Kiss Me Under the Mistletoe: A Small Town Holiday Novella Collection

by Christine Kingsley

  “Anyway, why don’t we get out of the coat closet and you can tell me why you’re crying so hard you’re hiccuping, under the mistletoe? I’m pretty sure that’s against the rules of the Christmas mistletoe.”

  Bonnie smiled ruefully at Jennifer’s joke. “You make fun of the Christmas mistletoe, but I believe in its powers!” she said sarcastically with a small laugh.

  Jenn grinned at her. “See? Life is better already.” They settled onto the couch, Jennifer pulling Bonnie’s head down onto her lap and stroking her hair out of her face. Her lap was smaller than it used to be, now that the baby bump was taking up more space, but Bonnie didn’t mind. It was such a joy to see her closest friend become a mother, and she knew she’d be a damn good one.

  Slowly, haltingly, she told Jennifer the thoughts she’d just been wrestling with.

  “And the dumbest part of all is, he hasn’t even asked for anything more. I may be jumping the gun here. He flat-out told me that marriage wasn’t for him, so long-term relationships probably aren’t either. I’m being an idiot, but I don’t seem to be able to help myself. I like him, Jenn.”

  She sat up and swung her legs underneath her, staring Jennifer straight in the eye.

  “Dammit, a lot more than I really should, considering we just met. But I feel a spark around him that I’ve never felt for any guy, not even The Ass, Ryan Petersen. There’s something there and I want to pursue it and see if it works out and instead, we have to just cut it short. We have to let it go, because a long-distance relationship, especially with a guy who lives in a world like this?” She gestured to the snow falling, ever falling, outside the living room window. “We can’t just commute back and forth or whatever. After this weekend ends, that’s it. We’re done. It’s finished before it’s even really started.”

  Jennifer nodded thoughtfully, her concern written all over her face. “No, you’re right. I don’t know what to suggest to you, because just from this summer until now, it’s been a really big adjustment for me to move to Long Valley from Boise. I miss you, of course, but I also miss being close to stores and movie theaters and plays and bars and…yeah, it’s just a totally different world up here. In some ways, you’re better suited for it — at least you’ve always loved snow and mountains and pine trees. For me, Stetson has been the only way that I’ve been able to cope with this change. Well, Stetson and Carma and some other friends I’ve met here. Some of the friendliest people in the world live up here.

  “But I’d be lying my ass off to you if I said that it’s only been roses and unicorns and sunshine since I moved up here. Why do you think I was so quick to invite you to come spend Christmas up here? I was so excited at that idea, you have no idea.” They grinned at each other and Jennifer pulled her in for another hug.

  “I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully as they pulled apart. “I’ll keep thinking about it and see if I can come up with any brilliant plans — any way to make this work for you two. Or at least let you two have a shot at a relationship.”

  Just then, the back door opened and Stetson and Luke, chatting, came into the kitchen. Jennifer craned her head around and looked through the open doorway at the two men. “Speaking of,” she said softly under her breath. “There’s our men now.”

  Bonnie’s heart contracted at her phrasing, “our men.” Was Luke hers? He looked through to the living room and, spotting her on the couch, grinned widely and winked.

  It sure seemed like he wanted it.

  But how?

  She smiled back, determined to hide her worries, at least for the moment. She could learn to live in the moment and not always try to plan ahead, right? And what better time to learn that trick than right now.

  With a determined smile, she stood up from the couch and headed to the kitchen. It was time to live for right here, right now, and let the future take care of itself.

  Chapter 14

  ~Luke~

  The next few days passed in a blur of laughter and pies and snowball fights and more kisses under the mistletoe. In fact, Luke found himself spending more time in the coat alcove by the front door than he’d ever expected to, but considering how much fun he had in it, it was time well spent in his estimation.

