Colorado Christmas Magic

by Caitlin McKenna

  “Aww.” Rebecca leaned over and gave him a kiss. “He also got a woman who loves football.” She lifted up her cashmere sweater to reveal a Denver Broncos jersey underneath. “Don’t mess with my Broncos,” she said, making everyone laugh.

  Jack hated that Charley still wouldn’t look in his direction. He wanted to see her smile again, even if it wasn’t for him.

  “How long after that did you two meet?” Charley asked.

  “The very next day,” Tom said.

  “That soon?” She finally glanced at Jack, and he assumed she was thinking about the timing of their reunion.

  “Not even twenty-four hours. After I threw my wish in the mailbox, it started to snow, so Dave suggested we stay overnight. We managed to get two rooms right here at this B&B. The next morning, I met Rebecca at breakfast. We hit it off instantly and the rest is history.”

  “That’s a great story,” Charley said.

  “We were meant to be.” Rebecca patted her husband’s leg. “That’s why this place is so special.”

  “What happened to Dave?” Charley asked. “Did he go back to the mailbox and make a wish?”

  “No.” Tom frowned. “Unfortunately, he doesn’t believe in Christmas magic. I remember saying to him, ‘Open your eyes, man, before it’s too late.’”

  “You said that?” Charley stared at him.

  Tom nodded. “But sometimes people are too stubborn to take a chance.”

  “Dave’s still single,” Rebecca said. “Hon, maybe we should make a wish for him.”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” he agreed, and they kissed again.

  Jack watched Charley carefully. It seemed like an inner battle was going on inside her head.

  The room suddenly got quiet, and everyone heard a car honking from outside.

  “Sounds like my ride’s here.” Charley stood, and Jack felt like he was going to be sick. “Well, Merry Christmas.”

  Mary and Joe hurried through the foyer toward the front door as Charley walked over to her suitcases by the stairs.

  “Let me get those.” Jack was instantly by her side. “Please don’t go.”

  She, at last, met his gaze, and her eyes were glassy from tears. “Jack, we’ve been pretending. We live in separate states, we—”

  The front door swung open with a burst of laughter. “Look who’s here!” Mary announced.

  Jack turned to see his parents. “Mom. Dad.”

  “Hi, son.” His mom hurried over and gave him a big hug.

  Charley, her head down and her bags in hand, was trying to slip out unnoticed.

  “Is that the beautiful Charley Dawson?” his mom called to her.

  She flipped around, plastering a smile on her face. “Hello, Mrs. Brody, Mr. Brody. It’s good to see you again.” She set her bags down once again and went over to greet them.

  “It’s been too long,” his mom said, all smiles, and gave Charley a warm embrace.

  “What a pleasant surprise to find the two of you together again,” Jack’s dad said, his eyes dancing between Charley and Jack. “Well, son, is there more to this reunion than you let on?” He clasped him on the shoulder.

  “It’s not like that,” Charley quickly answered for him. “In fact, I was just leaving. My car service seems to be late. I should give them a call.” She reached into her handbag and retrieved her phone.

  “You can’t leave now.” Joe sounded alarmed. “We’re supposed to get at least five inches of snow.”

  Mary cleared her throat.

  “Ten. I mean ten inches of snow.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine, I—” Charley’s phone started ringing. “It’s the car service. Hello?” She walked a few steps away from the group.

  Everyone kept their voices down while she was on the phone. Jack anxiously looked at Mary. “No need to worry,” she whispered.

  Charley disconnected the call and turned toward the group. “His car broke down.” She looked dismayed. “He said it’ll be at least another hour.” She glanced at Mary and Joe. “Can I get a ride so I don’t miss my flight? I’ll pay you for your trouble.”

  “Oh, dear.” Mary fussed with the back of her hair. “We’d love to help you out, Charley, but we have a little get-together happening for Mike in a couple of hours.”

  Charley glanced at Jack, who immediately cast his eyes to the ground. He was not going to take her to the airport so she could fly away from him forever.

  She released a discouraged sigh. “I guess I’ll need to call another car service.”

  “Why don’t you just stay?” Mary pleaded. “We so love having you here.”

  “Yes, stay.” His mom voiced her support.

  “I’ll have to insist,” Joe said. “I can’t have any guests out there on icy roads.”

  “But I changed my flight.” Charley looked dumbfounded, and Jack almost laughed. He had to remind himself that she was from LA where weather rarely interfered with travel plans.

  “I’m afraid you’ll just have to change it again,” Mary said. “But you better wait until we know what’s happening with this imminent snowstorm.”

  Charley checked the sky, which was partly sunny. “It doesn’t look at all like it’s about to snow.”

  Said the snow expert.

  “Storms roll in awfully fast,” Joe said.

  “They really do.” Jack could see impatience begin to boil under Charley’s skin. She glared at him, as if he had commanded the weather to mess up her departure. “Check your weather app.”

  “I will,” Charley huffed, pulling it up on her phone. She glanced up at the sky, then at the weather report, then at the sky. “It’s supposed to start snowing in an hour? Really?”

  “Oh, sure,” Joe said. “I remember this one September day when it was eighty degrees at lunch and snowing by the time we went to bed.”

