Love Finds You on Christmas Morning

by Debby Mayne

  This whole thing felt like a dream to Lillian. She followed William as he practically ran to a slightly smaller version of the main house.

  “What do you think?” He pointed to the house.

  “It’s beautiful. Is this yours?”

  Instead of answering her question, he pulled her toward the house. “Let’s go inside. I want to show you around.”

  They walked through the door and into the foyer. He led her along, pointing out the rooms as they went. Lillian was amazed by the organization of the downstairs with the library and casual gathering room on one side of the hallway and the parlor and dining room on the other. The kitchen spanned the entire back of the house, with the cooking station on one end and a large eating area on the other.

  “There are four bedrooms upstairs,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how many we’d need, so I decided to start with four.” His hand began to shake. “Lillian…”

  She turned to face him, and her breath caught in her throat. The combination of tenderness and longing in his expression grabbed her heart and squeezed.

  William continued holding onto her hand as he slowly lowered to one knee. “I love you with all my heart, Lillian, and I want this to be our home.” He shifted a bit and reached into his pocket then spread out her left hand. “If you will accept this ring, I’ll be the happiest man in the world.”

  “But I thought…” She stared at the solitaire diamond ring. “Are you—?”

  “I’m asking you to be my wife—to share the rest of our lives together.”

  Lillian held his gaze for a couple of seconds then nodded. “Yes, William, I will marry you.”

  He closed his eyes and smiled before placing the ring on her finger. Then he jumped up, flung his arms around her, and swung her in a circle. “You have just made me one very happy man.”

  Lillian held out her left hand and stared at the sparkling diamond. “This is beautiful, William. Thank you so much.”

  William chuckled. “You might not be thanking me after I tell you what you need to do next.”

  She frowned at him. “I have to do something?”

  With a nod, he replied, “Yes, now you need to get to work decorating this place. I can build a house, but you don’t want to let me loose with the décor.”

  Lillian laughed. “I’ll be glad to.”

  “C’mon, let’s go let everyone know you said yes.”

  As soon as they reached the porch, William lifted her hand and announced, “She said yes!”

  Everyone cheered. Lillian looked out over the people standing before her, and she had no doubt that the Lord had blessed her with a family filled with people who would always be there for her and William.

  Pickard-Tronnier Shortbread (or Shortbread Cookies)

  2 cups sifted flour

  1 teaspoon cornstarch

  1 cup softened butter

  1/2 cup sugar

  1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)

  Directions:

  1 Mix the flour and cornstarch in a medium bowl.

  2 In a large bowl, mix softened butter with sugar and vanilla (optional) until creamy.

  3 Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar.

  4 Press the mixture into an 8x8-inch cake pan. (See below if you are making cookies.)

  5 Bake in a 325-degree oven for approximately 30 minutes.

  6 Cool slightly but cut into 2-inch squares while still warm.

  Directions for cookies:

  1 Follow steps 1–3 in the directions above.

  2 Use a teaspoon to scoop the batter, roll it into balls, and flatten each one on a cookie sheet.

  3 Bake for approximately 15 to 20 minutes until brown around the edges.

  4 Cool before removing from the pan.

  About the Author

  Debby Mayne grew up in a military family, which meant moving every few years throughout her childhood. She has worked as managing editor of a national health magazine, a product information writer for a TV retailer, a creative writing instructor, and a copyeditor and proofreader for several book publishers. Debby currently enjoys writing Christian fiction, which allows her the freedom to tell stories without restraining her convictions. She has published more than thirty books and novellas, including Love Finds You in Treasure Island, Florida, and approximately four hundred short stories and articles. She was a contributing author to the popular devotional for busy women, Be Still…and Let Your Nail Polish Dry, and she and Trish Perry both contributed to the follow-up devotional, Delight Yourself in the Lord…Even on Bad Hair Days.

  Debby and her husband, Wally, have two adult daughters, a son-in-law, and a granddaughter. They make their home on Florida’s west coast with their cat, Misty.

