A Cliché Christmas
Read A Cliché Christmas Online
Authors: Nicole Deese
Nicole Deese
Letting Go Series
All For Anna
All She Wanted
All Who Dream
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 Nicole Deese
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Waterfall Press, Grand Haven, MI
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Waterfall Press are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477826171
ISBN-10: 1477826173
Cover design by Kerri Resnick
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014942338
To my friends and family in Oregon. No matter where I land, my home will always be with you.
C
ONTENTS
C
HAPTER
O
NE
I
glared at the incessant blinking of my cursor and groaned.
Eleven months of the year, I lived in a perpetual state of holly-jolly fanfare. But by the time the first of November rolled around, I was completely Christmased out. I know I sound like a Scrooge to admit such a travesty, but believe me, when you build a career on Christmas cheer and holiday hype, the warm fuzzies of nostalgia fade faster than Hollywood’s latest scandal.
When I wrote my first Christmas pageant at nineteen, I had no idea I was actually sealing my fate. But seven years, a few dozen screenplays, and three Hallmark movies later, Christmas had become exactly that. My destiny.
Ironically, December was my only month off. And I took full advantage of those blessed four weeks, which magically buoyed me for another year of fa-la-la-la-la-ing.
Since I had moved to LA seven years ago, my Nan—short for both Nancy and Nana—and I had traveled to a new tropical destination each year, enjoying sunshine instead of snow, and hulas instead of caroling. Last Christmas it was a two-week Caribbean cruise, but this year our nontraditional holiday extravaganza would be a remote getaway in the Hawaiian Islands.
Clicking out of my latest work in progress, entitled
Noelle’s First Noel
, I navigated through my newest temptation to procrastinate, a travel website that flung me into a cyclone of palm trees, sandy beaches, fruity drinks, and—
My phone did the cha-cha across my desk.
Nan.
Today was Tuesday—volunteer day at the senior center. She never called on Tuesdays.
An alarming icy-hot sensation crawled up my throat. I grabbed my cell. “Nan?”
“Georgia! I’m so glad you answered.”
The balloon of air I was holding inside my chest released. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine, darlin’. But I did just hear some distressing news.”
“Is it Mom?” The muscles across my shoulders tightened.
“No, I just spoke to her yesterday. She, Brad, and the twins are all doing fine.” In true Nan fashion, she threw an extra dollop of happy onto her last phrase, as if that were all it took to rewrite history. “You know my little piano student I brag to you about all the time—Savannah?”
“Yeah, sure.” My mini panic attack subsided. I clicked on another picture of a Hawaiian bungalow wrapped in the warm glow of a setting sun.
“She was just diagnosed with leukemia.”
I stopped clicking. “Oh, Nan. That’s awful. How old is she again?”
“Only five. And her mother is a widow—I’ve grown very close to them.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Well, yes, actuall
y . . .
I was hoping you’d ask.” Her voice climbed twelve stories. “I need you to come home for the holidays.”
And I fell twelve stories. An image hit my mental screen. Me, in my Hello-Kitty jammies, splayed on a busy sidewalk, broken and bloody.
“
What
? What are you talking about, Nan? I’ve already booked our vacation.”
“I am coordinating a holiday fundraiser for Savannah’s medical bills.”
I pinched my eyes shut and tried to ignore the tantalizing sound of crashing waves that seemed to lap against my eardrums in perfect time with my pulse. A part of me wanted to throw a tantrum—as fading images of tiki torches and spit-roasted pigs danced across my vision—but who could dismiss a child with cancer?
Scrooge, maybe. But not me.
“But, Na
n . . .
I really miss you.” The emotion inside my throat threatened to unclog.
“And that is precisely why you are going to come to
me
this year. I’ve worked out everything.”
“Does
everything
include a place for me to sleep?”
“Eddy will help me fix up your old room.”
“You mean the world’s smallest library?”
Nan had turned my old closet of a bedroom into a storage space for all her books after I moved to California. I’d seen some pictures. If Eddy and Nan managed to organize the toppling stacks around the bed, the feat was nothing short of miraculous.
“Now, don’t you get sassy with me, Little Miss Hollywood. Your homecoming will be perfect. And it would be the best Christmas present you could give your old granny.”
“First of all, no one would dare call you old—at least not to your face. And second, you don’t believe in Christmas gifts.”
“Say you’ll come home, Georgia.
Please.
You never know when it could be my last year.”
The dying granny card has officially been played.
“Oh, Nan. Stop it. You’re probably in better health than I am.” The only good thing in Lenox, Oregon, was my Nan, and I could have her anyplace else. The list of pros and cons knocking against my skull was ten miles long. “Maybe . . . um, I could
. . .
”
Fly her to LA in the spring?
Nan let out a squeal, as if my incomplete answer had timed-out. I felt like a contestant on
Jeopardy!
who got buzzed. “Ooh, I’m so excited! We’ll have so much fun together. Why don’t you head up for Thanksgiving and just stay on through Christmas.”
“Wait, I didn’t say—”
“Perfect, perfect, perfect. Everyone will be thrilled you’re coming home. It’s been, what? Seven years? It’s time I get to show off my celebrity granddaughter. I’m putting you on the calendar now. In red Sharpie.”
