His eyes met hers. Some of the former tension returned to his face. “All right. Sure. You have the rules in your head and I’ve got a new problem on my hands.”
“It’s not just in your hands, Andy.” She stepped around the side of the desk, wanting to better illustrate her point that they were a team by literally putting them both on the same side of the desk that held the plans for the inn. “Remember, I’m with you in this.”
“I know.” He scowled slightly, rubbed the back of his neck then looked down at her. “Edible, huh?”
She used her shoulder to bump against his side. “If it helps, it doesn’t have to taste good.”
“I’ll take that into account.” He chuckled. “Oh, and by the way, I never said I didn’t have records of what the inn looked like throughout its history. I said the blueprints are gone, and you were right when you said the records in the office were destroyed.”
She froze mid second bump. “What do you mean?”
“That inn has been a part of this area for a very long time. People have had weddings there, reunions, family vacations, honeymoons…”
“All occasions where people take photos!”
“Yep. It was like a home away from home for a lot of folks in town. They worked there. They celebrated there. The annual Christmas Eve open house meant the world to my family after my dad died. It and our faith were our only constants in a world of chaos. That’s why I have to have it ready for guests by that time this year.”
“Oh, Andy.” She tilted her head. He was not a man who shared that kind of information with just anyone, she could tell. Suddenly, his passion for getting the inn done and done right took on a new meaning. “You know you don’t have to do the work on the inn all by yourself. You just saw your neighbors in town pull together for the park decorations. You should—”
“I should tell you about the town museum. It’s right across from the park in City Hall, fourth floor.”
“Not as subtle as bursting into song, but I get it. You want to change the subject.” She moved from around the desk and crossed her arms. “I’ll play along. Tell me about the town museum.”
“Oh, you should really go see it for yourself.” He reached for her coat and held it open for her to slide her arms in. “They have the whole history of the area, including a section just for the Snowy Eaves Inn. People have donated photos, scrapbooks, souvenirs. Those along with the town archives of newspapers, yearbooks and what have you, who knows? You might get a lead on finding your father.”
She shrugged into her coat and glanced back at him, with her eyes narrowed. “You don’t fool me, Andy McFarland. This is all part of your attempt to get me to formulate a plan.”
He smiled slightly, wrapped her scarf around her neck then turned to retrieve his vest. “You can thank me later.”
“I will. Maybe at the park lighting…you know the one you hadn’t planned on attending,” she teased as she opened the door and stepped back out into the brisk New England morning, leaving him speechless.
Chapter Five
The rest of the day went swiftly by. Or at least Corrie realized it had gone by when she found herself sitting alone at a library table in the silent fourth floor museum squinting to make out the faces in a faded instant photograph pasted into a scrapbook. “Mom?”
She skimmed her finger over the photo of a group of young people standing with gardening tools in front of what looked like a quaint little log cabin, then inched in close to try to make out the features. The light through the blinds on the row of large windows that looked out over the front of the building had already begun to fade. She looked up to the row of metal file cabinets on one side, then behind her to discover the dusty displays cloaked in long shadows. A quick check of her cell phone told her it was almost four o’clock.
She set her glasses aside to rub her eyes as she pressed her spine straight against the rigid back of the chair. After hours of sitting hunched over any piece of information she could find about the Snowy Eaves Inn or anyone in the area with the last name Wallace, the movement sent a warmth circulating through her muscles. She rolled her head to ease the ache in her neck.
If only she could dispel the ache in her heart with such a small effort.
How could she have worked so hard and literally come so far and still have nothing? She had no solution for the gingerbread inn, no lead on her father and no chance of snow in the forecast. “At least I have Andy.”
A door creaked on the floor below.
“To help me, that is. At least I have Andy to help me, um, with the gingerbread contest and…all,” she hurried to qualify, even though there was no one around to have heard her. She was alone. All alone.
She sighed. Probably just feeling a touch of homesickness, right? Her mother had probably felt the same way the summer she came to the Snowy Eaves Inn. She turned her attention to the photo, then to her cell phone.
Corrie pressed the first number on her speed dial, took a deep breath, then held the phone up to her ear. There wasn’t anyone else around to overhear the conversation but putting it on speakerphone seemed too impersonal, too distant. She wanted to hear her mom’s voice in her ear, to hold the object connecting them across all these miles, even if it was, at best a tenuous connection.
“Bennington’s Bakery, Barbara speaking.”
“Hi, Mom. You busy?”
“Not too busy for you, honey. Is anything wrong?”
“No. Not…wrong.” Just hearing her mom’s voice brightened Corrie’s outlook. They had spoken during the drive up and last night when Corrie finally got settled in her room at Maple Leaf Manor but that had been dutiful daughter stuff, checking in, making sure her mother knew how to find her, that kind of thing. This call? “I just…I think I’m looking at a picture of you.”
“You think? You don’t know?”
Other mothers might have been curious or confused by a remark like that. Corrie’s mom wanted clarity. She wanted to hear that Corrie was in control. “I’m at the town museum in Hadleyville, looking for information.”
The muffled background sounds of the bakery filled the slow, steady passing of the seconds.
“On the inn,” Corrie added after that prolonged moment of silence on her mother’s part. “And?”
Such a loaded question. Corrie could think of a dozen things she could throw out there. Some would mollify her mother. Some would mortify her. The truth? Corrie had no idea how her mom would respond to that, and that scared her more than any other possibility.
Yes, the girl that proudly embraced making things up as you went along wished with every fiber of her being that she knew exactly what her mom would do if she poured her heart out on the spot. Suddenly, she felt more alone than ever before. “And…there’s a photograph in a scrapbook of a girl and two guys holding garden tools standing in front of what looks like a little log cabin. I think you might be the girl.”
“Does this girl have dark hair, permed within an inch of insanity yanked up in a ponytail on one side of her head?”
Corrie smiled at the description. “Yes.”
“It’s me.”
