‘I’m not quitting this easy. You deserve a boy who fights.’
‘I deserve a boy who respects my choices.’
‘The only way those walls are coming down are if someone breaks them down, because you’re not doing it on your own. Tell me, how am I expected to fight for you and to leave you alone?’
‘I don’t know. You just do.’
‘No one breaks my heart like you, baby,’ Christian replied.
He dropped Clara off at her home, the Milleridge Inn, and paid the driver. He walked toward his home until he couldn’t walk anymore, and then he put his head in his hands and breathed, and he tried to think of a way to escape the heartache until it dawned on him; the only way he’d escape the heartache was escape itself. He left Mistletoe the very next day, at dawn.
Christian cringed. He cringed at how open he’d been as an eighteen-year-old. How he’d put everything on the line, but he had to buy marshmallows now, and he didn’t like to wallow for long. In the store, something made him buy chocolate milk, a treat he’d loved as a child but found he no longer liked. He finished, and smacked his lips with satisfaction.
When the shop owner asked if he wanted the gluten-free marshmallows, Christian said yes, thank you, and another cartoon of chocolate milk, which he slurped as he was paying. He thought about the fight—the fight which would probably happen with Clara when he arrived back at the inn with marshmallows free of gluten—and he bought a third chocolate milk. Maybe he did like the milk, and anyway, there were worse drinks.
‘Did you get lost?’ Clara said, appearing in the shop.
‘I’m hungry,’ Christian said. He shook the carton of milk. ‘Someone gave my dinner to the dog.’
‘You want to get some dinner?’
‘Yes,’ he said at once.
Christian took Clara to an upmarket restaurant where the meals were more like rations than meals. The restaurant sold nearly every delicacy so long as they could make that delicacy small, but Clara liked to eat. Christian once saw her eat a triple chocolate peppermint trifle, a gigantic desert her tiny frame couldn’t possibly fit, yet had.
‘I couldn’t get a last minute reservation anywhere else.’ Christian looked down at Clara’s bright red heels as he waited politely for her to sit. Even Christian, a man who didn’t care for stilettos, liked those shoes. ‘Cute,’ he added.
‘Thanks. Are you excited for dinner?’ Clara said crisply. She didn’t wait for the answer. Instead, she took out her phone, and then she took out another phone. She unlocked both and started texting, which was totally fine, Christian told himself.
‘Yeah, maybe.’ Christian made his voice bored so that Clara couldn’t tell he wanted to snatch the phones out of her hands. ‘Are we getting desert?’
Clara nodded impatiently. ‘You know, you really should talk to my Christmas psychologist.’
‘You have a Christmas psychologist?’
‘She’s very good. Her name is Dr. Morris.’
‘Okay, but why do you have a Christmas psychologist?’
‘Therapy is a wonderful processing tool.’
‘So, you need to process—Christmas?’
Christian noticed there were three new freckles on the inside of Clara’s left wrist, and then he felt creepy noticing there were three new freckles on the inside of Clara’s left wrist.
Clara dropped both her phones after she glanced up, and vanished beneath the table. Christian joined her.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘I saw Sugarplum Mary.’
‘Who?’
‘She’s the Christmas consigliere.’
Christian furrowed his brows. ‘Wait—I thought you were the Christmas consigliere?’
‘She’s the Christmas consigliere for Yuletide.’
‘Are you going to confront her?’
‘Yeah.’
‘About the abduction of your Top Sixty Santa?’
‘Yeah,’ Clara shoved both phones in the pocket of her coat and stood. ‘She was clearly behind it.’
Christian tried to discreetly smell Clara’s perfume as she grabbed his arm and yanked him over to Sugarplum Mary. She smelled like vanilla. The same perfume her mom liked to wear.
‘Mary.’
‘Oh, Cynthia,’ Sugarplum Mary replied sweetly. She looked at Christian. ‘Oh, I thought you were still with Ridge.’
‘Ridge Brooks?’ Christian said at once.
‘I know you stole Henri,’ Clara said, elbowing Christian to make him be quiet. ‘And you know very well that my name is Clara.’
