Christmas on Main Street

by JoAnn Ross

  Never for a moment did she think that she’d be dressed as Mrs. Claus with crusty fake snow falling from her head. But then again, how would Clint react to her without the disguise? The last time he’d seen her, she had blond hair instead of her natural brown, had been ten—okay more like fifteen—pounds lighter . . . and oh dear Lord, fifteen years younger.

  Fifteen years! Perhaps she was better off disguised as Mrs. Claus after all.

  “When did you get into town?” Ava asked lightly, hoping that her breathless voice didn’t give away her sudden fit of nerves. She was actually surprised she hadn’t known. Gossip spread like wildfire in their small Southern town—and the return of a favorite son always had tongues wagging—but then again, she’d been busy working extended holiday hours in her shop.

  “A few days ago. I’ve been keeping to myself, hanging out with Dad.”

  “Oh, that’s . . . um, nice.” When she nodded a bit too hard, a few flakes fell from her head and fluttered in the breeze. Embarrassed, she quickly brushed them away and then patted at her hair. She busied herself scooping her candy into a neat little pile in her lap. Awkward silence followed.

  “The baseball stadium is something else. No wonder Noah Falcon is the grand marshal of the parade. I think it’s pretty cool that he moved back here.”

  Ava nodded, but then, unable to help herself, she looked up into his intense blue eyes. “Noah and Olivia will light the tree in town square too. The honor is well deserved.” She smiled, but then her lips had to go all rogue on her and quiver. Mortified, she quickly glanced away, wishing that the bench seat had more room between them. Dear Lord. When she’d woken up this morning, everything had seemed so normal.

  “Do you go to any of the baseball games?”

  “Whenever I get the chance. Summer at my shop isn’t as busy as this time of year.” Ava looked away, suddenly overcome with emotion. Clint was one of the reasons she’d always loved baseball. They’d bonded first over their love of the game—something a high school jock from town and a feisty little farm girl could share. The memory brought a lump into her throat.

  “Still ride the umpires, Ava?” Clint’s grin was partially hidden by the beard, but there was a sudden twinkle in his eyes.

  “When they don’t know the strike zone,” Ava swiftly replied, drawing a chuckle from Clint. She gave him a small smile. Her emotions were tipping back and forth between the pure joy of seeing him and the pain of his departure, making her feel a bit off balance. Looking away again, she played with a plastic candy cane wrapper and really wished the parade would get under way so she could wave and throw treats instead of having to make small talk with the boy who broke her young heart.

  “It really is great to be back in Cricket Creek.” His voice sounded like the Clint she knew but with a deeper timbre . . . a husky quality that stirred her blood. The boy she knew was now a man.

  “You could have warned me.” Ava didn’t really mean to say those words out loud but was suddenly glad that they’d tumbled out of her mouth. It was unfair to be put in this awkward position.

  “Would you have backed out?”

  “Of course not,” Ava sputtered. Clint looked at her as if he wasn’t buying what she was selling, and in truth, Ava wasn’t sure what she would have done. “But a heads-up would have been, well, fair warning.” A candy cane crunched in her clenched fist, and she looked down at it in surprise.

  “I’m really sorry,” Clint offered quietly.

  Ava looked at him, and his eyes suddenly appeared serious, making her wonder if he meant much more than showing up unannounced. Something fluttered in her stomach.

  “Look, Ava—”

  “Don’t,” Ava interrupted softly but firmly. She wasn’t quite sure where Clint was going with this, but she knew sitting on a Christmas float dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus wasn’t the time or place to discuss their past. In fact, annoyance that Clint would dare to show up out of nowhere and apologize tipped the scales against her enjoyment of the parade. She decided she’d rather just leave and let Santa and his reindeer fly solo. But as soon as she stood up, the float lurched forward. To Ava’s horror, she tilted sideways and landed with a plop on Santa’s lap.

