Wedding at Mistletoe Chalet

by Dani Collins

  “These take me back to my childhood,” Kristen said as she perused the shelf of games and puzzles. “My brother and I played this one so much when we were little, we played speed rounds because we already knew all the answers.” She touched the trivia game. “Finn and I always won Pictionary. Not because either of us can draw worth beans, but we’re really good at guessing what each other is thinking.”

  “I thought you said your brother’s name is Carson.”

  “Oh, Finn was…is…” A lot of things, including a wistful ache behind her breastbone. “He’s my brother’s best friend. He was best man at Carson’s wedding, actually. He lived next door.”

  “I thought you were going to say he was your boyfriend.”

  “He was,” she admitted, hearing the slight break in her voice and forcing herself to find a light, but steady, unaffected tone. “A long time ago. Just for one summer.” And a little longer, but that had been long-distance and hardly counted.

  “Are you still friends?”

  “Sure.” It wasn’t a lie, even though it wasn’t completely true. She didn’t hate him, but, “He’s been at med school. I haven’t seen him in years.” Of course, she hadn’t tried. Which sounded childish. She frowned at herself.

  “You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?” Kristen asked, trying to distract herself from dwelling on Finn visiting their hometown over Christmas. Sleeping in her old house.

  “I’m not allowed.” Sarah made a face like she wasn’t sure if she wanted one. “Dad says I have to wait until I’m twenty-eight before I can date, because that’s how old Wendy was when they started dating.”

  “Dads love to say stuff like that.” Kristen wanted to ask about Sarah’s mom, but didn’t want to bring up a sad or difficult memory. “Have you always lived here?”

  “Pretty much. This was an old logging camp. My grandma and grandpa bought it to rent out the cabins for fishing when my dad and his brothers were little. Come on. I’ll show you some pictures.”

  Sarah took Kristen down the main stairs to the great room. The Entwhistles were enjoying coffee by the fire and looked up with smiles as they appeared.

  “I’m going to show Kristen what things looked like when my dad’s parents bought this property. Would you like to see?” Sarah pulled out a photo album from the cupboards beneath the coffee table. “The cabins were kind of ugly at first and this chalet wasn’t here at all.”

  Sarah walked them through a small history lesson like a pro. She really was a lovely and remarkable adolescent. Very poised and confident as she flipped back and forth through the pages.

  “After a couple of years, they had all the cabins repaired and winterized so they started renting them for hunting season, too. Then guests started asking to come in for snowshoeing and telemark skiing. Someone had to be here year-round, to book people in and do repairs and everything. I’d just been born and my dad didn’t want to travel for work anymore. He used to be a mechanic on big machinery, so he always had to go to wherever the equipment had broken down. He and my mom decided to live here full-time and buy a snowcat for downhill skiing and keep this open all year.”

  “That’s not Wendy,” Mrs. Entwhistle said, adjusting her glasses and tilting her head to look at the photo of a woman whose wide smile resembled Sarah’s.

  “That’s my mom. She passed away when I was little. I don’t remember her.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kristen murmured.

  “It’s okay. Grandma and Grandpa lived with us here and helped look after me, otherwise Dad couldn’t have stayed. It was too much for just him with a baby. We lived over the cat shed back then.” She pointed out a photo of a big green building with a weathered staircase up the outside. “That was fine when it was only my parents and I was a baby, but Grandma and Grandpa had to stay in a cabin and they didn’t love it. Grandpa was an architect before he retired so he designed and helped build this chalet.”

  “Wendy told me she lived in that apartment over the shed when she first came here,” Kristen remarked.

  “Most of our workers live in town, but sometimes they use the flat if they’re like Wendy was, and have a contract to work all season, but don’t have a family to go home to.”

  Kristen was curious about where Wendy’s family was, but Sarah flipped the page.

  “This is the day lodge being built. That’s where you’ll have lunch tomorrow,” she told the Entwhistles. “So you don’t have to come all the way off the mountain in the middle of skiing. It started as a tent, but now it’s a cabin. In the summer, people camp overnight sometimes. There’s electricity and water, but it’s on a well and there aren’t any showers or heat. You have to cook over a little gas stove.”

