A Heartwarming Christmas: A Boxed Set of Twelve Sweet Holiday Romances

by Melinda Curtis

  And then he opened the kitchen door and the cold blew in. And Noelle left her questions unspoken and unresolved.

  ~*~

  The next morning, he called Noelle before he left for court. She answered immediately.

  “The girls are still asleep, David.”

  Her voice, both sweet and strained, touched him.

  “Don’t wake them.” He turned his wrist to read the time. “I’m leaving now for court. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “I’ll call when I’m on my way.”

  “That’s fine.”

  He wished he could say more to make her understand he'd truly cared about her happiness. He wanted them both to understand each other now.

  She’d never know how many times he’d thought of what might have been. Since she’d left him, saying she couldn’t live in Boston—alone—he’d resisted going back to Christmas Town, Maine and dragging her back where she belonged—with him. He’d made a lot of mistakes since then, and the girls were his priority now. Getting involved with Noelle instead of concentrating on them might be the biggest one yet.

  “See you before noon,” he said.

  “I’ll tell the girls.”

  Violet was waiting at the courthouse. She met him at the elevator. “You got everything I emailed you?”

  “The note from Milo’s principal was a nice touch. How did you get him to write it?” He felt bad for the kid, but he wouldn’t have recognized the child Dr. Payton had written about in an email explaining Milo’s origins in an orphanage, and his difficulty settling with his adoptive mother. Violet had forgotten to tell the principal the judge had seen Milo before.

  “He’s a distant cousin.” Her face flushed bright red. “I browbeat him. Milo just needs a chance.”

  “Another chance,” David offered a reminder. “And the court may feel he’s had sufficient before now.”

  Violet stepped as far away from him as the elevator car allowed. “You aren’t on his side? What happened?”

  “I’m on his side, but he has to be, too. We have to make him understand that.”

  “I’m hoping the possibility of spending Christmas in jail will bring him to his senses.”

  The prisoners to be arraigned were already waiting on a bench in the juvenile court. Milo, pale and thin and ridiculously small in his orange jumpsuit, looked as afraid as David could have hoped for.

  He wasn’t the first case called. With Violet’s hand gripping David’s wrist like a tourniquet and the second hand ticking like a blade around the face of the clock above the judge’s head, he was startled by his own frustration with Milo.

  Why couldn’t the boy grasp that they were doing everything to give him a good family, a loving home, a fresh, real start that would last all his life?

  The bailiff stepped in front of Judge Amelia Shepard's bench. “The Commonwealth vs. Milo Stanhope.”

  With his stomach churning, David got up and went to meet his client at the podium. He put his hand over their microphone.

  “Keep quiet unless you’re asked a question, and if the judge asks you anything, take a second to consider how you answer. Think about what you really want to happen next because getting you off is going to take some fancy lawyering.” David turned toward Violet who’d grabbed a handful of her skirt to clench in her hands after she’d lost his wrist. “Look at your mother.”

  “I know you and Violet are mad at me.”

  “Violet’s not angry with you. She wants you to be safe, and you’re doing everything you can to make sure you aren’t. I want to be with my daughters.” An image of Noelle, flanked by Margaret and Evvy, all accusing him with sad eyes, distracted him. He cleared his tight throat. “I have to get back to Maine, so don’t cause any more trouble here.”

  He turned to the judge who had a reputation for being fed up with repeat offenders in her court. Time to do his fanciest lawyering.

  But when he spoke, the words welled from his heart that had beat in the same places where Milo was spending time. The boy was trying to forget by creating a new crisis each week.

  “Your honor, my client has made mistakes. He knows that. We, his friends and family, know that. He’s learning to live in a new family.” He held out his hand to Violet. “Milo doesn’t know how much his mother loves him so he’s testing her to see if she’ll walk away from him like every other person he’s loved. Please don’t make that happen for him. We all understand he’s pushed too far, but I’d like to set up a plan of counseling and community service that will help Milo learn to appreciate the new life he has. Your instinct might be to teach him a lesson, but he’s learned everything he knows from the lessons of hard years. I ask you—I’m begging you to give this child one final chance to be a good man.”

  It was easy to be honest. Each syllable reverberated with meaning, including the fact that he’d heard these words even more often than he’d said them. Maybe he hadn’t shoplifted, but he’d managed to throw away every opportunity for happiness that crossed his path.

  Judge Shepard turned to Milo, looking over the rim of her glasses. “What do you say? Is your lawyer lying for you?”

  Milo was only thirteen, and he looked even younger. He paused as David had told him to, but then he glanced beneath longish hair toward Violet, still standing, apparently unaware of the tears sliding down her face.

  She smiled at her son of less than two months. Milo looked as if he wanted to cry. David took hope from the shudder he heard in the boy’s breath.

  “I don’t know,” Milo said, but even David could barely hear him.

  “Pardon me?” The judge beckoned him closer to the microphone.

  Milo shuffled closer. “I don’t know if David’s lying. I don’t know why I took that stuff. I mean it was because I didn’t have money to give Viol—my mom a Christmas present, but I knew it was wrong.” He flicked a quick look at Violet. “I am sorry.”

