Mistletoe and Holly: The Windemere Series, #4

By Marilyn Gardiner

Love is not on Bree's agenda as she plans a perfect Christmas for herself and her small daughter. However, the holiday is thrown into jeopardy when she's made the target of a stalker. She is terrified. Ty is determined to convince Bree of his love and dependability, but who can she trust?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781597054348

Book preview

What They Are Saying About

Mistletoe and Holly

Marilyn Gardner is up to her old tricks with another book so suspenseful and full of chills, that you won’t be able to put it down, until you know for sure... who done it!

School teacher, Gabrielle Phillips only thinks she has found safety at last when three years after her divorce, she finally returns to her grandfather’s home in snowy Winsom for the holidays. Her grandfather is determined to set her up with her one-time chum, widowed Ty Larrimore, and his two motherless children. But then a stalker frightens Bree by threatening her, and her twelve year old daughter, Becca.

She thinks she can handle the problem on her own. In her heart she knows it is only her aggressive and abusive ex-husband, Bobby Gene frantically trying to extort money for his addictive drug habit. Or is it? She can’t prove it.  Where else can she run when she is still driving the same old car, and using the same cell phone number as when she was married to him? Bree is one of these people who abhors having to ask for help. Yet, Ty insists on being there at every turn, to help her face the threat and fear of her stalker.

Then Bobby Gene turns up dead. If it isn’t her ex-husband, then who has he tangled with that is even meaner and bader?  What will she have to do to keep her family safe?

JoEllen Conger

Conger Book Reviews

Mistletoe and Holly

Marilyn Gardiner

A Wings ePress, Inc.

Romantic Suspense Novel

Edited by: Cristie Kraemer

Copy Edited by: Gina Cadorette

Senior Editor: Lorraine Stephens

Executive Editor: Lorraine Stephens

Cover Artist: Barbi Durbin

All rights reserved

NAMES, CHARACTERS AND incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Wings ePress Books

Copyright © 2009 by Marilyn Gardiner

ISBN: 978-1-59705-434-8

Published In the United States Of America

Wings ePress Inc.

3000 N. Rock Road

Newton, KS  67114

Dedication

For my dedicated and faithful readers who always ask

to be on the waiting list for my next book

One

When Gabrielle Phillips came through the doors of the elementary school, an early dusk was already laying purple shadows on the snow beneath the trees. A gusty mid-November wind blew a fine drift of icy flakes to swirl around her ankles as she went down the steps.

Bree, as her friends called her, hesitated a moment to inhale the frigid air and then curled the collar of her coat higher around her ears. Her feet hurt and her head ached and she had to be back in three hours for the combined fifth grade pageant. And she still hadn’t taken Becca to buy a Christmas tree.

She almost groaned aloud. If she ever again weakened and considered being the teacher-director of another program, she hoped someone would tie her to a chair until the urge passed. Becca, her fifth-grader, knew which buttons to push. Mommy was still trying to pretend a single parent and only child were a family. However, Bree shrugged, she’d probably do the pageant all over next year if they asked, providing she was still here in Winsom.

Her mouth settled into a thin line and she amended her thinking. She would be here. Her feet were planted in hometown soil once again, and she was through with hiring a local U-Haul every eighteen months and scouring someone else’s dirt out of yet another rented house in yet another state. From now on it was roots all the way, and Bobby Gene could wander where he pleased, and with whom. She intended to put together a lifetime of pageants and picnics and warm memories for Becca.

However, this afternoon’s dress rehearsal had not been promising. Benji was still rebelling against wearing his costume and stalked around looking thunderous, the construction paper trees wouldn’t stay taped to the walls, and practically no one knew his or her lines.

A bath. That’s what she needed. No kids—Becca had gone home with a friend—and no improvised props falling off the walls. And, as much as she liked him, no black-eyed, black-haired, impish Benji. If she didn’t hit traffic, she’d just about have time for a nice, long soak in the tub before coming back.

When she pulled into the driveway at home, Carlos drew in behind her. Carlos did odd jobs for Grandpa, both here in town where he’d retired and at the farm which he rented out. Carl also worked part-time at McDonald’s while he waited on his green card. She’d never spoken to the man, only exchanged waves. He seemed friendly enough. She and Becca had laughed once, that he wore a belt buckle as big as the grille on a Buick. Just now Bree was more concerned with a bath.

The bubbles were high under her chin and she lay with her eyes closed and her head on a tub cushion when she heard a key in the lock.

It’s me, Grandpa yelled through the bathroom door. How did rehearsal go?

The performance is still on for tonight, Bree yelled back. She sank deeper into the water. Becca is having dinner with a friend so it’s just you and me. She’s still moaning over Benji.

She heard a chuckle through the door. Did he wear his costume today?

He wore the robe.

Well, I guess that’s progress.

Bree heard footsteps and then Grandpa called, Carlos is here. I want to get him started on the leaves and I’ll be back in.

She heard a bag of groceries being dumped on the counter and then a door slammed.

