How to Change Your Life…

Can a book change your life? Yes, when it’s Simplicity, Muriel Sterling’s guide to plain living. In fact, it inspires Jen Heath to leave her stressful, overcommitted life in Seattle and move to Icicle Falls, where she rents a lovely little cottage on Juniper Ridge. And where she can enjoy simple pleasures—like joining the local book club—and complicated ones, like falling in love with her sexy landlord, Garrett Armstrong.

Her sister Toni is ready for a change, too. She has a teenage daughter who’s constantly texting her friends, a husband who’s more involved with his computer than he is with her, and a son who’s consumed by video games. Toni wants her family to grow closer—to return to a simpler way of life.

Other women in town, like Stacy Thomas, are also inspired to unload their excess stuff and some of the extra responsibilities they’ve taken on.

But as they all discover, sometimes life simply happens. It doesn’t always happen simply!

Praise for the novels of

SHEILA ROBERTS

‘Her characters are warm and engaging and their interactions are full of humour.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘An uplifting, charming, feel-good story’

—Booklist

‘… will doubtless warm more than a few hearts.’

—Publishers Weekly

‘A wonderful story with characters so real and defined I feel like I am personally acquainted with them … There is humour and emotion in large quantities in this fantastic book that is next to impossible to put down. Kudos and a large bouquet of flowers to Sheila Roberts for giving us one of the best books of the year.’

—Fresh Fiction

“Within minutes of cracking open the book, my mood was lifted.”

—First for Women

SHEILA ROBERTS is married and has three children. She lives on a lake in the Pacific Northwest. When she's not hanging out with her girlfriends or hitting the dance floor with her husband, she can be found writing about those things dear to women's hearts: family, friends and chocolate.

You can visit Sheila at her website, www.sheilasplace.com. You can also find her on Twitter @_Sheila_Roberts and Facebook.

Also by Sheila Roberts

BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE

MERRY EX-MAS

WHAT SHE WANTS

Sheila Roberts

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For my buddy Liz

Dear Reader,

I think this book has been bubbling at the back of my mind for some time. A few years ago my husband and I moved from the house we'd been in for eighteen years and I was shocked to see how much stuff we'd accumulated! After so many runs to Goodwill that I lost count and packing enough boxes to fill a stadium, I was so done with stuff. I could drive by a garage sale and not even be tempted! Of course, that didn't last long. Pretty soon I was, once more, braking for garage sales. Then we lost my husband's parents and were up to our eyeballs in stuff again. What to do with it all? Where to put it? Let me tell you, it wasn't easy. And keeping the pile of things to a reasonable level is still an ongoing process, but I think I'm getting it down to a system.

And that wasn't the only thing I was dealing with. I was trying to simplify my life. Between trying to keep up with work, family responsibilities, house, garden, church and friends, I was on overload. When we first moved to our little lake house, I'd envisioned myself puttering in the garden, growing my own fruit and veggies, sitting on the patio and enjoying the view, sipping cocktails with the neighbours. Ha! Who had time for that? I needed to simplify my life!

I suspect I'm not the only one who's been faced with this. I've talked to a lot of women stuck in that same cramped boat. It's easy to get overcommitted and overloaded. It sort of sneaks up on us one bargain at a time, one ‘Sure, I can do that’ commitment at a time. Next thing we know, life is complicated.

The women in Icicle Falls have realised this and they're going to do something about it. But they've got some challenges ahead. I hope you'll enjoy their journey. And if it resonates with you, well, I always love hearing from my readers. Find me on Facebook or visit me at my website, www.sheilasplace.com.

Happy reading!

Sheila

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Dear Reader

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Acknowledgments

Endpages

Copyright

Chapter One

Sometimes we get so used to the status quo that we forget we can change it.

—Muriel Sterling, author of Simplicity

Jen Heath hurried along the downtown Seattle sidewalk, hunched against a freezing rain, her holiday to-do list dogging her every step, breathing down her neck. The trees that lined the street twinkled with white lights, and store windows boasted displays of Santas, presents and happy elves. A steel drum band had set up in the Westlake Mall and was playing “Jingle Bells.” Bah, humbug, she thought grumpily as she strode past them.

Anyone peering inside her head would think she hated the holidays. She didn’t. She loved them. What she didn’t love was being so darned busy.

How had she gotten stuck in charge of planning the office Christmas party? Oh, yeah, Patty Unger, her supervisor, had volunteered her. Thanks, Patty. Not that Jen minded planning a party. But having to plan one this year wasn’t fun. It was just one more thing to add to a very long to-do list.

In addition to her full-time job as office slave at Emerald City Promotions, she sold Soft Glow Candles on the party plan—all so she could whittle down what she owed on her credit cards, keep up her car payments and make the mortgage on her First Hill condo, which she could barely afford. The car she’d needed, but the condo? What had she been thinking when she bought it? Oh, yeah. She hadn’t been thinking. She’d taken one look at the granite countertops, the hardwood floors and the view of the Seattle skyline, and condo lust had come over her like a fever. By the time the fever broke she was a homeowner. (Thanks to the bank and her parents.) And her credit cards were maxed out. (Because, of course, she had to furnish the new condo.) Now she was a stressed homeowner.

Who was never home. She had three candle parties booked this week and two more on the weekend. The following weekend she had another candle party on Saturday, and then on Sunday a cookie exchange at her sister’s, followed by the church choir concert. Oh, she’d be home later that evening, right along with the eighteen other people she’d invited to her place for the postconcert party. (This was the symptom of yet another fever—new-owner pride. She’d been dying to show off the condo, and hosting a party had seemed like the perfect way.) The day before, she’d gone to see the gingerbread house display at the Sheraton Hotel with her mother, her sister and her niece, Jordan. She’d been pooped, but when she tried to wiggle out of going, Toni had reminded her that this was a tradition, and anyway, she needed to spend time with her family. Guilt, the gift that kept on giving. After that, she’d visited her grandma, who was complaining that she’d almost forgotten what her granddaughter looked like. It seemed everyone in her family was giving guilt for Christmas this year.

Tonight she absolutely had to do laundry. But what she really wanted was to flop on the couch and watch It’s a Wonderful Life. None of her friends understood what she saw in that old movie, but she’d been watching it with her family every Christmas since she was a kid. Well, except for the past couple of years. Between having her marriage fall apart and getting a divorce, she’d been too busy for a wonderful life.

Those days were over now. No more fights about money. No more fights about how she mismanaged her time or how impetuous and irresponsible she was. No more fights about...well, you name it.

When they were first married, Serge had loved her spontaneity, her joie de vivre. After a year he developed a vision problem and saw only her flaws. They fought about everything from money to the amount of time she spent with her friends. “I don’t know what we’re doing together.” Serge had finally stormed one night, throwing up his hands.

Neither did she. So Serge had moved out and moved on. She’d run into him at the Last Supper Club six months after the divorce was final, when she was trying to enjoy a night out with the girls. He’d been with a skinny tattoo queen sporting maroon hair and ear gauges. And he’d complained about how impulsive Jen was?

She’d wanted to hit him and his new woman, too. Instead, she’d buried herself in the crowd and danced until her feet and her heart were numb. Good riddance, she’d told herself, but later that night she’d cried herself to sleep.

Now it had been a year since the big D and she was so over him and so moving on.

Now she was in charge of her own destiny, her own life, and that was fine with her.

Except so far this new life wasn’t exactly playing out as she’d envisioned. When a girl hardly had time to wash her bra, she was in trouble. When was she supposed to squeeze in things like dating? And if she didn’t even have time to date, well, what was that going to do to her sex life?

She scowled. Many of her friends were now having babies and she’d love to have one of her own. She sure didn’t see a bassinet on her horizon, though. At thirty-two, were her eggs giving up all hope of ever meeting a sperm?

Well, girls, I don’t know what to tell you. You’ll just have to hang in there because right now I don’t have time to find a new man. There was a depressing thought.

Jen caught her bus on Marion Street. It was crowded as usual with tired workers, students, street people and shoppers carrying bags crammed with merchandise. Standing room only. That made her grumpier.

Oh, heck, everything made her grumpy these days. Maybe it was living in the city, crammed in with so many other people. What would it be like to have a cute little house in a small town or a cottage in a mountain meadow? What would it be like to hark back to a simpler time, a simpler lifestyle?

She thought of the book her sister had given her for her birthday the month before—Simplicity. She’d been trying to read a little of it every night before she went to bed, but she couldn’t seem to get past page one. She’d wake up halfway through the night with the book on her face.

She’d managed to get through the blurb on the back of the book, though, and it sounded impressive. The author insisted that anyone, no matter how busy, could simplify her life. It was a matter of prioritizing and letting your days slow down and fall into a natural rhythm in sync with nature.

What would her life be like if she lived it at a slower pace? What if she took a few minutes to sit by her condo window and watch the snow fall (not that much snow ever fell in Seattle), instead of running around like a gerbil on a wheel, dashing from event to event, working at a feverish pace so she could live the good life? When it came right down to it, was her life that good? She was racing through it so fast, she had no time to savor any of it. It would be nice to learn how to bake bread, grow a garden, knit. Date! Heck, it would be nice to have time to breathe.

The bus lurched to a stop and a fortysomething woman got on, balancing a huge armful of purchases, shopping bags dangling from her fingers. She squeezed in between Jen and an older man in an overcoat that smelled of damp wool. The newcomer smelled like perfume overload and Jen sneezed.

“Bless you,” said an older woman who was occupying a seat behind where Jen stood.

“Thank you,” Jen murmured.

The newcomer grabbed for a hand rail and bumped Jen with one of her bags. That, plus the sudden forward motion of the bus, nearly sent Jen toppling into the lap of the older woman. “Sorry,” she muttered.

Meanwhile, Suzy Shopper was still wrestling with her bags. One got away and landed on Jen’s foot, nearly crushing her toes and making her yelp. What did she have in there, weights?

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the woman said, picking it up and whacking Jen with another bag in the process. “My daughter’s Christmas present.”

Jen’s eyes were watering. Was her foot broken? She caught her breath and managed a polite smile. “Looks like you got a lot done.” Which was more than she could say. She hadn’t started her shopping yet.

“This is the last of it,” the woman said. “I found these dumbbells on sale at Penney’s.”

“Dumbbells.” Jen nodded. “You had weights in that bag.”

The woman blushed. “Mmm-hmm.”

May the next toes you drop them on be yours.

The bus driver called Jen’s street and she hobbled toward the back exit, trying to make her way through the crowd. “S’cuse me, s’cuse me. Sorry.”

One passenger was too engrossed in what was on her ereader to even know she was on a bus. She stood in the path of the exit like a boulder in a red coat. An inconsiderate boulder.

“Excuse me,” Jen said, trying to slip past. The boulder didn’t budge.

The bus doors heaved open.

Jen tried again. “Excuse me,” she said a little louder. Still nothing. She said it a third time and gave the boulder a nudge. It was just a nudge, really.

The red boulder lost her balance and grabbed for the nearest source of stability—a tall, skinny woman in sweats and a Santa hat bearing a pink bakery box. The tall, skinny woman lost her hold on the box and down it went, spilling cupcakes with green frosting everywhere. She gasped and the woman next to her, who now had green frosting skidding down her sleeve, let out a groan.

A nearby man wearing a dirty peacoat and a scruffy beard picked up a cupcake that had landed on the floor, frosting side first, and began to eat it.

All three women glared at Jen. The skinny one with the Santa hat bent to pick up her ruined goods. “You should watch what you’re doing.”

“Sorry,” Jen said. Willing the bus doors not to close, she fumbled in her purse and pulled out her wallet. “Let me pay you for those.” The minute she opened her wallet and found nothing there she remembered that she’d impulsively put her last three dollars in a Salvation Army bucket the day before. “I guess I don’t have any cash on me.”

The skinny woman scowled at her.

“If you’re gonna get off the bus, get off,” the driver called. “We have other stops to make.”

“I’m really sorry,” Jen said again. “Um, merry Christmas,” she added as she hobbled down the steps onto the curb.

Neither woman wished her a merry Christmas in return. In fact, the skinny one wished her something about as far from it as a girl could get. The doors shut and the bus lumbered off, shooting up a rooster tail of icy water and splashing her.

Bah, humbug.

* * *

It was the first week of December, and at Stacy Thomas’s house the stockings were hung by the chimney with care. They were lucky to find any place to hang because the mantel was already packed with greens and ribbons and candles, as well as brass letters spelling Peace.

And that was only the beginning of the holiday decorations. There was no room on the coffee table for coffee cups, due to the presence of Stacy’s nativity set, and her lighted Victorian village took up every inch of space on the buffet in the dining room. She still had to unpack the box with all the other candles, the candy dishes and the gingerbread man cookie jar, as well as the one with her holiday centerpiece. Then there was the bag with the Christmas quilt, the tub with all the wall hangings and the box containing her collection of Santa figurines. And then there were the two storage boxes of ornaments waiting to go on the tree....

