Holiday Homecoming

Burning anger had surged through her. And it had grown when she saw him studying her, almost smiling, as if he were going to exchange pleasantries with her. The anger had overwhelmed her; all she’d thought about was getting out of there as quickly as she could, to get to anyplace she could breathe. She grimaced when she thought about how she’d almost run from him and about her last look back at him.

She flexed her hands on the steering wheel when she realized she was holding it in a death grip. She slowed as she passed the last of the property that Jack Prescott owned and kept going north. After a few minutes, she took a left turn onto a narrow road that climbed high up the mountain.

Cain Stone had obviously been going to see Jack Prescott, and that made sense. They’d been friends for years. Or maybe they were two big wheelers and dealers doing business. That was the only reason she’d been there. Business.

She slowed even more as the climb increased and stared straight ahead, thankful that the road had been cleared enough for her to use it. Then she saw her turnoff, went left again, onto a narrow road that had been plowed only on one side, so that just a single car at a time could use it. The snow was pilled high on the right, where the mountain soared into the sky. There was little to no bank of cleared snow on her left, because the land dropped away, out of sight.

She went as far as the snowplow had cleared, then stopped, shut off the motor and got out. The air was bitingly cold up here, and a wind had come up, sweeping in a strange moaning sound across the deep snow, through the blanketed pines and into the gorge. She pulled her hat lower and pushed her hands into her pockets. She hadn’t been up here since she’d gotten back in town. She hadn’t thought about the place until Jack had contacted her. Now she wanted to see it again.

She walked into the untouched snow that covered the roadway, thankful she had on her calf-high boots. As the ridges swept back farther from the road she spotted what she was looking for. The snow all but obscured the driveway to the cabin, but a huge single pine at the road marked it for her. The same tree, feet taller now, but still there under the heavy weight of snow.

She climbed the steep grade, and she knew she wouldn’t see the cabin until she hit the rise in the drive. Moments later it was there, the old cabin, appearing incredibly small, dwarfed by the huge pines that canopied its steeply pitched roof. She made her way to the wraparound porch, the only place with any protection from the snow.

She felt her foot hit the wood stairs, then she went up onto the porch and over to the door. She turned back to glance at the way she’d just walked, seeing her footsteps in the virgin snow. She was probably the first person to be here since her father had died. Her mother had been dead for ten years, and Annie, her half sister, wouldn’t have any reason to trek up here. The place was Holly’s, and now she was here. But as she looked around, she didn’t want to be here alone.

Memories of her as a child driving up here for her weekly visits with her father rushed at her. She shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold. Not today, she suddenly decided. She’d return when she was prepared to go inside and walk back into the part of the world she’d left behind her when she’d gone away from Silver Creek.

For a moment, in the frigid silence all around her, she felt an isolation that was almost painful. Maybe she’d thought that coming to the mountain would bring back that slim connection she’d had with her father. But there was nothing like that today. She exhaled, her breath curling into the cold air, then she walked away, stepping in her own footprints as she headed back to her car.

Her cell phone rang in her pocket just as she got to the end of the snowed-in driveway, startling her. She had no idea there was service up here. Even in town, the reception could be spotty at best. She took her cell phone out, flipped it open and saw a number that she recognized. She hit Send and said, “Mr. Prescott?”

“‘Jack,’ please, and I’m sorry I missed you. Can we reschedule?”

She kept walking. “There’s no reason to.” She was at her car now, and breathing hard from her efforts, or maybe from the tension starting to creep into her neck. Probably a mixture of both. “I’m not selling.”

“You said we could talk.”

“I thought about it, but I was at the Inn to tell you that I’m keeping the cabin and the land.”

She got in the car, started the motor, closed the door as he spoke in her ear. “Don’t make this—” his words began to break up “—discuss this and we—” Another break.

“It’s a bad connection,” she said, flipping the heater onto High.

“Mrs. Winston?” he said, louder now. “Are you—”

“I’ll call you later,” she said and didn’t wait to hear if he answered or not. She shut the phone and tossed it on the seat beside her. “But the answer is still no,” she said to the emptiness around her.

She turned in her seat to back down the road, and when she got to the main road, she headed south to Silver Creek. Her phone rang again. She checked the LED readout, saw it was Jack Prescott and let the call go to her message box. A moment later she got the beep that said she had a new voice mail. She ignored that, too.

She passed the entrance to the resort, glanced at the gates that were open to let a huge, silver SUV out. Cain Stone was behind the wheel, she noted. She hit the gas, heard her tires squeal slightly, and knew he’d probably glanced up at the sound. But she didn’t wait to find out. She headed for town, looking neither right nor left at the skiing community, or at the Christmas decorations stretched high over the street lined with old brick and stone buildings.

