1
PRESENT DAY
MERRYWEATHER, WASHINGTON
Maddie Winslow met the man of her dreams the same day that her friend Olivia introduced Maddie to her new boyfriend. Which would have been splendid, except that the man of Maddie’s dreams was Olivia’s new boyfriend.
If the Venn diagram depicting Maddie’s dream man and Olivia’s actual man hadn’t overlapped in the middle in the person of Leo Donnelly, then perhaps Maddie would be living her happily-ever-after with Leo right at this very instant.
As it was, Olivia had snagged Leo first.
Which was why Maddie felt a bit like she’d been both shaken and stirred by the words the associate pastor with the microphone had just spoken.
“Maddie Winslow and Leo Donnelly,” the pastor repeated, “will form team number three.” He lifted a hand to shade his eyes as he scanned the crowd, even though they were inside Bethel Church’s Fellowship Hall, where there was no sun. “Maddie and Leo? Are you here?”
“Here,” Maddie called, raising her hand. Belatedly, she realized that she probably looked like an overeager third grader.
“Here” came a masculine voice from the far back corner of the room.
Maddie twisted around and immediately spotted Leo.
He gave her a polite smile.
Her heart did what roller coasters do when they go upside down. She turned back to face the front.
“Maddie and Leo, please see Janice after the meeting so that she can hand you a Mission:Christmas folder about the family you’ve been assigned.” Bethel’s holiday ministry connected church members with families in the area facing financial difficulty or serious illness. “Now on to team number four, Hope Jackson and Walter Murray.”
As the pastor continued to announce pair after pair, Maddie worked to keep her face and posture neutral. Internally, she felt anything but.
Her friend Britt’s two older sisters were standing alongside her. Willow, the oldest, arched an eyebrow at Maddie in speculation. In response, Maddie projected fake calm.
Leo had signed up to volunteer for Mission:Christmas? Obviously, he had.
Ordinarily, she could spot him from a mile away and locate him through intuition, even when he popped up in unexpected places. But her Leo Sense had failed her tonight. She’d had no inkling that he’d slipped into the room on (what had been until now) an ordinary Wednesday evening.
He was wearing his black jacket with the hood, which might mean that he’d just arrived or that he’d simply forgotten to take off his jacket—either explanation was likely. The tie he’d knotted over a pale blue dress shirt looked as though it had been loosened. Black belt. Gray flat-front pants. Chukka boots.
His sandy blond hair, which was shortish on the sides and longer on top, was in a mild state of disarray. She never knew whether to call the scruff on his cheeks heavy five o’clock shadow or a short beard. Whatever it should be called, it suited him. He looked painfully appealing both in his weekday history professor attire and in his casual weekend clothing. Today, she was experiencing a slight preference for his professor garb.
Charlie, Leo and Olivia’s three-year-old son, wasn’t with Leo currently, which probably meant he was attending the programming the church offered on Wednesday night for peewees. The only thing more slaying than Leo in professor garb was Leo in professor garb, holding Charlie.
Maddie caught herself anxiously kneading the knuckle of her right index finger, something she did when unsure of herself. She dropped her hands.
A big part of her wanted to feel elated over the fact that she’d be working on Mission:Christmas with Leo. She put a lid on her elation, however. Platonic pleasure. That would be a more appropriate thing to feel.
She and Leo had always gotten along wonderfully. Easily. Approvingly. Maddie had with Leo the kind of relationship she had with all of her friends’ boyfriends and husbands—familiar in some ways and very distant in others.
There were lines that a girl did not cross when dealing with a man her friend loved. Maddie had never come close to crossing those lines with Leo, despite her six-year-long crush on him.
Despite that Olivia had been killed by a drunk driver two and a half years ago.
Maddie had been a bridesmaid in Leo and Olivia’s wedding, and she still thought of Leo as Olivia’s husband. It seemed to her that he belonged to her good friend, who’d been outgoing and fashionable and gorgeous. Who deserved to be remembered and respected.
Maddie would need to find a way to survive her partnership with Leo without falling even deeper under his spell. She was twenty-seven years old. Already, she’d sunk the majority of her twenties into pining for him. Just last month, she’d determined that her fairy-tale, unrealistic “Leo standards” were wrecking her chance at happiness with anyone else.
