through her though. She wasn’t going to be yet another female to fall to the charms of the Hammond brothers. She’d watched all of her friends do that, each of them falling in love one by one while she got left behind.
Sophia gave herself a mental shake. She was happy here in Coral Canyon. This was the first place she’d ever truly made real friends and found that happiness, and she wasn’t going to give it up for just anyone.
“There you are,” Julianne said as she entered the office. “Celia was just asking where you went. I think she might get on the PA system to find you.” She picked up a piece of paper from the desk, a smile on her face. “The cake is ready, and I guess that means it’s movie time.”
“It does,” Sophia said, glad her voice came out normal. Julianne was a very nice woman, and she was the same age as Sophia. She lived with Melinda, the new event coordinator, in the cabin where Elise and Bree had once lived.
Sophia’s heart shrank, though she wasn’t sure why. She still got to see Bree all the time. She lived here in Coral Canyon. Elise did too, at least in the summertime.
Sure enough, the speaker system that ran through the lodge crackled to life, and Celia’s voice said, “The cake is ready, and the kids are telling me the hot bar is too. Let’s gather in the kitchen for our celebration.”
The Whittakers got together every Christmas season. Since Sophia had no family in town, and no desire to go visit anyone in her family, she stayed at the lodge with them.
She’d enjoyed their family traditions. She loved participating in the good-natured contests they had. Yes, she had to work, because it was a big job to feed thirty people, but she didn’t mind. If she wasn’t cooking, Sophia wouldn’t even know what to do with herself.
She’d always adored cooking, even when her father had warned her against the idea of becoming a chef. You’ll have to work long hours, he’d told her. You can’t have a family and be a chef.
Turned out, she didn’t have a family yet. She knew she was a great disappointment to him, but Sophia couldn’t make a man fall in love with her. If she could, she would’ve done so with Jake Cyprus, the high school quarterback Sophia had spent the better part of her teenage years crushing on.
She followed Julianne down the hall to the kitchen, others streaming in from downstairs and the living room. The Whittakers had expanded the kitchen and dining room so the gathering area was twice as big now. The guests loved it, and it definitely fit the whole family better than the table for twelve had.
Sophia stayed on the fringes of the family, but she didn’t mind. She was loved and accepted here; she knew that.
Celia made a big deal about presenting the triplets with the immaculate cake she’d made. A thread of jealously moved through Sophia. She’d gone to culinary school, and she certainly had a chocolate cake recipe memorized. Celia had never gone to culinary school, and she still made a better cake and better meals than Sophia.
A sense of failure moved through her though she cheered when the triplets managed to get their candles blown out. It wasn’t their birthday for another month or so, but their parents were taking them on an extended vacation, and they’d wanted to celebrate at the lodge this Christmas.
She stepped forward to help with plates and forks, trying to strike up a conversation with a couple of the children. But she’d never been all that great with kids, and they seemed to sense her awkwardness. In the end, they usually came around, but today, she found herself with a delicious-looking piece of chocolate cake on a plate, alone.
She looked around at everything going on in the lodge. The dozens of conversations. The laughter. The cowboy hats. The teenagers and children.
And then there was her.
Even Julianne sat next to some of the younger children, happily helping them make bibs out of a couple of napkins she’d unfolded.
Sophia hadn’t felt this level of isolation for a long, long time, and she wished she could erase it. She wished she could go back in time and fix some of the bridges she’d burned. Or at least not light those matches.
She turned away from the dining room and headed outside. Down the sidewalk that the Whittaker brothers were religious about