Christmas Hero

  Christmas Hero: A Christmas Military Romance

  Home For Christmas Book 2

  Di Jones

  Write from the Heart Publications

  Copyright © 2019 Di Jones

  www.dijoneswrites.com

  Christmas Hero is a work of fiction. All characters in the book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except for text references by reviewers, no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  Kindle Edition

  Contents

  1. Betty

  2. Andy

  3. Betty

  4. Andy

  5. Betty

  6. Andy

  7. Elizabeth

  8. Andy

  9. Elizabeth

  10. Andy

  11. Elizabeth

  12. Andy

  13. Elizabeth

  14. Andy

  15. Elizabeth

  16. Andy

  17. Elizabeth

  18. Andy

  19. Elizabeth

  20. Andy

  Want More from Elizabeth and Andy?

  Christmas Harmony (Home For Christmas Book 1)

  Christmas Kisses Down Under (Christmas Lights Book 1)

  Hot Kisses in Cold Christmas (Christmas Lights Book 2)

  Author’s Note and Free Book

  Also by Di Jones

  About Me

  One

  Betty

  When she heard Mona’s voice on the other end of her cell phone, Betty Haye’s heart sank. Her family was close, but she couldn’t tolerate her entitled, opinionated, and downright mean sister-in-law. There was only one word for her and it rhymed with witch.

  Taking a deep breath, Betty tried not to interrupt while Mona rambled on about why she was calling.

  “Betty,” Mona said in an ingratiating tone which wasn’t in the least bit authentic, “I’m going to need you to watch the shop over the Christmas vacation.”

  Betty raised an eyebrow at the woman’s nerve. “Your bookstore? I’d love to help you, but I can’t. I have plans for Christmas.”

  Her sister-in-law spoke as if she was completely unmoved. “This thing is, I have Bill to think of, and little Charlotte. We want to do something really special this year. Who are you going away with?”

  Betty frowned, annoyed that she was being interrogated about her Christmas plans. “I’m not going away with anyone. I’m really excited about the opportunity to be alone and do what I want for once in my life.” She shouldn’t have had to justify herself to Mona, but she wasn’t being selfish. Betty spent most of her time pleasing everyone else and this year she wanted to make herself happy. She knew that she wasn’t entirely content with her life, but she wasn’t sure how to fix it either, and hoped she’d find the answer by traveling out of town. Where she’d go, she didn’t know: she planned to get in her car and drive, and stop wherever she wanted to. Why shouldn’t she?

  Mona’s annoyance came crackling down the line in the form of a long sigh. “I think that’s very selfish of you but then you don’t understand about being a mother. I’ve got a child with your brother and I think our plans should come first.”

  Betty’s grip on her cellphone was so tight that the plastic casing dug painfully into her flesh. She hated arguing and feared she was going to let Mona get away with yet another manipulation. This was a quality she hated about herself…she was the definition of a doormat and was never able to say “no” to anyone.

  “Okay,” Betty said in a flat voice. I can go away after the Christmas holiday. I can go away any time at all, can’t I? After all, it’s not as if I have anyone to go with.

  “Oh, and before I forget,” Mona continued in an upbeat voice now that she had her way, “My cousin is coming to town for the holiday. I thought he could stay with you, Betty, and then you could entertain him. We offered to take him with us when we went away, but he said he loved celebrating Christmas here in Lewiston. He didn’t grow up in town but he spent some summer and Christmas holidays with us,” Mona continued. “I haven’t seen Andy for quite a few years. He’s recently been discharged from the Army and he’s looking to recapture some joy post military life and get used to his freedom again.”

  “I don’t want to entertain a stranger. This is too much.” Betty’s breath whistled out in a defeated sigh, but Mona didn’t acknowledge her dismay. “Anyway, have I ever met this guy? What’s his name?” Her mind raced, trying to remember if she’d ever come across Mona’s cousin before.

  “His name is Andy Levee. No, I don’t think you’ve ever met him. He doesn’t know you.”

  Mona had clearly already told Andy Levee that Betty would be looking after him. A sharp retort formed in her mind, but she bit it off. What was the point? Her sister-in-law wouldn’t care anyway.

  Years ago her older brother Bill had warned her to never to argue with Mona because, he’d said, it would be a complete and utter waste of energy. At the time, Betty had thought Bill was exaggerating but she’d learned over the years that it was accurate. She wondered how her lovely brother could stand being married to such a woman but she recognized that an extrovert like Bill could effectively handle Mona’s loud, bossy ways.

  Betty, an introvert, had organized her life so she could avoid dealing with many people, especially anyone as difficult as her sister-in-law.

  Rather than working in an office, Betty opted to work from home as a self-employed medical transcriptionist. The hospital she contracted with was fifty miles from Lewiston, which made working from home perfect in many ways. She could do her work quietly, plowing through doctors’ clinical notes starting early in the morning and finishing mid afternoon. She didn’t have to drive for miles to get to work, or put up with office politics, or stay to socialize on Friday nights. Her life was quiet and confined but she liked her solitude.

