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- Herausgeber: Bookbinder Press
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Serie: Cedar Creek
- Sprache: Englisch
Two people at a crossroads, two remote mountain cabins, and a Christmas they’ll never forget.
Sophie Furnell loves her job as a 911 operator, and she’s good at it. One call at a time, she makes her community a better place. But one night, she has to tell a caller that help isn’t coming. Soon after, her job is defunded. Disheartened and broke, she sets off for the Adirondacks to house-sit her grandmother’s rental cottage.
As violence sweeps through his neighborhood, Cole Marick defends his bicycle shop and loses. His wounds heal, but the business he’s worked hard to build is destroyed, along with his faith in humanity. Leaving the boarded-up neighborhood storefronts behind, Cole retreats to his family’s Adirondack fishing camp.
Amid towering snow-laden trees, two neighbors have come seeking refuge. But not even the shimmer of holiday lights against new-fallen snow is enough to bring Christmas joy to their two damaged spirits. Neither has seen much in the way of miracles lately, but as a snowstorm blows in and Christmas approaches, they discover that miracles come in many forms.
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Seitenzahl: 159
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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Two people at a crossroads, two remote mountain cabins, and a Christmas they’ll never forget.
Sophie Furnell loves her job as a 911 operator, and she’s good at it. One call at a time, she makes her community a better place. But one night, she has to tell a caller that help isn’t coming. Soon after, her job is defunded. Disheartened and broke, she sets off for the Adirondacks to house-sit her grandmother’s rental cottage.
As violence sweeps through his neighborhood, Cole Marick defends his bicycle shop and loses. His wounds heal, but the business he’s worked hard to build is destroyed, along with his faith in humanity. Leaving the boarded-up neighborhood storefronts behind, Cole retreats to his family’s Adirondack fishing camp.
Amid towering snow-laden trees, two neighbors have come seeking refuge. But not even the shimmer of holiday lights against new-fallen snow is enough to bring Christmas joy to their two damaged spirits. Neither has seen much in the way of miracles lately, but as a snowstorm blows in and Christmas approaches, they discover that miracles come in many forms.
A must-read for fans of Robyn Carr, Debbie Macomber, and RaeAnne Thayne.
GET THE AUDIOBOOK
jljarvis.com/christmas-at-cedar-creek
ALSO BY J.L. JARVIS
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(Can be read in any order)
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Moonlight on Mariner’s Bluff
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(Reading Order)
1 Love in the Time of Pumpkins
2 Secrets in the Hollow
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1 Allison’s Pine Harbor Summer
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3 Lydia’s Pine Harbor Christmas
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2 The Betrayal
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4 The Wanderer
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For more information, visit jljarvis.com.
Get monthly book news at news.jljarvis.com.
CHRISTMAS AT CEDAR CREEK
J.L. JARVIS
CHRISTMAS AT CEDAR CREEK
Copyright © 2020 J.L. Jarvis
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.
Published by Bookbinder Press
bookbinderpress.com
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-942767-39-8
ISBN (paperback) 978-1-942767-40-4
ISBN (hardcover) 978-1-942767-47-3
ISBN (Audiobook) 978-1-942767-54-1
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
The Cedar Creek Stories
Thank You!
Book News
About the Author
ONE
“So, been on any good dates lately?” Matt Furnell didn’t miss a beat as he shoveled potatoes onto his Thanksgiving dinner plate.
Sophie shot a pointed look at her brother. Twenty-three on the outside and still thirteen on the inside. She took a cleansing breath, smiled, and answered pleasantly. “Why, no, Matt, I haven’t. Unlike you, I’m holding out for a date with opposable thumbs.”
Unfazed, their parents exchanged glances and continued to eat.
Matt’s eyes crinkled. “Okay, but seriously…”
“A girl’s got to have standards.”
Matt’s eyebrows drew together. “Standards or roadblocks?”
Sophie decided to cut to the chase. “I’ve been busy.”
With a nod, Matt said, “That’s right. You’re focusing on your career.”
Sophie slowly blinked and said under her breath, “I would if I still had one.”
Their mother gave Matt an admonishing look. “It’s Thanksgiving. Let’s have a nice dinner.” She turned to her husband. “This deep-fried turkey is delicious!”
Now confused, Matt stared at Sophie. “What?”
Softly, she said, “I lost my job.”
His jaw fell open. “Oh, crap. I’m sorry. What happened?”
With that, her brother showed signs of maturing, which only made sense since he was two years older than Sophie. It was bound to happen sometime. He looked sincerely remorseful, so she said, “Forget it.”
“How? I thought you were doing so well.”
“I thought I was too. But the mayor defunded the police, and the 911 call center went with it. I mean, it’s still there, but I’m not. I guess I should’ve seen it coming the night I had to tell a woman help was not on the way. There was no one available. She’d just gotten home from the hospital, and her ex-boyfriend was pounding on her front door threatening to finish the job.” Sophie swallowed. “All I could think of to tell her was to call a friend or a neighbor.” Emotions threatened to overwhelm her, but she took a deep breath and pulled it together. “Anyway, last hired, first fired. I didn’t make the cut.”
