Read Eggnog and Candy Canes: A Blueberry Springs Christmas Novella for Free Online

Style and listening skills? Not something you could drive by and grab off Main Street in the small mountain meadow town of Blueberry Springs.
    “I want to get into decorating.” Oh, crapola. Did that just come out of her mouth? She glanced in her empty cup. Dang rum and eggnog. The stuff was like a lethal injection of truth serum.
    “Interior or cake?”
    “I love that you asked that.” This was not good. She was going to warm until she thawed, get all gooey and mushy for a man who…who what? She sighed. “Interior.”
    She had to stop talking to him. Couldn’t someone have a heart attack or something? But not her father, of course. He’d already had his.
    And that was yet another reason Katie needed to ignore the idea of getting into interior decorating. Her father would have a coronary if she dropped nursing, and she’d feel guilty until the end of time. She’d seen what going through a career switch had done to her brother, and it hadn’t been pretty.
    “I took a few online courses,” she said. Holy moly truth serum. Had Nash slipped her a sodium pentothal? Why was she telling him things she hadn’t even told Will in a moment of postcoital glow?
    “Did you enjoy them?”
    “Yeah, of course.” Feeling uncomfortable, she got up and threw another log on the fire.
    “Any experience?”
    She shrugged. “A few friends here and there. Just as a favor. Nobody knows I have training or have been thinking about this.”
    The back door opened and Katie felt the surge of heat that came with getting caught doing something wrong. Secrets. So many secrets. She was glad she was no longer wrapped in Nash’s arms, at least.
    “Hey, you two.” Mary Alice paused outside the door to fish a lighter from her coat pocket. “Hiding out together, are you?”
    “Hardly. The house is packed.” Katie blinked and poked at the fire. She had been hiding out. And with Nash, no less. Kissing. Snuggling. Sharing secrets and dreams. Allowing it all. Even enjoying it.
    She’d never believed Beth had good taste in men—first falling for Katie’s screw-up brother,   and then Nash. But there were some good sides to Oz, who was proving to be an amazing father as well as a caring and doting husband. Nash, however? Katie had never seen the value in him other than the fact that he never seemed to need someone to remove the stains from his clothes as Will always had.
    But now she kind of got it.
    Mental note to herself: Nash was still Beth’s ex.
    The flame from Mary Alice’s lighter flickered in the light breeze and Nash moved to help shield it.
    “How was supper, Mary Alice?” Katie asked. “Did you get enough?”
    “Sure did. Your father ate so much he’s got a stomach ache. Your mother says it is not the cabbage rolls, so don’t walk into that one.” Mary Alice squinted as she took a satisfying drag on her cigarette. She smiled at Nash. “Thanks, hon.”
    He gave a nod and moved back to the warmth of the fire.
    “So, Nash, how is being a bigwig in the city treating you these days?”
    “It is what I was looking for,” he replied carefully. Katie wanted to ask if it was what he was still looking for. She had a feeling it wasn’t.
    “If so, then what are you doing in this place?” Mary Alice laughed, her smoker’s cough moving phlegm in a way that had to have Nash cringing and double-thinking his gentlemanly move to help her light her cancer stick.
    “How’s the store?” he asked diplomatically. “Still have that husband of yours kicking around?”
    “You thinking of replacing him?”
    “You’re more woman than I could handle, Mary Alice.”
    “That’s true,” she said thoughtfully. “What about our fine Katie here? I’ve often wondered why the two of you didn’t hit it off.”
    Katie rolled her eyes. “Have you not met Nash?”
    “I have.” Mary Alice crossed her arms and stared her down. She took a final drag of her smoke, then chucked it in the fire, ignoring the mistletoe ashtray Katie’s mother had