Holly Pointe & Mistletoe : A heartwarming holiday romance

by Cindy Kirk

  His fingers relaxed their hold on the wheel. “No. I wouldn’t.”

  “I hope you know me well enough to know the kind of person I am.” Stella took a deep breath. This was it. The perfect opportunity to tell him. “When I was back in Miami, I was desperate to find a job. I—”

  “That looks like Nate’s truck.” Sam swung the Mercedes behind the pickup on the side of the road. “Give me a minute.”

  After turning on his flashers, Sam pushed his door open.

  Stella saw that there was a woman in the car, but only Nate got out to greet Sam. Minutes later, Nate and Adrianna—one of the baristas from the Busy Bean—were in the back seat and the four were on their way to the ball.

  “What’s wrong with the truck?” Stella twisted in her seat, directing her question to the two in the backseat.

  “Flat.” Nate rolled his eyes. “Second one this month. The last nail ruined the tire, so my spare is already on. I called Charley at the garage, and he’ll come as soon as he can and put on a new one. I figure I can find someone to take us back to the truck after the ball.”

  “Thanks again, Sam, for picking us up.” Adrianna looked older. Maybe it was the low-cut red velvet dress or the way she’d twisted her hair into a stylish knot that made her look older. “I’ve never been to the ball before, and I didn’t want to miss a minute.”

  Stella couldn’t hide her puzzlement. “Why is this your first time? From what I hear, everyone attends.”

  “Because of the alcohol, you have to be twenty-one,” Nate explained. “Adrianna wasn’t old enough last year. And, because it’s a fundraiser, the tickets are pricey. But cost isn’t an issue because I’m a gentleman. I invited her. I paid for the tickets.”

  Stella wondered whether there was a way to make it so that more Holly Pointe citizens could afford to go in the future. She made a mental note to look into various possibilities.

  Adrianna, visibly nervous and excited, talked nonstop the rest of the way to the barn.

  Then Sam pulled into the long driveway, and Adrianna inhaled sharply. “Ohmigoodness.”

  “It’s gorgeous.” When Stella had seen the barns, it had been during the day. But now, with the white Christmas lights strung and shining in the darkness, the sight took her breath away.

  There was valet parking, so Stella and Adrianna didn’t have to walk across the lot in their heels. After turning over his keys and a sizable tip, Sam held out his arm to her.

  “Catch up with you later, man.” Nate clapped him on the back.

  “If you need a ride back to your truck, let me know,” Sam called after him.

  Nate just lifted a hand, then took Adrianna’s arm and kept walking.

  Stella thought fleetingly of the missed opportunity in the car but decided she wouldn’t dwell on that now. Tomorrow was another day. By Christmas, one way or another, she would find a time to tell Sam the truth.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Instead of moving immediately to the dance floor, Sam showed Stella everything that made up the Mistletoe Ball. In a beautifully decorated side room of blue and silver were item after item up for bid in the silent auction.

  There was everything from an autographed copy of a popular author’s first novel to a week in Steamboat Springs complete with ski-lift tickets and airfare.

  Sam smiled as he caught Stella studying a ruby necklace set in an elegant modern design. He put in a bid when she wasn’t looking.

  After leaving the silent auction items behind, they grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, then familiarized themselves with all the food stations.

  “All of this is included in the ticket you purchased?” Stella stared wide-eyed at an artfully displayed mountain of shrimp surrounded by baked crab poppers.

  “Everything is included.” He cupped her elbow as they moved to another station that focused on desserts. “All the food is donated so that one hundred percent of the money raised goes to either cancer research or local health programs.”

  Stella reached for a chocolate-cranberry cluster but pulled her hand back before making contact.

  “Eat later. I want to dance first.” She gazed up at him, long dark lashes framing big brown eyes. “If that’s okay with you.”

  “I’ve been wanting to take you in my arms since the second I saw you.” Sam led her out, away from the food and toward the dance floor. “I don’t know what kind of perfume you’re wearing, but it smells amazing.”

