style="font-size:15px;"> “Don’t you forget it.”
“You would never let me, darling,” he said with a laugh, then kissed her forehead.
“I’m actually heading over to Snow Angel Cove,” he told Andie, then pitched his voice lower and looked around as if checking for eavesdroppers. “I’m helping Aidan with a Christmas present. I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention anything to Eliza or Maddie. They think I’m heading over to watch a basketball game.”
She twisted her fingers as if locking her lips and tossed the pretend key over her shoulder, which earned her one of Ben’s rare but devastating smiles.
“Good luck to both of you, then,” she said.
“Thanks.” He waved at her, then leaned in once more to kiss his wife of only a few months. When he walked out the door, McKenzie’s lipstick was smeared and her hair a little rumpled, but that rather dazed smile indicated she didn’t really mind.
For one small, selfish moment, envy poked at Andie with sharp, merciless claws, leaving behind a trailing sadness. Oh, she missed that. Jason had been gone for two years and there were times she ached most of all at the loss of those casual little touches. His fingers brushing the back of her neck as he passed by, his arm draped across her while he slept, his hand on her knee as they sat together on the sofa watching a favorite television show.
All those small, tender physical reminders that oiled the sometimes creaky and contrary machinery of a marriage.
Her children gave her hugs and kisses all day, which she adored. She tried to tell herself it was enough. Deep in her heart, on those nights she couldn’t sleep because the bed felt too big, she knew it was a lie.
On those nights, she would wrap herself in a blanket, curl up in the window seat and read long into the night to push the loneliness away.
But this was a party and she wasn’t going to waste time feeling sorry for herself. “Is the guest of honor here yet?” she asked.
“Yes. Hazel and Eppie were the first ones here. You know how Ronald Brewer is. If they show up ten minutes early, he considers them all late. Everyone’s back in the family room.”
Andrea continued to look at the various unique holiday decorations throughout the house as McKenzie led the way, until they reached a sprawling room off the kitchen dominated by glass windows that overlooked the lake.
The room was filled with most of her favorite people in the world. Andie smiled and greeted friends as she headed straight for Hazel Brewer.
Hazel—still trim and fit and always fashionably dressed—beamed a welcome smile at her, which widened when Andie showed her the gift she and the children had made.
“For me? Oh, honey. You shouldn’t have. I don’t know what it is about all of you who can’t read your invitations. It clearly said to make a donation to the library instead of bringing a gift.”
Andie added the wrapped present to a small but growing pile on the table next to her. “I know. And I did that. But this is something the children and I made for you. They wanted to do it and I couldn’t tell them no, could I? Happy birthday, my dear.”
Andie leaned in to kiss Hazel’s wrinkled cheek.
“Thank you. Whoever would have thought a grumpy old cuss like me would live to such a ripe old age?”
“I can only say I hope the next eighty are just as amazing.”
Hazel made a face. “I’m not sure I have the energy for eight more decades. Maybe just four or five.”
“If that’s your plan, you better work on finding yourself another husband,” her sister Eppie said. “I don’t know if Ronald will be willing to drive you around for another fifty years.”
Andie laughed and hugged Eppie, as well. Eppie and Hazel were sisters fourteen months apart who had ended up marrying twin brothers. Andie had learned at her first Helping Hands meeting in McKenzie’s storeroom that Hazel’s husband had died of cancer two decades earlier. Since then, Eppie’s patient and long-suffering husband, Ronald, had taken his wife and her sister everywhere they needed to go.
Andie adored them all. Eppie and Hazel were kind and warm, always full of pithy observations and sly humor—exactly the kind of women she had always wished the grandmother who virtually raised her could have been. Instead, Damaris Packer had been a weak, self-effacing woman who would hardly say boo to a goose, forget about her loud, demanding, opinionated husband.
Andie was afraid she leaned more on her grandmother’s side of the personality scale, with a tendency to shrink away from any confrontation. Since coming to Haven Point, she wanted to think she’d learned a thing or two about being strong and capable—in no small measure because of the other women in this room.
“The caterer tells me they’ve just about finished setting dinner out. Let’s eat first and then we can open gifts.”
“What’s this we business?” Hazel said. “It’s my birthday, my gifts. I get to open them.”
“You mean the gifts you insisted you didn’t want?” Eppie said tartly.
“Just wait until you’re eighty, then you’ll see life is too short to waste it pretending you don’t like being the center of attention.”
Andie heard a muffled cough and looked over at Devin Shaw, who was fighting a grin.
With the skill of a consummate leader, McKenzie ushered the group into her elegant dining room, where a beautiful feast was laid out.
“Wow, this looks fantastic,” Julia Winston, the town librarian, exclaimed.
“I can’t believe you spent all this money to cater a meal,” Linda Fremont grumbled. “Why couldn’t we have just done potluck, like we always do?”
“An eightieth birthday requires something special, I believe,” McKenzie said. “And anyway, Ben insisted. This is our gift to Hazel but also our gift to the rest of you. And since he’s got more money than God, I try not to argue with him when he wants to do something special for my friends.”
“Why doesn’t Ben have any brothers?” Samantha Fremont complained. The normally effervescent Sam seemed subdued tonight, but then she had been down ever since her best friend—Marshall and Wynona’s sister, Katrina—had caught a wild hair after a breakup that summer and took off to see the world.
“Ben is one of a kind,” his mother, Lydia, said with a fond smile.
“He is, indeed,” McKenzie said. “Don’t think about it. Just sit back and enjoy the fabulous food. Serrano’s went above and beyond with this one.”
The food was, indeed, delicious. Andie was nibbling on a plate of fabulous spinach lasagna when Eliza Caine sank into the chair beside her.
“Hi, Andie. You’re just the person I need!”
Andie instantly set down her fork. “Please tell me you’re looking for somebody to hold that sweet little boy of yours!”
Eliza laughed. “Well, that wasn’t what I meant, but sure.”
She
