Merry Ex-Mas Read online

  Everyone at the table got busy offering Mike congratulations.

  Except Cass, who was in shock. They’d be moving away. Her daughter would be leaving practically the minute after she got married. The vision of Dani raising her family here in Icicle Falls, of someday taking over the bakery, went up in smoke. It was all Cass could do not to cry. She pushed away the plate with her half-finished pumpkin pie and hoped nobody asked her what she was thankful for.

  “Anyway, we just want a small wedding,” Mike said. “Nothing fancy.”

  Nothing fancy? Dani had always wanted a big church wedding. What happened to that?

  “And I know Daddy can come that weekend,” Dani added.

  “You already talked to your father?” Before you even shared the news with me? Hurt welled up in Cass, giving her the worst case of heartburn she’d ever had.

  “Just to see if he’s going to be around,” Dani said. “I thought maybe everyone could come up and stay for the week.”

  “Here?” Cass squeaked.

  “Whoo boy,” Drew said under his breath.

  “There’s no room,” Cass said firmly. No room at the inn.

  Dot shrugged. “You could probably put them up at Olivia’s.”

  Thank you, Dot. Remind me never to invite you over for Thanksgiving dinner again.

  “Dani, you know how crazy it gets this time of year,” Cass said. “I’m sure the B and Bs are booked solid.”

  “Olivia still has a couple of rooms,” Dani said.

  “You talked to her?” She’d told Olivia, too?

  “This morning. I just called to ask if she had any left.”

  “Well, then, I guess that settles it,” Cass said stiffly.

  “You’ll help me plan it, won’t you?” Dani asked her in a small voice.

  Cass was hurt and she was mad, but she wasn’t insane. “Of course I will. And I’ll make the cake.”

  “Well, duh.” Amber rolled her eyes.

  Dani ignored her sister and smiled happily. “Thanks, Mom.”

  Cass sighed. She’d even suck it up and be nice at the wedding. It would be wrong to spoil her daughter’s big day with petty jealousy.

  It’s not petty, whispered her evil twin. Cass told her to shut up.

  “I know it’s a busy time of year,” Dani said.

  “’Tis the season,” Dot cracked.

  The season to be jolly. That was going to be hard with her ex-husband strutting around town, pretending to be the world’s best dad. It was going to be hard to greet his bimbo trophy wife with good cheer. And she didn’t even want to think about dealing with her ex-mother- and sister-in-law. If Santa thought this was what Cass wanted for Christmas, he needed to retire.

  “This is going to be a pain in the butt for you,” Dot said to her later, after the dishes were done and the kids were playing on the Wii.

  Cass leaned against the kitchen counter and stared at the contents of her coffee mug—black, just like her mood.

  “But you’ll get through it.”

  Of course she would. Exes were a part of life. She’d put on her big-girl panties and cope. After all, it was only a couple of days. Anyway, they’d all be staying at Olivia’s place. She’d hardly have to see them.

  Cass managed a reluctant smile and raised her mug. “Well, then, here’s to getting through.”

  Dot clinked mugs with her. “Merry Ex-mas, kiddo.”

  2

  It was Black Friday, a big day for retail in Icicle Falls. For Ella O’Brien that made two black days in a row. How different this Thanksgiving had been from the year before.

  Not that her mother hadn’t tried to make it special. Mims had hauled Ella over the mountains to Seattle for an overnight in the city, and on turkey day they’d eaten their holiday dinner at a high-priced restaurant. Surrounded by strangers. Well, except for Gregory, Mother’s longtime friend and fellow fashionista, who had a condo on the waterfront.

  Ella hadn’t invited the thought that came to her as they were eating, but it had come, anyway, making an unwelcome fourth at the table. This is pathetically different from last Thanksgiving with your in-laws. Correction: former in-laws.

  That had been a typical O’Brien celebration, rowdy and exciting, especially for a woman who’d always wanted brothers and sisters. Mims, who had been included, kept a superior distance while grown-ups and children alike had worked up an appetite by running around in the woods playing capture the flag. After dinner her mother-in-law (ex-mother-in-law, darn it) had helped her figure out a tricky knitting pattern.

