Once Again In Christmas Falls (Return To Christmas Falls Book 3)

by Becky Monson

  Shaking all that off, I handed him the small box of cookies. “For you,” I said.

  “Is this what I think it is?” he asked, his eyes moving from the box to me, then back to the box.

  “Yep,” I said as he took it from me.

  He opened it. “Oh, yes,” he said with a lust-filled voice. “Mrs. Mitchem’s sugar cookies. I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

  “Have you had any since you’ve been back?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” he said, picking one up and taking a huge bite. “Oh, my gosh,” he said through a mouth full of sugar cookie.

  “Right?” I asked, reaching in the box to grab one for myself, my mouth actually drooling at the thought of eating one. But Andy shut the lid before I could. “Hey,” I protested.

  “Didn’t you get these for me?” he asked, angling the box away from me as I tried to reach for it.

  “Yes, but you could share, you brat,” I said, trying harder to get it from him and failing. His arms were longer and stronger than mine.

  “I might share,” he said. “But I’ll have to see if you’re worthy of a cookie.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “And how might I go about proving that?”

  “We’ll just have to see how the evening goes.” He turned, holding out the arm that wasn’t holding the cookies, and I slid my arm through, my hand sitting in the crook of his elbow, and we started walking across the street.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as he lead me.

  “You’ll see,” he said with a wink.

  “I hate surprises.”

  “I know.”

  He pulled keys out of his pocket and hit the unlock button on his key fob. Immediately a black SUV that was parked on the street only a few feet away lit up, flashing yellow lights at us. He escorted me to the passenger side and I climbed in, annoyed that I didn’t know where we were going, still feeling strange about how I responded to the redheaded police officer. I mean, there was nothing going on here. Andy and I were friends—we had always been just friends. He was free to date anyone he wanted because we weren’t dating. Even pretty redheaded police officers.

  Why did that thought make me so annoyed? Maybe she was evil. Maybe I actually was psychic this time. Or maybe Mrs. Mitchem had cast some weird spell on me. Stupid Mrs. Mitchem and her crazy thoughts.

  “Buckle up,” he said as he got in the car, carefully placing the box of cookies on the back seat.

  “Where are we going?” I asked again, sounding more annoyed than I truly was. Actually, I was annoyed, but not at him. I was irritated with myself.

  “Pigeon Forge,” he said.

  I let out a quick gasp. “Winterfest?”

  “Yep,” he nodded once, a big smile on his face.

  I jumped around in my seat. I loved Winterfest—it was one of my favorite things about living near the Smoky Mountains. The lights, the Christmas decor, the carolers, I loved it all. I only wished I had brought my camera with me, but I left it back at the cottage because I’d always been terrible at taking pictures at night.

  “I like,” I said as I beamed at him, using the words I used to say to him in high school. I felt my heart do a strange jumping thing when we made eye contact and he smiled back at me. It was like something flickered between us. What the heck was that? I turned away from him and looked straight ahead out the windshield. This whole spirit of the holidays and Christmas Falls was clearly getting to me.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Are you for real?” I asked, playfully hitting Andy on the arm.

  “I am,” he said, dipping his chin to his chest once.

  We’d had fun conversation on the drive up to Pigeon Forge, slipping back into old Andy and London. My heart, thankfully, stopped doing that weird jumping, and my brain stopped conjuring up odd thoughts—and I even wondered if I’d had a bout of temporary insanity back there. Because this was Andy, after all.

  We parked and Andy had to practically drag me over to the back part of the street behind where most of the Winterfest celebration was going on. I wanted to get right into it—but he apparently had other plans.

  “Are you serious?” I asked. Still not believing where we were right now.

  “Yes,” he said, adding a chuckle. “I told you I’d make it worth it if you stayed.”

  I looked up at the beautiful white horse harnessed to a lovely old-fashioned carriage that was decorated with Christmas lights. A coachman with a cowboy hat and one of those handlebar mustaches was seated on the perch, waiting for us to hop in.

  “After you,” Andy said, helping me up into the carriage.

