JOLENE HAD LEFT her mother napping after watching their Gilmore Girls episode and went into the kitchen to test the recipe Ètienne had sent her.
A mere fifteen minutes after putting the casserole dish in the oven, Jolene took a tentative taste. Wow! The cheesy corn and bacon side dish turned out as insanely good, as promised. Even better than she’d hoped. She immediately called Shelby.
“Tell Ètienne that I love him. If he wasn’t already engaged to you, I’d have his children.”
“You don’t want children,” Shelby reminded her.
“I would for this dish. No wonder it sold out when he had his food truck. Hell, maybe, since you’ve staked your claim on him, I’ll just marry this side dish.”
“I’m glad it worked.” Jolene could hear the smile in Shelby’s voice.
“It totally did. And the best part is that he’s saved me from poisoning anyone on Thanksgiving.”
“Always a plus. So, how did things go with your mom?”
“The test went well. And it was quick. About half a Pioneer Woman and ten minutes of Trisha Yearwood.”
“I never will understand why you watch so many of those shows when you don’t cook.”
“It’s food porn. I have very imaginative taste buds. Anyway, if we don’t get the results back tomorrow, we won’t hear until after Thanksgiving. Though the part of me that’s worried sick it’ll be positive is thinking it might be better to wait until afterward to hear the news.”
“You’d just be anxious and unable to enjoy the day anyway,” Shelby said. “You can compartmentalize it in one of those infamous mental boxes of yours and concentrate on celebrating the day.”
“That’s a point. I don’t have a single doubt that Mom can handle whatever comes up. One of the hardest parts will probably be hiding the fact that I’d be terrified. But right now I have all this anxiety because I don’t know what to expect. I should’ve asked the doctor for a Xanax when she prescribed one for Mom. Oh, funny story...”
Jolene paused and listened to the bedroom TV that was now playing a Christmas romance movie, one that her mother loved. There were times that she suspected that her having worked on three of them meant more to her mother than her Emmy nomination. Especially since, when hearing what a fan Gloria was, the director of the third one had invited her to Vancouver, BC, to watch a day of filming where the July green grass was all covered with fake snow and the actors were sweating profusely in their wool caps, puffy jackets and boots.
The best part had come when the female director had surprised Jolene’s mother with a role as an extra in the ice sculpting contest scene during the town’s Christmas festival. Having proven that years-old, mean-spirited gossip about what she might have been doing out in that trailer dead wrong, Gloria had already become an accepted part of the community. Being in that film had elevated her to the closest thing Honeymoon Harbor had to a movie star.
Last holiday season, the Olympic theater filled their red velvet seats over three consecutive nights and a Saturday matinee with a showing of The Little Bakery Around the Corner, a story about a cynical food industry billionaire—think Richard Gere’s character in Pretty Woman—who comes to a small town to convince the heroine to sell her Christmas cookie recipe so he can add it to his company and make it a worldwide brand. When he finally learns the magical secret ingredient none of his many food chemists have been able to unearth, turns out to be, of course, the love put into each cookie, he discovers the true spirit of Christmas. And, as the viewers knew would happen all along, fell head over his Gucci boot heels in love with the sweet and all-American pretty baker.
Jolene had long ago figured out that the movies swept viewers into a magical snow globe where all the stress and family drama the season can create turned perfectly pretty beneath those falling snowflakes, where families reunited, people were kinder to each other, and it was possible, for two magical hours, for even a cynic like Jolene to believe in happy endings.
“Sorry,” she said to Shelby, “I just wanted to be sure Mom wasn’t eavesdropping.” Which she’d already admitted to doing once today. “But the doctor gave her a Xanax before the procedure—”
“I’d want a bucketful if it were me,” Shelby responded.
“Yeah. Me, too. Anyway, she’s a substance lightweight. So, under the influence, she informed everyone that she was taking Michael Mannion—remember, he’s that artist I introduced you to at the gallery on Rodeo Drive that night?—as her lover!”
