by Kathi Daley
Christmas Shorts 2020
A Christmas Haunting
Hunt for Christmas
Legacy in Paradise
By
Kathi Daley
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Katherine Daley
Version 1.0
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Table of Contents
Note to the Reader
A Christmas Haunting
Hunt for Christmas
Legacy in Paradise
Note to the Reader
Saying goodbye can be difficult, especially saying goodbye to characters we’ve come to know on an almost personal level. As a reader, I understand how difficult it is when a much-loved series comes to an end, but as an author, I realize that it is only through these endings that new beginnings are possible.
This year, I decided to write short Christmas stories as an epilogue of sorts to three series that have recently ended. All three stories are around twenty-five printed pages, and all three stories take place approximately a year after the last regular book in the series took place. Readers who have read the series that these stories were designed to wrap up will enjoy them the most, but anyone who might want to read the stories independently should enjoy them as well.
A Christmas Haunting - A Haunting by the Sea Christmas Short Story
Faced with a life-altering decision, Amanda is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Of course, in this case, all three ghosts are played by her alter ego, Alyson, who has a vested interest in ensuring that the decision Amanda makes will be the one which will allow them both to live their happily ever after.
Hunt for Christmas - A Sand and Sea Mystery Christmas Short Story
It’s just a week until Christmas, and things are slow at Pope Investigations. Lani has been having a hard time finding the Christmas spirit until Kekoa brings her one last case before they break for the holidays. A woman wants to hire Pope Investigations to find an angel tree topper that was mistakenly donated to the local church five years ago. The angel was a gift to the woman’s grandmother when she fled Germany nearly eighty years ago. At first, Lani is conflicted about taking on a case that appears to be impossible to solve, but then she realizes that a mystery such as this might very well provide the distraction she needs from her tangled emotions relating to the oh so sexy cowboy she’s tried to forget but can’t seem to live without.
Legacy in Paradise - A Tj Jensen Christmas Short Story
With Christmas just around the corner, Tj is faced with the task of finding the perfect gift for her rich husband, who already has everything. After a bit of thought, she comes up with the idea of a scrapbook chronicling the Collins family history. Kyle hadn’t known he was a Collins until after Zachary Collins passed away and left him his entire estate. Being the sort of guy who’s all about roots and family, Tj realizes that a gift of “family” really might turn out to be the best gift of all.
Enjoy and Merry Christmas,
Kathi
A Christmas Haunting
A Haunting by the Sea Christmas Short Story
I wasn’t surprised when I opened my eyes and saw her hovering above me. I’d actually been expecting her for weeks. The time had come for Amanda Parker and Alyson Prescott to merge for the final time, and we both knew it. I’d considered bringing it up the last time she’d visited, but, in the end, I decided to wait until she took the initiative and reached out to me. I wasn’t surprised she finally had, but what did surprise me was the fact that she’d come to me in the early morning hours of Christmas Eve.
“Alyson?” I said, sitting up, noticing for the first time that she wore an elf’s costume and hat.
“It’s time,” she said, floating down toward the bed.
“I figured.” I clicked the bedside lamp on. “You do realize it’s the middle of the night, don’t you? It’s twelve forty-five a.m. on December twenty-fourth, to be exact. Today is Christmas Eve. It’s going to be a busy day. I’m really not sure why you felt we needed to do this now.”
She shrugged. “Now is the time I’ve been waiting for.”
I slid my legs to the side of the bed, being careful not to disturb my two dogs, Tucker and Sunny, who were sleeping in dog beds placed in front of the gas fireplace. Using the remote, I clicked the flame on, being careful not to wake my cat, Shadow, who was sleeping on the pillow next to mine.
“Okay,” I yawned. “I’ll play along. Why have you been waiting ‘for now’ to come to me?”
She giggled, twirling around the room like a ballerina in one of those old fashion music boxes. I realized at that moment how very much I was going to miss her spontaneity once we merged for the final time. I continued to watch and wait until she eventually settled onto the bed next to Shadow and began to speak. “I know this is going to sound corny and totally cliché, but tonight you are going to be visited by three ghosts.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re kidding. Right? Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Fraid not, big sister.” She floated across the room and looked out the window. “I know that ‘traditionally’ we’d do this early on Christmas morning, but I also know you’ll be busy tonight, so I figured we’d get this out of the way now.”
“Okay. If you insist,” I said with hesitation. “What do you want me to do?”
“It’s cold out. It might even snow. You should grab a sweater.”
“Sweater?” I asked, glancing toward the window where Alyson was still hovering. “Where are we going?”
“I think the appropriate question really should be: when are we going?”
“When?”
