Colorado Christmas Magic

by Caitlin McKenna

  Also available from Caitlin McKenna

  No Such Luck

  Super Natalie

  Manifesting Mr. Right

  My Big Fake Irish Life

  Logging Off

  Colorado Christmas Magic

  Caitlin McKenna

  To Mom and Dad,

  who always gave us a magical Christmas

  To Lynn,

  who has carried on our great family traditions

  To Jay,

  who keeps the laughter coming

  Author Note

  Dear Reader,

  What I enjoy so much about Christmas is being surrounded by family and friends. The memories we make each holiday season help to sustain us in difficult times, which is why I wanted to share Colorado Christmas Magic with you. May this help to illuminate the magic in your own life that is always there—even during the difficult times.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Sweet as Pie by Alicia Hunter Pace

  Chapter One

  Hearing insistent meowing, Charley Dawson glanced up from her laptop to find her three-year-old cat perched on top of his treehouse, staring out the window of her one-bedroom apartment.

  “What is it, Clarence?” She rose from the kitchen table to see what held his interest—the house directly across the street was lit up like a Christmas tree with big bright bulbs of red, blue, green, orange, and yellow. She ran her fingers through his short white fur and had him purring instantly. “I know you like the lights, bud, but we’re not decorating this year. We’re through with Christmas.”

  Clarence gave a short meow of disappointment before jumping down and running off, leaving Charley mesmerized by the lights. She used to love Christmas—how it ushered in that warm, comforting feeling of home where nothing seemed impossible. The Christmas season sprinkled happiness in the air, ordained love to reign supreme over everything, and made the world feel like it was a better place.

  But for her, the magic of Christmas was gone. Over the past several years, the season only managed to bring her heartache. Last year’s sorrow came from her then-fiancé, Hunter, who coldheartedly dumped her on Christmas Eve. After he left her, she’d cried on the couch with Clarence, staring at her Christmas tree, believing no Christmas would ever be joyful again.

  With a sigh, she turned away from the window, gathering her long blond hair into a ponytail, then slid into the chair in front of her computer. She took one last bite of the sweet and sour pork before pushing it aside. The cold Chinese takeout reminded her of her love life—every relationship started sweet but ended sour.

  She couldn’t believe she was twenty-nine and still single—not that being single was a bad thing—but she had envisioned herself as a happily married career woman by twenty-five and a new mom by thirty. She was nowhere near meeting her goals, and she couldn’t understand how true love kept eluding her—especially at Christmas.

  She frowned at the blank page on her computer screen. For an hour’s worth of work, she’d only come up with the title of her next blog post: “The Truth About Christmas.” Did her readers sincerely want to know? Her popular blog, The Cold Hard Facts, was a real hit with Authentic Lifestyles readers. She debunked myths, urban legends, and uncovered the accurate but sometimes unpleasant truths behind long-held beliefs and traditions. She also exposed too-good-to-be-true business opportunities, shameful vacation getaways, and other consumer scams. Because of this, her boss suggested she break tradition and write something nice about the happiest time of year.

  Bah, humbug. For Charley, Christmas was the most miserable time of year. Without having anyone to share things with, what was the point? Holiday parties became obligations; cooking ended up being a chore. She’d have to spend too much time baking for people who didn’t appreciate it, and endure too much shopping chaos to buy gifts no one really wanted. “The truth about Christmas? Skip it!”

  Abandoning her blog, she got up to pour herself a glass of wine and moved her pity party to the couch. Turning on the TV, she searched for anything that didn’t involve love or hopeless romantics or jovial couples enjoying Christmas together. Even the commercials needled her with actors appearing so darn cheerful. No, she was definitely done with Christmas and love, once and for all.

  But when channel surfing brought her to It’s A Wonderful Life, her favorite Christmas movie of all time, she was immediately sucked in. “Clarence!” she called, putting her feet up on the coffee table. “Your show’s on.”

  Clarence appeared from behind the couch and jumped into Charley’s lap, as if he sensed she needed some affection. She snuggled in with her beautiful white angel and found herself weeping not twenty minutes into the movie. Then when George Bailey bitterly wished he’d never been born, puffy-eyed Charley found herself making a different kind of wish—a last attempt before she gave up for good. She wished—and out loud, mind you—for her soulmate to come find her since she wasn’t getting the job done herself. The second this heartfelt wish passed her lips, the electricity in her apartment cut out.

  “Just perfect. Exactly what I need. Oh, I get it. Are you trying to tell me that another one of my wishes will never see the light of day?” She cast her eyes upward into the darkness, assuming the power would snap on at any moment. But it didn’t. “I figured as much.”

  With a loud meow, Clarence jumped off her lap. The tiny bell on his collar jingled as he ran down the hallway toward her bedroom.

