by Sara Celi
Christmas in Watch Hill
S.Celi
Published by Lowe Interactive Media, LLC, 2020.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
CHRISTMAS IN WATCH HILL
First edition. October 1, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 S.Celi.
Written by S.Celi.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
ALL I WANT | A WATCH HILL HOLIDAY NOVELLA | ONE | NORA SHAW
TWO | SCOTT PARKER
THREE | SCOTT
FOUR | NORA
FIVE | NORA
SIX | SCOTT
SEVEN | SCOTT
EIGHT | NORA
NINE | NORA
TEN | SCOTT
ELEVEN | NORA
TWELVE | NORA
THIRTEEN | SCOTT
EPILOGUE | CHRISTMAS DAY | NORA
ALL I NEED | A WATCH HILL HOLIDAY NOVELLA | ONE | IAN CRAWFORD
TWO | JESSICA NORMAN
THREE | IAN
FOUR | JESSICA
FIVE | JESSICA
SIX | IAN
SEVEN | JESSICA
EIGHT | IAN
NINE | JESSICA
TEN | IAN
ELEVEN | IAN
TWELVE | JESSICA
THIRTEEN | IAN
FOURTEEN | JESSICA
EPILOGUE | THREE WEEKS LATER | JESSICA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
For everyone who needs a little Christmas cheer
ALL I WANT
A WATCH HILL HOLIDAY NOVELLA
ONE
NORA SHAW
The notice came five days before Christmas. It sat in my email inbox for a few hours before I noticed the alert on my phone while ringing up a smocked dress and matching black shoes for Allison Peters. When I glanced at the subject line on the locked phone screen, my stomach sank. Oh, God. What now?
“Would you like this gift-wrapped?” I managed, focusing on my customer once again. She was one of my most loyal customers at The Pink Box. I needed this sale to go well. “I have a few beautiful boxes in the stockroom.”
“No, don’t worry about that. I’m going to put these with a few other things for Hannah’s stocking.”
“She will love that.” I placed Allison’s purchases in a bag with the bold, scripty logo across the front.
Allison smiled at me under a set of thick tortoiseshell glasses as she took the purchases from me. “Can’t wait to see the look on her face when she opens them Christmas morning.”
“I saw Hannah the other day at the library.” I smiled too, but my mind whirred. Come on, Allison. It’s time to go. I had to read that email. “She’s getting so big.”
“Four years old already.” Allison pulled her puffy jacket closer to her body. “Can’t believe she will be going to school soon.”
“They grow fast.”
“Just wait until you have kids. You really won’t believe it until then.”
“I’m sure I won’t.” I pushed away the slight sting of the comment. No, I didn’t have kids yet, even though I wanted them. No, I didn’t have a husband either, despite wanting that, too. And yes, the clock for all of that ticked louder with each passing month. “I hope you have a Merry Christmas.”
We said goodbye, and Allison sauntered out of the store. Barely another breath passed before I opened my email. If I read it quickly and soberly, maybe the contents wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe . . .
Four small paragraphs awaited my eyes.
They took maybe a half minute to read. Still, I read them again. Then again. And finally, one more time. Of course. Perfect timing. It wasn’t enough for the whole year to have been a wash. Now, my landlord wanted an additional two hundred bucks a month to renew my lease.
Two hundred bucks I don’t have.
Frustrated, I walked away from the cash register and paced the store. Women’s and children’s designer clothing taunted me from every corner. Here it was, already the end of December, and I still had too much merchandise in the store. Come January, I would have to put most of it on sale and hope people would somehow find their way to my business.
But if the past years were prologues, they likely wouldn’t.
Managing the store these last few years had been disastrous. Nuclear, even. One failure after another, and a quick glance at the receipts proved that. I didn’t have a head for business. I knew that without a doubt, no matter how many smiles I gave customers and how many sales I ran. I wasn’t good at this at all—
Not nearly as good as my mother.
I braced myself against a nearby metal rack. It still hurt to think about my parents, still hurt to dwell even for a moment on the sadness that had marked the start of this journey. If the car accident that killed them hadn’t happened, they’d still be running the store, and I’d still work as a photographer in New York City. If the car accident hadn’t happened, we’d make plans for Christmas dinner. And if the car accident hadn’t happened, we’d all be happy together.
“I hate the holidays,” I muttered, pushing the quiver from my voice. “Hate them.”
I looked at my watch. It was just before three. Already Perked would still be open, and I could think of nothing more comforting than one of their warm, extra-large, dark chocolate mocha drinks. That would at least help me feel better in the short term while I figured out what to do next. I had decisions to make, but they would come easier once I held a fancy drink in my hand.
I rushed back to the checkout counter, grabbed my coat from the hook on the wall, took my purse from the cubby underneath, and shoved my fingerless knit gloves onto my hands. I could easily leave the store locked up for a few minutes, even during this holiday season. Who was I kidding? It’s not like I have a lot of customers anyway. Already Perked Coffee and Café was just across the shopping center from The Pink Box, and I breezed through the entrance a few seconds before one of the baristas turned the open sign to closed.
