An Everlasting Christmas
Mandy M Roth
An Everlasting Christmas: A Happily Everlasting Series Novella (A Cozy Paranormal Mystery)
© Copyright Oct 2018, Mandy M. Roth
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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All books copyrighted to the author and may not be resold or given away without written permission from the author, Mandy M. Roth.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any and all characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or events or places is merely coincidence. Novel intended for adults only. Must be 18 years or older to read.
Published by Raven Happy Hour, LLC
www.ravenhappyhour.com
Raven Books and all affiliate sites and projects are © Copyrighted 2018
Contents
The Happily Everlasting Series
About An Everlasting Christmas
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Don’t Stop Bewitching Blurb
About the Author
The Happily Everlasting Series
Cozy Paranormal Mystery Romance Novels
Dead Man Talking
by Jana DeLeon
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Once Hunted, Twice Shy
by Mandy M. Roth
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Fooled Around and Spelled in Love
by Michelle M. Pillow
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Witchful Thinking
by Kristen Painter
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Total Eclipse of the Hunt
by Mandy M. Roth
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Curses and Cupcakes
by Michelle M. Pillow
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An Everlasting Christmas
by Mandy M. Roth
Visit Everlasting
About An Everlasting Christmas
An Everlasting Christmas
A Happily Everlasting Series Novella (A Cozy Paranormal Mystery)
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Welcome to Everlasting, Maine, where there's no such thing as normal.
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Wil Messing may own a thriving antique shop in the tiny seaside town of Everlasting, Maine, but the man and the shop are far more than they appear to be. Born into a long line of supernatural hunters, this alpha male has had to make tough decisions all of his life. But the toughest one of all was walking away from the woman who stole his heart long ago. But he had no choice. It was for her own safety.
He wants more from her than mere friendship but knows he has no right to ask—not with their past. But when a secret admirer begins leaving Jolene gifts, it doesn’t take a great detective to tell Wil it’s now or never.
Jolene Bails may come off as a tough-as-nails, no-nonsense kind of woman, but underneath it all, she has a softer side. Now that she has a Secret Santa, who seems to know her well, she finds herself opening to the idea of wanting more from life. But first, she has to figure out who is leaving her mysterious gifts and why it is Wil, her old flame, is acting so strange.
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*Books in the Happily Everlasting series can be read in ANY order!
Dedication
In loving memory of Grandma B. Your sayings inspired so many of Petey’s lines in my Everlasting and Bewitching books. Thank you for always being there and for leaving a lasting impression. Most of all, thank you for teaching me it’s okay to be a strong woman.
To my amazing editors, you make sense of my ramblings and polish the story until it sparkles. To my proofers, who go in at the last minute to be sure I didn’t do any last-minute mess ups before the book heads off to formatting. To my cover artist, who worked her backside off putting together all the elements I handed her. And to my readers for falling in love with my characters from the series as much as I have. Thank you so much!
Chapter One
Jolene Bails shut the hood of the ’65 Ford Mustang GT and stepped back, wiping her hand over her brow as she did. The restoration was a labor of love that she’d been working on for years as time allowed. There were no replicated parts on her baby. No sir. It was all original. She just needed to track down a few more parts and the Mustang would be as good as new.
Jolene had hoped to have it all done by now, not that a Mustang was what you wanted on an icy road, a week before Christmas in Maine, but between the hard-to-find original parts and the weather, the odds were not in her favor. Thankfully, her home garage was heated and fairly well insulated, or she wouldn’t have been able to get any more work in until spring at the earliest. Even that would be touch and go in Maine. They could be buried in snow or have flowers blooming. They were at the mercy of Mother Nature, and no two springs were the same.
Right now, it was cold outside and that didn’t do her joints any favors. Everlasting had already been blanketed in several feet of snow a few days prior. Another foot was called for overnight as the nor’easter blew through. The nor’easter would cause the temperature to drop even more.
Wonderful.
Every time the temperature dropped her ankle acted up, reminding her of memories best left in the past. The injury had happened when she was twenty (which seemed like a lifetime ago to her). She’d spent so long telling people that the incident had been an accident, some days she believed as much.
It was far from the truth of the matter.
A slight chill settled over her just thinking about having to walk out in the elements to get back to the main house. The detached garage sat at the back of her property, and that meant she’d have to brave the cold and snow in order to call it a night and head in.
