A Christmas to Remember (Evergreen Hollow Christmas #3)

Chapter 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

For his contribution to the tree-decorating contest, Spencer had decided to do a Gray’s Anatomy theme. It was a little on the nose, maybe, but he had a feeling a lot of the entries would be. He’d even gotten a 007 ornament off of Etsy, which no one would get if they hadn’t watched the show. But even if no one understood it, it would be his own private little joke.

He hadn’t really put a lot of effort into decorating a tree in years, but he’d gotten a local Christmas ale from the general store and takeout from Rockridge Grill, put his favorite Christmas jazz on, and he was having a good night. It was almost enough to soothe the hurt of his last conversation with Margo.

Almost .

It was hard not to think about her when he was decorating a tree for her family’s fundraiser. But he was trying to put her out of his head as best as he could.

He would have thought he would have gotten better at that, after years of romantic disappointments caused by his job and the punishing schedule he’d had in San Francisco, but it felt worse now. Maybe because here, he felt that he finally had a chance at real love, and it still wasn’t working out.

He reached for a small microscope ornament, and nearly dropped it when a knock at the door almost made him jump out of his skin.

“Just a minute!” he called out, setting down both his beer and the ornament and heading for the door.

He wasn’t sure who he’d expected to see on the other side, but he was utterly shocked to see Margo there, red-cheeked and windswept, her hair tumbling out of her beanie around her face and balancing on her crutches on the snowy doorstep.

“Hey,” she said uncertainly, and he just stared at her for a moment.

“Margo?” He wasn’t quite sure that he wasn’t imagining things.

“That’s me.” She bit her lip, shivering a little and he craned his neck to look around her, looking for some sign of a car. But there was nothing—just Margo Stoker, on crutches on his doorstep.

“How on earth did you trek through the snow?” He was still stunned, at a loss for words, latching on to the most immediate question. The idea of her making her way to his house on foot was utterly ridiculous, and extremely ill-advised on her part—and yet, unless he really was imagining things, there she was.

She lifted one shoulder in a lopsided shrug, her smile equally lopsided. “I just did. I—I have something important to tell you.”

It jarred him enough for him to realize that she was still standing on his doorstep in the snow, probably freezing, and he winced, embarrassed that it had taken him this long to invite her in. “Come inside,” he said quickly, stepping back and holding the door wide so that she could walk in, as a bit of the snow blew in over the entryway. “You’re going to freeze.”

Margo hesitated for a moment, then hobbled into the foyer, waiting for him to close the door behind her.

“I’ve got a fire going in the living room,” Spencer said, gesturing for her to follow him. “And some of that local brewery’s ale in the fridge, if you want one. I was just working on…”

He trailed off when he saw her standing stock-still just inside the living room doorway, her mouth fallen slightly open as she looked at the tree he’d been decorating.

“Spencer—” She blinked as if it was her turn to be in shock. Her gaze roved over the tree, as if taking in the clear theme and the pile of similar ornaments on the coffee table waiting to be hung. “Do you just like themed Christmas trees, or is that for the fundraiser?”

He laughed a little at that, although it was slightly hollow. “It’s my tree for the fundraiser.”

“But…” She touched one mittened hand to her mouth, her gaze flicking between him and the tree. “We argued. You’re still participating in the fundraiser even after everything I said to you?”

He could hear how touched she was, just from the sound of her voice, and he nodded.

“You’ve worked really hard to make it a success, Margo. I want to be a part of that, to support it.”

“I—” She blinked, biting her lip, and he could see the mingled confusion and emotion in her expression.

He stepped a little closer, turning to face her, his chest tight.

“How we left things was confusing,” he admitted quietly. “And I won’t lie and say that I wasn’t hurt. But it doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

The misty look in her eyes instantly welled into tears, and she let out a small, hiccupping sob as she started to cry.

“I’m so sorry,” she managed. “That’s what I came here to talk to you about. I shouldn’t have said that about my career. I shouldn’t have ignored you after our date at the fireworks show. I handled all of that wrong, and I’m so sorry.”

