Rebel Without a Claus Read online

  When Christian was in the elevator on the way up to his penthouse apartment, his phone buzzed and it was Holly again. ‘So, is the great Christian Thornton III returning to Mistletoe?’

  ‘You said it was about the inn?’ Christian replied. He was thinking about his plans to build that luxury hotel.

  ‘It’s about the inn, but that’s all I know. That and bring the fiancée.’

  Christian didn’t tell Holly that Magdalena would not be returning to Mistletoe with him. Holly hassled Christian, and when Holly hassled Christian, he gave in to stop her. It was better, therefore, to not tell Holly about Magdalena.

  ‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘Bring the fiancée.’

  ‘Why is the inn such a big thing with you?’ Holly said as one of her children screamed in the background. ‘Even before our parents died, you always hated that place.’

  Christian didn’t reply. Instead, he hung up the phone. This was the Thornton siblings’ little game, signing off without signing off. It was immature, but it made them both laugh.

  Besides, Christian didn’t want to tell Holly about the inn. How he planned to demolish the place and use the priceless land on which it stood to build a hotel. A hotel which would make Christian richer than his wildest dreams.

  Christian Thornton III already was richer than his wildest dreams, but no man, Christian believed, was ever too rich to become richer.

  Two

  Christian awoke the next morning feeling a curious sense of excitement. He wondered if Mistletoe had changed, even though he knew that Mistletoe had not changed—that the whole point of Mistletoe was the unchangingness of it all.

  He had begun the day in a good mood. Then his flight had been delayed for seven hours, and he’d spent the whole car ride to the Mistletoe town border sulking. This was why he didn’t fly commercial. This was why he focused on becoming richer and richer: so he didn’t have to fly commercial.

  He didn’t speak to the driver, whose name was Toby or maybe Jeff. So when the car pulled up to the Mistletoe sign, which featured a hand-painted image of Milleridge Inn, Christian felt a little uncomfortable asking why they had stopped. If only he’d formed some type of casual friendship with the driver, then he wouldn’t feel so stupid asking questions. Christian didn’t do stupid. It made him feel like his father.

  The driver apologized. He hadn’t realized Christian didn’t know.

  ‘Know what?’ Christian said.

  ‘There is an old bylaw in Mistletoe,’ Toby or maybe Jeff told him.

  ‘An old bylaw?’ Christian said, lacing his voice with annoyance.

  ‘From the first of December up until the day after Christmas, nobody is allowed to drive a car. You can only travel by sleigh on the roads.’

  Christian opened his mouth. Then he closed his mouth. Then he opened his mouth again and laughed. It was unpleasant, this laugh, and Christian knew it was unpleasant, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d forgotten about the bylaw! He! Christian! Who didn’t forget anything! He’d forgotten about the ridiculous sleighs!

  Christian tipped the driver while bemoaning Mistletoe’s ridiculous Christmas traditions. The driver agreed with him, even though the driver didn’t agree with him, because Christian was rich and could therefore tip very generously.

  ‘I’ll just put your bags here, Mr. Thornton,’ Toby or maybe Jeff said. ‘I hope you have a pleasant stay here in Mistletoe.’

  ‘I really do not see that happening,’ Christian muttered beneath his breath.

  Standing in line for a sleigh ride, Christian listened to mothers condescend to their mothers as he kept an ear out for that telltale jingle, the very same telltale jingle that filled him with burning shame. He had proposed to Clara on a sleigh, which meant she had rejected his proposal on a sleigh. Really, how could he have ever forgotten about this particular type of vehicular torture?

  After Christian hopped into the back of his sleigh, he sat with his head between his legs for the whole ride into town. How could he have forgotten? If Christian Thornton III was famous in Mistletoe for anything, it was how easily he became sleigh-sick.

  When they finally arrived in Mistletoe, he paid the driver, a man dressed as an elf, and then, when the sleigh vanished back the way they had come, he collapsed against a streetlight and tried his best to breathe. How could he have ever lived in such a place as Mistletoe? How could he have ever forfeited the very basic human right to dignified transportation each December, in order to sit red-faced and ashamed in a sleigh pulled by horses named Tater Trot and Maple Stirrup?

