Christmas in Destiny Read online

  Dedication

  To Blair Herzog, Lindsey Faber, and Jacqueline Daher—

  angels in disguise.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Praise for Toni Blake

  About the Author

  By Toni Blake

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  “Tonight’s his crucial night.”

  Franklin, It’s a Wonderful Life

  Snow had just begun to fall as Shane Dalton sprinkled his father’s ashes over a stark, lonely little pond on a farm outside Mansfield, Ohio. His father’s childhood home, and “a place where I was happy,” his dad had said just before his death last month. “And there weren’t many of those.”

  Shane stood looking around the area—thinking about his father’s life, and his own. They’d both made a lot of mistakes. And he’d probably make some more—after all, he was only thirty-four.

  He’d been born near here, raised here until he was nine—but he’d never been back. Never had a reason to come. And while one part of him thought maybe he should linger a little, take a look around . . . the rest of him thought: Nah, waste of time. A brisk gust of wintry wind sliced through him, confirming the decision.

  Next stop: Miami. Fast cars, fast women, and the first Christmas he’d spend not surrounded by Montana snow. He’d never liked Christmas anyway—so a few lights hung up in palm trees would suit him just fine.

  There was a job waiting for him. Though he wasn’t sure exactly what it was—he had only an address and a phone number. A guy named Donnie V. was going to hook him up—a friend of a friend of a friend. All he knew was the money sounded good. And the fast cars and fast women didn’t sound bad, either.

  Climbing back behind the wheel of his Chevy pickup, he set the GPS on his cell phone for Miami, ready to start the next leg of his cross-country road trip to a new life. He’d spent a long time heading east, but now it was finally time to turn south.

  As he was about to put the truck in Drive, though, he stopped. Thought a minute. Picked the phone back up.

  Despite himself, he keyed in the name of the place his father had muttered only a moment before he’d passed away. “Go there after Mansfield,” he’d mumbled to Shane. “Something there for you.”

  “What? What’s there for me?”

  He hadn’t been able to pull any more from his dad on the topic before, seconds later, his father’s eyes had closed for the last time. So he’d decided it was the ramblings of a man out of his head on pain medication.

  And yet the words had stayed with him. Something there for you.

  What the hell could that mean?

  Hitting the search button, he found that a town by that name actually existed—and lay only a couple hours away. Well, I’ll be damned.

  Kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but when would he ever pass this way again?

  So . . . maybe he should make a quick side trip before it got dark. Just to check the place out. See if he could figure out what his dad had been talking about. If it had even meant anything at all.

  It wouldn’t take long. Then he’d be back on the road to sun and fun and money, three things he’d never had quite enough of.

  Phone still in hand, he changed the destination on his GPS once more—to Destiny, Ohio.

  One

  “There’s a squall in there that’s shapin’ up into a storm.”

  Uncle Billy, It’s a Wonderful Life

  Funny how a snowy night could change the landscape, the whole feel of a place. Candice Sheridan stood peering out the window into an early December snow that had transformed picturesque Blue Valley Road and the lake on the other side into an unrecognizable and desolate-feeling place. The snow had been falling heavily since this afternoon and didn’t appear to be letting up anytime soon. Using her mailbox next to the road as a measuring stick, she concluded there was nearly a foot of wet, heavy snow on the ground already.

  The snowplows would come in the morning, and if she needed anything, her neighbors Mick and Jenny Brody were only a phone call away in their cottage up the road. And she had plenty of provisions. But winter nights like this always made her feel lonely. Even the blinking lights on her Christmas tree and strung across the mantel didn’t take away the feeling of emptiness that settled inside her.

  It was one thing to close yourself off from life by choice—but another to have nature do it for you.

  Easing back into the cozy, overstuffed chair next to the fire, she reached for her open laptop—only to find a solid white cat stretched across the keyboard.

  “Is this your way of saying I should call it a night, Frosty?”

  The cat looked up but didn’t answer. He was the sort of cat who always seemed mildly bored with her—except for when she was feeding him, of course. Then he was a regular meowing machine, but the rest of the time, he mostly just lounged around acting like some kind of kitty king.

  “Sometimes I wonder why I adopted you,” she said, using both hands to remove his lanky body from the computer. She was teasing, of course, but she wouldn’t have minded a more affectionate cat.

  Amy Whitaker, who ran the bookstore in town, had a habit of taking in stray cats and then finding them homes—even if it meant foisting them off on people who weren’t necessarily in the market for a pet. Frosty had lived at the store, Under the Covers, for several months before Candice had finally decided that maybe a kitty would be nice company for a woman like her—a woman who lived and worked alone in a large house in a rural area. “So where’s the affection and company?” she chided the cat. He was curling up in front of the fireplace now, and pretty much ignoring her—as usual.

  Taking up the laptop, she refocused on her work. She made her living as a technical writer, composing instruction guides and owner’s manuals for everything from toys to software programs. Her current project: an instruction and safety manual for a vacuum cleaner set to hit the market in spring.

