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There was an inch of damp, heavy snow on the ground and clinging to the towering evergreens already, and it was still falling steadily. With no chains or snow tires on the car, they’d be lucky if they got out of the driveway for a couple of days, Savannah concluded, sinking back into gloominess.
Then she caught the awed expression on Hannah’s face as she tilted her head up and caught snowflakes on her tongue. She remembered doing the exact same thing the first time she’d visited Aunt Mae and seen snow. She’d been even younger than Hannah, and for several years the Christmas trips to Vermont had been the highlight of her life. She couldn’t recall why they’d stopped coming as a family.
She’d come on her own several times after she was grown, but those visits had dwindled off when she’d met, then married, Rob. He was a Florida boy through and through and flatly refused to visit anyplace where the temperature dropped below the midfifties.
Now that Aunt Mae was gone, Savannah deeply regretted not having done more than write an occasional letter enclosing pictures of Hannah. Her aunt had never once judged her, though, and she’d been totally supportive when Savannah had told her about the breakup of her marriage. She’d sent one check explained away as a birthday gift and offered more, but Savannah had turned her down. She’d lied and said they were getting along okay, but she knew now that her aunt had seen through her. She had done in death what Savannah hadn’t permitted her to do while she was living.
If other members of her family resented the gesture, Savannah didn’t know about it. She’d lost touch with most of them years ago. She’d been estranged from her parents ever since she’d divorced a man of whom they enthusiastically approved. Aunt Mae had tried to broker a peace agreement between Savannah and her father, but he’d remained stubbornly silent and unyielding. He’d been convinced Savannah was a fool for divorcing a man who brought home a steady paycheck.
“Mom, I love it here!” Hannah announced, throwing her arms around Savannah. She was shivering even in her heavy coat. “I want to build a snowman. Can we?”
“I think we’ll need a little more snow than this,” Savannah told her. “Besides, I’m freezing. How about that hot chocolate?”
“I want to stay out here. I’m not cold,” Hannah insisted.
“Then why are your teeth chattering?” Savannah teased. “Come on, baby. Even if you won’t admit to freezing, I will. There will be more snow once we’ve warmed up. I’ll teach you how to make snow angels.”
“What are snow angels?” Hannah asked, her interest immediately piqued.
“You’ll see. Aunt Mae taught me when I was a little girl. Now come inside and get warm.”
Far more agreeable lately than she had been for months, Hannah finally acquiesced, following Savannah into the kitchen. Savannah studied her daughter’s sparkling eyes, pink cheeks and tousled hair and knew she’d done the right thing, no matter what struggles might lie ahead.
Despite the sad state of the inn, they were going to have the fresh beginning they both deserved, she decided with a surge of determination. And it was going to start with the very best Christmas Hannah had ever had, even if she was going to have to do it on a shoestring. Some of her very best holiday memories had cost nothing.
As for the practicalities—the repairs, the marketing plan she needed to devise—they would just have to wait for the new year.
* * *
Mae Holiday had been one of the most eccentric people Trace Franklin had ever known. He had met her when he’d been dragged to Vermont for an idyllic summer getaway by one of the women he’d dated. That had been eight or nine years ago. Twice that number of women had passed through his life since then. Of them all, the one he hadn’t dated—Mae—had been the most memorable.
She’d been the grandmother he’d never had, the mentor who tried her best to bring some balance into his life. Until the day she’d died at seventy-eight, it had frustrated her no end that she hadn’t managed to convince him that romance was just as important as money.
Trace knew better. His parents had been madly in love, but it hadn’t brought either one of them a blasted thing except heartache. Love had kept his mother with a man who never had two nickels to rub together, a man whose big killing was always “just around the corner.”
While John Franklin had spun his dreams, his wife had cleaned houses, worked in fast-food chains and, finally, when it was almost too late to matter, gotten a steady job selling toys to families that could afford to give their kids elaborate backyard swing sets and fancy computer games.
When Trace was fifteen, his mom had brought one of those games home to him, but by then he’d been way past playing childish games. He’d been working with single-minded focus on graduating from high school with honors and getting a scholarship to the best college in the state. He didn’t want to play with toys. He wanted to own a whole blasted toy company.
And now he did. The irony, which Mae had seen right away, was that he still didn’t have time to play. He wasn’t even sure he knew how.
He was driving along the snow-covered roads of Vermont right now because of Mae. On his last visit to see her at the end of October, she had made a final request. She had known she was dying, had known it for fully a year before the cancer had finally taken her, but she hadn’t said a word to Trace until that last visit when she had detailed her losing battle, reciting the facts with a stoicism and acceptance that had awed him.
“I want you to promise me something,” she had said as they’d sat in front of the fire on his last night there. Despite the heat of the blaze, she’d been wrapped in blankets, and still she had shivered.
“Anything,” Trace had responded, and meant it. Not only was Mae one of the earliest investors and biggest stockholders in Franklin Toys, she was his friend.
“I want you to spend Christmas here at Holiday Retreat.”
It was only a couple of months away and it would require some juggling of his schedule, but there was no question that he would do it. “Of course I will,” he said at once. “We’ll have a wonderful time.”
She had squeezed his hand. “I won’t be here, Trace. You know that.”
Even now, the memory of that moment brought the sharp sting of tears to his eyes. Her gaze had been unrelenting. From the beginning of her illness, she had refused to sugarcoat the truth to herself. Now that she was revealing it to others, she expected them to face it, as well. The cancer had spread too far and too fast before the doctors had had the first inkling there was anything wrong. She was dying and there was going to be no reprieve.
Trace had returned her unflinching gaze, heartbroken yet unable to face her death with less bravery than she was showing. “Why, Mae? Why would you want me here after you’re gone?”
“Just do it for me,” she whispered, her voice fading. “Promise.”
