Sugar Pine Trail--A Small-Town Holiday Romance Read online

And, of course, the man who suddenly lived upstairs.

  * * *

  ROXY NASH STOOD in front of the book club and gave a sharp smile that filled Julia with apprehension.

  “Tonight I thought it would be fun to try something different,” she said.

  “You mean like actually read the book?” Samantha asked in an undertone that made everyone sitting close enough to hear laugh.

  “Since the theme of Filling Your Well is wringing every drop of joy out of life while you can, I thought it would be so fun for us to write down some of the things on our own bucket lists. We’re about to head into a new year. What better time for a little self-reflection?”

  Beside her, Megan Hamilton groaned. “I already don’t like this,” she muttered.

  Julia completely agreed.

  “At least the booze is good,” Sam said, taking another sip of the autumn sangria Roxy had so thoughtfully provided for the book club.

  Julia had to agree with that sentiment, as well.

  “Ask yourself, what am I not happy about?” Roxy said to the room of twenty or so women gathered in Julia’s large living room. “What would I like to change about myself? Remember, this is not about resolutions. This isn’t about saying you want to lose ten pounds, though that might be a worthy goal. I want you to think a little deeper.”

  “Fifteen pounds?” Julia murmured, which made Megan laugh.

  Roxy didn’t seem to find their side comments amusing. She gave their corner of the room a stern look before she pulled out a stack of papers from a pink file folder.

  “To help you out a little, I’ve printed out a form for each of us. At the top, it says, This year I want to... For this exercise, I’d like you to put at least five things on the list, things that have been hovering on the edge of your mind, things you might not even have admitted to yourself you want.”

  “I want more sangria. Does that count?” Megan asked, making both Julia and Sam laugh and earning another glare from Roxy, which made Julia wince.

  Considering she was the hostess for the gathering, maybe she should be setting a little better example. She dutifully got up to help Roxy pass around the papers, along with pencils from a tin she kept in her kitchen.

  When everyone had a paper and a writing instrument, Julia returned to her seat and gazed down at the paper, not sure what to write.

  For so long, her goals in life had involved taking care of others. Her parents, her library patrons.

  Maksym.

  She wasn’t very good at projects like this. Whenever she was forced to take a good, hard look at her life, she rarely liked what she saw.

  “Can I put something involving Jamie Caine and his pecs?” Sam asked, tilting her head to look at the ceiling as if he might somehow appear there and wink down at them—and perhaps flex said pectorals.

  Julia took another sip of her sangria. The man wasn’t even home, though she didn’t bother telling Sam that. She hadn’t seen his vehicle earlier. When he did get home, he wouldn’t be able to pull into the driveway, as it was filled with the vehicles of her book group friends.

  “Really?” Roxy said. “Is that the first thing that comes to mind when you look at what would bring you joy next year?”

  “Yes,” Sam said emphatically.

  Megan laughed, though Sam’s mother rolled her eyes from across the room.

  “What’s wrong with that?” Samantha said. “You specifically wanted us to think about something missing from our lives. I would have to say that is definitely missing from my life.”

  “Thanks,” Wynona Emmett said with an eye roll of her own. “Now we’re all thinking about Jamie’s pecs.”

  Megan snorted. “Why would you care about that when you have a hot man in uniform waiting for you at home?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.” Wyn said with the sort of self-satisfied smile that made Julia ache with envy.

  Once, she thought her life would turn out like Wyn’s, married to a man she loved, with children and a home too small to hold in all her happiness.

  Things hadn’t quite turned out that way.

  She gazed down at her paper as all the wasted years seemed to march across the empty whiteness.

  “You can put whatever you want on your list,” Roxy said. “There’s no right or wrong here. It’s your list. Your dreams. But be honest with yourself. Like we learned in the book, you are the chief architect of your life. No one else. I’ll give you ten minutes to finish this.”

  To set the scene, Roxy turned on the music she had brought along, tuned to some kind of new age harp music playing Christmas songs. Julia didn’t find it necessarily very helpful. Between the music and the sangria, now she just wanted to take a nap.

  She stared at her paper for a long moment while a hundred thoughts chased themselves around in her brain. The sad truth was, she didn’t have a problem coming up with things missing in her life. The problem was narrowing the list down so she wasn’t writing a novel about it.

  She took another sip of her drink and finally wrote the first thing that came to mind.

  Drive my new car on the Interstate.

  She had owned the Lexus for a month and so far had avoided any highways or freeways that might require her to put the pedal to the metal. That was fine when she was running around town, but it was becoming apparent to her that she was starting to go out of her way to avoid having to travel too fast. What was the point in owning such a fine vehicle, if she was afraid to drive it?

  And while she was thinking about speed, another lifelong dream popped into her head, and she wrote it down before she had time to think.

  Learn to ski.

  She lived in the mountains, for heaven’s sake, where they could have snow upwards of seven months out of the year. How could she have lived to be thirty-two and not ever have tried the area’s most popular winter sport?

