Corrie moved the gingerbread, baking parchment and all, on to a rack on the last empty space on the counter. “Well, if you didn’t come in here for the gingerbread, why are you both in here?”
“Lunch.” Greer rubbed her tummy.
“Is it that late already?” She’d lost all track of time. She understood that it was meant to be a commercial kitchen but if she had designed it, there would have been more windows than the three high, narrow ones on the side wall that a person couldn’t even see out of. She found the lack of natural light disconcerting.
“No, it’s not quite lunch time. We came to ask you if you have plans for lunch?” Andy put one hand on his sister’s shoulder. “We thought maybe we’d grab a bite to eat over at the Mt. Piney Café on the highway. After that we could take the full tour of Mt. Piney, which would mean we’d cruise through the post office parking lot then shoot across the street to see if the minister put up a funny saying on the sign at the All Souls Community church. Once you’d recovered from all that excitement, we could come back and build us a gingerbread inn.”
“I’d love to embrace the whole Mt. Piney experience, but even if we had a huge lunch and took the long way around the town we still couldn’t come back and start work on the inn.”
“But I thought the plan was—”
“To keep it here until Friday,” she reminded him. “The gingerbread has to cure overnight to be stable enough for construction.”
“Oh.” He rubbed the shaggy auburn waves flipping over his collar. “It’s just that I have this afternoon open.”
“No work on the inn?”
“Drywallers are in this afternoon,” he explained.
“Hooray for drywallers!” Greer peered at the pieces of the inn laid out to cool.
“Hooray?” Corrie looked to Andy to clarify.
“Drywall is one of the last steps. The guys have agreed to work today until it’s done, even into the night. So now I have all this time and no gingerbread. None to eat. None to build with.”
“Aww, poor baby. Maybe we could—”
“What’s this?” Greer, on tiptoe, had a piece of the cardstock template for the gingerbread edifice.
“Greer! Put that down. Haven’t you learned your lesson about not touching things?” Andy took two long strides and had Greer under the arms, lifting her away from the counter.
The action sent the neatly stacked pattern pieces spinning and sailing out on to the floor. Corrie followed their descent, bending at the knees with her hands spread and her head down.
Andy bent forward as well, taking Greer with him and effectively turning the child’s noggin into a battering ram.
A noise between a thunk and bonk…a thonk…resounded through the huge kitchen. Corrie went staggering backward.
Greer let out a cry.
Andy set the child down and gave her forehead a quick examination. “No damage done.”
“It hurts.”
“It’s fine,” he assured her.
“Mom would kiss it.” She drew her mouth up into an overplayed pout.
“Well, Mom’s not…” He caught himself midreminder of the child’s absent parent and looked up at Corrie. When his eyes met hers, she saw a man who wanted to protect his sister but wasn’t sure what answer would do that.
She chewed her lower lip. It was the kind of small, seemingly insignificant moment that could define a person to anyone paying attention. If Andy insisted on doing things his way, not the way his mom would have done them, then Corrie would know her hopes of getting him to loosen up his thinking would probably be for nothing. On the other hand…
“Mom’s not the only one whose kisses can make things all better,” he concluded.
On the other hand there might just be hope for him yet.
He planted an over-the-top lip-smacking kiss on his sister’s head.
She giggled and wriggled and pretended to wipe it away, then looked up and pointed. “Now Corrie.”
“What?” Andy suddenly looked anything but open to loosening up. He held his hand out and shook his head. “No. I don’t think that would be appropriate.”
“Corrie got bumped, too.” Greer pointed to her own forehead. “You kissed my head. Corrie is company and you shouldn’t give something to me and not give it to company. Mom says.”
He stared at his sister for a moment and a slow smile crept over his lips. He laughed softly then gave Corrie a resigned look. “She’s right. Mom does say that. Where did you get thumped?”
“Uh…here, I guess.” Corrie put her finger to a spot just above her temple.
Andy leaned in.
She braced herself for the same kind of comical, exaggerated smack-a-roo that he’d given his kid sister. So she was in no way prepared for the soft, sweet and all too fleeting kiss that Andy dropped on the spot where her head still throbbed slightly.
“There,” Greer summed up with a head nod. “All better.”
“All better,” Corrie whispered as she pulled away. Her eyes met Andy’s and time seemed to take a deep breath and hold it for just a moment. She blushed. “I better check on that gingerbread.”
He looked away and cleared his throat. “Let’s get this pattern picked up, Greer.”
Corrie spun on her heel and began to test the gingerbread cooling on the countertop.
“Look around, kid. This can’t be everything.” Andy laid the handful of stiff paper pieces down.
Corrie looked from the gingerbread to the pattern. “No, that’s it. That’s all there is.”
“Where are the buttresses?”
Corrie glanced at the pattern then at all the pieces she had baked, the same number she had made on her first test run, plus the extra load-bearing pieces that Andy had recommended. “The what-tresses?”
“A construction system that supports the roof?” He tented his fingers to demonstrate. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
She shook her head.
“It will be easier to just show you. Let’s go take a look at the attic.”
“The attic?” Greer’s head whipped around. She flung the pieces of paper she had gathered on to the counter. “I love the attic. Can I go, too?”
“Sure.”
“C’mon, Corrie. Follow me.” Greer shot out the door, leaving it swinging in her wake.
Andy took a step and caught the edge of the door in one hand. He turned, holding it open for Corrie, and motioned for her to come along.
She slipped off the bib apron she had on and in doing so, brushed against the spot Andy had just kissed. To forestall the heat she felt threatening to flood her face, she reached over and grabbed her cell phone then forced her thoughts to the reason Greer had suggested the kiss. “You did a nice thing stepping in to kiss your sister’s hurt away without letting her dwell on your mom not being here. Are you worried about her being away so long?”
