Page 8 of The Inn at Evergreen Hollow

The place was fully decorated for Christmas. Lights were strung along the rooftop edge and the porch, a cluster of reindeer stood out in the snow, and the trees out front were strung with more lights. Holly bushes brightened up the space next to the stairs up to the porch, and a huge wreath hung from the front door, a glimmer of a beautifully decorated tree visible through the front window.

A rush of memories hit Nora as she sat there, unable to move from the Jeep for a moment. She’d helped decorate this place with her parents and sisters, year after year, Christmas after Christmas.

It had stayed almost entirely the same, even down to the huge snowman sitting near the edge of the front yard, holding a rustic wooden sign withEvergreen Snowman Festivalwritten in curly dark green script across it.

She remembered making that snowman every year with her mother and sisters. It had been fun when she was a kid—something that she looked forward to, along with the homemade hot chocolate her mother always made afterward—but now she looked at it and thought that it seemed dated.

Surely putting out the same decorations, year after year, with that sign that had begun to look weathered around the edges in a way that wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing as one might think, seemed like a tired tradition.

Nora knew if she said that aloud, she would be met with almost universal disagreement. That sameness, that sense of familiarity, was what everyone in Evergreen Hollow clung to. It was part of what had driven her away.

The front door opened with a jingle of bells attached to the wreath hanging from it, and Nora’s mother hurried out, a bright smile spreading across her face.

Nora slid out of the Jeep, her mother’s appearance jolting her out of her momentary paralysis. Rhonda had had a hipreplacement years ago, around the time that Nora moved to Boston. It hadn’t given her any trouble in the many years since, but the idea of her going down icy steps in a hurry to see her daughter was enough to propel Nora out of the Jeep and toward the porch.

Rhonda was already at the edge of the steps by the time Nora made her way there. She was a petite, bright-eyed woman, still graceful from her career as a ballerina in her younger days, her frame still delicate.

Nora saw the necklace that she always wore dangling against her bright-red wool sweater—three hearts with the initials of each of her children on them—and Nora felt that wave of nostalgia again. Her mother was as unchanged as everything else—still the same short gray bob with a hint of curl to it, still the complete lack of makeup on her lightly lined face, still the commitment to Christmas-colored sweaters for the entire month of December.

It was all the same, and Nora couldn’t decide if it made her feel comforted, or made her want to run. She was leaning toward the latter.

“Nora!” Rhonda wrapped her arms around her daughter, squeezing tightly. She smelled of vanilla and sugar—not anything store bought, but the distinct scent of baking. “And Melanie! Thank you so much for getting her from the airport. I would have done it myself,” Rhonda added, detaching from her daughter briefly to look her over, “but Melanie insisted. It was important to her, so I figured I would make sure things were ready here for you. Your room is all made up, and there are cocoa and cookies inside! Melanie, you should stay for a little while too. The shop will manage without you for another hour.”

Melanie shot Nora a glance that Nora fully understood. No one turned down cookies when Rhonda offered them, or any of her hospitality for that matter. There was nothing in the worldthat gave Rhonda Stoker more joy than doting over guests at the inn, and neither of the girls would have done anything to deny her that.

“Where’s Dad?” Nora asked, as she sank down into one of the armchairs by the fire in the small living room.

The tree that she had spied through the window outside was decorated exactly as she remembered, with a handful of new ornaments sprinkled in. The living room was warm and cozy, with a long sofa in front of the fire piled with soft-looking pillows and plaid wool throw blankets, and a smattering of equally soft armchairs divided into groups of two and three, with small wooden tables tucked between them for drinks or food to be set on. One chair was near the tree, an extra pillow on the seat, and Cloud—the inn’s fluffy gray cat—curled up on it asleep.

“Out fishing.” Rhonda waved a hand. “He’ll be back for dinner, he said. He was going to stay and wait for you to get here, but I told him to go on, we’d have some time just us girls to catch up. Now, you sit down and get comfortable, and I’ll be right back.”

