make sure to keep you flexible and lean.”
He smiled and pulled her into a hug, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “Thanks for being my elf today.”
“No problem, Santa.”
* * *
Tina had decided not to go to the boat parade. Today, she was just feeling a little melancholy. Christmas was coming, and she longed so much to have a family of her own to share it with. She relished the alone time this morning while everyone was at the parade so she could wallow in her feelings.
As she watched Julie and Dawson maneuver life with their new son, Julie’s daughters and even a grandchild, she sometimes wished that she’d made different choices in her younger years.
She sat at the dining room table, making yet another wreath to help Julie with the Christmas festival. She didn’t mind doing it. In fact, she had always enjoyed crafts.
When she was a little girl, her grandmother used to do all kinds of things like this with her. She taught her to sew, how to arrange flowers and even how to bake. When she had died, Tina was only in middle school, and she had missed her grandmother’s influence in her life ever since then.
She hadn’t been so blessed to have a wonderful mother and father. Her mother had been an alcoholic since Tina was a baby and had died when Tina was seventeen, and her father had never been in the picture. As an only child, it had left her feeling very lonely growing up.
When she had decided to visit Seagrove, she had second-guessed her decision multiple times. She knew it probably wasn’t been the right thing to do. She knew that she was telling a lot of lies to a lot of people. But she just couldn’t help herself.
Christmas had always been the saddest day of the year for her, and now she was getting to experience what it was like to be with an actual family at the holidays. When everything was over, she didn’t know how she would ever leave.
But surely if these people knew her past and what kind of person she really was, they would throw her suitcase out by the curb before she could even say Merry Christmas. She had taken a chance, a big one, and every day she worried that they would find out her secret.
As she finished the wreath, she turned and looked at the Christmas tree, twinkling with all of its multicolored lights. Even in her thirties, she had a glimmer of hope that one day she might get her life together enough to find a nice man, have children and start over again. But her life had been a series of false starts. Picking the wrong man. Making the wrong choices. Saying that next time she would do better.
The only problem was, she didn’t know if she would ever have what she had always wanted. A person only got so many chances.
Chapter Seven
Meg was dead on her feet. Between work and school, and now Christmas carol practice a few nights this week, she just wanted to put on her flannel reindeer PJs and fall into a nice, warm bed. Instead, she was standing on the grass in the square singing Silent Night over and over because someone - probably her - couldn’t stay in tune.
“Good Lord, one of you ladies is way off key!” Hen screeched again. Meg wanted to slowly walk backward and slink off into the night, but Hen would probably chase her down and tackle her. “Let’s try this again.”
They sang the song one more time, and Meg muted herself during the part that was causing issues. Thankfully, that seemed to appease Hen, and they were finally released for the night.
Christian was practicing some new fangled rendition of Jingle Bells with the other men from the group, but they finished right after the woman and dispersed too.
“I’m so tired,” Meg said, falling into his arms. “Can we just go home and skip dinner?”
“You aren’t hungry?”
“I am, but my stomach will understand,” she said.
“Don’t you think we should pick up Vivi from your mother?”
Meg’s eyes opened wide. “What kind of mother am I? I totally forgot we need to pick up our child!”
Christian laughed. “You’ve been a little preoccupied, my love. It’s okay.”
As they walked toward the bookstore where Julie was working late, she held his hand. The beauty of the Christmas decorations on the square had her feeling the holiday spirit in a big way. She wanted to stop, drop