A Little Christmas Spirit Read online

  Praise for the novels of Sheila Roberts

  “Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a Sheila Roberts story. This can’t-miss author has a singular talent for touching the heart and the funny bone.... Once again, Sheila Roberts gifts us with a heartwarming confection that’s as sweet as a sugarplum, and as deeply moving as snowfall.”

  —Susan Wiggs

  “A tender story guaranteed to warm your heart this holiday season. When I read anything from Sheila Roberts, I know I will laugh, cry and close the book with a happy sigh.”

  —RaeAnne Thayne

  “No one is better at expertly fusing small-town charm and holiday cheer than Roberts...[and this book is] the literary equivalent of watching It’s a Wonderful Life with a mug of hot chocolate and a plate of cookies.”

  —Booklist Reader on Christmas from the Heart

  “[This is] a warmhearted story filled with holiday cheer and charm, [and] readers will love this romantic twist on a Christmas classic.”

  —Debbie Mason on Christmas from the Heart

  “A deftly crafted and delightfully entertaining novel from the pen of an author with a genuine flair for originality and the creation of memorable characters.”

  —Midwest Book Review on Christmas from the Heart

  “I can always count on Sheila Roberts for humorous, heartwarming, holiday romance... I turned the final page with a smile on my face, joy in my heart, and the conviction that, once again, two deserving characters have found the person they’re meant to share life with.”

  —Romance Dish on Christmas from the Heart

  “Sheila Roberts makes me laugh...and come away inspired, hopeful and happy.”

  —Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “A lovely blend of romance and women’s fiction, this insightful holiday treat hits all the right notes.”

  —Library Journal on Christmas in Icicle Falls

  Also by Sheila Roberts

  CHRISTMAS FROM THE HEART

  ONE CHARMED CHRISTMAS

  Moonlight Harbor

  WINTER AT THE BEACH

  WELCOME TO MOONLIGHT HARBOR

  THE SUMMER RETREAT

  BEACHSIDE BEGINNINGS

  SUNSET ON MOONLIGHT BEACH

  Icicle Falls

  CHRISTMAS IN ICICLE FALLS

  STARTING OVER ON BLACKBERRY LANE

  THREE CHRISTMAS WISHES

  HOME ON APPLE BLOSSOM ROAD

  CHRISTMAS ON CANDY CANE LANE

  A WEDDING ON PRIMROSE STREET

  THE LODGE ON HOLLY ROAD

  THE TEA SHOP ON LAVENDER LANE

  THE COTTAGE ON JUNIPER RIDGE

  WHAT SHE WANTS (also published as ROMANCE ON MOUNTAIN VIEW ROAD)

  MERRY EX-MAS

  BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE (also published as SWEET DREAMS ON CENTER STREET)

  Look for Sheila Roberts’s next Moonlight Harbor novel available soon from MIRA.

  Sheila Roberts

  A Little Christmas Spirit

  For Sammy, with love.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  One Year Later

  Acknowledgments

  Reader’s Guide

  Discussion Questions

  1

  It was the sixth call in two days, all from the same person. Wouldn’t you think, if a man didn’t answer his phone the first five times, that the pest would get the message and quit bugging him?

  But no, and now Stanley Mann was irritated enough to pick up and say a gruff “Hello.” Translation: Why are you bugging me?

  “It’s about time you answered,” said his sister-in-law, Amy. “I was beginning to wonder if you were okay.”

  Of course, he wasn’t okay. He hadn’t been okay since Carol had died.

  “I’m fine. Thanks for checking.”

  The words didn’t come out with any sense of warmth or appreciation for her concern to encourage conversation, but Amy soldiered on. “Stan, we all want you to come down for Thanksgiving. You haven’t seen the family in ages.”

  Not since the memorial service, and he hadn’t really missed them. He liked his brother-in-law well enough, but his wife’s younger sister was a ding-dong, her daughters were drama queens and their husbands were idiots. The younger generation were all into their selfies and their jobs and their crazy vacations where they swam with sharks. Who in their right mind swam with sharks? He had better things to do than subject himself to spending an entire day with them.

  He did have enough manners left to thank Amy for the invite before turning her down.

  “You really should come,” she persisted.

  No, he shouldn’t.

  “Don’t you want to see the new great-niece?”

  No, he didn’t. “I’ve got plans.”

  “What? To hole up in the house with a turkey frozen dinner?”

  “No.” Not turkey. He hated turkey. It made him sleepy.

  “You know Carol would want you to be with us.”

  He’d been with them pretty much every Thanksgiving of his married life. He’d paid his dues.

  “You don’t have any family of your own.”

  Thanks for rubbing it in. He’d lost his brother ten years earlier to a heart attack, and both his parents were gone now as well. He and Carol had never had any kids of their own.

  But he was fine. He was perfectly happy in his own company.

  “I’m good, Amy. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I can’t help it. You know, Carol was always afraid that if something happened to her you’d become a hermit.”

