One More for Christmas

“You mean help decorate it?”

“I mean help me choose one from the forest.”

“I can choose it? An actual tree growing in the forest? Can we go now?”

“It will be dark by the time we get home. Tomorrow you’ll probably be tired. Maybe the day after? We’ll find a tree and see the reindeer.”

“Reindeer?”

Brodie nodded. “We have our own small herd. They like the climate up here.”

“Do they fly?”

Samantha tensed and waited for him to fluff his response.

He took his time. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen them fly,” he said finally, “but that doesn’t mean they don’t.”

Good answer, Samantha thought, and Tab seemed to agree.

“Look, Tab, there’s snow on the mountains.” While Ella pointed out the scenery to her daughter, Samantha glanced at her mother. Her lack of response to the Christmas conversation was surprising. Or maybe she knew that the one sure way of killing this reconciliation dead from the beginning was to expose the myth of Santa.

Gayle was staring out the window. She was slightly hunched in her seat and she’d wrapped her arms around her upper body as if she was protecting herself.

Had she found the journey stressful? Was she regretting joining them? Was she dismayed by how remote it was?

Samantha realized how little she knew about her mother other than her business achievements. The McIntyres of Kinleven were obviously a close family. What would they make of the fragmented, dysfunctional group who were their guests?

There were times when Samantha wasn’t even sure who she was. She’d molded herself into a template that fit her mother’s expectations for her. She had a strong work ethic, was independent to a degree that Kyle had described as “ridiculous,” although she’d never been sure what he meant by that, and she never let emotions influence her personal decisions. On the outside she was her mother’s daughter. The inside was another matter entirely. Which version was the real her? The private one or the public one? It bothered her that she didn’t know.

Brodie flicked on his headlights. “Is this your first time in Scotland, Gayle?”

“No, although it’s been years.” Gayle dragged her gaze from the view. “It’s exactly the way I remembered it.”

Ella reached into her bag to give Tab a drink. “When did you come here? You never told us.”

“On my honeymoon.”

Samantha turned her head so fast she almost pulled a muscle. Honeymoon?

She exchanged glances with her sister.

Their mother never talked about her marriage or their father. But it would explain why she’d hesitated before agreeing to come. The place must be full of memories.

If Brodie thought it strange that neither of them had known this fact about their mother, he didn’t show it. “It’s a great place for a honeymoon, although perhaps not in the middle of winter.”

“Winter was perfect,” Gayle said. “It was cozy. We crunched through snow in the day and curled up by a log fire at night.”

Samantha tried to imagine her mother curled up on the sofa with a man. It was harder to picture because she’d never seen a photograph of her father. When they’d asked, her mother had simply said that she didn’t have one. They’d assumed their mother had been so distressed by the loss of him that she’d destroyed them. Samantha felt nothing but regret that he’d died before she was old enough to have a memory of him. She didn’t envy Brodie his grief, but she envied the fact that he’d had a father to grieve for.

What had her mother’s marriage been like? How special had her father been, that her mother hadn’t been able to entertain marrying again after she lost him?

To the best of Samantha’s knowledge, her mother hadn’t been involved with another man since. Coming back to the place where you spent your honeymoon had to hurt. Because Gayle didn’t show emotion, it was easy to pretend she didn’t have the same feelings as other people. But she had to have feelings about this, surely? Was there an inner Gayle, and an outer Gayle?

Samantha wanted to ask more. She wanted to grab hold of this tiny fragile thread and see where it led, but they were trapped in a car with a stranger and an almost-five-year-old who missed nothing.

Frustrated, Samantha stared straight ahead, watching as darkness slowly closed over the mountains.

Her mother had been widowed at the age of twenty.