And? Corrie wanted to use her mother’s own ploy to draw more information against her.
“Was that all you wanted to know?”
Corrie wanted to know if one of the boys in the photo was her father. “I just…there’s no caption under it, no other information. I just thought maybe you could tell me more about it.”
“I don’t know what I can tell you without actually seeing the picture, honey. I know my mother hated my hair like that. She called it wild and worldly. When I came home after that summer she…” Her mother paused to clear her throat.
As rocky as Corrie and her mom’s relationship had been, it seemed like a sunshine-dappled, lovey-dovey, mother-daughter picnic compared to the way Corrie’s mom and grandmother had gotten along. It had gone from bad to worse when Barbara returned home expecting a baby fathered by a stranger that she never heard from again.
“After that summer she forbade me from wearing my hair like that again.” Another throat clearing. A sigh. “Of course, thinking back on it now, it was such an awful style, in some ways I think she did me a favor.”
Her mother had done the best she knew how to do, that’s what Corrie’s mom was saying. That was pretty much all Corrie was going to get and she knew it. She could ask about the boys, but her mom was right, without seeing them, how could she say for sure who they were. The photo was too old for her to snap with the phone on her camera and get a good likeness.
“Okay, Mom. I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“It was lovely hearing from you, sweetie. I’m keeping you in my prayers.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Corrie, honey?”
“Yes?”
“I hope you find what you’re looking for, but I can tell you, you won’t find it in a museum, or an old photograph.” Her mother’s voice grew thin then rallied as she added, “Bye now. I love you. Knock their socks off at that contest.”
Corrie whispered a goodbye to her mother then ended the call and set the phone aside. Another dead end. Clearly her mom did not think the man was to be found here. She closed the scrapbook, put her glasses on again then pushed up from the seat. She walked to the windows, her footsteps echoing in the large, lonely room.
She reached out and gave the old cord dangling beside the grayed Venetian blinds a yank. The metal slats clattered upward, unevenly. Late-afternoon light flooded the space. She leaned forward to rest the heels of her hands on the windowsill and looked out over the main street of Hadleyville, Vermont.
“Where are you, James Wallace?” She scanned the length from the park she had helped decorate this morning, to the shops and businesses all decked out with wreaths and lights. “One thing seems certain. I am not going to be able to find you on my own.”
“You want to respect his privacy, but you can’t find him without going public? You are in a fix.”
“Andy!” The man’s sudden appearance in the doorway at the top of the stairwell made Corrie jump. “Why didn’t you whistle while you came up the stairs or something? You scared the fire out of me.”
“The fire out of you?” He laughed and crossed the room toward her, stopping at her side as he looked down into her face and said, “I very much doubt that. I have an idea you have plenty of fire left.”
“If I do, I’ll use it to scorch your hide if you ever make my heart race like that again.”
“Me?” He pressed his work-roughened hand over the thick knit of his ivory-colored sweater. “I make your heart race?”
“By startling me,” she clarified, even though under better circumstances—ones where he wasn’t totally focused on work and family and she didn’t live a thousand miles away—she might have confessed that every time she looked into this man’s eyes, her pulse did quicken.
“Sorry.” He made himself comfortable by half-leaning and half-sitting on the windowsill. The stiff denim of his clean, pressed jeans rasped as he stretched out his long legs and crossed his ankles. “I came back in town to get Greer from school and thought I’d drop in to see how the research was going. Not well, I take it?”
“Nope.” She shook her head and pressed her fingertips to the cold glass of the window. “I’ve pretty much concluded that James Wallace wasn’t a local guy.”
“Don’t give up that easily.” He folded his arms and shifted his upper body until the light from the window shone on his handsome face. “You can still ask around town about him.”
“I haven’t quite figured out how to do that discreetly. I mean, what if he has kids and a wife who don’t know about me? That would be a rotten way to find out, because I went around asking people all over.” She traced her finger down the glass then took a step backward. “I wish I could narrow it down some.”
“Narrowing it down? Is that code for creating a plan?” He gave her a needling grin. “Why don’t you just ask people if they know any families named Wallace. If they do, you can go to that family and ask if they know a James Wallace.”
“That might work! Only I’m not sure how to do that with all the excitement of the lighting and all.”
“Then ask before the lighting. How about over a meal?”
“A meal?” There was that heart racing thing again. She touched her chilly fingers to the base of her throat and when a strand of hair brushed her knuckles she tried her best to smooth it down to make it presentable enough for a dinner out on the town with Andy.
“Our church youth group is having a chili supper in the church basement before the lighting to raise money for their summer mission trip.” He stood straight and gave a jerk of his head. “Come with me and you can ask folks there.”
“Chili? Basement?” She laughed even though he had no way of knowing she felt silly and probably thought she was playing coy or something totally inappropriate. That only made her laugh more even as she said, way too brightly, “Sure. Great. What time?”
“Starts at five, but since this place is about to close, I just dropped Greer off over there and that’s where I left my coat. We could head that way now.”
“Okay.” She lead the way toward the stairs but took a moment to stop and grab her coat and scarf. “So, you’re a churchgoer?”
“I was raised in the church.” He took the coat from her and held it for her to slip her arms in. “I still help out when my mom asks me to but, well, my life has gotten busy lately and…”
“Too busy for God?” she asked, turning slightly to help him help her into the bulky pink coat.
“Too busy for church,” he corrected with a stern note in his voice. That tone softened as he flipped up her collar, draped her scarf across the back of her neck and said, “Or more precisely, too busy for all the obligations that go with a small church in a small town.”
She struggled with her buttons. “Oh.”
He sidestepped around her and moved to the top of the stairs. “You sound like you’re taking that personally.”
“Maybe that’s because I was one of the obligations taken on by a small church in a small town.” She swept along to catch up with him. “I love my mom and she is a Christian, but she believes that people are pretty much on their own in the world.”
She paused and looked up at him, giving him a chance to say something, though she wasn’t sure what she expected him to say.
