I'll Be Home for Christmas Page 9

  Finally, she spoke. “Do you really want to know why I dropped out of law school?”

  “If you want to tell me.”

  “It was because of my first mock trial.”

  “A mock trial? What’s that?”

  “It’s a fictional case that instructors set up for law students to sharpen their skills on.”

  “So if you flub up it’s not a big deal.”

  “Except,” she said, “my parents are well-known criminal defense attorneys.”

  “Are they famous like the O.J. Simpson lawyers?”

  “Yes,” she said, and listed off several high-profile cases that had been in the news.

  “Wow. Your mother is Felicity Hester, and your dad is Gilbert Preston?”

  “So you can see I’ve got gigantic shoes to fill.”

  He looked at her with fresh eyes, both impressed and daunted by her pedigree. He’d already figured out she was special, but learning who her parents were confirmed that she was completely out of his league. He should pack his dimple away and get back across the road, but he couldn’t seem to make himself wrap up the conversation.

  “The mock trial centered on a DUI hit and run case, and during it, I started hiccupping and couldn’t stop. My instructor thought I was making fun of the trial.”

  “Ouch.”

  “It was humiliating and just the last straw on the camel’s back. You’re right. I’m terrible at keeping secrets and telling lies. But I’m really good at following the rules, like pursuing the career my parents told me to pursue. Normally. Usually.”

  “Except you dropped out of law school.”

  She bobbed her head in a poignant movement that twisted something tight in his chest. “This is the first time in my life I’ve ever struck out on my own.”

  “The first time? Ever?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a little old for teenage rebellion.”

  “Better late than never. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.” The rhythm of her speech was as conflicted as her words, rising and falling and rising again. “But I just feel guilty for being selfish.”

  “You shouldn’t feel guilty.”

  “I don’t know how to stop. I’m so used to doing what everyone wants me to do, it’s like the real me got lost along the way.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.” Her voice and her gaze toughened.

  He raised both palms. He understood that. He hated pity too. “Okay. What do you want?”

  She laughed a dry, brittle laugh. “If I knew that for sure then I wouldn’t be standing in a chicken pen in Twilight, Texas, with a gorgeous guy I barely know.”

  He studied her, watched her rise to the occasion, straightening her spine, tucking in her chin. “Looks to me like there’s only one solution.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “You can’t ask me for the answer.”

  “No?” She sounded wistful, and the look on her face did something weird to him.

  He shook his head, wishing he had the power to give her everything her heart desired, but he’d learned you couldn’t live someone else’s vision for your life, at least not for long. Hadn’t he tried his best to make his marriage work? Twisting himself inside out to please Tatum. In the end, people had to make their own hard choices and live with the consequences. But on the other side of those choices and consequences, it was possible to find yourself and your place in the world. He had done it. Gabi could too, just as long as she listened to her heart.

  “Sorry,” he said softly. “You gotta figure it out for yourself.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Now, the essence, the very spirit of Christmas is that we first make believe a thing is so, and lo, it presently turns out to be so.

  —Stephen Leacock

  If she hadn’t started talking about law school, Gabi was almost certain that Joe would have kissed her again. She’d wanted him to kiss her again. So why had she started blathering on about law school?

  Um, maybe because she was afraid of what his kiss would unleash inside her?

  Instead of kissing her, he’d taken her out to the pasture to feed Katie’s cow. A Holstein, she’d learned, by the name of Delilah. When she’d asked him to show her how to milk Delilah, he chuckled. “Trouble,” he’d said, his voice coming out plush as velvet. “Delilah hasn’t been bred yet. She can’t give milk until she’s had a calf.”

  The way he said “bred” caused her body to do crazy things. Like heat up in all the wrong—or maybe it was right—places.

  Joe left a little after seven, when someone showed up in front of his house to buy a Christmas tree.

