An Aspen Creek Christmas

And that could never be.

* * *

The next morning Hannah awoke early and made herself a cup of coffee, eager for the kids to wake up.

How life had changed in the blink of an eye—and how grateful she was for this wonderful blessing—a chance to finally surround her sister’s children with love and healing.

Until two weeks ago she’d devoted herself to her career as a physician’s assistant at the Aspen Creek Clinic and the ongoing renovation of this pretty little cottage on a hill north of Aspen Creek. Her only roomies had been the assorted rescue animals she took in, rehabbed and re-homed.

She’d had so much to arrange in a hurry after Cynthia’s injury—both here and down in Texas—that there’d been no time to create a welcoming home for Molly and Cole. So they’d stayed a couple extra nights with one of Cynthia’s friends while Hannah flew home to get the house ready.

Exhausted after their day of air travel and the sixty-mile drive from the airport, both children had been dazed and silent when she’d driven into her driveway at ten o’clock last night. They’d barely looked at their rooms before tumbling into bed without a whimper.

She’d checked on them several times during the night, but sometime during the early morning hours Cole had quietly dragged his quilt into Molly’s room and went back to sleep wrapped up like a mummy on the floor at the side of her bed.

Hannah’s stomach tightened. The poor little guy. Had he been scared? How had she failed to hear him?

Please, Lord, let this be an easy transition for them. They’ve been through so, so much.

A white-faced golden retriever limped to her side and bumped her hand, eliciting an ear rub. “So what do you think?” she whispered. “Will they be happy here?”

The dog, one of her rescues who had yet to find the perfect forever home, waved her flag of a tail and stared up at Hannah with pure adoration in her cloudy eyes. “I’d like to think you’re telling me yes, Maisie.”

The old dog crept silently into Molly’s room and sniffed at Cole’s makeshift sleeping bag, then gently curled up next to him.

The little boy stirred, mumbling something in his sleep. Cuddling closer to her warmth, he flung an arm over her soft neck.

Hannah felt her eyes burn at the dog’s instinctive compassion. She’d started to tiptoe away when the puffy pink-and-purple comforter stirred on the bed.

Molly sat up and frowned as she surveyed the bedroom, her long, curly brown hair framing her face.

“Good morning, sweetie,” Hannah whispered, stepping just inside the door. “What do you think of your new room?”

The walls were now a pale rose, the woodwork a crisp white. The bookshelves and a bedroom set were ivory with gold trim. Keeley, who owned an antique shop in town, had brought lovely lace curtains as well as a stained-glass lamp in pink, green and blue for the bedside table.

It was a fairy tale of a room that Hannah would have loved for herself as a child, but Molly just shrugged.

“Are you hungry for breakfast?”

Molly shook her head and flopped back down on her pillow, pulling the quilt up to her nose.

“Remember when I came to see you in Texas last time and made chocolate chip pancakes? I can make them this morning, or I have that chocolate cereal that you like.”

“No.” Molly yanked at the quilt to cover her head and turned toward the wall, clearly ending any further conversation.

Hannah tiptoed down the short hall to the kitchen, where a trio of cats sat staring at the refrigerator door, apparently willing it to provide an extra meal.

She stepped over a basset hound snoring in the middle of the floor, nudged the cats aside to grab a gallon of milk and then made her homemade version of a café-au-lait in her favorite mug.

Settling down at the breakfast bar overlooking the living room, she contemplated the stack of twelve, extra-large, newly delivered FedEx boxes sitting just inside the front door.

Each had felt like it had to weigh over fifty pounds when she’d dragged them in from the porch. Each had given her a pang of sorrow.

They represented the remnants of her sister’s life, after Cynthia had summarily sent all the adult clothing to Goodwill and hired an auction house to dispose of the apartment furnishings.

It was heartbreaking to think that everything left of the children’s lives had been distilled into just twelve cartons.

The question now was how she should most tactfully deal with all of this without upsetting them. Would they cry at the finality of seeing those labels and the contents? Things they’d seen in their old home, before a drunken truck driver had plowed into their parents’ car and everything went so terribly wrong?

Hannah pushed away from the breakfast counter and moved over to the boxes to read the labels written in Cynthia’s elegant hand.

Hannah quickly stowed Dee and Rob’s boxes out of sight in her own bedroom closet to consider later. Then she lugged one of the Home Office boxes across the living room and began searching for school and health records, categorizing the contents into neat piles on the sofa.

At a knock on the door she looked up, startled at the silhouette of a tall, broad-shouldered man standing outside the front door. The basset hound gave a single, bored woof and went back to sleep.

She was usually working at the clinic during the day, so none of her friends would think to visit her at this time of the morning. It was probably just another shipment of boxes from Cynthia—who must have paid a fortune for such quick delivery.

She pulled back the lace curtain to look outside before unlocking the dead bolt.

She froze. It was Ethan Williams.

And he’d seen her. There was no way she could step away from the door and pretend she wasn’t home.

From all the way down in Texas—or wherever it was that he’d been—Ethan had somehow found her, deep in this pine forest, five miles out of Aspen Creek on a winding gravel road.

He was the last person she’d ever wanted to see again. The cruelest man she’d ever met. And she knew his arrival spelled just one thing.

Trouble.

* * *

One glance at Hannah’s horrified expression through the multipaned window in the door and Ethan knew his chances of being allowed inside were slim to none.

He deserved that and worse. But he’d traveled a long way. This visit wasn’t about the troubled history between them. It was about the kids and their welfare, and he knew he had to handle this carefully or there’d be a battle every step of the way. It wasn’t one he planned to lose.

After a long moment of hesitation, Hannah closed her eyes briefly, as if saying a silent prayer, then cracked the door open without releasing the safety chain. She focused her gaze somewhere above his left shoulder. “Yes?”

He drew in a jagged breath.

She was even more beautiful than when he’d seen her last—thirteen years ago. Slim, shapely, with honey-gold hair that fell to her shoulders in waves and startling, light blue eyes.

They’d first met at his brother Rob’s wedding rehearsal, and their mutual attraction had been immediate. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her for a second during the rehearsal and wedding, and despite all the years since then, he now felt that same rush of emotion all over again.

From a lifelong habit he nearly offered his right hand—or what was left of it—but caught himself just in time. “It’s been a long time, Hannah. But you haven’t changed a bit.”

“If that’s a compliment, don’t think it will get you anywhere, Ethan. I’ve grown up since you last saw me and I’m not the fool I was when we first met. Understand?”

He nodded, edging the toe of his boot forward and bracing his left hand high on the door frame in case she tried to shut the door in his face. “Totally. Two adults. All business. That’s fair enough.”