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With a toss of her head, Krista preceded him into the kitchen. He fought to keep his eyes from dipping to the sway of her hips, reminding himself that what had happened between them had been very brief and very long ago.
He’d been right to break things off the instant Krista told him she was moving to Europe, no matter how wrenching the decision had been.
A woman who could stay away from her family for eight years, returning home for a few days only because she thought her mother was gravely ill, was not the one for him.
KRISTA COULD BARELY taste the honey ham she was chewing, although she was sure it met her grandma’s excellent standards. Her body was still on Prague time, where it was 2:00 a.m. That wasn’t all.
The mother she thought was dying sat at one end of the long dining room table, her paralyzed father at the other. Grandma smiled and laughed like nothing had changed and the only man Krista had slept with after one date was seated next to her in silent disapproval.
Krista felt like she was caught in a snow globe after it had been shaken. Her vision seemed hazy and her equilibrium off. Her temper, though, was still broiling. How dare Alex judge her when he didn’t know the whole story?
“Nobody’s said why Rayna isn’t here.” Krista and her sister weren’t close. Krista had made some overtures over the years and the miles, but Rayna seldom responded.
“She’s working,” Alex answered. He would have been easier to ignore if he didn’t smell better than the food. “The dentist is open late for the next few days.”
Did that mean Rayna already had her associate’s degree in dental hygiene? Krista was relatively sure her sister was still taking classes at a community college near Harrisburg but could be wrong. Krista certainly wouldn’t ask, not with Alex in the room.
“Why didn’t you bring your girlfriend, Alex?” her father asked.
Krista refused to acknowledge her sense of disappointment. It didn’t matter to her if Alex was involved with someone. Come to think of it, why wasn’t he married? Even eight years ago, it had seemed to Krista he’d been in the market for a relationship with a future.
“Alex broke up with Cindy before Thanksgiving,” Krista’s mother answered before Alex could. “Don’t you remember, Joe?”
“How am I supposed to remember all Alex’s women?” Her father sat in his wheelchair instead of one of the dining room chairs, a constant reminder that he was paralyzed from the waist down. “Seems like he has a new girl every year.”
Krista thought a year was a long time. She couldn’t remember the last guy she’d dated for more than a few months.
“He’s looking for the right woman so he can settle down and raise a family,” Ellie said. “Aren’t you, Alex?”
Grandma wagged a finger at her daughter-in-law. “Don’t put Alex on the spot like that, Ellie. I’m sure he doesn’t like it.”
“I wouldn’t keep coming over here if I minded.” Alex smiled at her mother, but Krista noticed he hadn’t answered the question. She wondered if both Krista and her mother had Alex pegged wrong. He was thirty-two, after all. Maybe he was a serial dater, like Krista.
“You can ask me about Charlie,” her grandmother said.
Krista felt like someone had just shaken the snow globe harder. Who was Charlie?
“He’s auditioning to be my new beau.” Grandma addressed Krista, answering one of her unspoken questions but raising others. Auditioning? “Your grandpa’s been gone a long time so I figured it was time I got myself one. You’ll never guess where I met him.”
“The senior citizen’s center?” Krista guessed.
“The internet!” Grandma announced. “Alex set up one of those computer profiles for me.”
Krista gaped at him, glad for an outlet for her residual displeasure. “You got my grandma into online dating?”
“Hey, don’t look at me like that.” Alex waved both his hands in the air. “Online dating was Grandma Novak’s idea, not mine.”
Alex called her grandmother Grandma Novak?
“In my day, we went on blind dates. That’s how I met my wife,” Milo Costas said. With his olive complexion, dark hair and angular features, he resembled a smaller, older version of his son. Milo’s dark eyes fastened on Krista. “She died when Alex was nineteen.”
Why hadn’t Krista known that? She searched her memory but couldn’t remember Alex mentioning his mother in the past. Then again, they’d probably known each other better in bed than out of it. “I’m sorry,” Krista told Milo.
“Don’t be sorry for me,” Milo said. “I have my memories, my son and great next-door neighbors. It’s a wonderful life.”
Grandma laughed. “Milo works that line in every year. It’s his favorite Christmas movie.”
“It’s his favorite movie, period,” Alex said. “The dogs we had when I was growing up were named George and Bailey after the Jimmy Stewart character.”
