Mad about yule a sweet s.., p.1
Mad About Yule: A Sweet Small Town Romantic Comedy, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by Genny Carrick
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN (print): 978-1-957745-13-8
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-957745-12-1
Created with Vellum
For anyone who needs the reminder: Don’t settle for less than what you want just to please someone else.
And for everyone who secretly thinks nutcrackers are creepy. You’re not wrong.
WHAT TO EXPECT
This book includes a main character dealing with grief over the loss of a parent, living in a sibling’s shadow, creepy nutcrackers, stray two-by-fours, heated kisses, and mild innuendo.
CONTENTS
1. Hope
2. Hope
3. Griffin
4. Hope
5. Griffin
6. Hope
7. Griffin
8. Hope
9. Griffin
10. Hope
11. Griffin
12. Hope
13. Griffin
14. Hope
15. Griffin
16. Hope
17. Hope
18. Griffin
19. Hope
20. Griffin
21. Hope
22. Hope
23. Griffin
24. Hope
25. Hope
26. Griffin
27. Hope
28. Griffin
29. Hope
30. Griffin
31. Hope
32. Griffin
33. Hope
34. Griffin
35. Hope
36. Griffin
37. Hope
38. Griffin
Epilogue
Bonus Epilogue
A Note from Genny
Also by Genny Carrick
About the Author
ONE
HOPE
An eight a.m. phone call from my mother is a bad omen, right?
I want to let it go to voicemail, but her motherly freak-outs have quadrupled since I volunteered to revitalize our town’s Christmas festival. She already operates at Defcon Two, I really don’t want to find out what happens when she reaches Maximum Hover Mother.
“Good morning.” I flash a mega-watt smile—she can’t see it, but I put on my armor anyway.
“How’s my little event planner?”
“Everything’s going great.” A blatant lie. My Winter Wonderland is turning into a Merry Mess, but Mom will swoop in like a coddling vulture at the smallest sign of weakness. I need this win. So I lie like my pants are on fire. “We’re right on schedule.”
“Really? I heard about Silas.”
All the air whooshes out of my lying sails. Well done, Sunshine gossips. It’s only been two days, but she probably heard his whole medical report in the frozen food aisle at Ray’s Grocery. My sole volunteer handyman no sooner opted into my project than he noped right out again. He strained his back lifting a sheet of plywood.
So no, my project isn’t quite on schedule.
“It’s totally fine,” I say, hoping to soothe her with my calm confidence. That’s also a big old lie, so I’m on a roll. “I’ve got a replacement.”
“Already? Who did you find?”
I straighten yellow tubs of Bee’s Knees body butter in their honeycomb-styled shelf. Calm and confident. “I don’t know his name yet.”
Impossible for me to spin that into a positive, but at least it’s true. She hesitates a fraction of a second on the other end, like a shark smelling blood in the water. A too-sweet, motherly shark who will swim right over to bandage up the poor injured fish.
“I’ll phone my contractor in Bend. I’m sure he’ll be willing to rearrange a few things in his schedule as a favor to me. It’s just the Christmas village, right? That can’t be too hard.”
I’d drawn out plans for five whimsical little houses reminiscent of vintage Christmas displays, each with a different style and theme to make a pretty little Winter Wonderland in town square. But sure. Just a Christmas village.
“I have it covered, Mom. Kat McBride said she knows a guy.”
“Kat? That’s a relief I guess, but why did you go to her?”
Kat runs the town’s largest landscaping company with her grown sons and is on the town council, but Mom makes it sound like I asked an outsider for help.
“She was in the store when Silas called yesterday.” I’d also told my best friend Wren that I’d rather eat a whole loaf of fruitcake every day from now until Christmas than ask for my mother’s help with the festival, but who’s keeping track? “She said she had someone in mind and texted me last night to let me know he’d agreed.”
“And you don’t know who it is?”
With only three weeks to go until tree lighting, I can’t be too picky. The closer it gets, the more the festival hemorrhages volunteers. At least Silas’s back strain is a more believable excuse than my dog has pneumonia. I didn’t research it, but that one sounds like a scam.
“One of her employees, I assume. I’m sure it will be fine.”
I need it to be fine. I have too much riding on this for it to be anything but fine.
“This is a big undertaking, honey, and you’ve been working so hard to make it happen.”
She sounds more like she’s consoling me than praising me, but I’ll take it. I have been working like crazy to pull this together.
“Just remember, Lila and I are always here to help if you need us,” she adds.
It’s too early in the morning for this. The last thing I need is for my mom and sister to parachute in to save the day for me.
“I have to go, Mom. I’m meeting Kat and her guy in a few minutes.”
“Let me know if I need to call Andre to help you out.”
“I will.”
To be clear, I absolutely will not. Mom bringing in her contractor—no doubt at her own expense—would be the opposite of what I’ve been going for on this endeavor.
