The snowstorm the newscasters had been predicting for Christmas week hit sometime between midnight and eight in the morning. I couldn’t be sure of the exact time, of course, since I cared more about sleep accumulation than snow accumulation, but apparently not everybody felt the same way. My missed texts from Joshua—time stamp starting around 5:00 a.m.—were proof enough.
Are you awake yet? Have you looked outside? Six inches and counting.
Also, you should check your power. Nearly half the city is out. You doing okay? Need rescuing? I might know a guy.
If you’ve been carried off by an overweight snowman smoking a corncob pipe, please reply with #1. Stuck inside a snow berm #2. Frozen into an ice sculpture for the viewing pleasure of many #3.
Or none of the above because you’re STILL ASLEEP . . . #4.
I squinted at the too-bright screen and tapped out a reply, one eye refusing to stay open.
#4. Ignorance is bliss.
Until your nose catches frostbite.
I can live without a nose.
Check your lights.
But that requires getting out of bed . . .
So does everything else we have planned for today.
I huffed as I exited the sanctuary of my warm cocoon and darted to the light switch—yep. Dead.
I scrambled back in bed, a tiny rush of adrenaline shooting up my spine.
No power. 🙁
Your rescuer says to stay put because the roads are getting slick. He’s out running errands for his erratic mother at the moment but can be there in 45 minutes. Pack an overnight bag.
I may have jolted upright at that last comment.
??
An overnight bag? To what, stay at his parents’ house? On Christmas Eve? No way. This wasn’t some made-for-TV holiday movie premise. This was real life. And in real life, the I-only-met-you-yesterday types of acquaintances didn’t offer invitations for sleepovers on the biggest holiday of the year.
The roads won’t be safe to drive tonight. My parents have a guest room with your name on it. Already checked with them. Go pack your bags.
Snow makes you bossy.
No, it makes me grateful for studded tires and a wood stove.
I heaved a deep sigh. He made a good point. I wouldn’t want him out driving on the roads tonight, either.
And then I remembered. Lisa.
I’d finally texted my sister last night, asking if I could stop by her place sometime this afternoon to drop off the packages for her kids before heading to Joshua’s parents’ house.
I actually have an errand I need to run.
Good thing my holiday rates are very reasonable then.
Hang on. Let me text my sister again.
I shot Lisa a text, asking if I could stop by this morning instead of this afternoon. She replied immediately.
We’re packing up now to head to Mom and Dad’s. They still have power and a big generator. Is your power out, too?
Yes, but I’m heading to a friend’s house in a bit.
Can you take the gifts to Mom and Dad’s?
Nausea swirled in my gut at the possibility of seeing my mom, followed closely by an even stronger emotion at the thought of not being with my family at all on Christmas Day. How long would this estrangement between us last?
My phone buzzed in my hand. Joshua was calling me.
“Hello?”
“Hey there.” He sounded out of breath.
“Hey,” I said, concern edging its way into my own voice. “Why do you sound like you’re running track? Are you okay?”
“If you call hiking through a parking lot in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve with four dozen eggs and eight pounds of butter okay, then yes. I’m totally okay.”
I threw my blankets off my bare legs as if declaring some kind of weird solidarity with him and yanked my carry-on suitcase out from underneath my bed. If Joshua was willing to run errands in a blizzard, then I wasn’t going to make him wait on me for a single extra minute. “That sounds horrible. Also, side note: What does your mom need that much butter for?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Hmm. Probably not.”
“That’s the right answer.” I heard a car door slam and then a shuddering exhale.
“You sound like you’re freezing!”
“I can’t say I’m a candidate for heatstroke.”
Were his teeth chattering? “Crank your heater up! Right now! I’m shivering just listening to you.” And also because I was beginning to feel the slow temperature drop of a house without a heat source. Heat was the one true luxury I afforded myself in winter—keeping the thermostat at a constant 73 degrees, even on the frostiest of days.
“Look who’s bossy now.” He half chuckled, half chattered. “But I didn’t call to talk about my numb face. I called to tell you to get Skye ready to stay, as well. She can hang out with Brach. I’ll make sure he’s a gentleman.”
“Really?” I stared down at my Oreo-colored dog currently snoozing away on her princess bed as if snowpocalypse wasn’t happening on the other side of my bedroom walls. Who were these generous people anyway? “That’s so . . . I mean, your parents don’t even know me, Joshua. This feels like way too much to ask.”
