the entry hall table, not because of a sweet tooth attack but out of a desire to keep a close eye on arrivals. The person she waited for never arrived. When she heard the grandfather clock strike five, she finally admitted to herself that Gabe wasn’t coming.
He’d pulled away from both her and Eternity Springs in recent days. Now he habitually wrapped up his work day at Cavanaugh House prior to Nic’s afternoon arrival. He left more of the renovation work to hired help and stopped eating his meals in town. Guides saw him snowmobiling in the back country a couple of times, and Dale Parker swore that the crazy ice climber spotted near Sinner’s Prayer Pass during the snowstorm last week had been none other than Gabe Callahan.
Since their meeting at Hummingbird Lake, Nic had seen him only once, at the town meeting on the twentieth when Celeste publicly announced plans for her healing center and Gabe showed up at the older woman’s request. He’d brought preliminary sketches of his hot springs park and had gone out of his way to avoid Nic.
As Nic eyed a plate of chocolate fudge a few feet away, Celeste approached carrying two crystal punch cups filled with eggnog. Handing one to her, she said, “I had so hoped Gabe would join us today. He should hear the compliments everyone is paying his design now that they’ve had the opportunity to look over his plans. Your idea to create the display in the music room was inspired.”
“If I’d known he’d be AWOL, I’d have reconsidered. People are excited, but now they have even more questions. I expected Gabe to be here to answer them.” Then, because his absence made her sad and this was supposed to be a party, she deliberately turned her back to the door and changed the subject. “Tell me about your angel collection, Celeste. You must have hundreds of them. How long have you been collecting them?”
“Heavens, I don’t know. Decades, certainly. I never made a conscious decision to create a collection. Actually, the vast majority of my angels have been gifts from friends and acquaintances. It seems that people simply like to give me angels.”
Nic smiled wryly and sipped her eggnog. The gift she’d placed under Celeste’s tree was an angel she’d picked up at an arts-and-crafts fair over in Durango.
“Now, back to Gabe,” Celeste said. “Nic, that poor man shouldn’t be alone on Christmas. I’ve invited him to join our services tomorrow night, but since he has skipped the open house, I don’t hold out much hope.”
She touched Nic’s arm, and a solemn look replaced the usual twinkle in her light blue eyes. “Nicole, I think you should go up to Eagle’s Way tomorrow and personally invite Gabe to join us. Bring him down from the mountain to church tomorrow night, dear. He shouldn’t be alone.”
He shouldn’t be alone.
The statement played through Nic’s mind the rest of the night and was the first thing she thought of when she awoke Christmas Eve. She didn’t know what to do. While she hated the thought of his being by himself on this first Christmas without his family, she also respected the man’s right to privacy. If he wanted to hole up in his mountain retreat and grit through this holiday, who was she to suggest otherwise?
She understood that feeling. Hadn’t she been the same way that first Christmas after her divorce? She’d wanted to spend the day in bed with the covers pulled over her head, and she’d almost done just that. Except she’d had a friend who wouldn’t allow it. Sarah Reese had poked her and prodded her and all but dragged her by her hair to Christmas Eve dinner with her family, followed by midnight services at St. Stephen’s.
It had been there, in a tiny old candlelit church on a snowy Christmas Eve, with the fragrance of incense drifting on the air and the dulcet strains of “Silent Night” rising toward the rafters, that she first experienced not just a lessening of pain but the healing peace she’d come to associate with Eternity Springs.
Gabe Callahan needed that healing peace more than anyone she’d ever known.
He’d lost his wife, his little boy. Maybe Celeste was right. Maybe she should be a friend to him the way Sarah had been to her.
Nic considered it throughout her morning as she made appetizers to take to Sage’s open house that evening, while she wrapped the last of the gifts she intended to