Their First Noel Read online

  He cocked his head. “The fire didn’t actually destroy the inn. The fire started in one of the little guest cottages and took out all six of them. The embers from that reached the back of the inn to the kitchen and office and they burned. The dining room suffered a lot of water damage but everything else was saved.”

  “That’s how all the records were lost and why the kitchen is in such great shape.”

  “Yep. The cost of that and of cleaning up forced the original owner to sell and since then four different people have tried to get it up and running. They were able to fill enough rooms to get by, but they didn’t get good word of mouth. I think that’s because no one did anything but cheap cosmetic repairs, no one…” He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead obviously trying to find the right word.

  “Loved it the way you did,” Corrie offered.

  His eyes practically popped open. “I was going to say no one else had my vision for the place, but yeah, you pretty much summed it up. I have a special place in my heart for that old inn.”

  “So, let’s do it justice with my contest entry.” She slapped her hands together and rubbed them as she finally came to the desk, ready to get down to work. “What can we do to get my version of the place to hold together?”

  “Easy. It’s all about what we call the bones of the structure, and about your foundation.” He stabbed his finger here and there on the page. “Looks to me like you’re relying on fitting pieces of gingerbread together and gluing them in place with frosting when what you should do is use a wooden framework or maybe a Styrofoam model.”

  “That would be perfect!” She angled her shoulders back and rolled her eyes. “If I wanted to get disqualified before I even got the entry in the door.”

  “Disqualified?”

  “According to the rules—”

  “There are rules?”

  “Of course there are rules.” She scrunched up her nose. “It’s a contest, silly.”

  “No, I mean there are rules and you didn’t bother to share them with me? Where are they?”

  “I don’t know. On the website?”

  “You didn’t print them out?”

  “Don’t freak out, Andy. They’re pretty much the same basic rules all these contests have. You have to keep a record of yourself making your gingerbread house by dated photos or video. No kits. No electrical lights or motors. Every part of the entry must be edible. I have the basics in my head, that’s all I need.”

  “But…” His face actually went a little red at the thought of her not being a stickler for the rules.

  She laughed and stretched across the desk to put her hand on his arm. She gave the strong muscle in soft flannel a squeeze. “It’s okay. I’m not in it to win it. I just want to do my best and to honor the inn.”

  That last part got to him. She could tell by the way his pinched expression relaxed. No, not just relaxed, actually seemed to warm to the idea, or was it to her way of doing things?

  “Hey, if you can restore the inn without blueprints or records of how it used to look, then you can help me figure out how to make a gingerbread replica of it without Styrofoam.” She looked around her at the contrast of the businesslike office and the mementos of the not always all-business business man before her. “I know you can fix this, Andy. I believe in you.”

  She let her hand slip from his arm. Instantly, her fingers felt chilled.

  His eyes met hers. Some of the former tension returned to his face. “All right. Sure. You have the rules in your head and I’ve got a new problem on my hands.”

  “It’s not just in your hands, Andy.” She stepped around the side of the desk, wanting to better illustrate her point that they were a team by literally putting them both on the same side of the desk that held the plans for the inn. “Remember, I’m with you in this.”

  “I know.” He scowled slightly, rubbed the back of his neck then looked down at her. “Edible, huh?”

  She used her shoulder to bump against his side. “If it helps, it doesn’t have to taste good.”

  “I’ll take that into account.” He chuckled. “Oh, and by the way, I never said I didn’t have records of what the inn looked like throughout its history. I said the blueprints are gone, and you were right when you said the records in the office were destroyed.”

  She froze mid second bump. “What do you mean?”

  “That inn has been a part of this area for a very long time. People have had weddings there, reunions, family vacations, honeymoons…”

  “All occasions where people take photos!”

  “Yep. It was like a home away from home for a lot of folks in town. They worked there. They celebrated there. The annual Christmas Eve open house meant the world to my family after my dad died. It and our faith were our only constants in a world of chaos. That’s why I have to have it ready for guests by that time this year.”

  “Oh, Andy.” She tilted her head. He was not a man who shared that kind of information with just anyone, she could tell. Suddenly, his passion for getting the inn done and done right took on a new meaning. “You know you don’t have to do the work on the inn all by yourself. You just saw your neighbors in town pull together for the park decorations. You should—”

  “I should tell you about the town museum. It’s right across from the park in City Hall, fourth floor.”

  “Not as subtle as bursting into song, but I get it. You want to change the subject.” She moved from around the desk and crossed her arms. “I’ll play along. Tell me about the town museum.”

  “Oh, you should really go see it for yourself.” He reached for her coat and held it open for her to slide her arms in. “They have the whole history of the area, including a section just for the Snowy Eaves Inn. People have donated photos, scrapbooks, souvenirs. Those along with the town archives of newspapers, yearbooks and what have you, who knows? You might get a lead on finding your father.”

  She shrugged into her coat and glanced back at him, with her eyes narrowed. “You don’t fool me, Andy McFarland. This is all part of your attempt to get me to formulate a plan.”