  Once we were seated with a large blanket over us to keep us warm, we took off. It was a slow pace, perfect for us to take in the Christmas spirit that was everywhere. The ambiance, the lights, the company . . . it was perfect. I felt giddy, like Christmas had literally taken over my body. This was so what I needed right now.

  “So, is it all you dreamed it would be?” he asked, leaning into me. We were quite cozy under the blanket, leg pressed against leg, arm against arm.

  “It’s amazing,” I said. Then I realized what he’d asked me. Once upon a time, this was my dream, to ride in a horse-driven carriage at Winterfest. “You remembered,” I said, turning my face toward him to find him looking at me. My heart did that strange jumping thing again. Clearly, something was wrong with my heart.

  “Of course,” he said, his lips turning up into a small smile. “I remember that time we came here with our families, and you pointed to one of these carriages and said you wanted to have a ride, but your mom was not into it and your dad was mad about something.”

  “I remember that night,” I said, bobbing my head as the memories came rushing back. My dad was mad because my mom had been complaining the entire night, ruining the evening for all of us. It hadn’t ruined the evening for me, though, because I was with Andy. And things were always fun with Andy. Even though I hadn’t thought about it in years, suddenly I remembered everything about that night.

  Andy looked away from me and out into the street in front of us. “I remember thinking to myself, someday I was going to take you here.” He reached up and put his arm around me, and I rested my cheek on his shoulder.

  I sighed, a big, contented sigh. “Thank you,” I said, willing the fluttering butterflies in my lower belly to chill out. What was wrong with my body?

  “You’re welcome.”

  ~*~

  The night was magical. We stopped to get hot chocolate to warm us after the carriage ride. Carolers, dressed like characters out of a Dickens’ novel, serenaded the streets, the perfect accompaniment to the light show provided by the storefronts.

  “So, listen,” he said as we were driving back to Christmas Falls.

  “Yeah?”

  “I may have crossed a line,” he said.

  “What line?” I asked, wondering what the apprehension in his voice was for.

  “Well, I told Piper I would set up a time for you to get together,” he said.

  “You did what?”

  “Is that okay? She wants to see you.”

  “Oh,” I said. I wasn’t mad—not at all. I’d actually been missing Piper so much it almost hurt. There were so many memories of her—of us—around this town. How could I not?

  “What do you think?”

  “I think . . . it’s a great idea,” I said.

  “You do?” he questioned, turning his face briefly to mine to see if I was bluffing.

  “Sure,” I said. “I want to see Piper.” Especially before the pageant. We needed to bury the hatchet before then, for us and for Miss Anna Cate.

  “Okay,” he said. “How about Sunday? Does that work?”

  “Uh, let me check my schedule,” I said, picking up my smart phone and pretending to look at it. “I think I’m free.”

  “Are you worried at all about seeing her?” he asked, ignoring my sarcasm.

  “Yeah. Kind of.” Actually, it was more than kind of. Especially when memories and
feelings came swirling back as I allowed myself to go back to that time in my head. I had pushed those memories out, so you’d think they’d be foggy—but they weren’t. I could even remember what I was wearing that day, what Piper was wearing.

  “You never told me what happened,” Andy said.

  I sighed, debating in my mind if it was even worth telling him, worth bringing up those feelings. They were going to get dredged up anyway. Might as well rip the Band-Aid off now.

  “Remember Tad Johnson?”

  “That moron?” he said, and I knew he’d say that like I knew the sun would rise. Andy hated Tad and Tad hated Andy.

  “Yep. The very one.” I shook my head at Andy, chuckling to myself, because even after all these years, he still had the same response when hearing his name. Tad was a moron. Actually, he was handsome and vivacious, and every girl in school wanted to date him. But he was also a moron.

  “What about him?” he asked.

  “Piper liked him—like a lot. Remember? She’d spend forever writing his name in fancy lettering in her notebooks.”

  Andy shook his head at that, because of course he wouldn’t remember. I was the only one privy to that information.

