Risking It All for Love (A Christmas in Snow Valley Romance) Read online

  “Oh, it’s okay that Michael died as long as I didn’t. Tell that to his mother.”

  “You know I don’t mean it like that. That’s not fair.”

  “Please. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I headed for the door, but Mom stopped me. I didn’t turn around as she spoke, quietly and forcefully. “I know you think I interfere with your life too much. That I’m cloying and probably much too sappy. But your father and I care deeply about you. We see how much you’ve been hurting the last three years. Even if you hid yourself away in New Orleans, we know why you left. I’m also proud of you for trying to live your life. For trying to make it on your own. But,” she took a deep breath. As though gathering her courage. “But ever since you got home you’ve spent most of your free time at the cemetery. It hurts that you seem to resent us. Most of all, it hurts me to see how much you’re hurting.”

  I chewed on my lips, tears threatening to spill, arms crossed over my chest to hold myself together.

  “It’s been three years, honey. You need to forgive yourself.”

  “That’s impossible,” I shuddered.

  “I promise you’ll feel better if you throw yourself into the Christmas festivities or a service project like the bake sale fundraiser tomorrow. Your old friend, Paisley, has done a remarkable job organizing. She has real talent.”

  “Good for her. But she never had the guts to leave this town.”

  “That was cold, Jessica. Very unchristian.”

  I shrugged.

  “Perhaps you and Paisley could get reacquainted and work together? I’ll just make a phone call. Getting involved in something will help you quit moping around the house. Or telephone Kazlyn, your old classmate from ballet school, and go out on the town.”

  “Don’t!” I turned around, wiping a stiff hand across my face. “Just don’t. A bake sale will not fix this. Or a “night on the town. In Snow Valley—are you kidding me?” I stormed out of the kitchen. “Hey Sam, want to get out of the house for a couple hours? See if Big C’s has milkshakes on sale?”

  “Not on the Sabbath, you two,” Mom said behind us in her strict voice.

  “Mother,” I said evenly. “Sometimes you have to let your children make their own decisions and let them make their own mistakes. Going out for a little while isn’t going to send me to hell.”

  I could see pain behind my mother’s eyes. It didn’t make me feel any better to defy her, but I had to get out of the house for awhile.

  “I won’t go to hell, either!” Sam cried, a little too joyfully, as he pulled on his jacket and stuffed one of mom’s hand knit caps on his head. I pounded upstairs to grab my stuff so I could catch up to him.

  Chapter Eight

  When I slid into the car—inordinately grateful that I’d driven my own car from New Orleans because I didn’t have to beg for keys every time I wanted to go somewhere—Sam gave me a sheepish look.

  He held up a plate of cookies tied with red Christmas ribbon and taped in the center with a cheap green Walgreen’s bow. “Sorry. Mom stuck it in my hands. Said we have to deliver it to Pastor John’s house.”

  I gave him a sideways grin, trying to shake off the argument in the kitchen. “Mom is a piece of work, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So tell me Mom’s trick. How’d she get cookies mixed up, baked, and on a plate so fast?”

  “There are two dozen plates just like this in the deep freeze in the garage.”

  “Mom must be a Boy Scout. Always Prepared.”

  “Prepared is her middle name.”

  “Or cookies. She thinks the world can be made better with the band-aid of chocolate chip cookies.”

  “Well, she does have a point,” Sam said, sneaking one of the cookies out from under the plastic wrap.

  I give him a look. “Everybody in this town is too damn cheerful—even you!”

  “Sorry, sis.”

  We got to Big C’s a few minutes later. The roads had been cleared and salted so it was an easy drive.

  The squat gray brick building was clustered with tables and chairs, now iced over with a thick layer of snow from the previous night’s storm.

  “They really should bring these in for the winter,” I said as we skirted around them and shoved the glass door open. Warmth bathed my cold face from the grill and ovens. The smell of fresh baked hamburger buns and onion rings made me realize that I was starving.