  He smiled slightly, wrapped her scarf around her neck then turned to retrieve his vest. “You can thank me later.”

  “I will. Maybe at the park lighting…you know the one you hadn’t planned on attending,” she teased as she opened the door and stepped back out into the brisk New England morning, leaving him speechless.

  Chapter Five

  The rest of the day went swiftly by. Or at least Corrie realized it had gone by when she found herself sitting alone at a library table in the silent fourth floor museum squinting to make out the faces in a faded instant photograph pasted into a scrapbook. “Mom?”

  She skimmed her finger over the photo of a group of young people standing with gardening tools in front of what looked like a quaint little log cabin, then inched in close to try to make out the features. The light through the blinds on the row of large windows that looked out over the front of the building had already begun to fade. She looked up to the row of metal file cabinets on one side, then behind her to discover the dusty displays cloaked in long shadows. A quick check of her cell phone told her it was almost four o’clock.

  She set her glasses aside to rub her eyes as she pressed her spine straight against the rigid back of the chair. After hours of sitting hunched over any piece of information she could find about the Snowy Eaves Inn or anyone in the area with the last name Wallace, the movement sent a warmth circulating through her muscles. She rolled her head to ease the ache in her neck.

  If only she could dispel the ache in her heart with such a small effort.

  How could she have worked so hard and literally come so far and still have nothing? She had no solution for the gingerbread inn, no lead on her father and no chance of snow in the forecast. “At least I have Andy.”

  A door creaked on the floor below.

  “To help me, that is. At least I have Andy to help me, um, with the gingerbread contest and…all,” she
hurried to qualify, even though there was no one around to have heard her. She was alone. All alone.

  She sighed. Probably just feeling a touch of homesickness, right? Her mother had probably felt the same way the summer she came to the Snowy Eaves Inn. She turned her attention to the photo, then to her cell phone.

  Corrie pressed the first number on her speed dial, took a deep breath, then held the phone up to her ear. There wasn’t anyone else around to overhear the conversation but putting it on speakerphone seemed too impersonal, too distant. She wanted to hear her mom’s voice in her ear, to hold the object connecting them across all these miles, even if it was, at best a tenuous connection.

  “Bennington’s Bakery, Barbara speaking.”

  “Hi, Mom. You busy?”

  “Not too busy for you, honey. Is anything wrong?”

  “No. Not…wrong.” Just hearing her mom’s voice brightened Corrie’s outlook. They had spoken during the drive up and last night when Corrie finally got settled in her room at Maple Leaf Manor but that had been dutiful daughter stuff, checking in, making sure her mother knew how to find her, that kind of thing. This call? “I just…I think I’m looking at a picture of you.”

  “You think? You don’t know?”

  Other mothers might have been curious or confused by a remark like that. Corrie’s mom wanted clarity. She wanted to hear that Corrie was in control. “I’m at the town museum in Hadleyville, looking for information.”

  The muffled background sounds of the bakery filled the slow, steady passing of the seconds.

  “On the inn,” Corrie added after that prolonged moment of silence on her mother’s part. “And?”

  Such a loaded question. Corrie could think of a dozen things she could throw out there. Some would mollify her mother. Some would mortify her. The truth? Corrie had no idea how her mom would respond to that, and that scared her more than any other possibility.

  Yes, the girl that proudly embraced making things up as you went along wished with every fiber of her being that she knew exactly what her mom would do if she poured her heart out on the spot. Suddenly, she felt more alone than ever before. “And…there’s a photograph in a scrapbook of a girl and two guys holding garden tools standing in front of what looks like a little log cabin. I think you might be the girl.”

  “Does this girl have dark hair, permed within an inch of insanity yanked up in a ponytail on one side of her head?”

  Corrie smiled at the description. “Yes.”

  “It’s me.”

  And? Corrie wanted to use her mother’s own ploy to draw more information against her.

  “Was that all you wanted to know?”

  Corrie wanted to know if one of the boys in the photo was her father. “I just…there’s no caption under it, no other information. I just thought maybe you could tell me more about it.”

  “I don’t know what I can tell you without actually seeing the picture, honey. I know my mother hated my hair like that. She called it wild and worldly. When I came home after that summer she…” Her mother paused to clear her throat.

  As rocky as Corrie and her mom’s relationship had been, it seemed like a sunshine-dappled, lovey-dovey, mother-daughter picnic compared to the way Corrie’s mom and grandmother had gotten along. It had gone from bad to worse when Barbara returned home expecting a baby fathered by a stranger that she never heard from again.

  “After that summer she forbade me from wearing my hair like that again.” Another throat clearing. A sigh. “Of course, thinking back on it now, it was such an awful style, in some ways I think she did me a favor.”

  Her mother had done the best she knew how to do, that’s what Corrie’s mom was saying. That was pretty much all Corrie was going to get and she knew it. She could ask about the boys, but her mom was right, without seeing them, how could she say for sure who they were. The photo was too old for her to snap with the phone on her camera and get a good likeness.

  “Okay, Mom. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “It was lovely hearing from you, sweetie. I’m keeping you in my prayers.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Corrie, honey?”