  The snow storm — promptly called The Storm of the Century by all of the local news channels — finally abated, after covering all of Long Valley and most of central Idaho and western Oregon with anything from a few inches to a few feet of snow, depending on elevation. Luke knew that for some people, the snow had been a huge inconvenience and that it would take a good week for the county employees to dig everyone out, but he couldn’t help thanking God for the snowstorm every day.

  It gave him Bonnie just a little longer. Even her boss from hell had realized that it would be next to impossible to require all of the employees to make it to work — even in Boise, some of the streets were still closed to thru traffic as the street crews worked to clear them all — so he’d reluctantly given everyone the day off until December 29th.

  Which just happened to be the day after tomorrow.

  A thought Luke was studiously avoiding.

  He also made sure to check in with Ol’ Willie occasionally, once the phone lines came back up, but as Ol’ Willie crankily told him at one point, “You can damn well show back up in March. Until then, don’t you worry ‘bout it.”

  As strange as it was to wrap his mind around it, Luke knew Ol’ Willie was right. They’d always struggled to find things to do with themselves in the winter, and although it was true he did always manage, it was also true that maybe he didn’t need to.

  Maybe he could take vacations, and the world would still keep spinning.

  And maybe, he could take them with this beautiful woman. He grinned down at Bonnie, who had her pink tongue sticking out between her teeth, concentrating wholeheartedly on the gingerbread man she was decorating. He’d never seen anyone take gingerbread men so seriously. Carmelita baked up a dozen for them to decorate, but mostly, this had consisted of Stetson and Luke eating their gingerbread men while Jennifer and Bonnie were busy pouring their very creative souls into making gingerbread men that’d fit right in to the window of a bakery.

  Except…Luke had eaten all of his cookies and was now eyeballing the one Bonnie had already decorated. It looked so damn good, and surely no one would notice a missing foot…or head…

  “Don’t even think about it,” she said, without looking up.

  “What?” he said, injecting as much innocence as he could into his voice, trying to cover up his surprise.

  He looked up at Stetson, who just shrugged. “Jennifer can do it too. It’s scary.”

  “We women have radars when it comes to people trying to steal our hard work,” Jennifer said without missing a beat. She was busy adding a frosting bowtie to her gingerbread man. “Our children are going to be so screwed…”

  “Speaking of children,” Bonnie said, “shouldn’t you be able to tell if it’s a girl or a boy by now?”

  “Oh, I already know,” Jennifer said breezily. “But Stetson wants to have a family party and tell everyone at once, including himself, so we were thinking we’d have a gender reveal party in January. Are you going to come for it?”

  Luke’s heart restricted painfully when Bonnie looked up at him for just a moment, her question clear on her face — are we going to be together then? Am I going to be up here for it? — before she turned and forced a smile at Stetson. “So are you saying that your wife knows and you don’t, and you aren’t going crazy over that yet?”

  “Nah. I’ll be happy either way. As long as it looks like Jennifer and has ten fingers and ten toes, I’ll be happy.”

  “And if it doesn’t look like Jennifer?” she asked.

  “Then I feel sorry ‘em already!” Stetson bust up laughing, as did everyone else.

  Carmelita, God bless her soul, brought in another cinnamon roll each for him and Stetson, saving Luke from getting his fingers whacked for trying to sneak another piece of gingerbread man fro
m Bonnie.

  He dug into his cinnamon roll with a lusty sigh. He was seriously going to have to think about hiring a housekeeper out at his place. After a week of Carmelita’s cooking, he just couldn’t fathom going back to Ol’ Willie’s burnt stew.

  “Carma, do you have a sister?” he called out after he put a bite of heaven into his mouth. He closed his eyes, savoring every morsel.

  “I have one sister, and three brothers. Why do you ask?” His eyes popped open to see her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea towel.

  “Just trying to imagine Life After Carmelita, and right now, I’m not sure I’m gonna live. I should eat an extra cinnamon roll so I can fatten up, just in case.”

