Page 38 of The Christmas Lodge
Derek raised his eyebrows. “Wow. Do you know where the key is?”
“It’s on a necklace he gave me when I was a little girl. It’s somewhere back in St. Louis—I haven’t worn it since my father left us.”
“How do you feel about all of this?”
Lacy shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not sure… part of me wants to know more about him, especially if I was wrong about him all these years.”
Derek squeezed her hand. “I’m glad you’re learning more about him.”
Lacy nodded, looking a little surprised at herself. “Me too.”
Just then, Becca emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray with two steaming plates of pork roast, mashed potatoes with gravy, and sauteed green beans. She slid the plates in front of them, cautioning them that the food was hot, and then slipped away again. Derek let go of Lacy’s hand and picked up his fork, suddenly ravenous and realizing he hadn’t eaten all day, what with worrying about Lacy.
“Shall we?” he asked, lifting his glass of water to clink it against hers.
“Cheers.” She laughed, then picked up her fork.
* * *
Colette stood up, putting her hands against the small of her back and arching as far as she could. A low groan escaped her as she did so, and she sagged a bit after the stretch. She had been digging through the attic for hours now, and she was almost certain by the grumbling from her stomach that it had to be nearly dinnertime. She closed the chest of old clothes she’d been searching through, sneezing as a puff of dust floated through the air.
It’s unlikely the box is even in the attic, seeing as how Emma can’t come up here herself,she thought, but she knew she would have to look through every nook and cranny of the dusty attic anyway.
Emma wouldn’t be able to rest until she found the box, and Colette was worried about Emma’s health. The elderly woman had been pushing herself for days on end now, looking through dusty corners and the back of every closet in the house. If they didn’t find the box soon, Colette was afraid of what it might do to Emma.
She had long since begun to worry that the box wasn’t even in the house, but Emma was insistent that Nicholas had, in fact, brought it to her and that she had definitely stowed it away somewhere within the cottage’s walls.
But what if Emma is remembering it wrong?
Colette shoved the thought away, knowing that it would do no good to try reasoning with Emma once more. It only made things worse. No, the best thing she could do was to keep searching. The faster they found it, the sooner Emma would get to rest and stop wearing herself out on this seemingly futile quest.
With a sigh, Colette bent her still-aching back and dug into the next chest, this one full of old papers and mementos. Her movements were mechanical by now after so much searching, and her mind had begun to wander when she heard a faint shout coming from somewhere in the house. Instantly, Colette sprang to her feet and raced down the attic stairs, her heart in her throat.
“Emma? Emma? Are you all right? Did you get hurt?”
“I’m fine, dear,” Emma called back.
It sounded as though her voice was coming from the bedroom. Colette hurried down to the first floor of the home and into Emma’s room to find Emma sitting on the edge of her bed, a locked wooden box resting on her lap. Colette pulled up short, reaching out to hold the door frame for support.
“Is that…?”
Emma looked up at her, eyes filled with happy tears. “It is,” she confirmed, her voice almost reverent. “We found it. We finally found Nicholas’s box.”
Colette came into the room then and sat beside Emma, staring at the box that had given Emma so much cause for worry. “Where was it? I swear we’ve poked through every dusty corner of this house three times over.”
“Well,” Emma said with a chuckle, “that’s because it wasn’t in a dusty corner at all. I found it at the bottom of my quilting basket.”
“Your quilting basket?”
“Yes, dear. I remember now I had put it there because I thought I would see it all the time and never forget where it was. The thing is, though, we’ve only been knitting for the last couple of months—”
“Because of the blanket donation,” Colette finished for her, understanding dawning on her. Suddenly the hilarity of the situation hit her with full force, and she flopped backward on the bed, overcome with laughter. “Oh my word, it was in the quilting basket the whole time!”
Emma’s shoulders shook with laughter. “After all this trouble, it was sitting right beside my bed this whole time!”
Colette sat up, wiping away tears, her laughter finally subsiding. “Oh my, the messes we get into. At least now you can finally rest.”
“Oh, no, dear, not yet. No, this box needs to go to its rightful owner.”
