More chapters of free Christmas novella!

Volume 2 of the Match Made in Almost Heaven duo

CHAPTERS 11-20

story by Nora Edinger

noraedinger.com

cover design by Phyllis Sigal

Copyright 2023

dedicated to Erica and Rachel

*****

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoy reading this Christmas romance, done in the heart-lightening spirit of the season, as much as I enjoyed writing it. Set in my home state of choice, West Virginia, Stand Still & Chill is the second half of my Match Made in Almost Heaven duo. The first half, Suspended Aggravation, was released in 2020 as patron-sponsored art and remains available as a free read through Weelunk online magazine and at noraedinger.com.

Releasing Stand Still & Chill as a free read is a celebration of thanksgiving for more than 30 years in the writing business. While I retired from journalism in summer 2023 and am enjoying a second career that has nothing to do with sitting in front of a computer, I still hope to take on occasional projects that capture my interest. So, this might not be the last you hear from me…

Thank you for reading this novella in the meantime. Thank you for sharing this link hither and yon. And, may all the joys and wonders of the season be yours!

Blessings and Merry Christmas!!

Nora

P.S. If you missed chapters 1-10 of Stand Still & Chill, they can be found on my Facebook feed or under the blog button at noraedinger.com.

P.P.S. The final 10 chapters of this novella will post on Facebook and noraedinger.com on Sunday, Dec.10

Chapter 11

Brianna’s happy-to-be-home spirit held out through the whole drive back to Wheeling. She sang praise songs round curve after curve of mountain road. Inspired by the scenery, she even tried, “Over the River and Through the Woods,” but could only remember patches of the words. She filled in the blank parts with “la, la, la-laaa” until she got bored and flipped on the radio.

Things changed the minute she pulled into the Reed family driveway, however. Her dad ambled out of the house with something that was nearly a smile and a bit of a hug. But, when he took her bags in hand and headed back inside, he let her know he still wasn’t thrilled with her job du jour. “It’s good to see you pumpkin. We were worried you might not be able to find your way back from the holler,” he said.

Sadly, the friction didn’t end there.

“So, Brianna, have you considered posting your resume on trees like those ‘no hunting’ signs that some people put up,” her dad “joked” on the big day itself. It was long after Chelsea Reed’s expertly made turkey dinner – at least the expertly made dinner that she had ordered from a caterer known for producing such meals — had been enjoyed and the kitchen tidied. “There might be at least a squirrel or two around to take notice.”

The entire family was hanging around in a large TV room, sort of watching football but mostly talking. Brianna gave a tight smile, but didn’t respond to her father’s sarcastic humor directly. She, instead, decided to remind them all why she had left her Charleston job in the first place with a choice bit of gossip. “I hear Gov. Blenning’s wife is filing for divorce and moving to Tuscany,” she said.

That was all it took. Both her parents, her brothers and their respective wives immediately began speculating as to how long and how nasty the divorce would be and just how much an Italian villa might cost these days. The Blennings weren’t exactly the Rockefellers, but the couple had money. Serious money. Both together and separately. None of the Reeds could imagine an amicable outcome.

Brianna tuned out the feeding frenzy and sighed first a brief prayer of repentance for causing it, then another of thanksgiving that the Blennings’ three children were in their late teens and early 20s, past the age of ugly custody battles. Then she cringed – imagine having to deal with that kind of family news while still in high school or college. No wonder God has a top 10 list of things not to do.

Her own family’s attention was now thoroughly distracted from her, but it was still a comfort to Brianna when her brother John nudged her with his elbow and offered an aside to the roiling discussion. “Don’t let dad get you down,” he whispered in her ear. “Doing something out of the ordinary can be good.”

Brianna smiled at her oldest brother and elbowed him back even harder because that is just what sisters do. “Out of the ordinary.” She liked that phrasing a whole lot better than “out of character.”

John was certainly one who would know about such things. If “out of the ordinary” was a sports team, John would be captain. He had charted his own career map from the minute he’d finished college, eschewing the for-profit sector his dad favored and, instead, using his engineering skills to develop a series of products that made life in developing nations at least a little bit easier. John didn’t make a lot of money with his solar stoves, water purifiers and such stuff, particularly given that his organization was strictly non-profit. But, he made the world a better place.

Even their dad – captain of industry that he was — had finally acknowledged that. For the most part. He did still call John “Captain Granola” and “my son, the bleeding-heart liberal” on occasion, but he made a sizeable annual contribution to the development of whatever new endeavor John was up to. This year, it was something oddly low tech for John. Something about shoes that were easy to manufacture and protecting people’s feet from some sort of horrific parasite that lurked in soil. She’d have to ask John more later, when no one was eating or even thinking about eating.

So, knowing her dad was her dad and wasn’t likely to change, Brianna let go of the anger and angst that his comment had stirred up and let her mind float along with her family’s examination of topics that diverged from the governor’s woes to natural-gas fracking. The Reed family had enough land outside the city proper to have a wallet in the game so to speak.

Still later, however, the Reed’s went at each other as to how tightly regulated farmer’s markets should be by the state. Specifically, there was concern about the dangers of crème-filled pastries, the refrigeration capabilities of visiting chefs and, more oddly, rabbits being available for on-site slaughter. Eeewwww. Brianna had no idea how that subject had come up, probably something to do with John, she guessed. She didn’t really care. For once, she had little to say. She just sat there, sort of listening and beginning to understand her family on a new, more grown-up level.

The Reeds – all of them — were terribly opinionated and bossy. They were almost fierce, in fact. But, not because they were cruel. They just cared so deeply about so many things. Money was one of those things, of course. But, only one of them. She looked at them — her mom, her dad, her brothers and sisters-in-law all debating, and her nieces and nephews playing cut-throat board games around the hearth like they were in some sort of Norman Rockwell painting. If Norman Rockwell had painted ardent capitalists in their formative years. She looked – and she truly realized something.

Warts and all, the Reeds were hers and she was theirs. She might not always like them, but she loved them and knew they loved her — even if she did choose to live in a valley that was on the back side of beyond. It was Thanksgiving and she was thankful, indeed.

*****

Brianna was still feeling that unexpected joy of being home hours later, snuggled deep into the downy duvet that graced her childhood bed. She read her childhood Bible by the light of her childhood reading lamp and began thanking God for her family, her home, her health and the life she’d been given.

In spite of the potential conflict with her dad after dinner, she didn’t know when she had ever felt this peaceful. She knew without doubt that part of it was her change of jobs. Compared to the hectic pace she’d kept since graduating from college, promoting Corduroy barely felt like working. It was such a relaxed work environment, in fact, that the tight feeling that had been present in her shoulders and neck for years was now completely gone. She hadn’t even known her muscles were that tense until the feeling had disappeared.

Robert was paying her way too much, she instantly decided, particularly since his ulterior motive for bringing her to Cranberry was obviously — and sadly, perhaps — not going to come to fruition. Rafe barely seemed to notice she was alive. Hmmm. Brianna fretted for a few minutes then reached a conclusion. If she didn’t know she was leaving Canaan Valley in another five months or less, the wages and short-term benefits would be a problem. But, she was leaving, so they weren’t. Robert was the one who made the offer and he could easily afford her work for the short term. It was OK.

Luxuriously stretching out her spine and legs, she wondered if it was more than the slowed work pace that was making her feel oddly like a fat cat in the sun. Could it also be the lack of dating? She hadn’t been out on a single date – unless she counted the day spent with Rafe, which she certainly did not – since early September. Yet another guy had disappeared from her life right at the end of the summer and, given the hectic nature of the election season, she’d opted not to start anything else. There had been no sparks of romance or disappointment – unless she counted Rafe’s lack of interest, which she certainly did not – for more than two months.

Brianna smiled. That must be it. Slow work pace. No guys. “It feels good to chill,” she said to Teddy, as in Teddy the bear, who, of course, had accompanied her home.

Chill…

On impulse, Brianna sat up and began fishing through the back section of her Bible, wondering if she could find references for the words “stand still.” Nope. Her concordance was extremely limited, which was not surprising considering the Bible had cartoon sheep on its front cover. She grabbed her smart phone and did a quick search using it instead.

Bingo. The words appeared twice in the King James Version of the Old Testament. More screen scrolling. There the first verse was, Exodus 14:13. Moses, talking to a people trapped between the devilish pharaoh of Egypt and the deep blue sea, told them to not be afraid. “Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD.”

Still more screen scrolling. The other reference was from 2 Chronicles 20. This time, God said them to King Jehoshaphat, promising to deliver the kingdom of Judah from a different enemy army.

She contemplated the two stories for a moment, trying to imagine the panic of having no escape from warriors intent on capture or slaughter. “Fear not,” the groups were told. She suspected that people living then were pretty much the same as people now. They must have keenly felt the terror and distress in spite of this directive. Yet, even if doubt and fear were high, God had rescued both groups miraculously. Moses and his people were saved with a wind strong enough to move water and Jehoshaphat and his people were rescued with a praise choir that inspired God to fight the battle for them.

Was that yet another reason she was so oddly content at the moment? The Gov. Blenning disaster was none of her doing. Another man’s lousy decision had caused a firestorm that could have reached out to scorch her — along with several other people. Had God provided a route of escape via the Corduroy job before she even knew she had needed one? She hadn’t sent out a single resume or placed even one phone call. She had – very uncharacteristically — stood still and, now, she was being refreshed in yet another escape she hadn’t even known she needed.

Stand still. Chill.

Was her brief season at Corduroy more than something out of the ordinary? Was it her opportunity to rest, to stand still and to see God in action? Such thoughts were big. Too big, it turned out, after such a large dinner. Brianna was asleep before she could even begin to come to an answer to that question.

*****

The Morellis were a different kettle of fish. If Brianna’s family could be summed up by the words “vigorous debate,” the Morellis would probably be symbolized by “group hug.”

On Saturday evening – after a three-day contest of wits and endurance with various Reed family members – Brianna took a deep breath and went over to Allie’s and Gabe’s to join that couple and Gabe’s parents for a Christmas movie marathon.

Gabe and his mom, Michelle, were huge old movie buffs. It was the group’s second annual such event and Brianna was delighted to be included, although it felt a little weird to be there alone instead of with Mark Morelli, as she had been last year. She suddenly realized the she was the one who had gotten the follow-up invitation. Mark and his wife had not. She felt even more thankful for her friends.

But, lovey-huggy vibe, or not, watching movies for hours on end while sitting shoulder to shoulder was eventually more than busy-bee Brianna could take. It wasn’t long before she and Allie were off to one side of the living room in deep chat, instead.

“Ooo, there’s another one,” Allie said, touching her tummy and smiling dreamily.

“Another what?” Brianna asked in alarm. “Are you in labor?”

Allie giggled. “Not quite yet. The doctor said my body is just headed that way with some early contractions. I’m already dilated to one centimeter.” She settled deeper into her wingback chair and sighed a happy sigh.

Brianna wasn’t sure what “dilated to one centimeter” meant, but she suspected there was pain involved. How could Allie be so blissed out with all of that looming? It must be the pregnancy hormones. “You still don’t know if you’re having a boy or a girl?” Brianna asked, unwilling to venture any further, even conversationally, into the territory of labor and childbirth.

“No,” Allie said with an even dreamier smile that was directed at Gabe, who was coming back from the kitchen with fresh bowls of popcorn for the group and a quick kiss for his wife. “We want to be surprised.”

Brianna looked at Gabe, who had settled back in with his parents for the start of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, considerately leaving Allie to enjoy some time with her friend. She had never seen a man so delighted to have a child on the way. Her brothers truly loved their kids, but they weren’t like that. She could already tell that Gabe was going to be a wonderful father.

For some reason, that made Brianna wonder about Rafe. Is he the kind of man who would want children? Would he be a good dad?

“So, how are things going with Rafe Davis?” Allie asked suddenly. Brianna was so startled by her friend’s seeming bit of mind reading that she couldn’t respond for a moment. She just stared. “That good?” Allie laughed.

“No,” Brianna sputtered and looked away quickly, unwilling to share the disappointing state of her own love life with her happily married friend. She would never, evertell anyone that the prospect of dating Rafe Davis had been a part of what had lured her to Canaan, especially not considering how things had turned out. “There’s absolutely nothing between us. Nothing at all.”

“Well,” Allie said, looking at Brianna thoughtfully. “That’s unusual.”

Brianna didn’t know what to say to that. It was unusual. Most men, if given the opportunity to date her, took it. Sticking around was clearly another story.

