Rekindling Christmas

Rekindling Christmas

A Whispers Publishing Publication

November
9
^th
,2012.

Copyright
© 2012 Yvette Hines

Cover illustration
copyright © (Elaina Lee)

ISBN Not Assigned

All rights
reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system-except by a
reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine,
newspaper, or on the Web-without permission in writing from the publisher.

All characters in this
book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no
relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even
distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all
incidents are pure invention.

Published by:
Whispers Publishing
, P.O. Box 1165, Ladson, SC 29456-1165.

Rekindling Christmas

Yvette Hines

A Whispers
Publishing Publication

www.whispershome.com

Dedication

To my
husband, who was a friend of mine since we were teenagers; then one day I realized
he was the love of my life and I didn’t want anyone else beside me in this
journey but him.

Chapter One

“Rye dear, do you mind sharing the
family room pullout couch with Mildred at Christmas?”

“Aunt Mildred, Mom?” Ryanne McCall tossed
her pen down on her desk. Her mother had been going on about Christmas over the
last twenty minutes of the phone call. “She snores so loudly and sleeps like
she’s fighting wildebeest in her dreams. Don’t you recall last year when all
the cousins took you and your sisters on the Mother’s Day cruise, and Aunt
Mildred flung Aunt Helen out of the bed? Not to mention we could hear her roaring
snores through the walls of the ship.”

“Oh…that’s right. Mildred really
should not have gone on the Mother’s Day trip anyway,” Ryanne’s mother
declared, as she’d done frequently on the week-long cruise every time her
sister wanted to do something that others didn’t—like climbing the Dunn River
Falls or going paragliding. “Anyway,” her mother went on, “it just makes sense
for you to bunk with Mildred. I mean, everyone else is coming with their spouse,
or spouse and children. We’ll all have to make sacrifices. Besides, it’s not
like you have a husband to…”

Ryanne tuned out the rest of what
her mother said, because she already knew the words.

Making sacrifices. Ryanne knew what
that meant. Aunt Mildred, her mother’s oldest sister, was single with no
children; so was Ryanne. Ryanne was the oldest of her parents’ five children. All
her brothers and sisters were married, and all but Ryanne and her youngest
sister Gynger, who was twenty-seven and a newlywed, had kids. Most years Ryanne
got to bunk with Gynger in their dad’s office, but apparently, according to her
mother’s “room arrangements,” Gynger would be bunking with Lance, her new
hubby.

Ryanne sighed. Yes, it made sense,
but she didn’t have to like it. Now she was being pushed into the family room
with her aunt, who normally slept alone because of her abominable sleeping
habits.

“Can’t I just sleep in the sunroom?”

“No, no. You know the kids all like
sleeping in there. Your father plugs up the fake fireplace and they think it is
a camping adventure. An adult would just spoil it for them.”

Bunking with her nieces and nephews
would have been fine with Ryanne. Rubbing her temple where she was developing a
migraine, Ryanne threw out, “You know, Mom, I can just get a hotel room—”

“A
hotel?
Are you bringing
someone with you?” The note of excitement in her mother’s voice couldn’t have
been missed by a deaf person.

“No, no. Just thinking about space.
Matter of fact, I could even get Aunt Mildred a hotel room and everyone would
sleep more peacefully.”

“You will not. How would that look,
with my eldest daughter staying outside of her family home?” Her mother obviously
disapproved.

But that was what it was coming to,
anyway. All she needed was for Aunt Mildred to get married, and Ryanne would be
promptly
arranged
to the front porch.

“It doesn’t matter.” Ryanne barely
held in her groan. Every year it was the same thing.

“Yes, it does, Ryanne. Now stop moaning
about it. It will only be a week. So, when are you coming home?”

Home
was now in Florida, where her
parents had retired eight years ago when her father took a consulting job with
the government. Even though he was retired, he still worked from his office
every day from six to three. Ryanne was the only one of her family that still
lived in the Charlotte area, two miles away from where they had all been
raised.

Glancing around the top of her desk
at all the things she would need to have completed in the next two weeks before
Christmas, Ryanne shook her head. “I don’t know. I have a lot on my plate at
work.”

As a product manager, there was
always so much to do from Thanksgiving until March. Everything was about
e-commerce and the bottom line, then developing higher retail sales for the
next year.

“Work. That is all you ever talk
about. You never take time off.”

Oh, here comes the guilt trip
. “Mom, I was just home for
Thanksgiving.”

“That was only for two days and you
went back home early Saturday morning.”

“That’s because you, Meeya, and
Brook almost shopped my feet off. How many toy stores can a person go into just
for one sale?”

“Amelia and Brook are thrifty. They
get it from me. You and Devyn are like your father. What you want, you get, no
matter the price.”

It was true; she and her brother Devyn
hated shopping, like their father. Gynger didn’t care either way. When they
were growing up, her mother always went grocery shopping on Tuesday, after
she’d gotten the coupons from the Sunday paper and went through the grocery
store’s weekly shopper on Monday.

“Thank goodness for online
shopping.”

“Takes all the fun out of it. Can
you at least be in by Thursday? On Friday we want to take all the kids to the
indoor ice-skating rink, maybe even roast marshmallows in the backyard and have
hot cocoa.”

Ryanne knew that meant the first day
of “oh, Ryanne, once you have kids” comments. Those comments weren’t as bad as
the ones that followed her parents’ evening by the lights for couples. After
the kids were asleep, the adults would go to the annual Nights of Lights
Festival in St. Augustine. That meant she would be the odd duck out while
spouses hugged and snuggled close and she kept getting the pitiful “poor Ryanne
doesn’t have anyone” looks.

She always loved holiday lights and
couldn’t resist going. Her buffer, Aunt Mildred, kept an eye on the kids and
teens at the house, so that left Ryanne, the single woman, standing out. 
Simply the thought of it all made Ryanne wish she could just stay home. Looking
around her desk, she realized that may not be a stretch.

“I can’t make any promises on when
I’m coming in.” Leaning back in her seat, she crossed her legs and picked a
piece of lint from her skirt.

“Oh, Rye dear, I wish you would
think of family more than your ca—”

“Sorry, Mom, I have a meeting I am
late for. I love you. I’ll call when I have more concrete plans.”

“Okay, sweetheart.” Her mom’s sigh
was heavy. “Just think about what I said. I don’t want you to miss out on all
the activities.”

“I will. Hug Dad for me. Bye.” She
tapped the End Call button on her cell phone, then tossed it on her desk. It
slid until it bumped her computer monitor.

Man, she hated lying to her mother,
but Thanksgiving had only been a few weeks ago and it had been grueling enough.
She loved her family; she and her sisters and brother were very close, but the
more spouses and children they added to the family the more pressure Ryanne was
under.

Rising, she walked over to the small
window on one of the side walls of her office. As a junior product manager, she
was just happy to have four walls and a door. She’d spent her first three years
in a cubicle until her promotion a year and a half ago. Unlike the other
managers, her window didn’t face the city; it faced away instead. She had an
excellent view of the parking garage across the street, and the interstate, and
if she pressed her face to the glass just so, she could see the edge of the
Charlotte Panthers’ stadium.

The attendant in the garage across
from her was wearing a Santa Claus hat, most likely the same one he’d had on
since she had returned to work after Thanksgiving. It fit the soft holiday
music that was playing from someone’s office.

Leaning her shoulder against the
wall as she gazed out the window, she remembered the excited note in her mother’s
voice when she’d brought up getting a hotel room. Her mother was always
awaiting news that she had begun to date. If encouraged, her mother would
already be thinking about wedding bells and bassinets.