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  (An Enemies to Lovers, Winter Vacation Romantic Comedy)

  Christmas Romantic Comedy Series

  Book 3

  by Camilla Isley

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright Pink Bloom Press 2022.

  All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express permission in writing of the author.

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  Dedication

  To all vacation mishap sufferers, may something good come out of your misfortunes…

  One

  Wendy

  “Christmas is ruined!” my sister declares over the phone the moment I pick up.

  “Hold on a second,” I say, moving away from the stage so as not to disturb the rehearsal. From Amy’s dramatic opening, I’ve got a feeling this conversation is going to take a while.

  The notes of the main theme song fill the theater before I can get to the dressing rooms area, and my sister asks, “Are you at work?”

  “Yes, Amy, it’s what people do on a Wednesday morning.”

  “Not you, you usually live like a vampire: write at night and avoid the light of day at all costs.”

  I meander down a narrow corridor, zigzagging among dancers stretching against the walls. “That’s when I’m writing, but today’s the last rehearsal before opening night on Friday. I sent you the tickets, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, yes! Sorry, I’m sleep deprived and scatterbrained. But Friday night is the light at the end of the tunnel. Thank goodness! Trevor booked the babysitter like a month ago and he also has a replacement lined up in case Jodie bails on us at the last minute. We need a night away from the twins. And nothing beats having tickets to ‘the most anticipated, sold-out-for-months, Broadway musical of the season,’” Amy says, quoting an article that came out in the New York Times last weekend.

  I smile as I finally reach my tiny office on the theater’s lower level. I shut myself in and sit behind the ancient wooden desk. Forgotten Dreams is the first musical I’ve written that has been produced. It’s going to make or break my career. The marketing team has done a stellar job building the hype, but until I read an actual good review, I’ll be a bundle of nerves.

  “You’re welcome,” I say.

  “Are you free to talk?” Amy asks, her voice turning anxious again.

  “Yes,” I say. “They’re still rehearsing the choreographies. I’m not needed. Why is Christmas ruined?”

  “Oh, Wendy, Mom has lost it. She’s saying she doesn’t want to host Christmas this year.”

  “Has she given you a reason?”

  “Yeah, she claims she’s too old to cook for ten people—”

  I do a mental indexing of our family. There’s me and my boyfriend, Brandon, and that makes two. Joshua, our younger brother, three. Mom, four. Amy and her husband, five and six. Their two older kids bring us up to eight. But ten? “Is Mom counting the twins as eating guests?” I ask aloud. “Did you tell her making a bottle of milk doesn’t count as cooking?”

  “Yes, I did. She’s using it as an excuse. The situation is serious. She’s even refusing to put decorations around the house.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then they’d just have to go back in a box after a month and what a waste of her time that would be.”

  “Okay, I get it.”

  “No, Wendy, she said she doesn’t want a Christmas tree.”

  “The decorations, the tree… all things Dad used to do,” I say, thinking Mom loves Christmas, and we’ve spent the day at her house for as long as I can remember. December 25th has always been her favorite day of the year, at least while Dad was with us. “Could that be why she’s rejecting all those traditions?” I ask.

  “Of course. What else could it be? Mom lost the love of her life and she’s heartbroken, but it’s no reason to cancel Christmas. I’m sad, too, Dad is gone, but this is also the twins’ first Christmas and I was looking forward to it.”

  I grab a pencil and doodle candy canes on the front page of the Forgotten Dreams script. “What if we cooked everything, brought the food to her house, and cleaned up afterward?”

  “Wendy, you can’t boil an egg.”

  “Well, okay. But I could be your scullery maid and clean all the pots and pans after you’ve cooked and tackle some basic tasks like peeling potatoes. And Joshua could take care of the tree and the decorations. He should get off school in time to set up the house.”

  “I offered to cook, but she said she doesn’t want to spend Christmas in, I quote, that house.”

  “Okay, that makes sense. I’m not saying I’m happy about not spending Christmas at home, but I can see her point. The house is still full of Dad. They spent a lifetime there together. The memories might be too hard to endure at the holidays.” I add a broken heart to my drawing. “What if we did it at your house? I’d offer my apartment, but my dinner table wouldn’t fit half of us.”

  “Mom says she doesn’t want to be in New York at all.”

  “But what’s the alternative?”

  “She says she wants to take a family vacation.”

  “To go where?”

  “She tried to suggest we go on a cruise to the Caribbean, but that’s where I dug my feet in. If we have to spend the holidays in some random place, I want to go somewhere wintery, with snow.”

  “That isn’t such a bad idea. I haven’t gone skiing in forever. We could make it a family vacation, like old times when we all still lived at home.”

  “Except we never went at Christmas.”

  “What did Joshua say?”

  “I haven’t called him yet,” Amy says. “I wanted to talk to you first.”

  I draw snowy mountain peaks. “I bet he’d be on board with a ski trip.”

