Christmas Blessings: Seven Inspirational Romances of Faith, Hope, and Love

by Leah Atwood

  I smiled when Mom kissed my cheek and answered the pastor’s question about who gave me away in marriage by saying, “Her father and I do.”

  The service progressed smoothly, and when Pastor Derek pronounced us husband and wife, Ryan brushed his lips over mine. “Think they have any pesky amphibians in Hawaii?”

  Laughing, I cupped his jaw with one hand. “I can’t wait to find out.”

  He whispered something else I’ll always remember, for my ears only, and then pressed his lips to mine once more for a longer kiss. One for the ages. Ryan’s kiss is filled with such precious promise.

  Oh, how I love this man. And he loves me right back.

  With joined hands, smiling, Ryan and I turned to face our guests. The relatives and friends who’ve seen us grow up, the ones who’ve walked this journey with us. The ones who’ve touched our lives and the lives of those whom we love. The ones we’ll never forget. Each one of them has brought us to this day.

  This glorious day to rejoice and be glad.

  Ryan put his hand over mine and together we started back down the aisle. As we did, the words of that old hymn came back to me again, making my heart smile.

  Fairest Lord Jesus.

  Thee will I honor.

  Thee will I cherish.

  Thou, my soul’s glory, joy, and crown.

  The End

  ~~♥~~

  About the Author

  ~~♥~~

  In addition to Perchance to Dream, USA Today bestselling author JoAnn Durgin is the author of the beloved Lewis Legacy Series as well as Prelude, the prequel to the series. Her other works include the Amazon bestselling Catching Serenity, Heart’s Design and its sequel, Gentle Like the Rain, The Wondrous Love Series, Echoes of Edinburgh, Perchance to Dream, Whisper to My Heart, and the popular Starlight Christmas Series. A former estate administration paralegal, JoAnn now writes contemporary Christian romance full-time and lives with her family in her native southern Indiana.

  JoAnn loves to hear from her readers. Please feel free to contact her:

  Website: www.joanndurgin.com

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/authorjoanndurgin

  Books by JoAnn Durgin

  The Lewis Legacy Series

  Prelude (Prequel)

  Awakening

  Second Time Around

  Twin Hearts

  Daydreams

  Moonbeams

  Enchantment

  Abide

  Still to Come

  Pursuit (Late Fall 2016)

  Roundabout

  Underground

  Assurance

  The Wondrous Love Series

  Love So Amazing

  Love So Divine

  By Grace Draw Near

  The Starlight Christmas Series

  Meet Me Under the Mistletoe

  Starlight, Star Bright

  Sleigh Ride Together with You

  Starlight in Her Eyes

  Other Novels

  Catching Serenity

  Heart’s Design

  Echoes of Edinburgh

  Perchance to Dream

  Whisper to My Heart

  *See all of JoAnn’s books

  currently in release

  (with purchase links) at her website:

  http://joanndurgin.com

  Nowhere for Christmas

  Heather Gray

  Two virtual strangers, one teen, and the worst rental car in the history of mankind...

  Let the road trip begin.

  ©2016 by Heather Gray

  Nowhere for Christmas, Second Edition

  Nowhere for Christmas, First Edition, ©2013 by Heather Gray, published by Astraea Press

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Heather Gray. Cover art images @yexela/fotolia, @nenilkime/fotolia, @topvectors/fotolia, @jirikaderabek/fotolia, @dmitriynaboka/fotolia. Used with permission.

  Published in the United States of America by Heather Gray

  www.heathergraywriting.com

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  in celebration of my Savior

  in memory of my daughter

  with pride in my son

  with gratitude for my husband

  When Pharaoh finally let the people go, God did not lead them along the main road that runs through Philistine territory, even though that was the shortest route to the Promised Land. God said, “If the people are faced with a battle, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led them in a roundabout way through the wilderness toward the Red Sea.

  Exodus 13: 17-18a

  Nowhere For Christmas

  Heather Gray

  Chapter One

  Albuquerque, NM

  December 22

  Some women were satisfied with one man in their life. There were even women who would say that was too many. Not Avery, though. Oh, no. Not her. She got to juggle two.

  Avery Weston stormed into her editor’s office and slammed the door behind her. Mitchell peered up from his catastrophe of a desk. The newsroom had been battling mice off and on for two years now, but Mitchell’s office had remained rodent-free. Avery’s theory? The little beasts were terrified of getting squashed under a falling stack of paper. Or worse, getting lost in the mess and starving to death.

  Mitchell, bushy black eyebrows raised, inspected her. “Yes, Avery?”

  She threw herself into the only chair not filled with file folders, books, and other paraphernalia. “I got your memo. You didn’t have the guts to tell me in person?”