  And later, when it was time for dessert, Mims the fishaterian learned that the slice of mincemeat pie she was enjoying was a hunter’s version with moose meat added to the sweet filling and had to make a dash for the bathroom.

  There’d been no bathroom dash this year. And no Jake. That was fine with Ella. Really. Mims was right; she was better off without that skirt-chasing, irresponsible, overgrown child. And her life would be perfect once she didn’t have to see him every day.

  But she missed his mother and his sister and brothers. It had been fun to have someone to call Mom.

  She’d never called her own mother Mom. Instead, she’d wound up mimicking Mims’s fashion-model friends and calling her Mims. Ella had never gotten the full story on that nickname, beyond that fact that it had something to do with her mother’s fondness for mimosas. Oh, and a tycoon and a yacht. Her mother had never wanted to be Mom, anyway. That was simply too unglam. And Lily Swan brought glamour to everything, including motherhood. So that was how it was growing up and that was normal, and that was what Ella told her friends whenever they asked why she didn’t call her mother Mom.

  And when they asked why she didn’t have a daddy, she recited the Swan party line—a girl didn’t really need a daddy. She’d sure wanted one, though, and had watched with longing when she saw other little girls riding on their daddies’ shoulders or getting taken out for ice cream.

  When she’d married Jake and gotten a father-in-law it was the world’s best bonus.

  Jake’s dad always greeted her with a hug and a “How’s my girl?” He checked the air in her tires and whittled little wood raccoons for her to put on her mantelpiece in the living room. Mims had pronounced them tacky but Ella loved them because every time she looked at them she could see her father-in-law’s big, smiling face.

  “We’re so sorry to lose you,” Mom O’Brien had written in a sweet card after Ella and Jake broke the news. She’d been sorry to be lost. Too bad a girl couldn’t shed the husband but keep the family, she thought as she turned the sign hanging on the door of Gilded Lily’s to Closed.

  She was tired—working with people all day could be exhausting—but it was a good kind of tired, she decided as she started to add up the day’s receipts. From now until New Year’s Eve the shop would be busy. Gilded Lily’s was the closest thing Icicle Falls had to a Neiman Marcus or a Nordstrom. It was owned by her mother but Ella managed it. She loved pretty clothes and she loved helping her customers find a special dress for that special occasion, whether it was a party or a prom, as well as all the accessories to enhance it. There’d been a lot of enhancing taking place this Black Friday.

  Now the business day was over and it was time to go home. Home is where the heart is. There’s no place like home.

  Bah, humbug.

  She stepped out into the brisk mountain air and locked the door behind her. Winter darkness had settled in for the night and downtown Icicle Falls was a-twinkle. Christmas lights decked out the trees in the park and the potted fir trees nestled against the shops, and red ribbons adorned the old-fashioned lampposts that ran along Center Street.

  Every weekend there would be a tree-lighting ceremony, and the skyscraper-size fir in town square would come to life with hundreds of colored lights, making the winter village scene complete. With its mountain setting and Bavarian architecture, Icicle Falls was like an animated postcard, quaint and charming—a perfect setting for a perfect life. Except Ella’s life was
n’t so perfect these days; it was like a dress that no longer fit.

  It didn’t take her long to walk the half mile from the shop to her two-bedroom Craftsman-style cottage on Mountain View Road. Her dream home. In the summer she’d put two wicker rockers with plump cushions on the porch, and she and Jake had sat out there on warm weekday nights. She’d work on her knitting with their Saint Bernard, Tiny, lazing at her feet, while Jake serenaded her on his guitar. Last Christmas she’d taken great satisfaction in stringing colored lights and cedar boughs along the porch, while Jake had strung lights along the roofline—a team effort.

  Ella sighed at the memory. She’d thought she’d have that house for life, had envisioned raising a family there or, once Jake became a famous country star, keeping it as a vacation home.

