by Emily March
“I don’t want to interrupt your family time.”
That ghost of thought Lucca had had solidified and he rose to his feet. “Please, Celeste. Do join us. I have something very important to ask you.”
“All right.” Celeste removed her coat and joined them in the living room. “What can I do to help?”
“You know about Holly, right? Hope told you when you met during her beach vacation?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, then turned back to his family and explained about Holly. Shock and compassion filled their expressions. “Poor Hope,” Gabi said. “That’s the most heartbreaking story ever.”
“It is,” Lucca agreed. “It broke up her marriage, but it didn’t break Hope. Did you see her tonight? Every time I turned around, she had a child in her arms. She doesn’t run from kids, she embraces them. She surrounds herself with them. She drives them on a school bus and teaches them to read and coaches them in a sport she hardly knows. She’s dedicated her life to children. Is that not the very definition of courage?”
“It’s more than I could do, that’s for sure,” Max said.
“The girl has guts,” Tony agreed.
Lucca stared at Celeste intently. “She doesn’t see it, and I think she needs a symbol. It’s Dorothy and Oz and the Cowardly Lion, only the Yellow Brick Road is a Miracle Road. She’s been given a miracle, a second chance to have a family, but she thinks she doesn’t have the courage to accept it. Only, she does have the courage. She’s proved it by the way she’s chosen to live her life since Holly was stolen. Celeste, I think she needs the recognition. She needs the outward symbol.”
“You want me to award her an Angel’s Rest blazon?”
“I do. I think she’s earned it. Don’t you?”
Celeste’s eyes warmed, and her smile spread wide. “I think that’s an exceptional idea, and especially appropriate considering the other purpose behind my visit here tonight.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a small white velvet box wrapped in gold ribbon, which she handed to Lucca. “Word got around that you have agreed to coach Tony’s team in a tournament so that he can have surgery on his knee.”
“That was fast,” Lucca observed, tugging the ribbon.
“The small-town telegraph is a wondrous thing.”
Grinning, Lucca opened the box. “A medal for me?”
“Yes. Allow me?” Celeste removed the chain from the box and, after motioning for Lucca to bend down, slipped it over his head. “In recognition of your embrace of love’s healing grace as evidenced by your return to collegiate coaching, I award you the official Angel’s Rest blazon.”
“I’m going to cry,” Maggie said.
“Me, too,” Gabi added. “I’m jealous. I want one.”
“There she goes again,” Max said. “Always wanting what everyone else has.”
“Oh, hush, or I’ll take back your Christmas present.”
“Speaking of presents,” Tony said. “Can we finally open them? We don’t want to be late to church.”
“Tear into ’em, kiddos.”
Accompanied by the sound of tearing paper, Lucca bent and kissed Celeste on the cheek. “Thank you, Celeste. This means the world to me. And I thank you even more for agreeing to my point about Hope.”
“She has a loving soul and a tender heart. You were right to recognize her courage, but I must caution you to remember that her wounds are deeper than most. I spoke to you before about the need for patience.”
“You’re right. I will remember.”
“Oh, cool!” Tony said. “A Nerf Blaster. This is awesome. Thank you, Gabi.”
Max laughed. “I got one, too.”
Lucca looked at his brothers’ gifts from Gabi, then searched for his own present. “Those are solid. You better not have left me out, sis.”
Zach shot a dart at Lucca and laughed. Minutes later, the foam was flying as the four grown men reverted to boyhood. Maggie Romano moved to stand beside Celeste. “Gabi always gives her brothers toys for Christmas. It’s a Romano family tradition.”
“You are blessed with your family, Maggie.”
“Don’t I know it.” Maggie gave Celeste a hug and added, “Blessed with my family. Blessed with my friends. Blessed to have found a home in Eternity Springs.”
“Amen,” said Celeste. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” Hope said as she handed Roxy a big rawhide bone. The dog carried it over to her bed and stretched out to slobber and chew. Hope hummed “Silent Night” as she stoked the fire, intending to chase away the chill that lingered in her bones after the walk home from the midnight church service. Maybe she should have accepted the Davenports’ offer of a ride home, but it had been such a gorgeous, starry night, and her heart had been so full and warm from the fellowship of the service that she’d wanted to prolong the moment.
Plus, she hadn’t looked forward to going home alone.
She glanced over to her Christmas tree, where only the red foil– wrapped gift remained. Had things been different, she might have spent the evening with the Romanos, she knew. She always felt lonely on Christmas, but this year was worse than ever. Walking home from church, seeing lights on in her neighbors’ houses, she’d felt a little like Scrooge gazing into Tiny Tim’s window.
Better she had attended the daytime service. Nothing felt quite so hollow as standing outside in the dark alone looking inside where people were gathered in a warm, bright place.
“You think you’re lonely this year, imagine how you’ll feel next,” she murmured. Instinctively, she covered her womb with her hand. Could she really give this baby up? Did she honestly believe that her child would be better off without her in his or her life? Or had that been nothing more than panic talking in the wake of the accident?
How in the world would she ever find the strength to walk away from this child? Maggie and Celeste had both said it: You are always a mother. Always.
