Christine Rimmer - Same Time, Next Christmas

This was his third Christmas at the cabin. His great-uncle Percy Valentine had given the place to him when Matt was discharged from the service. A few wooded acres and a one-room cabin, Matthias , Uncle Percy had said. I’m thinking it will be a quiet place just for you, a place where you can find yourself again.

Matt wasn’t all that sure he’d found himself yet, but he liked having his own place not far from home to go when he needed it. He had a large family and they kept after him to start showing up for Christmas, which had always been a big deal for all of them.

His mom had loved Christmas and she used to do it up right. She and his dad had died when Matt was sixteen, but his older brother Daniel had stepped up, taken custody of all of them and continued all the family Christmas traditions.

He loved them, every one of them. He would do just about anything for them. But for Christmas, he liked the cabin better. He liked going off into a world of his own now and then, needed it even. Especially for the holidays. There was something about this time of the year that made the ghosts of his past most likely to haunt him.

Through half-closed eyes, he watched as Sabra strung the lights. She tucked them in among the thick branches just so, making sure there were no bare spaces, the same way he would have done. When she neared the top, she found the folding footstool in the closet under the stairs and used it to string those lights all the way up.

She had the lights on and was starting to hang ornaments when his eyes got too heavy to keep open even partway. Feeling peaceful and damn close to happy, he drifted off to sleep.

When he woke again, Sabra was curled in a ball in the old brown armchair across from the sofa, asleep. She’d found a book, no doubt from the bookcase on the side wall. It lay open across her drawn-up thighs, her dark head drooping over it.

The tree was finished. She’d done a great job of it. He just lay there on the sofa and admired it for a few minutes, tall and proud, shining so bright. She’d even put his presents from the family under it.

But he was thirsty and his water glass was empty. He sat up and reached for the cane that he’d propped at the end of the sofa.

That small movement woke her. “Wha...?” She blinked at him owlishly. “Hey. You’re awake.” She rubbed the back of her neck.

He pushed back the afghan and brought his legs to the floor. “The tree is gorgeous.”

She smiled, a secret, pleased little smile. “Thanks. How’re you feeling?”

“Better.” He pushed himself upright and she didn’t even try to stop him.

“You look better. Your color’s good. Want some soup?”

“If I can sit at the table to eat it.”

“You think you’re up for that?”

“I know I am.”

Matthias was better. Lots better.

So much better that, after dinner that night, when he wanted to go out on the porch, she agreed without even a word of protest.

“You’ll need a warmer coat,” he said, and sent her upstairs to get one of his.

The coat dwarfed her smaller frame. On her, it came to midthigh and the arms covered her hands. She loved it. It would keep her toasty warm even out in the frozen night air—and it smelled like him, of cedar and something kind of minty.

On the porch, there were two rustic-looking log chairs. Sabra pushed the chairs closer together and they sat down.

The snow had finally stopped. They’d gotten several feet of the stuff, which meant they would definitely be stuck here for at least the next few days.

Sabra didn’t mind. She felt far away from her real life, off in this silent, frozen world with a man who’d been a stranger to her only the day before.

He said, “My mom used to love the snow. It doesn’t snow that often in Valentine Bay, but when it did she would get us all out into the yard to make snowmen. There was never that much of it, so our snowmen were wimpy ones. They melted fast.”

“You’re from Valentine Bay, then?” Valentine Bay was on the coast, a little south of Warrenton, which was at the mouth of the Columbia River.

He turned to look at her, brow furrowing. “Didn’t I tell you I’m from Valentine Bay?”

“You’ve told me now—and you said your mom used to love the snow?”

“That’s right. She died eleven years ago. My dad, too. In a tsunami in Thailand, of all the crazy ways to go.”

“You’ve lost both of them? That had to be hard.” She wanted to reach out and hug him. But that would be weird, wouldn’t it? She felt like she knew him. But she didn’t, not really. She needed to try to remember to respect the guy’s space.

“It was a long time ago. My oldest brother Daniel took over and raised us the rest of the way. He and his wife Lillie just continued right on, everything essentially the way it used be, including the usual Christmas traditions. Even now, they all spend Christmas day at the house where we grew up. They open their presents together, share breakfast and cook a big Christmas dinner.”

“But you want to spend your Christmas alone.”

“That’s right.”

A minute ago, she’d been warning herself to respect the man’s space. Too bad. Right now, she couldn’t resist trying to find out more. “Last night, you were talking in your sleep.”

He gave her a long look. It wasn’t an encouraging one. “Notice the way I’m not asking what I said?”

“Don’t want to talk about Mark and Nelson and Finn?”

He didn’t. And he made that perfectly clear—by changing the subject. “You said you grew up on a farm?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Near here, you said?”

“Yeah. Near Svensen.”

“That’s in Astoria.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“But you were headed for Portland when you suddenly decided on a hike to the falls?”

“I live in Portland now. I manage the front of the house at a restaurant in the Pearl.” The Pearl District was the right place to open an upscale, farm-to-table restaurant. Delia Mae’s was one of those.

“Got tired of farming?” His breath came out as fog.

She gathered his giant coat a little closer around her against the cold. “Not really. I’m a farmer by birth, vocation and education. I’ve got a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies with an emphasis in agroecology.”

“From UC Santa Cruz, am I right?”

“The Slugs hat and sweatshirt?”

“Dead giveaway.” He smiled, slow and sexy, his white, even teeth gleaming in the porch light’s glow. She stared at him, thinking that he really was a hot-looking guy, with those killer blue eyes, a shadow of beard scruff on his sculpted jaw and that thick, unruly dark blond hair.

And what were they talking about?

Farming. Right. “Our farm has been in the Bond family for generations. My dad and mom were a true love match, mutually dedicated to each other, the farm and to me, their only child. All my growing-up years, the plan was for me to work right along with them, and to take the reins when the time came. But then, when I was nineteen and in my first year at Santa Cruz, my mom died while driving home from a quick shopping trip into downtown Astoria on a gray day in February. Her pickup lost traction on the icy road. The truck spun out and crashed into the guardrail.”

Matthias didn’t even hesitate. He reached out between their two chairs, clasped her shoulder with his large, strong hand and gave a nice, firm squeeze. They shared a glance, a long one that made her feel completely understood.

His reassuring touch made it all the easier to confess, “I have a hard time now, at the farm. It’s been six years since my mom died, but my dad has never really recovered from the loss. I guess, to be honest, neither have I. After college, I just wanted something completely different.”