“This is the last of it,” her husband, Dean, said as he set down the long box containing their artificial tree. “Thank God.” He wiped his damp brow and looked around him. “Do we really need all of this?”

“Of course we do!”

Stacy surveyed the pile of boxes in front of her. How was she going to get everything put up before her book club arrived? She wished they’d gotten the decorating done the day before. But the day before had been consumed with putting up all the outside lights and the yard art. It had been an exhausting team effort, and by the time she’d finished helping Dean she’d been too tired to even think about the inside of the house.

Tree trimming wasn’t quite as much fun as it had been when the kids were living at home. In fact, none of the decorating was. And taking everything down after the holidays was really not fun. But Ethan and Autumn would be back home in Icicle Falls for Christmas. They’d expect holiday razzle-dazzle.

“One of these days I’m going to keel over with a heart attack after lugging all this stuff around,” Dean grumbled.

“Oh, you’re much too strong for that,” Stacy assured him as he started to unpack the fake fir. “Really, Deano, I don’t know why you’re complaining. All you have to do is help me trim the tree and set up the train around it.”

“Don’t forget hauling down all these boxes.”

“The exercise is good for you,” she informed him, looking pointedly at his growing belly.

He tried unsuccessfully to suck it in. “I’m not that fat.”

That was exactly the same thing she told herself every time she looked in the mirror, but her hips had definitely spread. And at forty-six, those gray hairs were popping up among the blond ones like dandelions in a neglected yard. If not for Rory at Sleeping Lady Salon, she’d be in big trouble.

“We could both stand to lose a few pounds.” She sighed. “We should go on a diet.”

“Well, let’s not start now,” Dean said in horror. “It’s Christmas cookie season. And speaking of food, I’m hungry. Were we planning to fit dinner in somewhere between now and your book club?”

Dinner. She’d been so busy decorating she’d forgotten about that minor detail. “Let’s order a pizza from Italian Alps.”

“Good idea,” he said, pulling his cell phone out of his pants pocket.

“Make it quick, Deano. We need to get this tree done.” The thought of how lovely it would be with the little electric train running around it and presents spilling everywhere made her smile.

He shook his head. “With all the ornaments you’ve collected, that should take a millennium. I’m married to the pack rat of Icicle Falls,” he muttered as he searched for the number in his phone.

“Ha-ha,” she said irritably.

He came and put an arm around her. “I’m sorry, hon, but really, look at all the stuff you’ve collected. And you keep adding more. Pretty soon there isn’t going to be room in the house for us.”

“I don’t have that many Christmas decorations,” she protested.

“You’re kidding, right? And it’s not just Christmas stuff. Have you seen the attic lately?”

“Some of the things up there belong to the kids. And you.” Well, okay, most of them were things she’d acquired. She hurried on before he could point that out. “Anyway, when you’ve been married for twenty-five years you’re bound to end up with a lot.”

“Stace, you could load up a landfill with all the stuff you’ve got. My God, between the closet full of presents—”

“We have to have presents for the kids, and for Ethan’s new girlfriend. Anyway, I bought everything on sale,” Stacy said righteously.

“The material in Autumn’s old room.”

“I’m a quilter. I have to buy fabric.”

“The dishes. How many sets do you need, anyway?”

“One for every day, good china for special occasions. And we use those Christmas dishes every year.”

“And shoes.”

“A woman can never have too many shoes.”

“And purses.”

“A purse is an important accessory.”

“Clothes. You know there’s barely room in the closet for my clothes. And I don’t have that many. And don’t tell me I can put them in Ethan’s old room. I opened that closet the other day and a shopping bag full of bubble bath fell on me.”

That bubble bath had been a steal. Honestly, sometimes her husband had no idea how much money she saved him. “Maybe it was a cosmic hint to clean up your act, Mr. Scrooge,” Stacy said. “Anyway, it isn’t all for me. Most of that bubble bath is for Christmas presents.”

“How many people have you added to your Christmas list? You’ve got enough bubble bath to clean everyone in Icicle Falls. And their dogs.” He flopped on the couch, put in his call to Italian Alps and ordered a large pizza supreme.

“There. Feel better?” she taunted.

“I’d feel better if I could take all this junk to the dump.”

She opened the box with her collection of Santa figurines and took one out. “Someone’s being very naughty,” she told the ceramic Santa. “I think you need to bring him a lump of coal for Christmas.”

“Good. Something I can burn and get rid of,” he retorted.

Okay, enough was enough. “You know, you’re ruining my holiday spirit here. I’m trying to make our house look nice and you’re being a Grinch.”

He patted the couch cushion. “Come here and give your Grinch a kiss.”

“Will it help?”

He smiled, and she joined him on the couch for a kiss and another hug. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll try to un-Grinch myself. I love you,” he added, and kissed her again.

“And I love you, too.” But his attitude stank.

Besides, he didn’t have a clue about how important holiday decorating was. Or decorating in general. Those pretty things set the mood for fun. They were the backdrop for surprises and family togetherness. Without them it would be like watching a play take place on a barren stage. And that crack about the dishes? Come on. Using those Christmas dishes was part of what made everything so festive.

She glanced at the herd of boxes scattered around her living room. Okay, there was a lot of festivity here. Was she a pack rat?

Chapter Two

The first step toward positive change is acknowledging the need for that change.

—Muriel Sterling, author of Simplicity

By seven-thirty the Thomas residence looked like Christmas central. Most of the decorations were up and the rest had been stuffed in their daughter’s old bedroom, squeezed in with the piles of material and the quilt in progress. Dean was now ensconced in the TV room, grading tests for his eighth-grade English class, and Stacy was ready for her book club to arrive.

She set her artichoke dip and crackers on the dining room table next to the plate of brownies and the punch bowl full of eggnog, then stepped back to admire her handiwork. The table looked lovely if she did say so herself. Her centerpiece was simple—an elegant Fitz and Floyd pitcher shaped like Saint Nicholas and filled with red carnations she’d purchased at Lupine Floral and surrounded with holly taken from the bush in their backyard. Very festive, she thought with a smile. Every woman should own something by Fitz and Floyd.

The doorbell rang and she hurried to welcome the first arrival. There on the porch stood Cass Wilkes, bearing her signature contribution, a plate of gingerbread boys and girls. She and Stacy were close in age and, as with Stacy, Father Time and Mother Nature were conspiring to put extra pounds on Cass’s hips. Of course, owning a bakery probably contributed to the problem.

“You seem tired,” Stacy observed, stepping aside to let her in.

“Tired doesn’t begin to describe it,” Cass said, handing over the plate. “Every year I say I’m not going to be so busy, but every year I get busier. I’m up to my ears in orders for gingerbread houses. Both Amber and Willie want to have Christmas parties, which they expect me to bake for.” She shook her head. “I’ve got to get those two more at home in the kitchen. Dani was always my right-hand woman and I’m afraid I let it slide with the other two.”

Cass’s oldest daughter, Dani, had worked in the bakery with her for years. But when Dani married she’d moved away. It looked as if Cass was still trying to pick up the slack, both at work and at home. A business to run, two teenagers and a dog—no wonder she was tired.

“Speaking of Dani, how’s she doing?” Stacy asked.

Cass’s face lit up. “Great. She loves culinary school. And she and Mike are coming home for Christmas.” Cass sighed. “I hope I can manage to get my Christmas shopping done before they get here.”

“At least you don’t have a wedding to plan this year.”

“No, but my ex and his family had such a good time last year they’re all coming up for Christmas again.”

“Tell me they’re not staying with you.” Cass had wound up turning her house into a B and B for her ex-husband and his new wife when they came to town for her daughter’s wedding. Somehow, before she knew it, all her former in-laws had descended on her. They wound up having so much fun, they’d decided to stay on and celebrate the holiday at her place. Apparently they were making that a tradition now. Poor Cass.

“No,” Cass said. “This year I was smart enough to book ahead. They’re all staying at Icicle Creek Lodge. But the whole mob’s going to be at my place for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.”

She was still talking when Charlene Albach (Charley to her friends) arrived. Tall and slender in her stylish jeans and boots, her red wool coat and black beret, she could’ve been in a shoot for a winter edition of some magazine.

“Hey, gang,” she said, and gave Stacy a bottle of wine. She studied Cass a moment. “You look more tired every time I see you.”

“Nothing a week in the Caribbean wouldn’t fix,” Cass joked. “You look great as always. Love must agree with you.”

Stacy hoped so. She hadn’t known Charley before Juliet Gerard started the book club. She did know that Charley had endured a rough couple of years. Her skunk of a husband had left her for another woman, then returned last Christmas, asking her to try again. Stacy wasn’t sure what had happened. All she knew was that things hadn’t worked out, and he beat feet back to Seattle. On top of that her restaurant had burned down and she’d had to rebuild. But now the restaurant was better than ever. So was Charley’s love life.

Juliet came in right behind Charley.

“Speaking of tired,” Cass said to Juliet as the women moved into the living room. “You look like you could use a month’s sleep.”

Hardly surprising considering that Juliet had an eleven-month-old and was working part-time at Mountain Escape Books.

“Jon has a cold. We were up half the night.” Juliet walked into the living room and fell onto the couch. “Somebody should have warned me how much work babies are.”

Stacy and Cass exchanged smiles, two maternal warriors who had survived the early years. “I’d like to say it gets easier,” Cass said, “but my mama told me never to lie.”

“Where’s everyone else?” Juliet asked, glancing around.

“Cecily’s sick,” Stacy said. “And Chita called a few minutes ago to say she’s running late.”

“What about Dot?”

Dot was the senior member of the group. She was a chain-smoker with a smart mouth and everyone loved her. The fact that they forced themselves to eat the smoke-infested cookies she brought to their monthly meetings was proof of it.

“Dot’s dropping out.”

“Dropping out?” Cass echoed. “First Chelsea and now Dot.”

Juliet let out a sigh. “I can see why Chelsea gave up. She’s exhausted. And...” She paused, building anticipation.

Chelsea had been in the book club since the beginning and the members had been there for support when her clueless husband was driving her nuts. He’d finally figured out how to be both a good husband and a good father. So, with him helping so much at home, there could only be one reason Chelsea was too tired for book club.

“She’s pregnant,” Stacy guessed.

Juliet confirmed it.

“With two kids under the age of three, I don’t blame her,” Cass said. “But what’s Dot’s excuse?”

“She said she’s got too much on her plate.”

Cass rolled her eyes. “Oh, brother. What’s that got to do with anything?”

Dot was an inspiration to them all. In her sixties, she could run circles around almost everyone in the group. She owned Breakfast Haus, the town’s favorite breakfast restaurant, and was a member of the Chamber of Commerce. In addition to that, she led an active social life.

“I think it has more to do with the books we read,” Juliet said. “They’re not racy enough for her.”

Cass shook her head. “That’s our Dot. She probably wore her last husband out.”

“She’s had more than one?” asked Charley, who was still a relative newcomer to Icicle Falls.

“The first one...well, no one knows exactly what happened to him,” Cass replied.

Over the years Stacy had heard rumors but they’d seemed too fantastical to believe. Even though Dot was a tough old girl, it was hard to picture her bumping off her first husband.

“When I was a kid I remember Hildy Johnson telling my mom that she did him in,” Juliet said. “Hildy said she shot him but got off because it was self-defense.”

“I heard she poisoned him,” Cass said.

“Now, why didn’t I think of doing that?” Charley joked.

“Good thing you didn’t. You’d have been in jail instead of divorced and then you wouldn’t have met Mr. Wonderful,” Cass told her.

Dan Masters, who owned Masters Construction, had been the man in charge of rebuilding Charley’s restaurant after it burned down, but in the past year he’d been a major factor in the rebuilding of her life, as well. These days he hung out at the restaurant every night, and they were often seen at a corner table, sharing a piece of wild huckleberry pie. Most nights, after the restaurant was closed, his truck could be found parked in front of her house.

“True.” Charley casually pulled a black leather glove off her left hand and wiggled her fingers. A fat diamond winked.

“Whoa, check this out,” Cass said, moving to the couch where Charley had settled in order to get a better look. “That’s some sparkler.” She hugged Charley. “You deserve every karat. But, you little stinker, why didn’t you call me the minute it happened?”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t be awake at midnight last night.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Cass said. “When’s the wedding?”

“We’re thinking Valentine’s Day.”

“Wow, that doesn’t give you much time,” Stacy said.

“Tell me about it. But, hey, if Cass can throw together a great wedding in record time so can we.”

“I wouldn’t wish that madness on anyone,” Cass said. “I almost had a nervous breakdown.”

“We’re just going to have a small, simple wedding.”

Cass snorted. “That’s what Dani said.”

