Their First Noel (13 page)

“Should I—”

“Go!” The concrete stung against Corrie's bare feet as she stumbled and staggered over to the wall where Andy had leaned the ax yesterday. Her fingers found the handle and gripped it but she wasn't strong enough to raise it more than a few inches off the ground.

The intruder seemed completely unaware of her in the inky corners of the room. It crossed the threshold, stomping snow from its boots.

A thief or someone with evil intent wouldn't care whether they tracked snow inside, would they?

Their unexpected guest pushed the door shut, quietly.

Sneaky, Corrie thought. Whoever this is doesn't want to wake anyone. A traveler would be calling out to alert people, to ask for assistance. Her stomach knotted. She
wished Andy were here to help but since he wasn't, she'd have to improvise.

“Stay right there and tell me who you are.”

The figure raised its arms but said nothing.

Gathering all her strength, Corrie dragged the ax a few steps and tried again to lift it.

Just then the figure found the light switch, flipped it, yanked back the hood on her coat and the knit scarf from her face to reveal the red-headed woman Corrie had seen in the photo in Andy's office and said, “I'm Hannah McFarland. Who are you?”

“I'm…” Corrie released her grasp on the ax handle. The heavy-bladed tool went skidding and spinning over the smooth concrete floor, right toward the sawhorse holding the paint cans.

“Oh, no!” Corrie ran after it but couldn't get there in time.

The handle took out one set of table legs, causing the can of paint on that side to fall, roll and knock over the pyramid of cans of gray paint. The top one toppled and globbed its contents all over the floor and lower part of the wall. If Corrie had spent hours calculating all the angles, placing every stage just so and set it all up to cause a fantastic cascade of catastrophe, it could not have wreaked more havoc.

The sudden drop of one side of the sawhorse created a catapult effect, flinging a second can of paint, this one the new light blue color, on to the wall…and the floor…and ceiling…and windows…and a little bit on Andy's mom.

“Andy is going to blow up when he sees what I've done.”

“I had a hand in this mess… Corrie?
You're Corrie,
aren't you?” She held out her hand.

“You know my name?” Corrie slid her own hand into the other woman's, gave it a shake then pulled it away, paint smearing her palm and fingernails. She looked around for a place to clean it off. “How do you know my name?”

“Andy mentioned you in his emails.”

“He…he did?” Corrie's breath snagged in her chest.

“Greer told me all about you on the phone. Neither one of them mentioned you staying here, though.”

“Oh. I…I'm stuck because of the snow. Andy's upstairs with his door shut. He said something about keeping the radio on so he couldn't hear us downstairs. Greer and I are having a slumber party.” She motioned toward the mattresses on the floor then toward the kitchen door. “She's in the kitchen now.”

“Wonderful! I can't wait to see my girl.” Andy's mother wiped her hand on the wall.

Corrie gasped. “Shouldn't we clean this all up?”

The woman took a long, sweeping gaze then sighed and shook her head. “I am too bushed to bother with this tonight. It's only paint. Andy won't be happy but it's fixable. He's a fixer, my Andy.”

“But all his plans—” Corrie's stomach knotted. This would throw a real monkey wrench into Andy's schedule and it was all her fault.

Mrs. McFarland didn't seem the least bit concerned, though, as she headed off to see her daughter.

This whole trip had just been one disaster after
another. Or, if you looked at it another way, one learning opportunity after another. Why should tonight be any different? She sighed and left her own handprint on the wall then followed after Andy's mother, thinking she'd figure out what to do about all this in the morning.

A
ndy slept until almost nine that morning. He'd slept with the door shut for propriety's sake, and because he thought Greer might wake up and start giggling and keep him awake, he'd left the radio on to an all-night talk station. Since no one had bothered to wake him and when he listened at the top of the stairs he heard only silence, he worried that the girls had overslept as well.

He came downstairs, on high alert, not wanting to startle anyone, but definitely concerned. A
whomp
and a
splat
made him practically jump out of his sweatpants. A big, lightly packed snowball exploded against the lobby window.

Greer's laughter reached his ears first. Then Corrie's. He hurried on down the stairs toward the sound, trying to decide between making a face at the windows for the girls to use as target practice and going to the front door, scooping up a mound of snow and throwing it at the first person brave enough to try to get back inside.

His bare feet slapped down on the icy concrete and that made up his mind for him. “Face,” he muttered,
rubbing his eyes. “Definitely face. If the floor is this cold inside, I don't even want to know how bad—”

If he had been the kind to curse, he'd have let out a doozy just then. Instead he stood, transfixed. Frozen. Sucker-punched by the sight that welcomed him when he rounded the end of the stairs and looked into the dining room.

