The Ghost of Christmas Past Read online

  The Ghost of Christmas Past

  Angie Fox

  Contents

  Introduction

  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

  Also by Angie Fox

  About the Author

  Southern girl Verity Long

  needs a Christmas miracle.

  Verity is ready to deck the halls, jingle some bells, and maybe, just maybe have a merry Christmas with her boyfriend’s stuffy family. Truly, if she doesn’t extend the proverbial olive branch to the overbearing Wydells, she’s afraid she’ll hit them over the head with it.

  * * *

  But when her boyfriend’s mother pulls a shocking stunt, Verity finds herself with a big decision to make. And if that’s not enough, there’s an unexpected guest at her door. It’s the ghost of the woman who helped rescue Verity’s pet skunk three years ago that very night. And now she’s there to change Verity’s life as well.

  1

  The hardest part about stringing Christmas lights on the marble mantel over my fireplace was getting them to stay where I wanted them.

  “Halt!” I ordered as the twinkling red and white candy cane lights slid off the far side of the mantel. Perhaps I’d overdone it earlier with the marble polish.

  I took a deep breath—not too deep, since I didn’t want to test the seams of my party dress—bent down, grabbed the strand, and straightened back up, all without a single wobble. Well, praise be and hallelujah. I was getting the hang of balancing in these heels, at least.

  I’d set aside a small budget for holiday decorations this year. It wasn’t much—I was still very cautious about spending any of my hard-earned savings after nearly losing the house. But when I’d happened upon a little pop-up holiday store downtown called A Light To Remember, I couldn’t resist.

  Not only had I found the mantel lights, but also the perfect multicolored net lights for the hydrangea bushes out front. They spot-on matched the plastic balls embedded in the pretty little wreath my mother had sent when she visited Santa Claus, Indiana. The icicle lights went up on the shed, where my ghost friend Frankie had insisted he needed “mood lighting” for his upcoming date with his ghostly girlfriend, Molly. I resisted any and all jokes about his icy touch, his cold gangster heart, or the fact that as the dominant ghost of the shed, he could have conjured up a set of ghostly lights himself.

  After all, it was Christmas. And I could certainly spare some holiday cheer.

  This string of lights brought that spirit of the holidays to my mantel. Or they would, as soon as I could get them to drape a little without pulling the whole shebang over the edge. I pushed and bunched and arranged the twinkling candy canes a few more times before I remembered the roll of double-sided tape in my kitchen junk drawer. I turned to go get it, and my ankle snagged against something warm and fluffy.

  “Whoops!” I managed three staggered steps and some ungraceful pinwheeling of my arms before I found my balance. “Lucille Desiree Long,” I chided as my pet skunk snuffled around my ankles, happily oblivious to the disaster she’d almost caused. “You should know better than to sneak up on me like that.” Especially when I was wearing heels two inches taller than any woman should and a dress not designed for gymnastics.

  My sister, Melody, had lent me the whole kit and caboodle and assured me it was the latest thing. The sleek, sequined dress hugged my curves all the way down to my knees and sparkled like sunrise over a lake. I’d flat-ironed the ever-present wave out of my hair and pinned it back in a high, elegant bun. My makeup was nice but subtle—eyeliner and mascara, a touch of blush and a bright pink shade of lip gloss that I saved for special occasions.

  “Christmas with the Wydells,” Melody had said with a whistle when I told her why I needed the dress. “I don’t envy you.”

  “It’s going to go fine,” I’d assured her, and I think we both hoped I wasn’t lying through my teeth.

  I sighed and swept an errant hair off my face. I was a Southern girl. Practical. Just because the town matriarch, Virginia Wydell, had tried to ruin me and take my ancestral home didn’t mean I couldn’t spend Christmas with her. I fought the urge to chew at my freshly glossed lips. That sounded bad, even in my head.

  Still, I had to find a way to get along with Virginia. I was currently dating one of her sons.