The doorbell rang and Stacy opened it to let in Chita Arness, their newest member. Chita was a thirtysomething single mom who looked like Jennifer Lopez. Why she hadn’t remarried was a mystery to Stacy. Chita claimed that between work and her two children she didn’t have time to date but Stacy wasn’t buying it. A woman could always find time for love.

“Sorry I’m late.” Chita handed over a plate with a cake on it that made Stacy’s mouth water. “My tres leches cake,” she said.

Brownies, gingerbread and cake—Stacy’s hips were going to explode. But she’d die with a smile on her face.

In addition to the cake, Chita brought two books—the Robyn Carr holiday tale they were discussing and what was probably her suggestion for their January selection, since it was her turn to choose.

She apologized again to the others as she entered the living room. “I had to pick up Hidalgo from the vet’s. And then, after dinner, Anna needed help with her math.”

Juliet shuddered. “Math. Eeew. When Jon reaches the point where he needs help I’m having him call his uncle Jonathan.”

“I wish we had an uncle to call,” Chita said, and sank into Stacy’s new armchair (Thanksgiving sale, forty percent off). She heaved a giant sigh. “I’m so tired. And I still have so much to do before Christmas. Enrico and his friends got into the cookies I just made and ate almost all of them. Now I have to bake some more before my sister’s cookie exchange on Saturday. Which I don’t want to go to.”

“Why?” Juliet asked.

“Because I don’t have time to party,” Chita replied. She ran a hand through her long, dark hair. “All I want to do this weekend is crawl into bed and stay there.”

“Bed and a good book,” Juliet said with a sigh.

“I wouldn’t be able to stay awake to read,” Chita said. “Even though I loved this month’s book. By the way, what gossip did I miss?”

“Oh, not much,” Charley said, waving her left hand around.

“Look at you!” Chita exclaimed. She grabbed Charley’s hand. “Oooh, that is some diamond.”

“He’s some man.” Charley smiled and proceeded to fill Chita in on the wedding details.

“Ah, I love weddings,” Chita said dreamily.

“Maybe there’s one in your future,” Stacy suggested.

“No time for a wedding. No time for a man,” Chita said firmly.

“You really need to rethink your priorities,” Charley teased as the women moved to the dining room table.

“Oooh, your homemade brownies,” Cass said. “These are the best.”

Stacy smiled, dismissing the compliment. She was no professional like Cass and she knew Cass was just being nice. Still, she was gratified by the praise. She liked to bake.

She also liked to entertain. She’d been happy to take over hosting the book club after Juliet had her baby. With the kids gone, the house seemed so empty. Homes should be filled with people and laughter.

And life should be filled with meaning and purpose. Stacy had to admit that when their daughter, the baby of the family, moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington in the fall, she’d lost her sense of purpose. Empty-nest syndrome—she never thought she’d experience it. She’d always kept busy with her home, her quilting and her volunteer activities.

She still had the volunteer work. She was on the Friends of the Library committee and was in charge of the monthly book sales. Between that and her quilting and church activities, she had enough to do. And yet she didn’t.

“This is a new chapter in your life,” Dean kept saying. “Now’s your chance to finally get out and explore your options.” He was right, of course, but she still found herself in a quagmire of indecision. Should she go back to school and finally finish her degree? After twenty years? Maybe not. She’d been more into boys and parties than studying when she was in college. She wasn’t sure she was college material.

She could get a job doing...something. Everyone worked these days. She’d worked in retail when she and Dean were first married and had enjoyed it, but now that she was older, going to work for someone didn’t sound all that appealing. The idea of starting her own business intrigued her but she had no idea what kind of business to start. What skills did she have other than baking and finding bargains on sale? And quilting. She supposed she could sell her quilts.

Except who would buy them? Most of the people she knew already had one of her quilts. Anyway, there were many women out there who turned out better work than she did. Her cousin Helen Ross could quilt circles around her.

“Everything looks so great,” Juliet said. “With all these pretty things, your house should be in a magazine,” she told Stacy.

Ha! Take that, Deano. “Tell that to my husband,” Stacy said.

“He doesn’t like your decorations?” Charley asked.

“He thinks we have too much stuff. But I don’t think I have too much,” Stacy added quickly before anyone could agree with Dean.

“I love looking at all of this,” Cass said, “but I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes putting it away in January.” She returned to the living room, sat down on the couch and searched in vain for a place to fit her cup of eggnog among the host of ceramic animals and people visiting the Holy Family. She ended up holding it and Stacy found herself wondering if she should’ve set out fewer camels.

“Sometimes our things can own us,” Chita said, making Stacy frown.

“That’s true. And pretty darned profound,” Cass told her.

If you asked Stacy, it sounded like something you’d hear on Dr. Phil.

“I didn’t think it up,” Chita said. “I read it.” She put her cup on the carpet, and then, balancing her plate on her lap, reached for the book she’d brought in. “I’d like us to read this for the new year.”

She passed it to Cass, who held it at arm’s length and squinted at the title. “Simplicity?”

“It’s not a novel,” Chita said.

“Oh.” Cass was obviously disappointed and handed it to Juliet.

“We just got this in at the bookstore,” Juliet explained. “It’s Muriel Sterling’s new book.”

“I love her books,” Charley said.

“This one is all about simplifying your life,” Chita told them. “She talks about discovering what’s important and learning to shed what isn’t.”

Was this some kind of decluttering, purge-your-closets book? Stacy felt herself squirming.

“You mean having fewer things?” Juliet asked.

“Having less, period. Less stuff to deal with, less stress, less craziness in your life. I’m only halfway through it but there are some really good ideas in here.”

“Well, it’s your pick.” Stacy knew her tone of voice probably betrayed that she was less than thrilled with the selection.

“I think it’ll be worthwhile,” Chita said. “I mean, we’re always talking about how busy we are.” She shot a look at Juliet. “And how tired.”

“This will only help me if it comes with a bottle of vitamins and a live-in nanny,” Juliet quipped. “But I’d love to read it.”

“And if it’s by Muriel we know it’s going to be worth reading,” Cass added.

Chita smiled. “I think this book could change our lives.”

Change. Stacy wasn’t fond of it...unless it was good and it was happening to her. And she wasn’t sure there was going to be anything all that good for her in this particular book.

“I think it’s a great pick for the new year,” Juliet said.

“Sounds great to me,” Charley said.

“Me, too,” said Cass.

“Me, too,” said Chita.

“Anyone want more eggnog?” Stacy asked.

Chapter Three

Life should be a joy, not a burden.

—Muriel Sterling, author of Simplicity

Jen was rushing down the street, late for lunch with her sister, when her cell phone rang. It was her friend Ariel.

“Hey, a bunch of us are going to try that new restaurant in Belltown Friday night. Want to come?”

A night out with the girls would have been a welcome change but... “I can’t. I have—”

“A candle party,” Ariel finished with her. “All you do is work. Nobody sees you anymore.”

“I know.” Boy, did she.

“I’m not sure why I bothered to call,” Ariel complained.

She was one of the few who did keep in touch. Most of Jen’s other so-called friends had given up. “I’m glad you did.”

Ariel gave a snort of disgust. “You’re in deep shit with Caroline for missing most of her bachelorette party.”

“I know, but I had—”

“A candle party. There’s more to life than work. And you’d better realize that before you don’t have any friends left.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Jen said. “Glad to see you’re so supportive.” And understanding. Not. She couldn’t help it if she had bills to pay and a failed starter marriage to recover from. And family obligations.

“You wanna talk supportive? Who got you through your divorce?” Ariel demanded. “Who hosted your first candle party?”

Actually, her sister had. She’d been there for Jen when she was going through her divorce, too, but this wasn’t the time to point that out. Anyway, she wasn’t the total scum girlfriend Ariel was making her out to be. “Yeah? Well, who’s always been your designated driver whenever you wanted to go out dancing and get drunk?”

“Saint Jen, who I guess is now too good for her old friends.”

“I’m just busy!”

“If you’re too busy for your friends, you’re too busy,” Ariel snapped, and ended the call.

Jen stared at her phone in disbelief. What was that? Had Ariel just dumped her over the phone?

The clock on her phone screen told her she didn’t have time to stand around trying to figure it out.

Late. It seemed as if she was constantly running to something, constantly trying to catch up with her own life. But, like a dog chasing its tail, she never seemed to. She picked up her pace.

“So you finally got here,” her older sister, Toni Carlyon, greeted her as Jen approached their table at the Pink Door in Seattle’s Post Alley.

“I’m lucky I could get away at all.” Jen took in the antipasto platter sitting on the table. “Aw, you ordered my prosciutto.” She hugged Toni, then settled in her chair and snagged a slice of meat.

“Of course,” Toni said. “I always watch out for you, baby sister.”

Watching out for and bossing around were synonymous in her sister’s mind, but Jen let it slide. Bossiness was unavoidable when your sister was five years older than you. This lunch was a command performance, and Jen suspected she’d be getting a sisterly lecture along with the meal Toni had offered to buy her.

She could feel her sister’s eyes on her as she gave the waitress her order.

“You look like death on a stick,” Toni said once the waitress was gone. “Mom’s right. You are going too hard.”

Jen opened her mouth to say, “I am not.” Instead, she said, “I hate my life,” and burst into tears.

Toni set her glass of wine in front of Jen. “Drink this.”

“I have to go back to work,” Jen protested.

“Drink it, anyway.”

Jen managed to stem the tears enough to take a sip of wine.

“Jen-Jen, you’ve got to stop doing so much,” Toni scolded. “Start saying no.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Think like that old Nike commercial and just do it.”

Easy for Toni to say. Yes, she was busy with her husband and her children, but when it came to work she could set her own hours. Toni wrote for women’s magazines, focusing primarily on family issues. If she didn’t feel like working she could take a day off, go to the gym, maintain her size-six bod, touch up her blond highlights.

Jen had given up on highlights. She hadn’t been to the gym in months and she wouldn’t be able to take a day off until...2043. “I can’t,” she wailed. Now diners at the other tables were staring at her. She gulped down some more wine.

“You take on too much, Jen-Jen,” Toni said. “Tell your idiot supervisor to plan the rest of the office Christmas party without you.”

Right. “You would never last in corporate America,” Jen retorted.

“At the rate you’re going you’re not going to last, either,” Toni said. “You don’t have time for your friends anymore and you barely have time for your family. That’s not you.”

Toni had a point. “I don’t know what to do,” Jen confessed. “Every time I look at my calendar I want to run away from my life.”

“Have you finished the book I gave you yet?” Toni asked.

“No. I keep falling asleep.” Jen shook her head. “Pathetic. I used to love to read.” Heck, she used to love to do all kinds of things. She used to love going out with the girls on the spur of the moment or catching a movie, walking around Green Lake with a friend on a sunny day. Or...breathing. She barely had time for that these days. “Sometimes I wish I could sell the condo and move to a small town somewhere and just start over. Maybe write a book.” She’d always wanted to try her hand at writing...something. These days it seemed as if everyone was writing a book so it couldn’t be that hard.

“I’ve heard life is slower in a small town,” Toni said, “but I don’t believe it. These days everybody’s busy. But certain somebodies are busier than others. Too busy,” she added, raising an eyebrow at Jen.

“If you think I want to be running around like a roadrunner on speed you’re crazy,” Jen informed her, “but I have to. I’ve got bills to pay.” Obviously, her friends didn’t get that.

“That’s the American way,” Toni said with a frown. “I wish I could help you out but my car’s on its last legs and we found out yesterday that Jeffrey’s going to need braces. It’ll be a few months before our budget adjusts to the shock.”

“I wouldn’t dream of taking money from you, anyway. But if we had a rich uncle I’d have no qualms taking some from him.” Jen sighed. “Working two jobs is getting old. You know, sometimes I wish I’d been born in a simpler time, when people weren’t so busy.”

“You can’t go back. Sometimes I’d like to, though. I watched this old movie the other night about a family living during the Depression and I felt downright jealous.”

“Of people living in the Depression?”

“Not of the money thing. It was all that family togetherness that got to me.” Toni rolled her eyes. “Even when my family’s together, we’re not. Jeffrey’s off in his room playing games on his computer, Jordan’s always texting. Wayne’s on his laptop, doing work. I hate it. Oh, and there’s another expense. Jordan told me last night that she lost her cell phone.”

There was a fate worse than death, if you asked Jen. She couldn’t imagine being without hers. “Part of me would just as soon not replace it.”

Jen couldn’t help smiling. “Mom would agree with that.” Their mother had never been shy about expressing her opinion regarding kids and cell phones.

“Yeah, yeah. We didn’t have cell phones when we were kids and we were fine. But it’s a different world now.” Toni reclaimed her wineglass and took a sip. “I’d never admit this to Mom, but sometimes I wonder if all our technology has really made our lives better.” She fiddled with the stem of her glass. “Sometimes I worry that...” She paused and bit her lip. “My family is drifting apart.”

