Better Than Chocolate

by Sheila Roberts

  Then it was time for pie. In spite of how crazy-busy Cass had been with work, she’d managed to bake pumpkin, pecan and her brother’s favorite, wild huckleberry. “This will be enough for me,” he joked, grabbing the whole pie.

  With dessert came another tradition, one Cass had started when the kids were small.

  “Okay,” she said, “it’s gratitude time. Who wants to start?”

  Gratitude. Sometimes the challenge to be grateful had been as big as the word. Often she’d been a world-class hypocrite, encouraging her children to look on the bright side while she indulged in resentment.

  It seemed as if she’d spent most of her married life in that particular mental state. She’d resented Mason’s decision to join the navy when they were engaged and she was pregnant. They’d barely set up housekeeping when he shipped out the first time. He’d missed his daughter’s birth; her childbirth partner had been her mother. Better her mother than his, she’d told herself. That was something to be grateful for. And she’d been grateful when he got out of the navy. Not so much when he went back to school and neglected his family for his studies. Not so much when he carved out a career that seemed to keep him gone more than it kept him home. Mason had been determined to find the path to success, but that path left little room for his family. She was the one who’d always been there to soothe every heartbreak, puzzle over every math problem, cheer at every ball game. And what had he done?

  Gratitude, remember? Okay, she had something to be grateful for. She wasn’t with him anymore.

  “I’m grateful for something,” Dani said. She reached into her jeans pocket, pulled out a diamond ring and slid it onto her finger.

  “Oh, my gosh, you’re engaged!” cried Amber.

  Cass set down her fork and gaped. Of course she’d known this was coming, but she was a little shocked that her daughter hadn’t told her before everyone else. “When did this happen?” she asked.

  Dani was beaming now, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement. She looked at Mike and they shared the smiles reserved for a man and woman in possession of newly minted love. “Last night. We wanted to wait and surprise everyone.”

  Well, they had.

  “Don’t know how surprised anyone is,” Dot said, “but I think you made your mother’s day.”

  Of course she had. Why was Cass sitting there like a turkey on a platter? She jumped up and went to hug her daughter and her future son-in-law. “This is wonderful. You two are going to be so happy.”

  How could they help but be? Unlike her mother at that age, Danielle had been wise and thoughtful when selecting a mate. She hadn’t rushed into a relationship with her hormones on fire and her brain dead from smoke inhalation. She’d held out for the man who would be perfect for her. They even looked perfect together, Mike with his dark hair and eyes and that big frame, her with her lighter coloring and sandy hair and perfect willowy figure. In their wedding garb they’d look fit for the top of a wedding cake.

  “This calls for more pie,” Drew said with a grin, and helped himself to another piece.

  “I’m going to be a bridesmaid, right?” Amber asked her sister.

  “Of course,” Dani said.

  “You’d better dig out your Armani,” Cass said to Drew. “Dani’s going to need you to walk her down the aisle.”

  Dani’s face lost some of its bride-to-be glow and she bit her lip.

  “Hey, I’m fine sitting in the front row with your mom,” Drew said quickly. “I don’t have to be the one.”

  Oh, yes, he did. Who else was going to? Oh, no. Surely not…

  “Actually, I was hoping Daddy would walk me down the aisle,” Dani said.

  The undeserving absent father? The man who had been M.I.A. for most of Dani’s life? Cass fell back against her chair and stared across the table at her daughter.

  Dani’s cheeks bloomed with a guilty flush and she studiously avoided her mother’s gaze.

  “Daddy?” Cass echoed. It came out frosted with scorn. Way to be mature and poison your daughter’s happy moment, she scolded herself.

  With her sunny disposition and eagerness to please, Danielle was normally easy to get along with, but now her chin jutted out at a pugnacious angle. “I know he’ll want to.”

  Oh, he always wanted to be there, but he never had been.

  Until lately. Now that their children were practically grown. He and his thirty-two-year-old trophy wife, Babette, seemed to think they could lure the kids over to Seattle any time he swooped in from searching the globe for oil for Exxon and buy their affection with shopping trips and Seahawks tickets.

