Mistletoe Baby: A Crescent Cove Bite

by Taryn Quinn

  Disappointment carved through me, quick and sharp.

  I trudged into the bathroom to do my business then brushed my teeth. I didn’t want to wash her off my skin quite yet.

  I went back into the main part of my room and saw something white propped up on my notebook on the dresser.

  You gave me one of the loveliest Christmases that I can remember. I haven’t had a whole lot to smile about in the last few years, but you gave me that. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay. It’s just easier this way.

  Thank you, Callum.

  Ellie

  I crinkled the note and swore. I thought I’d gotten through to her. Thought she might have given us a chance. I wanted to go after her to try to make her see what she was throwing away.

  But I couldn’t.

  I’d promised her she could walk away if that was what she really wanted.

  I tossed the note into the trash bin and headed for the shower.

  Evidently, it was time to leave Crescent Cove in my rearview mirror.

  Ten

  Valentine’s Day

  I pushed the broom across the clay-colored matte tile. Clippings from a half dozen clients shuffled along the floor in front of my favorite rubber broom. It had been a busy morning. People excited for a romantic evening had come in for last-minute beautifications.

  My book was slowly growing with customers. Some were from the Cove thanks to my years at Brewed Awakening and before that at Robbie’s Pizza.

  I’d made plenty of acquaintances in town. Enough that I was able to network a little with help from a few coupons. I’d also been doing some videos on the Instagram and TikTok accounts I’d convinced Melody to try out. I was in charge of them, but I actually didn’t mind it. Our followers were slowly increasing due to some clever hashtags as well.

  All the books I’d read and workshops I’d taken in marketing over the years were finally proving useful. With a little luck from walk-ins and word of mouth, things seemed to be looking up.

  I’d given myself six months of savings in a special slush account to cover living expenses, booth rental, and of course my apartment rent. If I really needed to dip into my nest egg, I could. Budgeting had been my life for a long time. Long enough that I still lived way below my means even though I didn’t have to anymore.

  I was already seeing steady growth in my bank account, especially since I’d established multiple payment options to accommodate younger clients. Melody, the owner of the salon, was still living with a cash and carry setup for the most part, but I was slowly getting her to come around to my way of thinking.

  All in all, I was happy.

  But I was always tired. A good kind of tired most of the time. Falling into bed after working a full day doing what I loved was a new feeling. And okay, maybe I was going to bed before nine o’clock most nights. It was winter, and the days were shorter.

  February was made for sleeping in when I could, and I’d found a lot of joy in making some improvements in the salon. Melody hadn’t exactly been on board right away, but money talked. Clients were already commenting on how spa-like the place felt. I’d also used my own cash and time. I’d become comfortable with do-it-yourself ideas years ago because money hadn’t been abundant for most of my life.

  In the end, Melody thought we could charge a little more because we looked so posh.

  I’d done that. My ideas and my ingenuity. Self-pride was new to me, but it felt good.

  Most nights I was too tired to think about the man who’d come into my life like a spring storm. Wild and messy, full of wind and excitement. Just as fast as he’d arrived, I knew he’d be gone.

  I’d made sure to leave first.

  I wasn’t sure I could have handled him walking away. It was humbling to know that. He’d overwhelmed me not only physically, but with the way he saw me. That fantasy drawing he’d done of a seductive, almost playful woman—that wasn’t who I was.

  At least I didn’t think so.

  Sooner or later, he’d see that and lose interest. It had happened many times in my life to my mother and I. Hot and heavy passion was easy, but there was rarely any lasting substance.

  And Callum was an artist, for God’s sake. There was no stability there. No peace. And I couldn’t allow myself to wonder or hope. Not now. Not when I was just putting my plans into motion.

  I had a stubborn side, one I stuffed under the bed each morning. After the lonely nights that made me wonder a bit too much. That insane little voice that said what if? It was the same one who wouldn’t let me delete the message from Kinleigh with Callum’s phone number.