“Of course it’s not,” Jen said, and shied away from the image of a very bored Jordan trailing them through the gingerbread house exhibit a couple of weeks before, texting her friends at every opportunity. When Jordan was little she’d loved going out with the big girls. Now that she was thirteen, not so much. But, Jen reminded herself, she hadn’t been excited to hang out with the adults when she was that age, either.

“Oh, well,” Toni said. “That’s enough downer talk. Let’s figure out what we’re getting Mom for Christmas.”

Talking about Christmas plans should have lifted Jen’s spirits, but only served to sic her to-do list on her and make her edgy. She hurried through lunch, gave her sis a quick hug and then speed-walked back toward the Columbia Center building.

When she got halfway there, she stopped in midstride. What was she doing? Why was she running like a gerbil on a wheel? She didn’t want to go back to work. She wasn’t going to go back to work.

She whipped out her cell phone and called her supervisor. “Patty, I’ll be at home for the rest of the day.”

“Are you okay?” Patty asked, concern in her voice.

She was probably just concerned about whether Jen had found a caterer for the office party yet.

“I’m sick. It must’ve been something I had at lunch,” Jen improvised. No lie, really. She’d had something at lunch that made her sick—a conversation about her life. She needed a break and she needed it right now.

“Okay, well, feel better soon,” Patty said. “Let us know if you’re not going to make it in tomorrow.”

The only way Jen was going to feel better was if she got a new life. She went home, flipped on her faux fireplace and settled under a blanket on the couch with the book her sister had given her, starting with page one. Again.

When was the last time you enjoyed your life?

“My honeymoon,” Jen muttered. No, wait. She’d enjoyed her life since then. She’d enjoyed it...the first week after she bought the condo, when she was spending money she didn’t have to furnish the place. The fun had lasted until she saw the credit card bill.

If it’s been a while, then chances are you’re due for a change.

Well, there was an understatement. Jen read on, learning about the author’s big life change, how she’d lost her second husband and had to start over. Left to figure out her finances and the rest of her life, Muriel Sterling had sold her big house that she owed a fortune on and rented a friend’s cottage.

It wasn’t easy letting go of that house. It represented so much—the new life I’d begun with my second husband, security, happiness. But I quickly learned that two stories of wood and stone don’t make a life. And owing money on that place certainly didn’t make me secure. What I needed was freedom, not merely from debt but from the past and from my unrealistic expectations. I needed to be free to start again.

Free to start again, huh? Jen read on.

And so I ask you now, do you need to start over? The only way to do that is to get free.

Get free? She’d just bought this place. But did she own it or did it own her?

She shut the book and looked around her living room. Her couch was white leather and had a matching beaded chair. Her Beckworth coffee table, handcrafted from exotic demolition hardwoods, was her pride and joy. It hadn’t been cheap but she loved it. Her decorations were from Crate and Barrel. They hadn’t been cheap, either, and she had the high credit card balance to prove it. She really liked this living room. She especially liked the fireplace. Her parents’ house didn’t have one and she’d always been taken with the romantic image of reading by a cozy fire on a cold day. And even though the fire going right now was electric, it was still pretty, and it gave her living room the perfect finishing touch. Except she rarely had a chance to enjoy it.

She really liked her bedroom, too, which she’d dolled up with a vintage brass bed, a pink comforter and a spectacular multicolored gypsy chandelier. It should have been a retreat, a place for sweet dreams, but often she tossed and turned on that vintage bed, thinking about everything she had to do.

The kitchen was another work of art and she enjoyed looking at its sleek granite countertops. But she hardly ever cooked in there.

She gazed out the window at the Seattle skyline. Buildings everywhere and gray skies.

“What am I doing here?” she asked herself.

* * *

Toni was up to her eyebrows in gift bags and wrapping paper when her sister called. “Hey, I was beginning to think you’d run away,” Toni said. “I haven’t heard from you since we had lunch.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“What a surprise.”

“What are you doing this weekend?” Jen asked, ignoring her sarcasm.

“With ten days to go until Christmas? Shopping.” Most of her shopping had been done by November, but she still had a few last-minute things to purchase.

“Want to go shopping in Icicle Falls?”

“What?”

“I want to check out Icicle Falls. We can go up Friday and spend the night. Come back late Saturday.”

Toni wasn’t spontaneous. She was a planner, and she had her weekend all planned. She was going to the gym on Friday, then out to dinner that night with her husband. Wayne was a programmer and sometimes it seemed he was married to his computer instead of her. But come Friday, they were going to have a romantic night out whether he wanted to or not. She’d already told him to program that into his computer. Then Saturday she’d finish up her shopping.

“I can’t go until after Christmas.”

“Come on. Please? My treat.”

“You can’t afford to treat.”

“Okay, we can go halfsies, then we can both afford it.”

Toni propped the phone between her shoulder and her ear and set to work, using a pair of scissors to curl the ribbon on the package she’d finished wrapping. “Why are you suddenly in such a tear to go to Icicle Falls?”

“Because I think I might want to move there.”

Toni dropped the scissors. “What? What are you talking about? You just bought a condo!”

“I know. And now it’s on the market. My Realtor is holding an open house this weekend.”

All right. Spontaneous was one thing, but this was crazy. “You can’t put your place up for sale just like that,” Toni protested.

“Yes, I can,” Jen said, her tone of voice deceptively sane.

“No. You can’t. You don’t have any equity built up. You won’t make a cent.”

“I don’t need to make anything. I need to get free of my debt. Never mind the cheese, let me out of the trap.”

Toni frowned. That didn’t sound like something her sister would say. “What’s this all about, anyway?” And then she remembered. The book. She groaned. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me.”

“Don’t tell you what?”

“You read the book I gave you.”

“Isn’t that why you gave it to me? And yes, I did, and it made perfect sense.”

“That was to help you prioritize your life, learn how to be less busy.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Jen said. “I’m shedding all the things that have been complicating my life and holding me down.”

“I didn’t give you that book so you could go off half-cocked, sell your place and move to the mountains.” She’d only wanted her little sister to learn to say no, to manage her time better. She should’ve known this would happen. This was such a Jen thing to do.

“I don’t know if I’m going to move to the mountains yet. I’m taking this slowly, checking it out.”

“Slowly? You read a book and two weeks later your place is up for sale!”

“Okay, fine. If you don’t want to go...”

“Oh, no. You’re not going up there without me,” Toni said firmly. Who knew what her sister would do if left to her own devices? “I’ll pick you up Friday at eleven, after I’m done at the gym.” The romantic Friday night dinner with her husband would have to wait. Right now she had to keep her sister from simplifying her life with a new complication.

And so that Friday afternoon the sisters were on their way to the quaint Washington town of Icicle Falls. Nestled in the Cascades, it was the ideal place...to visit.

“Why up here in the mountains? Why Icicle Falls?” Toni demanded.

“That’s where Muriel Sterling lives.”

“Muriel Sterling?”

“You know, the woman who wrote Simplicity. I read it in her bio on the back of the book.” Jen frowned. “Sometimes I wonder if you even read that book.”

Of course she’d read it. That was why she’d given it to her sister. Now Toni wished she’d never heard of it.

“So, on a whim you decided you want to live there?”

“I’ve been looking it up on the internet,” Jen said. “Did you know the town sponsors a yearly chocolate festival?”

“Well, there’s a reason to move.”

Jen matched her sarcasm with a grin. “I thought so.”

“This is nuts,” Toni said, frowning at her sister.

“Hey, watch the road.”

“Don’t worry. I can drive in the snow. And the Outback has all-wheel drive and snow tires. We’re fine.” She shook her head. “But listen to you. We’re on the highway and the snow’s hardly sticking and you’re already nervous. You hate driving in this stuff, so you’re moving to the mountains? That doesn’t make sense.”

“I hate driving in the snow in Seattle, which is all hills,” Jen corrected.

“This, in case you didn’t notice, isn’t a hill. It’s a mountain.”

“It’s a highway and you just assured me we’re safe.”

Toni sighed. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Aiding and abetting her sister in her insanity—what was she thinking? I must be crazy, too.

But once they hit the town she could understand why her sister had wanted to come here.

“Look how cute this is,” Jen said, gazing out the window at the Bavarian architecture of the shops as they drove down Center Street.

The downtown was cute, Toni had to admit, and especially with everything all decorated for the holidays. The old-fashioned streetlamps were bedecked with fat, red bows and greenery, the trees were strung with lights waiting to bloom come evening. The town was surrounded by glorious mountain peaks frosted with snow. So were the rooftops here in town. It all made Toni think of gingerbread houses.

“Let’s check in and then come back and shop,” Jen suggested.

That sounded fine to Toni and they drove to the Icicle Creek Lodge.

“Oh, my,” Jen breathed as they pulled up in front of the rustic, old place.

It looked the way a mountain lodge should—large, rough-timbered and accented with stone. The sweeping lawn was thick with snow. A trio of children, probably staying there, was busy taking advantage of the white stuff and building a snowman. Inside, the lobby was done up to the nines for the holidays with greens and ribbon and little twinkle lights everywhere. And in the center of the lobby sat an old-fashioned sleigh, piled with presents. Somewhere, someone was roasting nuts and the aroma filled the place.

Toni could envision bringing her family up here for a holiday vacation. Jordan would love this.

Well, maybe. Jordan would have loved it a couple of years ago. These days she didn’t enjoy doing much of anything with her family. Dad was mean, Mom didn’t understand and Jeffrey was stupid and a pest. Sigh.

Their room was all charm—wood paneling, two double beds with white down comforters, a view out the window that took Toni’s breath away. It would be so easy to fall under the spell of this place.

Jen joined her at the window. “Gorgeous, isn’t it?”

Oh, no. Jen couldn’t afford to fall. “Great place to vacation,” Toni said, hoping her sister would get the message.

“It might be a good place to live.”

Living here would feel like stepping inside a storybook. But her sister had some real-life issues to deal with. “You have a place in Seattle you haven’t sold.”

Jen frowned. “You don’t have to remind me.”

“Yeah, I do.” Someone had to keep Jen in line. Toni felt a sudden respect for Jiminy Cricket. Keeping someone out of trouble who was always bent on diving in nose-first was not a simple task. “I don’t want to see you put the cart before the horse.”

“I’m just looking. Remember? Come on, let’s go check out some of the shops.”

Jen had been right about the shops. The first one they walked into sold imported lace goods and teapots, and within ten minutes Toni had purchased a lace tablecloth for their grandmother. And a holiday table runner from Germany for herself.

That was only the beginning of the shopping spree. After that she went on to buy novelty hats for both her kids in the hat shop, several ornaments for the tree in a shop that specialized in all things Christmas and a box of chocolates from Sweet Dreams, the town’s chocolate company.

Jen purchased some, too. “For later tonight,” she said. She gave Toni’s arm a sisterly hug. “Isn’t this fun? Aren’t you glad you came?”

“I am,” Toni admitted. Who didn’t enjoy girl time and shopping? And everyone here was so darned friendly. Even she was beginning to harbor dreams of moving to Icicle Falls, ogling the beautiful scenery and stuffing her face with chocolate. “But remember, I have to be back by six tomorrow evening,” she told both her sister and herself. “Wayne and I have reservations for seven.” She was still determined to get in that dinner with her husband. They were going to be romantic if it killed them.

“Hey,” Jen said, stopping in front of Mountain Meadows Real Estate. She studied the pictures of homes for sale displayed on the window and her eager smile fell away. “Prices up here aren’t cheap, are they?”

“Looks like real estate has held its value,” Toni said. Another plus for residents of the town, but Jen couldn’t afford those prices. “Of course, these are houses. Condos might be less.” What was she saying?

“Good point. Let’s go in and find out what’s available,” Jen said, starting for the door.

Toni held her back. “Come on, Jen-Jen, let’s just have fun this weekend and leave it at that. You really shouldn’t even be looking until your place is sold.”

“It can’t hurt to look,” Jen insisted, and went in.

“Yeah, it could,” Toni muttered, and followed her inside.

Once in the office, the woman on duty was happy to show Jen what they had in her price range...which wasn’t much.

“None of those condos were as nice as what I have in Seattle,” Jen said as they left the office.

“Then maybe you should stay put.”

Jen frowned. “I really want to change my life.”

“That’s all well and good, but what would you live on if you moved up here? You work in Seattle. Remember?”

“I saw help-wanted signs in a couple of windows. I could find a job in town.”

“Oh, yeah. You’d make a lot of money working in some shop,” Toni scoffed.

“You don’t need a lot of money to live simply,” Jen told her. “That’s what Muriel Sterling says.”

“Muriel Sterling has never gone shopping with you.”

Jen didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled her cell phone from her coat pocket and began to surf the internet.

