Christmas Ever After

by Karen Schaler

  The lodge’s drop-in business concerned Luke because he wanted to do everything he could to help his mom retire in Florida the way she had hoped to, but that all counted on them being able to get a good price when they sold the lodge. So, if that meant going on live TV to get the lodge some much-needed publicity, that’s what he’d do. But he didn’t have to like it.

  Chapter Five

  Later that same day, as the snow continued to blanket New York City, Riley, now wearing her much more practical power boots, rushed toward Café Lola. It was her favorite cozy little Upper West Side wine bar. She breathed a sigh of relief as she pulled open the door.

  “I made it,” she said under her breath with a thankful smile. As soon as she set foot inside, she could feel her stress start to ease. She was in her happy place. Her favorite escape when she’d lived in the neighborhood and had wanted to relax and have a glass of wine.

  Café Lola was tiny, but what it lacked in space it more than made up for with its menu, which included authentic Spanish tapas and unique European wines. But the real reason she came was to talk to the bartender and owner, Alejandro—Alex for short.

  Even though he was in his late sixties, Alex worked six days a week behind the bar, sometimes seven, and always during happy hour. He insisted it was his customers who kept him young. Riley could personally vouch for the fact that Alex had as much energy and enthusiasm as any twenty-year-old, and he always had a way of making everyone feel like they were his favorite customer.

  It was no secret that Riley adored him. The truth was, Alex was far more than just her favorite bartender. He’d been like a surrogate father to her when she had first moved to Manhattan and hadn’t known a soul.

  As she looked around the bar, she laughed. Alex had put up even more Christmas decorations than she’d remembered.

  While the bar always had white twinkle lights up year-round to give it a romantic feel, at Christmastime, Alex went all-out, adding more lights anywhere he could find space. Whether it was over the bar, dangling from the ceiling, hanging down the wall, or lining the windows, there were lights everywhere, and there was always Christmas music playing.

  Riley also wasn’t surprised to see Alex was still putting up an impressive eight-foot Christmas tree that was decorated with hundreds of wine corks attached to red ribbon. She walked over to the tree and smiled when she looked closer at the corks where you could see people’s names written on them. It was one of Café Lola’s traditions. When you ordered a bottle of wine, you got to write your name and date on the cork, and it would be made into an ornament to be displayed on the tree. She smiled remembering how she’d contributed more than a few corks to the tree over the years.

  At first, she’d been surprised when Alex had started decorating for Christmas right after Halloween, but he’d happily told her that Christmas decorations just gave you one more thing to be thankful for at Thanksgiving. Riley loved that Alex was always coming up with sayings like that.

  He also said Christmas decorations were a wonderful way to show your Christmas spirit and that the amount of decorations you put up was a direct correlation to how much Christmas spirit you had in your heart. If this was true, then Riley didn’t know anyone who had as much Christmas spirit as Alex.

  Her first Christmas in New York he’d tried to recruit her to help decorate. When she had passed, telling him she wasn’t a Christmassy person he’d made it his personal goal to get her to embrace the holiday. But try as he might over the years, the only thing she’d ever embraced was Grandma Lola’s mulled wine.

  Riley was just taking off her coat when Alex came rushing over.

  “I thought I might see you for happy hour,” he said as he embraced her with a heartfelt hug and then took her coat.

  Seeing Alex instantly made her feel better. She knew she’d made the right choice to head uptown in a snowstorm just to come see him.

  He took both her hands and stood back. “Let me look at you.”

  When he looked into her eyes, Riley suddenly felt a little self-conscious because she knew Alex always saw her, really saw her, and she wondered for the zillionth time if he could actually look into her soul.

  “Alex, it’s so good to see you,” she said and meant it with all her heart.

  Alex smiled. “Do you know what I think?”

  Riley smiled back. “What?”

  “I think you need some of our mulled wine,” Alex answered with confidence. “Your favorite. I made a fresh batch and saved your seat for you.”

  Alex motioned to a barstool in the corner. Riley laughed at the little reserved sign had been put up. She had never seen him put a reserved sign up anywhere in the bar.

  She shook her head in wonder. “How did you know I was going to be here?”

  Alex glanced up at the TV on the wall.

  Riley signed. “You saw the interview this morning?”

  Alex put his arm around her and walked her over to her reserved seat. “Mi tesoro . . . everyone saw the interview.”

  It took some of the sting out of knowing everyone else had seen her TV meltdown when Alex called her mi tesoro, a Spanish term of endearment that meant “my treasure.”

  As if sensing her embarrassment, he took her hand again and gave it a little squeeze. “The first drink is on me. Some of my grandma’s magic mulled wine coming right up.”

  Riley laughed. “When did it become magic mulled wine?”

  Alex grinned back at her. “It’s Christmas. Everything’s always magical at Christmas.”

  Riley laughed as she took her reserved seat over in the bar’s cozy corner. “I don’t know about the magic part, but I have missed Grandma Lola’s mulled wine and I’ve missed you.”

  “I have missed you more, mi tesoro,” Alex said as he stirred the mulled wine simmering in a giant Crock-Pot on the counter.

