No Ordinary Christmas

by Belle Calhoune

  “I know. I’ve been meaning to do it, but I’ve been super busy lately,” Lucy explained.

  “Weren’t you at Sawyer’s the other day?” Tess asked, looking up at Lucy with nothing but sugar and spice sparkling in her eyes.

  “How did you know that?” she asked. It never ceased to amaze her how quickly gossip spread around Mistletoe. It was a sad shame that her little sister had been eavesdropping so hard that she’d heard about Lucy’s visit to the Christmas tree farm.

  Tess shrugged. “What can I say? I’ve got my ear to the ground.”

  “So, what are they saying?” Lucy asked. She hated gossip, but if her name was at the center of it, she wanted to know exactly what was being whispered.

  “Oh, this and that,” Tess said, trying to play it cool.

  “Do you want chocolate ice cream tonight or not? If so, you better give up the details.” Lucy wasn’t above bribing Tess for information, especially since she’d allowed her sister to have a sleepover tonight. On a school night, no less. She wasn’t quite sure how Tess did it, but she always managed to wrap Lucy firmly around her little finger. Her parents were no better. Sometimes she thought Tess ruled the roost over at her parents’ house, but maybe it was a result of her being so much younger than herself and Stella. Tess had been Walt and Leslie’s late-in-life baby—a total and utter surprise, according to her parents. At times she wasn’t sure they’d ever recovered from the shock.

  “Weeeeell,” Tess said, drawing out the word in dramatic fashion, “they were mainly dishing about how Dante West can charm the birds from the trees. Somebody said you were a blue jay and that you were bound to get your heart broken all over again.”

  A blue jay! Someone had actually compared her to a bird! Lucy felt heat stain her cheeks. It was embarrassing to be gossiped about by the citizens of Mistletoe. Especially in such an unflattering light. They seemed to think she was going to repeat the mistakes of the past.

  “Lucy, did Dante break your heart once?” Tess asked. Her brown eyes looked troubled, and Lucy hated that her sister was worried about her feelings.

  Lucy opened her mouth to deny it but thought better of it. What was the point in lying to her sister? It was her job to teach Tess life lessons, and she had learned so much from having her heart smashed into little pieces by Dante.

  “Yes, he did,” Lucy admitted. “We were young and in high school. We’d grown up together and he was my best friend before we fell for each other.” She felt a smile stretching across her face. No matter how things had ended between them, Lucy had to admit their love story had been amazing.

  They’d grown up together in Mistletoe, becoming closer and closer with every passing year. Dante was the popular football player while Lucy had been the sweet girl with her nose always stuck in a book. When he’d kissed her one Christmas Eve when they were sixteen, Lucy remembered asking him what had taken him so long. From that point forward, they’d been inseparable. High school sweethearts who’d dreamed of taking the world by storm and making a life together. Not for a single second had Lucy believed they wouldn’t go the distance and live out all their dreams. So when Dante had left town without her, it had truly felt as if the bottom fell out of her world.

  “So what happened? Why did he break up with you?” Tess leaned forward and gazed at Lucy with wide eyes, hanging on to Lucy’s every word with bated breath. She couldn’t backtrack now. Only the truth would suffice, even though she had no idea how to break it all down for a ten-year-old.

  “That’s a good question,” Lucy said. She let out a deeply held breath. Tess had stars in her eyes when it came to Dante, and Lucy had no desire to trash him. At the same time, she wasn’t going to sugarcoat it. “You see, Tess, Dante really wanted to pursue a career in acting. He wanted it so badly that he left everything in Mistletoe so he could pursue those dreams. That’s not a bad thing, but the way he left was kind of lousy because he didn’t say goodbye. And he stayed gone for a really long time.” Just putting it into words caused a groundswell of emotion to grab ahold of her. It had been such a shock to wake up to a world without Dante in it. It was now painfully obvious that she’d never really recovered from it. She’d done her best to stuff it all down, but it had always been resting on the surface.

