The Holiday Visitor

The Holiday Visitor
Tara Taylor Quinn

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About The Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Copyright

With more than forty-five original novels, published in more than twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA TODAY bestselling author with over six million copies sold. She is known for delivering deeply emotional and psychologically astute novels. Ms Quinn is a three-time finalist for the RWA RITA^® Award, a multiple finalist for the National Reader’s Choice Award, the Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Booksellers’ Best Award and the Holt Medallion, and appears regularly on the Waldenbooks bestseller list. Ms Quinn recently married her college sweetheart and the couple currently lives in Ohio with their two very demanding and spoiled bosses: four-pound Taylor Marie and fifteen-pound rescue dog/ cockapoo, Jerry. When she’s not writing or fulfilling speaking engagements, Ms Quinn loves to travel with her husband, stopping wherever the spirit takes them. They’ve been spotted in casinos and quaint little smalltown antique shops all across the country.

For Chelsea Barney - a beautiful young woman who is a new addition to my family and who is very, very welcome here.

Chapter One

Friday, September 4, 1992

Dear James Winston Malone,

They gave me your name as someone who wanted to write to someone else who had a parent that was a rape victim. My name is Marybeth Lawson. I am twelve years old. My mother was raped and killed last March. I just started eighth grade this year. If you want, we can write.

Sincerely,

Marybeth Lawson

Tuesday, September 8, 1992

Dear Marybeth Lawson,

I just turned thirteen last week. When will you be thirteen? I am in eighth grade, too. Writing’s cool if that’s what you want. Later,

James Malone

Saturday, September 12, 1992

Dear James,

I only want to write if you do. But if you do, I do, too.

Sincerely,

Marybeth Lawson

P.S. I turn thirteen in January. I’m the youngest in my class because I started kindergarten early.

Tuesday, September 15, 1992

Dear Marybeth,

Okay, yeah, I want to. What classes are you taking? I have shop. I like it. I make things out of metal. Right now I’m working on a shelf for the bathroom wall for my mom’s birthday. There’s no medicine cabinet in there. We just moved and the place isn’t all that great. I have art, too, and that’s cool. English and the rest of that stuff I’m not so good at. I get okay grades, I just don’t like ‘em. Like who’s ever going to need to know that that Shakespeare dude wrote about some guy who killed a king to be king and then had his wife commit suicide and then was beheaded? What kind of crap is that?

Sorry. You probably like that stuff.

Later,

James

Friday, September 18, 1992

Dear James,

I can’t believe you’re reading Shakespeare, too! In our school it’s only the advanced classes who get it in eighth grade. I didn’t much like Macbeth, either, but I loved Romeo and Juliet. They were almost our age. Not that that means anything. I wouldn’t be in love if they paid me a million dollars. I just liked that they were such good friends that they would die for each other. Someday I want to have a friend like that. (I can tell you that because you’re just a piece of paper in another city and I’ll never have to meet you or anything. That’s what they said in counseling.) You’re in counseling, too, right? So your mom lived? You’re very lucky.

Write back soon,

Marybeth Lawson

Thursday, September 24, 1992

Marybeth,

Yeah, I’m in counseling just like you, but I don’t like it much. And yes, my mom is alive. It’s just me and her. I have to watch out for her, ‘cause I’m all she’s got. But, in case you’re wondering, I’m pretty good at watching out so if you ever need to say something, go ahead. I won’t make nothing of it. I could kinda be your good friend from far away, if you want. If you think that’s corny then just forget I said it. I’m sorry your mom died.

Write back if you want,

James

Saturday, September 26, 1992.

Dear James,

I just got your letter. It’s been over a week and I thought you weren’t going to write back. I don’t think what you said is corny at all. Why don’t you like counseling? I think it’s okay, it just doesn’t seem to change anything. They say talking makes it better, but it doesn’t. I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to forget it. My dad quit already. He didn’t like it, either. But he won’t let me quit, yet. He’s a great guy. I love him a lot. He can’t help that he’s so quiet and sad all the time now. I’m all he’s got, too, and I try my best to take care of him. I’ve learned to cook some stuff pretty good, and I already knew how to clean. I ruined some of his white shirts in the wash but he didn’t yell or anything. He just told me not to cry and went out and got more. He was always good that way. In the olden days he would’ve given me a hug, but we don’t do that around here anymore. Does your mom? Sorry, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.