It wasn’t until he just nodded and said nothing that it dawned on her what she had hoped to hear. A denial. She wanted to hear Andy say that people needed each other. That he needed…someone.
When it didn’t happen, Corrie sighed and headed down the stairs. “Just after I pushed my mom to try to find my father and she couldn’t, she tried to emphasize to me even more that I had to rely on myself in life.”
“That’s a lot for a little girl to have to carry.”
“Thanks to my church, I didn’t have to carry it.” Their footsteps rang in the enclosed area. “They stepped in and sort of became my surrogate family. There are only a few members still at the church from that time but they were a lifeline to me then. Good thing none of them were too busy for church.”
“I get your point.” He hurried down to catch her on the last landing, snagged her gently by the arm. “But that hardly applies to—”
The first-floor door swung open and the mayor, Ellie Walker, stood at the threshold gazing up at them. She whipped off one pair of glasses and just as quickly replaced them with a second pair that had been dangling from a chain around her neck.
The sight of the woman, who was exactly as tall as Corrie but more than a little bit wider around, startled Corrie while at the same time putting her at ease. It had been that kind of day, after all, full of surprises and letdowns, a regular emotional roller coaster. Having the mayor pop in on them seemed the perfect topper to the afternoon.
“Oh! My! I didn’t mean to intrude.” The mayor smiled in a way that reminded Corrie of someone, a Cheshire cat maybe? “I was just going to come up and tell you that that we’re about to start locking up the building.”
“You’re not intruding,” Andy dropped his hold on her. “We were just talking about—”
“Family,” Corrie rushed to rashly supply. She shot him a shy sidelong look in hopes that would let him know she regretted her remark about being too busy for church. It was not her place to say it. Nothing about Andy was her business and had nothing whatsoever to do with why she had come here. Family was why she had come and this was her chance to start asking about her father. “I guess you know just about every family in Hadleyville, don’t you, Mayor?”
“Oh, not just Hadleyville.” She held the door open for them to walk past her into the hallway of the main floor. “I grew up on the other side of Mt. Piney, in Daviston. I know families all over these parts.”
Corrie stole a glance at Andy, who gave her a nod as if to say “go on, ask, I know you want to.” For a guy who thought too much like her mother, he sure was the kind of person Corrie liked knowing had her back.
“So, would you happen to know any Wallaces?” she ventured.
“Only my nephew in Virginia, but if he knew that I told you his real first name was Wallace, he’d never speak to me again. Of course, right now he only speaks to me when he comes here for Christmas so I suppose I’m safe. Why do you ask?”
“That’s the big question, isn’t it? Why do I ask?” Clearly her mom didn’t think she’d find her father. Corrie had no idea what she would say or do if she did find him. “I guess that’s something I’m going to have to figure out if I ever hope to get any real answers.”
Chapter Six
Corrie didn’t get any better answers at the chili supper. Nobody knew any family with the last name of Wallace. All the while she went around meeting people and trying to work that into the conversation, Andy pushed up his sweater sleeves and dove in, setting up tables, corralling kids, even taking out the trash.
Corrie couldn’t understand this man. He seemed so determined to do everything himself when it came to restoring the inn but never hesitated to be of service to others. On the surface it looked like such an honorable trait, but Corrie’s experience told her that people who did not understand the importance of give and take could make life very hard on those who cared about them.
In such a short time Andy McFarland had done so much for her, she thought as she waited by the door for him to get Greer ready to go out into the cold night air. If Corrie could get Andy to accept a little help, he’d be so much happier. That’s all she wanted to do, she justified, leave him a little happier when she went home to South Carolina. That’s how she would thank him for helping her look for her dad and with the gingerbread inn. Yes, that’s what she would do.
“Give and take.” She smiled to herself.
“Did you say something?” Andy asked as he ushered Greer out the door past Corrie after they had eaten.
“I was just…coming up with a new plan.”
“All right!” He held the door open for her. “Care to share it with me?”
“I’m, uh, still working on it,” she said in all honesty as she walked outside and the cold air ruffled her hair and made the tip of her nose tingle. “Sometimes you have to see the way things might work together before you really know how to proceed, you know?”
“The way things work together?” He let the door fall shut with a thud.
“Or maybe how they don’t work?” she ventured, knowing that wasn’t quite what she meant, either. She laced her gloved fingers together. “Look, you’re the big Mr. Fix it. Surely you’ve had to take a look at a project and come at it from a different angle from time to time. Take what you know works and what you think should work and compare it to what isn’t working and—”
“I’m going to run ahead and get us a good spot,” Greer announced. “Here, will you hold this for me, Corrie?” She pushed her school backpack into Corrie’s hands even as she took off down the sidewalk.
“Walk, Greer. Don’t push. Stay where I can see you,” he called out as the young girl made her way to the park not half a block away. “Sorry.” He turned to Corrie and motioned for her to walk with him. “She’s all worked up.”
“That’s okay.” She slung the backpack over one arm along with her purse. “I wasn’t saying anything important. Just thinking out loud.”
“No, no. You made a lot of sense in your own special way. I think I get it. You’re saying sometimes you have to figure out why something broke before you can restore it.” He spoke with enthusiasm as they walked along, as though energized by the concept. “And I think that might be what I need to do with the gingerbread inn.”
“Shh, you don’t want anyone to hear you talking about your working with me on my contest entry.” She put her finger to her lips then smiled slyly just to tweak his he-man let-me-do-it-my-way-and-it-will-all-be-fine-little-lady ego.
“Thanks.” He looked down, shaking his head. “Let me just say, I have a couple ideas for stabilizing your project but, you know, it might work better if I could see it put together. I’m in restoration, after all. Maybe I’d do better working backward from a completed model, flaws and all.”
“Oh my goodness, that’s perfect!” He’d just handed her a terrific way to teach the man give and take and also to bolster her hopes of creating a respectable entry in the upcoming contest. She grabbed him by the arm and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you, you won’t regret this.”
