A Town Called Noelle Read online

  A NineStar Press Publication

  www.ninestarpress.com

  A Town Called Noelle

  ISBN: 978-1-951057-90-9

  Copyright © 2019 by MK Hardy

  Cover Art by Natasha Snow Copyright © 2019

  Published in December, 2019 by NineStar Press, New Mexico, USA.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at [email protected].

  Warning: This book contains sexual content, which may only be suitable for mature readers, references to deceased family members, a funeral, and homophobia from a family member.

  A Town Called Noelle

  MK Hardy

  Table of Contents

  Nine Days till Christmas

  Eight Days till Christmas

  Six Days till Christmas

  Four Days till Christmas

  Three Days till Christmas

  Two Days till Christmas

  Christmas Eve

  Christmas Day

  December 26th

  Three Hundred and Fifty-Nine Days Later

  About the Author

  Nine Days till Christmas

  “Goddammnit, where’s the friggin’ windshield wipers on this–oh, finally.”

  Brooke sighed in relief as the automatic wipers came on just in time to swipe the sudden veil of snow off the windshield, allowing her to see the long, empty road ahead of her. The forecast had cautioned there might be scattered snow showers, but this had come out of nowhere, turning the onerous drive into a slightly more nerve-racking prospect.

  She barely drove any more in the city, and the rental car was an unfamiliar make, with buttons and toggles and a slick GPS system she hadn’t even bothered to turn on. There was only one road where she was going, and she knew it well.

  Noelle, Michigan, was the sort of place known only to those who lived there—or those who’d left. One of those lower peninsula towns far enough north to feel isolated, and not close enough to any Great Lakes to be of interest to anybody.

  The first hour on the road had been fine, a relatively clear run. Now it was getting dark the temperature had dropped like a stone, and Brooke regretted not paying the extra to fly into Traverse City instead of Grand Rapids. It wasn’t like her, really, to sacrifice time and effort to save money, but this time, for this trip, she hadn’t been able to keep her mother’s voice out of her head.

  “I’m not paying an arm and a leg to fly into that glorified back yard just to save an hour’s drive!”

  Still, it would be fine. She’d seen snowploughs parked in rest stops she’d passed, and her destination was a straight shot up the road. She resisted the urge to drive a little faster; the sooner she got there, the sooner she could leave.

  A dark object loomed ahead. Almost too late, Brooke noticed it was stationary, pulling sharply to the side to miss it. A car horn screamed as she slid back into her own lane just in time to miss a vehicle coming the other way. The snow was coming down properly now, and people were clearly getting stupid. Including you. Eyes on the road.

  Brooke pulled into Noelle at five minutes to eleven. She could barely see for the swirling snow but even if she could’ve she knew there wouldn’t be much there—a few shops, a stop sign at the town’s only four-way intersection, tidy sidewalks rapidly being covered in a thick blanket of white. Carefully she steered down one of the side streets where she had once ridden her bike, chased by jeering bullies. Now it was home to a B and B she hoped was still open to late check-ins.

  Nearly every house on this street and every other she’d driven down was lit up. In Noelle, people took “the season” seriously. Even back when Brooke was a kid folks didn’t much care what precisely you were celebrating, but there was an expectation that one way or another you would double your bills in December turning your house and yard into an electrical fire hazard.

  She pulled up outside Lakeview Guest House (the name was an outright lie) to find herself greeted by a twinkling facade adorned not just with the obligatory string of coloured lights along the eaves but a large Santa Claus waving merrily from the wall.

  “Wow. Talk about tacky,” she muttered, throwing on her parking brake and then pulling her coat collar up and opening the door. Snow swirled around her as she emerged from the car and retrieved her suitcase from the trunk; there was enough blanketing the ground to make rolling the case up the front path a physical impossibility. Instead she lugged it with her as she tried to avoid any patches of black ice that might be lurking underneath—the last thing she needed right now was a twisted ankle.

  She remembered the late hour only a split second after she’d pressed the doorbell. A loud “ho, ho, ho!” rang through the house’s interior. Brooke winced. Not the best first impression. Still, the inside porch light came on almost right away, so at least she hadn’t woken her host. Only most of the guests, probably. A few moments later an older woman wearing a navy housecoat opened the door.

  “You must be Ms Hawkins.” Brooke, still cringing from the doorbell moment, found herself momentarily lost for words, but the woman simply reached to take her case from her unresisting grip. “C’mon, we’re letting the weather in.”

  The woman led her not to any sort of reception, but rather through to the dimly lit kitchen at the back of the house. The table lamp and book at the breakfast bar pointed to the landlady’s previous location, but now she put the case down by the door and moved over to the coffee maker. “Hot chocolate? Herbal tea? You’ll want something after that drive…”

  “Some bourbon?” Brooke said wryly, reaching up to ruffle the snow out of her tousled bob.