She left the window and floated over to the Christmas tree my boyfriend, Trevor, had helped me set up in the corner of the room. As if by magic, the lights clicked on, providing a warmth and color that complimented the candles and evergreens on the mantel quite nicely. “Like I said,” she eventually answered, “tonight you will be visited by three ghosts. Of course, the twist to this particular haunting is that all three ghosts will be played by me.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “One ghost playing three roles is more efficient, but we do have quite a few years to visit, so we really should get going.”
I looked down at the leggings and tank-top I slept in. “If we have to do this, I’ll need to get dressed.”
Alyson sat down on the floor between the two dogs who’d awakened and were looking at me with questions in their eyes. I knew they couldn’t see Alyson and was sure the dogs were wondering why I was up and talking to myself in the middle of the night.
“Take all the time you need,” Alyson replied, “as long as you’re ready to go by the strike of one. That’s the way it works, you know. The clock strikes one, and we take a magical journey into your past.”
“Oh, good grief,” I said, pulling on jeans, a long sleeve t-shirt, a heavy sweatshirt, shoes, and socks. “I should have known you wouldn’t keep it simple. I’d hoped you’d just pop in and suggest a bottle of champagne to toast our permanent union, and that would be that.”
Her look grew serious. “I would do that, but I can’t go until I know.”
“Know what?” I asked.
She shrugged. “You’ll see.” She held out a hand. “Grab on.”
“I can’t take your hand. You’re a ghost, or at least you have a ghostlike body.”
“You can take my hand this one time,” she insisted.
I reached out and took the hand that felt warm and
solid. “Are you human?”
“Sort of. Well, not really.” She blew out a breath. “Just hang on.”
“Okay. I’m hanging on.”
“Now, close your eyes. This next part is tricky.”
I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of the room fall away from me. When I dared to open my eyes, I was standing right back in the same bedroom we’d just left; only the bedroom I stood in was the bedroom that had existed before the renovation.
I looked at my teenage self, sleeping in a new bed placed in the center of a room dominated by scuffed floors and faded wallpaper. I remembered the frightened girl who’d lived in the dilapidated house on the bluff and felt myself cringe.
“That’s me,” I whispered. “Mom and I had just moved into the house after arriving in Cutter’s Cove. It was such a strange time in my life. My best friend had been murdered, I’d been forced into witness protection, and the life I’d known in New York had been completely stripped away.” I watched as the girl who’d been going by the name Alyson continued to sleep. “I’d been terrified about what life had in store for me. Everything was different. Nothing was the same. I really didn’t know how I’d make it through even a single day.”
“Until this night,” Alyson said.
“Until this night,” I whispered as the girl in the bed sat up and looked around. I waited as teenage Alyson called out for Barkley, who was the ghost she’d been certain, I’d been certain, was haunting the house. I watched as she got up, pulled on a robe, and slipped into the hallway, softly calling out to him so as not to disturb her mother, who was sleeping in the next room. I could remember every heartbeat, every shallow breath as I’d followed the gossamer image to the room at the top of the stairs. It was this night that my life had changed forever. I’d gone from being a terrified teenager whose life had been totally torn apart to a fascinated teenager who could not only see ghosts but could communicate with them as well.
“After Barkley showed you the secrets held within the attic, everything changed for us,” Alyson said.
“Yes. That did seem to be the turning point. Or at least it was one of them. I remember how I could feel this sense of the continuation of all things. The past merged with the present that seemed to flow endlessly into the future. For the first time since Tiffany had died, I somehow knew in my soul that everything was as it was meant to be. I knew I’d find a way to go on, and I knew my life, even as it was then, was worth living.”
“Barkley opened a door for you. A door that only you were meant to pass through.” Alyson grabbed my hand, and suddenly, I was standing in the hallway of the local high school, looking into the science room through the window in the door.
“This is the day I met Mac and Trevor,” I said.
“This was the day that everything that had been fragmented in our lives began to come together and really make sense,” she added.
I remembered how I’d stood at that door, looking in through that window, studying all the students in the room as I tried to figure out where to sit. I knew that the choice I made at that moment might very well define my life in Cutter’s Cove from that point forward. I figured that whoever I sat next to would most likely become my lab partner, which meant we’d spend time together, which hopefully meant we’d become friends. Looking back, I thanked the powers that be that I’d ended up sitting in the empty seat next to Mackenzie Reynolds, who happened to be sitting in front of her best friend, Trevor Johnson.
“We were right to choose them,” Alyson said. “The three of us were a team from that first day. We went through a lot together. We met with hardship and faced tragedy and pain. We solved crimes and never, ever forgot that the power of the triad is so much stronger than the power any one person might have. We were there for each other. For always and forever.”
“It was the best choice we ever made,” I agreed.
I felt my breath catch. It was so strange to go back to that first day and relive everything again. “It’s really awesome to have the chance to revisit this critical moment in my life. If I’d chosen to sit anywhere else, who knows how things would have worked out. But again, I have to ask, why are we doing this?”
“I told you. Before I go, I need to know.”
