Page 16 of Sweet Surprises

“Wow,” Tag said. “Where did you hear all that?”

“Aunt Allie was talking to Grandma,” he said, shrugging.

There was no denying that Chance had grown up an awful lot in the last year. At four, he wouldn’t have been interested in that conversation. Today, he was pretty much mimicking his aunt’s confidential voice perfectly, and he had obviously been paying attention to what was being said if he could repeat it word-for-word like that.

Allie came out talking to another teacher, and one of the parents who had been waiting jogged up to talk to her. Tag waved to her, wanting to make sure she’d seen his text before he disappeared with the kids. She nodded to him and winked.

“Are we putting up the tree tonight?” Chance asked.

“Not tonight, bud,” Tag told him, taking his hand as the three of them headed for the truck. “It’s not time yet.”

“But you said after Thanksgiving,” Chance argued, as Tag opened the door and helped him into his booster. “And it’s after Thanksgiving.”

Olivia chuckled quietly.

“This weekend, I think,” Tag told him, wondering if the kid was going to be a lawyer one day as he closed the door and headed to his side.

“Okay,” Chance said when Tag was seated. He still sounded a little disappointed.

Tag felt a pang of familiar guilt. He honestly hadn’t been that pumped up about the holidays since losing Iris when Chance was barely two. He did his best for the kids’ sake, but that stuff had really been Iris’s department, so all the shopping, wrapping gifts, decorating, and cooking special foods only made him feel inadequate.

Chance had no idea, of course. But Tag was pretty sure Olivia noticed. At least they all lived on the farm and Mom and Dad still hosted the big meals and traditions—those things hadn’t changed.

“Where are we going?” Chance piped up from the back.

It was a good question. Tag scowled as he realized he’d headed back on Maple toward the village instead of taking Fox Hollow Road up to the farm.

He put on his signal to go left on Moose Avenue, but he couldn’t help glancing in the window of the ice cream store on his way past.

Charlotte stood by the big front pane like she was waiting for him. But her gaze was fixed on the park. She held an enormous creemee, and he would have bet anything it was dripping all over her hand as she stood there dreaming about who knew what.

He felt the corners of his mouth pulling up in spite of himself, and shook his head.

What am I thinking? She’s been through a lot. So have I.

He put his eyes back on the road where they belonged, but he couldn’t help catching Olivia glancing over at him.

Excuses as to why he was looking at the girl in the ice cream shop window, and promises that he would never replaceher mother crowded his mind, but he couldn’t seem to let them out of his mouth. So he and his quiet daughter sat in silence as he made his way back to the country road that would take them home, where they all belonged, and where nothing was so confoundedly complicated.

6

CHARLOTTE

Charlotte sat in Tag’s truck the next morning, watching out the window as they left the scenery of the cozy little village behind for the more open landscape of the countryside.

The sun was just coming up, its pink glow lighting up the tops of the trees and houses here and there, leaving most of the sleepy town in shadow.

Tag was characteristically silent, and Charlotte somehow managed not to fill the empty space with nervous chatter. She got the feeling that he wasn’t much of a morning person. But wasn’t that impossible if he was up before dawn every day to milk the cows? Maybe Tag wasn’t really an any time of the day person.

They drove along the winding road until they came to a covered bridge that looked like it belonged on Charlotte’s mother’s country scenes calendar.

She was wishing for a better look when Tag stopped the car for a moment and rolled his window down a little. Charlotte gazed out through the windshield, charmed at the wooden structure with its faded red paint.

“Okay,” he said, and they were moving again.

The truck’s tires rattled the planks, and it was dark inside the bridge, with just a few individual shafts of light piercing the knots in the wood.

“Thanks for stopping,” she told him when they came out on the other side. “I should have taken a picture. Maybe I will on the way back.”

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