Lakehouse Christmas Novel – I found out my husband had an affair with my sister. I had seen it with my eyes. When I reach the upper floor, I happily sprint toward Jeffrey’s room, Moans meet my ears, followed by the familiar grunting her used to hearing. My sister!!! what? Her moan grows louder as I stand outside. We’d been together for five years. Three of those years, we’d been married. How could he do this to me? My husband sank to his knees in front of me. “Tell me how to make this right.” I shook my head. There was no making this right. “If this is how you treat people you love, then you can go screw yourself. I want a divorce.”
Rebecca Sims wrapped her winter coat tight against her body before securing the belt. Not surprisingly, the grocery store was colder than the winter weather outside in the small North Carolina town of Hopeton. She let her gaze wander over the bottles of wine before plucking a bottle of Chardonnay off the top shelf. She cringed when she saw the price. Carefully, she set the bottle back and chose a cheaper wine on the lower shelf. She slipped the bottle into her shopping cart and turned down the aisle of crackers. “Why, Rebecca Renfroe! It’s been ages since I saw you.” A pretty blonde woman with striking blue eyes gave her a wide smile.
Rebecca froze in her tracks. The last thing she wanted to do was run into a friend from high school who, according to Facebook, was wildly successful. “Jennifer Donovan?” The woman nodded, squealed, and then launched herself at Rebecca. “I can’t believe it’s you. It’s been years since I’ve been back to Hopeton.” She squeezed Rebecca in a tight hug. Rebecca gently pried the woman off her and gave her a smile. “What are you doing here, Jennifer? I thought you were living in Seattle?” Jennifer giggled. “I don’t live in Seattle anymore. My husband, Matthew, bought this country estate in France and we’ve been there ever since.” Rebecca’s eyebrows shot up. “France? Wow, that’s…great.” Jennifer nodded.
“Have you ever been to France?” Chuckling, Rebecca said, “No, I haven’t.” She’d never been outside the States. Jennifer grabbed her hand. “Well, you must come. You can stay with us. We have loads of room!” Rebecca’s stomach twisted as the green-eyed monster reminded her how very different her life was from Jennifer’s. “How is Jeffrey? How many kids do you have?” Jennifer cocked her head. Rebecca forced a smile. “We have no kids. We divorced five years ago. I went back to my maiden name.” Jennifer’s expression shifted into one of sympathy. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I had not heard.” She reached over and patted Rebecca’s hand. “That must be so difficult, especially here at Christmas.” Rebecca’s stomach turned.
“Not really. I have been slammed at work and have plenty of other things to occupy my time.” Jennifer frowned. “Did he remarry?” The dreaded question. Rebecca always hated answering this question. She didn’t know who sounded like a bigger fool, herself, or Jeffrey. Lifting her chin, she steeled her spine. “He married my sister, Julie.” Jennifer’s blue eyes nearly bulged out of her head. She opened her mouth, but it was apparent she didn’t know what to say. Rebecca glanced at her watch and smiled. “Sorry I can’t talk longer. I’m late for an engagement.” She drove her shopping cart around a very stunned Jennifer, who was standing like a statue in the middle of the aisle. She managed to grab a box of crackers flavored with olive oil and sea salt and tossed them in beside the wine. Thankfully, there was a cheese display near the front of the grocery store with new assortments of cheese for the holiday. She grabbed two different types and hurried to the cash register.
She barely spoke to the cashier as she paid and gathered her items. Rebecca wanted to escape. As she stepped out of the store, the cold winter air hit her in the face, reminding her that the Christmas season had arrived in a flurry of snow and blustering wind. Hurrying to her car, she unlocked the door and placed her bags in the back seat before opening the driver’s side. She started the engine and turned the heater on full blast. Rebecca admitted it was hard to see her family gathered around the Christmas table. She hated the sympathetic looks from her mother and how her Aunt Sissy would comment on how the holidays were not the same since Julie wasn’t there. An unease would drift around the table until her grandmother Bernice would steer the conversation to a benign topic. Since her sister and her now ex-husband had run off together, no one in the family had heard from either of them.
Jeffrey had been smart enough to drain their checking and savings accounts before she found out about his betrayal. The last time she’d seen him was at their divorce hearing. In the end, she’d had to sell their house, split the meager proceeds with him, and start over again in a small lake house on Laurel Cove. She hated to admit that despite her position at the bank, she was struggling financially on one income while her ex-husband and selfish sister were living high on the hog. Her phone buzzed, forcing her back to reality. She frowned when she saw it was her grandmother, Bernice. Bernice never called unless she needed something or something was wrong. “Hey Bernice.” Some people thought it weird that she called her grandmother by her first name. But it was what Bernice preferred. “Rebecca, are you at home?” She took a right onto her street.