  I hadn’t been expecting her call the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I hadn’t recognized the number, but I knew Kinleigh’s sweet voice as she left a rambling explanation about the man who’d been looking for me. And she had a gut feeling that I should give him a chance.

  Maybe I thought about him sometimes when the day was slow, or the night was long. Maybe I almost called him once or five times.

  Suddenly, the floor wavered in my vision. I leaned to the left, and if I hadn’t had the broom handle to hold on to, I would have gone down.

  “Whoa, Ellie.” Paisley Jones, the third stylist in the salon, rushed over to me. Her freakishly strong fingers gripped my upper arm and pushed me into the chair at her station. “You all right?”

  “Yeah, just got a little lightheaded there for a second.” Had I eaten today? Nothing appealed lately. “Could you grab my water bottle?”

  “Yeah, sure, babe.” Paisley rushed over to my area at the back of the salon and returned with my purple bottle. “Here. Drink up. Have you eaten?”

  I shrugged while I gulped the cool water.

  “Want me to run over to the diner or Jersey’s for a sandwich?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Everything tastes so ugh lately.” I took another deep drag on my straw.

  “I wish. I just entered shark week. I could hoover down everything from the diner’s menu right now. Especially Gina’s new poutine addition. Dear God, that’s good.”

  I huffed out a laugh. We could definitely agree there. “Salt is the primary ingredient in my period week menu.”

  “Doesn’t help the ankles, but gawd, so good.” She yanked open her drawer and pulled out her phone. “Now I gotta make an order, dammit. You sure you don’t want?”

  “No, I…” I hadn’t wanted anything salty in a while. Not in the last month at all. “Shit.” I slid out of her chair and ran for my station.

  “Hey, don’t move so fast. I don’t want to scrape you out of the hair, girl.”

  “Right. Crap.” I turned around to finish my chore.

  Paisley waved me off then grabbed the broom. “I got it.”

  “Thanks.”

  She already had her cell at her ear and was chitchatting with someone at the diner.

  I quickly went for my own drawer and phone. “I’m running to the bathroom, Melody!” I called out.

  “Okay!”

  “No, no. Don’t do this to me.” I shut myself into our small water closet and opened my period tracker app.

  Six days late.

  “Oh, shit.” I collapsed onto the little bench full of more plants. I shoved them over to make room for my butt.

  I tipped my head between my knees. “No way,” I whispered.

  If I said it out loud then that made it real.

  Shut up, Ellie. Don’t say it.

  Pregnant.

  Maybe.

  Swallowing hard, I sat up. Maybe I was just late. Starting a new job was the ultimate form of stress and it could have pushed my cycle into the red zone. Not that I’d ever, ever, ever been late in my life, but I could be.

  I did some math in my head and it wasn’t good. Not good at all. “Damn you, Crescent Cove water.”

  I rose and stared at myself in the mirror. My face was a bit pale, but otherwise, I looked the same. I’d swapped out my Christmas smock for a Valentine’s day one over my skinny jeans and fuzzy sweater.

  And
now I had to pee.

  “Shoot.” I hung up my smock and started unbuttoning my jeans. Then I hesitated. Should I hold it for a pee test?

  Did I want to get a pregnancy test here?

  Everyone would know I’d gotten one. As it was, people still asked me if I had talked to the hot artist from the festival.

  The answer was no.

  No, I had not, and I didn’t intend to.

  Not really.

  Probably not.

  But now?

  Quickly, I did my business and washed my hands. I took my smock with me, but I hung it up in our little locker area. I didn’t have a customer for another hour. That was just enough time to go to the pharmacy in the next town over.

  I really didn’t want to be the next bit of gossip fodder in this town.

  But if I was pregnant…

  The timing was all wrong. The situation was crazy. I wasn’t ready to be a mother.

  Or was I?

  Eleven

  My car was the cause of my life stress.

  I should sell it.

  Burn it?

