27. Carter
Chapter twenty-seven
Carter
The staff were abuzz with Christmas spirit as they sang carols and handed each other gifts.
Tiny made everyone a tin of their favorite cookies.
Ms. Porter knitted scarves for everyone.
Hawthorne’s gifts were, as always, impeccably chosen.
Tiny received a blank recipe journal so she could start jotting down recipes for the cookbook she dreamed of writing.
Ms. Porter unwrapped a set of beautiful knitting needles with enough yarn to keep her busy until spring.
Wendell laughed when he found a gardener’s kneeling pad beneath the paper.
“I told you we were getting old,” Wendell joked as he squeezed the cushiony material.
Clint admired a hand-tooled belt buckle, while Luca immediately unwrapped a bar of his favorite Italian soap and declared it “the smell of home.”
Carter opened his gift expecting a silk tie.
Instead, tears pricked the backs of his eyes.
Inside was a beautifully restored photograph of him and his father standing beside the sleigh on Carter’s first year helping with the festival.
He had remembered the picture being taken, but he had no idea what had happened to it.
“Where did you find this?” he asked.
“Pressed in the pages of a book your father had lent me many years ago. It had been on my bookshelf all this time.”
Carter stared at the picture, allowing the memory of that day to fill in. God, he missed his old man more than anything, but he was lucky. He had the memories. So many memories.
He glanced up at Hawthorne and met his gaze. “Thank you.”
Hawthorne nodded, then Carter handed out his gifts, but they were overshadowed as he also handed out their Christmas bonuses. Bill had nearly tripled all their bonuses this year.
Ms. Porter grabbed her chest and reached for a nearby stool. Clint whistled. Tiny let out an excited squeak. Luca declared he’d be taking an extra trip to Italy this year. Wendell hugged the check to his chest. Hawthorne smiled.
Bill Wetherby might have been hated by his family for too many years because of things he said at a time when his heart had been shattered, but he’d always been a generous man to those who respected and cared for him.
Carter clapped his hands together. “Now it’s time to get back to work. Christmas dinner will be served in exactly seven hours.”
Ms. Porter jumped up from her seat, hands in the air as she hurried over to the silverware she’d been polishing for two days.
Carter turned to Tiny. “You’ll have the cake ready?”
Tiny smiled. “It will be perfect.”
Carter returned her smile and headed upstairs to make sure Christmas dinner at Winterridge would be everything Bill hoped it would be and everything Lily would have wanted.
Every place setting had to be perfect. Every candle lit.
Every centerpiece was exactly where it belonged.
Tiny’s cake had to make it to the dining room in one piece, the prime rib had to rest at precisely the right time, and if he knew the Wetherbys, at least one family argument would need diffusing before dessert.
He smiled to himself. It was finally Christmas again at Winterridge.
A calm settled over him since the first time he laid eyes on that paper on Bill’s desk. This didn’t feel like it would be Bill’s last Christmas. It felt like it would be the first of many more to come.
Carter sent up a silent prayer for that to be true and got to work.