“Worried?” He seemed to consider that as she walked through the door past him. When he let it fall shut behind him and came beside her to show her the way, he had his answer, “No. I learned a long time ago, when she started making these trips all over, that I had to leave her well-being with the Lord. I won’t pretend that I’m happy that the red tape on this particular trip has taken so long and the pinch it puts me in, having to take care of Greer while I’m under this last stretch of construction crunch. But that’s about my timing, not God’s.”
He was talking about his mother. Still, as Corrie tucked her cell phone into her pocket, she couldn’t help thinking her demands on his time didn’t help that time pinch one bit. Still, he was a grown man, bringing a lot of this on himself with his stubbornness. “If you feel overwhelmed, then ask for help.”
“I took this on myself and I need to see it through on my own.” He started up the steps without so much as a glance in her direction as he said, low and quietly, “Expecting other people to step in to help finish what I started? Not my way.”
Corrie held her ground at the base of the stairs, her hand on the banister.
Halfway up the stairs, Andy turned to his left and finally seemed to realize she hadn’t dutifully followed on his heels. He paused and looked back at her. “What?”
She put her fist on her hip and pressed her lips shut tight.
He looked heavenward, groaned out a sigh and came down again until he stood one step above her. “Something you want to say to me?”
“I hardly know where to start.”
He almost smiled, then his expression went serious but not stern. “Start by walking up the stairs with me to the attic.”
Corrie did not budge. “In other words, do it your way.”
He did laugh at that. He looked so good when he laughed. His eyes lit. His broad shoulders tilted back. Just the hint of tiny lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes, highlighting their green color.
The sight caused a flutter in Corrie’s stomach but she refused to let it throw her off track. “What if your way isn’t working, Andy?”
He leaned down, not in any threatening way, but as if he wanted to catch every word, every nuance as he asked, “If you have something to say, Corrie, just say it.”
“I’m just saying that if your way isn’t working, Andy, maybe it’s time to ask—”
“Hey! Are you two kissing or something down there?” Greer’s voice rang out from the hallway above them.
“No!” They both said at once.
“Then come on. I want to show Corrie the attic.”
“This discussion is not over,” she warned him with teasing in her tone she hoped let him know she wasn’t angry or judgmental. After all, she only had his best interest at heart. She moved past him to join his sister in the hallway then up a narrow enclosed staircase. “Okay, Greer, what is so great about the attic that you can’t wait to show…whoa!”
“This is something, isn’t it?” Corrie had hardly stepped into the large, open space when Andy came through the door, right behind her. “I guess it’s where the staff used to come to get away from the guests.”
“It’s like stepping into a secret, private world right over everyone’s heads. You know the staff snuck away up here whenever they could. I wish…” Corrie recalled she had brought her phone, whipped it out and began taking pictures. Being an interior space it would never be a part of her contest entry but as the child of two staff members who probably spent time in this very place, she wanted a way to remember it.
As attics went, it was larger than any she had ever seen. It was all natural wood but not raw. It seemed to have a light varnish over it, giving it a warm, rich glow. On either end were octagonal windows. In each direction the high pitched roof was held up by beams and every so often a wedge-shaped structure between the roof and the floor. Each of those were covered with writing, carved and painted and written in permanent marker.
“It’s like a record of all the people who have been here over the years. I wonder…” Corrie struggled to breathe deeply and keep her calm. Her phone’s camera clicked as she recorded what she found. But after a minute, she stopped trying to catch every angle. She began to touch the names, initials and dates adorning the beams and buttresses, searching for some confirmation of her parents’ time together at the Snowy Eaves Inn.
“You should see it at night!” Greer told her, pointing upward. “Especially when the moon is really bright.”
“There are windows.” Corrie turned, finding herself just inches from Andy who must have followed her as she had followed her curiosity deeper and deeper toward the end of the attic.
“Actually, they’re skylights,” he said, looking up, too. “I think they might have planned to make this a dormitory-style sleeping space but I don’t think it ever got past the ‘someday’ stage.”
Being stuck in the “someday” stage resonated with Corrie, especially standing so close to Andy in this place where her parents might well have made their own someday plans. While he studied the glass above them, she stole away, heading back toward the doorway, and checking the writing on the other beams and buttresses. “I wonder if it matters that I didn’t put one of these in my inn.”
“Sleeping space?” He stood there a minute, his hands on his hips, watching her.
“Skylight,” she said quietly.
The earnest directness of his gaze made her self-conscious, but strangely, not in a bad way. She wondered how her hair looked with the winter sun filtering in through the skylights. If her glasses made her look quirky or kooky or geeky…and if Andy liked quirky or kooky or geeky. She wondered if he thought she looked like she belonged in his inn.
She turned toward him and placed her hand on one of the beams overhead as she asked, “Do you think that might be one reason why my roof slides? I mean, if I cut even small squares in the roof it would decrease the weight, right?”
“You may be on to something.” He strode purposefully toward her, stopping under the same skylight as her. “Then you pair buttresses and beams?”
His nearness made it hard for her to concentrate, hard for her not to just stand there and stare like a goof and think how cute he was, how sure and confident. She clicked off a pic of him.
He sort of scowled and squinted, rubbing his eyes after the flash, “Why did you do that?”
Good question. She had come here with clear goals in mind, entering the contest, seeing snow, finding her father. Meeting a great guy and harboring a monster crush was not on the list.
