“Because I was feeding a baby and couldn’t get here any earlier.”
“Who authorized this?”
“The home owner.”
On a tip from Noah, Will had leased the place online, having not so much as a phone call with the owner, Sylvie Sutton. Surely this was a rental violation of some sort. She couldn’t dispatch a decorating crew to make his house look like the North Pole without at least a warning. “Can you just come back?”
“No,” she said. “I can’t.” She jostled the baby and adjusted the cap over his ears to guard against the biting wind. “I have this crew for two hours and then—”
“Look, I’m trying to work,” Will said.
“Oh, cool. Me too.” Her brow lifted in a perfect arch of sarcasm. “So, how about you go back to your work, and I’ll return to mine.”
He dodged a man carrying an animatronic reindeer and bit back a curse. It was like he was stuck in a horrible made-for-TV Christmas movie. Where was the pause button? How did he change the channel?
“Miss Daring.” Will softened his voice. As a former television journalist, he knew his husky timbre had defused many a sticky situation. “I’m here in Sugar Creek specifically for some peace and quiet.”
“And you’ll get it.” That infuriating smile was back, dimpling her rosy cheeks and lighting her warm eyes. “As soon as the guys—”
“No, not in a few hours. I want quiet now.” Forget tact and sexy TV voice. “You need to leave.”
Hearing that, she drew herself up tall. “We can’t. If I don’t finish this job then I don’t—”
“I’m sorry.” He called out to the crew. “Time to go home, fellas. No Christmas for this house, but thank you anyway.”
“You can’t send them away.”
“I just did.”
“You don’t own the property.” She consulted that blasted clipboard. “Mrs. Sutton does, and I have her explicit instructions to, and I quote, ‘Make that place look like Christmas is a plague that devoured the house.’”
“Oh, it’s definitely sick.”
“The decorating continues.”
Will had once loved the holidays. He hadn’t always needed an Epi-Pen for the anaphylactic shock of good tidings and tinsel. But he wanted nothing to do with it this year. After returning to the states, he’d gone back to his home in Atlanta. He’d ignored his parents’ many requests to return to Charleston for Sinclair gatherings. Even when they’d mailed him a plane ticket, he simply stuck it in a drawer and left for Arkansas. Sugar Creek had been a vacation spot for his family growing up, but there was no longer anything quaint or relaxing about the town now. His old friend Noah should’ve warned him Sugar Creek had morphed into the South’s leading tourist spot for small-town Christmas. It was nauseating.
The baby began to kick his legs and cry. “Shhh, it’s okay, Isaiah. The grumpy man didn’t mean to scare you with his loud voice and Scroogey ways.”
Good heavens, now she was using the baby in her tactics. “You have five minutes to vacate the premises.”
Cordelia pushed a gaudy star on her sweater, and it began to chime “Jingle Bells.”
“I’m afraid you can’t cancel Christmas,” she said.
Will glared down at the psychotic elf. “You just watch me.”
As if on cue his television movie took a horrible plot detour. A blue sedan crawled down the street, slowing as it neared his rent house, and a sick foreboding settled in the pit of Will's stomach. He didn't recognize that car, but it rolled toward them with an intention that he’d know anywhere. He saw the outline of hands wave from inside the vehicle as it confidently pulled into the driveway, the tires crunching over dead leaves and busted acorns.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Will pressed two fingers to his throbbing temple as Cordelia’s sweater changed tunes and the baby cried louder.
He’d been the recipient of a lot of visitors today. Each one more obnoxious than the next.
But these people arriving now?
They were next-level harassment.
A blight on his time and peace of mind.
Annoying wildflowers who showed up without invitation.
They. . .were his parents.
Chapter 3
Noah walked out the front door and zipped his down-filled coat. “So, yeah, about that thing I needed to tell you. . . .”
"Oh, no," Will heard himself say. This was not happening.
The decorator gal looked from Will to the car and back to Will. "Looks like you have another interruption."
She had no idea.
Car doors opened and his parents spilled out.
