SATURDAY WAS HECTIC and it wasn’t until midafternoon that Carlie got a chance to read her emails.
One was from a former coworker in San Francisco. Carlie hadn’t kept in touch and felt a flash of remorse as she opened the message. Frances had been staunchly supportive after the disaster with Derek.
It was just a brief note.
Carlie, I just heard Derek’s wife is planning to send a birth announcement the way she sent you an invitation to the wedding. She’s a WSWAB, in triplicate. I don’t want you to get blindsided again. FYI, they had a baby boy two days ago. Hope you’re well. Miss you. Frances
WSWAB was their acronym for Witch-Spelled-with-A-B.
It was a surprise that she’d emailed rather than called since they’d both seen personal messages become unhappily public, but Frances probably trusted her to be careful.
Carlie sat for a long minute, sorting out the emotions cascading through her. The strangest part was realizing that thinking about her ex-fiancé with another woman no longer made her angry. But even if she didn’t hate him, she still grieved for the baby she’d wanted.
Carlie sent a message thanking Frances, for some reason thinking about Luke. However blunt, inconsiderate and high-handed he might be, he was also generous, intelligent and adored his daughters. She alternated between being furious with him, admiring his fumbling attempts to connect with Annie and Beth...and wanting to rip his clothes off.
He wasn’t a skunk, but she had excellent reasons to keep her distance from him, too. Trust being one of those reasons.
Carlie got up and walked restlessly around her office.
It wasn’t that she distrusted men in general—her male relatives were an awfully nice group of guys and it wasn’t as if Luke had ever broken his word to her—it was just hard to have faith that someone could love her as much as she loved him and wouldn’t hurt her.
* * *
LATER THAT EVENING, Carlie sipped hot wassail as she wandered along the pedestrian shopping street with Luke and the girls, enjoying hospitality night. Nicole had stopped at the Days Gone By clothing shop, telling them to go on while she explored the costumes and vintage garments.
“I think your costumes are making my sister envious,” Luke commented.
“It isn’t intentional. My mother sews, and being the Poppy Gold activities director offers me plenty of excuses to enjoy her talents. It’s nice being able to indulge in the charm of a bygone era, without having to live with some of its drawbacks.”
Tonight she was wearing a dark red velvet skirt and jacket trimmed in black. The fitted waist of the jacket flared partway over her hips, like a second, very feminine overskirt. She told herself she’d worn it because she’d ridden in the lighted parade again, but that was just an excuse. At heart, she was still a little girl who’d never grown out of wanting to play dress-up.
She’d thought about offering Nicole the loan of a Victorian outfit for the evening, but she was already too involved with the Forresters. Baking cookies with them? Loaning out jeans and sweatpants from her personal wardrobe? Kissing Luke...?
Carlie swiftly directed her thoughts into a safer channel. “Annie, Beth, look at the juggler.”
A man in a Victorian suit and top hat was juggling brightly colored balls, while another entertainer on stilts would try to catch one of them, eventually causing the rest to tumble to the ground. This prompted a mock argument before they laughed and started all over again. Annie and Beth were transfixed.
Carlie glanced at Luke and saw an odd expression on his face.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Just thinking. The Christmas celebrations here are beyond anything I anticipated.”
“I’m glad. We love Glimmer Creek and want visitors to love it, too. Tonight is a good example of community spirit—the street entertainers are volunteers and the profits go to the fire department.”
“That’s nice.”
“What do you think?” said Nicole from behind them.
They turned and Carlie saw Luke’s sister in a rich emerald green Victorian dress and coat, her fingers in a mock fur muff and her hair piled high under a hat.
“You look fabulous,” Carlie declared.
“Thank you.” Nicole curtsied. “I’ll have to visit Poppy Gold every year during the Christmas season, just to have a place to wear my new finery.”
“I’ll get you into the parade tomorrow, riding in one of the carriages. That will show it off.”
“I’d love to... Oh,” Nicole yelped as an old bicycle horn honked nearby.
