The Corner of Holly and Ivy--A feel-good Christmas romance Read online

  The statement took her aback. In Helen Fairchild’s book, you could never be too rich or too thin.

  Arianna was saved from responding by their neighbor from across the road. Mrs. Ranger looked up from raking the autumn leaves into a pile and smiled. “Arianna, it’s so good see you, dear. How are you doing?”

  She didn’t expect the truth, did she? What if Arianna said fine like she always did and Mrs. Ranger wanted specifics—like how was her arm? It would open up a conversation about the Nightmare on Main Street, wouldn’t it? Of course it would.

  Obviously, Glamma had caught her at a weak moment. Arianna had been out of her flipping mind to agree to accompany her today. Because no matter how much she loved her grandmother and didn’t want to see her hurt or embarrassed or her dreams dashed, Arianna wasn’t up to interacting with people who weren’t family or her closest friends. She had a difficult enough time interacting with them. And it’d be a cold day in hell before she’d talk to anyone about what happened on that warm summer night. Her sister Serena had been smart. She’d left town two days after Arianna was released from the hospital.

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Ranger. Thanks for ask—”

  Her grandmother interrupted her with a horrified gasp, which was immediately followed by choking from inhaling a stream of cigarette smoke.

  “How could you, Irene?” Helen said once she got her coughing under control. “We’ve known each other for more than sixty years.” Before Mrs. Ranger had a chance to respond, Helen strode down the leaf-littered flagstone walkway and flung open the front gate.

  Arianna frowned, confused by her grandmother’s angry outburst until she spotted Daniel Gallagher’s campaign sign on the far side of Mrs. Ranger’s front yard. And there it was, the main reason Arianna should have convinced her grandmother not to put her name in the race. Helen wouldn’t take defeat well, and she had a temper. A temper that sometimes made her act without thinking.

  Arianna protectively cradled her right arm to her chest to keep it from bouncing against her body as she hurried after her grandmother, who was already halfway across the road by then. “Glamma, you get back here.”

  Now in a face-off with Irene on her front lawn, Helen ignored Arianna. She wished Mrs. Ranger would do the same to her grandmother. Instead, she’d apparently decided to add fuel to the fire. “Yes, we have, and you’re the same age as me, Helen. Far too old for this sort of thing. It’s time to give the younger generation a chance.”

  “Speak for yourself. I don’t look a day over sixty, and I don’t feel it either. And why should I give a man like him a chance?” She slapped the lawn sign with her cane. “He’s going to ruin this town with his modern ideas. He hasn’t lived in Harmony Harbor for decades. He’s an outsider now.”

  Stuck on the other side of the street, thanks to slow-moving traffic, Arianna waved the rubberneckers on. “Nothing to see, folks. Move it along before you cause a pileup.”

  “Helen, he’s a Gallagher. Without his family, Harmony Harbor wouldn’t exist.”

  Arianna groaned. Her grandmother blamed Daniel Gallagher’s nephew Connor for ruining Arianna’s life and took it out on the rest of the family. Connor had represented her ex in their divorce, and Arianna had walked away without anything to show for the years she’d given to her marriage.

  But she and Connor had had a history long before Gary and their divorce. Connor Gallagher had been her first love. And, at one time, she’d thought he’d be her only love. She considered herself lucky that her grandmother had no idea the price Arianna had paid for her teenage love affair with Connor. It was a price she’d continue to pay until the day she died.

  “Don’t talk about them as if they’re something special. William Gallagher was a pirate who made his money on the high seas, burning and pillaging. The rest of them are no better. Especially him.” She whacked the sign again, taking out one of Daniel Gallagher’s blue eyes.

  At Mrs. Ranger’s outraged gasp, Arianna held up a hand and darted between the two idling cars on the street. She reached her grandmother just as she put her cane through Daniel’s toothy grin.

  “It’s time we were on our way, Glamma. Sorry about that, Mrs. Ranger. The heat of the campaign and all that. I’ll, ah, I guess I could call and ask for a replacement sign. I’m sure the Gallaghers have plenty on hand.”

