This Christmas

by Jane Green, Jennifer Coburn, Liz Ireland

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

In this trio of warm, witty, insightful stories, three very different women face questions of the heart that could change all their Christmases to come.

Vacation by Jane Green: When her husband's job takes him away from home indefinitely, a restless suburban wife and mother must confront Christmas alone - and decide whether she's better off that way.

The Second Wife of Reilly by Jennifer Coburn: A newlywed is haunted by thoughts of her husband's first wife - and comes up with an unusual plan to cure herself in time for Christmas...

Mistletoe and Holly by Liz Ireland: Longing to fit into her family's picture perfect holiday celebration, a young woman finally brings home the perfect boyfriend - only to find that nothing is as she expected.

Infused with the hopes and dreams of the season, these entertaining and exquisitely written stories will inspire your Christmas spirit and will stay with you all year long.

Release date: September 26, 2017

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

Sometimes in life we get stuck. Sometimes in life we think we know exactly where we’re headed, what we’re looking for, how to get there, but once we reach it we don’t know where else to go.

This is how it is for Sarah Evans. Sarah who appears to have everything in life she could possibly need: a husband who is a successful real-estate developer in Manhattan, a perfect 1960s colonial in a picture-book-perfect small town in upstate New York, and two beautiful dark-haired children—Maggie and Walker.

They have been married for eight years, but Sarah doesn’t think about their wedding very often these days. Occasionally, when she dusts the enormous black-and-white picture sitting on the mantelpiece, she will pause as she gazes at her younger, happier self, and at the man she thought she was marrying. But her mind has emptied itself of the happy memories, the laughter they once shared, and looking at that picture she may as well be looking at two strangers.

Because this is Sarah’s overwhelming feeling when Eddie, her husband, is at home.

A stranger. Estranged. Strange.

Her happiest times or, rather, the times when she most fully feels herself, are when Eddie’s at work. Then she can operate as a normal person. She can vacuum the family room and drink gallons of coffee as she turns Z100 up to full blast and sings along to the Black Eyed Peas and Usher.

She can dance around the kitchen as the children sit at the kitchen table, wide-eyed with delight at how silly Mommy is, giggling as they play with the chicken nuggets and—in a bid to try to get some vegetables into them—corn salad, and if she’s very lucky, peas.

Sarah can, and does, meet with her friends for impromptu coffee and conversation. She can put her feet up in front of the Cooking Channel and scribble down delicious-sounding recipes, vowing one day to actually make them.

She can sit at the desk in the kitchen, sifting through the ever-mounting piles, making phone calls, organizing household bills, getting on with the work of being a wife, mother, and household manager.

Occasionally Sarah will still try to delegate an odd job to Eddie, each time praying that he will actually do it, that somehow if he manages to fulfill her wish it will mean that their marriage will get back on track, that she, or they, will find happiness again, but each time Eddie forgets, and with a sigh of irritation Sarah finds herself adding another job to the next day’s “to-do” list.

None of her friends realize quite how unhappy Sarah is. It isn’t as if she sits around weeping, but this sense of dissatisfaction, of unease, of knowing that her life wasn’t supposed to turn out like this, follows her around twenty-four hours a day, climbs out of bed with her in the mornings, scrubs her back in the shower, and keeps her company as she goes about her day until they both climb into bed at the end of the day, exhausted and preparing for more of the same the next day.

She did used to be happy. She knows that at some time in her life she used to be happy, but it was such a long time ago, and she’s become so used to feeling the way she feels now, to this feeling of being stuck, that the memory of actually being happy has almost entirely faded away.

But today, as she dusts the mantelpiece, she stops as she wipes the cloth over the glass covering her wedding picture, she takes the picture over to the sofa and sits down, staring beyond the glass to nine years ago, when she was twenty-seven, the features editor of Poise!—a young women’s magazine—living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and loving every minute of it.

She’d been dating a series of unsuitable men, had just finished a heartbreaking affair with a journalist at GQ, and had sworn off men completely.

“No,” she kept insisting to her colleagues, “this time I mean it.”

And of course doesn’t it always happen when you least expect it, when you’re adamant that this time you really don’t want it. That was exactly when Sarah met Eddie. When she thought a relationship was the very last thing in life she needed.