“Excuse, ma’am, excuse. My penny farthing doesn’t know where it’s going,” said a street performer wearing a Victorian-era police uniform.
“Papa, what’s a penny farthing?” Annie asked, bringing both pleasure and confusion to Luke’s face—the latter because he probably didn’t have a clue what to tell her.
“This is a penny farthing, lovely lady,” exclaimed the performer, patting his bicycle with a huge front wheel and a much smaller one in back. He dismounted and swept off his hat, bowing low to the twins. “Officer Bradigan at your service.”
“Always flirting with the pretty girls and ignoring your sworn duties,” scolded another costumed policeman as he bustled forward. “Though I must say, Bradigan, I can’t entirely blame you. They are charming.” He bowed low, as well, and pulled two peppermint sticks from his pocket.
The girls giggled and accepted the candy.
Officer Bradigan remounted his penny farthing and wobbled forward a foot, only to have his hat tumble to the ground. A third officer rushed forward to berate him for poor comportment, unworthy of his uniform.
They were members of the Poppy Police Beat, a group of players from the local theater group. They performed often through the year, improvising their comical skits. While Carlie had seen their act dozens of times, she loved every minute. Annie and Beth obviously felt the same; they laughed and clapped their hands in glee.
Guests were snapping pictures, including Nicole and Luke, and Carlie wondered if he’d ever allowed himself to just be a regular tourist.
After a while, the Poppy Police Beat continued down the street, Officer Bradigan leading the way on his penny farthing.
“Luke, I’m going to take Beth and Annie with me for a while,” Nicole said after the girls had tugged at her skirt and whispered something in her ear.
“All right. Just find us when you’re done.”
Carlie would have preferred not to be left alone with Luke, though being in a mass of people was hardly alone.
“Annie and Beth seem to be having fun,” she said, selecting one of the sandwiches at the Glimmer Creek General Store.
* * *
“YES.” LUKE FROWNED DISTRACTEDLY.
He’d noticed that, unlike most people, Carlie generally spoke Annie’s name before Beth’s. He didn’t know how they’d gotten into the habit of saying the names the opposite way—maybe it was just how they rolled off the tongue. After all, did anyone know why it was peanut butter and jelly, instead of jelly and peanut butter?
“Carlie, I’ve wanted to ask, why do you always put Annie’s name first?”
She scrunched her nose. “I shouldn’t say anything.”
“For Pete’s sake, would you forget about being the activities director?” he ordered, exasperated. “We’ve gone way past that.”
Carlie looked into his eyes for a long moment, seeming to weigh his sincerity. “Okay. The thing is, I grew up with identical twin brothers, so I’ve seen how complicated the relationship can be.”
Luke’s attention sharpened. He didn’t know anyone else who had experience with twins. When he and Erika had looked for a nanny, they hadn’t thought it was an issue—their daughters were to be treated as individuals, and that was that. Yet lately he’d started to wonder if a little twin-expertise would be helpful.
“Quinn is quiet and introspective,” Carlie continued, “while Russ is more outgoing and competitive.”
“There’s nothing wrong with competition,” Luke interjected.
Carlie rolled her eyes. “As I was saying, when they were kids, Russ would badger or blackmail Quinn to get his way. A lot of the time, Quinn would finally do whatever Russ wanted, just to make him shut up. Ironically, Russ would then act as if it had been Quinn’s idea all along. Maybe he even believed it. My folks knew they needed to break the pattern, so they began calling Russ out on his behavior.”
“How does that relate to Beth and Annie?”
Carlie hesitated. “From what I’ve seen, Annie has her own approach to things and usually doesn’t care that much about winning. It doesn’t seem to bother her if Beth gets the prize or does something in a different way.”
He nodded. “Okay, but how does this relate to their names?”
“Beth is much more competitive. She wants to win, particularly over her sister. She’s a terrific kid, but I’ve seen her treat Annie the same way that Russ used to treat Quinn. That’s why I say Annie’s name first, so she won’t feel that she’s always second and might feel freer to stand up for herself.”
“I see.”
