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

8. Boone

BOONE

I wanted this thing out of my sight.

The radio was heavier than I expected it to be. With the old set in hand, when I didn’t see Junie at the reception desk, I marched right past it, past the dining hall, and down to the office space Junie shared with her mom.

I was tempted to bypass relocation and opt for the chopping block outside where I’d just finished preparing another day’s worth of wood for the fires. I wanted to hack it into a thousand sharp shards, but Junie would never forgive me if I destroyed this stupid thing.

And if were being honest with myself, I’d probably never forgive myself either. Really, as upset as I was, I only wanted answers.

Junie and Aunt Meg’s office was clean and organized. Stacks of labeled totes were situated across from Junie’s desk, which overlooked a stunning view of the snowy landscape outside. Each tote was labeled to signify the various holidays the inn was often festooned for throughout the year.

I trudged past them and slammed the radio down a little too hard on the desk beside Junie’s computer.

“Easy,” Junie said, coming in behind me.

The irritation that had flared at the sight of my late wife’s necklace in Grace’s hand kicked up my heartrate all over again. I hadn’t meant to snap at Grace. And I certainly didn’t mean to snap at Junie—though, I did intend to ask her a few questions.

A few years ago, Junie had stopped by the cottage one evening to drop off some blankets they were replacing when the inn was being redecorated. She’d come across something Amy had left behind during our last visit, and she’d thought it would be helpful to bring that by for me.

“To hold onto,” she’d said.

The sight of that necklace undid me. Amy had just died. I’d just moved back to Harper’s Inn. And while Junie had meant for it to be a comforting gesture, that small reminder had made me miss my wife more than I already did.

I’d broken apart, shattering into a misfit pile of heartbeats. I’d wilted. My entire body had lost its strength. I wasn’t sure I’d really mourned her until Junie placed this necklace in my hand and had left me alone with it.

It was this necklace that made me accept that Amy was really gone. That she wasn’t coming back. That I’d gotten rid of everything the two of us had had together.

I’d taken that locket and tucked it away in a drawer at the cottage. How could the necklace possibly have gotten back to the inn at all, let alone into Grace’s hands?

Grace. The same woman the radio had played for…

“What’s the matter?” Junie asked. “You look like you just saw the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

Blood pounded through me, amplifying my pulse and my breathing. I was far too agitated.

Fisting my hands at my sides, I inhaled a deep breath and exhaled just as slowly, working to keep my voice calm.

“Do you know how one of the guests got ahold of this?”

With the chain strung around my middle finger, I allowed the locket to dangle from my downturned palm. I met Junie’s eyes, knowing the same memory passed between us?—

The day Junie had been a shoulder to cry on when I’d finally allowed myself to grieve Amy’s death.

Junie was the one person I could completely be myself with. Again, I worked to steady my frustration.

“Oh, Boone.” Junie’s voice was breathless. Her eyes turned glossy. I knew she knew what this meant to me. “I thought you had it at the cottage. Were you carrying it around and dropped it somewhere around here?”

“No. It’s been tucked away in a drawer at my place.”

Junie folded her arms, and I finally realized what she was wearing. She had all kinds of ugly sweaters for the holiday season, but this was one I wasn’t sure I’d seen before. It was pink and was covered with cats wearing Santa hats with actual little fuzzy poms all over the place.

Why anyone would put that combination of items onto one shirt was beyond me.

“Please tell me you’re not suggesting what I think you are,” she said. “Come on, Boone. You can’t think I snuck in, stole the locket, and planted it in one of the guest rooms here.”

Even as she spoke, I knew my assumption was misplaced. Hearing her say it aloud made me realize just how ludicrous it was.

I rubbed a hand over my face, releasing another breath that allowed my thoughts to clear.

“Sorry,” I said. “You’re right. It’s complete nonsense. I shouldn’t have jumped to such a random conclusion.”

Junie wouldn’t do that to me. She wouldn’t sneak into my house and rifle through my personal belongings—no matter how many hints she dropped that I needed to put myself back out there again.

She bent to open the toolbox beside the desk and paused at the sight of the radio beside her computer. “Don’t tell me the radio moved its way in here on its own, too.”

“That was me,” I said, resting my hip against the desk.

She retrieved a screwdriver from the box and closed its lid. “Uh-huh. Care to tell me why you’ve decided to redecorate?”

For some reason, admitting this was harder than showing her the necklace.

Here goes.

“I heard it play, Junie.”

