Shielded Hearts #7.5
The holiday season can’t be over soon enough for John Hall. His ex-boyfriend emptied the bank accounts and ran off with his personal trainer months earlier leaving John unable to pay his creditors. Now he’s forced to close the independent movie theater he runs, a bad end to a bad year. Gay, single and closer to fifty than forty, John doesn’t see a lot of hope in his future. In the dark of night he wonders if staying afloat is worth the effort.
Chance Allsop made a promise to his dying mother he hopes he doesn’t regret. Ten months after her death he’s finally in Skagit Washington, visiting the old movie theater where his parents met and fell in love decades ago. The whole thing seems like a lark until he lays eyes on the handsome owner. With his mother’s spirit at his back Chance fully intends to win John Hall’s heart.
I'm ashamed to admit that I lost track of this series after River Home(book 5) so when it was brought to my attention that there were more entries in Accidental Roots, I gobbled them up. When a series I love has a Christmas story well it's as welcomed as finding one more package under the tree on Christmas morning😉. The NorthStar is a delightfully fun Christmas tale of finding love when you least expect it.
Chance is fulfilling his mother's dying wish to visit the place where she met and fell in love with his father, what he didn't expect was John, the owner on the verge of closing the theater for good. John didn't exactly expect a whirlwind like Chance either. You can't help but love these two and root for them, sure its pretty much a case of insta-love which I understand isn't for everyone but when its written right then it works and these two are definitely written right. Chance's determination to prove to John how important the theater is to everyone may seem like a holiday cliche and I suppose in a way it is but just because something is cliche doesn't mean it won't work or that its not true.
As I live in a small-ish town with a theater that's been around since 1927 and has just recently added a second small screen, I know how important it can be to a community. Some might go 20 minutes to the next city with the multiplex with 8 screens, there are just as many who want to stay and go to the 92+ year theater that probably hasn't seen much in the way of renovations for decades. The NorthStar is not only a lovely holiday read but an emotionally charged story that helps to remind us that "local", "tradition", and "same old, same old" are more than just words and phrases, for some they give hope and strength for tomorrow.
The NorthStar may be a lighter read than the previous entries in the series but it is definitely worthy of the Accidental Roots stamp. There may be no mystery or angsty drama in this holiday story but Chance and John certainly belong in Skagit, Washington. The NorthStar can be read as a standalone but I personally hate reading a series out of order so I recommend doing so but you won't be lost by any means if you haven't read the previous entries.
John stared at the envelope in his hand, turning it over a couple of times and reading the return address. He didn’t have to see the contents to know what the letter would say, but he ripped into it anyway, pulling out the single sheet of paper and letting the envelope fall to the floor.
Another piece of evidence, nail in the coffin, last straw . . . evidence of his own stupidity, evidence he deserved what was happening because he should have realized what kind of person Rico was from the very beginning. Instead he’d convinced himself, again, he’d finally met the right person.
In his defense, Rico’d made it easy to believe his lies at first. It wasn’t until Rico was gone that John learned the extent of his betrayal, of Rico’s inherent untruth. But he should have known. John’s father had always said, “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.” His parents had been happily married for fifty-five years. John doubted either of them had ever been truly lonely. And at the end they’d passed within days of each other, one heart following the other into eternity.
And now it was down to this:
Mr. John Hall,
This letter is legal notice of foreclosure proceedings on the real property situated at 15 milton avenue, skagit, skagit county, washington. As the property owner of record, you have thirty (30) days from the date of receipt to bring all property and tax payments current. After thirty (30) days the property will be foreclosed and auctioned to the highest bidder.
Please call your local representative with any questions.
Sincerely
A scribbled signature John couldn’t decipher.
It probably said, “Merry Fucking Christmas.”
With Christmas Eve a couple of days away, the bank couldn’t have waited one more week to send this? Resisting the urge to crumple the letter into a ball and hurl it out the window, John instead folded it up with great care and returned it to the envelope it had arrived in before shoving it into his back pocket. What was he going to do now?
On his TV, which John kept turned on for white noise since Rico’d left, the local weather person was standing in front of a swirling white graphic, pointing to various places and direly predicting snowmageddon over the holiday weekend.
John snorted a laugh. No f-ing way. He jammed the power button on the remote with his thumb, quieting the reporter’s authoritative tone. The Pacific Northwest rarely had snow before January. The meteorologist was trying to appease folks wishing for a white Christmas and drum up ratings for herself.
Silence fell, and John had to get out of the house. He had to do something. Glancing around, he finally spotted his car keys exactly where he always put them, in the little bowl on the kitchen counter. He grabbed them and headed toward the garage door off the kitchen. In the dim light he accidentally kicked the cat dish across the linoleum flooring. A smashing sound followed when it smacked into the baseboard. Cat wouldn’t care; he’d crossed the rainbow bridge six weeks ago, after a long, pampered life.
The only place not a zoo on the last Saturday before Christmas was the bank. John slowed, deciding if he wanted to beg one last time. There was nothing like baring your financial soul to a fresh-faced loan officer who, while nodding sympathetically, didn’t seem to want to help. He turned in to the parking lot anyway.
“We’ve been over this. With your credit the way it is, there’s not a lot the bank can do, Mr. Hall.”
As if the fucking bank were sentient. John felt his jaw twitch and tried to keep his temper under control. It was difficult with all the stress. Anger was not something he experienced often, but lately he found himself losing control of his emotions.
“I told you that I didn’t know about those charges, and the credit cards aren’t mine. I’m a victim of identity theft.” He didn’t really feel like going into what a douche his ex had turned out to be.
“So you reported. The bank is investigating.” Colin Short, according to the name tag dangling precariously from his suit jacket, tapped his desk with a cheap ballpoint pen, the kind sold by the dozen. His suit, John thought, was off the rack and didn’t fit him quite right.
“And in the meantime ‘the bank’ is planning on taking my livelihood away? The NorthStar is how I make money to pay off debts that I didn’t even incur!”
Frustration mounted; no matter how he pled his case, Short came back with something that sounded a lot like, “The bank is taking its sweet time thinking about it, but the answer is going to be ‘no.’”
When the few remaining customers in the bank lobby started throwing surreptitious glances in their direction— some outright staring— John decided it was best to leave before he said or did something stupid. Normally there would have been a show at the NorthStar that night, but he was too depressed to pretend to have any kind of cheer to spread around, and no one in Skagit would notice if the little art house shut its doors. Permanently.
👀Formerly published as Accidental Roots👀
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Author Bio:
Elle hails from the northwest corner of the US known for: rain, rain, and more rain. She pens Shielded Hearts, Veiled Intentions, and West Coast Forensics series all set in the Pacific Northwest. Elle's books feature hot mm romance with the guarantee of an HEA. The men start out broken, and maybe they end up that way, but they always find the other half of their hearts.
While Elle often claims she was raised by wolves, she was in fact raised by her mom and step-dad in a little village called Seattle. When she grew up there were still lawn darts and pull tabs on pop cans, and she went to the park with just her trusty dog (who once went home without her) as company. Later in her life she tried adulting and found it wasn't "all that". She loves both cats and dogs, Star Wars and Star Trek, pineapple on pizza, and is known to start crossword puzzles with a ballpoint pen.
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EMAIL: elle@ellekeaton.com
The NorthStar #7.5
Over the Hill
Jude's Dude
Volume 1
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