“That’s right,” Milo said. “I got your grandmother to stock it at the store, too. The holiday movies are big sellers.”
Krista put down her fork, the better to concentrate on the conversation. “People buy movies at the nursery?”
“Not the nursery, the Christmas Shoppe,” Milo said.
Krista blinked, trying to dispel the haze clouding her brain. “What Christmas shop?”
“The one your grandmother runs next door to the nursery,” Milo said.
The fog Krista was trying to plow through got even thicker. Beside her, she could almost hear Alex asking why she hadn’t known about the store.
“We opened November first.” Grandma seemed to sit taller in her seat. “Our specialty is lighted yard art.”
Considering her grandmother’s love of Christmas, the shop was a logical extension of the nursery business. Had Krista really been so out of touch that the new venture hadn’t come up in conversation? She talked to her mother every month or so, although lately Krista made excuses to get off the phone when her mother started pressuring her to visit.
“Why don’t you come see the shop tomorrow, Krista?” Grandma asked. “If you want, you can even help. We have a lot going on.”
“Sure,” Krista said through a tight-lipped smile. She would prefer avoiding the nursery altogether but would never admit that to her grandmother.
“Great!” Her grandmother clapped her hands. “I’m going to love having you home! I might not let you go back after the new year.”
“If she stays that long,” her father muttered.
“Of course she’s staying!” Krista’s mother exclaimed. “It’s the holidays. There’s no reason for Krista to hurry back to Europe.”
Krista avoided looking at Alex. “Actually, there is. I’m supposed to meet friends in Switzerland the day after Christmas for a ski trip.”
“You can’t go back that soon!” Krista’s mother insisted.
Krista steeled herself against her mother’s protests. As soon as she was through with dinner, Krista intended to book her return flight. She wouldn’t be in Pennsylvania at all if her mother hadn’t manipulated her. “I already paid for the trip, Mom. The reservation’s nonrefundable.”
Krista’s mother stuck out her lower lip. “What if I were still in the hospital?”
“You’re not,” Krista’s father interjected. “Leave the girl alone, Ellie. If Krista has to go back, she has to go back.”
Krista reached for her glass of water to wash down the tight feeling in her throat. Next to her, she was aware of Alex watching her silently.
So much had changed since Krista had left Pennsylvania, yet one thing remained constant—her mother didn’t want her to leave, but her father couldn’t wait to shove her out the door.
Krista didn’t blame him, especially because she was the one who’d put him in the wheelchair.
CHAPTER TWO
KRISTA WOKE TO THE SOUND of silver bells.
As a child snuggled under her warm blankets, Krista used to listen for the bells until she fell asleep. They’d dangled from the wreaths that hung from her bedroom window, tinkling together with every gust of wind.
Krista’s room had been her refuge while she was growing up. She’d never tired of the glow-in-the-dark yellow stars her father had put up on the ceiling, insisting that one day she’d travel to the moon. In her teens, she’d plastered the walls with posters of more realistic places to visit—Venice, Paris, Rome, London.
Now that bedroom was a home office, and Krista was sleeping on the sofa bed in the basement recreation room. So why had she still heard the bells?
They jingled again. Pushing the cloud of hair from her face, Krista sat up in bed. Something sleek and white leaped onto the chair opposite the sofa bed and stared at Krista from glistening green eyes. It was a cat with bells on its red collar. Since when did her family have a pet?
“Where did you come from?” Krista asked aloud.
With sinewy grace, the cat jumped down from the chair and disappeared, the bells tingling together in its wake. Krista was about to lie back down when she caught sight of the bedside alarm clock.
Nine o’clock!
She didn’t even sleep that late in Prague, where it was already partway through the afternoon. Krista should have asked what time to be ready to leave for the Christmas shop and set an alarm.
She scrambled out of the sofa bed and hurried to her open suitcase. Since it was carry-on size, her wardrobe choices were limited. She yanked out dark slacks and a plain red sweater that was as Christmassy as her wardrobe got.
Ten minutes later, after using the bathroom in the basement that was adjacent to her sister’s empty bedroom, Krista hurried up the stairs. The smell of brewing coffee assailed her before she reached the kitchen.