  Nah, too hasty. Selling it was a good idea. To someone far enough away that I would never take the chance of seeing it again on the street. A person in Idaho, for example. I never went to Idaho. That had to be safe.

  I even went online and searched for a small town in that state with a dealership that might want to buy back my baby. I was that desperate.

  Or insane, take your pick.

  I’d stayed up too late grading papers several nights in a row, which had led to a recent dependence on Death by Coffee. Turned out they weren’t lying. Once you got on that stuff, it was hard to get off of it.

  Who needed sleep, right?

  Well, it turned out I did. Since my breakup—did it count as a breakup if our entire relationship had lasted under thirty-six hours?—and the start of the semester had worn me raw, I obviously should not be making big life choices.

  So, naturally, I made several.

  I didn’t sell my car. I did, however, agree to move my appointment for custom work to mid-February. Specifically, February 14th. A day I was guaranteed not to be busy, since I’d been dropped faster than tequila made a woman’s clothes come off.

  Also, I was never voluntarily listening to the country channel on satellite radio again.

  But as that date drew closer and my loneliness grew deeper instead of lessening, I began to consider the paths life had taken me on. Specifically, how I’d ended up in Crescent Cove and when I was going back.

  There could be a message that I wasn’t seeing.

  Sure, certain heartbreak and an early onset midlife crisis seemed like the likely ones. But I was an artist. Trained to look deeper.

  An artist who was doing a series of paintings on the one woman I was supposed to be forgetting. So far, that wasn’t working out too well. Not to mention I was dreaming about her so much that I had no choice but to get them out of my head and on to paper.

  I looked between the trio of canvases I had on easels in my studio. What I should’ve done was put them up for consignment—once they were finished anyway. The last thing I needed were more reminders of her.

  Though it didn’t matter, because I thought of her all day every day anyway.

  The first one was an amalgamation of that charcoal drawing I’d done in the park the day after our kiss. I’d changed her attire from just the scarf to the white dress shirt I’d dreamed of the night we’d been together. The material draped over her curves, clinging to her in some places and falling loosely in others.

  Of course I kept dreaming about her in it.

  I was near obsessed with getting everything down. The interesting shadows that teased the juncture of her thighs, mostly hidden by her shirttails. My shirttails, the buttons strategically undone. Her long hair dipped over one eye.

  She made the perfect ingenue.

  Perfectly unattainable.

  In the second painting, she was different, although the changes were modest. Her hair was just a bit wilder, her shoulders back, the shirt barely held closed. More shadows. More defiance in every line of her body. Her beauty fisted my throat and made the sweeps of my paintbrush erratic.

  I tried to catalog every detail, to show the subtle changes from the first. I didn’t know why I’d done a series. We’d only had that one stolen night. It wasn’t as if I’d seen her evolve. I never would.

  The third canvas was bare.

  I didn’t know what I’d do for that one. I’d just known I had to do three.

  After I’d worked for a while getting the shading just right of her hair over her shoulder, I grabbed my phone and took a few quick snapshots of the paintings in progress. I liked to catalog the stages of each piece. Some of my customers enjoyed seeing the process of them coming to life. And sometimes, I just needed to have a record of every step.

  Then I tossed my cell over my shoulder in the direction of the mattress and went back to it.

  Awhile later, my phone buzzed, and I fumbled on my bed until I found it in the disordered sheets. When I did manage to lay down, rest was elusive. More nights than not, I stumbled out of bed to paint. I was driven to finish these, even if it felt like I was painting a future I couldn’t see yet.

  Maybe that was just wishful thinking.

  I glanced at the readout. My real estate agent, Connie.

  My heartbeat kicked into high gear.

  “Hi, Connie. What’s up?”

  “You know what’s up. Your offer was accepted.”

  I sat on the edge of my bed. “No counter?”

  “None. Looks like you’re going to be a new homeowner, Callum. Congratulations.”