“They know enough. And you didn’t ask. I did. I’ll be there soon, and then are we heading to your sister’s?”
I swallowed, partially dreading my next words. “No, actually. To my mom and dad’s. That okay?”
“Of course. Whatever you need to do. As long as we’re back home before four.”
The words back home rang in my head over and over like a malfunctioning doorbell. What would it be like to make a home with Joshua?
“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
I attempted to lower the phone and click off, but before I did, I heard his voice again.
“Hey, Lauren?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you weren’t kidnapped by a snowman with a corncob pipe.” And with that, he was gone.
Goose bumps traveled up my arms, granting me all the motivation I needed to pack for two and be ready and waiting for my knight in snow-studded armor to arrive.
Joshua’s black Explorer idled across the street from my parents’ house, our easygoing banter falling flat as soon as I saw their parked vehicles in the driveway.
“It’s that one there?” He inclined his head to their house.
I made a small grunt of confirmation, and he placed a hand on my bouncing knee.
“What do you need from me, Lauren?” His soft question provided both a comfort and a confidence I’d been lacking.
“I’ll be okay.” I rotated in my seat to face him. “But I think it’s best if I go to the door alone. I just don’t want you to feel like—”
He shook his head, cutting my guilt in half. “I feel like I want to be a help to you in whatever way I can. If you think it’s best for me to stay in the car, then that’s what I’ll do. No questions asked.”
I studied his face, wishing I could be half as selfless and kindhearted a friend to him as he was to me.
“I should go,” I whispered a bit more huskily than intended.
“I’ll be here.”
It was that statement that carried me across a mostly snow-free driveway likely due to my mother’s strict plowing schedule at the first sight of a flurry. I shifted the packages in my arms so I could swipe my frozen hair off my face. The snowfall had slowed considerably, but the consistency of the dense flakes had morphed into more of a hard ice pellet, one that clung to my hair as if made of Velcro. The tinny rat-tat-tat sound pinging against my parents’ front window to my left became the soundtrack of my momentary boost of bravery.
I knocked. Twice.
Nothing.
Shivering, I gave in and rang the doorbell.
Lisa pulled the door open a few seconds later, her red cowl-neck sweater and black jeans accentuating the most feminine parts of her figure. You’d never know her house didn’t have power this morning, since she looked as polished as ever, regardless of her lack of a blow dryer and vanity mirror lights.
The familiarity of Lisa’s presence brought an unexpected surge of nostalgia, and for half a heartbeat I wished we were the hugging type of sisters, the kind who settled their differences with a warm embrace and a handful of compliments. But the Baileys weren’t known for their affection—such a contrast to the Cartwright and Avery families, who handed out hugs like they were free mints from their favorite Mexican restaurant.
“Merry Christmas, Lisa.” My first spoken words to my sister in nearly a month. “I hope the kids enjoy these gifts—I had some extra help on the boys’ present this year. Should be a hit. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told.” Yep, my nervous rambling was back with a vengeance.
“Thanks,” she said a bit flatly, taking the packages from my arms and setting them next to the shoe rack in the entryway two steps inside.
“Oh, and the bag there has all the ugly socks in it. For the stockings.” I’d started the tradition as a broke college student in my early twenties: buy the most hideous pair of socks possible and stuff them deep inside the toe of the hanging stocking. My family always laughed at the weird design or theme I chose for them. But I wouldn’t hear their thoughts on what I’d picked out for them this year.
I worked up the best Christmas cheer of a smile I could muster. My sister was obviously not in the mood to reciprocate.
Despite the biting wind and Lisa’s dead-eyed stare, the start of a nervous sweat broke out all over my body. Her not-so-subliminal message of blocking the entire doorway declared You shall not pass.
“Well, I should probably get going. My friend’s waiting for me in the car.” I hitched a thumb toward Joshua. “Please tell everybody I said Merry Christmas, okay? I hope Mom’s ham turns out and that Dad enjoys his new slippers. And I hope . . .” We can be sisters again, the kind who talk and laugh and enjoy life together, because I miss you. And I miss Mom and Dad, too. My temples throbbed from the cold as I secured a hand on the banister and placed my snow boot square on the first porch step. “I hope tomorrow is everything you want it to be. Bye.” It was then my sister shot a verbal dagger into my back.