So, was Hope ready to accept that she could take the risk? Did hope spring eternal for Hope in Eternity Springs?
A knock at her back door distracted her from the troublesome thoughts. Her back door? Who would come to her back door on Christmas Eve?
But even as she asked the question, she knew the answer. Maybe he was here to talk. Maybe … just maybe … her heartbeat sped up. Her mouth went a little dry. On her way to answer the door, she passed in front of a mirror and smoothed her hair.
She opened the door to see Lucca standing bathed in moonlight. He looked solemn and serious. “Hello.”
“Come outside, would you? I have something I want you to see.”
She hesitated. “It’s late, Lucca.”
“Give me five minutes. Please?”
“Let me get my coat.” She retrieved her long wool coat from the front closet, then spied the gift beneath her tree. She picked it up and stuck it in her pocket, then returned to her back door.
Outside, she looked around but didn’t see him. “Lucca?”
“Back here,” he called from the deep shadows at the back of the house.
She knew then what his visit must be about. “You got a telescope for Christmas?”
“Not for Christmas,” he replied. “I ordered it after our trip to Texas. It’s pretty awesome.”
“It’s huge,” she said once her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she was able to pick out the shape.
She realized she had missed her friend. They hadn’t talked, laughed, or counted stars in what seemed like ages.
“I didn’t ask you out here to look at my telescope. I want you to see a star. Come here and look, Hope. I have it focused on the star I want you to see. Try not to move the scope when you look into the eyepiece.”
She wondered if he planned to tell her a Star of Bethlehem story. Looking into the powerful telescope, she spied a whole bunch of stars. “What am I supposed to see?”
“The binary star. See the pair?”
She had to concentrate. It had been awhile since she’d l
ooked at the stars. Without him, searching the night sky had made her sad. “Okay. Yes, I see the pair.”
“Now, step away from the telescope. I want to show you how to find it. First, you look for Draco, which is a circumpolar constellation. That means it revolves around the North Pole and it can be seen year-round. You want to find the dragon’s head. See these four stars positioned in a trapezoid?”
As he’d done in the past when teaching her the stars, he stepped close enough so that she could smell his aftershave. The memory of lying on his chest assailed her, cutting into her chest like a knife. She mourned the loss of him, and here he was right next to her. “Hope?”
“I …” Inhaling deeply, she shook off the feeling and followed the path of his finger as he pointed out the four stars. “Okay. I’ve got it.”
“From the head, the tail slithers through the sky there to there to there,” he demonstrated, “ending between the Big and Little Dippers.”
She was distracted. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry she’d hurt him. Tell him she was sorry that she was such a mess. Sorry that she couldn’t seem to let go of part of her past. That she couldn’t see her way forward. “You’ve lost me.”
“Have I?” He studied her, searching her face, his expression troubled. “I can help you find it again.”
“Can you?”
“Of course.”
She looked back to the stars. “I don’t know, Lucca. It’s hard.”
“It can be. But all you really need to do is trust that once you find a place to start, you can find what you’re looking for.”
“Trust the trapezoid?”
“Always. It’s a center. You just need a center, Hope.”
“Okay.” With him leaning so close and his coat right there, she seized the opportunity to silently slip his gift from her pocket and into his. Good. That worked out well. No more worrying about what to do with it. Out of sight, out of mind.
“From the top right star in the trapezoid, look right and up about forty-five degrees. See the bright star?”
“Yes.”
“That’s actually two stars, the binary star I showed you in the telescope.”
“Okay.” She didn’t have a clue what they were doing out in the cold looking at stars, but did she care? He was there. With his soft voice and gentle eyes.
“So, you think you could find it again?”
“I may need”—her voice cracked—“help.”
“I can help you.” He didn’t push harder. He didn’t touch her. He was there if she wanted him, but he wasn’t going to push. “But you can do it, Hope. I know you can.”
“The trapezoid is easy to pick out.”
“All right, then. That’s it. That’s all I wanted to show you. I picked it because it’s bright, it’s always in the sky, and it’s easy to locate. No matter where you are, the star is there for you to see. Stars never get lost.” He bent down and gave her a quick kiss. “Merry Christmas, Hope.”
Then, before she could make sense of what was happening, he disappeared into the deep, dark shadows that separated their houses. “Well,” she murmured. “That was different.”
She felt raw. He wanted to help. He wanted to make it work. But dare I try? “Maybe.”
When she turned toward her house to go inside, she didn’t feel nearly as lonely as she had before.
She didn’t notice the package until she stepped up onto her back porch. She picked it up and carried it inside. Wrapped in a Santa Claus print paper with green yarn for ribbon, the package tag read TO HOPE. FROM LUCCA.
“I guess he was no more anxious to do a gift exchange in person than I was,” she said aloud. She set the package on her entry hall table as she hung her coat in the closet. Then she carried it over to the fire, which she stoked to life once again. She held the package for a moment, thinking about the last time a lover had given her a Christmas gift. Mark’s gift the Christmas before Holly was taken had been a lovely string of pearls. She still wore them on occasion. They reminded her of one of the most pleasurable holidays she’d ever had. Holly had still believed in Santa, and her joy and excitement when she discovered the Barbie Dreamhouse beneath the tree on Christmas morning had been unsurpassed.
