Sweet Christmas Kisses (146 page)

I looked at all of them, not understanding their reaction.

“That’s Dad’s song,” Jim said almost silently by my ear.

Of course.
The song the family had grown so tired of every Christmas season, but that they were afraid to hear this year, because it brought back the raw pain of their loss.

Matthew continued to sing. He was standing near a window. It was full dark outside, but the moon and stars were bright.

Jim knelt next to him. “Hey, pardner. Where’d you learn to sing that?

Matthew blinked and looked at Jim. “The trees.”

“Trees?”

“The trees sing it to me.” He looked around at everyone standing in the Christmas shop in total silence. “When I play with Grampa Harry’s truck, the trees sing. Daisy listens too.”

David was flustered. “You called him Grandpa Harry?”

Matthew looked at him, frowning. Then he turned to look outside again. “My Grampa Harry. In the trees.”

I glanced to Francie’s son, Joseph. He was the only known grandchild, the only person who would have referred to Harry as Grandpa. But Joseph had never been around Matthew until just a little while ago. And nobody here had taught Matthew the song.

“Honey,” said Lillian, “maybe you learned that song at preschool.”

I knew he hadn’t. At preschool they were into the big show stoppers like “Jingle Bells” and “Here Comes Santa Claus.”

There’s no way my four year old could have learned a relatively complicated song like “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” when all the people he spent time with made sure the song was never played.

Unless, like me, you believe what Matthew says.

And unless, like me, you believe that there’s more than a little magic in Serendipity, Indiana. Especially at Christmas.

The End…or is it The Beginning?

Magdalena Scott is a bestselling author of the Ladies of Legend contemporary romance series. She lives in her own fantasy world of Magdalenaville, and spends her time writing stories with small town settings. As a lifelong citizen of small town America, she knows that life in a “burg” is seldom dull—if you’re paying attention. There is mystery, romance, scandal, and the occasional unexplained occurrence. Step into Magdalena’s world and find out what’s hidden just below the surface of those tiny dots you can barely see on the map! 

Small Town Christmas
is the first story in her new series. Learn more about the fictional towns of Serendipity, Indiana and Legend, Tennessee on her website: 
www.magdalenascott.com

Kristin Wallace

Copyright © 2014 by:

Kristin Wallace

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief
quotes used in reviews.

This book built at IndieWrites.com

“You’re on iheartu.com.” 

Since she’d just taken a bite of her turkey-melt sandwich, Noelle Robinson couldn’t answer. All she could do was eye her cousin, Millie, with extreme wariness as she approached their customary booth in the 50s-inspired Old Diner.

Noelle finally managed to swallow; however, she could do nothing to clear away the sudden lump in her throat. She had no idea what iheartu.com was, but somehow knew she wouldn’t like the explanation. Above her head, Bogie and Bacall nodded in agreement.

“What did you say?” Noelle asked.

Millie sank into the booth and snitched a fry off Noelle’s plate.

“I’m eating those,” Noelle protested.

“Don’t worry,” Millie said, twirling the fry in a circle and popping it in her mouth. “Your appetite will disappear in a minute.”

“Fine, what’s going on?”

“My mom put up a dating profile for you on iheartu.com.”

“She what?”

Heads turned, and Noelle realized her shriek had carried through the restaurant.

She hunched her shoulders in an attempt to become invisible and leaned forward.

“Are you serious?”

“You had some winks, several smiles, and a whole bunch of suggestive messages before I made her take it down.”

Noelle studied her cousin’s face, hoping somehow Millie was pulling one of her psych moments. There wasn’t a glimmer of kidding in her eyes now.

“Please tell me you’re joking,” Noelle said.

“Not even I could make up something this good,” Millie said, snatching another fry.

“Good? My family members are trying to buy me a date online. What if someone tried to stalk me?”

Millie wrinkled her nose. “Maybe you’d get some action.”

“Not funny.” Noelle threw a fry at her cousin. “What in the world possessed her to do something so crazy?”

Millie picked up the fry and downed it in one bite. “She’s worried about you. Mom meant well. You’ve been so unhappy since
that day
,” she said, making air quotes with her fingers.

A lead weight lodged in Noelle’s chest.

Here we go again
.

“That day?” Noelle echoed. “Are we reduced to talking about my botched wedding in secret code now? It’s been a year and half. Do you think I’m going to jump off the nearest bridge in a fit of despair after all this time? Lots of people get left at the altar, and they survive.”

“Not in Covington Falls.”

This was unfortunately true. The Covington Falls Main Library housed a book that recorded every important event from the town’s founding right up until the present day. In its 105-year history only four weddings had ended with a jilted bride or groom. Noelle Joy Robinson was the last name on the list. None of the other weddings had been brought to a screeching halt the day of the ceremony, of course. That honor went to her. The closest anyone else had come was in 1973 when Penelope Johnson had high-tailed it to Charleston a week before her wedding to Horace Jasper, the town mortician.

Everyone agreed Penelope had made the smart choice.

Poor Noelle Joy Robinson had been just plain humiliated.

That’s what people had been saying since her non-wedding day.
“Poor girl.” “I don’t know how she holds her head up.” “How does she do it?” “Such a tragedy.”

Yep. Noelle was included in the Hall of Records under 
Prize Idiot
. Forever remembered in history as the bride whose groom ran off with her best friend the morning of the wedding. Talk about a cliché.

Millie’s mischievous smile slipped, and her eyes darkened with compassion. “I know it still hurts.”

Noelle dunked a fry in ketchup until a thick coating of red goop covered the whole thing. Her stomach twisted in a savage knot, and she dropped the fry in disgust. She had lost her appetite, so Millie was right about that, at least.

