As she watched Julie and Dawson maneuver life with their new son, Julie’s daughters and even a grandchild, she sometimes wished that she’d made different choices in her younger years.
She sat at the dining room table, making yet another wreath to help Julie with the Christmas festival. She didn’t mind doing it. In fact, she had always enjoyed crafts.
When she was a little girl, her grandmother used to do all kinds of things like this with her. She taught her to sew, how to arrange flowers and even how to bake. When she had died, Tina was only in middle school, and she had missed her grandmother’s influence in her life ever since then.
She hadn’t been so blessed to have a wonderful mother and father. Her mother had been an alcoholic since Tina was a baby and had died when Tina was seventeen, and her father had never been in the picture. As an only child, it had left her feeling very lonely growing up.
When she had decided to visit Seagrove, she had second-guessed her decision multiple times. She knew it probably wasn’t been the right thing to do. She knew that she was telling a lot of lies to a lot of people. But she just couldn’t help herself.
Christmas had always been the saddest day of the year for her, and now she was getting to experience what it was like to be with an actual family at the holidays. When everything was over, she didn’t know how she would ever leave.
But surely if these people knew her past and what kind of person she really was, they would throw her suitcase out by the curb before she could even say Merry Christmas. She had taken a chance, a big one, and every day she worried that they would find out her secret.
As she finished the wreath, she turned and looked at the Christmas tree, twinkling with all of its multicolored lights. Even in her thirties, she had a glimmer of hope that one day she might get her life together enough to find a nice man, have children and start over again. But her life had been a series of false starts. Picking the wrong man. Making the wrong choices. Saying that next time she would do better.
The only problem was, she didn’t know if she would ever have what she had always wanted. A person only got so many chances.
Chapter Seven
Meg was dead on her feet. Between work and school, and now Christmas carol practice a few nights this week, she just wanted to put on her flannel reindeer PJs and fall into a nice, warm bed. Instead, she was standing on the grass in the square singing Silent Night over and over because someone - probably her - couldn’t stay in tune.
“Good Lord, one of you ladies is way off key!” Hen screeched again. Meg wanted to slowly walk backward and slink off into the night, but Hen would probably chase her down and tackle her. “Let’s try this again.”
They sang the song one more time, and Meg muted herself during the part that was causing issues. Thankfully, that seemed to appease Hen, and they were finally released for the night.
Christian was practicing some new fangled rendition of Jingle Bells with the other men from the group, but they finished right after the woman and dispersed too.
“I’m so tired,” Meg said, falling into his arms. “Can we just go home and skip dinner?”
“You aren’t hungry?”
“I am, but my stomach will understand,” she said.
“Don’t you think we should pick up Vivi from your mother?”
Meg’s eyes opened wide. “What kind of mother am I? I totally forgot we need to pick up our child!”
Christian laughed. “You’ve been a little preoccupied, my love. It’s okay.”
As they walked toward the bookstore where Julie was working late, she held his hand. The beauty of the Christmas decorations on the square had her feeling the holiday spirit in a big way. She wanted to stop, drop to one knee and just propose to him herself. Change things up a bit. Surprise him. She stopped and looked up at him.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, looking at her with concern.
She couldn’t form words. Drop to one knee, she thought to herself. Be brave.
“Meg?”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you stop? Are you okay?”
“I… um… Yes. I’m fine. I just thought my shoe was untied.”
He looked down at her feet. “Darling, you’re wearing flats.”
She looked down too. “Oh.”
Christian chuckled. “Boy, you do need a nice long sleep. Come on, let’s get our daughter and go home.”
* * *
SuAnn sat across from Nicholas and tried not to stare. As much as he resembled Santa Claus now, he was still as handsome as ever. The same blue-gray eyes she’d stared into thousands of times in high school. The same rough hands that loved to work in the yard and do his own mechanic work on his car. The same dimple in his left cheek, but not his right.
“Are you staring at me, Susie?” he said with a wink.
“Maybe a little. It’s just so surreal that you’re here.”
Nick took a bite of chili and then wiped his mouth. They’d opted to have lunch at the cafe on the square before SuAnn was helping Julie with the cookie party later in the day.
“Well, I have to say it feels much the same for me. You’re just as pretty as you ever were.”
She smiled, trying desperately not to blush a bit, although her Irish heritage always gave her away.
“So what are we doing here?”
He tilted his head to the side in confusion. “I don’t rightly know what you mean?”
“You and me. What are we doing?”
“We’re eating lunch, honey. Are you feeling okay?”
She pursed her lips and squinted her eyes. “You know what I mean, Nicolas. Why are you here? What is it you think is going to happen with us? I mean, you don’t live here. Are you just here to spend the holidays with an old flame?”
His eyes widened. “You’re just as much of a spitfire now as you were back then. I’m here because I never stopped loving you.”
“And I feel the same. You know that. But that was a long time ago, and we were just kids. We’re adults now, and we have to make mature decisions.”
“What are you saying?”
“Look, I’m way too old to play games. And I’m somebody who appreciates reality. Logic. And I just don’t see where we’re going with this.”
He folded his napkin and sat it in his empty bowl. “I’ve kind of been wanting to talk to you about that.”
Here it comes, she thought. The big let down. No man in her life had ever not let her down at some point. She would rather just get it over with and enjoy her holidays than worry the whole time.
“Okay. What do you want to say?”
“I want you to move away with me.”
SuAnn sat there, staring at him like she didn’t understand the language she was speaking. “You want me to what?”
“Move away with me.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “Susie, we missed out on the chance to be together for decades. I want to make use of every bit of time we could have together. I don’t know how you feel, but I don’t ever want to be without you again.”
“I feel the same way,” she said, smiling.
“Then let’s move away together. Let’s go somewhere and have the life we always dreamed of. Remember when we said we would get a little place on the beach in Hawaii? Watch all of our sunsets together?”