Chapter Fifteen
His strong arms folded around her, making her feel small and safe and as if no one else in the world existed. Her legs went weak. Her fingers, which had begun to stiffen with the cold, tingled down to the very tips. She was in Andy’s arms. For the first time in her life, she felt she was where she truly belonged.
“Wow! It happened! It happened! Andy got a girlfriend for Christmas!” Greer peered out the door but didn’t come outside.
“No.” Andy took Corrie by the shoulders and put some space between them. “Corrie is not my girlfriend. This is not the answer to a prayer.”
Where once there had been the two of them in each other’s arms and a kiss that fanned the flames of the emotions that had been building in them all week, now a cold wind whipped between her and Andy.
Corrie brushed the back of her bare hand over her still trembling lips and shut her eyes. Andy had not meant to hurt her with his reaction. He’d been caught off guard. He hated getting caught off guard and had little patience with having to come up with new directions on the fly. So she’d help him out a little.
She placed her hand lightly on the man’s arm and bent to speak to his excited little sister. “What Andy means, Greer, honey, is—”
“I said what I meant.”
“Oh.” Her palm dragged over the suede of his coat as she dropped her hand from his sleeve.
“I wanted to tell you I can’t find my boots. Can I come out without them?” Greer said softly, her precious little face crestfallen. “But now I don’t want to.”
“Greer!” he called out after her.
The door shut.
He hung his head and flexed his gloved fingers. He shifted his boots to backtrack physically as he shut his eyes tight and muttered, “I’m sorry, Corrie. That came out harsher than I intended, but I have charge of Greer’s physical, emotional and spiritual well-being here. Without Mom here, it’s all up to me.”
“Of course, the great Andy McFarland couldn’t possibly need any help. He can do everything all by himself.” That also came out harsher than she intended. It’s just that her rotten day had finally seemed to turn around and now…
Now she just wanted to get out of here and deal with all this tomorrow.
“I’m sorry. This has all gotten way off track.” She took another step away. Her foot slipped. The treads of her inexpensive shoes couldn’t create enough traction to grip the snow and ice-covered sidewalk. Her breath snagged in the back of her throat as her stomach lurched and she pitched backward.
Andy lurched out to snag her by the arm but she shooed him away, grabbing on to the column that supported the portico instead.
“Look, I’m just trying to make sure that Greer doesn’t come away from her stay with me thinking that prayer is like some online shopping site. Place your order and expect delivery in two to seven days.”
“And that’s admirable. But did it ever occur to you that by snapping at her like that you might send the message that you don’t think God ever answers prayers?” She clutched the column and worked to get her feet under her. “Have you even tried to point out that what she’s seeing might not be an answer to her prayer but to mine?”
He cocked his head and rubbed his thumb over the bridge of his nose. “Yours?”
“I prayed to see snow.” She took a small step of faith, turned loose of the inn and held her hands out to her sides. “And here it is. I’m sorry if I let my excitement get out of hand about that.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” He lowered his thumb to touch his lower lip then smiled and held that hand out to her. “I’m fine with it.”
“I know you think that’s a good answer, Andy. As long as you’re fine and in charge and things are going your way…” She threw her hands up and groaned. “Speaking of going, I need to get moving before the roads get bad.”
“They’re already bad enough, Corrie, especially for someone who doesn’t know how to drive in snow on top of ice.” He kept his hand extended toward her. “Give me a minute to get my keys and I’ll drive you back to the Maple Leaf.”
“I don’t need you to do anything else for me, Andy.” She stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled out her own keys. “I’ll be fine. I’ll come back tomorrow, finish the inn and get it out of your kitchen.”
“Corrie, you can’t—”
She turned and marched toward her car, slipping at least twice along the way but managing to right herself.
He sighed loudly enough to make himself heard even as she walked away, then called, “I’ll go inside and get your purse.”
“My purse.” Corrie flinched. She’d need that, of course, for her license and room key and money. Not only did that oversight make her fabulous exit scene fall flat, it reinforced Andy’s notion that her capricious approach to life was really half-baked. She clenched her teeth and turned to say— “Who-oo-a!”
Her feet went flying out from under her. She flashed like a fish out of water, wrenching her body around, her arms flailing, and latched on to the fender of her small hybrid car.
“Stay put. I’ll get my keys and we’ll take you back over to Hadleyville.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” she called back. With one shove and a lot of false bravado, she righted herself enough to get to her car door and tug it open. “I’m going to warm up the car then drive up to the door. You can just leave my purse out front.”
“I’m not going to leave your purse, or you, out here. You’re not going anywhere without me. I’m taking you and that’s the last of it.” He went inside.
Corrie plopped into the seat. She slammed her car door and jabbed the key into the ignition.
The engine seemed to side with Andy’s assessment that she wasn’t going anywhere without him.
“C’mon. I can’t stay here or depend on that man after I kissed him like that, then told him off.” She didn’t believe the engine actually heard her, but after a few more tries, it growled. It sputtered. Finally, it sparked and started. “Okay. I can do this.”
She put the car in gear and pressed her foot lightly on the gas. The car began to roll. She gripped the wheel. She could do this. Just move slowly, exert a steady but firm pressure to guide the car.
The wheels turned. The car moved, only not in the direction she had been guiding it. Slamming on the brakes did not fix that. The small car went skidding in what she imagined must have been a graceful spiral through the parking lot.
Corrie’s performance was less than graceful. She stomped on the brake. She yelled at the top of her lungs for the car to stop. She looked to the still-closed door of the inn willing Andy to appear. If he did, she didn’t know because seconds later she couldn’t see the building anymore.
Once, twice, three loops then back end first off the lot and into the shallow ditch she went. Her heart pounded. She could hardly breathe. She made a quick mental survey. No pains. No injury but to her pride. She laid her head on the steering wheel.
A sharp rapping on the window startled her into looking up and finding Andy and Greer peering in at her.
“The Chinese judge gives you a…” Andy looked down at Greer.
She held up all of her fingers, spread wide. “Ten!”
Corrie could have just cried. She could have crawled down deep into her car and told them to leave her there to freeze and put them all out of their misery. Instead, she laughed. It was the ultimate example of rolling with the punches. As Andy assisted her out of the car, she looked him right in the face and said, “I’ve decided not to drive myself home tonight.”
“Yeah! Corrie is staying!” Greer took the purse from Andy’s hand and headed for the door of the inn. “Us girls can have a slumber party in the lobby by the Christmas tree and watch it snow all night long.”
“I’ll still take you to the Maple Leaf if you want,” Andy said as he slung her car door shut and followed her making her way back to the parking lot. “But you’re welcome to spend the night here. You know, like Greer said, you and she having a slumber party. Me tucked safely away upstairs.”
“You mean you’d trust me, after that wild kiss I gave you?” Making light of the situation had worked a minute ago, Corrie decided to try it again. And if she got to hear Andy ask her to stay, even for just this one night, or tell her that he trusted her, even in good-natured jest, well, that wouldn’t be so bad, either.
“I have Greer as a chaperone. She’s so watchful in fear of something getting into the inn, she won’t let you get out of her sight all night.”
Another really crummy answer, she thought. But a truthful one. She smiled and gave a half shrug. “Okay. At least if I’m out here I can keep working on my contest entry until the roads are cleared.”
But the only reason she went into the kitchen again that night was to make a snack that Greer had insisted they needed. Only by the time she brought the tray with hot chocolate—heavy on the milk, light on the chocolate to help with sleep—and cookies out, the eight year old had drifted off.
