well,” Marcus said, gesturing to the lounge. “This is my room for the night. You’re welcome to crash on the other couch. And I think you might be able to find a blanket or two,” he added, nodding at the huge stacks of fuzzy wraps that were piled on the various chairs and couches around the room.