Christmas on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel) Read online

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2012 Anna DeStefano

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN-13: 9781612185873

  ISBN-10: 1612185878

  To Michelle Grajkowski and Lindsay Guzzardo, for saying, “Yes. Do more, reach for more, write the series of your heart wherever it takes you. We’re in!”

  Contents

  Author's Note

  Part One: Floating

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Two: Staying

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Part Three: Healing

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Reader's Note

  Questions For Discussion

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Author's Note

  The opening poem in Christmas on Mimosa Lane and the snippets at the beginning of each of its chapters come from the collective works of Emily Dickinson.

  Her poems enchanted me as a little girl. The feelings, the honest emotion, and the internal journeys you take as you explore her world continue to change me as an adult. The richness of her language and philosophy speaks to healing and hope through even the toughest journey—an endearing message from the past to guide us through our now.

  I’ve left mere glimpses of Emily Dickinson’s imagination and the beauty that explodes from her words. If you enjoy these quotes, I encourage you to dive into the rest. Simple, challenging, surprising, may her poems inspire you to dream, as they always have me.

  Hope is the thing with feathers

  That perches in the soul,

  And sings the tune without the words,

  And never stops at all,

  And sweetest in the gale is heard;

  And sore must be the storm

  That could abash the little bird

  That kept so many warm.

  I heard it in the chillest land,

  And on the strangest sea;

  Yet, never, in extremity,

  It asked a crumb of me.

  —Emily Dickinson

  Chapter One

  Not knowing when the dawn will come

  I open every door…

  Mallory Phillips woke slowly, floating, with long-ago Christmases racing through her mind. Images jumbled together in a flurry of sound and motion that warned of something ominous, something unwanted, lurking too close.

  She jackknifed until she was sitting in her bed. Her eyes opened to silence and serene shadows and the lingering echo of who she’d once been. There was no threat. There was nothing to fear except for the dreams that consumed too many of her nights.

  She hugged her crimson comforter against the chilly darkness, then pushed it away in frustration. Fully awake, she scrubbed at her eyes and breathed deeply, focusing on how far she’d come and her determination to stay right where she was until she could feel every bit of the picturesque world surrounding her. This was her fresh start. This Christmas on Mimosa Lane was her reboot. She was finally, completely, moving on.

  Yet it still swirled within her, that shadowy connection to another time, another Mallory, while moonlight dazzled her, dancing through bay windows that overlooked the backyard of her cozy ranch-style house. Snuggling into her pillows she stared at the property that she’d made hers free and clear three months ago. She hadn’t hung curtains in the house. She’d wanted nothing to obscure her view from this peaceful place. The back of the home was almost entirely glass, allowing streams of sparkling light to wash over her as she tried to relax enough to sleep.

  It was the abundance of windows that had first excited her, then the privacy of the twelve-foot fence secluding her backyard from the others on her cul-de-sac. After searching forever for just the right place, she now owned a piece of the everyday charm that was Chandlerville, Georgia—a historic town northeast of Atlanta that she’d moved to before the start of the school year.

  Mimosa Lane was a twisty-turny, horseshoe-shaped road. Over the years a sprawling community of more than fifty homes had sprouted along its wooded splendor. At its center dangled a cul-de-sac where one side of the lane curled in sharply, around, and then returned to its twin. The cul-de-sac’s secluded curves and the houses at its heart seemed to exist on a totally separate road. And within that bubble of isolated perfection, Mallory had found her dream house.

  Surrounding her property were sedately aging homes and large lots bursting with trees and manicured landscaping. Only cul-de-sac residents or their visitors came this far down the lane. It was easier to reach the other houses from Scenic Highway, the main street running through Chandlerville that both ends of the lane eventually rambled into.

  A paradise for young families, Mimosa Lane was the idealistic solid ground Mallory had craved as a little girl when her idea of heaven had been a yard she could call her own, a happy family and friends to play with, and doors and windows she’d never have to lock. She’d just spent Thanksgiving weekend feeling soul-deep gratitude for this chance—especially to her grandmother, who even after her death had been adamant that one day Mallory would have her fantasy come true.

  So why couldn’t she banish the past for good and embrace this world she’d wanted so desperately?

  A rustle reached her from the direction of the living room.

  Her eyes flew open.

  That wasn’t a restless memory, set free by her mind’s nocturnal wandering. The next odd sound sent her scrambling from bed, her ears ringing.

  She couldn’t feel her legs except for their shaking. After two tries she crammed her feet into fluffy slippers and wrapped herself in terry cloth. She pressed her back to the wall beside her open bedroom door, willed her panic into submission, and ticked off her options. If someone had broken in, her choices were to confront them in her ancient Tinker Bell robe or to hide and wait for whomever it was to either leave or find her.

