Colorado Christmas Magic

by Caitlin McKenna

  “Forty-six.” Jake was very sure of that. Jake had been four and Blake twenty-five—just the age Jake would be come October—when Blake had moved to the Delta to work at Champagne Cotton Brokers. Not long after, he had married Christine’s younger sister.

  “Forty-six,” Christine said. “You’re right, of course. Would’ve been forty-seven in June.”

  Would’ve been. Cruel words.

  There were things he should be saying, questions he should be asking to prove he wasn’t an asshole. “Aunt Olivia?” He said the words, but his thoughts were on himself.

  In a land where football was king and baseball crown prince, Blake had taught Jake to skate by standing behind him, hands on his waist. Blake claimed trainer walkers that beginning skaters typically used to steady themselves encouraged bad posture and technique.

  “She’s resting,” Christine said. “At least I hope she is.”

  “I hope so, too.” The words were hollow. Hope wasn’t much of a word right now.

  Blake had showed him the movie Miracle on Ice and bought him a souvenir 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team puck. At the time Jake didn’t understand that the puck had not been in the actual game—or for that matter, that Miracle on Ice wasn’t actual footage of the famous Soviet/U.S. match, or that the game had been played years before his birth. And later it didn’t matter. By then, the puck was his constant companion and good luck charm.

  “Adam and Nicole?” Jake asked after his two teenage cousins. Even after Blake and Olivia had children, he had not forsaken his bond with Jake.

  “About like you’d expect,” Christine said.

  But what was that? How did anyone know what to expect?

  Expect. Things would be expected of him by people who seemed to instinctively know the correct behavior for every situation known to man. “Naturally, I’m coming home.” For the first time today, his voice sounded sure and strong.

  And suddenly, that was what he wanted, all he wanted—to be home in Cottonwood, Mississippi. He wanted to drive down Main Street, past the bakery, the hardware store, and the drugstore that still had a soda fountain. He wanted to go to the house that been home to three generations of Champagnes, sleep in his childhood room, and smell the bacon and coffee that Louella had made for his family every morning for thirty years. He wanted to take his grandmother to lunch at the Country Club and hit a bucket of balls with his dad.

  But Christine was talking, interrupting the flow of his thoughts. “No, Jake. No.”

  “I don’t need to wait until morning,” he assured her. “I won’t be too tired to drive. I’ll pack a few things and get on the road as soon as I can. I’ll get into Nashville around noon and be home by bedtime—well before.” Certainly in time to stop at Fat Joe’s and pick up a sack of famous Delta tamales.

  “No, Jake! Listen to me.” Christine began to speak very clearly as if she were speaking to a child. “Do not come home. We’re all flying out tonight to Vermont. You need to go there.”

  “Vermont?” Did they have tamales in Vermont?

  “Yes. You do remember that Blake is from Vermont, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes, but...” Of course he remembered. Vermont was the whole reason Blake had played hockey as a kid, the reason he’d taught Jake to love hockey. But it didn’t make any sense. Cottonwood had become Blake’s home.

  Christine seemed to read his mind. “He has—had family there. His father is unwell and unable to travel under the best of circumstances. The funeral will be there. You need to go to Vermont. We’ve reserved a block of rooms.”

  So, no home. More cold weather. Probably snow. But there would be people from home. That was something.

  “Who’s going?” he asked. “Besides y’all, Olivia and the kids?”

  “About who you would expect—your grandmother, your sister, Anna-Blair and Keith, your aunt—”

  “Evie? Is Evie going?” He cut her off. The mention of his godparents, Anna-Blair and Keith Pemberton, naturally led to thoughts of their daughter.

  “No,” Christine said. “She can’t get away from work.”

  Evie had opened a pie shop in a fancy-pants section of Birmingham, Alabama, a few years back. There had been a time when she would have—pie shop, or no pie shop—crawled over glass to get to him if he needed her. However, that was before he’d let life get in the way and hadn’t bothered to take care of their friendship. But he couldn’t think about that right now. He had to get to Vermont.

