The Mistletoe House (Chestnut Cove Christmas #1)
Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1
“ I t’s not that I don’t love you, Natalie. I do. I just don’t think you’re… you know. The one.”
Mug of coffee clutched in one hand, edge of the table clutched in the other, Natalie Belmont stared at Devin in disbelief over her scrambled eggs. “I’m not the one? I’m not the one ? What does that even mean, Devin? And what about the past seven years?”
He shifted uncomfortably in the chair across from her, his eyes on his plate instead of on her face as he toyed with a piece of bacon. The piece of bacon that she’d cooked for him, thank you very much. “Like I said,” he murmured to the tablecloth, “it’s not that things haven’t been, um, good. They have. But I want to get married, I want to start a family, and?— ”
“But I want all those things too.” Natalie’s fork fell from her fingers with a clatter, but she barely registered it. Her hand felt numb. Her whole body felt numb, because this couldn’t be happening. Her fiancé, the man she had loved for most of her thirties, the man she lived with and worked with and built a life with… he couldn’t possibly be breaking up with her at eight-thirty on a Sunday morning over the breakfast she’d gotten up early to prepare for him, just the way he liked it. Not because she felt obligated, but because she loved him. Because he was “the one.”
“I know you do.” Devin was now speaking to the butter dish. “But I’ve decided that I no longer want those things with, um… you.”
That last word was a gong resounding throughout the room, and Natalie’s temples throbbed as she tried to make sense of the impossible. She and Devin had been together—and happy—for more than half a decade now, since not long after she began working as the manager in the ice cream shop he owned and operated in the city. It was love at first sight for her, and even though she knew better than to fall for a coworker, let alone her boss, their first kiss had been inevitable. Since then, they hadn’t spent a single day apart, and this past summer, he’d dropped to one knee in front of a carousel at their favorite park and asked him to be hers forever.
And now, less than six months later…
How? Why?
Natalie dreaded the next question, the one that needed to be vocalized, and a tremor of fear shot through her as she asked, “Is there someone else?”
Someone better , she wanted to say, but didn’t. Someone less damaged.
For so long, Devin had been the very best part of her. He’d picked up the broken, jagged pieces of her past and helped her glue them back together, one by one, until she could finally call herself happy. Until she could finally call herself free.
The walls felt like they were closing in on her as she held her breath, waiting for his response, and only then did Devin raise his gaze to meet hers, his blue eyes unbearably sad. “There isn’t anyone else,” he said softly. “I would never do that to you. But for me, things just haven’t felt… right… in a long time. I’m almost forty, and so are you. We need to be thinking about our future, the things we want. And as much as I’ve enjoyed our time together, I just don’t see us growing old together.”
Well. Pretty hard to come back from that one .
The tears were sliding down Natalie’s cheeks as she pushed herself back from the table, her chair legs making an unholy screech against the linoleum, the rest of the scrambled eggs wobbling in the pan she’d set between them. “So sorry I’ve wasted your time. And I’m even sorrier that you’ve wasted mine.”
Head bowed, heart ripped in half, she made a beeline for their bedroom, throwing herself to the floor and yanking her suitcase out from beneath the bed. She slammed it down on the comforter and unzipped it roughly, then began tearing clothes from her wardrobe and shoving them inside, eyes clouded with tears, unaware of what she was even packing. The bathroom came next, with Natalie clearing the sink with a sweep of her arms, jars of makeup and bottles of lotion tumbling from her hands as she hurled them into the suitcase. Finally, she pulled open the top drawer of her nightstand and carefully removed the red velvet box, her most precious, most prized possession, and gently tucked it into the suitcase between two shirts, checking and double-checking that it was safe.
Then, with a glance out the window, and a groan at the sight of snowflakes gently falling from the gray-blue sky, she grabbed her peacoat from where it was flung across the back of a chair and stuffed her arms in the sleeves unceremoniously.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Natalie jumped, and turned to find Devin leaning against the doorframe, his face grave as he watched her pack. “I’m headed to my folks’ house for a few weeks to celebrate the holidays—Kent is going to make sure things are running smoothly at the shop.”
At the sound of her coworker’s name, the rest of the breath rushed out from Natalie’s lungs all at once. Her relationship, gone. Her home, gone—the townhouse belonged to Devin; she’d given up the lease on her apartment long ago. And now, her job, the thing she loved most in her life besides Devin… presumably, gone. Devin spent most of his time at the ice cream shop; the last thing he would want was to share the space with his ex.
Natalie swallowed hard to dissolve the rapidly spreading lump in her throat, then, with great difficulty, forced herself to meet his eyes. “Is Kent… will he be running things now?”