“I wonder …” Allie began.

But, Brianna cut her off. “We’d better get back to the movie, don’t you think?” she said. “I need to go home and pack when this one’s over. I’m headed back to Canaan Valley after church in the morning.” She turned away from Allie and toward the screen, not noticing the quizzical and then knowing looks that passed across her friend’s face.

After 15 minutes of watching White Christmas as if she was going to be tested on details of the plotline later – so rapt was her forced attention — Brianna no longer cared what Allie might be wondering about Rafe Davis. Brianna had fished her trusty clip board out of her bag and was actually taking notes.

Hmmmm. The movie plotline was certainly familiar in an odd sort of way, Brianna couldn’t help but notice. Christmastime. A ski lodge owned by an older widower. No snow. A widespread rallying cry that gave the lodge a leg up in bookings until the snow arrived. It was like old Hollywood had reached out of the screen and smacked her upside the head. She scribbled a few more words, then drew a snowman with a smiley face on the paper.

This was one of the most interesting PR ideas she had ever had.

Chapter 12

“They’re called Snow White and Prince Charming?” Brianna laughed. “Really? Or, are you making that up?”

Robert laughed. “Nope. Apparently Chris’s and Mattie’s oldest daughter named these horses when she was in her Disney princess years,” he said. “We can’t change them now. We’ll confuse the poor things.”

 Brianna looked skeptically at the old gray mare and the spotted gelding, running her fingers down the velvety muzzle of the first. There were some bare patches here and there, she noticed, not unlike on Teddy, as in Teddy the bear. But, well-worn or not, Snow White could still respond to affection in the manner of all horses. She snorted gently and moved a little closer. Brianna took that as a sign of approval and moved on to give her new charge a scratch around the ears.

She’d deliberately stopped by to see the horses on her way back from Wheeling after Robert had texted her news of their arrival early Sunday morning. To say both animals were long in the tooth would be putting it mildly. She was surprised that Robert would buy such, well, geriatric creatures. She imagined that Chris’s and Mattie’s trail-riding business meant the pair were available, inexpensive and close at hand.

But, still. She looked at Robert, the doubt evident on her face.

“Hey, don’t be so judgmental. I’m old, too,” he laughed. “All three of us still have plenty of good miles ahead, Lord willing. Plus, they’ll be a whole lot easier to take care of than some spry young things.”

Aha! So, that’s it.

Brianna looked pointedly at Robert this time and realized the man had deliberately gotten old trail horses — the gentlest horses he could possibly find – purely for her sake. That understanding made her throat tighten with unshed tears. She was Brianna Reed, a battle ax by both family heritage and profession. She wasn’t used to such niceties, even from family members. Make that especially from family members.

“Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely. Then, she surprised even herself by rising onto her tiptoes and hugging her employer soundly. She tucked her head against his shoulder as his arms closed around her in a fatherly embrace. “Robert, this is one of the nicest …”

Before she could finish the sentence, though, Rafe appeared from inside the barn. His startled gaze met hers over Robert’s shoulder and Brianna instantly ended the hug. She sank back onto her heels and stepped away from Robert, instantly uncomfortable for some reason she couldn’t quite identify.

Rafe walked over to the fence where the royal equine duo were obviously begging for a pet or, more likely, for the peppermints he now held out in his open palms for each of them. With his back still turned to his two human companions, he finally spoke. “I’m heading back up the mountain, dad,” he said. “I just wanted to say bye before I left.”

There was an awkward pause while Rafe continued to look at the horses and Robert and Brianna looked at Rafe’s back. Finally, Rafe turned to face them, or at least Robert. “So, goodbye,” he said with a wry smile. “I’m glad we got to be together this weekend.”

At that, Robert instantly stepped forward and offered a hug this time. “I am, too, son.” The two men, both of whom looked somewhat subdued Brianna noticed, did one of those back-slapping, shoulder-touching things that guys do and then broke apart.

“Brianna,” Rafe said then, finally acknowledging her presence with the single word and a tight smile.

“Rafe,” she said in turn, unable to think of a single other thing to say. OK. We obviously know each other’s names.

Then, Rafe walked to his nearby SUV and left. Just left. And, for some odd reason, it was all Brianna could do to not burst into tears.

*****

“I’m home!” Brianna called into Margaret’s open apartment door when she arrived back in Cranberry proper. “Did you have a good weekend?”

Margaret peeped out the door, her hair wrapped in plastic wrap peeking out of a fluffy towel turban and her face covered with some kind of white goo. Brianna smiled. It was just like a college dorm. “Beauty night, huh?”

“At my age, it’s more like spackle night,” Margaret said. She tried to grin, but whatever was in the mask made her face too stiff for anything but a toothy grimace. “My weekend was great. Grandkids, grandkids and more grandkids,” she said with clenched jaws. “How was yours?”

“Fine,” Brianna said flatly. “It was fine.”

Margaret looked at her for a long moment. “Sure doesn’t sound like it, baby. Why don’t you come on in?” Brianna sat her suitcases on the floor outside Margaret’s door and followed the older woman back into her kaleidoscope-colored living room.

“The Wheeling part was fine, good actually,” Brianna admitted. Margaret already knew how things stood with Rafe. There wasn’t any reason to hide a further deterioration. She went on. “Everything was fine until I stopped at Corduroy on the way back.”

“Did you see the horses?” Margaret asked hopefully. “Bobby came by for lunch today. He was real pleased that he’d been able to get them so quickly for you and Rafe. And, I know Chris and Mattie appreciated the cash. Ellie, their youngest, is getting braces.”

Aha, again. Robert was one to do good wherever and whenever he could. Brianna smiled broadly. “The horses are sweet. And, so is Robert for doing such a thing.”

“Then, what’s the problem?”

Brianna shifted uncomfortably on her seat cushion. “It’s Rafe. He came out of the barn while Robert was showing me the horses and he was just, well, I don’t know how he was. It just really wasn’t good. The man seems like he can hardly stand to be around me.”

Margaret sighed. How was Brianna to know that the woman was both frustrated by her continued inability to corral Rafe in a conversation of clarification and was now a bit confused herself by Brianna’s sweet smile when speaking of Robert’s kindness?

“This was a tough weekend for them, baby, their first holiday alone,” Margaret said. “I wouldn’t take anything that happened or that Rafe said too personally. I’m sure everything will work out the right way in the end.”

Brianna nodded in agreement, disgusted at herself for not even considering that raw grief might be a factor in Rafe’s behavior. Aaack. She was 28 and she still clearly hadn’t quite figured out that the world didn’t revolve around her.

“You’re probably right,” Brianna said with a weariness that went far deeper than her road fatigue. “I just need to stand still and chill, right? Easy, peasy.” She stood and headed toward the door. “You know, Margaret, I’m really tired. I think I’ll just call it a night.”

“ ’Night, baby,” Margaret said softly as she watched her go. As soon as Brianna’s own door clicked shut on the floor above her, Margaret closed her door, as well, and tried Rafe once more on her cell phone.

“Hey, Margaret,” he answered on the first ring this time. “How is your family? Did you have a good holiday?”

“Your phone’s working,” Margaret said simply, ignoring his questions.

“Yeah,” Rafe sighed. “It somehow got totally fried last week. I don’t know what happened. Dad and I drove down to Elkins over the weekend and I picked up a new one. I’ll be catching up on calls all day tomorrow.”

“Well, mine was one of the ones you missed. You can cross that off your list. I tried to call you last week about Brianna and your dad,” Margaret began.

“Yeah, I already know all about that,” Rafe said with another sigh. “I saw them hanging all over each other this afternoon.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“At the barn,” Rafe explained. “They didn’t know I was inside getting peppermints for the horses and when I came out they were, well, you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Margaret said carefully. “Are you saying you saw them actually kissing?”

“No, thank God,” Rafe said with a curt laugh. “He was just holding her and she was looking really happy about it.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just a hug?” Margaret asked, a little shaky this time. “People hug, Rafe, and it doesn’t mean much of anything sometimes. Maybe she was thanking him for the horses. She seemed pretty happy about them when she got home.”

“Oh, it was a hug all right,” Rafe said ruefully. “And, then some.”

They were both silent for a moment.

“Did you have something you needed to tell me?” he finally asked.

“No, baby,” Margaret said. “Nothing at all.”

Chapter 13

It was a busy week. Brianna had managed to corral Robert just long enough to get his OK on the new PR campaign before he had practically fled Corduroy for Charleston. Again. Sometimes she wondered if the man actually wanted to run a ski lodge. He seemed much more interested in hanging out with the state legislators in Charleston than in being on the job in Cranberry.

Whatever.

He did take enough interest in the project to firmly nix any mention of his military service, however. He’d been drafted for Vietnam, true, but he had also been honorably discharged right after boot camp. That had been when the full-blown asthma he had concealed upon entry to the Army was revealed by an attack that came on during a training exercise. A few weeks of training for service did not make him a veteran, he insisted.

A bit disappointing, that. The asthma wasn’t his fault, she had argued. And, he had wanted to serve his country. Surely that made him a veteran. The “no” held.

Whatever squared.

Perhaps her greatest coup of the week was lighting a fire under Bertie, the lodge manager, to help her get Corduroy decorated for a “White Christmas” themed holiday.

“If you gild it, they will come,” Brianna had joked. Ever-jolly Bertie rolled her eyes at that but said she’d get on it, “like a coon on a can after Sunday supper.” And, she did. The lodge was gorgeous – trees, greens, red bows, glass bowls loaded with sparkling glass ornaments on every table and vintage-looking plaid throws tossed casually over the back of nearly every sitting surface. There were prints of stills from the movie parading across the great room’s mantel and the smaller mantels in each guest room, as well.

Brianna’s favorite image was one of Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen performing “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing.” She loved that scene. That was romance, pure and simple. A pretty dress, beautiful weather and a man who takes delight in just having you in his arms. Not that Brianna had any of the above – except for the beautiful dress part. She had plenty of those.

Whatever cubed.

Now, the wiry Bertie had moved on to the cabins – including the one Rafe had apparently vacated over the holiday weekend — and Brianna couldn’t wait to see what additional sparkle she would come up with. The woman was downright crafty. In the meantime, Brianna hunched over her laptop, doing yet more of her thing while Bing Crosby crooned over the tiny speakers Robert had hardwired into the lodge’s great room.

Over the past few days, she had dropped what she hoped were tantalizing hints of all things Corduroy here and there all across the ether. Life was imitating art, her tweets, posts and chat comments proclaimed. The gist: A kindly retired CEO, trying to make a second career of it as a ski-resort owner, was being stymied by lack of snow. The venue: Every form of social media, and every website and chat room associated with old movies, coffee, retirement careers, West Virginia, snow and skiing that she could possibly find.

Brianna had also enlisted all the state politicians and state-connected celebrities she knew – which was most of them. West Virginia: All for one and one for all. Many of them were now diligently tweeting and posting at her side.

It seemed to be working. After only a couple days of such efforts, there was what one might even call a “spike” in bookings. Well, the reality was, by the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, Bertie had booked all six of the lodge rooms to an extended family for the second weekend in December. And, other bookings were trickling in each day.

Compared to no bookings, which is exactly what they had before, it was clearly a spike, in Brianna’s opinion. Robert agreed. His interest piqued by this phoned-in news, he happily suggested they stream holiday movies and serve popcorn and hot apple cider every evening in the lodge’s great room during the entire month of December. Brianna, of course, was delighted with the idea.

Her cell phone rang, interrupting such pleasant thoughts. “Think snow! This is Brianna Reed of Corduroy,” she answered automatically.

“Hi, this is Alyssa Maddon from The Weather Channel. We’ve heard about your no-snow woes up there at Corduroy and we were wondering if we could send a crew to do a spot for a show on global warming and changing weather patterns and how they’re impacting the economy?”

Can The Weather Channel do a spot on Corduroy? Why, yes, Ms. Maddon. I think that would be quite acceptable.

Brianna was out of her chair and mamboing to “Blue Skies/Mandy” throughout the rest of the conversation. Yes. The spot was a go. The next day, in fact. The station already had a crew in the region it so happened. Robert – charming, unassuming and not-a-veteran Robert — would be back from Charleston later tonight and would be available for the interview.

Rafe walked in the front door about the time her mambo turned into a girly sort of fist pump and a rather unladylike “woo hoo” issued as soon as she ended the call. She spun around at the sound of his footsteps only to see his eyebrows raised, once again.