  “I think I could use some lunch,” Sam hinted.

  I grinned. “Order anything you want. My treat.”

  “I always knew I loved you best.”

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  After getting big sloppy burgers, a basket of hot deep-fried onion rings and Cokes, we made our way to a table in the corner near the plastic Christmas tree strung with droopy tinsel.

  We ate in companionable silence for a few minutes while silly Christmas jingles from the radio bruised our ears.

  “Man, this is soooo good,” Sam said, gulping the last of the onion rings and wiping his mouth with a napkin. “But now I’m feeling bad about eating so much. Mom home cooking Sunday dinner and all.”

  “You are a big old bear, you know that?”

  He leaned back in his seat and gazed at me. “You’re kind of hard on her.”

  “She’s hard on me, too,” I protested, not wanting him to take her side.

  “I’m on both your sides,” Sam said, as if reading my mind. “But even when Mom drives me insane I know she means well.”

  I sighed. There were no words right now. My stomach was full, and I was sleepy from all the fabulous, greasy food.

  “You’re wound so tight, Jess,” he went on tentatively. As if feeling his way and hoping I wouldn’t bite his head off.

  A lump came into my throat as I stared back at him. “What am I supposed to do, Sam? I’m stuck in this weird place. I can’t even describe it. Michael was—my whole life.”

  My younger brother glanced down, then around the café, and then back at me. “You sure about that? Or is that a guilt trip?”

  “When did you get to be a shrink?”

  “I used to watch you guys all the time. Michael was like a hero, a big brother to me.”

  “He was supposed to be. Your future brother-in-law.”

  Sam shrugged, chewing on his lips just like I chewed on mine. “But watching you guys. For a while you were all kissy and romantic. And then, about a year before the accident, you guys stopped. You seemed more like cousins or something, best buddies—just like you were when we were all kids.”

  “How would you know? You were only fifteen.”

  “I got eyes. And I’m not stupid.”

  This conversation was very disconcerting.

  “We were going to get married.”

  Sam shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not really. And I think you feel like you’re to blame.”

  “Of course I do! I—I didn’t stop him from driving that night!”

  “No. No. I mean—I mean you feel bad, but mostly because you didn’t love Michael enough. You were thinking about breaking up with him.”

  “No, I wasn’t! What kind of fantasy are you spinning about us?”

  “Okay, I don’t think you were actually thinking about breaking up, but you were starting to watch other guys. Talking about leaving home for college. Or audition for a dance group—or company—or whatever you call it. And that’s kind of the same thing, isn’t it?”

  I couldn’t answer him. He was hitting a nerve.

  “I see it happening with my friends now that we’re seniors. We’ve been together since elementary school and now our lives are kind of like splitting. We’re all going to do different things after graduation.”

  I nodded slowly. The accident had changed everything, even though I’d still left home. Michael and I were going to wait for each other and get married after college. I tried to remember the last time Michael and I had actually discussed those plans. I think it was back during our sophomore y
ear. Not after that at all . . .

  “You do realize, Samuel Mason, that you’re the only person I’d allow to talk to me like this.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Yeah.”

  “Let’s talk about something else. Like your girlfriend.”

  “Who says I have a girlfriend?”

  “I think Mom let it slip on the phone a couple weeks ago before I came home for the holidays.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “So? What’s her name?”

  “Lydia.”

  “And?”

  “She’s pretty amazing. She might be the one. Know what I mean?”

  I was stunned to hear that come out of his mouth. “You’re way too young, Sam! You’ve hardly dated any girls. How could you possibly know you want to spend your whole life with her already?”

  “Wow, you sound like Mom now.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand. “Sorry, I did.”

  “Besides, you didn’t date anybody but Michael since you were a kid.”

  Was I letting my experience with Michael color my opinions on relationships? It was a thought that made me squirm.

  “Anybody in New Orleans?” he asked next, studying me.

