Not Just For Christmas

Rick had lost his best friend, and they began to seek solace from each other. Falling in love with him was a surprise. Barbara hadn’t expected that, hadn’t thought it was possible to love again after losing Vaughn. Rick wasn’t a replacement. No one could ever replace the man she’d loved. He understood, because in his own way he’d loved Vaughn, too.

When they announced their engagement, Hassie had pulled away from Barbara. Neither spoke of it, but they both knew that their relationship had fundamentally changed and that their former closeness could no longer exist. Vaughn’s parents didn’t attend the wedding, although they’d mailed a card and sent a generous check.

Barbara thought now that naming their son after Vaughn Knight had as much to do with Hassie as it did with their feelings for Vaughn. Perhaps she’d hoped to bridge the distance between them. …

Until he was twenty-one, Hassie had remembered Vaughn Kyle every year on his birthday, but that was the only time Barbara and Rick heard from her. When Rick accepted early retirement and they’d decided to move back to North Dakota, Barbara recognized that, sooner or later, she’d see Hassie again. A month or so after they’d moved, Hassie had welcomed them with a brief note. It seemed fitting that Barbara’s son had been the one to arrange this meeting, to bring them together again.

“Hassie wanted me to bring you to the house, instead of the pharmacy,” Vaughn said as they left the quilting store.

“You’re coming with us, aren’t you?” Barbara asked Carrie. She’d quickly grasped that Vaughn was attracted to this woman, and she could understand why. However, she didn’t pretend to know what was happening. Natalie had phoned several times, wanting to speak to Vaughn; she wasn’t amused that he’d apparently turned off his cell phone. Barbara didn’t feel it was her place to inform the other woman that Vaughn was out with someone else. The situation concerned her, but she couldn’t interfere and had to trust that he was treating both women with honesty and fairness.

“I’d love to come to Hassie’s with you,” Carrie told them, “but I said I’d fill in at the store for her. You two go and have a good visit, and I’ll see you later.”

As they crossed the street, Carrie headed toward the pharmacy, and Barbara and Vaughn went in the opposite direction.

“Does the pharmacy still have the soda fountain?” Barbara asked her son.

“Sure does. In fact, I thought I’d leave you and Hassie to visit, and I’d steal away to Knight’s to let Carrie fix me a soda.”

“You’re spending a lot of time with her, aren’t you?” Barbara couldn’t resist asking.

“Am I?”

Barbara didn’t answer him. There was probably some perfect maternal response, but darned if she knew what it was.

Hassie’s house came into view, and Barbara automatically slowed her pace. It’d been thirty-three years since she’d walked up these steps. Thirty-three years since she’d attended the wake, sat in a corner of the living room with Vaughn’s older sister and wept bitter tears. At the end of a day that had been too long for all of them, Vaughn’s mother had hugged her close and then instructed a family friend to make sure Barbara got safely home to Grand Forks.

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