The Holiday Hideaway

by J. L. Jarvis

  About The Holiday Hideaway

  Love means never having to sing a carol.

  * * *

  Unemployed artist Chloe Burke has just finished a temp job when a letter arrives from a lawyer. Her estranged great-aunt Eleanor has died and left Chloe a secluded mountain cabin and a modest inheritance. While this is a perfect opportunity to realize her dream of building a business around her painting, she wonders what prompted the gift. An unabashed Christmas enthusiast, Chloe hurries to move in and hang Christmas lights before the first winter snow.

  * * *

  Luke Abbot has no regrets, but he would rather keep hidden the troubling truth about his line of work. He has found contentment in his solitary mountain retreat. But his peaceful existence is shaken when a new neighbor arrives. Chloe’s exuberant holiday spirit is like crisp winter air. He would rather come in from the cold. But the sparkle and shimmer of Chloe’s holiday lights are hard to ignore. So is Chloe.

  Also by J.L. Jarvis

  Christmas at Cedar Creek

  * * *

  Pine Harbor Series

  Allison’s Pine Harbor Summer

  Evelyn’s Pine Harbor Autumn

  Lydia’s Pine Harbor Christmas

  * * *

  Holiday House Novels

  The Christmas Cabin

  The Winter Lodge

  The Lighthouse

  The Christmas Castle

  The Beach House

  The Christmas Tree Inn

  The Holiday Hideaway

  * * *

  Highland Passage Series

  Highland Passage

  Knight Errant

  Lost Bride

  * * *

  Highland Soldiers Series

  The Enemy

  The Betrayal

  The Return

  The Wanderer

  * * *

  Highland Vow

  * * *

  American Hearts Romances

  Secret Hearts

  Runaway Hearts

  Forbidden Hearts

  * * *

  For more information, visit jljarvis.com.

  * * *

  Sign up for the J.L. Jarvis Journal.

  The Holiday Hideaway

  A Holiday House Novel

  J.L. Jarvis

  THE HOLIDAY HIDEAWAY

  A Holiday House Novel

  * * *

  Copyright © 2019 J.L. Jarvis

  All Rights Reserved

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

  * * *

  Published by Bookbinder Press

  bookbinderpress.com

  * * *

  ISBN 978-1-942767-21-3 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-942767-20-6 (ebook)

  One

  Chloe walked in and set down her bag and the rest of the mail, then she stared at the letter with a law office letterhead. She sat down and read it again. It didn’t make sense. She picked up the phone and called her mother.

  After reading it to her mom, Chloe asked, “Why would Aunt Eleanor leave everything to me?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose, if you think about it, who else did she have? Her stepson was… well, you know. They weren’t ever close while she was married to his father, but after he sold her camera and jewelry to a pawnshop, things were never the same. As for me, I’m sure she knew I was fine on my own. I think it’s wonderful that she left it to you. You’re so much like her in so many ways. And all of her art and supplies must be a treasure trove for you. The last time I was in her studio, her brush collection alone was epic.”

  “Oh, it still is! The whole studio is amazing! But it’s her work that’s just inspiring. She was always so encouraging. I used to love how she was always arriving home from some exotic place, and she would bring me some homemade artwork or craft from where she’d been. It opened my eyes to the world. Even though I haven’t seen her since fifth or sixth grade, she’s left a lasting impression.”

  “I’ve always regretted how we lost touch.”

  That was one way to put it. At the time, although her mother had tried to hide it, she’d been wounded by the loss. She had never said anything, but she got a distant look in her eyes whenever Chloe mentioned Aunt Eleanor’s name. Chloe didn’t know what had brought on the estrangement, and she’d been too young to be included in any discussion about it. It wasn’t until the following Christmas, when Chloe hadn’t seen her aunt for almost a year, that she’d asked if Aunt Eleanor would be there Christmas Day. Her mother had told her she wouldn’t be seeing Eleanor for a long time. Even then, Chloe had understood that meant forever in adultspeak.

  Now all her mother could offer was, “I never told you what happened because I didn’t know. She just cut us off.”

  Chloe wouldn’t be put off. Did they argue? Was there any ongoing family strife? “There had to be something.”

  Her mother was silent for a moment. “There must have been, but it wasn’t on my side—at least not as far as I know. I wondered for years what it was, but I’ve had to let it go and just view her as a fond, distant memory.”

  “Did you try to contact her?”

  Her mother hesitated. “At first. But Aunt Eleanor was an unusual person—brilliant and fiercely independent—but also private to the point of being reclusive. Once the force fields were up, they did not come down. After a few tries, I got the message.” She sighed. “I think when she said, ‘Please don’t call me again,’ I picked up on a certain reluctance.”

  Chloe wrinkled her nose sympathetically.

  Her mother said, “She had made up her mind, so I had to respect her decision.”

  Chloe leaned back and exhaled. “There’s something so sad about that. And so inexplicable.”