Brianna smoothed down her vintage 1960s ski sweater, rescued from the family attic over the weekend, and tried to calm down. Her body was still. Inside she was still jumping. Nah, she just couldn’t do it. She rushed over to Rafe – ignoring the fact he’d been less than friendly during their last encounter – grabbed both his hands and jumped several times in excitement. His face went from stunned to amused to outright laughing.

“All right, what happened?” he asked. “Did you win the lottery? Did your friend’s baby arrive?”

“No. And, not yet,” Brianna squealed and jumped some more. “It’s The Weather Channel! They’re coming to do a spot on Corduroy and we’re already getting a bunch of bookings – snow or no snow.” Well, maybe not a bunch. But, Rafe didn’t need to know details.

“So, I’ve heard,” Rafe said with a grin. “Veronique said you’re cutting quite a swath with your White Christmas campaign. I’m not sure, but I think she might be a little jealous.”

Brianna smiled, as much at Rafe’s return to good humor as at the subtle compliment. “Veronique can hold her own any day,” she admitted. “This is just Corduroy’s time in the sun – so to speak.”

“Or not sun,” Rafe said with another broad smile. “That’s why I came down to ride today. Haven’t you seen the weather? There’s a possibility of snow for the valley this very weekend!”

“Snow? Really?” Brianna cried out and jumped a couple more times. That was good news. Well, she thought it was, at least. She might have to make an alteration or two in the PR blitz, but it could still work, particularly if the snow didn’t come until after the TV spot filmed. She was hoping for dismal skies and sad, yellow grass for that.

“Maybe I’d better ride now, too,” she said suddenly, her mind finally catching up with that part of what he had said. “Snow White probably could use some extra exercise after all that down time during Thanksgiving weekend.”

“Oh,” Rafe said, looking slightly guilty for some reason. “I was hoping for both horses if you don’t mind. I brought a friend with me.”

“Oh, OK,” Brianna said. “Will he need anything? The saddle I use is really small, but there’s a second larger one in the barn office if you need it.”

Rafe shifted from one foot to another nervously. “Actually, Amanda’s outside meeting the horses now. Would you care if she uses your saddle? She’s about your size.”

Amanda?

“Sure,” Brianna said, curiously deflated by this new development. Rafe was dating someone. Who knew? Certainly not Robert. Maybe that was why Rafe was so profoundly uninterested in her. He already had someone else. She took some comfort in this possibility and smiled at him. “The saddle’s not mine anyway. Your dad bought all the gear when he got the horses. It belongs to him.”

“Well, I just wanted to let someone know that we’re out on the trails,” Rafe said, backing toward the door. “I didn’t want, well, anyone to worry if they came out to the barn and the horses were gone.”

Anyone. Anyone? “Oh, OK. Thanks.”

She nodded. He nodded. Then, he left. Small comfort, or not, she could practically hear the demise of the last bubbles of effervescent joy that remained in her heart.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

*****

There is absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. If I want to bring a date to go out on the trails, I can bring a date. They’re dad’s horses, not hers. And, she is his problem, not mine.

Rafe’s thoughts were entirely rational. So, why did he feel so ridiculously bad about the flash of disappointment that had crossed Brianna’s face? It had been like telling a child a trip to the zoo was cancelled or that the family wasn’t getting a puppy after all. Her reaction — and his reaction to her reaction — didn’t make one bit of sense. But, now that Rafe thought about it, not much of anything had made sense since the day of his parents’ car accident.

Shake it off.

“Rafe,” a charming voice called from the barn. “Is that you? I have both the horses saddled up and ready to go.”

“Yeah,” he called back, smiling in spite of himself. If Amanda Carlyle couldn’t get him back to happy camper in short order, he’d be surprised. Beautiful, bubbly, too young to take very seriously and only on the mountain for the rest of the season. She was a perfect short-term diversion. Just what he needed. He headed toward the barn to meet her, but stopped short when he heard his name being called again, this time from the direction of the lodge.

“Rafe,” Brianna yelled across the grassy lawn that separated the two buildings. She was running. “Your phone!”

He reflexively patted the back right pocket of his jeans. It was empty. How had that happened? He hadn’t even sat down while he was inside the lodge. Brianna ran up to him with the phone in her hand. Yep. It was his. He took it with a quick, “thanks,” and put it into an interior jacket pocket this time to be safe. He didn’t want to have to retrace the horse trail looking for his new phone if it fell out again.

“You must have dropped it when we were jumping around,” Brianna panted. He raised his eyebrows at that. “Well, when I was jumping around and we were holding hands,” she continued. “I found it on the couch.”

A throat cleared next to him. Amanda was clearly no longer in the barn. Great. Rafe shut his eyes in dismay for a moment, then looked at the two women, who were openly sizing each other up. He sighed. A diversion. I need a diversion. Not drama.

Brianna struck first. “Hi, you must be Rafe’s friend,” she said. “I’m Brianna Reed, public relations director for Corduroy.”

“Amanda Carlyle.”

And, that was it. Rafe hasted to fill the empty air.

“Um, Amanda is working for the resort’s main office doing some event planning. For the village, not at my lodge, of course,” he rambled on, as if this was any of Brianna’s business. It wasn’t, but he couldn’t seem to stop talking. “She’s taking a gap year before … before she goes back to, well, school.” He trailed off on the last word.

Brianna smiled. “Oh! School,” she said sweetly, turning toward Amanda. “You’ll be a college freshman in the fall?”

Rafe should have been mad. Of all people, she was going to play the too-young-for-you card? Instead, his lips were twitching in a near smile. What is wrong with me?

“Harvard School of Law,” Amanda said pointedly. “I finished my bachelor’s degree last spring. At the University of Chicago. In political science.”

It would have been an impressive comeback had Amanda not chosen that moment to mount her horse. Snow White had once been a barrel racer, or so Robert claimed. Now, she was pretty much just shaped like a barrel.

So, petite Amanda’s maneuver was skillful enough to show she knew her stuff when it came to horses, but not quite as graceful as she probably would have liked. Her jacket lifted a bit too much. The perilously-low waistband of her jeans sank a bit too much. And, Rafe and Brianna got an unexpected view of the skintight T-shirt she was wearing underneath it all. At its bottom edge – right in the spot certain young woman are inclined to place tattoos – was a brief, glitter-print statement: “Be yourself. Unless you can be a unicorn. Then, be a unicorn.”

Rafe instantly looked away, mildly embarrassed even though all he had seen was a T-shirt. He didn’t look the right direction, however. His eyes collided with Brianna’s, who was so openly amused she was biting her lip again to hold back laughter. He did glare at her this time. “Not. One. Word,” he mouthed.

She must have correctly read his lips. Brianna simply winked, turned on one cowboy boot heel and headed back to the lodge.

“Nice to meet you, Amanda,” she called over one shoulder as she sashayed away. “You two kids have fun out there.”

All Rafe could do was stare after her. And — in spite of the fact the very thought made him want to kick something — wonder just when she’d gotten those sassy little red boots. The diversion idea clearly wasn’t working.

*****

Not working was an understatement. He fussed about how absolutely not well his outing with Amanda had gone all the way back up the mountain, the young woman sitting stonily silent in the passenger seat of his SUV. Their encounter with Brianna had been bad enough. Amanda had instantly gone on the defensive and had never gotten off it. That Prince Charming had somehow managed to actually aim for a mud puddle just as Rafe had pulled up next to her in an open field hadn’t helped.

It was their first date. He knew it would be their last. Amanda didn’t even speak when he dropped her off at the dorms that housed much of the resort’s seasonal staff. Just a tight smile and a wave in return to his own “goodbye and good luck.”

Most eligible bachelor, indeed. I need to get a normal job in a real city with real residents that don’t leave at the end of every weekend. No. I just need to get a grip.

That was it. This was Brianna’s fault. Well. Not really. It was his fault that he had this adolescent crush on Brianna. It would be bad enough if she was dating his friend or a co-worker. The fact she was dating his dad made his continuing attraction to her even more ridiculous, dishonorable even.

Rafe watched Amanda’s bright blonde hair disappear through the dorm doors. Snowshoe had a whole lot of female workers, most of them not his own employees and a good number of them both quite attractive and single. So, Amanda didn’t work out? That happens. But, there would surely be someone else, someone who could distract him. Brianna Reed was a part of his life at the moment simply because she was a part of his dad’s life. But, that was it. He was driving her out of his thoughts if it took dating a dozen other women to do it.

Chapter 14

Rafe sank down in the hotel hot tub until the water lapped his chin, leaned his head back and reflected that some segments of life would be better lived as a video montage. Jazzy music, quick and clever cuts from one scene to another. That would be way better than having to slog through the actual details. At least that’s the way Rafe felt after a brutal week of combining his full-time-and-then-some work schedule with being back on “the market.”

As if his afternoon horseback riding with Amanda Carlyle hadn’t been bad enough, the five dates he’d had over the last seven days were even worse. He cringed just thinking about some of them.

Bachelorette No. 1, a tall and shapely blonde tourist from Raleigh, had been the creepiest.

She had told him during the salad course at one of the village’s finer dining establishments that she was widowed. At age 32. His immediate, “I’m so sorry,” didn’t seem to register. She went on with the rest of her story in a rush. It seemed her husband’s brakes had failed and he had crashed through a guard rail and over a steep hillside. His car had exploded like, “something in a Hollywood movie chase scene.” Her words. Not Rafe’s.

Over eggplant parmesan, she had gone on to enthusiastically tell him all about the massive life insurance settlement she had received and how she had quit her day job as a result. She liked to decorate and redecorate, she said, and shop for clothes and jewelry on line. A lot.

By dessert, Rafe couldn’t help but wonder if she carried wire cutters in her purse. Thank God she was leaving the mountain in the next day or so and didn’t seem any more interested in a second date than he was.

He shivered in spite of the hot tub’s warmth just thinking about her.

The second date was a lovely, red-headed ski instructor that he spent an entire afternoon on the slopes with in spite of his clamoring schedule. She confided over hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls that she had narrowed down the paternity of her toddler son to just two men. Just two? She was awaiting court-ordered DNA results before suing for child support.

Strike two.

Dates three and four — one a tourist and the other a pastry chef at a resort restaurant — were pleasant enough, but there was barely enough conversation to last through dinner. This made things he might otherwise not have noticed mildly irritating. There was the odd way the tourist held her fork in a fist-like grip, for instance. And, the way the chef tasted her food so thoroughly she could name all the ingredients after one or two mouthfuls. And, the way she demonstrated this very skill. With each item on her plate.

Strike three. Strike four. Actually, strike five if he counted Amanda. He should have already been out. But, sadly, he hadn’t given up.

Last night’s date, yet another tourist, had started off well enough. Dinner at the lodge’s restaurant was great. Their conversation was engaging and often humorous. She had no husband, dead or otherwise. She had no children, legally fathered or otherwise. She held her fork like a normal person and didn’t swish food about in her mouth or pepper her speech with words like “cardamom” or “sauce reduction.”

Things were going so well, in fact, he had unwisely suggested a moonlight stroll through the village as a follow up. They wound up hand in hand — his move, not hers. They walked. They talked. He considered asking her out for a second date. She lived in Pittsburgh. It was close enough that it could work in theory.

Then came the kiss — her move, not his.

He was no prude. The years he had spent in an on-again-off-again relationship with God were less than priestly. Yet, even he was surprised and more than put off when the woman had maneuvered him into a dark space between two buildings, shoved him toward a wall and kissed him so aggressively he’d practically had to shove her back to put an end to it.

Rafe sunk a bit lower into the hot tub. Six bad dates in a row. How is that even possible?

Just then, an extremely attractive woman in a, well, attractive swimsuit slid into the water next to him. She smiled. “Hi,” she said somewhat breathlessly.

Rafe nodded a greeting. It was his lodge. He couldn’t do anything less.

But, date seven was not going to happen. He got out of the hot tub as quickly as he could without injuring himself, wrapped a towel around his entire body and walked back to the small locker room without even giving her a second glance. Sometimes it pays to know when to say when.

He’d just have to find another way to cope with this weird Brianna situation, he decided as he took an employee-only elevator up to the small, on-site apartment he enjoyed as a perk of his managerial job.

Maybe more exercise would help. He’d go down to Cranberry tomorrow and do some serious off-road running. The trails were certainly dry enough for that. He might even follow his run up with another horse ride. Alone this time.

*****

Brianna brought a shovel full of manure and straw up from the barn floor and carefully tipped its contents into the small wheelbarrow that stood by her side. She had learned the hard way that it made more sense to take multiple loads out to the compost pile rather than try to handle a wheelbarrow that weighed more than she did when it was empty.

