by Annie Rains
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 © 2021 by Annie Rains
Preview of The Christmas Village © 2021 by Annie Rains
Cover design by Daniela Medina
Cover images © Trevillion; Shutterstock
Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Bonus novella Kiss Me in Sweetwater Springs copyright © 2019 by Annie Rains
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First Edition: May 2021
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ISBN: 978-1-5387-0342-7 (mass market), 978-1-5387-0343-4 (ebook)
E3-20210331-NF-DA-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
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
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Preview of The Christmas Village
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Kiss Me in Sweetwater Spring
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Discover More
About the Author
PRAISE FOR ANNIE RAINS AND HER SWEETWATER SPRING SERIES
Also by Annie Rains
Want more charming small towns? Fall in love with these Forever contemporary romances!
For my grandmother Nannie—
the first book lover in my life
Acknowledgments
I wish I could say that writing a book gets easier each time, but each new story comes with its own set of challenges. That’s why I’m so grateful to have the people in my life who help me climb these proverbial mountains (because that’s how they feel in the beginning. And the middle. And the end).
Thank you to my family for a million and one reasons. These books would never get written without your steadfast support and encouragement.
Thank you to my editor at Forever, Alex Logan, for making my heroines tougher, my heroes sexier, and my books the very best they can be. I am so thankful for the entire team at Grand Central Publishing / Forever, including Estelle Hallick, Jodi Rosoff, Mari Okuda, Carrie Andrews, and Daniela Medina.
Thank you to my amazing agent, Sarah Younger, for all that you do to ensure that I can continue doing what I love. I’m so fortunate to be on #TeamSarah.
Thank you to my critique partner and friend, Rachel Lacey. You’re my first reader and your input is so valuable to me. I so appreciate you reading this one in three days and giving me feedback. Wow! You’re AMAZING!
Lastly, I want to express my gratitude and love to all my readers. I can’t tell you what it means to me that you take the time to read my work, review it, and spread the word. Thank you from the bottom of my overflowing heart.
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Chapter One
This wasn’t a good way to start off the day.
Trisha Langly grabbed a towel and hurried out the door and down the steps just as the sun rose over the Blue Ridge Mountains. She’d accidentally overslept this morning and needed to get to the west side of Somerset Lake quickly—before some poor, unsuspecting person happened upon a sight that couldn’t be unseen.
As property manager of the Somerset Rental Cottages, Trisha had the unique job of heading out every morning to make sure Mr. S wasn’t lying on the shore in his full glory.
This wasn’t a nudist colony by any means, and Mr. S was in his eighties. In his thirties and forties, however, he’d lived on a nude beach. And apparently old habits die hard.
Trisha quickened her step. She’d left her son Petey in bed as usual. She’d only be gone long enough to toss the towel over Mr. S, nudge him awake, and convince him to go home. Then she’d hurry back to have coffee and make breakfast for her son.
Trisha had done a lot of things to make ends meet in her adult life, including housekeeping and running a women’s shelter in her hometown of Sweetwater Springs. She was technically the property manager here, but the job description included a lot more than tending to the twelve cottages and sparse tenants. She also tended to her boss, Vi, an older woman in the house next door. Trisha kept Vi’s garden and purchased her groceries, as well as those of two other homebound tenants. She retrieved the mail every day from the boxes at the end of Lakeshore Drive and delivered it to the addressees’ doorsteps.
And every morning at dawn, Trisha woke a naked elderly man from his slumber.
The blurry image of Mr. S came into view.
Trisha picked up speed. The sun was rising and so would the folks who lived on Somerset Lake. Her gaze caught on movement in the distance. Oh no. Someone was approaching from the opposite direction. Making sure no one happened upon Mr. S was one of Vi’s most important requests from Trisha. Apparently, the last time someone had seen him, it’d caused quite a stir. So much so that an ambulance had to be called.
Trisha started running now. “Mr. S!” she whisper-shouted. “Mr. S, wake up!”
He didn’t move. Over the month that Trisha had been working here, she’d discovered that he was a sound sleeper. It usually took several long minutes to wake him up. That was time she couldn’t afford this morning.
She reached him now, tossed a towel over his midsection, and tapped his shoulder. “Mr. S!” She glanced up and saw the approaching man getting closer, walking a dark-colored dog off leash. Trisha tapped Mr. S a little harder. “Wake up!”
Mr. S cracked an eye. “There you are, T. My beautiful alarm clock.” Mr. S had a thing
for calling people by their first initial. It was another oddity in the growing list of the older man’s quirks.