‘Cookies,’ as it turned out, meant a China platter of sweets that Rhonda set on the table in front of the three chairs, along with three steaming mugs of hot cocoa with fluffy marshmallows floating on top. Nora knew the hot cocoa was a mix Rhonda would have made herself, combined with local milk, the marshmallows from the confectionery in town. If it could be made, grown, or bought in Evergreen Hollow, the residents always preferred it. Local was better, as far as they were all concerned.

“These look amazing,” Melanie gushed, reaching for a piece of maple sugar candy. The pile of candy was nestled between pillowy snickerdoodles and a handful of delicate-looking meringues, along with fudge brownies topped with thick chocolate icing and traditional sugar cookies decorated by hand.“I know why I can’t come by all that often, I’d be ten pounds heavier by the end of Christmas! No one makes sweets like you do, Mrs. Stoker.”

Rhonda laughed, settling into her chair next to Nora and reaching for one of the meringues. “Well, I spent all that time in my younger years wishing I could eat sweets. Ballet is so unforgiving when it comes to that. So now, I can eat what I please. And I love seeing others enjoy it.”

Nora knew exactly how sincere her mother was on that point. Running a bed-and-breakfast was no small task. There had been times over the years when both her father and her sisters had encouraged Rhonda to remove the “breakfast” facet of The Mistletoe Inn, offering maybe just something continental—a spread of muffins and tea—or let the guests fend for themselves altogether. But Rhonda had always refused, saying that cooking a big morning meal for the inn’s guests was one of the things that made her the happiest.

She wondered, sometimes, what would happen when the inevitable day came that Caroline took over entirely. She couldn’t imagine her no-nonsense older sister enthused over spending hours in the kitchen preparing breakfast and treats for the guests, when there were plenty of more efficient options. But Nora also knew that Caroline loved the inn. She wasn’t sure, exactly, what plans Caroline had for it in the future.

After so long away, she wasn’t entirely sure that it was her place to ask.

“I’m so excited to have you here for the holidays.” Rhonda beamed at her daughter. “I thought you would be spending it with Rob’s family. It’s such a wonderful surprise.”

Nora swallowed hard, the bite of brownie suddenly sticking in her throat. She took a gulp of hot chocolate, nearly burning her mouth in the process. She wanted to savor it all, since shenever let herself have treats like this at home—and even if she did buy sweets, they were never quite the same.

But the mention of Rob made her nearly choke.

“We broke up.” She blurted it out, wanting to get the news out as quickly as possible, and get past it. “He broke off the engagement. But really, it was a long time coming. We agreed…” She swallowed again, not wanting to lie. “Things just weren’t working out,” she finished lamely, setting down her cocoa again. “But I’m okay, really. Better I know now than after we’re already married. I can cancel wedding plans.”

Melanie nodded, and Rhonda smiled. “That’s a very wise way of looking at it,” she said gently. “You’ll have such a nice time here too. We have so much to catch up on. You won’t even think about it. There’s nothing like the holidays to brighten everything up.”

Nora saw the shine in her mother’s eyes, that building excitement that she knew could overflow into ideas that hadn’t been discussed yet. “Don’t get any big ideas,” she warned, softening the words with a smile. “I’m not moving back. I’m just here to regroup and get my head on straight. I still have my job and apartment and everything back in Boston. And I love it all. I might have moved there for Rob, but I don’t have any intention of leaving.”

“Well, we’re happy to have you for as long as we can have you.” Rhonda reached out and patted her daughter’s hand. “There’s no pressure. I just want to enjoy every minute I get with you. And you’ll be here for the festival!”

Privately, Nora thought that she couldn’t care less about the festival. She hadn’t enjoyed it since she was a child, and as an adult, it seemed kitschy and even a little tacky, highlighting the rustic homeliness of the town that felt so suffocating to her. The festival had grown over the years, but the overall feeling of it never really changed. But she smiled anyway, noddingbecause she knew it would make her mother happy to see her interested. Her mother’s joy was infectious, and Nora found herself relaxing, just a little.

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