“Regret?” Andy took her by the hand and turned her to face him. “What are you talk—”
“And here the two of you are again!” Ellie Walker approached them with her arms spread, her smile wide and her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Andy, you are either the world’s best ambassador for our town or Corrie here is—”
“She’s his girlfriend!” Greer shouted as she practically flew across the open space of the park to the sidewalk where they stood.
“No!” Andy said it before Corrie could. “She’s just…”
“…a friend,” Corrie finished for him.
“Who’s a girl.” Greer folded her arms and rolled her eyes. “A girlfriend.”
Andy started to speak but before he could, a chorus began to sing on the steps of the bandstand/gazebo. The evening came alive around them. People shuffled forward, sheltering steaming cups of hot chocolate in their gloved and mittened hands. A group of small children all dressed in reds and greens began shaking sleigh bells.
No one seemed interested in Andy’s explanation but that didn’t keep him from moving in close to Corrie and saying, “That came off harsh.”
“It’s okay.” She didn’t meet his gaze. The man had made it clear he didn’t want people to know about his advising her on the contest. She understood why he’d also not want them to believe the two of them were dating. Especially since she would probably go home in a few days and never return, leaving him looking like she’d dumped him. If Corrie really wanted to get through to Andy, she had to keep her distance from him.
The crowd began to press in to get a better view of the activities. Corrie followed suit, hoping it would bring an end to the embarrassing topic of her being Andy’s girlfriend. Or rather of him so strenuously not wanting her to be his girlfriend, not even wanting anyone to think she was his girlfriend. Her cheeks grew hot. She folded her coat more tightly around her body and put some extra distance between herself and Andy, just for safe measure.
“You see, just before you showed up at the inn, Greer said a prayer that I’d get a girlfriend by Christmas.” Andy maneuvered with her, keeping himself at her side.
The aroma of hot chocolate drifted across from the cups cradled in the hands of people pressing close around them.
“I think Greer praying that is sweet,” Corrie told him.
“Sweet, but I don’t want her to think that’s the way prayer works.” Again he pushed closer to make himself heard, bumping against Greer’s backpack as he did. “That’s why I had to make sure she knew you weren’t my girlfriend.”
“I know. I’m nobody’s girlfriend,” she said softly, not really angry or even hurt, just more than a little annoyed that he felt compelled to go and point it out again. That agitation was probably why she couldn’t just keep her thoughts to herself. “And while I totally get your not wanting to give into Greer’s equating prayer with a virtual wish list, I believe that God does answer prayers.”
The caroling ended and the mayor took the microphone. She hushed the crowd with an upraised hand. “I’d like to welcome you all…”
Corrie couldn’t concentrate on a single syllable, much less make sense of whole sentences with Andy moving in so close. A strand of her hair got swept up by the wooly softness of his coat’s lapel. The bulky buttons pressed through the thickness of her coat into her back.
The mayor went on. “Fourteen years ago…”
Andy raised his voice to make himself heard to her ears alone above the mayor’s speech. “Sure. I’m not disputing that God answers prayers. But not like that, right? You don’t just send up an order and suddenly there’s—”
“Corrie Bennington!”
People around them began to applaud.
“Corrie?” Ellie Walker beckoned her toward the bandstand. “Come on up here and press the button that turns on the light display you organized.”
“Me?” Corrie gripped the straps of her purse and Greer’s backpack.
A smattering of applause began to build around her.
“Yes, you! You didn’t think I was praising the talent and good taste of my fellow committee folks, did you? Half of them didn’t even vote for me last election. How clever could they be?” She laughed at her own joke. “We wanted to thank you for all your help today and let you know that as far as we’re concerned you can stay here until—”
“Until it’s time to take the decorations down again,” a gruff old voice shouted out.
“That should come ’round March,” shouted a second voice from the crowd.
More laughter.
Only for once in her life Corrie didn’t feel like rushing in and joining the impromptu joking. She had just figured out what she wanted to do where Andy was concerned and that involved playing it low key so as not to embarrass him and make him shut down.
“Surely there’s someone local who deserves it more than I do.” She retreated a step and bumped into Andy’s broad chest.
“You’re welcome to bring Andy up here with you.” The mayor smiled like she was in on a secret as she motioned for both of them to come forward.
“She’s not my girlfriend.” Andy held his hands up as if he needed to prove he didn’t have any claim on her.
“You really do not have to keep saying that,” Corrie grumbled over her shoulder to him. Then she spoke up, intending for the mayor and everyone else to hear. “I just think that—”
“I’ll do it!” Greer raised her hand and jumped up and down from one foot to the other.
“Great idea. Let Greer do it.” Corrie nudged the child front and center.
No one would have the heart to say no to the adorable child whose mother was detained helping others create families. Off the hook. No more chances for anyone to make cracks about her being Andy’s girlfriend or for him to deny it. This was the best way to keep her distance from Andy.
Greer rushed up the steps.
The crowd showed their approval with a new round of applause, some murmuring and appreciative laughter.
Greer soaked it up with a wave and a smile so bright Corrie forgot about the cold. Or maybe that was because Andy put his hand on her shoulder and leaned in to whisper, “Thank you for doing that. You can tell it means the world to her.”
“And takes the focus off you and me,” she whispered back.
“Corrie, I just wanted to—”
“Shh, everybody. This is it.” Greer stuck the tip of her tongue out and pressed the big red button on the extension cord.
Every eye lifted to the wires and bulbs lining the gazebo.
Nothing. Darkness.
Greer tried it again and then again to no avail. “Hey, this thing doesn’t work.”
Corrie let the backpack and purse slide to the sidewalk as she rushed up to the child. “Sweetie, I’ve found that if things won’t work the usual way then maybe you need to—”
“I can fix it.” Andy took two long strides and in seconds both of them had their hands on the button, Greer between them.
“…try something new,” Corrie murmured, her eyes locked in Andy’s gaze, her face just inches from his.
