Holidays at Crescent Cove (9 page)

Chapter Twelve

“
N
OT HERE,”
S
EAMUS
said. “Just missed him. Now if you've got something good to say to him, I'll tell you where he is. If it isn't good, maybe you could wait until after Thanksgiving.”

“It's good,” Grace said. “At least it's good for me. I hope it's good for him.'

Seamus cackled. Raised his eyes to heaven. “Can you believe these two?” He looked back at Grace, trying to compose himself. “That's the kind of thing you say in the intimacy of your—”

“Oh.” Grace clapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn't mean—”

“I know what you meant. I swear, for full grown adults, the two of you are the most . . . words fail me. He had to pick up a few last minute things at the store. You coming tomorrow?”

“My parents are here.”

“Bring them, too, might as well see what they're getting into. Now, get out of here before you two pass each other in the night.” Seamus heaved a sigh, shook his head and closed the door.

Grace practically ran to her car. She felt giddy and stupid and completely maladroit. And she didn't care.

She had to exert iron control not to speed through town toward the Cove Market and breathed a thankful sigh of relief when she saw Jake's truck parked in the lot next to it.

She grabbed a basket and pushed it into the store, nearly running into a cart filled high with bags and hiding whoever was pushing it.

“Sorry,” Grace said. She swerved out of the cart's path and headed down the aisle.

He was standing halfway down the second aisle, frowning at a display of canned cranberry sauce. Grace slowed down, suddenly feeling like a teenager about to face the captain of the football team.

Nervous? A bit. But mainly happy and slightly silly. She'd been a responsible adult for as long as she could remember. Margaux and Bri used to kid her about it when they were still kids. Even though Grace was several years younger, she'd bossed them from the get go.

It had been fun then. When had she stopped having fun or allowed herself to relax and think about starting a relationship? Except for a few false starts, she'd never bothered to cultivate a long-lasting relationship. Her work took up too much time. And work always came first.

Jake was still frowning at the cans when she rolled her cart up next to his and gave it a bump.

He jumped. “Sorry.” He started to move his cart aside and saw her. He broke into a smile that told Grace everything she needed to know.

“Everything okay?”

Grace nodded. She didn't trust her voice. If she answered, she might burst into song like a demented Disney character. She pulled herself together. “Yes. My father retired. My mother is on her way, she told me to come buy a turkey.”

“Oh,” he said, looking disappointed. “I was hoping you'd be able to have Thanksgiving with us.”

“Seamus invited all three of us. But I'm not sure you're ready for my parents.”

“It's more a question if they can handle us. Two of my brothers and their wives and children and my oldest sister and her brood. The others live too far away. Even so, it'll be a zoo. But a friendly zoo. And the store only has frozen turkeys left, it will never defrost in time.”

Grace deliberated. Her reconciliation with her father was still too fresh to know what would be best. But it was also time for her to start thinking about her own happiness.

“Plus I'm betting that your father and mine together will be worth the price of admission.”

Grace made a face. “Oh, what the hell.” She fished out her cell phone, rang her mother.

“Hi dear, I just got here, I'm so happy you two have made up.”

She sounded happy. Grace wondered if he'd hit her with the retirement part yet.

“Did you pick up the turkey?”

“They only have frozen ones,” Grace said, “and actually, we've been invited to Thanksgiving dinner by a friend of mine.”

“Margaux?”

“Actually, Jake McGuire and his father.”

“McGuire,” her mother repeated, obviously trying to put a face to the name.

Jake shook his head. “Tell her—”

Her father's voice came loud and clear in the background. “The boyfriend.”

Grace blushed.

“Boyfriend? You've got a boyfriend?”

Jack made a face, walked several feet away, trying not to laugh.

Grace gave him a look.

“Mother, they're friends of mine.”

“Tell them we'd love to come.”

Grace winced. This could turn out to be a disaster. Jake was holding his sides and shaking with silent laughter.

“Fine.” She hung up and turned on him. “I can't believe you told my father that you were my boyfriend.”

“He said it first.”

“We're never going to live that down.”

