The Christmas House

by Victoria James

  THE CHRISTMAS HOUSE

  A Novel

  VICTORIA JAMES

  To James and Victoria,

  May you always hold dear the bond that you share. One of life’s most precious gifts is having a sibling who is also a trusted and loyal friend-never take each other for granted. You are both my most treasured blessings. I love you forever. xo

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To Louise Fury … Thank you for always being so enthusiastic about my ideas and being a true champion of my books.

  To Faith Black Ross … Thank you for believing in this book and for being such a joy to work with! Your edits and feedback were inspiring and motivating.

  To Melissa Rechter … Thank you for keeping everything running smoothly and for being such a bright spot in my inbox!

  To Madeline Rathle … Thank you for your marketing attention and ideas.

  To all the other talented and dedicated people at Crooked Lane and Alcove Press: Thank you for believing in this book and me! I’m so excited to be working with you.

  To my Readers and Bloggers: Thank you for joining me in Hope Springs! I hope this book brings you the joy of the season and leaves you with hope and happiness. All of your emails and reviews mean so much to me. I look forward to visiting The Christmas House again with you!

  PROLOGUE

  “Ken and Barbie are going to have five kids and live happily ever after.”

  Charlotte Harris Palmer bit her tongue in an effort not to ruin her younger sister Olivia’s idealistic view of the world. At the advanced age of twelve, Charlotte had already figured out the way the world worked; five kids would be a nightmare, five kids would not lead any adult to happily-ever-after. It wasn’t Olivia’s fault for being so naïve—she was only nine. In a way, it was Charlotte’s fault that Olivia didn’t get how the real world worked, because she was always trying to protect her younger sister from the reality of their home life.

  Frowning as she surveyed the worn hardwood floor filled with Barbie clothing and random pieces of pink plastic furniture, she added this to her list of things to clean up after school. Maybe she’d sort the clothing into piles and then into shoeboxes, complete with labels. “Liv, we don’t have time for this now. We’re going to be late for school,” she said, crossing the small room and picking up her hairbrush.

  Charlotte had bigger problems today than the usual ones. She envied Olivia’s little-kid problems. Seventh grade had made everything different. Seventh grade meant everyone changed. It was like all of a sudden none of her old friends wanted to hang around her anymore.

  She frowned at her reflection in the mirror, taking in the frizzy hair that she’d hoped she’d be able to blow-dry away, the pimples that seemed to dominate her once perfect skin, and the chubby cheeks that never seemed to get smaller as she aged. No wonder no one thought she was cool. She tugged at her shirt that had fit just a month ago. Everything about her body felt weird now.

  “Meet me at the door when you’re done, Liv,” she said, grabbing her backpack. She had to hurry up; their father had just come home.

  “Damn it, Wendy, would it kill you to clean this place up?”

  Charlotte winced at the irritation in her father’s voice. She closed the bedroom door, not wanting Olivia to hear their argument, and ran down the narrow hallway of their apartment and into the kitchen, hoping to intervene before it got bad.

  “I’m not your slave, Mac. Why are you always working nights anyway? It’s almost Christmas,” her mother said, her voice low and slurred.

  “You know I have no choice. We’re behind on rent, and if I want to get a few days off so we can go to your mother’s for Christmas, then I have to work more now.”

  “Hi, Dad!” Charlotte yelled, bursting into the room. She ran by her mother who was drinking coffee with a bottle of some kind of alcohol beside it.

  Her dad opened his arms and gave her a hug. He was wearing his police officer’s uniform, which she loved because it always reminded her that her dad was a super important person who took care of people. He was everyone’s hero, but especially hers. He never let her down. “I’m sorry I didn’t have time to clean up in here this morning, but I will after school for sure.”

  Her dad pulled back and smoothed the hair off her face. His dark brown eyes stared into hers and she held onto the gaze and all the promises she read there. For a second it almost looked like he was going to cry. She knew that was impossible, of course. Her dad didn’t cry. No police officers cried. “You don’t have to say sorry. It’s not your job to do all that,” he said in that voice that always made her feel safe, his large hands on either side of her cheeks.

