A Second Chance Road Trip for Christmas

by Jackie Lau

  A Second Chance Road Trip for Christmas

  Holidays with the Wongs, Book 2

  Jackie Lau

  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, companies, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Jackie Lau. All Rights Reserved.

  First edition: November 2019

  ISBN: 978-1-989610-07-7

  Editor: Latoya C. Smith, LCS Literary Services

  Cover Design: Flirtation Designs

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Meet Greg & Tasha...

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Jackie Lau

  Meet Greg & Tasha...

  Greg Wong hates when things don’t go according to plan, so he definitely doesn’t appreciate it when his mother insists he drive Tasha Edwards back to Mosquito Bay for the Christmas holidays. He likes peace and quiet when he’s in the car, and that’s the opposite of what he’ll get with Tasha, his high school sweetheart. The first woman he ever loved.

  Not that he has feelings for her now. Of course not. Though while he’s trying not to smile at her laughter and terrible singing, he can’t help noticing how beautiful she is.

  And then his plans veer further off course when a snowstorm forces them to spend the night in an unheated motel room with only one bed...

  Chapter 1

  “I have a special request,” Greg’s mom said.

  Greg Wong sighed and put the nature documentary on mute. He was pretty sure he would not like his mother’s request.

  “What is it?” he asked, clutching the phone to his ear.

  “I want you to drive Tasha Edwards back to Mosquito Bay for the Christmas holidays. You’re getting off work early and leaving Monday afternoon, right?”

  It took Greg a moment to find his voice. “Yes.”

  But he hated it when people changed his plans on him. He loved plans. He made meticulous plans whenever he could.

  “Wonderful!” Mom said. “She’ll meet you at your condo at three, okay?”

  “Why am I driving her home for the holidays?”

  “I met her mother at the grocery store the other day—they had an amazing sale on prime rib, so we’re going to have a roast when you get home on the twenty-third, what do you think? And she mentioned that Tasha’s car had broken down and she hadn’t gotten around to buying a new one yet. Since it’s hard to get to Mosquito Bay without a car and you’re already making the drive from Toronto, I figured, why not?”

  Greg took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Dear God.

  He’d been looking forward to driving back to his hometown alone. His plan was to listen to CBC Radio, enjoy the solitude, and prepare himself for his boisterous family.

  Now it was being snatched away from him.

  Instead, he’d be spending hours in the car with his ex-girlfriend.

  There were no hard feelings between him and Tasha, though. He’d known her since they were children, and she was the first girl he’d ever loved. They’d started dating in high school when they were sixteen and parted on amicable terms when they were in university, after nearly three years of dating.

  God, it had been fifteen years since they’d been together. A lifetime ago.

  He hadn’t thought he’d still be single at thirty-four, but he found the whole dating business difficult and usually spent Saturday nights at home, watching Hockey Night in Canada and working on his model railway, which wasn’t a great way to meet women.

  So when his parents had set him up with a woman at Thanksgiving, Greg—unlike his siblings—hadn’t minded. Lily was nice, but before he’d really gotten to know her, it became apparent that she and his brother Nick had a history, and now they were in a relationship.

  And Greg suspected that the main reason his mother was asking him to drive Tasha home was because she wanted to set them up.

  “Mom, I’m not getting back together with my ex.”

  “Who said anything about that?” Mom said, but she wasn’t fooling him. “I just want you to drive her back for the holidays, nothing more.”

  He grunted.

  There was no good reason to refuse. If Tasha met him at his condo, it wouldn’t be inconvenient for him at all, and her parents’ house was only three blocks from where his own parents lived. I want to listen to CBC Radio in peace wasn’t the sort of excuse that people understood, and if he said no, his mother would keep bugging him about it. She’d call him every few hours until he agreed. When she got an idea in her head, she wouldn’t let go of it.

  Best to just accept it.

  He was driving home for Christmas with his high school sweetheart.

  * * *

  On Monday December 23 at 3:01, Greg was sitting in the lobby of his building, waiting for Tasha. She should have been here sixty-two seconds ago.

  Not that he’d hold being a minute late against anyone, but she’d just sent him a text from Davisville Station, which meant it would take her another twenty minutes to get here.

  Hmph.

  Tasha was usually on time. She wasn’t one of those people who was always running late—like his sister—but she wasn’t as obsessive about time as he was.

  At least, that’s what she’d been like before. He supposed he didn’t really know her anymore. He’d seen her only a handful of times since their break-up—all at get-togethers with mutual friends—and the last time had been five years ago.

  Greg was particularly anxious about the time today. He wanted to get out of the city well before five, not only because of the traffic, but because a snowstorm was supposed to hit later this evening. He wanted to be in Mosquito Bay by then, eating prime rib and listening to his family squabble.

  Except Tasha was screwing up his plans, dammit.

