REKINDLE THE FLAME
(A Hope Falls Kindle World Novella Coming November 2017)
~Excerpt~
Heartwarming.
There was no other way to describe the quaint town of Hope Falls, no other word to capture the storybook charm it exuded during the wintery and all-too-adorable holiday season.
When Jennifer had decided on doing Christmas solo, and she knew celebrating alone was a solid decision and quite frankly, much needed—more than needed, required, she had to get her thoughts together and her head on straight!—she could’ve never imagined how absolutely touching this little mountain town tucked away in the Sierra Nevadas would be. The intrinsic warmth of Norman Rockwell and the glow of Thomas Kinkade rolled into one home-and-hearth painting come to life.
That’s what it was, too, what it really felt like being here. Home and hearth. The feeling had enveloped her the second she had started along Main Street, scarf wrapped tight, hat snugged on, mittens soft and cushy. She felt like she was home. Even though she couldn’t have been further away from the Japanese countryside where she’d been born or the harsh and hardened city she’d been living in since she was six years old, Queens New York, Jennifer felt—no, she knew!—that she belonged here.
That she belonged with him…
Stop it, Jennifer!
Pulling herself together mentally after yet another close call wasn’t easy.
Okimotos didn’t fantasize! They practicalized! And booking a flight to Hope Falls for the holidays had been a practical, Japanese-grandfather-degree-pragmatic decision! If she hadn’t used the sky miles she’d earned over the course of the year, then…
True, but she could’ve flown anywhere…
Flustered, she insisted mostly in her head but grumbled a bit out loud too, “Practical, that’s all!”
Except that it hadn’t been and the lie she’d been telling herself in that regard was wearing thinner than her favorite ‘Netflix and chill’ panties.
She stopped herself once again with a cautionary reminder. There would be no thoughts of panties or matching bras or big warm hands wrapping her slender waist.
Ugh!
Snowflakes were coming down, big and fluffy. The blanket of crystal white snow shimmered from the twinkling lights of the storefronts Jennifer passed as she made her way to her favorite coffee shop, Sue Ann’s Café, and good thing it was her favorite because in a town as tiny as Hope Falls there were basically no other options unless you counted Brewed Awakenings but it wasn’t within walking distance and if memory served her correctly, it also wouldn’t be open at this hour. A quarter to ten in the evening wasn’t late by New York City standards, but for a sleepy little off-the-grid town it was long past closing time for the majority of stores on this short strip.
She made a concerted effort to take in some deep breaths and let the invigorating sting of the cold, night air snap her out of deep, lustful thought, and back to her senses.
A canoodling couple spilled out of the Twin Cinemas, the ruggedly good-looking guy pulling his date in for a hasty kiss, the girl giggling and eating it up. Jennifer hopped aside so there’d be no love-blinded collision. Up ahead, a cluster of hollering teenagers, ice cream cones in hand, skipped out of the local ice cream shop, Two Scoops. Jennifer made a mental note that the place was open and continued on down the snowy sidewalk, Sue Ann’s glowing café now in her sights.
The thought of yanking the frosted, glass door open and stepping inside filled Jennifer with excitement that bordered on downright anxiety and it wasn’t because the scent of cinnamon buns, angel cakes, and coffee would surely hang in the air. Ever since she’d unpacked her suitcase at the Mountain Meadow B&B earlier that afternoon, tucking her clothes in the dresser and setting her oil paints and small stretched canvases on the desk, she’d had a heightened and unshakable intuition that she could, and very likely would, run into the one man who had taken up residence in her head and occupied her thoughts for the past year and a half.
Kody Knowles.
This was where he lived. Hope Falls. And when she met him all those months ago during her two-week tenure teaching painting at the First Inaugural Hope Falls Summer Art Camp, her world had been turned upside down and inside out in the most delicious and unforgettable ways possible.
Again, she forcefully denied her reasons for choosing Hope Falls this Christmas, swept her long, jet black hair over her shoulders while holding her head high, then stepped out of the blustery cold and into Sue Ann’s warm and oh-so-cozy café, the bell above the door jingle-jangling as she entered.
