Under the Mistletoe

by Magdalena Scott

“No. It wouldn’t hurt at all. You might be surprised what happens when you give Legend a chance instead of assuming it has nothing to offer.” He kissed her gently, and she melted into his arms. “Please don’t assume there’s nothing for you in Legend, because I’m here to tell you at least one person will be very sorry if you go away forever.”

  The pocket door slid open loudly and a few of the bank people, laughing, apologized for intruding.

  “We just wanted to look at the library,” said one of them. “Clara said she’d redone part of it. Sorry—”

  “Hey, no problem.” Charles got up and pulled Dorothy gently with him. “We were just getting ready to leave anyway. Have to get Cinderella home before midnight, you know.”

  A husband of one of the tellers said, “Good luck with that, Charles. You’ve only got,” he consulted his watch, “six and a half hours left.” He laughed and patted Charles on the shoulder, and smiled at Dorothy. “Keep an eye on him, Cinderella. You know how these princes are. Sometimes they turn out to be toads.”

  They went back down the hallway and found Silas and Clara, seated in matching upholstered royal blue high back chairs, in the midst of another group of guests. The Finleys looked like the king and queen of something—it was adorable.

  “Excuse us, Mr. and Mrs. Finley. We’re just ready to leave, and wanted to thank you for your hospitality.”

  “Oh—please don’t get up!” Dorothy protested when they did just that.

  “Nonsense. Be right back, all.” Silas Finley put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and walked with the younger couple to the entryway, where he retrieved their coats from the large closet.

  “Thank you so much for inviting me—us. It was a lovely party, especially the house tour!” Dorothy said, sliding into her coat.

  “You’re very welcome, my dear.” Clara smiled and patted her hand. “I’m so glad you appreciate it. The house is a bit out of place here in Legend. When we sell and move to Florida in a few years, I’m not sure what will become of it.”

  “Move?” Charles looked alarmed.

  “That’s right, son,” said Silas. “I know everybody thinks I’m older than dirt, but my plan is to actually retire at age seventy-five. That’s four years away. Clara and I are looking at property along a canal in south Florida. It’s been our dream for decades. We’ll have a little boat dock, and the kids and grandkids and great-grandkids will make us their southern vacation destination.” He smiled. “We’ve raised our family here. This big old house has served us well.” He patted the door frame. “She’ll be somebody else’s dream home before long.”

  Goosebumps popped up on Dorothy’s arms. This house would be for sale in just a few years. This wonderful, beautiful house with the big lawns and bedrooms and marvelous library. She glanced at Charles but he was just smiling and saying something chatty to Mr. Finley.

  “Good night then.” Their host opened the door.

  “Oh! Wait!” Clara stopped them before they stepped outside. “The mistletoe. I forgot all about the mistletoe earlier! You must kiss her, Charles.” When he pulled a silly face, she persisted. “Mistletoe is magical, you know. Especially when you step under it without intending to. Now kiss her, and something wonderful is sure to happen.” Her elfin face beamed as she made the pronouncement.

  Dorothy giggled as Charles made a great show of being disappointed at having to kiss her. But when he pulled her gently into his arms, lowered his head, and touched his lips to hers, she heard it. The sound was faint, but clear and sweet. She heard music!

  After a long, lovely kiss she opened her eyes and they moved apart. No one else seemed to have noticed anything unusual. The Finleys smiled and said good night, and Charles and Dorothy, holding hands, dashed into the flurry of snow that had begun while they were indoors.

  Chapter Eight

  “I did it.” Dorothy hurried up to Charles, who was standing at the edge of Lake Legend, throwing dry bread crumbs to the noisy ducks paddling around.

  He gave her a quick, sweet kiss of greeting. “What’s that?”

  “I marched myself into Main Street Pharmacy and spoke to Mr. Baker about a job. Actually, I told him I’m working toward my R.Ph and that I’d be interested in volunteering. He said if I wanted, I can work as a pharmacy tech a couple of mornings a week. Depending on how it goes, he might be able to hire me, at least temporarily, because his tech is expecting a baby in late January. He seemed excited about the fact that I’m going into pharmacy. Asked me why I hadn’t let him know sooner. He even said, if he can’t hire me, I should try over at Legend Drugstore because they might. I’m so excited, and I have you to thank! I’d been afraid to try it.”

