A Legendary Christmas

by Jan Scarbrough

  She smiled to herself and left the room as tears sprang to her eyes. Busying herself in the kitchen, Christina jumped when Margaret walked up behind her. “Oh, hi.”

  “You’re in love with him.” Never one to squander words, Margaret crossed her arms and leaned against the counter. “And you’ve had sex with him. Just how did all this come about?”

  Christina explained about the letter to Santa, Jack’s accident, the storm, and finished with the proposal they’d interrupted when they’d arrived. Margaret moved to embrace her. “You look happier than I’ve ever seen you. I’m so glad you make a habit of falling for my boys.”

  “I’m pretty happy about it, too. How did you get here? I was afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

  Margaret shrugged. “I saw the forecast so Lisa and I took an earlier flight, yesterday. We’ve been in town since last night, but the storm was too dangerous to try coming out. With the phones out I couldn’t call. This morning Old Tom picked us up in town and drove us out here in the glass enclosed cab of his big tractor. It was a little uncomfortable, but we managed.

  “The trip here in the tractor was not nearly as bad as seeing your truck being hauled away as we were approaching the driveway. I was scared to death, but couldn’t let on because Lisa was so busy talking to Tom she didn’t even notice, and I didn’t want to scare her. Were you hurt?”

  Christina started to explain but Lisa interrupted before she had a chance.

  “Mommy! Somebody’s at the door!”

  Frowning, Christina returned to living room to find Lisa standing with the door open to two uniformed men. The reprimand about opening the house to strangers froze on her lips as she recognized the Marine chaplain, though this time he had a different young soldier with him, and they were both shivering. She approached them slowly. “Please, come in out of the cold.”

  She barely noticed as Lisa ran past her, her little arms loaded with the new dolls, back towards her bedroom. The men stepped into the house and the younger soldier shut the door behind them. Christina felt Jack and Margaret moving up behind her, enclosing her in their warmth. Each one took a hand, and she nodded to the chaplain. “What can I do for you, Sir?”

  He moved toward her, a piece of paper folded atop the black leather bound Bible in his hands. “I got this news this morning, and thought you might want to know right away.”

  Tears smarted her eyes. “They found him.”

  The Chaplain nodded. “From the report I’ve been given, he most likely died that day, with his men.”

  Tears flowed freely as Christina felt Jack move to hug Margaret closer. He also pulled Christina back, encompassing them both in his embrace. She reached out and took the document, a faxed Certificate of Death, on it the date of the terrible massacre. She glanced back up at the Chaplain. “Thank you.”

  He nodded. “His remains are being shipped home. They should be here by the end of the week. I’ll give you a call.” He nodded once, respectfully, before they took their leave. She turned back to Margaret, only to find her smiling through her own tears.

  “Now he can rest in peace.”

  Christina nodded, allowing tears to flow freely as Jack pulled both women into his arms. They stood there silently for long moments, allowing each one to pay tribute to the husband who had taken on a family before growing up himself, the son who’d left his mother’s arms too soon, and the brother never known.

  “We need to start making arrangements for a service.”

  Margaret moved from Jack’s arms and pulled Christina to face her. “Tomorrow is soon enough. Johnny is coming home.”

  Christina smiled, and though the tears fell harder, her heart felt peace. “I am celebrating. Today has been a day filled with many gifts. Having the world know Johnny was a man of honor is one more.”

  She hugged Margaret hard, glad Lisa was in her room busily playing with her new toys. Christmas Day was not the day to tell her the news. Tomorrow was soon enough for a lot of things.

  She turned to Jack, accepting the strong arms folding around her. It felt like she was finally home and all was right with her world. She knew how truly blessed they all were. The boy she’d loved would be remembered with honor. The mother-in-law she cherished would always remain a vital part of her life. The daughter she had, if they kept forgetting those darn condoms, would someday soon possibly have a sibling. And Jack—oh, Jack—would fill her world with love and light.

  And, like the reason for the season, it all began with a child.

  Did you like this Christmas Novella by Janet Eaves?

  If so, you might like….

  Claiming The Legend

  For Lilly Peach staying alive means keeping a low profile, blending in, not being noticed. When she fears having been found by those contracted to kill her, Lilly is sent to a new “safe house” in Legend, Tennessee.

  The pristine old fashioned streets and genteel southern hospitality of the town’s folks eventually lull Lilly into believing, maybe, just maybe, she can settle in and make a safe and quiet life for herself. But when Legend’s nationally famous high school football coach decides to make her his lady, Lilly is thrown into the spotlight as well, giving those seeking to find and destroy her, another chance to fulfill their contract.

  Here’s a peek at Chapter One:

  Jill Post stopped abruptly, pivoted backwards around a sharp corner into the apartment building’s shadows, slamming against hard brick wall. Heart palpitating fear choked her, had her glued to the structure's rough exterior, scraping tender skin from shoulders to elbows. The route she always took home after work had served its purpose. A purpose she had hoped unnecessary, overly-cautious. But instinct had saved her time and again. As now.

  Had they heard her?

