The Holiday Visitor. Tara Taylor Quinn

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СКАЧАТЬ the meaning of life with James for fourteen years and wasn’t about to stop now. Wasn’t sure she could even if she wanted to.

      “You have no idea how many times we help each other find solutions to challenges we’re facing. We don’t judge each other. We just talk.”

      “All things you could be doing with a spouse.”

      “Do you and Bob do them?”

      Bonnie’s silence was answer enough.

      “James is my peace, Bonnie. My solace and support. He’s my kind inner voice counteracting my inner critic who, as you know, so often tries to rule my life. He’s not a romance. Or a partner in life.”

      Marybeth finished the stars and the Santas and moved on to help Bonnie with the trees. And because her friend remained silent, she continued to talk. “James is like this ethereal being who, unlike any spiritual, omniscient being, knows nothing of my everyday life, you know? And he shares nothing of his. We share a past, a dark time. We both went through the same thing at the same time in our lives. That’s it.”

      “I hope so, my dear,” Bonnie said as they finished up. “I just know that your idea of normal isn’t healthy. You, here all alone, living vicariously through the people who parade in and out of this inn.”

      “I take care of them. It’s my job. My livelihood. And I like it.”

      “I know you do, sweetie, and I’m thrilled that you’ve found something that satisfies you. I just wish you had a private life, too.”

      She did have a private life. Not a single one of her guests had ever stepped foot beyond the public parts of the house. What went on out there was work. What went on back here was her life.

      She simply hadn’t found anyone she wanted to share that life with in the way Bonnie meant. Marybeth didn’t really even want to try.

      “I’m not lonely,” she told her pseudomother. “But if I ever start to feel that way, I promise you, I’ll find someone. I’ll start frequenting the personal ads if I have to.”

      “You wouldn’t have to,” Bonnie assured her. “I know of a half dozen people in this town who’d love to take you out.” So did she. Unfortunately none of them interested her in the least.

      CRAIG ANTHONY MCKELLIPS drove slowly by the Orange Blossom Bed-and-Breakfast, every one of his senses reeling with sensation. His mouth watered. He could practically taste the oranges that were pungently ready for picking on the trees that lined both sides of the lot, separating the freshly painted white Victorian home—complete with grand balconies upstairs and an even grander porch down—from the picturesque old homes on either side.

      Sweating in spite of the crisp fifty-nine-degree temperature, Craig pushed the button to lower his window a bit and was hit with the sweet scents wafting from the wildly colorful, but perfectly tended flower gardens in manicured rings in the yard and lining the entire front of the house. He could taste a hint of salt in the air, letting him know that he was by the ocean again. By nightfall he’d be feeling the salty residue on his skin.

      And the quiet. It amazed him! This California coastal town, maybe an hour’s drive from the Los Angeles he’d known as a kid, was the exact antithesis of the noisy, frenetic southern California he’d grown up in.

      A perfect place to spend his first Christmas alone—his first Christmas since his mother passed away.

      Satisfying himself that he knew where the house was, Craig drove by for now. Judging by the empty, five-car parking lot down a small hill to the side of the house, none of the other guests had arrived—or else were out for the day. Check-in wasn’t until three.

      Would the other guests be there at three, too? Filling the house with chaos and confusion, noise, distracting their hostess? Would he know who she was? She might not look like the photo he’d seen of her in the travel brochure. Maybe she had an employee who handled registration.

      Driving slowly through the small town, Craig used the breathing techniques he’d perfected over the years to quiet his mind. After months of constant push to get through all of the commissions that were due by Christmas, he needed this break from the studio that consumed so much of his life.

      And from the constant drive to create.

      He also needed the inner calm his work brought.

      When he couldn’t settle the energy thrumming through him, Craig found a spot close to the water and parked. He thought about calling Jenny. His wife should just about be landing in Paris.

      But he didn’t.

      Reaching over, he locked his cell phone in the glove box of the rental car.

      What he needed was a good long walk on the beach.

      “MERRY CHRISTMAS, everyone!” Marybeth turned to wave at the gathering of wheelchairs in the recreation room of the seniors’ center the Saturday before Christmas, bearing the collective weights of people who’d grown dear to her over the three years she’d been catering their Christmas lunch party. This year she’d brought homemade ornaments for them to hang on their bedposts—ornaments she’d crocheted during the evenings while she and Brutus watched television.

      She lingered, helping lay out all the food, handing out the gifts and chatting with everyone. They pressed her to join them for the meal, but she bowed out claiming her arriving guest as her excuse.

      Leaving the seniors’ center she headed over to the Mathers’s to unload the pile of gifts she had for them on the backseat of her Expedition. Though Bonnie had tried all week to get her to change her mind, Marybeth still thought she wanted to be alone this first Christmas without her dad.

      “I can’t believe you aren’t coming over on Monday,” fifteen-year-old Wendy said as she helped Marybeth carry in packages.

      Her dad was still at work and her mother was at the soup kitchen.

      “It’s just this one year,” Marybeth told the teenager who was as much daughter and sister to her as longtime neighbor. “I think it’ll be easier if I’m not following the same traditions, you know?”

      “I get it,” Wendy said. “I’m not sure Mom does, but she’ll come around. She always does.”

      “Hey,” Marybeth said, nudging the younger girl. “How’d your date go last night?”

      “With Randy?” Wendy had had a crush on the boy from their church for months and he’d finally asked her out.

      “Who else?”

      Wendy’s blush was answer enough. “It was good,” she said and Marybeth knew immediately that this was one of those times when the word was a definite understatement.

      Finished with the presents, Wendy walked with Marybeth back to her car. “Who was your first boyfriend? I don’t remember him.”

      “That’s because I never really had one,” she said. “And it’s a good thing because you’d have been bugging us all the time if I had.”

      “No,” Wendy said, frowning. “Seriously. What about that first time you met someone and just knew you’d die if he didn’t like you as much as you СКАЧАТЬ