A Town Called Christmas

On a long loop of ribbon, a clump of mistletoe dangled from the ceiling. He reacted instantly

But while Mike had the honed reflexes of a fighter pilot, Merry had a head start. The cold air made his lungs seize, but he got the words out. “Don’t you want…me to…kiss you?”

She frowned. “Not with my parents pushing us together so obviously. Not with you leaving in only a week. Not when we’re both pressured by the circumstances.”

He dropped the timbre of his voice to a conspiratorial level that was only partly joking. “What are these circumstances you speak of?”

She blinked. “You don’t know?”

“Nick told me lots of things, including that you and the guy you lived with split up recently. Is that what you mean? Are you broken-hearted?”

“I’m not broken-hearted,” she whispered. “But I am…”

“Eminently kissable,” he said, and gathered her into his arms so she couldn’t run away again. He took her mouth with certainty. After a moment he deepened the kiss and dropped his hands to her waist.

Ding. A bell went off in his head. Plink. The penny dropped. Click. Pieces came together.

“Meredith.” She looked straight at him, nodding a little. “You’re pregnant.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A lifelong Michigander, Carrie Alexander has been writing for more than a decade, garnering two RITA® Award nominations and a Romantic Times BOOKreviews career achievement award along the way. At Christmas she indulges her artistic side by spending too many hours wrapping gifts, creating birch-bark wreaths and decorating sugar cookies.

Dear Reader,

A town called Christmas actually exists. It’s located near Lake Superior, on highway M-28 in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Giant Mr and Mrs Claus signs welcome visitors to the Christmas mall, while the town’s post office hand-cancels Christmas cards sent from around the country. Though my version of Christmas, Michigan, has been fictionalised to include the tree farm of the heroine’s family, the Parade of Lights and a tavern named the Christmas Cheer, the essence of the rugged, can-do spirit remains true to life.

I hope you find a little quiet time during your own busy holiday season to enjoy Merry and Mike’s story.

Happy holidays!

Carrie

PS Visit my website at www.CarrieAlexander.com for Christmas cookie recipes and news bout future projects.

A Town Called Christmas

CARRIE ALEXANDER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my father:

Christmas-tree seller, ski jumper

and storyteller extraordinaire

PROLOGUE

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER Michael Kavanaugh relished the crucial seconds of the strike fighter’s final approach to the aircraft carrier. For that brief time, he had nothing else occupying his mind. His sorry excuse for a personal life vanished. All that mattered were his years of flight experience—from the first day of ground school through combat sorties to making just one more successful trip.

He entered the traffic pattern at two hundred and fifty knots, flying up the wake of the ship with his tailhook down, and completed a brisk break turn and deceleration. Landing gear and flaps extended.

A red indicator light blinked on his instrument panel. Too fast. He pitched nose up, passing the ship’s port side now. A turn to final approach, hand on throttle, looking for the “meatball,” the colored-light array that was his optical landing aid. The orange meatball was centered, indicating an optimum glide slope. One clipped radio announcement and response from the landing signal officer and he was good to go.

Final approach. Every thought, every sensation, narrowed to an arrow point of concentration. The small, rapid corrections he made to maintain the ideal angle were automatic.

The plane hit the deck with a solid thump. Mike jammed full throttle in anticipation of a bolter—where the tailhook bounced past the ship’s arrestor wires despite a perfect approach—but the hook caught and he was safely aboard.

He exhaled. That was it. The last “E” ticket ride of the day.

Still high on the rush, he looked to a yellow-shirted crew member for directions to taxi the Rhino to its parking spot.

Afterward, still in his green flight suit, Mike reported to his home away from home, the Blue Knight squadron’s ready room. The room was outfitted with rows of assigned chairs, a television and other amenities, along with the banners and crest of the squadron. Grades for the day’s approaches would be posted, but that wasn’t his present focus.

He exchanged greetings with a couple of pilots before settling into his padded chair, wishing that just once there might be some privacy. It was a futile wish, but there’d been nothing else for him, lately.