  Gabi watched him go with mixed feelings, part of her relieved, but another part of her was disappointed. How did you go about figuring out what you truly wanted when you were torn in two opposing directions? Striking out on her own was tough. It was so much easier sitting back and going along for the ride. Which was precisely why she had made the break. If she kept taking the path of least resistance, one day too much time would have passed and she’d be unable to make that U-turn and start fresh.

  This was it. Her chance to hit life’s reset button and get a cosmic do-over. Not easy for a peace-loving girl who’d grown up among fiery personalities, but she was trying.

  Her mother, Felicity Hester, who kept her maiden name, had been an acclaimed attorney in her own right long before she married Gilbert Preston. Her mother had strong opinions about everything and expected her daughter to share her views. She drank Glenlivet neat and ate her steaks rare. Whenever she won a case, she’d get out her red Maserati and drive the Pacific Coast Highway up to Santa Barbara with the top down, smoking thin black clove cigarettes and blasting AC/DC on her mp3 player. Felicity Hester never attended a PTA meeting, baked cookies or took Gabi to Disneyland. “Anyone can be common,” she was fond of saying. “But it takes courage to be extraordinary.”

  Gabi seemed to have been born without the extraordinary gene.

  Her father was just as colorful. Before heading off to Harvard at age seventeen, he’d sailed the globe solo, nonstop. He liked Rolexes and Cuban cigars and Russian wolfhounds and gambling at Caesars Palace. He took his coffee black, his stocks volatile, his vacations exotic, and his losses in court like Mike Tyson on steroids. Not that he lost often, but when he did, he would storm through the house glowering, viciously slamming doors and threatening, “I’m going to bite someone’s ear off.”

  As a kid, Gabi would slap both hands over her ears and scurry to hide out in her room until the storm was over.

  Her parents were more than just movers and shakers. They were individual earthquakes who had joined forces, stirring up seismic vibrations wherever they went. They commanded attention and if not always accolades, at least respect. Wherever they went they were the best dressed, the best read, the best at getting their way.

  Gabi was simply the one who cleaned up after the tremors stopped. Sometimes, she felt as if she should carry a Dustbuster and Super Glue around with her.

  What had happened to her genetic code to make her so different from her parents? She loved soft pastels and floral prints and shabby chic and bargain hunting at flea markets, which frankly horrified Felicity. She loved nothing more than curling up with a good book, a cup of tea, and her Siamese cat, Mu-Shu.

  Her parents’ only great loss had been Derrick. Her brother had been the family’s unifying factor, but once he was gone, it was almost as if her parents forgot she was there. They grieved his death by throwing themselves even more ferociously into their work.

  Often, the only time she got to see them was if she woke in the middle of the night and toddled to their room to crawl into their bed. They’d give her a cuddle and a kiss and then call the live-in nanny to come take her back to her room. Once in a while, they’d throw a party and trot her out like a cute accessory. Guests oohed and aahed over what a “good girl” she was. The more the guests fussed over her, the more ap
proval she got from her parents. Being good became synonymous with doing what Felicity and Gilbert wanted her to do. Besides, her folks were such accomplished fighters that she could never win an argument. Why even try?

  And truthfully, she hadn’t really noticed that her wants were brushed aside in service to her parents’ agendas. In her child’s mind all she wanted to do was ease their pain of losing Derrick by following the career path he’d never gotten to pursue. He’d wanted to be a lawyer just like them, and so she did too. Gabi knew her purpose and her place and she’d told herself she was happy.

  That is until the mock trial, when the hiccupping fit hit her hard and she realized that not only did she not want to be a lawyer, but that she simply could not do it. She had to be her authentic self or forever be an anemic imitation of Derrick.

  The moment had been both terrifying and liberating. She could be anything she wanted to be. The world was her proverbial oyster and all she had to do was explore the possibilities. She could dig around in her long-hidden desires, and try out a few to see which was the best fit.

  And part of that exploration meant assuming Katie Cheek’s life, at least for the next three weeks.

  It was fun. Trying on someone else’s life for size. Today, that included getting involved as a volunteer on the toy drive.

