Tide and Punishment by Bree Baker

Author:Bree Baker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2019-08-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Clara arrived shortly after breakfast the next morning. She stomped snow from her boots and dusted flakes from her hat and coat before hanging both with a shiver. “The weather is atrocious. I’ve never seen the likes of this in all my days.”

“Did you have any trouble getting here?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine my great-aunt walking or riding her bicycle in the snow, and she rarely drove her aged golf cart.

“Not at all,” she said. “I called the Waterses’ niece for a Pick-Me-Up.”

I laughed. Lanita had chosen a great place to spend her holiday break. Thanks to the crazy weather, she’d be going back to school a lot richer. “You got all this snow on you walking from the driveway?”

“More,” she said. “I stomped off as much as I could on your porch. It’s unbelievable out there. You should’ve seen the meteorologist’s face on the news this morning. The precipitation doesn’t even show up on his little weather map. He seemed as dumbstruck as the rest of us.”

I smiled. “Well, I don’t mind. I’ve always wanted a white Christmas in Charm. Grandma and I sat up late every Christmas Eve talking about what it would be like to sled over the beachy grasses and build snowmen near the surf.” My heart warmed with instant memories and nostalgia. “Now it’s happening. And she’s not here to see it,” I added in a whisper.

This wasn’t just my first Christmas back in Charm, it was my first Christmas without the woman who’d raised me. “She always called,” I said, fighting the instant sting of emotion against the backs of my eyes. “Even when I was too busy to make the time for her, she called.”

Aunt Clara’s unusually cranky expression turned curious, then softened into something resembling wonder. “Maybe she’s calling you now.”

I followed her gaze through the window at her side, and a rush of love swept over me. Fat white flakes whirled and cartwheeled through the air.

“It would be just like her,” Clara croaked softly, “to send you one last Christmas gift if she could.”

My heart swelled and my eyes blurred. “Thank you for saying that.”

Aunt Clara wiped her eyes with the pads of her thumbs. “If you’re going out there, I suppose you’d better get to it. It’s only going to get worse.”

“Right.” I ran the cuff of my sleeve under my nose, then turned for the café. “I’ve got the cookies packed up and ready to go. I left them with the gnomes on the counter.”

“Excellent. Skip stopping at the kiln if the roads are bad. There’s no rush to get the gnomes back since they aren’t going to be Christmas gifts anymore,” Aunt Clara said. She fished an envelope from her handbag and passed it to me. “I made this for your collection. A holiday card from our shop to yours.”

I opened the cheery yellow-and-white card with a smile. “Thank you!” A small cartoonish honey bee had been fixed to the cardstock by a short accordion-folded strip that made him bounce.

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