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

by Melinda Curtis

  Cara inwardly groaned. The less she saw of him, the less they spoke, the better off she’d be. You still have a crush on him. Don’t you? Remembering Beth and the pain he’d caused her sister, she walked up to the car.

  “Excuse me but you’re in my way.”

  Brady ignored that. “Let me buy you dinner at the inn, then we can talk—”

  “You can’t have anything to say that I need to hear.”

  “Wrong.” He tilted his head to study her. “And you’re freezing. I’m not, so I’m prepared to wait you out.”

  “Is it about my trees?” she finally asked.

  “Not really,” he said.

  Cara froze. Did he have some urge to apologize further for what had happened with Beth? She’d wanted badly at the time to believe he was innocent too but…

  “I am not going there with you, Brady. My sister’s off limits.”

  His tone became even more coaxing. “The inn’s warmer than this parking lot. The fire will be blazing on their huge hearth…”

  “I already ate.” A quick burger and fries in the trailer while she tried to get warm.

  “We can just have coffee then. Maybe dessert. I’d really like to—”

  “No, thanks.” Cara prepared to push him aside—as if she could have—then get into her car and speed away. “You always were a manipulator.”

  But the look on Brady’s face stopped her from moving or saying more.

  “Not always,” he said softly.

  Cara looked closer. Was that genuine regret in his eyes? In the darkness they looked black, but she knew they were actually deep blue, and she recognized pain in any color. Earlier, no matter what he’d done, she’d been rude to him. Maybe she owed him a brief listening ear in exchange for his help today.

  “I need to be home by eleven,” she told him with a sigh.

  “Suits me,” he said.

  Brady walked her across the street, his hand close to her lower back but not touching, warming Cara anyway through several layers of clothing. He gave off heat like the sun. In the inn’s cozy lounge she shrugged off her parka and draped it over the roomy leather chair she’d chosen by the fire. Brady sat next to her with a side table between them. After a few minutes, Cara gave in and ordered hot chocolate. He ordered a beer.

  “How can you drink something cold?” she asked.

  “I like cold. Winter doesn’t bother me.”

  “I prefer July,” she said, settling into the chair. “And somewhere south.” One more reason this Christmas might well be her first and last with the lot. “Thank you for moving my trees,” she said grudgingly.

  “Welcome. Moving trees is one of my favorite activities.”

  Cara couldn’t help but smile. He’d always been a charmer, which explained why she’d fallen for him years ago. That, and her own naiveté at the time.

  “One of your Leyland cypress sold,” he said. “Who was that guy?”

  Okay, so they were going to make small talk. “He’s the new owner of the lumber yard. His house is that log style up on the hill with the big picture windows. The tree will look perfect there.”

  “Any tree would look perfect there.” Brady frowned. “At eighteen I wished I could buy that place. And live within walking distance to the slopes.” He paused. “It belonged then to a buddy of mine’s family.”

  “The Merrick’s,” she remembered. “They sold the house not long after…”

  She trailed off, not to mention the cheating scandal that had cost her sister so much. Their drinks came and nothing else was said for a time. Brady seemed lost in his own thoughts. When would he try to bring up Beth? Because she felt certain he would.

  It was hard enough being here with Brady when what she should have done was go straight home. Cara worked for the local newspaper’s chief editor and she’d promised him a new column that wasn’t written. Yet it was even harder with the silence that left her to watch Brady, to see the small changes in him.

  His face had a few lines now, a faint spray of them around his eyes from too much sun and wind. As a ranger he must work outdoors a lot, and Brady was an all around athlete while Cara was the girl who’d always been picked last for softball. She’d spent her time as a freshman years ago, when she wasn’t ogling the younger version of Brady, trying to get out of gym class.

  Even if he did look better than ever, as Jill had pointed out, she wouldn’t go down that road again.

  Clearing her throat, Cara broke the silence. “Do you still ski?” she asked.