On their very first date it had been, Sarah used to say, a true meeting of the minds, never mind the overwhelming physical attraction she felt to this dark, slim, confident man. From the minute she saw him she loved his brown eyes, his floppy hair, his slow smile, although she didn’t let on until their first actual date.

In those early days every time Eddie showed up at her apartment to pick her up, or they met in restaurants for dinner, Sarah would feel her heart skip a beat when she saw him, a heady mixture of excitement and anticipation.

She thought she was going to marry him but she didn’t know she was going to marry him for sure until the first time they slept together. Sarah had never had so much fun in her life. She wasn’t performing, wasn’t worrying, and she knew then that she never wanted to be with another man ever again.

They married less than a year later—a stylish and intimate wedding at the Cosmopolitan club, and the first three years were a whirlwind of fun city living, seen through the rose-tinted eyes of a couple in love.

Sarah loved the city, loved everything about the city, but when she became pregnant they started driving out to the suburbs on the weekends—just for a look around—and there was something about a white clapboard colonial with a picket fence and roses growing up an arbor that Sarah started to find increasingly appealing. Before long her fantasies were less about fitting into her favorite Ralph Lauren shift, and more about creating a proper home for her new family.

She gave up her job three months before Walker was born and attempted to settle into the house of their dreams before the big day.

In those early days it was much like playing a giant game. Sarah used to feel that she was playing house; pretending to be a grown-up, pretending to be her mother. She would study cookbooks and come up with recipes, even though prior to that Sarah had never cooked anything other than scrambled eggs—even that was rare—but once they moved into the suburbs Sarah was determined to do what every good suburban housewife should do: have delicious, nutritious meals prepared for Eddie when he got home.

Eddie would walk in the house, delighted at how well Sarah was adapting to the suburbs, thrilled at how she was cooking and making a home for them, and they would sit at the dining room table talking about their day, and saying over and over again what a great decision this was, how happy they were to be out of the city, away from the noise and the pace and the stress.

Sarah would never have admitted it but even then she wasn’t completely honest with herself. She did love her new house—loved the space, and the large kitchen, and stairs—stairs! But she missed walking everywhere. She missed the convenience of the city; running out of their apartment whenever they needed something, and always being able to find it within a couple of blocks, any time of the day or night.

She missed the noise of the city, missed the noise of their clanking air-conditioning unit so much that Eddie came home one day with a white-noise machine, and they’ve been sleeping to a background of loud crackle ever since.

And she missed her friends, even though once Walker was born she realized that they were living in different worlds, that although she enjoyed living vicariously through her old friends—mostly colleagues on the magazine, all of whom were still single—once they’d caught up on one another’s lives there wasn’t that much in common anymore, and none of them were particularly interested in her life as a new mother.

They rarely made it out to see her, and Lord knows she didn’t have time to get on a train and go and see them, not with a baby in tow, so filled with animosity she reluctantly joined a “mommy and me” group and much to her surprise started to meet women whom she liked, some of whom actually became friends.

By the time Maggie was born, Sarah and Eddie were definitely out of the honeymoon period. Those gourmet meals that Sarah used to cook were long gone, replaced by hot dogs, chicken fingers, and take-out pizza. Eddie gets home far too late for Sarah to cook and then wait for him, so she usually eats with the kids at around six, and Eddie now grabs something either in the office or on the way home.

Eddie has become more and more successful in his job since they married. His hours are longer, the accompanying stress is almost unimaginable, and the last thing he needs at the end of the day is to be confronted by a miserable, nagging wife or children screaming and fighting for his attention, which is why, when he gets home, he relaxes by watching a sports game on TV with a few beers. God knows he works hard enough; isn’t he entitled to some downtime?

And Sarah, poor Sarah who feels that she does absolutely everything around here, watches him resting his beer on his large, rounded belly and feels a wave of disgust wash over her. She has learned to ride these waves. They occur so frequently now she doesn’t bother telling him he ought to lose weight, or quit drinking, or spend some time with the children. Every time she used to say that it would erupt in a huge row, and these days she simply doesn’t have the energy.