As she approached the counter with absolutely no sense of urgency, her cheeks began to thaw and she tucked her mittens into her coat pocket, her eyes discretely scanning what few patrons were seated at the eclectic and endearingly mismatched tables and sofa chairs that lent an overall homey feel to the place.
She let out a rocky sigh of relief mixed with a hint of disappointment, having discovered that the man who she’d been trying and failing not to think about—correction, obsess over!—was not in fact present.
Whew!
Fortifying herself for the millionth time that day, reeling in her wild emotions and creative fantasies, she reminded herself, no berated herself, no screamed at herself like her mind was on fire, the bullet points of her reasoning, her very pragmatic, very sensible, very logical, very thrifty reasoning that had led her to the decision of having chosen this solo, Hope Falls, ten-days-of-Christmas, holiday trip. And it went a little something like this:
She had never taken a trip by herself. Ever. Never set foot on a plane without her mother or father (childhood trips) or with one of her two best friends as an adult. Well, more often than not, both best friends—Greer and Tasha, her highly talented, artistic other halves who seemed surgically attached to her hips… in the best way possible, of course. But still, even when she’d come to Hope Falls a year and a half ago to teach art, Greer and Tasha had been right there beside her. In a lot of ways, it was actually a virtual magic trick that she’d been able to sneak around, kissing and pawing and otherwise relishing every secret second with one 29-year-old, 6’2”, salt-of-the-earth man with big hands and a bigger heart…
Motherfrumker!
Again, she steered her thoughts in a rational direction.
Jennifer could’ve spent Christmas through New Years with her besties, and in the stunning and classy Hamptons for that matter. But Greer was madly in love with her boyfriend of two years, Hunter Black. And Tasha had been getting serious with her significant other, NYPD officer Kevin Wright, both of which boyfriends would be at the Hamptons house. As much as she loved her girls, the last thing Jennifer wanted to be this holiday season was a fifth wheel and a flat one at that, with her friends constantly trying to inflate her—don’t worry, you’ll meet the right guy soon!
She’d told the girls she had let her mother twist her arm about flying to the Japanese countryside to “get some culture and reconnect with her roots”. She’d also told her mother that the stress of this year had finally taken its toll and all she wanted this Christmas was to unwind with Greer and Tasha. When that hadn’t worked—the work ethic of her Japanese parents knew no restful holiday and Jennifer’s argument had been met with a beat of appalled silence followed by both Okimotos screaming into the line, watashitachi ga shinda toki ni gasumu! which translates to, we rest when we’re dead!—Jennifer pushed on to Plan B, explaining that she had a high-paying, joint art show with her girlfriends coming up just after New Year’s and she had to bear down, nose-to-grindstone, and bang out some serious paintings. Though she hadn’t been able to see their expressions, Jennifer sensed through the line that both Akina and Hideshi Okimoto had softened, finally accepting their daughter’s sensible, logical, pragmatic, and perhaps most importantly, unromantic holiday plans.
“That’s not Miss Jennifer Okimoto, is it?” the café owner, Sue Ann Perkins enthused from behind the counter the second her round, maternal eyes landed on the shivering twenty-nine-year-old artist.
As Jennifer smiled through thawing cheeks that weren’t ready to fully lift, Sue Ann indicated the oil painting hanging on the wall behind her.
“Puts a smile on my face every time I see it,” she remarked in awe before shooting Jennifer a little wink.
At the end of the two-week period Jennifer had spent in this sleepy little town a year and a half ago when she’d taught art at the camp, she’d gotten so close with Sue Ann that by the time she had to leave for New York she felt compelled to gift the café owner an oil painting of Main Street that she’d painted during the quiet, summer twilight hours between art class and Kody’s nightly arrivals…
Nope! Not gonna go there!
“You got talent, girl, but you don’t need me telling you that. What brings you to Hope Falls? There isn’t a winter art camp I don’t know about, is there?”
As Sue Ann questioningly searched Jennifer’s eyes with a look that implied she already knew the answer, Jennifer tried not to read too much into what felt like a silent version of the Third Degree, and replied, “No, there’s no art camp. I just needed to get out of New York. It can be festive during the holidays, but lately I haven’t been able to breathe in the big city.”