  Riley let herself close her eyes for a moment as she blissfully inhaled the familiar scent of cloves and cinnamon.

  “I’ve dreamed of this,” Riley almost whispered in a soft voice. “I don’t get this back in Arizona.”

  Alex nodded. “I always love making it for you. No one else appreciates my grandma’s recipe like you do.”

  “Well, they don’t know what they are missing,” Riley said.

  “That’s what I always tell them,” Alex said emphatically.

  Riley laughed as she settled into her favorite spot. She loved leaning up against the brick wall and having full view of the entire bar.

  She could still remember her first time coming into Café Lola on a cold winter night, her first night in New York City. It had been about this same time of year, just a few weeks before Christmas. She had flown in from her mom’s place in Florida and had arrived in the city with only a carry-on suitcase, a laptop, and a dream. Her dream was to finally be the author she’d always hoped to be.

  The path she’d taken to come to New York had been kind of like Dorothy’s yellow brick road in The Wizard of Oz, filled with twists and turns and lots of drama.

  She’d gone from working as an Emmy Award-winning TV news reporter and anchor, covering crime and corruption as an investigative reporter, to being a war correspondent in Iraq and Afghanistan, before doing a one-eighty and working as a freelance luxury travel writer, visiting some of the most glamorous places on the planet. The problem was her fabulous travel writer job didn’t even come close to paying her bills because she was basically only paid in free travel, nothing more. She had tried to make it work, living off her savings, but when her money ran out, luckily, her mom had let her move home while she figured out what to do next. It was during this incredibly challenging time that she’d landed her first book deal to write a romance novel.

  Knowing this was her chance for a new start, she’d decided that if she was going to reinvent herself from a tough crime and war reporter to a romance author who wrote uplifting and heartfelt stories, t
hen Manhattan was the perfect place to do it. There, she could be anyone she wanted to be. So she had taken her small book advance, sold her car, and moved to the city determined to write the kind of love stories that would hopefully help inspire readers to find their own happily-ever-afters.

  She’d ended up at Café Lola her first night in town. After taking one look at her ridiculously tiny studio apartment, she’d grabbed her computer and charger and had quickly headed downstairs to the bar. She’d met Alex as she was looking for a place to plug in her computer, which had run out of battery during her flight. She must have looked freaked out because Alex had asked her if she was okay. That’s when she had babbled her life story and told him that she’d just moved to New York and didn’t know anyone, and how she was convinced her apartment was smaller than a jail cell.

  Alex had found her the corner seat at the bar, the same one she was sitting in now, where there was an outlet. He’d also brought her some mulled wine, on the house, as he welcomed her to the city, and promised her that his grandma Lola’s secret recipe would warm her heart and that everything was going to be okay. That night had started their friendship and her tradition of using the cozy corner at Café Lola like her office. It was where she had written her first novel.

  She was jarred back to the present when a steaming mug of mulled wine was put down in front of her. She looked up to see Alex’s smiling face.

  “Here you go,” he said. “Just like you like it. With extra cinnamon.”

  “Cinnamon is the wonder spice,” Riley said as she took the mug from Alex. When she got a closer look at the mug, she couldn’t help but laugh.

  It was a Santa mug.

  “Not you again,” she said to Santa’s smiling face.

  Alex gave her a knowing look. “I know it’s your favorite mug, even though you pretend not to like it. You can’t fool me.”

  Riley laughed loudly. “Oh, Alex. I really have missed you!”

  “And I’ve never given up hope that you’ll find your Christmas spirit,” Alex said. He pointed at his heart. “It lives in here. It never goes away.”

  Since she couldn’t remember what Christmas spirit felt like, she had no answer for him. Instead, she concentrated on her drink, waving the steam from her mulled wine toward her and inhaling blissfully.

  “This smells like heaven.” Riley said as she carefully picked up her mug.

  “It smells like Christmas,” Alex said proudly. “That’s what Grandma Lola used to always say.”

  Riley took her first sip, and it didn’t disappoint. As always, it was the perfect blend of red wine, brandy, and spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves, which pulled it all together and made you feel all warm inside. Despite her asking year after year, Alex had refused to share his grandma’s secret recipe, insisting it could only be passed down to family members.

  “This is delicious, as always,” she said as she held up her Santa mug to Alex. “Cheers to Grandma Lola.”

  Alex quickly poured some mulled wine into another Santa mug and clinked it against hers. “Cheers to Grandma Lola and to Christmas.”

  Riley laughed. “You never give up . . .”

  Alex gave her a determined look. “On you? Never. I have faith.”

  “In me?” Riley asked as she took another sip and smiled as it warmed her all the way down to her toes. She wiggled them around in her power boots.

  “And in Christmas,” he said with a confident smile.

  She could only shake her head, but she was smiling. She always enjoyed banter with Alex, even if it was about Christmas.

  When he took some more cork ornaments over to the Christmas tree and started adding them to the already overloaded branches, he looked around the bar and frowned.

  Riley knew what he was thinking. “It looks like it’s going to be a slow night,” she said.

