Chapter 3

Chapter Three

“ Girl ,” Felicity said, her tone full of sass as she strode into Marissa’s house holding three pints of ice cream. “You have some explaining to do.”

“Yes, you certainly do,” Clara added, taking one of the ice cream containers from Felicity. “Earlier all you told us was that you had history with Danny the potter and you’d explain later. Well, it’s time to pay up.” She pointed at Marissa. “And we want all the gritty details. Not a washed down version because you don’t want to talk about it.”

Marissa sank into her oversized chair and curled up in the corner. Her sable-colored Havanese pup jumped up onto the ottoman and then snuggled in next to her, putting her head right under Marissa’s hand, demanding to be petted.

Why did Marissa have friends again? All she really needed was her sweet pup, Pumpkin, and a roof over her head. Right? At least Pumpkin would never make her talk about Danny.

Felicity held out the pint of chocolate caramel swirl, and suddenly Marissa remembered why she loved her friends. They always brought her favorite ice cream when she needed it most.

“You’re a goddess,” Marissa said, tearing the top off.

Felicity just nodded as she held out a spoon.

Marissa took it and dove into the creamy goodness.

Once her two friends were seated on the couch across from her, they stared her down, waiting in silence.

Marissa knew they’d wait all night if they had to. After her third spoonful of the sinful treat, she sighed and said, “Danny Frost is my ex-husband.”

“What?” Clara gasped, her eyes nearly bugging out.

“Your ex?” Felicity asked, looking thoughtful. “So your disdain for marriage comes from personal experience.” It was a statement, not a question.

“It does,” Marissa agreed, knowing they weren’t going to let her just drop it. But still she stalled. It had been years since she’d talked about Danny to anyone. If she had her way, she wouldn’t say a word about him now either.

“How long ago did you get divorced? It must have been at least five years ago,” Clara speculated as she dug a spoonful of coffee ice cream out of her container.

“Sixteen.” Marissa petted Pumpkin, not looking at her friends.

“Sixteen!” they both exclaimed at the same time.

Felicity looked horrified as she quickly did the math. “You got divorced at nineteen? How old were you when you got married? Did your parents sell you off as a child bride or something?”

Marissa gave her an exasperated look. “No. My parents didn’t sell me into marriage. Come on. Danny and I were best friends, and then we dated all through high school. We made it through one year of college before we decided we were tired of waiting and eloped in Vegas. I was a few weeks shy of turning nineteen, while he’d been nineteen for a whole month and a half.”

“Oh, Marissa,” Clara said, clutching her chest with her right hand. “You were together for five years before you got married? What made it all fall apart?”

“They were dumb teenagers,” Felicity piped in. “What do you think happened?” She turned to Marissa. “Did he cheat? Do drugs? Steal your money? My grandmother used to say that men don’t actually come into their brains until they’re at least thirty. And you know, I’d say that the young men I know prove her right more often than not.”

Clara rolled her eyes. “You know I hate it when you say that. First of all, it’s not true. Second, if it were true, that would just be giving young men an excuse to be shitty.”

“It’s not an excuse. It just is,” Felicity shot back. “Prove me wrong. Name me one man under thirty who hasn’t completely effed something up because they were thinking with something other than their brains.”

As Clara started naming off men she knew from town, Marissa sat back, watching her friends spar. She was in no hurry to continue her story. It was ancient history now anyway. All she had to do was figure out how she could keep her distance from Danny, and everything would be fine. Right?

That was all well and good, but it wasn’t like she could ban him from Sleighed. Technically, she guessed she could. She did run a private business, after all, but she would never be so cruel as to ban the man from her pub just because he shattered her heart sixteen years ago. She was over him. What did it matter if he came in for takeout or to have drinks with Jackson? As long as he stayed out of her business, they’d be just fine.

“Earth to Marissa. Are you still with us?” Felicity called, waving her hands to get her attention.

Marissa blinked and shook her head slightly, clearing her thoughts. “What is it? What’d I miss?”

“Everything apparently.” Felicity jerked a thumb at the back door. “You didn’t even hear Pumpkin barking to go out.”

Marissa looked down at her chair and frowned when she saw Pumpkin was gone. She hadn’t even noticed her dog getting up. How out of it was she? Marissa hopped up out of the chair and opened the back door for her pooch while she grabbed a thick sweatshirt that hung on a hook on the wall. Even though the area was fenced, Marissa never let her little twelve-pound baby out by herself. There was too much wildlife that preyed on small animals.