“We have a connection.” Mrs. Walker raised her arms to make a show of plugging two thick orange extension cords together. “Go for it!”
Greer hit the button again and thousands of tiny lights came on all at once like scads of twinkling stars just a few feet away from them. They lit Andy’s face and shone in his eyes.
Corrie’s heart didn’t just beat faster, she knew in that instant what people meant when they said their heart leapt. Was this how her mother felt when she met her father? Or was it just a trick of the moment, the meeting of sentimentality, excitement, possibility and Christmas?
The crowd cheered.
Corrie decided that it didn’t matter why or how this had happened, she would be forever grateful for it. Years from now, even if she had to go away without ever having found her father, she would have a wonderful memory of this place to cherish.
“Isn’t it pretty?” Greer asked in awe.
“Beautiful,” Andy said softly, his eyes never leaving Corrie’s.
Christmas or pretty lights, Corrie didn’t want to over-think why she felt the way she did or allow herself to remember that it couldn’t last. For just one moment, just one time in her life, she didn’t want to have to think fast or make new plans or wonder if she was really alone in the world.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered.
“You guys aren’t even looking at the lights!” Greer said so loudly that everyone in the park seemed to hear and burst out laughing.
Andy shut his eyes and groaned under his breath.
Corrie pulled up straight. She pushed her glasses up and fidgeted with the fringe on her scarf as she turned to address all those faces peering curiously at her. “I just want to let everyone here know—”
“You’re not Andy’s girlfriend,” a fair number of the crowd filled in for her dutifully.
Corrie managed a laugh through a wincing smile. She had been going to say something about how she had fallen in love with this little town even after only being here twenty-four hours.
“Enough!” Andy took charge, waving people off as he reminded them, “We didn’t come here to speculate we came here to celebrate. I say let’s get back with the program.”
The mayor called for everyone’s attention. The choir launched into another song. People began to shuffle around to look at the lights and talk to one another. Greer ran up into the center of the bandstand and began to twirl around. Andy went after her.
Back with the program. Back on track. That’s the way it would be when Corrie left. Andy would see to that, probably welcome it. Earlier today, alone in the museum, she feared she would always be alone. Now in a crowd she had that same feeling. She supposed it might seem silly that she would think she could make Andy open up to the idea of not just giving but accepting help.
She gathered her purse and Greer’s backpack and slipped quietly away from the Christmas activities. Still, she couldn’t help thinking that she was the best person of all to teach Andy that lesson. It was all she had to offer him.
She turned to catch him pretending to skate around the floor of the bandstand holding his little sister up just high enough to keep her feet off the floor. She thought of the conversation they’d had about loving the inn. She saw how the man felt about his family and community. He could not be that hard to reach, she just had to find the right time and place.
Chapter Seven
“Andy!”
Unsure if he had actually heard his name or dreamt it, Andy pried open one eye and searched the darkness of the room in the inn where he had been bunking down the last two months.
Nothing. Not a sound. No movement.
He groaned and pulled the blanket up over the T-shirt and sweatpants he slept in just in case he had to get up to take care of Greer or a problem in the building. He must have imagined hearing his name. He hoped that was the case because he hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep yet. Not after spending most of the early evening trying to find Corrie at the Christmas lighting party and wondering why she had left so early.
After the gathering broke up, he had taken Greer back to the inn but when they pulled into the drive and he’d seen she’d fallen asleep, he decided to turn around and drive back to Hadleyville. Corrie’s car was at the Maple Leaf Manor all right. That didn’t tell him why she had crept away from the festivities without so much as a goodbye.
Had he done something to hurt her? To embarrass her? Was she angry with him? Just as he had a few short hours ago, Andy began to drift off to sleep with these questions colliding in his mind.
“Andy!” He heard his name through his musings. Louder this time, but still hushed and hurried.
“What?” He opened both eyes and looked directly out the open door of the room, into the empty hallway. The light from his alarm clock stung his darkness-adjusted eyes as he checked the time. “It’s five-thirty in the morning. If I’m imagining this, I want it to stop. If not, well, I still want it to stop. Do you hear me…”
“Andy!” This time a face appeared in the doorway. Two faces, actually, if you counted the sock monkey, Buddy, that Greer held clutched to her chest as she poked her head around the side of the doorway.
“Greer. It’s Saturday. I don’t have to get to work around here for a few more hours. Let me get some more sleep and I promise when I get up I’ll make you the biggest bowl of sugary cereal you have ever seen.”
“In a couple hours it will be too late.” She disappeared into the hallway, leaving her sock monkey’s limbs swinging against the door frame as the only evidence she had ever been there.
“Too late for what?” He scrunched his eyes shut and yawned.
“Too late to catch whoever is downstairs,” she whispered as she peered in again.
“Greer, I have told you a hundred times that nobody—”
Clang. The sound of metal ringing against something hard rose from somewhere below, followed by a thump and a thud, a crash then a bump. Then silence.
Andy was out of bed so fast he dragged half the covers with him. They fell into a pile on the floor. He had to disentangle himself as he told his sister, “Get in here. Lock the door behind you. Get in the closet with my cell phone and if I don’t give you an all-clear in three minutes, call the sheriff. You remember how to do that, right?”
His sister nodded solemnly and did as she was told.
Andy hesitated for only a moment, wondering if he should bother with putting on shoes. He decided against it. He wasn’t actually afraid so much as concerned. More than likely, it was nothing, a bit of equipment not put away properly that had fallen. Maybe one of the workers had come in early to try to finish up a job. That happened sometimes since the guys didn’t get paid until they had completed each week’s assignment.
Or it could be an animal, a raccoon or even a stray dog that found a way in and began foraging for food. Still, he said a quick prayer that he wasn’t about to surprise thieves rummaging through the place in hopes of stripping out the copper pipes, hauling off the appliances or making away with anything from the doors to the light bulbs.
