A California Christmas Read online

  Spend the holidays in Silver Springs, where the greatest gift of all is the love you never expected.

  Up-and-coming TV anchor Emery Bliss can’t imagine anything more humiliating than the sex tape her ex revenge-posted online. That is, until it causes her to lose her job on top of her self-esteem. Seeking solace—and anonymity—in Silver Springs, Emery isn’t looking to get involved with another man any time soon. But when she’s thrown back into contact with Dallas Turner, she sees something that his many detractors have missed.

  Being home for the holidays and his adoptive mother’s wedding isn’t where mountain climber Dallas feels most comfortable. Thanks to his troubled childhood, he’d rather be on a rock face alone than trying to connect with people. Emery, however, makes him want to overcome his past…somehow.

  Both Emery and Dallas had been planning on a quiet, solitary Christmas, but the sparks between them are lighting a fire strong enough to last—possibly forever.

  Praise for the novels of Brenda Novak

  “I adore everything Brenda Novak writes. Her books are compelling, emotional, tender stories about people I would love to know in real life. Christmas in Silver Springs is a story that will stay with me for a long time, about two people who deserve to find their happily ever after. You can’t miss this heartwarming, beautiful story. This is truly a holiday story you will want to read again and again.”

  —RaeAnne Thayne, New York Times bestselling author

  “Fascinating characters, powerful conflicts and complex emotions make any Brenda Novak book a must-read for me.”

  —Sherryl Woods, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “Once you visit Silver Springs, you’ll never want to leave.”

  —Robyn Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “Heartwarming, life-affirming, page-turning romance. I can always count on Novak to make me weep, laugh and fall in love!”

  —Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author

  “Brenda Novak doesn’t just write fabulous stories, she writes keepers.”

  —Susan Mallery, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “The perfect read to cozy up to on a long winter night.”

  —Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on Before We Were Strangers

  “The author deftly integrates topics such as coming to terms with one’s past and the importance of forgiveness into another beautifully crafted, exceptionally poignant love story.”

  —Library Journal on Discovering You

  “This Heart of Mine had such beautiful details that it captured my full attention—and had me sniffling and smiling while waiting to board my plane.”

  —First for Women

  Also by Brenda Novak

  ONE PERFECT SUMMER

  CHRISTMAS IN SILVER SPRINGS

  UNFORGETTABLE YOU

  BEFORE WE WERE STRANGERS

  RIGHT WHERE WE BELONG

  UNTIL YOU LOVED ME

  NO ONE BUT YOU

  FINDING OUR FOREVER

  THE SECRETS SHE KEPT

  A WINTER WEDDING

  THE SECRET SISTER

  THIS HEART OF MINE

  THE HEART OF CHRISTMAS

  COME HOME TO ME

  TAKE ME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

  HOME TO WHISKEY CREEK

  WHEN SUMMER COMES

  WHEN SNOW FALLS

  WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES

  IN CLOSE

  IN SECONDS

  INSIDE

  KILLER HEAT

  BODY HEAT

  WHITE HEAT

  THE PERFECT MURDER

  THE PERFECT LIAR

  THE PERFECT COUPLE

  WATCH ME

  STOP ME

  TRUST ME

  DEAD RIGHT

  DEAD GIVEAWAY

  DEAD SILENCE

  COLD FEET

  TAKING THE HEAT

  EVERY WAKING MOMENT

  Look for Brenda Novak’s next novel

  THE BOOKSTORE ON THE BEACH

  available soon from MIRA.

  For a full list of Brenda’s books visit www.brendanovak.com.

  A California Christmas

  Brenda Novak

  To Luci Malone, a member of my online book group on Facebook and a true bibliophile who has come to many of my events, including when I visit the Authors Booth at the California State Fair each summer. I’ve never seen anyone have to fight so hard just to survive. She’s beaten pancreatic cancer not once but twice, and now she’s battling it for a third time, yet she forges ahead with such grace, determination and courage. She’s an inspiration to me and lifts everyone around her to a higher plane. Here’s to beating it once again!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from The Bookstore on the Beach by Brenda Novak

  1

  Monday, December 7

  Dallas Turner figured he shouldn’t be surprised when he walked into his mother’s house to find someone who wasn’t part of the family in her kitchen. Aiyana had taken him in, hadn’t she? She’d taken in and raised seven other boys, too. Only a couple of years ago, she’d expanded the campus of New Horizons—the school she’d started twenty-four years ago for troubled boys—to include a girls’ side.

  But she hadn’t adopted any girls yet.

  This wasn’t a girl, anyway. Although he was seeing her from behind, he could tell it was a full-grown woman who was reaching into the cupboard. A full-grown woman who wasn’t entirely dressed.

  “Hello?” he said.