  Her sexy red lips curved as they stepped onto the hardwood floor. He took her hand in his, then pulled her close.

  Sam wasn’t inclined to be fanciful, but tonight felt magical. The lights overhead, the laughter and hum of conversation around them, and the romantic melody drifting in the air. He was acutely aware of the giant mistletoe ball hanging over the center of the dance floor.

  Yet Sam knew it wasn’t any of those things that made this evening magical. He’d been coming to the ball since he’d turned twenty-one and had been old enough to buy a ticket, but the feelings it stirred had never been like this before.

  Stella was the reason.

  His arms tightened around her. Until he’d met her, Sam had scoffed at the idea of love at first sight. When he’d heard stories of guys marrying someone they’d met only six weeks earlier, he’d mentally thought them fools.

  To his way of thinking, it took years to really know someone. Take Lucy and Kevin. They’d been friends and dated for years before falling in love.

  Okay, so maybe his own parents had married quickly and were still happy. They were the exception to the rule.

  But . . . Stella.

  It was as if she was the woman he’d been waiting for his entire life. Now that he’d found her, he wasn’t going to let anything—

  Lucy appeared and jerked Stella from Sam’s arms. Her blue eyes flashed fire.

  “How could you betray us?” Lucy spat the words. “We trusted you.”

  Stella’s eyes widened. She appeared as confused as he was by Lucy’s rant. “What are you talking about?”

  Sam put his hand on Lucy’s arm, aware of the curious stares being cast their way. “Lucy. Calm down. What’s got you so riled?”

  The blonde shoved her phone at Sam. “Read for yourself.”

  “Let’s get off the dance floor.” Without glancing at the phone’s display, Sam took it and ushered the two women to a quiet corner.

  “Read it.” Lucy insisted, tossing her head back and glaring at Stella. “See for yourself what your new girlfriend is really like.”

  Sam lifted the phone and began to read. For a second, he had to pause as a tightness squeezed his chest and his vision blurred.

  “What does it say?” Stella asked, trying to read over his shoulder.

  He ignored her. He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t.

  The words swam before him for a second, but he bore down and forced himself to concentrate. This time he read until he got to the end.

  His hand holding the phone dropped to his side.

  He barely felt Lucy leaning over to pry it from his grasp.

  Sam lifted his gaze to Lucy. “How did you see this?”

  “I have an alert on my phone for anything to do with marriage or weddings in the area so I don’t miss any reviews of my work.” Lucy shifted her gaze to level those now-piercing blue eyes on Stella. “Because of Krista and Dustin, a link to the article popped up.”

  Stella held out her hand. “May I read it?”

  Without a word, Lucy slapped the phone in Stella’s hand.

  “Is everything okay here?” Faith’s worried gaze circled the threesome.

  Sam didn’t answer. He couldn’t. And, even if he were able to find words amid the roaring in his brain, he wasn’t sure what he’d say.

  Stella quickly read the article. She closed her eyes briefly when she reached the end. Lucy snatched back her phone, her expression one of controlled fury.

  By this time, the roar inside Sam’s head had been replaced with a hurt that went bone
deep. But it was the anger that resonated when he finally found his voice. “How could you do it, Stella? How could you betray all of us?”

  “It wasn’t my story. I swear.” Stella held up her hands. “I didn’t write it.”

  Lucy opened her mouth but shut it without speaking when Sam shot her a pointed glance.

  “Your name is on the byline.” Sam jabbed a finger at the phone now resting in Lucy’s hand. “Are you going to deny those are pictures you took?”

  “No, they are my pictures, but I didn’t give Jane permission to run them.”

  “Jane?”

  “The managing editor of the Sun Times.” Stella swallowed convulsively, but her gaze remained firmly fixed on his. “She sent me here to do a story on Holly Pointe. I wanted it to be a heartwarming piece, but Jane was hoping for some dirt.”

  “You gave it to her.” Sam shook her head in disgust. “Kenny. Dustin and Krista. Even Britt. You sold them out for thirty pieces of silver or however much you got for writing this trash.”

