At just past 7:00 a.m., as he spread fresh hay in the goats’ pen, Asher got a text from a town Santa committee member asking if he could take on a Santa shift this morning at the hut on the town green. The scheduled Mr. Claus wrenched his back last night and they were expecting a big line of kids on a Sunday morning. Asher knew the guy, a cattle rancher ten miles up the road. He texted back You got it.
You’re the best, Joanna Gomez texted back with three Santa hat emojis.
No, I’m the worst, he thought as he raked the hay, the twins in their stroller watching him with curious eyes. Out the window he could see the six goats pushing their noses in the coating of snow in the pasture, two jumping up on their favorite logs. He moved the stroller over to the window so the boys could see the goats having fun.
He sighed as he put away the rake. He’d messed up last night. And then things had gotten awkward, as he knew they would from the minute he’d felt the stirring toward Katie the first night she was back.
He heard the barn door opening and there was Katie in her blue down jacket and pink wool hat, with a mug of coffee in her hands.
“There everyone is!” she said brightly, taking a sip of her coffee. She went over to the twins in their stroller and leaned down to kiss each on their fleece-capped heads. She straightened and looked at him. “Let’s not talk about it, okay?”
“Maybe we should,” he said. “I don’t want miscommunication or ‘I thought this, you thought that’ getting in our way, Katie.”
She settled herself on the tall stool and took a sip of coffee. “Okay, here’s what I think I know. We have clearly moved beyond friendship. There’s nothing platonic about our relationship when we want to rip each other’s clothes off and did just that last night. But, this makes you uneasy. You’re worried a sexual and romantic relationship will blow up in our faces and end up breaking up our friendship and our family. You don’t want to risk that so you’re unwilling to commit to moving forward with the new us. You want to stick to the old us. Even though that’s impossible.”
That was it exactly. It was scary how perceptive she was. It meant he had to be honest because she would see through any crap. “Not impossible,” he said. “Wouldn’t you like to protect twenty-five years of friendship?”
She stared at him hard. “From what, though, Asher? From ourselves? From progress? From sex? From how we really feel about each other? I don’t think putting up fake boundaries is going to help us.”
He sighed. “I know.”
“The reason you went back to your room last night,” she said, slowly, “is about your unease and worry. So let’s deal with that.”
“How?” he asked.
“By doing what we’ve been doing. We keep going. We do what feels right while respecting each other’s feelings. Leaving felt right to you last night. I need to be okay with that and give you the space and time to work through your discomfort with how things are progressing between us. And you need to understand that what you do affects me and how I feel.”
“Understanding and maybe a little compromising,” he said.
“A good start. I can work with that.”
“What would you rather I’d done last night?” he asked. “Instead of just leaving your bed in the middle of the night?”
“Woken me up and said, ‘Katie, I’m feeling uneasy, same old stuff, and I need to go back to my room for some space. But the sex was amazing and you are a goddess.’” She grinned and relief flooded him.
“It was amazing,” he agreed. And yes, you are a goddess.
“Yeah, it was,” she said, shooting him a smile that went straight to his heart.
“I agreed to take a Santa shift at ten. Three hours. That’s a lot of kids.” He did the math. Five minutes per kid times four times three.
“Aww, that’s sweet that you’re doing that. Gigi texted a little while ago and asked if I was free for lunch and Christmas shopping with the twins, so that’s great timing. We can meet up after.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “I’ll miss you and the boys.”
She looked at him for a moment. “Me too. It’ll be the first time we’ve been apart since Friday. We like having you around, Asher Dawson.”
He walked over to her and took her mug and put it on the other stool nearby, then wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight.
He was so grateful that she did. And that she seemed to really understand him. Because they needed each other. The four of them. And nothing could ruin that.
Especially not him.
“Mr. Santa,” five-year-old Thomas with the red hair and freckles said, “I know what I want for Christmas.”
Asher smiled at the “Mr. Santa.” That was a first. He was on hour two in the Santa hut in head-to-toe costume, and his head was spinning with the gift lists and explanations of how good the kids had been that year. The big bushy beard was a little itchy, but it was cold outside and the thick red-and-white suit and black boots were keeping him warm. Outside was a long line of kids waiting with their parents, Christmas songs piped in from somewhere. There were craft tables alongside the hut on both sides with make-your-own ornaments and paper and markers, so kids could sit and do something fun until their number was called.
“I want a big yellow truck that dumps stuff,” the boy went on. “And a scooter and a new helmet with spikes. And French fries every night with dinner. No vegetables. And new cars and a track to race them.”
