The White Christmas Inn

by Colleen Wright

  “Is it your book?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Molly said.

  As expected, Bailey began to bounce on her toes, and even Addison’s eye grew wide.

  “Is it done?” Addison asked.

  “Honey,” Marcus said. “Molly may not want to talk about . . .”

  But Molly smiled at him to let him know it was all right.

  “It is,” she said. “I finished it this afternoon. Not all the drawings yet. That will take me some more time. But the story goes from beginning to end.”

  She’d never before had an actual kid around to celebrate with when she’d finished a book, even though all her books were for kids. And not one of the adults she’d ever shared the news of a finished manuscript with had ever had a reaction even remotely as satisfying as Addison’s.

  Addison threw her arms out in a kind of rapture, drawing in a huge breath. Then she clasped her arms around herself, shaking her head in wonder, as if Molly had suddenly been replaced by an angel sent from God himself.

  “Can we read it?” Bailey demanded. “Will you read it to us?”

  This seemed to snap Addison out of her trance. “Yes!” she said. “Read it to us!”

  Molly glanced around, suddenly full of nerves. She still felt some of the fading exhilaration of discovering the story as she wrote it. But now she was moving into the phase after writing, when she just felt raw and vulnerable, and she had no idea whether what she had written was really any good or not.

  “Pleeease,” Addison said. “Please!”

  The combination of the girls’ rapture at hearing the story was done and the unapologetic begging was too much for Molly.

  She glanced at the dining room, then opened the red folder.

  “All right,” she said, running her hand over the cover image she had sketched when she finished the manuscript: a silver fairy peeking out between the branches of a snowy pine. “Are you girls ready for a story?”

  “Yes!” the girls chorused.

  Molly felt so nervous when she flipped to the first page that at first she could barely read her own words. But when she was finally able to take them in, she grinned in delight. “ ‘Jasmine was worried that their snowman might get cold,’ ” she began, “ ‘so she made her little sister Ava give him her coat.’ ” It was a great opening, and the girls were immediately captivated to discover that the two main characters were a pair of sisters, one about five, and one about eight.

  “Like us!” Bailey said, managing to bounce on Molly’s lap with her eyes still glued to the page.

  “Is it about us?” Addison asked.

  “These girls might be something like you,” Molly said. “I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

  The girls had been thrilled to hear about characters like themselves, but they were totally captivated when the story’s young heroines discovered a Christmas fairy living in a pine tree in their backyard, caught her in a butterfly net, and began trying to use the ten wishes the fairy promised them in exchange for her freedom.

  The problem was that none of the girls’ wishes turned out just the way they had imagined. They wanted to get their father a new car, instead of the handmade cards they’d made for him in school. But there was no room for the big new car in their tiny garage.

  So the girls wished for a bigger garage, but half of it appeared in the neighbor’s yard, which made the neighbor furious.

  So they wished for the neighbor to go away, but then the neighbor’s daughter, one of their best friends, came over to announce that the family was moving, all the way out to California.

  Eventually, the girls wound up living in a castle where their old house used to stand, complete with a moat and a hungry elephant bellowing in the backyard, and just one more wish.

  “What would you wish?” Molly asked, before she turned to the last pages.

  “She never wished that she could fly,” Bailey said. “I wish that I could fly.”

  “I would wish for a hundred more wishes,” Addison said. “And then when I used up ninety-nine, I would wish for a thousand more.”

  “Maybe I really should have you negotiate my next contract,” Marcus joked.

  “I’d wish for another plate of these cheese toasts,” a man said.

  When Molly looked up, surprised to see who had spoken, she realized that the guests of the inn had been drawn like a magnet to the story, and were all crowded around the fireplace now, waiting with bated breath to hear the ending.

  The man who had spoken was a big, buff guy who Molly guessed was the father of the bride in the wedding that had been called off. He grinned for a minute at the laughter his joke produced, but then his face turned serious.