“It only stings now.”

“Whatever you say,” Millie said, even though her expression said she didn’t believe such a bold pronouncement.

“Actually, I’d be much better if everyone stopped reminding me how sorry I’m supposed to feel for myself,” she said, ripping up her napkin with systematic concentration until the paper had been reduced to shreds. “Or trying to set me up with every Tom, Dick, and Harry in town… and now, apparently, the Internet.”

“It’s not that bad.”

Noelle looked up as someone stopped by the table. She conjured up a welcoming smile as she recognized her third-grade Sunday-school teacher. The tiny, gray-haired woman laid a hand on Noelle’s shoulder.

“How are you holding up, dear?” she asked, faded blue eyes full of concern.

“I’m doing great, Mrs. Burnside,” Noelle said, stretching her smile wide enough to make her cheeks hurt.

“Poor little Noelle. Such a sweet girl and so brave. But you keep the faith. God is going to bring someone very special for you.”

An urge to scream or tear off all her clothes and bolt up the street nearly overtook her. Except such antics would only reinforce the rumor that she was about to take a header off the nearest bridge.

“You see?” Noelle said, gesturing at the retreating back of Mrs. Burnside. “Every day I have to deal with that. I’m going to be Poor Little Noelle for the rest of my life. Broken-hearted, humiliated, pathetic little Noelle. And do you know what day it is?”

“Wednesday?”

“No, it’s the Wednesday before
Thanksgiving
. Christmas is coming, and you know what the holidays are like in my family. With the store, the parade, the pageants, the Christmas Village. It’ll be a solid month of torture. Last year I was still too numb to feel anything, but now I’m like an open sore.”

Millie reached out and squeezed her hand. “Honey, of course it’s going to be rough, but you’ll get through it.”

“I’m tired of getting through it,” Noelle said, tears pricking her eyes, which belied her insistence on being fine. “I want to move on.”

“You will. It just takes time.”

“That’s the thing. The people in this town won’t let me. Every time I turn around, someone is there to remind me and suddenly I’m right back where I started. In the bride’s room reading Doug’s note. If I were smart, I’d hide out under the bed until January and skip Christmas altogether. Maybe skip my whole life.”

The hand squeezed painfully as Millie went into her 
I-know-better-than-you-because-I’m-six-months-older
mode. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve got a great life ahead of you. Just because it won’t be with Doug doesn’t mean you won’t be happy.”

“Easy for you to say.” Noelle turned her cousin’s hand over to reveal the simple gold band and diamond solitaire gracing her ring finger. “You’ve got these now.”

Millie snatched her hand away. “Okay, so Internet dating is a bit much, but there are prospects in town. Andrew said there’s a new doctor at the hospital. He’s single. Works in orthopedics—”

Noelle gasped. “
E tu, Brute?
”

“His name is Kirk,” Millie said, ignoring any outrage.

“No. Just no.”

Millie sighed. “You have to do something, sweetie.”

Noelle looked out the window, onto the street she knew as well as her own name. The ice cream parlor where she and her twin brother used to go for sundaes after school. The grocery store where she and her former best friend had spent hours spying on Jimmy Alred, who’d been a bagger. The very booth where they were sitting now. The family Christmas store, which had inspired her own name and that of her twin brother and older sister. So many memories. So many people who cared. Except now those caring people were smothering her with concern.

“Yeah, I do,” Noelle said, turning her back on the view. “It’s time I did something about my sad, pathetic life.”

****

“You smell like the pile of dirty clothes my son brought home from college this morning.”

Michael Campbell dropped his camping gear on the floor of his office and grinned at his store manager. He was cold, wet, and exhausted, and, yes, he smelled like sweaty socks. However, those things meant he’d spent the last three days leading a nature hike, which he loved. Some people might say an extended stay outdoors a week shy of December was crazy, but they would be wrong.

“Hello to you, too, June,” he said.

His manager sniffed as she counted out the contents of the register. “Look at you. Wandering in here with whiskers tough enough to cut glass and something unspeakable on your shirt, and yet you still look like a walking, men’s magazine cover.”

Michael scrubbed a hand across his jaw, wincing at the feel of his own prickly hide. “Careful, ma’am,” he said, stripping off the offending plaid shirt and tossing it on top of his pack. “If your husband heard you talking like that, he might take a shotgun to me.”

Coins clinked in time with her soft chuckle. “If I didn’t have my Teddy, I’d give you a run for your money, smart mouth.”

If June were about two decades younger, Michael might let her. Or not. If a romance went south, he’d lose his best employee. He considered June the most important woman in his life these days, and he wouldn’t want to jeopardize that relationship. Dedicated employees were more loyal than most family members, even those who pledged to love and honor till death did they part. Or until a better offer came along.

Bitter much, Mikey?

“Well, here’s a bit of news that might teach you not to disappear for days,” June said. “She’s leaving.”

“Who?” he asked as he walked to the sink to splash water on his face.

“Noelle Robinson.”

Michael froze en route. “What? Are you sure?”

“She quit her paralegal job and is all set to take herself off to Atlanta. I also saw a notice on the bulletin board at the grocery store looking for someone to lease her apartment.”

A hollow chunk lodged in Michael’s throat. How could Noelle leave Covington Falls? Why now? She’d survived a year and a half of scrutiny and sympathy. What could have happened to make her run right before Christmas?

“Guess I can’t blame her,” June said. “It must be hard to live here and face all the memories, not to mention the dreams of a shattered future. That poor girl.”