Prologue
I used to love Christmas.
I used to love Christmas and Christmas Mountain, Montana. I used to love tinsel, hot chocolate, and presents too pretty to unwrap.
But somehow between the age of six and sixteen, I discovered I loved dancing more than anything else.
Dancing took me away from my home town and year-round Christmas. It took me to summers at an amusement park where I danced every two hours in a parade in front of the float carrying a famous mouse. It took me to an academy for performing arts in New York City where I was taught to bring my A-game and a professional attitude with my dance shoes. It took me to Broadway and Rockefeller Center where I brought high kicks and high energy to every performance. And Christmas? It became just another show.
And now, with a nearly-healed bone fracture in my foot and my last paying gig on Broadway shuttered due to bad reviews, dancing was nowhere to be found. Nor were funds in my bank account.
But Christmas…
The bus pulled into the station at Christmas Mountain.
…Christmas was everywhere.
ChapterOne
“Isthat the famous dancer Allie Jameson?”
I stopped wrestling my very large, wheeled bag onto the snow-covered sidewalk outside the Christmas Mountain, Montana, bus terminal and looked up, torn between joy at being recognized and guilt over not being truly famous.
A man walked toward me. A handsome man.
Before I knew what hit me, this large, handsome male specimen wrapped his strong arms around me and swung me around, laughing in deep, joyful waves.
I knew that laugh. My hugger was Nick Stocking, my best friend when I’d lived in Christmas Mountain, a friend I hadn’t seen or talked to in years, other than on social media.
My bad.
“It is you! It’s Allie Jameson, the dancer who took New York by storm.” Nick set me down and held me at arms’ length, smiling. His brown eyes glowed with affection.
How could I have let such a good friendship slide?
“And are you…” I peered at his endearing mug, happily playing along. “Are you Nicholas Stocking, world traveling master chef?” I grinned, drinking him in like the love-starved person I’d suddenly become, craving connection more than a comfortable bank balance.
Nick looked good. I hadn’t seen him in what felt like forever. No longer a scrawny teen, he’d grown to be a fine physical example of man – from his broad, muscular shoulders to his sturdy grip on my arms to his clean-shaven, square jaw. His dark hair peeked from beneath the brim of a blue knit cap. And he smelled like…
I leaned forward, drawing a deep breath from his bright red, ugly holiday sweater (featuring a hand-stitched Heat Miser fromThe Year Without a Santa Claus).
I didn’t care what he wore. Nick smelled of sugar and cinnamon, of holidays and home, of real Christmas celebrations rather than the glimmer and shine of Broadway.
I glanced up at him, reacquainting myself with features that were both familiar and new. “You stopped baking apple pies to take a leisurely stroll past the bus station?”
“Pumpkin, not apple. And they’re tarts.” Nick gathered my things – backpack, sports duffle, oversized red suitcase. “And yeah. I just happened to be walking on this end of town at the exact time the bus from New York pulled in.” He spared me a look, one that challenged me to deny his claim. Or perhaps that look was meant to dare me to admit I’ve missed him. “This is why we’re best friends, Al. Because of kismet and coincidence.”
“Right.” I rolled my eyes. Kismet and coincidence weren’t why we’d been best friends.
We were the kids who weren’t into sports or being in the choir, like my cousin Joy. We were the kids who spent most of our spare time at the Sleigh Café, either in the kitchen or the back alley. If we were in the kitchen, he’d be baking while I watched him or binged dance videos on YouTube. And if we were in the alley, he’d be flipping through a cookbook from the library while I’d practiced dance routines.
We’d been best friends because we weren’t interested in the school experience, in homecoming, spirit week, or prom. We’d been the oddballs who never seemed to have a significant other. We’d been interested in getting a head start on our futures, which lay on the road out of town and across the Christmas River bridge.
Why had we rushed? Ten years later, my future was on the verge of flaming out, while Nick’s, I’d heard, was still on the rise.
But friendship…
Were we friends if we haven’t spoken in years?