Merry Mended Hearts (Santa’s Radio Christmas Romance #1)

1. Grace

GRACE

After everything it took to get here, I refused to believe I’d come to Harper’s Inn by mistake.

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist insisted. Her curly, shoulder-length brown hair was held back by a brightly colored headband with reindeer antlers. The red band brought out the flush in her cheeks and the freckles across her nose. “But I have nothing under the name of Grace Eastland.”

“That can’t be right.” I gripped the edge of the reception desk and worked to tamp down my frustration. “Check again, please.”

My suitcase tipped over on its side. Frazzled, I reached to steady it. In the process, the leatherbound notebook I had tucked beneath my arm slipped and clattered to the tile, narrowly missing the puddle where snow was melting from my boots.

Boots I’d bought just for this trip, for the record.

Because I didn’t need them in Arizona.

My panic hiked. I dove, hoping the water hadn’t touched the pages I’d been scribbling on during the flight here. Inspiration had really struck from ten thousand feet in the air. I couldn’t lose that progress just because I was currently living in my own version of the movie Inception.

When I saw it, that movie had played with my mind so thoroughly that by the time it was over, I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or awake. Or dreaming inside of a dream.

This felt a little like that emotional vertigo.

I cast my eyes around the lobby. The inn looked like the pictures Mom had showed me. It smelled like a Christmassy getaway, all cinnamon and spice plug-ins.

But was it possible I was imagining everything?

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said, her attention on the screen near the wall. “Your name isn’t anywhere in our records.”

Placing the notebook on the counter, I frowned and peered toward the inn’s quaint lobby. A woman seated on the couch across from the fire glanced in my direction.

Feeling feverish, I swallowed the painful tightness in my throat.

“What do you mean my name isn’t?—?”

My suitcase tipped over again.

I bent to right it.

“—in your records?”

This wasn’t possible. My parents had booked this trip for me. Mom had outlined everything last night, showing me my plane tickets, the inn’s beautiful setting, its many accommodations.

She and Dad had made all the arrangements. They’d talked up Harper’s Inn and its charming setting and what an amazing writing getaway it would be for me.

Was it possible that between all the planning, Mom had forgotten to actually book the room?

Merry Christmas to me.

“Grace Eastland,” I said, telling the receptionist my name one more time.

I had to give this one more try.

“Or maybe check Donna Eastland,” I said. “That’s my mom. She’s the one who made the reservations. She gave me this trip as an early Christmas present so I could get away and have some quiet time to work on my book.”

The receptionist smiled. I knew I was oversharing, but like a swarm of caffeinated monkeys breakdancing in my brain, my panic was getting to me.

I’d flown all the way from Arizona to Montana. It was days before Christmas. Days before my round-trip flight would kick into gear and take me back where I’d come from.

And this book wasn’t going to write itself.

I needed a calm, peaceful setting. A getaway from my frantic, overworked life. I had goals, people.

What was I supposed to do? My cell service was patchy, and the driver I’d hired to bring me up the mountain had already gone back to the small town that airport shuttle had dropped me off at. A town with no hotel.

Without this room, I was stranded.

“I checked. You’re not there,” the receptionist said. “Our rooms are often booked a year in advance. If you didn’t get your reservations last Christmas, I doubt we have anything for you.”

Lovely. The panicking monkeys started juggling balls and riding unicycles.

Concern cloaked the receptionist’s gaze. She chewed her lip for several seconds before her outlook brightened.

“Hey, this is just like the Christmas story, isn’t it? No room at the inn. Except you’re not pregnant—that I know of—and we don’t even have a stable for you. I’d offer you the barn, but that sounds awful, doesn’t it?”

The receptionist’s quick change of topic threw me for a moment. I’d seen the bright red barn as I’d entered minutes ago. It was quintessential, and a man wearing a cowboy hat had been leading a horse into its wide-open door.

Hope flickered like a candle in the wind.

“ Do you have rooms in the barn?” I asked.

The receptionist’s smile fell. “No. Not really.”

There it was. I was miles from home with nowhere to stay.

From the view through the tall windows on either side of the entrance, snow covered the mountainside. Sure, it was beautiful from this side of the glass. But going back out in it? Days in the snow weren’t going to cut it.

Helplessness slid into my gut with all the coldness of an ice cube. I didn’t travel much on my own. My last trip had been to visit my sister Stephanie in Louisiana when she’d gotten married two years ago—and I’d gone with my parents.

The receptionist stared at me with a pitying kind of expression. Sad eyes, and all that.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “I can offer you a complimentary ticket to our dining room. Our chef is world-renowned. He’s?—”

Behind me, the bell over the door jangled. A woman with red hair wearing a puffy ski jacket stepped inside with a man at least a foot taller than she was. Smiling, the woman smacked him on the chest as though reprimanding him for making her laugh.

The receptionist cut off and cleared her throat, and her message was beyond clear:

I was in the way.

