The Coach House by Florence Osmund Page A

Catherine there, as she would surely muck things up. “You have to trust me on this,” she told Catherine. “We have a plan, and it’s in motion right now. It’s different from the way it’s been done in the past, but we’re confident it will work. Please go home and leave everything to me.”
    “If Mr. Bakersfield comes in tomorrow and the windows aren’t perfect, I’m telling you, heads will roll!” Her breathing became more labored by the minute.
    “Catherine, you’re going to make yourself sick over this. Everything is under control. I promise you.”
    The work was finished by four a.m. Marie called Catherine. “All the windows are finished, and they look great. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
    “Are you kidding? I never went to sleep. Are you sure? There were no glitches? There are always glitches.”
    “Sure there were glitches, but nothing we couldn’t handle. You’ll see when you come in. They’re all perfect.”
    “You’re a godsend, Marie. Thank you and I’ll see you tomorrow. Go home and get some sleep.”
    * * *
    “You worked until when?” Richard asked when he returned from his three-day business trip.
    “Four o’clock, but I didn’t get home until close to six. I gave Esther a ride home.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding. It wasn’t your mistake!”
    “I helped save the store from embarrassment,” she said with a sense of loyalty he obviously didn’t understand, “and an angry board. People come from all over the country to see these windows, and they expect them to be done twenty days before Christmas, the same time every year. It’s even been advertised in the Tribune and on the radio.”
    “I’m not sure I would have gone that route.”
    “Why not? We’re all part of the same team.”
    “You’re a better team player than me.”
    “Than I.”
    He shot her a look. “Than most people.” She didn’t like his tone. “So, you’re probably too tired to go out tonight.” Before she could say anything, he added, “We’ll stay in. We should talk about Christmas anyway. I’ll go out and pick up some Chinese.” An hour later, Richard arrived home with a bag of Chinese food in one hand and a bouquet of store-bought flowers in the other.
    “How pretty! What’s the occasion?” she asked looking for the right vase.
    “The occasion is that I shouldn’t have criticized you for working all night.” He kissed her. “Of course, it was the right thing to do.”
    “Well, thank you, but you didn’t have to buy me flowers.” She looked at the arrangement. “Sure is nice to get ones that haven’t been stolen from a neighbor’s yard, though,” she teased.
    “I had a thought while I was in the car. Let’s go to Aspen for Christmas!” he beamed.
    “Aspen?” Marie pictured their first Christmas together in their own place, complete with presents under the tree and a fire in the fireplace.
    “Yes, Aspen. You know…skiing.”
    “We don’t know how to ski, Richard.”
    “We can take lessons!”
    “I don’t know,” Marie said with apprehension.
    “C’mon. It’ll be fun. I hear they now have a chair lift that takes you up the mountain. That would be worth the trip in itself!”
    “How did they get up there before?”
    “By Jeep.”
    “The Jeep sounds safer.”
    “Marie, where’s your sense of adventure?”
    “You don’t want to spend Christmas with your family? Your mother has invited us down.”
    “Well, we did have Thanksgiving with them.”
    She looked at her husband who bore resemblance to a five-year-old boy being told there was no Santa Claus. “Okay,” she conceded.
    Marie’s low expectations of the five-day Aspen trip were disproven once she got there. They took ski lessons in the morning, had a hot lunch in the ski lodge, and then went out on the slopes. Evenings were spent in the lodge where they drank hot, spiced concoctions while bragging about their runs with the other skiers.
    On the last day of their trip, Marie awoke alone in their room.