  Her host’s response was a chuckle. “Hot chocolate, then,” she said, pressing the relevant button on the machine, which was an automated multi-function affair. In moments, it poured no doubt underheated and watery brown liquid into the waiting mug. Perhaps she spotted Brooke’s expression, as she hastened to reassure her. “There’ll be proper fresh-brewed coffee in the morning,” she said. “I keep this around for emergencies. And workmen.”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve been described as an emergency,” Brooke said as she accepted the mug, wrapping her hands around it. It might not’ve had any booze in, but it was still welcome after a long drive, and she let the silence stretch out as she sipped, looking around herself with idle interest. The inside of the house was no less festive than the outside, with obviously handmade snowflakes adorning the kitchen cabinet doors.

  “That weather’s certainly an emergency—it’s come down fast out there. Expect we’ll be snowed in for days.”

  This got her attention. “Snowed in? But I saw the snowploughs out just a couple of hours ago—they’ll have the streets cleared by morning, surely.”

  “Running to stand still if you ask me—you wait and see. I know a proper blizzard when I see one and this snow’s settling in for the long haul.”

  Just my luck. Outwardly Brooke managed a bland smile. “I guess we’ll see. The municipal building will still be open though, right? They wouldn’t close just because of a little snow.”

  “Oh, I expect so, as long as the power’s on.”

  Eight Days till Christmas

  “Generator’s
going, try now!”

  There was a long pause, and then a triumphant cheer from the doorway. “We’re good!” Holly grinned and hurried inside, stamping snow and ice off her boots as she came. Her assistant indicated the twinkling Christmas lights draped over the lockers next to the circuit breaker. “Ta-da! Let there be light.”

  “Go team!” Holly replied, lifting a hand. “Oh, come on, you’re too cool to high five now?”

  “Uh, it’s not that…” Tyler lifted his pale eyebrows, nodding to the hand in question. It was covered in oil and grease.

  “Ah. Hm. I’d best go get cleaned up. You want to fire up the ovens and pray to sweet baby Jesus nothing’s overproved?”

  “I’ll do the ovens,” Tyler returned, ever sardonic, “but you’re on your own with the praying.”

  “Gotcha. Back innaminute.”

  The water out of the tap was near freezing, but Holly scrubbed dutifully away until her hands and fingernails were free of the grime from the big diesel generator. She hadn’t had the best start to the week, digging her way into a draughty outbuilding at five in the morning, but she hadn’t put the past three years into building up a loyal customer base to let them down at the first sign of snow. This wasn’t the first power cut she’d worked through, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  Being so stubborn about something she had no control over was silly, she knew, but she couldn’t stomach letting the elements get the better of her. Besides, people needed something to keep them going when things got like this, and nothing hit the spot on a cold winter’s day quite like fresh-baked bread and cookies.

  The bakery had already warmed up by the time she re-entered the kitchen, the ovens and central air taking the edge off the night’s chill. Despite the darkness outside, their day was about to begin in earnest.

  “Right, kid, looks like you’re doin’ fine so I might head for a nap,” she joked. Tyler didn’t respond—it wasn’t the first time she’d made that joke. Or the second.

  As Tyler got to work shifting the trays of bread over to the ovens, Holly pulled out the pastry dough; the cold would only help with this particular task. She could almost predict the day’s orders that would start rolling in as people woke up and confronted the snowdrifts outside. “Coffee’s on,” she reminded Tyler, who gave her a thumbs-up from across the room.

  “You want some?”

  “Please. Oh, with just a little sugar? I think I need it this morning!”

  Holly wasn’t the only one in need of a pick-me-up that morning; even before the bakery was open for business, she had people rapping on the door for a hot cup of coffee and a fresh-baked bear claw.

  Once they were up and running the morning rushed by, so it seemed like no time at all until half past eight, when the early morning clientele of shopkeepers and plough drivers and street cleaners gave way to the suited and booted folks on their way to the office. She thought nothing of the appearance of Greg Ruskell for his usual coffee and Danish until he paused at the register. “Can we talk real quick? I mean, if you can spare a moment…”

  Holly glanced about—the shop wasn’t empty, but there was nothing Tyler couldn’t handle. “Sure, yeah, absolutely—come on through the back.”

  What he wanted to discuss was no mystery. Karen Hawkins’s death last week had come as a shock to all, not least those who leased one of her properties around town—a number including Holly. There would obviously be some things to work out, and as Mrs Hawkins’s realtor he was probably the man doing the working out.

  “This is excellent, as usual,” he said as they settled in her tiny office, an extra chair pulled in from the shop. She was confused until he indicated the Danish in his hand. “Can’t believe you got them baked this morning—half the street’s still shuttered up because of the power cuts.”

  “Eh, it’ll be back on by lunch, Steve said. Just as well—I only have so much diesel,” Holly added with a grin.

  “Fingers crossed. So, uh.” Greg cleared his throat, looking a bit uncomfortable. “There’s been some movement on the property.”

