by Janice Lynn
They’d bought some of the antiques from the upstairs rooms.
“That is so wonderful. I know she had to feel relieved that they were going to people she loved.” Meanwhile, Sarah was relieved to know the Butterflies had at least some of her aunt’s treasures. Treasures she’d thought she’d never see again. And now, they were trying to give them to her. She shook her head. “I can’t take these.”
Maybelle’s brows veed. “You’re rejecting our Christmas gifts to you?”
She hadn’t meant to offend Maybelle, but she couldn’t accept such extravagant gifts. “They’re too much.”
“Nonsense, girl.” Ruby came over and gave her a hug. “Each of us brought you a gift today, something of Jean’s that we want you to have. Call it a Christmas present or a housewarming gift or whatever, but these are for you. It’s what we always intended.”
“I…” Sarah’s eyes watered as she looked at the wonderful women who’d had such an impact on her life. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You say thank you,” Maybelle reminded with her usual sass. “Then, you tell Charlie and your father to get this stuff carried upstairs and out of the way before your guests arrive.”
A tear trickled down her cheek. “I love you all.”
“Telling us that is much better than Maybelle’s suggestion,” Rosie assured, then hugged Sarah. “We love you, too, honey.”
There was a flurry of hugging, then carrying items up the stairs where they put them in one of the mostly empty suites.
“I have the bed, chest, and dresser that went in this room,” Maybelle informed her. “Someday, I’ll give them to you as a wedding gift.”
Sarah crinkled her nose. “I’d rather you sell them to me once I’m ready to open these rooms up to guests.”
Maybelle shook her head. “No. When I bought the set, I told Jean what I was saving it for. She loved that idea.”
Rosie cleared her voice. “The wardrobe I have matches.”
“Do I have to wait until I get married on that, too?”
Rosie’s eyes lit with delight. “Of course. It’s a matching set.”
Ruby and Claudia both looked about to burst.
“Okay, what are you holding ransom until a wedding that’s never going to happen?”
“I have the curtains, those heavy brocaded ones that match these.” Ruby held up one of the pillows.
“And I have the tapestry that used to hang on the wall over there,” Claudia confessed with glee.
She couldn’t help but smile at them as she shook her head. “Truly, it would be better if I bought them back. Waiting for years on a wedding that might never happen to bring this room back together seems a shame.”
“There’s no rush. You can always use other pieces until that day comes.”
“Assuming it ever does.”
“You never know when the right one will come along and sweep you off your feet.”
Something in the way Rosie said the words had Sarah’s gaze dropping to her hand.
“Rosie!” she exclaimed as she took in the glittering diamond. “You said yes.”
Rosie lifted her chin and fluffed her bright blue hair. “Couldn’t break Lou’s heart on Christmas, now could I?”
Once they were all back downstairs, Ruby went to give Charlie the grand tour, while the others asked what they could do to help. Sarah assigned each one a room, putting her father, Maybelle, Claudia, and her husband in the kitchen to make sure guests got cookies and drinks as needed.
She stationed Rosie in the living area. When they returned, she put Ruby and Charlie in charge of the downstairs suites.
“Y’all just make sure y’all behave,” Sarah told them, getting a giggle from Ruby as she and Charlie exchanged looks.
Oh, to have that kind of love. The kind where you loved and were loved in return and never doubted each other’s affections.
Bringing a tray of sandwiches with him as a housewarming gift, Lou was the first visitor to arrive and got a round of congrats from everyone. Carrie and her family were right behind him. Within minutes, the house had a steady stream of visitors.
None stayed long, they all just toured the home, sampled some of the goodies, promised to rave about the place to any friends or relatives, then they gave their best wishes and left as others arrived.
The magazine journalist showed, snapped hundreds of photos, asked about that many questions, and told Sarah he’d shoot her an email when the article went live on their website.
A dozen or so guests were still there when the two-hour open house ended. One by one, Sarah saw them off.
After they were all gone, Ruby gave her a big hug. “Sorry Charlie and I can’t stay longer. Our grands are coming over tonight for board games.”
Claudia glanced at her watch. “Oh, we’ve got to be heading out, too. The hubs here has a surprise gift for me that wasn’t under the tree this morning. I get to open it when we get back.”
“If he’s smart, it’s a trip to anywhere but here,” Rosie mused.
Sarah caught Maybelle and Claudia’s husband exchanging a look, saw the glimmer of amusement in Maybelle’s eyes, and knew the woman knew exactly what Claudia’s husband had planned.
Not only that, but she’d played a role in it coming about. God love her.
Maybelle and Sarah’s father stayed a few minutes longer, then both claimed they had to leave as well.
From the front porch, Sarah watched them drive away.
The open house had been a big success. The local paper and the magazine were both doing features. Dozens had attended.
She should be ecstatic.
Instead, she was haunted by thoughts of that one person who should have been there but wasn’t.
Had she been secretly hoping he’d come to the open house? That she’d be talking to one of the Butterflies, turn, and there he’d be, smiling at her and stealing her breath?
