A Heartwarming Christmas: A Boxed Set of Twelve Sweet Holiday Romances Read online

  “I don’t want to – ”

  There was the jagged annoyance she was so used to, the emotion she’d mistaken as affection until she was fourteen, because her biological parents were just like Teddy – weary of Chloe's presence, impatient with her enthusiasm for life. She felt as if she’d been trying to win him – and them – over for years.

  “We have nothing to talk about.” She wasn’t going to rehash what a charity case she’d been as a child, or as a pre-teen, or even as an over-the-moon-in-love teenager. “Thanks for opening the gate.”

  “Wait,” he said before she could turn around. “What are you guys doing with the mill now that Harold’s gone?”

  “The mill is mine and I’m putting it up for sale.” She needed the money to get out of debt. Hopefully someone would buy it and demolish the place, and the memories along with it.

  “I…uh…want…” His gaze dropped to her frozen lips.

  Only because his were probably frozen, too.

  Her heart sighed, intent upon finding other excuses for him to look at her mouth.

  He yanked his gaze up to meet hers. “I want to buy the mill.”

  Chloe took a step back and nearly fell again. She couldn’t sell to Theodore Ulysses Lincoln. He was...They'd been...

  She ran to the house, running away from financial salvation and emotional humiliation. She stumbled up the back steps and into the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.

  Immediately, she was engulfed with the warm smells of the holiday – turkey, pumpkin pie, coffee. Enfolded in the familiar warmth of the cream-colored shaker cabinets and butcher block counters that her mother had loved so much. Enveloped in the comfort of her two sisters, who were both there.

  Mom used to lovingly call them her triplets. Three girls the same age, adopted by aging parents unable to have children of their own. Marnie had come to them first. She had soft brown eyes that saw too much, and enviably straight, dark brown hair. Then it was Chloe’s turn. She’d been plucked from the foster care system in Boston, a child of teen parents. And finally, Noelle had joined them one Christmas, a blond-haired, green-eyed bundle of kindness and determination.

  Mom had passed away three years ago. Dad three months. The Wright triplets found themselves once again without parents, but this time they had each other.

  Marnie didn’t look up from scrubbing the dirty roasting pan in the kitchen sink. “What’s the rush?”

  Sitting in Mom’s place at the kitchen table near the pantry, Noelle glanced up from a cookbook. “Have you been making snow angels?”

  “No.”

  “You have been.” Marnie smiled. “You always loved rolling around in the snow.”

  “She always loved making snow angels with Ted Lincoln,” Noelle said gently. And then she did a double-take. “Is that Ted in the backyard?”

  Chloe laughed somewhat hysterically, keeping her back to the door. Sure, she’d loved him. She’d worshipped him openly until she’d reached high school. And then she’d wrapped herself in pride, and worshipped him from afar. Until prom night her junior year.

  “Where?” Marnie wiped her hands with a dishtowel and peered out the window.

  “It looked like Ted just closed the back gate.” Noelle turned to Chloe while Marnie kept window-watch. “Are you okay?”

  “No.” Despite feeling like a hot boiler about to blow, Chloe forced herself to remove her hat and scarf slowly. “But…that’s like my new normal.” It had nothing to do with Teddy.

  “He’s walking toward the street,” Marnie reported. “He’s so tall I can see his head above the fence.”

  “I smell donuts.” Chloe hung her jacket on a hook and tugged off her boots. “Don’t we have enough food?”

  “I’m sorry.” Noelle spoke softly and from the heart. She was the least likely of the three to lose her temper. “It’s the first holiday without Dad and baking makes me feel better.”

  “Ditto,” Marnie said. “I guess none of us wants to face cleaning out the house.”

  Which is what they’d agreed to do between now and Christmas. Noelle may have inherited the farmhouse, but it was Marnie who’d been living there as the primary caregiver through Dad’s illness. Noelle had suggested they each clean out a room that was important to them. Noelle had chosen the master bedroom, Marnie Mom’s sewing room, and Chloe Dad’s office. And yet, none of them wanted to begin the work.

  The house was as silent as a grave.

