Love Lost And Found: A Holiday Romance Read online

  Chapter 1: Homecoming and Venison

  Lara inhaled the crisp, gray November air. It hadn’t snowed in central Texas and probably wouldn’t, but there was an unmistakable sense of winter in the atmosphere. Years in the Northwest had accustomed her to far harsher winters, and she had worried that she was overdressing. But now she was glad that she had worn her fur-lined parka. She had left her mittens in her suitcase, however, so she kept her hands shoved deep into her pockets, relishing the warmth of the faux fur around her fingers.

  There it was, the house where she had grown up, a hulking white monstrosity of additions with a broken fridge on the porch waiting for a dump trip. That fridge had broken last year before she visited for Christmas, and still sat there, a tall white eyesore. Her aunt and uncle were getting too old to do things like haul fridges to the dump. But they were also notoriously forgetful. She made a mental note to help them get rid of it sometime this week.

  As a teenager, she had been so ashamed of this house. She had also been so ashamed of the beaten blue Suburban in the driveway. She used to make her uncle drop her off a few blocks away from school so that no one would tease her. When she snuck away to big parties in Austin or even when she went away to college in San Antonio, she was always ashamed to admit where she came from, a poor small Texas town, out of fear that people might think she was some kind of redneck.

  But now, her heart swelled with gratitude and affection. It had been eight years since she had moved out, and she had never imagined how much she would miss this place over those years. Even the tiny town, with its pitifully small downtown of brick shops and creaky older Southern houses, struck a nostalgic chord in her chest. Without even knowing it, the best times of her life had happened here.

  She gulped, and then paid the taxi driver and began to run toward her childhood home.

  “Is it Lara?!” Lara could hear the nearly hysterical excitement in Aunt Lynn’s voice in response to the doorbell.

  “Nope,” she called.

  Aunt Lynn practically ripped off the chain as she fought open the door. “Lara!” she squealed.

  Lara jumped into her aunt’s wide-open arms. “Aunt Lynn!” she cried. The back of her nose burned with tears of joy.

  “Was your trip long?” Aunt Lynn asked as she slowly released Lara. She surveyed Lara with concerned eyes, probing each angle of Lara’s body to make sure that she looked like she was healthy and eating enough. “There are bags under your eyes. You look so tired.”

  “Don’t worry, it was just a long flight. I’m fine. The guy next to me wouldn’t stop talking about his divorce. It got a little wearying.”

  “Well come get some tea. Your uncle is out back, grilling. He shot a nice big buck this year.”

  Lara suppressed a groan. Every year, her aunt and uncle fed her venison until she was swore she would never touch it again for the rest of her life. Yet next year, she inevitably was forced to eat it again. She couldn’t very well be rude and not eat the food that her uncle was so proud of providing.

  They went out onto the crooked back porch, where Uncle Joey stood in a short-sleeve stained shirt, smoke billowing around him from the huge black grill he had spent nearly a grand on. That grill was one of his greatest prides and joys in the world. He was tending a row of charred venison flanks with a massive blackened spatula in one hand, and he held a can of Bud Lite in the other.

  “Lara!” He embraced her, still holding the beer and the spatula. His face was red from the heat of the grill and he smelled like charcoal smoke and charred meat. That smell was so familiar that it brought an overpowering surge of nostalgia into Lara’s throat.

  “How are you, Uncle?” she asked.

  “Pretty darn good, now that you’re here. Making some meat for dinner! You hungry yet?”

  “Starving,” Lara said. She had been tempted to get Italian in Austin after her flight, but she knew better. Aunt Lynn and Uncle Joey always kept her stuffed when she visited.

  “Look at this beauty,” Uncle Joey said proudly, leading her into his man cave in the garage. He gestured toward the newest stag mounted on his wall, above the dorm fridge where he kept his beer.