Devin nodded. “I thought it was for the best,” he said quietly. “That way, you can move on.” A pause, then, “Both of us can.”
The basketball in her throat was back, and Natalie was taking deep, steadying breaths in a vain attempt to calm herself. Of course this would happen only a few weeks before Christmas. Of course it would, because nothing good happened this time of year. This was why Natalie avoided celebrating the holiday at all costs. For her, it was draped in grief and loss, sadness and an uncertain future. Thirty years had passed, and nothing had changed.
“Anyway.” Devin cleared his throat. “Like I said, I’m going to be with my parents for a while, so the place is yours until I come back. That should give you enough time to make other… arrangements.” He winced, and Natalie made a strangled sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
“You think a few weeks is enough time for me to find a new place to live, a new job, and… what, Devin? An entirely new life? How generous of you. How thoughtful.”
Her voice was rising to a fever-pitch, and she was seconds away from picking up the framed photo of them beside the bed and hurling it at his face. “You’re a great guy, Devin, you know that?” she spat at him. “A stand-up man. You should win an Olympic medal. Gold, for world’s biggest a?—”
“Natalie, come on. Don’t be like this.” Devin folded his arms and frowned at her, as if she were the one being unreasonable here. “Let’s just respect each other, okay? Get through this amicably.”
Natalie did laugh then, though it had a maniacal edge to it, and without further ado, she hoisted the suitcase off the bed, jammed it on the floor, and rolled it past him, not bothering to ask him to move. “Oof,” he said, wincing and rubbing his leg where she’d accidentally-on-purpose rammed it against him. He sidestepped her quickly, then followed her as she stomped down the hallway, the tears still falling thick and fast—as fast as the snowflakes swirling through the morning sky.
“Great,” she muttered to herself as she wrenched open the front door, her lungs shocked by the sudden burst of frigid air. “Bad weather. Just what I need right now.”
Indeed, a gossamer-thin layer of snow had already accumulated on the street and the windshield of her car, and she brushed away the latter with the sleeve of her coat before hoisting her suitcase into the trunk and sliding in behind the wheel. Devin was still standing in the doorway, looking as forlorn as an abandoned puppy, and Natalie’s breath was puffing out in clouds around her as she debated whether one middle finger or two would do the trick .
No , she thought fiercely. No, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She wouldn’t give him the?—
Then he raised his hand in a goodbye wave before blowing her a kiss, the way he always did before she left to go somewhere, and she decided that two would most definitely do. Or three, if she could have contorted her feet that way.
She didn’t look up to see his reaction; instead, she focused on breathing, and sliding the keys into the ignition, and trying to figure out where in the world she was going. She couldn’t run home, like Devin, because she had no home. Not really, although the Sandersons told her when she left that she’d always be welcome with them, part of their perfect, shining family. They had been lovely people, really, and based on the horror stories she’d heard some foster kids swapping, she knew she was lucky to have been placed with them after her grandmother’s death.
But the Sandersons had their kids, and Natalie wasn’t one of them.
The snow was falling thicker now, more urgent, and other drivers were beginning to turn on their headlights despite the early hour. Natalie flicked on the windshield wipers, momentarily soothed by the rhythmic back-and-forth motion as she debated her options… of which, admittedly, there were few.
Random hotel? Maybe. Flight to Hawaii? In her dreams. All Natalie knew was that she needed to get out of the city, far from the home she and Devin shared, away from the scene of so many of her most blissful memories. She had no one to stay with. All of her friends were here, and besides, they were Devin’s friends too, and each and every one of them was part of a couple, smug in their togetherness.
Natalie couldn’t bear it.
She sighed. The Sandersons it was, then. At least Jennifer and Todd had been understanding of the whole Christmas… thing. They never forced holiday activities on her, never tried convincing her to build gingerbread houses or ice cookies shaped like candy canes. Each Christmas Eve, they’d given her a few small gifts, and didn’t complain when she spent the rest of the night and much of the following day in her room, trying her best to distract herself.
Pulling out her cell phone, Natalie swiped to her contacts list and typed out a quick message to Jennifer, who responded immediately, and enthusiastically. Our door is always open to you, sweetheart. You know that. She stared down at the words for a while, her eyes brimming with tears, then keyed the Sandersons’ address into the GPS and waited for it to calculate.
Six hours.
Six hours driving through snow, with a broken heart.
Merry Christmas , Natalie thought, pulling into traffic, refusing to glance back at the place that, just thirty minutes ago, she had called home. And a crappy New Year .