Thomas Kinkade's Cape Light

by Katherine Spencer

  The Cape Light Titles

  CAPE LIGHT

  HOME SONG

  A GATHERING PLACE

  A NEW LEAF

  A CHRISTMAS PROMISE

  THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL

  A CHRISTMAS TO REMEMBER

  A CHRISTMAS VISITOR

  A CHRISTMAS STAR

  A WISH FOR CHRISTMAS

  ON CHRISTMAS EVE

  CHRISTMAS TREASURES

  A SEASON OF ANGELS

  SONGS OF CHRISTMAS

  ALL IS BRIGHT

  TOGETHER FOR CHRISTMAS

  BECAUSE IT’S CHRISTMAS

  The Angel Island Titles

  THE INN AT ANGEL ISLAND

  THE WEDDING PROMISE

  A WANDERING HEART

  THE WAY HOME

  HARBOR OF THE HEART

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by The Thomas Kinkade Company and Parachute Publishing, LLC

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark and the B colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Spencer, Katherine, (date- ) author.

  Title: Because it’s Christmas / Katherine Spencer.

  Other titles: Because it is Christmas

  Description: First edition. | New York : Berkley Books, 2016. | Series:

  Thomas Kinkade’s Cape Light ; 17

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016027519 (print) | LCCN 2016034339 (ebook) | ISBN

  9780425282236 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780698198777

  Subjects: LCSH: Cape Light (Imaginary place)—Fiction. | City and town

  life—New England—Fiction. | Christmas stories. | BISAC: FICTION /

  Religious. | FICTION / Christian / Romance. | GSAFD: Christian fiction. |

  Love stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3553.A489115 B43 2016 (print) | LCC PS3553.A489115

  (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016027519

  First Edition: November 2016

  Jacket image: Christmas Gate by Thomas Kinkade. Copyright © 2010 Thomas Kinkade.

  Jacket design by Lesley Worrell

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  To my family—with love always

  DEAR READER

  Every year my daughter sends me a list of items she’d like to find under the Christmas tree. This tradition has probably evolved from the days of writing letters to Santa. Maybe I don’t mind because for so many years I was studying those crayoned lists and doing Santa’s shopping. Also, I truly enjoy giving everyone on my list something they really want, valuing accuracy above the surprise factor. Some will say that takes the fun out of gift buying and giving. They might even say I’m lazy. These are usually the same people who roam the mall and Internet tirelessly, searching for those unrequested but hopefully perfect presents. I do admire them.

  After writing this latest Cape Light story, I’ve been wondering which category Heaven falls into: Answering our prayers exactly, down to the item number, color, and size? Or delivering a blessing that’s absolutely perfect, though we may never have asked for or even imagined it?

  As Christmas draws near, Sophie Potter, Emily Warwick, and Zoey Bates each doubt the wishes closest to their hearts will be fulfilled. All Sophie wants is to remain in her home and spend the rest of her days on her beloved orchard. But her children believe she can no longer live alone, despite the unexpected arrival and companionship of her grandson James.

  Emily has lost the election to Charlie Bates. Determined to turn the page, she takes up new hobbies and puts her family first. Secretly, she misses the satisfaction she found guiding the citizens of Cape Light. Must she choose one way or the other? Her Christmas wish is to find some other path. One that makes everyone, including herself, happy.

  Zoey has been working hard at college and at the diner her family owns. As the fall semester ends, a wonderful career opportunity moves into her sights, and a special relationship grows with James Potter. But family responsibilities come first. Zoey must put her dreams aside, and James must carry through with his plans. Cape Light is only a short stop in his travels. Or so they both believe.

  But Sophie, Emily, and Zoey discover that Heaven has read their “wish lists” very carefully and found each of them the perfect gift for Christmas. Maybe not exactly what they asked for or imagined, but something even better.

  I hope you find a few perfect surprises under the tree, too.

  Wishing you and everyone you hold dear a wonderful holiday season and a happy, healthy New Year.

  Katherine Spencer

  CONTENTS

  TITLES BY KATHERINE SPENCER

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  DEAR READER

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  CHAPTER ONE

  Flour, butter, sugar. You don’t need much more than that.” Sophie Potter confided the recipe for her delectable piecrust in an unusually serious tone. “Easy, right?”

  “Very easy.” Zoey Bates nodded, noticing a dash of flour across Sophie’s cheek that was a perfect match to the wispy bun at the back of her head.

  They were both elbow-deep in ingredients while neat rows of pans on the long wooden table waited to be filled with apple, pumpkin, or pecan. Zoey would deliver most of the pies to church tomorrow, to be tucked into boxes and baskets of Thanksgiving meals and sent out to families facing difficult times.

  Sophie would bring one of each to the Potters’ family gathering at her daughter Evelyn’s house. And Zoey would take one or two home for her family’s holiday dinner, too.

