All I Want For Christmas: Holiday Romance Read online

  By Catelyn Meadows

  Copyright © 2019 Cortney Pearson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, printing, recording, or otherwise—without the prior permission of the author, except for use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, incidents, or events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copy Edited by Leona Bushman

  Cover Design by Beetiful Book Covers

  Author Photo by Clayton Photo + Design

  www.catelynmeadows.blogspot.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  All I Want for Christmas

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Epilogue

  What Do You Think?

  More by Catelyn Meadows

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Duane. For being real.

  Chapter One

  “Mom!” Parker rushed from the bathroom, his mouth dripping with blood and sporting a gap that wasn’t among his uneven teeth a few minutes ago.

  “It came out,” Saylor said, herding him back in for some toilet paper. She tore off a small snatch, and he yanked the crumpled heap to his mouth. “Where’s the tooth?” Saylor bent to examine his gums.

  “I lost it.” He pointed to his mouth. Blond hair tufted across his forehead, and freckles sprayed over his nose in a way that always gave her heart a little squeeze. She prayed he’d never grow too big for freckles.

  Saylor smiled at that sweet face, at his boyish enthusiasm. “I can see that.”

  “No, I mean, I lost it.” His tone took on a slight whine.

  “You mean you can’t find it? At all?”

  Parker shook his head.

  A chuckle escaped from behind her, and she cringed. She’d completely forgotten David was standing there, sneering at them in his black coat. Snow clung to his shoes and was melting on her floor. Parker looked so much like his father, it was uncanny; with their wide, brown eyes, the shape of his nose and cheekbones. The closeness of their resemblance had slipped her mind after not having seen them stationary, side by side, for a few months now.

  “One thing’s for sure, Sport,” David said. “You do things thoroughly.”

  She took her boy’s hand, pushing away the strangeness of having David here. He hadn’t bothered coming inside their new house before. New to them, anyway. “Come here. Show me where it happened.”

  “I was flossing here, and it just popped out,” Parker said, pointing to the purple rug at their feet.

  That was how, seconds later, the three of them ended up on their hands and knees on the bathroom floor, checking beneath the dark wood cabinets which had probably looked nice back in 1970. Saylor cringed at the dust bunnies under here. Anyone looking would think she never swept.

  She backed up, her arm brushing against David’s. The soft feel of his coat’s fabric, and the shock at touching him without meaning to, startled her. He flinched and knelt onto his feet, taking Parker’s arm.

  “I don’t see it, bud,” David said. “But Amanda is waiting outside. We’d better get going.”

  The mention of her pinched in Saylor’s chest like a fist. She and David had talked about this—Amanda was going to be in David’s life. She needed to meet his son. Their son. Unfortunately, talking it over hadn’t made things any easier.

  Saylor hated court rulings.

  She forced an encouraging smile at the devastated look Parker gave her. “But my tooth! I’m going to Omniforus!”

  “Orofino,” David corrected. Saylor fought another cringe.

  “How will the tooth fairy find me?”

  She pulled Parker to her chest and gave him a big hug, kneeling so she could be at his eye level. Her knee landed in something wet, right where David was standing moments before.

  “Remember what we talked about? If Santa can find you at Amanda’s cabin, then I’m sure the tooth fairy can just hitch a ride along with him.”

  Saylor stroked his cheek as tears welled in his eyes. Big, brown eyes, eyes she’d looked into and loved, eyes she’d dried or had watched light up with excitement at seeing sock puppets or learning how to read his first words.

  It’s just one weekend, she told herself, hating that she was trying to be okay with something she was entirely not okay with. It was more heart-wrenching than anything she’d ever experienced, to watch her son being taken from her.

  He was six. It would be her first Christmas away from him. What was she thinking when she agreed to this?

  David intervened, handing Parker his coat.

  The three of them made their way outside into the brisk, snowy afternoon. The sunlight was blinding. David’s snazzy car, a black Lexus reeking of exhaust and money, idled outside, Amanda in the front seat. She didn’t so much as glance up as they approached, just stared at her phone in her lap.

  “Mommy.” Parker wheeled around, squeezing her waist. Saylor crouched and gave her little guy a hug. “Can you come with me?” His voice was small in her ear.

  She hugged tighter. “No, sweetie. You get to spend some time with your dad and his new family.”

  “But why?”

  “Come on, bud,” said David, practically brushing her aside and nearly knocking her into the snow. “You said you wanted to go. Time to get in the car.”

  Saylor blinked rapidly and plastered a smile onto her cheeks. “You’ll have fun with Daddy and get Santa and the tooth fairy all in one night!” She forced the excitement. Parker didn’t seem as certain. “Plus, you can call me whenever you want.”

  She gestured to the phone she got him just for this. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t condone a device for someone so young, but she wasn’t about to send him off without some way to contact her that didn’t involve his father.