“Got a picture of some initials.” She twisted her wrist to show him the photo she had captured of him and the ex-staff members’ graffiti behind his head. She glanced at the picture herself. “Hey, BJ loves BB. BB—those are my mom’s initials! If only that was a JW who loved BB, but still…” She flashed the photo his way again, glad for the distraction to cover for her actions. “Nice picture, huh?”
Corrie shut her eyes and tried not to groan out loud. She had come out to the inn this morning determined to nudge Andy away from his almost stifling need to stick to a plan and instead she ended up lecturing herself on keeping her eyes on the prize. She opened her eyes again and found it difficult not to think that she was looking at a pretty worthy prize right now. Not that she’d give up her other goals but why couldn’t she add a sweet, brief Christmas romance to the list?
People learn best by example, after all. Maybe the best way to get through to Andy would be to, well, get through to Andy.
“I think this just might be your answer,” he said softly as he lowered his gaze from the beam overhead to her face.
“I think you just might be right,” she murmured as she moved into cozy closeness, laid her hand on his chest and tipped her head up in perfect position to be kissed.
“Corrie…” he brushed his knuckles over her cheek as he whispered, “Do you really think we should risk—”
“What answer? Where? I want to see.” Greer pushed her way between them and craned her neck to look up. “Is it something somebody wrote?”
“No.” Andy pulled his shoulders up and shifted his boots to create distance between himself and Corrie. Then he coughed into his hand and frowned up at the nearest beam. “It’s a structure thing. You have to get things in the right order before you can build on anything, Greer. That’s the answer. First things first, get the foundation and framework down, you can’t neglect that. It’s a priority that you’ve got to stick to.”
He spoke to his sister but he meant it as a message to Corrie. She tried to take it well. That, after all, also demonstrated her philosophy that rolling with what life hands you is better than being so rigid.
She took a step back and snapped three photos in a row of the beam over Andy’s head, then she lowered the camera without even checking the screen to see what she had captured and sighed. “So much for that. I guess I really did get my answer. C’mon, Greer, let’s get back to work in the kitchen.”
Chapter Nine
Awkward. That was the only way Andy could describe the rest of the day in the house after that near miss of a kiss in the attic. As Corrie whipped up more dough and created the buttresses out of it, he had wandered in and out of the kitchen. He’d say he wanted to check on the progress of the gingerbread inn when he came in, then after a few strained minutes announce he needed to go and check the progress of the drywall in the real inn’s dining room.
Why he couldn’t just shrug it off and stay in the kitchen making small talk he didn’t know. Why did it matter? Corrie was just a woman, after all. Just passing through. Not part of the plan. And yet, when he looked into her eyes, when she touched his arm or teased him about his commitment to his plans, it mattered.
He had contemplated that as he watched the workers putting up drywall. The old walls seemed perfectly straight at first glance. A quick and easy job requiring no special attention, the workmen thought they’d knock it out in no time. Then they got to work and found it almost impossible to get all the edges to meet up square and neat. They knew how to handle that, of course, but it meant they’d have to work longer, make some adjustments, change the plan.
Andy couldn’t help comparing that to his relationship to Corrie. Two people with simple, straightforward goals who had special ties to this old inn, who seemed to both be headed in the right direction. To people like the mayor or Greer, even to Corrie herself, it might seem the two of them would make a great fit. But Andy believed that no matter how hard they tried to make it work, it could never quite come together.
He wasn’t going to up and move to South Carolina. He certainly wouldn’t expect Corrie to move here. And even if she found her father nearby and moved to the area, what then? With her reckless approach to life, he’d find himself perpetually running to her rescue, always playing her champion with a safety net. His mom and sister still needed him too much. His business needed him. He’d committed himself not just to do restoration work but once he’d completed work on the Snowy Eaves, he dreamed of running it. He had enough to take care of without taking on Corrie Bennington.
He had charted his course when he decided to restore and run this old inn and he had to stand by that.
Then why couldn’t he get that girl off his mind? Even long after she had left that day, the smell of gingerbread in his kitchen kept tugging at the coattails of his concentration. Her face, her laughter, the way she pushed up those red glasses or clomped around in those big boots popped into his thoughts at the most inconvenient times.
It always caught him by surprise, just as she had done at the community decorating party and when she came blustering into his life on the winds of that rainstorm. He thought of her as he worked on the inn and as he got a snack from the kitchen. He thought of her that night as he tucked Greer into bed and she asked for a story. Andy drew a blank.
“I hadn’t planned on you being out here this long, kid. We’ve read all the books you brought from home.”
“Corrie would have known a story,” Greer muttered.
“Or just made one up on the spot.” His agreement came in more of a murmur than a mutter. “I bet it would have made you laugh, too.”
Greer needed to laugh more, he thought at the time. But the next morning, as she went skipping off into her Sunday school room full of squealing kids in the church basement, he realized he’d been thinking of himself. He needed more laughter in his life. More fun. More than just work and worry. More…
He looked around at the caregivers and teachers and family members taking kids to the nursery, the classrooms and the gym where they held the worship and praise service for high school and college-age people. People talked all at once. They greeted one another with open arms and open hearts.
He needed more life in his life, Andy concluded and before he could try to imagine what that would look like—who that would look like—he hunched up his shoulders and scoffed.
He didn’t have time for that right now. He had obligations. He had well-laid plans that needed his full focus. He couldn’t afford the distraction of—
“A friendly face!” Corrie Bennington stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Am I ever glad to see you, Andy McFarland.”
“And I’m…surprised to see you, Corrie.”
“Yeah. I thought it would be okay if I skipped church this Sunday, being so far from home and all but then I woke up early this morning, all full of, well, energy. Wanting to get to work putting the inn together, ready to see how it would fit and if it would be like I dreamed it would be, you know?”