School’s okay. I was in cheerleading last year but dropped out this year. I’m doing gymnastics, though. I got my back handspring. I used to be too chicken, but I’m not any more. My coach says that I could probably compete in high school if I want to. I don’t know if I want to. My dad wouldn’t have the time to come see meets any way.

I like English. And math. Home ec is dumb. I already do all that stuff. But it’s a required class to pass eighth grade so my dad said to just try to find something to like about it. I tried, but so far, nothing.

My dad’s a manager of a company that makes computer parts. He golfs a lot. What does your mom do?

Write back soon,

Marybeth

Tuesday, September 29, 1992

Marybeth,

I came home from school today all bummed out ‘cause I didn’t make the baseball team and it was cool to have your letter here. I didn’t reallywant to play baseball anyway. I like basketball better. I played that in my old school. But we just moved here to Colorado and I missed basketball tryouts. My mom says maybe next year. Your address says Santa Barbara, California. I looked it up on a map and it looks like it’s right on the ocean. That’s cool. I’d like to live on the ocean. My mom said it’s a little town, not all rough and stuff like Los Angeles is on TV. I hope so and that you can be safe there.

My mom’s a teacher. This year she has third grade. It’s pretty cool. She likes kids and they seem to dig her pretty much, for a teacher and all.

Well, gotta go. Keep writing.

James Malone

P.S. Yeah, my mom hugs a lot—kinda too much but I don’t really mind. I’d only ever tell you that, though, ‘cause anyone else’d think I was a sissy or something. Sorry ‘bout your dad.

P.S.S. If you want to talk about what happened to your mom, that’s okay. Remember I’m just sorta a piece of paper.

Saturday, October 3, 1992

Dear James,

I’m sorry you didn’t make the baseball team but I think baseball’s boring. Guys just stand around while one or two throw and try to hit the ball and then there’s a lot more standing around and stuff. Once in a while something exciting happens, like the time last month when that Brett guy from Kansas got his 3000th hit. They were playing my dad’s team, the Angels, so I heard all the cheering. Anyway that kinda stuff only happens once in a while. My dad’s really into sports. He watches them all the time now that Mom’s gone. Mostly I hate them. Basketball’s okay, though. It’s fast.

No, I don’t want to talk about my mom. I just want to forget. But it was nice of you to ask.

Santa Barbara’s cool. I used to love it here. I wanted to move after what happened, but Dad couldn’t because of his job and anyway, it wasn’t like moving was going to make the memories go away. You got to, though, huh? That’s cool. Sometimes I think life would be so much better if I were someplace where no one knew me or about what happened. I hate that kids at school sometimes look at me strange because they know. Like they feel sorry for me but no one talks to me. My dad says it’s because they don’t know what to say.

I used to have a best friend, Cara Williams, but she’s hanging with some other kids now. I think I made her feel too weird ‘cause I cried a lot in the beginning. I don’t cry at all anymore. She still invites me to stuff, but I think it’s ‘cause her mother makes her. Anyway, she’s still nice. I just don’t want to be best friends anymore. I have to take care of my dad and do stuff here at home. And besides, all anyone ever tells me is, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. And it’s not, you know? It’s not okay.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound nasty or anything. I made sloppy joes for dinner tonight. My dad’s golfing and there’s no telling what time he’ll be home and sloppy joes can sit on the stove till he gets here. My mom used to do stuff like that. Tonight I might babysit for the little girl next door. I do that sometimes while her parents play cards with their friends. They’re home, but I’m fully in charge ofWendy. She’s a year old and adorable. Plus they always have good snacks, like pizza rolls and I get paid. I’d do it even if I didn’t, but I’m saving for a new bike.

Well, bye for now.