When Pumpkin had sniffed every inch of the yard and finally relieved herself in her preferred spot, she came running full speed back to Marissa, her tongue hanging out and her eyes sparkling with mischief .

“You goof.” Marissa let Pumpkin in and went back to her friends, who were waiting for her in the living room.

“We put the ice cream away,” Clara said. “That cake earlier and now ice cream was probably a little much.”

Marissa raised one eyebrow. “There’s always room for ice cream.”

Felicity let out a bark of laughter. “Well, it’s in the freezer. Help yourself.”

“Nah. I’ll save it for tomorrow.” Marissa got comfortable in her seat again with Pumpkin and wished she’d thought to make herself a cup of decaf.

“All right. What happened? You married your high school sweetheart, and then he bolted. Why?” Clara asked, leaning forward with her hands clasped in her lap.

“I’d bet a month’s salary that he met someone else,” Felicity said with a frown. Then under her breath, she added, “Men are so predictable.”

“You’d lose that bet.” Marissa picked up the comb on her side table and started combing Pumpkin’s hair just to have something else to focus on. “It wasn’t someone else. At least not the way you’re thinking.”

“What does that mean?” Clara asked.

“That’s cryptic.” Felicity grabbed a bottle of wine that had appeared while Marissa had been taking Pumpkin out and poured a generous amount into a wine glass before handing it to Marissa. “Some liquid courage.”

“Thank you.” Marissa gave her a grateful smile and downed almost half the contents of the glass before she came up for air. “Okay, so we got married. My dad wasn’t thrilled, but he’d known Danny for years and loved him too. So even though we were young, he accepted it and helped us get our own studio apartment.”

“Your dad always sounds like the dad everyone wishes they had,” Felicity said, sounding wistful. “If only my mother had better taste in men.”

Clara and Marissa both chuckled. Felicity’s parents had gotten divorced when she was fifteen because her dad had fallen in love with the neighbor’s wife. When both marriages imploded, he’d left Felicity’s mom and moved in next door. Despite that, Felicity still rarely saw him, and he’d basically checked out of her life the moment he’d left her mom.

“He was that kind of dad,” Marissa said, a sad smile tugging at her lips. Her dad had been her best friend and the one person in the world she’d always counted on. At one time, she’d thought she’d always have Danny, too, but he’d ruined that for her. “I miss him every day.”

Clara reached out and squeezed Marissa’s hand but didn’t say anything. They all knew that Marissa’s grief still came in waves. Her dad had been her person.

“Anyway,” Marissa said, suddenly determined to finish her story. The longer she dragged it out, the longer her stomach would be in knots. “One day Danny told me he had a terrible vision that involved both of us and that he had to leave.”

“Vision? Is he a seer or something?” Clara asked.

“Yes. He’d get flashes of things that were about to happen. If the vision indicated someone was going to get hurt, he’d step in to help. If it was a good vision, he’d often stop and wait so I could witness it, too. Like the time we witnessed the sweetest proposal or when a dog and his owner were reunited.

“Danny just came into our room, his face almost gray as he told me that he loved me but he had to leave. That he had no other choice. And then with tears in his eyes, he packed his stuff and left. It was the last time I saw him.”

“He didn’t even tell you what his vision was about?” Clara was clutching her chest as if the story had pained her.

“No. He refused. Six months later, the divorce paperwork showed up. That night I ate an entire cheesecake and then, feeling like I was going to throw up, I signed the papers.”

“Well, sure,” Felicity chimed in. “An entire cheesecake will do that to a person.”

“Felicity!” Clara admonished. “Clearly the cheesecake was just one of the issues. The love of her life walked out on her and then just sent divorce papers. That’s really cold.”

“It sounds like he left to protect her,” Felicity said, eyeing Marissa. “That’s the short version, right?”

“Yeah,” Marissa agreed. “But he didn’t tell me about the vision or give me any chance to change the future. For all I know, his vision came true anyway and I survived just fine.”

“You really think that?” Felicity asked.

“No, but it could have happened.” Marissa knew enough about his visions to know that, when he stepped in, he usually did change the outcome. Her most burning question was, why hadn’t he stayed to fight for her? Instead he’d just left, leaving her so devastated that she still carried the wound with her.

“What I want to know is why did he have to move to my town?” Marissa complained. “After all this time, why did he end up here?”

Clara and Felicity shared a knowing glance.

Marissa narrowed her eyes at them. “What?”

Finally Clara cleared her throat. “He does have family here. Aren’t Zach and Atlas his cousins?”