  “Every chance I get.” He frowned again, though. “But not at the level I hoped for in my senior year. I blew out my knee at the end of fall semester playing football and it was a pretty bad tear. Still gives me twinges when it’s going to rain.”

  “I’d almost forgotten that,” she said. The scandal just months after his knee injury had taken center stage, although in Christmas Town it was difficult to keep from hearing everything.

  “Even then that kind of surgery was successful so I could have played ball again. But, well, you know the rest.”

  After he’d been accused of cheating, and taken Beth down with him, he was no longer the star quarterback—or the star of anything else.

  “That next spring, I sure didn’t have a football scholarship to fall back on. The university no longer wanted me.”

  After that Cara let the silence grow. She wanted to ask why he’d become a forest ranger, but she didn’t need to know more about Brady. She didn’t want him getting any deeper under her skin.

  Cara took another sip of her cocoa. She wouldn’t feel sorry for him either. Because of Brady, her sister had suffered terribly. Now Beth was gone. So were their parents. That left Cara. The tree lot. And her own dream of making something of the other writing she did in her spare time.

  She set her mug aside. “What’s really on your mind tonight, Brady?”

  He leaned forward, forearms resting on his thighs. “This morning I said I was sorry about Miss Crawford—Beth. No excuses, but I want you to know I never meant to hurt your sister.”

  Cara had needed that reminder. She rose from her chair. “You know, good intentions, when they end up destroying someone, are just empty words. Because of you, my sister lost her teaching career, the one thing she truly loved. She did find a way to go on—she worked from home as a free-lance editor for a New York publisher—but she died of a broken heart, if you ask me, and that’s your fault too, Brady.” She gathered her coat and bag. She fished in the pocket of her jeans then dropped money on the table just as he’d tried to pay her for a parking space today. “That’s for the cocoa. But as far as your conscience is concerned, I’m not going to help you.”

  She strode from the inn before he could move.

  Cara wouldn’t see him again, not if she could help that.

  ~*~

  Brady liked a woman who didn’t play games. A manipulator, she’d called him, and maybe that had been true years ago. He still liked getting his way but not if that meant being branded a jerk by a beautiful blond like Cara Crawford. He had things to make up for with her too, but she’d sure said what she thought tonight. For a small woman, she packed a big punch.

  Brady fingered the bills in his pocket. He hadn’t paid their tab with Cara’s money and he intended to give it back to her. Determination was one of Brady’s best traits. That hadn’t worked so well with his family yet. But it would. His parents deserved, especially after his dad’s stroke, to hear the truth from him first. After that, if she’d listen, he could tell Cara Crawford. And maybe change her mind about him. Then they’d see. She certainly had grown up nice—which was way too mild a term for her.

  At the inn he went up to his room then came back down again.

  He’d called home but no one had answered. Hope had said their parents would be home today from their latest trip to Portland for rehab. Apparently they weren’t back yet. And Hope was probably out with Chris and Joel.

  In the small bar, he ordered a second beer. He hadn’t finish
ed the first and he wanted to be alone, to figure out how to approach his family then how to deal with Cara. Because rearranging her trees hadn’t done it for him. And obviously, trying to talk earlier hadn’t fixed anything.

  The bartender slid the bottle in front of him with a coy smile. “Don’t I know you?”

  “If you’re from here,” he said, all but flinching, “you probably do.”

  She shook her head. “I moved to Christmas Town—and how cute is that name?—late last summer.”

  “I haven’t been back in a while so—”

  “Still. You look familiar.”

  She was new in town. Surely then, she hadn’t read the local papers about the old cheating thing. For a time, every issue had carried another condemnation of him complete with pictures of Brady on the football field, grinning under his homecoming king crown as if he thought what had happened was amusing. The pages had been filled with photos of Cara’s sister too. There’d even been a few of them together in better times when Brady had won some debate award. Beth Crawford had been the team’s faculty sponsor and coach. The underlying message, though, had been one of mutual guilt.