Take a look at them tonight. Walker, already bathed and in pajamas, is playing with his Spiderman web shooter that came free in a packet of cereal.

“Look, Dad!” he says excitedly, dancing around Eddie, who is slumped on the sofa. “Look! Look! It shoots real spiderwebs!” He attempts a demonstration on the ceiling as Eddie smiles vaguely and moves Walker out of the way.

“Daddy!” Walker pleads. “You’re not looking.”

Before Walker can react Maggie comes in and snatches the web shooter out of Walker’s hands, running off into the kitchen with it. Walker starts screaming, Maggie hides behind Sarah’s legs, and Eddie explodes.

“Can’t a man get any peace and quiet around here!” he shouts. “Sarah, for God’s sake, tell them to keep it down.”

“Why don’t you tell them to keep it down?” Sarah snaps, picking up Maggie, who’s now crying because Walker is trying to pry the web shooter out of her little hands. “Walker! Leave her alone!” Walker wails louder now at the unfairness of always being blamed just because he’s the oldest.

“It’s my web shooter, Mommy! Maggie took it!” Maggie smirks and holds the web shooter triumphantly above her head as Walker screams.

“Upstairs, both of you!” Sarah shouts, putting down Maggie, who instantly starts wailing, while Walker successfully manages to rip the web shooter away and run upstairs.

“Goddamnit!” Sarah hisses to Eddie, pausing to take in the fact that he’s sitting back, his feet up, ignoring the screams from upstairs.

Sarah shakes her head. Get off your fat ass you lazy pig and help me, she thinks. Then, that’s it, fat boy, as he cracks open another beer. You just sit there like a slob while I do all the work, but of course she doesn’t say any of it. Once it’s out there it can never be taken back, and even though Sarah’s antipathy toward her husband is slowly turning into hate, there are some places she just won’t go.

Later that night Sarah climbs into bed with her book and pretends to be engrossed as Eddie comes to bed. He’s always slept naked, and in the early days she used to love how free he was about his body, how he used to tease her about always wearing a long T-shirt, but now she just tries to avoid looking at him, tries to lose herself in her book to stop thinking about how they became quite so unhappy.

Eddie clambers into bed and reaches out to turn off his overhead light. “Night,” he mumbles, as he turns his back to a grateful Sarah.

“Night,” she says disinterestedly. Long after he turns off the light and is gently snoring Sarah lies with her guilty thoughts. She thinks of something terrible happening to Eddie, something tragic and terrible that would take the decision out of her hands.

Not death, not necessarily, but maybe he would leave, fall in love with his secretary, announce it was over. She looks over at the back of his head with resignation. This is a man who can barely muster the energy to change television channels, let alone leave her. He’s never going to leave.

Sarah lets out a long, dissatisfied sigh and lays her book down. Maybe it will all feel better in the morning.

“But you said you’d be home tonight by six,” Sarah sighs. “It’s book club tonight and I’m hosting. How am I supposed to get the kids fed and into bed, and get book club ready?”

“What can I do?” Eddie snaps. “It’s work. I didn’t plan a five o’clock meeting but I can’t turn it down. I don’t want to go over this again, Sarah. What do you want me to do? Leave? You want me to leave? You want me to get a job locally? Sure, I could get some lousy-paying job in a local firm and we’d have to move to a much smaller house but I don’t care. If that’s what you want, say so.”

Sarah grits her teeth and squeezes the phone, frustration rendering her speechless. “Forget it,” she says. “Fine.”

“I’ll grab something to eat in the city,” Eddie continues. “Seeing as you’ve got book club. I’ll see you later.”

Sarah nods silently and puts down the phone.

Before they had children Sarah and Eddie were not big believers in television. Before they had children Sarah and Eddie had many different beliefs about child rearing and parenting, beliefs that would make them, unequivocally, the best parents in the whole history of parenting. Ever.

They would never use the television as a baby-sitter, Sarah remembers saying, when Walker was only two years old and she had come back from a harassed play date where the mother had put the television on for everyone to get some peace and quiet toward the end of the day.

Sarah had been horrified. “We’d gone there to play!” she’d said in horror to Caroline. “Not to watch television. I had to take Walker home.”