  Seen her?

  Each struggling breath hurt, each knocking heartbeat reverberated from chest to temple. Images, one after another, whirled like a kaleidoscope of horror to clash and collide with other older images. Images thought to be long-buried. Now past and present blended in a motion-picture of terror.

  She closed her eyes, nauseated by those images, those memories.

  Will alone couldn’t push her, couldn’t force her feet to move, to retreat further from the massacre going on just around the corner. Any movement, any stray sound might alert the two men who were creaming names and curses at the homeless man they were beating to death.

  Did they say my name? Did they think he knew her? Had she told him her name when she’d dropped him a twenty here and there over the past months?

  No! She was imagining it. She had to separate the old from the new. They couldn’t have found her. Not after all this time. Not after she had been so careful.

  She tried, but failed miserably to close off sounds she remembered too well: the whack of a hard object meeting flesh, screams for mercy turned to moans, the gurgle of choking, and finally, horribly, the thud of an unconscious body hitting asphalt. She clamped teeth onto her bottom lip to lock in an answering scream.

  Run.

  She glanced left, then right, searching frantically for a way to escape, but the icy fingers of fear held her frozen in the darkened alleyway. Canyon-carving rivers of blood reverberated through her ears: rolling, crashing, gaining volume with each heartbeat, obliterating all other sound until she could no longer locate the source of danger.

  Blouse and flesh ripped as she slid down the wall. Her head spun as she clasped her bent legs for support, settling her bottom on the cold wet ground. She rocked back and forth with jerky movements, fighting the fear. Waiting.

  Waiting.

  Time meant nothing.

  Seconds? Minutes? An hour? How long had she sat there emotionally lost, clutching her legs, waiting to be found?

  She’d witnessed torture. Murder. Was that to be her fate, too? Ice cold sweat poured from her body, drenching clothes, chilling her skin. She barely registered the taste of iron hitting her tongue but released the tooth-imprinting grip of her now bloodied lip.

  She sta
yed frozen against the brick wall until the voices and scenes from the past faded completely. Until heartbeats and breathing calmed. Until fear receded enough for logic to kick-in.

  Light replaced darkness as dawn broke. A baby cried from several stories above. A woman’s soothing song responded seconds later. Then silence.

  Sirens from afar.

  The steady beep of a garbage truck in the distance, then moving slowly closer, then moving away until near-silence, then there was nothing but the sounds of an occasional vehicle passing close by.

  Move! Pinpricks shot through both legs and feet as she elbowed her way up the wall, forcing her to remain immobile for a minute more. One tentative step, then two, away from the assault site felt like a major accomplishment. The need to run hovered like a monster at her back but she couldn’t, wouldn’t, make a sound. Who knew where those men had gone? Who knew if the man they had killed was their only intended victim or if they would kill anyone in their path? Especially someone who might identify them.

  Unless she had been their intended victim all along?

  That thought stopped her cold. Then another hit with enough force to make her take a step back. What if the man wasn’t dead, only severely injured? What if this was her fault and he was paying the price?

  How could she leave him?

  How could she not?

  Indecision held her immobile for only seconds before she slumped in defeat. There was only one thing to do. The decent thing.

  She had to go back; had to look around the corner of the building to see if the thugs were gone. There was no choice left but check to see if their victim still lived. She hoped with every ounce of her waning strength that the danger had passed. She wasn’t so sure how she felt about the state of the victim.

  If he had died she could just leave. Anonymously call 911 then disappear from this nightmare altogether. Just carry on with the life she had so carefully constructed. Or run if that was the only option. If he still lived she would have to become involved. Emergency services would be needed. The police would want to question her, but worse, it could make the press and the men who had done this could hear about it and pursue her.

  But no, she couldn’t think that way. There was no choice but to go back, to help if there was still a need. To participate. Anything less would make her as bad as those who’d attacked him.

  Damn, how she hated to participate.

  Participation would de-construct the life she had spent the last four years building. She would have to start over.

  Again.

  A new identity.

  A new profession.

  A new town.

  God help me!

  ****

  Lilly Peach.

  An odd choice for a new identity, she mused, but one she was determined to claim. The name, like the new town, had an innocent ring to it.

  Legend.

  Legend, Tennessee. A little corner of Mayberry RFD tucked in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains if the Chamber of Commerce pamphlet was accurate. Of course no town was innocent, just as no person over the age of twelve was innocent anymore.

  She had learned that the hard way.

  But the drive was just plain spectacular.

  Bright, bold colors. Orange and rust, scarlet and plum, pink and yellow from time to time, and the sun shone on and through all those brilliantly dancing leaves sending beams of pure sunshine over the lush green grass. She wanted to concentrate on that, wallow in the sheer beauty of it, not the losses she had experienced or the horrors she had witnessed. Not anything about a past she was resolved to leave behind forever.

  Of course she had thought that before back in Grayfield, Michigan, and before that, in Coconut Springs, Idaho. But this time she was going to stay on the down-low, keep to herself as much as possible, avoiding all hints of danger. She would open a small store in one of the many vacant downtown shops the realtor had suggested, being polite but not overly friendly.

