Free A Trip Back to Snowy Pines (Book II in the Christmas Village Trilogy) by Lisa Pendergrass

Chapter 1
    “ You look at me as if you don’t know me.”
… Mary Hatch
    December 21st
     
    “It’s Christmas Lola. Why don’t you just come
with us?”
     
    Lola McCauley looked at her husband Chris and
she knew he meant it. She knew nothing would make him happier than
for her to take his hand and follow him and Ethan out to the car to
spend Christmas together… a family. But Christ didn’t know
everything. And most of all he didn’t know that them being together
was the last thing on earth that Lola wanted to happen. So instead
of taking his hand she shook her head and said the well-rehearsed
mantra she’d chanted to herself for the days. “No I really
shouldn’t. The of the term temporary separation are clear. He’s
yours until Christmas morning. I’ll see him later than day. He’s
been so excited about this ski trip.”
     
    “He’s not going to be excited when he
realizes you’re not going to be with us.” Chris argued.
     
    “You’re his father. He’ll be fine. Besides,
he has to get used to this.” She explained, looking back him to
watch their chubby five-year-old son Ethan running in the yard with
the neighbor’s dog.
     
    Chris shrugged and turns to watch him as
well. “Lo, I made one stupid, thoughtless mistake, but you’re the
love of my life. I have no intentions of getting used to a life
that doesn’t include us spending out lives together raising our son
as a family.”
     
    “It’s not that simple… and it isn’t only your
decision.”
     
    Lola watched his face fall and hated herself
a little. When he looked sad like this he looked exactly like the
sweet faced fourteen-year old who’d moved in across the street from
her when she was eleven. Sometimes it seemed she must have loved
him on sight. Other times she wonders if she ever loved him at all.
Maybe they were just two stupid kids who enjoyed making out and
thought they could build a life together based on that alone.
     
    “Come on daddy, let’s go!” Ethan begged
tugging on Chris’s hand.
     
    They looked so much alike it sometimes
knocked the wind out of her. They have the same wavy,
chestnut-brown hair, the same natural olive skin that turns to a
flawless copper-tone tan at the first hint of sunshine, and the
same golden-brown eyes that looked like sparkling topaz when
they’re happy, and like melted chocolate ice cream when they’re
sad.
     
    “See, listen to our son. Time’s a wasting.”
She said motioning toward the driveway.
     
    Chris looked down at Ethan and said, “Did you
kiss Grandma Goodbye?”
     
    Ethan wrinkles his nose and Lola stepped in
to his defense. “Mom’s asleep. No need to wake her.” She leaned
down and looked at him and the fact that she was about to go one
solid week without seeing him, especially at Christmas, was almost
enough to make her cave and go with them. He’d never been away from
her for more than a night and now they would be apart for four
days. It suddenly felt like too much.
     
    “Okay, so I’ll talk to you every day and
you’ll send me lots of pictures, right?” She asked, fighting to
keep the tears from her voice, and for the first time Ethan looked
like he was questioning whether he wanted to do this.
     
    “I’ll miss you a whole lot, mommy.”
     
    “You and daddy will be having way too much
fun to miss me. And I’ll see you on Christmas day. Santa will come
see you with daddy and with me.”
    Why can’t he just see me all at the same time?” He asks, rubbing
his ear. When Lola first graduated from nursing school and began
working it was on the night shift so she put one of Chris’s old
baseball jerseys that had become her sleep shirt in Ethan’s crib so
he would be comforted by her scent. By the time he was three he
dragged it everywhere, and rubbed his ears with it when he was
upset. He finally let it go a little over a year ago, but when he’s
upset he still tended to rub his ears.
     
    “Come on buddy. We’ve talked about this,
remember?”