“So that’s it? You don’t talk to us for a month, make my work life a living hell with Mom after your outburst, and then leave me to wonder about the new nephew I’m supposedly getting from . . .” She thought for several seconds as if trying to come up with the country. “China?”
So this was happening. Right now. I glanced at Joshua’s car parked along the curb, wishing I could evaporate like the cloud of exhaust puffing out from under his back bumper, but that would be too easy. And nothing involving my family was ever easy.
Slowly, I turned back around, willing patience into my tone as I pushed the painful words out. “He wasn’t . . . there was a computer glitch. He wasn’t available for me to adopt after all.”
A beat. And then two. “What does that mean—for you?”
Heat flared in my cheeks at her audacity to make me spell it out for her, as if the words didn’t splice my heart open every time I repeated them. “Exactly what I just said. I won’t be adopting him.” Easy, Lauren. Your job was to deliver Christmas gifts, not add insult to injury. “He already has a family in process.”
“But what about all the other orphaned children in the world? The poor and vulnerable you lectured us about? Aren’t there others in need of a family? Isn’t that your way to make a difference?”
I stared at her, anger simmering in my gut as she threw my words back in my face. My sister was a lot of things, but ignorant wasn’t one of them. She wanted me to attack, to prove her right. “I’m not sure what I’ll do next.”
A laugh—measured and cruel. “I could have guessed that.”
“What?”
She gestured to me. “You. This. It’s what you do—what you’ve always done. When things get too hard, you’re ready to throw your hands up and walk away from the whole thing. Just like you did to us when you became all religious and we didn’t want to jump on that wagon with you. Well, news flash: The parenthood wagon isn’t a six-hour day of craft and carpet time like in your classroom. It’s painful. It’s messy. It’s freaking hard work.”
And just like that, I’d reached my boiling point. “You don’t know anything about—”
“Adoption? Maybe not. But I do know something about parenting kids with a history I knew little about. But like usual, you don’t ask for anything I have to offer. Instead, you ride off on your Debbie Do-Gooder high horse, pegging us as your unsupportive, uncaring family. Oh, wait, no. I believe the phrase you used was unloving.”
I gaped at her. In all of our past disagreements, Lisa had never spoken to me with such hostility. “I don’t have a high horse, and I never said that!”
“You’re right.” Her gaze grew unfocused, as if trying to recall a memory. “You just told our mom that you wanted to be nothing like her—that you wanted a child of your own so you could love them better than she was able to love you. Believe me, I remember every word of that speech, because I’ve heard it. Multiple times. By the woman who sacrificed everything so you could have a roof over your head and food on your plate.” She peered off into the distance. “She wasn’t perfect. I know it, and so does she. But she’s our mother and you have no right to point your self-righteous finger at her.”
“I’m not doing this with you, Lisa. Not on Christmas Eve.” Shame pricked my conscience. Or maybe it was the conviction of the honor thy mother and father passage scrolling through my mind. I stomped down the steps, slipping on the last one and landing hard on a snow-dusted shrub.
I heard Joshua’s car door open and immediately slam shut as I righted myself from the ground, conscious of his waiting presence at the edge of the driveway in my peripheral. I started toward him, a warning on my tongue to stay clear of my sister’s sticky web.
“Well, this just seals the deal nicely, doesn’t it? I guess you really have made up your mind to call it quits, then.”
I shouldn’t have stopped, shouldn’t have engaged, shouldn’t have taken a big, juicy bite out of the poisonous apple she dangled in front of me. But that’s exactly what I did. “What are you talking about?”
Her gaze veered away from me to the man trudging up the driveway behind me. I turned quickly and held up my palm to halt his steps.
“Your whole no-dating-because-you’re-going-to-adopt mandate.” She shook her head, only it wasn’t disgust I saw on her face, but . . . pity. “Unless, of course, you’re gonna try to convince me that spending Christmas Eve with a man and his family doesn’t mean anything.”
Another wave of shame washed over me.
“Joshua’s a good friend,” I said as if I’d rehearsed the phrase multiple times in front of a mirror, keeping my inflection mild and unassuming. But Lisa picked up nuances in tone and expressions on a face like she worked full-time doing FBI surveillance.
“The intense way he’s watching us right now would say he’s much more than that.”
“I don’t have to justify anything to you. That’s not why I came here today.”
“No, you just came to drop off your guilt gifts and check off the box labeled family. Don’t worry. We’re all used to that from you by now.”
And then Joshua’s hand was on my back, speaking to me in a tone that suggested urgency, only I couldn’t hear his words over my rage.