  “Do the rest of your family still come up to enjoy the skiing and fishing?” Mrs. Entwhistle asked.

  “In the summer, mostly,” Sarah said with a nod. “But this year, all of Dad’s family is coming for Christmas. It’s Grandma’s birthday on the twenty-ninth and she’s turning sixty, so they want to get together for that. I’m really excited to have all my cousins here for Christmas. Look, this is Grandpa taking me to catch the school bus one day when the road wasn’t plowed.”

  Little Sarah was in full winter gear including a helmet and goggles, sitting in front of a bearded man on a snowmobile. She hugged a colorful backpack and was giving a thumbs-up in readiness.

  Everyone chuckled.

  “Grandma’s arthritis started acting up a few years ago and they decided they would be more comfortable going somewhere warmer during the winter, so we hired Wendy. She was only supposed to stay for one winter, but this is her fourth.”

  The Entwhistles had more questions, curious about everything from what type of wood had been sourced to build the chalet to where Sarah’s grandparents wintered to the different wildlife Sarah had spotted over the years.

  “Sarah, honey.” Wendy appeared from the kitchen. “I know it’s not a school night, but if you want to go skiing tomorrow, you’ll have to be up early. You should head to bed.” Wendy stifled her own yawn.

  “Oh, look at the time!” Mr. Entwhistle sat up straight. “We have to be up early, too, Ellen, or we’ll miss the ski bus ourselves.”

  They said good night and Sarah put away the photo album.

  “Actually, I told Dad I’d stay home and decorate, since he said he’d get the tree in tomorrow morning. Can I?”

  “Of course. That would be great!” Wendy said with sincere appreciation. “I was going to show Kristen the routine tomorrow morning, then run into town for the baking supplies. I’ll feel better if you’re here to answer any questions she might have while I’m out. It’s usually quiet in the afternoons,” Wendy told Kristen. “Guests sometimes arrive early, like the Entwhistles did today, but most of them are out skiing. It gives me a chance to run my errands or get a start on dinner.”

  “You can help me decorate,” Sarah invited Kristen.

  “We could talk about your secret project.”

  Sarah worked her hands together like a villain. “Yes, we can.”

  Chapter Three

  When his phone buzzed, Finn Garrett snapped wide awake out of habit.

  It was his sister, which concerned him. He swiped to accept the video chat. His five-year-old nephew appeared. He wore his pajamas, messy hair, and a big grin that was missing a tooth.

  “Hey, Champ.” Finn settled the blankets under his armpits and curled an arm beneath his pillow. “What’s up?”

  “Notice anything different about me?” Justin asked.

  “Have you changed the color of your eyes?”

  “No!”

  “Your ears are bigger.”

  “I lost my tooth.” Justin thrust his lower jaw into the screen.

  “Yikes! Shark attack.”

  “Is that Uncle Finn? Did he answer?” Finn’s sister spoke with alarm in the background. “Oh, Finn, I’m sorry! I thought for sure you would have your phone turned off on your first day of vacation.”

  The image jostled as Shery
l picked up her son and sat down on the sofa with him in her lap. Justin steadied the camera and they were both visible in the screen.

  “Did you leave it under your pillow?” Finn asked.

  “I swallowed it with my cereal,” Justin said.

  “Interesting. Where does the tooth fairy leave the quarter when that happens?” Finn asked.

  “I should have pulled it last night, but he didn’t want me to.” Sheryl face-palmed. “Mother of the year, as usual.” Then, more seriously, she said, “He’ll be fine, right?”

  “I would think so, but keep an eye out for it if it’ll give you some peace of mind. Is that the real reason you let him call?” he teased. “Why do I only hear from you when you want free medical advice?”

  “I was looking it up on my laptop just now,” Sheryl said, waving her arm in a direction off-camera. “But Justin was excited to tell you. I said you probably wouldn’t answer, but he could try. I wasn’t paying attention to the time.” With a small cringe, she asked, “It’s five thirty in Denver?”