I hang up and do a quick walk-through of the three aisles of handmade goods in my sliver of a gift shop, making sure everything looks just right. Full of handmade jewelry, purses, pottery, and screen-printed T-shirts with quirky sayings on them, The Painted Daisy is my happy place. It’s a spot to connect with and support local artists of all kinds, even if I don’t have the guts to put my own artwork on display. Just standing in the store clears my head.
Lately, I haven’t spent nearly enough time in here.
Volunteering to organize Sunshine, Oregon’s Christmas festival seemed like such a great idea back in September when I made the offer at a town hall meeting. Downtown’s holiday event needs a refresh, and small businesses like mine could use the sales boost.
I’d camped out in City Hall, cornering council members to make my case every time they walked by until I’d secured their approval. I can’t let them down now. If I think being known as Hope Parrish, Well-Intentioned Screw-Up is bad, being known as That Girl Who Ruined Christmas would be so much worse.
Wren pops her head in the open doorway between The Painted Daisy and Blackbird’s next door. Up until a year ago, The Daisy’s tiny space used to be an overflow seating area for the Krause family bakery, but I convinced Wren’s mom to let me sublet it. I painted the walls a soft butter yellow and hung floating shelves—well, Mom’s contractor installed all the shelves. I hadn’t minded accepting help with that. But I haven’t bothered to close off the Daisy from the bakery. Customers can wander from one shop to the other, ideally increasing business to both. Mostly, Wren and I use the pass-through to keep an eye on each other.
“What’s with the pacing?” she asks. She smooths her blond hair along the ponytail she typically wears in the bakery, trying to tame the loose strands. “I can hear you sighing all the way over here.”
I pause my third loop of the store. “I’m thinking about running away to that commune up in Bigleaf Canyon until Christmas is over.”
I could use a little Zen. Isn’t that what they find at retreats like that?
“You’ll never last that long. It’s clothing-optional. What’s wrong?”
I stop myself mid-sigh. “Mom heard about my handyman’s injury. She offered to help find someone to replace him.”
“We all know how much you hate help.”
“Not true. I just dislike help from my mother, especially since her advice is mostly to ask Lila for help.” Nothing says I have confidence in you like Go ask your sister what to do.
“Yeah, Lila would probably turn your Winter Wonderland into a holiday-themed fashion show or something.”
“And it would be amazing, but not remotely what I’m going for.”
“Aw, come on, she’s got some great tips for accessorizing for fall.”
I stare hard at my wonderful, beautiful, traitorous friend. “You follow her on Instagram now?”
“What can I say? She’s an unstoppable juggernaut whose sphere of influence can’t be contained.”
I snort-laugh at Wren’s over-the-top description, but she’s not far from the truth. My sister has amassed a small army of followers eager for her lifestyle posts and chic selfies. Meanwhile, I’ve mostly made fans of bots and trolls. Not that any of that matters. I don’t care about the onlin e popularity contest. Even if it makes me unaccountably sad when my bot friends unfollow me.
I grab my purse from behind the counter. “I have to go meet Kat and get my new handyman up to speed, but I’ll be back in time to open the store.”
“I’ll just be snooping around and adding to my Christmas list,” she calls after me.
Keeping watch for patches of ice on the sidewalk, I scurry down Maple Street to Perk Me Up, the coffee shop where I agreed to meet Kat. I need to make a good impression here—her contact is my last hope to save face with my Winter Wonderland. I should have had my volunteer handyman start on the buildings as soon as the town council gave the okay, but instead, I’ve spent most of the last few months arranging everything else: decorations, the choir, refreshments, the Christmas market.
But for me, the Winter Wonderland means everything. Those buildings will be my artistic stamp on the festivities, proof I’m capable of more than just being Lila Parrish’s little sister. My plans for the renewed festival will still be a huge step up without the Wonderland, but those little buildings will be the icing on the Christmas cookie.
Thank goodness for Kat. When I see her, I’ll probably pull her into a bear hug and raise her up into a Dirty Dancing-style lift to show my gratitude.
I walk through Perk Me Up’s doors and spot my handyman-producing angel bundled in a slick brown parka. Kat’s at the counter chatting with a tall man who has his back to me. As I get closer, he turns around, and his eyes hit mine.
Holy jawline, Batman.
My heartbeat goes into red alert, one heel skidding awkwardly on the floor, and I almost fall over my own feet.
Wait.
Oh, heck no.
TWO
HOPE
Him? This is who Kat convinced to help me?
I should have asked for his name last night, but I’d been too busy doing a happy dance in the middle of my apartment to question anything. Not that I’m in any position to turn him away, but it might have prepared me for the shock. Give a girl some warning when you’re going to spring a blast from the past on her.
And not the fun kind of blast—more like an explosion that leaves my pride in ribbons.
I fix on a smile and close the last few feet to Kat and her guy.
