Page 9 of Mistletoe and Holly

“Gee, I can’t imagine why. Sounds like fun, sleeping on a concrete floor huddled around an open flame with ten blankets apiece,” he teased.

I rolled my eyes and playfully nudged his shoulder before getting up and going into the kitchen to check the pot roast I’d put in the slow cooker this morning. My stomach rumbled at the smell of the meat, broth, and cooked veggies and potatoes.

“What smells so delicious?”

I jumped slightly and whirled around at the sound of my father’s voice. I hadn’t realized he’d followed me in here.

“Nothing fancy. Just a pot roast and veggies.”

“You know I love your pot roast,” he said with a smile. “Can I do anything to help?”

I shook my head as I grabbed a stick of butter out of the fridge and plopped it on a dish so it could start to soften. “It’s done. Been cooking since this morning. I’m just putting the rolls in the oven now.”

“Have you heard anything about Mandy?” he asked me.

“Yeah. Harper and I actually stopped by for a visit last night, and I made dinner for everyone. She’s still in a lot of pain, but she has an appointment with her orthopedic surgeon in Burlington right after Christmas and the outlook’s good that she’ll make a complete recovery. It’ll just take time and a lot of physical therapy after the break heals.”

“Good. I’m glad. And how areyouholding up?”

“I’m okay,” I murmured, taking a deep breath. “Just kind of exhausted. I guess it’s a little sad that all it took was a little change in my routine to throw everything off. Mandy used to come over after school and help Harper with her homework, but now I’m helping her with her homework before I get Mistletoe loaded up and drive to Pine Cove, and it feels like there’s never enough time. But Shep’s been getting here earlier than he has to on my carriage nights and making dinner so I don’t have to. And he’s been taking care of unhooking the trailer and getting Mistletoe back into the stable when I get home so I can just get ready for bed. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without him lately.”

My dad just gave me a look that told me he wanted to say something, but was holding back.

“Spit it out, Dad,” I chuckled, grabbing the package of dinner rolls out of the freezer and starting to set them on a cooking sheet. “What is it?”

He blew out a breath. “Okay, you asked. Is something going on between you and Shephard?”

My eyes went wide with shock as I let out a gasp and turned to look at him. “What?! No! He’s been my lifeline since Mandy’s accident, but that’s it. I swear.”

He let out a sigh and leaned against the counter, pinning me with a look that told me I needed to listen to what he had to say. I popped the rolls in the oven, then gave him my full attention as I pulled a stool out at the breakfast bar and sat down.

“Honey, you know I understand what you’ve been through,” he started as he came to sit beside me. “It’s not fair that Owen was taken from you and Harper so suddenly. But if there’s one thing I know without a doubt about him, it’s how much he loved you. He made that so clear every chance he got. And that’s why I know he wouldn’t want you to live in the past like you’ve been doing.”

I wanted to be upset with him for telling me how I was supposed to grieve the loss of my husband, especially when his house was basically a shrine to my mother, who had died from ovarian cancer when I was in high school. And Owen had been the one who got me through that. He’d gone with me to the hospice center and visited her almost every day, he’d held me as I broke down in tears when she took her final breaths at four o’clock in the morning on a school day, and he’d barely left my side for the whole week leading up to her funeral.

But at the same time, I knew my dad was right. I knew Owen would have wanted me and Harper to be happy and have a life. A real life, not the half-life I’d been living since he died.

“I know,” I said quietly, sniffling a little as my eyes started to sting.

“And I also know he’d want you to move on and find someone who loves you and Harper as much as he did. The thing is, you already have, and I think you’re the only one who doesn’t see it.”

I took a deep breath and swiped at the tears that were starting to trail down my cheeks. “Shep looked like he wanted to kiss me on Thursday night, and I almost let him. It took everything I had not to. It just…it feels wrong. Like I’m betraying Owen by thinking about his brother like that.”

He chuckled with a soft smile on his face. “I can see why you’d feel that way. But he’s not here anymore. You can love him and still let go and be happy, and if you have a chance at that with Shep, I think he would tell you to take it. It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to be nervous because you’ve never dated anyone other than Owen. It’s even okay if you’re not ready to talk to Shep about this quite yet. But don’t shut out what you’re feeling. That’s not what Owen would want, and it’s no way to honor his memory.”

“But it’s not just me that I have to think about,” I reminded him. “What’s Harper going to think if I get involved with her uncle? How am I supposed to explain that to her?”

“You’ll figure out what to say to her when the time comes. But she already knows the most important thing: that you and Shep both love her more than anything in the whole world and that all you want is for her to be happy and safe and cared for. And she knows that’s all her daddy would have wanted too.”

I took another deep breath and once again dried my tears as I thought about everything my father had just said. And about whether or not I was really ready to move on. Part of me wanted to explore what I could have with Shephard. But another part still rebelled against the idea of being with anyone who wasn’t Owen.

But was that really because I wasn’t ready? Or was it just because I was afraid of the unknown?

CHAPTER6

HOLLY

The ice was already coming downand starting to stick to the roads when I pulled into my driveway after picking Harper up from school early. And I was shocked to find Shephard’s car sitting there, but no Shephard anywhere in sight. He knew where our spare key was hidden – in a fake rock around the flower bed in front of the house – but there weren’t any lights on inside, so I was pretty sure I knew where he was.

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