  “Okay, Mama. I’ll go there from here. Text me the particulars and I’ll book a flight. Or rent a car and drive. Yeah. Probably that.” It would be faster, and not nearly as annoying as dealing with a commercial airline.

  “All right. Text me your ETA when you know. Your dad wants to talk to you. I love you, Jake.”

  “I love you, too, Mama.”

  “Son!” Marc Champagne’s big booming voice was the next thing he heard. Jake could tell in that one spoken syllable that his dad was driving this heartbreak wagon, bossing everyone around, and making them like it. He couldn’t fix it, but by damn, he would make it go as easy as he and his money could. If Marc had his way, he’d probably move Olivia and the kids into the Champagne ancestral home.

  “Hello, Dad.”

  “This is bad business, Jake. Bad.”

  “As bad as it gets,” Jake agreed.

  “Listen.” Marc always said that before he said something important, even when the person he was speaking to was already listening. “I’ll buy you a plane ticket back to Nashville from Vermont.”

  Jake opened his mouth to remind his dad that he could afford his own ticket. But that wasn’t necessary. Marc knew how much the Sound paid him.

  “Sure, Dad. Thanks.” Jake hung up and walked back out to the bedroom. He needed to get that woman—Meghan, if he recalled correctly—out of here. Goodtime girls had no place in bad times.

  It was when he put out a hand to shake her awake that he saw it—the glint of gold on the ring finger of her left hand. Just when he thought he couldn’t feel any sicker, his stomach bottomed out. Since his divorce two years ago, he’d taken raising hell to a whole new art form, but there was one line he had never crossed: he did not sleep with married women.

  “Hey.” He poked her shoulder.

  “What? Stop!” When she jerked the covers over her head, he saw that the ring was not a wedding band after all, but some kind of little birthstone ring that had turned around on her finger. He didn’t feel much relief in that. He hadn’t asked, hadn’t even thought about it. That was a first. And if he had been willing to cross that line, what was next? His eyes darted to his bedside table. He was relieved to see an open box of condoms there, though it didn’t negate the panic and shame coursing through him. But this was no time for self-refection. “Hey, Meghan.” He pulled the covers off her head. “You have to wake up.”

  She opened one mascara-smudged eye, seemed to consider, and decided to smile.

  “Hello there, Southern boy. Come back to bed.”

  “I can’t.”

  She sat up. “Sure you can. I want to see if you speak Southerner as good in the morning as you do at night.” She ran a hand up his thigh.

  “No. Really. You’ve got to go.” He moved her hand.

  “Why? What time is it?” She frowned and picked up her phone. “What the fuck! Do you know what time it is?”

  “I do. I’m sorry. But you have to go.” He was repeating himself, but apparently it was necessary.

  She pouted. “I thought you liked me.”

  “I did. I do. But you still have to go.”

  She threw her legs over the side of the bed. He thought he had won, but she was relentless. “All right,” she said with a sigh. “I’m just going to jump in the shower. Why don’t you order breakfast? I’ve never had room service before.”

  And he was done trying to trot out his Miss
issippi Delta Cotillion manners—not that he’d been very successful. “And you aren’t going to have it now.” She didn’t deserve it, but he was out of time, out of patience, out of everything except the raw feelings marching through his head and heart. He reached for his wallet and peeled off two hundred-dollar bills. “Buy yourself some breakfast and an Uber.”

  Meghan looked at him like he was a snake recently escaped from a leprosy colony. He couldn’t blame her. She had signed up for a little uncomplicated fun and had woken up to a complicated man in a complicated situation.

  When she didn’t say anything, he peeled off another hundred. “Ubers are expensive.”

  “You are an asshole,” she said.

  He nodded. “I am that.”

  She snatched the money from his hand, gathered up her clothes and boots from the floor, and stomped to the door. With her hand on the knob she turned and hissed, “I’m keeping this jersey.”

  He nodded. “Please. I want you to have it.” It was a good thing it reached her knees because apparently she couldn’t stand him another second, not even long enough to put on her jeans.