  Startled, she whipped around, and he nearly dropped the groceries he’d carried in. This was no stranger to him, as he’d first assumed. It was Emery Bliss, someone he’d known when he was living here in the artsy community of Silver Springs, ninety minutes northwest of Los Angeles. He hadn’t seen her since he moved away after graduating high school ten years ago, but he recognized her instantly.

  She was equally surprised to see him—or to see a man suddenly standing behind her. He didn’t know which.

  With a yelp, she yanked her T-shirt down far enough to cover her underwear. “Excuse me, I—I didn’t expect anyone to be home until this afternoon. Aiyana said—” She blinked several times and her blush deepened. He was no longer the skinny boy with the bad acne whose gaze had so often trailed after her when she returned her horse to the equestrian center of her private school, where he’d worked mucking out stalls, but he could tell she now recognized him. “I was just...getting a bowl of cereal and...”

  Her words trailed off as she edged along the counter, leaving her breakfast behind while she stretched her T-shirt down as far as possible, holding it in a death grip with both hands.

  “No problem,” he said, relieving her of the burden of trying to finish that sentence. She didn
’t seem to know where she was going with it, anyway.

  “I’m really sorry,” she mumbled as though she’d caused him some terrible injury and escaped the kitchen as soon as she could.

  He could hear her footfalls racing up the stairs as Aiyana and his two youngest brothers filed into the house with the rest of the groceries—Aiyana telling them they had only a half hour, at most, before they had to leave again. They were looking forward to playing a particular video game, so this was met with the type of groans one might expect from much younger boys.

  “Give us an hour, at least,” Bentley, the youngest, a senior in high school, pleaded.

  “Just one hour,” Liam chimed in. Two years older than Bentley, Liam was working and taking online classes instead of going to college because he’d injured his knee playing basketball and was getting an operation next month.

  “No,” she said firmly. “We can’t miss this appointment.”

  After setting down the bags in his hands, Dallas pulled their mother aside and lowered his voice so that it wouldn’t carry to the second level. “What was that all about?”

  Aiyana didn’t respond right away. She was still preoccupied with his brothers. “You can’t start anything interactive where other players are depending on you. We don’t have time.”

  “We’ll turn it off the second you say so,” Bentley promised, and they dumped the groceries they were carrying on the first horizontal surface they could find and rushed into the living room to turn on the Xbox.

  “Mom?” Dallas prodded.

  “What?” She gave his hand an affectionate squeeze before disengaging so that she could set her purse aside and put away the food.

  Dallas could hear his brothers negotiating which video game to play, since they didn’t have time for the one they’d initially planned. Aiyana, Bentley and Liam had met him for breakfast as he came into town from Las Vegas, where he lived in the months he wasn’t rock climbing. They’d expected to go directly from there to Santa Barbara, so that he and his brothers could be fitted for tuxedos. Aiyana’s wedding was on the nineteenth, and every one of her eight adopted sons would be in the line. But the tuxedo place had called while they were eating and asked to reschedule for later in the day, so they’d done the weekly grocery shopping before they left town instead of waiting until they were on their way home. “What’s the deal?”

  Confusion showed on Aiyana’s face, so he clarified. “Emery Bliss was in the kitchen when I came in.” He didn’t mention that she’d been wearing nothing except a faded Van Halen T-shirt and a pair of bikini briefs. It was obvious she hadn’t planned for anyone to walk in.

  “Oh! You saw her?”

  “Yes, I saw her.” Emery’s long blond hair had been mussed, as though she’d only recently climbed out of bed, and she hadn’t been wearing makeup, so it wasn’t only her state of undress that led him to believe she was staying at the house. “It looked to me as though she’s living here.”

  “She is,” Aiyana said simply, and went back to unloading the groceries.

  His mother didn’t volunteer the reason; she made him ask. “Why?”

  “Why not?” she countered.

  “Your wedding is less than two weeks away, for one.”

  She waved off his words. “It’ll be fine. You’ll all be here, but Elijah and Gavin have their own houses these days. It won’t get crowded until the twins and Seth come home on the eighteenth. Even then, we should have plenty of room.”

  “I wasn’t claiming there wouldn’t be enough room—just that...that we’ll be busy. We have a lot going on,” he added to shore up his argument.

  A playful gleam entered her eyes. “What’s the matter? Does having her here make you uncomfortable?”

  As innocent as his encounter with Emery had been, he wouldn’t soon forget seeing her ass in those panties, he knew that much. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Don’t start with that.”

  “With what?”

  “You know what. I don’t need you playing matchmaker.”

