Page 24 of Home for Christmas in July

She’s not, though. Her pulse flutters in her neck and sweat beads along her brow line.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” I ease myself into the chair across from her.

She takes another sip before placing the glass carefully on a coaster, then wrings her hands. “I was across the lake?—”

“At the gazebo?”

She nods. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I was … looking for something.”

I furrow my forehead at the vague response but let her continue.

“I thought it might be hidden by your dock. So I drove over here to check while you were in the woods.” She takes a full breath and flutters her hands in the direction of the binoculars that are still hanging around me neck. “I watched you walk down the hill with your binoculars and then veer into the trees. I was walking up the path near the beehive, and I thought I heard someone whisper my name. I assumed it was you.”

“It wasn’t.”

She nods. “I know. But when I turned around and you weren’t there Ifeltsomeone watching me from the trees. I know how it sounds.”

Unfortunately, it sounds believable. My chest tightens and I clench and release my fists in an effort to stay calm. “Where, exactly?”

“Behind the copse of quaking aspens near the edge of the wildflower garden.”

I tighten my jaw. That’s where I lost them—whoever they are. The fact that they were hidden in the woods spying on her fills me with rage and, I’ll admit it, bone-deep fear.

“What were you looking for?” I ask.

A smile peeks through the worry on her face. “This is going to sound silly.”

Great. I’ll take silly over anxious any day—for both of us. I lean back in the chair and study her. “Hit me.”

“I had tea at the inn today with your daughters and nieces.”

“Elevenses. They told me before I left.”

I split in a hurry this morning so I wouldn’t run into her at the inn. As I fled my home for the cabin, I told myself it was because my brain and heart were too full of memories of all the times I walked into the kitchen to find my wife and her best friend doubled over with laughter while they had their late-morning tea.

“Right. After tea, I helped them bring the summer Christmas decorations down from the attic.”

“I’m sure they appreciated it.” What I’m not sure of is where this story is headed.

“I carried down the box with Carol’s special nutcrackers.”

My throat tightens. She loved those things—each one imbued with a story, a memory, an emotion.

Noelle continues, “I took them into the family room to set them up. When I opened the carton, I found an envelope addressed to me.”

It takes me a minute to process this. “A letter from Carol?” I can’t imagine what else it could be.

“That’s what I thought at first, too. But the message is typed, and it’s not signed. Then Holly told me that she and her sisters took down the family room decorations last year before you brought Carol from the hospital. The nutcrackers were already packed away when she came home. I don’t see how she could have tucked it in that box unless she went up to the attic.”

I nod. She’s right. I hated to ask the girls to do it because I knew the familiar ornaments and decorations would have been comforting to Carol. But the only way to bring her home to die was to turn the parlor into an ad hoc hospital room. The tchotchkes had to go.

I realize she’s waiting for a response. I push down the all-too familiar wave of grief, clear my throat, and cough out an answer with a short shake of my head. “There’s no way she could have managed the stairs at that point. She was too weak.”

We both fall silent for a long moment. Judging by her tight, drawn expression, she’s remembering the last time she saw Carol. I watch as she pushes back a tsunami of emotion of her own.

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