Christmas at Eden Manor

by Noelle Adams

  Christmas at Eden Manor

  Noelle Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Noelle Adams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Trophy Wife

  About Noelle Adams

  One

  Brie Graves sat in an outdoor café in downtown Savannah and wondered why doing exactly what she wanted for a month had turned out to be so boring.

  Two weeks ago, when she’d come to the resolution to spend December having fun, indulging any random whim and not worrying about the future, she’d expected to actually enjoy it. Instead, she’d spent the past twelve days wandering around Savannah, brooding about what she would do after New Year’s.

  She’d been under contract as a restoration artisan for a variety of church-restoration jobs for the past few years—working primarily with the stained glass, which was her specialty in her historic preservation degree—but her last contract had ended a few weeks ago. She couldn’t find any other jobs, even with her skill and experience.

  She’d had to give up her lovely apartment and move in with her brother last week, and for all she knew she’d be living there for the foreseeable future. She loved her brother, and they actually got along really well, but he was busy with his career and his wife, and he didn’t need a single, jobless sister hanging around all the time.

  If no position had opened up as of New Year’s, she was going to have to start applying at restaurants and retail stores, which was such a depressing thought she could hardly process it.

  Taking a sip of cappuccino, she turned her head to gaze at the small painting she’d been admiring for the past three days.

  There was a holiday art festival going on in Savannah this week, and she’d spent hours wandering the stands and exhibits scattered through the historic neighborhood streets. But she kept coming back to this one painting. She loved it so much she would have bought it in an instant, but even five hundred dollars—which was moderately priced for the art at this festival—was far too high for her current budget.

  She was about to descend into a full-fledged mope when her phone rang.

  She stared down at her brother’s name for a full thirty seconds until she finally connected the call. “Hey, Mitchell.”

  “What are you doing?” he asked rather brusquely. Mitchell had never been known for any particular civility or grace in his manners.

  “I’m downtown looking at the art again.”

  “By yourself?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “Why don’t you hang out with your friends or something?”

  She sighed, understanding now the purpose of his call. He might sound rather abrupt, but he was worried about her. “They all have jobs that keep them busy during the days.”

  “You’ll find something else. You always do.”

  “Contract jobs in historic preservation aren’t very easy to come by. I’ve been lucky these past few years.”

  “You haven’t been lucky. You’re good. So you’ll find something else.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “You know you can stay with me for as long as you need. Deanna and I don’t care at all.”

  “I know. I appreciate it.” She made sure to sound patient since she really did appreciate her brother and his wife, but she was getting tired of having these conversations. Lately everyone she knew seemed to want to have one with her.

  She hated feeling needy that way.

  “Deanna thinks you’ve been avoiding her.”

  “I haven’t been avoiding her!”

  “Then why do you spend all day away from the house?”

  There was some truth to her sister-in-law’s suspicion, but it had nothing to do with not wanting to hang out with Deanna, who was friendly, practical, and kindhearted. It had more to do with the fact that seeing Mitchell and Deanna—who were so happy and satisfied both in career and in their marriage—made Brie feel more like a loser.

  “You’re not still moping about that bastard Chase, are you?” Mitchell asked, his voice a little rougher, as it always was when he referred to her ex-boyfriend.

  “No,” Brie said with a sigh. “I’m not.”

  “You sound mopey to me.”

  “Well, if you want the truth, I’m not having the best year of my life, but I’m not still hung up on Chase. I know what an ass he was. I don’t want anything to do with him anymore. But it’s still depressing to know that you were stupid enough to fall for someone like that.”

  “Everyone falls for the wrong person occasionally.”

  “You never did.”

  “Yeah, well, I made my share of mistakes in the romance department. You know that.”

  Brie did know that. He’d made one mistake after another with Deanna, and she’d called him out on every one of them. She smiled at his self-deprecating tone, feeling a little better despite herself.

  “You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?” Mitchell asked after a pause.

  She giggled. “Maybe a little.”

  “I can live with that. But seriously, Deanna would love to hang out with you. She really loves you. I don’t like for you to wander around alone all the time.”

  “It’s not all the time. I’m just taking this month to do exactly what I want, no matter what anyone else thinks. It’s kind of a reward for turning thirty soon and for getting over Chase. This is really what I want to do right now. I promise it has nothing to do with Deanna.”

  “Okay,” Mitchell murmured slowly. “As long as it’s really what you want.”

  “It is.”

  “You’re still planning to come up to Eden Manor with us for Christmas though, right?”

  Mitchell’s sister-in-law, Deanna’s sister, owned a bed and breakfast in north Georgia with her husband, and the whole family was planning to get together there for the holidays.

  “Yes, of course. I definitely don’t want to spend Christmas alone. I’ll be there.”

