A Christmas Bride (4 page)

“Hey, Will,” she said as Willow poked her head into the dining room after pouring herself a mug of coffee from the big urn in the kitchen. “You got some free time? I could use some help.”

“What are you doing?” Willow asked after taking a big gulp of the strong brew her mother made. Thank God coffee was on the approved list for vegans.

“I'm painting signs,” Mom said.

Of course she was. Painting protest signs was what Mom did when she wasn't tending livestock or making soap or booking musical acts for the Jaybird.

“What corporation are you protesting today?” Willow asked.

“They want to open up a Holy Cow restaurant downtown.”

“Mom, I know you're a militant vegan, but the rest of the human race likes hamburgers. And Holy Cow's burgers are made with one-hundred-percent kosher beef. They only use animals that are humanely treated.”

“Humanely? They still slaughter them.” Mom put the finishing touches on her sign. It read,
KEEP THE COW OUT OF OUR TOWN.

Mom scrunched up her face before speaking again. “What do you think about ‘There's nothing holy about Cow'?” She paused, then shook her head. “No, I don't think so. That one will offend people who are Hindus. How about, ‘Stop the unholy Cow alliance' instead?”

Willow refrained from pointing out that the population of Hindus in Jefferson County was likely to be minuscule. Instead she said, “What's the beef?”

Mom chuckled. “This has nothing to do with my choice to go meat-free. This is about zoning.”

“Zoning?”

“Yup. We need to convince the Town Council to approve a zoning change that will keep chain stores from opening on Liberty Avenue. They're having a meeting today at two o'clock, and I've organized a protest. I need four or five signs for my volunteers to wave around.”

“What's wrong with chain stores?”

Mom shook her head and glanced heavenward before she gave Willow one of her you're-hopeless looks. “I know you never saw a huge corporation you didn't love, but seriously, we have a problem here. Developers are slapping up tract houses everywhere, and we're becoming a bedroom suburb of both Winchester and DC. The local merchants are being priced out of their Liberty Avenue storefronts, and the big chain stores are moving in. How would you feel if Gracie's Diner had to move out and some fast-food joint like Holy Cow moved in?”

Willow hated to admit it, but Mom had a pretty good argument this time. She loved Gracie's place almost as much as she loved the Jaybird, which was immune to the escalating rents because Mom had wisely purchased the building thirty-two years ago. Mom might be a throwback to the counterculture, but when it came to business, she was no pushover.

“So you want to help?” Mom asked again.

“Okay.” It wasn't as if Willow had anything else on her agenda for the day, except finding a notary public for some legal papers her attorney needed her to sign.

Mom looked up with a startled expression. “Really?”

Willow shrugged. “Sure.”

“You want to help us picket the zoning board meeting?”

Mom's tone was so hopeful that Willow hated to disappoint. But painting signs was one thing; showing up at a protest was quite another. Restero's PR machine was working overtime, creating the impression that Willow was a perpetual troublemaker. It would be better to stay far, far away from any of Mom's various causes.

“I'm the last person you want on the picket line,” Willow said as she picked up a paintbrush.

“Why? Because you've gotten a reputation for standing up to big corporations? Baby girl, I've never been prouder of you than I am right now. You're my hero.”

Willow didn't feel like a hero. Restero had yet to admit any wrongdoing. And discovering that she'd been taken in by Corbin had left her unsure about herself. How could she have given her heart to a man with no conscience at all, and why had she stayed with him for so long, refusing to see the truth?

“Yeah, well, I'll be a hero when the government decides to bring Restero to justice for Medicare fraud. Until then, I'm exactly what the Restero PR department says I am—a money-grubbing troublemaker with anger-management issues, which is only to be expected because I'm the bastard child of the notorious Lucas Kuhn, the late, great lead singer for Twisted Fusion.”

Mom put her paintbrush on the can of paint. “Are we going to have that argument again?”

“It's not an argument. It's the truth. And even though my parentage is irrelevant to the fraud Restero committed, Corbin and his hatchet men have decided that their best defense is to challenge my credibility. And what better way to suggest I'm nuts than by telling the world that my mother was a groupie without morals and my dad was a druggie rocker who killed himself? God, Mom, I'm so sorry I ever told Corbin about Dad.”

Tears gathered in Mom's eyes. “Baby girl, none of this is your fault. If Lucas were alive today, he would be just as proud of you as I am.”

