Unscripted Christmas (Sugarville Grove #12)

Chapter 1

MAUVE

Mauve Callahan had not known before she moved to Sugarville Grove, Vermont, that the quiet of morning had a sound all its own.

It was made up of wind whispering through pines, a winter sparrow’s warble, an occasional crack of a maple tree branch adjusting to the cold.

Sometimes, like today, there was a distant bark of a dog and cows lowing from the farm adjacent to her property.

Listening had become a hobby.

On the first day of December, she lay in her warm bed and allowed herself to just listen, grateful for another day unfolding before her.

She’d grown used to the stillness, but it had taken some time.

Having grown up in Atlanta and then moving to Manhattan as an adult, she’d not known that parts of the world could be this still.

This hushed. Now that she understood what it was like to exist absent of sirens and horns and shouting, she could not imagine living anywhere else.

She’d barely gotten out of Manhattan alive.

That phrasing sounded dramatic, but it was true.

She’d fought to make a new life for herself, even though she’d rather have just checked herself into a facility and not come out again.

Everything she’d left behind still lived somewhere inside her, but, as each year passed, it grew easier to distance herself from the past. Her cheating husband.

Their subsequent divorce. Days that felt so heavy it was as if she walked through mud.

The abrupt ending of her marriage had unfolded in one sickening revelation after another told mostly from texts she’d discovered on his phone that left no doubt as to his conduct.

She’d been devastated. Gutted. Utterly smashed to pieces.

Her skin hurt. Everything was too bright, too loud.

The awful ache in her chest that never subsided.

It was there when she woke up and when she went to sleep.

The realization that the man she’d thought was the love of her life had chosen someone else had been impossible to understand and certainly not something she could ever fully accept.

So, for a few weeks, she’d just stayed in bed, barely eating, watching reality television until she fell asleep. This cycle went on for so long that her best friend, Reese, had begged her to come stay with her in Sugarville Grove. “Just a month or so,” she’d said. “Let me take care of you.”

That had been three years ago now. Mauve could hardly remember the broken person who had arrived on Reese’s doorstep.

Reese had nursed her back to health. She’d also gotten Mauve a job with the Sugarville Grove School District as the resident speech pathologist. Finally, she was using her master’s degree she’d worked so hard for but abandoned when Chris had asked her to be his wife.

His family was wealthy. There was no need to work, he’d said.

“Plus, your job is to take care of me now.”

Apparently, being a career wife was fluid. It could be given to another woman as easily as it had been given to her.

Pale gray light pressed through her bedroom curtains, reminding her that it was time to get ready for work.

She pushed back the quilt and padded to the kitchen in her socks, starting the coffeemaker, still bleary-eyed from a deep sleep.

For which she was thankful. There had been a time when she wasn’t sure she’d ever sleep for more than two hours at a time.

She put two pieces of bread in the toaster and grabbed two eggs from the refrigerator.

Her kitchen was small but pretty, with white cabinets, and a window over the sink that looked out onto the yard where her garden enjoyed its long winter’s nap under a thin crust of frost. Last spring, she’d planted tomatoes, squash, and peas along the fence line.

Reese had teased her that she’d been fully indoctrinated into Vermont.

Mauve had been embarrassingly pleased by the comment.

While the coffee brewed, she checked her phone. There was a text from Reese about dinner and a reminder from the school about early dismissal on Friday. Best of all, there was a text from Jason, sent at five-forty-seven this morning.

Jason

Red-eye flight just landed. Waiting on my rental car. It’s cold here. REALLY cold.

She smiled into her phone. His body was on California time and weather.

Mauve

I hope you brought a jacket! Can’t wait to see you. Reese says dinner at The Moose tonight if you’re not too tired?

She and Jason had been texting like this since their week together in L.A. The week she could never forget. The week she fell deeply in love with Jason Hayes. Famous actor. Twin brother of Reese’s husband. The man who made her laugh harder than anyone she’d ever met.

