by Ann DeFee
Feel the magic of the holidays in this classic story of reunited love by Ann DeFee, previously published in the anthology The Perfect Tree.
Around Christmas, Honey Campbell is definitely a bit of a Scrooge. And she knows exactly why she can’t jingle her bells and deck her halls—on a cold Christmas Day when she was seventeen, she lost the only man she’s ever loved…and it was all her fault. Her betrayal might be in the past, but her guilt is ruining the present.
When Honey’s invited to spend the holidays skiing in New Hampshire, it seems like the perfect way to avoid Christmas—until she finds herself stranded in a snowstorm. With help from a Santa look-alike, she finds safety at the Magic Tree Farm. But to her surprise, the owner is her ex-husband, Matt De Luca—the man she never stopped loving! Just as surprising, Matt’s now guardian to three kids. The homey environment is everything Honey thought she didn’t need. Can a miracle at Magic Tree Farm help her find forgiveness and rekindle a long-lost love?
One Magic Christmas
Ann DeFee
CONTENTS
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 ONE
Bah humbug!
Fifty weeks out of the year Honoria “Honey” Westfield Campbell was a shoo-in for Miss Congeniality. However, when it came to Christmas she morphed into a Scrooge-arina who would’ve made Dickens proud.
Every year, Honey promised herself she’d jingle her bells and deck her halls, but alas, the season always made her nuts. When the calendar flipped to December a black cloud would appear out of nowhere and wrap her in a malaise that’d last well into January.
Honey didn’t need a therapist to understand what was happening or why; she simply didn’t know what to do about it. On a cold Christmas Day when she was seventeen she’d betrayed the only man she’d ever loved. They’d believed their passion was eternal. But when faced with the wrath of her parents, she’d left him to fend for himself. Honey sometimes wondered what her life would be like if things had turned out differently. It might all be in the past, but guilt, like love, didn’t have a statute of limitations.
Damn, she hated the Christmas blues!
So when her friend and business partner invited her to spend the holidays skiing in New Hampshire, Honey jumped at the chance. Boston wasn’t her favorite place during the holidays.
She’d been on the road for almost an hour when the “William Tell Overture” blared from the depths of her purse. Memo to self: that ring tone has to go.
“Hey, where are you?” The familiar voice belonged to Bitsy Cornforth, her soon-to-be hostess. Bitsy was the business manager of their advertising firm, while Honey was responsible for the graphic arts division. Poor Bitsy had also been Honey’s roommate and confidante when her parents had exiled her to Le Rosey, a Swiss boarding school.
“I’m on my way. Mother called and I couldn’t get off the phone. Darling, Paris is the only place to spend Christmas,” Honey said, mimicking her mother’s Back Bay accent.
“Color me surprised. What did her majesty want?”
Honey chuckled. “She said she called to wish me a Merry Christmas, but I suspect she was trying to make me jealous. When Lucinda Campbell wants to chat, you shut up and listen.”
Bitsy broke into a belly laugh. “You are so right. That woman can monopolize a conversation.” She paused as she spoke to someone in the background before continuing. “So, when should we expect you?”
“I don’t know. I got a late start and the traffic was hideous. Everyone in the city seemed to be heading out for the holidays. I’m making good time now, though.” Honey flipped her wipers to a higher setting. “The snow’s coming down hard, but I hope to be at your house in about two hours. If I get delayed I’ll call.”
“They’re predicting about six inches of new snow, but I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Bitsy assured her.
Honey could hear a party in progress. “See you soon. I can’t wait to get on the slopes.” It had been a long, hard year and she was ready to kick back and relax. A roaring fire and a hot toddy sounded wonderful.
In this case, however, the best-laid plans of mice and Boston yuppies had definitely gone awry. New England winters could be mercurial, but today the forecasters had been spectacularly wrong with their predictions.