  Tugging on her cane, her grandmother glared at her. Arianna glared back. It’s not like she wanted to call the Gallagher campaign headquarters, but what did Helen expect her to do? She’d defaced the sign. It was a punishable offense. One of them had to be the responsible adult.

  “I don’t know, dear. There’s been a run on the signs since Daniel’s nephew Connor was put in charge of delivery and setup. He’s a high-powered attorney, you know. Such a handsome boy. Charming too, just like his uncle.”

  Okay, so she wasn’t going to be calling for a replacement sign after all. The last person she wanted to talk to was Connor.

  She glanced at the cars idling on the street. Their audience had grown. Instead of four cars, there were now six. Seven, she corrected when a black Porsche slowed to a crawl. She sagged with relief when the Porsche pulled around the idling vehicles. Maybe now the others would get the idea they were blocking traffic and move on. Except the Porsche didn’t keep driving. It pulled alongside the curb, and the others followed suit.

  “You think Connor Gallagher is charming, do you, Irene? Well, have I got news for you,” her grandmother said with another vicious tug of her cane, which remained firmly attached to Daniel Gallagher’s mouth.

  “Don’t even,” Arianna muttered near her grandmother’s ear, closing the fingers of her good hand around the cane. “Let me do it.”

  While Arianna tried to wrestle the walking stick from the sign, her grandmother trash-talked the Gallagher men and Irene Ranger defended the handsome, blue-eyed devils. Frustrated with both women and her inability to unstick the cane, Arianna lifted her booted foot and kicked Daniel Gallagher in the head.

  It felt so good to release some of her pent-up anger and emotion that she did it again and then again. A loud grunt escaped from her mouth each time she hit the sign with a solid thwack. It took a moment for her to realize that the only sound she heard was thwack, grunt, thwack, grunt. Helen and Irene were no longer arguing. Except for the god-awful noises Arianna was making, it was uncomfortably quiet.

  She glanced over her shoulder to see her grandmother and Mrs. Ranger staring at her openmouthed, and just beyond them, a handsome blue-eyed devil watched her from where he leaned against the black Porsche.

  Chapter Two

  The last time Connor Gallagher had seen Arianna Bell, she was dead. He’d been standing beside her hospital bed when the alarm screamed and the line on the monitor’s screen went flat. It had been one of the most terrifying experiences of his life.

  He’d felt helpless, gutted that he’d never again get the chance to look into her beautiful blue eyes or see her incredible smile. He’d had so much he wanted to tell her, to make up for. He hadn’t wanted to lose her without her knowing he’d forgiven her for breaking his heart.

  She was the only woman he’d ever wanted to share forever with. He’d loved her beyond reason, without fear or restraint. He’d been completely and madly devoted to her. Which was why, when she’d ended their two-year teenage love affair the summer she was seventeen and he was eighteen, he’d been wrecked.

  A week after she’d walked away from him without any explanation, he’d made a vow that he’d kept for nineteen years. He never let another woman get that close to him again. But as he’d stood over Arianna’s bed that night with the alarm screaming and her heart not beating, he’d realized the reason he hadn’t let another woman into his heart had nothing to do with the vow he’d made. It was because Arianna still occupied a large part of it and there was barely room for anyone else.

  He didn’t know how he’d kept it together that night, but he had. His voice had remained calm and steady as he’d pleaded with her, begged her t
o stay, even as the doctors and nurses had shoved him out of the way. Even as they’d pressed the paddles to her chest. Even as they’d pushed him out the door and closed it in his face. He’d stood with his hand pressed to the glass, watching as they’d worked to save her, silently praying and pleading with her not to let go. And then her family had arrived and taken his place at her bedside. They’d had a right to be there; he hadn’t.

  So, to see her now, alive and well, brought a smile to his face. Even if she was beating the hell out of his uncle’s campaign sign. Her grandmother’s rival. Her grandmother who didn’t like Connor all that much, which was evident when she fixed him with an icy-blue stare. As he knew from previous encounters with Arianna, her welcome would be as cold as her grandmother’s.