“I wonder what’s beneath your tree this year, baby,” Hope murmured. She wouldn’t believe that her little girl didn’t have a Christmas tree. She had to believe that somewhere, a ten-year-old Holly took with her to bed tonight the same happy, excited spirit that the five-year-old had known on Christmas Eve.
Needing a distraction, Hope opened her gift. A Christmas card rested on top of white tissue paper. She opened it and read Lucca’s firm handwriting.
Up front, I need to tell you that the scientific community doesn’t recognize this gift, but they’re not the ones who matter. Merry Christmas, Hope.
All my love, Lucca.
Opening the tissue paper, she spied a framed certificate, the edges of which were trimmed in breathtaking watercolor and ink drawings of planets and stars, novas and—Hope smiled—whimsical angels. She recognized it as the work of Eternity Springs’ own famous artist, her friend Sage Anderson Rafferty.
The certificate’s words were done in lovely calligraphy and read:
From the night sky of the Northern Hemisphere,
a star shines down upon a mother and a daughter,
linking them through the geometry of love.
The star at latitude 43:04:33 North, longitude 77:39:53 West
is officially unofficially named
Holly’s Star.
Love beams up from the mother
and reflects down upon the daughter wherever she exists.
Love radiates up from the daughter
and shines down upon the mother, in daylight and in darkness.
Starshine,
Loveshine.
Hope and Holly.
Hope released a shaky breath. “Oh, Lucca.”
Cradling the frame against her chest, Hope rushed back outside. She ignored the winter’s chill and stared up at the sky, searching, until she found Holly’s Star.
“Oh, Lucca,” she repeated. He loved her. He wanted her. He wanted a family with her. He wasn’t just a second chance, a fix to a past she couldn’t change. He was the future she could embrace. How could she ever walk away from this man?
I can’t.
TWENTY
On December 29, after Lucca had spent almost six months in Eternity Springs, the boisterous noise of midtown Manhattan grated on his nerves like sandpaper as he walked toward the Seventh Avenue entrance to Madison Square Garden. Car horns screeched. A siren blared. Across the street, a jackhammer pounded. He found himself yearning for the peace and quiet of Eternity Springs. “Go figure,” he murmured as he walked into the arena.
His phone sounded—Gabi’s ringtone—and he reached into his suit coat pocket to answer it. He’d been waiting for this call. “Hey, Gabs. How did it go?”
“Good, I think. It was a bit hard to tell. She seemed pleased, but she cried.”
“Good cry or bad cry?”
“Good cry. I think.”
“Give me details.”
“Okay. Celeste called Hope and asked her to come over to Angel’s Rest at ten a.m. to discuss a fund-raising idea for the basketball team. She told the rest of us to be there by nine forty-five.”
“Who all came?” He wished he could have been there to see it, but after their last conversation on Christmas morning, he’d decided that the best strategy was to give her space.
“Everyone who has earned one of the medals—except for you—and me and Mom. So, it was Zach and Savannah, Nic and Gabe, Mac and Ali, Sage and Colt, Cam and Sarah, Jack and Cat, and me and Mom. I have to tell you, it’s depressing to be paired up as a couple with your mother—especially when she is dating and I’m not.”
“What did Celeste say?”
“She stood on the staircase and said she had an announcement to make. She told Hope that after finding out the story behind the Angel ne
cklace, you suggested Hope qualified and that she agreed. She referred to the Wizard of Oz argument you made, and she added that she believed Glenda the Good Witch was actually an angel.”
Lucca laughed. That didn’t surprise him one bit.
“Then Celeste got serious and told Hope that she’s acted courageously and that by wearing her Angel’s Rest medal, she will acknowledge her courage and honor her strength. She put the necklace around Hope’s neck and told her to let the medal be the talisman that reminds her to live boldly. She said if Hope listened to her heart and intuition as she traveled her life’s path, she would recognize the miracles that happen along the road every day. That’s when Hope started to cry.”
“Did she cry and run off or cry and hug people?”
“Actually, she did a little of both. She did the hugging, but then said she couldn’t stay any longer because she had somewhere she needed to be, and she left.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t say.”
“Huh.” Lucca thought it through and decided to think positively about her reaction. He shouldn’t expect to win the race in a hundred-yard dash. This was a marathon. He’d need stamina and patience to win, and win he would. He’d settle for nothing less than victory.
Gabi interrupted his musing. “Now, how about you, Lucca? How are you managing the return to college hoops?”
“It’s fine. Really good, in fact. Tony has a good group of talented kids.”
“And a talented substitute coach. Mom says when y’all made the semifinals, Tony grumbled that you were bound to take credit for his hard work.”
Lucca grinned. “Of course I will. So, Mom told me the surgery went well?”
“Yes. She said she’s going to have a hard time keeping him off it for another few days, but then, she’s in her glory playing nursemaid.”
“True.”
“Good luck in the game this afternoon, Lucca.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m really proud of you. You’ve given me hope that someday, I’ll find my way, too.”