Holly Berry Bennett hated Christmas. It was all her parents’ fault, really. She was born ten days early, on Christmas Eve—ruining every birthday forever—and christened with a name that other children would mock well beyond adolescence. Her father, a family accountant, had been more excited by the really nice write-off she’d provided than anything else, and, when confronted with her schoolyard-provoked tears, had cluelessly chuckled that it could have been worse; they could have named her Mistletoe.
Her mother, on the other hand, would only have been more thrilled had her only child waited at least three more hours and been born on Christmas Day proper. Her mother loved Christmas more than anything, and would celebrate it 365 days a year if she could. And, by launching Santa’s Workshop, a crafts, antiques, and collectibles store dedicated to all things Christmas, Beverly Bennett did.
Or had.
Holly stared out the window of the jumbo 757 as it lifted off…leaving Heathrow, her little London flat, and the entire life she’d built for herself in England all behind her. So, okay, maybe that life hadn’t exactly turned out to be all she’d hoped for. But it was her life, dammit.
Now she was heading back to the States, back home. To her mother’s life.
She fingered the set of keys that weighed heavily in her jacket pocket. Keys to her old life…keys to the life she’d fled all the way across an entire ocean to get away from. Keys to her past…and now, not a little terrifyingly, her future. Her immediate one, at least.
She tipped her head back and closed her eyes, but all she saw was what awaited her. Santa’s Workshop. Owned and operated by…Holly Bennett.
Heaven help them all.
What had her mother been thinking? Or drinking? When Holly had made her annual trip home for Thanksgiving, the very last thing she’d expected to receive along with her mother’s perfectly roasted turkey and oyster stuffing was the shock of her life…and the keys to the family store.
Her parents had calmly informed her that they had a buyer for the family home—the one they’d moved into almost fifty years ago as newlyweds, the very one she’d grown up in, and had been fairly certain both her parents would live out their days in—and had already purchased lakefront property in a senior community in Florida. Which they’d giddily announced they’d already begun moving into to start their brand-new, retired life.
Holly had simply stared—gaped, really—half tempted to rush her mother to the nearest hospital for a full neurological workup. None of it had made sense. It still didn’t. This wasn’t how things were supposed to work out. Her dad would be running his accounting business out of the detached garage-turned-office and her mother would run Santa’s Workshop, until they were both too frail and old to do so—and even then, she’d pictured quite the battle. Her parents were now in their early seventies. She’d figured she had at least another decade, possibly more knowing them, before that battle would begin in earnest. Until then, she’d stay safely tucked away in London.
At eighteen she’d gone sailing off to college. Literally. To Oxford, in England. No following in her parents’ footsteps. She wanted to be a painter, with her work displayed in the most interesting galleries from the West End to Milan, from SoHo to San Francisco.
She’d ended up in advertising. Which was not exactly the same thing, but was at least creative and occasionally called on her skills with pen and brush. However, her career enabled her to keep a roof over her head and still dabble on the occasional canvas when she could find the time. Italy, Spain, Portugal. Germany, Switzerland, Austria. All had provided stunning backdrops to her occasional artist forays. She’d worn out several rail passes and filled many canvases. It kept her sane in the demanding world of advertising…which she didn’t love. But it paid the rent. And kept her far away from home and hearth.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love her parents; she did. They meant well. And while they might not have had the first clue how to raise their unexpected late-in-life child—she’d grown up in a house that was more a museum than an actual home a person could live