Corrie settled the tray down on the floor between the two mattresses Andy had brought down for them to cushion against the hard concrete. She arranged the triple thickness of golden bedspreads, layered on for warmth, to cover the child then bent to give her a kiss on the head.
“Thank you.”
It should have startled her to hear Andy’s hushed voice in the large room lit only by the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree. But it didn’t.
She looked up from where she knelt on the floor. “Thank me?”
“It occurred to me that you’ve thanked me several times. For my opinions. My expertise. My tallness. My kitchen. My ability to find my way around my own church.” He came to her and offered a hand up.
She slipped her fingers into his and stood before him with Greer at their feet, the tree and the two-story windows to one side.
“You even thanked me for things I have no control over, like this snow.” He turned his head toward the scene outside. The flakes whirled in the wind like millions of bits of down falling, dancing against the near-black sky. It had begun to collect on the limbs of the tall pines and blanket the ground to reduce the rocks and bushes to bumps and suggestions of shapes. “I just thought it was time I made it clear that it’s me who should be thanking you.”
She cast her eyes down and for once she didn’t blush. She didn’t feel ill at ease or embarrassed by her own misplaced or reckless feelings. He hadn’t said any of the things she had so wanted him to say and yet, she had such peace about his nearness and her own place in his world, even if that place was only temporary. “I haven’t done anything.”
“You’ve done plenty and you know it,” he whispered. “And now that it looks like the inn is going to get finished on schedule and you’re going to find your father, maybe we’ll both have some time soon to—”
He moved in close.
She tipped her head up.
He put his arms around her.
She drew in a breath, thinking she should say something. But no words could express what she felt to be here by the Christmas tree in the Snowy Eaves Inn with a real snowfall outside with Andy.
He kissed her softly on the lips, then on the cheek then finally on the forehead. “We’d better say good night now.”
She nodded, still unable to speak.
“Sweet dreams,” he said as he backed away.
“I plan on it,” she said softly. Though she couldn’t imagine any dream as sweet as this evening’s reality. Tomorrow, everything would look different, she knew. The snow, the condition of her car, even the dining room when the painters got the new blue color on the wall. She had no idea how she and Andy would view their relationship by the light of day and the harshness of her realities. But for this night, Corrie could have peace and love and—
“Did you hear that?” Lying low on her own mattress, with the bedspreads thrown over her head and clasped tight under her chin, Greer’s expression seemed even more anxious than her hurried whisper sounded.
“Greer, I didn’t hear anything.” Corrie lifted her head slightly to look out the window. “But if you did, it was probably just an animal moving around in the snow.”
“Yeah, a bear moving around in the snow looking for something to eat, and when it can’t find anything it could come in here.”
Corrie yawned. “Bears hibernate in the winter.”
“Great. If it’s not a bear then it’s probably a bad guy.”
“Why would a bad guy come all the way out here in a snowstorm?” Corrie shifted her weight to try to get more comfortable on the thin mattress so she could get a little bit of sleep and have a shot at those dreams before daylight reordered her world. “It’s nothing. Go back to—”
A muffled clunk cut Corrie off midsentence.
“You heard it, too, that time, didn’t you?”
A crunching noise followed, then a low guttural sound.
“We should yell for Andy,” Greer whispered, then took a deep breath.
“No!” They had said good night on such a perfect note of mutual appreciation. It could well be the basis for a whole new way of looking at each other. Corrie couldn’t bear the thought of him rushing in to rescue her from something she could easily have avoided with a little forethought—again. “Don’t yell! I can—”
Corrie lunged across to the other mattress. The mugs of once hot chocolate crashed against the hard floor.
Greer yelped once quietly then louder when the front door of the inn went banging open and a darkened figure stood framed against the hushed background of the snowy night.
“Get in the kitchen,” Corrie commanded Greer in a raspy whisper. “It’s probably a lost traveler like I was, looking for shelter from the storm but just in case… Andy left his ax by the tree over there. I’m going to get that.”
“Should I—”
“Go!” The concrete stung against Corrie’s bare feet as she stumbled and staggered over to the wall where Andy had leaned the ax yesterday. Her fingers found the handle and gripped it but she wasn’t strong enough to raise it more than a few inches off the ground.
The intruder seemed completely unaware of her in the inky corners of the room. It crossed the threshold, stomping snow from its boots.
A thief or someone with evil intent wouldn’t care whether they tracked snow inside, would they?
Their unexpected guest pushed the door shut, quietly.
Sneaky, Corrie thought. Whoever this is doesn’t want to wake anyone. A traveler would be calling out to alert people, to ask for assistance. Her stomach knotted. She wished Andy were here to help but since he wasn’t, she’d have to improvise.
“Stay right there and tell me who you are.”
The figure raised its arms but said nothing.
Gathering all her strength, Corrie dragged the ax a few steps and tried again to lift it.
Just then the figure found the light switch, flipped it, yanked back the hood on her coat and the knit scarf from her face to reveal the red-headed woman Corrie had seen in the photo in Andy’s office and said, “I’m Hannah McFarland. Who are you?”
“I’m…” Corrie released her grasp on the ax handle. The heavy-bladed tool went skidding and spinning over the smooth concrete floor, right toward the sawhorse holding the paint cans.
“Oh, no!” Corrie ran after it but couldn’t get there in time.
The handle took out one set of table legs, causing the can of paint on that side to fall, roll and knock over the pyramid of cans of gray paint. The top one toppled and globbed its contents all over the floor and lower part of the wall. If Corrie had spent hours calculating all the angles, placing every stage just so and set it all up to cause a fantastic cascade of catastrophe, it could not have wreaked more havoc.
The sudden drop of one side of the sawhorse created a catapult effect, flinging a second can of paint, this one the new light blue color, on to the wall…and the floor…and ceiling…and windows…and a little bit on Andy’s mom.
“Andy is going to blow up when he sees what I’ve done.”
“I had a hand in this mess… Corrie? You’re Corrie, aren’t you?” She held out her hand.
“You know my name?” Corrie slid her own hand into the other woman’s, gave it a shake then pulled it away, paint smearing her palm and fingernails. She looked around for a place to clean it off. “How do you know my name?”
“Andy mentioned you in his emails.”
“He…he did?” Corrie’s breath snagged in her chest.
“Greer told me all about you on the phone. Neither one of them mentioned you staying here, though.”
“Oh. I…I’m stuck because of the snow. Andy’s upstairs with his door shut. He said something about keeping the radio on so he couldn’t hear us downstairs. Greer and I are having a slumber party.” She motioned toward the mattresses on the floor then toward the kitchen door. “She’s in the kitchen now.”
“Wonderful! I can’t wait to see my girl.” Andy’s mother wiped her hand on the wall.
Corrie gasped. “Shouldn’t we clean this all up?”
The woman took a long, sweeping gaze then sighed and shook her head. “I am too bushed to bother with this tonight. It’s only paint. Andy won’t be happy but it’s fixable. He’s a fixer, my Andy.”
“But all his plans—” Corrie’s stomach knotted. This would throw a real monkey wrench into Andy’s schedule and it was all her fault.
Mrs. McFarland didn’t seem the least bit concerned, though, as she headed off to see her daughter.