Cordelia Daring frowned and her eyes rounded as she got a better look at the couple approaching them. His parents were the Sinclairs—as in the hotel magnate Sinclairs. Known far and wide as much for their philanthropy as their empire and made even more famous by their three children.
"Oh, my gosh,” Cordelia said on an awed whisper. “That’s Donna and Marcus Sinclair. Their son is a Congressman and former pro football player. Their daughter dates some actor.” She pivoted and faced Will. “Then that means you are… You were . . .”
He decided to help her out. “Will Sinclair.”
“The television personality.” She spoke in a trance-like state.
“Reporter,” he corrected.
“The country thought you were dead. You were held hostage for years.”
He squirmed under her declarations. “Uh-huh. This is old news.” The more pressing hot topic was his parents had just found him.
“Son!” His dad held out his still muscular open arms.
“Sweetheart!” Misty-eyed, his mother made a beeline for him, closing the distance and wrapping her son in her slender arms. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”
He was pretty sure he was going to hear all about it. “Good to see you, Mom.”
"We've been a little worried." His dad patted him on the back before extracting Will from his mom’s suffocating hug. “Hello, Noah. Good to see you again.”
“Sir.” Noah shook Marcus’s hand, then hugged his grinning mom.
“What are you guys doing here?” Will asked.
“We came to see you,” his dad said. “Your brother finally tracked you down through Noah. Didn’t he tell you?”
Will leveled his friend with a stare of intimidation usually reserved for tight-lipped dictators. “No. He didn’t.”
“I was getting to it. Your twin offered me box seats for the Patriots, and one thing led to another.”
Will’s twin brother Alex had been as relentless as his folks in the phone calls and visits in the months after Will’s rescue. With the holidays coming on, they’d amped up their efforts to the point that Will had just left town, needing time to work on his book without interruption.
“I know you said you couldn't come to us for Christmas,” Donna Sinclair said. “So we thought we'd bring Christmas to you. Isn't that wonderful?”
Wonderful would not have been the adjective he’d have chosen.
He noticed Cordelia Daring had ceased her moonstruck gaping and had returned to directing her league of elves.
“I thought we’d discussed I’m here in Sugar Creek to work.” Will felt his frustration rise. “Are you just here for the day?” It was a laughable hope, but his family did love to travel.
His dad gave a hearty chuckle. “Your mom cooked up the best idea. We’re all spending Christmas here—in Sugar Creek. We’ve never seen it in the winter. Isn’t it great?”
“Great.” Like a laptop battery, Will felt his energy reserves quickly depleting.
“We rented a house right on the creek a few miles from here,” his mom said with way too much enthusiasm. “Your brother and sister-in-law are coming later, as well as your sister and her boyfriend. Won't it be amazing to all be together for the first Christmas in years?" His mother blinked back tears.
He couldn’t help but be tired of seeing her cry in his presence. Naturally she’d
cried when he’d been released and when his airplane landed on American soil. She’d cried when she’d seen his scars from the burns. The woman cried when she thought he wasn’t looking. She thought Will didn’t hear that all-too frequent catch in her voice or the way her eyes watered mid-conversation. Will knew he hadn’t been a good son in the last eight months. But he was just trying to figure out how to be a human being again. And for that, he needed peace, quiet, and a significant reduction in the people he had to encounter.
“It will be like old times,” his mom said. “Remember when we used to come here when you were kids?”
Memory lane was closed for repairs. “It’s good to see you.” He slathered on an extra fib. “And I hope you can stay a few days, but like I’ve mentioned a few times, I’m not doing Christmas this year.”
“You can’t skip it entirely.” His mother this with the same revulsion one reserved for stepping on slugs in bare feet or smelling spoiled meat.
“I’m swamped with work. I have a book that was due last week and a publisher breathing down my neck.”
“Tell that publisher to breathe somewhere else,” Donna Sinclair said. “That doesn’t even sound sanitary.”
Beside him, Noah bit his lip on a laugh. Lot of help he was.
Will continued his defense. “My agent’s calling me every day, and I really need to get this project off my back.” He’d yet to return to his old network, and he knew that worried his mom and dad as well.