How foolish. What would change if he had? She was tied to Pine Hill. Tied by strings of history, family, friends, community. Strings she cherished and didn’t want to break.
But that didn’t stop the ache of Bodie not being there, his not having come to the open house he’d help make possible, his not being there to receive his share of all the compliments on the classy way he’d created a modern bathroom yet kept the historic feel of the home.
His just not being there, period.
Get a grip, Sarah.
Struggling with her emotions, she went back inside Hamilton House.
She wandered from room to room, looking around with pride, flipping lights off as she went. As she walked into each room, she let memories from the past fill her mind. Aunt Jean, the Butterflies, all the open house visitors, even Bodie.
Inside these walls were so many memories.
She paused in the foyer, her eyes going to the photos over the staircase. She studied each one. Roy’s parents wedding photo, Aunt Jean and Uncle Roy’s, and the silly snaggle-toothed photo of her that Aunt Jean had adored.
She came from a long line of lovers. Loyal lovers who loved once and only once.
She would only love once.
A chill hit her.
She went to the living room, picked up Bodie’s quilt, sat in the rocking chair that had once been her grandmother’s, and wrapped herself up in the patriotic cover.
Had she been right in what she’d told Maybelle why Bodie had left it?
Or had he thought she needed the quilt more than he did?
In that moment, she realized she did need the comfort it provided. It wrapped around her like a gifted hug from him. Was that how he’d once felt about the quilt?
Was that what he’d wanted to give back to her? Knowing she’d need it more than him?
Having constantly checked her phone during the night to see if he’d texted back, she hadn’t slept w
ell. As she rocked, her eyes became heavy and she drifted off.
In her dreams, Bodie had never left. They’d replaced the photo on the stairs with a photo of them, a black and white one taken inside the church. The upstairs suites had been returned to their beauty and grandeur, filled with the wedding gifts from the Butterflies.
Hamilton House’s walls threatened to burst from all the new memories being made within them. Memories that were happy and full of love.
Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she knew none of it was real.
She also acknowledged how desperately she wished it were. Because like it or not, Bodie had taken something of hers when he’d left.
Her heart.
Her lucid dreaming continued, and she welcomed the illusion of Bodie’s smile and laughter as the Christmas gift it was. From far off in her dream, she heard Harry barking, and she wished he’d hurry and join them so she could pet him.
His barking was growing louder, more persistent, and not fitting with her dream.
Opening her eyes, she glanced around the living room, eyes settling on her twinkling Christmas tree as she tried to orient herself from her dream-filled nap.
She was awake now. The barking should have stopped.
It hadn’t.
Adrenaline shot up from her belly to her throat. Was she not really awake? Was this still part of her dream?
The barking had gotten closer, louder, as if…as if Harry were on her front porch.
Pulling the quilt off, she tossed it onto the rocker. Then she hurried to the front door and flung it open, not really expecting to see anyone, expecting to awaken and be disappointed that the barking hadn’t been real.
There, on her front porch, was Bodie squatted down, telling Harry to quit barking.
He glanced up, met her gaze with his beautiful blue eyes, and grinned. “Merry Christmas, Sarah.”
“I…what are you doing here?”
Not exactly the welcome Bodie had hoped for, but at least she hadn’t slammed the door in his face or ordered him off the property.
Bodie’s body seemed frozen in place, but Harry had no such issues and leapt at Sarah, barking, nudging her with his nose and licking her like crazy.
At his launching at her, Sarah stumbled back a step before steadying herself, laughing at Harry’s exuberant hello as she loved on the dog.
“I missed you, too,” she told Harry, hugging him to her and giggling as he attempted to lick her face.
“Down,” Bodie told him, but for once, Harry didn’t listen, just kept excitedly greeting Sarah. “Harry,” Bodie said in a deeper tone.
“It’s okay. He’s not bothering me,” Sarah assured, scratching Harry behind the ears and moving her head around to keep Harry’s licking from the chin down.
Maybe he should have left Harry in the truck until he’d told Sarah what he’d come to say. Then again, she’d looked stunned to see him on her porch and it was only after Harry went nuts that she smiled and laughed.
When Harry had calmed enough that conversation was possible, Sarah spoke first.
“You didn’t answer my question. Why are you here?”
“Today is your open house.”
She didn’t look up from where she petted Harry. “The open house was from twelve to two.”
He’d left in what should have been plenty of time to get there, but had run into bad traffic.
“I’m sorry I missed it. Maybe you could give me a private showing?”
Her gaze lifted. “Why?”
“I’d like to see what you did with the suites after I left.”
She straightened, motioned for him to go inside. He followed her through the hallway to first one suite, then the other.
“I like the furniture and how you decorated. It all looks simple but beautiful.”
“I can’t take the credit. It’s the furniture Aunt Jean’s in-laws bought more than half a century ago. There’s still cookies and drinks in the kitchen if you want some.”
He’d grabbed something during his last pit stop to let Harry out and to stretch both their legs, but he wasn’t one to turn down Sarah’s cookies.
