The Cottage on Juniper Ridge

He kissed her. “Hey, we still have to get through her learning to drive.”

There was a scary thought. “And dating.”

“Oh, God, I need a drink,” Wayne said.

He helped himself to a beer, and then, just as she was about to suggest they put the fireplace to work and snuggle up and listen to some Christmas music, he pulled out his laptop. “Oh, no, not you, too,” she groaned.

He looked at her, perplexed. “What?”

She shook her head and reached for the TV remote. “Never mind.”

Whatever happened to the good old days when people spent time cuddled up with each other instead of their techno toys? Hey, Santa, in the new year, do you think you could give me back my family?

* * *

Christmas in the Thomas household had been perfect. Stacy had done everything possible to make sure the kids enjoyed their visit home—baking their favorite treats, putting her espresso maker to work making eggnog lattes for everyone each morning, playing Christmas music, hauling out all their favorite holiday movies.

It had been late afternoon the day Autumn arrived and she’d taken in the lit tree and the glowing candles on the mantel with a happy smile. “It’s so good to be home,” she’d said, and hugged Stacy.

Ethan had been more interested in the aroma of melted chocolate wafting from the kitchen, but his girlfriend had been seriously impressed. “Gosh,” she said, “everything’s so...Christmassy.”

“I told you, it looks like a department store in here,” Ethan had said to her.

Stacy hadn’t been so sure that was a compliment but she’d let it pass.

She’d found it harder to ignore his lack of enthusiasm for the Christmas surprise she’d set under the tree for him. His girlfriend had been delighted with her Target and Gap gift certificates, but Ethan had left his latte maker behind.

“I can just go to Starbucks,” he’d informed Stacy when she saw he was leaving home without it. “Hang on to it, Mom.”

Autumn had made the same request regarding the Victorian village starter kit Stacy had given her—a snow-frosted house and an old-fashioned church complete with stained-glass windows. Of course, Stacy had expected that. She’d known she’d end up storing the decorations until Autumn graduated from college and had her own place.

Still, graduation was only three and a half years away so the time to start was now. Stacy had gone out the day after Christmas and purchased more on sale to tuck away for next year. There was so much to get when you were building a village—houses, shops, trees, old-fashioned streetlamps, people, little gates and fountains and snowmen.

Stacy frowned as she looked at her own village. It was fun to put out but such a pain to put away. It was now New Year’s Day, the day she always took down her decorations. Dean had promised to help her, but he’d gotten lured next door to watch a football game and, rather than wait for him, she decided she’d get started on this year’s disappearing act on her own. By the time Dean got home, she’d have everything packed and ready for its return to the attic.

She went up there to fetch the boxes for her treasures. The sea of containers stretching across the floor made her sigh. This was going to take all day.

Oh, well. That was the price you paid when you had a lot of decorations. And a lot of decorations was the price you paid to set the scene for a happy family Christmas. When everything looked festive, everyone felt festive. She grabbed a couple of boxes and climbed back down the stairs. Why was it so much less fun putting things away than it was putting them up?

Several trips later, she was ready to begin stowing her treasures. She picked up a ceramic Santa. This little guy had sat on the dining room buffet when she was growing up, and her mother had given him to Stacy for her first Christmas with Dean. It was vintage, possibly valuable. She wrapped it in bubble wrap and stowed it carefully in the box.

She lifted a second Santa from the herd of Clauses. She and her mom and older sister had met in Seattle and hit the postholiday sales together three years back, and her sister had insisted on purchasing the little guy for her. She blinked back tears as she remembered her sister. Sue had died suddenly from an aneurysm ten years ago. This little guy got protected with two sheets of bubble wrap.

A third Santa was one Dean had bought for their tenth Christmas, back in the days when he didn’t complain about all her “stuff.” She had the accompanying note he’d written in her scrapbook. “I’ll always be grateful to the old guy for bringing us together,” he’d written, alluding to when they’d first met at a friend’s Christmas party.

Yes, Christmas was special. And all these little mementos served to remind her of it. Obviously, they didn’t serve the same purpose for her husband. Well, he was a man. There were some things men simply didn’t get.

She worked for the next two hours, packing away both her decorations and her memories. By the time she was done, the living room looked positively naked. It won’t be once you get your other decorations back up, she reminded herself. That in itself was a daunting job.

