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him a Christmas present.”
    “Then why’d you ask?”
    His least favorite Katie Davis trait. If she didn’t want to talk about something, she’d be a pain in the ass and annoy him to the point he didn’t give a crap anymore. “Don’t be a smart-ass. What did he do to piss her off?”
    “Why don’t you ask her?”
    “Because I don’t think she’ll tell me.”
    “Then she probably doesn’t want you to know.” She took a long sip of coffee, looking at him over the rim.
    “Come on. You know how much I love your mom, and the guy’s in and out of my house all the freaking time now. It bugs the shit out of me not knowing.”
    “When I was little, Andy and my dad went on a sledding trip. They grabbed dinner at a bar and Andy chatted up a woman and got her to go back to the motel with them. She had a friend and my dad cheated on Mom. She blamed Andy.”
    He sat back against the booth. “Holy shit.”
    “Yeah. She told me blaming Andy made it easier to forgive Dad.” She was turning her coffee mug around and around on the table, staring down into the swirling liquid. “I never knew. She didn’t tell me until you and Mitch hired Andy to work at the lodge and I asked her straight out.”
    Josh felt a slow burn of anger, but it was pointless. Earle Davis had been dead fourteen years. “You okay with Andy being around, because if you’re not—”
    She held up her hand. “I’m fine. I mean, yeah, if Andy hadn’t hooked up with that woman, Dad might never have cheated on Mom, but nobody held a gun to my dad’s head. It was his decision. And Andy lost his best friend out of it because he and my dad stopped hanging out after that.”
    “I had no idea it was that bad. I always thought it was probably something stupid or funny, like him saying her meat loaf sucked or something, and they were both too stubborn to get over it.”
    “Nope. Not stupid or funny.”
    Paige showed up then with their meals, giving Josh a couple of minutes to digest what he’d heard. In a town like Whitford, the fact it wasn’t common knowledge Earle had stepped out on his wife was nothing short of a miracle. And even if he could remember back that far, Josh probably never would have guessed Rosie’s marriage had almost come undone. She was more a stiff upper lip in front of the kids and cry in the shower kind of woman.
    “You let me know if you want to move the Christmas Eve party to my house,” Paige said, stopping to refill their coffees.
    Oh , damn . He kept forgetting about that stupid party. If he had his way, the whole thing would be cancelled. Or postponed until April or May, maybe. “She gave Thanksgiving over to you, but I don’t see her giving up Christmas Eve at the lodge.”
    “Mom’s a smart woman,” Katie said. “She’ll understand there’s only so much we can do and she’s sick and Paige has plenty of room for everybody. She’ll be reasonable.”
    * * *
    “We’re having Christmas Eve at the Northern Star and that’s the end of it.”
    Katie looked at her mother reclined against her pillows with her arms folded across her chest, and swore. But only in her mind, of course. She wondered what the chances were of flagging down a nurse and getting a sedative. For her, for her mom. Either worked.
    “The Christmas Eve party isn’t what’s important,” Josh said. “You getting better is all that matters.”
    “You listen to me. The party is important to me. I don’t know if Sean will come and Liz probably won’t be here, but Mitch and Ryan will and you four kids being home for the holidays matters to me. And it’ll be Paige’s first Christmas with us—her first with a real family of her own and I want it to be perfect.”
    Katie shook her head. “Because we are Paige’s family now, she cares more about you than a party.”
    “I’m having a Christmas Eve party.”
    Katie knew that tone. There would be a party at the Northern Star on Christmas Eve. She sighed. “We’ll take care of it.”
    Josh’s