Epilogue
“Are you ready for this?”
Celeste took her gaze from the snowflakes outside to glance across the width of the SUV to her husband.
“No,” she admitted. “I doubt I will ever be ready.”
Flynn lifted one hand from the steering wheel to grab hers, offering instant comfort, his calm blowing away the chaotic thoughts fluttering through her like that swirl of snow.
“I’m ready,” Olivia piped up from the backseat. “I can’t wait.”
“You? You’re excited?” Flynn glanced briefly in the rearview mirror at his daughter. “You hide it so very well.”
Olivia didn’t bother to pay any attention to his desert-dry tone. “This is the coolest thing that’s ever happened in my whole life,” she said.
Since Olivia wasn’t yet a decade old, her pool of experiences was a little shallow, but Flynn and Celeste both declined to point that out.
The girl was practically bouncing in the backseat, the energy vibrating off her in waves. Celeste had to smile. She adored Olivia for the lovely young lady she was growing into.
The trauma of her mother’s tragic death had inevitably left scars that would always be part of her, but they had faded over the past two years. Olivia was a kind, funny, creative girl with a huge heart.
She had opened that big heart to welcome Celeste into their little family when she and Flynn married eighteen months earlier, and Celeste had loved every single moment of being her stepmother.
Now Olivia breathed out a happy sigh. “I think I’m more excited about the Pine Gulch premiere of Sparkle and the Magic Snowball than the real one in Hollywood tomorrow.”
“Really?” Celeste said in surprise. “I thought you’d be thrilled about the whole thing.”
Olivia loved everything to do with the film industry, much to Flynn’s dismay. Celeste supposed it was in her blood, given her mother’s and her grandmother’s legacies. Someday those Hollywood lights would probably draw her there, too—something Flynn was doing his best to accept.
“It will be fun to miss school and fly out and stay at our old house. I mean, a movie premiere in Hollywood with celebrities will be glamorous and all. Who wouldn’t be excited about that?”
In the transitory glow from the streetlights, her features looked pensive. “But I guess I’m more excited about this one because this is our home now,” she said after a moment. “This is where our family is and all our friends. Everyone in Pine Gulch is just as excited about the new Sparkle movie as I am, and I can’t wait to share it with them.”
Oh. What a dear she was. If the girl hadn’t been safely buckled in the backseat, Celeste would have hugged her. It warmed her more than her favorite wool coat that her stepdaughter felt so at home in Pine Gulch and that she wanted all her friends and neighbors to have the chance to enjoy the moment, too.
“Good point,” Flynn said, smiling warmly at his daughter. “The whole town has been part of the story from the beginning. It’s only right that they be the first to see the movie.”
“Yep. That’s the way I feel,” Olivia said.
Her father gave Celeste a sidelong glance before addressing Olivia again. “Good thing your stepmother is so fierce and fought all the way up to the head of the studio to make sure it happened this way. What else could they do but agree? They’re all shaking in their boots around her. She can be pretty scary, you know.”
Olivia giggled and Celeste gave them both a mock glare, though she knew exactly what he was doing. Her wonderful husband was trying to calm her down the best way he knew how, by teasing away her nerves.
She had fought for a few things when it came to her beloved Sparkle character, but wanted to think she had been easygoing. That was what the studio executives had told her anyway. She considered herself extremely fortunate that her vision for the characters and the story matched the studio’s almost exactly.
A moment later, Flynn pulled up to the St. Nicholas Lodge, which had been transformed for the night into a theater.
Somebody—Rafe, maybe—had rented a couple of huge searchlights, and they beamed like beacons through the snowy night. The parking lot was completely full and she recognized many familiar vehicles. Unfortunately, they couldn’t fit everyone in town into the lodge so the event had become invitation only very quickly. For weeks, that invitation had become the most sought-after ticket in town.
Though the official premiere the next night in California would be much more of a full-fledged industry event, a red carpet had been stretched out the door of the lodge, extending down the snowy walkway to the edge of the parking lot.
Had that been Faith’s doing? Probably. Where on earth had she managed to find a length of red carpet in eastern Idaho? Their older sister was proud of and excited for both Celeste and Hope.
The past two years since they’d signed the contract licensing the Sparkle stories to the animation studio they had chosen to work with seemed surreal. Besides two more bestsellers, they now had a second Sparkle animated movie in the works.
Now that she was here, about to walk into the makeshift theater to see people enjoying her story come to life on the screen—and it would be enjoyable, she knew, given what she had seen so far of the production—Celeste felt humbled and touched. It didn’t seem real that life and fate, her own hard work and her sister’s beautiful artwork had thrust her into this position.
“A red carpet,” Olivia squealed as she finally noticed—and caught sight of the people lined up in the cold on either side of it, as if this was the real premiere filled with celebrities to gawk over. “How cool is that? That looks like my friend Louise from school. Oh, there’s Jose. And Mrs. Jacobs. My whole class is here!”
“I guess you can’t escape Hollywood, even here in Pine Gulch,” Celeste said quietly to Flynn as he parked in the VIP slot designated for them. “I’m sorry.”
He made a rueful face, but she knew him well enough after these deliriously happy months together to know he didn’t really mind. He had been her biggest supporter and her second most enthusiastic fan—after Olivia, of course.
“For you, darling, it’s worth it,” he replied. He tugged her across the seat and pulled her into his arms for a quick kiss. “I’m so proud of you. I hope you know that. I can’t wait for the whole world to discover how amazing you are.”
Her heart softened, as it always did when he said such tender things to her.
Two years ago, she’d had a pretty good life here in Pine Gulch—writing her stories, working at the library in a job she loved, spending time with her sisters and her niece and nephew and Aunt Mary.
But some small part of her had still been that little girl who had lost both of her parents and was too afraid to truly embrace life and everything it had to offer.
Flynn and Olivia had changed her. At last, she fully understood the meaning of joy. Sparkle might have his magic snowball that could save Christmas, but the true magic—the only one that really mattered—was love.
These past two years had been a glorious adventure—and in seven months, give or take a few weeks, they would all be in for a new turn in their shared journey.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, to the new life growing there. Flynn caught the gesture and grinned—a secret smile between the two of them. He pressed a hand there as well, then reached for his car door.
“Let’s go meet your adoring public,” he told her.
She didn’t need an adoring public. She had everything she needed, right here, in the family they had created together.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from by Diana Palmer.