  Read more about Debby at www.debbymayne.com.

  BY TRISH PERRY

  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

  EPHESIANS 2:22 NIV

  Chapter One

  Early March, modern day

  “Have I ever told you why I stole you away from Armand, Nikki?”

  Nicole Tronnier dusted a trace of flour off the tip of her nose and gave old Mr. Fennicle a smile. “Of course you have, Harvey. I amazed you with my culinary prowess and sparkling personality.”

  She placed a basket of warm rosemary biscuits near his plate. The pumpkin-potato puree and veggie medley looked perfect next to his rack of lamb, if she did say so herself. The rich winter colors were almost as important to her as the fragrance and taste of the food she served. “If anyone deserves the very best personal chef in North Carolina, it’s an absolutely spoiled multimillionaire like you.”

  She saw him fight against the twitch of a smile.

  “I resent your insinuation about me, young lady.”

  “I call ’em as I see ’em, Harvey.”

  “I’m an absolutely spoiled billionaire, at the very least. And that’s not why I lured you away. I’ve always been very fond of Armand and his fine restaurant. It’s one of the reasons I opened a plant in Charlotte, so I could visit him and still make money. Pilfering his star chef gave me no pleasure, and I could have found an equally gifted chef elsewhere, I’m certain.”

  “But?” She crossed her arms. She adored this old man, and it had taken so little time to settle into fond banter with him once she joined the staff of his spacious Cary, North Carolina, mansion almost a year ago.

  He closed his eyes and swallowed his bite of lamb, ecstasy in his expression. “Perfect.” He breathed a satisfied sigh. “But I saw you do something that put you over the top, in my book. I don’t suppose you even know what that was.”

  “I gave you an extra-large slice of my mango-coconut terrine for dessert. Was that it?”

  “Didn’t hurt, but no. Do you remember that odd fellow who made off with a dish full of food the day I met you?”

  She frowned. “Odd fellow. No. What do you mean he made off with—oh, you mean the homeless guy in the fake waiter suit.” She chuckled at the memory.

  “I was outside in my limo when that happened,” Harvey said. “I hadn’t yet entered the restaurant and was on the phone with one of my more boring advisors. I saw that fellow rush out of the restaurant, glancing back, forth, and behind. He was protecting that plate of food as if eagles would swoop down and carry it off.”

  “Poor guy,” Nikki said. “I think he just wandered in off the street, fully intending to beg—from our customers or from the restaurant, I don’t know for sure. But he was in that old black suit, and a customer handed her dish to him to bring it back to the kitchen for reheating or something. She thought he was a waiter. And he thought he hit the jackpot.”

  Harvey laughed. “When you stormed out the front door after him and nearly tripped over him, sitting there—”

  “You never told me you saw all that, Harvey!”

  “I did indeed.”

  “Yeah, I remember it now. It was just like you said. He was so hungry he didn’t even run beyond the front stoop. Broke my
heart.” She shrugged. “I had to redo the customer’s order anyway. No sense in wasting food.”

  “I saw you pat his head, Nikki. Not only did you let him eat, you weren’t afraid to touch him.”

  She sighed. “And that’s why you hired me?”

  He focused on cutting his lamb. “Says a lot about a person, the things they’ll do when they think no one else is watching. If I’m going to have someone join my live-in staff, I want to make sure she’s made of the right stuff, not just able to make the right stuff.”

  “Yep.” She nodded. “I’m pretty special, all right.”

  Harvey’s personal assistant, Laura, walked into the dining room. “Excuse me, Mr. Fennicle.”

  “Laura, please.” He tilted his head. “Call me Harvey. I’ve told you about that.”

  She simply smiled. Nikki knew Laura would never loosen up enough to accommodate Harvey’s request. She had replaced his previous assistant who’d retired months ago, and she was still loath to so much as chat over a cup of coffee. After Nikki’s years of active social life in college and then working in bustling kitchens full of chatty coworkers, the lack of sisterly camaraderie was sometimes lonely.

