Their Yuletide Promise

by Stacy Connelly

  For everyone else, if not for Evie.

  Those who don’t believe will never bother to look.

  Evie closed her eyes and the painful truth hit. She’d had love. She’d had magic. But she hadn’t believed. She hadn’t trusted that what she and Griffin had could last. That it could be real and true and strong enough to keep them together, no matter what distance might separate them. She’d been too afraid, too wrapped up in the past to see it.

  Open your eyes, Evie.

  Griffin’s voice whispered through her, and she finally saw what had been in front of her the whole time. She loved Hillcrest House, but she loved Griffin more. And with her eyes finally open, the hotel’s ballroom looked bigger, brighter, more beautiful than ever. So full of possibilities for a New Year...and a new start.

  Stepping back toward the microphone, she said, “Let me be the first to congratulate you both. Anyone who knows me knows that I have not been the biggest believer in Hillcrest’s magic. It was easier for me to pretend that it didn’t exist than to admit how afraid I was that magic—that love—was meant for other people but not for me. It was too serious, too practical to trust in something so elusive until someone came along to show me how to laugh...and how to love.”

  For a split second, Evie’s throat closed. She forgot how to breathe, how to swallow, and she was petrified that the next thing to come out of her mouth would be a heartbroken sob she would never live down. But when she would have run from the stage, she thought of Griffin, of the way he’d encouraged her to let the people around her in, to allow them to see how much she cared.

  “I thought by holding on to Hillcrest House, I was holding on to my family. For decades, this has been a McClaren hotel, but this building isn’t what has held my family together.” Glancing first at her cousins and then at her aunt, she admitted, “Love did that. Love will always do that.

  “Everyone has always said how much I take after my aunt, and I know what a compliment that is. Aunt E, all my life you’ve been my inspiration and I’ve been proud to follow in your footsteps, but I’m not waiting to be with the man I love. So if you will all excuse me, I need to tell him that!”

  Evie was barely aware of the cheers going up from the crowd as she turned from the microphone. Evelyn and Frederick stepped closer, their hands still linked together, huge smiles on their faces as they exchanged a private glance.

  “There’s something you should know, Evie.”

  Looking at Frederick, Evie saw how much Griffin resembled his father and knew this was what he would look like in thirty years. But unlike Evelyn and Frederick, Evie didn’t want to spend all those years apart. She wanted to spend every day with Griffin and the sooner she could call him, the better. “Frederick, if we could talk about this later...”

  “Your aunt did sell the hotel to a James, but not to me.”

  A murmur rose from the crowd as his words were picked up by the microphone.

  “I don’t understand. If you didn’t buy it—”

  “I did.”

  At the sound of the familiar voice, Evie’s heart leaped to her throat. She looked out over the crowd, her disbelieving gaze searching... And in the back of the room, standing in front of the carved double doors, she saw him. In a tailored tuxedo, because what else would Griffin James wear? He smiled as he cut through the crowd of people, and her heart stuttered in her chest with all the emotion she couldn’t express.

  Climbing the steps, he greeted first his father and then Evelyn with a hug before he turned to face Evie.

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  “I thought it was time—past time,” Frederick acknowledged with a wry smile, “for my son to have that inheritance of his.”

  His inheritance? Oh, God, he didn’t!

  “Griffin!” She pressed her trembling hands to her mouth to keep from crying. “You can’t do this!”

  He flashed her his typical cocky grin, but behind the smile Evie saw the uncertainty, the hesitation and hurt she’d caused. “Pretty sure I already did.”

  “You can’t give up your dream for mine! Aunt E, please.”

  Evie looked to her aunt but the older woman merely shrugged. “You know I am a businesswoman at heart,” she said, the tender look and loving hand she placed on Frederick’s arm contradicting the words. “We’ve signed on the dotted line. The deal, as they say, is done.”

  After leaning forward to give Evie a kiss on the cheek, Evelyn and Frederick excused themselves to mingle with the guests—leaving Evie alone onstage with Griffin.

  “I don’t understand why you would do this.”

  “Don’t you, Evie?”

  His golden gaze pinned her to the spot, and hope started to bubble up inside her like the champagne fizzing in the crystal flutes the guests were raising to toast Evelyn and Frederick. She could think of only one reason, the only reason that made sense even to her logical, practical mind.

  He’d done this for her. He’d done this for love...

  “But to give up your dream of flying when that’s all you’ve ever wanted?”

  “I never knew what I wanted until I met you,” Griffin declared. “And with you and Rory at the helm, Hillcrest House is going to be the premiere boutique hotel in Northern California. I can’t think of a better service to offer your guests than chartered flights into Clearville.”