“Great,” Toni muttered, “I feel like I’m back home with my daughter, being ignored. What are you doing now?”

“I just had a thought.”

“What kind of thought?” What was Jen up to?

“Maybe I could rent something.”

“You don’t want to have nothing to show for your money but rent receipts,” Toni protested.

“Not down the road. But for right now, it might be nice to rent. No responsibility. If there’s a problem, the landlord fixes it.”

Toni shook her head. “I think you’re nuts.”

Jen held her phone out. There on the screen was the picture of a cottage with wisteria climbing up the front porch railing and along the roof. “That’s cute. And look at the price.”

“For that price there must be something wrong with it.”

“Well, I’m going to call and ask about it.”

From a nice condo to a teensy house in the mountains—her sister really had lost her marbles. “I wish I’d never given you that book,” Toni said.

Jen ignored her. “Hi, I’m calling about your ad on Homelist. Is that house still for rent? Great. I’d like to see it. Tomorrow morning? Yes, I can do that. Ten? Perfect.” Jen ended the call and smiled as if she’d accomplished something important. “We’re all set. The owner will meet us there.”

“Just remember. You’re only looking,” Toni cautioned.

“Of course,” Jen agreed.

The next morning when they pulled up to the place, Jen quickly slid from looking down that slippery slope into lusting. “Oh, it’s adorable!”

Yes, Toni had to concede, with its white shutters and little front porch it was darling. Camped out at the end of a long scenic road, it sat on a large lot surrounded by pine and various fir trees and came complete with a snow-capped roof. Some kind of tree, possibly a fruit tree, occupied a corner of the lot. But the place was tinier than Jen’s condo.

“It’s not very big,” Toni pointed out.

“There’s only me. I don’t need a big place,” Jen said, and climbed out of the SUV.

She’s going to do something crazy, Toni thought. Was it too late to demand that Jen hand over her checkbook?

A big black truck drove up and parked in front of them and out of it stepped a six-foot hunk of dark-haired gorgeous. Toni forgot about getting her sister’s checkbook. For a moment she even forgot she had a husband and a romantic dinner waiting for her in Seattle. By the time she remembered, Jen and the hunk had shaken hands and were halfway up the walk.

“Jen, wait,” she called, and hurried after them. But she knew she was too late.

Chapter Four

Never be afraid to start again.

—Muriel Sterling, author of Simplicity

Garrett Armstrong was the owner of this cottage. That meant he’d be Jen’s landlord? She’d take it. No wedding ring on his left hand. She’d take him, too.

Don’t be in a rush, she warned herself. She’d been there, done that. Serge had been a big, hormone-fueled mistake and she didn’t need that kind of heartbreak again. One romantic misstep equaled a starter marriage, but two equaled no brains. She was going to be smart the next time around and pick a man who had his act together. No more falling for a pretty face.

But, oh, what a pretty face this guy had—dark eyes, square manly chin, big shoulders.

You’re here for the house. Oh, yeah. That.

“Where are you from?” he asked as they walked up the little path to the cabin.

“Seattle.”

“Where people have neighbors,” Toni added, an oh-so-unsubtle reminder that Jen was a city girl.

“I’m sure there are neighbors here somewhere,” Jen said.

“There are,” Garrett assured her. “They’re half a mile down the road.”

“Well, that’ll be handy if you want to borrow a cup of sugar,” Toni said with a sneer.

“So I’ll stock up on sugar.” Jen sent her a look that said, “Shut up already.”

She shut up, but scowled in disapproval.

“Anyway, this is only a few minutes from town,” Jen mumbled.

“You’re moving over here for...?” he asked.

A chance for my eggs to meet a nice sperm. “I’m simplifying my life,” Jen said.

He nodded. “Always a good idea.”

“Right now she’s just looking around, getting ideas,” put in Toni, and it was all Jen could do not to kick her.

Garrett the Gorgeous frowned.

Jen could hardly blame him. No doubt he had better things to do than waste his time with someone who wasn’t really interested in renting his place. Was there someone in his life he was doing those better things with? Not that she was rushing into anything. She was just wondering. And wondering wasn’t rushing.

“I’m definitely interested in renting up here,” she said, sending her sister’s mouth slipping even farther down at the corners. “Do you have cable? Wi-Fi?”

“Just got it,” he said.

“That’s great.” Jen wanted to live simply, not primitively.

Then they went inside and she came to a complete, startled stop.

“Oh,” Toni said faintly from behind her.

Oh, didn’t begin to cover it. The cottage’s inside definitely didn’t match its cute exterior. It was one level and that consisted of a great room (well, sort of great) that included a kitchen, a dining area with a rickety wooden table and four equally rickety chairs and living room furniture that no self-respecting thrift store would accept. A tiny hallway scooted past the kitchen, probably leading to the bedrooms and bathroom. The place smelled musty and Jen wrinkled her nose.

Garrett must have noticed because he said, “It’s been closed up for a while. All it needs is a good fire in the woodstove.”

The woodstove was a bonus, she had to admit. Once she imported her furniture and hung some nice curtains at the windows, the living area would look totally different. She moved toward the kitchen, half the size of the one she had at the condo. The cabinets were old and battered, but they could have a second life if she painted them white.

Nothing would make those mustard-yellow Formica counters anything but disgusting, though. Jen pushed away the image of her spiffy granite counters in the condo. Instead, she pictured herself setting out freshly baked bread, making this kitchen homey with a mason jar full of wildflowers on the counter. There was enough room there to work. She could master the art of making pies, can fruit.

Speaking of fruit... “What kind of tree is that in the front yard?” she asked.

“Apple.”

“Home-canned applesauce,” she said dreamily.

He seemed impressed. “You know how to can?”

“I’m going to learn.”

Toni was standing by the window now. “Is it my imagination or is the floor slanting over here?”

“The foundation settled,” Garrett explained.

“I’ll bet that’s what they said about the leaning tower of Pisa,” Toni muttered.

Jen started down the hall. “So, two bedrooms, right?”

“That’s right,” he said.

“One for me and one for guests. You and Wayne and the kids can come visit,” she said to Toni, who was falling in behind them.

“It might get a little crowded with four of us in one bed.”

“The sofa’s a sleeper,” said Jen’s would-be landlord.

“Mmm,” Toni responded diplomatically.

Jen knew what she was thinking. The ratty, old brown couch would have to be fumigated before she’d let her children sleep on it.

They stopped at the first bedroom, furnished with twin beds covered in ancient brown bedspreads with big orange flowers that must’ve been hanging out in there since the seventies. “I suppose this is the guest room,” Toni said, her tone of voice speaking volumes.

“It’s not bad,” Jen insisted.

“The other bedroom is here,” Garrett said, leading the way to the next room. He was beautiful to follow, broad-shouldered and tall with a stare-worthy butt.

He opened the door and Jen peeked into the room and got a pleasant surprise. Lace curtains hung at the windows. Yes, they needed washing, but they were pretty, nonetheless. There, in the middle of the room, sat a double bed with a carved headboard and a beautiful quilt, done in shades of pink. Matching oak nightstands flanked it. Against another wall stood an antique oak dresser complete with beveled mirror.

“This is so sweet,” she said.

“The bedroom set was my grandmother’s,” Garrett told her.

“Did she make the quilt?”

“As a matter of fact, she did.”

“Is she still alive?”

He shook his head. “No. But my other grandmother is. She lives here in Icicle Falls.”

“It’s important to be close to family.” Toni gave Jen a meaningful look.

“This isn’t that far from Seattle,” Jen said.

“But it’ll feel like it is if you get snowed in,” Toni retorted.

“Most of us manage to get around okay in the snow,” Garrett said.

Jen thought about how poorly she drove in the stuff. Only the year before she’d slid backward down Eleventh Avenue in Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill neighborhood after a rare snowfall. She’d been afraid to venture out in her car ever since. But it was all level around here. Surely she could handle that. Anyway, they seemed to keep the roads clear.

“This is charming,” she said, glancing around the room, which was paneled with cedar. Two pictures of flowers hung on the wall. Everything about the room said family and love. If she moved into this cottage, she was sure she’d be embraced by the warm memories haunting it. “In fact, this whole place has potential. I’ll take it.”

Her sister stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “What she means,” Toni began.

“Is that I’ll take it,” Jen said firmly, pulling out her checkbook.

He nodded. “I’ll have to do a routine credit check.”

“No problem. My credit’s good,” Jen told him.

“Which is more than I can say for your brain,” Toni hissed as they preceded him out of the room. “What are you thinking?”

“That this place is perfect for living the simple life.”

Toni groaned.

“If you need time to decide...” Garrett said from behind them.

“Yes, she does,” Toni said even as Jen said, “No, I don’t.” They glared at each other.

Jen wrote him a check for a deposit and gave him her contact information, and he said he’d be in touch.

Then there was nothing left to do but say goodbye and go back to the car. With her disapproving sister.

“You have lost your mind,” Toni said the moment Garrett and his gorgeous behind were back inside his truck.

“That’s probably what they told the Wright brothers when they invented the airplane. Or Walt Disney when he came up with the idea for Disneyland.”

“You’re not inventing anything. And this idea isn’t practical. What if your condo doesn’t sell?”

That was an unpleasant thought. Jen pushed it resolutely away. “Then I’ll lose my deposit.”

Toni’s angry expression softened. “Jen-Jen, I’m not trying to rain on your parade. You’ve got to know that. I just don’t want to see you jump from the frying pan into the fire. I worry about you.”

That made Jen smile. Yes, her sister could be a bossy pain in the patootie. But she cared. Jen reached across the car and hugged Toni. “And I love you for it.” She drew back so they were face-to-face. “I realize this seems crazy to you, but I’ve got a feeling that it’s going to be good for me, that it’s exactly what I need. Maybe I’m wrong but I’m willing to take a chance. I can’t keep going on like I’m doing. I hate my life.”

Toni sighed. “I know. I’m worried you’re going to wind up hating it even more.”

“If this doesn’t work out, I can always move back to Seattle. And if it does work out, you can come up for the chocolate festival and stay with me,” Jen added with a grin.

“After you get those beds fumigated,” Toni said with a shudder.

* * *

The image of Jen Heath accompanied Garrett Armstrong as he drove to his mom’s to pick up his son who’d been staying with Grammy while Garrett worked his shift at the fire station. With her strawberry-blond hair and those freckles, Jen was about the cutest thing he’d seen in a long time. A woman who wanted to do old-fashioned stuff like make applesauce? Man, he didn’t know that kind of woman existed anymore.

His ex sure hadn’t been interested in anything domestic. And she’d proved it by letting Garrett be the custodial parent while she settled for having their son every other weekend.

When he’d first met Ashley, he’d found her party-girl attitude exciting. She was a huge flirt and she’d dance anywhere at the drop of a hat—the dance floor of the Red Barn, tabletops, his lap. Oh, yeah, the sex had been incredible. She was blonde, beautiful and the hottest thing he’d ever handled and he’d just had to have her. He’d rushed to marry her before anyone else could steal her away.

His dad hadn’t told him what to do since he turned eighteen, but his mother had been a different story. “That woman’s going to break your heart,” she’d cautioned. “Don’t do it.”

Of course he hadn’t listened, because he’d figured that by twenty-six he knew everything. So he and Ashley had the big blowout wedding and a honeymoon in the Caribbean that ate up all his savings and then came home to settle down in Icicle Falls. Only one of them had settled down, though. Ashley never quite got the concept of home, sweet home. She’d much preferred to make herself at home at a restaurant or club. And she’d never let Garrett’s work schedule keep her from going out. That was what girlfriends were for.

They hadn’t planned on getting pregnant but once they were, she seemed to get into parenthood. She enjoyed the baby showers and all the preparation for the baby (probably because it involved spending money). But after she had Timmy, she quickly tired of staying home being a mom. She jumped from one crazy thing to another— redecorating the house (more spending), going out with her girlfriends, taking line dancing lessons at the Red Barn (and having an affair with her dance instructor). That roll in the hay had spelled the end as far as Garrett was concerned, and that had been fine with her. According to Ashley, he was a controlling stick-in-the-mud.

Garrett liked being stuck in the mud just fine. Anything was better than the emotional roller coaster he’d ridden with Ashley for the past few years. And because they had a son, he still had to deal with her. Whenever Timmy spent the weekend at her place, he came home a handful, testing boundaries and wondering why, when Grammy babysat him, he couldn’t have pizza for breakfast.

And then there was the matter of money. Ashley seemed to think they were still married and she could hit him up anytime she needed a fresh infusion of cash.

He was already paying her a hefty support check every month as part of the divorce settlement so she could go to school and train for a career. As to what kind of career, she was still vague. Hardly surprising. Ashley seemed to be permanently stalled at the age of sixteen. He was willing to bet she cut more classes than she attended. And, of course, she wasn’t working. Why work when you could get money from your stupid ex-husband?

