*Thirty minutes later, Holiday was on the road and headed for the bridge to the mainland with a thermal mug of lukewarm coffee in her cupholder and a paper bag full of healthful snacks in the back seat. Mr. Kilgorff had responded to her inquiries in the exact opposite manner than his long-lost fourth cousin (or whatever) Pamela.
“Yes, I’m well aware of my great-grandfather’s penchant for dramatics,” Crispin had informed her. “My mother liked to say he had an ‘artistic temperament.’ There are still boxes of old heirlooms up in the attic, but no one’s been up there in years. You’re welcome to come and go through them, if you like.”
Twinges of suspicion stirred in her gut. This seemed a bit too easy . . . but wasn’t she due for a little luck? She should stop being so pessimistic and count her blessings.
The moment she allowed herself to revel in her good fortune, the steering wheel jerked in her hands and the little sedan started sliding on a patch of black ice. She yanked at the wheel and stomped on the brake, to no avail. For a few weightless, breathless moments, she saw the world whirl around her until—thunk—one tire skidded off the icy asphalt and into a snowbank.
Holiday sat back to relieve the pressure of the safety belt restraining her chest. She closed her eyes and concentrated on regulating her breathing, despite the adrenaline flooding through her body. She felt simultaneously grateful that she hadn’t been injured and irate that the rental car company had given away her all-wheel-drive vehicle to someone else.
She glanced toward the bridge, imagining how icy the pavement must be over the gray churning water, since—as the sign plainly stated—BRIDGE FREEZES BEFORE ROAD. She checked the weather on her phone, hoping against hope that the forecast would change, but no—the app insisted that the temperature would hover in the low thirties all day before plummeting at sundown.
She needed to get to Lake Sheridan ASAP, but she also needed to stay alive in order to complete her missions. There had to be a better way to work this out. And with that, a pickup truck crested over the horizon. A heavy-duty pickup truck with studded snow tires and a familiar driver behind the wheel.
Holiday scrambled out of the sedan and jumped up and down, waving her hands. The pickup slowed, and Alex rolled down the window.
He glanced at her, then her car, then the snowbank. “You stuck?”
“Kind of. Where are you going?” she asked.
“Home. I just had to pick up a few things from the mainland.”
“I’m so glad to hear that. I need to borrow your truck.”
Alex started shaking his head, but she interjected before he could protest. “Look at my car. And look at this road. There’s no way I’m going to make it to New Hampshire and back without incurring major damage and possibly death.”
“What’s in New Hampshire?” he asked.
“Your Christmas miracle, hopefully. Trade keys with me,” she demanded.
“No.”
“Do you want your tree topper or not?” She put her hands on her hips.
He hesitated, and she thought she had him. Then he resumed shaking his head. “The truck stays with me.”
“Oh, come on. What do you think I’m going to do to it?”
He paused again, considering. “Nothing. I just don’t like—”
“‘Being strong-armed into other people’s agendas’?” She arched one eyebrow as she quoted his own words back at him.
His smile looked a bit sheepish. “You remembered.”
“Fine, then get ready for a road trip to scenic New Hampshire.” She held out her palm. “At least give me the keys. I’ll drive.”
He glanced pointedly at the car in the snowbank.
“That wasn’t my fault. Blame it on the stupid car. The road conditions are ridiculous.” She started hopping up and down. “Let’s go, time’s a-wastin’.”
Alex opened the truck door and climbed out. “Listen, if we drive all the way to New Hampshire—and I am not making any promises as to who will be driving—you can’t leave your car here. It’s supposed to snow this afternoon, which means they’ll plow the roads again. Best-case scenario, your car will get buried. Worst-case scenario, it’s going to get smashed up six ways from Sunday.”
“The curse of the snowplow strikes again.” Holiday shuddered.
He blinked. “What?”
“Nothing.” She set her jaw. “I knew I should have sprung for the extra insurance coverage.”
“Drive to that parking lot.” He pointed out the drugstore across the street. “Leave it there, unlocked, and put the keys in the glove compartment. I’ll have Paul come over later and move it to the hotel.”
“Leave it unlocked?” Holiday was scandalized.
“Don’t worry.” He started back toward his truck. “It’s Alemos Island.”
She stared at him, sizing him up. “And you’re not going to take off and leave me truckless?”