  Wiping off her tear-streaked face with the bottom of her sleeve, she rose and fumbled around in the dark, attempting to locate a flashlight. She finally managed to find one in the junk drawer right as the power popped back on and her favorite Christmas movie was playing once again.

  As she started to close the drawer, she caught sight of an old photo strip buried under takeout menus. She and her high school sweetheart, Jack, had spent the day at the Santa Monica Pier, eating cotton candy, riding the Ferris wheel, and taking silly pictures of themselves in a photo booth.

  With a bittersweet sigh, she caressed the strip of photos. How happy her sixteen-year-old self looked. Why hadn’t she been able to find that kind of deep connection with anyone since Jack? Because Love lost my address. She shoved the photo strip back in the drawer and slammed it shut.

  “Chocolate. I seriously need some chocolate.” Anything to get my mind off Jack.

  On the hunt, she scrounged around in the pantry, surpris
ed she couldn’t find one little morsel. She moved on to her handbag, her workbag, yes, even her gym bag. When she came up empty-handed, she checked the freezer for bits of chocolate in the form of ice cream, but to her dismay, she was cleaned out. She had no choice but to settle for the two complimentary fortune cookies she’d received with her takeout. She never cared for fortune cookies. The fortunes never applied to her and the cookies tasted dull and boring—much like her love life.

  Charley snagged them off the kitchen table anyway, slumped on the couch, and popped opened the plastic wrapping on the first one. She snapped the cookie in half, crumbling it everywhere, then yanked out the fortune. YOU WILL REUNITE WITH THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY.

  “Yeah, right.” She crumpled it up, tossed it on the coffee table, then opened up the second cookie for a redo. YOU WILL REUNITE WITH THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY.

  She sat up straight. It was a little weird to get the exact same fortune in two different cookies, and even more strange to get them right after she found pictures of Jack. “Ridiculous.”

  Jack had stolen her heart from the moment he’d spoken to her only to trample it to dust a little over a year later. She had tried to forget about him, she really had, but couldn’t. She often wondered what had happened to him. She’d attempted to find him on Facebook but eventually gave up. Jack hadn’t cared much for social media when it became popular, so she suspected he’d never changed his viewpoint on the subject. That made her even more curious as to where he lived and how he was doing. Did he ever think of her, or was he happily married? Maybe he had a gorgeous girlfriend and they were one of those couples she had recently passed by on the street, so happy and jolly that Christmastime had finally arrived.

  Stupid fortune cookies.

  Irritated at herself for thinking about him, she took to her blog and told the world exactly what she thought of Christmas. She was so certain her writing on the subject was sheer perfection that she posted it without waiting to reread it when she was in a better frame of mind.

  The following morning, while shoving down smashed avocado on toast before darting out the door for work, she wondered if her life would ever change. It felt like every time she moved forward, she ended up right back in the same place.

  As she drove to work, she couldn’t stop thinking about Jack. Even though they’d met in high school, their relationship ended up being more than just infatuation or young love. The spark between them had been incredibly honest and deep. They had shared so much with each other that she truly felt she’d found her soulmate. She hadn’t been able to see herself with anyone other than Jack. Why did his parents have to move him so far away?

  Charley pulled into an underground parking lot off Sunset Boulevard and discovered she’d forgotten to turn on her phone. As she headed into the lobby and straight into an elevator, her cell began blowing up. She smiled, feeling downright confident her readers were, at that very moment, agreeing wholeheartedly with her sentiments about Christmas.

  Yet when she stepped off the elevator and opened the onslaught of messages, that wasn’t the case at all. She remained glued to her cell screen, reading negative comment after negative comment. Heart pounding, she weaved her way through the hallways of Authentic Lifestyles Magazine without ever looking up.

  “Miss Scrooge?” she uttered in shock, abruptly halting in place. She bristled as she kept reading, frozen to her phone.

  Bright, peppy Olivia Lancaster came bounding up from behind Charley and glanced over her shoulder. “You bashed Christmas?” her best friend asked incredulously before she snatched the phone and scrolled through the barrage of insults left on the blog.

  “I didn’t bash Christmas, Liv. I merely suggested skipping it.”

  “You did more than that.” Liv’s eyes widened with every comment she devoured. “‘Despicable,’ says Devoted Fan, ‘Unforgivable’ comes from Fact Junky, and ‘You’ve lost me forever,’ cries Quirky Girl.”

  “That seems a little extreme.” Charley plucked her phone out of Liv’s tight grip. “I’m not going to apologize for telling it like it is.”

  “No, of course not,” Liv said with a big snort of a laugh. “No one would ever accuse you of holding back.”

  “It’s my job.” Charley raised her chin. In truth, she actually enjoyed squashing people’s over-joyous perceptions of long-held beliefs. (Wrong-held beliefs, according to her.)

  “I’m just glad I get to write about fashion. Lunch later?” Liv asked, walking back down the corridor.