  “Anyway, apparently, he either knew that she liked him and was just a jerk, or he actually had a thing for me, because he kissed me at the after-graduation party at the Cooks’ house right in front of her. And I sort of kissed him back.” That was the worst part of all.

  “Oh,” he said, drawing out the word. I couldn’t tell by his tone if he was shocked by that, or perhaps annoyed. But there was definitely something telling in his intonation. I just wasn’t sure what.

  “Yeah. It didn’t look good from any angle. And when I tried to tell Piper what happened, she wouldn’t even talk to me. You remember that day,” I said, and looked over to see him nodding. “I was crying my eyes out and you were really sweet.” I reached over and squeezed his arm.

  Andy had been great. It had hurt to think that Piper would write me off like that—without even listening to me. I mean, she had liked Tad for a long time before that, and Piper was so pretty, it was hard to believe that he’d never tried to date her. And to be honest, when he kissed me, for a moment—a split second—I had felt . . . special. I’d always felt like Piper was the prettier one, and everyone always talked about all the amazing things she was going to do after high school—she was voted most likely to succeed, after all. And I was just me. Voted most likely to be sorted into Slytherin. Which was ridiculous. I mean, clearly I was meant for Ravenclaw at the very least.

  I’d gone directly to Andy’s house after the whole debacle, and he put a boney arm around me while I sobbed. I remembered, once I was done crying on Andy, looking down at my wrist and seeing that friendship bracelet—the one my friends and I had made, and Miss Anna Cate had done that whole ritual hoopla with the bracelets and the poem. I loved that bracelet and never took it off. But when I looked down at it that day, something snapped. I ripped it off and threw it on the ground somewhere in Andy’s backyard.

  “Anyway, we moved away two weeks later.”

  “And you never talked to her again after that?” he asked.

  I shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t think she wanted to talk to me. Plus, I’d moved across the country.”

  I had planned to keep in touch with Piper, with Andy, with all the girls from my gang, after we moved. We were all going away to college soon—we knew that our lives would be heading different ways anyway. My move was just faster since I missed our last summer together.

  When things went so wrong with Piper, I sort of followed my mom’s lead when we moved. She wanted a fresh start—a clean break from our old lives. To start anew. I wanted that too, thinking it was the answer to everything. I was also embarrassed by it all. I’d handled it so poorly.

  My parents bought a house in Phoenix that was nothing like the one they had in Christmas Falls. They got rid of all our old furniture and decorated the new house to fit in better with their “new lives.” I went away to college, and it wasn’t long before Christmas Falls was a thing of the past.

  Plus, Piper never tried to contact me. Not that she really could have—I changed my number to an Arizona area code because my parents were footing the bill and wanted us to all get new numbers. I realized that I was going to have to be the one to reach out to her, and I avoided it long enough that I just moved on. Well, I tried to move on. All of it would sneak up on me sometimes, and I’d feel so much regret that I’d work extra hard to shove it away again. Funny how the past did that.

  Andy pulled up in front of Poinsettia Cottage and put the car in park. He turned to look at me. “Can I ask you something?” The serious look on his face made my stomach drop.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why didn’t you ever call me?” The look on his face, the hurt that was there, nearly broke my heart.

  I let out a shaky breath. “Andy,” I shook my head. “I meant to. I didn’t mean not to. I just . . . I don’t know.”

  I looked down at my hands in my lap, feeling ashamed. Andy had been one of my closest friends and didn’t deserve the way I handled everything back then. It wasn’t intentional, us losing contact. More like a byproduct of what had transpired with Piper.

  “I’m really, really sorry.”

  He looked at me, his eyes sad, and I braced myself for what was going to come out of his mouth next.

  “I’m sorry too. But I’m afraid . . .” he paused to give me a sullen look. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to share my sugar cookies with you. You don’t deserve them.”

  A slow smile crept across his face, and I chuckled. I also felt butterflies swirling around in my stomach—the excited kind. I had Andy back, and hopefully soon, Piper.

  Christmas Falls was suddenly feeling quite magical.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  That night after Andy dropped me off and I felt happier than I had in a long time, I had a dream. It was one of those dreams. And, of course, it was about Andy.

