Under The Kissing Bough: 15 Romantic Holiday Novellas

by Kathryn Le Veque

  “I believe we were dancing.”

  With a smile, he swept her into another waltz. But within moments, he eased into a small alcove and stopped to look up.

  She followed his gaze and saw the kissing bough above her. “Oh, my.”

  “Exactly.” He kissed her, gently yet thoroughly, setting her soul singing with joy.

  “Don’t forget to pluck a berry from the bough,” she said with a smile.

  He did as she suggested and held it high. “I’m keeping this for good luck.”

  Katherine leaned back to look into his eyes. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”

  “I miss them every day. I was doing all I could to avoid the future.”

  “And I’ve been doing all I can to escape my past. We’re quite the pair.”

  “You’ve changed all that for me, Katherine.” He reached out to touch her cheek, and her heart swelled. With love.

  Her eyes widened at the realization. That wasn’t possible. Not yet. Was it?

  “I know we haven’t known each other long,” Cole said, his voice quiet, “but I love you. Every Christmas, I want to dance under the mistletoe with you for as many years as we can possibly have together. Will you marry me?”

  Blinking back tears, Katherine wrapped her arms around him as she rose on her toes to kiss him. “Yes. And we will enjoy each day in between all the Christmases, shall we?”

  “You never know what might happen when you dance under the mistletoe.”

  “It holds a special magic, doesn’t it?”

  “Along with love.”

  What could she do but kiss him again?

  THE END

  ABOUT LANA WILLIAMS

  Lana Williams is a bestselling and Amazon All-Star author who writes historical romance filled with mystery, adventure, and a pinch of paranormal to stir things up. Filled with a love of books from an early age, Lana put pen to paper and decided happy endings were a must in any story she created.

  Her latest series is The Seven Curses of London, set in Victorian times, and shares stories of men who attempt to battle the ills of London, and the ladies they fall in love with, who truly give them something worth fighting for.

  Her first medieval trilogy is set in England and follows heroes seeking vengeance only to find love when they least expect it. The second trilogy begins on the Scottish border and follows the second generation of the de Bremont family.

  The Secret Trilogy, which shares stories set in Victorian London, follows three lords injured in an electromagnetic experiment that went terribly wrong and the women who help heal them through the power of love.

  She writes in the Rocky Mountains with her husband, two growing sons, and two labs, and loves hearing from readers. If you’d like to know when her next book releases, sign up for her newsletter at: http://lanawilliams.net, follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LanaWilliamsBooks or on Twitter at @LanaWilliams28.

  A YULE TO REMEMBER

  JEANNE ADAMS

  A YULE TO REMEMBER

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was good to be home.

  The winter wind smelled of the ocean, and of memories. A return to Haven Harbor had been a long time coming. Maybe this trip would be more entertaining. It was Yule, after all.

  The snowflakes swirling in the brisk wind wouldn’t stick, and they wouldn’t help when it came to the glory of fire. It would be so fun to watch former classmates and neighbors squirm and scramble as they tried to figure it out the source.

  A little puzzle for the end of the year.

  “They should know that you have to have a bonfire at Yule.”

  The whispered words were snatched away by the wind. The dark-clad figure slipped under the truck. Then three minutes later, a sedate sedan turned out of the truck stop in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Laughter filled the car.

  “Perfect!”

  By the time the rig was in range of the witchiest town in the world, it would be hot enough to blow.

  ####

  “Done!” Annie threw her hands in the air in triumph as she tied the last bow on the last mistletoe globe for the Yule Ball. She’d been on the flower committee with her high school friends, Moira McDonald who owned The Enchanted Florist and Patty Kaylor from the local electric co-op, for the last three years. It had taken her most of the first year to get the hang of the wiring and tying, but now she had it down pat.

  “Thank heavens,” Patty said shaking out her hands. They’d each finished theirs at about the same time. “How many is it this year?”

  “I think we managed not to mess any up this year, so that’s thirty-two,” Moira answered.

