Chapter 10
Ten
Thirty minutes later, Lila descended the stairs to find Brady carrying in more wood for the fire.
“I’m going to grab a cup of tea. Can I get you any?” Lila asked.
“Sure, I’ll take a peppermint tea.”
Lila made them each a tea over at the beverage station and resisted the urge to suggest they put a single-serve coffee maker that took both coffee and tea pods here like they had upstairs.
It wasn’t as flashy as the Brew Pro 11 she’d suggested a couple of days ago, but it would make tea a lot faster than the bag she was currently steeping in each cup.
Maybe Brady had been right about slowing down though.
The wait gave her time to plan what she was going to say to him.
Returning with two cups of tea in hand, Lila found Brady on the couch waiting for her.
“So did you enjoy your first Pine Ridge Christmas Festival?” he asked, accepting the tea she held out.
“Very much so,” she said as she settled down next to him. “It must be really special growing up in a place like this.”
“It was. The whole town was my family, even before I lost my own. Losing your parents is never easy, but I’ve never really felt alone here.”
Lila nodded, wrapping her hands around her mug to keep them from shaking. She didn’t feel alone here either, but she increasingly believed she did indeed have real family here too. And it was time to see if Brady might be able to help her uncover the truth.
“Brady,” Lila said turning on the couch to face him, “if I tell you something important, can we keep it between us?”
He stopped and turned to face her, his expression growing serious. “Of course.”
The firelight flickered across his face, illuminating his strong jaw and kind, perceptive eyes. A week ago, she would never have imagined trusting someone so completely. But somehow their connection had grown so much, she almost couldn’t imagine not telling him.
“I want to tell you why I really came to Pine Ridge,” she said, the words coming out in a rush before she could lose her nerve.
Brady’s expression grew more attentive, but not worried. “Okay.”
“It wasn’t just for a quiet Christmas. I came here looking for someone.
” She paused, taking a deep breath. “I came to find my birth mother.” The relief of finally saying it out loud was immediate and overwhelming.
“I was adopted as a baby, and I had this clue—a quilt that led me here. I’ve been trying to figure out if she might still be in Pine Ridge. ”
Brady was quiet for a long moment, processing her words. “That’s why you asked if I felt guilty about my relationship with the Brennans after my parents’ death,” he said, more as a statement than as a question.
“Yes. And Brady, I think—” She took a deep breath, knowing that once she said this, there would be no taking it back. “I think it might be Carol.”
If she’d expected shock or disbelief, Brady surprised her. Instead, he just nodded slowly, as if the pieces of a puzzle were falling into place in his mind.
“That would explain a lot,” he said quietly.
“You’re not surprised?”
“I’ve watched you with her all week. There’s something there, some kind of connection.
And Carol . . .” He paused, seeming to choose his words carefully.
“Carol has always carried a sadness about not having children. It’s not something she’s ever really talked about.
I always thought she and Tom lost a baby.
I never considered that perhaps she’d given one up for adoption. It must have been before she met Tom.”
Lila felt tears burning her eyes and threatening to spill over. “So, you think it’s possible?”
“I think,” Brady said, reaching over to put his hand over hers, “that you being here, right now, isn’t a coincidence. And I think whatever the truth is, we’ll figure it out together.”
The we in that sentence made her heart soar. “Really?”
“Really. Tell me what you know so far.”
As she began to share everything she knew about her birth and the quilt, the weight she’d been carrying lifted ever so slightly now that she had someone to share it with.
Brady’s strong hand stayed on hers as she walked him through all the details of her adoption and her decision to come to Pine Ridge.
Brady was quiet for a long moment after Lila finished. The fire crackled softly between them, casting dancing shadows on the walls.
“So, this isn’t just your first Christmas without either of your parents, it’s also your first birthday without them,” he said finally. “But now that they’re gone, you’ve allowed yourself to wonder more about where you came from.”
“Exactly. I’ve never known anything about the circumstances of my birth, just that it happened on Christmas and that someone cared enough to send a beautiful quilt with me.” Lila’s voice was barely above a whisper. “When I found out the quilt came from here, I had to come see for herself.”