Through the years, Mom had insisted that the legendary Lucas Kuhn had intended to marry her. And given the fact that Kuhn's heirs had reached a monetary settlement with her, maybe it was true. But it could just as easily have been a payoff for Mom keeping her mouth shut about Willow.

Either way, the money from Kuhn's estate had allowed Mom to buy the Jaybird and Serenity Farm. So in a way Willow's father had provided for her, which was more than Juni's father had ever done. Of course, no one knew who had fathered Juni, and Mom had never volunteered that information. It was entirely possible that she didn't know the answer to that question. Mom had always been a big fan of free love.

“Let's change the subject, okay?” Willow said. “I understand your point of view about Holy Cow, but I'm not going to help you protest. I need to get some papers notarized, and then I need to start my job search.” Willow kneeled in front of a piece of poster board and dipped her brush in the bright red paint.

“Why do you want to work for the man?” Mom asked as she went back to painting.

“What do you mean? I need a job.”

“No, you don't need a job. You need an income. There's a big difference. I've supported myself most of my life, and I never did it working for anyone but myself.”

Willow turned to stare at her mother. Why had Willow never seen this truth? Mom may not have gone to Wharton, but she'd been an entrepreneur all her life.

“You think I should start a business?”

“Yeah, I do. Isn't that why you went to grad school? To learn how to do that sort of stuff?”

“You and Juni have been talking, haven't you?”

“Maybe.” Mom stepped back to admire her handiwork. The letters on her sign were kind of crooked, but they made their point. Mom spoke again without making eye contact. “Don't let Corbin defeat you, baby girl. You're stronger than he is. And besides, I taught both of my girls how to stand up for themselves. Neither of you needs a man in your life.”

Willow agreed with that. The one man she'd allowed herself to love had destroyed her. She wasn't going there again.

“What do you think about ‘Down with the Cow'?” Willow asked, her paintbrush poised.

“Go for it, babe.”

Willow started painting the slogan all the while thinking that what she really wanted was a huge sign that said
DOWN WITH RESTERO AND ITS DICK OF A CEO, CORBIN MARTINSON
.

R
ight after lunch, Mom went off to protest at the zoning hearing, and Willow drove herself to town intent on finding a notary public for her legal papers. She parked in the lot near the courthouse square, which was ringed with an assortment of county government offices and law firms. The biggest of these was a historic brick building in the Georgian style that sat back from South Third Street in a vest-pocket park dominated by a couple of hundred-year-old oaks. The trees were bare now, but in the summer they would provide a lot of shade for government workers who wanted to spend their lunch hour picnicking on the lawn.

A group of workers was busy decorating the building's facade. Pine roping had been wrapped around the two columns that held up the old-fashioned portico, and mixed-green wreaths with red bows were being hung on the oak doors. The decorations weren't particularly splashy or glittery like the ones that graced the lobby of Restero's New York headquarters building every year.

But they were pretty. And the contrast between this beautiful greenery and the tinsel that was annually draped all over New York startled Willow. She'd lived for so many years in the hustle and bustle of New York City that she'd come to expect glitz and glitter. And yet now that she was back in Shenandoah Falls, she didn't miss any of that shiny Christmas hype. She found herself smiling, the holiday spirit infusing her mood.

She was almost to the building's front doors when David Lyndon came hurtling through them, almost knocking one of the workmen off his ladder. He didn't stop to say he was sorry. He just marched up to Willow with a frown on his forehead that looked like a thundercloud ready to storm. He wasn't wearing a suit jacket or an overcoat, just a pale blue dress shirt and a red-and-blue-striped tie. He managed to look both formal and formidable in spite of their absence. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

His question annoyed the hell out of Willow. Who had put David Lyndon in charge of the world? He wasn't royalty, no matter what Courtney and her pals had said about him last night at the Jaybird.

She straightened her shoulders. “I'm exercising my rights as a citizen of the United States. I'm here on legal business related to my suit against Restero.”

“You weren't coming to make more trouble?”

Damn it all to hell and back. For an instant he reminded her of Corbin, standing there all poised and cold and in charge. Corbin always got his way too, and it was so irritating. Her emotions spilled over, and she poked David right in the middle of his chest. “I. Am. Not. A. Troublemaker. All I did was point out a case of Medicare fraud that affected hundreds of patients. People should be grateful to me for what I did. So just get the hell out of my way.”

“I'm not talking about all that. I'm talking about your little plot to get me to reopen the inn.”