“Need some help?”

She whipped around to see Rafe leaning against the door to Prince Charming’s quarters. Brianna wondered how long he’d been there and if she was really as filthy looking as she suspected. She also wondered how Rafe could possibly ask a question and manage to fill every word with a note of surprise.

That somehow made her mad. “I thought you said this was my stall, so to speak,” she said with a tight smile and a strong dose of sarcasm.

“I did,” Rafe said simply, still looking startled for some reason. “But, he is my horse. So to speak.”

Brianna handed him the shovel she had been using. “Be my guest.” She walked over to the stall’s back corner, where another shovel stood at the ready. “You know the old saying: Many hands make light work.”

For several minutes, they shoveled in silence, Rafe mucking at twice the speed she had been working. There was so much shovel scraping, she almost didn’t hear him when he finally spoke again. “I was wrong about the horses,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, you were,” was all she could come up with.

“Sorry about that.”

“Apology accepted,” Brianna said, still with a hint of frost in her voice. She was more intent on finishing the stalls and getting cleaned up than playing verbal badminton with Rafe. If he wanted to chat, he could go talk to Unicorn Girl. Brianna had better things to do.

Or, at least more important things to do. Another round of PR blitzing was needed. The promised snow hadn’t come. December 5, and the ground was still bare and ridiculously cold looking. The new bookings were actually slowing in spite of the most excellent Weather Channel spot she could possibly have imagined. Robert had been move-star charming, the exactly right combination of competent, vulnerable and gorgeous in a senior, widower sort of way.

She frowned as she shoveled. They finished the gelding’s stall in another silence that was not broken until Brianna’s phone rang a special tone designated for Allie. She hastily pulled off her work gloves to answer it.

“Is the baby here?” she asked without any greeting.

“Yes,” Gabe yelled loudly enough it sounded like he was on speaker. He wasn’t. “All 6 pounds 9 ounces of her.”

“It’s a girl?” Brianna confirmed with a happy whoop. “Congratulations! Does she have a name yet?”

“Ava Marie,” Gabe said proudly. “Ava after my grandmother and Marie after Allie’s mom, Mary.”

“That’s perfect,” Brianna sighed. And, it was. “When can I come and see little Ava Marie? Is tomorrow too soon? I know Allie probably needs lots of rest, doesn’t she? She’s OK, right?”

“My shero is fine,” Gabe said, his voice full of both pride and relief. “You’re family, Brianna. You’re welcome any time, even now. Just drive safely whenever you come. I think there’s some snow in the forecast for tonight.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Brianna said. “OK. I’ll see you tomorrow, Daddy Gabe!”

Gabe laughed so happily at that, Brianna smiled yet again. She might not be blissing out, but Allie and her husband and now their baby were! That was good enough.

She slid the phone back into her pocket and noticed Rafe was gone. But, not for long. He returned with a larger wheelbarrow and began attacking the floor contents of Snow White’s stall. “The baby arrived, I take it,” he said with what appeared to be a genuine smile.

“It’s a girl,” Brianna said, suddenly willing to play nice. “Ava Marie Morelli. Isn’t that sweet?”

Rafe grunted noncommittally as he shoveled.

“I can’t wait to see her,” she continued. “I’m heading to Wheeling first thing in the morning.”

Rafe stopped shoveling and suddenly looked up at her, seemingly in concern for some reason.

“You can’t do that, Brianna,” he said firmly, his shovel now resting on its point. “There’s 14 inches of snow forecast for overnight tonight. If they’re right this time, the mountain roads will be a mess until at least mid-morning.”

“Yeah, right,” she laughed. “Well, I’m going anyway. A little snow’s not going to stop me.”

Rafe eyes widened in what looked like horror. He put his shovel against the wall. “That’s exactly what my mom said the last time I spoke with her,” he said quietly. “She and my dad decided to go to Elkins for dinner on a snowy night, the same night they got in the accident.”

Brianna didn’t know what to say to that.

He wasn’t done, though. “Look, tomorrow’s Monday. That’s the slowest day of the week for me and my staff can handle a couple of days of good snow without me. Dad has been avoiding driving in the snow these days, but would it be OK if I drive you to Wheeling in my SUV? It has four-wheel drive and tires that can handle snow. I have some marketing business up in the Panhandle that I’ve been putting off for a couple of weeks, anyway. I figure you’ll want to stay overnight. I can do that, too. I have more than enough to do there to keep me busy for a couple of days.”

“I’ll be fine,” Brianna said, not at all liking the idea of Rafe charging in like some kind of white knight. She was a Reed. She could take care of herself. She always had. She always would. “You don’t need to change your schedule for me. It’s not like I don’t know how to drive.”

“I know that, but I don’t mind,” Rafe said instantly. “The last thing dad needs is another tragedy in his life right now.”

OK, Brianna conceded with a wince. He had her there. Robert was one of the sweetest men she had ever met. She didn’t want a solo drive to Wheeling to cause him to needlessly worry. Rafe obviously didn’t want that either. That had to be what prompted him to make such an unexpected offer.

This realization made her instantly decide she wasn’t going to argue, especially since she wasn’t totally thrilled about the possibility of driving the Cooper in snow. Rafe could drive them both to and from the city. That would work. She’d just Ubers or even borrow Allie’s car to get around in while she was there. “Well, OK. But, only if you’re sure it’s not a problem,” Brianna said, trying to give him an out if he was already reconsidering. He didn’t take it. “Is 7 a.m. too early?”

“We’ll give it a shot, depending on the snow,” Rafe said with a broad smile. He picked up her work gloves and held them toward her. “Now get back to work. Snow White is your horse, remember?”

Chapter 15

Seven a.m. didn’t pan out. Ten a.m. didn’t either. The snow had started right after dusk the previous night, fat flakes that eventually gave way to a driving fall that continued until nearly two feet carpeted the valley. Even more had hit Snowshoe, where the skiers were rejoicing. Brianna and Rafe spent much of the morning checking weather reports, calling a state Highway Department hotline for road conditions and generally playing phone tag.

“When are you two leaving?” Robert asked over lunch at the diner. He had made his way into town in his mammoth pick-up truck, claiming to be stir crazy with all that snow and still no guests in the lodge or cabins. Brianna wondered what had happened to his avoidance of snow driving, but certainly wasn’t going to ask about it. “The roads from Corduroy weren’t that bad, at least if you have four-wheel drive.”

“Rafe wants to try for no later than 2 o’clock at this point,” Brianna said. “I’m all packed. I can just walk out the door whenever he gets here.”

“I’m glad he asked to drive you,” Robert said.

Brianna, wondering if the statement was in reference to the potentially dangerous driving conditions or to his undying hope in a romance for his son, did not respond. Robert seemed to accept that. The two of them ate tofu pad thai in a companionable silence broken only when Margaret came to join them for a post-lunch coffee.

The small crowd of intrepid tourists had mostly dispersed by then. She slid into the booth next to Brianna. “People are saying the main highways are pretty good now,” Margaret said.

“I know,” Brianna said, checking her watch. “I’d better go get my stuff. Rafe should be here any minute.” She wriggled out the other side of the free-standing booth and dashed up the stairs to her apartment. She grabbed her overnight bag and the keys to the carriage house where she would be staying the night, checked her apartment one last time to make sure everything was turned off and headed back down the stairs.

Rafe was already there, talking to his dad and Margaret.

“Of course, I don’t mind,” Robert was now saying. “Why would I possibly mind? I told you that last night at the lodge when you asked the same thing.”

“I just wanted to double check,” Rafe countered. “I thought you might have changed your mind now that the roads are pretty clear and want to drive Brianna yourself.”

“No,” Robert said simply. “I’ve been spending more than enough time away from the lodge as it is. Brianna will be safe with you. If that’s good enough for her, why wouldn’t it be good enough for me? Plus, it will give the two of you a chance to get to know each other. I can’t think of anything I’d like better.”

Rafe looked like he might have been ready to argue that point, but seemed to change his mind when he caught sight of Brianna standing behind Robert with her suitcase slung over one shoulder. He nodded her way in greeting.

“Well, OK,” Rafe said to his dad, reaching out with one hand to take Brianna’s bag. “We should be back sometime early tomorrow evening I’m guessing. Will that still work given our late start, Brianna?”

Brianna startled, surprised they had finally included her in the conversation. She’d felt a bit like a ping-pong ball there for a moment, each of the men seeming to do their best to smack her over the net to the other.

“That should be fine,” she said stiffly, already calculating just how long the drive to Wheeling would take. Rafe clearly wasn’t as eager to drive her now as he had been even earlier this morning. Lovely.

Eager or not, after a brief round of hugs, they left. Brianna climbed into Rafe’s SUV, thinking two thoughts. One: Robert and Margaret looked amazingly good together as they stood in the diner’s doorway, Margaret waving and Robert giving Brianna both a conspiratorial wink and a thumbs up. Hmmm. Now, that – a potential pairing of Robert with Margaret, not Robert’s useless match-making — was something worth thinking about.

Two: Veronique Marlowe was obviously slipping. Rafe’s PR guru – not exactly Brianna’s friend, but more than just a former co-worker – had hooted into the phone when she had intercepted one of the several calls Brianna had placed to the lodge office that morning checking on the timing of their drive. Rafe’s cell was frequently busy. That had been her only option.

“Girl, you must be doing something right,” Veronique had laughed. “You’ve got that boy totally confused.”

Brianna, not entirely sure what Veronique was implying, had given only a noncommittal “hmmm.”

Veronique had happily filled in the blanks. “First, he starts dating half the females on the mountain last week, one after another like he was on The Bachelor or something. He likes women, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not him at all. He’s the kind of guy that fills the copy machine with six reams of paper if it goes empty while he’s using it. You know what I’m saying?

“And, now, he’s leaving the best snow of the season behind to haul you around. It’s all over but the reeling him in, baby.”

Hmmm, indeed. Veronique must just be fishing for information about her boss. How ironic that she’s fishing in the Dead Sea. Brianna responded with silence.

“Playing it cool, are you?” Veronique hooted again. “You go, girl,” she said, then she transferred Brianna to Rafe, who obviously and thankfully had no knowledge of the preceding exchange.

So, Rafe has dated half the mountain. What’s up with that? Brianna considered this as they headed out of town. Once they got out onto a main highway, the roads were surprisingly good, the snowplows and sun having already dried them down to a crusty, white coating of salt. Anything for the tourists… The valley and surrounding hills were still pure magic, however, every twig coated with sparkle and flash.

Brianna looked for a long while, enchanted to see so much snow all at once. That rarely happened in Wheeling and pretty much never in Charleston. But, she eventually decided to do some fishing of her own. “So,” she began, “Was Amanda upset that you wouldn’t be there to ski for a couple days?”

“Amanda?” Rafe asked, concentrating more on a series of tight curves in the road than on their conversation.

“Your friend?” Brianna said sweetly. “The one you brought to Corduroy.”

His mind must have caught up with her. “ ‘Friend’ would probably be stretching it,” Rafe said with what looked like an honest grin. “I haven’t seen her since that day at the barn. I doubt I will in the future, either, unless it’s by accident.”

“Oh?” Brianna said primly, more pleased than she would like to admit.

“ ‘Oh?’ ” Rafe laughed, perfectly imitating her tone. “That’s all you’ve got? Come on, Brianna, you’re far too clever with words for that. I know you didn’t think much of her.”

“That’s not true,” Brianna said, even more primly. What is with me? I sound as British as Allie.

“Yeah, it is,” Rafe said with a more curt laugh this time. Then, he looked straight forward, both his hands gripping the wheel, his anger practically radiating through the vehicle. “But, you’re not my sister, or even my friend for that matter. You’re certainly not my mother. You’re just my dad’s … whatever. So, Miss Reed, your opinion on this issue or anything else about my life really doesn’t matter.”

Brianna turned toward the window, both stunned and hurt at his sudden burst of anger. Well, I guess he told me. Neither of them spoke until they reached the interstate and were well on the way to Wheeling. It was Rafe who broke the silence this time.

“Look, Brianna, I’m sorry,” Rafe said with a sigh. “I have really been a jerk about all of this and I am truly sorry.”

“It’s OK,” Brianna started to say, but he cut her off.

“No, it is absolutely not OK,” Rafe continued. “I’ve been acting like a bratty 10-year-old boy and you and my dad both deserve better than that.”

“I think you’re overreacting,” Brianna suggested, not sure where all this drama was coming from.