The hired man had recently moved to Winsom from Mexico with his family. According to Grandpa, Carlos didn’t speak much English, but he seemed to understand it well enough. He was a hard worker, and that was enough for Grandpa.

The outside door opened and closed and Grandpa’s voice came again. Young Benji’s father is coming tonight to see his son, The Star. He said it as a title. I ran into him at the grocery store. He’ll be bringing his twelve-year-old daughter, as well. Carsyn is a sweetheart.

The bath developed a sudden chill and Bree reached for the faucet. The sound of gushing water filled the tiny room.

Don’t evade the issue, Grandpa shouted. This is a small town. You have to see him sometime.

No, I don’t.

You’ve been home for three weeks and won’t look at anybody. This man is not Attila the Hun. You went to high school together. He was your brother’s best friend.

We were all best friends then. The four girls had been closer than most sisters: Kate, Zoe, Lily and Bree. They had done everything together; were completely inseparable. They’d gone their separate ways after college, but had all migrated back home in later years. The guys, except for Ty Larimore and Bree’s brother, Tim, had come and gone as their social life varied.

Bree frowned into the bubbles. Don’t start on me, Grandpa. That was a hundred years ago.

Sure, she used to know Ty Larrimore. He and Tim had been football buddies. She’d trailed around after them like a homeless puppy when they let her. And one memorable Christmas Eve, on a dare, he’d kissed her under the mistletoe.

Raising a toe from the water, she swirled soap bubbles to make a little peaked cap for her foot. She wished she was pretty like Zoe, or talented like Kate and Lily. She’d always been the plain Jane of the group. Lots of fun and always willing to pickup the pieces when whatever plan they’d devised went south but, she thought, rather plain.

Deliberately she examined her attributes. Her skin was good. She tanned beautifully and had never, thank God, had a pimple. Eyes? Run of the mill, she guessed, being the deep blue of a mountain lake. And her hair was nice. She was letting it grow so she could donate it to Locks of Love, people who’d had chemo treatments. It hung all the way to her waist and had a bit of curl on the ends.

Curiously, her hair was white. She had gone to bed one night when she was twenty-five, and awakened the next morning to the shock of finding her hair turning white. Secretly, she was a bit proud of her hair. It was luxuriously thick and...different. There was nothing wrong with her figure either. She had all the right curves in the right places. But she felt ordinary. Nothing special. The girls used to call her Mother Earth because she favored long denim skirts and Birkenstock shoes. That was in addition to the fact that she loved to sew and cook.

Shortly after their grand ten-year high school reunion, Bobby Gene had hit town and she’d fallen tail over teakettle in love. Against practically everyone’s advice, she’d left friends, family and everything she’d held dear and followed him West. At first it was a series of fleabag motels, then rented rooms. They’d been married for barely a month before Becca was born, and it wasn’t long after that she’d discovered just how unreliable and unfaithful Bobby Gene was. It had taken five years before she gave up and when he left—other than being furious over the way he did it—she didn’t grieve. She stayed on in Colorado, because she had a good job, and worked for two years gathering a stake to move. Then she’d scoop up Becca and a few personal belongings, and came home to Winsom. Grandpa was happy to have them live with him. He’d been lonely, and as he said, he was no spring chicken. He welcomed the company.

She hadn’t been home long enough to connect in any significant way with anyone other than Zoe, Lily and Kate. Another teacher’s misfortune, a sudden medical problem, had been her own good fortune and she’d stepped right into a fifth grade vacancy.

You and Ty were good friends! Grandpa had apparently set up siege outside the bathroom door. You like Benji, and the kid’s a carbon copy of his dad.

Bree laughed hard enough that her breath plowed a furrow through the bubbles. Young Benji asked Becca to go steady with him this afternoon.

Well, Grandpa answered, clearly startled. Kids learn moves early these days, I guess.

Triumphantly, Bree threw in the zinger. He also gave her a hickey at recess.

Oh. Wow! seemed to be all Grandpa was capable of at the moment.

Bree’s answer was to turn off the water before the tub overflowed. The silence built, filled the room.

It had been almost three years since her divorce. Three very shaky and scary years, and she didn’t want to begin another relationship. She wasn’t interested in men, those either out of the past or in the future. Men couldn’t be trusted. They cut out on you just when you needed them most, and ended up being another body to be responsible for, to clean up after and keep happy. No. A man was the last thing she needed. Men caused problems you could very well do without.

Sharing a home with Grandpa proved to be a good thing for both of them. Becca was happy, the teaching job was going well, and Bree could think of no good reason to complicate matters just when she could finally breathe deeply without fearing the world would start spinning out of control.

Bree? Don’t go to sleep in there.

Does he know you’re peddling him on street corners?

I’m not peddling him! He’s just a nice guy and I think he’s lonely.

Bree fired a towel at the door. Will you stop? It’s your night to cook, so go stir something on the stove.

