Read Online Lakeshore Chronicles [10] Candlelight Christmas by Susan Wiggs - Free Book Online Page A

celebrate the holidays together. It would just be weird if we suddenly stopped.”
    “You know what would be weird?” Darcy demanded. “Forcing me to endure Thanksgiving within a mile of my ex. That would be weird.”
    “Come on, Darce. There’ll be at least twenty people at dinner. You don’t even have to talk to him.”
    I’ll have to breathe the same air as Huntley, she thought, seething. “I can’t believe you think this could work for me on any level,” she stated.
    “I’m still married to Huntley’s brother, or have you forgotten? This puts Badgley and me in an incredibly awkward position.”
    “And where does it put me?” Darcy shot back.
    “At the far end of the room, eating and drinking with friends and family, the way we’ve always done.”
    “The way we’ve always done no longer works for me.” Darcy tried to picture herself spending Thanksgiving the traditional way, pretending all was well as she slowly strangled inside. She pictured the gathering—friends, families, relatives, everyone convivial and excited as they set out the good china and their best recipes for the holiday feast. The gathering would convene at the Fitzgerald place on Long Island, in the house where Darcy had grown up. The big warm kitchen, with its old-fashioned hearth and scrubbed Colonial maple table, would be teeming with chattering women and guys trying to steal a sample of pumpkin pie or toasted sage dressing. Though the image made Darcy nostalgic, she knew she’d end up having a miserable day, trying to pretend that all was well, that the breakup had been so civilized that she could stand to be in the same room with Huntley Collins.
    “Lyddie,” she said gently, “as much as I love you, I’ll break out in hives if I have to see Huntley.”
    “Come on, your divorce was amicable—”
    “News flash—there is no such thing as an amicable divorce.”
    * * *
     
    Darcy struggled with the decision, she really did. Letting down your family simply was not done, not by a Fitzgerald girl. But in the crazy new reality she’d been living since her divorce, letting go had become the more important task. The day before Thanksgiving, she called India. “I’ve been thinking about your invitation. How does your family feel about having stragglers and rejects at Thanksgiving?”
    India didn’t miss a beat. “We’d love to have you. You know that.”
    Thank God. Darcy was determined to make this Thanksgiving different. She grasped at the invitation. India was being incredibly kind and sensitive. One important discovery Darcy had made in the wake of her divorce was that friends were the people who took care of you when your family let you down.
    “We’re in Florida, you know. Can you get a flight?”
    “Sure, I’ll get myself down there. It’ll probably have to be early morning on Thanksgiving Day. Standby is easy for solo travelers.”
    Darcy told herself she liked being a solo traveler. She did. Going it alone simplified everything. Thanks to her work schedule, she would have to return before the weekend was up, but the prospect of a couple of days of sunshine filled her with a powerful craving.
    She needed this. She needed a festive rendezvous with people who didn’t judge her. She needed to sink her toes into the white sand of a Florida beach, far from anything resembling her former life. She needed escape . That was what she was after.
    True to her word, she caught a flight at the crack of dawn, and emerged into the tropical warmth of Paradise Cove in Florida just as most people were having breakfast and getting their turkeys in the oven on Thanksgiving morning. India had sent her a text message, asking her to pick up some flowers for the table and letting her know the back kitchen door was open, and to let herself in.
    At the airport, she rented a car and made a pit stop at a discount liquor store that boasted extended holiday hours. With the help of the navigator on her phone, she found the O’Donnell