  ‘There’s Uncle Christian now.’

  Holly was approaching him with one child asleep in her arms and the other three trudging behind her. One of the middle children, George, threw himself in Christian’s arms. Then he said, ‘Uncle Christian, can we watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre tonight?

  ‘Sure,’ Christian said, because he didn’t care what his niece and nephews watched so long as they watched it in the other room, far away from him.

  ‘No,’ Holly said firmly. Instead of giving Christian a hug, she swatted him on the shoulder. ‘Hey, Marcia.’

  ‘Hey, Jan,’ Christian replied.

  George wasn’t happy. ‘But Uncle Christian said yes.’

  ‘Uncle Christian is ridiculous.’ Holly thought for a moment. ‘Only mommies get to call people ridiculous, Georgie. Come on, big brother. You’re probably eager to settle in and get unpacked.’

  ‘Have you met Boxer?’ Grace asked. She was the oldest of Holly’s children, and she was talking about the family dog. His name was Boxer because he was a boxer, and because Holly was never any good with names.

  ‘Not yet,’ Christian replied as he ruffled Grace’s hair. She was his favorite. Easily. He hoped if he were ever unfortunately cursed with children, that they would be girls.

  It was only a short walk to Milleridge Inn. With halls decked in wreaths of holly, twinkling trees in every room, and bells that jingled every hour, Milleridge was Mistletoe’s favorite inn.

  Before seeing the Relic, Christian hauled his bags upstairs to his room. His room smelled old, and the sheets smelled even older. He didn’t know why the Relic hadn’t torched the inn and claimed the insurance decades ago. That was the smart thing to do. But then, the Relic wasn’t smart. The Relic was sentimental, which meant she held onto things long after she should have stopped holding onto things. After all, she never remarried after the death of Christian’s great uncle, even though his great uncle was the worst.

  Thankfully, his great uncle had died twenty years ago. He entered the water on vacation and then did not return from the water, and when the police found bones seven months later, they were positively identified as the bones of Nicholas Thornton I.

  ‘Where is the Relic?’ Christian asked Holly as he emerged from his room. He hadn’t bothered to unpack. He didn’t want his expensive clothes tainted by the glitter which seemed to hang in the Mistletoe air.

  ‘She said she’ll see you later. She’s too tired to say hello just now,’ Holly said, and then she pointed out to Christian a recent photo.

  The Relic was eighty-two but didn't have a single wrinkle. She used cream from France and also she drank the blood of the innocent, probably. Her silver hair was piled on top of her head, and she wore titanic rubies that dangled off her earlobes, catching the winter light. She was small and squat, and she didn’t leave the attic for just anyone. But Christian was not just anyone. He was the heir, and together, they were the last Thorntons in Mistletoe. So it was strange that she was not here to greet him.

  ‘Sure,’ Christian muttered. ‘Holly, do you mind if I pop out for coffee? I haven’t seen Mistletoe in years and I wanted to go for a bit of an explore.’

  ‘We’ll follow you after I’ve made the Relic her dinner. If you get lost, just follow the candy cane road home,’ Holly added.

  Christian hoped she was being sarcastic.

  While Christian waited for his sleigh, because he was too tired to walk back into town, he called Ma
gdalena, who laughed at the things he said which were not funny and sighed at the things he said which were. He hung up in a bad mood.

  His mood didn’t improve when he arrived in town. It was too bright, with every tree twinkling and every store window lit golden from within. He stepped onto the sidewalk, debating where to get coffee, when a hand yanked him into a store.

  ‘Hey tall, dark, and moody.’

  It was Clara! Clara James! Christian felt somehow alive in a way that took him by complete surprise. He almost reached up to tuck a lock of blonde hair behind Clara’s ear until he remembered that this was no longer his lock of hair to tuck.

  Christian folded his arms. ‘James.’

  ‘I need to be your fiancée,’ Clara replied.

