Summary:
Laurel Holidays #2
Will two complete opposites learn to cross party lines to benefit their beloved hometown and save Christmas?
Evan Griffiths is enjoying his tenure as the mayor of Cedarburg, Pennsylvania. While it may barely be a blip on the state map, it’s where he grew up, and he’s thrilled to be at the helm of the tiny rural community. With the recent election in the past, Evan can focus on his agenda to bring Cedarburg out of the fifties. Being the first gay mayor in the town’s history is a good start but there’s plenty more to do. His first big job is expanding the yearly Christmas Carnival to lure tourists to his fiscally challenged birthplace. Things seem to be moving along at a good pace then a ghost from Christmases past arrives on the morning bus.
As soon as Gideon Pierce returns to Cedarburg he picks up right where he left off back in elementary school—tormenting Evan at every turn. Only this time instead of shoving Evan down on the playground, Gideon is bedeviling him with snippy editorials in the local paper. Gideon is no longer the gangly, bucktoothed kid he used to be. When his gaze keeps touching on Gideon’s mouth and the appreciative fire in his brilliant holly green eyes, Evan finds it harder and harder to keep his mind on witty replies to Gideon’s cutting viewpoints.
I don't do spoilers here and when it comes to Christmas stories I want to give away even less so this review is going to be short-ish and to the point.
Right off the bat I want to say as much as I loved Laurel Holidays #1(The Christmas Oaks) I think I loved The Christmas Pundit even more. That isn't something I say often so when I say book 2 is better than the original, I truly mean it. I hate to use the tag enemies to lovers to describe Evan and Gideon but it's not exactly friends to lovers either, perhaps childhood adversaries to lovers is closer. The guys have what I like to lovingly call "that snark and cuddle connection". Even at their worst the attraction is palpable, the push-and-pull almost fuels the heart.
Having lived in small towns ranging from so small it was a village to a large-ish small, I can honestly say the VL Locey has captured the feel to a tee. Having done so only heightens the appeal for me, making it easier to connect to both Evan and Gideon and hoping they'll find their HEA. Now, does the author let them find happiness? I think we all know the answer to that question but finding out the road the men have to navigate to get it is where all the magic happens and you have to read that for yourself. Trust me, you won't regret it. The Christmas Pundit is a delightful holiday reading experience that warmed this reader's heart and left a smile lingering afterwards.
RATING:
Chapter One
“…said to him that there was no way he clumb all the way up to my property just to track no deer! You know what he said to me then, Mayor?”
“I’m assuming that he explained in a polite manner that he had indeed climbed up to your property to track the doe?” I replied, looking from one old farmer to the other, both men nearly indistinguishable from the other save for the wear and tear of their Carhartt work coats. Looked like Berger Mason had bought a new one in the past year whereas Carson Oats had worn his for years. Into the cow barn if the smell of manure wafting off him was any indication. Of course, the poop could be on their mucky boots as well. Seemed neither of the dairy farmers deemed a trip to city hall was worth changing out of their chore clothes. Mara, my executive assistant, was sitting beside me taking notes of the impromptu meeting with a hankie over her nose. I had said during my first speech on the night the results had come in that my office door would always be open to the good citizens of Cedarburg. I’d just assumed they’d scrape the cow shit off their boots before coming to the courthouse…
“That’s right, Mr. Mayor, I said exactly that,” Berger replied, his big nose red with frustration. It tended to glow like a certain famous reindeer whenever he was upset. “I told him that my arrow nicked a branch and the shot was low. Then the doe bounded over the fence, and I asked real politely like if I could track her. He got all belligerent and told me to haul my fat ass back down the ridge where it belonged. Then he called me an encroacher and a defiler of his scarecrow! Which is pure horseshit! I didn’t never touch that stupid scarecrow!”
“Yes, you did. I know you dressed it up to look like my wife. Even give it a big squash nose!” Carson shouted.
“Okay, let’s settle down.” I lifted my hands while speaking up over the din. I was a politician, so I was good at speaking loudly. “Now is this the scarecrow incident of ’92 that you’re referring to, Carson?”
“Yes, sir, it is,” both men replied at once before slipping back to silent glowering.
I had assumed so. I tossed Mara a pleading look. She deftly shook her head and hid behind her lilac-scented hanky. I suspected the older woman was sniggering into the folds of silk over her nose and mouth.