  Her mother hadn’t shared the vision. “You shouldn’t buy a house so quickly,” Mims had cautioned when they first looked at it. “You’re both young and you don’t even know if this marriage will last.”

  “Of course it’ll last,” Ella had insisted. “Why wouldn’t it?”

  Her mother said nothing, just pursed her lips like a woman with an ugly secret. How had Mims known things wouldn’t work out with Jake? What early warning signs had she seen that Ella hadn’t?

  Whatever she’d seen, she’d kept it to herself, and to show her support (once the decision was made and the papers were signed), she’d given them a gift certificate to Hearth and Home to buy a new couch, saying, “Really, Ella, you can’t decorate in Early American Garage Sale. What will people think?”

  “Maybe they’ll think we’re happy,” Ella had suggested.

  Mims had ignored that remark. “Go look at the couches at Hearth and Home, baby. You’ll find one you love, I promise.”

  Ella did find a couch she loved, and Mims heartily approved of the brown leather sofa with the carved mahogany accents that Ella picked out. “You have wonderful taste,” she’d said, and then added, “In most things.” Translation: your taste in men is questionable.

  “Really, darling, you can do so much better,” Mims advised when Ella and Jake started getting serious. “Sleep with him if you must, but for God’s sake don’t saddle yourself with him for life.”

  What kind of mother told her daughter stuff like that? Lily Swan, that was who. Mims hadn’t felt the need for a husband, so Ella supposed she thought her daughter would see the wisdom of her choice and follow suit. “Men are fun, but not necessary,” she’d once overheard her mother say.

  How much fun had Mims had with Ella’s father? And what had happened to keep them from becoming a family? That, like her mother’s age, was classified information and Ella had finally given up asking.

  She opened her front door in time to see her own Mr. Not Necessary, her ex-husband, coming down the hallway wearing nothing but his boxers and carrying a basket of laundry, Tiny trotting at his heels. She hated it when Jake did that—not the laundry, parading around in his boxers.

  Jake O’Brien had a poster-worthy body and looking at it was, well, distracting. He’d had all day to do the laundry. Why was he waiting until now?

  She frowned at him.

  He frowned back. “What?”

  Tiny rushed up to her, his huge tail wagging with joy, and she bent to give him a good rub behind his ears. “You couldn’t have done the laundry earlier?” That sounded snippy, and she wasn’t a snippy sort of person. At least she hadn’t been before their divorce.

  “I was busy,” he said.

  Probably with some woman. Not that she cared. It was no longer any of her concern what he did or who he did it with.

  “Anyway, what does it matter to you when I do my laundry? We’re not married anymore.”

  “That’s my point,” she said, straightening up. “We’re not married and I don’t think you should be running around the house in your underwear.” Now she sounded both snippy and bossy. She was never bossy. Never!

  He stopped next to her. That close proximity still did things to her.

  Used to do things to her. Used to! She told the goose bumps on her arms to settle down.

  He grinned at her, a wicked, taunting grin. “Does it…bother you?”

  She could feel a guilty-as-charged heat on her cheeks. “It’s not proper.” Snippy, bossy and prissy—who was this new and unimproved Ella? “You don’t see me running around the house in my underwear.”

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  She upgraded her frown to a scowl. “We may be sharing this house but it’s strictly business.”

  “I am strictly business, and if my boxers bother you, move.”

  Like she could afford to move? She didn’t have any more money in the bank than he did.

  “Go stay with your mama.”

  He might as well have added, “Mama’s girl.”

  She wasn’t a mama’s girl and she had as much right to be here until the house sold as he did. She was an adult. She didn’t have to run home to her mother.

  Anyway, Mims had downsized to a condo in the spiffy new Mountain Ridge condominiums outside town and they didn’t allow dogs Tiny’s size. If Jake thought she was leaving Tiny to him, he could think again. Tiny needed a mommy and a daddy. Even when they went their separate ways, they’d have joint custody of him. And besides, Ella needed to stay to make sure the house was kept in good condition to show. If she wasn’t there, potential buyers would see nothing but dirty toilets, dishes in the sink and beer cans on the coffee table, and they’d never be able to sell the place.