  Finally, at 3:27, she entered the lobby of his building, a big smile on her face. She pulled off her toque, and her braids tumbled about her face, and oh God, what was wrong with him? His heart was beating quickly—had he developed a heart condition?

  No, this fluttering was just what happened when she was around. Apparently his body was still conditioned to respond this way, even though he hadn’t seen her in years.

  She’d been very pretty as a teenager, and she was very pretty now as a woman. She looked different, though. He couldn’t explain exactly how, but she did.

  She grinned even wider when she saw him. “It’s good to see you, Greg.”

  His brain suddenly emptied, and he was unable to do anything but grunt.

  Tasha didn’t seem bothered by his lack of clear speech, however. That wasn’t surprising—she’d always been able to interpret his grunts, even when he wasn’t sure what they meant. It was one of her superpowers.

  “You’re late,” he said gruffly.

  “I’m so sorry. I got tied up at work. I told my boss I was leaving early, but we were trying to finish something up before the holidays and...well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

  Greg had a feeling this was going to be a very long trip.

  He just hoped the traffic and weather co-operated.

  * * *

  Tasha really was sorry about being late. She’d want
ed to get out of the office at a good time, excited about seeing her parents for Christmas, but she took her job very seriously. It was the best one she’d had since she’d graduated.

  As an aerospace engineer, she was used to being surrounded by men, and at her last workplace, she’d felt like she was always left out and passed over for things, but this job was good. She did aerodynamic modeling at a company that specialized in wind tunnel testing for buildings. It wasn’t what she’d initially thought she’d do with her degrees, but she enjoyed it. Though it was a quieter office than she’d prefer—not much chit-chat around the coffeemaker or anything like that—everyone was kind and respected her.

  Greg was an engineer, too. As he took her suitcase, she looked at his right hand and saw the iron ring on his pinky, just like hers.

  She followed him into the elevator and down to the parking garage.

  “Thank you so much for driving me back to Mosquito Bay,” she said.

  He grunted in acknowledgement.

  Well, he really hadn’t changed much, had he?

  Except he’d filled out a bit since he was a teenager. Even in his winter jacket, she could see the difference.

  “I could have taken the train,” she continued, “but it’s a long ways for my parents to go into London to pick me up, and you’re driving to Mosquito Bay anyway, so it’s not like you have to go out of your way. Though if it hadn’t been for me, you’d have left half an hour ago.”

  “Yes.”

  She hurried to match his long strides. “Like I said, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine.”

  He clearly wasn’t happy, but apologizing again wasn’t going to help.

  “Nick lives in Toronto, too, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he’s some kind of hotshot executive.”

  She laughed. “Nick? Really?” Greg’s brother, the one closest in age to them, had been a bit awkward in school.

  “Yeah. And he was quite the playboy, up until a few months ago.”

  She struggled to wrap her mind around that. “What happened a few months ago?”

  “He met a woman. Fell in love. You know.” Greg stopped in front of a red Camry. “Get in. I’ll put your suitcase in the trunk.”

  “My car is a Camry, too!” she said, then sighed, deflated. “Well, it was. It’s gone now. My dad got it for me second-hand after I finished undergrad. Much older than your Camry, but I loved it.”

  He popped open the trunk and gave her a look.

  “Oh, right! I should get inside!” She hurried to the passenger’s seat and sat down. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  He sat down next to her and started the car without a word.

  She had a feeling this was going to be a very long trip.

  Chapter 2

  Greg was in the car with the woman he’d once thought he’d marry, and she was driving him bananas. First she’d been late, and now she was talking. A lot.

  Truth be told, he’d liked that about her before. He’d always found it difficult to string together more than a couple sentences and had admired how easy it was for her. He’d liked how she could keep the conversation going without too much effort on his part, and if he’d wanted, he could always kiss her to make her stop talking.

  But not now. Because he was driving.

  Plus, that wasn’t the way things were between them anymore.

  It had been over a decade and he was totally over Tasha. Of course he was. But since they hadn’t spent any time alone together since breaking up, it was weird to be in his car with her, just the two of them.

  His car.

  When they’d dated, they hadn’t owned cars. They hadn’t had careers. Now, they were proper grown-ups.

  Yeah, this was just plain weird.

  It was a blast from the past, and it felt all wrong.

  “...anyway,” Tasha was saying, “let’s liven things up a little.”

  Those were some of Greg’s least favorite words in the English language, right up there with any phrase involving the word “party.”

  The absolute worst? Surprise parties.

  Greg liked to prepare himself for long periods of forced socialization. He’d had only two days’ notice for this driving-Tasha-back-to-Mosquito-Bay business. It wasn’t enough, and his careful plans to get to his hometown before the snowstorm hit were crumbling. There was already a snowflake on his windshield, even though the snow wasn’t supposed to begin for another hour.