“You must have been really good this year to want all that,” Asher said.
Thomas nodded, his red bangs flopping. “I’ve been mostly good.”
The volunteer on elf duty, whose job it was to let the youngster know his time with Santa was up, popped her head in. “Okay, honey, grab a candy cane on your way out.”
The boy happily ran out, and a little girl came in, maybe eight years old. She had freckles, like Katie, and wore a bright pink hat with a pom-pom.
“Ho, ho, ho, and merry Christmas!” Asher said from his seat on the big red-and-white-striped “throne.”
“What’s your name, dear?”
“Lucy and I’m eight. Santa, can you make wishes come true? I don’t mean a present, but like a wish?”
“I can try my best,” Asher said.
“My mom and dad are getting a divorce,” she said, her brown eyes getting misty. “And I don’t want them to. Can you make it stop?”
Asher felt a stab in the direction of his heart. “I don’t think I have that kind of magical power,” he said. “But I know how it feels. My parents got divorced when I was about your age.”
“Really?” she asked, eyes widening. “Was it horrible? Did you have two houses?”
“Well, I did have two houses. Three if you count my grandparents’ ranch. I spent a lot of time there. I liked school and I had friends so I was okay.”
“I like school and I have a best friend named Elodie and another named Jamie. We have a best friend club.”
Asher smiled. “Good. I’m still best friends with my bestie from kindergarten.”
“Is that like fifty years?” she asked.
“Not quite,” he said with a smile.
“What’s his name?”
“Her name. Katie.”
“Are you gonna marry her?” Lucy asked, head tilted. “Because who else would you marry besides your best friend?”
Put that way, he had to agree.
“Actually I did,” he said. Just yesterday, in fact. And I’m already making a mess of the best thing that ever happened to me: Katie Crosby.
“Mrs. Claus is named Katie? I didn’t know that.”
Asher grinned. “Yep. She’s the best.” He held up his left hand, his gold wedding band shining in the dim little hut with its faux plastic window.
“Of course she is,” the girl said. “She’s Mrs. Claus!”
True again.
“And I go to my nana Jane’s house a lot,” Lucy added. “She’s teaching me how to bake Christmas cookies. She’s so nice.”
“My gram was really nice too,” he said, picturing Cassie Dawson tending to her goats, putting stickers on her jars of milk and cheese, letting him do a batch of stickers when he got good at centering them.
“I don’t want my parents to get a divorce,” Lucy said, her eyes filling with tears. She stared down at her pink sneakers.
“I know. I didn’t want my parents to either. But you know what helped me?”
She looked up. “What?”
“My grandmother gave me some good ideas to help me through it. She told me that when I was upset, I should say so. If I was feeling sad or scared or just needed a hug, I should let my mom or my dad or both of them know. I shouldn’t keep my thoughts and feelings to myself. Even if they were mean or scary thoughts.”
“Did your parents get mad at you?” she asked.
“Nope,” he said. “Sometimes they didn’t realize that I was feeling so bad. So telling them helped them and me. And I talked to my grandmother a lot about how I was feeling. I could tell her anything.”
“I can tell my nana anything too. She likes to hear my thoughts on things.”
He smiled. “That makes you really lucky. We only have around five minutes left. Do you want to tell me what you want for Christmas?”
“What I really want is a new bike. A red one with a silver water bottle holder and a bell.”
“Well, I wish you a very merry Christmas, Lucy.”
“You too, Santa!” she said. “Say hi to Katie Claus!” she added before running out just as the elf popped her head in.
Katie Claus. He just might think of her that way forever.
A few more kids later and Asher needed a really large, really strong cup of coffee. During his break, when he got a small foam cup of weak town hall coffee, which would have to do until the end of his shift, he texted Katie to see how she was. She texted back immediately, telling him she’d met Gigi in town and they were shopping, then would have lunch at the brick oven pizzeria and then do more shopping. She might need a foot massage later, she’d added.
The three dots indicating she was still typing went on for a good thirty seconds, then disappeared. She was worried about the foot massage request, he realized. Because of what happened last night. He texted back.
You remember my foot massages are legendary. Shop away. I’ve got you.
She texted back a happy face wearing a Santa hat, then wrote that she’d meet him at the Christmas tree at 2:00 p.m. so she could pick a gift wish, and they’d stop at the animal shelter and see the dogs. If you think we’re in a good enough place to adopt that Australian shepherd we always talked about.
His heart wrenched. Then he wrote back.
