The Christmas Cottage

Book 9: Miramar Bay

by Davis Bunn

Genres: Women's Fiction; Family Life; Religious & Inspirational

Synopsis

Set in the breathtaking coastal California town of Miramar Bay, this uplifting new novel from internationally bestselling author Davis Bunn celebrates the challenges and triumphs of new beginnings, second chances, romance and redemption, and faith in the future. For fans of Nicholas Sparks and Karen Kingsbury.

When life is in turmoil . . .

Pushing through his troubled childhood, Dillon Farrow was seventeen when he said goodbye to Miramar and did himself proud, thriving as a successful investment counselor. But a betrayal by a trusted friend has brought everything crashing down. Dillon’s only recourse—return to Miramar, penniless and feeling defeated—more so when a winter flood sweeps away all roads to town. Now he and his fellow stranded travelers are destined to spend Christmas at the only available accommodations—the local jail. Yet it’s in this makeshift inn that Dillon sees her. His first love. The girl he left behind.  

There’s always hope if you wait out the storm . . .

After an emotionally and financially devastating divorce, Olivia Greer has no choice but to come back to her hometown of Miramar. Less a retreat than a surrender, it’s the first time in years—since Olivia’s mother, her best friend for life, passed away. In the interim, their hillside cottage has remained empty, as forlorn as Olivia herself. The flood only seems like fate testing her resilience one more time. But providence comes in myriad forms: Dillon Farrow, the sweet boy who once had dreams of better things. Just like Olivia. 

The future can hold dreams as well. Crossing paths is a Christmas blessing Dillon and Olivia never expected—a reunion with the potential to impact other lives too. And for both of them, perhaps in the cottage on the hill, Miramar could finally start feeling like home again.

Release date: September 24, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Olivia needed two and a half days to drive from Los Angeles to Miramar. Part of it came down to the pre-Christmas traffic. Southern Californian drivers tended to go nuts in bad weather. There was no logic to it, so theories abounded. Olivia doubted it was actually aliens losing contact with their control subjects when clouds blanketed the region. More than likely it was because storms robbed the journey of any possible pleasure. Under conditions like these, cold and wet and windy and dark and gray, travelers were desperate to get the trip over and done.

But mostly her slow pace was because of the roads. She had of course heard about the storms that had lumbered off the Pacific, hurricane-force winds and weeks of torrential downpour. But LA had been spared the worst, and her own world had become reduced to making it through tempests of a more personal nature.

Once she passed Ventura, the true extent of storm damage became very real. Twice the highway was reduced from ten lanes to two by mudslides. Even when the freeway opened back up, the rubble not picked up by the scrapers remained ankle deep in places. Some drivers still insisted on scrambling over the debris fields, spewing gravel at the saner travelers.

Olivia actually found a sullen comfort in the slow progress, the swirling gray blanket overhead, the sudden lashing storms that came and went in seconds. Her mind flickered back and forth over the previous months, like a tongue gingerly probing a broken tooth.

Despite everything that had happened, she couldn’t bring herself to call her ex-husband a bad man. Gareth had occasionally thrown himself into situations he regretted afterwards. Typical hormone-driven, adolescent-minded male, was how her city friends called him. But in the good times, and there had been many, those were some of the traits that had made life with Gareth so exciting. They had also fueled Gareth’s success as a television producer. He had swept Olivia off her feet, and for five and a half years their romantic moments had left her breathless.

But as Olivia’s friends back in Miramar had warned, love in the big city was a roller coaster of a ride.

Seven months back, Gareth had finally confessed to what Olivia had long suspected. His impetuous nature had drawn him into the arms of a lovely young starlet. Olivia and her soon-to-be ex were still involved in the divorce when Gareth was struck by a trio of blows, bam-bam-bam, lightning fast and fatal. The new flame of his life ran off with a stuntman who claimed he had a real shot at stardom. Then the striking writers and actors froze his projects in development, and he was forced to declare bankruptcy. Which was when he took Olivia to dinner at their former favorite restaurant and confessed he was so broke he couldn’t pay his lawyers. Alimony was out of the question.

Five days later, Gareth was felled by a heart attack.

Farewell, wayward lad. Olivia actually cried at his funeral.

Of course, none of this was why it had taken her nine long years to make the return journey to Miramar.

The road from San Luis Obispo was a seventy-mile tale of unnatural events. Rubble and flooded areas reduced the county highway to one lane in places. The drive normally took no more than ninety minutes. Today she needed five and a half hours. When the crawling traffic stopped moving altogether, which was often, people rose from their cars. Stretched. Olivia did the same. In truth, she was not sorry for the difficult journey. It kept her mind off everything that waited up ahead.

The sky was an artist’s pallet of grays. The air tasted wet, thick with rain that did not fall. In the awful days gone by, she had repeatedly turned off the television whenever newscasters referred to the central coast storms. Any mention of her childhood home had Olivia reaching for the remote. She had not bothered with the papers or evening news. Not once in seven long and weary months.