  Instinct, unwise and unstoppable, propelled her into the hallway. The hell with hiding. She’d be damned if she’d let anything make her afraid in her own home.

  The rattle came again, almost too faint to hear, drawing her the short distance to her living room where more windows waited, and more shadows. Plus the floor-to-ceiling artificial Christmas tree she’d assembled weeks ago, lit, and loaded with sparkling ornaments and lights, to the amusement no doubt of every conservative neighbor up and down the lane. The tree’s flickering illumination revealed nothing to her except the room’s sparse furnishings.

  Her heart eased down her throat as she told herself to remain calm. But there was someone there. A childhood of self-preservation had armed her with a second sense she’d never shaken, and her intuition was screaming that she was no longer alone.

  She heard a sniffle a
nd stepped closer to the tree. A shadow in the corner moved, and only then did Mallory see her. A tiny, forlorn ghost lurked amid the sheer panels that would have been curtains in another house, only Mallory kept them tied back. She sighed at the child who kept wandering over to stare through Mallory’s windows. The seven-year-old had ventured inside this time and was hiding behind Mallory’s tree.

  “Polly?” She checked the mantel clock. “It’s after midnight, sweetie. What are you doing here?”

  What did it say about Mallory that this child was the first person who’d stepped inside her home since she’d moved here? No matter how badly she wanted to take part in the community thriving around her, three months of trying had proven an experiment gone sometimes comically awry. And while she attempted to figure things out, she’d managed to keep the locals at a comfortable distance. All of them except this wandering child.

  Most afternoons since Mallory put up her tree, Polly had appeared out back. She would just stand there gazing through the glass Mallory kept sparkling clean—the sun setting on fire the red highlights in her dark hair. It was like catching a glimpse of a terrified woodland creature that was too paralyzed to flee yet too fascinated to look away. For weeks Polly hadn’t ventured closer or said a word.

  Then one evening just before Thanksgiving Mallory could have sworn she’d seen the little girl outside after dark. But when Mallory had stepped onto her patio to check, she’d found nothing but closely cut grass and the breeze that never completely abandoned north Georgia. One moment Polly had been there. The next she’d vanished.

  There was a door in the gate that separated Mallory’s property from the Lombard house. Maybe, just for a while, locking it would be the gentlest way to break the little girl of her escalating obsession with seeking Mallory out, first in school and then at home. Except where would the kid go the next time her single father didn’t realize she’d wandered away?

  Polly looked poised even now to escape through the sliding glass door she’d left open behind her. She was an ethereal, barely there illusion of light and shadow. A mystery hovering amid holiday fancy, crying and alone.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Polly said, still sniffling.

  The defiant tilt of her chin dared Mallory to offer a hug or say something empty, something adult that would make what Polly was going through worse. Instead Mallory inched closer without speaking, her heart aching.

  Before spending a decade pursuing the rocky path that had brought her to Chandlerville as the local elementary school’s clinic nurse, a day hadn’t gone by that Mallory hadn’t wanted to run just like Polly. Even though this child lived in a perfect house, complete with an enormous backyard play set that would be a happy kid’s heaven on earth, she clearly longed to be somewhere else. It was as if she didn’t fit on the lane any more than Mallory did.

  “I can’t sleep sometimes myself,” Mallory said. “But I keep trying. Especially when I have a busy day ahead of me like tomorrow. It’s Monday. We both have school.”

  “I don’t want to go to school.”

  “Where do you want to go?” The bulk of Mallory’s love seat stood between them, but she was close enough now to stop Polly from dashing away. “What’s outside, what’s in here, that you need to see more than the pretty bedroom I’m sure you left behind at your place?”

  The little girl stared down at her princess slippers—embroidered on each pink-swaddled foot was a cartoon blonde wearing a bejeweled tiara. A screen print of the same character sparkled on her gauzy nightshirt. She was covered head to toe in pretend.

  Mallory glanced from the child’s probably just-bought ensemble to her own faded cartoon mainstay. When she looked back Polly was wadding the hem of her thin gown in both fists. It was supposed to drop below forty outside tonight, unseasonably cold for the southeast. The kid must be freezing.

  “I don’t want to go home,” Polly said.

  “Okay.” Mallory sat on the edge of the love seat, never more certain that something was terribly wrong.

  She didn’t want this tie. This knowing. This connection. This wasn’t the peace she’d come to Mimosa Lane to claim. But as a pediatric nurse and a former mixed-up kid herself, Mallory couldn’t stop herself from trying to help.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  Her scared little rabbit scowled, sensing a trap.

  “You keep coming over here and to my office at school,” Mallory said. “But you never tell me what I can do for you, sweetie.”

  From day one Polly had looked so defeated. From their first encounter Mallory had wanted to take away just a little of the weight pressing on those tiny shoulders. In each quiet moment like this one, when a little girl who’d lost her mother half a year ago couldn’t put into words the cry for help she kept acting out, Mallory had needed to see this sad princess smile.