  “Learn to ski. That’s a good one!” Megan said. “Can I use that one, too?”

  Julia fought the urge to cover her paper. “Um, sure. If that’s your dream.”

  “One of many, hon. One of many.”

  “No peeking at each other’s papers,” Roxy said sternly. “You can share later if you choose, but for now I want you to do this on your own.”

  Megan sat back in her chair. “Wow, harsh. Roxy is as bad as Miss Chestnut. Remember her?”

  “Oh, yes,” Julia said. Agatha Chestnut had been the librarian in Haven Point for years. She had a dour, pinched face, a beehive hairdo and cat glasses that magnified her eyes about a hundred times. All the children had been terrified of her.

  “Okay, you should have written down at least half of your list,” Roxy said.

  Julia had exactly two items. She looked down at her list and quickly wrote the next thing that came into her mind.

  Fly in an airplane.

  How humiliating that she even had to write that one down. She had more than three decades on the planet, for heaven’s sake, and a long list of places she wanted to go.

  Her family had taken vacations when she was young, but her father never had much time away from his business, so they usually only traveled places they could drive to in a day.

  She had always dreamed of seeing India, China, Paris.

  The Ukraine.

  She should have gone home with Maksym.

  Old, long-familiar regrets haunted her. How different her life might have been if she had followed the instincts of her twenty-one-year-old heart and chosen love over obligation.

  If only she had taken a chance, once in her life.

  “Okay,” Roxy said. “Only five more minutes. You need to be wrapping things up now.”

  Julia gazed down at her mostly blank paper. She wasn’t writing a stupid novel here. No one else needed to see it. She only needed to write down a few of the many thi
ngs she longed to do. How hard was that?

  She took a long, fortifying drink of sangria and wrote quickly, forcing herself not to self-edit.

  Try escargot.

  Kiss someone special under the mistletoe.

  Get a puppy.

  That one made her stop. Why didn’t she get a puppy? Her parents had never wanted one when they were alive, but they were gone now. There was nothing really stopping her, was there?

  “Okay, one more minute. You’ve got time to add one, maybe two more things to your list.”

  All the possibilities crowded through her mind, and she quickly wrote one that seemed bigger than the rest.

  Make a difference in someone’s life.

  “I know I said we were done, but now I want you to add one more.”

  Everyone groaned, but Roxy just gave an evil grin.

  “I want you to write the very next thing that comes into your mind. Don’t edit it or run it through any internal filters. Just write it.”

  Julia stared at the page, her mind a jumbled mix of the book they had read—of the author’s heated relationship with a hot-blooded Spaniard she met on her journey of self-discovery—all tangled up with memories of Maksym and her own brief time with him, when she had been too young and naive to know herself and what she needed.

  She swallowed the last of her sangria and wrote quickly, before she could change her mind.

  Have an orgasm, with someone else.

  The moment she wrote the words, she wanted to cross them out, but it was too late. Besides, they were written in purple Sharpie. She folded her paper, hoping like hell nobody else saw it.

  “Now, wasn’t that fun?” Roxy beamed at them all.

  “Sure,” Megan muttered. “Next time, let’s all go get colonoscopies together.”

  “Anybody want to share something off her list? Remember, this is a no-judgment zone.”

  Barbara Serrano was the first to break the silence. “I want to stay home this Christmas Eve and not have to cook a single thing for anyone.”

  “Hear, hear,” Charlene Bailey said enthusiastically. “And I’d like to go on another cruise, one to Alaska this time.”

  Everyone seemed inclined to share something on her list. Julia was going to remain quiet and let them have all the fun, but on impulse, when the conversation began to wane, she blurted out the least embarrassing thing on her list.

  “I’d like to get a puppy. I’ve always loved dogs, but my parents never wanted one. My mom always had cats and my dad thought dogs were too big of a mess and bother.”

  “Oh, you should!” Andie Bailey exclaimed. “We adore our dog.”

  “What’s stopping you?” Katrina asked.

  Julia shrugged and poured another drink. She wasn’t driving home, so why not?

  “I live alone and I work long hours. I don’t have time to give a puppy the attention it deserves—to train it and walk it and play with it. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Get two puppies,” Eppie Brewer suggested. “That way they can entertain each other.”

  And chew up every antique in the house, too.

  “I think I’ll stick with one of the other items on my list.”

  She would stick to driving her car on the freeway or trying escargot.

  Right now, anything more seemed wholly out of reach.

  * * *

  THE REST OF the book club meeting was much more enjoyable. Roxy—clever girl—brought out more sangria to go with the potluck meal. By the time everyone decided to pick up their lists and go home, Julia realized that for the first time since McKenzie Kilpatrick’s bachelorette party a few years before, she was more than a little tipsy.

  The best kind of guests always cleaned up after themselves. And her friends were the absolute best. Julia looked around her gleaming kitchen, touched that she didn’t have hours of dishes ahead of her. The only thing left was to take out the last bag of trash.

  She opened the door to her guest bedrooms, where she had contained the cats for the evening so they didn’t bother her company, then picked up the garbage bag and headed out, propping her door behind her.

