Snowbound Bride-to-Be (16 page)

Now, the day before Christmas Eve, they had gone through all four thousand hot dogs and run out to buy more twice. When she checked the freezer, she found there were no chocolate-dipped shortbread cookies left, and there were no wreaths stored on the back porch.

Emma delivered the bad news to the warming shed, where Mona was being rushed off her feet selling a dwindling supply of crafts and cookies. She had long since given up on selling hot dogs. All the supplies were out with a cup beside them and a sign that said By Donation. The donation cup was overflowing.

My cup is overflowing
, Emma said to herself, watching the skaters skim across the pond, hearing the jingle of the horse
bells as they pulled the big sled around the torch-lit trail that circled the pond.

But, looking at her pond, it was as if all the skaters disappeared and she could just see two, herself and Ryder.

If her cup was overflowing, why did she feel so empty? This was her dream come true. The fortunes of the White Christmas Inn had been turned around. Her bills were paid. The storeroom off the front hall was filled to bursting with toys and gifts.

The chartered bus to bring people for the Christmas Day Dream was paid for, Emma had enough money to get each family a supermarket certificate for a month’s worth of groceries after Christmas was over. Three huge turkeys were thawing for the feast, Mona had volunteers making pies.

Holiday Happenings had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. Tonight a news crew had come from Fredericton, which meant tomorrow, Christmas Eve, could be the inn’s biggest night so far.

Her success didn’t feel the way she thought it would at all. She felt oddly hollow, empty despite the fact Holiday Happenings had succeeded beyond what she had ever dared to dream for it.

Maybe the truth about all her ruined Christmases was that no matter what happened, they could never meet her expectations.

What she really wanted was not Christmas. Not skaters on ponds and perfect gifts piled high under the tree, not turkey and stuffing and carols sung around a crackling fire.

Maybe what she really wanted was what Christmas had stood for a long time ago, before trees and packages and music and trinkets had all cluttered the message.

Love.

And that was what had eluded her again and again.

After everyone had gone home, Emma wearily climbed the stairs, and went down the hall to her room, feeling so alone.

She hesitated and opened the door to the green room, ready for her mother’s arrival tomorrow night on the eight o’clock bus.

Emma went in and sat down on the bed. The little ghost of the girl she used to be came and sat down beside her.

“We’re going to have a good Christmas,” she promised her. “Finally.”

And in the quiet of that moment, without the crush of skaters and the gallons of hot chocolate, she was amazed that she believed it.

Suddenly, she knew that’s what it was all about, Holiday Happenings, the Christmas Day Dream—it hadn’t been about giving to others, though that’s what it looked like from the outside.

Inside herself, Emma knew the truth. It was really all about her. Every single thing she had done, including insisting her mother come, had been about her, about her trying to be good enough, trying to shore up that terribly shaky self-esteem.

She had been trying desperately to create something that never was with all the Christmas hoopla, with taking on the house, with creating that perfect room for her mother. She had been looking to repair what was inside herself by making a perfect picture outside herself.

The only time she had ever felt the magic she wanted from Christmas was on the pond skating with Ryder. It had not been the wild-child who had skated with him. Not the woman-scorned. Not the independent-woman-innkeeper.

It had been Emma. Just Emma. And with that had come a feeling of freedom, of finally being seen and appreciated for who she really was.

And Ryder had still walked away from that. From who she
really was. It was devastating. So much worse than Peter’s abandonment, because Peter had walked away from a role she played, not who she was. In retrospect, he had done them both a favor, released her from pretense.

That first night Ryder had come, she had told him bravely, proudly even, “Christmas transforms everything. It makes all things magic.”

And now she realized something magic
had
happened. It didn’t have to do with Christmas, but with love. Falling for Ryder, she had put away the masks and found out who she really was, become who she really was, and even if Ryder had walked away from that, she wasn’t going to.

She was going to give herself the gift she had looked for from everyone else. Love. Surprised, for it had come when she least expected it, Emma felt the exquisite sense of peace that she had looked for her entire life.

