Christmas Catch: A Holiday Novella Read online

  “What the hell?” Dad says, staring at the cup. Mom just runs over and envelops Sawyer and me in the huggiest of hugs.

  “This is the best present ever!” And then my mother does something that I didn’t think was possible. She squeals. Like a little fangirl at a vampire movie premiere. She squeals and claps her hands and then she wipes her eyes. Dad is looking at her as if she has lost her damn mind, which I’m pretty sure she has.

  “Can’t you see it? Sawyer and Ivy are together. It’s a Christmas miracle.” She squeals again and goes to get the broom. Dad just shakes his head.

  “Congrats you two. Knew it would work out in the end. You’ve certainly made your mother happy.” He shakes Sawyer’s hand, gives me a rough kiss on my forehead and goes to help Mom clean up the mess.

  “Merry Christmas,” I say to Sawyer, tilting my face up.

  “Merry Christmas. Who needs mistletoe?”

  “Not us.”

  Sawyer leaves right after Mom forces a cup of coffee, eggs, bacon, pancakes and some toast onto him. He says he’s just going to get his mother and then he’ll be back.

  Meanwhile, I eat and then my siblings descend with their spawn, who are all hopped up on sugar and toys and Christmas magic.

  Mom lets them go straight for their stockings, and about five seconds later the floor is strewn with paper and wrappers and they’re all silent because their mouths are full of candy and so forth. Wow. Not a bad idea. I write that one down for when I potentially have children. I’ve always thought that I would, and now that Sawyer and I are . . . whatever we are, I can almost see it. Our children. They’d be much less noisy and irritating, of course.

  I go take a quick shower and let my hair dry naturally so it curls for when Sawyer gets back. I know he likes it better that way. I also put all of the things for his present in my car so we can drive over to his place later. I haven’t told Mom that’s what I’m doing, but something tells me she won’t mind.

  As soon as the kids are busy with their new things, the “adults” (I use that term loosely) go for their presents. I’m just unwrapping a pair of hand-knitted (by my mother) mittens when Sawyer and his mother come back.

  “Where’s my present?” he says as he sits down with me in the recliner. I stick my tongue out at him as Mom opens the shampoo and things I got her.

  “Patience, McCallister. Patience.”

  After the presents have been exchanged, and everything has been exclaimed over and pictures have been taken, pizza is ordered and I tell Mom that Sawyer and I are going to have some more alone time.

  “Oh, going to give him a present.” She says it in a way that makes me screw up my face and utter a disgusted sound. “Go, be young. Have fun.” I give her a hug and then go around and give everyone else hugs. Sawyer and I take our own cars, and I have to take it slow. The snow is still falling.

  Yay for white Christmas. I’m finally in the mood and sing “Jingle Bells” at the top of my lungs all the way to Sawyer’s.

  “Where’s my present?” he says the second I walk in the door.

  “Right here.” I hold up the basket that contains his present. Well, it’s more than one thing.

  “Give it to me.” He holds his hands out and I place the basket in them.

  “Greedy much? Christmas is about giving, not receiving.”

  “Well, I’m sure there will be plenty of giving and receiving later.” He waggles his eyebrows and I push him toward the couch so he can go through the little packages in the basket.

  “Since you didn’t get me a card, I got you one.” He goes for that first. It’s not much, just a photograph of a snow-covered lobster trap.

  “With all my heart, Ivy,” he reads. I didn’t sign that until this morning. I’d spent way too long trying to figure out what to say, and had only come up with that in the eleventh hour.

  “Thank you, Poison.” I’m rewarded with a kiss. Then he opens the rest of the presents: a package of pencils, rubber bands, pens, a fold out bullseye, marshmallows, a box of Rice Krispies, and a stick of butter. To the casual observer, these would seem a random assortment, but Sawyer knows exactly what they’re for.

  He smiles as he looks down at all of the things in the basket.

  “This is the most perfect present ever. What should we do first?”

  “Crossbows. Definitely.”

  We take the pencils, rubber bands and pens and get to work making tiny little crossbows. Sawyer taught me to do this during an inside recess in second grade and we’d gotten in trouble for shooting them more times than I could count. Once, Sawyer shot one at a teacher and it got caught in her wig and she didn’t notice. We both got in big trouble for laughing the whole day.

  As soon as our crossbows are done, we set up the bullseye and start shooting.

  “Your aim may be true, my lady, but you do not have the focus that I, as a man have,” he says in a fake British accent.

  “A pox on your manhood! I can do anything that a man can do and I can do it better. Die, rogue!”

  Part of making pencil crossbows is pretending you’re back in medieval times at an archery tournament. Obviously.

  Once I’ve beaten Sawyer soundly with my pencil crossbow, we get to part two. Rice Krispie treats.

  Fifteen minutes later we’re molding our treats into little snowmen and putting them on sheets of wax paper.

  “You’d better take some of these home with you or your nieces and nephews are going to be upset,” he says, setting down another snowman.

  “Those kids don’t need any more sugar.” I swear, their blood must be at least 75 percent sugar by now.

