'Twas the Week Before Christmas (16 page)

“In a way, that’s worse.”

Holly nodded slowly. “Yes. It really was.”

But then, what else could she expect from someone who didn’t believe in family?

Abby huffed out a breath. “I suppose I should go get showered. Are you going to rest a little longer?”

Holly nodded and pulled the quilt up tighter around her shoulders. She couldn’t think about facing the day just yet. That required doing things and going places. She had nowhere to go. And nothing to do.

The inn. She hadn’t even thought about it in the haze of her grief. The inn would have to be closed down. She would have to refund dozens of reservations.

“You stay here as long as you want,” Abby said with a reassuring smile. “You’ll get back on your feet again. Until then, our home is your home.”

“Thanks,” Holly said, managing a weak smile. She knew Abby was trying to be kind, but she couldn’t ward off the ache in her chest. She loved Abby, and she was grateful to have a place to stay. But it wasn’t the same.

She just wanted to be home for Christmas.

* * *

Max rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch. Somewhere during the night he had managed to fall asleep. He hadn’t thought it possible with the way his mind was racing.

He knew he shouldn’t be here. He should have left, as he said he would, but he couldn’t. Not until Holly returned. Not until he had his final say with her.

Pulling himself off the couch where he had spent the night, he stumbled over to the massive fir tree and crouched down to inspect the gifts. His pulse quickened when he saw one labeled with his name.

Holly.

After a beat, he picked it up. The box was heavier than he had expected it to be somehow. There was a sturdy weight to it. On instinct, he shook it, feeling the hidden object shift slightly. He set the box back under the tree, smiling at himself for this childish indulgence before a sweet sadness crept in once more.

He couldn’t remember the last time someone had given him a Christmas present. It was such a small, simple gesture. So very much like Holly to do.

Rolling back on his heels, Max stood and looked around the empty lobby. Only a few days ago the room had been buzzing and alive, filled with Christmas music and a pleasant buzz from the guests’ cheerful conversation. Now the house was still and vacant. Everyone was gone, except for him. And he had no right being here.

Wasn’t this exactly how the rest of his life had unfolded? He had built himself an empire, and he was living in it alone. The White Barn Inn was no different.

He had hoped that Holly would have come back during the night, and he had waited in the lobby for her. What he would say when he saw her, he didn’t know. But he needed to see her. It was an all-consuming need. He couldn’t let her go.

He pulled his phone from his pocket to call her and realized with a strange pang that he didn’t even know her phone number. She was probably at Abby’s house, but he didn’t know where that was. He could ask someone in town, he supposed, but what would he even say when got there? There was nothing he could say that could take back what he did.

The memory of her parting words rang out, echoing in the empty corridors of this old mansion. She would never forgive him.

And why should she? He had taken the one thing that meant the most from her. He’d taken everything from her.

Max’s stomach churned with self-loathing. Was this really who he was? The person he had become? He had tried so hard to better his life. To redeem his childhood. But this wasn’t the man he had set out to be.

* * *

It took Max only fifteen minutes to get to the Millers’ cottage. He took the icy porch stairs two at a time and tapped his knuckles firmly on the door. A tearful Lucy Miller pulled it open. Her brow creased when she saw him standing on her porch.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Lucy. Is George here?”

“He’s at the diner,” Lucy said, holding the door open wider so that he could enter.

Max stepped into the cramped living room. It was only his third time here, but already it felt familiar. The Millers were kind people, and it sickened him that he had dragged them into this.

“I need to speak with George, if possible.”

Sensing the urgency in his tone, Lucy nodded solemnly. “I’ll just call him,” she said, ducking into the kitchen. From behind the thin wall, Max could hear her frantic whisper. “He’s coming right over,” she announced, reemerging. “Can I get you some coffee?”

Max managed a grateful smile. “Coffee would be great.”

“I think I’ll join you,” she said. She disappeared once more before quickly returning with two mugs. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night,” she confessed, coming to sit across from him.

