Second Chance Christmas

The unexpected words wounded him. She couldn’t really believe that, could she? “Now wait a—”

But she’d already twisted away and was merging back into the press of happily tipsy patrons. Justin’s instincts screamed at him to follow, to plead his case, but the rational part of him knew it was smarter to let her go.

Letting her go had always been the right choice.

Chapter Three

Wednesday was a busy day on the mountain. Justin had reported for work at seven-thirty in the morning, starting with a rundown on the day’s weather conditions and post assignments. Shortly after tourists began hitting the slopes, a skier had broken her wrist. Justin took her by toboggan to get medical attention. After an early lunch, he assisted with some training and taught a CPR class. The entire day felt like one fast-paced blur of activity, and before he knew it, he was in his SUV headed to Arden’s for dinner.

His sister, like his ex-girlfriend, was also engaged to be married. Soon Arden would become Mrs. Garrett Frost. Garrett spent as much time in Cielo Peak as he could, but his family’s ranch a couple of hours to the east required his attention. Whenever Garrett couldn’t be in town, Justin made it a point to check in on Arden and two-month-old Hope. Plus, Arden was a terrific cook. It was no hardship to exchange the occasional night of his bachelor lifestyle for one of her home-cooked meals and the chance to cuddle his niece.

As much as Justin loved baby Hope, the day she’d been born had been one of the scariest of his life. Arden and Garrett had been temporarily estranged, and the cowboy hadn’t been anywhere near Cielo Peak when Arden went into premature labor. Justin had been with her at the hospital while doctors explained the complications and dangers she faced. He’d been terrified he was about to lose another loved one.

When he was ten, his mom had died the week after Thanksgiving; his father passed away a few years later. Justin and Arden had been raised in part by an elderly aunt but mostly by their older brother, Colin. The Cade siblings had banded together in a tight family unit, which had expanded when Colin married. Tragedy lashed out at them again when a car accident took Colin’s wife and toddler son. If anything had happened to Arden...

But she was fine, Justin reminded himself. His niece was a healthy, beautiful baby, and his sister was ecstatic about her February wedding. She made frequent jokes about how she and Garrett had approached their relationship backward, but Justin privately doubted she’d change a thing that had brought them to this point. She’d never been happier.

When he turned onto Arden’s street, Justin’s mouth fell open in disbelief. Her entire house was outlined in twinkling white lights. The trees in the yard were adorned with red and green bulbs that blinked in a frenetic pattern. A spotlight shone on an inflatable polar bear that seemed nearly as tall as Justin’s six-foot-two height. A moving train circled the bear. Justin practically needed sunglasses to park in the driveway.

Since Arden was expecting him and he never knew when the baby might be asleep, he let himself in without knocking. “It’s me,” he called softly. He followed the mouthwatering smell of roast beef and the rhythmic sound of a mechanized baby swing to the kitchen.

Hope was safely harnessed into the reclining swing, watching the mobile of brightly colored animals above her head. Her eyelids were beginning to droop, though. She had the Cade eyes, the same deep blue-green that Justin and his siblings shared. Her hair was black like her father’s, a much darker shade than Arden’s or Justin’s brown hair.

Justin dropped a quick kiss on his sister’s forehead, then jerked his thumb toward the front of the house. “Don’t you think your cowboy got a little carried away? It’s like the freaking Vegas Strip out there.”

“Isn’t it great?” Arden beamed at him. “I admit, we probably went overboard, but...this is Hope’s first Christmas. We want to make it special.”

And special was synonymous with able to see the house from space? He bit back the reminder that Hope was only two months old and wouldn’t even remember the seizure-inducing light show when she was older. Why allow his bah-humbug tendencies to ruin other people’s joy?

Arden’s smile faded, and her voice took on an audible ache. “Speaking of Christmas...our brother is dodging me.”

“Left him a message a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t return my call, either,” Justin commiserated.

She banged a wooden spoon down next to the stove. “Thanksgiving was bad enough! Colin didn’t come to town, and you took the holiday shift at the ambulance station.”

“I didn’t mind,” he assured her. “I would’ve been in the way here. You and Garrett were still adjusting to the baby, and you needed the bonding time with your future in-laws.”

She wasn’t mollified. “No one’s Thanksgiving should be limited to a couple of turkey slices on nutritionally bankrupt white bread! You only got away with it because in November, I was exhausted and recovering from the C-section. I was in no condition to pitch a fit. But I swear, if you and Colin aren’t both here for Christmas, I will throw an unholy tantrum the likes of which you’ve never seen. It’s more than Hope’s first Christmas. It’s my last one as a Cade. As much as I can’t wait to marry Garrett, moving to the ranch will change things.”

“It’s not your last anything.” He hugged her. “You’ll always be a Cade.”

“Will you try to talk to Colin? For me?”

Justin stifled a sigh. She was asking him—the guy who wanted to rip December off the calendar and skip straight into the New Year—to be her ambassador for a big family celebration? “All right. I’ll get him here even if I have to track him down and toss him into the trunk of my SUV.”

