Mistletoe Magic (Evergreen Lake: Under the Mistletoe)

Chapter 1

one

HOLLY

“Are we there yet? I’m hungry!”

“Soon, sweetie,” I replied automatically, hoping I wasn’t lying.

I was more than ready to be there. The snow was coming down. Noelle was starting to get fidgety, and her whining was getting louder.

“It’s taking forever,” she complained dramatically.

My daughter. My six-year-old drama queen. She could be sweet as pie one minute and sassy as hell the next. But I loved her. Damn, did I love her.

I tightened my grip on the wheel and focused on the road. I wasn’t used to driving in snow like this. A snowstorm was predicted, but it arrived early. I’d hoped we’d make it to the ski lodge before it set in, but luck wasn’t on my side. No shock there really. It never was. Especially not these days.

Outside, everything was white. The fields on either side of the road were buried in snow, and the tree branches drooped heavily under the weight. The light was fading fast, and I wasn’t sure how much further we had to go. I cranked up the heating and slowed my pace. As much as I wanted to be there already, it was more important we got there in one piece.

“Mom! I need to go to the toilet,” Noelle whined again, and I rolled my eyes.

“Can you hang on a little longer, sweetie? We’re almost there.”

I couldn’t remember seeing a sign and hoped I wasn’t lying. Even with the heat blasting, I was cold and everything ached. We’d been on the road for hours. Dad had offered to fly us up, but I wanted my own car. I needed my own car. He was bringing wife number three, and she wasn’t the nicest person. I needed to make sure we had an escape if we needed it.

My phone rang, connecting through the car speakers.

“Hi, Dad,” I mumbled, preparing for the lecture coming my way.

“Holly! Where are you? There’s a blizzard,” Dad’s voice boomed, and I found myself sitting up a little straighter.

I was thirty-four years old, yet being scolded by my father still stung. You’d think I’d get used to it, but I never did.

“I know it’s snowing. We’re in it.”

“Well, where are you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Have you passed through Evergreen Lake yet?”

“I don’t think so.”

I squinted as I slowed to a crawl, trying to read the sign.

“You don’t think so? Holly! You were supposed to be here by now. Nikkie booked a table for dinner.”

Nikkie. Great.

I sighed heavily.

Nikkie was wife number three and was about as opposite to my mom as anyone could be. Where my mom had been sweet and kind and baked cookies with me, Nikkie was cold. She’s more about appearances than substance and I was under no illusions that she was with my dad for all the wrong reasons. She was more in love with his bank account than the man himself, but he couldn’t see it. And he wouldn’t listen, so I let it lie. There was no point picking a fight I couldn’t win. It would only hurt us all in the long run.

Spending Christmas with them, though, if it hadn’t been for the guilt trip Dad had laid on thick, he didn’t want to disappoint Nikkie who wanted to spend the holiday as a family, Noelle and I wouldn’t be here. Instead, we’d be at home, bundled up by the fire in our pajamas, drinking hot chocolate, stringing popcorn, and watching Christmas movies. Instead, we’d packed up our presents and were heading to a fancy ski lodge for the holidays. Dinner would be in an overpriced restaurant, and our room wouldn’t have a tree. Not a real one anyway. I’d snuck a three-foot fake in my luggage. I was determined to make sure Noelle felt the Christmas spirit, even if it upset them.

“I’m sorry. We had to make a few stops,” I explained, leaving out the fact we stopped to enjoy the trip. We’d stopped for pie at a diner on the side of the road that claimed it had the world's best apple pie. Then we stopped to play in the snow. We’d made snow angels, thrown snowballs, and built a snowman. We laughed until our fingers were numb and our noses cold. Life was too short to miss out on the fun, and Noelle and I knew that all too well.

“Well, you’re late!”

I felt my blood pressure rising and we hadn’t even made it there yet.

“We’re coming.”

“Well, hurry up. We’re not waiting for you. Our reservation is at six, and you won’t have time to get here and be ready,” Dad said gruffly, and I sighed.

I hated that my dad cared about appearances.

He never had before.

He was a billionaire a few times over, honestly, I didn’t know how much was in his account these days and I didn’t care. The moment Nikkie strutted onto the scene, Dad changed. Before Nikkie, he spent more time in his ripped jeans and worn flannel than anything with a brand name on it. Now, though, the man I’d always known, the man I’d grown up adoring and admiring was all about how he looked.

What hurt the most was it wasn’t just Dad who changed. I changed, too. One morning, I’d come out the front door of my cute three-bedroom house, the house that still had a mortgage on it that I was proudly working on paying off, to find my old trusty and reliable Toyota on the back of a tow truck replaced by a brand new black Porsche Cayenne. I’d protested at the driver, demanding he give my car back, but he refused. Said he’d been paid and had his orders. It didn’t seem to matter that it was my car he was stealing. He’d just looked at me, shook his head, and told me, “Lady, stop complaining. If some old dude was giving me a Porsche you wouldn’t hear me bitching.”

“It’s fine, Dad. We’ll grab something on the way.”

“Fine.”

“Look, Dad, it’s getting dark, so I’m going to go.”

“Drive carefully,” he added, softening. “I’ll see you soon. Noelle, Poppy’s got a surprise for you,” he threw in, and I caught my daughter bouncing in her seat in the rearview mirror.

“See you soon, Dad,” I replied.

“Mom! Poppy said he has a surprise!” Noelle cheered full of excitement.

Dad’s promises were worse than a sugar hit.

“Yeah, he did,” I replied, hoping he hadn’t gone too over the top this time. She already owned a pony.