Trisha shook her head. “I’m not the only one here this morning, Mr. S. Please return to your cottage or I’ll have to talk to Vi.”
Vi was tough, although physically she was tiny and medically frail. Mr. S sat up. “Please don’t tell Vi. I’m going. I’m going.”
He turned to look in the direction of the man walking his dog. “Oh, it’s just you, J,” he called down the shore. “You don’t mind me being naked, do you?”
The other man stepped toward them with his dog at his side. Trisha had never seen him at Somerset Lake before, but that didn’t mean anything. Vi and the Fletcher family owned her house and the twelve cottages on the west side, but there were other, larger lakeside houses that rounded the lake. “I don’t mind, but I think the lady’s probably right. You should go home before the folks here wake up.”
Mr. S huffed loudly. “All right, all right.” He stood and secured the towel around his waist before making his way to a nearby cottage that was bordered by a thick wooded area.
Trisha faced the man that Mr. S had called J. “Sorry about that.” She folded her arms across her chest, feeling the need to distance herself from the man in front of her.
“Not your fault. You can’t control Mr. S any more than his wife can. Or Vi.” The man chuckled, his hand absently petting the head of his medium-sized dog, who tipped its head back and let its tongue hang out, seeming to love every second of the attention.
Trisha inspected the man more closely. He was tall with golden brown hair that was slightly overgrown and curling at the tips. His T-shirt hugged his broad chest and not because it was too small for him. He didn’t have bulky muscles, but they were there, begging for her attention just like that dog, whose eyes were now rolled back in its head.
Trisha blinked and willed herself to stop checking out the handsome stranger. She swallowed and glanced down at her bare feet. She hadn’t taken the time to put on shoes or even brush her hair. Mortification quickly flared up through her chest and neck.
Here she was checking out the hottest guy she’d seen on the lakeshore so far, and her just-rolled-out-of-bed look must be making his eyes sore. She was pretty sure she’d coated an oncoming zit with white benzoyl peroxide cream last night too. She suddenly felt as naked as Mr. S.
Trisha glanced over to make sure Mr. S had gone back inside his cottage and was relieved to see that he had. Then her thoughts jumped to her son, who was alone in bed. Or awake and wondering where she was. Somerset Lake was safe, of course. There was no reason to be concerned. Just the constant mom-worry that no one ever told you came along with being a parent. “I have to go,” Trisha told the man she only knew as J. “Enjoy your day.”
Trisha took a step backward, ready to run for more than one reason. A handsome man with no ring on his finger—she’d gotten that far before she’d yanked her gaze—couldn’t lead to anything good for her right now. She’d only been in Somerset Lake for one month. She and Petey were finally starting to settle in, and staying here depended on keeping their distance, and their pasts, locked away. Any kind of romantic interest was definitely off the table.
* * *
“Where were you?” Petey looked up a few minutes later as Trisha stepped into their little two-bedroom cottage. The place was quaint, although it needed a few repairs and renovations just like the rest of the cottages on the lake. A hurricane had swept through the central and western part of North Carolina last year, causing flooding and damage in its path.
To this point, Vi, the trustee of her family’s rental cottages, had struggled to complete the repairs. That was the reason Trisha was hired—to pick up the slack. In return, Trisha received a modest salary and a home here at Juniper Cottage.
Trisha ruffled Petey’s hair as she walked past where he sat on a barstool. “Just helping Mr. S find his way home,” she said, not mentioning why that task was so important.
“Why does he sleep outside when he has a bed inside his cottage?” Petey looked up from the sandwich he’d made himself.
“Good question, but I don’t have an answer. I was going to make you pancakes,” Trisha said, eying the mess he’d made.
“But isn’t it against the law to sleep outside without your clothes on?” Petey asked.
Trisha’s mouth dropped open as she spun to fully face her son. “How did you know about that?”
Petey took another bite of his sandwich. “Vi told me,” he said.
“Mrs. Vi,” Trisha corrected. This was the South, and in the South, it may as well have been against the law for a youth to address their elder without a proper Mr. or Mrs. salutation.
“She told me to just call her Vi,” Petey said as he chewed. “She said it makes her feel old when I call her Mrs.”
Well, Vi wasn’t exactly young. She was in her late seventies.