“Thank you.” With that settled, she handed him a platter of roasted carrots and potatoes to carry to the table.

Throughout the meal, they chatted about their jobs. Arden, a professional photographer, regaled him with anecdotes of her afternoon trying to take a four-generation family portrait.

“There were twenty-eight of them! They wouldn’t fit in my studio, and it’s too cold to shoot outside. We got to use the Cielo Peak performance hall because the family makes annual contributions and one of the sisters plays in the jazz ensemble. The great-grandfather nodded off twice while I was trying to arrange everyone. Between trying to keep him awake and trying to keep the toddler from fussing, it was the most challenging job I’ve had since the Cavanaugh wedding where the bride wanted a picture with her biological parents—a divorced couple who hadn’t set foot in the same room in seventeen years.”

That led into a discussion of Arden’s own wedding plans, and Justin was happy to listen as he polished off the last of his roast beef. Or, at least, half listen. He would take a bullet for his sister, but he wasn’t cut out for conversations about the color of pew-bows. So it took him by surprise when conversation halted, his sister peering at him as if awaiting a reply.

He stalled brilliantly. “Um...”

“You men can talk trivial sports statistics until the cows come home, but can’t sit through five minutes of wedding updates! I asked if you thought you might bring a date to the ceremony. While it’s customary to allow guests a plus-one, it’s not like you’re dating—”

“Untrue. I date all the time.”

She rolled her eyes. “My point exactly. You don’t have a girlfriend, and God knows Colin will come alone. Assuming he even attends.”

The doubt in her tone was wrenching. “Hey, he wouldn’t miss this for the world. He agreed to walk you down the aisle.”

“I know. But...sometimes it feels like we’ve lost him. I wonder if we should have tried harder to keep him here instead of letting him roam the countryside, doing odd jobs on ranches. This will sound stupid, but I worry that if he drifts too far out of orbit, he won’t be able to find his way home.”

Justin stood, clearing plates from the table. Would it be cruel to point out that Colin had lost his wife and child and probably needed distance from Arden, who now had her own child and was about to become a wife? No matter how sincerely Colin wanted his sister’s happiness, her bliss couldn’t be easy to be around.

After a moment, she joined him at the sink, her earlier sadness replaced with an air of determination that never boded well. She smiled. “Speaking of your abysmal dating habits—”

“We weren’t. We were discussing our drifter brother and how we should save him from himself. Let’s explore that further.”

She ignored him. “Christmas is a special time.”

It was eerie how much she sounded like their mother. Arden had only been four when their mom got sick. Did she remember that Christmas had been Rebecca Cade’s favorite time of year? Did Arden recall any of the traditions that had faded once their mom was gone? For a second, the kitchen around him seemed filled with the aroma of spicy sausage balls and the sharp sweetness of lemon bars. He recalled the music of his mom’s laugh after she routinely tried—and failed—to hit the high note in “O Holy Night.”

“It’s a time,” Arden continued, “of reconnection. Even if you haven’t spoken to someone in months, you can send them a card.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why do I think you mean ‘someone’ specific?”

“You never should have let her go.” Arden’s voice was soft, but the reproving note echoed all around him. “As I’ve said many times before, you and Elisabeth were great together.”

“You have a point. Not about us being great, but about you saying it many, many times. Give it a rest, will you?”

“Colin has gone God knows where, so I can’t help him. Maybe I still have a shot at getting you to fix your messes before I move to the ranch. I know we joke about your love life, but breaking up with Elisabeth Donnelly was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

It hadn’t been stupidity. It had been self-preservation. But he couldn’t explain to his happily engaged sister the claustrophobia he’d experienced during dinners with the Donnellys or the clawing panic as Elisabeth watched her friend Michelle succumb to the same disease that had taken his mother. His growing attachment to Elisabeth and her family had been uncomfortable enough, but then Kaylee had started visiting during some of her mom’s hospital stays...

He cleared his throat, shoving the memories aside. “You don’t have to worry about Elisabeth Donnelly. She’s found some businessman. You can bet they have more in common than she and I ever did.”

If Elisabeth decided to enter the corporate world, she was bright enough to fast-track herself to a fancy corner office and well-dressed minions. Meanwhile, Justin worked three different jobs in the course of a year to compensate for the off-season and lived in a rented house. His ambitions were about conquering black diamond trails, not making money or building a legacy.

“She has a boyfriend?” Arden frowned. “It’s a small town, and I haven’t seen her with anyone. Maybe it’s not serious.”

“Serious enough that he proposed and she said yes.”

“What?”

He leaned against the counter, his pose relaxed. It was important that Arden saw how unbothered he was by Elisabeth’s engagement. “They have a long-distance relationship—even longer distance than you and the cowboy. I ran into Lina on Sunday, and she filled me in on the details.” He omitted the part about how Lina thought the engagement was a mistake and blamed Justin for her sister’s rash decision.