“Whew, just made it,” I said to Jessica as I approached the cash register, my cheeks stinging from the short run in the mid-December weather. “Busy day?”
“Decent.” Jessica tossed me a knowing grin. “Shall I get you the usual?”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said on a hard breath. “I am really looking forward to one of your mocha creations. Exactly what I need right now.”
“I can imagine.” Jessica set about fixing my drink behind the espresso machine. It only took her a few moments, and soon, she handed it over. “It’s on the house, okay?”
“Are you sure?”
“What are friends for?” Jessica shrugged. “Besides, you’re in here almost every day, and you’ve probably spent at least a month’s rent on our coffee this year.”
“What can I say? You have the best in town, and I’m addicted. Thank you for this.”
After a few more comments about the weather and the upcoming Junior League Christmas fashion show, I left the store and started the short walk back to The Pink Box. As I strolled, I took a long look at the rest of the stores in the Eastern Shopping Plaza, a small shopping center that branched off from Route 50, the four-lane state highway that linked Watch Hill with Cincinnati.
Christmas had come to the community, and colorful lights wrapped around the wrought-iron railings and brick pillars. Garlands decorated the staircase leading to the second floor of shops, and a few bright holiday trees decked out in gold ornaments and red ribbons added charm to the patio outside Sam’s Deli, the restaurant where many people gathered on weekends to watch football games and catc
h up on town gossip.
It was all so tranquil, quaint, and—
“Oof!”
Broad shoulders, navy parka, burly arms.
I slammed into all of it, knocking the latte from my hand and all over my black puffer jacket. As I yelped in pain and surprise, the coffee clattered to the ground.
“Oh my God.” I pulled the soaking nylon away from my body. “Oh my God, I’m—”
“Are you okay?”
“No.” I ripped off the jacket, thankful that my gloves had kept the hot liquid from burning my hands. “Yes. I don’t know, maybe . . .” I stared at the now empty coffee cup. There goes my latte. “Crap.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Me too.” A nervous laugh escaped my lips.
The man scooped up my drink. “At least the lid is on, so maybe you can still enjoy some of it.”
“Thanks.” I barely looked at him as I brushed coffee off my coat, hurrying to do so before the spilled coffee set into the fabric. It was one of my nicer ones, and my stomach turned at the thought of having it professionally cleaned. Add another expense to the list. “I wasn’t looking forward to drinking the rest of it anyway.”
“Well, I hate that it was ruined.” He handed me the cup, and I looked directly at him for the first time.
“Oh, you’re Scott Parker.”
“Yes.” He laughed to himself, showing off a set of pearly white teeth set into a sharp, square jaw. “At least, that’s the name on my birth certificate. And you’re Nora Shaw, right?”
“Right.” I stepped backward. “How did you know that?”
“Everyone in Watch Hill does.” He pointed in the direction of The Pink Box. “Don’t you own that store?”
“My parents do.” I snapped my eyes shut and shook my head. “No . . . that’s not right. I do. I own it.”
“That’s cool. I’m sure you’re pretty busy right now with the holidays.”
“We are.” We’re not.
I’d heard plenty of rumors about Scott—whispered comments about how he lost his first wife to cancer a few years earlier, he came to Watch Hill for a fresh start, and he worked in a downtown Cincinnati graphic design firm while also designing apps on the side that he sold to companies in Silicon Valley. Jessica had made more than one comment about him in the last few weeks, but I hadn’t seen Scott up close until now.
And Scott Parker up close was nice. Very nice.
I already knew from bumping into him that he had broad shoulders and well-developed, muscular arms. He rounded that out with longish brown hair that draped around his ears, and a pair of deep blue eyes that seemed as if they knew more than they wanted to reveal. My stomach dropped as his gaze met mine. I hadn’t felt that since . . . since I can’t remember when.
“Anyway, I’d better get back to the store,” I managed. “Lots to do before Christmas.”
“Absolutely.” He glanced past the bustling crowd to The Pink Box’s cotton candy striped exterior. “Wouldn’t want you to keep a customer waiting.”
“Exactly. I wouldn’t want that at all.” I looked at my coffee cup. “Thanks again for helping me clean this mess up.”
We said goodbye. I turned on my boot heel and scurried the remaining length back to my shop, pushing away the delicious reaction I had to Scott Parker. Yes, he was handsome, but so what? Yes, he was single—totally, irrevocably, tragically single, but so what about that, too? I wasn’t interested in Scott Parker. I wasn’t interested in anybody at the moment. I didn’t have time to date. I had a business to save and rent to pay.
Happy holidays to me.
TWO
SCOTT PARKER
My parka smelled like Italy. Italy, chocolate, and expensive milk.
The spilled coffee had soaked the left arm of the coat, and by tomorrow it would probably be stiff and smelly. I’d have to wash it in the machine when I got home. One more thing I needed to do.