  She collapsed onto the wooden chair behind her. David only hoped the judge would believe what he believed, that Milo was finally telling the truth, not giving them a story they wanted to hear about how he’d try and work and do the right thing this time.

  Judge Shepard sat back in her wide chair, forceful enough to put a shiver of fear down David’s spine. He shifted a step closer to Milo, his instinct to protect the boy.

  “Milo,” the judge said, rocking, “I’ve tried with you, a lot longer than I should have, because of the people you have around you.” She picked up a stylus with which she marked something on her own tablet. “One last chance, and believe me when I tell you this is the final time I expect to hear your name or see your face in my courtroom. Clerk, set a date with Mr. Parker’s assistant for another hearing in the new year, at which which we’ll discuss Mr. Stanhope’s progress in counseling, and Mr. Parker’s plan for the young man’s community service.”

  She rapped her gavel, and David put his hand on Milo’s shoulder. They barely turned when Violet was there, hugging her son as if Judge Shepard had tried to snatch him from her arms.

  “Thanks, David. I mean, how can I ever really thank you?”

  “Set up an appointment as soon as possible with a therapist.” He placed his hand firmly on Milo’s shoulder. “You’d better thank me by keeping your nose clean until after Christmas. Violet, are you all right to drive home?”

  “I am now.”

  Surprising David, Milo’s hand snaked out in an offer to shake. “Thank you,” he said. “Really.”

  “Don’t mess this up. Judge Shepard may still change her mind after the holiday spirit wears off.”

  Chapter 4

  Noelle took advantage of her day off to make some headway on cleaning the kitchen. She loved having the girls chatting around her after they woke. As usual, Marnie was off early.

  Noelle had been craving her mother’s cinnamon rolls, which she and her sisters loved. Margaret and Evelyn helped her knead the dough and roll them out. After they were in the oven, she texted Marnie
to ask if she’d like them to bring her some for a late brunch.

  “Have to wait until tonight. Looking at handmade lace in an estate sale,” Marnie texted back. “But looking forward to Mom’s rolls for dessert tonight.”

  Noelle slipped her phone in her back pocket and took a deep breath before she tackled the cookbooks that lined a shelf set beneath the cabinets. She and her mother had used many of them together. Mom often slipped her own made-up recipes or notes between the pages.

  “Why are you taking everything out, Miss Noelle?” Evelyn had new confidence today. She leaned across the butcher block counter of the kitchen peninsula.

  “Because my sisters and I are starting over in this house. We’re cleaning out the clutter.” And the past that had made them a family? She was afraid to throw anything away for fear of losing that.

  “How many sisters do you have?” Margaret tiptoed in front of the stove, extremely concerned for the cinnamon rolls that scented the house with welcome and spice.

  “Two. Chloe lives in town. Marnie lives here, but she works in that little chapel down the driveway near the trees.”

  “She works in a church?” Evelyn asked.

  “A wedding chapel.”

  “Oh.” Margaret tapped the glass in the oven door. “Where people get married. They don’t stay married, though.”

  “People stay married. My parents did.” She pushed the first stack of cookbooks farther back on the counter so they wouldn’t topple off. Then she crossed to the stool next to Evelyn and beckoned Margaret. “Hop up here, and don’t get too close to the oven.”

  “The glass isn’t hot,” Margaret said.

  “Just the same… How about some berries to start? The rolls still need a while to bake.” Noelle wasn’t altogether sure David would approve of their brunch of pastry.

  “I like strawberries,” Evelyn said.

  “Blueberries.” Margaret hopped off the chair again and went to the fridge. “Are they in here?”

  “Yes. You can help me.” She handed the little girl a carton of cream. “We’ll make some whipped cream to go with them.”

  Noelle put berries in a bowl, quickly whipped the cream and topped each bowl with a small dollop. When she’d first come home with her parents, she’d been so thin her mom had given her the same treat to put a little meat on her.

  While they scooped berries out of their bowls, Noelle began to inspect the pages of the cookbooks. She smiled over each grocery list, every reminder. Then a piece of notebook paper wafted to the plank floor.

  She bent and unfolded the sheet and immediately recognized the handwriting that was still so bad, not one vendor she used could ever read it. “Dear Mom and Dad and Marnie and Chloe,” she’d written, and the moment came back. The painstaking care she’d taken to make her note legible. “You’re the best family I ever had. Thank you. Love you.”

  Her eyes blurred. That had been the day her mother helped her bake cookies for her class. The first day she’d been a child in someone’s family, and she’d had a real mom to help her. Marnie and Chloe had run in to sample the results and slipped away with cookies while Noelle and their mom packed the cookies in bags for school.

  After Noelle had finished copying the recipe, she’d written the thank you note. She lifted the paper to her face, searching for some sign of her mother in its scent and texture.

  “Miss Noelle?” Margaret sounded worried.

  A rap at the front door startled Noelle, and she made herself smile as she set the note on the counter and dashed the tears off her face.

  She missed her mom as keenly as if she’d been gone three minutes, not three years. And Dad… Grief tried to reclaim her, but she wasn’t giving in to sadness in front of two little girls who missed their own mother.

  “Hold on, ladies. Let me get that.”

