Summer skipped by, bringing a parade of sunny days to Pine River, filled with picnics, coffee dates with girlfriends and hikes along the river with Morris. What it didn’t bring was very many new contributors for Christmas from the Heart.
Livi had beaten every bush and climbed every money tree she could think of, with very little success. It seemed that many smaller companies were struggling, and this far into the year, large companies had already set their budgets.
In September she hosted a Saturday afternoon tea at Tillie’s, inviting forty businesses from nearby towns and had a whopping attendance of twelve. After plying them with cookies and scones and giving a strong PowerPoint presentation, five wrote out checks for a small amount that would barely cover the cost of the tea. The others wished her well and told her to contact them next year.
She would. “If Christmas from the Heart is still around,” she’d grumbled as she and Bettina and Kate sat at a table, drowning their disappointment in tea.
“You will be,” Kate said, and helped herself to a leftover scone. There were plenty of leftovers. “You’ve just hit a bump in the road.”
It felt more like a roadblock.
But not the end of the road. Livi was not going to let that happen.
And come Thanksgiving she was determined to be grateful for the people who did support the nonprofit. They wouldn’t be able to do as much this year with a big chunk of their funding missing—there would be less food distributed and no gifts other than Christmas stockings—but they’d still do what they could.
“Thanksgiving already,” Tillie said to her and Kate as she stopped by their table to see how they were enjoying their butternut bisque.
What was not to enjoy about butternut bisque? Or anything else to be found at Tillie’s Teapot. As usual, the place was bursting with the aroma of freshly baked breads and cakes and cookies and filled with friends taking a break between shopping and errands to meet for lunch.
Tillie was a little bent over and her hands were gnarled with arthritis, but she still put on lipstick and lined her eyebrows brown every day—the deep brown an interesting contrast to her white hair—and wore dangly earrings. When the season called for it she wore festive sweaters a younger woman might have worn to an ugly sweater party. Today she was in a black one with pockets shaped like turkeys. This was paired with slacks so orange she should have been passing out sunglasses to her customers. It was a mystery to Livi how Tillie could have such a beautifully decorated tearoom and then dress so...interestingly. Maybe her daughters had taken control of decorating the place. Livi had never had the nerve to ask.
Tillie shook her head. “I don’t know where the year has gone.”
“It is going fast,” Livi agreed.
Too fast. After the weekend, things would kick into high gear at the Christmas from the Heart office, with more to do and less to do it with. At least they still had supporters like Tillie.
“I imagine you’re going to want to pick up our tea packets next week,” Tillie said to Livi. In addition to donating money every year, Tillie and her daughters put together small net bags filled with a half a dozen tea bags and a few small chocolates that could be stuffed in stockings or put into gift baskets. There would be less food to give out and no gift baskets this year thanks to he who would not be named—only stockings, and Livi was hoping they finally had enough goodies coming in to fill them at least two-thirds full. The stockings were given out, one per household, and contents varied, depending on the family. She included candy canes, of course, and always a couple of mandarin oranges, which the local grocery stores donated, along with candy, much of which she purchased in grocery and drugstores at Halloween at 50 percent off and then saved for Christmas stockings. Families with small children always got a jar of bubbles in the stocking along with other small toys. She also made sure there were stockings for widows and widowers, and people with pets.
Stuffing five hundred stockings was a big undertaking, but Livi always set up an assembly line around her conference room table, and her crew of volunteers would work, chat and eat pizza donated to them from Little Italy, the best place in town for pizza. Actually, the only place in town for pizza.
First, though, there was Thanksgiving to prepare for, and after lunch Livi went home to bake pies—pumpkin and wild huckleberry made from the berries she had stored in the freezer. She and Kate had gone on a berry-picking binge in early September and she had enough berries stored for three pies. The little buggers were a pain to pick, so pies only got made for special occasions: Dad’s birthday, the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving.
This year Livi’s brother, David, was actually coming home for Thanksgiving. It would be their first one together since their mother died. Livi supposed the fact that he had a new wife made it easier for him to return for the holiday now. Terryl had filled much of the void.
Sometimes Livi wished there was someone who could fill that void for her. But really, who could take her mother’s place? Mom had been her best friend. And her guide.