  Blushing, Carmelita walked back into the kitchen, muttering, “Flattery gets you nowhere,” under her breath as she went.

  But he noticed it was only a couple of minutes before another huge cinnamon roll appeared at his elbow, along with a refill of his coffee cup.

  Apparently, the way to Carmelita’s coffee was flattery and a clean mouth. After his screw-up that first day at the dining room table, he’d made sure to watch his mouth real closely around her. He noticed she’d already trained Stetson. He knew which side of his bread was buttered.

  Or where the bread came from…

  It was the next morning before Luke forced himself to face reality again. Today was the last day. Bonnie really was leaving. She had to go back to work the next morning, and wanted to give herself plenty of time to make the drive back.

  Stetson had managed to clear out his driveway, the county road crew had managed to clear out the highway, and Boise had pretty much cleared out its streets. It should be easy driving. She should be good to go.

  Looking at her, the pain lanced through his heart. It may be an easy drive for her, but that didn’t make it easy on the heart. Suddenly, he began wishing for sheets of snow to come down from the sky, blanketing the world as far as the eye could see again, but the sky was that brilliant blue that only seemed to show up during the wintertime, when the air was clean and crisp and cold and the world around him sparkled with the brilliance of winter.

  Dammit, now Bonnie had him thinking about sparkling winters. She had turned him poetical and shit. Didn’t she realize how much she’d changed him in the last six days? Didn’t she know he didn’t want to be without her?

  Everyone else had disappeared with murmurs of, “Better get back to it,” so obviously wanting to give them a chance to say goodbye alone. Instead of laughing at their obviousness, Luke appreciated it. Because it was going to be hard enough to say goodbye, without having an audience to do it in front of.

  She smiled up at him ruefully. “It seems like everyone else has left us,” she said. “Our friends are short on subtlety.”

  “Yeah, it’s one of the things I like best about them,” he said with a forced joviality that sounded as wooden to his ear as it felt to his heart.

  He reached out and pushed a lock of her gorgeous mahogany hair behind her ear. “I learned a new word this week,” he said.

  Startled at the abrupt change in conversation, she said, “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Mahogany. Your hair is mahogany. Such a better word than ‘brown’ or ‘red’.”

  The joyous laughter spilled out of her. “I…” She drew a deep breath and tried it again when she could stop laughing. “I am very proud of you,” she said, mock-seriously. “Such a big word for a cowboy.”

  “Farmer,” he corrected her.

  “What?”

  “I’m a farmer. The only animals I have are horses. I’m no cowboy.”

  She looked him up and down, assessing his Wranglers and cowboy hat and green plaid shirt. “Uh-huh,” she said drily. “You call it what you want. I’ll just call you my cowboy.”

  My cowboy. Luke was instantly just fine with being called a cowboy.

  She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips gently. “Thanks for a magical Christmas, cowboy,” she whispered against his lips, and then before he could stop her or think of how to stop her or pull her into his arms and never let her go, she slipped into her car and drove away, red taillights disappearing into the twilight.

  The second time a woman in his life just drove away.

  And damn, did that hurt. In a way he didn’t even know pain could hurt — in his whole body. Everywhere. Even his damn pinky toes were heartbroken that she’d driven away and left him alone.

  Again.

  At his feet, Sticks whined pathetically.

  “I know just what you mean, buddy. I know just what you mean.”

  Chapter 15

  ~Luke~

  “Jennifer, I can’t stand it anymore. I need you to tell me how to sell my farm.”

  “What?!” She stared at him, wide-eyed with surprise.

  “I miss her too much,” he said, striding around Stetson’s living room, waving his hands as he went. Past the fireplace that had kept them warm. Past the couch where they’d snuggled late at night. “These weekends together, and then not seeing each other again for days, or even weeks at a time…I can’t live without her anymore, Jenn, I just can’t. I used to think that marriage wasn’t for me, but I used to be an idiot. I’m gonna sell my farm and move to Boise and…well, I’ll work at C-A-L Ranch or something. Something!” He slumped onto the couch, and just stared at Jennifer, pain vibrating off him in thick waves. Retail wouldn’t kill him, right?