“Know what?” I asked, yet again.
Alyson didn’t answer. She simply grabbed my hand and pulled me forward to that first Halloween I’d spent in the small town by the sea. Mac, Trevor, and I were at Dooley’s Pumpkin Farm, gathering pumpkins for the annual haunted hayride.
I smiled. “Now, that was a fun day.”
Alyson hugged my arm. “It was a fun day. We hiked up and down that hill looking for the perfect pumpkins for the hayride. It was exhausting but rewarding. Do you remember how much fun the three of us had carving all those pumpkins?”
My smile softened. “I do remember. Trevor picked out a bunch of pumpkins in really odd shapes, and we had the hardest time trying to figure out how to bring them to life. That was such a fun Halloween despite the gypsy curse.”
“And almost dying,” Alyson reminded me.
“Well, yes, there was that.”
“The reality is that while your life improved tenfold once you met Mac and Trev, becoming friends with them also seemed to be the catalyst that led us into some pretty dicey situations.”
“True. But, I think we both know it was us who drug them into danger and not the other way around.”
“I suppose.”
Again, I found myself being propelled through time. This time, I found myself in the damp cave where my friends and I had gone searching for an ancient relic. “I wonder if it’s still there,” I said aloud. “On the altar where we left it.”
“I can say with certainty that it’s still there all these years later. We did a good thing returning it to the place in time and space where it was always meant to be.”
“Yeah,” I said, laughing as I watched teenage Trevor place the football he’d brought on the altar with the other items we’d chosen to leave as an offering. “I think that might have been my favorite mystery.”
“It certainly was one of the trickiest to solve.”
“Can we go back to the library? To Booker?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I miss him too, but we have a lot of ground to cover. I think we really need to go.”
I looked Alyson in the eye. “Why do we need to go? I know you keep saying that you need to know, but I really don’t understand what it is you need to know.”
“All in good time.” She grabbed my hand again, and this time when we landed, we were standing in the middle of a field of snow.
I grinned as a sleigh with three passengers came into view. “That’s Trev, Mac, and me on our very first Christmas together. Trev wanted to make it special for me, so he rented a sleigh.” I watched as I clung to Trevor’s arm, my head resting on his shoulder. “It was freezing cold, but the three of us had so much fun. That whole Christmas was so much fun. It was my first Christmas in witness protection, and I was feeling sort of blue, but it turned out to be one of the best Christmases of my life.”
“Remember that ridiculous elf outfit we had to wear?” Alyson giggled.
I laughed. “I do remember. I was horrified when I was asked to fill in for the girl who was out sick, but Tucker got to be a reindeer, which he loved doing, and it was fun to volunteer with Santa Trevor. Looking back, wearing that ridiculous costume was totally worth it.”
“Although, if you remember, that particular Christmas didn’t start out quite so good,” Alyson reminded me.
“I remember.” I closed my eyes and remembered back. “The Ferris wheel the three of us were riding broke down, and I almost fell to my death.”
“But Trevor saved us.”
“He did.” I hung on as Alyson took us to that horrifying moment. “I still don’t know where he found the strength to do the impossible, but he pulled us back into the broken car and hung onto us until we got back down to the bottom. We really should have died that day.”
“But we didn’t,” Alyson said.
I smiled. “No, we didn’t. You know, I think I knew even back then.”
“We did know,” Alyson said with conviction. “We knew we loved him, but we weren’t ready to admit it. We were hiding from our past and scared to commit to anyone. We were young and on the run, and had a reason to be wary, but now… now the reasons to avoid a commitment, which we clung to in the past no longer exist.”
I turned away from the memory of that perfect Christmas and looked directly at my alter ego. “I can tell that you are building up to something. Something big. Why don’t you just tell me what you’re after?”
“Like I said, all in good time.”
With that, Alyson grabbed my hand, and once again, we were propelled through time.
“Where are we?” I asked once we’d stopped moving.
“I know you must recognize the memory.”
A tear slid down my cheek. “This was the last time the three of us were together before I left Cutter’s Cove to return to New York.”
“Trevor and Mac were so upset that you were leaving, and you promised to call every day, but you didn’t. You promised to come back and visit all the time, but you didn’t. Not even once. You promised never ever to forget them no matter what, and yet you did.”
“I didn’t forget them,” I choked out. “It was just easier to get on with my life in New York rather than clinging to a past I was no longer a part of.” I glanced at Alyson, who really was the best part of me. “I didn’t mean to cut them out entirely. I really did plan to come back.”
“He mourned for you.” Alyson drug me through time again to an empty beach on a foggy day. I’d never been privy to this scene before. Trevor stood, staring out toward the dark sea, tears streaming down his face. “He mourned for you for much longer than anyone should have,” she whispered. “He loved you before you realized you loved him. You owned his heart, and when you left, you took it with you.”