This whole trip had just been one disaster after another. Or, if you looked at it another way, one learning opportunity after another. Why should tonight be any different? She sighed and left her own handprint on the wall then followed after Andy’s mother, thinking she’d figure out what to do about all this in the morning.
Chapter Sixteen
Andy slept until almost nine that morning. He’d slept with the door shut for propriety’s sake, and because he thought Greer might wake up and start giggling and keep him awake, he’d left the radio on to an all-night talk station. Since no one had bothered to wake him and when he listened at the top of the stairs he heard only silence, he worried that the girls had overslept as well.
He came downstairs, on high alert, not wanting to startle anyone, but definitely concerned. A whomp and a splat made him practically jump out of his sweatpants. A big, lightly packed snowball exploded against the lobby window.
Greer’s laughter reached his ears first. Then Corrie’s. He hurried on down the stairs toward the sound, trying to decide between making a face at the windows for the girls to use as target practice and going to the front door, scooping up a mound of snow and throwing it at the first person brave enough to try to get back inside.
His bare feet slapped down on the icy concrete and that made up his mind for him. “Face,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Definitely face. If the floor is this cold inside, I don’t even want to know how bad—”
If he had been the kind to curse, he’d have let out a doozy just then. Instead he stood, transfixed. Frozen. Sucker-punched by the sight that welcomed him when he rounded the end of the stairs and looked into the dining room.
“Hey, sleepyhead, we thought we’d let you catch up on your beauty sleep so you’d be rested before you saw what went on here last night.” Corrie came hustling into the lobby and began taking off the pair of gloves he had loaned her by tugging at the fingertips with her teeth.
“Uh, I don’t suppose you could—”
“Andy! We got a snow day!” Greer chose to stomp the snow off her boots all across the lobby floor rather than slip out of them by the door as she should have.
“Why are you—”
“Good morning, sunshine!” Out of seemingly nowhere, his mom came in, bringing up the rear.
“Mom? When did you get here? I thought your flight was delayed.” He rubbed his eyes again then jerked his thumb to the disastrous mix of paint and broken equipment and trimwork littering the dining room. “You don’t happen to know anything about this.”
“I know it was an accident and in the end, it’s just a little paint and a few splinters. That’s why we decided not to wake you last night about it.” His mom came up and kissed him on the cheek, then dealt with the smear left by her lip balm by licking her thumb and rubbing it off his face.
“Stop it.” He jerked away then looked at the three of them staring at him as if he were acting badly. Corrie had known about this and kept it from him? Greer didn’t seem to even care how she treated his inn? His mom had flown all the way from China to mock his work? “Stop it, all of you. Doesn’t anyone here have any respect for my property? My face? My feelings?”
They all stopped.
“What has you in such a sour mood this morning?” His mother began unwinding the muffler from around her neck.
“Oh, I don’t know. Call me cranky but having all my hard work to finish my inn before I lose it forever destroyed while I slept will do that to a guy.”
“It was just a little…” Corrie strode purposefully into the dining room but came to a quick halt. Her eyes grew wide and her face went ashen. “Whoa. It looks a lot worse in the daylight.”
He came to stand beside her. “Did you not see it this morning?”
“I woke up before dawn and decided to finish up the gingerbread inn before the kitchen got crowded. When your mom and Greer came in and wanted to go out to play in the snow—you know I couldn’t resist that invitation. We went out the back way to keep Greer from running upstairs and waking you up.”
“I am so sorry, son.” His mom joined them. She took a quick look around then folded her arms and faced him with a smile. “But it’s just paint, after all. It’s nothing that can’t be taken care of.”
“Yeah, with a little time and money—two things I have very little of right now.” Andy sank down to sit on the last step of the stairway and hung his head. A slow ache began to work from his tense neck muscles upward. “The painters aren’t coming out today, or probably tomorrow because they don’t drive in bad weather. If the snow doesn’t let up, or if it affects the highways east of here, the floors won’t be here on time and even if they are, if the dining room isn’t ready, I can’t install them. And clearly, the dining room won’t be ready.”
He felt as if he were literally watching his dreams crumble. Again. Last night he had told himself that he had done the right thing, making it clear to Corrie that there was no future for them. He had taken small consolation that his future rested in the completion of the Snowy Eaves Inn, and that was going to go smoothly from this point on.
Andy’s shoulders slumped. He looked at Corrie then at his mother. “What happened?”
His mom came to his side and sat on the stair above his. “I came in in the middle of the night—”
Greer hung on the newel post. “I thought she was a bear—”
Corrie stood off by herself. “I only wanted to protect Greer and the inn from an intruder—”
All three of the most important females in his life spoke at once, saying nothing, really, but painting the total picture for him. He put his head in his hands. “I get it. It was an accident.”
“I think it was a consequence.” Greer took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I should have believed you when you said nothing was going to get us out here and that God would watch over us.”
“No, Greer, you can’t take responsibility.” His mother put her hand on Greer’s shoulder and Andy’s arm. “I showed up unannounced and barged right in.”
Andy nodded. He could accept their part in this as his own failing. He should have considered the possibilities and had a contingency for them. At least Corrie hadn’t…
“I actually threw the ax.”
“You threw an ax?” He stood up. He hadn’t planned on standing up but Corrie’s confession drew him right out of his mellowing mood. “At my dining room?”
“At your mother, actually.” She winced and bit her lower lip.
He didn’t know how to respond to that. He’d welcomed her into his home, cared about her and made it very clear how much this project meant to him, how much was at stake if it got off track again. Now to hear she had done something so…thoughtless? “Are you kidding me? That’s what your spur-of-the-moment, go-with-the-flow, change-plans-on-a-whim thinking led you to do? Endanger my mother? Ruin my life’s work?”
“Andy, really?” His mom rose slowly, using the banister for support. “It’s not ruined. It’s all fixable.”
“Making bad choices because you have some kooky idea that being irresponsible will keep you from sticking with bad choices is not fixable, Mom.” He never once took his eyes off Corrie’s face.
Not even when the tears began to pool in her beautiful eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” she was barely able to rasp out. “I didn’t mean to—”
“That’s my point, Corrie.” His breath eased from his constricted chest and he looked away at last. He did not raise his voice. He didn’t feel angry so much as he felt defeated. He had dreamed of restoring this inn for so long, had worked toward that goal, planned, saved, hoped and when he had come to the end of his rope, prayed. And what had Corrie done? “You’re not a kid. What you do should have purpose and intent. You direct your path. We all do. I don’t know if I could ever… I need people in my life who understand that.”
The tears rolled down her cheeks. Her lower lip quivered but she didn’t say a word.
Greer moved up to take her hand but his mom intervened and guided the child away. “This is between the two of them. I think you and I should make our way home, Greer.”
“There’s nothing between me and Corrie, Mom. She’s just in town for a contest and…her own reasons. I’ve got my own stuff to worry about. It’s that simple.” He turned away at last and looked around for his keys, his coat. He looked down and realized he didn’t even have any shoes on. He headed toward the stairs to go get them. “I can pull Corrie’s car out of the ditch with my truck and she can follow you back to town.”
“That will take care of things once and for all then,” Corrie said in a strained but controlled tone. “I’ll take the gingerbread inn with me now—”
Andy stopped on the steps. “You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s finished and I don’t want it in your way,” she murmured.
He did not look back. “You said the more you move it, the more chances it will crack or break or get messed up. I can bring it into town on the day you need it.”
“Friday.”
“Friday.”