Trisha headed to the back counter and started preparing her coffee. She needed it extra strong this morning. She’d slept restlessly last night, thinking about all the things on her to-do list for this week. It was a hefty job for one person, and she was surprised that she was the first property manager ever at the Somerset Rental Cottages. “It’s respectful to use Mrs.,” Trisha told Petey.
“Not if using Mrs. makes her feel old, Mom. I don’t want to hurt Vi’s feelings.”
Trisha flipped the coffeemaker on and turned, leaning against the counter and looking at her son. Maybe she was a bit biased, but he was the sweetest boy in the whole wide world. There was no risk of him coming off as disrespectful. “Okay, but she’s the only adult you can call by just their first name.”
“Okay.” Petey bit into his sandwich again. He chewed and swallowed before talking again. “But it’s illegal, right? To sleep outside naked? He could go to jail like Dad?”
Trisha hesitated a moment before answering. “Remember, we don’t talk about your dad being in prison around other people here. That’s very important.”
Petey looked down at the counter of the kitchen island for a long moment. “I know. But no one else is here right now. You’re the only one who can hear me.”
“I’m just reminding you. We don’t want other kids picking on you the way they did at your last school.”
Petey’s shoulders slumped forward as his chin tipped toward his chest. “What other kids, Mom? I haven’t seen any kids my age here.”
Trisha sighed softly. “It’s summer. Other kids live in Somerset Lake, I promise. And when you start school in the fall, you’ll meet them and make new friends. And to answer your question about Mr. S…”
Petey looked up at her.
“I guess it is a crime,” Trisha said, “but it’s not like Daddy’s.”
“Daddy’s is worse?” Petey asked. “Because he stole money from people?”
Trisha turned back to the coffee maker, which wasn’t brewing fast enough. “That’s right. He hurt people with his actions. But he’s still your dad,” she said, like she always did when the subject came up. Her ex-husband, Peter, was far from perfect. But Petey deserved a father, even if his father had embezzled, lied, and robbed people of their life savings. Petey also deserved to be able to go to school without other kids reminding him of that fact every day.
“Mom?” Petey asked.
Trisha braced herself for another hard question as her coffeepot grumbled to a stop, signaling that her French roast brew was finally done. She reached for a mug from her cabinet. “Yes?” she called behind her.
“There’s a man with a big dog standing at the door.”
* * *
Jake Fletcher waved from where he stood on the porch of Juniper Cottage. The Somerset Rentals were owned by the Fletcher family, but as the last of her generation, his grandmother Vi was the trustee. She handled all aspects of business, including management of the property and the money it brought in, which in recent years wasn’t much.
Jake didn’t think anyone who wasn’t of retirement age stay
ed in these old cottages, but he supposed he was wrong. Where had the beautiful brunette come from? He held up the bracelet that she’d dropped along the lakeshore when she’d poked at Mr. Santorini. Jake’s dog, Bailey, had sniffed the item out and alerted Jake to it once the woman had left. And Jake had to admit that some part of him was relieved because he’d hoped to run into her again. She’d hurried off so fast. He hadn’t even gotten to ask her name.
The woman squinted at him through the glass door, but she didn’t come to answer it. Instead a little boy with a mop head of black hair came running toward him, plastering purplish fingerprints to the glass that Jake guessed was from jelly residue.
The woman finally walked over to peel her son away. Then she opened the door and looked up at him. “Hello.”
Jake was taken aback for just a second, like a teenaged boy being awestruck by a pretty girl. He hadn’t gotten a good look at the color of her eyes on the beach earlier because he’d been wearing sunglasses. Now he saw that the woman’s eyes were a bright brown that matched a small splattering of freckles along the bridge of her nose and cheeks.
Jake cleared his throat and offered the bracelet. It had a silver turtle dangling from one of its links. “Hi again. You dropped this on the shore. Just returning it to you.”
She lowered her gaze to his palm. While she did, he took a second to look at her more closely. She’d obviously just woken up when he’d run into her earlier. Why she’d left her home so quickly, he wasn’t sure. But even with her unbrushed dark hair and pillow creases running diagonal to her high cheekbones, it was plain to see that she was beautiful.
She took the bracelet, her fingers briefly brushing against his skin. Then she looked up at him. “Thank you. I would have missed this bracelet. I never take it off.”
“You’re welcome. Mrs. Jenkins down the way likes to take her metal detector out every now and then. If she would have found that, she’d have added it to her treasure chest.”
The boy’s eyes lit up comically. “She has a treasure chest?”
Jake chuckled as he looked down at him. There was the same purplish jelly at the corner of his mouth. “That’s right. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”