Mary smiled. ‘I thought it was Gertrude, actually. Some of us around here still remember your sweet mother. Did she mind that you changed your name?’
‘I cannot believe you would stoop so low as to threaten Henri’s family.’
‘You know, dear, and I hate to be the one to say this, but Mistletoe’s not looking particularly festive this year. Why don’t I give you some tips.’
Clara nodded along as Sugarplum Mary lectured her on garlands and pine trimming and tinsel and how she liked to serve pork wellington with prosciutto and spinach mushroom stuffing: ‘The dish is a true showstopper.’
‘I’ll tell you what you can do with that pork wellington with prosciutto and spinach mushroom stuffing,’ Clara said when Sugarplum Mary finally stopped talking, and then she did. Sugarplum Mary was so shocked she couldn’t think of a response, and Clara left the restaurant grinning.
Even though Clara giggled all the way back to the inn, Christian felt claustrophobic. What did Sugarplum Mary mean when she mentioned Ridge? He suddenly couldn’t handle being in Mistletoe anymore, because he didn’t want to know about Clara dating another man, especially if that other man was Ridge Brooks.
He grabbed a shovel out of the hall cupboard and trudged outside, to free his father’s old Jaguar and leave. Clara joined him ten minutes later. He’d made little to no progress,
‘Why are you shoveling out the car?’ she asked, folding her arms.
‘Because I’m getting the heck out of Dodge,’ Christian replied. ‘I hate this town.’
‘Maybe it’s not the town you hate?’
‘James.’
‘What, Thornton? We haven’t talked since you returned. Don’t you think we should at least address the reindeer in the room?’
‘Fifteen years ago, I asked you to marry me. Fifteen years ago, you said no. Do we really need to talk about that now?’
‘No, but we could talk about the past fifteen years.’
‘I moved away. I went to school. I became an architect. Now I’m back in Mistletoe to make sure I inherit Milleridge Inn. What else is there to say?’
‘Fine,’ Clara snapped. ‘But you’ll never get that car out. And even if you did, Officer Frost would charge you. It’s December, which means you can’t drive anything but a sleigh until the day after Christmas.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yet another one of Mistletoe’s bananas laws.’
‘I’d really like to know how you plan on inheriting the inn and getting the heck out of Dodge?’
‘I’ll call the Relic in the morning and tell her something good.’
‘Yeah? Well, if you leave, I’ll call the Relic now and tell her we were only pretending to be engaged.’
‘James, are you blackmailing me?’
‘I want you to inherit Milleridge Inn too, remember? You’re not going to guarantee your inheritance all the way from New York. Face it, Thornton. You are stuck here in Mistletoe until Christmas. Try to act happy about it.’
‘Ho ho ho!’ Christian said sarcastically. He dropped his shovel in the snow. ‘Guess I’m sticking around.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Clara replied.
Christian desperately wanted to ask Clara about Ridge. Instead he said, ‘You know, I always assumed blackmail was beneath you.’
‘Nothing is beneath me,’ Clara replied. ‘I once dated you, after all.’
‘Someone is getting coal in their stocking this year.’
‘Yeah.’ Clara sniffed. ‘And his name is Christian Thornton III.’
Seven
Christian awoke tired. He was not the man he’d once dreamed of being, which was the man married to Clara James. He was thirty-three now, and he wasn’t getting any less thirty-three, and he didn’t know where to go from here. And then there was Garland Street, something akin to holy ground in Mistletoe. Garland Street, with its handsome houses and private tennis courts. Garland Street, where no one felt unsure of themselves or their place in the spinning world.
Yes, who could have known that the Thorntons would abandon the street where once they were kings.
Christian never thought he’d walk Garland Street again, but since his return to Mistletoe he had walked here, night after night, the oak trees high above him as the houses glowed green and red beyond their iron fences. One night, Christian had stood there on the corner and he had waited for Garland Street to reveal itself as something more than a street, and when the street failed to do this, he scrambled over the Millers’ fence and walked over to the tennis courts.