As his bare feet hit the icy unfinished concrete floor in the lobby, he said a silent prayer that all would go well, then looked around for a length of pipe or a board to use as a weapon if it came to that.
A noise from the kitchen made him freeze. A smack. Followed by a slap. And right on the heels of that, a thwap! Each had its own distinct sound and none of them put him in mind of a burglary in progress. In fact, it sounded to him like—
“La-la-la… La-la-la… La-la-la-la-la-la…hey!”
“Corrie,” he muttered under his breath as he picked up his pace, built up steam and hit the swinging kitchen door with his arm straight. “Hey yourself! What are you doing in my kitchen so early in the—”
Corrie gave out a startled scream as she spun around, sending the bowl of flour in her hands exploding outward in a big white cloud.
A cloud that landed right in Andy’s face.
“…morning,” Andy finished, spewing the gritty flour and other ingredients and wiping them from around his eyes. He supposed he should have seen that coming.
Corrie gasped and put the bowl aside, practically stumbling over herself to get to him. “I’m so sorry that happened but to be fair, you did scare the stuffing out of me.”
“And what do you think you did to Greer? Coming out here at five-thirty in the morning.” He reached for a towel and began cleaning himself up.
“You told me you needed to see the gingerbread inn put together to get a better idea how to fix the problems I’ve had with it.” She spread her hands wide to show what she had been up to. “So I’m baking. I told you that I start early in the morning.”
“Baking I understand. Getting an early start, totally get that. What I don’t know is how you got in here?”
“Greer gave me her backpack to hold on to. She had a key hanging on the side.” Corrie motioned to the familiar pink pack now lying on the floor in the corner of the kitchen. She began looking around, opened the broom closet and got out the broom. Within minutes, she was taking care of the spilled ingredients coating the floor. “I didn’t think it would be a problem since we’d talked about me coming here to put the gingerbread inn together.”
“We did?” He had to step lively to avoid the whisking bristles. He took a minute to grab the dustpan and laid it down for her to brush the debris into. “When?”
“At the park. Don’t you remember?” She took the dustpan from him, emptied the contents then put the broom away. After washing her hands, she began moving around the kitchen with all the grace of an ice skater taking command of the rink. “You thought it might help you to fix the gingerbread inn if you saw the problems?”
He scratched the back of his neck and when he looked at his hand, there was flour under his nails. He didn’t know whether to laugh or grumble. “I did say that. But I don’t recall us scheduling this.”
“Scheduling?” She laughed lightly. “I didn’t know I had to schedule baking gingerbread.”
“Baking gingerbread in my kitchen,” he reminded her.
“I have to have the entry at the community center no later than Friday at five. I don’t have time for elaborate plans and meetings, Andy.” She went to the fridge, opened it and reached inside. She brought out some eggs, milk and butter and closed the door with a swing of her hips. “You know it’s not all bad having me here in your kitchen so early, you know.”
“Bad?” He went to the kitchen island, pulled out one of the two stools alongside it and sat.
Corrie never stopped moving, placing the carton of eggs down, flipping it open, getting down a clean bowl, taking up a whisk, looking in cabinets.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Even in what had to be a pretty unfamiliar setting, she showed no hesitance in going for what she wanted, whether it be a frying pan or a solution for her gingerbread problem. And when her actions didn’t bring the results she hoped for, it didn’t even slow her down.
“Let me just get one of these,” she said under her breath as she reached around him to pluck a measuring spoon off the island by his hand.
She brushed so close he caught a whiff of vanilla and spice. He didn’t know if it was her shampoo or the aftereffect of her work in the kitchen this morning. Not that it mattered. She should always smell like something rich and sweet and natural, he decided. It fit her so. As did those red glasses, that big apron and even those cumbersome boots.
In this cozy space with the cold darkness of a winter morning beyond these walls he couldn’t imagine anything bad about having her in this inn, in this kitchen, in his home. He opened his mouth to tell her just that but before he could get the words out, another sound startled them both.
“Is that a siren?” Corrie put everything down and went to the swinging door. When she pushed it open a piercing whine filled the room.
“Greer! I forgot to give her the all-clear!” Andy got up so fast the stool wobbled and almost tipped over. He and Corrie both dove for it, each catching it by the edge, his hand covering hers.
“All-clear?” she asked.
“We thought you were a burglar,” he told her as he set the stool upright. Neither of them took their hands away. “I’m not used to having anyone in my place this early in the morning.”
“So you had Greer call the law on me?” A smile broke slowly across her lovely face. “I hope you still don’t consider me too much of a threat.”
“I think I can handle whatever danger you might bring my way,” he said softly.
The air practically crackled between them. Andy felt that he had to say more, but what? If he reminded her that there could never be anything between them it might hurt her feelings. Or it might hurt his if she laughed in his face at the very idea he ever had a shot with her. If he said what he really wanted to say—to tell her that in just the short time he’d known her she had gotten under his skin like no other woman he had ever met—her laughing in his face would not just hurt, it would kill him.
For the first time in a long time Andy didn’t just lack a plan, he had no idea how to formulate one. Corrie Bennington had him that far off balance.
“Andy?”
“Hmm?”
“You better go talk to the sheriff. Then maybe reassure Greer that everything is okay. I’d go up to her but seeing an unfamiliar figure in the dark upstairs might terrify her. So you go. After that, why don’t all of you meet me in the dining room?”
“The dining room?” He thought of the roughed-out room that still needed the drywall finished, painting and above all, a floor over the unimpressive concrete there now. “What will be in the dining room?”
“A surprise.” She patted his cheek then stood up and waved both hands as if to shoo him away. “I told you it wouldn’t be too bad having me here this early. Trust me. Let me do something for you to smooth things over with the sheriff and ease Greer’s anxiety.”
Trust her? He did. Let her fix things for him? “I don’t need help smoothing things over with anyone, Corrie. I told you I can handle it. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the offer.”
“And?”