What plot?
Oh, crap.
David must have gotten wind of Melissa Portman's alternate wedding plans. No wonder he was ticked off.

“Look, David, I have nothing to do with Melissa Portman and her wedding plans. I'm not here to bother you. I just need a notary public. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll—”

She tried to walk around him, but he grabbed her by the arm. A hot-cold shiver ran through her synapses. Corbin had grabbed her like this. Once. His violence had shaken her both emotionally and physically. She wanted to pull away from David, and yet that touch locked her in place.

She braced herself for his violence, but it didn't come. “I need to talk to you,” he said on a long, deep puff of air that turned into steam as he spoke.

She pulled her arm from his grasp, mildly surprised that he let her go so easily. “About Melissa Portman's wedding? I know nothing about that topic.”

He shoved his hands into his pants pockets. Was that because of the cold, or was he ashamed about the way he'd tried to manhandle her?

“Please.” His jaw flexed, and the tension along his neck and shoulders and the bruised-looking skin beneath his eyes told her a lot about his state of mind. A deep pang of sympathy wrenched her chest. He was still mourning Shelly. Deeply.

“All right, David. But let's get out of the cold.” She stepped around him, but he caught up with her in time to open the front door for her—something of a surprise after the way he'd just grabbed her.

“Come on,” he said, striding down the marble-floored hallway to the ground-floor offices of Lyndon, Lyndon & Kopp. “We can talk privately in my office, and then Arwen can notarize your papers.”

“Arwen Jacobs works here?”

“She's one of the paralegals,” he said as he ushered her through the reception area and into his office, which commanded a view of the county courthouse and city hall through gigantic double-hung windows. Someone had spent a lot of time and money decorating the room with authentic-looking antiques. Probably Shelly. The office bore her unmistakable attention to every historical detail.

He gestured to a pair of leather-covered wing chairs that stood beside a gorgeous antique partner's desk. “Sit down.” It was a command.

She didn't like being commanded by anyone, but she needed to clear up this misunderstanding. So she took off her ski jacket and settled into the chair. He unconsciously straightened his tie and took the seat behind his desk. Then he leaned forward with a take-no-prisoners stare.

Game on.

She straightened her spine and concentrated on sitting square in her chair. That would make her look bigger than she was. In her career, she'd had to deal with plenty of powerful men who thought they were entitled. The key to success was to command a presence of her own. She wished to hell she was wearing her black Dior suit with a red silk shell and her Louboutin heels. She'd feel well armored in those clothes.

But she'd dressed for barn chores today in worn jeans and her ancient UVA sweatshirt. The informal clothes left her vulnerable, so she didn't wait for David to initiate the conversation. “I think you've jumped to an incorrect conclusion. I never—”

“I want to make it absolutely clear that you are not ever to talk about Shelly in public again.”

“What? David, Shelly was my best friend.”

“Did you tell Melissa that my wedding was a disaster?” He sat back in the chair. Was that a retreat? Or was he getting ready to pounce on her? It was right then that she noticed the wedding band on his left hand. He hadn't taken it off, and right now his thumb was touching it.

Wow. She'd stepped into a big pile of it, hadn't she? She'd told the truth, but without regard to how it might hurt him. Obviously, Shelly had never told David about her breakdown the night before the wedding. And if he'd learned about it from someone else who hadn't even been there, that would have been a big blow. “David, I'm sorry. I assumed you knew all about what happened that night.”

“My wedding was not a disaster. Is that clear?” He stopped playing with his ring and stood up. He leaned over his desk, his face a study in misplaced fury. “And you will tell Melissa the truth about it.”

Willow took a couple of deep breaths, trying to slow her pulse. She had never seen David so angry before. “David, I never said your wedding was a disaster. Not to anyone. What I told Melissa was that Shelly didn't have the wedding she wanted because she allowed your mother to bully her. And I advised Melissa not to let that happen to her.”

“Jeff came in here this morning and practically demanded that I host his wedding. He said you put this idea into Melissa's head.”

“I didn't do anything of the kind. Melissa came to that conclusion on her own. In fact, if you want to know the truth, I told Melissa you would never agree to having the wedding at Eagle Hill Manor.”

“Of course I won't. I told them to elope.”

Willow stood up and reached for her ski jacket. “David, do you really think having Jeff and Melissa run off to Vegas is a better idea than letting them use the inn for their reception?”

