Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

The snow was beginning to fall again as Caroline settled into a window booth at Rockridge Grill, her phone open in front of her as she worked on a to-do list for the inn. She had a perfect view of the snowy landscape outside, and the Christmas lights decorating the town twinkled through the gray gloom of the incoming snow, adding a cheery glow to it all. She glanced up at the door every time she heard the small bell chime as it opened, waiting on Audrey and Nora to arrive.

Nora got there first, pink-cheeked and dressed in a black cable sweater dress and tights, her cashmere peacoat thrown over it along with her black velvet ankle boots that were entirely inappropriate for the weather. She’d started dressing a lot more comfortably in the past year, but Caroline knew she must have had a meeting. She still dressed up for those, even though the people she planned events for now wouldn’t have blinked if she’d shown up in jeans.

Nora slid into the booth next to her sister, immediately opening up her phone to a mood board. “Aiden had the best idea today!” she enthused, off on an excited description of what had happened before Caroline had a chance to say anything at all. “He came home to find me decorating the new house—it’s perfect for decorating, there are so many interesting features and ways to highlight them—and he mentioned it looking like we were having a fancy party there. So I thought, why not? We should have a fancy party. The house is this old Victorian—you know that—so I thought maybe a Dickensian Christmas party, all themed for it, maybe some people would even want to dress up…”

Caroline smiled, doing her best to be happy for her sister’s excitement. She was glad for Nora—that Nora was back home, that she’d found love with Aiden, that Nora had managed to take the career that she’d spent her life building and pivot it into something that fit her new home and lifestyle so smoothly. She had been surprised and impressed by her sister in the past year, and she was glad to see Nora finding things to be so excited about here. She had worried that once the novelty of being home and the initial shine of her romance had worn off, Nora might regret her decision to leave the hustle and excitement of Boston.

But even as resigned as Caroline was to her life—to the choices she’d made to focus her efforts and energy on the inn instead of finding love or pursuing something outside of Evergreen Hollow—she couldn’t entirely pretend that everything was okay.

She had a vague feeling that the things her sister was now enjoying had all passed her by already, and there was no going back. It made her feel vaguely melancholy, even though she knew there was nothing she could do about it now. There was no point in going back and regretting decisions she had already made.

Nora finally stopped for breath, pausing in her description of the Christmas decorations she’d already picked out for the party. “Mom told me about all that excitement at the inn with the fire department,” she said, turning toward Caroline. “What happened?”

Caroline rolled her eyes, leaning back in the booth. She still hadn’t entirely shaken the irritation from that whole debacle. “It must have just been a faulty smoke detector,” she said, shrugging. “Turns out we alerted the fire department and woke all of our guests up for nothing.”

Just then, the bell over the door chimed again, and Audrey walked in. Fashionably late as usual , Caroline thought with a small bit of amusement.

Audrey walked quickly to the booth, sliding in across from the two sisters. She looked a bit more rumpled than usual, her blonde bob pushed back with a handful of bobby pins and her sweater and jeans looking a little wrinkled, like she’d pulled them out of a fresh basket of laundry.

“Sorry,” Audrey said, a little out of breath. “We had a wardrobe crisis at home. Kara has a birthday party that she’s going to and she decided last minute that what she’d picked out wasn’t stylish enough. So we had to go through her closet and find something she’d feel good in. Mission accomplished just in time to get her there.” She cocked her head, picking up the menu. “What were the two of you talking about? Something about a fire at the inn?”

Caroline started to speak, but Nora jumped in, shaking her head. “Nothing as crazy as that. A bad smoke detector, I guess? But the fire department had to come out and everything.”

“That’s so disruptive. And such a bummer with everything finally going so smoothly for a little while. Were the guests okay with it?” Audrey frowned, looking at Caroline.

“For now,” Caroline said, letting out a slow sigh. “People understand things happen, for the most part, especially in a historic inn. But if it keeps happening, there might be an issue. Dad and I went over all of them again though, so it should be fine.”

A moment later the waitress came by with their waters, taking everyone’s order—the chicken parm special for Audrey, a venison burger for Caroline, and a Cobb salad with local ham on it for Nora. The three women chatted amiably as they waited for their food, catching up on the small talk, and Nora filled Audrey in on her plans for the Victorian Christmas party at her house. Audrey grinned, clearly liking the idea.

“Kara’s class has been reading A Christmas Carol , and she’s actually been enjoying it, so she’ll be so excited for that. She’ll probably want to dress up.”

Nora laughed. “I love that idea! I think we should do that. A themed costume party would be so much fun.”

“Your ideas get bigger with every sentence,” Caroline said, but she was laughing a little too. She liked her sister’s enthusiasm. She was glad to see Nora happy here, after thinking she’d never come back to Evergreen Hollow.

Just then, as the waitress delivered their meals, the bell chimed above the door again. Caroline looked up just in time to see Rhett walking in, and on impulse she grabbed the menu, holding it up in front of her face for a beat too long before handing it over to the waitress.

Audrey and Nora simultaneously looked at Caroline, nearly matching confused expressions on their faces.

“What on earth?” Nora asked, right as Audrey spoke up too.