  Once the snowmen have hardened, we go to town biting off their heads and causing Rice Krispie snowman carnage. I hold one out and Sawyer takes a bite as I sit on his lap on the couch. The snow is still falling and soft instrumental Christmas music plays.

  “Are you happy?” I say as he licks my fingers. Pretty soon that’s going to turn into something else . . . Even though we’d spent a lot of naked time together already, it doesn’t make up for two years’ worth of not being together.

  “Am I horrible person if I say yes?”

  “Why would you be a horrible person?”

  “Because none of this would have happened if my Dad hadn’t passed away.” I notice he avoids saying that his dad died. I don’t blame him.

  “Not true. You would have come home to see your parents anyway and we would have met up. This was inevitable. You and I are inevitable. Unstoppable.” I smile and give him a sticky, sweet kiss.

  “He would want you to be happy,” I say as I start lifting his shirt.

  “Okay, we need to stop talking about my dad when you’re doing that.”

  “Agreed,” I say and we both shut up as our mouths meet in a searing kiss.

  Three weeks later I’m back at school and Sawyer-less. We spent the rest of my break with barely any time apart. He did have to go to work, but he started delegating some of his duties to some of the other guys, and he became a lot less stressed. I even convinced him to start looking at going to college online so he could get caught up on the semester he missed. His mom’s doing better and I think she’s going to be ready to take over for him soon, so he’ll be able to go back to school full time. That’s all I want for him, and I think that’s what she wants for him too.

  It was the hardest thing, saying goodbye to him, but it was even hard saying goodbye to my family. Mom makes me swear I’ll be back for spring break, and I promise that I will, and not just to see Sawyer. I feel like I had left my family behind, but they waited for me to come back to them. I need them in my life. They’re a part of me again and I can’t leave them behind anymore. I’d sooner cut off my arm.

  Columbia isn’t the same when I get back. It feels too big, too chaotic. Not as glittery and fun as it used to be. There’s too much noise, too many people and too much going on. I’m thrilled to see Allison and tell her about Sawyer. She’s over the moon and demands that I take her home with me on sprin
g break to meet him. I have no idea where she’s going to stay, but she says she doesn’t care. She’s never heard me talk so much about my hometown before and she’s all excited about going there now. Who knew?

  I’m just walking back to my apartment when someone calls my name. I ignore it and keep walking.

  “Poison Ivy!” That makes me stop. I turn and a businessman nearly crashes into me. He curses me out and when he moves, there he is. My Sawyer.

  I scream with glee and take off, running to meet him. He knows what I’m going to do, so he holds his arms out and catches me as I jump, only stumbling back a little bit.

  “What are you doing here?” I say as the crowd streams around us, too busy with their own lives to care about the crazy people.

  “I came to see you. I’ve got three days off and I intend to spend them with you. Besides, I want a rematch with pencil crossbows.” He sets me down and gives me a kiss.

  “You’re going down, McCallister,” I say with a sweet smile.

  “It’s ON, Poison.” We kiss again and someone yells at us to get a room.

  “Come on, Allison is dying to meet you,” I say as I take his hand and lead him down the street. The city feels a whole lot smaller and friendlier with my little piece of Saltwater walking next to me.

  There is no place like home.

  I’ll keep this short and sweet:

  Thanks to my family, friends (including author friends), bloggy buddies, editor, publicist and to the rest of the 12 NAs ladies. So happy to be part of such a great group of authors.

  Oh, and you. I hope you enjoy this little slice of Maine.

  Nocturnal (The Noctalis Chronicles, Book One)

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  Nightmare (The Noctalis Chronicles, Book Two)

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  Neither (The Noctalis Chronicles, Book Three)

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  Neverend (The Noctalis Chronicles, Book Four)

  Amazon Barnes and Noble Kobo

  Whisper (The Whisper Trilogy, Book One)

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  Deeper We Fall (Fall and Rise, Book One)

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  Faster We Burn (Fall and Rise, Book Two)

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  My Favorite Mistake (Available from Harlequin)

  Amazon Barnes and Noble Kobo

  Sweet Surrendering

  Amazon Barnes and Noble Kobo iBooks

  My Sweetest Escape (January 28, 2014)

  For Real (November 14, 2013)

  Chelsea M. Cameron is a YA/NA New York Times/USA Today Best Selling author from Maine. Lover of things random and ridiculous, Jane Austen/Charlotte and Emily Bronte Fangirl, red velvet cake enthusiast, obsessive tea drinker, vegetarian, former cheerleader and world's worst video gamer. When not writing, she enjoys watching infomercials, singing in the car and tweeting. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Maine, Orono that she promptly abandoned to write about the people in her own head. More often than not, these people turn out to be just as weird as she is.

  Find Chelsea online:

  chelseamcameron.com

  Twitter: @chel_c_cam

  Facebook: Chelsea M. Cameron (Official Author Page)

  "This novella is proud to be a part of The 12 NA's of Christmas. 12 Different New Adult Romances.

  12 Bestselling Authors."

  www.newadult12.com

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Acknowledgements

  Other Books by Chelsea M. Cameron

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Acknowledgements

  Other Books by Chelsea M. Cameron

  About the Author