She sniffled and took a second to gather herself, drawing in a shaky breath before she continued.

“I like you, Spencer.” Her voice was soft as she looked up at him almost shyly. “A lot. I’ve liked you since that awkward night when we met at the clinic after my accident. I was just in such a bad headspace, and I know it doesn’t excuse anything, but I?—”

Another tear rolled down her cheek, and Spencer couldn’t stop himself from stepping forward to brush it away.

“Sit down,” he said gently, motioning to the couch. “I’ll get you a drink, and we’ll talk.”

Margo nodded, tears still sliding down her cheeks, and he handed her a tissue before he went to get her one of the ales, returning to sit down next to her on the couch.

“Now,” he said, popping the cap off of the ale and handing it to her. “Tell me what you came here to say.”’

Margo took another deep breath.

“My job has been my whole life since I left Evergreen Hollow right after high school,” she said quietly. “I needed to prove to myself that I would be fine without everything that I left behind. And I was. I had a really great time. I was good at my job. So when I lost it, it felt like I’d also lost my whole identity. I was already so embarrassed about the circumstances that made me come back here. And honestly, meeting you—it helped.”

She bit her lip. “I started seeing things differently. Thinking about them differently. But I didn’t know how to reconcile that with how I’ve lived my whole life. And then I ran into Chris the day after our date, and I realized how much that still hurt, and it all came back.”

She paused for a moment, taking a sip of the ale and wiping the back of her hand over her eyes.

“You told me a little about that.” Spencer hesitated. “Do you want to explain more?”

Margo waited for a moment, but she nodded. “He—we—we were together in high school. We got engaged on graduation night. We were going to get married, stay in Evergreen Hollow, the whole thing. A part of me wanted to leave, to go off to college and pursue photography and a career, but I thought I loved him so much.”

She took another slow breath, her voice gaining a bit more strength as she went on. “He went to go help on his grandparents’ farm for the summer. I stayed here, with my family. And I ended up finding out, while he was gone, that he was seeing someone else. She didn’t know about me at all, or that he was engaged, or anything like that. It wasn’t her fault. But I was crushed. And all I wanted to do was get away from here.”

Spencer’s eyes widened, a flash of anger on her behalf rushing through him. “Oh my gosh, that’s awful. I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

Margo gave him a small smile, her lips quivering a little.

“Thanks. Seeing him again brought all of that back. How hurt I was, and how completely blindsided I was—just as blindsided as I was when I lost my job a couple of weeks ago. But I can get another job. And I guess it reinforced that feeling of needing to show that I’m fine on my own. I was afraid of being stuck someplace where I would have to deal with that feeling over and over, and that I might get hurt again.”

She trailed off, and Spencer shook his head, his chest tight. His heart was breaking for her, hearing the whole story. It made it easier to understand how she had reacted the other day, why she’d avoided him instead of telling him the truth about how she felt.

“I wish you had talked to me from the start,” he said gently. “But I can only imagine how hard and confusing that must have been, especially when everything is in so much upheaval for you right now. I honestly—” He shook his head, reaching out to take her hand in his, both of theirs resting on her knee. “I don’t know how anyone could have done that to you. It’s unfathomable to me. And maybe this doesn’t matter now, but I want you to know I would never do that. Not to you, or to anyone.”

“I believe that,” Margo said softly. “You’re a good guy, Spencer. I knew that as soon as I met you. It’s not that I think you’d intentionally do anything to hurt me, but sometimes relationships just don’t work out, you know? Not because either person is bad, but just because they don’t, for way more innocuous reasons than what happened with Chris. And I haven’t had a real relationship since then, so I guess I was scared of feeling that way again, for any reason. It felt safer to just focus on what I knew, getting another job and getting out of here, rather than something that would require a different kind of leap.”

“Sometimes you have to take chances.” Spencer nodded. “I took a big one, coming here from San Francisco. I might’ve hated it, being a small-town doctor, leaving all the rush and responsibility of a big hospital behind.” He smiled. “And although sometimes I do miss it, there are a lot of advantages here that I didn’t have before. Parts of life I was losing out on that I have now. I’m glad I made that choice. But I know what you mean about not having real relationships. That’s one of those things I was hoping would change, coming here, eventually. Back then, there was no time for it.”