Shelby broke into giggles. “She did not!”
“She did.”
“I wish I’d been there for that. I love your mom. And you know, I don’t really blame her. Michael was too old for me, but he was hot. Like Pierce Brosnan.”
“That’s him.”
“Oh, talk about small worlds, maybe you and your mom can double date. Didn’t you tell me that he was your Aiden’s uncle?”
“He’s not my Aiden... But, okay, here’s another not so funny thing. I kissed Aiden. Or he kissed me. I’m still not sure exactly how it happened. I’m blaming the pastry for the momentary lapse.”
“Back up a minute. What pastry?”
“He showed at the hospital with coffee, chocolate croissants and lemon-glazed madeleines for Mom and coconut ones for me.”
“That’s your favorite kind. You always have them with the fresh peach ice cream when peaches are in season. But how did he guess that?”
“Apparently he saw me eating them at the wedding.”
“The one where you kept running away from him?”
“I wasn’t so much running. Just avoiding.”
“And apparently missing a great opportunity if he was watching you that closely and thought to buy them for you. That’s so sweet. I love him already. How was the kiss? On a scale of one to ten?”
“It wasn’t that long. And there wasn’t really any grabbing or tearing of clothes going on.”
“One to ten,” Shelby reminded her.
“Twelve.”
“Oh, wow. I wish I was a scriptwriter instead of a caterer. I can just see it now. Workaholic heroine on rebound from breakup to horrid, self-centered, cheating cad returns to the small town she grew up in, where hot high school boyfriend is now the police chief. Problems arise, kisses ensue, romance blooms, then hot hero proposes to heroine at the town Christmas tree as big, fluffy snowflakes fall around them.”
“You know how Mom and I watch Gilmore Girls together, even when she’s up here and I’m in LA?”
“Sure. I don’t know any daughters and moms that are as close as you two are. You’re lucky.”
“I know. But my point is that you two should sync your Christmas movie channel watching together. Because that’s exactly what she’s doing now.”
“What can I say?” There was a shrug and a grin in Shelby’s voice. “They’re more addictive than Ètienne’s croissants. Kind of like Xanax for holiday stress. And here you are, living one your own self.”
“Did you forget my mother may have cancer?”
“Or may not. But that adds needed conflict to the story. And sweetie, Aiden brought you croissants and cookies! That could so be in a movie. Street-toughened Marine-slash-cop showing his softer side to his high school sweetheart he’s never stopped loving. That’d definitely go to the top of my Christmas movie faves list.”
It had been years since Jolene had thought about Aiden like that. But as she found herself falling into Shelby’s fictional scenario, she was torn between wishing it could be true, and wanting to run as fast and as far away as she could.
“Life isn’t a feel-good Christmas movie,” she paraphrased her mother’s earlier words about her favorite TV series.
“Well, the world would be a lot better off if it was. You’re not going to pass up this chance for your own happy ending, are you?”
“You have romance on the brain because you’re engaged to get married to a hot chef who has glittery little stars in his deep brown eyes whenever he looks at you.”
“That is true,” Shelby allowed. “But two things can exist at the same time. Just because I’m over the moon in love doesn’t mean you can’t also allow yourself to be.”
Allow. Was that the definitive word? Jolene had sworn, since leaving Honeymoon Harbor, to never put her heart at risk again. But here she was, back in the same place with the same man, with all those same feels.
“It’s not the same,” her friend argued when she admitted to that. “You’ve both changed. You’re not that damaged girl who escaped, and may I point out, survived, a terrible situation. And he’s not the boy who loved and protected you.”
“After he broke up with me.”
“Did you ever think that might have been because he was going off to war?”
“Honestly, no.” In their years apart, he’d grown from a rebellious teenager to an adult responsible for the safety of an entire town. Granted, they hadn’t had much private time together to talk about their lives during those years apart, but now she was wondering about what all he might have experienced to cause that change. “He said he never forgot me.”
