The Night Before Christmas

  Butternut Lake: The Night Before Christmas

  MARY McNEAR

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

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  And don't miss Moonlight on Butternut Lake

  An Excerpt from Moonlight on Butternut Lake

  Chapter One

  About the Author

  Also by Mary McNear

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  WHEN JACK RETURNED from bringing firewood in from the woodpile that night, he found Caroline standing in front of the mirror in their bedroom.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, watching her from the doorway.

  “What? Oh, nothing,” she said, shaken out of her reverie and turning away from the mirror. “I was just, just checking something.”

  “Checking what?” Jack asked, coming over to her and taking her into his arms. She nestled against him and felt the cold night air, still on his flannel shirt and blue jeans, mix with the warmth of her white cotton nightgown.

  “What were you checking on?” Jack persisted, nuzzling her neck in a way that almost made her forget what she’d been checking on. Almost. But she pulled away from him and showed him.

  “Do you see this skin, right here, right under my chin?” she asked, patting it with her fingertips.

  “I see it,” he said. “And it looks beautiful,” he added. “Like all of your skin.”

  “No, but I mean, feel it,” she said. He felt it, dutifully. “Do you think it’s getting a little softer? Do you think it’s, you know, starting to hang down a little? You know, like the beginning of a double chin or a . . . a turkey wattle?”

  “A turkey wattle?” Jack repeated, mystified.

  Caroline nodded, seriously. “Because my grandma Pearl used to have this thing, this sack, sort of, that hung down under her chin, like a turkey wattle. At least that’s what my cousins and I used to call it. And now I’m afraid I might be getting one too. I mean, not right this second, maybe, but at some point in the future.”

  “Caroline, there is nothing wrong with your chin, or the skin under your chin, or any other part of you, for that matter,” he said, stroking her cheek tenderly. “Now what’s this really about?”

  “It’s about aging, Jack,” she said, a little fretfully. “It’s about getting older.”

  “Something we’re both going to do,” he reminded her.

  “Something we’re both already doing,” she said. “Only, because you’re a man, you’re doing it better than I am.”

  He studied her for a long moment. “So . . . is this about . . . are you thinking . . . that you’re somehow going to be less attractive to me as you age?”

  Caroline nodded, a little sheepishly. And then, before he could object, she said, “I know what you’re going to say, Jack. And I already know all that stuff. ‘It’s what’s on the inside that counts.’ ‘You’ll love me whatever I look like. You’re in this for the long haul’ . . . all those things. And I get it. I believe you. It’s just that . . . things are different with us. Our history is a little unusual.” And that, they both knew, was putting it mildly. They’d married when they were both twenty-­one and had their daughter, Daisy, soon after. Then they’d divorced three years later and had not seen each other again for the next eighteen years, until Jack had moved back to Butternut, Minnesota, last summer, still in love with Caroline, and hell-­bent on winning her back. He had, eventually, and now they were getting married again, for the second time. And since last fall, they’d been happily ensconced in the cabin Jack had renovated for them on Butternut Lake, behaving, as Caroline had pointed out more than once, “like a ­couple of teenagers.” Which was to say that even after almost four months of living together again, they could barely keep their hands off each other.

  Jack looked troubled now though. It pained him, she knew, that they had lost so many years of what could have been their life together. It pained her, too, of course, but it pained Jack more, because he was the one—­with his drinking, his gambling, and his womanizing—­who was mainly responsible for the fact that those years had been lost to them. Two years ago, though, he’d gotten sober and straightened his life out, and now he was determined to make every single second count with Caroline, and with their daughter, Daisy, who was away at college.

  “Jack, look,” Caroline said. “I’m not bringing this up because I want you to feel guilty. I don’t. But I want you to understand it from my perspective. The last time we got married, I was twenty-­one. I was a baby, practically. And I had the skin to prove it. Then, when you left, I was twenty-­four, still young, obviously, still no wrinkles on the horizon. You were gone, though, for almost two decades, and during that time, I went from being young to being middle-­aged. And I can’t help but think, what if you missed the best years of me? Not me as a person, I hope. But me as a woman. A woman who was attractive to you.”

  Jack said nothing, only studied her for a long moment before turning her around, slowly, until she was facing the mirror above her dresser, and he was standing behind her, his arms around her waist.

  “I could tell you, Caroline, that you are as beautiful to me now as you were the day I met you, and it would be the truth. But I don’t know if you’re in the mood to believe me, so I’m going to show you something instead. I want you to look at yourself now,” he said, gesturing at the mirror, “really look at yourself and—­”

  “Jack, don’t,” she said, feeling embarrassed, and twisting a little in his arms. Because despite the fact that she’d been looking in the mirror just a few minutes earlier, it wasn’t something she spent a lot of time doing, and, when she did do it, it was almost always to examine something she was critical of. But now Jack held her, gently but firmly, and when she turned her face away from the mirror, he put his fingers, lightly, on her chin and turned it back.