“What else could I say? Certainly not what I was thinking. What I'm thinking now.”

Grace felt a rush of heat. “And what would that be?” she asked cautiously.

He turned a smoldering, heated look on her. “Whether I should get jellied or the kind with the berries in it.”

Grace laughed. “You are so your father. Get both.”

 

 

A Crescent Cove Christmas

Chapter One

I
T WAS SNOWING
hard. Brianna Boyce hunched over the steering wheel and squinted through the windshield, trying to keep the car on the road. A road that was quickly disappearing beneath drifts of white. They shouldn't have stayed at the mall so long. It was only a little after five but already it was pitch-black except for the blinding curtain of white.

She glanced at the backseat where her two newly adopted daughters were asleep in their car seats. Ming Li and Li Fan, Mimi and Lily. They'd fallen asleep before Bri had negotiated her new secondhand SUV out of the parking lot.

Bri knew how to shop, but she normally avoided the mall. But today with the weather being so fickle, she'd decided to give the girls a treat. And the trip had never given her so much pleasure. They'd taken in everything, stopped at every window to gaze at the clothes, the appliances, the bath products. At the toy store, they stared open-mouthed at a pink plastic fairy castle, and Bri decided to go back and buy it for their Christmas.

They didn't ask for a thing as Bri pointed out things in her pigeon Chinese. They had no toys like this in the orphanage where they'd spent their young lives until a few weeks ago. They had never heard of Disney. Didn't understand that these things could be bought and taken home. Could be theirs for their very own, not just some fairy-tale land to be visited with their new mother.

They were afraid to sit on Santa's lap, which was a bit of a disappointment. She'd had fantasies of sending out Christmas cards with them smiling, each on one knee. Bri tried to see the mall Santa through their eyes. He was pretty good, a huge man, well padded in his red suit, a white curly beard, and a Santa hat with big white pompom that hung over his forehead.

They'd taken one look and cowered against her. His “Ho ho ho” scared them. Bri smiled, bittersweet. Maybe next year when they were more accustomed to living here.

When Bri had started adoption proceedings, they'd been three and two. Now Mimi was five and Lily almost four. It seemed like eons before she was finally allowed to bring them home at the beginning of November. And Bri was thankful. She had a lot to be thankful about.

She looked back at the road, slowed as she came to the curve a quarter mile from their home, an old horse farm she'd bought when she returned to Crescent Cove eight years before.

The SUV took the turn easily. She would never drive too fast again. She'd learned that lesson many years before.

Up ahead she could see something standing by the side of the road. A deer? She slowed even more. But as the SUV got closer she could see that it was a man, his arm lifted in the air. A hitchhiker. In this weather.

Bri's first thought was to slow down and give the poor man a ride, no one should be out in this weather. She might have done it in her younger years when she was fearless and thought she was invincible. She might even have picked him up a few weeks ago, and taken her chances that he wasn't a psychopath.

But she had someone other than herself to think of now. To protect. So she gave him a wide berth and left him to his lonely, frigid trek toward town.

A quarter of a mile later she turned into her driveway. Drove right up to the side of the old clapboard house and stopped at the kitchen door. Mimi roused as Bri lifted her out of the car, and she sleepily clasped her little arms around Bri's neck. She was light as a feather. Any qualms Bri might have had about taking care of two young girls while being hampered by her gimpy leg had fallen by the wayside the minute she'd given them her first hug.

Some things were a bit dicey, like carrying them through the snow to the house. One of the reasons for parking right at the door. And it was awkward getting up the steps. But nothing she couldn't handle and nothing she begrudged. She couldn't help but give Mimi a little squeeze as they reached the warmth of the kitchen.

She went straight through to the great room, the warmest room in the drafty old house, where they spent most of their time. She deposited Mimi at one end of the funky overstuffed sofa, then went back for Lily.

Lily didn't even rouse as Bri laid her at the opposite end of the couch. She covered them both with the colorful afghan she'd purchased at the town flea market the summer before, and went back outside to collect her mall purchases.

