Holiday Magic

by Fern Michaels

They scurried out faster than you can say, “Merry Christmas.”

  I glowered at Logan.

  He grinned at me.

  “Could I have a moment of your time, please?” I asked.

  He was so hot.

  And I was so going to completely, utterly ignore that delicious fact. If I didn’t it would lead to nothing but more pain. I knew that.

  I knew that.

  “Come on, you testosterone-driven cowboy oaf. Get outside so I can give you a piece of my mind.” I stomped out.

  He followed.

  Chapter 2

  I live on the top floor of a three-story brick house built in 1889 that I bought about a year ago and transformed into my bed and breakfast/morning café business.

  When I’m in my bedroom with the peaked roof I can see all over Telena and to the Elk Horn mountains. I feel like I’m in a very tall, old tree house with a claw foot tub.

  My bedroom is a lovely place to temporarily lose my mind. I decorated my four-poster bed with a light yellow flowered comforter, and a mountain of white pillows, with white lacy material draped over the posts. I have a white dresser and desk and a pile of books to read by my nightstand. How would Logan look in my bed? I smashed that thought because then I would have to deal with his look of disgust when he knew what I know about myself.

  Also on the third floor are two other small bedrooms for Sarah and Jacob, my sister’s kids who have had too much heartbreak in their lives and now live with me, a living area with French doors to a small deck, and a bathroom.

  My home has a coal chute through which, obviously, coal used to be funneled. I have an old carriage house on the property that used to house, obviously, horses and a carriage. The home has a short stair rail because people were much shorter when this home was built, wide, ornate white trim, and eleven-foot tall ceilings on floors one and two. Downstairs there is one guest bedroom, a parlor with a piano and a fireplace, a sun-filled dining area with a fireplace, and a kitchen. On the second floor there are four bedrooms that I’ve decorated with four-poster beds, wooden chests, old-fashioned wallpaper, stacked hatboxes, and armoires.

  I have named my bed and breakfast, “Meredith’s Bed and Breakfast,” because at the time, in the midst of a stress tornado, I couldn’t think of anything more clever.

  I did some research, and my home has more history in it than a history book.

  It was built by a Jewish businessman. He had five daughters and a wife. One of his girls ended up marrying the boy who lived directly behind this house; another left town with a convict. Apparently he was a handsome convict.

  A railroad executive also lived here with three different wives, who all predeceased him. He had nine kids, a timepiece, and a top hat. I have framed that photo in my entry. A mine owner lived here, alone, and he apparently fancied the ladies. A millionaire lived here for two decades and never left the house. Three sisters bought it at one point. One owned a bar; one worked at a church; one was a doctor who provided birth control to Telena. They had many “gentlemen” callers. It was also once a popular house of “ill repute,” as confirmed by an old newspaper article. The madam in charge was named, no kidding, Hearty Tallfeather.

  I bought it from a woman who wanted to move outside of Telena and start a farm. I heard she had over two hundred chickens at one point and sold eggs and garlic to all the local stores. They called her the Egg Lady. I also heard she told people what was going to happen in their futures. She wasn’t a fortune teller, she was a “future predictor,” her words. Popular lady.

  Sometimes, I think, with these old houses, that the previous owners’ spirits all somehow stay in it. Their lives, their memories, their problems and tears, laughter and joy, their fears and their hopes are still here, somehow embedded in the walls, the chandeliers, the original wood floors.

  So when I hear a pitter patter of feet and no one is home, I shrug my shoulders. When I hear a horse whinny or the creak of carriage wheels, I don’t think anything of it. When a hint of twenties music tra la las for a second, I shrug it off. When I hear two women whispering and see nothing but a lace curtain floating in the wind, I know I’m not losing my mind.

  Maybe someone with a long, ruffled skirt, a pink parasol, and black button-up boots, had her heart broken by a fickle young man…

  Or maybe she’s running in, only to change clothes, grab her bonnet, and catch the first train out of town to start a whole new life in California….

  This is what I do know: My old, history-laden house will stand long after I’m gone.