“That’s it! That’s it exactly!” Rafe said, sounding impressed at her insight. Brianna felt even more clueless, but decided to just listen. Perhaps she would figure out what was going on. “This has been a really hard year,” he continued. “With my mom dying and the way she died and my dad’s injuries and just trying to get Corduroy off the ground. And, then you entered the mix and I really, really wasn’t expecting that. I overreacted – just like a little boy.”

“I’m sorry about all that’s happened in your family,” she ventured cautiously, still not sure where the conversation was headed. “I know it can’t have been easy.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Rafe said. “I mean I know you’re sorry like any decent human being would be sorry. But, it wasn’t your tragedy, Brianna. And, even for the rest of us, we have to start moving on. It’s taken me a while, but I’m finally getting it that my dad deserves a chance to be happy again. He’s a good man.”

“Yes, he is,” Brianna said firmly. At least with this she was on solid conversational ground. “He’s certainly been good to me. I really needed a change and his inviting me to Cranberry was a wonderful and completely unexpected opportunity. Even the horses have been a joy.”

“I’m glad,” Rafe said solemnly, reaching past the gear shift to pat her hand as if she were a little girl. “Do you think you can forgive me enough for us to be friends? I think we owe that much to dad.”

Brianna looked at Rafe in astonishment. Not only was Mr. Date Half the Mountain clearly not interested in her, he was giving her the “let’s be friends” speech before they had actually gone on a date. Seriously? Even for her, this was a new record.

“I think we could do that,” she said with a tight smile. Woo hoo. “Friends” with Rafe Davis. Bliss with no one. Stand still and chill, is about right. It’s hard to be anything but chilly when you’re standing all alone. Maybe I need to get a dog.

“A dog?” Rafe asked. “You want a dog?”

Brianna stared at him, eventually realizing that at least the last part of her internal dialogue had been spoken out loud. She could only hope that was all he had heard.

“Not really,” she said instantly. “Sunny is plenty enough dog for me right now. She loves to hang out in the barn when I’m out there with the horses, sweet thing that she is. Gabe and Allie have a dog, too. I might see that very dog while we’re here, in fact. Maybe I’ll even take her for a walk.”

She was rambling. And, her toe was bouncing like oil on a hot skillet. This … this whatever it was with Rafe Davis was getting weird. Really weird. They couldn’t get to Wheeling soon enough to suit her.

Chapter 16

“Oh, Allie,” Brianna cried, her voice not much louder than a breath. She stood next to her best friend’s hospital bed and clutched both her hands over her heart like a girl in a Victorian greeting card. Ava Marie was that awe inspiring. “She has to be the most beautiful baby in the entire world.”

“We think so,” Allie laughed in a similar, church-sanctuary volume. “But, it’s always nice to get an outside opinion.”

Little Ava Marie lay nestled with her head tucked against her mother’s neck, her thick, black curls a startling contrast to the paleness of Allie’s own skin and appropriately pink cotton gown. The baby looked just like Gabe and, somehow, just like Allie at the same time. She was a miracle.

“All that hair!” Brianna said in wonder.

“I know!” Allie laughed again. “That surely doesn’t come from me. I was practically bald until I was a toddler. I have the pictures to prove it. Nothing but downy blonde fluff. Gabe’s mum said his hair was just like this when he was born, though. He’ll be back any minute, by the way. He just went home for a shower and some fresh clothes.”

Brianna pulled up a chair to the side of the bed, delighted to have Allie and the baby all to herself for a moment. She ran one finger tentatively over the baby’s luxuriant tendrils. Ava Marie stirred, but didn’t wake. “So, how was it?” Brianna asked her friend with a mischievous grin.

Allie winced in what seemed to be fresh recollection and glanced at the door. “It took 22 hours,” she said quietly. “Twenty-two hours. It felt like I was going to …” However birthing this marvelous child had felt would have to wait for later. Gabe was back, as were both his parents.

The group hugged and chatted for several minutes. Michelle, Gabe’s mom, oohed and aahed appreciatively over the overflowing basket of girly-girl gifts Brianna had picked up at her carriage house. Rafe had swung her by there so Brianna could drop off her minimalist luggage and retrieve the basket before he had delivered her to the hospital door. He was so pleasant after their car-trip truce that she was almost surprised he hadn’t offered to carry the basket up to Allie’s room. He’d had an appointment, he’d said. There apparently really was business that he was attending to in Wheeling.

Gabe brought her back to the moment. “How did you know it would be a girl?” he asked in astonishment, holding up a tiny Christmas dress with a delicate, hand-smocked bodice for Allie to inspect. Michelle had the matching satin slippers on her own lap, admiring the tiny lace bows.

 “We ladies have our secrets,” Brianna said with a smile. The simple truth was, of course, that she had prepared a girl basket and a boy basket. Back at her carriage house, Rafe had laughed at her level of readiness when he had helped her load the loot into the back of his SUV. She had no idea what she would do with the boy stuff, a haul that included a tiny crew-neck sweater with a train engine knitted into the front and a flotilla of colorful wooden boats for the bath. Another baby would come along eventually, she figured.

Allie was mostly quiet, just smiling delightedly, during this exchange until Ava Marie gave a soft cry and began to squirm against her. Her friend looked shyly at her husband, clearly uncomfortable. It finally dawned on Brianna that Allie needed to nurse.

Gabe had picked up on his wife’s message immediately, however, Brianna was pleased to see. He shooed the group into the hall and handed his wife a brightly patterned blanket. Once they were outside the room, he explained the blanket had come from Allie’s parents. Allie’s mother, a nurse, occasionally delivered babies as part of their mission work in Africa. It was some kind of a hand-woven sling that could also be used as a nursing cover-up.

“Is everything OK now, sweetheart?” he called into the room after a couple of minutes.

Allie must have said yes. When they returned, Brianna’s friend was swathed in the blanket up to her chin, a small round that Brianna realized was the baby’s head now at one side of her chest. A slurp or happy sigh from underneath the blanket occasionally filled a moment of silence in their group conversation, prompting smiles from everyone in the room.

Brianna kept up with the conversation, but she was mesmerized at what was happening just a few feet away. She’d seen plenty of young church women shake up a mix of formula powder with water and feed a bottle to a baby over the years. But, she’d somehow never seen a mother in the process of nursing even though she was positive that at least her brother John’s wife had done so.

It was somehow, surprisingly, beautiful. When Allie wriggled around under the blanket, apparently transferring Ava Marie to her other breast, Brianna made an instant decision. If she ever had a baby of her own, she would do this, too. She sighed as soon as she had the thought, however. That was a mighty big “if” considering the way things were going.

*****

Late the next afternoon, Brianna had another brief solo visit with Allie. She’d kept both her visits to the hospital short so as not to tire out her friend or Gabe. A lot of Morellis were coming and going and she knew the couple had had way too little sleep for at least the past 48 hours. This visit, however, Allie seemed surprisingly energetic and was able to fill her in on the realities of child birth, although Brianna suspected her very proper friend was leaving out some of the grittier details.

“How did you ever stand it?” Brianna asked in wonder at one point, terribly impressed that Allie had.

Allie giggled. “It’s not like I had much choice once everything was a go,” she said. “But, don’t worry. If I can do it, you can, too. You’ll do fine when your time comes.”

“I don’t know about that,” Brianna said with a grin. “I practically pass out if I cut myself shaving in the shower.”

“You just have to keep reminding yourself of the joy that is to come,” Allie said firmly, already the voice of experience. She looked carefully at her friend. “You have to hold her at least once before you go, you know. It’s like a best-friend rule. She won’t break.”

“Are you sure?” Brianna asked nervously. She had put off all of Allie’s earlier attempts at sharing the wealth. Ava Maria was so little. The very thought of holding her made Brianna nervous.

But, Allie gave her friend The Look and Brianna bent low over the hospital bed, reaching for the tiny bundle that was her friend’s daughter. Amazing. She settled into the bedside rocker, cradling Ava Marie in her one arm, supporting her head just the way her sisters in law had taught her when their babies were somewhat older and much, much bigger than this.

Holding her nieces and nephews had always been a delight. Holding Allie’s baby was something else entirely, however. This was Allie’s baby, only one step removed from a baby of Brianna’s own. There were somehow no words.

Brianna simply rocked and held Ava Marie, looking at her lovely, sleeping face and dreaming dreams of her own until there was a soft knock on the hospital door. She looked up and smiled just as dreamily, expecting to see Gabe, or another Morelli. But, the time had gotten away from her. It was Rafe. Their eyes met in surprise over the baby and something that felt like a spark seemed to suddenly leap between the two of them. That had to be her imagination, but it felt so real for a moment that it actually made her look down in confusion.

She stood slowly and handed the baby back to Allie as carefully as if she was transferring slivery pieces of broken glass in her bare hands. “Allie, this is Rafe Davis,” Brianna said only when the exchange was successfully completed. She suddenly remembered their awkward conversation on the way to Wheeling. “My friend, Rafe,” she corrected herself, before completing the introductions. She smiled at Rafe and was glad to see him smile in return. He seemed to catch the “friend” reference. Gabe returned just then and she did a second round of who’s who.

“Congratulations, your baby is certainly beautiful,” Rafe said to both Gabe and Allie. The two men stood off to the side of the room in getting-to-know-you conversation and left Brianna and Allie to say a slightly teary goodbye.

“It will only be a few more months and I’ll be home,” Brianna said quietly to Allie. Then, she re-directed her attention to the most beautiful baby in the world. “That’s right. Auntie Bri will be back before you know it.” She kissed little Ava Marie on the top of her head and hugged Allie as best she could.

“You take care of that little baby,” Brianna said to Gabe as they, too, exchanged a quick hug. Brianna swiped at the tear that escaped from one eye.

“And her little mama,” Gabe added with a grin.

*****

Rafe wanted to play nice, but the truth was that he was mostly silent much of the way back to Cranberry. Seeing Brianna with a newborn in her arms had somehow driven the ability to make idle conversation right out of him.

He drove with what appeared like total concentration on the road, but he was actually pondering two issues. One: Brianna was a young woman. She probably wanted children. If things progressed to the point of a marriage between her and his dad, there might actually be brothers and sisters in his future. Such an idea might have been more than welcome two or three decades ago. Now, it was just plain weird.

Two: Given how unnerved he felt about the possibility of his dad having more children, why was the image of Brianna glowing Madonna-like with a baby in her arms seared into his brain? He did his best to ignore the obvious answer to that question. He did his best to think of something, anything other than the soft, sweet smile on Brianna’s face when he had walked into the hospital room. Yet, mile after mile, that was the image that stayed with him.

Rafe glanced at Brianna, who appeared to be as deep in thought as he had been. He turned his face back to the road and breathed a silent prayer that consisted of just one word: “Help!”

*****

They were nearly back to Cranberry when the text from Allie came.

I think your time might be coming sooner than you think. He’s not only interested, he’s entranced. You should have seen his face when he first came into the room. Gobsmacked!

Brianna eyes opened wide at the words on her screen, averting her phone so that there was no absolutely no chance of Rafe seeing them. Wow! Allie had really misread things. It must be the pregnancy hormones at work again. Allie was happy, so she was seeing a world in which everyone else was happy, as well.

Gobsmacked!!!? No way, Brianna texted back to set the record straight. He’s already given me the “let’s be friends” talk.

Her phone buzzed with a return text almost immediately. Those might have been his words, but the way he looks at you says something entirely different. I’m sticking with gobsmacked. Goodnight.

Brianna shoved her phone back into her purse and peeked at Rafe. Most of the drive was behind them and they had said virtually nothing to each other. He hadn’t even looked at her that she could remember. Allie was clearly wrong. Even the most casual of friends do better than that.

She sighed and turned her face away from Rafe. Staaaaaand still, the wind whispered against her car window as they pressed on into the shivery cold blackness that was Canaan Valley. “I don’t know how,” she whispered back.

Rafe must have heard her whisper, or at least heard something. “We’re almost home, Brianna,” he said gently, touching her arm as if he thought she was asleep.

She turned to look at him. Really, really look at him. “Are we?” It did not surprise her at all that he turned his face back to the road without answering.

Chapter 17

Snow changes everything. By the next morning, when Brianna headed back to work at Corduroy, there was a modest but steady stream of new bookings. The coming weekend was booked solidly, in fact. Bertie was busy in the kitchen, baking and freezing small loaves of cranberry-orange bread by the dozen in preparation for many breakfasts to come. The lodge looked, sounded and smelled almost too good to be true. Brianna successfully shook off the blue mood that had nearly smothered her the night before and opted to seize the day.

