A Season to Love Read online

  Praise for A Cliché Christmas by Nicole Deese

  “A delightfully fun romance full of hope and healing that is sure to bring laughter, tears, and a reminder of the true meaning of Christmas.”

  —Tammy L. Gray, Kindle bestselling author

  “It’s impossible to read A Cliché Christmas without wishing for snow, thinking of mistletoe, and longing for small-town life. From tear-your-heart-out dialogue to heart-skipping romance, author Nicole Deese pens her stories in a way that will keep you turning pages and begging for more.”

  —Amy Matayo, author of The Wedding Game, Love Gone Wild, and Sway

  “Nicole Deese won me over at fa-la-la-la. It isn’t often that I laugh out loud when reading books. A Cliché Christmas was one of the rare few that earned that honor . . . and right from the beginning of the book. The character development and dialogue are always my main real considerations when I review books. Ms. Deese masters both of these with grace, wit, and a touch of sass. Needless to say, I simply loved this book and highly recommend it, not just for Christmas but at any time of the year.”

  —Sarah Price, bestselling author

  “A Hallmark movie in the making, A Cliché Christmas is a magical love story that is anything but cliché, dazzling readers with a truly delightful plot and characters who shine more than the twinkle lights on a tree. One of my favorite holiday reads ever!”

  —Julie Lessman, award-winning author of the Daughters of Boston, Winds of Change, and Heart of San Francisco series

  “’Tis the season for some fun Christmas fare, and this book fits the bill. A Cliché Christmas is a page-turner with a wonderful setting, a brilliant cast of characters, and sigh-worthy scenes that will make you sleep deprived.”

  —Jenny B. Jones, award-winning author of A Katie Parker Production series

  “This story is begging to be made into a movie and I have decided to officially christen A Cliché Christmas as My Favorite Christmas Romance of All Freaking Time. Yes, I love it that much—and I’m betting that you will, too!”

  —Happily Ever After blog, USA Today

  ALSO BY NICOLE DEESE

  The Love in Lenox Series

  A Cliché Christmas

  A Season to Love

  The Letting Go Series

  All for Anna

  All She Wanted

  All Who Dream

  A Summer Remade (a novella from Just One Summer)

  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 © 2016 Nicole Deese

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.

  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

  www.brilliancepublishing.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Waterfall Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503950504

  ISBN-10: 1503950506

  Cover design by Jason Blackburn

  To Tim.

  For leading me to the mountain and loving me enough to make me climb.

  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

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  I could have promised my daughter anything—a pony, a princess, a rainbow in a bottle—but instead, I’d promised her something equally unattainable: my bravery.

  Today my cancer-free seven-year-old was putting that promise to the test.

  “Come on, Mommy!” Savannah tugged my hand, but my legs were stiff and sluggish.

  “We have plenty of time. Slow down.”

  Slow down. Two words that had been on continuous repeat since she’d woken me, bouncing on my bed in her new sparkly red shoes—Uncle Weston’s gift to feed her obsession for all things glitter.

  She led our way through the parking lot, her energetic stride forcing her backpack into a bounce and me into a near jog. Pockets of people waited near the electronic signboard, with the scrolling FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, but I knew better than to ask Savannah to stop for a picture. She had a goal, the same goal that had kept me awake at night for nearly a week.

  The freshly painted double doors at the front of Lenox Elementary School were propped open to welcome the new year. Only, this pressure building inside my chest didn’t exactly feel festive. We entered the lobby together, her thin fingers still curled around mine, my heart two strides slower than my feet. I willed it to catch up, to remember Savannah’s countdown to this very moment—the scattering of purple Xs on the bedroom calendar.

  The smell of boxed crayons and pencil shavings filled the air, nostalgia painting a landscape from a lifetime ago—of a life that no longer felt like mine. The screech of sneakers against tired linoleum floors sang the anthem of reunited friends and faculty. But it wasn’t my memories of attending this school as a child or even of teaching at this school as an adult that caused my spine to prickle with déjà vu.

  Three turns and two hallways later, Savannah dropped my hand and studied the class list outside Mrs. Hudson’s door.

  “Alyssa’s in my class!”

  “That’s great, honey.” My words sounded as frozen as my smile.

  Her dark-chocolate eyes took in the clusters of students, the maze of desks, the shelves upon endless shelves of books, puzzles, and crafts. Once inside the classroom, she found her laminated name tag quickly and waved me over. My fingers itched to reach into my purse and grab a handful of disinfectant wipes to saturate each and every surface of this room.

  “Mommy—look, my very own desk.” Savannah smoothed her hand over the top of the chipping varnish, her eyes alight, her voice the sound of childlike faith.

