I'll Be Home for Christmas Read online

  DEDICATION

  To my niece, Lauren Moeller Downing.

  I am so proud of what a wonderful young woman you’ve become.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Twilight, Texas

  The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club

  The True Love Quilting Club

  The First Love Cookie Club

  The Welcome Home Garden Club

  The Christmas Cookie Chronicles

  Christmas at Twilight

  About the Author

  By Lori Wilde

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.

  —Norman Vincent Peale

  Runaway law student Gabrielle Preston stared out the large plate glass window of Perks coffee shop, watching the bustling holiday activity going on across the street at the Twilight, Texas, town square, and finally took a deep breath.

  Workmen strung Christmas lights on all four corners of the square while teams of town folk decorated themed trees. Angel ornaments on the north side. Pets on the south. Santas on the east. Bells on the west. Performers in Dickensian costumes strolled the sidewalks. Gabi spied Miss Havisham in her shabby wedding dress and one sad shoe. Scrooge hoisted Tiny Tim up on his shoulders. Artful Dodger led a group of soot-faced children as they pulled faux swag from participants’ pockets. Horse-drawn carriages picked up and dropped off visitors. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” poured from outdoor speakers. A light dusting of snow had started to fall, putting smiles on faces and making everything look like a snow globe world.

  Bedford Falls from It’s a Wonderful Life had nothing on this town.

  Twilight was exactly what she was looking for. It was a place where she could hit pause while she reevaluated her life, a place where she could actually breathe, a place where she could experience the sweet, homey kind of Christmas that she and her older brother, Derrick, had always dreamed of having but never did.

  “I made it, Derrick,” she whispered under her breath, and blinked away the tears misting the tips of her eyelashes. “I’m here, and it’s as adorable as we always imagined such a town would be.”

  Momentary sadness washed over her, but she shook it off. Derrick wouldn’t want her to be sad. He would encourage her to seize the moment. Live out the dream they’d dreamed so long ago. Embrace the adventure. Discover the path she was truly meant to be on.

  Her path.

  Her way for once, but in order to do that, she had to change.

  Change.

  That was her buzzword. She was ready—no, eager—to change. Change her life. Change her mind. Change herself. Change everything right down to the color of her nail polish.

  Which was why her fingernails were painted hunter green with red and white candy canes. Grinning, she admired the art. Courage. Her candy cane fingernails represented courage. And Gabi was so certain of her mission that she’d taken a huge leap of faith and simply jumped.

  She exhaled slowly, felt the tension of the last week start to slide off her shoulders as she glanced out the window to watch the Ghost of Christmas Past tap Scrooge on the shoulder. But try as she might to hold on to that serene space, Gabi couldn’t stop her mind from skipping endlessly, worrying thoughts, like fingers on prayer beads, over what she had done.

  Not showing up for her final exams, leaving town without a word to anyone, impulsively making like Cameron Diaz in The Holiday and swapping, not just houses but lives, with a woman she’d met online.

  The good girl gone rogue.

  Hungry for a simpler time and place, Gabi had wanted—correction—she desperately needed to escape the hustle and bustle of LA and find a quaint, quiet place to spend the holidays.

  She’d been brave, yes, but she knew it came with a price. There would be consequences. In order to reach for what you truly wanted, you had to let go of what kept you safe, and in the letting go, you risked falling into the gap between the two places. Right now, she was in metaphorical mid-air, staring down at the chasm below.

  “Here you go,” said the pixie-haired barista whose name tag identified her as Brittany, sliding an oversized latte and a plate of salted mocha fudge cake in front of her. “Enjoy.”

  Sighing with pleasure, Gabi took a bite of rich, moist cake.

  “Oh my gosh!” She moaned, and put a hand to her mouth. “This is better than sex.”

  “As delicious as Maddie’s cakes are,” drawled a deep masculine voice, “if you think cake is better than sex, then you’ve been doin’ something all wrong, darlin’.”

  Gabi startled, banging her knee on the bottom of the table, and darted a gaze over at the man who’d stalked through the door.

  He wore a brown leather jacket, tight-fitting faded Levi’s, and well-worn cowboy boots. He smelled like pine and leather and cool sunshine. He slipped off a pair of aviator sunglasses, stuck them in his jacket pocket, and ran a hand through thick, light brown hair that curled bewitchingly at the collar of his shirt. A roguish dimple punched provocatively into his left cheek darkened by beard stubble.

  Holy habeas corpus! Whatta man!

  Hot. He was hot. She was hot. The room was hot. Hot. Hot. Hot.

  His gaze drilled straight through her and his eyes lit up as if he possessed X-ray vision and could see exactly what she looked like without a stitch of clothing on, and he approved of what he saw.

  She hiccupped. Dammit.

  Whenever she got nervous, she hiccupped. Which was part of what had sunk her in law school.

  Why was she so nervous? He-Man wasn’t nearly as intimidating as a jury or her law professors or, heaven forbid, her parents.

