Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

“You’re good enough. And the sight of you refinishing my floors will be a balm to my soul.” Now that Sam had the promise of rent money and cheap labor, some of his hostility had faded. “We’ll try it out for a couple of months. But if it’s not working for me, you’ll have to take the kid somewhere else.”

“Six months.”

“Four.”

“Six.”

“All right, damn it. Six months.” Sam poured more whiskey. “My God,” he muttered. “Three Nolans under one roof. A disaster waiting to happen.”

“The disaster’s already happened,” Mark said curtly, and would have said more, but he heard a soft shuffling sound in the hallway.

Holly came to the kitchen doorway. She’d gotten out of bed and was standing there with a bewildered, sleep-dazed expression. A small refugee, dressed in pink pajamas, her feet pale and vulnerable on the dark slate floor.

“What’s the matter, honey?” Mark asked gently, going to her. He picked her up—she couldn’t have weighed more than forty pounds—and she clung to him like a monkey. “Can’t sleep?” The round weight of her head on his shoulder, the soft tangled mass of her blond hair, the little-girl smell of crayons and strawberry shampoo filled him with unnerving tenderness.

He was all she had.

Just start by loving her…

That would be the easy part. It was the rest of it he was worried about.

“I’m going to tuck you in, sugar-bee,” Mark said. “You need to sleep. We’ve got a lot of busy days ahead of us.”

Sam followed as Mark carried Holly back to her room. The four-poster bed was fitted with a frame at the top, from which Victoria had hung an assortment of fabric butterflies with sheer gauzy wings. Settling her on the mattress, Mark pulled the covers up to her chin, and sat on the edge of the bed. Holly was quiet and unblinking.

Looking into her haunting blue eyes, Mark smoothed the hair back from her forehead. He would have done anything for her. The force of his own emotions surprised him. He couldn’t make up for what Holly had lost. He couldn’t give her the life she would have had. But he would take care of her. He wouldn’t abandon her.

All of those thoughts, and more, flooded his mind. But what he said was, “You want me to tell you a bedtime story?”

Holly nodded, her gaze flicking briefly to Sam, who had come to lean against the doorjamb.

“Once upon a time,” Mark said, “there were three bears.”

“Two uncle bears,” Sam added from the doorway, sounding vaguely resigned, “and a baby bear.”

Mark smiled faintly as he continued to smooth Holly’s hair. “And they all lived in a big house by the sea…”

Two

The bell on the shop door jingled as the man of Maggie’s dreams walked in. Or more accurately, he was the man of someone else’s reality, since he was holding the hand of a small girl who had to be his daughter. While the child hurried to look at a huge carousel that revolved slowly in the corner of the toy store, her father wandered in more slowly.

Low-slanting September sunlight passed over dark hair cut in short, efficient layers, the ends curling slightly against the back of his neck. As he passed a mobile dangling from the ceiling, he ducked his head to avoid colliding with it. He moved like an athlete, relaxed but alert, giving the impression that if you threw something at him unexpectedly, he’d catch it without hesitation.

Sensing Maggie’s helpless interest, he glanced in her direction. He had strong-boned, rough-edged good looks, and eyes so blue you could see them from across the shop. Although he was tall and striking, there was no swagger in him…just quiet, potent confidence. With the beginnings of a five-o’clock shadow, and jeans worn to the point of raggedness, he was a little bit scruffy and a whole lot sexy.

And he was taken.

Tearing her gaze away from him, Maggie hastily picked up a wooden weaving loom. With great care, she restrung a few stretchy fabric loops.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, the guy wandered to his daughter. He took an interest in the train that went around the entire store, the tracks positioned on a shelf built close to the ceiling.

Since the Magic Mirror had opened three months earlier, business had been brisk. Tables were piled with old-fashioned toys: binoculars, handmade yo-yos, wooden vehicles, lifelike stuffed animals, sturdy kites.