  “I went to school here,” he said at last. “Played some ball.”

  The bartender snapped her fingers. “I must have seen your face in a team picture in the high school trophy case. My brother goes there.”

  Brady couldn’t help but feel proud. “We won the state championship my junior year. But I doubt my photo would be there now.”

  He could tell she wanted to ask why not. Yet it was refreshing to meet someone—anyone—in Christmas Town who didn’t know what he’d supposedly done.

  “That sounds like a good story,” she said in the encouraging way of someone hoping for a big tip. Or was she flirting?

  She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but Brady didn’t have that much ego to indulge her. All he could think of was Cara throwing her money down on the table then stalking out into the night.

  “It was a long time ago,” he said. “There’s only so much room in that case.”

  Which didn’t stop her.

  “Maybe, but I’ve seen you somewhere.” She glanced at his shirt. And Brady realized he’d worn his navy polo with the Comfort and Joy logo today. Part of his planned charm offensive with his parents. He’d left his pullover sweater upstairs. “Are you one of the Sullivan’s? I shop there all the time.” Her eyes brightened. “That’s where I saw your picture—on their wall.”

  His stomach sank. “I’m Brady.”

  The Black Sheep.

  Still, her comment surprised him. He hadn’t expected his parents, his sisters, to leave the family picture on the wall for everyone to see. As if he were still a part of them.

  Should he feel encouraged? Or had they forgotten it was there?

  “You’re good,” he said. “I don’t look that much like I did then.”

  “I can always spot a good-looking man.”

  Flirting, then. It was time to go.

  Brady didn’t need distractions—and that, he decided, should include Cara Crawford for now.

  He went upstairs to figure out the next step in this homecoming of his.

  Chapter 3

  The next morning Brady gathered his courage and walked down Main Street. It wasn’t easy going, even in his boots. Most walks weren’t cleared yet, but he didn’t really mind. He was just glad to be here. This was his hometown, the place where he’d been born and raised and where his heart still lived. As if he’d never been away, he passed The Tea Pot then glimpsed Esther’s House, the B&B north of the town square. At Dockery’s, he knew, the department store windows would glitter with this season’s displays.

  In front of Comfort and Joy he exhaled in the cold air. When he walked into the shop, jingling the bell above the door, a thousand memories washed over him. Christmas music in the air. Lights. The scent of cinnamon. The miniature Victorian village and train set. He’d opened the store for Hope the other day, worked here as a kid then a teenager like the boy Cara employed at the tree lot, and once his father had expected him to take over someday. Now Hope stood behind the counter.

  He’d moved to the inn in part to give her time with Chris and Joel. And to avoid feeling like a fifth wheel. But it wasn’t easy for Brady to forgive either, which was a twist. He was usually the one looking for forgiveness. He couldn’t quite overlook the secret Hope had kept for so long. That hurt. We’ll talk, he’d promised.

  “How’s the wound?” he asked. Hope was still wearing a big bandage. After cutting herself on the night of the Bells Are Ringing fire, she’d had stitches. She’d driven herself to the emergency room without asking for help. Brady had come home to find blood all over the kitchen.

  “Improving,” she said then admitted, “It still hurts.”

  Hope also looked a bit hassled. Running a shop wasn’t her usual thing, and she’d always been clumsy so the bandage was even more of a problem now, but if he ignored the shadows under her hazel eyes, she also looked good. Glowing, in fact. Probably because of Chris. He ignored that for the moment.

  Hope was the middle child of the family, and as a girl she’d been closer to Faith than Brady. Then, after the cheating thing her well-established sense of right and wrong, of justice even then, had weighed against him. Was that why she’d become a lawyer?

  Which wouldn’t help her now. He took a deep breath.