  Until there was a knock on the front door.

  Chapter 2

  Expanding the Lincoln family business shouldn’t require groveling, although with so many generations involved in the existence of their apple farm, someone somewhere along the way had probably set aside their pride to keep things from going under.

  It was easier to imagine history was repeating itself than to think Ted was the family martyr.

  He knocked on the front door of the Wright house again, setting his ego firmly aside.

  Chloe’s sister, Marnie, opened the door, staring him down like she would a door-to-door salesman or a groom who’d gotten cold feet. She ran the family’s wedding chapel, Bells Are Ringing, after all.

  Chloe stood in the hallway next to Noelle, glaring. No one looked happy to see him, not even never-a-bad-word Noelle.

  “Happy Thanksgiving, ladies.” He cleared his throat. “Can I come in?”

  From the looks he was getting, he’d swear the siblings were all thinking the same thing: When hell froze over.

  How could three adopted siblings who looked so different – a blond, a brunette, and a redhead; thin, slender, curvy – be so alike in their dislike of him?

  He was afraid he knew the answer to that question. He was afraid it had to do with one night at the mill.

  “Of course. Come inside, Ted.” Noelle gave Marnie a step-out-of-the-way nod. “What’s up?”

  Marnie moved back, and Ted came inside, closing the door behind him, hesitating only a second when no one invited him to sit down on the white sofa with faded green and pink flowers. “I want to buy the grist mill.” No sense wasting time on pleasantries.

  “Great,” Marnie said, looking relieved.

  “Fantastic,” Noelle said, turning to Chloe.

  “Never.” Chloe crossed her arms. Her blue eyes flashed with past hurts and betrayals.

  Oh, Karma. Ted felt morning-after heartbreak take hold of his lungs and squeeze.

  A frown furrowed Marnie’s brow. She glanced at Chloe. “But, don’t you need – ”

  “Not from him.” Chloe cut her sister off with a hand gesture that was nearly a lethal karate chop.

  Chloe needed money? Hope sang like a choir of angels, easing the grip of heartbreak on his lungs.

  “What do you want to do with the mill, Ted?” Noelle had a dusting of flour on the hem of her navy sweater. It looked like the owner of Frosty’s Donut Shop hadn’t taken the day off.

  He was grateful for Noelle’s opening. “I want to expand the family farm. There are more Lincolns about and – ”

  “Gwen needs alimony,” Chloe cut in.

  “ – the property taxes have gone up.” Ted tried to ignore Chloe, tried to smile, tried to pretend this wasn’t worse than the morning after he’d made love to Chloe and had to tell her Gwen was pregnant.

  “More property means more taxes.” Chloe directed her comments to Noelle as if she was having a conversation with her sister, not Ted.

  He nodded. “I’d like to plant disease-resistant apple trees that produce higher yields. The mill’s on at least ten acres and – ”

  “I don’t imagine you’ll get much of a harvest in Year One,” Chloe pointed out.

  “The orchard won’t start producing until Year Four.” Ted nodded, holding on to his patience. “But it’s clear we can’t survive without expansion.”

  “You could survive,” Chloe said, voice loaded with near Gwen-like bitterness. “You could get a job and farm part-time. You could sell off a parcel to developers and buy your parents out. Yo
u could – ”

  “Buy the grist mill and expand,” Ted said firmly. “Our farm is across the river, close enough for me to manage it efficiently. And the loamy soil on this side of the river has better drainage, which means higher mineral content, which means naturally better-tasting apples. Farther away from the river and the soil composition changes.”

  Chloe didn’t argue. Those hopeful angels hummed a soft chorus in his head.

  “And the mill itself?” Noelle asked softly.

  “It has good bones, despite its age. I want to use it to diversify and make processed apple products. Applesauce, apple cider, apple vinegar, frozen fillings, and the like. The possibilities are only limited by our imagination.”

  “You have a vision for the mill?” Was that grudging acceptance in Chloe’s voice? She stared at her white stockinged feet, looking as forlorn as the day he’d met her in line to see Santa.

