Merry Ex-Mas

And when they asked why she didn’t have a daddy, she recited the Swan party line—a girl didn’t really need a daddy. She’d sure wanted one, though, and had watched with longing when she saw other little girls riding on their daddies’ shoulders or getting taken out for ice cream.

When she’d married Jake and gotten a father-in-law it was the world’s best bonus.

Jake’s dad always greeted her with a hug and a “How’s my girl?” He checked the air in her tires and whittled little wood raccoons for her to put on her mantelpiece in the living room. Mims had pronounced them tacky but Ella loved them because every time she looked at them she could see her father-in-law’s big, smiling face.

“We’re so sorry to lose you,” Mom O’Brien had written in a sweet card after Ella and Jake broke the news. She’d been sorry to be lost. Too bad a girl couldn’t shed the husband but keep the family, she thought as she turned the sign hanging on the door of Gilded Lily’s to Closed.

She was tired—working with people all day could be exhausting—but it was a good kind of tired, she decided as she started to add up the day’s receipts. From now until New Year’s Eve the shop would be busy. Gilded Lily’s was the closest thing Icicle Falls had to a Neiman Marcus or a Nordstrom. It was owned by her mother but Ella managed it. She loved pretty clothes and she loved helping her customers find a special dress for that special occasion, whether it was a party or a prom, as well as all the accessories to enhance it. There’d been a lot of enhancing taking place this Black Friday.

Now the business day was over and it was time to go home. Home is where the heart is. There’s no place like home.

Bah, humbug.

She stepped out into the brisk mountain air and locked the door behind her. Winter darkness had settled in for the night and downtown Icicle Falls was a-twinkle. Christmas lights decked out the trees in the park and the potted fir trees nestled against the shops, and red ribbons adorned the old-fashioned lampposts that ran along Center Street.

Every weekend there would be a tree-lighting ceremony, and the skyscraper-size fir in town square would come to life with hundreds of colored lights, making the winter village scene complete. With its mountain setting and Bavarian architecture, Icicle Falls was like an animated postcard, quaint and charming—a perfect setting for a perfect life. Except Ella’s life wasn’t so perfect these days; it was like a dress that no longer fit.

It didn’t take her long to walk the half mile from the shop to her two-bedroom Craftsman-style cottage on Mountain View Road. Her dream home. In the summer she’d put two wicker rockers with plump cushions on the porch, and she and Jake had sat out there on warm weekday nights. She’d work on her knitting with their Saint Bernard, Tiny, lazing at her feet, while Jake serenaded her on his guitar. Last Christmas she’d taken great satisfaction in stringing colored lights and cedar boughs along the porch, while Jake had strung lights along the roofline—a team effort.

Ella sighed at the memory. She’d thought she’d have that house for life, had envisioned raising a family there or, once Jake became a famous country star, keeping it as a vacation home.

Her mother hadn’t shared the vision. “You shouldn’t buy a house so quickly,” Mims had cautioned when they first looked at it. “You’re both young and you don’t even know if this marriage will last.”

“Of course it’ll last,” Ella had insisted. “Why wouldn’t it?”

Her mother said nothing, just pursed her lips like a woman with an ugly secret. How had Mims known things wouldn’t work out with Jake? What early warning signs had she seen that Ella hadn’t?

Whatever she’d seen, she’d kept it to herself, and to show her support (once the decision was made and the papers were signed), she’d given them a gift certificate to Hearth and Home to buy a new couch, saying, “Really, Ella, you can’t decorate in Early American Garage Sale. What will people think?”

“Maybe they’ll think we’re happy,” Ella had suggested.

Mims had ignored that remark. “Go look at the couches at Hearth and Home, baby. You’ll find one you love, I promise.”

Ella did find a couch she loved, and Mims heartily approved of the brown leather sofa with the carved mahogany accents that Ella picked out. “You have wonderful taste,” she’d said, and then added, “In most things.” Translation: your taste in men is questionable.

“Really, darling, you can do so much better,” Mims advised when Ella and Jake started getting serious. “Sleep with him if you must, but for God’s sake don’t saddle yourself with him for life.”