  But no one else—especially Mona—seemed to respect the fact that she had a job to do. Friends and family seemed to think that as she worked from home, she wasn’t really working. They commented that she was a “lady of leisure”, joked that she was “free all day”, and constantly asked her to run errands for them. The hospital she transcribed for had expectations and there was no way for her to meet their exacting demands if she was constantly walking someone’s dog, picking up someone’s groceries, or babysitting her niece for Mona.

  “Okay,” she said again, trying to inject a little enthusiasm into her voice.

  “Thank you, Betty,” said Mona brightly. “I knew I could count on you.” Before she could change her mind, Mona rang off.

  A long, frustrated sigh escaped from her as she put the phone down. Not only was she giving up her Christmas holiday out of town—with whatever adventures and new opportunities it might have led to—but now she would be taking care of Mona’s bookstore and playing hostess to a stranger.

  Could her Christmas holiday get any worse?

  Probably…because every year Tricia or Harmony, the stalwarts of the town’s social committee, tried to rope her into volunteering for the Lewiston Christmas concert, the town’s biggest annual event. And of course every year she was too nice to say no. She knew the festival and concert were important to the town, but she hated doing it, and going away had given her a reason to avoid it. Thanks to Mona, now she no longer had that excuse. She’d been looking forward to Christmas, but now she hated the thought of it.

  So there was the answer to her question…yes, Christmas could get much, much worse.

  Two

  Andy

  As he exited the plane at Albany Airport in upstate New York, Andy Levee took a deep breath of the unpressurized air and smiled. After spending the past four ye
ars at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, he was filled with excitement and anticipation. He’d enjoyed his military career, but since his honorable discharge he was now free to do what he wanted. The closer it came to Christmas, the more determined he was to spend it in Lewiston, the small town where he’d had his best holidays as a kid staying with family. He’d learned that revisiting the past mostly led to disappointment, but nothing was going to dissuade him from spending two weeks reacquainting himself with the place he’d spent long, happy summers.

  At the luggage carousel he picked up the two bags that held his worldly possessions. While many of his friends had spent the last few years accumulating stuff, he’d spent them saving and scrimping, planning that after the Army he wanted to take a year out and travel all over the United States, the land he’d worked so hard to protect. His motto, now that he was free of all ties, was ‘lift and shift’. The two weeks he was spending in the charming town of Lewiston was a Christmas gift to himself before traveling south to a milder climate and the start of his journey.

  His cousin Mona, who was going to be out of town during his stay, had told him her sister-in-law would be picking him up at the airport. She’d also be putting him up during his stay, and hopefully spending a bit of time with him. Mona hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with any more details than that, just saying dismissively that her sister-in-law had the time, as she had a quiet life. Andy would have liked more information, but he knew better than to press Mona. She was a gossip, and clearly there were no juicy rumors on the sister-in-law, who he imagined was a dull, middle-aged woman.

  He was exhausted from the flight but determined to put on a grateful face for whomever had been kind enough to take him in during the Christmas holiday. When the crowd cleared and he was left with his two battered green sea bags, there was one woman remaining. Wearing a coat too big for her, with a maroon beanie pulled low on her head and her hands stuffed in her pockets, she scowled in his direction. He looked around, hoping someone else would turn up, but she was the only one there. He took a deep breath and widened his smile. I’ve just left the military, and I can handle just about anything. I’ll simply treat her like another hostile, and I’ll be constantly on guard and aware.

  “Are you Mona’s sister-in-law?” he asked, putting a bag down and thrusting out his hand. “I’m—”

  She blew air out loudly from between her clenched teeth. “Come with me,” she snapped, turning on her heel and walking out of the terminal.

  Another guy might have been offended or frightened by her impolite demeanor, but Andy was amused. He chuckled to himself as he tried to keep up with her, one weighty bag slung over each shoulder. She might be short, but boy was she fast.

  When they reached her vehicle, an old Ford Mustang, she unlocked the car, then leaned in and popped the trunk. He dropped his bags in the back, gently shut the trunk and took a seat beside her up front, admiring the pristine condition of the car’s leather interior and looped pile carpet which looked new. She sighed a few times then started the car and they drove in an uncomfortable silence away from the airport.

  “Would you mind if I turned on the radio?” he asked after they’d travelled only three miles but felt like three hundred given the strained silence.

  His companion grunted, which he took to be a ‘yes’, so he leaned over and turned on the radio. It was talkback and he tuned the stations until he found one that was playing music. His heart warmed as the strains of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” filled the car.

  She flicked her eyes off the road momentarily, shooting him a look that suggested she wasn’t impressed.

  What’s with this woman? He leaned over and turned the music up a tad higher as he sang along. He’d always been told he had a good singing voice, and he wasn’t self-conscious.

