“Here? No one to talk to?” He threw back his head and laughed. “I don’t think you wrote a single sentence in this bar. No one would let you work. That’s not how they roll.”
“You noticed that?”
“Kaylee, they won’t let me work! I can be counting bottles and someone will say, ‘Yo, Jack, you hear about that eight-point buck sighted out on Cummins Pass?’ And then we have to talk about it a while even though it’s pretty clear I’m counting bottles.” But as he finished, he grinned. “Congratulations, Kaylee. You going straight back to the south? Where is it? Newport?”
“Newport Beach,” she said. “Not straightaway. I rented out my house for the rest of the year. I haven’t talked to them lately, but as of a couple of months ago they were planning to move out right after New Year’s. Like, maybe the third. Or fourth. I told them to give me a couple weeks’ notice.”
“What are you going to do with Landry? Because if you’ll forgive me for having eyes in my head, the two of you hit it off.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at him. “We’ve been talking about how we can arrange to visit each other. Often. But we haven’t made any real plans yet. Landry was a great surprise. I wasn’t expecting to meet someone like him. Well, as you know, I was expecting to stay in the Templetons’ house through Christmas…”
“Yeah, that’s right. And look what happened. You ended up with a guy, a kitten, some puppies, and God knows what all…”
“All I really wanted was to avoid Christmas…”
“You mentioned that early on. I can’t quite remember why. Did you tell me why?” he asked.
“I lost my mom to cancer last year. She passed on Christmas Day. I don’t think I told you. I did tell Mel…”
“She never tells anything,” he said. “And I’d have remembered something like that. I’m so sorry, Kaylee.”
“It’s not a secret, it’s just one of those things. I couldn’t quite bring myself to plan a celebration, you know? It’s hard to even think about it.” You may still cry at 11:04…
“I can imagine,” he said. “It’s gotta be hard. But there’s a forty-foot tree decorated to the hilt right outside. That’s gonna serve as a reminder. Kind of hard to avoid Christmas with that tree right out there…”
“True. Hey, you didn’t by any chance put a little decorated Christmas tree on my front porch, did you?”
He shook his head. “Is there a note or a card?”
“Nothing. It wasn’t there at two in the morning. I…ah…just happened to look outside then. It was there when I got up. Landry said he never heard a car, and what’s more mysterious is that Otis never heard a car. Otis would have made some noise. I just wish I knew who—”
“People around here surprise me all the time. There was a decorated tree above the highway in Fortuna for years. No one ever took credit for it and in January it would disappear. A couple of years ago it stopped appearing. We all went into mourning, wondering if the tree fairy passed. I bet someone was trying to make sure you have a nice holiday, knowing you’re by yourself even if they don’t know the circumstances.”
“I’m really not so all alone anymore, Jack,” she said. “I spend most of my time with Landry. We’ve become very close.”
Jack’s smile was broad. “Was bound to happen,” was all he said.
Kaylee started thinking about what her mother had said to her, about the antidote to sadness. As she recalled from growing up as Meredith’s only child, there were countless discussions about how to dispel self-pity and a feeling of hopelessness.
That night, after having a nice long talk with Landry and filling him in on all the goings-on in town, Kaylee called Mel. “I stopped by the bar today and Jack told me you have a lot happening.”
“It’s my busy season,” Mel said. “And I heard the book is done. You must be thrilled. And bored senseless.”
Kaylee laughed. “I haven’t had time to get bored yet. I did call to say I can help with some of your projects. You’re doing food baskets again, right? I could help with that.”
“That would be great! I’ll take you up on that offer.”
“And I wanted to know how Mallory is doing.”
“Pretty well, considering. She’s coping very well, getting a lot of support from her best friend’s family—that’s the neighbor she’s been staying with. Accommodations are a little tight. She has to share a bed, but they’re kids, they’ve done it before. There just isn’t room for her things, that’s all. But Jack and I will bring her to our house. It’ll be a full house—one of his sisters is coming with kids and grandkids. But we’ll manage.”