What kind of mother told her daughter stuff like that? Lily Swan, that was who. Mims hadn’t felt the need for a husband, so Ella supposed she thought her daughter would see the wisdom of her choice and follow suit. “Men are fun, but not necessary,” she’d once overheard her mother say.

How much fun had Mims had with Ella’s father? And what had happened to keep them from becoming a family? That, like her mother’s age, was classified information and Ella had finally given up asking.

She opened her front door in time to see her own Mr. Not Necessary, her ex-husband, coming down the hallway wearing nothing but his boxers and carrying a basket of laundry, Tiny trotting at his heels. She hated it when Jake did that—not the laundry, parading around in his boxers.

Jake O’Brien had a poster-worthy body and looking at it was, well, distracting. He’d had all day to do the laundry. Why was he waiting until now?

She frowned at him.

He frowned back. “What?”

Tiny rushed up to her, his huge tail wagging with joy, and she bent to give him a good rub behind his ears. “You couldn’t have done the laundry earlier?” That sounded snippy, and she wasn’t a snippy sort of person. At least she hadn’t been before their divorce.

“I was busy,” he said.

Probably with some woman. Not that she cared. It was no longer any of her concern what he did or who he did it with.

“Anyway, what does it matter to you when I do my laundry? We’re not married anymore.”

“That’s my point,” she said, straightening up. “We’re not married and I don’t think you should be running around the house in your underwear.” Now she sounded both snippy and bossy. She was never bossy. Never!

He stopped next to her. That close proximity still did things to her.

Used to do things to her. Used to! She told the goose bumps on her arms to settle down.

He grinned at her, a wicked, taunting grin. “Does it…bother you?”

She could feel a guilty-as-charged heat on her cheeks. “It’s not proper.” Snippy, bossy and prissy—who was this new and unimproved Ella? “You don’t see me running around the house in my underwear.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

She upgraded her frown to a scowl. “We may be sharing this house but it’s strictly business.”

“I am strictly business, and if my boxers bother you, move.”

Like she could afford to move? She didn’t have any more money in the bank than he did.

“Go stay with your mama.”

He might as well have added, “Mama’s girl.”

She wasn’t a mama’s girl and she had as much right to be here until the house sold as he did. She was an adult. She didn’t have to run home to her mother.

Anyway, Mims had downsized to a condo in the spiffy new Mountain Ridge condominiums outside town and they didn’t allow dogs Tiny’s size. If Jake thought she was leaving Tiny to him, he could think again. Tiny needed a mommy and a daddy. Even when they went their separate ways, they’d have joint custody of him. And besides, Ella needed to stay to make sure the house was kept in good condition to show. If she wasn’t there, potential buyers would see nothing but dirty toilets, dishes in the sink and beer cans on the coffee table, and they’d never be able to sell the place.

Sell the place—the thought of doing that still hurt. But it was only one in a string of many hurts she’d endured in the past year. For one wild, crazy moment, she wanted to put a hand to Jake’s face and ask, “What happened to us? Why are we doing this?” But she knew what had happened, and there was no going back now. The jet hadn’t just taxied down the runway or left the airport. It had left the city. The state. The country. They needed to move on, both of them.

She sighed. “Look, we’re stuck here until the place sells. Can’t we try and get along?”

He regarded her with those beautiful, dark Irish eyes. Roving eyes! “I’m not the one who started all this, El,” he said softly.

“Oh?” Who had “started” it by coming home with another woman’s phone number in his pants pocket?

There was no point in bringing that up. He’d just stick with his stupid story about the keyboard player dying to be in his band. Yeah? That wasn’t all the woman was dying for. The voice message Ella had gotten when she called the woman’s number said it all. I’m not home right now so leave a message. If this is Jake, I can meet you anytime, anyplace.

For what? A private audition? It had all been downhill from there.

He’d already let his perfect-husband mask slip before that, though, flirting with every little groupie who sashayed up to the bandstand when his band Ricochet was playing. She’d even caught him taking some girl’s black thong one night when the band was on break and he was supposed to be getting a Coke. He’d seen Ella coming and handed it back like it was a hot potato. A lacy hot potato.

“That came out of left field. I was so surprised I didn’t know what to do,” he’d said.