He might think he needed to show his love through extravagant gifts, but at the end of the day, all he ever needed to do was be there. Noelle loved spending time with him and when he visited, they’d sit for hours out on the porch swing, taking turns to read the books Noelle was obsessed with.

A two-dollar book and an hour of his undivided attention was all my daughter wanted, and for that, I was so proud. I was under no illusions that I was the perfect parent, I doubted anyone was, but I had to be doing something right if all my daughter wanted from her rich grandfather was to sit and read.

We approached another sign and I slowed again.

Thirty miles to Evergreen Lake Inn.

The advertisement showed the perfect holiday getaway. A huge Christmas tree. Lights. A family laughing.

My stomach recoiled.

A family. A family was a mom, a dad, and a child. It was a home filled with love and laughter. It was something Noelle and I had once, but she was too young to remember. It was a blessing and a curse.

Noelle’s father, Nicholas, had been the love of my life. We were high school sweethearts who shouldn’t have stood a chance. We had everything against us, including my parents. My family was rich, there was really no other way to sugarcoat it, and Nick, well, he wasn’t. Nick wore clothes his mother purchased at the thrift store and lived in a small house on the other side of town. But they were an amazing family. When they were all home together, his mother, father, Nick, and his two sisters, there was so much love around the dinner table. It didn’t matter that his mother worked two jobs and his father worked long hours. They were a family and fought and loved ferociously.

He was my first everything. My first crush. My first love. My first heartbreak.

The day Nick told me he was enlisting, my heart shattered. He was leaving me. He was choosing to leave me. Something he promised he’d never do. We were eighteen with the world at our feet with plans for our future.

Nick had driven us to our spot. A shady spot under a large oak tree down by the lake. We’d made out in the front seat before moving into the back and taking it further. It wasn’t until I was lying in his arms, wearing my panties and his T-shirt, that Nick decided to obliterate my heart.

“Holly,” he’d begun, shifting me in his arms.

“Mmm,” I’d murmured my reply, still completely blissed out.

“I’m leaving,” he announced.

“What?”

I was sure I’d heard him wrong. He didn’t say what I thought he did. He couldn’t have.

“I’m leaving.”

“Leaving what?” I asked, trying to put some distance between us. Something that wasn’t easy in the back seat of a battered old Camaro.

“I’ve enlisted. I leave in three days.”

He wouldn’t look at me. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

In that moment, I did something I never thought I would. Never thought I could. I hated him.

I hated him for leaving. I hated him for making this decision without me. I hated him for breaking my heart.

I shoved open the door and scrambled out.

Ignoring the rocks and sticks poking into my feet, I ran down to the bank of the lake and screamed.

I screamed long and I screamed hard.

I don’t remember the tears starting, but when Nick reached for me, I slapped him away. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t want him near me. He was leaving me, and I had no say.

“Holly, I don’t want to leave you, but this is my only way out. I love you, you know I do, but I have to go and make something of myself. I have nothing to give you, not like this …”

“I don’t need anything else, Nick! I just need you,” I cried, my legs wobbling beneath me.

It’d taken less than ten minutes to upend my life in a way I’d never recover from.

Nick ignored my cries and my attempts to push him away. Instead, he hugged me to his chest. He stood there, letting me cry on his shoulder as birds circled overhead.

“What am I supposed to do without you?” I choked out, realizing the life I’d dreamed for us was now not worth the paper I’d written it on.

“Wait for me,” he replied firmly.

I stared at him. He was the boy I’d fallen in love with who grew into the man who was breaking my heart. I wanted to hate him. I wanted to run from him and never look back, but I couldn’t. Nicholas was a good man. A great one.

“Wait for you?”

“Wait for me, Holly. I want to come home to you. I want to know you’re at home waiting for me. Praying for me. Loving me.”

I looked up at the man who owned me and into his watery eyes. That's all it took for me to know no matter how long it took, I’d wait. I’d wait for Nick forever.

I didn’t trust my words. Instead, I just nodded as Nick bent down and kissed me. It was so soft, so gentle, so filled with love that I had no choice.

That night we sat by the lake talking.

He held me as we tried to figure out how to make this work.

We were so young.

The world was against us.

All we could do was believe our love was strong enough.

Four years later, I was a qualified teacher working in a small school. I loved my class and the friends I’d made. I didn’t live with my father anymore. When wife number two moved in, I packed my bags and moved out. Instead, I lived in an apartment over the garage of a lovely old lady, Elody. Elody’s husband had passed, and she had trouble with some basic errands. So in exchange for my room, I helped her with her groceries and drove her to the seniors center to play bingo every Wednesday night.

I’d just dropped Elody off and had come home to reheat a frozen dinner when there was a knock at my door. No one ever knocked on my door. Never.

I picked up my phone, ready to dial 911.

When I peered through the peephole, my heart stopped.

He was older.

Scruff was on his chin.

Wrinkles around his eyes.

He looked tired.

But there was no doubt. He was still the man I loved.

I yanked open the door, almost pulling it off its hinges, and leaped into his arms.

I’d never been more glad for his army training than when he caught me and held me tight. Being alone, being lonely for all that time, I wasn’t the same girl I used to be. When the loneliness got too much, I turned to the tub of ice cream or block of chocolate, and it wasn’t until I was in Nick’s arms that I regretted it.

“Honey, I’m home,” he said with a smile, and my heart exploded. They were the sweetest words I’d ever heard.

“Mom!” Noelle screeched, shocking me out of my trip down memory lane.

I looked up and stomped on the brake.

The brakes locked.

The car skidded .

Noelle screamed.

I prayed.

I swung the wheel, trying to correct the trajectory.

There was a thunk.

Then a thud.

Then we were sliding.

When the car tilted, there was no doubt about it. We were in trouble.