“At the community center. The entries have to be there by five but the doors open at one. The earlier you get it there the more time I have to see to any last-minute details.”
“I’ll be there at one,” he said then went upstairs to get ready to extricate Corrie Bennington from his parking lot, his inn and his life.
Chapter Seventeen
Hannah McFarland had led the way back to Hadleyville. Once they had turned from the rural lane that made its winding way to the Snowy Eaves Inn, the going got smoother. When they left the county road to the highway, the crews had scraped and salted or plowed and pickled or whatever it was they did up here to clear away the ice and snow.
With each new phase, Corrie cried a little less. She had no business feeling so blue over Andy’s rejection. He’d never pretended there could be anything more between them, never told her he trusted her or asked her to stay after the contest was over. And everything he’d said about her was certainly nothing she hadn’t heard before from her mother. Maybe this time it would sink in.
“Do you have any plans for the day, Corrie?” Hannah asked when she’d seen her charge safely to the Maple Leaf Manor parking lot.
“Plans,” Corrie repeated barely above a whisper. Her heart heavy, she looked at the red door of her quaint but impersonal room.
Despite everything, she did not want to be here. She wanted to be back at the inn, cleaning up, giving Andy support and encouragement and more than a few suggestions for ways to pull the place together enough to host that open house. “I think I’ll snuggle down in a chair and do a little Bible study. You don’t happen to know where I’d find that verse about pride going before a fall?”
“Proverbs, though that’s not exactly the way it goes.” Hannah smiled and put her arm around Corrie’s shoulder in a sweet, motherly way. “But if you’re looking for insight into my son you might do better to consider the verses about the sins of the father being visited on the sons.”
“Oh?” Corrie bent down to give Greer a wave through the window then looked Andy’s mom in the eye. “I don’t know whether to tell you that I don’t want to understand your son because after Friday I’ll never see him again, or ask what you mean by that and totally blow my cover because I really do wish I could understand him.”
She laughed and drew Corrie into a sideways hug. “Just my not too subtle way of letting you know you shouldn’t be too hard on Andy. When my husband died unexpectedly, he left us in a financial bind after we had just cashed out all our savings to adopt Greer.”
“So Andy grew up fast.”
“He became the man of the family. He went to work for a construction company and sacrificed his college money for the good of the family. He was barely nineteen.”
“That’s how old my father would have been when I was born.”
“Pretty young for so much responsibility. You might bear that in mind when you try to figure out what to do next.”
“For Andy or my father?”
“Either one.” She gave Corrie a pat on the back. “I’m just saying that sometimes it’s easier to understand people if you understand their story. A thought you might want to hang on to when you talk to your mom later.”
“My mom?”
“You are going to call her and tell her that you may have found your father.” She wasn’t asking. She was telling Corrie that she needed to do this, and she needed to do it with a forgiving, gentle heart.
“What if she’s angry or hurt by that?”
“Then you’ll handle it. Corrie, this is your life. You have to take charge of it. I know it sounds corny but often the truth really is so simple it’s easy to dismiss it. You can’t move forward with so much tying you to the past. You have to find your answers. You have to talk to your mother and find your father.”
Hannah was right. She had spent the last few days dragging her feet over completing the task she’d come to Vermont to take care of because deep down she didn’t want to complete it. To follow through on those goals would mean moving on, moving away from the Snowy Eaves Inn and Andy. Her father no longer lived here. She had nothing to tie her to this place now.
“Are you going to be okay?” the woman asked quietly.
“Yes.” Corrie smiled for the first time since she’d left the inn and gave Andy’s mom a quick hug and a thanks. “I believe I am, because you’re right, it’s time for me to move on.”
Corrie wasn’t exactly sure what “moving on” would look like, though. She threw her coat on a chair and pulled off her boots. She looked at the phone on the nightstand, read the rate info and decided to charge her cell phone and call from that.
Stalling? Preparing, she told herself and made use of the time by looking up the verse she had angrily accused of being Andy’s flaw.
She ran her finger under the words of Proverbs 16:18. “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”
She shut her eyes. She didn’t know exactly how to define a haughty spirit but she was pretty sure that did not apply to the bighearted, humble man she had tried to pin it on. She exhaled slowly then started to read the passage again, only to find her gaze falling on Proverbs 16:9. “In his heart a man plans his course but the Lord determines his steps.”
Corrie read the verse once, twice then another time and the tightness in her chest began to ease. Move ahead, prepare, let the Lord direct her steps.
The message sank into her being and filled her thoughts. She finally raised her face and said a prayer not asking for any one thing, but offering herself to God’s plan and knowing it would be enough even if her mother was harsh, her father disinterested and she would never see Andy McFarland again.
“Only, if it could work out better than that, Lord, I’d think that after the birth of Jesus, of course, that was the best Christmas present of all.”
Finally, Corrie was in the right frame of mind to call her mother. She took her phone and went to the window, pulling back the avocado-green curtains so that she could watch the gentle snow flurries that had moved in midday.
“Bennington’s Bakery, Barbara speaking.”
“You used your last name so that if he ever wanted to find you all he had to do was find a phone book, didn’t you?” Corrie didn’t see any reason to bother with small talk.
“I think by the time I opened the bakery he had given up looking, if he ever did. But yes, that’s exactly why I used that name for the bakery. I thought even if I married again, your father could still find us,” she replied. “Do you have something you want to tell me, sweetie?”
Corrie had so much she wanted to say. She wanted to tell her mother about Andy and the inn. About having the wrong name and about the mayor, and the town that she had come to love. But she had to start somewhere, so she said, “I think I found him. He lives in Virginia now.”
“I see.” Barbara Bennington sounded disappointed. “Is he…”
“I don’t know everything, but according to Hannah McFarland, he’s widowed. Never had any children.”
“Never had any other children,” her mom corrected with a flare of maternal protectiveness and a hint of melancholy. “So, you’ve talked to Buck then?”
“Buck? His nickname is Buck?”
“If your first name was Wallace, wouldn’t you go by a nickname, too?” There was a soft laugh on the other end of the line then a hesitation. “Honey, are you trying to tell me you didn’t know your father’s nickname?”
“I didn’t know his real name. I had it backward, James Wallace. And Buck? No clue about… Wait, you are the BJ loves BB that I saw carved in the beam of the attic,” she had muttered.
“You found that? He wrote that there the day before I left to go back to South Carolina. We didn’t know about you yet, only how we felt and what we hoped for our future together.” Again, sadness tinged her mother’s voice.
“But he did know about me, right, Mom?”
“He knew I was pregnant,” she confirmed. “And he didn’t keep his word to come for me by Christmas. My mother convinced me that he didn’t deserve to know if you were a boy or girl, that unless he came to find us, he didn’t care.”
Corrie looked out at the snow-covered landscape and thought of that Christmas more than twenty years ago when her mother waited to hear from Wallace “Buck” James. She couldn’t help comparing her feelings now for Andy and her mother’s for Buck. Deep down, Corrie believed that if Andy had said he loved her, she’d have never stopped hoping that it was true. “It’s because of the things Grandma said and did, not because of Buck, that you taught me that people can’t trust anyone, that we only have ourselves to rely on?”