  Tess bit her lip and furrowed her brow. “It’s great that he became famous, but it sounds like he had to give up a lot to get it,” Tess said. “Most of all, you.”

  Out of the mouths of babes. Her baby sister wasn’t blind to the fact that it had been a trade-off. Fame and fortune versus Mistletoe and the people who loved him. But judging by what Dante had told her yesterday, he deeply regretted the way he’d blown out of town and he yearned to make things right. She hadn’t given him any credit for wanting to make amends, even though he seemed genuine. Her lingering anger toward him regarding the past had clouded her judgment.

  “All right, Tess, I think it’s time for a bubble bath and pj’s. You have to get up for school in the morning,” Lucy said as she looked at her watch. “If you play your cards right I’ll make you some blueberry waffles in the morning.”

  Tess let out a squeal of delight. “Oooh! My favorite breakfast of all time. I’m going to come down and say good night after I put my pj’s on, okay?”

  “Of course,” Lucy said as Tess gave her a hug. “I want my good-night kiss.”

  Lucy watched Tess scamper upstairs and out of sight. She loved her little sister’s optimism and fighting spirit. Had she ever been so fearless? So free? When she was Tess’s age she’d chased salamanders in the woods, built forts out of scraps, and dreamed of faraway places and epic adventures. Although she loved her life, Lucy had to admit there were experiences that had slipped through her fingers. Travel. Furthering her education. Love. All those things were still on her bucket list. Every now and again she fantasized about stepping outside of her comfort zone and pursuing those dreams, but the timing never seemed right.

  No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get Dante out of her mind. She hadn’t been very nice to him at the town green, and it filled her with regret. Was hurt a legitimate excuse to cause pain to someone else? Lucy had seen the agony in Dante’s eyes when she’d questioned his reasons for coming back home. Lucy had always tried to be a good person, but in that moment, she hadn’t succeeded. She’d allowed bitterness to take over. That wasn’t who she was or who she wanted to be.

  It had been a shock realizing that his film was about the two of them. And she still didn’t know how to handle his bombshell news that she was the most significant relationship in his life. Hearing it come out of his mouth had been earth-shattering. She hadn’t had the proper time to fully digest it. Instead, she’d done everything in her power to push him away even though she knew he’d been showing her his vulnerability.

  It still blew her mind that Dante had written a script about their love story and that he was now filming it in their hometown. Although she hadn’t reacted well to the news in the moment, she’d come to the realization that it was pretty awesome. And it had to mean something that Dante had chosen to follow this path back to Mistletoe and his past.

  She just wasn’t sure exactly what.

  * * *

  Flowers! Dante thought with a snort. He was a world-famous celebrity with access to anything under the sun, yet he was standing at Lucy’s doorstep clutching a bouquet of roses, lilies, carnations, and tulips. He’d gone back and forth about whether he should even try to apologize, but being in the wrong didn’t sit right with him. He cared way too much about Lucy to let this moment pass them by. Even though she’d said some hurtful things to him, he needed to be the bigger person. He’d been the one to set everything in motion eight and a half years ago, and nothing had been the same between them ever since.

  Dante wanted to tell her that he was sorry for not being upfront about the movie he was filming. He really should have told her the very first night they’d come face-to-face, but her reaction to seeing him had made him think twice. Lucy had been so f
ull of anger toward him that he’d chickened out. Clearly, it hadn’t been the smartest of moves, judging by Lucy’s reaction when he finally did tell her the news.

  She hadn’t been impressed. Not even a little bit. He seemed to have taken several backward steps in their relationship, and he needed to make things right.

  When it came to Lucy, he struggled with basic common sense. He wouldn’t admit it to a single soul, but she made him nervous in a way no other woman ever had. It was an edge-of-your-seat, heart-pounding sensation that caused pure adrenaline to race through his veins whenever she was nearby. Even thinking about her resulted in his pulse racing.

