A Mistletoe Vow
He wouldn’t be here at the library if not for Celeste, actually. He had so much work to do clearing out his grandmother’s house and really didn’t have time to listen to Dr. Seuss, as great as the story might be, but what other choice did he have? Since leaving the hospital, Olivia had been a pale, frightened shadow of the girl she used to be. Once she had faced the world head-on, daring and curious and funny. Now she was afraid of so many things. Loud noises. Strangers. Crowds.
From the moment she’d found out that the author of her favorite book lived here in Pine Gulch where they were staying for a few weeks—and was the children’s librarian, who also hosted a weekly story hour—Olivia had been obsessed with coming. She had written the date of the next event on the calendar and had talked of nothing else.
She was finally going to meet the Sparkle lady, and she couldn’t have been more excited about it if Celeste Nichols had been Mrs. Santa Claus in the flesh.
For the first time in weeks she showed enthusiasm for something, and he had jumped at the chance to nurture that.
He glanced down at his daughter. She hadn’t shifted her gaze away from Celeste, watching the librarian with clear hero worship on her features. She seemed utterly enchanted by the librarian.
The woman was lovely, he would give her that much, though in a quiet, understated way. She had big green eyes behind her glasses and glossy dark hair that fell in waves around a heart-shaped face.
She was probably about four years younger than his own thirty-two. That didn’t seem like much now, but when she had crashed her bike, she had seemed like a little kid, thirteen or so to his seventeen.
As he listened to her read now, he remembered that time, wondering why it seemed so clear to him, especially with everything that had happened to him since.
He’d been out mowing the lawn when she’d fallen and had seen her go down out of the corner of his gaze. Flynn had hurried to help her and found her valiantly trying not to cry even though she had a wide gash in her knee that would definitely need stitches and pebbles imbedded in her palm.
He had helped her into his grandmother’s house and called her aunt Mary. While they’d waited for help, he had found first-aid supplies—bandages, ointment, cleansing wipes—and told her lousy jokes to distract her from the pain.
After Mary had taken her to the ER for stitches in her knee and he had finished mowing for his grandmother, he had gone to work fixing her banged-up bike with skills he had picked up from his mother’s chauffeur.
Later that day, he had dropped off the bike at the Star N, and she had been almost speechless with gratitude. Or maybe she just had been shy with older guys; he didn’t know.
He had stayed with his grandmother for just a few more weeks that summer, but whenever he had seen Celeste in town at the grocery store or the library, she had always blushed fiercely and offered him a shy but sweet smile.
Now he found himself watching her intently, hoping for a sight of that same sweet smile, but she seemed to be focusing with laser-like intensity on the books in front of her.
She read several more holiday stories to the children, then led them all to one side of the large room, where tables had been set up.
“I need all the children to take a seat,” she said in a prim voice he found incongruously sexy. “We’re going to make snowman ornaments for you to hang on your tree. When you’re finished, they’ll look like this.”
She held up a stuffed white sock with buttons glued on to it for eyes and a mouth, and a piece of felt tied around the neck for a scarf.
“Oh,” Olivia breathed. “That’s so cute! Can I make one, Dad?”
Again, how could he refuse? “Sure, if there are enough to go around.”
She limped to a seat and he propped up the wall along with a few other parents so the children each could have a spot at a table. Celeste and another woman with a library name badge passed out supplies and began issuing instructions.
Olivia looked a little helpless at first and then set to work. She seemed to forget for the moment that she rarely used her left hand. Right now she was holding the sock with that hand while she shoved in pillow fluff stuffing with the other.
While the children were busy crafting, Celeste made her way around the tables, talking softly to each one of them.
Finally she came to them.
“Nice job,” she said to his daughter. Ah, there it was. She gave Olivia that sweet, unguarded smile that seemed to bloom across her face like the first violets of springtime.
That smile turned her from a lovely if average-looking woman into a breathtaking creature with luminous skin and vivid green eyes.
He couldn’t seem to stop staring at her, though he told himself he was being ridiculous.
“You’re the Sparkle lady, aren’t you?” Olivia breathed.