So Sarah and Eddie had vowed never to use television as a baby-sitter. They’d looked at one another firmly and said they would never use sugar to calm a child down, would never raise their voices to their children, and would treat their children with kindness and respect.

At 5:30 Sarah runs into the family room to find Walker screaming as Maggie disappears behind the sofa with an evil grin on her face. Sarah’s heart plummets. How can this three-year-old who looks so angelic be such an unbelievable handful? Walker is her mama’s boy. Sweet, gentle, and sensitive, he’s always been a good boy, always done exactly what he’s been told, and if he has any fault at all it’s that he’s too sensitive, that he has a tendency to collapse, like now, in tears, at the slightest thing.

Walker never had the terrible twos, a fact she and Eddie put down privately, and horribly smugly, as the result of being such amazing parents. They have had to reconsider with Maggie; Maggie who displayed such extraordinary stubbornness and willfulness since the day she was born.

Even when she was a baby, when Maggie decided she wanted something, she would exert what Eddie called the death grip until whoever was holding it—usually Walker—had to let go.

“My girl’s a winner.” Eddie would smile proudly, and Sarah would shake her head as she comforted a crying Walker, wondering whether all girls were inherently more evil, or whether it was just her daughter.

Sarah pulls Maggie out from behind the sofa, a wriggling monkey who tries to writhe out of Sarah’s grip.

“Maggie, what have you got?” Sarah says sternly. She then turns to Walker and shouts, “Be quiet, Walker! Stop crying.”

“Nothing,” Maggie says, little fingers clutched tightly around something.

“No!” Walker wails, before dissolving in hysteria.

“Walker! Be quiet or you’ll go upstairs to your room. Maggie, give it back to him or you will get a smack.” Maggie keeps her fingers tightly closed until Sarah manages to pry them open, to find Walker’s favorite Power Ranger there.

“Here you are, Walker.” She gives it back to him, then says, “Oh, for God’s sake, will you now stop crying? Maggie, do not take Walker’s toys!” she berates, but even as she says those words she knows they’re having no effect.

For Maggie has no fear. Has never had any fear. Threats of time-outs turn into real time-outs, and whereas Walker will sit in his room during a time-out in floods of tears, Maggie will sit quietly singing to herself, or playing with her fingers, or somehow keeping herself amused, and Sarah knows that the punishment doesn’t bother her in the slightest.

Sarah now threatens smacking, in the hope that that will frighten her daughter into behaving well, but Sarah knows she would never actually be able to go through with it, and the threat sounds empty even to her ears, much less to Maggie’s.

“I want M&M’s,” Maggie suddenly calls out from the pantry. “I want M&M’s.”

“Oh, me too!” Walker says eagerly, Power Ranger fiasco forgotten. “I want M&M’s too.”

“Neither of you gets M&M’s until after dinner,” Sarah says, looking at her watch.

“Oh, please!” Walker starts whining.

“I want M&M’s,” Maggie repeats as her face starts to crumple, hand reaching up for the shelf where the M&M’s are hidden.

“I’ll make dinner now,” Sarah sighs. “How about some television?”

Walker’s eyes light up. “I want to watch Spiderman!”

“No!” Maggie comes running into the kitchen. “I watch the Wiggles.”

“No,” Walker wails. “Spiderman.”

“Wiggles!” Maggie says firmly, raising a hand, about to hit Walker.

“No, Maggie!” Sarah scoops her up and drops her on the sofa in the family room. “I get to pick tonight and we’re going to watch The Lion King.

“Twenty minutes,” she says to the children, “and then the TV goes off and we’re having dinner.”

There’s no reply—they’re already absorbed in Simba’s world.

An hour and a half later Sarah has made a fruit platter, laid the cakes and magic bars out on the table, and got the coffee cups and wineglasses out, the wine already chilling in the fridge. She has tidied the kitchen, put on the laundry, had a superquick shower, put on clean clothes and a dab of old lipstick, and shoved her hair back into its usual neat ponytail.

“Mom!” Walker shouts out from the family room. “It’s finished.”