  “I didn’t write that article.” Stella took a step toward him, her tone pleading, but Sam held up a hand.

  “Do you deny that you came here to dig up dirt?” His gaze pinned her.

  “I told Jane I would not include anything in the article that I hadn’t fully verified.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Stella blew out a frustrated breath, raking a hand through her hair and dislodging one of the glittery pins. It fell to the floor, but she paid it no mind. “I didn’t write that story. I made private notes, wrote down speculations, but none of those things made it into the article I submitted.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Her cheeks blazed red as if she’d been slapped.

  “You never said a word to me about your real reason for being here.” Sam clenched his jaw as emotion rose to clog his throat. “As close as we got, you never told me.”

  Guilt skittered across her face.

  “I tried to tell you several times, but . . .” She took a deep breath. “Yes, I should have told you.”

  Sam didn’t know what else there was to say. She’d lied and deceived him. It was over. The relationship they’d been building, the one he’d thought would last a lifetime, had been built on lies and deceit.

  Stella pulled her phone from her bag. “Let me pull up the article I sent. You’ll see it’s nothing like—”

  “I don’t need to hear anymore.”

  Hurt and disbelief flashed in her eyes. “You’d condemn me without all the facts? Do I mean so little to you?”

  Sam pushed down the stirrings of sympathy. He’d already played the fool. “I don’t know who you are.”

  “You know who I am.” Anger had her dark eyes turning to obsidian. “You’re just too scared to take a chance. Too scared to put yourself out there.”

  “Don’t turn this one me. You stabbed me—and everyone else in Holly Pointe—in the back.”

  “No. I did not! I’ve told you I didn’t write that article. Jane may have put my name on it, but those are not my words.” Stella drew a shuddering breath and paused as if needing a moment to collect herself.

  Sam looked away, needing a moment himself. When he finally glanced back at her, he saw the slightest shift come over her.

  “Perhaps it’s good this happened. Good that I’m able to see the kind of man you really are.” Stella drew herself up tall. “I don’t want a man who won’t fight for our love. Maybe I’m not that important, or maybe you’re scared you might lose me just like you lost Kevin, so it’s easier to cut your losses now.”

  “You’re talking crazy.”

  “Am I?” A look of profound sadness filled her eyes. “You once told me there wasn’t anything I couldn’t tell you. Now you’re not even willing to give me a chance to show you I’m innocent of betraying you and this town. Tell me, Sam, what am I supposed to think?”

  Sam turned away from Stella then, her words hitting uncomfortably close to home. But he refused to feel guilty when she was the one in the wrong.

  “Don’t worry about taking me home.” Her voice, filled with sudden weariness, still cut like a knife. “I’ll find a ride.”

  With those words and her head held high, she turned and walked out of his life.

  “It’s for the best,” Sam told Lucy when he caught her staring.

  “We could have looked at the article she said she wrote.” Lucy’s tone held a questioning edge. “Just to be sure.”

  “I had all the information I needed.”

  “No. You didn’t.” Lucy ignored his pointed glare. “You reacted emotionally. I did the same. What would have been the harm in looking at the article she said she submitted? You love her, Sam. I saw that in your eyes last night. Why not give her the benefit of the doubt? Gather information, then make your decision.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were siding with Stella.” Sam found he could barely say her name. “And I’ve never been afraid to fight for what’s important.”

  Lucy merely continued to stare at him.

  “But I won’t fight for a woman who betrayed me and those I love.”

  Faith offered Stella a ride home, and they left immediately. Only once they were inside the car and cruising down the highway toward Holly Pointe did Stella let the tears of frustration and anger fall.

  Though Faith asked for no explanation, Stella explained everything, starting with the day Jane called her into the office.

  “I was so excited. I wanted more than anything to get back on staff. When she offered this assignment, it seemed like the answer to my prayers.” Stella clasped her hands together in her lap. “Since my parents’ deaths, the holidays had been hard. I thought, well, this way I would be away from Miami and working. But I stressed to Jane that I wouldn’t put anything in my article I hadn’t fully verified.”