Without her mother, she often felt like she was going through life with a broken GPS, trying to take Christmas from the Heart in the right direction, trying to put her own life on track. She was almost through her thirties and she was still single, living in the same house where she grew up.
Of course, she didn’t have to be single. Morris Bentley would marry her in a heartbeat. Morris had been in love with her since middle school. They’d attended their junior prom together in high school and had been on and off as a couple ever since. He was a sweet man, and she loved him, but she didn’t LOVE him and he deserved more than friendship.
She wanted more for herself, too, even though she wasn’t sure what more looked like. All she knew was that sometimes, in spite of her satisfying work and her good friends, her life seemed small. Like she was waiting for something big, someone big. Someone who would make her pulse race when she looked at him.
It was silly, really. “There’s nothing wrong with your life,” she scolded herself as she walked the few blocks from her office to her family home. “You have plenty to be thankful for.”
How true it was. Compared to the struggling families she helped, to the lonely single moms trying to make ends meet and still spend time with their kids, she was downright wealthy and her life was great.
She got the pies done as well as the stuffing. Early in the morning, she’d stuff the bird and stick it in the oven. Then she’d put together a broccoli casserole, peel the potatoes and set the dining room table with Mom’s Wedgwood dishes. Terryl and David would be bringing fruit salad and candied yams. The requisite sparkling cider was in the fridge, ready to be pulled out and poured into the good crystal that had been passed down from daughter to daughter for four generations. Everything would be festive.
She hoped her father would be able to drum up some small amount of enthusiasm for cutting the turkey. Ever since her mother’s death he’d greeted Thanksgiving as an unwanted guest, one you had to be polite to while counting the hours until the intruder left.
He came home and found her putting the finishing touches on the dining table centerpiece, the same paper foldout turkey Mom had used for as long as Livi could remember. “Oh yes, Thanksgiving tomorrow,” he said as if he’d forgotten all about it.
Livi was sure he was trying to. Her father had stayed in the same house where he and her mom had built a life together, but emotionally he’d been as gone as David, leaving for work at his insurance company every day and coming home every night to mindlessly eat whatever Livi fixed for him, then sit staring at the TV. Once upon a time, the whole family had sat around the table and shared their day’s adventures. The kitchen table hadn’t been used for anything but collecting junk mail since Mom died.
He nodded and managed a weak smile. “It’ll be good to see David and Terryl.”
“Leftover spaghetti for dinner,” Livi said. “I didn’t have time to make anything.” They needed to eat it up anyway and make room in the fridge for new leftovers. Heaven knew, they’d have enough turkey left over to last them for a week.
“That’s fine,” Dad said. Then he kissed her on the cheek and vanished into the living room to turn on the news. If she wanted to see any more of him, she’d have to join him there. Which she probably would do. They didn’t laugh like they used to, but it was companionable.
Later that night, when she went to bed with her laptop to stream some free episodes of House Hunters International, she reminded herself yet again that she had much for which to be thankful. And much to look forward to the next month. Christmas was her favorite holiday, and she’d fill the house with all her favorite decorations from her childhood—the well-worn, half-burned lantern-shaped candle from the fifties that had been her grandma’s, the ceramic church and the nativity set Mom had made when she went through her ceramics phase, the nutcrackers her great-grandma had brought back from her visit to Germany. She’d even hang the mistletoe. Why not? May as well think positive.
Thanksgiving Day was almost perfect. The turkey turned out well, Terryl kept everyone laughing as she told about the year before when she’d decided to host her entire family for David’s and her first Thanksgiving as husband and wife. The day’s adventures included an underdone turkey and overdone pumpkin pie, and a grease fire on the stove that set off the smoke alarm and almost gave her grandma a heart attack.
“But I did master candied yams,” she said.
“You sure did,” Livi agreed. “These are great.”
“They should be. She put a ton of Kahlua in them,” David said.
“I know the way to my man’s heart,” she joked, and he grinned.
“Food will do it,” Dad agreed, and, amazingly, he was also smiling.
And that made Livi happy. Maybe their family was finally starting to heal just a little. David certainly was. And he and Terryl were full of plans for the future. She’d just gotten a new job and they were looking at houses south of Seattle where prices were still high but not out of reach for a double-income couple.