  This one won her a smile, though reservation still lingered in the boy’s eyes.

  “Bye, Mom. Love you.”

  “I love you too.” Saylor waved as David closed the door behind him, leaving their son to stare up at her from within the backseat. A heavy dread plummeted at even this small separation. Just a door and some glass, but still it was too much. She hurried to open the door and give him one more hug.

  “You’ll have a great time,” she told him, smoothing down his hair and hoping it was true. Hoping she wasn’t dooming him to something they were both going to regret.

  Once the door shut again, Saylor met David’s gaze. A well-trimmed beard hugged his chin now, and his head was half-shaved while the rest was combed to one side. A very posh guise, no doubt something Amanda forced on him considering her perfectly put-t
ogether façade. He’d always been messy casual when they were—

  Don’t think about that.

  “Please be sure the tooth fairy remembers to come,” she said, feeling like a nag and not caring in the slightest. “And make sure you read that nativity story to him tonight. I put the book in his bag.”

  “Amanda’s family isn’t really into that kind of thing.”

  “So just because they aren’t, that means you can’t read your son a book? That’s what Christmas is all about in the first place.”

  Amanda knocked on the windshield, obviously avoiding Saylor but glaring at David and pointing to an invisible watch on her wrist.

  “Can we not argue?” David said. “I need to go.”

  “You will have cell service, right?”

  “I don’t know.” He sounded exasperated. He crossed toward the front of the car, his breath ghosting out in little puffs. The sun streaming down on them did absolutely nothing to warm her trembling frame.

  “Saylor,” he said at the scowl she gave him. She hated the tug from hearing him say her name like that. Like he used to.

  She chewed her lip and then gave Parker a big wave.

  With another sigh, David rounded the nose of the car, the hood catching sprinkles of falling snow. He took her shoulders and turned her to face him. She shrugged out of his touch.

  “He’ll be okay. The Windhams are nice people. They’re not chainsaw murderers.” He ended this with a mocking scoff.

  Saylor closed her eyes at his condescending tone and the sting of truth that she actually suspected something like that of them. She forced herself to meet David’s hard, cold gaze.

  “But Amanda and I are getting married, and they just want to meet him. That’s all. You’ll have him back on Monday.”

  He got in the car before she could say anything else. And he drove away, taking her baby with him.

  “YOU AGREED TO THIS,” Saylor’s mom said through the phone a few hours later. Sure, Saylor was thirty-one, but a girl was never too old to need her mother. She’d tried pacing her living room, reading a book, and sweeping up the deplorable dust bunnies, and still time seemed to be dragging its feet. At this pace, Monday was going to take a snail’s vacation to get here. “You’ve been talking about needing a break.”

  “Sending my son to have Christmas with my ex-husband and his new fiancé is not what I had in mind.”

  “Come on, Saylor.”

  “I know.” She sank onto her sagging couch. There were days where her son drove her insane with his incessant talking about Mario and Minecraft, and yet, the minute he was gone, she didn’t know what to do without him. The house—small as it was—seemed so empty.

  Tinsel hung across the window. On the wall beside it was a poster of Santa Claus checking his list. It wasn’t much. She only put out the few discount items she’d scrounged up for Parker to enjoy, even though she knew he’d be gone for the actual holiday. His Spider-Man action figure and a few of his other toys lay scattered by the wood-burning stove. The sight scraped an extra hole in her heart for good measure.

  “Turn on those cheesy shows you like,” her mom said, jerking her attention back, “the happy ones. Go to a spa, do something for yourself and give yourself permission to enjoy it. When was the last time you went shopping?”

  Saylor laughed through the tightness in her chest. Shopping implied having money to spend.

  “Take yourself out to dinner, go see a movie—”

  She leaned forward and rubbed her eyebrow. “I get it, Mom. You’re right. I don’t need a man—large or little—to feel complete.”

  “No, you don’t,” her mom said. “Look at this as an opportunity. I’ve got to go. I wish I could come with you.”

  Saylor’s mom and dad were two and a half hours away in Rexburg, to visit her brother. Greg and Saylor didn’t exactly get along, and as she had to work the day after Christmas, she’d decided not to join them.

  “Me too,” Saylor told her. “Talk soon.”

  Her mother knew her too well; she knew the brink of this ridiculous depression Saylor had been on since it had happened, since she discovered David hadn’t been alone on the last four business trips he’d taken. She’d wanted to go with him, but each time he’d claimed they couldn’t budget the money for her plane ticket.

  "After this next trip, I'll have enough Sky Miles for you to come to Florida," he’d promised. "Next time."

  So she’d waited. And after the next one, she’d waited again.

  But there never had been a next time. One of his associates had posted a picture on Facebook of himself at a bar of some kind while David was gone. Saylor had thought nothing of it until something made her scroll back up and take a closer look at the photo. In the background, behind the associate, had been David with Amanda. But they hadn’t been in a casual, businesslike stance.