  Hermits were scruffy old buzzards with bad teeth and long beards who hated people. Stanley didn’t hate people. He just didn’t need to be around them all the time. There was a difference. And he wasn’t scruffy. He brushed his teeth. And he shaved...every once in a while.

  “Amy, I’m fine. Don’t worry. Happy Thanksgiving, and tell Jimmy he can have my share of the turkey,” Stanley said, then ended the call before she could grill him further regarding those plans he’d said he had.

  They were perfectly good plans. He was going to pick up a frozen pizza and watch something on TV. That sure beat driving all the way from Fairwood, Washington, to Gresham, Oregon, to be alternately bored and irritated by his in-laws. If Amy really wanted to do something good for him, she could leave him alone.

  At first everyone had. He was a man in mourning. Then came COVID-19, and he was a senior self-quarantining. Now, however, it appeared he was supposed to be ready to party on. Well, he wasn’t.

  Two days before Thanksgiving he made the one-mile journey to the grocery store, figuring he’d dodge the crowd. He’d figured wrong, and the store was packed with people finishing up the shopping for their holiday meal. The turkey supply in the meat freezer was running dangerously low, and half a dozen women and a lone man crowded aro
und it like miners at the river’s edge, searching for gold, each trying to snag the best bird from the selection that remained. A woman rolled past him with a mini-mountain of food in her cart, a wailing toddler in the seat and two kids dragging along behind her, one of them pointing to the chips aisle and whining.

  “I said no,” she snapped. “We don’t need chips.”

  Nope. That woman needed a stiff drink.

  Stanley grabbed his pizza and some pumpkin ice cream and got in the checkout line.

  Two men around his age stood in front of him, talking. “They’re out of black olives,” said the first one. “I got green instead.”

  The second man shook his head. “Your wife ain’t gonna like that. Everyone knows you got to have black olives at Thanksgiving.”

  “I can’t help it if there’s none left on the shelves. Anyway, the only one who eats ’em is her brother, and the loser can suck it up and do without.”

  Yep, family togetherness. Stanley wasn’t going to miss that.

  He’d miss being with Carol, though. He missed her every day. Her absence was an ache that never left him, and resentment kept it ever fresh.

  They’d reached what was often referred to as the Golden Circle, that time in life when you had enough money to travel and enjoy yourself, when your health was still good and you could carry your own luggage. They’d enjoyed traveling and had planned on doing so much more together—taking a world cruise, renting a beach house in California for a summer, even going deep-sea fishing in Mexico. Their golden years were going to be great.

  Those golden years turned to brass the day she died. She didn’t even die of cancer or a stroke or something he could have accepted. She was killed in a car accident. A drunk driver in a truck had done her in and walked away with nothing more than some bruises from his airbag. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair. And Stanley didn’t really have anything to be thankful about. He didn’t like Thanksgiving.

  There would be worse to follow. After Thanksgiving it would be Merry Christmas!, Happy Hanukkah!, Happy Kwanzaa!, you name it. All that happy would finally get tied up in a big Happy New Year! bow. As if buying a new calendar magically made everything better. Well, it didn’t.

  Stanley spent his Thanksgiving Day in lonely splendor, watching football on TV and eating his pizza. It’s not delivery. It’s DiGiorno. Worked for him. He ate two-thirds of it before deciding he should pace himself. Got to save room for dessert. Pumpkin ice cream—just as good as the traditional pie and whipped cream, and it didn’t come with any irritating in-laws. Ice cream was the food of the gods. After his pizza, he pulled out a large bowl, filled it and dug in.

  When they got older, Carol had turned into the ice cream police, limiting his consumption. She’d pat his belly and say, “Now, Manly Stanley, too much of that and you’ll ending up looking like a big, fat snowman. Plus you’ll clog your arteries, and that’s not good. I don’t want to risk losing you.”

  Ironic. He’d wound up losing her instead.

  Between all the ice cream and the beer he’d been consuming with no one to police him, he was starting to look a little like Frosty the Snowman. (Before he melted.) But who cared? He got himself a second bowl of ice cream.

  He topped it off with a couple of beers and a movie along with some store-bought cookies. There you go. Happy Thanksgiving.

  For a while, anyway. Until everything got together in his stomach and began to misbehave. He shouldn’t have eaten so much. Especially the pizza. He really couldn’t do spicy now that he was older. Telling everyone down there that all would soon be well, he took a couple of antacids.

  No one down there was listening, and all that food had its own Turkey Day football game still going in his gut when he went to bed. He tossed and turned and groaned until, finally, he fell into an uneasy sleep.

  “Pepperoni and sausage?” scolded a voice in his ear. “You know better than to eat that spicy food, Stanley.”

  “I know, I know,” he muttered. “You’re right, Carol.”

  Carol! Stanley rolled over and saw his wife standing by the side of his bed. She was wearing the black nightie he always loved to see her in. And then out of. Her eyes were as blue as ever. How he’d missed that sweet face!

  But what was she doing here?