Color rose instantly in her cheeks and she gave a surprised laugh. “I suppose that’s one way to put it.”
“I love that story. It’s my favorite book ever.”
“I’m so happy to hear that.” She smiled again, though he thought she looked a little uncomfortable. “Sparkle is pretty close to my heart, too.”
“My dad bought a brand-new copy for me when I was in the hospital, even though I had one at home.”
She said the words in a matter-of-fact tone as if the stay had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience. He knew better. She had spent two weeks clinging to life in intensive care after an infection had ravaged her system, where he had measured his life by each breath the machines took for her.
Most of the time he did a pretty good job of containing his impotent fury at the senseless violence that had touched his baby girl, but every once in a while the rage swept over him like a brushfire on dry tinder. He let out a breath as he felt a muscle flex in his jaw.
“Is that right?” Celeste said with a quick look at him.
“It’s my very favorite book,” Olivia said again, just in case Celeste didn’t hear. “Whenever I had to do something I didn’t want to, like have my blood tested or go to physical therapy, I would look at the picture of Sparkle on the last page with all his friends and it would make me feel better.”
At Olivia’s words, Celeste’s big eyes filled with tears and she rocked back on her heels a little. “Oh. That’s...lovely. Thank you so much for letting me know. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
“You’re welcome,” Olivia said with a solemn smile. “My favorite part is when Sparkle helps the animals with their Christmas celebration. The hedgehog is my favorite.”
“He’s cute, isn’t he?”
The two of them gazed at each other in perfect charity for a moment longer before a boy with blond hair and a prominent widow’s peak tried to draw Celeste’s attention.
“Ms. Nichols. Hey, Ms. Nichols. How do we glue on the hat?”
“I’ll show you. Just a minute.” She turned back to Olivia. “It was very nice to meet you. You’re doing a great job with your snowman. Thanks for letting me know you enjoy the book.”
“You’re welcome.”
When she left, Olivia turned back to her project with renewed effort. She was busy gluing on the button eyes when the woman beside Flynn finally spoke to him.
“You’re new in town. I don’t think we’ve met.” She was blonde and pretty in a classic sort of way, with a baby on her hip. “I’m Caroline Dalton. This is my daughter, Lindy. Over there is my son, Cole.”
He knew the Daltons. They owned much of the upper portion of Cold Creek Canyon. Which brother was she married to?
“Hello. I’m Flynn Delaney, and this is my daughter, Olivia. We’re not really new in town. That is, we’re not staying anyway. We’re here just for a few weeks, and then we’re going back to California.”
“I hope you feel welcome here. This is a lovely place to spend the holidays.”
“I’m sure it is, but we’re not really tourists, either. I’m cleaning out my grandmother’s home so I can put it up for sale.”
He could have hired someone to come and clean out the house. There were companies that handled exactly that sort of thing, but as he and Olivia were Charlotte’s only surviving descendants, he’d felt obligated to go through the house himself.
“Delaney. Oh, Charlotte! She must have been your grandmother.”
“That’s right.”
Her features turned soft and a little sad. “Oh, everyone adored your grandmother. What a firecracker she was! Pine Gulch just doesn’t feel the same without her.”
His life didn’t feel the same, either. He hadn’t seen her often the past few years, just quick semiannual visits, but she had been a steady source of affection and warmth in his chaotic life.
He had barely had the chance to grieve her passing. That bothered him more than anything else. He hadn’t even been able to attend the memorial service members of her church congregation had held for her here. He had been too busy in the ICU, praying for his daughter’s life.
“I miss her, too,” he said quietly.
She looked at him with kindness and warmth. “I’m sure you do. She was an amazing person and I feel blessed to have known her. If you need help sorting through things, please let me know. I’m sure we could find people to give you a hand.”
With only a little more than a week to go before Christmas? He doubted that. People were probably too busy to help.
He didn’t bother to express his cynicism to Caroline Dalton. “Thanks,” he said instead.
“Despite your difficult task, I hope you’re able to find a little holiday spirit while you’re here.”