  “Yes?”

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for, but I can tell you, you won’t find it in a museum, or an old photograph.” Her mother’s voice grew thin then rallied as she added, “Bye now. I love you. Knock their socks off at that contest.”

  Corrie whispered a goodbye to her mother then ended the call and set the phone aside. Another dead end. Clearly her mom did not think the man was to be found here. She closed the scrapbook, put her glasses on again then pushed up from the seat. She walked to the windows, her footsteps echoing in the large, lonely room.

  She reached out and gave the old cord dangling beside the grayed Venetian blinds a yank. The metal slats clattered upward, unevenly. Late-afternoon light flooded the space. She leaned forward to rest the heels of her hands on the windowsill and looked out over the main street of Hadleyville, Vermont.

  “Where are you, James Wallace?” She scanned the length from the park she had helped decorate this morning, to the shops and businesses all decked out with wreaths and lights. “One thing seems certain. I am not going to be able to find you on my own.”

  “You want to respect his privacy, but you can’t find him without going public? You are in a fix.”

  “Andy!” The man’s sudden appearance in the doorway at the top of the stairwell made Corrie jump. “Why didn’t you whistle while you came up the stairs or something? You scared the fire out of me.”

  “The fire out of you?” He laughed and crossed the room toward her, stopping at her side as he looked down into her face and said, “I very much doubt that. I have an idea you have plenty of fire left.”

  “If I do, I’ll use it to scorch your hide if you ever make my heart race like that again.”

  “Me?” He pressed his work-roughened hand over the thick knit of his ivory-colored sweater. “I make your heart race?”

  “By startling me,” she clarified, even though under better circumstances—ones where he wasn’t totally focused on work and family and she didn’t live a thousand miles away—she might have confessed that every time she looked into this man’s eyes, her pulse did quicken.

  “Sorry.” He made himself comfortable by half-leaning and half-sitting on the windowsill. The stiff denim of his clean, pressed jeans rasped as he stretched out his long legs and crossed his ankles. “I came back in town to get Greer from school and thought I’d drop in to see how the research was going. Not well, I take it?”

  “Nope.” She shook her head and pressed her fingertips to the cold glass of the window. “I’ve pretty much concluded that James Wallace wasn’t a local guy.”

  “Don’t give up that easily.” He folded his arms and shifted his upper body until the light from the window shone on his handsome face. “You can still ask around town about him.”

  “I haven’t quite figured out how to do that discreetly. I mean, what if he has kids and a wife who don’t know about me? That would be a rotten way to find out, because I went around asking people all over.” She traced her finger down the glass then took a step backward. “I wish I could narrow it down some.”

  “Narrowing it down? Is that code for creating a plan?” He gave her a needling grin. “Why don’t you just ask people if they know any families named Wallace. If they do, you can go to that family and ask if they know a James Wallace.”

  “That might work! Only I’m not sure how to do that with all the excitement of the lighting and all.”

  “Then ask before the lighting. How about over a meal?”

  “A meal?” There was that heart racing thing again. She touched her chilly fingers to the base of her throat and when a strand of hair brushed her knuckles she tried her best to smooth it down to make it presentable enough for a dinner out on the town with Andy.

  “Our church youth group is having a chili supper in the church basement before the ligh
ting to raise money for their summer mission trip.” He stood straight and gave a jerk of his head. “Come with me and you can ask folks there.”

  “Chili? Basement?” She laughed even though he had no way of knowing she felt silly and probably thought she was playing coy or something totally inappropriate. That only made her laugh more even as she said, way too brightly, “Sure. Great. What time?”

  “Starts at five, but since this place is about to close, I just dropped Greer off over there and that’s where I left my coat. We could head that way now.”

  “Okay.” She lead the way toward the stairs but took a moment to stop and grab her coat and scarf. “So, you’re a churchgoer?”

  “I was raised in the church.” He took the coat from her and held it for her to slip her arms in. “I still help out when my mom asks me to but, well, my life has gotten busy lately and…”

  “Too busy for God?” she asked, turning slightly to help him help her into the bulky pink coat.

  “Too busy for church,” he corrected with a stern note in his voice. That tone softened as he flipped up her collar, draped her scarf across the back of her neck and said, “Or more precisely, too busy for all the obligations that go with a small church in a small town.”

  She struggled with her buttons. “Oh.”

  He sidestepped around her and moved to the top of the stairs. “You sound like you’re taking that personally.”

  “Maybe that’s because I was one of the obligations taken on by a small church in a small town.” She swept along to catch up with him. “I love my mom and she is a Christian, but she believes that people are pretty much on their own in the world.”

  She paused and looked up at him, giving him a chance to say something, though she wasn’t sure what she expected him to say.

  It wasn’t until he just nodded and said nothing that it dawned on her what she had hoped to hear. A denial. She wanted to hear Andy say that people needed each other. That he needed…someone.

  When it didn’t happen, Corrie sighed and headed down the stairs. “Just after I pushed my mom to try to find my father and she couldn’t, she tried to emphasize to me even more that I had to rely on myself in life.”