At a charity auction last Christmas, Mauve had bid on a package donated by Jason—a trip out to Hollywood to watch his television show being filmed.

It had become so much more than that. They’d been inseparable, spending every moment of Jason’s time off together.

He’d taken her all over Los Angeles, showing her the sights.

They’d had dinner on the beach, walked the Santa Monica pier, swam in his gorgeous infinity pool at his home in the Hollywood Hills, kissed under the California stars.

After that week, they’d agreed it was only a fling.

Just a nice week that was never to be repeated.

No more contact, they’d said to each other.

Just let this be what it was. An amazing week in Los Angeles.

That hadn’t lasted an hour. They were already texting fifteen minutes after he’d dropped her at the airport to return to Vermont.

They’d texted every day since. Multiple times a day.

Their text thread must be a mile long by now.

He sent photos from set. She sent photos of her garden.

They talked about movies and books, childhood memories.

Sometimes they just asked each other about their day.

She found herself sharing things with him that she wouldn’t have with anyone else.

Not even Reese. His texts were the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes.

By the time he woke on the west coast, she’d already texted him.

Mundane things—wishing him a good day, telling him about one of her little clients, snapping a photo of her breakfast. It was ridiculous.

She had a callous on her ring finger from holding the phone so much.

And here they went again.

Jason

Yes for dinner. And yes, I brought a jacket. Although, it seems to have little effect. I’m still shivering like a kid at an early morning swimming lesson.

She laughed. He was so clever. So funny.

Mauve

It’s supposed to snow this week. I hope you brought your boots.

Jason

Boots are in my bag. There might be something for you in there too. Not a jacket.

More smiling. Her cheeks hurt sometimes after one of their epic texting matches.

Mauve

See you soon. XO

She pocketed her phone, took her coffee to the bathroom, and started getting ready for work, not at all sure where the day would take her. But it didn’t matter. Jason was in Sugarville Grove for the entire month of December.

One month. It would fly by. She knew this. At the end of their time together, he would leave to return back to his real life. And she would stay in hers. Tragic and true. And there wasn’t a thing she could do to change it.

On the way to the elementary school, she drove through the main part of town where the shops were decorated for Christmas with garlands wrapped around the lampposts, lights strung between buildings, a banner in the town center with the date for the annual tree lighting.

Every once in a while, she imagined being stuck on a set of a Christmas movie.

If only she was the heroine in a romance movie.

Then maybe she wouldn’t be in love with a famous actor who had no intention of ever settling back down in Sugarville Grove.

He’d left at eighteen and rarely returned, despite his aunt and uncle and cousins who still lived here, pillars of the community.

She pulled into the school lot, gathered her tote bag from the passenger seat, and headed inside through the side entrance near the kindergarten wing.

There was no mistaking smells of floor cleaner and school lunch.

Scents of school that hadn’t changed since she was a kid.

A paper snowflake garland hung crookedly above the water fountain, and someone had taped a hand-drawn Santa to the door of the supply closet.

Although she had her own office in town, she had a designated space at the school—a converted closet with a low table, two child-sized chairs, a portable mirror, and shelves stacked with picture cards, puzzles, and games. The space was so small, she and Reese often joked it was a hovel for elves.

She flipped on the lights and set her bag on the table.

Her first client of the day was six-year-old Ollie Chambers.

Ollie had immediately captured her heart.

Maybe it was his big, soulful brown eyes, or the way his hair was always earnestly combed.

He’d been with her since September but had shown little improvement.

Regardless, Mauve knew she could help him. It would just take time.

For most of their appointments his mother brought Ollie to Mauve’s office.

However, given the severity of his speech condition, she had asked to work with him for an additional session every week.

Because both his parents worked, it was easier for them if she saw him at school, so that is what she did.

His teacher had readily agreed that he should miss part of the day in the classroom so that he could work with Mauve.

She’d said to Mauve that the child was far ahead of the rest of the class academically.

He just couldn’t tell anyone about it because he didn’t speak.