1
Christmas Season
North Texas
The house was to die for.
It was exactly what Amy Casey’s best friend, Julie Kleinhoff, had promised—a luxury lake house on the shore of Lake Texoma, with eight bedrooms and nine baths, a separate and cozy artist’s studio, a pool, a hot tub, a chef’s kitchen, stunning lake views, and Christmas trees in every room. Child-sized nutcrackers armed the entrance of the dining room, the living room, and the kitchen. Santa, his sleigh, and his nine reindeer were suspended from the ceiling in the great room in a manner that suggested they would land on the massive hearth at any moment.
Two beautiful wreaths hung on the double front doors, wood was stacked next to the enormous fireplace. Giant clumps of mistletoe, probably harvested from right outside, hung from every archway. Each room had a theme—cozy-cabin Christmas, festive beachy Christmas, old England Christmas. It was a holiday feast for the eyes and the spirit, and it was all for Amy, for two full weeks, at no cost. Two weeks that she could not possibly carve out of her busy life again, given the number of peoplein her family who relied on her for every little thing. Two weeks that she would have all this fabulousness to create art, painting the images of the beauty around her that lived in her head, experiencing the artist’s life she’d once dreamed about; to be someone other than mother/ex-wife/daughter/employee. To beall by herself. Well. Her dog, Duchess, had come. But Duchess was old and blind and practically deaf. She would sleep all day. So yes,all by herself, for the first time in years.
Julie knew that was important to Amy and had helped her plan this getaway. Julie’s family owned this luxury, so she could pull all the strings to make this magic happen for Amy.
So there was no way that a man should be standing in the kitchen.
Perhaps even more urgent, there was no way Amy was going to be able to fight him wearing a bathrobe as thick and cozy as a sheepskin rug, with her hair wrapped in a towel. Speaking of which, if she didn’t take that towel off and put some product in her hair in the next five minutes, it would dry frizzy and weird, and she could not have that. She had also decided to go for a bohemian vibe during her two-week retreat (more elastic, less underwire).
She folded her arms across her chest and said in her most authoritative tone (a tone that, let’s be honest, worked less and less on her family these days, but was all she had), “I’m not leaving.”
The man, whose name she had yet to learn, picked up one of the applesshe’dbrought and said, rather too calmly given the circumstance, “Neither am I.”
How had such a horrendous mistake been made? When Amy had first wandered into the kitchen and seen this tall, trim man in cargo shorts and a Houston Astros T-shirt and wearing his baseball hat backward, she’d been so startled, she’d shrieked. He had likewise been startled and at the very same moment, he’d yelped like someone had goosed him, and dropped the sandwich he was holding. “Oh no,” he said, staring down at it.
It was the sandwich that had thrown her off and kept her from lunging for a knife. She couldn’t imagine that someone intent on killing her or robbing the house would take the time to make a sandwich. Much less bend down to clean up the mess. She’d assumed he was a maintenance man. But before she could voiceherguess,heguessed that she was the housekeeper.
“Excuseme?”
“Okay,” he’d said, clearly excusing her.
Amy remembered in that moment that Ryan, her ex-husband, had urged her to bring a gun. “You need to protect yourself,” he’d said, hitching up his pants. “I’d protect you if I was going—”
“No chance,” she’d said with a side eye for him. “And you know how much I hate guns.”
“This is the thing about you, Amy. You lump all guns into a single category—”
“Goodbye, Ryan,” Amy had said. That was the great thing about being fifty-two, divorced, and menopausal—Amy didn’t feel nearly as compelled to stick around and give men a chance to mansplain like she had when she was younger. The moment Ryan started talking nonsense was the moment she started walking.
Back to this guy. “I don’t know what is going on here, but I have this house for two weeks.”
“So do I.” He put the remains of the sandwich in the trash.
“That’s not possible.Julielent it to me,” Amy said.
“I don’t know who Julie is, but Irentedit from Sam.”
And therein lay the problem. “Oh my God,” Amy said immediately. Sam was Julie’s sister, and together, they’d taken over the family lake house when their parents moved to a high-rise condominium in Dallas. The Kleinhoffs weren’t ready to give the place up—it still made for a great family staycation spot—but they didn’t like it sitting idle, either. Julie and Sam decided to list it on all the vacation house rental websitesin the new year. But Amy seemed to remember that Julie and Sam had argued about it, because Sam felt like they were leaving money on the table by waiting until the new year. Sam apparently had jumped the gun.
“I’ll get Sam on the phone right now, and we’ll clear this up,” the guy said, and pulled a phone from his shorts pocket.
“No, I’ll getJulieon the phone, and we’ll clear this up.” Amy grabbed her phone from the pocket of her robe. And then she and the man stood there, phones drawn, staring at each other.
“Who is Julie?” he asked after a moment.
“Sam’s sister.”
He stared some more. His brows dipped. “Are you suggesting that there has been some miscommunication in booking?”
“Obviously.” She pulled up Julie’s contact and hit the call button.