His parents exchanged a mutual look of pity and concern.
He was so sick of that. How could he endure nearly two weeks of uncapped sympathy and poor Will?
“Well, hello there, Will Sinclair!”
All heads turned as two twenty-something neighbors waved from the street, pushing their sweater-wearing Chihuahuas in matching strollers.
Ellery and Sophie Cardman. He’d met them last week on a coffee run and noticed them walking in his neighborhood ever since. They looked fresh out of college and still dressed for an impromptu night at the club.
“My sister and I were just out walking our dogs,” said Ellery with a giggle.
Donna Sinclair’s eyes went to the sisters’ shorts and matching cropped tank tops, barely covering their voluminous chests. It was quite the walking attire for a forty-degree day.
“Arkansas apparently makes women who are impervious to the elements,” Donna muttered to her husband. “How fascinating. Honey, do we have any of that species in Charleston?”
Will’s father wore a faint smile. “I surely wouldn’t notice if we had.”
“Hey, ladies.” Will threw up a hand in greeting, his brain about to explode. He couldn’t deal with one more thing here. “Mom, look, I have a deadline—”
The two women were not to be brushed off and steered their puppy wagons right to them.
“I want double lights in those trees!” Cordelia barked from the far yard. “Why is Mrs. Claus’s head on the ground?”
Hadn’t he sent that blinking lady on her way? Why was she still here? Why was anyone still here?
The Cardman sisters bounced and jostled until they joined their small group.
Will sent Noah a silent plea. Help me.
His friend nodded. Under control.
“Sophie and I were wondering if you’d like to come to our cocktail party tonight and—”
“He can’t.” Noah stepped beside Will. “Sorry, ladies, but our favorite Sugar Creek resident is regrettably unavailable.”
Perky Sister Number One puckered her inflated bottom lip in a pout. “We have a hot tub.”
“And he has a girlfriend,” Noah blurted before doing a slow rotation to face Will. “Yep, all locked down in a relationship.”
His mother held a hand to her smiling mouth, ready to break into celebratory song. “You do? Who is this lucky lady?”
Noah searched the yard before zeroing in on his target. He pointed his finger toward the baby-carrying woman setting up luminaries along the driveway. “Cordelia Daring.”
Chapter 4
“What do you mean they’re not going to have Christmas?” Cordelia poured herself another cup of coffee, wondering if she’d relied on caffeine so much lately she was now like an addict immune to the charge.
“Steve Mason’s doing the best he can.” Her best friend Ananya checked a text on her ever-dinging phone. As a social worker, it seemed she was always on call. “He just took on three nephews and a niece he barely knows. He works long shifts at the airport and has no help from family. Give him a break.”
Cordelia consulted the baby monitor on her coffee table as she sat on the couch, grateful to see six-month old Isaiah finally asleep. Her heart broke for him, the confusion and fear he must be feeling over the separation from his single mother during her incarceration, but what if his sleep-every-two-hour routine was just his thing? What if Cordelia never slept again? Thank God her job didn’t involve brain surgery or operating heavy machinery.
“Cordelia, did you hear me?”
She tuned back into Ananya. “Steve Mason can’t afford Christmas. Got it.” With Ananya’s supervision, Cordelia had taken a few bags of groceries over to Mr. Mason and the kids that afternoon, giving the siblings time with their baby brother. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“We’re working on some corporate and church donations,” Ananya said, sipping her cocoa, “and the advocate volunteers always come through, but things are tight all over.”
Cordelia had been Isaiah’s foster mom for six weeks, four days, and ten hours. She felt like she’d slept about three minutes of that time, but it only took one look at her curly, black-haired Isaiah to know it was worth it. Fostering, Cordelia decided, was like skydiving. You were never really ready. You simply stepped out and did it, and somehow you often landed in exactly the right place.
When a sibling group of five had come into the foster care system, four had eventually gone to their bio uncle, while Isaiah, father unknown and clearly not related to the red-headed, fair-skinned Steve Mason, had been placed with Cordelia.
Ananya pushed the thick ropes of her dreadlocks away from her face. “You do this every year.”
