Snowflakes and Surprises (Evergreen Hollow Christmas #2)

Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

On Wednesday night, Rhett was at the firehouse late.

He’d gotten the night shift for the next couple of weeks, and he was glad that he’d been able to quickly find someone who could watch Jay in the evenings—a pleasant older lady who had been sweet and had quickly hit it off with his son. That was another benefit of living here, he thought as he walked to the kitchen for a snack. In the city, he would have been a lot more worried about finding someone he felt safe with, even though there would have been more options. Here, he felt a lot more secure.

He walked in, still musing over it, and saw Pete Godfrey leaning up against the counter with his second cup of coffee for the evening. Pete had been quick to try to make friends with Rhett, which Rhett appreciated. That had been another thing he hadn’t been sure about. He wanted to make friends and feel like part of the community, but he had wondered how quickly he’d be accepted.

It hadn’t been something he’d had to be concerned about. Evergreen Hollow didn’t seem stuck up about newcomers. Everyone had been friendly, and he already felt that he could count Pete among his friends.

“Anticipating something exciting happening tonight?” Rhett joked, opening the fridge and looking for the peanut butter and crackers he’d packed. Having a kid meant that his snacks and Jay’s often seemed to be the same thing. “You’re really loading up on the caffeine.”

Pete laughed, taking another drink. “Just keeping myself awake. I think the excitement of that false smoke alarm at the inn is going to have to tide us over for a while, as far as emergency calls go. We don’t get a lot of big fires or emergencies in this sleepy little town. Which is a good thing,” he added. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad we’re not dealing with burning buildings or awful stuff happening every couple of days. But it does make for uneventful days and nights. Plus, a lot of folks rely on each other for crises. They don’t call unless it’s really something they think they need to worry about. Or in the case of the inn, they’ve got guests, so they’ve got to be extra careful.”

“People really rely on each other that much, huh?” Rhett sank down into one of the chairs at the small table in the corner. “Help each other out, all of that?”

“Oh, yeah.” Pete nodded sagely. “In a town this size? Everyone knows everyone. They know their health problems and worries, whose kids have what going on, whose marriage is great and whose is in trouble, if someone is having money problems—the list goes on and on. There’s not much that someone already doesn’t know about you if you’ve breathed a word of it—and sometimes they figure it out even if you haven’t.”

“How long before that applies to me?” Rhett asked, and Pete broke out into a peal of laughter.

“Oh, trust me, by now everyone knows you’re the new guy in town, and they’ll all be talking about you being here. It’s probably the most exciting news of the week.”

Rhett laughed. That small-town dynamic was new to him, and a little strange still, but he didn’t think he minded it. It meant he could rely on the people around him, he thought, and know who he could really trust and count on. A small, insular community was exactly what he wanted for himself and Jay—people who looked out for each other and cared about each other’s lives.

“Do you really know pretty much everyone in town?” Rhett asked curiously, and Pete chuckled, polishing off his coffee.

“I sure do,” Pete boasted. “Everyone, and just about everything you might want to know about them.”

Rhett wasn’t entirely sure he believed him. He was curious as to whether or not that could really be true, and he thought quizzing his new friend on it a little might be an amusing way to pass the time, especially if the evening was likely to be as boring as Pete said.

Plus , he thought as he spread a little more peanut butter on his crackers, frowning at the snack, I might get to find out more about that beautiful woman at the inn.

The night of the fire alarm hadn’t been the right time to ask her anything—he’d been doing his job, and she’d looked more than a little frazzled. And when he’d run into her at the restaurant again, her friends had been so excited to grill him that he’d barely gotten a word in. But maybe Pete could shed a little light on her.

“Do you know the woman who runs The Mistletoe Inn? I think she said her name was Caroline when we met the other night during the smoke alarm scare.”

Pete nodded. “Yeah. I mean—I know who she is. I don’t know her all that well. She doesn’t actually run the inn herself—her parents own it, but she helps out. It’s her whole thing.”

“Her whole thing?” Rhett frowned, leaning back. “What do you mean?”

“Like I said, I don’t know her all that well. I went to school with her, years ago. She’s always been the dutiful one in the family, eldest kid, all of that. After we graduated, she went right into helping her parents manage that place. The other two took off. The youngest one, Margo, doesn’t live here—no idea where she went. And the middle daughter, Nora, took off to Boston for years. No one thought she’d come back either, but she turned up last year and stayed put. Married the town carpenter, so I guess that had a lot to do with it.”

Rhett stayed silent, curious and wanting to hear more. It was clear that Pete enjoyed talking about the town gossip, and he wasn’t in any hurry to stop him. He felt like he was learning quite a bit.