  She still found herself preoccupied by the snowfall, though—or more by the idea of it. Wondering how much there would be, and still thinking about how it could alter one’s world so drastically—at least for a little while. So after typing just a few lines, she took Frosty’s implied advice and closed the lid on the computer for the night. She moved back to the front bay window and pulled aside the pale sheers to look back out on a sea of white and the dark surface of the lake beyond. She wondered if it would freeze. Normally that didn’t happen until after Christmas, but temps were unusually low for December, and winter definitely seemed to be blowing into the region early and fierce.

  Letting out a sigh, she let the thin curtain drop, checked the dying fire in the hearth, and then scratched Frosty’s chest as she said, “You were right—calling it a night.” And after climbing the old wooden staircase in the stately Victorian home she’d bought a few years ago, she changed into a cozy old red-and-white flannel nightgown. It was definitely a night that called for flannel.

  As she pulled up the covers on her four-
poster bed, she was heartened to remember that tomorrow the snow would be cleared and life would get back to normal. And with this much snow—well, it was early in the month yet, but unless a whole lot of melting took place, looked like it would be a white Christmas in Destiny.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Candice’s eyes sprang open as the jarring noise jolted her awake.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  What on earth? She briskly sat up, trying to get her bearings in the dark.

  The sound came again. Louder this time. And as she sat there in bed, the room lit only by the deluge of white outside, she realized someone was beating on her door in the middle of the night. Which seemed almost impossible given that the weather outside was more than a little frightful.

  Her heart beat rapidly as the relentless banging continued. Even while she dragged herself out of bed and headed toward the stairs, her sleep-addled brain whirled. As a woman who lived alone in an isolated area, she didn’t particularly want to answer. But what if it was Jenny or Mick—what if something was wrong with their little boy?

  Flipping on the dim porch light, she made out a shadowy male figure and concluded it was indeed Mick. The fact that he was out in this weather, at this hour, filled her with worry. So she flung open the door.

  Then gasped. It wasn’t Mick.

  It wasn’t Mick at all.

  She didn’t know who this was—but he looked horribly out of place, and a little bit scary. “Wh-wh- . . .” Words failed her in her fright.

  The tall, dark stranger regarded her through piercing blue eyes. “Look, I know it’s late, but my pickup spun out and I hit a snowbank around that last bend.” His voice was deep and his tone unapologetic as he pointed over his shoulder in the general direction of the road. “Can’t get a signal on my cell, so need to use your phone.”

  Strangers didn’t just show up on porches in the middle of the night in Destiny, and she simply stared at him as if he were a ghost standing at her door in the blowing snow. The scary kind, with a lock of dark hair dipping over his forehead, a thick shadowy stubble on his chin, and even a little scar near his right eye. Though she wasn’t sure if ghosts bothered to knock.

  “Who are you going to call?” she managed to ask. Then blinked repeatedly. It was an unfortunate habit of hers—blinking when she was nervous.

  He arched a critical brow as a cold wind blew around them, his expression implying that maybe he thought she was still half-asleep. “A tow truck,” he said, enunciating, as if the answer was obvious.

  But he was clearly uninformed about something she thought obvious. “Have you seen the roads? A tow truck won’t come out here when it’s like this. I don’t know how you got any truck out here tonight. And we don’t have a tow truck in Destiny anyway.”

  His eyebrows both shot up then, though his voice came out sounding almost matter-of-fact. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “I can’t.”

  A heavy sigh left him as he muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

  Since she was pretty sure he wasn’t making a Christmas reference, she ignored that and went on. “Someone will have to come from Crestview,” she explained. Then blinked and added, “But I’ll try to call anyway. Just in case. Wait here.”

  After which she shut the door on him. And locked it. In a near blizzard. Which didn’t exactly feel kind or charitable, but a woman had to protect herself. And as for calling—despite what she’d told him, she’d decided it was worth making sure, worth a try, to get the scary stranger off her porch as efficiently as possible.

  She rushed to the phone, looked up the number, and dialed briskly. Then promptly heard a recording on the other end, saying what she already knew: Meffler’s Towing was closed due to inclement weather and anyone in need of a tow should call back after the storm. And they were sorry for the inconvenience. “Me too,” she whispered to no one, hanging up.

  Then she steeled herself and walked back to the front door. Unfortunately, when she opened it, he was still standing there. Looking cold and a little snow-covered since the snow now even blew up under the roof that covered her porch.

  She just shook her head. “They’re not answering their phones until the snow stops.” Only then it occurred to her to ask, “What on earth are you doing out here in a blizzard anyway?”

  “Got lost,” he said.

  And as he shifted his weight from one snow-covered work boot to the other, she noticed for the first time that his coat was too thin for the cold, and she thought of him trudging from around the bend in a foot of wet snow and for some crazy reason wondered if his feet had stayed dry. She also wondered what kind of person was out in the country this late at night in this kind of weather. Escaped convicts and serial killers came to mind.