“Right, okay, well, I remember that incident well. I was ten. Didn’t Officer Blakeman deduct that it was local kids who dressed up your scarecrow like Dolores?” I pointedly asked Carson, who had the good grace to at least look a little contrite. He bobbed his head but continued to mutter to himself. This feud between the Mason and Oats clans had been raging since the fifties when old Booger Oats had taken up with Marlene Mason. It had been a torrid affair, at least by fifties standards. Booger had run off to Canada leaving Marlene in a delicate condition. The child of that scandalous liaison had been breastfed on the stories of how dastardly the whole Oats clan was and he then carried the nonsense on, passing the hatred along to the next generation like an heirloom pocket watch.
“I did stop and ask, Mayor, truly I did. Then he got all up on his face and—”
“In your face. He got in your face, Berger.” That made me smile just a little. Bless the older generations. They were trying. Well, some of them were. Others not so much. “Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll call WCO Carlota over in Silverwood and ask him to come over to escort Berger onto your land to fetch his deer. If they can track the doe and find her, then you two will split the venison fifty-fifty. How does that sound?”
Both old codgers grumbled and hemmed but in the end they nodded briskly.
“I’ll go call the game commission now,” Mara said into her square of silk then rose and hurried out of my cramped office. If it weren’t a blustery October day I’d open the window to let some of the manure smell out. But it was too dank and chilly in the hills of Pennsylvania on this early October day to crack the window let alone open it. This old courthouse was damp enough as it was even on a sunny day.
“There, see how nicely things work out when we compromise?” I asked, pushing to my feet to offer my hand to Berger. He eyed it warily but finally gave in, slapping his palm to mine. We shook in a most manly fashion, which I suspected he was shocked about. I’d run into lots of that kind of crap while I’d been campaigning against the incumbent mayor, Ralph Kitterman. Everyone in my hometown knew I was gay. I’d been one of the first of “them vocal gays” in the county to come out and wave my rainbow goodness proudly way back in high school. “So, if there’s not anything else, I’ll let you two go meet WCO Carlota and tend to that doe, and I’ll get back to work on the Christmas Carnival fundraising committee work.”
Oats got to his feet, offered me his hand, shook, and then crammed his red ballcap back onto his bald head.
“Told you he was a smart one,” I heard Berger mumble as they left my office.
“Kitterman was smarter,” Carson replied with his usual obstinance.
“Kitterman was a horse’s ass,” Berger fired back.
I chuckled, shook my head, and then let Mara handle them in the outer office. Shutting the door behind my warring constituents, I sighed, stretched, and gave my sanctum a pleased perusal. There wasn’t much to peruse. A desk littered with papers and a desktop that took forever to load up due to the dreadful internet we had up here in Northcentral Pennsylvania. One window but you had to stand on a chair to see Main Street, a chair in front of my desk that was here when Eisenhower was in the Oval Office and two flags. One the American and one the state, shoved into one corner while a filing cabinet lurked in another corner and a rickety coat rack hid in yet another. The fourth corner had a stand with brochures about Cedarburg and a picture of my parents who lived five minutes away. I flopped down into my one new extravagance, an office chair from the mall up in Corning, New York. I no longer felt like fiddling with the dismal numbers on the fundraising reports. Maybe my aide would be calling in from home with better news. Like more money news. If he could get his damn cell to work out in the boonies, which was never a given. God but we needed new infrastructure out here.
That had been one of my top five running points when I’d gone up against Kitterman. Infrastructure, updating wastewater practices, working on creating the right kind of rural roads, pushing for new ways to lure businesses into our community thereby creating jobs that will keep the young people in Cedarburg, and adding more housing choices for our rapidly growing elderly population. Oh, and a new fence around the elementary school. All those problems, plus hundreds more, were mine now.
Those five platforms had appealed to the four thousand people in my town, and they’d been able to overlook the fact that I was a little light in the loafers. I’d been rabidly pushing our nearest cell provider to build two new towers for us as well as begging Harrisburg for some road and bridge work next summer. The capital wasn’t keen on hearing about my little issues all the way up by the New York State border. They were more concerned with what Philadelphia and Pittsburgh needed, which was total bullshit.
There were farms in the outlying areas of my town that still had no internet accessibility, or it was so poor students couldn’t run videos for homeschooling or homework assignments. I ran a hand over my face. I bet they all had highspeed access in Harrisburg and the two big Ps. I scrubbed at my face even harder.