Marybeth Lawson

Wednesday, October 7, 1992

Marybeth Lawson,

Don’t think I’m weird or anything and maybe I shouldn’t say this, but I’m glad we’re writing. I hope you are, too. My mom asked about you today when she saw that your letter came. She said to say hi. Don’t worry, she doesn’t see your letters and I don’t tell her what we say. She’s cool, though. She doesn’t ask, except about how you are.

We went to court today. They changed our names. My mom and everyone said to do it. It’s kind of like you said, people won’t always be knowing about the past this way and we can live our lives here with all the new people who never knew us before. But they didn’t know me by my name anyway, ‘cause my mom wasn’t married to my dad yet when she had me and so my name was different from theirs. I just don’t think it’s all that cool. I mean, it’s like I have to pretend now. Like the old me was too rotten to live. Maybe, like Mom says, I’ll understand when I’m older. I guess it’s cool that she and I have the same last name now, instead of me having her maiden name. But anyway, if it’s okay with you, I still want to be James Winston Malone here. That’s who I really am and now you will be the only one who knows him. Unless that’s too weird, then we don’t have to.

See ya,

James Winston Malone

Saturday, October 10, 1992

Dear James Winston Malone,

Of course I’ll call you James, still. It doesn’t really matter what we call each other, does it? I guess you’ll get your letters if I address them that way. If you don’t, I hope you write and tell me who to write to. But if you don’t, you won’t even get this anyway so, oh, well, anyway, tell your mom I said hi back.

Hey, I know what, why don’t you call me something else, too? Then, with you, I can just be any old girl, ‘cause unlike you, I’d kind of like to not have to be me anymore. I’m so sick of all those looks.

Anyway, how ‘bout if you call me Candy? I’ll be Candy Lawson. ‘Kay?

My friend Cara likes a boy in the ninth grade. She saw him at the JV football game last night. I think she’s dumb. I don’t want to start liking boys for a really long time. Well, I gotta go. My dad’s golfing and I’m going with the people next door, the Mathers, they’re Wendy’s parents, you know the little girl I babysit, anyway I’m going with them to see Batman Returns. It’s at the dollar theater. Have you seen it? Cara saw it this summer and said it’s really cool.

Write back soon, ‘kay?

Candy Lawson

Chapter Two

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Dear Candy,

It’s going to be a hard Christmas for both of us. Would that I could send a hug through a letter, my sweet friend, for you would surely have one now and anytime you opened an envelope from me.

Hard to believe that our parents both passed in the same year. And so young. I guess it’s true that someone can die of a broken heart. I watched Mom slowly dwindle over the years, losing whatever zest she’d once had for life. It seemed as though she had the energy to see me raised, but once I left for college, she had no reason left to live.

Much like you say it was for your father.

In answer to your question, no, I won’t be alone for Christmas. I was very glad to hear that you wouldn’t be, as well. I picture you surrounded by people you care about.

I agree with what you said about heart—that it is the only true source that we can trust to guide us through life.

At the same time, the whole heart thing has me perplexed. If it’s damaged by life’s trials and tribulations, how much can we trust it? How much does it control us and how much can we control it?

Will I ever be able to open up and fully feel my heart, fully give it, or did the “incident” irrevocably change my ability to experience love on the deepest levels? Will I always be as I am now, moving through life without ever being fully engaged? Is there something I’m doing that keeps me trapped? Am I sabotaging myself? Or is this just the inevitable result to what happened when we were kids and a way of life for me that I can do nothing about—much like if I’d been in a skiing accident and lost a leg.

Tough questions. I look forward to your thoughts on this one.

In the meantime, know that I will be thinking about you through the season.

Yours,

James

“MARYBETH?”

Stuffing the letter she was reading into the writing desk drawer, Marybeth turned, smiling as a spry, little woman came through the kitchen into her living area, petting Brutus, two hundred and ten pounds of flesh and fur lounging in the doorway, as she passed.

“Hey! I didn’t expect you until later.” Jumping up, Marybeth stepped over the two-year-old mastiff and hugged Bonnie Mather, her surrogate mother from the time she was twelve.