  Outside, a cold November wind blew through her sweater, making her shiver. They were supposed to have a few inches of snow that night, and the air had that funny, expectant, heavy feeling to it.

  A black SUV was in her driveway, and she gazed at it for about five seconds, wondering if one of the book club guests might be in the bathroom, before she remembered it belonged to Jamie Caine.

  Her tenant was home. Somehow in all the commotion of the party, she had missed his return.

  Not that she had been watching for him or anything.

  She shivered again, more from the lie she was telling herself this time than from the cold. Of course she had been watching for him. She had a man living in her house, and this was the first night he had spent under the same roof.

  How would she possibly make it through the next six weeks?

  CHAPTER THREE

  HE HAD A VISITOR.

  At the third plaintive yowl in as many minutes from the landing outside his new apartment, Jamie set down his book and headed to the door. When he opened it, he found one of Julia Winston’s cats, the same lithe black beauty he had held earlier. She bounded inside to rub against his leg and instantly began to purr.

  He chuckled and picked her up, holding her out so he could gaze into her green eyes.

  “Hi there. I don’t think you’re supposed to be up here, but maybe you didn’t get the memo.”

  She meowed in answer, giving him an unblinking stare.

  “Are you looking for something? Did you leave your favorite toy up here?” he asked, stroking her silky fur.

  She purred and rubbed her head against his hand, making him smile.

  It had been a long time since he’d had much to do with cats. His mother had always loved them, but the succession of big, boisterous dogs he and his brothers and Charlotte were constantly taking home to Winterberry Lane in Hope’s Crossing didn’t always make for the most comfortable environment for its feline occupants.

  His poor mother had put up with so much from her brood. As always, he felt a pang when he remembered Margaret Caine, gone too young from cancer.

  He petted the cat a few more moments, finding an odd sort of peace in it. He would like to have taken her in, charmed more than he might have expected by the idea of sitting by the gas fireplace in his apartment on a cold night, with a good book and a cat on his lap. He couldn’t just commandeer a cat. His landlady would probably be looking for her.

  “You’d better go home,” he said, trying to set the cat down. She yowled in protest and wriggled to stay in his arms.

  “Fine. I’ll take you down myself,” he said.

  Jamie didn’t bother with shoes as he headed down the steps to the entryway. He was about five or six steps from the bottom when the doorknob to the outside door turned and a moment later, Julia walked inside.

  Her hair looked a bit messy, as if tangled by a stiff wind, and she wobbled a little as she pushed the door open. She was humming a song, and it took him a few bars before he recognized the tune. “Blue Christmas.”

  She didn’t appear to notice him as she came inside, still humming and looking a little unsteady.

  Jamie decided he had to announce himself, since she still didn’t appear to notice him even when he walked the rest of the way down the steps.

  “I think I have something of yours.”

  She shrieked and jumped a foot into the air, then whirled around with her hands in front of her in a classic martial arts defensive pose.

  Whoa. Ninja librarian.

  He knew the instant she recognized him. Color soaked her cheeks, and she dropped her hands.

  “Oh! You scared the da
ylights out of me!”

  “Sorry about that. I should have announced myself somehow.”

  “It’s not your fault. I... I guess I must have been...thinking about something else.”

  The words something else came out slightly slurred and as he approached her, he noticed her cheeks seemed a little bit more flushed than he could attribute to a normal blush and her violet eyes looked a little dazed.

  Unless he was very much mistaken, his prim, uptight landlady was slightly tipsy, maybe from the gathering that had just broken up down here within the last half hour or so.

  He had to admit, he found this soft, flustered version of Julia Winston rather appealing.

  “I had a visitor upstairs, and I thought you might be looking for her.”

  He held out the cat, who still seemed reluctant to leave his arms.

  “Oh. Audrey Hepburn. You rascal.”

  He couldn’t hold back his smile. “Your cat’s name is Audrey Hepburn?”

  “Not my cat,” she corrected. “My mother’s cat. They’re all my mother’s cats. Yes, her name is Audrey Hepburn. My mother was a big fan of Roman Holiday.”

  “Charade is my favorite of her work.”

  “Same here!” Her eyes were wide with disbelief, as if she couldn’t fathom the idea that they might share a favorite movie.

  It surprised him a little, too. He might have figured her for someone who preferred dry literary movies or the kind of foreign films he couldn’t understand without subtitles. Then again, she was tipsy in her hallway after a wild gathering with friends on a weeknight. Maybe he wasn’t as good a judge of character as he thought.

  “Sounds like you were having quite a party earlier.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about my book club. I hope we didn’t bother you.”

  “It sounded a little raucous for a book club.” He didn’t mention the fact that she seemed a little buzzed.

  “We’re not usually this crazy,” she confided. “Roxy Nash brought this really great autumn sangria. It had apples and cinnamon and pears and was so good. We all got a little carried away. I think we might have underestimated slightly the alcohol content. I promise. I don’t have wild book club parties very often.”