Junie’s eyes widened. I waited for her to deny the admission. To call me an idiot and remind me that the old thing hadn’t been heard for a hundred years.

But her expression remained frozen. She tucked her lips into her teeth.

“Why don’t you look surprised?” I asked.

A thought dawned. I folded my arms.

“You heard it, too, didn’t you?”

A pink blush filled Junie’s cheeks. She peered to one side and then the other. Placing the screwdriver on the desk, she dashed to the door, closed it entirely, and then spoke with her back to me.

“I—I heard it the other night. It only played one day of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas.’”

“And?”

No one had heard the radio play—not even my own mother before she’d passed away. Now, though Junie’s mom was still around, only Junie and I oversaw the inn and its maintenance.

“And ever since then, it’s played one verse every day. And you know how Grace didn’t have a room when she first got here?”

“Only too well,” I muttered.

“It’s the weirdest thing, but Lacie and Jared, you know, the couple you brought up in the sleigh a few days ago?”

“How could I forget?” Mr. and Mrs. Sorensen had been the most irritated guests I’d taken out in a long time. Usually, when couples wanted to ride together, they, well, wanted to be together.

But as these two had sat together, they’d repelled one another like the wrong ends of magnets. I figured they’d been in the middle of a couple’s squabble.

“What’s their story?” I asked.

I’d wondered at the time, but I hadn’t cared enough to do much about it. That was above my pay grade.

Junie rubbed her hands together as though they were cold. The movement made several of the poms on her sweater twitch.

“It’s the weirdest thing. They claim not to be married.”

“How is that possible?” I asked. The reservation had shown otherwise.

“Right? When I pull up their reservation on the computer, they have the same last name. The woman, Lacie, seemed so shocked when I showed her as much.

“She kept insisting she’d booked her own separate room, not a room with him. You know how fast our rooms fill up. People book a year in advance or more! There’s no way she had a room of her own.”

“Maybe she’s mentally ill,” I suggested, but even as I spoke the words, the bottom dropped out of my stomach.

“And Grace’s reservation?”

“It just appeared! I checked the computer for her name about a thousand times the day she got here, Boone.”

“Maybe you’re mentally ill.” It had to be said.

Junie pointed her finger at me in a “watch it” kind of way. “I know where you sleep.”

“Because that’s threatening,” I muttered.

“It’s the radio, Boone.”

My eyes slid to the contraption. It stared back at me, looking like a gothic window with its two long, vertical speakers and its knobs jutting out front.

I wasn’t so sure about that. Music may have played from it, but that didn’t mean anything. I’d adamantly denied the romantic speculation Junie and Aunt Meg had indulged in since I’d returned to West Hills, and I’d like to think I’d sing that tune until my dying day.

Then what did that mean about the attraction that flared in my chest any time I was in the same room with Grace? It was like she had a cause and effect preset deep within her that was fixed to trigger awareness inside of me like a light switch.

Then again, that attraction had been there from the minute I’d met the brunette woman. It’d flared the instant I’d seen her in my bed in my old room. That was unrelated to any radio.

I’d been fighting it since the day I’d met her.

“You heard the radio play,” I argued. “And it hasn’t meddled in your life.”

At that moment, the chef, Mason Devries, became visible in the office door’s window, wearing his white chef’s jacket. Junie squeaked a little noise and lowered her head.

“No way,” I said, suspicion creeping in. “You and Mason?”

Junie whirled and slammed her back against the door. “Shh. Nothing has happened necessarily. Just that every time the radio plays, we’re somehow managing to stand in that front room together without knowing how we got there.”

“You’re kidding.”

“He burned dinner the other night because he didn’t remember leaving in the middle of preparing it.”

That didn’t sound like Devries. I didn’t know him all that well. He and I kept to our own areas of expertise, but I knew how he felt about his reputation as a chef. He worked hard to ensure his food made a good impression on everyone who tasted it.

It certainly had on me. The guy knew how to cook, that was for sure. Every meal I’d eaten in the dining hall had left me wanting seconds.

“I’m sure the guests loved that,” I said.

Junie rolled her eyes. “He’s never had so many complaints about his food. Who am I kidding? He’s never any ANY complaints! That’s why we hired Mason Devries, because everything he cooks is delicious. He’s crazy frustrated by it.”

“Understandably so,” I said, straightening and resting a hand on the radio.

I examined its cherrywood color and dated design. How could it be playing now after a hundred years of silence?