He liked tennis. He liked to wear white, crisp white, gleaming white, and watch his girlfriend up on the tips of her toes, out there beyond the net. Just allowing himself to spend that long amount of time in the sun, or any amount of time, felt dangerous and cocksure, like tempting Apollo to strike Christian down as he drove tennis balls around the court. There he once stood, luxuriating in his crispness, a good old boy among Mistletoe men, laughing at the sweat which peppered their red brows. But he’d become hungry after Clara’s rejection; he didn’t want to coast anymore, because coasting disconnected him. The world didn’t understand a man who didn’t work. The world didn’t know how to talk over a beer with a man who didn’t work.
He thought about this as he stood on that corner. He also thought about the kitchen in which he and Clara had danced, like his parents danced before them, barefoot, laughing, Springsteen on the radio:
‘Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true,
or is it something worse?’
Christian didn’t listen to the radio anymore. He had his CDs—yes, still. CDs his father bought after donating the entirety of his record collection, the record collection Christian Thornton II had sacrificed to appease the gods of modernism—his neighbors. How Christian would like those records now.
That tennis could be a part of his life once more, that Clara could be a part of his life, seemed just as impossible as the thought that Clara could not be a part of his life again. But then, he didn’t belong on Garland Street anymore, so he left and walked back to Milleridge.
On a table in the sitting room he found a copy of Merry Living Magazine addressed to Caroline James sticking out of a stack of tourism pamphlets.
Clara, who was tidying up in the room, gestured to the magazine. ‘I still have no idea who’s paying for the subscription.’
‘I thought you were?’ Christian frowned.
‘Yeah, but things got tight, and I had to cancel the subscription. I went crying to Holly, which is stupid, really, getting that upset over a magazine. She was really kind, though.’
‘It’s not stupid.’
‘The next month it was here again. Holly swears she’s not paying for it.’
‘Don’t look at me,’ Christian said lightly.
Clara smiled and told him she had to keep working. Christian decided to hang out in the kitchen with Boxer until Holly arrived home.
‘Why, hello, Holly Calhoun,’ Christian said in an over-the-top voice that always made Holly laugh. ‘Mighty fine evening, isn’t it?’
Holly snorted. ‘You’re an idiot. Want to watch the kids for me this morning?’
‘Of course not.’
‘How come I knew you’d say that?’
‘You don’t want me watching your kids, Holly. I’d teach them all sorts of bad habits, and they’ve already got their daddy for that.’
‘Be nice.’
‘I am being nice. Where is Jake, anyway?’
‘You won’t be seeing him this time, Christian. He’s away on business.’
‘He’s missing out on Christmas with the Gs?’ Christian felt a twinge of anger.
‘The Gs have enough toys and junk food to keep them distracted from their missing daddy for the entirety of the festive season, don’t you worry about that. Grayson’s inherited his Uncle Christian’s love of candy canes.’
‘That boy has also inherited my good looks and charm.’
‘Jake promised to call them on Christmas Day,’ Holly said as she swatted Christian with a dish towel.
Jake Calhoun was tall and tan and blond and a farmhand, and he’d moved to California after his twenty-first birthday. He was told he looked like a movie star, the way the best looking boy in a small town is always told he looks like a movie star. But when he moved, he discovered hundreds of boys who looked just like him, but better. They worked as waiters or personal assistants on schlocky, B-List horror films. Jake thought about writing his own stuff, but his own stuff came about as easily as the acting auditions, which was not very. So he returned to Mistletoe, and there chased Holly.
She didn’t love him, but that was okay because he loved her. And anyway, Holly simply didn’t want to be lonely anymore, so what was the harm in spending time with a handsome boy? She began dating Jake, who only sometimes told her to pay for movie tickets and soda and popcorn, which made her feel grateful. He held her hand in public, which also made her feel grateful, and when Jennifer C laughed at Holly, Jake told Jennifer C to stop being awful. Later, he began an affair with Jennifer C, but at that point he and Holly were not yet married, and a man defending her honor against a Jennifer was the stuff of her teenage dreams.