  “Whoa there.” Clint’s hands grabbed her around the waist, and she heard him chuckle. Ava wanted to remain aloof, but a delicious warmth spread through her at his touch. “Well, now, what would you like for Christmas, Mrs. Claus?”

  “Let me up,” Ava’s brain demanded sternly, but her voice refused to cooperate. As if on cue, the band started playing “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

  Clint chuckled again, and the deep, rich sound of his laughter rumbled in her ear, sending a hot shiver of awareness sliding down her spine. For a split second, Ava was brought back to a place and time when they shared playful moments like this. “Have you been a good girl?”

  “Clint!”

  “Santa,” he corrected. “Or Kriss Kringle, if you prefer. Father Christmas is too formal.”

  Ava nearly giggled, but his big hands spanning her waist and the warmth of his peppermint-scented breath on her cheek made thoughts go through her head that would certainly put her at the top of the naughty list, and it brought her back to reality. “Really, people are looking,” she pleaded, even though they were bringing up the rear so it wasn’t really true.

  “Sorry,” Clint said, although the remaining laughter in his voice indicated otherwise. Thankfully, he released her, and she scrambled back to her side of the sleigh, putting a much-needed couple of feet between them.

  Ava stole a look in his direction and then leaned down to scoop up the scattered candy canes. After they pulled out of the parking lot, she started tossing the treats to people lined along the road watching the parade. The route took them past the banks of the Ohio River. Even though the trees were bare, Ava appreciated the stark beauty that winter brought to the countryside. The addition of park benches and streetlamps along a paved sidewalk lured people outdoors for morning jogs and evening strolls even during the colder weather, an activity Ava enjoyed but hadn’t had time for lately.

  “Wow. I haven’t been back since most of the new development. Dad was telling the truth. Things have changed,” Clint commented as they passed a relatively new row of shops built to resemble the quaint buildings on Main Street in Cricket Creek. Bright red bows and pine wreaths added a festive touch.

  “For the better,” Ava answered with a touch of pride. “Cricket Creek has been through some tough times, but when Noah Falcon built the baseball complex, we all banded together and brought this town back to life. It took some doing, but hard work goes a long way. I wasn’t about to lose my store without putting up a fight. I’m happy to say that I made it through the recession. Next summer, I’ll celebrate my tenth year of being in business.”

  Clint shot her a grin. “Ah, so you’re still a little spitfire, huh?”

  “When it comes to things I care about.” She gave him a slight shrug but then grinned back at him. “You know me. I’m pretty quiet until you get me riled up about something I believe in.”

  “I’m glad to know you haven’t changed.” Clint’s grin remained, and Ava had the urge to yank the beard down so she could get a good look at his face.

  “I guess being the youngest with three older brothers played a factor,” Ava answered lightly. In fact, she’d never been self-conscious of her tomboy ways. Ava enjoyed the outdoors and never really wanted to be a girly-girl. The closest she came was lightening her hair for a while, and to this day her brothers would call her Blondie just to get her goat. When Clint, who was big man on campus in high school, had asked Ava out, she’d had to look over her shoulder, thinking that surely there had been some cheerleader standing behind her in the hallway. “I had to learn to hold my own.” She shrugged. “I guess some things really haven’t changed.”

  “Yeah, some things sure don’t,” he agreed, giving her a look she wished she could read. How could Clint be so unaffected and playful? Didn’t he remember th
e painful way they’d parted? It had hurt her to the bone that even after Clint had failed to make it to the major leagues, he’d never seemed to look back at his past in Cricket Creek, at her. Why hadn’t he returned to Cricket Creek, his friends and family?

  And come home to me, slid unwanted into Ava’s brain.

  Rattled, Ava turned back to tossing candy, but she remained acutely aware of Clint sitting next to her. Although Ava would never have admitted it out loud, for a long time she’d secretly hoped Clint would come back home to rekindle their relationship. But after a while she’d given up on that fantasy and concentrated on her toy store. As her pain faded, she often smiled at fond memories, sometimes prompted by a song on the radio, a favorite movie they’d laughed at, or simply watching a baseball game. As the years passed, she would think about Clint now and then with a twinge of sadness, sometimes wondering what might have been but mostly because the beauty of their young love had ended with such bitterness.

