A Mountain Springs Christmas

Chapter 9

nine

RACHEL

Rachel leaned in close to the mirror as she applied mascara. Aiden sat on the side of the bathtub, swinging his legs so that his heels hit the bathtub, making a reverberating thudding sound. He’d already asked questions about what she and Nick were going to be doing, what she thought he and Holly were going to do with Holly’s grandparents, and if he got to stay up late.

Those questions she fielded like a pro. She’d also fielded texts from Courtney and Lucy about the date and what things she’d said yes to today like a pro. But when Aiden asked, “Is Nick going to be my dad?” she jerked enough that she swiped the mascara wand across the skin beside her eye.

After Aiden was born, she always thought that when she got serious with someone, she would have time to figure out how much she liked them and would only introduce them to Aiden once she was sure about the relationship. She didn’t want him forming his own opinions before she got a chance to form her own, and she definitely didn’t want him getting attached if things weren’t going to work out.

But since it was through Aiden that she met Nick, that plan went out the window. Nothing about this was going as planned. What she needed to do was set some expectations and be as honest as she could with him.

She grabbed a tissue, got it a little wet, and then started wiping the mascara off. “I don’t know, buddy, because I don’t know how much we like each other yet. We probably won’t know until we’ve been on a few more dates—it hasn’t been nearly long enough for us to start thinking about things like that.” Not that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind more than a time or two or a thousand. Honestly, though, she was surprised that Aiden had gotten there already.

“But you like him,” Aiden said, dragging out the word “like” as he did a little torso dance while still sitting. Then he stood to add more extravagance to his dance. “You really like him.”

Her cheeks suddenly went pinker than the blush she’d already put on as she thought about how much she did like Nick. Everything had changed Saturday night at the wedding. There had been so many moments when he’d just been thoughtful or a sweet father or had looked at her with an expression of adoration that made her knees weak. So many things he’d said all night long had made her fall just a little bit more for him.

And there had definitely been moments when a fire built in her chest that made her want to grab him by the front of his suit jacket and pull him to her so he could kiss her senseless.

They’d texted back and forth on Sunday so much and he’d been so charming and witty and fun. She couldn’t wait until Tuesday to see him and eventually invited him and Holly over that night. She and Aiden had planned to do their annual snowflake creating tradition—which he’d gotten a jump start on weeks ago—and get them hung from the ceiling. Aiden was thrilled that more people would be joining in on a tradition that was one of his favorites.

She’d known that she’d love having Nick and his daughter join them. What she hadn’t anticipated was watching Nick’s shoulder and arm muscles flex as he climbed onto the step ladder to tape each of the snowflake’s strings to their ceiling. That had brought its own joy to her world.

“I do like him. How about you?”

Aiden shrugged, looking so nonchalant, even though he hadn’t managed to wipe the smile completely off his face. “He’s cool.”

Rachel walked hand-in-hand with Nick down Main Street, both of them sipping from cups of warm wassail, looking at all the lights and decorations just as snow started to softly fall. Everything about the evening had been perfect. The dinner, the conversation, and now that they were just out enjoying the season, the feeling that there wasn’t anywhere else they needed to be, the peace.

“This feels straight out of It’s a Wonderful Life ,” she said.

“Except in color.”

“And I’m not wearing a dress.”

“That’s downright scandalous.” Nick pulled his phone out of his pocket. “What do you say to a selfie to remember the occasion?”

She snuggled in close to him as they both smiled at the phone camera. She had to admit that they looked pretty cute next to each other.

“You know, Jimmy is my middle name.”

She looked over at Nick. “Really. Your full name is Nicholas Jimmy Stewart?”

He laughed. “No, my middle name is Buckles.”

“Buckles?”

“Hey, don’t knock it. It was my maternal grandpa’s last name.” He paused a moment. “And his first name was Jimmy.”

She gave him a playful smack on the arm. “It was not.”

“True story. We went to Grandpa Jimmy and Grandma Ina’s farm every year growing up.”

As he told about it, the feeling of peace with him settled in more deeply. She had not been expecting that emotion at all. Lately, with all she had been saying yes to, she’d been feeling rather overwhelmed. She was trying to do all the traditions that she and Aiden had developed over the years, like the snowflakes and their Christmas movie marathon. Then all the town events, like the Christmas sing-in they went to last night. And then after last year, they’d added several traditions with Noelle’s big family, and every night she was coming home from work and hurrying to get Aiden ready for the next thing.

