Читать книгу Kissing Santa Claus - Jill Shalvis - Страница 7

Holly Berry Bennett hated Christmas. It was all her parents’ fault, really. She was born ten days early, on Christmas Eve—ruining every birthday forever—and christened with a name that other children would mock well beyond adolescence. Her father, a family accountant, had been more excited by the really nice write-off she’d provided than anything else, and, when confronted with her schoolyard-provoked tears, had cluelessly chuckled that it could have been worse; they could have named her Mistletoe.

Her mother, on the other hand, would only have been more thrilled had her only child waited at least three more hours and been born on Christmas Day proper. Her mother loved Christmas more than anything, and would celebrate it 365 days a year if she could. And, by launching Santa’s Workshop, a crafts, antiques, and collectibles store dedicated to all things Christmas, Beverly Bennett did.

Or had.

Holly stared out the window of the jumbo 757 as it lifted off…leaving Heathrow, her little London flat, and the entire life she’d built for herself in England all behind her. So, okay, maybe that life hadn’t exactly turned out to be all she’d hoped for. But it was her life, dammit.

Now she was heading back to the States, back home. To her mother’s life.

She fingered the set of keys that weighed heavily in her jacket pocket. Keys to her old life…keys to the life she’d fled all the way across an entire ocean to get away from. Keys to her past…and now, not a little terrifyingly, her future. Her immediate one, at least.

She tipped her head back and closed her eyes, but all she saw was what awaited her. Santa’s Workshop. Owned and operated by…Holly Bennett.

Heaven help them all.

What had her mother been thinking? Or drinking? When Holly had made her annual trip home for Thanksgiving, the very last thing she’d expected to receive along with her mother’s perfectly roasted turkey and oyster stuffing was the shock of her life…and the keys to the family store.

Her parents had calmly informed her that they had a buyer for the family home—the one they’d moved into almost fifty years ago as newlyweds, the very one she’d grown up in, and had been fairly certain both her parents would live out their days in—and had already purchased lakefront property in a senior community in Florida. Which they’d giddily announced they’d already begun moving into to start their brand-new, retired life.

Holly had simply stared—gaped, really—half tempted to rush her mother to the nearest hospital for a full neurological workup. None of it had made sense. It still didn’t. This wasn’t how things were supposed to work out. Her dad would be running his accounting business out of the detached garage-turned-office and her mother would run Santa’s Workshop, until they were both too frail and old to do so—and even then, she’d pictured quite the battle. Her parents were now in their early seventies. She’d figured she had at least another decade, possibly more knowing them, before that battle would begin in earnest. Until then, she’d stay safely tucked away in London.

At eighteen she’d gone sailing off to college. Literally. To Oxford, in England. No following in her parents’ footsteps. She wanted to be a painter, with her work displayed in the most interesting galleries from the West End to Milan, from SoHo to San Francisco.

She’d ended up in advertising. Which was not exactly the same thing, but was at least creative and occasionally called on her skills with pen and brush. However, her career enabled her to keep a roof over her head and still dabble on the occasional canvas when she could find the time. Italy, Spain, Portugal. Germany, Switzerland, Austria. All had provided stunning backdrops to her occasional artist forays. She’d worn out several rail passes and filled many canvases. It kept her sane in the demanding world of advertising…which she didn’t love. But it paid the rent. And kept her far away from home and hearth.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love her parents; she did. They meant well. And while they might not have had the first clue how to raise their unexpected late-in-life child—she’d grown up in a house that was more a museum than an actual home a person could live in (Holly, don’t touch that! Don’t sit there! Leave the figurines alone!)—they were definitely made for each other. And the three of them had long since settled into a comfortable pattern of happy coexistence. They bugged her about not waiting too long to get married and start a family, she bugged them about not waiting too long to retire and get a life…each fairly certain their admonitions were going in one ear and out the other, and everyone was content. Right up until the day they took her advice.

It had been two weeks since she found out and she still couldn’t wrap her head around it. Any part of it. She couldn’t imagine her father spending time on a golf course and not umbilically attached to his calculators and computers and endless shelves of bound volumes on the most recent tax legislation. And her mother…how in the world was she going to embrace life in a place that never even had a frost, a place where Santa was often seen sporting board shorts and buddied up with flamingos?

And yet…Holly had never heard them sounding happier. They truly were giddy with it. Both of them had been lifelong workaholics, dedicated to vocations they dearly loved as much as they dearly loved each other…and, in their own absentminded way, their daughter, who had largely raised herself, with the help of this housekeeper or that and the occasional babysitter. But now? Now they were two of the most relaxed, happy, laid-back strangers she’d ever met. How could she be mad at that? Hadn’t she been telling them they needed that very thing for years?

She’d just never seriously entertained the idea that they’d actually do it. Nor had it ever crossed her mind that her mother would leave Holly the family business. Why? Why would she do that? Holly knew what her mother had said. She couldn’t bear to sell it to a stranger, and the few employees she had were all retirees who weren’t interested in taking on the full-time burden. And she couldn’t possibly sit there and sell off her precious, beloved pieces, one by one. She simply couldn’t bear it.

So, she’d bequeathed it—a little early—lock, stock, and jingle bells, to her only daughter. Holly had always figured that, at some future point, when her mother passed on, she’d be faced with the burden of dismantling the shop and doing with it whatever one did with such a thing. Never once in her wildest dreams—or darkest nightmares—had she contemplated it would be dumped in her lap while her mother was still alive and kicking…and would know exactly what was being done with it.

And, to make it even better, Christmas was in ten days. Which meant her thirtieth birthday was in nine. Double goody.

If she planned to keep the shop, it couldn’t stay closed, which her mother had reminded her during her most recent phone call. Her mother, who had been packing for the three-week Mediterranean cruise she and Holly’s father were taking. In December. During High Season. High, having to be the operative word, Holly was certain. Her mother hadn’t even sounded twitchy when she discussed the store. She and her father had been far too busy, running off to play cards, going out to the theater, visiting Sea World. Sea World. With friends. They had dozens of them now, apparently. They’d had their home in Frost-proof—a name they both found hysterically funny—for all of three months now. It was like they’d run away to summer camp for seniors. Permanently.

One thing was very certain. They weren’t coming back.

Holly stared at the thickening layer of clouds, still fingering the keys in her pocket. She had taken the remainder of her annual holiday time and the rest of her sick leave to come back and sort things out. Which meant she had a whole two weeks and three days to figure out what in the hell she was going to do with the new life that had been dumped on her.

It didn’t seem like near enough.