“It’s a Christmas miracle!” Brianna told Sunny, rubbing her nose against the dog’s soft forehead in celebration. Sunny gave a purr-like noise that Brianna correctly interpreted as “scratch my ears.” A couple minutes of petting later, the dog sauntered away from Brianna’s work area on the great room’s massive table and back to her massive bed near the fireplace, where she settled down into a tight curl with a satisfied snort.

Robert seemed to be similarly content. He was sitting at the other end of the table, busily stringing popcorn and cranberries to decorate the trees on the lodge’s deep front porch. Brianna, growing incredibly restless now that what she was hired to do seemed to be coming to fruition, decided to join him. She’d never strung garland before, though. Not only was it surprisingly slow going, she kept pricking her finger on the needle when she shoved it through the cranberries, which were annoyingly tough. She was beginning to suspect there was a bit of blood mixed in with the juice on her red-stained fingertips.

“No wonder people buy the plastic version,” she said after a half an hour of work yielded a strand only about one foot in length. “This takes forever.”

“Anything worth doing usually does,” Robert said with a wry grin. He didn’t look up. He just kept stringing. “Speaking of taking forever, how are things going between you and Rafe? I was hoping something might click during your trip to Charleston.”

Brianna looked up at her boss for a moment in silence. Then, she shrugged as if she were a Frenchman of many generations. She’d go for the bare-bones truth. “Nothing clicked. He told me he wants to be friends.”

Robert harrumphed in disgust, but, again, kept stringing. A good ten minutes went by before he spoke again. “You know, Sparky, I don’t think this story’s over yet,” he said. “If you’re willing to stand still and give him and God a little more time, I think Rafe will eventually get it together. He’s just really put some distance between himself and everyone else, even me.”

She sighed soundlessly even though she would really have liked to have kicked something. Hard. With pointy-toed boots. Enough with the “stand still and chill” already!

“I know you want it to be different, Robert, but you can’t force someone be attracted to someone else,” Brianna countered. She kept her voice much calmer than she felt.

“No, you can’t,” Robert said. “But, I don’t think that’s the problem. I’ve seen the way he looks at you when you’re not looking. He’s plenty attracted. He’s just not acting on it for some odd reason.”

“Well,” Brianna sniffed. “What if I’m the one who’s not interested?

“I’ve got eyes, Sparky,” Robert said with a grin, looking straight at her this time. He picked up the giant mixing bowl where he’d been storing loops of completed garland and headed for the porch, Sunny trailing happily along behind him. “I’ve seen the way you look at him, too,” he called over one shoulder.

*****

“Brianna, are you OK?” Margaret yelled over the high-pitched scream of Brianna’s smoke detector. She was pounding on the apartment door. “Is something on fire in there?”

“It’s fine,” Brianna yelled back. She turned the oven vent to its highest setting and ineffectively waved smoke away from the detector with her hand on her way to let Margaret in the door. That done, she turned, wrestled the detector off the wall and popped the batteries out of its back. The silence that followed was an almost-shocking contrast.

“Oh,” Margaret asked, already poking at a large cookie tray that sat on top of the stove. It was covered with blackened rounds. “It’s just a cooking disaster.”

“Cooking disaster? I prefer to think of it as a failed experiment, Margaret,” Brianna laughed. “They were supposed to be eggplant cutlets. I guess I left them in a little too long. They’re more like eggplant charcoals now.” She lifted one of the rounds carefully with a spatula. A particularly blackened section broke off at the gentle touch.

Margaret picked up the open copy of the Vegetarian Times that was sitting on Brianna’s small countertop, checked out the recipe that was circled and raised her eyebrows. “Hmmm. Does all this veggie cooking mean something interesting happened during your Charleston trip?”

“All sorts of interesting things happened,” Brianna said defensively, determined to ignore Margaret’s not-so-subtle implication. “I met a brand new human being. I saw my best friends. I saw my family. I even picked up some woo-hoo great shoes at the mall. There was the most amazing sale …”

“I was thinking more along the lines of something interesting between you and Rafe, baby,” Margaret interrupted. She had her arms crossed across her chest and was giving Brianna her own version of The Look. It was oddly similar to Allie’s.

Brianna instantly bristled. Why did everyone seem to think the only thing on her mind was a relationship with Rafe Davis? She was a career woman. A beloved friend. A member of a prominent and mostly supportive West Virginia family. If the guy wasn’t interested, the guy wasn’t interested. She could live with that just fine, thank you very much.

“I just thought I’d try a new recipe,” Brianna said, trying to deflect the question. “Can’t a girl decide to eat healthy without the third degree?

Margaret looked at her carefully and at length. She picked up the magazine and waved it Brianna’s way. “All right, baby. If that’s the way you want it. Maybe I can help you figure out where things went wrong with the cooking at least. Roasting vegetables can be tricky if you’re not used to it. There’s a fine line between browned and burned. What else do you have that we can experiment with?”

And, they were off.

Brianna, always delighted to try something new, dragged out every bit of produce she had hauled back from Wheeling’s Public Market onto the small kitchen table. The two women chopped, sliced and diced. They brushed with oil. They removed the deliberately blackened outer skins of flame-kissed red peppers. And, they roasted and toasted until a veritable feast was assembled.

They did all this mostly in silence, not really speaking again until they were seated and busy eating their hard work.

“What do you think?” Margaret asked, waving a crispy ring of Delicata squash Brianna’s way. Its simple seasoning of olive oil, salt and pepper had somehow turned magical in the overn.

As soon as Brianna finished chewing a bit of the same, she smiled broadly. “I think it’s the best bite of vegetables I’ve ever had in my entire life.”

Margaret raised her eyebrows again and laughed heartily. “And that pretty much tells me everything,” she said, shaking her head. “This is getting more complicated by the day, isn’t it?”

Brianna wasn’t quite sure what Margaret was talking about. She decided to not only ignore her, but to completely change the subject.

“You know, Margaret,” she said. “I was thinking about the diner while I was out of town. You get pretty good lunch traffic, even when tourism is slow. But, it might help business if you added live music on the weekend nights when you serve dinner, too. I think you could even pick up some of the Snowshoe guests who are looking for a little more local color than the mountain village can offer. Your food plus more circus would be worth the drive.”

Margaret seemed to carefully regard this suggestion. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. There’s room for a small stage in the corner of the dining room. And, there’s always hopeful musicians floating around the valley looking for work, or at least a couple of free meals if that’s the best they can get.”

Brianna smiled. She was back, baby. Corduroy was moving forward at a rapid pace. Her music idea might make things a little better at the diner. Life was good. 

“Bobby could probably build the stage,” Margaret mused. “It wouldn’t cost very much that way.”

“Bobby, I mean Robert, knows how to do carpentry?” Brianna asked, curious about this unknown handy side to her employer.

“Sure,” Margaret said. “Unless you mind, of course. He’s been helping with little projects at the diner ever since Wade died. This last summer, he re-wired the whole kitchen. I think it helped him keep his mind of what was happening with Marilyn and the accident.”

Brianna wasn’t sure what or why Margaret thought she would mind. Odd. The people in Cranberry were harder to read than most politicians. And, that was really saying something. “Was Wade your husband?” she asked about the part of the conversation of which she was more sure.

“A bit of one,” Margaret said. “We’d been dating on and off for a few months – just a couple of stupid kids really. I was still in high school, but we decided to get married about a week before he left for basic training. He and Bobby were both drafted and they went off together.” Margaret stopped at this point, staring out Brianna’s bank of windows like she was looking into another place, another time. “Bobby came home. Wade didn’t. He shipped out as soon as training was over and was killed by a sniper in his first week in Vietnam.”

“That’s terrible!” Brianna exclaimed when she was finally able to take in all the Margaret had said.

“It was terrible. But, it was also a very long time ago, baby,” Margaret said with a soft sigh. “Life goes on.”

“But, you had to raise your son all alone,” Brianna frowned. “That must have been incredibly difficult given the era and where you live.”

“It wasn’t difficult. It was impossible,” Margaret said firmly. “If Bobby hadn’t helped support us both, I don’t know what I would have done. My folks were too busy boozing to be of much help. Wade’s family was so smothered in grief they seemed to forget he had left a grandson behind for them to love. They split up and both moved out of state not long after Wade died. They left me with this building, thank God, but that was it.”

“Is that why you named your son Rob?” Brianna asked tentatively, instantly wondering if it really was Wade who had fathered Margaret’s child.

Margaret seemed to sense the trigger for the question. “That’s right. Wade Robert Matthison. Wade was my Rob’s father, no question about that, if you’re wondering. But, in many ways, Bobby was, too. He was the one who sent Rob to summer camp. He bought his first car. He even paid for all of Rob’s college tuition.”

She looked Brianna straight in the eye and seemed to make a sudden decision. “Bobby didn’t try to be a day-to-day daddy. He was in Colorado and had a wife and a child of his own to take care of. But, Bobby was always here for me and Rob, both in spirit and financially, and I will always love him for it. Always.”

“Does he love you, too?” Brianna asked impulsively.

Margaret actually blushed at this question. “Not the way you mean. I was never the kind of woman that someone like Bobby would notice, baby. He fell in love with Marilyn during a vacation trip out West after he left the service and that was that. She was class and polish, exactly the right kind of woman for the big life he hoped to have and did have. I was just a valley girl with two long braids and another man’s baby on my hip. That’s not much competition.”

 “You never know, Margaret,” Brianna said thoughtfully, remembering the contented look on Robert’s face as he patiently strung popcorn and cranberries earlier in the day. Class and polish may have lost their allure over the years. He did choose to leave Boulder and come home to the valley after all. “You really never know.”

Chapter 18

“Michael Alton!” Rafe exclaimed. “What are you doing in Canaan Valley?”

The lodge guest in question, one among a large family group that had rented the entire main building for the weekend, looked up, startled at the enthusiastic greeting. But, it only took him a brief moment to respond. “Rafe! Hey!” The men moved toward each other and shook hands warmly. “I could ask the same of you. The last time I saw you, you were in Colorado.”

Rafe grinned. “I moved to West Virginia a couple of years ago. My dad owns Corduroy and I’m managing a lodge up at Snowshoe now. Hey, you should come up and do some downhill, too, if you have time while you’re here. I know how much you love to ski.”

The guest didn’t have time to respond. Another man — similarly tall as Michael but with closely cropped blonde hair instead of Michael’s brown, surfer-dude waves — interrupted. “Did I hear someone say ‘downhill’? ” he whispered excitedly.

Michael laughed. “David, this is Rafe Davis. I made some bear-themed tables for a lodge he worked for at Vail. He’s GM at his own place at Snowshoe now. Rafe, this is my brother in law, David Parker.” Michael’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Who pretty much hates cross-country skiing.”

Now, Rafe laughed. He looked over at the array of luggage that was standing at the bottom of the lodge stairs, waiting to be hauled up to the rooms above. “I’m guessing your wives and children like it.”

“The kids are all too little to do any kind of skiing,” David clarified. “We actually picked Corduroy instead of Snowshoe because Johanna, that’s my wife, and Michael’s wife, Maggie, are both pregnant. David rounded his arms out broadly in front of his own body, suggesting they were quite far along. “Plus, we liked the idea of having the whole main lodge to ourselves like a big family home. I have a feeling we’ll be spending more time in front of the fire than on skis of any kind.”

As if on cue, a gaggle of family members headed noisily down the stairs. Brianna walked through the front door at the same time. It took quite some time to sort out who everyone was and how they were related to or knew each other. The presence three toddlers didn’t help make anything clearer. At least Rafe thought there were three. They were moving really quickly.    

Eventually, Rafe figured out which wife belonged with which man given that Johanna, or Jo-Jo as everyone but David seemed to call her, was as tremendously pregnant as her husband’s gesture had suggested. Another young woman that must be Michael’s wife, Maggie, given that his arm was now around her, was only softly rounded in contrast. He was pretty sure two of the older women in the group were Michael’s relatives of some sort and that a final woman was either an unusually silent and attentive relative or a nanny. Rafe was rather proud to have not only sorted all this out, but to have also discovered that Jo-Jo was both David’s wife and Michael’s sister. Beyond that he had no idea who was whom.

It only took Brianna a minute or so to figure it all out, however. Rafe marveled as she interacted with the entire extended family, seeming to already know all of the children’s names and to which couple they belonged. His mother had been able to do that kind of thing, too. He’d always thought it was just something his mom did well. Maybe it was a universal female ability.