She always needed extra money for something. The requests ranged from books to new pans. All of Icicle Falls knew about the pans, since she’d announced in the middle of Hearth and Home that he’d left her so broke she couldn’t afford any. Right. He was the one who couldn’t afford pans. He was using some his mother had given him. The others he’d purchased at the Kindness Cupboard, the town’s thrift store.

Her latest ploy had been new clothes for Timmy. That one he wasn’t about to let her get away with. He was the custodial parent and his mom bought Timmy’s clothes. “I want to take him shopping,” Ashley had whined. “But if you can’t come up with a few bucks, I’m sure Timmy will understand. Daddy has other things to spend his money on than his son.”

“Don’t even try to pull that crap on me,” he’d growled.

But she had. As usual, in the end, he’d caved.

He was done caving now. He had to stop letting her use him as her own personal ATM. She was killing him.

It would help his bank account if he got this renter into the cottage his great-uncle had recently left him. It would also help if Ashley found some other sucker to marry. Surely there was someone in Icicle Falls stupid enough to do that. Maybe Billy Williams, whom she’d been seen with at the Red Barn. Except he wouldn’t wish Ash on his worst enemy, let alone poor old Bill Will.

“I wish you’d never met that woman,” his mother often complained.

Well, that made two of them. Between the money and the 2:00 a.m. calls when she was tipsy and “just wanted to talk,” he was paying big-time for his hormone-induced insanity.

He’d learned his lesson, though. At thirty-two he was older and wiser. He was never getting involved with a flake again. His kid needed stability, and the next woman he picked was going to be someone stable, someone who had her act together.

Like Tilda Morrison. They’d gone out a couple of times and he liked her. She was buff and tough and she wouldn’t take any shit from a kid who was misbehaving. She probably wouldn’t take any shit from a misbehaving ex-wife, either. He enjoyed playing racquetball at Bruisers with her and he appreciated her no-nonsense approach to life.

But it wasn’t Tilda he kept thinking about as he drove to his mom’s. What was the story with Jen Heath?

Chapter Five

The to-dos on our list aren’t always what we need to do.

—Muriel Sterling, author of Simplicity

Chita Arness only wanted one thing from Santa— some time to herself. She had no idea how she was going to simplify her life if she didn’t even have a couple of hours to finish reading a book on simplifying it. She’d said as much to Cass when they ran into each other in Johnson’s Drugs.

“I hear you,” Cass had said. “Being a single parent isn’t for sissies.”

Especially being a single parent this time of year, Chita thought as she’d left the drugstore. Christmas was right around the corner, waiting to pounce on her. Her shopping wasn’t done, the house was a mess and her washing machine was dying. Her work week at Sweet Dreams Chocolates was over, but the work at home was just beginning.

“When are we going to make pasteles?” Anna greeted her when she walked in the door.

“Oh, baby, give me time to get my coat off,” she pleaded. She thanked Cass’s daughter, Amber, who’d been her after-school babysitter for the past few months, and sent her on her way.

“We didn’t make them last year and you promised we would this year,” Anna persisted.

“Maybe Abuelita will make them with you.” She always hated to ask her mother for favors, though. Not that her mother wasn’t happy to come over from Yakima and spend a day helping out, but her assistance carried a price. Whenever Chita put out an SOS, Consuela Medina couldn’t seem to stop herself from observing how much easier Chita’s life would’ve been if only she’d married Danny Rodriguez instead of that gringo.

“Danny would never have broken your heart,” her mother liked to say.

“Yeah, well, Danny’s been on unemployment for the past eighteen months. I’d still be working just as hard,” Chita liked to retort.

That usually ended the conversation.

Anyway, work was part of life. What Chita had to do was figure out how to balance it with the demands of two children and a dachshund who had a penchant for eating things he shouldn’t, like bottle caps, crayons, Lego bricks and shoelaces (the reason for their last visit to the vet).

“I want you to make them with me,” Anna said, bringing Chita back into the moment. “You never do anything with me.”

Guilt and manipulation, a girl’s best friend. Anna must have learned that from her grandmother. Consuela was an expert. “You have to go to your sister’s cookie exchange. She’ll be hurt if you don’t. Family is important.”

Chita thought of the pile of laundry, the cleaning that needed to be done, the shopping she had to finish and the packages she had to wrap before the big Christmas Eve celebration at her parents’ house.

“You know, you’re right,” she said to her daughter. “We’ll make them tomorrow.”

The way Anna’s face lit up put their Christmas tree to shame. And put her to shame, too. Having a clean house shouldn’t be the most important thing in her life. At the age of ten, the days Anna would want to hang out with her were numbered.

Eight-year-old Enrico came racing into the front hall with Hidalgo chasing him, yapping at the top of his doggy lungs. “Can Bradley spend the night? His mom says it’s okay.”

What the heck? “Sure.”

“Can we have tostadas?”

She’d planned on heating up leftovers. “Sure.”

“And fried ice cream?”

Life was one big party when you were a kid. Sometimes Chita wished she was still a kid. “We’ll see,” she said.

Ten minutes later, she was making a run to the store for ice cream and cornflakes. And on the way home, she picked up Enrico’s friend Bradley and Anna’s BFF, Emma. What the heck? What was one more kid at this point?

She knew dinner was a success when Bradley announced, “I like coming here.” Obviously, not everyone cared if a woman’s house was clean. After they were done eating, she put the kids to work clearing the table while she cleaned up the stove. After that she could get started on the laundry.

Then she caught sight of her book selection sitting on the kitchen counter. Forget the laundry. She put on a Disney movie for the gang, got her blanket and stretched out on the couch to read, barely aware of the TV blasting.

Sometimes it’s more important to get some rest than to get things done. I learned early on that when we go, go, go, we never give our bodies a chance to recharge. Schedule time in your life to relax and recharge and you’ll find you have more energy and more enthusiasm for the things you need to...

Chita bolted awake when the book fell on her face. Come the new year, she was going to build in more time to keep her batteries charged...before they died for good.

* * *

Alma Tuttle opened her front door on Saturday afternoon and greeted Jen. “It’s about time you arrived. Half my friends are already here.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jen said, lugging her case full of candles through the door. “Like I said when I called, I had a flat tire.”

Alma clasped her hands in front of her. With her tacky Christmas sweater, her tightly permed white hair and her glasses, she looked a little like Mrs. Claus. But the minute the old bat opened her mouth she ruined that illusion. “You should plan for that.”

Plan for flat tires? Was she serious? Jen shoved down her irritation. “I guess I should.”

“Well, you’re here now,” Alma said irritably. “You’d better hurry and get set up.”

This had been a mistake. Alma was the grandmother of the hostess at her last party, and she’d pretended she was booking a party to help her granddaughter earn the special candle set that could only be obtained when two guests booked a party, but Jen suspected she’d been motivated more by avarice than sacrifice.

“She’s finally here,” Alma announced, preceding Jen into the living room where three other senior ladies sat, holding plates filled with store-bought Christmas cookies.

Two of them looked as if they’d been sucking on the same lemon as Alma. The third woman, however, gave Jen a friendly smile. “I love candles,” she said.

Well, that was encouraging. “We have some beautiful ones. And I’m selling all my Christmas stock for fifty percent off today,” Jen told her as she started to unpack her case.

“It’s almost Christmas,” Alma said. “They should be seventy-five percent off.”

What the heck? Profit was highly overrated. “Well, let me know if you see something you really like.” All she wanted at this point was to get rid of these candles and this job.

And the financial burden of the condo. The stupid thing hadn’t sold yet and she’d wanted to move the first Saturday in January. Now she was beginning to worry that she wouldn’t get to move at all, which was really depressing because she was so ready to escape the hectic life she’d created in Seattle. She was so tired of working two jobs, especially these two.

Ever since the office Christmas party, going to work had been far from fun. People were still grumbling over the fact that there hadn’t been enough food. (As if that was her fault? She’d only had so much money to work with.) Leon Eggers, her supervisor’s boss, had made a pass at her at that ill-fated party and she’d told him to go soak his head in the punch bowl. After that, she’d somehow found herself with more work in her in-box. Nothing she could prove, but she knew.

And the candle parties...ugh. It seemed to be getting increasingly harder to convince women they wanted to make time to host a party. Yes, the candles were shipped to them and they had to distribute them to their friends. But so what? They got all kinds of free merchandise as a reward. Of course, the more everyone bought, the more the hostess got. And the more Jen made. Sadly, no one had purchased much at the last party. Hopefully, the smiling woman at today’s event would buy a lot and encourage her friends to do the same.

Now another woman had entered the room. “All right,” Alma said to Jen, “that’s everyone.”

Five women. Not exactly a huge group. But that didn’t mean anything, Jen told herself. All it took was one or two women to go on a spending spree and Alma could earn her holiday centerpiece. And Jen could earn some money.

“Okay,” Jen said in her perky candle-lady voice. “Thank you all for coming today. I know you’ll be happy you did when you see the wonderful bargains I have for you. Soft Glow candles are the finest on the market, guaranteed to bring beauty and light to your home. Today, just for hosting a Soft Glow party, Alma will receive this lovely multipack of pillar candles as a thank-you.” She picked up the set of red candles and the women oohed and ahhed and nodded their heads. She had them now!

Jen went on with her spiel, talking up various candles, candleholders, centerpieces and hurricane lamps. “And, as I said earlier, all our holiday candles are fifty percent off today.”

“Seventy-five percent,” Alma reminded her.

“Seventy-five percent. So, feel free to come up and browse.”

“Aren’t we going to have a draw?” Alma asked.

She held a drawing for a free candle at every party. Between the flat tire and Alma’s irritation, she’d forgotten all about it. Alma hadn’t. “Let’s do that right now,” Jen said, pretending she’d been about to get to it.

One of the lemon-suckers won a set of taper candles. “You’re sure these are dripless?” she asked Jen.

“Absolutely. I use those all the time.”

The woman nodded, but still seemed unconvinced. “I bought some once that were supposed to be dripless. They ruined my silver candlesticks.”

“These won’t, I promise,” Jen said.

“Well, I hope they don’t.” The woman’s tone of voice promised big trouble for Jen if they did.

Now it was time to order. The women looked at the candles. They visited. They looked some more. They ate more cookies. Then the smiling lady announced she had to get going. She had her bridge club at two.

She took her leave and left her empty order form behind.

One of the lemon-suckers purchased a set of holiday votives. For seventy-five percent off. Big spender. “Would you like to host a party?” Jen asked.

“Heavens, no. I have all the candles I need.”

At seventy-five percent off. Jen forced the smile to remain on her face. That’s sales, she reminded herself. Sometimes you did well, sometimes you didn’t. Anyway, the woman probably didn’t have a lot of money.

“Well, dear,” the broke lemon-sucker said to Alma, “I’ve got to go home and finish packing for my cruise.”

The second lemon-sucker purchased a set of tea lights and called it quits. “I’d have bought more,” she informed Jen, “but your candles are overpriced.”

“They’re very high quality,” Jen said. Why was she bothering?

“Well,” the woman huffed, “some of us are on a budget.”

“I understand,” Jen said. And that was why she was working two jobs and trying to sell her condo. Toni had been right. She shouldn’t have made a snap decision, shouldn’t have wasted money on a deposit on that cottage in Icicle Falls. What had she been thinking?

She’d been thinking of Garrett Armstrong. And home-canned goodies. And eating home-canned goodies with Garrett Armstrong. She’d been thinking of getting away and simplifying her life. Sadly, that was turning out not to be so simple.

“It was a lovely party, dear,” the last of Alma’s guests said to her, and slipped out the door without buying anything.

Alma turned to Jen. “Well, that was nice, wasn’t it? What did I earn?”

“You earned this lovely multipack of pillar candles as a thank-you gift,” Jen said.

Alma’s smile drooped. “Is that all?”

“Well, you do have to have a certain amount in sales to earn—”

“I spent all day yesterday cleaning,” Alma said miserably. “And I had to go to the store and get those cookies with my hip bothering me.”

“How about I throw in the holiday centerpiece?” Jen offered.

Alma’s smile perked right up.

Jen’s drooped.

She packed up her candles, thanked Alma for hosting the party and thanked God she was done with candle parties for the season.

Make that forever. Alma Tuttle’s nonparty was the last straw. She’d keep some of the candles for herself and sell the rest on eBay. Much as she loved the product, her heart wasn’t in this anymore.

Her heart wasn’t in Seattle anymore, either, even though it was a great city. What she wanted was life in a small town...a charming mountain town.

She loaded up her wares and drove back to the condo. Home, sweet home. She’d been so in love with this place when she first bought it, so intent on forgetting her unhappy starter marriage to Serge and carving out a new life for herself.

She’d gotten a new life. It just happened to stink.