Luke had never thought having two little girls would be so complicated. He’d assumed he’d get ulcers when his daughters were sixteen, not six. Of course, Carlie wasn’t necessarily right; she’d only known them for two weeks.
Yet he started thinking about the evening the girls had decorated the trees in their bedroom—Beth rushing around, grabbing ornaments and sticking them on the branches, and Annie methodically choosing the ones she wanted before starting. He also remembered how Carlie had intervened when Beth started telling Annie she was taking too long and that her choices were “booooorrrrring,” so she should pick something else.
Beth did push Annie around. When something mattered deeply to Annie, she wouldn’t budge an inch, but the rest of the time she acted as if it wasn’t worth the trouble to argue. For both their sakes, he needed to be more observant and break the pattern.
“I wish I could say you were wrong,” he said quietly, “but you aren’t. Your brothers turned out okay, though, right?”
“Yes, they’re both equally annoying to their big sister.”
A laugh escaped Luke’s throat. “How reassuring.”
He looked at Carlie. She fit perfectly with the street entertainers in her period dress. He’d never thought a bustle would have much appeal, but it emphasized her figure; slim and shapely in front, with that saucy little bump in back.
Awareness shot through Luke before he could control it. He still hadn’t resolved his feelings about being attracted to another woman besides Erika. It wasn’t that he believed there was a timeline for grief, but he remained torn. So, all things considered, it wouldn’t be fair to Carlie to get involved with her, even casually.
Assuming she was even interested.
“I wonder where Nicole and the girls went,” he murmured as a distraction.
“They can’t be far. Let’s head back toward Old City Hall. They may have decided to use the washroom there.”
They’d only walked about twenty feet when Luke saw his sister and daughters coming toward them. Beth and Annie wore long ruffled skirts and petticoats, along with coats and hats that were virtual duplicates of the ones worn by Nicole, except for the colors.
He lifted his camera and took several pictures, thinking he’d never seen his sister look so pleased. He knew she wanted to get closer to Beth and Annie, so maybe dressing up together would help.
“You’re all gorgeous. Now I’m the only one left out,” he complained.
Nicole gave him a saucy smile. “You know where the Days Gone By shop is and it’s open late tonight. At the very least, you need something for the dress balls, so get cracking.”
“Forget I said anything. I’m not a costume kind of guy.”
“You never know unless you try. Come on, girls, let’s eat more Christmas treats. I’ve heard that the Glimmer Creek Mercantile is serving five flavors of fudge and I want to try every single one of them.”
“Yum!” Beth exclaimed.
Luke grinned as his sister took Beth and Annie into the store; the twins weren’t the only ones blossoming in Glimmer Creek.
“Let’s go make sure the girls eat some healthier choices, as well,” he said to Carlie. “I think Nicole is enjoying being an aunt too much—she gets to spoil the girls, and I’m the one who has to say no.”
It wasn’t until later that he wondered about the odd expression on Carlie’s face.
* * *
GIDEON WAS ENJOYING hospitality night. He’d come over after helping to set up the living nativity and the event was in full swing. Poppy Gold visitors weren’t the only people enjoying the evening. Quite a few of his clients stopped him to say hello and he’d stayed busy shaking hands, chatting and trying to remember names while being introduced to still more people.
It was a reminder of why he liked small towns, though admittedly, they weren’t all friendly. To see if this was the right place for him, he’d visited several times before deciding to relocate. If he ever had kids, he wanted to raise them in a place where he knew his neighbors and the schools were a manageable size. Glimmer Creek had seemed like a good place to do that. And though loans were tight at the local bank, he’d been assured he could get a mortgage when he chose to buy a house.
He was eating a cookie in the general store when he looked out the window and saw Carlie and Nicole, both dressed to the hilt in Victorian finery, one in red and the other in green. He inhaled so sharply he choked on a crumb; they’d already moved on by the time he’d stopped coughing.
When Nicole had come by the clinic earlier that afternoon, he’d deliberately stayed in his apartment. It was Saturday and he wasn’t obligated to see a client who’d insisted on visiting her cat even when the clinic was closed.