  Her mother sighed. “I’d seen her do it to others, but they were all friends. We were family.”

  “I can’t imagine a life like that, closed off from family and friends.”

  “Eleanor knew what she wanted,” her mother said. “It just wasn’t us.”

  There was nothing more Chloe could say, but that didn’t stop the nagging unanswered questions in her mind.

  Her mother’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “So she left you that cabin.”

  “Yes.”

  With a sigh, her mother said, “Well, you’ve got the winter to prepare to put it on the market in the spring, I suppose.”

  “Put it on the market? No. I’m going to keep it.”

  “But it’s up there on that mountain. You’ll be mauled by bears and left undiscovered until the spring thaw.”

  “Lovely thought, Mom.” Chloe didn’t bother to hide her amusement. “And since bears hibernate in the winter, any bear that attacked me would have to be rabid, so that sounds like fun.”

  “Well, suit yourself. At least if you start foaming at the mouth, we’ll know why.”

  “Yup, too many lattes.”

  “Oh, sure, honey. You’re laughing now. You’re just like those animal people who say that they’re just part of nature.”

  Chloe wrinkled her nose. “The people?”

  “No, the bears.”

  Chloe grinned.

  “But they’re not part of my nature. The only nature around my house is fluffy cats and playful pu
ppies.”

  “You know, Mom, they can get rabies too.” Chloe shook her head. “Anyway, back to the house. Everything’s in a trust. I’m supposed to call the lawyer to set up a meeting. Apparently there are some papers to sign.”

  Four months later, Chloe set the last box down on the counter of her new mountain cabin. “That’s it. It’s all over but the unpacking.” She glanced about the great room, which had a vaulted ceiling, exposed beams, and a huge wall of windows facing the woods. The room was open, airy, and decorated simply to give off a sense of being surrounded by warmth and tranquility. Chloe loved it. She walked about slowly, pausing to look at items of interest. For an artist, her aunt had been amazingly organized. Chloe had always assumed other artists were like she was, right-brained and too artsy to bother with organization.

  She wondered if maybe her aunt had sensed the end coming. If that were the case, she could have cleaned out the house for her own privacy as well as to spare others the burden of having to go through her accumulated clutter.

  Aunt Eleanor, what was your life like all alone here? Overwhelmed by sudden sadness, Chloe got up and went out for some air.

  A low hum drew her attention across the street to her neighbor’s house, which looked much like hers. It must have been designed by the same person. It had the same gold-colored concrete log siding, green metal roof, and floor-to-ceiling triple-paned windows. The hum of the opening garage door stopped, and out came Paul Bunyan—at least that was who Chloe thought he looked like. Tall, broad shouldered, and wearing a plaid shirt and jeans, he strode down the driveway, dragging a trash bin on each side.

  Chloe waved. “Hello!”

  He regarded her for a moment then gave her a nod. It was polite enough, yet there was a distinct “leave me alone” undertone to it. He looked strapping enough to have managed a wave without straining his arm. But Chloe refused to be put off. If they were going to be neighbors up there on the mountain, far from anyone else, she would feel better if they started things off on a positive note.

  With her usual optimism, she crossed the road and extended her hand. “Hi. I’m Chloe Burke.”

  “Luke Abbot.” He shook her hand. He had a nice, firm handshake. But his hands were surprisingly soft, more like those of a guy who spent his life at a desk, not doing manly, outdoorsy things on top of a mountain.

  With a weak gesture back toward her house, she said, “I’m Eleanor’s niece. I’ve just moved in.”

  He frowned. “Oh. I’m sorry about your aunt.”

  “Thank you. So you knew her?”

  “Yes.”

  Chloe waited, thinking he might offer more, like a nice anecdote about her aunt or a comment about what good neighbors they had been. People usually said things like that, but Luke wasn’t the usual sort. “So how well did you know her?”

  “Well enough.” He glanced at her house then looked back toward his.

  Got it. Backing off now. “Well, it was nice to meet you.”

  He did that chin-lifting nod thing, which, Chloe decided, was his chin’s version of aloha, meant to serve as hello, goodbye, or just “Get off my lawn.”

  She took a step toward her house then turned back. “Oh! So today’s garbage day?”

  He had covered an impressive distance in a brief time, but at least he turned to answer. “No, tomorrow. I just bring my trash out the afternoon before, so I don’t have to come out in the morning.” He stood as if waiting to be dismissed.

  Chloe smiled. “Great. So Thursday is trash day. Thanks! Bye!” She waved and headed inside before he could lift that rugged jawline with another chin nod. It was a fine, sturdy chin, but the way he nodded seemed unnecessarily standoffish to her. Maybe she’d been substitute teaching for too long. She had seen every way a middle school student could express a complete lack of interest without uttering a word, so perhaps she’d become overly tuned-in to nonverbal cues. She had no tolerance left for dismissive behavior. But her substitute art-teaching days were behind her. Thanks to Aunt Eleanor, she could start her business selling prints of her paintings along with related design products in local shops and online.