With grim resolution, he reached into an inside pocket, feeling the strain where the shoulder harness had bruised his collarbone. The letter he withdrew was already familiar in his hand, even though he’d received it only a few days ago, four months in to the cruise. He had every word memorized, but then that had been an easy task. The letter was short and concise, as if Denise hadn’t wanted to waste any more time or words on the breakup of their lengthy engagement.

Mike unfolded the letter. Reading it again was like prodding an aching tooth with his tongue. He did it over and over to see if it had stopped hurting.

Soon enough, it would. Because even though the news had hit him in the gut like a swallow of Applejack, Denise was right. There was no great love lost between them, only injured pride.

The letter was dated the twenty-fourth of May.

Dear Michael,

You must already know what I’m going to write. I heard it in your voice the last time we talked. We haven’t really been in love for a long time now.

That doesn’t mean I’m not sorry to do this. You’ll take it as a failure, but you shouldn’t. It’s more my fault than yours. I just didn’t know how lonely it would be, waiting for you to come back. Although, to be brutally honest, there were times you seemed a thousand miles away even when you were here.

What I see now is that my feelings for you aren’t strong enough to take the frequent separations of military life. I doubt yours are, either.

So I can’t marry you. I’m sorry.

I’ll always remember you and the good times we had, but I know that this is the right thing to do. And you believe in doing the right thing, don’t you? That’s practically your mantra.

Maybe one day we’ll meet again, in happier circumstances.

Yours truly,

Denise

CHAPTER ONE

“ARE YOU CERTAIN we’re not at the North Pole?” Michael surveyed the frigid landscape beyond the ice-encrusted windows of the rental car. After his deployment to the Persian Gulf earlier that year, he was familiar with loneliness and deprivation, but he’d never been to a place as cold and isolated as this before.

The strange new world was nearly colorless. Out of the flannel sky, fat, lazy snowflakes spiraled toward the windshield in random loops and whirls. A frosty two-lane highway stretched away into a frigid forest of bare branches and ragged pines, which were burdened by mantles of heavy snow. Even the sun seemed leached of warmth and color, a tissue-paper disk hidden behind layers of clouds.

Michael shivered inside his Navy-issued topcoat. His bleak mood offered no more warmth than the rental car’s faulty heater.

Christmas in a town called Christmas. The stuff of sugar plum dreams, except he wasn’t buying it. There was no magic remaining in Mike’s world.

“Gotta be the North Pole,” he grumbled.

“Nah.” Nicholas York shoved the heating lever up to full blast, hoping to eke out another degree of warmth. The hearty Yooper—a common slang term for a denizen of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula—had been Mike’s closest friend since flight school in Corpus Christi, right on through to their present assignment in the Blue Knight strike fighter squadron. “Not unless our pilot took a wrong turn.”

Michael grunted. “I didn’t like the look of the man.” They’d connected in Detroit, flown north in a rinky-dink prop plane, then disembarked at an airport in the middle of nowhere. From there they’d driven over a hundred miles deeper into nowhere. Maybe they had traveled beyond the North Pole.

“Only because you hate giving up control,” Nicky said cheerfully.

He had good reason to be cheerful. Nicky was going home for the holidays, to his wife and children. While Mike was glad their leave had come through at the last minute, for the Yorks’s sake, he sure wished he had a better plan than extra-wheeling it with someone else’s family for the holidays. If Nicky hadn’t insisted, Mike might have spent the time off hunkered down with a case of Michelob and a sixty-four-inch football telecast, in an effort to forget that he had no homecoming reunion of his own. Not even one that took place in a frozen wasteland.

Mike burrowed deeper into the coat’s raised collar. “I’m here, aren’t I? Seven days of Christmas in a town called Christmas. Seven days of out-of-control holiday celebration.”

Nicky gave him a look. An I-know-what’s-frosting-your-butt look. “Buck up. There are no Scrooges in a Christmas Christmas.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ordinarily, Mike was a doer, not a brooder, but he’d had a lousy year. First he’d been Dear Johned, then stranded for the holidays by a mother and stepfather who’d rather cruise Belize than gather around a faux fireplace in their Florida condo. Adding the recent news that his squadron would soon be sent on another tour of the Gulf had put him in an unusually morose mood.