Kissing her had been foolish, if for no other reason than she was making him ask questions about his marriage that he preferred to avoid.
In the beginning, things had been good with Renee, but they’d pulled apart, bit by bit. And in the end, they’d each underestimated how strongly the other felt about city versus country life. He’d just been marking time until he could take up a rural practice, while she’d believed he wouldn’t care about moving once he’d experienced success and the fast-paced life of Los Angeles.
Gideon went out and looked around the brick-paved street. The two women should be easy to spot in their vibrant costumes, but they might have gone into one of the stores or the fire station.
Why he wasn’t attracted to Carlie Benton was beyond him. They had a huge amount in common and she was smart, beautiful and devoted to her hometown. Children gravitated toward her and she seemed open and honest. Yet it was Nicole making him lose sleep and he already lost plenty as a country vet who got called out at all hours to see his patients. In some ways it wasn’t that different than Beverly Hills, except in the city he’d gone on house calls at three in the morning because little Fifi had cocked her head funny...two days ago.
Gideon pushed the thought away. The vast majority of his clients in the city had been nice people. He was just dwelling on the negatives because he didn’t want to soften toward another city woman.
Yet a flash of humility made him shake his head.
He was behaving as if Nicole was chasing him, but she wasn’t; she was learning how to be a responsible pet owner. Not that owner was the right word when it came to felines—cats were such arrogant, independent creatures, it was more like they were the owners.
Finally spotting Nicole near the old apothecary shop—now a candy store with a taffy puller in the front window—he strode down the street. Avoiding her had smacked of cowardice and it wasn’t something that went down well.
“Hello, everyone,” he said.
“Gideon,” Beth cried. At least he thought it was Beth since she wasn’t as shy as her sister.
“Hey there. How is Chico?” he asked, deciding it was safer not to call her by name. Children were so changeable that Annie might be the bold one today.
“He’s splendiferous. He plays and plays and won’t let Aunt Nicole sleep.”
“Oh, yeah?” Gideon looked at Nicole, whose eyes seemed to be challenging him. “Sleep is important.”
“Yes,” she agreed, her eyes narrowing. “Gideon, you haven’t met my brother, Luke Forrester. Luke, this is Dr. Cartwright, the veterinarian who treated Chico after I found him.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Same here.”
They were shaking hands as Carlie came out of the candy shop, the scent of fresh caramel corn wafting along with her.
She smiled. “Hi, Gideon. Sorry I didn’t get over to the living nativity while they were setting up tonight.”
“You can’t be everywhere, but I miss the lunches we had while we were making plans for it.”
He glanced again at Nicole and saw a strained expression on her face, then decided it had to be his imagination. She couldn’t possibly be jealous.
* * *
LUKE WAS PLEASED when Beth and Annie went the whole day after hospitality night without insisting on Carlie’s presence. They’d waved wildly at her while skating and sledding, but there hadn’t been the usual pleading requests for her to stay and watch them.
As promised, Nicole had been invited to ride in the lighted parade. The invitation had included the twins, so they’d proudly dressed in their Victorian outfits and ridden in an open carriage with their aunt. He’d taken dozens of pictures and had already downloaded them to the computer.
It wasn’t until later that Luke realized that, for the first time since his wife’s death, he hadn’t instinctively evaluated each photo for sending to Erika. He also hadn’t questioned whether she’d approve of her daughters dressing as children from a period in history where women couldn’t even vote.
Apparently life did march on, whether he wanted it to or not. He was a single father now; he had to make the best decisions for his kids. By himself. He’d go crazy if he tried to weigh his wife’s silent voice into everything.
* * *
ON MONDAY MORNING Luke was going through financial reports, including the section on charitable donations, when he thought about the Christmas baskets and gifts he’d helped Carlie prepare for the seniors in Glimmer Creek. It had been satisfying. Impulsively, he called Carlie and offered to bring everything to the fire department for distribution.