  “It’s no one’s job,” her mother said in that awful voice again.

  Charlotte turned around to look at her mom and her stomach churned. Why couldn’t she just smile and be happy, or pretend to be happy? Just for a day.

  “Whoever is home and doesn’t have a job outside the house should be in charge of the home and chores,” her dad said, gathering dishes from the counter and placing them in the sink.

  He always made sense. It sounded fair to her. “I can do it, Dad. Liv is almost ready to go. How about I make you breakfast? I can clean up the kitchen real fast too,” she said, hurrying to open the fridge.

  “Charlotte, honey, you are so thoughtful. Don’t worry about me, I already ate. Do you need help packing lunches?”

  She shook her head. Her heart felt like it was going to burst. He saved people and he saved her, every day when she thought she couldn’t handle her mom’s sadness. Charlotte stuffed the lunches she’d made for herself and Olivia in their bags and looked up at her dad. “Already done,” she said, holding up the paper bags. “I told everyone at school that you’re coming to career day today.”

  He flashed her a smile. “You bet.”

  She couldn’t wait. All those mean kids would finally meet him and no one would ever make fun of her again. Anyone who had a cop for a dad had to be cool. “I told them about those kids you rescued last week. I told them you’re a hero.”

  He frowned for a second. “You give me too much credit, Charlotte … but I’m happy to be coming to speak to your school today.”

  Charlotte beamed up at him before continuing to clean the kitchen, trying to brush off the sadness she felt as her mom left the room without saying goodbye. “Liv, hurry up!” she yelled, grabbing her jacket and setting out Olivia’s. She was in a hurry for another reason—or a person, really.

  She was hoping that they’d be able to walk with Wyatt. Last year he and his family had moved into the apartment down the hall, and from day one she’d fallen for him. He was two years older than she was and had become the most popular guy in school without even trying. But he always treated her like she was cool. Most days they walked to and from school together. Olivia tagged along behind them. Sometimes they’d even talk about their messed-up families. Maybe she talked more than he did, but he did tell her that his dad was messed up.

  A few minutes later, with Olivia in tow, Charlotte spotted Wyatt in the hallway and her heart did a few summersaults. He was closing the door on the sound of yelling and something being smashed. Olivia gasped out loud and Charlotte tugged on her hand and gave her a frown, a silent command to keep quiet. She understood the arguing and the yelling. She had never really had to deal with things being smashed, though. Wyatt turned around and walked toward them. His face went from sad to a smile when he saw them.

  “Hey,” he said as they met at the stairwell.

  He held the door open for them, and Charlotte loved that even though he seemed tough, he was always nice to them. Even to Olivia, who always had her head in the clouds. He was tall and so gorgeous, not an ounce of awkward in him. “Our dad is coming to school t
oday,” Olivia blurted out when they reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “Oh yeah? What for?” he said as they walked outside.

  Freezing cold wind and icy snow attacked them as made their way to school, but it was a short distance so it wouldn’t be too bad, Charlotte thought. The sidewalks had been plowed, and rush hour traffic buzzed around them. “Career day,” Charlotte said, taking over the conversation before Olivia said something embarrassing.

  “He’s a cop, right?” Wyatt asked.

  Charlotte nodded and smiled proudly. “Yup.”

  “I’m going to be a cop when I grow up,” he said.

  “Charlotte, you forgot your gloves!” Olivia burst out, completely interrupting their conversation.

  “Oh, you want mine?” Wyatt said, frowning as he looked at her bare hands. She was pretty sure she might be in love.

  Yes. Yes, she wanted his gloves. But she would never take them. She shook her head and smiled. “Thanks, but I have an extra pair in my bag. I’ll grab them later,” she said.

  “Wyatt!” Wyatt turned from her to the direction of the school ahead and the group of kids waiting for him. All the cool kids.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said, with a flick of his chin before he jogged off to meet his friends.