  He blinked. “Is it really you?” He thought he’d never see her again in this lifetime, but there she was. His heart turned over.

  “Yes, it’s really me,” she said.

  She looked radiant and so kissable, but that quickly changed. Suddenly, her body language wasn’t very lovey-dovey. She frowned and put her hands on her hips, a sure sign she was about to let him have it.

  “What were you thinking?” she demanded.

  He didn’t have to ask what she was referring to. He knew.

  “It’s Thanksgiving. I was celebrating,” he said.

  She frowned. “All by yourself.”

  “I happen to like my own company. You know that.”

  “There’s liking your own company, and there’s hiding.”

  “I am not hiding,” he insisted.

  “Yes, you are. I gave you time to mourn, time to adjust, but enough is enough. Life is short, Stanley. It’s like living off your savings. Each day you take another withdrawal, and pretty soon there’s nothing left. You have to spend those days wisely. You’re wasting yours, dribbling away the last of your savings.”

  “That’s fine with me,” he insisted. “I hate my life.”

  He hated waking up to find her side of the bed empty and ached for her smile. Without her the house felt deserted. He felt deserted.

  “You still like ice cream, don’t you?” she argued.

  Except for when he paired it with pizza.

  “Stanley, you need to get out there and...live.”

  “What do you think I’m doing?” he grumped.

  “Going through the motions, hanging in limbo.”

  What else could she expect? “It’s not the same without you,” he protested.

  “Of course it’s not. But you’re still here, and you’re here for a reason. Don’t make what happened to me a double waste. Somebody snatched my life from me, and I wasn’t done with it. I want you to go on living for the both of us.”

  “How can I do that? This isn’t a life, not without you sharing it.”

  “It’s a different kind of life, that’s all.”

  It was a subpar, meager existence. “I miss you, Carol. I miss you sitting across from me at the breakfast table. I miss us doing things together and sitting together at night, watching TV. I miss...your touch.” He finished on a sob.

  “I know.” She sat down on the bed next to him, and he couldn’t help noticing how the blankets didn’t shift under her. “But you have to start filling those empty places, Stanley.”

  “I don’t want to,” he cried. “I don’t want to.”

  He was still muttering “I don’t want to” when he woke up.

  Alone. For a moment there, her presence had felt so real.

  “She wasn’t there at all, you dope,” he muttered.

  Except why was there a faint scent of peppermint in the bedroom? It made him think of the chocolate Christmas cookies she used to make with the mint-candy frosting and sprinkles on them. After a few big sniffs, he couldn’t detect so much as a whiff of peppermint and shook his head in disgust. Indigestion and memory. That was all she was.

  2

  Stanley first saw Carol Barrett at a car show, eating a corn dog and checking out a 1954 Thunderbird. He was a gawky nineteen-year-old, and she was a vision in a red top and white hot pants that showed off the most gorgeous pair of tanned legs on the planet. She had full lips and blond hair that fell straight to her shoulders. She wore sunglasses so he couldn’t see her eyes, but he was willing to bet they were as gorgeous as her lips.

  Those lips were smiling
, giving away a hint of dimples. He bet she smiled a lot.

  She was with another girl and a guy. The girl’s hair was almost the same blond as hers. Similar round face and slender body. Sisters? The guy was dark-haired and looked like a water heater with a head. Probably not related. A boyfriend, then? Say it ain’t so.

  Stanley’s friend Walt elbowed him. “Check that out.”

  From the expression on Walt’s face, Stanley knew he wasn’t talking about the Thunderbird. Cars were cool. Who didn’t love cars, especially muscle cars? But girls beat cars by a mile. And this woman beat cars by about a million.

  Was she stuck-up? In Stanley’s experience most cute girls were. They didn’t bother with average guys. They went for the class president or the captain of the football team or valedictorian.

  Stanley had been neither. He’d done okay in high school, especially in shop. And math. But history? It was all about memorizing dates. Who did what and when. He hadn’t cared. And English? He hadn’t been interested in reading most of those books his teachers assigned. Lord of the Flies had been pretty okay, but he’d much preferred novels by Ian Fleming and Dean Koontz to those other long-winded books full of flowery words his teachers had wanted him to try to digest. Anyway, reading was for camping trips, when you read in the tent by flashlight. As for grammar, what did he care about diagramming sentences, about verbs and adverbs and adjectives?

  Except now. Adjectives. How to describe this girl? Eye-popping, heart-stopping. Then another adjective came to mind: unattainable.

  He knew that word because for him it had applied to just about every girl he’d liked all through high school. He’d never mastered the easy charm so many other guys seemed to have. Walt was always giving him pointers on what to say to girls. Good stuff, but the words usually got stuck at the back of Stanley’s mouth. He was much more comfortable hanging out with his pals, working on cars or shooting some hoops, or racing on the viaduct on a Friday night than trying to impress a girl.

  This girl was different. He already wanted to impress her in the worst kind of way.

  “Man, oh, man, wouldn’t you like to have that girl riding shotgun with you?” Walt said.