  Finn glanced at the clock. “Five thirty-seven, to be exact.”

  “I’m so sorry. Now we feel really bad for waking you, don’t we?” She hugged Justin. “Tell Uncle Finn you’re sorry and you’ll show him your other wiggly tooth at Christmas. Maybe he can pull it and we’ll put that one under your pillow.”

  “Will the tooth fairy come to Grammy’s?” Justin tilted his head to ask.

  “She did when we were little.”

  “Forget wiggly teeth. I want to see your wiggly ears,” Finn prompted.

  Justin worked his eyebrows and his bottom lip pulled wide as he tried to make his ears move. Finn made faces back at him.

  “Enough. We’ll let you go back to sleep,” Sheryl said.

  “I’m getting up,” Finn said. “I have to pack and head to Utah. I’m buying a snowboard on my way home.”

  “A snowboard?” Justin perked up with excitement.

  “For me, Champ. Sorry. One of my buddies from med school is selling his. Then I’m trying it out with a few of my old football teammates.”

  “Do not break your leg,” his sister warned.

  “Yes, Mom.” Finn still joked that he had three moms. His two older sisters drove him crazy with their overactive maternal instincts despite the fact he was staring down thirty and was ‘this close’ to opening his own practice as a doctor. “When do you guys fly home?”

  “We leave here on the twenty-third and come home on the second. We’re really looking forward to seeing you, Ghost of Christmas Past.”

  “Me, too,” Finn said, processing that his sister didn’t think of Montana as ‘home’ anymore. It shouldn’t be a shock. She’d been married for ten years, living in New England with her husband for the last six. Her two youngest had been born there.

  Still, as they signed off, he was suddenly aware that he still considered his parents’ house ‘home.’

  Because he didn’t have one of his own.

  Neither did many of his peers, he reminded himself. Med school took a lot of focus. The ones who had married and started a family looked even more zombie-eyed from sleep deprivation than he was. They were also further in debt. He had sacrificed a personal life in favor of moonlighting and taking every chance he could to knock down his loans.

  Which made this vacation time even more rare and priceless. He should roll over and go back to sleep. Every other resident he knew would sleep a solid twenty-four hours, given their first day off for a precious two-week vacation.

  But his lungs sucked in a big rush of air while the rest of his body shouted a restless, Let’s get this party started!

  Having run his groceries so far down he didn’t even have coffee, he only got as far as a neighborhood diner after throwing his duffel into the back of his car. He ordered their sunshine starter of bacon, eggs, and pancakes. Then, because they had free Wi-Fi, he did something he rarely made time for. He logged into social media and scrolled through posts, belatedly congratulating a new baby here and an engagement there.

  All his friends from high school and college were moving into the next life stage.

  Finn was so close to being able to do that, he could taste it, yet it remained at the tips of his fingers, slightly out of reach. He was midway through his final year of residency. After that, he could settle into his own practice and think about marrying and giving his mother more grandchildren.

  A restless, niggling feeling always accosted him when he thought about that. People often asked him if he intended to start his own family someday. He did, but there was something in the generic aspiration of it that never felt quite right.

  He wasn’t sure what bothered him about it, but it had resulted in him giving up on anything but the most casual of dating, sticking to joining friends for dinner or having coffee with workmates. Besides, romantic relationships fizzled very quickly under the demands of becoming a doctor.

  Also… He didn’t want to marry for the sake of it. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with the right person. But who was she? Where was she?

  The downside of time off, he acknowledged as he lingered over his coffee. It gave him time to brood. He distracted himself by looking up his hometown friends, wondering who might also be in town over the holidays. Not Carson, his old neighbor and best friend. Carson’s most recent post wished his parents safe travels.

  Oh, right. Carson’s parents had won the Hot Spot Christmas Cruise in the annual fire hall fundraiser. Finn recalled his mother reporting that news with great excitement a few weeks ago.