  Understandable. He couldn’t stand himself.

  Jake needed concrete evidence there was a time when he didn’t drink a six-pack every night and sleep with women who were more interested in his jersey than in him—needed to remember a time before he’d lost so many pieces of himself that he didn’t know who he was anymore.

  He didn’t want to be a man Uncle Blake would have been ashamed of.

  But if things didn’t change, he was going to become the kind of person that everyone hated as much as he was beginning to hate himself. He loved the Sound, loved his teammates, but it would be easier to start over somewhere else with people who didn’t naturally assume he was going to raise hell.

  His scalp prickled at the thought.

  Start over. Leave Nashville.

  Leave the Sound? Maybe he ought to. The team had enough heavy-hitting veteran players that he was still the new kid in town. It would be years before he skated first line in Nashville, and who knew if he had years?

  Blake certainly hadn’t.

  Jake picked up his phone again and dialed his agent, Miles Gentry, who answered immediately, despite the early hour. “Jake! I was just—”

  “Trade me,” he blurted out.

  “What?”

  “Trade me. Hopefully to somewhere I can skate first line. But it has to be a place where I don’t have to buy a snow shovel. I don’t care where. California. Texas. Florida. Arizona. Just get me the hell out of Nashville.”

  “Are you sure about this?” Miles asked.

  “As sure as the fact that death is coming for us all.”

  Miles was quiet for a moment. “How do you feel about that new expansion team down in Birmingham? The Alabama Yellowhammers.”

  Right. He hadn’t considered the new Birmingham team. It was still in the South—and Evie lived there. Maybe he could get their friendship back on track. Those were pluses, but the team was an unknown quantity. “Talk to me,” Jake said.

  “They’ve asked about you. I was waiting until the playoffs were over to tell you.”

  “Playoffs aren’t over. Just over for the Sound—and me.”

  “Semantics,” Miles said. “So—Alabama. Brand-new state-of-the-art practice facility. Drew Kelty is the head coach.” Jake didn’t really know him other than by name, but Kelty had plenty of pro hockey experience—as a player and a coach. “From what they said, I would think first line is an excellent bet. Any interest?”

  And Jake said something neither he, nor any other Ole Miss fan, had ever said before. “Roll Tide.”

  Chapter One

  Five months later

  Evans Pemberton considered the dough on the marble slab in front of her.

  What was wrong with pie in this country was the crust. No one made quality crusts anymore or thought about which kind of crust went best with what pie. Butter crusts were wonderful with fruit pies, but too rich for pecan pies. Savory pies needed a sturdy crust, but it was important to get the right balance so as not to produce a soggy mess. A bit of bacon grease gave crusts for meat pies a smoky taste, and Evans liked to add a pinch of sage for chicken pot pies. Crumb crusts had their place, too.

  As did Jake Champagne, she thought, as she gave the ball in front of her a vicious knead. And his place was now apparently here. He was going to land in town any day, any hour.

  He hadn’t spoken to her in almost three years. Sure, back in March, he had texted to thank her for the funeral flowers she’d sent when his uncle died and apologized for not making more of an effort to keep in touch. According to her business manager, Neva, he’d also stopped by the shop a month later when he’d come to Laurel Springs to sign a lease on a condo, but Evans had been in New York taking a mini puff pastry course.

  She didn’t know why she was thinking about him anyway. Who knew if he would even try to contact her again? He had abandoned her once after a lifetime of friendship. There was no reason to think, despite the text and drop-in, that anything would change.

  “You’re looking at that dough like you don’t like it,” said a woman behind her.

  “I don’t.” She turned and handed her friend, Ava Grace Fairchild, an apron and chef’s hat. Ava Grace was no chef, but Evans had given up on trying to keep her out of the pie shop kitchen, so she’d settled on doing what she could to make Ava Grace acceptable should the health inspector make a surprise visit to Crust. “Though I suppose it’s not so much that I don’t like it. I don’t know it.”

  “I thought you knew every dough.” Ava Grace tied the apron over her linen dress and perched the hat on the back of her head so as not to disturb her loose chestnut curls. She looked like a queen dressed as a chef for Halloween.