  The once-graceful creature craned its slender gold neck at Lara from its wooden mount and appealed to her sympathy with its forlorn glass eyes. Her stomach turned. Uncle Joey’s passion for displaying stuffed dead animals on his wall had never appealed to her sensitive nature. As a kid, she had been afraid of his “man cave” and had had nightmares about the creatures coming alive at night and stalking the walls of the house. The house’s inherent creakiness had not helped distill her terrifying nighttime visions. Even as a teenager, she had avoided the room. She had always been more interested in drawing in sketch books with flowery covers and doing arts and crafts at school and drinking coffee in peaceful cafes, not the more rural pastimes of her hometown like hunting, four-wheeling, and fishing.

  The only thing that had changed about Uncle Joey was that he had gained a few. Also he now drank light beer. Before he had been a Budweiser man. Lara suspected that Aunt Lynn was behind all of that. She was also probably behind the weights collecting dust in the corner of the man cave, the only healthy thing in the old garage. Uncle Joey’s man cave had always been a cluttered and musty den of tools, beaten couches with the stuffing coming out, old chip bags, and middle-aged men watching football and eating junk food with their beers.

  “That’s nice, Uncle Joey,” Lara said. “I’m going back inside now.”

  Back in the kitchen, Aunt Lynn handed her a tall glass of sweet tea. She was busy making potato salad while watching a home improvement show on the little TV mounted on her counter. Lara began to help her.

  “You know who I saw the other day? Kyle Brennan. He was at the HEB with his mother,” Aunt Lynn said. “I heard he just got a divorce and is in town for a while.”

  Lara rolled her eyes. “I practically forgot all about him.”

  “He was a good boy.”

  “No he wasn’t, Aunt Lynn.”

  “I know he broke your heart. But you two would’ve been a great match.”

  “The only good thing about him was his family. He made me feel horrible about myself.”

  “You shouldn’t hold a grudge this long, Carly. It’s not healthy,” Aunt Lynn said.

  “I don’t have a grudge. I’m just over it. Over him. That was back in high school. I have no feelings for him whatsoever anymore.” Lara surprised herself by realizing that that was the truth. She had spent her entire freshman year at UTSA grieving their break-up. It had been a wound that had closed very gradually as she had developed a better sense of self-worth over the years. Now it was finally closed and she didn’t even feel a prick of pain thinking about the jerk that had used her and dumped her the summer after high school.

  Oddly, even after all he had done to Lara, Aunt Lynn still adored him. After all, he was good-looking and the son of the wealthiest family in town. His dad owned the local golf course. He had certainly been a good catch, at least on paper, for someone who had grown up poor.

  But it was that kind of thinking that had made Lara hang onto him for months despite how awful he was to her. She had pined for him all through high school and when he began to take her out after graduation, she had felt that he was a gift from God. It had taken her a while to realize he really wasn’t the one that got away. Now if only Aunt Lynn would reach the same revelation.

  Aunt Lynn sighed and shook her head. “You always were stubborn. You get that from your mom.” She scraped scallions into the bowl. “You know who else I saw? Cassie Cramer. She’s having another baby.”

  “Yeah, this time she thinks it’ll be a little
girl,” Lara said. “At least, she hopes so.”

  “I would too. Two boys? Way too much.” Aunt Lynn rolled her eyes and groaned. “Anyway, she said she was staying here all Thanksgiving and would love to see you.”

  Cassie Cramer. Lara had to suppress a bittersweet smile as she recalled stumbling out of her bedroom window and trudging down the street to sneak away in Cassie’s bright yellow VW bug. They had gone to so many parties together. And held each other’s hair after those parties. How surprised Lara had been to learn that her aunt and uncle had known exactly what she had been up to. She and Cassie had thought they were so sneaky and clever.

  Cassie had always been the funniest person in class, with her freckles and her smart-alecky smirk. Over the years, however, Cassie had ended up staying in this town while Lara went on to Seattle. They were Facebook friends still, but they hardly ever spoke. They just didn’t relate anymore. Cassie was still married to Wyatt Holt, who was exactly the kind of guy that Lara had hated growing up. Though she sometimes spoke about divorce, two months ago she had announced that she was pregnant with Holt #4. So clearly divorce was not happening anytime soon.