She didn’t exactly relish the winter months. Unlike the wolf-shifters and many of the other shifters in the seaside town of Everlasting, her body didn’t run hotter than the average human’s. She also couldn’t shift forms on land and be any kind of threat, or even protect herself. In the ocean, she was on a different playing field. Others thought that as a were-dolphin, she’d be fodder. That she was good for nothing more than frolicking about in open water. That wasn’t the case. She could more than hold her own when need be.
In fact, she could be downright dangerous when called for.
Jolene shivered, despite the furnace and an additional heater running. She had on a pair of work overalls and beneath them, she wore fleece-lined leggings with a thick sweater. Her socks went to her knees and her boots had a winter lining in them. She was still chilly.
Barry, her plump black cat, was near the wall gas-heat unit, curled up on the floor on one of his many beds, sleeping soundly. He lived like a prince, with a comfy bed in practically every room of the house and one in the garage. He was a good old boy who liked to join her when she worked. As he supplied companionship during the solitary hours, she enjoyed his presence. He was a sounding board who didn’t talk back. Plus, he kept most field mice out of the area.
Once, she’d opened the Mustang’s hood to find a mouse nest on the engine block. The darn little mouse had chewed through a fair number of essential wires while there, as well. Jolene had not been pleased in the least. The mouse had been even less pleased when she’d shoed it away. She and Barry had a long talk that day about him sleeping on the job. She wasn’t sure the message had sunk in, especially with how content he looked on his bed at the moment.
Jolene went to the sink in the garage and started the water, knowing it would take a bit to heat. In the meantime, she pumped some soap into her hands and rubbed the orange-scented pumice around, working the grease and grime loose. Once the water was heated, she got down to the task of trying her be
st to get the grease off her hands and out from under her nails.
It was easier said than done.
There wasn’t a time in her life that she could remember when she wasn’t fighting to keep her nails free from grease and dirt associated with working on cars. Her father had built the service station she now owned and operated. It was located a few miles from her house.
Her father had made a name for himself in Everlasting by providing quality service for a fair price. He’d then handed the business down to her. When he’d passed away, she could have sold the service station and done something else with her life—even left Everlasting.
She hadn’t.
Though she’d considered it briefly. She’d never really traveled much and had always wanted to see more of the world. But Everlasting and the station were what she knew. Change frightened her, as it did most. And while she and her father had butted heads on certain things, he had been an important part of her life.
When she was very young, she’d thought the man could hang the moon.
Her opinion of him waned somewhat with age, making her realize he had faults like everyone else. The man had always done what he’d thought was best when it came to her. Even when his choices hurt her emotionally. She knew he’d always had her best interest at heart.
As the only child, Jolene knew her father had raised her as best he could, and since her mother had passed when she was young, she never had much in the way of female influences during her upbringing. She used to long to have someone to teach her to style her hair, put on makeup, and select clothing. Her father’s idea of a functional wardrobe consisted of varying pairs of overalls, pants, and oversized sweaters. That sense of fashion had been passed on to her—without her really wanting it—and despite her best efforts, she’d not really found her way from it all. And now she felt too old to bother. She was what she was, proverbial warts and all.
While she tended to wear mostly overalls and clothing that could withstand the work she did, Jolene had a love of pretty things. It was a side of herself few knew about. Most assumed she was what you saw on the surface, a tough-as-nails woman who was middle-aged. She did nothing to dissuade the façade.
The service station and the garage were memorial tributes to her late father, but the main house included her special touches. Things that made her happy. Feminine touches that she didn’t share with the rest of the world. It was her sanctuary. Where she went to get away from the world and relax.
“I should paint the walls pink in here,” she said, grinning as she glanced around the home garage. It would look ridiculous, and she knew as much. Besides, she didn’t much care for pink. Still, the thought made her chuckle.
Her hair fell forward, and she blew it, only managing to make it land in her face again. The front portions of her hair were now totally white, and the rest faded evenly into gray with only a small portion on the underside still holding a bit of brown, though that was fast changing. She used to keep her hair cut above her shoulders to make things easier at the shop, but she’d been letting it grow for nearly a year. It now hung past her shoulders. When she was working on cars, she kept it pulled back.
Her hair was currently in a pretty clip she’d been given as a gift. A small box had been sitting on the dash of her tow truck two days prior. It was wrapped in white paper with a red bow, and in it was the clip. No note had been attached.
She wasn’t sure who had given her the gift, but she liked it. She also liked the red shawl that had been left for her in a white gift bag, also bearing a red bow. No card had been on that, either. The gift had been left at the door of her service station yesterday morning.
