Bringing Home Christmas Read online

  Lauren entered the home office that once had been her father’s. The scent of old wood, lemon oil polish on the desk, the high-back wing chair across from it, and the leather sofa against the far wall brought back vivid memories of her standing at the door, peeking in, seeing Caroline leaning back against the sofa arm, her legs curled up and her nose buried in a book, and their father sitting in his office chair, his nose buried in paperwork. Lauren could still hear the tip of his pen scratching slashes of red across the pages.

  The two of them would stay in his office for hours and hours. And now and then, Lauren would stand at the door and look in and then go on her way to do whatever it was she needed to do that evening. Dad and Caroline had been two peas in a pod. Lauren hadn’t fit in with them. She loved them, and they loved her. She just wasn’t like them.

  She and her mother always had more in common. They’d bake and garden and do craft projects together in her studio out in the backyard. And they’d work on her mother’s charitable projects, like the Christmas dinner and dance. Vanessa Holt took those responsibilities very seriously, and she always had. Whether that was due to Dad’s grandfather being the founder of Holt Ridge and her mother maintaining his standing in the community though he was long gone, Lauren had never asked. But knowing her mother, it was her family duty to assure that the Holt name was honored and respected. She’d always been protective of it, reminding her girls that their behavior reflected not just on them but the family and the community. Caroline shrugged off those lessons, but Lauren took them in deep. There was something comforting in them. A sense of purpose and belonging.

  She moved to the desk and pulled open the bottom left drawer, where her mother said the file on the dinner and dance could be found. Lauren pulled it out, thinking it was awfully thin. Typically, her mother had done the majority of the work for the dance before Thanksgiving, and she documented everything. This close to Christmas, the file was usually a half-inch thick.

  Lauren opened the file on the desktop and looked inside, scanning the mostly blank pages. “What is this?” Nothing. The plans were not even all there. Not a word on the volunteers. Nothing on the annual sleigh ride or the Critter Christmas Parade which culminated with the community bonfire and caroling—all traditions that took place the afternoon and evening before the Christmas dinner and dance.

  Caroline came in and sat down, her pajamas a soft blue flannel. “What are you doing in here? I thought you’d be dead on your feet tonight.”

  “I am, but I’m too wired to sleep.” Lauren looked over at her sister, sitting in the wingback chair. “Mom asked me to help her with the Christmas events.”

  “She asked me, too.” Caroline groaned. “I wisely reminded her I was the last person she wanted to do any of it.”

  Convenient ineptitude. “You invoked the family reputation, didn’t you?”

  “I did.” Caroline shot Lauren a cheeky grin. “Whatever it takes.” She lifted a hand and wagged a finger at the file. “You know this stuff is not my thing.”

  “She’s sick, Caroline. See-you-one-last-time sick.”

  “I know that. I didn’t want to make her sicker by upsetting her. You know how crazy she gets about this stuff—perfection on steroids—and I really am lousy at it.”

  Lauren couldn’t disagree. Instead, she sighed. “She’s usually a lot further along in the planning. There isn’t a single checklist in her whole file.” A thought struck and stayed. “How long has she been sick?” Must have been a lot longer than Caroline had told Lauren before the surgery.

  “Since late September. But not straight through. She had attacks now and then but otherwise, she was doing okay, or I would have told you.”

  Not looking her in the eye. She’d been sworn to secrecy about it. “So, if she was doing okay most of that time, why is nothing done on the planning?”

  “I can’t answer that.” Caroline hesitated. “But maybe her co-chair can.”

  “Mom has a co-chair?” Her mother had never had a co-chair on this project or any other.

  Caroline nodded, licked at her lips, far from comfortable. “She thought it might help him integrate into the community—and apparently she was right. It has.”

  Deliberately avoiding disclosing his identity. Typical Caroline. She ran from confrontation as if demons were chasing her heels. But she wouldn’t lie, if asked the right question in a direct manner that left her no wiggle room. “Who is the co-chair?”

