I'LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS (The Thorntons #7)

Chapter One Harrison & Sara The idea had been Harrison’s, and once Caleb had gotten on board, the rest of the family had followed. Harrison wanted all of the Thornton siblings, their spouses and significant others, and their children to rent a cabin near the Cascades during Christmas. As Sara Thornton, formerly Flannigan, watched her husband and the rest of the Thornton clan bustle inside the huge cabin, she wondered how great of an idea this really was. Nothing like putting a bunch of people together in a cabin to create some chaos, she thought wryly. The cabin could house up to fifteen people, with seven bedrooms and four bathrooms, a huge living room and kitchen, and a hot tub out back. Constructed solely out of pine, it resembled a log cabin you’d imagine one of the pioneers living in centuries ago—if you didn’t include the indoor plumbing and central heating. Although it hadn’t gotten dark yet, someone had already turned on the outdoor Christmas lights, the colors twinkling merrily. The selling point was that it had enough rooms for each couple and one more for the kids. James, Sara’s son, hadn’t been pleased that he had to sleep in the same room as the little ones, but when Sara had promised him he could help Harrison and the guys cut down a Christmas tree, he’d gotten over his disappointment with his rooming situation quickly. James also enjoyed looking after the babies, no matter how much he tried to act otherwise. Sara couldn’t help but smile as she inhaled the scent of evergreens. She’d never been in the woods like this. She’d grown up poor, her family having had to make do with cheap artificial Christmas trees strung with popcorn. “Mom, Mom!” James scampered up to her, his cheeks rosy. At almost ten years old, James was growing so much that soon he would be taller than his mother. He shared her blue eyes, although Sara preferred to blame his sauciness on her ex-husband, James’s father. “Mom, there’s a bird stuck in the chimney!” His eyes widened. “Uncle Caleb is trying to get it out.” “That’s great. Where’s your brother?” Sara and Harrison’s son, Bennett, now ten months old, was just starting to become mobile, and Sara had asked James to watch him while the adults got their suitcases out of all of the cars. “He’s with—um. Aunt Lizzie? I think?” Before Sara could grill James about Bennett’s whereabouts, James scampered off again after Caleb shouted something unsavory from the nearby living room. Along with Harrison, his five other siblings were also staying at the cabin: Caleb, with his wife, Megan, and their infant daughter, Evie; Mark, with his wife, Abby; Lizzie, with her husband, Trent, and their toddler, Bea; Seth, with his girlfriend, Rose; and Jubilee, with her fiancé, Heath. Sara found Bennett in the living room and scooped him up, kissing him on his chubby cheeks. She couldn’t believe her baby would be a year old in just two months. Where had the time gone? Bennett giggled when Sara kissed him again before wiggling to get down. He’d been lifting himself up lately and, with the help of his parents, had walked some. Sara definitely wasn’t ready for her baby boy to be running all over the place yet. “Where’s the broom?” Caleb asked as he crouched under the chimney, Harrison and Mark close by. “We need to get this damn bird out. Otherwise it’s going to get roasted for tonight’s dinner.” “You could smoke it out,” said Mark, his voice low and rumbling. “Not sure a broom would help.” “I think if you light a fire, it’ll fly out,” said Harrison as he peered up into the chimney. “Then again, it might just catch on fire.” “Please don’t set the cabin on fire,” said Sara. She caught Harrison’s gaze and smiled. “I’m going up to our room. Bennett needs to take a nap.” Harrison smiled back, and Sara couldn’t help the flutter in her chest at the sight. Even after two and a half years of marriage, Harrison still managed to make her giddy. “I’ll see you up there,” said Harrison with a wink. Caleb rolled his eyes. “Get a room, you two.” Mark snorted. “Didn’t I just catch you and Megan kissing in the pantry?” “I never kiss and tell.” Sara, with Bennett in her arms, left the men to figure out the logistics of getting a bird out of the chimney while they bickered and bantered. Upstairs, she found her younger sister Megan nursing Evie in one of the rooms. It still felt strange sometimes to be around such a huge family, considering it had been just Sara and Megan, along with their mother Ruth, for years. Sara often needed a break from all of the commotion, and she had a feeling Megan felt the same way. Sara set Bennett on the floor before collapsing onto an overstuffed armchair next to Megan. “I’m already exhausted and we just got here,” she complained. Megan laughed. “Tell me about it. But it’ll be fun. If all else fails, you can get drunk on spiked eggnog.” She patted Evie’s bottom, then