  The radio was telling him about the many traffic problems around the city and warning of the impending storm and—

  Wait a second. Why had “Deck the Halls” started playing in the middle of the forecast?

  “Fa la la la la,” Tasha sang, “la la la la!”

  No. This couldn’t be happening. Where was his beloved CBC Radio One?

  “Come on, Greg!” she said. “Where’s your Christmas spirit?”

  He growled in frustration.

  “‘Tis the season to be jolly...”

  It was impressive, really. She still knew exactly how to push his buttons.

  “Did you pair your phone with my car’s Bluetooth?” he asked in horror. “I need to listen to the traffic report.”

  “No, you don’t. The traffic sucks. You don’t need a report to tell you that.”

  “I have to know which route to take.”

  “I’ve got Google Maps open on my phone. The 401 is still moving, it’s just slow.”

  “If you hadn’t been twenty-seven minutes late, we wouldn’t have hit such heavy traffic.”

  She shrugged. “Don’t worry so much.”

  She was right. He did worry too much at times. But he couldn’t help being afraid that he’d have to spend twice as long in the car with her, and by the time he arrived, the last bite of his mother’s roast would have been eaten.

  That would be terrible.

  Of course, it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. The worst thing, God forbid, was that they couldn’t make it home. Tasha wasn’t thinking about that possibility—she’d always been an optimist—but he was already picturing them dead in a ditch, having slid off the icy road and down a cliff. Not that there were cliffs along any of his planned routes, but still.

  His imagination was running away with itself. Most people probably thought Greg had a terrible imagination, but it was really quite active.

  He took a few deep breaths, but with the noise in the car, it was impossible to calm himself down. The current song was “Holly Jolly Christmas,” which he thought was incredibly stupid.

  The next song was no better: “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Who would willingly listen to every verse of this song?

  His ex-girlfriend, apparently. She was singing along and seemed to be enjoying herself.

  Alas, she didn’t have a good voice. It was unfortunate, given how much she enjoyed singing. She was smart and talented, skilled at many things, but this was not one of them, and her voice hadn’t improved over time. He couldn’t help a fond smile but quickly schooled his features into a frown.

  “Can we please go back to CBC?” he asked.

  “So you’ve become a CBC Radio junkie,” she said. “Isn’t their average listener, like, a sixty-five-year-old white man in a sweater vest?”

  “It’s informative. I learn lots of things by listening to the radio.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “What? I do.”

  Why, the other day he’d heard a fascinating twenty-minute segment about snails on Quirks and Quarks.

  “I shouldn’t be surprised,” she said. “Listening to CBC Radio seems like the sort of thing you’d do. You were always a bit of an old man, even when you were sixteen.”

  He shrugged.

  She didn’t seem to intend it as an insult—Tasha wasn’t a mean-spirited person—and there was lots of truth to it.

  Just wait until she found out about his model railway.

  “I have refined tastes,” he said, lifting his nose in the air for effect.

  She snort-laughed
, and—against his will—his lips twitched.

  They twitched again when she sang about maids a-milking, loud and out of tune. It hurt his eardrums, but it was kind of adorable and—

  No! What was wrong with him? He didn’t like this, not one bit.

  Finally, the horrid song about turtle doves and swans a-swimming was finished, but the next song was even worse.

  “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

  He couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Shut that off,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “What’s wrong, Mr. Grinch?”

  “I don’t like Christmas music.”

  “I seem to recall something to that effect.”

  Dammit, this woman drove him mad.

  “Please?” she said. “You know I love Christmas music. Things have been so busy at work, and I haven’t gotten to listen to it much this year.”

  “Fine. But not this song. Anything but ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You.’”

  All Greg wanted for Christmas was a little peace and quiet and some roast beef.

  Not Tasha.

  She skipped ahead to “Silent Night,” which wasn’t so awful. He still didn’t like it, but it didn’t make him grind his teeth.

  “I remember now,” Tasha said. “Why you hate Christmas music, especially that song.”

  He grunted.

  She touched his shoulder. “I still have the necklace. I don’t wear it anymore, but I never got rid of it.”

  In high school, Greg had worked in the summers—once pollinating corn, and once at the nearby provincial park—but he hadn’t worked much during the school year, aside from a little tutoring.

  Except for December of his final year of high school.

  He’d gotten a seasonal job in Sarnia so he could buy Tasha something nice for Christmas. He’d hated every minute of that retail job. The worst part was that Christmas music was playing all the damn time, and every third song, for whatever reason, had been “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

  He hadn’t minded the song before that. He really hadn’t. But when you were subjected to it every ten minutes during an eight-hour shift...well, it got to you. You started fantasizing about strangling Santa Claus and Rudolph and stuff like that.