There was no sense wasting what was left of a perfectly good Saturday afternoon moping. She’d find something simple to do, some small pleasure to give her life sweetness, the way Muriel Sterling recommended in her book. It was almost Christmas. She’d bake cookies. Gingerbread boys like the ones she’d enjoyed in that cute bakery in Icicle Falls. She could give them to Toni’s kids for Christmas. A nice simple present...to go with the more expensive ones she’d bought with her overworked credit card.

She found a recipe online and got busy assembling butter, flour, eggs, sugar and spices. These were going to be delicious. Yes, there was nothing like spending a little time in the kitchen making old-fashioned goodies to lift a woman’s spirits. Simple pleasures really were the best.

She was sliding a batch of cookies in the oven when her cell phone rang. Caller ID told her it was her Realtor, Hannah Yates. Hannah had shown the condo the other night, but Jen had given up hope when she didn’t hear back that same evening. Maybe the person had decided to buy, after all.

Jen let the oven door slam shut, grabbed the phone and said a hopeful “Hello.”

“Hi, Jen, it’s Hannah.”

“Yes?” Jen said eagerly.

“I just called to tell you that the woman I showed the condo to decided she’d rather have a house.”

Jen’s spirits took a nosedive and she sank onto her couch. “I thought she wanted to downsize.”

“She changed her mind. It happens. But don’t worry. I’ll find you a buyer.”

“Thanks,” Jen said, trying to sound upbeat and appreciative. “I know you’re trying to sell this place.”

“Frankly, I can’t understand why we haven’t found a buyer. It’s a great condo, and it’s definitely priced to sell.”

Because it isn’t in the cards, Jen thought. The fact that the condo hadn’t sold was a sign that she wasn’t supposed to move. She was doomed to stay in her crappy life, working as an office drone and selling candles to the Alma Tuttles of the world.

She thanked Hannah, then hung up and slumped against the couch cushions. From her window she had a beautiful view of the Seattle skyline. This was really a lovely place. She hated it here!

She was still staring grumpily out the window when the phone rang again. This time it was her sister.

“How was the candle party?” Toni asked.

“A dud. Like my life.”

“Well, that’s upbeat.”

“My Realtor just called. Still no bites.”

“Maybe you’re not meant to sell it,” Toni suggested.

“Thanks,” Jen said miserably.

“Maybe you’re meant to rent it instead.”

“Rent it?” Jen repeated. She hadn’t thought of that.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” her sister said. “I really hate to see you move. But at least if you rented and you didn’t like it up there, you’d have someplace to come back to.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Jen muttered.

“Hey, it never hurts to have a plan B. Anyway, if you’re interested in renting, I think I know someone who’d want your condo.”

Jen bolted upright. “You do?”

“My neighbor. Her divorce became final and she’s looking for a place where she can make a new start. She might even be open to renting with an option to buy if you decide you want to go that route. She works downtown, so your place would be perfect for her.”

“Does she have a house to sell?” That would take time. Jen knew this now, from personal experience.

“No, she and her ex were renting.”

“So, if she liked the condo she could move in right away.”

“Probably,” Toni agreed. “Should I give her your number?”

“Absolutely!” If the place didn’t sell, she’d have someone who could make her payments. That would get her out from under just as well as a sale. Yes! This was a sign. She was meant to move.

The aroma of burning cookie wafted to where she sat and she remembered she was baking. She dashed to the kitchen, phone in hand and, propping the phone between her ear and shoulder, put on her oven mitt and opened the oven. A plume of smoke wafted out to greet her, stinging her eyes and making her cough. She pulled out the cookie sheet with her blackened gingerbread boys. Eeew.

A moment later the smoke alarm went off.

“What’s happening?” Toni asked.

“I burned my cookies. I’ve got to go.”

“Okay. Try not to burn down the condo before you get it rented,” Toni teased, and hung up.

Jen grabbed a towel and flapped it in the direction of the smoke detector, all the while scolding herself for forgetting to set the timer. Finally, the noise subsided. “Well, you guys are history,” she informed the ruined cookies.

Maybe, if she was lucky, her life here would soon be history, too.

Chapter Six

Taking a hard look at the changes we need to make can be harder than actually making those changes.

—Muriel Sterling, author of Simplicity

Toni loved Christmas Eve. It was the one occasion when she could count on seeing her extended family. They all poured into her mother’s house in West Seattle—grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, second cousins. Even Santa (her crazy uncle Dave) made an appearance, and everyone got to sit on his lap and receive a present.

“Do I have to have my picture taken with Santa this year?” Jordan demanded as Wayne parked their SUV in front of the house.

“Of course you do,” Toni said. “We all do.”

“Dumb,” Jordan muttered.

“If you want a present you’ll have to be dumb,” Toni said.

“The present’ll probably be dumb, too.”

She hadn’t complained about last year’s present—the world’s largest collection of lip gloss. And Toni knew for a fact that this year Aunt Jana had gotten Jordan an iTunes gift card. “If you’re going to be a party pooper, then I’ll sit on Santa’s lap and take your present. I know what it is.”

That worked. “I’ll do it,” her daughter said, but she managed to sound grudging all the same.

Toni hid her smile. It was never good to gloat when you won a victory over a child, especially one who was now officially a teenager.

“Me, too,” said Jeffrey, who wasn’t above a little humiliation if there was a present waiting at the end of it.

As always, her mother’s house said Christmas, with icicle lights hanging from the roofline and a wreath on the door. Toni could hear raucous laughter and Christmas music even before they let themselves in.

They hung their coats in the hall closet and then went into the living room where Toni’s uncle Dennis was saying, “No, I swear it’s true.”

That explained the laughter. Her uncle had told some preposterous story. At the sight of her and her family, he broke into a grin. “Well, look who’s here.” He demanded hugs from both kids, told Jordan she was getting way too pretty and then enveloped Toni in a big bear hug. Uncle Dennis was a large man and his hugs were almost suffocating, but, next to her father’s, they were the best.

“Guess you got stuck with us again this year,” he greeted her husband.

“Afraid so,” Wayne said with a smile, shaking her uncle’s hand.

“Hello, princess,” her father greeted her. He kissed her forehead and took in her slacks, black sweater and jauntily draped red scarf. “You’re looking lovely today.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” she said. Nice someone noticed. Wayne sure hadn’t. He’d been too busy being one with his computer.

Okay, she told herself, so what if Wayne didn’t notice your outfit? Big deal. He’s still a good man who works hard to provide for his family. The computer is not your competition.

Although sometimes she felt as if it were. Even when he wasn’t working, he was on it half the evening, surfing the web. He always had energy for the computer, but when his wife wanted to go out...

Oh, there she went again. It wasn’t Wayne’s fault he’d gotten sick the day they were supposed to have their romantic dinner. She’d come home from her Icicle Falls adventure to find he’d taken some cold medicine and gone to bed.

And fallen asleep with his arms around his iPad. Sheesh.

Stop it, she scolded herself. It’s Christmas. Don’t be a bitch.

She deposited her gifts under the tree and went to the kitchen to check in with her mother. Her aunt Karen, resplendent in a Christmas sweater with dancing polar bears, gave her a kiss in passing as she took the standing rib roast out to the dining table. Aunt Aggie, her favorite aunt, hugged her and popped an olive in her mouth, then followed Aunt Karen out, bearing a divided glass bowl filled with olives and pickles in one hand and a pitcher of milk in the other. Over at the sink, Jen was whipping cream for the night’s big dessert—mint chocolate sundaes, with Christmas cookies—and called a cheery hello.

Toni felt a momentary twinge of guilt. She was usually the one helping in the kitchen. If they’d gotten out of the house on time, she would’ve been, but Wayne had found it necessary to work and was still sending emails long past four, when they would normally have left.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” she’d reminded him—repeatedly.

“I know,” he’d said, “and most of us have to work the day of Christmas Eve.”

Okay, she’d thought, but you’d better not be working on Christmas.

She made the rounds, hugging everyone. “Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re not late. You’re right on time,” her mother assured her, offering her cheek for a kiss.

“What can I do?”

“I think we’ve got it all under control,” Mom said.

But she always helped. She couldn’t just do...nothing.

As if reading her mind, her mother added, “How about dishing up the mashed potatoes?” She pulled the gravy pan off the burner. “Gravy’s done. You can dish that up, too. Then I’ll take out the roasted vegetables and the seafood lasagna and we’ll be good to go.”

In a matter of minutes the food was on the table. The revelers were summoned and everyone gathered around and waited for her father to say grace.

“Well,” he said, smiling at each of them, “here we are, all together for another Christmas. Some of us have faced challenges this past year.”

Toni smiled encouragingly at her cousin Jimmy, who’d lost his job three months earlier and was still looking for employment. She glanced over at Aunt Aggie, wearing what she called her half-and-half bra—one half held a real breast, the other a prosthetic breast form. Toni felt the prickle of tears as she took in the smiling faces around the table. All these people were so precious to her.

Her gaze drifted to where her children were sitting. Her sweet babies. They were growing up so quickly. They were...texting!

Well, one of them was.

“Let’s pray,” said Dad.

They all bowed their heads. Except the texting culprit. And Toni, who was now shooting daggers at her daughter.

“Dear God, we’re so glad we can be together at this wonderful time of year.”

There was one “we” who wasn’t exactly together with everyone else. Toni stepped out of the circle and began to move to where her daughter stood.

“Thank you for each one here,” Dad continued.

One of them may not be here much longer because I’m going to throttle her.

“And thank you for the joy of the season.”

And for texting. Someone’s joy was about to come to an end. Toni slipped behind her daughter, reached over Jordan’s shoulder and snatched her cell phone.

Jordan gave a start. This was followed by a guilty look over her shoulder, almost penitent, until she realized it was Mother the Enemy taking away her phone. Then she scowled.

“Close your eyes,” Toni hissed.

Jordan closed her eyes and clamped her lips into a thin, angry line.

“May we always remember to be thankful for our blessings and thankful for one another.”

Toni doubted her daughter was sending up prayers of thanks for her right now.

“In the name of our Lord, Amen,” Dad concluded. “And in the words of Tiny Tim, God bless us, every one.”

“Amen,” everyone echoed.

“Amen,” Toni said, and smiled sweetly at her pouting daughter.

“Can I have my phone back?” Jordan demanded.

“Yes, once you’ve remembered how to respect the people you’re with.”

Anyone seeing the expression on Jordan’s face would have assumed she’d gotten horrible news that the Grinch had kidnapped Justin Bieber. “Mom!”

“Sorry, sweetie,” Toni said sternly, “we’re here to be with our family.”

Jordan hurled herself into her chair and glared at her plate, and Toni returned to her seat at the table, her holiday spirit as good as smothered. Christmas was supposed to about togetherness. Even if children got sucked into their phones and their games during the rest of the year, this one day should be a time of interacting face-to-face with the people in their lives.

And, of course, her daughter would so want to interact with her now. Her mother, who was seated next to her at the end of the table, gave her arm a pat. Naturally Mom had seen. Heck, all sixteen people squeezed around the long table (plus the little ones at the kids’ table) had seen that lovely mother-daughter moment.

Jen shot her a sympathetic look from across the table.

“This, too, shall pass,” Mom whispered, and handed her the basket of French bread slices.

Jordan made a concentrated effort to enjoy her misery for the rest of the evening. She pouted through dinner and, later, refused to sit with Santa.

“That’s okay, little girl. I know your mama told you never to talk to strangers,” joked Santa, aka Uncle David.

“You’re strange, all right,” cracked Uncle Dennis.

Their comic interchange lightened the moment, and the party went on without Jordan, everyone playing Dirty Santa, a game that involved stealing presents back and forth, and singing Christmas carols while she sat in a corner like a miniature Scrooge in drag.

“What’s wrong with Jordan?” Wayne asked as the family indulged in a raucous debate over whether or not angels could actually sing, as the old Christmas carol suggested.

“She’s mad,” Toni replied.

“I can see that. Why?”

“You didn’t catch that little scene at dinner?”

“I saw her acting like a stinker.”

“I took away her phone.”

“Whoa. You cut off her lifeline.”

“She was texting during grace.”

Wayne frowned. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. I think she can live without her phone for a few days.”

“That’ll be a merry Christmas,” Wayne predicted.

Sure enough, as soon as they were out the door and going down the walk, the fun began as Jordan demanded the return of her phone.

“You can have it back after we’re done with Christmas.”

“What!”

“It won’t hurt you to spend some face time with people.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Well, you know, it wasn’t exactly fair to be texting while Grandpa was saying grace,” Toni said. “In fact, it was downright rude.”

“I was just finishing telling Sarah something.”

“Good. And now you’re finished telling her something until after our family Christmas tomorrow.”

“I hate you,” Jordan grumbled.