“Actually, yes, I do know that particular feeling.” He nodded trying not to show how much it got to him to hear his own inclinations voiced by this woman who he couldn’t get out of his mind.
“So I remembered this was your church and I thought, well, I’m awake and I want to go out to the inn when you’re done with church so here I am.” She held her hands up in a sign of surrender as a shy smile broke slowly over her lightly glossed lips.
“Here you are,” he echoed softly.
“And here you are.” She jabbed her finger toward him. “Coming to my rescue once again.”
“Rescue?” Red flag. The word made him retreat physically, and emotionally.
“I kind of got turned around in this big ol’ church. Ended up in the gym.” She crinkled her nose not in distaste but sort of self-deprecating. “I think I’m a little mature for that crowd.”
“I think you’d fit in wherever you go.” He relaxed again and put his hand on her back to gently guide her into turning around and heading up the stairway. “But I understand what you’re saying. The main sanctuary is this way. The service starts in about ten minutes.”
As soon as they were headed in the right direction he could have let his hand drop from her back. But he didn’t. He told himself he was just being a good host, making sure she didn’t lose track of him in the bustle of churchgoers. Except that most of the churchgoers in this sleepy New England town were decidedly unbustling in their approach to worship. And if he had lost direct contact with her, he’d still have been able to pick her out amidst the rest of the congregation in her bright green sweater, white wool skirt, clunky boots, velvet headband with a sprig of fresh holly pinned to it and those red glasses framing her beautiful, sparkling eyes.
“Do you have a certain pew where you like to sit?” She turned slightly to ask him over her shoulder.
“I, uh…” He checked the clock in the lobby and winced slightly. The spot near the back by the door where he could slip in and out unnoticed had probably already been claimed by some other unmarried guy trying to stay out of the spotlight of well-meaning mamas with single daughters. “Why don’t we just go in and see what we can find?”
“Sounds like a plan.” She raised her eyebrows and her lips twitched in a hint of a smile at his having to take her approach and improvise. She accepted a bulletin from the greeter and took a step toward the door of the sanctuary.
With that she moved from the shelter of his touch. It didn’t seem to register with her but it made Andy’s hand feel suddenly cool and empty. Just the way, he suspected, his life would feel when Corrie Bennington left town for good in a few days.
He took a deep breath and tried to shrug it off only to find a big hand clamped down on his own shoulder.
“With that pretty little girl again, I see,” said the gruff, familiar voice of Larry Walker, the mayor’s husband. “First at the decorating party, then the lighting ceremony. Now church on Sunday. Have to say, son, for a fellow who’s avoided the big romantic-type commitments for as long as any a man can, when you fell, you fell hard.”
“Fell?” A quick punch in the stomach better described how the man’s assessment felt to Andy. “I haven’t… I didn’t…”
Larry worked his way on by and made his way to his usual spot with the other elders of the church on the second row.
“Didn’t what?” Corrie asked as she smiled to Larry and led the way to the first open pew a few rows away.
“Fall,” Andy said softly, watching her slip so easily into his church, his community and, if Larry was right, into Andy’s heart.
Andy tried not to think too much about that as the bell choir did a performance of “The First Noel” that made Corrie’s expression move from melancholy, probably thinking of the broken snow globe, to a warm delight. While he didn’t have any trouble concentrating on the message of the sermon, he felt some relief that instead of hymns that would require him to stand close enough to share a hymnal with Corrie, they sang Christmas-themed songs that he knew without music.
Afterward, he hustled her out of the sanctuary.
“Can’t stop to talk.” He waved off someone approaching them and pointed Corrie toward the stairway to get Greer. “Got an inn to build.”
“Which inn?” she asked. “Yours or mine?”
“Both,” he said to remind himself as much as her that he had other obligations beyond baking and decorating. He had this one day for that and no more. They had to make the best use of their time. “So, what’s the game plan?”
“We’re going to play a game?” Greer came winging around the edge of the open doorway, her smile beaming, with her black shoes and a bright red piece of paper in her hand.
“That’s just an expression.” Andy plucked the shoes from the child’s small hands. The black flats slapped against the cold, hard floor as he plopped them down in a silent command for the kid to put them on so they could get going. “There is no game. There is no plan.” He turned to Corrie to prod her to give him an answer. “At least not yet.”
She shot him a sweet but slightly smug smile then turned to Greer and bent to tell her, “Your brother is trying to nudge me into getting my entry done as soon as possible so he can get it—and me—out of his kitchen.”
Andy did not deny it. Just being honest, he thought, but when he saw disappointment flicker in those eyes behind those flashy red frames, he felt like a real jerk. To cover that, he switched his focus. “Whatcha got there, kid?”
“Something about the Christmas pageant.” She flapped the red paper as she balanced on one foot and then the other as she slid her feet into her shoes.
“A Christmas pageant!” Corrie tried to snatch the page but every time she got close Greer bobbled and it fluttered away. “Are you going to be in it?”
“Uh-huh.” Feet firmly planted, she looked and pointed toward her coat hanging on a row of hooks on the wall. “It’s on Wednesday and I’m going to be a Sarah.”
Andy retrieved the small coat and held it out to his sister.
“A…a Sarah? I don’t recall that name as part of the nativity story.” Corrie finally managed to nab Greer by the wrist. She took the paper and tucked it in Greer’s coat pocket as the two of them double-teamed the squirming eight year old to get her into her winter gear.
“Sure you do. Sarah Finn. The one who said…” Greer wriggled free and headed for the steps, calling behind her as she did, “Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be unto all people!”
