16. Ashley
Chapter sixteen
Ashley
Ashley stepped outside, pulling her coat tight and leaving behind the scent of pine and gingerbread that seemed permanently woven into the walls of Winterridge.
Tiny’s gingerbread cookies had become an instant favorite among the Wetherbys.
Even Dad had requested a plate delivered to his room most evenings while he answered emails and checked in with the office.
The cold air nipped at her cheeks as she made her way down the stone path toward the guest house.
Fresh snow blanketed the grounds, untouched in places where the morning sun hadn’t yet reached.
The sound of snow crunching beneath her boots echoed around her.
Ahead of her, the guest house sat nestled beneath a dusting of white, looking like something pulled directly from a Christmas card.
Preparations for the festival were everywhere.
Garland wrapped the fence posts lining the walkways, accented by big red bows that swayed gently in the breeze.
The enormous evergreen near the south lawn had already been draped with thousands of lights, though they remained dark for now.
Come festival night, it would glow brightly enough to be seen from the road.
A wooden sleigh sat near the carriage house, awaiting its final polish.
Nearby, stacks of hay bales had been arranged for seating around the bonfire.
Someone—probably Clint—had already hauled in enough firewood to last three winters.
The scent of wood smoke lingered faintly in the air from the staff testing the fire pits the day before.
Ashley slowed as she reached the center of the grounds, taking a moment to take it all in. Winterridge had always been beautiful at Christmas. But it was different now.
Years ago, she would have walked this path without a second thought, assuming everything simply appeared because it always had. The garland. The lights. The wreaths hanging from every window. The sleigh ride. The festival.
Now she knew better.
Someone had spent hours, days, weeks to make it happen.
Someone had coordinated the vendors, checked the lights, planned the routes, hired the entertainment, and made sure all the details were exactly right.
Someone had protected the traditions of her childhood, of her grandmother's hard work, while everyone else stayed away.
Her attention drifted toward the guesthouse. Warmth spread through her despite the bitter cold. As she climbed the steps to the guesthouse, she caught sight of him through the front window.
Her heart stuttered in her chest; a giddy excitement spread through her just as it did when she was sixteen.
So many things had changed, but some things stayed exactly the same.
He had taken his suit jacket off, the sleeves of his white button-down rolled up his forearms. Heat rushed to her core at the sight, her insides doing sinful things.
This version of him was even more relaxed than the version of him in a sweater. It was more dangerous, too. Dark hair dusted those strong forearms, and his shirt stretched across broad shoulders as he lifted another box from the floor and carried it toward the fireplace.
As if sensing her presence, he looked up, catching her eye through the window. A slow, sexy smile spread across his face. He set down the box and pushed open the front door. “You planning on standing out there all day?”
Ashley forced her feet to move, her eyes to stay anywhere but those forearms.
“I was admiring the decorations. I almost forgot how spectacular it all is.”
“There’s nothing like Winterridge at Christmastime.”
“No, there isn’t.” She stepped inside the guesthouse and unwrapped her scarf, taking in the space she hadn’t seen in too long.
“It hasn’t changed a bit.” She scanned the sea-foam green paint her grandfather called a color for a beach house, not a prestigious estate, but Grandma Lily loved it, and he wouldn’t deny her even if he did despise it.
“We’ve touched up the paint here and there, but your grandfather refuses to change the color.”
“But he hates it.”
“With a passion.”
“While we all put Winterridge behind us, Grandpa seems to have frozen it in time.” She looked around the guesthouse. “It’s sad, really. You meet the love of your life and have the world in front of you just to lose it all.”
Carter moved a box aside and straightened. “Maybe.”
Ashley frowned. “Maybe?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think Bill would see it that way.”
“How else is there to see it?”
Carter leaned against a cabinet, his arms crossed over his chest, his sleeves stretching tight across his biceps.
“Most people spend their lives searching for what they had. A love that lasts. A family. Knowing the good and the bad about each other and loving each other despite it or because of it. It might have been shorter than either of them hoped, but it was real.”
“He still lost her.”
“He got forty years with her, Ash. Forty Christmases. Forty anniversaries. Forty years of inside jokes, arguments, and memories. I’m sure if you asked him, he would say he’d rather have had those forty years and lost her than not had them at all.”