  “If you’re serious about thanking me, you can do it in several ways. Should I enumerate them, or would you like to guess?”

  She swatted his arm. “Come on, be a little bit serious!”

  “Miss Robbins, I am entirely serious. Okay, if you don’t want to guess, I’ll tell you how to repay me.”

  “Fine. I’m listening.” She walked over to a picnic table and sat on the top, Charles following her. Dorothy enjoyed his silly teasing, so decided to let him go at it.

  “It’s simple, really. Finish college, starting this summer.”

  “I told you, I don’t have enough money saved yet.”

  “And I told you, I’ve got it covered, or will have by then. The money will be taken care of. All you have to do is work your tail off to get through four summer classes, and finish up by next spring.”

  Dorothy wasn’t afraid of hard work. Never had been.

  “But that’s a lot of money. What do you expect in return?”

  “Nothing. Not for the money. I want you to finish college because you have the desire and the ability. You need to be able to look back and say you did this amazing thing. First in your family to finish college.” He hesitated, slid his gaze from the lake and met her eyes. “There is just one tiny matter.”

  She shook her head, bracing herself for the teasing. “I figured. What is it?”

  “You’re going to need to marry me.”

  Her heartbeat sped up. “That’s a crazy thing to say. I need to marry you?”

  “Yes. You have to put me out of the misery I’ve been in ever since I first saw you in Jim Bob’s Saloon.”

  “What kind of misery is that?”

  “Wondering what it would be like to make love to you. To spend the whole night touching you and tasting you, and loving you—and waking up next to you in the morning just to start all over again.”

  Her breath caught. “You wondered that the first time you saw me?”

  “Yeah. For a banker I have an active imagination.”

  “So you’re going to marry me and send me away to college.”

  “That was my first plan. But then I realized it’s probably better to do it the other way around. Send you to college and then marry you. That way I get all of your attention and don’t have tough competition—like chemistry books. You start back in the summer, and by this time next year you’ll only have one semester left. Right?”

  She was stunned. “Uh huh.”

  “And when I come to your graduation I’ll bring the engagement ring.” He linked his fingers with hers. “You’ve got til then to decide if you want to marry me. You’ll know me lots better by then. Lots better.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “Big mistake, I’m here to tell you. There are dozens of girls in this town who’d stand in line for a chance to marry me. Well...maybe not dozens. But possibly several. If you say no, it will be the biggest mistake of your life. I’ll be working on you between now and then to make sure your answer is yes.”

  “And if it is?”

  “We get married as soon as possible. Leave the graduation exercises, drive to a bridal shop, you get a dress, and we set a date with the pastor. That’s when even more fun begins.”

  “The non-stop lovemaking?”

  “Not non-stop. I’m only human.”

  “Hm
. Sounds like both of us will be exhausted.”

  “Yeah, but it’ll be good training for when the kids start coming along. Chasing kids takes a lot of energy.”

  “Kids? I already have kids—my brothers and sisters.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll wait a while. You finish school and get settled in your career, and then we can start having kids.”

  “And then I’ll quit working, right?”

  “If you want. Or our moms might want to help out. Plus my brother Dan’s wife stays home with little Martin, and she’s expecting again—but it’s a secret right now,” he whispered. “She might babysit. No reason the cousins shouldn’t spend a lot of time together. Don’t you think it can work? Because I really do. I can picture it right now.”

  “And what does it look like?”

  Charles threw out the last of the bread crumbs, and the ducks waddled over to the picnic table. “Looks like us in a big white colonial house outside town—I think you know the one.”

  She sighed. “I love that house.”

  “I know you do.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “By the time the Finleys are ready to move, we’ll have money saved up for a big down payment.”

  “The library! Oh, Charles, it’s so pretty! Won’t it be wonderful to have our own library?”