“Mother has already planned a beautiful wedding for Jeff and Melissa. It's too late to change plans now. They're being difficult, and I don't like being dragged into the middle of it.”

“It's not too late. And while I'm sure the wedding that your mother has planned will be extravagant and expensive, it's not the wedding Melissa wants. Melissa was near tears last night, David, just like Shelly all those years ago.”

“And I'm sure you took advantage of those tears. Really, Willow, you've created a huge mess. Everything would have been fine if you'd just kept your mouth shut.”

Just keep your mouth shut? Really? How many times had she heard that from Corbin and his minions at Restero? Don't say anything. Just cover things up. Just be a good girl and go with the flow.

Willow finally found her anger. David might be grieving, but he was also behaving like a self-absorbed jerk. She pulled on her ski jacket, trying without success to control her pulse rate. A wise woman would have turned around and walked out.

But there were so many words trapped inside her, begging for release.

She leaned on David's desk, coming eye to eye with her best friend's husband.

“First of all, Melissa was upset about the wedding before I said one word. Second of all, you don't get to tell me who I can speak with or what I can speak about. And third, I think if Shelly were alive, she would be thrilled to host Melissa's wedding at the inn. And what's more, if there's a heaven and she's looking down at you right now, she'd be so disappointed.”

Willow stormed out of the legal building without getting her papers notarized. She needed to walk off her fury, so she headed down Church Street into downtown Shenandoah Falls. The wind chafed her cheeks and raised tears, which weren't entirely wind-induced.

Still, she couldn't pinpoint the reason for her out-of-control emotions. Was it anger? Sadness? Grief? Or maybe some mix of all three. She'd come back to Shenandoah Falls, but her friends Shelly and David were lost to her now.

The irony crashed down on her. When she'd been young, she'd counted the days, hours, and minutes until she could leave this small backwater and get on with the rest of her life. But now that her life had turned into a bowl of sour cherries, she resented and mourned every change that time and absence had brought to her hometown.

She walked all the way to Liberty Avenue, her head down, wiping the tears from her cheeks as she went. But when she reached the corner of Liberty and Church, she stopped and raised her head, wiping away a final tear. She squared her shoulders and took a good long look at Shenandoah Falls's main street.

Things
had
changed here, but maybe for the good.

The traffic on Liberty Avenue was heavy. The storefronts were occupied. New, wrought-iron lightposts edged the street, and storefronts had been restored and updated. There was even a new, high-end coffee shop right there on the corner.

Juni's words from the night before came back to Willow. Eagle Hill Manor wasn't the only business opportunity in Jefferson County. Shenandoah Falls itself looked like one big, fat business opportunity waiting for the right person to recognize it. People with jobs in DC and Winchester were buying houses nearby. The population was growing and the pressure on downtown commercial rents suggested a healthy real estate market.

Oh yes, a person could do a lot of business in this town. And Mom had made a valid point this morning about Willow's future. Maybe she ought to quit trying to fit in and work for other people. Maybe it was time to work for herself.

A glimmer of an idea began to sprout. What if Willow bought Eagle Hill Manor? What if she could swing that deal right now, in time for Melissa and Jeff to have their wedding there?

She hurried into Bean There Done That, got herself a chai latte, and settled into one of the coffee shop's easy chairs. She spent the rest of the afternoon reading the online lifestyle section of the
Washington Post
and the society page of the
New York Times,
followed by
Brides
magazine and half a dozen wedding-planning sites.

Holy crap, people were spending ridiculous amounts of money on weddings—and not merely rich and well-connected people like Pam Lyndon. Middle-class people blew huge amounts of money just to get married.

Willow opened up the word-processing program on her tablet and started outlining what she knew about the demographics of Northern Virginia and what she'd need to research further. She also made notes on the size of the wedding industry and a few back-of-the-envelope guesses about the cost of renovating Eagle Hill Manor and the old chapel—basically the plans that Shelly had talked about the last time she and Willow had lunched together in New York.

Maybe she could make Shelly's plans for the inn a reality. Maybe she could dig herself out of the hole Corbin Martinson had thrown her into.

The beginnings of a business plan began to emerge. All she needed was an investor—someone who would overlook the things Restero was saying about her.

Ordinarily that might be a problem, but Willow had an ace up her sleeve named Jefferson Talbert-Lyndon, who happened to be number thirty-seven on the
Forbes
list of billionaires.