  Faith slowly nodded. “Were you at all concerned she might not accept an article that wasn’t . . . tabloidesque?”

  “That was the reason that when I submitted my article, and she rejected it wanting changes, I told her it was all she was getting from me. When she sent it back with her requested”—Stella made air quotes—“‘changes,’ I realized then, no matter what I sent, unless the truth was sensationalized, it wouldn’t meet her standards.” Stella frowned, thinking of the pictures of Kenny guzzling the bottle of vodka and Dustin and Krista arguing. “I only wish I knew how she got the pictures and my notes.”

  Faith slanted a glance in her direction. “Did you attach them by mistake?”

  “No.” Stella tapped her fingers against her leg. “I was very careful what I sent.”

  “Did you upload them to a shared drive?”

  “They were stored on the newspaper’s secured server. But I had the file set to private, for my eyes only.”

  “That’s it.” Faith softened her tone, as if sensing that Stella would be distressed. “There’s nothing private on a company server. Undoubtedly you signed something when you began working for them that gave them the right to see—and likely use—anything you keyed in or uploaded.”

  Stella froze. Not from the cold—the air inside Faith’s car was toasty warm—but from the realization that she’d been culpable. Her carelessness had played a part in what had occurred. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t intended for this to happen.

  “Oh, Faith. Sam was right. This is really all my fault.”

  As tears threatened, Faith reached over and took her hand.

  The love and acceptance in her friend’s touch had tears slipping down her cheeks.

  How could such a wonderful night have gone so horribly wrong?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The first thing Stella did when she got up on Sunday morning was to check her phone, hoping for a message from Sam. The article had caught him off guard, but she hoped that after a night’s rest, he’d be willing to listen to her side of the story.

  Even if he couldn’t forgive her, she wanted him to know that sh
e hadn’t betrayed him.

  She set down the phone with a heavy sigh. No texts. No emails. No voice mail.

  Stella distracted herself by brewing coffee. She needed the jolt of caffeine before she made the trek downstairs to face Kenny and Norma.

  As Stella watched coffee drip into the cup, tears slipped down her cheeks. Her heart coiled and uncoiled like a snake, squeezing so tightly that she could barely breathe. She’d hurt and lost those she loved. Not because of fate or a drunk driver. This mess was of her own making.

  She closed her eyes against the pain, then opened them and drew a shuddering breath. Sure, she’d screwed up. Big time. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t do whatever possible to try and make amends. Maybe they’d understand and forgive, and maybe not. But Stella wouldn’t let fear keep her from doing what she believed was right.

  If being in Holly Pointe had taught her anything, it was the importance of letting the people you care for know it. Today, she’d let them know it by telling the truth.

  First things first.

  Squaring her shoulders, Stella called Jane. To her surprise, the managing editor answered on the third ring.

  “That was quick,” Jane said in lieu of greeting. “I take it you saw the article.”

  “My file was set to private. Those pictures and notes were for my eyes, not yours.”

  Jane emitted a gusty laugh. “Oh, you are naïve. I have total access to any file on the server. I’ve been monitoring your notes ever since you arrived in that Christmas town.”

  Stella closed her eyes for a second and took a breath. Jane was right. She had been naïve. “I’d determined that those suppositions were unsubstantiated, yet you published the article touting them as if they were fact. You need to print a retraction.”

  “Oh, Stella. You and I both know that isn’t happening.”

  “If you don’t,” Stella spoke slowly and deliberately so there could be no misunderstanding, “I will make sure everyone knows I didn’t write the story and—”

  “Check your contract. We’re within our rights to publish. If you read the article carefully, you’ll see that it’s worded in such a way to render legal action pointless.” Jane’s voice held a sly edge. “Ask Drunk Santa and the others if they want to keep this stirred up or if they’d prefer to let it die a natural death. I believe you’ll find they’ll pick the latter. Now, I have several important matters that need my attention.”