  “I bet my dad is going to say, ‘Why aren’t you ever interested in my cooking lessons?’” Zoey imitated her father’s voice perfectly. “He always wants to teach me stuff at the diner. But I know he gets most of the cakes and pies from a big commercial bakery. Even though the menu says ‘homemade.’”

  Sophie laughed and swept a knife edge over a heaping cup of flour to level it. “I’m sure your father can teach you a lot about cooking, too. My girls didn’t have any patience to learn from me, either. Now they teach me a thing or two. Evelyn barely agreed to let me bring dessert for Thanksgiving. She’d have me sitting in an easy chair all day, watching TV. Or s
omething equally useless. I didn’t dare tell her I was baking for the church baskets.”

  Sophie’s daughter Evelyn lived in town with her family and was still a member of the church she had been raised in, the stone church on the village green, where Zoey’s family also attended.

  “She’ll probably hear about it on Sunday. If she hasn’t already. You know how Reverend Ben thanks everybody at the service.”

  “By then the pies will be long baked and eaten. She won’t be able to put up too much of a fuss.” Sophie wore a mischievous grin as she mixed the dry ingredients. “You can add a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg, to give it some backbone. But not too much.”

  Sophie slipped on her glasses before carefully tilting each shaker. She added the spices to the first bowl, then held them out to Zoey. “Here, you try.”

  Zoey was dicing butter with a special hand tool, as instructed, and felt comfortable with that job. Spices seemed much trickier. “Maybe you should do it. I don’t want to ruin the dough.”

  “Nonsense. How can you learn? Cooking is a lot like life, honey. You’re going to make mistakes, but most can be fixed. Start with a light touch, and you’ll do fine.”

  Zoey took the shaker and followed Sophie’s advice, sprinkling carefully.

  “Perfect.” Sophie mixed more flour, and Zoey continued with the butter.

  “How many people will be at your daughter’s house?”

  Sophie squinted a moment. “Let’s see . . . With my grandson’s fiancée and my nephew’s baby, at least twenty-five. We’ll need two big tables—and two turkeys—for sure.”

  The Potter family tree spread far and wide, and Zoey was not familiar with all of Sophie’s relatives; just those who lived in and around Cape Light. She did know others by their photographs, which covered nearly every table, ledge, and wall of the old house.

  “That’s a lot. Even with the Tulleys and Grandma Dooley, we’ll only be eight.”

  “A small gathering is nice. You can have a real conversation at the table. When the Potter clan gets together, it’s mayhem.”

  “We’re not that many people, but it’s never that quiet. Not if there’s a football game on.” Zoey was thinking about her two stepbrothers and her father. Loud when they were happy and their team was winning, and loud if the game was going the other way.

  Zoey had not grown up in the Bates household. She had been taken in by Lucy and Charlie Bates about five years ago, when she ran away from a foster home and ended up in the Clam Box one rainy, cold winter night. With barely a dollar in her pocket and nowhere to go, she was so sick with the flu, she could hardly stand. Kindhearted Lucy persuaded Zoey to come home with her and Charlie, and what began as a one-night respite from her hard, chaotic life evolved into Zoey finding the loving family and real home she had never known. Lucy and Charlie had adopted her, and Zoey now thought of them as her real parents, and even called them Mom and Dad.

  Sophie shook her head. “Football. If they’re not watching it, they’re all outside, tackling each other. I tried keeping the game off one year. You would think I’d changed the menu to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

  Sophie rubbed flour on the rolling pin, a good deal of it powdering her soft arms. “Not my call to make this year. I’m not the hostess.” She sighed and suddenly looked serious. “This isn’t the first time I’m not having the family for Thanksgiving, but for some reason, it feels like it. Other times, it was my choice to let Evelyn or Una take a turn. This year, they all said they wouldn’t allow it. That’s what makes it different. I’m afraid they’re going to try to take Christmas away from me, too.”

  Zoey met Sophie’s glance and found a defeated look. Defeated and frightened. As if the new rules her children had set down about holiday entertaining warned of bigger battles to come.

  “They’re worried about you, Sophie. They don’t want you to run yourself down and get sick again, like last winter.”

  “Oh, that bug was a fluke. I was never sick a day in my life before that. I’m still working outside in all types of weather.”

  The declaration had been true for decades, but was actually not as accurate now. “You were in the hospital for weeks and needed a nurse here every day when you got home.”

  Zoey remembered the Sunday announcements in church last February; Reverend Ben asking for prayers for Sophie, who was in the hospital with double pneumonia, even in critical condition at one point. But through the grace of God and her own strong will, Sophie had survived. She had required nursing care at home for months, and visits from friends and neighbors as well. That was when Zoey had begun visiting Sophie, first as a member of the church’s Care and Concern group and, soon after, as a real friend. Now Zoey cherished Sophie as more than a friend. Her connection to Sophie felt like family.