  “Franken Berry?” Mallory blurted out, not above bribery. “When I was your age, it felt like Christmas morning every time I ate it. Strawberry flavoring and refined sugar and bleached corn flour…Crunch and sweetness that will make your back teeth smile.” And it could only be special-ordered from the manufacturer’s website a few months out of the year, since most stores no longer carried it. But for Polly, Mallory would break into her secret stash. “Ever had any?”

  Polly shook her head. “My dad says healthy food only. I need to eat healthy to stay healthy.”

  She stepped closer, and Mallory considered grabbing her. Except grabbing at kids who were hell-bent on running only made them more certain that they’d never be safe.

  “Well there’s not a redeeming, healthy thing about Franken Berry,” she said, “no matter what the packaging says. In my book that makes it heaven in a bowl.”

  The child was underweight. Eating anything sounded healthy enough to Mallory. As Polly’s nurse she knew there were no food allergies or preexisting medical conditions to be concerned about. And in the moon’s reflection Polly’s eyes were glittering at Mallory’s description of the decadent treat.

  “Let’s live dangerously.” Mallory shrugged off her robe and draped it over the little girl’s shoulders. Then, catching a chill in only her matching flannel PJs, she led the way to the kitchen, turning on lights as she went. She checked once to make certain she was being followed.

  Polly’s slippered feet skidded to a halt inside the door. She blinked at Mallory’s retro-looking, circa 1950s, pink and blue and green appliances. They were one of the few splurges, besides her Christmas tree, that Mallory had indulged in when she’d furnished the place. An early Christmas present, she’d rationalized. Actually, Christmas and Valentine’s Day and her birthday and maybe Christmas again. But the hit to her budget had been worth it. This room made her heart sing.

  Her dreams came to her in black and white and gray, stark visions that refused to bloom into the colors she’d always craved. But in this house, the first world that was totally, completely her creation, she was surrounded by a rainbow of life-affirming hues each morning and at the end of every day while she cooked and ate and cleaned up after herself.

  She stopped first at the thermostat beside the door, easing the heat toward supernova so she’d stop shivering. Then she plucked the box of cereal from the pantry where her guilty pleasure nested amid other breakfast options. Her cinnamon-flavored hot cereal would be healthier and would take only a minute to microwave. It might warm Polly’s tummy if Mallory could get the kid to eat some of it. But for a little girl Polly’s age magical trumped healthy every time.

  “Have a seat.” Mallory rummaged through the glass-front cabinet above her sink. “You’re in for a surprise.”

  Her fingers closed around the plastic bowl and plate she’d snapped up at a local tag sale. She placed them on the table in front of Polly, the bowl on top. A cartoon princess, scratched and well used, smiled serenely from dishes someone had bought for another little girl, then discarded.

  “Sit,” Mallory repeated.

  Polly hung back until Mallory poured the cereal, then added t
he milk she’d taken from the fridge. Her guest slid into the chair, trancelike, watching creamy white liquid transform to fantasy pink.

  “Eat,” Mallory urged, “while I call your father.”

  Polly’s first spoonful of sugary goodness paused halfway to her mouth. Some of it slopped back to the bowl.

  “It’s okay.” Mallory already had the kitchen phone in her hand. She could have gone into the other room to make the call. But she didn’t lie to kids. Ever. They deserved to be treated like they understood and could handle what was happening in their lives. She knew better than anyone just how resilient a child Polly’s age could be. “Eat. You don’t want your daddy taking you home before you’ve drunk the strawberry milk from the bottom.”

  She winked and dialed the number she’d jotted on the pad on the counter. Pete Lombard had coughed it up yesterday morning, grudgingly, when he’d called. His child had spent yet another hour in Mallory’s yard, watching without saying anything, scared when she realized she’d been spotted, but not leaving until her father showed up to take her home. Fifteen minutes later his call had been the man’s first acknowledgment that he and Mallory had a problem.

  Their conversation had lasted all of thirty seconds, which sadly had been longer than she’d managed with anyone else on the lane. She’d agreed to let him know if Polly came back. He’d promised to keep a closer watch on his daughter. Like that had solved anything.

  Polly filled her mouth with cereal. Her eyes widened. Her spoon swooped in for a bigger bite. Mallory smiled, then frowned at the husky “hello” that rumbled through the phone connection.

  “Are you missing something again, Prince Charming?” she asked, her words catching then stumbling out in a rush. She regularly became tongue-tied talking with her neighbors and the parents she encountered at school. But dealing with this man was worse. His child’s situation ignited a flash fire of unwanted confusion inside Mallory. It was a daily battle to keep her frustration and anger from spewing all over Polly’s father.