A Cliché Christmas

by Nicole Deese

  Nicole Deese

  Letting Go Series

  All For Anna

  All She Wanted

  All Who Dream

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 Nicole Deese

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Waterfall Press, Grand Haven, MI

  www.brilliancepublishing.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Waterfall Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477826171

  ISBN-10: 1477826173

  Cover design by Kerri Resnick

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014942338

  To my friends and family in Oregon. No matter where I land, my home will always be with you.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  SPECIAL THANKS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  I glared at the incessant blinking of my cursor and groaned.

  Eleven months of the year, I lived in a perpetual state of holly-jolly fanfare. But by the time the first of November rolled around, I was completely Christmased out. I know I sound like a Scrooge to admit such a travesty, but believe me, when you build a career on Christmas cheer and holiday hype, the warm fuzzies of nostalgia fade faster than Hollywood’s latest scandal.

  When I wrote my first Christmas pageant at nineteen, I had no idea I was actually sealing my fate. But seven years, a few dozen screenplays, and three Hallmark movies later, Christmas had become exactly that. My destiny.

  Ironically, December was my only month off. And I took full advantage of those blessed four weeks, which magically buoyed me for another year of fa-la-la-la-la-ing.

  Since I had moved to LA seven years ago, my Nan—short for both Nancy and Nana—and I had traveled to a new tropical destination each year, enjoying sunshine instead of snow, and hulas instead of caroling. Last Christmas it was a two-week Caribbean cruise, but this year our nontraditional holiday extravaganza would be a remote getaway in the Hawaiian Islands.

  Clicking out of my latest work in progress, entitled Noelle’s First Noel, I navigated through my newest temptation to procrastinate, a travel website that flung me into a cyclone of palm trees, sandy beaches, fruity drinks, and—

  My phone did the cha-cha across my desk.

  Nan.

  Today was Tuesday—volunteer day at the senior center. She never called on Tuesdays.

  An alarming icy-hot sensation crawled up my throat. I grabbed my cell. “Nan?”

  “Georgia! I’m so glad you answered.”

  The balloon of air I was holding inside my chest released. “Hey, are you okay?”

  “Oh, I’m fine, darlin’. But I did just hear some distressing news.”

  “Is it Mom?” The muscles across my shoulders tightened.

  “No, I just spoke to her yesterday. She, Brad, and the twins are all doing fine.” In true Nan fashion, she threw an extra dollop of happy onto her last phrase, as if that were all it took to rewrite history. “You know my little piano student I brag to you about all the time—Savannah?”

  “Yeah, sure.” My mini panic attack subsided. I clicked on another picture of a Hawaiian bungalow wrapped in the warm glow of a setting sun.

  “She was just diagnosed with leukemia.”

  I stopped clicking. “Oh, Nan. That’s awful. How old is she again?”

  “Only five. And her mother is a widow—I’ve grown very close to them.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Well, yes, actually . . . I was hoping you’d ask.” Her voice climbed twelve stories. “I need you to come home for the holidays.”

  And I fell twelve stories. An image hit my mental screen. Me, in my Hello-Kitty jammies, splayed on a busy sidewalk, broken and bloody.

  “What? What are you talking about, Nan? I’ve already booked our vacation.”

  “I am coordinating a holiday fundraiser for Savannah’s medical bills.”

  I pinched my eyes shut and tried to ignore the tantalizing sound of crashing waves that seemed to lap against my eardrums in perfect time with my pulse. A part of me wanted to throw a tantrum—as fading images of tiki torches and spit-roasted pigs danced across my vision—but who could dismiss a child with cancer?

  Scrooge, maybe. But not me.

  “But, Nan . . . I really miss you.” The emotion inside my throat threatened to unclog.

  “And that is precisely why you are going to come to me this year. I’ve worked out everything.”

  “Does everything include a place for me to sleep?”

  “Eddy will help me fix up your old room.”

  “You mean the world’s smallest library?”

  Nan had turned my old closet of a bedroom into a storage space for all her books after I moved to California. I’d seen some pictures. If Eddy and Nan managed to organize the toppling stacks around the bed, the feat was nothing short of miraculous.

  “Now, don’t you get sassy with me, Little Miss Hollywood. Your homecoming will be perfect. And it would be the best Christmas present you could give your old granny.”

  “First of all, no one would dare call you old—at least not to your face. And second, you don’t believe in Christmas gifts.”

  “Say you’ll come home, Georgia. Please. You never know when it could be my last year.”

  The dying granny card has officially been played.

  “Oh, Nan. Stop it. You’re probably in better health than I am.” The only good thing in Lenox, Oregon, was my Nan, and I could have her anyplace else. The list of pros and cons knocking against my skull was ten miles long. “Maybe . . . um, I could . . .” Fly her to LA in the spring?