A young woman sat at the kitchen table, her hands wrapped around a coffee mug, her long blond hair parted in the middle and tucked behind her ears. A newspaper was spread in front of her but she didn’t appear to be reading it.
If they’d been anywhere but inside the house, Krista might not recognize the woman as her sister, Rayna. The twenty-one-year-old’s face was thinner and her hair much lighter than when Krista had last seen her.
Feeling her mouth curving into a smile, Krista started toward her sister. “Rayna! You’re so grown up!”
Rayna lifted her large dark eyes from her coffee mug. Her lips were unsmiling, her body language distant. “I heard you were home.”
Krista stopped midstride, her hands dropping to her sides. She blinked sudden moisture from her eyes, annoyed with herself. Only a fool would expect a warm welcome after so many years apart. “I got here last night but crashed early because of the time difference.”
Rayna said nothing.
Krista cleared her throat. “I came because Mom called me and made it seem like she was really sick.”
“A few days ago, she was really sick. Her skin was gray and she was so run-down she could barely stand.” Rayna’s eyes didn’t waver from Krista’s face. “Then she started vomiting blood. Nobody knew why when we got her to the emergency room.”
Krista hugged herself, disturbed by the frightening scenario her sister was describing. “The doctors must have figured it out pretty quickly.”
“Not until the endoscopy. Even after they put her on medicine, she was too weak to get out of bed. They kept her in the hospital for three days.”
Some of the annoyance Krista had felt at her mother the day before faded. “I didn’t know any of that.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like you live around here,” Rayna said.
Even though the statement was true, it felt like a criticism.
Rayna’s eyes dipped to the newspaper. It was open to the sports page, the section Krista usually skipped. Was Rayna into sports? She hadn’t been as a child. She didn’t have a cat, either, although Krista’s guess was that the one downstairs was hers.
“Where is Mom?” Krista asked.
Rayna didn’t look up. “She and Grandma left early for the nursery.”
Krista had missed her grandmother, just like she thought. She hadn’t considered her mother would be working at the shop today, too.
“Shouldn’t Mom be resting?” Krista asked.
“Sure should,” Rayna mumbled, eyes still on the page.
The topic was too important to let her sister’s lack of response dissuade her. “Then why isn’t she?” Krista persisted.
“Mom promised she’d take it easy,” Rayna said.
“Will she?” Krista asked. “Probably not.”
“Maybe I can make sure she doesn’t overdo it,” Krista said, thinking aloud.
Rayna’s eyes finally flickered upward. “Yeah. You do that.”
Krista tried not to take offense. She couldn’t expect her sister to instantly trust her. “Is Dad still here? Maybe I can hitch a ride with him.”
“Dad doesn’t drive, Krista,” Rayna said dryly.
Krista should have expected that. Her parents had purchased a handicap-accessible van before Krista moved to Europe but it hadn’t been equipped with hand brakes. Once again Krista wished she’d thought to reserve a rental car. “How will he get to work?”
“The Christmas Shoppe isn’t his thing.” Rayna waved an arm in a dismissive gesture. She wore a sterling silver bracelet with a heart-shaped charm dangling from it. Inside the charm was the name Trey. Was he Rayna’s boyfriend?
“But the nursery’s still open, right?” Krista asked. Her parents typically closed the business in January and February and reopened in March.
“They shut down early because of the Christmas Shoppe,” Rayna said. “Good thing, too. We’ve had a lot of ice this month. It’s hard for Dad when the weather’s bad.”
The first winter their father had been in a wheelchair, he’d struggled to get around. Krista hadn’t expected him to become a wheelchair whiz since then, but it hadn’t occurred to her that he’d be housebound.
“Where is Dad?” Krista asked.
“In his office,” Rayna said. “But don’t go in there. He doesn’t like being disturbed.”
So their father wasn’t only housebound, he was also a recluse. Suddenly in need of sustenance, Krista moved across the kitchen to the coffeemaker and poured herself a cup. Rayna closed the newspaper and stood up. At thirteen, she’d been as tall as Krista and spindly. Now she topped Krista by a few inches and her figure verged on voluptuous.
“I’ve gotta get to work,” Rayna said.
“So you got your degree?” Krista ventured.
“No.” Rayna’s head shook slightly as she regarded Krista. “I got a part-time office job at a dental practice while I finish school.”