  “Savannah!” Alyssa, Savannah’s athletic redheaded friend, raced across the room.

  A soft touch on my shoulder shifted my attention away from the giddy reunion. “She’ll do great, Willa. I can see how excited she is to be in school. Oh, and I’ll make sure to e-mail you the slots I have open for classroom volunteers.”

&nb
sp; Megan Hudson, Savannah’s second-grade teacher, stood at my side. Since high school, our lives had paralleled each other: we both married our senior prom dates, we both graduated with honors, we both earned our master’s in education.

  Only, the sudden loss of my husband seven years ago had put an end to our shared life experiences.

  “Thank you, Megan.”

  With a last gentle pat, Megan walked to the front of her classroom and pointed to the instructions on the whiteboard, reminding parents of pickup time and location.

  The clock at the back of the room chimed a high-pitched ping, ping, ping, and a slow-snaking panic crept into my chest.

  “Savannah—” My well-planned words were cut short. She sprang toward me and wrapped her arms around my waist. Her enthusiasm rocked me off center. “I love this day, but I love you most.” Savannah tightened her arms above my hips, swaying us both as if in a dance.

  I kissed the top of her head, her short, baby-fine hair a whisper of hope that tickled my lips. “Not possible.”

  Because it wasn’t possible. She wasn’t a mother. She hadn’t counted the weeks of pregnancy, hadn’t borne the pain of childbirth, hadn’t felt the anguish of the six-letter word that could drown a parent in a pool of their own tears. Cancer.

  She hopped away and waved. “See you after school.”

  With blurry, stinging eyes, I turned and exited her classroom, just like I had two years ago when I’d dropped my seemingly healthy daughter off for kindergarten only to admit her to the oncology floor at Children’s Hospital a week later.

  She’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is going to be fine. The rapid fire of my pulse disagreed.

  Pushing my way past a throng of happy families, I darted through the parking lot and shut myself inside my car. With my overactive imagination fully engaged, I fought against the quick, shallow breaths and answered the siren’s call in my glove box.

  A stashed package of red-and-white pinwheel mints.

  Most people saw these candies as a way to freshen their breath; I saw them as a way to focus my mind. A method of coping I’d picked up in therapy years ago. Of course, not during one of my hour-long counseling sessions, but rather from my time sitting in the waiting room. Ironic how a little basket of mints had helped me more than my grief counselor.

  I reached inside the bag, unwrapped the familiar, crinkly plastic, and popped a small disc into my mouth. Immediately, the smooth texture and taste of menthol worked its magic, knocking me down a few ladder rungs on my climb to an attack.

  My head thumped against the back of the seat as I recalled the words I’d spoken to Savannah during her final round of inpatient treatment. I’d dabbed her forehead with a cool rag after she’d finished emptying the contents of her stomach, the color of her skin distressingly pale . . .

  “You’re so brave, baby.”

  She did little more than blink at my familiar words, her energy as absent as her smile. This oppressive weariness had shadowed her for days—a cloud cover to her sunshine personality.

  I lifted the damp cloth from her temple and stared at my frail daughter—this child who’d given me a reason to hope time and time again. A sudden and desperate question pushed to the forefront of my mind.

  Had I fought as hard for her as she had fought for me?

  I touched her hand, wove her bony fingers through mine. “Things are going to be different when all this is over, Savannah—better.”

  She licked her chapped lips and I reached for her pink princess water bottle. “When all the cancer is gone?”

  “Yes. Maintenance will be so much easier and then . . .” I bent the straw and slipped it into her mouth and waited for the slight shake of her head to indicate she was finished. “And then we’ll be free to do all kinds of new things together, things we’ve never done before.”

  Her eyes shifted up to mine. “Like what?”

  “Like . . . um . . . exploring new places and meeting new friends and trying some new hobbies and—”

  She turned her head so that her cheek smashed into the folds of her pillow. “And going back to school?”

  “Yes.” Though the idea of her being outside my reach for an entire school day was hard to imagine after two years of homeschooling, a classroom was a far better alternative than a hospital room. “And then maybe—”

  “Maybe you won’t have to be afraid anymore?”

  Tears gathered in my eyes as guilt pinched my heart. I’d tried to keep my fears hidden, tried to lock them away in some secret compartment, but my daughter was too perceptive to be kept in the dark. “Yes . . . Mommy will be braver.”

  “You promise?”

  A hard swallow and then, “Yes, baby. I promise.”

  She closed her eyes and a soft smile graced her mouth. “We’ll both be brave then.”

  With a jumbo bag of dinner mints splayed open on my lap, I pressed my forehead to the top of the steering wheel and wished I could ignore the glaringly obvious truth.