“Hope.” She welcomes me over like I couldn’t possibly have reservations about her pick. “You know my son Griffin.”
“Kind of.”
That’s about as accurate as I want to be. Most of my high school stress had kind of been caused by Griffin McBride. He had kind of spewed criticism I’d felt compelled to combat with positivity at every turn. I had kind of drawn devil horns on every picture of his smug face in my senior yearbook.
Sure. I kind of remember Griffin.
His hazel-green eyes drift down my body in a brief once-over and snap back up to meet mine. Can I see the green parts in his eyes from here? Nope. But not even ten years could make me forget those eyes critiquing me on everything I said or did.
I love Kat McBride, but her son? Hard pass.
“We haven’t kept in touch,” I say, as though we might have been secret pen pals all this time. “But I know of you.”
Who in town doesn’t? He had a reputation as a bit of a bad boy, with his attitude and all the parties and the one oops fire in the canyon that had never been officially pinned on him but everyone knew he’d started during one of his bonfires gone awry.
“I know of you too, Hope,” he returns.
Okay, fine, it sounds stupid when he says it. We went to school together from kindergarten through graduation, often shared the same classroom, and were once lab partners in chemistry. We’d had about nine thousand arguments during those years, and he’d made me lose my cool for about eighty-seven hundred of them. The point is, we aren’t close.
A small smirk touches his mouth, and déjà vu gets my stomach squirming. That smirk used to haunt my teenage nightmares. I have fewer stories about me in circulation than he does, but I can guess the one on his mind. Every year, our debate class instructor gave out little statuettes to her Number One Debater, and he’d won ours right out from under me.
Not that I truly loved debating, and obviously Griffin comes by arguing naturally, but whatever. I’d wanted that award.
But wait…does he know about last summer’s humiliation? People in town have gotten a lot of mileage out of my rumored engagement exploding to bits so publicly. The fact that I was never actually engaged just makes the story even juicier. I want to believe he has no idea, but that curl along his mouth doesn’t settle my stomach.
“Come on up, coffee’s on me this morning.” Kat waves me to the counter and the young barista who waits to take my order.
I ask for a caramel macchiato and stand between the two McBrides, my stomach clunking around like a washing machine with an unbalanced load. I want to see my Winter Wonderland come to life, but I’m not sure I want it this much.
“I adjusted Griffin’s schedule around so he can make those buildings for you,” Kat tells me. “He jumped at the chance to get involved in the Christmas festival. He’s very civic-minded.”
She shoots him a huge smile, clearly giving him a hard time. Safe bet she didn’t offer him any other choice. Roughly the same age as my mom, Kat has a tough-as-nails attitude mixed with warmth and understanding. My mom’s affection usually comes with a thick blanket for smothering.
I scramble for something helpful to say to my new volunteer.
“We’re going to have a lot of fun together.”
I probably shouldn’t have said that like I’m talking to a two-year-old, but my brain hasn’t fully adjusted to the situation yet. His eyes land on me, and I really wish I owned higher heels so he couldn’t look down his nose at me so easily.
“Can’t wait.”
His smile makes my churning stomach swoop like I’ve time-traveled back to debate class, and how he’d smirk through every one of my speeches. I hated that smirk. Now I have to see it every day for three weeks?
What did I do to tick Santa off?
Kat laughs. “He’s awfully good with a hammer. I’m sure he’ll get that Winter Wonderland built for you in no time.”
She lifts her eyebrows at him in a silent command, all but saying out loud he doesn’t really want to help me with this. Usually, I like my volunteers to be willing and eager. I don’t know how I feel about the silent arm-twisting.
Griffin gives her a brief nod. “It won’t be a problem.”
I should appreciate his confidence and leave it at that, but his brush-off hits me wrong. People in town have been shrugging off my project ever since I stepped up to run it—I don’t need my volunteer looking down on it, too. “You don’t know what I have planned yet.”
He ticks his head to the side, facing me more fully. “Do you want it to be a problem?”
“Obviously not, but what if I ask you to build thirty houses? What if I want a replica Bavarian village in town square? What if I want a life-sized Christmas Town complete with Jack Skellington and Sally? None of that would be a problem?”
“Are you asking for any of that?”
“No.”
“Then it won’t be a problem.”
Amazing how quickly he can crawl right under my skin.
The arrogance that had rubbed me wrong in high school now makes me want to start a fight right here in the café—which probably wouldn’t be very smart, considering everything I’m about to ask him to do. His blunt criticisms always drove me crazy. I couldn’t understand his need to be so negative, and it looks like that hasn’t changed.
I take a deep breath, imagining how magical my Winter Wonderland buildings will look when they’re done. That’s the main thing, not Griffin’s excess of self-confidence. And definitely not that whenever I used to play the Kiss, Marry, Kill game, I always axed Griffin without a trace of guilt.