  “Yeah, pity we’re never going to find a decent place with only three weeks to go before the holidays.”

  “Let’s have a look first, and despair later. Mindy might be able to help,” I say, referring to my best friend and also the best travel agent in the city. “If someone can make the impossible happen, it’s her.”

  I hang up with my sister and speed-dial Mindy.

  She picks up on the third ring. “Wendy?”

  “Hello, how is my favorite person and best travel agent in the world?”

  “Why do I have a feeling you’re about to unload one of your ‘when hell freezes over’ requests on me?” she accuses.

  “Can’t I just call my best friend to say hi with no hidden agenda?”

  “Not when it’s opening week for the most important play you’ve ever worked on and you must be neck-deep into the last rehearsal.”

  “Okay,” I confess. “I need a favor.”

  “From your tone, you sound more like you need a miracle. Shoot.”

  “Kinda,” I say, and relate the mom drama. “In short, we need a cabin or a chalet somewhere nice and Christmassy with snow and
a decent ski resort nearby that can accommodate Brandon and me, my mom, Joshua, Amy and her husband, and their four kids.”

  Mindy low-whistles. “Would you also like the moon?”

  I bite on a fingernail. “That hard, uh? I promise the twins don’t take up much space, they can sleep in the same room with Amy and Trevor.”

  “Still close to impossible, at least if the ‘somewhere nice’ and ‘decent ski resort’ parts are essential. Budget?”

  “We’re all pitching in, you should have some wiggle room.”

  “Okay, let me see what I can do, but I’m not making any promises. All right?”

  “I’m sure you’ll find us the perfect solution.” Just then, an announcement for all the actors to convene to the main stage comes over the theater speaker system. “Listen, I have to go now.”

  “Yeah, I heard. Talk soon.”

  We hang up, and I hop up the stairs two at a time, filled with optimism. After the grim Christmas we spent at the hospital last year, days away from Dad’s passing, a family vacation is exactly what we need to find our holiday cheer again.

  Before opening the door to the stage, I stop. I should probably inform my boyfriend I’m planning a vacation for us. Brandon hates it when I call him in the middle of the workday, so I shoot him a text instead.

  Hey, what would you say about a ski trip over Christmas?

  Like a weekend thing?

  More a week

  My whole family is going

  A week? I might as well tell my boss I don’t care about making partner.

  Sorry, babe, no can do

  My heart sinks, even if his reply didn’t come as a total surprise. In the almost two years we’ve been dating, Brandon’s job has always taken precedence over our relationship. When I met him in a bar in downtown Manhattan, his commitment to his career was one of his selling points. He looked dashing in a dark suit with his tie half undone and his shirt sleeves rolled up. And I was more than ready to move past the artist types I’d serial dated for years. Mostly broke dudes who spent their days being “creative.” Which meant they either slept or drank or got high. The type of guy who thought money was a dirty word. Guess falling for an investment banker turned the tables on that attitude.

  I shrug as I put my phone away before re-entering the theater. Brandon or not, it’s still going to be the best family holiday ever.

  Two

  Riven

  Preacher grabbed the guide rope, the straw coarse in his hands, and went groping down the passage on all fours. Doubts coiled around his soul just as the rope did around his wrist. What would await them out of the tunnel? Would it be any better than the mercenaries they were trying to escape? If they made it out at all.

  Wyatt moaned behind him, the sound bouncing off the tight walls in a sinister echo. Preacher looked back. The faint halo of his flashlight cast a shadow on his partner’s figure slouched on the floor. Wyatt had lost too much blood. If they wanted to make it out of the caves alive, forward was the only way.

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzzz.

  I tear my eyes away from the computer screen and curse at the phone. I forgot to turn it off and left it on the kitchen counter. Rookie mistake. I ignore the buzzing noise and go back to my manuscript.

  Forward was the only way… and…

  Nothing. The flow of words is lost. Whatever brilliant segue I was about to write has escaped my brain.

  I bang a frustrated fist on the dining table and stand up. I might as well check who the bugger is.

  Tess, my sister.

  I know what the call is about, and I have zero patience for the guilt-tripping right now.

  With the phone in my hand, I lean against the kitchen counter and stare out the giant French window in the living room. The sun is shining on the tall mountain peaks covered in snow. The slopes will open soon, and I would like nothing better than to take my snowboard and join the tourists on a black run. But today I won’t allow myself to go outside until I’ve met my word count. No matter that by lunchtime, the terrain on the slopes will be either mushy, hard packed, or scattered around in impromptu moguls. I sigh as I imagine the pristine white blanket it must be now and close my eyes regretfully. Not today.

  The phone stops vibrating. Will Tess give up after one call?

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzzz. The buzzing resumes at once.

  Nope.

  If I ignore her, she’ll just keep pestering me. And even if I turned off the phone, the shadow of the difficult conversation would loom over my head as my Sword of Damocles.

