Mistletoe on Main Street (series t/k) Read online

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  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  For Avery Grace, with love.

  Acknowledgments

  I would foremost like to thank my editor, Latoya Smith, for reading this manuscript, finding something special in it, and opening a whole new set of doors to me. I’m eternally grateful to you and the wonderful team at Grand Central Publishing for this amazing opportunity.

  Thank you to my family for their love, support, and encouragement, and for believing in me at times when I’d stopped believing in myself.

  Thank you to my husband for sharing this experience and for celebrating with me along the way. Special thanks to my beautiful daughter, Avery, who inspired the character of Sophie in this book and who keeps the magic of Christmas alive.

  I am fortunate to have shared this journey with my oldest friend and critique partner, writer Natalie Charles. It’s been a long road, and it’s been even more special traveling it together.

  Thank you as well to writer Victoria James, for her ongoing support and generosity. One of the best things to have come from this entire experience has been finding your friendship.

  I am so grateful to all my friends and extended family who have cheered me on and supported me over the years. I’m blessed to have such wonderful people in my life.

  And last but certainly not least, thank you to my readers for making all of this possible.

  CHAPTER

  1

  Pretty as a postcard.

  As much as she wished to deny it, Grace Madison knew that nothing could top Vermont at Christmastime. Drawing to a stop as the snow-dusted road rounded a bend, she stared at the bridge in the near distance, her lips pursed with displeasure. Snow was falling slow and steady, neatly covering the slanted roof in a white blanket. Someone had hung a wreath complete with a red velvet bow just above the arched opening, and icicles gave a natural picot edging to the red-hued truss.

  With a sigh, Grace pressed on the accelerator and drove across the bridge, over the frozen water below, and into her childhood home of Briar Creek. The hand-painted sign to the side of the road welcomed her, boasting of a population the size of her city block in Manhattan.

  Make that her old city block in Manhattan, she corrected herself.

  She continued down the familiar path, turning onto Mountain Road as the sun began to dip over the Green Mountains. Grace flicked on her windshield wipers and fumbled for her headlights, cursing herself for not having learned the way around her rental car when she’d first picked it up. She scrambled with the gadgets around the steering wheel, smiling in grim satisfaction when the warm yellow glow illuminated the vast stretch of road before her. It was times like this when she remembered why she truly did prefer city life. This was the first time she had driven a car in… well, longer than she should probably admit. She and Derek never kept a car in the city—when they needed to go somewhere, they just hailed a cab.

  Derek. No need to think about him now. With thinning lips Grace reached over and snapped off the radio and the depressing reminders of its melodies, but as silence encroached and left her alone with her darkening thoughts she abruptly flipped it back on, desperate to find a station that wasn’t bleating Christmas carols with limited interruption. Surely there must be a talk radio station somewhere. Something that wasn’t a painful reminder of how lonely this Christmas was going to be for her.

  Her windshield wipers were in overdrive, in a vain attempt to keep up with the swiftly falling flurries. Wind swirled the flakes, stirring them up from the road in front of her, blinding her path. She slowed her pace to a near crawl, wrapping her hands tighter around the steering wheel, and squinted through the pellets beating against the windshield.

  Her tires skidded on a patch of ice, causing her heart to drop into her stomach, and she eased off the gas, fumbling for control until the car came to an abrupt stop.

  Grace opened her eyes and looked around. She was staring at a wall of snow as high as the hood of her car. The woods around her were eerily quiet, and the only sound to be heard was the thumping of her own heart.

  She swore under her breath. She not only had to figure a way to get the car on the road again but, unfortunately, she also still had to continue the drive. As if this trip wasn’t bad enough already.

  She checked herself quickly. She was not dead, or even injured, save the pinch mark on her arm where she managed to convince herself she really was still here. The impact had been comically soft, leading to nothing but complete aggravation about a trip that was already stressful enough. The ear-piercing scream she had released as the nose of the car collided with the snow pile had obviously been an overreaction—fortunately, no one was around to hear it. That also meant there was no one around to help, either.

  The snow had turned heavy and wet, so that the flakes no longer flurried in the wind but instead created a dense blanket on the hood of the car. Gritting her teeth, Grace slid the transmission into reverse and gently pressed the gas pedal. When nothing happened, she gave it a little more force, wincing at the sound of her spinning tires. She clenched her hands around the steering wheel, feeling the panic squeeze her chest, and tried again. Nothing.

  Without giving it any thought, Grace whipped off her seat belt and pushed open the car door. The wind howled around her, whipping her long, chestnut-brown hair across her face. The stretch of road before her was depressingly barren. The sun was starting to disappear over the mountains in the distance. It would be dark before long, and this old back road hadn’t seen a plow all day. By nightfall, it wouldn’t even be granted the light from a streetlamp.