  “Sure thing. Absolutely. Uh, Dorothy, do you realize what just happened?”

  “You sucked me into your dream?”

  “Well, yes. But you also called me by just my first name. Wonder if you’re going to keep doing that.”

  “Hm. Maybe. It’s not a bad name even by itself. I suppose I could get used to that. If I get that library.”

  He smiled. “So you’re giving serious consideration to my offer.”

  “Well... It’s kind of intimidating to think of marrying into the McClain clan of Legend, Tennessee. There’s no turning back once you’re a McClain.”

  “Absolutely no turning back. But I don’t think you’ll want to. I think we’ll be happy, us and the four kids.”

  “Four? Only four?” She put her arm through his and snuggled closer.

  “Well, to start out.”

  “And every year at Christmas time we’ll have everybody over—your family and mine.”

  “Going to have to add onto the house for that.”

  “Okay, you’re right. Maybe two separate nights. And there’ll be mistletoe hanging above the front door, so everybody who comes in will be sure to get a big hug and kiss. No better way to start a family get-together.”

  He chuckled. “You hang anything you want over the door, Dorothy. I’ll be kissing you three hundred and sixty-five days a year from now on, unless you figure out a way to make me stop.”

  She leaned into him. “Well, I haven’t figured it out yet, so I guess really, the fact that there’s mistletoe growing in the tree branch above us is beside the point.”

  He glanced up. “Yeah. It’s beside the point. But since it’s Christmas Eve... I guess we ought to do right by tradition.”

  Which was the last thing Charles McClain said for quite a long while.

  THE END…

  or is it The Beginning?

  The Holly and the Ivy

  Copyright Magdalena Scott

  The McClains of Legend, Tennessee - Book 7

  The Blurb:

  Christmas season, 1978

  Jeannie Adams has a pain in her neck, and its name is Eli McClain. The school board is honoring him at a big community dinner, and Eli has done nothing to deserve all the fanfare. Nothing, that is, except leave their hometown of Legend, Tennessee right after high school, and become a nationally known singer. Why make a big deal over somebody who walked out on everything that’s important?

  For Eli, Christmas in Legend is a way to placate the family he left years ago, and impress the very impressionable people of Legend. As far as they’ll know, Eli has everything. But at twenty-five years old, he’s feeling burned out with fame and fortune, and doesn’t understand why life is so hollow.

  All through school, Eli and Jeannie were the bane of each other’s existence. Yet the fleeting kiss he left her with right after graduation has never quite faded for either of them. Like a lost pair of warm winter gloves, their happiness will be in the last place they look for it. Back home in Legend.

  And just in time for Christmas.

  Chapter One

  Christmas Season, 1978

  “Sour grapes. I know that’s what you’re thinking—I can see it in your eyes.” Jeannie Adams shoved a dress hanger along the clothing rack in the big Knoxville dress shop. “You think I’m being silly about this, but you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care what anybody thinks! The whole thing is just plain wrong.”

  Dorothy McClain smiled. “You’ve never cared what anybody thought, Jeannie. Why would you start now?” She picked up a hanger and held an emerald green dress at arm’s length, shook her head at the tiny waistline, and replaced it onto the rack. “Why go to the dinner at all? Or if you go, just wear whatever you want. Jeans and a sweatshirt. Not like you’re trying to impress anybody.”

  Jeannie slid a look at her friend and let out a quick breath. “You’re trying to bait me. Stop that. I thought you’d be on my side.”

  “I don’t understand why there are still sides at all, after so many years. Eli comes to town, everybody makes a big deal about him, he leaves. So what?”

  “So what?!? So everything. You graduated summa cum laude, for gosh sakes! And I was second in the class. Eli was only third. He had that rotten grade in chemistry.” She smiled, remembering how good it had felt to razz him about the bad chem grade. She hadn’t missed a single opportunity during senior year.

  “This isn’t about grade point average, Jeannie. It’s about—”

  “It’s about power. Plain and simple. The McClains—”

  “Whoops. Don’t go there. Remember, I’m one of the McClains.”