  Obviously it was working, and that made Cass want to break the wishbone she’d been saving into a thousand pieces. This wasn’t right. How to make Dani see that, though?

  She cleared her throat. “You know he travels a lot.”

  “I know,” Dani said, “but we want a Christmas wedding and he’ll be here for Christmas.”

  “Christmas Day?” Willie made a face.

  Dani looked at him in disgust. “What, are you afraid Santa won’t come?” To the others she said, “Actually, we thought the weekend before.”

  “That’s not much time to plan a wedding,” Dot pointed out. “What’s the rush?”

  Now Mike was beaming like a man with a big announcement.

  “Because Mike got a job as assistant manager at a hardware store in Spokane,” Dani announced for him, “and when he moves for his new job I want to go with him.”

  Everyone at the table got busy offering Mike congratulations.

  Except Cass, who was truly in shock. They’d be moving away. Her daughter would be moving away practically the moment after she got married. The vision of Dani raising her family here in Icicle Falls, of someday taking over the bakery, went up in smoke. It was all Cass could do not to cry. She pushed away the plate with her half-finished pumpkin pie and hoped nobody asked her what she was thankful for.

  “Anyway, we just want a small wedding,” Mike said. “Nothing fancy.”

  Nothing fancy? Dani had always wanted a big church wedding. What happened to that?

  “And I know Daddy can come that weekend,” Dani said.

  “You already talked to your father?” Before you even shared the news with me?

  Hurt welled up in Cass, giving her the worst case of heartburn she’d ever had.

  “Just to see if he was going to be around,” Dani said quickly. “I thought maybe everyone could come up and stay for Christmas.”

  “Here?” Cass squeaked.

  “Whoo boy,” Drew said under his breath.

  “There’s no room,” Cass said firmly. No room at the inn.

  “You could probably put them up at Olivia’s,” Dot said.

  Thank you, Dot. Remind me never to invite you over for Thanksgiving dinner again.

  “Dani, you know how crazy it gets this time of year,” Cass said. “I’m sure most of the B and Bs are already booked solid with people coming up for the Christmas festival that week.”

  “Olivia still has a couple of rooms,” Dani said.

  “You already talked to her?” She’d told Olivia, too?

  “This morning. I just called to ask if she had any rooms left.”

  “Well, then, I guess that settles it,” Cass said stiffly.

  “You’ll help me plan it, won’t you?” Dani asked her in a small voice.

  Cass was hurt and she was mad, but she wasn’t insane. “Of course I will.
And I’ll make the cake.”

  “Well, duh,” Amber said.

  Dani beamed at her. “Thanks, Mom.”

  She’d even suck it up and be nice at the wedding. It would be wrong to poison her daughter’s big day with petty jealousy.

  It’s not petty, whispered her evil twin, and Cass told her to shut up.

  “I know it’s a busy time of year,” Dani said.

  “’Tis the season,” Dot cracked.

  The season to be jolly. That was going to be hard with her ex-husband strutting around town, pretending to be the world’s best dad. It was going to be hard to greet his bimbo trophy wife with good cheer. And she didn’t even want to think about dealing with her former mother-in-law and sister-in-law. If Santa thought this was what Cass wanted for Christmas he needed to retire.

  “This is going to be a pain in the butt for you,” Dot said to her later, after the dishes were done and the kids were setting up the Wii game.

  Cass leaned against the kitchen counter and stared into the contents of her coffee mug—black, just like her mood.

  “But you’ll get through it.”

  Of course she would. Exes were a part of life. She’d put on her big-girl panties and deal with this. After all, it was only one day. A woman could survive anything for just a day.

  Cass managed a reluctant smile and raised her mug. “Well, then, here’s to getting through.”

  Dot clinked mugs with her. “Merry Ex-mas, kiddo.”

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  ISBN: 9781459241121

  Copyright © 2012 by Sheila Rabe

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either 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. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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