Whoever was giving her mysterious presents seemed to know her well. She’d never had a Secret Santa before. She’d been on the giving end of gifts countless times, but very rarely on the receiving end. She felt slightly uncomfortable. She didn’t really pamper herself often, let alone someone else doing it for her. Though, she planned to change all that tonight.
Her plans for the rest of the night included a nice long soak in a bubble bath, a mug of peppermint tea, some gingerbread cookies, and a good book. She had a weakness for romance books. She could burn through six a week sometimes. There was a new book from one of her favorite authors that she’d been anxious to read. When she was done with it, it would be time for bed, and she could only hope no one needed a tow truck throughout the night.
The nor’easter meant the night would go one of two ways. It would be uneventful, or she’d get endless calls for tows. The snowbanks were serious business for her. So much so that Mother Nature should have started asking for a cut of Jolene’s profits.
She finished cleaning her hands and dried them on a towel, her attention going to Barry. “Ready to go home?”
He opened one eye and looked at her to be sure she was telling the truth. More than once she’d said they were done working, only to get the notion to tinker with one more thing on the Mustang. The cat was apparently used to her antics.
She unzipped her coveralls and slid them off with ease as she’d done countless times over the years. She hung them on a hook, next to several other pairs. When she headed toward the side door to the garage, Barry stood and stretched.
She slipped on her non-work boots, carefully, her ankle still tender, and then waited as Barry came to stand near her feet. They were a pair, that was for sure.
Jolene shut off the lights and turned off the extra heat source. The furnace would do to keep the chill out of the garage throughout the night. It would also keep the pipes from freezing.
Stepping out into the cool evening air, she shivered and locked the garage door behind her. Snow blew into her face, feeling a lot like small shards of glass. She muttered her version of a curse under her breath. She bent to pick up Barry but he darted in the direction of the back porch—and Jolene glanced up to see someone sitting in one of the rocking chairs.
Who on earth would be foolish enough to brave the weather and sit on her back porch? It was late for anyone to be calling on her. And no one who ever needed a tow showed up at her house. They called her shop or her home. She wasn’t a big fan of cell phones. They didn’t work the best in Everlasting anyways. Her nephew, Sigmund, still insisted she keep one with her at all times.
His generation was a big fan of technology.
Narrowing her gaze, Jolene peered up at her back porch to get a better look at who might be there. She had to fight a smile when she saw Wilber “Wil” Messing with his head tipped back, his eyes closed. He held a to-go cup of coffee in one hand but looked to be sound asleep.
She knew better.
The man only seemed to get better looking with age. He wore a thick coal-gray sweater, with a white turtleneck under it, but no coat. He had on a pair of medium-gray jeans and black boots. Under the layers, she knew he was well-muscled, something he’d kept hidden from others for decades. She wasn’t sure why. Her guess was he wanted others to think he’d lost his edge as a supernatural hunter as he aged. That he was no longer a threat.
Hardly the truth by any stretch of the means.
Once a hunter, always a hunter.
There was a small black bag to the right of his feet. It had a bit of snow accumulated on it and she wondered just how long Wil had been on her back porch. It was far too cold for the man to be sitting there like he was, especially without a coat on.
She intended to give him a piece of her mind on the matter just as soon as she figured out what he was doing at her house. It wasn’t like him to stop by.
He might have appeared to be resting, but she knew he was acutely aware of everything that went on around him. Knew that the retired supernatural hunter was always mindful of his surroundings and simply did not get snuck up on. He’d been born with instincts that were often sharper than those of the supernaturals he policed, and he’d only managed to hone those instincts with age.
And he certainly had some years under his belt.
So did she.
He was far
older than her—nearly a hundred years older, if she was correct. That put him somewhere around two-hundred by her guess. Though, he’d never come right out as confessed as much to her. His granddaughter had slipped up recently, divulging what she thought his age was.
As he sat in the chair, she paused in her approach and stared at him, hiding her smile at the sight of him with a white beard. It was close cut, accenting his squared jawline. He’d been clean shaven for years but had decided in the last several months to change that. She had to admit, it only added to his lure, giving him a rugged edge. Anyone smart could sense the alpha male rolling off the man in thick waves. Everyone else was in for one heck of a surprise if they crossed him.
His unruly salt-and-pepper hair hung to his shoulders now that he’d been letting it grow once again. It was whiter around the temples than it had been, and she strongly suspected he’d be all white within a few years. Then again, it could be another hundred before he showed any more signs of aging.
Seeing him there with a beard and longer hair reminded her of when they were younger. He’d kept his hair even longer back then. At some point, he’d become a clean-cut grown-up.
So had she.
It was good to see Wil returning to his old ways.
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