Yeah, he wasn’t a huge Christmas fan for a whole slew of reasons, but he saw no reason to share that with a woman he’d just met.
“Daddy, I can’t tie the scarf. Can you help me?” Olivia asked.
She could use her left arm and hand. He’d seen her do it at therapy or when she lost herself in an activity, but most of the time she let it hang down uselessly. He didn’t know how to force her into using it.
“Try again,” he said.
“I can’t. It’s too hard,” she answered plaintively. He sighed, not wanting to push her unnecessarily and ruin her tentative enjoyment of the afternoon.
He leaned down to help her tie the felt scarf just as Celeste made her way back around the table to them.
“I love that snowman!” she exclaimed with a smile. “He looks very friendly.”
Olivia’s answering smile seemed spontaneous and genuine. Right then Flynn wanted to hug Celeste Nichols on the spot, even though he hadn’t talked to her for nearly two decades.
His little girl hadn’t had much to smile about over the past few months. He had to hope this was a turning point, a real chance for her to return to his sweet and happy daughter.
At this point, he was willing to bring Olivia to the library every single day if Celeste could help his daughter begin to heal her battered heart.
Chapter Two
She was late.
By the time she helped the last little boy finish his snowman, ushered them all out of the meeting room and then cleaned up the mess of leftover pillow stuffing and fleece remnants, it was forty minutes past the time she had told her sisters to expect her.
They would understand, she was sure. Hope might tease her a little, but Faith probably wouldn’t say anything. Their eldest sister saved her energy for the important things like running the cattle ranch and taking care of her children.
She stopped first at the foreman’s little cottage, just down the driveway from the main house. It felt strange to be living on her own again after the past year of being back in her own bedroom there. She had moved back after her brother-in-law Travis died the previous summer so she could help Faith—and Aunt Mary, of course—with the children and the housekeeping.
Hope had lived briefly in the foreman’s house until she and Rafe married this fall. After she’d moved into the house they purchased together, Faith and Mary had taken Celeste aside and informed her firmly that she needed her own space to create. She was a bestselling author now. While Faith loved and appreciated her dearly, she didn’t want Celeste to think she had to live at the ranch house for the rest of her life.
Rather reluctantly, she had moved to the foreman’s cottage, a nice compromise. She did like her own space and the quiet she found necessary to write, but she was close enough to pop into the ranch house several times a day.
As she walked inside, her little Yorkie, Linus, rolled over with glee at the sight of her.
She had to smile, despite her exhaustion from a long day, the lingering stress from the phone call with Joan and the complete shock of seeing Flynn Delaney once more.
“How was your day?” she asked the little dog, taking just a moment to sink onto the sofa and give him a little love. “Mine was crazy. Thanks for asking. The weirdest I’ve had in a long time—and that’s saying something, since the entire past year has been surreal.”
She hugged him for a moment. As she might have predicted, a sleek black cat peeked her head around the corner to see what all the fuss was about.
Lucy, who had been with her since college, strutted in with a haughty air that only lasted long enough for her to leap onto the sofa and bat her head against Celeste’s arm for a little of the same attention.
The two pets were the best of friends, which helped her feel less guilty about leaving them alone during the day. They seemed to have no problem keeping each other company most of the time, but that didn’t stop them from exhibiting classic signs of sibling rivalry at random moments.
She felt her tension trickle away as she sat in her quiet living room with her creatures while the Christmas tree lights that came on automatically gleamed in the gathering darkness. Why couldn’t she stay here all evening? There were worse ways to spend a December night.
Linus yipped a little, something he didn’t do often, but it reminded her of why she had stopped at the house.
“I know. I’m late. I just have to grab Aunt Mary’s present. Give me a second.”
She found the gift in her bedroom closet, the door firmly shut to keep Lucy from pulling apart the tissue paper inside the gift bag.
“Okay. I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Linus’s tail wagged with excitement, but Lucy curled up on the sofa, making abundantly clear her intent to stay put and not venture out into the cold night.
