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Andrea didn’t have any wisdom. She was an empty vessel.
Let me know if you can make it, even if it’s only for one night. Remember when we talked about giving a party at the inn on Christmas Eve so Emily and Cole can renew their wedding vows? This would be the perfect time to formalize our plans. So see what you can do to get away.
Love ya, Casey.
Andrea closed the message and left the office to open the door to the shop. She glanced at the Advent calendar hanging on the wall, one of several dozen with chocolate tokens in each window. Luckily it was Wednesday—not the weekend, which was their busiest time.
The inn on Barrow’s Lake outside Barrow’s Cove, Massachusetts, was only an hour away from Providence. If she left after her mother came over, she could spend the night with Casey and drive home tomorrow in time to relieve her mom by afternoon.
She checked the weather app on her phone. No new storm systems right now. Though they’d had snow in the Northeast, most of the main roads had been plowed. It wouldn’t take any time to pack for one overnight.
Andrea had already decided which nutcrackers she would give her friends for Christmas. All she had to do was wrap them and take them with her. She could give them out at the party on Christmas Eve.
During her musings an elderly gentleman walked into the store. It activated some Christmas chimes. When he said he wanted to browse, she used that time to phone her mom. As soon as she told her about the email, her mom told her to go for several days if she wanted, accusing her of never taking a vacation.
Andrea loved her mother, but told her she needed only one night. In truth she didn’t like being away from the shop. It kept her going. Too much free time and she started to think about things that dragged her down to despair. None of that this year!
She got back on the computer and sent Casey a message that she was coming. Then she gift wrapped a smoker for her customer. After taking his credit card information, she handed him his package. That was when she saw a tall, striking male, maybe thirtyish, standing outside the window wearing a bomber jacket. He was carrying a blonde girl of five or six in his arms so she could see everything.
Loving the girl’s animation, Andrea walked over to the window to watch. The child was pointing at the gingerbread boy, her face and eyes beguiled by him. Closer now, Andrea could see she wore a pink parka with a hood lined in fur. It had fallen back to reveal her soft golden curls that fell to her shoulders.
Against the bright pink color, the man’s short cropped jet-black hair stood out. With brows the same color, he was darkly attractive. His lean chiseled jaw had that five-o’clock shadow that looked good only on a certain type of male.
When the little girl laughed at the antics of the drummer elf, the lines of his hard mouth broke into a half smile, causing Andrea’s breath to catch. She had the strongest suspicion he didn’t laugh often. Suddenly his gaze shifted to Andrea’s, as if he could read her mind and didn’t like it.
Completely embarrassed and shaken to be caught staring at him, she walked back to the counter. That was the first time anything like that had happened since Gunter’s death. There’d been plenty of attractive men coming in and out of the shop since her return from Germany, but they weren’t in this man’s class.
A second later she heard the chimes again before the charismatic man approached her. The girl walked at his side, clinging to his hand. With those light green eyes, they had to be father and daughter, although his were more hazel in color and a deeper hue.
“Good morning. May I help you?”
“I hope so,” Rick Jenner said to the blonde saleswoman. “Do you have a set of animated elves like the one in the window?”
“Right over here on this table.” She walked to it and picked up a box.
When she put it on the counter, his daughter stared at him with imploring eyes. “Will you ask her if I can hold the gingerbread man, Daddy?”
“No, Tessa. It’s too expensive.”
“What’s expensive?”
“It costs too much,” he said and pulled the credit card from his wallet to pay for the elves.
“I wish I could look at it.” Tears welled in her eyes. If he had a dollar for every time she wished she could have something...
The clerk ringing up the sale took one look at those eyes and said, “Stay right there and I’ll bring it to you.” After handing him back his card and purchase, she walked around the counter and hurried over to the display window to pluck the gingerbread man and rocking chair from the case.
Good grief. His daughter was a little manipulator, a talent she’d learned from his deceased wife, who’d been indulged in turn by her own well-meaning parents, especially her mother, Nancy. He’d loved his wife and they’d had a good marriage, but she’d been high maintenance, which had caused minor strains and at times a few major ones. Rick was determined his daughter would learn she couldn’t have everything she wanted.
When the clerk walked over to them, he became aware of her enticing fragrance, a light floral one. “If you’ll sit down, you can hold him.”
Rick wished she hadn’t gone to the trouble, but it was too late now.
