Christmas in a Small Town

by Kristina Knight

  Well, this conversation was off to the races.

  “Where’s your football farmer?”

  “Talking to the mayor. How’s Heather?” she asked in a saccharine voice. Not that she cared, but if he was going to be insulting about her choice of boyfriend, she could be insulting about his choice of affair partner.

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve broken things off with her. What I did was wrong, and I’m sorry, Camden. I want you back and—”

  “Stop.” Camden held up her hands. “I’ve been nice about things until now, but Grant, you have got to stop acting like we were some kind of fated match. We were friends whose parents were in love with the idea of being in-laws to one another.” Camden felt like a broken record. How many times and in how many ways could she tell Grant she didn’t want to be married to him? How long until he realized she was right?

  She didn’t want Grant’s gratitude, but she would give just about anything right now for his acceptance that she had made the right decision in walking out.

  “Then you leave me no choice.” He motioned to the car. The rear door opened, and Camden caught her breath. “Elizabeth made the trip with me.”

  “You brought my mother?”

  Grant nodded. “She is the only one who can talk sense into you when you get in a mood like this.”

  “A mood like this? How would you know what kind of mood I’m in? We’ve never talked about moods or what I like or what I think or what I want.” Camden couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  Elizabeth linked her arm with Grant’s. She wore a camel coat, four-inch spiked heels and enough makeup for an entire finalist panel at a beauty pageant. Because she’d begun antiaging treatments for her skin when she was still in college, she looked more like Camden’s slightly older sister than her mother. Her expression was icy, but instead of backing down from the hauteur apparent in her expression, Camden stood firm. She was not twelve any longer. She could make her own decisions, and her decision was to walk away from a life that was not only unfulfilling but the opposite of everything she wanted.

  When she was walking with Levi yesterday he’d said something that made Camden think: that he’d always planned on coming back here because the work he did here was important.

  Camden had no illusions that the dog school she was rebuilding with Granddad was the same as Levi’s organic dairy, but it was a start. The business would become something she could be proud of.

  “I don’t want to marry you, Grant, and I love you, Mother, but I am not going to be in the pageant business any longer. If you would like the numbers of a few pageant pros who would make great coaches, I’ll pass along a few that I know of. But I’m not going back to Kansas City, to Pomp and Circumstance, or to being engaged to Grant Wadsworth.” Camden took a breath. “I live here now. I’m training dogs with Granddad, and I have no intention of leaving.”

  Elizabeth gaped at Camden. She’d drawn her long brown hair into a bun at the nape of her neck, the way she did every time she had an important client to impress. “Sweetheart,” she said, and Camden winced at the hated endearment. Sweetheart was the way Elizabeth addressed waiters and waitresses and other service professionals she considered subpar.

  “I hate that term,” Camden said, not caring that she was interrupting what was sure to be a patented Elizabeth Camden Harris Carlson I Have Never Been So Disappointed in You speech. Elizabeth blinked at Camden’s simple statement. “My name is Camden. You gave it to me—it shouldn’t be too hard to remember. You can call me ‘sweetheart,’ but don’t expect me to answer to it, and no matter what your excuse is for Grant, I’m not going to marry him. I deserve better than him.”

  Footsteps approached, and before he could touch her, Camden knew Levi had finished with whatever errand he had with Thom.

  “I only want what’s best for you,” her mother said, and Camden could almost hear sincerity in her voice. She knew better than to believe the borderline emotional tone in her mother’s voice, though.

  “Then trust that I know what is best for me. And what is best for me is being in Slippery Rock with Levi.”

  Something in Elizabeth’s countenance shifted. Her eyes, so similar to Camden’s, softened, and she looked around at the Christmas lights, the roasted-chestnuts cart and the boats in the marina decked in fairy lights as if she’d never seen them before. Perhaps she hadn’t. Camden could only remember visiting here in the summer months. “Okay,” her mother said after a long pause.

  Camden wasn’t sure she’d heard Elizabeth correctly, and Grant appeared just as shocked. He straightened from his leaning position and said, “But there is the partnership. We have the same interests, the same belief system. We voted the same way in every election since we were eighteen.”

  “I told you the first time you called that I wasn’t some Victorian-era pawn to be married off for a property or income merger.”

  “But we had nearly perfect scores on that compatibility test.”

  “Not everything can be measured with a test score or a percentage.” Camden linked her arm with Levi’s. “Mother, this is Levi Walters. He owns and operates a local organic dairy farm.”

  Her mother eyed Levi, who never shifted under her critical gaze. Finally, Elizabeth nodded. “Hello, Levi.” She unlinked her arm from Grant’s. “It’s time to go,” she said. When Grant protested, Elizabeth looked down her nose at him—an impressive feat, considering Grant was about six inches taller than she.

  Grant clenched his jaw mutinously, but he got into the car. Elizabeth stood near the back door for a long moment. “Are you happy?” she asked.

  Camden considered her answer carefully, not because she didn’t know, but because there were so many things in her life that were making her happy now. Getting to know her grandparents again. Levi. Training Six. She didn’t know the partners of Levi’s friends or even his friends very well, but they had been welcoming at the dance. Julia, from the pageant circuit, had even wound up here.