“You never get flustered about anything. Who is that?” Audrey turned, craning her neck to see him, and her eyebrows shot up instantly, which made it all so much worse.

“He’s a new firefighter in town,” Caroline muttered, hoping that the heat she could feel creeping up her neck wasn’t as visible as it felt. “He was one of the ones who showed up from the fire department when Dad called it in. I guess I looked like the one in charge because he came up to me and started asking questions about the inn—and it caught me off guard. I got all tongue-tied and probably looked like an idiot who doesn’t know enough to check smoke detectors.”

She frowned, the embarrassment of the entire debacle washing over her all over again.

Audrey’s eyes had gone wide, and she leaned over, smacking Caroline on the arm. “ Seriously ?” she crowed, shaking her head. “You’re complaining? We should all be so lucky as to have a guy who looks like that disturbing us in the middle of the night.”

“I do,” Nora remarked cheekily, stabbing her salad with her fork, and Audrey gave her a teasingly baleful stare.

“Oh, no,” Caroline muttered, seeing Rhett catch sight of her and pivot, heading in the direction of their booth. She briefly regretted having left the inn at all.

This is what I get for taking Nora and Mom’s advice, and ‘going out more’.

“Hey there.” Rhett stopped at the edge of the table, his hands casually shoved in his jeans pockets. He was wearing a dark gray Henley under a denim jacket, with heavy work boots, and Caroline couldn’t help but wonder where he’d moved from. He looked as if he fit right in easily. “Everything quiet at the inn?”

“It is,” Caroline managed. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

“It was no trouble at all.” Rhett smiled. “Better a false alarm than ignoring it, and it being a real tragedy.”

“Still, you got dragged out there for nothing.” Caroline mustered a tight smile. “We’ll be more careful in the future.”

“We’re here to help. And to put out fires, real or not.” Rhett shrugged. “Really, it was no trouble.”

“Caroline said you just moved here?” Audrey piped up, leaning forward on her elbows and looking over at him. “Where’d you move from?”

“Audrey—” Caroline started to protest, but Rhett was already answering.

“Cleveland,” he said easily. “Bit of a drive to get everything up here, but all settled in now.”

“Oh, I’ve been to Cleveland once,” Nora said. “What did you do there?”

“Same thing.” Rhett grinned. “Firefighting’s always what I wanted to do. But I wanted to slow things down a bit.”

Nora laughed. “Cleveland is already a pretty slow city, compared to others. You must’ve really wanted some peace and quiet.”

“I did,” he confirmed. “A change of scenery and people, for sure.”

“And you like it here so far?” Audrey chimed in, and Caroline could feel her face starting to heat. It seemed clear to her that her sister and best friend were interrogating him on her behalf, curious about him entirely because they wanted to set her up. It embarrassed her to no end—she was long past being set up by anyone, and one conversation over a faulty alarm meant nothing.

“I love it,” Rhett confirmed. “Planning to stay put—bought a house and everything. Evergreen Hollow is exactly what I was looking for.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Nora smiled, glancing at her sister, and Caroline forced herself not to glare back.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at Rhett. “Someone new in town is always exciting. But we should let you get to your dinner, and not take up any more of your night.”

Rhett chuckled. “I imagine newcomers are few and far between. And I’m in no rush. But you ladies enjoy your meal too.” He nodded to them, heading back toward the counter as Caroline finally leveled a mortified glare at Nora and Audrey.

“Oh my goodness,” Nora said, in the same instance once again that Audrey exclaimed in a hushed voice, “He’s exactly your type!”

Caroline shook her head. “He looks younger than me,” she pointed out. “And when someone looks too good to be true, they usually are. I’m sure there’s something we don’t know about.”

“You’re being way too cynical,” Audrey said firmly. “He’s gorgeous, and a firefighter, and that tall dark and handsome thing that you love. Who knows what could happen?”

“He didn’t show any kind of special interest in me the other night.” Caroline stabbed at her chicken, glaring down at it instead of her sister and friend. “He just did his job, like he’s supposed to. And I don’t intend to need the fire department anytime soon, so there’s very little chance that I’m going to have any future encounters with him.”

Neither Nora nor Audrey looked at all convinced by her speech. But Audrey looked at Nora, who shrugged, and they seemed to make a decision to drop it—for now anyway.

“Tell me more about the party,” Audrey asked Nora, and Caroline let out a small sigh of relief, turning back to her dinner.

Once Nora was given an excuse to talk about party planning, she could go on for the length of an entire meal, so Caroline was probably off the hook for now about Rhett. Hopefully, the two of them would forget it before there was a chance for it to come up again.

After the three of them finished eating, they split a chocolate lava cake for dessert, chatting a little about the upcoming events at the inn and the rest of the holiday plans. As they went their separate ways, Caroline shrugged into her jacket, looking at the beautifully-lit glow outside.

When she stepped out into it, she saw it had stopped snowing.

The clouds had cleared, leaving the night absolutely beautiful, with a starry sky, fresh snow glittering in the lamplight from the streets, and the town fully decked out for Christmas. Instead of going straight back to the inn—where Nora would probably be gossiping with their mother about Rhett , she thought—she decided to get a cup of hot cocoa from The Mellow Mug and go for a walk.