  His eyes returned to the article he was reviewing, red pen in hand. Mitchell was old enough to be her… big brother… but he insisted on doing things old school. There was no way he’d ever get caught editing important articles on his computer. He wanted a printout in one hand and his red pen in the other. “I thought your temper might cool down during the walk from your desk to my office.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “I see that.” Mitchell laid his red pen down on top of the printout he’d been studying. “Has it occurred to you this might be fun?”

  “Has it occurred to you I might look for a job elsewhere?” She’d worked for Mitchell more years than she could remember. He’d given her the start she’d desperately needed, and because of him, she was able to provide for the other man in her life. They both knew she wouldn’t be looking for a job elsewhere, but that didn’t stop her from voicing the empty threat now and then.

  “Think of it as an adventure.”

  Yeah, right. “Have you spent much time with teenagers recently?”

  Mitchell removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is that the problem? You don’t think Eli will want to go?”

  Avery sighed and sank further into the chair she occupied. “He’s fifteen, Mitchell. I told him we’d go north for Christmas so he could go skiing. Now I’m going to be hauling him across three states to a podunk town in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere! Do you have any idea exactly how not happy he is going to be with me?”

  Mitchell opened his mouth to say something.

  Avery ignored him and continued her monologue. “He’s not going to blame you, either. Eli won’t think Mom has such a rotten boss. How dare he ruin my Christmas plans?” She let out a sigh. “This is all going to be my fault as far as
he’s concerned. I will have broken my word to him, and he will have one more reason to resent me for the rest of his life.”

  Mitchell lifted a hand as though to put a stop to her rant.

  She kept going. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to raise a teenage boy alone? Or to raise any child alone for that matter? He wasn’t always a teenager, you know. Eli started out as a baby, and I thought how hard it was to be a single mom to this tiny little thing that cried and pooped all the time. I never slept. No matter how hard it got, I provided a home for him because he was my responsibility, my joy. Then he was in grade school, and I thought that was as hard as it could possibly get. I worked ten hours a day for a tyrant of a boss, then came home to fix dinner for my finicky son and spend three hours working on homework with him so he could pass to the next grade.”

  Mitchell cleared his throat.

  Avery kept talking. “You know, when I was in school, we didn’t start working on algebra until I was in junior high. Eli started working basic algebra equations in second grade. Who does that? Algebra in second grade! Sure, it was easy stuff, but whatever happened to being a child? But I did it. I wanted the best for my son. I looked at it as an exercise in building confidence as he put in the hard work and saw it pay off, so I sat there with him for hours and hours every night. Because I’m his mom. Has he ever noticed any of that? Of course not! He notices everything he doesn’t get in this life. And now, thanks to you, he gets to add skiing trip to the list of things to hold against me. You’re a peach, Mitchell! An absolute peach.”

  As her voice wound down, Avery eyed Mitchell. He’d gone back to the editing she’d interrupted with her grand entrance.

  “Are you listening to anything I say?”

  Mitchell didn’t bother answering.

  Avery leaned forward and slapped her palm against the edge of his desktop. She didn’t use much force, but the impact still vibrated up her arm and echoed among the stacks of files and papers around the room.

  Her editor neither jumped nor reacted. Instead, the picture of calm, he put his pen down, took his glasses off, and set them next to the pen. Taking his time, he looked up and made eye contact. “Are you done yet?”

  She tried to stare him down, but he was having none of it.

  Mitchell leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not an entirely insensitive clod, despite what you may think. Sending you off to chase a story over Christmas isn’t my idea. This came down from higher up, and I don’t have a say in it. Apparently the Quaint American Towns feature you’ve been doing for the past year has gotten a good-enough response that the big wigs at Corporate are following through on their promise of syndication and have given me a list of towns and times they want you to cover in the coming year. They’re insisting the national syndication of your feature start with this particular story, and they demand it be authentically at Christmas. I did my best to cull down the list and eliminate some of the ones that would take you out of town for extended trips during the school year. Corporate would not, however, budge on the Christmas trip. In fact, they went so far as to make it a contingency of your national syndication.”

  When Avery started to sputter again, Mitchell held up his hand to silence her. “Contrary to popular opinion, I do have sympathy. You drive down tomorrow, spend Christmas eve and day, drive back the day after, and then you’ll have the rest of his break to take the kid skiing. Besides, I already called Eli and told him about the trip. I wanted to make sure he understood it was coming from me, that you didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

  “You spoke to my son about this?” She wasn’t sure whether to be skeptical or incensed.

  A bark of laughter escaped as Mitchell shook his head. “Two days ago. I guess he didn’t mention it to you?”

  “My son has known my job assignment for two days, and I am just now finding out about it?”

  Mitchell shrugged. “Hey, I told him to pass the information on to you. The memo was the official documentation so Corporate has the nice paper trail they prefer, but I told Eli to tell you two days ago.”