  Good for them, but Finn was sorry it meant Carson wouldn’t be home for the holidays. He would miss catching up with the Benzes, too. He’d known the family his whole life and hadn’t seen any of them in years.

  What was Kristen up to, he wondered? His conscience twinged the way it always did when he thought of her. He hesitated to tap on her profile.

  He had been thinking of her when he’d broken up with her, he reminded himself. He hadn’t wanted to derail her from her plans to work abroad.

  Of course, last he had heard, she had come back to manage a hotel in Bend, Oregon, which had surprised him. He was equally surprised she wasn’t married or engaged by now. His mother would have alerted him, though, if she was. She had never given up hope the two of them would reconcile into something more serious than the light summer romance they’d had.

  He flicked to read Kristen’s updates then frowned, perplexed that she had marked herself ‘arrived at Mistletoe Chalet’ yesterday.

  He clicked on the link. It was a snowcat skiing operation in Montana, north of where Yellowstone inched over from the northwest border of Wyoming.

  She must be on vacation, too. Maybe booked a getaway because her parents and Carson had plans elsewhere. Was she with someone? Her status showed ‘single,’ but he took that with a grain of salt. With many grains of coarse salt in a self-inflicted wound, actually. He had pushed her away eight years ago when he had genuinely wished for her presence beside him.

  Kristen still looked the same. In all her photos, she was laughing or making silly faces, wholesome as buttermilk yet the most striking part of a picture, even when she stood before a breathtaking waterfall or other stunning backdrops of wilderness. He couldn’t help grinning with affection even as his heart felt tugged and weighted and set askew in his chest.

  The summer they had dated had been the most innocent and idealistic time of his life. He hadn’t lied to her at the end of it. He had believed himself when he had promised they would be the couple to prove long-distance relationships could last.

  A lot of things had changed for him a few weeks later, though. Once he’d set his sights on medical school, he had knuckled down, spending all his vacation time working for his uncle in Michigan, to pay tuition and living expenses. Maybe he’d even taken refuge in working and studying, so he wouldn’t dwell on the more difficult decision he’d made.

  He sighed, thinking of the way Kristen had offered him bright, meaningless s
miles four years ago, while subtly trying to avoid him over the weekend of Carson’s wedding.

  He looked back at her Mistletoe Chalet post. If she was on vacation with someone, he hoped that nameless man was making her happy. She deserved it.

  Even if it did put a bitter pall of envy in the back of his throat.

  *

  Kristen had showered the night before so she only had to throw her hair into a French twist and put on her new Mistletoe Chalet sweatshirt over her T-shirt and jeans and she was ready to work.

  Breakfast was busy, but well organized. Wendy showed her the menu book that laid out the rotation of meals so she could write today’s selection on the blackboard: cheese blintzes, oatmeal with berries, ham scramble and banana-nut muffins.

  Between making egg salad and deli meat sandwiches, Ted showed Kristen how to prepare the guest lunch boxes. They included high-energy snack packs of cheese and crackers, fruit and nuts, along with a few squares of chocolate. Thermoses of coffee, tea and cocoa would go up to the day lodge in the cats along with Crock-Pots of chili and soup. The plastic dishes from yesterday had been run through the dishwasher overnight and Kristen stacked them into their box to go out to the cat with everything else.

  They all sat down to eat just after six. Kristen had to compliment Wendy on the blintzes full of ricotta and topped with orange drizzle and a cranberry compote.

  “I’d be happy with a bowl of oatmeal. How do you get all this done every day? So well?”

  “Cooking is my passion, so it doesn’t feel like work to make it. But there’s a woman in town who comes out once a week to help me prep casseroles and other dishes I freeze and bake later.”

  “That reminds me. I saw your list for Christmas baking. I wanted to offer to make my mom’s elf-button cookies. They’re a type of shortbread with a thumbprint that you fill with jam.”

  “That sounds yummy,” Sarah said approvingly.

  “They do sound good,” Wendy agreed. “Yes, of course. Add the ingredients to the list. Does anyone know where that list went?” Panic edged around her eyes.