touched the infant’s thatch of bright red hair. “Are you still nursing Bennett?” “Not much anymore,” Sara said with a sigh. “Is it terrible that I wished he wouldn’t stop?” “Not really. I’ll be a wreck when Evie decides she’s done. Then again, it’ll be nice to drink again.” “Hard to believe my baby sister has a baby. The wild child has been tamed.” Megan grinned. “Don’t tell Caleb that.” Sara heard James clomp up the stairs right before he found her and Megan. “Mom, they got the bird out!” He crouched down next to Bennett and began to help his brother race cars across the cabin rug. “Uncle Caleb totally said the f-word, too.” “Oh dear,” said Megan, trying to bite back a smile, “I’ll have to tell him to behave himself.” James shrugged. “Travis said the b-word last week in class, and he got detention. I told him it was his own fault.” Travis was James’s best friend and their former neighbor, and although Sara sometimes wished Travis would get his mouth washed out with soap, she was glad that James had such a good friend to count on. She knew how tough it could be without any friends when you were young. “Why did Travis call someone the b-word?” asked Megan. Sara almost tossed a car at her sister’s head. Instead, she sent her her most judgmental older sister glare. “Oh, I can’t remember. It wasn’t a big deal.” James shrugged and made a point not to look at either his mother or his aunt, which raised Sara’s suspicions immediately. Although James was in fourth grade now, he rarely kept secrets from Sara. “Really? Sounds like a big deal to me,” said Sara. “Especially if Travis got detention for it. Did he call someone in your class that word? Because that’s not nice of him to do, you know.” “I know it’s not. I didn’t say it.” James was sulky now as he slowly pushed a car toward Bennett. “I don’t know why it’s a big deal, that’s all,” he said again. Sara decided not to press James despite her intense curiosity. This wasn’t the first instance of Travis getting into trouble for saying a bad word, but as far as Sara knew, he’d never called a fellow classmate one. So what had brought that on? Had the two boys gotten into some argument? But wouldn’t their teacher have contacted her if that had been the case? Sara had been working at James’s school as one of two third grade teachers until she’d given birth to Bennett. She’d decided to stay home for the foreseeable future, although that didn’t mean she didn’t still talk with her former coworkers from time to time. If something had happened, Sara knew that Karen, James’s teacher, would’ve told her as much. Bennett squealed at his older brother’s antics, effectively distracting Sara for the time being. Later that evening, when the kids were asleep and the adults were sitting in the living room together in front of the fire, Sara nestled closer to Harrison and said quietly, “I think something’s up with James.” With his good looks, charm, and his fancy medical degree, Harrison Thornton had seemed like the last man who would fall for a girl like Sara, a girl who’d grown up in trailer parks and had gotten a bad reputation in school simply because she’d turned down one of the asshole jocks. Every time Sara looked at Harrison, she knew how lucky she was that he’d looked past the rumors and seen her. And he’d fallen in love with her, just as much as she’d fallen in love with him. “Really? Like what?” Harrison rubbed her shoulder, keeping his voice as low as hers. They sat on the couch furthest from the fire. At the moment, Jubilee and Rose were toasting marshmallows over the fire while Heath and Seth supervised. Abby and Mark were talking quietly nearby, while Megan, Caleb, Lizzie, and Trent were debating the merits of real Christmas trees versus artificial ones. Currently, Caleb was arguing for real Christmas trees with perhaps a little too much gusto, Megan looking on with an amused expression on her face. “I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me what happened at school. Travis called someone the b-word—” “He called someone a bastard? Or a b***h?” Sara snorted. “You would ask that. I don’t know. I didn’t ask him to clarify. Anyway.” She huffed out a breath. “He told me it wasn’t a big deal, but if he and Travis fought with some other students...” “Hmm.” Harrison frowned. “I’ll ask him about it. Maybe it’s not something he wants to talk about with his mom.” A prick of hurt bloomed in Sara’s chest, although she’d thought the same thing. Was her little boy so old now that he couldn’t talk to his mother? She didn’t want to think about such a thing. Seeing her sad face, Harrison squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Like he said, it’s not a big deal. Maybe we should take him at his word.” “You’re such a guy,” was her complaint, which just made Harrison chuckle. “And you love me for it.” Whispering into her ear, he added, “Want to take this party upstairs to our room?” “I thought you’d never ask.”