Okay, then. It was time to get going.

The only problem was, I didn’t know where to go.

“Do you mind if I sit in the lobby for a minute?” I asked, holding my suitcase handle to keep it from tipping again. “I just…I need to think.”

“Sure. Go right ahead. Though, you can’t stay there, either.”

“I get it,” I mumbled as frustration built within me.

Tucking my elbow tightly to keep my leatherbound notebook in place, I left the puddle behind and dragged my suitcase toward the living room. I was sweating beneath this coat—another item I’d bought solely for this trip.

The monkeys were tearing their hair out, and I couldn’t help my jerky walk or the way it felt as though heat was rising beneath my eyelids. What was I going to do?

Only a few people loitered. A woman holding a terrier in one arm was attempting to coerce her young daughter from the room with her free hand.

“Hang on,” the little girl said, eyeing something on the table across from the fireplace. “Look at this.”

I wheeled my suitcase past them toward the fireplace, moving with patchy vision as though my brain were short-circuiting because the monkeys had started gnawing on the wires.

The fire in the hearth crackled, sending yet more heat toward me so I unzipped my coat and stared at the painting above the mantel. It was of a forest in summer, featuring a cottage built of stone and climbing with ivy. Even now, my muse didn’t get the hint that I was stranded. It kept generating ideas—a fantasy wood filled with faeries and sprites.

Picturesque. Otherworldly.

I’d have to write it into my book later.

Shadows pooled beneath branches and the light casting from a break in the clouds overhead. That breaking light felt so symbolic. I needed some light right about now.

I had the urge to go Mary Poppins on this painting, to dive right in and explore. It would be better than my current predicament.

But there would be no exploring. Just as there would be no sequestered, endless hours of losing myself writing or soaking up some time at the spa here.

My heart grew more despondent the longer I thought about it. I removed my phone from my pocket and looked up Mom’s number.

Me: Made it to the inn. Are you sure you booked me a room? They’re saying I’m not on their records.

Mom: Asinine!

Mom was a walking dictionary. It was thanks to her that I had a love of all things literature. I chuckled at her word and read her next message.

Mom: I did! Hang on, I’ll give them a call.

Perfect. Maybe Mom could make some sense of this. She had her transaction number, receipt, and confirmation emails. It was definitely better for the receptionist to talk to the one who’d made the appointment.

Assuming Mom had.

She wasn’t usually one to forget things like this, but there was the time she’d left her suitcase on the plane when we’d flown to Stephanie’s wedding. Mistakes happened, didn’t they?

Me: Thanks, Mom.

Now, all I had to do was wait.

I inhaled, keeping one hand on the suitcase handle, and gazed at the towering Christmas tree beside the fireplace. It was smothered with emerald-green tulle and fat red bulbs with little sprays of glittering gold stems like they’d just been plucked from a tree. Perfectly wrapped presents created small mountains at the tree’s base.

It made me wonder if there was actually anything inside of them or if they were just for decoration.

Behind me, the mom reprimanded her daughter in an exasperated tone. “No, no, Edie. Don’t touch things we can never replace.”

“I’m just looking,” the little girl replied even though her fingers trailed along the front of the antique radio on the table. It was old, standing like a tower on a sea of lace.

The young girl fiddled with the radio’s two front knobs like she was drawing on an Etch-a-Sketch. Her mom bustled over, curly-haired dog in one hand with the other outstretched.

“Edie, I said don’t touch.”

The young girl lowered her hand. Her dark hair tufted out beneath a pink beanie.

“What is it?” she asked.

Keeping my suitcase in hand, I settled onto one of the fat armchairs facing the table. At the same moment, a man in a cowboy hat entered the room. I wondered if he was the same cowboy I’d seen out by the barn when I’d first arrived.

Snow gathered at his boots, and a pair of thick gloves stuck out from the pockets of his wool-lined coat.

“It’s just an old radio,” the mom said. “Now, come on. We should have left ten minutes ago.”

“That’s not just any radio.” The cowboy removed his hat, giving me a full-fledged view of his rugged jawline and pink-tinged cheeks speckled with a day’s growth.

I knew it was cliché. I wrote about things like this all the time. But the instant I heard his low bass drum beat and saw the James Dean rebellious vibe this man’s features had—if James Dean were a cowboy—my breath quickened.

Now that was a jawline.

I was already warm, but this man did a number on my internal body temperature.

“It’s not?” The girl raised a brow. “How come?”

Humor played at the cowboy’s attractive mouth. I was fascinated by him. My thoughts instantly scattered in all directions, sending the monkeys to the respective trees. His dark hair tumbled into his eyes—brown eyes that twinkled at the little girl—and his fingers gripped the crown of his hat.

“Rumor has it, this radio once belonged to Santa Claus.”

My brows lifted. That one sentence was enough to distract me from my current dilemma.