“Damn,” Sarah mutters to herself as she shakes slices of frozen pizza bagels out of the box and onto a grill pan. “Right,” she says, in an upbeat tone. “Who wants delicious pizza bagels for dinner?”

“Me! Me! Me!” the kids shout, and they come into the kitchen and sit at the counter, where Sarah keeps them quiet with Goldfish until the pizzas are ready.

“As a special treat tonight,” she says, looking at her watch, “it’s a no-bath night.”

“Yay!” Walker whoops with joy, and Maggie copies him, even though she adores bath time.

“First one into pj’s gets M&M’s,” Sarah says, collecting the dishes to wash up as the kids run upstairs shrieking and giggling. “And then”—she walks to the bottom of the stairs and calls up after them—“the mommy monster’s coming to get you.” Shrieks of delight waft down the stairs as Sarah smiles. How can she love them so much when they’re so difficult?

“How can I love them so much when they’re so difficult?” she says to Caroline, the first to walk through the door for book club.

“I know.” Caroline smiles. “Clare woke Maisie up at five o’clock this morning, and by four o’clock this afternoon they were both melting. It’s been horrific at my house.”

“Not much better here,” Sarah says, handing Caroline a glass of wine. “Cheers.”

“Good Lord I need this.” Caroline takes a mouthful of wine. “Now please tell me you read the book because I couldn’t get through it and we can’t keep meeting for book club with none of us ever reading the damn things.”

Sarah winces. “I didn’t. I was hoping you had.” The swoop of a car’s headlights shines through the kitchen window as the others arrive. “Let’s hope someone has or it will be another night of moaning about our husbands.”

“Wasn’t the last book club kind of racy? If I remember rightly weren’t we all horribly revealing about sex?” Caroline grins. “Although it was at my house and I was very drunk.”

“I was pretty drunk too.” Sarah smiles. “But, yes, I do remember it being pretty racy. Do you remember what Lisa was telling . . . Lisa! How are you? Come in, come and have some wine! I was just saying that the last time we spoke you were saying you would definitely read the book this time.”

Lisa grimaces and shrugs in apology. “Wine?” Sarah and Caroline laugh as they all toast one another and sit at the kitchen counter to wait for the others.

Book club has been going on for two years and is the highlight of Sarah’s month. She’s never dreamt of telling her friends in the city that she’s part of a book club—the very words book club conjure up such parochial, suburban images, and yet she has come to value these meetings, the friendships she has with these women and, in particular, the dynamic they have when they all come together for book club, above all else.

There are now five women. Sarah; Caroline, an English girl whom Sarah met when Walker was in the two’s program with Clare at the local preschool; Lisa; Nicole; and Cindy.

The women met through a series of coincidences. They don’t socialize together when not in book club, other than Sarah and Caroline, who have become the closest of friends, but they have found a freedom and support in book club that they have not found elsewhere, a trust that whatever they say when at the meetings will stay there. All the women agree they have a unique bond.

Once upon a time they did all read the books. They would meet and talk earnestly about what they thought, attempt to analyze in a way none of them had done since school, relate the topics to their own lives, but as they got to know one another more, as they grew more comfortable with one another, they started to share their lives, and now it is rare the books are even read, and the discussion that ensues is usually cursory, an attempt to validate the meeting before moving on to the real topics—life, love, children, friendships, husbands.

In a relatively short period of time these women have come to know one another intimately; such is the nature of their sharing at the monthly meetings.

They know that Caroline and her husband, Louis, once separated for two years, before they had children. They know that Lisa is married to a recovering alcoholic who has been in AA for six years. They know that Nicole had four miscarriages before finally accepting she could not have children and adopting instead, and they know that Cindy hates the East Coast and spends every night dreaming of going back to California, where she says the sun always shines and it doesn’t snow, although in truth Cindy only feels this way in winter. In summer she’s quite happy.

And they know that some of them are happy with their husbands, their marriages, their lives, and some of them are not, but none of them know quite how unhappy Sarah is with hers.

The unhappiness, when it emerges, emerges in the form of jokes. They will laugh about their husbands. Roll their eyes as they share the same stories of the husbands thinking they do nothing all day, wondering what the husbands would do if the five of them took off for a weekend, left them with the kids and the house. Then they’d know, they laugh, knowing the husbands wouldn’t be able to handle it.