When Honey had left Boston there were a few flakes in the air. By the time she hit the New Hampshire border the flurries had turned into a steady snowfall. And now, a little over three hours into the trip, the windshield wipers were beating themselves silly, and they still couldn’t compete with the fury of winter. With all the white stuff pummeling her little BMW, Honey couldn’t see past the end of her hood.
Her heart skipped a beat as she skidded on a patch of glaze ice. This was a freakin’ blizzard. Damn. Damn. Double damn! Her chances of sipping hot buttered rum were slipping into the not-anytime-soon category.
Whap. Whap. Whap. The wipers made a valiant but fruitless effort to keep up. The overwhelming whiteness was as strangely hypnotic and beautiful as it was relentless and deadly. For miles Honey had had her eyes glued to the highway fog line. Now, even that had disappeared under the drifts, and it had been at least an hour since she’d last seen a snowplow. To make matters worse, Honey was afraid she was lost.
If she’d had half a brain, she would’ve stopped at the last village to wait out the storm. But no, when Honey Campbell was on a mission she didn’t let anything get in her way—not even the blizzard of the century—and that was exactly what they were calling this abomination. If she could make it another thirty miles, she’d be snug and cozy in Bitsy’s living room.
Thirty miles.
Thirty short miles.
Who did she think she was kidding?
At the speed she was going, thirty miles would take her two weeks. Then, before Honey could blink an eye, her car did a one-eighty and she ended up facing the opposite direction.
One by one, Honey loosened her white-knuckled fingers from the steering wheel. She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to scream, moan or curse—so she resorted to beating on the dashboard.
“I could use a little help here.” She didn’t expect an answer. Hildegard, her guardian angel and imaginary childhood friend, never said a word, but she’d gotten Honey out of more than one scrape.
As usual, the response was silence. So what to do? There wasn’t a house for miles, Honey’s cell wasn’t working and even the devil was too smart to be out in this blizzard.
Get a grip, girl! So a little bad weather wasn’t going to get the best of a Campbell. Her family had come across the Atlantic on the Mayflower and signing up for that voyage took the guts of a river-boat gambler. She’d find a way out of this or die trying. And die was not the operative word.
Tap, tap, tap. “Aaaah!” Honey screeched. Someone, or something, was knocking on the window. Should she or shouldn’t she open it? That was a no-brainer; she needed any help she could get. Honey hit the electric-window button and found herself nose-to-nose with a grizzled old man wearing a red down jacket and black leather chaps. Had Santa joined a biker gang?
“Hey there, little lady.” He rubbed his scraggly white beard. “Looks like you’re in a spot of trouble.”
No kidding! “Yes, sir, I am. If you could get me to the Ironstone Condominiums near North Conway, or to civilization of any kind, I’d be forever grateful.”
He chuckled. “I’m sure you w
ould be. Put on your woollies and follow me.” He indicated a snowmobile decorated in twinkle lights with a ribbon-bedecked wreath on the front.
Where had that come from?
“Were you driving behind me?” Honey asked. He didn’t answer so she continued. “I’m Honey Campbell.” She extended her hand.
“Glad to meet you. You can call me Pete,” her newest best friend said with a wink. “I know a fellow who lives a couple of miles down yonder. Grab your smallest bag and we’ll strap it on the back of Jenny,” he said, patting the side of the snowmobile. “Yep, he’ll be glad to help a pretty little thing like you,” he muttered as he helped Honey onto the back of the big machine. “Real glad.”
What did he mean by that? Scenes from every B-grade horror movie Honey had ever seen flitted through her brain—shades of Freddy Krueger and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Unfortunately, the drifts on the highway were at least two feet deep. So it was either freeze to death in her Beemer or meet her Maker on the back of a wannabe Harley without wheels. In that case the Arctic Cat won hands down.
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” she asked, seconds before they rocketed off. Her question was drowned out by the low growl of the engine.
Twenty very cold minutes later, Honey spotted a sprawling farmhouse. With its wraparound porch, glittery lights and huge evergreen wreath, it could easily have been the setting for a Norman Rockwell Christmas card.
