A Mistletoe Vow: A Cold Creek Christmas Story / Falling for Mr December / A Husband for the Holidays

He could sense her sudden fine-edged tension. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“What happened to you? I vaguely remember my grandmother saying something about you and your sisters enduring a terrible ordeal, but I’ve been racking my brain and can’t remember what. I should. I’m sorry.”

She was silent for a long time and he didn’t press, just continued driving through the quiet night through Cold Creek Canyon.

The creek here wound beside the road and through the trees, silvery in the moonlight. Tall pines and firs grew beside cottonwoods along the banks, at times almost forming a tunnel over the road. It was beautiful and mysterious at night with the snow fluttering gently against the windshield and the occasional house or ranchette decorated with Christmas lights.

She finally spoke when they were almost to the Star N. “It’s a time of my life I don’t like to think about,” she murmured.

“Oh?”

She sighed. “I told you my parents moved us around the globe under sometimes difficult circumstances.”

He nodded, wondering what her life must have been like without any kind of stable place to call home. Had she thrived there or had she always felt as if something were missing in her life?

She loved to read. Perhaps books had been her one constant friend through all the chaos and uncertainty.

“When I was eleven, we moved to Colombia to open a clinic in a small, undeveloped region. My parents were assured over and over that it was a safe area to bring their daughters.”

“It wasn’t?”

“The village where we lived might have been safe, but several in the region were not.”

With reluctance he pulled up in front of her house, wishing he could keep driving. He shouldn’t have worried. She didn’t appear to notice where they were, that he had parked the vehicle and turned to face her. She hardly seemed aware he was there as she spoke, her features tight and her eyes focused on some spot through the windshield that he had a feeling wasn’t anywhere close to eastern Idaho.

“We had been living in the village about six weeks when the clinic drew the attention of the local rebel leader in one of those unstable villages who happened to be in need of some extra cash to fund his soldiers. I guess Juan Pablo thought he could get a handsome sum in ransom if he kidnapped the crazy American do-gooders. The only trouble with that plan was that my parents weren’t associated with any larger organization with deep pockets. They were free agents, I guess you could say. There was no money to pay a ransom and no one to pay it.”

“What happened?”

“Juan Pablo didn’t believe my parents when they insisted no one could pay a ransom. He thought if he held us long enough, the US government at least would step in, especially with the lives of three young girls at stake. We were held hostage for several weeks in a squalid prison camp.”

What the hell had her parents been thinking, to drag three young girls all over the world into these unstable situations? He was all for helping others and admired those selfless people who only wanted to make a difference in the world, but not when it cost the well-being of their own children.

“Did someone eventually pay the ransom?”

She shook her head. “That was never one of the options. Juan Pablo was just too stupid or too blinded by greed to realize it. Instead, after we had been held for several weeks, a team of US Navy SEALs mounted an early-morning rescue.”

She paused, her head bowed and her dark curls hiding her features. When she spoke, her voice was low, tight with remembered pain.

“The rescue wasn’t a complete success. My father was...shot by Juan Pablo’s rebels while we were trying to escape. He died instantly.”

“Oh, Celeste. I’m so sorry.”

“You can see why I feel great empathy for Olivia and what she’s going through. Seeing a parent die violently is a trauma no child should have to endure.”

“I completely agree,” he said. “Again, I’m so sorry.”

She lifted one shoulder. “It happened. I can’t change it. For a long time, I struggled to deal with the injustice of it all. My parents were only trying to help others and my father paid the ultimate price for his benevolence. I can’t say I’ve ever really found peace with that or ever will, but I’ve been able to move forward. For what it’s worth, I freaked out at loud noises for a long time, too. Probably a good year or two after the accident.”

“You seem to handle them fine now.”

She gave a small laugh. “I wouldn’t be a very good children’s librarian if I couldn’t handle a little noise, believe me. I would have run screaming into the night after the very first story time.”

“So how did you come to live with your aunt and uncle?” he asked.

She shifted her gaze to his for only a moment before she looked out the windshield again, as if she couldn’t quite bear to make eye contact while she told the rest of the story.

“In possibly the cruelest twist of all, our mother was diagnosed with cancer shortly after we were rescued from Colombia. She had been sick for a while but hadn’t sought the necessary medical care. She’d apparently suspected something was wrong before we were taken and had made an appointment for tests in Bogota in the days right around our kidnapping—an appointment she couldn’t make, for obvious reasons. It was...an aggressive and deadly form of cancer. Largely because she didn’t get the treatment she needed in a timely manner, she died four months later, after we came back to the States.”

Unable to resist, he reached for her hand and held it in his for a moment, wishing he had the words to tell her how much he admired her.

So many people he knew would have pulled inside themselves and let the tragedy and injustice of it turn them bitter and angry at the world. Instead, she had become a strong, compassionate woman who was helping children learn to love words and stories, while she wrote uplifting, heartwarming tales where good always triumphed.

She looked down at their joined hands, and her lips parted just a little before she closed them and swallowed. “After our mother died, Uncle Claude and Aunt Mary opened their home and their hearts to us, and we’ve been here ever since.”

“And thus you entered the world of Christmas extravaganzas.”

This time her laugh sounded more natural—a sweet, spontaneous sound that seemed to slide through his chest and tug at his heart. He liked the sound of her laughter. It made him want to sit in this warm car with her all night while soft Christmas music played on the stereo and snow fluttered against the windshield and his daughter slept soundly in the backseat.

“There was no Christmas Ranch before we came here. Uncle Claude had the idea a year later. My sisters and I share the theory that he did it only to distract us because he knew the holidays would be tough for us without our parents, especially that first anniversary.”

“You were kidnapped at Christmastime?” That only seemed to add to the tragedy of it, that people could cruelly and viciously use an innocent family for financial gain during a time that was supposed to be about peace on earth and goodwill toward men.

“Yes.” She leaned back against the seat and gazed out at the snowflakes dancing against the windshield. “My mother and father would try to keep up our spirits during our captivity by singing carols with us and encouraging us to make up Christmas stories.”

“Ah. And you’ve carried on their storytelling tradition.”

“In my feeble way, I guess you’re right.”

“Not feeble,” he protested. “Sparkle and the Magic Snowball is a charming story that has captured the hearts of children and parents alike.”

She looked embarrassed. “Mostly because of Hope and her beautiful illustrations.”

“And because the story is sweet and hopeful at a time when people desperately need that.”

She shifted in the seat, her cheeks slightly pink in the low light.

“I never expected any of this. I only wanted to tell stories to my niece and nephew. I don’t know if I would ever have found the courage to submit it to a publisher. I didn’t, actually. If not for Hope, all the Sparkle stories would still be in a box under my bed.”

He released her fingers, not at all sure he liked this soft tenderness seeping through him. “Your parents would be so proud of you. Who would have guessed when you were sharing stories with your parents and sisters while you were all hostages during a dark Christmastime that one day you would be a famous author?”

“Not me, certainly.”

“Does writing make you feel closer to your parents?”

She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes wide. “I... Yes. Yes, it does. I never realized that until right this moment when you said it. Sometimes when I’m writing, I feel as if they’re with me again, whispering words of comfort to me in the darkness.”

It would be easy to fall for her. Something about her combination of vulnerability and strength tugged at him, called to him in a way no other woman ever had.