“Not trust anyone? Only count on yourself? Oh, honey, if that’s what you learned from me…” Her voice trailed off in pain. “I’m so sorry. I thought by teaching you self-reliance you’d have the courage to do anything you wanted to in life, including finding Buck. I didn’t want you to be like me. If I had had the courage you have shown already, by going off and looking for the things you think will give you peace of mind, make you happy, well…”
“You would have come here looking for Buck instead of waiting your whole life for him to come back to you.” Corrie finished the thought. “You’d have done what made you happy, even if it meant a terrific change of plans.”
When Corrie hung up she had a new understanding of her mom, and herself. The power of all the things she had learned today churned inside her head. She couldn’t sit still. She looked out the window. The snow had become a fine mist only really visible in the halo of light around the Maple Leaf Manor sign.
“Snow,” she whispered. “And answers. A plan and the promise that I’m not alone, that God directs my path.”
She felt such peace. Andy’s mother had been right. She had begun to deal with her own past and it made her feel like she could finally move ahead. Or just move around.
She bundled up in her coat, scarf and her beloved boots, headed out the door and hit the sidewalks of Hadleyville. All around her people were making their way around. Leaving work for the day, Christmas shopping, maybe even doing things to prepare for the contest event this weekend. Those who recognized her said hello, those she’d never met wished her Merry Christmas or warned her to keep warm.
She stayed on the main street, the same one she had traveled Friday when she had encouraged Andy to help string Christmas lights in the park. Andy’s office was dark. She shivered and wrapped her scarf around her mouth and walked, her eyes fixed on the lights twinkling on the gazebo in the deepening dusk.
The wind whipped up and blew a dusting of icy snowflakes into her face. She hunched her shoulders up and looked around to see if there was a place to duck in and get warm. She realized she was on the steps of the church that Andy attended and all around her people were making their way up the steps to the big doors adorned with fresh wreaths. “The Christmas Pageant.”
Her stomach lurched. She couldn’t go in. She had to go in. Andy would be there. But then, so would Greer. Wearing the costume that Corrie had made for her.
She looked up at the door and took a deep breath.
“Hey, Corrie, come on in and sit with us, why don’t you?” The mayor and her husband came up the stairs and before Corrie could protest, Great Aunt Ellie had her by the arm.
“Okay, but…if we could find a quiet spot before the pageant begins? I have something to tell you.” Corrie grasped the older woman’s wrist and moments later, huddled in the cramped privacy of the cloak room, Corrie shared her story and they shared a hug.
Ellie fidgeted with her glasses, obviously unsure which set she’d need to see the small numbers on the highly sophisticated phone she extracted from her coat pocket. “We have to call Buck this very minute.”
“If you’d just give me his number, I can do that later. The pageant is—”
“Not going to start for almost half an hour.” She settled on a pair of glasses then began moving the phone forward and back as she frowned at the screen. “I don’t think I could keep this secret that long, do you, Larry?”
“Not if her life depended on it.” He chuckled.
“Besides, as soon as Buck hears he won’t want to waste time chatting on the phone, not when you’re only going to be in town a few more days. I just know he’ll want to jump in his car and come up here to talk to you in person.” Ellie pressed a few numbers then extended the phone to Corrie. “Here you go.”
Here she went, indeed. With each gentle purring ring in her ear Corrie imagined the sensation of a roller coaster slowly ascending the first steep climb. Crank by crank, uphill, defying gravity. Then, when it reached the peak…
“Hello, Aunt Ellie, if you’re calling about Christmas, I’ll be there the usual time. I won’t forget. I never do,” said a clear masculine voice tinged with patient good humor.
“I… This isn’t your aunt. She’s letting me use her phone.” Corrie gulped in a quick breath and gave herself over to the roller coaster of an emotional ride. “I, uh, I don’t know if you remember her but I’m Barbara Bennington’s daughter.”
“Of course I remember Barbie, she…I…is she all right?” Genuine concern infused his question.
That put Corrie at ease, a little. She exhaled then pushed her shoulders back. “She’s… Mom is fine. Actually, I’m calling about my father.”
Ellie put her arm around Corrie’s shoulders for support.
“Your…father. Would I know him?”
“You are him,” she said softly.
“I thought maybe you’d say that and I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited to get this call.” His voice broke.
“I know a thing or two about waiting for someone to make contact.” Corrie’s stomach clenched and her jaw tightened as she added, “So does my mom.”
The mayor and her husband tried not to look like they were listening. She seemed suddenly fascinated by the coats hanging around them and he began examining the Christmas pageant program, but their expressions made it clear they had heard that.
“I deserve your anger and mistrust for not coming as I promised that Christmas,” Buck James said in a way that shouldered the blame without excuses. “I am so sorry.”
“I think that’s an apology you own my mom more than me.” She tried not to sound harsh but her emotions were so close to the surface. “Me, I’d just want to know why. Why didn’t you come that Christmas?”
The Walkers no longer kept up the pretense of giving her privacy. Ellie folded her arms and cocked her head to show she clearly wanted to know the answer to that herself.
Corrie didn’t mind, either. After all, they were family now. “Why weren’t you there for my mom when I was born and for me, growing up?”
“Your grandmother didn’t tell you?” He could not have faked the hurt and disbelief in the words he blurted out. Silence followed, then a deep breath. “Corrie, I don’t want to turn you against your grandmother, but you should know the truth. After your mom went back to South Carolina, she contacted me and told me not to come.”
Corrie felt as if she had the wind knocked out of her. “What? Why?”
“She thought I had obviously misled your mother. That none of this could have happened if I wasn’t a liar and a scoundrel. She laid all the blame on me and told me that your mother and you would be better off without me.” Again, his voice grew emotional and tight. “She said she’d have me arrested if I showed up at her door.”
“I’m sure my mom never knew that,” Corrie said softly, as much for herself as for him. Then she turned to the Walkers to say, “He tried to come. My grandmother said she’d have him arrested.”
“Oh!” Ellie raised her eyebrows. “I knew it had to be something. He’s a good man, Corrie.”
Corrie was glad to hear that and even more glad that she truly felt it was true.
Buck cleared his throat and went on, “I was terrified, Corrie. I told myself I’d wait until things cooled down, then come. A few weeks after I thought you would have been born, I called and your grandmother told me your mother wanted no part of me and that she had made sure your mother hadn’t listed me on the birth certificate so I had no legal claim on you.”
“I know that’s true. If your name had been there, I’d certainly have found you sooner.”
“I didn’t give up that easily. I tried again, but your grandmother told me that your mom had met someone else and that you didn’t think of me as your father and to show up would disrupt your life irreparably.”
“I believe you,” she murmured, recalling her mother’s story about how she had bowed to her mother’s pressure. “I know Mom dated a nice man for a while but they didn’t get married.”
“Really?” He hesitated, and she wondered if he wanted to ask more about her mom, the woman he had loved so long ago. Instead, he said, “I did try to keep track of you, thinking one day…but then your family moved and I had no idea where. It wasn’t like I could go on the internet then and track you down.”
“Trust me, I’ve found out it isn’t as easy to find a person online as they make it seem on TV.” Corrie gave the mayor a smile and got one in return.
“I did try but after a while, I met someone else myself and married. We moved away because of her poor health and…and I want you to know, Corrie, I stayed away from your mom and you out of love, not out of neglect or selfishness.”
“Thank you.” She felt her lips move but wasn’t sure she had actually gotten the words out until the mayor’s husband put his hand on her shoulder to lend support.
“All I knew to do was to pray, Corrie,” Buck concluded. “Pray for you and your mom, that you’d be happy and that if you wanted me in your life you’d come looking for me. Now…”
“Now I’ve found you,” she whispered with tears streaming down her face and joy in her heart.