“That’s Mark Nolan and his niece Holly,” Elizabeth, one of the store clerks, murmured to Maggie. Elizabeth was a retiree who had taken a part-time job at the shop. She was a vivacious older woman who seemed to know everyone on San Juan Island. Maggie, having just moved from Bellingham at the beginning of the summer, had found Elizabeth to be an invaluable resource.

Elizabeth knew the customers, their family histories and personal tastes, and she remembered the names of everyone’s grandchildren. “Isn’t it getting close to Zachary’s birthday?” she might ask a friend who was browsing through the shop. Or, “Heard poor little Madison’s under the weather…we’ve got some new books, perfect for reading in bed.” Whenever Elizabeth was there, no one left the Magic Mirror without buying something. Occasionally Elizabeth called customers when the store had something new in that she thought they’d like. When you lived on an island, word of mouth was still the most effective selling tool.

Maggie’s eyes widened slightly. “His niece?”

“Yes, Mark’s raising her. Her mother died in a car wreck about six months ago, poor little thing. So Mark brought her over from Seattle, and they’ve been living at Rainshadow Vineyard, at his brother Sam’s house. I couldn’t imagine those two trying to take care of a little girl by themselves, but they’ve managed so far.”

“They’re both single?” A question that Maggie had no business asking, but it slipped out before she could stop it.

Elizabeth nodded. “There’s another brother, Alex, who is married, but I heard they’re having trouble.” She cast a regretful look at Holly. “She ought to have a woman in her life. I think it’s one of the reasons she won’t talk.”

Maggie’s brow furrowed. “To strangers, you mean?”

“To anyone. Not since the accident.”

“Oh,” Maggie whispered. “One of my nephews wouldn’t talk to anyone at school when he started elementary school. But he would talk to his parents at home.”

Elizabeth gave a regretful shake of her head. “As far as I know, Holly’s quiet all the time.” She set a pink cone hat with a veil over her white curls that danced like butterfly antennae, and adjusted an elastic band beneath her chin. “They’re hoping she’ll come out of it soon. The doctor told them not to push her.”

Picking up a scepter topped with a sparkling star, Elizabeth went back to the party room, where a birthday celebration was in progress. “Time for cake, Your Majesties!” she announced, and was greeted with high-pitched squeals before the door closed behind her.

After ringing up a customer who had bought a stuffed rabbit and a picture book, Maggie glanced around the shop until she found Holly Nolan again.

The child was staring at a fairy house that had been fastened to the wall. Maggie had made it herself, decorating the roof with dried moss and gold-painted bottle caps. The circular door had been made from the casing of a broken pocket watch. Standing on her toes, Holly squinted through a tiny window.

Emerging from behind the counter, Maggie approached her, not missing the subtle stiffening of the child’s back.

“Do you know what that is?” Maggie asked gently.

Holly shook her head, not sparing her a glance.

“Most people think it’s a doll house, but it’s not. It’s a fairy house.”

Holly looked at her then, her gaze traveling from Maggie’s lo-top Converse sneakers all the way to her curly red hair.

Maggie felt an unexpected rush of tenderness as they studied each other. She saw the frail solemnity of a child who no longer trusted in the permanence of anything. And yet she sensed Holly still inhabited the corners of her childhood, ready to be tempted by something that hinted of magic.

“The fairy who lives here is always gone in the daytime,” Maggie said. “But she comes back at night. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if I gave you a peek into her house. Would you like to see it?”

Holly nodded.

Carefully, Maggie reached for the clasp at the side of the house and unfastened it. The entire front swung open to reveal three small furnished rooms containing a bed made of twigs…a gilded espresso cup for a bathtub…a table shaped like a mushroom, with a wine cork for a chair.

Maggie was gratified to see a hesitant smile spread across Holly’s face, revealing the endearing gap of a missing tooth on the bottom row. “She doesn’t have a name, this fairy,” Maggie said confidentially, closing the front of the house. “Not a human name, that is. Only a fairy name, which of course humans could never pronounce. So I’ve been trying to think of what to call her. When I decide, I’ll paint it over the front door. Lavender, maybe. Or Rose. Do you like either of those?”