Forever This Time (2 page)

“How bad?”

“I don't think anyone's sure yet.”

Molly squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing her index fingers on her forehead. “Do you think Josie knows? I mean, I know she doesn't have anything to do with them, but…” She looked up. “Should we try to find her?”

“She knows. Diana apparently spoke to her this morning.”

“Is she … going to come?”

“Yeah.”

“Well.” Molly edged her next nail into her mouth, nodding slowly. “Wow. But she'll be at the hospital, right? Not here. She wouldn't come back to the park, would she?”

Ethan took a long, deep breath. “I don't know.”

“She wouldn't. She hates it here. Camp Ho-Ho, right?”

“I know.”

“But you look worried.”

“I'm pretty sure Diana will want her at Mercy. Can't imagine why Josie would even want to set foot near this place.”

“Except … Josie hates hospitals. And her mother.”

Ethan nodded. “That's what scares me.”

Molly stood up, pacing the small office. “So what's your plan?”

“Haven't had time to make one. We'll see, I guess.”

Molly winced as she got to the window and looked down at the courtyard. “Just a suggestion, but you might want a more concrete plan than ‘we'll see' if Josie Kendrew walks through that igloo door down there. It's been ten years since you've seen her.”

“I'm well aware of that, Mols.”

“Are you going to head up to Mercy to see her?” Ethan could tell she was trying to keep the hurt out of her voice, but he could hear it anyway.

He shook his head, picturing an unworn tux, a set of shiny new wedding bands in a ten-year-old box.

“I don't know, Molly. I don't know
what
I'm going to do.”

 

Chapter 2

“Have a happy ho-ho day!” chirped a big plastic reindeer head, startling Josie as she ducked through the arched igloo entrance to Snowflake Village two hours after she'd fled the hospital. The jangle of Christmas carols spewing from the ceiling speakers still made her twitch, even after ten years away.

It might be August everywhere else in America, but in this little alternate-reality retreat in Vermont, it was Christmas. Always Christmas. Three hundred sixty-five freakin' days of Christmas.

“Stuff it, Rudolph,” she grumbled as she tried to wrangle her way through the little turnstile. She'd been sitting in the parking lot for a full forty minutes, baking in the August heat, trying to convince herself to walk through the stupid igloo. It was shaping up to be one of the worst days of her life, and she didn't need a big fake reindeer-on-Prozac recording to remind her what a good mood everyone
else
was in.

“Uh-oh. Is someone having a cranky day?” The reindeer head bobbed toward her, its glassy eyes freakishly focused on her face as she stopped dead and whirled around.

That fake head had been talking since she was a kid, but it had always been just a recording, not a camera with ears. Fantastic. She hadn't even gotten
into
the park yet, and she was already insulting Rudolph.

“I'm sorry.” She grimaced. “You weren't supposed to hear that.”

“I'm not supposed to hear a lot of things. You have a happy ho-ho day, now.” The mechanical head turned toward the family coming in behind her.

Had the fake eye winked?

She headed through the arched doorway that dumped guests into the central courtyard, and dug for her sunglasses. She told herself it was because it was sunny, not because she was hoping to disguise her presence here for as long as possible while she got her bearings.

She'd driven here from the hospital on autopilot, and she still wasn't even sure why she'd come. The psych major in her recognized some deep-seated need to find a way to reconnect with a dad she didn't know anymore—to return to the place where he was so … alive—but the angry teenager still buried deep inside couldn't believe she'd just walked back through that igloo after all this time.

After all, this was the place where reality sat happily stowed in the back seat. It was the place where she'd found hope and love … and then lost both in one fell swoop.

She hadn't been back here in ten years—had been happy to put the going-nowhere town of Echo Lake firmly in the rearview mirror and head off to Boston to make a new life.

But now? Now the dad who'd been in a Santa suit last time she'd seen him was lying in a hospital bed with more questions than answers in his medical chart. Now, the mom who'd spent most of Josie's childhood in a fog was waiting for her to come back to that wretched hospital.