“Hey, sleepyhead, we thought we'd let you catch up on your beauty sleep so you'd be rested before you saw what went on here last night.” Corrie came hustling into the lobby and began taking off the pair of gloves he had loaned her by tugging at the fingertips with her teeth.

“Uh, I don't suppose you could—”

“Andy! We got a snow day!” Greer chose to stomp the snow off her boots all across the lobby floor rather than slip out of them by the door as she should have.

“Why are you—”

“Good morning, sunshine!” Out of seemingly nowhere, his mom came in, bringing up the rear.

“Mom? When did you get here? I thought your flight was delayed.” He rubbed his eyes again then jerked his thumb to the disastrous mix of paint and broken equipment and trimwork littering the dining room. “You don't happen to know anything about this.”

“I know it was an accident and in the end, it's just a little paint and a few splinters. That's why we decided not to wake you last night about it.” His mom came up and kissed him on the cheek, then dealt with the smear left by her lip balm by licking her thumb and rubbing it off his face.

“Stop it.” He jerked away then looked at the three of them staring at him as if he were acting badly. Corrie
had known about this and kept it from him? Greer didn't seem to even care how she treated his inn? His mom had flown all the way from China to mock his work? “Stop it, all of you. Doesn't anyone here have any respect for my property? My face? My feelings?”

They all stopped.

“What has you in such a sour mood this morning?” His mother began unwinding the muffler from around her neck.

“Oh, I don't know. Call me cranky but having all my hard work to finish my inn before I lose it forever destroyed while I slept will do that to a guy.”

“It was just a little…” Corrie strode purposefully into the dining room but came to a quick halt. Her eyes grew wide and her face went ashen. “Whoa. It looks a lot worse in the daylight.”

He came to stand beside her. “Did you not see it this morning?”

“I woke up before dawn and decided to finish up the gingerbread inn before the kitchen got crowded. When your mom and Greer came in and wanted to go out to play in the snow—you know I couldn't resist that invitation. We went out the back way to keep Greer from running upstairs and waking you up.”

“I am so sorry, son.” His mom joined them. She took a quick look around then folded her arms and faced him with a smile. “But it's just paint, after all. It's nothing that can't be taken care of.”

“Yeah, with a little time and money—two things I have very little of right now.” Andy sank down to sit on the last step of the stairway and hung his head. A slow ache began to work from his tense neck muscles
upward. “The painters aren't coming out today, or probably tomorrow because they don't drive in bad weather. If the snow doesn't let up, or if it affects the highways east of here, the floors won't be here on time and even if they are, if the dining room isn't ready, I can't install them. And clearly, the dining room won't be ready.”

He felt as if he were literally watching his dreams crumble. Again. Last night he had told himself that he had done the right thing, making it clear to Corrie that there was no future for them. He had taken small consolation that his future rested in the completion of the Snowy Eaves Inn, and that was going to go smoothly from this point on.

Andy's shoulders slumped. He looked at Corrie then at his mother. “What happened?”

His mom came to his side and sat on the stair above his. “I came in in the middle of the night—”

Greer hung on the newel post. “I thought she was a bear—”

Corrie stood off by herself. “I only wanted to protect Greer and the inn from an intruder—”

All three of the most important females in his life spoke at once, saying nothing, really, but painting the total picture for him. He put his head in his hands. “I get it. It was an accident.”

“I think it was a consequence.” Greer took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I should have believed you when you said nothing was going to get us out here and that God would watch over us.”

“No, Greer, you can't take responsibility.” His mother put her hand on Greer's shoulder and Andy's arm. “I showed up unannounced and barged right in.”

Andy nodded. He could accept their part in this as his own failing. He should have considered the possibilities and had a contingency for them. At least Corrie hadn't…

“I actually threw the ax.”

“You threw
an ax?
” He stood up. He hadn't planned on standing up but Corrie's confession drew him right out of his mellowing mood. “At my dining room?”

“At your mother, actually.” She winced and bit her lower lip.

He didn't know how to respond to that. He'd welcomed her into his home, cared about her and made it very clear how much this project meant to him, how much was at stake if it got off track again. Now to hear she had done something so…thoughtless? “Are you kidding me? That's what your spur-of-the-moment, go-with-the-flow, change-plans-on-a-whim thinking led you to do? Endanger my mother? Ruin my life's work?”

“Andy, really?” His mom rose slowly, using the banister for support. “It's not ruined. It's all fixable.”