Brady leaned forward, his elbows on his knees as he studied her face in the firelight. “Tell me about the timing again. The quilt was delivered here on December 24th, 1991?”
“That’s what Cynthia found in her mother’s journal. A rush order completed and delivered to Pine Ridge Inn on Christmas Eve.” Lila wrapped her hands more tightly around her mug. “I was born the next day.”
“That fits,” Brady said thoughtfully. “Carol came to Pine Ridge in her early twenties. She’s told me before that she followed a man here. He had a job over at the ski resort in Breckenridge.”
“That must be the ‘bad boy’ she mentioned to me earlier in the festival.”
Brady nodded. “I’ve picked up bits and pieces over the years. She was involved with someone who wasn’t good for her, someone who didn’t stick around when things got difficult. Tom has hinted that the guy broke Carol’s heart pretty badly.”
“Do you think she could really be my birth mother? The baby ornament on the tree,” Lila said, remembering Carol’s reaction. “She got so emotional when Kimberly pulled it out of the box.”
“And the way she talks about family—about how love multiplies when it’s shared, about finding family in unexpected ways.” Brady’s voice grew more certain. “I always thought she was talking about me, about how they took me in. But maybe she was also talking about someone she had to let go.”
The possibility hung between them, both hopeful and terrifying. Lila had spent the past couple of days wondering if Carol could be her birth mother, but hearing Brady confirm that it fit what he knew about Carol’s past made it feel suddenly, dramatically real.
“What do I do now?” she asked. “I can’t just walk up to her and ask if she gave birth to a baby thirty-four years ago.”
Brady was quiet for a moment, then sat up straighter. “What if we could find some kind of confirmation first? Something that would give you more confidence before you approach her?”
“Like what?”
“Inn records. Guest registrations, birth certificates filed with the county, medical records . . . I don’t know. Something that might document what happened here around Christmas 1991.”
Lila shook her head. “My adoption was sealed, so there won’t be any birth certificates or medical records we can access. Do you think Tom and Carol still have records from the inn that are that old?”
“Tom keeps everything. He’s got boxes and boxes of old paperwork in the storage room behind the office.
Financial records, guest registrations, correspondence—he says you never know when you might need something for tax purposes or insurance claims, and he likes to be able to go back if someone is a repeat visitor and check any notes on the activities they engaged in or food they enjoyed.
Both Tom and his parents have always kept track of those things so they could tailor each guest’s experience.
Plus, we could go through the guests and at least figure out who was visiting that year at Christmas in case there are any other likely candidates. ”
“Would they let us look through them?”
Brady shrugged. “Technically, we don’t need permission. I have access to all of that. It’s not kept under lock and key or anything.”
“When could we do that?”
Brady glanced toward the stairs, where the other guests had long since retired for the night.
“Tonight? The other guests all seem to be in for the night, and Tom and Carol are already back at their cabin. We probably don’t want to risk them coming back for something, finding us and asking questions, so let’s wait a couple of hours.
I know they like to be in bed by eleven. ”
“That feels so sneaky,” Lila said, but even as she spoke, she knew it was what she needed to do.
“Looking at old records isn’t going to hurt anyone. It’ll just help us understand what we’re dealing with.”
Lila nodded slowly. The logic made sense, even if it made her stomach bubble with anxiety. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
“Are you sure? Once we start looking, we can’t unknow whatever we find.”
The question gave her pause. Was she ready for answers that might change everything? But then she thought about Carol’s warmth, about the way she’d felt at home here from the moment she’d arrived, about the growing certainty that she was exactly where she needed to be.
“I’m sure,” she said. “I came here for answers. I need to know the truth.”
Brady smiled, and she felt a rush of gratitude for his steady presence, his willingness to help her navigate this uncertain territory. “Then we’ll find them. Meet me down here at midnight?”
“Midnight,” she agreed.
As they said goodbye for now and she headed upstairs, Lila felt a mixture of anticipation and terror. In a couple of hours, she might finally have the answers she’d come to Pine Ridge to find.
