Sleigh Ride: A Holiday Novella

by Breezie Bennett

  SLEIGH RIDE

  South Florida Riders – Book Seven

  Breezie Bennett

  SLEIGH RIDE

  Copyright © 2020 Mia Frisiello

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights to reproduction of this work are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the copyright owner. Thank you for respecting the copyright. For permission or information on foreign, audio, or other rights, contact the author, breeziebennett@gmail.com.

  ISBN: 978-1-7356076-1-0

  COVER ART: The Killion Group, Inc. (designer)

  INTERIOR FORMATTING: Author E.M.S.

  Table of Contents

  SLEIGH RIDE

  Copyright

  The South Florida Riders Series

  One – Coach John Watson

  Two – Melody Riviera

  Three – Elliot Danes

  Four – Ellie Vice-McKenzie

  Five – Frankie Sterling

  Six – Chase Kennedy

  Seven – Jessica Danes

  Eight – Kendall Smoke

  Nine – Matt McKenzie

  Ten – Andre Smoke

  Eleven – Leo Sterling

  Twelve – Dylan

  Thirteen – Whitney Kennedy

  Fourteen – Jeanette Watson

  About the Author

  The South Florida Riders Series

  Wild Ride

  Slow Ride

  Easy Ride

  Thrill Ride

  Rough Ride

  Sweet Ride

  Sleigh Ride

  For a complete list, buy links, and reading order of all my books, visit www.breeziebennett.com. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter to find out when the next book is released!

  One

  Coach John Watson

  “Where’s the Christmas cheer, Coach?” Chase Kennedy pats my shoulder and takes a swig from his beer bottle. “You’re usually a big holiday guy.”

  I force a smile and shrug, trying to swallow the nagging emptiness that keeps tugging at the back of my mind. “Yeah, just, I don’t know…”

  Maybe it’s the fact that this is my first Christmas in nineteen years without my wife by my side. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s staying up in Delray with her sister for the holidays because we’re “separated.” Maybe it’s the fact that she completely blindsided me with the news that she wants a divorce.

  “Lot on the mind, I guess.” I tap the side of my head and try to dismiss Chase’s concern.

  My players aren’t idiots, though. I’m sure they’re all aware that there’s a critical piece missing from the annual Riders Christmas dinner. They just don’t want to say anything.

  “Coach.” Bright-eyed Frankie Sterling opens her arms and gives me a hug. “Merry Christmas.” She glances behind her, searching around the room. “Leo is here somewhere… There he is!”

  Leo Sterling, my star wide receiver and now father of a little one, offers a hand and brings me in for a hug. “Happy holidays, Coach.”

  “Same to you, Sterling.” I glance down at the small boy clinging to one of Leo’s legs, a painfully cute combination of his parents. “Hi, Sammy.” I ruffle the boy’s hair. “Beautiful family you’ve got.”

  Leo and Frankie smile and head off to mingle, and once again I’m left reeling with thoughts of Jeanette. Should I call her? No, no. That would be silly. Her mind was made up, she said it a hundred times.

  “My man!” Andre Smoke walks up to me with his wife, Kendall, on his arm.

  “Hi, Coach Watson.” Kendall grins brightly and plucks a tiny piece of lint from Andre’s dress shirt. “Happy holidays.”

  Before I have a chance to respond, Dylan Rivera’s vibrant and hilarious wife, Melody, bounces toward us, light pink hair springing around her shoulders.

  She’s so freaking happy. Too happy. God, I used to be that happy.

  “Hello, friends!” Melody beams, dragging Dylan over with her as he opens a beer and laughs about something with Leo and Chase as he’s pulled away.

  Melody exchanges hugs and greetings with Andre and Kendall, the three of them bubbling with love and joy and adding to the stabbing pain in my gut that constantly reminds me how much I miss Jeanette.

  I clear my throat and plaster a smile on my face, knowing I’m gonna have to tell them—all of them—what’s going on once we sit down to dinner. I don’t want pity or sympathy or Melody’s inevitable yoga-related solution, but I do need to address the massive elephant in the room—and the gaping hole in my heart.

  “Coach Watson!” Asher, Elliot Danes’s adorable kid, maybe seven or so, runs up to me and holds up both hands. “Double high five!”

  I crouch down a little and smack his hands. “Asher, my man! You excited for Christmas?”

  “Oh yes.” He nods vigorously. “I’m getting the new Star Wars Lego set and more games for my Nintendo Switch, and I also really want a drone, but I don’t know if Santa is going to—”

  “Ash, sweetie.” Elliot’s wife, Jessica, who should teach a class on being a perfect stepmom, gently grabs his hand and offers me a warm smile. “Let’s not talk poor Coach Watson’s ear off just yet, huh? Come on, help me find your dad.”

  “Please do,” I say with forced enthusiasm. “Dinner’s just about ready, so we can all sit down anytime.”

  A pang flashes through me at the thought of Jeanette’s empty seat. I should set her a place in case she shows up.

  No! Come on, John. You’re not that pathetic.

  I’ve just got to get this Christmas dinner over with, give a brief explanation of why Jeanette isn’t here and that we’ve separated, and I can feel sorry for myself later.