Tonight is one of those nights. No one, it transpires, has read the book, and tonight is a night when the women each bring their frustrations to the table and vent them in a safe environment.

“Here’s what kills me,” offers Nicole. “I’ve been with the kids all day, they’re exhausted, I finally get them into bed, and then Dan gets home from work and goes in to see them and gets them all excited again and then they’re wide awake. I can’t stand it. I keep telling him not to but he doesn’t understand what it’s like for me, how hard it is to get them into bed. I thought I was going to kill him last night.”

“At least he comes home and wants to see the kids,” Sarah says, now on her third glass of wine. “Eddie doesn’t care. All he wants to do when he gets home is slob out in front of the television with his beer. God forbid the children should get in the way of a beloved sports game.” Sarah studies the wine in her glass as she sighs. “He’s become this disgusting slob who doesn’t care about himself, doesn’t care about us, doesn’t care about anything. I wish he’d just leave but he’s too goddamned lazy.” She finishes her wine, unaware that there is now a shocked silence, that nobody knows what to say, that nobody knew it was quite this bad.

“Well,” Cindy says brightly, “nothing quite like a bit of soul baring at book club. I’m going to get some cheesecake. Can I bring anyone some?” She rises out of her chair, as do the others, all murmuring about getting more coffee, or cake, or another of those delicious brownies.

Only Caroline stays behind, sitting next to Sarah on the sofa, and when Sarah puts down her wineglass, Caroline takes her hand.

“I didn’t know it was that bad,” she whispers. “You should have said so.”

Sarah looks at her as it finally registers that she has confessed out loud. “Oh, my God,” she gasps. “I just did, didn’t I. Tell me I didn’t say that out loud.”

Caroline winces.

“Oh, shit,” Sarah mutters. “I guess I’d better have another glass of wine.”

Caroline was the last to leave. She wanted to make sure Sarah was okay, wanted to see if there was anything she could do, offer a shoulder to cry on if that’s what was needed.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she says, eyeing Sarah warily as Sarah washes up the coffee cups. “That was pretty momentous, what you said in there.”

“Caroline, be honest with me. Was it really that momentous? Don’t you sometimes wish that Louis would leave? Don’t you just hate him at times?”

Caroline nods, and it’s true, she does sometimes feel that way, but only if they’ve had a really big row, and only once in a blue moon, and only for a very short period of time, never enough to mention it to anyone, to even dwell on it at all.

“See?” Sarah attempts a light laugh, which comes out sounding ever so slightly strangled. “I’m just having a bad day.” She dries her hands on a paper towel, then reaches behind to tuck her hair back into her ponytail, using the stainless steel on the microwave to check that it’s all in.

“Do you ever wonder what happened to yourself?” Sarah says absently as she fiddles with her hair.

“What do you mean?” Caroline smiles. “You mean, what happened to that cool chick who men used to whistle at in the street?”

“Kind of. Yes. What happened to the woman who wore great clothes and makeup, and cared about what she looked like?”

Caroline grins as she gestures down at herself. “You mean instead of Gap sweats and Merrills, even if they are the most comfortable thing in the world?”

“I know. Look.” Sarah lifts a foot to show off her own ugly but practical shoes. “I just wondered what happened to me. I was looking at my wedding picture earlier today and thinking about the early days, and it’s not even that I feel it was such a long time ago; it’s that I feel it happened to another person, in another lifetime.

“I get up in the morning and I see this middle-aged woman . . . ,” she continues.

Caroline interrupts. “Middle-aged? You’re thirty-six; that’s hardly middle-aged!”

“But I feel middle-aged,” Sarah insists. “I see a woman with bags under her eyes and gray in her hair because I haven’t the time nor the inclination to get to a hairdresser. A woman who used to have a wardrobe of beautiful clothes, who used to read Vogue every month, who worked at Poise! for God’s sake, and now look at me. I just want to know how I got here. Where I lost myself. What happened.”

“You got married and had kids,” says Caroline gently. “It happened to all of us. But aren’t you happier now? I sometimes think the same thing but then . . .