A few more tears, a little laughter, and a moment of gratitude to God later, Corrie handed the phone back to Ellie and hugged her again. “You were right. He’ll be in town tomorrow. Thank you.”
As they went into the sanctuary, Ellie practically beamed and Corrie worried she wouldn’t be able to keep their secret until Buck got to town, as they had agreed.
“Let’s sit up front.” Ellie lead the way to the first-row pew.
Corrie stumbled along, her boots bumping along the red carpet. The last thing she wanted was to sit front and center for the whole town to see, knowing she’d be the topic of conversation soon. Of course by whole town, she really meant one headstrong, heart-stoppingly handsome man who thought he didn’t need anyone’s help. She dreaded the idea of running into Andy now, feeling so vulnerable, so happy and yet so unsure. “Actually, I think I’d rather sit where I won’t be noticed and can slip out if—”
She glanced back just as Andy took a seat on the last row, right by the door.
“On second thought, front row is good.” She gave a meager smile and a half shrug. “If I can just slip in before anyone sees me and—”
“Corrie!” Greer appeared in the aisle at the back of the sanctuary.
Hannah McFarland waved.
Two of the men she had worked with from the park light committee raised their hands in greeting as well.
“Thanks for coming.” The pageant director smiled and gave a thumbs-up. “Greer’s wings look great.”
“Come and see, Corrie!” Greer jumped up and did a twist at the same time trying to both talk to Corrie and at the same time show off the wings that Corrie had designed, but been unable to finish.
Corrie started to say something about having to get her seat with the mayor before the pew filled up.
“Go,” Ellie urged. “We’ll save you a seat.”
Greer and Hannah both motioned to a sliver of space next to Andy, clearly offering for Corrie to join him on Andy’s behalf.
She couldn’t join him, of course. She suspected he knew that. She had come so far and finally figured out what she had been looking for for so long. She wanted a home. She wanted a place where she was accepted for herself. She wanted to be of help to others.
She wouldn’t find those with Andy and sitting next to him in his church would only make her feel that more keenly. Still, she owed it to Greer to go and tell her how good she looked and to Andy to tell him she’d see him Friday.
“If y’all will excuse me for a second, I’ll be right back,” she told the mayor.
“Did you hear that, Larry? Y’all. I think I’ve heard Buck say y’all since he moved to Virginia. Isn’t it nice to know that when they meet there won’t be a language barrier?” She laughed.
Corrie put her finger to her lips to remind the mayor they weren’t talking about the news yet then she went and spent a few seconds admiring Greer’s wings and accepting Hannah’s appreciation for having done most of the work on the costume. When the pair of them hurried off to get Greer in position for her role in the production, Corrie turned to Andy.
“I think I owe you an apology.” He leaned against the pew in front of him with both hands and hung his head then met her gaze. “I was pretty tough on you this morning.”
“Not surprising, considering how tough you are on yourself. “She wished she could reach out and give his arm a squeeze but she restrained the impulse. “I messed up, Andy. I acted rashly.”
“You were trying to protect my sister. I was out of line.”
Corrie decided not to argue that point. “How bad is the damage to the inn?”
He shook his head. “Gonna set me back a couple more days on top of the couple I’ve already lost and at least a grand to pay for extra workers. And because even if the floors could get here through the snow, we won’t have time to install them, more money to do some temporary flooring.”
She felt just awful about that. “If I had it, I’d write you a check right now.”
He cocked his head, studying her. “I know you would but I couldn’t accept it.”
She cast her eyes down to the toes of her boots. “I know you wouldn’t.”
They stood there as people shuffled around them, friends chatting with each other, shaking hands, families laughing and settling into the pews.
Not having anything more to add, or rather knowing there was nothing more he would accept from her, she looked back toward the mayor. “Well…”
He gave a jerk of his head to acknowledge Larry and Ellie. “Did you get a chance to call your father yet?”
“Just now.” She couldn’t help breaking into a broad grin.
“Really?”
“He’s coming here tomorrow but we’re not going to tell anyone until we’ve had a chance to talk. He’s going to bring photos to show me about that time and his life.” Suddenly feeling warm, she worked the buttons of her coat free and flapped the lapels to get some air. Only it wasn’t the church that had her flushed, it was Andy’s steady, unreadable gaze. “I only wish…”
“That you still had the snow globe?” He finished for her.
“I was going to say that I had photos of my life to share. The snow globe, that was between him and Mom. I’m not sure it would be my place to have brought it to him.” A family of six came bustling by, nudging Corrie forward, almost into Andy’s side. She pulled back, trying to sound perfectly unruffled by his closeness as she concluded, “By the way, we had a good talk, my mom and me. She told me a little about that time, about the role my grandmother played in keeping her from following her heart and how that made her push me to be so independent. I think she feels some guilt about it.”
“I hope your mom is able to work through that. Unfinished business can have some far-reaching effects,” he said, his jaw tense.
“I kind of got the feeling, talking to both of them that there is unfinished business between them and that they both have regrets.” Corrie knew the man spoke from experience. “I’m not sure what I can do about that. “
“Maybe I could…” He started to reach out to her but another stream of people pressed by and the minister took the pulpit to ask everyone to take a seat so the pageant could begin.
“I promised I’d sit with the mayor and her husband.” Corrie pointed in their direction.
“Don’t let me keep you.”
Keep me, she wanted to say. Her heart sank when he gave her a smile and a nod then stepped away and sat back down.
She gave him a small wave then took her seat. The pageant went off pretty much as it had in rehearsal. The kids were adorable. The music joyful. The company was warm. Except for the heavy pain in her chest every time she thought about Andy, it was one of the sweetest Christmas moments she’d ever had.
When the last strains of music faded, the children filed out with their small flashlights held like lit candles. Corrie’s gaze followed Greer all the way to the doorway. When the lights in the sanctuary came up, Corrie naturally sought Andy’s seat. It was empty. He must have rushed off, probably wanting to get back to work.
He had sat through the pageant alone and left alone. Just the way he planned to restore the inn, or lose everything if the inn couldn’t be done in time.
It didn’t have to be that way. She looked around at all the wonderful people who had embraced her and who were so clearly proud of their community and part of a spiritual fellowship that loved and supported each other. This is what it felt like to have a home, Corrie knew now.
She had her answers. She wanted a way to help Andy find his.
Chapter Eighteen
He was right.
Andy knew he was right.
You had to prepare in life. You couldn’t just make stuff up as you went along. You had to look at the big picture, cover all the angles and be ready for everything, even what you didn’t see coming. You couldn’t take your eyes off the goal.
That’s what he’d done. Taken his eyes off the goal, gotten tangled up trying to go too many directions at once. That’s how he got in this fix. He’d gotten distracted and now his life’s work was a shambles. For all this striving to do otherwise, he hadn’t done any better than his father taking care of his family.
He opened the passenger door of his truck and looked down at the gingerbread replica of the Snowy Eaves Inn. The perfect vision of all Corrie wanted it to be, and he had hoped it could be.
And never would be.
He shook his head. Even if the painters hadn’t bugged out on him, if the flooring company had been able to meet the deadline, he and Corrie wouldn’t have come to any different conclusion. She had to go back to South Carolina. Staying here did not fit in either of their plans.
Andy was right.
Nothing could change that.