“Oh—” Tessa crooned after taking it in her arms. His daughter’s happiness almost blinded him. “He’s so cute.” In a perfectly natural gesture, she kissed the cheeks just the way a mother would kiss her baby. Then she held it tight and with eyes closed started rocking.
The sight caused Rick’s throat to swell. He was in luck. Only the first day of shopping to get an idea of what Tessa wanted and already he knew this would be the present Santa left under the tree. When he got home, he would ask his housekeeper to come in and buy it for him so it could be a surprise.
“We have to leave now, Tessa. We’ve got more shopping to do before I take you to kindergarten. Thank the nice lady for letting you hold him.”
Tessa stared at the saleswoman. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He helped her off the chair and set the gingerbread man inside it.
Tessa’s lower lip trembled. “Can’t I have him, Daddy?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Please?”
“Tessa—that’s enough.”
“I’ll sell it to you at half price,” the woman said under her breath. He lifted his head and found himself gazing into the sapphire-blue eyes that had unexpectedly caught his attention through the display window.
“Thank you, but no.”
On cue his daughter broke into tears. The clerk bent over her. “Have you written to Santa Claus yet?”
“Yes. My grandma helped me, b-but I didn’t ask for the gingerbread man.” Her voice wobbled.
“I’m sure your father will help you write another letter and ask Santa to bring you a gingerbread man.” She flicked him a hopeful glance as she said it.
“This one?” Tessa pointed to the chair.
“Yes.”
Rick blinked. Yes? The clerk’s no doubt well-meaning intervention irritated the hell out of him. Worse, she’d played right into his daughter’s hands.
Tessa sniffed. “Do you think Santa will know that my gingerbread man is in this store?”
An impish smile broke the corner of the clerk’s mouth, drawing his unwilling attention to its provocative shape. “Yes.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Come on, Tessa.” He picked up his daughter, who still wasn’t in control of her tears.
“Have a merry Christmas!” The woman just kept it up.
Rick flashed her a brief glance. “Merry Christmas. Thank you for indulging her.” With his daughter in one arm and his package in the other, he left the shop in a few long, swift strides.
* * *
Was that a little sarcasm Andrea had heard?
She bristled, realizing that he hadn’t wanted his daughter indulged and didn’t appreciate in the least what Andrea had done.
But maybe he couldn’t afford it because he was out of work. He had told his daughter it cost too much. If that was the case, then she felt bad for putting him on the spot, and she decided she would grant his little girl her wish by Christmas.
Andrea knew exactly where to send the gingerbread man and the chair. The credit card listed him as Richard Jenner on Rose Drive in Elmhurst, a nice neighborhood. It was Christmas, a time for giving.
This could be her own little sub-for-Santa project. Every year at the church they had a list of families who needed help, and everyone who could contribute did so. This was one time when Andrea knew her present would bring happiness.
Picking up one of the big floppy elves, she took him over by the tree and put him in place of the gingerbread man and the rocker. Those items she took up the back stairs to the loft. Once she got everything gift wrapped and packed, then she’d send it to the Jenner residence. On the outside of the box she’d print “To Tessa from Santa.”
With that accomplished she went back downstairs to face a steady stream of customers until her mother arrived so she could leave for Barrow’s Lake.
During the late-afternoon drive her mind played over the incident in the store. What she’d give to have a child she could indulge. With those cherubic features, Tessa Jenner was absolutely adorable.
When she reached the Gingerbread Inn, she saw the state it was in and realized that Casey’s email hadn’t exaggerated. Despite some cosmetic fix-ups by Emily and her husband, Cole Watson, it was obvious the Gingerbread Inn had fallen on hard times. Despite all the inn owner’s big dreams, Carol Parsons had lost her husband and couldn’t keep everything going anymore.
In the kitchen, the heart of the once-fabulous two-story Georgian inn, Andrea looked around. Everything needed refurbishing. She longed to get rid of the dilapidated sunflower wallpaper and worn white vinyl flooring and make it all fresh again.
But Andrea was grateful for one thing that hadn’t changed. She and Casey, her exotic-looking friend with the dark wild hair, were sitting at the very same long maple table where the girls had enjoyed many a meal day or night in past summers.
“Do you two want another cup of cocoa?”
Andrea jumped up from the chair and gave Carol another hug. The tiny gray-haired widow and sole owner was in her fifties and still looked great wearing a pale blue T-shirt and jeans. Best of all, she had a heart as big as the outdoors.
To the amusement of all, Harper, the golden retriever of uncertain mix, ran around sniffing everyone, hoping for crumbs from Carol’s homemade coffee cake fresh from the oven.