There was so much to do. Kitterman had been a stick in the mud. A hard-as-nails stickler for law and order, apple pie, and the good old days. He also was an obnoxious ass who’d been stunned to learn that a queer had beaten him by over three hundred votes back in May. Guess the people of Cedarburg were tired of living in nineteen forty-nine. Or at least the majority were. It had been a stunning upset win given the county was as red as a Honeycrisp apple and I was as blue as a Smurf. Imagine that! My blue democratic gay ass beat the good old boys republican red incumbent.
Reaching over my head I padded around my desk to stretch my legs. My knees tended to crack and creak whenever it rained. Thirty-eight was a rough age. Not quite forty yet according to the calendar but feeling about sixty whenever rain was on the air. Old baseball injuries I liked to say when my knees locked up, but those who knew me knew I’d never actually played baseball for the Cedarburg Cardinals. Not that I’d not tried, but my membership in the LGBTQ club made Coach Knight’s lips flatten whenever he looked at me during tryouts. I ended up warming the bench for every game. He kept a sharp eye on me during showers that first year after I’d come out. I took it all in stride, even the few knockdown fights I’d had with a few of the school jerks.
“Gideon Pierce,” I muttered as I dropped into my ergonomic seat and picked up my now cold cup of coffee. Whenever I thought of those who had made my childhood harder than it had to be, his damn face popped up in my mind’s eye. Taller than me, bigger, dark-haired, and brilliant green eyes to counter my strawberry-blond and blue-eyed self, and certifiably meaner, Gideon had always been a festering sliver under my skin. Way before anyone knew I was gay, hell before I was even fully aware of why Shawn Hunter appealed to me way more than Topanga on Boy Meets World, Gideon was being a jerk.
Then suddenly one day he just wasn’t there on the playground anymore. He wasn’t even in school, or the state. Rumor had it that his parents had divorced after a pinnacle domestic squabble that the town cops still talked about. The Pierce’s always fought. It was a standard thing every weekend. Mr. Pierce would end his work week at the tannery over in Silverwood and hit the nearest bar where he’d leave most of his paycheck.
Gideon was taken to Seattle to live with his mother, so the story went. Mr. Pierce disappeared and was found dead in an alley in Buffalo one week after his wife and son had left the state. Cause of death was suicide. What he had been doing in Buffalo no one seemed to know. Gossip ran rampant for about two weeks and then the town moved on. I, for one, was thankful to see Gideon gone but the circumstances surrounding his leaving were chilling to say the least.
“The big bully.” I took a swig of coffee, grimaced, and put the mug down beside my cellphone lying on the blotter. Mara came hustling into my office in a cloud of lilac perfume and big round eyes.
“The bus from Elmira just arrived,” she panted, one hand on her rather substantial bosom, the other still holding her cellphone.
“That’s good.” I smiled, wondering why she hadn’t knocked before barging in. Not that I’d been doing anything. At all. But still it was odd. Her blue eyes were huge behind her glasses. I sat back into the firm cushion of my chair, folded my arms over my blue dress shirt and dark blue tie, and raised an eyebrow. “What? Did they bus in zombies?” She shook her head strongly, sending her recently dyed red-orange hair swaying. “Vampires? Werewolves? More Democrats?!”
“It’s Gideon Pierce,” she whispered as if saying his name would make him appear before us like some evil wizard. My mouth dropped open. “It is. Mollie from the beauty parlor just called Sue-Ann at the fabric shop who called me. You know Sue-Ann worked in the cafeteria at the W. B. Kitterman Elementary school for forty years before she retired and opened the fabric shop which was always her dream but what with Pearly getting sick and all she always stayed in the school because it was full-time and—”
“Mara, focus.” She tended to get off-track when riled. She bobbed her head, ran her hand over the front of her dark brown dress, and pulled in a deep breath. I gave her my most appealing smile, the one that all the girls had liked so much back in college. Pity they never could get more than a smile from me but alas. “Good. Okay, so are we sure it’s Gideon? I mean, why on earth would he come back to Cedarburg on a Greyhound from Elmira?”
“Well, the bus from Elmira is the only one that runs from the airport,” she calmly explained.
“Yes, I know, Mara. I wasn’t asking that literally I was just…” I waved it off and stood. My left knee cracked like tinder wood. Damn knees. “Are you sure Sue-Ann had the right glasses on. You know she has one pair for reading the tape measure and another for long distance.”