And instead of facing either of those things, she was here, where at any moment she could run smack into a muscular, gorgeous, six-foot-two memory.

Josie took a deep, shaky breath as she looked around. As much as she'd spent the entire drive from Boston trying to prepare herself to be here in Echo Lake again, she wasn't at all sure she could handle it. At all.

Yes, she was an adult now. And yes, she'd left a long time ago. So presumably, she'd had plenty of time to steel herself against the past—especially against the man who'd figured front and center in that past. She'd certainly be able to see him again, talk to him, look into his eyes without regretting the fact that she'd left him practically at the altar.

Wouldn't she?

She shook her head. Maybe that'd be true if the man had been anyone but Ethan, whose secretive smile and smoky blue eyes had threatened to undo half the females at Echo Lake High. Maybe it'd be true if he wasn't the guy whose quarterback pedigree and sharp wit could have chosen any female in town, but instead had filled
her
senior year with flowers and silly notes and hot nights at the lake.

Ethan had been her first … and she'd thought he was going to be her forever.

She looked to her left, where the igloo entrance gave way to a row of brightly colored cottages. First was the Pepto-Bismol-colored penny candy store, then a tropical-blue gift shop with a rainbow-painted door, and then a sunny yellow ice cream parlor with tiny patio tables out front. The colors practically screamed,
Isn't this just the most happy-happy place in the universe?

She sighed and adjusted her sunglasses, trying to mute the buildings.

A breeze picked up the ends of Josie's hair again as she reached the edge of the courtyard. Her eyes caught on the polka-dotted umbrella tables at the ice cream parlor, then skated inadvertently toward the administration building, aka Elf Central, a white Victorian with deep purple shutters on every window.

It actually looked cool and inviting on this already hot morning, set back from the courtyard on a grassy lawn with two huge sugar maples out front, but there was no way she'd walk through its double-sized front door before she had to. Ethan was probably in there, sitting at his desk on the second floor—the desk Dad had always said would be hers.

Josie forced her eyes to the other side of the courtyard, trying to focus on anything but Ethan. A split-rail fence still extended outward from the igloo, running behind a portico full of strollers, a Snow White–style cottage that housed restrooms, and what looked like a new medical building with a bright red cross on the door.

“Afternoon, ma'am. Can I help you find something?” An elderly man in a green costume touched her elbow, making her jump. Oh good Lord. She hadn't seen an elf in ten years, either. “Did you lose your family?”

She shook her head slowly as her chest squeezed in pain, but she tried to cover it with a fake smile.

He pointed at her feet. “Hope you got some more comfortable shoes in that bag of yours. It's a big park.”

Josie couldn't resist looking at his feet, and he smiled as he followed her eyes. “I know what you're thinking, but these curly toes aren't so bad after the first few falls. You learn.” He winked. “You have a happy ho-ho day now.”

Josie managed another tight smile, wondering how many times she'd be able to hear that phrase before her head exploded.

She glanced down, realizing that in her pencil skirt and sleeveless shell, she looked like a health inspector on a surprise visit. Employees were probably already squawking the alert code over the radios, sure she was about to tackle the snack cottages with her state-issued clipboard.

So much for blending in.

Taking another shaky breath, Josie set off to her right. Time to get as far away from Elf Central as possible, since she had absolutely no idea what would happen when she finally met Ethan again. All she knew was that she was
so
not ready to find out.

As she rounded the first curve in the path, the sound of the roller coaster assaulted her ears at the same time she got a whiff of sickeningly sweet cotton candy, and she wrinkled her nose at both. She'd loved that roller coaster right up till her ninth birthday, when one too many bags of pink fluff and one too many coaster rides had resulted in one very sick little birthday girl.

The walkway curved around a monstrous rock left by a long-ago glacier, and she came into a clearing that housed Rudolph's Razzamatazz, a snack cottage, and a toddler ride where the kids rode in swings shaped like Christmas ornaments. The rides were the same as when she'd left, but they looked freshly painted and shiny in the sunlight.