R
YDER
couldn’t believe the cars. The parking lot was full. There were cars parked all along the driveway, and halfway to Willowbrook.

“Don’t people have better things to do on Christmas Eve?” he asked grouchily, finding a place, finally, to squeeze his car in where he wouldn’t have to walk too far carrying Tess to get to the house and the pond.

But he wasn’t really grouchy. As soon as he had turned into that driveway he had felt as if he was coming home.

Tess was babbling happily, Bebo held firmly in her clutches. He’d finally realized it wasn’t exactly gibberish. It was Boo and Eggie she was talking to. When she said Emma,
Um-uh
, it sounded like
Mama
. She said those three names over and over again, running them together, in a little melody of joy. She was still humming excitedly as they got out of the car, as she strained in his arms, looking.

He went up the front steps. There was a basket on it, with a sign. Admission by Donation. The basket was overflowing.

He wandered through the house, allowed the sensation of homecoming to deepen.

“Um-uh, Boo, Eggie,” Tess cried.

But it was obvious the house was empty.

“Burglar heaven,” Ryder said out loud. How like Emma to just trust the whole world—her house open, the basket of money on the stairs. “At least she doesn’t have a television anyone would want,” he said to Tess, heading out the back door.

He followed the Christmas-lit pathway to the pond. Throngs of people skated, swirling in bright patterns over torch-lit ice. The sounds of the laughter and conversation of those gathered around the bonfires drifted up to him.

It was a Christmas-card-pretty scene. Emma must be loving this.

He moved through the crowds at the warming shed, and suddenly Sue and Peggy burst out of a little cluster of people around the bonfire, looking taller on their skates.

“Tess!”

Tess went shy. “Boo, Eggie,” she whispered, and then leaned out of his arms, offering Bebo back.

The shyness was momentary.

“DOWN,” she ordered, and her best friends each took a hand and patiently walked her down to the ice and her little sled, sitting nearly where they had left it.

Mona, harried inside the warming shed, looked at him, looked again, and then as beautiful a smile as he had ever seen lit her face.

“Isn’t this great?” she shouted. “Welcome back.”

“It’s great,” he agreed, but he felt as if he could not wait a moment longer. “Where is Emma?”

“I haven’t seen her for awhile. If you do see her, could you tell her I need some more gingerbread? That’s about all we have left.”

“Will do. The girls have Tess.”

“I’ll watch out for her.”

Ryder focused on the pond. Surely with all the things that
needed to be doing, Emma wouldn’t be out there skating? He remembered her delight in her newfound skill. Then again, maybe she would be. Maybe, he frowned, she had even found someone to dance with her. But, no, as he searched the throngs, he did not see a familiar red toque with crazy curls protruding around the edges of it.

He did see Tim bringing the big team of horses around the pond, steam coming out their nostrils, poofs of snow exploding around their huge feet. The harness bells jingled. He went to meet him.

Tim pulled up beside him, jumped down, helped each person off the sleigh.

He turned and regarded Ryder not with surprise, but with approval, judging him a man who had done the right thing.

“She’s not here,” Tim said, not a doubt in his mind what Ryder had come back here for. And it was not Holiday Happenings.

Ryder felt his heart fall. Not here? But where—

“She left for the bus station in Willowbrook. At least an hour ago. The bus was supposed to be in at eight, so she should have been back by now.”

Tim’s eyes met his, something in them unspoken.

But Ryder heard him loud and clear.

He headed for Willowbrook breaking all speed limits. It seemed as though every residence and business in the tiny hamlet was in competition to have the finest Christmas display. The bus station stood out for its lack of Christmas attire, a gray, squat building with no cheer, inside or out.

Through the front plate-glass window, he saw Emma sitting in a row of hard chairs, the only one in the station except for a clerk behind the counter. The red Santa hat was on the seat beside her.

Seeing her there, so alone and so hopeful despite the fact it was now nearly nine-thirty, Ryder should have been able to tell himself that he had come back for her.