Andy wasn’t in the business of change, after all. He fixed things. If he could, he restored them but that didn’t change the past. Still, it often went a long way toward healing it.
He paused and looked around the parking lot. Corrie’s small car was already here, parked right beside a slightly bigger car with Virginia tags. He raised his head and searched his surroundings. He was looking for something in particular, someone in particular, but couldn’t help noticing that for all the cars in the lot today, there weren’t any people to be seen.
He didn’t get a chance to give it much thought though, as the car he’d been looking for came rolling into the lot. He gave a wave. The car pulled up next to him. After a few quick introductions, thank yous, reassurances and some hastily laid plans, he got a good grip on the snowy landscaped base of the gingerbread inn and slid it from his truck.
A woman with a nametag designating her as a volunteer flung open the outer door of the community center when he got to it. She directed him to a swinging door with a big banner over it proclaiming: Hadleyville Holiday Gingerbread House Showcase.
1 p.m., just as promised. Andy turned around to back through with his delivery. Once he’d made it, then he’d go back to his truck and bring Corrie what he’d spent the last two days working on as a goodbye present. Goodbye dreams. Goodbye inn. Goodbye—
“Christmas at the Snowy Eaves Inn!” Corrie Bennington rushed to the door and held it open for him as she made a quick circle with her finger to coax him to turn around.
He didn’t want to take his eyes off her. Nothing could have prepared him for the power of just seeing here there, smiling that bright smile that reached all the way to the beautiful eyes behind those red frames. He had expected he’d show up, drop off the entry and leave his parting gift for her. They’d be settled up and free to go their separate ways.
She made the motion again then extended her arm and whispered, “Follow my lead, okay?”
He hesitated for only a moment then gave in, because as slapdash as it had been, that was the plan. That was what he’d said he’d do. He turned slowly and stepped over the threshold into the brightly lit room.
“It’s here, y’all!” Corrie called out from behind him.
She extended her arm as though she was presenting her entry for all the world to see.
And from the cheer that rose up and all the familiar faces greeting him, she was presenting it to just about everyone in his world.
“What’s going on?” he asked, as he scanned the grinning faces of the mayor, the sheriff, the members of his church, his mom and sister and Buck James. “Is every entry in the contest getting this treatment?”
“Nope, because this isn’t a contest entry anymore.” She moved around in front of him and walked backwards motioning for him to keep moving as she directed.
He couldn’t make sense of what she had said or what she was doing but he didn’t really care. It was Corrie, smiling instead of fragile and unhappy as he’d last seen her and wearing those dopey boots. So he smiled back at her and asked, “What do you mean this isn’t a contest entry? Did you withdraw?”
“I had to or be disqualified. You see in those rules you so rightly pointed out I had to follow, it clearly states that relatives of anyone on the panel of judges are not eligible to enter. And since the head judge is my great aunt Ellie…”
The mayor tipped her head in acknowledgment.
“Oh, um, Andy McFarland, this is my father,” she extended her hand toward a man that Andy had met years ago at the annual Christmas Eve Open House and the Snowy Eaves Inn. “Buck James.”
“I’d shake your hand but…” He lifted the gingerbread inn slightly.
“Oh!” Corrie moved to a table at the front of the room and patted it to let him know where to set the gingerbread replica of the inn that he would probably have to put up for sale after the first of the year. She squared her shoulders and adjusted her red glasses. “I can’t enter the contest. But that puts me in the perfect spot to do this.”
She spun around and raised her hands. “If y’all will kindly gather ’round. I’d like to offer to my version of the local landmark, the Snowy Eaves Inn, for sale to the highest bidder.”
“There’s something more…bidder?” He came up behind her and muttered in her ear. “What are you doing?”
She glanced back over her shoulder. “I’m proving to you that you can trust me, Andy. I made that mess in your inn and cost you time and money. I plan to raise the money for the extra man-hours to clean it up and put it right, even if I have to provide some of those man-hours with my own two womanly little hands.”
“That’s a kind gesture, Corrie.” Kinder than he deserved after the way he’d treated her. “But I don’t think anyone would pay enough money for a gingerbread house to even begin—”
“I bid one hundred dollars,” called out one of the grizzled old bench setters that Corrie had charmed at the park-decorating project.
“Why would you pay that much for a house you can’t sleep in or eat?” one of his compatriots demanded.
“I like pretty things,” he said without cracking a smile. “Besides, I went to my high school prom up there. Holds a sentimental value for me.”
“Well, I was married there and my wife tells me it holds more sentimental value for me—or else. So I bid two hundred.”
The numbers ran up fast. Three hundred. Four hundred. Five.
Andy couldn’t believe it. They already had enough to bring in a couple more guys to get the painting and trim work done. If he and his mom and Corrie pitched in, they’d have it done in no time.
“I do appreciate this but the floors aren’t going to get here in time because of the snow,” he told her even as he watched Jim Walker break up a dispute between two determined bidders over who deserved to have the honor of casting the highest bid right down to the penny and ending the proceedings without further ado. “Then there’s the issue of tablecloths and drapes. We can’t pull the place together for Christmas Eve.”
“We can, if we work together. I came up with some solutions if you’re open to hearing them.”
She was asking him if was capable of accepting a change of plans. He anchored his work boots on the brightly polished floor, folded his arms and narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m listening.”
“We paint the concrete with the wrong color gray paint and sprinkle glitter over it. It will be lovely lit by the tree, the fireplace and candles on the tables.” Her eyes shone just describing it. “And we use those spare gold-colored bedspreads and curtains and we can use the sheets for tablecloths, maybe with some gold sheer fabric as runners. What do you think?”
“I think you’re right.” He looked deep into her eyes. “You can make it all come together, Corrie.”
“Sold for one thousand two-hundred, fifty-seven dollars and eighteen cents to…everyone who made a donation.” Larry Walker raised a basket full of cash and pledges and the whole crowd erupted in a cheer.
The whole town had just pitched in to help him get the inn ready in time. “Why would they do this?”
“Because you aren’t the only one who cares about that inn, Andy. You showed me that when you took me to the town museum and when we went into the attic and saw all the names of people who wanted to leave a little bit of themselves behind there. People here love that place and they’d like to help you, if you’d let them.” She took his hand, stole a look at the crowd that had now moved their focus from the fight for the inn to the fight Corrie was putting up, trying to get through to him. “It’s all right, you know, to ask for help.”
“I know,” he said. He felt both humbled and heroic all at once because he knew something Corrie couldn’t possibly know. He turned, brushed her hair off the corner of her glasses and then touched her cheek. “I already did ask for help—twice.”
“When?”
He couldn’t take his eyes from her face. Up until this moment he had thought of himself as in charge. He thought he had come up with the game plan and carried it out according to his own directions. But here now, standing amidst these people he cared for, looking into the eyes of the woman he loved, he knew the truth. “I asked for help on the night you blew into my life.”
“Really? How did you do that?”
“In a prayer.” He tensed slightly and shut his eyes to add, “And, Greer, that does not mean this is the answer to your prayer that I get a girlfriend, because—”
“She’s not your girlfriend,” the group supplied in a weary but disbelieving singsong.
“I was going to say, because that’s not the real answer,” he said loud and clear. “The real answer is that God heard what was in my heart and by laying my deepest desires at His feet, He moved through me. He prepared me for an unexpected answer.”