  Quickly, Grace walked to the front of the car, pressed her palms against the edge of the hood, and gave it a hard push, grunting at the effort. Four more attempts left her exhausted and upset. It was time to call for help. For not the first time today, she wished that Derek was here. This never would have happened if he had been driving.

  Foolishness! She climbed back into the car, turning up the radio for company as she searched for her cell phone. It wasn’t that she wanted Derek here—after all, they were over. Finished. She’d given back the ring; they had ended on good, if chilly, terms. No, she didn’t want Derek here, not rationally speaking. She just wanted the things that Derek could provide, or at least, once had. Security, stability, safety. Comfort and joy. Good tidings of comfort and—Oh, that blasted Christmas carol!

  Grace flicked off the radio and kept it that way. The last thing she needed right now was to get worked up. She had promised her mother she would arrive in time for dinner, and the last thing she owed anyone in her family was a frown by way of greeting. It would defeat the whole purpose of coming home at all.

  She sighed again as she rummaged through her overstuffed handbag, still in search of her phone. Finding it buried beneath two candy bar wrappers and a receipt for the Christmas gifts tucked into her bags, she scrolled through the list of her family members until she found her youngest sister’s number.

  “Hello?” Jane’s voice was barely audible above the clanking of pots. In the background, Grace could make out her mother’s voice, followed by that of her middle sister, Ann
a. No doubt they were gathered in the warm, cozy kitchen right now, hovering around the big island that anchored the family home, squabbling over which side dish they should make, or who would cover the dessert. She imagined her little niece, Sophie, watching a classic holiday movie or making out her list for Santa.

  Grace hesitated as she considered the gift she had bought Sophie for Christmas. She had no firsthand experience with four-year-olds, and Jane was forever raving about how quickly children changed. The last time Grace had seen her had been in the spring, and the time before that was when Sophie was only a year old when Jane and Adam had visited New York for a long weekend. She had been startled by how different Sophie looked nine months ago, and reminded of how much she had missed by staying away all these years.

  Well, all the more reason to chin up and make this Christmas count. It was time to start making up for lost time. Time to stop wallowing in her own sorrow.

  “Hey there—”

  “Where are you?” Jane hissed through the crackling connection.

  Grace frowned. “What kind of greeting is that?” She considered turning the car around right then and there. She could be back in the city by midnight, tucked into her bed with a bowl of her favorite Thai delivery and one of those feel-good Christmas movies that they played by the dozen this time of year. But then she remembered that she wasn’t exactly feeling the holiday cheer this year. And that she was stuck in a rental car on a snow embankment on one of Briar Creek’s most remote roads. And that she no longer had her own bed or her own apartment to hide in. All of her possessions that weren’t locked in a storage unit in Brooklyn, New York, were crammed into four bags in the trunk of this car. Damn it.

  “Sorry,” Jane said. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just… stressed. You know how it is.”

  Yes, Grace did. This time of year always brought out a hyper, frenzied side to their mother, who would be fretting for weeks in advance over table arrangements and menus, who would stand twenty feet back from the porch and scrutinize the pine garland with narrowed concentration, until her three daughters would shiver with cold, finally rolling their eyes and retreating inside to the warmth of the fire while their father stood patiently awaiting her suggestions, adjusting the garland to her satisfaction with an amused twitch of his lips.

  Kathleen Madison was hailed the “Christmas Queen” of Briar Creek. Their house won the Holiday House contest twelve years in a row, until Kathleen deemed it in poor taste to continue, graciously stepping aside to accept the role of judge. “Let’s give another family a chance,” she had whispered to the girls, suggesting that no one else in town even stood a chance so long as the Madisons were entered.

  A freelance decorator, Kathleen saw Christmas as her biggest opportunity of the year. The interior of the Madison home was always finely detailed with a porcelain Christmas village in the bay window, and an antique train set looping around the spectacular Douglas fir that the family selected together each year at the tree farm. Twice the Madisons’ tree had appeared on the front page of the Briar Creek Gazette. Their annual cards were each laboriously calligraphied by Kathleen’s own hand, and she approached her holiday baking with the rigor typically reserved for army drills. Every neighbor, friend, and teacher looked forward to Kathleen’s homemade gift basket; the annual Christmas bazaar relied on her to deliver. And she always did.

  “Are you still coming?” Jane asked, trepidation dripping from her words.

  “Of course I’m still coming!” Grace squinted through the falling snow, searching for a sign of headlights.

  Seeing nothing, she fell back against the headrest, considering Jane’s insinuation. She couldn’t blame her sister for being skeptical. With the exception of that painful spring morning nine months ago, Grace had managed to stay clear of her hometown and the memories it held. Five years had passed since she’d first left home—not knowing at the time it would be for good—and each year that stretched successfully distanced her further from her past, until eventually her life was tied to New York, not the sleepy New England town. And definitely not to anyone in it.

  “I told you I would be there by dinner,” she added, furrowing her brow through the whiteout. She flicked her windshield wipers a notch higher. It was no use.