“Nan—”
“I just got off the phone with Savannah’s mom. I told her I could get you here.”
My chest felt like Nan’s pressure cooker about to explode. I slumped against the back of my chair.
“You did say you wanted to help Savannah, right?”
My patience was a thin wire—one on which Nan was turning pirouettes like an overeager ballerina. “Why do I need to be in Lenox to help a little girl with cancer?”
“Because I put you in charge of our biggest fund-raiser. The Christmas pageant. Now, I gotta run, darlin’. See you in a few weeks!” The screen on my phone went black.
Face in palm, I sighed the sigh synonymous with defeat. I’d just been bamboozled by my seventy-year-old Nan.
Two days before Thanksgiving I loaded up my convertible. My roommate and best friend, Cara, stood in her yoga wear watching me drag a giant suitcase down the stairs of our apartment building. Some best friend she was at zero dark thirty.
“You’ll really be gone a month?”
I squinted in the dim light of the parking lot. “Yes, and thank
you
so much for helping me.”
My suitcase refused to be squished into the trunk with the other bags so I shoved it into the backseat. Cara walked around to the driver’s side door and rubbed her arms with her perfectly manicured hands.
“It’s so chilly this morning.”
“Cara, it’s sixty-four degrees. It is
not
cold.”
“Well, it’s cold to me. I didn’t grow up in some lumberjack town in the hills of Oregon.”
“You mean mountains.” It was a discussion we’d had at least a dozen times.
“Same thing.” She gripped my shoulders with her bony fingers. “Now, give me a hug. I’m gonna miss you!”
Hugging Cara was like embracing a fence post. She was tiny but solid. Owning a popular yoga studio does that to a body—or at least that’s what I imagined it does to a body. I had no personal experience.
Planting myself into the front seat, I plugged in my iPhone and scrolled through my apps. It was going to be a very long thirteen hours.
“Maybe you’ll meet some hot guy while you’re home.”
“There hasn’t been a hot guy in Lenox since—” I snapped my lips shut. No, I wouldn’t think of
him
. “Well, it’s been a long time.”
Cara whipped her silky blond ponytail over her right shoulder, a mischievous gleam flickering in her eyes. “A lot could have changed.”
“Not nearly enough. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Drive safe!”
I pulled out of the apartment complex a minute later and headed for the closest coffee drive-thru. Since it was LA, that meant the next corner.
Someone really ought to invent the gallon-size insulated travel mug
. I had checked the weather multiple times over the last few days. Even though the forecast still called for clear skies, I couldn’t shake the unsettled nerves in my gut when I thought of driving over the pass. The roads could still be icy.
How had I let Nan talk me into this trip?
For the millionth time that morning, I thought about the sunsets, sandals, and surf that I was trading in for slush, snow, and scarves. I picked up my phone and tapped the “Play” icon on my screen.
At least Mary Higgins Clark would keep me company on my long trip home.
I hoped that if I kept my stops to a minimum, I could get over the pass before nightfall. But as the sun dipped below the horizon, I rounded yet another slushy corner. Over the next ten miles, the thermometer in my car alerted me to temperature drops. The wind chill hovered just below freezing.
Nan’s house was still an hour or so away. I yawned and cracked the window, and a blast of frigid air raked icy fingers through my hair.
I focused on a blinking sign up ahead.
It read “Chains Required from This Point On.”
My stomach scraped against the floorboards. “No, no, no!”
I had chains with me for emergencies, but putting them on after sunset when I hadn’t messed with them in almost seven years was not going to be fun.
Pulling off to the side of the road and switching my hazard lights on, I took a shaky breath.
Hello, roadside nightmare. Nice to meet you.
And in this nightmare two things would happen before I wrangled the chains onto my tires: one, frostbite, and two, hypothermia. The order was irrelevant.
I trudged through the dirty slush to my trunk, pushed several pieces of luggage around, grabbed the clunky chain bag. I felt like I was playing some sort of twisted real-life game of Tetris. I finally located the bag and gave a hearty tug on the handle, only it snagged on a suitcase. I tugged hard—hard—harder. And with one final yank, I was catapulted to the soggy ground. Dirty, slushy snow soaked into the seat of my jeans quicker than I could curse.
I stood and kicked the chain bag toward a tire. Headlights illuminated the paved shoulder, blinding me. I couldn’t see the car or the driver. Shading my eyes with my forearm, I imagined that I was in one of those gruesome horror movies: deserted highways, masked men, chainsaws.
Is this going to be my end, God? Really? I would have liked something a bit more original.
“You need help?”
He didn’t sound like a murderer, but what did I know?
“U
m . . .
”
Mary Higgins Clark would know what to do. Although
my
reaction time mimicked that of a blind tortoise.
“You need help with your chains?” The stranger’s voice was deep. Not danger-deep. Dreamy-deep.
I backed up, bumping against my open trunk, wondering what I could grab to use as a weapon if needed. Of course, being able to
see
my murderer would be priority numero uno.
“I, u
h . . .
”