The little girl’s thoughts were along the same wavelength. Her face pinched, showing just how full her lower lip was.

“No, it didn’t!”

“It did,” the cowboy said. “My grandpa worked here when Miss Junie’s grandma turned this place into an inn. He told me the story.”

“What story?” the girl asked.

He crouched before the girl, rested a hand on the table, and braced one of his knees on the carpet. Delight flickered in his brown eyes, and his mouth took on a mischievous lilt. What was it about children that melted gruffness away from people?

Not that he was gruff. Was he?

“A hundred years ago, Santa forgot to stop by here Christmas Eve,” he said.

The girl’s mother stroked her dog, opening her mouth as if to interrupt.

The girl folded her arms. “Santa wouldn’t forget anyone.”

“Oh, but he did,” the cowboy said. “My grandpa told me his dad got no presents that year. And Santa, he just felt awful. Just after Christmas, Santa came by with this radio as a way to make up for the slip.”

Second by second, stardust fell into the little girl’s eyes. Her smile spread, revealing perfect tiny teeth, and excitement descended on her as though an egg filled with sparkles had cracked over her head.

“Really? This was really Santa’s?”

“Really.”

Stories were my life. I’d loved reading for as long as I could remember and often stayed up way too late caught up in whatever book I was immersed in. I was enthralled by this man’s ability to weave a tale in mere minutes that was captivating enough to enchant every woman in this room.

The little girl included.

“What a nice fairytale,” the mom said from behind her daughter, though she didn’t sound like it was nice at all.

Out in the lobby, I could hear the receptionist’s perky voice chiming to someone on the phone, and my heart picked up speed. Was she talking to my mom?

“It’s not a fairytale, ma’am,” the cowboy said, rising to his full height.

Hardness struck behind the mom’s eyes. Did she opt not to indulge in childhood fantasies like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy? If that was the case, whoever this cowboy was, he’d just made things a whole lot harder for her.

“And let me guess, it only plays Christmas carols.” She waved a hand toward the radio.

“Oh, no.” The cowboy returned the wide-brimmed hat to his head. “I’ve never heard a single tune come from it, and I’ve worked here for years.”

“Then why keep it?” the girl asked.

“Why not?” I asked.

The three of them turned to face me. Too late, I realized I’d just injected myself into their conversation. The question slipped out on its own.

The cowboy’s eyes raked over me, stealing all of the moisture from my mouth and making it pool in my armpits instead. A flash of irritation crossed his face—an abrupt change compared to the easy way he’d interacted with the young girl.

What was wrong? Did I track something other than snow into the room?

Brushing it aside, I decided to finish my thought, directing my question to the child. “If you had a radio that Santa himself brought for you, wouldn’t you keep it, too?”

The girl wrinkled her nose. “My mom says we get rid of things we don’t use.”

Her mom’s lips bobbed as if wanting to pose another argument, but the cowboy spoke first.

“Your mom is a wise lady.”

The mom’s face hardened, combatting the smile she failed to keep in place. She adjusted the dog in her arms and waved to her daughter as I heard the receptionist ending whatever call she was on.

“Come on, sweetie. We’ve taken up too much of this nice man’s time.”

“Not at all,” the cowboy said.

The girl obvious wanted to keep talking to him, but she dutifully placed her gloved hand in her mother’s and walked to the inn’s door. She gave the cowboy a final, wistful glance before the bell tinkled to announce their exit.

The cowboy bent at the waist as if engaging the radio in a stare-down—and giving me the unexpected appreciation of his back pockets. I shook my head and stood, wheeling my suitcase to stand beside him.

“You had that little girl wrapped around your finger.”

The cowboy straightened, rested a hand on his hip, and examined me with chocolate-brown eyes. A lock of dark hair swept across his forehead beneath the brim of his hat.

My breath hitched under the full force of his gaze. A sideline profile view had been enough to draw me in, but his shoulders, his tall stance, the effect his features had on my ability to take a full breath was more than I banked on.

I legitimately trembled in my boots and had to swallow.

“I did, didn’t I?” His expression wasn’t nearly as warm as it had been. No smile. Guarded eyes.

“I’m Grace, by the way,” I said.

The cowboy’s nostrils flared. His eyes bugged, and his body went instantly rigid.

Whoa. What was that about? Did he not want me talking to him or something?

Without another word, he tapped the brim of his hat and turned to leave. At the same time, my mom texted, not giving me time to wonder why me telling him my name was such a big deal.

Mom: Sorry honey. She said there’s no record. I could have sworn I made the reservation! I’ll call that little town and see if I can find something. Why don’t you hang tight?

Hang tight. Sure.

Me: It’s okay. I’ll see if I can find something.

Feeling listless and abandoned, I faced the snowy view out the front windows once more. I was stranded far from home with words to write and nowhere at which to write them. What was I going to do if I couldn’t find anywhere to stay?