  She didn’t know whether it was his tanned skin, or white straight teeth, or that gorgeous face sculpted with just the right amount of hard ridges and sharp angles, or those eyes the sinful color of fudge cake, or his long-legged, leisurely strut that said the world was his oyster and he knew how to shuck it, but she hiccupped again.

  Whatever it was, she wasn’t accustomed to this intense level of masculine scrutiny and she didn’t know if she should encourage it or not. She wanted to, but she was anxious.

  And whenever she got anxious, out came the hiccups.

  Change.

  Easier said than done.

  In the end, she fell back on instinct. Narrowed her eyes and shot him her best prosecutorial stare. As the daughter of two high-powered Los Angeles defense attorneys, she’d at least perfected the you’re-swimming-in-shark-infested-waters-buddy glare.

  But he wasn’t intimidated.

  Not in the least.

  Fully in control, He-Man deepened the dimple, gave her a wink and a nod, and sauntered off to the counter.

  Who was he?

  Gabi shouldn’t have craned her neck to watch him go, but hey, sometimes biology won out. Darn it. His flipside was as enticing as his fron
t. Her gaze zeroed in on his butt cupped so provocatively by those snug jeans.

  I want.

  I need.

  Dream on.

  And yet wasn’t that what she was doing here? Trying to live out a long-held dream?

  The barista greeted him and he ordered black coffee. A crazy part of her hoped that he’d come sit at the table beside her, but once he’d been served, he wandered out the back door to a courtyard beyond without a backward glance.

  Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

  Good-bye forever, good-looking.

  Resisting the urge to spin around and go back to park his butt in the empty chair beside the tasty woman eating cake, Joe Cheek climbed into his pickup. He barely had time to grab a cup of coffee, much less chat up the stranger who looked like she could use some company.

  And he certainly didn’t need the distraction. He had enough trouble focusing on the tasks at hand. Not to mention that a pretty face had led him astray more times than he could count.

  He’d just come from delivering the Christmas trees he’d donated to a local orphanage and had to hustle back to the farm to relieve his hand, Lee Loper, so that Lee could attend his son’s school play. The entire week had been insanely busy, with no letup until Christmas. Not that he minded hard work, but Joe was accustomed to playing as hard as he worked and there hadn’t been much room for good times lately.

  How had he gotten so out of balance?

  No need to ask. He could trace it back to Gramps’s car accident.

  In August, his spunky eighty-one-year-old grandfather had been T-boned by a teen who’d just gotten his driver’s license. Gramps suffered a broken leg, and Joe had flown home from Florida where he’d been working as a contract welder for a friend of his.

  Gramps had been in good spirits and Joe’s large extended family all planned to pitch in to keep the farm running while Gramps was out of commission, but then his grandfather developed a blood clot that caused a mild stroke and landed him in the rehab hospital.

  Once it became clear that Gramps would not be able to run the farm on his own after his recovery, the family regrouped. The consensus was that everyone had such busy lives that even taking turns to look after the place and the animals, continuing the Christmas tree farming was untenable. Especially with the busy holiday season approaching.

  Joe’s vote to keep farming Christmas trees was the lone dissent.

  Call him sentimental, but he loved the farm. And he loved Christmas. No matter where he was, he went all out with decorating, parties, and upholding family traditions. Some of his most treasured memories centered on helping Gramps with the trees—the smell of pine and soil, the crisp feel of needles, the brisk winter air.

  Christmas tree farming was in his blood. Losing it would be losing part of his childhood. He couldn’t imagine not having that constant in his life. Yes, he was a wanderer at heart, never staying in one place for long, but the Christmas tree farm was his anchor. The place he could always return when life got rough, the place that never changed.

  When he said as much to his family, they’d stared at him and asked if he was ready to make the commitment required to keep the farm going. Without blinking, he’d said yes.

  But now, reality was catching up to him. His thirst for variety was in direct conflict with his love for the farm.

  Just get through this year, he told himself. Gramps was doing well. The doctors were optimistic he’d be out of the hospital in time for Christmas. The old man was tough, a fighter. No one could say for certain that he wouldn’t be able to run the farm again once he was back on his feet.

  Until then, Joe had to keep his mind on his goal.

  He thought of the cake woman again and grunted. He did miss his footloose lifestyle that would have allowed him the time to sidle up to her, flirt, and potentially start up a torrid affair. A muscle in his cheek twitched. Joe scratched his face.

  Concentrate.

  All he had to do was keep his focus on the farm and off enticing women. Easy to say, not so easy to do when he hadn’t had sex in six months.

  While he loved being at the farm, today the old antsy, gotta-get-on-the-road-again feeling was stronger than usual.

  Blame his restlessness on the hot girl with the rockin’ bod. One look at her sweet pink tongue and he’d wanted to invite her to come swing in his playground. It had taken willpower not to ogle those dynamite curves enhanced by that snug-fitting sweater.

  And when they’d made eye contact, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the very spirit of Christmas was sitting in the window at Perks, throwing her warmth and grace all over him.

