Free Home for the Holidays by Ros Baxter

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Home for the Holidays
                  “Lizzie?”
    Dark green eyes peered through the mean crack she’d opened in the doorway.
    “Beth,” she corrected them.
    Low, grumbly laughter filtered through the crack. “You changed your name?”
    She grimaced and shut the door.  “I changed a lot of things,” she muttered to herself.  “Firstly and most importantly, never, ever trust a Canning boy.”
    And Beth should know.  She’d kissed, dated, or married three of them. But that was back when she’d been Lizzie, and did stupid things like that.  Now she was Beth, and Beths were the kind of women who learned from their mistakes.
    Beths worked hard.  They paid their credit cards on time just like their fathers had taught them.  Beths dated sensible men, when they dated at all, which was not very often (at least for this Beth).
    A Beth would never open the door to the last remaining Canning boy.  Especially not when he was the baddest and hottest of all of them.  And when a snowstorm was settling in.
    He knocked again.
    This time she didn’t bother with the pretence of the crack.  “What?”  She barked the word through the solid maple door and didn’t even try to inject a little small town hospitality into it.  She didn’t live in this particular small town anymore.  She lived in a place where people liked it if you were rude to them.  It cut down on their obligations.  Kept things nice and clean.
    “I’d sure appreciate it if you’d let me in.”  Clearly, Jim Canning still felt obliged to use his neighbourly manners, even if Beth didn’t.
    “I’m sure you would,” Beth said.  But Beth knew too well, that’s where it all starts.  A simple request. Lizzie can I borrow your ruler? (Matt, Canning Boy Number One).  Lizzie will you come to the Spring Dance with me? (Luke, Canning Boy Number Two). Lizzie, no-one’ll ever know. (Mark, Canning Boy Number Three).
    She almost groaned aloud at the realisation that number four was standing on her stoop.  And she was still wearing her dressing gown even though it was gone three o’clock in the afternoon.
    What would her mother have said about that?
    “I’m busy.” Beth slid back into the warmth of the sitting room, where she’d built an impressive fire earlier in the day, before the snow really started coming down.  She sat cross-legged in front of it and looked up at the portrait of Mack Gibson above the mantelpiece, glowering with good health and bad humor. 
    “You would have been real proud of this fire, Dad,” she said.
    God alone knew he’d never been proud of much else she’d done.
    She imagined him, peering down from on high, watching Jim Canning banging on her door.
    “Don’t worry,” she assured his portrait.  “That door you hung could withstand a nuclear blast.” Her father had always liked reliable things. “He’s not getting in.”
    As the knocking stopped, she settled back down with her papers, sorting them on the little coffee table in front of the fire. She would not think about why that boy was knocking on her door.  She would not think about green eyes and that sweet, dark, Southern accent.
    She would think about this.
    Three piles. Personal correspondence.  Business matters.  Estate matters.
    She sighed and rubbed her neck where it joined her shoulders.  She’d been at this for hours.  Why did people always talk about getting affairs in order like it was some cakewalk?  Sifting through the loose ends of her father’s life was going to take some time, even with his meticulous filing system.  He just hadn’t expected to die, that was the problem.
    And he wasn’t the only one. 
    Men like Mack always seemed invincible.  Til they weren’t. 
    She stared into the fire, enjoying the voluptuous dance of the flames, and the soft yowling of the snowstorm outside.
    “Lizzie.”
    Her heart exploded in her chest as the soft voice behind her interrupted her thoughts.  She shot