  “Made a wrong turn looking to find a room for the night,” he said, “but I’m guessing a motel’s gonna be pretty hard to come by here, too.” He sounded wearied by the very thought, perhaps understandably.

  But she could only nod, sorry—for both of them—to have to deliver the bad news. “The Half Moon Inn is miles away.”

  As another heavy sigh left him, she began to realize—almost against her will—that underneath all the scary he was also maybe . . . kind of hot. His voice was deep and a little raspy, and that thin coat didn’t hide his broad shoulders. There was something visceral about him—she could somehow feel his very maleness. And that was when he narrowed his blue gaze on her and said, “Looks like you’re stuck with me then.”

  Which made her blink. Twice. Oh Lord, surely he wasn’t suggesting . . . “You can’t stay here, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Scary ghost, hot convict—there was a lot going on here, but none of it seemed good. Or safe.

  He shifted his weight again, and gave her an exhausted look. And she realized what she’d just said. Which made her feel the need to say more.

  “I don’t mean to be rude,” she told him, “but . . .” But what? No room at the inn for scary guys who show up in the middle of the night?

  He met her gaze. “I don’t mean to be rude, either, but I don’t think either one of us really has a choice.” Then murmured under his breath, “Unless you want me to freeze to death in my truck.”

  Candice gasped slightly, caught off guard by the very idea. “Well, of course I don’t want that,” she rushed to say. “It’s just that . . . I don’t know you and . . .” She stopped, still stuck for words, and blinked some more.

  The hot, scary guy at the door—who seemed more real and less ghostly every second—looked put out. As if this was her fault. Then said, “Maybe you could go get your husband. Maybe you’d feel better if I talked to him instead.”

  And she flinched, her spine going ramrod straight. The very notion suggested that she should have a husband. And that a man would be more reasonable about this. “I’m not married,” she informed him snippily.

  “Oh.” Clearly this surprised him, and he switched his blue gaze from side to side, as if taking in the scope of the house. “I just assumed with a place this big . . .”

  Yes, she’d known the home was too large when she’d bought it from Caroline Meeks Lindley after she’d gotten married and moved in with her new husband. But Candice had been in love with the grand old house her whole life and Caroline had made it affordable, wanting a quick sale. Candice had hoped that, as someone who worked at home and spent most of her time there, a roomy place would be nice. As opposed to cavernous, hard to heat, hell to keep clean, and providing a million spots for a cat to hide.

  “Well, you assumed wrong,” she said smartly. “I live here by myself.” Oh, that’s just great—blurt out to the scary convict stranger that you’re all alone here; ripe pickings; easy prey. She finished by blinking several times. And probably looking a little freaked out—because she’d never been skilled at hiding her feelings. Then, operating on pure instinct, she made a move to close the door on him again.

  “Look,” he said softly, holding up his hands, which lacked gloves despite the blizzard conditions, “
believe it or not, I’m not here to rape and pillage. I’d rather not be here at all, trust me. And I get it—woman alone, strange dude on your porch. But I need a place to sleep. And I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I can get a tow truck here tomorrow morning.”

  Candice went silent, feeling a little trapped by the dilemma.

  But that was when the stranger, perhaps sensing that, took a step back from her—and the simple gesture made her feel a little less threatened by all that masculinity. “What can I do,” he asked her, “to put you at ease? Name it and I will.”

  Just then, a brush of fur swept past her ankle and Frosty slipped past her, dashing out the door and down into the snow. “Frosty! What on earth?” They both turned, their eyes following the darting cat, but that quickly he’d disappeared in the deep snow. “Oh my God,” she murmured, instantly gripped with dread.

  “Was that a cat?” he asked, eyes narrowed.

  “Yes!” she said, still searching the white yard for her white cat, panic-stricken.

  “It went by so fast I wasn’t sure. Been trying to escape a long time now?”

  She flicked her gaze to the stranger. “No,” she answered pointedly. “He’s usually perfectly content. I have no idea what’s gotten into him—or where he’s gone.” She let out a ragged breath, full alarm setting in. “He’ll freeze to death out there.”

  “I can relate,” the stranger muttered.

  She just gave him another look. But then turned her attention back toward poor, dumb Frosty, somewhere out in the snow. “Here, kitty kitty!” she called in a high-pitched voice. “Here, kitty kitty! Come back, kitty kitty! Before you die out there!”

  But still Frosty was nowhere to be seen in the snow, even though some of it was a lot more strewn around than before. It was as if her cat had simply vanished in it, that quickly.

  And when she next looked back at the stranger on her porch, she realized that . . . maybe she needed to be braver. For Frosty’s sake. She didn’t know what that crazy cat was thinking, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And since there didn’t seem to be any knights in shining armor around, this guy would have to do. “Can you help me look for him?” she asked.