  “We rock,” Annie enthused, gently setting the kissing ball in the last slot in the long box sitting on the table in Moira’s flower-filled workroom. “So we’ll cool them tonight and tomorrow, and hang them Saturday morning, right?”

  “Yep,” Moira said. “Our trusty Haven Harbor Fire Department will be there to help with the big stuff, as usual.”

  “I’ll bring the coffee,” Patty said. “And pumpkin spice creamer for it as a bribe if you’ll bake.” She turned to Annie, making soulful puppy dog eyes.

  “You look ridiculous, and your face is going to freeze like that,” Annie teased. “But it’s effective. You’re taking shameless advantage of how much I love this time of year.”

  The other two women grinned at her, unrepentant.

  “Let’s see, what should I bring?” Annie pretended to think about it. “I know, cinnamon rolls, apfel kuchen, raspberry Danish?”

  Moira groaned. “Good thing we’ll be working like dogs getting the ballroom ready. We’ll have to climb the ladder a lot to work off your baked goods.”

  “You really should open a bakery in addition to running The Classic Cauldron.”

  Annie shook her head. “I wouldn’t dare try to compete with Maxwell’s,” she said, thinking of the bakery at the edge of town. People went out of their way to go to the pastry chef’s bakery. “Besides, the Cauldron is a cooking and kitchen store first. That’s what I love. I’ll keep baking as a hobby.”

  “Yeah, okay, be sensible,” Moira mock-groused, as she picked up the box of kissing balls and carried it to the flower cooler. “But I’ll bet Maxwell doesn’t make apfle kuchen from his great-grandmother’s original German recipe, now does he?” she called.

  Annie let her heavy, bright blonde hair out of the clip and shook it out. “Nope. That would be me.”

  “No one competes with your super berry fruit tart either,” Patty said as she picked up the second box.

  “Or your pumpkin cinnamon rolls,” Moira said as she came back for the next box.

  Annie cleaned up the wire and flowers as her friends traded off compliments on her various recipes like tag team wrestlers trading moves.

  Annie held up her hands in surrender. “Thank you, thank you,” she joked, and bowed, as if she were a stand-up comic. “I’ll be here all the week.”

  “I’m just glad you make it for us, even though it means I spend an extra hour or so on the treadmill in penance.” Moira dusted off her hands as she put the last of the mistletoe in the cooler.

  “When’s your next class?” Patty asked. She picked up one of the Annie’s cookies from a formerly full plate, and dunked it the mug of decaf coffee she’d just poured.

  “Friday. It’s the I-don’t-do-date-night, Friday night special cooking class. Surprisingly, it’s totally full, even though it’s the holiday season.”

  “Are either of you bringing a date?” Moira asked, looking from one to the other.

  “Not a chance,” Patty said. “I’ve sworn off men since the Witches Walk.”

  “The guy,” Annie and Moira chorused nodding comically at one another, and Moira added, “The Awful Kisser From Andover.”

  Patty threw a fat, stemless rose at them. It hit with a soft thump into Moira’s hand as she caught it.

  “Yeah, that guy,” Patty said, laughing. “So no date for me. W
hat about you two?”

  “Nope,” Annie said. “Too much pressure when you date at the holidays. I want to dance with Grampa Frank and Jesse Ray, one of my student employees. Hard to do that if you have to mind a date.”

  “Yep,” Moira agreed. “Is your sister coming this year?” Patty shot her a look, but Moira ignored it.

  Annie smiled. “No. She’s got a part in a commercial in Cancun. My parents and grandparents are going down to observe.”

  “Yippee,” Patty said, laughing as the rose head flew back her way. “Hey! Seriously, who looks at us when Luscious Lianna comes to the ball?”

  Annie wasn’t sure if she should gasp or laugh. “Luscious Lianna?”

  Patty shrugged. “She acts like she’s the gods’ gift to mankind sometimes. It’s worse when she’s got a modeling gig or a commercial. Between her and that girl she hung with in high school, what was her name?”

  Moira answered with a groan before Annie could. “Helen Simpson. Spiteful little weasel. What did your sister see in her?”