“She’s a super nice woman,” Pete continued. “A bit closed-off, but not mean. Just always seemed like she was focused on the inn and nothing else. Honestly, she’s been out and about in town more since her sister came back, and it’s the most we’ve all seen of her in years, other than running errands. She pretty much was a homebody, always busy, always real focused on that place.” He grinned, wiggling his eyebrows. “Why? You getting some ideas about her? She’s definitely single.”

Rhett shook his head. “My ex-wife isn’t in the picture any longer, but I don’t have time for all of that. I haven’t even thought about it, to be honest. A new relationship isn’t on my radar—I’ve got my son to think about, and that really takes up all my bandwidth.”

Pete nodded sagely. “Kids, man. Who watches Jay when you’re working shifts anyway? If you need someone, I can help out.”

“I appreciate it.” Rhett smiled gratefully. “But I’m fortunate that I’ve already got someone when I have to work shifts outside of school hours—there’s a nice neighbor who’s been helping me out, Mrs. Gallie. She’s been keeping an eye on him.”

“Ah, I know her too. She’s good people.” Pete refilled his coffee mug, making Rhett look at him sideways. “You’ve really settled in, then.”

“I’m trying to. Evergreen Hollow is a friendly place. You all make it easy.” It was true. He’d had no trouble finding someone to help with Jay, no issues in setting up his new life. But he couldn’t help thinking, as he sat there, that he missed having a complete family to go home to. That it felt a little as if something were missing when he had to drop his son off with a neighbor while he was at work.

Pete glanced at the clock. “Looks like it’s going to be a long night.” He produced a deck of cards from his pocket, settling into the chair across from Rhett at the table. “How about a friendly game of poker? We’ll play for change, no high stakes.”

“Sounds good to me.” Rhett grinned, getting up to get himself a cup of coffee.

From the looks of it, his new job would involve very few emergencies, and much more time to kill.

The snow had begun to fall again as Nora curled up in the living room of her home, surrounded by her decor work so far and trying to envision what else she would need to do for the party.

She had her tablet on her lap, magazines scattered in front of her, working on mood boards on Pinterest to organize her ideas. She loved this part of the process, just after the chaotic part where ideas flowed freely, and she could begin to see them fit together like pieces of a puzzle. She frowned, scrolling through a list of images, and glanced around the room again.

She felt as if it were all beginning to come together, but something was missing. She just couldn’t quite put her finger on what. She’d wanted to add a focal point to the living room since they’d moved in, but she hadn’t been able to decide what it should be. Nothing felt quite right.

“Nora?” Aiden’s sleepy voice came from behind her, and she turned to see her husband in plaid pajama pants and a black t-shirt, his hair rumpled. “You should come to bed. Otherwise, you’ll be up all night before you know it.”

She laughed, a little self-consciously. She knew he was right. Back in the Boston days, when she’d lived alone, there had been plenty of nights when she’d been so fixated on work that she’d stayed up until the early morning hours without realizing it. Those days had always resulted in having to go to work and attend client meetings on very little sleep. Her schedule was more flexible now, but she knew she still needed to take care of herself better than she used to.

“You’re right,” she admitted, closing the tablet and setting it and the magazines aside. “I should probably get some rest.”

“What ideas did you come up with?” Aiden asked, coming to lean against the side of the couch. “You’ve been at it since dinner.”

“Well, I think we’re going to go with all golds and reds.” Nora bit her lip, looking around the space. “Lots of velvet, faux fur trim accents on any textiles, keeping a color theme with the tree ornaments, and plenty of candles. Very luxe old-world Victorian. That high ceiling means we can get a huge tree.”

Aiden chuckled, grinning at her. “Well, I do remember how good you are with heights.”

Nora glared at him teasingly, remembering all too well how he’d nearly frightened her into falling off a ladder when they’d first met again, startling her when he’d walked into the room and asked what she was doing on his ladder in the town’s event center. “I’m fantastic on ladders.”

“So you are.” He leaned down, giving her a kiss on the top of her head. “And I’ll always stand under the ladder for you, so you can climb as high as you need to in order to get things just right.”

Nora leaned back into her husband’s embrace, her gaze sweeping around the large room once more. “There’s something else I need,” she mused. “Something to pull it all together. I just can’t think of what, yet.”

“You will,” Aiden said confidently. “You always do.”

She smiled at him, getting up from the couch. “I’m excited to share all of this with our friends. To have a big party for the town, right here.”

“It’ll be the first of many Christmas memories.” He gave her a soft kiss, his hand sliding into hers. “Come upstairs?”

Nora nodded, following him with their fingers still entwined. “I am tired,” she admitted with a smile. “I’ll think about it more tomorrow. And what I need for a centerpiece.”

She wanted everything to be perfect for their first Christmas in their new home.