Tidings of Love

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  I spun on the heels of my boots and raised my fist in the air. “Oh, my gosh!” I giggled.

  “I miss hearing you laugh,” he said.

  “I miss you.” It escaped my lips before I could take it back. I closed my eyes and held my breath.

  “Well, that’s originally why I had called.” His tone began to shift. He didn’t sound like my editor or my Thanksgiving host. “I’m glad you finally called me back.” He was pensive and his mood changed.

  “Joe, I never got the message. It was left with a seven-year-old.”

  “Understood. There’s still something I wanted to talk to you about,” he said.

  “Fine.” My body tightened, preparing for the blow. I got the job, but I won’t get the guy. I can’t have both.

  “I called a few days after you left because I thought that twenty-eight, well, now it’s three days, was just way too long a time.”

  Even though I had prepared myself, I still felt sucker-punched. The wind literally left my lungs. I murmured, “I understand.”

  “Well, that’s why Sam and I were talking about taking a road trip to Jackson Hole.”

  “What?” He wanted to see me.

  “We were trying to find a weekend when I wasn’t the on-call editor and Sam didn’t have a band performance, but … ” He hesitated. “There never was a weekend where we were both available.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. It’s a long drive for just a weekend.”

  “Janey.”

  I closed my eyes and imagined his lips as he spoke.

  “I want this to work,” he said. Suddenly, the subtle change in his voice made sense. He was as uncertain about my feelings as I was about his.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to call or email something more than an assignment,” I said.

  “It didn’t seem like that’s what you wanted. Your emails have been pretty flat and informative.”

  “Yeah, my BFF may have mentioned that. I just didn’t want to cross a line professionally—it was awkward.”

  “Do you know how many times I’ve reached for the phone?” he asked.

  “About as many times as I’ve checked mine to see if it was still working?”

  We both laughed.

  “So maybe you can update our records with your new cell phone number,” he said, sounding very much like my editor. And then his voice softened. “That’s boy code for ‘I’d like to be able to call you when I’m not at work.’”

  “Thanks for clearing that up for me.” I smiled.

  “No problem. I’ve been told I’m not always direct,” he said with a chuckle. “Did you get the box I sent?”

  I picked it up off the couch and held it. “It just arrived.”

  “Have you opened it?”

  “No. I was afraid maybe I had left something behind in Casper.”

  “You did.”

  “Really? What?” I asked.

  “Me.”

  Tears streamed down my face. “So what are you sending me?”

  “Your way back.”

  “Hey, Joe!” I heard a male voice in the background.

  “Oh, crap. Listen, we’ve got breaking news here today,” he said. “Open the box.”

  The call disconnected. I held the phone against my chest and looked up at the star on the Christmas tree. Thank you.

  “John? Jessica?” I called for my twins.

  They ran down the hallway and into the front room.

  “Can someone carefully get me the pair of scissors on the kitchen table?”

  Jessica ran into the kitchen. She returned and handed me her craft scissors, and I slid the dull blade across the side of the box. I gently pulled on the cardboard until the lid opened. A velvety red stocking with “Janey” written in cursive and outlined in silver glitter was tucked inside.

  “Oh, Mommy, that’s pretty,” Jessica said.

  “It is, and I think he made this for me.” I held up the stocking and the contents shifted toward the toe. I reached inside and pulled out three gift cards for gas, a movie, and pizza, a pack of gum, mints, candy canes, and a CD.

  “I bet it’s from your Secret Santa!” John said.

  “Like what we did,” Jessica said and then lowered her voice. “For the Clark family.”

  “It may be,” I told my son and daughter.

  A note was tucked inside.

  Janey, use this to fill up on gas and treat your kids to dinner and a movie. The CD is for a long road trip. Have any planned? Thinking of you—Joe.

  I grabbed the disk and looked for a playlist. Instead, the CD read in bold, black marker: “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.” My eyes brimmed with tears.

  “Oh, Mommy, your Secret Santa loves you,” John said.

  I swallowed, but it didn’t dislodge the lump in my throat.

  “What are you going to give him?” Jessica asked.

  I smelled my next batch of cookies burning.

  “Dessert.”

  Chapter 24

  Christmas Eve. The windowpanes in my master bedroom were frosted with snow. A candle slowly burned on my nightstand, releasing cinnamon into the air. I pulled the sleeve of my sweater over my hand and wiped the windowpane. Outside, the town of Jackson glowed from house lights and street lamps that seemed to say, “Merry Christmas.”

  My cell phone chimed with an incoming call. It was Kris. “How are you doing?”

  I shrugged. “I just dropped off the kids.” I swallowed. “I won’t be able to see them run down the stairs to see what Santa left.” I shook my head, but it didn’t prevent tears from collecting in the corners of my eyes. “I hate this.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Kris was always my North Star.

  “Get drunk on cooking vanilla?”

  I loved it when I could make Kris burst into laughter. “Janey! You will not get drunk on vanilla. Don’t you at least have brandy or something?”

