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Steve hung around the café for another hour, but Hope didn’t return. He learned from the waitress that had served him that Hope had texted she was going home for the day. When he pressed for her address, she said she didn’t know where Hope lived. Outside the restaurant, Brie gave Steve guff for scaring Hope away.
“You came on strong, Voice.”
“Stop calling me Voice.”
“She’s a mama bear with cubs. You have to tread softly.”
“I won’t be deterred. In the morning, I’m gonna return and use my inimitable charm to persuade her to say yes.”
“Inimitable. Big word.”
“Inimitable,” he repeated, convincing himself he could accomplish his mission. Heck, he had to. And, honestly, didn’t her kids deserve the prize? Wasn’t she the bad guy in this scenario?
Dusk was settling in and a light snow was falling as Steve drove Brie to her bed-and-breakfast, a charming Victorian-style establishment a couple blocks from his parents’ house. Yes, he would be staying with his folks, but he didn’t want to arrive there in the Santa suit, so he begged Brie for permission to shower in her room—he stank of frustration; she didn’t disagree—and then he shrugged into the jeans and green sweater he’d stowed at the top of his overnighter, spritzed the Santa suit with an odor-eliminating spray brought specifically for the task, and he and Brie continued on to Cherry Blossom Lane.
He parked on the street and at the foot of his parents’ walkway paused and drank in their handiwork. As always, their home was decorated with love. The towering pine tree was decked out with colored lights. All the windows were trimmed with holly. A fake Santa was affixed to the roof, tiptoeing near the chimney with his big red sack over his shoulder. And good old Rudolph was perched beside Santa, his nose blinking merrily.
Brie whistled. “Wow. Your folks go all out. I should’ve worn a more colorful outfit if I’d known.” She’d donned a white sweater over leggings and boots.
Steve chuckled and opened the front door. “Merry Christmas!”
“Stevie.” His mother hurried to embrace him in the foyer.
The aroma of something savory wafted into the foyer. An early recording of Frank Sinatra crooning “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” was playing in the living room.
“It’s so good to see you,” his mother said. She was wearing her lucky gingerbread sweater, the one she’d knitted when she was pregnant with him. On numerous occasions, she’d claimed that he’d been a tough pregnancy and had tossed and turned as though he would never be satisfied. The knitting had gotten her through the ordeal.
Life hasn’t changed much, has it, Stevie boy? he thought. You’re still a pain in the—
“You look so handsome.” His mother kissed his cheek. “Brie,” she said warmly, giving her a hug. “I wish you were staying with us, too.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Waldren, but I’m a bit of a night owl. I need my own space.”
“Call me Ellery. We’re not formal.”
Booking a room at the inn would have given Steve the privacy he craved, but he couldn’t do that to his folks. He would be staying in his old room, adorned with the same décor as when he’d been in high school, his journalism awards prominently displayed. He’d almost begged off, not eager to get into lengthy all-night discussions about his career and Lincoln, and well, life in general. He definitely didn’t want to talk about Gloria. His mother had pressed him for weeks about their split, and he and Harker had exhausted that topic ad finitum. She was doing well in Minneapolis. That was all he knew.
“Frank,” Ellery yelled over her shoulder. “Frank, they’re here! Look it’s Steve and Brie.” She turned on her heel and led the two of them into the house. “Frank!”
Brie stopped in the middle of the foyer and glanced at Steve, her eyes wide.
He nodded. “Yep, even inside the decorations are over the top, but my folks love getting into the spirit.”
“All we had growing up was a wreath and a fake two-foot tree. This is so cool!”
Steve hadn’t spent a lot of personal time with Brie, but he liked her. At moments like these, he wished he knew more about her.
“Merry Christmas!” Steve’s father appeared at the end of the hall in a cardigan sweater over a buttoned-down shirt. He was carrying a plate of cheese and crackers and assorted olives. “Son.” He hugged Steve with his free arm and released him, then shot a hand out. “Welcome, Brie.”
“Mr. Waldren,” Brie said, shaking with him.
“Call me Frank,” he said.
Ellery jutted a hand. “Doesn’t Brie look fabulous, Frank? She’s so pretty. Your skin is glowing. You’ll have to tell me your beauty treatments.” She clutched Brie’s elbow and drew her further into the house. “White suits you, dear.”
Steve paused in the foyer and drank in the rest of the decorations. Running lights everywhere. A Christmas train—his father’s handiwork, fostered by Steve’s love of trains at the age of five—circled the upper perimeter of the living room, its soft whistle whooshing under the music. Stockings were hung by the chimney with care. There weren’t any gifts in them yet. No matter how old Lincoln and Steve got, their mother insisted that Santa filled the stockings on Christmas Eve.
Steve sighed. Yes, indeed, Christmas was a beautiful tradition at his family’s household. If only he felt an ounce of fa-la-laughter. Hope, he thought. Could he persuade her to take the prize, or would she shoot him down again and ruin his life?
