A Darling Bay Christmas: Three Heartwarming Holiday Short Stories

A Darling Bay Christmas

Three Heartwarming Short Stories

Rachael Herron Juliet Blackwell Sophie Littlefield

HGA Publishing

Contents

Happy Holidays

You Deserve Love

Addison’s Past

Josie’s Turn

Lydia’s Letter

A Preview of The Darling Songbirds

Copyright

Copyright © 2017 by Juliet Blackwell, Sophie Littlefield, and Rachael Herron

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

A Darling Bay Christmas / 1st ed.

ISBN-13: 978-1-940785-37-0

Happy Holidays

from us to you!

Last fall, Sophie, Juliet, and Rachael went to the coast to have a girls’ writing weekend. We did a 1000-piece jigsaw. We drank too much wine and ate lots of fancy cheese. We floated in the hot tub and looked up at the stars. We walked a massive dog named Nugget (Juliet’s) and a tiny dog named Dozy (Rachael’s). We laughed and cried together, as we always do. Someone may have put one of the others into an online dating app and immediately (and accidentally!) propositioned her son’s favorite teacher. (Oops.)

And at some point, we had the idea to write a series of linked short holiday stories, all set in Rachael’s world of Darling Bay.

See, we all know Darling Bay, even though it’s not exactly real. North of San Francisco, Darling Bay has the flavors of Bolinas and Bodega Bay and Gualala and Big Sur, all mashed up together. It’s a small village on the rugged northern coast, populated by people who fall in love often and well.

Even though white Christmases are rare, they can happen in Darling Bay.

Love, which isn’t rare there, happens a lot, especially when mistletoe and carols hang in the cool, foggy air.

Please enjoy.

love,

Juliet, Sophie, and Rachael

You Deserve Love

Click here to join Rachael’s reader’s group and never miss a love story.

Addison’s Past

Addison’s Past

by Juliet Blackwell

Addison couldn’t remember the last time she’d received an actual handwritten letter in the mail.

It was almost Christmas, though, and among her circle of acquaintances were a few stalwarts who still sent holiday cards sheathed in bright red and green envelopes and sealed with stickers in the shape of wreathes and snowmen wearing scarves and top hats. Now and then Addison also received scribbled postcards from the loyal friends who had stuck with her all last year through what she liked to think of as the year she found herself. Others of her acquaintance—not without cause, she admitted—called last year Addison’s year of selfishness.

But this wasn’t a Christmas card or a postcard—it was a genuine old-fashioned letter, a plain white business-size envelope with Addison’s name and address printed on the front in a spidery, shaky hand. In the left-hand corner was the sender’s name and address: Earl Pickett, 25 Abalone Lane, Darling Bay, California.

Addison shifted her heavy bag higher on her right shoulder, gripping her briefcase—crammed with work to do tonight—tightly in her left hand as she shut and locked her mailbox in the lobby of the pre-war New York City building where she’d been subletting an apartment for the past year. The owner was returning soon, so Addison needed to move. But figuring that out would have to wait until she decided whether to accept the job offer in San Francisco, and she couldn’t decide that until her current New York employer made a counter-offer. Oh, how she prayed the firm would make a counter-offer.

As much as she loved San Francisco, it was way too close to Darling Bay.

The apartment building’s small elevator pinged its arrival, and she stepped in, pushed the button for her floor, ripped open the white envelope, and started to read.

And just like that, her well-thought-out, meticulously-crafted holiday-avoidance plans fell apart.

This would be her first holiday season apart from Dylan in four years, and Addison had been determined to create a new tradition. For the first time in her life, she would spend the holidays somewhere besides Darling Bay. Anywhere besides Darling Bay. Six months ago she had closed her eyes and stuck a pin into a map of the Caribbean. On the fourth try the pin landed in the Turks and Caicos. The name appealed to her, so she booked a resort vacation for one at a four-star hotel, went on a diet, and started shopping for bikinis. She intended to take a lot of photos with various handsome, scantily-dressed men and post them to social media, even though she never did that sort of thing, just so that anyone and everyone who saw them would know she was having the time of her life.