  She hurried down the hall and opened the front door, half surprised to find David at an early hour. He narrowed his focus on her. “What’s wrong?” he asked in the voice that made her shiver with memories.

  “Nothing.”

  “My girls?”

  “No, no.” She stood back. “I found a note Mom kept.”

  His mouth twisted in sympathy as he came in and looped an arm loosely around her shoulders. “They were good people. A boy from the Children’s Home must have worried them, always showing up to see you, but they made me welcome.”

  She nodded. That bond, they’d never break, and she didn’t mind. “Mom and Dad were always sorry we didn’t find a way to be friends.”

  “I don’t want it to be too late for that, Noelle. I’ve done some thinking.”

  “You don’t need to." It would be too easy to go back into their past. They’d already done enough of that. “Come on in to the kitchen. We’re about to eat some not so nutritious brunch.”

  “Is that what I smell? Cinnamon rolls? Your mom’s recipe?” His voice dropped a ragged octave. “She made them the first time I came here I remember that day as if it were this morning. I was worried about you because I hadn’t heard from you, and I sneaked out of the orphanage. Your mom and dad acted as if I were any visitor—except they called the home to tell them where I was after I lied and said I had permission to leave.”

  His story got inside Noelle’s defenses. “I never knew that. Did you get in trouble?”

  He shook his head. “I assumed your dad said something that kept them from being angry.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you to be concerned.”

  “I wish I’d known. What else did you do to take care of me?”

  His laugh was balm to her. Finding out now felt like healing after years of nothing between them. They reached the kitchen, and she stepped aside. “Look who’s here.”

  “Daddy,” the girls sang in unison bolting across the room to fling themselves at their father.

  “You came back.” Evelyn sounded as if he was her favorite gift.

  “I knew he would.” Margaret clung to his hand. “Come sit with us, Daddy, and have some rolls. Evvy and I pounded them with our fists.” She held up hers, admiring her own strength.

  “I can’t say no.”

  Noelle caught her breath. His smile lightened the air in the winter-crisp kitchen. Though snow fell outside the windows, the heat was a whisper through the vents that warmed the house. The girls were happy. So happy. And she had a choice to make.

  Stay angry with David, or let the past go. If she could.

  “What can I do to help, Noelle?”

  She looked at him, all of him, his lean shoulders and slightly strained face. He seemed a little older, maybe wiser, maybe just more manipulative. How could she tell?

  How could she trust?

  She’d protected herself by choosing the safe path back to Christmas Town and her family when her life with David had gone sour. He’d always chosen someone else’s crisis over making a life with her.

  But Margaret and Evelyn looked up at her with anticipation, and David couldn’t take his eyes off them, until he turned to her with hope.

  She wasn’t like David. She didn’t always make someone else’s happiness her priority, but she couldn’t hurt the two little girls who were as desperate as she’d been for family.

  “You remember where the plates are, David?”

  “Sure. Come help me, girls.”

  David’s family set the table in the small eating nook while Noelle took the cinnamon rolls out of the oven. She willed her hands to stop shaking.

  David hadn’t come back into her life to stay. He might be desperate for his girls to have a normal life, and he might even mistake her for the very nurturer Margaret and Evelyn needed—because he knew no one else in Christmas Town these days.

  But she’d stopped being convenient for him to use when she left Boston.

  She also had to stop remembering how much she’d loved him. If only she could close a mental curtain on the longing she’d never expected to feel again.

  She glanced his way a
s she took cream cheese and butter from the fridge.

  Evelyn tugged a napkin from his hands. “Daddy, that’s not the way you fold them.” Evelyn tried to twist the square of linen into a mysterious shape. “Mommy showed us.”

  “That’s not right either, Evelyn.” Margaret grabbed another napkin off the table and began folding it in a different pattern.

  The mention of Claudia pinched, but she’d mattered to David’s girls. She’d mattered to him. He’d found her and loved her and married her so quickly because he hadn’t loved Noelle. It was a fact of life.

  And it helped her slam that mental curtain down.

  ~*~

  After brunch, the girls ran up to the playroom. David watched them go. “Noelle?”

  She paused in the middle of stacking plates. “You don’t have to thank me.”

  “You didn’t just look after my girls. You made them happy. I haven’t seen them like this since before—their mother died.” He didn’t like mentioning Claudia to Noelle.

  She blinked, and her mouth opened slightly, as if she were taking a deeper breath. She wasn’t as detached as she pretended, and he wanted her to care about him because he was finding his feelings for her hadn’t died.

  “I packed the girls' things,” Noelle said. “They’re playing upstairs. I gave them paper and pens and crayons and pictures to color.”

  “Can we talk for a second?”

  “We don’t need to.”

  “I’m not playing games, Noelle. I learned something about myself when I was talking about Milo to the judge. Let me explain.

  “We’ve gotten along without each other for eight years. Why change that now?”

  “Have you been happy?” he asked. “I should have fought harder for you. Maybe you should have stayed to give us a second chance. Maybe neither of us knew that an argument can be just an argument, not the end of everything.”

  Her uncertain smile gave him hope. “You need to worry about Margaret and Evelyn, not me.”