All They Want for Christmas: A Novella

By Christa Allan

A new bakery to open. A broken engagement. Feuding mothers. Just what Levi and Holly wanted for Christmas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christa Allan
• Release date: Dec 20, 2014

Christa Allan

A true Southern woman who knows any cook worth her gumbo always starts with a roux, Christa Allan is an award-winning author who writes stories filled with hope, humor, and redemption. Her novels include Test of Faith; Threads of Hope; Walking on Broken Glass; Love Finds You in New Orleans, Louisiana; and The Edge of Grace. Christa is a mother of five and grandmother of three, and she recently retired after twenty-five years spent teaching high school English. She and her husband live in New Orleans in a home older than their combined ages. They spend their time dodging hurricanes and pacifying their three neurotic cats and Herman, their dog.

Book preview

Chapter One

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It took Beulah Grace Schwartz three tries, but she finally killed my mother.

The first time was in June when she accused my mother Nancy Jane Pressfield, of diverting $29.54 from the Magnolia Hills Garden Club into her personal account. For fertilizer. Momma told her she was the one full of crap because that money was approved for reimbursement by the treasurer herself, Claretta Morgan, also the CPA for half the town.

Beulah Grace’s second attempt was in September when she told her every other Tuesday afternoon bridge group my mother tried to seduce her husband, Ronald Reagan Schwartz. This based on Ronald telling her Nancy Jane brought a Brownie Batter Chocolate Chip Cheesecake to his hardware store to thank him for rekeying all her locks. After momma heard the story from her friends at the Ladies Church Auxiliary, she informed Beulah Grace that if she wanted to look at something old, small and wrinkled, she’d stand buck naked in front of her full length mirror.

Finally, Beulah Grace did her in for good. She denied it, of course. But everyone knew she wasn’t only capable of such a murderous act, she’d know exactly how to carry it out.

That morning the sickening alarm of our cat Job, who was screeching like two hells, bolted me out of bed. I closed my eyes for a quick prayer. Oh, dear God, did she hit him with the riding mower again? I opened my eyes to peek through the wooden mini blind in my bathroom. But I didn’t see or hear the engine racing in the back yard, so it couldn’t be another mower mishap. Job lost a smidge of his tail in that one. I grabbed my cell phone off my dresser and started toward the kitchen when an alien noise shattered through Job’s cries. It had to be coming from the front yard.

I threw on my coat, even though it was December in south Louisiana, which didn’t bite. It mostly just showed its teeth. Besides, no one in Magnolia Hills in their right mind (which excluded half the population) went in their front yard wearing flannel pjs.

Before I opened the front door, I had my thumb ready to hit 911 on my phone because even in our small town we could never be too careful. If it wasn’t Bob Jefferson’s cows meandering down the sidewalk because his kids left the cattle gate open, it was 89-year-old Mrs. Casnave next door climbing her ladder to pick kumquats and missing a rung on the way down.

Kneeling on the cold ground, her hair still in spongy curlers and wearing her faded chenille robe, was Momma. Her arms wrapped around her prized Yuletide Camellia plant. What leaves remained on the plant, trembled along with Momma’s sobs.

She’s dead. She’s gone. Gone.

Her voice sounded like it was being dragged over gravel. Sitting on the pavestone walkway snaked around the cluster of camellia bushes, Job swiveled his head in my direction, then padded off as if to say, Good luck. She’s yours now.

Momma looked at me, her eyes steaming, her cheeks damp from her tears. She killed her. I know she did. That damn Beulah Grace Schwartz. She poisoned her. I just know it.

She moaned and shook her fist at the heavens.

God had been officially put on notice.

Poor God.

Poor me.

This battle between my mother and her Magnolia Hills Garden Club nemesis Beulah Grace was made all the more complicated by the recent ending of the upcoming nuptials—mine, specifically—to one Jeremiah Levi, the sole surviving son of Beulah Grace and Ronald Reagan Schwartz.

Six months earlier, I’d just signed the loan agreement to open the Mad Batter Bakery along with my partner Preston Atticus Monroe, my best friend since our sandbox days at Miss Lucy’s KinderCare. Then, one month later, Youngblood Engineering offered Jeremiah—or Levi as I called him, ignoring his mother’s sour expression when I ignored his first name—a new position with a higher salary to help open their new Houston office.

If Preston and I hadn’t already signed a two-year-lease on the only available property fronting Main Street, a newly restored Victorian with a porch wide enough to accommodate tables and chairs, and a spacious kitchen for our equipment, I might have been a tad less bitchy about the whole idea of a transfer. Maybe I would have said, Can we talk about this later? when he broke the news while I was painting the front room alternating wide strips of butter yellow and frosted mint. Instead, according to Preston who had been rearranging the display cases channeling his inner Nate Berkus, Oprah’s home designer guru, my head had swiveled exorcist-like on my neck right before I spewed, Levi, if brains were leather, you wouldn’t have enough to saddle a June bug. Are you kidding me? Move to Houston? Can you see what I’m doing here?

What I see, Holly, Levi had said, yanking the knot out of his tie and undoing his collar button, is me walking out of here, going home to watch tonight’s football game, drink beer, and probably fall asleep before halftime ends because I’m so damn tired. I don’t even have the energy to fight with you right now.

Preston had walked over and shook Levi’s hand. Well, then, let me be the first to congratulate you, he said, stabbing me with a quick cut of his eyes.

Thanks, Pres, Levi said, a tired smile appearing. You’re welcome to join me.

Preston grinned. You know I’d only be sitting there to watch the tight ends’ tight ends and relieve you of a few beers. He sighed. I have to admit, though, the announcers can be so much fun. Talking about penetration and loose balls and going deep, he said. But I appreciate the invitation. I’ll take over for Michelangelo’s sister here, so she can go home and have a—he paused and looked at me—civilized conversation with you.

That conversation was as wild as my hair on a high humidity day. While I was proud of Levi, I was also frustrated. He could be an engineer anywhere. Opening the Mad Batter Bakery in such a prime location could not. Levi, who needed to relocate in six weeks, which meant about four months before our eve of Christmas Eve wedding, said I didn’t have to move there until after we were married. He generously offered to let me work at the bakery during the week and travel home on weekends for a while.

Seriously? We’re going to start our marriage seeing each other on weekends? I ranted on about my opinion not mattering to him now, so it would be unlikely to ever matter to him.