  “I don’t know this one.” Evans placed her hand on the dough. Normally, she wouldn’t think of putting her warm hand on pastry dough, but this was a hot water pastry so it was warm to begin with.

  Ava Grace slid onto a stool and crossed her long, perfect legs. “What makes this one different?”

  “It’s for a handheld meat pie with rutabagas, potato, and onions. The crust has to be sturdy but not tough. That’s tricky.” She gave the dough another vicious slap. “They’re called Upper Peninsula pasties, from Michigan.”

  “Never heard of them,” Ava Grace said.

  “Claire has, and she wants to feed them to the new hockey team on their first day of training camp tomorrow.”

  Ava Grace’s mouth twisted into a grin. “For a silent partner, Claire isn’t very quiet, is she?”

  Evans laughed. Ava Grace would know. Claire was her “silent” partner, too. “Well, she never promised to be quiet.”

  “That’s a promise she couldn’t have kept. Why is she so set on these little pies?”

  “You know as well as I do that Claire doesn’t have to have a reason, but she says most of the team is from up North, so we should give them some Northern comfort food.”

  Evans had not pointed out to Claire that not all hockey players would associate these pasties with home. She knew of one in particular who would need barbecue pork, hot tamales, and Mississippi mud pie to make him think of home. Claire wasn’t an easy woman to say no to, even if Evans had been willing. Saying no had never been Evans’s strong suit, which was why she was catering this lunch when she just wanted to make pies.

  Evans had thought it would be years before she could fulfill her dream of having her own shop, until Claire had taken her under her wing. Now Crust was thriving.

  The old-money heiress had excelled in business, and successfully played the stock market rather than living off her inheritance. A few years ago she had decided to help young women start their own new businesses. Evans and Ava Grace were two of Claire’s girls, along with Hyacinth Dawson, who owned a local bridal shop.

 
“Claire must really like hockey,” Ava Grace said.

  “I don’t think it’s that, so much as she likes a project and loves the chase.” Claire was one of several locals who owned a small part of the Yellowhammers. Her uncle and nephew had been the ones to bring the team here, but Claire had quickly formulated a plan to turn Laurel Springs into Yellowhammers Central. “She knows a bunch of rich hockey players are going to live and spend their money somewhere and she wants it to be here.” She had convinced the owners to build a state-of-the-art practice rink and workout facility in Laurel Springs, renovated the old mill into upscale condos, lobbied for more fine dining and chic shops, and turned the old Speake Department Store building into a sports bar and named it Hammer Time—all to welcome the new team.

  “It looks like she’s getting her way,” Ava Grace said. “Everywhere you look there’s a gang of Lululemon-wearing men in Yellowhammer ball caps.”

  “We should be thankful for them,” Evans said. “Sponsoring our businesses was part of her master plan to make the area appealing to the team. Had to be.”

  Ava Grace pulled at one of her curls. “I’m sure she knows what she’s doing. I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never known Claire to fail,” she said wryly. “At least not yet.” Of the three businesses Claire had backed, Ava Grace’s antique and gift shop was the only one losing money. Claire insisted that was to be expected in the beginning, but it was still a sore subject. “Anyway.” Ava Grace clapped her hands together like she always did when she wanted to change the subject. “Hockey in Birmingham. Hockey people here in our little corner of the world. I’ve never even been to a hockey game. Have you?”

  And here it was. She’d never mentioned Jake to anyone in Laurel Springs, not even Ava Grace and Hyacinth, who were her best friends. And she was loath to do it now. What if he ignored her as he had the last few years?

  “I have. A guy I’ve known all my life is a hockey player.” She wasn’t about to mention that he’d been the best-looking thing in Cottonwood, Mississippi—plus he had that hockey-mystique thing going for him in a world where most of the other boys played football and baseball. “His parents and mine are best friends, so we went to a lot of his games when I was growing up. After college, he went on to play for the Nashville Sound, but he’s going to play for the Yellowhammers now.”