  “Look at yourself,” he said, again, and she looked, reluctantly, into the mirror. “And don’t just look at what you think is wrong with you,” he said, “look at what I’m seeing right now. What I see every time I look at you.” He ran his fingers through her strawberry-­blond hair, which was shining in the lamplight, and which she’d always thought was her best feature. The feature she’d been happiest to pass on to Daisy, though Daisy had also gotten her blue eyes and her fair skin. And tonight, she had to admit, her eyes seemed especially blue and her fair skin seemed to be suffused with a soft glow.

  In fact, looking in the mirror now, she saw what she thought Jack wanted her to see. She did look young. There was no sign of the gray hair that had recently started to appear—­she’d found another one just that morning—­or of the fine lines that had etched themselves around her eyes and her mouth. And maybe it was the forgiving light in the room, or the fact that Jack was looking at her reflection in the mirror with love, yes, but with desire, too, or maybe it was her own happiness at being with him, in a cabin he’d rebuilt for the two of them to live in together, but, whatever it was, she saw in herself now a certain kind of beauty. And if Jack was the only man who saw it, she realized, as well as the only man who could make her see it in herself, then that was just fine with her.

  She turned to him now, sliding her hands up to his shoulders and kissing him, full on the mouth, and he pulled her against him and kissed her back, eventually sliding one of the slender straps of her nightgown off her shoulder, and caressing the bare skin the
re in a way that made Caroline think it was only a matter of seconds before he had that nightgown off altogether. But he surprised her, pulling away from her and looking down at the neckline of that nightgown and tracing one finger along it.

  “You know, before we got back together,” he said, “I used to dream—­literally dream—­about you wearing one of these nightgowns.”

  “You did?” Caroline said, surprised. She had several white cotton nightgowns like this one, and none of them, she thought, were particularly sexy. She’d bought them all, in fact, at the Variety Store in Butternut, all for $29.99 apiece. “Jack, why would you dream about me in some old nightgown?” she asked now, with amusement.

  “Because you used to wear one when we were married the first time, and I always thought, on you anyway, that it was so beautiful. Any chance I could persuade you to wear one of them for our wedding ceremony?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Jack, I’m not getting married in front of fifty ­people in a nightgown,” she said. “And anyway,” she added, “I thought you liked the blue dress.”

  “I love the blue dress. I just love your nightgowns more,” he said, his words soft against the hollow at the base of her neck. Caroline thought then about the dress she’d bought for the wedding, the dress that was hanging in her closet right now. It was a sleeveless, knee-­length, pale blue silk dress with a white silk sash around the waist and a line of little pearl buttons up the back. She’d also had silk high-­heeled shoes dyed to match it. It was, bar none, the prettiest outfit she’d ever owned.

  “Well, after our wedding, I’ll wear this nightgown, maybe,” she said. “In our room at the White Pines.” The White Pines, where Caroline and Jack would be spending their wedding night, would also be the site of their ceremony and reception on Saturday, in three days, the day before Christmas Eve. The White Pines was a rustic but elegant resort, built in the 1930s out of wood and stone in a North Woods alpine style, and nestled on thirty acres of waterfront property on one of Butternut Lake’s prettiest bays. Its ten cottages and its waterfront area—­complete with fishing docks and boat rentals—­were closed in the winter, but the main lodge, with its twenty-­five rooms and its great room and dining room, both of which had a warm, clubby feeling and both of which overlooked the lake, was very much open. Caroline was in almost daily contact with Lori Pell, the director of the inn, about last-­minute wedding details, and now, she remembered something.

  “Oh, one second, honey,” she said, reaching for a pencil and a little pad of paper that were on the dresser. She tried to keep these handy at all times so that she could scribble questions or ideas or reminders to herself about the wedding whenever they occurred to her. “We have to decide if we want a punch, a nonalcoholic punch, served at the reception,” she said. “It would be in addition to the sparkling water, the fruit juice, and the soda. Lisa said the color would be a Christmas red, and that it would look pretty in the inn’s antique punch bowl.”

  “That sounds nice,” Jack said, watching as Caroline jotted down a note about it on the pad and then flipped it shut again.

  “Now what were we talking about?” she asked, coming back into his arms.

  “We weren’t talking about anything,” he said, kissing her again.

  But then he remembered something, too. “What time does Daisy’s bus get in tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Twelve thirty,” she said promptly, and she felt the little glow of pleasure she always felt at the prospect of Daisy coming home. She would be staying with them for almost three weeks on her winter break from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

  “Perfect,” Jack said. “I’ll pick her up.”

  “I wish I could come, too. But I can’t leave Jessica to waitress alone during the lunch rush.”

  “No, you can’t,” Jack agreed. “And you don’t need to. I’ll bring Daisy straight over to Pearl’s,” he said, referring to the coffee shop that Caroline’s family had opened in Butternut more than fifty years ago and that he was now a partner in as well.

  “By the way,” he asked, fiddling with her nightgown strap. “How is ‘operation surprise Daisy’ going?”