As she beeped the SUV locked, a gust of wind whipped through the air and she shivered as she hurried into the house. She dumped everything on the kitchen table, pulled off her hat and gloves, shrugged out of her coat, and took out her cell. Punched in a number she had on speed dial.

“Hey, Bri. What's up?”

“Hi, Nick, no emergency. Just that I saw a hitchhiker on our way home from the mall.”

“You didn't pick him up?” Nick Prescott was the interim sheriff of Crescent Cove and had just married her best friend Margaux.

“No. Of course not. But I did feel sorry for him. I thought maybe one of Crescent Cove's finest might give him a ride to where he's going. Not you, but Finley or Joe.”

“Sure. One of them is bound to be out that way. We've got plenty of calls coming in. The weather isn't letting up much. The snow is supposed to pass through by the morning, but the temperature will drop. Is your heat working okay?”

“Yes. Thank you. Though we've pretty much moved downstairs to keep the heating bill down.”

“If you want to come stay with me and Margaux and Connor until it warms up, you're welcome.”

“Thanks, but we're fine so far. We're coming over tomorrow for a play date. Will we see you for dinner?”

“I hope so. Uh-oh, gotta go. I'll put someone on your hitchhiker. See you tomorrow.”

He hung up. Bri dropped the cell on the table and opened the fridge to see what she could make for dinner.

D
AVID
H
ENDERSON HAD
had enough. Not that he'd expected the car to pick him up. He'd learned that people weren't as giving or as tolerant or trusting as they had been when he left the States over ten years before. Except for a few quick holiday trips, he hadn't been back, and he was having trouble adjusting now.

But he'd made a promise. A promise he would keep. One that had kept him going for the last few months. Some days he wished he'd never gotten involved with the troubled soldier who had been in charge of bringing supplies to the Afghan village where they set up a medical triage tent for the local inhabitants.

He'd been pretty depressed himself that day and didn't really have the energy for someone else's problems, but the haunted look in that soldier's eyes . . . David recognized it and knew where it would invariably end up if the man didn't get help.

He shuddered from the cold and brushed away the snow that was gathering on his eyebrows.

A half hour ago he'd been dropped off at the highway exit to Crescent Cove, Connecticut, certain that a beach town would have a bunch of motels to choose from. So far he hadn't even seen an open gas station.

He had no idea how much longer it would take him to reach town. Where was sprawling urbanization when you needed food, warmth, a cup of coffee?

He shifted his backpack on his shoulders, shoved his gloved hands deep into the pockets of his field jacket and trudged ahead.

Across the road and through the bare trees he saw a dim light. Some happy family sitting toasty in their kitchen with their stainless steel appliances and granite countertops, while his feet were numb with cold. He felt a little envious. But only for a second.

They'd have a shit fit if he knocked on their door and asked for food, a bed, even a ride to the nearest hotel. But maybe they had a garage or a shed where he could at least get out of the snow and wind.

He set off across the road and slipped and slid down into a pasture where a few sparse winter stalks rose above the accumulating snow. He was careful not to get too close to the light ahead. He didn't want to get shot. And wouldn't that be a kick. To make it for years in hot spots around the world and take a bullet in the suburbs of Connecticut.

He came to a line of trees, their bare branches dimly lit from the reflective snow. And saw that he hadn't even reached the suburbs, but a dilapidated two-story farmhouse. But where there was a farmhouse there was bound to be some outbuildings. His night was beginning to look up.

He carefully skirted the source of the light that appeared to be coming from a kitchen window. He could see a vase of some sort sitting on the sill. And he realized that the snow was beginning to taper off. That was a relief.

He could also make out the shape of a barn. With any luck there would be clean straw, a horse blanket, or a warm animal. And it was cheaper that the Holiday Inn.

Keeping to the shadows, David crept up to the barn. He'd be gone before morning. They'd never know. He'd learned the hard way how not to leave a trail. And now that the possibility of rest dangled like a carrot in front of him, David could barely keep on his feet.

By the time he reached the side door of the wooden barn he was staggering. He pulled at the door. And stepped inside to total dark.