  “No you’re not. You only married into the clan. That doesn’t count. You’re still a normal person, basically.”

  Dorothy laughed. “Gee. Thanks for that.”

  “You know what I mean. Eli had everything he ever wanted, growing up. Now he’s rich and famous. So the school board is making a big deal of him; he’ll come to town and lord it over everybody and disappear again. The school board makes some money off the meals because the whole population feels like they have to go to this stupid thing. Everybody buys new dresses and shoes, pays an outrageous price for a ticket to the catered dinner, and has to listen to Eli give a speech.” She cringed. “He never was that good in speech class.”

  “Jeannie.” Dorothy turned to her friend and gently held her arms. “You need to put high school into the past. We’ve been out since seventy-one. A lot has changed.”

  “Some things have changed. You’re married and have a good job. You contribute to the community. A lot of us are just doing our own little part in keeping Legend alive, as well as we can. It stinks to invite somebody from outside for this honor dinner. We ought to be honoring you. Eli is a singer, of all things. So what.”

  Dorothy patted her pregnant tummy. “Honestly, I couldn’t care less about being honored. I’ve got enough going on as it is. Life is good.”

  Sometimes when Dorothy said things like that, Jeannie got irritated with her best friend. Sure, she was married and crazy in love with her husband Charles. But it had been a rude awakening for her to find out early in their marriage that Charles had a son in Southern California. He had fathered the child with a girl he loved; she hadn’t told him she was pregnant and just disappeared from his life. After she died in a car wreck, her parents contacted Charles, and he had immediately done the right thing—brought baby Joe to Legend, gave him the McClain name, and Dorothy had become his adoptive mother. From the way she treated him, you’d have thought she was his natural mother. It really was beautiful. Joe was six now, and David a year old. Charles and Dorothy were expecting their third child, and Dorothy never once complained about morning sickness,
fatigue, balancing her job as a pharmacist with home life—any of it. Sometimes it was tiring to have Mrs. Perfect as your best friend.

  What Jeannie didn’t say, of course, was that nothing had changed for her. She had never left Legend. Her mom had been ill, and Jeannie had been willing to stay close to home and help her dad and siblings instead of heading off to college like most of her friends. When Mom improved, Jeannie had time but not inclination to go to a college campus on her own. Instead she entered the family business. She’d taken some grief about it at first, but before long people realized she was good at what she did and cared about her customers. Now that so much time had passed, her excitement about the future was gone—completely. She was doomed to live in Legend, Tennessee for the rest of her life. Looked like she might do it as an old maid, too. But Eli McClain, that jerk, had left everything and everybody behind in his rush to make his mark on the world. And all of Legend would turn out to congratulate him for it. It was just not fair.

  The fact that all this was happening right at Christmastime somehow made it even worse. The department store’s loudspeakers were playing Christmas songs, everything here in the city, and everything in Legend, was decorated to the nth degree for the holidays. Jeannie loved Christmas, but Eli’s coming to town was going to ruin it for her. Figures. Eli always ruined everything.

  ****

  Eli McClain drove his expensive sports car around a curve in the crazy mountain road and saw it. Legend, Tennessee spread out below him like a perfect diorama. He pulled onto the wide gravel overlook he’d frequented as a kid when he had a date with a pretty girl. The cold December temperature didn’t keep him from rolling down the window glass and getting a first breath of clean, crisp mountain air. God, the pine smell was almost intoxicating!

  Inhaling deeply, eyes closed, Eli went back a few years to the day he left Legend. His mom and dad had been giving him a rough time for saying he’d never return, but Eli hadn’t cared. He hadn’t cared about much of anything or anyone. It was his future that concerned him. Legend was his past, and best forgotten. He’d done a good job of that, too. College had been okay, but he’d chucked it after a couple of years. A summertime job in a Nashville recording studio doing back-up vocals got him noticed by the right people, and he was on his way. His McClain charm and self-assurance had garnered some important contacts, and before long he was on a fast track to fame.