packages and angels in trees, white poinsettias and red cushions. He missed the way the tree smelled, and he found he especially missed the crackle, the warmth, the coziness of the real fire.
He had a gas version here, throwing up phony-looking blue flames behind a stainless-steel enclosure, not beginning to touch the chill.
He missed getting up in the morning and having that sense of urgency and purpose.
He missed Mona’s cooking, and the quiet companionship and wisdom of Tim, he missed the girls fussing over Tess and jostling for position to show him their drawings and tell him their stories.
Who was he kidding? Certainly not the person he wanted to kid the most. He was not even beginning to kid himself.
He missed Emma. He missed her quirky hair and the ever-changing moss-and-mist of her eyes. He missed her laughter and the mulish set of her jaw. He missed her voice, her ability to have fun, the seemingly endless generosity of her heart.
He missed the subtle scent on her skin, and her hand brushing his at unexpected moments, and he could not get the taste of her mouth out of his mind.
He missed how, against all odds, she held onto hope.
Most of all he missed how he had felt. Not alone.
Instead of that he had chosen this. A cottage so dreary and cold that he could not seem to warm it up no matter what he did.
Or maybe it was himself he could not warm up.
That time, the night before she had married his brother, when his sister-in-law had said to him with such honesty and affection, “You and Drew are the rarest of finds. Good men,” now seemed like one of the things he had lost to the fire.
He did not feel like a good man anymore.
A good man would not have left the White Christmas Inn, putting his selfish need to protect himself above the heartbreak of a shrieking baby and two little girls who had the maturity to know that even when you hurt, you still gave, you still tried to make the world better instead of worse.
A good man would not have left Tim to be the sole man to try and get that place ready for the crowds that would be descending on Holiday Happenings.
And Ryder knew there were crowds, because the only call he’d made since he’d got here was to the PR firm that handled all his company’s advertising. He’d had to go and use the pay phone at the Lakeside Grocery and Ice Cream Palace because he’d so stubbornly left his cell phone at home.
Patrick had promised he would call in all his favors to make sure everyone within a day’s drive of the inn knew about what was happening there, and knew what the proceeds were going to.
“Wow,” Patrick had said before he hung up, “what a great way to shake off the blues from the storm and get back in the Christmas spirit. I’m going to take my wife and kids out. And what would you think if I suggested people arrive with an unwrapped gift for the families that will be spending Christmas with her?”
“Perfect,” Ryder had said.
But it didn’t feel perfect at all. It didn’t take away one bit of the guilt he was experiencing.
Because all Emma had wanted was one Christmas that felt good, and he had walked away from her.
It wasn’t him she wanted, precisely, he tried to tell himself. It was that feeling of family. He thought of his parting words, hoping her mother came for Christmas. As if that absolved him in some way.
Absolved? He didn’t owe her anything!
But a good man would have stayed, not protected himself.
“Well, I’m not a good man,” he said out loud.
Tess shot him a look that clearly said You aren’t kidding.
He remembered Tim suddenly not being able to look at him when Emma had said she would be sending the bus ticket that day, that her mother would arrive for Christmas Eve.
He scowled. Tim didn’t think Lynelle White was going to come home for Christmas with her daughter. And, after all Emma had confided in him, could Ryder possibly believe Lynelle would show up?
Ryder could barely stand the thought of one more disappointment for Emma. A phone call. He’d just check. That was all.
He wrestled Tess into her coat after all, but not to go and build a snowman. As soon as he tucked her into the car seat, she started to sing happily. Anticipating a return to the inn.
“I’m not going that far,” he said grouchily. “I’m just going back to the pay phone. And that will teach me to leave my cell phone at home, too!”
At the Lakeside Grocery, while watching Tess in the car talking happy nonsense to Bebo, he inserted his credit card in the phone. And then he had to sweet-talk a very cranky operator to get her to check every directory in two provinces before he found the name he was looking for. Thankfully, Lynelle still had the last name White.
Finally, determined but his fingers numb from the cold, he called the number he had found.
A raspy voice answered.
“May I speak to Lynelle White please?”
No answer at first, but he could hear loud voices in the background.
“And who wants to speak to her?” The voice became cagey, loaded with suspicion. It sounded like there was a party going on. Not the nice kind, with Christmas music and tinkling glasses. The kind where fights broke out and bottles got smashed.
It occurred to him the words were slurred around the edges.
“Is this Lynelle?” he asked.
“Yup.” There was the distinct sound of a match being struck, followed by the long slow inhale.
He suddenly wasn’t sure what to say. Go spend Christmas with your daughter. Tell her you’re proud of her. Make a fuss over the inn. Make a fuss over her. Help her have that one good Christmas.
“My name’s Ryder Richardson. I—”
He needn’t have worried what to say, because Lynelle didn’t let him finish. “Look, buddy, whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it.” And then she said a phrase he’d heard on plenty of construction sites and slammed down the phone.
He took the dead receiver from his ear, stared at it for a moment. Then, slowly, Ryder replaced the receiver in the cradle. He knew there was no sense calling back.
He knew why Tim had looked away when Emma had said she would send the ticket. And he knew why Emma had never had a good Christmas.
From that extremely short encounter, he knew everything about Lynelle, Emma’s mother, that you could know.
And he knew she wasn’t going to anyplace called the White Christmas Inn for the holidays. In all likelihood, a bus ticket cashed in was what the background noise was all about.
A girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Emma had confided in him, telling him about her botched engagement,