“We’re trying to get pregnant,” Terryl confided to Livi as they put away leftovers. “It would make a great Christmas present for David.”
“It would make a great Christmas present for all of us,” Livi said. At the rate she was going maybe she’d never be a mother. At least she could enjoy being an aunt. She was suddenly aware of Terryl studying her. “What?” she said with a half smile.
“Just wondering if there’s anyone special in your life yet, Livi.”
Uh-oh. Had she sounded wistful? She shrugged. No big deal if her love life was about as exciting as a documentary on the history of mold. “Not really. I don’t have time,” she added, not wanting to sound like a love loser.
Except, in a way, she was. That was what happened when you held out for bells, whistles and fireworks. She’d felt all that for Morris when they were kids, when she thought she was into monster trucks and going to the Monroe County Fair to watch the demolition derby, but the fireworks had fizzled once she went away to college and stepped into the bigger world of learning.
Leaving home to attend the University of Washington had been her biggest adventure—lectures, classes, a huge library, the University Bookstore. All that hustle and bustle in the U District and a coffee shop on every corner. When she didn’t have her nose in a textbook, she was getting high on dancing, flirting, then falling in love with the man of her dreams. Then falling out of love when she realized she didn’t have enough in common with whoever that latest man of her dreams was. Livi wanted to do great things. It seemed like all the boys she met were just that—boys. They were cute all right, but their interests seemed limited to getting her into bed and playing video games.
She sighed. No one had really been right and in the end she’d come home alone. Maybe she was meant to be alone.
“Define special,” she hedged.
“Someone other than Morris?” guessed Terryl.
Livi cringed. Terryl made her sound like a romantic snob. There was nothing wrong with Morris. So what if he wasn’t a bookworm? That didn’t make him stupid. And so what if he didn’t want to see the world? The center of both their worlds was in Pine River.
Still. “I guess I just want more.” Okay, she was a romantic snob.
“Hold out for it, then. I know we’re all told there’s no Prince Charming out there, but I don’t buy it. I found mine.”
“My brother, who is the world’s biggest slob? Oh, you are besotted,” Livi teased.
“Love overlooks the other person’s flaws. Even though he farts in his sleep, I do love him,” Terryl joked. “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” she added, suddenly serious.
“He is a good man,” Livi agreed. “He worked on my first car and taught me how to change the oil, and before Morris came along, scared off every boy who came near me, even though I was two years older and could take care of myself. It made me crazy then, but looking back, I think it was sweet of him to want to protect me. And let me tell you, he succeeded. Nobody wanted to mess with the star of the Pine River wrestling team.”
“What a good brother,” cooed Terryl.
“He was.” He’d also been a good son, helping out at Christmas from the Heart right along with Livi, mowing the lawn without being asked, helping their dad clean the garage. “And he still is.”
“He’s a great husband, too,” Terryl said. “I’d almost given up on finding anyone worth putting up with until the day he came along. There I was at Starbucks and there he was, helping some old lady mop up her spilled coffee, and I knew he was a keeper.”
It was such a sweet story. Terryl had hurried over to help, then teasingly asked if he’d stick around in case she, too, spilled her coffee. He’d stuck around and they’d been married within six months.
“Wait for your Prince Charming,” Terryl said. “He’ll show up. You’re too amazing a woman to settle for anything less.”
Amazing. Right.
Morris stopped by Friday night for leftovers and to play Pandemic, a board game that involved all the players working together to save the world from disease and death. He was a good team player, always willing to go along with whatever strategy David proposed.
“Sounds good to me,” he’d say.
Anything anyone in her family ever suggested sounded good to Morris. He’d been one of her biggest supporters when she’d had to step up and take over running Christmas from the Heart. He’d donated twice as much money to the nonprofit as a certain stingy CEO, and he probably earned only a quarter as much.
Livi should have been crazy in love with Morris. He was cute in a big, burly Teddy Bear sort of way. He certainly had a big heart. And it beat only for her.
What was her problem, anyway? Oh yeah, that wanting-more thing.
They played two games, trying to save the world and failing both times, so they gave up and watched an action-packed Tom Cruise movie.