“Making bad choices because you have some kooky idea that being irresponsible will keep you from
sticking
with bad choices is not fixable, Mom.” He never once took his eyes off Corrie's face.

Not even when the tears began to pool in her beautiful eyes.

“I'm so sorry,” she was barely able to rasp out. “I didn't mean to—”

“That's my point, Corrie.” His breath eased from his constricted chest and he looked away at last. He did not raise his voice. He didn't feel angry so much as he felt defeated. He had dreamed of restoring this inn for
so long, had worked toward that goal, planned, saved, hoped and when he had come to the end of his rope, prayed. And what had Corrie done? “You're not a kid. What you do should have purpose and intent. You direct your path. We all do. I don't know if I could ever… I need people in my life who understand that.”

The tears rolled down her cheeks. Her lower lip quivered but she didn't say a word.

Greer moved up to take her hand but his mom intervened and guided the child away. “This is between the two of them. I think you and I should make our way home, Greer.”

“There's nothing between me and Corrie, Mom. She's just in town for a contest and…her own reasons. I've got my own stuff to worry about. It's that simple.” He turned away at last and looked around for his keys, his coat. He looked down and realized he didn't even have any shoes on. He headed toward the stairs to go get them. “I can pull Corrie's car out of the ditch with my truck and she can follow you back to town.”

“That will take care of things once and for all then,” Corrie said in a strained but controlled tone. “I'll take the gingerbread inn with me now—”

Andy stopped on the steps. “You don't have to do that.”

“It's finished and I don't want it in your way,” she murmured.

He did not look back. “You said the more you move it, the more chances it will crack or break or get messed up. I can bring it into town on the day you need it.”

“Friday.”

“Friday.”

“At the community center. The entries have to be there by five but the doors open at one. The earlier you get it there the more time I have to see to any last-minute details.”

“I'll be there at one,” he said then went upstairs to get ready to extricate Corrie Bennington from his parking lot, his inn and his life.

H
annah McFarland had led the way back to Hadleyville. Once they had turned from the rural lane that made its winding way to the Snowy Eaves Inn, the going got smoother. When they left the county road to the highway, the crews had scraped and salted or plowed and pickled or whatever it was they did up here to clear away the ice and snow.

With each new phase, Corrie cried a little less. She had no business feeling so blue over Andy's rejection. He'd never pretended there could be anything more between them, never told her he trusted her or asked her to stay after the contest was over. And everything he'd said about her was certainly nothing she hadn't heard before from her mother. Maybe this time it would sink in.

“Do you have any plans for the day, Corrie?” Hannah asked when she'd seen her charge safely to the Maple Leaf Manor parking lot.

“Plans,” Corrie repeated barely above a whisper. Her heart heavy, she looked at the red door of her quaint but impersonal room.

Despite everything, she did not want to be here. She wanted to be back at the inn, cleaning up, giving Andy support and encouragement and more than a few suggestions for ways to pull the place together enough to host that open house. “I think I'll snuggle down in a chair and do a little Bible study. You don't happen to know where I'd find that verse about pride going before a fall?”

“Proverbs, though that's not exactly the way it goes.” Hannah smiled and put her arm around Corrie's shoulder in a sweet, motherly way. “But if you're looking for insight into my son you might do better to consider the verses about the sins of the father being visited on the sons.”

“Oh?” Corrie bent down to give Greer a wave through the window then looked Andy's mom in the eye. “I don't know whether to tell you that I don't want to understand your son because after Friday I'll never see him again, or ask what you mean by that and totally blow my cover because I really do wish I
could
understand him.”

She laughed and drew Corrie into a sideways hug. “Just my not too subtle way of letting you know you shouldn't be too hard on Andy. When my husband died unexpectedly, he left us in a financial bind after we had just cashed out all our savings to adopt Greer.”

“So Andy grew up fast.”

“He became the man of the family. He went to work for a construction company and sacrificed his college money for the good of the family. He was barely nineteen.”

“That's how old my father would have been when I was born.”

“Pretty young for so much responsibility. You might bear that in mind when you try to figure out what to do next.”

“For Andy or my father?”

“Either one.” She gave Corrie a pat on the back. “I'm just saying that sometimes it's easier to understand people if you understand their story. A thought you might want to hang on to when you talk to your mom later.”

“My mom?”

“You are going to call her and tell her that you may have found your father.” She wasn't asking. She was telling Corrie that she needed to do this, and she needed to do it with a forgiving, gentle heart.