Margo bit her lip, nodding thoughtfully. “I told myself that I didn’t really date because it was too hard to hold anything down when I was always hopping from one country to the next. But coming back here made me face the fact that that was really just an excuse to cover up how afraid I was of getting hurt. And I wasn’t ready to face it when I kind of got smacked in the face with it, running into Chris like that.”

“I understand,” Spencer said quietly. “I know it wasn’t personal, not hearing from you. And I’m glad you came to talk to me about it now.”

“That’s what I really wanted to do,” Margo said, wiping the last of the tears off of her cheeks. “I wanted to tell you that I realized, after the last time we talked—things with Chris really messed me up emotionally. I had to face just how much. But I don’t want it to still affect me so badly. I don’t want to let it keep controlling the choices I make. And the fact of the matter is, before I got blindsided by it all over again, after our date, I could imagine a life with you. Even here, in Evergreen Hollow. I… still can.” She paused, giving him a small, tentative smile. “I can still imagine that.”

It took him a moment to absorb what she was saying. It felt like an entire weight was being lifted off him, like everything had lit up at once, and he leaned in on impulse, his hand cupping her cheek as he pulled her in for a kiss.

She leaned into it immediately, her other hand wrapped around his, and he thought as she kissed him back that there couldn’t have been a more perfect moment. It felt like the kiss in the sleigh all over again, except it was just the two of them this time, with the glow of the Christmas tree and the crackling of the fire as their backdrop.

“I’m so happy to hear that,” he said softly, as Margo sat back. The tight feeling in his chest was gone, replaced by something lighter, happier, as if his heart was more full than it had been in a long time. “I feel like the luckiest man in the world right now.”

He reached up, brushing a lingering tear away from her cheek with his thumb. “Do you want to help me finish the tree?”

Margo laughed, still a little shakily. “Is that cheating, since I’m running the fundraiser?”

“Not if we don’t divert from my very carefully planned theme. I already know where every ornament goes. You just have to hang them exactly where I say.”

“I’m terrible at following directions,” Margo said, and Spencer chuckled.

“Well, we’ll just have to practice. What do you say?”

“Honestly? That sounds amazing.” She took his hand, letting him help her up so that she could perch on the edge of the couch, near enough to the tree to hang ornaments on one side of it. The Christmas jazz vinyl that Spencer had put on earlier had run out, and he got up to switch it, the music filling the room as he handed Margo the microscope ornament that he’d nearly dropped earlier.

“Right there,” he said, gesturing to a branch in front of her, and she followed where he was pointing, perching it in the perfect spot. “Exactly! See, you’re a natural.”

“I haven’t decorated a Christmas tree in a long time,” she admitted, as he handed her a small, sparkly blue ball ornament. “Wasn’t much point, when I wasn’t really at home this time of year often.”

“I haven’t either. For similar reasons, except I was always at the hospital so much that I didn’t have time to decorate, and it seemed like a bit of a waste. But now I have my own house, and plenty of time. So I plan on having a tree every year, from here on out. And,” he added, turning toward Margo to give her another soft kiss, first on the mouth and then on the tip of her nose, “I would love for you to help me decorate it. You can even pick out the theme next year.”

“I like chaotic trees,” she admitted, sliding the ball onto the branch he pointed out. “The ones where you collect ornaments over time, and it becomes less and less cohesive every year.”

“Is that chaos, or a collection of memories?”

“That’s true,” Margo said, taking another of the small glass ornaments from him. “I like that way of looking at it.”

He looked at the tree, and he could imagine it next year, empty and waiting to be filled with the first of their memories. He could see Margo in this space, year after year, or maybe a slightly different one that they’d pick out on their own.

It was fast, he knew, perhaps too soon to be thinking those kinds of thoughts, but she’d said she could see a life with him too. And he knew how short life could be, just as easily as it could be full and long. He saw no reason to waste time playing games when he knew who he wanted.

Especially when it was clear now that she wanted him too.