He should have been able to confirm he was a good man after all.

He had come just in time, to help Emma finally know what a good Christmas was.

He’d come back, a choice. Choosing to live, even if it meant risk. Last year, one year ago on Christmas, standing in the ashes of his life, he had made a choice not to live anymore, and to not forgive himself, ever, for what had happened there.

Now, standing here, he was aware of making another choice, this time to live after all. And finally, to forgive himself.

He’d come back here because he had started off on a road to one place ten days ago, and instead he had ended up somewhere else. And by some miracle the place he had ended up had turned out to be exactly where he needed to be, where he was meant to be.

Was it possible that all things, even the things he had no hope of ever understanding, like two people gone too soon, lost too young, could have a meaning if his heart opened to them?

Watching Emma, he was so achingly aware of what she was hoping would come off the next bus.

And while she waited for it to get off that bus, watched the main door, the place the passengers came through into the bus depot, love would do what love did. The unexpected, the unscheduled, love would slip in the side door.

Hadn’t it already? Hadn’t it come to her in the form of Tim and Mona, and Peggy and Sue?

Hadn’t it come to her on a stormy night nine days ago?

Ryder walked through the side door. A man in chains had entered her life nine days ago, but a free man went to join her now.

Emma watched the clock. One more bus at midnight. Chances were remote that her mother was going to be on it. There was no point sitting here, waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen. She should really go back to Holiday Happenings, but she didn’t feel like it.

It felt like too much chaos and too much noise, and as if the whole world was made of people who cared about each other and had families, except her. Still, she had herself, and all day she had felt a growing appreciation of what that meant.

“Hi,” he slipped into the seat beside her.

Without even turning her head, she knew who it was, let his familiar scent fill her senses. She closed her eyes for a moment, breathing him in, then opened them and looked at him. Her heart began to pound when she saw something in his face she had not ever seen before, not even that night they had skated on the pond.

There was some kind of openness in him, she could see tenderness in the darkness of those eyes.

But of course, she could imagine all kinds of things! She had imagined her mother really meant she was coming.

And she had imagined learning to love herself would be enough, though with him sitting beside her it seemed not that it wasn’t, but that loving herself was the stepping stone she had been missing in being able to love another.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. It felt as if she would give away the tiny bit of power she had left if she admitted how happy she was to see him.

“I thought we could start again.” He took his glove off, held out his hand to her. “I’m Ryder Richardson, dumb jerk.”

“How did you know I was here?” She didn’t take his hand.

“Tim told me.”

“I hope you aren’t here because you feel sorry for me,” she said stiffly.

“Why would I be sorry for you?”

“Come on, Ryder. Everybody knew she wasn’t coming, except me. Hopeless dreamer. Everybody knew I was trying to rewrite history with all of it. None of it, not even Christmas Day Dream, was ever about giving to those other people. It was always about me trying to repair something that can’t be repaired. You can’t rewrite the past. It’s done. You don’t get to do it over, no matter how hard you try. I have a new goal now. To love myself in spite of all of it.”

It felt as if she had to be very brave to say that.

“Ah.”

“Why do you say it like that?”

“Because I think you’ll find loving you is the easiest thing in the world. Speaking from experience.”

For a moment she couldn’t believe he had said that, so he said it again, leaving no room for misinterpretation.

“I love you, Emma.”

When she looked in his eyes she saw it was true. He was offering her what she had never had. A shoulder to lean on. But more. Acceptance. Connection. Love.

“You know,” he said softly, “right until the minute I came through those doors, I was convinced I had come back here for you. Now I can clearly see that’s not true.”

“It’s not?”

He shook his head. “I came back for myself, Emma.”

“You did?”

“I came back to save myself. I can’t change what happened, either. Changing myself into someone untouchable and bitter hasn’t changed what happened.”

His voice grew unbelievably gentle. “Maybe it’s time for both of us to move forward. Instead of trying to fix what’s done, we need to build the future, not rebuild the past.”