And all the Christmas shopping. She couldn’t forget that.

New relationships took time, too. Time she was more than happy to spend. Each time her phone dinged with a new text from Nick, her heart lit up like the big tree in Downtown Park.

As busy as the Season of Yes was making her, saying yes to a date with Nick was calming her stressed heart in ways she hadn’t even guessed it would do.

But still, whenever she was with him, thoughts of his late wife would inevitably pop into her head. It was clear that he loved her. That he still did. Which was honestly super endearing. She was glad that he did and that he kept Clara alive in Holly’s thoughts. She wouldn’t want anything different from him. She just didn’t know how that would affect how he felt about her .

“Do you mind if I ask how Clara died?” She probably should’ve eased her way into the question. But she’d wanted to ask for a while, and it felt like it needed to be soon. Probably not blurting-it-out soon, but it was too late to pull it back.

He didn’t seem taken aback that she asked—he just looked up at the falling snow, one of the flakes landing on an eyelash before speaking. “From a heart condition she’d probably had since she was young that none of us knew about. We were completely blindsided. I only knew there was a problem when she didn’t show up to the school to pick up Holly from kindergarten as she had planned.”

“Oh. That must have been so hard.”

“It really was.”

She had an overwhelming urge to just hold him close and make everything better, but she didn’t know what to say. Instead of saying something comforting, she heard the words, “I had cancer” come from her mouth.

Nick’s steps halted momentarily.

“Last year,” she continued, “Acute Myeloid Leukemia. It was rough, but even with as rough as it got, I never worried that I wouldn’t be there for Aiden as he grew up. I always had a gut feeling that I would make it through to the very end. And I did—my scan six months ago came back clean.”

She could tell he was rattled, but she didn’t know what to do about that. The cancer was simply a fact. One that she worried could very well scare him away, especially after losing his wife.

“Everything is good now, then?” His voice wavered a bit, but she could tell he was trying to make the words come out strong and confident.

She shrugged. “I mean, yeah. Everything looks good so far. It was an aggressive cancer, but I had age and a good health history on my side. A lot of things really went my way, actually.”

“That must have been intense. I’m very glad to hear you made it through.” They walked in silence for several long moments. She stayed quiet, knowing that he needed time to process.

He must not have wanted to process out loud, though, because he changed the subject. “Do you mind if I ask about Aiden’s dad?”

Rachel wondered if the question had been as burning to him as asking about his wife had been for her. It took a moment to think about how to even explain because there was so much more to it than the short version.

“That’s not something I can explain in a sentence or two.”

Nick gestured at all the lights and decorations on Main Street and at the soft snow that felt like it was almost glowing from the light strands crossing over Main Street. “I can walk up and down this street with you as many times as needed. Ten? A hundred? You’ve got it.”

She chuckled and secretly swooned. How long had it been since she’d been on a date when the guy was so interested in everything she said? Long enough ago that she couldn’t remember.

“Okay, then. Um, to explain, I need to go back to age eighteen when my parents died. Jack was fifteen, and the night they got in that wreck was the night I first became a parent.”

That had been a dozen years ago, yet it was still hard to bring up. Probably because bringing it up always brought back the emotions she’d felt that night when the officer knocked on their door. So much had changed at that moment. More than she could comprehend. All she’d felt was the whirlwind in her mind, the stabbing pain in her gut, the ache in her heart. It took days, weeks, and months to begin to understand all the emotions that came with the news.

“But at least I’d had a lot of practice with parenting before then—our mom struggled with a lot of things and would often check out for weeks at a time. But it was different once it was only the two of us. Jack started acting out and kind of lost his way a bit.”

“That’s a completely understandable reaction. Losing both parents at the same time had to be tough.”

She nodded, feeling the truth of that statement deep in her bones. She had been dealing with her own grief all while trying to be everything Jack needed her to be. And that was on top of simply being eighteen and trying to figure out how to be an adult and make the decisions that would impact her future so much.

“Jack didn’t go to college right after high school. I think all of those first years were hard, but that one was especially tough for a lot of reasons. But then he figured out what he wanted to do and what he needed to do to get there and started college just a year late. He lived with me that year—we were both in college. That was a great year.