  “We’ll work it out. We’ve been making progress,” I reminded my little skunk—and myself—as I reached down to stroke Lucy’s stubby ears, one of which had turned inside out. After all, I had been invited to this year’s Christmas. That hadn’t happened in a while.

  I straightened up and headed into the kitchen to look for the tape.

  Being invited to the Wydell family Christmas party was a big step forward in my relationship with the family. Virginia and I had both been in denial lately about how serious I was becoming about Ellis Wydell. He was the middle of Virginia’s three sons, a deputy sheriff for the town of Sugarland, Tennessee, and the most wonderful man I’d ever met. The problem was, he wasn’t the first Wydell boy I’d dated.

  Years ago I’d been engaged to Ellis’s younger brother, Beau. I’d been all set to say, “I do,” until Beau hit on my sister the night before the wedding. Needless to say, I’d called it off—but Virginia still stuck me with the bill and ruined my reputation in town.

  “But it didn’t ruin you and me, did it?” I cooed at Lucy while I opened the junk drawer. “No, baby girl, it did not.” I’d reassembled the scattered pieces of my life, found work again—very challenging work, but ghost hunting was finally paying the bills—and now I was going to celebrate Christmas with Ellis at his cousin Montgomery’s house.

  Montgomery was his dad’s cousin, and one of the stalwart leaders of the family. The last time I’d been to his Christmas party, I was Beau’s fiancée. Don’t think about that. Montgomery Wydell knew how to throw one heck of a celebration. There would be eggnog and roasted chestnuts and—

  “Aha!” I found the tape and carried it back out to the fireplace. I tore some pieces off, then arranged my candy cane lights to dangle and dip as I saw fit. A minute later, I stepped back and admired my handiwork. “What do you think, Lucy?”

  Her cold nose nudged my ankle. Risking life and limb, I bent again and picked her up to cuddle close to my chest.

  Lucy grunted and licked my chin. “I think it’s pretty, too,” I agreed.

  I fingered the gold filigree cross that rested against my throat. It had been my grandmother’s, but I’d had to sell it to Virginia Wydell as part of my desperate effort to save my home. I’d only recently gotten it back from her, and now I almost never took it off.

  It was proof positive that things could and did sometimes work out.

  Tonight was Christmas Eve, a time for family, food, and friendship. Ellis had already texted to let me know he was on the way to pick me up. He’d even punctuated the text with a party-hat emoji, not typical for a man who was mostly accustomed to writing formal reports for the police.

  I headed toward the fridge to fetch the ham and cream cheese roll-ups I’d made for the party. It was my grandma’s special recipe, with a fresh dill pickle in the middle to make them crisp and delicious.

  Despite Virginia Wydell’s shortcomings, family meant a lot to Ellis. He loved them and me and wanted to bring us all together at last. It warmed my heart just thinking about it.

  I wanted Ellis in every part of my life…even the parts it turned out he really didn’t like, like the
ghost hunting. I popped open the fridge, adjusted the snowflake-patterned Saran Wrap covering my appetizers, and slid the chilly tray onto one hand like a cocktail waitress.

  It had taken me a while to get used to ghost hunting. I hadn’t planned to see spirits; I certainly didn’t grow up with “the gift.” But during my almost-move, when I’d relocated a particularly ugly vase from the attic to the parlor, I’d set a few things in motion that no one could have predicted.

  I mean, how was I supposed to know the vase was, in fact, an urn—or that it belonged to a 1920s gangster? Or that I’d trapped him on my property after rinsing the ashy bits out of the urn and into my rosebush? Frankie hadn’t spoken up until after the deed was done.

  Poor Frankie.

  I looked to the trash can by the mantel, where we kept the rosebush and his dirt with the ashes. I’d wrapped it in a festive red ribbon, not that Frankie had noticed.