  Nan let out a squeal, as if my incomplete answer had timed-out. I felt like a contestant on Jeopardy! who got buzzed. “Ooh, I’m so excited! We’ll have so much fun together. Why don’t you head up for Thanksgiving and just stay on through Christmas.”

  “Wait, I didn’t say—”

  “Perfect, perfect, perfect. Everyone will be thrilled you’re coming home. It’s been, what? Seven years? It’s time I get to show off my celebrity granddaughter. I’m putting you on the calendar now. In red Sharpie.”

  “Nan—”

  “I just got off the phone with Savannah’s mom. I told her I could get you here.”

  My chest felt like Nan’s pressure cooker about to explode. I slumped against the back of my chair.

  “You did say you wanted to help Savannah, right?”

  My patience was a thin wire—one on which Nan was turning pirouettes like an overeager ballerina. “Why do I need to be in Lenox to
help a little girl with cancer?”

  “Because I put you in charge of our biggest fund-raiser. The Christmas pageant. Now, I gotta run, darlin’. See you in a few weeks!” The screen on my phone went black.

  Face in palm, I sighed the sigh synonymous with defeat. I’d just been bamboozled by my seventy-year-old Nan.

  Two days before Thanksgiving I loaded up my convertible. My roommate and best friend, Cara, stood in her yoga wear watching me drag a giant suitcase down the stairs of our apartment building. Some best friend she was at zero dark thirty.

  “You’ll really be gone a month?”

  I squinted in the dim light of the parking lot. “Yes, and thank you so much for helping me.”

  My suitcase refused to be squished into the trunk with the other bags so I shoved it into the backseat. Cara walked around to the driver’s side door and rubbed her arms with her perfectly manicured hands.

  “It’s so chilly this morning.”

  “Cara, it’s sixty-four degrees. It is not cold.”

  “Well, it’s cold to me. I didn’t grow up in some lumberjack town in the hills of Oregon.”

  “You mean mountains.” It was a discussion we’d had at least a dozen times.

  “Same thing.” She gripped my shoulders with her bony fingers. “Now, give me a hug. I’m gonna miss you!”

  Hugging Cara was like embracing a fence post. She was tiny but solid. Owning a popular yoga studio does that to a body—or at least that’s what I imagined it does to a body. I had no personal experience.

  Planting myself into the front seat, I plugged in my iPhone and scrolled through my apps. It was going to be a very long thirteen hours.

  “Maybe you’ll meet some hot guy while you’re home.”

  “There hasn’t been a hot guy in Lenox since—” I snapped my lips shut. No, I wouldn’t think of him. “Well, it’s been a long time.”

  Cara whipped her silky blond ponytail over her right shoulder, a mischievous gleam flickering in her eyes. “A lot could have changed.”

  “Not nearly enough. Love you.”

  “Love you, too. Drive safe!”

  I pulled out of the apartment complex a minute later and headed for the closest coffee drive-thru. Since it was LA, that meant the next corner. Someone really ought to invent the gallon-size insulated travel mug. I had checked the weather multiple times over the last few days. Even though the forecast still called for clear skies, I couldn’t shake the unsettled nerves in my gut when I thought of driving over the pass. The roads could still be icy.

  How had I let Nan talk me into this trip? For the millionth time that morning, I thought about the sunsets, sandals, and surf that I was trading in for slush, snow, and scarves. I picked up my phone and tapped the “Play” icon on my screen.

  At least Mary Higgins Clark would keep me company on my long trip home.

  I hoped that if I kept my stops to a minimum, I could get over the pass before nightfall. But as the sun dipped below the horizon, I rounded yet another slushy corner. Over the next ten miles, the thermometer in my car alerted me to temperature drops. The wind chill hovered just below freezing.

  Nan’s house was still an hour or so away. I yawned and cracked the window, and a blast of frigid air raked icy fingers through my hair.

  I focused on a blinking sign up ahead.

  It read “Chains Required from This Point On.”

  My stomach scraped against the floorboards. “No, no, no!”

  I had chains with me for emergencies, but putting them on after sunset when I hadn’t messed with them in almost seven years was not going to be fun.

  Pulling off to the side of the road and switching my hazard lights on, I took a shaky breath. Hello, roadside nightmare. Nice to meet you.

  And in this nightmare two things would happen before I wrangled the chains onto my tires: one, frostbite, and two, hypothermia. The order was irrelevant.

  I trudged through the dirty slush to my trunk, pushed several pieces of luggage around, grabbed the clunky chain bag. I felt like I was playing some sort of twisted real-life game of Tetris. I finally located the bag and gave a hearty tug on the handle, only it snagged on a suitcase. I tugged hard—hard—harder. And with one final yank, I was catapulted to the soggy ground. Dirty, slushy snow soaked into the seat of my jeans quicker than I could curse.