  But now maybe they could meet this time. They hadn’t been able to during Lara’s past few visits because Cassie was always in Odessa, visiting Wyatt’s family. Lara relished the idea of seeing her old friend and meeting Cassie’s little boy. She had only met him once as a baby and seen pictures of him on Facebook. He was like Cassie’s mini-me.

  Who would have guessed that this would be where Cassie would end up? And Lara herself? Eight years had not felt very long, but it ultimately had proved to be. So many changes had occurred. Such as how Lara had gotten over Kyle, despite once thinking that she never, ever would.

  Really, Lara was surprised how far she had come since high school. She felt like an entirely different person. Every visit home created a strange and slightly pleasant dissonance within her, where she felt more like her teenage self yet she also became acutely aware of how much she had grown. Now she was a sold twenty-six, still unmarried but with a great career with a publishing company. She no longer had the tacky beach blonde highlights of her teen years, but rather an attractive brunette ombre that suited her coloring well and cost her nearly three hundred a month to keep up. She also no longer bothered with nails, something that she had loved to go get down with her aunt Lynn whenever they could afford it in high school.

  Uncle Joey brought in the venison heaped on platters. Aunt Lynn got out her electric meat cutter and started sawing the flanks. Lara had to admit that it smelled good.

  “So is gramma cooking her infamous turkey again?” Lara asked.

  Aunt Lynn cracked up. “We already got one in the pit out back. It’s been roasting for a day now and we’ll take it out Thanksgiving morning. We’re making it the right way. Gramma didn’t seem too upset when we told her.”

  “Really?” Lara was shocked.

  “It’s what makes the holidays for her,” Uncle Joey said grimly. He had been the one who had suffered the most from Gramma’s annual turkey mishaps. He had suffered weeks of food poisoning a few years ago. They had even had to take him to the ER, to make sure all the vomiting didn’t dehydrate him. The incident had been horrible, but it had become an inside joke by now.

  With the potato salad done and the venison grilled, they were ready for dinner. It had been nearly a year since they had all sat down around the enormous dining room table together. A shoddy chandelier with more cobwebs than crystals hung over the table, throwing orbs of rainbow light all over the little dining room. Lara used to be mesmerized by that chandelier as a little kid. It was one of the first things she remembered about her aunt and uncle’s house when she first moved there when she was just seven. It had made her feel like a princess, even though the grief of losing her mother.

  “I’ll say grace,” Uncle Joey said.

  They all linked hands and bowed their hands in reverence. Uncle Joey’s meaty paw and Aunt Lynn’s small, cold palm made Lara feel so connected to the Lord.

  “We want to thank you, Lord, for blessing our bodies with the food before us. And we want to thank you for delivering Lara safe to us, once again, for one more Thanksgiving. You have taken care of us, Lord, and we are so grateful. Bless our food and bless our bodies. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Lara and Aunt Lynn echoed.

  “This is so good,” Lara lied as she sank her teeth into a chunk of Uncle Joey’s meat. The gamey taste of the venison was so wearisome to her. But then she thought of his prayer, and remembered gratitude. At least she was here, safe, enjoying another Thanksgiving with her family. Not everyone was so lucky. She really wouldn’t have it any other way. She wouldn’t even trade the venison for a Thanksgiving without her family around her. Her only wish was that her mom could be there.

  After dinner, they gathered around the TV to watch movies. Aunt Lynn wedge the massive blue popcorn bowl between her thigh and Lara’s. As Lara popped the insatiable caramel popcorn into her mouth, she smiled.

  It was good to be home. Away from the hustle of the city. Away from the complications of being an adult. Away from work and her single life, painting and drinking wine alone in her apartment with her cat or attending swanky martini bars with her friends in a vague, now practically nonexistent, hope of finding some good man who would fall in love with her at first.

  Chapter 2

  Lara woke up confused. Not about where she was, but rather how old she was. She felt fifteen again for a few seconds, staring up at the familiar brown water stain on her ceiling and stretching the bottoms of her feet flat against her baseboard.