She finally approached Miramar by the light of a sullen dusk. Olivia was tempted to head straight for the seashore walk, which had formed such a vital part of her early years. It was there she had set her course south. Determined to leave the small-town life. Certain her world was bigger than Miramar.

But that walk would have to wait. There were already too many emotions surrounding her return. She needed to be strong when facing that path. Ready for the act of surrender.

Miramar’s main street surprised her. A lot. Enough to push aside the recollections, draw her fully into the now.

She drove slowly up Ocean Avenue, aiming for the guesthouse where she had planned to spend her first few nights. Preparing for the hardship of returning home. Now she understood why there had been no response to her emailed requests for a room, nor any answer to her calls. Miramar’s main street was lined with an odd assortment of cars. Pickups and SUVs and campers jammed the fire lane and grass verges, something that would never have been permitted in her day.

The guesthouse parking lot was blocked by a pair of sawhorses. Castaways Restaurant was closed. Olivia turned down the side lane leading to the employees’ parking lot and found a space. She walked back to Ocean Avenue and stood there. Trying to understand what was happening.

The sidewalks were as full as she’d expect for the season. But the people showed no joy. The children were kept close. No running around or pulling on arms or shouting. And the clothes. Wrinkled, some stained, all of them worse for wear. The scene reminded her of hard-luck times in the farming valleys. People and cars drifting by, going nowhere at a very slow pace.

The guesthouse’s sign had a NO VACANCY shingle dangling in the fitful breeze. Olivia stopped halfway up the walk, halted by the handwritten sign taped to the front window: DON’T EVEN ASK.

Olivia crossed the street, climbed one block, and was almost prepared for the sight that greeted her inside the diner, the Ocean Avenue Grill. Every table was taken, every chair. But there was none of the normal chatter. The faces were both weary and unfamiliar. Of course, she had not been back in eight years. Still, she would have expected to recognize somebody. The diner was the center of town gossip, the place where the idlers gathered....

A waitress pushed through the doors, her tray overfull with what appeared to be six identical orders. She froze and gaped. Then called, “You stay right there.” She set down the plates, offered one of the children a smile, then hurried over. “Great heavens above. Is that really you?”

“Hello, Claire.”

“What on earth are you doing here?”

“Nowhere else to go.”

“I’ve been hearing that tune far too often these days.” Claire Levant gripped Olivia’s arm with her free hand. “You just come with me.”

A number of the children they passed were asleep, either cradled in their parents’ arms or using the table for a headrest. Claire pushed through the kitchen doors and announced, “We’ve got ourselves another hungry stray.”

Arnaud Levant, the head cook and Claire’s husband, was a rapier-thin man, whose hair was caught in a colorful scarf that matched his pirate’s grin. “Wow.”

Claire beamed. “I know, right?”

“Hi, Arnaud.”

“Olivia, you haven’t aged a day.”

“Several centuries, more like,” she replied. “Where it counts most.”

“You always were the honest one,” Claire said.

“Correction. You always brought it out in me.”

Her two former best friends, now married, did their best to smile. But they saw enough of Olivia’s inner state, and struggled as a result. Arnaud asked, “Hungry?”

“Famished. I’ve been trapped on the road since daybreak.”

“We’re serving just two dishes today. Stew and stew.”

“Don’t ask what’s inside,” Claire said. “Fricasseed gopher, most like.”

“Supplies are coming in days late, if at all,” Araud agreed. “But I’ll fish out the questionable bits.”

“Stew sounds great.”

Claire led her past the dishwasher’s station, back to where a whitewashed ledge jutted between the larder and the rear door. Claire patted a stool and said, “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Won’t your boss raise a stink, me being back here?”

Claire raised her voice. “Yo, boss? You mind?”

Arnaud called back, “Probably. What about?”

Olivia said, “You’re joking.”

“The former owner had a heart thing,” Claire explained. “We caught him when he fell.”

“A heart thing.”

“You want specifics, go talk to the doc out front. You know we always wanted our own place.”

“Since you two started dating.” Her oldest friend was narrower, and gray strands nearly dominated her formerly copper curls. Claire looked ten years older than her real age of thirty-one.

But she was happy. Arnaud too. Their glowing satisfaction, even in the midst of this glum company, gave Olivia a burn at heart level. She asked, “Do you have children?”

“A boy, he’s four.”

“First of many,” Arnaud agreed. “I’m thinking, eleven.”

“Not with me you’re not.” To Olivia, “Arnaud’s parents are playing surrogates and loving the duty almost too much.”

“They’re hoping for twins next go-round,” Arnaud offered.

“Different comment, same response,” Claire said, then noticed Olivia’s reaction. Her gaze softened as she asked, “Girl, what happened?”

But before she could respond, the kitchen’s rear door opened and the chief of police declared, “I’ll have a steak well done and four eggs fried so hard you can nail them to the wall.”

“Not here, you won’t,” Claire replied.

Arnaud stepped back from the stove far enough to grin at the newcomer. “We’ve got the tastiest gopher stew in six states.”

“Then stew it is.” He dropped his hat on the table, then realized who was seated across the table. “Stars above.”