By the time she’d pulled into the side parking area of the three-story Silver Creek Hotel, she was shaking. She sat in the car and stared at the building, the original hotel in Silver Creek, built during the silver strikes in the mid-1800s. Annie and her husband had bought it a few years earlier and restored it, saving it from becoming a boutique or a specialty coffee shop. Holly took several deep breaths, then made herself get out of her car and go inside.

She went into the warm air of the lobby, into a world of the past, with rich woods and brass everywhere. The old-fashioned check-in desk, with an antique pigeonhole letter sorter hung behind it, filled the far wall. The fragrance of gingerbread touched the air, and Christmas carols played softly in the background. “Annie?” she called at the same moment her half sister came through a curtained opening behind the desk.

Annie had Sierra in her arms, and once the two-year-old saw her mother, she wiggled out of Annie’s arms and darted across the polished plank floors right for Holly. “Mommy!” she squealed as she threw herself into her mother’s arms.

Holly swept her daughter up and hugged her, not realizing how tightly she was holding onto Sierra until the little girl squirmed and pushed back. Her daughter had the same hair as hers, a coppery red, done in braids that Annie had taken time fashioning. Her chubby face was sprinkled with freckles and her eyes were as blue as the overalls she was wearing. Holly found herself hoping that eye color was all Sierra had gotten from her father.

Holly let Sierra down, watched her run back behind the desk, then go into the room beyond the curtain. Annie stayed behind the desk. “Don’t worry,” she said, “Uncle Rick’s in there to watch her.” Then she asked, “So, was Jack mad, or did he up the offer?”

Holly moved closer to Annie. Her half sister was taller than her, with nondescript brown hair, gray eyes and a face wreathed in smiles. Holly was always amazed at how upbeat Annie was almost all the time. Maybe it was the fact they had two different fathers. Annie’s father, Norman Day, had died when Annie was four, so she barely remembered him. But the people around town still said what a wonderful man he’d been.

A year after Norman’s death, their mother had married Scott Jennings, Holly’s dad. The people around town hadn’t liked him then, and still didn’t speak well of him. She’d never figured out why her mother had married him, or why they’d only been married long enough for her to be born before her dad had gone to live at his cabin and her mother had stayed in town to work at the diner. “He never showed for the meeting.”

Annie heard laughter from Sierra behind the curtains and called without looking back, “Rick, make sure she doesn’t kill the gingerbread men.”

“One down, eleven to go,” her husband called back.

Annie laughed but didn’t take her eyes off Holly. “If he didn’t show, then you have more time to think this through and make sure you know what you’re doing.”

Holly skimmed her yellow knit hat off and pushed it in her pocket, then undid her jacket. “I’m not selling,” she said.

“Why not?” Annie asked. “Just tell me why you’re not going to take all that money and laugh all the way to the bank?”

Holly shrugged. “The cabin’s mine,” she said. “It’s…” She bit off the rest of her words—It’s all I have left of Dad. Annie wouldn’t understand that at all. She was one of the people who had hated Scott Jennings. “It’s what I have for Sierra, for her future. It’s really all I have.”

Annie exhaled. “I know, but if you think about it—”

“Annie, no, I’ve made up my mind.”

“Okay, okay, fine.” She held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “It’s yours. You can do what you want with it, and I understand it’s all that your dad left you. Mom didn’t have anything.” Annie’s smile was fading now, and Holly never doubted that Annie blamed Scott Jennings for a lot. Then she flicked her eyes over Holly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Holly shook her head. “You didn’t. It’s not you,” she admitted.

Annie watched Holly. “Then what’s wrong?”

“Who.”

“Oh, not Travis again,” she said, with absolutely no smile now. “That crummy son-of-a—”

“It’s nothing to do with Travis.” Her ex-husband had actually left her alone since she’d returned to Silver Creek. “He’s doing his thing somewhere, and he doesn’t have time to worry about me or Sierra.”

“Then what is it?”

“Cain Stone. I just saw him.”

Annie’s eyes widened and her lips formed a perfect circle of surprise. “Where?”

“At the Inn.” Memory flashed of the moment she’d spotted him, that second when she’d realized who he was and when she’d felt all the anger she’d had for so long, about so many things. “I think he was going up to see Jack Prescott.”

Annie eyed her. “What did you say to him?”

“Nothing. I left.” She ran. “What good would it do to say anything to him? He wouldn’t care. They don’t call him ‘Stone Cold’ for nothing.”

Annie shrugged. “We never called him that, but I’m sure we called him ‘Raising Cain’ more than once.”

Holly reflected on the blue eyes—hard, cold blue eyes—of the man she’d seen today. A man who, she’d bet, never lost any sleep over the chaos he left in his wake. “I’m sure that fits, too,” she murmured.