  We hadn’t been able to free him yet, but we had done a lot of other things together. My resident ghost could tune me into the other side. It was often scary and dangerous, but always enlightening. I’d solved several mysteries and helped people fix problems that had weighed on them for generations. Ghosts were people too, and they deserved peace just as much as everybody else.

  I placed the ham and cheese roll-ups on the mantel and straightened the bow on Frankie’s trash can. Next year, I’d buy some lights for his rosebush. Ellis would get a kick out of that, even if he wished Frankie and I would find a new way to occupy our time.

  It wasn’t enough for Ellis that we were good at ghost hunting, that we helped people. He saw the danger and the fact that anything could happen. It scared him because he loved me, and he couldn’t protect me from what he couldn’t see or feel in real life. But I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let fear guide my choices.

  Ellis and I needed to talk about it. He still didn’t know I’d heard him confessing his fears to Frankie during our last big adventure, and I wasn’t sure how he’d take getting called on it. But that could wait until after Christmas.

  There was a brisk rap-rap at the door, and Lucy squirmed in my arms as soon as she heard it. I set her down, and she took off at a rapid waddle. I smiled as I followed her. Lucy liked Ellis almost as much as I did. I couldn’t wait to see him all decked out in his best outfit instead of in his usual uniform or his jeans and T-shirts. He was handsome either way, of course, but there was something about Ellis Wydell in a suit that made me want to be on the naughty list.

  I opened the door with a grin. “Don’t you look all—” My voice died abruptly in my throat as I realized it wasn’t Ellis at the front door. Just a deliveryman wearing an expression of forced cheer and a hat that read Jackson Orchard Co-op. He held a white plastic clipboard in his hands. “Miss Long?” he asked.

  “Yes, that’s me,” I said, shivering against the cold gusting in through the open door.

  “Great.” He stepped aside so I could get a better look at what he’d brought. On the porch just behind him was a wicker basket about two feet across at the bottom, filled with a carefully stacked pyramid of beautiful silver and gold foil-wrapped pears. Including the bow-crowned top, the arrangement stood half as tall as I did.

  The deliveryman handed over an envelope with a holly berry border as he tried not to stare at Lucy, who was sniffing with great interest at the nearest pear. “From Virginia Wydell.”

  A present from…Virginia? I pressed the card to my chest as I took in the splendor of the arrangement. It was…I had… “My goodness, how very kind of her,” I managed after a moment. It was more than kind, though. This gift was unprecedented. She had never given me anything before, not even when I was engaged to Beau.

  I’d only gotten my grandmother’s necklace back from her because she’d felt she needed to bribe me to help her out.

  This, though, this was the true spirit of Christmas at work. The pears were such a thoughtful gift. I loved fruit, and Lucy loved it even more, and our blueberry patch wasn’t producing right now, so it had actually been a while since we’d had something as fresh and appealing as these.

  “Will you be paying by cash or check, Miss Long?”

  I blinked and took my attention away from the sparkling pyramid, back to the deliveryman. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “The balance for the basket is due upon delivery, miss.”

  How strange. Virginia wasn’t one to forget an important detail like that. I managed a smile. Perhaps there was an extra charge for delivering on Christmas Eve. I surely wouldn’t mention it. It would only embarrass her. “Yes, of course. How much is delivery?” I asked.

  “I’m talking about the balance due for the basket, miss.” The deliveryman, first name Brian according to his name tag, handed over his clipboard. On it was a white printout with Jackson Orchard’s logo on the top, a description of the basket on the left side, and on the right side, a column titled “Price” that came to a total of…

  “One hundred and seventy-two dollars!” I blurted. It was all I could do to stay on my teetering heels. One hundred and seventy-two dollars? For a basket of pears? Did they come straight from the Garden of Eden? “Are you sure this is right?”

  “It’s the standard price for this particular arrangement,” Brian confirmed.

  Surely there had to be some mistake. There had to be a note of some kind, or a message from Virginia explaining things. I remembered the little envelope in my hand and ripped it open. The card, beautifully embossed with the same holly berry design, did indeed contain a note from Virginia.

