One More for Christmas(67)

There were memories that Gayle would happily have sold. “I hope you won’t have to sell.”

“I’m scared that if I sell, I’ll regret it. There’s nothing worse than regret.”

As someone who had plenty of regrets of her own, Gayle wasn’t about to argue with that. “I understand.”

“What do you usually do at Christmas?”

“I don’t do anything.” Gayle put her cup down. “When the children were young, it was just me and it was all a bit of a struggle—” Oh the understatement.

“Just you? You and their father—”

“He died. Before Ella was born.”

“Oh Gayle! And here am I complaining that I’ve lost the person I had more than forty happy years with. I feel terrible.”

“Don’t. I’m pleased you had those years with someone you loved.”

“But to be widowed when you had two babies—how did you cope?”

“A day at a time. A decision at a time. Christmas was an expensive time of year.” And that wasn’t all of it, of course, but it was all she intended to share. “I suppose I became used to not celebrating. Even now I take the day off because the office is closed, not through choice. Usually I catch up on work.”

“Your girls don’t come home?”

“No, but that’s my fault. I’ve never made a fuss of the holidays.” This was the perfect time to confess to the messy nature of their family relationships. To tell Mary they’d been estranged for five years. But she, who so rarely cared what anyone thought of her, didn’t want Mary to judge her harshly. “They’re busy with their own lives.”

“That’s hard, isn’t it? Because you don’t want to pressure them, but at the same time you want them to know they’re welcome. And family matters. I always think that whatever else it does, Christmas gives families a nudge to get together no matter how busy their lives. I suppose that will change when they’re seriously involved. Neither of mine are in serious relationships. Brodie was seeing someone in London for a while I think, but it ended when he had to come back to Scotland.”

Gayle gave a vague murmur of sympathy. Her girls had never involved her in their relationships, and that was her fault. And now she could understand why Ella hadn’t felt inclined to invite her to her wedding.

She’d already been pregnant that last time they’d met. She’d been afraid that her mother would have said or done something to spoil the happiness of her special day.

Would she have said the wrong thing?

Possibly. Probably.

She would have worried that her daughter was pregnant. And worried that she was getting married for the wrong reasons.

But the fact that Ella hadn’t felt able to tell her didn’t make her proud.

Mary was still talking about Brodie’s last relationship. “Not that I thought she was right for him. He brought her back here for a weekend, but she found it remote and isolated. She wanted shopping, and there’s not a lot of that around here. And then Bear, who was a puppy then, jumped on her coat with muddy paws and poor Brodie spent an entire day driving it to the dry cleaner.”

“The dog?”

“The coat. They broke up soon after. Not that he ever discussed it. But I think she was one of the other reasons Kirstie was nervous about this plan to have guests. She was left with the impression that city people weren’t going to like the wildness of this place.”

“Or maybe the wildness is exactly what they will like,” Gayle said.

“I don’t know, but Brodie is convinced your daughter Samantha does know and should be able to help. Do you think she will, Gayle?”

Should she admit that she knew almost nothing about her daughter’s business? She’d done an internet search, of course. The website was impressive. The testimonials equally good. Really Festive Holidays.

Who would have thought that would be a sound business proposition?

“My daughter will be able to help—I’m sure of it.”

“I hope so. Brodie is my strong one. He does what has to be done. But I know when he’s hurting. He’s pinning a lot of hope on your daughter. He showed me her website. The photography alone made me want to book something myself. You must be very proud of her.”

“I am proud.”

“Did she always love Christmas as a child?”

Gayle put her cup down. “Yes.”

And she’d never understood it. Her girls had imagined it to be a mystical, magical time of year. Gayle saw it as part of a commercial conspiracy designed to tempt innocent people to spend a fortune in order to create the type of holiday celebration showcased by the media. Buy this and your Christmas will be perfect. Life was rarely dreamy, and you did a child no favors by pretending that it was. The one gift she hadn’t wanted to give her girls was that of unrealistic expectations.

She still remembered the moment when her rosy view of life had been exploded by reality.

But apparently there were people prepared to pay what seemed to Gayle to be outrageous sums of money to experience her daughter’s vision of a romantic winter vacation.

She’d looked at the website and almost been tempted to book a week visiting the European Christmas markets, an activity that would normally make her want to run fast in the opposite direction.