  Zoey did have Grandma Dooley, Lucy’s mother, who had been delighted to finally have a granddaughter to shop for. But they weren’t nearly as close as she and Sophie, who was so much fun to talk to and made her feel ten feet tall for the smallest accomplishment. An unlikely friend for a college student, it was true, but Zoey often thought of Sophie as her “real” grandmother, though she had never said it aloud.

  “It was rough sledding for a while,” Sophie finally admitted. “But I bounced back, a hundred percent. Even the doctor says so. Thank goodness I talked them into letting me come home instead of shipping me off to one of those cookie-cutter assisted living places. Bet they wouldn’t let me keep Mac in a place like that.”

  At the sound of his name, Sophie’s dog, Macintosh, who was curled up in his dog bed in a corner of the kitchen, lifted his soft, furry head and met Sophie’s glance with an alert look.

  “It’s all right, Mac. I’m not going anywhere without you,” Sophie promised. Comforted by her tone, the border-collie mix settled down and closed his eyes again.

  Mac was the perfect dog for Sophie, Zoey thought. Medium-sized, with a shaggy, brown and white coat, he was still nimble enough to steal food off the counter in a flash, yet he had the steady, affectionate temperament of a Labrador. Zoey couldn’t imagine Sophie’s house without him.

  Sophie continued kneading the dough with surprising strength for a woman her age. “Or they’d have me move in with Evelyn. It’s hard to say if Mac’s included in that long-standing invitation, either. My kids want me to sell this place, no secret there. But I’m not leaving this house on my own two feet. They know that, too.”

  Zoey hated the idea of Sophie selling the orchard, but she could understand how Sophie’s family felt. Zoey worried about Sophie, too, and knew that Sophie had resisted hiring help, claiming she had all her friends and family to help her. Especially friends from the church.

  Zoey would have liked to visit Sophie even more than she did, but it was difficult juggling her schedule, with college classes and studying and working at the diner in town that her family owned. She also volunteered at an after-school center for children. Never mind fitting in a social life; even hanging out with girlfriends was a treat these days. Never mind finding a boyfriend, either. She did manage to visit Sophie at least once or twice a week, though she knew that wasn’t nearly enough to ensure her safety.

  “It was easier when Miranda and Eric were here. You weren’t alone so much,” Zoey reminded her.

  “That’s true. But they have their own lives. I was grateful for the years Miranda did stay,” Sophie added. “She got a great opportunity in North Carolina, working for a big jewelry firm. I would never have wanted her to give that up. But I can’t see why the rest of them want me to give up something I love,” she reasoned. “Evelyn already talked me into giving up the Christmas Fair. She doesn’t want me to be in charge again this year. I agreed after all her pestering. Now what am I supposed to do with myself over the holidays? Sit in the corner and twiddle my thumbs?”

  “Of course not.” Zoey was surprised to hear about the fair. Sophie had always been the cha
irperson of the church’s biggest fund-raiser. The fair had been Sophie’s idea, over thirty years ago. Giving it up was a big compromise with her daughter. It sounded as if her children were serious this time.

  “Miranda was a godsend. My kids were trying to make me move out back then, too, after my dear Gus died.”

  Zoey already knew the story of how Miranda came to live on the orchard. Unable to gain much traction in her acting career, Sophie’s granddaughter Miranda came to visit one winter to rest and regroup, soon after Sophie’s husband, Gus, had passed away. Miranda had always loved making jewelry, and Cape Light turned out to be a perfect place to develop her craft—and the perfect place to meet the love of her life, Eric Copeland. After they married, they stayed on to help Sophie run the orchard while pursuing their own careers and raising a family.

  But the couple had moved over a year ago, leaving Sophie to manage a staff of seasonal workers on her own. Problems arose that she could no longer handle. Her children, especially her son, Bart, were often called on to step in.

  “Maybe you can figure out some solution, Sophie, some plan your kids will agree to. You never know. Anything can happen.”

  “Can the good Lord send me another miracle like Miranda? Only He knows for sure. I’ve been praying on it. You can count on that.”

  “I’ll say a prayer, too,” Zoey promised.

  “Thanks, honey. I know you will.” Sophie’s bright blue eyes met Zoey’s with a warm look. “I’m also praying that the subject doesn’t come up at Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t want to spoil the party. I’m hoping it will be too hectic for any serious talk.”

  Sophie had poured a big bowl of flour into the first bowl of butter and tossed in a few spoonfuls of ice water, and was now kneading a ball of pale yellow dough with all the pent-up emotion the conversation had inspired.

  “They think they’re going to lay down the law and not allow me to have my Christmas party this year. But I’m set on that. And I’ll get my way,” Sophie promised.