  The way she held herself, her pert comment about cake and sex, her slight knowing smile told him she was something special and damn if she didn’t make him want to shine.

  But there was more to her than confident shoulders, sassy words, and Mona Lisa lips. In the depth of her soft blue eyes, he’d seen a wistfulness that hinted at deeply buried sorrow and that had given him pause.

  No. It wasn’t her soft sadness that made him hesitate, or his own responsibilities. She was way too girl-next-door, with her I’m-so-easy-to-get-along-with scent and thick, tawny hair. She was a white picket fences and happily-ever-after kind of woman.

  And he wasn’t that guy.

  Been there. Tried it. Failed like hell.

  Driving down the two-lane road, thinking of her and fighting the urge to go back into the coffee shop for a second look, Joe felt a shiver slice down his spine. A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. Simultaneously, a strange ache lodged in the center of his chest.

  Why?

  Pretty woman. Pink tongue. Perfect hair. Sexy.

  Too damn long without sex. That was why. Frig, Cheek. Knock it off.

  Right. He was on that. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a thousand other things to do than chase after a gorgeous hottie with soulful eyes.

  A neighbor honked at him, and waved as he drove past.

  Joe blinked and glanced around, belatedly realizing he’d been so caught up in thinking about the pretty woman that he’d missed the turnoff to a road he traveled every single day.

  Gabi polished off the cake, left a sizable tip, and picked up her purse. Time to find her new digs.

  Excitement quickened her steps as she left the coffee shop and walked down the sidewalk to where she’d parallel-parked Katie Cheek’s silver Camry. Per their arrangement, Gabi had picked the car up at DFW airport, just as Katie was to pick up Gabi’s BMW convertible at LAX.

  Briefly, she closed her eyes, remembering the moment she and Katie—the new friend she’d found on Pinterest from their mutual interests in snow globes and romantic comedies—had decided to switch lives.

  Katie had e-mailed her after being laid off from her information technology job with a government contractor in Fort Worth. The layoff had unfortunately coincided with the one-year anniversary of Katie’s boyfriend’s death.

  It was also two days after Gabi had humiliated herself in law school. She’d already slipped into her annual Christmas funk that started around Thanksgiving, and she was missing Derrick as she always did this time of year.

  She and Katie exchanged phone numbers in e-mail, called each other for the first time, and commiserated on how they wished they could escape their lives for the holidays. Katie, in a bah-humbug mood, wanted out of her hometown that went nuts for Christmas. While Gabi longed for the kind of traditional Christmas celebrations she’d never had growing up.

  “You say that now.” Katie had laughed. “But you have no idea how over-the-top sentimental they get in Twilight, and my family is the worst.”

  “Better than my family who completely ignores Christmas.”

  “Completely?”

  “Well, we give a couple of gifts, and if I’m lucky we might have a meal together, but that’s it. No tree. No lights. No parties. No caroling.”

  “Sounds like heaven.” Katie sighed.

  Gabi had been fresh off binge-watching Christmas movi
es to cheer herself up, including The Holiday, and the idea had popped out of her mouth before she even had a chance to think it through. “What if we swapped places for Christmas?” she asked. “You’re laid off and I dropped out of school. We’re both free.”

  “Why not?” Katie said, her voice growing thick with excitement. “It’s the perfect solution to our doldrums.”

  Why not indeed?

  And that’s how she’d ended up in this quirky little town.

  Gabi opened her eyes, realizing just how impulsively out of character the agreement was. It might have been foolish, but she couldn’t deny she felt wildly free in a way she’d never felt before.

  Plus, she loved being in the midst of A Christmas Carol unfolding around her.

  The snow flurries had stopped, but a dusting of white laced the ground. She buried her hands into her coat pockets and hunched her shoulders against the wind. Katie had warned her that weather in North Texas in December could be quite unpredictable. There might be ice and snow, or it could just as easily be warmer here than in LA, and either weather condition could turn on a dime.

  A cute couple, with their arms wrapped around each other, were peering through the window of a jewelry store. Shopping for an engagement ring? They looked so happy it made Gabi’s heart hurt a little. Would she ever have a love like that?

  Shake it off. No feeling sorry for yourself.

  Maybe she could find a love like that now that she wasn’t consumed with law school 24/7.

  She got inside the car, cranked the heater, and sat for a few minutes warming herself, taking in the Christmas hubbub. Finally, she pulled into the flow of traffic, mindful of the pedestrians packing the streets.

  Programmed with Katie’s address, the GPS guided Gabi away from the town square and down a windy road that circled Lake Twilight. She enjoyed the scenic route as she passed a marina decked out with twinkling Christmas lights. Outside a nearby diner packed with cars, a red neon sign flashed: “Froggy’s: Best Fried Catfish in Texas.” On the other side of the street was a volunteer fire station with an antique fire engine parked out front, a life-sized Santa mannequin behind the wheel. A sign propped against the fire engine said: “Official Toy Drive Drop-Off Site.”