His voice was low. “Emma, I don’t want to be lonely anymore. Or bitter. Or closed. That’s no way to honor the gift of love my family always gave me. My mom and dad, my brother Drew, my sister-in-law Tracy. I need to be the man they expected me to be when they made up a will that gave me guardianship of Tess.

“I need to be a man,” he said softly, “who can show a girl who has never had a good Christmas just what that feels like.”

Her tears came then, and he reached out and caught them with his thumb.

And Emma was amazed that she didn’t give one hoot what Christmas felt like. Nothing could hold a candle to the way she felt right now. Nothing.

Not even the most perfect Christmas in the whole world.

And maybe it was because she let go of it, that it finally, finally happened.

Christmas became a dream.

With Ryder right beside her, the next morning as the bus pulled up, they welcomed fifty-one guests to the inn.

How shy and awkward those poorly dressed people looked as they got off the bus and looked toward the house.

And how quickly that awkwardness melted away as the unofficial greeting “elves,” Tess, Sue and Peggy, rushed forward to meet the children and to shoo them toward the house that smelled of the turkey that had been in the oven since early this morning.

Mona had a hilarious game set up, an ice breaker, that helped everyone meet each other and get to know their names. Then there was buffet breakfast laid out at the dining-room table.

Soon they were all crowded into the great room, plates empty, coffee and cocoa mugs full, the laughter and warmth flowing easily, the children quivering with anticipation at what was under the tree.

Tim handed out gifts until the room was awash with paper and shouts of glee and exhilaration. There were new snow boots and warm jackets, fuzzy pajamas, mittens and hats. There were toys for the young children—dolls and fire trucks—and electronics for the older ones, portable DVD players and personal stereos.

“Not bad goodies for the techno-electro-free zone,” Ryder teased her.

After the gifts, there were skating and sleigh rides, and then after naps for the younger ones, a dinner feast fit for kings.

Then they gathered around the fire once again. Strangers just this morning, they were a family now. A family of babies and old people, teenagers and young moms and dads. Mona had more games, and it was nearly midnight as they all began to reboard the bus, the children clutching their favorite toys, packages being loaded into the cargo hold under the bus. There were hugs and expressions of gratitude and tears.

Mona and Tim packed up the girls, and Tess was put to bed in a crib in the green room.

Emma and Ryder were alone in front of the fire.

“I’m exhausted,” she told him, stretching out her legs. “And exhilarated. It was better than anything I planned.”

He touched her hair, ran his fingers through it.

“You know the weird part?” she said, quietly, “it wasn’t really Holiday Happenings. And not even today, as beautiful as it was.”

He nodded. “I know, Emma.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. It’s this, what we’re feeling right here, right now, isn’t it?”

“That’s it exactly,” she said. “Exactly. When I stopped
expecting
the world, overlaying reality with my dreams, it was as if I could enjoy it for the very first time.”

And that feeling didn’t go away because Christmas had, and neither did Ryder. He stayed.

She woke up most mornings with a kink in her neck from falling asleep on him.

And she woke up eager for the next day, to see what love brought.

A touch of hands, a moment stolen to share a hot dog, an afternoon while the Fenshaws kept Tess.

Ryder and Tess left on New Year’s Day.

And that was when the romance began in earnest. He sent flowers. He e-mailed. They talked on the phone as late into the night as they had every day since Christmas.

He came for the weekends, but more and more Emma went to the city, aware that she had missed the city and loved it. Sometimes they would take Tess with them as they explored little coffee shops and antique markets, other times they left her with Miss Markle while they went to the theatre, or out for a quiet grown-up dinner.

The passion between them grew until it flared, white-hot. Every touch, every look, a promise.

But it was Ryder who would never let the passion culminate.

“Hey, I have to be an example for Tess. I don’t want her to think it’s okay to give in without committing.”

For Emma’s birthday, in the spring, Ryder gave her an engagement ring, and asked her to marry him.