“What if she's angry or hurt by that?”

“Then you'll handle it. Corrie, this is your life. You have to take charge of it. I know it sounds corny but often the truth really is so simple it's easy to dismiss it. You can't move forward with so much tying you to the past. You have to find your answers. You have to talk to your mother and find your father.”

Hannah was right. She had spent the last few days dragging her feet over completing the task she'd come to Vermont to take care of because deep down she didn't want to complete it. To follow through on those goals would mean moving on, moving away from the Snowy Eaves Inn and Andy. Her father no longer lived here. She had nothing to tie her to this place now.

“Are you going to be okay?” the woman asked quietly.

“Yes.” Corrie smiled for the first time since she'd left the inn and gave Andy's mom a quick hug and a thanks.
“I believe I am, because you're right, it's time for me to move on.”

Corrie wasn't exactly sure what “moving on” would look like, though. She threw her coat on a chair and pulled off her boots. She looked at the phone on the nightstand, read the rate info and decided to charge her cell phone and call from that.

Stalling?
Preparing, she told herself and made use of the time by looking up the verse she had angrily accused of being Andy's flaw.

She ran her finger under the words of Proverbs 16:18. “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

She shut her eyes. She didn't know exactly how to define a haughty spirit but she was pretty sure that did not apply to the bighearted, humble man she had tried to pin it on. She exhaled slowly then started to read the passage again, only to find her gaze falling on Proverbs 16:9. “In his heart a man plans his course but the Lord determines his steps.”

Corrie read the verse once, twice then another time and the tightness in her chest began to ease.
Move ahead, prepare, let the Lord direct her steps.

The message sank into her being and filled her thoughts. She finally raised her face and said a prayer not asking for any one thing, but offering herself to God's plan and knowing it would be enough even if her mother was harsh, her father disinterested and she would never see Andy McFarland again.

“Only, if it could work out better than that, Lord, I'd think that after the birth of Jesus, of course, that was the best Christmas present of all.”

Finally, Corrie was in the right frame of mind to call her mother. She took her phone and went to the window, pulling back the avocado-green curtains so that she could watch the gentle snow flurries that had moved in midday.

“Bennington's Bakery, Barbara speaking.”

“You used your last name so that if he ever wanted to find you all he had to do was find a phone book, didn't you?” Corrie didn't see any reason to bother with small talk.

“I think by the time I opened the bakery he had given up looking, if he ever did. But yes, that's exactly why I used that name for the bakery. I thought even if I married again, your father could still find us,” she replied. “Do you have something you want to tell me, sweetie?”

Corrie had so much she wanted to say. She wanted to tell her mother about Andy and the inn. About having the wrong name and about the mayor, and the town that she had come to love. But she had to start somewhere, so she said, “I think I found him. He lives in Virginia now.”

“I see.” Barbara Bennington sounded disappointed. “Is he…”

“I don't know everything, but according to Hannah McFarland, he's widowed. Never had any children.”

“Never had any
other
children,” her mom corrected with a flare of maternal protectiveness and a hint of melancholy. “So, you've talked to Buck then?”

“Buck? His nickname is Buck?”

“If your first name was Wallace, wouldn't you go by a nickname, too?” There was a soft laugh on the other
end of the line then a hesitation. “Honey, are you trying to tell me you didn't know your father's nickname?”

“I didn't know his real name. I had it backward, James Wallace. And Buck? No clue about… Wait, you
are
the BJ loves BB that I saw carved in the beam of the attic,” she had muttered.

“You found that? He wrote that there the day before I left to go back to South Carolina. We didn't know about you yet, only how we felt and what we hoped for our future together.” Again, sadness tinged her mother's voice.

“But he did know about me, right, Mom?”

“He knew I was pregnant,” she confirmed. “And he didn't keep his word to come for me by Christmas. My mother convinced me that he didn't deserve to know if you were a boy or girl, that unless he came to find us, he didn't care.”

Corrie looked out at the snow-covered landscape and thought of that Christmas more than twenty years ago when her mother waited to hear from Wallace “Buck” James. She couldn't help comparing her feelings now for Andy and her mother's for Buck. Deep down, Corrie believed that if Andy had said he loved her, she'd have never stopped hoping that it was true. “It's because of the things Grandma said and did, not because of Buck, that you taught me that people can't trust anyone, that we only have ourselves to rely on?”