  “But buying Hillcrest? When you said you hated the thought of running a James hotel?”

  “This isn’t a James hotel. This is a McClaren hotel. This will always be a McClaren hotel, and I don’t hate that at all. Not if it means the two of us working here together.”

  Cupping her face in his hands, he lowered his head. He claimed her mouth with his as if one heated kiss might succeed where thousands of words would fail. Raising his head far enough to look down at her, he vowed, “I love you, Evie, and I want to spend the rest of my life proving that to you.”

  The glittering chandelier overhead trembled and blurred; she blinked the tears from her eyes as someone started the countdown to midnight. Evie had heard about the gorgeous Victorian’s magic all her life, but for the first time since she was a little girl, she truly believed. She might not have been looking for happily-ever-after, but she’d found it. Right there at Hillcrest House...in the arms of the man she loved.

  “I love you, too, Griffin. And that love is as real and lasting and genuine as Hillcrest House’s magic.”

  As he kissed her again, and as the noisemakers and cheers sounded all around them, Evie’s heart was ready to burst with happiness. Her plan had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams—family, friends, fun, falling in love... And now she could add one final F...

  Forever.

  * * *

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  A Man of His Word

  by Sandra Steffen

  Chapter One

  Go see her.

  In the beginning, the thought had been little more than a whisper on Cole Cavanaugh’s pillow, but lately it had grown more insistent. Like a mosquito, it was a nuisance when it was buzzing in his ear, disconcerting when it wasn’t.

  Go see her.

  He’d grown accustomed to the notion. And adept at pushing it back. For eight months, he’d been pushing it back. And still the idea persisted.

  Go see her. Go see her. Go see her.

  It had thundered in the night, but instead of rain, morning had dawned to a ceiling of fog that hung above the Genesee River, stretching out over the gradual rises along its banks. Standing in the thick of it, it was easy for Cole to imagine that the hazy white dome encompassed all of upstate New York, stretching throughout all of New England, even inching to the Great Lakes and into Michigan.

  Where she lived.

  Here on the hillside just outside Rochester, the fog shrouded the peaks of the rafters of the mansion Cole and his business partner, Grant Maloney, were constructing on this expansive piece of riverfront property. Former roommates, they’d come a long way from the decks, garages, family room additions and bungalows they’d built fresh out of college twelve years ago. This beauty would be a notch in their tool belts for sure.

  Cole and Grant stood together this morning, watching as their clients, a wealthy middle-aged couple with a mile-long list of must-haves and a grown daughter, meandered away from them to their Tesla SUV, deep in excited conversation about their future home. Cole had already given his skilled carpenters the signal to get back to work. Power saws screeched and nail guns fired. Around back a skid steer rumbled as it lifted another pallet of stone from the bed of a lowboy trailer.

  Go see her. Go see her.

  When he’d first had the thought, he’d been in the recovery room in the VA hospital, delirious from pain medication. Go see her. He hadn’t, of course. It would be months before he walked again. Besides, it was too soon. Jay had been gone only six months then. Surely April was still reeling. God knew Cole was.

  That hadn’t kept him from thinking about what he would say. If he ever did say anything. Go see her.

  Through the months of grueling physical therapy that had followed, the thought came unbidden, again and again. He’d been pushed and bullied by the meanest therapist that ever lived, but no one pushed him harder than he pushed himself. Adeline, his therapist, cried the first time Cole made it to the top of the stairs on his own. That landing represented the fruit of his labor, his determination and hard work.

  Go see her. Go see her. Go see her.

  For the first time, he’d considered it. But the timing still wasn’t right. Nothing felt quite right since Jay had died on the battlefield. So instead of going to see Jay’s widow, Cole finished rehab, then returned to Rochester where he delved back into the booming business he and Grant had started.

  Go see her go see her go see her go see her go see—

  “See her?” The deep timbre of Grant Maloney’s voice cut into Cole’s reverie. With sound carrying uncommonly far in this fog, Grant kept his voice intentionally low. “She looks just as good coming as she does going.”

  Cole glanced askance at his friend, who was watching the leggy beauty climb into her father’s Tesla right now. “I know. She just spoke to me.”

  “My point, pal. You saw her, but you didn’t see her. If you had, you would have written your cell number on the back of that business card she just asked you for. By the end of the day she would be calling you, probably to invite you over for a drink, among other things.”

  Cole shook his head lightly. “Not even you would mix this kind of business with that kind of pleasure.”

  Grant smiled, for his blue eyes, ripped body and outgoing personality left him with no shortage of women asking for his phone number. “True,” he said. “But I would have thought about it, fantasized about it long and hard first.”

  Cole’s fantasies ran in another direction. Go see her. Go see her. GO SEE HER.

