Chapter 2: CHAPTER TWO

The Accidental Invitation.

Cullen Murdock had made a big mistake. He should have never returned to Hidden Mountain. Memories of this place had shaped his life, some good and some bad. Mostly bad. Add to that, he’d made some impulsive decisions recently. Something he rarely did. He was always concise, focused, driven, and sure.

Now he wasn’t so sure. Now he had to refocus.

One, he wanted to get on with the project he’d been planning here for years. He’d start on it right after the New Year.

And two, he hated spending Christmas alone, but being here early to go over the details and scope of his project demanded he spend a few weeks back in Hidden Mountain. So he’d come up with a plan that didn’t involve a grand announcement but might provide him with a little Christmas cheer.

He’d invited selected guests to spend part of the coming holiday with him at the lodge. Sure, it had been a strange plan, but his employees knew he was a bit eccentric. They also knew he was a self-made millionaire. He’d learned early on that money talks. Which caused him to trust very few people. He’d planned his idea down to the time, the place, and the people. Only the few people here whom he’d carefully studied and wanted to see.

Now he was walking the streets of Hidden Mountain again. This time in an expensive coat and a nice sweater. Back and ready to make his mark on the town that had shunned him and seen him as invisible, as someone down-and-out and without any hope. As someone who’d had to beg for odd jobs to keep his ailing grandmother alive.

A few people had seen the good in him and some of those people still lived here. If they’d picked up on the clues in his invitation, then he’d see them soon.

And that brought him to number three: the woman he’d seen earlier.

The same woman who’d found one of his invitations literally falling at her feet on the sidewalk. He didn’t know her, but he’d seen her earlier as she rushed out of a women’s boutique and gotten into her car. He’d immediately noticed the attractive, wild, golden-brown mane of hair flowing around her. But he’d also noticed the anger in her strut. Then he’d witnessed her having a fit as she tried to destroy her steering wheel with her fists. He’d been a bit amused until he’d seen the tears falling down her face. Sobbing. She’d started sobbing.

That, along with her long curly hair and interesting green eyes, had stayed with him. He wanted to know what had made her have that hissy fit.

But he’d had business to take care of, so he hadn’t caved to the need to go to the woman and ask her if she was all right. He’d always tried to take care of women—starting with his alcoholic mother and ending with his sweet, helpless grandmother.

This woman, however, struck him as the kind who might have told him where to go, so he’d put aside his built-in protector need and kept walking.

And he’d purposely wound up on Mountain Avenue. One of the most historical, most prestigious streets in town.

When he’d found out the Cearley house could possibly be for sale, he’d chuckled. The very house he’d walked this street to see might be on the market. The Cearley house had represented everything he didn’t have, growing up on the outskirts of Hidden Mountain with his kind grandmother and his horrible grandfather. He’d worked at the Cearley house, in the yards and sometimes inside, doing handyman tasks during high school to make money. John James Cearley had been kind to him, even if Nadene Cearley had looked down her aristocratic nose at him. He’d become somewhat of a friend with Joshua James, their son. Josh, as everyone called him, had given Cullen some tips on how to better himself. He’d listened and followed those tips, and now he could afford any house he wanted. But Cullen was a couple years older and had dropped out, so the friendship had never gone beyond the Cearley’s backyard. Where was Josh now, he wondered.

And now, four, he really wanted the Cearley house. Because he remembered Nadene’s one conversation with him. “My son is a good boy, and I won’t have you influencing him. He’s only being kind to you because he’s been brought up to tolerate those of lesser status, you understand?”

Cullen had understood perfectly. Nadene Cearley believed herself to be better than him. And she’d probably been right at the time.

He couldn’t imagine having a house like that back then.

Now, he could easily buy the house three times over.

He wanted the house. He planned to make an offer today. He knew it had good bones, knew it had a history.

But he’d run into a problem.

He also wanted to know this woman better.

Until he’d watched her take the flyer and the dog into the Cearley house. The house he’d just decided to buy.

Obviously, she lived there. And obviously, she’d found his invitation by mistake—the invitation he’d meant for Mrs. Nadene Cearley, Old lady Cearley—because he wanted her to see his success. He wanted the woman who’d warned him away from her all-around-good-guy son to see that her son had helped Cullen become the man he was today. And he also wanted to see her surprise and humility when the Realtor told her who’d made the highest bid on her house. But knowing Nadene Cearley, she’d come to his little get-together only to let everyone there hear her opinion, if she even bothered to come.

Now, he wasn’t sure if Mrs. Cearley still lived there. Maybe his source had gotten things wrong. Or maybe this woman was Mrs. Cearley. Married to Josh?

He didn’t remember her, so she could be a few years younger than Josh and him. He’d probably just missed her coming to high school the year he dropped out.

Yep, he’d been impulsive and hadn’t vetted the Cearley family status like he had the others he’d invited to his little party. So not only had he missed the mark, but his invitation had clearly blown off the door where he’d left it and had floated out into the wind and right at Sobbing Woman’s feet.

A gift or . . . an accidental invitation to a woman who’d intrigued him? Cullen believed in fate and faith.

It must have slipped away from where he’d rolled it up and hurriedly shoved it through the door handle. He’d then walked a block and turned to the other side of the street to see if anyone came to the door.

But she had noticed him first, and then she’d picked up the invitation. He’d started walking, but he’d glanced back to see her with it. Would she show up?

What should he do now? The woman selling the house he wanted might show up at the Christmas gathering he’d planned for only a few choice people.