She’d really like a boyfriend of her own—someone to snuggle with and go to parties with and eat potato chips with. Someone to lift heavy stuff and empty the trash. After taking a long, hard look at her dating life, she’d firmly decided to do whatever it was women did when they moved on.
This infatuation with Leo? The opposite of moving on.
The meeting wrapped, and Leo fell in step next to her in the line before the table where Janice was handing out folders. “Good to see you,” he said. His eyes appeared every bit as sad as usual, his lips every bit as beautiful as usual.
“Good to see you, too.” Holy cow, what was he seeing when he looked at her? After she’d left Sweet Art, the chocolate shop she managed, she’d grabbed a to-go salad, driven to the church, eaten her salad inside her car, then dashed to the meeting. It occurred to her that she hadn’t remembered to reapply lipstick after her rushed meal.
She had on jeans, Converse, and a long-sleeved gray top she’d owned for at least four years. She’d kept the shirt because it flattered what she considered to be her best feature, her fairly well-endowed chest. The rest of her was mostly average.
Her stylist had put golden-brown balayage highlights into her brunette hair recently. And she’d finally figured out how to style her current shoulder-length cut into the artless waves (which took effort to make look artless) that her stylist had intended.
Until this moment she’d been satisfied with her appearance today. Now she wished she’d made more of an effort. Olivia would have.
“So you signed up to volunteer with Mission:Christmas, too?” she asked.
“I did. When I read about it in the church bulletin, it seemed like something I could do.” One of his shoulders lifted. “To help.”
“Of course! I think you’ll really enjoy it.” Several single women were shooting her glances zinging with degrees of jealousy and wistfulness.
“Have you volunteered with Mission:Christmas before?” he asked.
“This will be my third year.” She’d participated each Christmas since returning to Merryweather, Washington, after her lackluster stint in San Francisco.
“That’s reassuring. You know the ropes.”
“I do!” That sounded entirely too merry. She couldn’t even blame spiked eggnog.
“I can be your assistant,” he said.
“Fabulous. I’ve always wanted an assistant. My Christmas wish has already come true.”
“Happy to oblige.”
Once Janice handed them their folder, Maddie and Leo found a quiet spot near the side wall. She pulled free the two sheets of paper that offered pertinent details about the family that had been entrusted to them. “It looks like we’ve been given a single mom named Kim Huntington and her two daughters. Kim lives here in Merryweather and was let go from her job a few months back.” Sympathy squeezed Maddie as she imagined trying to face Christmas as a single mom without paychecks coming in. She handed one of the sheets to Leo. They each read their sheet, switched, then read the second sheet.
“What’s our plan of attack?” Leo asked.
“In the past, my partner and I have kicked things off by meeting with the recipients so they can let us know how we can help.” Maddie slid the papers back into the folder.
“Sounds good.”
He met her eyes and for a split second she got lost in the cloudy gray of his irises. It was a cool shade, soft like the sky over the Pacific Ocean in the morning.
By rights, God should have given the bookish and academic Leo a nerdy exterior. Instead, God had given him the sort of blatant good looks ordinarily reserved for Formula One drivers and South American soccer players. Thus, women swooned over him at every turn while Leo—when he stopped thinking about French Revolutionary history long enough to notice—wondered why they were swooning.
Olivia’s confidence level had been at a 99. Maddie and Leo were both very competent in their professions, but socially Maddie’s confidence level hovered around 85 and Leo’s around 70.
“The church will lend a hand with fundraising,” Maddie said. “They’ll divide the proceeds from their Christmas Bazaar and their Jingle Bell Walk evenly between all the teams. Even so, my partner and I have also held a garage sale on our own in past years. That’s been great because it’s increased our Mission:Christmas budget, and it’s also given me and the rest of my family a reason to clear out our clutter.”
“I’m up for a garage sale. After that, we go shopping?”
“Yes. Then we deliver everything to the Huntingtons in time for Christmas.”
“Got it.”
“If it’s all right with you, I’ll go ahead and call Kim Huntington and find out when she can meet with us.”
“Sure.”
“Awesome.”
He studied her, his attention both steady and kind. “Is everything going well at the chocolate shop?”
“Very well.”
“And your family?”