  Before answering, Caroline stood and moved halfway to the door. “Um, David.”

  Lauren searched her memory, but she couldn’t think of anyone in the community named David. Wait. Caroline had said integrate. “David,” she repeated. “David…who?”

  Caroline inched closer to the doorway. “David Decker, Lauren.”

  Lauren’s jaw fell open. Her ex-fiancé? Why? And why would her mother help him integrate into the community? Her mother hadn’t been crazy about David when he and Lauren had been engaged. He was an outsider and she feared he’d take Lauren away from Holt Ridge. “What is David Decker doing here?” The last Lauren had heard from her best friend, Jessica, he was working for a security firm out of Nashville.

  “I don’t know, and that’s the truth. No one knows why he came here, only that he did.” Caroline leaned against the door frame. “If I were him, this would be the last place on the planet I’d come.”

  Lauren was with Caroline on that one. “I don’t understand. He has no family or roots here.” Lauren didn't like this. Not at all. Alarms blared inside her mind. “Of all the towns in the country, why did he have to choose mine?”

  “There’s been a lot of speculation on that,” Caroline admitted. “Like you said, he has no family or friends here. And his ditching you the night before your wedding…well, that didn’t exactly endear him to people around here.”

  All the gossip and tongue wagging had sent Lauren to Atlanta. She couldn’t take it anymore, or their pitying looks. She’d hoped their interest would die down, but it didn’t. It got worse. It all became just too much. Poor Lauren Holt. Dumped the night before the wedding, and the groom left not just the town or the state to get away from her, but the whole country. Her face went hot and her throat tight. When she could, she asked, “So he lives here now, and Mom has him as a co-chair on the Christmas festivities?”

  Caroline nodded. “That’s about it.”

  “No, that’s far from it.” Why was he here? Rubbing her nose in it wasn’t his style, but what else was left? What he’d done already hadn’t been enough to satisfy him? He wanted more? “How long has he lived here?”

  With a lift of her shoulder, Caroline estimated. “About two years, I’d say. It was right before Memorial Day. I remember because it was the first time I saw him on Main Street. All the flags for the local soldiers who’d passed away while in the service were out. You know how they line the street at town circle.”

  “Two years?” Shock rippled through Lauren. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “Mom didn’t tell you either.”

  “Why?” A deep sense of betrayal swelled in Lauren. “How could either of you not tell me?”

  “I didn’t because Mom said not to,” Caroline told her. “I don’t know what her reasons were, but I’m sure she thought she was protecting you.”

  “You should have told me, Caroline,” Lauren said. “You’re my sister.”

  “Sorry. She made me promise.”

  And Caroline was slow to make promises, but she always kept them.

  Her emotions in riot, Lauren stared off at a spot on the far wall and ordered them to settle down. “He’s a global security consultant. What does he do in Holt Ridge?” A community of a couple thousand people left only the wildlife, and they didn’t need his services.

  “David has his own company. Red Cedar Global Security.”

  This made no sense. None. Lauren feared asking but she needed to know. “Is he alone?”

  “He is.” Caroline nodded. “It hasn’t been easy for him. Actu
ally, he had a rough start. Everybody around here was pretty upset with him…well, you know.”

  “About cancelling the wedding,” Lauren filled in the blanks.

  “Well, yeah. They shunned him,” Caroline said. “But he kept coming back for more, inserting himself into the community, and he’s been very active. Mom helped with that. You know how she loves underdogs. Anyway, now he’s wormed his way in as a local.”

  While Lauren remained stuck in isolation in Atlanta. No family, no friends, no home and nothing familiar. He’d ditched her. Why did he get her community and she get nothing? This was just wrong. Just wrong.

  She shut the file and then stood up. “Well, you’re going to have to do the Christmas festivities for Mom. There’s no way I’m working with David Decker on anything.”

  “No.”

  Lauren frowned at her sister. “What do you mean, no?”