Michael pulled Rafe aside before shepherding the brood and all of their luggage back up the stairs. “David and I may take you up on the skiing thing,” Michael said. “We should have at least one afternoon free. The rest of the time we’ll just being hanging out. Well, that and looking at a couple of condos. David and Jo-Jo live in North Carolina and we’re still in the Chicago area. Having a gathering spot in the middle makes sense with all the kids. We’ve pretty much decided to buy.”

“That sounds great,” Rafe said, handing Michael a business card that he fished out of his wallet. “Stop by the lodge while you’re on the mountain. There’re a couple of places in the lobby where one of your cabinets would go really well if you don’t mind talking a little business during your holiday.”

“Absolutely,” Michael said with a warm smile.

The great room was so quiet when the Alton-Parker crew was fully and finally upstairs, Rafe almost didn’t notice that Brianna remained.

“Wow,” she laughed, sitting down on the broad back of a sofa. “That’s a whole lot of toddlers for one room.”

Rafe laughed, too, relieved it wasn’t just him that felt exhausted by the brief encounter. “How many were there? I couldn’t get a count the way they were moving.”

Brianna tallied on her fingers. “David and Jo-Jo have two, the identical twin girls Heather and Melissa. They just turned 2. She’s pregnant with another set of twins if you can believe it. They’re boys this time — that are due in March. The nanny is with them. Michael and Maggie have just the one little boy, Jonathan, that’s not quite 2. But, she’s also about three months pregnant. So, that’s three kids on the hoof and six if you count them all. Whew. My two brothers and I were pretty noisy growing up, but three toddlers is clearly more intense than three kids who are spread out over several years.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Rafe said. “It was just me in our house.”

“Do you want to have a big family?” Brianna asked suddenly, somehow causing the air to leave Rafe’s lungs with equal speed. “It seems like only children always do. Allie and Gabe are both only kids. I know they’re hoping for at least a couple more after Ava Marie.”

Rafe was surprised he was able to recover with only a brief pause. “Yes, but maybe not quite so many at once,” he finally said, smiling and gesturing toward the stairs. “How about you?” he asked tentatively. This should be interesting.

“I used to think I didn’t want any children. I was all about my job for a long time,” Brianna said. That surprised Rafe even though he knew her impressive work history. “But, things are really changing for me. When I held Allie’s baby this week I realized that I definitely do. I don’t know how many, but I really do want to be a mom someday.”

“You should probably have several,” Rafe said quietly, instantly willing himself to open his life and his heart to tiny brothers and sisters if that’s what God had in store for Brianna and his dad. “You’ll be a wonderful mother.”

Why this statement of affirmation should cause tears to fill Brianna’s eyes, he couldn’t fathom.

*****

When Brianna popped into the great room after a riding session the following afternoon, the Alton and Parker ladies insisted that she take a break to join them for a moment of relaxation. It was so deliciously quiet that Brianna complied, curling up onto the other end of the leather couch where Jo-Jo sprawled in a half-seated, half-reclining position.

The men, including Rafe and Robert as it turned out, were all skiing at Snowshoe for the entire afternoon. The nanny had the little ones corralled in the kitchen with Bertie. The lodge manager had opened her lair to the extended family during their stay, realizing it was much easier for them to eat their lunches and dinners on site rather than go out. A tantalizing mix of something chocolaty, chili and what might have been corn bread wafted into the great room.

“So, you seem to like it here in the valley,” Jo-Jo said to Brianna. “Do you think we’ll like the condos?” The two families had, just that morning, agreed to purchase two adjacent condos in a small block of units near the state park that were intended to a site for joint vacations, Jo-Jo informed her.

“Oh, yes,” Brianna enthused. “I haven’t been here for long, but it’s a great place. Once your kids get a little bit older, especially, there will be all sorts of stuff to do no matter what time of year you visit.”

Jo-Jo seemed satisfied. “Good. Michael used to come here a lot with his first wife, but David and I had never been here before. I wasn’t sure how it would be. But, it’s beautiful.”

Maggie didn’t even flinch at the mention of Michael having been previously married. But, when she looked up and met Brianna’s concerned gaze, she smiled. “Michael’s first wife died of cancer not long after their wedding. They didn’t have any children,” she said simply. “We’ve been married almost three years … and have almost three children.”

There was a pause, then every head in the room snapped toward Maggie.

“Three!” the women said in unison.

The young red head smiled back at the women with pure mischief. “It looks like twins really do run in the Alton family,” she giggled. “We waited on the news until we could tell you in person.”

Jo-Jo and Helen, Jo-Jo and Michael’s mother, whooped with delight. Helen came over to hug her daughter-in-law. The remaining woman, Aunt Naomi to everyone but the nanny, raised her eyebrows and offered a plain-spoken suggestion. “Perhaps it’s time Michael and David find hobbies.”

Jo-Jo hooted at that. “I don’t know about Michael and Maggie, but it’s possible we’re not done even yet,” she teased her octogenarian great-aunt.

“To babies,” Helen said sweetly, lifting her mug of hot apple cider. “And good nannies.”

“To babies and nannies,” the women echoed, then dissolved into a group laugh.

“And to conveniently located potties,” Jo-Jo added, skillfully maneuvering herself back onto her feet and heading to one of the two restrooms at the back of the great room.

“I’m right behind you,” Maggie giggled. “I think I’ll liberate the men’s room.”

Aunt Naomi turned her attention to Brianna as soon as her nieces were gone. “The way your young man looks at you, I figure it won’t be long until there’s a ring on your finger and a baby on the way for the two of you, as well.”

Brianna blushed scarlet. She blushed crimson. She blushed blood red. How could so many people have such an incredible imagination when it came to her and Rafe? It was ridiculous.

“He’s not …” she stammered. “We’re not …”

 “Nonsense,” Aunt Naomi said with a knowing smile. “You most certainly are.” She rose slowly but gracefully from her own perch and headed for the kitchen. “I’d better go check on that chili. It seems we have a lot of mouths to feed.”

Chapter 19

11:30 a.m.

Brianna smiled as she rose from the rock-hard church pew where she’d been sitting for the last two hours. She needed to move, to jump or at least to wiggle for sure, but she couldn’t help but be pleased. The little country church had turned out to be everything she had hoped.

She loved it all, particularly the old-school attendance board. Today’s count had been posted in white-on-black number cards by an earnest-looking deacon in between the Sunday school lesson and the main service. It was 37. That small number included a surprisingly wide mix of people, ranging from a sullen-looking teenager to a trio of blue-haired ladies who sat together near the front on a row of matching seat cushions. There was a box of Kleenex and a fan at each end of their small assembly.

“Sisters,” Margaret had whispered in Brianna’s ear in explanation. “One’s blind, one’s deaf as a post. The other’s just a little mean, but she can hear and see well enough. Together, they can make some seriously good beans and cornbread.”

Add to all of that hymns that included such colorful words as, “Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?” and Brianna was thoroughly charmed. She imagined those particular lyrics moving across one of the giant screens most modern churches seem to favor and bit her lip to stop the laugh that wanted to escape.

Even the pastor was a delight, she reflected as she gathered up her purse and Bible and got ready to leave. He was soft spoken and looked remarkably like what she suspected an unusually well-fed pilgrim would have. He was also headed her way, she noticed.

“Can you play the piano by any chance?” he said as soon as they had exchanged a second round of greetings and what he mysteriously called “the right hand of fellowship.”

Brianna, unaware the pastor had asked every fresh face that was seen in the sanctuary that very same question for the last three years, didn’t quite know what to say. Could she play the piano? Technically, the answer was “yes.” She had some seven years of lessons under her belt. Her mother had insisted upon it. But, she hadn’t touched a keyboard of any kind since she was a teen. She glanced up at the ancient upright at the front of the church in a mix of doubt and fear.

She opened her mouth to say a firm “no,” but it was too late. Pastor Dittmeyer obviously took her brief hesitation as a declaration of, “Here I am, send me.” He scurried up to the piano as quickly as his generous size would allow and dug through its bench seat. He came back with three somewhat tattered hymnals and a stack of yellowing sheet music.

“I tell you, you are an answer to prayer, Sis. Brianna,” the elderly man enthused. “We’ve been without a pianist ever since Sis. Dreama went home to be with the Lord three years ago. What a glory it will be to hear the sweet sounds of Christmas music in the sanctuary next Sunday.”

Next?

Sunday?

Brianna looked down at the stack of music, which had somehow worked itself into her arms. She again opened her mouth to say “no,” but puffed out a shuddery breath instead. She had picked the little white clapboard church over the rock-and-roll congregation because she had wanted “different.” She had wanted “out of the ordinary.” Well, this was all that and then some. Whatever else it was, Canaan Valley Methodist/Baptist/Pentecostal etc. was clearly not a spectator event.

“I’ll need somewhere to practice,” she said tentatively, thinking longingly of the lovely baby grand that still graced her parents’ living room. “I don’t have a piano of my own here.”

Robert, who was also lingering behind after the service to chat with Margaret in the church’s tiny entry, chimed in helpfully at this point. “There’s a piano in the great room at the lodge, Sparky,” he said. “You can use that.”

Her last excuse thoroughly waylaid, Brianna gave a wary smile and clutched the music to her chest. This was going to be interesting.

12:45 p.m.

At home, having made herself a quick lunch of a fried-egg sandwich and an apple, Brianna leafed through the sheet music. Go Tell It On the Mountain, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Silent Night. The oldies but goodies were all there. Her eyes ran across the lines of music and her fingers began to move across an imaginary keyboard on their own accord. She would surely be rusty, but there was nothing in the stack that she couldn’t play. At least in theory.

She wandered into her bedroom and began to undress absentmindedly. Concerned the little church would be more conservative than the one she attended in Charleston, she had dressed for the morning service in office clothes, right down to her signature sky-high heels. That had turned out to be way too much, even compared to the blue-haired ladies and the deacon. Casual Sunday had obviously reached the valley. There had been a suit or two, but there was a great deal more of denim.

Standing in just her bra and panties, she surveyed the contents of her closet. She clearly needed some new clothes if she was going to thrive during her stint in the valley. Brianna pushed all her power dresses and their ilk to one side and pulled out the better of the two pairs of jeans she had brought with her. She topped those with the turtle neck/ski sweater combo she had scrounged from her grandmother’s vintage collection.

Shoes. Brianna looked skeptically at the crisp cardboard box that contained her newest acquisition. Should I? Really? She rubbed her bare toes against the hardwood floor while she pondered this question, then decided to just go for it. She opened the lid and appreciatively sniffed at the new leather. Without needing to take a step, she fished an equally new pair of thick, woolen socks from a drawer, sat down on the end of her bed and slid her feet into their warmth.

She wiggled her toes. The sea-blue wool was a little scratchy, but she could live with it. All that was left was to actually put on the shoes. She peeled back the tan tissue paper, peeked at the uber-plain sandals inside, then plunged her feet into them before she could change her mind. She stood. She walked a few paces.

Oh. My. No wonder the granola types are always smiling.

She looked down at her feet and gave a smile of her own. Gabe and Allie might have laughed if they had seen her. Her mother might have passed clean out on the floor. Brianna didn’t particularly care. For today, at least, she was a real valley girl. She grabbed her sheet music, walked out the door and headed for her car without even checking her head-to-toe appearance in a full-length mirror.

There were better things to do.

3 p.m.

Brianna rubbed her temples with her forefingers. She was more than rusty at piano playing. She was as seized up as the Tin Man. Even the simple melody of Silent Night sounded strained – if not strange.

Sunny, who was apparently tone deaf, lay in a happy half circle as close to Brianna’s feet as possible. “I don’t know, girl,” Brianna said. “I may have bitten off way more than I can chew.” Sunny thumped her tail hopefully at the last word, which mean “snack” in her limited vocabulary. “That’s not what I meant and you know it, you rascal.”

Fortunately, Maggie Alton picked that moment to wander through the great room with her toddler son in her arms. “Are you playing Christmas carols?” she asked. The hopeful tone in her voice was unmistakable.

“I’m trying to,” Brianna laughed. “It’s been a long time.”

“Try again and I’ll sing with you,” Maggie urged. “My grandmother always said it made it easier to play if someone was singing along.”

Brianna was doubtful, but she gave it a shot.

“Silent night, holy night,” Maggie sang out, little Jonathan looking up at his mother in comical surprise. “All is calm. All is bright.”