Just like he hadn’t known what to do with a certain keyboard player’s phone number? How dumb had he thought she was? And once she had proof…oh, he’d climbed on his high horse and acted all insulted that her mother’d had the nerve to hire a private detective to follow him. Who could blame her after hearing about the way he was sneaking around behind her daughter’s back, collecting other women’s panties?

But there was no denying what was plain in those pictures—her husband on another woman’s doorstep, hugging that woman. After being in her house for an hour. An hour! He’d claimed that he’d simply stopped by to drop off some music lead sheets. The kind of sheets they’d been using had nothing to do with music. How many quickies could an unfaithful husband squeeze into an hour? She didn’t want to do the math. Boy, whoever said one picture was worth a thousand words must have had a cheating husband.

Well, he’d gotten his keyboard player and Ella had gotten her divorce. They both got what they wanted. “You’re better off without him,” Mims had said. “He’s never going to amount to anything and you’d have been poor all your life. Starving musicians are a losing proposition.”

“I didn’t marry Jake to get rich,” Ella had protested.

“Congratulations, you succeeded,” Mims had retorted. Men might not have been necessary, but as far as her mother was concerned, once a girl had one, he darn well needed to earn his keep.

Her mother was right. Jake was immature and irresponsible and, worst of all, a cheater. She was well rid of him. Even if he did look hot in his boxers.

He frowned at her again. “Never mind. There’s no point talking anymore. I could talk till I’m blue in the face and you wouldn’t hear a thing I said.” With that parting remark, he marched up the stairs.

Ella turned her back on him. She was not—not!—going to look at his butt.

In fact, she wasn’t even going to stay in this house. By eight he’d be gone, on his way to the Red Barn, a honky-tonk a few miles outside of town. There he’d spend the night crooning country songs for people who were more interested in brawling and hooking up than listening to his band.

Ella had always loved listening to the band.

Oh, enough already, she scolded herself.

A moment later Jake was downstairs again and on his way down the hall to the kitchen. He’d covered the boxers with jeans but he was still bare-chested and that brought the goose bumps back for another visit. “The kitchen’s mine for twenty more minutes,” he called over his shoulder.

“Stay there as long as you want.” Messing everything up. “I’m leaving,” she called.

“Got a hot date?”

None of his business. She declined to answer. Instead, she grabbed her purse and started for the door. Tiny followed her hopefully.

She knelt in front of him and rubbed his side. “I promise I’ll be back as soon as he’s gone,” she whispered. “Then I’ll give you a good brushing.”

Tiny let out a groan and drool dripped from his chin. (Tiny did his share of mess-making, but unlike the other male in this house, he couldn’t help it.)

She kissed the top of his head, then slipped out the door, guilt riding on her shoulder. Poor Tiny. He felt the unhappy vibes in the house. In his doggy heart did he wonder what he’d done to deserve getting adopted into a broken home? If she’d known this was going to happen she’d never have visited that rescue site.

There was nothing she could do about that now. She’d make it up to him, somehow. How, exactly, she didn’t know. She hoped she could find someplace to rent that allowed big dogs that drooled and had a tendency to shed. Oh, dear.

Her Black Friday was getting blacker by the minute. She left the house, punching in Cecily Sterling’s phone number on her cell as she walked.

Ella and Cecily had been friends since high school. In fact, it was Cecily who had gotten Ella and Jake together. They’d lost touch when Cecily moved to L.A. but had reconnected when she returned to Icicle Falls earlier in the year. Cecily had been shocked to hear about the divorce but she’d been sympathetic and supportive. She had men interested in her, two to be exact, but she was done with men (or so she claimed), which made her the ideal dinner companion.

“Have you eaten yet?” Ella asked.

“Nope,” Cecily answered. “I just got in the door.”

“I don’t suppose you’d like to go back out the door, would you?”

“Maybe. What did you have in mind?”

“I need a place to hang out for a couple of hours. Dinner at Zelda’s?” Even though it was Friday night and the town was packed with tourists gearing up for Saturday shopping, Charlene Albach could always find a table for her friends.

“Jake’s still home?” Cecily guessed.

“Yeah,” Ella admitted. This was silly. She couldn’t keep running over to Charley’s restaurant every time Jake was home.

“I could go for a huckleberry martini,” Cecily said.