  “Right, yeah, I figured. Look, if rent’s going up don’t feel bad, I can manage a little more—I know Karen gave us a really good rate.”

  “Yeah. Well, I don’t know if it’s set in stone, but this place looks like it’s going to be changing hands, and the new owners…they’re gonna want you out.”

  Holly blinked. “I. What? How…” Though she tried to stay calm, there was a ringing in her ears and her dark brows drew together. “How do you know? Surely we could talk, work something out. I pay my way; I take care of the place…”

  Greg shook his head. “They’re some investment firm, they’ve got a chain of spas or restaurants or something, they’re going to be doing over half the town… I’m sorry, Holly. I tried to negotiate a deal for you, but Hawkins just wanted rid of everything in a job lot, I think.”

  “Hawkins…right. You mean Brooke.”

  “Mm. You remember her? You’re the same age, right?”

  “Close—I’m a couple of years older. She was…” Holly frowned, caught only for a second by the urge to reminisce under the circumstances. “Well. I want to talk to her, then. Maybe it’s not a done deal—it can’t all be signed and sealed already. D’you have a number for her?”

  “A cell, yeah, but Holly, you should go through the proper channels. I can try to talk to her for you…”

  “Isn’t she my landlord now? Pretty sure I have a right to be able to contact my landlord directly, Greg, c’mon.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know!” he repeated, lifting his hands as Holly shifted in her chair, ready for another salvo. “It’s complicated. I need to check if I can pass that information to you directly. I will check, I promise. Just hold tight for a bit, ’kay?”

  “Okay.” Holly sighed, deflating a little as the wind left her sails. “Okay. Thanks, Greg.”

  He gave her a sympathetic smile that only made her feel worse. “Hang in there. You never know, maybe you’re due a Christmas miracle.”

  “Right. Well, this is the town for it, I guess.”

  Brooke’s morning had been…frustrating.

  The municipal building was closed due to snow—or at least, closed to “non-essential services” like, for example, processing her mother’s will. It seemed highly essential to her; the first step in wrapping up a headache’s worth of tasks that had descended on her, uninvited and unwelcome, just a week before. The town of Noelle apparently disagreed.

  It was hard, watching all these small-town folk going about their days in spite of the snowdrifts and power outages, shovelling their paths and salting their driveways while the weather was clearer, not to walk up to someone and shake them by the shoulders, ask them how they could be just getting on with things when she was being so profoundly inconvenienced.

  As it was, apparently nothing could be done, and after an annoying morning of trying to at least organise the other appointments she needed to have while she was here—not least with the crematorium, with whom she’d only spoken by phone so far—she walked to Main Street in search of a coffee and something to eat. About half the business looked to be shut—lots of handwritten “sorry, closed due to power cut” signs in shop windows—but a few places were soldiering on one way or another. The gas station at the end of the street, and the pharmacy, and to her immense relief one solitary eatery: a bakery and deli (though judging by the simple options listed on the “meal deal” sandwich board outside she suspected “deli” was a stretch) called Buns ’n’ Roses, which had Brooke thoroughly confused until she remembered the record store that had stood here when she was a kid.

  I hope their food is better than their puns.

  The door chimed merrily as she walked in and she couldn’t help rolling her eyes. One of the best things about moving away was the ability to utterly ignore the saccharine affectations of the holidays, or at least confine them to a few department store displa
ys and some cheesy music in the elevators. It hadn’t pervaded every bit of everyday life the way it did in Noelle, which seemed to have leaned so hard into its name it was practically horizontal by now.

  The shop was decorated in a comparatively tasteful fashion under the circumstances—a string of twinkling lights here, a touch of frosting there—but both servers were in brightly patterned sweaters as they bustled back and forth behind the counter.

  Brooke quickly scanned the menu on the wall and made her choice. The seconds ticked by and all she could think of was the time she was wasting here in this town, time she could be spending back in the real world, in her actual life. She cleared her throat impatiently.

  “Who’s next? Oh, hi, can I help?” The short woman behind the counter had finally turned her attention Brooke’s way, favouring her with a beaming smile that seemed entirely genuine.

  “A latte and a croissant. Thanks,” Brooke said shortly.

  “Butter and jam with the croissant?” the woman asked, already stepping to the side to where the coffee maker stood.

  “Plain.”

  “No problem—you in town for long? You picked some good weather!”

  Brooke snorted. “Uh huh. Just my luck.”

  “You here for business or pleasure?” The server shot her a half-grimace half-grin, acknowledging the cliché in her question.

  Servers were never this chatty in the city. “Business, I guess.” Definitely not pleasure.

  “Hah, well, hopefully you’ll…”

  At first, Brooke, only half listening, didn’t even notice the woman had stopped talking. When she did, she glanced up to find the server staring right back at her. Hard.

  “Brooke Hawkins.” It wasn’t a question.

  She straightened up under that gaze. “Yes…?”