  “All right, everyone!” I say loudly over the hum of conversation and laughter and cheer. “Dinner’s coming out, so let’s sit on down.”

  “Yes, Coach!” Chase says on a laugh, pulling a chair out at the big dining room table for his wife, Whitney, and giving her ass a not-so-subtle pat as she sits down.

  Whitney shoots him a look in response, but can’t stifle a small giggle.

  Damn it. Why do all my players at this dinner have to be so happily freaking married?

  “Heck yeah, let’s eat.” Elliot helps Asher into a seat and unrolls his napkin, laughing quietly at an aside from Dylan or Andre.

  Everyone gathers around the huge, long table with drinks and smiles.

  I pop into the kitchen to check on the caterers, who are just about ready to serve everything, and then refill my scotch before assuming my seat at the head of the table.

  The chatter and conversation lull, and suddenly there are twelve pairs of eyes on me and one very, very obvious question hanging in the air.

  “All right, guys.” I clear my throat, trying to sound casual and laid-back to combat my NFL coach voice, which tends to take over and make everything sound like an aggressive command. “You’re all here with your beautiful families, and that makes me so happy.”

  Melody scoots forward in her seat, her eyes locked on me intently.

  Well, here I go. This is about to be only the second time I’ve said this out loud, after I called my mother last week when Jeanette packed her things and went to stay with her sister.

  “Before you all start forming conspiracy theories and making assumptions, I’m
just going to come out honestly and let you all know that Jeanette and I are…separating.”

  I swallow hard, maintaining the rock-solid and tough exterior, the only demeanor these guys have ever seen from me.

  “Oh no,” Jessica whispers under her breath.

  “What?” Chase and Elliot both draw back in shock.

  Melody gasps and holds a hand to her mouth.

  “Coach…” Leo shakes his head in disbelief, then takes a sip of water while looking at me with a furrowed brow. “What the hell happened? You two were always so solid.”

  Thanks for the reminder, Sterling.

  I push away a fleeting thought that I should run him extra hard in practice after the holidays.

  “Yeah, Coach.” Ellie Vice, daughter of the team’s billionaire owners and new wife of my QB2, brushes her hair behind her ears. “This seems so sudden. I don’t even think my dad knows.”

  “He doesn’t,” I assure her, holding up a hand. “You all are the first to know. After my mother, of course.”

  “What happened, Coach?” asks Dylan, our beloved kicker and the only guy on my team who played soccer in high school.

  “Yeah, man.” Elliot takes a swig of beer and lifts a shoulder. “If you don’t mind sharing. We just want to be there for you, ya know?”

  “Yeah,” Leo adds, glancing up from his two-year-old’s plate where he’s cutting his son’s food into tiny bite-size pieces. “We’re a family and all that.”

  “It’s true.” Andre Smoke pats Chase’s back. “We got you, Coach. You can always talk to us.”

  I take a long, deep breath and another sip of scotch that burns a little more than usual in my throat. “Please.” I shake my head. “I don’t want to turn this night into a big bitch fest about my failed marriage.”

  Jessica jumps at the word bitch and nervously covers Asher’s ears.

  “Sorry. Whine fest,” I correct.

  Elliot waves a dismissive hand.

  “Well, basically,” I say, “I was more blindsided than the Patriots in Super Bowl forty-two when the Giants slammed them with one of the biggest upsets in NFL history.” I force a laugh, hoping the football talk lightens the mood a little, but it doesn’t. “She left,” I finally say, probably in the most hushed voice these guys have ever heard come out of me.

  Silence follows as they wait for me to continue.

  I puff out a breath and keep going. “She said she was feeling…ignored. Said ever since we won the title in February, and I guess all of last season leading up to the Bowl, I was…distant. Preoccupied. She told me she feels like I’m a coach first and a husband second, and we’ve just…grown apart.”

  Melody holds a sympathetic hand to her chest. “Oh, Coach.”

  “Please, guys.” I hold up a hand and shake my head, forcing what I hope resembles a smile onto my face. “I don’t need pity or anything like that. Just letting you all know what the situation is and getting it all out in the open.”

  The table is hushed, and the soft taps of silverware on plates are somehow deafening.

  Leo, who is sitting directly to my right, narrows his eyes at me and swirls his drink. “Is this what you want?”

  I almost choke at the question. Fuck no!

  “No, not really. Not at all. But her mind is made up, so there’s no point in dwelling on anything and ruining a perfectly nice Riders Christmas dinner.” I nod matter-of-factly and glance around the table, seeing that each set of eyes is more sympathetic than the one before.

  Something tells me we’re not gonna be able to just blow by this topic, as I was hoping.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Coach,” Andre chimes in. “This is recent. You don’t have to act like it’s not a big deal.”

  “Absolutely,” Melody adds, twisting her pink hair around in her fingers. “Open discussion of something like this can be very cathartic, actually. There’s nothing healthy or sustainable about bottling up emotions and thoughts.”

  Little pink Gandhi probably isn’t wrong. I sure as hell didn’t want to dump on my closest players and their families tonight, but shit. Maybe it would feel good to get all of this off my chest.

