A Very Merry Christmas Gift (Winter Kisses Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Silent Night

  Kathryn Kelly

  Contents

  Foreword

  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

  Foreword

  This is the revised first draft of a novel that I began about 10 years ago.

  Chapter One

  Tabitha Black stood up and stretched, then tugged the sleeves of her sweatshirt down over her hands to combat the growing chill in the old building. She was exhausted. But the result was twofold: she was pulling her weight and she was keeping her mind busy. Looking around at the open crates of merchandise, the contents of each box carefully inventoried and marked with prices, she sighed with a sense of accomplishment even though she knew there was a long way to go. Putting the merchandise on the shelves was going to be an equally tedious project.

  She walked to the front part of the store where her Aunt Allie was draping dark gray velvet ribbon on the Christmas tree. She was surrounded by glass and silver ornaments, from glittery balls to pewter magnolia flowers. Aunt Allie looked up and grinned at her. “Are you still at it?” she asked. “I thought you went on up to bed.”

  “No, but I’ve almost finished the inventory.”

  “Well, for goodness sakes,” Aunt Allie said as she glanced at her watch. “I closed up two hours ago and here we are still working.”

  Tabitha smiled to herself. Aunt Allie had lived in Colorado for most her adult life, but her southern roots ran deep.

  The little shop had closed at seven today but starting in two days, the day after Thanksgiving, they would be staying open until nine. The traffic would pick up then, both foot and car, and they would need all their stock on the shelves.

  “I don’t mind,” Tabitha assured her. “I like keeping busy.”

  Aunt Allie studied her above the glasses perched on the tip of her nose. Tabitha willed herself not to squirm. The older woman looked like a grandmother, but her mind was sharp as a tack. And she was one of the kindest and most generous people Tabitha had ever met. “I suppose you do,” Aunt Allie said. “Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to go on up and get ready for bed. I can finish decorating this tree tomorrow.”

  Going on impulse, Tabitha went over and put her arms around her mother’s sister.

  “What’s this now?” Aunt Allie asked, hugging her back, “Don’t you worry. You’re in a safe place now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tabitha said, a little caught off guard by the tears that welled behind her eyelids. At thirty-two, it had been a long time since she’d had to ask anyone for help, but it had taken only one phone call to secure a safe haven here in the little mountain town of Estes Park.

  “Meow,” interjected Lucy, Aunt Allie’s snowshoe cat, wrapping herself around their ankles as though she, too, wanted to be part of the hug. Lucy roamed the shop when she wasn’t upstairs sleeping in one of the beds. There were a couple of customers who swore they came in just to visit with Lucy.

  Laughing, they pulled away, the serious moment broken.

  “I’m going stay up a while longer,” Tabitha said as Aunt Allie double checked to make sure the front door was locked and the blinds tightly closed.

  Aunt Allie’s book and coffee shop, The Book Nook, smelled of an intoxicating mixture of book dust and coffee. Customers were welcome to have a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, curl up in the large comfy chairs and read a book from the shelves. Of course, they usually ended up buying whatever it was they were reading, which was the whole point.

  There were also plenty of gifts and souvenirs scattered around for them to purchase - mugs and whatnot, especially now at the holiday season. After tomorrow, there would be a whole lot more whatnot to choose from.

  Aunt Allie had seemed relieved to have Tabitha there to help out when she’d shown up on her doorstep last Sunday and had even insisted on paying Tabitha for her help. Tabitha had just been grateful to have a place to escape to. They had yet to agree on whether or not Tabitha would be paid.

  Tabitha went back to the storeroom to do a little straightening up before leaving her project for the night. She was just about to head up the stairs to the apartment area of the building when she heard a man’s voice outside the back door. She froze. Listening. Though she could hear his voice, she couldn’t make out the words. The voice was unfamiliar. Inching to the back door, she peeked outside as she checked the lock. There was a man standing with his back to her, his cell phone pressed against his ear.

  She breathed an audible sigh of relief. She was jumpy. No denying that.

  The man laughed and she smiled a little. He sounded friendly enough.

  Clicking off his phone, he went inside the neighbor’s back door. There had been a time, not so long ago, when she might have looked forward to meeting her aunt’s neighbors. But not at this point in her life.

  She double-checked the door lock before going upstairs. The shop, located on Main Street, Estes Park, Colorado, was unique and historic, a least one hundred years old. The floors along with the walls were made up of sturdy old timbers that had weathered the ravages of time, including at least two floods. The building, one of many in a row, was three to four times deeper than it was wide – sort of like a really long hallway. The store part was up front near the street and the back opened into a shared courtyard. Also, at the back of the store, was a stairwell leading upstairs to a full apartment area.

