www.mirabooks.co.uk

      To the members of the Utah chapter

      of Romance Writers of America. You inspire me with your dedication, talent and sheer grit and I will forever be grateful for your friendship.

       CHAPTER ONE

      FORGET CHRISTMAS VACATION. This year, Maura McKnight-Parker wanted a vacation from Christmas. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could just crawl into a warm cave somewhere and sleep through the holidays?

      With a sigh, Maura took a final look around at the cozy nook where she had arranged several of the plump sofas and chairs normally scattered throughout her bookstore-slash-coffeehouse. Everything appeared ready for the Books and Bites book club Christmas party and gift exchange tonight.

      Nibbles? Check. M&M’s, spiced nuts and popcorn mix waited in holiday-printed bowls, and she had even dragged out her Christmas china and coffee mugs for said nibbles.

      Decorations? Check. Not much to do there, since the halls of Dog-Eared Books & Brew had already been decked the week before Thanksgiving with artificial Christmas trees adorned in elegant blues and whites and silver. Snowflakes and gleaming ornaments in the same color scheme dangled from the ceiling, lightly dancing in the currents of air whenever anybody opened the front door.

      Gifts? Yes. She had set up a little tabletop tree with handmade blown-glass ornaments for each of the book club members that she had commissioned from an artist with a gallery in town.

      In addition to that pretty bit of swag, she had spent the past few days scouring shelves and boxes in her office and had filled gift bags for all the book club members, brimming with coffee and tea samples and some of the promotional bookmarks, notepads and other tchotchkes authors and their publicists were always sending to the store.

      Despite a deep-seated wish that she could just hole up in her house for Christmas like a fox in a cozy den, she had worked tirelessly for days to make this party a success. If she were a scam artist, she would have called this baiting her trap. She had to convince her dearest friends and family members that she was indeed trying to move forward with her life after the hell of the past year. To accomplish that, she needed to put on a convincing show for them.

      Maybe then, everybody would back off and give her a little space to find her own way.

      “What do you think?” she asked April Herrera, who was taking a load of Books & Brew coffee mugs out of the small dishwasher behind the counter.

      The assistant manager for the coffeehouse side of her business gazed at the setup with an enchanted look in her eyes that seemed at odds with her henna-colored hair, pencil-thin eyebrows and various diamond studs. The silk long-underwear shirt she wore underneath her barista shirt and apron hid the various tattoos Maura knew adorned her arms.

      Judging only by appearances, April ought to be wild and cynical. Instead, she was just about the sweetest person Maura knew. More important, she was smart and hardworking and intuitive about her customers.

      “It looks super in here. Just perfect. You guys are going to have such a great time.”

      Maura tended to have a soft spot for rebellious girls, probably because she’d been one in another lifetime. “Are you sure you can’t stay?”

      “I really wish I could. Your book club meetings are always a hoot. Your mom cracks me up every time she comes in, and it’s hilarious to watch Ruth and Claire together. Do they ever agree on a book?”

      “Rarely,” she answered. Or anything else, for that matter. Ruth Tatum worked in the bookstore, and she and her daughter had what could best be described as a complicated relationship. “You should really stay. You know everyone would love to have you again. Your comments on the last book were really insightful.”

      “I can’t. Sorry. I’ve really got to take off as soon as Josh gets here. This is my very first time night-skiing with the team.”

      “How’s that going?” she asked.

      “Excellent.” The young woman’s face lit up. “I think they’re ready to put me on the schedule on a regular basis.”

      April was training for the ski patrol and also taking classes in hope of eventually becoming a paramedic. Maura didn’t know how she juggled work and class and her two-year-old son, especially on her own. Maybe that was another reason she had taken April under her wing—she could certainly relate to being a young single mother just trying to survive.

      “That’s terrific. If you need me to make any adjustments to your work schedule here, just say the word. I’m flexible. And I’m happy to babysit Trek whenever you need.”

      “Thanks, Maur.”

      “Maybe you can come to the book club meeting in January, if it fits around all the plates you have spinning.”

      “Definitely!” April started to add something else, but a customer at the coffee counter rang the little bell, and she gave Maura a “later” kind of wave and headed back to take the order.

      Personally, Maura couldn’t wait for January, to finally turn that page of her calendar to a new year. Maybe once the holiday craziness was over, she could escape some of the pressure of trying to act as if everything was fine when she was frozen solid inside.

      She grabbed one more bowl of spicy nuts and set it on a side table, then moved a bowl of plump, airy peppermints to another spot. Having dear friends and family members surrounding her in Hope’s Crossing was both a blessing and a curse. She knew they loved her and worried for her. While she understood their concern and tried to be grateful, mostly she just found it exhausting and overwhelming.

      Sometimes that ever-present concern made her feel as if she had been buried alive under an avalanche. It pressed down on her, heavy and suffocating, until all she wanted to do was scramble for an air pocket.

      Even her little bungalow on Mountain Laurel Road wouldn’t remain a haven for long. In a few days, her daughter Sage would be coming home from college for the holidays, bringing yet another pair