“I want that tree topper,” he said. “We’re a team now.”
“Yes, we are.” She sighed inwardly. “Until tomorrow night.”
“Then we better hit the road, teammate.”
*
“Alex, this is nice of you, but you really don’t have to go with me all the way to Lake Sheridan and back.” Holiday rested her hands at ten and two o’clock on the steering wheel. After a spirited negotiation, they had decided to take turns driving.
“I can’t take any chances,” he replied. “I need that tree topper and time is running out. My mom keeps asking questions and I can’t put her off forever.”
She glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. “Since we have hours to kill, why don’t you tell me about this tree topper and why you’re willing to romance a stranger for it?”
“The short version is, I screwed up, and when I screw up, I fix it.”
“We still have four more hours, minimum. Go ahead and tell me the long version.”
He took off his jacket and settled in for the ride. “My parents were married for almost forty years. My dad was a pilot in the Air Force, which meant we moved a lot. It was a great opportunity for a kid—I got to live in Alaska, Arizona, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and a bunch of other places—but since we were constantly packing up to relocate, we kind of thinned our possessions down to the bare minimum.”
“So that tree topper got some serious mileage,” Holiday said.
“Like Paul said before, it was a wedding gift from some rich relative. My parents did okay financially, but they never could have swung a fancy collector’s piece like that. My mom was crazy about it. Every Christmas she’d unwrap it from twenty layers of Bubble Wrap and tissue paper and tell us the story of the first Christmas she had with my dad. Every time we moved, she made sure that she personally packaged that star because she didn’t trust the movers to do it. That star went around the globe with us until my dad retired from the service.”
“Where did they end up living?” Holiday asked.
“They were in the Boston suburbs for a long time. Paul and I both went to college in Massachusetts.”
“So I learned during my extensive background investigation,” Holiday assured him.
Alex rolled his eyes. “If you did such a meticulous background check on me, shouldn’t you already know who my parents were and where they lived?”
“You’re the target, not your parents,” she said. “I have boundaries.”
“You commandeered my truck in broad daylight,” he pointed out.
“And I graciously permitted you to go with me on my mission,” Holiday said. “Since your name is on the vehicle registration and all. Like I said, boundaries.”
“Anyway, my parents lived near Boston while my brother and I went to college, and my mom went back to school and got her master’s in social work. She was working with an eldercare agency, and my dad was helping Paul start the charter plane business.”
“While you were giving commencement addresses and taking the tech world by storm,” Holiday finished for him. “And flying hither and yon in your company’s private jet.”
“It sounds more exciting than it really was. I had a lot of research interests and a lot of money, but no time.” He looked exhausted just thinking about it. “I practically lived at work—I had a fold-down couch in my office so I could sleep there—and I had a fancy condo in Back Bay that I barely saw.”
“But you didn’t care because it was a good investment,” she predicted.
“Yes.” He shot her a glance. “Did I already tell you this part?”
“No, but the vast majority of my clients have way more money than free time. I know the drill.”
“There came a tipping point when I realized I had more than enough money, but my time was finite. So I invested accordingly and moved up here.”
Holiday studied his expression, which appeared totally neutral. “What was the tipping point?”
“Eyes on the road.” He pointed at the windshield.
“Was it a moral dilemma? A health crisis?” She paused, then pushed ahead with the question she was most curious about. “A bad breakup?”
“We’re talking about my mom,” he reminded her.
“We’re going to be spending the whole day together,” she repeated. “Might as well tell me all your deep, dark secrets.”
“That’s not necessary,” he assured her. “How about a podcast instead?”
He reached for the radio dial. She swatted his hand away. “Maybe later. Right now, I’d like to hear the incredible true story of how a guy like you ends up single in the middle of nowhere.”
He pretended to take offense. “First of all, I like living in the middle of nowhere.”
“Fair enough.” Holiday circled her hand to prompt him to continue. “And you’re single because . . .”
He rolled his eyes. “I already told you. I’m a soulless sociopath.”
She burst out laughing. “Give it up, Sappier. No one’s buying that. I already heard about you personally rebuilding the elementary school.”
He muttered darkly about Sally under his breath.
“And besides, sociopaths don’t send you grilled cheese and tomato soup, so you won’t go to bed hungry.” She pointed at her eyes, then at his. “I see you, Alex. I see you.”
