Chapter 29 #3
Cavin jumped in. “Rainey, it’s not your fault either,” he insisted. “Fletcher chose to go home knowing Noel and the kids were sick,” he mentioned. “He was a grown man who made that choice, and none of you need to take the blame for his illness.”
“Noel will still blame herself,” Keaton declared. “I know she will. She might even blame Fletcher for coming home, and I don’t want that to happen. At least right now that last kiss has been one of her saving graces. I don’t want that special moment transformed into regret.”
The depth of that thought, one Keaton experienced over and over, reached Cavin and Rainey instantly.
“Then we tell no one,” Rainey offered. “We make a pact right here on the dock to keep this among the three of us. When any of us struggles with what happened out there or why it may have happened, we get together and we talk about it just like we are doing now. We cry if we need to; whatever it takes.”
“That’s what I want,” Keaton acknowledged. “That’s what I need.”
Rainey studied Cavin’s eyes. “Do you agree to those terms?”
“You can’t share this secret with Noel,” Keaton pleaded before giving Cavin a chance to respond.
“I promised myself never to keep secrets from Noel,” Cavin admitted wanting to be true to himself while thinking back about all that led him to the decision to quit his family’s company and ultimately remain in Beaufort.
As he contemplated what he was being asked to do, he thought about how much he loved Noel and how much she loved Fletcher.
“This isn’t a secret,” Cavin decided. “This is private knowledge amongst three friends, and it doesn’t benefit anyone else to know.
In fact I agree that it is in Noel’s and the kids’ best interest not to be privy to this information. ”
Everyone’s shoulders seemed to relax a bit once they reached a consensus although Cavin had a hunch that one day, Keaton would reveal the truth to his sister so that she no longer worried about what led to the accident.
He felt certain Noel was strong enough to handle the reality of what happened on that boat.
The three men cried at the dock a while longer, nearly frozen before finally climbing aboard Rudy’s vessel where they retrieved the awaiting presents.
On the walk home, Rainey teased that the identically wrapped boxes measuring about sixteen by twenty inches, each contained a gigantic chocolate candy bar. Cavin and Keaton burst out in laughter—the kind that heals the soul.
Before the guys returned, Rudy sat with Noel in the candy shop where they sipped hot cocoa.
He told her if she and the kids ever wanted to market their hot chocolate mix—now sold in the candy shop by the jar—he would help it quickly become a household brand across the country.
But as he predicted, she insisted the whole world could keep coming to Beaufort, North Carolina, to enjoy their family’s delicious recipes.
When the guys finally made it back to Noel’s place and everybody sat around the living room drinking Laney’s and Levi’s now-famous hot chocolate, Rudy asked everyone to go ahead and open their gifts at the same time.
He watched merrily as red and gold paper fell to the floor and each person discovered a hand-painted representation of Beaufort Candy Company on canvas with the words A Candy Shop Christmas written in cursive, Christmasy-looking lettering at the top.
Garland hung draped above the store’s awning and in the windows, and the beautiful gingerbread house candy displays appeared behind the glass panes featuring the magical Christmas glow inside the shop.
The days until Christmas sign stood out front along with the little black table where so many people enjoyed treats from the candy shop, and last but not least, snow blanketed the ground.
“How did you know we would get snow this Christmas?” with tears trickling down her cheeks, Noel asked the man who looked like Santa Claus.
Rudy smiled. “I didn’t,” he admitted. “I just prayed for a magical Christmas for all of us.”
Scout barked, and a round of laughter flooded the room as everyone talked about the beautiful painting while reminiscing about the memories made at the Beaufort Candy Company this Christmas and sharing stories of Christmas’s past.
Sitting thigh to thigh with Noel, Cavin turned to her amongst all the chatter and whispered, “I love you, Noel Puckett.”
She grinned from ear to ear. “I love you, too, Cavin Dawson.”
“You are the best friend I have always wanted,” Cavin murmured as he placed a hand on one of her cheeks before drawing his lips close to the other and then whispered softly into her ear, “One day I want to marry you.”
Noel closed her eyes silently thanking God that Mrs. Madelyn had been right about Cavin all along.
At that moment Levi and Laney jumped into Cavin’s and Noel’s laps then hugged them tightly.
As they all sat together wearing their signature Santa hats, they realized this Christmas was one that none of them would ever forget and one that was going to last forever.
THE END