“A girl can really breathe out here,” Sue Ann assured her, a sly smirk forming at the corner of her mouth. “We’ve got fresh mountain air.”
“And snow that doesn’t turn to slush puddles the second it hits the sidewalk,” Jennifer chimed in, haunted by one of the most uncomfortable aspects of winter in the five boroughs. “Oh, the way the freezing, dirty water seeps into your boots, and you’re just chilled and miserable the whole subway ride home,” she shuddered.
Sue Ann let out a little chortle before adding, “The snow out here stays fresh and crunches under your boots.”
“The sweetest sound,” Jennifer agreed with an air of longing to hear just that. “I guess you could say I have no real plans other than to relax and enjoy the upcoming holiday.”
The knowing smirk returned to Sue Ann’s expression and a ‘wink-wink’ tone rose up in her voice as she said, “No real plans, huh?”
“Nope,” she replied, unwavering but feeling slightly off balance. Maybe she should order…
“Any Christmas wishes?”
Jennifer couldn’t help but feel slightly cornered and she might’ve been taken aback if she wasn’t impressed with the mischievous café owner’s remarkable perception. Was Sue Ann some kind of psychic? Not that Jennifer had plans—for the billionth time, he wasn’t the reason she was here!—but Sue Ann’s ability to pick up on the war that had been waged inside Jennifer’s head and heart was impressive if not a little spooky.
Cautiously, she asked, “What would my Christmas wish be, Sue Ann?”
As Sue Ann plucked a to-go cup from behind the counter and proceeded to fill it with her renowned stovetop hot cocoa, she very innocently suggested, “Ain’t nothing wrong with harboring a little hope in your heart. This is Hope Falls after all.”
After topping off the rich and steaming beverage with a generous squirt of warm caramel for good measure, Sue Ann offered her the cup.
“How did you know what I was going to order?”
“There’s nothing I don’t know, honey,” she shot back with a wink. “It’s on the house. Don’t try to fight me,” she said with a wave of her hand when Jennifer muttered a courteous protest. “It’s good to have you back.”
“It’s good to be back,” she said as a great, big smile spread across her face. A truer statement had never been made.
Jennifer stepped aside, allowing the next customer to step up to the counter, and as Sue Ann launched into a folksy greeting that blossomed into easy banter, Jennifer savored her first sip of caramel hot cocoa. No one made it quite like Sue Ann, but that notion didn’t linger very long in her mind. Though she was gearing up to mentally insist to herself that coming to Hope Falls for Christmas was all about getting wrapped up in its small-town charm that she’d fallen in love with a year and a half ago, and not about getting lost in hopes and fantasies of a strong-armed hunk who she’d also fallen in love with—
Insert the sound of a needle coming to a screeching halt off a vinyl record here.
What? Love? No! That wasn’t love, and that wasn’t why she booked a direct flight from Laguardia to Tahoe!
The mental gearing up, the bolstering, the virtual mantras of fortifying denial she’d been reciting on loop since she’d landed… it all crumbled in an instant the moment her lips touched warm, sticky-sweet hot cocoa. Her resolve dissolved like sugar in water the second she swallowed the chocolatey goodness, and just as fast as the entire house of figurative cards came crashing down, the perfect vision that was Kody Knowles filled her thoughts.
It was right here in Sue Ann’s Café where they had met. To say that they met would be too casual, too puny a description. No, on that hot, summer morning as Jennifer had laughed off Sue Ann’s routine teasing—hot chocolate on a hot day, you’re one of a kind, I’ll give ya that, ha!—she’d suddenly felt something electric in the air, like every nerve in her entire body had woken up. The next thing she knew, her gaze had lifted of its own accord, darted really, as if magnetized. That’s when her eyes had locked with his. So, no, ‘met’ was too random a word. The day that Jennifer had locked eyes with the man, who would prove to occupy her every thought for the next year and a half to come, felt more like fate. Destiny. As if her entire life up until that moment, and his, had been carefully orchestrated by flawless design just so that they could be in the very same place at the same exact time, and nature would take its course.