  “I’d rather drink vanilla; brandy is just plain nasty.”

  “Seriously. Why don’t you come over and join me and Stephen and the girls? We’re going to break out the board games and have a rousing time of Parcheesi.”

  Now I broke into laughter. “As fun as that does sound, and let me tell you, I am the queen of the Parcheesi board, this is your first Christmas with your new husband. I’m not going to crash the party. And aren’t your girls going out caroling later with the high school youth group?”

  “Yes, but … ”

  “Yeah, I know as soon as you see the taillights of their car pull away, you and Stephen will be playing hide the mistletoe.”

  I knew my best friend was blushing as she giggled. “We have all night to be together,” she said. “It’s only five thirty.”

  A layer of dark blue hung on the horizon, casting a sapphire tint on the Grand Tetons that rose high into the sky. Their peaks were covered by clouds. “It seems later,” I said.

  “Nah, that’s just winter.”

  I glanced at my laptop. A red bleep moved across the map of the United States. “Santa’s in New York. He’s on his way toward us,” I said. “I think.”

  “You really have no sense of direction, do you?”

  “Nope. It’s amazing I made it to Casper.”

  There was a moment of silence between us.

  “You know what I’m thinking?” Kris said.

  “That if I leave now I’ll make it to Casper by midnight?”

  “You’ll be there at eleven thirty, with enough time to enjoy thirty minutes of Christmas Eve with Joe.”

  “He’s not expecting me until tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, I see how that would present a problem because men are such sticklers about etiquette.”

  “Oh, har har.”

  “Why are we still on the phone? Shouldn’t you be packing?”

  I giggled. “I may have packed three days ago after I got off the phone with him.”

  “Drive safe and text me when you get there.”

  “This isn’t stupid, right?” It was the same question I h
ad posed to her while I drove on Thanksgiving.

  “Janey, don’t overthink this. Let your heart be your guide. What does your heart say—not your head, your heart?”

  My chest rose and fell with emotion. “It’s telling me that I really like this guy.”

  “So go play Santa.”

  “Ho, ho, ho.” I blew out the candle on my nightstand while Kris laughed in my ear.

  “And tell me all about it,” she said.

  “Merry Christmas!” I ended our call, walked to my closet, grabbed my overnight bag, and headed for my car.

  Chapter 25

  The CD that Joe burned for me filled my bug with every imaginable Christmas song, from Charlie Brown and the gang sweetly singing “Christmas Time is Here,” which reminded me of my twins, to the singing duo of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward belting out “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree,” which made me bounce in my seat.

  I pulled into Casper’s city limits as the last track played. Bing Crosby’s silky voice brought back memories of Thanksgiving on the mountain.

  “Christmas Eve will find me, where the love light gleams.”

  The Outterland exit beckoned me toward its highway turnoff. I flipped on my turn signal and followed the road as it dipped and rose, taking me to a plateau where I could see Casper Mountain in the distance. The fire had long been contained. Now, cleanup efforts to clear debris and harvest trees were in full swing.

  I drove to Joe’s house and parked on the street just outside his front window. My cell phone was on the passenger seat beside a tray of flat gingerbread men my children had heavily frosted. Red, green, and yellow iced gingerbread men smiled at me. Not a nut in the batch. I scrolled my contacts for Joe’s number.

  I hit “call” and nervously tapped my boot against the floor mat.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” It always sounded like Joe was smiling when he spoke.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting ready to go to midnight service.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, Sam’s with his mom. And I was just thinking, imagining really, what it’d be like to go with you,” he said. “Maybe next year? Then you’ll be in town.”

  “What about this year?” My voice was barely above a whisper. “What about this Christmas Eve?”

  “Oh, that would have been great. We could have gone to this all-night truck stop afterward and had breakfast,” he said.

  I got out of my car and stood on the sidewalk. The shades in his front room were open and his little mountain Christmas tree had a single strand of lights wrapped around it.

  “Your Christmas tree looks amazing. It’s so much bigger,” I said.

  “Yeah, Sam and I found some mini lights.” Joe stopped talking. He appeared in his front window and peered out. He didn’t have a poker face either. “You’re here,” he said.

  “I used your present.” My eyes began to brim. “Is it okay that I’m early?”

  He disappeared from view and tears rolled down my cheeks. His front door opened and he rushed toward me. I practically dropped my phone. Joe caught it and pulled me toward him.

  “You made it home for Christmas,” he said. His blue eyes were majestic and held me as tightly as his embrace. “It’s not just a dream.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “No dream. I’m real.”

  Joe wiped a tear from my face and tilted my chin toward him. His lips were warm and inviting. They made their way from my mouth, to my cheek, to my neck. He whispered softly in my ear, “Merry Christmas, Janey,” as he pressed me even tighter against him. “And you know that’s boy code for ‘I love you.’”

  I nodded against him. “Oh, Joe, I ‘Merry Christmas’ you, too.”