We’re going to be fine.
They had to be. End of story.
He got back a smiley face, but he could feel her worry by just looking at the yellow emoji.
He texted back a note that he’d meet her at two and added a Santa hat emoji because Katie was a big user of emojis. This time he got back a smiley face with a cowboy hat on it and six goats and two babies in Santa hats.
That he couldn’t wait to see her wasn’t lost on him. He missed the twins fiercely, especially after being surrounded by children for the past hour and a half. But he needed to see his Katie just as desperately.
After a delicious lunch at the brick oven pizzeria, where the twins had thankfully napped in their stroller the entire time so that Katie and Gigi could really talk, they headed out onto Main Street, ready to hit the shops again. Katie had told her friend everything—about the two days at the spa, the wedding and then last night and this morning.
“My wedding present sure did its job,” Gigi said with a grin.
“Dinner was such a surprise and so romantic.” Katie sighed. “Thank you so much, Gigi. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You can make it up to me later when I text you a thousand photos of table centerpieces. You can help me choose. My mother likes the ones I think are eh.”
Katie smiled. “You got it. So you really think I’m gonna get my Christmas wish?” she asked as they walked down the street slowly, Katie maneuvering the big stroller around people and dogs coming their way. It was twelve thirty and Bear Ridge was bustling with holiday shoppers.
Gigi was a great listener and very thoughtful about giving advice, and had insisted that she and Asher would be the couple Katie hoped for by Christmas. “I really do. Asher is feeling his way through this. Like I said, he had a plan and it fell to pot, like a lot of plans do. He’s trying to control something that can’t be controlled.” Gigi wiggled her eyebrows.
Katie laughed. And Gigi was once again exactly right. That was precisely what Asher was doing—it was about controlling the uncontrollable. Their feelings for each other.
“Sounds like seeing his dad’s love life issues played out in front of him helped too,” Gigi said as she stopped to peer at the Christmas display in the used bookstore window. “He’s been cynical about marriage and things working out his whole life. You’re his safe zone. Then he actually lost you for an entire year. Now not only does he have you back, but he has baby twins. He must be feeling incredibly protective, not just of you and the boys, but of himself. I get it.”
“I do too,” Katie said as they moved on, stopping at the next window, which was the town’s general store and gift shop and had all sorts of interesting things for sale. “It’s just hard to go through the journey when what I want is the destination.”
Gigi nodded and pulled open the door, Katie waiting for a small group of shoppers to exit before pushing in the big stroller. “I know what you mean. But the journey with all its annoying curves and detours will get you there.”
Katie nodded, really thinking about that. It was true. “I’d like to find a wedding present for Asher. And a thank-you gift for his dad and Mandy. And something for Axel and Sadie, who ranch-sat for us while we were gone.”
“This is definitely the place. Ooh, I’m gonna go check out the intimates section for myself,” Gigi said and dashed over to the area at the back of the store. Katie eyed the silk robes and fleece-lined pj’s. Asher would probably like fleece-lined pj’s.
A very sexy black satin teddy with a low cut lacy V-neck called to Katie for herself. But she should definitely not push things. And things didn’t seem to need to be pushed anyway, she thought with a smile.
She walked around the shop, glad it wasn’t too crowded since the stroller took up lots of room. She bought two cute stuffed rattles for the twins, a beautiful pair of beeswax candles and two rose quartz holders with a special tag about their restorative powers for Mandy and John, since she knew those would haves special meaning. For Axel and Sadie she bought a big festive tin of different kinds of popcorn, since she recalled Asher mentioning that they loved caramel popcorn. And now she just had to find a wedding gift for Asher. Something meaningful. Truly special. She’d thought about making him a photo book with pictures from over the years and now, with the twins. She’d probably do that for Christmas. But she wanted to get him something special as a wedding gift, as special as the locket he’d given her.
The minute she saw the Christmas sweater on a stack on a table, she knew she’d found it. It was the traditional goofy ugly Christmas sweater, so colorful and tacky she could barely look at it without her eyes hurting. There was an earnest Santa and a cartoon reindeer and dancing snow globes with elf faces around the border. And in the center in big red and green letters was “North Pole Daddy.” The sweater would make him laugh and she had to get it. It spoke to their tradition of who could find the ugliest of ugly Christmas sweaters.
Just when she and Gigi had made it to the door with the many packages on their wrists and in the baskets under the twins’ stroller, Katie froze. Her mother was coming into the shop.