At first, she hadn’t even necessarily registered what he looked like, not beyond the obvious stats—in the ballpark of 6’2”, built like a linebacker with a confident posture, baby blue eyes, and a crew cut of light brown hair. Instead, she had been overcome not with how he looked, but how he was looking at her. Like she was the most beautiful and mysterious creature he’d ever seen. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her, and yet that hadn’t made Jennifer feel uncomfortable or self-conscious the way she usually felt whenever a guy checked her out. That was the thing. Kody hadn’t checked her out. It had been as though he was looking at her, the real her, like he was genuinely seeing beyond her physical attributes and connecting directly with the essence of her very soul.
Was that crazy to think?
Most guys saw her skin-deep beauty and would get turned on by her ‘type’. Everyone wanted to nail the Asian girl, see if the rumors were true—Asian girls will do anything in bed! The novelty of being with the exotic girl… It made Jennifer’s blood boil and if ever there was a reason to rock ‘resting bitch face’ when out in a bar with the girls, that was it. Ward off the serious jerks.
Kody hadn’t made her feel like a novelty, not for one second, ever. Not the moment their eyes locked and not during any of their secret and steamy encounters. Every time he had looked at her, he saw beneath her race and class and even her makeup. Beyond appearance, as if his soul was gazing at the essence of hers and recognized her as being something that should be a part of him, but wasn’t yet. It had been exhilarating and felt so right, every second with Kody. He had been perfect for her. He was perfect for her. It didn’t matter that they’d never slept together, in fact that’s what made their time together, as panty-melting as it had been at times—who was she kidding, all the time!—all the more perfect. That’s what made it absolutely impossible to stop thinking about him, why he’s been on her mind, either in the background of her thoughts or burning at the very forefront, for the past one-and-a-half years.
The day she met Kody Knowles, Jennifer had been struck by a ‘knowing’ that told her, loud and crystal clear, that this was the one, this was her man, her partner, and there would be no way to screw it up. No way for this not to happen. It was the very essence of destiny that had enveloped them both that day in the café.
But then… without warning…
…he’d broken her heart.
***
This was Kody’s favorite time of year. When snow came down in big, fluffy flakes. When bitingly cold air filled his lungs. When Main Street was all aglow with festive holiday lights and stars twinkled overhead. Time slowed down. People stopped, opened their eyes, really took in their surroundings, and embraced the spirit of Christmas and all the magic that could and should and hopefully would unfold.
He loved seeing residents and tourists alike beaming with awe and wonder as they meandered through the heart of Hope Falls, but as much as he enjoyed observing the holiday cheer they exuded, he didn’t feel a part of it. There was something missing, or someone…
Kody pushed the thought aside and trekked on down the snowy sidewalk, gripping his toolkit in his fist and listening to the squeaky crunch of his work boots flattening fresh snow with the weight of his every stride.
Keep your head down, your hands busy, and your head clear.
That was his strategy and he was sticking to it. And for all intents and purposes it was mostly working… mostly. Except for that pesky ‘clear head’ part. His mind had, well, a mind of its own.
Which was why he’d been intentionally working twelve hour shifts with the IBEW for the past year and a half. The long hours weren’t even taxing anymore, just second nature, and you couldn’t beat the fresh air. The money was good and keeping busy every waking second was even better considering his chronic mental and, he hated to admit, emotional state. In addition to the picturesque holiday cheer, the winter months also brought with it enough power outages throughout Hope Falls and the county at large to keep Kody on a steady, seven day a week schedule, which had incidentally earned him not one, not two, but three employee-of-the-month awards with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Small victories, as they say.
Just as he was rounding onto the side street where he’d parked his truck at a quarter after six that morning before hitching a ride with one of the guys, he felt his cell phone vibrating in the front pocket of his dungarees.
He smiled when he saw who had thought to give him a ring, and then wondered why Sue Ann would be calling at this time of night.
After a quick thumb swipe across the screen, he teased, “I can fix the dishwasher again but only if you pay me up front and in bacon.”
Years ago—oh man, had it been a decade?—a young and foolish twenty-one year old Kody had stumbled, quite literally, into Sue Ann’s Café drunk as a skunk but insisting he was only hungover. The fact that it had been the crack of dawn and Sue Ann hadn’t even flipped the store sign yet that morning somewhat worked in the favor of Kody’s hungover argument, and the motherly café owner had graciously given him a wink of credit in that regard.