Lonely indeed. Bree knew young Benji’s mother had died when he was a baby. An accident of some kind. But if big Ty was lonely it was obviously by choice. Lonely! Next Grandpa would trot out the violins. Maybe she should have given Grandpa the task of getting Benji into his king’s costume. There was a true test of determination.

Two hours later Bree admitted defeat on all fronts. The all purpose room was full of oversized parents seated at child-sized tables and someone had flung the windows wide to relieve the overheated room. A nervous chatter skittered and died as Bree drew the curtains. The opening scene went okay until Benji threw the velvet knickers, the robe and his father’s knee-length black dress socks into a corner and marched on stage in blue jeans and once-white, stained Nikes. He did consent to wear the tunic and crown.

After that it was downhill all the way. The princess was overcome with stage fright, the ladies-in-waiting giggled, the boys galloped through their parts in a deadening monotone, and the clumsy Page stumbled onto the stage at every entrance. Bree felt the evening disintegrating in hopeless tatters.

At intermission, Becca stood in front of the curtain, looking angelic in a frilly, long dress and pink ballet slippers and sang. Benji accompanied her on the autoharp. He knew the three simple chords and Becca had a sweet, clear voice and had memorized the words. Bree relaxed. However, she hadn’t taken young love into consideration.

Becca gazed soulfully into Benji’s eyes, and sang off key. Benji gazed back and played all the wrong chords. Relentlessly, they plodded through The Twelve Days of Christmas. Bree closed her eyes and tilted her chin at the ceiling.

From behind the curtain, she risked one desperate glance at the audience. A tall, black-haired, black-eyed man stood against the back wall, a wide grin splitting his face. Ty Larrimore. Oh, he was broader through the shoulders and seemed to be taller than ever, but she would have known the planes of that face anywhere. Why did he have to look so good? In some irritable way it made her angry to find him so obviously satisfied and dug-in-at-home and...and just exactly what her own heart would have loved to find. Some day.

Behind her, the stage crew argued in hoarse whispers about whether Benji had given Becca one hickey or two, the court jester practiced his cartwheel, and suddenly the curtain opened for the last act.

Bree fumbled for her prompting script, but it was gone. Where’s my script? she hissed through clenched teeth. No one knew.

On stage Benji’s voice fluttered and ground to a stop. He glanced over his shoulder toward Bree, and the crown slipped over one eye. With a disgusted motion he shoved it back in place and, dropping all pretense, he turned to face her. What’s next? he asked aloud. I forgot.

Bree shrugged her shoulders helplessly. What could possibly be next? She leaned back in her chair and began to laugh. It was better than crying.

On stage Benji’s face lit up with memory. Ho, Page, he roared.

And the little pixie-haired page rushed forward and tripped over Bree’s foot to sprawl headlong across the stage.

Bree tried to stop laughing. She held her breath. She put her head between her knees. She managed, with difficulty, to straighten her face in time to pull the sheets together for the final curtain. Breathless and more than a little weak in the knees, she faced a room full of beaming parents.

Bravo, they chorused. Bravo.

Encore, shouted the tall, dark-haired man in the rear.

Talk about carbon copies. The mischievous twinkle in his eye was even the same as his small son’s. He made his way forward, politely but with determination, to where she stood.

There wasn’t as much collective courage aboard the Titanic, he said, and Bree was momentarily dazed by the fanning laugh lines at his eyes. To brazen that thing through....

Hello, Ty. How’ve you been?

Making it, he said, his eyes traveling over her as if they’d never met. As if someone else had driven her to the doctor the day she’d practically sliced off her thumb in the paper cutter at school, and then held her other hand while the doctor stitched her up.

Whoever thought you’d grow up to look like this? he asked, a hint of wonder edging his voice. And now you’re back home with your granddad.

Children pulled at her sleeve, called from across the room. Parents laughed, chatted. The construction paper trees were falling down, again. The noise was numbing.

He frowned. Can I buy you a cup of coffee, later?

All her mental flags sprang alert. I don’t think so, but thanks. I’m busy.

One eyebrow arched upward. I’ll wait.

She shook her head. I really do have something to do.

His eyes questioned hers briefly and then focused over her shoulder. My young king seems bent on seducing the little singer, he said, a smile pulling at his mouth.

Bree wheeled around. Behind the curtain, stained Nikes showed at floor level, one on either side of pink ballet slippers.

That’s my daughter, she snapped. Becca! Come here.

Ty didn’t seem upset. She could see he was trying hard to hold his mouth firm and not laugh. For some reason she thought of mistletoe, crisp and green and—and a long ago Christmas with carols and mistletoe and holly. When the world had been new.

You’ve got to admit the kid’s got great taste, he said with a shrug at her scowl.

Becca made her way through the crowd to Bree’s side. You said if we finished by nine o’clock we’d stop for a Christmas tree.

We have plenty of time to buy a Christmas tree, Becca. It’s early yet. Not even Thanksgiving.

Christmas trees! Ty draped an arm around Benji’s shoulder. "We know where to find the best trees in