Clenching my fists, I stared my sister down, a forbidden sob hanging on the edge of my voice. “You’re right, Lisa. I don’t know how I could ever feel unsupported by this family. You’re just the warmest, most hospitable, accepting bunch of people out there.”
“Lauren.” And within that one firm yet tender word, I knew exactly what my sister would hear in Joshua’s voice—the unapologetic concern of a man whose feelings for me exceeded the friend title I’d attached to him. “It’s time to leave.”
Joshua secured an arm around my shoulders, steering us away from my parents’ home.
“It’s Joshua, right?” Lisa’s question echoed in the wintery stillness.
He paused our trek to meet my sister’s inflexible gaze. “That’s right. And you’re Lisa, Lauren’s sister.”
Her quivering lips nearly lifted into a flattered expression. “My big sis hates eggnog. And also that awful ‘Christmas Shoes’ song they play at the top of every hour on 106.5. It always makes her cry. Oh, and fair warning, she hoards her Draw Four cards during UNO but is always willing to share her dessert, even if it’s her favorite.”
What was she doing?
He nodded. “Good to know. Thanks for the heads-up. Merry Christmas to you all.”
She sniffed, and for a moment, I could have sworn I saw tears leak from her eyes. “Merry Christmas.” She dusted the snowflakes from her sweater and ducked back inside the house. The slam of the door rattled through my frozen bones.
Joshua didn’t speak as he opened my car door for me or even after he climbed inside the driver’s seat. He simply exhaled, turned the key in the ignition, placed his hands on the steering wheel, and accelerated to the end of the street . . . all while humiliation burned a hole in my gut at the dysfunction he’d just witnessed.
Despite the dash vents pumping out hot air at maximum capacity, I shook more than I had moments ago in the December cold.
“Joshua, I’m really sorry you had to—”
“No,” he cut me off, pulling over to the curb. “Please don’t apologize to me. You asked me not to get out of the car, but I couldn’t just sit in here and watch you . . .” The tendons in his neck tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed. “I’m sorry, Lauren.”
An apology I felt had little to do with him exiting the car without my permission and everything to do with my screwed-up family life. Even still, Joshua had come after me because . . . because he’d been worried. About me.
The revelation urged me to give in to the impulse my entire being craved: to lean forward and press my mouth to his, to feel the heat of his breath mingle with mine, and to allow him full access into the mess and pain and all the unsightly places I’d tried and failed to bury over the last two decades.
His gaze trailed my face, warming my lips with the idea that he might be thinking something similar. That maybe he, too, had thoughts that leapt over the friendship fence into this new, undefined territory we found ourselves in now.
“I need you to know that I didn’t invite you to Christmas because I have expectations of you—or us.”
Humiliation pinched my throat. “Of course. I know that—”
“Because I support you. In whatever you decide to do, not that you have to decide anything at all right now, but I would never want to be the reason you didn’t . . . I couldn’t be that guy, the one who pulled you away from God’s plans for you.”
All the things he didn’t ask circled around my mind the way my sister’s hostile questions had, like hungry vultures waiting to attack: “But what about all the other orphaned children in the world? Aren’t there others in need of a family?”
“Please don’t let what my sister said get to you. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” And yet even as I said those words, desperate to believe they were true, my pulse whooshed harder in my ears.
He nodded, yet remained otherwise unmoved as he searched my face for several more seconds. “I don’t want to make things any more complicated for you.”
“You haven’t. You’ve only made things better.” I touched his hand. “Which is why we should be driving to your parents’ house right now and not stuck here talking about my sister or her theories for another second.”
I straightened in my seat, deciding we needed a major morale boost if we had any hope of celebrating Christmas Eve the way it should be celebrated. I turned on his radio and found the round-the-clock holiday station, hoping against hope that it wasn’t the infamous “Christmas Shoes” song. Thankfully, it was “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
I cranked it up and began to hum along. “Have you ever been through Cherry Lane? The neighborhood is all decorated like gingerbread houses. It’s not too far from here, and I’m sure that street’s been plowed by now since it’s a major attraction.”
The concern on his face began to thaw. “It’s on our way.”
“Great, because I think we could both use a helping of holiday spirit right about now.”
“Couldn’t agree more.”
And then Joshua was driving our all-wheel-drive sleigh to the Avery house—save for one tiny, but necessary, holiday spirit detour.