  This completely blindsided Christian. He took a step back and collided with a Christmas tree, showering the store and several tourists with glitter and tinsel and ornaments.

  ‘I know you have never loved Christmas, Thornton, but don’t you think attacking a Christmas tree is a bit much?’ Clara helped Christian to stand.

  ‘You attacked me! She attacked me!’ Christian called out to the surprise of the shoppers. Many of them edged away in fear. ‘You can’t just tell someone they need to be your fiancée. You don’t even have a ring.’

  Christian and Clara got down on their hands and knees and scrambled around the shop, collecting ornaments as they hissed at each other. It didn’t matter what they hissed. What mattered, Christian thought, was that the hissing felt good, like a release. When Christian firmly returned the angel to the top of the tree, Clara yanked him out of the store.

  ‘Make up your mind,’ he snarled.

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ Clara snapped in reply. ‘It’s this problem I have. Let’s go to that cafe.’

  Christian followed her into a cafe called Prancer’s, because this was Clara and following Clara into cafes named after one of Santa’s reindeer used to be Christian’s whole thing. When they settled in a booth, Christian ordered them a hot chocolate each and then waited for Clara to tell him the problem.

  The town of Mistletoe took Christmas very seriously. It was, after all, a town called Mistletoe. But no one in Mistletoe took Christmas more seriously than Clara James. The summer after forth grade, she’d bullied her friends into a letter writing campaign which would see Mistletoe host the highest ranking Santa many believed Mistletoe would ever host. Noah Schmidt. Rank: Thirty-Two.

  Back then, Clara had youth on her side. But she was thirty-three now, and her big rosy cheeks had deflated and faded. If she bullied a pack of twelve-year-olds into writing letters to a strange old man again, the outcome, she told Holly, who later told Christian, would be very different. And now one of her latest campaigns had ended when a Top Forty Santa called and told Clara that he needed travel expenses and would she transfer him five thousand dollars?

  As far as ideas go, this was terrible, but Clara saved and saved and sent away the money. Her name wasn’t Clara, you see. It was Gertrude. She’d legally changed her name after seeing The Nutcracker seven nights in a row as a child, and because who wants to be called Gertrude, really? So yes, Clara sent away five thousand dollars for a Top Forty Santa, and then that Top Forty Santa never showed, because he was a man named Larry committing identify theft.

  The real Top Forty Santa apologized and wrote to Clara, saying he could try to make an appearance the following Christmas, but Clara didn’t want a pity Santa. She wanted a Santa who would delight in bringing that Christmas cheer to Mistletoe. And it was this want that now brought Clara to Christian, in a cafe, her chatting away about why the town needed his family’s inn to remain his family’s inn, him certain that the town didn’t need the inn at all but humoring her because this was Clara!

  Clara James!

  He hadn’t seen her in fifteen years, and now she sat across from him, close enough to touch.

  ‘So you see, Thornton, we need the inn because the inn is ridiculously Christmas-y, and Top Ten Santas really go for that sort of traditional flair and I need a Top Ten Santa. I really need a Top Ten Santa.’

  ‘What number is this year’s Santa?’

  ‘Fifty-three.’

  ‘Not bad,’ Christian said thoughtfully.

  Clara banged her hot chocolate on the table. ‘Mistletoe is not a Top Sixty Santa town, Thornton. We can do better. We need to do better. We could do better, if I wasn’t the only one around here busting my butt to get things done. You know, the Relic will only leave you the inn if you have a fiancée.’

  Interesting. Christian raised an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t know this. But the real question is, how do you know this?’

  ‘I’m Clara James. I run this town. So, this is why I need to pretend to be your fiancée. I mean, that is, if you don’t already have one?’

  So Clara didn’t know about Magdalena, he realized. How could she unless Holly had told her, and it seemed as though Holly had for once kept her mouth shut. For a moment, Christian wanted to tell Clara, just to see if any pain registered in her eyes. But he couldn’t hurt Clara. Well, not to her face. Wasn’t that the entire reason he’d left Mistletoe without a goodbye all those years ago? Because he couldn’t handle rejecting her even after she’d rejected him?