  “I just wanted to be sure…” Jane trailed off as the connection began to crackle. “I didn’t know if you had changed your mind at the last minute because of… well, you know.”

  “If you’re referring to the person we shall not name, you have nothing to worry about. I’ve avoided him for years, and I plan to avoid him for the next week, too.” Grace swallowed hard. It could be done. She’d stay at the house, reading books, baking cookies, and trying not to think about the proximity of her first love. Her first heartbreak. Or everything else she had lost recently. “Besides, I’m not even sure why you’re giving this any thought,” she added with more conviction than she felt. “He and I are ancient history.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “If you say so,” Jane said softly.

  Grace bit down on her lip, knowing it would be useless to try to defend herself. Jane knew her too well; Grace couldn’t hide from her. Everyone in the family knew the reason why she had left Briar Creek and stayed away. It was all because of the man whose name they had promised never to say aloud in her presence. The man who could cause Grace’s stomach to twist, her blood to still, and her heart to break all over again, just by mere mention.

  She had changed her mind about this trip at least a dozen times, but in the end she knew there was no way around it. There was no telling what would prevail in Briar Creek while she was here. The wounds it would open. The scars it would sear. Her life was crumbling enough as it was—she couldn’t risk any more upset.

  Things were bleak. She’d managed not to think about it now for, oh—she checked the clock—seventeen minutes. Well, that was two minutes more than the last time she’d stumbled into her darkening thoughts. Her relationship wasn’t the only thing that was over. Her career was rapidly unraveling as well.

  She firmed her mouth. She couldn’t think about any of this right now.

  She slammed her foot on the accelerator, whimpering as the wheels ground deeper into the snow.

  “Well, before you get here there’s something I wanted to talk about—”

  Grace almost managed to laugh. Now was hardly the time to settle in for a long chat. “Can we discuss this later, Jane? I’m sort of stuck in a snowbank here.”

  “What?” Jane’s voice was shrill, and Grace pulled the phone away from her ear, bringing it back in time to hear her sister say, “Should I call the police?”

  “Relax,” she said, giving the pedal everything she had in her. “I’m fine. I just slid off the road and now I can’t get this,” she pressed on the gas once more, knowing it was pointless, but still hoping, “stupid car to move!”

  “But you’re okay?” came Jane’s urgent reply, and Grace instantly regretted worrying her. With everything their family had been through in the past year, she knew all of them were feeling sensitive.

  “Yes, I’m fine. We’ve been talking for minutes, haven’t we?” Grace put the car in park and trained her eye on the rearview mirror. “I just… I need you to come and get me. I’m going to have to call for a tow.” From the distance, Grace thought she detected the sudden glow of a car making its way through the darkness. She perked up, sitting straighter in her seat, watching intently as the headlights grow closer. Sure enough, the SUV slowed and then pulled to a stop in front of her. She bit back a smile as she began gathering her belongings, ready to make a swift getaway.

  “Never mind, Jane,” she said quickly. “Someone just pulled up.”

  “Oh, good,” Jane gushed. “So you’ll be here soon?”

  “I’ll hitch a ride into town, but I might need you to meet me there.” She could wait in her father’s bookstore if need be—the thought of it brightened her. There was one silver lining to coming back to Briar Creek, at least. M
ain Street Books always had a way of making her forget her troubles.

  “Okay. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume you’re on your way.”

  Grace disconnected the call, musing over their casual comfort at the mere notion of hitching a ride with a stranger. She would never consider such a thing elsewhere, if the opportunity was even granted. Things were different in these parts, though. If someone saw a car pulled over in Briar Creek, they’d stop and lend a hand. If the same situation happened in New York, they’d just keep on going.

  A tapping at her window startled her and she quickly crammed empty coffee cups and evidence from an indulgent stop at a fast-food joint somewhere near the Vermont border into their bags. Smiling apologetically, she shifted to face the window, her breath locking in her chest when she saw Luke Hastings’s equally shocked face peering back at her.

  She stared at him, not blinking, clutching a grease-stained paper bag to her heaving chest. This day keeps getting better and better. She had barely skidded past the town line, and she was already running into the one man she had hoped to avoid. Forever.

  The lights from his black Range Rover beamed strong, and Grace noticed with a heaviness in her heart that he hadn’t lost his looks since she’d last seen him. If anything, his features had hardened into something more manly and strong. The fine lines around his dark blue eyes gave him character, and their deep-set intensity gave her the same rush it always had. Damn him.

  Grace held his gaze, knowing she was trapped. She was at his mercy now. He could walk away, refuse to help, drive off and leave her stranded on this unlit mountain road. In a snowstorm. No man would do that, not even Luke. But oh, she bitterly wished he would.

  For not the first time she found miserable irony in the fact that Luke was, and always had been, a gentleman.

  Grace rolled down the window with the press of her finger. “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.