  I thought about Zach Howard and cringed. “Nope, nobody.”

  “That new pastor dude is pretty cool, don’t you think?”

  I feigned ignorance. “Who?”

  Sam just laughed at me. “I saw a little eye action going on last night.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did, too. He asked you out, didn’t he?”

  “I hardly call having cocoa with the family asking me out. Besides, it completely fizzled. End of story.”

  “Nope, beginning of story. He was concerned about you. I could tell. He kept looking at you. Like a lot.”

  Those annoying prickly feelings were running rampant down my neck and legs. Even my fingers were twitching now.

  “Believe me, I am not interested in a pastor. And won’t ever be.”

  My brother laughed again. “What’s wrong with a pastor? Pastor John is pretty cool.”

  I made a noise in my throat. “If you don’t set his outhouse on fire.”

  “No way. You serious?”

  “Drop the subject,” I said with a sugary smile. “You ready to go?”

  “But we’re not done with Pastor what’s-his-name.”

  “I’m done.”

  Sam crumpled up the wrapping to his burger and stuffed it in the empty basket. “I’m trying to picture you and Pastor Dude getting married. I gotta tell you – I’m seeing it. I am.”

  His eyes glittered with mischief.

  “You are so full of it. There is no way I would ever marry some religious guy. I swore off religion when Michael died.”

  “Only because you’re mad at God.”

  “I think an alien is now inhabiting your body.”

  My brother didn’t crack a smile. He was dead serious. “I mean it, Jess. You keep crying and getting mad at everyone, walking around like somebody should shoot you, but it’s only because you’re mad at yourself. And you’re mad at God for taking Michael and messing up your life.”

  “It sounds so selfish when you put it like that.”

  “Not selfish. Just sad. Because it doesn’t have to be that way.”

  “What books are you reading? You sound like Dad.”

  “I am his offspring.”

  “I’ll take your advice into account,” I said, feeling irritated, but knowing I shouldn’t be. “And if you eat any more of those cookies in the car, I’ll snitch on you. Although they’re probably still completely frozen in a frigid car.”

  As we pulled into the church parking lot the new billboard read: Church Parking Only: Violators will be Baptized.

  “Too late,” I muttered as I set the brake. “Here goes nothing.”

  “You nervous?” Sam asked, picking up the plate and eyeing it.

  “No, why should I be?”

  “Pastor Dude standing by the door.”

  My stomach lurched. “I’m not nervous at all,” I said, snapping open the door latch. “Just surprised.”

  As we approached the side door, James Douglas was shoveling snow, scraping underneath where it had iced up.

  “How about some frozen cookies to go with your frozen sidewalk?” I said brightly, ignoring the peculiar fluttering in my chest. I would not be overwhelmed by this guy. He was a stranger. He meant nothing.

  James stopped, leaning on his shovel when he caught sight of us across the parking lot. Those blue eyes zinged me and a can of imaginary soda seemed to fizz right up my stomach. Darn him anyway!

  “I’d love some,” he said in that deep voice.

  “Well,” I amended. “They’re really for Pastor John. From my mom. You know.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  I could tell he was trying not to smile. I widened my eyes into a glare. “No need to laugh at me. I’m just an obedient daughter.”

  “I wasn’t laughing, and I’m sure you are a very obedient daughter.”

  He stated the opinion in a voice that told me just the opposite. “Then you’re amused.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe you’re right. But in a totally good way.”

  I tried not to blush. “You vocabulary sounds like you just arrived from California.”

  “I went to high school in southern California. I guess it still shows at times.”

  Now it was my turn to be amused. “California, huh?”

  “Alright. Enough with the grinning,” he shot back, smiling broadly. “Don’t hold it against me. I did med school at Stanford. Better?”

  Behind James’ back, my brother shot me a stupid grin and gave me a peace sign.

  I shut my eyes for a moment, trying not to laugh.

  “Um, yeah. Anyway, where’s Pastor John?”