“Go look!” She flapped a hand at the chair in front of my desk. Feeling rather sure of myself and my rational approach to the supposed return of Gideon Pierce, I walked around my desk, grabbed the chair, and hauled it over to the window. Up I climbed, smirking at the silliness of it all.
Rising up to my toes, fingers biting into the cold cement casing that held the rectangular window, I cranked it open. A blast of wet air that reeked of fallen leaves hit me in the face, making my nose run instantly. Balancing precariously, I pushed my nose closer to the weathered screen and turned my head to the left. Yes, the Greyhound from Elmira was indeed setting beside the curb by the village green, and yes, a few people were milling around. Well, actually two. One looked like the bus driver in a gray-blue sort of uniform and one was a tall lanky man in a stylish coat that was rippling around him like a superhero’s cape.
It was hard to say who the dark-haired man was from this distance. Nose chilled, I was about to climb down and suggest to Mara that she tell Sue-Ann to check which glasses she had on when the new arrival turned and looked right at our tiny white courthouse. I drew back, stunned. There was no mistaking him. Gideon Pierce had grown up to look just like his father. It was like seeing a ghost. I took a step back, my mind whirling, setting the chair off balance. Down I went to my ass. Mara squealed and fluttered around like a manic goose. I groaned at the impact as well as the fact that as soon as Gideon Pierce showed up in Cedarburg, I was down on my ass again.
Hating to look like a coward, I walked out of the courthouse with my chin high at exactly four p.m. sharp. Just like every day. The bus from Elmira was long gone and praise be to the gods who looked over little bullied gay boys, so was Gideon Pierce. Jamming my hands into my coat pockets, I pounded down the white marble stairs. The clouds overhead were riotous, thickening over the past few hours to blot out the sun without compunction. Rain had fallen on and off, making the colorful leaves on the elms and maples that lined Main Street droop.
I moved at a good clip, the thunderous rainclouds welling up adding speed to my step. Usually, I ambled home, stopping to talk to constituents who would approach me on the sidewalk or call from front porches. That was one of the blessings of being a small-town mayor. I got to talk with the people in my town on a daily basis. I’d grown up here, and so knew most of them or their kids, and the newcomers who had filed in were vocal in politics. My aide, Benton Aubrey, was one of those new arrivals. A young man coming into Cedarburg was a rarity, most kids hightailed after graduating as there was little work here aside from a tannery in Silverwood and a community college in Fisher Lake, a close adjoining county that sat below us. I’d stolen Aubrey from the community college where we’d been working after meeting the bright, energetic black man at a monthly town hall last spring. I’d terribly needed someone to help coordinate my campaign. Most candidates had wives or a small staff. All I’d had was a dream to make my hometown a better, more inclusive, more modern town, and a winning smile. Aubrey had leaped on the chance, him being a political science degree holder like myself, and soon we were thick as thieves. The only black man and the only out gay man in the whole town of Cedarburg were on a mission.
Within a month, I’d announced my candidacy, and we never looked back. Well, a few times we did when we’d been out stumping and knocking on doors. Who knew domestic turkeys could be so mean? Thinking of looking back, I tossed a quick glance over my shoulder, saw nothing, and then returned to my speed walk home. How silly I was being. Gideon was not going to run up behind me and push me to my face. We weren’t in third grade anymore. Plus, the harder I thought about it the more I felt that the man I’d seen earlier wasn’t Gideon at all. Just some passing stranger stopping in our small town, probably rented a room at the Big Buck Motel across from the Shopper Mart and was now about to meet with a local realtor to buy a hunting camp. Perhaps he resembled Mr. Pierce, strongly, but that was all it was. Yep, that was it. A case of mistaken identity.
I turned off Main Street onto Alberton Avenue. My parents’ home was the first house off Main on Alberton, and I hustled up the slick stone path to the front door and let myself in, turning to shuck off my coat and wet shoes before stepping onto the new rose carpeting. The smell of roasting meat tickled my nose. My stomach rumbled. Guess the apple that I’d forced down during a meeting with Pastor Nichols from the Presbyterian Church had worn off.
USA Today Bestselling Author V.L. Locey – Penning LGBT hockey romance that skates into sinful pleasures.
V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, Torchwood and Dr. Who, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee. (Not necessarily in that order.) She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, a pair of geese, far too many chickens, and two steers.
When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in one hand and a steamy romance novel in the other.
The Christmas Oaks #1