“Then I graduated and he moved into a dorm on campus with some friends, and a friend moved into my place as my roommate. I just felt…” She wasn’t even sure how to express what the emotions had been like that year. “Adrift, maybe? I think I had gotten so used to being the parent, the one in charge, and I didn’t know how to not have Jack to look after. It had become a good part of my identity, I think.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong— it was great to not have so much responsibility piled on me. But I suddenly no longer had school to focus on and I was working a job I hated that had nothing to do with my degree and Jack was doing great and didn’t need me so much.

“After having to be the responsible one since I was young, I kind of had my own rebellious moment and made some less-than-great choices. At the same time, though, I felt a bit like…” She paused. “I don’t know, like an empty nester, maybe? I think I was just really craving someone in my life to take care of. And those two things didn’t mix well.

“So I dated a crappy guy. And one night, the crappy telephone customer service job I had laid everyone off the same day that my roommate announced that she was moving out of state. I was feeling extra rebellious and in need of someone. It was one night of poor decisions, and before long, I found out I was pregnant.”

She glanced at Nick, almost afraid to see his reaction, but the look on his face was that of concern. Undivided attention. And something else. Understanding without judgment, maybe? Whatever it was, it made her whole chest feel warm and light even as the snow fell all around them.

“Anyway, I let the guy know, and he was mad because it didn’t fit with his life plans. The day I told him was the last time I ever saw him. Eventually, a lawyer delivered papers where he’d signed away his parental rights and asked me never to contact him again. He didn’t even know when Aiden was born because he never wanted to.”

She looked at Nick again, and he was breathing heavily, eyebrows drawn together like he was ready to stand up to the guy right then and let him know what he thought of it all and her breath caught. She hadn’t experienced a guy outside of her brother who had ever shown that kind of protectiveness of her before. He shook his head. “I can’t even fathom not wanting to be there—to even know—your own kid.”

She studied his expression, drinking in the look on his face that came with that statement. It was so authentic and it pulled at her heart.

“It might have been a decision I regretted making, and I definitely wouldn’t have chosen the timing.” She shook her head. “Those first few years were so hard. But in the end, I got Aiden. And he means the world to me.”

“And he’s a great kid,” Nick said.

They stopped, right there at the winter wonderland display in front of Trove of Oldies and she just nodded as she looked into Nick’s eyes. His hat and the shoulders of his coat were covered in snow—she hadn’t noticed that it had started coming down so much—and the air was cold enough that each of their breaths were little puffs of clouds.

But those eyes of his were warm. Inviting. Full of all the things she’d been hoping for, both consciously and subconsciously, since the day she’d found out she was going to have a baby.

And he was looking at her like he really saw her. All of her. He wasn’t ignoring any parts of her that he didn’t like—he was looking at her like she didn’t even have parts that he didn’t like. Like she was everything just the way she was, and she’d never felt so accepted.

His eyes flicked to her lips, and suddenly she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than to have his lips on hers. She took a step toward him, and the look of longing on his face intensified. A snowflake fell right on his cheek and melted. He closed the gap between them, and suddenly the snow and the cold felt just beyond them. There was nothing between them but warmth and peace.

He reached with two fingers to brush the snow-covered hair away from her cheek, and the touch of his fingers sent a tingling warmth through her whole body.

Then she heard a buzzing sound and he looked at his watch, his eyebrows pulling together. “Oh. It’s my mother-in-law.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and answered it, putting it on speakerphone. “Hello?” His voice was concerned.

“I’m so sorry to bother you on your date.” Rachel recognized Linda’s voice from when she’d met her just before their date.

“Are Holly and Aiden okay?”

“Now don’t panic.”

“Linda, that’s not helping me not to panic. Are they okay?”

“They were just playing in the snow and Holly jumped off the porch and landed on one of those big rocks in the flower beds— she didn’t see it because of the snow—and hurt her ankle. Ben says it’s not broken and it’s not bad enough to need a doctor, but it still hurts. She just—”

“We’ll be right there.” He said goodbye and looked at Rachel. “I’m so sorry to end things early. That is not what I would have chosen.”

She smiled at him, loving that he would be willing to end things early to look out for his daughter. Out of every moment tonight, that might have made her fall for him the most.

And it was also the most quintessentially parental thing that possibly could’ve happened tonight. So much so, that she should have known without a doubt that it would happen. But boy did she wish that the kiss that had seemed so inevitable moments ago had happened. She could almost feel how sweet his lips would be against hers.