The Christmas Candle (8 page)

Hard to believe it's my home again. So many memories
.

But with each passing block of pristine Victorian mansions and refurbished Mission-style homes, the nostalgia began to wear thin. Everything Chelsea saw triggered a fresh idea, and by the time they reached the bus stop, her mental to-do list had grown:

buy new rockers for the porch

wash the windows

plant a garden

learn how to plant a garden

“You don't have to wait with us, you know,” Hancock said as the yellow bus rounded the corner. “We've been doing this for two months now.”

Chelsea looked at him, and for a moment saw his father in his face. High cheekbones and wide eyes bluer than a Texas sky, blond hair and small nose.
As long as he doesn't have his wild side
, she said to herself. “You're right. You two can walk back to the house on your own after school, okay?”

She turned her attention to Emily, who was bouncing with excitement. “Do you have your lunch box?”

“Si, madre,”
Emily said, giving her backpack a pat. Their new school had a Spanish immersion program, and Emily delighted in practicing her new words.

Chelsea gave her a big squeeze and then went to hug her son, but the look of dread in his eyes stopped her. She recalled a similar moment at the bus stop with her own mother.

“Hancock, I know we've been through a lot lately. Thank you for trying to make it work.”

 

As the bus pulled away, Chelsea inhaled deeply. This was a new thing for her. She could remember almost anything, but she had a bad habit of forgetting to breathe.

She rushed back to the café, arriving just in time for her first customer. Chelsea had met Bo Thompson only once, but at seventy years old and well over six feet tall, he was memorable. The gentlest of giants. Bo had been her mother's most faithful customer—one of the few remaining regulars of the Higher Grounds Café. “Best coffee in town,” he insisted. It didn't hurt that he lived just across the street.

At the sight of Chelsea, Bo removed his baseball hat, revealing a shiny bald head. When they shook hands, his meaty palms swallowed Chelsea's.

“Big day for the neighborhood,” his deep voice announced.

“Indeed it is,” she smiled.

“Hope you don't mind the jersey, but my team won yesterday.” He unzipped his jacket just enough to reveal the green and gold of the Green Bay Packers.

“You won't get any pushback from me,” Chelsea said. “I don't really follow sports these days. Now if I recall correctly, you go for a small cappuccino with extra foam?”

“I'm impressed,” Bo said with a grin that filled his whole face.

Chelsea could feel Tim's critical eye as she worked. She may not have trained in Italy, but she knew how to make a cappuccino. Her mother had taught her to steam a pillow of foam so thick you could sleep on it. But as soon as that thought crossed her mind, the espresso machine began to sputter. Then it stopped.

Chelsea fiddled with the steam valve. “I don't . . . it's not . . .”

Tim plodded to Chelsea's aid. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Bo stealing a glance at his watch.

“How about a black coffee after all?” he said with a wink.

“One black coffee. On the house,” Chelsea insisted with the promise of a cappuccino by morning.

“I'll miss seeing your mom every day, but it's good to see the shop open again,” Bo said as Chelsea served him his drink. “Of course, it'd be even sweeter if you still had your mother's famous pumpkin cream cheese muffins.”

Chelsea smiled. She was pleased to know the recipes she'd created for her mother were a hit. “Here. My gift to you.” She bagged a freshly baked pumpkin muffin and handed it to Bo.

He found a dozen different ways to say thank you, then doubled back to tell Chelsea she had made his morning.

“You're not gonna make much money, giving stuff away,” Tim said.

“Thanks for the tip, Tim,” Chelsea said.

Chelsea could afford to sponsor as many free muffins as she liked. She had built up a treasury of mouth-watering recipes, and her sister, Sara, had been begging her to open up shop for years. But for Chelsea, the Higher Grounds Café wasn't really a business venture. It was a safe haven.

 

Ding! Ding!
“Surprise!”

The slow morning had drifted into an even slower afternoon, and Chelsea lit up when she turned to see her sister standing in the doorway, holding a sunny bouquet of flowers.

“My house is spotless, and Tony has the twins for a few hours. So I'm here for your grand reopening.”