  “Come on, guys. I don’t want to sit here and kill the Super Bowl champs’ Christmas mood. Really, it’s fine.”

  Chase looks at me from the side of the table, arching his brow a little and giving me that signature get real look. “Coach.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do?” I ask quickly, shoving a forkful of salad into my mouth and raising my shoulders.

  “I doubt her mind is made up,” Frankie says, helping Sammy eat a chicken nugget and shaking her head slowly. “You and Jeanette have always been so happy. She’s just having some sort of crisis, I’m sure.”

  “Definitely,” Matt chimes in, wiping some spit-up from the mouth of three-month-old Mason in the baby carrier next to him. “She’ll come around.”

  They don’t know. They weren’t there when she packed her bags. They weren’t there when she said she was done coming in second place to football every day of every year.

  “Damn.” Jessica lifts a shoulder sympathetically. “You guys have been together for so long. I’m so sorry.”

  “Almost twenty years,” I say softly, feeling a burning pain in my chest that I know isn’t from the scotch.

  “Wow, that long?” Ellie cleans up more Mason spit.

  “How did you guys meet?” Melody blurts, leaning forward and staring at me with giant blue eyes.

  “Mel.” Dylan taps her softly. “I doubt he wants to talk about that right now.”

  “Actually…” My words surprise me. “I’d love to share that story with you all. Take a temporary little trip down memory lane, back to when everything was easy.”

  “Story time!” Asher exclaims with a giggle, beaming at me with a smile so blinding and radiant it could only exist on the face of a child two days before Christmas Eve.

  I chuckle a little and lean back in my chair, swirling the scotch in my glass. “All right, then. Story time.”

  “You sure?” Leo gives me a concerned glance.

  “It was 2001. Christmastime. Christmas Eve, actually, to be specific. I had just gotten my first real gig coaching at a small college just outside of Burlington, Vermont, where I lived at the time.”

  “Brrr.” Whitney feigns a shudder.

  “Oh yes. Like a different world compared to down here. But let me tell you guys…” I look around the table and feel the first semblance of a real smile tug at my tired face as the memory of that night floats through my brain. “There’s nothing like a white Christmas.”

  “I bet it was magical,” Melody whispers, holding a hand to her chest.

  “You could say that.” I take a deep sigh, feeling every riveted gaze, even Asher’s, completely fixed on me. “So, it was Christmas Eve. Freezing, snowy, just like in all the movies. The town I lived in had a big park in the middle, like a town square type of deal. Very cutesy, all decorated…lights everywhere, Christmas trees, the whole nine yards. And every year on Christmas Eve, the town has sleigh rides that take people all over, through the trees and across the fields and, you know…” I shrug a little and sip my drink. “It was pretty cheesy and a little silly, but I figured what the hell? I went with a couple of my buddies. We brought a case of beer, thinking we were gonna drink and shoot the shit on a sleigh. For fun.”

  “As one does,” Chase chimes in.

  I laugh softly, the night I’m describing burning clear as day in my memory. “So we all roll up, right? And the sleigh ride is, you know, pretty small. This isn’t some big fancy tourist thing. It was just a small-town operation, and they took only two passengers at a time. And when we got there, I saw that a woman was sitting on the sleigh. All by herself, like she was just waiting to go for a ride all alone.”

  A couple of soft gasps and a mumbled “oh” emerge from my little audience.

  “And there she was.” My throat tightens, and I force myself to push past the wave of emotion and keep my attent
ion on the positive side of the memory.

  You’re never gonna win if you’re thinking about the times you’ve lost.

  At least that’s what I tell my players.

  “Jeanette,” I continue, clearing my throat. “She was so beautiful. Wrapped in this big, furry pink thing with a hood. Her nose was a little red from the cold, but her smile was warmer than the damn summer sun. Without a second of hesitation, I handed the case of Coors Light to my buddy and walked right up to the mystery woman on the sleigh.”

  “Hell yeah, Coach.” Leo laughs. “Got a pair.”

  I shoot him a look. “I hopped right up on the sleigh and sat down with her.”

  “Was it love at first sight?” Jessica asks.

  “Well, she asked me who the hell I thought I was and told me to get lost.” I laugh and shake my head at the memory. “So, there was that. But I was persistent. I said, ‘What on earth is a beautiful woman like you doing on a Christmas Eve sleigh ride all alone?’”

  “And what did she say?” Ellie asks eagerly, pulling apart a roll, totally enticed by my apparently riveting anecdote.

  “She told me she used to ride with her dad every year. But he passed away three years prior, and ever since then, she’d ride alone.”

  “Oh.” Frankie widens her eyes and holds her hands to her heart. “That’s so sad.”

  “It was. And, of course, I respected her wishes and was about to climb out of the sleigh and let her be alone. But then, by the grace of God Himself, as I was stepping off the little ledge to hop back onto the snowy ground, she grabbed my hand. I thought I was imagining it at first, but I turned back, and she was holding my hand tightly and blinking at me with the most dazzling brown eyes I’ve ever seen. She said just one word. Stay.”