  “Okay. Good. Things will be fine, you know. You’re going to find a new job, and you’re better off without Chase.”

  “I know.”

  “And it’s not the end of the world to turn thirty and live with your brother for a little while.”

  “I know.” She smiled at his tone. “Thanks, Mitchell.”

  He just grunted, which was his normal response to thanks, and she felt encouraged as she disconnected the call.

  Her eyes returned instinctively to the painting she loved, but there was a man standing in front of it now so she couldn’t see it.

  When the man turned his head slightly, she could see his profile and recognized it.

  He’d been here yesterday. She’d been sitting in this same spot where she could look at the painting, drink cappuccino, and people-watch without being disturbed, and she’d noticed this man particularly.

  She never would have noticed him under normal circumstances. He was middle-aged or a little older, with brown hair with a lot of gray in it, and he wasn’t particularly handsome or noteworthy in any way. He had a fit body and upright posture, but he wasn’t unusually tall or impressively built. He wore well-tailored tan trousers and a button-up shirt. His features were classically even but with nothing distinctive or eye-catching about his face. He was alone
as he’d been the day before.

  The only reason she’d noticed him at all was that he’d stood for almost fifteen minutes in front of the painting she loved.

  No one else had looked at the painting nearly so long.

  She was still watching him when he turned around, and for a moment their eyes met across the sidewalk.

  She glanced down in that instinctive way everyone did when they were caught staring at someone else. She fiddled with her phone for a minute, thinking that the man had the most beautiful chocolate-brown eyes she’d ever seen.

  He didn’t look like a normal tourist. She wondered who he was. She wanted to talk to him, see what he thought about that painting.

  Then she remembered that she was going to do anything she wanted this month, whether or not it was normal, rational, or expected.

  She looked back up and saw he’d come over to the café and was taking a table and asking for a cup of coffee.

  As he sat down, he glanced over at her again as if to verify that she was looking at him.

  She gave him a little smile, fighting off an automatic wave of self-consciousness. She was usually a friendly, straightforward person, but this man had such a distinguished, set-apart air that it made her a little nervous. “I saw you looking at that painting of the fishing pond,” she said.

  He nodded, his face relaxing slightly as if he’d suspected she’d been up to no good and now realized she wasn’t. “You’re not the artist, are you?”

  “I wish. No. It’s just my favorite.”

  “It’s certainly the best painting in the festival.”

  “You think so too?” She was strangely pleased to have her perspective confirmed by this man, who came across as both intelligent and incredibly sophisticated, despite his rather ordinary appearance.

  “Without doubt.” He gave a polite nod to the server who brought him his coffee and then took a slow sip.

  This was the moment when the conversation would normally end. They were strangers, after all. One might make a minute’s worth of casual conversation with a stranger in a setting like this, but rarely would it last very long.

  But Brie was more interested in this man than ever. Not only did he love her painting, but he also didn’t speak like anyone she’d ever met.

  She was bored, and he was interesting. And she was determined to do anything she wanted this month even if it made her look like a fool.

  “I can’t figure out what’s so good about the painting,” she said as if there had been no pause in their conversation. “With the landscape and the rural fishing pond, it should come across as kind of… cheesy, but it doesn’t at all. It just… speaks to me.”

  The man turned his gaze back toward her, and he didn’t look annoyed or impatient by the continued conversation. Rather, his eyes rested on her face as if he were genuinely seeing her, genuinely listening to her, taking her seriously. “Art comes across as cheesy when it’s calling on feelings but doing so inauthentically. It’s doing so only to generate those easy emotions in the viewer without offering anything real to give them meaning. Now those paintings…” He nodded toward another, much more popular exhibit of landscape paintings down the block. “Those are truly cheese.” He spoke the last word as if he didn’t normally use it, as if he were trying it out.

  She chuckled, more stimulated by this conversation than she’d been by anything in weeks. “But everyone loves those. They’re going for thousands of dollars, way more than the little fishing pond.”

  “Naturally. People tend to accept what’s easy without considering whether it’s real or true. Thus they take in so many half-truths and lies because they make them feel what they want to feel.” He shook his head and set down his cup of coffee. “Surely that doesn’t surprise you.”

  “No,” she admitted. “It doesn’t. I’ve just never heard it explained that way before. And I love that you just used the word ‘thus’ as if it were a normal word to use in conversation.”

  The man looked surprised, but then he laughed, and it transformed his face in a way that was almost breathtaking. In that moment, he was incredibly attractive. Brie couldn’t look away.

  When she realized she was staring rather stupidly, she managed to pull herself together. “You’re not from the art school here, are you?”

  He arched his eyebrows. “Do I look like I’m from the art school?”