  “Hope,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me before? Chris and I were friends. You think I couldn’t have understood then? Helped, maybe?” He paused. “I had to hear he’s Joel’s father a few days ago? Come on,” he said. “Was I the last person to know?”

  She flicked her long auburn hair away from her face. “I couldn’t tell you because you and he were friends,” she said, not looking at him. “I sure couldn’t tell you about Vegas. Chris didn’t know I was pregnant. Before I even knew that, he got married, Brady,” she said, “to someone else. How do you think I felt then? Besides, you and he didn’t exactly stay friends. After you got caught cheating—”

  “I’m your big brother. I’m Joel’s uncle,” he said. “Ever since he was born, I’ve wondered who his daddy might be—”

  “Whenever you bother to come home,” she murmured.

  “—You should have told Chris. As soon as you knew.”

  “Oh, sure. His then-wife would have loved that. I made a mistake,” Hope said. “You should be able to understand that, Brady. You made a mistake too.”

  “Nice try. But we’re talking about you right now.”

  Hope frowned. “Are we? I still think what you did was terrible. Cheating, really?”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is from where I’m standing. As if Mom and Dad never taught you any values. And if you’d ever seen Bethany Crawford again, you’d know how right I am.”

  His mouth tightened. He hadn’t come in to talk about cheating.

  She moved a glass snow globe back and forth on the counter. “Sorry for being so outspoken, but I’ve been working long hours here filling in for Faith while she’s away—and I’m tired. It would be nice if someone else could help out.”

  She meant him. “I did, the morning after you got hurt. I opened the store for you and I’d already worked the fire and cleanup. And now I’m kind of….” He couldn’t say at loose ends. “Helping someone else. I planned to help Mom and Dad around the house while I’m home, but then you laid your bombshell on me.” He gestured at her bandage. “And, of course, there was your little solo trip to the ER. Really, Hope?”

  “So you bailed out for the inn. Forget helping. I can handle this, and I’m glad our baby sister finally got her chance at happiness with Drew. She sacrificed too much working here after you and I ran off. Faith deserves some adventure.”

  “And you?” he said. “What do you deserve?”

  “That perfect Christmas you mentioned. A fresh start,” Hope said with a wry smile. “I love Chris. We’re working things out. We already have. Maybe you should too.”
>
  Brady couldn’t have agreed more. “If I hadn’t seen Joel with Chris that night—”

  Hope looked at him. “Maybe it’s better you did move to the inn before you saw Mom and Dad. You might have given him another stroke.”

  And Brady didn’t know how to make things better. If he came clean like Hope, he’d have to name names. Risk retaliation from someone with a lot of power to cause more hurt. And all hell might break loose again.

  “Mom and Dad understand why I kept Joel from Chris then,” Hope said. “Why can’t you?” Using her good hand, she toyed with the snow globe, a swirl of Santa-red-and-snowy white inside. “In my opinion—”

  “And you always have an opinion, Hope. I’d hate to face you in a courtroom.” He turned to go. “If you see them before I do, tell Mom and Dad I said hello.”

  “Brady—”

  But he’d already opened the door. Behind him, he heard Hope, clumsy as always, drop the snow globe on the counter then sigh in obvious frustration.

  Outside, he walked fast along Main Street.

  Well, that had gone well. But then, he was no better than Hope. Brady was holding back something too from the entire family. He couldn’t tell her everything yet either. His parents came first—if he ever saw them. Still, after striking out with his sister, he could at least try to make another start of sorts with Cara.

  Because, Brady knew, in her view as well he was still the town bad boy.

  With luck, he could at least prove he hadn’t lied to Hope about helping someone.

  ~*~

  Cara was standing in the middle of her Christmas tree forest, taking inventory, when someone walked up behind her. She spun around.

  And saw Brady again. Cara tried to ignore the little stutter of her heartbeat. She had to admit, she’d left the inn in part to escape her own weakness where he was concerned, and last night was still fresh in her mind. But so was the sadness she’d seen in his eyes.