  “Sure.” Charley headed to her desk where she fired up her computer, anxious to defend her position to her readers. She took a determined breath, let it out, then pulled up her blog. The comments continued to pour in, an additional fifty-four in a matter of minutes. She skimmed through the newest ones, trying to find anyone who would agree with her. Finally, her eyes fell on:

  I despised Christmas—

  At last, a like-minded reader.

  Until I fell in love.

  “Bah, humbug.” She slammed back in her chair.

  “Here ya go!” An overly enthusiastic guy held out her morning mail, and she could only assume he was a new intern.

  “Thanks.” She rifled through a half dozen letters and stopped on a silver envelope embossed with gold script. She took note of the return address. 1 Kringle Lane, St. Nicholas, Colorado.

  Intrigued, she opened it.

  Dear Charlotte Dawson,

  You’re invited to spend a complimentary week at The Carroll Inn, a five-star bed-and-breakfast in St. Nicholas, Colorado: Home of the famous Scrooge Legend.

  Scrunching up her face, she flipped over the letter, expecting to see additional information, but the back of it was blank. Pretty expensive solicitation for a gimmick. Without another thought, she crumpled up the paper and pitched it in the trash.

  Now, where was I? She returned to her keyboard and began typing:

  Dear Devoted Fan,

  While I understand—

  “Charley?” the familiar voice of her boss rang out. Paul was standing in the doorway of his office, twirling his glasses in his hand. “Can I see you for a moment?”

  She rose and followed him. Paul was a cool boss. Being called into his office was usually a good thing. He advanced his employees faster than any editor in chief around. She’d already reaped the benefits from working for him. When she’d come to him as an intern, he noticed her hard work and promoted her to fact-checker only one month later. Then, when he learned how successful she was as a blogger, he allowed her to become a permanent guest blogger with the magazine. Hopefully, Paul’s request to see her meant another promotion.

  He waved her in. “Great initiative, Charley. Yes, you can go and investigate the legend. I’m sure you’ll want to debunk it.”

  She gave him a puzzled look. “What exactly are we talking about?”

  “The invitation you received to St. Nicholas, Colorado.” Paul held up the crumpled letter she’d thrown away minutes earlier.

  She widened her eyes in astonishment. “How did you get that?”

  “Didn’t you leave it on my desk?”

  “No. I just threw it away. As in minutes ago.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He rocked back in his chair. “The important thing is you’re going.”

  “To Colorado?” Charley asked with more disdain in her voice than she’d intended. “In the dead of winter? People can actually die in the dead of winter. That’s a cold hard fact.”

  “Here’s another cold hard fact—you leave first thing tomorrow.”

  She refused to budge. Her level-headed boss obviously wasn’t thinking clearly. “But, Paul, it’s freezing there.”

  She had lived in Los Angeles her entire life, and rarely had she ever ventured into the land of snow and freezing temperatures.

  He pushed out a loud sigh, crossing his arms on top of his desk. “Charley, your blog
is a great moneymaker for our magazine. Separating fact from fiction has driven your readership and our subscriptions to an all-time high. But you might have crossed the line this time.”

  “My blog is titled The Cold Hard Facts for a reason.”

  Paul reached over piles of paper on his desk and snagged a printed version of her latest post. He cleared his throat before reading it aloud. “‘Face it. The holidays are a chore—the decorating, the shopping, the never-ending line at the post office, not to mention the hours of cooking, baking, and cleaning. Why torture yourself? No time to make Christmas cookies? That’s what store-bought is for. Tired of spending hours wrapping presents? Send an eGift card instead. No time to trim a tree? Do yourself a favor and just skip Christmas altogether. It’s not worth the hassle.’” He tossed the printout back on his desk and eyed Charley over the rims of his reading glasses. “You keep writing like this and you can rename your blog The Cold Heartless Facts.”

  She ran her hands over the arms of the chair, trying to feel justified for her comments even though, deep down, she knew she’d been off the mark. “I’m doing everyone a favor. I’m only voicing what everyone’s thinking.”

  “Is that so? Then why does this one post of yours have more negative comments than all of your previous posts combined? Care to explain, Miss Scrooge?”

  Shoot. He had seen the comment, the very comment that still gnawed at her. “Fine.” She let out a defeated sigh. “I’ll go.” If she could debunk a legend and put the screws to Christmas, then subjecting herself to miserably cold temperatures would be well worth it.

  “That’s the spirit.” Paul had a playful smirk on his face, so she knew the pun was intended.

  “You know, the legend has to be a hoax because I’ve never heard of it.”

  He took off his reading glasses and leveled his gaze on her. “I thought that’s why you put the letter on my desk.”

  “I didn’t put—” She stopped herself. How the letter got to his desk was truly a mystery, but one she’d have to tackle later. “Have you ever heard anything about this famous Scrooge Legend?”