  Annie considered that as they finished cleaning up.

  “I’m not sure. Helen did pageants too, I think, and traveled doing modeling. That’s what Lianna wanted, so….Lianna dropped her pretty quickly. She said Helen was weird.”

  Her sister had never liked the family moving to Haven Harbor, never liked living with Gramma and Grampa. She’d never liked the totally un-cool town of Haven Harbor.

  Tall, willowy Lianna couldn’t wait to leave to pursue her dream of modeling. Petite and voluptuous, and totally unlike her sister, Annie had thrived in witchy Haven Harbor. For the first time in her young life, Annie had felt like she fit in.

  They’d only lived with Gramma and Grampa for two years, until their Boston house was rebuilt after the fire, but Annie made friends with Moira and Patty. She’d figured out what she wanted to be when she grew up. Annie flourished in Home Economics––still taught in Haven Harbor––and in her retail job at the hardware store.

  After college and a major in hospitality management and cuisine, she came home to Haven Harbor. She came home because she’d always loved the Yule Ball, the Witches Walk, the Midsummer BBQ. Even the supposedly serious parts were fascinating.

  So, at the Yule Ball, the town’s witches would chose a king and queen of winter to supplant the king and queen of summer. The kings and queens would renew the protections on the town by meeting and greeting the townsfolk and getting their pledge to protect the town.

  The pageantry of Yule week inspired her, and she loved being a part of it all. It was magick, after all.

  “What are we wearing ladies?” Patty asked. That discussion took them through the rest of the cookies and decaf, and they were still at it when they bundled up in their coats and locked up Moira’s florist shop for the night.

  Moira turned to her. “What about you, Annie? You going to wear the bronze dress?”

  “The green one,” Annie said, and her friends immediately reacted.

  “I know your sister gave it to you,” Patty said. “But that shade is a bad color for you.”

  “Yep, it’s totally the wrong green,” Moira concurred. “Great for Lianna, not so great for you.”

  “Maybe,” Annie temporized, to mollify them. Really, who was going to be looking at her anyway? Their faces said she hadn’t fooled them, but neither of them said anything else.

  “Thankfully, it’s about comfort Saturday morning to decorate!” Moira reminded them, as they got to their cars.

  Annie waved to her friends as she drove away. All the shops were closed, but their windows reflected fairy lights in the sidewalk trees and planters. Holiday decorations swung from every lamppost. Since her living quarters were over The Classic Cauldron, she didn’t have far to go. The cooking shop was her pride and joy. It still scared and thrilled her every day to realize that she was the owner, the proprietor, of her own store. She’d been desperately worried that a cooking store wouldn’t make it in a small town.

  She hadn’t dared hope for the patronage of the witches of Haven Harbor. Not at first. Well, actually she had, but she hadn’t known if they’d support her, since she wasn’t a real town native. With so much available in Boston or on the Internet, it might not have worked.

  But it had. They’d supported her. Like many of the town’s witches, she grew and supplied fresh herbs. She stocked hard-to-find specialty flours, interesting and rare ingredients and flavorings, as well as gorgeous linens. In addition, she carried actual cast iron cauldrons and pots. Last but not least, she offered virtually every cookie cutter and cookie decoration, and cooking utensil and gadget ever created.

  Those, and the cooking classes and cookbooks, seemed to make the difference.

  The cooking classes on Friday nights were always full. One of her students had told her she was the best instructor ever, just last week.

  Annie warmed at the memory. She counted herself lucky. If she was a bit wistful sometimes that there was no one with whom to regularly share great food and wine, well, there were plenty of coven nights and holiday potlucks coming up.

  “Crap,” she said, fishing in her purse for a pen. She pulled over to write on the notepad riding on the dashboard of her van. “I need to order more Witches Walk cookbooks.”

  In a show of solidarity, the other shops didn’t sell the town’s signature cookbooks. Instead, they directed people to her. She didn’t sell any other books, other than cookbooks. She directed visitors or locals who wanted that sort of thing to the bookstore or the various witch stores.