  Those words echoed in my head as I drove toward Crescent Cove an hour later. Instead of the mini blizzard I’d encountered the first time I’d driven this route, today the sunshine reflected off the icicles gleaming on roofs and sparkled on the thin glaze of snow on lawns. It was still cold enough to freeze my balls, but the sun made me think spring was coming.

  Someday.

  Dare had a loaner waiting for me when I dropped off my car for the custom work we’d talked about. He was in the middle of a job so he just waved hello while Gage handled the paperwork.

  “I’m going to live here soon,” I announced.

  Not that he’d asked. Or even spoken much to me. Apparently, Crescent Cove-ites had long memories. At least this one did.

  He grunted. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yes, I’m buying a house on the lake.”

  “Where exactly?”

  We discussed details, and surprise of all surprises, Gage was my new neighbor. Sort of. He wasn’t right next door, which probably was good for the state of my pumpkins next Halloween. He seemed much friendlier today than he had in December, but I wouldn’t exactly say he’d rolled out the welcome wagon.

  Closer though. In general, the townsfolk were pretty friendly. Maybe eventually, I’d be one of them.

  Dare’s idea of a loaner was more family friendly than my sports car. The Jeep was more practical than mine as well, especially to drive out to the lake view roads. I parked on the street near the hair salon and walked straight inside, ready to face my fate with a smile.

  All right, that was a total lie. I was already sweating bullets, but I could do a poker face with the best of them. Especially when I had one hell of a bribe in my back pocket.

  I hadn’t bought a house just to get a woman to go out with me.

  Not exactly. That would’ve been crazy.

  I’d done it because the house had spoken to me, as so much of this town did. It was as if I’d been caught in a web once I’d entered the town limits of Crescent Cove. One I didn’t want to shake free of anytime soon.

  Stepping in to To Dye For made me think of Ellie immediately. Somehow it felt like her. I hadn’t been in many salons, but I knew this one with its farmhouse-style décor and plethora of plants was different. Special. Much like the woman I’d come to whisk away to my house on the water—


  No, I’d come to ask her out for a low pressure lunch. I wouldn’t scare her away this time. I was living the casual life now.

  Minus the offer I’d had accepted on the house she loved. A minor detail, really.

  One she didn’t need to know about until after lunch. Way after. At least not until I walked her back to her car.

  A pretty blond in a billowy poet’s blouse flashed a smile at me. “Hi, I’m Paisley. Do you have an appointment?”

  “No. I’m actually looking for Ellie.”

  “Oh. Oh. Ohhh.” On the third oh, she braced both hands on the counter and actually leaned over to check me out from head to toe. “You must be artist dude. Nice job, girl.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “So, Ellie actually isn’t available right now. As you can see.” Expansively, she threw back her arm to encompass the rest of the hair styling stations. It was a small operation but had room to grow. Everything was neat as a pin and welcoming. “But you are here. Very much here. Hmm.”

  “Okay, is she due in today? I can wait. Or maybe you could tell me her hours?”

  “No, I can’t do that. Confidentiality laws and all.”

  I frowned. “But this is a salon. What if I wanted her to do my hair?” I swallowed hard at the inappropriate images that filled my head, most of them involving Ellie, shaving cream, and partial nudity.

  Perhaps total nudity. It was my daydream. I could make it as X-rated as I wanted to.

  As long as I stayed hidden by this counter.

  “Hmm, that’s an idea, right? I can’t send you away if you wanted her to do your hair. Since you would be a paying customer and all. No freebies,” she added, as if she could sense I was about to demand a chop on the house.

  “I’ll pay of course.”

  “Right. Because paying customers have to be served no matter what. The client is always right. Isn’t that true, Melody?” Paisley asked an older blond woman blow-drying a high school-aged girl’s hair at the first station. “We have to make sure they’re happy.”

  Melody frowned as she looked between us, and then it appeared as if Paisley did a quick hand gesture just out of my range of sight. “Oh, definitely. The customer is the boss. We just want to make sure they’re pleased.”