  For a minute, she considered that maybe she really wasn’t an accomplished twenty-six-year-old home for Thanksgiving. Rather, all of that had been part of a long and complex dream. Really, a pathetic dream. If eight years of her life could be summed up in that few memories, then hopefully all those years really had been part of a dream. She thought of movies like Big and Thirteen Going on Thirty and considered what if that had really happened to me?

  Then she noticed the enormous, cluttered monstrosity of a desk that her aunt Lynn had placed in her old room in an attempt to make it an office. Aunt Lynn had not touched the bed, leaving it for guests, but she had taken down all of Lara’s pretty posters and flower painting and the glow-in-the-dark stars that Lara had pasted onto her celling and halfway down her walls.

  Nope, Lara really was twenty-six and none of it had been a dream and it was time to meet the day. In early morning retrospect, Lara’s life seemed a little sad, but honestly it really wasn’t so bad, she reminded herself. At least she had finished college, moved to an exciting city, and actually done something with her creative personality by getting a job in graphic design. And some of her little paintings were on display at a coffeehouse downtown, not that anyone had bought any of them. But at least someone thought they were good enough to hang on the chic brick walls of the establishment, where hundreds of college students and artists and other trendy patrons saw them a day.

  How funny, feeling like her fifteen-year-old self again. What a great book idea. Maybe when it came time for her to write her memoirs, she would write it as if her whole life had been a mere dream, and she was just a teenager sleeping in her same bed. At least she could embellish her story with some more exciting things, though, like international travel. Skydiving. At least having a decent boyfriend, rather than the sad array of dates that had led her to basically give up on dating altogether.

  Lara turned on her phone.

  There was a Facebook message from Cassie. “Hey girl! Heard you were in town. You better come see me. I’m here all week! Whoot!”

  Today was a good day to go see Cassie. With a grin, Lara ran downstairs to have coffee with her aunt and let her know that she was going to see Cassie.

  Before going to Cassie’s, though, they decided to visit a pumpkin patch near the house so that Aunt Lynn could pick out the perfect pumpkin to make into her famous pumpkin pies. Aunt Lynn’s pies truly were a
mazing, full of spice and buttery sweetness, with a Graham cracker crust to add more sweetness.

  The pumpkin patch was full of huge pumpkins, perfect for Halloween. Lara sat on one and watched as Aunt Lynn and Uncle Joey argued about which ones to get for the pies. Aunt Lynn was very particular and never appreciated Uncle Joey’s input on the matter.

  The trees were now starting to change to brown and dead leaves clumped among the big bright orange pumpkins. The afternoon was warm enough for Lara to get away with just her college hoodie. It was amazing that she still had the thing, since the edges of the sleeves were frayed and there was a hole in the seam under her armpit. She still drug it out every year for mild days like this, however.

  Aunt Lynn found two pumpkins that seemed fat enough to use for her pies. She could tell that they had a lot of pulp and flesh in them because of the dull thud they made when she whacked them with her fist. “I’m telling you, you should have gotten that one pumpkin. It was really fat,” Uncle Joey told her, but she just dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

  “I’ve been doing this since I was a small girl,” she said.

  The farmer charged them for the pumpkins. “How about them Cowboys?” he asked Uncle Joey, and they both laughed before launching into football talk.

  “Can we go?” Aunt Lynn finally interrupted. She and Lara were carrying the chosen pumpkins, their backs stooping under the weight. The pumpkins looked small but they sure were heavy.

  “All right, all right. Best not keep the ladies waiting. By the way, you should stop by my wife’s café.” He indicated the little trailer with a café sign over the door, sitting at the entrance to his pumpkin patch. “We got all things pumpkin.”

  Indeed, the sign in front of the café promised pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin pie and home-made pumpkin butter. “Everything pumpkin!” it declared in huge, curly block letter. Lara could not get enough of pumpkin spice. Fall was her favorite holiday, and pumpkin spice seemed to always transport her to that happy place of warmth and love and good memories of playing in leaves and standing by the woodstove when she was a child.