“What I said,” Claire offered.

“Hello, Porter.”

“Olivia, what on earth?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Claire said. She patted Olivia’s shoulder, silencing her best friend’s response. “First the girl eats, then we interrogate.”

The stew was, in a word, fabulous. There was of course no gopher. Olivia knew because Claire described how Arnaud grilled cubes of tofu, then slow-cooked a delicate casserole with a marrow base that twice each year he simmered for an entire day. The veggies were all supplied by local hothouse growers.

“Since these two took over, the quality of this place has gone through the roof, sure enough,” Porter said.

“Doesn’t stop the old-timers from moaning,” Claire said. “Loudly.”

When the plates were empty and fresh mugs steamed in front of them, Claire said, “Okay, we’ve been patient long enough.”

Olivia asked, “What about all the customers out front?”

“Guess they’ll have to starve a while longer,” Claire replied. “Bad joke.”

“Terrible,” Porter agreed. “You should be ashamed.”

Claire demanded, “Girl, tell us about life in La-La Land.”

“It was great,” Olivia said. Somehow it felt okay. Revealing her fresh wounds here. In the company of friends she left behind. People who didn’t fit into the dreams she had chased so hard. Not to mention the other reason she didn’t come home for so long. “Fabulous. Everything I’d ever wanted for myself and more. Until it wasn’t.”

Porter said, “So things fell apart.”

“Oh no. That doesn’t go nearly far enough. What’s the name of those missiles they shoot from battleships?”

“From destroyers,” Arnaud corrected. He leaned against the tiled wall, listening. “Tomahawks. City killers.”

“Those,” Olivia said. “A lot of them.”

Claire’s voice was softened by very real concern. “So that man who swept you away. Took you to the big city. Promised you a lifelong love. I forget his name.”

Arnaud offered, “Gareth.”

“Him. He left you?”

“Twice.”

There was a silence, a sharing of looks, then Porter said to the others, “Why are you making me be the one to ask?”

“You’re the cop,” Arnaud replied. “It’s your job. Asking the horrible questions.”

Porter said, “Olivia, you took the man back?”

“No. Never.” She found genuine comfort in how easy this conversation was going. As if she needed to be back here again. After all those years. “I think maybe that was what Gareth wanted. After his lollipop of a fiancée ran off with the stuntman and Gareth’s company went bust in the strikes. But my ex never had a chance to ask, on account of how Gareth had a heart attack and died. So that particular request was never uttered. The best thing I can say about that chapter is Gareth’s former new flame, Little Ms. Lollipop, didn’t show up for his funeral.”

Olivia found a distinct comfort in being surrounded by the friends she’d left behind. Watching them struggle to hide their smiles.

Claire managed, “I’m so sorry.”

Arnaud said, “No you’re not.”

“Well, sure I am. Not about the LA louse, though. Him I might never forgive. Even if he is toast.” To Olivia, “I’m sorry for all you’ve been through.”

“Thanks. To get it all out in the open, just to round out the sorry tale. That same strike demolished my business. Last month I filed for bankruptcy. I’ve spent the past five weeks tearing down my life. Selling the house. Watching the lawyers turn my savings into party hats. I haven’t watched the news or read a paper since forever. Longer.”

Claire’s eyes widened. “So you don’t know.”

The reality was there in their faces. The same dark stain, the concern. All the humor gone now.

Olivia breathed. Tried to ask. But she couldn’t. Not with everything that had brought her here. The words just would not come.

Porter Wright slid off the stool, fitted his hat on properly, and offered Olivia his hand. “You just come with me.”

A fitful wind pushed them up Ocean Avenue. Rain fine as Pacific mist struck once, twice, then the storm departed. Sort of. The sky went back to swirling gray strands as they passed a family clustered on a sidewalk bench. Porter stopped and indicated the camper parked in a fire zone. He asked the parents, “Is this yours?”

The kids watched in solemn resignation as the father stood. “I’ll move it.”

“Stay where you are.” Porter took out his ticket pad, scribbled, tore off a sheet. “If anyone asks, show them this. We’re hoping the northern routes will reopen tomorrow. Three days, tops.” He started walking. “Come on, Olivia.”

As they continued away from the Pacific, she asked, “Is your daughter coming home for the holidays?”

“Celia’s here now. But it looks like she’ll be heading back to school soon as the northern roads reopen. She’s working on some time-sensitive project and can’t risk getting stuck here. Which could well happen if we’re trapped by another storm.” He glanced at her. “I’d offer you a place. But Celia came down with six friends who couldn’t make it up north. Three are in her room, three in the barn. She’s sleeping on a pallet in our room. Sorry.”

Olivia decided it was time to ask, “What aren’t you telling me?”

The chief stopped and removed his hat and stood as solemn as a funeral director. “Olivia, honey, you’re not going home. Not tonight, not tomorrow. Maybe in a while. But I wouldn’t count on it happening anytime soon.”

“Mom’s cottage . . . It’s gone?”

“Not entirely. The cottage’s foundations have held. Most. . .