  The house couldn’t be more perfect for an artist. Her aunt had clearly had the log cabin customized for her painting needs, complete with a sunroom that jutted out from the side of the house with floor-to-ceiling glass walls on three sides and a two-sided fireplace that was shared with the kitchen. Custom-built cabinets, perfectly sized for an artist’s needs, filled the rest of the wall. Subfloor heating kept the room toasty enough to snuggle up with a book in the overstuffed chair and ottoman by the gas-fueled fireplace.

  Thank you, Aunt Eleanor. It’s perfect.

  Two

  Most people went shopping the day after Thanksgiving, but not Chloe. For Chloe, Black Friday was all red and green and always spent at home. She looked over her multiphased holiday decorating plan: a day each for outside lights, the Christmas village, her nutcracker collection, and the tree. By the end of the week after Thanksgiving, scented candles and tchotchkes would be stylishly strewn throughout the house. But that day, taking one step at a time, she would tackle the lights.

  The move from apartment to house meant expanding the scope of her decorative vision, but she was prepared. She’d purchased two dozen sets of lights with sixty-seven changeable settings for eighteen hours of music-syncable LED splendor. Chloe could program them to display any color of the rainbow as well as wink, blink, or pulse against her house and its surrounding canvas of snow-dusted spruce trees. It was going to be magical.

  With a playlist of her holiday favorites blasting in her wireless earbuds, she worked all afternoon, outlining the cabin in lights and using the rest of the lights to deck out the trees in her front yard. So many lights! She could barely contain her delight. With the finishing touches on her lighting scheme, she stood and admired her work. Phone in hand, she checked when the sun would go down then set an alarm for five minutes before sunset. She exhaled with satisfaction and went inside for a one-hour nap.

  She was dozing by the fire in her overstuffed chair when her alarm went off, and she lurched upright. “Oh. Oh!” She leapt to her feet, slipped on her boots, and headed outside with the remote control for the lighting. She halted outside her front doorway. Wow. It is so dark in the country. She pulled out her phone, turned on the flashlight, then made her way across the road, where she would have the best view of her lighting masterpiece. The remote control was a new toy that made her almost giddy with power. She was the Seurat of seasonal lighting as she pressed the on button. Zing! Oh, the splendor! She nodded, beaming. Oh yeah. The Versailles Hall of Mirrors had nothing on Chloe’s Christmas lighting display.

  Trying each setting on the remote, Chloe enjoyed each one more than the last, but she settled upon the elegant understatement of white lights punctuated with rhythmical blinking. Tomorrow, she would decide whether to add music. The natural pine smell from the woods all around was an unexpected bonus. This was Christmas at its best. She stood, wholly enchanted by the splendor. Chloe, look what you’ve done!

  “Excuse me.”

  Chloe gasped and wound her arm back, ready to strike the approaching man… with her three-inch-long lighting remote.

  “Whoa, it’s just me. Luke. Your neighbor?”

  “What the heck? You scared me!”

  “Yeah, I noticed. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I mean, it will be okay when my pulse settles down to two digits.” She calmed down enough to study Luke’s face, which was well lit by her Christmas lights. He looked harmless enough, yet history was full of people who looked harmless enough but were not. “Sorry, Luke, but I’m not good at having people sneak up on me.”

  He lifted a hand to his forehead as if he were shielding his eyes from the sun. “If you thought that was sneaking, you need a better radar.”

  “Oh, really?” That just annoyed her, even if it was true. “I’ll work on it.” She started back to her house as she muttered, “Bye. Have a good evening.”

>   “Wait.”

  She kept walking. Should she be running instead? If he posed any threat, surely Aunt Eleanor would have warned her to be wary of him. She paused on the opposite side of the road and turned back. “Yes?”

  He made a sweeping gesture toward her lights as he tilted his head in the opposite direction. “Is this going to be a permanent thing?”

  “What, the lights? No. It’s just for the holidays.”

  “Every night?”

  She heaved an impatient sigh. “Until Christmas, yes. It’s kind of a tradition.”

  “Oh.” The way he said it gave the word so much more weight than its one-syllable length implied.

  She was way past sounding polite at that point. Impatience was the best she could muster. “Is there a problem?”

  “Yes.”

  She asked glibly, “Oh, is there? What is it, Lukenezer Scrooge?”

  He obviously had no appreciation for her sense of humor. He pointed at his cabin. “See that wall of windows in front? Well, that’s my great room, where I spend most of my time, and your, uh, festive display is in my line of vision.”

  She smiled cheerily. “You’re welcome.”

  He looked down and shook his head slightly. “What I mean is, I was wondering if that thing had a setting just a notch or two south of grand mal seizure?” His voice sounded increasingly strained.