  “He’s not here right now. His flock called.” James Douglas pulled back the plastic wrap. “Mind if I try one? I’m starving from all this hard work.”

  “Be my guest.”

  All at once both James and Sam were munching on my mother’s famous chewy chocolate chip cookies.

  “Sam! Those are not for you!”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “You told me yourself that Mom has two dozen more plates at home.”

  “That’s impressive,” James said. “Say, do you think I could get my very own plate?”

  “Uh, okay. Sure.” I gave a little laugh. I’d never had anybody just come right out and ask for cookies. I kind of liked his open honesty.

  “Can you bring them tomorrow? About evening? At the town square?”

  This time I laughed out loud. “What are you talking about?”

  “We’ll have cookies with our hot chocolate. It’s the reading of ‘Twas the Night before Christmas.”

  “Oh, right. I think my sister is bringing my nieces.”

  “Perfect, then. It won’t be out of your way at all.” He smiled again and popped the rest of the cookie in his mouth.

  This guy sure liked to push his luck. I let out my breath, watching the masculine line of his throat as he swallowed the cookie. To cover up my staring, I started to chatter. “So, wow, I forgot about all these daily Christmas festivities. My favorite was the Polar Express when I was six. When I got older I loved the fireworks and the sleigh rides—and then when I was in high school I was so excited to finally get to attend the Christmas Ball with—” I stopped, aware that I was about to say Michael’s name. Again. I must be annoying people by always bringing him up in the conversation. The sudden realization floored me.

  “Sounds like we’ll have a second chance at hot chocolate on Saturday then,” James said smoothly, covering over my faux pas.

  “What are you talking about” I blinked, trying not to show my discomfiture.

  “The sleigh rides at the Winter Carnival. I’ve already got tickets. You can never drink too much hot chocolate in December.”

  “You mean you want me to go with you on a sleigh
ride, too?”

  My brother burst out with a laugh. “You are so dense, Jess.”

  “Well, a girl can’t make assumptions about invitations.”

  Good grief, I sounded just like an uptight school marm now.

  James Douglas leaned against his shovel, starting right into my eyes. “Nope, you can’t. But I’ll try to be very clear. I’ll see you at the town square tomorrow, Jessica Mason.”

  “Right. I’ll be the adored aunt with two little girls in tow.”

  I could see Sam holding back a snort as James Douglas flirted with me.

  And . . . I guess I was kind of—sort of—flirting back.

  Chapter Nine

  The next night I was hurriedly doing the dishes with Mom while Amber and Joanie were jumping around our feet on the kitchen floor, anxious to go hear ‘Twas the Night before Christmas.

  “We’re going, we’re going,” I said.

  “Hurry and get your coats, Amber and Joanie,” Mom told them. “Dress warm!” She poured dishwasher soap and started the machine’s cycle, then turned to me as I was drying my hands.

  “My car is first out the driveway,” I said. “I’ll drive if you’d like.”

  “We’d have to move the car seats from Catherine’s van. Let’s just take hers,” Mom said. “Besides, a little bird told me you’re meeting James Douglas at the town square.”

  I felt indignant. “Who told you that! Oh, wait. Sam, right? Of course.”

  “You can’t keep secrets in this family,” Mom said with a sweet smile.

  “That’s not always a good thing,” I told her drily.

  She lowered her voice, almost whispering as she looked furtively about the entry hall as we grabbed our coats and hats off the rack. “You want to be available in case he’d like to drive you home afterward.”

  I made a noise of aggravation in my throat. “I swear, Mom, you say lines like an actress from a 1940s movie.”

  “Well, those were very good movie years. Not that I was alive, mind you.”

  “Boys, I mean, men—guys—and girls, do not play hard to get anymore. We’re more open and honest.”

  She lifted an eyebrow, letting me know she didn’t believe that a bit. “I’ll keep that in mind, but the male and female species are not much different now than they were through the history of time. I did a paper on that in college—”