Summary:
Can Gabriel show Jesse that a real Christmas is more than parties and plastic trees and that taking a chance on love can wipe away even the worst of memories?
For world-renowned photojournalist Jesse Connor, Christmas is a stark reminder of last year’s misery when his banker boyfriend embezzled and mishandled millions of dollars of client money, and left Jesse with unmanageable debt. The ring he’d bought to propose was the first item he had to sell, and it wouldn’t be the last thing.
With this December fast approaching, he tells his agent he’ll take an assignment to get out of the city, but he pictured Tahiti, not wintery Eden Vale, Vermont. He’d signed the contract, there was no way out, and he was trapped in a town cut off by snow. Not only that, but the entire town population of only a thousand souls was determined on dragging him kicking and screaming into Christmas, led by the sexy teacher-handyman-hotel owner, Gabriel.
Gabriel has lived his entire life in the mountains, in a place awarded Best Christmas Town, 2011. A teacher at the elementary school, he shows others that the season of goodwill unites community, family, and that love resides in everyone’s heart.
When Jesse arrives in town, lacking even an ounce of Christmas spirit, Gabriel immediately sees through his defenses and bonds with him. Despite the barriers that Jesse throws up, Gabriel is determined to show the deeply sad man what a real Christmas can be. And, who knows, after that, maybe get him to stay in Eden Vale for longer than just a few snowy weeks.
Talk about understanding why someone would hate Christmas! Jesse has the one of the worst Christmas Eve's anyone can imagine and yet he's still trying to survive. Watching him get "revived" with the Christmas spirit as well as the possibility of his heart thawing out, is heartwarming and beautifully written by one of my favorite authors.
RATING:
Chapter One
~Two Years Ago~
The end when it came was utterly brutal and sudden. One minute Jesse Connor was planning the most romantic way to propose to his boyfriend of three years, the next said boyfriend was gone. And not just gone in a ‘popped out for a coffee’ way. But gone in an ‘emptying closets and trashing the place’ kind of way. Even the original Jesse Connor prints on their bedroom wall were gone, removed from the frame with the frames themselves stacked haphazardly against the wall.
Everything Jesse felt about the season was wrapped up in this particular Christmas, the day he was going to ask Jonah to marry him. He had the tree and the decorations and all the perfectly chosen and appropriate presents organized. He even had the damn platinum ring burning a hole in his pocket.
And now everything had gone to hell.
“Sir, you’ll need to come with us.” Jesse spun on his heel. There was a cop standing inside his apartment, feet straddling the threshold between bedroom and main living room. This was a joke. Any minute now the cop would strip off and give him a lap dance and everything would be revealed to be one huge joke.
“I think I’ve been burgled,” Jesse murmured. He felt icy cold; the window wide open to the outside air was letting in gusts of snow every so often. The snow landed on the widescreen TV, which lay on its side with half of its guts hanging out, and melted immediately.
“Sir, we have some questions. Please come with us.”
“Where?” was all Jesse could ask. “Outside?” He was in a daze. Where was Jonah? Why was the TV destroyed? Where had his photos gone? Why was all of Jonah’s stuff not in the closet?
“The FBI are waiting in the hall, sir.”
“What? Sorry, what?”
“Sir, you’ll need to come with us,” another cop said. Where had he come from? Jesse blinked at them both.
“What are you doing here? Where’s Jonah?”
“We’re hoping you will tell us that, sir.” This time it was a different voice belonging to a man in a cheap suit with frown lines bracketing his eyes who stepped in past the cops.
“I don’t know.” Jesse pulled out his cell again, but checking it for the hundredth time wasn’t going to change the fact that there was no new message from Jonah. “Maybe he’s delayed at the bank?” Jesse offered.
“We both know that is unlikely,” the Fed said with a scowl. “He’s not going to return to the scene of a crime.”
Cops in his apartment. And now Jonah was being accused of something. And Jonah had gone. The music in the apartment next door started up, signaling the fact that Henrietta who worked in marketing at the same company as Jonah had arrived home. The strains of Christmas music wound their way through the walls and into Jesse’s hearing.
“He’s supposed to be here. We were due to go to the ballet. I had tickets.” Jesse looked at the decorated tree that lay on its side, then back at the empty frames, and finally he faced the cops in his and Jonah’s apartment.
“I’ll need your cell phone, sir.” The Fed held out his hand.
“Will it help you find Jonah?” Jesse asked uncertainly.
“I surely hope so,” the Fed answered brusquely.
“What did he do? What’s happened? I don’t…”
The Fed was talking to the cops, telling them not to let anyone in, instructing them that Jonah may well be desperate and try anything at this moment in time.
Jesse followed the Fed numbly out into the hallway. The door to Henrietta’s apartment was open, and she stood in the doorway with a stunned expression on her face. Her eyes were bright and she was crying.
“Oh my God, Jesse,” she said as Jesse came to a stop in front of her.
“Henrietta? Are you okay? What’s happened?”
“It’s Jonah. He’s taken down the whole bank.” She put a hand to her mouth. “He’s wiped millions in trading. It’s all over the news, he’s destroyed us.”
“I don’t understand?”
“Did you know?” she shouted. Jesse stumbled back against the wall as she advanced on him with horror in her eyes.
The Fed moved between them. “Sir, you need to come with me.” Jesse saw one of the cops nod, and in a few seconds he was bundled out of the building and into a cop car.
When he got home, twenty-four hours had passed and Jesse’s world had been destroyed. He tore the tree to small pieces and threw the gifts in the garbage.
And he promised himself one thing. Never again would he fall so far in love that he was blinded by it.
RJ ScottWriting love stories with a happy ever after – cowboys, heroes, family, hockey, single dads, bodyguards
USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott has written over one hundred romance books. Emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, single dads, hockey players, millionaires, princes, bodyguards, Navy SEALs, soldiers, doctors, paramedics, firefighters, cops, and the men who get mixed up in their lives, always with a happy ever after.
She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing. The last time she had a week’s break from writing, she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a box of chocolates she couldn’t defeat.
BOOKBUB / KOBO / SMASHWORDS
EMAIL: rj@rjscott.co.uk
