Hometown Christmas Read online

  Hometown Christmas

  A.M. Williams

  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

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Newsletter Sign Up

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by A.M. Williams

  Copyright © 2019 A.M. Williams

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This novel’s story and characters are fictitious.

  Certain long-standing institutions, agencies,

  and public offices are mentioned, but the

  characters involved are wholly imaginary.

  Cover Design: DesignRans

  Edited by: Juliette Williams

  To all my Hallmark Christmas movie lovers and watchers. This is for you.

  One

  Kat

  A chorus of yips greeted Kat as she walked closer to the kennels, letting her know that the dogs were already aware of her coming to feed them. Her breath fogged the air, and she shivered in her down jacket. She was glad she’d had the forethought to bundle up this morning.

  She flexed her fingers in her gloves before taking one off and quickly using her bare hand to work the lock on the feed shed. Once the lock popped open, she quickly put her glove back on and shoved the door to the shed open.

  It screeched, and she made a mental note to see about greasing it to make it easier to get inside.

  She flipped the switch on the inside of the door and took a deep breath, letting the smells of the outside infiltrate her nose.

  The kennels and feed shed were just off the main barn where the horses were along with their hay and food. Though they weren’t attached, she could still pick up a faint whiff of hay—probably from the dog’s boxes—and manure from the horses.

  She could hear the horses stamping and planned to check that everything was ready for the day over there. They were still giving riding lessons even though it was getting colder.

  Yipping brought her back to the present and reminded her what she was there to do.

  She quickly walked over to the barrels that housed the dog food, popping the latch on the metal ring that held the top on and letting it drop while she worked the lid off.

  Once open, she quickly measured out the correct amount of food for each dog before making sure the food barrel was locked up tight. With the cold encroaching, mice and other rodents liked to come inside and they would definitely try to find a home with the food. She didn’t want that.

  She stacked the metal pans together and carefully made her way outside, stopping up short when a black and white streak raced past her out the door. She sighed and shook her head as Mittens, one of their barn cats, streaked through the yard.

  She chuckled to herself when she saw the cat was darting around the yard chasing one of the other cats.

  As she neared the kennels, the dog’s barking rose to a crescendo, making her wince as she set the pans down.

  “I know, I know. I’m late this morning,” she said as she unlocked the first kennel and dropped the pan inside for the eager dog. “There ya go, Hank.”

  She quickly locked his kennel and moved on to the next. “Pepper, hey, girl.”

  She rubbed Pepper on the ear quickly as she dropped her pan and shut the gate again.

  She quickly worked down the line, thankful they only had five dogs, talking to each one and greeting him or her by name.

  Once the last pan was dropped, and the kennel shut again, she watched the dogs as they tore into their food. She hoped that by next year they would have expanded their business to have double the dogs on hand. They didn’t really need to as they did pretty well normally, but more dogs on-site meant more training, which meant less time for Kat to dwell on things she’d rather not think about.

  She shook her head slightly to dispel the dark thoughts creeping into her mind and walked over to the main barn to check in on the hands that were tending to the horses that morning.

  Upon stepping inside, she saw that the horses were all munching on their morning food and that they had already pitched the hay into the holders in the pasture for when the horses were let out.

  It seemed things were moving ahead of schedule, so she turned and went back to the dogs, making quick work of the last things she needed to do outside before heading back in.

  Once she was in the mudroom, her body relaxed, letting on how tense she’d been outside. She hadn’t realized how cold she was until she wasn’t anymore.

  She toed off her work boots and slipped her feet into some slippers while she slid her jacket off and hung it on one hook by the door.

  There were two other jackets there—one a fleece-lined denim jacket and the other blue plaid—letting her know that her dad was up and that her brother was there also.

  As she stepped into the kitchen, she smiled when she saw her twin David leaning against the counter sipping coffee.

  “You come to get coffee, but you can’t bring yourself to go outside and make sure everything is handled?” she asked as she stepped up to the coffeepot and poured herself a large mug of the still steaming liquid.

  She turned toward her brother and caught his shrug. “What can I say? I thought you probably had it handled. You’re pretty regimented.”

  She shrugged her shoulder and blew on her drink. He wasn’t wrong. Their schedule for the day with the animals was planned down to the minute. With only her and her dad, Jimmy, handling the dog training, they had to hire hands to help with the other aspects.

  That meant early mornings and sometimes working late into the night.