He started to follow her to the kitchen but, with her face looking a little pale, she stopped him. “I… Wait in the living room, and I’ll bring them there.”
With that, she went to the kitchen and left him in the hallway. Bodie watched her go, then went back to the foyer to make his way to the living room. In the foyer, he paused to look at the photos on the stairwell.
Specifically, the photo of Sarah.
He took a deep breath and went to the living room. Barely inside the doorway, his gaze immediately went to where his quilt lay on the rocker. Walking over to it, he picked it up.
It was warm.
When he’d gotten there, Sarah had been beneath the quilt.
“I figured I should use it since I couldn’t regift it to Quilts of Valor. They only accept new quilts.”
Continuing to hold the quilt, he turned to her. “If they’d have taken it, would you have given it to another soldier, Sarah?”
Her gaze dropped to the quilt. Her eyes closed, then she shook her head. “No.”
“Because?”
Opening her eyes, she took on a steely resolve, lifting her chin and asking, “Why are you here, Bodie?”
But Bodie wasn’t stopping until he had answers, until he gave her answers. They had a lot to discuss and it all began with the quilt he held. “Why wouldn’t you have given the quilt away again, Sarah?”
“Because I… It’s your quilt, Bodie. I made it for you.”
“You didn’t know me when you made this.”
“As crazy as it sounds, I still made it for you.” She set the tray of cookies and drinks on a side table, turned to stare at the quilt he held. “My mother made a quilt for a soldier once. It wasn’t a Quilt of Valor, but a quilt of love she made for my father while he was overseas. She poured love into every stitch.” She pointed to his quilt. “Every Quilt of Valor quilt Aunt Jean made was for Roy. I did the same thing when I made that quilt.”
She gave a self-derisive laugh, then met his gaze. “I was grieving for Aunt Jean, poured my heart into making the quilt because I knew that’s what she did with Roy. Only with my quilt, I dreamed of you, my very own soldier, with every stitch I sewed. I didn’t know you and yet,” her shoulders moved in a slight shrug, “I did.”
She crossed the room, took the quilt from him, and tossed it back onto the rocker. “There’s my Christmas confession. Now, tell me why you’re here.”
“To tell you Merry Christmas.”
“You could have just called.” Her chin lifted a notch. “Or texted.”
Knowing he had zero experience with romance and would probably completely botch this, Bodie reached into his jacket pocket and wrapped his fingers around what he’d put in there hours before.
“I could have, but then, I couldn’t have done this.”
He pulled out the sprig of green he’d borrowed from Kelly and Lukas and held it out to a stunned Sarah.
Was Sarah still asleep and dreaming? She decided she had to be. No way was Bodie in Hamilton House holding out a piece of mistletoe.
“I—I don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do.” He placed the mistletoe in her hand, closing her fingers around the greenery. “I got ahead of myself.”
Sarah opened her palm, looked down at the mistletoe, then back up at Bodie.
“When I left here, I believed I needed my job with iSecure in order to feel whole again, to fill the missing pieces while I put myself back together. To find purpose by serving and protecting others.”
Although he was saying things she already knew, Sarah listened closely, trying to decipher what had brought him back to Hamilton House, afraid to let her mind wander as to why he was h
ere, why he’d given her mistletoe.
“Lukas had planned to start me on easy assignments and let me work my way back up to high stakes again, but Kelly went into labor a month early, less than a day before Lukas was supposed to be on a plane for a major operation overseas. He was left with the choices of going himself, canceling the mission, letting the rest of the team handle it alone, or sending me in his place on the team.”
“He sent you.”
Bodie nodded. “When I got his call saying he needed me, I checked out of the hotel and drove straight to the hospital to meet him. I got my assignment, left Harry with him, and flew out that day. I got back to the States last night.”
Sarah was glad she hadn’t known where he was, what he was doing. Just thinking that he’d left had worried her enough. Had she known he was on some high-stakes mission out of the country, she’d have been a nervous wreck.
“I’ve always done my job well, Sarah. This time was no exception.” He paused, walked over to the Christmas tree, touched the snowflake he’d put there the day after the On-the-Square Festival. “The problem is, I thought I had to go back to that life to be myself again. That if I didn’t, I’d be letting that IED steal my life the way it had stolen my friends.”
She watched him tighten his fingers, then flex them.
“Maybe I needed to prove to myself, to everyone, that I could still do my job.”
“That’s what you did?”
He nodded. “Lukas has offered me my pick of assignments.”
Sarah bit the inside of her lip. She was happy for him, but…
“Congratulations, I think.”
“I told him I had reconsidered my position at iSecure.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to be sitting in some desert on a stakeout, Sarah. I want to be here, at Hamilton House.”
What was he saying? Why were her insides trembling?
“You do?”
He nodded. “Think you have a room for me?”
Her head spun. “You want to stay at Hamilton House?”
“If you’ll have me here.”
“Of course. That’s fine. I…how long do you plan to stay?”