  “I’m not tearing it down.” He didn’t care if the women heard sentimentality in his voice. It meant something to him, that mill. And not just because it was surrounded by mineral-rich soil. He willed Chloe to look at him. “If the bones of the building are good, we’ll make use of it.”

  Chloe continued staring at her feet. But the objections had stopped. Progress, right? Man, he hoped so.

  Noelle cleared her throat. “I’m sure if you made Chloe a fair offer – ”

  “I’m not selling to him.” Chloe’s chin came back up. “Besides,” she said testily. “He couldn’t afford to buy it.”

  “What were you looking to get out of it?” Ted prepared himself for the "you-slept-with-me price."

  “Two hundred thousand dollars.”

  Holy cow. That was the nasty-divorce price. “You’ve got to be…” Ted laughed, but it sounded more like he was choking. On his pride, most likely.

  “It’s ten acres plus a building you want to use.” There was a confident gleam he’d never seen in Chloe’s eyes before – that of a savvy business woman. “Easy access to the town and the highway. Riverfront property. A real estate developer’s dream.”

  Ted wasn’t a newbie when it came to business. It was time to undercut the property’s value. “The top soil is littered with rocks and needs to be cleared. I don’t know if the building can be salvaged.” No matter how much Ted hoped to save it. “And the land is on a one-hundred year flood plain. If you think a developer is going to want to build homes there, think again.” He looked her in the eye and gave her his hoped-for-price. “I’d be in it for eighty grand.”

  It was Chloe’s turn to laugh.

  “Don’t get hung up on the past,” he warned. “You need money and I’m the only one who’s offered.”

  “So far.” Chloe marched to the front door and swung it open.

  Frigid cold glommed on Ted like he’d been dunked in the river in April.

  Chloe gestured for him to leave. “I was naïve as a child, and gullible as a teen, but I’m not stupid, and you won’t take advantage of me as an adult.”

  “I can go as high as ninety.” He was entering his Discomfort Zone. He’d be pinching pennies for four years, hoping the tractor wouldn’t break down, the barn roof wouldn’t need replacing, and the family would consider toning down Christmas expectations.

  Noelle and Marnie were on board with Ted, nodding their heads, giving Chloe encouraging looks.

  Chloe ignored them and jiggled the door handle. “My asking price stands firm. Come back when you can meet my terms.”

  Which would most likely be never. He’d given Chloe what was close to his final and best offer.

  He regretted that ten years ago he’d been unable to give her his heart.

  ~*~

  “You can’t afford to turn him down,” Marnie said with Dad’s pragmatism.

  “You’re too hard on him,” Noelle said with Mom’s forgiveness.

  They were each like one of their parents. Chloe, the failure, didn’t fit in.

  “You can’t have it both ways, ladies.” Chloe watched Teddy trudge through the drifts and falling snow on the curving drive leading to Chapel Way. His shoulders were hunched as if more than the wind was against him. “Fourteen years ago you both opened my eyes to my humiliation. More than ten years ago you held my hand through heartbreak. Don’t make me go through that again.”

  “Things change.” Noelle came to the window, and put her arm around Chloe’s waist. “People change.”

  “You need the money.” Marnie joined them, laying her head on Chloe’s shoulder. “Let the mill go.”

  “Dad wanted me to have it,” Chloe said stubbornly. “He always talked about creating a business in the mill.” He’d never done anything with it. But now Chloe could. There was nothing keeping her in Boston. She could make Dad proud, if only when she looked at the mill, she could see its potential. But all she saw was Teddy.

  “Dad left us each something valuable to give us a solid financial start,” Marnie said. “He wouldn’t care if any of us sold to chase our dreams.” But she stared at her Tinkerbell slipper socks, as if selling was a family betrayal.

  “If I sell the mill for the right price, I can pay off my debts and have enough to start over.” Teddy’s price was too low, but Chloe was reluctant to share with her sisters just how deep in debt she was. “Let’s face it. I’m at a dead end. I have no dreams, no plan, no future to strive for. I’m a failure.”

  “You’re not,” said Noelle, the family superstar with a thriving donut business. “You bought your first business in college.”

