Christmas at Mistletoe Lodge: New Holiday Romances to Benefit St. Jude Hospital

by Sabrina York

  “How do you know all this?” Gina asked her.

  “Because my great-grandmother worked as the housekeeper and dear friend of your great-great-grandmother. She kept in touch with her for their entire life and my grandmother was always around to hear. She passed all her stories on to me and told me that I was the keeper of the part of history that was not written down. She said it is our responsibility to give both families this history when the time was right.” Mrs. Byrd took each of their hands. “This is the right time. The two of you are the birth of a totally new history. And I’m always here if you need a helping hand.” She smiled. “Thank you for the invitation, Gina. The new library will be a place of love and happiness.”

  They watched Mrs. Byrd walk away.

  “So, you’re going to spend more time in Glenville,” Gina said.

  “As much time as I possibly can.” Owen wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into him. “And if you still want me, I’ll come back to stay.”

  “I will always want you by my side, Owen Brock.”

  “Thank goodness. I don’t even want to think about a life without you being the center of my world, Gina Jamerson.” He leaned down and kissed her.

  “I guess Della and Juliet were right,” Gina said.

  “Right about what?”

  “We really do have Christmas chemistry.”

  Other Books By Joanne Jaytanie

  Hunters & Seekers

  Salvaging Truth, Book 1

  The Winters Sisters

  Chasing Victory, Book One

  Payton’s Pursuit, Book Two

  Willow’s Discovery, Book Three

  Corralling Kenzie, Book Four

  Miss Demeanor, P.I.

  P.I.~I Love You, Book 1

  Twice As Bad, Book 2

  Forever Christmas In Glenville

  Christmas Reflections

  Christmas Ivy

  Soldiers of Fortune

  Multi-Author Collection

  Dogs of Fortune

  Love, Take Two

  Love’s Always Paws-Able

  Building Up to Love

  Uncharted Love

  About Joanne Jaytanie

  Joanne writes romantic suspense, paranormal, and supernatural. A transplant from upstate New York, Joanne lives with her husband and Doberman, in their home located on the Olympic Peninsula with a panoramic view of the Olympic Mountains.

  When she's not writing, she loves to travel and enjoys time with her family and friends. In her previous life, Joanne showed dogs, worked in personnel, and managed her husband's forensic engineering firm.

  Joanne is a PAN member of Romance Writers of America, Kiss of Death, Greater Seattle Romance Writers Chapter, Sisters In Crime, and Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal. She served as President of Peninsula Romance Writers, which was Debbie Macomber’s home chapter.

  The Christmas Challenge

  The Christmas Challenge

  By Kim Hornsby

  To anyone who finds themselves lonely or heartbroken at Christmas. This one is for you.

  1

  Tori shoved the final bite of a pizza slice into her mouth and stared at her laptop. She’d just issued a challenge to the followers of her popular blog site, Elevate, to get everyone who might otherwise be shy or unlikely to engage in the spirit of the holidays, to put themselves out there for the Christmas season.

  The irony was not lost on Tori. With an MA in psychology and several years’ worth of counselling women, Tori had enough education and know how to realize that this challenge was her way of living through her followers. This month, she was coming up to eighteen months of barely leaving this apartment and life had dwindled down to a shadow of what she once lived.

  Tori’s laptop screen filled with comments—excitement from her blog’s followers, people she’d nicknamed Elevators. Some comments supported anyone taking part in the Challenge to be the best version of themselves they could possibly be. Some comments were from readers who were committing to the Challenge itself. Tori’s readers were women from all over the world, from all walks of life, all ages, all shapes and sizes and personalities, women who all had one thing in common. They read Tori’s blog to be lifted up, to join in the joyous task of spreading positivity for women and helping each other love themselves.

  Over the last year, Tori had come to love having this amazing group of women who gathered on her blog’s pages to support each other, not tear anyone down or tear themselves down. No bullying allowed on Elevate.

  The Christmas Challenge and its rules were listed on the screen of Tori’s laptop that sat on her grandmother’s old desk in the corner of her apartment on the outskirts of downtown Seattle. She’d promised Elevators a surprise today and before she’d thought too long and hard about it, Tori had typed out the Challenge and posted it.

  She set her fingers on her keyboard and continued the explanation of the Challenge that would invite everyone to enjoy the sociability of the upcoming holiday season, detailing anyone that needed a boost to get out there, be more active, more engaged with the world. This was their call to action at a time of year when peace and goodwill was at its finest. She posted more information and sat back to watch reactions.

  Although the Challenge talked about the time of year when people around the world celebrated Christmas, Tori knew she had many readers who celebrated other things depending on their culture or religion. But no one was immune to the love that swirled through the Christmas season, or the feeling of camaraderie and community that the last two weeks of December brought. People were nicer, happier, more able to reach out to others. Yes, the Christmas Challenge was a good idea for Elevators.