“Don’t you know you’ve done enough? It’s after midnight. You should be in bed. Casey and I will be headed there ourselves pretty soon.”
“No, you won’t.” She laughed. “I know you girls. Once you get talking, there’s no stopping you. Since you have to get back to Providence tomorrow, I’m going to leave you two alone so you can catch up. In the morning I’ll make scones.”
“Those are to die for,” the girls said in a collective voice.
Carol laughed. “Come on, Harper.” The dog made a yapping sound and scrambled out the door after her.
Andrea and Casey were finally alone, surrounded by six empty chairs. One of them would never see Melissa again. Once upon a time they’d been filled with people and laughter and great happiness. Andrea wondered if she’d ever know real happiness again. Her hurt went so deep she couldn’t fathom experiencing it again, let alone joy.
Casey studied her for a minute through dark brown eyes. “I know what you’re thinking.”
Andrea nodded. “Life has changed for all of us. Remember that horrid expression, ‘Life is what happens when you had other plans’?”
“Oh, yeah. I could have written it.”
“I think Eve probably coined the expression,” Andrea murmured.
“Except I think things might be changing for Carol.”
“Really?”
She smiled. “Cole hired a handyman to help around here. His name is Martin Johnson. He’s been a widower for ten years and from what I can tell, he and Carol are getting along better than you’d believe. Having been a carpenter, he can fix anything.”
“What’s he like?”
“Tall and blue-eyed with the greatest shock of white hair.”
“Wouldn’t it be something if a romance blossomed around here?”
Casey nodded as they stared at each other for a long serious moment. “It’s so good to see you and I’m so-o glad you came. I’m feeling alone and maybe more than a tad envious of Emily, who’s off on her second honeymoon with Cole.”
“I feel the same way, so let’s get busy planning what we’re going to do with this place to turn it into a winter wonderland for their vow-renewal ceremony.”
Once they’d worked it all out Andrea said, “Tell me what’s hanging so heavily on you right now.”
“Oh, Andrea, I just feel like I don’t want to be filled with self-pity around you when you’ve experienced so much loss. I guess I hoped to recapture some of that girlish wonder we had for so many years. But we can’t turn back the clock. When I think about you and Gunter...I don’t know how you’re dealing with your life. It’s all so unfair.”
Andrea had known this conversation would leap to her own problems. “Let’s agree the word fair should be stricken from the language. Luckily his parents have three other children and four grandchildren to dote on, and I have my mom and the shop.”
“I’m glad about that. I know how much work is saving your life right now. But forgive me for asking another question. How will you ever move on if everywhere you turn, you see him?”
A weary sigh escaped her lips. “Mom has begged me to move back to the house with her for that very reason, but I’m not ready yet and don’t know if I ever will be. She belongs to a church group that meets every few weeks. There’s a widower I know she’s interested in, but he’s been on vacation. I’m hoping that when he gets back, he’ll sweep her off her feet. If I’m not living there, it’ll make his path easier.”
“I love your mom. Any man would be lucky to find a woman like her. But I want to see you fall in love like that again.”
“The chances against that happening are astronomical, Casey.”
“Surely not. I predict some gorgeous guy is going to come along and you won’t know what hit you. Maybe this fantastic man will see you in the shop and find you absolutely irresistible the way Gunter did.”
“Maybe.”
Heat rushed into her cheeks as a vision of Tessa’s father filled her mind. He was fantastic looking, but if anything, she knew he’d felt like swatting her away from him rather than sweeping her off her feet. The encounter had disturbed her more than she wanted to admit.
Mr. Jenner had a daughter, for heaven’s sake. Though he didn’t wear a wedding ring—Andrea blushed to realize she had noticed—he was probably in an intimate relationship with a woman, so there was no point in wasting energy discussing him. The last person he’d be interested in was a widow who couldn’t give a man more children.
Though she was tempted to tell Casey about the incident, she held back, needing to concentrate on anything that didn’t have to do with the ache inside her. Andrea had her sister-in-law when she really needed to talk. With Marie she could open up. She’d been there right after the accident. They’d become close after Andrea had met Gunter, and they needed each other now that he was gone so they could mourn together.
“It has to happen one day, Andrea. You’re too young and beautiful.”
“And unable to conceive, don’t forget.”
“There’s always adoption.”
“That’s what Mom says, but it’s ludicrous to go there. I just don’t want to think about it.”