  She’d just pulled away from the curb when she heard the siren. One of the town’s firetrucks came around the corner, lights flashing and siren wailing as it turned onto Courthouse St. She raised a hand in a wave, and the handsome fire chief, Reyn Shapleigh, waved back. Then he was gone, off to help whoever needed it.

  “Must be nice,” she murmured, just a little enviously, thinking about how necessary the firefighters must feel.

  Turning into the alley behind her building, she was relieved to see her cats sitting in the brightly lit window on the second floor. She climbed the stairs, reminding herself yet again that she had a lot for which to be grateful, even if there wasn’t anyone special in her life. When snowflakes drifted down from the scattered, heavy, grey clouds, her heart lifted even more.

  A shooting star arced across a clear section in the sky.

  “Oh! Good luck and big changes,” she said. Shooting stars heralded change, or so her German great-grandmother said. As the flakes fell faster, she grinned.

  “Change for Yule,” she said, feeling optimistic as she opened her apartment door. “I’m going to bet on that being a good thing.”

  ####

  Reyn Shapleigh loved the sound of the siren. He loved the adrenaline rush of rolling hot to fight a fire. He’d come in tonight because he’d had a hunch he’d be needed. He had very little magick, but he had the fire sense. When he got one of those feelings, he followed it.

  While he hated anyone having to suffer through the devastation fire could bring, if a fire started, he was glad he and his team had the training to deal with it.

  They made it to the highway in record time. The eighteen-wheeler they’d been called about was engulfed in flames. There was an ambulance following right behind them for the sooty and singed driver, who was fighting the fire with an extinguisher.

  It took them less than fifteen minutes to get the fire under control. Within twenty, it was out.

  “I don’t know what did it,” the driver said as the firefighter paramedic bandaged his burned hands. “I checked the brakes before this run. Wasn’t nothin’ wrong with ‘em. And all the hoses too. How could it’a burned?”

  “I’ll check everything tomorrow, after it cools down,” Reyn assured him. “I’m the town’s arson investigator.” The creak and groan of cooling metal punctuated their conversation. The man nodded and gave his information, before being driven to the Haven Harbor Regional Medical Center.

  “Think you’
ll be able to pinpoint the origin?” Tim Standish asked. Tim was one of Reyn’s full-time firefighters. Tim folded a piece of gum into his mouth before he continued. “Looks pretty bad.”

  “It does, but there’s always a reason,” Reyn said, slapping him on the back. “Good work tonight.”

  “Thanks, boss,” Tim said with a grin. “We’re the lucky ones, we got to roll to an actual fire call.”

  Reyn returned the grin with perfect understanding. “Pretty cool.”

  Tim was right about the luck. Haven Harbor was a wonderful town. Reyn loved it. He’d grown up here, played football for the Haven Harbor Ospreys, and come back to take the Chief’s job in Haven Harbor when it came open. In some ways, it was like he’d never left.

  Oh, sure, he’d gone to college in Connecticut, but that was the only time he’d been out of Massachusetts, except for fighting wildfires as a volunteer. He’d followed that love of firefighting and trained for every facet of the job. He’d worked in Connecticut, and other Massachusetts towns as well as wildfire work. When the job came open in Haven Harbor, he’d jumped at it. If it wasn’t as thrilling as some jobs might be, it was home. Part of the reason it was mostly fire-free was his fire-sensing gift, so he only had himself to blame for things being quiet.

  He watched the sheriff’s deputy direct traffic past the cones they’d set in the road to protect the firefighters. He watched cars go past and wondered if all those people were escaping the cold or going to family for the holidays.

  “We’re wrapped up, Chief,” Tim said, trotting back to him. Reyn realized he’d been woolgathering a while if his team were already done packing hoses and clearing debris.

  “I’ll mark it off and leave the cones,” Sheriff Carl Lackner said, limping up. His arm, broken at Halloween, was still in a cast. It’d had to be re-set when the bone didn’t heal correctly. “I see I missed all the excitement.” He glanced at the blackened cab and trailer.