  Her screen was full of signups from women (and a few men) vowing to do the Challenge that would start tomorrow. Registration was necessary to secure a firm commitment, and everyone would support each other in efforts to reach out and enjoy the season. After stipulating it was not a dating challenge, but a way to personal growth, whatever that entailed, Tori closed the pizza box, sat back in her chair and thought about her solitary life of late.

  Outside the bay window, the rain had turned to snow, and Tori put her hand against the pane to feel connected to the night outside. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been outside at all in over a year, it was simply that she rarely left the building anymore. Four months ago, she’d met her friends for a drink in a dark bar only five blocks away and had come away from the social event unscathed. It hadn’t been horrible, but it hadn’t been all that much fun either.

  Ever since the video went viral and people recognized her in the streets, Tori had stayed inside, afraid to join the world. “There’s the bride from the Bob video!” they’d say. Being recognized was something that had happened hundreds of times those first weeks when Tori was still trying to get past the horror of having her photo plastered all over the media as a loser, an idiot.

  So, she stopped leaving her apartment. It had been easier to order food and only see the delivery person at the door those first months. It was so easy that Tori was still getting takeout delivered over a year later. The change in lifestyle had been gradual but her life was now very different from the woman who’d planned her own wedding, did all the flowers with her mother and once ran a thriving counselling practice out of an office ten blocks away. Now, she only had a handful of clients, having passed along others to colleagues. She stayed in her third-floor apartment in the historic building off James Street in Seattle and had little desire to rebuild her life. She even wore the same sweatpants to bed that she’d been in all day. It was easier if any of the five friends she still allowed access to her life wanted to see her, came to her apartment, instead of going for drinks or dinner in Seattle, like the old days.

  With so much time spent inside the walls of her place, Tori had started a blog to counteract all the bullying that women were succumbing to in real life and on the internet. It seemed with social media, perfectly nice women had fallen into a snarky cocoon of anonymity expressing opinions online
, sometimes without realizing how caustic their voices sounded, all in an effort to be funny.

  Tori’s blog, Elevate got four thousand followers the first month and more poured in until Tori had half a million readers, having filled a need for women by posting positivity and support in her weekly posts. As well as the blogsite, Tori had the social media accounts that she managed with the skill of someone who knew her way around marketing as well as counseling.

  She was proud of the work she did, the women who drew strength from her presence online, and never wanted to stop being there for anyone who needed a friend. Tori had taken a horrifying incident of public humiliation and turned it into a positive. Little did anyone know that the counselor who wrote Elevate was the same woman who’d become a media sensation when she stood in full bride splendor at the church door watching her fiance run down the street toward an ex-girlfriend, and said “Where you going, Bob?”

  After the video went viral, that phrase became famous, being uttered all over America, if not the world, for the next year. It became synonymous with being a clueless idiot. A song had even been written by some enterprising musician cashing in on Tori’s worst day of her life. People couldn’t believe the bride hadn’t realized her groom was running from getting married to her.

  The snow fell in big, fat, chunky flakes and Tori smiled, watching the light disappear from the dead-end street.

  Tori had been raised in Oregon, a small town east of Portland, where it snowed in the winter. She loved the snow and had grown up throwing snowballs, going sledding, walking in new-fallen snow, enjoying the crisp cold days of Mistletoe, Oregon. She’d been a lively kid, sociable teen and an engaged adult with lots of friends and activities that kept her life exciting. That was then.

  Now, Tori had become entrenched in her quiet life, only reaching out through computer and internet connections. She’d grown insular, anti-social, even taking less clients, telling herself it was because she didn’t need the money.

  And that worried her.

  Christmas Challenge indeed. What would the first task in the challenge be? Tori imagined her own fearful heart and wondered if brushing her hair or throwing out her oldest ratty sweatpants would be a good first step.

  She got up from her desk and stood at the window, realizing the image in the glass, her image, was someone she barely recognized. The woman she saw had wild hair, tired eyes and yesterday’s shirt with spilled chocolate sauce. The image frightened her but not nearly as much as when she locked eyes with that woman and saw the disappointment. This wasn’t what she wanted for her life. She’d drifted into becoming this person without realizing how far she’d let herself go.

  At that moment, as snow fell gently outside, covering the street below, Tori knew she had to do something.

  2

  The snow had left a lovely fluffy blanket of white on everything when Tori woke the next morning. After looking out her bedroom window, she pulled off her flannel nightgown and grabbed a favorite hoodie from the bedroom chair. Stepping into yoga pants, Tori praised herself for the small step of even wearing a nightgown to bed last night, making the effort to change, instead of wearing the T-shirt or whatever she’d been wearing when she decided to go to bed.

  The Christmas Challenge had started her thinking. It even prompted her to make a tiny effort to challenge herself. On the blog last night, the Elevators had been hopeful about the Challenge, excited to register and by the time Tori went to bed she had women from all over the world thinking about how to be a better version of themselves in the next two months. The American women talked in the chat group about dieting while the European women leaned more towards education and travel to gain confidence and by the time Tori got her cup of coffee and opened her laptop, she was ready to guide these women towards whatever they needed to feel better about themselves.