“They’re good. This is my mom’s favorite time of year. She loves all the Christmas parties.”
He nodded.
“How’s my favorite boy?” Maddie asked.
“Your favorite boy has learned to count to twenty.”
“What? I’d love to hear him count to twenty.”
Leo checked his watch. “His choir practice ends in five minutes. I’m sure he’d be glad to show off his counting skills. Do you have time to say hi to him?”
“Absolutely.”
They made their way down the church’s hallways, talking easily about his work and hers. She was exquisitely aware of Leo beside her—his gait, his size. He wasn’t extraordinarily tall. Maybe five ten? But his lean body was perfectly proportioned and also the perfect complement to her five-five height.
They came to a stop just outside the open doorway of the classroom that contained risers bearing three- and four-year-old singers. Some of the kids were staring off into space. One was opening and closing the Velcro flap on his shoe. The rest were gamely singing “Away in a Manger” and following along with the hand motions their teacher was demonstrating.
The cuteness! Amusement tugged at Maddie’s lips.
Thanksgiving had come and gone just six days before, but in that time, Merryweather had switched from fall mode into full-blown Christmas mode. Wreaths hung from each light post in town. Greenery swathed the storefronts. And Christmas music danced in the air of this church classroom. Satisfaction sifted within Maddie, settling like fairy dust. She adored the Christmas season.
The teacher said a prayer and then excused each child as she recognized their matching parent. Charlie ran to Leo and threw his arms joyfully around his dad’s leg.
Charlie looked very much the way Maddie imagined Leo had looked at the age of three. Both Leo and Charlie had oval faces and defined, pointy chins. Charlie’s hair was white-blond, worn a little long, in a shaggy surfer-dude cut. The only visible stamp Olivia had left on her son was her eye color. Charlie’s eyes were the same blueberry shade that Olivia’s had been.
Whenever Maddie looked into Charlie’s face, she saw Olivia’s eyes staring back at her. It was heartbreaking. It was also reassuring in a sad sort of way. Olivia had died far, far too young, but she hadn’t died without leaving behind a legacy. Here was her son, healthy, happy, and learning to sing “Away in a Manger.”
Leo hoisted Charlie into his arms. One of Charlie’s small hands curved trustingly behind his dad’s neck. “Say hi to Maddie,” Leo said.
“Hi.”
“Hi yourself,” Maddie answered. “Your dad tells me you can count to twenty, but I told him no way. That can’t be possible. You’re only three.”
“I can!”
“What?” she asked with faux skepticism.
“One . . . Two . . . Three . . .” After ten, he paused for a moment, his miniature eyebrows inching toward each other. Ah, the confusing eleven and twelve, which really should have been called oneteen and twoteen. “Eleven . . . twelve. . .” He rattled off the rest triumphantly.
“Wow! I’m so impressed.” Maddie held up her fist and he eagerly bumped it, then rested the side of his head against Leo’s shoulder.
She glanced at Leo, and a pulse of delight over his remarkable boy passed between them.
Throughout their high school years, Maddie and Olivia had been part of a group of five girlfriends. In addition to the two of them, their group had included Britt, Mia, and Hannah.
Maddie let herself into her apartment, carrying the sacks of groceries she’d picked up on the way home from church. She flipped on the lights with her shoulder and made her way toward her modern kitchen.
Her apartment had begun life in 1922 as an art deco office building near Merryweather’s downtown. It had narrowly escaped extinction during the seventies and eighties before its renovation, courtesy of the revitalization Merryweather Historical Village had triggered.
The bones of the building remained. Nicked and scratched hardwood floors. Enormous rectangular windows. The rest, including the drywall, had been stripped away when the structure had been converted into apartments. The exposed brick walls were weathered and varied—deep red in places, in others burnished orange, in others faded white.
Maddie had decorated with turquoise area rugs and furniture in shades of gray and white. She experienced a glow of satisfaction each time her apartment’s mishmash of old and new welcomed her home.
Once she’d put away her groceries, she opened a bag of peanut, raisin, and chocolate trail mix and munched on it as she studied the photographs held to her refrigerator with magnets.
One of the pictures near the top captured the five friends during their freshman year of high school. Back then, Olivia’s hair had been a light almond brown.