But not nearly as daunting as hauling these decorations back up to the attic. She wished Dean would come home. It would be nice to get this done.

So why wait? She wasn’t helpless. She could take all this to the attic herself, and be spared listening to any complaining.

Stacy picked up the box containing the nativity set and went upstairs. She left it in the hallway under the trapdoor to the attic and returned to the family room for another load. Upstairs went the candles, then the tree decorations, followed by the long, heavy box containing the tree.

They were followed by many more boxes. Dean had been right. A person could drop dead lugging all of this around. Of course, she’d never admit that to him. He’d see it as some sort of capitulation and be ready to take everything away—to the dump.

Once all the boxes were stacked in the upstairs hall, the next step was to take her treasures to the attic. She pulled the chain to the trapdoor and let down the ladder. “You’re almost done now,” she told herself.

After lugging four cartons up to the attic, she realized she needed to work smarter, not harder. Rather than go all the way up the stairs and cross the attic to deposit each box separately, she’d be better off climbing the ladder and piling them nearby. Then, once they were all up there, she could arrange them as she wanted.

This plan worked really well until she decided to pile one box on top of another...while holding a plastic garbage bag filled with a stuffed Santa, his sleigh and reindeer. Somehow—who knew how these things happened?—she lost her balance. Santa went flying and she dropped the box. She missed her grab for the stairs and tumbled backward, tipping over the remaining pile of boxes as she went. She landed on the bag containing her Christmas quilt, giving herself a nice, soft landing. And she provided an equally soft landing for the boxes of decorations. One whacked her in the head and another landed on her middle. Both spilled their contents, surrounding her with Santas and candles. Ho, ho, ho.

Groaning, she clambered out from under the wreckage and assessed the damage. Other than a twinge in her back and a smarting head she was okay. And it looked as if the Santas had all survived. Except... Oh, no. There lay the newest member of the Claus family, decapitated.

It took some searching among the tissue paper and bubble wrap to find Santa’s missing head, but she did. She packed up the others, carefully inspecting them to see that they were well wrapped, but set him aside. Dean would say, “It’s broken. Why keep it?” But Dean didn’t get that a treasure was still a treasure, even if it got broken. A little glue and Santa would be fine.

Back up the ladder she went, now taking one box at a time. For a millisecond she entertained the thought that maybe her husband was right and they didn’t need quite so many decorations, that perhaps Muriel Sterling’s book on simplifying one’s life might actually make a valid point.

But only for a millisecond. Treasures equaled memories, and memories were priceless. And if it took some work storing hers, so what? One day her family would thank her for all the trouble she’d taken to surround them with pretty things.

And one day her son would actually want that latte maker.

Wouldn’t he?

Chapter Seven (#ulink_5b736d9b-b29d-54c8-88e5-beb566c21d5a)

A new beginning is also a new adventure.

—Muriel Sterling, author of Simplicity

Everything had worked out. Jen had been able to rent her condo in Seattle for enough to cover her mortgage and most of her rent. Now, the first weekend in January, she was moving into her charming mountain cottage with the help of her sister and family.

She’d nearly put dents in the steering wheel driving up the mountain in the snow, but once Wayne had gotten the chains on her tires she’d been able to relax a little. As they neared town, the roads weren’t bad, and he had taken the chains off again. That had been enough to make Jen hyperventilate until Wayne pointed out that the roads had been cleared and they were now all level. This, she had to admit, was a nice improvement over Seattle, which was a city of hills.

Still, she breathed a sigh of relief when they made it to the cottage in one piece. Garrett Armstrong met them there with the key and offered to help unload. He was just as gorgeous as she remembered, and obviously kindhearted. It would be so easy to fall for this man.

“That’s awfully nice of you,” she told him.

“No problem,” he said, shrugging off her praise.

Now Jeffrey had bounded out of his parents’ SUV, which had been stuffed to the roof with boxes. “Can we go tubing?”

“Maybe after we’re done unloading everything,” his father told him.

As Jen was making introductions, Jeffrey picked up a handful of snow, made a snowball and hurled it at his sister, who was standing huddled inside her coat, waiting for her father to open the small trailer they’d been pulling.

It hit her in the chest and she snarled, “Cut it out, you butt.”