  “You know…if you’d just agree to come help us some, it wouldn’t be so bad,” she said in a light, teasing tone.

  David made a noise in his throat as he sipped his coffee. “Please. You know I’m shit at it. Remember when Dad had me help with the puppy obedience class when we were teens?”

  Kat tried not to let the smile threatening to break free cross her face, but she quickly lost that battle. “The one where some people said you made their dogs act worse?”

  “That’s the one,” he said, chuckling. “I think we both know that unless I’m helping with the feeding or caring, it won’t happen.”

  Kat chuckled as well. “I still can’t believe it went so badly. What did you do?”

  David shrugged. “It’s probably better to ask what I didn’t do because that was terrible. That was also the summer I got relegated to the barn while you helped dad out.”

  Kat smiled as she remembered. She’d been so mad that David had been tasked with the dog training and not her. Once it was clear that David had no aptitude or desire to help with the training, but she did, the rest was history.

  She’d been doing it ever since, except for the time when they were both at school.


  “Dad come down yet?” she asked after a few minutes of silence.

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  Kat nodded and debated going to get him up. She ultimately decided not to since he was getting older and she knew that his arthritis sometimes flared in the morning in the colder months. She’d go check on him soon.

  “When’s your new partner getting here again?”

  “Tonight.”

  “You ready to meet the guy?”

  David shrugged. “I’ve met him a few times, here and there. I just don’t know him well.”

  “Think he’ll fit in?” Kat arched a brow.

  David was the best—and only—vet in town and probably the county. He had a lot of clients and had been drowning in patients for over a year now. He’d finally caved on getting a partner that would handle the smaller animals in office so he could spend more time in the field with the bigger animals.

  He thought it would take a while to find someone willing to come to the middle of nowhere, but he’d found someone within two weeks. The only reason the guy wasn’t already here was because he had to tie some loose ends up in Raleigh, where he was coming from.

  “I think he’ll do just fine. You forget that he has some handling experience.”

  Kat grunted. She had forgotten. That was one reason David had hired the guy. Apparently he liked to spend some of his free time working the field trial circuit as a judge and sometimes dog handler.

  “I haven’t heard of him…” she muttered into her coffee mug.

  David laughed. “You also haven’t been to a field trial recently. Dad’s been handling that, or the owners. You’ll probably recognize him, I think.”

  Kat shrugged, and they lapsed back into silence, each enjoying their coffee.

  When she finished her cup, she refilled her mug and looked back at her brother. “You didn’t tell me why you were here.”

  “I can’t just come by?”

  Kat looked at him blankly. “You never just come by.”

  “Maybe I missed you.” David smirked at her.

  Kat snorted. “No, you didn’t. You’ll see me later.”

  They stared at each other, waiting for the other to break.

  “Why are y’all staring at each other?” their dad, Jimmy, asked as he walked between them, breaking their staring contest.

  Kat blinked and watched her dad fill his own mug with coffee. “David won’t tell me why he’s here.”

  Jimmy snorted. “It’s because he still hasn’t figured out how to work that damn fancy machine he got.”

  Kat blinked at her dad’s words before looking at her brother and catching the sheepish look on her fact. “Really? You can’t make your own fucking coffee?”

  “Language,” their dad said as he settled at the table with the morning paper.

  “Sorry,” she said to him before saying to her brother, “You still haven’t figured that thing out?”

  He just shrugged, and she sighed. “You know that Denise would help you with it.”

  He shrugged again. Kat arched a brow. “You’re not going to ask, are you?”

  “Probably not. I’ll just make sure Ford figures it out.”

  Kat rolled her eyes as David drained his mug and rinsed it in the sink before putting it in the dishwasher. “I gotta run. I have some early patients before I need to make some house calls. I think I’ll be out in the next few days to get the Cogen’s test done and worming for the horses.”

  Kat nodded. “Okay. Just let me know a time and I’ll make sure everyone is in their stall.”

  “Thanks, sis,” David said, pecking her on the cheek before walking past her toward their dad, who he clapped on the back before he grabbed his jacket and left the house.

  Kat wandered over to the table and slid into one of the chairs opposite her father, sipping her coffee.

  Her dad was a man of few words, especially as he got older, but she didn’t mind it so much. Neither of them were morning people, so the ability to sit with someone without them pestering the other for conversation was nice.