“That’s nice of you,” she said, sounding surprised, “but two of the volunteer firefighters are coming tomorrow to pick them up.”
“Let me save them a trip. I’ve got a big SUV with lots of cargo space. It should be used for something.” He tried not to smile as he spoke, even though she couldn’t see him.
“So I’ve heard,” she returned crisply. “Fine. We’ve moved everything to a ground-floor storeroom. It’ll take a few trips with one of the Poppy Gold shuttles to get everything loaded in your...vehicle.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
* * *
CARLIE HUNG UP the phone, annoyed that Luke had mentioned the SUV. He’d seemed so grim and humorless when they’d first met, but now he was delighting in giving her a hard time.
It was frustrating the way he was creeping into her thoughts. She’d even had trouble getting to sleep Saturday night after the way he’d talked about the two of them making sure Annie and Beth ate something healthy.
Let’s go make sure the girls eat...
It hadn’t meant anything, but the words had instantly raised images of parental solidarity.
Disgusted with herself, Carlie headed toward the employee break room with her mug, needing coffee to deal with Luke. But as she reached for the pot, her cell rang.
Her breath caught when she saw her parents’ home number on the caller ID. Dad was at his job site—there was a road farther up in the hills where a bridge was under repair—and her mother didn’t call unless it was important.
“Mom, what is it?” she answered.
“Your father fell,” Leah said, her voice shaking. “I’ve spoken to him and he insists he’s all right, but they’re taking him to the Glimmer Creek Medical Clinic to be checked.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“He’ll be upset if we both show up. He hates a fuss and he knows you’re busy.”
“He’ll just have to deal with it,” Carlie said firmly.
“All right. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Carlie got off and ran to give her staff instructions on what to do about Luke in her absence, only to find him already waiting.
“Sorry, Luke, something’s come up and I can’t stay.” She glanced around and saw Tracy Wade. “Tracy, would you help Mr. Forrester get the Christmas baskets loaded in his car and give him directions to the fire department? I’ve got an emergency.”
“Of course. I hope it isn’t serious.”
“Me, too. My dad fell and they want to be sure he didn’t break anything.”
“Let me drive you,” Luke urged. “I can take care of the baskets later.”
“No, I’m fine.”
She hurried to her car, worrying that her father might need another surgery on his leg. Or worse, that he’d get so despondent about never having a normal life again he’d simply give up. The second concern was instantly dispelled when she walked into the medical clinic and heard Mike Benton’s voice coming from the rear of the building.
“I don’t need X-rays. I’m going back to work.” Her dad didn’t use strong language when he was angry, but he made up for it in volume.
Carlie looked at the office manager behind the counter. “At least we know his voice still works.”
“Yep.” Rosemary grinned. “Go on back.”
In the urgent-care area of the clinic, Carlie saw her mother and father and Aunt Emma, all wearing equally harassed expressions.
“What are you doing here?” her father demanded as the physician’s assistant cleaned the deep abrasions on his hands. Aunt Emma was a doctor, but she didn’t treat family members except in emergencies.
“I considered taking part of the morning off. Then I found out you’d tripped over your big feet,” Carlie returned calmly. “So instead of getting a spa treatment, I came here instead.”
“I’m perfectly all right and don’t need to be poked and prodded.”
She shook her head. “If I gave up a morning at the spa, the least you can do is cooperate. Behave and I’ll get you an ice-cream cone.” It had been his old bribe to her as a child when she was getting vaccinations.
A smile threatened to break through Mike’s grumpy expression. “Oh, very well. But it had better be a double scoop.”
Carlie sat next to her mom as they waited for the results of the X-rays.
“Nothing is broken,” Aunt Emma announced. She gazed sternly at her brother-in-law. “You were lucky, Mike, but you have to rest for a few days. Falling is hard on the body. The PA concurs. Come back next in three days and she’ll decide whether to clear you for work.”
“No.”
“Yes,” Carlie and her mother said in unison, with Aunt Emma not far behind.
He muttered something about there being too many hens in the henhouse, but he didn’t have much choice. He was soundly overruled.