“Oh! A seraphim.” Corrie laughed, gave Andy a wink then swung her arm out to take Greer by the hand. “You did that line very well, by the way.”
“Thank you.” Greer and Corrie climbed the stairs side by side leaving Andy to trail behind. “You have to be at least eight to have a line.”
He considered moving in and just picking his sister up. Just to hurry things along, not because he didn’t want Greer to get too comfy with, too dependent on Corrie. Again, he wondered just who he was shielding with those kinds of inclinations.
Surely not himself. He was the guy everyone else depended on. He was the guy who at not quite nineteen had single-handedly kept his family from losing everything after his father’s death.
He paused on the steps for a moment making other families jostle him in their rush to get past. He hadn’t thought of the struggle after his father’s death in years. Why now? Because Corrie Bennington brought it out in him. She made him think about the way people depended on each other. About how, no matter how much you loved someone or how well your intentions, the person you trusted the most in the world could let you down, without even meaning to, because they didn’t think ahead.
Corrie and Greer disappeared around the corner in the stairwell but Greer’s excited words carried downward to him. “Andy helped me memorize my part so my mom would be proud of me when she gets home to see me in the play.”
A punch to the stomach would have had less impact on him. He took the steps two at a time, in order to reach them. He liked Corrie but it was Andy’s job to watch over Greer. He couldn’t leave that responsibility to just anyone.
“That’s great. But you know, if your mom can’t get here by then, let’s make a pinkie promise that you won’t forget your line so you can do the whole thing for her when she does get home.” Corrie said it with such kindness and enthusiasm that it made Greer clap her hands with joy. Corrie glanced behind her and smiled. “You promise to help her do that, Andy?”
“I promise.” He exhaled and chuckled softly. Corrie wasn’t just anyone. He looked at the woman, then at his sister. “I promise to help you do that, Greer, even if I have to play every other role myself.”
Chapter Ten
“Do the donkey sound again!” Greer squirmed on a stool pulled up to the island in the inn’s spacious kitchen.
Andy lowered his head. His shoulders lifted and then fell. He groaned. Then he seemed to reach down into the depths of what Corrie decided was the place where his good-guy-who-always-tries-to-put-things-right-and-doesn’t-want-anyone-to-see-him-look-silly met his adoring big-brotherness. He lifted his head as he let out a comical “Eee-yaw! Eee-yaw!”
Greer clapped her hands and giggled.
Corrie couldn’t help laughing, too. She also couldn’t fight back feeling touched by the sweetness of a tough guy like Andy so willing to prove he could help his little sister reenact the nativity play. She pressed her lips together. Since the first time she had walked into this inn her emotions had gone round and round in an amazing mix of joy, anxiety and nostalgia for things she’d never known.
And hope. Hope for snow. Hope for finding her father. Hope for finding her own way. Hope for…
She didn’t even know what she hoped for, only that seeing Andy like this made her want that elusive unnamed thing more than anything she’d ever hoped for before.
Andy laughed and gave Greer a hug. His gaze flicked up and his eyes met Corrie’s.
Her breath stopped. She thought she smiled. Maybe she twitched. She knew she blushed by the rush of heat she felt in her face. Flustered, she spun around to hunch over her work to place the last piece of the gingerbread roof in place. “Well, you’ve done it again, Andy.”
“What?”
“Come to my rescue.” She stood back to reveal the basic form of the inn held together with thick white royal icing. “Your modifications made all the difference. Everything fits and so far nothing has buckled, slid, collapsed or tilted. Everything is just where it’s supposed to be.”
“Feels that way, doesn’t it?” he murmured in a way that made her turn her head to meet his gaze.
Her breath caught in the back of her throat to catch him looking not at the newly constructed inn, but directly at her.
“When do we start decorating?” Greer hopped down off her stool and came close to peer at the inn. She stuck out the tip of her tongue and reached her hand out slowly.
“What’s this ‘we’ short stuff?” Andy intercepted her before she could touch the inn by looping his arm around her midsection.
“First things first. We have to make sure it holds together before I start with the fondant, marshmallows, coconut flakes and all that other stuff.”
“Wow, fondant? Marshmallows? Coconut flakes? Other stuff?” Greer’s eyes seemed to grow bigger with every addition she imagined. “What’s fondant?”
“In this case it’s quick mix of marshmallows and water and lard that’s going to make a kind of…” She rubbed her fingers together, then flexed them into fists, then held them up in surrender. “I’ll make extra so you can have some to play with.”
“All right!” The child crouched as if ready to launch herself upward in a great burst of unleashed energy.
Andy lifted his sister up and back. She squirmed, more as if she wanted to get a better look at the unadorned inn than to make an escape. Her legs began to swing and her small feet kicked slightly. “I think your inn stands a better chance of holding together if it doesn’t have to share the same space as my little sister here.”
Corrie wiped her hands on the corner of her apron. “Is that your way of suggesting I get it out of here as soon as possible?”
“Just the opposite. Suggesting I should get a certain somebody out of here as soon as possible.”
“I know who you’re talking about.” Greer jabbed her thumb into her chest. “And I only wanted to help decorate.”
Andy settled her on the floor again and she rushed up to the counter to look longingly at the basic structure of the contest-entry inn.
“It’s no fair.” Greer raised her eyes from counter level to Andy then to Corrie. “I haven’t gotten to decorate anything this year. Not even a Christmas tree. Dumb ol’ renovations. Dumb ol’ inn.”
Corrie looked up at Andy and without saying a word as much as demanded he explain why that was.