  “A hot dog stand.” Chloe huffed. She’d done anything to attract customers, including juggling and making balloon animals. “That doesn’t count. Half the businesses I bought in the last decade have folded. What is that if not failure?”

  “Practice,” Marnie headed toward the kitchen. “Who wants a turkey sandwich?”

  Failure is just practice for success, Dad used to say.

  “Maybe if you start to go through Dad’s office, you’ll feel better,” Noelle said kindly, before she disappeared down the hall after Marnie. “Make mine with mustard.”

  Chloe didn’t want to do anything in Dad’s office. It smelled like him – cigar smoke and peppermints. She found herself in the office doorway anyway, staring at his large cluttered desk, his framed business awards, his empty, cracked leather chair.

  How many times had she come in here when she stumbled? In need of a lecture or a pep talk? Searching for a reality check or a hug?

  In this room, she’d told Dad her engagement to Randy had fallen apart. They’d been together since college, but Randy claimed Chloe loved the deal more than she did him. In this room, she’d told Dad she was failing college biology, that she’d made the high school soccer team, that no one in her third grade class at school liked her except Marnie.

  She walked to the desk. Past Dad’s Boston College diploma (Business, Cum Laude), Harvard post-graduate diploma (Business, Summa Cum Laude), and the Chamber of Commerce service award (Outstanding Business, 2010).

  Dad was a success.

  Chloe wasn’t.

  The front door opened and closed. Boots dropped to the floor. “Happy Thanksgiving!” Sam Collins called out. He was a local handyman who helped Marnie keep up the chapel, more – Chloe suspected – because he was fond of Marnie than of the chapel. “Where is everybody?”

  Being the closest to the door, Chloe called back, “I’m in the office and the girls are in the kitchen.”

  Sam appeared in the doorway with his trademark mussed brown hair. He was more interested in leveling a porch he was working on than combing his windblown hair mid-day. “Doesn’t feel quite the same without Harold in here, does it?”

  “No.” It felt like someone else’s room. There was no life. No wisdom. Just dust.

  “I heard you could use some money.” At Chloe’s arched brow, Sam raised a hand. “Marnie told me. Just thought you should know that Navajo handwoven tapestry on the wall is probably worth something on eBay.”

  Sell the tapestr
y? She’d counted the red and black stitches when she was sent to time-out in the corner.

  “And that crystal shade pull.” Sam walked over and sent it gently spinning. “When I was repairing the gazebo last summer, I was practically blinded by the reflection it made in the afternoon. I bet someone would snatch it up.”

  Chloe had spun it as a child and made the office sparkle like a daytime disco. The winter sunlight reflected off the crystal now, but Chloe didn't feel like dancing.

  While Sam continued pointing out potential money-makers around the room, Chloe saw things she hadn’t noticed before. The handmade Popsicle frame around Dad’s service plaque. The papier-mâché pencil holder shaped like a blue fish. The three Christmas ties Dad draped from hooks on the wall from the year each girl had given him one. Who knew what other memories were waiting here for Chloe to find?

  “We’re keeping it all.” She needed money, but selling Dad’s knickknacks and her memories wouldn’t make a significant dent in what she owed. If her sisters didn’t want her father’s mementos, she’d take them all. As for money, she’d check around town tomorrow and see if anyone needed Christmas help.

  Sam didn’t argue. He smiled and nodded. “Harold would have liked you to keep his things.”

  Like the mill?

  Chapter 3

  “Apples. Get your apples here,” Ted said half-heartedly on Black Friday. Not that any of the passing shoppers listened.

  From Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve, Christmas Town did the holiday right, and drew locals and tourists alike. Christmas Town was a shopper’s paradise – gift shops, the mercantile, a book store, specialty eats. Every afternoon at three o’clock, Santa arrived at the town square on a sleigh pulled by two massive farm horses. He handed out candy canes while Victorian carolers strolled about. Everything culminated on Christmas Eve with an annual pageant and the rush of young lovers to share a kiss beneath the town square gazebo. Local myth had it that a gazebo kiss foretold a wedding before the end of the new year.