“This place is beautiful. Almost too pretty to be real,” she said, not sure whether Pete could hear her.
Obviously he had. “It’s right lovely,” he said, pulling close to the front porch.
“Run up and bang on the door. Bang loud. He might be in the back,” he instructed, handing Honey her duffel bag before making shooing motions with his hands.
He didn’t have to tell her twice. Her designer boots and coat were not made for this sub-zero weather. Not to mention the fact that her buns were freezing. Honey lifted the heavy brass knocker and beat a tattoo that would wake the dead. Hurry up, guy!
It took a second rat-a-tat before the door was flung open, revealing an absolutely gorgeous man.
Oh. My. God!
It was Matt De Luca—her first love. The one she’d pledged to be with forever. The person she’d abandoned at the first sign of trouble. The man she’d never been able to forget.
This was the ultimate good news/bad news scenario. The good news was that Matt was even better-looking than he’d been at seventeen. The really, really bad news was that he had every reason to hate her—with an undying passion. It didn’t take ten seconds for his astonishment to turn into a ferocious scowl, and that didn’t bode well for her current situation.
What was the probability of running into her ex-husband in the middle of a New England blizzard? Any Las Vegas bookmaker worth his salt could tell you those were astronomical odds.
CHAPTER TWO
“What the…” Matt’s first thought was he’d had one too many snickerdoodles. Obviously, it didn’t take illicit drugs for him to conjure up a hallucination of epic proportions. Honey Campbell had haunted his dreams for more years than he wanted to count, and here she was—in the flesh. Matt closed his eyes and counted to ten, positive that when he opened them all he’d see was snow, snow and more snow.
No such luck. “I’ll be damned if it isn’t Honoria Campbell,” he mumbled. Even half-frozen, she still had that “hands-off” aura of a Back Bay debutante. In high school, he’d been in awe of her delicate blond beauty.
Looking back, Matt knew he’d been a naive jerk. Everyone had warned him, but had he listened? No way. A typical teenager, he thought he knew everything.
Some lessons were meant to be learned the hard way, and Honey’s old man had been a master educator. Guys who grew up over a grocery story in the North End didn’t marry Daddy’s little princess—at least not without major repercussions.
“Talk about an ill wind,” he muttered, attempting to slam the door, but she was too quick. Before Matt knew what hit him, his unexpected guest executed an NFL-worthy tackle, landing them on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.
Matt’s gut reaction when he saw his ex-wife had been white-hot rage. Half a second later that anger was surpassed by lust. Whoa, boy! The last time he’d gone down that path he’d ended up in the county jail—no place for a teenage kid to spend Christmas.
To be totally honest, what he’d felt for Honey back then hadn’t been lust, it had been love. And, much as it galled him to admit it, he’d probably feel like that right up to the day he died. But that didn’t mean he’d ever be that vulnerable again. Another broken heart was not on his horizon.
HONEY COULDN’T BELIEVE SHE’D knocked him over. But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize Matt had been about to slam the door. And no way in hell was she willing to sit on the porch and freeze-dry her patootie.
“Funny, I don’t remember you wanting to be on top,” he quipped.
That did it—his sexy smile wasn’t all that great. Here she was, in trouble up to her eyebrows, and he was being smartass. The last time she’d seen Matt, her father had been blustering about having him arrested on a statutory rape charge. He’d followed through with his threat to have their marriage annulled.
Suddenly she became aware that Matt’s hand was resting on her hip. “Stop that,” she said, accomplishing the dual task of swatting him and getting to her knees. Not an easy feat when every bone in her body had turned to Jell-O. He moved his hand but gave her the look he’d used in high school—the one that had captivated her heart.
“And stop staring at me,” she demanded. He had the nerve to laugh. Astonished though she was at seeing her ex, she appreciated the irony of the situation, if not his response to it. She used to think about him all the time, wondering where he was and what he was doing.