  Oh God, he didn’t want to sell his farm. He loved it with all of his heart and soul. He’d given up so much for that farm — worked so hard through the spring and into the fall to make it a success. But…

  He couldn’t live without Bonnie. Coming together, being torn back apart again, over and over…

  Yeah, Skype was wonderful, and sure, they had it easier than people living on the other side of the planet from each other.

  But he wanted to wake up in the morning to find her by his side.

  He wanted to come home at night and have the lights on in the house. Have someone there to greet him, someone to care about him.

  He wanted to lean over and kiss her whenever he damn well pleased.

  He most especially wanted her. However, whenever, wherever he could. He was sure that if he had to say goodbye to Bonnie one more time, his heart was going to be torn to shreds.

  And if that meant giving up his farm, so be it. Jennifer had been in real estate and banking for a long time. She’d know what to do, how much he could ask for, who to list it with.

  This whole thing was her damn fault for introducing them, so she could surely help him figure out a way to make it happen.

  With the snow melting and spring planting about to begin, it was a tough time to sell a farm — he’d plant what he always did and just hope that a buyer wanted to buy acres of wheat. But he didn’t know how long it would take to sell his farm, so he didn’t dare let it sit fallow and then not have a crop to harvest this fall, if the farm was still hanging on like a noose around his neck. His yearly payment on the bank loan came due every fall after harvest, and if he was still stuck with it at that point, if he didn’t have a harvest to pull from, he wouldn’t be able to make the payment.

  No, he wouldn’t let himself think that. He had to get rid of it, mo matter how much that hurt, or what kind of hit he took on the price.

  “Wow. I knew it was hard for you two to be apart, but I never considered you selling your farm.” Jennifer said the words softly and he knew that she knew just what he was suggesting here.

  Knew what a huge sacrifice this was.

  But Bonnie was worth it. Bonnie was worth anything.

  “I don’t want to. I offered to pay off Bonnie’s student loans and then she could move to Long Valley, but she’s right — it’s more than just her student loans. She needs money for her car payment and insurance and cell phone and food,” his lips quirked slightly at that, “and so she insists on having, you know, a real job.

  “So if I can’t get her here, I’ll move there.
Surely C-A-L Ranch would love to hire someone like me, even if I’ve never worked a cash register in my life. I know more than those high school kids anyway.”

  “I’ve been working on a plan, Luke, tell me what you think…”

  Chapter 16

  ~Bonnie~

  Jennifer slid the key into the lock for the business and swung the door wide. “C’mon on in,” she said, gesturing with her hand to the office space in front of her, her stomach leading the way into the office. Jenn had somehow made swallowing a basketball look amazing. “It’s a little brisk in here, but I haven’t had the heat turned over into my name yet, so I can’t turn it on. You’ll just have to imagine it being warmer in here.”

  Bonnie smiled at her, forcing happiness into it, walking into the office. It was the end of another all-t0o-short weekend in Long Valley, and honestly, Bonnie was having a hard time concentrating on what Jennifer was saying. She just couldn’t get her mind to look past the fact that she was about to say goodbye to Luke.

  Again.

  For the millionth time, she was going to drive away and cry as she went, which she was pretty sure was illegal, considering it was hard to see the road with tears in her eyes, but waiting for the tears to abate…

  Well, she just didn’t have years to sit in a parking lot and wait for that to happen.

  Speaking of, where was Luke? She tried to listen to Jennifer’s excited plans for her new accounting office in downtown Sawyer, but quite frankly, her heart just wasn’t in it. Luke had said he’d be right behind them, but it’d been at least 20 minutes.

  She surreptitiously checked her watch.

  Okay, 16 minutes.