  Charley narrowed her eyes. “Then maybe Mike shouldn’t come over.”

  “That man owns a snowplow, and he’ll use it if he has to.” Mary laughed, as did everyone but Charley. “Now, I’ve got to get back in the kitchen. Joe will show you to your room,” she said to Jack’s parents, “and, Charley, you know where yours is.” Mary pulled out the key from her apron pocket and gave it back to her.

  Charley stared at the key in her hand.

  “I can’t wait to catch up,” his mom said, giving Charley a squeeze on her arm, and Jack finally saw a crack in that Teflon armor of hers.

  Chapter Thirty

  Charley staggered back into her room and dropped her bags. Her gaze immediately fell on the wrapped toy sailboat she’d bought for Jack. She had left it behind with a note for Mary to give it to him after she was gone. She had known leaving would be difficult, but she’d had no idea it was going to be impossible. In truth, once she’d gotten downstairs and seen Jack, she hadn’t wanted to leave. When he’d asked her not to go, she’d nearly broken down. And then, when his parents arrived and were so happy to see her, she wished she’d never changed her ticket.

  Tossing her workbag on the bed, she took out her laptop to change her ticket again, but when she pulled up her itinerary, the changes she’d made in the early morning hours were gone. She immediately got on the phone with an airline representative and discovered there was no record of her rebooking the return flight. Truly mystified, she hung up. She didn’t know how it happened, but she was sure that St. Nicholas and the Scrooge Legend were behind it.

  Okay, fine. She wasn’t meant to leave, but what now? Was Jack posing as Reality Check or could it be someone else? The phrases “open your eyes” and “meant to be” were in Reality Check’s latest comment, the exact phrases that Tom and Rebecca used. Was it coincidence or was something far greater going on?

  She couldn’t deny all the magical things that had been happening ever since she stepped foot in St. Nicholas. Every interview she’d conducted with for
mer Scrooges had told her the same thing—when they began to see things differently, their world changed for the better.

  She had hated the holidays because too many Christmases had been without love, and the first love that left her had been Jack. Fourteen years had passed, and she had never made the connection until St. Nicholas changed that for her. Somehow, it had brought her Jack, and she’d discovered what had actually happened with their breakup. That one misinterpreted incident had created years of insecurity. For so long, she’d felt she was undeserving of love.

  Less than a week later, she had regained some of her childlike wonder. She enjoyed laughing with someone again, daydreaming about the future, experiencing the sensation of an incredible kiss. She’d allowed herself to fall in love. There was no way she would debunk the Scrooge Legend now, even if she had solid proof that it wasn’t real, because to her it was real—it had brought her Jack.

  Charley stared out the window, watching the clouds roll in as everyone had said they would. What she didn’t understand was how her and Jack’s happiness could be so swiftly derailed by an ex-girlfriend. If the legend was all about love and light and healing emotional wounds, how could Lisa have been allowed to blow it all up? How did she fit into all of it? Why had she driven such a long distance for a guy who’d already told her it was over?

  She remembered the pain she had seen in Lisa’s eyes and she knew that pain. She understood that pain. Fourteen years ago, she had assumed Jack didn’t love her. She’d misread the breakup and walled herself up in a prison of insecurity. Could it be that Lisa had done the same thing? Had some incident played with her emotions to the point she couldn’t see clearly? It was the only thing that made sense.

  And what about Jack? Were his feelings toward her real? Was he the one she’d been waiting for? Reality Check seemed to think so. He insisted Jack was her soulmate, and deep down, she believed that to be true.

  “Okay, Reality Check.” She took in a long deep breath. “My eyes are wide open. Show me that we’re meant to be.”

  * * *

  “Mike has no idea he’ll be meeting you today.” Jack sat at the table in his parents’ room while they unpacked. “I can’t promise he’ll remember you because he still hasn’t remembered me. This might be tougher than you think.”

  “We know,” his mom said. “But you believe it’s him, right?”

  “I do. The way he walks, the way he talks, his scar, his eyes. He took Dad’s first name and your last name. It’s him.”

  His dad blew out a breath. “After all these years wondering.” He shook his head as though the thought of seeing his brother again was simply implausible. “I... What should I say to him?”

  “We’re going to have to play it by ear,” Jack said. “But what I do know from speaking to a psychiatrist friend of mine is that we can’t bombard him all at once. He’ll shut down. If it seems like he’s starting to remember us or something about his past, then we’ll need to gently feed him information.”

  “Okay.” His dad sounded uncertain as he took his clothes out of his hanging bag and placed them in the closet.

  “I still can’t believe he was in New York.” His mom set her makeup kit in the bathroom. “What was he doing there? He never said he was going out of town.”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “But according to Mike, he was hit by a car on the twenty-third of December.”

  “I can’t imagine,” she whispered in a voice layered with sadness.

  “He’s a survivor,” Jack said. “Worst case, he doesn’t remember us. If that happens, then we move forward and create new memories.”

  “We can do that.” She came over to Jack and put her arm around him. “You always said he was out there. You never gave up, and your father and I are so grateful for that.”