  She grinned to herself in the visor’s vanity mirror, still somewhat startled by her new reflection, amazed something as small as a nose-job could completely alter one’s appearance. It was a good look, one that eased the extremes of her ethnic heritage and should help her to fit in better in the country setting of middle-America. At least she hoped so.

  More than anything she just wanted to blend in. Like the realtor, a Mr. Martin McClain. Though she hadn’t seen him yet, she could clearly picture him. With his musical country twang of a voice, he probably looked like Bo Duke or Luke Duke from the original Dukes of Hazzard TV show she’d watched on CD while waiting for clearance to move. Of course he could look like one of the lesser characters from that show, but that was okay too. He would blend in with his setting, and so would she.

  And he’d been incredibly nice, something that was entirely different from the figuratively cold shoulder attitude of many in the big city. But of course he would be nice. He wanted to rent and sell her things. The shop. A house. He’d even mentioned land where she could own horses if she was of a mind. Of a mind. She’d loved that expression!

  She had taken him up on the shop, one of many that fronted the bricked Main Street. There had been several available, he’d explained, as Legend was in the middle of a downtown revitalization project. She’d picked one from the town map he’d sent using eeny-meeny-miny-moe.

  The store would be her excuse for moving to Legend, should anyone bother to ask. Besides, she had to make a living. The agency only gave her so much to get started on, though she’d been smarter this time. Having learned from past experience she emptied her savings before telling them she might have been compromised.

  So she would have things to sell, or would have once she decided what it was she wanted to offer. She’d already used her degree to be a CPA, and a factory supervisor. Crunching numbers was supposed to have kept her hidden. It hadn’t. Working the drudgery of ten-hour shifts in the factory—a job she’d hated—might have, but after being caught up in the limelight of the battered man’s story, her handler, Polly Chapman, had assured her that Legend, Tennessee, was her best hope.

  Polly came from Legend. Born and bred as she’d put it. She made Legend sound like paradise. Crimeless short of teenagers drag-racing on Saturday nights, caught and sent home to their parents by a sheriff that knew or was related to each one personally. The officer didn’t even need to carry a gun most of the time. More importantly, Polly assured her there was no safer place on earth for her, and then smiled a funny smile that left her wondering just what was so funny. She hadn’t asked. Just as she’d never asked anything more of the agency than to keep her alive.

  Lilly exhaled heavily. She was tired of looking over her shoulder. Tired of running away from the past and toward the forever-unknown. Tired of being afraid that they would find her again and she would have to run again. Or worse, they would finally catch her and make her pay.

  “No!”

  Lilly closed her eyes for a second, and repeated the word, determined to believe she would somehow find freedom, safety. She didn’t have the ability to live in anger and fear all the time and she had no desire to learn. She would get to this oasis in the belly of the south and she would live, just as she had attempted twice before. Only this time she would succeed.

  She just had to.

  ABOUT JANET EAVES

  Raised as Navy brat, and the second of four children, Janet Eaves sometimes felt lost in the shuffle of daily life when she was young. Moved every couple of years, as is the life of a military child, and continually making then losing friends, was often more painful than learning to be alone.

  Her dolls became friends that moved with her, each having a purpose and place in her life. She created a history for each, a personality for each, and played with them in a different land, dealing with different situations on any given day. Over the early years this time of self-imposed fantasy developed and nurtured an imagination that stays active to this day.

  Run Baby Run was the first novel she ever read,
and sparked a love of reading that soon became an obsession. Bodice Ripper jacketed books soon followed, the hero dashing, the heroine brave and beautiful, and just enough historic reality to make it easy to step into the past. Contemporary novels, both large and small soon led to paranormals that is to this day her favorite.

  Writing herself for years now, Janet rarely gets a chance to read very often, but still loves to find a good book and get lost in someone else’s fantasy for a while. But it isn’t long before the call to create pulls her away…

  A spark of thought, a line of dialogue, a scent, a scene, or even a sound is all it takes to begin what will later develop into a story just begging to be told.

  Books by Janet Eaves

  Claiming The Legend

  Harvest Moon

  Crescent Moon

  Sins of the Father

  Coming Soon

  Mystic Moon

  Home for the Holidays

  By

  Maddie James

  The last thing Chelly Schul wants is to go home for the holidays. She left her hometown of Legend, Tennessee on a wing and a prayer two years earlier and hasn’t returned. Her leaving humiliated her entire family, particularly her sister Suzie, since she ran off with Suzie’s (almost-ex) husband.

  Legend Police Officer Matt Branson values being alone. Even during the holidays, he enjoys the solitude. Dubbed the town hermit, he tells himself he prefers his “cave” to socializing. His friends say he still pines after “the woman who got away,” although he begs to differ.

  All that changes the snowy day he pulls over the older model sedan speeding into Legend. His gut slams against his backbone as a tearful Chelly rolls down the car window and looks up into his eyes, and nearly melts his heart. But he remains stoic. Coplike. And gives her a warning and sends her on her way.