  The last time he’d tried to talk to Arianna had been outside the courtroom after her and her ex’s divorce hearing. She’d told him to drop dead and had walked away before he’d even had a chance to open his mouth. He’d seen no signs over the past five years that she’d changed her mind about him. To the contrary, she avoided him like he was one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

  She glanced over her shoulder and met his gaze. Oh yeah, she definitely still wanted him dead. The animosity practically vibrated off her as her perfectly sculpted lips twisted and her beautiful blue eyes narrowed.

  But instead of getting back in his car and driving off, as she no doubt wanted him to, he walked across Mrs. Ranger’s front lawn. He needed to see for himself that Arianna was all right. He might live, work, and play in Boston, but he knew what was going on in Harmony Harbor. Most of his family lived in town, and his oldest brother, Logan, was engaged to Arianna’s half sister, Jenna.

  “Connor, dear, don’t get upset with Arianna for destroying the sign. I think she had a”—Mrs. Ranger leaned toward him and whispered—“mental break.”

  Arianna’s eyes went wide. “Mrs. Ranger, what are you talking about? I didn’t have a mental…a meltdown. Glamma’s cane was stuck in the sign. I was just trying—”

  “How many times do I have to tell you it’s a walking stick, not a cane, Arianna?” her grandmother said before turning on Mrs. Ranger. “If my granddaughter has a relapse, it’s on you, Irene.”

  “Relapse? Relapse from what? Don’t listen to her, Mrs. Ranger. I’m perfectly fine.” Arianna glanced at Connor. “Sorry about the sign. I’ll pay for another one. Just send me the bill.”

  “You will not. Look at my walking stick. It’ll never be the same. Besides, you’re penniless, and without me putting a roof over your head, you’d be homeless,” Helen said.

  Mrs. Ranger gasped, appearing stricken at the news, while Arianna stood frozen, staring at her grandmother.

  “Yes, you heard me right, Irene. My granddaughter lost everything that night, including the ability to do the job she loved. She’s crippled and barely able to get out of bed. I’m the only one she has to take care of her. The only one to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads.”

  A dull red flush spread up Arianna’s elegant neck. “That’s enough, Glamma. Let’s go,” she said, and began walking away.

  Connor stared after her, shocked silent. Wondering why no one had told him how dire the situation had become.

  Helen’s gaze followed her granddaughter, and then she gave a slow, sorrowful shake of her head. However, Connor, who up until a few weeks before had been one of the highest-paid attorneys in Boston (and for good reason), had a knack for reading people, for hearing the truth beneath a lie, for seeing it in a person’s eyes, and Helen’s expression said, that while the emotion was real and for the most part the words were true, she had an agenda.

  “So think about that when you cast your vote for Daniel Gallagher next week, Irene. If I don’t become mayor, not only will the town go to pot, but my granddaughter and I will be out on the street by Christmas. Is that what you want? Don’t you think our family has suffered enough?”

  “Oh, Helen. I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell us how bad it was?”

  Connor went after Arianna. The last thing she’d want is help from him, but given what he’d just heard… “Arianna, wait,” he called out as she opened the gate in front of the white Cape Cod house.

  With her back to him, she bowed her head, holding up her left hand as though warning him away. “We’re fine, Connor. I’m fine.”

  “It didn’t sound that way to me, Arianna,” he said as he jogged across the road.

  “Well, we are. It doesn’t have anything to do with you anyway,” she said as she turned to look at him, shutting the gate between them.

  She might not be his anymore, but ever since the night he’d almost lost her for good, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. She mattered to him. A lot. It didn’t make sense, and it sure as hell would tick Arianna off if she knew, but he couldn’t seem to help himself where she was concerned. “You’re wrong. It does. Your sister is marrying my brother, so that makes you family.”

  She rolled her eyes, and the familiar action made him smile. Only his smile slowly faded when he noticed the smudged circles under her eyes. This close and with nothing or no one to distract him, he noted other changes too, disturbing changes. Changes that bore witness to what her grandmother said. Arianna was far from all right.