He finally shrugged and relented. “Okay, fine, you got me. I had a bad breakup.”
“Just as I suspected.” She took a sip of coffee and prepared to hear his tale.
“But it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me, so it really wasn’t that bad,” he continued.
“Very philosophical of you.” Holiday adjusted the windshield wiper setting.
“I was dating a woman named Kathryn—”
“Model?” Holiday guessed. “Actress?”
“CEO,” he corrected. “She was also in biotech. My problem is, I like women who are smart and successful.”
Her eyebrows shot all the way up. “I can’t wait to hear why that’s a problem.”
He paused for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “When you have two people who are both used to running the show and being in charge . . . conflicts can arise.”
She put the coffee down. “Such as . . .?”
He remained carefully neutral and even-toned. “I ran my life my way, she ran her life her way, but when we started to get serious . . .” He trailed off, rubbing his chin. “I think the problems started when she started messing with my phone.”
Holiday waited for him to elaborate.
“First, she didn’t like my ringtone, and that was no big deal, so I let her go ahead and change it. But then she wanted to change the way I organized my calendar.”
Holiday frowned. “Like, your online calendar?”
“Yeah. We had a ridiculous fight about that.” He sucked in his breath at the memory. “And then my administrative assistant got involved. She got madder than anybody else because she was actually in charge of my schedule.”
“Yeah, don’t mess with the person who organizes your office life.”
“It’s a miracle I’m still alive.” He shuddered. “Kathryn and I took a few vacations together and had a great time, but when she came to my condo, she started changing the kitchen without talking to me.”
“Changing it how?” Holiday barely had the time, energy, and motivation to organize her own living space, let alone anyone else’s.
“Rearranging the cabinets and the pantry. I know it sounds like no big deal—”
“Not really.”
“But after she left, I couldn’t find my coffee or my coffee cup, and I was late to work for the first time in my life.”
“Hold on.” Holiday put up her palm and called for a time-out. “I need to make sure I’m understanding this. So she just . . . moved all your dishes?”
“And the silverware, the pots, and the appliances.” He nodded. “She said her way was more efficient.”
“But she didn’t live with you, correct?”
“Correct. She just came over on weekends.”
This was all Holiday needed to deliver her verdict. “She sounds like a micromanaging control freak.”
He smiled but didn’t join her in disparaging Kathryn. “I’m only telling my side of the story,” he said. “I’m sure when she tells it, it’s very different. In her version, I’m probably stubborn and short on counter space. With bad taste in ringtones.”
“Now I have to know what your ringtone was.”
He very pointedly ignored that. “A few weeks after the kitchen overhaul, she started looking at engagement rings without me and texting me pictures of the ones she liked.”
“And that’s the end of that story?” Holiday guessed.
“Pretty much. We had one last fight—right around this time of year, actually. Then she got recruited by a start-up in Silicon Valley and moved to California. I wanted to get away from the traffic and the crowds, so I moved up here.”
“So your heart would freeze and you’d never fall in love again?” she teased.
“So I could think about how I really wanted to spend my life,” he corrected.
She softened her tone. “Was it hard when she left?”
He thought about this. “Yeah. But a lot of that was about who I saw myself becoming. Impatient. Short-tempered. Narrow-minded.”
Holiday blinked. “You don’t seem like any of those things to me.”
“I was having two-hour arguments about silverware drawers.” He sounded deeply chagrined. “That’s not who I want to be. There are real, urgent problems in this world, and the location of my toaster is not one of them.” He glanced at her. “You know how sometimes, when someone is driving you crazy, and you take a second to look at your life, you realize that the thing that irritates you about them is the thing that really irritates you about yourself?”
She nodded. “I am sorry to say that yes, I am familiar with that feeling.”
“Kathryn was a . . . what did you call it? A micromanager?” He laughed ruefully. “And so was I. We micromanaged ourselves, we micromanaged our employees, we tried to micromanage each other. And you know what I discovered? Micromanaging sucks. It’s also exhausting.”
“This explains why you’re so madcap and reckless now,” she deadpanned.
“I have great people doing great work who don’t need me breathing down their necks every day. They need funding and freedom to do their jobs, so that’s what I give them.” He shrugged one shoulder. “And myself. They know they can always reach out if they need me.”