  He’d wanted to take Emery to Senior Ball back in the day, and Aiyana knew that because she’d tried to help him come up with a clever way of inviting her. But even with his mother’s encouragement and the ideas they’d tossed around, he’d never gathered the nerve. He couldn’t imagine a wealthy girl from Topatopa Academy, a private school known for providing an elite education, would care to be seen with one of the “bad” boys from New Horizons. He couldn’t imagine her parents would be pleased to have her go out with him, either. And during the time he was dithering back and forth, she accepted an invitation to attend the public school’s prom with the best player on the McGregor football team—the running back, who was now in the pros. The McGregor prom was the night before New Horizons’ Senior Ball, so while the events didn’t directly conflict, he’d decided to spare her the trouble of trying to decide whether to attend two formal dances on the same weekend. There was no way he could follow a local hero. She’d be taking a huge step down.

  Considering everything, he figured he’d saved himself some rejection by not asking her out ten years ago.

  “I’m not playing matchmaker,” she said. “I admit that I like Emery. She’s a lovely person. And I wouldn’t mind if you were to finally fall in love—”

  “Finally?” he broke in. “I’m only twenty-nine!”

  She closed the refrigerator after putting away the bacon. “Someone has to get hold of you, get you to change your focus and settle down before you kill yourself. The idea of you rock climbing without any safety gear, any ropes...” She shook her head. “It keeps me up at night. But having Emery here has nothing to do with you. That poor girl. I’m just providing a safe haven for her until after the holidays.”

  “Why would she need a safe haven?” Emery’s father, a plastic surgeon, was rumored to have patients who were famous. He made a lot of money. On top of that, Emery had been smart, popular and pretty. What could possibly have gone wrong when she was starting out with everything in her favor?

  His mother pulled a tub of mayonnaise from one of the bags and opened the fridge again. “You don’t watch much TV, do you?”

  “Not in the months I’m climbing.” He put some potato chips in the pantry. “You don’t understand what it’s like. I live out of my van for a week or more at a time.” And this year, his climbing season had lasted longer than in previous years. He’d finally found a sponsor, a sponsor who was paying handsomely just to have him endorse their brand of climbing apparel. He’d never had so much money.

  “Well, if you don’t already know what happened, I probably shouldn’t tell you.” She reached into another sack. “The more word of it spreads, the worse things will get for her.”

  “What are you talking about?” He folded the sacks they’d emptied. “And how could telling me make it any worse?”

  With a sigh, she dragged him farther from the room where Bentley and Liam were playing, and the stairs where Emery had gone. “After college, she became a news anchor on a popular morning show in Los Angeles. She loved her job, was doing very well at it and had high hopes of eventually moving to New York and taking over a show like Good Morning America.”

  “But then...” He scowled at her. “Why are you making me drag this out of you?”

  She hesitated.

  “Mom? This is me you’re talking to.”

  “I realize that, but...” She seemed torn. “Okay. She broke up with her coanchor, and he retaliated by posting a video of the two of them online that humiliated her and caused her to lose her job.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What kind of video?”

  She cast him an exasperated look. “What kind do you think?”

  “No...” he said, stepping back.

  “Yes! They were having s-e-x,” she whispered.

  He might’ve laughed that she’d felt the need to spell it when his bro
thers were plenty old enough to understand, but he was too shocked. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “I wish I were,” she said with a frown. “She refuses to show her face in Los Angeles. That video went viral. Everyone’s seen it. It even made the national news.”

  Dallas could only imagine how mortified Emery must’ve been. As attractive as she was, every male viewer had probably raced onto the internet to have a look. “What about her family? They were always supportive. Why wouldn’t she go to them?”

  “They don’t live in the area anymore. They moved to Boston two years ago, and her parents are in the middle of a nasty divorce, something she doesn’t need to be involved in when she’s going through so much herself. Her father is already living with another woman. And her mother is trying to care for Emery’s grandmother, who has dementia. That’s the reason they moved to Boston in the first place.”

  “What about siblings?”

  “She’s an only child.”

  “Wow.” He sank into one of the kitchen chairs. “I didn’t realize you knew Emery well enough to take her in.”

  “I didn’t until her mother began volunteering here at the school. A year or so after you graduated, Connie started teaching the boys how to ride. She even donated a couple of the horses. We still have one of them. Anyway, we became close, and that’s how I got to know Emery. Whenever Emery came home from college, even after she earned her degree, her mother would bring her over, and she’d help, too. So when the scandal broke, and I saw it on the news, I called to see how she was doing. The poor child wouldn’t even pick up the phone. I had to leave several messages before I could get her to call me back. Her mother said she was hiding out in her apartment.”

  “And when you did get hold of her, you insisted she come here?”

  “I had to. I couldn’t leave her in that situation.”

  No wonder Emery had apologized when he’d caught her in her underwear this morning. Someone who’d just been through what she’d been through would be extra sensitive to that sort of encounter, even though it was completely accidental. “Wait. So she got fired for sleeping with a coworker? Can that even happen these days?”