  She smiled at the name he’d given this project. “It’s not definite yet. We might not know right up until Christmas Eve morning. But if it all works out, it will be Daisy’s best Christmas present ever,” she said.

  “It’d be a big surprise, all right,” Jack agreed. But another wedding detail had popped into Caroline’s head, and she reached for the pencil again and scribbled furiously onto the pad while Jack waited, a model of forbearance.

  “I saw Joey at the IGA today,” she explained to him, dropping the pencil onto the dresser and coming back into his arms. “He asked if he could bring a plus one to the wedding, and I need to tell Lisa.”

  “I didn’t know Joey had a girlfriend.”

  “He doesn’t,” she said, resting her cheek against the soft flannel of his shirt. “He has a boyfriend.”

  “Joey has a boyfriend?”

  “Uh-­huh,” she said, running her hands up the front of his shirt. “You didn’t know that?”

  “No,” he said. “I thought he was . . . you know, a guy’s guy.”

  “He is a guy’s guy.”

  “But, I mean . . .”

  She smiled a little at his befuddlement. “What’s the matter, Jack?” she teased. “Aren’t you ready for the twenty-­first century to reach Butternut?”

  He kissed her, gently, on the lips. “I’m ready for anything,” he said. “As long as I’ve got you in my life.”

  There was no more talking then, just kissing, and Jack sliding her nightgown’s straps off her shoulders and letting the gown fall to the floor. No matter how much he liked it, apparently, he didn’t want her wearing it anymore. And before she knew it, he’d maneuvered her over to the bed, too.

  Jack had always been a fast worker that way, she thought, as she gave herself over to the sweet oblivion of the moment. Some things, it turned out, hadn’t changed in the last eighteen years.

  Chapter Two

  JACK SPENT THE next morning laying new floors in a cabin he was renovating. He’d bought the cabin in early fall, and though it had been in near-­derelict condition, he’d planned to do the same thing to it he’d done to his and Caroline’s cabin; namely, rebuild it from the outside in. The work was going well, and if he could sell it in the spring, at a healthy profit, he planned on making a business out of renovating cabins on the lake.

  But despite his busy morning, he still left himself plenty of time to drive to the bus stop to pick up Daisy. So much time, in fact, that he was there half an hour early. He didn’t mind, though. Being a real father to his daughter was still new to him, and he was determined to do it “right,” even though the meaning of that word sometimes eluded him. Being an alcoholic had taught him how to be a drinking buddy, a casual lover, and a fair-­weather friend, but it had taught him almost nothing about how to be a good husband and a good father. Now, after being two years sober, he was just learning this, and there were times when he felt a sudden sense of insecurity and self-­doubt. Had he said the right thing? Had he done the right thing? Had he been the man they needed him to be? The man he needed to be for them?

  But all these thoughts fell away the moment he saw Daisy get off the bus. “Hey,” he said, scooping her up in his arms and swinging her around. “You’re home.”

  “I’m home, Dad,” Daisy agreed. “And I missed you so much.” She sounded like herself, the self that Jack thought was just about perfect, but when he set her down and took a closer look at her, she didn’t look like herself. Not entirely. She looked thinner, and her blue eyes were shadowed with fatigue, her pale skin almost translucent.

  “Daisy, what’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she assured him, as the bus driver opened the baggage compartment and Jack took her suitcase out. They t
hanked the driver then, and Jack carried her suitcase over to his pickup and sat it down in the flatbed.

  “Dad, I’m fine,” Daisy said, as they both climbed into the truck. “Really,” she insisted, seeing the worried expression on his face. “It’s just . . .”

  “It’s just what?” he asked, turning on the ignition so the heat would be on in the truck, but making no move to drive away.

  “I don’t know, it’s just . . . everything,” she said, with a helpless shrug.

  Jack said nothing, but he knew what Daisy meant by “everything.” She meant Will Hughes. Will was Daisy’s boyfriend. Her first serious boyfriend. They’d gone to high school together, though they’d been in different worlds there. Daisy, the straight A student and gifted athlete, and Will, the perennial bad boy, irresistible to girls, but, alas, not to the administrators and teachers at their school. Last summer, though, to everyone’s surprise, Daisy’s and Will’s worlds had intersected—­or, in Caroline’s mind, collided—­and the two of them had been inseparable. When Will had told Daisy at the end of the summer that he was joining the army, she’d been almost inconsolable. And Will, it turned out, hadn’t been much better, though there hadn’t been any tears on his part, just a stoic misery that Jack had recognized immediately. It was that same misery that had kept him company on those late nights, and those early mornings, after he’d given up drinking, but before he knew if he would ever get his wife and daughter back again.

  “Hey,” Jack said gently, watching the bus drive away. “I know what it’s like to miss someone.”

  Daisy nodded, and, as she snuggled deeper into her down jacket, she suddenly looked much younger than her twenty-­one years. “Did it ever get better?” she asked.