  Ava swallowed a sigh. Evidently, even dressed up in that Santa suit, the man could still get to her. And for some reason that she couldn’t quite explain, it darn well ticked her off! She had given Clint the power to hurt her once, and she wasn’t about to give it to him again. With a quick intake of breath, she tossed a handful of candy canes so hard that a group of onlookers actually ducked.

  “Underhanded, Mrs. Claus.” Clint reached down and grabbed a handful of candy from the basket and demonstrated. “Ho, ho ho!” he called, drawing a cheer from the crowd. Ava narrowed her eyes at him over the top of her granny glasses and then made a grand gesture of throwing the candy ever so gently. Clint laughed, and the twinkle in his eyes nearly had her smiling back at him. But she pressed her lips together instead.

  Normally an even-keeled kind of person, Ava was mortified that she was behaving peevishly and yet she just couldn’t help herself. “Merry Christmas!” Ava waved at the crowd and started humming along with the band’s lively rendition of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” But her smile faded when they turned down Maple Street and Cricket Creek High School loomed in the background like a giant memory. A new addition had been added since Ava and Clint attended classes, but the original redbrick building remained in front, along with the row of oak trees that had been there as long as she could remember.

  She found her gaze drifting to the baseball field where she had watched Clint play countless games. They’d shared their first kiss beneath the stands one night after Clint had knocked in the winning run to clinch the district tournament. Tender, sweet, and full of promise, the kiss haunted her still.

  When emotion filled her throat, Ava bent down to get some candy canes. Out of the corner of her eye, Ava caught Clint staring at the stands and she wondered if he was remembering that first kiss too. Flustered, she tried to act as if the memories didn’t bother her. After waving to the crowd, she removed the plastic wrapper from a candy cane, cracked off a bite, and rolled the piece of peppermint around with her tongue. When the silence became uncomfortable, she asked, “How’s your mom doing?”

  Clint hesitated slightly and then answered, “She’s enjoying living in Nashville.”

  “Is she singing?”

  “A little bit at the Bluebird Café, but mostly songwriting.”

  “That’s good. I remember that she enjoyed her music.” Ava nodded, but when he didn’t elaborate, she didn’t probe. Clint had taken his parents’ divorce really hard. “So, um, how long are you in town for?”

  Clint hesitated for a second and then said, “Haven’t you heard?”

  “No.” Ava shook her head. She casually raised her eyebrows, but her heart pounded like she had just had a double shot from Starbucks. “Heard what?”

  “I’m moving back to Cricket Creek.”

  2

  Sleigh Ride

  Clint watched Ava’s mouth open, shut, open, and then shut again. He couldn’t blame her. First he showed up without warning, and now he dropped this little bombshell in her lap.

  “That’s . . . good. I mean, I’m sure your dad is happy,” Ava finally responded, but her tight smile and stormy eyes told another story. “And your mom lives only a couple of hours away.”

  “Yeah, all of that warm weather and sunshine was just too much to handle any longer,” Clint joked, but if Ava got it, she didn’t laugh.

  “I bet.” She popped the rest of the mini candy cane into her mouth and then looked away. Clint had an odd urge to reach over, take her hand, and squeeze it, but he refrained. In truth, he’d come back to Cricket Creek to check up on his father, who’d started having heart issues but had stubbornly refused to go to a specialist. Afraid that his dad might suffer a heart attack if he didn’t change his lifestyle, Clint had decided to come back to help out at the tavern for an extended period.