“My garden club luncheon finished earlier than I thought—the speaker canceled.”

“Well, come on in. The cookies are cooling, but I should be able to frost them if you want to wait.” She’d told Bonnie she’d bake six dozen cookies to take to the soup kitchen.

“How about if I help?” Bonnie said, dropping the colorful cloth purse that was almost as big as she was onto Marybeth’s sofa. “I might not make frosting as good as you do, but I can wield a mean knife.”

“Yeah, right.” Marybeth laughed. “My recipe is yours and you know it.”

“That doesn’t mean I can make it as well as you do.” Bonnie stepped over Marybeth’s dirt-colored pal on her way back out of the room. “I know you argued about having that dog, but knowing he’s here with you sure gave your father peace of mind.”

“I’ve gotten used to having him around.”

“Your dad was beside himself when you first announced that you were going to run this place yourself.”

That was putting it mildly. He’d done everything he could to get Marybeth to sell the bed-and-breakfast she’d inherited from a great-aunt she’d barely known.

“He didn’t miss a single check-in from the time I opened until the day he died.”

“Checking out the guests,” Bonnie said.

Bonnie and Marybeth moved effortlessly in the professional kitchen of the Orange Blossom, assisting each other without word. As well they should considering the more than fourteen years they’d been cooking together. Bonnie had taught Marybeth, who had been written up in national travel magazines for her culinary talents and original recipes, most of what she knew.

Reaching around Marybeth for a stack of cooled bellshaped cookies, Bonnie’s arm rested along her waist. “How are you doing?” she asked softly.

“Okay,” Marybeth said, whipping green food coloring into a bowl of confectioner’s sugar and water icing. “Keeping busy. I have guests arriving today who’ll be staying through next weekend. And then another check-in on the twenty-third staying until the thirty-first.”

“Over Christmas?”

“Yeah.”

“A family? Are they taking all four rooms?”

“No, just one person. In Juliet’s room.” Her lone holiday visitor, on a holiday that was going to be very lonely.

“You’re coming over for the day, though, right?” Since her mother’s death, Marybeth and her dad had spent every Christmas with Bonnie, Bob and Wendy Mather.

“I don’t think so.” Marybeth delivered what she knew wasn’t going to be welcome news. She glanced at Bonnie, hoping the older woman would understand and not be hurt. “I…it’s going to be hard this year and I think it’d be better if I had a change. I feel like I need to do something different, to, I don’t know, start my own life or something.” It made a whole lot more sense when she thought about it to herself, than it did when she said it out loud. “Besides,” she added, “I don’t want to be a downer on your holiday.”

“We loved your dad, too, missy,” Bonnie said in her most motherly voice. “We’ll all be missing him. Please come.”

“I…maybe,” Marybeth told her, really feeling like she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Not this first Christmas anyway. “I have to see what my guest is going to be doing.”

“You’re only responsible for breakfast and evening libations,” Bonnie said. “You’ll have the rest of the day free.”

“I was thinking about going to the beach. Or…I don’t know. Can I let you know?”

“Of course. And if you say no and change your mind, you can drop in, too. You know that. You don’t need an invitation.”

Meeting Bonnie’s gaze, Marybeth blinked back the tears she was so valiantly trying to prevent. “Thank you.”

“It’ll be strange having Christmas without you.”

“I know. I just…I have to do this. Okay?”

Bonnie’s okay didn’t sound happy. Or even satisfied. But at least the dreaded chore of telling her was done.

“So what was that you were reading when I came in?” Bonnie asked after a few minutes of silence as the two of them, spreaders in hand, covered dozens of sugar cookie renditions of Santas and bells and Christmas trees with red and green and white frosting and sprinkles.

Marybeth grabbed the nonpareils. They’d always been her favorites—even way back when her mom had been the one doing the baking. “A letter from James.”

“A recent one?”

“Yeah. His mom died this year, too.”

“So you’re still writing to him.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Fourteen years and he continues to write regularly?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t realize you were still in touch with him.”