  Downtown consisted of rows of such shops all connected together, with occasional breaks for side streets. Over the years, some walls had been knocked out to give some owners more space. Other’s, like Aunt Allie’s, maintained their original size, despite the closeness of neighbors. Tabitha supposed that when the town was first designed, this gave each owner a little bit of street exposure while being large enough to hold inventory.

  Aunt Allie’s upstairs apartment had three bedrooms, two baths, a full kitchen, and a living area. It was small, but laid out in such a way that it didn’t feel crowded. In fact, a few years ago, Aunt Allie had knocked
out a wall allowing the kitchen to flow into the living area. She’d also added a curved nook off the kitchen for a breakfast area. The nook had taken up half of her back deck, but the deck was rarely used. The window nook was almost completely glass allowing an uninterrupted view of the snow topped mountains in the distance.

  Tabitha went to her bedroom, got into her flannel pajamas, and climbed under her down comforter. It was cold. And according to the Weather Channel, it was going to get colder - unseasonably so - over the next couple of days.

  The next morning, she woke to the smell of fresh coffee brewing. As had quickly become her routine, she jumped into the shower, blow dried her long hair that her color stylist in Boulder called mocha latte with caramel highlights. Tabitha smiled whenever she thought about it. She found it funny having a hair color named after her favorite coffee. She smeared on some light foundation. Since it was Thanksgiving and she was feeling a bit festive, she put some sparkly brown eye shadow on her lids and added some black eyeliner and mascara to highlight her green eyes. To complete the effect, she smeared some clear lip gloss over her pink lips. Make-up wasn’t popular out here in the west, but like her aunt, Tabitha had southern roots that ran deep.

  Dressed and ready for the day, she made her way down the hall to where Aunt Allie would be scrambling eggs and frying bacon. She would have fresh made biscuits coming out of the oven. Tabitha considered the breakfasts alone payment enough for anything she did to help out around the store.

  Halfway down the hallway, she stopped. And listened. It was that laugh.

  It was him.

  Her mind circled around. How could the man she’d heard talking on his cell phone before she went up to bed last night be standing in her aunt’s kitchen first thing this morning?

  She stopped in the doorway to watch the interaction. The man not only had a nice laugh, but he was pleasant to look at. He looked to be about mid-thirties. A good age for men, she mused.

  Then he turned and looked at her, his eyes smiling into hers. He was clean-shaven, but appeared to have skipped shaving today. He had that boy next door with an edge look. He had a nice smile. But it was his eyes that had her heart skipping a beat.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” she echoed.

  “Oh, good,” Aunt Allie, said turning away from the stove. “Tabitha, this is Adam Patton, from next door. Adam, this is my niece, Tabitha.”

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” he said.

  Thanksgiving. Right. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Adam brought over some fresh-squeezed orange juice.”

  Obviously knowing his way around Aunt Allie’s kitchen, Adam took a glass from the cabinet, filled it with orange juice and handed it to her. His fingers brushed hers as she took it from him, and she flinched, but then grasped the glass to keep from dropping it. Had he noticed?

  “Sorry about that,” he said. Obviously, he had noticed.

  “It’s okay. It was my fault.”

  “Adam, pull up a chair and have breakfast with us,” Aunt Allie said, putting the finishing touches on an omelet.

  “Thanks, Aunt Allie,” he said, “but my mother will kill me if I’m late for Thanksgiving brunch.” He glanced at his watch. “I should get going. I’ll stop in later. Nice to meet you, Tabitha,” he said, with a wide grin, as he left leaving behind a whiff of male cologne that had Tabitha watching after him.

  Pulling her attention back, Tabitha sat down at the kitchen table. “Where did he come from?” she asked. Her heart was beating a little fast. But not in a panic attack kind of fast.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mention him, did I?” she asked, putting a plate heaped with an omelet, bacon, and toast in front of Tabitha. “He has a shop next door, mostly things for guys like fishing tackle and such. In fact, he ties his own fishing flies. He sells to people all over the country. Has an Internet site, which we should look into. Anyway, he comes over quite a bit to help out with things and such. He replaced one of those old electric plugs downstairs so he helps out and keeps me company.”

  “What about your ladies group?”

  “Oh, they’re fine for lunches and things. Sometimes it’s just nice to have a man around,” She beamed at Tabitha. “And a good looking one, too.”

  Tabitha took a bite of bacon as she considered this. She usually grabbed a breakfast bar on her way out the door as she headed to work. Between the breakfast and Adam’s cologne, she was in sensory overload. Her aunt was right, though. Adam was, indeed, good looking. “How does his wife feel about him spending all that time over here with an older woman?” she asked, teasing her aunt a little.

