A Mountain Springs Christmas

Chapter 13

thirteen

RACHEL

Rachel was so glad that the Allred family had welcomed her and Aiden into their family right along with Jack because their home had become her favorite place to spend Christmas Eve. They had vaulted ceilings and a giant, gorgeously decorated Christmas tree, every area was decked out with garlands and red ornaments, a gingerbread train was moving through a mini village on a table, the long tables separating the kitchen from the family room were adorned in reds and whites with greenery down the middles, and Christmas music played over the speakers.

And this year, instead of being too sick to help, she was right in the middle of the action, cutting up vegetables with her new sister-in-law, Noelle, and Noelle’s sister, Katie. She glanced over at Katie’s date, who was chatting with one of Noelle’s brothers-in-law, who was holding a two-year-old. “The guy you brought is pretty cute. How are things going with the two of you?”

Katie smiled as she glanced up from the cutting board to her date. “They’re going fine. I mean he’s not ‘the one’ or anything, but he’s still a fun boyfriend. I don’t know how much longer it’s going to last, but I’m going to enjoy the relationship for as long as it’s good.”

Noelle, who was wearing a Santa hat with the words Birthday Girl stitched into it picked up a baby carrot and asked “What’s he missing?” before taking a bite of it.

“I don’t know,” Katie said. “I’m just waiting for the guy who will just kind of grab me by the heart, you know?”

Rachel hadn’t realized it until Katie said it, but that was what she’d been waiting for, too. And Nick had totally grabbed her by the heart. If only her stomach hadn’t also been doing what it had been doing this week.

“How are things with you and Nick?” Katie asked.

Rachel lifted a shoulder in a shrug as she sliced the ends off some Brussels sprouts. “Nick is great. It’s just that I’ve been feeling like a snowball rolling downhill, unable to control the speed or the direction, and after last night, it’s like I rolled right off a cliff.”

“What happened last night?” Noelle asked.

Rachel kept cutting the ends off the Brussels sprouts and slicing them in half. “I have daily, weekly, and monthly plans so everything will stay on schedule and be predictable and nothing will get forgotten, but I haven’t been going off them much lately. Last night, after Nick’s family party—well, his late wife’s family, really—I went into my plans and they were all over the place. Nothing was right, everything was crazy, and it was a total mess. It made me feel even less in control of everything.”

“I don’t understand,” Katie said as she pushed the cut cauliflower from the cutting board into the bowl. “Why did you even go look at it all if things were going fine? Why not just roll with it?”

Rachel hadn’t been good at just “rolling with it” in her entire life. She thrived on plans. “Probably because I was trying to regain some control. Or maybe because of everything that happened at the party. Or a combination of both.”

She glanced past the dinner tables to where Nick was playing in the family room with all the little kids, fully out of earshot. She let out a big breath and put down the knife, turning to face both Katie and Noelle. “People made so many comments about Nick and me dating last night. I mean, of course, they would—they were Clara’s family, and I was just the person trying to fill her shoes. A lot of them were trying to be supportive, I could tell, but underneath, it was like they just knew that I would never be able to take Clara’s spot.”

And then she voiced the concern that had been growing over the past few days. “What if it’s the same way with Nick? From everything I’ve seen, he and Clara had a great relationship and he really loved her. What if he feels like I could never take her place and he always wishes I was more like her? And what if he isn’t even ready for a new relationship? It’s only been fourteen months since his wife passed away. If I had a husband die, I don’t know that I’d be ready to date again after just that long.”

“Men get ready for a new relationship after a spouse dies more quickly than women do,” Katie said.

“Really?”

Katie nodded. “Scientific fact.” She pointed at Noelle. “Just like Uncle Jim.”

“True,” Noelle said. “He started dating like what? Five months after Aunt Tracy died? But it had been four years since Tracy’s husband had passed, and Uncle Jim had been her first date since.” She turned to Rachel. “But everyone is different. Fourteen months might be all Nick needed.”