“See. There you go. Didn’t I say that? It’s right out of a script that hardly ever gets written because guys in Hollywood just never get romance movies right.” Her voice turned serious. “Fate’s given you a second chance, Jolene. You’d be a fool not to go for it. And, being your best friend, I can attest to the fact that you’re no fool.”
“He wants to talk. On Thanksgiving.”
“I thought when you texted me last night you wouldn’t be seeing him because he has to work that day.”
“He said he’d make time. After he kissed me.” And she’d kissed him right back.
“He’s stealing time away from protecting Tiny Town for you.” Jolene heard the long sigh. “Be still my heart.”
“It’s not as if the town won’t be protected. It’s not that small. There are other officers on duty. He’s just working to give the day off to those with families.”
“My heart is melting here. How can you possibly resist a man who’d not only do something that generous, but bring you and your mom chocolate croissants and French cookies?”
“I’m afraid.”
Impossibly perhaps more so than she was about her mom’s health scare. Even if the tests did show positive for cancer, as Dr. Lancaster had said, there were plans to make and protocols to follow. But what she was feeling for Aiden was like being adrift at sea, on a moonless midnight, without even a lighthouse or buoys to prevent her from crashing onto the rocks.
“Of course you are. Don’t forget, I threw up while getting ready to go out the night I knew would be the night Ètienne and I first had sex.”
“I remember that well.” Probably partly because Shelby had refused to eat all day for fear of ingesting as much as an apple would require a body shaper, that was probably the unsexiest piece of underwear ever. “You were a wreck. I think you tried on everything in your closet. Twice.” They’d been roommates at the time and Jolene had been amused by Shelby’s nerves because it was obvious that Ètienne was The One.
And damn if that wasn’t exactly how she was feeling now? Not the for sure part. The hovering on throwing up part. “How did you know?” she asked seriously. “That you’d end up where you are now?”
“That’s easy. I’d gone out with my share of guys. Just like you have. But Ètienne was the only one who ticked every one of my boxes. Even ones I hadn’t realized I had. And don’t forget, he was still doing his food-truck thing at the time, so I wasn’t even thinking about him going on to win all those awards and getting on the covers of all those foodie magazines as one of the hottest new chefs in the country.”
“You’d never marry a man for his money.”
“Of course I wouldn’t. Even if I hadn’t seen so many of those marriages go on the rocks...
“I just knew that he was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. The one with whom, may I point out, I’m considering having three children with, something that if you’d even suggested a year ago, I’d have asked you what you’d been smoking. When it’s real, it gets even better than in those first giddy days.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“I know you are. And because you’re my best friend and I want you to be happy, I wish the same for you. Speaking practically, what would it hurt to have yourself a holiday romance? The worst that’ll happen is that you’ll get tired of him and move on like you did with Chad and every other guy who came before him.
“Then you’ll come back here after New Year’s, or if your mom does turn out to have cancer, once she gets better, you’ll either launch your new business to smashing success, or continue working in the industry, or both. And be beloved Aunt Jolene to my offspring.”
“When you put it that way it sounds reasonable.”
“That’s because it is. Promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“That you won’t let your past get in the way of your future.”
From the bedroom, Jolene heard the closing music of the movie her mother must have caught just in time for the happily-ever-after in the fictional snow globe town.
“I’ve got to go,” she said.
“Promise me,” Shelby pressed.
She heard TV click off. “Okay, I promise.”
“There. Was that so hard? Just remember, you had a front row seat to my grand romance. So I’m going to expect to be updated on all the deets about yours.” She ended the call before Jolene had a chance to respond.
Touching a finger to her lips, Jolene could’ve sworn she could still feel Aiden’s on them. Then, shaking off the lingering need that her conversation with Shelby hadn’t helped at all, she went to dish up some cheesy corn for her mother.