  ‘Nope,’ Christian lied. ‘Holly thought I had a fiancée but she was wrong. I knew the Relic was expecting me to bring a fiancée home for Christmas, although I didn’t know why.’

  Was it his imagination, or did Clara look relieved? ‘Okay. Well. Whatever. I’m your fiancée now,’ she said.

  But something else had suddenly occurred to Christian. ‘Holly will get the inn if I don’t. Why does that bother you?”

  ‘You know what her husband is like,’ Clara said.

  ‘I do,’ Christian said. They’d met once at Holly’s wedding.

  Clara narrowed her eyes. ‘Oh, Thornton. Her husband will sell the inn as soon as he gets his grubby little hands on it. Do you know how much that land is worth? It’s ridiculous! The inn needs to go to you, so that the town can keep the inn. If the town keeps the inn, I have a shot of snagging a Top Santa.’

  Christian felt his heart pinch, if only a little. ‘Sure.’

  Someone cleared their throat. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Holly said. ‘Aw, it’s so nice to see you two together again.’

  ‘Thornton and I are engaged,’ Clara said. ‘Except not really.’

  Holly raised an eyebrow. ‘If only.’

  ‘We’re pretending,’ Christian said. ‘So that the Relic will leave the inn to me.’

  ‘So long as I don’t get stuck with the place,’ Holly said, ‘I really don’t care what happens to Milleridge. Hey, do you two kids want to sleighpool?’

  Clara said yes before Christian could say no.

  ‘Don’t tell Clara about the fiancée,’ Christian hissed to Holly two minutes later as he helped her into a sleigh.

  ‘But Christian,’ Holly said innocently, ‘I thought Clara was the fiancée?’

  Three

  Clara’s face still looked like her face, which was saying something since fifteen years had passed. Christian’s face didn’t look like his face any more. His face was less boyish and more handsome now that he could grow a dashing beard. He still had that slippery, moneyed voice and those eyes and that way of purring when he was annoyed, and he was always annoyed. But Clara? Christian wanted—needed—to know all the ways she had changed, especially after the passing of her mother, Caroline James.

  Especially now he was her fake fiancé.

  ‘Clara always adored Christmas,’ Holly told Christian. Nothing has really changed that much, is what she meant.

  The siblings were drinking coffee in Milleridge. Christian had asked Holly to meet him in the inn’s cafe, which was another cafe that sold only seasonal beverages. Everyone knew about peppermint mochas and gingerbread lattes, but did they know about Slow Cooker Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate or Chai Eggnog or S'more Martinis? No, and Mistletoe was determined to spread the word.

&
nbsp; ‘What are you doing with that sandwich?’ Holly said to Christian.

  Christian looked down at his sandwich. Then he looked up at Holly. ‘Er—I’m eating it?’

  ‘Interesting. That’s also what I do with sandwiches.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to copy you.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Holly replied, ‘but don’t tell anyone. Next thing you know the whole world will be eating sandwiches.’

  ‘Ugh—we’re such trendsetters.’

  ‘It’s a burden, truly.’

  Christian nodded solemnly. ‘Should we use our powers for good or evil?’

  ‘I’m thinking of bringing back the mullet,’ Holly said. ‘The mullet and crocs.’

  ‘Evil it is, then.’ Christian took a couple of bites of his sandwich. Then, he said, ‘Hey, Holly, how did the Relic know I had a fiancée? I didn’t tell her. I don’t tell her anything.’

  ‘Look, I might’ve mentioned it, maybe.’

  ‘Holly, what do you think I meant when I said, “Don’t tell the Relic about my life.”?’

  ‘I think it means I shouldn’t have told the Relic about your life.’

  ‘And here I thought we were speaking different languages.’

  ‘Christian, it is impossible to keep my mouth shut around that woman.’

  ‘So you threw me under the bus.’

  ‘What did you think little brothers were for?’

  Christian closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Whatever. He could reprimand his big sister later. He opened his eyes and said, ‘Holly, tell me everything you know about Clara.’