  “Elliot Kincaid in New York is calling,” Laura said to Harvey. “What would you like me to—?”

  “Thanks, yes. Please tell him I’ll call him in about a half hour. And could you bring me those papers he sent down yesterday? I’ll look them over while I eat. Did you get dinner?”

  “Yes, thank you.” She smiled formally at Nikki. “Very nice, Nikki. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Although the woman hadn’t yet proven easy to cozy up to, Nikki still had hope. She watched Laura’s prim steps carry her out of the room and then returned her attention to Harvey. “Okay, I’ll leave you to it, then. Do you need anything else?”

  “Only the fountain of youth, dear.”

  She squeezed his shoulder and almost gave him a kiss on his feathery-haired head. “I’ll check on you in a little while. I have something special for your dessert.”

  She returned to the kitchen and started tidying up. Harvey’s panna cotta was ready in the refrigerator. She only needed to drizzle the rose syrup over it before she served it to him. He loved trying new flavors, and this would be exactly that. Her old boss, Armand Gaudet, had introduced her to Italian rose syrup while she apprenticed under him in Charlotte.

  Not for the first time, Nikki felt the tiniest twinge of guilt about leaving Armand, even though he had been completely gracious when Harvey offered her this job. There had simply been too many “God things” involved for her to ignore the opportunity.

  Although she had moved away from Cary years ago in order to attend college and then train under Armand, she was definitely a family girl. She loved the city but missed her hometown. The three-hour drive between Charlotte and Cary made visiting her parents, sister, and old friends prohibitive. So for the location alone, she gave Harvey’s offer serious consideration as soon as he made it.

  But there was another reason she couldn’t refuse the offer to work as personal chef to the eccentric Harvey Fennicle. He had doubled her income with a stroke of his pen on her employment contract. Nikki wasn’t money-hungry, but as long as she could remember, she had saved for a specific goal in mind. Now she might actually reach that goal.

  Her family’s old home here in Cary—the home her great-grandfather William Tronnier and his brothers built for William and his new bride, Lillian—had been on the market for a year or more. Neither her parents nor her grandparents had maintained ownership of the Tronnier home, seeking instead to buy more modern homes for themselves and their families.

  But Nikki’s fondest early childhood memories were wrapped up in that home. As a little girl, she’d thought Granny Lillian and Grampa William would always be around. And she’d thought the family would spend every holiday, especially Christmas morning, celebrating in their home. She wanted to bring those memories back into her family’s lives and futures.

  The house was still beautiful but needed considerable refurbishing. Until Harvey Fennicle came into her life, Nikki had little hope of saving enough to purchase and remodel the home. Now she was close to having saved a sizable down payment. It wouldn’t be long before she could make an offer to the current owner. The house had been vacant for quite a while. Nikki had confidence in her chances.

  She couldn’t think of anything or anyone that would stand in her way now.

  Chapter Two

  Drew Cornell seldom awoke in a bad mood, especially on Saturday mornings. Regardless of how hard or how late he had worked the night before, he typically couldn’t keep from giving in to optimism within moments after waking. His golden retriever Freddie saw to that, padding dutifully from the plush living-room carpet into Drew’s bedroom the moment the alarm rang each morning.

  The two of them had fallen into the kind of rhythm only a lifelong bachelor and his trusty best friend could after years of companionship. Five years, to be exact. Even the move to Cary nine months ago and the need to orient themselves to this small rental apartment hadn’t disrupted their routine for long. For his part, Freddie carried Drew’s running shoes in his mouth, dropped them at the side of the bed, and greeted Drew with his panting grin each day.

  But this morning Drew was unable to welcome Freddie with the enthusiasm he usually demonstrated. Still facedown on the bed, he groaned and blindly reached his hand out to find the top of Freddie’s head and give it a cursory rub.