  “Are you going to marry him?” Olivia whispered loudly.

  Charlotte frowned at her. “Quiet, Liv. Of course not,” she said. She would never get married. Not in a million years. But if she were to get married, it would be to someone like Wyatt.

  Hours later, Charlotte stood in front of the entire school on the stage. A bead of sweat trickled between her shoulder blades as she introduced her dad, even though he wasn’t actually there yet. Everyone else had already had their turn. She pulled on the hem of her shirt, very aware of how snug it felt, how it didn’t quite reach the top of her jeans. Her stomach brushed uncomfortably against the harsh denim, and her gaze scanned the crowd for Wyatt. He would smile at her. Except he wasn’t even looking at her. His brown eyes were staring in the opposite direction.

  “Charlotte, why don’t you sit down? Your father might be running late,” the principal said, approaching her.

  Charlotte shook her head. “Can we just wait another minute?” she asked, confident that her dad was about to burst through the gymnasium doors, apologize for being late, and tell everyone about all the heroic things he’d done last night while he was working. Her principal frowned slightly and spoke into the microphone. “Students, we will wait quietly for Officer Palmer to get here.”

  “Thank you. Just five more minutes. He’s really important,” she choked out. He was her hero. He would never leave her in front of the entire school to be embarrassed like this.

  She shifted from one foot to the other, ignoring the snickers and smirks. She blinked rapidly, fighting tears as Wyatt stood up, not sparing her a glance, and left the gym. Why would he leave?

  The principal approached a few minutes later, shaking her head. An emergency. She should tell her he was probably rescuing someone. She opened her mouth to do that, but no words came out and she hiccupped into the microphone by mistake. Laughter from the crowd made the tightness in her throat worse as she backed away. She wouldn’t let them see her cry.

  If she had known that the boy she had a crush on was going to just disappear that day, she would have had the courage to tell him how she really felt about him.

  If she had known that this would be the last morning she’d ever see her father, she wouldn’t have let him leave.

  She would have begged him to stay. She would have asked for one more hug, one more kiss, one more chance to be a better kid.

  She would have asked what she could have done better, how she could have been better, how she could have made him love them enough to stay.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Charlotte Harris had three things to accomplish during the holidays in Silver Springs:

  Take an actual break from her business—not the fake kind that she usually preferred.

  Repair her relationship with her sister, Olivia.

  Survive the holidays with her entire family.

  Grabbing her suitcase from the trunk of her white Volkswagen SUV, she took a deep breath of the cold, clean, country air. She set her gaze on the beloved Christmas House and, instead of breaking out into her customary march, she actually stopped. Stood still.

  Something washed over her, prompting her to just pause. Grace will lead you home, Charlotte. That memory, the one that dripped with Grandma Ruby’s confident, self-assured voice, bubbled to the surface. She didn’t know how that happened. There were parts of her childhood she successfully blocked out daily, but that day, after their father had taken off, when they were standing on Grandma Ruby’s doorstep, always rushed to her mind when she came here. She’d been so lost. Grandma Ruby had taken one look at her, at Olivia, and wrapped them up in her arms like they were the most precious things in the world, and had whispered that in her ears. And she’d held those fiercely whispered words close to her heart. Grandma Ruby had been security in an insecure world.

  The Christmas House was a place where you could stop running. The Christmas House was a place where you belonged, no matter who you were.

  She rolled her shoulders, refusing to dwell on that memory from a time in her life when she was so sure she was broken, when she had given the outside world the power to break her. But Grandma Ruby had shown her that she could be courageous.

  She walked from the circular driveway where she’d parked her car to the shoveled and salted flagstone path that led up to Grandma Ruby’s front porch. The usual cedar roping was hung meticulously, spanning the tops of each of the twelve pillars on the Victorian porch. The white lights twinkled cheerfully and blanketed the area with just enough light that she didn’t have to worry about where she was going. The glossy black shutters were spotless, as were the oversized parlor windows, each one boasting a fresh green boxwood wreath and bright red bow.