  Jittery with excitement, Gabi drove to the town square where she was scheduled to meet the organizer of this year’s toy drive, Katie’s aunt, Belinda Murphey.

  In her nervousness, she arrived too early for the meeting, so she found a place to park, got a to-go coffee from Perks, and wandered around the town square still sleeping in on this Saturday morning. From historical marker plaques on the buildings, she learned the entire town square was in the National Register of Historic Places. The square had been built in the late 1800s and it still retained the Wild West appeal. The three-story courthouse was constructed of limestone in the elegant style of French Second Empire. While she sipped her coffee, she walked from corner to corner, admiring the four themed Christmas trees up close and all the accompanying yard ornaments positioned about the lawn.

  People waved as they strolled past, calling out “Good morning” and “How are you today,” as if they knew her.

  The smell of fresh-baked yeast breads emanated from the Twilight Bakery. The sun glistened off the Christmas lights on the buildings, making everything look magical. A warm, toasty happiness stole over her, and Gabi couldn’t help grinning.

  She window-shopped at stores not yet open for business—Ye Olde Book Nook bookstore, the Funny Farm restaurant, Jesse’s Motorcycle Shop, a tiny but charming boutique called the Teal Peacock. Then she veered off the square to an adorable park with wooden footbridges, quaint fountains, and gazebos all decked out for the holidays.

  Near one of the fountains, she spotted an ancient pecan tree jutting tall into the sky. A white picket fence encircled the trunk, and beside it was a wooden sign that read: “Do Not Deface the Sweetheart Tree.” Hundreds of names had been carved into the bark. Miraculously, the old tree was still alive.

  She stepped closer, reading the names. “Jon loves Rebekka” was etched into the heart of the tree and weathered with age. “Jesse loves Flynn.” She wondered if this was the same Jesse who owned the motorcycle shop. “Earl + Raylene” and “Hondo & Patsy.” Gabi craned her neck, went up on tiptoes to read more. “Sarah Loves Travis 4 Ever” and “Sam and Trixie Lynn” were here.

  Gabi traced a fingertip over the cavalcade of names, reciting them out loud.

  All that love. All that daring. All that passion. She sighed, half happy, half sad. Would anyone ever love her enough to carve her name into a forbidden tree?

  When she came across the inscription “Joe’s heart belongs to Tatum 4ever,” a sudden twinge of something dark flicked through her.

  Seriously? She was jealous? For crying out loud. Joe was a common name. The chances of this being Joe Cheek were slim. And what if it was Joe? He’d once loved this Tatum person enough to dig her name into the tree. Obviously, things hadn’t worked out since he was no longer with this Tatum person.

  But come on, it wasn’t as if she had any claim on Joe anyway.

  He kissed her. And in service to curing her hiccups. No big deal. He’d brought her a flashlight in the dark. He’d made her a fire. They’d line danced, and fed chickens together. That did not a romance make.

  Okay, yes, it had been an amazing kiss, but so what? She would be gone in less than three weeks, and considering Katie’s warning, it wasn’t like there could be anything between them besides hot sex.

  Yeah? What’s wrong with hot sex?

  The clock on the courthouse struck nine, reminding Gabi where she was and why she was here. Quickly, she found her way back to the square and located the address Katie had given her. The Sweetest Match was located in a second-story loft above a wine store called Fruit of the Vine.

  A round-faced, middle-aged woman wearing a thick sweater decorated with reindeer, sidled over to her. The woman smelled of chocolate chip cookies and lavender, wore her hair trimmed short in an efficient style, and had a perpetual smile on her face.

  “You must be Gabrielle,” she exclaimed and wrapped Gabi in an overwhelming hug. “I’m Katie’s aunt Belinda. We’re so happy to have you with us.”

  Gabi didn’t see any “us,” but she rolled with it.

  “Come on upstairs.” Belinda Murphey unlocked the door and motioned her inside. Christmas bells jingled merrily overhead.

