Chapter One
Snowflakes danced wildly in front of Kira’s headlights creating a surreal, almost hypnotic feeling that she was traveling through a tunnel of stars. Driving in a gentle snowfall usually brought her a sense of calm and joy. But tonight, neither the frostbitten New Hampshire landscape, nor the festive songs on her Christmas playlist did much to ease her anxiety.
Kira used to love going home to Quebec for the holidays––getting away from her busy life in Boston and indulging in her mother’s home cooking. But lately, it has been the most dreaded time of the year. In her family, turning twenty-five meant it was time to “get serious about life, find a nice man, settle down, and start a family”, and at the ripe old age of thirty-six, Kira was the source of her mother’s anguish and the target of her family’s incessant questions. Her parents couldn’t understand why she “refused” to follow in the footsteps of her two older sisters.
Four years older than Kira, Adeline, and her husband, Cooper, had a four-year old little girl, and three boys––ages thirteen, eleven, and eight––while thirty-eight-year-old Brielle and her husband, Logan, had two boys––ages twelve and nine.
One might assume that six healthy, adorable grandchildren would satisfy her parents, but no. They wanted Kira to be just as “settled” as her sisters. “Don’t you want to be as happy as the women in those books you write?” her mother loved to ask.
Kira tucked strands of her long dark hair behind her ears and pursed her lips thoughtfully. As a romance author of twenty-three novels––fifteen of which had remained on the New York Times Bestsellers list for weeks––she knew that perfect happy endings where couples walked hand-in-hand toward the sunset only happened in books and movies. In real life, plans fell apart, dreams died, betrayals transpired, and people grew apart––or realized that they should never have been together to begin with.
Kira wasn’t cynical about love. As a matter of fact, each time she published a book, she hoped the happiness of her fictional couples inspired her millions of readers to find their own soulmates. It just wasn’t for her. She was quite content being the doting aunt who spoiled her sisters’ children––the piles of gifts in her back seat attested to that.
“Call from Sasha Sullivan.” Her car’s Bluetooth rang over Elvis Presley’s “Here Comes Santa Claus”.
Sasha’s profile picture––red, thong bikini, arms outstretched, face tilted to the sky, and thick braids cascading down her brown, toned body––flashed on her phone screen. Sasha stood at the edge of the Caribbean Sea in Jamaica where she’d spent Christmas last year. Grinning, Kira answered. “Hey, Sash, what’s up?”
“Tell me again why you didn’t just come to Mexico with me?” her best friend asked, her tone somewhere between chiding and playful.
“Uhh… Let me think…” Kira played along. “Probably because my mother would never forgive me if I missed another Christmas.” Due to pressing deadlines, Kira had missed two in the last five years, and she was sure she’d be hearing about it until the end of time.
“Right, and because freezing your butt off in Canada is so much better than lounging on a sunny beach with me.”
Sasha was only kidding, yet every year she tried to entice Kira to join her annual tropical Christmas getaway, hoping she would eventually cave. Sasha’s parents divorced when she was young. Both had remarried and had other children, leaving Sasha in the middle of two new families, neither of which she felt she belonged to. She alternated Thanksgiving between the two homes, but she often spent Christmas somewhere warm, either by herself or with whatever guy she was dating at the time. This year it was Mike, a trainer at the gym Sasha had recently joined.
“Actually, anything sounds better than the third degree I know I’ll be getting from my entire family about when I’m going to bring a nice guy home and let him put a baby in me, or some crap like that. Ugh! I’m so tired of it.”
“Mmhmm, I can believe that. Why do parents assume we all want the same thing? Or that we want anything at all?”
Kira laughed. No wonder she and Sasha had become friends during their years at Boston University. Even back then, they were so unfazed by society’s expectations for a woman to get married before her eggs dried up.