“I’m sorry, Soph. Really.”
She shrugged. “It is what it is.” And what it was sucked. But she tried to appear philosophical. She didn’t feel that way. She felt gutted and angry. But philosophical was a better look for her, especially now. She didn’t want to be a holiday buzzkill. But in truth, she resented the move. People had called because they needed help, and she’d given it to them. Her work had changed lives, sometimes saved them, and that gave her life purpose. Used to give her life purpose. Now what?
Sophie’s father cleared his throat. “Yeah, that deep fryer is something else. Turkey comes out nice and moist.”
Her mother’s eyes widened. “And I love how it freed up the oven!”
Sophie ignored her brother while he wallowed in well-deserved guilt. A lifetime of competitive banter should have taught him how these things usually ended—with Matt one step over the line and Sophie with the thrill of victory and no one to share it with.
By the time the meal ended, they’d found their way back to normal, “normal” being a relative term. Then they moved on to the football portion of the day, where life was as it should be, at least for the time being. Tomorrow, Sophie would begin taking action to reassemble the pieces of her life. However, before the rebuilding could begin, she needed to finish tearing it down. No job meant no rent money, so she was due out of her apartment by the end of the month. At least she didn’t have a car payment. Instead, she had Old Faithful, which had been proving itself to be not quite so faithful of late. The poor old all-wheel-drive hatchback had one hundred twenty thousand miles on it. She only hoped it would get her to her next job before it wheezed and sputtered its last carbon monoxide fumes into the ozone.
She was packing up books when the phone rang. “Grandma Kate! Hi! How are you?”
“I’m fine. I’m enjoying the lanai while I catch up on some reading. How are you?”
Sophie looked around at the stacks of boxes filling her apartment. “I’m great.”
“No, you’re not.”
Sophie’s bright mood vanished. “Mom told you.”
“No, Matt did.”
Sophie wasn’t sure whether to gasp or say, “Aw.” It wasn’t Matt’s place to tell Grandma Kate, but he wouldn’t have done so if he didn’t care. He did love her. But that meant he was worried about her, which meant there was reason to worry.
“Matt said you were moving.”
“That’s right. In fact, I’m surrounded by boxes at the moment.”
“Where to?”
Good question. “I’ve hired a local company.”
“Good start.”
“And I’ve rented a storage unit.”
“Very smart.” That was so Grandma Kate, so full of confidence to make up for what Sophie lacked. “That buys you some time to find your best options and make good decisions.”
I guess. I just needed a place for my stuff. “Well, I wasn’t thinking about that exactly. It was more an act of desperation.”
She could almost see her grandmother smiling. “That works too.”
“Yeah, so I’m storing everything but my clothes, and I’m moving back home.”
“Oh. Can you fit a bed in your old bedroom?”
“Well, no. I mean, Mom offered to make room, but I couldn’t kick her out after she worked so hard to fix it up just how she wanted it. So I guess I’ll move into the basement.”
“Oh. Did they finish out their basement?”
“No, but all it needs is a throw rug, a lamp, and a brightly colored bedspread.”
“Won’t the noise of the sump pump keep you up nights?”
Sophie grimaced but said cheerily, “I’m a sound sleeper.”
“Sophie.” She could almost hear Grandma Kate shaking her head. “I just got off the phone with the Realtor. She’s sending a cleaning crew over to spruce up my rental cabin.”
“That’s nice.” And also a quick change of subject. I guess my problems are kind of boring.
Grandma Kate continued. “So it’ll be all ready for you by the end of the week if you need someplace to stay. It sits empty for most of the off-season. You’d be doing me a favor if you’d house-sit. And if you’re still there in the summer, we could work something out for the rent.”
“Grandma.” Sophie swallowed back her emotions. “Thank you. That would be…”
“Good. Then it’s settled.”
“Thank you!”
“Shh. Just relax. Take some time to regroup.”
“I will. Thank you, Grandma.”
“Don’t be silly. Oh! Look at the time! I’ve got a tee time in a half hour. I’ll send you the real estate agent’s info, and you can always ask the neighbors next door if you need anything.”
“I love you, Grandma!”
“Love you too. Bye, honey.”
Grandma. Sophie shook her head. And Matt! Her life might be crumbling around her, but her family was looking out for her.
* * *
A week later, Sophie packed up her car and headed up to the mountains. She had made it through Thanksgiving and hadn’t cried once. I may have lost my job, but I’ve still got my dignity.
As a tear trailed down her cheek, she took a deep breath, dabbed her eyes with her sleeve, and drove on. “That’s okay. Everything’s fine. Who needs a job when I can live on unemployment at Grandma Kate’s cabin?”
She was one of the lucky ones. While her budget was tight, she wasn’t desperate for cash. She had a rent-free place to stay and enough unemployment compensation for food, gas, and utilities. She hoped her family wouldn’t mind homemade Christmas presents this year, because that was what they would be getting. Now all she had to do was find a way to set aside the overwhelming sense of abject failure at finding herself unemployed. Forget setting goals, mapping out a career, or managing her money. None of that was happening now. But thanks to Grandma Kate, she would get by. But she worried about the people she used to serve. Who would answer their calls? How long would it take for someone to get there?