“Does that mean you’ve had a change of heart?” she murmured through a soft smile, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
“That means I am open to a change of plans,” he whispered back. “Corrie, I was so wrong. Wrong about you. Wrong about not letting people help me, even if that meant they sometimes let me down. And I was wrong to ever let you walk out of the inn without telling you that no matter how much I did to restore the place, it would always feel incomplete without you in it.”
“Oh, Andy.” She threw her arms around his neck.
“And because I promised you the night we met that I’d put things right about your snow globe, I asked for help again yesterday.” He got out his phone and sent a quick text.
Corrie tried to steal a peek but he whisked his phone out of sight then turned to the crowd.
“As for the part about Corrie being my girlfriend…” He shifted Corrie so that he could look her in the eyes as he said, “As for Corrie being my girlfriend? She’d have to be open to staying in Vermont and helping me not just get the inn ready for Christmas Eve, but for every day after.”
She beamed up at him. “I could do that.”
“Kiss her!” someone in the group called out.
“Not until she tells me her plans.”
“I plan to follow my heart and let God order my steps. I plan to trust you, Andy McFarland but I can’t stay in Vermont unless you can promise me the same things.”
“I promise,” he said softly just before he kissed her.
The crowd sighed, cheered, applauded again.
Andy felt self-conscious and pulled away, whispering in her ear, “I love you, Corrie Bennington. I know it’s only been a week, but I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered. “And I love this town. It feels like home but I’m not sure how my mom will feel about me moving here.”
“Then ask her.” He took Corrie by the shoulders and turned her around to face a round-faced woman with strawberry-blond hair holding a small box before her and walking as though trying to maneuver on a tight rope.
“Barbie?” Buck James stepped out of the crowd.
“Hello, Buck,” the woman said with a shy smile and flushed cheeks. “I guess we have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Oh, Andy.” Tears rolled down Corrie’s face.
Andy took the box from Barbara’s hands. “I worked on this all day and night to make it all better for you, Corrie.”
Corrie lifted the lid off the box, reached down inside.
“I couldn’t make it a snow globe again, so I…”
“You improvised,” she whispered then looked up from the rescued Snowy Eaves Inn that had been in the snow globe all these years, now in a glass and wood case.
“It still plays music and if you press this button…” He reached beneath the box, wound the music box and pushed a button that started a tiny fan. Glitter began to swirl and fly all around the box like a blizzard of sparkling fresh snow.
“I love it. You didn’t just fix it, you made it better,” she told him, then she looked from her gift to her parents then up at Andy again.
“I could say the same about you.” He kissed her lightly again and pulled her close in a tight embrace so he could whisper in her ear, “You have made everything better, Corrie. I love you and I hope we spend Christmas Eve at the Snowy Eaves Inn for many, many, many Christmases to come.”
Epilogue
Christmas Eve, one year later.
“I like this tree better than last year’s.” Greer circled the nearly ten-foot-tall elegant fir tree, lit with hundreds of colored lights, dozens of ornaments sent from guests who had visited from all over the country, and yards of fat, shimmering garland.
“Not me.” Andy looped his arms around Corrie and pulled her back against him. “What do you think, Mrs. McFarland?”
“Mmmm.” She shut her eyes and reveled in the joy of celebrating this special night in her husband’s embrace. “I think I can’t get enough of hearing my new name.”
“Aww, you’ve had it for three whole months. Enough with the lovey-dovey stuff already.” Greer crinkled up her nose and tilted her head back to examine the tree again. “This tree does need something, though.”
“Any news on when our special guests will arrive?” Hannah came into the lobby, passed the tree and gazed out in the direction of the drive. She wouldn’t be able to see anything even in the late afternoon light because of the trees and the light snow.
“The open house starts at seven and will be done in time for us to go to our eleven o’clock candlelight church service, same as always.” Andy moved to Corrie’s side, keeping his strong arm around her shoulders.
“I didn’t mean open house guests.” Hannah shot him a motherly backward glance. “I mean Corrie’s parents.”
“Parents,” Corrie murmured. “There’s another word I can’t hear often enough.”
Hannah rounded the tree in the opposite direction of her daughter, giving the tree a once-over as she did. “I bet we’ll have another wedding this coming year, what do you think?”
Corrie could hardly contain her giddiness at the possibility. She had met her father for the first time a year ago. Her mother and Buck met again after all these years in the place they had fallen in love. There was so much to deal with, so much heartache and so many mistakes.
Corrie had always known that her mother carried hard feelings toward Buck. But also learned that she had always struggled with the conflict of having a child she loved with all her heart and that she had had that child out of wedlock. That went a long way toward her understanding her mother even more. Once their relationship had begun to grow, her mom came to Vermont to visit more. So did Buck.
After Corrie and Andy’s wedding three months ago, her parents began dating.
Corrie inhaled deeply the scent of pine and wonderful foods and her husband’s fresh aftershave clinging to his wool sweater. She looked around at the stairway and the concrete floors that had turned out so well they decided to save a bunch of money and not cover them with wood. She had come down that staircase to marry the man she loved, right here, in front of these windows where the tree now stood.
“I think you’re right,” Hannah said as she joined her young daughter looking up at the towering tree before them. “It does need something.”
“A star?” Andy asked, pointing to the bare tippy-top branch.
“How about a Sarah Finn?” Corrie teased, giving her new sister-in-law a wink.
“I know its seraphim, now.” she said, sounding quite grown up. “And that gives me an idea.”
She ran off toward the room where she and her mother were spending the night so that the whole family could be together on Christmas morning.
“Family,” Corrie whispered.
“Hmm?” Andy crooked his finger under her chin.
“I was just thinking about why this tree might actually be better than last year’s—because it’s the first one I’ll ever share with my whole family.”
“But not the only one you’ll share with your adoring husband.” He gave her a kiss.
She smiled to think of the small tree with the homemade trimming they had in their room upstairs. “Much as I love the idea of the whole family, there is something to be said for—”
“The perfect tree topper.” Greer came sliding across the floor holding up the old sock monkey Andy had given her and she had clung to for the last few years. “Buddy Mon-Kay!”
She had dressed him again in the angel’s robe, halo and wings she’d fashioned for him last year.
“A sock monkey?” Andy asked, still keeping his arm around Corrie.
“Not just any sock monkey. It’s a family heirloom, like the Snowy Eaves Inn snow globe,” she told him, holding the toy up high. “We’re supposed to pass it along. You gave it to me when you didn’t need it. And now that Mom is staying in the country to work, I don’t need it to keep me company anymore, so I am passing it along.”
“That’s a lovely idea, sweetie,” Corrie bent down to look the child in the face, and realized she didn’t have to bend nearly as much as she had a year ago. “But who are you passing it along to?”
“Your kid!” She went up on tiptoe and and motioned toward the top branch indicating the monkey should be installed immediately.
Corrie stood bolt upright.
“We don’t have a kid,” Andy hurried to say.
“And we don’t have any plans for one,” Corrie hastened to add.
“I know. That’s why it’s going up on the tree this year. By next year, though, who knows?”
Andy gave her a squeeze and chuckled. “Who knows?”
She turned and looked into her husband’s eyes. She no longer blushed when she stood so close to him but her heart fluttered. “In his heart a man plans his course but the Lord determines his steps.”
“I love you, Corrie Bennington McFarland,” he whispered. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Andy,” she murmured in response. Then she kissed her new husband, helped him put the monkey up as a tree topper then welcomed her parents to their home to celebrate the greatest gift of all, God’s love.
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