  “Not really,” he said. “If I had just one wish, I’d give it to my daughter. I’d give her anything she could wish for.”

  “Oh, Daddy,” said a pretty brunette on the opposite side of the room, who was now standing close enough to Molly to be able to see the illustrations over Molly’s shoulder. “I couldn’t wish for a better dad than you.”

  “I’d wish for every Christmas to be as full of love as this one,” said Eileen.

  “And as full of apple pie,” her husband added. “Could you folks smell that cooking, too?”

  Standing beside the brunette behind Molly was a tall blonde, who Molly suspected must have been her bridesmaid. For some reason, tears had sprung to her eyes as everyone went around the room, saying their wishes.

  As Molly watched, the brunette squeezed her around the waist and whispered, “I know what you’d wish for.”

  At this, the blonde shook her head and wiped away an errant tear.

  “What would you wish for?” Iris asked Godwin, the grouchy old Brit, who was standing beside her near the back of the horseshoe-shaped crowd.

  “They don’t come true,” he grouched. “Not if you tell them.”

  “Oh, come on,” Iris said, giving him a friendly swat.

  At first, Godwin’s face turned even grouchier. But then he got a faraway look in his eyes. “I guess,” he said, “I’d wish to come back here.”

  The gathered crowd let out a little sigh at the kind words, which were even more surprising coming from him.

  “What would you wish?” he asked Iris.

  “Oh,” she said. “I always thought I was going to travel the world one day. Maybe I’d wish for that.”

  “But what happens?” Bailey finally bellowed, cutting through the chatter, as more and more people blurted out their wishes, and the people around answered with their own.

  Suddenly, all eyes were on Molly again. But this time, she wasn’t nervous. She couldn’t wait to share the ending.

  And when Molly turned the page, what the two sisters in the story actually wished was that everything would go back to just the way it had been. In the end, the only thing that had changed was them. Suddenly, they realized how much they loved everything they already had.

  “ ‘The end,’ ” Molly said, reading from the last page, where the final words were surrounded by a sketch of a ball of glowing light at the end of the fairy’s wand as she flew away into the night.

  As she closed the red folder, the whole lounge erupted into applause.

  Then, to her surprise, someone began to sing. Almost immediately, the whole group had burst into a noisy, laughter-filled, and not completely in-tune rendition of “Joy to the World.”

  And just as the last verse drew to a close, a bell began to ring.

  “DINNER,” AUDREY SAID WITH a sigh, squeezing Hannah’s waist. “Finally.”

  “No,” Hannah said, pulling away from her. “It’s not the same bell.”

  “Then what is it?” Audrey said as the bell rang again. She glanced out the window. “Did you see that?”

  Hannah peered out into the night beyond the windows, and the ghostly blue drifts of snow that still covered everything she could see. “See what?” she asked.

  “I thought I saw someone out there,” Audrey said.

  “
Santa?” Hannah said. “Maybe he comes early in Vermont, because we’re so far north.”

  Audrey didn’t even laugh at her joke.

  But although the gathered crowd had now launched into a version of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” apparently Hannah and Audrey weren’t the only ones who had heard the bell.

  At the back of the crowd, Iris detached herself, and headed for the lobby.

  “The door,” Audrey said, clutching Hannah’s hand. “The door!”

  Then, before Hannah could ask her what she was talking about, Audrey pushed her way through the crowd and vanished into the lobby.

  A moment later, all the singing was brought to an abrupt halt as a piercing scream cut through the song and silenced it.

  As one, the gathered crowd turned toward the lobby. Molly stood up from the fireplace bench so that she could see, along with the father of the two children she had been reading to, who drew his daughters closer to him.

  For a long moment, they stood there frozen, not even murmuring to each other.

  Then Hannah’s father began to stride forward, barreling toward the lobby as if he was willing to take on whatever had just come through the door, man or bear.