“What?”
“Adopt a handful of families for the holidays.”
“It’s kind of what the season is about.”
“I know, but it’s okay to take a year off. You have Isaiah and your business to think of. Speaking of business, have you decided if you’re going back to the old job?”
Cordelia had taken a year leave of absence at the Fillmore and Associates accounting firm to turn her side hustle of Daring Displays into a full-time career. Her time was almost up, something her boss, Mr. Fillmore, reminded her almost daily, whether by phone or email. “I’m not sure.”
“Cordelia, Isaiah’s dad is out of the picture, and his mom’s sentencing options aren’t good. You need to be thinking about what you’ll do if—”
“I know.” She couldn’t think about letting Isaiah go right now. “Let me focus on Christmas, okay?” Her smile returned as she thought of the movies still left to be watched, the adorable holiday jammies she’d bought for Isaiah for his pictures with Santa, and the Christmas party gifts she’d buy Isaiah and his siblings. The Mason family go without presents? Not on her watch.
“Leave the Masons’ gifts to other people,” Ananya said. “These things usually work out.”
Cordelia didn’t believe in leaving anything up to chance. Yes, her transmission suffered from seizures, and the tread on her Michelins was nearly gone. But she’d seen the sparse possessions of Steve Mason, the look of shock he wore still today in gaining guardianship of his brother’s kids. She was struggling with one child, so she couldn’t imagine suddenly taking on four. Steve’s brother had overdosed last year, and his former sister-in-law was now in prison.
Ananya was the realist between the two of them, and she was right—Cordelia had no extra cash this year. After receiving a community grant, she’d opened her business, offering home staging, shop wind
ow displays, and seasonal decorating. She’d stepped away from her corporate accounting job onto the stair-steps of faith. She didn’t know where those steps would lead, but so far it wasn’t to a windfall of money.
With a stretch and a yawn, Ananya reached for a throw pillow. “What was it you’d wanted to tell me?”
“Oh, I met journalist Will Sinclair today.”
Ananya sat upright, fatigue forgotten. “The guy from the news?”
“Yeah, he’s here in Sugar Creek, renting a house to work on some book.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me! Is he as handsome in person as he was on TV?”
Cordelia thought about his sky blue eyes and movie star hair in need of a cut. “He’s okay.”
“Just okay? Geez, you really are sleep-deprived.”
She explained her odd encounter over the Christmas decorations. “I Googled him, and he’s thirty-six. That’s a little young to be yelling at people to off get your lawn.” He was only six years older than she, but he’d regarded her with the eyes of someone who’d lived through lifetimes.
Ananya practically had cartoon hearts circling about her like a halo. “I can’t imagine what he’s been through. I bet he needs a good woman to help him heal, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold through —”
“Sorry to interrupt your fantasy, but Will Sinclair’s a rude, arrogant jerk.” A baby’s cry from the opposite end of the house had Cordelia lifting her tired body from the couch and rising to her feet. “Be right back.”
As she followed the sound of one unhappy baby, the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Ananya called.
“If it’s Mrs. Burkowski, tell her I still don’t want to buy one of her crocheted toilet bowl covers for my next job!” Cordelia entered the baby’s dark nursery, the crib bathed in the soft glow of the nightlight. “Shh,” she cooed as patted the mattress till she found his pacifier and plopped it back into his mouth. “You’re okay, sweet boy,” she whispered, running gentle fingers over his hair.
Like Steve Mason, Cordelia had very little family. Her father had passed away when she was a child, but her mother still lived in Sugar Creek. Not that they saw each other much. They were about as close as California to Florida. Paris to Sugar Creek. Maybe her lack of family had prompted Cordelia to finally follow through on her desire to give foster children a home. Isaiah was her third foster child and her first infant. Despite having read a handful of parenting books, she still felt like a care-giving flunkee. But as Cordelia watched Isaiah settle back to sleep, his little hands curled beneath his chin, his body at rest, she knew it was all worth it. For as long as this baby needed it, they would be each other’s family.
His Mistletoe Miracle Page 2