Ah, the power children had to hurt their parents with their careless anger. Not for the first time, Toni remembered every mean and snippy word she’d hurled at her own mother when she was a girl. What goes around comes around, she thought sadly.

“Yes, I know,” she said to her daughter. “But I love you.”

And maybe come Christmas morning, when Jordan found the American Eagle handbag she’d been drooling over, along with the clothes from Abercrombie & Fitch, she’d have dialed down the emotion from hate to strong dislike.

Meanwhile, next to Jordan, Jeffrey sat happily playing on his Gameboy.

“How come he gets to have his Gameboy?” Jordan asked petulantly.

“Because he wasn’t playing during grace,” Toni said.

“And I sat on Santa’s lap,” Jeffrey added.

“Of course you would,” Jordan said scornfully. “You’re just a kid.”

Toni decided it would be useless to point out that the two older teens who’d been there hadn’t had a problem posing with Santa in exchange for a goody. Even the grownups had all taken a turn, pulling on his fake beard or poking him in his pillow-stuffed tummy, and several of the women had posed kissing him on the cheek, including Toni.

It really had been a fun evening, enjoyed by everyone except one surly thirteen-year-old. Once Toni had decided to ignore both her daughter and her own irritation, she’d had a good time, too. She hoped she’d be able to enjoy Christmas Day, although she knew her daughter would do her level best to ensure she didn’t.

Sure enough, Jordan woke on the grumpy side of the bed and stayed grumpy all through the morning’s present-opening, as well as Christmas brunch. She was barely polite when they went to visit Wayne’s family that afternoon.

“You know, if you keep up this bad attitude, you won’t be getting your phone back until New Year’s,” Toni warned as they drove home.

“Well, it’s not fair.”

“We’ve already had this conversation. You need to think about how it makes the people who love you feel when you can’t be bothered to look up from your cellular attachment and talk to them or even listen respectfully when they’re saying grace. Maybe next time you want to tell Dad or me something important, we should just ignore you.”

Jordan fell silent, and in the dark car, Toni couldn’t tell if she was seething or actually considering what her mother had said. Probably the former.

Once home, both her children vanished to their rooms, Jeffrey in his normal happy mood, Jordan subdued and serious.

“Do you think anything I said got through to her?” Toni asked Wayne.

“Oh, yeah. It’s submerged somewhere in her brain and should surface in about ten years.”

“Thanks.”

He kissed her. “Hey, we still have to get through her learning to drive.”

There was a scary thought. “And dating.”

“Oh, God, I need a drink,” Wayne said.

He helped himself to a beer, and then, just as she was about to suggest they put the fireplace to work and snuggle up and listen to some Christmas music, he pulled out his laptop. “Oh, no, not you, too,” she groaned.

He looked at her, perplexed. “What?”

She shook her head and reached for the TV remote. “Never mind.”

Whatever happened to the good old days when people spent time cuddled up with each other instead of their techno toys? Hey, Santa, in the new year, do you think you could give me back my family?

* * *

Christmas in the Thomas household had been perfect. Stacy had done everything possible to make sure the kids enjoyed their visit home—baking their favorite treats, putting her espresso maker to work making eggnog lattes for everyone each morning, playing Christmas music, hauling out all their favorite holiday movies.

It had been late afternoon the day Autumn arrived and she’d taken in the lit tree and the glowing candles on the mantel with a happy smile. “It’s so good to be home,” she’d said, and hugged Stacy.

Ethan had been more interested in the aroma of melted chocolate wafting from the kitchen, but his girlfriend had been seriously impressed. “Gosh,” she said, “everything’s so...Christmassy.”

“I told you, it looks like a department store in here,” Ethan had said to her.

Stacy hadn’t been so sure that was a compliment but she’d let it pass.

She’d found it harder to ignore his lack of enthusiasm for the Christmas surprise she’d set under the tree for him. His girlfriend had been delighted with her Target and Gap gift certificates, but Ethan had left his latte maker behind.

“I can just go to Starbucks,” he’d informed Stacy when she saw he was leaving home without it. “Hang on to it, Mom.”

Autumn had made the same request regarding the Victorian village starter kit Stacy had given her—a snow-frosted house and an old-fashioned church complete with stained-glass windows. Of course, Stacy had expected that. She’d known she’d end up storing the decorations until Autumn graduated from college and had her own place.

Still, graduation was only three and a half years away so the time to start was now. Stacy had gone out the day after Christmas and purchased more on sale to tuck away for next year. There was so much to get when you were building a village—houses, shops, trees, old-fashioned streetlamps, people, little gates and fountains and snowmen.

Stacy frowned as she looked at her own village. It was fun to put out but such a pain to put away. It was now New Year’s Day, the day she always took down her decorations. Dean had promised to help her, but he’d gotten lured next door to watch a football game and, rather than wait for him, she decided she’d get started on this year’s disappearing act on her own. By the time Dean got home, she’d have everything packed and ready for its return to the attic.

She went up there to fetch the boxes for her treasures. The sea of containers stretching across the floor made her sigh. This was going to take all day.

Oh, well. That was the price you paid when you had a lot of decorations. And a lot of decorations was the price you paid to set the scene for a happy family Christmas. When everything looked festive, everyone felt festive. She grabbed a couple of boxes and climbed back down the stairs. Why was it so much less fun putting things away than it was putting them up?

Several trips later, she was ready to begin stowing her treasures. She picked up a ceramic Santa. This little guy had sat on the dining room buffet when she was growing up, and her mother had given him to Stacy for her first Christmas with Dean. It was vintage, possibly valuable. She wrapped it in bubble wrap and stowed it carefully in the box.

She lifted a second Santa from the herd of Clauses. She and her mom and older sister had met in Seattle and hit the postholiday sales together three years back, and her sister had insisted on purchasing the little guy for her. She blinked back tears as she remembered her sister. Sue had died suddenly from an aneurysm ten years ago. This little guy got protected with two sheets of bubble wrap.

A third Santa was one Dean had bought for their tenth Christmas, back in the days when he didn’t complain about all her “stuff.” She had the accompanying note he’d written in her scrapbook. “I’ll always be grateful to the old guy for bringing us together,” he’d written, alluding to when they’d first met at a friend’s Christmas party.

Yes, Christmas was special. And all these little mementos served to remind her of it. Obviously, they didn’t serve the same purpose for her husband. Well, he was a man. There were some things men simply didn’t get.

She worked for the next two hours, packing away both her decorations and her memories. By the time she was done, the living room looked positively naked. It won’t be once you get your other decorations back up, she reminded herself. That in itself was a daunting job.

But not nearly as daunting as hauling these decorations back up to the attic. She wished Dean would come home. It would be nice to get this done.

So why wait? She wasn’t helpless. She could take all this to the attic herself, and be spared listening to any complaining.

Stacy picked up the box containing the nativity set and went upstairs. She left it in the hallway under the trapdoor to the attic and returned to the family room for another load. Upstairs went the candles, then the tree decorations, followed by the long, heavy box containing the tree.

They were followed by many more boxes. Dean had been right. A person could drop dead lugging all of this around. Of course, she’d never admit that to him. He’d see it as some sort of capitulation and be ready to take everything away—to the dump.

Once all the boxes were stacked in the upstairs hall, the next step was to take her treasures to the attic. She pulled the chain to the trapdoor and let down the ladder. “You’re almost done now,” she told herself.

After lugging four cartons up to the attic, she realized she needed to work smarter, not harder. Rather than go all the way up the stairs and cross the attic to deposit each box separately, she’d be better off climbing the ladder and piling them nearby. Then, once they were all up there, she could arrange them as she wanted.

This plan worked really well until she decided to pile one box on top of another...while holding a plastic garbage bag filled with a stuffed Santa, his sleigh and reindeer. Somehow—who knew how these things happened?—she lost her balance. Santa went flying and she dropped the box. She missed her grab for the stairs and tumbled backward, tipping over the remaining pile of boxes as she went. She landed on the bag containing her Christmas quilt, giving herself a nice, soft landing. And she provided an equally soft landing for the boxes of decorations. One whacked her in the head and another landed on her middle. Both spilled their contents, surrounding her with Santas and candles. Ho, ho, ho.

Groaning, she clambered out from under the wreckage and assessed the damage. Other than a twinge in her back and a smarting head she was okay. And it looked as if the Santas had all survived. Except... Oh, no. There lay the newest member of the Claus family, decapitated.

It took some searching among the tissue paper and bubble wrap to find Santa’s missing head, but she did. She packed up the others, carefully inspecting them to see that they were well wrapped, but set him aside. Dean would say, “It’s broken. Why keep it?” But Dean didn’t get that a treasure was still a treasure, even if it got broken. A little glue and Santa would be fine.

Back up the ladder she went, now taking one box at a time. For a millisecond she entertained the thought that maybe her husband was right and they didn’t need quite so many decorations, that perhaps Muriel Sterling’s book on simplifying one’s life might actually make a valid point.

But only for a millisecond. Treasures equaled memories, and memories were priceless. And if it took some work storing hers, so what? One day her family would thank her for all the trouble she’d taken to surround them with pretty things.

And one day her son would actually want that latte maker.

Wouldn’t he?

Chapter Seven

A new beginning is also a new adventure.

—Muriel Sterling, author of Simplicity

Everything had worked out. Jen had been able to rent her condo in Seattle for enough to cover her mortgage and most of her rent. Now, the first weekend in January, she was moving into her charming mountain cottage with the help of her sister and family.

She’d nearly put dents in the steering wheel driving up the mountain in the snow, but once Wayne had gotten the chains on her tires she’d been able to relax a little. As they neared town, the roads weren’t bad, and he had taken the chains off again. That had been enough to make Jen hyperventilate until Wayne pointed out that the roads had been cleared and they were now all level. This, she had to admit, was a nice improvement over Seattle, which was a city of hills.

Still, she breathed a sigh of relief when they made it to the cottage in one piece. Garrett Armstrong met them there with the key and offered to help unload. He was just as gorgeous as she remembered, and obviously kindhearted. It would be so easy to fall for this man.

“That’s awfully nice of you,” she told him.

“No problem,” he said, shrugging off her praise.

Now Jeffrey had bounded out of his parents’ SUV, which had been stuffed to the roof with boxes. “Can we go tubing?”

“Maybe after we’re done unloading everything,” his father told him.

As Jen was making introductions, Jeffrey picked up a handful of snow, made a snowball and hurled it at his sister, who was standing huddled inside her coat, waiting for her father to open the small trailer they’d been pulling.

It hit her in the chest and she snarled, “Cut it out, you butt.”

Of course, being a boy, Jeffrey ignored her request and started forming another snowball. And that was enough to make Jordan forget she was now officially a sophisticated teen girl and start doing the same. “Come on, Aunt Jen, help me.”

Well, why not?

“Okay, five-minute fight,” Toni said, heading for the cottage with a box. “Then we’re going to get the work done.”

Jen was happy to join in and release the last of the tension from her scary trip up the mountain. She’d just stuffed a ton of snow down Jeffrey’s back when she realized she was the only grown-up playing. Toni was inside the cottage, probably stowing things away in the kitchen cupboards where Jen would never find them, and Wayne, who’d tossed a few snowballs, was now pulling a box out of the trailer.

“Okay, I’ve got to go work now,” she told the kids and herself.

“Aw, come on, Aunt Jen,” Jeffrey pleaded.

“Sorry, guys,” she said, and went to open the trunk of her car.

She stepped inside with her load in time to hear Toni asking Garrett, “You don’t like snowball fights?”

“Not when there’s work to be done.”

She felt her cheeks heating. Way to make a good impression on a gorgeous man. Now she looked like a slacker. But she felt so much better. Just a few minutes of fun had reenergized her.

“Work is important,” she said as she set a box of food on the counter, “but sometimes you need to take a break and get in touch with your inner child.” The expression was kind of lame, she supposed, but as hard as she’d been working, she deserved a break.

Garrett said nothing to that, which made her feel mildly chastised. And that made her feel mildly irritated. This guy didn’t know her. Was he making some sort of snap judgment about her? If so, he needed a life.

“I think the kids have had enough of a break,” Toni said, and went outside to order the troops back to work.

“So, when was the last time you had a snowball fight?” she asked Garrett as he walked out the door.

He paused for a moment, then shook his head. “Can’t remember.”

“Me, neither,” she said, but he was already on his way down the porch steps and obviously hadn’t heard her.

Jen had asked Garrett to remove the ratty twin beds and the offensive living room furniture that had originally been in the cottage so she could use her own furniture. All that was left of the old stuff was the kitchen table, which she figured she could dress up with a cute tablecloth.

Now he and Wayne unloaded her white leather couch. Ah, couch, sweet couch. She had them put it down at an angle so she could sit on it and simultaneously gaze out the window and enjoy a fire in the woodstove. She smiled, pleased with how it looked. This cottage was going to be her little corner of heaven on earth.

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