Merry Ex-Mas

Which was how they paid the bills. This had never bothered her daughter before.

But then she’d never been engaged.

Twenty minutes rushed past before they had a lull. Cass knew it was temporary. Once the lunch hour was finished, the customers would return.

She turned the sign on the door to Closed. “We’ll Be Back by One,” said the clock below. That gave them time for lunch, and in Dani’s case, time to go back to calling every motel and B and B within a twenty-mile radius.

Cass sat down at a corner table with her cup of coffee and watched as Dani became increasingly desperate with every conversation. That desperation began to make Cass’s coffee churn in her stomach. If her daughter didn’t succeed in her mission it boded ill—not for Dani, and not for Mason and Bimbette, but for Cass.

Sure enough. At a quarter to one Dani plopped onto the chair next to her and tossed her smartphone on the table.

Tell me we’re out of eggs, tell me someone’s order never arrived, tell me anything but what you’re about to tell me.

“There’s no vacancy anywhere,” Dani announced miserably.

Cass spoke before her daughter could say the dreaded words. “It’ll be okay. Seattle’s not that far. Your dad can drive over the day of the wedding.”

Dani looked at her, eyes wide in horror. “But what about the rehearsal dinner the night before? And what if something happens? What if they close the pass?”

Then we can get on our knees and thank God.

Okay, that was truly rotten. This was her daughter’s big day and she wanted her father there. “I’m sure he’ll figure it out,” Cass said, trying to sound as if she cared.

“Mom, how can he when there’s no place anywhere?”

Surely that was a rhetorical question. She kept her mouth shut.

“Can they stay with us for a couple of days?”

There it was, what she’d known was coming all along. Just what she wanted for Christmas, her ex and his bimbo bride staying with her. “We have no place to put them,” she argued.

“They can have my room. I can sleep with Amber.”

“I was going to give your room to Grandma Nordby.” Cass would jump into boiling oil before she’d turn her mother out in favor of Mason and Bimbette.

“Then give them Willie’s room and put him on the sleeper sofa. Or put them on the sleeper sofa.”

That was what Cass wanted, to come out and find her ex and his second wife curled up together in her living room.

“We could find a place for them for just one night, couldn’t we?” Dani begged. “Two at the most.”

There had to be some other way they could work this out. Cass stalled for time. “Let me think about it, okay?”

Dani made a face like she’d just eaten baking soda. “I know what that means.”

So did Cass, and she felt like the world’s meanest mother.

A woman with two little girls had come to the door, and the girls were peering inside.

“Go unlock the door,” Cass said wearily.

“Sure. Fine,” Dani said in a tone of voice that showed how un-fine everything was.

“It would be nice if you could greet our customers with a smile instead of a frown,” Cass called after her.

“I’m smiling,” Dani called back. Smiling on the outside, seething on the inside.

They’ll find someplace to stay, Cass told herself. Now, if she could only believe that.

5

It was Sunday evening, time for Cass’s weekly chick flick night. The friends had decided to watch Christmas movies during the month of December and Cass’s pal Samantha Sterling had picked the one for tonight—The Family Man.

“I love that movie,” she’d said. “Love how the hero changed from a Scrooge to a great husband and dad.”

“I never knew you were so sentimental,” Cass had teased.

“I’m not,” Samantha had retorted, “but I know what’s important.”

Cass would give her that. Samantha Sterling had fought hard to save her family’s chocolate company. In the process she’d resuscitated the town of Icicle Falls, which had been in an economic slump, by sponsoring a chocolate festival. Spurred on by that success, the town leaders had caught festival fever. October had seen Oktoberfest, December’s tree-lighting event had been expanded from one weekend to every weekend and there was talk of a wine festival in the early summer.

Samantha and her sister Cecily were the first to arrive, rosy-cheeked and smiling, stomping snow off their boots. Blue-eyed, blond-haired Cecily was the beauty of the family, but with her red hair and freckles, Samantha wasn’t exactly a troll. She’d married Blake Preston, the bank’s manager, in August and still sported a newlywed glow. That would wear off eventually.

Listen to you, Cass scolded herself. Queen of the cynics.

“We brought vitamin C,” Samantha said, handing over a holiday box of Sweet Dreams Chocolates.

Chocolate, the other Vitamin C, and a girl’s best friend. “This takes care of me. I don’t know what the rest of you are having,” Cass joked. “Did you bring the movie?”

Cecily held up the DVD with Nicolas Cage on the cover. “We’re set.”

Ella was the next to arrive. She wasn’t as beautiful as her glamorous mother, Lily Swan, but she was cute and she knew how to dress. Tonight she looked ready for a magazine shoot in skinny jeans paired with a crisp white shirt, a black leather vest and a long, metallic red scarf, and bearing a bowl of parmesan popcorn, her specialty. Ella even did popcorn with flair.

Cass decided that flair was something you either soaked up in the gene pool or you didn’t. She could create works of art in her bakery, but when it came to personal style she couldn’t seem to get beyond unimpressionist. Oh, well. What did she care? She didn’t have anyone she needed to impress.

Not even your ex-in-laws?

No, she told herself firmly. Living well was the best revenge and she was living quite well, thank you. She didn’t need to look like a cover model to prove it.

She pushed aside the thought of Babette, who would, of course, show up for the wedding with her hair perfectly highlighted and her skinny little bod draped in something flattering. Maybe Cass would pass on the chocolate and popcorn tonight.

Charley was the last to arrive. She came bearing wine and looked frazzled enough to consume the entire bottle single-handed.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” Cass asked once the women were settled in the living room with their drinks and goodies.

“Richard’s back.” Charley took one of Cass’s gingerbread boys and bit off his head.

Cass nearly dropped her wineglass. “What?”