“The place is such a… I don’t even know where I’d put…” He ran his hand back through his hair. “There hasn’t been any time.”
Corrie stole a sidelong glance at her drying inn then folded her arms over her chest and lifted her chin to challenge the man’s excuses. “There’s time now.”
“Yes!” Greer’s little fist shot up in the air. She started to jump, but caught herself and just did a little wiggle instead.
Corrie laughed. “And as someone who has spent the better part of the last couple months thinking about decking the halls of this inn, I have a few ideas where to put a Christmas tree.”
“We’re getting a tree! We’re getting a tree! Andy promised me when I came out here that we would!” Greer’s wiggle turned into a jiggle then into a dance that had her hopping on one foot then the other across the tile floor. Halfway to the door, she spun around and nailed her brother with a guarded glare. “We are getting a tree, aren’t we, Andy?”
He clenched his jaw. His brow furrowed.
Corrie held her breath.
“Ple-e-ease?” Greer begged.
Ple-e-ease? Corrie wished under her breath. Yes, she wanted Greer to have her tree but if that came with a chance for Andy to see that sometimes not going according to the plan was its own reward, well, Corrie liked that, too.
Andy’s eyes shifted from his sister to Corrie to his sister again. Finally, he exhaled and chuckled at the same time. He bent his head and shook it. “Okay. You got me. A Christmas tree it is.”
Greer clapped her hands and ran out the swinging door.
“Wear gloves and a hat, not just a coat,” Andy called out after the child as he went to the back of the large kitchen and opened the door to the utility closet.
Corrie left him to get his own coat as she checked the royal icing joints of the gingerbread inn. “Great. I can grab my purse and coat on the way to the…”
She raised her head, suddenly aware of Andy standing in the doorway of the closet in his flannel shirt with a bona fide wood-handled, steel-bladed ax slung up on his shoulder.
“…car,” she said in something of a squeak.
“What car? It’s just a short walk out into the woods from here.” He held his hand out to urge her toward the door that had just stopped swinging from Greer having pushed through it.
Corrie almost didn’t trust her legs to carry her through that door. Still, she obeyed his request, disheartened to turn away from Andy looking all strong, manly and outdoorsy.
“So, we’re really going to cut down our own tree, just like you promised, Andy?” Greer spun around in the open lobby space.
“Sure.” He set the ax down long enough to slip into his coat and gloves, careful to keep himself between the dangerous tool and the excited young girl flitting around the room. “What’s the point of owning all this pine-covered prime Vermont real estate if you can’t get one measly Christmas tree out of it?”
A tiny thrill trembled in Corrie’s stomach. “I used to shake up my little snow globe and dream of the Snowy Eaves Inn at Christmas time and now I’m actually going out on to Mt. Piney to help cut down a Christmas tree.”
The light in Andy’s expression darkened for a moment at the mention of the broken snow globe. “Corrie, I want you to know—”
“Are you going to stand here talking or go get our tree?” She didn’t want anything to put a damper on this special afternoon. She slid her arm into the sleeve of her coat even as she threw open the front door. A blast of frosty air whooshed into her face, stealing away her breath.
“Brrr.” Andy pulled a knit cap out of his coat pocket. “It’s gotten a lot colder since church. Maybe we’ll get some snow.”
“No kidding?” Corrie couldn’t help laughing out loud at the prospect, whirling around and throwing her arms around Andy’s neck. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
“For what?” He staggered backward, laughing.
“For letting me work on my contest entry out here.” The brisk wind picked up her hair and sent it across her eyes and lips. She batted it away to no avail. “For helping me. For taking me along to cut down the Christmas tree. For…for…for snow!”
“I don’t make the snow,” he reminded her as he brushed her hair back then took his own knit hat and fit it perfect on her head, rolling it up and back to accommodate her glasses. “And I can’t promise we will get any today.”
“I don’t care.” She didn’t know if it was the cap or the company but she suddenly felt warm through her entire being. “Just having this moment to hope for it is enough. Just the possibility of something amazing makes it all worthwhile, you know what I mean?”
“Yes, Corrie. I do know,” he said softly.
They stood there looking into each other’s eyes, saying nothing.
She opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn’t think of anything that she felt sure she wouldn’t regret. She’d lived her life in the shadow of her mother’s regrets and she knew it wasn’t any way to make a full, happy life.
“Of course, possibilities are a little like weather predictions. No promise anything will come of them.” He moved closer, holding her by her shoulders. “That’s my way of saying—”
“I don’t expect anything, Andy. Let’s just enjoy this day. This one day. The problems with the inn and my family will all be there for us tomorrow. Let’s have this day.”
“Okay.” He nodded.
She thought he might kiss her, but instead he adjusted the cap on her head, gave her a smile then bowed slightly his arm extended. “I give you this day, Corrie.”
She had never had a gift as wonderful as that afternoon. The three of them went out, sometimes trudging, sometimes Greer and Corrie practically skipping along. Deeper and deeper into the unspoiled, silent woods they went. Corrie had never seen anything like it or known any man like Andy.
He pointed out a prickly fir tree that barely came up to his chest.
Greer kept walking right on past him without even looking at it.
“I thought the goal here was to get a tree,” he called after her.
The little girl glowered at him as only very determined little girls who know they have their big brothers wrapped around their fingers can glower. She crossed her arms and stomped her foot and without a word told him to quit fooling around and find her a proper Christmas tree.
He laughed and jerked his head to coax Corrie into following along.
Corrie took in the smell of damp earth and pine and the lingering hint of gingerbread that clung to her clothes and hair. She wrapped her coat around her. They had long ago lost sight of the inn. She felt as if the rest of the world had fallen away. It was only the three of them, the woods and the Lord.
