Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

Three days in, Margo's broken leg was making her stir crazy. She hadn't left since Nora and Caroline had brought her back from the doctor's office, and even though she knew an outing with her sisters was likely going to be awkward, she was desperate.

So when Caroline arrived that morning and she overheard her and Rhonda discussing Caroline going out for supplies for the inn, she jumped at the chance to go.

"Want someone to tag along?" she asked as Caroline walked back into the living room. "I could use some fresh air."

Caroline gave her a small smile. "Well, I already have a co-pilot. Jay is with me today. But we wouldn't mind some company, if you want to go."

Margo felt a jab of curiosity at that. She hadn't met Caroline's stepson yet. Honestly, it was hard for her to imagine her older sister with kids. Caroline wasn't the most patient person in the world, and as far as she knew, it took a good bit of patience to deal with children. But Caroline seemed happy about the situation, and she was interested to meet her new step-nephew.

"All right. Sounds good to me." She pushed herself awkwardly out of the armchair she was sitting in, wincing as she reached for her crutches. Everything she did felt slow and clumsy and awkward now, and she hated it.

She hobbled down the steps, following Caroline to her car. There was a small boy who looked about eight or nine sitting in the back, his glasses sliding down his nose as he traipsed a pair of plastic dinosaurs back and forth over the back of the passenger's seat.

"Don't bump Aunt Margo," Caroline warned as she slid into the driver's side, after opening the door for Margo. Margo twisted around, offering Jay a smile.

"I don't mind," she said, and she really didn't. In the grand scheme of things, getting bumped by a toy dinosaur in the back of the head wasn't all that bad. It definitely didn't compare to losing her job or breaking a leg, and that was about where she was these days. "It's nice to meet you, Jay."

"Nice to meet you too!" Jay said brightly, before knocking the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the triceratops together. "Rawr!"

"You'll have to excuse him," Caroline said, a small smile on her face as she pulled out of the driveway and onto the main road. "He really has a thing for dinosaurs, and fossils. We've watched Jurassic Park three times this holiday break alone, and it just started. Rhett is picking up the rest of the movies at the secondhand video store today, just so we can introduce him to something different. Maybe even a Godzilla movie, just to spice it up."

She laughed, and Margo felt herself smiling too. This new version of her sister wasn't so bad. It was just odd.

"I heard the most recent one was good," Margo offered, even though she didn't really have any idea. She hadn't been to a movie theater in a long time. She was used to only having a week or so in Jersey between assignments, and those were usually spent late at the office, finishing up articles and then preparing for the next trip. Every once in a while she'd get a ticket just for herself, buy one of those big boxes of Junior Mints and go see something, but it was a rare occasion. She couldn't actually remember what the movie had been the last time she'd done that.

"Mom said you moved into the cabin at the back of the property." She glanced over at Caroline. "Do you like it?"

Caroline nodded. "Rhett and I fixed it up after he asked me to marry him."

Margo snuck a glance at her sister's wedding finger as she spoke. A simple gold band with a floral pattern etched into it—no diamond ring to be seen. It fit what she would have pictured for Caroline.

"Rhett actually bought a house when he first moved to Evergreen Hollow," Caroline continued. "But he understood how much the inn means to me, and how important it is to me to be close to it. Of course, neither of us wanted to live under the same roof with Mom and Dad, that would have been awkward. But the house on the property was a good compromise. Rhett didn't mind. He didn't have a major attachment to the house he bought. We're actually renting it out now."

"Wow," Margo breathed.

For one thing, it was more sentences strung together than she remembered her sister saying the last time she was home. For another, she was really happy that Caroline had found Rhett. She still didn't know him very well—she'd only met him twice since she'd been back home—but it was clear that he understood what mattered to Caroline, and wanted to make her happy. As far as Margo was concerned, she didn't really think anything else mattered.

Caroline turned into the parking lot of the Sugar Maple General Store and turned off the engine.

"We've got to run a quick errand here," she told Jay, glancing in the rearview mirror. "If you're patient, I'll make sure to get a sleeve of that maple candy Leon sells."

"Bribery?" Margo teased, and her sister gave her a narrow look before sliding out of the car.

Margo had never minded the snow before, but on crutches, it was absolutely miserable. She had to be extra careful to make sure she didn't hit any patches of ice, and trying to pick them up and put them back down anywhere that the snow had built up was an exercise in patience she didn't have. But she couldn't exactly regret coming out. The sun was bright, glinting off the neatly plowed white snowdrifts, everything was decorated for Christmas and festive, and the cold air felt bracing after being cooped up inside of the inn.