After graduation, Sasha had landed an internship with Vérité, a prestigious Boston magazine known for getting to the core of socio-political issues around the globe. After just four years with the publication, she was named Editor-in-Chief. Kira, on the other hand, after ten months, had ditched her formulaic job as a features writer at a daily newspaper in Somerville to create exciting, fictitious worlds and dynamic, hopelessly romantic characters to populate them. “I think most parents just want their kids to be happy, and for mine, happiness means starting a family.”
“Well, I think they should know by now that you are happy. You are the hit writer that you always wanted to be.”
“You’d think, right? But according to my mom, a romance novelist who is perennially single just makes it worse. The irony is apparently très tragique.”
“It’s comedy gold, if you ask me. Look, just know I’ll be soaking up enough sun for the both of us and enjoying all that you’re missing––warm, gentle waves, white sand, and sexy waiters to keep those margaritas coming.”
“And what does Mike think of all those sexy waiters hovering over you?”
“Oh please, he knows what he signed up for. He only agreed to come ‘cuz the hotel is already paid for, and I only invited him for some no-string-attached sex.”
“Ha! I’d drink to that!”
“Here, here, sister.”
The thought of Sasha getting laid down and dirty, while she suffered through her extended family’s inquisition about her love life filled Kira with envy, especially as the snowflakes hitting her windshield seemed to be getting much heavier and falling faster than before. The road, too, was beginning to disappear under a layer of white, wind-swept powder. “Oh boy,” she murmured, increasing her wiper speed.
“Everything okay?” Sasha asked.
“Yeah, the snow is just coming down harder now. I didn’t think it would pick up for hours.” She shook her head as a few cars whipped past her as though it were a clear, summer day. “I’d better focus on driving. You know how it is. I gotta drive for me and the crazy idiots I’m sharing the road with.”
“Good idea. Love you. Please drive carefully.”
“I will. Thanks for calling. Love you, too.”
“Send me a text when you get home, and maybe reconsider going tropical next year. There’s no snow in Mexico…” Sasha said, taking one last shot before the line went dead.
Kira’s playlist resumed and she squinted at the road. She was accustomed to, and usually comfortable driving in winter weather. There was just something about cruising alone on picturesque, winding country roads that sparked her creativity. This very route had been the springboard for several of her bestselling novels. But as she cautiously drove on, and the snowfall thickened, and the trees, signs, and guardrails faded into eerie shadows, she wished she’d left Boston a little earlier. She’d wanted to wait out the traffic, and weather reports had only hinted at the possibility of a light dusting, but this was becoming more hazardous than she’d bargained for.
“Oh, crap!” Kira eased her foot off the gas pedal and gently pumped her brakes, holding her breath as the pickup truck that had just flown past her suddenly lost control and skidded across the road, nearly colliding with the vehicle in the other lane, before miraculously righting itself. She let her breathe out and bellowed. “That’s why you shouldn’t speed when it’s snowing!”
Kira tightened her grip on the steering wheel and tensed her shoulders. With another three hours to go before she reached home, she was in for a long and arduous drive.
Chapter Two
As another snowplow rumbled by, Kira reluctantly switched off Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and turned to the radio, scanning the channels until she found a local station. The static voice of the DJ confirmed her worst suspicions. A heavy winter storm had unexpectedly developed with expected white-out conditions and snow accumulation nearing three feet.
Kira shut off the radio. There was no way she could make it all the way to Quebec tonight. She could hardly see the road twenty feet in front of her, and she had already slowed to a crawl, adding hours to her ETA. She needed a place to spend the night––and soon––before the hotels in the surrounding towns filled up with holiday travelers suddenly finding themselves in the same dilemma.
Kira soon spotted a sign, half-covered with fresh snowfall. Granite Falls - Next Right. She’d passed the town countless times over the years and had never given it a second thought. But tonight, she had no choice but to venture off the northern New Hampshire highway and pray she’d find a place with vacancy.
Without taking her eyes off the road, Kira reached for her phone and held down the home button. “Hotels in Granite Falls,” she said, and listened as it listed off several options, including the world-renowned Hotel Andreas. She’d stayed at their London location a few years back while doing research for her first historical romance novel, and had promised herself that she’d go back one day.