“Of course I am.” She was addicted to him. With every single one of the hundreds of letters she’d received from James over the years, she’d read and reread the most recent until she heard from him again. And if something in her life was particularly challenging, if she needed some extra strength, she’d pull out the plastic storage boxes under her bed and reread some of the others, as well. “Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked the person she was closest to in the world next to James.

“I don’t know.” Bonnie’s shrug, the way she was concentrating so hard on putting little Christmas tree sugar shapes in a row along the cookie to make them look like a string of lights, caught Marybeth’s attention. “It’s just that I worry about you.”

“About me?” No way. Those days were long gone. She didn’t need sympathy anymore. Or worry. She was a big girl now. All grown up, in control and happy with her life. “And James?”

“Not you and James. I wish there was a you and James.” Bonnie’s reply wasn’t timid. “Look at you, sweetie. You’re twenty-six years old and gorgeous with those blue eyes and blond hair, and you haven’t so much as had a date that I know of since you graduated from college three years ago and took over this place.”

“That has nothing to do with James.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Of course not.” Frost, sprinkle, lay out to dry. Frost, sprinkle, lay out to dry. She worked her way through a pile of stars.

“Then what does it have to do with? Your mother?”

“No!” Her mother’s death had been fourteen years ago. She’d lived before then. And since. So why did people continue to seem to tie every single thing in her life back to that one event? “It’s not that I have a problem with dating,” she said. “I’m not afraid. I have no aversions. I simply haven’t yet met a man who inspires any feeling in me. There’s no attraction. No spark.”

“What about with James?”

“I’ve never even seen a picture of him, how could there be an attraction?”

“What about feelings of affection?”

“Of course I have feelings for James. How could I not? He’s my best friend. I can tell him anything.”

“This guy you’ve never met.”

“Right.”

“You sure you aren’t using him as an excuse not to open up too completely to any of the real, flesh-and-blood people in your life?”

“I open up to you. You’re flesh and blood.”

“I’m different,” Bonnie said. “I’m talking about people out there in the world. Someone you could actually build a life with.”

Marybeth frosted. Cookies for Bonnie. Cookies for the senior center. Cookies for here. With any luck, she’d be done in time to have a tray of them on the desk at check-in by three o’clock for her visitors to enjoy.

“I have a life,” she said after taking time to think about what Bonnie had said. “James isn’t taking the place of any other relationships,” she continued. “He’s his own relationship. We have these ongoing philosophical discussions that always hit home with me. Probably because, based on the unusual nature of our relationship, we talk about things that people don’t usually share. You know, deep, random thoughts, illogical matters of the heart and head and life. Observations that generally pass through your mind and are forgotten in the business of daily living.” She’d been discussing the meaning of life with James for fourteen years and wasn’t about to stop now. Wasn’t sure she could even if she wanted to.

“You have no idea how many times we help each other find solutions to challenges we’re facing. We don’t judge each other. We just talk.”

“All things you could be doing with a spouse.”

“Do you and Bob do them?”

Bonnie’s silence was answer enough.

“James is my peace, Bonnie. My solace and support. He’s my kind inner voice counteracting my inner critic who, as you know, so often tries to rule my life. He’s not a romance. Or a partner in life.”

Marybeth finished the stars and the Santas and moved on to help Bonnie with the trees. And because her friend remained silent, she continued to talk. “James is like this ethereal being who, unlike any spiritual, omniscient being, knows nothing of my everyday life, you know? And he shares nothing of his. We share a past, a dark time. We both went through the same thing at the same time in our lives. That’s it.”

“I hope so, my dear,” Bonnie said as they finished up. “I just know that your idea of normal isn’t healthy. You, here all alone, living vicariously through the people who parade in and out of this inn.”

“I take care of them. It’s my job. My livelihood. And I like it.”

“I know you do, sweetie, and I’m thrilled that you’ve found something that satisfies you. I just wish you had a private life, too.”

She did have a private life. Not a single one of her guests had ever stepped foot beyond the public parts of the house. What went on out there was work. What went on back here was her life.

She simply hadn’t found anyone she wanted to share that life with in the way Bonnie meant. Marybeth didn’t really even want to try.