  Avery ran a hand through blond hair, not at all embarrassed by her previous rant. “I suppose it’s a good thing we’re friends, and you can’t fire me, huh? If any other reporter came in here and went off on you like that, they’d be out of here in a heartbeat, wouldn’t they?”

  Mitchell raised an eyebrow. “I guess we can all be thankful you closed the door when you came in.”

  Something in his voice warned Avery she wasn’t going to be happy with what she would see. She spun around to look at the door. There it was, standing wide open. She turned back to her boss. “I did it again, didn’t I?”

  He nodded.

  Swallowing, she leaned back in her chair. “I’m not a very good example to your other employees.” This wasn’t the first time Avery had slammed the door so hard it had bounced back open rather than shut.

  “Which is why I always tell them to do the exact opposite of whatever you do. Unless they’re on assignment. Then they can emulate you.” He winked at her, which made his bushy eyebrow twitch.

  “I can’t believe Eli has known for two days and said nothing to me.” Her voice was rueful, all trace of her previous drama gone.

  “You know he’s somewhere howling in laughter over this. He probably has the office bugged, and we don’t even know it.”

  Avery shook her head. “Even the bugs are afraid of your office.” Her voice dripped with her usual dry humor. “I don’t think he could have convinced any to stay in here.” She adjusted her scarf then and moved on to the next topic. “Has Gavin been yet to take the pictures? It helps if I can see the photos first so I know which parts of the town to include in my piece.”

  Mitchell’s pronounced eyebrows climbed up again. “You didn’t read the entire memo, did you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Gavin’s traveling with you. This was a last-minute push by Corporate, and he hasn’t had a chance to get out there ahead of you, so he’s going to have to go with you.”

  Avery had a sinking feeling and could have sworn she felt a large stone being dropped into her stomach with a loud kplunk.

  Gavin Eastly had once been a rising star in photojournalism. He’d fallen off the radar a couple years back and had only recently started working again. The fact that he was doing work for the Albuquerque Times spoke to how far from grace he’d fallen. She didn’t know the story behind it, but when someone as good at their job as he’d been disappears as suddenly as he had, the assumption tended to be a stint in rehab or a mental hospital. Maybe both.

  She bit her lip. “Mitchell, I’ve never met Gavin. The only things I know about him are the photos he takes… and his reputation. I’m not sure I want to be confined with him for such a long trip.”

  Her editor watched her but didn’t say anything.

  She hated it when he did that. It always made her say more than she intended. “My teenage son will be with me. What if Gavin has… bad habits… that might influence Eli?”

  His lips twitched, but his voice remained somber. “Gavin’s story is his own to tell.”

  This time it was her turn to cross her arms and stare.

  With a camaraderie built from years working together, Mitchell sat back, his muscles loose and relaxed, as he looked her in the eye. “You don’t have to worry about Gavin being a bad influence on Eli.”

  “I need something more than that. You ought to know that about me.”

  Mitchell ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Close the door.”

  Surprised by the command, Avery rose to shut the door then pulled her chair closer to the desk so she didn’t miss anything.

  “Gavin is family.”

  Avery’s stomach fluttered like it did when she was on the scent of a big story. “Family?”

  “On my wife’s side. That’s all I can tell you, and you need to keep it quiet.”

  “Why is it a secret?”

  “It’s com
plicated.”

  “Smoking, drinking, drugs? Anything I should watch for?”

  “I wouldn’t be sending you anywhere with him if he had any dangerous issues. He’s clean, Avery. And a good guy. He’s having a hard time right now is all.”

  “Mental breakdown? Do I need to make sure the knives are removed from the table whenever we stop to eat?”

  His eyes narrowed and his voice grew deeper than usual. “He’s an amazing photographer, good enough to make even the ugliest town look beautiful.” The easy posture was gone as Mitchell leaned forward. “Don’t give him any grief, and do your best not to ask questions. That’s all I’m willing to say about it.”

  She wasn’t going to let it drop that easily. He should know that about her by now. “Fine. I’ll go. When do we leave, and whose car are we taking?”

  Mitchell sat back, his brow wrinkling. “Uh, I’ve lined up a rental. It’s in your name, and they will come pick you up at your house tomorrow morning at ten. Gavin is supposed to text you in the A.M. to let you know where to pick him up.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” She forced a wide smile. “Thanks for setting everything up!”

  Avery breezed out of Mitchell’s office and resisted the urge to take a backward peek. She’d left him guessing, and she knew it. He couldn’t hide his surprise or suspicion, and that suited her fine. She would drop her questions about Gavin around about the time that purple monkeys started dancing on the hook of the rental car Mitchell had reserved.

  Chapter Two

  “Eli!” Avery was home, and her son had some explaining to do.