She sucked in a deep breath as she nudged the car door closed behind her, and followed Caroline and Jay inside.

"Caroline!" Leon called out as they walked in. "And—oh my stars, is that Margo?"

Margo felt herself flush. She hadn't been out and about in town when she first arrived, and after the accident, she'd stayed in until today.

Leon's expression reminded her of why she had avoided a lot of the small-town haunts. He looked genuinely excited to see her, but it all felt a little too prodigal daughter for her taste, and she shifted uncomfortably.

"Margo! It's so good to see you." Leon's wife, Bethany, came out from behind the counter, smelling faintly of spices. Margo awkwardly returned the hug she gave her, breathing in the smell of biscuit dough and thyme.

Some things never change, she thought with amusement.

When Bethany wasn't working next door at her pet grooming salon, she cleaned off the pet hair and made the biscuit sandwiches that the general shop sold at their hot food counter a couple of days a week. Margo vividly remembered the taste of one of those sandwiches after school, back when she was younger.

"Are you home for long?" Bethany asked.

The genuine curiosity in her voice, without any kind of expectation or judgment, set Margo a little more at ease. She didn't usually like the small-town shtick of everyone here, but there was a comforting warmth to Bethany that didn't give her that feeling she so often got with anyone else.

"A little while," Margo said vaguely.

The truth was that she didn't know how long she was going to be staying. She couldn't afford to keep her apartment indefinitely without working, but with her leg broken, she wasn't sure what she was going to do. She couldn't just hang out in Evergreen Hollow, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to. But everything felt up in the air.

"Well, we're glad to have you for as long as you want to be here," Bethany said warmly, and it felt like she genuinely meant it. She'd always had a disarming nature, Margo thought, something to do with the way that it always felt like her focus was all on the person she was talking to, and she really was interested in what they had to say.

"Margo? Are you ready to go?" Caroline was holding two paper bags of supplies, while Jay had a sleeve of candy in his small fist, one hand already sticky.

"Sure. Bye, Bethany." Margo gave her a smile, and Bethany returned it.

"Come back whenever you feel up to it. We're always glad to see you."

Margo started to hobble after Caroline, only to see the door open just before they reached it, and stop dead in her tracks.

She saw jet black hair and a full, well-groomed beard on a tall man in a green flannel shirt, and she knew immediately who it was.

Chris Long, her ex-fiancé, and the last man she wanted to run into while she was home.

She'd just started to feel a little better about being back in Evergreen Hollow, and now all she wanted was to run away again.

"Can we hurry up and get out to the car?" she hissed at Caroline as Chris went to the left.

Caroline shot her an odd look, but nudged Jay ahead of her, the two of them picking up pace as they walked out to Caroline's sedan. Margo yanked open the passenger's door herself, nearly slipping in the snow as she threw herself into the car and yanked down the mirror to try and hide her face, just in case Chris looked out the window or came out right after them.

She heard the sound of the trunk shutting, and Caroline slid into the car a moment later.

"What on earth was that about?" Caroline asked, looking and sounding completely baffled. "What got into you?"

Margo let out a sharp breath. She didn't like admitting what had bothered her so much, but she knew she couldn't just blow it off. Caroline wasn't just going to let that go.

"Chris came in," she said flatly. "I saw him just as we were leaving. I really didn't want him to see me ."

Caroline's face softened at that. "You know," she said gently, "I never agreed with how Chris handled that whole situation. It was a real cowardly thing to do."

It was an olive branch, an attempt to be understanding, and Margo saw it for what it was and reached out for it.

"I thought it would have stopped hurting by now," she admitted. "But there's still some of it there, unfortunately. It still stings, seeing him."

"I understand." Caroline looked at her with a hint of sympathy. "But even so, that wasn't a reason to desert your hometown and all the people in it, Margo."

Just like that, she felt all her walls snap back up. There it is. Leave it to Caroline to take a moment of connection and turn it into a lecture, she thought, leaning back against the seat and facing forward again. "I left for other reasons," she said sharply. "I have a job to do, you know."

Had a job to do. Her sister didn't say it, but she didn't need to. Margo was already thinking it, the words echoing in her head as she looked out of the window. The conversation had gone right back where she'd expected it to.

But, in spite of that, it had felt good to feel a moment's understanding from her sister. To connect with her, just for a second.

It made her feel ever so slightly hopeful that maybe it would happen again.