  He stared at the holiday wreath decorated with tiny red-and-green ribbons dotted with lobsters. Dante chuckled at the whimsical decoration. Only in Maine would you find lobsters on a Christmas wreath. Most of the houses in town were already lit up with Christmas lights, although Lucy’s lights hadn’t yet been strung up. Before he could knock, the front door swung open. Lucy was standing there in a dark pair of formfitting jeans and a thick ruby-colored cable sweater. Her dark tresses were swept up in a high ponytail with tendrils cascading to her shoulders. He tried not to let his gaze linger on her curves. Frankly, her body defied logic with her small waist, rounded hips, and generous backside.

  “Dante! What are you doing here?” she asked, clearly startled by his appearance at her home.

  He held out the bouquet. “These are for you. I need to apologize for blindsiding you about the movie. That was wrong of me. I need to own that.”

  She tentatively took the flowers. “These are gorgeous. Come inside. It’s freezing out there.”

  Dante quickly crossed the threshold before she changed her mind. Being inside Lucy’s cozy and inviting house felt good. She’d created a warm and homey vibe. The smell of peppermint hovered in the air and a soft glow emanated from the living room.

  “I should have told you the truth from the very beginning,” he said.

  “You should have,” she agreed with a nod.

  “That’s all I wanted to say.” Dante didn’t want to belabor the point with Lucy or run the risk of annoying her any further. Sometimes an apology was enough.

  “I’m sorry too,” Lucy said, shocking him with her admission. “I shouldn’t have doubted you. I have a hard time separating Dante 2.0 from the ex-boyfriend who hurt me like nobody’s business. It wasn’t right of me to doubt your sincerity.”

  He nodded. “It didn’t feel good to hear, but I understand where you were coming from,” Dante said. “You have no reason to trust me. All I can say is that my reasons for coming back are genuine.” He met Lucy’s gaze. “Whether you think I’m grandstanding or not, you’ve always been special to me.”

  Lucy’s lips trembled, and her brown eyes turned a rich merlot color. “If that’s true, why did you take off like that? Why couldn’t you say goodbye to me and explain everything to my face? That would have made all the difference. As it was, I felt like you threw me away on your way out of town.”

  He wanted to reach out and take Lucy in his arms to comfort her, but he knew that he needed to finally explain himself. He owed her nothing less, especially since she was still wondering what had happened and why. Maybe he could give her a sense of closure by telling her. Maybe he could free both of them. Perhaps then he wouldn’t feel so racked with guilt.

  “I left because I was terrified that if I stayed a day longer, I’d never leave at all. Each and every day things were getting more strained between my dad and me. He didn’t believe in my dreams and he made it abundantly clear to me that he thought I would fall on my face. He wanted me to stay and run the hardware store with him. We had a pretty intense argument, and it almost got physical. After that, the thought of staying terrified me.”

  Once the words came out of his mouth, Dante felt as if he could finally breathe around Lucy. She was standing mere inches away from him, her gaze on the bouquet. She was fiddling with the petals rather than looking at him. When she raised her head, there was no mistaking the moisture pooling in her eyes. She placed the bouquet down on the hall table and focused on him.

  “I understand being afraid. I’ve been there. But what about me? We had plans to go to California together. You just left, Dante. One day you were here, dreaming right alongside me. Then the very next you were gone. That note you left didn’t give me a single answer. And it took you months to finally reach out to me by phone.”

  The emotion in her voice threatened to bring him to his knees. He’d done her wrong on so many levels. “And by that time you didn’t want anything to do with me,” Dante said, old hurts rising to the surface. “If I remember correctly, you pretty much told me to crawl into a hole and die before you hung up.” Just remembering that devastating phone call caused him to wince. It had been a huge blow. All his fantasies about him and Lucy had crashed and burned that day. And he’d realized that he alone was responsible.

  She threw her hands in the air. “After what you did, do you blame me?” The question hung in the air between them like a grenade ready to explode.