Christian didn’t try telling Holly that it wasn’t right, that a man loving you didn’t mean a thing if you didn’t love him back. Christian was living in New York when Jake returned to Mistletoe, and he knew only what the Relic told him, which was Holly had been lucky to catch such a man. Christian never believed a word the Relic said, but didn’t Holly sound happy on the phone? And at her wedding, which was held in Boston, didn’t she look radiant? So what if he could barely tolerate the Jake he met that day? Maybe, Christian had to get to know him.
He didn’t know then that Holly had rejected Jake’s first proposal. She’d felt unsure. It wouldn’t just be marriage. It would be babies and a mortgage and a rescue dog. But Jake didn’t understand her hesitation, so he packed his bags and left. Holly begged him to come home, and he did, but not until he’d thrown Ashley and Catherine and sometimes Jennifer B in her face.
When he returned, Holly still didn’t feel in love with him, but she did feel grateful. Sometimes, it felt as though grateful powered her down that aisle, in Boston. That grateful pushed Holly into giving Jake a home and four children, three of them boys, just like he wanted. But what grateful couldn’t do was turn to love.
‘Good luck with the kids,’ Christian said to Holly, as she thanked him and left.
He poured himself a mug of eggnog and he took it to the sitting room. Christian liked the noise—it quieted his mind the way Clara quieted his mind when she talked about Christmas, the way he felt alone and comfortable in this aloneness when he sat next to her.
‘Get up,’ Clara ordered, appearing before him suddenly.
‘Excuse me?’ Christian’s mouth fell open.
‘It’s time to roast some chestnuts.’
Christian groaned. There were some people who thought roasting chestnuts over an open fire cut into time that could be better spent not roasting chestnuts over an open fire, and Christian was one of these people. But Clara was Clara, and she owned a long-handled chestnut roaster. A long-handled chestnut roaster! She also knew far too much about chestnuts than was decent.
While Castagne chestnuts were more common, Marroni chestnuts were sweeter and plumper and peeled more easily away from the skin—the way the Castagne variety apparently did not. But it wasn’t enough simply to scoop a handful of Marroni c
hestnuts into your long-handled chestnut roaster and call it a day.
First, you had to check each chestnut individually. You had to find the chestnuts that were plump and smooth and shiny, that did not have any blemishes. You had to squeeze the chestnut, and then you had to shake the chestnut, because chestnuts have a tendency to mold—‘it’s a common problem,’ Clara said with a sigh—or to shrivel up inside, which was no good.
And then there was the largeness of the chestnut, how one chestnut could not be much larger, or much smaller, than any other chestnut in your chestnut roaster, because you want them all to finish roasting at the same time. All this effort and thought and consideration and planning, and you’ve not even began to start roasting yet.
But there was more. You must score each chestnut to allow steam to escape, otherwise your chestnut will explode. Explode! Like a bomb! The contempt in Christian’s voice was thick when he said, ‘Clara, why don’t you just buy a whole lot of roasted chestnuts and be done with it?’
Christian had moved to Manhattan all those years ago for reasons unrelated to chestnuts, but now he thought about it, escaping this chestnut-y chaos was an added bonus.
‘Because this is fun,’ Clara said.
Okay, but Christian drew the line at scoring chestnuts. It was undignified enough that he had stood in the crowded store for twenty minutes that morning to shake chestnut after chestnut. It was mortifying enough that half the shopping crowd didn’t know what he was doing, and it was mortifying enough that the other half did—that they believed Christian the kind of man who shook chestnuts, searching for the best.
So now, Christian tossed the unscored chestnuts in the roaster and sighed. He had chosen a life that guaranteed he never roasted chestnuts, so why was he sitting in front of an open fire with one hand wrapped around the handle of a chestnut roaster? He looked at his reflection in the window and fashioned an irritated face.
‘Hey, Thornton,’ Clara said. ‘Did you score the chestnuts liked I asked?’
‘Obviously,’ he lied.
‘Good, because I don’t want them to explode.’
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