“Maybe,” she said, but the worry was still there. “Look how attached Aiden has gotten to Nick.”

All three of them looked over to where Nick was on the floor, kind of wrestling with all the little kids, all of them piling on top of him. The Allreds’ black lab, Captain, was getting in on the fun, too.

“Oh my goodness, that is the sweetest,” Noelle said.

They all just watched him. It really was the sweetest, seeing him have so much fun with the kids and they have so much fun with him. She loved that he was so willing to get on the floor with them. She had plenty of worries in her stomach, but the scene warmed her heart. He had been on his hands and knees, but then raised his torso, still on his knees, arms in the air, and growled. All the little kids squealed and then laughed.

Then Aiden went up to him, wrapped his arms around Nick’s neck, and gave him a tight hug. Nick’s eyes instantly found hers and she could see in that expression that he was worried about Aiden getting so attached, too, which only validated her worries.

“I’m so sorry to dump all of this on you two,” she said. “And it’s your birthday, Noelle! And Christmas Eve!”

Nick stood up, peeled a couple of kids off his legs, said something to them that made them all laugh, and then headed in her direction. Jack opened the last folding chair he’d brought up and came over, too, and both men joined them at the same time. Jack kissed Noelle on her cheek.

“Are you so excited to leave for your honeymoon tomorrow?” Katie asked

“Cancun!” Noelle said. “I can’t wait!”

Rachel was so grateful that both women changed the subject so effortlessly.

“Thanks again for letting us stay at your house tonight,” Jack said. “We’re pretty excited.”

Rachel nodded. “I’ve got the air mattress all set up for you in the living room. It’s definitely worth getting excited over.”

“I’m just glad that we can stay here as long as we’d like without having to think about making the drive back to Golden tonight,” Noelle said. “Oh, and we just heard—our house should be ready for us to move in the day before we return from our honeymoon.”

Jack smiled at her and Rachel soaked in how happy she was for her brother to have found someone that made him smile like that. “Remember when we were here a year ago?” he asked.

Noelle nodded. “It was the night that everything changed.” They looked at each other with such love before they shared a quick kiss.

Rachel looked up at Nick, who had slid in right beside her, and got a sinking in the pit of her stomach, making her wonder if tonight might be the night that everything was going to change for them, too.

“Happy birthday to Noelle,” Aiden called out.

Everyone shouted in return, “And to Noelle a good night!”

Aiden giggled even more than he had when they had shouted the same phrases last year. Probably because now he knew that its inspiration came from the poem his class had memorized.

As soon as the last item came out of the oven, Mr. Allred announced that dinner was ready and they all took their seats along the long row of tables.

All through the dinner, it just felt like something was off between her and Nick, but she couldn’t decipher how much of it was coming from her and how much of it was coming from him. All she knew was that it wasn’t only her, and it made her stomach hurt enough that she was struggling to make it look like she didn’t hate all the food on her plate. She knew from last year that every item was delicious—she just couldn’t eat it today.

Then Holly said, “Grandma, can you please pass the stuffed mushrooms?”

Rachel could tell by the way Nick stiffened when he heard evidence that his daughter had claimed this family as her own that he was worried about her attachment to them. And the only way he’d be worried about that was if he didn’t think their relationship was going to work out. Nick must’ve felt her attention on him, because he started to turn her direction, but not enough to make eye contact before glancing away.

She desperately wished that they weren’t in a room with nearly two dozen people so she could just have a conversation with Nick and understand where his thoughts were. She always felt such a calm, peaceful feeling around him, and if they could talk, she knew she’d get that back.

If she hadn’t thought that things were off before, she would’ve known they were when they sat with the Allred family to watch the Christmas Eve video that Katie made. Instead of putting an arm around her once they sat on the couch so she could snuggle into him like he would’ve done even just a couple of days ago, he sat stiffly next to her, his hands in his lap.

