Page 3 of Cozy Little Christmas

McKenna didn’t look as if she quite believed her but to Hannah’s relief, she changed the subject. “How’s Morgan doing?” she asked of their mutual friend.

“She had her first appointment with the oncologist this afternoon. I offered to go with her but she insisted she was fine.”

The reminder of everything Morgan Collins was going through made the echo of a heartbreak she had suffered so long ago pale into insignificance.

She and McKenna chatted a few more moments about the others in their tight friend group before one of the residents stopped by with a question about having her grandchildren over to play in the indoor pool. Hannah excused herself so McKenna could handle the question. With her guitar strapped to her back, she pushed her supply cart through the automatic doors to the parking lot.

The surrounding mountains were beginning to glow pink with alpenglow and a few stray snowflakes whispered down. Hannah paused before heading to her vehicle, inhaling the fresh, crisp air with its hint of pine and spruce.

She loved Shelter Springs this time of year and couldn’t imagine anywhere she would rather be on this Monday before Thanksgiving.

She made a mental note that she needed to pick up more cinnamon for the apple pie she had agreed to take to her mom’s house on Thursday. She had a busy few days but couldn’t wait to slow down Thursday to be with all the people she loved most in the world. Everyone except her new brother-in-law would be there for Thanksgiving dinner. Her twin sister Holly’s husband of only a few months, Ryan Caldwell, would be working through the holiday at his naval base in San Diego.

Ryan and Holly currently had a long-distance marriage while he finished his commitment to the military prior to moving here. It wasn’t an easy situation for any of them, especially not Holly’s daughter, Lydia, who adored her new stepfather, but somehow they were making it work.

Hannah headed for her SUV, popped the hatch and started loading up her portable keyboard and guitar. As she turned back to her rolling cart to pick up the bells, she spotted a large black-and-brown dog limping across the parking lot toward the door.

And she spotted the man holding the dog’s leash.

Wes Kenner.

Her breath caught and she was suddenly deeply grateful for the warning McKenna had given her. While those few minutes weren’t nearly enough time to brace herself against the shock of seeing him again after all these years, at least she wasn’t completely gobsmacked.

Still, when her friend had told her he was coming back to town for the holidays, she had assumed Christmas. Not Thanksgiving.

Even with the bandage on his left hind leg, the dog she recognized as a Belgian Malinois still looked tough and intimidating. Wes looked even more so as he drew to a stop a few feet away, his features mirroring her own surprise, which she was frantically trying to conceal.

“Hannah,” he said in greeting, his voice every bit as low and sexy as she remembered.

How could she forget it, when she still sometimes heard the echo of him in her dreams?

She cleared her throat. “Wes. Funny, I just heard a rumor you were coming back to town. What’s up? Did you catch every bad guy in Oregon?”

“Not quite.”

Wes’s handsome features had sharpened over the years, becoming more rugged and chiseled, his jaw set in a determined line that spoke of years facing danger. His eyes, though still that vivid, deep green, now held a guarded intensity as he studied her. She fought the urge to check whether her hair looked as windblown and tousled at the end of a busy workday as she expected.

“Can I give you a hand?” he asked, his voice gruff.

Without waiting for an answer, he lifted the heavy box of bells from her cart and slid it into the cargo area of her SUV, then leaned down to grab the bottom box of small percussion instruments from the cart.

“Thanks,” she muttered, folding the cart. He hefted that as well and tucked it in beside the boxes while his tough-looking dog sat motionless, watchful.

“How long are you in town?” she asked as a hundred other questions crowded her mind. Why had he come back now? Where was he staying? What happened to his dog?

Did he ever wonder what might have happened between them if he hadn’t left?

“Not sure,” he answered. “Maybe through the holidays.”

“The entire month?” she asked, feeling as if she were suddenly being jerked around on some weird, surreal carnival ride that some trickster kept starting and stopping at will.

He shrugged. “I have to take some leave for . . . reasons. We’ve been needing to do some things at my grandfather’s house before we put it on the market, since he’s living here these days. With Kelsey in town now and my mom living at the new care center here, it made sense to come back to Shelter Springs for the holidays.”

The reminder of his beautiful mother, so very different than she once had been, made her throat ache. “I see Susie a few times a month,” she said. “I have music therapy sessions at the new care center. Your mom still has a beautiful voice.”

Every time she saw the woman, Hannah wanted to weep as she remembered what a vibrant, energetic, beautiful soul she had once been.

She was still a beautiful soul, calm and invariably smiling, despite the injury she had suffered a dozen years ago that had changed her forever.