“Yes, but he was never close to them! I don’t know why he’d suddenly move here out of nowhere. It just seems suspect.” Marissa knew she sounded petulant, but Danny’s presence in the town she’d grown to love so much was really messing with her.

“Mar, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think the same question could be asked of you,” Clara continued. “I mean, you did move to a town where the Frosts have deep roots. If you really never wanted to see him again, why would you do that?”

“You’re saying you think I moved here on the off chance that Danny might show up here? That’s crazy.” Marissa downed the rest of her wine. “If I wanted to stalk him, don’t you think I’d have done that in San Francisco where he actually lived? Hanging out at his local coffee shop every morning would have been a lot more productive than this apparently elaborate long game.”

Clara chuckled softly. “I’m not saying you wanted to actively stalk the man, but maybe it’s possible that deep down you had an unconscious desire to be somewhere connected to him. ”

Marissa opened her mouth to protest the absurd theory, but Clara put her hand up, stopping her. “I might be way off,” Clara continued. “I’m just saying things happen that none of us can explain. Sometimes the universe has plans that we don’t understand right away. Maybe this reuniting will give you both a chance for closure and healing.”

“I don’t need closure,” Marissa muttered. “That happened the day I signed the divorce papers.”

Clara blew out a breath. “Sure. But clearly there’s still a lot of anger where he’s concerned. This could be your chance to put that behind you.”

Marissa averted her gaze, knowing her friend was right. She did have a lot of anger issues when it came to Danny. She’d thought she was past it all, but seeing him thriving at his pottery studio and acting as if she didn’t affect him at all was driving her crazy. If he was even just a little bit remorseful about leaving her all those years ago, then maybe she wouldn’t feel so awful about it. But so far, the man hadn’t apologized, and instead he acted as if them being in the same town wasn’t bothering him at all. After how close they’d been, she just didn’t understand it.

“Why did you move to Christmas Grove?” Felicity asked. “Other than wanting to open the pub, I don’t think you’ve ever said.”

“When we’d go up to Tahoe when I was a kid, my dad always stopped here on the way up and on the way home. We’d get breakfast at Candy Canes. I’d have the chocolate chip pancakes, and he’d have the French toast with extra bacon. And on the way back we’d stop again for dinner. All I cared about was the hot chocolate with a mountain of whipped cream, but Dad loved the old-time feel of that diner.” Marissa smiled. “I have a lot of happy memories here with my dad. I couldn’t stay in his house. Not where he’d spent his last days. It was just too sad. What better way to honor him than to get my chocolate chip pancakes and hot chocolate every Sunday? It just makes me feel like he’s smiling down on me.”

Clara wiped the tears from her eyes. “That’s why you always want to go there and always get the same thing.”

“I just thought she had the taste buds of a ten-year-old,” Felicity teased. “Either that or you were a trash panda in another life.”

Marissa snickered. “Maybe I was. The only thing I know for sure is that those pancakes are just as good now as they were then, and as long as Candy Canes is open for business, I’ll be there every Sunday morning.”

“That’s so sweet.” Clara hopped up off the couch, went over to Marissa, and hugged her from behind. “I guess you really did move here with your dad in mind. It’s just unfortunate for you that Danny had family ties here.”

“Yeah,” Marissa said softly, staring at the roaring fireplace. The thing was, deep down, she’d always known that at least a tiny part of the reason she chose Christmas Grove was because she felt a little bit closer to Danny there. But she’d never admit it. Not to Clara and Felicity, and certainly not to anyone else. She gathered Pumpkin in her arms and rose from her chair. “Enough of memory lane. Who’s ready to start helping me decorate? ”

“Now?” Felicity asked at the same time Clara rubbed her hands together and said, “Me!”

“Ugh.” Felicity rolled her eyes. “Both of you are entirely too cheerful.”

“It’s why you love us. We keep you from being too grumpy,” Marissa said and slipped her arm through Felicity’s. “Now come on. We need your help getting the tree down out of the closet.”

“You only keep me around for my height and extra-long reach,” she complained.

“We also keep you because you always bring the wine,” Marissa said, leaning in and nudging her playfully.

“I wouldn’t be me without a stocked wine fridge,” she said with a wink and then added, “Don’t you think it’s way too late to be doing this now? Can’t we do it Sunday after we go to Candy Canes?”

Marissa glanced at the clock on the wall and winced when she saw it was almost midnight. While she knew she probably wouldn’t get a wink of sleep after talking about Danny, it was pretty late for their decorating party. “Fine. Let’s just get the tree down, and we can do the actual decorating Sunday.” She smiled at Felicity. “Complete with nog.”

Felicity grinned. “Deal.”