“That makes two of us then,” he said, taking a hearty gulp. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins and the caffeine made him shaky.

A pounding of footsteps was heard quickly clambering up the porch stairs and the door swung open to reveal George Miller, his face creased with confused. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

“Come sit down, George,” Lucy quietly commanded. She turned her attention back to Max. “My nerves can’t take much more, Max. If you wouldn’t mind telling us why you’re here, I’d appreciate it. Has the planning committee already decided? Was all this for nothing?”

“No, it’s not that.” Max set the empty mug on the end table and leaned forward on his knees, feeling more clear-headed than he had in years, despite the lack of sleep. He stole a glance at the Millers, who were sitting side by side, clutching hands. Lucy’s knuckles were white and her face colorless. Realizing they were waiting for him to explain, he cleared his throat. “I need to let you both know that I no longer plan to present the project to the planning committee.”

The Millers turned to face each other. Max could see the mixture of panic and relief in their eyes. Before they could protest, he held up a hand. “I am a man of my word, believe it or not. I offered you a price for the land and I chose to back out. The money is still yours to keep.”

The Millers exchanged another glance. Lucy nodded her head, silently communicating with her husband and George turned to meet Max’s stare. “This wasn’t an easy decision for my wife and me to make, Max. Lucy here has been crying for days over this. We agonized about selling this land to you, when we had already given our word to Holly Tate. She’s our friend, and a member of this community.”

“I understand that,” Max said, his voice low.

“But the thing is...” George’s voice failed him. He swallowed hard, collecting himself. “The thing is that Lucy and I have another responsibility that extends beyond Holly. And that’s our son. And our town.”

Max squinted, trying to follow their logic. He nodded for George to continue.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about the library fire,” George said. “But what you probably don’t know is that our son is responsible.”

“It was an accident! He was smoking behind the library,” Lucy interjected desperately.

A wave of shock slapped him, leaving him momentarily speechless as he struggled to comprehend the multiple layers of the Millers’ situation. His expression, he knew, revealed his astonishment. “Does anyone else know?” he asked, trying to piece the facts together.

Lucy shook her head, lowering her gaze. “No. But it wouldn’t have felt right to let it go. We...we needed to do something to set things right. But not at the expense of our son. He has an entire future ahead of him. I had dreams of him going to college in a couple of years! He’s a smart boy...and we hoped he would get a football scholarship.”

Max nodded. “You won’t have any trouble sending him to college now,” he said.

“We didn’t know what we were going to do, but we knew we didn’t want to keep this a secret forever. We kept thinking that if we could just pull the money together we could set it right... My father runs a construction business here, but he’s not well and I’m afraid to burden him with this. We want to pay for it ourselves, to do the right thing, but the diner doesn’t bring in enough. And when your offer came to us...” Lucy trailed off, swallowing back tears. “It was both a blessing and a curse.”

“The money is still yours,” Max reiterated. “You can send Bobby to college now. You don’t have to worry about anyone finding out what happened.”

“No,” George said. “We’re fair people. Honest. It might not seem like it, but we are. We’ll go through with the sale of the land, Max. But we have a new condition.”

Max sat and listened, first in awe, then in wonder, as the Millers detailed their wishes. When they had agreed to everything, Max stood to leave, feeling a hundred pounds lighter. It was time to go back to the inn, and time to let the Millers get back to their life.

“But, what will you do with the land?” Lucy asked as Max shrugged into his parka.

“I don’t think I will do anything with it after all,” he said.

Lucy followed him to the door, her brow pinched in thought. “Can I ask why?” she asked softly. She raised her eyes to meet his, searching his face in confusion.

Max gave her a small smile. “Holly has come to mean a great deal to me in the short time I’ve been here,” he said. The words were true, but it felt foreign to be speaking them aloud.

Lucy beamed and reached out to touch his arm. “She has a way of doing that to people.”