Maddie’s attention moved to a picture taken two years later, when Olivia had decided to dye her hair black. It had sounded to Maddie like a terrible idea at the time. But it turned out that Olivia’s milky skin and blue eyes looked stunning against inky hair.
Olivia had always been an assured person, but her hair color change had been like steroids for her self-image. She’d become the girl who knew everyone, who seemed to move through life effortlessly, who was at ease in every kind of gathering. Guys noticed her. Girls were impressed by her. Good things rolled toward Olivia Carroll the way golf balls rolled toward sand traps.
Olivia and Maddie had been the only two of their group of friends who’d decided to attend the University of Oregon. They’d roomed together their first year and taken turns driving to and from Washington for every school holiday.
One night, the summer before their senior year at UO, Olivia and Hannah had decided to put their newly minted status as twenty-one-year-olds to good use at Merryweather’s Front Street Bar. Olivia liked to say that she’d spotted Leo one point five seconds after entering the bar that night and decided to marry him three point five seconds after that.
Leo’s parents had raised their four children in Idaho. After becoming empty nesters, Leo’s research-scientist father had accepted a job that brought him and his wife to Washington state.
Leo was three years older than Olivia and had been pursuing his doctorate in Idaho that fateful night at the Front Street Bar. He’d only been in town for the weekend to visit his parents. He’d only come to the bar that night because his younger sister had dragged him out.
Maddie sometimes wondered what would’ve happened if she’d been the one to meet Leo first. She liked to think they would’ve hit it off. But time wasn’t like that. Events happened in the order in which they happened and once they did, there could be no rearranging.
As a single, eligible man newly introduced to their region of Washington, Leo had been something of a unicorn. Once Olivia set her sights on him, Leo had, predictably, fallen for the take-no-prisoners Olivia.
The two of them—Leo and Olivia—had been a case study in Opposites Attract. He was smart, wry, and just a little bit cautious with people. She had street smarts, a quick laugh, and a personality that shone brightest in the spotlight. He was patient and steady. She could be impatient and impulsive. He had substance. She had an enviable sense of style. Her strengths and his had clicked together.
Maddie had watched Olivia butt heads with the boyfriends she’d dated previously who’d had personalities too similar to her own. A calm introvert had been just what Olivia needed to provide her with a secure foundation. An irresistible extrovert had been just what Leo needed to bring him out of his shell.
Leo and Olivia married three months after Olivia and Maddie’s graduation. Affectionately, Maddie straightened the photograph taken at their wedding. It was her favorite photo from that day—not stiff and formal, but a fabulous candid shot of the bridal party, laughing at a joke one of the groomsmen had made.
The newlyweds had settled into Leo’s apartment in Idaho. Leo had remained in Idaho, in fact, until this past summer, when he’d accepted a position at Abbott College.
Now that Maddie, Leo, and Charlie shared a town with a population of six thousand, Maddie saw Leo much more often.
Which was hard.
Most people thought of “oops” babies as coming last in a family, but Charlie had been a firstborn oops. Olivia had intended to wait to have kids until at least the age of thirty, but, luckily, God had other plans.
Charlie had been less than a year old the night Olivia had kissed her baby and husband good-bye and left the house to join friends for a girls’ night out. She’d had alcohol in her system when she’d been hit, but an amount under the legal limit. The same could not be said for the guy in the truck that had collided with her head on at 10:21 P.M. on June third, two and a half years ago. Both the driver of the truck and Olivia were killed instantly.
Olivia had been just twenty-five.
Maddie relocated herself and her trail mix to the sofa and clicked on the TV. She’d watch another episode of Call the Midwife because she could count on it to provide a dose of heartwarming emotion.
One of the midwives, peddling down a 1950’s street on her bike, filled the TV screen. Maddie rested the back of her head against the sofa cushion and picked through the bag for the chocolate pieces.
Maddie was certain that Leo had never suspected how fondly she felt about him. She’d like to keep it that way, even though they’d be working side by side for the next month.
How, though? How to keep her crush under wraps?
By being friendly. By acting the way his deceased wife’s friend should act.
She could look forward to spending time with him and Charlie and to giving the Huntington family a wonderful Christmas. What she could not do: allow herself to expect or hope for anything more than that.
There was only one unicorn in Merryweather.
And Olivia had found him first.