  Alex nodded. “Probably all the snow, but you know what that means?”

  Riley shook her head. “No, what?”

  Alex came over and sat down on the barstool next to her. “It means we have time for a little talk.”

  Riley laughed. “Uh, that’s what I thought we’ve been doing.”

  Alex gave her a look. “I mean a talk about this next book you’re doing. A Christmas book? Did I hear that right this morning on TV? How is this possible for Miss I Don’t Do Christmas? And who is this great love of your life? How have I missed all this? What haven’t you told me? You have a lot of explaining to do, so start talking.”

  She made a face as she put down her Santa mug. “You saw the whole interview?”

  “All of it,” he said. “Including the part after the commercial break when you weren’t there. You walked out, didn’t you?”

  Riley nodded. “I did. I felt like I was being attacked.”

  “You were being attacked,” Alex said.

  Riley loved him for that.

  “I know, but I really needed that interview. My last book didn’t do so great, and this Christmas books is my last shot. I could lose my publishing deal.”

  “Your publisher can do that?” Alex asked, concerned.

  “My publisher will do that if I don’t write a new book that will win back my readers.” She took another sip of wine.

  “And that’s supposed to be this Christmas book?” he asked. “So, they don’t know—”

  “What? That I don’t do Christmas?” Riley sighed. “That I’m the last person that should be writing a Christmas book? No, they don’t know any of that. How could I tell them that? If they think writing a Christmas book is the only way to save my career, and I tell them I don’t have a clue about what kind of story to write, they’re going to drop me right now.”

  Alex got up, took her mug, and went to get her a refill. She waited for him to say something, anything, but he remained silent as he handed her back the now full Santa mug.

  “It’s a mess,” Riley said. “I know.”

  “I don’t see this as a mess,” Alex said. “I see this as an opportunity.”

  “What do you mean?” Riley asked.

  He smiled at her. “You know what they say . . .”

  Riley laughed. “No, but I know you’re about to tell me.”

  “Even in the darkest moments a new day will bring light. You just need to find the light. You need to find Christmas,” Alex said.

  “You make it sound so easy,” Riley replied.

  “It shouldn’t be that hard,” Alex said. “But now I have to ask what all of America is asking right now.”

  Riley arched one eyebrow. “What’s that?”

  Alex locked eyes with her. “Who were you talking about that inspired all your romance books? Who is the love of your life that got away? It’s not Tyler, is it? I just didn’t see that with the two of you when you came in here.”

  Alex shook her head. “No, I wasn’t talking about Tyler.”

  “Okay, then your boyfriend in Utah. The one you said you lived with. What was his name? Brandon?” Alex asked.

  “Brendan,” Riley corrected him. “And no, I wasn’t talking about Brendan.”

  Alex’s eyes lit up. “Oh, then it had to be your old college boyfriend from Los Angeles, the movie producer. Didn’t you always say he was your first love?”

  Riley looked impressed. “You’re talking about Colin. I can’t believe you remember all this. But then again, I can’t believe I told you all this.”

  “Bartenders,” Alex said. “We get told a lot.”

  Riley reached out and took his hand. “And so do friends. Thank you for always listening to me and all my stories.”

  “You’re welcome,” Alex said as one of the waiters walked over carrying a huge plate of parmesan truffle fries and put them in front of Riley. She gave Alex a questioning look.

  “You always say my truffle fries make everything better,” Alex said.

 
Riley nodded, smiled. “I do say that.”

  “So I ordered you a double,” Alex said.

  Riley laughed. “Well, it has been that kind of day.”

  Just as she went to pick up a fry, he pulled the plate toward him, out of her reach.

  “Hey,” she said. “What’s going on?” But she already knew. Whenever Alex wanted to get information out of her, withholding her favorite fries was one of his tactics.

  “So what great love of your life were you talking about on TV?” Alex pressed. “If it wasn’t your last boyfriend, Tyler, the hot-shot lawyer, and it wasn’t Brandon, the guy you traveled the world . . .”

  “Brendan,” Riley corrected again.

  “And it wasn’t your college sweetheart, then who were you talking about in that interview? Those are the only three real boyfriends you ever told me about. Unless you left someone out . . .”

  Riley shook her head. “I didn’t.” She picked up her cinnamon stir stick to swirl her mulled wine around. “There isn’t anyone else. At least not anyone I was really invested in.”

  Alex, looking perplexed, leaned back and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Then who is this mystery guy?”

  “That’s just it,” Riley said. “There’s no mystery guy. What I should have said was that I have had great loves in my life, plural, and that those loves have all inspired the stories in my romance novels. There isn’t one true love that got away.”

  “Well, that’s not what it sounded like,” Alex said.

  Riley picked up her drink. “I know.”

  She took a sip and was just putting down her Santa mug when a blast of cold air hit her full force, as someone came in the front door.

  Riley shivered, but not from the cold. Because standing in the doorway was Margo, her agent, and her expression was as icy as the weather.

  “Oh boy,” Riley said underneath her breath and then met Margo’s frosty stare. “You found me.”