Lila lay in bed watching the red numbers on her alarm clock creep toward midnight. Every sound in the inn seemed amplified—the settling of old wood, the whisper of wind against her window, the distant hum of the heating system. Her heart hammered against her ribs as the minutes ticked by.
At 11:58, she slipped out of bed and pulled on leggings and an oversized sweatshirt. The hallway was dark and quiet, but she could see a sliver of light under Sarah’s door. Everyone else seemed to be asleep.
She crept down the stairs, trying to avoid the steps she’d noticed creaked during her earlier trips up and down. The lobby was lit only by the dying embers in the fireplace, casting everything in a warm orange glow.
Brady was already there, sitting in one of the armchairs by the fire. He looked up as she approached, his expression both serious and reassuring.
“Ready?” he whispered.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
They made their way to the small office behind the front desk, Brady producing a key from his pocket.
Brady flipped on the light, shutting the door behind them. The storage space was cramped but organized, with metal shelving lined with banker’s boxes labeled with years and categories.
“Here,” he said quietly, pointing to a section of boxes marked with years from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. “Guest registrations are separate from financial records.”
They carefully lifted down the box marked “Guest Records 1990–1992” and carried it over to a table.
Inside the box, manila folders were organized chronologically, each containing registration forms, correspondence, and notes about individual guests.
Lila’s hands trembled slightly as she began flipping through them.
“December 1991,” she murmured, searching through the folders. “October, November . . . wait.”
She paused, staring at the filing tabs. November 1991 was there, but the next folder was February 1992.
“Brady,” she whispered, her voice tight with disappointment. “December 1991 is missing.”
He leaned over her shoulder to look at the files. “That’s unusual. Tom is incredibly methodical about record-keeping.”
They searched through the entire box, checking to see if the December folder had been misfiled elsewhere. But there was no trace of any records from December 1991.
“It’s not here,” Lila said, sinking back in the office chair. “The one month I need, and it’s completely gone.”
Lila felt tears pricking her eyes as frustration and uncertainty mixed together. She’d been so close to finding concrete evidence, only to hit another dead end.
“What do I do now?” she asked, her voice barely audible. “I feel like I’m trying to catch a shadow.”
Brady reached over and took her hand. “You could ask Carol. Tell her why you’re here and what you suspect. Maybe it’s time for an honest conversation.”
“What if I’m wrong? Or what if she doesn’t want to know me? She did seal the adoption. What if I ruin whatever connection we’ve built this week?”
“Or what if,” Brady said softly, “she’s been hoping for thirty-four years that you’d find your way back to her?”
The possibility made Lila’s chest tighten with a mixture of hope and terror. “Do you really think that’s possible?”
“I think Carol Brennan has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I’ve ever known.
And I think if she gave up a child once, it was because she thought it was best for that child, not because she didn’t love them.
Look, Lila, I wouldn’t encourage you to do this if I thought it was a bad idea. Carol means a lot to me too.”
Lila wiped tears from her cheeks, feeling something shift inside her. “I’m supposed to leave tomorrow,” she said. “I was planning to spend Christmas at home.”
“So stay. Christmas kind of seems like the perfect time for this conversation, don’t you think? Besides, no one should be alone on Christmas or their birthday, and definitely not when they fall on the same day.”
She looked at Brady’s face in the lamplight, at his kind eyes and encouraging expression, and felt a surge of gratitude for this man who’d become so much more than she’d expected when she arrived in Pine Ridge.
“Would you be there with me? When I talk to her?”
“If you want me there, I’ll be there.” His voice was resolute with solidarity.
They carefully returned the box to its place on the storage room shelf, erasing any evidence of their midnight search.
As they prepared to return to their respective beds, Lila felt simultaneously exhausted and energized.
She still didn’t have definitive proof, but she had something else now—the certainty that she was going to see this through to the end.
“Thank you,” she whispered as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “For . . . everything.”
Brady reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”
As Lila climbed the stairs to her room, she felt a mixture of anticipation and terror about what Christmas Eve might bring. But for the first time since arriving in Pine Ridge, she wasn’t facing the unknown alone.
In the morning, she would extend her stay. And then, when the moment felt right, she would ask Carol Brennan the question that had brought her to Pine Ridge: Are you my mother?