Mine Under the Mistletoe

Chapter 1 The Ghost of Thanksgiving

The Ghost of Thanksgiving

“Oh my gosh,” I murmured out loud as I passed beneath a twinkling “Welcome to Mistletoe” sign that stretched over the highway. “Since when did Mistletoe get confirmation that we’re officially Santa’s Village?”

Cackling laughter echoed through my car from the Bluetooth. “Are you here?” Teagan, my best friend since birth, laughed merrily. “Did you make it?”

“I tried my best,” I murmured dryly. “Unfortunately, the sheer number of watts announcing Mistletoe’s location to space blinded me. I ended up driving off a cliff.” I sighed so deeply it started in my toes. “RIP.”

“There are no cliffs in Kansas.”

“Fine, then I drove into the Seven-Eleven, killing four pedestrians and maiming Otto the gas station dog.”

Teagan winced dramatically. “Gah, Holly! Why did you have to bring up Otto? He died two years ago.”

“You’re kidding? Otto died and you didn’t bother to tell me? Why did I even come back here?”

I drove down Main Street, wondering at the upgrades the center of my small hometown had gotten.

It was only Thanksgiving, but already the old-fashioned strip had all its storefronts decorated for Christmas with big green wreaths sporting bright red ribbon bows, greenery draping door fronts and hanging over walkways.

Sparkling holiday banners decked the light posts.

Christmas lights outlined every business and the ancient courthouse.

And the post office. And Marv’s Bar and Grill.

Animatronic things that spun and waved and looked overtly festive dotted intersections and stoops.

“Are they filming a movie here or something?”

“What do you mean?” Teagan asked, sounding truly perplexed.

“Why does it look like Christmas threw up all over Main Street?”

She laughed loudly again, the wheezing, braying sound pulling a smile from my horrified face. “It’s adorable. Stop being a Scrooge.”

I grunted in reply. I wasn’t being a Scrooge. I was being a normal person who was surprised to find out her hometown identified as a disco ball.

“I shouldn’t have come back.” Panic seized my chest, and my belly squeezed with nerves. “This was a mistake.”

“It’s not a mistake,” she said soothingly. “You needed a job. I got you a job. I’m a problem solver.”

“Yeah, but no person named Holly should live in a town called Mistletoe. It’s too much. The flower metaphors get mixed. I’m not Christmas-y enough for this level of sparkle.”

“Well, good thing it’s only Thanksgiving.

” Teagan was used to my dramatics and rarely gave in to my spiraling anxiety when it came to our mutual birthplace, or me being in it.

She’d been trying to convince me to move back here since college, but until this year, I’d always had a good reason to stay away.

She made a breathy sound like she’d just thought of something important.

“You are coming straight here, right? I promised my parents you’d eat dinner with us.

Linda will never forgive you if you bail.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she Life360-ed your ass and dragged you back here by your hair. ”

“She has me on Life360?” I asked, amazed at the lengths Linda took to be my surrogate mother. “Since when?”

“Erm . . .” Teagan thought about it for a minute. “Three years ago? She made me add you to our plan when we went to St. Thomas. She was afraid one of us was going to get kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?”

“Or run off with someone from the resort and forsake our responsibilities at home.”

It was my turn to laugh. “If only.”

“So, you’re coming?”

“I’m pulling into your driveway right now.” Which wasn’t entirely true. I had turned off Main Street and headed south to our quaint little neighborhood, but I had stalled at the four-way stop just down the street from where the two of us had grown up.

I hadn’t been back here in six years, on purpose.

And now that my childhood home was staring me down, I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision.

Sure, I was deep into my savings and running out of money quickly.

And sure, I was jobless and sort of purposeless and had no idea what my next step was.

And also . . . dumped. I was definitely dumped.

And okay, fine, Teagan had found me a long-term subbing job that would sustain me until I could find something permanent.

Additionally, she was letting me crash with her since I didn’t have a place to stay or money for rent or even a vision of what I should do with my life .

. . but maybe homelessness would be better?

Better than being back here.

Taking a deep breath that did nothing but send the butterflies around my heart flapping their wings in a tizzy, I inched down the street, noticing several more houses decked out for the holidays in the same over-the-top style as Main Street—lights everywhere, animatronics everywhere, inflatable Grinches everywhere.