B
RI AND THE
girls spent the night on an air mattress in the great room, surrounded by a barricade of pillows and covered with several down comforters. Mimi and Lily had not yet learned to sleep alone. And Bri couldn't stand to hear their cries the few times she attempted to put them to bed in the small bedroom just a doorway from her own. She knew they would have to learn, but they already had so much to get used to.

Hell, they couldn't even articulate their needs, though they had picked up quite a few words of English since Bri had brought them home. They were doing a lot better with English than she was doing with Chinese.

Nick had called to say they'd checked on the hitchhiker but didn't find him. “Probably picked up by some generous soul. Hope they didn't make a big mistake.”

“Nick, you cynic. It's Christmas,” Bri said.

“Fine, but don't you ever pick up any hitchhikers.”

“Yes sir, Chief.”

“Huh. See you tomorrow.”

Bri lowered herself to the floor and slipped beneath the covers.

When she awoke at daybreak, she felt the girls' bodies spooning against hers, and her love for them swelled as if they had been hers from the moment they breathed life. As if they were her own birth children. She lay for just a minute relishing the comfort of knowing they were a family, the sense of quiet trust.

Then she eased away from them, rolled over and stiffly got to her feet. She brushed her hair and teeth even though she was only going out to feed Hermione, the goat, and the chickens, and put out water for the cats who seemed to multiply from day to day.

She pulled on quilted snow pants over her pajamas, shrugged into a down jacket that she'd picked up at a consignment shop. Twisted her hair into a knot and tucked it into the hunting hat with earflaps that she wore to do chores. She never put it on without grinning.

If her friends could see her now . . . Except her real friends—the ones who stuck by her from her meteoric rise in the fashion runway world to her ignoble plunge to depression and despair, her painful climb back to where she was now—those friends saw her all the time in all manner of dress, in good moods and bad. They loved her anyway. The others? To hell with them.

Making one last check that the girls were still sleeping, Bri let herself out the back door. It had snowed over a foot during the night, but her menagerie would be hungry and she couldn't wait for the snow plow. She was one of the last stops on his route.

So she trudged through the knee deep snow, slowly so as not to slip or fall, carving out a path to the barn with each step. She was breathing hard by the time she reached the barn. She walked around to the side door, which was sheltered from the worst of the drifts. She grabbed the handle with both hands and tugged the door open.

Light was just filtering down from the loft windows, slashes of it seeping through the cracks in the wood. Bri smiled, feeling content and almost happy. She wished she could describe the feeling the dim light gave her. Her friend Margaux could design a dress called Barn at Sunrise, or something even more fanciful to add to her beach-inspired fashion line.

But Bri didn't have a way to express what she felt. She took courses, learned how to build a business, fix a leak, change a flat tire. Things she would have scoffed at in her younger years.

She lifted the metal lid of the storage bin, scooped out Hermione's morning ration of feed into a feed pail and carried it over to the corner of the barn where Hermione lived during inclement weather.

Hermione met her with a nasally
baa.

“Morning, Miss Thing.” Bri scrubbed the scruffy fur above her tail, and Hermione wiggled in response. She was old and no longer gave milk, not that Bri would have wanted to milk her. A girl did have her limits. She'd inherited Hermione from the owner when she bought the farm, and Bri felt responsible to make her last years comfortable. Hermione seemed totally willing to accept her new situation and her new mistress.

Bri hung the pail where the goat could reach it and went back across the barn for the pitchfork. As she reached for it she saw something move in one of the empty stalls. She grabbed the pitchfork in both hands. She'd never be able to outrun a wild animal. But she kept the doors and windows latched. If this was a predator, it was of the human variety.

She peered into the stall, pitchfork at the ready. Saw the end of what appeared to be a blue nylon sleeping bag and the bulk of someone sleeping inside. A thief? Murderer? Homeless person? Did they have homeless people at the Connecticut shore?

Whoever it was stirred, rolled over, taking the bag with him. Bri began to back cautiously to the door. But before she could reach it, Hermione tossed her head and knocked the feed pail off the hook. It clattered to the floor, only slightly muffled by the layer of straw.