A pounding at the front door echoed through the nearly empty lobby and dining room. “Andy? Greer? Is everything all right in there?”
Andy resettled the stool, which clearly had been fine and didn’t need further settling, and gave her a brisk nod. “I’ll go take care of the sheriff and Greer.”
“And after that, bring them into the dining room. If you feel the need to do something more, set up a table and get out enough flatware for four.”
He wanted to question that but with the sheriff calling out his name, he couldn’t spare the time.
“Everything looks secure from out here but no one is answering. I don’t know if Greer just called on her own and Andy isn’t even awake or if something is actually wrong.” The sheriff’s voice was heard then a crackle and a response Andy suspected was over a walkie-talkie. “If I don’t get an answer in a couple seconds, I’ll find a way in.”
Andy reached the door before the man—who was only a couple years older than Andy—got too worked up.
“Hey, Jim,” he told the mayor’s son as he let him inside. “Thanks for getting here so fast and for not breaking the door down once you got here.”
Jim Walker placed his walkie-talkie on the spot on his shoulder where it usually lay quiet. He tipped his hat back with one hand then laughed. “I did a quick survey of the grounds before I knocked. Besides your truck and a pint-sized hybrid with South Carolina tags, no vehicles on the grounds. No signs of forced entry. I figured Greer was overreacting.”
Andy grimaced. “What did she say?”
He followed Andy into the lobby, and slipped his hat from his head and began unsnapping his leather jacket. “Well, she whispered for starters, and said, ‘You have to come and bring the big guns. They got Andy already but I won’t let ’em get me.’”
“Big guns?” Andy rested one hand on the banister and shook his head. “I have to talk to Mom about how much TV she’s watching. I’m going to go upstairs and let the kid know it was just Corrie Bennington, you know the baker who helped your mom with the lights yesterday? She’s making gingerbread in the kitchen. Sorry about that.”
“No problem. While I’m out here, need anything else?”
“Actually, Corrie asked me to bring you and Greer with me into the dining room and set up a table. Got something in mind, I guess. She thinks she’s being helpful.”
“Well, then, let’s let her play it out. No reason to be rude.” He positioned his hat on the counter where guests would one day register then tossed his jacket next to it. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them enthusiastically as he said, “You go see to your sister, I’ll get the table ready.”
Andy hesitated. He had expected his friend, upon finding nothing out of order, would just go about his business. That he wanted to cooperate with Corrie’s scheme without even knowing what it was because it was the nice thing to do, needled Andy. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Why hadn’t he been that gracious when Corrie asked him to go along with her?
Because he didn’t need her help, he argued in his head. Why encourage that waste of effort and time when he had everything under control?
He couldn’t help sighing at his own bullheadedness as he trudged upstairs to tend to Greer. It didn’t take much, once he mentioned Corrie’s name, to refocus the girl’s energy. She wrapped herself in her robe and took off like it was daybreak on Christmas morning, insisting that Corrie would need her immediately.
Andy took the time to change out of the clothes he had slept in and into some fresh jeans and a work shirt. He washed his face and neck to get the last of the flour, then brushed his teeth and checked his email to make sure his mom hadn’t sent any new information. He wasn’t stalling, he told himself, or worse, pouting because he didn’t want to surrender to Corrie’s offer. He was just going about his business. Stick with the plan. She was the one intruding, after all. Doing things that weren’t even necessary. Again, he knew that was pride talking, and when he got sick of hearing his lame justifications, he made his way down the stairs.
“Mmmm. What smells so good?” he called out when his foot hit the concrete floor and he turned toward the dining room across the way from the big, open lobby.
“Only a southern breakfast so good it will make you want to slap your mama,” Corrie said as she lifted up a huge platter.
Greer gasped.
Corrie set the platter on the table in front of Jim Walker, who tipped his head to one side and narrowed his eyes to study her.
“That’s just an expression, Greer, honey. A good southerner would never slap his mama.” She smiled at the girl then noticed Jim staring at her and inched back a bit. “Have I got flour in my hair? Jelly on my clothes? Egg on my face?”
Jim shook his head and chuckled. “No, no. I’m sorry. It’s just that there is something familiar about you.”
“Me? Really?” She worked the knot of her apron free, slid it from her neck and hung it on the back of a chair before taking a seat. “Were you at the lighting last night, maybe you saw me there?”
“Oh, yeah.” He shot Andy a discerning look, like he was having trouble making all the pieces fit. “That must be it. Last night and then to see you here a few hours later.”
“I hope I don’t have to remind you that we called you because it was a surprise to find Corrie here this early in the morning,” Andy said. He hoped his tone came off protective to Corrie and maybe just a tiny bit menacing to Jim, just in case the guy was jumping to the wrong conclusion about what had gone on since the lighting.
“Yeah. Yeah. Of course,” Jim blurted out. “I didn’t mean to imply anything.”
A puzzled look came over Greer’s face and Corrie’s expression looked a bit bewildered as well.
“Look, it’s not like Corrie is going to stay here. She came by to use the kitchen and will be gone as soon as possible.”
“By Friday at the latest,” she chimed in before she raised a small bowl with a spoon in it and asked, “Who wants gravy on their biscuits?”
“Friday?” The legs of Andy’s chair squawked over the hard, cold floor as he scooted it forcefully backward. “Friday is, like, a whole week.”
“Five days, if you don’t count today. Or Friday.” The spoon in her hand, brimming with thick, steaming gravy, hovered over Andy’s plate.
“I have a timetable, you know.” Suddenly, he didn’t feel like such a heel for not instantly bowing to this woman’s seemingly benevolent offer of help. Benevolent? Yeah, benevolent like a bulldozer.
He gazed into her eyes, trying to figure out what she was up to. She must have taken that as a sign that he wanted gravy. Lots of gravy.
She began ladling it over the golden, fluffy biscuits she had already laid out on a plate for him.
At the table, Jim couldn’t seem to shovel the meal in fast enough.