And, suddenly it actually was. Brianna’s playing wasn’t exactly skillful. But, it wasn’t bad, either. When she missed a note, she just kept on going, the same way she would surely have to when she played for congregational singing.

Then, like some sort of scene out of It’s a Wonderful Life or Little Women, the rest of the Altons and Parkers materialized at her back and began to sing along with Maggie in surprisingly good harmony. Brianna, too nervous to look at any of their faces, stared straight ahead at the sheet music, her cheeks blazing hot with a public-performance embarrassment she knew she would have to get over very, very soon.

When the group finished with Joy To The World, the last piece of music left on the piano, someone, possibly Jo-Jo, let out a celebratory whoop. “Jesus rocks,” the same person practically yelled. Yep. It was definitely Jo-Jo. The group joined her in a round of applause. For God? For the fact Brianna had made it through the pieces without keeling over with anxiety?

It didn’t really matter, she decided, and clapped along with them. And, only then did Brianna swivel around on her seat and look at the group. That was when she realized Rafe was among the singers. She smiled a shy smile when he gave her a quick thumbs up, and a broader smile when he winked and mouthed two very surprising words.

“Nice shoes,” Rafe said.

10:30 p.m.

Brianna put her ribbon bookmark back into her Bible and flipped the switch on her bedside lamp to off. It had been a long and unusually wonderful day. She had expected to leave the lodge as soon as she had finished practicing the songs. It was Sunday, after all. There wasn’t really a need for her to work, particularly since Robert had left for Charleston after church for what he said would be a multi-day trip. But the Alton-Parker party had insisted that both she and Rafe stay for a scrambled-together dinner of delivery pizza and salad, raucous board games and general yuletide revelry.

It had been amazing. It was hard to believe she had only known the lodge guests for a couple of days. They already felt like old and very dear friends.

She felt drawn to Maggie, in particular. She was a bit sassier than Brianna’s best friend, Allie, but had the same gentle temperament. Maggie, it turned out, was an artist like her husband. Instead of wood, she worked with textiles, creating all sorts of animal sculptures. Off chatting in one corner of the great room toward the end of the evening, Maggie had shown Brianna a few samples of her work on her smart phone.

Many of Maggie’s pieces had a fairy-tale, almost enchanted look about them. But, given their rustic setting, Brianna was instantly taken with a faux deer head that Maggie had sculpted from branches and a vintage Pendleton blanket. She had immediately two for the lodge – done up in corduroy, of course. Decorating Corduroy wasn’t exactly her responsibility, but Robert was letting her have pretty much free reign. She figured he wouldn’t mind.

The only problem during the evening had been when the group played team charades. The Altons and Parkers paired off naturally, each man with his wife and Helen with Aunt Naomi. The nanny and all the children having long since gone to bed, that left only Brianna and Rafe.

Someone had the humorous idea of acting out the titles of Christmas songs. Brianna and Rafe made it easily through their first two turns, with Frosty, the Snowman and Angels We Have Heard on High. Brianna smiled in the dark, remembering Rafe flapping imaginary wings, then cupping his ear and pointing to the sky to illustrate the latter.

The Twelve Days of Christmas had been harder. After a quick huddle, the two had decided that putting up fingers for any of the numbers was practically cheating. They instead acted out several of the days’ gifts. Without thinking it through, Brianna had tapped her bare ring finger repeatedly to suggest “five golden rings.”

David had laughed heartily at that. “Dude, I think your girlfriend is sending you a signal,” he had yelled over the clamor to Rafe. Then, before either Brianna or Rafe could say anything to clarify the situation, Helen figured out their song title and the game went on at such a fast pace that the mistaken notion of coupledom, nearly engaged coupledom at that, was never corrected.

At one point, soon after their turn was over, Rafe had looked her way with a shrug and an eyebrow raise as if to say, “Let’s let it go.” She nodded back to him, also unwilling to interrupt the fun. It really didn’t matter what the Altons and Parkers thought, she had instantly decided. They were packing up and headed their separate directions in the morning. Rafe knew the truth. She knew the truth. That was enough.

Yet, now, lying in the dark and feeling even more alone than ever, it wasn’t. Why should they have pretended to have a relationship, even for a moment? The man was not interested in her in the least – no matter what hopeless romantics like Robert and Allie and Aunt Naomi and even Rafe’s employee Veronique might think. Not interested is not interested. Pretending there was anything else between them just to keep a party atmosphere going kind of hurt.

Actually, it made her slightly angry more than it hurt. She made another instant decision. She couldn’t avoid Rafe entirely. He was her boss’s son and a frequent visitor to the lodge since that building included Robert’s apartment. But, she didn’t have to hang out with the man. No, she wouldn’t make that mistake again. Never again.

Chapter 20

Brianna did not make the mistake of hanging out with Rafe again. It was all Margaret’s fault. And, it happened just a few days later.

The diner owner had taken Brianna up on her suggestion and had booked musicians for every Friday and Saturday night for the next several weeks. It was the first Friday in the series and Mag’s Diner was hopping. There were cashew-cheese nachos, smoothies in colors for which there was no acceptable explanation and all sorts of other vegan treats topping every table. The boot- and sandal-shod feet under the tables were tapping in time to a duo that included a bow-tied, bespectacled man playing the hammered dulcimer and a much tattooed woman with hair dyed to match her bright blue violin.

The fiddler’s hair also matched some of the smoothies, Brianna couldn’t help but notice. What is in that stuff?

Brianna had ventured down from her apartment and joined the crowd to support her new friend’s enterprises. Frankly, the performance and the crowd made it too noisy in the building to do anything else. But, somewhere in between the slow, sad strains of Shady Grove and the unfettered enthusiasm of Soldier’s Joy, she’d gotten lost in the music. It was particularly fascinating to watch Bow-Tie Guy moving tiny mallets over the table-top dulcimer so quickly that the tips of them were only a blur during the faster parts of the performance.

She was so caught up in the music, in fact, that when someone leaned over the back of the booth seat where she had ensconced herself for the evening and whispered, “They’re really good, aren’t they?” in her ear, she didn’t recognize the voice as Rafe’s or realize just how close he was. That ignorance held until she turned to agree and his mouth grazed her cheek from her ear to the corner of her lips.

Brianna’s eyes opened wide. Prior to that moment, she had assumed romance novels that had scenes mentioning a man’s kiss “blazing a trail of fire” on the heroine’s whatever were the inventions of authors with too much imagination or a taste for hyperbole. But, that is exactly what her skin felt like. Even though they had both jerked away from the unintentional contact immediately, she could still feel the exact path his lips had taken. Her face practically sizzled.

“Whoa. Sorry,” Rafe said from a safer distance away. “I thought you knew I was right behind you.”

The words were polite enough, but the look on his face was certainly not. He was almost grimacing, as if a dog had licked him on the face or he had discovered the milk he had just drunk had expired the previous week. Now, Brianna felt warm for another reason. She was ticked. Just who did this guy think he was? And, just how low of an opinion of her charms did he hold?

“PPffffttt. It was nothing,” she said with a tight smile and a dismissive wave of her hand. “Absolutely nothing.” She slipped out of the booth, yawned in exaggerated manner and motioned toward the seat she had vacated. “Help yourself. I’m having an early night,” she said over one shoulder as she strode toward the back door that led to her apartment stairs.

She made her exit calmly enough, but Brianna fumed, volcano like, all the way up the stairs. By the time she got to the top and unlocked her apartment door, she knew what she wanted to do – kick something. So, she did. She kicked the edge of the couch. Then, she danced around the living room in pain. Open-toed sandals. Such a menace.

Brianna sat on the couch, nursing her toes with a package of frozen peas. There had to be a more productive way to deal with her frustration. She sat. She thought. She finally realized what she really wanted to do was talk to her best friend. But, could she? It was 9:30 p.m. on a Friday night and Allie had a newborn and a husband. Would a call wake the baby? Would a call wake Allie and Gabe? Brianna had no idea.

A text seemed like a good compromise. Can U talk? She thumb typed into her phone.

Her phone rang with an actual voice call about a minute later. “Brianna!” Allie said cheerfully. “Ava and I are having a girls’ night – aren’t we Baby Boo? Gabe’s at a highway department conference in Topeka, Kansas of all places. What’s up in Canaan Valley?”

Baby Boo?

How do you tell someone with a Baby Boo that another someone accidentally kissed you and then acted like he’d gotten hold of a rogue pickle? Or, that you impulsively kicked something and now wonder if you have a broken toe? Brianna decided to keep her fresh humiliation at Rafe Davis’s hands, or lips as it happened to be, to herself.

“Not much,” she said instead. “How’s the baby?”

That simple question was enough to spin out a good hour of conversation, during which Allie fed, burped, diapered and put Ava Marie down to sleep for the night. Allie, who was apparently even more hungry as a nursing mom than she was while pregnant, also made a smoothie of her own during this time. In between blender blasts and gulps of what she said was chocolate-banana-almond-butter deliciousness – which Brianna suspected would be perfectly normal in coloration if she could see it — Allie fretted over her scheduled return to work at the newspaper in late January.

“Michelle offered to cut down on her hours at the donut shop to take care of Ava Marie at their house,” Allie said slowly. “Gabe thinks that’s great. It is great. But, now I don’t know if that’s what I really want.”

“Are you thinking about staying home?” Brianna asked in surprise. Allie was traditional in many ways, from her precise British way of speaking to her tailored clothes. But, she loved to write. It was hard to imagine her giving up what, for West Virginia at least, was a good job just because she had a baby.

Allie took her time responding. “I am,” she eventually said.

“What does Gabe think about that?”

“I don’t know,” Allie admitted. “I haven’t told him that I might have changed my mind.”

That launched a long discussion about Gabe’s loving-but-somewhat-bossy style of husbanding, house mortgages, the couple’s hope to have a family with at least three children and whether they could swing all of the above on Gabe’s salary as a highway engineer and his side hustle at New River Gorge.

“I think we could do it,” Allie finally decided. “We would have to trim back here and there – no big trips, not much eating out, no big-ticket cars or clothes. We could do it.”

“Then do it,” Brianna said, realizing this is what Allie truly wanted, regardless of the sacrifice involved.

“I’ll talk to him as soon as he comes home,” Allie said determinedly. Then Brianna could hear a waffling change to her friend’s voice. “Well, maybe the newspaper would let me do some sort of part-time thing. I want to be home with the baby. I want to be here for all of the big and the little milestones. But, I don’t want to disappoint Gabe’s mom, either. This is her only grandchild, after all.”

Brianna sighed. These kinds of real-adulthood issues seemed way more important than an accidental kiss between so-called friends. She decided to shove the earlier incident firmly to the back of her mind. “Would your boss let you work from home for a while?” she suggested of that other possibility that COVID had launched.

The two friends debated the various merits of these ideas for most of the remainder of the conversation. Finally, Allie came up for air. “That’s far more than enough about me. How are things at Corduroy, anyway?” she asked. “Any glamorous men or glamorous job possibilities?”

Brianna laughed at that. “Not a one,” she sort of lied. Rafe was plenty glamorous in spite of his après ski wardrobe. But, he obviously did not count. “It’s me and the socks-and-sandals crowd, just like Gabe said it would be.”

“Well, as long as you don’t start wearing them yourself, I’m sure you’ll be OK,” Allie giggled in return. “It’s only six months.”

Looking down at her feet, Brianna was the one to give a bad-pickle grimace now. Red socks – cozy and lumpy as anyone could possibly imagine – peeked out from her sandal on one foot and from under the somewhat damp bag of peas on the other. Oh, yeah. She was in deep trouble.

“You know, I might be back even before the six months are over,” Brianna said suddenly. “Corduroy’s bookings are going really well. The website and social media campaigns are in place. All Robert really needs to do is hire a local person in Elkins to keep it up. Having me here is really overkill at this point.”

“What do you think you’ll do next?” Allie asked.

Brianna, for the first time since maybe pre-school, had no plan whatsoever. “I have absolutely no idea,” she said slowly. Then, she laughed. “And, I don’t care. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Are you OK, Brianna?” Allie asked immediately, the verbal equivalent of checking Brianna’s forehead for a fever with the back of her hand.

“Yes,” Brianna said firmly. “I am OK. I am more than OK, in fact. I am just fine.”

“Well, then,” Allie said with a stifled yawn.

Brianna realized that nearly 11 p.m. was too late for the mother of an infant to be up chatting. “Go get some sleep, my friend,” she said. “I’ll be back in Wheeling before you know it.”

At least for a while.

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