  They climbed the stairs to the open loft. The walls were painted pastel pink and lined with framed photographs of couples. Pink Berber carpet covered the floor. A large, red “Sweetest Match” sign took up one wall.

  Gabi paused, letting her eyes adjust. “Um … what kind of business do you run?”

  “Oh.” Belinda giggled. “I guess Katie didn’t tell you that I’m a professional matchmaker.” She waved at the photographs on the wall. “These are all people I’ve successfully matched. I used to specialize in reuniting people with their long-lost love, but Facebook kinda killed that.”

  “Online dating too.”

  “Not really. Online dating is such a mixed bag. When people are really ready to settle down, they want quality and that’s what I provide.” Belinda beamed. “If you’re ever in the market for a top-notch mate, keep me in mind.”

  Gabi didn’t know how to answer that, so she said, “What made you specialize in reuniting people with their lost loves?”

  “It was my marketing angle when I first put out my shingle after my Harvey got laid off from Delta Airlines. Being a mom is my real full-time job. Besides, this is Sweetheart Town. It was a natural fit.”

  “Um … okay.”

  “Katie didn’t tell you about the sweetheart legend either?” Belinda clicked her tongue as if her niece had been terribly remiss.

  “No. We didn’t want to color each other’s perception with too much detail about our lives,” Gabi explained. “We wanted the adventure of surprise.”

  Belinda’s eyes twinkled. “Well, I think swapping places is such a clever idea and very romantic. Brave too. Just like in that Christmas movie. And who knows? Maybe you’ll both find your true loves this holiday season. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “Spoken like a true matchmaker,” Gabi said.

  “Guilty as charged.” Belinda giggled again, and put a palm to her mouth. “Anyway, back to the sweetheart legend. Our entire town is based on it.” Belinda plunked down on a white couch covered with a hand-knitted pink and red afghan, and patted the cushion beside her. “Have a seat.”

  Wishing she and Katie had shared a bit more details of their lives with each other before making the switch, Gabi sat down. “So about this legend …”

  Belinda leaned in, her voice rushed and eager as if she couldn’t wait to lure Gabi in. “Back during the Civil War, two young sweethearts from Missouri were torn asunder by their allegiance to opposing sides. Rebekka Nash was a Southern belle and Jon Grant joined the Union Army.”
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  “That’s a serious obstacle to happily-ever-after.”

  “Ah, but true love conquers all. The story didn’t end there. Although they lost track of each other after the war, Jon and Rebekka loved each other so much neither of them married. Unbeknownst to one another, they’d both moved to Texas. In fact, Rebekka had heard rumors that Jon died in the war.”

  “It was odd back in that time period to never marry.”

  “Exactly.” Belinda pressed plump palms against each kneecap. “Their love was special and they knew it. One day, Rebekka went down to the Brazos River at twilight to check her trotlines. She looked across the water and saw Jon watering his horse.”

  “That must have been something of a shock.”

  “Yes, but a pleasant one to be sure. They recognized each other instantly. The town sits on the exact spot where they met and it was named Twilight to honor that lovely fated meeting on the water.” Belinda sighed dreamily, wrapped her hands around her knees, and fell back against the couch.

  What a romantic legend. Once upon a time, she used to gobble up romantic novels when she was a teenager. Until her mother had found her stash and thrown the books away, telling her they’d rot her mind. Gee, Mom, what was so mind-rotting about people falling in love?

  “I saw Jon and Rebekka’s names on the Sweetheart Tree in the park,” Gabi said.

  Belinda sat back up, revived from her romantic swoon. “Did you see the Sweetheart Fountain?”

  “I saw several fountains. Not sure which one was the Sweetheart Fountain.”

  “You would have known it if you saw it. It’s a statue of Jon and Rebekka hugging, with a plaque telling their story. Twilightites believe that if you throw a penny into the fountain and make a wish for love, you’ll be reunited with your childhood sweetheart. It’s happened to many people in town. Include me and Harvey.” Belinda heaved another dreamy sigh. “There’s no love like that first love, wouldn’t you agree?”