Part of her new efforts to do things for herself, rather than rushing straight back to the inn and work, she reminded herself. The inn was home, but it was also her job, and it made it hard to separate the two even in times when she should be ‘off.’

Caroline got the cup of cocoa with marshmallows, holding it in her gloved hands and taking small sips as she set off down the snowy path alongside the road. She walked for a while, enjoying the cold air and the winter scenery. It was her favorite time of year.

A ways down, she knew of a large tree with a bench beneath it that was the perfect spot to just sit and look out over the landscape for a bit, and she headed toward it. She found it a bit covered with snow, but otherwise unoccupied and dusted it off to sit down.

As she brushed off the snow, she paused. There was something underneath the fresh layer, and she reached for it curiously, only to find that it was what looked like a leatherbound notebook.

Impulsively, she opened it as she sat down.

Just to find out who owns it, she thought as she flipped to the first couple of pages, but there was no clue that she could find as to the owner. There was no ‘return to if lost’ note on the front page, or anything else that could point to who it belonged to.

It seemed to be a journal. In the back of her mind, she knew she probably shouldn’t be reading it. It belonged to someone , and that meant it was personal. But as she scanned the first few sentences, she found that she wanted to keep reading.

I’m worried that I won’t be able to do this on my own. My son is so full of excitement for life, ready to embrace everything new and possible, and sometimes I wonder if he’ll lose that, once he understands the reality of why things have gone the way they have. I don’t want him to be influenced by my mistakes, or think that happiness and love aren’t possible. I don’t want him to ever think I regret my choices—since I have him on account of them.

What does it actually mean to be a good man? A good father? These are things I thought I understood, but now I’m not sure. I have hope for our future in spite of everything. But I failed at being a husband, clearly. I failed at marriage, and at the life I tried to create for us once. I don’t want to fail at that again.

I have to be hopeful that a fresh start will be what we need. That it is possible to have do-overs in life, that it’s never too late to be happy and fulfilled, and be who I know I need to be—for us both.

Caroline pressed her hand to her mouth as she read. The writing was beautiful and vulnerable, and it touched her in a way that she hadn’t felt in a very long time. She felt as if the writer were speaking directly to her soul, talking about fears that she had too, although in a different way. And some that were the same, like the fear that her life was set and finished now, that there would be nothing new, nothing exciting, no possibility of changing anything ever again.

She pressed her lips together, a sudden urge to write something back filling her. It was unlike her. All of this was. She wasn’t the type to go poking in other people’s affairs or read their private journals or do anything at all impulsive, really. She’d always kept to herself and let others do the same. She was measured and practical and never took risks.

But this made her want to take a very small one. And after all, it was anonymous. She had no idea who this person was, and they didn’t know her. There was no chance of embarrassment or having to be fully vulnerable. It would be therapeutic, and that was all. She’d never even know if it had been read or by whom.

Caroline fumbled in her pocket for a pen, beginning her entry a few lines down from where the stranger had stopped. The first few words came slowly, but then all at once, as if by beginning to write she’d found a way to pour her heart out on the page, in response to this stranger.

It felt as if all of the things that had been steadily pressing behind her ribs, emotions balled up until they felt like a physical pressure in her chest, flowed out. It felt cathartic.

I’m just a stranger to you, and you to me. But I understand the feeling of worrying that you haven’t made the right choices. That others who rely on you will feel let down by you, or be hurt by thinking that you regret the choices you’ve made, that have supported and helped them. How could choices that affect the people you love be wrong? Maybe they’re not. Maybe you can have a little regret, or wish you’d made room for other things or done them a little differently, without wishing everything away.

I worry that life has passed me by. That I left things that I didn’t think mattered at the time alone, and now that I’m wondering if I might want them, it’s too late. That maybe I should have made room for myself, and not just everyone around me. I think I sacrificed a lot—maybe more than I needed to, more than anyone asked me to, because I thought it made me a good person. A good daughter. But maybe I could have been both, and still kept some of my life for myself.

I want a fresh start too. But I don’t know how to create one for myself. I try these little things—going out to coffee and dinner with friends more, mixing up my routine—but it doesn’t feel like enough. I always just default to my old habits. I’m starting to think there’s no point in trying. That maybe there’s just a time where your life is set, and the path ahead is straight, with no chance to do anything differently.

I hope that’s not true.

Caroline set the journal down, tucking the pen back into her jacket. She felt a little better for having poured her heart out. It wasn’t something she usually did, but she felt lighter. No one would probably even read it, but getting it out there felt as if it had helped a little.

She left the journal there on the bench where she had found it as she got up, thinking that the previous owner probably wouldn’t come back for it. More than likely, it was someone who had come to visit for the holidays.

They had probably already left.

They’d probably come to get away, to make some decisions about their life and think, and she hoped that the visit had helped.

Writing down her feelings had certainly made her feel better. She started the walk back to the inn, ready to be in the warmth again by the fire, and to see Nora and her mother.

Even if they were probably going to tease her about the handsome firefighter.