Page 23 of Midnight Clear

“We’d have lunch together, and then dad would kiss Junie and me on the head and he’d leave to go to Duffey’s. And that would be the end of Christmas.”

“The magic was gone,” Hank said.

“Yeah,” she said. “The magic was gone.”

“But for that week,” he said. “I can see why you love it so much. Why you still have that hope in your heart.”

She nodded and said, “And then when I was fifteen he left on Christmas Day and he never came back. We still don’t know why he was driving up the mountain or where he was going. All we know from the police report was that he’d been drinking and he left Duffey’s in a rage. The rest is history.”

“You’re still angry with him,” Hank said.

She slowed her steps. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

“How do you deal with it?”

She breathed in and felt the tightness in her lungs. “I don’t think about it. I stay focused on my job. On living my life. And when images of him pop into my mind—images of how he really was—I tamp them down and find something else to keep me busy.”

“Have you ever tried to forgive him?”

“I’m not sure I could,” Sophie said. “I’m not sure I’d even know where to start.”

“A wise man once told me that forgiveness isn’t for the other person,” Hank said. “Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you approve of what he did. Forgiveness is for you. It frees you from the chains that bind you to him.”

“That seems easier said than done,” she said.

“I’d imagine so,” he said. “But I think like anything worthwhile in life, it doesn’t happen in an instant. It’s a process. Maybe it just starts with you saying the words every day. Maybe you don’t even mean them. But eventually your words are going to catch up with your heart and your mind.”

She’d been angry with her father for so long she couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like to not be. Maybe Hank was right. Maybe he wasn’t. She’d need to think on it. But it would have to wait until later. She couldn’t deal with the bookstore and her father at the same time. Her father had been dead and buried for a long time. He could stay there awhile longer.

“Ahh, my favorite song,” Hank said as “White Christmas” started to play over the street.

Sophie was surprised when he turned her into his arms and started to sway to the music. Her first thought was to look around in embarrassment, wondering who was watching. But the gentle strength of his arms around her had her relaxing against him as they moved together.

Snow swirled around them as they danced in the street. Voices and faces faded. There was only Hank. And she realized at that moment that she loved him.

As the song faded she stepped away from him, her heart pounding in her chest with emotions that rioted through her. There was something in the way he looked at her that told her she wasn’t alone in her feelings. But this wasn’t the time or place for those kinds of declarations. It was the moment. The music. The dancing. The snow. It all swirled together to make the moment vibrate with something more.

There was a pregnant silence between them. And then she said, “I’ll sell you the bookstore.”

ChapterNine

“Ahh,”Hank said. The worry and waiting were obvious on her face. “I was wondering what was weighing so heavy on you tonight.”

He held his hand out to her and waited patiently for her to take it. He’d gotten to know Sophie well over the last weeks. She was smart and serious, but she had a sharp wit that was so dry most people didn’t catch the humor. She had knowledge of a vast array of subjects—a testament to her love of books—and besides her mother and sister, the thing she cared about most was that bookstore.

He’d come to learn it wasn’t the business or money that drove her. But it was the memories and legacy the bookstore held that meant so much to her. She had a powerful thirst for her own family, and whether she knew it or not, she had a powerful thirst to create a legacy for future generations. And that bookstore was the only anchor to legacy she had. She was trying to hold on to something, and even she didn’t realize what it was.

The last weeks had been illuminating, and he’d intentionally not brought the bookstore up in conversation again. The first reason being that he didn’t want her to ever confuse his feelings for her and think it had anything to do with her property or anything else. He was head over heels in love with her, and if she wasn’t as skittish as one of his father’s new colts then he would have told her so already.

The second reason he hadn’t brought up the bookstore again was because he’d been doing everything he could to come up with other options. Once he’d realized how important the house itself was to her—how it had been built by her great-grandfather—and all the stories she’d been told about how a deep dent had ended up in the wood floors or that the original wood countertop had been from an old English pub her grandfather had frequented when he’d been overseas.

Those were the things she held dear, and those were the things that could never be replicated in a new structure.

They walked hand in hand to the cider stand and he bought hot cider for each of them.

“Are you cold?” he asked. “My truck is parked over at the condos.”

“No, it feels nice. I’m bundled up.”

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