“I love those movies,” Terryl said as the ending credits rolled. “You know, he does all his own stunts.”
“Big deal. I could do that stuff,” David joked.
“I know, right?” Terryl said, elbowing him in the ribs.
“Well, maybe some of ’em.”
“It’s okay, babe. You’re my Tom Cruise,” Terryl said, and gave him a kiss.
He gave her one right back.
“Gettin’ kind of steamy in here,” Morris said. “Do you two need to go upstairs?”
“Yeah, I think we do,” David said. He pulled his wife up from the couch. “We got better things to do than sit around and talk.”
Better things. Livi would have liked to have better things to do, too.
So, from the way he looked at her, would Morris.
“I should turn in,” she said.
“I guess that means I’m leaving.”
“I guess so,” she said. “Anyway, you have to work tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah. Wanna get pizza after I get off?”
Lately it seemed she and Morris were drifting into the habit of spending more time together, and that was problematic. The more time they spent together the more it could feel like they were edging toward becoming a couple. At least to Morris. Of course, she enjoyed his company, but she couldn’t let them wander too far down the road toward couplehood.
“Thanks for the offer,” she said, “but I’ve got too much going on tomorrow.” She had to make turkey soup and do laundry. And decorate. That could take... Okay she’d be done by evening. But she did have a mystery novel to finish.
She hoped Morris didn’t ask her what all she had to do.
He didn’t, and he hid his disappointment quickly, but she’d still seen it in his eyes, had seen that quick frown. Poor Morris. He wanted his princess as much as she wanted her prince.
“That was fun tonight, though,” she said in an effort to make them both feel better.
“Yeah, it was,” he said, resigned to his fate of being dateless on a Saturday night.
Well, so was she.
She walked him to the door, said a platonic good-night and then went back into the living room, picked up her phone and plopped on the couch to scroll through her Facebook feeds. The last thing she was in a hurry to do was go upstairs, pass her brother’s old bedroom, and hear him and Terryl in there doing “other things.”
The next day, after her brother and sister-in-law had left, after the laundry was done and the soup was made, Livi pulled out the decorations, happy to have some time to reminisce. She set up the nativity set that came out every year, setting it out on the fireplace mantel along with red ribbon and fir boughs and then hung the stockings her mother had made for her and Dad and David. They were starting to look a little worn but Livi didn’t care. It showed they’d been well used and enjoyed.
As she dug the ceramic church from the box of decorations, she could almost see her mother setting it on the dining room table, nestling it in a bed of cotton snow and surrounding it with vintage candles shaped like choirboys that Livi’s grandmother had collected in the fifties.
“The light of the world,” Mom would murmur. “Don’t ever forget that, darling. And you be sure to keep your light shining.”
“I’m trying, Mom,” she whispered.
She hung the framed movie poster for It’s a Wonderful Life that she and David had given their mother one Christmas. It had been Mom’s favorite movie. Then she set out candles, Santas and angels, and hung the ornaments on the tree her father had set up, each one evoking a special memory. There was her “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament. And the angel someone gave her mother after Grandma died. There were the last two of the Italian blown glass ornaments Grandma had given her mother and father for their first Christmas.
By now Terryl and David had probably bought their tree. She’d mentioned planning to get one on the way home Friday and then decorate it Saturday afternoon. Of course, David would help her trim it. He’d been well trained. Their family had always trimmed the tree together.
Now it was something Livi did alone. She longed for that someone special to help her decorate, someone she could create Christmas memories with.
Finally, the house was all dressed up for Christmas. Almost. The only thing left was the mistletoe, a glitter-dusted silk sprig atop an acrylic jewel. She held it up and looked at it, debating. It seemed pointless to hang it.
In the end she did, simply because she couldn’t bring herself not to. And as she did she made a wish. Bring me a Prince Charming this Christmas, Santa.
Guy drove home from the slopes, tired but rested. A day of snowboarding had been exactly what he needed to recharge his batteries.
Normally after spending Turkey Day with the bros he’d have gone to see his mother. But this year Mom had been on a cruise with her second husband.
He didn’t begrudge her that. She deserved to enjoy herself and he was glad to see her happy.