“Steve! Steve! Steve!” Lincoln hurtled the last four stairs and landed with a thump inches from Steve. He was wearing a snowman-themed Christmas sweater. His hair looked like he’d used an eggbeater to comb it. “I knew you’d come!” He threw his arms around Steve and hugged. Hard.
Steve didn’t resist. He hugged back, but jokingly said, “Oof! Bro. I need to breathe. Have you been working out?” Steve was the only person Lincoln would hug. His mother and father envied the contact.
“Yeah. Weights,” Lincoln said, releasing him and flexing his muscles. “Repetition is good.”
“Repetition is good,” Steve said, and offered a fist.
“It’s all good,” Lincoln said. “Good, good, good now that you’re here.” He banged his knuckles against Steve’s, and they both fluttered their fingers, saying “Pow!” in unison. Steve had taught his brother the greeting when he was a toddler.
For a half hour, Steve, Brie, and his family sat in the living room drinking eggnog, snacking on appetizers, and chatting. Brie did her best to regale Steve’s parents with her first impression of the trip to town. The glistening snow. The lack of traffic. The magnificent elk that had stared at them from the side of the road. The town’s wonderfully festive decorations.
“Can you tell she’s in love with Hope Valley?” Steve quipped.
“What’s not to love?” his mother replied.
At seven, they retired to the dining room. The rectangular walnut table was set with the twelve days of Christmas placemats and napkins Steve had given his mother four years ago. A pair of red-and-green nutcrackers flanked by pillar candles served as the centerpiece. His mother told Brie to sit beside Steve. Lincoln sat opposite them. Steve’s father took the far end of the table.
“A feast is coming,” his mother announced. “You’d better be hungry.”
Since Steve wasn’t going to be home for Christmas dinner, having told his mother that he could only stay a couple of days, she’d prepared a complete holiday dinner, including turkey with all the trimmings. The aroma of the savory sage stuffing yanked Steve back to his junior high school years when his father had asked him to help make the dish. Steve had misread the word teaspoons as tablespoons. Big mistake. But that was what had steered him into learning how to cook and bake, and he’d gotten better at measurements over the years. In truth, he really did like making cookies. He hadn’t given Hope a line last year.
“These sweet potatoes,” Brie gushed, heaping a second portion onto her plate after she polished off every bite of her meal. “I’ve never tasted anything like them.”
“It’s my recipe,” Lincoln said.
Ellery confirmed that it was. “He added the marshmallows all my himself. An entire bag.”
Brie tittered.
After the main meal, Steve rose from the table and helped his mother clear the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Then he carried out the desserts, a choice of cherry cheesecake or Yule log. Steve had to laugh. Both were large enough to serve twelve.
“It’s not as if any of it will go to waste,” his mother argued. “It’ll all get eaten.”
“No pie?” Steve joked.
“I figured you’d have eaten a piece at the café already, you liked it so much on your visit last December.”
Steve winced. He hadn’t told his parents about playing Santa to deliver the prize. He hadn’t said Hope turned it down flat, either. He’d only mentioned that he’d stopped at the café in an effort to show Brie around.
“Brie,” Ellery said as she rounded the table offering homemade whipped cream, “what are your plans for the future?”
“Future?” Brie eyed Steve, an impish grin spreading across her face. “As a matter of fact, I was talking about that very subject on the way here. I’m thinking of retiring.”
“Retiring?” Ellery clucked. “Why? You’re so young.”
Brie scoffed. “Nice of you to say, Ellery, but I’m pushing sixty.”
“No way. You don’t look a day over forty.”
“Ha!”
Ellery pressed Brie for more details. What would she do? Where did she want to travel? As they talked, Steve leaned back in his chair. He didn’t want to retire, and he sure as heck didn’t want to be fired. Slyly, he texted his agent from beneath the table: Anything?
“So, Steve,” his father said, “let’s discuss the elephant in the room. You didn’t come to town just to see us. You brought Brie. So what’s the deal, Son?”
“I—” Steve hesitated.
Brie said, “He’s supposed to give a prize to the winner of KPRL’s Spirit of Christmas contest. A Hope Valley local. And he tried, but she didn’t want it.”
“Why didn’t she want it?” His father snickered. “What was it? Two tickets to a Trail Blazer’s game? If so, I’d have passed, too. The team’s been on a losing streak since early November.”
Brie said, “No, it’s an—”
“All-expenses paid trip to Disneyland!” Lincoln blurted. “Steve’s been pitching it on TV. Didn’t you see that, Da-a-ad? Where’s your head been, in the clouds?” he added, using a line their father had used for years on Lincoln . . . to center him.
Frank whistled. “I must have missed that.”
“He falls asleep in front of the TV,” his mother said to Brie.