He looked out at the barren landscape and said, with heavy sarcasm, “Another fine Navy Day.”

“Hey, now.” Nicky peered eagerly through the windshield, as if there was anything out there except more of the same. “Wait’ll you see Shannon and the kids. They’ll get you into the Christmas spirit.”

“Don’t worry,” Mike said. One good, swift kick in the keister would jar him out of his malaise. “I’ll be jolly for them. Ho, ho, ho.”

While more than a year had passed since Mike had seen Nicky’s family, they’d always be tight. There had been many good times, especially during the first years of duty after the men had earned their wings. Mike was the godfather to the Yorks’ first son, Charles, known as Skip. And Shannon had fixed Mike up with Denise, so they’d frequently double-dated with the Yorks.

At that thought, the fond memories might have turned sour, but Mike wouldn’t let them. He focused on Nicky’s kids instead. He was looking forward to being Uncle Mike again. Presents were wrapped and ready in his luggage.

There were also other family members to meet on this visit—parents, two sisters, assorted aunts and uncles. All of them ready to welcome Mike with open arms. Given his less-than-festive mood, the prospect was not entirely heartening.

Mike straightened. “What’s that? That big, white thing?”

“What?” Nicky followed Mike’s nod. “You mean the snowman?” He leaned over the steering wheel. “We’re home.”

The plywood snowman was fifteen feet tall, erected on the side of the road beside a placard that read Welcome to Christmas, Michigan. Mike stared as they drove by. The snowman’s painted details were faded by time and a dusting of snow, but the message was clear. He was in for it.

“There’s a Santa sign on the western end of town,” Nicky said, almost apologetically.

Celebrate or bust. Mike geared himself up as they drove toward a cluster of buildings that signified the outskirts of the town. Here was color at last. Every structure was strung with lights and decorated to the max. Bulbous, blow-up cartoon figures perched atop piles of snow. Plastic reindeer ran a roof line. Metallic man-made trees sat side by side with the real thing, all of them circled with blinking lights. The holiday banners that had been strung from the electric poles flapped in the wind.

“I ought to bring something,” he said suddenly. “Like a…what do you call it—a hostess gift?”

“Don’t bother. We Yorks are an informal bunch.”

“No.” Mike seized on a plan that would give Nicky and his family some private time. And himself, too. “When we reach the downtown area, drop me off. I’ll nip into a gift store, then get a taxi—” He stopped abruptly, supposing that there were no taxis. “I’ll hitch a ride, or whatever. If your family’s place is close enough, I can walk.”

“In this storm?” Nicky shook his head. The snowfall had thickened. Clumps of the white stuff had accumulated at the edges of the windshield wipers that swept the glass. “Mom would never forgive me. She’s expecting you.”

“Right—for dinner.” Mike tucked a wool scarf into his coat collar and removed a pair of gloves from one pocket. “You want me to look bad, showing up empty-handed?”

“All right.” Nicky braked. “I’ll be back in an hour to pick you up.” He pulled off the highway beside a mound of waist-deep snow. A couple of people bundled like penguins emerged from one of the lit-up buildings and waddled toward a stop sign that crowned another of the snowbanks. The street corner, presumably.

Mike glanced around. The smattering of buildings was still a smattering. “Where’s the shopping district?”

“This is it.”

“What about the downtown?”

“This is it.”

“This is it?” This was nothing. The way Nicky had talked about his hometown’s Christmas celebrations, Mike had expected a mini-Times Square, not a hodgepodge of humble businesses and homes half buried in snow. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Christmas is small.” Nicky grinned. “But it’s got a big heart.” He pointed past the steering wheel. “There’s the grocery, that’s the post office and beside it is a gift store. The brick building across the street is a tavern called The Christmas Cheer. You can get warmed up there.”

Michael stepped from the car and straightened. He took a gulp of the chilly air, smelling wood smoke as he looked from building to building. The tavern seemed to be the center of town—surrounded by vehicles, bursting jukebox music and activity. Three doors away, a white steepled church stood silent and closed, save for the tree sparkling with lights beside a signboard that listed service times beneath the spattered snowfall.