“Almost. I had to run to the grocery store after work. What’s up? You need a loan to update your nursery?” Bernice had the only lawn and garden nursery in town. Once she’d hired Carolina Johnson, who had a penchant for decorating people’s front porches for the holidays and an extraordinary green thumb, her grandmother’s business had boomed. Carolina was trying to talk her grandmother into expanding the business, but Bernice was as stubborn as they came and said she wasn’t going to mess with a good thing. “A loan at Christmas? Absolutely not. Besides, who says I need money?” she groused.
Rebecca grinned at her grandmother’s retort. It was no secret that Bernice had no filter and told it like it was. Rebecca pulled into her driveway and opened the garage door. “I just pulled up to my house. You want to tell me what this call is about, or should I go inside and get comfortable?” Silence stretched uncomfortably. “Bernice?” Her grandmother sighed. “I have to tell you something. Something you’re not going to like.” Rebecca’s gut sank, and she killed the engine but didn’t bother getting out of the car. “Did something happen?” Bernice groaned. “You could say that. Look, I’m just going to say it. First of all, your Aunt Sissy won’t be here for Christmas. She’s going to her son’s house in Atlanta.” Rebecca relaxed.
“That’s okay. It will just be the three of us this year.” Bernice groaned. “I’m not done. There’s more. Your mother has been in contact with Julie.” Rebecca felt the wind being knocked out of her chest. “In fact, she invited Julie home for the holidays.” Rebecca felt sick to her stomach. “She what?” Bernice let out a curse. “She said it doesn’t feel like Christmas without both her kids, so she invited Julie home for Christmas.” Rebecca squeezed her eyes together and silently prayed for a miracle. “Please tell me Julie didn’t accept.” She waited for what seemed like an eternity until Bernice answered.
“Julie accepted. And she’s bringing Jeffrey with her.” Rebecca swallowed the lump in her throat. “Perfect.” Bernice growled. “That’s not all. It gets worse.” Rebecca looked over at the wine in the passenger’s seat and wondered if she could unscrew the top off in the car and have a nice long drink right there in the car. “How can it get any worse than that?” The next two words that Bernice uttered were like a jackhammer against her heart. “Julie’s pregnant.” And just like that, Rebecca Sims realized it could indeed get worse. “Bernice called me. Is it true?” Rebecca glared at her mother, Mary Sims, who was sitting in her favorite plaid chair by the fire. She had a colorful quilt over her legs, and her hands were wrapped around a steaming cup of her favorite tea. She’d even turned the TV to the satellite station that played Christmas music the whole month of December.
Her mother looked up at her with sadness in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. You know I would never do anything to hurt you. But when Julie told me about the baby, I realized that I just can’t cut her out of my life.” Rebecca snorted. “As I recall, you weren’t the one doing the cutting. It was her. She’s made no effort to contact anyone in the family for five years. Or even acknowledge her guilt.” She went over to the brick fireplace and stared into the flames. “So what made you contact her after all these years?” When her mother didn’t answer, she turned around. “Mom?” Her mother set her teacup down and patted the seat on the sofa next to her. “Come sit.” She didn’t want to sit. She wanted to jump in her car, pack a bag and head for to Switzerland where she could enjoy Christmas surrounded by chocolate, wine, and isolation.
She rolled her eyes before finally sitting down on the plaid sofa that had seen too many holidays. Her mother stared into the fire. “I’ve been volunteering at the nursing home on Tuesdays.” Rebecca nodded. “I know. You read to the women’s group and serve tea afterward.” That brought a smile out of her mother. “That’s right. Well, Anne, who has been like a second mother to me, isn’t doing very well. I’ve been going more often so I can sit with her. She has a daughter but is estranged from her. They had some stupid fight over the man she was going to marry. The daughter defied Anne, married the man, and hasn’t spoken to her mother since.” Rebecca shifted in her seat. “Her situation is different from ours.”
Her mom swallowed hard. “Anne told me her biggest regret in life is letting the distance grow so big that it can’t be fixed.” She reached over and touched Rebecca’s hand. “I love you very much, Rebecca, and I’m so proud of you and everything you’ve accomplished. But Julie is my daughter too, and I think enough time has passed. We should let go of hurt feelings and be a family again.” Rebecca tugged her hand out of her mother’s warm grasp and sat up straight. Not even the comforting sounds of Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” could make her heart not feel the sting of betrayal.