  But before he even reached the boundary of the lounge, a couple appeared in the wide entryway.

  Cassie, who had been hoovering up any scrap of food that anyone let fall to the ground, suddenly came to attention as the crowd turned to them. Her barrel chest thrust out, her ears came forward, and her tail waved tentatively, not sure whether to bark a warning at a stranger or pounce on an invited guest with canine glee.

  It took Hannah a long moment to even recognize that the woman was Audrey, and another to understand who she was clinging to: Jared, who was barely recognizable in the snow gear he was wearing, and because of his red face and what seemed to be ice clinging to his eyebrows. But he still had the same unmistakable grin that would have given him away to anybody who knew him.

  When Audrey turned back to the crowd and saw the somber, even frightened faces of the other guests, her smile faded for a minute. “Wait,” she said. “What happened?”

  Then she realized why all the faces were turned to her. “Oh my gosh,” she said, her smile lighting up her face again. “I didn’t mean to scare you! I was just so happy. This is my husband, Jared! He just made it all the way from Philly.”

  Instead of defending the gathering from Jared, Hannah’s father was the first to embrace him in a bear hug, with Audrey hanging on for dear life, because she wasn’t about to give up Jared’s arm herself.

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here, baby,” Jared said, looking down at Audrey after Hannah’s father had released them. “I went back to the airport at five a.m. and sweet-talked an airline clerk into giving me the first flight that landed me anywhere near Vermont. Turned out they had an early-morning flight to Philly. They took pity on me and let me ride in a jump seat with the crew since I was military. And I even managed to get a car when I got there, but when I got to Vermont, they’d closed the roads. So I tried the first drive I found, and I met this old farmer checking on his sheep with a snowmobile. We found a ewe of his who’d fallen in a ditch, so I helped him pull her out, and when I told him what I was doing there, he gave me a ride here. Longest snowmobile ride of my life.”

  “Cool,” crooned the voice of a small child by the fireplace, with breathless wonder.

  Everyone laughed, and Audrey reached out, lovingly brushing the chunks of ice out of Jared’s hair.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, tears running freely down her face. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “And you were trying to act like you were all cool with me not coming for Christmas,” Jared said, laying a formidable kiss on her cheek, then leaning back to look at her with a big grin. “I knew you didn’t mean it.”

  “Well,” Iris said, following the two young lovebirds into the room from the lobby. She’d apparently been the one to open the door for Jared. “I guess we’ve got one more guest tonight. I’m just not sure where we’re going to find the room,” she added with a wink.

  “There’s room!” Audrey called joyfully. “There’s room for him!”

  “I did notice,” Iris said, raising one eyebrow archly, “that you two failed to observe the mistletoe tradition when this young man arrived at the house.”

  Jared looked from Iris to Audrey in confusion.

  “You didn’t kiss her!” Iris said. “Back in my day, that would have been the first order of business!”

  “Well,” Jared said, taking Audrey in his arms. “We’re very sorry. Let’s fix that right now.”

  As he kissed Audrey, another bell began to ring: this time the same one that had drawn the crowd together a little earlier that evening.

  “That’s the dinner bell,” Audrey said, turning to Jared. “You’re just in time.”

  And as Jeanne came out of the kitchen, carrying a gorgeous, gigantic roast scented with garlic and rosemary, Audrey and Jared followed her, leading the rest of the guests in.

  As the lounge began to empty, Hannah felt as if her own heart were emptying out with it. She was overjoyed for Audrey. If she could have made any wish that night, it might have been that Jared would somehow be magically transported there in time for the holiday. Audrey didn’t complain about much, but Hannah knew being separated from Jared hurt her—not to mention the disappointment of having gotten her hopes up in the first place, only to see them dashed by the storm.

  But now that he was here, it just reminded her that this was supposed to be her rehearsal dinner. And tonight she was alone. She didn’t blame Audrey for it, not in the least. In fact, it made her wonder how often she’d made Audrey feel the same way, when Hannah got lost in her own world with Trevor and forgot that, with Jared deployed, Audrey was often on her own, just as Hannah was now.