“Oh, hello!” Celia Crosby said. Once again, she looked great, her honey-colored straight hair just above her shoulders, shiny and clean. She had a little makeup on and wore a cranberry-colored wool peacoat and jeans with leather boots.
Katie moved back to let her mother inside. “Gigi, have you ever met my mother, Celia Crosby?” She turned to Celia. “This is my friend Gigi Robertson. She’s an officer with the Bear Ridge PD. We were rookies together.”
“Actually, your mother came to see me soon after the news of your death,” Gigi said. “We had a lovely conversation. I think it helped both of us. Celia came to see me a few times at the PD over the past year.”
Katie glanced from Gigi to her mother. She remembered Celia mentioning she’d gone to the police station after the social worker began helping her. Before Katie had faked her death, Gigi hadn’t known her mother or much about her other than that she’d had a troubled life and Katie had had to grow up in foster care because of it. If Katie had been on the force a couple years earlier, she probably would have arrested her mother for something or other. A few times.
“I’d better get going,” Gigi said. “Nice to see you, Celia. You’re looking very well.” She turned to Katie and handed her a large box. “This is for you and Asher. Another wedding present.” She grinned, gave each baby a caress on their fleece-capped heads, then left.
“A wedding present?” Celia repeated. Her gaze went straight to Katie’s left hand, where the silver wedding band had joined the engagement ring.
“We got married yesterday, actually,” Katie said.
“Oh, well, isn’t that wonderful. Congratulations.”
This was so awkward. Katie wanted to run out of the shop and stay and talk. Her mother would always have a powerful grip on her heart. Celia always had.
“I didn’t know you went to see Gigi,” Katie said.
“I was so shocked at the reports about your death. I knew you worked at the PD, so I went there for more information, anything, really, more than what I heard on the news.”
Katie remembered thinking about her mother as she’d dragged herself from the water last December, how Celia Crosby wouldn’t even know she’d “died,” wouldn’t care much because she’d be too strung out for the news to even penetrate. If she’d heard the news at all. It was hard enough knowing what the news would do to Asher, but that Katie didn’t have a family who’d mourn was one of the reasons she’d been able to go through with the plan.
“I spoke to a really nice officer named Ford Dawson,” Celia continued, “who said he’d been your training partner. And then he directed me to Gigi. He told me the two of you were close friends. Gigi and I had lunch that day in the break room. I looked pretty bad then, was still using, but she wasn’t judgmental about that. She let me sit with her and then we ordered in lunch and just sat and cried together.”
Katie bit her lip, wanting to hear more, yet wanting her mother to stop talking. Why was this so confusing?
“I told her a bit of my story,” Celia continued, “and that I was living in a shelter and that a social worker was mentoring me, but I was still so broken up about you. Gigi gave me some good advice and information about getting clean and the name of a good rehab in Brewster. She said she’d drive me over if I didn’t have a way of getting there, which I didn’t. How kind she was. The next day I told her I wanted to go and wouldn’t let you down, Katie.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said—for the second time, her heart dipping. “Any of that.” Perhaps Gigi hadn’t brought it up the two times they’d seen each other since Katie’s return because she’d figured it was Katie and her mother’s business.
“I was in bad shape when I went to see her that first time. But after about six months, I’d gotten myself together. And I had a job and an apartment. Gigi told me you’d be proud of me. That meant a lot to me. That she thought so.”
Katie felt her eyes sting with tears. “I am proud of you for that.”
“Do you think we could get together?” Celia asked shyly. “Have dinner? Either at my apartment or your house?”
Katie froze. She could see the hope on Celia’s face. But all she could remember right now was the hope in her own heart over the years. Constantly stomped on. How did she just suddenly trust this woman who was like a stranger, really?
Celia’s expression said she was bracing for a no. Katie’s chest felt tight, but she could get through a dinner, a first start—if Asher were there. “Why don’t you come for dinner tomorrow night. At Dawson’s Sweet Dairy Ranch. It’s about eight miles out from here.”
Celia’s eyes lit up. “I’ve driven out there a couple times over the past year. I remembered it’s where a social worker once told me you spent a lot of time with Asher. So I wanted to see it.”
“How about six thirty?” Katie asked. “That way the twins will be awake a bit while you’re there.”
This time her mother’s entire face lit up. She looked from Katie to the twins, then back at Katie. “That would be great. I’m really excited about this, Katie. Thank you.”
Katie managed a smile, but her stomach was churning. “See you tomorrow.”
Thank heavens she was meeting Asher in a little while. Because she really needed her best friend right now.