And then she’d sat him down at the counter and gave him two giant platters of piping hot, sizzling bacon. Picture cartoon sized platters covered in two giant, dome boobies!
Sue Ann had lifted the domes, serving the bacon feast with a side of sage advice.
Nothing cures a hangover like a mountain of grease and the will to wolf it down.
“Bacon, huh?” she laughed through the line and Kody could almost see her remembering the day and the ‘I’d kill ya if I didn’t love ya’ expression she’d worn on her face as she’d watched him gradually sober up. “Don’t tell me you’ve been getting into trouble all over again!”
“No, Ma’am,” he assured her, as his smooth, deep laugh slipped out.
“Good, ‘cause you’re about to!”
Kody cocked his head, puzzled.
“You still there?” she asked when he’d fallen silent for more than a few seconds.
“Yeah, still here.”
Kody’s heart punched hard in his chest. Sue Ann only got into weird moods—weird-giddy-floating-off-into-space moods—when she was playing matchmaker, and if Kody had asserted anything with Sue Ann over the past year it was that he did not want to be set up. Ever. Sue Ann could be pushy in her maternal way, but she was always respectful if and when you drew a clear line in the sand, and she had, without fail, respected Kody’s wishes in this department.
Which meant that…
He stopped himself cold.
“What’s up, Sue Ann?” he cautiously prodded.
“You like to get into about five-foot-five inches worth of trouble, if memory serves me correctly, don’t ya? You like your trouble with long black hair and thick, batting eyelashes, is that right?”
He stood stock-still, his heart galloping faster than Secretariat at the races and for Kody the stakes were twice as high. Had he heard her correctly?
Five-foot-five, long black hair?
Why did it feel like air was no longer hitting his lungs? She couldn’t be referring to… could she?
As if she’d overheard every thrilled thought in his head, Sue Ann went on to intuitively answer his question in her own roundabout, lazy river way, chalk full of sage advice if you could stand the longwinded elaboration.
“Look, honey, we all like to think we have private lives and that if we take extra measures to keep mum about our personal business that no one’s gonna know or find out or read it clear as day on our faces. But that just isn’t how it works in our town and you know it. Everyone born and raised here knows it. Now…
“I know you fell in—“
She stopped herself then quickly tailored her words, but it didn’t prevent her opinion from ringing loud and clear in Kody’s mind, giving him a serious behemoth to wrestle with, again, the same one that had been kicking his ass for over a year.
“It was easy to see that you had a real thing for that big city girl, Jennifer a few summers back, and if my recollections are accurate, the interest and affection ran both ways.”
“How do you—“
“I respected your privacy,” she went on, bulldozing right over his perplexed interjection. “I didn’t ask why she left and never came back, and I didn’t pry as I watched you plummet into a low mood and stay there for a month’s worth of Sundays.” Sue Ann took a deep, fortifying breath. “Now, I don’t want you to screw this up.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said dryly. Then the unaffected tone he’d been trying to keep up—as if this conversation wasn’t making his palms sweat and his hopes skyrocket—faltered as he asked, “Screw what up?”
Every nerve in his body was poised for her reply. His breathing was ragged as he braced himself to hear her confirm every instinct that was whirring through him on a cellular level; to hear that his entire internal alarm system did not need to be recalibrated. The alert was spot on. That against all odds, against reason and logic and the weight of time itself, the very thing he’d been wishing for hard despite knowing deep down it just wasn’t ever going to happen, was actually coming true.
That an honest to God, bonified miracle was taking place.
“Screw what up, Sue Ann?” he repeated impatiently, suspense gnawing at his guts.
“Jennifer Okimoto is standing in my café right now.”
There was more coming out of Sue Ann’s mouth, words of caution and pearls of wisdom and an encouraging chuckle or two, but he couldn’t process it. His head and heart and hearing had all latched onto a feeling of hope so great that it had rendered him deaf, dumb, and maybe even blind.
Kody was terrified.
But in the absolute best way possible.
(If you liked this excerpt, be on the lookout for REKINDLE THE FLAME, coming November 2017 exclusively on Amazon Kindle!)