“Fine. Be that way,” she said, opening the door for the dog. The two of them made their way through lightly falling snow to the ranch house, a sprawling log structure with a steep roof and three gables along the front. Linus scampered ahead of her to the front door. When she opened it, the delicious scents of home greeted her—roast beef, potatoes and what smelled very much like cinnamon apple pie.
As she expected, her entire family was there, all the people she loved best in the world. Aunt Mary, the guest of honor, was busy at the stove stirring something that smelled like her heavenly brown gravy. She stepped aside to let Faith pull a pan of rolls out of the oven as Hope helped the children set the table, where her husband, Rafe, sat talking with their neighbor Chase Brannon.
The children spotted Linus first. They all adored each other—in fact, the children helped her out by letting him out when they got home from school and playing with him for a little bit.
“There you are,” Faith exclaimed. “I was beginning to worry.”
“Sorry. I sent you a text.”
Faith made a face. “My phone ran out of juice sometime this afternoon, but I didn’t realize it until just now. Is everything okay?”
Not really, though she wasn’t sure what bothered her more—the movie decision she would have to make in the next few days or the reappearance of Flynn Delaney in her world. She couldn’t seem to shake the weird feeling that her safe, comfortable world was about to change.
“Fine,” she said evasively. “I hope you didn’t hold dinner for me.”
“Not really. I was tied up going over some ranch accounts with Chase this afternoon, and we lost track of time.”
“Fine. Blame me. I can take it,” Chase said, overhearing.
“We always do,” Hope said with a teasing grin.
Chase had been invaluable to their family since Faith’s husband died, and Celeste was deeply grateful to him for all his help during the subsequent dark and difficult months.
“I’m happy to blame you, as long as that means I wasn’t the cause of any delay in Aunt Mary’s birthday celebration,” Celeste said with a smile as she headed for her great-aunt.
She kissed the woman’s lined cheek as the familiar scent of Mary’s favorite White Shoulders perfume washed over her. “Happy birthday, my dear. You are still just as stunning as ever.”
Mary’s grin lit up her nut-brown eyes. “Ha. Double sevens. That’s got to be lucky, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“I don’t need luck. I’ve got my family around me, don’t I?”
She smiled at them all and Celeste hugged her again, deeply grateful for her great-aunt and her great-uncle Claude, who had opened their hearts to three grieving, traumatized girls and gave them a warm haven and all the love they could need.
“We’re the lucky ones,” she murmured with another hug before she stepped away.
For all intents and purposes, Mary had been her mother since Celeste turned eleven. She had been a wonderful one. Celeste was all too aware that things could have been much different after their parents died if not for Mary and Claude. She and her sisters probably would have been thrown into the foster care system, likely separated, certainly not nurtured and cared for with such love.
She had a sudden, unexpected wish that their mother could be here, just for a moment, to see how her daughters had turned out—to meet her grandchildren, to see Hope so happily settled with Rafe, to see the completely unexpected success of their Sparkle book.
December always left her a little maudlin. She supposed that wasn’t unexpected, considering it had been the month that had changed everything, when she, her sisters and their parents had been hostages of a rebel group in Colombia. Her father had been killed in the rescue effort by a team of US Navy SEALs that had included Rafe Santiago, who was now her brother-in-law.
She wouldn’t think about that now. This was a time of celebration, a time to focus on the joy of being with her family, not the past.
She grabbed a black olive out of a bowl on the counter and popped it in her mouth as she carried the bowl to the table.
“I talked to Joan this afternoon,” she told Hope.
“I know. She called me, too. I reminded her that any decision about making a movie had to be made jointly between us, and each of us had veto power. Don’t worry, CeCe. I told her firmly that I wouldn’t pressure you. You created the Sparkle character. He belongs to you.”
That wasn’t completely true and both of them knew it. She might have written the words, but it was Hope’s illustrations that had brought him to life.
“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted as Faith and Mary joined them at the table carrying bowls and trays of food.