  He didn’t. At all. He looked like he belonged in some sort of elegant, discreet, high-priced establishment. “Uh, no. Not really. You just seem to know a lot about art.”

  “They would absolutely hate me at this art school. At any art school.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m far too traditional for current tastes. What about you? You’re obviously well informed on art.” His eyes took her in from her long, loose dark hair to her shoes with beaded insets. She wore a broomstick skirt in a pretty floral print and a rose-colored tunic sweater. She figured she looked too Bohemian for his tastes, and she briefly wished she came across as more sophisticated.

  When she processed what she was thinking, she pushed the idea away. She wasn’t going to try to morph into a different person for a man. Not any man. Not again. Not after Chase.

  She suddenly realized the man was still waiting for an answer. “Oh. I actually did go to the art school, but they didn’t much like me either. I was in historic preservation, so it was a different sort of niche. I particularly love churches, and churches are definitely out of style lately with the art crowd.”

  “Historic preservation? Is that right? Tell me about it.”

  ***

  The next day, Brie was sitting at the same table in the same café in view of the same painting.

  She’d been sitting there for almost an hour now, and she was starting to feel like an idiot.

  The day before, she’d talked to that fascinating man for more than an hour—about art, about historic preservation, about church buildings, and about the jobs in stained glass she’d done over the past few years. She’d never talked to anyone as intelligent, informed, and insightful as he was. He seemed to know something about everything, and he knew a lot about subjects she cared very deeply about.

  That conversation was the best thing to happen to her in a really long time, but he’d left with a smile and a polite shake of her hand, without any request for her phone number, without even giving her his name.

  So she was back here today, hoping that he’d return too.

  She really wanted to see him again, to talk to him, to find out more about him.

  It was silly to expect him to come back. He was clearly a mature, successful, cultivated man, quite a bit older than her. He was the most self-contained person she’d ever met. He wasn’t likely to be so excited about one random conversation that he’d come back here with the vague hope of seeing her again.

  But she was here anyway, getting more disappointed as the minutes passed and he failed to appear.

  He probably had a job. He didn’t sound like he was from Savannah. His accent had been clean and polished and completely uninflected. He could have been from anywhere in the world. Perhaps he had moved to Georgia from somewhere else, and he’d just been killing time on his lunch break yesterday.

  Or he could have been visiting the city and had already flown halfway across the country to his home.

  Brie figured she was pretty enough, with dark hair and a slim figure, but she wasn’t anything special. She was at least twenty years younger than the man, and she probably hadn’t made any sort of real impression on him.

  He wasn’t going to show up here again today. Waiting for him was silly.

  It made her feel weak and needy, which she’d been feeling far too often lately.

  Suddenly a wave of embarrassment washed over her. She didn’t want to be the kind of person who would wait with bated breath for a particular man to stroll by, when the man had offered her no reason to expect it.

  She wasn’t going to be this person.

  And she would neve
r admit to anyone that she’d done this.

  She left a tip on her table and slid her book into her bag, standing up and ducking her head as she mentally pulled herself together, giving up the faint fantasy of getting to know that man.

  She was starting to walk away when a voice came from beside her. “Are you leaving?”

  She sucked in a breath and turned to see the man from yesterday, watching her with slightly raised eyebrows.

  “Oh. Uh, yeah. I guess so.”

  “That’s too bad.” He gave her a little smile. “I enjoyed our talk yesterday.”

  Her self-consciousness transformed into pleasure and excitement at the knowledge that she hadn’t been completely stupid after all.

  The conversation had been something special. He’d thought so too. It wasn’t just in her imagination. She hadn’t blown it all out of proportion because she was a little bit needy right now. “I did too,” she admitted, her cheeks flushing slightly.

  She waited a moment to see if he’d say anything else, if he’d invite her to lunch, to dinner, to something.

  When he didn’t, she remembered that this was the month she was going to do anything she wanted, whether or not it was scary.

  She wasn’t a particularly shy person. She’d even asked men out before. But only after they’d made it clear they were interested in her. So it was definitely a little scary, but she heard herself saying, “Did you want to have lunch with me?”

  His eyes widened slightly, and he didn’t respond immediately.

  She ducked her head, letting her hair slide down to cover her face slightly. “I’m sorry,” she said in a rush. “I didn’t mean to make it weird or awkward. I know we don’t know each other. I don’t even know your name. You might be married for all I know, or not interested in… Anyway, I really did enjoy talking to you yesterday.”

  The man’s expression changed, as if he’d come to some sort of resolution within himself. “I’m not married. I would love to have lunch with you. And my name is Cyrus.”

  ***

  They went to lunch at a small, charming French restaurant Cyrus had discovered last week, and he kept telling himself not to be a fool.