  “Ugh. Okay. Be with you in a minute, pal.” At least those were the words he spoke into the mattress. He assumed Freddie would grasp his meaning despite the fuzzy enunciation.

  Not only had he lost sleep worrying about his dad’s latest health scare, but he had spent more than an hour on the phone in the middle of the night, comforting his old girlfriend in California. Isabelle had already dated, fallen for, and been dumped by a new man since Drew moved to Cary this past year, and she tended to forget about the three-hour time difference when she leaned on Drew for a consoling ear. He didn’t have the heart to remind her when she called, crying, at three in the morning, that he needed to be up at six to start his day, even this weekend.

  So he listened and tried to encourage her without slipping into telling her what she ought to do. Back when they dated, she’d taught him that was a big no-no with women. Just lend an ear or a shoulder, she had told him, and try to sympathize. For that pointer alone, he would always be grateful, even though the strategy seemed to drag problems on longer than necessary, as far as he was concerned.

  Freddie pressed his cold nose up against Drew’s arm, which dangled over the edge of the bed. Drew pulled it in and pushed himself up.

  “Right.” He sat up and rubbed his eyes. The dog tilted his head as if awaiting an explanation for this delay. His tail worked like a metronome.

  Drew chuckled. “Okay, buddy. I guess skipping this morning’s run is out of the question.”

  The moment he stood, the dog’s excitement kicked into gear. He dashed out of the bedroom as if his paws were on fire. Drew barely had time to brush his teeth and throw on his T-shirt and sweats before Freddie returned and sat at his feet, his leash in his mouth.

  * * * * *

  “Let’s try a change of scenery here, boy.” He tugged at the dog’s leash when the sidewalk forked in two directions. One side led to the park and the other to the mixed-use section of the residential community, where shops and small office buildings were clustered.

  Their typical route took them through the park, but Drew needed caffeine earlier than usual today. The air was cold, and that had helped at first. But now that he had worked up a sweat and the cool air was more comforting than bracing, he was going to need something stronger. They’d stop at the coffee shop and take a more leisurely stroll home. He hadn’t missed a day’s run yet this week. He could afford to slack off on his return for one morning.

  It was early enough that few shops or offices had even opened yet. But he cou
ld smell the heavenly fragrance from the Coffee Bean before he even rounded the corner.

  When he did round the corner, however, a flash of fur whizzed past him so quickly that he almost tripped over it. His lack of sleep kicked in, and he grumbled about the near accident. People needed to hang onto their dogs better than that.

  He halted abruptly, but Freddie had other plans. The retriever took off after the other dog, and Drew didn’t have a firm enough hold on the leash to stop him.

  “Freddie! No!”

  Before he even started running after him, a young woman ran past him, clearly in pursuit of the smaller dog.

  “If your dog hurts mine—” She didn’t finish her threat. She had already passed him.

  He laughed, incredulous. “If my dog hurts hers? Freddie! No!” He broke into a run when he saw all three of them disappear into the park.

  By the time he caught up to them, the lightning-quick fur ball had come to a halt at the base of an old oak tree. He was a tough little red-haired cuss—a terrier—with short legs and a big-dog attitude. He alternated between barking at whatever had run up the tree and barking at Freddie, whose own pattern mirrored his exactly. The two of them didn’t seem to know which crisis was more important, their prey or each other. So they divided their energies accordingly.

  The woman squatted next to the terrier and fiddled with the leash before picking up the dog and holding him as if she were about to run for a touchdown.

  “Enough, Riley! That’s enough out of you. Calm down.” She glanced at Freddie and raised her voice. “You too. Shush!” She wore a frown when she turned around, obviously seeking the dog’s errant owner. She met eyes with Drew. “Oh.” That was it. Just “Oh.” But the word was full of annoyance.

  Freddie continued to instigate barks here and there, and Riley couldn’t resist echoing him.

  “Freddie.” Drew said it calmly. Now that he was this close in proximity to his dog, that was all he chose to say to assure him that all bark-worthy circumstances were under control.