Sophie stopped herself. That’s beyond my control.
She drew in a deep breath and turned on the car stereo. What I need is some Christmas!
TWO
One week later
Standing in front of his bicycle shop, Cole Marick recalled better times. He loved the sport, and he knew its equipment. Since his college days in the city, he’d dreamed of owning a shop like this. Through hard work, he’d built it from a go-to place for serious cyclists to get proper repairs to a store carrying premier bicycles, parts, and accessories. He loved what he did and was proud of what he had accomplished. Now his store stood broken and covered in plywood, along with the rest of the shops on the street. Building it had taken years. Destroying it had taken only minutes.
Cole and his employees had defended the business until a street sign crashed through the storefront window, and a crowd of looters had poured in. That was the last thing Cole remembered. He’d woken in a hospital with two broken arms and a skull fracture where he’d been struck by something a lot harder than his head. If it hadn’t been for his two employees dragging him through the back exit, he might not have survived. With no ambulance able to get through, they’d half-carried, half-dragged him ten blocks to the hospital.
In the weeks after his release from the hospital, while he lay recovering from his injuries, his stalwart employees had cleaned up the crumbled shell of a store and boarded up the front windows and door. When he was able to return to the site, a few of his neighbors had hoped to reopen their businesses, but most of them simply could not. Insurance covered most of the physical damage, but their business interruption insurance had already run out. Customers weren’t coming back. With no income, they just couldn’t make it.
Cole made a decision. Physically, he had recovered, but even if he could get by financially for the months—or possibly years—it would take for the neighborhood to come back to life, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t let go of the thought that if it had happened once, it could happen again.
Interacting with people troubled him most. He couldn’t shake a nagging apprehension at the thought of customers coming into his shop. He’d spent weeks considering his options. Reopening made the most sense. God knew he’d tried to get used to the idea. But one of his last thoughts before he lost consciousness had been the sight of his attackers. They looked like his neighbors, no different from the people he passed every day on the street. They might have stood beside him in a grocery store line or sat beside him at the movies, which meant anyone he came into contact with was potentially capable of attacking him. It was impossible to imagine returning to live and work among people who had destroyed their own neighborhood.
They were more than just customers. He’d thought of them as neighbors and friends—all part of a community, living and working together to build and maintain a sort of hometown within the big city. But now, he would never see them in the same way again. Every time someone came into his shop, he would wonder if they had been there that night. If a group of people walked through the door, could he trust them not to turn hostile and knock him unconscious and loot his store all over again?
Cole had tried to overcome his fear with logic. He had taken a couple of psychology classes in college. He recalled studying how, in the heightened excitement of a crowd, individuals could abandon their sense of responsibility and adopt behaviors they would never have chosen on their own. Cole also recalled how he’d felt when they’d kicked him. And he remembered the glass. Time had seemed to slow to a stop as shattered pieces of store window flew like fractured bits of his life through the air. Like his dreams, they’d settled in a scattered and useless array.
The experience had changed how Cole viewed the world. From now on, he would see two types of people: builders and destroyers. With their mission accomplished, the destroyers could live with the fruits of their labor. As for Cole, he would go upstate to the family cabin and build a new life far from the madness overtaking the city.
His family still lived outside of Syracuse in a suburb surrounded by rolling farmland. But they owned an old fishing camp in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks, and that was where he would live. When Cole was a boy, his father had taken him and his brother there to fish. It was rough, with no power or outhouse and a hand pump at the sink that drew water from the creek that ran past the back of the cabin. At night, they would sit outside around a campfire and talk about where they might hike or fish the next day. When it rained, they would build a fire in the fireplace and play cards and board games at the kitchen table by the light of the kerosene lantern. They were good memories of a simpler time, but the cabin and land hadn’t changed. Only the towering cedars marked the years that had passed.
Cole had earmarked a small portion of the insurance settlement to put toward some modern improvements to the cabin. He would enjoy the luxury of an indoor toilet, for starters. He wouldn’t mind some basic electricity, either. A generator would be enough to get by with until he could afford a solar array. As isolated as it was, the property was only a few miles off the main road. With a few scattered cottages nearby, there would be neighbors to look out for one another. This was a place he could live and be content.
If worse came to worst and the anarchists took over the country, he could try to sneak over the border to Canada. He laughed to himself. He didn’t mean it. Still, there was no point in ruling it out as an option.
Cole traveled light. Everything that he needed fit into the back of his pickup. So he packed up and covered it all with a tarp, then set off for a quick stop at home on his way to the cabin. The streets were quiet, as though the riots of summer had never been meant to last more than a season. Now the lifeless leaves lay on the ground, with no purpose except to be tossed here and there by an occasional breeze.
As Cole drove out of the city, he reveled in the freedom of having no aim in life other than to reach his destination at no particular time. He stopped home for some lunch with his parents, then, leaving fast-food and convenience stores in his wake, drove on to the cabin. As he neared his new home, the familiar sights and the scent in the air brought memories of childhood contentment to the surface. Cole drove into the state park, where scattered leaves gripped bare branches and the air smelled of autumn and distant fireplace smoke.