Addison died a little inside, just thinking about it.

Still, it was better than going home to Darling Bay, where memories lurked around every corner: the time Addie had first brought Dylan to the Golden Spike saloon where bar regular Norma had tricked him into buying her six drinks in a row. The time the aunties insisted on reading their tarot cards, Dylan sitting barefoot and cross-legged on the worn Turkish carpet, surrounded by candles, gamely feigning interest and cracking jokes, sneaking Addie secret glances, winning over the hearts of all four aunties. The magical little rental cottage behind Earl Pickett’s place, called Siren Song, which was a converted water tower. The main floor was the living room with a tiny kitchen and a small bathroom, complete with a claw-footed tub. A ladder near the bathroom led up to the loft, a large space that held nothing but a huge bed covered with the softest cream-colored comforter in the world, and topped by a patchwork quilt. The aunties had made the quilt for Earl Pickett decades ago, when he returned from the Korean War.

Or…the time she drank way too much tequila and decided Dylan was flirting with her old high school nemesis, Vivian Engel, who was looking cute-as-a-button in a Santa’s Elf costume, and Addison had started dirty dancing with a firefighter named Smoke (who was gay, but Dylan hadn’t known that) and Dylan went ballistic and wound up starting a barroom brawl, during which he broke the bar back mirror, not to mention his arm.

That was when Dylan, made clumsy by his new cast, had packed his bag and stormed out of the Siren Song into a chilly, misty night.

Christmas Eve of last year.

The elevator pinged, and the door slid open. Addison hurried down the hall and managed to get her key in the door of her apartment, dumped her bags on the kitchen counter, then re-read the letter:

Dear Addie,

If you’re reading this, it means I’ve moved on to the great beyond. Don’t be sad—I’m not. I’ve had a good run, and I’m ready.

Anyway, on to more important issues. Such as your plans for Christmas.

You didn’t make reservations this year, but of course I always keep Siren Song open for you over the holidays. I know your last trip here didn’t go so well –everyone’s still talking about it!—but I hope you’ll come back to Darling Bay for my memorial service. There will be a Very Important Announcement: the identity of the new Darling Bay Santa Claus! Wouldn’t want to miss that.

And just in case you were wondering: Dylan’s band is playing in Cabo San Lucas over the holidays, so you don’t have to worry.

I’ll see you on the other side, my dear.

Love always, Earl

He had enclosed a little charm, which Addison recognized as one of her Aunt Maisie’s talismans.

Addison stroked the beaded leather talisman as she collapsed into a chair, blowing out a long breath. When Aunt Willa called to tell her of Earl’s passing last week, Addison had been saddened by the news but had not planned on flying cross-country to attend the memorial service. She needed to spend the holidays by herself, becoming accustomed to her new, non-Dylan normal, starting with a solo adventure to the Caribbean.

Earl’s letter changed all that. She couldn’t very well refuse to attend a memorial when she had been personally invited by the guest of honor. Earl deserved better.

And as long as Dylan wasn’t there, she could get through a few days in Darling Bay. She could make it through Christmas Sunday. She would do it for Earl.

Dylan. Her stomach clenched. As usual when she thought of him, his face appeared in front of her: the five o’clock shadow, the strong chin, the little crinkles that had just started to develop at the corners of his dark, romantic eyes. They tilted downward at the edges, ever so slightly, giving him a whisper of vulnerability…

Forget him, Addie, she told herself for the thousandth time in the last twelve months. You made your choice, and it was the right one. They wanted different things out of life. Dylan had been very clear: he wanted marriage, a home, a family, children. After years of touring with his band, he wanted to put down roots, to belong somewhere. Dylan would have been perfectly happy to settle in Darling Bay. Forever.

