Christmas On Crimson Mountain

April placed her hand lightly on Ranie’s knee. “May I see?”

The girl stood up abruptly, shoving what was in her hands into a bag. “I’m not that great. Mostly my rows are crooked. It was just something to do when we sat with Mom.”

April tried not to let the girl’s constant rejection hurt her, but it was difficult. Ranie looked so much like Jill. “Your mom sent me a sweater one year for Christmas,” she told Shay, aware Ranie was listening even as she pretended to ignore them. “I have it with me if you’d like to see.”

“Mommy made the best sweaters.” Shay tugged her fingers out of the yarn, which to April’s eyes looked more like a knot than a scarf. “I mess up a lot.”

April reached for the deep red yarn, but Ranie stepped forward and snatched it away. “You’re getting better, Shay.” She stretched out the jumble until April could see where it almost resembled a scarf. “I’ll unknot this and you can keep going.”

Shay beamed. “Ranie is the best. She can teach you, too.”

“I’d like that.”

“Don’t you have work to do?” Ranie asked, flipping her long braid over her shoulder. “Taking care of the big-shot author?”

“I’ll have time,” April told her. “Would either of you like a snack before I start prepping dinner?”

“Can we make the snowman now?” Shay asked, going on her knees to look out the window above the bed.

April thought about the promise she’d made to Connor Pierce. “Because Mr. Pierce is writing a book, he’s going to need quiet. I know it’s fun to play in the snow, but—”

“I can be real quiet,” Shay assured her, not turning from the window. “Ranie and me had to stay quiet when Mommy was sick.”

“Ranie and I,” April and Ranie corrected at the same time.

When April offered a half smile, Ranie turned away. April sighed. Between the cabin’s grumpy houseguest and her own ill-tempered charge, this was going to be the longest two weeks of her life. “Maybe it would be better if we found things to do inside the house.”

“He doesn’t want us here,” Ranie said, her tone filled with righteous accusation. “That’s why we have to be quiet. He doesn’t want us.”

April would have liked to kick Connor Pierce in the shin or another part of his anatomy right now. “He needs to concentrate,” she said instead, wanting to make it better for these girls who’d lost so much and were now in a strange state and a strange cabin with a woman who had been their mother’s friend but little to them. “It isn’t about you two.”

“So we can’t go out in the snow?” Shay shifted so she was facing April. “We have to stay inside the whole time? That’s kind of boring.”

Feeling the weight of two different stares, April pressed her fingers to her temples. She should call Sara right now and find someone else for this job, except then she’d have to make holiday plans for these girls. Her work here was a distraction, different enough from real life that she could keep the two separate. It was too much to think of making Ranie and Shay a part of her world. What if they fit? What if she wanted to try for something she knew she couldn’t manage?

A remote cabin and its temperamental guest might be a pain, but at least it was safe. Still, she couldn’t expect the girls to entertain themselves for two weeks in this small cabin, and neither could Connor.

“Get your snow gear from the shopping bags I left in the front hall,” she said after a moment. “As long as we’re not making a ton of noise, we can play in the snow as much as you want.”

“Mommy liked to rest,” Shay said, too much knowledge in her innocent gaze. “Sometimes the medicine gave her headaches, so we know how to be quiet.” She wrapped her arms around April for a quick, surprising hug and then scrambled off the bed.

“I’ll get your stuff, too,” she told Ranie before running from the room. “We’re going to build a snowman.” April could hear the girl singing as she went down the steps.

Ranie was still glaring at her, so April kept her tone light. “I’d better put on another layer. My sweater and coat are warm but not if we’re going to be outside for a while.”

“It’s me, right?” Ranie’s shoulders were a narrow block of tension.

“What’s you?”

“The author doesn’t want me around,” Ranie said, almost as if she was speaking to herself. “It can’t be Shay. Everyone loves Shay.”

“It isn’t about either of you.” April risked placing a hand on Ranie’s back, surprised when the girl didn’t shrug it off. “He’s here to work.”

“Aunt Tracy bought Shay a new swimsuit,” Ranie mumbled, sinking down to the bed.

“For a trip to Colorado in December?”

The girl gripped the hem of her shirt like she might rip it apart. “She wanted to take her to Hawaii with their family.”

April shook her head. “No, your aunt told me the trip was only her, your uncle Joe and the boys.”

“Tyler and Tommy are annoying,” Ranie said.

April smiled a little. “I imagine nine-year-old twin boys can be a handful.”

“I guess Aunt Tracy always wanted a little girl,” Ranie told her, “because I overheard Mom talking to her toward the end. She’d wanted us to live with Tracy, but Tracy would only agree to having Shay.” Her voice grew hollow. “She didn’t want me.”

“Oh, Ranie, no,” April whispered, even as the words rang true. Jill’s sister had been just the type of woman to be willing to keep one girl and not the other. How could April truly judge when she couldn’t commit to either of them?

But she knew the girls had to stay together. “I talked to your aunt before they left on their trip. It’s only for the holidays. We have a meeting scheduled with an attorney the first week of January to start the process of transferring custody. She’s going to take you both in the New Year. You’ll be back in California and—”

“She doesn’t want me.” Ranie looked miserable. “No one does now that Mom is gone. That author guy is just one more.”

“It’s not you.” The words were out of April’s mouth before she could stop them. She hated seeing the girl so sad.

“You’re lying.” Ranie didn’t even pause as she made the accusation and paced to the corner of the room. “Everyone loves Shay.”

“Something happened to Connor Pierce that makes it difficult for him to be around young kids.”

“What happened?” Ranie stepped forward, hands clenched tightly in front of her. This sweet, hurting girl had been through so much. Once again, April wanted to reach for her but held back. She shouldn’t have shared as much as she had about Connor, but she couldn’t allow Ranie to believe she was expendable to everyone she met. At least this way, Ranie could help shield Shay, keep her out of Connor’s line of sight.

April met Ranie’s clear blue gaze. “His wife and son died in a car accident a few years ago. The little boy was five at the time.”

“Shay’s age,” Ranie whispered. The girl’s eyes widened a fraction.

Good. The news was enough of a shock on its own. April didn’t have to share anything more. Not the images she’d seen online of the charred shell of a car after the accident and fire that had killed Connor’s family. Not the news report that said he’d also been in the vehicle at the time of the crash but had been thrown clear.

She hoped he’d been knocked unconscious. The alternative was that Connor Pierce had watched his family die.

* * *

Connor glanced at the clock on his phone again, staring at the bright numbers on the screen, willing them to change. When they did and the numbers read 6:00 on the dot, he jumped out of the chair in front of the desk, stalked toward the door, then back again.

He knew April was in the kitchen, had heard her come in thirty minutes ago. He’d been staring at the clock ever since. Minutes when he should have been working, but the screen on his laptop remained empty.

Every part of his life remained empty.

When his editor had suggested taking two weeks at a remote cabin to “finish” his manuscript, Connor hadn’t argued. He hadn’t wanted to explain that he still had over half the story to write. It had even made sense that a change of scenery might help him focus.