The stories of music playing from the radio had been the reason my grandparents began dreaming of turning their home into an inn in the first place. According to the tales I’d grown up hearing, music began playing shortly after the radio’s arrival, and Mom had claimed an outrageous number of weddings the town had hosted because of the radio’s magic.

It was impossible. Magic wasn’t real. Santa wasn’t.

Santa…

I wanted to continue denying the matchmaker claim. To deny that I’d heard anything at all. But the memories, the music I’d heard in the room with Grace, it resonated too deeply to do anything else.

I wanted to play off Junie’s speculation, too, to label her as paranoid or accuse her of making things up, but Grandpa had shared what it’d been like for his own father to meet Santa Claus in person, to receive a gift like this from St. Nick himself.

I’d believed that for so long, I’d be a fool to ignore this part of things now.

“So what do we do?” I asked. “Send a letter to Santa? Tell him to stop messing with our lives?”

“Is that really what you want for Christmas?”

Her question hit like a hoof to the chest. “What does that mean?”

Her expression wilted into an apologetic grimace. “Seeing that necklace really got to you when I first brought it over. I can only imagine how you’re feeling having it pop up again out of nowhere. Especially when you thought it was tucked away at your cottage.”

“I’m fine,” I said, hoping she got the hint.

I knew where she was going next, and I needed her to stop. Now.

The radio was not the reason the necklace appeared.

“I know you don’t want to talk about her, Boone, but you’ve been different since Amy died. What if the radio’s magic placed that necklace in this woman’s path for a reason? To bring the two of you together?”

Three years had passed. I’d been coping pretty well.

But as Junie mentioned this, the raw, aching emotion I’d battled every day built up like a blocked drain. It took everything in me to repress how much it hurt to have my wife and unborn daughter gone.

Why else did Junie think I sequestered myself at the cottage if not to forget? Yet, even there, I couldn’t escape my own memories.

My jaw clenched. “Don’t go there.”

Junie offered her hands in surrender. “All I’m saying is, it might not hurt to let yourself open up to someone again.”

“Not because some magical radio picked a match for me.”

“Boone—”

I swept a hand between us, fighting the bitter burning in the corners of my eyes. “No way, Junie. Thank you for your concern, but no. This isn’t the time to make hasty decisions, especially ones that could entangle your life with someone else’s just because you got swept away in an impulsive moment.

“We just have to wait until Christmas is over. Then our heads will be clear, and this will all go back to normal.”

“We?”

“What?”

“You said, ‘we.’”

“No, I didn’t.” I sounded too defensive, and I knew it.

Junie gave me a sympathetic, almost piteous smile. “Boone, Mason and I were both in the room when the radio started playing ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas.’ I don’t know about that couple, Lacie and Jared, but was someone else in the room with you when you heard the radio play?”

“I don’t see why that matters.”

I knew where she was going. I was not going to tell her that the woman who’d heard the radio play with me also happened to be the same woman whom Junie had given my room to, the same woman who’d been holding a distinctive necklace that just happened to belong to my dead wife.

Especially not when Junie had speculated as much earlier. I refused to confirm it.

That was not what this meant.

“Evidence is showing that it does matter,” Junie said. “You deserve another chance at love. At happiness. Maybe the radio knows that.”

“It’s a radio. ”

The longer we spoke, the more irritated I grew. I didn’t like this side of myself. I didn’t realize how quickly anger had become my natural reaction until that moment.

I shouldn’t be upset at Junie. She was only trying to help.

That didn’t convince my emotions, however, which burbled beneath my skin like heated tar.

“I had my shot,” I said softly.

The sadness in Junie’s eyes was unbearable. “Boone. I don’t think we only get one.”

Tears welled in my eyes. I blinked hard, willing them away.

“We need to put that thing in the attic until Christmas is over,” I said.

Then we could go on having normal lives without this accursed holiday interfering.

I cradled the radio in my arms once more. Junie didn’t protest as I thought she would.

She only said, “I’m sorry.”

The apology seemed like it was trying to cover so much. It said so much without specifying.

Junie knew how much my heart hurt without Amy. I wasn’t sure whether to be reassured by that or bothered that my pain was so transparent.

Either way, I paused at the door long enough to speak over my shoulder. “Me, too,” I said before exiting and placing the radio up in the darkest corner of the attic.

Where it would stay. Because if anything was going to happen in my life, it would be because I wanted it to. Not because a magical, absentee figure like Santa Claus thought something should.

If only I’d known more about the jolly man in red, I would have realized that that thought came across more like a challenge than a reassurance.