But Addison had left Darling Bay at the age of seventeen to go to college in Chicago, running as far as she could from her hometown—and more importantly, from repeating the mistakes her mother had made. It had been just the two of them, ever since Addison’s father abandoned them. Stephanie did all the things mothers were supposed to do: she baked cupcakes for school birthday parties, never missed a Back To School Night or school play, attended Parent-Teacher Association meetings, packed nutritious lunches, ensured Addison did her homework and did it well.

But her mother hated every minute of it, and Addison suffered because of it, only too aware that she was a major cause of her mother’s unhappiness. And her father’s unexplained abandonment was always there, lurking just beneath the surface of their interactions. Stephanie often warned Addison: Having children changes everything. You just watch. You lose your whole life, your sense of self.

Their relationship improved when Addison got older and more independent, but the hurt she felt at her mother’s rejection and her father’s unexplained abandonment was always there, lurking just beneath the surface of their interactions. Still, Addison loved her mother, and when Stephanie got sick a few years back, Addison had decided to go to law school in San Francisco to be closer to her. So really, it was Stephanie’s fault that Addison had met Dylan.

After graduating at the top of her class, Addison had been spending all day every day studying for the notoriously difficult bar exam. One evening she had packed up her computer and sheaf of notes and went to study at a pub on Mission Street because if she had to spend one more minute in her tiny apartment she was going to hurt somebody. The moment she walked in she spotted Dylan: leaning against the bar, wearing a dark leather jacket, he projected confidence and a bad attitude…but then there were those eyes.

Dylan had become her good-time bad-boy. He was her reward for the long days and sleepless nights spent studying for the bar exam that would make her a full-fledged lawyer. The hours of work had paid off professionally: Addison passed the bar on her first try and was offered a junior associate position at a top-flight law firm in New York City, just as she had always dreamed.

But as devoted as she was to her career, Addison wanted more. All work and no play makes Addison a dull girl, she would chant to herself as, every six weeks or so, she hopped on a plane to meet Dylan wherever his band was playing: New Orleans or St. Louis or Chicago or even Boise. For a few precious days Addison wasn’t a hardnosed, hard-driving attorney who spent her days prepping cases, reading piles of mind-numbing depositions and endless court decisions searching for precedents, and plotting arcane legal strategies. She was the guitar player’s girlfriend. She would watch from the wings as Dylan played, his long fingers on the struts, his hips thrust just so, radiating a masculine intensity…and after the gig they would return to the hotel in the wee small hours and make love the rest of the night. If they made it as far as the hotel room.

And once a year, at Christmas, Addison and Dylan would visit Darling Bay to watch Earl, dressed up as Santa Claus, hand out gifts to the town’s excited children. They’d enjoy the hokey apple-bobbing and square dancing in the town square, all decked out with holiday decorations, and spend time with the aunties. When Addison was feeling brave enough, they would gather wildflowers to place on Stephanie’s grave in the small cemetery on a hill outside of town.

Dylan was a parenthesis in Addison’s life. He represented dancing and music and glorious lovemaking, enlivening her otherwise dry, lawyerly existence. Dylan was…fun. But he wasn’t—couldn’t be—the one. How could she possibly show up to the firm’s charity balls and corporate events with a bad-boy rocker on her arm? What chance would she have for a partnership at the firm with someone like Dylan by her side?

Besides, despite his protestations of eternal love for Addison, Dylan had replaced her in his life so fast it was downright insulting. Addison had seen the pictures on social media, those times when it was the middle of the night and she couldn’t sleep. He was everywhere: Dylan with his band, Dylan with his guitar, Dylan with the beautiful, blonde, hometown Vivian.

Tears threatened, stinging the backs of Addison’s eyes.

What can’t be cured must be endured, her mother used to say as she removed her apron and prepared to welcome Addison’s Brownie troop for a weenie roast in the backyard.

Addison squared her shoulders, opened her ever-present notebook, and started a list.

Cancel hotel reservations

Change flight reservations

Re-pack for chilly weather

Buy presents