  Maybe I’ll come back and haunt it.

  That night I dreamed of the accident.

  The pavement beneath my back was cool and wet from rain, the moonlight shining on the underside of my parents’ car, which was completely flipped over and in a ditch.

  My breath felt constricted, as if it was being cut off, pulled away from me, my body weakening, freezing.

  “Meredith! Where are youuuuuu?” my sister sang out, then giggled, still stumbling around near the car. “What a trip! How fast do you think we were going?”

  I heard a motorcycle engine, then a man was leaning over me, his white shirt a beacon in the darkness. His eyes were intense, but somehow calm, too. Through the razor-edged haze of unbelievable pain and shock, those eyes held me steady.

  “Stay with me, stay with me,” he yelled. He pulled off his white T-shirt and ripped it into pieces. I had no idea why he did that, nor did I understand what he was doing with my left leg which felt as if it was on fire. I didn’t understand why a half naked young man with a beard was leaning over me, the pain too excruciating to think through. “You’re going to be fine.”

  In the distance I could hear my sister giggling, laughing. “What a ride! Where are you, Meredith? Wasn’t that fun?”

  No, it had not been fun. Leia had picked me up from a friend’s where we’d been studying for a final. I was eighteen. She was twenty-one. I hadn’t known she was drunk when I got in the car and she sped off.

  I felt the edges of my eyes go dark. “It’s getting black,” I whispered. “Why is it black?”

  He swore, finished working on my leg, then held my face with both of his hands. “Don’t look at the black. What’s your name?”

  I tried to tell him my name, but the pain, which had been shooting up and down my body, like a speeding train stuck in forward then reverse, reached my head. I think I screamed, I think it was me, or maybe the scream was stuck so deep in my mind I didn’t open my mouth to let it out.

  “What’s your name?”

  I shook my head as I heard him swear again, although I knew he wasn’t swearing at me. He was huge I noticed, his shoulders blocking out the moon, as he propped me up with his arms.

  “There’s a light in my head,” I told him. It was white and gold and moving. It was so pretty. So safe. It reminded me of the star on top of our family’s Christmas tree.

  “No!” he yelled again. “Get back from the bright light. Look at me, look at me.”

  My sister, off in the distance giggled again, that giggle bouncing off the trees. “Whoa! Whoa! We flipped and flipped!”

  I looked at those eyes, inches from my face, as my breath seemed to swoosh out of me, leaving me alone, my whole body floating, the pain finally subsiding, a golden glow wrapping me up tight. My last memory was of him reaching for the bottom of my sweatshirt and ripping the whole thing in half. I was vaguely embarrassed about this young man seeing my boring beige bra, and then there was nothing but the stars and they faded quickly and everything else went completely black.

  The bad sort of black. The sort of black that says, “This is it. Welcome to heaven.”

  “I quit. I won’t tolerate this one second longer. I have tried to organize you people, tried to inject a sense of solemnity into the Telena Christmas Concert Series, to bring it to a righteous level, but I can no longer volunteer my precious time, unless you all agree to my vision of how the concert must go.” Ava Turner stuck her fierce bosom out under her prim
sweater.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes to the back of my head and leave them there. I was sure the other ten people in the community room at the library did, too. I envisioned sour grapefruit surrounding Ava like a hula hoop.

  “I have been the director of the Telena Christmas Concert Series for two years,” Ava puffed. “And I can’t have my authority questioned.”

  I heard three people groan. One sniffed. One said, under her breath, “And I believe I have the authority to arrest you for being obnoxious.” (That was a police officer named Pauline.) Val Porter, eighty years old and as outspoken now as she’s been for the last seventy-eight years, according to those who know her, said, “Oh, my donkey’s butt. You aren’t a dictator, Ava. We’re a committee, we decide together.”

  “Together?” Ava said, her voice pitchy. “This is not a hippie movement. I am the director. You may make suggestions, but I am the ultimate authority and I will make the final decisions about the content of this concert.”

  “Yes, together,” Val croaked. “We gotta change things. Our numbers have been dwindling since Chit Holcomb quit running it three years ago, bless that handsome gentleman.”