“Give me direction to Hotel Andreas,” she instructed, already envisioning herself submerged in a warm bath with bubbles up to her neck, sipping a glass of wine while she watched the snow fall from the safety of her room. Having to spend one less day of holiday “fun” with her family was just a bonus.
As her phone recalculated the route, Kira eased onto the exit ramp, her tires sliding as she took the sharp turn.
Covered in a fresh blanket of snow, Granite Falls appeared ghostly as she inched along Industrial Drive before turning onto Beacon Avenue. Within minutes, through the now blustering storm, she spotted “Hotel Andreas” in bright lights on the hotel’s facade. She pulled under the shelter of the portico, and into one of the fifteen-minute parking spots.
Inside the lobby, beautifully decorated for the holidays, the warm aroma of cinnamon and pine hung in the air. A fifteen-foot tree dominated the room, its branches adorned with glass baubles, gingerbread men, shimmering bows, and twinkling white lights, and next to a roaring fire sat warm, dry guests in small groups, chatting with holiday treats and hot drinks laid on tables before them.
Oh yes, I can definitely roll with this, Kira thought, as she approached the front desk.
“Goodnight, ma’am, how may I help you?”
“Goodnight to you, too, Rosalind,” Kira said, reading her name tag. She glanced behind her as a cold gust blew in with a group of weary-looking travelers. As they made their way towards the second check-in desk, Kira skipped the usual small talk and quickly reached into her purse for her wallet. “I need to book a room for the night,” she said.
Rosalind’s smile faded, and she shook her head slowly. “I’m so sorry, but we are fully booked through the end of the week.”
“Really? You don’t have one room available?” Kira probed. “I’ll take a suite if it’s all you have––I’m not worried about the cost. I’m on my way to Quebec, but the roads are just getting worse and worse by the mile.”
“I know, this storm came out of nowhere. I wish I could help you, but the hotel is often fully booked for Christmas months in advance. We seldom have walk-in availability this time of year.”
Kira watched grudgingly as the group at the second desk took their key cards from the receptionist and headed towards the elevator bank, followed closely by a porter wheeling a luggage cart. Her shoulders slumped as she glanced warily at the storm raging outside.
“I have an idea, Ms...”
She turned back to Rosalind. “Just Kira.”
“Well, Kira, I hate to think of you driving around looking for a place to stay in this weather. If you’d like, I can call around to some other places in town to see if anyone has availability.”
Kira clasped her hand to her chest. “That would be amazing!”
“It’s my pleasure. Please, have a seat by the fire, and make yourself comfortable. I’ll let you know when and if I find something.”
“Thank you so much, Rosalind.”
***
Kira turned up the long driveway of Cozy Pine Bed and Breakfast, a charming house with an attached two-car garage, smoke rising from a chimney, and warm Christmas lights strung from the eaves. It had been Rosalind's final call, and due to a last-minute cancellation, she’d said, it was the only vacancy in town.
She parked in the small lot next to a black pickup truck, but before she could kill the engine, the wreath-laden front door opened, and a man appeared in the doorway.
Kira’s pulse quickened as her eyes swept over him. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and built like a linebacker. Her mouth went dry when he opened the weatherproof glass door, stepped out onto the small porch, and shouted something at her.
Kira rolled her window down, shivering as the chilling wind swept into the car. Using her hand to shield her face from the pelting snow, she bellowed above the wind. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I asked if you’re Kira Lévesque.”
His deep voice cut through the howling wind and resonated through her chest. She inhaled sharply. “Yea, I’m Kira.”
“Glad you found the place. I’m Jaxon. Hang on a minute, I’ll have you pull into the garage.”
As Jaxon disappeared back into the house, closing the door behind him, Kira rolled up her window and pressed her head against the headrest.
She closed her eyes and prayed: Dear God, please don’t let him be a murderer. I’m too tired to fight anyone off tonight. She made the sign of the cross and opened her eyes as the garage door creaked open.
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