“It’s only Thanksgiving,” I told an inflatable nutcracker who was taller than the house behind him and staked down at all four corners of his giant glittery red base, lest the wind take him and he wreak havoc on Main—a festive Christmas Godzilla on the loose.

He bobbed his head in the chilly November breeze as if agreeing with me.

Somehow it felt patronizing.

I was slightly ahead of schedule, which was unlike me. It’s why I’d called Teagan. I’d wanted to give her a head’s up that I was early. She wouldn’t have minded either way, but I hadn’t seen her family in a couple of years.

They’d been like second parents to me as a kid, and they always extended an invitation for every holiday—from Independence Day to Christmas, even Valentine’s Day. Let’s be real, I recently got an invitation to their Labor Day Extravaganza.

But that was also the reason I’d made an excuse for the last six years. Their kindness wasn’t only offered to me. Teagan’s brother’s friends were also on the list of invites, and some of them were just selfish enough to accept. Every single time. Even on Valentine’s Day.

I pulled my trusty Corolla, Agnes, behind a massive white truck with a vanity license plate that read MEOW? MEOWR? MEOWER1? MEOW RUN? That read something about cats and gave myself a once-over before I waltzed into Teagan’s house.

Official ruling? It wasn’t my best work.

I’d shoved everything I still owned after having sold most of the big stuff on Marketplace into my reliable girl Agnes yesterday, slept on the floor, got up at the crack of dawn—all so I could drive the eight hours to get here in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

My oversized sweatpants were rumpled and smelled of coffee, popcorn, and whatever else I’d managed to spill on them.

My thick, difficult hair had all but become an animal refuge high atop my head, and there was more mascara under my eyes than on my eyelashes.

But I’d survived the drive. And the life uprooting it had taken to get here.

Sure, I hadn’t allowed myself a singular glance beyond Teagan’s house. At this point, I couldn’t even tell you if my childhood home was still standing or if my mom had it bulldozed. But I hadn’t fainted yet. Or cried. Or run back to Denver. So . . . winning?

Still, the presence of the house loomed like a ghost leering at me as I walked up the driveway and toward the front door. A chill slipped over my heart, rattling my rib cage. I wouldn’t look at it. I wouldn’t give it my attention.

Okay, one glance. One tiny glance . . .

Teagan threw herself out the front door and squealed in delight as she yanked me into a hug. “You’re here!” she screamed.

I returned her squeeze, thankful her body was here to anchor me to the ground. Per usual, she was the thing that kept me from floating away. “Ugh, I smell like a rest stop.”

She pulled back just far enough so her hands could land on my shoulders and shake me dramatically. “It’s been so long.”

“You were at my house two weeks ago.” She had driven up with her brother, Cooper, in his truck so they could transport the big stuff I’d wanted to keep.

My bed, for instance, including—regrettably—my mattress.

My dresser. A coffee table I’d fought tooth and nail for in the big breakup.

My kitschy bar cart I’d rescued antiquing and was looking forward to loading up again.

She rolled her eyes. “I meant, it’s been so long since you lived in the same town as me, Holls. You were never supposed to move away. You broke your promise.”

I finally gave in to that quick glance. “A promise I made in second—” I lunged onto the browned grass. “Oh, my gosh, what happened? What did Celine do?”

Teagan burst into laughter again. “I thought you knew?”

“You thought I knew that the woman who is sometimes referred to as my mother erased my childhood completely?” The little yellow house I’d grown up in .

. . the one with charming dark brown shutters and window boxes filled with petunias .

. . the one my dad had bought my mom before I was born .

. . the one where he’d died when I was eight .

. . had been painted white, and grown a wrap-around porch.

The shutters were black now, as was the trim and the fancy new garage door.

The tree Teagan and I used to play under had been ripped out of the ground and replaced with landscaping beds that were brown and bare right now but had some potential to be pretty.

Maybe. There was a rock path that wound around the house and disappeared behind a designer fence that had never existed when I lived there.

I could see string lights hanging from a pergola.

There was comfy, oversized outdoor furniture on the porch as if Celine enjoyed sitting in the fresh air and reading a book.

Which was ludicrous.

Celine didn’t read. Or sit still.

“I think it looks really good,” Teagan said in a way that dared me to contradict her.