  Chit, seventy years old, widowed for ten years, and a retired oil exec, had decided to move to Arizona during Montana’s winters because, he said, “I figure that if I’m in and out of two states I have a better chance of finding me a wife. I’m still sexy, don’t ya think, Meredith?” I assured him he was, and he ate the strawberry waffles I’d cut up and arranged in the shape of a sports car for him.

  “Bless Chit,” Pauline murmured. “And bless me, because I want to handcuff that Ava’s mouth.”

  “Our numbers were lower last year but we had a better audience, a more educated, cultural group who knew how to appreciate a high class concert,” Ava sniffed.

  “It was boring,” Howard said, matter of fact. “Boring. All these solemn, sad Christmas songs, all classical music, no fun, no laughter, no skits. It was a defeated battlefield.”

  I thought Ava was going to pop. “I am bringing class to this sleepy town, class. Chit did not have the musical background that I have, the prowess for directing and choral training. We need hymns, not banging on drums. Melody, not rap. A serious choir, not a hard rock concert. No skits. Class!”

  “Unless we offer free beer, we are going to lose even more people if we don’t make radical changes to this infinitely boring concert series,” Barry Lynn said. “We can’t afford to lose the tourism. All of our businesses need people.”

  “Are you saying my concert won’t bring people in?”

  “I think I saw more drunken elves in my bar last year than you had people for our concert,” Barry Lynn said. “Word got out that it was a funereal affair; all that was missing was the pallbearers, dead body, and incense, and they didn’t buy tickets.”

  “Well, I never!” Ava huffed, fierce bosom out again.

  There was a tight, tense silence. “I think, Ava,” I said, trying to be gentle, which can be difficult for me, “that we need to, well, modernize things, appeal to a broader audience, make sure that the younger people are excited about coming, the families, the college-aged kids—”

  “This is not a family event—”

  “It should be!” Barry Lynn shot out. “It’s Christmas, remember, Ms. Scrooge?”

  The arguments went on and on until I was nauseous and Ava stuck that fierce bosom out under her prim sweater one last time and declared, “You’ve spoken then. I am walking right out that door and once I leave, that’s it. I will no longer be your director. I cannot possibly support this outrageous idea, this radical Christmas concert, this abomination. You’ll ruin my reputation!”

  She grabbed her purse, chins wiggling with righteous indignation, and pointed her finger in the air, slowly heading toward the door. “Once I leave, that’s it!”

  I waited to see if anyone would move to stop her.

  She slowed her walk, still pontificating, as she reached for the door handle. “If I step through this door, you’ll regret it.”

  Still, not a movement.

  “This is your last chance. Without me this concert series will fail!”

  Not even a wee flick of a wrist or bat of an eye.

  Ava blushed bright red, turned on her heel, and slammed the door.

  All was quiet for about two seconds, then Pauline patted me on the back. “You’ll make a great Christmas concert director, Meredith.”

  “Me?” I said, stunned.

  “Yes, you will,” Howard mused. “It will be an extraordinary event. It’ll be the bomb. The bomb of all concert series.”

  I puzzled over that one. The bomb of a concert series?

  “Who votes for Meredith?” Barry Lynn said, raising her hand. Those hands shot into the air before I could say, “My Santa, you sure are fat.”

  “Oh no. Heck no.”

  “Ho, ho, ho!” Pauline said.

  “Jingle bells,” Barry Lynn said.

  “Oh no,” I said again, feeling panicky. “I can’t.”

  “You can!” Val said. “You’re going to make a beautiful Mrs. Claus, darling. Have you thought about who should be Mr. Santa Claus? We’ll need a Mary, too, mother of Jesus!”

  “Not me.” I was appalled. “Someone else!”

  But the “someone elses” were already getting slices of the Shot and Stirred Strawberry Angel Cake I’d made and that was that.

  I, Meredith Ghirlandaio, whose bed and breakfast business was struggling, who worked almost all the time, a whacked out woman who was trying to handle two troubled kids, was elected director of the Telena Christmas Concert Series.

