“Oh, I think a spouse leaving is pretty traumatic too. Especially if you have been married a long time and raised a family together.” Kristen gestured toward Mason. “I don’t think what your dad went through should be minimized, and I’m glad he’s feeling better. I’m sure it was traumatic for you too. Even as adults, we still need our parents, and it’s scary when they split up.”
“Yeah, it was difficult having to support both of them. My mom was in the wrong, but I still love her. It’s been hard trying to get on board with her new boyfriend, and I was angry on my dad’s behalf.”
Kristen reached out and touched his arm, the sympathy in her eyes melting his heart. “I can imagine. Must have been awful.”
He was a bit surprised that Kristen was so sympathetic to his parents’ breakup. Maybe she had experienced a breakup like that herself.
He hadn’t asked Malcom or Ivy about her past even though he’d wanted to. He only knew that she didn’t have a boyfriend now. But a woman that beautiful, smart, and nice surely must have had plenty of them. Did part of the reason for her move back to Pinecone Falls have to do with a bad breakup? If so, the guy had been a total dunce to let Kristen go.
Mason put another log on, hoping that she’d stay just a little longer.
Chapter 15
The next morning, Dorothy stood at the kitchen counter, a steaming mug of coffee and two dozen sprigs of holly in front of her. She planned to hang the holly sprigs around the eaves of the porch. Their bright-red berries would add a pop of color.
George was in the corner, trying to knock her knitting bag over. He loved to play with the yarn, especially when she was actually trying to knit something. After discovering her new project in the middle of the floor with George trying to unravel it a few times, she’d learned that she would have to zip the bag shut if she wanted to keep her creations intact.
She’d almost finished the scarf the night before and was proud of her work. It turned out she was pretty fast at knitting. Sure, the piece wasn’t exactly straight, and there might be a hole or two, but she was still learning.
Kristen had gone to visit Ethan in his cabin at the back of the property. The tree farm was on more than a hundred acres, and the old cabin had been built into the more wooded part of the property by her husband’s great-grandfather. It was out of sight of the house, and getting to it took a little bit of a hike. Dorothy thought maybe Great-Gramps had built it so far away from the main house so he could have privacy—the late-1880s version of a man cave.
Dorothy was a little worried about her son. She wished he would get out more. She’d been worried about him since Jasmine had died. She could understand why he’d gone into a depression, as they’d been so young, but it had been several years now, and she was afraid Ethan was going to waste the rest of his life alone in that cabin.
Maybe now that Kristen was home, she could bring him out of his shell and get him to socialize more.
Out the back window, she could just barely see the rows of evergreens that they had planted and groomed for sale. Funny to think that those trees had been planted by Charlie. It took years to get them to the right size for selling, so they always had to plant new saplings to take the place of the trees they cut each year. She’d gone back there to check them out the previous day. It was true that the trees had a problem, but they didn’t look that bad. Hopefully, Ethan’s plan would work.
A zipping sound stole her attention from the window.
“George! Are you unzipping that?” She rushed over to the bag.
George blinked at her, an innocent look on his furry face. The bag toppled, and her project fell out. Son of a gun! George had figured out how to undo the zipper.
“Oh no, you are not going to unravel my project.” She picked up the bag and shoved it into an old pine hutch that had been her great-grandmother’s. “Come on, let’s go out and hang this holly.”
Dorothy opened the door, and George burst out onto the porch. Across the street, Kent was on his porch, hanging some glittery snowflakes. He glanced over and nodded at her, a slight smile on his lips. She did the same. She was glad that they were on friendly terms now. It was always nice to have good neighbors, even if he did overdo it with the porch decorations.
“Now, how to hang these?” She set the basket down on the wicker table between the two rockers.
She looked up at the trim on the eaves where Kent had showed her how to hang the lights. Dozens of nails and hooks remained from various things being hung throughout the decades. If she hung the sprigs there, they would be hidden by the trim boards. The best thing was to weave them into the wires on the strand of lights.
A cold breeze blew some snow onto the porch, and she shivered.
“Let’s get this over with so we can get inside by the fire,” she said to George, who had been watching her as if he knew what she was contemplating. He looked a little bit worried as she trudged down the steps, making deep footprints in the snow as she made her way toward the ladder resting against the side of the house.
She hauled the ladder over toward the porch. It was heavy, but she could do it. Even though Ethan had warned her to ask him for help next time she wanted to use it, she didn’t want to be dependent on anyone. She had to learn how to do these things for herself now.
Leaning the ladder against the porch, she pushed on it to make sure it was sturdy. Good enough. She grabbed the basket and headed up the rungs.
Tucking the sprigs in wasn’t as easy as it had looked. She had to balance the basket in the crook of her arm because she needed both hands. How should she space them out? If she positioned the ladder in the right places, she could put one directly at the spot where the ladder was then one each to the right and left if she could lean far enough. If she did that, she could minimize the amount of times she had to move the ladder.
The first one went in perfectly. She grabbed another sprig and leaned to the left…
Oh no! The ladder slowly started tilting.
Dorothy grabbed for the trim board to stop the ladder. The basket fell from her arm. Her fingers grazed the board but slipped off. She tried to grab the porch post, but she missed as the ladder jerked sideways. She jumped off in mid-fall and plopped into a shrub loaded with snow.
She must have sunk in a bit, because all she could see was snow-covered branches. She was cold! And wet! She flailed her arms and legs, trying to get a grip on something to pull herself up.