Max nodded and turned, walking down the stairs and back to his car, chuckling at the irony of the situation. He had spent his entire adult life pushing people away. How on earth did he end up falling in love with someone he had known for only a matter of days?

Chapter Twelve

A
s a child, Christmas Eve had always been Holly’s favorite day of the year, even more so than Christmas Day. By noon on Christmas Day, the presents had been opened and excitement had peaked. But Christmas Eve was the epitome of anticipation and hope, of dreams yet to come true, of magic yet to be made.

But this year was different. There was nothing to look forward to now. No preparations to be made. This year it just felt like the beginning of the end.

Holly pulled onto the long drive and parked. Even though she’d been away for only two nights, it was the longest she had been away from the inn since she’d moved to Maple Woods. She stared at the property, already missing it, wondering if she would ever get used to being away from it.

It had been a long time since she had stopped to look at the old house from this distance. Sitting in the car at the edge of the estate, she felt almost in awe of its grandness of scale, its richness of history. She’d spent the first few days of December wrapping the posts in garland, carefully hanging a wreath on each of the windows and the front door. It didn’t seem possible that somewhere in the near future, the house would be demolished and in its place would be a shopping mall of all things.

She shifted the gears and slowly crept up the drive, allowing her eyes to roam over the acreage. From the snow-covered blueberry bushes to the white barn far to the side, barely visible against the snow from this vantage point. She loved that barn—from its cheerful red doors to the weathervane standing proudly on the roof. Behind it was the pond, now frozen over for the winter. On a normal day, she would be down there skating, tracing figure eights into the ice. When she was a child, she and Abby would swim in the cool, murky water while her grandmother sat under an umbrella on an old plastic chair, flipping through fashion magazines and sipping sun tea.

Holly’s heart tightened. She wondered what would happen to the pond. They’d probably fill it, pave it over.

As she finally neared the top of the drive, she couldn’t help noticing Max’s car was gone, and she felt strangely sad about it. The feeling was fleeting, but confusing in its effect on her. She was just disoriented and exhausted, she knew. She had gotten used to looking forward to seeing him and missing him when he wasn’t there.

She pulled her car around to the back of the house and climbed out into the crisp air. A biting wind slapped at her cheeks and stung her eyes. Crunching through the snow to the front of the house for what would probably be the last time, she felt her heart sink further as her mind flitted back to Max. He had seemed so sincere! She’d thought she had softened his hardened heart. But maybe some hearts were just permanently damaged.

It would take her a while to remember that he wasn’t the man she thought he was. That his advances had been nothing more than flirtatious banter, meant to cover his betrayal. That she had been duped, used.

Holly’s pulse skipped as it did every time she came around to this sad, hard fact. No matter how much evidence was pointing to the contrary, something deep inside her still told her that her time with Max had been real and true. She’d seen it in his eyes, heard it in his laugh. Maybe he was this way with every woman he met, but her gut told her otherwise. Or maybe she was the one with an ulterior motive. Maybe she just wanted to see him so achingly badly because she knew in her heart that he was the one person who had the power to make this all go away. And she couldn’t stop wishing he would.

The front door was locked to Holly’s surprise—Max must have locked it when he left—so, after a bit of fumbling, she slid the key into the lock and turned the bolt. Already she felt like a stranger as she closed the door behind her. The house was empty, eerily still. Unlike it had ever been since she first converted it into an inn. Even during her slowest months, there was always the cheerful rumble of conversation from a handful of guests or members of staff.

The staff. Holly groaned as she realized the ripple effect of this horrible situation. She couldn’t imagine a worse time than Christmas to let everyone know that they no longer had a job to return to, but she had been left with no other choice. She winced when she thought of Abby, who was so busy comforting her that she hadn’t even bothered to indulge in the setback this had caused her personally.

A wave of shame took over when she thought of her oversight. When she got back to Abby’s house, she would figure something out for her. A severance of some sort. It was the least she could do.

