Gramps came into the room as Nolan was placing the second-to-last one on the mantel alongside a snow globe. His expression, already pinched with anger, darkened. He picked the porcelain gingerbread man up off the end table. “What is this doing out?”
“I put it there.”
The words resonated between them. Gramps must have heard the urgency in Nolan’s voice because his expression was less angry when he turned to look at Nolan.
Quieter, Nolan said, “They were Mom’s.”
Gramps didn’t look any happier. He didn’t put the decoration down, but he gentled his hold on it, almost cradling it to his chest.
Nolan looked at the snowman in his hand and set it down carefully. “The guests have been asking why the house isn’t decorated.”
“It isn’t decorated because we don’twantto decorate. It’s our inn, our choice.”
Nolan wanted to tell his grandfather thathewanted to decorate. That it would help business but also their mental health. But the pinched look of grief on his grandfather’s face stopped him.
Snowball, who had been lounging on the ground by the fireplace, sensed Nolan’s mood and shot to her feet. She trotted to him and leaned against his leg. Her support meant something, even if it wouldn’t give his argument weight.
Gramps looked around, his expression changing from grief to anger and back again as he looked at the decorations Nolan had put out. “Put them back in the attic.” He turned to the next-nearest decoration, a sleigh pulled by reindeer, and grabbed that one too.
“Don’t.” Nolan swallowed and added, “Please don’t.”
It didn’t seem to help. Gramps pretended not to hear.
Nolan raised his voice. “The guests heard about the Christmas Eve party at the Cozy Holly Inn. They want to know whether we’re throwing one too.”
“We’re not.” The two words might as well have been carved from stone, they were as friendly and as immovable.
“I know that, but we have to give them something. A few decorations here and there in the public areas will appease them. It’ll bring them back another time. We need repeat customers.”
Nolan dropped his hand to the soft fur of Snowball’s neck and tried to take strength from her. He rarely argued with his grandfather, but he had to put his foot down sometime, didn’t he? He couldn’t let his family keep going as they were, nurturing their bitterness and their grief.
“Iwant the decorations.” The confession was soft enough he wasn’t sure that Gramps heard. He cleared his throat and repeated himself, louder this time. “I want the decorations. They’re a little piece of Mom. She might not be here anymore, but she loved Christmas.”
Gramps’s face softened. He hadn’t always been this hard-edged. When Nolan was a kid, Gramps hadn’t been able to deny him anything. For a brief second, Nolan saw a glimpse of the old Gramps. The one with the twinkle in his eye and the welcoming expression on his face. There was hope.
“Mary died on Christmas.”
“She died after she got to see her favorite time of year one last time. We aren’t honoring her by shutting everything away. I think… I think if we brought it all out, if we remembered, we could start to heal.”
Gramps stared around the room but couldn’t seem to find a safe place to rest his gaze. He looked older all of a sudden. Weary.
“Stan and I found that Green girl chopping down a tree near the stream. Onourproperty.”
Nolan’s first thought was to worry about his grandfather and father out that far in the property in the snow. Trudging through it when there was no clear path was hard work. They could have a heart attack, especially if they hadn’t warmed up properly. But then his next thought was more suspicious. Why had they gone out there in the first place? Had they been spying on her?
Pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off a headache, Nolan asked, “What happened?”
“I told you. She was trying to cut down one of our trees.”
“By the stream.”
“Yes.”
Nolan opened his eyes. “You mean the place where her grandparents always cut down the trees?”
Gramps’s mouth turned mulish. Nolan wasn’t entirely sure the spot in question—he went up that way with Snowball sometimes—was on Gramps’s property. “If she crossed into our property, I’m sure it was by accident.”
“She’s trying to cause trouble.”