  Sell the place—the thought of doing that still hurt. But it was only one in a string of many hurts she’d endured in the past year. For one wild, crazy moment, she wanted to put a hand to Jake’s face and ask, “What happened to us? Why are we doing this?” But she knew what had happened, and there was no going back now. The jet hadn’t just taxied down the runway or left the airport. It had left the city. The state. The country. They needed to move on, both of them.

  She sighed. “Look, we’re stuck here until the place sells. Can’t we try and get along?”

  He regarded her with those beautiful, dark Irish eyes. Roving eyes! “I’m not the one who started all this, El,” he said softly.

  “Oh?” Who had “started” it by coming home with another woman’s phone number in his pants pocket?

  There was no point in bringing that up. He’d just stick with his stupid story about the keyboard player dying to be in his band. Yeah? That wasn’t all the woman was dying for. The voice message Ella had gotten when she called the woman’s number said it all. I’m not home right now so leave a message. If this is Jake, I can meet you anytime, anyplace.

  For what? A private audition? It had all been downhill from there.

  He’d already let his perfect-husband mask slip before that, though, flirting with every little groupie who sashayed up to the bandstand when his band Ricochet was playing. She’d even caught him taking some girl’s black thong one night when the band was on break and he was supposed to be getting a Coke. He’d seen Ella coming and handed it back like it was a hot potato. A lacy hot potato.

  “That came out of left field. I was so surprised I didn’t know what to do,” he’d said.

  Just like he hadn’t known what to do with a certain keyboard player’s phone number? How dumb had he thought she was? And once she had proof…oh, he’d climbed on his high horse and acted all insulted that her mother’d had the nerve to hire a private detective to follow him. Who could blame her after hearing about the way he was sneaking around behind her daughter’s back, collecting other women’s panties?

  But there was no denying what was plain in those pictures—her husband on another woman’s doorstep, hugging that woman. After being in her house for an hour. An hour! He’d claimed that he’d simply stopped by to drop off some music lead sheets. The kind of sheets they’d been using had nothing to do with music. How many quickies could an unfaithful husband squeeze into an hour? She didn’t want to do the math. Boy, whoever said one picture was worth a thous
and words must have had a cheating husband.

  Well, he’d gotten his keyboard player and Ella had gotten her divorce. They both got what they wanted. “You’re better off without him,” Mims had said. “He’s never going to amount to anything and you’d have been poor all your life. Starving musicians are a losing proposition.”

  “I didn’t marry Jake to get rich,” Ella had protested.

  “Congratulations, you succeeded,” Mims had retorted. Men might not have been necessary, but as far as her mother was concerned, once a girl had one, he darn well needed to earn his keep.

  Her mother was right. Jake was immature and irresponsible and, worst of all, a cheater. She was well rid of him. Even if he did look hot in his boxers.

  He frowned at her again. “Never mind. There’s no point talking anymore. I could talk till I’m blue in the face and you wouldn’t hear a thing I said.” With that parting remark, he marched up the stairs.

  Ella turned her back on him. She was not—not!—going to look at his butt.

  In fact, she wasn’t even going to stay in this house. By eight he’d be gone, on his way to the Red Barn, a honky-tonk a few miles outside of town. There he’d spend the night crooning country songs for people who were more interested in brawling and hooking up than listening to his band.

  Ella had always loved listening to the band.

  Oh, enough already, she scolded herself.

  A moment later Jake was downstairs again and on his way down the hall to the kitchen. He’d covered the boxers with jeans but he was still bare-chested and that brought the goose bumps back for another visit. “The kitchen’s mine for twenty more minutes,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Stay there as long as you want.” Messing everything up. “I’m leaving,” she called.

  “Got a hot date?”

  None of his business. She declined to answer. Instead, she grabbed her purse and started for the door. Tiny followed her hopefully.