Widowhood hadn’t agreed with her. When Dad died she’d lost her sparkle and her smile had shrunk right along with her dress size. She remained interested in what her boys were doing but had little enough to say about herself when any of them called to check on her. She sold the house and downsized not only her living quarters but her life.
“Mom, you should get out and do something,” Guy had told her once.
“Do what?”
“I don’t know. Something.”
“I have plenty to do, dear. I see the grandchildren. I have my friends.”
But you don’t have a life. “How often do you do things with them?” Guy had persisted.
“Often enough.”
Whatever that meant.
“She’s fine,” Mike had said, waving away Guy’s concerns. “She’s got all of us to keep her busy.”
Babysitting. Big whoop.
“Let her live her life the way she wants.”
So Guy had, even when she finally found Del.
That had been two years ago. His brothers had been suspicious, certain the man was a fortune hunter out to get Mom’s money. But it turned out Del had plenty of his own. Which was a good thing because Mom liked to live in style. These days she drove a new Range Rover, went to New York to shop and take in a musical, and took a cruise at least once a year with her new husband.
“I’m planning on you coming for Christmas, though,” she’d said to Guy when he’d learned of her plans. “I promise not to make fruitcake.”
And so it had been decided.
“I gotta do Christmas with the in-laws,” Bryan had said. “I’ll go down for New Year’s.”
“You can represent all of us,” Mike had said. Mike still looked on Del as an interloper—who knew what Freud would say about that?—and refused to go down, saying, “I’ll take her to Cabo in January.”
That was just as well. Mike wouldn’t exactly be good company. It wasn’t happy holidays with him lately. It had been hard listening to him trash his soon-to-be ex while he drank himself into a stupor at Bryan’s, where they’d gathered for Thanksgiving.
“Don’t ever get married, bro,” he’d slurred as Guy drove him home. “Women’ll break your heart and decimate your bank account.” He waved a finger back and forth. “And don’t think that you’ll find the one exception. There is no such thing.”
As if he needed his brother to tell him? He’d already learned that.
He was pulling into his garage when a text came through from Hudson, whom he’d met earlier in the month at a fund-raising event for the Seattle Art Museum, one of the few charities Hightower still supported. She was divorced, in her late thirties and claimed to be an avid skier. They hadn’t hit the slopes together yet, but had met for coffee a couple of times. It had been all he could squeeze in. Still, he kind of liked her, so some time on the slopes in the future was a definite possibility.
Come save me. I have leftover pumpkin cheesecake tempting me, she texted.
Couldn’t have a girl falling into temptation. At least not cheesecake temptation. Be there in an hour, he texted back.
He hadn’t been to her place yet, so she gave him her address to put in his GPS.
He stored his snowboard, cleaned up, grabbed a bottle of wine and then made his way to her house in West Seattle.
“Nice place,” he said as she let him in. Nice-looking woman, too. Her hair was dark and long. Tight jeans and a sweater showed off a great body. The woman had a rack on her.
“It’ll do for now. I’m going to do some serious renovation in the new year.”
“A fixer-upper, huh?”
“Yeah, right now it’s a bit of a dog, but the bones are good. I never really liked it—Sean inherited it from his grandmother when she died and we’d been renting it out—but when he offered it as part of the divorce settlement I figured why not. I think I can turn a nice profit once I’ve renovated it.”
Sean’s grandma’s old house and now it was Hudson’s little moneymaker. Mike’s bitter warning popped up in Guy’s mind like a road sign. Warning. Dangerous Curves Ahead.
Suddenly Guy wasn’t so interested in cheesecake. He stayed awhile, listened while she went into detail about how she was going to replace the old brick mantel with something new and sleek—what would old Sean’s grandma have thought of that?—and redo the entire kitchen, then he suddenly remembered some work that had to get done before he went into the office the next morning.
“No. Really?” A full lower lip went out in a sexy pout. “I was thinking we could spend a little more time getting to know each other better.” They’d been sitting on the couch, and now she set her glass of wine on the coffee table and leaned in toward him. He caught a whiff of perfume.
Too late. Hearing about the spoils she’d gotten in the divorce had been a buzzkill. Mike was right. Women were all alike.