There was an air of springtime about Sara. Everything about her radiated happiness. Her hair was long, straight, and golden as a sunrise. Her brown eyes sparkled and turned into half-moons when she laughed. Her smile lifted more on the right than the left because of the scar that stretched like a piano string from the corner of her mouth to her jaw.

“I thought you were showing your house today!” Chelsea said, succumbing to Sara's bear hug.

“Potential buyers cancelled. Again.”

“Oh no! Well, when you do find a house, my offer still stands,” Chelsea said. “I'm making the down payment. Maybe we'll end up neighbors after all!”

No one would ever peg the two as sisters. Sara was bubbly, Chelsea bookish. Sara was tall and blond; Chelsea, medium height and dark-haired like their mother. Sara had always had her pick of boyfriends. Chelsea, not so much. Still, they were best friends. Sara looked out for Chelsea. Chelsea looked up to Sara. For over a decade, the two had dreamed of living in the same city again.

“I still can't believe you're back in town!”

“Not exactly the way we wanted it to happen,” Chelsea said.

“But you're here. And that's what matters, right?”

Chelsea marveled at her sister's optimism. More than once she'd wondered if Sara had been born with a double dose.

“You're right. Opening day is great. Great!” Chelsea tried mirroring Sara's rosy perspective. “Just getting the hang of things. It's fun being anonymous for a change, though a few more customers would be nice. ‘Slow' doesn't do it justice.”

Ding! Ding!
The shopkeeper's bell announced an arrival. “You must be good luck!” Chelsea said.

Tim had been fiddling with the espresso machine since Chelsea's epic fail in front of Bo. Now he turned a nob, releasing a hiss of piping hot steam from the espresso machine. “And we're back,” he said with satisfaction.

And not a moment too soon. A surprising rush of customers had filled the shop. Chelsea put on her warmest smile. “Welcome to Higher Grounds. What can I get y'all?”

“We heard you had some autographed football stuff from the Dallas Cowboys,” said the group's ringleader. His towering size and lettered jacket pegged him as a high school football star.

“I wouldn't know anything about that,” Chelsea said. “But our customers say we have the best coffee in town.”

“Customers?” Tim mumbled behind Chelsea's back. She knew it was a stretch.

“But you're her, right?” asked a prom queen with a Café Cosmos coffee tumbler. “The wife of that football guy.”

Chelsea struggled for words. “I am . . .”

Sara swooped in for the rescue. “She's the owner of this café.”

“So is Sawyer Chambers your husband or not?”

A simple yes or no might do the trick. But to Chelsea it was more complex. More layered. There were nuance and history to consider. Lots of history.

“Some kid in my little brother's class said so.” The quarterback turned for confirmation to a middle school version of himself. “Right?”

Ding! Ding!
Hancock and Emily entered the café.

“Yeah!
He
was telling people at school.” The middle schooler outed Hancock, who stopped dead in his tracks.

Hancock knew he was in trouble, but did his best to play it cool in front of the older students. “Hey, man . . . I, uh, better go start on my homework,” he said to his classmate. “See ya tomorrow.”

Chelsea eyed her son as he made his escape. “I was just trying to get you some customers,” he mumbled on the way up the stairs.

Emily had spotted her Aunt Sara and run to her for a hug.

A boy with a smartphone held it up for all to see. “That's her all right. Look. Mrs. Sawyer Chambers.”

Mrs. Chambers. There it was, plain and simple. Practically Amish
.

“You're kinda famous,” the boy said.

If a picture could tell a thousand words, then a Google image search could tell ten thousand. Swipe, swipe, swipe. Chelsea's life flashed before her eyes—and everyone else's for that matter. The room was getting smaller, the smartphone screen bigger. Until finally . . .

“Who's that?” said the young magician who had turned his smartphone into an IMAX screen. The image stretched as far as the east is from the west: Sawyer Chambers in the arms of another woman. A redheaded beauty. A triple threat—younger, thinner, and prettier.

The leader of the pack looked at the picture and then at the woman behind the counter and stated the obvious. “That's not you.”

“OMG,” said the prom queen with a look of pity.

All eyes shifted to Chelsea. “Can I interest y'all in a cupcake?” she managed through gritted teeth.

The prom queen broke the silence. “I'll take one,” she said, motioning for her friends to flee the awkward scene. “To go.”