  Levi, though, stood head and shoulders above every other reason for her happiness.

  Levi made her happy.

  “I’m happy, Mother.”

  Elizabeth opened the door of the car. “Maybe we’ll see you at New Year’s?”

  “I’d rather stay here for the holidays, but maybe after the first?”

  “We could come to you,” Elizabeth said slowly. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Slippery Rock Christmas. Or New Year’s, even.”

  “The mayor has planned concerts and live manger scenes and everything else you can imagine through January 5.” When Elizabeth looked confused, Camden offered, “The twelfth day of Christmas.”

  Elizabeth didn’t cross the space between them, but Camden felt closer to her mother now than she had in years. “I’ll see if there is a vacancy at the B and B then.”

  Despite the dim light cast by the overhead light in the car, Camden could see Grant’s wooden countenance, annoyance in the set of his shoulders, but he drove away without more of a fuss. Camden turned to Levi.

  “That was my mother.”

  “And the guy who likes to play Pin the Penis.”

  “His name is Grant.”

  “I don’t care,” Levi said. “You want some roasted chestnuts?”

  Camden shook her head. “I’d rather have kettle corn or some of that homemade caramel corn at Bud’s.”

  There were no cars driving on Main, so they cut across parking lots, making a beeline for the bait and sandwich shop.

  At the popcorn stand outside the entrance to Bud’s, they each picked a bag and began munching as they walked through the display that would change from life-size sculptures to real people next week. The sweetness of the caramel was perfect against the slight bit of salt in the treat.

  Levi took her hand, and together they walked under the lights hanging from the low tre
e branches, past the stand with roasted chestnuts and the boats that lit up the marina in Christmas lights. For the first time, Camden didn’t care if Grant came back. He could come back a thousand times, and her answer to him would be the same: no. Because no matter what Grant did, he could never be Levi.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THINGS WERE GOING too well, and it made Camden nervous.

  She and Levi had been back from Tulsa for a week and had spent nearly every moment together. They’d gone to more dinners at the Slippery Rock Grill, met his friends for a holiday-themed poker tournament at the Slope and spent every night together.

  More than that, he had stood by her when Grant brought her mother to town, but he’d let her fight the battle on her own. Camden liked waking up with Levi in the mornings. Liked even more going to bed with him at night, learning his body.

  She sipped her coffee, staring out the big plate-glass window of the Good Cuppa, the local coffee shop. The formerly pink-haired waitress now had teal hair with pink and purple stripes; she also had a new piercing in her eyebrow. Julia slid into the seat across from Camden, iced tea in her cup.

  “Sorry I’m late. It’s been a crazy day in renovation hell,” she said. She looked smart, wearing black pencil pants, a flowing flowered tunic and tortoiseshell glasses perched on her nose. Camden had forgotten Julia was nearsighted; she usually wore contacts. Her outfit made Camden feel underdressed in her plain jeans, navy-striped long-sleeved T-shirt and knee boots. “Aiden found another area of black mold in this closet-size bathroom on the second floor. It looks like a few more walls are coming down before we can move forward.”

  “More black mold?” She knew Julia was renovating an old Victorian that overlooked Slippery Rock Lake, but Levi was her main source of town information and lately the two of them talked about very little. Mostly their time together was filled with kissing and touching and those sighs that made her toes curl just thinking about them.

  “It’s to be expected. The house has been vacant for almost fifteen years, and it sits right on the lake. All that moisture isn’t great for old houses, even the ones with great bones like mine.” She sipped her tea. “It’s really good to see you here, Cam, I’d almost forgotten this was the town you talked about in our pageant days. How you were going to come back here, find a farm boy to marry and train a few dogs. Looks like you’re living your dream.”

  “Something like that,” she said and pasted a wide smile on her face when the words came out flat. If she could just stop wondering when the other shoe would drop, when things would stop going smoothly with Levi, then everything would be fine. But in her experience, when one area of life started going well, the other fell to crap. It had happened after that first pageant—she’d won the crown, but her father had been killed on the way to the competition, throwing her mother into a tailspin. Camden had sacrificed everything she wanted to pull her mother out of the dark place where she’d been, and it had worked. She went on to win more competitions, but the price was not visiting her beloved grandparents, not working with dogs, not having a life outside of competing in beauty pageants.

  “You don’t sound so sure.” Julia’s voice was filled with concern. “Things are going well with Levi, right? I know the two of you just started dating, but you look so adorable together. He’s so tall and muscular, the consummate athlete, and you’ve got that whole tall willowy beauty queen thing going on still. His skin has those dark caramel tones, and you’ve got all this great, porcelain skin. The rest of us are practically average compared to the two of you.”

  “You make us sound like some Hollywood it couple,” Camden said, uncomfortable at the track this conversation was taking. It didn’t bother her that Levi was black and she was white. It bothered her that they still had nothing in common other than the town where they lived and the great sex. She didn’t know about his plans for the future; he didn’t ask about her plans. They hadn’t attended the same schools; she’d been raised in the city and he in the country. Sooner or later those core differences would drive a wedge between them, and Camden had no idea how to bring the conversation to a head.

