"An Enchanted Season" - читать интересную книгу автора (M M M, S S S, McCarthy Erin, Singh Nalini, Johnson Jean)

Two

Present Day, Binghamton, New York

HOLLY MADE HER WAY FROM THE KITCHEN TO TABLE SIX, with two breakfast platters, a carafe of coffee, ketchup, and maple syrup, all without batting an eye. She delivered the food piping hot and, as always, accompanied by a brilliant smile. “Anything else I can get you boys?”

Bub Tanner, as he was called, and that was the only name she knew, grinned at her, and rubbed his unshaven graying stubble with one hand. “I like how she calls us ‘boys,’” he said.

“She’s just flattering your ego, Bub,” Tater said. And that was the only name she knew for him. “She knows we’re both older than dirt.”

“Speak for yourself, Tater.” Bub reached for the carafe, but Holly beat him to it, filled his cup, and then Tater’s, with the decaf they hadn’t asked for.

“Enjoy your breakfast.”

“Here, take this with you, hon, will you?”

Holly looked back to see Tater holding out his thoroughly read newspaper. She smiled and took it from him. “Happy to get that outta your way,” she said, and then she paused, because the paper was open to page three and folded in just such a way that one particular story was looking her right in the face.

“Oswego Welcomes Natives Home for Holidays,” the headline announced. The story was a feel-good piece about all the people traveling in from out of town for the season, how good it was for business.

But that wasn’t the way Holly saw it. Frowning, she carried the paper with her behind the counter, and into the kitchen. “Aunt Sheila?”

Sheila turned her wheelchair around—she’d been parked right next to the short-order cook, probably lecturing him on his technique—and smiled at her. “What, babe?”

“Look what Tater just handed me.” She thrust the paper toward her, and Sheila looked at it, saw the story, lifted her brows.

“That’s the fourth time this morning, Aunt Sheila.”

Sheila nodded, tilted her head. “And how many signs did you have about your hometown yesterday?” she asked.

“Six.”

“Right. Including the billboard for the school play, To Oz We Go.”

“Oz We Go, Oswego. Come on, Aunt Sheila, it’s almost blatant.”

Sheila nodded. “You need to spend this Christmas at home.”

“I don’t know that I need to. And I don’t want to leave you—but I feel like something…I don’t know, wants me to.”

“Which is why I called the Realtor.”

“You did?”

Sheila nodded, and wheeled across the kitchen, toward the office door, with a quick glance back at Will, the new short-order cook. He met her eyes and there was…something.

Holly lifted her brows. “Was that—?”

“Office, Holly,” Sheila said. She’d opened the door, and held it now, waiting. So Holly obediently went inside.

“The old place is empty,” Sheila told her. “It’s in rough shape, being that it’s been empty for twelve years, but it’s habitable, barely. If you want to go up there for a day or two over the holiday, I think you should. You haven’t been back since the accident. Maybe…maybe it’s time.”

“But you’d be alone for Christmas. And we always do Christmas together. For Mom, you know. And—”

“We can do it up separately just as well. And I won’t be alone.” She said it with a meaningful glance at the doorway, which was still open. Will was whistling as he flipped flapjacks and smiled at her in a certain way.

Holly blinked and shot her aunt a look.

“Hell, I have MS. I’m not dead.”

Holly smiled from ear to ear. Her aunt really did embrace life, in every possible way. She loved that about her. It reminded her of the way Mom had been. The way she was herself. It must run in the female line.

“I could take part of the decorations up with me,” Holly said, mulling it over as she thought it through. “It would be kind of cool to decorate the old house like Mom used to. Even if it is in rough shape.”

“I think she’d like that. The power will be turned on, a fresh tank of LP gas hooked up when you arrive. Key in the mailbox.”

“You—you really did talk to the Realtor, didn’t you?”

“I think you have to do this, Holly. You haven’t been back there since you lost them. And your eyes are lighting up just thinking about it,” Sheila said with a smile. “You’ve been taking care of me, taking care of everyone around here, ever since you came here, Holly. It’s time to do something for yourself, even if it’s only for a couple of days. Give yourself a present this Christmas. Okay?”

Holly heard the rumble of a motor and glanced up and through the window, just in time to see a bus go past. Plastered to its side was an ad for the State University of New York at Oswego. She smiled, shaking her head. “I don’t think the universe is going to take no for an answer. My hometown seems to be calling me. Guess I’ve got no choice.”

Present Day, Detroit, Michigan

“Yes, I do have to go now,” Matthew told his sister. “Yes, Cindy, I know it’s Christmas week. But this is business.”

She sounded heartbroken, but honest to God, if he had to sit through one more warm, cozy, family dinner at her house with her idyllic life and her doting husband and her chubby babies, he was going to swallow a stick of dynamite and a lighter and hope for the best.

“Honey, you know how I feel about the holidays. I know they’re important to you, but ‘to you’ is the operative part of that sentence. This place is a bargain. I can’t miss out, and if I buy it this week, when every other person in the market is taking the holidays off, I’ll have the kind of edge you never get in real estate.”

Spice that up with the phony-baloney goodwill of the season, and the Realtor likely wanting one more fat commission check before the end of the calendar year (to cover her holiday overspending, most likely), and he had it made.

People were idiots this time of year. He was smart enough to take advantage of that.

“Yes, Cindy, I’m flying. Right away? Well, yeah, seeing as how I’m calling you from the airport, I would say it’s pretty much imminent. Yep, I’m renting a car when I arrive in Syracuse and driving up from there. And yes, we’ll celebrate when I get back, I promise. There’s no reason in the world I shouldn’t be back in time for Christmas dinner. My flight leaves Christmas Eve, three p.m.” He almost grimaced at the thought, but tried to make the words sound sincere all the same. “Have a great week, hon. I’ll call you in a day or two.”

He flipped the phone closed, cutting her off before she could dole out any more helpings of guilt, then slipped it back into his belt clip, and dragged his roller bag over toward the concourse, where the flight had just begun boarding.

As he got into his seat, he leaned back, closed his eyes, and told himself he really would do his best to get back to Cindy’s in time for Christmas. Cindy needed Christmas.

And that thought brought to mind the other. The one from long ago, his first Christmas without his dad. And his mom’s tearful explanation about how she’d gone to the secondhand clothing store and tried to find the hat, but that it was already gone. And the proprietor not only didn’t remember who had bought it, he didn’t even remember ever having seen it.

The hat was beyond recovering.

Just like his dad. Just like his childhood after that. Just like everything eventually was. Gone.

Just went to show what getting too attached would do for you. Things are fleeting. Here and gone again. There’s no point getting too used to anything.

And holidays, he added mentally, are just plain stupid.

The wind blew the hat until it came to rest outside a truck stop just a few blocks from the dead man’s house. And there it waited. Eventually, a long-distance driver came out of the establishment, burping in a very satisfied way and carrying a clipboard, a set of keys, and a travel mug full of Joe, piping hot and twice as strong.

He walked toward his rig, and almost tripped over the hat on his way. Then he paused and looked down at it, tipped his head to one side, and shrugging, bent to pick it up. It wasn’t a bad hat. Nothing he’d wear, but the thing had character. He didn’t really want it. He wasn’t sure what possessed him to take the thing, but take it he did. He set it on top of the CB radio inside the truck, and let it ride there as he headed for his next stop in New York’s southern tier. It was almost like having a friend along.