  She didn’t want everyone to think this was all about being thinner, more fashionable, well-read, or anything else that might take someone away from being their true authentic self. This was about loving yourself and being present. Leading a quiet life was fine but leading a life where you were terrified to leave the house was not fine.

  Writing her blog, Tori made sure to carefully word her instructions to all those in the Christmas Challenge to approach this thoughtfully, slowly, carefully.

  “What do you most need to make yourself happy and complete?” She wrote. “If you would feel more committed and better about yourself by getting out of jeans and into dress pants, do it. If you feel that making an effort to style your hair would help, do it. But, if you feel too styled, too formal, mess up a bit. Don’t be afraid to identify what you need to be the version of yourself that will ultimately lead to you loving yourself the most and make you feel the most confident, true version of yourself.”

  For Day One of the forty-day challenge, Tori wrote that the first task was to identify the problems that keep you from achieving your best life. “Go small at first,” she wrote. “For example, for me, I’m going to go outside for a walk in the snow because I don’t get out in the fresh air enough.” That was a huge understatement, but Tori hadn’t revealed much of herself. She certainly hadn’t divulged her true identity to her blog readers and wasn’t sure how they’d react if she confessed that she was the woman from the viral video who’d gone underground in hiding from fear of being recognized.

  Two cups of coffee later, and nine hundred words later, Tori hit send and posted her blog, complete with inspirational quotes from admired women. Writing about being brave was therapeutic for her and she was fully aware that she was counseling herself as well as the women who read the blog.

  Tori stood at the window and looked outside to see Sasha, her friend who lived down the hall. She stood on the snowy sidewalk with her boyfriend, Will, dressed for the snow, standing beside a pitifully small snowman. Their apartment building didn’t have much of a lawn where snow accumulated but in the square patch in front of the building, they’d made a three-balled structure and were now kissing.

  Tori smiled. She considered knocking on the window to wave, then wondered if that would break the spell of the moment in the new-fallen snow with a lover. She drew away from the window and remembered her promise to the Challengers to go for a walk in the snow.

  Baby steps.

  The street was quiet as Tori emerged from the safety of the building’s front door and stepped out to the sidewalk. Sasha and Will were long gone but their footprints were still visible, along with everyone else’s who’d walked down their street that morning. It was still only nine a.m. and as she turned left and ventured the block towards the park at the end of the street, Tori realized it did feel good to be outside in the fresh air.

  Taking a deep breath, she continued to the end of the street and stood at the break in the black wrought iron fence to the park. Should she push it any further and walk through to the lovely park or call it a victory and go home? Even though she wore a trapper hat, the kind with the flaps over her ears and a fold-up piece at the front, Tori still wondered if anyone would recognize her if she headed out further in the world. Her face was famous. Beyond the fence, there were people in the field of snow throwing balls for dogs, two kids making a snowman, and other people walking purposefully, probably on their way to work.

  Just to say she did it, Tori took two steps into the park, then turned around and started back to the building where she lived. She walked quickly but not in fear today. Her apartment building had once been a grand home in the last century but was now split into twelve apartments on three floors. Tori occupied the top apartment closest to James Street, farthest from the park.

  Back inside, she removed her hat, coat and boots but didn’t throw them in the closet just in case she decided on another walk today. Her adventure hadn’t been difficult. There’d been a few racing-heart moments, but not the usual anxiety that prevented her from descending the stairs to the bottom floor and sent her back to the safety of her apartment.

  What was this new feeling of p
ride? Feeling particularly brave and empowered, Tori went to the bathroom and rooted under the sink to find something she hadn’t used in a long time. Her pedicure kit.

  Although she’d cautioned her readers against feeling like they needed to glam up to feel good about themselves, there was something about a cheerful color on one’s toenails that made Tori happy, so she set out her supplies on the coffee table in front of the fireplace and twisted the top off the nail color that was named Good Vibes. Before she started, Tori decided it was a good day to turn on the fireplace so she flipped the wall switch and sat back down on her couch.

  When she’d finished the second coat on the last nail, Tori’s phone rang. It was the tone she used especially for her closest friends, Sasha and Maddy. Tori answered.

  “You’ll never guess what I just did,” Tori answered.

  “Went outside in the snow. I saw you out the window,” Sasha said, sounding like Maddy had just scored a lead role in a movie. “Well done, Tori!”

  Lately, Sasha had given up trying to get her friend out of the apartment after a year of probably what felt like hitting her head against a wall, so her excitement was warranted.

  “Yes, I did that too.” Tori secured the top on the nail color bottle and admired her gorgeous toes. “I also painted my toenails. I don’t know what’s gotten into me,” she said.

  “It’s a sad state of affairs when someone is deliriously happy to see their friend leave her house then gets ventricular fibrillations to find out she also painted her toenails.” Sasha said. “I’m standing at your door, but it’s locked. Let me in please. I want to see your toes.”

  Tori walked carefully to the door of the apartment, passing the kitchen, and pulled open her door. Sasha stood there with her phone to her ear.