  He’d also contacted Noah Falcon, offering to help coach the Cricket Creek Cougars, but it wasn’t until the float turned up Maple Street that Clint started feeling as if he should consider moving back for reasons other than his father’s health. Plus, after several years of trying to make the major leagues, including a few seasons playing in the Dutch League in Europe, he’d returned to USC to coach instead. As it turned out, he enjoyed working with players. He’d hoped to someday land the head coaching job at USC, but it didn’t appear as if Jake Barnet had any intention of stepping down anytime soon. Everything seemed to be pointing in the direction of Clint coming home. The clincher, though, came when the bleachers came into view and he heard Ava’s soft intake of breath. Clint understood. He remembered that kiss as if it were yesterday.

  But it wasn’t yesterday, he reminded himself. That first kiss had occurred nearly seventeen years ago, and for two years Ava Whimsy had been his girl. But soon after graduation day, everything changed.

  Of course, at the tender age of eighteen, Clint had thought that everything would work out. Surely his parents would come to their senses and reunite. He would get drafted into the minor leagues and return home after becoming a baseball superstar like everyone had predicted. But Clint soon found out that life wasn’t that easy. He’d been a big fish in a small pond in Cricket Creek, and he wasn’t quite prepared for the intense competition in a Division I school and major-league baseball. Until then, Clint had sailed through life effortlessly, unprepared for the frustration of failure. As Clint continued to try making the majors, one year blended into the next, and now here he was wondering why he’d stayed away so damned long.

  Clint sighed. Of course, Ava couldn’t have heard that he was moving home because he hadn’t really fully decided. So why in the world had he just blurted out that he was moving back to Cricket Creek instead of just here for an extended visit? Clint snuck a glance in Ava’s direction. He guessed his unexpected announcement was to see her reaction, and he felt his chest tighten. Over the years, thoughts of Ava would hit him unexpectedly, and he’d sometimes wondered what might have been. He would never ask his father about her, fearing that the answer would be that Ava had married and had three kids or something. But she hadn’t. And now here he was sitting next to her, wondering if he might have a second chance.

  “Ho, ho, ho!” Clint shouted before sneaking another look in Ava’s direction. She remained turned toward her side of the street, waving and shouting holiday greetings. They’d both known that he had to take the scholarship, but what Ava didn’t know was that to this day, leaving her remained the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. But on their last night together, emotions had been running high. Looking back, he realized that the anger, the arguing, had been the defense mechanism they both used for masking the pain of separation. Living across the country from each other simply wasn’t going to work and the truth hurt. They’d had to break up. But that didn’t mean he liked leaving her.

  “Happy holidays!” Ava shouted before tossing a handful of candy in the air.

  Clint closed his eyes. He had missed the sound of her voice, the touch of her skin. He’d lie awake at night in his dorm envisioning her pretty face, her sweet smile. Ava
could make him laugh even after a lost game, and she had been his soft place to land while his parents struggled to keep their marriage together beneath the stress of a failing business. And Ava wasn’t prissy like so many of the other girls in his class. They’d gone fishing and four-wheeling, but the best part was that she didn’t just watch his baseball games. . . . She knew baseball—and basketball and football, for that matter. He’d never found anyone else like Ava Whimsy and had never really stopped missing her. He just didn’t know how much until now. Clint had dated over the years. He’d even had a couple of serious relationships, but they’d never lasted. Were they both still unattached because even after all these years they were meant to be together?

  Ava suddenly turned toward him. “Why move back now?” she asked so softly that Clint barely heard her over the music and revelry. Were her thoughts going in the same direction as his?

  “Dad’s having some health issues,” Clint replied. He watched her dark brown eyes widen.

  “Oh, I didn’t know! Why didn’t he tell me? Is it something serious?” She put a hand to her chest and waited for his explanation.

  “No.” Clint shook his head. “At least not at this point. But Dad needs to get a handle on his heart health, slow down, and lose weight. All of that bar food and beer has taken its toll.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Clint chuckled and then tugged on the beard that was starting to itch his face. “I’m even trying to convince him to switch up the menu and offer some healthier choices other than wings, fries, and burgers. He balked at the idea, but I’m going to cook for him and show him that healthy food can be tasty too.”