  They each took a call, Cole from their electrician and Grant from their office manager. They both had building projects to quote and papers littering their desks and emails to answer and schedules to adjust and solutions to find. In other words, they had work to do. With that in mind, they started toward Cole’s company truck.

  On the way, Cole said, “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  Grant eyed his friend. “You look serious. Dead serious. I hope that means what I think it means. If you’re finally going to see her, it’s about damn time is all I can say.”

  A month ago Cole had made the mistake of telling Grant about Jay, and about the dream Cole had had of April when he’d been wounded the second time. “That’s the price I pay for telling you anything. But yes. I am. I’m going to see her.”

  “When do you leave?” Grant matched his stride to the friend he admired more than he said aloud.

  Cole appreciated that. Admiration made him uneasy. “As soon as I tie up loose ends here.”

  “Tomorrow then,” Grant said, opening the passenger door.

  “You’re impossible,” Cole declared.

  Grant chuckled. “I couldn’t have landed this deal without you.”

  Cole drove slowly through the fog, and Grant’s tone grew more serious. “We’re well into construction now. I’ll take it from here for as long as I need to, like I did when you were overseas. Keep your phone and your laptop close. I’m glad you’re going, Cole. It might just be the only way you’re going to find peace. Maybe it’ll bring her a little peace, too.”

  In his mind, Cole pictured long curling hair, full lips and golden brown eyes. He hadn’t actually met April Avery, but he felt as if he had, for he swore he remembered her face, her eyes especially, and the glimmer in them that was hope. That glimmer of hope had reached thousands of miles to the other side of the world eight months ago when he’d been on the precipice of death.

  What would he say to her? What did a man say to the widow of his battlefield brother?

  Would making this trip bring either of them peace? The notion lodged in Cole’s mind, in his throat, in the middle of his chest. He drove with the windows down. And took what felt like the first deep breath he’d drawn in a very long time.

  * * *

  Cole stopped at the curb at 404 Baldwin Street in Orchard Hill, Michigan, then sat for interminable seconds, his foot on the brake and his mouth suddenly bone-dry.

  He knew he could do an about-face and follow the route he’d taken back to Rochester, or he could fire up his GPS, or open the road map lying on the seat next to him or just wing it and head someplace else. Anyplace else. But he also knew, even as thoughts of retreat formed, that he wasn’t going anywhere.

  He didn’t know how long he would be here, but it was possible his stay would be extended. It hadn’t taken him long to tie up those loose ends back in New York. The moment he had, he’d stuffed some clothes into two duffel bags, tossed everything next to his tools in the back of his truck, put his laptop on the seat next to him and drove to Michi
gan.

  The flowers growing in wild disarray beside the sidewalk seemed as familiar to him as the orchards he’d passed north of town and the old stone church just inside the city limit sign. Everything looked exactly as Jay had described. He half expected Jay to meet him halfway down the driveway. But Jay couldn’t, of course, and the knowledge cut like a knife.

  Getting out at the curb, Cole made sure both feet were firmly underneath him before he took his first step, something he did almost without conscious thought now. His legs carried him unfalteringly up the sidewalk only to stop for no good reason, his feet planting themselves on the concrete in front of the stoop.

  He knew what bravery was, how it felt and what it meant. And yet he stood in the dappled shade of an enormous maple tree, his insides quaking. Releasing a deep breath, he went over potential scenarios again.

  As he felt in his back pocket for the sheet of paper he’d brought with him, his ears picked up sounds of children’s giggles and a gentle, melodious voice coming from inside the house. The next thing he knew, he was at the door. If not for the twinge in his left thigh, he might have believed he’d willed himself up onto the stoop where a sturdy screen door was all that separated him from the family inside.

  His rap on the door silenced the giggles and started a stampede of small feet. Closer now, that melodious voice firmly called, “Girls, wait for me.”

  An instant later April Avery was looking at him through the screen, a little girl on either side of her. Her light brown hair was long and curly, her nose pert, her eyes—he stopped there, halted by the expression in their depths.

  “It’s you,” she said, her voice quavering.

  So she recognized him, too.

  The warm August breeze rustled the leaves overhead. Someone on the block was mowing a lawn. A car drove by, voices called, a dog barked. To everyone else in the neighborhood, this was probably an ordinary summer day.

  “I should have called, ma’am,” he said, feeling more like a soldier again than a civilian, his back ramrod straight, shoulders squared, gaze direct. “But I thought... That is...” He swallowed and mentally gave himself a swift kick. “I’m Cole Cavanaugh,” he said, because whether she recognized him or not, and vice versa, this was the first time they’d actually met. “Hello, April. Or would you prefer I call you Mrs. Avery?”