“See you in an hour, man.” Mike shut the door, feeling road weary and run dry. Whether he was plunked in a Michigan snow pile or stranded on the arid mesas of Arizona where he’d grown up, small towns were all the same. Even when they came dressed in garish decoration.

“One hour, then,” Nicky said with a nod. He gave a wave and put the car into gear.

Mike straightened his shoulders as he surveyed the town again. Travelers must have barely slowed down when they reached Christmas. A heavy foot on the gas, one blink of the eyes and they’d be out the other side.

A rush of wind sent snowflakes whirling. Mike tasted them on his lips. They clung to his lashes. He blinked and the swinging strings of lights that festooned the town turned to multicolored stars, blurry at the edges.

A second hard blink restored his vision. He was particularly glad of that when he saw the woman.

She was crossing the road, swept along by the wind. Her long, heavy coat flapped open. The tails of a red scarf whipped free, dancing like semaphore flags. Between the scarf and a matching knit hat pulled snugly past her ears was a fringe of golden-blond hair, molded to her pinkened cheeks.

The woman shot a clenched smile at Mike as she hurried past him and into one of the modest shops. She clutched a large leather purse and a paper gift bag with mitten-clad hands.

Pretty lady. A needle-sharp shot of interest made Mike’s sluggish blood quicken.

He huddled in the cold, considering his shopping options. Severely limited. So why not follow her? The store she’d entered looked promising. Icicle lights danced from the eaves. A giant candy cane stood sentry at the door, twined in ribbon and evergreen garland.

A bell went off as Mike pushed inside. He stamped his feet on the welcome mat. The blond woman was at the cash register, chatting to the clerk while she shook snow off her hat and mittens. “My mother went and invited Oliver for Christmas dinner, since he’ll be alone. I need to find him a last-minute gift.”

The salesclerk, a rounded woman in her middle years, leaned over the counter and made a whispered comment. Both of them glanced at Mike, who was peeling off his gloves. “Merry Christmas, sir,” said the clerk. Her smile was big and toothy. “I’ll be with you in just a minute.”

The blonde turned away before he got a good look at her face. “No rush,” he said. “I’ll look around.”

The store was small. He prowled the rows of gift items, mainly Christmas-themed ornaments and such. He eyed the blonde over a rack of greeting cards. Something about her was arresting—her color, her brisk energy, the effervescent cheer that bubbled in her voice as she chatted about holiday preparations while fingering a display of fountain pens near the register.

“Finding anything?” the clerk called.

Mike nodded and pulled out a card at random. A cardinal in the snow.

He advanced along the aisle. Wrapping paper, twig reindeer, needlepoint Christmas stockings. Porcelain plates painted with winter scenes. Matching coffee mugs. What did a man without the proper Christmas spirit get to thank his best friend’s parents for welcoming him into their home and holiday?

“Is it a fix-up?” the clerk asked her other customer. “You and Oliver?”

“Good grief, no.” The blonde seemed alarmed by the idea. Her hands flashed over her hair before tucking a lock of it behind one pink-rimmed ear. A small gold hoop pierced the lobe. “In my situation? No.”

Mike glanced away so he wouldn’t be caught staring. Situation?

“Not even my mother, desperate as she is to marry me off, could think I’d possibly be interested in…” The woman shook her head in the emphatic negative.

Desperate?

The sales clerk clucked. “Then she’s still on your case?”

“In her own way.” A shrug. “You know my mom—she’s so proper. This is hard for her.”

“Well, she probably knows that Oliver’s always had a crush on you. Just about everyone knows.”

“Maybe he used to, but he must be over that. I was gone for years.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” The clerk’s lips pursed. “Haven’t you read any of his books?”

“The science fiction? Not in a long time.”

“And the romances. He writes them under the name Olivia Devaine. You’ve been missing out.”

The blonde’s gaze skipped sideways toward Mike. He bent his head over the plate display. “Oh, dear,” she said quietly. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

The clerk beamed. She was enjoying herself. “I’ve gotta tell ya. Every single one of his heroines bears a striking resemblance to you.”