She was sure the video was great—especially with all the laughing and wiping of tears everyone around her was doing—but she was struggling to pay attention to it. She couldn’t pretend that things were okay with her and Nick and she couldn’t wait any longer to ask him about it. Leaning in close, she whispered, “Do you want to meet me in the living room to talk?”

He nodded, so she turned to Aiden on her other side and whispered, “I’ll be right back.” He was having so much fun with the other kids his age that he probably wouldn’t even notice that she was gone.

Once in the living room, she looked at Nick for a moment as they stood next to the smaller tree that was right in front of the Allreds’ front window. She immediately thought of that first day she’d met him when she’d gone to meet with Aiden’s teacher about making the fireplace set piece. He still stood tall, showing off that great build, his auburn hair with the perfect amount of curl. She remembered thinking back then that his eyes were the color of the sea on a cloudy day, and now there was a storm of emotion going on behind them.

“You seem to have a lot on your mind.” She did, too. Well, actually, she had a lot more going on in her gut. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He drew in a deep breath and shook his head as he glanced back in the direction of the family room, like he didn’t want to talk about anything there. Or maybe he just didn’t want to talk about it on Christmas Eve. But maybe he couldn’t pretend any longer that everything was okay, either, because he gave a slight nod.

He put his hands in his pockets, and she wondered if he maybe didn’t quite know what to say. She understood—everything she’d been feeling over the past few days was a jumble in her mind, too. A jumble of fears that were more intense now than they’d ever been. As intense as she was feeling everything, though, the look on his face told her that maybe he was feeling it more.

He reached a hand forward like maybe he was going to take her hand in his, but then decided against it and instead ran the hand over his face. “I am so new at all of this—trying to date again after Clara. And I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even know that I can do this. I kind of jumped in too quickly and didn’t anticipate or think things through enough.”

He paced over toward the window and then turned around to face her again. “I didn’t know how I would feel about dating again until I did it. And now that I have, I’m not sure about anything. And I really didn’t think about how everything would affect Holly—I was just happy that my daughter was making friends. I hadn’t thought through far enough about what would happen if…”

He let the sentence trail off like he wasn’t sure he wanted to say the words out loud. So she did. “If things with us didn’t work out?”

He looked into her eyes for a long moment, and she felt so many things pass between them so quickly that she couldn’t interpret any of them. “Yeah.”

Rachel swallowed hard, the weight in her stomach feeling like it was doubling even as she started to think her next words. She said them anyway. “I’ve been worried about the same thing. Maybe…” She trailed off, and then just decided she should plow ahead, letting that fear that had been building up so strongly inside her take the wheel. It wasn’t something she could contain much longer, anyway. “Maybe we should back away before things go any further.”

He hesitated, his mouth parted like he was going to say something. His eyes searched hers, and she could see in his just what it was doing to him. How much this was destroying him. But then he brought his lips together and nodded once in agreement.

She stood frozen, just staring at Nick as the noise level in the family room rose. The video had probably finished. Had she really just ended things with Nick? Had he? Had they both decided that it was over? That this was the best thing? She felt a tear run down her cheek and she reached up to brush it away, knowing there were many more behind it, yet also knowing that they couldn’t come yet.

The expression on Nick’s face as she felt everything inside her crumble nearly undid her. His eyes were soft, his forehead furrowed in concern, his lips pulled down. At first, she thought in sadness, and then she realized it was the look of devastation. They should’ve realized all the reasons why their relationship wouldn’t work earlier and ended things long ago. Before their hearts got in so deep that an ending would break them.

Jingle bells sounded just outside the house and the noise in the family room rose even more, mostly from the kids. Still, though, she didn’t take her eyes off Nick until Aiden and Holly raced into the room.

“Mom!” Aiden shouted, grabbing her hand. “We have to get home and get to sleep super quickly!”

“Santa is almost here!” Holly said, grabbing Nick’s hand and pulling him toward the couch that held their coats as Aiden pulled Rachel toward the family room, where she’d left her things.

She kept her eyes on Nick for as long as she could, feeling that as they were being pulled apart, he was taking her heart with him.