“Your problem has always been that you analyze everything to death,” Mary pointed out. “You know someone is going to make a Sparkle movie at some point. It’s as inevitable as Christmas coming every year. People love the story and the characters too much. If you like this production company and think they’ll do a good job with it based on their reputation, I don’t know why you’re dragging your feet.”
Mary was right, she realized. She was overthinking, probably because she was so concerned with making the right decision.
She hated being afraid all the time. She knew it was a by-product of the trauma she and her sisters had endured at a young age, but neither Hope nor Faith seemed as impacted as she had been.
Hope seemed absolutely fearless, spending years wandering around underdeveloped countries with the Peace Corps, and then on her own teaching English. Faith had plowed all her energy and attention into her family—her marriage, her children, the ranch.
Celeste’s life had become her job at the library and the stories she created.
In some ways, she supposed she was still a hostage of Juan Pablo and his crazy group of militants, afraid to take a move and embrace her life.
“Everything’s ready and I’m starving,” Mary said cheerfully. “What are we waiting for? Let’s eat.”
Dinner was noisy and chaotic, with several different conversations going at once.
“How did story time go?” Faith asked when there was a lull in the conversation.
She instantly remembered the shock of looking up from Dr. Seuss to see Flynn and his daughter.
“Good.” She paused. “Charlotte Delaney’s grandson, Flynn, and his daughter were there. I guess he’s in town to clean out Charlotte’s house.”
“Flynn Delaney.” Hope made a sound low in her throat. “I used to love it whenever he came to stay with Charlotte. Remember how he used to mow the lawn with his shirt off?”
Celeste dropped her fork with a loud clatter, earning her a curious look from Hope.
“Really?” Rafe said, eyebrow raised. “So all this time I should have been taking my shirt off to mow the lawn?”
Hope grinned at him. “You don’t need to take your shirt off. You’re gorgeous enough even when you’re wearing a parka. Anyway, I was a teenage girl. Now that I’m older and wiser I prefer to use my imagination.”
He shook his head with an amused look, but Celeste was certain his ears turned a little red.
“You said Flynn came into the library with his daughter,” Faith said, her voice filled with compassion. “That poor girl. How is she?”
Considering Flynn’s connection to Charlotte, whom they all had loved, everyone in Pine Gulch had followed the news reports. Celeste thought of Olivia’s big, haunted eyes, the sad, nervous air about her.
“Hard to say. She limped a little and didn’t use her left arm while we were doing the craft project, but other than that she seemed okay.”
“Who is Flynn Delaney and what happened to his daughter?” Rafe asked.
“It was all over the news three or four months ago,” Chase said. “Around the time Charlotte died, actually.”
“You remember,” Hope insisted. “We talked about it. He was married to Elise Chandler.”
Understanding spread over Rafe’s handsome features. “Elise Chandler. The actress.” He paused. “Oh. That poor kid.”
“Right?” Hope frowned. “What a tragedy. I saw on some tabloid in the supermarket that Flynn never left her side through the whole recovery.”
Somehow that didn’t seem so surprising, especially considering his devotion to his daughter during story time.
“What happened to her?” Louisa asked. At eleven, she was intensely interested in the world around her.
Her mother was the one who answered. “Elise Chandler was a famous actress,” Faith said. “She was in that superhero movie you loved so much and a bunch of other films. Anyway, she was involved with someone who turned out to be a pretty messed-up guy. A few months ago after a big fight, he shot Elise and her daughter before shooting and killing himself. Even though she was injured, Olivia managed to crawl to her mother’s phone and call 911.”
Celeste had heard that 911 call, which had been made public shortly after the shooting, and the sound of that weak, panic-stricken voice calling for help had broken her heart.
“She seems to be doing well now. She didn’t smile much, but she did tell me she loves the Sparkle book and that her dad used to read it to her over and over again in the hospital.”
“Oh, how lovely!” Hope exclaimed. “You should take her one of the original Sparkle toys I sewed. I’ve still got a few left.”
“That’s a lovely idea,” Mary exclaimed. “We definitely should do something for that poor, poor girl. It would have broken Charlotte’s heart if she’d still been alive to see Flynn’s little girl have to go through such a thing.”