  A promise was only as strong as the person who made it.

  And my promise had become as empty as this school parking lot.

  Four days and one finished book series later, I set my travel mug back into the cup holder and then lifted the newspaper from the passenger seat. Careful not to honk my horn, I smoothed the fold out of today’s crossword and contemplated definitions to words I’d rarely spoken in any of my twenty-nine years.

  No time like the present to brush up on my vocabulary.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  A not-so-gentle knuckle rap on my window nearly sent me into cardiac arrest.

  Weston. My baby brother.

  Suddenly I was sixteen again, sneaking out the back door to meet my boyfriend when Weston the Detective flicked on the lights.

  Caught.

  I blinked the memory away, the crossword crumpling onto my lap. I covered the recycled paper with my right hand, as if that gesture alone might save me from an explanation that sounded nothing less than certifiable.

  “What’s up, sis?” Weston’s eyes had already spotted the incriminating evidence: the books, the coffee, and the little baggie of homemade granola I’d been munching on since midmorning. It was a perfect moment to use today’s 10 down: enmeshed.

  Sample sentence: Willa Hart is completely enmeshed in her own pitiful paranoia.

  “I’m . . . I’m just . . .” A horrible liar.

  Weston shook his head. “Nice try, but I’ve only got a few minutes left in my lunch period.”

  And yet, here he was. Lucky me.

  As a high school shop teacher, Weston rarely left campus during school hours, which was likely why I hadn’t calculated the odds of him seeing me. In the parking lot. A block from his workplace.

  He disappeared from the window and came around to the passenger-side door. I popped the lock, though truth be told, locked or not, my brother would have found a way in.

  With a sweep of his hand, he scattered my neatly stacked stash of parking lot supplies onto the floorboard and plopped down beside me.

  “Staking out your daughter’s school.” He made a tsking sound. “You’ve taken helicopter mom to a whole new level. You know this isn’t normal, right?”

  I didn’t answer. Knowing my actions teetered on the line of insanity wasn’t really the problem.

  “Listen, I didn’t come to point out the obvious.” He twisted in his seat and picked up my baggie of granola. “I found you a job.”

  Three deafening seconds ticked by as I stared at my brother. With everyone else he joked and pranked and goofed around. With me, he shot straight.

  “What do you mean? I have a job.”

  “Working with Mom at the antique store is a sad excuse for a job. There’s hardly enough work for her, much less you. Besides, you’re too tied to them as it is.”

  “No, I’m indebted to them.” My folks had done so much for me—and for Savannah especially. Aside from their active role in grandparenting, we lived in their guesthouse rent free. Their generosity ha
d allowed me not only to homeschool Savannah during her treatments but to give 100 percent of my energy to her well-being. I couldn’t have prayed for a greater blessing than what they’d been to me—even if their support felt overbearing at times.

  Like usual, Weston ignored my comment. “And if you aren’t willing to pursue teaching again, then—”

  “I’m not.” I cut him off, unwilling to hear the teaching lecture one more time: how I shouldn’t waste my master’s degree, how subbing would get my foot back in the door with the district, how setting a career goal would give me a sense of purpose. But I had a purpose. It just wasn’t Weston-approved. “What job are you even talking about?”

  “Parker Fitness Center.” He reclined the seat and tossed a handful of crunchy oats into his mouth. “Sydney owes me a favor—actually she owes me about two million of them—and as you know, finding a good part-time job where they’re willing to work around Savannah’s school hours is next to impossible.”

  “I’m not interested. But please make sure to thank her for the offer.” Adding another job and responsibility to the mix would mean more time away from what I should be doing: keeping the people I loved safe and healthy and whole. Distractions weren’t the solution. They were the problem. “I’m working on a plan.” And that was the truth, as long as the terms working and plan were relative.

  Weston gave me his brother look—scrunched-in eyebrows, lowered chin, that annoying tilt of his head. “No, what you have is a promise you made to your daughter—to start living a real life. In the real world. And no, I don’t count unpaid parking lot duty as a way to get over your life phobias.”

  Shame swirled in the pit of my stomach. “I’m trying.”

  He gestured to the school building. “It’s September, Willa. She completed maintenance phase last month. The cancer is gone—it’s been gone—so what are you waiting for now?” He exhaled, hard. “Taking this job could be a new start for you, a step forward. You’ll be able to bank some extra cash and start saving up for a place of your own again—maybe even take that Disneyland trip Savannah put in her wish jar. You need this.” I’d never heard pity in Weston’s voice when he spoke to me, but this was close. “How do you expect to give her a ‘better life after cancer’ when you’re too afraid to start a life of your own?”