  “This is Slippery Rock, and you’re dating one of the Sailor Five, the boys who brought the state football championship home. There’s a monument to them in the school courtyard, for crying out loud.”

  “No way.” Camden hadn’t made it as far as the schools in her walks around town. To tell the truth, she’d spent more time walking the trails at the farm than she had in town. She’d known about the football championship, of course, thanks to the billboards on either side of town. But the five of them—Aiden, Adam, Levi, Collin and James—were immortalized in a monument?

  Julia grinned. “We, Queen Camden, are dating small-town royalty. Football stars are as good as British princes in a small southern town.”

  “Missouri isn’t exactly Georgia or Texas.”

  Julia waved her hand in the air. “Doesn’t matter. Missouri was a border state during the Civil War, remember? Some still consider us a border between the literal North and South, veering slightly more south, especially in the small-town areas.”

  Camden chuckled. “It’s like you studied history or something.”

  “History major with an art minor. Perfect for a girl who always wanted to properly renovate one of the old Victorians out here.”

  “And the destination-wedding aspect?”

  Julia shrugged. “I never outgrew my love of pretty dresses, mostly. Plus, I’m a sucker for weddings. The dresses and the hair. The shoes.”

  “The shoes are pretty fantastic.” Camden’s wedding shoes had had four-inch heels and golden scallops, making them look like something out of a fairy tale. They were the one piece of her wedding outfit that she’d left behind when she’d walked out on Grant. She missed the shoes more than she missed the man.

  “Speaking of dresses, the girls are getting together with Savannah at the dress shop this afternoon. She’s doing her final fitting before the wedding. You should come.”

  Camden shook her head. “I don’t really know them. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re dating Savannah’s brother, Savannah’s future husband’s best friend. For that matter, all five of them are best friends. Dart-playing demons. Former hell-raisers, at least if you listen to the gossip around town.”

  “Hell-raisers?” Camden couldn’t imagine Saint Levi, as the women had referred to him the night of the dance, raising anything other than the cattle at the dairy.

  “It all blew back up when Mara returned to town last summer, but CarlaAnne at the grocery store likes to keep the gossips’ tongues wagging. That woman has serious anger issues where Mara Tyler Calhoun is concerned.”

  “Why?” Camden couldn’t resist asking. Mara had seemed like such a nice person that night at the dance, she couldn’t imagine anyone disliking the blond-haired woman with the angelic smile.

  “Because CarlaAnne’s daughter dumped Aiden, breaking his heart just before a big school event. Aiden retaliated by painting the daughter’s name and number on the water tower; soon after, she left town and never came back.”

  “But what does Aiden painting a phone number on the water tower have to do with Mara?”

  “Mara’s idea—at least, that’s the way CarlaAnne tells it. Mara was a kind of ringleader of the guys back in school. They pranked practically everyone in town, not to be mean, but just because they were bored.”

  Camden couldn’t imagine Levi pulling a prank of any kind. He seemed so serious most of the time, and grouchy when he wasn’t serious.

  “What else did they do?” she couldn’t resist asking as they paid their bill. The two of them began walking toward the boutique. Several cars were parked in front of the little store with its pink-and-white-striped awnings. An Elf on the Shelf cavorted in the faux snow–covered window display, and because there we
re only ten days left before the holiday, Mayor Thom had insisted that local businesses leave their holiday lights on throughout the day.

  “Let’s see. I only know what Aiden has told me. There was the painting incident. They TP’d several yards and filled the fountain in the town square with Kool-Aid so the water turned lime green. A few of the boys stole a boat one night.”

  “No.”

  “They still insist it was a police emergency,” Julia said as they pushed through the front door.

  Women Camden remembered from the night of the holiday dance focused their attention on her, looking surprised that she’d come to the fitting. Camden backed toward the door, but Julia pulled her forward, and then Savannah, her thinly braided hair pulled back from her face in a long tail, grabbed her hands.

  “Are we telling stories on the boys? Because I still say that police emergency had less to do with possible drug runners than it did with impressing those girls from Joplin. Hey, Camden, we didn’t know you were coming,” she said, pulling Camden to the sofa beside her.

  “I don’t want to intrude.”

  “You’re not—the more the merrier, and don’t think you’re going to get out of here just watching me try on the dress. Bud will be here with lunch in a few minutes, and I’ve been instructed by Merle that we’re expected for cocktails at four.”

  “Merle from the Slippery Slope? The one who grumbles if you order anything but draft beer?” Camden had obviously missed something the handful of times she’d been in the bar. She sat with Savannah on one of the narrow white sofas near the back of the boutique. “He’s serving cocktails?”

  Racks of clothes filled the front part of the store, mostly designer jeans and cute tops. The back of the store was a wash of jewel-toned or pristine white dresses. One dress, a pretty satin with beading over the bodice and a long train, hung on a rack near a triple mirror setup that would allow the wearer to see herself from all angles. Camden hated triple mirrors—they were so unforgiving. Elizabeth had installed triples in the mansion in Mission Hills when Camden started winning pageants. She’d seen herself from so many ugly angles, it was a wonder Camden could look in mirrors at all anymore.