  “No means no. I’m not doing it. Mom asked you, you agreed, and that’s that.” Caroline turned into the hall and walked away. “Deal with it, Lauren.”

  Lauren followed her. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. You know people are talking about this already. You know every bit of what happened is all back now and they’re gossiping about it all over again.”

  “They are. But it’ll pass.” Caroline didn’t so much as look back. “I can’t do this for you. I’m horrible at this kind of thing and you know it. Mom and the kids counting on a decent music program deserve better than me. They deserve you.”

  “You’re really going to do this to me?”

  “I’m not doing anything to you.”

  Lauren snapped her jaw shut. “This is not over, Caroline.”

  “It is for me.” She turned the corner and disappeared from sight, leaving a flustered Lauren rattled and shaken and even a little angry at her family and her community. How could they betray her and embrace her biggest betrayer?

  She slapped at the light switch. The lamp went out. There was only one logical reason David Decker would come here. To taunt her. And he must want to do it pretty badly. She hadn’t been back here in three years. One would think he’d have given up and left long before now. But not David. He was as tenacious as a bulldog.

  Well, if he thought he was going to get a rise out of her, he had another thought coming. Her devastation days were over. His return had changed all the rules. It had changed everything…

  4

  December 20th

  9:30 AM

  At the hospital, Lauren checked in with the nurse on duty, Sandra Mason. They’d had classes together in high school, though her hair had been brown then and not streaked blond. It looked good on her.

  “Your mom had a reasonably good night, but her numbers aren’t improving, Lauren,” she said. “The longer this goes on, the weaker she’s getting.”

  “What does Dr. Fleming say?” Lauren asked, adjusting her purse strap on her shoulder. “I’d hoped to see him on rounds this morning.”

  “He was in early today,” Sandra said. “The infection is spreading, and the more it spreads, the worse her odds are for successfully fighting it off.”

  What wasn’t said hit Lauren hard. She’d known, of course, there was a chance her mother wouldn’t survive this, but hearing Sandra articulate that frightened her in ways she couldn’t begin to explain, much less digest. “I see.”

  “She did eat half a sandwich last night. That’s a good sign.”

  “I was here,” Lauren said. “Can I go see her?”

  “Sure. Just don’t tire her out.”

  “I won’t.” Lauren turned and walked to her mother’s room, reminding herself to breathe, to not let her see Lauren’s concern. She would be watching for signs. She’d always watched for signs on whether or not she should be worried.

  Lauren eased the door open and peeked inside. Her mother looked so small in the hospital bed with tubes running from her arms to an IV stand behind her. The constant beep of a heart monitor was oddly reassuring. Her eyes were closed.

  Lauren slipped inside and took a seat beside her bed. Just stared at her mother’s brave face. Memories flooded her. The police arriving at home, telling them they’d found Dad’s car. That he had crashed into the ravine and had not survived. The grief at the funeral, how quiet her mother had been for months afterward, sitting alone in the dark, staring into space as if seeing things that no one else could see.

  Months had passed and winter had given way to summer, and that’s when the adventures had begun. Learning to drive the riding mower, washing the cars, the mega water fight with the hose. How strange the first laughter had been after the long months of silent sobbing, snared in the merciless vice of grief. Her utter delight at her irises blooming, coming home from school to blaring music and finding her mother in her She Shack, the old studio out back, painting for the first time in years.

  She’d loved Dad with all her heart. But that day, Lauren realized that her mother would not only be okay, she’d be her whole self again in a new way. One where she alone defined her life. It was a startling realization that she had denied things that made her happy to please her father.

  “Lauren?” Her mother called out to her. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “Sleep is healing time,” Lauren said. “Isn’t that what you always told me?”

  She nodded, reached for her daughter’s hand. “Stop looking so worried. I’m all right.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “I decided last night I’m tired of feeling like this. I promised myself if I woke up today, I wasn’t going to let this infection beat me.”