  “As much as I’d like to take credit, I’d say it was divine intervention. How else can I explain that I found my uncle while I was on an investigation in a small mountain town, where I stayed at a bed-and-breakfast in a room with a shower leak, so that he would be the guy to fix it? Talk about right place, right time.”

  “Someone is definitely looking out for our family,” she said, sitting down at the table with Jack. “And how does Charley fit into all of this?”

  “That’s a good question and a long story.” He sighed. “These past few days have challenged my beliefs about what seems reasonable or logical and what doesn’t.”

  “What do you mean?” his dad asked, closing up his empty suitcase and setting it aside.

  “You know how someone says a place is cursed? I actually think this town is blessed. It’s the only explanation for all of the unbelievable things I’ve seen and experienced. To find my uncle and my high school sweetheart in the same B&B—I’d say that’s more than coincidence or sheer luck.”

  “You two didn’t come up here together?” His mom looked surprised.

  “No. She still lives in LA. We ended up working on the same investigation, but my ex-girlfriend showed up, and now Charley’s not speaking to me.”

  “Oh, is that all.” She waved it away as she got up to finish unpacking. “She’ll come around.”

  “I don’t know, Mom. She was on her way out the door when you arrived.”

  “But she stayed, and it’s starting to snow,” she said, glancing out the window.

  Jack watched the beautiful white flakes gently glide to the ground. He loved snowfalls—the fresh, clean look of the landscape, the stillness they brought to his surroundings. The quiet forced him to reflect on the current challenges that faced him and helped him find the better path forward. Charley was his path forward, and he needed her to know that.

  “I think you might be right about this town being blessed,” his mother said. “Look who just walked outside.”

  Jack dipped his chin and spotted Charley stepping into the snow. She was staring up at the sky with her hand out, trying to catch the flakes. He abruptly turned from the window and ran to the door.

  “Where are you going?” his dad asked.

  “To get her back.”

  * * *

  Jack went out the front door and walked over to Charley. The sound of the snow crunching under his boots had her twisting around to see who was approaching. When she saw it was him, she turned away and stiffened. At least she didn’t walk away.

  He shoved his hands in his front pockets and stood without saying a word. He waited for her to speak, but she didn’t, and the strained silence between them remained. Their surroundings were so hushed that he could hear tiny snowflakes falling on his parka.

  “Fun fact,” Jack said, breaking the silence. “No two snowflakes are alike.”

  Charley stared at him like she’d been taken off guard. He waited for her to tell him to never speak to her again, but the startled look on her face turned to curiosity. “How do you know? Have you examined every single snowflake in existence?”

  He chuckled. “Good point.”

  “And we’re in St. Nicholas, mind you, where logic doesn’t apply. Maybe here the snowflakes are all alike.”

  “Another good point. Why don’t we begin our own investigation?” He took two steps toward her and held out his arm, where snowflakes continued to fall on his jacket. “See? The snow isn’t sticking together yet, and because my jacket is black, you can see that this snowflake looks like a fern, and this one looks like a star.”

  Charley moved closer so she could inspect the tiny flakes. “Oh, wow. Here’s a daisy-shaped flake.”

  “Here’s one with tree-like branches.”

  “Look how beautiful this one is,” she said in awe, studying a snowflake by his shoulder.

  “I am,” he told her in an almost aching voice.

  She raised her eyes and met his unwavering gaze.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I should have told you that I recently ended a relationship. I handled
it poorly.”

  “I’m sorry too.” She gently laid her hands on his chest. “I jumped to conclusions. I should have trusted you.”

  He tucked her hands inside his. “Can we start over?” He searched her face for her answer.

  “I don’t want to start over.” She stared into his eyes, not letting go. “But I wouldn’t mind picking up where we left off.”

  He tipped up her chin and gently kissed her. He could feel her melt into him, and he knew he never wanted to be without that sensation again. When they at last broke apart, he took her hand in his. “Do you have your gloves and hat with you?”

  “I do.” She pulled them out of her pockets.

  “Then let’s go for a walk.”

  * * *

  It was so charming how Jack helped her put on her hat and gloves. She’d noticed over the past few days how he innately protected her in every way. He walked on the side closest to the street. He made sure her seat belt was fastened before he started driving. He even directed her around foot traffic when they were holding hands. With his six-foot-two-inch frame and his muscular build, it was incredibly romantic.

  And now they were out walking together enjoying the quiet, peaceful beauty of their first snowfall. Soft, cottony snowflakes danced and twirled in the air, and she hummed a small laugh when they hit her eyelashes.

  She and Jack strolled down the Carrolls’ long driveway, which looped around their front yard. With a town of only twelve thousand, sections of forest, not fences, separated residential homes. Charley could seriously see herself living in St. Nicholas, enjoying the privacy, while being surrounded by such stunning nature.

  “I love this.” She swept her arm across the landscape. “I really do.”

  “It’s difficult not to,” he said. “I love how snow muffles everyday noise, leaving the world calm and serene.”

  They traipsed a short distance into the woods, taking in the tranquil solitude.

  “Are those birch or aspen trees?” She pointed to the line of trees along the Carrolls’ property.