  Dante looked down and idly fumbled with his fingers. Did he blame her? Of course he didn’t. In leaving Lucy behind, Dante had made the biggest blunder of his life. It had been born out of fear and pride. He hadn’t been able to fix it months later when he’d gotten on his feet and won his first role. Dante wasn’t sure he’d ever healed from losing Lucy. Part of his relentless drive to achieve superstardom had been a result of their breakup. He’d taken all his tortured feelings and stuffed them down in a dark hole while he clawed his way to the top of the movie industry.

  How was Lucy to know how shattered he’d been by the end of their relationship? He’d never been able to tell her. Maybe he should have tried harder. Although it was almost nine years too late, he needed to get it off his chest.

  “I know what it did to you, Lucy. But it did things to me too. I know it was my fault, but you weren’t the only one who was broken. I was lost without you. I tried my best to hold it together, but everything fell apart. My money dried up really fast and I couldn’t call home for help. Not after the way I left. I couldn’t even afford a cell phone.”

  Lucy clasped his hand in hers. She squeezed it gently, then quickly let go. She seemed to be at war with herself over how to act toward him.

  “You should have reached out to your family. They would have helped you. No matter what went down before you left, they would have been there for you.”

  He shuddered. His own pride had stopped him from getting help from his family. He’d regretted it ever since. “It got bad,” he admitted. “I was too ashamed to tell anyone, but I slept in my car for months.”

  Lucy let out a shocked sound. Her beautiful brown skin blanched before his eyes. “Dante! I-I can’t believe things got so awful for you.”

  He rocked back on his feet. “It’s one of the reasons I don’t take anything for granted in my life. I’ve been at rock bottom scratching just to survive,” he said. “So, you see, I’m glad you weren’t with me, because I wouldn’t have been able to shield you from the bad things. I would have just brought you down.”

  “Is that why you didn’t contact me? Because of the shame?” she asked. “And your cell phone?”

  “Yes. In the beginning, absolutely nothing worked out as I’d planned. I had zero to offer you in California, and by the time I did, you didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. Believe me, I don’t blame you. I let pride get in the way of us and it burned me.”

  Lucy’s eyes welled up and he knew she was about to cry. He hadn’t told her any of these things to make her sad or to draw tears. His confession was long overdue. Part of being back in Mistletoe was taking stock of things. If he truly was going to repair relationships with the people he’d left behind, he needed to peel back the layers. He needed to be guided by the truth.

  He wanted so badly to reach out and touch her. To give her comfort. “Hey now. Please don’t cry. Because if you do, it’s going to make me feel way wors
e than I already do.”

  “I’m not going to cry,” she said, ducking her head. “I think that I might have something in my eye.”

  He placed his hand under her chin and lifted it up so that their gazes locked and held. Dante leaned closer and examined her eyes. “I don’t see anything but the most gorgeous pair of brown eyes I’ve ever seen.” Lucy’s skin blushed prettily at the compliment. At this moment she looked more beautiful than ever. Dante knew it might not be the time or the place, but all he could think about was kissing Lucy senseless.

  * * *

  It felt as if she might be going crazy. Suddenly, she was Alice in Wonderland tumbling headfirst down the rabbit hole. Dante’s soulful brown eyes had the power to pull her under. Something strong pulsed in the air between them as she struggled to process this rapid atmospheric shift. Lucy felt a rush of adrenaline flow through her entire body. With one step, Dante swallowed up the slight distance between them until they were only inches apart. When he reached out and touched her skin, a jolt went through her body. He began to lightly stroke her jaw with his thumb. Lucy looked up at him, feeling as thunderstruck as the very first time she’d known he was going to kiss her. She was far from being sixteen years old, but the butterflies fluttering around in her belly made her feel like a teenager again.

  “Lucy.” Dante murmured her name right before his head dipped down and he placed his lips over hers. His mouth was warm and inviting. For a moment she simply breathed him in, reveling in his spicy, woodsy scent. As his lips began moving against hers, Lucy kissed him back with equal intensity. The kiss started off leisurely, like a slow-burning fire. Within seconds it intensified, turning into pure molten lava. Lucy parted her lips, allowing Dante’s tongue to slide inside.