Holly moved quickly through the lobby, not bothering to linger. The longer she stayed in this house, the harder it would be to leave again. She didn’t need to sit here and reminisce. There would be plenty of time for memories later. That was all she would have left soon. Memories and nothing more. At least those would be hers to cherish and keep forever—something Max or anyone else could never take from her.

Abby had been kind enough to offer to help her pack, but Holly knew it was better for her to do this on her own, despite how much of a toll the effort was taking on her broken spirit. She needed to do this at her own pace, with her own thoughts to keep her company, to have the closure she needed to be able to walk out of her house and shut that door behind her for the very last time.

* * *

Max gripped the steering wheel as he drove through town, recalling the dozens of terse emails he’d received from his senior staff, the confusion and anger he’d sensed in their voices during a conference call earlier that morning. People were upset, and understandably so. He’d told them a half-truth—that the site had slipped through, that it wouldn’t work out. They didn’t need details beyond that. It was his company, and he’d deal with the fallout. The anchors would be let down. It was possible several would act on their threats to pull out of underperforming centers. Hamilton Properties would take a major financial hit.

But it would be worth it.

He took a left and began to climb the long driveway to the inn. He held his breath, looking for any sign of Holly. He had spent another night sitting in the lobby, waiting for a sign of headlights, bracing himself for her return. He ached with a need to see her, speak to her. He needed to make things right, and he didn’t want to wait any longer.

His tires chomped up the drive and he pulled to a stop. No car.

Max fought back the bitter taste that filled his mouth. There was still a chance to set things right; Holly would have to return to the inn eventually. It was her home, after all. She couldn’t stay away forever.

By now he had resigned himself to letting her go, if that was what she wanted. He was used to people walking away from him; it was all he had ever known. If Holly was determined to never forgive him or see him again, that was her choice. He couldn’t stop her.

But it wouldn’t stop him from doing what he had to do.

Max turned off the ignition and stepped out into the chilly air. It was going to be a white Christmas this year—even the sun’s rays couldn’t cut through the cold. He pulled his collar up to shield his neck from the wind and darted to the front door of the lobby, fumbling in his pocket for the key. He hesitated, his brow furrowing in confusion when he realized the door was unlocked, even though he had made sure to lock it before going into town.

Holly.

He held his breath, his heart pounding as he quietly pushed open the door and stepped inside. With eerie calm he stood perfectly still, his eyes skimming the lobby, looking for any sign of her.

But all he was met with was silence.

Max inhaled deeply, and nodded to himself. He had set this into motion and now he was paying the price. It was time to leave The White Barn Inn once and for all.

But first, there was one last thing he needed to do.

* * *

It didn’t take Holly long to pack up her clothes and toiletries. Her personal photos and mementos all fit neatly in a few brown packing boxes. She had fit her entire world into the bedroom, sitting room, and bathroom that constituted her living quarters. The rest of her home was open to the public; the door was always open for any passing stranger who wanted to enter her world, even for just one night.

She did want to keep some of the furniture, though. When she landed on her feet, she would need it to make her feel like she was home again. Abby had suggested she have an estate sale for the rest; she could use the money to start a new life for herself. Although, what that life would be, she didn’t even know anymore.

Maple Woods no longer seemed the place for her. She couldn’t bear the thought of driving through town and seeing a shopping mall on this very spot she now stood. It would kill her.

And even her friends... Abby and Pete and Stephen were dear, but some pain cut too deep and some towns were too small. She understood now why Max had left his childhood town behind and never looked back. It was time to do this with Maple Woods. She couldn’t imagine ever facing the Millers again after this. Their smiles, their diner, all of it would just be a constant reminder of their betrayal and of her loss.

Holly had a sudden urge to hide. To run from her life and leave her memories packed up in the boxes at her feet. Maybe she
would
go back to Boston, where she could get a new job and get lost in the crowd. Or maybe she could get a job at a hotel in another city, someplace where no one would know her or her sad story or would have even heard of Maple Woods.