  He’d been sitting at the bar while she’d faced him, standing between his legs, her hips pressed to Saylor’s husband’s hips. David’s hands had been at Amanda’s waist, and he’d been nuzzling her neck while she’d thrown a careless, open smile toward the ceiling.

  The image had burned into Saylor’s brain. She’d felt woozy. Confused, and shocked. Pain had slashed straight through her chest, though she couldn’t register it, like a wound where blood was visible but not yet comprehended. She hadn’t been able to catalog anything. Pulsating, she’d forced her shaking hands to the keyboard.

  It had taken too many tries to type out the question: “Who is that with my husband?”

  “Oops,” had been the associate’s reply a few minutes later.

  No apology. No words of remorse or shock. Just oops.

  Had the associate regretted posting the picture? Had he known about the affair and not told her about it? Or was the expression because she’d found out and been humiliated about it so publicly?

  Having newly rented a two-bedroom house, Saylor had decided to take as little as possible with her when she’d left. Unfortunately, that had included Christmas and other decorations.

  She stared at their shabby, little Christmas tree—a half-sized one, since that was all she could afford, placed on top of one of the end tables covered in a tree skirt to make the tree look taller. A single present remained, the only one she bought for herself.

  “Come on, Saylor,” she said to the room full of no one in the bad habit she’d developed of talking to herself when she was alone. “You’ve had your pity party. Let’s go to dinner.”

  Against every other convention she’d taken up, like going to the grocery store in sweats and baggy t-shirts, and only wearing makeup for church—she dug out an old favorite outfit. Brown skinny jeans with a long, slimming sweater. Instantly, it reminded her of David, of the day he’d come home and had offered a single daisy just days after she’d seen the Facebook picture. A pathetic attempt at an apology he didn’t really mean. Who knew a hug could sting like a knife?

  She dug for another outfit, some faded jeans that bent just right, with a shirt she’d had since Parker was born. That shirt brought pain too—she’d worn it the day they’d left the hospital. The day after seeing David hover over his son’s bassinet so protectively and lovingly. It had melted her heart to have him love the son they’d brought into the world together.

  More shirts, more pants, more memories. She slammed the drawer shut, glancing down at her sweats once more.

  “Mom’s right,” she mumbled. “I need some new clothes.”

  She threw something semi-nice on—a dress she hadn’t worn in years, paired with some boots. She took the time to coil her brown hair into long, loose curls and added eye shadow, eyeliner, and blush to her typical mascara-only routine. She even spritzed on some perfume.

  Snow fell in big, fat flakes, hushing over the cold night. Her car chugged a few times before starting, and she rolled out of the driveway toward downtown Twin Falls. She circled the mall parking lot, undecided about her eating choice.

  She wasn’t in the mood for a big, fancy meal,
especially not at a restaurant where a waiter could lord over her and wonder all kinds of thoughts about a woman eating alone on Christmas Eve. She opted for the mall food court instead.

  Bright, cheerful music rode along with the scents of cinnamon when she entered. The warm, Christmas spirit was doing its best to lift her mood. While she loved Christmas, the striking displayed wreaths and sparkling fake snow on store windows, it didn’t manage to burst the ice in her chest completely. Families were scrambling to do some last minute shopping, reminding her again just how alone she was.

  It's okay, she told herself. She was happy to know it at least worked for some people.

  After grabbing a slice of pizza, a dress in Bernice's caught her eye, black and white checkered, t-shirt casual, perfect to wear to work. Saylor did a mental checklist of her budget. Things had been tight since the divorce. Considering his car, new clothes and haircut, David wasn’t having the same problem.

  The dress hugged like a glove. Saylor bought it, tearing off the tag to hand to the sales associate behind the counter so she could wear the dress out. The associate smiled as Saylor stuffed the old dress she’d worn into the bag in its place.

  Retail therapy was definitely a thing, and it turned out, Saylor had needed some.

  Feeding on the thrill of buying something new, she gave in and bought a new pair of leggings and earrings to go with the dress, too.

  She passed a few more stores, smiling at the families waiting in line for their turn to meet the department store Santa, trying to ignore the dull ache eating at her. She tried on a few pairs of jeans which she then hung back up, though she did splurge to buy another pair of PJs for Parker. She couldn’t pass up a sale when the kid was wearing holes in his size six footies.

  One of the elves directing traffic around the mall’s North Pole approached as she stepped out of Children’s Place.

  “Merry Christmas Eve!” said the man wearing a pointy hat. He fanned a coupon in her face. “We close in a few minutes. The last pictures of the night are half priced before Santa has to go off and deliver presents.”

  Smile mortared, she said, “Thanks, but my son isn’t here.”