  Lights, Latkes, and Love

  Peggy Bird

  Avon, Massachusetts

  Copyright © 2014 by Peggy Bird.

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

  Published by

  Crimson Romance

  an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

  10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

  Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

  www.crimsonromance.com

  ISBN 10: 1-4405-8793-0

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8793-1

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-8794-9

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8794-8

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art © iStockphoto.com/Dzianis Mirqniuk and 123RF/mschick

  For Max, who really did say that to a barista once, and for Meg, who refused to wear burning candles on her head. Thank you for letting me mine your lives for my writing. (And thank you, Meg, for that description.)

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 1

  “I hate the public. Hate, hate, hate the public.” Hannah Jenkins spit out the words as she flopped into an overstuffed chair and waved away the glass of wine her housemate Sarah offered.

  “Really? The entire public? Worldwide? Or just Portland, Oregon, and its environs?” Sarah accompanied her question with an exaggerated eye roll.

  “Okay, maybe not all the public. Just the ones who’re a pain in the butt this time of year. Which, face it, is a large number.”

  “Sure you won’t have a glass of wine? It might take the edge off your pissed-offness.”

  “If I start drinking tonight, I might never stop until the damn Christmas season is over. Which is weeks away. By then, I’d do in my liver and my tombstone would read, ‘She was right: Christmas killed her.’”

  Hannah was the manager of the flagship—and largest—store in a chain of women’s specialty shops. She’d worked her way up from part-time clerk to sales associate to buyer and now to store manager, all by the age of thirty-two, an impressive accomplishment. She loved working in the heart of the city. Loved her colleagues. Loved everything about working retail.

  Except Christmas. She hated Christmas.

  Sarah settled on the couch and took a sip of her wine. “Maybe if you vent, you’ll be in a better mood for the dinner I’ve spent the last hour preparing. So, tell me, what happened today?”

  Hannah knew her housemate was asking only because she was a good friend. Sarah had heard this particular rant each year at this time ever since they’d moved in together.

  “Not everyone was an asshat,” Hannah admitted, “but there were enough to prove that the idea that everyone has a generous holiday spirit is a huge lie.”

  “Specifics, please,” Sarah said with an annoying grin. “You know me. I don’t like generalities.”

  “Okay, there was this jerk who spent a boatload of money on a miniscule bit of lace the manufacturer calls a ‘nightgown.’ For his girlfriend, he said.”

  “What’s so bad about that?”

  Hannah snorted. “He also bought a pair of bunny slippers and a flannel nightgown for his wife and a second nightgown for his secretary—who, I’m sure, does more than print out his schedule for him.”

  “Oh.”

  Hannah was almost happy to see her housemate’s disappointed slouch. “After him was the woman who thought she could bargain with me for the last bottle of ‘Tragic’ perfume in the entire city. Telling me that since it was the last one, we couldn’t advertise it, so I might as well let her take it off my hands. Like I’m gonna give her a break on the price of the hottest scent to come along since Chanel No. 5. She was so pissed
off she filled out an official complaint form saying I wasn’t living up to the store’s customer-friendly reputation.” By now Hannah was sitting with her spine in military alignment, her chin jutting out and her hands in fists.

  “But the topper was the woman who said her two teacup poodles were service dogs, so we couldn’t ask her to leave them outside. She asked one of my sales staff to hold them while she tried on a half-dozen dresses. Said she was looking for something special for her Christmas-card picture. When she finally decided on one she liked, she grabbed the stupid dogs back to see how they looked with what she’d chosen, and one of the little furballs peed all over the five-hundred-dollar dress, which the woman then refused to buy.”

  “Don’t get angry at the dog. It’s not his ... her ... fault.”

  “I’ll apologize to the dog if I ever see it again. But damn it—”

  “I get it. Bad day at the office.” Sarah waved her hand at the bottle on the table. “A bit of the grape might make you feel better about it. Are you sure you won’t join me?”

  “Maybe I will.” Hannah pulled herself out of the depths of the chair and poured a small glass of wine. “I swear, if this job wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, I’d quit. Or at least take a leave until January.”

  If she were honest about it, Hannah would have to admit she didn’t hate everything about working retail during the holidays. For example, she loved the profits. And she didn’t object to some of what went along with the season, like the background music that played endlessly from Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve. Didn’t even mind having to put up the glittery decorations the night before Thanksgiving so the store was ready to greet shoppers on Black Friday.

  It was what happened beginning on Black Friday that she hated—people showed up to shop. There was the crux of her problem. She was ashamed to admit to anyone except her roommate that nasty, stressed, badly behaving customers were the reason she’d come to hate the entire Christmas season. No one seemed to be happy this time of the year. At least not that she noticed. People came into her store, made demands, treated her staff badly, and killed any sense of joy by behaving like—well, like toddlers who hadn’t napped in a week. Or kindergartners deprived of their afternoon snacks. Or infants who’d lost their pacifiers.