  Aunt Allie giggled, as she sat next to Tabitha. “He’s not married. And never has been.”

  “Is he gay?”

  “Oh, Heavens, no,” she took a bite of eggs, considered. “At least I don’t think so. No,” she decided. “He used to date that little Cosby girl from over at Longmont. I’m not sure what happened, but it was a bad breakup. I don’t think he’s dated seriously ever since.”

  “Hmm,” Tabitha said, as her aunt moved on to the next topic leaving many unanswered questions about this mysterious neighbor. Aunt Allie wanted to put some things into storage to have more room for Tabitha. Her aunt had been using the two guestrooms as overflow closets, but with Tabitha’s help, she had cleared out one of the bedrooms, at least enough for Tabitha to have plenty of space. Tabitha had already assured her at least three times that she wasn’t worried about the clutter.

  Besides, in less than six weeks, she would be going home to her condo. She mentally ticked off her calendar. Drive back to Boulder after New Year’s, return to work January 8 – five days after her court date. January 3 was a date seared into her brain. In six weeks, she would be divorced.

  With it being Thanksgiving, they didn’t open the shop that day, but instead, spent it getting things ready for the big day tomorrow - the day after Thanksgiving. They put up sale signs here and there to entice people to go after the good deals.

  “If you really want to start a web site,” Tabitha told her at one point as they took a break and went upstairs to the kitchen to make an apple and cranberry pie. “I can do that for you.”

  “Really? You know how to do that?”

  “I’m pretty sure I can figure it out.”

  Aunt Allie clasped her hands together in front of her. “Oh, that would be so wonderful. I’ll pay you extra for that.”

  “Aunt Allie, I wish you wouldn’t pay me for anything. I’m just grateful to have a place to stay for awhile.”

  “Are you kidding? You are truly a gem. I just have to figure out how to keep you here.”

  Tabitha smiled. As much as she liked it here at her aunt’s, her life was back at University of Colorado.

  “Are you sure your department chair won’t let you stay a few more months? Maybe through the spring semester?”

  “Ha.” Tabitha switched from peeling green apples to slicing them into little chunks. “He went above and beyond by letting me finish out this semester teaching online. He made me promise to be back for spring semester.

  “You never said,” Aunt Allie begin pressing dough into a pie shell. “Does he know about your… situation?”

  Tabitha swept a wisp of hair from her cheek with her wrist. “He knows about Bobby, alright. It was after Bobby showed up in my classroom that he actually asked if there was anywhere I could go for awhile.”

  Tabitha rinsed the apples and laid them on paper towels to dry as the familiar range of emotions swept through her. Anger. Sadness. Disappointment. She had made a good career for herself teaching American history at the University of Colorado.

  “Well, I’m thankful you thought of me.”

  Tabitha took a deep breath, glanced at Aunt Allie with a smile. “It gave me a good excuse to visit you. It’s been too long. Besides, you live at the Gateway to the Rocky Mountains.”

  “We do have the best views,” Aunt Allie agreed.

  Tabitha heard the pride in her aunt’s v
oice. “That is something pretty amazing.” Tabitha put the apples in a bowl, added a teaspoon of cinnamon, two tablespoons of flour, a dash of nutmeg, and a sprinkle of sugar. Aunt Allie handed her the crust lined with half a dozen thin pats of butter. Tabitha poured the apple mixture into the crust, then added a heaping cup of cranberries.

  Aunt Allie put some more pats of butter on the top, then crisscrossed strips of crust across the top of the pie.

  After putting the pie in the oven, they were cleaning up the kitchen when someone knocked at the back door. Tabitha dropped the plate she was holding and little pieces of glass scattered over the floor. Her heart racing, she apologized profusely, on the verge of tears.

  “It’ll just be Adam,” Aunt Allie told her, her voice calm. “I’ll go outside and stall him a few minutes while you get yourself together.”

  “I’m ok. I’ll clean this mess up,” she said again. “I am so sorry I broke a plate.”

  “It’s okay,” Aunt Allie assured her. “It can happen to anyone.”

  Tabitha locked Lucy in one of the bedrooms so she wouldn’t get glass in her paws and cleaned up the glass. She was just putting away the broom when she heard Adam and Aunt Allie coming inside.

  “Where’s Lucy?” Adam asked. “I brought her a present.”

  “I’ll get her,” Tabitha said, rushing to the bedroom. She barely had the door cracked when the cat raced past her toward the kitchen. Apparently, Adam had brought her presents before.

  “I brought you something, too,” Adam said to Tabitha.

  “Me? Why?” Tabitha said, her heart rate tripping up a notch.

  He shrugged. “Why not? It’s one of my mom’s home-made pumpkin pies.”