  Dearest Verity,

  I’m sure you would like to make a good impression tonight, so in the spirit of Christmas I have taken care of your hostess gift for the party. Bring this lovely arrangement and it will at least appear as if you belong.

  Best,

  Virginia Wydell

  2

  My face went numb and my brain froze as if the only help my nerves could give me at the moment was to take away all feeling so I didn’t have to process what just happened. The edges of the card creased as my grip tightened, and even though I knew I should look away from the note, I couldn’t. It was like being in a train wreck—worse, actually, because I was in a train wreck once, and even with the engine careening toward a broken bridge, it never felt like this. Like my brain turned to ice.

  How could Virginia stoop so low? How could she insult me like this, so blatantly, and on Christmas Eve, too? It would have been so easy to make this delivery a heartwarming gesture, something that would have meant so much to me and to Ellis, but no. Heck, she hadn’t bothered to drop the pears off herself; she’d sent this person to my door with a jumbo fruit pyramid and a bill for a hundred and seventy-two—

  “Uh, miss?”

  Brian the deliveryman was still standing on my porch, watching me with a little more curiosity than I was comfortable with. Realization struck me like a slow-moving slush ball—Brian was actually Brian Turner, who’d been in Melody’s class back in high school. He’d grown a beard, but it was him, all right. His mother was Madge Turner, the biggest gossip at Holy Oak Baptist Church. Madge spent so much time peeping over other people’s fences, she’d probably worn her own path through Sugarland’s backyards. Stars. This awful turn of events would fuel Madge and the rumor mill straight past New Year’s unless I could defuse the situation.

  “The bill, Miss Long?” Brian prompted. “Would you like to pay with cash or check?”

  Oh boy. I didn’t have any checks. I’d been flat broke when my last checkbook had run out, and it hadn’t seemed worth the effort to get more. And I hardly had any money on me tonight, only the remnants of the cash back I’d gotten last time at the grocery store, most of which had gone to buying Lucy a new bottle of Vita-Skunk supplement. Honestly, who carried a couple of hundred dollars around in their purse?

  “Well, Brian,” I began.

  There was my emergency fund upstairs. My “worst case, do not break glass unless you’re putting out a fire” stash of emergency money.

>   “I’ll pay cash,” I heard myself say, trying to sound perky and falling way flat. “Wait here a sec, please.” I backed up and, once Lucy had followed me inside, shut the door on Brian and his fancy-schmancy fruit. I kicked off my heels and dashed across my freezing-cold floor and upstairs as fast as my straitjacket of a skirt would allow.

  I couldn’t believe I was doing this. But I didn’t have a choice.

  I hurried down the hall and turned left into my grandmother’s old bedroom. Inside stood the big oak wardrobe in the corner that still smelled faintly of her lavender hand lotion, even after all this time. I opened it up and mechanically reached for the last hanger on the left, which held the ugliest coat in existence.

  We’d been having a fairly mild winter, so I hadn’t needed to wear my Technicolor dream coat much this season. The coat was a thrift store find, like most of my clothes these days. I’d been too poor for too long to give up my frugal habits, and given Virginia’s idea of appropriate holiday gifting, that was turning out to be a good thing.

  I pulled a slightly ragged letter-sized envelope out of the coat pocket and drew out three fifties, all that was in there. It wasn’t enough, but if I combined it with what I had left in my purse…

  Numb, I walked back downstairs and rummaged in my bag for my wallet. One twenty and enough change to make another buck fifty. I was fifty cents short. Heaven almighty. I could go out to my car and grab some change out of the ashtray, but then Brian would almost certainly report that to his mother, and—

  Wait. Junk drawer. I needed to put the tape back anyway.

  Two minutes later I had three dimes, three nickels and five hard-won pennies in my hand, along with the salvaged bits of my dignity.