Greer was pushing broken bits of biscuits dripping with sweet-smelling amber honey into her mouth like it was popcorn and Andy and Corrie were an action-packed movie.
Andy didn’t care. He felt hemmed in and at the same time completely outside his element. He found himself torn between how much he cared about Corrie and his drive to come to her rescue and the carefully laid plans he had made to get the inn ready by the Christmas Eve open house. Those plans had been more than a year in progress. Corrie had popped up uninvited, unexpected, uncontainable.
But hadn’t he allotted Corrie enough of his time already? He’d told her how to brace the top half of her gingerbread inn. Sure, it didn’t deal with the roof issues, and he didn’t know until they put it together if his suggestions would work, but… “I have a ‘to-do’ list as long as my arm.”
“And what a nice, strong arm it is.” She patted his biceps. “I have my own list, you know. And none of it can get done if I have to stop and move my project around, maybe risk ruining it and having to start over. As for your list, if you would let me—”
“I have a plan. A deadline.” It was less of a protest and more of a proclamation of the simple facts. “Any of this ringing a bell with you?”
“I’m not trying to become a guest at the inn. I’ll only work here during daylight hours then go back to my groovy digs at the Maple Leaf Manor.” She smiled.
He tried to smile at the reference to the seventies-era decor of the Maple Leaf but he couldn’t quite manage it.
“I won’t get in your way. I promise,” she said softly. “You know how strongly I feel about people keeping their promises, especially at Christmas, especially in this inn.”
He met her eyes. He almost expected her to start humming “The First Noel,” the song from the treasured snow globe that Greer had broken. From anyone else it would have come off as manipulation by guilt. “Please?”
From Corrie, it sounded like a plea from the heart. She was getting nowhere on the search for her father. She hadn’t seen so much as a flake of snow. She couldn’t go home without even managing an entry in the contest. She’d told him that first night that he was the only one who could help her with that.
“Andy?” she prodded softly. “What do you say? Can I borrow some kitchen space until Friday?”
That’s what got him. The call to be her hero. Corrie needed a hero. She had no hope of accomplishing anything she had come to Vermont to do without one.
He took a bite of the biscuits drenched in gravy to buy himself some time. The dense, savory flavor of butter, salt and pepper, herbed sausage and a hot, perfectly baked biscuit flooded his mouth. He chewed and swallowed and without taking even a second more to plot the right move, he looked Corrie in the eyes and said, “Take the whole kitchen. I’ll do whatever I can to make it work.”
Chapter Eight
“That smells great.” Andy came through the kitchen doors near mid-day just as Corrie slid the last pan of gingerbread out of the oven. He stopped to take a deep breath and asked, “When can I get a sample?”
The professional-style baking pan, one of four that she had hauled all the way from South Carolina, clattered as she settled it over the top of the stove. She waved her hand over the baked cut out that would eventually serve as the side of the inn. Unintentionally, her action sent the aroma of fresh, spicy gingerbread wafting throughout the baking-warmed room. “Believe me, you don’t want anything I’ve got here.”
“Yeah?” He moved in to peer over her shoulder, leaning in close. “It certainly looks—”
Corrie didn’t realize just how close he was standing until she turned around and found her nose practically nuzzling his soft flannel shirt.
“Good,” he said softly.
“Thank you,” she murmured. At least she tried to murmur. Her lips formed the words but she didn’t seem to make a sound.
He held her gaze for a moment.
Her heart fluttered. He was close enough to kiss her.
In another time and under better circumstances, she couldn’t think of anything she’d have liked more than that. To kiss Andy? Just the prospect that it could, maybe, one day happen made her lips tingle and her skin tighten into a million tiny goose bumps.
Actually, even knowing that nothing could come of it, Corrie wouldn’t have stopped the man if he had closed the gap between them and put his lips to hers. She wouldn’t have pushed him away. Well, not right away.
He pulled back. “No way can you convince me that something you’ve spent this much time on isn’t any good.”
“Oh, it’s good all right.” She cleared her throat and turned back to the gingerbread in the shallow pan. “Good and sturdy. Not exactly a term we’d use to sell baked goods back home.”
“Oh?” he reached out as if he might steal one of the scrap cookie bits and pop it into his mouth.
She slapped his hand. “You really don’t want to try that.”
Andy leaned back against the counter which made him able to look at her face as he said, “I thought you said everything on this gingerbread contest entry had to be edible.”
“Edible, yes. Tasty?” Still flustered from thinking of kissing him and him clearly not interested in doing so, she gave a one-shouldered shrug to let him draw his own conclusion. “They don’t give points for that, so it’s okay to fiddle with the recipe to get the best building material.”
“Really?” He crouched down and ran his open hand over the largest of the multiple gingerbread cut outs. “Too bad we can’t improvise like that in the renovation business.”
That caught Corrie’s attention. If she really wanted to show this man that he could turn loose of his control issues, she had to use every opportunity to point out options. “As long as you’re not compromising quality or safety, I don’t see why you can’t use some basic ingenuity to improve on—”
“It smells like Christmas in here!” Greer burst into the room, her hair flying behind her in a thick, shining ponytail that kept bouncing even after the child came to a stop, shut her eyes, poked her nose in the air and took a deep, noisy breath. “Ahhhh. I think you should bake gingerbread every day, Corrie.”
“She does bake every day, you goof.” Andy gave her pony tail a tug to get the kid to stand still.
“Not gingerbread,” Corrie said. “Definitely not this kind of gingerbread. If you want I could—”
“As long as I don’t have to eat the yucky stuff.” She crinkled up her nose, giggled then covered her mouth with both hands. “Mom made gingerbread people last year and we spent all day decorating them. It was so much fun. But when I ate one. Blech!”
“Maybe my mom was using your improvised recipe,” Andy gave Corrie a wink. “I’d forgotten that, short stuff. But now that you bring it up, I didn’t much care for those gingerbread cookies, either.”
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий