Undercover Santa: Smalltown Secrets, #5

By Cat Johnson

It's Christmastime in Mudville and Morgan's Farm Market is all decked out for the holidays, but the man in the Santa suit isn't who he says he is...

ELIZABETH
I recognized him right away. The boy I'd met and fell in love with one summer twenty-three years ago, before he'd disappeared completely from my life. Now he's back . . . and dressed as Santa. And lying about who he is. The question is why? The bigger question is, will he stick around this time?

CHRISTOPHER
The last thing I expected was to inherit my uncle's farm in Mudville. No, actually, the last I'd ever expected was to be dressed as Santa Claus and see Lizzy Murphy again after all these years. She's all grown up and goes by Elizabeth now. And she's making me want to stick around, just when I'd been all set to go.

 

Get all the Mudville stories! Kissing Books, Red Hot, Honey Buns, Zero Forks, Undercover Santa, Mister Naughty, Dog Days, Bad Decisions

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cat Johnson
• Release date: Nov 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393763963

Cat Johnson

New York Times & USA Today bestselling contemporary romance author Cat Johnson. Sign up at catjohnson.net/news to get new release and sale alerts.

Book preview

Elizabeth

I recognized him right away. The boy I'd met and fell in love with one summer twenty-three years ago, before he'd disappeared completely from my life. Now he's back . . . and dressed as Santa. And lying about who he is. The question is why? The bigger question is, will he stick around this time?

Christopher

The last thing I expected was to inherit my uncle's farm in Mudville. No, actually, the last I'd ever expected was to be dressed as Santa Claus and see Lizzy Murphy again after all these years. She's all grown up and goes by Elizabeth now. And she's making me want to stick around, just when I'd been all set to go.

1

CHRISTOPHER

Ipunched the button to silence the radio in the rental vehicle.

There was nothing but Christmas music playing on the one station that came in clearly and with the holiday still three weeks away, I was not in the mood to hear it yet, if ever. But more importantly, I needed to straighten out this mess I was in.

With hopes this call would do just that, I pressed the cell phone to my ear . . . and heard the voicemail pick up.

Dammit. The one time that I really, really needed to speak to a human, no one was answering.

At the unwelcome sound of the tone prompting me to leave a message, I said, Hello. This is Christopher Nunes. I have an appointment to meet you today at my Uncle William’s farm in Mudville, but my GPS says I’ve arrived and I can assure you, I have not.

I stared at the parking lot and the out-of-business grocery store in front of me. I’d only visited my great uncle once, years ago, but I was fairly certain this was not the farm I’d just inherited. I wasn’t even in the right town. This was not Mudville according to the sign I’d just passed that read Bainbridge.

I really need you to call me back and confirm the address. Thank you. Sighing, I disconnected the call to the lawyer and glanced around me.

There wasn’t much on State Highway 7. A couple of houses. A farm here or there. The abandoned grocery store, next to an equally empty and boarded up Chinese food restaurant. The sight had my very low hopes for this property falling even lower.

I hadn’t wanted to drive to upstate New York in December in the first place. But I really didn’t want to be lost there.

Short of knocking on someone’s door, which I wasn’t keen on doing, I figured the best course of action would be for me to continue on.

Maybe the GPS wasn’t that far off. I could be close. Who knew what kind of property lines the farm had originally? Maybe sometime in the past William had sold off some land and it had become commercial retail property.

All I knew was this did not look like where I’d spent the summer twenty-three years ago when I was seventeen.

I flipped the heater another notch higher as just the sight of the snow on either side of the road made me feel colder, before I steered the four-wheel drive vehicle out of the lot and back toward the highway. I felt the wheels slip on the icy surface of the shoulder.

Hopefully the lawyer would call me back with the proper address before I ended up sliding off the road and into a ditch.

All I needed to do was see the damn property, as the will stipulated, sign some papers and then I could get back to Manhattan and my life.

Driving six hours roundtrip in one day was not my idea of fun, but it was definitely preferable to spending the night in Mudville.

Hell, was there even a decent hotel nearby if I had wanted to stay? Judging by what I’d seen so far, I’d say that was doubtful.

The first sign of activity and life after what had looked like a ghost town had me slowing and flipping on the blinker to turn into a drive marked with a sign for a farm stand, and a second sign that read Christmas Trees for Sale.

Christmas trees. That reminded me that I hadn’t had one of those since moving into my own place after graduating college decades ago and I didn’t feel all that bad about that. I made do with a fresh balsam wreath on the door. That was festive enough for me. Quick, cheap and easy, but still messy once the needles started to fall.

Mom would have a tree