“I’m not lonely,” she told her pseudomother. “But if I ever start to feel that way, I promise you, I’ll find someone. I’ll start frequenting the personal ads if I have to.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” Bonnie assured her. “I know of a half dozen people in this town who’d love to take you out.” So did she. Unfortunately none of them interested her in the least.

CRAIG ANTHONY MCKELLIPS drove slowly by the Orange Blossom Bed-and-Breakfast, every one of his senses reeling with sensation. His mouth watered. He could practically taste the oranges that were pungently ready for picking on the trees that lined both sides of the lot, separating the freshly painted white Victorian home—complete with grand balconies upstairs and an even grander porch down—from the picturesque old homes on either side.

Sweating in spite of the crisp fifty-nine-degree temperature, Craig pushed the button to lower his window a bit and was hit with the sweet scents wafting from the wildly colorful, but perfectly tended flower gardens in manicured rings in the yard and lining the entire front of the house. He could taste a hint of salt in the air, letting him know that he was by the ocean again. By nightfall he’d be feeling the salty residue on his skin.

And the quiet. It amazed him! This California coastal town, maybe an hour’s drive from the Los Angeles he’d known as a kid, was the exact antithesis of the noisy, frenetic southern California he’d grown up in.

A perfect place to spend his first Christmas alone—his first Christmas since his mother passed away.

Satisfying himself that he knew where the house was, Craig drove by for now. Judging by the empty, five-car parking lot down a small hill to the side of the house, none of the other guests had arrived—or else were out for the day. Check-in wasn’t until three.

Would the other guests be there at three, too? Filling the house with chaos and confusion, noise, distracting their hostess? Would he know who she was? She might not look like the photo he’d seen of her in the travel brochure. Maybe she had an employee who handled registration.

Driving slowly through the small town, Craig used the breathing techniques he’d perfected over the years to quiet his mind. After months of constant push to get through all of the commissions that were due by Christmas, he needed this break from the studio that consumed so much of his life.

And from the constant drive to create.

He also needed the inner calm his work brought.

When he couldn’t settle the energy thrumming through him, Craig found a spot close to the water and parked. He thought about calling Jenny. His wife should just about be landing in Paris.

But he didn’t.

Reaching over, he locked his cell phone in the glove box of the rental car.

What he needed was a good long walk on the beach.

“MERRY CHRISTMAS, everyone!” Marybeth turned to wave at the gathering of wheelchairs in the recreation room of the seniors’ center the Saturday before Christmas, bearing the collective weights of people who’d grown dear to her over the three years she’d been catering their Christmas lunch party. This year she’d brought homemade ornaments for them to hang on their bedposts—ornaments she’d crocheted during the evenings while she and Brutus watched television.

She lingered, helping lay out all the food, handing out the gifts and chatting with everyone. They pressed her to join them for the meal, but she bowed out claiming her arriving guest as her excuse.

Leaving the seniors’ center she headed over to the Mathers’s to unload the pile of gifts she had for them on the backseat of her Expedition. Though Bonnie had tried all week to get her to change her mind, Marybeth still thought she wanted to be alone this first Christmas without her dad.

“I can’t believe you aren’t coming over on Monday,” fifteen-year-old Wendy said as she helped Marybeth carry in packages.

Her dad was still at work and her mother was at the soup kitchen.

“It’s just this one year,” Marybeth told the teenager who was as much daughter and sister to her as longtime neighbor. “I think it’ll be easier if I’m not following the same traditions, you know?”

“I get it,” Wendy said. “I’m not sure Mom does, but she’ll come around. She always does.”

“Hey,” Marybeth said, nudging the younger girl. “How’d your date go last night?”

“With Randy?” Wendy had had a crush on the boy from their church for months and he’d finally asked her out.

“Who else?”

Wendy’s blush was answer enough. “It was good,” she said and Marybeth knew immediately that this was one of those times when the word was a definite understatement.

Finished with the presents, Wendy walked with Marybeth back to her car. “Who was your first boyfriend? I don’t remember him.”