The woman groaned. “Are you certain you’re not reading too much between the lines?”

“The latest one’s titled Marianne’s Homecoming. See for yourself.” The clerk pulled a well-worn paperback from beneath the counter and tossed it onto the glass. “You can have it, if you want. I’ve finished. It’s all about a lady executive named Marianne who returns to her hometown to stop an evil developer from bulldozing her family homestead. The hero is an investigative reporter.”

With some hesitation, the blonde picked up the book. “That’s not so very much like—”

“His name is Tolliver. Rand Tolliver.”

“Please. Stop.” She laughed. “Are there love scenes? I won’t be able to look Oliver in the eye if there are steamy love scenes.”

Colored lights winked off the lenses of the clerk’s oversize glasses as she wagged her head. “There are a few kisses, but nothing explicit, darn it. Oliver’s books never get too sexy. He closes the bedroom door, as they say.” She hunkered down, her elbows on the counter. “If it wasn’t for Dolly getting him liquored up at the Kiwanis picnic and taking him out to her van, he’d probably still be a virgin.”

The blonde blinked. “That’s old gossip. And private. You don’t know what happened.”

“I know that Dolly was hoping she’d get preggie so Oliver would marry her. She was certain he was rich, being a famous author, you know.”

The blonde’s head snapped back. Her cheeks had turned hot pink, but her expression was glacial. She yanked a fountain pen set from the display and set the case on the glass with a distinct click. “I’ll take this. I’m sure a writer can always use a new pen.”

“Oh. Um, hey, I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean anything by that.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” The blonde reached for her purse. “It’s fine. Really. I’m not much in the mood for gossip these days, if you know what I mean.”

Mike gripped one of the plates. He didn’t know what she meant, but his curiosity was certainly roused. Suddenly he found himself hoping that the blonde wasn’t secretly pining for that Oliver guy. Shouldn’t matter to him when he was here for only seven days…except that seven days seemed a much shorter stay than it had fifteen minutes ago.

Christmas in Christmas might not be so bleak after all.

He walked toward the register with the plate and the card. The blonde’s head dipped forward while she dropped coins into a zippered compartment of her wallet. She took her bagged item from the clerk and tucked that, the paperback book and the wallet inside her leather bag, not looking up until Mike stood right beside her.

“Thanks,” she said to the clerk. Finally she glanced at Mike. He was six-one, but she was only an inch or two shorter in her stacked boot heels. A lovely smile flitted across her face as she nodded at him. Her nose was aquiline, with bold cheekbones set high in well-rounded cheeks. Her eyes were a dazzling blue that took his breath away. “Merry Christmas.”

He made a raspy sound. “Merry Christmas.”

She turned with a hitch of her purse strap and a swirl of the nubby coat, yanking her red hat over her head as she departed. The bell chimed when she opened the door. A snow flurry swept inside, accompanying the blast of cold air.

Mike stared after her, even when she was gone. His pulse ticked like the ignition of a gas burner. Heat crawled up his throat. There’s something about her. Something very merry.

“Didja find what you were looking for?”

“Uh, yes.” He handed his selections to the clerk. “I’ll take this and the card. Gift-wrapped, please.”

“Sure thing. Let me get you a box.”

Mike waited impatiently while the clerk boxed the plate and carefully wrapped the purchase in paper covered with candy canes. She chatted him up, managing to establish that he was only visiting and that the TV6 weatherman was forecasting a blizzard for Christmas Eve, three days hence.

“You mean this isn’t a blizzard?” Mike asked absentmindedly while he fingered a couple of twenties. He’d pulled out his billfold to have payment ready even before the clerk had totaled the charges. He was being ridiculous. The blonde would be long gone by the time he reached the street.

But it was a small town. He could run in to her again.

The clerk chuckled while she rang him up. “You’re not from around here, are you? This is a flurry.”

“The only snow I’ve experienced was on a ski holiday in the mountains.” His family had once been big on skiing vacations, but that had stopped when he was seventeen. He hadn’t been back to the mountains since.