  The Christmas House B&B looked exactly as it always did. Time stood still here, the season never changed; Christmas clung to everything, bringing hope to everyone who visited. This was the house that welcomed everyone and anyone, and her grandmother’s heart touched all the guests. Legend had it that the house brought people together—even made them fall in love.

  Ringing the doorbell, Charlotte’s heartbeat quickened at the thought of seeing her grandmother again. She stared at the bright red door adorned with another deep-green boxwood wreath as she waited, thinking she should have made a point of coming here more often. But the last two years, she’d let her new business as a professional organizer take priority over visiting the only person who’d always been there for her. Or maybe she’d just been avoiding what this place did to her—The Christmas House was all about feeling. And somewhere along the way to adulthood, she’d stopped trying to feel.

  Maybe she’d stopped believing in the magic here. Maybe she didn’t need magic anymore. Nothing was the same or could ever be the same. Even she and Olivia had drifted apart. She didn’t know how the two of them could ever restore their closeness. Olivia’s rejection had cut deep, had triggered long-buried feelings of abandonment which Charlotte thought she had dealt with through years of therapy.

  Now she pulled the edges of her wool coat together and swung her red and green plaid scarf over her shoulder as a gust of wind kicked up the icing-sugar thin snow, swirling around her body and making her shiver.

  The door swung open and her stomach dropped at the sight of the man standing there. It couldn’t be him.

  He was tall and his dark hair was short and slightly mussed at the front. Dark brown eyes that were achingly familiar stared into hers, and his face was so different, so much more handsome than she could ever have imagined. Five o’clock shadow darkened the hard lines of his firm jaw. She snapped her gaze up to his when she realized he hadn’t said a word.

  They stood there, memories and time past hanging palpably between them, and she wondered if he re
membered her, if he remembered their talks, their walks. She wanted to jump into his arms, to grasp onto that person who had meant so much to her once. She wanted to ask him where he had gone, what had happened. All of a sudden, she was twelve again, staring at the boy she had connected with, the one who’d disappeared from her life on the same day as her father. “Wyatt?”

  “Charlotte,” he said, his deep voice thick with the warmth she still remembered. He stepped aside and held the door open for her, and the gesture triggered memories from when they were young.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, belatedly realizing he didn’t look surprised to see her.

  He shoved his hands in his front pockets, his brown eyes studying her. “I, uh, I’m a friend of your grandmother’s, actually,” he said, as though that could somehow explain how of all the houses in all the towns, he had found this one.

  “Wyatt, dear, I’m all out of your favorite scones, I’m afraid. But I do have some freshly baked cranberry muffins with a tangy orange glaze!”

  Charlotte tore her gaze from Wyatt’s to see her grandmother and a woman she didn’t recognize walking down the long corridor together. The woman was holding her grandmother’s favorite antique silver tray laden with muffins and china cups. Grandma Ruby looked as robust and happy as Charlotte remembered. Her gray curls were perfectly coiffed, her red and green holly-printed dress hung perfectly over her full figure, and her cheeks were rosy with good health. She didn’t look a day over sixty. “Oh, my dear Charlotte! I didn’t even hear you come in! You’re early!”

  Charlotte ran forward and threw her arms around her grandmother, momentarily dismissing Wyatt and all the emotions and questions he brought with him. Her grandmother hugged her back with the ferocity of a much younger woman, and relief gushed through Charlotte that all was well, that she was as tough as ever. She squeezed her eyes shut, welcoming the nostalgia and memories that came with the hug. She and Olivia had loved spending their summers here with Grandma Ruby. Their days had been filled with swimming at the lake, fishing in the river, and evenings sipping homemade lemonade on the porch and catching fireflies. Those were days of hope and daydreams, of whispered promises and absolutes, when all the problems of their everyday home life seemed to skulk away into the shadows until it was time to go home again.