Then several years back her curiosity finally got the best of her. That’s when she’d done a Google search and discovered that Matt De Luca owned an art gallery on Newbury Street. For a couple of months she had wandered by it so often she felt like a stalker. One time she’d even seen him through the window, but all things considered, she couldn’t work up enough courage to go in. Looking back, Honey knew she’d missed an opportunity.
“Okay,” Matt said, rising to his feet and offering her a hand up. “I guess I’m stuck with you. Let’s close the door. Then you can fill me in on what’s happening. I’m dying to find out how you managed to stumble across the Magic Tree Farm in the middle of a nor’ easter. If you haven’t noticed, we live south of nowhere.”
Honey brushed the snow off her coat. Matt’s bland expression made it impossible to tell what he was thinking.
“I’m sorry, I’ll clean that up.” She indicated the water puddle on the floor.
“Not to worry. Give me your jacket. I’ll hang it up.”
“Oh, okay.” Honey took off her hat and shook out her hair. “When my car got stuck on the highway an old guy on a snowmobile rescued me.” She glanced at the door. “I thought he was coming in.”
“Someone brought you here?” Matt asked, peering out the side window. “I can’t see anything out there. But in that whiteout I’m not surprised. What did he look like?”
“Um, sort of like Santa Claus with a little bit of Hell’s Angel thrown in.”
“That’s quite a combination.”
Honey laughed, somewhat embarrassed. “His snowmobile was all decked out with a wreath and twinkle lights. Add that to his red coat and white beard, and voilà—I made the leap to Santa. The Hell’s Angel part was courtesy of his chaps and do-rag.” Honey realized her story sounded a bit far-fetched but that was exactly the way it happened.
“I don’t know who that could have been, but it doesn’t matter.” Matt took another look out the window. “I’m sure he’s well on his way home. Come on in and get warm. We have a lot to talk about.”
Matt led her through the house to an inviting great room. A huge Christmas tree dominated one corner
while a wood-burning stove provided another focal point. It was rustic, colonial and charming, and it contained all the paraphernalia of a family—toys, dolls, an Xbox and a golden retriever. The dog jumped to her feet, her tail wagging so hard her entire body wiggled.
“Her name is Sweet Pea. She’ll love you to death if you let her,” Matt said, calling the pooch to his side. Sweet Pea gave Honey one last adoring gaze before slowly following her master’s command.
“Why don’t you have a seat while I make us some coffee?” he said, busying himself at the kitchen island.
Matt appeared to be as nervous as Honey felt—and why not? This situation was not only surreal, it was also incredibly uncomfortable. From the look of things, he had a wife, a passel of kids and a dog. Poor guy, how was he going to explain an old sweetheart showing up in the middle of a blizzard?
Sitting wasn’t an option when she was feeling sorry for herself—fidgeting was more her style. So what was her problem? Was it longing for what should have been? Or was she jealous of what he had with someone else?
Sometimes you had to pull up your big-girl knickers and act like an adult, although stalling did hold a certain appeal. Honey wandered over to the woodstove to warm her backside.
“I think we should clear the air.” She paused, waiting for Matt to agree. Instead, he simply handed her a cup of coffee and sat down. That should have put her off, but she knew they had to have this conversation. “We didn’t part on good terms and I should’ve contacted you after all that—” she waved a hand in the air “—stuff with Father and the police, but I was young and scared. Before I could get my head on straight, I was in Europe and I didn’t have access to a phone. The head mistress was a bit stodgy about students making calls to the U.S. Anyway, I thought about writing you, but I chickened out.”
“Yeah, well, I was in jail,” he said, folding his hands behind his head.
“Oh, no!”
Matt grinned at her outburst. “Don’t worry. My family bailed me out, so I wasn’t in the slammer very long. My dad hocked everything he had to get me a good lawyer. I ended up doing five hundred hours of community service. I also had to promise I’d never contact you again. I wonder if this little visit counts.”