Ashley looked away, eyes drifting to the window. Snow clung to the branches of the evergreens, the world painted white and still.
“I don’t know,” she finally said. “Sometimes I think losing someone like that would hurt too much.”
She swallowed as visions of them flashed in her mind. They didn’t have forty years, but losing him nearly killed her.
“Of course it would,” he said, his eyes locking with hers. Tension crackled between them, the room seeming impossibly small.
“Then why risk it?” The question slipped out before she could stop it.
Carter’s body went rigid. They weren’t talking about her grandparents anymore.
“Because sometimes the risk is all you have. Without it. You have nothing at all.”
He snapped his attention from hers and walked toward the window.
He stared out for a few heartbeats before inhaling deeply.
“I think people are so afraid of losing something that they convince themselves it’s better not to have it at all.
” His fingers brushed the windowsill, checked it for dust, and slightly smiled when his finger was clean.
“But all they’re doing is grieving something before it’s even gone. ”
The words punched her deep in the gut. Is that what he did? Did he end things with her because he convinced himself it was better not to have it at all? Her heart broke at the thought. If that were the case, it changed everything.
“I spent a long time angry with my grandfather.”
“I know.”
“I convinced myself that if I stayed away, it wouldn’t hurt anymore.”
“And did it?”
She laughed a sad, broken sound and shook her head. “No.”
“Pain has a funny way of following you.”
All this time, and he still understood her in a way that most others didn’t. “Maybe that’s why Grandpa kept everything exactly the same,” she said. “Maybe he wasn’t trying to freeze Winterridge in time.”
Carter’s blue eyes met hers. “Then what was he doing?”
She glanced around at the sea-foam green walls, at the furniture Grandma Lily had meticulously picked out and placed, all the Christmas decorations waiting to be unpacked. At all the pieces of her that Grandpa refused to let disappear.
“Maybe he was proving that loving someone doesn’t end just because they are gone.” She motioned toward the wall. “He hated that color, but she loved it, so he let her paint it. When she passed, he could have easily ordered all the walls to be repainted, but he didn’t.”
“Because even in death, he still loves her.”
“Exactly.” She went to a box and pulled it open. “Anyway, that got a lot darker than I expected.”
“What did you expect?” he asked.
“Light Christmas music playing in the background, boxes of garland, lights, and ornaments to go through.”
“Glen is delivering another tree for the corner where Santa will be sitting in about twenty minutes. Once it’s in place, we can decorate it, then set up the hot cocoa station.
” He grabbed his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and the sound of Bruce Springsteen’s rendition of Santa Claus is Coming to Town filled the guesthouse.
A warm smile spread across her face as she turned to Carter. “My favorite Christmas song.”
“I know.” He hauled a box up from the floor onto a table. “What do you say we start going through these decorations?”
“Let’s do it!”
They worked in tandem, unboxing memories Ashley hadn’t realized she had buried deep in her mind, while Christmas music continued to play in the background.
Glen delivered the tree, helped Carter set it up in the far corner right next to where Santa’s chair would go before snagging a cookie Tiny had dropped off and disappeared with a promise to stop by the festival.
The scent of pine overwhelmed the space, and Ashley inhaled deeply, savoring it.
“I don’t know how people get fake trees.”
“You mean to tell me you have a real tree in the city?”
She bit her lip as her eyes drifted to his. “I don’t have a tree at all.”
“What?” Carter froze, the ornament he had taken out of the box, suspended in air. “Decorating the Christmas tree is one of your favorite traditions.”
“I haven’t exactly celebrated Christmas for the last eight years, so there was no need for a tree.”
“Like, at all? Not even dinner with Gabe, or your mom, or dad?”
“Mom’s usually somewhere tropical, Dad throws himself into work around the holidays—probably to not have to deal with any of his emotions—and Gabe…
well, ever since that last Christmas, he despises the holiday.
So when you have no family to celebrate with.
” She shrugged. “I just order Chinese food and watch It’s A Wonderful Life.
It’s the only Christmas thing I do. I do it for Grandma Lily because it was her favorite movie, and I do it because I usually need to be reminded what’s important in life, even if the people I love aren’t in it anymore. ”