  “Not you too? I’m so sick of people looking at me like I’ll break. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  He lifted his chin at her empty sleeve. “Why are you still wearing a sling? You should be trying to use your hand. If you don’t—”

  She raised a sarcastic eyebrow, but he didn’t miss the way she cradled her arm protectively to her chest. “So, you’re a doctor now too?”

  No, but several of his golfing buddies were, and he questioned them extensively about Arianna every chance he got, asking about the best course of treatment for a woman with third-degree burns to her hand and just above her wrist that were deep enough to damage the nerves, along with extensive burns to the rest of her arm that caused her excruciating pain. At least in the beginning she’d been in pain. He’d assumed it was under control now, manageable at least. Obviously, it wasn’t.

  “Look, Arianna, I know—”

  “Connor,” a woman called from across the street.

  He glanced over his shoulder and winced. He’d forgotten about his girlfriend, Brooklyn Rogers, who was waiting for him in the car.

  When he’d discovered his mother and the Widows Club, of which his grandmother Kitty was a member, had set their matchmaking sights on him, he’d decided to go on the offense and brought Brooklyn for Sunday brunch at the manor. Built by the family’s patriarch, William Gallagher, in the late eighteenth century, Greystone Manor resembled a medieval castle and sat on five thousand acres of land that was bordered by the ocean on one side and the forest on the other.

  Brooklyn was everything his mother, Maura, wanted for Connor in a wife—stunning, rich, and well connected. His mother had been over the moon when he’d arrived at the manor with his girlfriend in tow. Except now he was afraid his offensive move might end up coming back to bite him. His mother wasn’t the only one who had read something into him bringing a woman to the manor. So had his brothers and his grandmother.

  Brooklyn still had no idea she was the only woman he’d ever introduced to his family. Something he’d prefer to keep from her until he knew exactly where their relationship was headed. A month after he’d started dating her, he’d begun to think she might be the one to make him break his long-ago vow. He ignored the voice in his head that said he’d known exactly where things were headed with Brooklyn until Arianna had been hurt in the fire at Tie the Knot.

  “Sorry, babe. Just give me a minute.”

  “We’re meeting Lyndsey and Tiff for drinks at four, Connor,” she said, aiming a suspicious glance in Arianna’s direction before powering up the window.

  Connor would like nothing better than to miss their drinks and dinner date with Lyndsey and Tiff. And not just because he didn’t want to leave until h
e knew exactly what was going on with Arianna. He wasn’t a fan of Brooklyn’s best friend and her partner, who spent their weekly dinner dates reminiscing about Brooklyn’s ex, whom they apparently loved. Connor, they barely tolerated. Besides that, they were foodies and insisted on ordering Connor and Brooklyn’s meals whenever they went out together. Last week Connor had discovered he’d eaten bull’s balls.

  He turned back to Arianna. “Look, I get—”

  “Can we not do this, please? I’m tired. I’m sorry about the sign. Like I said, I’ll replace it.”

  “Forget the sign. Forget our past. I just want to help, Arianna.” He held up a hand when it looked like she might argue. “Your grandmother says you’re penniless. What’s going on with your insurance? You should have received your claim by now.”

  She chewed on her bottom lip and cast an anxious glance behind him before admitting, “I don’t know. I haven’t received anything from them.”

  He had an uneasy feeling there was more at play here. He just didn’t know if it was on her end or with the insurance company. “Who’s your provider? I’ll give them a call and see what’s the holdup. I can at least get you an advance against the settlement to tide you over.”

  “Move aside, boy,” a throaty voice said from behind him seconds before he was jabbed in the back of his knee with a cane.

  He swallowed a pained grunt, stepping aside to let Helen Fairchild by. She opened the gate and waved over Arianna, who’d moved toward the front porch. “Thanks to you, the tide is turning in my favor, darling. You have to get out there and press the flesh,” Helen said to her granddaughter before turning a smug smile on Connor. “Your uncle doesn’t stand a chance now that I’ve found my secret weapon. Irene and her bridge club have thrown their support behind me.”

  “No. No way are you using me to get the sympathy vote, Glamma. What you said to Mrs. Ranger—”