I pulled my car out of the parking lot and started on my way to the next appointment. Finally, I had true silence after a long day. Work at the graphic design firm had been easy enough, but this was Thursday, and Thursdays were always long.
Thursdays included grief counseling.
I wasn’t convinced I still needed it. Monica had been dead for eighteen months; this upcoming Christmas would be the second one without her. If there were five stages of grief, I would have told anyone that I was on the fourth or fifth stage, and that I’d stopped feeling angry or being in denial. She’d had breast cancer; she’d died.
Sometimes good people did.
I knew this wasn’t my fault, and I was far past the point of being angry. Accepting her death didn’t mean that I didn’t still love her, but it did mean that I could live my life again. Part of me would always be with her, but I knew I didn’t have to spend the rest of my days alone. And sometime in the future, I’d see Monica again.
I knew it.
Still, a few friends had told me to go to counseling just to be safe, and one pressed a business card into my hand while at a barbecue over Labor Day weekend. I considered it for a few days, and decided it would be healthy to talk to someone, nice to share my feelings with someone who didn’t automatically avert their eyes and awkwardly change the subject whenever Monica’s name came up in conversation. In early October, I started visiting Gary Green at his offices in a beige, converted Victorian near the edge of Watch Hill.
“I’m not a religious man,” Gary said that afternoon as our hour-long session neared a close. After this one, we wouldn’t see each other until January. “But it is Christmastime and that has me thinking about a few things.”
“Like what?” I sipped some of the bottled water Gary always offered me. This is interesting. Gary usually offered little in the way of comments during our meetings, meaning that whenever he did speak, it carried a decent amount of weight.
“Well, the holiday season is a good time to step out of your comfort zones, and a good time to challenge yourself. Since this is the second year that you won’t have Monica, I’m wondering if this is the right time to start some new traditions.” Gary shoved his reading glasses a little farther up the bridge of his wide nose. “Stretch yourself a little bit.”
“Stretch myself?”
Nodding, my therapist scanned the legal pad balancing on his knee. “You’re spending Christmas Day with your family, right?”
“We always get together for dinner at my parents’ home up near Dayton.”
“Are you looking forward to it?”
“Y-yes.”
Last Christmas had just been depressing—everyone sitting around the table, not wanting to talk about the gaping hole in the room—the place where my wife should have been. Moping in front of my mother’s famous Cornish game hens, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and cranberry spread. Finally, I’d broken the tension by admitting it was hard, then asked my family to share their favorite memories of my wife. The night had ended with all of them crying as we sliced into our dinner and opened a third bottle of wine.
I didn’t want that to happen again.
“Maybe between now and then, you make some new holiday memories,” Gary said.
“Like what?”
“Help someone who needs it, volunteer at the homeless shelter, or . . . or something.” Gary shrugged. “Just think about it.”
My therapist didn’t say much more, but his final words echoed. Just think about it. After finishing that meeting, I seriously considered getting a beer at Sam’s Deli. I got about ten feet away from the front door before I thought better of it. Drinking alone was never the best idea, and I knew that. Too bad I didn’t have someone to join me. Someone like maybe . . .
Nora Shaw.
I’d never been inside The Pink Box, but the unmistakable pink front door made it hard to miss the store when visiting the shopping center or driving on the state route. I guessed the decor was quirky and interesting inside, and probably fit with the other boutiques and small businesses that made Watch Hill one of th
e most unique communities in the Cincinnati area. Nora herself, though—Nora was beautiful.
Not in a conventional way.
She was pointy and reedy where most women would have been round, and her thick tuft of brown hair tangled in the December breeze and framed a pale face with wide eyes that seemed skittish and frustrated, as if something was on her mind that she couldn’t share with anyone.
But she was beautiful.
Different than Monica, and that was good. Monica had been bright and airy, almost angelic in the way she danced through life. Always an optimist, even as the cancer jumped to stage four and the doctors admitted they didn’t have many options for treatment. I liked light and airy, but I liked the opposite, too.
Nora Shaw. The opposite. Interesting.
Sighing, I drove the short distance from the shopping center to the Cape Cod house I’d purchased two months earlier, after a weekend spent looking at about a half dozen properties across Cincinnati and the surrounding area. Watch Hill was one of the better neighborhoods in the hills around the city—home to quaint architecture in a town square designed to mimic Germany. A few planned gardens, a slew of Tudor revival homes, and a movie theater playing independent films and art house selections. I walked through the three-bedroom place one time and told my real estate agent I would take it. Starting fresh, even if just in a new part of the county, had been a good idea.
No, a great idea.
Maybe starting over meant more than just a new place to live. Maybe it meant new people in my life, too. I was still thinking about that as I made my way into the house.
THREE
SCOTT
“You’re in a good mood,” Peter Lewis said the next day after a quick tap on the door frame of my office at Crestview Design, the graphic design firm where we both worked. After ten years of employment, I had a small office and a street view to confirm my status as one of the leading designers. “At least you seemed to be happy in the staff meeting.”