  He hoped the music might lighten her up, but it didn’t. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel, her posture was straight and school-marmish, and she remained cocooned in her own world, shutting him out completely. She might be in a lousy mood, but he was finally free and had plenty to be happy about. In two short weeks he’d be on the adventure that he’d spent four years dreaming about. He could hardly wait and she wasn’t going to bring his attitude down.

  Some time later, they passed through the center of Lewiston, turned right, and a few streets after she slowed and pulled into the driveway of a modest white clapboard house. She turned the car off without a word, and popped the trunk. He grabbed his bags and followed her inside.

  She tossed her keys onto a table in the hallway. “This is your room,” she said in a stiff voice, gesturing to a doorway down the hall. While the room was small, it was spotless and the bed was a double with a bright coverlet and a mound of pillows. After the Army, any room he didn’t have to share with a roommate was a good room. He dropped his bags on the floor, tested the firm, comfortable mattress and sighed with contentment.

  His hostess left the room, pulling the door shut behind her with a soft click. Andy closed his eyes, thinking he’d rest them for a minute, and ended up sleeping until five the next morning.

  Three

  Betty

  To an outsider, Betty lived a normal life in a nice house in a great little town. She was well-liked by her friends and family, but inside she was filled with self-loathing. Her lack of confidence didn’t make her hard to be around, because she didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable or use people as emotional props. Nonetheless she was angry, disappointed, and completely over her life, yet she did nothing about making things better. She had no idea how to change what had been set into place a long time ago. Instead of attacking the source of her frustration, which in this specific case was Mona, she was being horrid to a perfectly nice guy.

  Sure, she couldn’t be certain that Andy was a nice guy, but he hadn’t snapped at her despite her bad behavior and that, if anything, qualified him as being pleasant and agreeable. After showing him to his room, she hadn’t heard from him again until the blackest reaches of the morning, when she heard a noise in the kitchen. She knew straight away it was him, and she wondered what he was doing, but that meant getting out of bed, throwing on a bathrobe, and brushing her teeth, which didn’t feel palatable at this early hour. I mean, who actually gets up while it’s still dark? Only shift workers, insomniacs, or weirdoes. I know he’s not a shift worker, and he doesn’t seem weird, so he mustn’t be able to sleep.

  There was no way she could stay mad at him for the entire two weeks—especially for something Mona had done—and today was her second chance to make a first impression. This time she had to do it right. She sighed, and forcing herself out of bed at this ridiculously early hour, she quickly wrapped herself in her pink terry towel robe and gargled some mouthwash. Before exiting the room she paused for a moment, considering the possibility that he might not be wearing a lot of clothing at the moment. She snuck out of her room quietly and peeked into the kitchen, discovering that he was sitting at the kitchen table, wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and striped pajama pants. With a sigh of relief, she stepped into the room, tightening the belt of her robe then finger combing her hair.

  “Sorry about yesterday,” she said as he looked up at her. “It’s not you that I’m mad at.” She frowned, her eyes adjusting to the light. “You think I’d know better than to take it out on the wrong person. I’ll try to be better from here on in. Oh, and welcome to town.”

  His lip curled upwards in something that was a cross between a smile and a smirk. “Let me guess. Mona cornered you?”

  Betty grinned. “I see you may have had a run in with her before too. How did you manage to come out unscathed?”

  “No one comes out of a fight with Mona in one piece, so I didn’t. There is a story there, but it’s a long one for another time. For the moment, let’s just say I joined the military so I didn’t have to spend any more summers with my cousin…just kidding, of course.” He chuckled and she noticed the attractive way his brown eyes crinkled at the corners. Yes, he was a
nice guy, she could tell.

  “I’ve brewed coffee,” he told her, standing up to get the pot. She grabbed her best mugs from the cupboard—the big white ones with two pink stripes around the rim—and grabbed a couple of spoons from the drawer. He poured the mugs full of coffee then asked, “Cream and sugar?”

  “Lots of both,” she said, and then they both sat down at her battered pine table. “How did you sleep?” He looked refreshed, and she was glad she’d given him the best pillows in the house, something she hadn’t wanted to do, but hospitality had won out.

  “Better than I ever have. It’s strange but at Fort Bragg I got up at five very day and I hated it. Now that I don’t need to, what happened? I woke up at four, perfectly wide awake. It must be the good country air.” He took a long, appreciative swallow of his coffee.

  “I’m going to cook us breakfast.” Betty stood, moved to the fridge, and took out milk and bacon. She pulled the rind off the bacon, popped it into the pan and while it was cooking, she mixed pancake batter. She moved back and forth between the fridge, the counter and the stove, feeling so comfortable with Andy that when her bathrobe drifted open, exposing her nightshirt, she didn’t even think to tighten it.

  They sat down to eat and Andy tucked in with efficiency. “I haven’t had a breakfast this good in years.” He mopped up the last of his pancake with the lashings of maple syrup still on his plate then drank the rest of his coffee.