As the café emptied, Chelsea melted into the counter, defeated. “Life was so much simpler before the Internet,” she moaned.

“Don't you waste another minute worrying about the Internet,” Sara said, wrapping her in a hug.

“You're right,” Chelsea said, pulling herself together. “I'm sure it'll never take off.”

Chapter 2

Samuel watched from a distance. From heaven's view, things were simpler. Clearer. Unobstructed by the clamor of everyday life. He peered through the stars, assessing the once familiar landscape.

What he saw stirred concern. He remembered his first assignment here. The region had a sparkle to it, a glow. Now a pall had settled on the city. Entire neighborhoods were hidden by shadows.

But still there were beacons of light. Like spires alit with gold, they punctured the darkness, streaking past Samuel and into the heavens.

It's dusk
, Samuel thought,
but not night
. Not yet.

He took note of an embedded glow and set his eyes on the source. The corner of the Higher Grounds Café. This place had been prayed for and prayed over.

The Father won't relinquish this territory easily, not without a fight. And I love a good fight!

Prayers move God. And God moves angels. So Samuel was being sent. Other angels had more experience. Other angels had more strength. But no angel in heaven could match Samuel's resolve. This was his first solo mission.

“Sammy,” he said to himself. “Time to fly.”

He grasped the hilt of his fiery saber and lifted his small frame to its full height. He tightened his muscles, squinted his eyes, leaned forward, and speared earthward. The wind rushed his hair straight back. As he broke through the clouds, he spotted the figure of Chelsea sitting on her porch and wondered what role she was going to play in this unfolding saga. He was, after all, her guardian angel.

Chapter 3

It was a Friday night, and Chelsea was baking. She hummed as she worked. After years of feeling the pressure to keep up with the trophy wives of the ripped and famous, she welcomed the change of pace. Not to mention the boost in confidence. Her run-in with the posse of high schoolers had been redeemed (well, almost) when the prom queen called back to order five dozen of “those delicious cupcakes” for her mom's birthday tea. It was the perfect opportunity for Chelsea to reintroduce herself to the community. She had dreamed up a grand entrance—a light, lemon cake topped with a swirl of Earl Grey infused buttercream frosting.

Baking was therapy for Chelsea, and she was ready for a nice, long session. The complexity of her recipes had a funny way of matching the complexity of her problems. The day she learned of Sawyer's infidelity, she baked a thirteen-layer bittersweet chocolate cake—one for each year they were married. After one bite, she dropped the entire thing in the trash. She remembered the acrid aftertaste like it was yesterday. She did a quick calculation. Eight months and seventeen days ago, exactly.

“Time will heal all wounds,” Chelsea's mother said.

And she would know.
Forgive and forget
were words Virginia Hancock had lived by, but Chelsea wasn't so sure. Forgetting was not in her nature. Especially when it came to Sawyer.

Sawyer was drafted into the NFL a year after he and Chelsea were married. He spent eight seasons with the Cowboys, during which he played like an all-star and aged like a rock star. Led the league in rushing for three seasons. The Cowboys reached the play-offs twice. Sawyer was a regular ESPN highlight. People were already talking Hall of Fame. But a knee-level tackle in the first game of his ninth season finished that. Torn ACL.

Sawyer had signed a fifteen-million-dollar contract, guaranteed healthy or not. He could have retired. He
should
have retired. Instead, determined to make a comeback, he rehabbed his leg and earned a spot with the Seattle Seahawks. But he was not the same player. And he knew it.

Many a pro athlete goes through a midlife crisis. For Sawyer, it happened at the ripe old age of thirty-five. After three rough seasons in Seattle, he was third string. He overcompensated for his failures on the field with risky business ventures, extravagant gestures, and late nights on the town. Chelsea tried to shield her kids from their father's sudden change in behavior, but she couldn't keep up. Sawyer couldn't settle down.

By the start of the next season, the Seahawks dropped him. So did his agent. No one was interested in Sawyer anymore. No one except for Cassie Lockhart, a junior agent who was young and hungry and eager to represent an NFL star. She convinced Sawyer to join her for a meeting with the San Diego Chargers. Chelsea guessed she was after the commission. She had no idea the girl was after her husband.