“Do not.”
“Do, too.”
Lincoln said, “I want to go to Disneyland.”
“Yes, dear, we know.” Ellery patted his cheek, then set the cream aside, and took her seat. “So what happened, Steve? Why did she refuse?”
“He dressed up as Santa,” Brie quipped. “It turns out she’s afraid of mall Santas.”
“I didn’t look like a mall Santa.”
She chortled.
Steve huffed. “She was rude about it.”
“She wasn’t rude,” Brie said.
“Yeah, she was.”
“Okay, changing subjects,” his mother said sweetly. “Brie, is there anyone special in your life?”
Steve leaned forward on one elbow. “Yeah, Brie, do tell.”
Brie’s eyes widened, making her look like a deer in headlights.
“Steve, stop,” his mother said. “Don’t tease.”
“Who’s teasing? Brie is about as close to the vest as anyone I know when it comes to talking about her personal life. Three disastrous relationships, and, wham”—he smacked his hands together—“she bans men from her life.”
“Disastrous is a bit harsh,” Brie countered.
“Is it?” Steve cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve been moping about your last husband for a long time.”
“You’re one to talk,” she sniped. “The weather girl leaves for a better paying job, and you pine about her for a year.”
“Six months. She left in June.”
“Six months. Half a year.” Lincoln held up a finger with each pronouncement. “Twenty-six weeks. One hundred and eighty-two days.”
Ellery chuckled. “We know, dear.”
Brie bit back a smile and took a sip of the chardonnay she’d brought as a housewarming gift.
“I’m not pining,” Steve said.
Brie said to Ellery and Frank, “Definite bouts of pining.” She pulled a pouty face. They laughed.
More jabs continued through dessert. Frank soft-balled a few to Steve, who ribbed Ellery, who joked with Lincoln in just the way she knew she could without riling him. Lincoln laughed more openly than Steve could remember. Maybe his little brother was coming around.
Don’t kid yourself, Stevie boy. He knew as well as his parents that Lincoln would always struggle. Society, even social do-gooders, didn’t understand him and never would.
As Ellery and Brie removed dessert plates from the table, Steve’s father said, “So tell us more about this woman who turned down the prize. Who is she? What does she do?”
“She’s a waitress at Aroma Café,” Brie offered before leaving the room.
“Do we know her?” his father asked.
“It’s Hope Lyons,” Steve said sullenly.
Lincoln said, “We love Hope.”
“She refused me!” Steve cried.
“Hope?” Ellery hurried in, wiping her hands on her apron. Brie followed her. “Did you say it was Hope? Steve, darling, Hope is the sweetest girl in the world. She couldn’t have been rude.”
“She was taken aback,” Brie said.
“Taken aback. Bah. Rude.” Steve folded his arms.
“She’s kind to everyone,” his mother went on. “Never a harsh word. Always a smile.”
“She’s very good with Lincoln,” his father said. “You saw her when you visited last year. So even-tempered. So patient. Why she even plays knock-knock jokes with him. Right, Son?”
Lincoln gave their father a thumbs up. “Hope gets me.”
Steve guffawed. “She gets you?”
“She knows what I need. All the time.”
Ellery put her hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Did you consider that Hope might be . . . proud?” She worked her tongue in her mouth, deliberating. “After all, she’s a single woman raising two kids. Her husband left her—”
“Gabe told me, and I get it, and, yeah, it sucks.” Steve splayed his hands. “But, c’mon, doesn’t she owe it to her kids to say yes to the prize? It’s Disneyland!”
Lincoln said, “I want to go to Disneyland.”
Steve snarled. “I know.”
“What’s the big deal if she doesn’t accept the prize, Son?” his father asked.
“I’ll lose my job.”
Brie gasped. “What? Are you kidding me? Is that what Dave meant when he said job security? And doing this?” She mimed axing. “He was threatening to fire you if—”
“If I didn’t get her to sign off. Yeah.” Steve slapped his napkin on the table. “Can you believe that? Fire me for something I can’t control!”
“Why, that . . .” Brie hissed something under her breath.
“Let us talk to Hope,” Ellery said.
Steve shook his head. “No, Mom, thanks, but this is up to me. I’ll give it another try. Tomorrow. After she’s had a night to think about it.” Steve wondered when Dave would call for results. For pictures. So far he hadn’t. But if Steve didn’t nail this tomorrow . . .
“That’s the spirit.” His mother kissed the top of his head.
“I want to watch the news,” Lincoln announced, and bounded from the room.
Brie yawned. “I’m going to head back to the inn.”
“I’ll walk you,” Steve said.
“Uh-uh.” Ellery grabbed Steve’s shoulders. “Your father will walk her. You spend time with your brother.” She spun him in the right direction. “Put your sour side away.” She gave him a squeeze. “Lincoln needs you. And, truth? You need him.”