“So life out here is good for your soul,” she concluded. “I get it. It’s starting to win me over, too—all the fresh air and the open space and the ocean views . . .”
“It’s not perfect, but I’ll take bridge closures and bad coffee over rush hour on the expressway any day.”
Holiday gasped. “Bad coffee? How dare you malign the Wily Whale.”
“The Wily Whale is a great place to go for pizza and beer,” he allowed. “They do the best with what they have, but it’s no match for the cafés in the city that roast their beans daily.”
“You’re a coffee snob.” She nodded as she absorbed this. “Would not have predicted that.”
“Add it to my long list of flaws. Anyway, my parents were going to move up here, too, and do a whole second-career thing, but then my dad died suddenly last year. Heart attack.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“A month or two after he passed, my mom decided to sell the house and downsize. She found an agency up here that needed social workers, so she agreed to let me rent her a two-bedroom house on the island until she was ready to make more permanent decisions.”
“You’re renting a house for your mom?” Holiday gushed. “That is so sweet.”
“Actually, I bought it,” he confessed. “But she doesn’t know that.”
“Let me guess—good investment?”
“The real estate market is getting insane up here. She’s doing her best, but it’s her first Christmas without my dad and she said she wasn’t in the mood to decorate. So Paul and I offered to put up all the decorations for her.” He paused. “And here we are.”
“What have you told her by way of explanation?”
He cleared his throat. “The official story is that it’s somewhere in my garage, and I haven’t had time to search for it yet.”
“It’s December twenty-third,” Holiday pointed out.
“Yes, well, that’s why that excuse is wearing thin. She’s threatening to come over and go through my garage herself.”
“Which would be bad.”
“So bad.” He blew out a breath and shook his head.
“And if you just come clean and tell her that you broke it—”
“Technically, Paul broke it,” he interjected.
“That’s not what Paul said,” she reminded him.
“I’m your client and I’m saying Paul broke it.”
She laughed. “Fair enough. If you come clean and tell her that Paul broke it . . .”
“So bad.”
“Have no fear. We are going to look on the bright side,” Holiday declared. “Crispin Kilgorff the Third assured me that there are boxes of mystery treasures in his attic, and I am going to think positive thoughts that there is a forty-year-old tree topper that is a dead ringer for the one that you—excuse me, that Paul—broke.”
“Positive thoughts? That’s where we are with this? We might as well break out the crystals and incantations.” Alex groaned in despair. “And we’re staking my mom’s Christmas on some guy named Crispin Kilgorff the Third?”
“He sounded very nice on the phone.” Holiday took another sip from her thermal mug. “I take it that you don’t want any of my subpar coffee?”
“I don’t want your coffee,” he confirmed. “I want your deep, dark secrets.”
She tried to look bemused. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“I told you mine, you tell me yours. It’s only fair.”
“Well, let’s see.” She feigned great concentration. “I can tell you right now that my ringtone is ‘Reflection’ and my text tone is ‘Chime.’”
He wasn’t about to let her off so easily. “And you’re single because . . .”
“I’m a soulless sociopath?” she tried.
“You wish.” He chuckled.
“Sometimes,” she admitted.
He pointed to her eyes, just as she had pointed to his. “I see you. You’re smart and successful, but you’re also funny and beautiful.”
Her breath caught for a moment. She had no idea how to respond, what to say, or what to do.
“You get things done.” His voice deepened with admiration. “You make miracles happen.”
“Well.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I make phone calls. Let’s keep this in perspective.”
“You must leave a trail of broken hearts wherever you go.”
She went silent for a few moments. “Just one.”
He let the silence settle in between them. For a minute or two, the only sound was the swiping of the windshield wipers and the droning of the heavy-duty tires against the pavement.
“I grew up in a very stable family in a very stable town with a very lovely life,” Holiday finally said. “And I had a very steady boyfriend. Jackson. We got together our junior year of high school and went to the same college and just . . . stayed together.”
“You loved him?” Alex asked.
“I . . . yeah.” And this was the truth. She had loved Jackson as truly and fiercely as only one teenager could love another. “He was a great guy. Sweet and dependable. He was the type of boyfriend everyone would want for their daughter.” She lapsed back into silence.
“But?” he prompted.