Oh, yes, a huckleberry martini sounded good. Or two. Whatever it took to wash away the image of Jake in his boxers.

* * *

Jake slammed a pot on the stove and pulled a can of chili from his side of the cupboard. Canned chili. He might as well have been a bachelor again.

Oh, yeah. He was.

He frowned at the can as he secured it to the electric can opener. This sucked. His life sucked. From perfect to puke in less than a year.

Was there a song in there somewhere? Probably not. He emptied the chili into the pot, along with a can of stewed tomatoes and a can of corn, his own secret recipe.

Tiny was in the kitchen now and looking expectantly up at him. “Yeah, I know. You like chili, too,” he said to the dog. He opened another can and added that to the pot. “You know this will make you fart.”

Tiny wagged his tail.

“Yeah, you’re right. Who cares? We’re guys, it’s what we do.” And they also walked around the house in their boxers.

Except not anymore, now that he and Ella weren’t together. Walking around in his boxers was no longer allowed. So maybe he should talk to her about leaving her bras hanging out in plain sight when she did the laundry. Did she have any idea how crazy that made him? All it took was one glance at those lacy little cups and he could picture Ella with him in that sleigh bed they’d found at an estate sale, going at it like rabbits.

He heaved a sigh. How had he gone from happily married to miserably divorced so fast?

He and Ella were meant to be together. They should’ve gone to counseling, worked things out.

Aw, heck, they wouldn’t even have needed counseling if he’d explained when she first started singing her version of “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” accusing him of being unfaithful. He’d tried to, but she’d cut him off. Then she’d thrown those pictures down in front of him and he’d been so shocked that his mother-in-law would do something that outrageous, and so offended and just plain pissed…he’d lost it. Wounded pride and anger had escorted him to the edge of the matrimonial cliff and then pushed him off.

It had been a fast fall and he learned firsthand that once the D word’s been said, there’s nothing else left to say.

So here he was, broken and miserable. The woman who’d once thought he hung the moon now wanted nothing more to do with him.

And his chili was burning. He swore and pulled it off the burner. “You’re getting the crusty part,” he informed Tiny. “You don’t care.”

You don’t care. Ella had thrown those words at him, insisting he sign the divorce papers.

“I’m not the one who filed for this,” he’d shot back.

“Just sign it, Jake. Please.”

When he’d seen those tears in her eyes, he should have pulled her to him and kissed her breathless. Then he should’ve torn up the papers, borrowed some money from Pops and moved them to Nashville. There was someplace he was sure her mother would never have followed. And that was probably what they needed. It could’ve been the two of them rather than the three of them.

He put his culinary creation in a bowl, gave Tiny the rest and then went back to his room. His room. That sucked, too. This was the guest room. Someday it was supposed to have been the nursery. Now it was his room.

He sat on the single bed that was six inches too short for him (a garage sale find), and sighed. Here he was, a squatter in his own home. Maybe Lily Swan was right. Maybe he was a loser. Maybe he had no talent. If he’d just admitted it, quit the band and taken a job in the warehouse at Sweet Dreams Chocolates, maybe he and Ella would still be together. There’d have been no groupies, no Jen, no reason to be jealous. Instead, he’d had to dream of a songwriting career and stardom. He’d tried to support his habit (and them) by working in the music shop on Fourth, but then the music shop had gone out of business. He still had a few guitar students but he wasn’t exactly getting rich. In short, these days he was a loser, unable to hang on to his woman and barely able to hang on to his dreams.

He looked at the dresser and the diamond in Ella’s engagement ring winked at him mockingly. He’d made payments on that for a whole year. Then he’d bummed the rest of the money he needed from Pops, paid it off and asked her to marry him that same night. She’d given him back both the engagement and wedding rings the day she’d shoved the divorce papers in front of him. “I can’t keep them,” she’d said. Just like she couldn’t keep him.

“No. I gave them to you. Keep them,” he’d insisted.

Ella loved jewelry and she’d especially loved that engagement ring, but she’d shaken her head and backed away.

Jake couldn’t bring himself to get rid of either ring. They still meant something to him, even if they didn’t to Ella.

Damn, he was a walking country song.

With a growl, he set aside his chili and finished getting dressed. No sense hanging around here any longer. He’d go to the Red Barn. Maybe he’d find some cute chick there who appreciated him and his music.