  It was the kind of dream you don’t want to wake up from because it felt like it was out of a romance movie. There were lovey-dovey words and kissing and touching and everything was perfect. When I woke up, I felt elated, and then I felt like I was going to be sick. First Mrs. Mitchem, then my heart and stomach . . . now my subconscious was in on this thing.

  I needed to get over it, and fast, because before I got out of the car last night, Andy had remembered that his mom invited me to come over to dinner the next day. I, of course, told him yes because you didn’t turn down food made by Andy’s mom, and because it meant more time with Andy.

  I also really wanted to see his parents, to see their house, and the one next to it—the one I had grown up in. I hadn’t gone by yet, and I had no idea why I was putting it off. Maybe it would be too sad to see it. Well, I was going to find out tonight. Unless I called and canceled, citing that romantic dream I couldn’t stop thinking about.

  “You’re up early,” Mrs. Curtis said as I came down the stairs. I had actually been up before seven, but lay in bed replaying the stupid dream I’d had, and the night before and the carriage ride. I needed to get a grip.

  “Yes, lots to do today,” I said, and then mentally slapped myself. Why would I say that? I had nothing to do except for dinner tonight at Andy’s parents’ house.

  “Oh, well, then you’ll need something to eat,” Mrs. Curtis said with a wink. Today, rather than sit in the kitchen, she urged me into the dining room. Odd of her to want to dirty another room since I was the only guest, but I followed her directions.

  The dining room was filled with poinsettias, some real, but mostly fake ones. There was a lot of ornate décor and antiques around the room. And tons of pictures on the walls—older pictures of what I figured were ancestors of the Curtis family. I loved it all. The Curtis home was what I wanted. Maybe not so cluttered, and definitely not the bed and breakfast thing—I couldn’t cook and therefore would only serve boxed cereal or microwavable oatmeal—but the
hominess of it all. The feeling that people had lived here, that history had happened here. I don’t think I could find that in San Francisco. Sure, there was history there—tons of it. But nothing like this. Small Southern towns had so much charm and warmth.

  Maybe someday I would have a home like this. A place to bring my future children home to. Little Kingston and Ireland. I wasn’t planning on following that tradition, but if I did I would make sure my children were conceived in the coolest of places.

  I lay on my bed after eating the Belgian waffle Mrs. Curtis had made me. My belly was full, and I was feeling something I hadn’t felt in a long while. Content. And it wasn’t just the waffle. It was the holidays, it was Christmas Falls, it was Miss Anna Cate, it was Andy. It was a lot Andy. I felt like my brain was filled with some big marquee with the word “Andy” in huge lights flashing repeatedly. “Andy! Andy! Andy!”

  Why, when I thought of his name, would my stomach to do all kinds of flipping things? This was new and foreign, and I felt like a teenager. That dream had quite the effect on me. Or perhaps it was just the waffle. I could hope that was the reason.

  To clear my head, I grabbed my camera and took a walk to the falls, where I spent the next couple of hours taking pictures of the falls themselves, the tree with the ornaments, the bench, all the little details that I never wanted to forget. Who knew when I’d be back here again?

  Using a wide-angle lens, I snapped a shot of the whole area. I was going to blow it up and frame it for my apartment. This time leaving it just as it was, no Photoshop tricks. It didn’t need any enhancements or changes.

  After I’d filled an entire memory card, I sat on the bench and contemplated life. Something I didn’t do very often because, well, my life hadn’t turned out at all like I’d planned. Not that it was a bad life; it just wasn’t spectacular or fancy. I hadn’t followed any of the dreams I had set out for myself. Dreams I had thought up years ago sitting at this same bench.

  I’d had lots of dreams, but my biggest was to do something with photography. I was never quite sure what to do, but I knew if I could make money using my camera, I would be happy. I planned to go to college at some fancy art school and carve out a life where I could do something I loved. But none of that happened. Art school somehow turned into business school. Mostly because my mom convinced me that photography was a hobby and not a career. She was right, of course. Photography never amounted to much for me. But then again, neither had marketing.