“Not trust anyone? Only count on yourself? Oh, honey, if that's what you learned from me…” Her voice trailed off in pain. “I'm so sorry. I thought by teaching you self-reliance you'd have the courage to do anything you wanted to in life, including finding Buck. I didn't
want you to be like me. If I had had the courage you have shown already, by going off and looking for the things you think will give you peace of mind, make you happy, well…”

“You would have come here looking for Buck instead of waiting your whole life for him to come back to you.” Corrie finished the thought. “You'd have done what made you happy, even if it meant a terrific change of plans.”

When Corrie hung up she had a new understanding of her mom, and herself. The power of all the things she had learned today churned inside her head. She couldn't sit still. She looked out the window. The snow had become a fine mist only really visible in the halo of light around the Maple Leaf Manor sign.

“Snow,” she whispered. “And answers. A plan and the promise that I'm not alone, that God directs my path.”

She felt such peace. Andy's mother had been right. She had begun to deal with her own past and it made her feel like she could finally move ahead. Or just move
around.

She bundled up in her coat, scarf and her beloved boots, headed out the door and hit the sidewalks of Hadleyville. All around her people were making their way around. Leaving work for the day, Christmas shopping, maybe even doing things to prepare for the contest event this weekend. Those who recognized her said hello, those she'd never met wished her Merry Christmas or warned her to keep warm.

She stayed on the main street, the same one she had traveled Friday when she had encouraged Andy to help string Christmas lights in the park. Andy's office was
dark. She shivered and wrapped her scarf around her mouth and walked, her eyes fixed on the lights twinkling on the gazebo in the deepening dusk.

The wind whipped up and blew a dusting of icy snowflakes into her face. She hunched her shoulders up and looked around to see if there was a place to duck in and get warm. She realized she was on the steps of the church that Andy attended and all around her people were making their way up the steps to the big doors adorned with fresh wreaths. “The Christmas Pageant.”

Her stomach lurched. She couldn't go in. She
had
to go in. Andy would be there. But then, so would Greer. Wearing the costume that Corrie had made for her.

She looked up at the door and took a deep breath.

“Hey, Corrie, come on in and sit with us, why don't you?” The mayor and her husband came up the stairs and before Corrie could protest, Great Aunt Ellie had her by the arm.

“Okay, but…if we could find a quiet spot before the pageant begins? I have something to tell you.” Corrie grasped the older woman's wrist and moments later, huddled in the cramped privacy of the cloak room, Corrie shared her story and they shared a hug.

Ellie fidgeted with her glasses, obviously unsure which set she'd need to see the small numbers on the highly sophisticated phone she extracted from her coat pocket. “We have to call Buck this very minute.”

“If you'd just give me his number, I can do that later. The pageant is—”

“Not going to start for almost half an hour.” She settled on a pair of glasses then began moving the
phone forward and back as she frowned at the screen. “I don't think I could keep this secret that long, do you, Larry?”

“Not if her life depended on it.” He chuckled.

“Besides, as soon as Buck hears he won't want to waste time chatting on the phone, not when you're only going to be in town a few more days. I just know he'll want to jump in his car and come up here to talk to you in person.” Ellie pressed a few numbers then extended the phone to Corrie. “Here you go.”

Here she went, indeed. With each gentle purring ring in her ear Corrie imagined the sensation of a roller coaster slowly ascending the first steep climb. Crank by crank, uphill, defying gravity. Then, when it reached the peak…

“Hello, Aunt Ellie, if you're calling about Christmas, I'll be there the usual time. I won't forget. I never do,” said a clear masculine voice tinged with patient good humor.

“I… This isn't your aunt. She's letting me use her phone.” Corrie gulped in a quick breath and gave herself over to the roller coaster of an emotional ride. “I, uh, I don't know if you remember her but I'm Barbara Bennington's daughter.”

“Of course I remember Barbie, she…I…is she all right?” Genuine concern infused his question.

That put Corrie at ease, a little. She exhaled then pushed her shoulders back. “She's… Mom is fine. Actually, I'm calling about my father.”

Ellie put her arm around Corrie's shoulders for support.

“Your…father. Would I know him?”

“You are him,” she said softly.

“I thought maybe you'd say that and I can't tell you how long I've waited to get this call.” His voice broke.

“I know a thing or two about waiting for someone to make contact.” Corrie's stomach clenched and her jaw tightened as she added, “So does my mom.”

The mayor and her husband tried not to look like they were listening. She seemed suddenly fascinated by the coats hanging around them and he began examining the Christmas pageant program, but their expressions made it clear they had heard that.

“I deserve your anger and mistrust for not coming as I promised that Christmas,” Buck James said in a way that shouldered the blame without excuses. “I am so sorry.”