  It was their little routine and she wouldn’t change it for the world.

  Two

  Kat

  When she was almost done with her second cup of coffee, the newspaper rustled and she glanced at her dad to see that he was folding it back.

  He leaned back in his chair with a creak and looked out the bay window toward the horse barn. She glanced outside and could see the horses being turned out to pasture to munch on hay while the hands worked on clearing the stalls before the first riders of the day showed.

  “We ready for the light show and market?” her dad asked after they’d been sitting in silence for a while.

  She tore her eyes away from the scene outside and looked at her dad. “Yeah. I’ve been in touch with most of the vendors to make sure they’re still able to take part. I’m talking to the last of them this morning, hopefully.”

  He nodded and sipped his coffee. “What about the lights?”

  Kat sighed and sat back in her chair, sure she was in for a long conversation. She was taking over more of the day-to-day operations of the business that she and her father owned together, but her dad struggled to let go of some things.

  The Christmas light show and artisan fair was one of them. It was her mom’s brainchild and had been a staple for the community for almost three decades.

  They hosted the first one right after she and her brother were born. Even after her mom died, they worked hard to keep the festivities going. It was hard those first few years, but each year they hosted it made it seem like their mom was still with them in some small way.

  She and her father talked back and forth for a little while about the light set-up—which people were coming to set up later that day—and the first day of the fair, which was Thanksgiving.

  Once he was satisfied, he nodded his head and rose, dropping his mug in the sink before muttering about heading outside to help in the barn.

  She watched him go and turned toward the window to watch his figure as he tromped through the wet grass. Though he was older, her father still cut an impressive figure. Minus the gray hair on his head and the laugh lines around his eyes, you wouldn’t know that he was sixty. He was still tall and strong, though his middle was a little thicker than it used to be.

  Walking across the grass, she could almost imagine that she was a child still, and he was going out to deal with the animals before coming in to get her and David off to school.

  She pushed thoughts of the past from her mind and quickly finished her coffee. She had things to accomplish today and sitting at the kitchen table thinking about things that couldn’t be changed wasn’t going to help them get done.

  She rinsed her mug and her dad’s mug before putting them in the dishwasher and walking down the short hallway toward their home office.

  It wasn’t large, just big enough for a small desk tucked underneath the window, some bookcases, and filing cabinets. But it was more than enough for them. Most of their work was done outside, anyway.

  The only reason they even had an office was for meeting with the pet owners and keeping everything contained. If they didn’t need it, they wouldn’t bother.

  As she was booting the computer up, the desk phone rang. She grabbed it on the second ring, answering, “Alpha Dog Kennels and Training. This is Kat speaking, how may I help you?”

  “You always sound so professional when you answer your work phone,” the husky female voice said.

  Kat laughed and relaxed into her desk chair as she watched the icon that showed she was logging in. “Then why did you call this number and not my cell?” she asked her best friend, Denise.

  “I just needed the laugh this morning I guess.”

  “Right,” Kat said with a snort.

  “You meet David’s new partner?”

  Kat shook her head and clicked into their email client. “Nope. David said he’s getting here later today, but I’m not sure when.”

&
nbsp; “Do you think he’s hot?”

  Kat laughed. “Is that all you think about?”

  “No…” Denise said with a snort. “Okay, maybe. I also think about baking and coffee. But hot men also rank up there.”

  “What does it matter if he’s hot?” Kat asked, quickly sorting through the emails that had piled up the night before.

  “Because it might mean you’d finally get laid.”

  “Ugh…” Kat muttered, letting her head hang. “How many times do I need to tell you? I don’t need to get laid.”

  Denise made a noise through the phone line. “Right. And I’m the Queen of freaking England. You so need to get laid. It’s been way too long.”

  Kat clenched her jaw, grinding her teeth, in an effort to not say something snarky back to Denise. Her words came from a place of love, even though Kat didn’t appreciate them one bit.

  “I won’t be sleeping with David’s new partner, so I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation.”

  Denise sighed and Kat heard slurping. She imagined her curvy, fun-loving friend sitting in the kitchen at her bakery sipping coffee during one of the lull periods. It would be nice to be sitting there with her, but with Thanksgiving creeping up and the upcoming fair, she couldn’t sneak away.

  “Kat…” Denise said. “You know that I love you just how you are. But don’t you think it’s time to try to let someone in? These random dates you’ve been on don’t count either.”