As she came to a fork in the path, her breath caught. To her right was the outside loop of rides, which eventually circled around to Ole Ben's maintenance garage. To her left, up a little rise, was the Ferris wheel. She could see its cars sliding by the tops of the trees, and as she watched, her breaths started coming shorter and faster.

Finally, she ripped her eyes away and struggled to swallow the softball that seemed to have lodged itself in her throat. How had she thought she'd be able to walk around this park, where memories were bound to pummel her at every turn?

Just then, a short, chubby elf who had to be a hundred and twenty years old ambled by with a broom and dustpan. For a moment, Josie expected she should recognize her, but she didn't. She got a funny, sobering feeling low in her gut as she realized she could very well walk around this park she'd grown up in, and ten years later, not know a soul.

The elf deftly swept up a candy wrapper, then smiled at Josie. “Why so serious, honey? Beautiful afternoon, isn't it?”

Josie looked up at the sky, which was an unusually deep blue for this time of year. The tall firs framed a couple of puffy clouds, and the swish of pine needles preceded a playful breeze that wreaked havoc with her carefully straightened hair. The temperature was just pushing eighty, but the humidity was zilch, so it was one of those rare days that made it onto the gift shop postcards.

“Sure.” Her voice was tentative as she breathed in, realizing just how long it'd been since she'd smelled the crisp pine scent that defined Snowflake Village.

Had she ever missed it?

No. Not possible.

“Well, you have a happy ho-ho day, then, dear.” The elf-lady tottered on by, scooping a stray leaf into her dustpan.
So clean they could eat off the paths, honey.
Dad's voice crept into her brain.
That's the Snowflake Village way
.

Josie took a few steps, pausing under a giant pine to pull her blouse away from her sticky skin. Maybe it wasn't humid, but clearly it'd been a while since she'd done the goat-path thing in heels. She felt for her ever-present Evian bottle, but had left it in her Jeep.

As she looked around, she was struck again by the notion that not much had really changed here. The paint on everything still shined bright, and the employees all had crisp red polo shirts and Santa hats on, along with their supersized Snowflake Village smiles.
Have a happy ho-ho day!
they crowed, piercing Josie's eardrums every time she heard the phrase.

But they were only doing what they were paid to do: don the hat, don the smile, and create a universe where it was Christmas every day of the year.

Once again, she'd entered the world where reality was optional—where for eighteen dollars you could cover your problems with cotton candy and sparkles.

Too bad jingle-bell therapy ended when the gates closed at dusk.

Too bad it also ended when you got old enough to know better.

She heard a metallic clanking sound and looked down the hill toward the maintenance shed. Sounded like Ole Ben was working on his endless to-do list, as he always had. What would he say if she showed up on his proverbial doorstep after all this time?

Would Ethan think to look for her down there, if he got word she was wandering the park? She doubted it, so it seemed as good a place as any to hide until she worked up her courage.

She angled off the path and around the back side of the Penguin Plunge ride, which was teeming with screeching teens. Trying not to ruin her heels beyond repair, she hobbled down the hill behind yet another snack cottage and headed toward the open door of the maintenance garage.

“Well, if it isn't my Twinkle-toes!” Ben's back was to her, but his voice boomed out the open door just as she raised her hand to knock on the frame. “You get right in here, girl!”

Josie felt a laugh sputter out, tension slowly draining out of her pores as she stepped onto the cement floor of the garage and right into Ben's huge embrace. “Hey, Ben! How'd you know it was me?”

“Heard those heels clip-clopping down the hill and figgered you were about the only one who'd be running around here in city-girl shoes but still know where to find Ole Ben.”

Josie smiled. “You're still in the same place. That helped.”

The maintenance area looked as it always had, cluttered and dusty, but somehow homey. She breathed in the smell of fresh lumber and Ben's familiar Old Spice, and felt herself relax a little bit more.

“How's your dad?” He took her hand in his huge one and led her over to one of the spinning stools beside his workbench. “Did you just come from the hospital?”