Candlelight Christmas

directions. “You and Andre can hang out. You don’t have to listen to the ghost stories.”

“Dad—”

“Hey, Logan,” said Darcy, “I’d better get going. We’re heading back to the city in the morning.”

No, don’t let her go. “Then how about we—”

“It was nice to meet you,” she said. “You, too, Charlie. See you around.”

Logan watched her go, then swung back to face Charlie. “Dude, couldn’t you see I was busy?”

“Hitting on some lady? Yeah, I could see that.”

“And still you interrupted.”

“I’m worried about the ghost stories.”

“I’m worried about your manners.”

Charlie gazed at the ground. “Sorry, Dad. I just really want you in the cabin tonight.”

Logan was a sucker for his kid. He hoped like hell he wasn’t a pushover. Hoped he wasn’t spoiling Charlie. The truth was, Charlie had a true horror of ghost stories ever since his cousin Bernie had told him the tale of the bloody toe last summer. The kid had suffered from nightmares for weeks afterward, and to this day still slept with his socks on.

Turning, Logan watched Darcy Fitzgerald as she walked along a lighted path toward the parking lot. For the first time in ages, he’d actually felt something strong and true, just talking with her. But one of the first things she’d told him was that she wasn’t into kids. It was just as well they hadn’t started anything, he told himself.

Chapter Two

“You are in such trouble,” Darcy said to India as they drove away from Camp Kioga to their hotel in the nearby town of Avalon.

“What?” India offered an elaborate look of innocence.

“You know perfectly well what. Your brother, that’s what. You couldn’t be more obvious if you tried.”

“Darce. I am trying.”

“And you’re totally obvious. This was supposed to be a relaxing, forget-all-your-troubles girlfriends’ weekend. You turned it into a setup.”

“I introduced you to my kid brother, that’s all.”

“He’s no kid.” She couldn’t get the image of Logan O’Donnell out of her head. Tall, athletic build. Blaze of red hair—not the dorky kind of red hair, but deep glossy waves of auburn, which she found ridiculously sexy. And his smile. He had an easy smile that made her forget, if only briefly, that she’d ever been hurt by a man. “He has a kid,” she added.

“That would be my adorable nephew, Charlie,” India said. “Thank you for reminding me.”

“Listen, because I don’t think you heard me the first time,” said Darcy. “The only thing I want less than a guy is a guy with a kid.”

“All men are not all like Huntley Collins,” India pointed out.

“I realize that. One day, I will embrace that truth. But I’m not ready to meet anyone.”

“You’ve been divorced a year.”

Divorced. Destroyed was a more apt word for it.

She had married a man who had seemed perfect for her in every way. Huntley was a single dad, sharing custody of Amy and Orion with his ex. Darcy had fallen for the three of them, opening her heart to a ready-made family.

Yet the children, dear as they had been to her, had also taken a hand in the demise of her marriage. As they grew older, they distanced themselves from Darcy, and eventually convinced themselves—or let their mother convince them—that their parents wanted to get back together.

Darcy still recalled the day her marriage had unraveled, though the memory no longer made her cringe. Huntley’s daughter, Amy, had come to her with a bright smile on her face, false as sunshine in November. Darcy had learned to recognize that hollow smile. It was hard at the edges, the grin of a not-very-skilled actress who knew her range was limited, and didn’t care.

“He’s cheating on you,” Amy had said. “With our mom.”

Darcy’s heart had stumbled. Then, clinging to well-honed denial, she had dismissed the notion out of hand. “Your mom and dad are just friends.”

“Nope, they’re back together. Check his email,” Amy said, a clean blade of triumph sharpening her tone. “In the drafts folder. That’s how they communicate. They never hit Send, just log in to the same account and read the drafts. They’re so stupid about it, though. They don’t delete correctly, so the notes still are all there.”

“Nonsense,” Darcy said. Yet the moment Amy had said those words—He’s cheating on you—her body was telling her to pay attention for once, to listen. Her heart knew the truth before her mind caught on to the situation. The blood in her veins congealed into ice. In that moment, she had felt weirdly detached from her own life, as though entering a different reality. “You shouldn’t be looking at your dad’s email,” she scolded. Classic nagging stepmom, as ineffective as a barkless Chihuahua.

“Neither should you,” Amy shot back. Then the girl had burst into tears and collapsed, sobbing, into Darcy’s lap.

And that, Darcy had realized, had been the first undeniable sign of her failing marriage—not the drafts folder, which of course completely confirmed Amy’s accusation, but the fact that, months earlier, Darcy herself had begun monitoring Huntley’s messages.

He was both careless and unsophisticated about computers. She hadn’t been looking for anything specific. Just...looking. For answers. For the reason she couldn’t feel the love from him anymore. For the reason he had emotionally left the building, like a traveler checking out of a motel he never planned to return to.

It was said that there are no winners in a divorce, but Darcy discovered that wasn’t true in her case. She had lost a husband, a family, a way of life. She had lost half her assets, her home and her belief in her own judgment when it came to men. Huntley had lost, too; the fling with his ex had flamed out, and these days, as far as she knew, he was alone. But there were winners—the crafty Amy and her brother, Orion. They had not wanted a stepmother, and now she was gone, vanished from their lives.

And here was a surprise. She missed them. She had managed to stop loving Huntley. That was easy enough, crushing her feelings for someone who had crushed her heart with the most intimate of betrayals. She couldn’t simply turn off her feelings for the kids, though. When she’d married Huntley, they were eight and ten, filling her with joy. Five years later, they were teenagers, challenging her at every turn. Yet even at their most manipulative and obnoxious, they were children to whom she had given herself entirely. Even now she couldn’t stop remembering how it felt to be a family, swept up in the busy days of their lives together. Knowing she couldn’t see them, could never hold or touch them again was a special kind of hell.

In the Fitzgerald family, Darcy herself had been the daughter most likely to procreate. After all, she had married a man with children, and she’d made no secret of wanting more. She’d loved being a stepmom to Amy and Orion—until everything had changed. The special, knife-sharp hurt of their campaign against her had caused a fundamental shift deep inside Darcy. She’d gone from being a woman who thought she could have it all to a woman who wanted none of it.

“I’m not ready to meet anyone,” she said to India. “It seems like only yesterday, I considered myself a happily married woman.”

“Now you’ll be happily single.”

“And determined to stay that way. Not only do I want to stay away from guys, but I want to stay away from guys with kids. So quit trying to throw me together with your yummy brother.”

“You think he’s yummy?”

“Don’t you dare tell him I said that.”

“I was just going to send him a text. Jeez, what do you take me for? The idea of ‘brother’ and ‘yummy’ do not compute in my mind. Ew.”

“Spoken like a true sister.”

“I’m trying to help here, Darcy. Look at it this way—you got your starter marriage over early.”