  I stood and kicked the chain bag toward a tire. Headlights illuminated the paved shoulder, blinding me. I couldn’t see the car or the driver. Shading my eyes with my forearm, I imagined that I was in one of those gruesome horror movies: deserted highways, masked men, chainsaws. Is this going to be my end, God? Really? I would have liked something a bit more original.

  “You need help?”

  He didn’t sound like a murderer, but what did I know?

  “Um . . .”

  Mary Higgins Clark would know what to do. Although my reaction time mimicked that of a blind tortoise.

  “You need help with your chains?” The stranger’s voice was deep. Not danger-deep. Dreamy-deep.

  I backed up, bumping against my open trunk, wondering what I could grab to use as a weapon if needed. Of course, being able to see my murderer would be priority numero uno.

  “I, uh . . .”

  He was getting closer. I dropped my arm and reached into the trunk behind me and came up with a half-eaten canister of Pringles. Crapola!

  As it turned out, I needed way more protection than a can of chips.

  I knew him. A face from my past.

  One . . . two . . . five seconds of shock invaded the space between us.

  “Weston James.” I spoke his name the way one would spit out a sip of curdled milk.

  It was him—only he wasn’t the boy I had left behind.

  No, this was Weston James, the man. And unfortunately time had been good to him. Too good.

  “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Miss Georgia Cole, the Christmas Prodigy herself. I wondered if the rumor I’d heard about you coming back was true.”

  “Funny, I haven’t wondered a thing about you.” The lie slid over my lips like butter melting on a hill of steaming mashed potatoes.

  We stood there—me and the Lenox Heartbreaker—sizing each other up. This was us. And it had been us since that fateful day in first grade when he chased me around my desk with a glue stick and threatened to paste my eyelids closed.

  He crossed his arms over his well-built chest. My adrenaline spiked, tiny tremors surging through my body. I had to tell myself to shift my gaze to the ground, or the trunk, or the—

  “We gonna put those chains on before it gets pitch-black out here, or were you planning to sleep on the highway tonight?”

  “I’m sure you’d have no problem leaving me out here.”

  He smiled a don’t-tempt-me smile. Seven years may have passed, but we still had a lifetime of contention to wade through. He bent down, grabbed the chains, and strode past me. His leather jacket pulled tight across his broad shoulders, his dark hair peeked under the sides of his knit cap, and a day’s worth of scruff lined his jawbone. I suddenly felt way too hot for the cold night air. I wanted to jump down a giant hole of denial. And stay there.

  Laying both chains out ahead of my two front tires, he hopped in the front seat of my car—without asking—started the ignition, and accelerated carefully until the chains were perfectly lined up.

  “You can fasten that one.” He gestured to the far tire and shut the driver’s side door. “Or is that too much to ask of a Hollywood celebrity?”

  “Have you ever known me to wimp out?”

  I squatted in front of the tire, but that darn chain slipped through my trembling fingers over and over. Weston finished his tire, stretched his arms out like an Olympic swimmer, and sauntered toward me. Show-off.

  A slight nudge to my left leg by Mr. Roadside Assistance was all it took to k
nock me over, plunging my backside onto the wet ground once again. “Hey!”

  “What?” The sparkle in his eyes matched the wicked grin spreading across his face. “You already looked like you peed your pants. No harm done.”

  He reached his hand down for me. I swatted it aside. “I guess one doesn’t outgrow being childish, huh, Wes?”

  He knelt and slipped the chain around my tire in ten seconds flat. My teeth chattered through a new wave of shivers. The arctic air threatened to turn me into a living ice sculpture.

  Standing again, he took off his jacket and wrapped the warm piece of Weston-smelling leather around my shoulders. “I guess one doesn’t outgrow being obstinate, huh, Georgia?”

  I shrugged off the jacket and tossed it back to him, then opened my car door. I resisted spewing the rebuttals crowding my mind. I needed to save some of them for later. But hopefully, he was just here for Thanksgiving weekend and there wouldn’t be a later. I couldn’t imagine enduring his smirk for all of December.

  I flicked my wrist in his direction, offering him a halfhearted wave. “Thanks for the help—I’m good now.”

  I slid into my seat and slammed my door, waiting for him to pull out in front of me. It didn’t happen. I rolled my window down and waved him on, but still he refused to budge.

  Whatever.

  For the next hour and ten minutes, Weston James drove behind me on the dark, snowy highway. All the way to Nan’s cottage.

  As I stepped out of my convertible onto her driveway, he leaned out his window. “See ya around, Sugar Plum Fairy.”

  Bulging muscles or not, Weston James would always be the annoying little boy with the glue stick—the one I could not seem to erase from my memory.

  CHAPTER TWO

  You planning on sleeping all day, Georgia?”

  The door creaked open, and Nan’s slippers shuffled across the old wooden floorboards. Turning my head slightly in her direction, my eyes squinted at the burst of light in the hallway behind her. Though we’d chatted late into the night, I could never sleep past—