  She especially didn’t want her own failed wedding to cast any shadow on the joy of Audrey and Jared’s reunion. There was no reason for them to spend even a second thinking of that, when they were just so happy right now to see each other.

  But she couldn’t help but wonder if this was what the rest of her life would be like: watching other people find a happiness that always eluded her.

  She shook her head, but the thought clung there stubbornly until she felt an arm thread through the crook of her own elbow.

  Before she even turned her head, a hint of rosewater lotion perfumed the air—her mother’s familiar scent.

  “Hey, honey,” her mom said. “How are you doing?”

  Hannah didn’t answer. She didn’t have an answer to give. But something in her mom’s eyes let her know that she understood.

  Instead, she just hugged her mom, laying her head on her shoulder just like she had when she was a little kid.

  “We love you so much, honey,” her mother said, stroking her hair.

  “I love you, too,” Hannah said.

  Dinner, when they walked in, was already a riot of sounds and smells.

  Jeanne and Tim had pulled all the small square tables in the dining area together to form one long one, right down the center of the room, and even before Jeanne laid the roast proudly in the center, the table was piled high with delectables.

  Baskets of golden rolls with ramekins of butter and jam in glistening jewel tones: purple, red, deep orange. Bowls of green salad with slices of oranges, almonds, and mint leaves, beside silver boats full of some creamy vinaigrette, loaded with fresh chives. Dishes full of mashed potatoes, their brown skins still peeking through, as well as a sweet potato parsnip mash, and bowls of fluffy stuffing. Green beans and carrots both glistened with butter, and the carrots were also garnished with honeycomb.

  Between all the tempting dishes were gorgeous arrangements of evergreen boughs, juniper, and bare branches tied together with thick wine-colored velvet that reached up toward the ceiling.

  Chairs scudded as everyone found seats.

  But before anyone could dive in, the booming
voice of Hannah’s father cut through the general din, along with the sound of silverware clanging on glass.

  When the crowd turned to him, he was holding a water glass and a spoon, a serious expression on his face. “Just a minute, everybody,” he said. “Just a minute.”

  Hannah’s heart twisted with love as she realized what he was about to do.

  “Well,” her father said, glancing over the crowd as it grew quiet. “As I guess you all know now, this wasn’t exactly the toast I was planning to give my daughter this weekend.”

  He glanced at Hannah, then glanced away before his voice could break.

  “But I still want to make a toast to my daughter,” he said. “She’s the smartest and the kindest and the most beautiful young woman I know.”

  “Wait,” Hannah’s mother said beside him. “Are you saying I’m not young?”

  As the crowd laughed, Bob put his arm around her and drew her closer to him.

  “Hannah’s been a constant source of amazement and joy to both her mother and me,” Hannah’s father went on. “But most of all, I’ve always been impressed by her strength. I still am, honey,” he said, lifting the water glass toward her.

  Hannah felt a deep pang of gratitude for her father, and she beamed up at him through tears. She felt completely and perfectly whole in this moment, surrounded by a room full of love and unexpected support. She forced herself to breathe and take it all in.

  Then he looked around the room. “So I want to toast Hannah. And I want to toast Jeanne’s hospitality. Jeanne’s and Tim’s.”

  “And Iris’s,” Godwin piped up. “This is her place, after all.”

  “That’s right, that’s right,” Bob said with a smile. “The rest of us are just visiting. And I want to toast the rest of us,” he said. “Because you’ve all made this such a special holiday. Not the one we imagined. But maybe,” he said, “the one we needed.”

  At this, his wife squeezed him, and the crowd burst into cheers.

  Hannah joined in with the cheers and hugged her father. Then everyone took their seats and dove into the meal, pausing between bites to exclaim how delicious it was.