  Resigned, I pick up. “Hell—”

  “Dad says you’re not coming home for Christmas,” Tess interrupts me.

  “Well, no one could accuse you of not being direct.”

  “Is it true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Life has given you lemons this past year, agreed, but it’s no excuse to skip Christmas.”

  “Tess, I have a deadline and I’m already behind. The last thing I need is to waste time booking flights, checking in and out of airports to fly home for just a day.”

  “Then stay longer. You’ve been holed up in that cabin for months. I haven’t seen you since, mmm—”

  The words she’s looking for are: since you announced your wife was leaving you for a C-list soap opera celebrity mere days after you’d started a complete remodeling of your house, which is now a construction site you cannot either sell or live in.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s been a minute.”

  “Come on, Riv, we never skipped Christmas. If I came back from my gap year in Sri Lanka, you can take a 90-minute flight home.”

  “Tess, I need to finish this book. I’m stuck.”

  “You’ve been up there forever. If you’re still blocked after all this time, maybe a change of scenery will be good. Come on, it’s Christmas.”

  I grab the counter with my free hand, knuckles going white. “Tess—”

  “Dad is too decent to say anything, but I’m not. I’ll never forgive you if you don’t come home and use a stupid book as an excuse.”

  “It’s not an excuse, I’m months behind.”

  “Riven Clark, I know you. You’re using your unfinished novel as an alibi to play the hermit and avoid seeing everyone you know. Cassie pulled a number on you. She should be the one ashamed to show her face in public, not you.”

  I let go of the counter to massage my temple. The call is going worse than I expected.

  “Please,” Tess insists. “Please, please, pretty please, say you’ll come home.”

  “Okay, I give up, you win!” Fighting her is going to cause me more stress than simply giving in.

  “Yay, you’ll have a blast at home, I promise. Oh, and Dad said you can stay with him, of course. I have to call him with the good news. Talk-later-love-ya-bye.”

  Tess hangs up before I can add anything, just as the doorbell rings. That’s odd. It’s early for the mailman.

  I go to the door and find the town marshal standing on the porch.

  “Morning, Marshal,” I greet him. “What’s going on?” I’m not used to receiving house visits from local law enforcement.

  “Good day to you, too.” He tips his hat at me. “Nasty business, I’m afraid. We have a rogue wolf on our hands. It sneaked up on old Ford last night while he was taking logs into the house and almost bit his leg off.”

  “Oh, gosh, wow.” I rake a hand through my hair. “How is he?”

  “They brought him down to Salt Lake Regional Medical Center; they say they should be able to save the leg.”

  “Is it normal for wolves to attack humans?”

  “No, but we believe this is an old beast, shunned by his pack. It can’t hunt in the wild alone, and it’s getting desperate.” The marshal pulls on his short beard. “I’m making rounds to the most isolated houses, asking residents to be extra careful, especially when they go out at night. Don’t leave food waste around. And if you have to step out in the d
ead of night for whatever reason, at least carry a rifle.”

  “I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

  “Ah, I forgot they don’t teach you fancy folks how to shoot in California. Well, if you ain’t going to bring a gun, take an ax with you.” He mimics the movement of swinging the weapon with his wrist. “Those are pretty intuitive.”

  An idea strikes me. What if Preacher encountered a wild beast in one of the caves? He wouldn’t have an ax to defend himself, but he could use a knife. My mind swirls with the possibilities, the scene taking form in my head.

  “Thank you,” I say, eager to go back to my laptop. “I’ll be extra careful and let you know if I hear any suspicious howling.”

  I say goodbye to the marshal and rush back to the computer, my fingers flying on the keyboard.

  …Two blazing points of yellow-green flame shone with the reflected light of Preacher’s flashlight bouncing off the stone walls. Preacher considered turning the light off, but that would only give the big cat the advantage of total darkness—of which he was the seeing master. No, Preacher secured the flashlight to the straps of his backpack and unsheathed the knife at his belt, ready to fight for his life…

  Bzzzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzzz.

  “Aaaargh,” I scream in frustration.

  With the marshal ringing at the door right after I hung up with my sister, I forgot to turn off the phone—again!

  I get up ready to smash the damn thing and go incommunicado until Christmas, but then I see it’s an unknown number calling—someone with a local area code. What now? A grizzly bear woke up early from hibernation and is targeting authors with writer’s block?

  I pick up. “Riven Clark.”

  “Hello, Mr. Clark, this is Kelly Anne from the Richter Real Estate Group,” my real estate agent says in her adorable southern lilt.

  “Hi, Kelly Anne,” I say, surprised. I should have her number in my contacts. I stare at the screen to double-check. “Did you change your number?”

  “No, sorry, I’m calling from my personal phone. Work one died.”

  “Oh, okay. What’s up? Is there a problem with the rent? I’d planned to come into town later today to deposit my check.”