She sealed another box. It was almost time to leave. Dragging this out would only make things worse. Holly took one last look around the bedroom, feeling strangely detached and peaceful. It was too surreal to accept yet. Someday it would hit her, but not today. Not while this house still stood intact, at least. Not while she was still a part of it.

As much as she wanted to load up her car and drive away right then, before the inevitable flood of tears took hold, there was still business to be done. Holly smiled weakly to herself—she had taken such pride in making over this building as an inn and providing for her guests. She had run a tight ship, and she would still do so now, to the bitter end.

She wandered back through the corridors, growing dim in the fading sunlight, mentally forming a list of everything she would have to grab from the front desk, but stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the golden flames crackling in the fireplace at the far end of the room. Her heart wrenched, her chest heaving with each breath.

Max. He was still here.

“Max.” Her voice caught the knot in her throat, barely coming out as a stifled whisper, its tone laced with hope she didn’t even know was there.

She slowly put one foot in front of the other as she tiptoed further into the vast space, her eyes scanning for any sign of him. Gingerly, she crossed the room to the hearth, her eyes focusing on something else that hadn’t been there just a short while ago.

She reached out to the mantel and touched the stocking that hung beside Abby’s and the other members of the staff. The ones Abby had knitted and that Holly had hung so carefully. The stockings had been empty all this time, meant for nothing more than a decoration and eventually a small gift from the Secret Santa exchange they did every year and she knew at once that the gift tucked into her stocking was not from Abby or Stephen or any other member of the small group that ran The White Barn Inn.

It was from Max.

Holly sucked in a sharp breath and let her fingers graze the creamy paper that was tucked inside the stocking, poking out from the top just enough to make it visible. She pulled it out slowly and held it in her hands, pondering the possibilities. The paper had been rolled into a scroll, tied with a scrap of twine that she now set on the mantel.

Unfolding the crisp paper, she was surprised by the length of the letter. Her trembling hands caused the paper to shake and she scanned the words quickly, barely absorbing them and then reading them over and over until her tears blurred her vision and dripped onto the ink, smearing his last words to her.

* * *

Max halted at the bottom of the stairs, his hand gripping the banister. Holly stood with her back to him, her dark hair pulled into a loose ponytail that flowed down her back, glistening in the light of the fire. She looked so small, standing there alone in the huge room. So innocent in a way that touched him deeply and seized his heart. She hadn’t done anything to deserve this. All she had wanted was something that was rightfully hers all along. He’d had no business coming in and trying to steal that from her.

Sensing his presence, Holly suddenly turned. Her eyes locked with his, and even from this distance he could see her tears, and it made his heart ache to know that he had caused them.

“I thought you’d left,” she said, staring at him as if he were a ghost.

“I should have, but I needed to see you one last time first. I needed to try to make things right.” He watched her, his breath caught in his chest, not ready for this moment to be over. In this moment there was a still a chance, still hope, and he clung to it.

“I read your letter,” she said with a watery smile. She lifted it in the air, the fire illuminating it from behind. “Is it official? The deed to the property is mine?”

Max nodded. “It was never mine to take in the first place.”

Holly looked down at the letter that accompanied the deed and back to him. “I just don’t understand. Why did you change your mind?”

“It’s like I said in the letter. I know what this place means to you. I understand how it could never be replaced.”

“No,” Holly said. “It can’t.”

“I shouldn’t have gone through with it in the first place, Holly,” he apologized, coming closer to where she stood near the large hearth. “I had no business being here or involving you in this mess.”

“You didn’t know at first,” Holly said, but her tone had a hard edge. She was still bruised. He wouldn’t have expected otherwise.

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I honestly thought I was coming here to make an offer to the owner of the inn. That it would be a clear-cut business arrangement and that everyone would walk away with what they wanted. When I learned of the situation, I didn’t walk away. And I should have.”