This was the closest she’d ever had to having the family of her dreams.
Her heart soared. This was Christmas, she decided. To be with people you cared about. To know you could rely on them, no matter how many people had let you down in the past. To believe in the baby born in the manger and the seraphim who sang of joy and peace on earth. Corrie looked toward the paper-white sky and mouthed her gratitude to the God who had brought her this far, who had sustained her and gave her hope. “Thank you.”
“That’s it! That’s it! That’s the perfect Christmas tree!” Twigs snapped as Greer scrambled to get to a nearly seven-foot pine with full, green branches.
Andy gave the tree a once-over, checking for nests or any other issues that might cause problems later. When it passed inspection, he wrapped his strong hands around the ax handle and told the girls to stand back.
A crack rang out through the stillness of the winter day.
Corrie flinched at the sound but couldn’t take her eyes off the sight of Andy, his muscles flexed and his expression intent.
Another blow reverberated through the crisp, cold air. The trunk of the tree creaked. One last whoosh of the blade, a splintering of wood and the tree fell with a muted thud.
“Yea!” Greer rushed up and patted the limbs as though stroking the fur of a pet cat. “It’s so pretty. Now we just need to get it home and decorate it.”
“Decorate?” Andy froze halfway down to picking up the tree at the trunk. “I don’t have any ornaments out at the inn.”
“No biggie.” Corrie swooped down to take up the trunk of the tree to help Andy where she could. She gave it a tug and a twist, got the branches lying the right way and began to drag the tree back the way they had come. “You gave me this day. There’s not a lot of it left, but I know what’s in your pantry. You’ve got popcorn to pop and string and before I leave this evening, I can make sugar cookies to hang on the tree.”
“That could work,” he said as he snagged the ax, rested it on one shoulder then hurried up to take the top of the evergreen in his gloved hand to help Corrie carry it. “I’m sorry I didn’t plan better, Greer.”
“That’s okay, Andy,” the child said as she hurried ahead of them. “If things don’t work out the way you planned, then you can always just make other plans.”
Corrie shot Andy a look, trying not to grin too big as she said, “Well, at least I’m making an impression on one McFarland.”
Chapter Eleven
They got the tree back to the inn and Corrie quickly helped them warm up with some hot chocolate. While they drank that, she laid out the directions for gathering ornaments.
“I can make some sugar cookies to hang on the tree. Nothing fancy, but I can use a glass to make circles and cut out diamonds and crosses with a butter knife.” She narrowed her eyes and let the steamy aroma of chocolate warm her nose as she tried to imagine how to improvise for Greer’s sake. “Oh, and I left those clear twinkle lights with the green cord from the park lighting in your truck, so we have those.”
Andy hustled up a pencil and paper and had begun taking notes.
Notes! For impromptu decorating of a Christmas tree. She didn’t know whether to laugh or grind her teeth in frustration. Or there was a third choice. She reached over and snatched away the pad of plain white paper. “Thank you, Andy. This is perfect. We can use this paper to cut out snowflakes to hang all over the branches.”
“Hey!” He poked the pencil behind one ear and cupped his hot chocolate in both hands and grumbled with a hint of a smile, “I was making a list of what I need to do to get this whole tree thing organized.”
“Trees do not need organizing.” Corrie slapped the pad on to the counter. “One of my favorite lessons from the Bible is Matthew 12:26—Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
“Yeah. God has it covered, Andy. You don’t have to do everything.” Greer downed the last of her drink, set the mug down with a solid thud then wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her bright pink shirt. “You gotta make the popcorn.”
“All right, all right.” He held his hands up in surrender and got up from his stool. “But while I do that, you need to go up to my room and get the little sewing kit on top of my dresser so we can string the popcorn once I’ve popped it.”
She scooted out, leaving them alone.
“I, uh, I didn’t mean to lecture you in front of your sister.” Corrie had been so caught up in her own agenda she hadn’t considered how she might sound reciting chapter and verse until just now.
“It’s okay.” He went to the cabinet and opened it. For a second he didn’t get the popcorn out, though.
“Second thoughts on that? Something you want to ask me?”
“Actually, there is.” At last he got down a big box from the overhead cabinet, turned and held it up for her to see. “Do you think it’s cheating to use microwave popcorn on an old-fashioned tree?”
“No.” She laughed and shook her head. “I say, take what’s handed you and make the best of it.”
“That should be your motto.” He opened the cellophane wrapper, got out the bag, unfolded it and placed it in the brand new microwave oven. It seemed as if this simple task took every last ounce of his concentration until he punched the button and finally faced her to say, “That is, for the last few days you’ve certainly made things a whole lot better around town, around the inn, for Greer and for me.”
“Really?” she whispered. Nobody had ever said anything like that to her before. Her whole life she had figured her very existence had made her mother’s life worse. She tried to change that but she couldn’t change having been born or that her mother had become a person determined not to rely on anyone else, ever. She had worried Andy was like that, now she knew differently.
It didn’t alter the reality of their relationship but it still made her heart soar. Andy had not just given her this day, he had given her a moment that she would carry with her for a lifetime. “I’ve enjoyed being here. I’ve enjoyed…my day.”
“Yeah, but what has it gotten you, really?” He stared at the window in the microwave oven.
The kernels began to pop, a few at first then more and more bursting in the bag louder and faster.
That’s how her heart felt. She wanted to tell him exactly what she had gotten by coming here. A glimpse at what it meant to be a part of a family. Meeting a man who wanted what was best for others, not one who put himself first. A day. A moment. She didn’t need anything else. She wanted to tell him all that.