“We were on different timetables.” She struggled to explain. What had happened between them had been so gradual, so nuanced, that it was hard to put into words. “He wanted to settle down as soon as we graduated, you know, get married, buy a house with a white picket fence, the whole deal. And I wanted to see the world before I got a mortgage and a minivan. So we decided to compromise—we were going to save every penny we earned during our last year of college so we could spend the summer after graduation traveling.”
He smiled nostalgically, perhaps thinking of his own college days. “Hostels and Eurorail passes?”
“I was so excited.” Holiday closed her eyes at the memory. “And then came Christmas Eve. Both of our families got together for dinner, we sang carols and ate cookies, and then . . .” This part still made her physically squirm. “He got down on one knee in front of everyone and proposed.”
“And you had not been texting him pictures of engagement rings you liked,” Alex clarified.
“No. I didn’t care about the ring at all. I was too busy trying to figure out what to say. My mouth kept opening and closing, but no words were coming out. And then.” She still couldn’t wrap her mind around this part.
“Uh-oh.”
“Then he told me that he’d spent our travel fund on the ring.” Even after all this time, the memory pricked and prodded her soul. “I burst into tears. In front of our whole families. I still feel horrible about it.”
“Why?” Alex sounded mystified. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“He put his heart and soul on the line, and I started crying,” she pointed out. “And talking about how much I wanted to see Spain. It was grotesque.” She paused to collect herself. “I mean, you should have seen my parents’ faces. And his parents’ faces.” And Jackson’s face, which of course had been the worst of all. “He loved me. He would have done anything for me, but I couldn’t give him what he wanted.”
“He wouldn’t have gone to Spain for you,” Alex pointed out.
“But that’s not his fault.” As she spoke the words, she realized that she still felt badly about the whole situation. Not for what she had lost, but for the hopes she hadn’t fulfilled. “He couldn’t help it if he wanted to put down roots and build a stable life for us.”
“And you couldn’t help if it you didn’t,” Alex countered.
“Everyone would have been thrilled if I had accepted that proposal.” She rattled off the names. “Jackson, his parents, my parents, all our grandparents—”
“But not you,” Alex finished for her.
She couldn’t refute that.
“And you’re kind of important in that equation.”
She gave a half-hearted nod. “Since then, though, I’ve done a great job of granting wishes.”
“Everything’s easier when it’s not your immediate family,” he noted.
“Amen. Anyway, by the time the next Christmas rolled around, I had been to Spain,” Holiday said. “For work. Went to Toledo to commission a custom-made sword for a client.”
“What became of Jackson?” he wanted to know.
“A few years later, he married someone else, and by all accounts, they’re very happy. Their house has the best Christmas decorations on the block.” She had to smile, thinking of the photos she’d seen on social media. Jackson and his wife really went all out—wreaths and bows and wooden reindeer galore.
“So he survived.”
“He survived.” And so had all the other guys who had broken up with her when she wasn’t available for the flurry of dinners and parties between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
Alex regarded her with an expectant look. “He ended up getting what he wanted, but you still feel bad about it. Have I got that right?”
She flexed her hands on the steering wheel. “It’s not that simple.”
“Don’t you think that you deserve to have your wishes granted too?” he pressed.
“Not at the expense of other people’s feelings.”
“Like whose?”
Alice and Francie Penewate’s, she thought but did not say.
“You’re helping all these people find exactly what they want. Who’s helping you find what you want?”
“Well.” She reached across the console and touched his sleeve. “You are.”
He turned toward her, but she snatched her hand away.
“That’s enough of everybody’s life stories, I think.” She knew they were on the verge of having a Moment, but she couldn’t handle a Moment. Not right now. “Let’s listen to a podcast. A coffee podcast? Your choice.”
He glanced down at his wrist where her fingers had rested, then took a second to switch gears.
“Okay.” He pulled out his iPhone. “This is great. No one ever wants to do coffee stuff with me. Hang on, let me find the best episode to start with.”
As the snow came down harder, the truck’s tires gripped the road, and Holiday realized she was actually enjoying the winter weather. She felt warm and cozy, she was hopeful about her chances of securing her target, and she got to spend time with the most interesting guy she’d met in years. He was sharing something with her that he couldn’t share with anyone else. Right now, she truly did have everything she wanted.
Too bad it all had to come to an end tomorrow night.