Would that mess with his carefully calculated plans? This beautiful woman might need a break from Christmas too. Either way, she’d just thrown a huge monkey wrench into his plans.

Which made him remember one of the rules Josh Cearley had taught him. Never let them see you sweat.

“I’m okay, girl. Really.”

Veronica patted Lulu’s furry head and smiled down at her sweet dog. Lulu’s brown eyes followed her, waiting. One day after she’d bought the purse and stormed out of Marcy’s boutique, Veronica still simmered with pain and humiliation.

“It will all work out.”

Today, she’d received some “Thinking of you” type Christmas cards. So, word had gotten out, obviously. The whole town had heard she’d had a moment, beating up her steering wheel while that intriguing stranger stood watching. Her knuckles were bruised from that episode. She prayed no one would show up with a funeral casserole. She never wanted to see another frozen casserole in her life.

This morning, after attempting to string some lights on the porch, she sat at the kitchen counter and stared at the flyer she’d found.

The X-Mas Club.

Two days from now.

Did she dare go?

She’d do almost anything to mend this riff with her daughter. She missed Elle, and she missed how they used to laugh together while they watched Gilmore Girls and New Girl.

Deciding to sell the house had been her first move. Maybe going to a different kind of Christmas gathering would help her even more. Could she find someone else ready to rebel and toss off all the tinsel?

“Will you go with me?” she asked Lulu. “I mean, in case this is a scam. You could be my guard dog.”

Lulu fell on the kitchen floor and begged for a belly rub.

Veronica pushed at her hair and then patted her dog. “Okay, maybe not a guard dog, but a companion. With teeth, at least.”

She sipped her coffee and glanced at the few boxes of ornaments she’d taken from the attic, then she reread Elle’s message again, the flyer still clutched in her hand.

Her friends avoided her these days.

Her daughter ignored her and left her harsh messages.

And she’d had a horrible moment in the town boutique, in front of everyone, including a stranger.

Definitely no longer the hostess with the most-est, no longer the go-to mom for fun times, no longer the friend always ready with coffee and advice, she’d become invisible, unneeded, uninvolved. Detached and distant.

Veronica heated her cold coffee and fed her faithful dog.

Then she glanced out the window at the houses along Mountain Avenue. Old and established, with big, wide porches and mushrooming live oaks and old-growth magnolias, with camellias, gardenias, and azaleas to frame them, these homes were some of the most exclusive in town. Historical and modern at the same time, steeped in tradition like pearls on Sunday, heavy on nostalgia, but as unyielding as the Spanish moss that clung to the deep-rooted old oaks.

Some of these homes had been in families for generations, while others had been bought and renovated to keep them truly historical but chic, of course.

“The most prestigious spot in town.” One of her friends had beamed as she moved in her Ikea and Wayfair furnishings. “I love it here. Don’t you?”

“Not anymore,” she mumbled now. She had loved it once, but it was connected to a past she couldn’t bring back. She had to sell this house and make a fresh start. Somehow.

While she loaded the few dishes in the dishwasher, she remembered the first time Josh had brought her here to meet his family. They’d turned the corner and she’d seen this street in a different light. It had never been part of her life before Josh had accidentally knocked her backpack off her shoulder the first day of his senior year in high school. She’s noticed him, of course, so she’d made the most of his clumsiness.

The house where he’d grown up glistened like a giant yellow cupcake.

“They won’t approve of me,” she’d said. “I grew up on Trail Street. As in, end of the trail.” Small cracker-box houses, side by side, in Blue Collar Land, with the train tracks out behind them.

“They’ll love you,” he insisted, his brown eyes full of hope, his dark hair unruly and wild. “They’ve known of you since you were born.”

“Exactly. I’m not your type. I don’t have a lineage or a pedigree. I’ll barely have a college education since I have to attend community college, not the University of Georgia. They know all of that and . . . we didn’t exactly run in the same social circles in high school until we started dating. I still have a year left, you know. Your mom will make sure you meet a sorority sister and get engaged to her immediately.”

“None of that matters now. I love you and you’re going to be my wife. We’ll live here one day.”

She looked down at the dress she’d found on clearance at Belk’s. “My dress is off the rack. The clearance rack.”

“Don’t most dresses come off a rack sooner or later?”

He always made her laugh, always made her feel special. Joshua James Cearley had been her rock. And Adam Jay Cearley, her sweet, brown-eyed ten-year-old son, had been her heart. Elle still had her heart, but Veronica had made a mess of that thinly threaded relationship.

This beautiful old house had never really been her home. She’d lived here in the shadow of all the Cearleys who’d come before her. She’d tried to make it a home for her family. Now it was her prison.

“We have to get away from here, Lulu,” she said, realizing she’d been stuck in a time warp of waiting. She should pack a bag and get in her car and go somewhere warm and sunny.

Or she could go to Atlanta and find her radio-silent daughter and try to mend that broken cord. They’d once been so close, but grief messed with people’s heads and made them not so much fun to be around.

“I think we should go to this meeting—if it’s really a meeting. I need something different this year, something to keep my mind off not having Elle at home. My little girl, engaged to be married. I can’t miss that.”

Lulu woofed and trotted toward the front door. Her companion never knew what the mood might be.

“You need out?”

Well, so did she. In oh, so many ways. She should have made a change long ago. She only prayed it wasn’t too late now.

Giving Lulu a rub and a hug, she said, “Let’s go for our walk. Then I’ll decide about going to the X-Mas Club, even if I did come by my invitation accidentally.”