“You still aren’t any closer to finding your father.” Andy cast his gaze down and rapped his knuckles on the countertop. “I feel bad that your helping us is taking time away from that.”
Ding. The microwave stopped. Andy took the bag out and tore it open.
Corrie snatched up a big bowl she had used earlier to mix the gingerbread in and offered it to him. “It’s taken my mind off hitting one dead end after another. Besides, finding my father was the dream. The real goal was to enter the contest and maybe see a real snow, you know, the kind that fills the sky and you can make snowballs with. Not just a dusting.”
“You came all this way.” The aroma of hot salty popcorn flooded her senses as Andy gave an ironic chuckle. “And we don’t even have the good manners to have a decent snowfall.”
“I still have a few days left until the contest, you know,” she reminded him. She pressed her thumbnail into a seam made with royal icing to see how it was setting up. “You don’t mind if I set my project aside and work on it tomorrow, do you?”
He put another bag of popcorn in. “Just as long as you stay out of the way of the painters.”
“Painters?”
“They dropped off the paint for the dining room Friday afternoon but, of course, they couldn’t start because the drywall wasn’t finished. They promised to get started first thing tomorrow, but they’re already a day behind schedule.”
“What color are you using for the dining room?”
“Powder blue.”
“Blue? Really?”
“Something wrong?”
“Sort of cold, isn’t it?”
“There’s a big fireplace in there.”
“Not cold temperature cold, ambiance cold.”
“Well, there are no color photos from when it opened sixty years ago but I asked around. The general consensus was powder blue.”
“Fair enough. You can always warm it up with a good choice in drapes and tablecloths.”
“Drapes? Tablecloths?”
“You hadn’t thought of those, had you?”
“One more thing to add to my list. Right now I have to get the painters in and out, which will take a couple of days. I only hope the floors arrive on time so we can install them, then to get the trim work up. After that, if it’s not already too late, I can think about drapes and tablecloths.”
She would have gladly volunteered to take on that task if she thought for one minute she’d still be in Vermont by the time the work on the inn was done. Christmas Eve? She’d be back in South Carolina, back at the bakery, back in the life she had always known.
Corrie sighed.
The microwave dinged.
Andy took the second bag out and motioned to the door with a tip of his head. “I think it’s safest if we take this out into the lobby.”
He could have been talking about protecting the gingerbread inn from Greer. Or that the light in the lobby was better so that it would be better for working with a needle and thread. But when Corrie agreed with the man she had so wanted to kiss her in the woods, she couldn’t help thinking it was the safety of their hearts he was referring to.
Again her thoughts went to her mother and the life lessons she had tried to impress on Corrie. No one can be fully trusted. You will always be let down. In the end you only have yourself to rely upon.
Corrie tried to repeat the worldly wise counsel over and over as she walked from the warmth of the cozy kitchen. But when she brushed against Andy’s shirt-sleeve, looked up and met his eyes, the memory of his voice drowned out a lifetime of warnings. You make the best of everything.
Corrie strode into the lobby with a light heart only to find Greer standing there with her sock monkey tucked under one arm and her lower lip pushed out in an unmistakable pout.
“What now?” Andy wanted to know as he came up to his sister and bent down, his hands on his knees to meet her eye to eye.
“It looked so much bigger outside.” She pointed to the tree.
Corrie stood back and took a long look. “She’s right, you know. That wall of windows does sort of dwarf the poor thing.”
Andy scratched his jaw and frowned. “What if I drag one of the smallest tables in from the dining room and we put it up on that?”
“I’ll help,” Greer said to show her approval.
“If we do that we ought to have a tree skirt, or a reasonable substitute.” Corrie took a peek at the trunk in the cobbled together wooden stand he’d made for it earlier today. “You wouldn’t happen to have a spare sheet would you?”
“Ah!” He held one finger up, and gave a comically maniacal grin. “I may have messed up on the drapes and tablecloths but I more than made up for it on sheets.”
Greer giggled. “Tell her what you did.”
“I placed an order based on the number of bed linens needed sixty years ago.” He winced as he walked backward, talking to Corrie even as he followed Greer over to the dining room to get the table. “You know, back when the place had six guest cabins, each with two beds in them?”
“Ouch!” Corrie called back to him. “So where are all the extras?”
“Supply closet. Top of the stairs,” Andy hollered above the sound of the table’s metal stand scraping across the unfinished concrete floor.
Corrie took off and in a shot she returned with a sheet and a question. “So, I take it you also ordered way too many of those, um, golden-colored bedspreads, too?”
“Go ahead, say it.” He peered at her from the side of the tree as he lifted it up onto the table.
“Say what?” She ducked beneath the branches to guide the base of the tree to the center of the heavy, dark wooden table.
“Whatever word you wanted to say before golden-colored? Ugly? Weird polyester? Guest repellant?”
Corrie laughed, backed out from under the newly settled tree and stood upright to admire their handiwork. “Tacky.”
Andy came to stand by her side, his attention aimed in the same direction as hers. “The tree?”
“The bedspreads,” she clarified.
“Oh, yeah. Tacky or not, I have enough to last me through the next sixty years. So we’re stuck with them.”
“Unless…”
“They are nonreturnable,” he muttered.
“I was just going to say, unless you tried something to jazz them up. What about letting the local ladies use them for quilt backing? Then you use some of their work on the beds and sell surplus quilts at the check-in counter.”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
“Corrie never has bad ideas!” Greer grabbed Corrie around the middle and gave her a big hug. “I think we should keep her.”
“Knock it off.” Andy gave his sister a light tap on the shoulder. “She’s not a lost puppy.”
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