Even if he did, he’d look at her and see Ella.

And that sucked the most of all.

3

Charlene Albach, Charley to her friends, surveyed her domain with satisfaction. Six o’clock and all is well.

Zelda’s restaurant was filled with diners, many of them out-of-towners who’d come up to enjoy a Thanksgiving weekend getaway. Charley had been happy to oblige. She’d hated to miss going to her sister’s in Portland to be with family, but the restaurant was entirely hers now and she simply couldn’t leave. So she’d focused instead on giving other families a spectacular holiday, serving turkey dinner with all the trimmings, including stuffing made from her great-grandmother’s recipe. Well, with a few new twists. That was part of the fun of owning a restaurant. You got to create new recipes, dream up taste sensations that would keep customers coming back for more.

They were sure coming tonight. People had obviously worked up their appetites sledding and spending money in the shops. Tomorrow there’d be more sledding and shopping and more diners crowding into Zelda’s. And that meant more money in the cash register, which was bound to make for a very merry Christmas. This year Charley planned to be extravagant when shopping for her friends. They’d been there for her at every painful bump on the road to unexpectedly single, and she intended to show her thanks in a way that would make Santa proud.

She had just seated a fortysomething couple with a texting teen in tow when Ella O’Brien and Cecily Sterling came in. “And I thought my shop was crazy,” Ella observed, looking around.

The scene was a feast for the eyes. People of all ages and sizes, dressed in winter garb, consumed house specials such as salmon baked in golden puff pastry, squash seasoned with curry, baked winter vegetables and wild huckleberry cheesecake. There was plenty to occupy the other senses, too. The tantalizing scent of sage drifted out from the kitchen, encouraging diners to try the special turkey lasagna Charley’s head chef, Harvey, had created, and the clink of silver and hum of voices reminded her that life was good.

No, better than good. Great. Who needed a man, anyway? Getting free of her louse of a husband had freed up her creativity. The restaurant was better off without him. And so was Charley. Anyway, sex was overrated.

And if she kept telling herself that, she might begin to believe it.

“Can you find us a spot?” Cecily asked.

“I can always find room for a former employee. Are you sure you don’t want to come back to work for me?” Charley added as she led them to her last remaining two-top. “Like now?”

“Samantha’s keeping me busy enough at Sweet Dreams,” Cecily said with a smile. “I think my restaurant days are over.”

Just like her matchmaking days, or so Cecily claimed. Sometimes Charley entertained the idea of seeing if Cecily would put on her matchmaker hat one last time and find her a perfect man. But then she remembered there was no such thing, which was probably why Cecily was out of the matchmaking business and helping run her family’s chocolate company instead.

And there’s a reason you’re single, Charley told herself. Men were a liability, and they had no staying power. Richard, her ex, had proved that.

Never mind him. You’re having a really successful Black Friday. No need to turn it blue.

“So, business was good today?” she asked Ella as she handed her friends their menus.

“We moved a lot of inventory,” Ella said, sounding pleased.

Hardly surprising. Ella had a gift for creating irresistible displays in her shop. Charley had certainly succumbed to temptation often enough. How could a girl not when a hot top paired with a sweater that begged to be touched called her over, whispering, “Just try us on. Oh, and don’t you love this amazing scarf that’s hanging out with us?”

Ella herself was a walking ad. Tonight she was dolled up in jeans tucked into brown suede winter boots trimmed with a faux fur, along with a cream-colored cashmere sweater. She’d finished the look with a jaunty red jacket and a beret. It took style to pull off a beret. Ella had style in spades. Hardly surprising, considering who her mother was.

“That’ll make your mom happy,” Cecily predicted.

Did anything make Lily Swan happy? Charley could count on one finger the number of times she’d seen the woman smile. Well, really smile. How had such a snobby sour lemon produced such a nice daughter?

It was one of life’s mysteries, right up there with the mystery of how Charley could have been so dumb as to miss the fact that her husband was conducting an affair right under her nose…with the woman who worked as their hostess, for crying out loud. Somehow, Ariel hadn’t gotten the memo that her hostess duties applied only to paying customers. They did not extend to making your boss’s husband at home in your bed.