  “Good. I can stop worrying then.” When her mother made her mind, that was that.

  She sent Lauren a sidelong look. “I take it you spoke to Caroline and she told you David is here.”

  Caroline had called her. Not a doubt in Lauren’s mind. “She did. But let’s don’t talk about him. Let’s focus on getting you well.”

  “I am getting well,” she countered. “I told you, I decided.”

  “Okay.” Lauren agreed to not upset her.

  “So, Caroline did tell you all about David. Good, that’s settled then.”

  “Not exactly,” Lauren said. “She didn’t tell me was why he’s here.” Did her mother know?

  She smoothed her hair with a blue-veined hand. “I suppose you’re upset because I didn’t tell you.”

  “It is curious that neither you nor Caroline told me.” Jessica Weaver hadn’t told Lauren either, and they spoke at least every other Saturday. It was an agreed upon conspiracy. They happened now and then on the Ridge. “I suppose that was deliberate, and you made the call. Am I right?”

  She turned her head on the pillow, her hair rustling against its slip. “Deliberate and intentional. I gave the matter a lot of thought and decided it was best left alone.”

  “Mom, I should have known.”

  “And now you do.”

  Couldn’t argue that. Lauren had tossed and turned half the night, only too well aware. “It won’t matter, but it must be said. That wasn’t your decision to make. Keeping it from me, I mean.”

  “That’s debatable.” She blinked, then blinked again. “But let’s save it for another time.”

  “Okay.” That was best. She didn’t want her mother upset.

  “What else do you want to know?”

  Everything, but not now. “I want you well.”

  “Questions about David, Lauren.”

  Why was she pushing this? Clearly, she was determined. “Do you know why he came here, or moved his company here?”

  “Only David knows that,” her mother said.

  If her mother didn’t know, no one knew. She’d have dragged the truth out of anyone else in the county. “It wasn’t a sensible thing for him to do,” Lauren said. “I thought he was a sensible man.”

  “He is a sensible man,” her mother agreed. “But even sensible men do foolish things sometimes. Of course, they don’t see them as foolish when they do them. To them, t
heir reasons make perfect sense.”

  “Well, whatever his reasons, they don’t matter anymore. Not to me.” She knew deep down in places so close to the bone she couldn’t speak of them out loud that he’d had a specific reason for coming here. The wounded woman in her thought to humiliate her, but that would be so unlike him. Maybe her humiliation was the net effect, yet she couldn’t see him setting out to deliberately do that to her or anyone else.

  Odds were, he had no idea how much he’d humiliated her already. If he had known, maybe he would have stayed in Nashville. Either way, he was here, and she was done. His days of humiliating her unintentionally or deliberately were over.

  Yet she would still like to know why he had broken their engagement the night before their wedding. In a text.

  She bit her lip to stave off a frown. Three years of listening to his last voice mail. Reading his last text. Neither had solved the puzzle. But he could answer her questions and end the haunting.

  “Not to be stepping on your toes, dear, but if you’d come home before now, then you would have known he was here. You didn’t.”

  “True.” It was, as far as it went. Deep down, she didn’t want to talk to David. The time for that had passed long ago. And yet, she deserved to know why. She was weary of wondering about it. Who wouldn’t want answers? “But I’m here now.”

  “Then perhaps you should ask him your questions.”

  To get answers and move on. Close that chapter of her life. “Perhaps I should.”

  “The committee has an 11:00 meeting at Community Hall. If you hurry, you won’t be late.”

  Lauren glanced at her watch. 10:45. “I’ll come again afterward.”

  “Maybe after you ask David your questions.”

  “Maybe so.” What if she got those answers and learned it was all her fault? That would be hard to take, but it would be better to know.

  “Lauren,” her mother reached for her hand. “As a kindness to me, please don’t cause a scene with David today. It would embarrass me to tears.”

  Nobody did guilt as well as her mother. And no one stuck to decorum like her, either. “I won’t cause a scene, Mom.”