  “This is delicious, Meredith,” Howard said. “Divine.”

  I buried my head in my hands.

  Why did Logan Taylor’s manly, smiling face dance in front of my eyes?

  No sane person is up at 1:00 in the morning decorating a Christmas tree in her dining room with pink and white angels and pink lights. No sane woman thinks nonstop about a man unless she is losing it.

  I must be losing it.

  Logan. Taylor. Taylor, Logan. Meredith Taylor. Oh, stop it!

  Why did he have to have such a romantic name? Why did he have to be huge and tough-looking? Why did he have to have a chest that I wanted to lie on? Why did he have to have a gravelly voice that oozed through my body?

  Why did I keep replaying our last encounter in my head…?

  “Hello, I’m Logan Taylor.”

  I ignored Logan’s outstretched hand. We were outside the bar, which was where I’d yanked him after getting rid of the sea urchin and friends. The snowflakes drifted down, and it felt like we were in one of those sappy Christmas TV specials. Except the heroine in those movies is not generally in possession of a red-hot temper and a powerful right hook.

  “I know who you are, Mr. Macho. I don’t need rescuing. This is Montana, remember? Or, have you spent so much time out of state you forgot? Women ride tractors through snowstorms, hunt, and shoot rattlesnakes out of the ground if they get too close to the house. Barry Lynn runs this bar and has broken up fights with modern day warriors. My friend, Katie, gave birth to all her kids without drugs, and my friend Vicki runs one of the biggest cattle ranches in this state.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Logan drawled, grinning at me. “My mother’s family has been here for four generations. I have an aunt who could shoot a mosquito from fifty feet away and a great grandma who could guzzle any man under the table and then wrestle a calf to the ground. I am well aware of the strength and courage of women here.”

  “Then you were doubly in the wrong to interfere. That was an obnoxious show of testosterone and maleness.”

  He raised his eyebrows at me, and I could tell he was trying not to smile.

  “Do you find me amusing?” I snapped. Can desire knock a woman to her knees or is that only in the sappy Christmas TV specials?

  His smile became wider. “Yes, Meredith, you are somewhat amusing. But you are many other things, too.�
�

  “How do you know my name?”

  He hesitated. “I’ve heard of you.”

  Oh, darn it and Christmas bells! What did the man know? “And?” I snapped.

  “And it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  I crossed my arms. “Why, you truck-sized male? Why is it a pleasure to meet me?”

  He stepped closer, and I tried not to swoon, but golly gee, if mistletoe had dropped right out of the sky at that second, I would have been hard-pressed not to make a grab-and-kiss gesture.

  Nothing wimpy or pale or weak about Logan Taylor.

  Such a man!

  And he will judge you harshly, exactly like all the others, so put a lid on this brief foray into passion, I told myself. Don’t set yourself up.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet a woman who can deck an obnoxious drunk, wears a red cowboy hat, and has an attitude. I hear you bake well, too. Thick French toast with homemade raspberry syrup that’s to die for. An Italian omelet that brings shame to all other omelets. Cinnamon rolls with a secret recipe.”

  “I like decking obnoxious drunks, and I like my red cowgirl hat, and my omelets are lighter and fluffier than anyone’s. I will never tell the recipe for the Ghirlandaio Family Go-Go Cinnamon Rolls, but I don’t have an attitude.” Instantly I envisioned cinnamon rolls circling Logan.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I defended myself against a leech and I have an attitude?”

  “Perhaps it was the way you defended yourself.” Those eyes, those green-gold eyes twinkled at me. No kidding. There was twinkling going on here!

  “And how’s that?” I was still ticked off.

  He paused, and the smile disappeared. “Fearlessly. Confidently. With total control. Almost as if you were used to it.”

  “He touched my hair!”

  Logan’s eyes examined the white streak through the black. “You don’t like your hair touched?”

  “Not by him.”

  He nodded, serious now. “I understand. The man was a disrespectful, rude creep. Had I been there earlier, I would have removed him from your presence immediately so you wouldn’t have had to deal with him.”